#shifty powers x ofc

[softguarnere]

Like A Girl (Like A Man)

Shifty Powers x OFC

Chapter 39 - Epilogue: Donadagohvi

Summary: She studies her husband’s face. It’s lined with age, but still as beautiful and as bright as the day she met him. A/N: Alright, y'all - we've made it! But before we get started, I've got some things I have to say. This fic was started during a very strange era. I hated what was going on in my life but didn't know how to fix any of it. Long story short, but I decided to run away one day, and ended up in Toccoa. While standing in the military museum there, I started thinking about Deborah Sampson (a childhood hero of mine), and wondered what would happen if a story like hers happened during WW2 - specifically, if she was a paratrooper. Thus, Zenie appeared in my brain, and this epilogue wrote itself in my mind as I went through the museum. I was never sure if I would share this fic until the second that I hit "post." Zenie was just a way for me to blow off steam, to escape - to fulfill my desire to be someone else for a bit. (Coincidentally, all themes throughout the fic.) I didn't know how people would respond to this story, or to this character, and I only ever had the courage to start uploading chapters because of friends like @latibvles and @liebgotts-lovergirl who showed enthusiasm for it. So I couldn't upload this chapter without a massive sgi (thank you) to them, as well as to everyone else who has read this fic and been so kind to it, and to me. Thank you for welcoming me into this fandom. Thank you for allowing me to share the Cherokee language with you. Thank you for all the support you've given me for both my writing, and as friends. Whether you knew it or not, all that kindness came at a time when I really needed it, and I appreciate you all. Without further ado, here's the last laglam update, in which the fic's title finally makes sense. Much love 💖 Warnings: language, alcohol Taglist: @latibvles @liebgotts-lovergirl @lady-cheeky @dcyllom @mads-weasley @ithinkabouttzu @mrs-murder-daddy @lieutenant-speirs

Eugene looks just the same as he did when Zenie first met him. So do all the other men on this side of the reunion. For her part, she also looks the way she did when she first met all of them – albeit like a girl rather than like a man. For now, her hair is long, and her chest unbound.

No one seems to have figured out why they all look young again, and it has only been mentioned in passing during the reunions. There are better things to do, like visit with those they can, and pass between the ones they left behind, feeling their hearts swell with love as they watch them laugh, watch them remember – watch them live.

Another thing that no one has figured out is why they seem able to come back to this world at certain times. David Webster says he once read that the veil between their worlds thins during certain times of the year, and that maybe this is true of the Easy Company reunions. Zenie, however, likes to believe that it’s the love of the people still living who allow them to come back. All that love with nowhere to go. Love so strong that remembering the people you felt it for brings them back.

No time to wonder now, though. Gene is already smiling at her in greeting.

“Hello again,” he greets as she joins him.

“Gene,” she teases him with an affectionate poke to his ribs. “You haven’t aged a day since I met you in forty-two!”

“Eh, I don’t know about that, Tommy Boy,” Luz’s confident drawl digresses as the radioman swaggers up beside her. “You look a little taller. What, did you finally hit puberty or something?”

Zenie rolls her eyes, but there’s no malice to it. She did, after all, keep him in the dark about her secret until her very last day in Europe. Instead of leading him on, she asks, “How does everyone look?”

“Us? The same as ever. Them? – “ Luz gestures towards the reunion that can’t see them. “ – Well, I guess they’re aging with grace.”

“Have you seen – “

“Bill and Babe are at the bar, as per usual. And your darling husband is somewhere around the middle.”

Zenie takes a step forward before turning quickly to face her friends. “Do y’all mind if I . . . ?”

Gene smiles. “Go ahead. That’s why we’re here.”

Grateful, Zenie takes off through the crowd. Visiting her friends like this is something she always looks forward to, but visiting those she left behind is a rarer treat, and she would like to check up on them. Especially Shifty. 

Bill and Babe – to no one’s surprise – are the easiest to find. They’ve got the bartender in stitches with their jokes, and their own accented guffaws are like a lighthouse cutting through the crowd that makes them easy to navigate towards.

“Siyo, boys!” Though they can’t see or hear her, Zenie takes a seat beside them at the bar. “What’s new with y’all?”  

“They’re drinking everyone under the table, as usual,” a familiar voice beside her announces as none other than Joe Toye takes a seat beside her. His expression is just as relaxed and confident as when they were young, but as he watches their living friends, something like longing flickers behind his eyes. “Too bad that we can’t show them who the real champs are anymore.”

“At least we can visit them.”

Joe nods, smiling sadly. “You made your rounds yet?”

“Not yet.”

“Well, we got time,” her friend assures her. They have nothing but time, actually. And they use it to sit with their friends, laughing along with their jokes and making their own, even though Bill and Babe can’t hear them.

As their jokes turn to remembrances, Zenie finds herself swept up in Babe’s retelling of the time she chucked an apple at Cobb’s head back in Holland. She barely remembers the scene, able to recall only a flash of anger and a split-second decision. Babe’s version is far better – he paints her out to be some sort of knight in shining armor coming to defend the honor of her friends.

Bill shakes his head and chuckles into his drink. “Goddamn. Zee sure could make a scene.”

“You weren’t even there when her secret got out,” Babe notes. “Now that was a scene!”

“No one ever brings it up,” Bill marvels, his eyes roaming over the crowd, searching for something. “You would think everyone would talk about it all the time. I mean – shit! A woman disguised herself as a man and made it from Toccoa to the bitter end before she got found out, and no one at the reunions brings it up.”

Zenie can’t help but smile at that. It’s true – her secret got out, she had to leave in a state of semi-disgrace, but at the Easy reunions, she was usually only acknowledged as Shifty’s wife. Sure, every now and then someone would tell a funny story about Sergeant Driver before throwing a knowing wink in her direction, but after all this time, it’s like they’re still keeping her secret for her. For her own part, she never brings up her service, except to mention in passing that she met her husband during the war. Even her own children seem to be under the impression that she must have been a nurse or a WAC, using that explanation to fill in the story’s blanks. Zenie never confirmed or denied their suspicions.

“Wish she were here,” Babe sighs. He orders another round of drinks, three this time, before placing one in front of the seemingly empty bar stool beside him – unknowingly, right in front of Zenie. He raises his own glass as he offers the last one to Bill. “To Zenie.”

Bill clinks his glass against Babe’s in a toast. “To Zenie.”

“To the best friends I ever had,” Zenie adds. During her last reunion – and even during the last year or so of her life – she could sometimes swear that she could feel a presence that she couldn’t explain. An unshakable feeling that those she loved who were already gone were somehow watching her would wash over her, though she could never explain why she felt that way. Now, she wonders if her friends feel that way about her. Just in case they do, she channels all her love into those words, hoping and praying that they can feel it.

As if on cue, the bittersweet moment ends when a woman with sleek, dark hair approaches the bar, smiling. “Uncle Babe! Are you ready?”

“Luna.” Zenie watches as her daughter throws an arm around each of the men at the bar, her smile just as bright as her father’s, outshining the sun itself.

“The real question is, are you?” Bill teases his goddaughter, cocking an eyebrow. “Don’t forget, kid, that your uncle is a champion jitterbug dancer.”

Luna sizes up the man in question. “Well, I’ve been practicing.”

“Don’t worry about her.” Babe takes one last sip of his drink and waves off Bill’s concerns. “Her mom could have been a champ, too. It’s in her genes; she’ll be fine.”

“The DJ said it’ll be the next song . . .” Luna begins explaining as she hooks her arm through her uncle’s and leads him towards the small dance floor.

Bill watches them go, chuckling to himself. “Real firecracker.” He glances at the drink set out in honor of Zenie. “God, I wish you were here, little brother. It’s not the same without you.”

“I am,” Zenie assures him. She’s only been gone for two years, but things have changed. That might have scared her once. Not anymore. “I have to go find Shifty. You don’t mind, do you?”

Bill doesn’t answer, of course, but it’s polite to ask all the same. Granny didn’t teach her to mind her manners for nothing.

Zenie weaves her way through the crowd of both the living and the dead. She greets several people, stops to exchange a handshake and a kind word, and sends a nod to those who she catches lurking at the edges of the room – people like Liebgott and Captain Speirs, who only show up in the margins of the reunions, watching, but never joining in. She needs to thank those two specifically at some point. But it’s like Joe said – they’ve got time.

As Luz promised, Shifty is seated at a table in the middle of the room. Their sons, Wayne and Willie, sit on either side of him, laughing along with some story that he, McClung, and Popeye are in the middle of telling. Zenie finds a space to stand behind her husband, being as present as she can. She places one hand on Wayne’s shoulder, and the other on Shifty’s.

At the moment of contact, Shifty’s posture stiffens, and his head turns slightly. Zenie freezes, like she’s just disrupted something. Has she? Can he feel her here?

Shifty only listens to the story being told halfheartedly now. He smiles and laughs in all the right places, but it’s obvious that he’s distracted. These reunions are supposed to be fun. Sure, they can get a little emotional at times, but she doesn’t want her husband missing out on her account. He’s still got a life to live. He needs to be in the present moment and enjoy it.

Zenie bends slightly so that she’s close to Shifty’s ear. She doubts anyone else at the table knows that she’s here, but she wants this to be a private moment for the two of them.

“Shifty,” she whispers. “I’m here. I just wanted to make sure that you’re okay.” She has to pause for a moment to think about what she wants to say. It’s one thing to plan what you’re going to tell somebody, and another thing entirely to deliver the message. Sometimes things get lost in translation. She learned that during their break back in the war.

She studies her husband’s face. It’s lined with age, but still as beautiful and as bright as the day she met him. God, she misses him. She misses all of them.

“The boys look well,” she continues, looking between their sons. “I hope they’re taking care of you for me. They’ve always adored you.” She pats Shifty’s shoulder. She shouldn’t take up his attention too much longer. “Take your time. Enjoy it. I’ll be waiting for you, okay? I’ll see you soon, Shifty.”

Not sure if it will work, she plants a kiss on his cheek. When she pulls away, she watches as Shifty’s hand comes up to touch the place where they made contact. Maybe he really can feel her here.

“Gvgeyui,” Zenie says. I love you.

Gene is waiting at the edge of the crowd when she finds him again.

“How’d it go?” He asks.

Zenie nods. “Good. You?”

“Good.” Gene’s dark eyes flick over the crowd. “It’s nice we get to do this.”

It is nice. Bittersweet, mostly, but it’s good to see their loved ones again, even for a short time before they have to go back. But returning isn’t bad, either. The weather is always warm. And there are people she loves waiting for her there.

In fact, she should get going for exactly that reason. Granny wants to dig ramps soon, and Mama informed her that there would be a pie waiting upon her return. No matter which side of the gauzy veil she’s on, there is always someone waiting for her, and always a place that she belongs.

For strength, Zenie takes Gene’s hand and gives it a squeeze. He returns the gesture, and they begin to walk away from the crowd. But before they go, Zenie can’t help but glance back at Easy Company one last time. Her eyes, as always, land on Shifty. She’ll see him again. She’ll see them all again, in one way or another.

“Until we meet again,” Zenie informs them all, whether they can hear her or not. “Donadagohvi.”

[narwal-ed-in]

ARMY GLITTERATI - (Band of Brothers x Bimbo!Reader)

✨glitterati✨- /ˌɡlɪt̬.əˈrɑː.t̬i/ - 1940's slang for famous people, glamorous people, in the spotlight.

Summary: “You want to become a combat medic for the 101st?” “What, like it's hard?”

Warning: Period typical sexism, Fem reader, she/her pronouns, slight body shaming (not directed at reader). NO BETA READ. I WROTE THIS JUST NOW SO PLEASE DON'T EXPECT MUCH.

No disrespect to the real veterans of WW2, all my BoB fanfics are based on depictions by actors in the miniseries.

Borders by @plutism

BEFORE TACCOA

The war is raging and everyone is doing their part to help the men on the front.

For you, that mostly meant trying to look your best at all times, no matter how inconvenient the situation.

"Looking good is a ginormous part of the war effort, it's good for boosting troop morale. I saw it on a poster at the teaching hospital" You reasoned with your father after he complained about you buying another pair of shoes and some expensive vanishing creams.

"Darling, I think they meant that we should all keep our appearances up, not buy out our local department stores"

"Oh my god daddy, you're suffocating me! I'm just doing my part by looking nice..." you glare at your father in his work clothes and eye him with a grimace "...and clearly you're not"

When you get a telegram informing you that you've been selected to participate in a program that aims to send female medics into combat you jump on it.

This is going to be so much fun.

"I'm going to be the talk of the town when everyone finds out. Not even Reverend Smiths boring old story about dying for ten minutes in a car crash and seeing Jesus will be able to outdo this!"

Your supervisors at the hospital are shocked that you've been chosen, seeing as you're not the sharpest knife in the drawer.

You had once walked out of an operation because it was bloody and you were wearing white (all the nurse uniforms are white).

You hoped you wouldn't be assigned to the army or the airforce.

The army is too basic, and if you were stuck on an airbase somewhere then nobody would be able to see how fab you always were.

The navy was your goal, their uniforms were sooo cute, you were just dreaming of all the ways you could style it.

It's just your luck when you get assigned to airborne.

"THIS BLOWS! I'm in the two most unglamorous branches at the same time"

After your initial breakdown you realized it wasn't that bad. If you were jumping out of planes it just meant that your hotness would have a bigger audience since it would literally be raining down from the sky.

"When the Germans see all this falling from the sky, they're going to flip their friggin wigs! AHHHH"

CONNECTING WITH EASY

You're assigned to Easy company and meet the men a few months into their training at Camp Toccoa.

You show up randomly in the middle of the day.

Although the men had been told a woman would be joining them and they had been expecting you, they hadn't been expecting YOU.

You were a ditzy thing and looked like you’d jumped out of one of their pin up postcards. The brass surely couldn't expect them to put their lives in your hands.

"I'm sooo happy to meet everyone. You know, the other girls in the program are such massive liars, they said airborne was where all the uggos went, but that's so not true. After all, I'm here"

You always woke up an hour earlier than the rest of Easy so you would have time to put your face on.

It was one of your tenets to never be seen by anyone outside of family without makeup on, or with your curlers in.

Malarkey, Skip, Penkala, Shifty, Bull, Christenson, Lip and Winters had all been kind to you from the beginning, expecting nothing in return.

But some of the guys had other ideas.

George was one of the men that befriended you initially. And although he did have the ulterior motive of getting it on with you, he eventually stuck around because he actually liked you.

You guys have great play-flirting banter and you're both very entertaining people to be around, especially when you're drunk.

On the rare nights anyone gets passes they want to be around you and George because they know that's where the funs at.

You get sloppy drunk with George, flirt with men from Easy and other companies all night, then end up with your shoes off at 3am, sitting on the curb and crying about one of your ex boyfriends.

Perconte was one of your original detractors but when you found yourselves making the same brain dead comments about obvious things, you both decided to put your two half braincells together to form the singular braincell you share between yourselves.

Talbert was trying to get into your pants instantly. Nobody was surprised.

But just like George he grew to be genuinely fond of you.

What was surprising was Joe Toye taking you under his wing.

Toye could see that you were absolutely clueless and the worst part was, you had no idea.

Toye couldn't bear the agony of watching you skip around camp with your happy-go-lucky attitude, harping on about celebrity gossip nobody cared about.

"Y/N!" Toye yelled as you all got dressed to run Currahee "Why the hell is your PT shirt pink?!"

"Isn't it just the most gorgeous thing you've ever seen, Joe? I put a red handkerchief in with my laundry. Cosmo said carnation pink is the color of the summer"

Huffing and puffing, Toye took out one of his spare shirts and forced you to wear it.

"And when you give it back, it better not be fucking 'flamingo pink'" Toye said.

"Oh honey, this isn't 1939, flamingo pink is so over. I wouldn't be caught dead in that. You know, Joe, sometimes I feel like you don't care about fashion at all" You scoff at his cluelessness as you walk out.

Joe Toye is secretly your best friend in the company.

Toye taking you in meant Gaurnere and Johnny Martin had to be around you, much to their chagrin.

They didn't want some girl hanging off of them.

You win Gaurnere's respect when you coach him on what to write to his girlfriend back home to assure her that he's serious about their relationship when she began doubting his intentions.

And you win Johnny's respect when you help him find the most romantic gift for his wife for valentines day.

"Y'know, back home they call me the love doctor...Well, they used to, before I told Betsy Kline that Rob Jones was her soulmate but then he left her at the altar to elope with his housekeeper"

Sobel despised you from the moment he laid eyes on you.

Not wearing your red lipstick everyday was torture, but you had to stick to natural colours so Sobel wouldn't be able to tell what you had on.

He tried with everything in his power to get you kicked out, but much to everyones surprise, you kept up extrordinarily well with the men when it came to physical training.

"I do a lot of Pilates. It's really good for flexibility and helps you keep a positive outlook so you're not be such a 'negative nancy' all the time. Some of you could really use it. Some more than others..." you said as you side-eyed Skinny who just looked around incredulously

Eventually most of the men come to consider you a friend and a confidante since you give remarkably sound relationship advice.

"It's like sooo hard being the smartest person and the hottest catch in this camp at the same time"

The hardest nuts to crack in your immediate friend group end up being Leibgott, Cobb and Doc Roe, all for different reasons of course.

Leib was snide and arrogant and spoke to you like you were a silly little girl.

He didn't shy away from telling you how dumb he thought you were to your face.

Your relationship eventually becomes friendly but he will still be mean occasionally.

He always ends up apologising though and feels really bad when he makes you cry (the other guys nearly bite his head off whenever this happens).

"Jesus Christ, Y/N, stop being a baby already. I said I was sorry" Lieb said to you as you cried into your pillow.

"You can say sorry to me, Joey, but how are you going to tell Rita Hayworth you're sorry for saying nobody cares about her nighttime face washing routine?" You spoke inbetween sobs.

"I ain't saying sorry to Rita because I ain't sorry I said it. I stand by what I said. Nobody cares how some broad washes up at night"

"You take that back! That routine saved my life" You jumped up, pointing an accusing finger at the man.

"How the fu-"

"You're a horrible, horrible man Joseph Leibgott"

"Oh put a sock in it" Leib rolled his eyes, making you cry even harder.

Toye, ever protective of you, had enough "I swear to god Leibgott, leave that girl alone!"

Cobb was just straight up cruel to you and made sure you always knew "your place".

Roe didn't seem particularly close to anyone.

But as you all of you went into the more specialised aspects of your training and you and Roe spent more time together, he found himself looking out for you.

You were sitting alone on the grass after everyone had groaned and walked off the moment you started talking about an article you read in a magazine.

You sigh sadly, pulling at the grass when a shadow falls over you.

Bringing up a hand to block the sun you finally recognize who it is. It's Eugene Roe.

"I, uh, I was wondering if I could sit with you?" he asked.

You nodded excitedly and he took a seat beside you in the grass.

"What was it you were telling the others?"

You gasped "You really want to know?"

"I guess…"

Doc had seen everyone walk away, and although he didn't care much for mindless conversation, he knew talking to people meant a lot to you and had come over to cheer you up.

Without missing a beat you began one of your famous tirades.

By the end of your first year in Toccoa you end up finding your place.

Thanks for reading! Please like, comment and reblog if you want❤️

[hesbuckcompton-baby]

update one of my three ongoing fics or suddenly start writing the shifty powers x ofc google doc again after abandoning it for eight months... choices are so hard

[softguarnere]

Me: I'm gonna do this last homework assignment

Also me: *does this instead*

YOU GUYS, have I got a treat for you. Just in time for the holidays and Hallmark movie season:

Holiday Movie Meiker, by dolldivine, featuring the incredible artwork of Shidabeeda.

