#bernard demarco x oc
Text
Better Off - Bernard DeMarco x OFC - Chapter 6
Masterlist | Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5
AO3
Summary: After finally acknowledging the grief of losing her sister, Susie opens a door for her and DeMarco to grow closer
Warnings: Language
Word Count: 4.1k
Tags: @xxluckystrike @latibvles @footprintsinthesxnd @mads-weasley @joyfulbookreviewmarvelspy
Sunlight blinded her the moment her eyelids peeled open, spilling forth through the gap in the curtains and bathing her in a bright, warm glow. Susie groaned, a headache thrumming behind her eyes, an unbearable dryness coating the inside of her throat. Tossing an arm over her face to shield herself from the sun, it took her a long moment to realise she didn't know where she was.
This registered with a sudden panic, a jolt of electricity shocking her awake as she pushed herself to sit up, thick, comfortable bedsheets rustling with each sharp movement. She wasn't in her hut - for a moment her mind even wondered if she'd somehow ended up home, back in Manchester, until she realised her mother had never been able to afford blankets as nice as these.
An indiscernible mass weighed down her feet, and with a gentle kick, Meatball let out a tired whimper, peeking his head up from beneath the opposite end of the duvet. Susie would have laughed had she not been so dumbfounded by her surroundings, the huge double bed and floral wallpaper utterly unfamiliar to her. Turning her head, she noticed a crumpled scrap of paper on the nightstand, and reached across to seize it, resting uncomfortably on one elbow.
Out on a mission. Called in sick on your behalf.
Meatball's been fed. Coffee downstairs.
See you later
Benny
She'd had to squint to read his handwriting, chicken scratch letters almost indecipherable in her freshly conscious state. It took her a second to recall who 'Benny' even was, the nickname so foreign to her. He'd scribbled a smiley face next to his name, and Susie felt the corner of her lips curl upwards, oddly comforted by the gesture.
Memories of the night before began to return to her. Everything since the call with Beatrice had been a blur the moment she'd awoken, but the longer she sat there, watching Meatball roll back and forth across the mattress, things seemed to return to clarity. She was in one of the rooms above the pub - the owner had been reluctant to admit them so late at night, but she faintly recalled DeMarco slipping the man some extra cash. He'd been there when she'd fallen asleep. She'd woken up earlier that morning - at the time she thought she was dreaming, but now it grew apparent that it had been real. He'd been getting ready to leave, treading carefully so as not to make a sound. As he'd placed the note on the table beside her, he'd whispered something... but now she had no idea what on earth he had said.
Unceremoniously casting away the blankets, Susie rose from her bed groaning as she stretched her arms as high above her head as they could go. Beatrice's words from the night before remained etched clearly in her memory, the only thing she could truly recall with any lucidity. She'd forgotten how good it felt to cry. She had no idea how long it had been since the last time she let it happen - not since Ellie died, for certain. The combination of far too much wine and the sudden release of years of pent-up grief certainly had its way of making its effects felt the morning after. Susie staggered towards the bathroom, drinking cold water from her cupped palms with the fervour of someone dying of thirst, the relief to her throat immediate and heavenly.
Meatball darted back and forth between her feet as she dressed, and it was a constant fight not to trip as she pulled on her trousers. She'd awoken wearing what definitely was her sweater, but where it had come from she had no clue, as it had been tucked away in her drawers back at the hut the last time she remembered seeing it.
At least DeMarco had been right about the coffee. It felt strange to drink it sitting up at the bar, the rest of the pub lit with daylight and entirely deserted save for the barman, still cleaning pint glasses from the night before.
"You look like shit," He pointed out.
"Thank you," Susie nodded. There was a clock up on the wall behind the bar, its steady ticking piercing the veil of silence that lingered over the place. She stared at it for a while, watching the second hand rotate around and around as Meatball sniffed at her feet, nudging her toe with his nose. Tilting her cup, she felt a mouthful of hot coffee scald her throat as it worked its way down.
"Hey - d'you know what time the planes left?" She called to the barman as he wandered past, a keg of beer tucked under each arm.
He glanced up at the clock, blowing out a long breath. "Not sure, love. Think your fella left here about four hours ago, but I could be wrong."
"Oh, he's- ...Thanks." Susie gnawed at the inside of her lip, deciding the correction wasn't worth the energy it would take to make.
But there was something pecking away at her insides, something deep in her stomach that made her feel slightly ill the longer she stared up at the clock, watching the minutes tick by. Her heel began to tap incessantly against the leg of her barstool, heaving in one long sigh after the other, fingers drumming against the outside of her mug. There was a restlessness in her that was beginning to drive her mad, and it only worsened with each passing moment she spent just sitting there. Whatever this feeling was, she couldn't just wallow in it.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Meatball let out a joyful bark as they left the pub, sprinting down to the end of the road and straight back up to her, tail wagging wildly, tongue dangling to the side. Susie had tugged her sweater back on over her uniform shirt from the night before, slightly-too-long sleeves hanging down past her palms, the wool fraying in places around the hems from years of wear and tear.
She'd never attempted to walk all the way to the airstrip from the village, and the further she trekked it was beginning to become clear why. The hike was far longer than she'd envisioned, and by the time they arrived at the runway, her feet ached for release, although Meatball remained as chipper as ever, the familiar surroundings exciting him as he began to sniff around for friendly faces.
"Oi!" Susie was ripped from her thoughts by the echo of Charlotte's voice as the woman approached. Crowds had already begun to assemble, ambulances and medics waiting nearby in preparation for the worst. It was a formation she'd seen countless times before, but for some reason this time it felt different, a bolt of nausea running through her before she forced herself to look away, turning towards her friend. "You look terrible."
"Yeah, I know. Morning to you too."
"They said you were off sick today," Charlotte frowned, brow arched in question. Of course, she had noticed Susie's absence the night before. Whatever had happened - however her sweater had made its way from the hut to her sleeping form - she was bound to have questions.
"Uh, yeah, I am. I just - I wanted to come up here... are they on their way back?"
"Any minute now," She nodded. Folding her arms tight across her chest, Charlotte moved to stand beside Susie, swaying slightly on the balls of her feet as they both stared up at the grey sky above.
"... Y'know," Charlotte began. "I don't mind if you don't tell me where you went. But you can."
Susie leant towards her, their shoulders pressing together. "I know."
Almost as if on cue, the steady hum of engines came into earshot, the dark shapes of returning planes just visible through the thin blanket of cloud. She hadn't realised that she'd begun picking at her nails in agitation until Charlotte reached out and grabbed her wrist, tugging her hands away from each other. Susie peered down at them, pink flesh raw and sore around the edges of her nails, then glanced across at her friend. Charlotte had noticed what she was doing without even having to look. She shoved her fists into her pockets.
The sounds of engines rose to a deafening roar as they swooped into land, propellers spinning to a slow halt as tyres skidded against concrete, coming to a slow stop one by one in various states of disrepair. Ground crews and medics were already springing into action from the moment the first bomber made touch-down, and all the two women could do was stand and watch, trying their best to make out the names scrawled across the noses of each passing fort.
She had long lost sight of Meatball, the dog skittering around the place and darting between legs in search of anyone familiar to him. Susie had begun to grow paranoid at her inability to locate 'Our Baby' when his bark split the air and he came bounding up to her from within the crowds, leaping up onto his hind legs as one of his claws caught on her sweater.
"Hey, hey, shhh," She cooed, stroking his head until he calmed down, stilling long enough for her to untangle his paw from the knots of wool. Meatball's tail wouldn't stop wagging, his head snapping back and forth between Susie and the crowds that covered the runway. When she glanced up, Charlotte was already walking away, a faint smirk creasing her cheek.
"Suze!" Her gaze darted towards the sudden voice, spotting DeMarco as he crossed the tarmac towards her, dark hair slick with sweat and plastered to his temples.
"Hey," She breathed, wide-eyed as he approached, a laugh escaping his throat as Meatball jumped up at him, barking with glee.
DeMarco stopped in front of her, lifting his hand to tuck a stray curl behind her ear. Yesterday she would've flinched.
"You look nice," He said.
"Oh, shut up," Susie shook her head, breaking their moment of eye contact. He let out a low chuckle, clearly anticipating such a response. "...You alright?"
Nodding for a long moment, DeMarco took a deep breath. "Yeah. Could ask you the same."
"Right, well I was never at risk of getting blown up, but thanks," She huffed, squinting in the sunlight as she began to smile. As he began to shrug off his jacket, DeMarco let out a faint hiss of pain. Susie's eyes narrowed at him, folding her arms across her chest. "Uh-huh, right, so when you said you were fine you were full of shit?"
He batted a hand at her, shaking his head. "It's just a stiff back - woke up with it. 'S what happens when you sleep in a chair all night, y'know."
"You... Did you stay all night?"
DeMarco froze for a second, and from the way he was staring at her, she could tell he was trying to gauge her reaction, to predict her response.
"I... don't wanna answer that if it'll make you mad at me."
"I assumed you'd just come back in the morning. When I saw you leaving-"
"I thought you were asleep when I left."
"Mostly. I thought I was dreaming at the time."
A lopsided, boyish grin spread across his face. "Oh yeah? You dream about me a lot?"
"Oh, Jesus Christ," Susie rolled her eyes, whacking him across the shoulder and making him wince again. "... Sorry."
"It's cool. Hey, I gotta go debrief - I'll see you later, ok?"
"Yeah, yeah, see you later," She nodded. As he began to walk away, she felt a question burning on the tip of her tongue, desperate to be asked. "Oh, hey - DeMarco?"
He stopped, turning back as he waited for her to speak. What had she wanted to say? Why did you stay? What did you say to me before you left? Why can't I think of anything but whether you're alright when you leave?
"Uh- it's nothing. Don't worry about it."
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Susie reached into the paper bag in her lap, passing a sandwich across to DeMarco as he poured a cup of coffee from the thermos, fending off Meatball to prevent him from snatching the meat out from between the bread. It had become a usual occurrence for him to join her on her lunch break, bringing with him food of his own to add to her meagre feast, and he came almost every day when he wasn't flying a mission. Charlotte and Maeve had joined them initially, but after returning to work the pair had been left alone, sitting in the grass beneath one of the trees at the edge of the airfield.
Lying back against the ground, she lifted her foot in the air, holding her toe to blot out the blinding afternoon sun. It was almost perfectly quiet here, the wall of trees muffling the constant noise of the ground crews, toiling away across the field.
"So," DeMarco began, propping himself up on his elbows. "If you weren't working here - if there wasn't a war and we didn't have to do all this - what d'you think you'd be doing right now?"
Susie frowned, letting out a faint huff. "God, I dunno. Probably still be in my old job."
"Which was-?"
"I was the projectionist at the Paramount in Manchester. Y'know - splicing the reels, switching them over, keeping the projectors running. Did that for five years before the war - got bloody good at it." When she looked over at him, he was smiling. "What?"
"Nothin', I just wouldn't have guessed it. You liked it?"
"Well, I got to sit around watching films on my own and no one talked to me."
"That tracks, actually."
Susie laughed, a deep chuckle vibrating from her chest. It had been a long time since she'd thought about that theatre, of the hours she'd spent sitting up in that tiny booth, only half paying attention to whatever book she had in her lap so that she was ready when the film ran its course. The constant clicking, rolling, scrolling sound of the reels of film had once occupied her mind almost permanently - she'd swear she could still hear it at dinner, or lying awake in bed at night, the noise etched into her very brain. But it had been years since she'd heard it now.
She lifted a hand to her mouth, biting nervously at her thumbnail for a moment as she built up the courage to speak again, feeling her heart rate begin to speed up inside her chest.
"I have a question, too."
"Oh yeah?" DeMarco shifted in the grass, propping himself up on one side so that he could face her properly. She wished he'd stop staring at her like that. It was awkward enough to ask what she needed to without those damn eyes on her, his expression always so open and forgiving no matter what venom seemed to lace her tongue.
Susie grunted, pushing herself up to stand as she paced back and forth in front of him for a while. He watched her go this way and that, over and over, beginning to frown. "You havin' a breakdown over there?"
"Will you come with me to Charlotte's wedding?" She blurted, rambling so quickly she was worried the words might have blurred together into a single, unintelligible slur.
"What?" DeMarco grinned, although there wasn't a hint of mockery in his smile.
"Charlotte said I could bring someone, I - I dunno, it's stupid, don't worry about it," Susie shook her head, a hint of red colouring her cheeks.
"No, no! I'll come. Not stupid," He hadn't moved from his spot, cheeks creasing with the weight of his grin.
She threw her hands up, refusing to meet his gaze. "It's just, I'm gonna be the only person showing up on my own otherwise, and it'll be weird and embarrassing and-"
"Hey, Susie! Susie. I already said I'll go. I'm just... I dunno, surprised to be your first choice."
Sitting back down again, Susie let out a long, deep breath, feeling a weight rise off her shoulders now that the question was out there in the open. The idea of showing up alone had been bugging her for weeks, but it wasn't until that morning, sitting alone in the bed he'd paid for, did she realise the answer had been in front of her all this time.
"Well, it's- ...Whatever, it's not like I had any old boyfriends to dig up for the occasion."
"You never had a boyfriend?" DeMarco scoffed in disbelief.
She narrowed her eyes at him, shrugging. "Don't act like it's so unbelievable. I mean, I've done the sex and the snoggin' and all that stuff but... no. Nothing serious. But I'm a bit bloody miserable and not very pretty so it adds up."
"Don't say that," He shook his head slightly, tone suddenly firm.
"Don't say what?"
"Don't say you're not pretty - you're very pretty, Suze."
"Oh, but I am miserable, eh?" Susie joked, attempting to hide how taken aback she'd been by his sudden seriousness.
"Hey, I'm sworn to honesty," DeMarco shrugged, laughing as she lashed out, smacking him on the chest with the back of her hand.
"Bastard."
They slipped into silence, watching Meatball attempt to chase a small group of geese across the field. She chuckled as the dog darted back and forth, the birds leaping to fly over his head whenever he got too close. DeMarco let his head loll to the side again, watching her face as she smiled. Who the hell had told her she wasn't pretty? He couldn't believe it - couldn't fathom how she could either. There was something effortless to her that he found wonderful - how she never bothered to curl or pin her hair, how her uniform was never quite up to regulation, how she never seemed able to tie her necktie the same way twice.
Susie let out a groan, her head tilting back. "What is it now?" He asked.
"Remembered I have a job."
"That's rough. You should probably go do that."
With a sigh, she took the last sip of her coffee and scrambled to her feet, brushing stray pieces of grass off her trousers, a faint patch of damp creeping up her back. There was a leaf stuck to the back of her hair, and as Susie scrambled to collect her things, DeMarco stood up, trying and failing to reach it through her constant movement. She turned, almost bumping into him, their faces only inches apart.
"Can I help you?" Susie asked quietly.
He reached around to the back of her head, plucking away the leaf and holding it up so she could see. "Got it."
Letting out a snort of amusement, she nodded, taking a step back and turning to leave. "Come 'round my hut sometime and I'll give you the wedding invitation," She called over her shoulder, the sunlight hitting her auburn hair and lighting the frizz around its edges a bright, flaming orange.
"Will do!" DeMarco shouted in reply, standing perfectly still as he watched her hike up the slope to the top of the field and disappear. Looking down, he realised he was still holding the leaf in his hand.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Darkness had begun to fall over Thorpe Abbotts by the time Susie returned from work, a cigarette burning away between her lips as she approached her hut, keys jangling in her palm as she flicked through to find the right one. Sliding it into the lock and opening the door with a click, the place was already almost full as she entered, her bunkmates reading and chatting and pinning their hair into curlers in preparation for the next day. In the centre of the room, Charlotte and Maeve were holding up a long, white wedding gown, each of them gripping one end, eyeing it closely as they talked amongst themselves. Charlotte had spent months preparing the thing, sewing it herself out of scraps of parachute silk, and it was now achingly close to completion with only two weeks to spare.
"How's it lookin'?" Susie asked, strolling past them to get to her bed, shrugging off her jacket as she went.
"Come over here and put it on," Charlotte ordered.
She sighed, kicking her shoes off. "Again?" She and Charlotte shared almost identical measurements, and in the absence of any sort of mannequin, Susie found herself modelling the dress far more often than she would've liked.
"I think this should be the last time - I just need to sew the lace on once it comes in the post. But I'm not sure about the cut of the sleeves."
"Why can't you just put it on yourself?"
"Fine! Fine, God," Shaking her head, Susie crossed the room towards them, stripping off her uniform as she went. Her friends helped her into the dress, feeling almost lost beneath the layers of identical silk. Charlotte was slightly taller than her, so the hem of the skirt crumpled itself against the floor, but it was otherwise an almost perfect fit.
Maeve sat on the end of her bed, watching as Charlotte surveyed the dress, muttering inaudibly to herself as she poked at the sleeves and the fit of the bodice. Susie refused to turn her head for fear that she'd catch sight of her reflection in one of the girls' mirrors. She'd seen Charlotte wear it enough times to know what it must have looked like on her, but something about the idea of seeing it made her intensely uncomfortable.
"See, I'm thinking of taking the sleeves up a bit," Charlotte explained, marking out with her finger where she wanted to raise the fabric. "Like this, see?"
"Yeah, I think that'd be nice," Mave nodded. She had been dragged into the project just as involuntarily as Susie had, but they played their parts diligently for Charlotte's sake.
A knock sounded at the front door to the hut, and one of the other women scrambled up off her bed to go and answer it. People came by all the time, so the interruption hadn't even caught Susie's attention until her name was called.
"Susie! It's for you."
Her brow furrowed. "Who is it?" She replied, already thinking up an excuse to avoid having to go to the door. The woman stuck her head around the door again, talking briefly to whoever was outside.
"Says his name's Benny."
Maeve's face seemed to light up, grinning over at her. "Fuck's sake," Susie muttered, hiking up her skirts with as much care for Charlotte's handiwork as she could as she marched towards the front door.
DeMarco stood out in the darkness, a nearby streetlight basking half of his face in a warm glow. He'd smiled the moment she'd appeared in the doorway, but it faded into confusion as he took a moment to process her appearance.
"... Oh?"
She rolled her eyes. "Charlotte's wedding dress. We're the same size, she's- ...I dunno what she's doing really."
He let out a chuckle, nodding. She hadn't had a chance to deal with her hair since getting back, and curls protruded at all angles from the bun on the back of her head, which had been steadily slipping out of place for hours. Paired with the wedding gown, it was a distinctly strange combination.
"Well, I just came by to get the invite, I didn't mean to interrupt... whatever this is."
"Ooh, right," Susie nodded, using one of the other girls' boots as a makeshift doorstop as she scurried back inside, skirt held up to her knees as she rummaged in the drawer of her nightstand until she found it.
"There you go," She declared, holding it out to him as she returned.
"Thanks," DeMarco nodded, slipping the invitation into his pocket. Looking back up at her, he couldn't help but stare for a moment. Despite the strangeness of the situation, he couldn't deny that it suited her. He cleared his throat, shaking his head before his mind was allowed to wander to places he wasn't ready for. "Ok, well. Have fun with this," He said, gesturing to her dress. "I'll see you around."
"Yes," Susie spoke slowly, flashing him an awkward smile. As she reached back to close the door, a forgotten pin hidden inside one of the seams poked through her flesh, eliciting a hiss of pain. "Fuck! Charlotte, you haven't taken all the pins out of this thing!"
From somewhere inside, Charlotte's voice echoed. "Take it off before you get blood on it!"
Benny cleared his throat, feeling heat rise to his face. "Oh, right, ok - I'll be on my way."
"Bye!" She yelped, practically slamming the door in his face in her desperation to get out of the dress. Through the door, he could hear muffled voices, fast and irritated, and he let out a chuckle, gravel crunching beneath his feet as he walked away.
#masters of the air#masters of the air oc#bernard demarco#bernard demarco x oc#mota#mota oc#mota fic#masters of the air fic#oc: susie#fic | better off
20 notes
·
View notes
Text
in this room 'til we die
a/n: it has been ages, truly ages since i posted my work on here and, well, mota has given me brainrot. this tumbled out of me between midnight and 2:00 am and i'm happy to share it with you. title is from 'The Elevator' off of lizzy mcalpine's newest album. meet lieutenant vera west, bombardier
She’s trying to remember the feeling of it as she lies on the floor behind her seat. The moonlight flowing in from the nose dome brightens the space just enough to remind her where she is, but keeps the details hidden. Good. The thing she’s here for is in her mind. The rest is set dressing.
She closes her eyes and pushes her shoulder blades into the bottom of the machine below her. She’d melt herself into the floor if she could, mix with the metal until there’s no difference between person and plane. She’d become the bird herself. The belly of the plane pushes back at her and the pain activates her heart, which activates her instinct. She can do this. She can do this.
Pilot to bombardier—Ginny’s voice washes over her—the plane is yours.
She knows what to do next, easy as breathing. Get the target in her bomb sight, give the crew the count down, hit the release, and bombs away. Bombardier to pilot, the plane is yours. I’m giving it to you, Ginny! The plane is yours. Do you hear me? You can come back, the plane is yours. They shake and jolt through flak as behind her, Knick Knack shouts the new heading to the pilots. All Vera can do is get back on her turret and pray that they make it through.
They get hit. She knows they get hit from the monstrous boom on their left side and the sudden lurch the plane takes. There’s barely enough time to grab her chute as she’s screaming for everyone to bail, do it! do it now! But the bell doesn’t ring. Knick Knack keeps giving their bearings and Ginny keeps her steady. Can’t you hear me? Get out! Get out! It all goes black.
She gasps back into her body with a shout, the dark flooding her eyes. The shaking in her hands is back and she curses herself. Do the damn job. Her hands shaking could be—no—would be the difference between someone’s life and death, and she could not bear another nine on her conscience. She’ll run it until her hands stop shaking. If it takes all night and all of the next day and all of the next war. She has a job to do and she will not fail. Not again.
