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IV. “I Trust You Know What You’re Doing?”

"Trust" Series Masterlist

John "Bucky" Egan x WAC!Female Reader

Struggling with the forced separation of your transfer and promotion, it does not take long for you and Bucky to plan a trip to London together. But even while you're on leave, the world around you continues to do its best to tear itself apart.

Warnings: Language, Grief, Alcohol Consumption, Angst, Inevitable Historical and Military Inaccuracies, Mature/Explicit Themes [oral - f receiving, implied virginity loss, protected vaginal sex, condoms, unprotected vaginal sex, multiple orgasms] - 18+ ONLY.

Author’s Note: Welcome to this massive installment. I have no excuses, only apologies. Also I only had the fortitude to proof this once, there may be more errors than normal, but I didn't want to delay it any longer - I will correct things as I find them. This is a work of fiction based off the portrayal by the actors in the Apple TV+ series. I hold nothing but respect for the real life individuals referenced within.

ETA: The image descriptions for the letters contain the text within to allow for a screen reader or anyone who cannot read cursive. Click the ‘ALT’ button to access.

Word Count: 8497

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Wycombe Abbey could not have been more different than Thorpe Abbotts if it had tried.

The private, or in a most confusing twist ‘public’ as the Brits called such institutions, girls’ school had begun its life in the 17th century as a manor house before being transformed into a much grander residence near the end of the 19th century. The school had opened in 1896 with only forty students, but that number had swelled to over two hundred by the time the building was requisitioned for use as the Headquarters of the 8th Air Force.

Stained glass windows, stonework, archways, and wood panelling now replaced squat concrete buildings and rough-and-ready Nissen huts. Though everything was just as drafty, so at least the temperature provided some familiar consistency to your new surroundings. As you descended from your quarters tucked away in some forgotten corner of the attic, down a set of precarious servants’ stairs, you nearly took a wrong turn – again. To your credit you had only been here three days and the maze of corridors and rooms further divided into offices for USAAF purposes was nearly unnavigable.

Chiding yourself softly under your breath that your office was to the right and not the left, as though the sharpness of your tone might really drive it home this time, you quickened your steps still hoping to beat to postal clerk to the outgoing mail box that sat on the corner of your desk. It had been more of a challenge than you were expecting to write the letter clutched in your hand, but the daily meetings that senior operations officers held at 1015, 1600, and 2200 were your responsibility to attend and record via frantically scribbled notes to be typed up in a more professional format later.

These were the meetings at which mission targets for the entire 8th were chosen. The strategic value of various locations was discussed alongside weather reports and aligning with the RAF’s Bomber Command for maximum impact against Nazi Germany. After the first meeting, it would be decided if a mission would even be conducted the following day, and each Division, Wing, and Base involved would be put on alert to allow them time to begin planning the operation. By the time the last meeting ended, the target and approach would be finalized, and the official field orders would be issued.

It made for a remarkably long day, even with breaks for meals, and though you were guaranteed every other Friday off because of this, by the time you crawled into bed near midnight, you only had enough energy to add a few lines onto the letter you had begun to Bucky as soon as you arrived. It made for a rather disjointed and rambling piece of correspondence, in your opinion, but you could not bear to keep him waiting any longer – not wanting him to assume you had forgotten to write and not knowing how long the thing would take to reach him regardless.

Dashing into the office you shared with Myrtle, a very stoic young woman with dark hair and thick eyelashes from Rhode Island, you exhaled in relief to see the post still waiting to be collected and added your letter to the pile. Unlocking your desk drawers, you began setting up for the day, hoping it would reach him quickly.

His reply arrived in your inbox just over two weeks later, near the end of September. Sliding it into your brown leather utility bag, you did your utmost to ignore its very existence throughout the first daily meeting, and your subsequent production of the official report thereof. Taking your lunch break a little earlier than usual paid off in that the line was much shorter at that time. You inhaled the mystery stew and rolls, hardly tasting them, before taking your letter outside to read in the rare afternoon sunshine.

It was short, and it was unspeakably adorable that Bucky did not write in cursive, but there was no lack of his personality in his response. It was as though the very essence of him had been distilled into the ink itself and you could not help the broad grin that bore its way into the muscles of your cheeks, making them ache as you read it.

Glancing quickly at your watch, you realized there was still time to send a reply before the second post pick-up but based on the length of time it had taken for this exchange of letters, it was unlikely another would reach him with enough time to plan for October 8 – your next Friday off. Worrying your lip between your teeth as you considered your options, you landed on a rather devious idea, one that quite honestly would have never come to you if not for the deep need to reach Bucky immediately. Vi had a telephone on her desk in the weather office, a number that you had access to given the strategic importance of weather to the senior operations officers.

Myrtle would be on her break for another fifteen minutes…you had not even realized you had made up your mind before your feet began to carry you back inside, up the stairs into the mercifully still-empty office. Digging out the directory, you found the number for Thorpe Abbotts’ weather office and took a shaky breath as you sank into your chair.

‘Keep it brief, keep it free of classified information. Worst you’ll get is a reprimand.’

The devious, deceptive voice in your mind was a new one, fostered, perhaps, by the rather carefree man you found yourself deeply entangled with, but it was not one you were about to disobey. Lifting the handset of your phone from its cradle, you cleared your throat as the operator answered.

“Norfolk 7315, please.” You tried your best to sound calm and collected as the line clicked and began to ring.

“Phillips.” An unexpected voice answered, and you gulped, knowing Ruth would be less likely to participate in some romantic scheme.

You greeted her in kind, trying to ignore the ache of loneliness as she gasped softly.

“I was hoping you might pass along a message for me?”

“To a certain Major?” You could hear the grin in her voice and felt the pressure on your chest ease.

“Indeed. October 8. I will arrange accommodations.”

“Your line should he need to reach you?”

Hesitating a moment, you ultimately decided to provide it as well, wanting to ensure he could in fact contact you if something came up. Or perhaps any of them could – should the worst happen.

‘Don’t think about that.’ You chastised yourself internally.

“You’re well?” Ruth asked and you smiled softly.

“I am, please tell everyone I miss them terribly.”

“Will do, have to go.”

There was a ‘click’ as she hung up and the line went dead but the lightness in your heart could not be extinguished.

Nine days later you found yourself waiting on the platform at Liverpool Street station awaiting the arrival of Bucky’s train from East Anglia. Given the proximity of High Wycombe to London, you had arrived much earlier that morning and checked into the hotel already, dropping off your small bag and come to wait for his train – well you assumed he’d be on the first train of the day, but as the carriages disgorged a sea of humanity and you had yet to spot him, your brows began to furrow in doubt.

You were about to fish the folded schedule you had picked up from the ticket counter to check the next arrival time when he was suddenly wrapping an arm around you, pulling you tight into his chest as you gasped softly in surprise.

“There you are doll.” Bucky sighed, dropping his bag at your feet to slide the other arm around you as he pulled back to nudge your cap out of the way and deliver a breathtakingly thorough kiss that you were not entirely sure was appropriate for the public setting you were in.

Not that you stopped him, you own arms snaking about his midsection to cling to him tightly.

Pulling back, his eyes raked over your features lovingly as you both inhaled deeply to fill your greedy lungs.

“Well, well 1st Lieutenant.” He smirked proudly as he lifted his hand to stroke the chrome insignia you now wore on your lapels courtesy of your promotion, leaving smudges of his thumb print.

“You are leaving my uniform in disarray, Major.” You chided playfully, unable to hold back you grin, even for a moment, to sell the joke.

His forefinger hooked behind the knot in your tie, tugging it out from beneath your jacket and pulling you closer – eliminating the last few inches of space that remained between your bodies.

“Good.” He rumbled against your lips before kissing you deeply, severely undermining the infrastructure of your knees.

The loud racket of the train cars as they shunted into one another jolted the pair of you apart, making you realize you were among the last few remaining on the platform as the now empty train left the station.

“Let’s get you checked in and your bag dropped off.” You murmured, clearing your throat as you unbuttoned your uniform jacket to straighten and re-secure your tie.

His hand slid into yours as the pair of you made your way out of the station and he happily followed you to a hotel you’d found near his station, knowing that he’d be here longer than you and it would be easier for him to find his way back to base this way. Sitting patiently in the lobby as he checked in and ran his bag up, you smiled as he returned to hold his hands out to you.

“C’mon doll, I have a whole plan.”

Taking his hands, you rose to your feet, raising your eyebrows curiously. “A whole plan?”

He leaned in to murmur against your ear, “you’re not the only one involved in planning you know.”

You pulled back quickly, eyes wide with a touch of panic. You were quite certain you had never told him just what your new position entailed, and there was no way he could simply guess it.

“Easy doll, your phone line.” He winked as he maneuvered your arm through his, turning to lead you out the front door.

Slowly exhaling, it clicked into place. Of course. Just as you were able to find Vi’s desk number in a directory, it seemed Bucky had been doing a little research of his own.

“Well, shhh.” You chastened him firmly, laying a finger over your lips, looking very much like an anti-slander campaign poster.

His hearty laugh in response did little to convince you that he took in the message.

“Now, how do we get to Hyde Park…” He murmured, pulling a crumpled leave guide out of his pocket.

“The underground.” You answered easily, leading him back towards the very station he had arrived at but this time down to the tube station entrance where the pair of you purchased your tickets.

His touch rarely left you – even if he was forced to release your hand, you could feel his palm pressed against your lower back as you made your way through the crowded subterranean space. You were glad to have him with you this time, not particularly a fan of this mode of transportation, but it certainly was an efficient way to get around London. Pressed close together on the train, you took the opportunity to simply gaze at him, basking in his presence after nearly a month apart, not missing the way his mouth ticked up at the corner cockily.

“Missed you too, doll.” He winked and ducked a kiss to your ear before guiding you off the train at your stop – once he had confirmed with you it was indeed your stop.

Blinking your way back into the light of day, you pointed at a directional sign guiding the way to Hyde Park.

“Perfect, now apparently there are…sandwiches!” He crowed and tugged you over to a sandwich truck that seemed quite popular based on the line of waiting patrons.

Your face was starting to hurt, driving home how infrequently you had found the opportunity to smile in his absence, making you squeeze his hand fondly. Bucky looked back to you quickly as he joined the queue.

“You really did plan everything.” You gulped quickly and he beamed proudly.

“Anything for my girl. What kind would you like?” He gestured at the menu written on the side of the truck.

By the time you reached the front of the line, Bucky was able to easily place your order, including two bottles of lemonade, insisting on paying. Opening your utility bag, you carefully packed the lunch away, earning a rather damp and enthusiastic kiss on your cheek as he snatched your hand to continue onto the park.

“May I ask what it is about this park in particular?” You inquired as the pair of you dashed across the road.

“You can ask…” His cheeky reply had you scoffing in return as you entered the canopy of trees, following a path further and further away from the traffic of downtown London.

Plenty of men in uniform seemed to be out, enjoying the nice weather with women on their arms. Women who, unlike you, enjoyed the luxury of being allowed to dress as they chose during their leisure time. It had been one of many reasons that nearly twenty-five percent of women had chosen not to remain enlisted during the transition from the WAAC to the WAC, the army requirement to remain in uniform even when off-duty. In all honesty, you had not really missed your civilian clothes until just then.

Watching the sheer femininity of those women as they swirled about in their colorful fabrics only drove home how drably olive and plainly cut your uniform truly was.

“You’re a million miles away, doll.” Bucky’s voice cut through the dark clouds that had gathered in your mind and you looked to him quickly.

“Sorry Bucky, it’s beautiful here. Like another place entirely.” You offered him a smile but by the way his eyebrow lifted slightly he did not seem to be entirely buying it. “Have the leaves started changing around the base yet?” You tried changing the subject.

He shook his head, releasing your hand to slide his arm around your waist instead, pulling you closer. “Seems everything will happen later here than back home.”

You hummed thoughtfully, glancing ahead and gasping a little at the glimpse of a sizeable body of water that seemed to be filled with rowboats.

“That’s why were here.”

You turned back to him to see a broad grin had overtaken his face and laughed in excitement as it was terribly romantic.

“If I had known, Major Egan, I would have brought my parasol.” You grinned and he snorted, squeezing your hip fondly.