[littlefreya]

Vanilla Milkshake

Summer: Henry and a long time friend hangout at their usual spot when things turn chaotic because of an innocent misunderstanding...

Prompted by:  

 Oooh Freyaaaa I just *need* some scene featuring Henry and ofc drinking milkshake. 

Pairing: Henry Cavill x Unamed OFC (no description of ethnicity or body type).

Word count: 1.7K

Warnings: RPF, major fluff, friends to lovers, sexual innuendo, mild seduction, sex talk, an unwanted boner, Henry being a boomer, Henry having a meltdown. 

*No permission is given for reposting my work, copying it, ideas or parts it and claiming it as your own.*

A/N: So, first thing first, thanks @agniavateira for quickly beta’ing my work! And of course thanks @the-soot-sprite for bouncing ideas with me and being an emotional support. Decided to go with friends for lovers because I live for that stuff. Also, I am aware that “Milkshake” can be interpreted in several ways but for the sake of the story I went with that particular reference. Divider by the lovely @firefly-graphics

Please comment and reblog if you enjoyed.  🖤

Title: Vanilla Milkshake

“I swear, this diner looks like Barbie had an orgasm all over the place.” A whimsical grin sliced between Henry’s marble cheeks. Eyeing the pastel-esque surroundings, he huffed scornfully and adjusted the cap over his nest of unruly curls. 

“Remind me again why we always meet here, young lady?”

Staring at the beastly man who barely managed to squeeze into the plastic-pink faux leather booth, she couldn’t help but chuckle. Henry carried himself with something that was both eloquent yet unmistakably feral, reminding her of a burly forest creature. Sturdy tree trunks stood for limbs, torso, and shoulders—the widths of icy mountains and a blanket of thick fur coated the entirety of his body, deeming him a dangerous bear. 

No wonder he preferred himself clean-shaven. The sharpened edge of a razor kept him a cut away from becoming ‘Henry the Barbarian’. 

Seeing him surrounded by pastel and sparkly fairy dust brought far more joy than she could ever imagine. The utter look of contempt gleamed on the surface of his shifty eyes. 

Oh, by God, how much he hated glitter!

“And what would you know about Barbie’s orgasms?” she teased with a crooked eyebrow and a comical suspicious glare. 

Readjusting his cap over the messy mane of chocolate curls, Henry offered a terrible wink and shrugged, “a gentleman never tells.”

Her fingers rapped on her thigh while she contemplated whether to allow this naughty joke slide, but then the urge to provoke him was far too great. After briefly chewing on the inside of her cheek, she broke into a wicked grin.

“Is that… like a role play you have with the missus? She’s Barbie, and you’re G.I.Joe? Because I kinda don’t want to hear about it, but then I kinda do.”

Henry’s smile gradually faded along with the playful glee in his eyes, his melancholic gaze dropping to the sparkly table. He slumped into a heavy sigh, “If by missus, you mean ‘Miss Hand’, then no… not really.”

Dumbfounded, she frowned at Henry with confusion when then it struck her; a sense of incredible embarrassment drained the blood from her head to her gut.

“Oh…”

“Yep.” Henry blurted and grabbed the menu, pretending to be incredibly interested in the kids’ meal options. 

Just in time to rescue them from a prolonged awkward silence, the waitress arrived with their order, serving Henry a hot cup of double espresso while she received a tall glass of a luscious vanilla milkshake. 

“Enjoy your drinks, guys!” the waitress smiled sweetly and kept her eyes glued to Henry as she walked away. But the gloss of the waitress’ flirtatious excitement was lost on him; drenched with greed, Henry’s blue sapphires were fixated on the generous scoops of ice cream and the dark chocolate swirls that decorated his companion’s dessert. 

“Henry, my eyes are up here!” she provoked and grabbed the straw between two fingers while throwing an amused glance at his simple cup of coffee. Henry followed her gaze and scoffed before raising the cup to his mouth and blowing to cool his drink.

The way his lips pursed together and his finger stroked the ceramic surface did not escape her observation. A sudden tingle swam down the length of her spine once it resonated in her mind that kind, charming, and beastly Henry was now single. Here they were, long time buddies, but now sitting together felt less comfortable than before. Her limbs felt like pins and needles while staring directly at his eyes was as risky as staring at the sun.  

“Cheers,” Henry mumbled and took a sip from his cup. 

Almost jolting in her seat, she stiffened and then grabbed her straw.

“Cheers.”

Giggles came from the other side of the diner. Among the retro gumball machines and rounded plastic bar stools, the waitress and a colleague leaned against the counter and stared at Henry, who turned his head for a brief moment and tipped his head.

Their giggles turned even louder.

She frowned. 

“So, have you been single for a while?” she heard herself asking with a rather urgent tone. Right away, a look of contrition crept on her face as she regretted her verbal onslaught and lack of sensitivity. 

Henry directed his gaze back to her and watched as she slowly sipped from the milkshake and then suckled the cream off her mouth. 

Absentmindedly, he licked his lips. “Since May. How about you, weren’t you with…?”

“No, ended, dodged a bullet.” she spat and pumped the straw up and down the thick beverage. “My milkshake brings all the boys… except it doesn't.” she sighed.

Henry frowned and shook his head with confusion. “What? You never told me you make your own milkshake. How come I never had some?” 

Her face abruptly froze, her eyes rounded with surprise before she snorted so loudly the waitresses stopped their whispering.

“Umm… Hen?” she called out, trying to hold herself from bursting into chuckles as her friend accidentally asked for a very sexual favour, “you honestly don’t know what ‘milkshake’ is slang for...?”

“Uh…”

“Omg, you’re such a boomer.” 

“No, I was born in ‘83! I’m a millennial. But please, indulge me.” he begged and crossed his arms together.

Clearing her throat loudly, she did her best to fight the wicked grin that stretched on her already painful cheeks and wrapped her fist around the straw. “So you know... how… certain male bodily fluids are sometimes white and creamy...? And when you perform a certain motion it’s like you’re shaking it…?”

Henry blinked and became silent. An unbidden rush of blood pooled at his groin as he watched her thumb graze over the tip of the straw and her fist pumping it into the smooth liquid in a slow, gentle motion. Wickedness glazed her eyes, but he tried to dismiss it as nothing but their usual playful banter; yet his adam’s apple bobbed up and down while his shoulder tensed at the oddly arousing sight of her performing a sinful act on a milkshake. 

There was an unmistakable stir in his cock and for once, he was thankful for narrow spaces as it hid his predicament.

Leaning forward, she opened her mouth and swirled her tongue around the straw. She went deliberately slow, making him watch while she playfully licked and suckled the tip until finally wrapping her lips around it and taking a generous sip.

Henry gawked utterly smitten, unaware that his jaw was nearly at the floor.

And to make things worse, she moaned—not too loud—but definitely enough to make his shaft harden more.

She wasn’t sure what stirred this whimsical boost of confidence, only that seeing the large, handsome man pale at her provocations made her feel like the most powerful woman on earth. She also gathered she’d regret it forever and a day once they’ll part ways, but it was too late for that now.

Gingerly she pulled back, though not before allowing a single drop of cream to trickle down the corner of her lips.

“Oops,” she smirked casually, wiping the cream with her fingertip and sucking it clean. 

“Please stop…” 

It was then when she noticed that Henry’s playful mien was all but gone. Far from amused, he glowered with a clenched jaw. “If you’re going to keep doing that, I’ll have to leave,” he stated matter-of-factly. 

A rush of panic made her freeze in her spot, the same needles that pricked her skin were now setting jolts of electric bursts. “I’m so sorry, I crossed the line,” she said and covered her mouth with shame, “did I offend you? Do you want me to leave?”

“What? No, no, not at all.” Henry’s voice softened right away, and he reached a hand in the air, as if trying to stop her from leaving. The last thing he wanted now is for her to think he is angry with her. If anything, he wished they could spend more time together, not because of his obvious arousal, but because for the first time in a long while, he was having fun.

Still, she looked at him so utterly distraught.  

“Then…?” 

Henry scanned the diner as if trying to make sure no one was staring or taking any photo and then shifted in his seat uncomfortably. His eyes altered between his spread thighs and her several times, trying to signal toward his… trouble.

“Oh...” she gaped. 

An odd sense of pride began to permeate her chest, battling over the burning embarrassment that flamed up her neck and cheeks. At this point, she wasn’t sure what she was supposed to feel, only that it was definitely the most awkward hangout they had to date. 

Problem was, she never knew when to shut up. 

“Is little Henry hungry?”

Hearing those words, his brows dropped to an irritated sulk. “There is nothing little about it.”

“Ha! Prove it!”

It was as if the entire diner and perhaps the world fell into silence. Had the clatter of the dishes being washed in the back kitchen not rung their ears, she would have thought she grew suddenly deaf. 

“I didn’t mean it… sorry, I’ll stop,” she mumbled slowly and pressed her fingers to her mouth while shaking her head at her stupid behaviour. That was it, this was to be the last afternoon she would ever hang out with Henry and right now, she couldn’t even bring herself to look at him.

Henry chewed onto the inside of his cheeks, trying to stop the words that came faster than his thoughts.

“You didn’t?... Because I’ll definitely be up for proving...”

She blinked at his words and tilted her head, hoping that he won’t notice the wild tremors that shook her limbs, “What was that?” 

“I... yes? No?...I… fuck!” 

Henry lowered his head and slapped his palms across his face, rubbing back and forth with an utter meltdown while mumbling, “Forgive me,” a couple of times. He couldn’t care less of what the waitresses or whoever was watching would think of him; all he cared about was to make her feel comfortable around him again and maybe… even make her like him?

“Henry?”

Soft and warm her voice called to him, slowly pulling him from his anguish like a sailor being rescued from a sunken ship. His blue sapphires shone, an ocean of confusion and anxiety still pooling within while he peered back at her face that was now smiling at him a mixture of comfort and exhilaration. 

“Would you like some of my milkshake?”

[boogiewrites]

Choking On Sapphires 93

Characters: Alfie Solomons x Genevieve (OFC)

Title & Song: Bigger Boys and Stolen Sweethearts

Summary: Alfie is never far from paranoia. But he and Genevieve both find that it's granted when it seems like the whole of London could be out to get them.

Warnings/Tags: Crime. Canon typical everything. 

Click on my icon then go to my Mobile Masterlist in my bio for my other works and chapters. (Had to do this since Tumblr killed links, sorry.) Please like, comment and reblog if you enjoyed it! It helps out us writers A LOT!

There were only a handful of men in the abandoned warehouse in London this night. A location well suited, as gloomy and shady as their business practices. The cover of smog and fog from the nearby canal both serving as cover for their 'off the book' transactions. Despite their dastardly reputations, if these few men had somehow all been taken out at one time, the city would’ve plunged into bloody chaos that would lead to more trouble than already fell upon their territories.

They were a motley crew to be sure, all with twitching hands and shifty eyes. Not an ounce of trust to be found between any of them. They’d been called to this neutral ground on the guise there was a threat looming over them all. But since when wasn't there one? This desperate claim had been made by Niko, the newest head of the Greek gang who was less than a year into leading after assassinating his father. He was being met with much criticism. The decision to bring together the gangs and criminal leaders of London tonight would be met with the same disdain.

The men stood in their big coats with deep pockets, their seconds in the shadows of the dimly lit and dusty warehouse. Niko stood self-assured in his shirt with the rolled-up sleeves to show his heavy and dark forearms, hair black and slicked away from a strong masculine face. He was feeling accomplished for the ability to get all these infamous people together, and if he’s been smarter he would have actually done something with the occasion. You had the drug runners, the triads, who expected the threat to be from another country. The Sicilians who were known for their brothels thought perhaps new law enforcement might’ve been a threat to their money-making. The English boys and their known violence with the protection rackets they ran, this being their home and all, were worried about the Americans coming in and trying to disrupt the well-established lines in the sand for territories. There were bookmakers and gambling den owners, none who wanted their flows disrupted. Sabini, perhaps the most intelligent of them all had been over the race tracks for some time now, only sharing the space by negotiation or force with the Peaky boys or the Jews. And he couldn’t help but notice neither of which were at this gathering.

Sabini, looking at his pocket watch with a hard face knows Alfie wouldn’t be one to be late, and seeing as he knew the rumors of he and Nikos falling out, his suspicions were growing by the ticks of the watch hands. His faith this would be worth his while was dwindling just as quickly.

“I suppose you are the ones who are going to show...shame not everyone could hear this.” Niko begins, standing from his perched spot on a large wooden crate. “I know you have heard of a joining of powers to be happening soon. And I believe we should all take this as a threat.”

“What are the bloody Americans doin' now?” Billy Hill, one of the English roughens groans.

“No Americans.” Niko corrects and most of the men in the room go through relief and then a feeling of ‘then what?’. “One of London’s own and the French.” He begins.

Sabini groans audibly.

“I’m serious!” Niko insists with eyes that say he’s telling the truth. “I’m sure you’ve all heard that the Jew Alfie Solomons and that French whore Genevieve Durand are getting married.”

“Fucks sake.” Is the grumble of choice that works its way around the crowd.

“We can’t have her alliances and the Jews pairing! It’ll throw off the balance we’ve worked so hard to achieve!”

“And how is Solomons marrying going to affect anyone but him?” The annoyed lead of the Asian gangs calls out.

“This Durand is no ordinary woman.” Niko compulsorily insists.

“Yeah, we know you’re sweet on her.” Sabini mutters.

“This is about her French connections. Parliament, the gypsies, and the Irish! All of them will be with Solomons and not against him now because of her.”

“Look. She’s the godmother of a Shelby baby. That hardly calls for panic. She’s the niece of a French Jew, who has NO footing here. Those are not alliances. You’re acting like a bloody woman, so dramatic.” Sabini purses his lips.

“We all know what Horne did to her.” Billy interjects. “If you think she’s a threat after a wallop like that you’re mad. Alfies the one ya gotta watch for, and you know those Jews, they get all sentimental about their wives. This could work in our favor if he’s gone soft for the bird.”

“I do not think underselling Solomons is a good move. You saw what he did to Horne.” The Asian lead reminds them.

“That shows how unstable he is!” Niko yells.

“Well he didn’t kill his own father now did he?” One of the bookmakers snarks.

“Everyone agreed to that!” Niko shouts, his anger showing at not getting his way.

“Yeah and I think everyone’s agreeing that we don’t give a fuck about the hard prick you’ve got for Solomons woman and how you want us to the dirty work to take him out of the picture.” Billy’s known brash remarks surprise no one.

“That’s not what this is about. She’ll be trouble! I'm telling you. She’s a sly one. Don’t underestimate her. She could be a loose cannon and telling Solomons what to do, and with the men she’s got behind her she could try to take over the city!”

Everyone but Niko laughs. “Her? Telling ALFIE what to do?” Sabini laughs and wipes away an imaginary tear to sell his point. “You daft boy, listen… she’s a woman yeah? She’s gonna get married and shit out a few little kykes and fall into place. Same as the rest. It’s what they DO.”

“She’s not like other women.” Niko growls.

“We know you’re sore about losin' her to a old man like Solomons, yeah?”

“Maybe she prefers the cut cocks.” Someone remarks and a chuckle passes through the group.

“More like the money.” Another adds and a general nod of agreement moves in a wave across the room.

“LISTEN!” Niko shouts in anger. “I think this marriage is a bad idea. She’s been knocked senseless, attacking people in public, and we know Solomons can be unpredictable. Look what he did to Horne!?”

“A man’s love and loyalty to a woman is fueled by an ancient fire. He was within his right to do that.”

“As poetic as that is,” Sabini rolls his eyes “I’ve known Alfie longer than any of you. And if I say there’s no reason to react then there’s not.” He states clearly with the wheels in his head turning his unspoken thoughts.

“He burned down half the city for that woman. He threw a tantrum like a child and bypassed so many of our unspoken rules in the name revenge.” Niko screeches.

“Like you now, yeah?” Sabini snarks. “You have no business with either of them now. Because YOU threw a fit? Remember?” Niko puffs up in shame. “Why do you care? Why are you wasting our time?” Sabini gestures with his hands and gives Niko a disgusted expression for bringing them there “If ya gonna call us all up, Why not talk about the upcoming elections? Or how they're clearing out the slums and breaking up all our established territories?” The reaction from the group is a unanimous groan of agreement. “Those are real fuckin’ things to worry about. If you’re so concerned about women in power why not go after the fucking labour party too?” Sabine’s experience overrides Niko and his barely thought out objections.

The group laughs and makes Niko feel small and childish. A feeling he hated as the youngest son and one he hadn’t felt since his father died. It did him and no one else any favors to light that pain within him again. For it was the one that lead him to kill the last man who caused it. But now that he had the attention of the entire family. ho knows how he would lash out next time he reached his breaking point?

For as crass and disrespectful as Sabini was, he wasn’t the dumbest criminal in London by a long shot. He’d thought about what Niko said after patronizing him in front of everyone. Even though he didn’t agree, he did have a few points of sense that he hadn’t meant to make. Alfie would be having to change up his repertoire. He had Shelby in Parliament and an uncle in law that was the head of a crime family. Albeit was in France, but clout was clout and bodies were bodies when fighting broke out. Sabini didn’t think Gen would be a problem, as he had heard of her seriousness with her newly found Judaism and expected her to be a good little wife and let her husband rule the roost. But Sabini only knew of the slurs and stereotypes for the Jewish people, not so much their beliefs. Because if he had, he’d know what sort of power, Gen, as the wife would hold in their household. Instead, he saw an opportunity to mend things with Alfie. A peace offering for the joyous occasion so it wouldn’t seem suspicious. As he had said, he knew Alfie. He knew what he was capable of and what a pain in the arse he could be. He’d like to make things easier, not harder so he knows it’s time to make a truce, to show him he wasn’t a threat. Sabini knew it was time to reach out to an old school mate. Because he most certainly didn’t want Alfie Solomons on his bad side.

———

Genevieve’s giggle could be heard from the other side of her bedroom door. The raised hand to knock hesitates.

“Do I have to do it?” The young boy winces, fearing interrupting Solomons during his time with his fiancé.

“Oh fucking-c’mon!” Claire gruffs and shoves him out of the way. “Gen? Alfie? Pardon the interruption but we have some little birds with news out here.

The groan of Alfie can be heard, rolling to his back and throwing his arm dramatically. “WOT THEY WANT?” He shouts as Gen pops out of bed to throw his pants at him and slide on a gown before slinking back into bed. “WHO is it?” He asks quickly after.

“One of yours and one of Genevieve’s.”

“Both?” She hears the women in question ask.

“Come in.” Alfie commands, now sitting up with the covers pulled up under his arms.

“Go on.” Claire shoves the two young boys into the room who feel immediately as if they were trespassing. She stands in the doorway so they cannot leave and watches them creep forward.

“Ya gonna speak or what?” Alfie asks with a jut of his chin.

“Yes sir.” The taller of the two mumbles as he steps forward.

“Come to the foot of the bed and speak up.” Genevieve directs with much more kindness in her tone, directing them with a pointed finger.

“Yes ma’am.” The boy keeps his eyes lowered, his hat being wrung in his hands, a clear ring of sweat around his collar. “Who first?”

“You dear, you’ve been employed the longest,” She explains to Alfie's nervous spy. “Seniority.” She nods.

“Yes ma’am. There was news of a meeting last night.”

After a pause, Alfie makes a rolling motion with his hand. “Anything else to go wif that to make it useful?”