One measured breath, then another up into the roof of the nose, then she closes her eyes again, hears Ginny’s voice. Pilot to bombardier, the plane is yours.
The hatch to the nose opens but she ignores it. There’s a job to do. Give the crew the countdown. Bomb bay doors opening. Hit the release. Bombardier to pilot, the plane is yours. Ginny doesn’t answer. Bombardier to pilot, like being louder would do anything, the plane is yours. The plane is—
“It’s late.”
Benny DeMarco climbs into the nose, brushing his shoulder with hers as he lies down next to her.
She doesn’t open her eyes. “I’m tryna fly.”
“That’s my job.”
The Ginny in her head goes silent and Vera sighs, opening her eyes. The roof of Our Baby is too obscured in shadow to make out much, but she can see the dents and dings she knows are there. How many more could it take? How many more Luftwaffe shells could find their way inside before they’re careening out of the sky, too? What would it feel like as the bottom drops out? She wishes Ginny or Tanner or Knick Knack or her dear Kitty or Gusty were here to tell her. But they aren’t and she is with her shaking hands and racing heart and fear of flying or falling and she wasn’t sure which it was.
“Hey, hey, now.”
She doesn’t realize she’s crying until Benny sits up to brush at her cheeks with a gentle thumb. She lets him and tries to stop more tears from welling up at his sincerity. There’s no judgment in him as he holds her face, only that soft, knowing smile and those bright eyes, the light in them not gone yet. Thank God for you, Benny Demarco.
He doesn’t say anything once he withdraws his hand, tucking his knees to his chest and laying his elbows out so that he could rest his head in the crook of his shoulder while looking around, arched brows giving away his curiosity. His genuine inquisitiveness makes her sniffle a giggle, and he nudges her with his foot. “What?”
“You look like you’ve never seen the nose before.”
He shrugs. “I’m never in here.”
“You should stop by more often, see what a real job looks like.”
He jabs at her this time, and she really laughs. “Hey!”
“I didn’t come here to get razzed.”
“Then why’d you come at all?”
“Got back from the pub, saw your bed was empty,” he says, and he’s looking around again. She wonders why. “Buck wanted a head count. I had a feeling I knew where you’d be.”
“So you’re here for Buck.” She doesn’t know why she says it. He’s doing a nice thing for her as a friend—in his Army issued tank-top under his leather jacket, no cap, hair slipping out of its pomade. He should be in bed but he’s not, he’s here with her and she’s too stuffed up with her grief, her anger to thank him like she should.
He looks at her again and gives her a rueful half smile. “I’m here for you.”
That sits painfully on her heart. That’s not right—it’s the other way around. He’s the pilot and she’s the bombardier; it’s her job to get past herself and do her duty. Benny gets them through the flak and firestorms and all she has to do is drop the bombs. It isn’t so difficult and yet she nearly failed him the last two times they were in the air, with her shaky hands and Ginny in her head and Buck having to bellow over them both in order for her to drop.
Her face burns with shame as tears bubble up again. She’s a coward, plain and simple, and she knows it. Everyone else can move on, get into the air again and complete the mission without being paralyzed, stuck between flying and falling, but she’s here night after night, begging her hands to steady just enough not to stutter on the release hatch.
She thinks of the girl she was when she landed in England, bursting at the seams with fight and fervor, unstoppable, hungry to get up there. That girl trusted herself and her hands and her crew… her crew, the women who’d lived in her head as much as she lived in theirs. The women who’d made flying as easy as breathing. Her sisters in arms, the other parts of her brain, the reasons she couldn’t think straight anymore. She calls out into the blue once more—bombardier to pilot, the plane is yours—but it’s silent across the sky.
She wants to scream, she wants to throw something, she wants to kick and break and howl like the boys get to do but instead, all she can do is cry, and Benny is right there when she does, gathering her in his arms and cooing into her hair. “I know, I know.”
It takes a while for her to stop, longer than she’d like to admit, but he’s with her the whole time, patient as a saint. She holds on for dear life; there is no other option. There’s falling or flying or him, and he’s the only place that feels safe. His arms are warm as he tucks her into his chest and his legs bracket hers, holding her anguish, not letting it drop to the floor. He smells of cigarettes and his whiskey of choice and the sweet, spicy cologne he puts on when they’re on a stand down the next day. He smells of himself as she forgets what her girls smelled like—Ginny’s orangy perfume and Tanner’s hot comb oil that lingered after doing half the hair on base.
You’re all I have now, Benny. And what if I lose you, too?
The thought redoubles her grief and her breath eludes her until she’s heaving.
He sits her up. “In and out, West, c’mon.” In and out. That’s usually Buck’s line, reserved for getting her out of her stupor and back on her gun after the bomb bay doors close. Benny says it with none of the major’s disappointment and all of his own kindness.
“I’m sorry,” she eventually croaks, trying to smooth out the wrinkles her fists put in his shirt.
A comforting hand runs up her back, between her nightshirt and jacket. “Don’t be.”
Silence falls.
It’s quiet on the hard stand, a rare night when the ground crews aren’t hammering away until dawn. From the dome, she can see straight down the runways and out into the fields of East Anglia. The town’s lights are low in the far distance. It’s quiet for them, too.
The entire base has tomorrow off, which would normally mean raucousness to the nth degree, but things haven’t been the same since they came back from Algeria. Well, maybe John Egan’s the same, but the rest of them, the rest of them can’t stomach it like they used to—the empty beds in the barracks, the new crews that only last a few weeks, the war of attrition in the air, the sawmill, the fact that there’s no end in sight. They’re going up again in two days, to heaven or hellfire.
She shudders and asks her hands to steady, if not for her then for Benny and the rest of the fort.
He pulls her into him again, murmuring into her hair. “You’ve been scaring us, Vee.”
“I don’t mean to.”
“I know, but you do.”
“I just,” she starts without knowing where she’s going, “I just—” I’m drowning in the air, the floor’s out from under me and there’s nothing but sky above. “I miss my crew,” she settles on.
He scoffs. “You have a crew.”
“No, I have a bunch of guys that let a basket case sit at the front of their fort—”
“Hey.” A hand cups her jaw, tilting it so that she looks him in the eyes. She’s never known brown to shine like that, in the light or in the dark. “I’d take a bullet for you, so would everyone else.”
Ain’t that the worst thing you’ve ever heard? That there’s another nine willing to leave her all alone with no thought to how it’d make her feel. No one’s ever the poor sap they tell stories about—the only paratrooper that survived the jump, the last woman standing out of three platoons, a lone P-40 fighting its way home, all that’s left of a mighty squadron. No one’s ever the poor sap until they are, and then they’re just another story to tell. I know a bombardier who took some flak to the chest, had to be grounded for a few days. The day before she’s discharged, her whole crew goes up without her and ends up crashing, no chutes. They’d just beaten the odds, too, flew twelve missions, went down on thirteen.
Then she becomes another superstition to add to salt and mirrors. Make sure your crew’s together for your thirteenth, never go up without your original bombardier. She’s a walking ghost story, the frequent recipient of poorly concealed pointed fingers and whispers behind hands. She’s not a hero who landed a bird on one engine and three dead crew. She’s the left behind, the abandoned, she should’ve gone down with her ship. No one wants to be her.
Some days, she thinks that’s a fate worse than death.
Benny can’t understand that and she doesn’t want him to, but he’s searching her face for an answer nonetheless. She reaches up and holds his cheek. He leans into her touch and she’s proud that her hand doesn’t shake, that he takes a breath for himself as she brushes her thumb over his soft, warm skin, touching that darling beauty mark that she finds so charming.
“Vera,” he whispers.
That’s not enough, because he doesn’t get it yet. I can’t lose you. She lifts her other hand, cradles his face, and beholds—really looks—as if her gaze would be enough to protect him. He’s always been good to the girls, always quick to check a man who was out of line, a confidant, a shoulder to cry on, and since her girls went down, a genuine friend, careful and brash with her, keeping her feet on the ground.
I can’t lose you, I can’t lose you, I can’t lose you. All the quiet meals in the mess, the long walks with Meatball when she needs to get out of the barracks, all the nights in the nose spent talking her back into bed when she insists on one more practice run. I can’t lose you. A lump forms in her throat and her eyes burn. She scrunches up her nose to stop herself from crying again and furiously swipes at her eyes. There’s been enough tears tonight.
He laughs, bright and brassy, and sits back as she sits up.
“What?”
“You’re the toughest bombardier I’ve ever met.”
It’s her turn to kick at him but he grabs her ankle. “I’m serious.”
“You’re always serious, Benny.”
There’s that smile that picks her spirits up.
She sighs and lies back down, wiggling as flat as she can. He takes the place next to her and it’s quiet except for the sounds of their breathing just above their faces. The floor is cool and he’s warm, and she wants to practice some more, but maybe she could rest for a bit.
He nudges her arm after a few moments. “Can’t sleep here.”
“'M tryna fly.”
“Enough trying. You fly, you’re a flyer. You need to sleep.”
She doesn’t do that much these days and she tells him such.
“I’ll let you take Meatball tonight.”
She opens one eye. “Yeah?” Meatball has a bed at the foot of Benny’s, but occasionally he parts with him long enough to let her have a night of snuggles with her favorite canine.
“Sure, if you promise to stay in bed until reveille.”
Now that’s tempting.
#my writing#vera west#bernard demarco x oc#mota#masters of the air#there's not a name for this universe yet but i'm sure i'll find one soon#straighten up and fly right#vera x benny
45 notes
·
View notes
Text
Little Sunshine Fires: Chapter 1
Pairing: Benny DeMarco x OC [Marnie Cleven]
ch. after
Synopsis: Marnie requests a transfer to the 100th Bomb Group to stay close to her boxed in, reserved pilot of a brother, Buck Cleven. It's the last thing she expects, when she starts to anticipate another man's return to safety from the skies, nearly just as much.
Warning: historical inaccuracies, sad stuff to come
Welcome to my first ever fic on Tumblr, and really, everywhere. I have no strong argument as to why you should pay attention to my story, but I do hope that if you have any love for MOTA, MOTA OCs and specifically Benny DeMarco, you would give this long-winded meet cute a chance. It's just a little, fun project I've got going. <3 I fully intend to introduce Marnie individually, but I thought I'd give you a taste of her and Benny first. Enjoy! (and go easy on me T.T)
Disclaimer: none of these photos belong to me. :)
<3
To say it is not ideal that he nearly runs her over with his bike on their first proper interaction, is quite the understatement. In fact, with her petite stature, doing so would have been the equivalent to a man getting squashed by a tank on the field–but let’s not even go there.
It’s a ritual to her everyday, circling the village block for exactly half an hour, enjoying the crispness of her white uniform before it inevitably becomes splotched with red. The stains Marnie returns to her cot with every night is a minuscule droplet in the face of a full-blown war, but despite that, she is only human. If she has the chance to hold onto even just a sliver of normalcy in a place where men dropping like flies all came with the territory, then she did so wrenchingly tight.
And she enjoys strolling through the village of Thorpe Abbots, savoring the slow pace of her breathing with a cigarette between her lips. It resembles one of those folktales her mother theatrically read to her in bed every night as a kid. Townhouses of pastel pinks, yellows and blues, green vines weaving in and out of their windows. Sometimes she would have a set of freshly baked cupcakes at the ready for the farm owner just a few blocks behind base, and count each and every peony she spots on her way back home. Thirty minutes, just thirty minutes basking in this quiet.
Marnie just doesn’t recall having to budget her time for a bicycle crash.
“Shift, fuck, watch out!” the rider yells, face scrunched up in panic. The clock was about to hit 0700, when Marnie was trekking the roads back to the hospital, ready to tackle the day shift. There was no mission in their docket today, but ever since the 100th had landed from their first, soldiers were kicking in and out of those double doors non-stop. Her eyes were locked downwards at nothing in particular; distracted by the thought of Dickie as she rounded the corner, the exposed flesh on his hands that required fresh bandages, and failed to account for the sound of rubber wheels scraping against the gravel.
The officer swerves his bike right–Marnie’s body managing to stall at the perfect moment–his dog only exacerbating the chaos by tugging ferociously on his leash. Rock against flesh, he lands straight on his right side, the clang of his bike ripping through the Sunday morning. One would think that is enough to make the soldiers pause in their ruckus, a group of men practically sunbathing in the weeds, right by his ill fate, but no. She spots Bucky in the crowd, lying with his hands behind his head, now turned to the scene, and he has the audacity to simply cackle at this man’s misfortune. A full-blown cackle. She would absolutely, even in a million years, not admit that she herself was holding back a chuckle.
“Egan,” he groans, pushing himself on his shoulders, and it springs Marnie into action. She runs to his side, about to crouch down. “If you keep shitting your pants over there, I’m gonna fuckin–”
“Oh, forget him and just let me look over you,” she says, cutting him off mid-threat. “God, I’m so sorry.”
His movements freeze, but he angles his head to get a better look at whoever the culprit is. She was expecting him to chew her out for her lack of paying attention, but instead, the second their eyes make contact, there’s an intensity that floods into his gaze. The furrow between his brow softens as a mild surprise–or at least, she thinks it's surprise–washes over his face, his lips falling apart and twitching, ever so slightly. He can hardly keep the red flush at bay. It seeps through his neck and dusts his cheeks, the bustle of the base fading into white noise.
“That good a view, DeMarco?” Bucky, the giant man-child, interrupts. “Got drool coming down your chin.” And suddenly, those eyes no longer reflect a sense of wonder–oh, she should’ve locked that image in her mind and tossed the key into the sea–but a tinge of annoyance sends creases to his forehead, as he scrambles to stand. His dog, one giant, white and silver furry pup, starts to nip at her feet as she begins to rise, and he paws at her knees when her fingers fiddle with his ears. In the corner of her eyes, Marnie catches his owner, she presumes, cracking a fond smile.
“The most beautiful I’ve seen,” she hears him say, only just stopping himself from tugging an obnoxious smirk on his lips, a twinkle of mischief written across his face. It takes everything in her to tamper down a cheeky grin, straining her neck that threatens to inch towards the man she now knows as DeMarco. “But if you will excuse me,” he says, running his fingers through his thick, dark brown hair, and grabbing the handles of his bike and the pup’s leash. “I’m–”
“Not going anywhere.” She finishes his words, the officer’s mouth clamping shut. She’s seen him around before, those chocolate brown eyes and that easygoing charm–he was Buck’s co-pilot when his fort touched down in East Anglia, arms cradling his incessantly howling husky onto tarmac. Our Baby, she remembers his plane being called.
Stalking up to the man ‘til they’re face-to-face, she realizes that with the heels on her shoes, she isn’t too much shorter than him. Her eyes flicker to the way he straightens his shoulders, catches the sharp intake of his breath, and wonders if this man will ever exhale again. Slipping a handkerchief out of her pocket, blood fuses with the yellow of her cloth as she dabs away at minor gash across his temples. He’s about to curse Bucky, and Thayer, and all the soldiers blowing wolf whistles into the air, none bothering to inform him of the distorted skin on his face. “Unless you’re looking for that to get infected,” she says, completely calm, ignoring their audience. “Then come with me, sir.”
A light chuckle bubble in his throat. “Right,” he says, tipping his head, and there it is once again–that unmistakable gaze. “Yes lieutenant. Lead the way.”
She nods, gesturing her fingers to the doors of the hospital, vastly ignoring the way she can feel his eyes trained on her back. She misses the way they’re stiffly glued to the almost black lengths of her hair, keeping them in place from doing a most-likely unacceptable scan up and down.
“Oh, and it’s captain,” she says, turning her head slightly, and his steps come to a halt. “Captain Marianne.”
The man in question happens to be big-hearted Bernard DeMarco.
“But call me Benny,” he’s quick to correct as she sits him down on the edge of a vacant bed. “I’d rather lose my title than answer to that.” She was about to say it suited him, but bites it back.
He’s a pilot from Philadelphia, she learns. An affinity for the outdoors since he was a child, he had longed to take control of the cockpit, and feel the kiss of the sunshine against his skin. There is just something about the golden glow that illuminates his core with a vigor and excitement his body had never felt before. And she admires his zest for a life in the skies. It’s clear, with the way his head perks up like a jittery child on Christmas morning, when he recalls their days flying harmless training missions back in Iowa.
Digging into the metal tray she’s placed beside him, she can tell he’s still watching her movements like a hawk, and it makes her palms a little damp, her brain hyper aware of the way she’s tinkering with the gauze and the antiseptic. It’s as if she's trying to impress Benny. As chief nurse of the 100th Bomb Group, the trust of her abilities should probably not fall into the judgment of a mere man, but she can’t help but feel self-conscious, afraid to make a mess of herself for such a little cause.
“I have yet to find something,” he says, voice quiet as she leaves little space between them to clean his wound, the scent of her lavender lacing with something medicinal faintly clouding over his skin, “that makes me feel more alive.”
When she feels his eyes on her–an act she has been tactfully avoiding for the past 10-minutes–needles seem to prickle along her arms as they remain a little too still. It’s as if the sterile nurse wing has emptied itself out into an abyss where she can let go of her inhibitions and set herself free in front of a man she didn’t know. And all because he stares at her with a tenderness she can’t quite pinpoint.
Benny lets out a cough then, snapping her out of her daze and glances off to the rest of the men in the room. He nods his head at Dickie, who, right now wears the ugliest, knowing smirk that he wishes to slap off, only settles by regulating his breaths before Marnie can see how riled up he feels in his system. He wonders if everyone of them were treated as intimately as this, though he sure as hell hopes not.
“And you?” He looks up curiously, as she stands to clear up the equipment. “I take it you’ve at least been on a plane a couple times. I can’t imagine Buck wouldn’t have flown you about.”
“No, I actually haven’t. Took a ship here with Kenny.” She laughs at the way he reacts in utter disbelief. “Never? You’re kidding. What, you're scared of heights or something? Or, you just don’t like to fly.”
She raises a questioning bow, and he tilts his back down, a tinge of guilt on his face for assuming there is something wrong with such things. “You know, despite popular opinion, not everyone likes being above 30,000 feet in freezing cold air, Ben. And yes, I am afraid of heights. Does that turn you off all a sudden?” He hastily shakes his head no, and mutters a soft, “yeah, my bad.” Facing away, the corners of her lips quirk into a tiny smirk.
She thinks of her older brother, the reticent Gale Cleven, or Buck, who she hadn’t seen in about six months before he arrived in England. Marnie was always the more chipper one out of the two, always offering to do most of the talking when they charmed their town neighbors into letting them couch surf for the night.
His strength, on the other hand, always lay in his actions. It speaks to the way their mutual childhood best friend and the love of Buck’s life, Marge, had fallen for him. It was not about what he could muster the courage to say, or how he squared up his shoulders. It was because he waited every sunrise without fail, for Marge to arrive at the bus stop so they could head to school together. How he was often too timid to really show any verbal affection, but would never stop caressing her shoulders lightly each time they were side-by-side. Her brother was a man of a few words. If there is one thing he could babble on about though, like DeMarco, they were planes.
They breathed life into Buck Cleven, flew him into a sense of purpose. It was a beautiful sight, the way his wings launched him close to the sun where he glimmered into the pilot he was always meant to be. Marnie on the other hand, well, she doesn’t quite know when the seed of despair became rooted so deeply inside, but she started to despise the daylight since the war had reached their doorstep.
“There’s something about the sun, right after the rise of day,” Marnie begins, blue eyes glazed in thought, “it’s just so glaring. The closer you get to it…the more intimidating it becomes. It’s ruthless. Just rises and falls, and rises and falls, exposing each god fucking ugly corner of the world. You wake up to it, and with everything that’s going on, it’s just this blatant reminder that people are out there struggling, crying, and dying. That harsh reality just sinks deep into your gut, each time you gotta step out and work. I don’t hate the idea of flying….but, guess I’m just not interested in the skies. I don’t even like looking outside, and just sitting there, waiting for all of you to land. It kills me inside.”
When the plastic bottle of treatment hits the metal tray, it knocks into her senses just how oddly philosophical she had become. Embarrassment lingers into the silence between them, and she licks her lips as a staple nervous tick. Risking a peak over at him, she fears to see the awkwardness in the way he'd probably avoid her gaze. But relief escapes her conscience when he's looking on, straight at her with curiosity in his expression and a trace of a smile on his own lips. “Daylight’s a pretty big part of the day, if you didn’t notice,” he hears her snort at that, her figure retreating to the closet just a few doors down. “So tell me then, which part do you like the best?”
Medical tape in hand, she rips off a little piece to attach the gauze on his scraped temple. The gash that he had completely forgotten about, it was the reason he was there in the first place.
A younger, junior nurse with short, blonde hair calls out to Marnie, seeking help with some medic equipment. It’s not far too busy this late morning, luckily, the hospital finally settling into a stable rhythm as the airmen recover from their first mission. A luxury to hang onto before the pilots take off for a second. And she knows, having just been informed by Doc Stover yesterday, that it is happening at first daylight tomorrow.
“The sunset,” she replies, ushering Benny to his feet simultaneously. “It's the end of work. There is no mystery, or anxiety through how dark and lonely the night is. But no….terror and anticipation through the day. Just the plain, beautiful sunset.”
Bidding him her well wishes, her attention–regretfully so–begins to slip away from him, turning to assist her fellow nurse when Benny’s voice bounces off the walls, her name on his tongue. She turns towards him with a pinch in her eyebrows, shushing him so as to not disturb the other patients, and he squirms a little at the sterneness in her stare.
“Sorry, again,” he sheepishly says. “I wanted to know, what’s your favorite flower, captain?”
