#in the egan feels today for some reason

[wildsaltair]

Russell Crowe as Egan // The Silver Brumby (1993)

[pisupsala]

Hitchin' a ride

Or two times you told John Egan no, and the one time you said yes.

Part 1 of Are You Going My Way?

John "Bucky" Egan x female!reader Words: 7k Warnings: mentions of blood, wounds, hospitals

It gets dark early in winter in East Anglia. By the time you leave the ward, it’s pitch dark despite it barely being past dinner time. Huddled in your dark blue wool cape, you trudge along the side of the road, holding a small torch to light your way. There’s a cold, biting wind tonight, and it feels like it’s going through every layer you’re wearing, straight through your bones. Breath shuddering, you pick up your pace, the gravel barrier between the road and the grass crunching under your standard-issue brown boots. The faster you get back to the nurse’s barracks, the faster you’re out of this wind and soaking your sore feet and cold toes.

Thorpe Abbots sprawls strangely, but you usually don’t mind. The quiet walk at the end of the long shifts in the operating room, rounds on the intensive care ward, cleaning, and inventory is your moment of solace. A moment where you can finally let the smile fall off your face, where you can grit out the curses you've bitten back all day, the crinkle in time when you are allowing the tears to well up and drip down your face silently.

There is no textbook or training to prepare you for the horrific reality. Torn flesh, burns, and the blood. The fear and agony. The pained screaming. The blind panic.

You have never felt more that you are where you need to be, yet you are so completely and utterly powerless.

A light catches your eye, reflecting on the trees around you in a ghostly flicker. Glancing over your shoulder, the light floats through the darkness, gliding towards you. The soft ding of a bicycle bell pulls you out of your reverie. Turning fully, the light casting off your torch finally illuminates the figure on the bicycle. 

“Major Egan,” You greet him, trying to keep the surprise out of your voice. He has no reason to be here. There’s nothing down this road but the building with the nurses’ quarters. It’s not the first time you’ve encountered Major Egan somewhere he has no reason to be. But you, as an army nurse and merely a first lieutenant, are not about to question him on that.

“You shouldn’t be walking here alone at night, lieutenant,” He tells you, stopping next to you. You stop, too, taking a good look at him—because why wouldn’t you—as he gets off his bike. 

A little too friendly, a little too forward. His bright, sharp blue eyes are contrasted by luscious dark curls and that devilish smile. Tall, broad-shouldered, and moving with a confident grace, he is hard to miss. And if you were to somehow overlook him in a crowd, he commands, demands, attention. There is something dangerously magnetic about him, something electric.

You best keep your distance.

“Don’t worry about me, please, Major,” You reply politely. “It’s not late, and I know the way,” 

“Are you done for today?” He asks conversationally, smiling, his eyes crinkling happily. The tips of his ears are red from the cold. In the middle of a quiet road, in the dark, in freezing temperatures, it’s an odd place for polite conversation.

“Yes, I’m heading back to my quarters,” You smile. “Long day,” You add, hoping to cut the conversation short, desperately trying to suppress the full body shiver from the cold. You notice with some envy that Major Egan seems wonderfully unbothered by the biting wind in his sheepskin jacket. You nod at him, turning back in the direction you had been heading, gingerly taking a step. Hopefully, he gets the hint.

“I could give you a ride,” 

You stop dead in your tracks, looking back at him wide-eyed. 

“I’m heading in the same direction, so you’d get there quicker,” He beams at you with that brilliant smile, patting the carrier at the back of the bike. Instinctively, you start shaking your head, trying to keep yourself from vocalizing your thoughts.

You’d be out of the wind. You’d be in the warm faster. You’d have to get close to Major Egan and hold on to him. You bet that that sheepskin jacket is nice and warm. You bet Major Egan is nice and warm.

“Isn’t that the bike you almost lost an eye for?” Your sense of self-preservation is stronger, has to be stronger, than any magnetic force or joking flirtation from Major John Egan.

“Almost?” He seems surprised you brought it up but recovers quickly. “I remember it differently — it was a bullseye, not my eye,” 

He looks at you like he’s expecting you to laugh with him, but you just blink in disbelief. That’s an awful joke. For a mere second, in the reflected light of your torch, you see his smile falter—he’s smart; he knew that was a dud. You purse your lips.

“I suppose I like my rides without stories of near-eye trauma attached,” You muse. It’s such a flimsy excuse.  

“Do you think it’s bad luck?” It’s a chillingly honest question, and all cheer has suddenly disappeared from his voice. You pause to think. It hadn’t really occurred to you that Major Egan might be a particularly superstitious man; somehow, he didn’t seem the type. But in these times, superstition creeps up on even the most staunch rationalists.

“Luck has nothing to do with it, Major,” you finally admit, eyeing him carefully. He frowns, suddenly unsure of the gravity of the conversation through his own too-candid question. “I would just hate to encourage any of that sort of behavior,” You add lightly.

“So, you would have accepted if I had a different bike?” He sounds on the precipice of hopeful, but the laughter in his voice is evident again. He changes so quickly and bounces back from everything in a mere second — it’s all a joke, after all. He’ll do you a favor and then jokingly ask for a kiss. And then maybe another. And then he’ll move on to whatever or whoever catches his eye next. 

You wrinkle your nose. No. You’re not interested, you repeat to yourself. If you were, you might as well have stayed at home and practiced your good graces at dinner parties. You joined the Army Nurse Corps because you wanted to do something, mean something.

“I’m going now,” You clench your jaw to stop your teeth from clattering. “Good night, Major Egan,”

“Suit yourself, lieutenant,” He grins, undeterred, as he watches you turn on your heel, huddling into yourself to protect yourself from the wind. Truthfully, Bucky wasn’t expecting that you would accept his offer. If anything, he wanted to see how you’d react: your replies are always calm and composed, so very proper, but you have a bad poker face. From the way you scrunch up your nose in annoyance to how the corner of your mouth sometimes threatens to pull into a smile at his jokes. And Bucky notices that your gaze lingers just slightly longer than would be polite, although nothing coming out of your mouth would corroborate that. It’s adorable. It’s intriguing. And he knows you won’t make it easy on him.

But that’s not why he keeps thinking about you. That’s not why he goes out of his way to look for you.

You suddenly took root in his thoughts only a few weeks back. It had been a bad day. Worse than Bucky had seen in a while, there had been many bad days lately. 

Being Air Exec has some perks, mostly that other people don’t really question why he’s wandering the halls of the infirmary at the dead of night. In the hallway, set up on provisional cots, medics are asleep, still fully dressed. They just collapsed on the first soft spot the moment they could. He can hardly blame them.

His footsteps echo through the dark rooms. The wounded men in the beds are fast asleep — it’s eerily quiet except for the occasional snore. 

He’s not sure why he’s here. Maybe it’s to assuage some of the guilt he’s feeling — he’s fine after all. He didn’t go up with them, after all. Maybe because he needs to see the pain with his own eyes, afraid that he’ll forget.

The doctor on duty is doing rounds, his desk empty, when Bucky slips through the swinging double doors to where the heaviest casualties are put up. The air in the room feels different—heavier. It’s not quiet—labored breathing, raspy, sometimes gurgling, groans of pain in artificial sleep. He really shouldn’t be here. 

All beds are full.

It’s been a really bad day.

It’s there that he notices you first: sitting on the floor, arms crossed and tucked up against yourself, head leaning against the wall, and legs bent at an uncomfortable angle. In the first second, he thinks someone fell out of their bed. But as Bucky gets closer, he recognizes you — the seersucker cotton dress, the matching cap now crumpled and skewed on your head, and the clearly scuffed and dirty white oxfords. You are one of the OR nurses.

He’s seen you around, just in passing. In chaos between casualties, just from the corner of his eye. Sometimes, you showed up at dances or parties, and Bucky had noticed your cute laugh from across the room, the way your entire face lit up when you smiled. And he knows he’s not the only one who has noticed the delightful sway of your hips as you walk, evident even through your dress uniform. But you made damn sure to make yourself unavailable by sticking with your girlfriends. He’s never seen you accept a drink or dance with someone.

Your mouth is slightly open as you breathe deeply, your form cast in the pale moonlight peeking through the sides of the blinds. Bucky wouldn’t let a woman sleep on the floor in normal circumstances, but in this case, waking you up would be cruel — there isn’t a bed free in the whole hospital. And even bad sleep is better than no sleep.

He moves past you carefully, mentally putting names to all the men here. Those that made it. That’s a good thing, right? They made it. Bucky doesn’t recognize the figure moaning in pain louder and louder, hands desperately grasping at the neatly tucked-in covers —  his entire head is covered with a thick layer of white bandages, not even leaving a slit for his eyes, just a small opening for his mouth. He hesitates before his curiosity takes over and moves by the side of the bed to look closer. It’s a good thing, right?

He should do something to help him.

Bucky is so lost in thought that he doesn’t notice you brushing past him. He almost jumps out of his skin when your torch suddenly clicks on at the foot of the bed. You are bleary-eyed, blinking rapidly as your eyes fly over the patient chart. 

“He is due for a new round of pain medication,” You state softly, voice still thick with sleep, before looking up at Bucky. “Major,” is all you say in acknowledgment of him.

“Nurse—lieutenant,” He mumbles in reply, increasingly on edge from the patient’s distress. “What are you—” Before he can start running his mouth in confused ramble, you trust the torch at him.

“Hold this, please, Major,” Your voice is barely above a whisper, yet it cuts through the noises easily in its steadiness and calmness. The small torch is now in his hand, your fingers brushing over his palm unintentionally as you move through the dark. It’s like a small spark burned the spot where your fingertip touches his skin. “Up, please,”

Bucky complies, shining the light from a high angle as you prepare a syringe. You look exhausted, but nothing in your movement betrays that. Clinical, precise, and so calm. He watches you speak softly to your patient, your free hand wrapped loosely around his wrist, a syringe poised in the other. But the patient is struggling harder, too panicked, and in too much pain. 

It happens in a split second.

The patient sits up so quickly that Bucky almost stumbles back in surprise. The patient now has an iron grip on your lower arm, white knuckles, moving in a blind frenzy, pulling you clean off your feet, half over the bed. You yelp in as much surprise as in pain as your knee collides with the metal bed frame. Your face is contorted in pain as you struggle back, trying to regain your footing. 

“It’s okay, I’m here to help you,” You keep repeating patiently. Never let them know you are scared: they can’t calm down if you are not in control.

Your voice doesn’t waver one bit. Bucky clenches the small torch between his teeth, trying to free your arm from the patient’s grip. 

“N- no” You breathe, clearly in pain now. “Please, Major, just help me to hold him still,” 

You are still holding the syringe, poised to strike. Grabbing the patient by the shoulder and forcing him back against the pillow. In the struggle, the torch falls from his mouth. It clatters on the tile floor and rolls away. He is so focused on his task that it’s almost by surprise when the struggle ends within a few seconds, and the patient drifts off again. He never saw you give the injection.

You both stand there, breathing heavily. Bucky bends down to retrieve the torch from the floor. It’s still shining, although it flickers uncertainly with every move. When he straightens back up, he catches you looking at your arm, the brown sleeve of your vest rolled up messily. When you realize he’s looking at you, you pull the sleeve back down and busy yourself tucking the patient back in. But Bucky has seen the angry red fingerprints imprinted on your forearm.

“Thank you, Major Egan,” Not a quiver in your tone, although your breathing has barely slowed down. “It’s probably best you go now,” 

“Are you alright?” He cannot help but ask, gaze traveling to your arm. He can’t help but notice you must have been issued a vest a size up, as the sleeves are a bit too long on you. It’s adorable.

“Please don’t worry about me,” You reply, smiling, but it’s clearly a deflection. The corners of your mouth are quirked up, but your eyes just spell tired. “You should try to get some rest, Major. The sun will be up soon,”

There is a certain sense of irony in you telling him that. At least he has a bed to go to, you think wryly. You start walking towards the ward exit, signaling he should follow you. 

“Will you be okay here by yourself, lieutenant?” It’s not his place to worry about you, but you are just… you. And these men are in pain, scared, and -

“The doctor will be back from his rounds soon,” Your soft voice pulls Bucky from his thoughts. You stand at the door, holding it open for him. If he hadn’t just seen that chaos happen, he would have never guessed by your demeanor anything happened.  As he passes you, you salute him. He salutes you back, gazing over to you. The tips of your fingers are shaking. 

The thought is sudden and overwhelming: he wants to lace his fingers through yours, pull you against him, and hold you until you stop shaking.

“Goodnight, Major,” You whisper with a pointed look. You want him out of here so you can check on your throbbing knee and painful arm away from his prying eyes.

“Goodnight, lieutenant,” He replies, tearing his eyes away from you.

***

In early spring, it seems like the rain never stops, from semi-permanent drizzle to raindrops rhythmically ticking against the window pane to the torrential downpour you find yourself in now. The drab-colored trench coat is putting up a valiant fight to keep you dry.

You’re holding your purse over your head but to no avail. The cold trickle of water from your sodden hair travels down your spine. You’re trailing behind your friends, who are making good time through the storm. Water sloshes in your left boot, making it heavy, the drenched woolen sock rubbing painfully against your foot. 

Then you hear it. The all too-happy ding of a bicycle bell. 

You try to walk faster, gritting your teeth, but Major Egan has caught up with you in just seconds. You don’t stop to greet him, just glancing over at him with narrowed eyes. Gracefully, he jumps off the bike, matching your pace by foot easily. His dark curls are plastered to his forehead, his cap sagging under the weight of the water it must have absorbed. He shouldn’t look this good, sopping wet, especially when you feel so wretched.

“Lieutenant, I could get you where you need to be a whole lot quicker,” he calls out.

“No, thank you, Major,” Your tone is polite, but you keep walking, falling behind further and further from your friends as your left boot squelches with every step. You know he noticed. 

“You’re really not going to take me up on the offer? Even in this downpour?” 

“Most drops miss,” You can’t keep the scowl off your face as you march on. 

“You are so unbelievably stubborn,” He laughs. You don’t think you’re stubborn; you just don’t like feeling like your hand is being forced. 

“I don’t need you to save me, Major.” You tell him evenly, finally stopping and turning to him. You know your friends noticed you stopping but probably figured they were doing you a favor and kept going. 

Bucky regards you carefully — you look miserable. The curl has long been rained out of your hair; rivulets of water running down your face, dripping on the collar of your trench coat. The steep downturn of the corners of your mouth pretty much just seals the deal. But despite all the evidence, you would never admit you’re anything but fine. 

“Save you?” He sounds incredulous. Like the thought never even crossed his mind. 

You bite your lip — you might have said too much. But you are afraid that he might ask you for something if you owe Major Egan a favor. He will ask you for something. And you won’t be strong enough to tell him no maybe because you want him to ask. Who wouldn’t?

You’ve seen him look at you from across the room before, and when you scrape together the courage to meet his gaze, it’s like electricity. Short, intense, and almost painful. And then he looks away, his attention turning so fleetingly. It leaves a bitter taste in your mouth.

“Forget it,” You mumble, clearly embarrassed. Closing your eyes for a moment and taking a deep breath, you wish nothing about this moment was happening right now. When you peek through your lashes at Major Egan, you note he looks concerned.

“For what it’s worth,” He clears his throat, not a trace of humor in his voice. “I never considered you to require saving, lieutenant.” 

You keep looking at him sharply, finally shaking your head. “You have a funny way of showing it.” 

There is something deeply absurd about the whole conversation. Just tell him no. Just bid him goodnight and leave. Why are you even entertaining him with your feelings on this? And it’s clearly entertainment to him.

“I’m going to my quarters now, Major,” You state, feeling the need to be polite despite your increasingly impolite feelings about the situation. “And you’re going in the wrong direction,” You add pointedly as you start walking again. It feels like you have an entire puddle in your boot now.

“So what would you prefer, lieutenant? A more classic approach?” That devastatingly handsome grin is back on his face again as he walks beside you. How is that what he took from your last statement? Your shoulders sag when you feel the butterflies in your stomach. “At the next dance, I buy you a drink and sweep you off your feet on the dance floor?” 

“I might be more agreeable when it’s not freezing or raining,” You sigh like it’s paining you to admit it. Maybe he’s imagining it, but Bucky likes to think he saw the shadow of a smile pass over your face as you say it, even though your voice is painfully neutral. 

“Is that a yes?” Again, that hopeful edge. 

“No,” You reply curtly, but you feel bad the moment you say it because you see his smile fall — he’s staring at you somewhere between confusion and growing frustration. It’s making you feel bad. A horrible little selfish part of you wants him to only smile at you. Major Egan could light up a room with that smile — he regularly does. The selfish little monster in you wants to be the reason that he smiles like that. 

“Ask me again at the dance, Major,” You amend carefully.

The way his face breaks out in that broad, beaming smile makes you weak at the knees. 

***

Bucky is on pins and needles tonight. Even Buck, usually so even-tempered, is getting irritated with him. Drumming his fingers on the bar, tapping his foot not to the beat of the music but to blow off some of the anxious energy. People are flittering in and out of the hall, but there is no sign of you yet. He’s going through his whiskey too quickly, and it’s doing very little to calm his anticipation.

After an hour of only half-listening to the conversation going on around him, constantly glancing at his watch, he finally sees the pack of nurses come in. Bucky’s heart drops a little because you aren’t with the group. You’re always with that group. Knocking back the rest of his drink, he resolutely makes his way to the table now occupied by five gossiping nurses. All eyes are on him as he approaches.

“Good evening, ladies,” He smiles, eyes searching the table. All chairs are occupied — clearly, your friends aren’t saving you a seat. A chorus of good evenings and giggles comes in reply.

“How can we help you, Major Egan?” A blonde nurse asks, peering up through her lashes.

“I’m actually looking for my favorite nurse,” He replies easily, holding his smile despite feeling mildly annoyed. When he mentiones your name, another chorus of giggles. 

“I thought I was your favorite nurse,” One of the girls pipes up. The girls burst out laughing.

“She’s on the night shift,” An earnest, young-looking nurse cuts in, pushing up her glasses. Bucky doesn’t really recognize her — she must be quite new. “I asked to switch shifts because I haven’t been to a dance here before.”

“You should have found someone from the afternoon shift,” the blonde nurse sighs in a bored tone. “The poor girl is putting in a double shift now,”

“No one else would switch with me,” The bespectacled nurse defends herself with a small voice.

Bucky should be annoyed. Did you scheme this out on purpose? You run so hot and cold between your lingering looks and thinly veiled barbs. But then again. Of course, you would switch shifts with the new girl out of kindness. You slept on the floor to stay close to those most needed care. Doc sang your praises in the officer’s mess regularly for staying late to finish inventory, covering in emergencies, and keeping the OR running smoothly. Kindly caring for everyone around you.

He should be annoyed. But instead, he feels jealous. It’s a horrible feeling. But you cared more about the new girl than him? Is it really so bad that he wants your kind attention aimed at him? That he wants to be your choice? You wouldn’t even give him a shot. 

It just won’t do. But now, at least, he knows where to find you.

At the end of the dark hall, a faint light. A lone lamp on a lone desk, with a lone nurse sitting at it. You hear him coming, of course. Your bright eyes look straight at him as he emerges from the darkness. You are already getting up out of your chair, ready to greet him, notes and medical textbook forgotten on the desk.

“Good evening, Major Egan,” you greet him, your voice soft. Your gentle tone carries sweetly through the quiet hall. You didn’t expect him to come find you. It feels far too serious, far too earnest. You haven’t seen or spoken to Major Egan for over a week now, and for your own sake, you decide that he hadn’t been serious—that you hadn’t been serious. It was just banter.

Truthfully, you were slightly relieved the new girl asked you to switch shifts. But as you sat at the duty desk by yourself, blankly staring at the pages of your medical textbook, your stomach twisted painfully with regret. 

“Good evening, lieutenant -” you cut him off with a sharp shush, tapping your index finger against your lips. You step a bit closer to him, voice a sweet whisper. “Please keep it down,” 

A beat of silence as you’re both clearly uncomfortable in the strange situation you have suddenly found yourself in.

“How can I help you, Major?” You whisper politely as your eyes nervously, guiltily, dart around the room—anywhere but him. He looks sharp in his dress uniform. He smells nice. He clearly made an effort. And you’re standing here in your day-old hospital uniform. Self-consciously, you try to straighten the standard-issue white and brown stripe wrap-around dress. 

“I came looking for my favorite nurse,” Bucky replies sincerely, eyes boring into yours. 

“Then you must not be looking for me,” The words tumble out before you can stop yourself. Bucky nearly bursts out laughing at the pained look that crosses your face as you clamp your mouth shut. 

“I was waiting for you to show up at the dance,” He says with that same heavy sincerity. His stance is casual, hands in pockets and shoulders relaxed. But the way he fidgets — tapping and shuffling his foot — as he waits for you to reply hints that he is not nearly as calm as he’d like to appear.

“I had to stay,” You reply, still avoiding his gaze. It’s a half-truth. You could have said no. But the new girl seemed to want to go to the dance more badly than you did. It felt unfair. And you had convinced yourself quite thoroughly that Major Egan wouldn’t care or notice anyway.

Another silence falls. Neither quite sure where to go from here.

“How are the boys doing?” Bucky asks conversationally, reaching out to the large doors leading into the intensive care unit. On a whim, you grab his hand before he touches the handle, your fingers gently wrapping over the top of his large hand. He stills, and for a moment, you think he’ll shake your hand off his. But instead, he waits in acceptance.

“It won’t help you,” You whisper. It took you a while to figure out why Major Egan was in the hospital that night. When people spoke of him, they spoke of how much he cared for his men — a heavy burden to bear.

“Help me?” His voice is suddenly loud. He is offended at the notion that he’s doing it for himself and offended that you called him out like that. He opens his mouth again to argue with you.

Startled by the volume, your brain misfires fully, and instead of replying, your free hand reaches out to his face, your index finger landing on his soft lips to silence him. He stares at you wide-eyed. You are sure you look as shocked as he does. You try to gather your thoughts quickly.

“I - I understand,” You implore him in an urgent whisper, finally looking at him. Bucky sees his own sorrow reflected in your eyes. 

Sometimes, you can only wait. There is no next round of medicine; there is no operation that will help. Waiting for the body to do its work can be frustrating and maddeningly slow.

“But there is nothing you can do now, so going in won’t help you or them,” You swallow. Why is your finger still on his lips, and why is he letting you do that? “They need to rest. You need to rest.”

His fingers lace through yours as he steps closer. It’s inappropriate how close he is standing to you. It’s inappropriate how the tips of your fingers caress the seam of his lips. It’s inappropriate how your hand has latched onto his, his thumb drawing lazy circles on the pulse point of your wrist.

“I don’t need rest.” His voice is soft and close. The intimacy of his lips moving against your fingers is intense, each breath setting your nerve endings on fire. He leans into your touch, trailing from the corner of his mouth to his jaw. Finally, you look at him.

“Then what do you need?” Your question comes automatically. Always looking for how to help. Always so kind. He could melt into your soft touch, warm voice, and how you look at him so sweetly.

“I need to know when you’re done here so I can sweep you off your feet,” His eyes meet yours, keenly following your every move. 

You want to take a step back and break the increasingly feverish connection, away from his oddly earnest confession, but Bucky pulls you closer with a small tug on your hand. Your head is swimming; your heart is hammering in your chest. You shouldn’t entertain any of this, but it feels like your heart is pouring out of your mouth.

“My shift ends at 0500,” 

Bucky grins at you—not in a teasing way, but with that infectious broad smile—the one you cannot help but smile back. It gives you butterflies. You’re smiling at him now, beautifully, genuinely. It feels like a victory to Bucky.

“I’ll keep the party going if you promise me the last dance.” His voice is low and inviting; he is reeling you in further with every word.

“Don’t torture everyone on my account, please,” You feebly try to inject some levity into the situation. You know yourself well enough: you are no match for John Egan and his attentions. From sparks across the room, now it’s like you’ve touched the live wire, and the current has a hold on you. That’s why you always avoided him so.  

“Torture? Darling, it’s a party,” He needles you gently, eyes glinting merrily. “Only you would equate that to torture.” 

“Major -,” “Bucky,” He interjects. You blink at him, biting your lip. 