“Downtown they saw some men meeting in one of the old warehouses.”

“Some men?” Genevieve tries to get more out of the boy.

“Gangsters, ma’am.”

“Mmmph. And who?”

“Only person I was told the Greeks.”

“Fuckin ell.” Alfie sighs. “That all ya got?”

“Yes sir.”

“I have more.” The smaller of the two adds sheepishly.

“Then out wif it.” Alfie demands loudly.

“The Greek was there first, then some of the English Hill lads and the bookmaker Comer. Triads, Sabini, and the other Italians.”

“Now that’s the kinda report I need yeah?” Alfie says in a fatherly tone to his informer.

“Is that all?” Genevieve pries a final time.

“No one was inside to hear what was said but no shots or shoutin' and it was over very quickly. No one we knew was there.”

Alfie hums with narrowed eyes in thought. “What of the fascists?”

“No political men, only the kind what run the streets like you, sir.”

“Good lad.” He nods in approval.

“Claire pay them their due.” Genevieve points her way. “Leave with her boys, thank you.”

“Give the missus boy more,” Alfie calls out and the young one's eyes blink with surprise. “We reward detail. Leave nothing to interpretation when ya can lads.”

“Yes sir.” In unison comes from the shabby pair.

After the door is shut behind them the minds of the two business owners are piecing together what they had.

“Of course I wasn’t invited to this but I’m assuming you weren’t as well?”

“No,” Alfie says with a slow shake of his head. “No Jews at all actually.”

“But no fascists. Curious.”

“Not about us then.”

“Not as a whole, no. But Niko…”

“Yeah that... fuckers up to somefin.”

“I’ll keep an ear out, poke around at my retailers today.”

“Good, good. I know I can lean heavily on paranoia…”

“It’s kept you alive this long.” Genevieve smirks. “Listen to your gut, always.”

“But no one you run wif was there. None of ours. Leads one to believe this might be personal, yeah?”

“I do agree. We know the man isn’t happy about us. Now we're being left out and those with known loyalty to us are as well. I don’t believe that to be paranoia so much as putting together a bigger picture. Perhaps you could ask-“

“Sabini, yeah.” He finishes her thought.

“Mmm Hmm. He’s been behaving as of late. Due for another check-in I’d say.”

“And I’d say you’re right.”

———————-

Sabini happened to have reached out to Solomons for a meeting before Alfie had the chance to initiate. Alfie knew this meant one of two things, that Sabini needed him, or he needed Sabini. Or perhaps a third option of both? Alfie was prepared for all outcomes as he prided himself in.

For anyone else the smugness on Derby’s face, set to its usual twitch of him acting as if he’d smelled shit, would’ve been an indicator of which option was on the table for discussion. But this observation was useless against someone like Sabini. He didn’t give himself away until you dug in close and arrogance was his base nature.

He waltzed in like some greyscale silent film star with shiny shoes and a coat draped over his shoulders. His appearance next to Alfie gives nothing away that they were both raised in the same streets as the learned posh facade Sabini had long practiced to appear authentic. Alfie even has the passing thought of observing Sabini’s practiced measures of sitting down to be a tad too feminine at this point but that was neither here nor there, he supposes.

Alfie’s nose twitches both from his business mate’s luxury cologne and his impatience for the small talk. He was only interested in faux comradery if he could benefit from it. Sabini was lamenting on the state of the cabinet, the changes, and the way the kids no longer remembered the war and it was leading in directions he didn’t particularly care for. Perhaps it was an attempt to be personable, but Alfie had no time for such things when it came to someone who he’d known since before his balls dropped.

Alfie perks up his demeanor, hands flat and wide on his old wooden desk, dust unsettling as he hit heavily against the top. “Now DERBY… “He clears his throat, lips pooching out ever so slightly to appear in thought, but it was clearly making a mockery of the behavior of Sabini. “We could, y’know, sit and listen to you talk out ya arse ‘bout shit no one gives a FUCK about.” he blinks rapidly and nods his head with his low brow directed at his associate. “Or we could just skip it, the gossipin’ like the birds ‘n that, and get down to business. Like men.” his tongue punctuates against his teeth to show through his deepened voice that he meant what he said. In case Derby had forgotten.

“Now for what it’s worth, your precision is something I always did like about you Alfie.”

“Compliments ain’t like you now, Derby, old friend. Should I pull me cock out for those sweet words or do you want to get to your fucking point?”

With a slight wince of his lips, Sabini takes a deep breath to crispen his delivery. “I am here as a show of good faith, right? I have some information that you need and I want to discuss how this might affect us in the future.”

“Us?” Alfie laughs and sits back in his chair with a smug grin. “Presumptuous, innit?”

“Yes. Us, Alfie.” Sabini states with the annoyance already showing through in his voice.

“Go on then.” a demanding hand motions forth from the leather chair.

“The Greeks are trying to upset the truces.”

“Ahhh.” Alfie groans. “Always the fuckin’ Greeks, yeah? If not then it’s the Italians.” he jokes.

Sabini chose to ignore the jab. “I have the information you want. But I need something from you in return.”

“How do you know I need it? How do you know, yeah? That I don’t already know?” Alfie's lip curled up almost in an almost childish taunt.

“Because you aren’t reaching out to anyone. You’d be doing damage control if you knew. Gettin’ all the little ducks in a row to keep everyone in line.”

“You are being rather bold, y’know, there mate... Don’t much care for it to be honest. Arrogance, innit? Which means, you tellin' me how you think I fuckin’ run things, which you can fuck RIGHT OFF with, mate, respectively, I mean that Derby old mate… THAT indiscretion leads me to believe, yeah? That you do genuinely think that the information you have is valuable.” he taps the desk in front of him to demand the information with not only his words. “So what is it that you think is so important that you’d come down here to mingle among us… dirty dust bin lids, I believe is what you call us.

“I need something from you in return.”

Alfie throws his hands up half way, “Let me ask you this Derby, in all seriousness now lad, Are you thick? Are you lame? NO! No, listen ‘cause that statement was something an imbecile would say to a man like me.”

Sabini sighs and rolls his eyes, “Me ‘n you go way back Alfie. We’ve been enemies, and we’ve been friends. And isn’t it much better when we’re friends?”

“Oh yeah, mate.”

“I need us to be on the same side here. We grew up together. Immigrant lads and the like. We know war, we know the streets, we have an advantage here as a pair and I want to propose we work together instead of apart for the foreseeable future.”

“Mmm.” is Alfie’s only response. Best you stay silent and let the other man do the talking.

“Can you agree to that? We can do it formally, with your contracts and that. I know how your lot loves to have documentation of everything.”

“Can ya fuckin’ blame us? What with whats’ goin’ on out there?”

“That’s why we need to work together.”

“How’s about you tell me what this information is and I will tell you if it’s worth me workin’ with a man like you? You Italians aren’t known for your inclusivity ya daft fascists.”

“Alfie.” Sabini groans. “You know I'm not that stupid and I know you aren’t either. Let’s move past this yeah? I’m English, I don’t live in bloody Italy, my parents don’t live there, I work with what’s in front of me don’t I? Not with my head in some other fuckin’ country. Give me a bit of credit here, I'm not some amateur.”

“A truce?” Alfie quickly switches the conversation direction in a show of understanding.

“Yes.” An exasperated Sabini spits out.

“What terms?” Alfie asks with a rather dainty placement of his gold spectacles and a lick of his pen.

“We share the tracks. I can give you more races to share if you agree to not come for me or my men. We won’t cross on each other territories of businesses. No fighting over pubs and theatres. We’d have each other's backs, like the good old days.”

“Good old days.” Alfie snorts as keeps writing. “I get one race a month of my own. Share the rest.”

“Fine.”

“NO crossing territories, no murderin’, no fightin’.” Alfie repeats, with a mumble as it’s the least of his worries.

“Agreed.”

“And the giving of men for circumstances of attack and revenge on other groups if the situation arises.”

“Acceptable.”

“Then sign here,” Alfie says with a satisfied expression. “You must be in a right spot, mate. Givin’ up this.”

“It’s an investment.”

“Mmm.” Alfie hums and shakes the paper to dry the ink. “Now. This information…”

“There was a meeting-”

“Remember when I said I knew things…?”

“Let me bloody talk now. We get it you KNOW things, Alfie.” he interjects with an annoyed wave of his hand. “What you might not know is that Niko tried to gather the lot of us from all of London and turn us on you.”

“Mmm.” another sound of acknowledgment that meant nothing.

“He doesn’t trust you or your bride to be. Congratulations by the way.”

“Thank you.” he nods gracefully.

“We all know he’s after her, yeah? But he wants us to believe she’ll turn you against everyone and try to take us all down one by one. Which after your reaction to Horne, almost all of us aren’t sure what the fuck to think about you.”

“Couldn’t possibly have been intentional.”

“I wanted a truce because I don’t want you coming at me how you did Horne. A new war between us will do nothing but lead to problems I don't fucking have time for anymore. Not with how the worlds changing and us getting older.”

“Yeah, I feel it in my legs mostly...” Alfie groans.

“Niko is going to come for you. I believe you need to set up a meeting of your own and address him and, well bloody almost everyone else. It might help, might not. But at least then when faced with you and not behind your back you might see what sort of man Niko has turned into after taking over.”

“Never was much of one to begin with.” Alfie rolls his eyes.

“No, which makes him behave like a child and thus not act according to the truces that are set in place.”

“Yeah yeah.” Alfie nods. “There needs to be somethin’ said. Can’t have the little wanker goin’ round runnin’ his fuckin’ mouth bout me. OR my wife. “

“All this over a fucking woman.” Sabini groans.

Alfie points a ringed and aggressive finger his way. “You can’t be talking about her either, yeah? That’ll break this little agreement faster than I could put a bullet in your fuckin’ skull, right?”

“I'm not. Nothing personal just… he’s acting like a little boy. I know marriage is important to you Jews.”

“Always the tasteful one, Derby.”

“You know what I fuckin’ mean.”

“Unfortunately I do speak prick.”

“Alfie, I’m not after you or your wife. In any capacity. How I talk is just how I talk, yeah? I don't mean nothin’ by it, it’s just how I am. How we grew up. And I know you. We know each other right? And I would rather work with the devil I know than the devil I don’t. And that’d be you. Especially after what you did to Horne.”

“Mmph.” Alfie nods. “Spose that checks out.”

“I was impressed, I’ll admit. We haven’t seen a retaliation wipe out a whole enterprise like that in decades.”

“And I’d dig him up, skull fuck him and set him on fire if I could. Salt the fuckin’ earth wherever his feet touched.” Alfie's eyes are familiar darkness to Sabini. He’d expected as much from him after seeing the ash fall from the city skyline line it was snow from the destruction Alfie orchestrated. “I don’t blame you for not wantin’ me on your bad side. I know they say we’re both crazy now.”

“But see...I know neither of you are.”

“And that’s why we’ve not killed you yet, mate. Every now and then, you use your brain. ”

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[thirstyforred]

few other plot points in Jacques x Hubert amazing murder mystery adventure

(while I'm editing something totally else, so don't get too excited unless you're into XS)

since both Siegfried and Ulrich are Jacques adjutant they also end up on a few crime scenes and Jacques actually makes a point of asking them for input or makes them talk with potential witnesses

and at least one body makes Sigfried wonder like hey but what if the killer isn't human? what if it's some kind of monster?

and he actually talks about it with J&H, points out some pieces of evidence that are kinda shifty, but they're like hah, what? no... definitely some human, pastodi- or menge-shaped human lol

so instead Siegfried talk with Ulrich, and Ulrich is like fine, i guess I'll help you with this totally unnecessary investigation. i have literally nothing else to do anyway

Siegfried decides that they need like a very good book on monster lore and they can't find anything like it in the Novigrad, so they need to go to Oxenfurt, where he actually knows someone in the Academy's library so they can simply ask there

but the problem is that Radovid closed the Academy so they can't really get on the campus unless they're the actual employes

but now Ulrich is like np i know of a guy who can get us inside ^u^

so they travel to the Oxenfurt and go into the office of newly appointed overseer of witch hunters in the city, Graden

they really give out the energy of shitty brothers and basically bully him into giving them a tour of the Academy campus

they get to the library and there archivist just gives them his notes like nbd, quest completed

and they return to Novigrad and Siegfried read thru all of this monster lore and has few theories but they would need to actually see corpse or something

in the meantime J&H get deeper into their plot and came up with a plan of murder party

Jacques aks Roderick de Wett to make sure that both Caleb Menge and Nathaniel Pastodi are invited to the next ball at the Vegelbuds - so when one of high profile guest gets murdered in a gruesome way they don't an alibi that they were somewhere else right?

but obviously the whole plan goes sideways

Roderick appears as Pastodi's +1 which is absolute bs and everyone hates that

Menge appears with extra goblets of wine, which he gives J&H, asking to have a drink with him, and they're like oh that's some fancy silver

and Menge is kinda boiling bc he hoped to arrest their asses for being some nasty nonhumans :/

but Jacques is not finished, he's like you idiot, you moron, clearly you haven't book in your hands, otherwise, you would know that there're monsters out there that can take human appearance and silver still doesn't do shit to them

and he makes Roderick, Siegfried and Ulrich list out every monster that's not adversely affected by silver, and like the majority of this list are just vampires

and Hubert is lowkey uncomfortable, bc apparently his husband really trained good his witchers lite in monster hunting, but he just keeps drinking his wine :/

so Menge is like oh yeah? so what about that the two of you were seen in Whoreson's arena? what about that?

and J&H are like wow, what would we even do there? we don't know anyone who would frequent such place, and what would be the other reason to go to such a place if not that we had a friend there? like idk someone whose name starts with Hemmel and ends with Fart??

so Menge just storms off and gets lost in the hedge maze

(maybe literally maybe not, depends which is funnier)

but it's not the end of the drama bc the Power Couple: Morvran Voorhis and Mary Luisa la Valette also appear and Voorhis gets right into some old-fashioned Nilfgaardian bulling with Roderick

which ends up Roderick also storming off, and Pastodi going after him, which ofc is no good, but whatever this party is a fucking disaster

Dijkstra in the corner is like i would be taking notes of all the juicy shit, but thankfully i have great memory

Ingrid Vegelbud is like idk what all these ppl are doing here or who they are, but i live for drama

[vacanpaathy]

Rogue Bio

BASICS

Full Name: Anna Marie .            Orientation:  PAINFULLY STRAIGHT        ROGUE                                Shipping availability:  Semi-Open Age range: 17 -30ish??           Occupation: Terrorist, X-Man    Muse Availability: Main Student    

BIG NOTE: this is not strictly comic Rogue, movie Rogue or evo Rogue or a Rogue who has verses for all three. This is an adaptation of Rogue I’ve been stewing over since I started my solo for her ( onlyrogue ) and have finally decided to release into the wild. The easiest way to think about this Rogue is XMCU Rogue 2.0, just like all the other characters got overhauled post-DOFP naturally Rogue did too. Her history pulls from comic canon, mainly the 80s era comics while her characterization pulls from those and a bit from the X-Men: Evolution series. Basically, if Rogue had shown up in Apocalypse and Dark Phoenix this is how I’d have done her. So uh, yeah..... fuck it up yall.

Anna Marie was born in Caldecott County, Mississippi to Priscilla and Owen [Last Name Unknown] who were part of a cult commune. Not long after Priscilla died under unknown circumstances when she was 3 her life fell apart and by 6 she had run away due to her poor home life. After spending an unknown amount of time homeless Anna Marie meets Irene Adler, known as Destiny a blind woman with the power of precognition, who Anna Marie first threatens with a shotgun before Destiny comforts her and takes her in.

Anna Marie began taking lessons in martial arts and going to a formal school for the first time. At around 10-13 while playing with her friend Cody he kissed her  her mutation finally kicked in completely absorbing his psyche and leaving him in a permanent coma. Rogue’s contact with others is lessened and she officially begins to wear extremely covering clothing. She makes it about 1-ish year of real high school before she is removed and homeschooled for her own safety and to allow for more time in her training to prepare for when she officially joined the Brotherhood of Mutants, the mutant terrorist organization Destiny helped run.

16-17 Rogue begins being included in Brotherhood missions.

When her powers finally became too much and she was literally losing her mind under the psychic weight of all the people she’d absorbed Rogue ran away to the Xavier School for Gifted Youngers to seek help from Professor Xavier with her mutation and the overcrowding over her mind. While at first Irene was mournful at losing her daughter she agreed it was the only way to save her and let her daughter stay despite her differences with Xavier.

PS NOTE: Ideally I’d love to keep the comic canon of her being Mystique’s adopted daughter but sfdlkjghdfk fuck me if I know how to make that shit work in the new movie canon. OG tril Mystique tho yeah that totally works. If Mystiques would like to hmu about them adoption papers do it.

IMPORTANT LINKS

About Headcanons Interactions Meta Answered Meme replies Aesthetic

VERSES

MAIN

TO ME MY XMEN 

Rogue’s a fairly new student at the Xavier Institute, fresh from her career as a terrorist who tried to kill all of them and their friends multiple times. Finding a lab partner is hard now......

MAGNETO WAS RIGHT

Decides to throw her chips in with the other guy who talks to much since he’s a little more her speed than Xavier was and just as smart. Also likely a verse where she’s still in the Brotherhood depending on how Magnetos handle that shit. 

BROTHERHOOD OF MUTANTS

[ SWEET GUITAR RIFF ] IT’S THE VERSE WHERE SHE’S STILL A VILLAIN YEAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH. 

AUs

XMCU CLASSIC

for fun, old school movie rogue.

616

just in case someone wants this i guess fgsfdgd

EVO

because...... ofc..........?????

STRANGER ISSUES

OOH, SHE'S A LITTLE RUNAWAY. MESSED MUTANT GIRL STUMBLED INTO HAWKINS HEY. OOH, SHE'S A LITTLE RUNAWAY. I’ve been working on too blog admin shit and it’s showing. But yes, Rogue is another Weird Childe like Eleven and Eight on the run from Somewhere and Something who stumbles into Hawkins while running. Deliberate vagueness bc Rogue’s a Shifty Bitch™.

( that title was a fuck up typing / thinking slip but honestly it’s so choice i had to keep it )

[softguarnere]

Like A Girl (Like A Man)

Shifty Powers x OFC

Chapter 38: Falling Into Place

Summary: They found their way back to each other, but now they have to find their way back to themselves as well. A/N: This took me way too long to write, because I just couldn't get it right, even though I knew what I wanted to happen. But next is the epilogue, and I'm ✨very pleased✨ with that, so hopefully it all balances out Warnings: symptoms of PTSD Taglist: @latibvles @liebgotts-lovergirl @dcyllom @ithinkabouttzu @mads-weasley @mrs-murder-daddy @lieutenant-speirs

Virginia, 1946

Their first week in Clinchco is probably the closest thing that they ever get to a proper honeymoon.

Although Shifty is sometimes in pain, he insists on going into the woods, reacquainting himself with the places that raised him. Despite the winter chill, they climb Frying Pan together and watch the sprawl of blue mountains before them in silence, drinking it all in. These are not the same mountains that cradled Zenie growing up, but she squints out at them, familiarizing herself with their peaks and crevices, already calling them home.

The blanks do not easily fill themselves in, completing the story and wrapping it up in a nice bow. The universe has spent too long throwing them curveballs to stop now.

On the coldest winter nights, Zenie sometimes jerks awake, heart racing, convinced that she’ll open her eyes and find herself back in her foxhole in Bastogne – afraid that the past year has all been a dream and that she never made it out of those woods.