“Peonies. And don’t apologize…I’m sorry about our little mishap this morning.” A fling of curiosity, she masks the beam about to draw on her face by simply rolling her eyes, swallowing the nerves that have been pounding against her ribcage. “Marnie by the way. Chief nurse of the 100th.”
“Pilot with the 350th, and don’t mention it.” He laughs, a light melody that sings through her soul. Benny shakes his head as he makes his way to the doors. The sun is a welcome sight, but it does not make him feel as warm as the lady who apparently despises the way it shines. It’s time to hit the village.
It was 0600, the alarm clock a signal that the 100th would be on their way to their second mission.
Marnie’s shift doesn’t start until much later, when she punches in her timecard at 0800. But she likes to arrive a little early–getting her morning stroll on the agenda, then spending an hour scrubbing the hospital clean. Perhaps, she sees it as a blank canvas. A comforting sight before the planes return–if they even do–to store away the anxiety that pumps through her blood with each wounded man awaiting their savior. It’s the repetition of each action, a mental checklist which she follows from head to toe the second she gets into work, that keeps her mind from bursting at the seams.
Today though, as she smoothes down her knee-length skirt, and places the nurse cap on her head, there’s a speckle of color on her desk that seems completely misplaced to the monotone array. When she walks up to the wooden table, a large pink bouquet of peonies rests like the sunset casting an orange fluorescence against branches and trees of earthy browns and greens. Betraying all professionalism, an untamed, toothy grin crinkles at the corners of her eyes.
Doc Stover finds it odd that she spends all day looking out the window, ‘til the boys come home.
-sal. if you made it this far, thank you <3
#masters of the air#mota#benny demarco#benny demarco x oc#bernard demarco#benny x marnie <3#mota oc#buck cleven#gale cleven#marnie cleven
21 notes
·
View notes
Note
Things you said... 'when we woke' for Benny? Juno xx
Juno, Juno, Juno, you know there's only one way this is gonna go. And I know you won't mind that at all. 😏
Rating this E to be on the very safe side, though we're not going too deeply into the smut. Also adding a warning to people who are not here for references to a throuple situation or for references to an established f/f relationship.
If you've been following me a long time, you'll recognize Darlene. I've had a bit of a thing on my hands lately as I came to realize that Benny would not only fit with her, but would likely be a much better match for her than her previous pairing. Consider this me taking that idea for a spin!
Things you said... when we woke
She is used to waking up alone. To stretching out amid pillows and rumpled sheets and finding the spot beside her already void of warmth. Lottie rarely lingers in the morning – rolls out of bed and gets ready faster than any girl – and leaves it up to her to start the day on her own.
Darlene knows something is different when she wakes to a hand in her hair. Wakes to the lingering scent of smoke and an exhale that is too deep-voiced to be Lottie’s. Wakes to warmth beside her, early morning sunlight coating bare skin in soft gold, and to someone who’s succeeding at detangling even her most stubborn curls.
“Hey there.”
“Hey yourself,” she grins, stretching out beside Benny DeMarco and kicking the last of the sheets down to her feet. “Mornin’ smoke?”
He exhales. “Passes the time.” His smile comes easy. Soft. “Can’t complain about the view, either.”
Darlene shakes her head as heat slowly suffuses her body. “Stop sayin’ things like that, Ben,” she complains, wrinkling her nose and pushing herself upright. “You’re gonna make me blush again.” She’d blushed something fierce last night, especially when Lottie had added her own praise to his words. “But”– she says now, drinking the sight of him in fully –“you’re damn right about the view being nothin’ to sneeze at.”
That, at least, earns her a laugh and a shake of his head as well. He doesn’t blush – not even after Lottie had tried her best to make him – but does avert his gaze as he moves to put his cigarette out. Darlene rakes a hand through her hair as she watches him, all broad shoulders and thighs that should simply…
“Hey now,” he chuckles as she moves to straddle him, “good morning to you too.”
“Do ya mind?”
He grins up at her. “Do I look like I do?”
“I dunno,” she shrugs, biting her lip a little at the heat that flares to life in his gaze. “Don’t wanna assume… I mean,” she says, gesturing at the rest of the room, “with Lot already out the door an’ all…”
“Surprised me with that,” he grunts, squeezing her thigh. “Ace rushed off like all the devils from hell were chasing her this morning. Tiptoed a little not to wake you, but…”
She tries not to let it sting. “She does that.” Usually not when there’s a fella in our bed, though. “I’m a lil slower in the mornin’. Lot’s always first to leave. Ya get used to it.” She half-shrugs at that. “If you… If you wanna leave, too, that’s all right?”
“You’re gonna have to kick me out of this bed if you want me to go.”
“Oh do I?”
“Yeah, sweetheart,” he laughs, “I’m not even sure I can walk in a straight line right now.” His eyes are bright with mirth as his hand comes to rest on her lower back. “Not sure I want to, either. Goddamn, you two damn near killed me.”
“Ya kept pace with us,” she retorts archly, leaning forward to kiss his cheek. “Ain’t another fella out there who can say that. You’re good people, Benny DeMarco. Even if ya got that mouth on ya”– she grins before kissing him on it, all closed lip and heat –“and absolutely no shame at all, sittin’ up in a bed that ain’t yours like this,” she teases, letting her fingertips skim across his belly, “naked as anythin’, all fucked out”– except he’s not, if his sharp intake of breath is anything to go by, and that just makes her smile –“or… wantin’ more?”
“You’re one to talk,” he says, shamelessly eyeing her, “climbing on top of me like that”– and his hands are roaming, wandering, pulling her closer –“Jesus, look at you,” he sighs, voice going softer than she good and well thinks she deserves to hear, “I’m never gonna want to resist this.”
“Ben–”
His kiss is languid. Gentle, even, with him brushing stray curls out of her face before his hand comes to skim the underside of her breast. “More of this,” he affirms, “if you want…”
She nods, wordless, as he kisses her again. Wraps her arms around his neck, just like she’d dared last night when they’d been out for drinks and he’d been flirting back a little too pointedly to ignore. And it’d been a little hassle then, getting him to realize that Lottie was in on this – had been smirking at them half the evening, knowing how the night gonna go – but he’d not missed a single beat since. She smiles at the memory. Presses closer to him still, kissing his cheek and jaw and neck and–
“Darlene,” he murmurs, voice almost cracking, “stay fucking still, you’re…”
“Feeling very wanted right now,” she grins, feeling his full-body response to her pressing against him like that. Heat pools between her own legs at the realization, answered by a sudden flash of warmth in her lower belly. “God, Ben, just one more time, you an’ me, all right?”
He smiles up at her. “Like I’d say no?”
“I dunno…”
“Never. Never ever gonna say no to you.”
He makes it sound like prayer. Like some sort of talisman he keeps, with her arms around his neck acting like its chain. Her belly swoops as though she’s airborne – and maybe that’s how he feels, flying that bomber, like that giddy feeling that’s taking root inside of her now. There’s a vow in it she doesn’t want to listen to for too long. If heard like that, she might believe more than she should.
She nuzzles his cheek. Kisses him again, long and slow and wanting. “Want me to stay like this?” she checks, to his insistent nods that make her laugh out loud. “Can ya reach the draw–”
“I’m just here to grab my”– interrupts another voice to her right, so suddenly that Darlene almost squeaks out offense –“well, fuck me.”
Benny is the first to recover, and does so rather admirably. “Grab what?” he asks, peering at the doorway. “Didn’t think you were coming back this morning.”
“Yeah,” says Lottie, judgment coloring every inch of her now that Darlene looks at her, “that much is clear.” Her girlfriend, blonde hair raked back into a haphazard ponytail, leans against the doorframe. Eyes them almost the same way she did last night, though right now her face is marred by a slight frown that deepens the longer she stands there. “Jesus,” she whistles sharply, in a way that makes Benny lean against the headboard and close his eyes a moment, “you’re still going at it?”
Darlene frowns back. “Just enjoying my mornin’,” she retorts archly, making sure her tone stings. You could’ve enjoyed the same if you really wanted to. God knows you do it all the time when I’m gone. “Did ya leave somethin’ here?”
“Yeah.” Lottie’s voice is sharp in turn. Her words almost a snap as she reaches out to grab her flight jacket off the chair by the door. She doesn’t linger. “Looks like I left my senses.”
The door slams shut behind her. Too loud. Too quick.
“Hey,” murmurs Benny, fingers brushing her cheek now that Darlene’s gone and flinched at the sound, “everything all right?”
It’s hard to look at him. Hard to see the concern in his eyes – really, are you okay? – that now translates into how gentle he makes his touch. Darlene bites her lip. Takes a breath that’s a little too noisy as she feels her eyes begin to sting. Good going, Lot, you’re fucking me up here.
“She’s just spittin’ mad,” she breathes as she wraps her own fingers around that stubborn curly strand of hair on his forehead, “that I didn’t kick ya out yet.” She braves a smile. Meets his eyes. “Ain’t your problem, all right? Between me and her.”
It’s hard not to like him even better than she already does when he gives her a tiny nod. “All right.” Just like that. No pushing. No getting involved. Just his acceptance, and the only question she’d expect him to ask. “Do you want me to go, now?”
Darlene raises an eyebrow. “Do ya think you’re in a position to leave, Ben?” She laughs as he actually glances down at his lap, then back up at her. Catches how his eyes darken with the motion. How his arm tightens around her waist. “That’s what I thought.” She can’t help but sound a little bit smug at that. “Weren’t we in the middle of somethin’ here?”
“You were starting something,” he corrects idly, pulling her even closer. His own laugh is almost breathless. “Again.”
“Oh was I? What was I star– ohhhh.” She sighs as his free hand moves down between her legs and his fingers find that sweet, sweet spot that almost makes her eyes roll back in pleasure. “I remember now,” she breathes, shifting in his lap a moment until he’s hard and wanting beneath her in a way that’s got him muffling a curse against her skin, “I was starting somethin’ that ends with you inside of me, wasn’t I?”
“Oh were you,” he smiles back, eyes warm and bright as his fingers already slip inside her and leave her gasping. “Like this? Or…”
“Goddamnit, Benny,” she admonishes, to his answering chuckles, “you know I want your cock.” She’s brazen about that the way she’s been with him since last night – he ain’t a shy fella, after all – and he’s smiling up at her about it all the same. Smiling up at her with an almost impish delight as his fingers curve up inside her like they did when his mouth was on her. “Come on,” she almost wheedles, unable to keep a slight whine out of her voice, “lemme take it nice and slow, Ben…”
“Nice and slow for the morning, huh?”
Darlene nods, smiling, as his next exhale ghosts over her lips before he kisses her. Nice and slow, so I can remember being with someone who wanted me first.
She doesn’t say that part out loud.
#masters of the air#bernard demarco#oc: darlene#oc: lottie#benny x darlene#lottie x darlene x benny#mota oc#basilonefic
29 notes
·
View notes
Text
Better Off - Bernard DeMarco x OFC - Chapter 1
Masterlist |-| Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6
AO3
Summary: When Bernard DeMarco is forced to find ATS Commander Susie Lamb, his expectations are tainted by her less-than-savoury reputation. However, the more time he spends with her, the more he begins to suspect she's been misjudged by the people of Thorpe Abbotts.
Warnings: Language, drinking, smoking
Word Count: 4.5k
Tags: @xxluckystrike @latibvles @footprintsinthesxnd
Bernard DeMarco stared down at the steadily cooling coffee in his hand, the warmth of the mug heating his palms, which had been chilled to the bone even through his gloves on the long-haul flight over from Greenland. Almost ten hours in the sky, staring out at nothing but rolling clouds and the faint grey line of the horizon. Even with Cleven chatting at his side and Meatball nudging the back of his seat, it had been difficult to stay alert for so long, and now he found himself in dear want of a rest.
Instead, he was here, sitting around a long table in the mess hall when he could've been in bed, listening to his friends' chatter, his dog resting its snout against his knee. Benny knew how to pretend he wasn't feeling the wear - to put on a grin and laugh along to everyone's jokes as if he were still awake and raring to go, when the thing he wanted more than anything was a chance to shed the uniform he'd been wearing all day and just sit down somewhere quiet.
The door to the mess hall swung open and the Colonel wandered in, peering with a frown at the piece of paper in his hand, a typed list he couldn't make out stamped upon it. "Colonel," Egan nodded, tilting an imaginary cap in greeting. Hugh stopped at the end of the table, surveying the faces of the group that had assembled.
"Afternoon fellas. I got a supply list I need running up to the ATS - just some stuff we're gonna need brought in for the next run. Uh... DeMarco? D'you mind?"
DeMarco's brow furrowed in confusion, glancing around at the others to check if anyone else had noticed how unorthodox this order was. "Sir? All due respect, but ain't that a job for a runner or somethin'?"
"Usually, but... I'd like someone a little more experienced."
At the opposite end of the table, a playful grin had begun making its way across his face. "Oh-ho, he's gotta talk to Commander Lamb, don't he?"
Bucky had begun to smirk to himself, lifting a hand over his mouth to make it less obvious. Benny figured he must've looked somewhere between dumbstruck and panicked by the way Hugh had begun to speak in a soothing, gentle tone. "Look, the Commander's just a little difficult. We send the runners up there, she gets 'em all turned around, and they don't get the information we need. I'm lookin' for a firm hand, is all. Besides, you can give the dog a walk."
He was thoroughly unsatisfied with this justification for making him walk halfway across the airfield, but it was becoming clearer by the minute that it wasn't something he could get out of. With a disgruntled sigh, he rose to his feet, chair scraping loudly against the floor as he grabbed Meatball's leash, the dog already at his heels, tail wagging and ready to go, far more chipper than his owner. DeMarco grabbed the list from the Colonel without so much as glancing at its contents, heading towards the mess hall doors to the sound of Biddick's chuckling.
The sun hung high in the sky, a beacon in a sea of blue, the weather so blissfully perfect that it actually seemed to worsen his mood more than anything. He was usually a fun guy, everyone thought so, but today he was just too goddamn tired. Meatball was having the time of his life, drinking from every puddle and pissing against every tree they passed, the constant stopping only succeeding in doubling the time their journey took. By the time he reached the ATS garages, DeMarco was confident he never wanted to see Hugh's stupid list - or whoever this Commander Lamb was - ever again.
The garages were a bustle of activity, trucks and motorbikes pulling in and out all over the place, Air Force and ATS alike hauling crates of all kinds of ammunition, food supplies, and whatever else the air base could possibly require. Standing in the doorway of the nearest building was a woman - easy on the eyes, orange-haired, staring down at a clipboard in her hand as she ticked off whatever the men nearby were carrying inside.
"Uh- ma'am?" He called, tugging on Meatball's lead as they approached. The woman seemed to see the dog before she did DeMarco, a pleasant smile creasing her cheeks as she looked up at him.
"Yes... Captain?" She asked, peering at the insignia on his jacket for confirmation.
"I gotta supply list from Colonel Hugh to pass onto a Commander Lamb?"
The woman raised a brow as if to say 'You sure about that?', but she turned nevertheless, yelling over her shoulder into the huge supply hangar behind her. "Susie!"
Peering past the woman, DeMarco watched as a figure approached from inside, initially obscured by the shadow of a huge supply truck, but when she stepped into the light it gave him pause. Her hair fell unpinned halfway down her back, brown waves shining red in the sunlight. She wore olive slacks instead of the standard-issue uniform skirt, and a leather bomber jacket with 'S. Lamb' printed on the breast like the ones he'd seen some of the pilots wear. She hardly looked like she was supposed to be on duty at all, but she marched up to them all the same, taking the clipboard from the other woman and looking it over.
"Charlotte, go help Fisher - she's got some stuff to go to Sergeant Bevan on the hardstand," She ordered, and the woman scurried away inside. Once the two of them were alone, Susie stared back at him for a long moment, brow raised as she waited for him to speak. "...So?"
Suddenly DeMarco was beginning to understand what the others had meant. Her accent was harsh, less refined than the other English workers he'd met since his arrival, and she didn't exactly look pleased to see him. Frankly, she had a face that suggested she was never glad to see anyone.
"Got a list from Colonel Hugh - requests for ammo supplies," He stated, holding it up to her. "We need-"
"Ah-" Lamb raised a hand to stop him. "If you're gonna talk, you've gotta walk with me."
She began to walk before he had a chance to respond. "Well alright then," He muttered under his breath, beginning to trail after her, tugging at Meatball's lead so that he would follow along. "Five hundred AN-M30s, four hundred AN-M64s, six hundred USAAF five hundred pound-ers..." DeMarco rattled off Hugh's list, squinting to read the paper as it shook in his hand against the breeze. Ahead of him, Susie was peering into the backs of the row of trucks that had just arrived, scribbling away on her clipboard. He wasn't entirely sure she was listening.
He stopped talking just before they reached the end of the row, having to tug Meatball along as he got distracted by the crates of food being brought in. Lamb ticked something off in her notes before turning on her heel to look at him. "That everything?"
"Yeah, that's it," Benny confirmed, sliding the list back into his pocket. She raised her brow again in that inquisitive way she did. It was already getting annoying.
"I'm not gonna remember all that, am I? Gimme the list," She huffed, holding out her hand.
"Then why did you have me read it all out?" He grumbled, fishing out the wad of paper and handing it over.
"I didn't ask you to do that. I just said if you were gonna, you'd have to follow me," Thinking it over, he realised she was right. He hated that. "But, yunno. Most of the runners Hugh sends up here would've already shat themselves and run off by now, so good job."
DeMarco bristled, squaring his shoulders. "I'm not a runner, I'm a Captain."
Susie was looking down at the list, but she peered back up at him with a wonky grin. "Jesus, what'd you do to get stuck with the 'Susie Lamb punishment', eh? Did your dog take a shit on the Colonel's desk or summat?"
He frowned, her self-awareness almost alarming. She clearly knew what the others said about her, but she simply didn't care - in all honesty, there was something he admired in that.
"I think the Colonel just wanted someone who wouldn't get scared off," He confessed.
She snorted. "Maybe he should try hiring runners who don't piss themselves whenever a woman frowns at 'em." For a moment the shell almost seemed cracked, a not-so-scary Susie peeking out. But then a loud clatter sounded across the yard, and DeMarco turned to see one of the deliverymen scrounging to pick up the machine gun rounds that had scattered across the tarmac when he accidentally dropped a crate. "Oi!" Susie yelled, beginning to storm off, raising a hand in what could've either been a wave goodbye or a dismission
Meatball tried to nip at her heels as she marched towards the deliveryman, tugging on his leash with such force that DeMarco was almost forced to follow, but he managed to stand his ground. He couldn't make out what Susie was saying at such a distance, but by the way the colour drained from the poor man's face, it was nothing good. Letting out a chuckle, he counted himself lucky that he had yet to meet Commander Lamb at her most formidable.
After all, she did have access to all the bombs.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
The sun had barely risen by the time the pilots stepped onto the runway, the airfield bursting into a bustle of activity as the last planes were prepped, and the flight crews readied themselves to board. DeMarco had managed a decent half night's sleep, and was at least in a better mood than he had been the previous afternoon. Although, the powdered eggs they'd served up for breakfast hadn't helped.
There were a dozen things to worry about concerning the flight ahead, but in all honesty he was mainly concerned about what he was going to do with Meatball. It seemed not to have occurred to him when he first adopted the stray that he couldn't bring him on missions, and the prospect of leaving him all alone damn near broke his heart.
His train of thought was severed by the roar of engines as a supply truck rolled up to 'Our Baby' just along the runway to deliver the last of the spare machine gun rounds. A familiar flicker of red caught the light as Susie Lamb craned her head out of the driver's seat window, barking to one of the ground crewmen as he scurried to unload the cargo. An idea sparked in DeMarco's mind, and he could already see Curt shooting him a confounded look as he bounded up to the vehicle.
Susie was just reaching for a lighter, an unlit cigarette poised between her lips, as he reached her window, plastering on the best friendly smile that he could muster. She hadn't heard him approach over the hum of the engine, and the shock of the face suddenly at her side made the cigarette tumble from her mouth, falling into the footwell. "Jesus fucking Christ," She hissed, voice thick with irritation. "Can I help you?"
"I don't have anyone to watch Meatball while I'm up," Benny explained, and she peered out of the window at the dog, who was staring slack-jawed up at her, wagging its tail. "I was wondering if I could trouble you for the favour?"
There was that eyebrow again. She had a way of drawing out those painful silences that just made him want to squirm, immediately regretting whatever he'd asked. Perhaps Hugh's runners had had a point.
"You want me to babysit your dog?"
Suddenly the suggestion felt ridiculous. "Well, I just-"
"Eh, fuck it," Sticking her foot out, Susie kicked open the passenger side door. "Chuck him in."
The moment DeMarco moved to unclip Meatball's leash, it was as if he knew exactly where he was going, claws skittering against the tarmac as he bounded around to the other side of the truck, leaping unprompted up into the seat, tail wagging wildly. It was almost offensive, how pleased the mutt was to be rid of him. "Alright, alright," Benny muttered, closing the door behind him. "Thanks for this. Seriously."
"It's nothing - he already seems to prefer me, anyway."
Shaking his head, he cleared his throat- loudly. "Name's DeMarco, by the way. Bernard DeMarco."
Susie was already tugging at the handbrake, the engine roaring to life once more. "Yeah, I know," She nodded, an almost-smile tugging at her lips, pulling away before he could respond as Meatball's head lolled happily out of the window.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
The supply depot was almost empty by the time the pilots returned, the rumble of DeMarco's freshly commandeered jeep splitting the silence as he rolled to a stop, looking around for some sign of his dog. "Susie?" He called as he clambered out, peering into each hangar as he passed, unable to locate any signs of life. The ATS women seemed to have all taken the afternoon - that or they were all busy delivering supplies to the mechanics.
