#callum turner major john egan
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ONE SHOT
midnight summer
or: the first time Gale realizes that he has romantic and mostly sexual feelings for John they're still in fighter school. It just takes one summer night, laying outside in the gras, looking at the stars and Bucky telling him a story with his low, husikily voice. That's all Gale needs to allow his heart and mind to opens up for his feelings and when Bucky come closer and kiss him there is no holding back anymore.
(pre-war Buck and Bucky)
Fighterschool US Air Force, a warm midsummer night...
The week was finally over. Gale sighed in quiet exhaustion and slumped back on his elbows, the soft, lukewarm grass touching his legs and lower back. It was August and although the sun had long since disappeared over the horizon, there was still a pleasant warmth in the air and the crickets were chirping in the distance. It was still overwhelming to sit on the wing of a B-17 and watch the sunset. Watching the sky slowly turn yellow-orange and then deep pink and red was simply unforgettable. Gale loved those balmy summer evenings when they weren't flying and he had the time to sit alone on a wing - in between all the hustle and bustle of the day - and write in his leather-covered notebook and think about John and home as the sun went down.
He felt heated and the longer he sat in the grass, the more the tiredness continued to fight its way to the surface. Gale had been awake since 0500 and had had several hours of theory lessons, sports and a flying session. His muscles burned with exhaustion and the dull feeling of contentment spread through his chest as he finally leaned back completely until he lay flat on his back in the grass and closed his eyes. He could lay here forever, he thought and smiled.
Somewhere in the distance he heard the mingled voices and laughter of some guys. They were all sitting together around the campfire, telling stories. Basically, they all got on well, and yet at the end of the day it was one big tussle, like a motley family. Each of them wanted to be the best pilot - and some days it was Buck and Bucky, others it was some guys from another squadron.
"Are you awake?" John asked in a raspy voice and Gale hummed softly as he felt Bucky drop into the soft grass beside him. John was so close to him that he could feel his body heat and smell his unique scent. He took a deep breath and inhaled the heady mixture of soap, aftershave and John. Hmm, heavenly.
Gale grumbled and opened his eyes a crack when he felt John press his knee against Gale's: "Hmmm, what's up, John?"
"I miss girls...god damn I miss their soft curves...and losing myself in them. Do you ever think about girls, Buck?", Bucky murmured in a low, raspy voice, sending a shiver down Gale's arms. His heartbeat quickened and, with his eyelids still half open, he blinked and felt himself blushing. Bent in the darkness, he was glad John couldn't see his embarrassment, even if he knew John knew. He knew Gale pretty well - probably better than he knew himself. That wasn't just because of the countless hours they'd spent together in the cockpit, but also because of the time they'd spent together besides flying.
While John had always been the loud, outspoken type, Gale had tended to hold back on such topics of conversation. Talking about his bedtime stories had never occurred to him before, but John would tease a few details out of him now and again. He usually embarrassed Buck, but at the same time he felt safe with John.
Gale remembered the first lukewarm evening they had spent here at the air base and to his surprise Bucky had started talking about women, their beautiful curves and their soft lips. He had remained silent, blushing and staring at the tips of his feet and then later into the campfire, while the other blokes had talked loudly and laughed about their conquests and sex. It had made Buck uncomfortable. Partly because he wasn't the loud type and partly because he realised how much less experience he had in all these things. So much less experience than John and when later that evening, on the way back to their lodgings building, he had held him by the elbow and forced him to slow his steps, his heart had almost stopped.
Bucky's fingertips had brushed over the curve of his elbow and, slightly drunk, Bucky had grinned at him so irresistibly and curiously at the same time. His voice was hoarse and almost lost in the darkness, but Gale had heard his words perfectly.
"Why were you so quiet tonight, Cleven? Don't you like talking about women?"
Gale had swallowed hard and shaken his head gently. He felt heat flush his face again and his cheeks turn red as he murmured softly and a little hesitantly, "It's just not my way to talk about women, John. Besides, you talk enough for both of us."
"There's some truth to that," Bucky laughed and Gale smiled slightly. "But you've had girls at home, right?" he chuckled, almost tripping over his feet. Just in time, Gale wrapped an arm around John's waist and pulled him close to the side of his own body. The moment Bucky's warm, minty, slightly wiskey-scented breath brushed his cheek and he blinked at him under half-closed eyelids, Gale knew that John was slowly becoming more than just a friend to him.
When Gale hesitated and didn't answer the question directly, John pressed himself half a step closer to his body and lifted an arm to cup his palm around the back of his neck. It wasn't the first time John had come so close to him physically and yet it felt so different, more intense and somewhere more intimate than ever before. Buck swallowed hard and moistened his lips with the tip of his tongue as he looked expectantly and a little nervously into Bucky's blue eyes. He watched the corners of John's mouth twitch softly and playfully before he murmured, "Or am I completely off base and you're still a virgin, Buck?"
He widened his eyes slightly and shook his head. What, he thought angrily. Gale may have been quieter and less extroverted than John and a lot of the other blokes, but he wasn't really a prude. He just wanted sex to mean something to him.
"No," Gale mumbled and his arm, still wrapped around Bucky's hips, tensed slightly. "I've had girls at home, but I'm just not the type of guy to fuck around without a care in the world." His words spilled from his lips without another moment's thought. He sounded more biting than he had intended and then pressed his lips together. But luckily for him, John only chuckled again and moved a little closer. So close that John's lips were now brushing the shell of his ear and Gale inevitably held his breath. "Your words almost hurt me, Buck...if you weren't so damn beautiful and important to me."
"You're drunk, Bucky. Let me take you to bed." Teasingly, he'd tried to deflect the attention away from himself and thank God John had been drunk and relaxed because he'd dropped the subject and they'd walked the rest of the way quietly side by side.
Buck hesitated for a moment as he was thrown back to the present by the memory.
"Buck, do you ever think about girls?" John repeated quietly.
He blinked and frowned slightly as confusing thoughts collided in his head and he felt slightly dizzy. One of them made him pause and he thought first of Marge - his beautiful Marge. Her soft blonde hair, her delicate features and her warmth and kindness. His best friend from childhood was truly beautiful and yet, apart from her, he had hardly thought about women in the last few moments. Gale licked his lips and opened his mouth slightly to respond. But instead he pressed his lips together once more, swallowed hard and cleared his throat before trying again.
"Yeah, sometimes I think about Marge," he replied slowly.
His heart pounded in his throat and he closed his eyes again. His cheeks burned too much and he bit down hard on his lower lip to keep his next words to himself: But I'm thinking of you too, John.
"Marge," John repeated thoughtfully. "The great Marge," he added, and again his knee bumped against Gale's. The corner of Buck's mouth twitched a little and he sighed. A little louder this time and he rubbed his right palm flat across his chest. Hoping to dispel the tingling in his chest, he rubbed sometimes harder, sometimes lighter across his torso. But it didn't help. No amount of rubbing with his palm, no amount of deep breathing, no amount of sighing dispelled the urgent heat and the tingling that ran through his veins when John was near him. He'd first really noticed it when Bucky had fallen asleep next to him in bed one night last month - a little drunk and so incredibly relaxed and beautiful that Gale had stared at him half the night. It wasn't until the next morning that he'd realized what he'd done...and what it might have meant.
At first he had pushed it to the back of his mind, but then - a few days later - when the memory didn't go away - he dredged it up again and wrote a letter to Marge. She was his closest friend and the only one who had noticed in his first letter about basic training and Fighter School that there was something different and special about John Egan.
Maybe it was because of the way Gale had expressed himself a few months ago. Or maybe it was how often he talked or wrote about Bucky...or maybe Marge was just too damn smart and knew him too well.
Gale had only grinned and shaken his head wildly when Marge's letter had arrived, and even now, as it was beginning to dawn on him, her words still sounded too loud and somehow too strange in his head, and at the same time he wanted nothing more than to find out what John was all about.
"What do you think about Marge?"
Gale winced slightly as Bucky's voice snapped him out of his own thoughts and back to reality. He opened his eyes and turned his head slightly to the side to observe John's side profile. His fingertips twitched and he wished he could reach out and touch him. But he suppressed the urge and whispered instead, "That I miss her voice and the way she laughs. Do I really have to tell you what it's like to miss someone, Major?" Gale grinned slightly and this time it was he who pressed his knee lightly against John's. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the corner of Bucky's mouth twitch and the next moment he turned his head towards Gale and looked deep into his eyes.
"Did you ever imagine being more than just her friend, Gale? I mean look at her...she's beautiful." John's usually bright eyes glittered ocean blue and dark in the embracing darkness of the night, somehow promising, and Gale felt his body temperature rise.
Buck frowned and faster than he could realize it, he mumbled, "No, not really."
John laughed and the husky vibration rushed through Gale's entire body like a shiver. Then John turned his head to Buck and licked his lips with a grin. "I just don't understand you, Gale. You don't drink, you don't gamble, you don't bet. You don't even want that beautiful young woman, so what does it take to convince you?", Bucky murmured in a hoarse voice and Gale watched every movement of John's body. He leaned back in the grass now too, turning on his side and resting his head on the side of his palm. They were closer now and Gale closed his eyes momentarily as a new wave of John's scent wafted over to him.
"Currently I' dont really know what I want", he lied. "I know I should love Marge like a lover and not like just a friend, but it is what it is, Bucky."
John stared at him for a few breaths before he lifted his hand and stroked his chin. "I suspected you were deep, Cleven, but really that romantic, huh? Are you really looking for the one woman worth writing to in war?" he teased him in a low voice.
Even though the words hit him like an unexpected punch in the gut, the corners of Gale's mouth twitched and John's fingertips brushed his lower lip. They both inhaled and exhaled loudly, staring at each other...and then it was over. Still, their eyes remained locked together, and when Buck opened his mouth slightly and whispered, Bucky's heart skipped a beat in his chest. "Who says I'm dying to write to a woman? Maybe I just want to write to you, Bucky."
There was a vulnerability in his words that squeezed all the air out of Buck's lungs. His chest suddenly tightened so much that the gentle teasing of Gale's words was completely drowned out, leaving only seriousness and profundity instead. He leaned forward a little, curving his hand fully around Buck's chin now and forcing him to look gently but firmly into his eyes. Despite the darkness, John caught a glimpse of Gale's deep red cheeks and in that moment he was sure he had never seen anything more real and beautiful. "What would you write to me like that, huh?" he whispered playfully and only with the last bit of restraint did he manage not to let his thumb brush Buck's full, pink lower lip. "After all, you'll be seeing me every day for a while."
"I just want to write down everything that happens to us. I want to be able to remember everything...to remember us," Gale confessed and as he realised the meaning of his words, John's eyes widened. With his heart pounding, Gale closed his mouth again and when he tried to avert his gaze from Bucky, he shook his head almost imperceptibly.
"Don't," he whispered and Gale felt his fingertips twitch on his chin. "Why do you want to look away?" he asked quietly. "It's romantic and maybe the wrong thing to say, but you can always be honest with me, Buck. I've got you and even though you may have thought it was bullshit when I said to you a few weeks ago that I'd always catch you and be your safe haven here, I'm here for you." Without really noticing the movement, John's thumb traced the outline of Gale's lower lip and they both caught their breath. Gale clasped John's wrist with one hand, and when he expected to be pushed away, Buck hesitantly pressed closer into the touch.
"Always?", Gale asked huskily.
"Yeah, always", Bucky answered. "No matter what you need I give it to you."
Kiss me, Gale pleaded silently, blinking several times before looking back up at Bucky and into the blue waves of his eyes. "I know you'll always catch me. Bucky."
"There'll be two more planes in the sky at the end...if there's one thing I'm sure of, it'll be you and me, Buck," John whispered. "No matter what this war costs us, we'll get through it together," John promised.
"You can't really promise that," Gale mumbled hoarsely. They both knew it was an empty promise and yet it gave them both so much warmth and security, hope and confidence that everything would be all right in the end, that at that moment it almost didn't matter.
John leaned his forehead against Gale's and a few breaths passed in which they both just lay there in the grass and time seemed to stand still.
Gale was the first to clear his throat and breathed in a hoarse voice: "John?"
"Hmmm," he mumbled, slowly opening his eyes as he lifted his head slightly. Gale was lying half under him, his eyes still closed and his full, pink lips - so seductive and kissable - that John could hardly resist the urge to lean down and find out what Buck tasted like. Instead of kissing him, John memorised every detail of Gale. His unruly blond hair, the long lashes, his beautiful, seductive lips and the curve of his cheekbones and jaw.
"I just meant it," Gale whispered after a while. John frowned in confusion for a moment, not knowing exactly what Buck meant, but before he could ask, Buck whispered, "That I want to write you letters."
Buck opened his eyes, blinking, and when their eyes met again in the darkness, the air suddenly crackled between them. They were so close that Gale didn't know if it was static energy in the air or if it was their two heartbeats making the air crackle. He exhaled audibly and this time John didn't hold back. No, his thumbnail grazed Buck's jaw and traced its outline. Gale's eyes fluttered shut again and he sighed softly as John's thumb stroked his lower lip.
"What are you doing?" Gale breathed, his heartbeat skipping a beat or two as a wave of heat rippled through his body.
"I'm looking at you, Cleven," Bucky murmured, making Gale laugh. "You really are the most beautiful thing I've ever seen."
"Don't say that," Buck asked with a sigh. "You got all those girls..."
"What if I told you I only have them to distract me."
"Distract you from what?" muttered Gale, heart pounding.
"From wanting you," Bucky murmured, leaning his forehead against Gale's again. He stopped breathing for a few seconds, then his chest began to heave and he sucked the air in and out greedily. His fingers clutched John's wrist so tightly that he was afraid of leaving marks. So he loosened his grip and stroked from his wrist up his forearm and upper arm until Gale could bury his hand in John's neck. "Don't say things like that if you're not serious. It'll kill me."
"Then I guess it's best I tell you again...I want you, Buck. Since day one you've just been blowing my mind and hearing you talk about Marge...god you really want to torture me."
Gale opened his eyes and for the first time in his life he was sure that something was really going right. "It wasn't my intention to torture you," Gale confessed. "But I had to say something...you kept talking about all the girls."
"I know..." John sighed, again tracing the curve of Gale's lower lip. Their eyes still held onto each other and as their breaths both mingled, Bucky mumbled, "I'm sorry."
"It's okay...," Gale breathed, leaning further into the gentle touch of Bucky's thumb on his lips, "I'm sorry.
"Is that really what you want?" Bucky murmured softly and Gale nodded slightly before he even realised it.
"You said you'd give me anything I wanted...and I want you."
Bucky's grinned and lowered his lips to Gale's. At first their kiss was slow and uncertain, then it became more aroused and curious until John leaned fully over Gale and pressed his hips against his. They were both breathing heavily and when a dark moan escaped Bucky, Gale intensified their kiss and licked John's lips with his tongue. He begged for entrance and as John's mouth opened, their tongues began an erotic dance that fuelled them both.
While Gale buried one hand in Bucky's soft brown curls, he placed the other on the spot between his neck and collarbone. John's pulse raced under his fingers and when their kiss ended, they were both breathless and completely aroused. The air crackled with the tension between them and when John pressed another brief kiss to Gale's lips, he smiled. "So that's it now...", Buck murmured in a husky voice. "We're doing this together now?"
"Yeah, you're not getting rid of me any time soon."