“Bucky, please,” The moment you utter his name, so beguilingly, so breathlessly, he presses your palm against his face fully, his hand covering yours. He needs you closer. The golden buttons of his jacket brush against the front of your dress. His lips press against the soft flesh of your hand as he studies your reaction. The hitch in your breath is embarrassingly loud to your ears. 

“Please, what?” 

“Don’t torment me like this,” It sounds even more pathetic when you say it out loud. And exactly as you’d expect, the admission of your weakness, the slightest chink in your armor, is an in for him. 

“How do I torment you, exactly?” His voice is so warm, so encouraging. 

“You take far too much pleasure in making fun of me, for one,” You try to play it off in a last-ditch attempt. But under his heated gaze, his breath brushing on the sensitive skin of your wrist, you falter. You frown before you utter in a small voice: “It’s not nice how you toy with me, Bucky, because it’s obvious that… that it’s just a joke to you, and your idea of a joke could get me dismissed, and sent home,”

You look down at your shoes, embarrassed. You want to pull away, but Bucky is not allowing you an inch of slack.

“It’s not a joke to me.” He sounds surprised. You look up at him, unable to keep the skepticism off your face. “It wasn’t a joke from that night I saw how calmly you handled that panicked patient, the moment you saluted me with those shaky fingers, and then every time you denied my help, you stubborn, stubborn girl,” His face is so close to yours now; a finger tracing down the side of your neck, down, just along the collar of your dress, leaving goosebumps in its wake. The way your hand rests on his cheek, you could pull him even closer if you wanted to. “I’ve wanted to grab hold of you, wrap you around me-”

Footsteps. You pull back from Bucky with a jerky movement, who mercifully releases you immediately, stumbling back two steps, almost hitting the desk with your legs. It’s strangely cold suddenly without his hands wrapped around yours, without him so close you could feel the warmth radiating off his body. Blood is rushing in your ears. Bucky looks too collected, but to your relief, you spy a faint blush creeping up his neck. 

So it wasn’t just you.

Hands folded, you take another furtive step back behind the desk, making sure there’s a respectable distance between you as the doctor on duty turns the corner. Bucky and the doctor start talking in low voices, but you are not listening. In your mind, you keep returning to his words, trying to put the puzzle pieces together. 

That night on the ward. That was the first time you spoke and saw each other in more than passing. That’s when Bucky suddenly formed this habit of popping in places he had no business of being. Places you happened to frequent. You really hadn’t been vain enough to consider that the common denominator in those situations was you. It had to be a coincidence that he had just turned into a joke. 

“Nurse,” The doctor turns to you, handing you his clipboard. You nearly jump out of your skin, being so lost in thought. “Please update the log,”

“Yes, doctor,” You nod, trying not to look as flustered as you feel. The men start leaving, still talking. 

“Good night, lieutenant,” Bucky turns to you, unable to keep the cocky smile off his face. Before he turns, he winks at you. It makes your knees so weak you nearly collapse back into your chair. Covering your face with your hands, you try to focus, but the smile won’t come off your face.

Seven more hours until your shift ends.

***

It’s a misty summer morning, dew covering every inch. The sun is just breaking through the clouds, and it’s promising to be a beautiful day.

When you leave the infirmary, you blink against the early morning sun. It’s still so early that few people are around. You hesitate. Surely, the party is not still going on. You wouldn’t put it past Bucky to actually do it. Rubbing your eyes and yawning, you’re unsure if you could even stay on your feet long enough for a dance.  

Luckily, you don’t have to make a choice. 

The sound of the bicycle bell makes you smile now. Bucky’s looking remarkably fresh and well-rested. The party clearly didn’t go that far into the night. He dressed for duty, his signature sheepskin jacket hanging open.

“Are you going my way, darling?” 

You purse your lips because you’re fighting to keep the smile off your tired face. You don’t stand a chance. You dart over to him like you are pulled by a magnetic force, the live current arching between you.

Sliding onto the back of the bike, you grab handfuls of the thick sheepskin to steady yourself, trying to find your equilibrium. Bucky’s large, warm hands encircle your wrists and easily pull your hands off his jacket. Instead, he gently nudges you forward by your arms, tucking them under the side of his jacket, wrapping your arms around his waist. The side of your face is resting against his back. You can feel his heartbeat under your palm, resting just under his sternum; you move along with his every breath.

“Ready?” Bucky peers over his shoulder. 

“Hm–mh,” You hum in reply, face buried in the folds of Bucky’s jacket. “Drop me off before the last turn?” You mumble, gazing up at him pleadingly. “Matron will be awake and on the prowl by now,”

“Don’t worry, darling,” His free hand wraps over yours, pressing a kiss on your knuckles. “I’m not going to get you into any trouble,”

“I’m holding you to that,” You yawn, wrapping yourself around him tighter. You’re going to make the most of this moment — the quiet morning, the soft sheepskin, the smell of Bucky’s aftershave. 

You drift in and out of sleep, even though the trip by bike is tortuously short. After almost twenty hours on shift, you should be allowed this comfort. Whining in protest as Bucky starts to unlatch your arms from him, you feel his chuckle as much as you hear it. 

You slide off the back of the bike, ignoring where the metal was jabbing into your backside on the bumpy road, and rub your eyes, trying to get rid of the haze in your vision. A small yelp escapes you as Bucky tugs you against him by the tie at the waist of your wraparound seersucker dress. The bike lays forgotten in the grass by the side of the road. All the tension and anticipation from last night are suddenly back — you feel wide awake again.

Bucky’s fingers are resting lightly against your waist like he is testing the waters, slowly, gently guiding you closer to him until you are inches away from him. Automatically, your hands sneak back up his jacket, running up his sides to the front of his chest. He is so warm against the crisp morning air. 

“Are you going to ask me for a kiss now?” It comes out almost naively as you look up at him. God, you hope he says yes.

“I promised not to get you into trouble,” He teases gently, grinning, inclining his face closer anyway, his lips just ghosting over the corner of your mouth. He is rewarded with a shuddering sigh from you — his grip on your waist tightens, prompting you to close the remaining distance between you. 

“This, of course, is perfectly innocent,” Only you could be looking at him with those big eyes, full of want, your curious fingers roaming over his chest, and still speak so earnestly. Bucky buries his face in the crook of your neck, shaking from laughter. You wrap yourself around him, head buzzing. It’s like you’re short-circuiting, sparks flying with every move, every breath. 

Bucky nips at the sensitive flesh of your neck, hoping to elicit more of those small sounds from you. If it weren’t for the quiet morning, remnants of mist dissolving in the first light, he would have missed the softest moan of his name that falls from your lips. He could do this all day. Just explore every move of your body against his, every way you can say his name, every touch that brings you closer to him. You move in effortless synchronicity with him, purely on instinct. 

“Then it’s trouble you want, darling?” Bucky murmurs, pressing kisses along your jaw.

“It’s only trouble if we get caught,” You reply breathlessly. 

His finger is under your chin, tilting your face up to him, and finally, Bucky’s lips find yours. For a second, it’s just that: his lips pressed softly, almost chastely, against yours. You push yourself up on your tiptoes to get more leverage, wrapping your arm around his neck. Your other hand stays pressed against his chest, fisting his shirt, feeling how his heartbeat speeds up as you open your mouth for him with a sigh. Bucky doesn’t hesitate to deepen the kiss, cupping your face. His other hand is roaming boldly over your back, applying light pressure on your spine so you arch into him, skimming just over the curve of your behind, playfully tugging at the ribbon of your wraparound dress. He knows exactly what he is doing and how to get exactly what he wants from you, and you’re more than eager to please.

Your mouth starts to tentatively explore the column of his neck as he whispers your name longingly, encouraging your little adventure. When your lips touch a particularly sensitive spot right under his ear, Bucky hisses — you can feel his muscles clench. It’s exhilarating; he feels the sparks as much as you do. Bucky doesn’t allow you to bask in your small victory too long, greedily capturing your mouth with his again, wrapping you around him, tucking you against him. His soft touch turns feverish, grasping at your hip. You match in kind, nails grazing the nape of his neck, just along his hairline — anything to keep the tension, the current arching.

You can feel the sunshine on your skin and see it through closed eyes. Breathlessly, you pull away just a fraction — Bucky’s lips are still ghosting over yours. 

“What’s wrong, darling?” He asks so softly you’re unsure if you heard or felt the words against your lips.

“I have to go,” You mumble as you move to stand feet flat on the ground again. It’s like waking up from a dream. Time is getting away from you. You’re not ready to pull away from Bucky yet, wanting to stretch the moment out. You gently fix his collar, running your hands over his front once more, as much in an attempt to straighten out the wrinkles you left on his shirt as to feel him move under your palm again. When he steps away from you, you release a shuddering breath. You feel like you’ve just been hit by lighting. 

“I’ll come find you,” He winks at you, grinning. Bucky presses a kiss to your forehead, tucking a strand of hair behind your ear. The gesture feels intimate, more personal, than you could have imagined.

It was everything you feared happening when you said yes to John Egan. It was everything you dreamed it to be. As you watch him leave, you know that you’ll have a damn hard time giving that up. 

“I’ll be waiting.” 

note: this was literally supposed to be a quick 2k words fun meet cute kind of thing, just a quick adventure Morty, but oh god I'm in too deep. forgive me for this detour from Of All The Stars in The Sky, but it was necessary, you understand.

[thedeviltohisangel]

All The Things I Did (10): Together We Can Get Somewhere

a/n: ayyyyeeee we are back on the common era timeline! heavy dose of morning after pillow talk. a really great scene between cass and harding that i love sm. a tiny bit of background on cass/mary. and some of the filthiest john/cass acts we have ever seen. but we are all so feral for possessive john that i am not sure anyone will really mind. we are slowly progressing towards him singing blue skies and i know so many of us (including myself) are waiting to see cass in that moment. it also means north africa and her brother and LONDON are working their way towards us as well...come chat with me! xoxo

warning: smut

The sun filtered in gently through the blinds of her window, Cass’ eyes fluttering open slowly. Most mornings she had gotten in the habit of Mary frantically knocking on her door or the incessant cawing of an alarm clock but today she woke feeling settled. As light as a feather. Warm and sated and full of a new vigor to face down whatever the day may have planned.

Her head was rested against the inside of the bicep of the man behind her, the gentle and rhythmic rise and fall of his chest showing no signs of disturbance. 

She closed her eyes briefly with a smile and raised her arm to fill the gaps between his fingers with hers. It felt so right to wake up in his arms and no matter how many times she did, she didn’t think she would ever get used to the exaltations in her chest and the bubbling, unbridled joy that ached to sneak up her throat and out her mouth as a declaration of love and comfort and commitment to always and forever.

“Good morning, baby,” he mumbled into her hair. John curled around her tighter and puckered his lips against the back of her head before settling back into the dreamy place between waking up and falling back asleep. 

“Morning, Johnny,” Cass replied as he moved his arm to wrap around her waist and pull her back flush to his chest.

“Go back to sleep. Staying here with you all day.” She giggled and rolled over so the tip of her nose nestled into the notch of his collarbone. 

“Say good morning again.” He cocked an eyebrow.

“Good morning, Spook.” The deepness of his voice in the morning reverberated through her with a pleasant hum and desire took over as her tongue flicked against the front of his throat. 

“Something about you in the morning is just infinitely more delicious,” she reasoned as she propped herself onto her elbow.

“I appreciate the sentiment, Cass, but I will appreciate it even more if you let me hold you a little while longer.” His chest felt empty without the weight of her head against it. His arms felt barren without her body to wrap around. In a short amount of time, Cass had become an intrinsic part of him. He needed her around to feel whole. Needed her touch to feel alive. Needed to express his love to her in order to feel anything at all.

“I get antsy first thing in the morning,” she rested her head back on the pillow and her hand found his cheek as his smoothed over the contours of her pert butt cheeks, “if I don’t get up right away, I never will.”

“I fail to see the issue with that.” John was known for falling in and out of sleep until he eventually decided he should get out of bed. The warmth of blankets and softness of a pillow were perks but not necessary. He had fallen asleep waiting in line for dinner at the mess hall. At the Thanksgiving dinner table with his family. During his college graduation. It was truly a gift in his mind.

“I’m positive my entire day is going to be filled with retelling the story of Berlin over and over again for hours at a time.” He tightened his arms around her. 

“Tell them to fuck off if it becomes too much.”

“Just like that?” she chuckled, kissing his lips and then his nose. “I’m not as prolific with my insolence as you are, Major Egan.”

“Prolific insolence? Spook, I need a few minutes in the morning for my brain to be able to process your brilliance.” The way her nipples were pressing against his chest was doing nothing to help either. 

“Well, we are going to have plenty of mornings like this for you to work on it.” Cass pushed his curls back from his forehead as he leaned down to kiss her. “In South Carolina, I could hear the birds chirping every morning and the sounds of the wind rustling the trees and my sister’s dog barking at the squirrels…” Her voice trailed off as she let herself think of the memory. She hadn’t left her home and her family on the best of terms and there were moments that she regretted it more than anything. 

“Sounds like a dream, Cass. I can’t wait to wake up with you in my arms just like that.” 

“Tell me about waking up in Wisconsin.” John sighed and settled back into the pillows, his hand rubbing up and down her back as she rested her head on his chest.

“My sisters were always up before me so they could use the bathroom mirror to get ready. I could always hear them bickering over their hair and their makeup and accuse each other of stealing the other’s dress. That was my alarm clock. And my ma’s morning cigarette and pot of coffee wafting up the stairs…” She smiled as he drifted into the memory. 

“Do you miss home?” she asked as her fingers found the wispy curls on his chest and traced over them gently. 

“I miss my family. I miss American food,” they both giggled, “but being with you feels a lot like home, Cass. I’m learning it doesn’t have to be a place. It can be a person.” She kissed his shoulder. 

“I like that.” His eyes widened with glee as he sat up and pressed her back into the mattress.

“Cassandra Ann Cooper, you like that? Like? That word means nothing to me.” The cheshire cat smile was wiped from her face as his finger found her sides and tickled her relentlessly. “I cannot believe you would reduce my declaration of you feeling like home to that word.” 

“You win! You win!” she wheezed as she coughed around the ferocity of her laughter. “I’m warmed by the sentiment. How’s that?”

“Much better.” He kissed her lips then her cheeks then her nose and everywhere else on her face he could reach. 

“Can you promise me something?”

“Anything.”

“Promise me we’ll always be like this. That we’ll always laugh and have fun and wake up kissing and go to sleep kissing and you’ll never shut me out of that beautiful mind the same way I’ll try to never shut you out of mine.” The dichotomy of Sidney Landry and John Egan was not lost on her. The way Landry had made her close herself tighter and feel weaker and sullen. The way he had poked and prodded at her until her fire retreated into a corner and eventually went out. But John stoked the fire inside of her. He breathed oxygen into her soul and nurtured her passion and knew the right time to add fuel versus when to calm her down. He was her twin flame, dancing and flickering in the night and relaxing to a morning filled with warmed embers.

“I promise, my love, I promise.” Her legs settled around his waist as he kissed her like he might lose her, a wet trail making its way down her throat and between her breasts, past her belly button and to the aching apex between her legs. John was nipping at the inside of her thighs when there was a knock on the door. 

“Lieutenant Cooper? Colonel Harding is asking for you.”

“I need-” she sucked in a breath as his tongue teased at her entrance, “-five more minutes, Mary.”

“I’ll have her ready in two!”

----

The fabric of her uniform felt itchy against her skin after a morning of John’s skin against her own. True to his word, he had gotten her over the edge in damn near exactly two minutes. Had her thighs shaking and toes curling and eyes rolling to the back of her head. Cass remembers her sister or her friends sitting at afternoon tea together and blushing over their wedding nights and the appetite of men. They always talked about it being painful and never full of pleasure. They had learned how best to take care of themselves and on particularly hot afternoons, would exchange tips on what worked for them and how they hid their own releases from their husband in the middle of the night. If she was a betting woman, she would bet this was not something she would ever have to worry about. John seemed to derive more pleasure with his head between her legs than he did in any other situation. She smirked at how jealous her older sister was going to be when she told her.

“Lieutenant. You’re looking much better this morning,” Colonel Harding remarked as he motioned her into his office.

“Yes, sir. I slept very well.” He cocked an eyebrow. “Not because Berlin meant nothing, sir. Was just at the limits of my exhaustion.”

“Well, I’m certain the OSS equipped you with all necessary skills to complete your missions and still sleep at night. Have a seat.” She smoothed her skirt underneath her and sat in the chair across from him. When she went to cross her legs, she was reminded of the gift John had sent her on her way with. His warm cum was coating the inside of her panties It had been less than an hour since she’d left their love nest and her clit was throbbing with need. 

“Sir, I believe my after action report for Berlin was thorough and contained everything that the upper brass might ask-”

“I didn’t ask you here to talk about Berlin, Cassandra. I have a separate issue I require your assistance in remedying.” It wasn’t very often someone was able to surprise her. She was intrigued. 

“Of a personal or professional nature, Colonel?” 

“It’s a gray area. I need a plus one for a dinner with my British counterpart tonight.” He puffed around the cigar in his mouth as Cass rolled her eyes.

“That is what you have an executive officer for. A plethora of coffee cart girls and typists and-”

“None of those people you’ve listed are as beautiful as you. As smart as you. As talented as you at asking just the right questions to get the information I need to make sure him and I are on the same page.”

“The Brits are our allies, Colonel, they should be telling you exactly what you need to know whenever you ask for it.” He smiled at her wolfishly and she had to admit he was a handsome man. 

“Exactly, Lieutenant. You always know what to say.” She really wanted to argue with him and decline the invitation but the professional flattery was working wonders on her. She blamed John for increasing the pliancy of her mind from the moment she woke up that morning. 

“Fine. I suppose this dinner could be mutually beneficial. I’ll see what I can scrounge up in terms of proper clothing.” 

“No need. I had the tailor in town come up with something I’m sure will be to your liking.” Twice now he had gotten the upper hand on her. Cass was beginning to feel like she had underestimated the Colonel’s commitment to pursuing her. 

“If it doesn’t fit right, you’ll be hearing from me.” 

“My girl got the measurements from your girl. Shouldn’t be an issue.” 

“Miss Richards would never offer up my personal information unless you had hidden your true intentions and I will not have you or anyone else attempting to trick her like that.” Mary had become a sacred corner of solace in Cass’ life and she would protect her as furiously as she would anyone else she loved. They had been working together since the moment Cass had graduated OSS school and been assigned to Thorpe Abbotts. Mary had been responsible for handling all of her paperwork and supplying her with her uniform and everything else that most people took for granted behind the scenes but Cass had known was the difference between success and failure for her tenure across the pond. The secretary had not been used to an officer bestowing such praise and genuine gratitude upon her and the two of them had been inseparable ever since. No matter where she went, Cass planned on taking Mary with her. 

“Understood, Lieutenant. I will make sure it doesn’t happen again.” Harding’s eyes twinkled at the passion on display in front of him. How he ached to go back in time and take her for himself that night in London. The way she had shined in her satin gown and diamonds draped around her neck and had even laughed with eloquence at everything the Brit said to placate him into trusting her. The way his heart had damn near fluttered when she conversed with the Belgian representative in perfectly accented French. Against any rationality in his brain, he had almost gone to the small jewelers down the street to buy her a ring right then and there. In a different world, Cass would’ve said yes.

“Good. I’ll see you tonight, Colonel. I have a habit of being on time so please be prompt to pick me up.” 

“I wouldn't deign to keep you waiting, Cassandra.” Her tongue was physically clamped between her teeth to prevent the biting words from coming out of her mouth. She hated the use of her full name unless John was using it to try and capture the magnitude of his feelings for her. When the letters of Cass were just not enough and he needed more. It was also why Cass had yet to refer to him by his ever present nickname of Bucky. Something about John, the name his mother had given him, she felt showed that she loved exactly who he was at his core. Exactly who he was when he had been born and exactly who he would be if it all ended. She loved the innermost sanctum of him just as much as she did the boisterous, intelligent goof he always presented himself as. Every nook and cranny was hers to explore and love and cherish for all time.

“I’ll see myself out, sir.” Cass was turning on her heels and out the door before he could quip anything back. “Have a nice day, Eloise.” 

“You as well, Lieutenant!” Cass didn’t blame her for Harding’s surreptitious behavior towards Mary. She knew the two women were close friends and would always trust Mary’s gut as much as she trusted her own. 

Her steps took her out into the fresh air, her hands ripping the tie of her uniform over her head as she checked her watch to try and figure out where John might be. It was in between breakfast and lunch so he wouldn’t be at the mess hall. She knew he wasn’t scheduled to fly any practice missions today and he would have gotten his maintenance report from Lemmons first thing in the morning. Her best guess was mission briefings in headquarters or he was talking Mary’s ear off until Cass returned to her billet. She’d start with the offices.

Everyone who passed her seemed to sense she was not in the mood for conversation. Her hands were clenching in and out of fists at her side, her steps more than purposeful as she moved towards her intended target.

Not only did she need to warn John about the potential circus she had just agreed to participate in but he had also promised her a reward if she found him after and had held onto his cum like a good little Spook would know how to. Cass shuddered with anticipatory pleasure at the thought.

The office spaces were abuzz with navigators and typists and orderlies as she successfully worked her way through the crowd and politely greeted each and every person that she crossed paths with. Standing by the large canvas map and watching the way her OSS colleague was tracing the route of their next mission were a group of men but most importantly there was Major John Egan.

“Lieutenant Cooper! I was hoping you’d be available in time for the next portion of the briefing. You are much more familiar with Regensburg than I am,” Major Bowman announced as she joined the group, flushed and breathless and ready to cash in on whatever John had planned.

“Oh, that is coming up isn’t it?” she mused, not even sparing the Major a glance as her gaze was transfixed on the profile of her lover. “I’m sorry, sir, but might I borrow Major Egan for a moment?” It was going to be longer than a moment. Most certainly. But she didn’t want to give the officers any more of a reason to snicker than they were already getting. And she really wasn’t waiting for an answer, her finger lacing with his and gently tugging him in the direction of her office. 

“Sorry, Red,” John shrugged as he followed after her, “we all got our duties!” The door slammed shut behind them and Cass was closing the blinds to offer them as much privacy as they could find in the cramped building. 

“There’s something you must know,” she began as his lips were already attached to the side of her neck. Biting and sucking and repeating before soothing over the new marks with his tongue. “Colonel Harding invited me to dinner tonight.” That served to get his attention. 

“Did you tell him you had my cum between your legs?” John dropped to his knees and shrugged off his layers so he was left in his button up. Cass lifted her hips off the wall as he shimmied her pencil skirt up her legs. 

“I could feel it the whole time. Keeping me warm.” He hummed at the sight of the wet spot through her panty hose. 

“Such a good girl,” he whispered in a trance. With one hand on either side of the waistband, he pulled and ripped her tights clean down the middle. 

“John! These are good tights!” she gasped.

“Things that get in the way of me and you may get ripped.” He tossed the offensive fabric to the side and his mouth watered at the prize that rested between her thighs. Dainty, pink lace covered her cunt and the remnants of his morning wood was snuggled up against her. “We have to get some of this back in you, baby.” He gently kissed the sensitive skin below her belly button as his fingers curled around the band of her panties and slid them down her legs. Cass stepped out of them, John bringing them to his nose before they were tucked into the inside of his sheepskin. “We smell so good together, Spook. Could die a happy man with that scent wrapped around me.”

“Don’t talk like that,” she pleaded as one of her legs went over his shoulder. “Don’t talk about leaving me.” His fingers traced around her entrance, the tip of his pointer finger broaching her slowly as he pressed his cum back into her.

“Colonel Harding know that you took me with you to your meeting? Do you think he knows you make me come so hard that my cum leaks out of you?” Cass sighed as he began to gently tease her swollen pearl.

“He invited me to dinner with the Brits tonight.” John paused and his touch slipped from her wetness. “Wants me to be fully spooky. Bought me a dress to wear specifically.” His eyes dragged up her body and he rose to his full height, her leg dropping shakily to the ground but Cass made no move to readjust her skirt. 

“You’re going to wear a dress he bought you while on his arm at a fancy dinner?” She nodded. His hand wrapped around her throat and she whimpered. “You said I was yours. That also means you’re mine. And I’m going to fuck you so hard, Casssandra Ann Cooper, that you won’t know anything other than that fact tonight. Are we clear?”