"Susie?"
A familiar bark pierced the air, and he followed it around to the back of one of the buildings. A bench ran along the back wall of the hangar, basking in the afternoon sunlight, and there she sat, a book open in her lap, halfway through eating a sandwich. Her hair was pulled back messily into a bun, stray auburn curls sticking out at random angles, and Meatball lay stretched out at her feet, occasionally jumping up to chase after a tiny yellow butterfly.
"Ah. You're alive then," Susie stated plainly, squinting in the sun as she looked up at him.
DeMarco shrugged. "Just about."
"That's good. Didn't know what I was gonna do with him otherwise," She gestured to Meatball using her sandwich, chuckling as the dog snapped his jaws at a passing insect. "... You ok?"
"Do I not look it?" He took at seat at the opposite end of the bench, a deliberate gap left between them. Benny didn't exactly want to hang around; he was just tired, and he appreciated the opportunity to sit on something that wasn't moving.
"There's a cut on your cheek," She pointed out, raising a hand to cover her mouth as she talked around her food. Raising a hand to his face, DeMarco's fingertips came away red. He hadn't even noticed the pain.
"Occupational hazard... did you feed him?"
"Gave him a sandwich."
"You can't feed a dog a sandwich!" DeMarco exclaimed, and Susie shrugged, nonchalant in a way that annoyed him.
"Well, you're the one who made it my problem! Didn't even ask if I knew what to feed the damn thing!"
"Well, I just assumed you were a human being and had some inclination that dogs might eat dog food. Forgive me."
Susie shot him a glare. "Having a dog isn't a prerequisite to being alive, mate. D'you think I've got dog food sitting around? I have an actual job that I have to do, it gets in the way a bit."
He turned sideways on the bench to look at her properly. "Y'know, I thought people didn't like you because you're mean. But it's really because you don't give a shit about anything except yourself, isn't it?"
The moment the words left his mouth, he regretted them. He wasn't that kind of person - he didn't say those kinds of things to people. He didn't want Susie to think that he did. But she seemed entirely unphased, taking another bite of her sandwich with so little a reaction he almost doubted ever having spoken at all. She chewed and swallowed painfully slowly, and he began to realise she was prolonging the silence on purpose, giving him time to stew on his own words. DeMarco felt his face begin to heat up.
"You can take the dog back now," She said after a while, turning to the next page of her book.
"Susie, I'm sorry," He blurted. She looked at him then, and for a moment he swore he saw surprise in her expression. "I shouldn't've said that."
"Heard worse. Though, most people actually mean it," Susie shrugged. "And I do give a shit about other people. It just... takes a minute."
Nodding slowly, he let out a whistle, and Meatball bounded over, tail wagging as he dutifully allowed him to reattach his leash. DeMarco wasn't quite sure what to say. He didn't know this woman, not yet, but he was getting the distinct impression that the others had been wrong about her. As he stood up, running a hand across his chin, he took a deep breath. "Hey. Me and the fellas are gonna get drinks tonight, to celebrate the mission. You should come."
The corners of her lips turned up in a smirk. "Yeah. I mean, I was going anyway - but I'll be there."
"Alright," Benny nodded, smiling involuntarily. "I'll buy you a beer. Call it payment - for the babysitting."
"Well if I'm getting paid I definitely won't feed him sandwiches next time," Susie joked. He let out a laugh, suddenly realising that, yes. There would be a next time.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
If there was one thing Thorpe Abbotts would have benefitted from, it was an additional pub. The village had not been prepared for the sudden influx of pilots and crew and the hundreds of other workers that came with them, so a night in the pub had become a sure recipe for claustrophobia and havoc. Meatball was curled up at DeMarco's feet, half sitting on him for lack of space beneath the table. A pile of empty pint glasses was growing in the centre of the table, laughter growing louder with each passing drink as they grew steadily more intoxicated - drunk on victory more than they were alcohol.
Susie stood at the bar with a small group of ATS girls, beer in hand, listening and chuckling along to their stories of workplace mishaps and awkward encounters with the men they had to work with. Even if every single other person at Thorpe Abbotts thought poorly of her, the women under Susie's command never would. She was a protector - a personification of a rougher class of women, utterly unafraid to throw a punch where the others shied away. In Norfolk, it was uncommon to find an English girl working in a job like this who hadn't been raised in privilege - middle-class families in country cottages, who had never had reason to find an occupation until war broke out. None of them quite understood why Susie Lamb had come all this way, her Manchester accent sticking out like a sore thumb - but they were glad she had.
"-And then I told him, 'Mate, if you're not gone in five minutes, I'll kick your balls so far up your throat you won't need breakfast'," Susie explained, the women around her erupting into laughter as she wiped a thin line of beer foam away from her top lip.
Charlotte chuckled, the red-haired Subaltern finishing off a half-pint of cider as she reached into her pocket for a cigarette. "The pool table's freed up - we should get in there before the Yanks get a chance."
Susie nodded in firm agreement, and was about to follow the other women towards the far corner of the pub when a sudden mass at her feet almost tripped her, beer sloshing over the rim of her glass and landing on Meatball's head as he let out a bewildered yelp. Letting out a tsk as she sucked her teeth, she crouched down beside the dog, grabbing for a napkin as she dabbed at his fur. "You've gotta watch yourself, lad," She scolded gently, soft voice barely audible in the pub's din. "Can't go wonderin', your dad'll worry."
Tilting his damp head up at her, Meatball let out a whine, his tail beginning to wag as he seemed to recognise her face. "Hey, Meatball, quit runnin' off," A familiar voice called across the crowd. Giving the dog an affectionate scratch below its chin, Susie rose to her feet, lifting a hand to beckon DeMarco over. "Oh, hey. Well, at least he found a familiar face in this damn place," He huffed.
"Well, he did get covered in beer for his trouble, not sure he'll bother again," She shrugged, batting Meatball away as he tried to stick his nose up under the hem of her skirt.
With a sudden, sinking feeling, DeMarco realised he'd forgotten to buy her the drink he'd promised. Rummaging in his pockets, he handed over a few coins to cover the cost. It wasn't the same. "Sorry, I, uh... I forgot you were coming," He admitted, red tinting his cheeks in shame.
"No worries - I noticed you were far too busy losing at darts," Susie teased, shoving the money into her pocket.
"Hey, now, I wouldn't call it losing," Shaking his head, he moved closer to where she stood at the bar, stepping out of the way of the crowds.
"Really? Failing, then?"
DeMarco batted a hand in dismissal, a smile curling his lips. "Oh, well, if you're so good at darts-"
"I am actually," Susie shrugged.
"Of course you are. You're gonna say you Brits are all good at playing darts - just like you're all good at making tea and... I dunno, sheep herding?"
She let out a laugh, teeth peeking through her grin. He liked her smile. There was a rosy pink in her cheeks, and he couldn't tell if it was the warmth of the pub or the alcohol or something else, but it suited her.
Susie nodded as she took another sip of her drink. "Aw, you got me. You've found my secret hobby - I do love to herd sheep. Yes."
Benny smiled warmly, leaning one elbow up against the bar as he watched her. A curl had slipped loose from behind her ear, and in the warm light of the room, it shone a flaming red. From across the room, a few of the ATS women let out a cheer, the orange-haired woman he'd met at the supply depot grinning as she passed her pool cue to the next woman. He cleared his throat. "Oh, by the way, could I talk to, uh - Charlotte? Is it?"
Her smile vanished. A wave of panic filled him. Susie began to nod bitterly, gnawing at the inside of her lip. There was a look in her eye, like she'd been waiting for the other shoe to drop, and it finally had.
"Are you kidding me? ...Yeah. Yunno what? Fuck you, DeMarco."
“What? I don’t-”
“No, no. I get it. You thought being nice to me would get you an in with the pretty ATS girls - you’re not the first one who’s tried it,” Tilting her head, she upturned the rest of her beer, swallowing it in a single gulp. “Charlotte’s engaged, by the way. I’m sure you can try your luck somewhere else.”
"Susie, I didn't-"
"Hey Benny!" Egan's voice rang out from over by the dartboard. "C'mon, it's your turn!"
"Yeah, Benny, it's your turn," Susie repeated, her words laced with venom, practically spitting his own name back at him. "Although, two losses in one night might be a bit rough, eh?"
His mouth gaped open and shut for a moment like a dying fish, and before he could find a word to say she had scoffed, rolling her eyes as she pushed away from the bar, diving into the crowd as she fought to put distance between them. Meatball had almost tried to follow her before the wall of people separated them, and he let out a defeated whimper, returning to his owner, tail between his legs.
Charlotte was about to bend over to take her next shot when she felt a hand pressed against her shoulder. Turning her head, she saw Susie, cheeks flushed, a frown furrowing her brow. "Can I bum a cig? I'm heading off," She whispered.
"Yeah, sure," The subaltern nodded, holding out the crumpled box she carried with her. "You ok?"
"All good. Thanks," She nodded, propping a cigarette between her lips as she made for the door. The night air hit her face with such chilling force that it almost hurt, a cloud forming as she sighed, plucking a lighter from her pocket, the cigarette embers releasing a comforting heat.
The walk back to barracks was a long one, a seemingly endless row of identical Nissen huts stretching out before her by the time Susie reached the airfield, exhaling one puff of smoke after another. There was always too much stewing in her mind - a solid wall of white noise, her thoughts stirring together like ingredients to the most repugnant soup ever concocted. It was difficult to even pluck out a single emotion amongst all that hubbub.
I hate you DeMarco, but I like your dog, but you're just like everyone else, except if you're not, except if I was wrong.
The lights in her hut turned on with a click, the room filling itself with a yellow glow, the faint hum of lightbulbs audible in the silence. Everyone else was out - dress uniforms taken off their hangers, the smell of freshly applied perfume still lingering in the air. Susie had stomped her cigarette out on the damp grass outside, the smell of smoke permeating her clothes. She raised her hands to cover her face, agonised groan muffled by the sweaty skin of her palms as she collapsed backwards onto her bed, the springs creaking noisily.
Staring at the ceiling didn't solve anything - not the anger in her chest, nor the lingering feeling in her gut that she'd gotten something badly wrong. Letting her head loll to the side, Susie stared at the picture frame propped up on her nightstand, the photo's corners battered and bent beneath the layer of glass that encased it. Her mother, rounded and warm, a tiny, swaddled baby in her arms. Her father, sturdy and dependable, holding a spindly, blond-headed toddler against his hip. And a row of six little children, flashing the same gap-toothed smiles, all dressed in their nicest clothes, which never quite seemed to fit properly.
She could see her own face - a tiny, chubby, three-year-old face that wasn't really her own anymore, curls erupting like a lion's mane around her head. They were all squinting in the sun, lined up outside the only house she'd ever called her own. She could feel their eyes on her - her own most of all. Reaching out, Susie caught the top of the frame with her finger, flipping it over, out of sight, as if covering their faces would somehow make her feel less judged.
"Oh, piss off, you lot."
#masters of the air#bernard demarco#masters of the air oc#masters of the air fic#mota oc#bernard demarco x oc#oc: susie#fic | better off
67 notes
·
View notes
Text
Better Off - Bernard DeMarco x OFC - Chapter 2
Masterlist | Chapter 1 |-| Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6
AO3
Summary: During a party at the officers' club, DeMarco gets the chance to smooth things over with Susie, and she shows her true colours when defending one of her friends
Warnings: Language, smoking, harassment, misogyny, violence
Word Count: 3.6k
Tags: @xxluckystrike @latibvles @footprintsinthesxnd @mads-weasley @joyfulbookreviewmarvelspy
Susie jolted awake to the sudden bang of a door swinging shut, squinting in the unbearable brightness of the light which she assumed to be morning. "Susie!" Charlotte's voice hit her ears, and she folded her arms tightly over her head to block everything out, inhaling the smell of cigarette smoke. That was strange.
"What?" She groaned.
"You fell asleep in your uniform. Get up."
Blinking slowly, Susie looked down at herself, and sure enough, she was dressed head-to-toe in her dress greens, her shoes still on her feet, one leg dangling off the side of her mattress as she lay on top of the crumpled blankets. "...Oh shit. Is it morning?"
One of the other ATS girls let out a bark of laughter, and Charlotte shook her head, a smile curling her lip. "No. We just got in from the pub, it's been... what, three hours since you left?"
"God, no wonder I feel like shit."
"You look like it too. Are you sure you're alright? Not like you to call it a night after only one pint."
Susie's hand fell to her pocket, and she felt the cool metal of the money DeMarco had given her against her fingertips. She nodded weakly. "Yeah. No, I'm just tired."
Charlotte raised a brow discerningly, sitting down on the edge of Susie's bed. "Right. Get up, get out of that uniform, and tell me what's wrong. I'll iron your stuff tomorrow, I have to do mine anyway."
Her brow was furrowed in confusion but she obliged nonetheless, rising to her feet as she began to peel away her uniform, the inhabitants of their hut far too familiar with one another to be embarrassed about any state of undress. "What, you want to... listen to me talk about my feelings?"
"Yes, Susie. You know - like an actual human."
"Sounds terrible-"
"Susie!"
"Right, yeah, ok. Well... I think I'm frustrated."
Charlotte's mouth hung slightly agape, as if watching a baby giraffe learn to walk for the first time. "... you think?"
"No, no. I am," She nodded firmly. "... Yeah. There was a bloke I thought might've been my friend but it turned out he was pissin' me about."
"What a shit."
"...Yeah." Susie agreed, a distinct air of uncertainty lacing her voice. Charlotte stared at her like she was encountering alien life for the first time. The cold night air stung her bare skin as she hurried to pull on some pyjamas, uniform laid out as neatly as she could upon the bed. Even inside the Nissen huts, it was never fully warm - on particularly nasty nights, the women would pass around thick, wool socks so that everyone could double up on layers, the thin army-issue blankets doing little to keep them insulated. "Can I go back to sleep now?"
"Y'know, I don't think you're mean, Suze," Charlotte pointed out as she gathered the crumpled clothes. "Just... socially incompetent."
"Noted," Susie nodded, collapsing face-first onto the bed, the spring mattress shrieking its objection as she bounced up and down a few times below slowly settling to a halt. In her mind, it didn't matter why people didn't like her - they just did, and she wasn't very interested in changing herself to avoid it. Everyone had always liked her sisters growing up, and it mostly seemed to mean that they never got left alone. But Susie liked being left alone.
Or at least, she managed to convince herself that she did.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
The sun had long since set, a warm glow and the echo of brass music echoing from within the officers' club, a steady hum of conversation carrying on the breeze. Standing out in the darkness, back pressed against the wall, Susie pulled her cigarette away from her lips, a huge cloud of smoke erupting before her. She and Charlotte sported matching lights, the small, burning embers flickering orange as they puffed away in silence. Charlotte smoked about a dozen a day, but she refused to do it inside, repulsed by both the lingering smell of her own smoke and the thought of men watching her do it. It always seemed hypocritical to Susie, but nevertheless, she accompanied her, waiting patiently until they were both done.
"Freddy's back in town on Wednesday," Charlotte stated, breaking the silence that hung between them. She had been engaged to the RAF pilot for over a year, but there had never been time or money enough to arrange the lavish wedding they both so desperately wanted. Susie had only met the man once or twice, but he seemed a good bloke to her, albeit excessively chipper. She never quite trusted optimists.
"Oh, give him my best. I've got a pick-up run to fucking Peterborough on that day - apparently, they've got a shortage of vehicles, so I've gotta go all the way to them. Bloody waste of a day, really," She complained, lightly kicking one of the old empty beer bottles on the ground and sending it spinning across the tarmac.
"You should get the truck checked before you go - you'd hate to break down somewhere. I can call Bevan or something, she'll give it a look."
"Nah. I haven't been having any problems, I won't waste her time. She's got enough on her plate."
One of their bunkmates, a young woman named Maeve, tore open the door to the club, the music splitting the air. Her hat sat lop-sided on her head, cropped blonde hair erupting in frizz from the sweat that beaded on her forehead. "Are you gonna come in or what? I've already danced with three Yanks, how long does it take to smoke one fag?"
"Alright, Jesus," Susie rolled her eyes, twisting her heel as she stomped hers out. The sudden noise was jarring as they headed inside, and it took her eyes a moment to adjust to the light after spending so much time outside. She couldn't quite remember what the party was even for, but the Americans didn't strike her as a group in need of much of a reason for one.
The women from her hut were all either crowded at one end of the bar or dancing with some of the men that filled the room, and Susie immediately made a beeline for the former, utterly uninterested in a bit of dull conversation or awkward flirting with a man she'd undoubtedly never speak to again. Her sister Beatrice often complained she had an un-romantic view of the world - she preferred the term 'realist'.
She had barely had time to take a sip of her first drink before she felt a tug at her trouser leg. Peering down, she met a familiar pair of dark eyes, Meatball's tongue lolling out of his mouth as he stared up at her, tail thumping against Maeve's leg as it wagged incessantly. The women were delighted by his sudden appearance, crouching down to scratch beneath his chin and rub under his belly, the dog revelling in the attention. But Meatball's presence meant one thing.
"Susie?"
Susie stood up straight, wiping a line of beer foam away from her lip as she found herself face-to-face with DeMarco, a stern frown creasing her expression. She'd managed to successfully avoid him for nearly a week, but with her back pressed up against the bar there was no escape.
She never dressed like she was supposed to be where she was. It was something Benny liked about her. Her hair fell uncurled down her back, her tie hanging loose around her neck, the top button of her shirt undone. Hand planted firmly on her hip, she appeared even more irritated by his presence than she had the first time they'd met.
"Look, can we-" He paused, an idea slowly surfacing. "... Will you dance with me?"
Maeve and Charlotte were both staring, expressions prompting her forward. DeMarco's friends were huddled nearby, clearly watching the scene, close enough to hear every word.
He's backed you into a corner. He's forcing you to answer. If you say no, he's made sure you're the one who'll look like an asshole.
What a dick.
"Fine." Teeth clenched, a bitter sweetness lacing her voice, she seized his arm, marching him towards the dancefloor and leaving the other women to fawn and coo over Meatball.
He stared down at the hand she had on his sleeve, frowning at the stiffness of her grip. Her shoulders were visibly tense, and he could feel the reluctance in every step she took. "... You look nice," He pointed out, flashing a smile.
Susie paused in the centre of the floor, taking his hand with about as much enthusiasm as if she were at a funeral. "Right. Sure."
The music had picked up, more than a dozen couples filling the room, dancing merrily. DeMarco liked this song. He'd danced to it countless times, with far more cheerful, willing partners. He could feel the warmth of her skin as he put a hand on her waist, and with a start realised that she was actually rather good at this. Staring down at the smooth movement of her feet, he almost forgot what he had come to say.
Clearing his throat slightly, Benny met her eye. “Susie, look. I know I don’t know you very well-”
“That is correct," She nodded firmly, and he fought the urge to scoff.
“Can you let me finish?! Jesus. I know I don’t know you very well - but - I can tell you’re not going to admit you were wrong. So I’m gonna do it for you. Susie, you were wrong. I was not trying to use you to get close to your friends - one of Charlotte’s friends had a date with one of my guys tonight, and I was asked to pass on a message that he had to cancel. That's why I needed to talk to her, you were just so-...” His mouth opened and shut as he tried to find the word, hand releasing hers for a moment to flail wildly in the air. “-You!"
Her gaze had begun to soften, and for a moment he felt a pit of guilt burrow in his stomach. "…But I’m sorry that’s happened to you before. Some guys can be real jerks.”
“Oh, really, thank you for the warning,” Susie said, her voice dripping with sarcasm. DeMarco frowned flatly, and she cleared her throat. “Right. Yeah… Ok.”
"It usually helps when you let people finish their sentences," He shrugged, and she tilted her head to the side, eyes narrowing. When he slipped his hand back into hers, she was noticeably less tense.
"Well, I didn't know what you were gonna say."
"Exactly, Suze. That's what the rest of the sentence was for," DeMarco pointed out, unable to restrain a chuckle, flashing a boyish, lopsided grin. She felt her cheeks heat up, and let out a snort of laughter herself, her stubbornness ridiculous in hindsight. After a moment, Susie couldn't help but laugh - a real, melodious laugh, erupting from deep within her throat, eyes squeezed shut as her head tilted forward, a single auburn curl slipping over her shoulder to hang in her face.
He paused, the shuffling of his feet slowing, falling out of time with the music. She seemed all hard lines and rough edges, far too much so to ever produce such a wonderful sound. It was the kind of laugh that made a person feel lighter just for hearing it, and DeMarco hadn't realised quite how much he'd been staring until Bucky's teasing grin caught his eye from across the room, and he snapped out of it before Susie could notice.
The song reached its end, and her steps slowed to a halt, prying her hands away from his. "Right, you interrupted me before I could finish my drink, so I'm gonna go find it," She nodded determinedly, Meatball wiggling his way through the crowd to nip at her heels as she walked, his tail wagging back and forth wildly. Accepting her departure, Benny drifted back over to his friends, accepting a drink as it was passed to him.
"Breaking that shell, huh?" Bucky asked, that same pleased smirk creasing his cheeks.
His eyes narrowed slightly, shaking his head as he took a sip of his drink. "Don't believe everything ya hear, John."
Susie pried her shoulders through the press of bodies that had gathered around the bar, hands raised as she side-stepped between a few officers, watching keenly for her half-finished beer. She spotted Maeve, stood dutifully with a glass in each hand, and realised with a smile that she'd been keeping an eye on it for her. A pilot she didn't recognise was stood beside Maeve at the bar, talking her ear off, and by the uneasy expression on her face, she wasn't exactly enjoying it.