Shifty is usually awake, staring at the ceiling. She curls into his warmth and listens to his heartbeat, trying to drift back to sleep.

On nights when it eludes her and Shifty still dozes, she sneaks into the kitchen and places late night phone calls to Philadelphia and chats with Bill or Babe, neither of who seem to be getting much sleep, either.

It’s on one of those sleepless nights that Babe dredges up ancient history.

“Zee,” his voice crackles through the receiver. “I just realized something.”

“What is it?”

“You remember that night back in England where you danced with that girl in the pub?”

Zenie has to rifle through memories until she comes up with the correct one. There had been a girl, she vaguely recalls, who moved like a fox that allowed her a dance after Babe encouraged her not to waste her night on the sidelines. “I think so.”

“You made me look like an idiot!”

“Because I was such a good dancer?” Zenie croons quietly, smirking to herself in the darkness of the kitchen.

Babe gasps, mock offended. “No! Because I said that it was too bad you weren’t a girl – since if you were, we would have made a hell of a jitterbug team.”

She has to muffle her laugh with her hand so that she doesn’t wake up everyone in the Powers’ house. He had said that. With no clue.

“Anyway, you better get your ass to Philly to come visit me and Bill,” Babe continues. “And when you do, we’re gonna go dancing!”

“Is that a promise, or a threat?”

“Both.”

But in the end, they go nowhere. Not for a while, at least.

Shifty borrows the truck one day to drive into the next town over, eager to go visit an old friend. Zenie kisses him goodbye at the door, then heads out into town to see if she can find a job. Their time at home relaxing has been fun, but she’s spent too long being busy to get used to it. (Besides, the lingering memories of her father never raising a finger haunt her; she refuses to be anything like him.) They need money, at some point, anyway, to get their own house.

She returns home an hour later, smiling in triumph after securing herself a job at the local diner. But it fades as soon as she walks into the yard and sees Shifty sitting on the front step, frowning down at his feet.

“Shifty?”

He looks up, startled. His dark eyes are deep with something that Zenie doesn’t recognize.

“You’re home early.”

He shakes his head. “I didn’t go.”

“What?” He had been so excited, even though he was only going a town over.

“I couldn’t go,” Shifty corrects himself slowly. He stands, shaking his head, brow furrowed. “I – I don’t know. I was going down the road, and it was like all the air just left my chest. Had to pull over to catch a breath. And then I just . . . came home.”

“Oh, Shifty.”  She opens her arms, and he falls into them. His breathing is heavy, and Zenie rubs his back. They stay like that for a while, still making up for lost time, still making up for all those months where they didn’t get to hold each other like this. When Zenie speaks, she keeps her voice low, afraid to upset the delicate balance of the little universe that exists between just the two of them in this moment. “Do you want to talk about it?”

There’s a moment of hesitation before she feels Shifty shake his head. “No,” he says, breaking their embrace. He sighs. “I don’t even know what there is to say.”

He’s right. What is there to say?

The words for what the end of the war leaves in them remain just out of reach, like a plane passing over in the evening sky, or too deeply entrenched in their hearts to remove, like pieces of shrapnel lodged in a soldier’s flesh. Every time that Zenie thinks she’s found the words, they ultimately fall flat. She always thinks of David Webster, and how he could wax poetic about anything and everything. It makes her wish that she was like that.

But she’s not. So she has to find other ways to express herself. And sometimes the only way she can find to do that is to grab hold of Shifty’s hand and squeeze it like she’s gripping a lifeline. Shifty, for his part, often wraps his arms around her and just holds her, neither of them speaking – just the two of them huddled together, as if they’re the only people in the whole universe.

Things don’t magically fall into place the way that Zenie had once expected them to. Their new lives take some adjusting as new routines develop. They found their way back to each other, but now they have to find their way back to themselves as well.

Shifty disappears into the woods most afternoons. Sometimes he takes Zenie with him. They sit on top of Frying Pan, gazing out at the hazy mountains, their hands intwined. It’s on one of these days that Shifty makes a confession.

“I can’t hunt anymore,” he says quietly.

Startled by his sudden speech, Zenie tears her eyes away from the scene before her. It takes a minute for his words to sink in.

“What?”

“I can’t hunt anymore,” Shifty repeats. He’s still gazing out at the mountains, but a wrinkle appears between his brows as he furrows them in thought. “I’ve tried, but it’s not the same.”

Come to think of it, Shifty usually has his rifle with him when he heads into the woods. But he never comes back with any game. He used to love to hunt.

“I’m sorry,” Zenie says for lack of anything better.

Shifty turns to her, offers her a sad smile. He plants a kiss on her cheek. “Not your fault, Zena. Some things are just different now, and this is one of them.” He exhales, a hard sigh through his nose. “We just have to get used to them.”

And they do.

Slowly, Shifty starts to venture further than the woods. He surprises Zenie by visiting her at the diner one afternoon, and she takes her break so that they can share a slice of pie – blueberry, just like they talked about back in Haguenau – and watch people pass by on the street. When she returns home from work that evening, Shifty surprises her again by announcing that he got a job after he left the diner.

“With the coal company,” he explains. “They aren’t hiring mechanics, but they signed me on to pick slate. It’s a start.”

He doesn’t sound disappointed, but he doesn’t sound thrilled about the menial work, either.

“Shifty,” Zenie says, squeezing his hand. “You don’t have to go back to work if you don’t feel ready.”

“No,” he says, shaking his head. “I’m ready. There are only so many days a man can sit around at home or walk by the same trees in the woods. Besides, I –“ He stops, bites his lip. He shakes his head again. “Never mind.”

This catches Zenie’s attention. “What?”

An awkward pause ensues in which they stare at each other, Shifty looking like a man who has just painted himself into a corner.

Finally, he sighs. “I’m not goin’ to be the type of man your father is. Sittin’ around at home all day, I mean.”

“Oh.” He’s doing this for her. No one has ever forced themselves to do something just for Zenie’s own benefit or happiness before. She leans forward and presses a kiss to her husband’s smooth cheek. Just by considering her feelings, he’s already leaps and bounds ahead of her father. Her last conversation with Matthew applies here, too. “Don’t worry, Shifty. You’re nothing like him.”

Shifty nods in agreement. “And we never will be. Not if I have anything to say about it.”

Slowly, spring comes into bloom all around them. Green buds and colorful shoots reintroduce themselves to the landscape, creeping through the mountains and valleys like a spilled watercolor set staining fresh paper. With the rising temperatures, thoughts of Bastogne and long, miserable days in frozen foxholes subside. Zenie’s sleepless nights ebb away. Shifty begins to smile and talk more. Even though it’s their first spring together in the States as a couple, it feels like they’re returning to themselves as things begin to fall into place.

It's late March. Shifty’s birthday has come and gone, and her own is on the horizon. As the days pass, Zenie finds herself watching the calendar more and more, keeping track of dates as she makes private calculations and risk assessments as she secretly practices speeches that she needs to deliver to Shifty.

The afternoon is clear and bright. Blooming jonquils perfume the air, giving it a sweet quality that Zenie can’t get enough of. A whole company of the yellow flowers rests behind the house, guarding the little creek that runs past. Zenie paces along their ranks as she waits for Shifty to return home from work.

When the rumbling of the truck’s engine comes into earshot, Zenie has to shield her eyes from the sun as she looks up to watch her husband pull into the driveway. He’s going faster than usual. The second he spots her coming towards him, he leans out the window, smiling wide as he waves her over to his parking spot.

“Got a surprise for you,” he announces as he leaps out of the truck. “A couple, actually.”

“I have something for you, too,” Zenie admits.

“I hope it’s pie,” Shifty says. “Because that’s the only thing that could make this day any better.”

“Hmm, I don’t know. It might be better than pie.”

Shifty quirks an eyebrow. “Better than pie? That’s some big talk.” He circles to the back of his truck, smile never wavering in his excitement. “Do you remember what we talked about back in Haguenau?”

They talked about a lot of things back in Haguenau. Many plans were made in those haunted shells of buildings. But for the sake of conversation, Zenie just nods. “Yes.”

“Well, you never said what kind of dog you wanted, so I took a chance – “ Shifty opens the back door of the truck and removes a box from the back seat. Almost immediately, a small, dark nose framed with fiery fur peeps over the rim and gives the air a sniff. A glossy auburn head soon follows, and a puppy stares out at Zenie, who tentatively reaches out a hand to scratch it between the eyebrows.

“A guy at work said his dog unexpectedly had some puppies, and I told him I wanted to buy one,” Shifty explains. “Irish Setter.” He tilts his head as he watches Zenie run the puppy’s silky ears between her fingers. “I think he’s cute.”

“Beautiful,” Zenie agrees. “Does he have a name?”

Shifty beams when he tells her, “That privilege belongs to you.”

The puppy is small, but his eyes are large, soulful things. Sunlight glints off his red fur the way that it used to shine off Matthew’s auburn hair on summer days – bright, like a new penny. Bright like the sun, like Shifty’s smile. Nvda means sun, and agaliha means it’s sunny, but none of those seem quite right in explaining how he looks; the color of his fur is deeper, redder . . .

“Degvliga,” she decides.

“Wildfire,” Shifty translates. He inspects the dog, who perks up at the name. “Hey, I think he likes it.”

They get so caught up in playing with Wildfire, watching him roam the yard and telling him that he’s an osda ghili usdi that Zenie almost forgets what she was thinking about before Shifty arrived, and he forgets that he promised her a second surprise.

It’s not until they’re lying awake in bed that night, legs entangled and watching their fingers in- and untwine in the moonlight that reality seems to set in again.

“Adeljuhlvi,” Shifty says dreamily. “California.”

“What about it?” Zenie’s eyes are already half closed. For all she knows, she might have only dreamed that he said that.

The mattress dips as Shifty rolls onto his side so that he can look at her. “I forgot to tell you. A mechanic’s job opened up, but the boss wants to send me to California for it.”

Tired or not, now Zenie’s eyes open wide at the news. She props herself up on one elbow, like looking at her husband from a slightly different angle will make everything clearer. “That’s so far away!”

Shifty nods. “I know. But I’ve been thinkin’ . . . It’s also a lot warmer there. It might be nice, you know, to take a break from winter for a while.”

All the recent sunny days they’ve experienced with the onset of spring have caused her memories of winter to melt away like thawed snow. Now that she considers it, though . . . won’t they just come back with the first cold snap? Who can predict that type of thing?

Even the thought of snow sends a shiver down her spine. Memories of ice and explosions flash through her mind, quick as the shrapnel that tore so easily through the forest every day and every night. At night she sometimes wakes with the images echoing through her mind the same way that screams and gunshots echoed across that frozen wasteland they called Bastogne.

She never wants to look winter in the face again. So she makes up her mind then and there.

“I’m game if you are.” Her voice is strong, steady. “It’s your job, though, so it’s your decision.”

In the moonlight, Shifty studies her for a moment. The slightest incline of his head indicates a nod of agreement. “I think it would be best for us. For now, at least.”

“A new adventure.” Zenie settles back down onto her pillow, relaxed by the decision. “I’ll miss this place, though.”

“I know. But our mountains will always be here.”

“They’ll wait for us.”

“Exactly.”

Funny, she thought the same thing the day she ran away. And when she left home for the last time to come here, to her new home. Maybe she’s destined to think it every time. A reminder of sorts. But a fact – they have been here since time immemorial, and they will be here long after Zenie has come and gone.

“ – to tell me?” Shifty’s voice drags her out of her half-asleep state.

“What?”

“When I got home, you said that you had something for me.” He nudges her affectionately. “And there was no pie at dinner.”

A giggle works its way up Zenie’s throat. It sounds loud and bright in the moonlight and the quiet of the night around them. Through the darkness, she finds Shifty’s hand again and drags it toward her, until his warm palm is pressed against the flat of her stomach.

If all goes well, there are two new adventures that they’ll be going into – together. 

[softguarnere]

Like An Echo (Like More Than)

Legacy

Shifty Powers x ofc (Hunger Games!au)

Summary: There’s no need for introductions – they know who she is; everyone does – but she does it anyway. When Granny once told her about her own Games, she had mentioned that she announced her name and district when stepping into her private session. Zenie had been awestruck by the way her grandmother had demanded their attention like that. So now, she does the same, because it’s what Granny did, and repeating the action makes her feel less alone. A/N: Another year, another Zenie birthday fic (because laglam is my Roman Empire and I miss writing it) Warnings: none Taglist: @latibvles @liebgotts-lovergirl @lady-cheeky @dcyllom @mads-weasley @ithinkabouttzu @mrs-murder-daddy @lieutenant-speirs

Soon enough the seconds will stop slipping by and they will call the female tribute from District 11 back to her private session with the Gamemakers. She will have nothing to show them except that she can identify almost every plant, and that she can wield a scythe in a way that could be deadly in combat. But until then, Zenie sits at a table with the boy from District 12, pretending not to notice him casting glances at her every so often.

Which is something that he’s been doing since the second they got to the Capitol. Everyone has been looking at her, but him more than most. In training, he’s had his eye on Zenie almost as much as he’s been eyeing the bow and arrows – which, strangely, she has never seen him actually pick up.

Unable to stomach both the shy glances and the uncertainty of her private session anymore, Zenie steels herself and blurts out the first thing that comes to mind.

“I saw what you did,” she announces. Trying to conceal her nerves, trying to make sure her voice doesn’t shake, has made it quiet, steady, and somewhat ominous. The boy sitting across from her startles when she says it, making her realize just how menacing that sentence sounded. She amends by clarifying, “At the Reaping. For that boy. That was very brave of you.”

The boy relaxes, somewhat. In all the brief glances that she’s had of him, Zenie has always thought that he had a somber look about him. Now that she’s looking at him openly for the first time, she can’t help but think that his dark eyes house a deep sadness.

“My little brother,” he says by way of explanation.

Ah, that explains it. Why else would someone from an outlying District volunteer in the Reaping? Zenie would know. Scenes from her own District’s Reaping flash through her mind – her name being called; the realization no one was coming to save her when the crowd around her parted as her peers stepped away to reveal her, leaving her no place to hide; how suddenly she was on the stage, watching a Peacekeeper hold back her brother, too old to be Reaped, unable to volunteer for a girl anyway, trying to break through the crowd to get to her.

“I’m Darrel, by the way,” the boy says, extending his hand for a shake. “But everyone back home calls me Shifty.”

“Zena.” He’s got a firm shake, rough, calloused hands. “But most everyone calls me Zenie.”

“Nice to meet you,” he says as if they’re friends and not people who will be at each other’s throats in just a matter of hours that are counting down on a constantly ticking clock. Now that he no longer has to pretend not to be looking at her anymore, Shifty studies her. “They say you’re a legacy. Did one of your parents win the Games?”

“My grandmother. She won when she was seventeen. Same age as me.” With so many people still around, she can’t say what she really means, which is that she’s sure this was intentional, somehow or other. District 11 is a big place. There is no coincidence in the fact that she has just been Reaped at the very age that her grandmother was. With all the fights between the Peacekeepers and harvesters this past year, this is some kind of warning.

Shifty considers this. His brow furrows in a way that seems very vulnerable to Zenie – it’s best not to reveal your emotions in a place like this, around people who want you dead, yet here he is.

“You’ve probably got a better chance than any of us,” he reasons after a moment of thinking.

That’s kind of him. Completely misplaced confidence in a stranger, but still kind.

“She won by being a good shot with a bow,” Zenie admits, more to see how he’ll react than anything else. “I’m not going to make it very far unless identifying poisonous plants somehow becomes a skill that sponsors love.”

As expected, Shifty perks up slightly. He starts to speak but is cut off by a voice from an overhead speaker calling for the male tribute from District 10. Once they watch her go, he leans across the table, eyes bright. “Shooting a bow isn’t that hard. Have you practiced with one at all?”

He asks as if he doesn’t know. Zenie could feel him watching her on their first day in training, when she picked up the bow, managed to fire a single shot that hit the outside of the target, and then gave up in favor of the digital plant identification game.

She decides to humor him. “I tried, but I wasn’t very good. Getting my hands on one in the arena wouldn’t help me.”

“But it might help you in your private session,” Shifty points out. A grin tugs at his lips as he suggests it, like helping a rival tribute isn’t the most outlandish and foolish thing he could possibly do right now. “When you first shoot at the target, look straight down the arrow at the bullseye. If the arrow hits above it, aim lower next time. If it hits below it the first time, aim higher. Same for left and right.”

On that one shot she dared fire in front of the others, she had looked down the arrow, directly at the bullseye. That was how archery was supposed to work, in her mind. The arrow had been in line with the bullseye, but hit to its left. So if she were to pick up the bow again, she should aim to the right.

“Okay . . .” Zenie agrees, albeit hesitantly. For all she knows, he could be making this up, sabotaging her so that she makes a complete fool of herself in front of the Gamemakers and receives a lousy score.

Yet somehow, she senses nothing but kindness in his earnest way of speaking.

“My daddy taught me that,” Shifty assures her, as if providing his credentials. He whispers it so that none of the other tributes can hear him.

For a second, it shocks Zenie that someone’s father would provide them with a lesson like this. Her own father would never do something like that for her. He never spent any time with her. He didn’t even come to say goodbye to her after the Reaping –

She pushes the thought from her mind. Shifty helped her. She should offer him something in return.

“In training, did you ever do the plant matching game?” She asks, voice low in the same way his was a moment before. If they’re going to share secrets, they may as well do it properly.

The boy from 12 shakes his head. “Never had the chance. But I’m usually pretty good with plants.”

“Have you ever heard of nightlock?”

“What?” Shifty’s brow furrows.

“Nightlock,” Zenie repeats. “They’re like blueberries, but more of a deep purple. Gotta watch out for them in the arena, because it can be hard to tell the difference. That was the only thing that kept me from beating the game.”

Shifty nods, muttering the name under his breath so he doesn’t forget it. He looks her in the eye when he says, “Thank you.”

As if on cue, a voice from on high calls Zenie’s name, summoning her to come and meet her fate.

“Good luck,” Shifty says as she stands to go.

“You, too.”

The sounds of talking and laughter decrescendo to a hushed silence the second that Zenie steps into the sight of the Gamemakers. There’s no need for introductions – they know who she is; everyone does – but she does it anyway. When Granny once told her about her own Games, she had mentioned that she announced her name and district when stepping into her private session. Zenie had been awestruck by the way her grandmother had demanded their attention like that. So now, she does the same, because it’s what Granny did, and repeating the action makes her feel less alone.

“Zena McGlamery. District 11.”

The Gamemakers are watching.

Now, what to do? Playing the plant identification game would bore them to death. Swinging around a scythe looks silly if she’s not wielding it against an opponent. She’s made an entrance – now she has to live up to it. Just like Granny once did.

With the conscious choice to hold her head high and her shoulders back, Zenie takes long, confident strides towards the archery station. The silver bow feels sleek and foreign in her hands. But this is what they expect, isn’t it?

Hoping that no one can see the trembling of her hands, Zenie selects an arrow and knocks it. The bow draws easily. The fletching is cool against her cheek, and the arrow’s tip points straight to the bullseye.

Her fingers tremble with anticipation. She’s about to fire when she hears the advice of the boy from 12 play in her mind, just as clearly as if he were there with her. He’s gotten into her head – literally.

But I trust him, Zenie thinks, remembering the look on his face, in his eyes.

She shifts her stance, aiming the arrow’s tip to the right of the bullseye, parallel to the spot she hit a few days before. Inhale, exhale. Release, and the bow twangs as the arrow flies down the range.

Thwack! The echo announces the arrow’s impact.