“Yes, Major.” He had said the night before that he would have his time to take control and ravish her. She was delighted that the time had come. John kissed her in a way she knew would bruise her lips, spanking the bare skin of her bottom that was peeking out from under her skirt. 

“On your desk,” he ordered. Cass practically skipped over to her desk and wasn’t quick enough to carefully put away her belongings before one swipe of John’s wingspan sent it all crashing to the floor. 

“John! They’re going to hear-” 

“Part of the fucking point,” he muttered as he lifted her by the waist and placed her on top of her desk. He grabbed his sheepskin. “Lift your hips.” She did, the jacket going under them to provide him with better leverage. He gripped around her ankles and pulled her so her cunt was right at the edge of the desk. 

“Make it so I only know your name and the way you feel inside of me,” she whispered. Cass’ mouth salivated watching him undo the buckle of his belt, his cock springing proud once he freed it. One hand went to each of her knees and pushed down until she was pliant and ready. He pressed into her slowly as black spots practically danced across his vision at the way being inside of her felt. It completely forced all of his thoughts into one singular thread to please her and provide for her in any and all ways.

She was only able to take half of him before her walls were contracting around his shaft and he moaned her name with no qualms over the notion that someone could hear him. Let them know who he belonged to and who she belonged to. Let them know that no matter Harding’s efforts to woo her away, she would always come back home to John Egan. 

“I belong inside of you, Cass. You belong wrapped around me like this.” His hips were snapping as quickly as he could without hurting her, fingers curled around the side of the desk as she tried to anchor herself to reality. “No one else is ever going to have you like this. No one is allowed to ever dream about you like this.”

“Yes, John. I’m fucking yours. Fucking all yours forever.” John swatted at the hand that was reaching for her clit and replaced it with his own. She gasped and bared her throat and he ached to sink his teeth into the supple skin as she began to chant his name like it was holy. To her, it was.

“Come for me. Come all over my cock, baby.” Cass obliged his request with a curse and a cry before focusing on the way her lover’s features were pulling together tightly. 

“You’re so beautiful when you fall apart, John, so beautiful and all mine.” She used his tie to pull him down against her lips and she swallowed his moans as he quickly pulled himself from her and shot his cum over her inner thigh. He kissed her like an animal as his high worked its way down to a simmer and the racing of their hearts calmed to a normal pace. “I would’ve had Harding ask me out sooner if I’d known,” she breathed. Feeling like seeing how far she could push him, Cass reached a fingertip to the soft skin of her thigh and dragged it through the creamy substance before bringing it to her lips. 

“One day, when all this is over, I’ll give you all the same things he can. Fancy dresses and dinners and whatever else his salary can buy.” 

“John? You really think any of that means something to me? Matters in how I feel even a smidge?” Her palm rested along the curve of his jaw so her thumb could land on his lips. 

“I know it doesn’t. Doesn’t make my desire to give it to you any less,” he murmured before kissing the pad of her thumb. 

“I have plenty of dresses and been to plenty of dinners. But I’ve only got one John Egan and I’m rather fond of him. Would like to keep him around and in one piece for as long as possible.” 

“Well, Spook, the world could really only handle one John Egan, don’t you think?” She smiled widely with a giggle and he pulled her closer for a kiss to her lips then nose. “I love you. No one else. Just you.” Cass closed her eyes and nodded in understanding. 

“Whenever Red is done pretending he knows what he is doing, you can bother Mary and me while I get ready. Escort me to Harding’s like I’m sure you want to.” What he wanted was to be able to provide for her the way she deserved. Be the type of man worthy of being called her husband one day. Love alone didn’t buy a house or nursery furniture or a fence for the family dog. 

He had no way of knowing the family wealth she came from. That his worry about providing for her seemed beyond frivolity. That anything she could ever dream of wanting could be hers tomorrow with the Cooper family name behind her. She had meant exactly what she had said. The only thing money could not buy her was love and the only person she wanted it from was John Egan. Cass knew he had it in spades. 

“Once I see you in that dress, I might not let you leave.” His nose nuzzled against hers. 

“You will when I tell you that if you let me leave, you’ll get to take it off as quickly as you wish after.” He could rip it to shreds if he wanted to. John knew he wanted to. 

“I want to dance with you in it after. Get another taste of the life we are going to have once we go home together.”

“Home together. Makes my heart warm.” 

“Don’t tell Buck. I’ll never hear the end of it.” Cass mimed locking her lips and throwing away the key. “My Spooky Spook. So good at keeping secrets.” He kissed her to lock it in for good measure. Cass looked down at the cum drying on her legs and the mess of papers and paper clips and other office supplies on the floor. 

“We have quite the mess to clean up.” John hummed. 

“Good thing no one came knocking.”

[amiserableseriesofevents]

Hi! If you have no other clegan requests, then I would like this:

"good. now you know what it's like."

(prompt list by @novelbear  - reactions to making someone cry)

Hello dear! I haven't forgotten about you, I just had to sort out and post Chapter 14 of Such stuff before diving into this 🥰 I hope you'll enjoy the angst 😗

1.9k of Angst, Emotional Hurt/No Comfort below the cut

Major Gale Cleven marries his longtime sweetheart, Marjorie Spencer, less than a month after his return to the US after the war. The bride is splendid and radiant and the groom looks as handsome as ever in his uniform — no one needs to know that it doesn't feel right anymore on his body, that the belt's been latched two holes tighter than before the war, that he still feels cold even if it's summer and he's dressed in wool.

Major John Egan, Cleven's best friend, is absolutely charming in his role of best man. He flirts with bridesmaids and old ladies alike, dances dutifully with all the bride's friends that ask him, he laughs, and drinks only a few glasses of whiskey to celebrate — no one needs to know that his hands keep shaking whenever he tries to stay still, that there's a flask tucked into his breast pocket filled with nasty liquor that makes his eyes water every time he takes a sip from it, that his heart is bleeding in his chest for the same exact reason he should be celebrating today.

The bride asks him for a toast, at some point. John forces himself to ignore the spark of worry in the blue depth of the groom's eyes as he stands, clears his throat and raises a glass.

He tells the wedding party tales about the groom. How he once landed a plane with all four engines busted. How he once danced with a dog while completely sober at a party. How he never used to drink anything stronger than a ginger beer but had to take care of drunk comrades too many times to count — and he knows that pretty well, him being the drunk comrade Gale would always take care of. How he is the best man sweet Marge could possibly wish for cause he never gave up on the thought of being reunited with her, not even in the darkest of times.

(What he doesn't say: how the groom had kissed him the night after that nightmare of a flight to Algeria, a kiss with blood and desperation in their mouths, a kiss that had made John feel alive for the first time in months.

How him dancing with Meatball was actually a weird way for Gale to apologize to John for having refused his invitation to go to London together, because he knew what John wanted to do and he wasn't ready to give that to him yet — nevermind all the other kisses they'd shared in abandoned haylofts and dark corner, nevermind all those times they'd found comfort in each other's bodies, nevermind that John had almost sunk on his knees and begged him to go, right there, in front of everyone.

How John had almost drunk himself to death the day Buck went down, and when that didn't kill him he'd driven a jeep drunk out of his mind and then tried to stay on his burning plane to be blown out of the sky and go back to the man he loved.

How his Buck never gave up on the thought of marrying Marge, not even in the darkest days of a bleak German winter, but that didn't stop him to find comfort once again in Bucky's arms, in his mouth, along the sharp lines of his body, between his shaky legs.

How he knows with excruciating precision every sound the groom will make tonight during his wedding night, every whimper and moan, every shaky breath, every whispered curse and breathy laugh.)

John tries to leave the wedding without even saying goodbye but Gale knows him too well. He catches up with him in the parking lot, thanks him wearily for his beautiful toast.

“I forgot to add one thing,” John tells him, because now he really doesn't have anything left to lose. “That I love you, more than anything in the world.”

Gale doesn't say anything back to him, maybe he hopes the sadness in his eyes will be enough.

It's not. John leaves, and doesn't look back.

—

The happy marriage between Gale and Marjorie Cleven crumbles apart in less than one year.

They'll say it was because of the war, that Gale didn't come back as he was before and they couldn't work out anymore.

They'll say it was because of the children, Marge wanted them but Gale never seemed sure enough to actually try, fearing he'd unlock something ugly buried deep inside him, the venom of his father dripping through.

They'll never tell the truth: Gale is in love with someone else. Marge doesn't know who — she had a hunch, but Gale refused to listen to her trying to talk about that, said she wouldn't understand because she wasn't there, she doesn't know. Still, she rightfully refuses to play second fiddle in her own wedding; she gives him the ring back, packs a suitcase and goes home to her parents.

Gale goes home too; not to Casper, Wyoming, nor in South Dakota. He drives a whole day and a whole night to Manitowoc, Wisconsin. To the only place he's ever truly felt at home: with John.

He doesn't have an address so he asks around town if anyone knows where Major Egan lives. A nice lady points him to where the the Egans are staying; Gale doesn't think too much of that weird plural, he figures John's still with his mom and sister as he thinks about what to do after.

He rings the doorbell, practicing in his mind what he's going to tell John once he sees him again.

It's a blonde woman that opens the door, tall and with piercing blue eyes but not the same shade of John's — not his sister, Gale's mind provides.

She looks equally surprised to see him. “Can I help you, Sir?” She asks.

Gale goes through the motions. “Good morning, Ma'am. I'm sorry to disturb you, I'm looking for Major John Egan. We served together, I was passing by and wanted to say hello.”

The woman smiles at his words, almost relieved. “Of course! Any friend of Bucky is welcome here. Bucky! There's someone at the door for you.”

“If it's the pastor I swear I'm going to tell him-” John's familiar voice echoes through the narrow entryway behind the woman as he walks to the door, adjusting his tie, but the words die on his lips as he sees Gale staring right back at him. “Buck,” he says, voice full of wonder and for a second Gale still thinks it's going to be ok. Then the curve of John's mouth sharpens, the surprise sours in his eyes.

“Buck Cleven, what are you doing here?” He asks him, tone wrong, posture tense.

“I was passing through and thought about stopping by,” Gale says, glad now more than ever to have left his duffle bag in the car. “How are you? It's been a while.”

“It sure has,” John says. “I've been good, thank you Buck.” Then his gaze shifts to the woman, like he's just now noticing her here. “Oh, what a disgrace I am! I forgot to properly introduce you two. Jo, this is Buck, one of my best pals from the war. Buck, this is Jo. My wife.”

Those two words lodge themselves into Gale's heart.

“Oh. I didn't know you got married, congratulations", he tells John, voice strangled, hands fisted at his sides.

“Yeah, it's been a short engagement but what can I say, when you know you know, right Buck?”

Gale nods. “Right. Well, I better go now, I don't want to make you late for work. Jo, it's been a pleasure to meet you,” he says, and retreats to his car. He hears hushed voices behind him and tries to walk faster, but the door closes and John reaches him just before he can open the door to his car.

“Buck,” John says again, harsher this time. “Buck, look at me.”

Gale exhales and turns. “What?” He asks, chin raised in defiance.

“Why are you here?”

“Marge left. We couldn't make it work, the war changed too many things. It changed me, too much,” Gale says then he adds, “She knew.”

“She knew what?”

“That I'm in love with someone else. That I'm in love with you,” Gale spits out, cheeks getting hotter and hotter by the minute. It's getting harder to breathe and to keep the stinging in his eyes at bay; he fails, John's face in front of him suddenly blurry.

“Are you crying?” John asks. When Gale doesn't answer, he talks again. “Good. Now you know what it's like.”

“Did you marry her just to spite me?” Gale asks, outraged. “Were you just waiting for me to cave?”

“No, Buck. I married her because she's a nice woman, she treats me well, and she doesn't really care if I had someone else before or during the war.”

“She fucking looks like me.”

“That's a plus,” John admits. “She's also a pilot, so. And she's my wife, and we've been talking about building a family.”

“And what about me?”

“What?”

“What about the fact that I fucking love you?” Gale almost shouts, remembering at the last second that they're not alone in the world — there's also Bucky's wife, apparently, and their neighbors. The words come out of him in a strangled whisper, more tears now running freely down his cheeks.

John laughs. “You know, I could do exactly what you did when I told you that at your wedding. But I know what that felt like, so I won't. I'm going to tell you things exactly how they are: I loved you, I loved you so much. You broke my heart and moved on, and I had to move on too. I have a wife, I love her. I love you less, but I still love you. There's no place in my life for you, not now, not like this.”

Gale feels like he's breathing molten led, not air. “And what am I supposed to do?” He asks.

There's sadness in John's eyes now, and something too akin to love not to make Gale's heart ache. “I don't know, Buck. You'll have to figure it out. It's better this way, I promise.”

“But I love you,” Gale tries again. This time, John yields and hugs him.

“I love you too,” he murmurs in Gale's ear. “But we cannot make it work. I am so sorry, Buck, so fucking sorry.”

It's not your fault, Gale thinks. It's mine.

He extricates himself from John's hold. “There's nothing to be sorry about,” he mumbles. “I'll be fine. And if you ever need me for something, anything, you just have to call, ok? Anything, I mean it.”

(What he doesn't say: if you ever get tired of her, if you ever want to pick things back up from where we left them, if you ever feel lonely or bored one day, call me and I'll be there, waiting for you, atoning the sin of having let you go.)

John's always read him like an open book. “Thank you, Buck. I'll see ya,” he says, and goes back to his house — to his wife.

But Gale reads him perfectly too, and he knows one thing for sure: sooner or later, he'll be back.

Now it's his turn to sit and wait.

[shoshiwrites]

Can I request Jo and Bucky + 39. a lit candle and a snowstorm, please? 💕

Please forgive me for really only using this prompt as a jumping-off point for fall vibes instead of winter. I was also going to keep this short and OOPS. Biggest hugs to @floydmtalbert for helping me brainstorm this and for answering all my questions, Harvest Festival-related and otherwise ♡ Bucky Egan x War correspondent OC.

sky full of song

She wished Kay were here, to take photographs of everything.

Kay had left Jo with a Kodak Brownie that she insisted she could spare — Jo hadn’t summoned the nerve yet to test it out, fearing she’d break it. The same skittishness she reserved for plants and watering cans and, she hoped, not a lot else. Kay had narrowed her eyes with only a little judgement. “I’d hand over the Rolleiflex too if I had another one to spare,” she said, while Jo made a noise of dismissal. “You’re very much to be trusted, Jo, I hope you know that by now.”

The Kodak, a couple of rolls of film to get her started. That didn’t count the fresh bars of soap packed at the top of Jo’s suitcase, the gin and fernet under the sink, or the tiny bottle of perfume she’d slipped into the pocket of Jo’s coat in the front closet. Jo didn’t remember the label — French, of course, and floral, like the beautiful dresses and suits packed away in Kay’s trunk from home. 

She’d dabbed a tiny bit on tonight, her wrists and behind her ears. She didn’t often wear a scent, or if she did it was something someone might call cheap. Orange blossom, usually, which she loved. But today she’d been out in the fields, observing the Land Army girls and the farmers around the village and the base. Talking about the harvest and about the relatives fighting, as carefully as they could. It loomed above them, behind them, below, the Norwich Blitz of the year before, the war still ahead, the news out of Italy they’d all been following on the radio. 

She was still dressed for the day outside, amongst the dry grass and the cow patties, having been too caught up in edits and wiring to change out of her trousers and light peasant blouse. She’d adjusted the blouse in the mirror in her room, tucked it in more carefully, and tried to do something with her hair — it still wisped out around her ears, the back of her neck. And, of course, she’d changed her shoes. 

It had even been sunny, and what you might call warm — it accounted for the tiniest hint of copper in her brown hair, and something almost like a tan, or as much as you could get in late September. She feels warm here, inside the village hall, the day’s sun and the stuffiness of the building, despite the beautiful decorations, the food and drink, the music. 

Kay would appreciate the decorations, too — flowers Jo carefully notes for no other reason than to let her friend know — heleniums and coneflowers, deep chocolate-brown dahlias and frilly white yarrow and coppertips, delicate cosmos and chrysanthemums besides. Kay could write a book, she thinks, of flower samples and photos and vignettes. Jo’s article doesn’t need such specificity — it’s about the American fliers joining the harvest festival, the cases of Coca-Cola brought over from the base to join the ale and cider and lemonade, the folk dances, the corn dollies pinned to olive drab by the children of Thorpe Abbotts. They’ve been shepherded home, the children, and now left are the grownups, the fliers, some of the village teenagers not far in age if not the same.

She’s not sure if she craves a ginger beer or something stronger. She knows she needs a cigarette. Cold air, too, maybe even more than the smoke.

There’s still plenty of people — part of why it’s so warm inside, too, she notes – and she slips out to the front steps with hand already in her pocket for her lighter. The stars look even brighter tonight, in the crisp fall air. She lights up carefully, shielding her hand. Her arms are covered in goosebumps, but she doesn’t care. It’s hardly the first time, here or back home. This time, at least, nobody’s locking her out. She sits, takes a drag. Tries not to think about how crowded it felt in there, how for a moment she felt as though she were suffocating.

“Oh good-” she hears behind her. “You’re still here.” She turns to see him behind her, above her, pressed uniform and the stray curl on his forehead. “Thought we spotted you leaving.” In the moonlight, his cheeks still look pink. “You heading out?” 

She hadn’t decided until this moment. “I think so,” she says. 

“Hot enough for you in there?” 

“A bit.”

He takes a second, adjusts to the outside. The chill in the air. Watches her, sitting on the step in her blouse and her bare arms and the hair she’s unpinned now that she’s alone. “Can I walk you home?”

She’d refuse the offer, except the house she’s staying in is at least a ten minute walk, on the edge of the village. A little more, even, ambling along in the dark. She’d refuse the offer, except she doesn’t want to. He holds out a hand to take her cigarette, the other to help her to her feet. 

“You can have it,” she says, before she can stop herself, but he’s handed it back to her already as he starts to unbutton his jacket. She watches the cherry glow, imprinted on the darkness, before she remembers to cup it with her hand. 

“Oh no- I’m alright-”

“Wasn’t a question,” he says, and drapes it over her shoulders before she can protest further. “What would Kay say if I let you catch something?”

She almost snorts. It smells like him, of course, settles the unease in her body before she can worry that someone else will leave the party and see the two of them standing there. It’s also entirely too big. Comical, even. It’s practically a coat on her.

“Pneumonia’s no joke, Josephine.”

“Oh, I know.”

Before she knows it, they’re on their way back to the house, gravel crunching quietly under their feet. It’s enough to walk beside him, here, take the moment to breathe.

The house is quiet too, blackout curtains drawn. Muriel’s gone upstairs for the evening, and it’s with a gentle yank of his hand that Jo leads them around to the back gate, the one that’s never locked. It creaks open, the sound magnified in the dark.

They don’t bother with chairs, or more accurately she doesn’t want to make the noise, open the shed door and drag them out onto the flagstone. They sit, on the ground, in the garden. It smells like earth and cold and she can partly make him out in the starlight, the slope of his noise and his ears and his mouth, eyelashes, the insignias on his shirt collar. He doesn’t let her take off his jacket, even like this.

“Yankees won the pennant,” he says. “On Saturday.”

“I saw. Heard,” she corrects. Her knuckles brush against his on the stone. “I’m glad.” She almost laughs — Lena would be shocked to hear her say so. “Don’t tell my friends I said that.”

She hears him huff a little laugh. “Your secret’s safe with me.”

She looks over at the dark outline of the house, her eyes drawn to what looks like the tiniest glimmer of light upstairs. A candle, she realizes, in Muriel’s window. Jo hopes she hasn’t left it burning while she’s asleep. 

“Can I get you a drink?” she asks. “Kay left a couple of things in the kitchen, some of the hard-to-find stuff. I’m sure we could rustle up some glasses-” She stops, stills, when she notices he’s reached into his pocket for his flask. His pocket, of the jacket she’s wearing, the one that’s trailing on the ground. “Sorry,” she says. 

“What’re you apologizing for?”

For rambling, she wants to say. For not knowing. For taking your jacket. For sending you up there day after day with nothing but a lousy stack of clippings to show for it. She doesn’t believe that, not really, except for when she does.

“Nothing, I guess,” she says.

“Good.”

She goes and gets herself a drink as quietly as she can, carefully making her way back to the spot in the middle of the garden. 

“Are you cold?” 

He shakes his head, tips back the flask. “Used to it.”

She sips at the gin, the sharp, piney flavor of juniper floods her mouth, makes her pull her lips over her teeth. Not enough tonic water, but she’s not about to head back in again in the dark. 

“It’ll be snowing already in Wisconsin,”  he says. She squints at him in the dark, at the warmth she feels beside her. “Or almost,” he corrects. 

“It’s only September.”

“We got snow in late September last year,” he says. “Up north.”

“Not in Manitowoc.” She tries not to stumble over the name, but it halts in her mouth.

He makes a noise that’s almost like a laugh, almost like surprise. “Not in Manitowoc,” he repeats. He hands her his flask; she can feel his arm bump her own. “C’mon, have some of the strong stuff.”

“Gin isn’t the strong stuff?” She takes the flask anyway, tips it back against her lips. She hasn’t had any in a while, certainly not like this. It’s hot in her throat, smoky and burning. The barest hint of honey. Despite herself, she coughs. 

She doesn’t hand it back to him yet, only proffers her own drink. “Only fair,” she says. She can’t see his face too well in the dark, but hears him take a sip. 

“Kay could make a killing here in England,” he says. “The booze.”

“She could.”

Upstairs, Jo notices the candle’s gone out. The warmth of the whiskey and the gin blooms in her chest. 

“When you do think they get snow in England?” he asks. 

There’d been a dusting on the ground in London when she and William had arrived in February. But not much. “I don’t know,” she says plainly. “Why?”

“Figured you’d know these things,” he says, and she can hear a smile shade his voice. “Being a reporter and all.”

She does laugh at that.

“There was a little, when I got here. A dusting. Like icing sugar.” It sounds silly as she says it. Like it hadn’t been pissing rain and cold and she’d had to bundle up in bed like she’d had to when she was a girl, curled up and waiting for William to come up from the hotel bar and whatever story he’d claimed to be chasing. She could think these things now, call it for what it was. That the “stories” usually had blonde hair and long legs, or red hair and short legs, or were anyone but Jo.

“Sounds picturesque.” He sounds like he’s sounding out the word.

“Almost.”

“Merry old England not living up to expectations?”

She takes a deep breath. “No- I just-”

“Just what?”

She can call it for what it was now, but she can’t think about what couldn’t have been. John instead of William, there beside her. During the air raids, the ones she’d almost always had to soldier on through without him. “I don’t know,” she says again. Maybe she should thank god it’s dark outside, so that he can’t see her face.

He takes another drink from the flask, but this time it’s slower. She can’t help it, the way she places her glass down and pulls her knees up, not quite to her chest. She can’t tell if she’s cold or not, between the jacket and the whiskey and the fact that he’s here, quiet and not, breathing, sitting on the ground here beside her. That there had been no questions about it. That she’d sat, and he’d sat. That he’s closer to her now than he was when they started. 

His hand, next to hers, and pressing against it now, and hooking his fingers around hers in silence. She thinks of the names she knows that he doesn’t, she ones she carries in her pockets, the names he stores away in his jacket lining, the barracks, buried out in the field. The runway. The air.

Maybe it’s alright, in this moment, to let them all leave her mind. To hold his hand.

Out beyond the garden wall, something rustles in the trees. A small animal, probably. A pair of birds. They both sit up just a little at the interruption. 

“I don’t know what time it is,” he says. “Must be late.” She motions for his wrist, and he holds steady as she shields her lighter with her hand, reads the face illuminated against his skin. 

“11:17.”

“A good year,” he says. She huffs a laugh. “I don’t know.”

“Me neither.”

It’s getting colder out, as the hour darkens. All that wind coming down off the North Sea. The thought of him walking back all by himself kicks at her heart. 

She wishes they could just go inside together. Go up to bed. She can’t say it out loud, she knows. A secret she can’t let him keep. Not now. Maybe he already knows.

“I can’t keep you out so late,” she says. 

“Protecting my honor, Josephine?” She can hear the laugh that doesn’t reach his eyes.