"Thanks, love," Forcing a smile, she took her drink back, purposely shouldering in between the pair, cutting off the pilot mid-sentence. He let out a frustrated grunt, but Susie didn't offer him a second glance, placing a gentle, reassuring hand on Maeve's arm. The newest member of her crew, the girl had been freshly nineteen when she arrived at Thorpe Abbotts only a few months ago. She was bubbly, blunt, energetic, and something about her seemed familiar to Susie, something that kept her tethered at her side. "I was just talking to Charlotte-" She lied, deliberately refusing to address the third member of their party. "-and we were talking about going down to the pub instead, find some better beer."
The pilot cleared his throat, speaking up. Something about his smooth accent rubbed Susie the wrong way. "Excuse me? Maeve, we should get on the dancefloor before the next song starts."
Shaking her head, Susie wedged herself even more firmly between the two, shouldering Maeve behind her. "No, she's not gonna be doing that."
"I wasn't talking to you."
"Well, now you are."
The air itself had grown tense around them, drawing the stares of others just trying to enjoy their evening. Further down the bar, she noticed DeMarco and his friends watching with furrowed brows, sporting identical frowns as they slowly put down their beers in anticipation. She felt Maeve's fingers brush against her own behind her back, searching for her hand.
The pilot was growing more and more irritated by the second. "Listen, we're all just here to have a good time," He said tensely. "It's one dance, it's not gonna hurt anyone."
Maeve's hand squeezed hers, a wordless way of saying 'Yes it will'.
"I think we've established that's not happening, Yank. Now why don't you fuck off and bother someone else, before this becomes a problem."
He scoffed, clearly doubting Susie's ability to make this altercation any sort of problem for him. Over his shoulder, she noticed DeMarco making his way through the crowd towards them, frown darkening his entire face. "There an issue here?" He asked, voice sterner than she'd ever heard it.
"Yeah, DeMarco - why don't you come over here and put a muzzle on your bitch, huh?"
The moment the words left the man's mouth, DeMarco was lunging forward, Blakeley's hands seizing his shoulders before he could cause any real damage. A self-satisfied smirk curled the pilot's lips, but in the moment DeMarco had dove at him, he had failed to notice Susie, upturning her beer and pouring every last drop down her throat in a single gulp. By the time his head turned back towards the two women, her fist was already clenched and pulled back, and an almighty crack echoed through the officers' club as her knuckles collided with his jaw. Staggering backwards, his side slammed into the bar, undoubtedly leaving some nasty bruises as he tumbled backwards, landing flat on his ass on the polished wood floor.
A stunned silence had descended upon the room, every eye locked onto the scene, a few snickers rising from the crowd as the pilot gawped up at her, eyes wide and gormless. "C'mon," Susie uttered, taking advantage of the sudden stillness to worm her way through the crowd, tugging Maeve along by the hand, the girl staring slack-jawed at the scene as they passed.
Susie hadn't realised how stifling the officers' club was until they breached the doorway, stepping out into the cold night air, no light except for a single streetlamp, which flickered and buzzed intermittently. Her knuckles throbbed painfully, shoulder reeling from the sudden swing, but the pain seemed washed away the moment Maeve let out a laugh - a shrill, hysteric giggle, hands clamped tightly over her mouth to muffle the sound, eyes wide in shock.
"Holy shit, Susie!" She cackled, and soon Susie had begun to grin too, their expressions painted in sheer disbelief at the scene that had just occurred. "That was fucking cool! Quick - let's go back in there and kick 'im before he can get up."
"No, no!" Susie chuckled, grabbing Maeve's wrist to stop her from marching straight back inside again. "We're in enough trouble as it is, let's not, eh? Save it for next time we see him," She winked, making the younger girl giggle.
Suddenly Maeve gasped, a hand raised to her scalp. "Oh shit, I left my hat inside."
The sound of footsteps just inside the doorway caught their attention, and out hurried DeMarco, Major Egan tailing close behind, Maeve's ATS cap in hand. "You guys ok? You hurt?" Benny called, brow creased in concern.
"Oh, we are so great," Maeve laughed, accepting her hat with many grateful thanks. "I mean did you see that? One hit - bam! - down!" Susie nodded along, beginning to chuckle, her cheeks burning a bright red.
"Yeah, it'll be even more impressive if I manage to keep my job," She huffed, shoving her hands in her pockets.
"Well, I dunno about you, Benny, but I sure didn't see anything," Egan shrugged.
"Not a thing," DeMarco concurred, grinning. She met his gaze, and for a moment they both struggled not to burst into laughter.
"Right, well I'm not nearly drunk enough to go home yet," Maeve declared, glancing around at the group to gauge their reactions. "Pub? Pub anyone?"
"Not for me," Susie shook her head. "Even if everyone denies what just happened, I'm already on second chances. I'm gonna get some sleep before I have to deal with it tomorrow."
"I'll go," Egan nodded. "Keep an eye on the kid."
"Thank you," She smiled earnestly, taking Maeve's cap and tucking it beneath her arm. They'd all told the girl not to wear it out, but she'd insisted, and it was becoming burdensome. John and Maeve began making their way towards the village, their chatter muffled the further away they got. Turning on her heel, Susie began to return to her hut, before the sudden sound of approaching footsteps caught her attention.
DeMarco was walking beside her, hands in his pockets. "Walk you back?"
"And abandon your dog? Shame on you."
He shrugged. "Meatball's been all over Buck, he'll be fine. That dog's a goddamn traitor."
She chuckled. "He's going through the rebellious teenager phase - wants anyone except his dad."
"No one told me parenthood would be this hard, y'know," Benny joked, a flash of teeth peeking through his lopsided smile. "Your hand feelin' ok?"
Susie lifted the hand she'd used to punch the pilot, a twinge of pain making her wince slightly as she flexed her knuckles. DeMarco reached out to gently hold it, peering down at the bruising already blooming across the back of her palm. "It was a damn good swing, I'll give you that," He admitted, and she let out a chuckle.
Neither spoke for a moment, until he broke the silence once more. "Hey, what'd you mean when you said you're 'already on second chances'?"
"Ah," Susie nodded. "Well, that's where the reputation comes from. A while ago, before you Yanks got here, I got in an argument with an RAF officer - headbutted him so hard I broke his nose. I nearly got fired, but now everyone who's been around long enough knows about it, they think I've got a screw loose or summat."
"No shit - are you serious?"
"As the plague."
DeMarco let out a long, low whistle. "Y'know, I just assumed it was 'cause you're..."
"A grumpy old bitch?"
"Yeah, that," He agreed, letting out a guffaw as she punched him in the shoulder. "Hey! You said it, not me!"
"Prick," Susie smirked, shaking her head. The officers' club wasn't far from the ATS huts, and it wasn't long before they reached her door. Pulling Maeve's hat out from under her arm, she placed it atop her head, jokingly tipping it to him in goodbye as she fumbled for her keys. "Well, if I still have a job tomorrow I'll see you around."
"You will," DeMarco nodded. "And hey, if they try to fire you, I'll tell 'em you're essential for dog-sitting purposes."
"Oh yeah, my main calling in life," She shook her head, smiling as the lock clicked and she swung the door open. "G'night DeMarco."
"Y'know, you're allowed to call me Benny."
Her expression contorted in a grimace, clearly not a fan of the nickname. "I think I'm good."
"Jesus Christ," He muttered. "Go to bed, Susie, just get outta my sight."
With one last laugh, she slipped inside, vanishing as the door swung shut behind her, leaving him alone in the darkness. Smirking to himself, he shoved his hands into his pockets, beginning the long walk back to his bunk.
#masters of the air#masters of the air oc#bernard demarco#bernard demarco x oc#mota oc#masters of the air fic#mota fic#fic | better off#oc: susie#john egan
51 notes
·
View notes
Text
Better Off - Bernard DeMarco x OFC - Chapter 5
Masterlist | Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 |-| Chapter 6
AO3
Summary: A nearby air raid forces Susie to confront the past
Warnings: Drinking, alcohol, death/description of dead body, angst again yayyyy
Word Count: 4.1k
Tags: @xxluckystrike @latibvles @footprintsinthesxnd @mads-weasley @joyfulbookreviewmarvelspy
The band was in full swing, the sound of Egan's terrible singing almost drowned out by the overlapping din of music and conversation that filled the officers' club, the flight crews toasting another successful mission. Susie couldn't recall what the mission had been about - she wasn't even sure anyone had told her in the first place. She'd gotten used to taking Meatball without question and going about her day - what the pilots did never affected her, save for the faint sense of anxiety that had begun to permeate her during the hours they were away. It was unnerving.
"Oh, you have got to be shitting me," Maeve huffed, eliciting a proud laugh from Charlotte as she forked over another fistful of the peanuts they'd acquired from the bar to act as poker chips.
"Call it a punishment for being so young and sprightly," Charlotte shrugged, a smug grin curling her lip as she took her share. They had acquired a table in the back corner of the club, far from the dancing but comfortably close to the alcohol, Charlotte's huge engagement ring and Susie's resting-bitch-face a foolproof deterrent to protect them from any unwanted attention.
"She's just jealous, Maeve - her freedom's running out, and she's taking it out on us," Susie smirked, reaching for the bottle of wine in the middle of the table to refill their glasses. It was a recurring joke among the women - that Charlotte's engagement had only been dragged out as far as it had because she secretly dreaded being 'tied down', dreaded losing her individuality and becoming one of those stereotypical housewives, like the girls Susie had never gotten along with growing up. It was all in jest. Her sisters were married, and most were decently happy. But it had never been a future Susie had been able to picture for herself, and maybe that was why she felt the need to poke fun.
"Ha-ha," Charlotte drawled sarcastically, and Maeve let out another sigh of despair as she turned over another card. "You'll be the only ones showing up to the wedding alone with that attitude - two old spinsters in the back."
The sound of whimpering distracted the group from their petty bickering as Meatball padded over, resting his head dramatically in Susie's lap, ear twitching against her thigh. As she reached for a couple of the peanut-poker-chips, tossing them into the dog's waiting mouth, the other two let out cries of annoyance, and Maeve hunched over the table, beginning to try and count how many remained.
"Ladies," From behind her, DeMarco approached, drink in hand as he surveyed the state of their table - peanuts scattered all over the place, interspersed with an almost-empty bottle of wine and several glasses, their playing cards tattered and stained. The game was a mess, entirely indecipherable to anyone except the three of them.
"Your dog's eating our poker chips," Charlotte stated dryly.
"Susie's fault!" Maeve added, reaching over to scratch behind Meatball's ear.
"Oh, I'm sure," He nodded, smirking faintly as he lifted his glass to his lips. His other hand rested on the back of Susie's chair, fingers occasionally brushing against her back when she moved.
Susie stared down at her hand of cards. Her gaze had not shifted to look at him since the moment he arrived. "Thought you usually dance at these things. Why don't you go ask... Gwen, or someone. She'd probably say yes."
"I don't wanna dance with Gwen," Benny shrugged. "I came over here to see if you'd dance with me."
Maeve's brow raised, shooting Susie a pointed look, but she didn't notice, playing her turn. "Can't. Busy."
He peered over her shoulder at the cards in her hand. She was losing. Badly, in fact. "... I can see that."
Charlotte stared across at him, noticing the way his brow furrowed, frown deepening slightly as he noticed Susie's hand. "DeMarco has a terrible poker face."
"Oh, dammit!" Susie huffed, turning sideways in her chair to whack him across the arm with her cards. With a stubborn frown, she tossed her cards down onto the table, and Maeve let out a sigh of relief at the game's sudden ending. "Enjoy your peanuts, Charlotte. I hope your wedding sucks."
Standing up from her seat, she came face to face with DeMarco, who appeared slightly appalled at her last remark. "Jesus, sore loser much?"
"Wouldn't have lost if you could keep a straight face."
"I don't think anything could've saved you there, sweetheart," He admitted as she reached for her wine, pouring the last of the red liquid down her throat. It clearly wasn't her first glass - the slight flush in her cheeks could attest to that - but she was holding it well, her aggression no more irrational than usual.
"So?" DeMarco prodded.
"So... what."
He put his empty glass down on the nearest table, holding out his hand for her to dance. Susie hesitated for a moment before letting out a scoff, rolling her eyes as she took his hand in hers, letting him lead her towards the dancefloor.
"You know I hate dancing," She pointed out somewhat bitterly.
"You hate most things. And you're a nice dancer."
"God, I don't like you."
"See, that’s just not true," DeMarco grinned. "Hurtful. But not true."
Susie couldn't stop herself from smiling, looking down at her feet as they moved in time with the music. "There she is," She could hear the smirk in his voice and tilted her head back up to face him, biting her lip to stop a chuckle as she refused to meet his eye. He was staring. She could feel it, resisting the urge to squirm.
"Stop it," She shook her head, pushing against the palm that held hers.
"Stop what?"
"Staring."
That boyish grin never wiped itself from his expression as he tilted his head sideways to get a better look at her. Susie couldn't reciprocate his gaze, not when he looked at her like that, turning away as a nervous chuckle escaped her throat. DeMarco felt her grip on his hand slip, and was about to speak again when a sudden interruption sounded.
"Come on everybody! Bike race in the mess hall! Who's in?"
The very moment the invitation was issued, the crowds began to disperse, couples fleeing the dance floor in a dash to the door, their ranks thinning by the second. Susie pulled away, hands dropping to her sides as she took a step back. "That sounds like your cue, DeMarco."
His hand was still raised where it had been when she'd held it, and as she turned away to find her friends, he let out a long sigh. "...Damn it all."
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
She found Charlotte and Maeve halfway along the path to the mess hall, a new bottle of wine in Charlotte's hand as they passed it between themselves, sipping straight from the neck. Susie stepped in seamlessly, announcing her arrival by tugging it from Maeve's grip, the tart liquid running smoothly down her throat.
"Thought you were off with your pilot," Charlotte teased, stealing the bottle as soon as she was done.
"He's racing. I'm babysitting again," She raised Meatball's leash, and Maeve let out a slight gasp of delight as she noticed the dog trailing along beside them, tail wagging in satisfaction.
DeMarco dragged his bike into position beneath the mess hall lights, shouldering for space among the crowd of pilots, pressed together so tightly he barely had room to pedal. Buck and Bucky had pushed their way to the front, exchanging grins with him as they passed, and all around the edges of the room spectators pressed themselves up against the wall, waiting anxiously for the race to begin.
His gaze searched the crowds distractedly, not quite attuned to the announcer's instructions as he searched for Susie among them. When he spotted her, he couldn't help but let out a laugh, drawing the confused stares of the men beside him. She was stood in the far corner with her friends, cradling Meatball in her arms like a giant baby so that he wouldn't get underfoot and trip any of the cyclists in all of the excitement. Her head was turned away from him, talking to Charlotte, but every now and then one of the other women would raise the wine bottle they were sharing up to her lips, a red droplet running down her chin where it missed.
Maeve must have told a joke, for Susie suddenly began to laugh, nose scrunched, eyes screwed tightly shut. The sight made him smile, and the sudden bang! of the starting pistol startled him, pushing off with a clumsy start and almost knocking over the man beside him as the race began.
Her expression contorted into momentary horror as DeMarco seemed to almost crash before even crossing the starting line, but he quickly found his footing, and her friends let out cheers of encouragement as the men zipped past, navigating the twists and turns with reckless abandon. Meatball let out a howl, mimicking the whooping of the crowd, and she laughed, the wine beginning to go to her head.
All three of them had begun to go red in the face, everything seemingly far funnier than it had been an hour ago. And as Cleven and Egan screwed it up on their final corner, their bikes taking a tumble, knocking down the cyclists behind them in turn, it suddenly seemed one of the funniest things they'd ever seen, tears brewing in Susie's eyes as she let out a cackle of laughter.
DeMarco had just managed to avoid the crash, wheeling to a stop and a long, sobering siren split the air. The energy in the room didn't seem to dissipate for a moment, realisation about what was happening encroaching slowly, but the sound had ripped Susie out of her somewhat-drunken haze instantly, a sudden nausea bubbling in her stomach.
Her gaze darted wildly across the room, waiting for the rest of them to notice, to get up and move. It wasn't until Charlotte shot her an unnerved glance that she realised her breathing had quickened, coming sharp and ragged, panic clearly visible in her expression.
"It's ok, we're good," She assured her, a hand on her arm as she put Meatball down, his claws skittering against the linoleum. "Let's go, yeah?"
Susie nodded firmly, making a beeline for the door just as the situation seemed to become apparent to the rest of the room, the cyclists collecting their bikes and calmly departing for the air raid shelters. Leaving the warmth of the mess hall and stepping out into the cool night air seemed to make it easier to breathe, panic beginning to subside as she took in their surroundings - the squat Nissen huts, the rolling countryside in the distance.
This wasn't the city. This wasn't home. No one was out to get her here.
But then she reached the top of the stairs to the shelter. Staring down at the dark doorway, she couldn't take that next step, couldn't descend below ground level to wait it out.
"You take Meatball and go down," Susie turned to Maeve, pressing his leash into her hand. "I'll come in a minute."
"Okay," Her friend nodded, looking up at her with concern as she took the dog down the steps, disappearing into the shelter with the others. People flooded past as she pushed against the tide, pulling away from the crowd and stepping back into the grass.
The sky lit up with dozens of colours, explosions of flame and flak smoke like blots of watercolour against the clouds. The hum of engines and the rattle of anti-aircraft guns were far from unfamiliar sounds to Susie's ears as she sat down on the lawn, pressing her hands into the grass, tethering herself to the knowledge that it was different here - that they weren't the target.
She'd been awoken by these sirens so many times before, listening to the rustle of bedsheets beside her as Ellie scrambled awake, shaking her shoulders until she got up. Susie couldn't even remember why Ellie hadn't been home the night they'd killed her. All she remembered was sitting in the shelter with her mother, and the blinding daylight as they reemerged the next morning.
"Hey," A voice broke her train of thought, tugging her gaze from the planes that circled above like moths to a flame. The woman standing above her was dressed in a WAAF uniform, frizzy brown hair falling to her shoulders, an unlit cigarette between her lips. She recognised her, but she couldn't quite pinpoint who she was.
"Hi," Susie nodded, brow furrowing slightly as the woman sat down beside her. She stared at her for a long moment, watching the way flickers of orange light flashed across her face as the fighting continued above.
"... You're the mechanic, right?"
The woman smiled, holding out a hand to her. "Frankie."
She accepted, shaking it gingerly. "Susie."
Frankie nodded, and Susie accepted a cigarette as she held the box out to her. "Not many people 'round here with an accent like yours."
"Manchester."
"...Ah," She let out a long sigh, clearly piecing things together immediately. "I got friends in Coventry."
"Everything's a shitshow," Susie huffed, lighting her cigarette, and Frankie let out a low hum of agreement, leaning back on her elbows.
"We're okay out here, though."
"My sister... Got a sister in London. One of the plotters. She'll be all over this."
"My friend George takes their telegrams."
They sat in silence for a long moment, and Susie suddenly realised she was still carrying the half-empty bottle of wine, too consumed by panic at the mess hall to have bothered putting it down.
"... You want some?" She offered, holding it out to Frankie.
"Oh, thanks," She smiled, tipping it by the neck and taking a long sip. Susie couldn't stomach the idea of drinking anymore. She didn't reach for it back, and Frankie didn't pass it.
Sucking in a long, tight breath, Susie lay back, feeling the damp grass against her scalp. 'My sister...' She'd almost told her. A complete, utter stranger, and she'd almost let it slip. She almost told everyone these days. Ellie's body had been dragged out from the rubble, pale and battered and limp, but it hadn't been her. Not truly. Her body was an empty vessel - whatever had truly been her had slipped away the moment her head caved in. It seemed as if every room she entered now, she brought with her a silent cry of ‘Have you seen my sister?’, a quiet search for her soul in the eyes of others.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
It lasted just less than an hour. As soon as the planes had arrived, they were gone again, the sky falling flat and black, the buzzing silenced. Frankie had said something to her before she left, but Susie hadn't been listening. When she looked up, the mechanic was gone. So was the wine.
Her watch had just ticked past midnight by the time she sat up, smoothing down her damp hair with one hand as she rose to her feet. Something bubbled within her, something caught in her throat that made her feel all at once about to vomit and about to weep. She took a deep breath, watching as people began to clamber out of the shelter across the lawn. DeMarco was with them, a part of the dispersing crowd of spectators, and even through the darkness, he caught her gaze, a frown creasing his brow. They drifted towards each other as they walked, meeting halfway.
"Where were you?" He asked. "You were supposed to be in the shelter."
"So were you," She huffed. He could tell something was bothering her. She reached up to scratch her nose every other second, an incessant, phantom itch that she couldn't conquer. "D'you have a phone?"
"... Are you ok?"
"Fine. Just need to call someone."
DeMarco frowned, watching her expression keenly. "There's one in the officers' club. I'll walk you over."
She was surprised the place was still open, the door hanging slightly ajar, left open as its inhabitants had hurried to find shelter. The bulbs buzzed as he flicked the lights on, showing her over to the bar where a phone waited on its hook. He hesitated for a moment, watching her hand twitch as she tried to remember the number, the dial rattling as she turned it. Susie looked up at him, and he took it as his cue to leave, the door closing behind him with a click as she was left alone, glancing around at the half-finished drinks and still-smoking cigarette butts that littered the room as she waited for the other person to pick up.
An irritated groan sounded on the other end of the line, and she could hear the rustling of sheets as she waited to speak.
"Hello? What is it?" Beatrice huffed, sleep lining her voice.
"Hey. It's me."
"Susie? What do you want?"
Her sister always had such a way with pleasantries. "Just watched a raid over... Norwich, I think. I was wondering if... if you knew anything?"
"Wasn't my shift," She replied curtly. Susie could picture her now, half sitting up in bed, rollers in her hair as she leant against the headboard, scowling.
"Oh, right," She paused, mentally scrambling for something to say before Beatrice hung up. "Is your husband there?"