There is a polite smattering of applause from the Gamemakers that conveniently covers up Zenie’s own gasp.

Bullseye.

[softguarnere]

Like A Girl (Like A Man)

Shifty Powers x OFC

Chapter 22: One Tough Broad

Summary: "I just needed to be someone else for a bit." A/N: I have not spoken French in about three years now, so Gene's dialogue might be completely wrong. But at least I tried 🤷🏻‍♀️ Also, while I've never seen raspberries growing on Currahee, there are so many plants, who's to say they're not somewhere along the trail? Warnings: mentions of war, injury, hospitals, language Taglist: @latibvles @lady-cheeky @liebgotts-lovergirl @lieutenant-speirs @ithinkabouttzu @hxad-ovxr-hxart

Belgium, 1944

Full of purpose, Gene leads Zenie from the Jeep to the town’s large church. (Perhaps it’s not very big – she’s just used to the small, white, wooden churches of the South where congregations squeeze together in hard pews to sing and renounce.) He hustles her right past the crowds outside, only sparing a glance at the piles of bodies lined up against a low wall. The scene steals the breath from Zenie’s lips, but there’s no time to stop.

“J'ai besoin d'une infirmière,” Gene announces when they enter the church. Some other medics glance up, but none answer. If he had wanted their answer, he would have asked in English.

Instead, it’s a young Frenchman’s voice that replies, “De quoi avez-vous besoin?”

“J'ai besoin de parler à une infirmière. C’est urgent.”

When the young man – Is he a doctor? He doesn’t wear an armband or uniform of any sort. He might be just a young man – rushes off, Gene once again guides Zenie. This time, he starts her toward the back of the church, to a more isolated area.

He finds a small room and leads her into it, shutting the door behind her before rushing back to check on Skinny and his leg. For a few moments, Zenie is alone in the dim room, waiting. Her only companion is the patch of wintery sunlight coming from a small stained-glass window on the wall above her. Some old crates stacked in the back corner provide a place for her to sit. She practically falls onto them she feels so exhausted, though the morning has just begun.

When Gene returns, a young woman follows him into the room. Zenie jumps up as the door quickly opens and shuts. The action makes Gene’s brows furrow.  

“Thought you might feel better if you had a, um, a woman to help out with the stitchin’ and all.” When Zenie blanches, he rushes on. “Don’t worry. I trust her.”

The woman is young, maybe the same age as them. Kind eyes survey her as she looks between Gene and Zenie. Though Zenie can’t understand what she says to Gene in French, the question in the woman’s eyes is clear: Who is this soldier, and why are we alone? Whatever Gene tells her, her realization is just as clear.

The woman approaches her the way that one approaches an animal that they are afraid of startling. She motions for Zenie to take a seat and then does the same, settling in on a box across from her. Her hands are folded in her lap when she nods to Zenie’s jacket and asks, “May I . . . ?”

“Yes.”

Zenie assumes that Gene has told this nurse about her situation, but the woman still starts slightly when she pulls back Zenie’s jacket and sees the bandages wrapped around her chest. Her shock is momentary. Her face quickly settles into a mask of concentration as she and Gene inspect Zenie’s arm.

She bites her lip to keep herself from flinching every time they pick a small fragment of shrapnel from her flesh. When she offers her a flask to draw from, she gratefully accepts it and downs the firewater, grimacing at the taste, as the nurse begins stitching up the long gash on her arm.

Before she knows it, it’s all over.

“Très chanceux.” The nurse pats Zenie’s good shoulder and helps her shrug her jacket back on. From the pocket of her apron, she removes a strip of bedsheet that she uses as a sling to secure Zenie’s arm. “Could have been much worse. Could have . . .” She doesn’t have to finish. Her eyes flick upwards, toward the stained-glass window behind Zenie’s head. “Someone is watching over you.”

“You won’t tell?” Zenie blurts out.

The nurse offers her a small smile and shakes her head. It’s all the reassurance that she needs.

“Thank you.”

She nods, then turns her attention to Eugene. “J'enverrai des fournitures avec vous.”

Zenie breathes a sigh of relief when the nurse leads them out of the room, back into the makeshift hospital proper. She hands Gene a small box and begins loading it with what she can. Not able to understand the French words they exchange, Zenie’s eyes wander, taking in the scene around her.

Wounded men are everywhere that she looks, some far worse than others. A feeling that Zenie cannot bring herself to name clings to them, its grip growing stronger with every breath that they take, waiting for its moment to strike. Weary and worn medics weave their way through them. Nurses hold hands and offer solace when and where they can.

Passing through them, she catches a flash – ever so brief – of dark hair rushing by with a man on a stretcher. Zenie pauses for a moment to stare. More nurses and medics follow, and Zenie loses sight of who she thought that she saw.

“How are you feeling, Skinny?”

Her fellow paratrooper looks up at her from the cot they have him situated on as he waits for his turn to be helped. Pain is evident on his face. His eyes are hazy with it, and glassy with that expression that she’s come to know from seeing him in bars and pubs after he’s had a little something to drink.

“They gave me alcohol, but I don’t think it’s doing any good.”

“You’ve built up a tolerance to it with all your partying.”

Skinny grimaces. “I guess. Hey, how about you? They fix up your arm?”

“Yeah. I’m going back with Doc Roe.”

“Oh.” Skinny settles back onto the cot, his body loosening with the action. “You’re getting out of here pretty quick, then.”

“The nurse said I was lucky.”

“You are,” he grumbles. He lifts his head a little, making sure she’s still there. “Hey, Tommy. Do me a favor, yeah? If you see Shifty and the rest of the guys, tell them that I’m gonna be okay.”

“I will.”

“Tommy!” Gene clutches the box of supplies tightly as he rounds the corner. He nods towards the door; time to go.

“Bye, Skinny.”

“Bye, Tommy.” For the sake of her friend, Zenie pretends not to notice the frown that tugs at his lips when she steps away, leaving him alone in a place so full of pain and suffering . . . and death.

Father Maloney is holding mass when they return. A good number of Zenie’s friends are kneeled before him as he speaks Latin. Bill and Babe tried to explain it all to her once, but she can’t figure out if they’re being blessed or reprimanded for their sins.

She thanks Gene for everything and then makes her way towards the group. “Go,” she can hear Father Maloney saying as she approaches. “and fight bravely for your country, and for your God.”

Well, she thinks, that answers that question.

The men stand. There are sighs of relief and a few laughs.

“Well guys,” Skip Muck says with a grin. “If we die now, we’re dying in a state of grace! Isn’t that right, Babe?”

The Philadelphian laughs, starts to say something, then stops short as Zenie and Gene approach. His eyebrows disappear underneath the rim of his helmet.

“You’re back?!”

Zenie can’t help but smirk. She might have a sling on her arm and a nasty looking scar where the nurse – or Renée, as Gene says her name is – stitched her up, but she’s back with Easy Company where she belongs. What was it that Bill had said when he made his glorious return from the hospital?

She claps Babe on the shoulder, smiling when she quips, “Had to come back and keep your ass in line, Heffron.”

Beside him, John Julian laughs. Babe, on the other hand, still looks like he’s seen a ghost.

“Boy, Bill will be glad to see you,” Julian says. “None of us knew what the hell he was gonna do when we heard you got hit.”

Me neither, Zenie thinks, remembering how her friend had reacted upon learning her secret. Not badly, but . . . She wasn’t exactly around long enough to deal with any fallout. Beads of sweat appear under her helmet at the thought of what might have happened after she left – or what might happen now that she’s back. If Babe and Julian are joking around with her, then Bill didn’t announce her secret to the world the second that Gene swept her off to dig the shrapnel out of her arm. She hoped that he wouldn’t. Maybe she won’t be court martialed or sent home – today, anyway.

For a moment she stands frozen. Not for the first time, blood rushes in her ears like roaring ocean waves as she considers her options. Should she return to her foxhole? Or find someone else to share one with? She could always try her luck wandering to the outpost to find Shifty, could hide out there for a while.

Fate decides for her.

If there’s one thing that Zenie has learned in all the time she’s known Bill Guarnere, it’s that his insistence that you should never volunteer for anything is a lifesaver. With a sling on her arm, she shouldn’t be on a patrol. Sergeant Martin’s eyes pass over her, not even considering taking someone who’s injured his dominant arm. She slips away as Gene, Julian, and Babe all gather around for their sudden orders, her heartbeat still echoing in her ears.

Grey clouds and the branches of barren trees block the wintery sun that hangs somewhere overhead, out of reach. Its position is impossible to find, and the time is just as impossible to calculate. But if she had to guess, Zenie would wager that Bill is out doing his rounds right now, making sure that everyone is okay – or as okay as they’re able to be in this place. That will give her a minute to figure out what to say when she sees him. Or at least to give her a moment alone where she can breathe.

Her foxhole comes into sight. At almost the same moment, a helmet appears over its rim, shadowing eyes that latch onto her with suspicion. She stops in her tracks.

“Tommy?” Bill jumps out of the foxhole and stands before her in an instant. Over and over again, he looks her up and down, his mouth agape. “You’re back!”

Slowly, she nods. No one else is around, but she asks in a quiet voice, “Should I have stayed in the town?”

Bill’s eyebrows knit together. “Should you – what?” Understanding dawns on his face. “Oh!” He lowers his own voice. “I didn’t turn you in, if that’s what you mean.”

He didn’t say anything. Zenie’s heart slows a bit. Her secret is out, and so far, he’s kept it.

“Why not?”

“Why not?” Bill repeats. “Jesus, Tommy. You’re my friend, that’s why!” He drops back down into their foxhole. When Zenie doesn’t move, he gestures for her to do the same. They sit for a moment, staring out at the line, neither of them speaking.

When Gene learned her secret, he had called her brave. He wanted nothing in return except for her to take better care of herself so that her secret wouldn’t get out. Shifty had also called her brave, back when he uncovered the truth. He had promised not to turn her in, to be in her corner. So far, Bill has said that he hasn’t turned her in. But what happens now?

She glances at him from the corner of her eye. He’s looking straight ahead, out into the nothingness of the snow.

Ages later, Bill sighs. “So . . . Can we talk about . . . this?”

This. This lie, this charade. This secret.

“Okay.” She didn’t have this conversation with Gene; he hadn’t asked why or how she did any of this. With Shifty, she had made the first move by asking what he wanted to know. But with Bill . . . He’s a wildcard. There’s a reason that wild is part of his nickname.

“Okay,” Bill echoes. Silence, for a moment; not something Zenie is used to experiencing around him. When he finally speaks, his voice is much softer than usual – another change of pace. “So you’ve been pretendin’ to be a man this whole time?”

Zenie’s own voice is nothing but a whisper. “Yes.”

“How much of it all was true, though?”

Most of it, she realizes for the first time. She never lied about where she was from. And other than using a fake name, she’s never lied about who she is. Everything that she’s ever said about her family, her early life, her likes, her dislikes – it was the truth.

“My name isn’t really Thomas Driver, obviously. Other than that . . . Almost everything else has been true.” In all the times that she’s wondered how her friends would react if they learned her secret, she never got as far as imagining how she would explain what she’s done or why she’s doing it. Now she’s grasping at straws. “I just needed to be someone else for a bit.”

Still looking out over the rim of the foxhole, Bill nods. “What is your name, actually? Can I ask?”

“Zena,” she admits. The name feels different in her mouth now and fits strangely in her ears. For years now, the only person who has called her by that name has been Shifty. “Zena B McGlamery. But almost everyone back home calls me Zenie.”

“Zenie.” For the first time, Bill looks at her. Like Shifty before him, he’s looking at her for the first time and seeing Zenie instead of Tommy. He tilts his head. “What does the B stand for?”

“It’ll stand for Beat Your Ass if you tell anyone.”

Laughs burst forth from them both. Good; despite everything, she can still make him do that, at least.

“Beatrice,” she amends. “It was my Granny’s name.”

“Granny. God, if she could see ya now!”

Oh God. Who knows what she would say.

“Is that why you did all this?” Bill asks, his voice quiet again. “After she died – Wait! That letter from your ma, right before the jump. Christ! You really did run away! This is why they didn’t know you joined the army.” Half of his mouth quirks upwards as his eyes flick over her, taking her in in a new light. “You know, for someone so quiet, you really got a rebellious streak, huh?” He punches her playfully on her uninjured arm. “Shoulda known you were one tough son of a bitch that day with the raspberries. Er, one tough broad, I mean.”

“Huh?”

“You don’t remember that?”

He squints at her, like it’s the most unbelievable thing in the world that she doesn’t know what he’s talking about. “When we first got to Toccoa, when they were makin’ us walk up Currahee to get us used to it, Luz pointed out some berries along the trail. Everyone was worried they were poisonous – wouldn’t take a chance with ‘em, especially since there were briars everywhere. But you said ‘They’re black raspberries!’, shoved your hand through the briars, and picked a handful for all of us. Your hand was covered in juice and blood from where the thorns snagged your skin, and you didn’t even care. It was only the second day I’d known ya, and you’d already stood your ground against me and gotten covered in blood just for a few berries.” Bill makes a noise that’s half laugh, half scoff. “I just remember thinkin’, ‘This goddamn shortie is tougher than he looks.’ And I was right – I just didn’t know the half of it back then.”

Granny had taken her out to pick black raspberries when she was young. Of course she would recognize them, try to pick a few if she had the chance. But try as she might, she can’t place this specific story in her memory. She’ll just have to take Bill’s word for it.

The Italian shrugs. “Anyway. God, I still can’t wrap my mind around the whole thing.”

“Well, now maybe it all makes more sense.”

“Does anyone else know?”

“Doc Roe and Shifty. That’s it.”

“Since when?”

“Since Toccoa. But Shifty didn’t confront me about it until England, the night that you tried to give me that pin-up.”

He winces. “Sorry ‘bout that. I probably look real stupid now.”

“No,” Zenie assures him. It just makes her look like more of a liar.

Before she can tell him as much, Bill’s eyebrows knit together. “Your ma,” he says, his mind back on the letter from the day of the jump. “She really has no clue. You gonna go back to her when the war ends?”

Zenie hesitates. Mama promised she would protect her. Yet her father . . .

“Probably.”

Bill tilts his head. “Probably?”

“My father,” Zenie explains. “I don’t know what he would do if I came back. Running away, everything I’ve done . . .” She makes a vague gesture, like that explains everything.

“Ah.” Bill leans back against the packed earth of the foxhole, his gaze once again wandering out to the expanse of snow before them. He shakes his head, the action causing his helmet to make a scraping sound against the dirt behind him. “I said I was gonna get you home to your ma, remember? That still stands. Even if I gotta put your old man in his place.”

The mental image of Bill escorting her back into her home, of such a wild young man getting in her father’s face like some sort of brave prince facing the wrath of a dragon, is enough to make her smile. Something she could never hope to do, but that her friend could do without batting an eye.

“You said that you needed to be someone else for a bit,” Bill notes. He falls silent again.

“Yes.”

“I dunno, Tommy. If anything, maybe this whole thing allowed you to be more yourself.”

More herself? Tommy is a role she plays. Someone who’s brave and who has friends and who does all the things that Zenie herself could never hope to. They’re completely different.

When she doesn’t respond, Bill shrugs again. “Just a thought.”

“Your first one ever?” She teases.

He grins. “You know, kid? I think you’re gonna be okay.”

[softguarnere]

Like A Girl (Like A Man)

Shifty Powers x OFC

Chapter 36: The Thing With Anger (It Begs to Stick Around)

Summary: There’s a moment of silence that feels like all three of them collectively breathing a sigh of relief. Things are still uncertain, but at least now Zenie has some answers, and more importantly, a plan. No more waiting around in this purgatory. A/N: I promise I did not mean to post that last chapter and then disappear for *checks watch* almost two months 💀 Things just got crazy with the holidays and I didn't have a lot of time to write Title comes from "Seventeen Going Under" by Sam Fender Warnings: domestic issues (Zenie's dad), language Taglist: @latibvles @liebgotts-lovergirl @dcyllom @ithinkabouttzu @mads-weasley @mrs-murder-daddy @lieutenant-speirs

North Carolina, 1945

Zenie has only just stepped in the house when it begins.

From the other room, she can hear the frustration in her father’s voice as he rants. “If she’s going to stay here, then she’s going to clean this place top to bottom! Someone’s got to clean this place.”

“She’s not here that often,” Mama replies. “She’s at work, with me.”

So it’s a fight about her, then. Something that she’s done. Or from the sound of it, something that her father thinks she hasn’t done. Something that, it’s worth pointing out, he could very well do if he would ever pull himself up out of that stupid rocking chair, away from his precious radio, and put in the effort. But that would be too much to ask of him.

As quietly as possible, Zenie shuts the backdoor behind her as she slips further into the room. If she hurries, she could shoot for the stairs and sneak to her bedroom before anyone notices that she’s inside. She’s almost made up her mind to do just that when the smell of smoke hits her nostrils.

On cue, Momma’s voice can be heard from the kitchen once again. “You made this mess, anyway. What are you even trying to do with the stove? There are ashes everywhere.”

“None of your business,” her father snaps, followed by an all too confident, “I’m fixing things.”

In her curiosity, Zenie has crept to the doorway of the kitchen. She peers in at the scene before her. Her father standing – for once – in front of the stove, a pile of ashes spilling from one of the eyes and onto the floor. Her mother, looking confused, angered – and then shocked when she looks up and sees Zenie’s questioning face gazing into the room.

Her father turns, too. His eyes go to slits. “Aren’t you supposed to be outside helping your mom with the wash?”

“I took a break,” Zenie replies. It’s sort of true. And with all the lies and half-truths that she’s used to build her life these past few years, what’s one more slight fib? Before he can demand any answers, she steps further into the room. “Do you need help cleaning that up, Mama?”

Her father scoffs. “Now she offers to help.” Then, in what he must think is under his breath, “Lazy fuckin’ bitch.”

“Oh, shut up.” The words escape Zenie’s mouth without her permission. She freezes, absorbing what she’s just said, the shock of the people in front of her.

A beat of silence – the most uncomfortable of her whole life.

“What did you just say to me?” Her father demands.

In for a penny, in for a pound. She thought that once before, back on D-Day. “Just stop,” Zenie says, almost pleading. “Just stop blaming me for everything. Just stop talking to my Mama that way. Just – everything!”

Mama’s eyes are wide. “Zenie – “

“Go to your room,” her father orders. He pinches the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger, like dealing with her physically pains him.

“I’m not a little kid.”

“Go!” He booms.

She will. This one last time, she decides, she will follow his order to the letter.

Despite her insistence that she’s not a kid, she stomps up the stairs to her room and slams the door shut behind her for good measure. She’ll go even further than this. Further than anyone expects.

Loudly and with gusto, Zenie rummages through her dresser, pulling out her favorite clothes, her most precious belongings. She shoves them into a carpet bag that she throws onto her bed. Her uniforms and loot from her time in the army find themselves carefully repacked into the bag she brought them home in. She checks and rechecks to make sure that her shiny jump wings are inside, just to be safe. She cannot leave anything she loves behind this time. Unlike that morning years ago where she assured herself that she would return someday, she makes no such promises now – doesn’t even let the possibility cross her mind.

Angry blood pulses through her ears so loudly that she doesn’t hear the tapping on the glass of her window the first time. Or the second. But she would have to be deaf not to hear the crashing sound behind her, the great tumult of glass shattering and then skittering in shards across her bedroom floor.

With horror, Zenie freezes, surveying the scene. She holds her breath. There is no noise from downstairs. If anyone had heard that, her father would have already started yelling. There is yelling, however – but it’s coming from outside.

“Zenie!”