“No need to put on airs, 1st Lieutenant,” he smirked, “the ride will be enjoyable all the same.”

“Bucky!” You hissed sharply, slapping his chest as he laughed deeply, ducking your head slightly as more than a few passersby shot glances your way.

“C’mon doll.” He chuckled and led you over to the booth beside the dock, paying the fee for a thirty-minute rental before the pair of you headed down to climb into one of the waiting row boats.

Setting your heavy bag on the floor, you carefully stepped into the rather unstable watercraft, settling on the passenger’s bench – denoted as such by the ornate ironwork arms. Bucky followed, seated across from you at the oars, his knees nearly brushing against yours, legs too long for so small a boat. Unbuttoning and sliding off his jacket, he tossed it and his cap to you before rolling up his sleeves and began to row the pair of you out onto The Serpentine, you now knew the small lake to be called.

“I trust you know what you’re doing?” You asked as he appeared to easily manage the oars, seeming at ease in the small boat.

“Mostly.” He teased with a wink before laughing at your slightly aghast expression. “Grew up on the shore of Lake Michigan, doll. Boats are like planes to me, easily managed.” He soothed.

It was difficult to decide which view to settle your eyes upon, the verdant green of the still-lush trees, the throng of boats around you, or Bucky working up a remarkably attractive sheen of sweat with his forearms on display as he propelled the rowboat through the water. A feathered fan would have been a very useful tool in that moment, to hide behind or cool yourself down, or perhaps both.

Belatedly, you realized that Bucky had been speaking this whole time – about events back at Thorpe Abbotts. Giving you the update about the people you knew, the trouble Meatball had caused with a farmer down the road, but he trailed off when he realized you were staring once more in dumbfounded silence at him.

“Doll, you’re going to give me a big head if you keep looking at me like that.” He winked as he lifted the oars from the water, letting the water sluice from the blades before tucking them into the boat on either side of you.

“Y…you’re good at that.” You replied lamely and shook your head. “Hungry?” Leaning forward for your bag, which was in all honestly a lot closer to his feet in the floor of the boat, you froze as everything tilted precariously in response to your movements.

Bucky lay a gentle hand on your shoulder to steady you. “Allow me.” Bending down slowly, he scooped up your bag and opened the flap to retrieve your sandwich and lemonade. “It’s sure tight in here, how did you even make this all fit?”

He tugged a little harder on the packet containing your lunch and your eyes widened in horror as, while he was triumphant, he also managed to send the three condoms you had tucked into your bag scattering to the floor of the boat. His eyes followed the distinct, square, paper packets and you could see his throat bob as he swallowed viciously.

“Doll…” His voice came out rough as a gravel road as he slowly raised his eyes to meet yours. “…been doing some planning of your own?”

“‘A WAC is always prepared.’” You quoted in a mortified whisper, struggling against the urge to lunge forward and hide the evidence, knowing it would only send both of you over the side and into the lake.

You watched another swallow ripple down Bucky’s throat before he offered your lunch to you, carefully collecting the offending items and returning them to your bag before he retrieved his own food.

“Would you mind,” He spoke after taking a rather ruthless and oversized bite of his sandwich, words muffled between slices of bread and chicken salad before he swallowed to start over. “Would you mind if, instead of following the rest of my plan, after these thirty minutes are up, I take you back to the hotel?”

Taking a thick swallow of your own, you shook your head slowly as you felt your cheeks heat up at the implications of that invitation. “I would not mind, no.” You clarified breathlessly and he nodded sharply, gesturing for your as-yet-unopened bottle of lemonade.

Handing it back to him, you watched silently as he lined the edge of the cap with the metal plate holding the oarlock in place, popping it off the bottle with one sharp blow of the heel of his palm.

“Thank you.” You murmured quietly as he passed you the opened drink, taking a deep sip as he repeated the process with his own, draining nearly half the bottle in one go.

Tilting your head back to take in the feel of the sun on your face, you slid your cap from your hair, adding it to the pile of his neatly folded items on the bench beside you, continuing to enjoy your picnic on the lake.

“You heard about Dye hitting twenty-five?” He broke the silence, sounding much more like himself again and you nodded quickly.

“Big news, everywhere in the 8th. Lucky crew all heading home – how did Lil take it?” You tilted your head curiously, raising your bottle to your lips, his eyes following the motion closely.

“Hm? Oh, she’ll be alright…they’re both good at letters.” He nodded, leaning back a little.

You knocked your knee against his affectionately. “Don’t sell yourself short you sweet man, I thoroughly enjoyed yours.”

His eyes flicked to yours quickly as a small smile curled his lips. “Yeah?”

You nodded firmly. “Yeah. Promise to give you more to reply to soon, phone was just necessary to make this happen.”

His hand landed on your thigh gently and he squeezed the flesh through your skirt. “Worth it. Just how long are your days though, doll?”

Your fingers played along the empty glass bottle, and you shrugged. “As long as they need to be.” You replied evasively.

“Mm, I’m going to get a better answer out of you than that.” He threatened playfully as he leaned forward to grasp the oar handles, swinging the blades back into the water and taking the pair of you on a loop around the corner of the lake before returning you to the dock.

Bucky climbed out first, taking his cap and jacket before helping you out easily, kissing you firmly as soon as you were on solid ground. “Let’s take a cab…” He breathed impatiently and you laughed, shaking your head.

“The cost would be astronomical, come on.” You affixed your cap on your head as he rolled down his sleeves and slid his jacket back on before the pair of you made your way back to the Underground.

Bucky’s body was practically pressed against yours the entire trip back to Liverpool Street station, seemingly unable to tolerate any form of separation. As you neared the hotel though, you looked to him slowly. “We should go in as colleagues…I booked us that way.”

He looked at you utterly confused, and you swallowed.

“We’re unwed, there was no way I could book us here together, and they will be none to please if they realize I’ve tricked them. I’ll get my key, you get yours, I’ll come to your room…”

He nodded slowly, arm reluctantly unwinding from around your waist before holding the door open for you to step inside.

“Thank you, Major.” You nodded, sliding your cap from your head as you stepped inside, heading to the counter to fetch your room key as he did the same, the pair of you walking up the stairs to the fifth floor together before parting ways so you could fetch your small overnight bag.

It was rather a waste of money, to book a room knowing you would most likely never sleep in it, but such things were necessary for women like you. Women who chose to go to bed with a man they were not married to in the long light of the afternoon. Taking a steadying breath, you left the perfectly made bed behind, walking down the hall to Bucky’s room and knocking on the door softly.

It promptly swung open to reveal a smiling Bucky, his jacket and cap long gone, along with his necktie, the top few buttons of his shirt undone. He stepped back and gestured for you to enter his much larger room with a small brown paper wrapped packet clasped in his hand. Once the door was closed behind you, you let out the laugh you had been holding.

“I did book this under Major John Egan, I suppose they felt the need to give you a nicer room than a Lieutenant.”

He smirked and kissed your cheek, taking your cap and bag from your hand, then pressing the package into it. “Before I forget, again.”

“Bucky you didn’t have to get me anything, you came to see me…”

“Open it.” His eyes danced with anticipation, and you began to pull at the piece of twine holding the package closed, unfolding the utilitarian paper to reveal a brand-new pair of stockings.

You let out an audible gasp as your jaw fairly fell to the floor.

“To replace the pair that got wrecked when you fell.” He smiled, obviously pleased by your reaction.

“How on earth did you…?!” You trailed off, staring up at him in wonderment.

“A man never reveals his secrets, doll.” He grinned and let out a grunt as you launched yourself into his arms, kissing him fiercely at the thoughtfulness of his gift and in recognition of the sheer determination it must have taken to achieve such a feat in rationed England.

His fingers gently plied the items from your grasp, setting them on the bedside table, freeing your hands to latch onto his arms as he cupped your face gently.

“You sure about this, my beautiful girl?” He whispered and your breath hitched in your throat at the tender look on his face just inches from yours.

“Yes.” You nodded quickly, sliding your fingers into his hair to pull his lips back to yours greedily.

A pleased noise rolled from his throat and across your tongue as he coaxed your mouth open, his fingers shifting to make steady work at the buttons on your jacket before he unwound your hands from his dark curls to slide the garment off, tossing it in the general direction of the chair that held his. You could not help the giggle that bubbled up from your chest at that as you moved to undo the buttons of his shirt one by one.

The tug of his teeth on your lower lip quickly transformed your laughter to shuddering breath as you held tightly to the open sides of his shirt, feeling him tug your tie free from your collar before it joined the pile of clothes somewhere on the plush blue carpet of the hotel room floor. Your shirt and skirt were quick to join it, leaving you in your brassiere and slip, garter belt and underwear still hidden from view.

“You have a remarkable number of layers on, doll.” He huffed as his mouth descended along your throat to suck at the crook of your shoulder, installing a dramatic curve in your spine as you arched against him wantonly with a half-swallowed cry of pleasure.

“Y…you have almost as many…” You protested, tugging the ends of his shirt from his trousers before pushing it from his shoulders only to be met with his undershirt.

The sheer broadness of him had never quite been so very apparent and had you licking your lips as you struggled with the last barrier between you and his torso, your ID tags rasping metallically against his.

“Not nearly as complicated though.” He muttered as his fingers worked at the hook and eye closure of your bra until you felt the band go slack and he leaned back to slide the straps down your arms, making you shiver as your breasts were revealed to his hungry gaze.

Bucky’s heavy exhale fluttered against your collarbone, grown cool by the time it traversed the distance between you, and you shuddered slightly, looking to the side shyly. He leaned in to brush his nose against yours tenderly, pecking your lips.

“Whatcha hiding for, gorgeous?” His tone was gentle and had your eyes slowly sliding to meet his, an action he rewarded with a deep kiss.

He continued to distract you with repeated meetings your lips, each time with growing intensity as his palms slid upwards along your sides to cup your breasts. The meeting of flesh had you inhaling sharply through your nose, hands seeking anchor as your fingers twisted into his beltloops where his trousers hung open around his hips – yet again delaying you in your purpose of undressing him. As his thumbs honed in on your sensitive peaks, Bucky elicited all manner of noises from your throat only to eagerly devour them.

“D’ya have any idea how soft you are doll?” He sighed against your lips as he kneaded your tender flesh. “’Cept right here.” He smirked as he tugged at your nipples and you whined his name, pressing impossibly close against him, realizing he was anything but soft.

Your shimmies and writhes against him seemed to serve as a reminder of the greater purpose at hand and Bucky’s fingers ceased their torment, sliding down to your hips to divest you of your slip before beginning to work at your stockings. Toeing off your shoes, you pushed his trousers from his hips, letting gravity do the rest.

“So many hooks and straps and loops…” He muttered as his mouth dipped to the hollow of your throat, though his fingers seemed more than capable of stripping you down to only your underwear.

Seizing your hips, Bucky guided you back onto the bed, and you could not help the sigh at that flew from your mouth at the feel of a real mattress with springs and a duvet, drawing a broad grin across his face as he crawled over you, coaxing you to lay back.

“Precious women like you should always have luxurious beds like these. None of those stinking Army cots…” His hands slid beneath your spine to half guide, half drag you up to rest on the obnoxious mountain of pillows.

Staring up at him in awe, at a complete loss for words, you settled on pressing up onto your elbows to kiss him firmly, hoping to convey your appreciation physically rather than trying to summon speech. As his lips parted from yours to begin sliding down your body, you let out a slight huff of annoyance, earning a chuckle against your collarbone which rumbled through his chest and into your body. He lifted his head slightly as his fingers wove through the ball chain of your ID tags as he seemed to notice them for the first time.

“I always wondered if you ladies had these.”

You bit your lip to smother your grin as he never hesitated to say what was on his mind, a constant stream of commentary on the world around him, and rather than annoying, you found it utterly adorable.

“Are you laughin’ at me, doll?” He smirked and gave a gentle tug, pulling a genuine laugh from you, to which he responded with a brilliant grin. “Alright then, I’ll give you something to laugh about.” He bowed his head to drag the flat of his tongue across your nipple, your resulting whimper bouncing off the walls as he resumed his teasing of your opposite breast.

“B…Bucky…” Your eyes shot wide as his plush lips sealed around that tender peak, applying a positively euphoric suction that had you burying your fingers in his hair and pressing your body closer to his mouth in silent demand.