"No. Staying in his flat, probably with his girlfriend."
"... Ah."
It was quiet for a moment, before she heard her sister let out an irritated huff. "What do you actually want, Suze? I know you don't care about bloody Norwich."
Beatrice's accent had changed since she'd left Manchester - she'd married rich, and she'd made sure she had something to show for it. But whenever she got annoyed, that familiar northern drawl seeped back through.
"I was just... I dunno, I needed to talk to someone."
"You were thinking about Ellie, weren't you?" Beatrice asked. The silence stretched out between them, and it was all the answer she needed, letting out a sigh. "You've gotta get unstuck, Suze. You can't live like this forever."
"I'm not stuck," She replied indignantly, brow furrowed.
"Yes. You are. None of us ever saw you cry after it happened - you never felt it like the rest of us, you never let yourself move on."
Susie bristled, suddenly defensive. "I'm just not like you - I was always braver than the rest of you."
"No, that's the opposite of what you are," Beatrice thundered. "You're a coward, Susie - you don't ever move on with your life because to do that you've gotta feel something other than fucking angry. You were there when they found Ellie and I know the rest of us weren't, I know it's different. But stop making that everyone else's fucking problem and just deal with it."
"She was my-"
"She was my little sister too! But so are you! I'm sick of listening to you make excuses for why you just wallow in it - it's been years since I've seen you not miserable, and it's your own fault. You know I love you. And I'm only being like this because everyone else in our family is much too bloody nice. But get over it, Susie."
She'd been gnawing at the inside of her lip the entire time she'd been listening to Beatrice speak. With a hiss, Susie realised she'd broken the skin, a droplet of blood pooling in her mouth, coating her tongue with a sour, metallic flavour.
She wanted to snap - a thousand cruel words poised on her tongue, a hundred things to hurl back at Beatrice. But not one would have made her point any less true. Tears were forming in her eyes, blotting out her vision until she could barely see an inch in front of her face. Susie squeezed her eyes tightly shut, feeling them roll down her cheeks, leaving warm, wet trails in their wake.
"Susie?" Beatrice's voice came tentatively, and she realised it had been a few minutes since she'd uttered a sound.
"Goodnight, Beatrice," Her voice came firm, hanging up before her sister could reply.
Suddenly the silence in the officers' club was too much to bear. She felt as if she were about to explode, the hot sting of tears in her eyes, the sudden, painfully breathlessness in her throat all too foreign, too frightening. Susie opened her mouth to suck in a breath, a hoarse, choking sound ripping through her, the air getting stuck before it could reach her lungs. She felt her expression contort in anguish, and the first, involuntary sob broke free. Once the floodgates opened, they couldn't close, tears streaming down her cheeks as she fought to catch a breath, fumbling blindly as she crossed the room to the door, desperate to be anywhere else.
The door to the officer's club swung open easily, and Susie stormed out into the night, chest heaving up and down over and over as she sobbed, hands trembling. She turned her head, caught off guard just long enough for a sob to catch in her throat, coming out as a hiccup as she spotted DeMarco, throwing up her hands in frustration. He'd been leaning up against the wall as she came out. He had waited for her.
"Susie? Hey," DeMarco hurried forward, expression twisted in worry. He reached for her hands, thumbs rubbing against the backs of her palms. His voice was so incredibly gentle, more than she'd ever heard it. "Hey, c'mon."
Susie's lip trembled, and she let out a croak as she fought to catch her breath, heart beating too fast for her body. He sighed, letting go of her hands to wrap his arms around her, pulling her forwards against his chest. It was too close. For a split second, she wanted to push him away, to peel his touch away from her body.
But it was so warm here. Her head turned to the side, her ear pressed up against his ribcage, she could hear his heartbeat, soft and steady. In the cage of his arms, for the first time in a long time, she felt tethered to something. She had balled her hands into fists. Slowly, they unfurled, and she wrapped her arms around him, hands resting against his spine.
"My sister didn't die. She was killed." She whispered, voice muffled against his jacket, just loud enough to hear. "They bombed her factory. I was there when they pulled her out."
Everything suddenly came into alarming clarity. DeMarco nodded, releasing a long sigh. He brought a hand up to the back of her head, her curls snaking around his fingertips as he gently stroked her hair.
"You don't have to tell me if you don't want to," He uttered, tilting his head downwards, his nose pressed against her forehead.
"I want to. You waited."
"I thought you looked a little spaced out earlier. After the raid. So that was because-?"
"Yeah."
"Jesus. I'm sorry, Suze."
"It was a few years ago, now."
"That doesn't make it okay, though. Does it?"
She looked up at him then. In the darkness, her eyes looked like bottomless pools, the brown turned black in the starlight.
"... No. It doesn't."
A few strands of hair had stuck to her cheek where her tears had begun to dry. He lifted a hand to brush them away, the warmth of her skin against his fingertip so wonderfully soft. Susie sniffed, and it was as if some trace had broken, her arms tugging away from him, the squeeze against his back suddenly gone as she stepped back. Exhaustion tugged down at her face, dark circles forming beneath her eyes. She looked so helpless it almost broke his heart.
"God," She sighed, running a hand across her brow. "I don't-... I don't know, I don't think I wanna go back to my hut. Too many questions."
"Ok," DeMarco nodded. "That's ok. I know a place. C'mon."
Susie had no idea where he would take her. Perhaps if she'd been in any better state she would've refused. But she wasn't. She was tired, and he was kind. Her mind was clouded over, thoughts barely half-formed.
But she trusted him. She'd gotten him out of the middle of nowhere when their truck broke, and now he was getting her out when she did.
"... Alright."
#masters of the air#masters of the air fic#masters of the air oc#bernard demarco#bernard demarco x oc#oc: susie#fic | better off#oc: frankie#mota oc#mota fic#benny demarco
37 notes
·
View notes
Text
Better Off - Bernard DeMarco x OFC - Chapter 3
Masterlist | Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 |-| Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6
AO3
Summary: When a routine pick-up goes awry, Susie and DeMarco find themselves stranded, and grow closer as they try to find their way back to Thorpe Abbotts
Warnings: Language, Susie and DeMarco being deeply stupid for an entire chapter
Word Count: 3.9k
Tags: @xxluckystrike @latibvles @footprintsinthesxnd @mads-weasley @joyfulbookreviewmarvelspy
Susie had woken up in a bitterly foul mood, dragging herself out of bed with the sunrise and rubbing sleep from her eyes as she tiptoed across the hut, careful not to wake any of her bunkmates. She loathed pick-up runs - loathed the tedium of long drives through the countryside, with nothing to look at but grass, cows, and more grass. They were good for nothing except a bit of reprieve from the bustle of Thorpe Abbotts, although she doubted anyone on the airfield would miss her in her absence.
Still scraping her hair back into a ponytail as she left the hut, Susie rummaged in her pocket for her keys, swearing under her breath as they fell to the floor with a jangle. No one ever got up this early without a planned mission, so the place was practically deserted, the air still and silent save for the crunch of footsteps against the gravel path. There was a half-eaten packet of crackers in her pocket, and she fished them out one by one as she went, crumbs leaving her throat unbearably dry as she marched towards the ATS garages, searching for her truck.
She had just reached the door, fumbling for her car key, when a familiar bark split the air, echoing through the warehouse. Turning, brow raised, Susie came face to face with Meatball, standing in the open garage door, tail wagging as he stared up at her. Her mouth hung slightly open, frowning in confusion at the dog's sudden appearance. The sound of footsteps drew closer, but she found her questions remained unanswered even as DeMarco came into view. He'd left his uniform jacket behind, shirt only half tucked into his trousers, Meatball's leash wrapped around his hand as he approached. "Ah. Morning."
"Why are you here?" Susie asked, gaze flitting between the man and his dog, still frowning.
"Meatball needed to take a shit. S'pose I could ask you the same question."
"I work here."
"Right. Guess I can't."
She snorted, unlocking the door to her truck and pushing herself up on the step, one foot dangling in mid-air. "Supply run. Gotta go grab some food rations, but it'll take a while so I thought I'd get an early start."
DeMarco nodded, the words leaving his mouth before he had a chance to think them. "I'll come."
Susie stared at him like he'd stepped in something foul, or perhaps said something rude about her mother. "You what?"
He hadn't quite known he was going to offer until he did, but the more he considered it, it didn't seem a terrible idea. "Yeah, I'll come along, keep you company."
"Are you sure? It'll be dead boring - unless you're a big fan of powdered eggs and powdered milk, and... other powder, probably."
Benny smiled - something about her dry cynicism always seemed to make him laugh. "How did you know? Powder's my favourite food group."
Susie chuckled. "Oh, shut up," She chuckled, climbing into the driver's seat and reaching across to open the passenger side door. Taking this as an open invitation, he clambered up, Meatball jumping into his lap the moment he sat down. "I'm not taking the dog on a four-hour round trip."
Now it was his turn to look offended. "Four hours is nothin', he'll be fine. When I was a kid, we used to take road trips that lasted-"
"I don't care about you Americans and your weird obsession with driving. I'm dropping Meatball off when we pass your hut, or you're officially uninvited."
"Fine," Benny grumbled, leaning back in his seat as the engine started with a roar, the truck pulling out of the garage and into the morning daylight. "You had breakfast?"
Silently digging into her pocket, Susie pulled out the half-eaten pack of crackers, dry crumbs spilling over the dashboard as she put them down. She was watching the road, but could feel the look of judgement contorting DeMarco's expression, staring at the side of her face with a horrified frown. "Good God, woman."
They pulled up outside his Nissen hut on the way out of the airbase, and the moment Cleven came into view Meatball had scrambled out of the truck, bounding up to the Major, tail wagging wildly. Susie struggled to suppress a smile as DeMarco let out a sigh of defeat, begrudged at his dog's ability to seemingly love everyone more than him. "You sure that's even still your dog?" She teased, laughing as he reached across to give her a light shove to the shoulder.
He insisted she let him stop to collect some 'real food', refusing to subsist on the dry, crumbled mess of crackers she had retrieved from her pocket, a thoroughly pathetic excuse for a meal. She waited impatiently for his return, fingers drumming off-beat against the steering wheel, rolling her eyes as he came back into view, grinning triumphantly and waving a paper bag in the air. DeMarco grunted as he clambered back into the truck, presenting the sandwiches and thermos full of coffee he'd managed to acquire from the Red Cross volunteers. "They gave me the good stuff, 'cause I didn't tell 'em it was for you."
"Piss off."
They drove for a while without speaking, sitting in silence save for the quiet murmur of the radio, which dropped in and out the more remote their journey became. Benny ate his sandwich contently, watching the countryside roll past outside the window. "Y'know, I'm glad you didn't get fired."
Susie resisted a smirk. The pilot she had punched in the officers' club a few nights prior had attempted to get her into serious trouble, and he would've done so, too. But when his claim was investigated, the men who had been present mysteriously and unanimously had managed to miss the entire event. Not a single person had come forward in support of the pilot's story, and she couldn't help but suspect that someone had spread the word to keep quiet.
"Oh, yeah, it was... quite the coincidence. I didn't know you Yanks were so unobservant."
"It's a real problem - always just missing when assholes get what's comin' to 'em," He nodded in agreement, and Susie let out a huff of laughter, smiling as she shook her head.
DeMarco chuckled, holding a sandwich up to her face every now and then so that she could eat without taking her hands off the wheel. It was his first time leaving Thorpe Abbotts since arriving in England, and never before had he gotten to see the British countryside in the flesh. At one point he had rolled the window down, quickly earning a scold from Susie as farm air and the smell of animal dung filled the truck, leaving them both coughing in disgust. It had taken almost twenty minutes for the stench to dissipate, most of which she spent muttering to herself and threatening to abandon him on the roadside, but her anger seemed to subside when he gave her a biscuit to eat.
A folded-up map of East Anglia had been tucked under his seat, and the rustle of crumpled paper split the silence as Benny retrieved it, brow furrowed as he attempted to survey the lay of the land. "Where are we again?"
Susie tore her gaze from the road for a moment, pointing to one of the thin, winding country lanes. "Somewhere along there."
He nodded, considering this for a moment. "...Are you sure this is the best route?"
"Do you want to drive the bloody truck? Shut up."
"Jesus, alright."
DeMarco looked around, growing steadily more disenchanted by the English countryside with every identical field they passed, beginning more and more to understand Susie's lack of enthusiasm for the journey. The radio signal had begun to stutter so incessantly that they'd turned it off altogether, and he stewed in silence until something interesting finally caught his eye.
Stuck to the rearview mirror was a photo, edges worn soft from being handled too much. It clearly wasn't an old photograph, but it was in a terrible state, battered and creased so much that it was almost hard to decipher what it was of. But upon close inspection, DeMarco found it raised a dozen questions. Susie was there, hair cropped just below her ears, beaming so brightly that she was clearly halfway through a hearty laugh. The image couldn't have been more than a few years old, but she looked so much younger, everything about her appearance softer to the point of being unrecognisable. Beside her was another girl he didn't recognise, clearly still a teenager, dark curls falling past her shoulders, her arms wrapped around Susie's shoulders. They had the same smile, the same eyes. The girl's side of the photo was more faded than Susie's, as if someone had rubbed their finger against it over and over.
"Who's that?" He asked gently. She almost didn't seem to hear him, glancing over for barely a second. But the moment she realised what he was pointing at, the colour seemed to drain clean from her face, her cheeks turning sickly pale. Susie's hand darted out, snatching the photo off of the mirror and tucking it swiftly in her pocket out of sight.
"No one."
DeMarco frowned, gaze softening, any humour that had once lined his voice immediately sapped away. Her jaw was clenched, fist gripping the steering wheel so hard her knuckles turned white, but she had put the photograph away with such deliberate, tender care that it wasn't hard to fill in the gaps. No one kept a photo in that way of someone alive.
He kept quiet after that, and Susie couldn't help but feel a twang of guilt tug within her. He had a right to ask - had a right to try and get to know her, although why he bothered she'd never know. Her bunkmates had all seen the photograph of her family, framed beside her bed, but no one had ever thought to ask about Ellie. No one had ever picked the tiny baby from the crowd of little smiling faces. Her photo stayed here, where no one else had ever laid eyes upon it until now.
She was her best-kept secret, and her most obvious lie.
"She's my sister." Susie uttered after almost ten minutes of arduous silence had passed. DeMarco had been staring blankly out of the window, his gaze drawn by the sound of her voice.
"Is it just you two?" He asked. She appreciated the effort taken to talk about her in the present tense - she didn't doubt that he'd figured it out already.
"Nah," She shook her head, chuckling slightly. "There's eight of us. She's the youngest - I'm number six."
Benny let out a low whistle. "Jesus. I pity your folks."
"We lived in a poor bit of Manchester, it's just like that. We get on well enough... Haven't seen 'em in a while."
He hummed, nodding along as she spoke, unsure of quite what to say. There were clearly things Susie wasn't saying, and he didn't want to push her, lest he risk making anything worse. "... D'you want another sandwich?"
"Yeah, actually," Susie nodded, and he fished another one out of the bag, dutifully holding it up to her mouth so she could eat.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
The pick-up was quick, so quick it almost didn't feel worth the trip, tins and cartons of all kinds of foodstuffs piled up in the back of Susie's truck and secured for the long return journey. They hadn't time to waste, so after a shared cup of coffee and a quick walk around the outside of the warehouse to stretch their legs, they were back on the road again. Radio reception was better here, and they managed a rather self-conscious sing-along to 'Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy' before deciding it was less embarrassing to just sit in silence.
After a while, DeMarco had taken to filling the quiet by telling Susie stories of his time in flight training, and he was only half certain that she was actually listening. Her eyes never left the road, and she only let out a light chuckle at the funny parts, as if waiting for her cue to laugh but not actually finding it amusing. "Suze, are you listening?"
"Hm?" She hummed, confirming his hypothesis.
"Wowww," Benny nodded bitterly, slowly trailing off as he noticed a strange sound, something between a groan and a rattle reverberating from the hood of the truck. "Ok, tell me you at least hear that,"
Susie's brow furrowed, concern lacing her voice. "Yeah, I'm not deaf,"
"Coulda fooled me," He shrugged. She shot him a glare. "Sorry."
The further they went, the louder the noise grew, and within minutes of its appearance, the truck had begun to splutter and slow down, a thin trail of smoke funnelling out from beneath the hood. Susie pulled to a reluctant stop, sloping sideways into the ditch along the road's side. DeMarco jumped out, more smoke billowing out as he popped the hood, and with a cry of frustration, it became alarmingly apparent that Susie couldn't get the truck to restart now that it had stopped.
"Fuck!" She yelled, the door slamming shut behind her as she clambered out, almost slipping sideways into the ditch. "Motherfucker!"
"Well, what's wrong with it?" He called to her, staring down at the truck's insides.
"I don't know! God - I should've listened to Charlotte when she told me to get Bevan to check it."
"You didn't make sure it was working before you left?!" DeMarco cried.
"It was working fine! I don't know what's happened!"
"Yeah, maybe 'cause you're not a mechanic, Susie!"
"Shut up!" She snapped, and his mouth fell shut. "Just shut up a sec, let me think."
The pair stood side by side, hands on their hips, staring in despair at the indecipherable machinery before them. Neither had any clue what to do, and it was becoming alarmingly obvious that they were stranded, nothing but farmland as far as they could see in either direction.
"Ok... Ok," Susie huffed, lowering herself to sit on the grass at the edge of the ditch. "Just... get the map, we'll figure something out."
DeMarco swiped it from under his seat, quickly sitting down beside her. They unfolded it, stretching the huge map out across their laps and staring down at the winding roads. "You know where we are?"
"We turned here, I think," She uttered, pointing out their route. "So we're somewhere along this road, probably."
"But you're not sure."
"If I'd known we'd get stuck I definitely would've paid more attention," She snarked. "S'not my bloody fault."
"It is a little."
"You're not helping!"
"No, I know, I'm sorry. I just... don't feel great about this. But I don't blame you, by the way"
Susie let out a long sigh, raking a hand through her hair to push it out of her face. "Look. If we're on this road, which I'm pretty sure we are, there's a village just over that hill," She pointed across to the opposite field, which rose at a slope, obscuring the horizon beyond it. "We'll just... start walking that way, I guess."
Scrambling to her feet, DeMarco quickly followed, still frowning in concern. "Well, what about the truck? It's got all the food in it, we can't just leave it. What if someone comes by and takes it?"
She threw up her hands. "Well, I dunno. You stay here then, you've got a gun."
"What? No, I do not have a gun."
"Jesus, what the fuck are you good for, then?!"
He could tell she was stressed, that she didn't mean what she was saying. Susie struck him as a woman who lashed out when she didn't know what to do, and this was certainly one of those times. DeMarco let the dozen sarcastic remarks bubbling within him ebb away, deciding to just let it be. He took a deep breath, letting it out in a sigh, feeling his heartbeat slow, his tone level out. "Let's just go, ok?"
"Ok," Susie frowned grimly.
The march towards her supposed village was miserable, and mud skirted their shoes as they trudged along the edges of fields, DeMarco nervously eyeing a flock of sheep as they passed. It was a beautiful day - the sun beating down on them, the sky a perfect blue - and if they hadn't been stuck here they might have been able to enjoy it. But now they were just beginning to sweat, an added discomfort atop everything else.
"Should've stayed in the city," Susie grumbled. "Can't tell what's mud and what's sheep shit out here."
"At least we didn't bring Meatball," He shrugged, and she let out a single burst of laughter, shrugging off her jacket in the heat.
"Bet you wish you'd stayed home."
"And leave you to march through sheep shit on your own? Never."
Susie turned her head to look back at him, flashing him a smile, her heel skidding in a wet patch of mud the moment she took her eyes off the path. DeMarco lunged forward, holding his arms out beneath hers before she could fall over, seizing her hands tightly in his. Her back was pressed against his chest, a lock of her hair caught on one of his shirt buttons. "God, this is the worst," They both began to chuckle, and she could feel the vibration of his chest against her spine.
Pausing a moment to disentangle themselves from one another, Susie regained her footing, muttering at the mud spatter that now ran up the back of her trousers. By the time they reached the top of the hill, the sight of the village she had promised was like a mirage in the desert, and Benny wasn't sure he'd ever been so glad to see anything.
"Oh, thank god there's a pub," She sighed, trudging limply down the hill towards the road.
"I'm not sure that's our priority right now," He pointed out.
Susie shook her head. "Nah - place like this? That's where everyone'll be."
"It's two in the afternoon."
"Yeah, exactly."
The logic didn't add up to DeMarco, but the moment they entered the pub he conceded, for there were at least ten old men scattered about the place, drinking away like it was a Friday night at the officers' club. "Y'know, I think the English scare me a little," He whispered in her ear, eliciting a snort of amusement.
"Bloody hell, love," The man behind the bar remarked, taking in Susie's appearance as she walked in. Her shoes were caked in mud, a halo of frizz rising around her hair. "You alright?"
"Rough morning. D'you have a phone?"
He nodded, showing her around to the side of the bar where a telephone was bolted to the wall. DeMarco leant up against the wall, watching on as Susie fumbled through her jacket pockets, finally producing a crumpled piece of paper with a phone number messily scribbled upon it.
"Who's number's that?"
"Uh, just... a friend. In the village. I'll send her up to the base, get them to bring a car - go get us a beer, will you?"
He wandered off, leaving her to make the call. Benny wasn't usually the type to drink this early in the day, but after their ordeal, he decided he deserved it, and was waiting with two pints by the time she returned.
"They'll be here in the next couple hours," Susie sighed, lowering herself into the seat opposite him and taking a long, grateful sip of her beer.
DeMarco nodded, his mouth widening with a yawn. "Alright. Sounds good."