She stands with his help, her hands clasped around his. They walk to the gate, like holding a breath before they fumble a kiss goodnight in the dark. Slow, and unseeing, only feeling him, his lips on hers. His hand finds the small of her back, slides down to her hip. She leans into him, tasting the whiskey, the smell of him, his jacket still around her. His breath on her cheek. One hand on his chest, and then the other. She reaches, touches his jaw with the backs of her fingers. He hums against her, low and wanting. 

“I’ll go,” he says, like he’s convincing himself too.

“I’ll be back at the base in the morning,” she says, shrugging out of his jacket. Immediately, she’s cold. “You’re not flying tomorrow.”

He takes it, but he doesn’t put it back on. If he’s surprised that she knows that, she can’t see it. “Right.”

The moon is higher now, the stars scattered above. He kisses her again, the gentlest tug at her bottom lip, the brush of his mustache against her. He’s everything, here, where she can barely see him. She can’t help herself from the exhale, the kind that sounds like she’s trying to hold it all in.

“You smell nice,” he says. His voice is the quietest she’s heard. Like a little boy. He touches his forehead against hers, just for a moment. Her hand cups his cheek, thumb tracing. And then he’s gone. 

She turns back to the house, looming in the dark. The wind whistles in the trees, the only light the moon reflected in the closed windows. She wraps her arms around herself, and heads inside. 

[softspeirs]

hiya katie! i hope you're having a lovely evening. could i please request "27. — boxes" for....ellie and bucky, please? (or anyone you are feeling!) <3 — @shoshiwrites

A/N: Hiya Sho! I had another person ask for more of Bucky and Ellie as they settle into their relationship, so combining these two prompts if that's ok! This one is another lil interlude. Pals, I'll take more prompts from this list if you've got 'em!

When the box first arrived on Ellie's doorstep courtesy of the mailman, she set it on the kitchen table and refused to look at it for the rest of the day.

She'd stop by the cluttered table and pretend it wasn't there, worrying her thumbnail with her teeth.

"D'ya think it's a bomb?" Her brother whispers in her ear, and she jumps.

"You startled me!" She smacks at his arm, and he laughs as he ducks out of the way.

"What are we looking at? Mail?"

"It's not just mail," she says, exasperated. "It's-- it's from John's--"

Her brother picks it up, an absolutely irritating smile growing on his face. "His mother!" He squawks, shoving it at her like she hadn't already realized where it had come from, seeing the Wisconsin postmark. "Do you think he knows she sent something?"

"I suspect not, or if he did, he was too embarrassed to say anything."

Her brother laughs again, and Ellie flushes. "Don't you dare say anything when he comes for dinner."

"Aren't you going to open it?"

Ellie feels so foolish - she can't explain why she's so nervous. It's just that it's Bucky's mother, and it feels serious in a way that she wasn't prepared for.

(There's also a niggling voice in the back of her mind reminding her that John said he only got one or two letters from his mother while he was in the Stalag, and even though she doesn't know the reasoning behind it, it still makes protectiveness surge up inside her - she wishes Mrs. Egan would have sent a package to her son, instead)

It's hours later when Bucky - and Buck, she's delighted to see - arrive. Bucky has a bouquet of flowers tucked under one arm, and he's laughing as he holds open the front gate for his friend.

She loves seeing him laugh.

She pulls open the door before they can knock. Marvels at how they mirror each other - both pulling off their caps, smoothing their hair.

"Majors," she drawls.

"Ma'am," Buck greets her with an amused half-smile. "Hope you don't mind I'm crashing your dinner."

"Of course not." Ellie steps closer to pull him into a one-armed hug. His arm tightens around her shoulder. "Go on in, Dad and Henry are in the kitchen."

Inside, introductions are made. Henry tries not to look too in awe of the Majors, but at fifteen, it's hard for him to hide it.

Ellie heads to the kitchen to finish up the last of the veggie pie she's been working on - the farmer down the way miraculously still had some butter on hand, and she's been babying a pie crust all afternoon.

She smiles to herself when Bucky's familiar footfalls sound behind her. His arms slide around her waist, and she grins, even as her cheeks warm.

"Behave yourself."

He hums. "Always."

She turns around to get a good look at him. His eyes crinkle at the edges when he smiles, and she hopes to see that look on his face for the rest of both their lives.

"Hello." She whispers.

He closes the distance between them. The kiss is light and chaste but still sets her heart racing. "Hi." He replies when they break apart. "You're sure you've got enough for one more person?" His expression turns concerned. "I don't want to put you out if you were planning on only feeding four."

"I have enough. You both need to eat, anyway."

He kisses her temple. "Too good to me." He mutters. He busies himself setting the table, and she hears the moment he stops short. Her eyes widen when she remembers.

"Oh!" She turns around quickly to find him frowning, the box already in his hand.

"Uh-- this is from..."

"Your mother. I got it today."

He looks at her, confused. "I... I have no idea what this is. How did she--"

Ellie fidgets. "I may have snooped the last time you left me alone in your room for a minute. I wanted your home address so I could write to her."

Bucky doesn't look angry or upset, he just looks so bewildered, Ellie could laugh. "You wrote to my..."

"Everything alright?" God bless Gale Cleven, Ellie thinks.

"Fine!" She says breezily, shoving a serving bowl and cutlery in his hands. "Set these out for me?"

He does as he's asked, but he keeps an eye on his friend. Ellie's heart clenches. She wonders how often he had to do this, had to study Bucky's expression to try to figure out if something was wrong.

"My mother sent El a package." Bucky says.

"Wedding dress?"

John gapes at his friend. Gale, on the other hand, is sporting a shit-eating grin not unlike the one Henry had earlier. "I-- we're-- why would you--"

"Relax, Egan. Just assumed."

"You think I wouldn't have told you--"

"It was a joke." Buck looks at Ellie for help. "That was a joke, Ellie."

"I know." She flaps her hands at her side uselessly. "I haven't opened it yet. I was... I was nervous! I know it's silly."

"Oh, god, Ma..." Bucky mutters, almost to himself. It makes a hysterical laugh bubble up out of Ellie. "You'd better go on then, I won't be able to eat unless I know she didn't send you my most embarrassing childhood photos."

"Neither will I." Gale deadpans.

Bucky hands Ellie the box across the dining room table, and she sets it down with nervous hands, reaching for her kitchen scissors to cut the ties.

Inside are a few bars of chocolate, which she knows Henry will swipe given half the chance, a small framed photo of Bucky in uniform, and a few sheafs of paper tucked into a brand-new leather bound diary.

She unfolds the letter first, muttering to herself about it being too much.

Bucky watches as her eyes well up as she reads, and feels himself practically vibrating as he tries to imagine what Mrs. Frances Egan has said to this woman he's pretty confident is going to be his wife one day. He's nervous and happy all wrapped up in one - he never told Ellie that he had written to his mother when he got back to Thorpe Abbotts to firstly reassure her that he was in one piece, but also to tell her that he thought he had found the woman of his dreams.

Knowing that Ellie had written to her without his knowledge... far from being upset that she kept it from him, he's touched because knowing Ellie, knowing what her own letters to him had been like, he knows she was writing to introduce herself, to tell someone important to him that she was taking care of him. He just knows it, without even having read the words.

"El?" Gale asks, and god if Bucky doesn't love seeing his best friend treat his girl like a sister. The quiet affection they have for each other already is like a balm for his soul after the last year and a half of a cold, gray, unfeeling existence.

"I'm okay," she insists, "It's-- oh, she's so nice." Ellie says, passing the letter off to John. "There's a page addressed to you; I didn't read it."

John still feels as if he's been whacked upside the head. This entire thing is so unexpected.

His mother tells Ellie (Eleanor, she had written) that she was so happy to hear from her, that she hopes Ellie has seen for herself that John was in one piece, and she talks at length about John's sisters. It makes him smile, to see how easily she's bringing Ellie into their lives.

The part, he's pretty sure, that had made Ellie cry was at the end. My son is so lucky to have someone like you to take care of him, though he'll deny he needs help at all. He's stubborn, but it sounds like you are as well. That's good - keep him in line for me. I've enclosed a journal and some stationary. Please keep writing if you'd like. The girls and I will be seeing you in person soon, I'm sure. I hope, anyway.

The page addressed to him is short and sweet. His mother writes in a vaguely threatening tone that he better make an honest woman out of Eleanor Peters soon. His heart rate kicks up when she asks if there's another, smaller box that she should send over soon.

Buck makes himself scarce after the table is set, with a knowing look at Bucky that makes him roll his eyes.

He walks over to Ellie, who is struggling to meet his eyes. He finds it so so endearing. "El." His fingers find her chin, tipping it up until she meets his eyes. "You wrote to my mother."

"'Course I did." She says, embarrassed. "Had to let her know her son was alive and well. You probably sent her half a page. 'Back from Stalag. In the hospital. Don't worry'", she mimics his deeper voice.

That pretty much is what Bucky sent home, but he doesn't admit it.

"Thank you. I hope this isn't-- I hope this didn't scare you off."

"It's too much. I can't accept this--" she says, but he's already shaking his head, hand sliding along her cheek until it threads through her hair, hand massaging her scalp in a way that is always so comforting when she does it to him.

"It's a gift. She wants you to have it, and honestly I'll be offended if you don't put that picture on your bedside table." He bats his lashes rapidly.

"Oh, shut up." She huffs, laughing. "Dinner is going to get cold."

He kisses her forehead, but lets her go, and they call her Dad, Henry, and Gale back into the dining room to sit down. Bucky regales her brother with stories while Buck chimes in once in a while to correct the record, much to his friend's chagrin, and over the rims of his glasses, her father grins at him.

This is the fullest their little house has been in a long time. Her chest tightens at the thought of leaving it behind, even if it is to go home with Bucky.

She tries to leave her worries for another day. In the meantime, she's already started to think of what she can send Mrs. Egan and her daughters in return.

Under the table, Bucky's hand finds hers, and he squeezes, like he can tell her brain is going a thousand miles an hour.

She smiles. She'll start packing a box in the morning.

[swifty-fox]

Sci-Fi Horror AU

idk kinda word vomited this tonight after trying a new strain. I will be continuing it into a full story but not sure when

Entry Log 2043

-DateStamp: 14th July 5399

-Location: DeepSpace Sector G8677-65HG-76789_I

-Personnel File: Maj. J.C. Egan (Zoot Suit) 

Recording_

“This is Major John Egan, callsign ZootSuit, aboard the vessel M’lle ZigZag. Today is the dawn of my final day of exploration, putting an end to a sixteen-month foray into DeepSpace. Initial findings reveal little of note. A few developing stars and planets; an asteroid belt; and a total of six planets, two of which I will be recommending for a second more thorough exploration of due to planets possibly location being within the ‘Goldilocks Zone.’ I look forward to whiskey, solid food and to breathe air that isn’t recycled from a fucking can. I can’t wait to fuck my husband-”

John pauses.

“Ah, computer erase the last seven words. Reasoning: Irrelevant to mission. I will be entering Hyperspace within the hour, once I hit proper trajectory to slingshot around the primary sun.”

He taps the record button to end the log, carefully labeling the file and placing it in a folder with the few thousand other logs he’d recorded over the last year and a half. A verified library of data, observations and the occasional love-letter. A year and a half of research; one of the longest expeditions ever undertaken by any pilot. Considered bold by some and risky by far more. Deep space played with people's minds, the long stretches of isolation broken up only by Hypersleep creating the perfect recipe for a light case of mental instability.John had trained for this, ran through thousands of psychological tests and millions of scenarios. There was not a person in the universe more capable of this task. 

John rubs his jaw, feeling the scratchy beard and spins out of his pilot's chair, leaving the computer to guide the craft. 

Moving about the cramped space of the craft, built to maximize storage space; and to minimize comfort in his opinion, he begins securing anything not already safely battened down. He shaves in the cubicle sized bathroom, splashes water across his face and ignores the swirling flickers of color and light around the edges of his sight. Jaw smooth save for the now carefully trimmed mustache - just how Gale liked- he makes his way to the tail of the spacecraft to run an inventory check on his samples. Moon rocks and space dust and asteroid dirt. Anything the computer pinged or John spotted in his long hours gazing out into the empty void of space. 

He checks a few straps, making sure they’re tension tight before hitting the override on the artificial gravity. He holds the intentionally placed handle as he slowly lifts from the metal walkway. Giving himself several seconds to adjust he uses the similarly placed handles along the wall to pull himself back over to the pilot's chair. A second check on the navigation systems; the mathematical calculations for his trip around the sun and through hyperspace. Much of the process was left up to the computer these days, but John hadn’t survived twenty one missions - one of the highest in the force save for a handful - by not being thorough. 

Finding nothing out of the ordinary he switches all the lights off until his world is lit only by the approaching Red Giant, bathing everything a warm red. System lights blink soothingly as he takes a moment to take in the vast wonder in front of him. Years now it had been, and it still never failed to leave him breathless.

“Computer, begin countdown to Hyperspace entry, one minute. Beginning LCHS procedure, eta one minute.”

John pulls himself to the economically sized bunk, slotting into the space that barely left room for him to stretch and roll over, strapping himself down. 

“32…31…Thirty Second To HyperJump’’  the computer announces.

Bucky presses two fingers to his lips and then to the photograph taped above his bed. Folded so many times the crease lines were white and soft to the touch, Gale’s face gazed back at him. Caught unawares he was smiling soft and curving, glancing somewhere behind the camera. Laughing at something John had said, trying to pretend that he wasn’t. His cheek was rested in one elegant hand, gold ring glinting in the sunlight; a carbon match to the one on John’s own finger. 

“Be seeing you soon Buck.” John adjusts himself against the organic synthetic fibers of the mattress below him.

Fifteen seconds the computer chirps warningly. John always thought she got a little testy in those last few moments, as if scolding an unruly child. 

John reaches for the pouch beside his temple, withdrawing the last pill from the sheathe. Soft baby blue and the size of a quarter, he’d been issued exactly sixty-five of them upon the start of his expedition. Enough to get him all the way to the furthest reaches of the known galaxy in the shortest amount of time. Seven more consecutive jumps than had been previously attempted. Anything more than thirty and Federal Law was a minimum six months rest and recuperation before attempting further jumps. Risks for brain bleeds, heart attacks and Z-Sum sleep went up with every extra jump. John had stopped only once, stretching to forty five jumps before stopping at the nearest C-Class Planet Simulator outpost to rest. It had been his last chance to speak to Gale before he exited the reach of all communications. Eight months since he had seen that smile in any medium other than this photo. 

A quiet, tense conversation. Buck hadn’t wanted him to go; knew better than to stop him. 

“You’ll be careful out there John?” Buck was the only one to never call him Bucky. To the public he was Egan, Major if they were being formal. In private it was John, always John. His husband was strange like that. 

“More careful than a cat in a rainstorm.” 

Buck hums and squints his eyes at him. Stress sat in heavy lines at the corners of his lips, between his brows and around his temples. It had been eight months since John had kissed that mouth, tasted Gale’s sweet noises on his tongue. 

“You have enough LCHS’s to get through? None of them are compromised?” 

“Buck.” John sighs, “Come on.” 

Gale runs a hand through his hair, sucks his bottom lip between his teeth “I know you know what you’re doing...” His deep voice rumbled through the comms, staticky and pale in comparison to the in person thing.

“It’s just your job.” John finishes, grinning at Bucks self-amused shrug. “I checked them all twice. No leakage, no discoloration.” 

“I love you.” 

It never failed to make John’s spine tingle, hearing those words spoken so easily and effortlessly. The Gale he had gone to flight school with was a reserved quiet thing; John was better off trying to space-walk without a suit than pull an ounce of vulnerability from the other man. The years had softened him - John had softened him. 

“I love you too sweetheart. I’ll see you in eight months.”

Ten seconds. 

John startles, the pill slipping from his fingers and drifting in the gloom. He curses and reaches for it, straining against the straps holding him down. His steady beating heart kicks into panic mode. 

For centuries mankind had struggled to break out of the tiny confines of their miniscule corner of the universe. Confined by things like time-space and the limits of the human life span versus the distance needed to travel to discover anything new. They’d languished away certain of it was their destiny to never walk amongst the stars. Until HyperSpace had been discovered. The miniscule pocket between the folded pages of space-time. A way to jump through matter from one corner of the galaxy to another - and further. It blew the doors wide open on space exploration. They could go anywhere, journey past the point of creation they could find it. 

The only thing holding them back was the side effects of HyperSpace. It didn’t seem to pair so well with the cranial contents of human beings. The tendency to turn ones brain to pure soup was a drawback that left researchers, scientists and theorists all stumped. SMall jumps were manageable, with migraines and dizziness a much more risk-acceptable outcome. But in order for them to make any real progress they would need to find a solution,

LCHS. Lysergic Cerebral Hibernation Synthesizer.

The miracle drug and the solution to their dilemma. Developed initially from LSD the drug soothed the more vulnerable edges of one's brain and put the subject in such a deep sleep it took a reversal injection to bring one back to the waking world. It was used recreationally now as well; a way of opening one's mind to the world beyond the physical dimensions. Where light and color and feeling weren’t senses but physical states of being. It kept their pilots down for the jump; kept them asleep to the journey home. 

Without it. Well. Nobody had made a waking Hyperjump in as long as John could remember, at least had done it and lived. 

Five seconds.

John hisses through clenched teeth, straining for that little blue pill, technology his husband had dedicated his life to. Logically they both knew it was unlikely Gale had made the exact LCHS’s that sustained John, but he knew the other man pretended he did either way. The level of care put into each new batch as if it was made for his beloved specially. 

Three seconds.

John risks freeing one of his shoulders from the straps so he can get better reach. “Come on” he hisses. Closes his fingers around the dosage.

Two seconds.

John lays back, shoves his shoulder back into the strap so quickly the velcro scrapes his skin raw. He lifts the pill to his mouth, pressing past his lips.

One second.

_

_

_

Entering Hyperspace. 

Gale. John thinks.

His brain turns to mush.

[cetaitlaverite]

Anything to Anywhere

Masters of the Air - Bucky Egan x OC

sorry for the delay!! we are so back masterlist is here <3

13. Clay Pigeons

‘Stels,

Went on leave in London. I copied out the number of my hotel on the other side of this note. Call if you want to talk.

- John’

Stella had read and reread the note at least a hundred times since finding it beneath an empty mug at the place she sat at breakfast everyday. She wasn’t sure what she was feeling.

After storming out on him she’d spent all night tossing and turning, trying to come up with what she would say when she inevitably saw him the next day. Today. She’d even come up with something she was somewhat satisfied with. She knew she was a difficult person to deal with and resented that she showed some of her most complicated parts to John, so she’d put extra effort into forcing herself to be vulnerable when she explained herself.

But he was gone. Come morning, he had organised leave, packed up his belongings, and fled to London.

It made sense, Stella supposed, that he wasn’t going to stick around, holding his breath waiting for an apology he had no reason to expect was coming. But his absence stung her all the same. She didn’t care that he’d left a number for her to contact him on, she cared that he wasn’t here, that he’d just gone.

Screwing the letter up in one hand, Stella buried it in her pocket and thanked the waiter who delivered her breakfast. Then she went about her business as usual, trying her best to contribute to Alice and Jessop’s conversation even when she felt like storming out.

She flew her chits and mulled over everything she might say to John on the phone. She wouldn’t call him, she knew, but it was almost thrilling to imagine a version of herself who might. If she were braver or bolder or more forgivable she supposed she would. At this point, she’d made herself so utterly undesirable she was sure John had left the number solely out of courtesy and didn’t much want anything more to do with her.

Even still, that night she found herself gnawing on her bottom lip, sitting on her bed with her teddy bear in her lap as she toyed with the idea of calling.

He would be out, she reasoned with herself. He wouldn’t be sitting around in his hotel room, not on his first visit to London.

But then again, if she called and left a message at least he’d know she actually had called. She wouldn’t have to speak to him but he’d know she’d tried.

But he probably didn’t even want to hear from her. It was courtesy, she reminded herself. He didn’t mean it.

But if he did pick up, she wouldn’t have to have that difficult conversation she’d spent all night thinking up in person, and how much easier would it be to do it over the phone? He wouldn’t get to see her blush or tear up or any number of embarrassing things she might do when she had to apologise. All she would have to do was keep her voice steady.

So, pyjamas on, Stella shoved her feet into her boots and made her way to the ATA hut through the dark, to the only telephone she could use and guarantee no one would overhear her. Usually she’d go to the officers’ club, but at this time of night it would be packed and she didn’t much fancy dodging eavesdroppers while standing in the midst of everyone in her pyjamas.

Her heart was in her throat as she listened to the phone ring and she hadn’t even been put through to the operator yet. Her left foot was tapping vigorously against the ground, her right hand twisting and untwisting the telephone cord. She kept glancing over her shoulder, seeking out silhouettes in the dark corners of the room where the lamplight didn’t reach, kept tugging at the hem of her nightdress as though unwanted eyes were on her.

She felt she could have been sick.

When the operator put her through to John’s hotel the nausea only got worse. Stella considered hanging up a good many times but reasoned with herself that she’d traipsed all the way across base to get here so she was going to make it worth her while.

And then the hotel receptionist came on the phone and put her through to John’s room.

And then, after a hefty bout of ringing, the receptionist came back on the phone again.

“He doesn’t seem to be in, miss,” the receptionist said, the apology heavy in her voice. It was clear that, in spite of how Stella had introduced herself simply as a friend, the receptionist had inferred some sort of romantic intimacy in her relationship to John, had inferred that she was calling him in the middle of the night because she was suspicious of what he was doing in London.

Stella hated that implication. And she hated what the fact that he really wasn’t in his hotel room at eleven o’clock at night actually did imply.

“Oh,” Stella said, sounding forlorn even though she hadn’t honestly expected John to be in. “Can I - um -” She stopped to clear her throat of its awkward hoarseness. “Can I leave a message? Maybe?”

“Of course, miss,” the receptionist hurried to assure her warmly.

“Thank you,” Stella said, then hesitated. She was left breathing down the phone as she warred with herself about what to say. She couldn’t decide whether or not to deliver her prepared spiel to this random, unfortunate receptionist over the phone, but then the receptionist prompted her to speak and she could ruminate on it no more. Tentatively, she began, “Can you please tell him that Stella Finley called for him. That’s me. Obviously. Um - Sorry -” She shook her head at herself. “Can you just tell him that I said I’m sorry for running away from him. And that he was right. About my brothers. And - and just that I’m really sorry for being so difficult all the time and I don’t deserve to have him as a friend. Okay, that’s everything.”

The other end of the line was quiet. Stella worried, briefly, that the receptionist had hung up on her. But then she said, “I’ve got it all written down, miss. I’ll make sure to pass the message on.” There was something sad in her voice.

Stella let her eyes fall resignedly shut and breathed, “Thank you,” in reply.

She had no idea how long John was supposed to be on leave and, at first, she tried to convince herself not to care. She went to breakfast and flew her chits and wrote up her flight reports and went to dinner and went to the officers’ club and read her books and went about her business the way she always did. But she couldn’t ignore how big of a hole there was in her life; not having John there to talk to whenever she so desired left a bigger gap than she would have realised had he not so suddenly removed himself from it. A chasm, really.

He didn’t call her back the entirety of the following day.

Stella went to see Buck before he went out on his next mission.

“Finley,” he greeted her, glancing up in surprise when DeMarco, beside him, nudged him to get his attention.

“Hi,” Stella greeted in return, squinting into the morning sunshine. “I’m sorry to show up unannounced and I promise I won’t stay long, I just - do you know how long John’s going to be on leave? It’s not really any of my business and I suppose if he’d wanted me to know he would’ve told me but he left me a note and he told me to call him and I did but he didn’t pick up and now he hasn’t tried to call back - or, at least, no one’s told me that he has - so I was just wondering how long -”

“Finley,” Buck interrupted her, chuckling softly to himself under his breath. “He’ll call you back. I’m sure he’s just busy.”

“He probably doesn’t even want to talk to me,” Stella disagreed. She lifted a hand to shield her eyes from the sun, shifting on her feet. “Did he tell you what I did?”

Buck’s eyebrows furrowed. “What’d you do?”

“I ran away from him.”

“Why?”

“Because he was asking me personal questions.” Stella shook her head as though to clear it, lowered her hand from where it had been resting against her forehead and then raised it immediately right back up again when she found the sun just as strong as before. “Anyway -” Buck made to interrupt her but she kept on talking over him like she didn’t notice, “- do you know when he’s coming back? I just feel like I want to be prepared before I say something stupid.”