With careful precision, his knee slid its way between your thighs, applying coaxing pressure to each in turn until you provided enough room for him to settle between them. The feeling of his hard length slotting against your core with only the thin barrier of your underwear separating your intimate flesh had your jaw dropping open in a silent ‘oh’ – a revelation unto itself despite all the experiences you had enjoyed with him thus far. Undulating your hips against his experimentally, you shuddered at the ragged, abbreviated groan he pressed against your sternum, caught in the midst of traversing your chest. Thoroughly encouraged, you repeated the action, savagely gnawing on your lip as he bit off a curse before his mouth reached its destination and laved at your neglected nipple.

Nestling tighter against you, Bucky began to roll his hips against you in earnest, obliterating your ability to think and scheme against him at the blinding pleasure his combined actions induced. You could feel the smug angle of his lips against your abdomen as his mouth was trailing lower on your body, his fingers curling into the waistband of your underwear to peel it from your body. Shifting back to free the interfering item from your legs, he gazed down at you with almost black eyes, his pupils having nearly devoured his irises in his arousal, before stretching forward onto his stomach.

Blinking rapidly, you raised up on your elbows to watch him hoist one of your legs over a strong shoulder and then the other, shuffling embarrassingly close to the apex of your thighs.

“Bucky?” You squeaked hesitantly.

He raised an eyebrow up at you, his pink tongue darting out the wet his lips, nearly matching the flush that had painted its way across his cheeks and down his neck. “Yes, doll?”

“What…” You swallowed thickly as your throat clenched erratically.

“Making good on a promise.” He replied seriously before stretching forward to deliver a thorough kiss to your folds that fairly sucked the air from your lungs, an odd whistling sound echoing through you as you savagely burrowed your fingers into the bedding.

When his tongue narrowed in on that sensitive bundle of nerves, it was your turn to bite off a curse, slumping back onto the pillows as he hummed against you in what was surely mock sympathy as he most certainly did not let up, his efforts only doubling. As your hips began to jerk and writhe, he slung a heavy forearm across your pelvis to pin you in place, only shifting closer and tracing his forefinger around your entrance teasingly. It was all you could do not to kick and wail as you felt yourself becoming embarrassingly slick, the noises he was making growing ever so obscene and filling the hotel room.

“Fuck!” You whined against your palm as his finger finally sunk into your wet heat, its passage remarkably eased by your arousal, hips bucking hard enough to jar his arm slightly.

“Damn you’re delicious, doll.” He growled against you, lips smacking loudly as he began to suck at your pearl, finger working you open enough to add a second before beginning a demanding rhythm.

“Oh…oh...god…” You cried out in agony, too far gone to remember your desire to be quiet, feeling the tension of pending release growing ever closer under his amorous onslaught.

“I know, I know…” He soothed, only quickening his pace, hooking his fingers towards the front of your body, sending your back into a dramatic curve from the mattress, a tortured moan ripping from your throat. “Oh, I have to see that again.” He rasped and sought that precise spot with a ruthless single-minded precision until he was rewarded with not only the same reaction, but your strangled cry as your orgasm slammed into you with breath-taking force.

As you returned to earth from your visit to the celestial plane, the first sensation you became aware of was tender, damp kisses being pressed to your inner thigh as Bucky murmured soft words of encouragement to you.

“There’s my gorgeous girl, holy hell that was incredible, did you enjoy that half as much as I did?”

You managed a wordless noise in the affirmative that summoned him to your side, his lips feathering kisses up your jaw to your ear, the tickle of his moustache making you laugh breathlessly.

“Good?” He murmured and you nodded quickly, turning to look at his still-expectant face.

“Yes.” You cobbled together a verbal response, and he blessed you with a warm smile which you leaned in to press your lips against in gratitude.

“Good.” He swiped his tongue along your lips before suddenly slipping from the bed, making you raise your head in confusion.

Stalking over to find your utility bag amongst the sea of discard items and clothing, he proudly retrieved the three condoms that had announced your hopes and intentions for you by appearing in the rowboat, unceremoniously shucking off his boxers as he made his way back to you. You had held his length before, stroked it to completion, but that paled in comparison to seeing the full expanse of him in the light of day.

“My gorgeous doll, you might not say a lot, but you sure don’t mind looking at what you like.” He smirked unabashedly as he set two of the paper packets on the night table beside you, unwrapping the third to unroll the protective latex onto his cock.

Rather than letting his teasing words dissuade you, though they did cause your teeth to sink into your lower lip, you chose to allow your eyes to linger on his actions, rather fascinated by the whole process. By the male anatomy as well. Task managed, he was climbing over you once more, blocking the golden light of afternoon that was filtering in through the windows with his body, warmth radiating from his skin. He settled easily between your legs once more, still parted from his early activities as you really had not summoned the wherewithal to move yet, and stroked his length through the lingering slick gathered along your folds.

A broken sigh fell from his lips before they clashed with yours, not quite aligned, but the sentiment was still there, body shuddering as you slid your arms around him to cling to his shoulders. It was difficult to tell just whom Bucky was teasing as he continued to rut against you, the tip of his cock brushing against your overly-sensitive bundle of nerves, both of you huffing through your nostrils until at last he began to sink into you.

Tearing your lips from his, you sucked in gasping breaths at the feel of the foreign intrusion, appreciating the fact that his pace seemed to slow in response to that. Appreciating the pause he afforded you when his pelvis slotted snuggly against yours once he was seated fully inside you. Cracking open your clenched eyes, you gulped tightly as they were immediately met by Bucky’s, crowned by a furrowed brow, but flicking over your features studiously as if awaiting your instruction.

“I’m ok.” You breathed and he nodded, immediately seizing your lips in a kiss once more as he rocked forward, earning a ragged moan as your fingertips dug into the skin of his back.

His familiarity with this sort of activity had always been apparent, but was exceptionally obvious now as he slowly began the rhythmic push and pull to drive you both towards climax. The sheer intimacy of it was too much and yet it was not nearly enough, your body craving ever more, ever faster, with increasing desperation. The rare moments that Bucky’s lips were not on yours, they were filling the room with choked-off moans or statements of the filthiest order.

“God doll, you feel so fucking good around me.”

“So tight. I can feel how wet you are too, even with this rubber on.”

“You’re gonna cum for me, aren’t ya? You’re gripping on me like a…fuck I can’t think when you do that…”

His ability to even speak while experiencing such mind-numbing pleasure, rambling though it was, was fairly awe-inspiring. Your responses were limited to moans and whimpers and cries of his name as his supposition was correct – your orgasm was indeed imminent. All it took was the solicitous stroking of his forefinger against the apex of your pleasure to send you flying over the cliff into paradise, clinging to his body as you cried out in ecstasy.

A string of rasped curses mixed in with several sighs of your name heralded his release as Bucky finished not long after, rocking against you sloppily before sinking down onto your chest with a comforting heaviness. Stroking his back tenderly as he nestled into your neck, you grinned stupidly at the ceiling as you felt quite pleased with your choices.

The pair of you made good use of the rest of the condoms you had brought, with a short break for a meal Bucky procured while you took a bath. He returned with a bottle of brandy as well, finding you still in the bathtub. A lot of water ended up on the floor, a pile of water-logged towels your testament to the attempted clean-up. Eating in bed, you shared stories of your childhoods – Bucky’s about growing up on the shores of Lake Michigan, yours of the small two-storey house with its screen door and front porch from which you had watched your brother play with the neighbourhood boys.

You fell asleep in one another’s arms after the final condom was disposed of, the sun long set, but awoke sometime in the night to the unsettling sound of an air raid siren. Not as common in 1943, yet being as close as you were to Canary Wharves, the Luftwaffe still made the occasional bomb run. Startled to find the bed empty, you sat up sharply to see Bucky sitting in front of the window, completely naked, intermittently illuminated by the flashes of distant explosions and anti-aircraft fire.

“Sorry doll, didn’t mean to wake ya.” He muttered and you shook your head, sliding to the end of the bed.

“You ok?” You tilted your head, blinking into a particularly bright flash.

“Hmmm…” He replied noncommittally, turning back to the scene before him with a frown. “I’ve dropped a lot of those. Done a lot of killing.”

Swallowing tightly, you slid to your feet despite the way your heart was pounding in your throat, padding across the carpet towards him.

“Done your job, Bucky. Done what was asked of you.” You assured him, coming to stand behind him, setting your hands on his shoulders.

“If there’s any balance to all this, my ticket was punched a long time ago.” He muttered sullenly and it was your turn to frown.

Bending down to press a kiss to the crown of his head, you stepped in front of him to block his view, perhaps, hopefully, to block his darker thoughts as you shifted to sit on his thighs.

“Whatcha doin’ doll?” He quirked an eyebrow, mouth falling open in a silent moan as your fingers slid between your bodies to gently stroke his length.

“Lightening up.” You replied, invoking the words of your dead brother’s inscription.

It was impossible to think of a more important piece of advice or a more importance source in that moment. A young man who would never get the chance to spend one more time in his lover’s arms, who knew you better than anyone in the entire world. And you were most certainly going to follow it. You had to be up in less than three hours, to catch the first train to High Wycombe, and you would not pass up this moment with Bucky. The future was unknowable, your brother’s death had certainly taught you that.

Bucky’s fingers curled into your hips as his mouth descended onto yours greedily, clearly in agreement with your plan, despite the lack of remaining condoms. Shuffling closer, you guided his now fully hard cock into your body, your soft noises of pleasure colliding with his in the space between your parted lips. Working together, with plenty of guidance from his firm grip, you began to rocking your hips, using his shoulders for leverage. His head fell back to stare up at you in awe, jaw slack, adam’s apple bobbing viciously.

“Christ, I love you…” His face betrayed such vulnerability, lips trembling slightly, that you quickly lifted your hands to cradle his cheeks, even as your lashes grew suddenly damp.

“I love you too, John. So much.” You replied thickly, rather resenting the dramatic wobble in your voice.

The tiniest of smiles pulled at his lips before his face grew serious once more and he lunged forward to kiss you hungrily, hands anchoring your shoulders so he might thrust up into your body with a sudden need. It was all you could do to hang on, though pleasure itself still managed to sweep you away, leaving you only with the vague recognition of him half pulling out mid-release.

It was terribly difficult to leave him in that comfortable, if messy, bed a few hours later. He did not make it easy either, impossible to untangle from your body like an unwieldy piece of seaweed. Yet somehow you managed to make your trains and arrive at your desk at the appointed hour. Focusing on the task at hand with the pleasurable ache between your legs was altogether another challenge, forcing you to sit on first one hip and then the other.

You had just returned after the lunch break when your phone rang, your greeting barely out of your mouth before Bucky’s question came down the line.

“Did you know you know where they played yesterday’s match?” He asked flatly and it took you several seconds to comprehend that he was speaking in code and just what he was getting at.

You swallowed painfully. “Yes, I did sir.”

Of course you did, you were in the room on Thursday night when they had chosen Bremen as the target for yesterday’s mission.

“A lot of our best players struck out, you know. Buck included.”

He sounded utterly unlike himself, cold and distant, not the man you had left just hours ago in that hotel room in London. All the same, your heart broke for him, and for yourself too. You liked Major Cleven – this war was nothing but cruel.

“I’m so sorry B-Major Egan.” You corrected yourself quickly, eyeing Myrtle across the room.

“Well I hope you all pick a better field for tomorrow’s match because I’m pitching.”

You opened your mouth to reply as your heart dropped through the floor, but the sound of the handset slamming into the cradle resounded over the line before it went dead, giving you no opportunity to speak. To wish him luck or, heaven forfend, goodbye. You hung up your phone with a slightly shaking hand as a deep sense of dread threaded its way through your stomach.

-------------------------

Read Part Five - "I Trusted You!"

"Trust" Series Masterlist

Tag list: @gretagerwigsmuse, @precious-little-scoundrel, @rubyfruitjungle, @storysimp, @mads-weasley, @xxanaduwrites, @bcon24, @fxxiva, @slowsweetlove, @hockeyboysarehot, @darylas

#john egan x reader #bucky egan x reader #john egan imagine #john egan fic #john egan #john bucky egan #mota fic #masters of the air fanfic

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decolonize-the-left · 4 months

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WW3 will be white supremacists vs everyone else.