Careful to avoid the broken glass that litters her floor, Zenie rushes to the broken window and sticks her head out. Down in the yard, a rock in his hand, stands Bobby.

“Bobby?” She calls. “You broke my window!”

Bobby ignores this. Even from up high, Zenie can see that his face is red, and that his chest heaves with his breathlessness. “Do you have a friend with a funny name?”

Zenie blinks. A simple I’m so sorry about your window was what she was expecting, so hearing a sentence that’s nowhere near that gives Zenie so much surprise that it takes her brain a moment to process what her friend has just said. “What?”

“Do you have a friend with a funny name?” Bobby repeats, voice impatient this time. “Starts with a G, I think? It doesn’t sound like anything I’ve ever heard before. Gonorrhea?”

“Guarnere,” Zenie automatically corrects.

Down in the yard, Bobby nods, relief briefly flickering over him. “Yeah, that’s it! He’s trying to find you!”

“Find me?”

“Get down here!”

Dodging the broken glass again and abandoning her packing, Zenie flees down the stairs and starts through the house.

“Where are you going?” Her father demands as she passes the kitchen. “Zena Beatrice!”

But Zenie is already through the door and out in the yard. A hundred possibilities race through her mind. If Bill is trying to find her, does that mean he’s here? And if he’s trying to find her, then perhaps her friends haven’t forgotten about and abandoned her after all. Which means that maybe one of them knows where Shifty is.

“Find me?” Zenie repeats the second that she sees Bobby, who grabs her hand and begins pulling her up the driveway to where his truck is parked.

“I’ll explain on the way. Just get in!”

“You broke my window,” Zenie says again as she opens the door to the passenger side.

A few steps behind her, Bobby has the decency to cringe as he approaches the truck. “Sorry about that. But your dad wouldn’t let me in to see you and there’s no time – “ He’s already cranked the truck and has the engine roaring to life before he bothers to shut his door. The vehicle lurches on the gravel, and the next thing Zenie knows, they’re flying down the road in the direction of town. To her knowledge, Bobby has never driven this fast before.

After catching his breath and throwing a nervous look in the rearview mirror, her friend finally begins to explain. “I was taking a break at work when the phone in the office rang. When I answered it, there was a guy on the other end who wanted to know if you were working. I mean, it took me a minute to figure out what he was saying at first – I’ve never heard an accent like that before in my life.”

Despite everything, Zenie can’t help but chuckle to herself as she pictures the scene. Yeah, that sounds like Bill, she thinks.

“Anyway, I told him you hadn’t worked there in a while, so he asked if I knew any other way to reach you. I told him that I could have you call him back, but that it might take a while because you don’t live in town and you don’t have a phone at your house. Then some other guy in the background started talking and – I don’t really know because of the accent – but I think they argued for a bit about something. The first guy told me to tell you that it was Guarnere, and that this was urgent.” Bobby pauses, swallows thickly. “He said it was about Shifty.”

It's hard to imagine Guarnere using those words. More accurately, he probably told Bobby to hurry the fuck up and that the fate of the world depended upon whatever he has to say. And Zenie wouldn’t blame him for that. Her heart sinks when she hears Shifty’s name. It’s like an icicle has been driven into her chest. Her body turns so cold and shaky that all she can do is stare out the window for the rest of the drive.

Which doesn’t take long, to Bobby’s credit. They slide into the parking lot of the diner on two wheels, and Zenie has leapt from the truck before Bobby has even parked properly.

He leans out the window as Zenie goes. “There’s a piece of paper on the desk with the number to call! He said they’d be waiting by the phone!”

For the second time within the past thirty minutes, blood rushes so loudly in Zenie’s ears that she barely hears what’s being said to her. Later, she won’t be able to remember the way she ran through the parking lot, how she rushed through the diner so hurriedly that she missed her old manager calling out to her in greeting. All she knows is that suddenly she’s sitting in the rickety old chair behind the desk, phone pressed to her ear with one hand while the other clutches the cord against her chest.

“Hello?” A voice on the other end shatters her thoughts, and for just a second, the iciness and worry festering in her chest dissipate.

“Bill?” Her voice is only a whisper.

“Zenie!” Bill exclaims. It simultaneously sounds like he’s laughing in delight and scolding her all at once. “Where the hell have you been? I’ve been worried sick about ya, kid!”

A thousand different visits to an empty mailbox flood her mind. “Me? Where the hell have you been? I haven’t heard from you in months!”

From some distance behind him, Zenie can hear another voice crackle through the phone. “Is that her? Lemme talk to her!”

“Hold on a sec, Babe, I’m tryin’ to get this worked out,” Bill says. Then, to her, “We’ve been gettin’ letters from you, but they never answer any of our questions. It’s like you’ve been writin’ into the void or somethin’, never acknowledging anything that we’ve sent you.”

The icy worry washes over her in a wave, making her wish that she had grabbed a sweater on her way out the door. “What do you mean? I haven’t gotten any letters from anybody.”

“You haven’t? Ow! Babe, wait your turn!”

“No.” Though the ice-cold dread in her chest thaws slightly once more. There have been letters. She just hasn’t received them. Why?

“So you don’t know then?” Babe’s voice floods the receiver.

“Know what?”

  From the other side, silence. Then, tentatively, Bill clarifies. “About Shifty?”

Zenie sucks in a breath. So something has happened to him. Somewhere deep inside her, down where her worst fears and panics fester while she pretends not to think about them, she’s always known that something had to have happened in order for her husband to not be here with her, to have not written to her. She wants so badly to know, to have answers. And yet, she can’t unstick the words in her throat. If they come out, she will get answers, and then there will be no more pretending that everything is fine. There will only be a real problem that must be faced in order to be moved past.

After a beat of silence, Bill speaks again.

“Zenie,” his voice is soft, like it was all that time ago back in Bastogne, a hundred years ago when he was asking her about her real identity. “Shifty was in a car crash on his way to the ship that was supposed to take you guys back to the States.”

The world stops spinning. Her heart stops beating. She stops breathing. Somehow, she doesn’t drop the phone, but her hand flies up to cover her mouth. It seems like she should be stifling a scream, but instead, she only breathes heavily into it, trying to catch her breath.

When her friends speak again, they sound such a long way off that they might as well be speaking to her from outer space.

“He was taken to the hospital,” Bill is explaining. “And apparently he got shipped to a new one somewhere in the States. No one seems to know which one, though.”

“And since you didn’t say anything in your letters . . .” Babe adds. “And they were all postmarked with North Carolina, we figured you didn’t know.”

“I didn’t,” Zenie whispers. “I don’t. I don’t know where he is.”

Miles and miles away and unseen to her, Zenie can still picture her friends sharing a concerned look.

“You’re with your parents?” Babe presses.

Well, she was, until right before she came here. Now most of her belongings are packed and ready to go.

“I have to leave,” she realizes aloud.

“Where?”

Bags are packed, but Zenie realizes that she never worked out where she was going to go. Her mind has to be made up now, though, and the answer suddenly becomes clear.

“I’ll go up to Virginia,” she decides. “To Shifty’s family. I’ll see if they know anything, and I’ll wait there, if they’ll let me. And if not . . .”

“You’ll come here,” Bill orders. “You’ll stay with one of us. Our families won’t mind.” Then, using his best NCO voice, “Zenie, promise me you’ll come to Philly if they don’t let you stay. We can’t lose ya again.”

Bill has extended this invitation to her once before. And Ma wouldn’t mind at all. Hell, after having her sons leave for the war, she’d probably be glad to have another mouth to feed, he had joked.

Circumstances are different now. Her secret is out. This time, she accepts. “I promise.”

“Good.”

There’s a moment of silence that feels like all three of them collectively breathing a sigh of relief. Things are still uncertain, but at least now Zenie has some answers, and more importantly, a plan. No more waiting around in this purgatory.

“Hey,” Bill says, tone lighter than before. “Congratulations on your wedding, by the way.” A pause. “But what the hell is this that I hear about Babe bein’ the one to give ya away? Ya couldn’t let your best friend do it?”

“I am her best friend,” Babe brags, followed by an “Ow!” as Bill, presumably, smacks him.

Zenie laughs. It’s a wet sound, and she realizes for the first time that there are tears leaking down her cheeks. She attempts to wipe some of them away before she speaks again. “You were my best man in spirit, Bill.”

“Zee, I’m always your best man.”

They talk for a little longer. More tears escape her, and Zenie is thankful that her friends can’t see the state that she’s in. Everything is happening so quickly. Plans must be made. That was what saved her before – having a plan, having a sense of direction, even as she was heading off into the unknown.

“Zenie, don’t forget what we said,” Bill reminds her. “You better come here at the first sign of trouble. Got it?”

“Yes, sir, Staff-Sergeant Guarnere.”

“Don’t worry, Zenie,” Babe offers. “Everything is going to turn out fine.”

He sounds so sure, his voice so kind. It only makes Zenie’s eyes water all the more. What did she do to deserve such good friends? All she can do is echo a sentiment that one of them offered her before. “We’re gonna be fine, boys.”

They fly home in Bobby’s truck, gravel pinging against the red sides and dust churning up behind them. There’s no time to lose – not when she’s lost so much already.

“I’ll wait here,” Bobby assures her at the top of the driveway. “Just holler if you need help.”

Zenie nods. After turning toward her house, she pauses for a moment, steeling herself. Then, she goes.

“Where the hell have you been?” Her father demands the second that she opens the door. But she ignores him, barges past, and flies up to her room.

“Zenie!” Her mama calls after her. “Zenie?”

Unlike her father, her mother follows her up the stairs, pauses in the doorway of her bedroom. She twists her hands together, brow furrowed as she watches Zenie grab her bags. Her breath hitches in her throat.

“You’re leaving again.” It’s a statement, not a question.

“I have to,” Zenie says. “I’m sorry, Mama.”

“Lily!” Her father yells from downstairs. “What’s going on up there?”

In a few quick strides, Zenie crosses the room, grabs Mama’s hand, pulls her into the bedroom, and shuts the door behind her, effectively shutting her father’s prying ears out in case he should hear them.

She left her mother behind last time. Ever since she came home, she’s felt the guilt over that decision festering in her chest. Maybe all her mother needs is a way out, just like her.

“Mama,” Zenie begins, voice pleading as she takes a seat on her bed. Her mother’s hands are warm between hers. She holds onto Mama the way a drowning man in the ocean would hold onto a piece of driftwood. Then, she begs. “Please, come with me.”

Mama frees one of her hands from Zenie’s grip. It comes up to cup her cheek, and Zenie finds herself leaning into the touch the way a small child would. “What’s going on?”

Everything Bill and Babe have just told her flashes through her mind, lightning fast, too quick and too hot to grab onto. “I . . . don’t know.”

Except she does know. She’s leaving. And she’s going to find Shifty, wherever he is. Bobby is going to help her – again. But this time, things should play out differently. No waving to Mama from the top of the driveway and wondering when she will ever see her again. No leaving her behind to worry after all her children are gone. Zenie will make the right choice this time.

“My husband has been in an accident, and none of our friends know where he is,” she begins to explain after faltering a few times. “I’m going to Virginia to see if his family knows anything – and to stay there.”

“What if they won’t have you?”

“Then I’m going to Philadelphia to stay with my friends.” She squeezes Mama’s hand. “Please come with me. I don’t want to leave you here again. Not with him.”

Mama frowns. “Zenie –“

“No one will mind. Shifty’s mama would love you, and after we get our own place, you can come stay with us – “

“Zenie.” Her mother never says the word no, but from her tone, Zenie stops in her tracks, heart sinking as her mother’s answer sinks in.

Why stay here? No one else has. Zenie’s siblings have all moved on. Now she is, too. There’s no reason, as far as she can tell, to hold onto this household with a desperate grip, trying to keep it together, to salvage it. When Zenie leaves, it will be only her father and Mama. And Mama will spend her days working for others and then coming home to work for her father. What kind of life is that?

There’s a beat of silence where Zenie absorbs all of this. Mama watches her closely, waiting.

“Mama,” Zenie finally says again. She looks her mother in the eye when she asks, “Why do you put up with him? You deserve better than this.” She can’t help but tack on the question that’s always lurked in the back of her mind, always in the shadows, but too deep and murky for her to ever fully examine. “Do you love him?”

Instead of answering, her mother pushes a sigh through her nose. After a long pause, she doesn’t meet Zenie’s eye when she says, “Someday, you will understand.”

There is not someday. There is only the here and the now where everything has developed so suddenly and is moving so quickly.

“Go,” Mama tells her. “Go be with your husband. And with your friends. I’ll be fine.”

“But Mama – “

“I’ll be fine,” she repeats, patting Zenie’s hand with each word to drive the point home. “And I will always be here if you need me.”

No one can say that she didn’t try to change things. She doesn’t understand the motive, but she understands that Mama’s mind is made up. Instead of arguing, Zenie asks her, “Write to me?”

A sad smile turns Mama’s lips, a gentle hand sweeps a piece of hair behind Zenie’s ear. “Every day.”

True to her word, Mama does not let Zenie’s father do anything to her. She’s not sure what is said. All she knows is that when she trudges down the stairs with all her earthly possessions, her father is in the back room, stewing in his chair, radio on high. Mama kisses her on the cheek and hugs Bobby, telling him to drive safely.

At the top of the driveway, Zenie watches the reflection of her mother in the mirror. She is sitting on the porch, watching her last child leave. In the reflection, she is framed by mountains that, as Bobby drives them away, appear to hold her, cradling her with care. They have been there since time immemorial, and they will be there long after any of them are gone. Zenie will just have to trust that they will hold her mother and keep her safe within their grasp. They round the bend and Zenie loses sight of her. There is nothing to watch for in the mirror now, so she trains her eyes on the road ahead, trying to forget the past as she readies herself for what comes next.

[softguarnere]

Like A Girl (Like A Man)

Shifty Powers x OFC

Chapter 21: Datalesvi Anina

Summary: “Bill may be our smartest NCO, but he doesn’t know everything.” A/N: The moment we've all been waiting for: Bastogne (Chapter title translates to "they are sitting in holes") Warnings: improper binding, language, war Taglist: @latibvles @lady-cheeky @liebgotts-lovergirl @mrs-murder-daddy @ithinkabouttzu @mads-weasley @lieutenant-speirs

Belgium, 1944

After a few days, Zenie comes to the conclusion that if she keeps her eyes shut tight, lets her brain remain fuzzy with sleep, and leans into the warmth beside her, she can almost – almost – trick herself into thinking that she is a little girl again, back in North Carolina, curled up under her blankets on a frosty morning while she waits for the smell of Granny’s warm biscuits to draw her downstairs for breakfast. The shaking of the shattered earth, the groans and cries of men, and the heavy cold always shatter the illusion the second that she becomes a little more awake.

Holland’s water-filled foxholes felt like hell. Clearly none of them understood true hell until they walked into Bastogne. No wonder the men who were here before them were retreating so quickly.

There is no room for secrets in a place like this. Where would they put them? You can cling to them in your foxhole, but someone is there with you, and they’re bound to find out at some point, to see the real you, made up of everything you’ve tried to hide. At least in Holland they could get up and move around. Here, in Bastogne, they have to be ready to dive into a foxhole at any second.

They are only safe inside the earth. And that is where their secrets start to become known.

With the line stretched so thin, it’s hard to keep up with friends. Word travels fast, though, in the way that rumors always do. That’s how the rest of the company finds out that Shifty talks in his sleep, that Perconte has practically an entire drugstore in his bag, and that Liebgott and Toye both like to sing to pass the time.

Every day that they spend in this place makes Zenie feel like she’s holding onto her own secret for dear life. Her fingers ache from the effort. Her determination isn’t slipping, exactly, but her frustration is rising.

There is no aide station for Gene to take her back to whenever he insists she loosen or change her bandages. She tries to share a foxhole with him when she can. He’s so busy running around the line, though, that her other friends often fill his place, insisting that she shouldn’t be alone. They all learned in Holland that loneliness is no way to survive. Shifty is further up the line and gets sent on too many patrols for her to share a foxhole with him – the only other person she can trust with this secret of hers. That’s how she usually finds herself sitting beside Bill, or when he’s making his rounds, Babe and his old friend, John Julian.

Babe and Julian went through training together. Even though they go way back, she never feels excluded when she’s with them. They tell her stories of jump school shenanigans that make her feel like she’s part of the joke instead of watching two friends reminisce about the good old days.

“You know he’s a virgin?” It’s one of their first days in Bastogne. Julian hasn’t made it back from the pitiful excuse of a chow-line yet, and Babe’s question comes out of nowhere.

Zenie blinks. “Oh?”

“Yeah.”

Silence washes over them as they watch the line. As she stares ahead, Zenie can feel Babe very pointedly trying to not look at her from the corner of his eye.

“Why are you telling me this?”

Babe shrugs. “Just thought I’d let ya know that it’s okay, I guess. You ain’t the only one. Although I don’t know how you guys do it. I’d be afraid of dying without experiencing true heaven.”

“Well, you don’t have to worry about me, Babe.” The confession slips out before she really grasps the weight of what she’s just said. Funny, realizing how much things have changed. She bites her bottom lip to keep from giggling at it all.

Her friend balks. “What?! When?”

Well, if she’s already confessed – albeit by accident – there’s no use in lying. “Paris.”

“Out on your pass?”

“Yep.”

“Unbelievable.” Babe shakes his head. “Bill said you were a virgin.”

Why would he need to tell Babe that? Unless, she freezes at the thought, he was telling his fellow Philadelphian about her embarrassment with the pin-up of Beckie.

“Bill may be our smartest NCO, but he doesn’t know everything.”

“He doesn’t know?” When Zenie shakes her head, a small cloud of steam escapes from Babe’s mouth as he huffs a warm laugh into the cold air. “Unbelievable,” he repeats.

Without him, Zenie thinks back to the hotel room in Paris – all the ways that she and Shifty caressed each other and the way that he smiled at her the next morning, beaming, like the sun glittering over the dew-crowned trees on a fresh spring morning.

Yes, she’s inclined to agree. Unbelievable.

Back in Holland the days bled together, each as miserable and wet as the last. At least there she could find apples anywhere she looked. Here, in Bastogne, she’s once again in a hole in the ground, surrounded by trees, but there is nothing to eat, and the endless precipitation is the snow that seems to fall without fail every night.

Whoosh! Whoosh! Whack! Whoosh! Bill is brushing the fresh snow from the tarp they’ve been using to cover their foxhole at night. It doesn’t do much in terms of keeping heat in, but at least it keeps the snow off of them while they sleep.

Zenie’s joints pop as she stretches. It draws Bill’s attention, and he stops cleaning off the tarp.

“Mornin’.”

Zenie grunts in response. No “good” before the word. Simply a statement of fact: this is another morning that they have reached.

Bill folds the tarp back and sits back in the foxhole with a sigh. “Why don’t you go check and see if there’s any breakfast?” He suggests.

There won’t be. There hardly ever is. It just gives Zenie something to do other than walking from foxhole to foxhole, visiting with the other men in between the shellings that the Germans send their way. At least Bill has an actual excuse to walk around. Checking the line and checking up on the men might be what got him hurt back in Holland, but he still takes his duties as an NCO seriously.

It almost makes Zenie wish that she would get promoted. Then no one could say anything if she wandered a bit too far in the woods looking for third platoon – (looking for Shifty.) On their second day here, she got lost after trying to find somewhere to loosen her bandages. She stumbled across a frozen pile of German bodies, frost thick on their winter coats. After that, she decided not to stray too far from her foxhole anymore.