A short silence fell. There were only the sounds of airmen preparing for a mission, mechanics running around and ensuring each plane was ready. Behind Stella, Ken Lemmons was still fiddling around with the plane Buck was about to fly.

Buck was wearing a tiny, wry smile, silent as he simply stared at Stella in the wake of her babbling.

Stella raised her eyebrows at him, shuffling once more on her feet and resisting the urge to start tugging on her sleeves. She wasn’t sure why she felt so self-conscious - there was nothing in what she’d said that should be making him look at her like this.

“Tuesday,” he confessed at last, still with that same inexplicable smile. “He’s coming back Tuesday night.”

“Tuesday?” Stella asked. “That’s a long time to be on leave.” How long did one man possibly need to be in London by himself?

Buck shrugged. “He needed a break and he’s not needed around here until then.”

“He’s always needed around here,” Stella objected without thinking. When she heard her own words, however, she flushed so suddenly her cheeks were on fire. She clamped her mouth shut. “I mean, in the ops room,” she added hastily once she’d regained some semblance of composure.

Again, Buck chuckled under his breath. “Right,” he agreed. “But he needed a break, Fin. You ever taken one of those?”

“A break?” Now it was Stella’s turn to laugh. “No, never. As long as there are planes to ferry I’m staying here. I’d get antsy if I couldn’t fly - you saw how I was when I was in the infirmary.” She shook her head and batted the thought away. “Anyway, I’ll go now. Sorry for badgering you.”

Buck brushed her aside. “Ain’t no problem at all, Fin, you’re not badgering anyone.”

Stella smiled. Now she really was fiddling with her hands. She wasn’t sure how to tell him that she was grateful to have him as a friend - were they friends? - without coming on too strong, so all she could do was stare at him and smile.

“Have a good flight,” she offered after a beat, when she became conscious she had probably outstayed her welcome. “Come home safe and all that, okay? I’ll be lonely with you and John both gone.”

Buck rolled his eyes jovially and clapped her affectionately on the shoulder. “I’ll see you later, Fin. Take care of yourself when you’re out flying today, alright?”

“Alright,” Stella agreed. “You too, Buck.”

“Alright,” he answered her.

Stella gave him one final smile and a half-hearted, poorly executed salute before turning on her heel and heading back to the ATA hut from whence she’d come.

Tuesday. That was so far from now. She had no idea what she was supposed to spend her time doing until then. Waiting around for a return phone call, probably. How had he still not called? Had the receptionist even passed on the message? But she’d sounded so sincere over the phone. Surely he was just ignoring her. Or maybe he wasn’t even at the hotel - maybe he’d met a lovely, pretty, normal woman and was staying with her. Maybe, maybe, maybe.

Stella was twiddling her thumbs, sitting around on the edge of the airfield, when the B-17s returned from their mission. She wasn’t sure why - John wasn’t with them - but she supposed it might be nice to keep Buck company now that Curt was gone and John was away in London. He was probably even lonelier than she was with his best friend on leave.

Sixteen planes returned of the twenty-four which had been sent out. Three of those had experienced mechanical failures and come back early. Thirteen had completed a successful mission.

Eight planes had gone down somewhere over Germany.

Buck’s plane was among them.

“Fuck,” Stella wept as she sat in one of the returned B-17s that night. “Fuck!” She had no idea why she was crying except that so many people she knew were gone. Curt and Buck among her new friends, basically all of the boys she’d gone to school with, four of her brothers. Four of her brothers. She was supposed to have eight and she had four.

“Fuck!”

Stella slammed her hands into the yoke until they stung and burned, until they hurt too much to bang anymore. Then she gripped it tightly and squeezed until her hands went numb, digging her nails in until they broke and bled.

She tipped her head back until it rested against the seat behind her, shut her eyes tight and let the tears flow freely.

So many men. So many boys. How many more? John was sure to end up going too. He always talked about how good of a pilot Buck was, how he was the best. If even the best could go down then what hope did the rest of them have?

The Battle of Britain was finished and yet airmen were still being shot out of the sky like clay pigeons. The Germans were hunting all of them for sport. An entire generation of young men would be wiped out before the war was out and maybe then Stella would finally get her wish of being sent out into combat. Who else would there be to fight this pitiful, godforsaken war?

Stella’s hands were shaking when she released the yoke and pressed the heels of her palms into her eyes. Her shoulders were heaving with every sob, with every gasping, wheezing breath she drew in. How many more times was she going to have to sit in the dark and cry for a man her age or only just above, taken too soon by some nameless Luftwaffe pilot in the name of patriotism and glory?

It was on weak, shaking legs that she started the trek back to her hut, still weeping, hugging her arms tight around herself less to ward off the chill of the night and more to ward off her demons. Her feet were dragging behind her, her shoulders slumped forward, her head shaking from side to side like she was trying to reprimand the world for doing this to her over and over again.

“Stels,” John said, pushing up off the wall to her hut when she first came into view.

She didn’t hear him, just kept sniffling and sobbing, her bottom lip clasped between her teeth and her eyes full with so many tears it was like she had an endless lake inside of her.

“Stels,” he said again, louder, when she got closer. “Stella.”

She looked up, startled, and hiccuped when her next sob never came.

Through the darkness he was formidable, big and looming, somehow casting a shadow behind him even in the absence of light.

He didn’t try to approach her, just stared back at her from where he was.

There was a long moment of silence. The two of them stared at each other.

Stella’s bottom lip wobbled and she hiccuped once more. When she couldn’t help but sniffle she hastily wiped at her nose with her sleeve and accused, “You never called me back.”

“I only got your message after -” He faltered.

“After you found out about Buck?” Stella deduced.

He didn’t say anything, didn’t even nod, but Stella knew she was correct by the way his gaze hardened.

“Did you meet a woman?” she asked. She got a sick sense of satisfaction from the way he averted his eyes.

So she’d been right. He’d been staying at someone else’s place.

“Was she pretty?”

“Stels -” Again, he faltered.

Stella scoffed a low laugh. “John, it’s fine. I’m not your girlfriend. You can fuck whoever you want.”

“Stels.” No faltering, just that one word, a full sentence. All the disapproval of a father in the hardness of the consonants.

“I’ve never had sex,” she said, sniffling, wiping at her nose. “Is it any good?”

She revelled in the way she’d clearly caught him off guard. John, never unnerved by her, always expecting the unexpected, had not expected that.

“I’m not drunk,” she said, just to fill the empty air. She didn’t know if he was imagining she was but she wanted him to know she wasn’t just in case. Wanted him to know she was behaving like this out of emptiness, not inebriation. “I only had a few beers and a couple of shots. Tipsy, maybe. But not drunk.” She took an ambling step closer to him. “Are you drunk?”

“No.”

“Are you sad?”

Silence.

“I’m so sad,” she said, and laughed at herself. It was a sad laugh, the twinkle of wind chimes in an old, abandoned house, and she hiccuped right after, just so she didn’t forget she’d just been weeping. “All the time. ‘Cause - ‘cause -” The dam broke. The sobs she’d been withholding came spilling right back out of her. She was powerless to stop them, a doorstop trying to keep out a pack of angry wolves.

Wrapping her arms tightly around herself, Stella curled in on herself and started past John, pushed past him when he stepped in front of the door and then headed briskly into her hut. She didn’t feel like talking to him anymore. Didn’t feel like crying in front of him anymore.

She collapsed on her bed, boots and all, and curled up in a ball, with Ralph, her childhood teddy bear, clutched to her chest. She muffled her crying into the top of his head, tried fruitlessly to breathe in the smell of home which had long since faded away.

John sat on the bed beside hers. Alice’s bed. She didn’t turn to look but she could sense his presence. If she wasn’t crying and if she listened hard enough she thought she’d probably be able to hear him breathe.

He didn’t say anything while she cried. He didn’t even try to touch her. Maybe he feared she’d try to flee again if he did. She was so flighty, so delicate, unpredictable and liable to combust at any given moment.

She wouldn’t have fled. If he’d tried to touch her. She might have cried harder but she also might have cried softer. Had anyone ever tried to comfort her when she cried? No one ever seemed to know what to do with her.

“I’m sorry about Buck,” she managed to choke out when her tears started to slow. “I - I went to see him earlier and - and -”

“Shh,” John said simply. Finally, tentatively, he laid a hand on the centre of her back.

He had such big hands. Just one hand was on her and yet she was sure she could feel its warmth in her entire body.

She curled into it, pushed her spine back against it.

He started to rub it slowly up and down.

“My brothers -”

“I know, Stels.”

“Four of them.”

He drew in a deep breath. “‘M sorry.”

“Everyone keeps -”

“I know.”

“I don’t know what to do.”

John didn’t say anything. What was there for him to say? He didn’t know what to do either.

[mercurygray]

Thank you to everyone who tried this out last night - you all had some really cool answers and reasons and scenarios and friendships!

I'm at work today, but please feel free to keep playing with this idea if it tickles you!

If you could take ONE character from another HBO War show and put them in Masters of the Air, who would it be, and why?

John Basilone, as a pilot

Andrew Haldane, as a pilot

Carwood Lipton, as a pilot or bombardier

Herbert Sobel, as himself

Dick Winters, as a navigator, George Luz as ground crew.

If you could take ONE character from MOTA and put them in a different HBOWW2 show, who would it be and why?

Howard "Hambone" Hamilton into The Pacific, as a Marine in H Company

Gale Cleven and Bucky Egan into Band of Brothers, as paratroopers.

On my original post, @lamialamia suggested Speirs or Lipton for MOTA transplants, and @yorkshirekiwi suggested George Luz, adding that Curt Biddick would be entertaining in BoB against Guarnere, which is a show I would legitimately watch.

[evita-shelby]

No one but you

Part 2

Prev

(More like a lil epilogue for Diane and Buck)

Cw: some smut, infertility issues

She knows of his return even before he arrives in English soil.

Diane is giddy, jumping from excitement as she readies the baby for the train ride from Birmingham to Thorpe Abbotts.

John Egan Cleven is seven months old with fine blonde hair like his father’s and his left blue eye just like his as well. He is like a cherub come to life especially in his new little clothes made for when he meets his father today.

She is greeted as Mrs. Cleven at the gate of the base and Lady Di by everyone there who met her. Most of the soldiers are new, everyone she had met during her short time here was dead or captured.

It is bittersweet, so many here were anxious to see their sweethearts return from the air and some foolishly hoping they are alive still. Diane is amongst the lucky ones who have their loves returned.

And because everyone knows who Gale Cleven is, little John Cleven is immediately christened as Baby Buck.

“How do you know he’s coming?” Helen asks as she steals away when Diane sees her with the excuse of meeting the baby. The last time they’d seen each other they had comforted each other for their losses, Herbert Nash had died while Gale was captured.

“Last letter I had from him hinted at a possible escape and then the cards confirmed it.” Di lies a little because the part where they coordinated his escape can only be revealed when the war is over, or they are dead.

And sure enough, Gale arrives in a fort wearing only the clothes on his back and sporting scars on his cheeks.

“I told you; I’d come back, I always do.” he hugs them tightly as if he feared they weren’t real.

He is crying, she is as well from the overwhelming joy and sadness and relief that their separation is over.

“I don’t want you to leave me ever again.” The witch says knowing his promise is a lie.

He is a soldier, there will always be another war that takes her from him.

Despite having missed the first six months of his son’s life, it is as if Buck was never gone.

Diane does not mind living simpler than she was raised on, even before the war she would join her relatives or the Lees on their travels in her modest yellow vardo.

Life in Wyoming is quiet, a nice change of pace after living at the edge of her seat at home. Gale went back to university and she takes up classes although she had no intention of ever finishing the finance courses she purposely dropped out of at Oxford.

“I want to have another baby with you.” Gale says in between kisses as they make love on the night of his graduation. “A girl, with your brown hair and charm.”

He has ambition and genius in spades, he’s been accepted to Harvard and they’ll be moving there until he earns his doctorate in Business. He wants to be a good husband and father too and Bucky having his own little girl put him in such a mood that Di finds herself infected with baby fever as well.

Gale’s insatiable, craving to fill her with his cum any moment they have alone together. Such a generous lover that Diane cannot find a reason to deny him.

“About time, isn’t it, love?” she agrees and hopes for a little girl like the one he dreams of.

It shouldn’t be difficult, little Bucky was conceived on the first and only time Buck had finished inside her during their affair.

And yet months pass by without success, even the cards do not show a new baby anywhere in them.

“Just gotta try harder, don’t we.” He whispers as he fucks his cum back into her. Buck doesn’t give up hope as easily as she does and that keeps the sex from feeling like a chore.

Her parents had taken two years to conceive Charlie and Gale’s family wasn’t known for its size either, his sister ,Doris, had struggled conceiving and had given up hopes of having a second baby after her son was born. It could take longer than they had hoped for, if it ever happened at all.

But it does. Right when Gale Cleven becomes Doctor Gale Cleven in 1950, Diane finds herself pregnant with Elizabeth Gale Cleven, a brown haired little girl with her father’s eyes. To be named for her mother and father, same father who will return to war soon after.

“I don’t want you to leave me ever again.” Di whispers that night before he leaves for Korea.

“I’ll come back, I always do.” He promises like he always did back then.

And he does, every time.

[amberswilddreams]

leaving💔🫶

pairing : mark feehily x m!reader, nicky byrne x fem!reader, kian egan x fem!reader and shane filan x fem!reader

summary : with the lyrics of westlife's song "leaving" we will see all four members of westlife deal with someone they love leaving them or on the verge of leaving, a verse or line or two of the song describing it

warnings : tears, people leaving and others almost leaving but not actually 

a/n : this is going to take forever reformatting everything but whatever lol

mark: 

watching the clock on the wall, been a while since you called. i can't help but wait, it's late and i can't get no sleep, something's different this time, it just doesn't feel right. 

mark knew something wasn't right. it was late at night and he was focused on the clock on his wall. it had been a while since you had called and he couldn't help but just wait for you to come home. it was late at night and the singer couldn't get himself to fall asleep. he could tell that something was different this time, it just didn't feel right and he couldn't put his finger on it.

you had left for work and said you weren't sure what time you'd get off work. it was a lie, you did know what time but, you didn't want mark to know that. you had been acting strange lately and you had hoped that mark hadn't picked up on it. you had hoped that but, you knew he had picked up on it. even though he was busy on tour with westlife. he still knew how to keep tabs on you and to make sure you were okay. the reason why you were acting strange was that you had been given a promotion with your job and that meant you had to leave sligo, ireland. not just sligo but the whole of ireland entirely. and you didn't know how to deal with it. so, you requested from your boss, who gave you the promotion idea, if you could take some time with your response. after getting the thumbs up saying you could take your time with your decision, you started to weigh out your options. was this promotion a good idea? you'd be getting paid more money. you'd be getting to live in and all around europe and meet new people. you'd be regarded as one of the best employees in your workplace. but then, you had the cons of this promotion. sure, you'd be getting paid more money but, only be an extra two percent. which, wasn't really a hell of a lot more. you'd be living in and all around europe without mark and your family. and, in all honesty, getting to be regarding as one of the best employees in your workplace didn't really appeal to you. not like it did to others in your job who had been offered the same promotion or those that hadn't but thought they would be.

the reason why you lied to mark and told him that you didn't know what time you were clocking off was because you had made a decision about the job promotion. you were going to decline it and then you were going to explain to mark. explain to him everything about the promotion and why you'd been so distant the very next morning. because it was already so late and you were exhausted. however, you didn't expect mark to still be awake by the time you had come home...

"...mark, babe, what are you still doing awake? you should be asleep, don't you have a meeting with louis and the lads tomorrow?" you squeaked out worriedly, dropping your work bag to the ground

the bag dropped as you saw your wide-awake boyfriend sitting up in your shared bed, a book in his hand, telling you this was his last resort. since he had done everything else before deciding to reach for a book to read.

"i do have a meeting with louis and the lads tomorrow but that's not until lunchtime. and, it's only, 3'oclock in the morning right now. i should be fine...besides, why are you home so late? how long were you working for today?" mark responded with a shoulder shrug as he started to fight sleep and you smiled softly with a pinch of guilt

"i was working from 6'oclock to just after 11 pm. i...i was in a meeting with my boss towards the end of it because, he had, a couple of weeks ago, offered me a job promotion and i..."

"...a job promotion? babe, that's amazing! what did you say? please tell me you said yes!" mark was happy and proud of you until he saw the way your face changed and your head shake

"umm, i...i said no, marky..." you trailed off as mark pouted with confusion, placing the book down on his bedside table as he grabbed your hands

"...what, why did you say no? what was the job promotion exactly?" mark questioned, genuinely showing interest and no annoyance or anger that you had declined the offer

"i said no because the promotion was me having to leave sligo and ireland entirely and to move to live in and around europe. for, i don't know how long with only a 2% pay increase and i wasn't allowed to bring you with me. because they brought up the fact that you'd be touring with westlife the majority of the time so it didn't make sense for me to bring you. when all the other employee's who were bringing their spouses would also be doing similar things but, said no to me bringing you because of your "celebrity" job..." you trailed off, embarrassed that you had waited all this time to tell mark

but, he wasn't mad at all. he was just devastated that you were going through all of this alone. and all he was worried about was the thought that you were going to break up with him.

"...oh, babe, that...that's why you were acting so strange..." mark whispered as you sheepishly nodded your head as you moved closer as mark opened his arms for a hug

"...mhm, i'm sorry babe, i...i should have told you from the very beginning and i shouldn't have hidden it from you, i wasn't think..."

"...babe, stop it! it's okay! i could tell you were on edge and, i genuinely had no idea it was over a new job promotion. i thought you were going to break up with me..." mark trailed off in his own wave of embarrassment as that made you give him a weird look as he chuckled softly and nodded his head

"...you what? you thought i was going to break up with you? markus patrick feehily, my darling, you are wronger than wrong! i would never break up with you! i was just acting strange because i was so worried about this job promotion and how my boss would react if i said no. but, he, he understood and apologised for even offering it to me when he knew i would have most likely said no to it anyway. especially when he mentioned i wouldn't be allowed to bring you with me..." you trailed off as mark chuckled and shook his head, his hand rubbing his face as exhaustion finally took over him

"...m'sorry babe, i shouldn't have jumped to that conclusion..." mark mumbled with exhaustion as he started to fight sleep as you giggled

"...it's okay babe! but, i think it's time we go to sleep since it's nearly 3:30 and you have that meeting in the afternoon," you whispered as mark nodded his head

thankful that he had placed his book down on his bedside table so he wouldn't end up throwing it into your head or his own head in his sleep.

you quickly shed your clothes, keeping your calvin's on and slid into bed, sliding up to mark perfectly. your bodies intertwined seamlessly as you closed your eyes and within minutes you were knocked out. smiling to yourself that you stood your ground at your work and said no. no to leaving your boyfriend for a lousy job promotion that wouldn't be that good. it being in europe the only good thing about it.

nicky: 

have we broken in two? am i really gonna lose you tonight? you come walking in, tears in your eyes pretending like it's alright

you knew you had messed up and you couldn't have been any more apologetic to nicky. but, you just knew that what you did was unfixable. you and nicky's relationship had broken into two and, you were really going to lose him tonight. all because of a stupid, drunkent mistake you had made. you had watched nicky walking in, tears in his eyes pretending like it was all okay. even though you knew it wasn't. you couldn't take back what you had done. but what you could do was reassure nicky that it wasn't his fault and take accountability for your mistake. because you two had both promised each other that if either of you "fucked up" in the relationship, the both of you would take accountability and responsibility for your actions and mistakes. however, this one was the worst one you had to take accountability for. you had gone out to some pubs after a westlife concert for some celebratory drinks. and about halfway through, you had lost count of how many you had. and, you lost your husband-to-be, nicky byrne of westlife. and you, for some stupid reason, left your drink unattended. leaving for the bathroom which allowed someone to spike your drink and then that person have sex with you. which, was when you finally came to was nonconsensual. since, you clearly couldn't say no let alone yes or even explain to the guy that you were clearly engaged. engaged to be married in the next couple of months.

however, it seemed as though that guy saw your engagement ring but gave no shits. because, he didn't see nicky, your husband-to-be so, he thought it was irrelevant. and, he continued to rape you, ignoring your cries for him to stop. thankfully, when nicky saw what happened, he could tell that something wasn't right. and once you had sobered up the next day, he let you explain your side of the story. since it was the first time this situation of "cheating" had happened in your entire relationship. so, nicky didn't go straight to overthinking that you had made the choice to cheat on him.

but this was when it got heartbreaking. because, whilst nicky understood that you hadn't purposefully cheated on him. even though rape isn't classed as cheating since you were raped, he was left at a crossroads. a crossroads because he didn't know whether to let it go entirely and continue your guys' engagement and then wedding or to call it off entirely. but, after a very emotional conversation with his parents and your parents, where he broke down in tears. both sets of parents told him to go with the feeling that was in his heart, not his head. because his heart knew better than his head did. he then consulted the other westlife lads and their partners and they all said the same thing that his parents and his to-be in laws all said. so, it seemed as though nicky had made his decision. his decision about whether or not to continue your guys' engagement and relationship...

...and it was for the relationship and the wedding to be called off. because he felt as though, right now, in this very moment two months before the wedding and a month after the incident, he couldn't bring himself to marry you. because just thinking about the fact that you were put in such a compromising situation where he couldn't save you and help you get out of it made him think that in. this very season of life, he felt like because of how fast life with westlife was going, he wouldn't be able to protect you every single day. and protect you in the way he would want to protect you. and that was why he made the heartbreaking decision to call everything off. but, with the hope that maybe a couple of years down in the future, you two would reunite again. and nicky would go down on bended knee and ask you to marry him again. but, for right now, he couldn't go through with the wedding and it tore his heart into pieces. it tore his heart into millions of pieces to even tell you that but, you understood his decision and you were thankful. thankful that nicky never got mad about the incident and was everything that he needed to be for you. needed to making sure you hadn't gotten pregnant from this man or was given any std's or sti's or anything else that the man that raped you could have given to you.

so, right now, you looked at nicky for one last time. there were tears in his eyes as he had all of his bags packed ready. ready for him to leave the house that you two had bought together. just after you announced your engagement. he had assured you that you were still best friends but that he needed space. space to think and to be in westlife and that this space would also, in time, be helpful for you. he also assured that he'd be moving back in with shane [filan, westlife] and that he wouldn't stop communicating with you either. he loved you way too much to completely cut you out of his life. and you thanked him for that after assuring him that you too loved him too much to cut him out of your life as well.

"...so, this is it, nicky. you're leaving..." you trailed off as seeing nicky's teary eyes made you get teary and you hated how much of an empathetic crier you were as nicky smiled sadly

"...mhm, i'm leaving...i...i'm so sorry i wasn't there on that night. i didn't even know where you were and i panicked but, even though i panicked, i still didn't even try to look for you. not until kian found you....and i just, want to apologise for how long it took me to find you. if only i had found you sooner, this wouldn't be happening and i..."

"...nicky, don't apologise. it's not your fault at all. it's my fault for even getting so drunk to the point that i stupidly left my drink unattended in the first place. that's why i was put in that position in the first place. my drink was spiked because i stupidly gave someone access to do so. but, that's in the past and this is the present and, we need to focus on that. because if we don't focus on this moment right here, we never will and then that's just going to cause us even more pain..." you trailed off as nicky nodded his head as he wiped away a tear from his cheek

"...i'm sorry for calling off the engagement and our wedding. but, just, know that it won't be forever. i'm only leaving for a short time to reel myself back in and see what happens with westlife. but, then, i'll come back to you, i promise, i...i lo..."

nicky broke down as he tried to tell you he loved you for one last time. and you didn't do or say anything but pull him in for a hug. nodding your head, you knew what he was trying to say because you were going to say the same thing. you love(d) nicholas more than you cared to admit to anyone apart from your family and friends. you loved nicholas more than you had loved any man in your entire life. but you knew that you had to say goodbye to this love for a little bit. and only until that little bit was over and healed and then he'd come back. and then he'd propose to you all over again and then you'd have that dream wedding that the two of you had planned to have in france.