Hey FELLAS ❤️
I felt the need to write another one shot about our two Majors. I've been thinking a lot about the pre-war time when Buck and Bucky where still in fighter school and that back in the States everything started. Back in fighter school they both of them realizes that there is a invisible bound between of them and it's more than friendship or camaraderie. It's deeper and I wanted to write something about the first time they kiss and touch each other. Explore new desires and feelings, and I could just scream because I really love them! 🫢
Enjoy this one and please LMK what you're thinking! I love to read your comments! ❤️
xoxo callumsgirl
#masters of the air#mota fic#mota#gale cleven#buck x bucky#john bucky egan#john egan#callum turner#let’s talk mota#mota fanfic#austin butler major gale buck cleven#callum turner major john egan#major cleven#major john egan#pre war
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✨️Masterlist✨️
John Egan:
I'll come pick it up after / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / 6 / 7 / 8 / 9 / 10 / 11 / End /
Did you just kiss me?
Alright, bet!
Protect You
Back to black
Until you come back home / 2 /
Stop trying to feel everything
Inventor
Soft and prude
Small space
Run!
You want my jacket?
Kiss me before you leave
I hate / love you
Princess and the fool
I have a plan
You're like me, but better
New Girl
Never felt so...
Too Sweet
Chicken
Callum Turner:
Co- Stars / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / 6 / 7 / 8 / 9 / 10 / 11 / 12 / 13 / 14 / 15 / 16 / 17 / 18 /
Qué serà serà
Finals season
Joe Rantz:
Training / 2 /
Theseus Scamander
Young, dumb in love
Curtis Biddick
Daylight
Your idiot?
You have to live
Gale Cleven
Told you she was real
Who did this to you?
Robert 'Rosie' Rosenthal
Therapist
Ronald Speirs
Disguise
John Brady
Misunderstanding
Austin Butler
Fame
#callum turner#callum turner x reader#callum turner imagine#john egan x reader#joe rantz x reader#major john egan#boys in the boat#master of the air imagine#master of the air#theseus scamander#fantastic beasts#rosie rosenthal#nate mann#band of brothers x reader#band of brothers imagine#band of brothers#eugene roe#ronald speirs#ronald speirs x reader#john brady#ben radcliffe
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Sweet John
Summary: John keeps finding ways to stop by the hospital to see you, until he finally gets what he wants.
Pairing: Major John "Bucky" Egan x female reader
Content/Warnings: John Egan being a charming bastard, 18+ smut (minors don't interact), unprotected sex. This starts real innocent, but it's really not.
Notes: If you have any requests you’d like me to write please let me know! Comments and reblogs are always appreciated! Thank you!
As you're helping wounded soldiers, rushing through the corridors of the campaign hospital at base, you bump into none other than Major John "Bucky" Egan.
You look up to see his smug smile. "Sorry, sweetheart." His hand gently over your arm as a way to balance you.
If you didn't know better, you'd even believe he might have done it unintentionally.
"It's alright Major." You tried to rush past him, with towels in both your arms to the end of the corridor.
"You shouldn't carry all that yourself." He takes half of the load from your arms. "Let me help. It's the least I could do."
He carries on up the corridor, following close behind you. You turn your head to him for a few seconds. You know you should be resisting. But he's very, very persuasive. Even when his uniform is covered with blood.
"You have blood on your uniform." You simply state.
"Oh, yeah." He shrugs, not bothered to wipe it off. "You know how it is." he tells you "Can't even breathe at battle without getting some blood splashed on you." He looks at you. "You've got some on you as well."
You look down at your own white uniform. "It has seen better days, yes." You continue to walk to the end of the corridor, entering one of the patient rooms.
John follows after you and looks around as soon as you're inside. "Oh, you're taking these to..." he trails off a bit as he sees who's playing in that bed. One of the men from his squad.
"Hi Sergeant. How are we feeling?" You spoke to the man resting on the bed.
The Sergeant looks up at you. "I've been better." As soon as he sees the Major behind you he tries to sit up, still a bit shaky. "Major." he says, his voice hoarse.
"I'm gonna clean that open wound and switch it up, is that alright?" you asked the man in the bed.
"Thank you, miss." he adds as you begin to gather your tools.
You can feel the Major's gaze on the back of your head as he watches from the doorway.
"It's gonna hurt a little. Take this." You hand the patient a bottle of alcohol to drink.
He takes it, grunting a little from the pain of just moving. He takes a sip and sets the bottle down. As you pour liquid over the wound to clean it, the Sergeant's leg moves in pain. He grunts loudly and moves in his bed. You feel the Major aproach the bed and hold the Sergeant with no trouble. He tries to move again but the Major's grip is firm.
"It's alright. Just hold still now." Major Egan tries to calm the man. You see the compassion and concern on his face. His hand is still on the Sergeant's lower body, ready to steady him again if necessary.
You say nothing, continuing to clean the wound and prepare the needle to stitch. The Major remains close. He watches you work, and his focus is almost entirely on exactly that. The Sergeant squirms in the bed again, but the Major remains in place.
"Easy." the Major tried to calm him down.
"Almost done, Sergeant." you mention as you finish stitching him up.
"Th- thank you." The Sergeant glances toward the Major. "She's real good, I'm telim' ya, sir."
You chuckle as you begin bandaging his wound. "Now... you shouldn't get up. Just try to rest and no missions for a few days. This needs to heal properly."
"Roger that, nurse." the Sergeant replies with a smile. "Will do." he finishes. "Could I get some more of that bottle, though? You know how it is."
You smile as you hand him the bottle for the second time. He takes another sip, as you hear Major Egan chuckle, keeping his eyes on the man and then on you as you put the remainder of the supplies away in a near medical cart, back turned to both men.
"She's pretty, ain't she, sir?" the Sergeant asks his Major who's sitting beside him still, in a lower voice.
As you barely hear the Sergeants comment, you tried to pay no attention to it, not curious to hear the Major's response.
You hear the Major chuckle again. "She is. I'm sure she's even got herself a fella already. Some lucky bastard."
"Probably some high rank fella, too." the Sergeant continues jokingly.
"Not a high enough rank for that, no." You barely hear Major John say.
As you finish storing all utensils, you approach both men again. "You rest up Sergeant. I'll tend to other soldiers now."
The man thanks you, as he rests his head back on the pillow and closes his eyes. The Major still has his gaze on you as you walk past him.
You continue to go about your shift, working on other patients in other beds. You do your best to ignore the Major's gaze when he is watching you from afar.
"Am I under some kind of evaluation, Major?" You asked unfazed, not looking at him, but still tending to a patient.
Somewhat caught off guard by the question, the Major's calm demeanour slips a bit. "Uh... no. I was-" he clears his throat "Just... checking up on... on your patient care."
"On my patient care?" You chuckled. "How's that going then?"
"It's going very well." he replies a little too quickly.
"Well I'm glad." You paused. "Thank you for the help back there."
"Any time." he replies. You see that he wants to say something else, but stops himself. "You've got everything under control in here then?"
"Sure thing."
"Great." He clears his throat again. "I'm..." He's having trouble finding the right words. "I'll let you get back to work then."
"Thank you, Major."
"Yeah. Sure, no problem." He finally leaves the room. You don't see him again for a while, but notice his eyes on you several times over the rest of the week or so.
A few weeks passed and the hospital became less busy. Patients were recovering and the missions were being successful over all. You notice the change. It's more peaceful, which is just what both you and the soldiers needed.
But there is one thing that has changed your routine. Major John "Bucky" Egan has been coming by to see you more often. And each time he does, he stays a little longer and talks a little more. He always makes sure to pay careful attention to everything you say, and always makes an effort to keep the conversation going. You can feel the other nurses and doctors giving you disguised looks, wondering if there's something going on with the two of you.
The Major even shows up when you're not working, and seems to hang around to see when you start your shift or finish for the day. He's always just hanging back, not being too obvious about it. You found it quite charming actually, the effort he would go into just to talk to you for a little while. It was definitely flattering. He's a handsome man, and he's got a certain charm and confidence about him that you can't help but like. Although you're still unsure how to feel about all of the attention, and that uncertainty definitely shows on your face as he approaches you yet again, and starts up another conversation.
"Major Egan." You say after he approaches you.
"Nurse." he replies with a polite smile. He's carrying a coffee mug and offerts it to you. "I figured you might be tired after your shift."
You gladly accepted it. "That's incredibly thoughtful of you."
"I try." he shrugs his shoulders with a smile. You can see his gaze still on you as you take the mug. For a little while he doesn't say a thing, just watching you as you take a small sip from the cup.
Suddenly, he clears his throat a little and speaks again. "I was wondering... there's a cafe outside the base... I though it'd be nice to go there and get something to eat." he says. He's still looking you straight in the eyes while saying it, his body relaxed and his hand resting casually on the mug. "Would you like to join me?" he adds after a moment.
"Right now?" you ask calmly.
He nods after a moment. "If you'd like." he responds. "We could both do with getting some real food. Maybe something more comforting than camp rations." He gives you a small smile, still watching you carefully as he waits for your answer.
You smiled at him for a second. "I'd like that."
His smile grows a little wider. "Great." He starts to back away. "I'll... I'll head out there now." he says "I'll be waiting just outside. The cafe's not far."
"I'll be right there." you smile.
He gives you one more little smile before making his way outside and waiting just out front of the camp, leaning agaisnt the wall and looking out the gate.
You head to the locker room where you find a colleague. You head inside to change out of your work clothes.
"Hey there." she grins "how have things been with you?"
"Good." you smile.
"Major's been going around again today, hasn't he?", she asks, glancing over at you.
"Um... yeah, he has." you continue to change into your clothes.
"Yeah, I figured as much. He coming around more often now? Spending more time talking to you?"
You chuckle, embarrassed. "I guess, yes."
"Well, I figured he had a thing for you" she laughs. "It was only a matter of time before he started getting a little flirtatious. He's not very good at hiding it."
"I think he's just being nice." you said as you buttoned your shirt.
"Sweetie, he's more than just nice. Major Egan has a reputation aroud here, you know. He doesn't go around being sweet to just anyone."
"Well, I don't know. I don't want everyone to go around and talk about this. The other nurses are real nosy!"
"Oh cm'on, don't worry. They'll just tease you a bit if they can tell that something's going on. And besides, nothing exciting happens around the hospital, so they cling to anything." she paused "But you're lucky. The Major's a looker, and I'm sure that you wouldn't mind his attentions, huh?" She gives you a playful nudge as she asks.
You chuckle as you looked at her. "He really is a looker isn't he?"
"Hell yeah he is." she laughs "A real man after my own heart. And the more things continue like this between you guys, the more certain I am that you might be the lady that gets to keep him to herself."
"Well, I don't know about that."
"Oh, come on. Just look at him. Just waiting right outside for you."
"Alright now. Enough of this." you said as you put your coat on. "I'm heading out."
"I'll see you back here later." she chuckles as you head out.
You find Major Egan just where he said he'd be. As you pass him and make your way to the gates outside, he starts walking with you, keeping his hands in his pockets.
"That's your work done for the day?" he asks casually.
"I have to get back in a few hours.... night shift."
"Ah... sure. Night shift. Busy workload tonight?"
"I don't think so."
He keeps his hands in his pockets the entire time, but he seems comfortable, confident, and content. "I bet it'll get busy in there." he adds, pointing to the cafe. "They have some of the best coffee and food around here."
"Have you been there lately?" you ask.
"It's been a little while now." he replies. "I had some time off last night and was going to go there, but I ended up making a stop by the hospital." he shrugs a little. "Had to see if you were looking after these soldiers properly, of course." he adds jokingly, raising an eyebrow at you.
"Yeah, you've been a real caring Major these last few weeks."
"Well, I was just making sure you were up to the task of caring for our troops." he continues.
"Oh, your soldiers never complained."
He smiles at your comment. "Glad to hear it." He looks at you again, a small grin on his face. "Or maybe it's just that they have something nice to look at while they're recovering?"
"Alright now Major Egan."
"Oh come on, why don't you just call me John, hm?"
You looked at him for a couple of seconds. "If you're sure."
He gives you a little nod, still smiling. "Absolutely."
You approach the cafe and he holds the door open for you as you walk inside.
The cafe is busy as John said it'd be. Off duty soldiers fill the place with their drinks, raised voices and the smell of cigars. Most of them are playing a game of cards at the tables. Several are chatting and laughing with each other, making it a very lively environment. Major Egan steps inside and closes the door behind him.
"It is busy, isn't it?" he asks as he guides you to an empty table. He holds your seat out for you before sitting down across from you. "You don't mind it being so busy, do you?"
"Not at all."
He smiles, his hands still in his pockets. A waiter comes to your table and takes your order. John asks you what you want and then orders for you. You just smile politely at the waiter before he heads off.
"I'm glad you agreed to come with me this afternoon." he says after a moment in silence. You notice him leaning forward on the table as the conversation continues. He seems quite calm, but you can tell how focused he is on you.
At one point, one of the soldiers at another table glances over at the two of you, and then nudged the others at the table. There's a murmur of conservation and a few more glances as the others take note of the Major and the nurse sitting together again.
The Major doesn't seem to notice though. It remains a lighthearted conversation, but there's an undercurrent of something a little bit more going on underneath the surface.
Before either of you realize, both of you have been talking to each other for half an hour. The Major shows no signs of losing interest in the conversation.
After a while, a couple first year Sergeants approach the table curiously, excitedly presenting themselves to John.
"Major Egan, sir!" the first says confidently.
"Major." the second follows. They both glance at you a tad nervously.
The Major looks up at them and smiles, still sitting at the table casually. "At ease, gentlemen" he says, raising his hands off the table, but still relaxed.
"Sir, a few of the men were wondering if they could get an extended leave, due to the successful mission earlier today."
The Major stares at the first Sergeant for a second, and his eyes dart over to you. He's still smiling a little, but there's a serious side to him that comes through as he talks with them.
"I understand that you were planning on extending their leave to allow them to rest?" he replies to both men.
"Yes, sir." the first replies "if that's alright with you, sir?"
"It's alright, Sergeant." the Major nods again. "There'll will be no issue on my part in regards to that. How many days are you looking at?" he asks, looking between the two Sergeants.
"Around a week" one of them replied boldly "if that's fine with you sir?"
"A week, hm?" he stares at them for a moment. "A week should be sufficient for them to recharge, especially after a mission like this morning. Make it happen."
The Sergeants both nod their heads. "Yes, sir." They both give you a resrpectful salute before turning back around and walking to the larger table.
"Major Egan..." you say mockingly. He was so different when he talked to you.
He glances over at you with a little half grin. "Yeah?" He laid back in his chair as he waits for you to continue.
"And just when I was about to call you John." You say.
He chuckles softly at that. "Go ahead and call me John. If anyone around here is going to call me that, it should be you." he took a sip from his beer.
That gave you a chill down your spine, out of nervousness.
He sees that he has gotten some sort of reacting out of you, but that smile still remains on his face. "Go ahead, call me John."
"Alright, stop that." you chuckle.
"I just want you to call me by my first name. Is that too much to ask?"
You look at him in the eyes for a second, before smiling. "In here?"
"Here" he pauses "or anywhere else if you'd like." He lays back and continues to smile. That damn smile.
As you take in his comment, music starts to blast and all the soldiers rise from their seats and grab the women to dance. The cafe instantly becomes an athmosphere of fun and liveliness.