Not a singular Western country in support of Israel is innocent of colonization, war crimes, treaty violations, or having white supremacists in politics.

Each one of them has been ignoring protests and strikes in their own countries for human rights and protections. Human rights and protections that have thus far been denied btw. Meanwhile they give themselves raises and protections against protesters and so called "terrorists." They inflate military budgets while their people grow more agitated and they don't care.

Not a single one of them have a thriving, happy people.

Historically they've been awful for Black, indigenous, and immigrant populations despite many of their countries being founded on immigration. And even in modern times all of them currently have trials going on to combat state violence such as genocide, rights violations, or police brutality.

None of them have ever been paragons of human rights. None of them represent the world's moral compass least of all Germany.

So why and how is it that you can look at the USA and German support of Israel and your thought is "finally!" instead of seeing a red flag.

White supremacists are teaming up in a Big way.

And this time they're letting white Jewish people count as white which seems to have short-circuited ur brains so let me remind y'all that Nazis hate Jewish people but not every white suprmacist is a Nazi. And white supremacists have a long history of providing white Jewish people with conditional white privileges

For example here in the USA while white men who owned some land could vote, the same could not be said of white Jewish people who were barred from it in some colonies by language that stated you needed to accept Jesus as your savior. But white Jewish ppl could vote & could own land elsewhere when Black and native communities couldn't do that anywhere at all.

White supremacists exploiting white Jewish people for their vote or political support is nothing new and continues to be no surprise.

We can look at Trump's attempt to do exactly that as recently as 2019. We know he isn't an ally of any Jewish person anywhere and yet here he is trying to get right-wingers hyped up with virtue signaling.

The same article addressed how this right wing rhetoric and trying to incite it among Republicans is itself antisemitic and careless.

The past 24 hours have cemented President Donald Trump's reputation as America's "racist in chief." After tweeting a hateful diatribe about how four Democratic congresswomen of color should "go back" to where they came from, the President attempted to justify his racism with accusations that these members of Congress are anti-Israel. On Monday morning, he tweeted that these lawmakers "have made Israel feel abandoned by the U.S." and cited South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham, who called them all "anti-America" and "anti-Semitic."

[...]And despite his feigning concern about anti-Semitism, nearly three-quarters of Jews feel less secure than they did two years ago and the majority of Jews attribute their rising insecurity to Trump's policies. More specifically, many are concerned about Trump encouraging right-wing extremism and Republicans tolerating white nationalism within their ranks. In fact, according to a March Gallup poll, more than 70% of Jews continue to disapprove of Trump and only 16% now identify as Republicans.

....then Biden supported a fucking genocide in the name of trying to establish a safe place for Jewish people. When we all know his interest is actually oil in the middle east.

There is no fucking way either of them or the USA cares about any Jewish people or had their best interest in mind.

So that entire argument aside....

We can't keep letting white supremacists play these identity politic games and turning us on each other so we're keeping each other oppressed instead of helping each other be free.

Right now there are white queer people in my asks calling me (an Ojibwe) a Russian psyop for not wanting to vote blue.

That's the shit I'm talking about.

At the end of the day I don't want anyone except white supremacy and white supremacists to be decimated. I want a liberated and free people all over the globe.

Is that what you want too?

Then we have got to start focusing on the big picture. You are not my enemy and I am not yours. Our enemies are the same and they are unified.

We should be too.

International solidarity against white supremacy for the first time, for forever.

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fuckyeahhistorycrushes · 24 days

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Tamara Wiszniewska (1919-1981) - Polish actress

Tamara Wiszniewska was born on December 19, 1919 in Dubno, Poland (now a region in western Ukraine) on the banks of the Ikva River. It was here that she spent her younger years during which she picked up dancing, which eventually led her to her career in film. In her 1981 obituary in the Democrat & Chronicle, it was reported that Tamara, at age 15, “Was a ballet dancer, when German film director Paul Wegener discovered her and gave her a role in the historical film, August der Starke (August the Strong)” which premiered in 1936. This German/Polish co-production is a biographical look into the life of Augustus II, ruler of Saxony and Poland-Lithuania from 1694-1733. Although Tamara played only a small role it marked her debut and eventual rise to fame within the Polish film industry.

Following her appearance in August der Starke, Tamara appeared in thirteen other films between 1936 and 1939, including Trójka Hultajska (The Trio Hultajska, 1937), Ordynat Michorowski (Ordinate Michorowski, 1937), and Kobiety nad Przepaścią (Women Over the Precipice, 1938). Wladyslaw (Walter) Mikosz, Tamara’s future husband, produced two of these films. In an interview, Tamara and Walter’s daughter, Irene, states that, "The two met because of their film careers, and were married [late that same year] in 1937".

Life for the Mikoszs was happy for a time. Tamara continued to pursue her acting career through 1938 and 1939 and had welcomed a new born daughter into the world alongside her husband, Wladyslaw. Unfortunately, these happy times did not last long as the Mikosz family experienced the rise of Nazi Germany and their occupation of Poland in 1939 during World War II. The following excerpt from an interview with Tamara in a 1974 Times Union tells how drastically their lives were changed:

"I always played a rich spoiled girl who had lovely clothes, and for a short time I lived that kind of life too. It was a short, beautiful life that ended when the Germans took over Poland in 1939. We were wealthy and the toast of the town then. We’d go to Prague and Vienna just to see an opera or to play in the casinos. When the Germans came, my intuition told me I should have something on me to exchange. I sewed my jewelry into my clothes. Later, it bought us passes to freedom and bread so we were never hungry."

The German occupation of Poland during World War II brought then “beautiful” life of the Mikosz family to an end. Gone were their illustrious careers in film and the rewards that such a life had brought to them. In a later interview, Irene mentioned that her mother "was preparing to sign a contract for a film career in Hollywood, but Hitler’s invasion of Poland derailed the plans". Sadly, Tamara’s last appearance on the silver screen was in 1939 prior to the invasion of Hitler’s Germany; she never again starred in any films.

Although her dreams had been crushed, Tamara and her family did not lose hope. They made the best of their current situation, and were able to survive by selling the fruits of their labors that they harvested during their days in the film industry; their lives had been consumed with a fight to survive rather than a dream to thrive. However, not being ones to live quiet lives, the Mikoszs volunteered for the Polish Underground, the exiled Polish government that fought to resist German occupation of Poland during World War II. As civilians with backgrounds in film, Tamara and Walter were most likely engaged in spreading Polish nationalistic and anti-German propaganda. Such efforts of the civilian branch of the Polish Underground was in support of what Jan Kamieński refers to as "small sabotage" in his book, Hidden in the Enemy's Sight: Resisting the Third Reich from Within: "In contrast of major sabotage, the idea of small sabotage was to remind the German occupiers of an enduring Polish presence, to ensure that they felt a constant sense of unease and generally undermine their self-confidence". While attending to these duties within the Underground, the Mikosz family was separated and shipped off to separate countries: Tamara and her daughter, Irene, to Czechoslovakia (where Tamara’s parents had been sent) and Walter to Bavaria. The family was not reunited until 1945, when they were sent to the same refugee camp in Bavaria. The Mikoszs remained in the Bavarian refugee camp until the year 1950, in which they emigrated to the United States of America. Tamara and Walter lived quiet lives in Rochester, NY after arriving from a war-torn Europe, and did so until they passed away.

Although they have long since passed away from this Earth, the stories of the Polish film star, Tamara, and her film-producer husband, Wladyslaw Mikosz, will live on so long as there are people around to tell it.

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hotvintagepoll · 25 days

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Propaganda

Kim Novak (Vertigo, Bell, Book, and Candle)— She fought as much as she could to be able to preserve her own identity within the crushing hollywood system. She refused to change her czech last name and fought for a higher salary once she discovered her male counterparts were getting payed significantly more, which was an incredibly risky thing to do. She went through so much hollywood bs like she was forced to drop her affair with Sammy Davis jr. She played her iconic role in Vertigo thinking about her own oppressive and significant changes she had to undergo in order to fit in the tight hollywood mold which i think is partly why the movie is so beautiful and timeless. She is a gorgeous soul and a great artist.

Marlene Dietrich (Shanghai Express, Witness for the Prosecution, Morocco)—Bisexual icon, super hot when dressed both masculine and feminine, lived up her life in the queer Berlin scene of the 1920s, central to the 'sewing circle' of the secret sapphic actresses of Old Hollywood, refused lucrative offers by the Nazis and helped Jews and others under persecution to escape Nazi Germany, the love of my life

This is round 4 of the tournament. All other polls in this bracket can be found here. Please reblog with further support of your beloved hot sexy vintage woman.

[additional propaganda submitted under the cut.]

Kim Novak:

Marlene Dietrich:

ms dietrich....ms dietrich pls.....sit on my face

its marlene dietrich!!!! queer legend, easily the hottest person to ever wear a tuxedo, that hot hot voice, those glamorous glamorous movies…. most famously she starred in a string of movies directed by josef von sternberg throughout the 1930s, beginning with the blue angel which catapulted her to stardom in the role of the cabaret singer lola lola. known for his exquisite eye for lighting, texture, imagery, von sternberg devoted himself over the course of their collaborations to acquiring exceptional skill at photographing dietrich herself in particular, a worthy direction in which to expend effort im sure we can all agree. she collaborated with many other great directors of the era as well, including rouben mamoulian (song of songs), frank borzage (desire), ernst lubitsch (angel), fritz lang (rancho notorious), and billy wilder (witness for the prosecution). the encyclopedia britannica entry im looking at while compiling this propaganda describes her as having an “aura of sophistication and languid sexuality” which✔️💯. born marie magdalene dietrich, she combined her first and middle names to coin the moniker “marlene”. she was a trendsetter in her incorporation of trousers, suits, and menswear into her wardrobe and her androgynous allure was often remarked upon. critic kenneth tynan wrote, “She has sex, but no particular gender. She has the bearing of a man; the characters she plays love power and wear trousers. Her masculinity appeals to women and her sexuality to men.” in the 1920s she enjoyed the vibrant queer nightlife of weimar berlin, visiting gay bars and drag balls, and in hollywood her love affairs with men and women were an open secret. she was an ardent opponent of nazi germany, refusing lucrative contacts offered her to make films there, raising money with billy wilder to help jews and dissidents escape, and undertaking extensive USO tours to entertain soldiers with an act that included her a playing musical saw and doing a mindreading routine she learned from orson welles. starting in the 50s and continuing into the mid-70s she worked largely as a cabaret artist touring the world to large audiences, employing burt bacharach as her musical arranger.

First of all, there are those publicity photos of her in a tux. Second of all, I have never been the same since knowing that she sent copies of those photos to her Berlin lovers signed "Daddy Marlene." Not only is she hot in all circumstances, but she can do everything from earthy to ice queen. Also, she kept getting sexy romantic lead parts in Hollywood after the age of 40, which would be rare even now. She hated Nazis, loved her friends, and had a sapphic social circle in Hollywood. She also had cheekbones that could cut glass and a voice that could melt you.

Her GENDER her looks her voice her everything

“In her films and record-breaking cabaret performances, Miss Dietrich artfully projected cool sophistication, self-mockery and infinite experience. Her sexuality was audacious, her wit was insolent and her manner was ageless. With a world-weary charm and a diaphanous gown showing off her celebrated legs, she was the quintessential cabaret entertainer of Weimar-era Germany.”

The bar scene in Morocco awoke something in me and ultimately changed my gender

youtube

"Her manner, the critic Kenneth Tynan wrote, was that of ‘a serpentine lasso whereby her voice casually winds itself around our most vulnerable fantasies.’ Her friend Maurice Chevalier said: ‘Dietrich is something that never existed before and may never exist again.’”

"Songstress, photographer, fashion icon, out bisexual phenom (notoriously stole Lupe Velez and Joan Crawford's men, and Errol Flynn's wife, had a torrid affair with Greta Garbo that ended in a 60-year feud, other notable conquests including Erich Maria Remarque -yes, the guy who wrote All Quiet on the Western Front- Douglas Fairbanks Junior, Claudette Colbert, Mercedes de Acosta, Edith Piaf), anti-Nazi activist. Marlene was a bitch - she had an open marriage for decades and one of her favorite things was making catty commentary about her current lover with her husband, and her relationship with her daughter was painful- but she was also immensely talented, a hard worker, an opponent of fascism and the hottest ice queen in Hollywood for a long time."

youtube

"She can sing! She can act! She told the Nazis to fuck off and became a US citizen out of spite! She worked with other German exiles to create a fund to help Jews and German dissidents escape (she donated an entire movie salary, about $450k, to the cause). She looks REALLY GOOD in a suit. If you're not convinced, please listen to her sing "Lili Marlene". Absolutely gorgeous woman with a gorgeous voice."