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
He didn't know when he'd dozed off, nor for how long he'd been asleep. All Benny knew was that one moment he'd been drinking, and the next he was opening his eyes with a grunt, Susie suddenly missing, her seat sitting empty. A jolt of panic shot through him, heart pounding for a second as consciousness rapidly returned, gaze darting around the place for any sign of her. Being stuck out here was bad enough - being stuck without Susie was infinitely worse.
The familiar sound of laughter caught his attention, following it across to the far corner of the pub and releasing a sigh of relief. With the thud of a dart hitting the board, a cheer erupted from the small group of old men that had gathered around her, and Susie turned towards them with a self-satisfied smirk. She caught his eye across the room, flashing a genuine smile before her attention was ripped away again by the competition at hand. She hadn't been lying, that night in the pub back at Thorpe Abbotts - she really was good at darts.
"Glad you woke up," Susie sighed, returning to her seat as the others took their turns. "Would've hated to have to leave you here. Although, ultimately, a sacrifice I'm willing to make."
DeMarco grinned, shaking his head as he lightly kicked her beneath the table. She gasped mockingly, faking offence. "Rude. I'll get the lads to beat you up for that."
"'The lads'?" He raised a brow. "They're visibly pushing eighty."
"And very spry for it," She nodded, and he chuckled, taking a sip of his beer. Across the room, the group of men she had been playing with let out a collective groan of disappointment, and she grinned. "Looks like I'm still winning."
Benny raised a hand to his face, wiping away the thin trail of foam that lined his top lip. "Y'know. This hasn't actually been the worst."
"It's been pretty fucking miserable," Susie shrugged.
"Well, yeah. But you're a pretty good person to be stuck with."
She seemed slightly shell-shocked for a moment, a distinct red flush tinting her cheeks. He realised he rather liked making her blush.
Susie cleared her throat, tucking a stray curl behind her ear. "I did enjoy having an extra hand, for sandwich-eating purposes."
"Oh, of course," DeMarco nodded, smirking.
"You should really see about getting a gun though."
"I'm not-... I'm not gonna start carrying a gun around, Susie."
She shrugged. "Your loss."
He smiled, opening his mouth to speak, when a friendly face appeared in the doorway. "... Bucky?"
Susie turned in her seat, brow raised as Egan walked in, a grin creasing his cheeks. "Benny! Heard you were in need of a rescue."
"Thank God - boy, am I ready to get outta here," He huffed, noticing the way her smile flickered slightly, erring on fading.
"Well, let's get goin' - I got some folks picking up your stuff, I'll drive you back."
She rose from her seat just after he made his move, and the pair followed Egan to the jeep waiting outside. Susie quietly slid into the backseat, looking up in surprise as DeMarco climbed in after her, leaving Bucky alone up front.
"You guys look like crap, by the way," He pointed out, eyeing them in the rearview mirror. Benny leant back against the seat, feeling tiredness fill his body once again as the engine started with a roar.
"Eh. Worth it."
#masters of the air#masters of the air oc#masters of the air fic#bernard demarco#bernard demarco x oc#john egan#oc: susie#demarco x susie#fic | better off
42 notes
·
View notes
Text
Better Off - Bernard DeMarco x OFC - Chapter 4
Masterlist | Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 |-| Chapter 5 | Chapter 6
AO3
Summary: Years before Susie's arrival at Thorpe Abbotts, one fateful loss changes the course of her life forever
Warnings: Grief, death, language, ANGST, dysfunctional family idk
Word Count: 2.9k
Tags: @xxluckystrike @latibvles @footprintsinthesxnd @mads-weasley @joyfulbookreviewmarvelspy
January, 1941
The church was quiet, rows of pews worn and bare. Sunlight flooded in through the tall, narrow windows, casting blocks of light against whitewashed walls, and the low, gentle chatter of guests in the doorway did nothing to rouse Susie from her daze, huddled at the furthest end of the front row of pews, tucked into the corner as if it would make her invisible. An old bible rested on the bench beside her, tattered and yellowed, and she ran her thumb across the blunted corners of the paper, never venturing far enough to open it, the words repulsive to her.
Her mother's voice always plucked itself from a crowd, that warm, Irish lilt in stark contrast against the rough, Mancunian drawl possessed by her children, as if they belonged to the city before they did her. She didn't bother listening in to the others' conversations - didn't try to distinguish the voices of strangers from those of her blood. None of them could have had anything even remotely interesting to say to her.
The pew creaked beside her, and Susie glanced up as Beatrice took her seat, leaving a few metres of separation between the pair of them. Three years her elder, her sister dressed head-to-toe in black, gloved hands clutching at her purse, hair curling neatly below her ears, immaculately done makeup obscured by the veil that hung in front of her face. Susie looked down at her own clothes - a white button down, an old brown skirt - it wasn't right, wasn't traditional or proper, but it was what she had.
"No husband?" She asked, a hint of an edge lacing her voice. Beatrice sucked in a long breath, chest heaving with the weight of it.
"No. He's busy."
"I bet he is."
Finally turning to look at her, venom in her gaze, Beatrice opened her mouth to speak, Susie already itching to interrupt her. But both fell silent, jaws snapping shut as another figure sat down in between them, a human barrier to prevent the inevitable spat before it could form.
"Always classy, girls," Sally huffed, newborn cradled in one arm, the other elbow propped up against the back of the pew as she kept an eye on her other son.
Beatrice sighed, posture relaxing as she let go of the offensive. No one questioned Sally - the eldest sister who had lifted them in her arms the way she now did her own children, who had wiped their tears and cleaned their scraped knees when their parents had been preoccupied. So much older and wiser than the rest of them, there was a removal there, as if she could no longer quite be considered their sister, their equal.
Susie shifted in her seat, wincing slightly as a dull ache shot through her thigh. She could feel Sally's gaze fixed on her. "Susie," She spoke gently, the infant in her arms gurgling away to itself. "How long have you been sitting here?"
"Four hours."
"Jesus Christ," Beatrice muttered, staring up at the altar, unable to tear her eye from the framed photo of Ellie that beamed back at them. They'd chosen a photo of her as a child - why had they done that? That wasn't the Ellie she'd pulled from the rubble the morning after the bombs had fallen. That wasn't the Ellie shut away inside the casket. She didn't remember her that way. Anyone who did wasn't welcome here in Susie's eyes.
A clatter of books against the stone floor sounded behind them as Sally's other son knocked over a pile of Bibles, guilt flushing his cheeks a bright red as the crowd gathered by the door turned to stare. With a quick summons from his mother, he scrambled to his seat, little feet dangling over the edge of the pew, hands fidgeting restlessly. She heaved a long, heavy sigh, unable to look at the altar for more than a few seconds at a time. "At least she's with dad now."
Susie hummed. She didn’t have the heart to tell her she didn’t believe in God anymore.
They were separated irreparably now. Even today, not everyone was here. Ronnie and Patrick were still away fighting overseas, and Nancy had been noisily sobbing in the back corner since she arrived, her son sitting awkwardly in the opposite pew waiting for it all to be over. The sound of footsteps along the aisle drew Susie's gaze, and something lifted within her.
"Owen," She breathed, jumping to her feet and bounding over to meet her big brother. His eyes were bloodshot, gaze jittery and unable to meet hers - but then again, he never had liked to look her in the eye. She didn't mind it. Her hand found his arm, pressing reassuringly against the sleeve of his uniform, adorned with the emblem of the RAF Medical Services. "Come sit down, yeah?"
"Is-... Is she in the box?" He asked quietly, nervously glancing at the pallbearers.
Susie frowned, brow drawn. "No," She lied. "No, Ellie's not in there. It's just tradition - what Ma wanted."
"Ok. Yeah, ok, I'll sit," Owen nodded, and she noticed the fresh tears soaking the cuff of his sleeve from where he'd wiped them away on his way in. She offered him the seat that had once been hers, letting him press his body into the wood at the end of the bench, shying away from the crowds, shoulder hunched to avoid brushing against hers. Owen had never quite been considered normal - Ronnie used to get into trouble for beating other boys up at school in defence of his little brother - but it had only meant he never minded that Susie wasn't quite normal either. There was a solidarity in that, a shared acceptance that they weren't how the world tried to shape them.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Everyone cried during the ceremony. Everyone except Susie.
A nauseating guilt swelled within her as her brother and sisters quietly wept at her sides, and she squeezed her eyes shut as tightly as she possibly could, willing a tear to fall, manifesting some sign of the grief within. What must they have thought of her? Her cold stare overseeing it all, flinching at every prayer. It was the perfect protestant funeral, the kind only their mother could have mustered.
She couldn't have left fast enough once it was all over, Owen's gentle grip on her cardigan using her as a guide through the crowds as they wormed their way through towards the door. Their house was a mere five doors down from the church, a looming presence throughout their childhood, a lingering reminder that someone was watching. But even in her home, she wasn't spared the misery.
Susie scarcely recognised half the people at Ellie's wake - crowding the kitchen, sitting in their chairs and lingering in the stairwell. What did any of them know - truly know - about her sister? Had they even had time to know her? Nineteen was too young to die. Too young for death to have any meaning. If the bombs had to kill someone, they should've killed Susie. At least then there'd have been some semblance of military strategy to it. No one won wars by slaughtering teenagers.
There was an empty cup in her hand as she sat at the kitchen table. She couldn't remember what had been in it. Upon the stove, the kettle was boiling, splitting the din of chatter with its unrelenting squeal. She squeezed the glass so tight she worried it might shatter, knuckles turning white with the pressure. Her mother passed behind her, absent-mindedly stroking her hair, warm palm skimming against her scalp. She wanted it to stay, wanted to lean back into it, but it was gone as soon as it came. Susie pushed her chair out, the legs screeching across the floor, bumping into a man she'd never met as she stood up, shouldering her way to the door.
It was almost silent in the attic, layers of brick and wood muffling the sound of voices. Laying back on her bed, she stared up at the roofing beams, the lingering smell of Ellie's perfume permeating the bedsheets. From the day she'd been old enough to leave the crib they'd shared this bed, shunting Patrick onto the narrow one in the corner - this was the girls' space, the floral quilts a private temple where only they existed. Lying on her side of it now, it felt uneven, like the whole thing would lose balance and tip over sideways, Ellie's presence necessary to its survival. Or maybe she was just necessary for Susie's.
Dust floated on the air, catching the light that flowed in through a leak in the ceiling. Her hand rested on the other side of the bed, the vague imprint of Ellie's body still engraved into the old mattress. It needed replacing years ago, but suddenly it was invaluable. On Christmas Eve night, the night after she'd died, Susie had stayed up all through the dark, lying in the impression of her sister, terrified it would lose her outline if she just left it there. But it never did.
The house had never been so full and so empty. Her brothers were aiding the war effort, billeted all over the place. Her sisters had all gotten married - found their own homes to raise their own children. She and Ellie had stayed up here in their attic, tucked beneath the covers like little girls again.
A creak on the stairs ripped her from her trance, her mother's head peering up through the trap door.
"I didn't know you were up here."
"That's ok."
Each floorboard let out an agonised creak as she crossed them, hands folded nervously at her front. Freshly forty years old, she looked at least a decade older, heavy bags of exhaustion tugging down on her eyelids. She wore the only black dress she owned, spotted with white polka dots, a stubborn coffee stain browning the hem where she could never quite scrub it away. The bed rocked towards Ellie's side as she climbed beneath the sheets, laying down in the space she had once owned.
All at once she seemed a child, tugging the blankets up to her chin, eyes squeezed shut as if willing sleep to claim her. She turned into Susie's side, pulling in a long breath. She wondered if she could smell Ellie here too.
"Can I sleep here tonight?" She asked meekly, like a girl begging her parents after a nightmare.
Susie's head lolled to the side, brow furrowed as she looked over at her. "Yeah, sure Ma. I'll go downstairs."
"Please don't."
It was silent for a while. Then the rustling of sheets sounded as Susie turned onto her side facing away from her mother, unable to bear staring at her for too long. She scarcely knew the woman lying next to her. She could count on one hand the number of times she'd climbed the steps to read them to sleep up here. Long gone were the days when Susie wished she would, but her absence could still be read in the room - in the drawings on the walls that no one had ever been scolded for, that no one had ever tried covering up because no one ever came to see them. This was their own little world, and she wasn't sure she wanted her mother up here at all.
"I'm sorry if I was a bad Ma," She spoke, voice muffled slightly by the pillow.
Susie took a deep breath, shoulders rising and falling with it. "You tried."
If nothing else, she knew that was true. Her mother had tried. She'd made half a dozen breakfasts with a baby on one hip. She'd read every report card and double-checked their homework when she managed to understand it. She'd stifled the pain of becoming a widow to tend to the pain of a bumped head or bruised elbow.
But she'd also let them go to bed hungry. She'd lied to their schools about their birthdays so they could drop out before their time. She'd been too poor and had too many children, and Susie wasn't sure she'd ever forgive her for it.
She needed to leave this house. The prospect of sleeping alone in this bed was worse than any other fate she could imagine. Already she could feel herself sticking - if she didn't tear herself away now she never would. Could she truly face driving past the wreckage of the factories every day on her way to Ridgeway? It would take months to rebuild. Months of remembering the moment she'd see her face, blood streaking through the brick dust, eyes half open and unseeing.
"Get some sleep. I'll bring you up some tea when everyone's left," Susie muttered, peeling the sheets away from her body and climbing out of bed, rubbing her eyes with the balls of her palms.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Beatrice stood on the doorstep, a cloud of cigarette smoke wafting in front of her face as she watched a child play in the gutter outside the wash house across the yard. The four walls that encircled their court of back-to-backs had once been their entire world. She remembered it looking bigger than this. There were rumours they'd be knocking houses like these down soon - no one wanted to move into them, these dilapidated remnants of a time long passed.
The sound of feet scuffing against tile alerted her to Susie's presence, sliding into the doorway beside her, wordlessly extending her hand for a cigarette. Beatrice passed one to her, holding out a lighter, the pair exhaling puffs of smoke simultaneously.
Who were they to each other? Susie stared back at her sister and realised she didn't have any idea.
"Ellie always used to ask me what I wanted to be when I grew up," She mused, watching on as the child across the yard was hurried inside by its mother, casting them a sympathetic glance as she went.
"She asked everyone that."
"Yeah. But she asked me the most, 'cause I never had an answer."
"Do you have one now?"
"... Don't think so."
The war made dreams insignificant. Nothing was about how they wanted to live anymore, everything was about what others needed them to be.
Beatrice had long discarded her hat, its presence remembered in the halo of frizz it left behind around her scalp. "What did she want to be again?"
"It was a ballerina for a while, then a painter I think. Or a writer. Might've been both."
"Don't forget when she wanted to be a scientist."
"Of course. And a pilot."
They'd begun to smile. When it had happened, she couldn't recall. But Ellie's mind had always been so far away, so filled to burst with a million dreams and ideas and fantasies that no one had any clue what she would go on to do. In the end, she did nothing. She had wished to change the world, and she had died on the floor of a textile mill.
A man in uniform came down the alleyway into the yard, hands folded politely behind his back as he approached the house. His gaze was fixed on Beatrice, as if Susie wasn't there at all.
"Car for you, ma'am."
"Thanks," She nodded, stomping her cigarette butt out on the front step. Taking a few steps away from the house, she turned, letting out a sigh as she fumbled with her purse. "Let Mum know I've gone, yeah? And Nancy."
"You're not staying for dinner?"
For a moment a look of shock flashed across her sister's face, as if appalled she'd even ask. "No. I need to be back in London by the time William gets home."
"Why? Not like you cook or anything."
Beatrice stared at her for a moment, grip on her bag tightening. "Mind your business, Susie."
Susie flicked her cigarette into the puddle at her sister's feet, the door closing on her with a slam. As she came inside, Nancy reached the bottom of the stairs, glancing out of the window behind her.
"Beatrice left?"
"Fucking bitch," She muttered, dragging one of the chairs away from the table to sit down.
"Don't say that."
"Fine. I love it when she comes up here in her fancy car to grace us with her condescending presence and remind us all that she doesn't have to be poor anymore."
Nancy gnawed at the inside of her cheek, wordlessly refilling the kettle and placing it on the stovetop. Her eyes were still red, and Susie suspected she'd gone upstairs to cry again. She'd always been the sensitive one of the bunch.
"I'm moving out," She said, the words seeming to echo back to her in the tiny kitchen.
"... Alright." Nancy nodded, something tight in her tone, as if she'd spoken through clenched teeth. "... Where will you go?"
"I was looking at Norfolk. There's some positions open down there, I could actually get promoted."
"That's a long way."
"... Yeah, Nance."
That's the fucking point.
#masters of the air#masters of the air oc#masters of the air fic#bernard demarco#bernard demarco x oc#fic | better off#demarco x susie#oc: susie
27 notes
·
View notes
Text
Better Off is now available on AO3!
#fic | better off#masters of the air#masters of the air oc#masters of the air fic#bernard demarco#bernard demarco x oc#oc: susie
7 notes
·
View notes
Text
Susie and DeMarco
BECAUSE THEY ARE SOOOOOO. also I'm writing their fic again, so look out for that
20 notes
·
View notes
Text
Little Sunshine Fires: Chapter 2
Pairing: Benny DeMarco x OC [Marnie Cleven]
ch. before //ch. after
Synopsis: Marnie requests a transfer to the 100th Bomb Group to stay close to her boxed in, reserved pilot of a brother, Buck Cleven. It's the last thing she expects, when she starts to anticipate another man's return to safety from the skies, nearly just as much.
Warnings: historical inaccuracies + this is only based on the MOTA characters, and not the real life veterans!
Ps. the photos do not belong to me. :)
To write a love story in the middle of rapid conflict has always been complicated.
That’s just how the world works–trying to seek small bouts of happiness through torrential rains means sinking your boots deep into wet soil. But Benny is persistent, and he’s willing to climb through the muck because the reign of dawn has always been more than worth it. Daylight, for him, is a soothing balm even through the most turbulent of storms. Although, waking up to thoughts of a certain nurse tends to feel like daylight before he even pulls the curtains open.
He supposes he understands Marnie's qualms with the sun. But still, when this is all over, he’s determined to take her for a swing in his plane, and show her how beautiful the world is when you’re looking at it from the clouds. Perhaps, it may be an agenda more for him, than for her though. To fly with someone as gorgeous a soul as Marnie is as close to heaven as he will probably get, alive.
For now though, that’s thinking too far ahead. Benny realizes quite quickly that it’s near impossible to take a girl out on a date when you're dead stuck in a war.
⋆ ˚。⋆୨♡୧⋆ ˚。⋆
He ran into her once at the theater. It seems the rest of the men had the same idea, finding his co-pilot Thayer and Lieutenant Curtis Biddick there as well, no doubt in need of a reprieve after the hell of a mission they had returned from. Five forts lost, more than twenty returning men injured, their bombing scrapped, and efforts wasted. The hospital lights didn’t dim for nearly two days, and though Benny was dying to burst through the doors to see if Marnie was okay, Buck said she’d yell in his face to scamper off before he could even say hello.
“One for the dramatics?” He had asked her, falling into the empty seat by her side. She chuckled then, but it didn’t quite meet her eyes, and he could clearly see the bags that dragged them down. But by God, in the lights of the film, she still glowed like daylight against clear water. “You could say that, but Buck’s the bigger drama queen between us two.” She cracks a teasing smile. “He just knows how to hide it better, yknow?” He didn’t know if he believed her, but she swatted at his shoulder when he had expressed the thought, so he guessed he better have.
They settled comfortably into silence then. The dark room was chilly, only lit with Bette Davis dancing about in colors of gray. Sounds of the soldiers wolf whistling, and chattering, and shushing those who were too rowdy set the tension in their shoulders loose. Benny saw the way the fingers on her right hand fiddled with each other, restless against the arm rest, and he was about to do something reckless, slip his hand into the shape of hers.
But he was so rudely cut off, by the blaring red light signaling a new mission.
⋆ ˚。⋆୨♡୧⋆ ˚。⋆
He ran into her again a few days ago, while she searched for Buck in the mess hall at lunch. It was clear she was distressed, claiming she sought her brother to listen to her whine about Doc Stover’s never ending demands, and he decided there, and then, that to dissolve the weight of bricks on her back, he would whisk her away for a simple dinner (perhaps, a dinner date).
“With me? Make it a date?” She points to herself comically, and Benny lets a little smirk curve on his lips. “Yes, you. Dinner with me.” “With you?” “Yes, Christ. With me?” There was a tremble in his bones at that point, because maybe he was taking his chances too far. But, when she opened her mouth to speak–and he thought she'd throw a wrench into his resolve–she crumbled midway into laughter, eyes twinkling with mirth and a smile that made him warm.
“I’m just messin’,” she beamed, and relief fills his lungs, “I would love to have dinner with you, Benny. Tonight, at 5?” He nodded then, shrinking a little at the way Buck, who was seated a few tables away looked upon them in confusion, his utensils paused mid-air. Bucky turned around then, throwing Benny a smirk and a thumbs up before Buck smacked the back of his head. “At five. See ya, sweetheart.”
Come 1600, he was pleasantly surprised to find her knocking on his door an hour early. But as he took in her physical state, hair drooping from its messy bun, and blood stains on her white nurse uniform, he surmises that she was not there out of eagerness, and hides the wilt in his eyes when she informs him that she’ll have to cancel.
“One of the patients went into hysterics. Accidentally sliced one of my nurse’s hands in panic and left a pretty lookin’ gash. Doc Stover thinks it’d be best, that I stay for the night,” Marnie sighed, the guilt pooling in her sagged form. “I’m really sorry Benny.”
“Wait but,” he said, alarmed that she may be alone with in a hazardous situation, “will you be okay, alone? I could stay with you. That’s…it’s concerning, to say the least.”