The Major glances over at the dance floor. "Would you like to join me?"
You nod your head shyly, and take John's hands as he pulls you into the dance floor. The music is a classic swing tune, and the soldiers all seem to know the moves perfectly, moving with rhythm and flow in a very playful mood.
Major Egan seems to be familiar with the dance, and as he moves with you his confidence and skill is undeniable. He leads you easily, gently pulling you around and twirl you in his arms, and all the while, he stays completely focused on keeping you steady, stable.
"You're a good dancer." he tells you, still smiling playfully as he does. He spins you around in his arms and then back around again, pulling you close enough so that his face is inches from yours. He's still maintaining a comfortable distance between you two, but it's evident that he wants to be so much closer.
The music begins to pick up more, and as it does, his moves become just a little bit more intimate and playful. His arms around your waist. It's clear that he's more than just enjoying the dance.
Moving his hands down to your hips as he holds you, not giving you quite as much space as before. He tilts his head and gets closer to your face, maintaining that same playful grin.
"Careful, John." you say over the music, teasing him.
He chuckles at the teasing, but he doesn’t pull away, nor does he stop dancing with you.
His movements get a little bit more playful now, bringing you in even closer.
"John..." you begin.
“Yes?” He stares at you with that same grin on his face, but his eyes have become more intense now, as if wanting to know where this is going.
"Kiss me." you ask.
His eyes remain on you as he stares quietly for a second, but then he finally leans in to meet your offer. There is nothing playful or light-hearted about this exchange. This is a serious and bold moment for the both of you. Major Egan goes completely for it, pressing his lips against yours. And as he does, his hands moves to your hips and pulls you even closer to him. The kiss was slow but eager, like weeks of tension have been building up. Every movement and gesture felt intentional. His hands on your hips feel more intense and firm now. You pulled back and heard the music echo.
The moment of silence was deafening.
The music was no longer all that you could think about. He stares back at you, clearly still wanting more, but he holds back from following through in that very moment.
"Let's go." you say looking up at him.
He doesn't answer, but simply nods his head. He takes your hand in his own, and together, the two of you exit the dance floor and leave the cafe. As soon as you hit the street night air, John grabs your hand and pulls you close again, his lips finding his way to yours. Your bodies are pressed against one another, and the intimacy of the moment is undeniable. His lips find yours again, this time, more eagerly. And he lingers for a second or two, savoring the kiss. This time, it feels like he’s taking it further, as his hands start moving down to your waist more playfully.
“You wanna take me to bed?” You simply say.
He looks back at you, a bit amused at the question, but also somewhat surprised that you had the boldness to suggest that.
He stares for a second, his lips partially parted. “Yeah. I do.”
His answers are blunt and straightforward. But there’s also a confidence and assertiveness about him that makes it very evident that he is completely and totally up for that idea.
You smiled. He smiles back at you, before leaning forward to take your hand again. But this time, he doesn't just hold your hand. He interlocks his fingers with yours, his hand more possessive now as he glances down at your interwined fingers.
He leads you back into the base, guiding you towards his quarters.
The silence between you two is punctuated with little whispers and small talk here and there, but overall, the atmosphere is very much still intimate and playful between the two of you.
You noticed your environment. You've never been in this part of the base before, as it was only reserved for the Majors. It’s clear that this is a very private side of the base, for these higher ranking officers to be able to relax in the company of their women.
As you walk down the corridor, you hear the song My Funny Valentine by Chet Baker echoeing from a hall near by. Major Egan guides you through the hallway, the two of you still following hand in hand, until you both finally arrive at his room. You enter and before you could assimilate the space around you, John grabs your waist from behind, spins you around and you watch him close the door behind him so effortelessly, just before he kisses you gently, but passionately.
Everything around you has become a blur now, but you feel his hand on your back, leading you closer to his bed.
You start to walk backwards as he guided you. You put your arms around his neck, looking for support as he kisses you eagerly now. You jump, clinging into his body, as he grabs the back of your legs with his hands, easily supporting your weight. You moan quietly as he starts to feel your skin under your skirt as he holds you with both his hands.
John exhales soundly. "God..." he trailed off "You even sound beautiful."
His lips attack yours once again, filled with desire. His comment gave you chills all over your body. You felt him sit on the bed, you now straddling his lap. Being this close to him left you intoxicated, even speechless. You had nothing to say to him. Your attempts seemed to only come as careless whispers or moans as he explored your body with his hands.
"John..." you finally spoke.
You felt him smile into the kiss. "Yes?"
You took a second to answer, processing his touch. "Fuck me." You finally said.
He couldn't hide his smile. "I wanted to do this right." he paused as you looked at him. "I wanted to make love to you first."
The smirk plastered on his face made you melt. His eyes glistening with adoration for you.
You retributed the smile. "Sweet John..." you began tracing his features with your fingers. "Please do that."
You saw his smile grow slightly wider just before he closed the gap between both your lips.
He held you closer, his grip on you more firm, but never once hurting you.
“I imagined this moment a lot.” He confessed.
You began to take his uniform off. His shoulders so broad and his arms like two comforters around your torso. He did the same with your clothes but taking his sweet time to take in every little detail about you. The curve of your neck, the shape of your breasts and the freckles on your skin. Most of all he noticed the way your expression changed slightly when you became blushed with arousal.
His pants were bothering you, they were in the way. Your hand flew to his belt, trying to unbuckled it with no success. You saw him chuckle, surprisingly out of nervousness, as he helped you take it out. You always thought the Major John Egan would be swift in these manners, he had experience after all. It was the only thing nurses talked about, how much luck he had with women, inside or outside base. Was it so hard to believe that he could be actually nervous because you were the one unbuttoning his pants and trying to discard them? That was hard to grasp.
John grabbed the low of your back with one arm, supporting the other on the bed to lay you on top of it. He stood sat on the bed even after kicking his uniform pants, watching as you lay naked waiting for him to join you.
His expression was a mix of desire and adoration.
"What is it?" You asked laughing.
He shook his head slightly. "Nothing." he opened his mouth for a second before speaking. "I just think you're the most beautiful thing I've seen walk this earth."
You visibly blushed. How could you not? "You're just saying that because-" he interrumpted you immediately.
"Clothed or not." He said plainly, guessing the rest of your phrase. He looked at your face for a couple of seconds, and you did the same with difficulty. He was so handsome, his hair dischevelled falling perfectly on his forehead.
Not bearing it being away from him one more second, you grabbed his hand and pulled him to lay on top of you, opening your legs, allowing for him to fit in the empty space.
He immediately kissed you, your bodies now glued to each other. You could feel his hard member press against your core. You bent your kness, allowing him access. Your way of letting him know what you wanted.
He positioned himself at your entrance, ever so carefully. He looked at your expression as you gasped slightly, feeling him. He then kissed you gently, but eagerly, as he pushed himself inside you, slowly. Your mouth hang open as you threw your head slightly back on the pillow. He looked down at you, and he swore he could come undone right then and there, watching you in that blissful state.
You felt his lips on your neck, beginning in the low of your jaw until the base of your neck. You exhaled when you felt his touch and he could feel the vibrations of your voice on his lips.
His thrusts were purposely slow so you could adjust to his size. Soon enough he started to go deeper as you dig your nails in his upper back muscles.
"Faster." You pleaded, your voice only coming out as a low whimper.
He could hear it alright. John picked up his pace and you moaned louder as you felt every inch of him molding you.
"You feel so good." you heard him say between grunts into your lips.
You brought your lips to his, kissing him deeply. You broke it to speak finally. "John..." you called out his name. "I'm- I'm close."
"I know sweetheart, I know you are." his voice intoxicated you with desire, you could barely control yourself. "I can feel you closing on me." he continued thrusting in and out at that perfect pace. "You can let go... I wanna see that perfect face when you cum."
That was enough for you to explode. You soon came undone, your voice a higher pitch when you moaned his name a couple of times. You felt his warm release spill inside you. His face inches away from yours, mouths open, exhaling as you both reached your high. The moment that followed seemed like completely silent, only your breaths almost in perfect sync.
He smiled after noticing tears of pleasure in the corner of both your eyes, kissing each one of them away from your face. You both moaned when he removed himself inside you, both still very much overstimulated.
He laid next to you, immediately pushing you into his chest, arms wrapped around you. There were no words needed. You guys didn't have to talk about what happened. It was clear.
A few minutes were passed in silence. You looked at the clock on his wall, which marked almost twelve.
"Shit, I have to go. The night shift." you grabbed a bed sheet instinctively to cover yourself as you sat up, looking for your clothes scattered on his bedroom's floor.
"No." his voice lingered, pulling you back on the bed again. "You're staying here tonight."
You smiled as you looked at his sleepy expression. "I don't think that's up for you to decide. The doctors do our schedules, I have to show up to work."
His voice became deeper with tiredness. "I'm Major Egan. I can make a few calls." He suggested, his voice now more playful. "If you'd like to stay here with me tonight." his demeanour expectant.
You looked at him for a couple of seconds, giving thought to his offer. A smile escaped your lips, as you lay in the bed again, slightly embarrassed.
"They can get by without you one night. I can't." he admitted while wrapping his arms around your torso, setting the covers on top of you both.
#john bucky egan#major john bucky egan#john egan#bucky egan#john egan x reader#john bucky egan x reader#callum turner#mastersoftheair#john egan x you#john egan fanfiction#john egan x female reader#john egan smut#john egan imagine#mota fanfic#callum turner major john bucky egan#callum turner x reader#callum turner imagine#callum turner fanfiction#callum turner x you#callum turner x y/n
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#he is so me#sexy and chaotic#this is just for giggles#john bucky egan#john egan#major john egan#callum turner#mota#funny stuff#shitpost
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Whiskey
Major John Egan x reader
Warnings - few swear words, flirting, alcohol
Word count - 1418
a/n - it's been sooo long, mainly because I've been focused on doing applications to transfer colleges. I also didn't know who to write about for a while after farleigh, lol. I hope you enjoy :)
“How much longer are you going to be back there?” your friend groans from the other side of the bar. The bar staff requested extra hands since a large number of pilots and crew had arrived, and for some reason you volunteered to help out.
“I have another hour left, and then I’m finished,” you say as you hand the guy next to her his drink. She just groans in response. “Plus, you said you were planning on ditching me and finding someone to entertain you for the night.”
“Yeah, but it’s not the same when I’m doing it alone.”
“You do realize I’m not the only person you know here, right?” You tell her as another uniformed man walks up to the bar.
“Can I get a round of whiskeys and a ginger beer, please?” the man asks before your friend could answer. You nod and get started on his order.
“Ginger beer?” you hear your friend ask in a judgemental yet light tone.
“Don’t worry it’s not for me,” the man lets out a small laugh. You hand him his drinks on a tray, and he thanks you before walking away.
“You may not be the only person I know, but you're the only one I really like. But I’ll leave you alone to do your job and make my way to where that man just went,” your friend nudges her head in his direction. After following him with your eyes you give her a ‘really’ look once you spot the table and she gives you an innocent shrug in return.
The table is surrounded by nothing but higher ups. It also happens to include the inseparable best friends Major John “Bucky” Egan and Major Gale “Buck” Cleven.
“Maybe once you get Major Egan you’ll be able to put in a good word for me with Major Cleven, or if I get to Cleven first, I could put in a good word for you. We could do the whole double date thing. Their names have a nice ring to it don’t you think?”
“Lower your voice,” you shush her as you glance around for any listening ears. All of the men in the bar know one another in some way, and word travels fast.
“What? You’ve had a crush on the guy for the longest time, and you do nothing about it every time he flies in,” she tells you. “If you ask him out and he turns you down, it's not like you have to see him for long.”
“I’m sorry, have you met me? What makes you think I would ever go up to a guy and ask him out?”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. I guess I’ll just have to be bold for the both of us. Can I get a shot before I go, I’m going to need some liquid courage to take these men on.”
“Take your shot and go,” you say as you wave her off with your hand after placing her shot down in front of her. She takes her shot and wanders off, but not before giving you a smirk. You just playfully roll your eyes in return.
You don’t realize how much time goes by with the constant swarm of men coming up to the bar, but when you decide to look up at the clock on the wall you notice you only have ten minutes left until you're free. It has pretty much slowed down given the fact that most of the men were already drunk out of their minds, but the room was far from quiet.
“Next time it’ll be me who knocks his ass out,” you hear a voice say as they come up to the bar you currently had your back to.
You turn around confused, planning to question the person, but you freeze a little once you notice Major Eagan infront of you. You feel yourself panic a little given the fact that this is the closest you’ve ever been to him. He must see your confused expression though because he begins to explain himself.
“Sorry not you, I was talking to one of my buddies. He knocked some brit out on the first punch,” he says, but not before quickly adding, “It was well deserved though, the man was a prick.”
You just nod in response, not knowing what to say to that other than, “Can I get you anything, Major?”
“Yes, whiskey please,” he smiles as he leans his uniform covered arms on the bar top.
“You wouldn’t happen to belong to the table that requested all those whiskeys tonight would you?” you ask as you turn around to grab a bottle and glass. You also try to keep your hands steady and your face as neutral as possible.
“Guilty,” he lets out a small laugh as you set his drink in front of him. He doesn’t reach out to touch it, but keeps those blue eyes of his on you. “Got a problem with whiskey?”
“No, why do you ask?”
“Because I could’ve sworn you made a face when I said it,” he tells you, but there’s no attitude behind it. Good observation skills on his part, bad concealing skills on your part. He is a soldier after all.
“Oh, you caught that,” you let out a little laugh as you try to busy yourself with something behind the bar. As much as you would like to keep talking to him – because you would most likely never get the chance again – you kind of wish he would walk away so you could control your sweating. Your friend would probably slap you if you turned this interaction down though.
“Yeah, is there a story behind it or you just don’t like whiskey?”
“I just don’t like it,” you say, and it’s true. You feel it’s way too strong, especially to be drinking so casually.
“You have one of the best whiskeys sitting on that shelf behind you, and you're telling me you don’t like it?” you’re not looking at him, but you can hear a playful tone in his voice. If only your friend could see you now, wherever she is.
“That’s exactly what I’m saying.”
“Uh huh,” he replies in a tone that tells you he doesn’t believe you. “When are you able to leave from behind there?” he motions to you behind the bar.
You take a glance up at the clock at the wall and notice you’re not supposed to leave for another three minutes. But, then again, a cute guy is standing across from you so who cares?
“Now actually,” you respond.
“Well then pour yourself a glass, and I’ll drink it with you,” he tells you, and you feel your stomach flutter. It also could be that you’re nauseous from being so nervous.
“This sounds an awful lot like peer pressure,” you joke and he lets out a laugh.
You do as he says and pour yourself a glass because what the hell. He raises his up as a form of cheers, and you do the same before you both tilt your heads back and drink. You pull a face as the liquid burns going down your throat; he just laughs.
“You really don’t like it,” he says as you set your glass down.
“I prefer sweeter things like wine. You know, the stuff that doesn’t taste like acid,” you say, and he just lets out another laugh at your response.
“Well I’ll remember that for next time,” he says, and you almost drop your guys’ cups, which you just picked up to put away.
“Next time?” you pause before looking up at him.
“Yes. I’m going to be here for a while, and I figured the two of us could do something,” he tells you like it was obvious,” Without any whiskey involved of course.”
“And what makes you think I want to?”