Gifset link

"Bisexual icon and Nazi-hater. Looks absolutely stunning in the suits she liked to wear. 'I dress for the image. Not for myself, not for the public, not for fashion, not for men'."

"would you not let her walk on you?"

#marlene dietrich #kim novak #hotvintagepoll #fuck that old woman #ladies 4 #Youtube

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gingerswagfreckles · 6 months

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"I don't hate Jews, just Zionists!!" Yeah the problem with this statement is that you guys have expanded the definition of "Zionist" to include every Jewish person on the entire fucking planet. The number of times I have seen the sentiment that anything short of celebrating religious extremist terrorist attacks constitutes supporting Israel in the past month and a half is completely insane. Jews are not obligated to support a militia that had the total extermination of our people as a stated goal in their foundational charter until 2017. We aren't obligated to support an organization who's leaders publicly called for the extermination of Jews as recently as 2019, and who's governing bodies still include those same members. We aren't obligated to support and participate in our own oppression in order for our pro-Palestinian activism to be valid.

"I don't hate Jews, just Zionists." This means nothing if your only definition of a "good Jew" is one who will sit up like a dog and bark on your command. One who doesn't call out antisemitism and who will cheer along side you so-called "leftists" as you throw your support behind an organization who is as explicitly antisemetic as the Nazis were in pre-WW2 Germany.

I am not a Zionist. I have donated as much money as I can afford towards relief efforts and have marched within the crowds of protesters in the streets calling for a ceasefire. I was almost arrested by the NYPD at the Jewish Voices for Peace rally at Grand Central station. And yet I have had the word "Zionist" thrown in my face so many times in the past few weeks, over and over, by a bunch of white fucking gentiles who cry about how they're being "silenced" when Jews call out their antisemitism.

"I don't hate Jews, just Zionists." A good 80% of you do hate Jews. You do hate Jews. If you classify any Jew who won't celebrate explicitly antisemitic terrorist attacks as a "Zionist," I'm sorry to tell you but you do hate Jews. Because that's all of us. Fuck you guys, honestly. None of you have ever cared about anything but chasing online leftist clout.

#gingerswagfreckles #israel #palestine #israel palestine war #israel palestine conflict #israel hamas war #i/p #i/p war #i/p conflict #jewblr #jumblr #ive been doing better at staying off tumblr but jesus seeing how ppl are #accusing the **zionists** of getting that incredibly antisemitic actress fired is too much #antisemitism #leftist antisemitism

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snovyda · 4 months

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Talking about the people now... [...] those Russians that I speak to who do feel a sense of responsibility - and they do exist, not as a social movement, but I certainly speak to the Russians who talk about that, completely, and their sense of responsibility, and some of them individually do do something. They're the ones who are most resistant to Putin's propaganda. Putin's propaganda is to say, "You have no responsibility, democratic agency doesn't exist". "Нас заставили" ("We were forced") is the main, most successful propaganda line. His whole propaganda system is built around the idea that the individual doesn't matter and that you can't change anything. [That] you live in a world of such vast conspiracies, of so much confusion that you need an authoritarian leader to lead you. And people are delighted to get rid of responsibility and freedom and agency, because it's really hard to have them. So for me it's become like a line. If you don't take responsibility, that means that however much of an 'oppositionist' you are, you're actually still living within Putin's propaganda model. And, sadly, I hear this from a lot of people who have left Russian, who are very against Putin - they're like, "I don't take responsibility". So my response is - that means you're still living in his propaganda. [...] Only the ones who say, "I do take responsibility"... they don't exist as a social group. There are individuals. They haven't been able to come together in a movement, which... okay, inside Russia you can say, danger, but the fact they haven't done that outside of Russia... shows just how deep the propaganda goes. The fact that even outside of Russia they think that they have no agency, they can't change anything - that whole set of attitudes is exactly one of the main messages of Putin's propaganda. [...] Even to me, the lack of a strong anti-Putin movement even outside of Russia from millions who've left... [...] It seems like the Germans who left Nazi Germany did more than the Russians who've left Putin's Russia.

Peter Pomerantsev

#peter pomerantsev #ruscism #russian invasion of ukraine

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hero-israel · 6 months

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During Nuremberg Trial testimony, the prosecutor pressed Einsatzgruppen commander Otto Ohlendorf: “You were going out to shoot down defenseless people. Now, didn’t the question of the morality of that enter your mind?” Ohlendorf referred to the Allied bombings of Germany as a context:

I am not in a position to isolate this occurrence from the occurrences of 1943, 1944, and 1945 where with my own hands I took children and women out of the burning asphalt myself, and with my own hands I took big blocks of stone from the stomachs of pregnant women; and with my own eyes I saw 60,000 people die within 24 hours.

A judge immediately pointed out that his own killing spree preceded those bombings. But this would become known as the “Dresden defense,” to which Ohlendorf resorted still another time, in this exchange:

Ohlendorf: I have seen very many children killed in this war through air attacks, for the security of other nations, and orders were carried out to bomb, no matter whether many children were killed or not. Q: Now, I think we are getting somewhere, Mr. Ohlendorf. You saw German children killed by Allied bombers and that is what you are referring to? Ohlendorf: Yes, I have seen it. Q: Do you attempt to draw a moral comparison between the bomber who drops bombs hoping that it will not kill children and yourself who shot children deliberately? Is that a fair moral comparison ? Ohlendorf: I cannot imagine that those planes which systematically covered a city that was a fortified city, square meter for square meter, with incendiaries and explosive bombs and again with phosphorus bombs, and this done from block to block, and then as I have seen it in Dresden likewise the squares where the civilian population had fled to—that these men could possibly hope not to kill any civilian population, and no children.

Ohlendorf thought this defense so powerful that he invoked it yet another time:

The fact that individual men killed civilians face to face is looked upon as terrible and is pictured as specially gruesome because the order was clearly given to kill these people; but I cannot morally evaluate a deed any better, a deed which makes it possible, by pushing a button, to kill a much larger number of civilians, men, women, and children.

(The chief prosecutor, an American, called this particular iteration “exactly what a fanatical pseudo-intellectual SS-man might well believe.”)

At Nuremberg, this sort of tu quoque defense (“I shouldn’t be punished because they did it too”) wasn’t admissible. Still, in the verdict of the Einsatzgruppen Trial, the judges chose to refute it. “It was submitted,” the judges wrote, “that the defendants must be exonerated from the charge of killing civilian populations since every Allied nation brought about the death of noncombatants through the instrumentality of bombing.” The judges would have none of it:

A city is bombed for tactical purposes… it inevitably happens that nonmilitary persons are killed. This is an incident, a grave incident to be sure, but an unavoidable corollary of battle action. The civilians are not individualized. The bomb falls, it is aimed at the railroad yards, houses along the tracks are hit and many of their occupants killed. But that is entirely different, both in fact and in law, from an armed force marching up to these same railroad tracks, entering those houses abutting thereon, dragging out the men, women and children and shooting them.

The tribunal sentenced Ohlendorf to death. He was hanged in June 1951.

“In the last analysis”

Nuremberg enforced a fundamental distinction. All civilian lives are equal, but not so all ways of taking them. The deliberate and purposeful killing of civilians is a crime; not so the taking of civilian lives that is undesired, unintended, but unavoidable. The errors made by a bomber squadron cannot be deducted from the murders committed by a death squad. It’s a difference compounded many times over when those civilian men, women, and children are subjected to torture, rape, and mutilation before their murder. To borrow Khalidi’s phrase, “in the last analysis,” this distinction is what separates modern civilization from its predecessors.

More disturbing is the thought that it separates the contemporary West from its peers. Otto Ohlendorf and the regime he served did all they could to conceal their deeds from Western eyes. Nazi Germany still operated in a West founded on Enlightenment values. So massive a violation of a shared patrimony needed to be hidden from view.

In contrast, Hamas initially sought to publicize its deeds, assuming they would win applause, admiration, or at least tacit acceptance in the Arab and Muslim worlds. Here they succeeded beyond their expectations. The many millions who don’t share the West’s patrimony, and who know next to nothing about the Holocaust or Nuremberg, do see things as Khalidi says they see them. (So, too, does a sliver of alienated opinion in the West, where such views are cultivated and celebrated.)

Finally, and still more disturbing, is the fact that Ohlendorf’s defense has been revived to frame the massacre of Jews.

#Hamas #Palestine #Nuremberg trials #Dresden defense #Israel #leftist antisemitism #jumblr #war crimes #genocide #crimes against humanity

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starry-eyes-love · 3 months

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Blood Within Me

Masterlist Series Masterlist

Ch. 9: Blood Within Me

Pairing | Joel Miller x F!Reader, post outbreak

Summary | You have a bad period and Joel comforts you. Can read as stand alone or as part of My Journey To You Series.

Word Count: 2.5K

Warnings | Mentions of f!reader on her period, mentions of period pain/cramps, talks of pregnancy, reference to gynecological problems, soft!Joel, Joel comforts you, terms of endearment, fluffy. Series is 18+ Minors DNI, but this chapter doesn't have that warning.

A/N: Here's for all my fellow women who have bad periods with cramps. Wrote this one while on a period from hell. Hope you find it comforting, enjoy

Dividers by @saradika-graphics

“I’m here, baby. I’ve got you,” he whispered gently into your ear. He also grabbed your one leg and placed it on top of his hip. His hand then came to your lower back where he was gently massaging the hardened muscles, while his other hand was around your shoulders and gently rubbing his hand up and down the top of your spine. He then started to gently rock you, back and forth, back and forth, to get the pain to subside.

You remember growing up hearing the older folks talk about the night. About how dangerous the night was during World War II, during Nazi Germany. Your grandmother was a child that lived in Germany, and didn't come to America until the end of World War II. You used to be fascinated by her stories, about the way the world was, so different from your own when you were younger. But now, it seemed like history repeated itself, but in a much more cruel way. Now the night, even in its peacefulness, meant death more times than not, if you weren’t careful.

You laid awake in the middle of the night, looking out the window that was in the room both you and Joel were sharing. Domestic life right now in an apocalypse had its perks, but with it came dangerous problems and concerns. Safety, usually out in nature, was something that no one took lightly. Darkness meant hidden shadows, hidden dangers, and always someone on watch. Now in this cabin, darkness meant safety, but it also meant severe complications in survival when one laid in it, awake, while experiencing pain.

You looked up at the window, at the moon’s bright glow that was casting long shadows across the silent space. The only sound you heard was the sound of Joel lying next to you, softly snoring. Life was getting harder, food was something that was becoming more difficult to find. You and Joel were taking turns walking longer distances to obtain food. Larger wildlife was harder to find recently due to the larger snowfall that had occurred, and the lack of tracks seen in the snow. Yesterday, Joel thought he hit the jackpot by killing a small doe. With proper rationing, and turning the meat into jerky, the three of you would be able to stretch the food out for a few weeks, a month if it was absolutely necessary.

As the night continued, you became more restless. You slightly kept rustling the bed sheets as you tried to find a comfortable position. After readjusting the bed sheets for the fifth time in the last ten minutes, you were unable to find a comfortable position to relax in. You laid there quietly, feeling your eyes well up with tears at the constant throbbing of your stomach. You didn’t feel good, on your period and bleeding heavily with horrible menstrual cramps. You wished for a heating pad, and medication that could work. Something that could take the pain away besides the tearing and razor cutting feeling in your lower abdomen that you have felt for most of the night.

You were frustrated, sleep not taking you and if it did, you weren’t able to stay sleeping for longer than 15 minutes. You’ve been awake most of the night, and by your guess, you believed it was around 3 am in the morning. You haven’t had more than maybe 20 to 30 minutes of sleep all night, and it was your turn to look for food again. You felt tears begin to form in your lash line. You were frustrated from the lack of sleep, pain, and exhaustion that was taking over. You didn't want to be the one to leave in the morning, and you didn't want Joel leaving either. You just wanted your pain to stop, and for you to get some sleep.