With a sigh, she pulls herself out of the hole, the crunch of snow greeting her when she stands and stretches.

“You want anything?”

Bill’s lips are pressed together as he stares at the line. After a moment he breaks his focus, nodding up at her. “If they’ve got it.”

They don’t. Not even the pitiful cup of water with two beans floating in it that they served at midday the day before. (Well, it felt like midday, at least. It could have been any time of day, and only the men with watches would be the wiser.)

She stops to greet Luz and a few other men on her way back. George has a few quips about their situation. Other people have a few choice words about the cold. They all laugh, and it sounds warm and out of place in this frozen land.

“Nothing?” Bill asks when she returns.

“Not a drop.”

He sighs, starts to stand. “Well then. Looks – “

Boom! The ground shakes under Zenie’s feet as the first explosion of the morning signals the start of the day.

“Incoming!” Someone’s voice announces. It sounds like Sergeant Lipton that yells, over the successive series of booming explosions that pierce the air, “Get in your foxholes!”

“Get in!” Bill demands.

The ground still shaking, Zenie lurches forward, trying to dive into the foxhole with her friend. Her feet hit the bottom of the pit and she’s starting to crouch down when she hears a whizzing noise nearby. The air shakes as the Germans fire at them. It feels so close that she freezes, like a deer that’s been stumbled upon in the woods. She feels Bill’s hand clench around her right shoulder and drag her the rest of the way down.

She lands so roughly that for a second, the pain in her side from landing on Bill distracts from the horrible slicing pain that races through her left arm. Foxholes are supposed to keep them safe, but once inside them, it feels like the whole world trembles endlessly. This time it knocks the breath out of her, making her gasp as white-hot electricity races through her arm. Her whole body feels hot – which seems incongruous, considering where they are – and despite all her wishes, she knows the truth: she’s been hit.

Summer heat takes hold of her body. She wished for warmth, and boy, has she got it now. Late July afternoons, full of humidity and sweat, have found her in this frozen place. No ice cream and running through the fields, though. This is the worst parts of summer – the Dog Days, with their high temperatures and mosquitos eating her legs. All that’s missing is the screaming of the cicadas. To prove its presence, a sheen of sweat overtakes her as a side effect of the heat.

The only reason she knows the shelling has stopped is that no more deafening explosions thunder through the sky above them. The world still shakes – except, it’s actually just her shaking. And the echoing in her ears is from the blood pumping through them, fast as a train.

“You alright, Tommy?” Bill asks.

Slowly, she pushes herself up. She keeps her eyes squeezed shut when the movement sends new jolts of pain through her left side. Maybe it’s not actually that bad. Maybe it’s like a bee sting in that it just feels bad, but it actually very small. She just needs a minute before she looks.

It’s a minute that she doesn’t get. Bill curses under his breath beside her. Something is wrong.

Warm blood leeks from gashes in her sleeve. Most of it is coming from her arm, in a steady trickle that begins at her shoulder. But thank God, she realizes, her arm is still attached to her body, like it should be. And, as an added bonus, when she chokes back the bile burning her throat and tries to inspect the damage, she can still move it, as well as her fingers.

“Medic!” Bill hollers.

The word drags her out of her temporary solace. She’s been hit and she needs a medic, to patch her up, to send her to an aide station. Those don’t exist here, though. And they’re running low on medics as well.

“No,” Zenie hisses, despite the pain in her arm. “Don’t!”

Bill’s eyes go wide as his brow furrows. “Are you crazy? You need a – Medic!”   

What if Spina is the nearest medic? What if they have to remove her jacket in front of everyone?

“Bill, I’m fine. Stop!”

The Staff Sergeant doesn’t listen. In fact, he outright ignores her as he reaches into his pockets, muttering to himself. “I got some left-over sulfa power in here somewhere. Where the fuck – ? Aha! Tommy, hold still, will ya? Medic!”

He moves towards her then. There’s nowhere for her to go. It would be hard enough to drag herself out of the foxhole with one arm, and even harder when Bill looks like he’s ready to chase her down. She presses herself against the frozen earth behind her, trying to dodge her friend as he comes closer.

“Bill, stop!”

“Tommy, you gotta let me – “ Bill takes hold of her jacket and rips it open. Cold air hits her chest, although it doesn’t stop the heat that’s still coursing through her. A new wave of it rushes over her in both embarrassment and pain as Bill fights to remove her jacket from her shoulder. When it’s free he clenches the packet of sulfa powder between his teeth, ready to tear it open . . . He pauses, his eyes taking in the full extent of the scene before him. “What the fuck?”

Maybe it’s the way that Zenie manages to push him away and tug her jacket up to cover her bandaged chest that gives it away. Or maybe it’s the way her face burns with shame, how she can’t look her best friend in the eye. Besides, Bill is smart, and he knows that she’s never been hit. It doesn’t take him very long to figure out what the bandages are for.

“Oh Christ,” he whispers, his eyes still fixed on her bandages. They’re the size of saucers when he finally manages to move them to her face. “You’re a broad!”

A broad. Huh. So that’s what someone from South Philly would call a girl. Back on the ship that brought them to Europe, she had once wondered about it. She had wondered about the reactions of her friends, too, if they were to learn her secret.

Well, now she knows.  

“Sorry,” Zenie whispers, because it’s the only thing she can think to say.

“Since when?!”

“Since birth.”

“Jesus, this whole time? And I never knew!?” His face pales. “Ah, Christ . . . I’ve told ya too much. Shit! I gave you that pin-up and everything!”

The crunch of snow announces a new presence behind them, coming in fast. “Who’s been hit?”

Eugene jumps down into the foxhole, landing so that Zenie is between him and Bill. His medic brain kicks in first as he reaches out to move her jacket so that he can inspect the damage. He freezes, his hands only just grazing her jacket when he glances over at Bill.

“Tommy got hit. I think mostly in the shoulder.”

Gene looks between Zenie and their sergeant. Reluctantly, she nods. He already knows; the damage is done.

She hisses in pain when Gene peels back her jacket to inspect her. He mutters something in French that’s as smooth and slow as molasses. An apology, maybe. How many of those will this foxhole hear? Despite all that’s happened, he’s a soothing presence. Now Zenie knows why he’s Easy’s preferred medic.

“Shrapnel,” Gene announces. “Peppered your arm. Missed the arteries, though. Nothin’ deep, except one cut that’ll need to be stitched up. Maybe get some little pieces removed. I can do it back in the town.”

“Got lucky, huh?” Bill asks. His voice is full of a tone that Zenie has never heard before. He sounds lighthearted and troubled all at once. “Missed your tits, thank God.” A grimace that might be an attempt at a smile appears behind the beard he’s started growing.

“She did,” Gene agrees. Gently, he helps her adjust her jacket, and then both he and Bill help her to her feet and out of the foxhole.

“He – I mean, is she gonna be okay, Doc?”

A pause.

“Yeah,” Gene replies. “Yeah, she should be.”

He escorts her away then, talking about catching the Jeep before it heads back into the town with Skinny Sisk, who’s been hit in the leg. Zenie casts a glance back over her shoulder at Bill, who stands in the foxhole, watching her go. Maybe for the last time, now that he knows her secret. His expression is inscrutable – so unlike him.

She’s come all this way. Starting in her bedroom, ending in Belgium. And now she’s being taken away from the line. Gene will patch her up . . . And then what? Damn!

Gene helps her up into the Jeep, keeps his fingers wrapped loosely on her good shoulder as they ride so that she doesn’t topple off their precarious perch on the back of it. The medic catches her eye and offers her a nod. She can only wonder what it means.  

[softguarnere]

7) hand-rolled cigarettes for zenie!

Screaming, crying, etc. over getting to return to my roots and write Zenie/Shifty again. This feels like a homecoming, God bless

Please enjoy a slice of life scene from a domestic Powers family roadtrip <3

“You don’t have to do it.” 

“I know,” Zenie replies, her eyes briefly flicking upwards before settling back on the task at hand. Carefully, she begins rolling the cigarette paper around the tobacco, using the same grace that the art teacher in Wayne and Luna’s after school program reserves for making origami cranes. “I want to.”

Shifty lets out a breathy laugh. Even without looking up, Zenie is perfectly familiar with the soft smile that graces his face right now. 

“You’re good at it,” he compliments her. “Don’t think I’ve ever seen someone put so much care into rollin’ a cigarette before.” 

“Well, if I can’t cook, then I might as well show my love in other ways.” Finished, Zenie brandishes the rolled cigarette with a flourish. Her fingers brush against Shifty’s as she hands it to him. Done with her task, she pushes herself up onto the hood of the car and perches there, studying Shifty’s profile in the orange-red of the fading sunset as he lights the cigarette. 

Oklahoma is beautiful. They’ve only been here once before, when they were moving from Virginia, heading out to California. Now they’ve stopped again, going the opposite direction – home, for a funeral that’s more of an excuse for a happy homecoming than a time for sadness. 

Sadness does tug at Zenie’s heartstrings, though, for other reasons. It’s familiar. It’s an old friend stopping by to say hello as memories and ideas niggle at the back of her mind while she surveys the landscape. 

She has family around here, somewhere. They’ve never met, and any and all correspondence with them seemed to stop once Granny passed away all those years ago. Someone should write to them. Find them, rekindle that kinship connection. It’s a nice thought, at least. 

Shifty leans back against the hood, absentmindedly offering the cigarette to Zenie. He furrows his brow when she shakes her head. 

“Makes me think of the war,” she says. Which is true. That was the only time in her life that she ever really smoked, and it was usually just to calm her nerves. Smoking brings back too many memories of the sort that are better forgotten. 

But there’s also something else. A suspicion in the back of her mind that she hasn’t confirmed just yet. Coupled with something she once read in a magazine about how women who are with child shouldn’t smoke, she decides not to take a chance until she knows for sure. 

Shifty only seems half convinced. Worry creases around his mouth. “You okay?” 

“I’m fine,” Zenie promises him, reaching over to place a hand on his shoulder, smiling softly in reassurance. “Finish your smoke, Shifty.”  

Send me a prompt and one of my OCs and I'll write a lil fic!

[softguarnere]

Like A Girl (Like A Man)

Shifty Powers x OFC

Chapter 29: Love and War

Summary: What is there left to take from Zena McGlamery that could possibly hurt her? Warnings: war, mentions of death, guns Taglist: @latibvles @liebgotts-lovergirl @lady-cheeky @mrs-murder-daddy @ithinkabouttzu @lieutenant-speirs

Haguenau, 1945

Laying on her stomach beside Liebgott, the machine gun between them, Zenie can feel her heart trembling in her chest as they wait. The darkness is thick between them. Like a heavy blanket over the river, the night obscures the water that fifteen men are about to cross. Babe, Earl, Popeye, Skinny, and Shifty are among them. Zenie bites the inside of her cheek whenever their faces flash before her mind’s eye. All the laughs they’ve ever shared, all their shared hardship these past few years, everything feels heavy within some deep place in her heart. A lump that makes it hard to swallow gums up her throat whenever she thinks about Shifty especially.

He had managed to whisk her off to the privacy of a back room after he was briefed about the patrol. A thousand different thoughts had tried to tumble out of Zenie’s mouth all at once, only to get stuck there as she let out breathless gasps that she tried to choke by covering her mouth. Shifty had held her close, letting her bury her face in his shoulder. “I know,” he had whispered.

Some part of her understands all of Shifty’s original reluctance about their relationship now. They left Bastogne and the end of the war felt so close at hand. Everyone said that the Krauts were finished. It had seemed, for the blink of an eye, like they could make it. And now they’re being tossed right back into the fray. One more chance for everything to go all to hell.

“Listen,” Shifty had said, pulling away so that they could look at each other. “It’s just a patrol. I’m not leadin’ it, so you don’t have to worry as much.”

“Shifty – “

He had cut her off, rushing to reassure her – though they both know that there is no fairness, no guarantee of any kind in love and war. “You’re stayin’ over here. And as long as you’re here, I have a reason to make it back. That’s my objective: to make it back to where you are.”

But what if you don’t? she can’t bring herself to ask. Bill had once said that they were going to be okay with the upmost confidence, only to then be sent home with a leg missing.

Shifty’s hold is firm when he takes hold of Zenie’s hand and brings it to his lips. He presses a kiss to the back of her hand, pausing there for a moment before he pulls it away. The saddest smile that Zenie has ever seen finds its way to his lips as he looks at her one last time. Then he leaves, off to prepare with the others who are going on the patrol.

So now Zenie waits. For any sort of signal from the men across the river. For any sort of sign. She waits.

Several times, Liebgott draws a breath, like he’s about to say something, only to remain quiet. Finally, he sighs. “You think that West Point replacement will make it back alive?”

What was the new lieutenant’s name? Probably not a promising sign that Zenie can’t remember, but in her defense, there’s been a lot on her mind. From what she does remember about him, he had seemed overeager and reserved.

“He better,” she mutters. “Everyone I care about is crossing that river.”

“We’re lucky it isn’t us,” Liebgott says. He scoffs, shaking his head. “Hell, it almost was. All of second platoon was picked, but we managed to get left behind. Guess they had to have at least a few people left, that way they still have someone to throw to the dogs next time.”

“All of second platoon?”

“Yeah.” Liebgott turns to face her, his brows knitted together beneath the shadow of his helmet. “You didn’t know that?”

Zenie shakes her head. “I was helping Luz all morning.”

“Yeah, all of second was originally picked,” Liebgott explains. “I only got out of it because they decided we didn’t need two translators, so they sent Webster instead.”

Webster. She had forgotten about him. Hadn’t he been the one who took the shot in the leg in Holland? Where has he been all this time?

“I was taken off, too?”

Liebgott nods.

“Why?” Zenie doesn’t speak German. It’s not like the same explanation can be applied to her. She didn’t even know that she had been assigned to the patrol. Until a few seconds ago, it had seemed like a cruel twist of fate that she wasn’t.

“Shifty,” Liebgott says simply, as if that explains everything. When Zenie doesn’t reply, his brows furrow even further together. “Goddamn, Driver, you really haven’t heard anything about any of this, huh? When they picked Second Platoon for the patrol, Shifty pointed out that you and Malarkey are the ones leading the platoon, since we have no officers. He told Captain Speirs he didn’t think it was fair to make you go on this, considering . . .” He doesn’t have to say it – she’s been on the front line since the beginning, and she just lost some of her closest friends. Liebgott tilts his head, and through the night, she can just make out a smile. “Funny, I think it’s the most I’ve ever heard Shifty talk. Didn’t know he had it in him.”

 It's disheartening, really, that some of the men in the company will never know the Shifty that Zenie knows. The Shifty whose cheeks tinge the slightest pink when she compliments him, or who looks so handsome and so at home while trekking through the woods. But also the Shifty whose touch is gentle and whose lips are soft and whose voice is raspy and deep first thing in the morning.

Actually, she realizes that she would prefer to keep those last bits for herself.

“He’s a good man,” is all Zenie can say. “A good friend.”

Across the river, an explosion reverberates across the water and a flash of orange stains the inky darkness. The report of gunshots and voices yelling follow. Something has happened. For better or worse. On this side of the river, it’s impossible to tell.

Liebgott grips the machine gun. “Get ready,” he says.

More commotion, which feels like it goes on forever. Everyone on this side of the river waits, waits, waits impatiently as sounds echo through the darkness, punctuated by the occasional flashes of light. Is that her imagination, or in the midst of it all, are those screams?

“Jesus Christ, come on, blow the goddamned whistle!” Joe yells over the noise.

The signal finally sounds, a shrill whistle that shatters the night. Water splashes below them as the patrol hurries back to their side of the river. The machine gun vibrates to life beside her, spitting fire into the night as Liebgott squeezes the trigger and Zenie feeds the hungry weapon the ammunition. Every burst of gunfire punctuates the running please, please, please running through her mind with exclamation points.

For a while, their only existence is for Liebgott to point, shoot, point, shoot, point shoot, and for Zenie to diligently provide ammunition. Even when the bombardment slows, when the patrol are no longer adding their fire to the tumult, they continue, shooting at wherever Liebgott thinks the Germans may be. Gunfire becomes less and less until there’s only the occasional explosion reverberating through the night.

Her own heavy breathing echoes through her ears like storm winds. It takes her a moment to register when it’s over. Liebgott relaxes, his fingers loosening from their tight grip on the machine gun. He slaps her on the shoulder in what’s either meant to be a congratulatory or a comforting gesture. Although he doesn’t speak, she knows exactly what he means – we got through it.

If she could, Zenie would run back inside, down the stairs, and off to wherever the men of the patrol might be. Instead, she and Liebgott quietly lug the machine gun back inside and stow it away before returning to one of the rooms that a few of the men have been occupying. The other men who provided covering fire are starting to converge there as well. Aside from a few nodded greetings or quiet requests to borrow a lighter, no one speaks. They recline on the bunk beds and other furniture, but no one sleeps. Instead, they wait.

Word comes soon enough: a casualty – Jackson, after getting blasted by his own grenade. Everyone else is okay, though, and they managed to bring back some Germans. Despite Jackson’s death, the upper echelon already seem to consider this a success – such a success that they want another patrol.

They all scoff when they hear the news. Of course they want another patrol. Of course they want Easy Company. And of course they want the men who so successfully pulled off the first one.

God, Zenie thinks, taking a seat by the window and staring out the glass as dawn begins to creep in, lighting the dark sky ever so subtly. People keep saying that the war is over, but at this rate, even if that’s true, no one from Easy is going to see it.

When Granny was still alive, she enjoyed going to the sunrise service at church on Easter Morning. Zenie dutifully went with her, even though it was cold and she was tired. And she’s willing to admit that watching that dark horizon fade from inky blackness to a thin strip of deep, rich blue as the pink and gold dawn crept through the fog and bedazzled the dew drops on the trees was beautiful. Even Zenie, with all her contrary religious beliefs, felt that the pastor’s ability to time the He is risen! Bible verse with the ascension of the morning sun was some sort of magic.

Now, watching the crumbling city become stained with the slightest hint of pink as the sun’s first rays sneak in, she waits once again to feel something – something other than frustration and fear, that is. Like the pastor’s dramatic timing, they need a miracle.

The new lieutenant appears, looking grim, and Zenie takes her leave, abandoning the grey clouds gathering in the room in search of sunshine.

She finds Shifty at the table with Popeye and McClung. None of them speak; they all smoke in silence. As for Zenie, her heart hammers in her chest when she sees them, despite the fact that she knew none of them were the ones who died.

“Morning,” Zenie says, her voice feeling like an intrusion on this scene. Her friends glance up at her, looking tired. Whatever adrenaline that fueled them to this point must be wearing off now. “Coffee?”

McClung cracks his neck, sighing in relief. He stands, grinding out his cigarette. “Not for me. Thanks, though, Tommy. I’m going to bed.”

“I don’t know how he can sleep,” Popeye says after McClung is gone and Zenie has poured him and Shifty both a cup of the watery coffee that Haguenau offers. “I’m all rattled. Can’t stop thinkin’. Might just keep drinkin’ this until the next patrol.”

Shifty winces, setting down his cup. “I don’t know how you could. One cup of this stuff is hard to get through.”

“You should sleep, Popeye,” Zenie suggests. After all, if they do well on this second patrol, will there be a third? A fourth? A fifth? When will it ever end? “Gotta stay sharp.” She asks then, because even though no one has said it, the question has weighed heavy on everyone’s minds since they heard about Jackson’s death. “Who’s on the next patrol?”

“Don’t know yet,” Popeye says.

Shifty mutters into his cup, “Take a guess.”

“Probably the same group. If it ain’t broke, and all that.”