“Because you just spent the past ten minutes having a conversation with me. Oh, and your friend told me to come over here since I helped her get with my buddy Buck,” he gives you a smirk.
Your heart practically slaps the ground, and you feel like you actually might throw up. Part of you isn’t surprised because you were never going to do anything about your crush and your friend knew, and the other part of you is shocked because what happened to girl code?
“Well now I definitely don’t want to,” you tell him, half joking, as you resume cleaning up.
#callum turner#callum turner x reader#john egan x reader#callum turner imagine#major john egan x reader
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Masters of the Air Fanfic
As requested by sweet @arianatheangel-girl and the subsequent poll for a “Buck Cleven Fic before the series comes out” -and I, being a madwoman with no impulse control and a faint recollection of the book, have delivered…this…whatever this is
Song Challenge: i was challenged by dear @the-ugly-swan for a twenty favored songs challenge and I’m gonna go ahead and make this part of it. August by Taylor Swift informed some of the bittersweet timeline here, with infidelity not being the enemy but rather the lack of possessing oneself fully during wartime to give to another
Spoilers: historical accuracy and inaccuracy abound here so, beware there are some biographical facts about Cleven in here that might count as spoilers to those who wish to watch the series with a blank slate. While to the history purists I must beg for a substantial amount of artistic license to be granted me, and obviously I’ve not seen the show yet and I crunched the timeline to my own will
Reader insert but without the use of “y/n” -I’m utterly fudging a bit on the likelihood of a WAAF lady being part of the American ground crew, however, I had in my minds eye the vision of a greasy mechanic and a glamorous flyboy and it wouldn’t budge, so shhh, go with the vibe
Warnings: mature, 18+. Fluffy smut was requested and while it is very brief and mild in here, not very explicit in phrasing, it’s quite present and a plot point so beware. Also, Virgin!Gale has my heart so we went with that. No shade to dear Marjorie irl, I’ll probably end up writing fics about her once the show gives me Inspo. Some angst due to war, POW’s, etc, mild language
Word count: a monstrous 12k
They came in like locusts at the height of summer, long prayed for, oft cursed in moments of perilous isolation, those ever so intriguingly shiny Americans.
Swarming with a metal buzz over the flatlands of East Anglia, big hulking beasts touched down on fresh tarmacs with more grace than anything that size ought to have, flashing the most bizarre and suggestive paintings on their gleaming fuselages. Flying Fortresses, they were called, and deserved the name. Nothing but the biggest, the loudest, the most alarming machinery would do for the American war effort, and now all this mighty strength was Britain’s too, no longer alone, no longer enduring.
Now the fight could be taken to the enemy in earnest. Out of their flying ships poured the most alarmingly young looking faces, jaunty hats and leather jackets, they looked every bit the sort of fellows war was advertised to.
Farmers in their tractors, mothers with daughters still under their command and RAF veterans all looked askance at such pristine warriors. Had their fertile fields been paved into airfields just for this? Were these gum chewing boys the long expected aid? It wasn’t anti-climactic, nothing American could ever be, it was all just alarmingly fresh. It was understandable then, the initial tentativeness the locals felt towards their new occupants, the way the boys took up such space in the rural villages, made such a racket in the pubs, chased every skirt that swished in the rainy summer breeze, stuck hands out for a shake no matter the introduction. They were a warm, boisterous and confident lot, all much needed attributes in wartime Britain, and soon, the initial distrust of the citizenry thawed, hands were shaken in return and invitations made. An amiable amalgamation eventually occurred, Norfolk never to recover or return to whatever placidity had been her’s before the arrival of the 100th.
Personally, you couldn’t wait to get your hands on them. The planes, that is.
Amalgamation was less a choice for yourself and your service members than a duty. It was abnormal, having a mixed ground crew, British and American servicemen too often clashing in hierarchy disputes for it to be standard, but with deployment rates so high and casualties mounting, ground crew became a case of whichever skilled individuals could be called upon to keep the operation running, the pilots up and the enemy bombed.
You were just glad to be near home, first time back since ‘39 when you’d signed up in the Women's Auxiliary Air Force -even if your rural hometown was now overrun with Americans. They weren’t a bad lot at all, at least not the ones you’d encountered so far on base. Amiable and unexpectedly eager, undeterred by veterans’ grim looks and tales of the woodchipper across the channel, that line of anti-aircraft that shredded anything trying to penetrate the continent.
“Better get crackin’ then.” Was the common response followed by a grin.
Your crew chief sergeant, Ken Lemmons, an American with a forelock of sandy ringlets and the patience of a saint, made the job easier even as every ounce of expertise was exacted from each man -or woman- under him. Feeding a fiery chain of bullets into the turret gun under a hot July sun, you thought your papa may have had the right of it when he tried to dissuade you from choosing the harsher duties of the Auxiliary Force. You could’ve been pouring over a map in the cool of the boardroom right now, or passing on radio messages, even shuttling planes would’ve been more relaxing, but no, you’d spent your life passing him tools in his garage, your papa had been building flying machines when most for these boys were still in diapers, and that path called to you, too. So for you it was grueling maintenance work and the ever present grime of grease on your hands and the awkward reach of twisted metal repairs. Gratefully, after their first mission, there were plenty of them back safe, however riddled their fortresses might’ve been.
It was interesting, the way certain of the flight crew treated the ships. Some were endeared but indifferent to their repairs while others hovered at each hole and tear, like over protective mothers, while you and your mates tried to do your jobs.
Why, one plane in the five assigned to your care was even named “Our Baby”. With such a moniker it made sense that its porcelain faced pilot would caress the shredded wing with a misty eyed frown at each wound, like it were a breathing thing, a race horse, a friend. You didn’t judge it, and he didn’t seem aware of his audience, he’d be back out there doing his own check up after debriefing. Never interrupting your work, always quick to step aside or duck out of the way of a ground crewman’s path, it wasn’t time to chatter or make introductions, although sometimes when the work took long and his reports longer, he’d be there to bid goodnight to you all, soft, American drawl saying “Goodnight, thank ya, goodnight, good work, thank ya” again and again to each.
You grew to recognize them, the ones each mission spared, there were so many and under hats and bundled in leather jackets they tended to blend together, but there were those who made their mark, if not on you then on Dorace in cartography and Eileen at the Red Cross. There was much tittering and speculation, after all, spread thin as their time was, there was also plenty of off time, made all the more charged and anxious as it came in the form of waiting for new orders. The men would be vibrating with nervous energy and generous in the flush of a recent victory and they took it out on the little villagers who in good British fashion took it on the chin and challenged them to a contest of good spirits.
Those were happy days, less anxious than the preceding ones and less heavy than those making up the year after. You dared be roped into the multiple pub crawls, often choosing the most sensible and quiet of the group as your victim and attaching yourself to their side for the evening. This tactic had its fallibility, sometimes those moderates were such a bore as to be unsupportable or hadn’t enough verve to make a full night of it and retired early like respectable, curfew-abiding saps. That’s how you found yourself one night ensconced in a beer pungent corner of Flaggen’s, green leather seats sticky under your palms, with Major Egan fanning out a wad of cash in front of you. It was a blatant attempt to bribe you to clear his aircraft sooner than the last inspection suggested.
“Suggestions” was Egan’s term for regulations.
If you were less tipsy you wouldn’t have giggled at the man’s idiocy, but his arm was heavy around your shoulders and this very cash had bought you one too many gin and tonics. “These regulations keep you alive!” You chided him, shaking your head and feeling the room tip as you did. Truly these Americans could hold their liquor, almost as well as the Polish Squadron when it came to a binge.
“A little flack isn’t gonna keep her down.” he scoffed, “I’ve been grounded for a week now-“
“-I don’t have the authority-“
“-and I’m not gonna sit here while Buck goes up and racks up his number!” Eagen was vehemently slurring and your drunken mind tried to process who Buck was, if not Egan himself.
“Aren’t you Bucky?” you asked, bewildered.
-Americans and their nicknames.
“Yeah.”
“So who’s Buck?” you concentrated very hard on the ancient coaster beneath your latest pint.
“It’s Buck! It’s Gale, Cleven, Major Gale Cleven!” Egan waxed louder and more dramatic with each addition. “You keep clearing his plane! But not mine! Why’s that, huh?”
“How do you know that?” you asked, dubious and only in the raucous of this little pub would his loud voice go unheeded. Compared to the ongoing dart game to the left behind the half wall, an elephant’s trumpeting would be considered bashful.
“ ‘Cause he tells me?” he replied, bewildered at your slowness, “Says you and your crew are little fairies, crawlin’ all over his plane and patching it up better than ever after each mission. And then you clear him. Simple as that.”
“I don’t have authority to clear anyone.” you repeated.
“Huh,” Egan grunted, “how’does he mean then?”
“I don’t know.” you replied firmly, “I doubt I’ve even got your plane, i don’t see you around.”
“I don’t stay around, that’s your job, patching up. I just fly the damn thing.”
“Oh, well.” you shrugged, “I’ve had five, it’s down to three after last mission.” Three years ago the mention of that ratio of losses would’ve sank your mood to the floorboards, by now it’s horrifically routine. “What’s yours called?”
“Mugwump.” he grinned proudly, a flash of white beneath his dark mustache, the man’s face positively shimmered with sweat.
“Serial?” you asked demurely, just to be difficult.
He squinted his eyes shut briefly, head tilted back as if to ask the heavens for help and the recited in a drill master’s staccato “42-30066, ma’am, yes ma’am.”
You giggled again and Egan’s arm jostled your shoulders, smushing you further into him. They were good fun, these boys, didn’t even mind your horrifyingly unflattering uniform with its bulging pockets adding bulk where your curves should take center stage and your stupid pleated cap making you look to be half baker, half doll. You preferred your plain navy coveralls but you’d hardly be let into an establishment in them. Egan’s warm arm didn’t seem to mind the excess poof of the material, he smashed it right down with his hand’s firm grip, he was fun, you decided, no harm in good fun. “Alas, not one of mine.” you sighed, focusing hard on the serial number.
“Damn.” he swore, playing at dejection.
“No,” you went on, “but I’ve got this one, a very spoiled one, maybe you know whose it is. They named it ‘Our Baby’!”
Poor manners and personnel etiquette though it was, you couldn’t say it without tittering.
Egan didn’t laugh, he just looked at you like you’d proved his point. “Yeah,” he replied vehemently, “That’s Buck Cleven’s!”
“Oooh.” -So it was him, the fighting cherub, the walking doughboy, toothpick, baby at wings: there were a dozen or more nicknames you and the ground crew gave the wing-petting Major behind his back. “He always says goodnight to us.” you said instead.
“Is that where he is when I wanna go for a drink?” Egan exclaimed, “Ha! You’d think he was married to the ole ship.”
“He handles her beautifully.” You feel oddly compelled to defend, he’s a master at flight and as someone who must repair each fault of his landings and his leavings and his missions, you feel some loyalty to his finesse. “He handles her so well.” you repeat in the tone of a woman who’s seen some aviation in her time, young though you may be.
“Well let me let you into a lil secret,” Egan smirks and you brace without knowing why, he is, after all, not the respectable and dull men you choose to go out with, he is the dangerous sort you bring those dullards along to deter, “shes the only ‘she’ that boy has ever ‘handled’ -if ya get my drift.”
The sleazy wag of his eyebrows leaves no room for ignorance, you feel your face heat up, wether in prudery for the topic or second hand embarrassment for his friend’s sake, you don’t know.
“Nothing wrong with that.” you reply coldy, only to distance yourself from the road his body language seemed to be hurtling you both down.
“Quite right. Nothin’ at all!” Egan agrees vehemently, his smile easy and his eyes clever “But I’d be a poor friend if I didn't try to remedy his predicament.”
“Telling me is somehow part of this remedy?” you were suspicious, rightfully so.
“Maybe.” Egan drawls it out, shifting in his seat to no longer corner you, his attention drawn to the nearby dart game. The man of the moment, the subject, the handler of planes and none else, was not here. He had such a luminous head of golden hair, it would be a beacon amongst the muddy haired crowd flinging darts. “The thing of it is, dear,” Egan confided, “I've had an absolutely marvelous time since I got here. And I think that’s rather essential, for sanity and for international relations, don’t you? I’ve gotten to know all sorts of wonderful people, lovely people like yourself-“
“-word is, you’ve known them a little too biblically, no wonder Cleven avoids your outings.” You could not help but temper him. “Half of Great Britain has had the privilege, if some are to be believed.”
“And so what if I have? I love dancin’!” he laughed quite happily at your barb and you didn’t have it in you to pull down any further a man who was sacrificing so much day in and out. “Getting to know Great Britain is a better occupation than pettin’ plane wings under the moonlight.”
You tittered again at his words and the oddly endearing memories you had of watching Major Ceven petting and whispering to his plane like she was his long-standing beloved, loitering ground crew unheeded. “He does do that.” you agreed.
“Hey, everyone’s got their method.” Egan insisted in his friend’s defense, “But I have told him, it’s good for the morale to mingle, even if he hates drinkin’.“
You pucker your face at that. “I know he mingles, Violet says he’s a doll when he goes to market.” you point out, small town chatter gets around and while you can’t say you know Cleven, you know he’s mild mannered and precious. And a terribly pretty face too, which isn’t fair, he oughta be an ass which a face that cute. “And he got a tan from somewhere last week.“
“Oh, so ya noticed!” Egan is triumphant, “A bunch of us used our day passes to go messin’ around in boats on the canals.”
“Good for you.” you didn’t know what else to say. “Why are we talking about him? What’s your point? I can ask for your plane to be transferred to my crew, but it won’t get you a sloppy clearance. And if your friend is so socially awkward he can’t even manage a pub night, you can hardly expect me to be flattered that you consider me prime material to throw at him.”
“He’s not awkward.” Egan cut to the chase quite serious, in mission mode, “Buck just had his hopes tangled up back home, and now he’s here he’s finding it hard to accept that hopes were all they were. She’s real moved on.” Well that had hurt, you winced in sympathy. “I warned him, everything during this war has got to be taken as a bit inpermanent. Don’t fall in love with Texas girls when you’re headed to England -via: Louisiana, Indiana, hell, by New York she’d stopped writing.”
“And now the texas girl has-“
“-found a Texan, I guess.” He shrugged and chugged the last of his pint. “She’s gettin’ married, it's really over. So, -“ he made a broad gesture as if to explain his reasoning for this entire segue. “-you like projects, you wouldn’t be in the line of work you’re in if ya didn’t, so whaddya say?”
You looked around the dimly lit pub in search of two things, sunny blonde hair and a clock to tell you how badly you were going to regret this night, come morning. “He’s not even here.” you balked.
“Well, no-“
“-what I say is,” you grinned at him disbelieving, “you owe me another gin and tonic for subjecting me to such inane chatter.”
His grin should have served as warning enough that he would neither drop the subject nor let you off free this evening. In fact, the ticking clock and its late curfew breaking hours became the least of your concerns come morning. The cool wash of bitter juniper blended into the pungent flow of beer, it blurred everything, soon there was a great swelling of pride for your native village, a pub crawl was on, all three visited and drank from, an army Jeep was requisitioned without authority, there was some incident regarding a policeman‘s helmet. The latter being the reason why you found yourself in “jail” the next morning, nursing a raging headache and questioning life decisions while glaring at John Egan’s polished boots.