When you went to move again, you felt a hard stab of pain and discomfort hit your lower abdomen. As it hit you, you let out a high pitched whine, holding your abdomen tight, while a sob left your throat in pain. You weren’t a baby when it came to pain, you were someone that had a high pain tolerance. But right now, you felt like you couldn’t handle or deal with it anymore. You didn’t realize that with your vocal expression of pain, that the man sleeping soundly behind you heard it.

Joel had been sleeping soundly for once, something that usually wasn’t easily seen. But his eyes snapped open at the noise that you made. He thought that he heard you whine. As he slowly came to, blinking his eyes while looking up at the ceiling, he allowed his body to awaken, and his senses to take hold. Taking a deep breath he turned his head to the right to look at you. You were curled up in a ball, facing away from him. Joel thought you were sleeping yet, as you barely moved. He rubbed a hand down his face, exhaling slowly at the thought of hearing someone whine in the darkness. It must have been a dream or somethin’, he thought to himself. But then he heard it again, followed by a quiet sob that escaped your lips.

Joel propped his arm up on the bed and partially sat up. He reached for you and turned you gently on your back, so he could look at you in the face. When he saw you were awake and crying, he got concerned. Here you were, curled up on the bed, whimpering and crying. He scanned your body quickly, taking in your tear streaked face and facial expressions, trying to determine the source of your discomfort. He saw you were gripping your lower belly, not releasing your hands, even though you were now laying partially on your back.

“Hey, what’s wrong?” Joel said with a deep raspy voice, one that was still laced with sleep.

“It’s…it’s my cramps, they’re really bad this month” you said, jaw clenched and a hand pressed tightly to your lower abdomen as tears kept welling up in your eyes.

“Oh c’mere baby,” Joel said, gently grabbing you and moving you to lay on your side where you were facing him. He tucked you gently into his chest, and placed his belly tight to your belly for heat. You have always told Joel that he was like a furnace anytime that you cuddled up with him. Heat just radiated off his body, something that always came in handy during the cold nights when you two would share a sleeping bag together while traveling. Now Joel was trying to do the same thing, but this time he was hoping his heat from his abdomen would warm your lower tummy to give you some pain relief.

You had buried your face into his chest, inhaling his scent that was a mixture of pine, cinnamon, sweat, and Joel as you softly wept. Joel held you, slowly reassuring you that you were “doing so good” and that the pain would eventually stop. Joel could feel how tense your body was, especially with each new wave of discomfort that you were experiencing.

"It hurts so much, Joel," you murmured, softly against his chest.

"I know, baby. I know," he said soothingly, now running a hand through your hair and gently kissing the top of your head. "You've got this darlin’, it’ll pass. Trust me, just one breath at a time baby, ok? Shhh.”

He continued to hold you as wave after wave of your period pain came and went. He had asked you if you took anything for it and when you said yes, he just held you even tighter, and got you to focus on breathing through it.

“I j-just wish I could get pr-pregnant to stop this” you said, hiccuping from sobbing so hard. Joel immediately tensed and pulled you back to look at you. When you refused to look at him in the face, he took his index finger and placed it underneath your chin. He gently tipped your chin upwards, looking at you in the face. He knew pregnancy was something that could help with bad menstrual cramps. He remembers Sarah’s mom being told by doctor’s after Sarah was about a year old that she should try for another baby to help stop the pain of her periods. Endometriosis, a condition that causes endometrium (part of the uterine lining) to get outside of the uterus, usually would cause horrible pain like this. Hormonal therapy and pregnancy, besides a hysterectomy, were the only solutions that were offered pre-outbreak.

Doctor’s at the QZ would also make this same statement. They did with Tess, and Tess had opted for a hysterectomy of her uterus instead of wanting to try to have kids with Joel. Joel didn’t know how he felt about the whole kid topic then, and he surely didn't know how he felt about it right now. Kids were a complication that he couldn't afford to have at the moment, for obvious reasons, so your comment completely surprised him.

“Darlin’, I-” Joel said, looking in your eyes with concern lacing his features.

“Joel, just forget about it. I'm sorry, I’m just being stupid,” you said, closing your eyes and tilting your head downward. You didn't want to have this conversation now with him. He sat there examining your features as another wave of pain hit, and your lower lip started to quiver slightly.

Joel noticed the movement and said, “Fuck baby, come ‘ere.” He pulled you closer to his chest, holding you for a few minutes before he spoke again.

“Baby, it’s not safe. Maybe, maybe in civilization once again, if it's safe, but not out here like this. Ok?” he said, referencing the child and pregnancy topic. He felt you stiffen and cry in his arms. Joel knew that when you got cramps bad like this that you got extremely emotional and sensitive. He knew talking about difficult topics, like children, marriage, survival, etc. was hard. He learned a long time ago that if the discussion could wait until later, then that's what he'd do. No sense in working you or him up more about something that didn't matter at the moment.

“Hey now, what's with all the tears?” Joel said gently, pulling back and looking at you. You looked at him with tired, red puffy eyes. “Yeah, you haven't slept, have ya baby?” You didn’t respond , but shook your head no. “That's what I thought, c’mere” and Joel gently tucked you back into his chest, rubbing soothing circles on your back, while starting to hum your favorite lullaby to you.

After a few minutes Joel felt you slowly start to relax. He whispered in your ear “we’ll discuss it all later, okay mama?” You gave Joel a gentle nod with your head as you took a deep breath in. Your cramps were slowly starting to dissipate, Joel's body acting like a heating pad.

“There ya go, darlin’. Doin’ so good f’me.” Joel said, as he felt you completely relax in his arms, knowing that the pain was finally subsiding for you. "You're amazing, ya know that?" Joel whispered in your ear, while slowly kissing your neck.

“How?” you asked gently, taking a deep breath and calming down as sleep slowly crept in.

“Cause despite all of this shit happening in the world and to you, ya still are standing strong, holdin’ your head up high, and fighting for life darlin’,” he said.

“How is having menstrual cramps surviving Joel?” You questioned, not understanding the connection or what he was meaning by his previous statement.

Joel, shaking his head and letting out a huff, pulled you back so you could look at him in the eyes. “Baby, the strongest muscle in the human body for a woman is her uterus. It’s the giver of life, the reason why we still have hope in this goddamn forsaken world. It’s what gave me my baby girl Sarah, and what gave me you. To bring a child into the world, honey, that is nothing short of a miracle. And the pain you experience right now just reminds us of that beautiful gift that can happen when a man and a woman-” Joel trailed off and was desperately looking into your eyes, praying that you saw and understood the amazing gift that you were carrying. The gift that gave him his baby girl, and one that gave him you and Ellie.

“I get it Joel, it is a miracle, the miracle of life. I am grateful. But if I’m being honest, this thing ain’t no miracle of life if I can’t let it do what it was created to do,” you said, hoping Joel understood where you were going.

“Baby, I-” Joel said, shaking his head gently and trying to clear the thump that was caught in his throat.

Taking in his conflicting statements and body language, you knew Joel enough to know that he was confused and having a clash between what his heart and brain felt. Not wanting to spark an argument, you just simply said, “it’s okay old man, probably wouldn’t work for ya anyways. You’re probably shootin’ blanks at your age now, ya old dinosaur,” you said, teasing him and hoping the joking would help ease any uncomfortable tension that you may have caused from your previous statement about children.

“C’mere wiseass, I ain’t shootin’ blanks, now knock it off and go back to sleep before I send ya outside with that damn old dinosaur statement.” He said, kissing the top of your forehead while turning you around and spooning you from behind. He laid his hand on your lower belly, slowly stroking it, envisioning it starting to swell from a baby he could put in there. A child he could have once again. That thought excited him and scared him all together, something to think about for a later date.

“I love you Joel” you whispered, snuggling in next to him and finally letting sleep take you. Joel laid there and listened to your breaths slowly even out, going in and out very slowly. When he knew you were asleep he leaned forward and whispered “You’re gonna kill me woman, ya know that. I promise, I’ll give ya everything that you want, even if it’s kids. But first let me find us somewhere safe.”

With that admission Joel finally was able to relax and go back to sleep. It was always in the dark that you and Joel could find strength, comfort, and peace in one another. The darkness might be something of fear for many, but it was the only place that both you and Joel could strip back your layers and be honest with each other. It allowed you both to bleed a little bit for the other person with your emotions, to share those intimate thoughts safely. It is where your unwavering promise to love each other began, and it was the one place where nothing could rip away your happiness (or so you thought).

End Story

Taglist: @punkshort @shotgun-shelby @strawbunnyx @orcasoul @pedritoferg @chiogarza @jesfreedark @untamedheart81 @rainbow12346 @nandan11 @swiftpascal @eliza-8 @joeldjarin @vickie5446 @nastiasnow @staywildflowahchild @ratoonstown @l3laze @its-always-420-on-the-moon @kirsteng42

Strikethrough names won't let me tag :(

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tikkunolamresistance · 9 hours

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From “The Holocaust Industry” by Norman Finkelstein. A highly recommended read.

The AJC (American Jewish Committee) and ADL (Anti-Defamation League) would offer up files on alleged Jewish subversives— or, Jewish political opposition who aligned with Leftism— to US government agencies. In direct fashion with the United States’ McCarthy era of anti-Communist fear-mongering, Leftist Jews were uprooted and eliminated with support of Right-Wing Jewry. Due to the United States’ alignment with a barely de-Nazified Germany in opposition to the growing Soviet Union, Leftism and Communism on the home front had to be eliminated somehow… and that included within Jewish communities.

Finkelstein goes on to discuss how Jewish elites** needed to align themselves with US interests not only for survival, but for assimilation and safety from being once again deemed “untrustworthy aliens” that had led to the Nazi Holocaust. With the Communist the main enemy of the United States— the ideological juxtaposition— Jewish elites did not shy from selling out their own for favouring from the United States. Align with the Communists? That’s a one way ticket to another Shoah.

The Rosenbergs, were Jewish Communists spied for the Soviet Union. As Paul Von Blum wrote for truthdig: “Both were convincted of conspiracy to commit espionage— not espionage and certainly not treason, though these are the charges that stuck win the minds of millions of uninformed Americans. They were tried before Judge Irving Kaufman of the U.S. District Court. The prosecutorial team was headed by Irving Saypol and included the loathsome Roy Cohn (later chief counsel to Sen. Joseph McCarthy and attorney to Donald Trump). Conspicuously, all of the prosecution team and the judge were Jews, an attempt to avoid charges of state anti-Semitism. But it is difficult to avoid that allegation in light of the way of anti-Semitism and anti-communism were entwined in the early postwar decades.” I highly urge reading this article on McCarthyism and the Rosenberg’s, it’s wonderfully written piece. The United States was drenched in fear being face to face with an enemy that challenged their very existence; the weakness of Capitalism showing, the rising Red Scare and unity of the People vs the State. The Rosenbergs were put to death as an example, to show what is not Jewish— an ideological framework for what would soon be an eventual catalyst for Zionism, “the Right Jews”. The Jews that point their guns at the United States enemies, the Jews that wont wave a red flag and find liberation within the people. The United States only want Jews that conform.

The Rosenbergs were stripped of their Jewishness purely for being Leftists. And this removal of Jewish identity in association with Leftism stands today— Pro-Palestinian, anti-Zionist Jews are “not really Jewish”. Our existences erased and challenged, because we oppose Facism itself. History is a flat circle, with anti-Communism at it’s core, and Capitalism pulling the strings. Jewish-American State allyship is a one-sided relationship purely to preserve the Capitalist interests of the United States: destroying Jewish communities, religious and spiritual practices and our instinctive desire for a better world. Zionism and Right Wing ideologies have infected Judaism and Jewish peoplehood, and it is a truth that must be accepted, acknowledged, and then something must be done about it. Because we are raised to believe otherwise. And that is the problem.

Zionism is not Judaism, and antisemitism is interwoven with anti-Communism. It is the final wake up call that the West are trying to silence.