"...you don't have to say it nicholas. i know that you love me because i love you too. i love you more than i've ever loved anyone and i love you more than i would ever admit to anyone...just, stay safe babe and, have fun with the boys. and, i'll see you soon..." you tearfully trailed off and pulled out of the hug as nicky nodded his head, wiping away his tears as he took in a big deep breath

"...please keep those rings safe. it breaks my heart that i'm not bringing them with me. and please, keep yourself safe. it'd kill me if i came back to you and you were hurting still. okay, i really gotta go now but, i love you so much and i'll see you reall soon..." nicky's voice broke off at the end as he let out a sob as he shook his head and opened the door, and left

he left without turning his head to look back at you. because he knew that if he did turn to look at you, he never would have turned back again to leave. and he knew he had to leave so that he could come back to you and start it all over again. he left because he wanted to come back to you and have that wedding in france.

so he left and you just couldn't wait for the day that he was going to walk through those doors again. reintroducing himself to you as nicholas byrne, just like he did when you two met for the first time all those years ago as kids on the school playground.

kian: 

here come the sleepless nights, here come the tears i'm gonna cry. here comes the last goodbye leaving us behind, oh this can't be right

kian had been prepared for this when he shouldn't have been. he knew the sleepless nights were coming. he knew the tears he was going to cry were building up and on their way. and he was preparing himself for the last goodbye that was going to leave you and his relationship behind and how incorrect it was. it couldn't be right. he thought your guys' relationship had been perfect. but, in fact, the relationship wasn't perfect and you felt awful. you had been cheating on kian behind his back, you figured he had now become suspicious and you felt disgusted by it because you now had to confirm it. you had always told everyone that you were never the type of girl that would cheat on her boyfriend. but, here you were, pacing up and down the lounge room waiting for kian to come home. so you could confirm his suspicions that tell him the full story. and then break up with him so you wouldn't lead him on anymore. it made you sick to your stomach that you had even fallen in love with the guy that you had met that one random night in a bar after a westlife gig. the worst part was, you were all-over kian and had barely touched your drink when this guy had come over and started to flirt with you. you couldn't even use the "excuse" that you were drunk. even though being drunk is never an excuse. you were point blank sober and were sitting on your boyfriend, kian's lap when this guy started flirting with you...and you didn't stop him from flirting with you either. you let him look you up and down, touch you, and make sexual remarks whilst your equally as sober boyfriend, kian was right there and could hear every world of it.

but that was just how you and the guy had met. that wasn't when the cheating in itself started. that started when kian had nicked off to the bathroom and the guy had given you his number. gesturing you to "call him" as he dipped out of the bar to go to the next one with his horny and equally smashed mates. and, this should have been the moment you snapped out of it. the moment you ripped that piece of paper with the man's name and number on it and stayed faithful to kian. but, you didn't. you folded up that piece of paper really small and shoved it into your handbag. a shallow reminder to add that guy's number into your phone contacts later. but, for that moment, had completely forgotten about it since kian had come back from the bathroom. then, a pang of guilt struck you in the stomach. giving you the feeling of a stomach cramp. kian then noticed and told the westlife lads and their partners that the two of you were going to go home. since you no longer felt well enough to stay into the early hours of the next morning. they all nodded their heads and wished for you to feel better tomorrow. and then, you and kian left. that very same night, you waited for kian to fall asleep before you grabbed that folded piece of paper. you created a new contact with the name and number of the guy from the pub. you then ended up on the phone with him, over text messages the whole night. and only managed to get three hours of sleep tops after kian had sleepily whinged at you to go to bed and that it late.

so, after kian whinged at you to go to sleep because it was late, you did. you did because you then felt guilty again, causing another stomach cramp and curled yourself up to a very warm kian who smiled as he cuddled you back, welcoming you into his arms. and this loop went on for months. you'd spend all day texting and on phone calls with this guy you truthfully barely even knew personally. and then you'd feel guilty as soon as you remember your actual boyfriend, kian. resulting in you having the worst stomach pains like period cramps because of the fact you were cheating on kian and you were feeling so guilty about it. then, after another month, you finally decided to stop communication with the guy you met at the pub and decided to come clean to shane and his wife. because it had been said that kian had become suspicious but wasn't entirely sure. you had never felt such guilt and sickness as you did when you had to relieve all of the cheating you had been doing over the last few months. but, they told you, advised you, to confirm kian's suspicions the second you got home. and that it was just time to come clean and tell him the full truth from the very beginning. so, you did. you were going to tell kian everything and confirm what he thought wasn't true...

...and now, that's what you were seconds away from doing. you had just heard kian's car pull up into the garage. and it made you feel like you were going to puke. tears welled in your eyes as you growled at yourself. you had no right to cry because this was all your fault. it was you that had caused so much pain to kian. pain that he thought he was just overreacting over. because why should he have to doubt your love for him? you had been cheating on him consciously for months at this point and you were crying? the absolute audacity you had to start crying over the fact that you had cheated on your boyfriend. your boyfriend who was absolutely perfect and did not deserve to be cheated on. angrily wiping away at your eyes, you heard kian come in and his cheerful voice. which made more tears leave your eyes and made you furiously wipe them away again.

"...hey babe, i'm home! where are you!" kian had never sounded so happy and you wanted to die

you wanted to die because of the news you were about to tell him. news that was going to possibly absolutely destroy him forever.

"i...i'm in the lounge room kino!" you just knew that as soon as kian heard his nickname "kino" that something wasn't right

you would always call him "babe" or "love" or "darling" but, not today. and because of that sudden change in nicknames, that worried him.

rushing into the lounge room and a worried look on his face, kian was standing in front of you. you then sucked in a big breath before you let it out. kian looked mortified as he sat himself down wearily as you closed your eyes. grateful somewhat that he had chosen to sit down considering the thing you were going to tell him. the thing that was going to knock him down for six.

"what's up babe? is there something wrong? did i do anything wrong?" kian rushed out as tears already started to pool in his eyes

seeing the tears in kian's eyes made you curse at yourself for causing this as you bit your tongue.

"no...no kian, you...you didn't do anything wrong. i...i did. i did something wrong and i shouldn't have waited this long to tell you..." you trailed off as kian's eyebrows furrowed in confusion

he didn't know what you'd done and why you had waited this long to tell him. i mean, the only other thing he could think of that you had done was something he had only assumed you had done. and something that he thought he was jumping straight into conclusions over something that would never be true...except why else would you wait this long to tell him something. so, he just looked at you to tell him.

"...what did you do?" he nervously asked as he tried to hold back the tears that pooled in his eyes

you just shook your head and yelled at yourself to just say it. since you had been forced to say it by shane and his wife. otherwise, they were going to confirm kian's suspicions and you didn't want that. and neither did they because they knew that it had to be heard and confirmed from you, not them.

"i...um, remember that night a few months ago when we went to the pub after the westlife gig?" you started off carefully as you could see the cogs turning in kian's head as he suddenly nodded his head in remembrance

then the look in his eyes made you realise that he was now realising that his suspicons were true, "yeah, i do, why babe? what happened? he questioned, even though he had a strong feeling as you nodded your head and took in another breath

"okay, umm, i ask because for these last few months since...since that night, i have been talking with a man that i met that evening..." you trailed off as it looked like kian's "suspicion" once again, was wrong but, he didn't want to be that overly aggressive, over-protective boyfriend so he smiled

"...oh, okay, that's great! i'm glad you've made a new friend, what's his name? where does he work? what does he do? oh, is he funny?" kian was so excited all of a sudden, happy that his suspicion was truly wrong

but, that then broke your heart because that's the way in which you should have been talking with this man. not in the flirtaious, relationship, cheating way that you had been doing.

"that...kian, we...we haven't been talking as friends...we...we've been talking to each other in the same way me and you talk with each other. kian, i'm sorry but, i...for the last few months, i've been cheating on you with this man. and there is nothing else i can say that would ease the pain because it's my fault completely. because, i wasn't even drunk that night that i met him. i was perfectly sober and i allowed him to flirt with me whilst i was together with you. it...it was the same night that we left early because i didn't feel well. you had been suspecting correctly and you hadn't been overreacting or worrying for no reason. i allowed this man to give me his number to contact him after and i didn't rip the piece of paper up afterwards. even though i knew i was dating you. i allowed a man who was drunk, absolutely obliterated, to flirt with me and give me his number. even though i had an amazing, handsome, talented boyfriend of my own who had just gone away into the bathroom for a couple of minutes. i am so sorry kian, you truly didn't deserve to be cheated on and i am so sorry it's taken me months later to tell you the truth and to confirm what you thought was just a lie and you going crazy. i...i just got so ashamed of myself that i was getting unwell over it that it just completely spiralled out of control. and it was only until shane and [wife] gave me an ultimatum. that if i didn't tell you today that they would confirm and tell you themselves. that was when i kicked myself into gear and decided i needed to tell you..." you couldn't believe what you had just told kian

you had just confirmed the suspicion that kian had but refused to believe. he refused to believe it because he thought he was insane to believe that his girlfriend could and would cheat on him. but, you had to tell him and watching his reaction was heartbreaking. his whole demeanour changed and you had never seen him sadder.

you then looked as his hand went down to his pocket. tears streaming down his cheeks as he grabbed out a small velvet box. and you felt yourself being sick in your own mouth as kian quietly spoke up.

"...i...i was going to ask you to marry me during dinner tonight..." he sniffled as he tried to compose himself but wasn't able to as his body shook with each of his cries

"...i...i am so sorry kian. if only i could turn back time and just rip that piece of paper, i could have fixed everything. but i didn't and i can't do that. and now, i have to break up with you because you deserve to be in love with someone better. and go down on one knee to someone who won't cheat on you as i have. but, in saying that, the reason i cheated on you wasn't because you didn't love me enough or because you didn't satisfy me enough. you did love me enough and you satisfied me every single day. i was just insecure and seeing a drunk guy be nice to me put me over the edge. and i just allowed him to take advantage of me. i don't think i'll ever stop loving you kian but, i'll never expect you to continue loving me. i'll see you maybe one day again and i'd like to hope by that time, you'll be happy. and that you'll have forgotten all the hurt i'll have caused you...goodbye kian john francis egan, i truly did love you but you deserve better..." you whispered as you kissed your ex-boyfriend one last time on his head and you left him - all of your stuff already packed up in your car

the moment you left, kian broke down in sobs. loud wails leaving his body as he hugged the pillow next to him. you had just left him high and dry and now all that he was going to get was sleepless nights and days where he'd just do nothing else but cry. thankfully, shane and his wife weren't that far away when you had left you and kian's house. and they were right there as kian lifted his head up when he felt the couch dip down beside him.

looking over to shane, his eyes red and puffy, he wailed into his bandmate's shoulder, "she left me shane! i...i didn't want my suspicions to be right! i...i was going to ask her to marry me tonight..." kian wept as shane's heart broke and so did his wife's - what if they hadn't given you this ultimatum, would that have been a good thing or a bad thing?

"...i am so sorry kian. you didn't deserve that! but, you'll find someone who'll love you the same way that you love them and one day, you'll be able to go down on that knee and ask her to marry you. but, it's just not her and that's okay!" shane whispered as he held his bandmate as tight as he possibly could and kissed the top of his blonde hair

"you really think so, shay?" kian sniffled, his tears seeping into his nose as shane smirked and nodded his head as he still kept a protective squeeze to his bandmate who was like his younger brother

"i know so kian, everything's going to be fine!" shane whispered and maybe, just maybe, tonight wasn't going to be a sleepless night with shane and his wife with kian

but, he knew the moment that shane and his wife left that kian would be having those sleepless nights.

but, for tonight, he enjoyed having what would be his last proper sleep for a good while. and, he wasn't complaining because he had his bandmate and his bandmate's wife here to console him for the evening.

shane: 

but i know you're leaving, i know that smile, i can tell you've been crying. you're gonna say goodbye, i wish i could stop you, but you've made up your mind, i beg you don't go but i already know you're leaving. 

shane knew you were leaving. he knew that smile and could tell that you had been crying. you were going to say goodbye and shane only wished he could stop you. but, it was obvious you had already made your mind up. but, he was still foolish enough to beg you not to go but, he already knew you were leaving. and that those begs weren't going to sway your decision. you were leaving sligo, ireland for the other side of the world, to move to queensland, australia to reunite with the side of the family that you hadn't seen since you were at least thirteen years old. and you had also been given a job promotion in queensland, where your job's company had an office in the sunny state. so, you immediately said yes to the offer and you booked all of your tickets and packed up half of your life to move back to queensland, australia. back to live with your family there and work in queensland's office of your current job company. and, when you had told shane about this entire thing, you could tell that he wanted to do everything in his power to prevent you from leaving. but, you also knew that he knew he couldn't do that to you. not to his wife. he couldn't force you to live the high life of a pop singer's husband just because he wanted you to. he knew you were missing your family in queensland. and knew that if your job's company ever opened an office back in your original hometown in queensland, you'd go back with the drop of a hat. and that's exactly what you were doing. you were leaving to live your dream in queensland whilst shane flew around the world to live his dream in westlife.

the whole day felt strange to you and shane. you had spent the day pacing around the house. pacing making sure you had all the things you needed. things from your passport, your australian visa, your boarding ticket to that specific pack of kleenex tissues with the blue background and white clouds on it. to that specific hand sanitiser spray that you took everywhere with you. and once you were confident and felt like you had everything with you and had it all packed away in the range rover, you finally breathed out. and you then took a shower just to rinse off the sweat and the stress that this entire week of trying to pack away half your life in sligo, ireland to move back to queensland, australia had put you through.

and while the whole day for you felt strange, it was even worse for shane. it felt as though his world was stuck on the stop button whilst you were just pacing and buzzing all around him. and he was locked in a freeze frame in a movie or a theatre show. he just couldn't get himself to move from his spot as he watched you pack up nearly your entire life with him in sligo. one thing he was madly grateful for was that you two got married just months before you had come to him to tell him about the new job promotion in queensland. and how it worked with what was your original plan to just go to queensland to visit your family for a couple of weeks before returning back to sligo. back to see the westlife boys perform the opening night of their recently announced tour. that was until this job promotion became such a thing for you. such a thing that you couldn't ignore it anymore and you had to say yes to it. yes otherwise you would have never forgiven yourself. and that day when you told shane that you had said yes to the job promotion and that you'd be moving back to queensland for a minimum of two years at most, you had never seen your husband so distraught. distraught yet so proud of you before. whilst shane was devastated that the minimum time spent at this job promotion in queensland was two years, he was still inexplicably proud of the way you didn't hesitate to say yes. even though it meant that you would be leaving him, your husband, for two years and going back to your home state to work.

shane couldn't seem to take his eyes off the clock that was above him. on the wall of the house that the two of you shared. he could hear the ticking of the clock throughout his entire body and it made him shiver occasionally. he was just staring at the clock as he waited for the moment the clock would turn to 5'oclock. because that was the time that you were leaving for the airport to leave for queensland, australia. shane was obsessively staring as the clock ticked. the time passing by, 3:00pm, 3:30pm, 4:00pm, 4:30pm, 4:40pm, 4:50...until it hit 5:00pm when he heard his wife's feet come down the stairs. you had just been upstairs doing another once over check just in case. just in case there was anything you had left behind when you had found nothing. you then come down the stairs to see shane waiting at the door for you.

he was already in tears and you had prepared yourself and took in a big breath as you smiled at your husband. you could tell he was filled up with so many emotions. but, the biggest emotion he was competing with, you could tell, was pride for you. for reaching for your dream rather than saying no to it just because you wanted to settle down with shane. when you could be going back to australia and working your dream job in your home country with your family right by your side. but, the worst part was of course the fact that shane couldn't go with you because he was days from going on a tour with westlife. but, that doesn't mean that if he didn't have that tour to go on, he wouldn't have let you go alone. not at all, if he wasn't required to on this westlife tour, he'd be hopping on that goddamn flight with you. and he would be moving in to live in queensland with you for those two years you were to work in that office in queensland. but, he couldn't.

you were leaving and shane's heart was broken. he couldn't even think of anything else. not even the tour could excite him or unbreak his heart. nor could it bring him out of the state he was in. shane couldn't help the tears which welled in his eyes and then streamed down his cheeks. they fell as you two made eye contact before you smiled and opened your arms, pulling shane in for a hug.

"...so, you really are leaving, babe?" shane sniffled as you nodded your head with a small smile as you pulled out of the hug

and then, it became obvious to him that you had also been crying just like he was.

"mhm, i'm leaving shay..." you trailed off with a sigh, not really able to decipher if it was a content sigh or a sad sigh

"...i wish i could stop you, or...or change your mind but, i know i can't do that. because...because you've made your mind up and i shouldn't stop you from leaving to go back to australia...it's just...two years? can we seriously do this for two years? you in australia and me primarily in sligo except for the months that westlife is on tour? do you really think we can do it?" shane whispered as he wiped his tears away with a tissue embroidered with mini clouds on them, making you smile

he had stolen your packet of kleenex tissues with the blue background and white clouds. you did wonder where that had gone.

you smiled softly and nodded your head, "i know we can do it shay. it wouldn't be the first time we've done long-distance and we're married now. we can do anything as mr and mrs filan. i know two years seems like a long time but, i'm pretty sure during the whole two years, westlife will be on tour during the majority of the time. and, i'll be working all that time so, it'll go by so quickly that i'll be home in the blink of an eye. and, besides, it is only for two years, shay. it's not like i'm going to live in queensland for any longer than these two years. i can't live in queensland longer than two years anyway. sure, i love australia and i love my family but, ireland is my home. sligo is where i want our future kids to grow up and it's where i want to settle down when i finally decide to leave this job. but, for now, and these next two years, i'll be in queensland doing my thing. and, you'll be here and all around the uk and europe doing your thing. and it'll go by so quickly. i promise, after that, i'm never leaving again, okay?" you tried to convince shane that it was going to be okay but, you could tell from his tears and the look on his face that it wasn't going to be okay for a while

"so, you're sure i can't convince to stay and take back the offer?" shane sniffled, the tissue covering his mouth as he squeezed his eyes shut tight as you bit your lip, your own tears welling up again as you breathe out and find shane's hand to hold

"no babe, you can't convince me and even if i wanted to take back the offer, i can't because it's too late. i'm leaving shane and i can't take that back. just, please don't forget how much i love you and how i'm already counting the days until i come home and the two years are over!" you whispered tearfully as you composed yourself again as shane sniffled and sobbed softly

shane then looked up from his tissue and saw the clock. 5:20pm, your flight was due to take of at 7:00pm and you should have left a little over twenty minutes ago. but, you weren't going to leave until you got shane to stop crying. and, right at this moment, you weren't going to leave because your husband was still inconsolable. and you didn't want to leave shane in this sort of a state but, it didn't help that the clock and that time were quickly slipping by.

"it's...it's nearly 6 o'clock, you...you're going to be late babe. and i don't want you to be late. you need to leave..." shane trailed off as he sniffled and wiped his tears again with the same tissue from before as you shook your head

"...no shay, i'm not going to leave when you're in this sort of a state! everything's already in my car and we're just a few traffic stops from the airport. i'll be fine, i promise. but, i'm not leaving until you stop crying and i see you smile, okay?!" you crossed your arms over as shane sobbed out a laugh as he sniffled and again, brought the tissue to his cheeks and under his eyes as that pulled a little at your heartstrings

"i...i'll be fine babe, kian and his wife are going to come around later tonight. and then tomorrow, nicky, his wife, mark and his partner are going to join us. so, i promise, i'll be fine and i won't be alone. and i won't be crying all the time..." shane trailed off slightly, knowing that that last statement was a lie

shane was definitely going to cry all the time. and truthfully, so were you most likely. especially on that 20ish hour flight to queensland.

"...don't lie, shay. we all know that you're going to cry the entire time but, don't worry, so will i!" you whispered as you held shane's hands as he chuckled, a sob following after as he closed his eyes again

it cut you up at how hard shane was finding this. because, it wasn't the first time you guys were going long distance. nor was it the first time you'd have to be apart from one another.

"i'm sorry i can't stay babe, i wish i could but..."

"...i don't want you to stay. because, i know why you're leaving for two years and i couldn't be any prouder of you. and i know that even though you're leaving for two years, i know you're not leaving forever. and, that, after those two years, you'll be coming back and you'll never leave me again. so, go, i'll be okay, besides, kian and [wife] will be here shortly. i think i'll be alright in the few minutes of you leaving and them getting here. and like i said earlier, you'll be late if you don't leave so, go. i promise i'll be fine and, i'll ring you as soon as i've seen your plane land in queensland. i love you more than words can say and i'm also counting down the days until these two years are over. i'll see you soon..." shane trailed off as he grabbed your face and kissed you as passionately as he had kissed you since your wedding

smiling and pulling out of the kiss, you grabbed your handbag. which was the last thing you had to grab and you walked out of the door. only turning your back to look at shane once otherwise, if you had looked more, you wouldn't have run back inside that house and never gone back out. and you would have missed your flight to queensland. and you couldn't do that. not to shane because that would mean that you weren't giving yourself any other opportunities other than being a pop singer's wife. and you didn't want that and you knew that shane didn't want that for you either. so you left and minutes later at a stop light, you saw on your security camera app that kian and [wife] had arrived. and, you just knew that they would have held shane as he continued to weep as silent tears fell down your own cheeks as well as you wiped them away. focusing your concentration back on the road as you drove into the secure underground parking at the sligo airport. before finding a secure parking spot where your car would stay at for the next three years. you then got out of your car, grabbing all of your luggage that hadn't already been flown over weeks prior and walked into the airport so you wouldn't miss your flight.

and like shane promised, he rung you the moment he saw that your flight in queensland had landed. and, the tears that the both of you had put on hold had started all over again as shane was consoled by kian and [wife]. whilst you were consoled by your sister and dad.

only 729 days left to go before you would be leaving queensland and arriving back in sligo, ireland. back with your husband and all of a sudden, you couldn't wait for those 729 days to fly by. even though days earlier, you had never been more excited to move back home to queensland for two years.

fin

majority of westlife songs i swear were written to be made into fics and i'm just glad i could come up with these ideas!

© amberswilddreams, 2024

[schmweed]

City of Industry (1997)

[manonblaqkbeak]

Complicated

Fking finally lol. I’ve had absolutely no motivation to read or write these last few days, but I finally started this last night and finished it now. Here’s Day 15--a bad day, and part 3 of the mini-series i have going for this month.

Part 1  Part 2

cw: none that i can think of, but if theres anything, pls dont hesitate to let me know!

1.5k words

enjoy!! :)

Aelin had been sitting in her car for the last twenty minutes, staring at the motel door. She had no idea what she was going to say to Sam, but she knew she had to say something.

Something like, “I'm sorry that your biological daughter calls another man daddy and papa.” Maybe Aelin should have put a stop to it once Olive had started calling Rowan that, but hearing Olive say daddy in her tiny voice with a wide smile on her face made Aelin's heart flutter, and the sweet look of joy when Rowan heard her say it made Aelin think that it wouldn't be too bad.

She had got caught up in the fantasy of it all, but it was hard not to be sucked down into. She still loved Rowan and they had been dating seriously for the last six months. They had been friends for five months after she saw him at the nursery, and things had been going so damned well. Rowan and Egan had moved into Aelin's place two months ago—the four bedroom house previously owned by Aelin's parents before they moved into a small home—and she got along fantastically with Egan; he had a bit more of an understanding that Aelin wasn't his biological mother, since Rowan still had the photos of Lyria during the pregnancy, and she was determined to never replace Lyria, but when he called her 'ma' or 'Lin', her face would break into a smile so big she thought that it would be a permanent fixture on her face.

Aelin wasn't stupid, however, she knew that people thought that she and Rowan were moving too fast—namely her parents and Aedion, but when she and Rowan talked about the future, it felt solid, like it wasn't just a fanciful notion, but something real that was only a few steps away from being able to hold in her hands.

She had never been with someone that was so loyal to her, someone that cared for her in the way that Rowan did. That looked past her outer beauty and saw Aelin for who she was, and encouraged her to go for what made her happy.

It wasn't always perfect, they had arguments for time to time, but they worked it out, and that had shocked Aelin at first, that Rowan actually wanted to work together to fix the issue, that he actually communicated instead of just letting the arguments fade away. It wasn't like that at all with Chaol, part of the reason why their relationship crashed and burned.