There was very little talk about bail or Air Force hours being exceptioned, the more pressing concern to the Bobbies who had nabbed you was the coed holding cell. Thorpe Abbotts was a small place, after all, and you liked it that way. If this overly indulgent night could be kept away from the military police, all would be well.
You had one hope: Harry Crosby was sensibly absent from the holding cell, having a keen sense of when to depart from the raucous joyride at the precise moment to save himself a demerit. It was an extreme embarrassment to you that you’d not had the same sense. In fact, fond as you were of a bit of a knees up, you couldn’t quite credit the fact you had allowed yourself such free reign, or accomplished such foolishness. Glowering at Major Egan’s face now, animated with delighted chagrin at your shared plight as it was, you vowed to never again hook your fortunes to his, as it were.
Your resolve, and humiliation, was about to be compounded, exponentially.
There was a bustle of a visitor entering the precinct, easily heard in the small space, followed by the low hum of mild mannered conversation. It went on for sometime, and no amount of straining at the bars and cocking of ears would allow you, Egan or your fellow misfortunates to ascertain the gist of it. Violet’s husband was the main constable, and you were quite certain he’d be moderate in his sentence, he had his helmet back, after all. It was the Air Force penalty of not being on base in time this morning that you feared, a growing nausea that compounded the misery of your aching head. They’d not discharge Egan, they’d probably not even demote him, he was too crucial and he’d done this one too many times for it to be grace alone saving him. When he was needed, really needed, he was there. That’s what counted. The same could be said of you, but that hardly mattered given your low rank.
Violet’s husband, also known as constable Herbert, came in sight and with a jangle of keys and a tap to the side of his nose, swung open the bars of infamy and gestured for you and your fellow inmates to file out.
“All sorted.” He declared. His gaze lingered on you as it had many times in your life when you’d been caught jumping in puddles after church, “Let this be a lesson and a warning to you.”
You tried your best at both obeisance and penitence, both of which were rather natural feelings at the present time, while hurrying past as fast as was respectful, your approaching shift hours making your heart thump in panic.
On the steps outside, your savior was loitering against the wrought iron fence, thumbing at the petunias in the nearby window box. Gale Cleven was a mile long of lanky body in perfectly pressed and tailored Air Force greens, fresh faced as the good conscienced are, hair combed without his cap and a smile on his soft face that was composedly long suffering, rather than endeared, as he watched you miscreants pour out of the modest brick building.
You stumbled to a halt on the first step at the sight of him and allowed your instincts to take over, hands smoothing down hair and skirt with frantic self consciousness. You must’ve looked a rumple.
“I hope last night was worth it.” Cleven drawled in that voice of his, so oddly deep for so fresh a face, his placid smile growing into something more genuinely mirthful as Egan smooched at him in gratitude and swore that he knew his Buck wouldn’t abandon them, that his Buck would pull through for them. “I order a round of toothpaste for everyone and cold showers, you stink.” Gale shied away without any real effort, nodding in greeting to the boys he recognized.
Then, as if in the most painfully slow motion with all the strong string accompaniment of a silver screen scene, his eyes landed on you and an odd ache formed in your chest at the anticipation of his disapproval.
It made you tense and draw yourself up to your full height, looking about as regal as a drenched bantam in your disheveled dignity, but you weren’t about to be relegated to another tier than these boys he so amusedly indulged.
“Y’all know what time it is?” he asked mildy, those azure orbs with their batting dark fringe didn’t waver and you realized he indeed had more guts than you’d given him credit for.
There was a chorus of “no”s and various guesses based on the fast evaporating fog and the lightening sky.
“Zero five thirty.” he ended the suspense with the cock of an eyebrow at you.
“Shit!” Egan was suddenly animated, “Shit, shit-“
“Hey, you keep your swearin’ away from my sweet lil corporal.” Cleven chided, and it took you a brief moment to startle upon realizing he meant you. And he thought you sweet? “C’mon Miss,” he waved you down the steps and for some inexplicable reason you felt very compelled to obey and suddenly stood beneath his gaze like a dutiful child awaiting deliverance or censure, “I’ve only got this bike, petrol allotment ran out when we went to the canals last week. But it’ll get ya back faster than this lot. Reckon you can manage on the handlebar?”
“Wha-?“ you glanced sideways at the bike with its large, sweeping handlebars and second guessed his meaning until he himself was straddling it. His legs required the seat to be hiked up impossibly high and the narrow nip of his waist was accentuated by the posture. Those padded, fleece puffed jackets you had seen him in had done no credit to his form, a toothpick he may have been with how terribly lean he was, but he was firm in all the right places. He was also waiting on you to answer while you ogled him.
“Gosh yes, I can, if you’re sure? Awfully kind of you.” you blathered and moved in a hurry to make up for your stalling, keenly conscious of his eyes on your back as you shimmied your backside up onto his handlebars, feeling the warm press of his hand as he helped steady you from tipping all the way back. You wiggled on the thin metal bar, spreading your legs on either side of the front wheel and doing your best to ignore the raucous commentary of the still tipsy audience of your fellow inmates swaying on the precinct steps. “Y’all just be glad there’s no mission scheduled today.” he snarked to them instead and they chimed up that last night’s idiocy was calculated with that in mind.
“Huh.” Cleven uttered, unimpressed, behind you and it made you shiver, worse than if your father caught wind of this stunt. “Darlin’ put your hands over mine, s’gonna get wobbly takin’ off.” he directed next and you did as you were told, looking back over your shoulder at him with a grateful smile that you were relieved to see returned, pink lips stretching and a freckled nose bunching up sweetly when all of the sudden a rush caught you by surprise and the bike was in motion and you whipped your head back to view the street as it rushed up ahead of you. “See ya boys!” he hollered out as a mutinous babble rose from his friends at being left to jog back.
The young man could put some speed on a bike, uphill too. Or, as much of a hill as could be found this far East. You could hear him chuckle when you squeaked at the first jolt of a pothole, your thumbs hooking under his hands and curling into his palms. They were warm and calloused, dry from the cool breeze and you may have imagined the way he squeezed them in assaurance but you did not imagine the way his voice piped up again, smooth and conversational: “Harry told me if I was quick I could get you out in time, I think we’re gonna make it. S’dont worry, even if Sergeant Lemmons gives ya trouble, I’ll insist.”
“That’s really too kind of you.” The chill of windburn and a substantial amount of remorse made your cheeks glow scarlet. “All of it is. I’m rather ashamed.”
“I didn’t take you for an all nighter sort.” he agreed but followed it with a soothing compliment, “You’ve always been nothin’ but perfect. P-p-perfectly punctual, I mean, and there’s no reason to let Egan’s idea of fun ruin your record.”
“Wasn’t his fault. Not wholly.” you sighed, giving Violet a bashful wave as you passed her opening the shop, a wave which Cleven mirrored behind you and between the two of you letting go the bike, it nearly dumped you both. It was luck and sheer persistence that righted you and kept your balance. “I’m afraid it’s a bit of a bad habit, picked it up at Northolt.”
“Where’s that?” he asked.
“South, by the coast.” you said, unsure why you felt the need to explain your debauchery away, “I was working a ground crew down there for a bunch of Polish Pilots. Spitfires mainly. That squadron nabbed the most kills of any in the RAF back in ‘40. Why, even Churchill visited more times than I can count, he found them good fun. Too much fun, they never went to bed without downing half a barrel. There was dice built into the bottom of the pints at the Black Bull, rather addictive, rolling to see who would buy the next round. —There was always a next.” You added upon reflection.
That was also the year you had lost your brother. The correlation between the habit and the loss wasn’t to be dwelt on.
“Huh,” Cleven let out one of him contemplative hums, “and how do we compare?” he asked surprisingly.
“How?” you laughed, daring to crane your neck back to see him in the early morning sunshine, pretty and sweet and arch in his expression. Dusk had not done his mama’s work on his face any justice, it made you want to pant he was so pretty.
“I dunno, in any way,” he laughed in turn, not even breathless as he sped the bike over the cobblestones, the village barely awake and mostly quiet, “how do we compare?”
“To the Poles?”
“Or the French. Or your own, the RAF ain’t no joke.” he amended, “Whoever is our competition.”
“So it is a competition.” you smirked -how very American of him. “Depends,” you hedged playfully, “Our boys are so very nice, familiar, they never run out the right coinage during a date either. But the French are better flirts while the Dutch are better dancers. But the Poles, they know how to romance. Lots of hand kissing and flowers, so many flowers there had to be rules made for overstocking the billet.”
“Sounds like we gotta step up our game.” he decided.
“Is that what you meant? How you compare? First impressions?”
“I-I- guess, yeah.” he now sounded confused, “I mean, what else? You got scores for aircraft?”
“I do.” you replied, as it was true, “But that’s unfair, you’ve only just arrived. I thought maybe you wanted to know something more -salacious.”
“Like?” His tone behind you was guarded and you doubted if the alcohol of last night were not still buzzing and fortifying your brazenness, that you’d ever go through with what you said next.
“Other performances. For instance, in bed.”
You felt his fingers flutter around the bars beneath your own, you gripped them tighter, not just because the stretch of old road before the air base was ancient and pitted but because you were in an agony of suspense as to how he’d take your forwardness.
“There’s a record of that somewhere?” he asked at last, a beat too long, too delayed for casualness, too morose for flippancy.
“In fact there is.” you responded carefully. “A little diary of rankings, actually, there’s multiple and whenever there’s a grand assembly of the WAAF or the WACs, they’re passed about and tallied.”
“Sweet Jesus.” he swore behind you, “And here I’ve been chalkin’ up railways and munition dump targets like they’re some achievement.”
“Oh it’s all a bit of silliness.” You assured, not intending to make him glum.
“Do-“ he hesitated and you prayed for strength for him to spit it out as the airfield came in sight on the flat plain ahead. He didn’t.
“-Do I what?” you prodded softly.
“Are one of these little tallies yours?” he asked miserably.
You grinned to yourself and felt the sunshine seemed brighter and the air crisper than ever before as it rushed in your face with the slowing speed of his bike. “No, not in the least. I merely keep track of Sally’s ledger. It’s all a bit too -messy, for me.”
You dared peak behind you again and he looked relieved, then blushed furiously at your observance of him. “Well, who does Sally say is winning?” he dared.
“Romania.” you chortled and he did too, in shock if nothing else. “But Egan’s caught wind of it, he’s quite determined to save your country’s dominance, you don’t need to sweat it.”
His frown was back and you had to focus on not falling off as he slowed the bike to a halt, momentum precarious as his long legs kicked out and walked it the last yard to the segregated barracks, you felt his hand again on your waist to steady you. “Does that bother you?” he asked earnestly, sorrow in his blue eyes.
He offered a hand for you as you hopped down and it was you who held onto it long after it was needed. “Bother me?”
“Yeah, him -consortin’…with Sally?” he pressed, hands quite engulfing your one, “Does it hurt you? Bucky, see, he doesn’t mean to hurt, he’s just so-“
“-Blimey, you are a dear.” you marveled and then amended your interruption as your amusement only further creased that sweet face, “If I am ever again in Major Egan’s company, it will only be to escape it just as quickly. I’ve had quite enough of…consorting.”
“That so?” The lackadaisical confidence he exhibited outside of the precinct was back again, a not unattractive smirk plastered on his vulnerable face, a scheme in his guileless eyes. “Had enough of holding cells?”
“Quite.” you smirked back. “A quiet family dinner is more my style, the occasional picnic, even a zip round Oxford as one must show the foreigners about.” you paused and squeezed his hand once more, “And I do enjoy a bike ride.”
You did not know if he cataloged your preferences for an ideal date or not, life was busy, after all, and the momentary frolics in the July sunshine and banter on the tarmac and evenings in the pub were the exception. Time went on. Most of life was spent in the air, in his case, and in yours, beneath the belly of his beast, wrench in hand. But ever after his gallant rescue of you, there was more than the passing “goodnight” paid to you, there were cheerful smiles on his exhausted face when he returned from a mission, as if you were the one face he was coming back to. With an old familiar dread you noticed the way you begin to take each hole and dent and damage to his plane personally, as if it had been exacted on something precious to you. You have begun to care, for him and for his men, and your tired heart could barely do more than dread what that might lead to.
Good fun. That’s what these boys were supposed to be.
Gale Cleven hadn’t proven much fun. And somehow that was worse. It was worse and also unbearably honoring to be the last face he saw before taking it off, flags in your hands waving in front of his hulking bomber, giving the old familiar directions for a perfect takeoff, one he executed sublimely time and again. His sober, purposeful nods to you before he engaged and taxied out for a mission of death was more intense and intimate than any bouquet or even, your thought, a kiss. It was true the donut dollies on the sidelines were often the last faces of home that many of those boys would see. But in the his cockpit, looking down at your shrimp sized figure on the tarmac, both Major Cleven and you knew that for him, it was yours.
Once, there was a scare, in the first days of august. More than a scare if you were being honest, your heartbeat about stopped and didn’t pick back up for a few hours until word came in. The rest of the base wasn’t much better.
Ten planes had not come back. -Among them, Our Baby. And Mugwump. For two officers, so crucial, so senior, idolized and beloved as they were, to not return, was a blow like none other. You weren’t alone in hovering around the control shack, taking license of your friendship with Dorace to get a play by play of any news. When news came, such as it was, it was both relieving and exasperating.
It would seem there was some problem, a defect or too great of a hit. Orders to land in enemy territory were ignored, however, by Cleven no less. He had doggedly pushed on, safely landing them in allied Africa, of all places. It took almost a day for this information to finally be pasted together, by the end of it you were sad, haggard and half useless in your coveralls, stupendously relieved for a man you were supposed to feel professionally about.
Instead, that night, tucked in your own bed after a meal with your parents and little brother, you thanked God for keeping him -them, all of them- safe. And found yourself pondering the tan on him when he got back from his African foray. Some jealous part of you feared he might be kept there but a week later the thunderous hum of approaching bombers buzzed the air overhead of Thorpe Abbotts and the satisfying thwump of wheels touching down brought them back. There was a frenzy of greetings, flight and ground crew eager to welcome them back, the radio operators, too, and even the civilians who’d managed to get on base.
Your little brother among them. Donald wanted to see them back safe and it wasn’t dangerous, and it wasn’t dire, not returning from a mission the planes wouldn’t be in such poor shape. They’d been repaired in Africa, enough to fly them all the way back to England. So little Donald was nearby and when the crowd parted and a bee-line for Cleven became apparent, he took advantage and gave the young man a firm handshake in greeting.
“Hey buddy, thank ya, who do you belong to?” Buck laughed while returning the firm grip.
“I’m her brother.” Donald pointed you out proudly among the dispersing crowd and you rolled your eyes at his expectancy for Gale to know or care about you, more than your most pertinent work on base.
“Oh are ya now, hers, huh?” he grinned at you, “Been talkin’ about me?” he greeted, there was a still healing scrape on his left temple that your fingers itched to soothe. How badly had he hit his head?
“Of course I have.” you defended, happiness bubbling under your lips and threatening to make you smile more than was professional, you could see Sergeant Lemmons observing you from the side and tried to keep some decorum. “We thought you’d died.” You stated plainly, it wasn’t any secret to Donald, as soon as the plane had gone missing and before radio contact had been reestablished, you’d rushed home and made the family pray over supper.