** For context, Finkelstein uses “American Jewish elites” to refer to ‘individuals prominent in the organizational and cultural life of the mainstream Jewish community.” This is not an antisemitic trope, elites is often coined to denote a figure in a position of power or influence. There are, will be and has been Jewish people in positions of power, exploitation and privilege.

#norman finkelstein #western imperialism #judaism #jumblr #jewblr #communism #antisemitism #right wing antisemitism #anti capitalism #anti imperialism #leftist jews #mccarthyism #red scare #communism scary word

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fairuzfan · 9 days

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Reading you replies and had another thought. So if you were to ask a German they probably would say that the country suffered/answered for its genocide because it was split in half and other things. But this doesn't actually touch on the difference between punishment for an action and the reeducation of why the whole thing was bad not just that it was bad. Did Germans realise what they had done was so terrible that it was beyond comprehension at times? Yes. Did they go through their beliefs and reeducate themselves to ensure they'd learnt from it and it could never happen again? Nope. Absolutely not

yeah someone also asked in another ask about what i mean when i say germany wasn't de-nazified and this is pretty much the reason i'm getting at. there is no real, tangible undoing of nazi ideology. we can see it with how they call everyone who immigrates from arab/african countries as inherently antisemitic. their anti-immigration policies. their INTERNAL policies just within the past few months. these actions are like textbook nazi precursor actions. which shows that there was no real undoing of nazi-ism.

plus, nazi germany is not that long ago. people are still alive who remember nazi germany. so i find it very hard to believe they got rid of their entire systematic issues of nazism within like... a generation.

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good-old-gossip · 1 month

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Israeli Kill Zones = Nazi Germany's Extermination Camps

The Israeli army has created “kill zones” that have targeted and indiscriminately killed civilians in the Gaza Strip, according to a new report. Senior army officials and soldiers who have served on the frontlines confirmed to Haaretz that its forces had killed civilians and later claimed they were terrorists because they were in a particular area designated as a so-called "combat zone".

“It's astonishing to hear the reports after every operation regarding how many terrorists were killed," a senior officer within the army’s southern command told Haaretz.

“You don't need to be a genius to realise that you don't have hundreds or dozens of armed men running through the streets of Khan Younis or Jabaliya, fighting the IDF." Officers also admitted to Haaretz that some of the Palestinians killed in so-called “combat” or “kill” zones may have been going back to their homes or searching for food as fears of a famine in northern Gaza continue to mount.

The soldiers explained to Haaretz that the “combat” zone is where a group of soldiers set up inside an abandoned house, with the surrounding area designated as a combat zone. The soldiers then use observation posts outside the Gaza Strip to observe the area and determine what is deemed a danger. The boundaries for each zone, however, are subject to interpretation by the commanding officer in that specific area. The indiscriminate nature of the army’s kill zones has also claimed the lives of three Israeli hostages held by Palestinian groups in the Gaza Strip.

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major-mads · 8 days

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Chapter 10: The Soliloquy

John Egan x Ruth Morgan (OFC)

Series Masterlist

A/N: here's a little haussmann jump-scare!! enjoy!

Collab: On a Wing and a Prayer by @footprintsinthesxnd

Word Count: 4.4k

October 22nd: Dulag Luft: Frankfurt, Germany

Ruth sat curled up in the far corner of the dark, cold, and musty cell she’d been thrown in, her injured arm cradled against her chest. Hope’s makeshift sling was helpful at first, but as time wore on and the pain in the blonde’s arm intensified, it did little to stifle the aching in the limb.

The simple thought of Hope caused tears to sting at her eyes.

Were they alive?

Were they still in their cells?

Sitting completely and utterly alone, and in her own blood and grime, Ruth never felt so dejected…so lonely, so scared. It was no secret that the Germans could do anything they wanted to them without consequence, including one of the most vile things that could happen to a woman.

Ruth prayed and prayed.

She prayed for her friends, for their safety, and for her own.

But most of all, she prayed for John. That she’d see him again, that he wouldn’t lose himself now that she was gone, and that he somehow knew she loved him. All the emotions she held in from the crash, her injury, and her now utter despair rose to the surface, leaving behind no trace of willpower within her. Before she could stop them, tears spilled down her cheeks and a choked sob left her lips. She threw her good hand over her mouth to muffle her cries and leaned her head against the hard cinder-block wall.

In that corner, Ruth let her exhaustion finally pull her under the influence of sleep, and she dozed off as hot tears slowly trickled down her cheeks. A few hours later, her much-needed rest was abruptly shattered by the creak of her cell door swinging open and the harsh light of the hallway flooding into the room. She blinked away the remnants of sleep, her heart pounding as two guards loomed in the doorway.

“Up,” one of them barked, his gruff and highly accentuated voice cutting through the silence like a knife. Ruth hesitated as her injured arm throbbed with her every movement, but she slowly pushed herself to her feet, her sore muscles protesting against the strain. The guards wasted no time grasping her right arm and escorting her down the hallway to a door. One knocked and waited for a response from inside before pushing it open with a grunt, revealing a surprisingly nice office.

Her eyes anxiously darted around the room, taking in the framed portrait of Hitler that hung ominously on the wall, piles of newspapers, and other documents scattered haphazardly across the desk. The guards ushered her forward, their grip firm as they pushed her towards a chair in front of the imposing desk in the middle of the room. Ruth swallowed hard, her mind going haywire as she sank carefully into the seat, her eyes fixed on the desk and not the man on the other side.

The Nazi laced his fingers together and leaned onto the desktop, a concerned expression painting his face as he looked down at her sling. “Lieutenant Morgan, how were you injured? Certainly my men did not do that.”

Unease surged through Ruth as the interrogator’s voice filled the air. She hesitated for a moment while her mind raced and weighed her options. She knew she couldn’t trust him or afford to let her guard down for even a moment.

“When I, uh, bailed,” she stammered, her voice barely above a whisper as she avoided his gaze by fixing her eyes on the desk. “Got caught in some trees and landed wrong.”

The man’s brow furrowed in apparent concern. “That sounds painful,” he said, his voice dripping with false sincerity. “But surely you received medical attention for such an injury?”

Ruth shook her head, struggling to maintain her composure. She imagined John’s handsome face, telling her to breathe, to stay calm. “No,” she replied, her voice quiet but strong as she fought to keep the fear from creeping into her voice. “I haven’t.”

The interrogator’s gaze remained fixed on her, his eyes probing for any sign of weakness as he leaned back in his chair. “I see. I will see to it that you receive the medical attention you need…once you’ve answered a few questions.”

A cold knot formed in the pit of her stomach as she realized the true nature of his offer. It was a cruel game just as she expected, a twisted manipulation designed to soften her up for information. She glanced up at the interrogator at last and her eyes narrowed with suspicion as she braced for whatever was to come.

“I am your interrogator, Lieutenant Haussman. The sooner you answer my questions, the sooner you can get medical attention, Ll;ieutenant. So, shall we begin?”

Don’t give them anything. Don’t give them anything. Don’t give them anything…

He reached across the desk and grabbed a file from a nearby stack. “Ruth Morgan, born in Charlotte, North Carolina. Former teacher at…” he flipped the page. “Ah yes, Charlotte Country Day School.”

She stared at him blankly, fighting to keep surprise from her expression.

‘How does he know that? Are my students in danger?’ she thought.

“You were stationed at the Grove in Berkshire with the 806th MAETS, but frequently made visits to Thorpe Abbotts, yes?”

Ruth’s eyes fell back to the desk and she willed her mouth to remain shut. She wouldn’t give him anything, but it didn’t stop him from pressing forward.

“To see a pilot. A Major. John Egan.”

Tears threatened to well in her eyes at the mention of her beloved Major.

Would she ever see him again? Would she die without telling him she loved him? Would he move on?

Taking a deep breath, Ruth tried to maintain her composure. She knew she couldn’t afford to let her emotions betray her and risk revealing anything that might put them in danger. But even as she fought to keep her fear in check, a wave of panic threatened to overwhelm her.

They knew everything.

“I will say,” Haussman began, his unnerving grin returning as he lifted a thin sheet of paper from the file. “I find you Americans and your nicknames fascinating. What exactly is a slugger?”

Ruth clenched her jaw and peered up at him through her lashes, her frustration rising as she realized he was reading John’s letter. This Nazi had no right to go through her things…to touch something so pure and beautiful.

She forced herself to calm down and readjusted in the chair.. “A hard hitter,” she answered quietly.

“Ah. And are you a hard hitter, Lieutenant?”

“No,” Ruth shook her head. “I am not.”

“Is Major Egan a hard hitter? As a Squadron Commander, he must be, yes?”

When she didn’t respond, he leaned his elbows back onto the desk, holding up the letter. “I see you know him very well. Major Egan must have told you of his exploits at Regensburg. Or Trondheim?”

‘He told me how your evil regime killed one of his best friends,’ she thought. ‘Along with 90 other men in their group.’

“I read the same papers as everyone,” Ruth replied.

Haussman momentarily nodded to himself before pulling out the picture from Dye’s part and holding it up for her to see. “A nice photograph, yes?”

The silence that filled the room was deafening.

Memories from that night flashed into Ruth’s mind…dancing to the band’s slow jazz cheek to cheek, laughing with their friends, John inviting her to London…

Now she’d never get to go.

Seemingly done with the topic, he picked up two new files and tossed them onto the desk before him. “How about we talk about Hope Armstrong and Frank Martin, Ruth? Where did you meet?”

The blonde’s eyes widened just slightly as her mind ran rampant with questions about her friends. She wanted to ask where they were, if they were alright, but she knew she couldn’t. That’s what Haussman wanted.

Don’t give them anything. Don’t give them anything. Don’t give them anything…

“How did an inexperienced nurse like yourself get placed with such a skilled nurse and pilot?”

Ruth raised her good shoulder in a small shrug.

“You must be curious about your colleagues, Lieutenant. I would like to talk to you about them, but I need you to talk to me as well.”

It was a trick.

She pressed her lips tightly together and forced herself to maintain his gaze. “Ruth Morgan. 2nd Lieutenant-”

“Lieutenant Morgan,” he interrupted with a chuckle. “I already know about you. I want to know about Major Egan. Tell me about him. You love him, yes?”

‘More than he ever knew,’ she thought.

How could Ruth sum up John Egan? A rambunctious midwesterner who loved baseball, his men, and flying? The 418th Squadron CO with one of the biggest hearts she’d ever known? The loyal friend and strong leader? The man she loved?

She wouldn’t.

Swallowing the emotion that crept up her throat, she found her voice again. “Ruth Morgan, Second Lieutenant. N-743301.”

“When was your trip scheduled?” he asked with a taunting smirk, ignoring her statement. “London is a beautiful city. Very romantic.”

You could hear a pin drop in the interrogation room as the words left the man’s mouth. The already tense atmosphere became stifling and became too much for the blonde.

Rage was an emotion that was foreign to Ruth Morgan. Yes, she’d been angry at students, her family, and what was happening in Europe, but the all-consuming feeling of rage had never coursed through her veins. Sitting in the small office, that changed.

As his words hung in the air, Ruth felt a surge of rage bubble up from deep inside her with an intensity she’d never experienced before. It ignited like wildfire and consumed her thoughts, drowning out the fear that gripped her moments before. Ruth’s jaw clenched and her right hand tightened into a fist as she fought to keep the new emotion in check.

He was just toying with her now.

“I have nothing more to say,” she replied, her voice steady despite her heart pounding in her chest.

Silence fell over the small room and was only broken by the faint sounds of distant footsteps echoing down the hallway outside. The Lieutenant regarded her for a long moment, his expression unreadable as he seemed to weigh his next move.

Finally, he nodded slowly. “Very well.”

A few moments later, the door swung open with a creak, and the two guards who’d brought her into the room earlier stepped inside. Haussman gestured toward Ruth with a nod of his head. “See to it that Lieutenant Morgan gets medical attention,” he instructed the men.

Ruth’s eyes widened in surprise that he was following through with his promise even after she didn’t give him anything.

“I am a man of my word, Ruth,” he replied simply, offering her a nod.

With that, he turned away, his attention already shifting to the documents and newspapers scattered across his desk as the guards moved forward to escort her from the room. Ruth rose to her feet slowly, withholding a wince, and turned toward the door when he called out to her one last time.

He held out John’s envelope. “I have no need for these.”