“It’s all part of the job, I’ve been trained hard for shit like this,” she responded, letting a tired smile grace her lips. “Appreciate the thought though, but he’ll be a fine patient once he settles down.”
He nodded in understanding, but remained still at his door frame as if it’d keep her from turning away. Daylight, today, sent a trickle of sweat down his temples as if to mock the pinch of serenity he was declined of. But instead of turning away, she snatched the sun in her hands and sent heat straight through his blood and into his head when she stood on her tippy toes and planted a soft, sweet kiss on his cheeks. Her hands were gripping lightly at his shoulders, though if she were to let go, he might have been the one to topple over instead. “But I promise, I want that dinner with you.”
⋆ ˚。⋆୨♡୧⋆ ˚。⋆
If they couldn’t meet in person, he would have to continue showing his affection through his actions.
It was routine for Benny, either on a Saturday or a Sunday, whichever he wasn’t bogged down on a mission with, to head out to the local florist. Ever since he knew of Marnie's gravitation towards peonies, he’s made a point to leave a new bundle on her desk as a way to say that he’s thinking of her. It’s gotten to the point where he has made friends with Grandma Daisy who runs the shops, a cheery old lady. He kisses the back of her hand in greeting each time he comes. After Benny’s first two visits, when the bell rings of his presence, she’d dash to the back room and return immediately with a bouquet of peonies (sometimes she’ll sneak in a couple extra than what he paid for).
And he starts leaving messages for Marnie on the pink-heart shaped card Grandma Daisy slips in for free. Sometimes it’d be something romantic, like “the morning sun is my favorite time of day, but the golden glow has got nothing on the way you shine.” Other times, he’d leave questions for her to ponder, even though he never expects an answer. Just yesterday, he had snuck in another bouquet on her desk in the hospital, before the night shift nurses clocked out before the sunrise, with a question written on the card. “When I take you for dinner, what would be your choice of food?”
He’s pleasantly surprised to return to his cot, worn out on a dreary Monday after a practice mission, to find a box with his name written widely across, sitting by the door. A box of lemon-drizzled vanilla cupcakes, and a small floral card with no name, but a little note. “Honestly, corn fritters and corn dogs, but perhaps that is not classy of me at all.”
He pays no mind to the gloomy clouds, because he feels like he’s got the wonders of the world sitting right here in his hands.
⋆ ˚。⋆୨♡୧⋆ ˚。⋆
Crumple all fate in his grip; he will build a destiny for himself.
They are living on borrowed time, the numbers of the 100th Bomb Group dwindling with each mission they set off to in the day. And perhaps, this should have deterred him. Bucky would say, what is the point of growing seeds when you fly, knowing that the wheels of your plane may never touch the grass again. But that is not how Benny sees it. If anything, the fickleness of it all is the reason he should not hesitate.
So despite entering the pub with Buck, and Bucky, and Kidd and whoever else–he was barely paying attention, ever since Buck mentioned Marnie would be there–he beelines straight for her, seated on a wooden chair by the speckles of the lit fireplace. It seems she’s clocked him beforehand, greeting him as he approaches without even turning her head to meet his eyes, staring aimlessly into the fire. He wonders what constantly plagues her thoughts. Each time he runs into her, it seems he yanks her wandering mind back into her orbs.
“Thought you didn’t like the fire,” he states, and she finally turns to him. With a cute, confused frown, she replies, “when did I say I didn’t like fire?”
He chuckles, pointing to the fireplace, then up. “That big ball in the sky, if you haven’t noticed, is the fire that keeps this earth from turning into a shithole of poop.”
“It’s different,” she remarks as she scrunches her face. He reaches to pinch her nose, but she slaps his hand away, a growing smile betraying one of mock annoyance. “Seeking warmth on a cold, rainy night, then stepping out into glaring daylight.”
Mulling it over in his head, it’s impressive to Benny, the way her simple words are always doused in complex meaning, even when she’s not trying. He quite likes her mind, because it’s as beautiful as the outside. A little thought snaps into his near daze, and he scans the small pub, trying to see if there were other women around. Swiveling his head back to her, he notices the only chair in her periphery has been left unused.
“You’re alone?” He asks, moving to sit down, scuffing the chair forward against the wooden tiles to be closer to her side. “Didn’t come here with your friends?”
She nods, “I did, Shonda and Betsy. But they’re busy with some officers, right about there.”
He pans to where she points her finger, a blonde with short, tamed curls (Betsy, she tells him) and a long-haired brunette (Shonda, that’ll be), the girls talking chipperly to a couple officers by the bar that, to Benny’s dismay, were donning navy blue. A grimace pulls on his lips, and she laughs gingerly, knowing exactly why. The RAF officers never bode well with the Americans flooding in to fight on their behalf.
“Can’t complain though,” Marnie says, “they’re quite charming if you let them try, and they polish up real nice.” It may have been steam, rushing from his ears then, and all he wants to do is smack the smugness off her face, a delightful snicker bubbling from her throat in her easy dig to rile him up. He slips a cigarette out of his pocket, and in seeing him do so, she pulls a lighter from her own. Moving closer to Benny, she flickers a small flame against its bud as it sits between his mouth, and he nods his thanks. “Can I have one?”
“Nope,” he deadpans, sour towards her eye for navy-clad men. She pulls her head back slightly, a tiny pout on her lips. “Ah, ah, ah,” he mocks, pulling his hand back as she throws herself forward, trying to snatch precious cargo from the cardboard box. An idea springs into his mind, drawing a smirk of mischief to his lips. Benny holds the cigarette box further back, out of her reach, and Marnie, ever so the lioness prances even farther against his chair, eager for a puff of nicotine. “Benny–”
But her words die in her throat, eyes flickering up and down between Benny’s eyes and his lips, because oh my, she didn’t realize at all how close their faces were. And Benny, ever so the plotter, raises his brows in mock question, his own eyes trailing down to Marnie’s lips like he had his answer found.
“British men don’t knock into ya with their bike, and use repayment as an excuse to try and see your pretty face everyday, do they?” He teases, the smirk falling off his lips as heat sends her pupils dilating.
“It was my fault though, wasn’t it? If you’re asking for favors, I’d be happy to comply,” she says, and he can feel the flames burn through his lungs, and fume into his hands with the way they yearn to grab her waist. But he flares restraint against his muscles, because one, noisy Curtis Biddick stalks up to them with no shame. Benny can’t judge him though, considering how he was about to kiss his major’s little sister senseless in the middle of a very public pub.
“Damn Benny,” Curt gleams with a teasing lilt to his voice, and slides in between them like a wall to keep them separate, Bucky and Buck trailing closely behind. The latter stared intensely at his little sister, like a quiet reprimand, but she merely shrugs with a clandestine smile. “You stuck a hole in the wheel of your bike so you could trap her through your miserable fall in your big, cozy arms?”
Now that, sends a flush of embarrassment down his neck. He leans back in his chair flustered when his partner in crime simply cackles at his discomfort. The men start gathering around a long, wooden table a few meters away from their spot by the fireplace, but Marnie makes no point to move, so he doesn’t either. Besides, he sees these people everyday, toeing life and death, ‘til their head hits the pillow, should they be lucky. He doesn’t need their company day in, day out. Marnie waves at Betsy and Shonda, her friends (that Benny will forever remember were fraternizing with the enemy) sitting down to join the wolf pack of rowdy men.
“You babble at us for ditching our friends, Mar, and now you’re doing the same,” Betsy says, shaking her head in a joking manner, her voice traversing across the room. “Disappointed at your lack of loyalty.”
“And for a pilot no less,” Shonda adds, “didn’t you say they had their heads too far up their ass, and you weren’t about to be the one to pull ‘em out?” The boys, Bucky and Curt and Veal, play into Betsy and Shonda’s jabs, clawing at their hearts and groaning at her shots. Benny watches as Marnie simply rolls her eyes, clearly used to their form of teasing.
The chatter in the room resembles a fish market as everyone keeps yapping at their highest volume, causing Benny to flinch ever so slightly. It’s not that he can’t throw himself into a bustling bunch, but that is no delight in comparison to the quiet bliss between him and Marnie. Recalling Shonda’s words, he lets out a scoff, beckoning her attention (not that it ever diverted from his healthy, tan skin and cheeky, boyish smile).
“You don’t like the daylight, you don’t like flying, you’re afraid of heights, you don’t like pilots,” he lists, but his words are light, just teasing at her choices. “You think the RAF shits are charming, the next thing you’re gonna tell me is ya don’t know how to ride a bike.”
Her eyes flee to the ceiling, and she nods at nothing in particular. “Would you be adverse to knowing that I don’t know how to bike?”
“It’s not a bad thing,” he’s quick to clear up. “It’s just always been my favorite thing to do outside and…” He cuts himself off as realization strikes, and he watches her shrink meekly into her seat. “You actually don’t know how to ride a bike.”
“No,” she mumbles, feeling slightly embarrassed, like a child being graded by her teacher.
Confusion hits her mind as he immediately stands up, and for a second she thinks he’s going to stomp away, and for a fucking bike of all things, but he surprises her with an offer of his hand, and kiddish excitement in his deep, chocolate eyes. “I’ll teach you.”
⋆ ˚。⋆୨♡୧⋆ ˚。⋆
Apparently the Clevens are not so capable of doing just anything under the sun, or in this case the moonlight. It’s ridiculously amusing to watch Marnie struggle to keep balance on his bicycle, having to catch herself from falling flat on her side by hastily kicking out her feet. Benny just snickers at her lack of cycling abilities, joking that she’s basically destitute. Of course, that earns a kick to his side that has him hunching over in mild pain. “Jesus woman, I was only kidding!”
“I’ve got two left feet but Benny,” she grumbled, clambering off the bike and shoving it into his hands, “I promise you I’m gonna master this thing so well, I’ll bet that I can beat you in a race.”
“Woah, woah, let unrealistic dreams be dreams” he says, pulling the bike by its handles as they stroll through the townhouses, and he swerves to dodge yet another hard punch to his arm. It is quiet in the village, a few families flicking their lights off to retreat to their beds. “So, I know a lot of things you don’t like, so what do you actually like? What brings a smile to Marianne Cleven’s face?”
A thought immediately springs in her mind, evidently, with the way her face blossoms into a wide grin. “Baking.” “Baking?” “Yes, cupcakes, chocolate chip cookies, pudding, you’d name it.”
“Huh,” he questions, recalling all the times the cooks would send looks of spite her way, and the box of cupcakes mysteriously left on his doorstep. “Is that why they’d catch you sometimes at fuckin’ 0300, like a ghost in the mess kitchen? ‘Cause you were baking?” She rejoices with a nod. Benny shakes his head in disbelief, but a fondness tugs at his lips. “Thank you, by the way, for the cupcakes. Your hands are gifted.”
“It’s the only thing that I can do, over and over again and never get tired of. My Ma…she was the best baker in town, and it was one thing we could do together where we didn’t even have to talk to bond and spend quality time,” she reminisces, “when I get outta this place and go back home, I’m gonna open my bakery and Buck’s pretty face is gonna be on the posters so I get all the customers, and it’s gonna be called Pearl’s Bakery–that’s my Ma’s name.”
He remembers Buck briefly mentioning their mother dying when they were only kids, so he tries not to poke too far, at least not right now.
It’s an endearing sight, the way her hand gestures flail wildly when she chatters about something that ignites a passion. In the silence that falls over them as they stroll through the homely countryside, Benny wonders if there’s anything other than flying that lights a flame in his soul. When she asks the question, he finds himself short of a proper answer.
“What do you wanna do when the war is over?” She asks him.
“To be honest, I have no idea,” he murmurs, brows furrowing as he contemplates his purpose. “I’ve always been a jack of all trades, master of none kinda guy. I could play sports like soccer and football well enough, but was never the best to be a captain. I got good grades in Math and English, but I’m not talented enough to be a mathematician or a writer. I can’t draw for shit, and I can’t sing. So, I don’t know.”
He wonders what he’s been doing with his 25 years of life. Besides flying, it feels like he has nothing to show for himself and the thought sours his mood. Before he enlisted, he had graduated with a business degree and started working at his father’s tailoring business. But if he’s being honest, trying to sell suits and dresses is most certainly not his main calling in life, though his father might have some choice words about that.
“You don’t have to know,” she empathized. “The war has taken away everything we’ve ever known, and we will not return as the same people to our homes. We will have to relearn what it means to live a fulfilling life, and in doing so, we will find out what we are made for.”
His steps progressively come to a halt as she speaks, and he revels in the comfort of her words, like the throw of a warm fuzzy blanket against his skin. Though she may not know how to ride a bike, each word that leaves her thoughts has always been indicative of a woman who has lived, someone who has survived through hardship. He thinks he could be happy, following the direction of her voice for the rest of his life. And just maybe, he could finish off his day by catching wafts of vanilla cupcakes when he picks her up from the bakery every evening. But once again, he’s reaching too far. Perhaps, a dinner first would do, but there’s no denying what already lies embedded in his thoughts, and solely from what he feels.
Stretching a leg to sit himself towards the back of the bicycle seat, balancing it to the right with his foot, he gestures at Marnie to settle right in front of him. “Um,” she hesitates, “will that be safe?”
“I don’t know,” he replies, an easy grin spreading on his lips, “but it’ll be fun.” She rolls her eyes but does not hide her smile, agreeing after a few seconds to take the front half of the seat.
“Here,” he whispers in her ear, moving against her figure to offer some steadiness. “I got you.”
When she sits down, both her legs resting on the left of the bike, he kicks his feet up to the pedals, biting back a laugh as he hears her squeak. It’s really fucking hard to cycle when he's got the weight of two people–and Marnie’s back leaning against his chest, her hair brushing against his lips, and her soft fingers slipping over his on the handle–but he’s taking in the way she lets out chesty fits of laughter through the breeze, and he doesn’t think he’s felt anything more glorious than this.
He cycles them away from the townhouses, and into narrow roads masked by thick trees and hearty bushes. They are mostly shortcuts winding back from the pub to the base. Determination keeps him pedaling despite the way he begins to wheeze through his chest after five minutes. They stop short of the gates, about a hundred meters away, when she begins caressing the back of his hands with her thumb, turning her lips to his ears to tell him to slow down if he’s tired. And he does, because he’s not about to fall into another crash and send both him, and Marnie flat on the ground.
When he stops to catch himself, his lungs are knocked out of his chest completely when she turns her body to face him, instead of hopping off. “That was good,” she says in a hushed tone, as if the swaying trees are listening in on this moment. “That really was fun,” she mutters, even quieter than before, the sound of their combined breathing overwhelming the softness in her tone.
At a loss of what to say, feeling the nerves take over his working mind, he decides to just not think. Benny inches his face closer to Marnie as she does the same, and stops just before her lips, feeling the residue of lipgloss against his own. He looks at her fervently, silently asking for confirmation. At her slight nod, he lets his eyes close and presses his lips against hers, moving slowly and languidly, feeling the way she morphs into him as her hands slide up his neck and to his jaw. He moves one of his hands off the handles, and tangles it in her loose hair, trying to get closer, kissing her like a drowned man clutching at straws to seek air.
But that’s not even the best part. Nothing, to Benny, competes with the astounded look on her face as she lets go for a brief moment. She leans her forehead against his and lightly giggles as he breaks out into his own, goofy grin, with matching dusts of red spreading across their cheeks.
He may be lying about the bike ride–this may be the most glorious thing he’s ever felt instead.
-
a/n: we will delve more into marnie and buck's upbringing and relationship, soon. :) as always, eternally grateful if you have made it this far.
#masters of the air#mota#benny demarco#benny demarco x oc#bernard demarco#benny x marnie <3#mota oc#marnie cleven#late night post#buck cleven
18 notes
·
View notes
Text
Susie and DeMarco
(again)
#demarco x susie#they've taken over my life#bernard demarco#oc: susie#masters of the air oc#mota oc#fic | better off
15 notes
·
View notes
Text
Fic writer interview
Thank you to @regseekings for the tag!!
1. How many works do you have on AO3?
5
2. What’s your total AO3 word count?
214,265
3. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?
Nādrēsy hen Lys (The Bastard of Lys) - House of The Dragon
First of Her Name - Game of Thrones
Just Come Home - Band of Brothers
I'm Your Man - Masters of The Air
I Stayed There - The Pacific
4. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?
I love responding to comments!! I'm so profoundly grateful whenever people like my writing enough to comment, so as long as I can think of something to say I always try to reply 😂
5. What’s the fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending?
I think all of the fics I've managed to finish have had happy endings so far 😂 I've only published OC fics and I'm too emotionally attached to them to give them sad endings
6. What’s the fic you’ve written with the happiest ending?
For me I think my happiest ending so far has been the ending of Just Come Home because it just felt so EARNED. Valerie went through so much and being able to give her the life she'd long given up hoping for was really lovely
7. Do you write crossovers?
Not yet!
8. Have you ever received hate on a fic?
I've never had a proper hate comment - I suspect it might be because I'm writing for fandoms and pairings that are a bit niche so not enough people are reading them to hate them 😂
9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?
Nope! It's not something I feel comfortable with
10. Have you ever had a fic stolen?
Not that I know of
11. Have you ever had a fic translated?
Once again, not to my knowledge
12. Have you ever co-written a fic before?
Nope! I think my writing process is a bit too chaotic to do with other people 😂
13. What’s your all-time favourite ship?
In terms of my own fanfic, I've only written OC x character ships, but I think the couple that's closest to my heart out of all the ones I've written is Ron and Val - that fic is so special to me in so many ways, and I'll always love them
14. What’s a WIP that you want to finish but don’t think you ever will?
I hope to finish ALL my wips so I'm not putting this out there 😂 gotta keep the energy going!
15. What are your writing strengths?
I'm honestly not sure? I remember @latibvles told me once that she thought I was good at writing character relationships, so I think I'll go with that! I can't really judge what I'm best at, I just know what I enjoy most
16. What are your writing weaknesses?
Sometimes I do really struggle with dialogue - I think I can struggle to think of what to say next and it ends up with my scenes being really short 😂
17. What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?
I only speak English, I have absolutely zero fluency in anything else, so it's something I try to avoid. I have written characters who speak other languages, but I usually end up just italicising their dialogue and describing what language they're supposed to be speaking 😂. Unless I have someone on hand who can translate for me, I prefer doing it that way, as I have zero trust in Google translate to actually do its job properly
18. What was the first fandom you wrote for?
God I have absolutely nooo idea. If I had to guess, I think I was writing shitty Harry Potter fanfic when I was like 11, I'm not sure if I did anything before that, but I certainly wasn't posting fanfic publicly until I started this blog
19. What’s a fandom/ship you haven’t written for yet but want to?
I haven't written for Bernard DeMarco and my new OC Susie yet, but they're definitely coming!!
20. What’s your favourite fic you’ve written?
Just Come Home is sooo close to my heart that I have to say that - I think a lot of the people who have been following me for a while now are here because of that, and the little community of support I built up whilst writing it was so lovely
Tagging: @latibvles @xxluckystrike @basilone @trenchenjoyer @softspeirs @mercurygray
5 notes
·
View notes
Text
hesbuckcompton-baby's Masterlist
OC Masterlist
Just Come Home - Ronald Speirs x OFC (Completed)
AO3
Introduction || Chapter 1 || Chapter 2 || Chapter 3 || Chapter 4 || Chapter 5 || Chapter 6 || Chapter 7 || Chapter 8 || Chapter 9 || Chapter 10 || Chapter 11 || Chapter 12
When You Know, You Know (Additional oneshot)
Ron x Val Medieval AU
Old Money New World - Eugene Roe x OFC (Discontinued)
Introduction || Chapter 1 || Chapter 2 || Chapter 3 || Chapter 4 || Chapter 5 || Chapter 6 || Chapter 7 || Chapter 8 || Chapter 9
Band of Brothers - The Terror AU
I Stayed There - Eugene Sledge x OFC (Completed)
AO3
Introduction || Chapter 1 || Chapter 2 || Chapter 3 || Chapter 4 || Chapter 5 || Chapter 6 || Chapter 7 || Chapter 8 || Chapter 9 || Chapter 10
Damage Gets Done - SAS: Rogue Heroes x OFC (Ongoing)
Chapter 1 || Chapter 2 || Chapter 3 || Chapter 4 || Chapter 5 || Chapter 6 || Chapter 7 || Chapter 8 || Chapter 9 || Chapter 10
I'm Your Man - Robert 'Rosie' Rosenthal x OC (Ongoing)
AO3
Chapter 1 || Chapter 2 || Chapter 3 || Chapter 4 || Chapter 5 || Chapter 6 || Chapter 7 || Chapter 8 || Chapter 9 || Chapter 10 || Chapter 11
Additional oneshot // Playlist 1 // Playlist 2
Better Off - Bernard DeMarco x OC (Ongoing)
AO3
Chapter 1 || Chapter 2 || Chapter 3 || Chapter 4 || Chapter 5 || Chapter 6
Playlist
#band of brothers#hbo war#band of brothers fic#band of brothers oc#hbo war fic#eugene roe x ofc#eugene roe x oc#eugene roe x reader#ronald speirs x oc#ronald speirs x ofc#ronald speirs x reader#the pacific#the pacific fic#eugene sledge#eugene sledge x oc#eugene sledge x ofc#eugene sledge x reader#the pacific oc#sas rogue heroes#sas: rogue heroes#sas rogue heroes oc#sas: rogue heroes fic#masters of the air#masters of the air oc#rosie rosenthal x oc
153 notes
·
View notes
Last Seen Blogs
shoppingjin
Shopping Jin
deadspaceguy
Heaven's Archives
himetalles
Hime Talles
miguel-angel-gutierrez
Gutierrz Illustrations & Photography ©
rysket-blog
Rysk