“We’ve been praying for you.” Donald agreed, and you saw Cleven startle, a gasped intake of breath between those lush lips and his eyes seemed to water as he searched first your brother’s face and then your own.
“You have?” he choked out, raspy and touched.
“Yes.” you whispered, mouth twisting in a ugly grimace to hold back your own emotion. It was of little use, something beyond War Effort investment in his well being had been admitted. “We thought you might be dea-“
-you didn’t finish your reiteration of your dread. Your face, a greasy and mist spattered face, was suddenly smushed into the padded leather of his bomber jacket, nose tucked right into the fleece apex where his pale blue scarf always rested on his throat.
He was hugging you, you realized with delayed surprise.
“-even though it made the potatoes cold, Da insisted on prayin’ every night after she told us-“ Donald was waxing eloquent on his own sacrifices of having one added prayer request lengthening his mealtime but you were oblivious to more than the firm press of Cleven’s still gloved hand to the back of your scarf wrapped head, some strong emotion shuddering through his body against your own. A tremor of terror and pain, you suspected, emotions he’d been suppressing all week.
After all, the saved weren’t supposed to be shaken up. They’d been saved, what was there to be off about? You’d seen enough pilots after a close call to know it was every bit as bad or worse than actual disaster. They’d send him right back up again in days, and that was what was expected, demanded, required. He was tremoring against you and you gripped him tighter, sympathetic and aching to cure it somehow. Even for a moment.
“We’ll keep praying.” you assured, and you heard him clear his throat, snotty and rough. “Oh, blast, I’ve positively greased your jacket.” you mourned as he let you go, finally, and you caught sight of the mess your filthy hands and face had imprinted on it during the embrace.
He chuckled as he looked down at the imprint, “S’fine.”
After such an exchange of emotion the air felt charged between you two, without privacy or precedence, it felt unthinkable to linger in that mood. You turned to his plane and pet the fuselage with unstudied fondness, it had been horrid having the old bird absent. You were not above having favorites and the love he poured into his ship, somehow, like some old fairytale truism, made the hulking metal beast lovable, in turn. “How’s our baby, hmm?” you asked him, giving him a sly smile and he took your proffered out seamlessly, joining you in cataloging the damage that had not been deemed severe enough to hamper his return.
“Don’t crawl under here, sir!” you protested as you wiggled under the belly only to find him beside you in the plane’s shadow, “You’ll be a mess!”
“I’ve already got stains.” he brushed your worries off, and you knew it was true. Bloodstains in fact. He had lost a man, the report said, and apparently, judging by his trousers, Buck had held the poor fellow as he bled out. “And I wanna show you the spot I’m worried ‘bout.”
“Alright.” you conceded, allowing him to direct you to the nose. “Watch it Donald!” you had to reprimand your little brother who predictably followed after, “You’ll burn yourself if you touch that, this thing was just running.”
“Careful buddy.” Gale echoed gently beside you and pushed his little head down, more into a crawl. You refused to allow the gentle way he treated the brat to warm you, you refused. Or at least, you refused to let it show, the tingle and heat you felt being all too consuming to be denied.
He was lovely. But you already knew that. He was even more lovely when, upon crawling out from under Our Baby, he took his scarf from around his neck, silk decadently soft, flesh warmed and smelling strongly of his exertions, and swiped it across your greased cheek.
“You’ve got just a lil more…” he practically mumbled and wiped down to your chin, firm, gentle little rubs of the silk which required his other hand to grasp your chin to steady you. You weren’t sure when he’d taken off his gloves, but the feel of his skin on yours was heady.
“It’ll take a couple days.” You predicted regarding the repairs, “Which means you’ll have a few days free, if they don’t drown you in reports.”
“Oh they will.” he laughed, “But s’long as my days are free, means yours aren’t.” he pointed out.
“I guess that’s true.”
“We shoulda thought of that when we chose this line of work.” he joked and your cheeks flamed at the realization he wished to spend time with you. “But you’ll have your nights still, yeah?”
Coming from anyone else, the request for your nights to be reserved would strike you as suggestive indeed. But this was Buck, and when he mentioned nights you imagined nothing but taking him home for a tepid potato and rationed powdered milk supper and the warm reception of your family. His weary eyes suggested how badly he needed that. You could give it to him, and it made your heart glow.
“Yes, I’ll have my nights.” you agreed, “And you can have them, too.”
Sergeant Lemmons agreed with your estimation of Our Baby’s damage the following day and four long days after were spent patching up damage that suggested what a hellish ride that must’ve been. Someone else hosed the blood out of the bay but it turned the puddle on the concrete beside you sickly pink.
To and fro from office to barracks to observation tower, Cleven would stop by to see his ‘baby’ on these occasions. The heckling the ground crew gave you regarding this potential double meaning was agonizing and almost made his attentions not worth it. But then he’d be dropping to a squat to chat with you as you soldered metal, heedless of the sparks, or else bringing scones from the mess to refresh you and, again, wiping your face often with his fancy scarves despite your protests that it was futile.
And at night, on the second day, you made good on yours and Donald’s word and brought him to dinner. It was a quiet walk from the base to the end of the long main road, right to the outskirts of the village, where your family’s unassuming little thatched cottage nestled amongst mama’s victory garden, daddy’s aeroplane hanger and repair shop loomed ugly and dark behind.
The look on Buck’s face when you met him outside the base’s gate at seven in the evening in a dress and heels was worth capturing. But you hadn’t a camera with you and it wasn’t like you were liable to forget. His pure look of awe and appreciation for your cleaned up and girlish state was nearly comic if it weren’t so flattering.
“Darlin-“ he began in a rush but did not finish, only taking you lightly by the fingertips and spinning you slowly, his eyes wide like he was seeing a marvel, which, maybe he was, -your womanly form finally liberated from puffy uniforms and ugly coveralls. Wholesome as your intentions were for the evening, and indeed for him in general, it was some relief and delight to know he was capable of getting hot under the collar. His mama’s well drilled manners soon caught up to his unbridled appreciation and a deluge of charmingly proper compliments rained down on you next until you had to put a stop to his babble by tugging him down the road with the reminder of dinner as incentive.
“You’re sure they won’t mind?” he began his worries again, nervous to meet your parents.
If he’d been like the rest of the boys he’d know just how much mingling was already common. It wasn’t remotely odd to bring him home, not when you lived so near. “Don’t be silly, they’ve been begging to meet you and Donald has plans of torturing you with his plane models and Papa wants to show you his shop and mama thinks you're much too skinny, I’m sure she’s gone to the black market to grab something to fatten you-“
“-how’s she know that?” he interrupted in shock.
“Oh,” you flushed, realizing your misstep, “I’ve talked of you. And she recognized you, she and Violet are thick as thieves and -it’s not like you’re unremarkable. A physical description is rather easy to give when you, well, when you look like…you.”
“What do I look like?” he cried out but his cheeks were smiling despite his outrage, “Malnourished?”
“Like a lanky cherub.” you refuted and were pleased that the late summer sun was still bright enough at this long hour to show his pretty blush.
“A cherub.” he repeated in disbelief.
“Yes.” you were firm, both in tone and the press of your hand in the crook of his offered elbow, “And as we’ve been commended to entertain angels unaware, how much more when we are certain of one?”
“Oh shut up.” he begged you and you two staggered into each other as you laughed your hearts out. It felt good to laugh, for the both of you, and a little too foreign, as well. It left a hollow melancholy in its wake that was soothed by the near and swaying proximity of each other’s body.
“They’ll be glad to have you at the table.” you dared go on, feeling you should prepare him, should the subject arise, “I’ve a brother, you see, an older brother. Rafe, he was stationed in Burma. We’ve not heard of him in over two years. There’s an empty seat at our table, it takes a certain sort of soul to fill it without it feeling like a sacrilege. But you fit the bill nicely, I think.”
“Burma.” he repeated with all the gravity of a man who understood, who knew the ache of almost hoping a dear brother, a beloved son, was dead rather than enduring the slow hell of a Japanese internment camp. How awful to almost wish for a decisive end for one so loved. “No word at all?”
“None.”
“I’m terribly sorry.”
“Thank you.” you whispered, “And thanks for making it back, yourself.” you squeezed his arm jovially and felt his other hand fall atop yours there in the crook of his elbow and a sweetness filled you at the gesture, such as you’d never known before. It was peaceful and lovely and your little village suddenly looked as pretty and idyllic again as it was always supposed to, the routine route home was seen through his eyes, the eyes of a homesick boy with a soft girl on his arm, bound to meet her parents and inspect Donald’s plane models.
Your mother and father loved him, little surprise there, he was a darling and homesick and yours was a happy home, humble and wounded though it may be. Your mother was obnoxious in her delight the moment father took him out back to see where your expertise for welding first began, the little aerodrome, no longer fitted with pleasure craft but now fitted to scrap the more useless casualties. Mother pestered you as you helped clear the table, asking after him and whatever this thing was between you. When you assured her it was only dinner to fill that chair and some unfathomable knowledge that had grown each time you stood before his propeller and waved him off to death, she knew it for what it is.
War and the urgency of living that goes with it, shrinks long emotions into fast passion and steady hearts into foolish daring. Neither of you were the sort to tumble into the passing vogue passions that had seized hold of your friends and comrades. Yours was a quieter path. Even so, after the fourth evening of dinner rations and quiet fireside chatter and the patter of late summer rain on the roof, there was a kiss as he walked you back to base, his jacket over your shoulders, his shirt clinging to him and the sweetest intent etched on his misted features as his lips descended to yours.
“Thank you,” he had said so passionately yet so subdued, a wall of wisteria at your back and his honey blonde hair dripping into his eyes, “I’ve needed this bad.”
His words suggested the family dinners, his scorching lips suggested the molded flesh of your body in his large palms.
“So you’ve wanted this?” your breathed mixed, a hazy little cloud between you in the damp evening air, your little alcove of shelter from the rain under old Mosley’s shed was like another little world entirely, fauna filled and peaceful, even the ever present drone of machinery was drowned out by the downpour.
Your mother had been right, you should've waited longer till the clouds passed but you had both cited curfew -and maybe even subconsciously sought just such a predicament as the one that had you necking Gale Cleven in a wisteria claimed tool shed.
“I’ve wanted you.” he clarified, firm grip on the base of your neck punctuating his turmoil, his lips met yours again and whatever oath of abstinence he had chosen, it did not seem to include kissing. He was soft and persistent and all consuming, those restless hands migrating in an ever mapping caress, making every part of you thrum with butterflies. “Wanted you for a long while.” he spoke into your lips, “I think you’re just great.” And there was happiness then, untinged with anything temporal beyond the feel of warm flesh beneath cold, rain soaked cloth and lips that tasted of honeyed biscuits.
It was impossible to maintain the stoic propriety of behavior you’d once managed before, on base, after that. You knew now how he sounded when he moaned into your mouth and he his stare alone could make you blush, you had spoken to his mother on the phone and he had seen your childhood bedroom. He learned once, laying amongst sea grass on the beach during a cloudy Sunday, the silky moist feel of you beneath your swimsuit, his long, bashful fingers that were ever so fond of petting anything and everything, finally finding a place that responded to his swipes with jolts and gasps and sighs and pleasure. You peaked three times on that sand dune, Buck none the wiser as he had nothing to compare your little deaths to, you kept a firm grip on his forearm and told him he was doing marvelous and that’s all it took for him to be persistent. Persistent beyond what you imagined any other man could be due to cramp. He was getting freckles from so much sunshine, but it was well, the rains would be here soon come autumn.
These happy days had you risking your life to pause your work and watch his pretty form swagger across the asphalt to his next destination and he, ever so right and proper and by the book, became devil enough to lie in wait for you and catch you by the waist when you least suspected it and drag you into some abandoned corner.
Only to kiss you.
To kiss and to ask after your day, as if your evening was not to be spent sat beside him at table or the movies, lying on a picnic blanket with him near or in the back of a jeep on top of Mayberry Rise, the tallest point around where the stars ran into the sea on the horizon.
One of the first days of September, you made good on your promise to Harry and drove with him to muck about Oxford for a day and see the college, the library, too. It was a long ride and as you were at the wheel, Harry was gem enough to allow Gale along, too, and by the end of it, driving back late and in a rush before the headlights would be needed, you were quoting favorite literary passages to each other. As if you were all students, not misplaced youths in the business of killing.
You said as much and in the burgeoning gloom Gale’s rich voice asked if you knew any Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.
“Not Wordsworth!” Harry clarified.
“No, I don’t.” You admitted, for all your chiding today of their not being cultured enough, you didn’t know your American writers as you should.
“He’s got a poem for that.” Gale said, “For what you said. Or at least, it makes me think of today -that verse, ‘member Crosby?- the one it goes:
-I remember the gleams and glooms that dart across the school-boy's brain; The song and the silence in the heart, That in part are prophecies, and in part, Are longings wild and vain. And the voice of that fitful song, Sings on, and is never still: "A boy's will is the wind's will, And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts."
The deafening silence for the rest of the car ride was filled with truth and your own heart was heavy when you bid them both goodnight that evening, headed to your seperate billets. You paused in you departure to turn back once more at the door and holler to Buck in the chilled September air, “That poem, is there more of it?”
“Lots more.” he’d spun round on his heel, pleasantly surprised at your inquiry.
“What’s it called?” you intended to search it out, though it was doubtful that a copy would be found near this remote place.
“How about I write it out for ya?” he suggested as if thinking the same.
“You’ve got a whole damn poem memorized?” you balked, incredulity warring with amusement that you should’ve guessed he’d be the sort.
“I-I-I might.” he stuttered before laughing.
“Then please do.” you grinned and threw him a kiss across the distance which he jumped up and caught from the air in a grand show of dedication. “Goodnight, cherub.” you wished him, “Sleep tight.” He had a mission in the morning, a daylight one.
“Goodnight old Bean.” He teased your accent and the door swung shut behind you blocking out the cold and the retreating sound of his footsteps.
If you’d have known that was the last time you’d hear them you’d have stayed an age out in the cold night listening to him go, memorizing the cadence of his gait, the sway of his shoulders disappearing into the twilight, the turn of his head as he’d throw a glance back at you, sweet and handsome and cheerful despite his ominous itinerary.
If you’d have only known.
It wasn’t like last time, like Africa. There had been no loss of contact. Dorace had heard every awful minute until the clock ran out. They’d been shredded, their precious ship turned into a raging inferno and Major Cleven’s gritted and garbled transmissions left only one hope that some at least had jumped out. Jumped out only to land in Nazi occupied Europe, it was a faint mercy to cling to.
The empty chair sat next to you again at the table and mocked you all. Mocked your hope and your resilience to dare love again. How foolish to bring home a man who belonged to a group they were calling “Bloody”, and not as a curse but an epithet.
The losses had been staggering all summer and now in September they hit close. You were confident that Crosby and Egan were every bit as dismal inside as you felt, Egan’s warm hand had clasped your shoulder like you were a fellow officer and told you he was sorry. You took the condolences and gave them back, a stupid little exchange that only highlighted how unspeakable some pain is.
Three weeks later, Egan’s plane didn’t come back either.
In your more fanciful moments you allowed yourself to imagine Egan and Cleven alive, somewhat whole and reunited. You could almost hear Cleven’s joking welcome, “What took you so long, Bucky?”
You’d indulged these fancies for Rafe, too, until years of silence suggested the worst.