Ruth took it and allowed the guards to lead her back down the dark hallway and to the infirmary. The air was heavy with the scent of sweat and disinfectant, and the sound of coughing and muted groans echoed off the bare walls. The compound’s infirmary was little more than a cramped room filled with rows of narrow cots, each one occupied by a sick or injured POW.

A dark-haired, older nurse approached Ruth and ushered her toward an empty cot while the guards lingered by the door. “Sit down,” she instructed in heavily accented English.

Ruth complied, wincing as she gingerly sat on the cot with her left arm cradled against her chest. The nurse’s trained eyes swept over the American’s form, taking in the disheveled state of her uniform and the pained expression etched upon her features.

“I have not seen a woman here before,” the nurse stated, her eyes flicking over to the guards momentarily.

Ruth nodded. “I’m a flight nurse…or was.”

With an understanding nod, the nurse set to work, gently removing the makeshift sling that Hope had made and helping her pull the arm from her flight jacket. She rolled her sleeve up to her upper arm and carefully examined her forearm. Ruth winced loudly as the nurse prodded at the tender area, her jaw clenched against the pain that shot through her arm. For the first time since the crash, she got a glimpse of the extent of her injury. Her forearm was mottled with dark bruises, the skin swollen and discolored.

After a thorough examination, the nurse confirmed Hope’s suspicion. “Your arm is probably fractured,” she said, her tone matter of fact. “You will wear a splint.”

‘Well, I knew that,’ she thought.

Twenty minutes and multiple layers of bandages later, the nurse secured the splint on Ruth’s forearm. The splint thankfully fit inside her oversized flight jacket’s sleeve, and she watched as the nurse received a fresh sling from a nearby drawer, securing it around her arm and shoulder.

“There,” the nurse said, her voice softening slightly. “This should help. The splint will stay on for 6 to 8 weeks.”

Ruth quietly thanked the woman and started to speak again when the guards appeared beside her cot, one gesturing toward the door. “Time to go.”

Gulping, she stood from the cot and sent the nurse one last glance as she followed them out of the infirmary. They followed the same route as before, and Ruth’s eyes wandered down every hall they passed, trying to memorize the layout if, by any miracle, she was able to escape.

The lies people tell themselves.

Before she knew it, her cell door opened with a familiar creak. The nurse took a deep breath from where she stood right outside the threshold, the darkness in the small room sending shivers down her spine.

‘You can do this,’ she told herself. ‘They can’t keep you here forever.’

But they could if they wanted to…

Ruth forced away the thought and stepped into the room, a shuddering sigh escaping her when the door locked shut. Alone once more in the dim confines of her cell, she sank into the corner. The cold and hard floor was more uncomfortable than the disgusting train car they’d been transported in from Schiltach, but it was better than the even harder wooden cot against the wall.

Reaching into her pocket, Ruth pulled out John’s envelope and removed the letter. She traced the familiar lines of his sloppy handwriting as she read it to herself.

“Hey slugger,” the letter began, and a small smile tugged at the corner of her lips. She could almost hear his voice as she read his words, the mere thought of him bringing warmth to her heart that she desperately needed in the freezing cell.

As she continued to read, a lump formed in her throat, tears welling in her eyes as John’s words washed over her. “You’re just so beautiful…the most beautiful thing I’ve ever laid eyes on…have I told you that? When I start to spiral, I just look at you and your smiling face, and I remember what all this is for.”

With a trembling hand, Ruth reached for the small photograph tucked inside the envelope. Memories from Dye’s party flooded her mind as she studied the treasured image, their last night together forever frozen in time. She thought that night seemed months, even years in the past, but it had somehow been less than a week.

“Yours completely, John Egan.”

And she was his completely, but he didn’t know it.

“I love you,” Ruth whispered weakly, running her thumb over his grinning face. “I’m sorry I never told you.”

The days stretched on for Ruth in the confines of her cell, and she got used to her routine.

She woke up, was given a thin slice of sour black bread with disgusting ersatz jam, was taken to use the latrine, and then spent a few hours just staring at the various writings and drawings on the cell walls left by its previous inhabitants. Her favorite was the multiple drawings of what looked like Canadian Mounties, their hats and collars resembling the iconic uniforms she’d seen pictures of.

Before long, a guard would deliver her daily bowl of soup, sometimes with potatoes or sometimes cabbage, but never meat. The rest of the day was much of the same with her getting one more latrine visit and a slice of bread in the evening.

As a child, Ruth thought the epitome of boredom was spending an hour in timeout in her room after getting in a fight with James. She’d stare at the ceiling, itching to go outside or read a book…to do anything. But sitting in her cell…in Dulag Luft…in Nazi Germany, boredom morphed with helplessness and uncertainty to create a potent mix that threatened to crumble the woman.

She sighed and sat up on her straw mattress to lean against the wall, her mind replaying memories to keep her occupied. Some were of her family, her grandmother, or James, and others were of Hope and Frank. Her favorites, however, were of John. Ruth recalled every second they’d spent together since July, and every time, the precious moments filled her with both warmth and intense loneliness at the same time. His letter sat in her breast pocket with worn corners from the numerous times she’d read it, and Ruth could recite each word from heart. The woman’s tears had stopped falling soon after her interrogation…there were no tears left to cry.

Her tank was empty in more ways than one.

More often than not, her thoughts also drifted to Hope and Frank. She prayed they were alive, that they hadn’t given up hope in their 10-by-5 prison. The Brits in the mess hall told them they wouldn’t be there for long, but doubt picked at Ruth daily.

Would they be one of the exceptions and be forced to live like this for years?

And that question still swirled in her mind after being in the cramped cell for 9 days.

9 days alone. 9 days eating nothing but sour bread and soup. 9 days of pain with her every movement.

9 days of hell.

The 10th day started like every other with her meager breakfast and latrine trip, but when there was no knock and no soup delivery, she knew something was up. Her routine was the only thing stable in her life, and its disruption caused fear and anxiety to bubble up within her. Minutes later, the door swung open, and she quickly slid off the cot to the floor with a pounding heart. There was a commotion from the hallway, the sounds of creaking doors and yelling filling her cell.

“Out!”

Ruth blinked against the sudden influx of light as the guard barked the order and she followed him out into the hallway. She scanned a few other prisoners’ faces pulled from their cells but had no luck finding a familiar face. As she was led with the other prisoners out of the building, her mind raced with questions, but she knew better than to voice them aloud.

Where were they going?

Were Frank and Hope going, too?

She exited the hallway and stepped into the chilly noon air, the mud squelching beneath her boots as she walked across the unkept courtyard toward a small dilapidated building. A line of prisoners snaked out the door, flanked by guards who kept watch. A few others emerged from the hut’s side door clean-shaven and hair dripping.

“Showers,” the guard grunted, gesturing toward the building.

The thought of washing herself of the layers of blood, sweat, dirt, and grime that clung to her skin was both enticing and terrifying. She longed for the feeling of hot water washing away the filth, of soap scrubbing away the stains of her captivity. But the idea of stepping into a communal shower surrounded by men she didn’t know sent a jolt of panic through her. She couldn’t risk getting her splint wet even if she wanted to shower.

‘I can’t,’ she thought, panic gripping her heart. ‘I can’t do this.’

Ruth’s steps faltered as she neared the shower building, and the guard tugged roughly on her arm to pull her forward. Defying every instinct within her, she dug her heels into the ground.

“I can’t go,” she finally managed to choke out.

Frustration etched the guard’s face as he glared at her. “You must,” he snapped, his voice sharp with irritation.

The Germans wouldn’t care if she was uncomfortable, so she chose the only possible option.

She swallowed hard. “I can’t,” she stammered, her hand trembling as she gestured to her sling.. “My arm. I-I can’t get my splint wet.”

“You will regret it,” he grumbled, pulling her toward the camp’s entrance.

They soon joined a larger group of prisoners just as a train came into view. The engine stood imposingly on the tracks, and Ruth’s memories of her trip to Dulag Luft came to the forefront of her mind.

The fear, the pain, the filthy conditions…but at least she had Frank and Hope. What would she do without them beside her?

Ruth was drawn from her thoughts by dogs barking and the shrill yells of the guards who began shoving the prisoners toward the awaiting train cars.

“Move! Go!”

Bodies pressed against her on all sides as the group was herded to the nearest car, a few prisoners losing their balance at the Germans’ relentless shoving. Frank was not there to keep her close this time, and Ruth moved with the throng of men as they began boarding. When she reached the front, she took a shaky breath and attempted to pull herself up into the car. Desperation clawed at her as she fought to hoist herself into the compartment with her good arm, her fingers slipping on the rough wooden edges, struggling to find a grip.

“In! Now! Schnell!”

Just as she feared she would fall back onto the cold, hard ground below, a strong hand suddenly reached down and grasped her wrist, pulling her upward into the car. A relieved gasp left Ruth’s lips as her feet landed, and she turned towards her savior. He wore an A-2 jacket much like her friends from Thorpe Abbotts…American.

“Thank you,” she sighed, nausea rising in her throat as the rancid smell of manure and urine filled her nose. Ruth pushed it back down and nodded at the man.

He offered her a half-smile, the best one any of them could produce. “No problem, ma’am. Are you alright? Did they…”

“I’m okay,” she replied, her words barely audible over the commotion of the platform. “And no. They didn’t,”

The airman nodded to himself, seemingly thinking over her words before he pointed to a nearby vacant corner of the car. “I’d set up shop over there. I’ve got a feeling we’re not going to have much room once this thing is full.”

With another thank you, Ruth sank into the corner and hugged her knees to her chest as more and more men boarded the car. The airman who helped her moved to help other weak and wounded prisoners while she contemplated her new reality for the umpteenth time over the last ten days.

A POW. Being stuck in enemy territory for the foreseeable future seemed only bearable if she had Hope and Frank with her. Deep down, Ruth didn’t know how long she’d last on her own in such a hostile place.

“Ruth!”

The familiar voice cut through the chaos of the crowded train car, and Ruth’s eyes shot up from the grimy floor to the open doors. Tears that had long dried burned in her eyes as she spotted Frank and Hope making their way through the densely packed prisoners.

“Hope! Frank!” Ruth called out, her voice trembling as tears of relief welled in her eyes. She pushed herself up from the corner and hurried over to meet them halfway. When they reached her, Hope enveloped Ruth in a tight embrace, holding her close as if she was afraid to let go.

“Oh, Rue, I’ve been so worried. I’m sorry,” Hope cried. “I’m so sorry. I was supposed to watch out for you, and-”

Pulling back from the hug, Ruth’s brows furrowed as tears glistened in her eyes. “Stop. You’ve got nothing to apologize for. You didn’t know they’d separate us.”

Frank then pulled her into a tight embrace, careful of both her arm and his still-healing ribs. “You alright?”

“Yeah, just hungry and grimy. But I’m just glad to see you both.”

Hope wiped a tear that leaked from her eye and nodded. “Same here.”

When even more men climbed aboard, they were pushed back into Ruth’s corner and sat down, watching the entrance warily as the rail car became increasingly crowded.

How many prisoners were they going to shove in there?

Before long, there was barely any room to move, and the trio were thankful they sat before the door was slammed shut, plunging them into darkness except for the light shining through the cracks in the wooden slats. Most of the men were forced to stand. The train moved forward with a shrill screech and rumbled on toward its destination. Ruth sat between Hope and Frank, her good hand held tightly by her best friend.

“Were you interrogated?” Frank asked, turning to the girls with a creased brow.

Ruth swallowed thickly, thinking back on her visit with Lieutenant Haussman. “He…uh, tried to get me to talk about John,” she said quietly, staring out at the dozens of legs before her. “But I didn’t. He did send me to the infirmary, though.”

“Really?”

She nodded. “A nurse splinted my arm. It still hurts, but I’m managing. What about y’all?”

Hope didn’t meet Ruth’s eyes. She didn’t want to talk about her time in the cell, the things she’d thought, the things she’d done.

Frank noticed the uncomfortable look on Hope’s face and spoke up. “Well, my ribs are still pretty banged up but Hope’s expert bandaging skills are holding me together.”

The three chuckled quietly and Hope shot Frank a grateful smile. Even though they sat in pure filth, had no idea where they were being taken, and were struggling with the mental strain of their ordeal, they were together… And that gave them more hope than anything.

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