So she hardly thought twice about what it meant to have Olive call Rowan 'daddy', that to Aelin, she was just building a family and a future, but she was starkly reminded that her boyfriend indeed was not her daughters father when Olive called Rowan 'papa' in the middle of the lunch that Sam was invited to at their place and the silence that had descended between the three adults.

Aelin almost choked on the pizza that she was in the middle of inhaling when Olive said that, her daughter sitting on Rowan's lap because she had been fussy and didn't want to sit in her booster seat. Olive and Egan were blissfully unaware of the awkwardness that was emanating from Aelin, the brown haired boy paying attention only to the TV that was playing his favourite cartoon, and Olive had simply wanted more of Rowan's attention.

Aelin glanced at Sam and found that the look in his eyes was utterly unreadable, which was unusual since Sam was easy to read, but for the first time in the years that Aelin knew him, she had no idea how to decipher his expression.

Rowan had opened his mouth, to say what Aelin wasn't sure, when Sam waved him off, and resumed the conversation revolving around the classic car that Rowan was fixing in his rare free time. So Rowan, knowing that it wasn't the right place to have that conversation, continued where he left off before Olive uttered that word that had never felt wrong before but suddenly left Aelin wanting to sink into the floor.

And when Sam had left after lunch, Aelin had decided that temporarily avoiding the topic was the best move, and after helping Rowan clear the table, Aelin had given Olive a quick bath in order to think about anything else.

All Aelin had been able to think about was what if somehow, by letting Olive calling Rowan her dad, she had doomed her daughter into developing daddy issues, that she would grow up confused on how to feel about her biological father when all her life she had called another man dad.

Aelin banged her head against the steering wheel, wondering how a good, decent day had gone to a complicated mess in a matter of hours.

She stayed there for a while, until she realised that she needed to be the adult she was and left the car, knocking loudly on the white motel door.

The door flew open and Aelin was greeted by Sam, a small smile on his face. “I was wondering how long you were going to sit out there for.” Having no idea what to say to that, Aelin stayed silent and went inside when Sam invited her in.

Aelin worried at her lip, and sat at the tiny table by the TV. She truly had no idea what to say.

Sam sat across from her and took her hands in his. Aelin looked up and found nothing but openness in his warm brown eyes. “I'm not mad, if that's what you're thinking.”

Aelin blinked at him. While Sam wasn't a violent man, she wasn't expecting that. “How?” she managed to get out after a moment. “How could you not be mad? Your daughter is calling another man 'papa'.”

“I'm hardly Olive's father, Aelin, I'm aware that I'm not the most active dad, I've seen her only a handful of times since her birth and she's nearly two. It's clear that Rowan loves her, and that she loves him. I actually saw all four of you earlier today, at the park,” Sam added. “I was feeling nervous, like I always do before I see Olive, so I went to the park to have my breakfast. I heard your laugh and I turned, ready to call out to you, when I saw that you were having a picnic and I realised that you already had a family, that Rowan and Egan are your family, and that Rowan is Olive's father in the way that counts, in the way that matters, and that I'm just an intruder in your lives.”

Gripping his hands, Aelin shook her head. “Sam, you can't think like that, you're not an intruder. You're Olive's biological father, you're important.”

“And I'll always be grateful that I had a hand in creating her, but Aelin, I want you to look inside yourself and tell me truthfully, in ten years time, who do you see by your side, Olive's side? Because I know that it isn't me.” And it wasn't, Aelin didn't to look inside herself to know that. She was already thinking deeply about her future long before Sam's visit.

“I want you to know though,” Aelin said abruptly, “that I didn't deliberately set out to have Olive see Rowan as her father, that I did talk about you from time to time, but I-I don't think that she could make the connection that the voice on the end of the phone belongs to you. But I promise that if see ever asks about you, I'll tell her, I won't hide anything from her.”

“I know that you will,” Sam said, “just maybe tell her in a nice way that she's the result of a broken condom.”

Aelin laughed, feeling light for the first time since this whole thing started. “I will. Although I think I'll have to consult Google for that.”

Sam nodded, because even he knew that there were no books that could help with that conversation. “But if she never asks about me, then don't tell her.”

“Sam—”

“If Olive wants to believe for the rest of her life that Rowan is her biological father, then I'm okay with that. I'd rather her be happy than confused. Because when I heard Olive call Rowan 'papa', it felt right, like it made sense. And I know that's how you feel, too. And I know it makes no sense, but Olive somehow just looks like she's Rowan's daughter, you know? And I don't want to get in the way of that.”

Sam was far too nice for his own good. People as kind as him were hard to find. It was a miracle that in this life that she had met two men like that.

Aelin wiped at her eyes, the tears falling suddenly and fast. “How are you so nice when your father is a piece of shit?”

Sam snorted and handed her a tissue. “Years of therapy.” He took a deep breath, and in his brown eyes, the eyes that she had once fallen for so deeply, Aelin saw acceptance. “There's also something else...I was doing some soul searching before you came over, and I...I know that I'm not on the birth certificate and that I don't really have a say—”

“Sam, of course you have a say. Like I said earlier, you're Olive's biological father. You might not be on the birth certificate, but if you have opinions, then you can share them with me, I won't bite your head off.”

Sam gave her a tiny smile. “And I appreciate that, I do. But what I was going to say is this: if ever in the future Rowan wants to adopt Olive, then you and he have my blessing.”

Aelin stared at him for a long moment, letting the words sink in, and then the tears started again and Aelin's body shook with the force of her sobs. Because if Sam's father wasn't Arobynn, then she would have had the family that Sam was wholeheartedly accepting that she had with Rowan. And that he was willing to stand aside to let Olive have the father that she deserved.

Sam came over to her, hugging her to him as Aelin sobbed into his shoulder, running his hand up and down her back. Aelin had never let herself cry like this in front of him, she never really liked crying like that, but she couldn't help herself and couldn't stop herself for a long while. It was a good ten minutes later when the tears slowly subsided and Sam slowly pulled back, giving her a once over with his kind eyes.

“Are you okay?”

“Yes,” Aelin said, loudly blowing her nose with a handful of tissues. “I just...I wasn't sure what I was expecting to happen here tonight. Never did I think that you would offer something like that, Sam.”

“I would be just like Arobynn if I forced you to be unhappy, and I never want to be like him.”

“You're not,” Aelin said, “you'll never be like him. I hope one day, Sam, you'll be able to have a family of your own.”

Sam kissed her cheek, the gesture sending her back to when they were teenagers. “I hope so, too.”

Aelin stayed for a little while longer, just talking and reminiscing about the old times. And when she went home, she kissed him on the cheek, thanked him again, and told him that he would always have a special place in her heart, because without him, she wouldn't have Olive.

Sam repeated the sentiment, and wished her nothing but happiness with Rowan, and that he was glad she found him.

Aelin was glad she found Rowan, too.

X X X X X X

Aelin walked into her house, and was greeted by two ecstatic children, acting like they hadn't seen her for years. Aelin smiled and gave them their hugs that they desperately wanted. She went over to the kitchen counter where Rowan was preparing dinner—grilled cheese, that she knew very well had veggies hidden within, because Egan acted like vegetables were the world's most evil thing to exist—and kissed him on the cheek. He kissed her temple in response, and Aelin breathed in the homely scent of him.

“How did everything go with Sam?” he asked, moving about the kitchen to start the side salad.

“Great, and there's something very important that I have to tell you.” Rowan raised a silver brow, but Aelin kissed his cheek again and promised to tell him later.

X X X X X X

Aelin was more than ready to climb into bed and fall asleep, but she needed to tell Rowan about her conversation with Sam, so when they got settled and comfortable, Aelin told him what her ex-partner said.

Rowan was stunned for a moment, and she hadn't even told him the best part. “Truthfully, I was mentally preparing myself for Sam to punch me in the face after lunch, but to hear what he said to you, I feel like a fool for ever thinking that he would resort to that.”

“If he was more like his father, he definitely would have. But Sam is the polar opposite of Arobynn, and truly wants nothing more than for people to be happy.” Rowan smiled and took Aelin's hand in his, and Aelin relished in the comforting touch. “And there's something else,” Aelin added, and it was ridiculous, but a tiny part of her was nervous, that told her that Rowan wouldn't want Sam's blessing, that he wouldn't want to legally be Olive's father. “Sam told me that if you ever wanted to adopt Olive, then you have his blessing, because he wants nothing more than for Olive to be loved and cared for, and he sees that you're the one that can help provide her with that.”

Rowan looked at Aelin, and her own eyes watered when she saw that his were filling up. “I would be honoured to do that, Aelin. It would make me the happiest man in the world to have that privilege. And after we're married, we can start the process, and maybe one day, when Egan's a little older and he has a better understanding, you can adopt him too, because I know you like him just as much as I love Olive.”

“I do,” Aelin said, choking up. “That would be—” Aelin stopped, her mind finally catching up with what he just said. “Did you just propose to me?”

Rowan cracked a smile and kissed her. He pulled away just so, their noses touching. “Not yet, I haven't found the right ring.”

Aelin laughed joyfully, even as her tears overflowed. “Just to let you know, I'm not helping you out this time. You'll have to figure it out on your own.”

Rowan kissed her again and again. “Don't worry, I've already got a few choices in mind.”

“Good. Make sure its sparkles.”

“I will,” Rowan said, and took her into his arms.

It wasn't too bad of a day, after all.

[safflowerseason]

i just want you for my own

To my faithful and wonderful Bring Me to Light readers, Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays ❤️🎄My gift to you is some shameless fever-dream holiday BMTL fluff. 

Premise: Dan teaches Cassidy to ice skate. Amy watches. Set three months before the events of Bring Me to Light. 

December 19th, 2024

Amy’s ass is frozen. 

She’s wearing approximately forty layers of clothing—long underwear underneath her jeans, one of Dan’s expensive wool sweaters over whatever top she had pulled on that morning, a down jacket, a thick scarf and gloves, two pairs of socks, and somehow it still feels like her body and the bench beneath her have fused into a single ice block. 

It’s fucking cold in December in upstate New York.

“Whose idea was this fucking tour, anyway?” She had grumbled to Liz that morning, as they made their way to a visit with some rangers at Adirondack State Park. 

Liz had laughed, looking offensively cheerful. “I believe that would be yours. And no, I don’t accept your resignation.” 

Amy chose to ignore the fact that her boss was right. (It was too cold to be reasonable). The Senate was out of session, Liz wanted to do something constructive before Christmas, and so Amy had proposed a miniature five-day tour of northern New York. Winter tourism was a huge part of the local economy up there; they could visit some state parks, talk about the new tourism initiative Liz wanted to start, and court some big-timber titans. Liz could bring her family along, there would be plentiful opportunities for holiday photo-ops with the locals, and and they could all try to forget that in January, Jonah fucking Ryan would be inaugurated as the next president. 

With D.C. a fucking bleak place to be right now, Dan had elected to come along as well. His parents were in Florida, so there was no risk of running into them. And the trip gave him an excuse to buy a few dozen high-end winter sweaters that made him look like a rugged outdoorsman, even though they were only going to be gone for five days, and even though Dan never liked to go anywhere he couldn’t schedule an emergency spa appointment within twenty-four hours.

If she thinks about it, it’s really Dan’s fault Amy’s stuck here, sitting on this frozen bench for what feels like hours and hours, but according to the time on her phone, has actually only been forty-five minutes. 

The ice-skating was his idea, after all.

“Mommy! Mommy, look at me! Look at me!”

Well, it was Cassidy’s idea first. But Amy blames Dan for going along with it. 

“I’m looking!” Amy forces her numb lips into a smile and removes one gloved hand from where it’s shoved deep into her pocket in order to wave at her daughter, who is tentatively making her way around the picturesque ice rink. “Oh sh—Cassie, watch out!”

Distracted with trying to catch her mother’s attention, Cassie trips over an invisible dip and goes tumbling into the ice, sliding into the side of the rink. Quick as a flash, before Amy can blink or yell or move, Dan swoops out of nowhere in a shower of ice flakes and plucks Cassidy up off the ice, so fast that her shriek of dismay turns into a shriek of delight. 

Amy gets her breath back. The way Dan moves over the ice, the way he neatly balances Cassidy against his side, so lightly and yet so sure, thaws her slightly. 

As befitted many upper-middle class kids from upstate New York, Dan was familiar with a variety of ice sports…but then he went through puberty and decided, at the age of fourteen, that he couldn’t risk anything happening to his precious face (which, as a forty-three year old adult man, he still referred to unironically as the moneymaker), so he dropped ice hockey in favor of golf. (It isn’t even a real fucking sport, if you ask Amy). 

But he could still skate.

They had been walking back to the hotel, after the last event of the week. Cassidy, learning how to pick her battles based on the rhythms of her parents’ work schedule, chose that moment to start exclaiming over the ice rink, which was still decently populated with skaters even in the late afternoon. 

Amy was more than ready to shut her down, go back to the hotel and thaw herself in front of the fire in the hotel lobby until dinner, but…Dan got that eager gleam in his eye whenever a valuable social media opportunity presented itself, and decided that sure, there was time for a quick skating lesson. So here Amy was, freezing her extremities off in the dying sunlight, curling and uncurling her toes inside her too-tight skates, and trying to look appropriately interested whenever Cassidy called her name. And she can’t check her email or do anything real on her phone—besides take a few pictures, even though Dan’s already snapped enough for a week’s worth of Instagram Stories—because that would require taking off her gloves. 

(Dan insisted on renting her a pair of skates as well, even though she point-blank refused to get on the ice. She had gone a few times as a kid and a teenager, and…well, those experiences had basically cured her of any interest in the sport. Dan had rolled his eyes and snarked, “Suit yourself, have fun freezing your ass off.”)

Dan has set Cassie back down on the ice, but unnerved by her fall, she’s clinging tightly to his hand and looks stubbornly unwilling to let go of it at any time soon. Amy catches a rueful, indulgent smile on Dan’s face as he maneuvers in front of her to make sure she’s got her balance. He bends over to talk to her and Cassie tips her head to his, seeking reassurance. Her hair is starting to come loose from the braids Amy had hastily done up this morning, in the car on the way to the park rangers’ headquarters, and Dan tucks the stray strands behind her ear and rearranges her hat before straightening up. Amy can’t hear what he’s saying—something cheesily inspirational and transparently bullshit, no doubt—but whatever it is, Cassie furrows her brow in increased determination (or suspicion, Amy can’t tell which.) 

Dan starts skating backwards, still holding Cassie’s hand, pulling her along. When she seems slightly more at ease, he lets go. Cassie doesn’t stumble or lunge for his hand, just keeps her eyes fixed on her dad, giant and trusting, and Dan grins and nods approvingly. He circles around Cassie a few times, which makes her glare at him and pick her up her own speed, and eventually Dan falls back a few paces and lets her skate ahead of him, her strokes over the ice becoming more confident again. Amy watches, forgetting for a moment how cold she is as the familiar (and fragile) little glow spreads through her. Even though there are much bigger and much faster skaters on the ice, Cassidy is fearless again, shaking off Dan when she thinks he gets too close. 

(Amy is suddenly seized by how big Cassie has gotten in the last year, how fast she’s grown, and yet she is still so, so small, so small and so breakable. And every day Amy lets her out into the world, a world which is shitty and unfair and broken, and she wants Cassie to be able to face it head on, unflinching…but she never, never forgets what that means. Dan doesn’t get this, doesn’t want to understand it or think about it, but Amy never forgets.) 

“Ames…Earth to Amy…” 

Amy blinks, and everything comes back into focus. Dan has skated over to her side of the rink, and he’s now standing just a few feet away, waving a hand at her exasperatedly.

“Hi.” he says when she meets his gaze, grinning in what he obviously thinks is a winning manner.

“What?” she asks him, suspiciously.

He holds out a hand to her. “Come here.” 

“Dan…” 

“It’s fun. You look miserable sitting there, and it’s making me look bad.” 

“No.” she repeats. “I’ll look ridiculous.”

“Yeah, but next to me, it’ll just come off as cute. I’ll hold your hand and everything, so you won’t risk physical injury.”

When she doesn’t move, he rolls his eyes and tries again. 

“Ames, come on,” he repeats, cajolingly. “You’ll warm up, if nothing else.” 

Ultimately, that’s what prompts Amy to uncurl her fingers from around the edge of the bench. At least Dan is always ten degrees warmer than she is. Tentatively, she stands and wobbles her way to the edge of the ice. Dan looks angelically patient, which means he’s just holding back some quip about how awkward she must look. She grasps the railing with one hand and reaches for Dan with the other. His gloved hand is firm and warm around hers, and he smiles encouragingly. 

“There you go.” he says, as she steps onto the ice. It’s been years since she’s done this, and it takes a second to figure out how to bend her knees the right way and propel herself (in minute increments) across the slippery surface. After a few moments, Dan winces dramatically.

“Okay, relax, Amy, you haven’t squeezed my hand this hard since you were contracting in the back of that Secret Service limo, and there’s no fucking way this is harder than that.” 

“And what the fuck would you know about it?” Amy mutters, finally secure enough to raise her eyes from her toes. “Where is Cassie, anyway?”

“She’s fine, she’s over there.” Dan replies, gesturing carelessly. Easily visible in her bright red scarf and matching hat, Cassie is studiously skating ahead of them. “She’s having a lot more fun than you are. Maybe…we should do this again. We can go to the sculpture garden rink by the National Gallery.” 

Amy makes a face. “Haven’t you gotten enough holiday-themed content today to satisfy the salivating horde of delusional “Eager-for-Egan” fans who stalk you across the city?”

“Those crazies? Please, they can’t get enough of me in flannel.” 

Amy laughs in spite of herself, but it quickly dissolves into a shiver. “Jesus fuck, Dan, no wonder you moved south.”

“It gets cold in D.C. too, Ames.”

“Not like this. I could see my breath indoors this morning.” 

Without warning, Dan slides backward over the ice in a dramatic arc, pulling her after him and leaving the railing far behind. Amy squeaks in rage and practically slams herself into his chest, clutching at the open collar of his down jacket in order to regain her balance. 

“Dan!” she hisses when she can speak, her heart pounding in her throat. “What the fuck is your problem?!”

Dan just laughs, close enough now that the sound vibrates through her. “I’m just trying to warm you up with a little adrenaline rush.” 

“It didn’t work, you sociopathic asshat. I’m still freezing and my fucking lungs have stopped.” 

In response, he just slides his hands underneath her coat to grip her waist more firmly, pulling her in so she’s practically flush against him. “Damn, guess I’ll have to try something else.”

“You’re such a dumbass.” Amy says, but doesn’t move away, because moving away means falling over, and also because he’s so warm and broad and solid, like this, and she can’t resist the urge to lean into him fully. “You could have just told me you wanted to feel me up on ice skates.” 

Dan’s smile gets even more shameless. “But my way is more fun.” 

Winter looks very good on him. His freckles stand out more in the cold, his cheeks are flushed, and the icy breeze has mussed up his hair, but she has no intention of telling him so (she secretly likes it when it’s less perfect…it reminds of her of Dan on early weekend mornings, when he wanders around their kitchen, making coffee in an old Rangers sweatshirt with his hair sticking up at the back, the version of Dan only she gets to see).

Even after…even after all this time, even a year and a few months of being married, for fuck’s sake, the heat of his gaze still makes her blush, so she looks away from him, out over the rink to the landscape beyond. They’re staying in some picturesque little town adjacent to where they hosted the Winter Olympics, and beyond the landmark hotel and the main street, there’s not much else…just the frozen lake and hills dotted with trees spreading out around them, covered in pristine, undisturbed snow, tinted gold from the sun that’s just started to set. Underneath the clamor and swoosh of the ice skaters, Amy can hear the wind gushing around the giant trees. There’s a stereo system somewhere weakly pumping out Christmas carols, and the whole scene is just too much of a fucking postcard to be real. 

“It’s so pretty here, it’s…gross.” she grumbles, more to herself than to Dan, but he laughs anyway, running a hand up and down her back. 

“Think you’ve warmed up enough to catch up to Cassie?”

“If you’re nice.” she replies, warningly, but lets him step back and take her hand. They fall in line with the other skaters, and Amy lets Dan lead her over the ice, satisfied that he’s not fucking with her anymore. This way, she doesn’t have to worry about losing her balance or tripping over her own feet. Ahead of them, Cassie appears completely absorbed in her skates…Amy wouldn’t be surprised if she’s temporarily forgotten that her parents exist.

“How do you think the week went?” Dan asks, after a while. 

Amy shrugs. “Fine. I’d have liked a bigger crowd on Tuesday, but overall it went well. She can fucking code-switch like nobody’s business…talk about folksy.”

“She got better press than Jonah all week.” Dan muses. “That ass clown is at least going to lower the bar for public appearances. The regular party donors are going to be fucking desperate for someone who can stand up and speak in coherent sentences at the same time.”

“Sure, if the Tanzes don’t keep buying them off.”

He shrugs that off. “Whatever, the novelty of that will fucking wear off…we can think of a way to make it backfire.”

“Yes, because people frequently get tired of money.” Amy retorts, but not too meanly…she knows he’s just trying to buck her up. Dan opens his mouth to respond, but then they’re both distracted by Cassidy, who has slowed her pace significantly and has started to wobble as a result.

“Steady there, kid.” Dan calls, and drops Amy’s hand so he can swish over and prevent her from falling again. 

“Mommy!” Cassie exclaims, ignoring her father. “You came skating too!”

“Uh huh…” Amy replies, through a clenched smile, and heroically manages to skate over to the two of them without toppling to the ground. Up close, Cassie looks simultaneously exhilarated and exhausted, the cold highlighting her china-doll looks, sooty eyelashes drooping over robin’s egg eyes. Her cheeks are pink like Dan’s, and her nose is running slightly from the cold. Amy fishes in her pocket for a tissue. “What do you think of ice-skating, huh?”

Cassie blows out her breath, leaning dramatically against Dan. “It is hard.” 

Dan reaches out and reties her scarf, which is almost trailing on the ground. “What?! But you make it look so easy.” 

“Daddy…” she whines, clearly over it, and there’s a high-pitched, fractious note in her voice that Amy recognizes as a warning sign. “Can I see the phone?”

She wants to see the pictures he took, they both know, and Dan just grins while Amy refrains from rolling her eyes.

“You can look at them during dinner.” she answers, before Dan can give in. “It’s too cold just to stand here looking at a phone.” 

“Then I want to go.” her daughter pouts in response. 

“Sure,” Dan agrees, affably. Too affably. “Lead the way, kid.” 

Cassidy sighs, like she’s responsible for everything, and with a little push from Dan, starts skating off in the direction of the hotel. Without further ado, Dan grabs Amy’s hand and follows.

She looks at him suspiciously. “You gave in with minimal teasing…what’s up? It’s not like our room is that nice.” The hotel is an old Olympic resort, but they’re staying in the most modest room since they’re technically working. 

Dan shrugs, not looking at her. “The sun’s going down, and I’m hungry, and there’s only so many times I can watch Cassidy make a circle around the ice before it gets boring…”

“And…” Amy prompts him, not believing any of those excuses for a second. 

“And…after dinner, I think a little soak in the hot-tub is required, so we don’t wake up with sore muscles tomorrow, so I want to make sure there’s plenty of time for that.”

“What the fuck are you talking about? I’m not setting foot in whatever suspicious public facility—”

“Well, for your information, Ames, I upgraded us this morning.” Dan interrupts, looking immensely pleased with himself. “We’re off the clock, so there’s no need to pretend to be fiscally responsible or whatever the fuck for Liz’s voters, and we’re not leaving until tomorrow…I figured one night in the Olympic Suite would be suitably festive.” She must look completely dumbfounded, because he adds, “There’s a private balcony, complete with a Jacuzzi and complimentary champagne and a pretty nice view of the lake.”

Amy opens her mouth and then closes it again, staring at Dan in disbelief. She had been expecting to get back to the hotel, crank up the shitty heater in the drafty room they were sharing with Cassidy, bury herself in every available blanket, and shiver until their flight tomorrow morning. Now…she gets to actually relax, to really shake off the long week with Dan, with heat and champagne and privacy…(and of course they’ll talk about work, but afterwards…)

“…You’re welcome.” Dan says into the silence, smirking all over his stupid face, clearly delighted to have surprised her. 