However, this time, well into October and with an entirely new set of planes under your care, word came at last through the Red Cross, and the truth was exactly as you’d dreamed. There was only the paltriest letter back to command but it said they were well, they were alive, together indeed and being moved to the Polish border. Away from their own comrades' bombs. It was more than most ever got, and your family celebrated the news with the gratitude it deserved.
As October turned to November and your gloved fingertips froze as you worked, every sharp needle of chill reminded you of him, how much more awful it must be that far north, snow piled deep and muck everywhere and lice covered blankets and illness left untreated. As the holidays hurtled nearer, days of peace and goodwill you had planned to be spent with him, you were consumed by the dread of losing him to the elements since war had proven too clement. At night you lay abed and reread the one bit of handwriting you had from him, that damned poem he had written out, left under your door in the early dawn that had taken him from you.
My lost youth. That was the title of the thing. It cut like glass every time you read it, but Buck had touched that paper and looped those letters and dotted those i’s and it was precious to you. It became a prayer of sorts.
“There are things of which I may not speak;
There are dreams that cannot die;
There are thoughts that make the strong heart weak,
And bring a pallor into the cheek,
And a mist before the eye.
And the words of that fatal song
Come over me like a chill:—
“A boy’s will is the wind’s will,
And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts.”
Strange to me now are the forms I meet
When I visit the dear old town;
But the native air is pure and sweet,
And the trees that o’ershadow each well-known street,
As they balance up and down,
Are singing the beautiful song,
Are sighing and whispering still:—
“A boy’s will is the wind’s will,
And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts.”
Then, in January, as if prayers got heard, the most unexpected happened.
Major Gale Cleven, what was left of him after cold, starvation, murder and a treck across Europe, had returned. Things like this, seeing your lost beloved ride up to your workplace in the shotgun seat of a jeep, was the stuff of movies, hopeful propaganda or a woman’s mind that had finally cracked. You just stood there, welding helmet in hand, frozen rain spitting down at you, watching him jump out, watching Harry tear down from the observation tower to embrace him.
Dully, you could hear behind you Segreant Lemmons kind cheer of “so it was true, he got away from the bastards!” and a congratulatory thump between your shoulder blades. It was a moment of truth, to realize how far your faith had dwindled when the very answer to your prayers stood steaming with life in the cold air and yet you still could not accept it as reality.
“Baby.” his hands were warm compared to your damp cheeks and the span of them, so familiar and large, cupping your jaw with the calloused thumbs swiping at your temples, that was reminiscent of August and of happier days. Yet still, you had dreamed of him doing this, dreamed of a million different embraces and each time you woke up. “Baby, I’m back, I came to ya.” his voice was wrecked, from disuse and illness and whatever misery that had subjected him to. That, that was real enough, the rattling cough more so, you’d imagined his suffering in your worst nightmares too, this was something you could believe.
Familiar flesh was gaunt under your touch, gray cheeks where once there’d been freckles and the sinful pout of his once ruby red mouth was a dull violet, as if the vitality had been leached out of him. “What’d they do to my cherub?” you mourned, worst nightmares and wildest hopes blending into this one moment.
“Don’t cry, don’t cry f’me, I’m back. I came back.” he cooed to you, rough and sad himself, and your face was buried again in the placard of his coat, a great woolen overcoat this time, no fleece or any vestige of the swanky finery that got the flyboys ribbed for being soft, fancy, spoiled.
Nothing soft about these men, nothing gentle about their lot, nothing glamorous about being hurled down from the skies in a ball of fire.
“We kept praying for you.” you realized, it seemed important to tell him that however hopeless you all had felt, you’d gone through the motions anyway.
That was faith, wasn’t it? The hope of things not seen?
“I felt ‘em.” he said. “How else you think I managed it?”
It. -had managed it, that tiny word represented a host of terrors and miseries and unforgettable incidents that ricocheted in his brain like the lead fired into his boys head’s when they couldn’t manage a forced march, barefoot and underfed, in the snow.
Christmas had passed but January was not so very advanced, that evening your family turned back the clock and it was a matter of guessing as to who was celebrated more, baby Jesus or Buck Cleven. The two seemed intertwined at this point and in the warm glow of gas lamps and rationed toddy, with Buck’s hollow cheeks beginning to bloom and his dull eyes starting to animate, some part of you finally understood why so many felt worshipful on the holiday. The shit war rations felt like a feast, mama’s canned vegetables being the freshest thing he’d eaten in ages and with him sat at table again, empty chair filled, his hand creeping into your lap to lace with your own, there was peace.
Even the airforce, hard driving and high demanding though it was, took one look at his battered condition and admitted a period of conveyance was due. It wouldn’t do to send up a shoddy pilot, lose another plane, yet another crew or a hero of the hundredth. It’s not every day one of your squadron leaders escapes a POW camp and marches over occupied Europe and fordes the Channel to get back home.
A month was set aside. And you took as many weekday passes as you could during that month, happier than anything that he had been permitted to stay in town, to lodge with one of the locals. Rafe’s room was now occupied by him and mama’s broth was poured down Gale’s throat twice daily and his days kept busy with paperwork and Donald’s math problems. The ticking clock, the passing days, like the evil crocodile gobbling up time, was politely and britishly ignored in favor of enjoying what was. You no longer slept with the tear stained and crumpled poem clasped to your throat but his head lay there often enough instead. The thump of your heart helping him sleep, because exhausted and sick as he was, sleep and solitude were not comforts.
He was wracked with guilt for leaving Egan and his men behind, it had been every man for himself during that brutal forced march, he knew that and yet he’d left a friend behind. Buck waited for news of Egan like you’d waited for news of him. Nameless and senseless guilt ruining much of his own success and peace.
“He’d have expected nothing less of you.” you had taken to reminding him, “He’d be angry if you hadn’t taken the opportunity like you did.”
“I know.” he agreed miserably.
You admitted to him then, the horrid guilt of feeling that somehow, some missed defect or some lousy flaw had been the reason he’d been downed. Your work somehow not sufficient to keep him in the skies. When you’d admitted as much, Sergeant Lemmons had looked at you with all the censure such moronic introspection deserved: “Cleven got bombed to hell. He expected it, daytime raid and all. Blame the Nazis.”
“Blame the Nazis.” you suggested now to Gale as he lay sprawled in your arms, sweaty and feverish but his color was back and he looked pretty as anything so alive and near.
He looked ready to dare something, his face hovering nearer yours and the heavy weight of his limbs suddenly feeling full of intent but then his sparkling eye caught sight of something in the doorway and his lips quirked and his body shifted away.
“Whatcha doin’ sulkin’ out there Donny?” he addressed your brother and sure enough the little scamp emerged from the shadow of the doorway and joined you two on the bed, comic book clutched in his hands. They had a routine, apparently, Papa was no longer the chosen one for bedtime stories. It made you want to wince in anticipation for when Buck would move back to base and things would become full of dread again.
That day came sooner than you’d counted on. A month is not so very long, after all, and it was filled with so much work and business, stolen moments at home hardly being the norm.
“It’s an easy mission.” he’d said at dinner, as if arguing the point to you all. You knew he was trying to convince himself more than anything and so you all let him specify just how easy, how routine, how utterly unworrying tomorrow's flight would -should- be.
If it’s hard to get back into the saddle after being bucked off, how much worse to climb back into a plane after being tossed from the skies.
That evening he lounged on your bed instead of Rafe’s, the house emptied as your mother and father took Donny to the movies, the appeal of a new film finally showing cited as being too alluring to resist. He was lost in his thoughts, watching you go about your little evening routines that you tried to maintain when at home. It was domestic and cozy, warm where the world outside was cold and then there was Buck, golden as anything in the low lamp light, utterly unaware of the figure he cut lying on his side.
“I’ve missed it.” he told you, “Flying, I’ve missed it.”
“Of course you have. You were born for it.” you murmured.
“Ya know,” he reflected, “I signed up for the Air Force before it all got hot, before Pearl Harbor. I was gonna fly no matter what. I remember grittin’ my teeth durin’ training and tellin’ myself it would all be worth it. Just hang in there and it would pay off. I just felt something important would need me. Hell, guess I got more than I ever bargained for, didn’t I?”
“I guess you did.” you agreed.
“I couldn’t do this if I didn’t believe in it.” He insisted and you knew he was talking to himself again, until his face turned towards yours and the softest look of fondness crossed features turning them almost pained when he said next, “I couldn’t do it, get back up there, if it weren’t for love. The rightness of it but -love, for my boys, my family. For you.”
“I know, and we’re terribly lucky to have your devotion. -And…and I love you, too.” you vowed earnestly, then giggled at the absurdity of this being the first time to admit it.
“I’d had my suspicions.” he grinned back, some of that old cockiness returning along with his vigor as he snagged your wrist and pulled you down beside him.
“Do you know why my parents have gone?” you asked him pointedly, turning on your side to face him.
“To see a movie.” His face was so innocently perplexed you almost lost control of yourself and ruined the game right then with something terribly forward.
“My parents aren’t in the habit of seeing movies.” you corrected him soberly.
“No?”
“No.”
“So where’d they go?” Buck asked.
“Oh they’re at the movies.” you smirked, “But they’ve gone for us.”
Gale’s eyes narrowed in suspicion, if not of you then of his own naïveté. “For us.” he repeated and his voice had dropped an octave in the interim.
“Yes. Something about wanting us to have a goodbye.” you quoted.
“I’m not dying tomorrow.” he pointed his finger firmly in your face and it made you smile to see him so fiesty again.
“No,” you agreed with his prophecy, “but I wanted to give you some incentive to hurry back.”
“Oh?” those lips of his puckered again in confusion before his smarts caught up with him and the pink corner tugged up in mischief, “Ooooh.” he repeated, suddenly very close, his energy, his body, his heart, inches from being one with you. “Are you sure?”
“Yes, oh yes.” you confirmed, slotting your lips against his gently only to be met with eager, desperate need in his own kisses.
Your childhood bed was narrow and the counterpane below you familiar and dear, stitched by your mother in colors you’d once wished to update upon entering maturity. Now, laid out in perfect security and familiarity, you watched Buck Cleven dangle a toe off the abyss before diving in, pausing to caress the blanket beside your hip, smiling to himself.
“What?” you were breathless to know every thought in that dear head.
“My mama made me one, looks lots like this.” his eyes were watery soft yet his smile was glad, his hips narrow and sharp in the cradle of your own, stark hipbones not yet padded by your mother’s cooking pressed you down into the bedding, grounded and right. “You’ve made me real at home here.” he whispered and it pleased you ever so much. “Do I dare take this last liberty?” he muttered as if to himself, even as those blue orbs bore into your own, his fingers fiddling with the hem of your skirt and you ached from need long deferred and the weight of remedy lying heavy between your thighs.
“It’s no liberty,” you whispered, catching his dog tags and bringing his face to yours, the size of the man so very apparent now he was hovering above you, “it’s yours.” you watched his pupils blow out at the statement, his ragged breath fanned minty across your face, even angels wield swords. “I’m yours.”
“And I’m yours.” he concluded.
With that exchange of truths something snapped between you, like a ribbon cut, gone was the hesitant cordiality and deference that had marked your courtship. Here now was fierce possession and the gloated satisfaction of those who possess something cherished and are no longer kept from partaking of it, buckles and garters snapped in the quiet room and the rustle of sheets and shirts wafting to the floor made your breaths hitch with anticipation. Precious flesh came into touch with every brush and it was enough for many minutes merely to cling and grasp, imprinting desire into the back and the arms and the throat of each other, like an armor of love against the decay of death.
“Yours, yours.” you swore as his finger played you once more, his breathing hard and rough in your ear, harsh commands for you to say it again and again, reminding you he was fearsome when he wanted to be.
“Don’t look,” he begged when you realized through a haze of joy what he was about, pressing in with all the finesse of a cricket bat knocking at the wicket, hoarse and doe eyed above you, there was only the whine, “please, darlin’ don’t look, just, my eyes, please.”
It was a fumbling entry but nature and pleasure prevailed, as it had since the first couple. And dear boy that he was, he knew you had indulged in a leg up, one or two at least, before he came along but still, he could not bear it for you to see more, not this time. He wanted it just to be the kisses and the sight of your precious face contorting at the fullness of your belly and the force of his hunger for you. All the rest were vulgar details left somewhere under your skirts, and, unbeknownst to him, reflected in your childhood mirror situated on the wall behind his plump arse.
“Oh god.” he had choked out, winded and in awe as his body shook at the feel of you accepting him deep, “You’re a slice of heaven, heaven that’s-that’s what you fee- oh god, oh god.”
He had giggled at the absurdity of this dance and then broke off with a moan that made you giggle in turn and back and forth it went as his body jerked into yours as if he’d no control over it, led quite literally by the part of himself buried inside you. He knew it was foal-like and a poor showing as a lover and he also knew you didn’t care a bit, your eyes wide at the size of the intrusion and captivated by the sight of his newly enlightened face.
“You alright?” he asked urgently, as a sudden and familiar feeling took over his body. The feeling of his brakes giving out, his flaps malfunctioning, the hydraulics failing -it took over him, his spine tingling and his vision beginning to blur and only your punched out gasps and sweet smile wavering on his horizon as the frantic, masculine, natural need to drive in deep enough to puncture your heart seized him and propelled him in you, against you, above you with such force you forgot to breath. For all Egan’s teasing of Buck’s hatred for athletics, the man wasn’t shabby when it came down to it, even after months of internment, or maybe due to that stolen time, his life force seemed to pour out in a torrent and your belly buzzed at the sweet abuse.
“I’m perfect.” you managed at some point, “You’re perfect, so perfect.”
He shuddered at the praise and as if terror struck him then, he was suddenly pulling away and moaning “I should- I shouldn’t -I’m gonna, darlin, I’m gonna lose it-“ and young and sweet and clumsy as anything he rutted against your slick frantically, mouth pressed to yours until the hot gush of his satisfaction spilled out and added to the mind fuzzing feel of him sliding against your little pearl.
You encouraged his shaky limbs to collapse on you, the lanky frame of him a sweet weight, sweaty cheek pressed to your breast, you could feel the dopey curve of his smile against your plump flesh. His hair curled at the nape from the sweat of his exertions, all winter chill forgotten in this bed. War and missions and bombs, too. You petted each other for a while before he raised his head and, gazing at you adoringly, he murmured “thank you.” his nose nudging yours and the steadiest of kisses lingering in the tingly aftermath.
“Darlin?” he broached the subject a while later, cheek again pressed to your chest and his fingers sliding in a hypnotic caress over your thigh.
“Yeah, Buck?”
“Later,” he prefaced, tentative and raw, “when -when the war’s over, and when, well, when I can make my own promises…”
Your heart hammered beneath his ear and you squeezed your legs around him, as if to shore him up enough to say what you wanted him to say so very badly. “Yes?”
“Would you marry me then?” he begged and somehow you knew this, what you had just indulged in, was never going to happen without that hope for him.
Perhaps that’s why it felt so strong, like a communion of souls more than anything else. “I’ve half a mind to make you wait and get my answer when you come back tomorrow.” you teased and his head reared up with a dangerous glint in his eye.
“Don’t you dare.” he warned, grin breaking out despite himself.
The sound of the front latch grating on the door startled you both but he pressed you down when you went to scamper and clothe yourself. “The door’s closed anyway,” he argued in a whisper but you knew he felt as nervous as you at being caught, if not more so, yet still he was a stubborn one. His hand was firm and large clasping your cheek, expression arch and expectant. “Promise you’ll be a good little girl and say yes when I do ask.”