“Wonder if they’ll replace him with anyone,” Zenie muses. It was bad enough to watch so many of those she cared about head out on that patrol. It will be worse this time. Yet in the lead up to that, it’s unbearable to look around and wonder who else might join the mix.  

Across the table from her, Shifty stiffens as if he’s just reached the same conclusion. Without meeting her eye, he pushes back his cup and stands with a sigh. “This ain’t doin’ it for me. I think I’ll try to sleep.”

Zenie cuts herself off before she can speak. Anything she could say – however she veils her real meanings, even if she tries to say them in Cherokee – would just come out awkwardly with Popeye sitting there as a witness. Don’t go, she doesn’t say. Don’t do this again. Don’t shut me out because you think it’s doing me some sort of good.

“Lucky if you can,” Popeye says.

As Shifty turns to leave, Zenie calls out to him, “Hey, Shifty.” But when he turns and looks back at her, all she can think to say is, “Don’t leave without saying goodbye tonight.”

The slightest frown tugs at Shifty’s lips. Is he facing the same conundrum as her, not being able to say what he wants? He nods. “I will,” he hesitates, then leaves her behind.

She could follow him, she knows, but would Popeye find it suspicious? Does Shifty even want her to try? Or, unlike all that time ago on that night in the brothel, should she just trust him?

“You want to play cards?” Popeye offers.

“No,” Zenie realizes aloud. She winces, sorry to leave her friend like this to chase after someone else. “I think I’m actually going to try and get some sleep, too.”

Maybe it’s not suspicious at all, how Zenie is conveniently leaving after Shifty. Or maybe Popeye is just too tired and too caffeinated to notice. He shrugs, taking a drink of his coffee in the manner that people usually reserve for shots of alcohol.

“Will you be okay?” she asks.

The Virginian nods. He smiles, in that sort of lopsided way that he does when he’s trying not to crack up too hard over one of his own remarks. “Yeah. I’d be better if the coffee tasted like actual coffee instead of water that someone thought real hard about coffee while pourin’, but I’ll be fine.”

“Hey,” Zenie scolds, making a move like she’s going to take the cup from him. “I made that coffee, Wynn. Watch yourself.”

He’s pouring himself another cup of coffee when Zenie leaves, and he’s probably downed half of it by the time that she catches up to Shifty in the stairwell. Surprise raises his eyebrows when he sees her, but not disappointment. He pauses on the landing, and Zenie jogs up the steps to join him.

“Don’t worry about hurting me,” she says when she catches up. Didn’t she get hurt enough in Bastogne? What is there left to take from Zena McGlamery that could possibly hurt her? The only thing she can think of: time that she could be spending with Shifty before he gets sent into the unknown again.

Shifty opens his mouth, shuts his mouth. Finally, his forehead scrunches up like it always does when he considers something. Then he nods. “Esga tsiyelvna.” I’m sorry.

But maybe we – he had said the first time they ever needed to have a serious conversation. I’m hopin’ that maybe after the war we can be together, he had later finished. When I was tryin’ to ask you to wait until after the war, I thought that I was protectin’ you.

She almost lost him once. After everything they’ve been through, she won’t make that mistake again.

She slips her hand into his. “No after the war like last time, okay? Just now.”  Because at this rate, we might not get to the end of this thing, she doesn’t say, but he still seems to understand.

“I don’t want to hurt you, if somethin’ happens tonight.” In Bastogne, Bill had told Shifty not to hurt her. He had promised that he wouldn’t. I would never, he had said.

Back when they weren’t speaking, her feelings had been hurt by all their miscommunications – a lot of which had been her own fault.

“The only way you could hurt me is by icing me out,” Zenie admits.

Shifty’s brow furrows. He studies their joined hands. His jaw is set, which makes the gesture look very firm when he finally nods. “Hawa. Let’s enjoy it while we can.”

It’s probably the closest that Shifty can come to making a pessimistic statement. It doesn’t last for long. Once they’re alone together in their usual room, they sit at the window, watching the daylight grow brighter over the sad city while they wait for the night to creep back in and separate them again.

When Zenie said “No after the war,” she meant waiting to be together until after the war. But here, sitting in uncertainty, Shifty’s mind drifts to that time that is simultaneously so tantalizingly close and so infuriatingly far away.

“When we get home,” he says. “I want a window like this where we can sit and watch the sun rise over the mountains.”

Zenie hums in agreement. She hasn’t allowed her mind to wander this far into a future with Shifty, but he’s already there, so it seems safe to meet him in it. “We could get a house way up in the mountains, right on top, like all the rich people have been building lately.”

“But our house will be better, see, because it will always smell like pie.”

She can’t help but laugh. “What kind of pie?”

He leans his head against her shoulder. It’s automatic, the way that Zenie begins to run her fingers through his hair. Even from this angle, she can see the small crease appear between his eyebrows as he considers his answer. “Chocolate, most of the time. Like my mama makes. But sweet potato in the fall.”

“I like pumpkin.”

“We can have both.”

“Maybe blueberry in the spring,” Zenie suggests. “Or cobbler. Can’t forget about that. Raspberry cobbler in July.”

Shifty sighs. “God, I miss real food.”

“We’ll have it soon enough.” There’s no telling where that assurance comes from. The rumors about the war coming to a close, maybe.

A gentle, sleepy mist that Zenie has only ever had the pleasure of hearing a handful of times creeps into Shifty’s voice. “Hmm. What else do we want in our house?”

“A dog,” Zenie suggests. “I’ve always wanted one.”

Against her shoulder, Shifty’s head moves ever so slightly as he tries to nod. “We can do that,” is the last thing he says before he drifts off to sleep with Zenie still running her fingers through his hair.

As promised, Shifty tells her goodbye before the patrol.

“I know what you did,” Zenie admits. “Getting me taken off of the patrol last night.”

Shifty nods, never breaking eye contact. “I had to.” He says it with such conviction that she can’t be upset about it. She never was, to begin with. Not really. Just surprised, like Liebgott was.

“This whole war has just been people protecting me,” she realizes. Gene, Shifty, Bill, and Babe; guarding her secrets, her heart.

“That’s what life is, you know. And when you care about someone enough, protectin’ them just becomes second nature.”

For once, there is nothing to protect each other from today. Shifty returns a few moments later with a wide grin on his face that could re-light all of Haguenau to its former glory. He barely gets the news about the patrol being cancelled out before Zenie grabs him by the webbing, tugs him to her, and kisses him with such force that her teeth accidentally knock into his.

No patrol – and Winters said they’re coming off the line!

Maybe, for once, the rumors have some truth to them; maybe the end of the war is a very near thing after all.

[softguarnere]

Like A Girl (Like A Man)

Shifty Powers x ofc

Chapter 19: A Native American in Paris

Summary: When he returns, he hands Zenie a postcard with a picture of the Eiffel Tower on it. “It’s not as good as having a picture taken in front of it, but, you know, I thought that it might be somethin’.” A/N: When I first started writing this fic, I always imagined D-Day as the beginning of a "Part Two" in the story. Regardless of what act we're in, this definitely feels like an intermission point for me. So I just wanted to take the time to say thank you for sticking with me this far, and I hope you'll hang around for the rest of the story <3 Warnings: mentions of war, drinking, implied sex Taglist: @latibvles @lady-cheeky @liebgotts-lovergirl @mrs-murder-daddy @lieutenant-speirs @ithinkabouttzu

France, 1944

Passes all around! It’s so much different from life back at Toccoa. It feels so long ago now that Zenie’s hands would clench into fists at her side when Captain Sobel would make up some excuse to revoke her pass. Maybe this is to make up for the fact that they got so few of these back in Georgia.

Paris is the keyword floating all around the barracks. All Zenie’s friends score passes to the City of Light. After the dreary days of sitting in mud in Holland, the prospect of exploring the city seems like a marvelous makeup for the eighty-something days stuck waiting. Zenie finds herself with a forty-eight hour pass to the famed city in her hands. The idea of someday getting the chance to brag to Marilyn that she visited the Eifel Tower makes her laugh. Then Shifty meets her eye from across the room and announces that he also has a pass to Paris – and on the same day as her. And suddenly the city that Zenie has hardly ever spared a thought for seems brighter and full of more possibilities than anything Marilyn used to describe while fawning over her books.

Especially because they still haven’t been alone.

Having friends is such a change of pace from Zenie’s life before running away. She loves them, and being with them. Lately, however, it seems like she can’t get a second away from them.

Mourmelon-le-Grand for R&R. Except the Rest in “Rest and Relaxation” has somehow turned into preparing for a football game that Zenie cannot seem to come up with a good enough excuse to not play in.

“Look,” she finally tells Babe one day in the barracks when he won’t stop pestering her about it. “I’m no good at football. My older brother played baseball, so that’s what I was taught. It’d be different if you wanted me to be a pitcher.” Or if we were playing any game that wouldn’t get me tackled, crushed, and exposed, she doesn’t add.

Babe swats his hand, pushing away her words. “Well lucky for you, you’ve got me to teach you. And I’m great at football, Tommy. I could have you ready for this game in a matter of days.”

“You tryin’ to get little Tommy a Purple Heart by getting’ all his bones crushed, ya mean?”

Everyone in the barracks jumps at the sound of a familiar voice – one whose absence has been heavily felt.

“Bill!”

The Italian spreads his arms as wide as his smile as he fully enters the room. He’s limping, but it doesn’t damper his smile. “What? Ya think you’d never see me again or somethin’?”

“Didn’t know how long ya were gonna baby that leg,” Babe quips, ducking when the taller man makes a move to affectionately ruffle his hair.

“Baby it? Yeah right. You know who you’re talkin’ to, Heffron? I made ‘em cut the cast off early so I could get back here and keep your ass in line!”

“Yeah, and God knows we needed that, because he keeps trying to get Tommy killed,” Joe says from his place on his bunk.

A cloud of seriousness crosses Bill’s face as he turns to her. “You really that bad at football?”

Well I should be, considering that I’ve never played, Zenie thinks. Instead, she nods. “The worst.”

“Someone could probably fix that. Not right now, though.” His smile returns as he glances over their group, a glint in his eye. “Any of you up for a little trip to Lulu’s?”

In the moment, there’s nothing particularly special about Lulu’s or the night that they spend there. (Besides, maybe, the fact that Bill missed the party with the Red Devils, and they feel the need to make up for all the fun he missed.) They drink too much and dance too fast and sing too loudly. On the way back to barracks, they cling to each other and laugh brightly as they haul each other home – a real team effort. With promising days of R&R ahead of them, they go to bed, already thinking of having this kind of fun night after night.

The place is a frenzy of excitement. The football game creeps ever closer and practices pick up with the mounting tensions. (Personally, Zenie’s not sure why anyone would worry when Joe Toye is playing for their team.) Passes are being taken into the cities, and each time a group of soldiers returns to brag about the fun he had, the harder Zenie’s heart pounds in her chest when she thinks about how she and Shifty both have passes to Paris.

“Two more days,” she notes as casually as she can in line for breakfast one day. “Never heard of half the places people are talking about.”

“Me neither. But a lot of the fellas seem to think it’s mighty fun there. Lots to do.”

Zenie hums in agreement. “Probably a lot of walking around the city.”

“Probably.”

“Lots of time to talk.”

As he scoops eggs onto his plate, Zenie catches him biting his lip. It doesn’t hide his smile. “Definitely.”

Lucky does not even begin to describe how Zenie feels when she learns that she and Shifty seem to be the only ones of their friends to have passes to Paris. After every chance that she might have had to speak with him has been thwarted, part of her is on edge, waiting for the other shoe to drop, expecting something else to keep them apart.

They leave the barracks amiably enough. They make small talk as they board the train and make their way towards the city.

“This is my third time,” one of the soldiers in their train car brags as they ride. He quirks an eyebrow at them. “You ever been to Paris?”

“Never,” Zenie replies as Shifty shakes his head.

The soldier only nods. “Well, it doesn’t disappoint, I’ll tell you that much. You just have to know all the right places to look if you want to have a good time.”

“I think we’ll manage.”   

And they do. Shifty has already seen the city while out on a different pass with Popeye. Once they get off the train, though, he only smiles at Zenie and lets her take the lead, making suggestions about the fastest way to get places as they go.

As they weave their way through the people and the streets, they talk. Not in the way that Zenie has been waiting for them to, but at least they’re talking. More than they have been lately, too, which is enough for her. It’s enough just to see him smile at her as he regales her with stories of what he and Popeye saw and did while using their passes, and she tells him about Marilyn’s travel books that her sister would stare at for hours at night. It’s enough for their fingers to brush when Shifty buys a piece of pain au chocolat, then breaks it down the middle and hands her half. It's enough to watch his eyes light up when she uses a gentle finger to wipe a smudge of chocolate off his upper lip. This is what she imagined when she pictured them having a secret relationship. This is what she’s been missing.

But, she has to remind herself, this is what Shifty was worried would get them caught. The memory of that night at the brothel makes her chest ache. He didn’t think this would be possible until after the war. And maybe he still doesn’t want it until then. She won’t know until they get to talk – really talk.

“It’s big, ain’t it?” Shifty asks when they stop in front of the Eiffel Tower.

The famed tower is impressive. With the elevators not operational, though, there isn’t much to do but stand under it and admire it from different angles. Zenie tries to soak it up in her mind so that she can remember it later.

“Here.” As if he can read her mind, Shifty steps away, heading towards an older woman with a cart. He counts out some money and hands it to her. She smiles as she hands him something. When he returns, he hands Zenie a postcard with a picture of the Eiffel Tower on it. “It’s not as good as having a picture taken in front of it, but, you know, I thought that it might be somethin’.”

“It’s perfect,” Zenie rushes to assure him. “Thank you, Shifty.”

 The Virginian smiles, his cheeks tinged pink.

“You know,” he says. “If you’ve seen everything that you want to, I know somewhere that we can go. Away.”

As if to prove his point, a group of American soldiers walks behind them. Zenie and Shifty might have come here alone, without any of their other friends, but they’re not truly alone. Not yet.

Zenie pockets the postcard. “Lead the way.”

People bustle up and down the streets, laughing as they go. A few little kids point at her when they spot her, yelling in their excitement. It’s a bit like being back in Holland – well, the better part of being in Holland, when all the people had come out to welcome them with open arms. Zenie always makes sure to smile back, and salutes them just for the fun of it. It’s a nice distraction from the clammy feeling in her palms as she waits.

She spins around as the door of the hotel opens. Every time she’s hoped that it’s Shifty returning. This time, it really is him. He nods to her and flashes a key.

Up and up and up. The only sound on the stairwell is that of their boots echoing against the walls as they climb. Zenie glances at Shifty every now and then, feels him doing the same to her, but neither makes a move to speak. Maybe, like her, he’s trying to work out everything that he wants to say.

Peeling paint covers the door to their room. It’s at the end of the hallway, secluded, quiet. Zenie still glances over her shoulder as Shifty opens the door and ushers her inside.

This room is nothing like the one they talked in that night at the brothel. Whereas that room was dark and contained only a bed, this one is full of light and has not only a fluffy looking bed, but a vanity and a small doorway that leads to a bathroom. Something about the place makes it feel warm, and not just in temperature.

Closing the door behind her, Zenie stays in place even as Shifty walks further into the room. He glances back at her and, like that night at the brothel, gestures toward the bed.

“You wanna . . . ?”

The bed is just as fluffy as Zenie suspected it would be. It dips under their weight as they seat themselves. Also like that night, and against her better judgement, they sit close to each other. Really, what reason is there to not? Just like back in the foxholes of Holland, their knees bump into each other. They leave them there, pressing into each other.

This won’t be like last time, Zenie assures her heart as it pounds against her ribcage. Well, last time they had been holding hands when Shifty dropped the news –

No, he didn’t drop the news. He didn’t even get to finish what he wanted to say because Earl had started firing his gun and they had to leave the building. He was going to ask her to wait. And now . . . ?

She tries to find something to say, anything. They both start to speak at the same time. Words overlapping, they pause, each offering the other a small smile.

“Sorry,” Shifty says. “You first.”

Her first, with hardly a word at the ready. She says the first one that comes to mind, which is the only one she can properly associate with the whole situation that’s been playing out these past few months.

“I’m sorry. I wish we could start over.”

Slowly, Shifty nods. “Me, too. I didn’t mean to hurt you.” He pauses, pushing a short sigh out through his nose. “When I was tryin’ to ask you to wait until after the war, I thought that I was protectin’ you. From this – “ He gestures around the room. “ – The sneaking around, and all that. But I didn’t consider, see, hurtin’ your feelings indirectly. I wanted to tell you, when I realized what had happened. But I could never seem to find you by yourself . . .”

Zenie cringes at the memory of dodging Shifty’s presence, of not meeting his eyes or looking directly at him until that night at the pub when Skinny asked him what he wanted to do after the war.

“That was my fault, and I’m sorry. I –“ She has to laugh, almost, at how stupid it seems now, to have been avoiding him. “ – I was trying to protect myself, and instead I ended up hurting you. And I’m sorry; I didn’t mean to.”

Silence falls over them. Then, like that night at the brothel, Shifty holds out his hand. There is no hesitation on Zenie’s part; of course she takes it, intwining their fingers together and relishing the feeling it sends down her spine.

“This is what we’ve been missing,” she realizes aloud.

Shifty nods. He lets out an unexpected laugh, shaking his head. “I can’t believe I was gonna put this off until the end of the war. Coulda been doin’ it the whole time.”

“But you were right to be worried. About being caught, I mean.”

“Maybe. After everythin’ we’ve been through, though, is it really worth the wait?”

This time, Zenie tries to take in the full meaning of his words instead of just assuming she knows what he means, or what’s about to happen.

“What do you mean?”

“The end of the war might be a long way off, you know,” Shifty says. “And, I don’t know. After all we’ve been through, I guess I’ve realized that nothin’ is for certain.” He pauses and meets her eye. He stares so deeply into her that it feels like he’s trying to read her mind. “I don’t mind it – the sneakin’ around, I mean – if you don’t. And the end of the war . . . Well, if you want, we can figure it out when we get there. Whenever that may be.”

Her heart lurches, ready to take the plunge with him.

“You want us to court?” She clarifies. Nothing will be left to chance or interpretation this time.

“Yes.”

Going with Shifty Powers. Of course she will, and she tells him as much. She only wishes she could tell her past self, all the way back in Toccoa, that this was coming; that version of Zenie would have never seen this coming.

Her hands shake. She wonders if he can feel them trembling against his. A laugh, a sigh of relief, and a jubilant cry all gather at the back of her throat. When she opens her mouth, she’s not sure which will come out.

“You know,” she says instead. “I think you’ve just made me the happiest girl in Paris.”

Shifty grins. “Zena, when we make it out of this war, I’ll make sure you’re the happiest girl in the whole world.”

The rest of the war, Zenie prays, will be kind to them.

With the forty-eight-hour pass, they don’t have to wait until the end of the war for Shifty to make her the happiest girl in the world. Alone in their hotel room, with nothing but a slant of moonlight that sneaks in through the crack in the curtains, they make up for all their lost time.

The next morning, they discover that the towels in the bathroom are just as fluffy as the bedding. The soft, white fabric leaves little trails of fuzz covering their bodies, and they giggle as they gently swat each other, trying to remove it.

Putting on her uniform after the night they have feels strange. For a day, she’s been Zenie again. Her performance has enjoyed an intermission. Now, as they wander the streets of Paris one last time before boarding the train that will take them back to Mourmelon-le-Grand, she’s stepping back into her role and heading into the second act as a changed woman.

Changed for the better, she hopes.