“…what about Cassie?” Amy manages to ask. The evening that she’s suddenly and vividly picturing does not involve a needy and inquisitive five-year-old.

Dan rolls his eyes. “Why else do you think I’ve been tiring her out for the past hour? She’ll sleep like a fucking rock tonight, and we’ll be free to…entertain ourselves.” 

Amy raises an eyebrow, trying hard to conceal just how pleased she is. “Dan, I just…this is such an unprecedented degree of strategic thinking from you…it’s truly a Christmas miracle.”

“Fuck off.” Dan retorts, but he wraps an arm around her shoulders as he says it, pulling her into him. Amy shifts so her cheek rests more firmly against his shoulder. He smells like his cologne and the outdoors, fir trees and crisp snow and damp wool, and she can feel him smiling against her hair, and right now, Amy feels as light as a snowflake. In the distance, Cassidy’s red scarf flutters like a cardinal’s wing, as she turns back to look for her parents.

“And don’t worry if you haven’t gotten me anything yet, I can think of a number of appropriate thank-you presents.” 

She laughs. “Warm me up first, jackass.”

[swifty-fox]

Do you have any Clegan fic WIPS or idea/hcs you haven't shared yet? Getting #Clegan withdrawal :'(

lemme rustle through my bag of goodies

I've got my Sci Fi Au:

Entry Log 2043

-DateStamp: 14th July 5399

-Location: DeepSpace Sector G8677-65HG-76789_I

-Personnel File: Maj. J.C. Egan (Zoot Suit) 

Recording_

“This is Major John Egan, callsign ZootSuit, aboard the vessel M’lle ZigZag. Today is the dawn of my final day of exploration, putting an end to a sixteen-month foray into DeepSpace. Initial findings reveal little of note. A few developing stars and planets; an asteroid belt; and a total of six planets, two of which I will be recommending for a second more thorough exploration of due to planets possibly location being within the ‘Goldilocks Zone.’ I look forward to whiskey, solid food and to breathe air that isn’t recycled from a fucking can. I can’t wait to fuck my husband-”

John pauses.

“Ah, computer erase the last seven words. Reasoning: Irrelevant to mission. I will be entering Hyperspace within the hour, once I hit proper trajectory to slingshot around the primary sun.”

He taps the record button to end the log, carefully labeling the file and placing it in a folder with the few thousand other logs he’d recorded over the last year and a half. A verified library of data, observations and the occasional love-letter. A year and a half of research; one of the longest expeditions ever undertaken by any pilot. Considered bold by some and risky by far more. Deep space played with people's minds, the long stretches of isolation broken up only by Hypersleep creating the perfect recipe for a light case of mental instability.John had trained for this, ran through thousands of psychological tests and millions of scenarios. There was not a person in the universe more capable of this task. 

John rubs his jaw, feeling the scratchy beard and spins out of his pilot's chair, leaving the computer to guide the craft. 

Two Fingers down(Bikeriders AU)

“I don’t like liars.”

“I’m an honest liar,” John whispers against his lips

“You cheated.” Gale accuses.

“Cheating implies I was playing to win. Throwing the game to lose on purpose is different.” his hands fumble at Gale’s belt buckle, the metallic sound of it undoing loud in the alleyway. Gale sucks in a ragged breath.

“That’s not-” Gale groans as John gets his free hand around his dripping cock, “-even remotely what it implies. I don’t fuck cheaters.”

“You’re gonna let this cheater fuck you.”

“Is that so?” Gale's hips buck into the tight clench of John’s fist, his pubic hair darker than the rest, almost a sandy brown color.

“Yeah, if you call that cheating then I’m disqualified. Winner-” John bends over to spit onto the glistening head of Gale's dick, rubbing the saliva down his shaft, “-Takes all.” 

I've got my Pirate John AU which is just concepts at this point LOL

Little Beasts is still happening! Here's a snippet from part 4:

“You’re really hitting me in the ‘yes daddy harder’ places with that face you’re pulling right now,” John says, swirling his finger through the over-complicated mess of a coffee in front of him.

It tasted awful, but he ordered it just to see if the kid behind the counter could actually pull it off.

Chick continued to keep his ‘yes daddy harder’ expression, which was in fact a look of profound exasperation and disappointment. And didn’t really awaken anything in John, but he found it plenty amusing to see the way the older mans eyes narrowed ever so slightly.

“I could have you thrown in jail today if i wanted, you know,” Chick Harding takes a sip of his own soy latte, “I could make up a reason, I hold your life in my hands.” 

“That’s a misuse of power and a miscarriage of justice, and also you like me. I’m your favorite little POW just admit it.” 

“Someone’s going to pop you one in the mouth, mocking veterans like that.”

John spreads his hands wide in a dont shoot the messenger sort of gesture “hey, I can claim it. My great gandpops was a POW. Got his flight jacket and everything hanging in my closet. This is my history.” 

“I think I should arrest you.”

John grins at him.

“You been meeting with Brady?” Chick asks, setting his coffe down with a pleased hum, begins folding his utensils wrapper accordion style until the cheap paper has become nothing more than a little square. It’s the same thing he does every time, restless fingers the only betrayal that the parole officer wasn’t just a robot.

Which John already knew was false. He’d looked the guy up the moment he’d had access to internet again. Had a neatly sealed Juvenile record and an exemplary military record which meant the guy was both secretly interesting and also probably a little batshit.

“Every couple weeks just like those fascist fucks tells me too. Just like i meet you every six weeks and we pretend I’m in need of babysitting and you pretend you’re not hoping that college boy will finally write his number on your coffee cup.” John leans forward on his elbows,the table creaking under his weight  “I could do it for you, if you’re too shy.” 

Chick doesn’t give him the satisfaction of blushing, but John can see the way his sholulders straighten slightly.

“He even looks like me a bit too. Curly brown hair,” John smooths his fingers across his mustache, “ the sexy landing strip. You sure you’re not displacing some sexual attraction?”

“You are the devil incarnate. That barista means nothing to me.” 

“You shouldn’t be so grumpy, meeting your favorite little felon.” 

“Only person around here that seems grumpy is you, Egan.”

“Me?” John stretches, tilting his chair back with one foot until he nearly topples backward, “Whay’ve I got to be grumpy about? I’ve got a shitty dead-end job, a dying grandma who, by the way, isn’t actually even my grandma, and i’ve got to check in with some middle aged drill sergeant with a thing for some guy who looks like Sean Cody’s next up and coming.” 

“I don’t know what that even means.”

“Oh you so do.” John smiles.

[cetaitlaverite]

Anything to Anywhere

Masters of the Air - Bucky Egan x OC

masterlist is here <3

07. Nothing to Worry About

Stella’s eldest brother, Will, was gone by the time she returned to the officers’ club. If John wasn’t right beside her when she was looking for him she might have assumed she’d imagined seeing him at all, but he was and she hadn’t. So John kept her company as she circled the entirety of the club looking for him and didn’t make any jokes at her expense when she decided he must have just left, the dance he’d promised her forgotten just like the many letters she’d sent him and never received a reply to.

For some reason, even as she stood in the corner of the club, her cheeks hot with humiliation and a sick feeling in her stomach, Stella felt the need to defend Will to John. He hadn’t said anything against him but his eyes were sad as he looked down at her, watching her eyes still scanning the room as if she expected her brother to reappear.

“He’s busy recently,” she said abruptly when she still hadn’t found him. “Will, I mean,” she explained, since neither of them had said anything for a while beforehand. “But he’s a great brother. He always looked out for me when we were growing up, which he didn’t need to do. Always remembered my birthday and made sure I got a present. He taught me to dance, too, and to fly.”

John didn’t say anything, but his eyes were still sad.

It made Stella inexplicably angry. “Stop looking at me like that,” she snapped. “I’m not a kicked puppy. He’s just busy. I’ll probably see him tomorrow.”

John didn’t flinch away from her. In fact, he didn’t even blink. He just asked, “Why didn’t your parents get you presents on your birthday?” and patiently awaited her reply.

He didn’t seem at all surprised when she pushed up off of the wall, a glare on her face. “You don’t need to feel sorry for me,” she hissed. “In fact, I’d really prefer it if you didn’t. And we’re not friends. You don’t get to ask me personal questions like I’m about to confess my life story to you and cry into your arms.”

“Hey,” John answered her softly, taking gentle hold of her arm when she made to move past him, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to offend you. I just - I just wanted to make sure you knew that you could talk to me if you wanted to. That’s it, I swear.”

Stella’s throat was tight. Her heart was beating fast. The palms of her hands were sweaty and she could feel every inch of every bit of fabric touching her skin right now, and all of them were itchy. She wanted her hair off her neck and her necklace off, wanted her shoes and socks off, too, and a blanket tucked over her head.

So she wrenched her arm out of his grip, blinking fast to dry her eyes out, and said, “I don’t want to talk.” She kept her chin up and her shoulders back, her eyes set firmly ahead of her as she stalked out of the officers’ club. Not once did she look back.

Stella hadn’t genuinely believed Will would stick around so she could see him the next day but she was still somehow hurt that he hadn’t. He left a note for her with one of the kitchen staff, who gave it to her when she sat down to breakfast.

‘Had to run. Duty calls. Speak soon. - Will’

Stella stared at it, her throat dry, her fingers clenched tightly around the ripped edges of the paper. She quickly buried it in her pocket and made a start on her breakfast, even though she’d now lost her appetite.

When the rest of the ATA pilots arrived to breakfast, she plastered on a smile and greeted each in turn, then asked each of them which chits they were flying today. Surreptitiously, she was trying to work out whose assignments she could take on to make sure she didn’t have a spare moment to sit and suffocate inside her own head today.

Jessop gave her one of his, likely only because he suspected she was desperate. Martinson gave her one of his, too, likely only because he didn’t like flying nippy fighters like the de Havilland Mosquito he’d been assigned and was always trying to hand them off when he got the chance. Those two extra assignments, combined with the three Stella had started the day with, meant she was set to be perfectly busy. She wouldn’t be stopping back at Thorpe Abbotts for any meaningful length of time before dinner.

Her flying was reckless that day. It did her no credit. She’d been a good pilot when she’d first joined the ATA and had quickly become an excellent one, working her way through the different classes of plane until she could fly them all. There wasn’t a single plane which scared her, even if she’d never flown it before and had to rely on her pilot’s notes. There wasn’t a single assignment she would ever back down from. But today she might as well have been a rookie for all the finesse of her flying, making stupid mistakes which cost her inches of runway and pressing buttons which set her off course.

She didn’t altogether care very much. She wasn’t flying anything big enough to warrant a flight engineer coming with her and no one she knew or cared about impressing was around to see her. But she cared when she was having a particularly rowdy argument with the brand new Bristol Beaufighter she was flying, a twin engine heavy fighter and occasional light bomber, and accidentally veered out of course. She cared a lot when that course took her right overhead some anti-aircraft guns and they started firing on her.

The Beaufighter was perhaps the absolute worst plane she could have been caught in under fire. It was slow, heavy, and sluggish, only reluctantly responded to her commands, and was a nightmare to land even when it wasn’t damaged.

Being the only plane in the sky for a couple of AA guns to fire on meant it didn’t stay undamaged for long.

Fresh out of the depot and the first shot punched a hole in the wing.

“Fuck!” Stella screamed as the first almighty bang rang out. The plane jolted to the left. Her body was wrenched straight out of her seat on impact.

As soon as she righted herself and the plane, Stella commanded it to go faster, but the plane wasn’t built for speed. The next time a hit met its target it hit one of her engines. The impact sent glass shattering over the side of her face and arm as she instinctively steered away from it. A gust of icy air slapped her in the face.

“Fuck!” she shouted again. “Fuck, fuck, fuck!” She was half an hour away from the airfield she was supposed to be ferrying to if she managed to maintain speed. With one engine and one wing on fire, maintaining that speed would be impossible.

Either the AA gun operators finally realised the plane was British or they realised it was carrying no bombs or ammunition, because one more lazy shot was fired and went whizzing up right in front of the Beaufighter before exploding just above it, and then the flak stopped. That final shot set the plane off kilter again, had it favouring the side with the working engine, and Stella was powerless to right it again.

She would have to fly this plane on one engine and half a wing and pray, pray, pray that when it decided it was going down it went down somewhere safe.

There was no way she’d be getting it to the airfield it was intended for. Even if she could, her map was cut to pieces by glass and speckled with red, unreadable. She wouldn’t be able to find the bloody place.

But she knew where Thorpe Abbotts was. She could find Thorpe Abbotts from anywhere in the UK without a map, knew the skies to and from it like she knew the back of her hand and her reflection in a mirror.

It took her twenty minutes to get there. Twenty minutes at an agonising pace, with white-knuckled hands on the yoke and a sickening, metallic taste in her mouth and sweat pouring down her back, gathering under her arms, dripping into her eyes. Twenty minutes with one engine and a gaping hole in one of the wings. Twenty minutes with no map, hardly any fuel, and by the time she was nearby, so little energy left in her body she was surprised she was still awake.

Stella took to screaming intermittently to make sure she stayed alert. If she dozed off for even a second then she and this plane were both going down and never getting back up again, and neither was whoever was unlucky enough to be beneath them at the time.

She spent the final ten minutes of her journey counting to twenty and then letting out a croaky, guttural scream. Counting to twenty, screaming. Counting to twenty, screaming. Over and over and over again. And when her radio, fuzzy and crackling and dying a slow, painful death, popped its way into consciousness as one of Thorpe Abbotts’ wireless operators got ahold of her, Stella let out a scream again, one of relief and exhaustion combined this time.

“Thorpe Abbotts Airfield to unidentified Bristol Beaufigher, requesting pilot details, over.”

“Leroy?” Stella asked, breathless, over the radio. “Freddie Leroy?”

“Yes?” replied the wireless op on the other end of the radio.

Stella let out another whoop of relief. She liked Freddie, trusted Freddie. Freddie had been a wireless op since the very start of the war, since 1939. If anyone was going to help her get this dying chunk of metal down safely it was Freddie Leroy.

“This is First Officer Finley,” Stella said, her finger shaking on the radio button. “I was supposed to be ferrying to Tuddenham but I got fired on, now I’ve got one engine destroyed and one wing with a gaping hole and no map, so I came back here.”

“Okay,” Freddie replied immediately, decisively. “Runway 281 is clear and ready for you. Do you think you can get it that far?”

“Yes,” Stella said. Her voice was getting weaker as she fought to control the yoke with one hand and use the other on the radio. It was taking everything in her just to edge as close as she could to the airfield. “It’s limping,” she confessed after a moment, because it felt like the kind of confession she ought to make.

“I’ll send the fire crew just in case,” Freddie told her. “I’ll keep them well out of the way to give you space. Do you need an ambulance?”

“Not sure,” Stella told her. She had no idea why, but suddenly her voice was thick and she worried she might be about to cry. Maybe it was having someone to talk to that did it, someone she vaguely knew and who was helping her through, who wasn’t looking to her for help but was giving it to her. “I think -” She breathed hard through her nose, calming her own hysteria. The plane wasn’t down yet and she still needed to focus. “I think maybe. I think I might be hurt but I’m not sure.”

“I’ll send an ambulance,” Freddie decided. “But they’ll stay clear. We’re giving you lots of room, Finley, so you don’t have to worry about that.”

Stella nodded even though Freddie couldn’t see her. And when she next spoke her voice was thick and weepy again, but she had no energy left in her to help it, not while this plane was still barely letting her drag it home, not when she had no idea how she was going to get herself safely down. “I don’t know how I’m going to land it,” she confessed shakily.

The other side of the radio was quiet for a moment.

Stella’s bottom lip wobbled.

“That’s okay,” Freddie soothed her, her voice distant but warm over the broken radio. “I’ll be with you the whole time. We’ll get it down together.”

“I think I might be in trouble.”

“With your CO?” Freddie asked.

“No.” With her life, she meant. She thought she might die trying to get this plane down, all because she’d been careless with her flying, her mind still stuck on the humiliation of her brother’s treatment. She hadn’t been able to think of anything but how strangely he’d acted with her, how cold he’d been, and how horrendously embarrassed it had made her feel. And now all of that felt so ridiculously stupid and childish. He was an adult who had an important job and had better things to do than dance with his little sister, especially when he was likely on the clock last night. And now she might die in a stupid, terrible plane that she hated and none of that would ever matter again.

“You’re not in trouble, Finley,” Freddie assured her after a moment’s pause. “I’ve seen you land in worse conditions than this.”

She hadn’t, but Stella appreciated the sentiment.

“Ready for the approach?” Freddie asked.

Stella knew she’d be able to see her out of the tower window now, in the full extent of her destruction.

“Suppose so,” Stella said.

“Okay, Finley, you are clear for overhead approach. Runway 281 at 1,200. Winds are 259 at 9 and the altimeter is at 29.93.”

“Okay,” Stella said.

“I’m right here with you, Finley,” Freddie reminded her. “Do you want me quiet or shall I keep talking?”

“Keep talking, please,” Stella squeaked. “But I can’t reply because I need both hands and the radio’s broken.”

“That’s okay,” Freddie replied. “I’m watching you out the window so I know you’re still there. And you’re doing such a good job, Finley. I’d never be able to do any of what you do on a day to day basis, let alone this. But you’re being so brave and you’re doing an incredible job. Everything is going to be fine. There are people waiting for you on the ground who will make sure you get out alright.”

Stella was nodding along even as she puffed her cheeks out, holding her breath as she fought with the yoke.

Every muscle in her body was tensed. It took every bit of strength she had left in her, and some she’d had in reserves but hadn’t known about, just to line the bastard plane up with the runway.

But she lined it up.

Now she just had to land it.

“You’re doing really well,” Freddie assured her over the radio. “Everyone’s ready for you to come in for the landing.”

“I’m trying,” Stella wept, starting to cry as she forced the plane into the landing gear.

It was the bumpiest, messiest, most dangerous landing Stella had ever seen, let alone completed herself. The plane squealed and groaned, protested at every stage, skidded an extra few metres down the runway and didn’t seem as though it ever intended to stop.

When it ended up on the grass the wheels were forced into slowing. Stella was tossed about like a sack of garbage as it bumped and jumped its way into a stop.

When it was finished moving, Stella was so dizzy, so disoriented, that she didn’t realise. Everything still felt like it was moving. But then the radio buzzed to life and Freddie Leroy insisted, “Finley? If you’re still awake we need you to get out of the plane immediately in case of a fire.”

Stella forced herself back into action but she couldn’t force herself to be quick. She briefly pressed back on the radio to inform Freddie that she was on her way, but her hands were shaky and weak when she tried to push herself up from the pilot’s seat and everything kept slipping out of her hands when she tried to gather her pilot’s notes and her gas mask.

In the end, one of the medics had to drag her out. She wasn’t strong enough to get down by herself.

She was unsteady on her feet so they sat her on a stretcher and wheeled her hastily away. Behind her, she heard the fire crew rush in, seeing to it that the plane didn’t blow up.

When Stella was loaded into a jeep she insisted that she could sit up, but her head lolled to one side the entire journey away from the airfield. The medic beside her kept trying to prod at whatever wound was on her forehead but his attempts were in vain in the face of Stella’s insistence on pushing him away.

There was a crowd gathered at the edge of the airfield. Distantly, Stella knew that that was a bad thing. Her friends had just seen her terrible landing, everyone she had insisted to that she was the best pilot at this base had just seen her terrible landing. Every ounce of respect she’d fought tooth and nail for over the last three years had just been destroyed with the engine and the wing of that goddamned Beaufighter.

But she wasn’t thinking much about that right now. All of that would come later. Right now she was thinking about her head.

“Have a headache,” she mumbled. She reached for the top of her forehead before the medic grabbed for her arm and wrenched it down.

“Finley!” called someone in the gathered crowd.

Stella turned to look and saw two figures running towards her. Alice was definitely one of them. She wasn’t sure yet who the other was, not when her vision was swimming like it was. It wasn’t Jessop, in any case, because Jessop was out flying something somewhere. But it was definitely a man. Tall, dark hair, broad shoulders. Major Egan?

“Fin!” Alice called out again as the two of them got closer.

The medic laid a hand on Stella’s shoulder and turned her back to face him. The jeep came to a stumbling stop while he was still inspecting the gash which must have been above her eye.

“Fin!” Alice shouted again. This time Stella didn’t need to turn to see her and John, they were close enough that she could hear that they were right behind her.

“Finley,” said John, his voice hard, “what the fuck happened?”

“They shot at me,” Stella said weakly. She was fiddling with her hands but they were stinging. When she glanced down at them she found blood and gashes and glass, all over her hands and forearms. And now there were fat tears stumbling down her cheeks, everything she’d managed to keep at bay while she was in the air bubbling right to the surface. Her breaths were wheezing and her hands were shaking and the medic kept trying to keep her still but it wasn’t quite working. She had no idea she’d made such a mess of herself. Maybe she was still in trouble, even now that she was on the ground.

“What?” John said, his back up straight. He stepped to the side so he could get a better look at her where her back was turned to him. His eyes were insistent as they scanned her, taking in the full extent of her injuries. “Who did?”

“I don’t know,” Stella confessed. Her voice was whiny, the way she used to speak to her brothers when someone hurt her at school. “Someone on the AA guns somewhere. They took out one of the engines and one of the wings and - and - and there was glass - and the radio was dying - and -”

“Hey, hey, hey, no, it’s okay,” John hurried to quiet her as she struggled to speak. He rested a hand on her shoulder in reassurance.

Stella was gasping for breaths. Her heart was pounding and her tears were only making it harder to breathe.

The instant the medic was satisfied with all he’d already done to the gash on her forehead he was out of the jeep. “Into the infirmary,” he informed the driver as he raced around the back of the vehicle to retrieve the stretcher.

“My head hurts,” Stella said, turning to face John and Alice, reaching for her forehead.

Alice yanked her arm down. “Don’t touch it!”

“I don’t want to go to the infirmary,” Stella whined next.

John bent down so he could look her in the eyes. His eyebrows were knitted together. “You’re hurt, Stels,” he said quietly. “You gotta let ‘em patch you up.”

Her bottom lip wobbled as more tears slid down her cheeks. “I don’t like hospitals.”

At this, John cracked a tiny grin. “Good thing they ain’t taking you to one then.” He tried to give her a reassuring smile while he gave her shoulder a gentle squeeze. “I been to the infirmary to see my guys. It’s nice. Big windows, comfy beds, extra pillows. Nothing to be scared of.”

“Out of the way, please, Major,” said the medic, coming up beside him. “Flight Officer, we need you on the stretcher.”

“I want to walk,” Stella declared.

“You can’t walk,” the medic told her.

John helped the medic help her stand. 

Stella swayed on her feet and all but collapsed into both of them. She was dead weight when they lifted her onto the stretcher. 

“Where’s Alice?” she asked John as he walked beside the stretcher. 

“Right here, Fin,” Alice assured her, coming up on her other side. She smiled down at Stella, reaching for her hand and holding it as they went. 

Stella sniffled as she looked up at her. The sky and Alice’s face were swimming, blurring together into one mess of colours, a canvas corrupted by a baby’s first attempt at art. “I want -” she began, fighting to focus on her friend’s face. “I need -” Wheezing, rattling breaths kept cutting her off.

“Your bear?” Alice guessed softly, giving Stella’s hand a squeeze. “Do you need me to get your bear?”

Stella’s breath gusted out of her in one long exhale of relief. “Yes,” she mumbled, fighting for consciousness. “Can’t sleep without - without my bear.”

“I’ll get him,” Alice assured her, squeezing her hand again. “You need anything else?”

“Water.”

Alice laughed under her breath. “They’ll give you plenty of that in the infirmary.”

“Don’t want to go to the infirmary,” Stella mumbled. 

“They’ll look after you,” Alice replied. “Nothing to worry about.”

“‘M going to be in trouble,” Stella said next. She could only barely remember the state the plane had been in when she’d been dragged out of it. Lots of fire, she recalled. A brand new plane in tatters because of her. 

“Nah,” John said from her other side. “Not your fault you got fired on.”

“My fault for being stupid,” she muttered in reply. 

Whatever John or Alice or anyone said in answer to that, Stella never heard. The stretcher jolted as it went over a rock and Stella’s head bounced once on the thin pillow. She fell unconscious on impact. But at least her tears stopped falling.