You laughed at his gall, to make you wait, to make you promise when he wasn’t even proposing. But then again -you had said you were his, and he was yours. It had already been done. Sometimes life was as simple as Gale Cleven made it out to be.
“I promise.” you whispered happily, bringing him back down to your embrace and willing away thoughts of tomorrow and flagging him out to danger.
One day he’d come back for good. One you could make promises again. Until then, there was hope.
Thank you for reading and I hope you enjoyed. Feedback is a writers lifeblood, I’d adore hearing your thoughts. 💋
#masters of the air#mota#masters of the air fanfiction#gosh is that a first tag? i don’t think so I know I’ve seen schemes at the very least on here#mota fanfic#austin butler#gale cleven#john egan#Major Egan#Major Cleven#buck cleven#Gale Cleven fanfiction#austin butler fanfiction#austin butler x reader#austin butler x you#austin butler x y/n#austin butler fluff#Austin Butler imagine#Austin butler smut#callum Turner fanfiction#callum turner#harry crosby#anthony boyle#hbo war#band of brothers#the pacific
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Callum?? Oh you're awful!
#austin butler#callum turner#masters of the air#interview#major gale cleven#major john egan#mota#mota spoilers#I never thought it could be him!#imaginaryplaythings#you were right!#I don't want my buckies to fight#wouldn't it be sweet though if Bucky felt so guilty after that#buck x bucky#burner
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Callum Turner's curls are my Roman empire ❤️
#callum turner#callum turner x reader#masters of the air imagine#mastersoftheair#masters of the air x reader#major john egan#boys in the boat#the boys in the boat imagines#theseus scamander#joe rantz#joe rantz x reader#theseus scamander imagine#the only boy in new york#frank churchill
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Hi! I’d like to request a John “Bucky” Egan fic where he tries several times to flirt with the reader, but the reader is super oblivious about it and just thinks he’s being nice. It becomes something everyone on base talks about and gets invested in. Maybe other people set up a scheme to get them together or make the reader realize how he feels. Idk, just something funny and cute like that ig 😁
Thank you so much for requesting, Nonnie, I’ve been having so much fun with these Masters of the Air requests! I loved getting to write for our best boy Bucky 🥰 Shoutout to @blurredcolour’s Trust fic (an absolute masterpiece, check it out y’all!) for helping with the writers block on this one 😅 (Reminder that requests are open! Feel free to check out some of my favorite prompt lists in my pinned post 😊)
Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction based off the portrayal by the actors in the Apple TV+ series. I hold nothing but respect for the real life individuals referenced within.
Oblivious
“There’s my favorite nurse!”
You rolled your eyes at the phrase that announced John “Bucky” Egan’s every visit to sickbay.
“Hello, Major,” you said, turning to greet him with a mock-exasperated smile.
Bucky clutched a hand to his heart as if wounded, a hurt expression on his face. “How many times do I gotta tell you to call me Bucky, sweetheart?”
“At least a few more times, Major,” you reply, unable to hide a smile at the usual volley of friendly banter.
Major John Egan had been unusually friendly to you since the first moment he’d sauntered in to introduce himself to the medical staff as Air Exec. Your colleagues had blushed afterward and playfully insisted that he had paid you more attention than the others, but you just laughed and shook your head, insisting that he was just being nice.
This visit was simply another instance of Bucky being friendly to you; well, that and Harry Crosby’s airsickness had gotten the better of him again and he was checking up on the navigator.
You stepped aside as Bucky approached Harry’s cot, ready to update him on the goings-on since the last mission had returned.
He threw you a kind smile before perching on the stool next to Harry.
“How’s my girl treatin’ you, Crosby?”
Harry happily told him how the base had gotten a new shipment of airsickness pills and you had slipped him a spare box for his own personal use, and Bucky’s smile grew wider and wider.
You were glad to see how happy he was at the news that his friend was feeling better, and you quietly excused yourself to tend to the other patients.
Bucky sighed as you walked away.
“She still hasn’t picked up on it, huh?”
“No, Croz, she hasn’t.” sighed Bucky, “She thinks I’m just bein’… nice or friendly or something. Which I am!” He added hurriedly, “But I just…I like her so much. I wish she’d notice.”
“She will, buddy,” Harry replied, with a comforting pat on his friend’s hand, “She will.”
Bucky headed out after a few more minutes of conversation, giving you a wink and a smile as he walked past your station.
“Bucky visited again, huh?” Rebecca, one of your fellow nurses, sidled up next to you with a teasing grin.
“Yes, Major Egan came by to visit Lieutenant Crosby,” you replied, putting emphasis on their ranks.
“You’re sure that’s all he was here for? Somehow he never shows up here without an excuse to see you…”
“He’s just being nice, Becca,” you insisted, “You know how these soldier boys are.”
“But he’s always—”
“Becca,” you cut her off as gently as you can, “I really don’t wanna talk about this anymore.”
“Alright, alright,” she held her hands up in surrender, “Bucky is an off-limits topic, gotcha.”
The conversation turned to the current hot gossip, and you idly chimed in when it seemed appropriate, losing yourself in your routine tasks.
Rebecca broke off to check on Harry again, narrowing her eyes as she noticed Harry watching you.
“Something Nurse L/N can help you with, Crosby?”
He jumped, gaze darting to Rebecca as she approached.
“No ma’am, I just…”
He scrambled to think of some excuse, but all he could come up with was: “I’m trying to think of some way to get Y/N to notice Bucky!”
Rebecca blinked in surprise, then plopped down onto the stool next to his bed, leaning in conspiratorially.
“Oh thank goodness it’s not just me! He’s been at it for months but the poor girl’s just so oblivious…”
“I keep telling him to just talk to her like a normal person, but he insists on dancing around it!” Harry instantly agreed, glad to have someone besides Jean to talk to about this. “He’s been so distracted lately. If he doesn’t do something soon, I’m worried it might start to affect his flying.”
Rebecca pressed her lips into a thin line, twisting a strand of hair worriedly.
After a few moments of quiet, she spoke up again, green eyes sparkling with mischief.
“I’ve got an idea.”
———
“Hey Bucky,” Harry said at breakfast the next morning, “I’m gonna pop down to the infirmary to visit Winks, wanna come with?”
Bucky quickly agreed— he’d been meaning to check on Winks yesterday as well as Croz, but got caught up in… well, you.
As they entered, Bucky made a beeline for Winks while Harry caught Rebecca’s eye and gave a subtle nod, which she returned, signaling her part of the plan was complete.
She had removed the step stool you always used from one of the supply closets, now hidden under one of the cots nearby. When you weren’t able to reach something on one of the higher shelves, well…
Good thing Bucky was so tall.
“Y/N, would you mind grabbing some more bandages for me? My station’s running low.”
“Sure thing, Becca!” You called, stepping away from your current station to check the supply closet.
“Becca…” your confused voice called from the closet, “Do you know where the stepstool went?”
“It’s not there?” She called back, sounding equally confused. “Let’s see, um…”
She scanned the room, putting on a good show of looking for someone who could help.
“Oh, Bucky! Would you mind helping Nurse L/N grab something from the supply closet for me?”
“No problem, Becca,” came his reply, accompanied with his trademark winning smile as he nodded to Winks and made his way over to the supply closet.
It was much smaller than he’d anticipated, and barely half a foot was all that separated you as he asked, “Alright, what do ya need, sweethea—”
The pet name was cut off by the sound of the supply closet door closing.
And locking.
You lunged for the handle as Bucky reached up to turn on the single lightbulb, both of you calling out in confusion.
“Becca! What?”
“C’mon, guys, this isn’t funny!”
Harry’s voice came through the door, clear and determined.
“Just tell her how you feel, Bucky! Your tactic clearly isn’t working!”
“I— what?” You turned to Bucky, hoping he knew what in the world they were talking about.
Bucky hesitated, but seeing as it seemed he had no choice…
“Well this isn’t… exactly how I wanted to do it, but…” He took a deep breath, twisting his fingers together in an uncharacteristic display of anxiety, “I really like you, doll. I’ve liked you since I first laid eyes on you. And I’ve tried every way I know how to tell you, but nothin’ worked, so…” He gestured around at the supply closet, “I guess it came to this? Which wasn’t my idea, by the way. Just for the record. I would never…”
His voice faltered, and you realized just how close you were to him. You didn’t remember moving forward. You were just suddenly there, so close the two of you were almost breathing each other’s air.
“You… you like me?”
Bucky couldn’t help but laugh at that.
“Doll, you think I call every pretty girl workin’ here my favorite nurse?”
You flushed at the compliment.
“I thought you were just being nice, I didn’t…”
“I mean, I was bein’ nice,” He said with a shrug, grinning, “Just not quite in the way you were thinking.”
Bucky’s eyes flicked down to your mouth, and being this close to you, he couldn’t hide the bob of his throat as he swallowed nervously.
“I’d, uh. I’d really like to kiss you right now, if that’s alright with you, sweetheart.”
You nodded slowly, “I think I’d really like that, Major Egan.”
“It’s Bucky, sweetheart,” he murmured softly as he leaned in, capturing your lips.
You may or may not have spent more than a few lonely nights in your bunk imagining what it would be like to kiss Major John Egan.
Your imaginings were nothing compared to reality.
This was magic unlike anything you could have dreamed.
Your arms wound around his neck as his wrapped around your waist, pulling you flush against him. You toyed with the dark curls at the nape of his neck as he slanted his mouth against yours, deepening the kiss. Needing to be closer, you tried to step towards him, but merely succeeded in pressing him back against the shelves.
Ordinarily you would apologize, but something like a thrill ran up your spine when you felt him grin into the kiss as his back hit the shelves, knocking rolls of bandages and boxes of gauze onto the floor.
His right hand moved to cup your cheek, keeping your lips connected as his other hand splayed across your back, pulling you impossibly closer as you arched into him.
You could still feel him grinning as he murmured against your lips, “Knew you were feisty under that good girl act.”
“Bucky,” you whined softly as he pulled away from you, chest heaving.
“Oh, now she uses my name,” he teased breathlessly, bumping his nose playfully against yours.
The two of you flinched as sunlight spilled into the dim closet, a harsh change from the dingy yellow lightbulb you had become accustomed to.
Harry and Rebecca stood in the doorway, wearing twin smug grins.
“Looks like our work here is done,” Becca said, shooting you a wink as she bid farewell to Harry with a two-fingered salute, “Pleasure working with you, Lieutenant Crosby.”
“Same to you, Nurse Carter,” Harry replied, and he turned back to the two of you, a genuine smile on his face.
“About time, Bucky.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Bucky waved off his friend’s I told you so, “You gonna congratulate me or what?”
“Congratulations,” came Harry’s mock-put-out reply, accompanied by a genuinely congratulatory clap on his arm. “You got a good one. And it only took months of unsuccessful flirting—”
“Hey, I got her in the end, didn’t I?” He squeezed you closer, grinning down at you.
Your lipstick was all over his mouth, and you’re sure the Victory Red on your own lips was in no better shape.
You couldn’t bring yourself to care, however, as he pulled you in for a tender kiss.
Which you broke for a moment to point out, “He isn’t wrong, you know, it was months of unsuccessful—”
Your teasing was promptly cut off with a “shush” mumbled against your lips as Bucky silenced you with a kiss.
#sage answers#major john bucky egan#bucky egan#bucky egan x reader#john bucky egan#john bucky egan x reader#callum turner#masters of the air#masters of the air x reader#callum turner masters of the air#callum turner x reader
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johnny “bucky” egan as text posts
plus a harry crosby bonus
#masters of the air#mota#john bucky egan#major john egan#john egan#bucky egan#masters of the air edit#harry crosby#callum turner
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sweet goodbyes, major john egan
pairing: major john “bucky” egan (masters of the air) black fem oc (amelia egan)
content: john is being shipped to England to serve in the war; his departure comes with sweet goodbyes
an: callum turner is my new white boy of the month, yay!
“Close your eyes, darlin’. You can’t keep trying to fight sleep.” His voice warmed the deepest parts of her insides. Her stomach fluttered and she couldn’t fight to dopey smile that crept along her lips. She whined in objection, ignoring how her eyelids fluttered.
“I don’t want to sleep,” she murmured, words slurred and almost incoherent. Her hand ran down the lace neckline of her white nightgown; a gift from her mother-in-law from her wedding night. Her hand then traveled over to his dark hair, massaging his curls. “Want to stare at you alllll night.”
His soft chuckle forced her eyes open. He caressed her warm cheek “That’s nice, doll, but you should get your rest. I gotta be out early in the morning. Gotta have coffee together.” It was a ritual. Every morning, he’d wake her up at the break of dawn with a steaming cup of coffee and a bowl of oatmeal. It was a simple gesture, but it was what she grew to love. Cuddled in the sheets, sipping from their mugs and feeding each other spoonfuls of hot oats. She’d have to get used to eating by herself.
She huffed in disdain. John chuckled and wrapped his strong arms around her body. He pressed a firm kiss against her cheek, then her nose, then her lips. She returned his advances immediately. Her hand gripped his neck as she pulled him closer. “Amelia…”
Amelia’s leg crept along his waist and she silently urged him to take the hint. He whispered a gentle, are you sure, against her lips, which she replied with her hips pressed against his.
John gripped the plushness of her thigh and pushed it back, slotting his body between her legs. Her breaths were heavy and quivered with desire. His large hands clenched the fabric of her nightgown, pushed it up her body, and tossed it across the room. “I love you, you know that?”
“Mhm.” Her mind couldn’t create a coherent sentence with him touching her so delicately. “I love you, too.”
The moon shone through the curtains. Amelia felt the weight of sleep finally pulling her down. Her husbands presence comforted her as his whispered declarations of love lingered in the air. Reluctantly, she stopped battling drowsiness and succumbed to its authority.
The warmth of his love wrapped around her like a blanket, and the anticipation of their morning ritual brought a bittersweet smile to her lips. She couldn’t help but savor the small moments she had left, knowing that tomorrow would be different.
Yet, within their tender embrace and exchange of affections, their love was a solidified anchor that promised a new daw filled with cups of coffee and the joy of each’ other’s company.
#saturnville#original writing#original content#black!reader#black reader#black fem oc#black woman writer#callum turner#masters of the air#callum turner x reader#callum turner x black reader#major john egan#bucky egan#bucky egan x reader#bucky egan x black reader#austin butler x reader#austin butler x black!reader
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ONE SHOT
or: Buck has some problems in the first weeks back in the States after the war and writes a letter to Bucky.
It's my first time to write some post war fear and fluff. Please let me know if you want a second part
I feel like I'm drowning
Casper, Wyoming
It was so quiet here in the States, in Casper. He had been travelling and somewhere else for so long that Casper somehow felt strange and not really like home anymore.
It had been a few weeks since Gale had been back from England. It had taken him days to be able to eat proper meals and sleep kind of peacefully again. Everything around him felt so intense and dull at the same time. He didn't even know how to describe everything he was feeling.
He was aware that something was wrong with him and that it would probably take quite a while before much, if not all, of it would be okay again.
The hugs, the tears of joy - everything felt constricting and somehow suffocating. When his mother and sister had hugged him tightly and for a long time, crying bitterly, he had simply remained silent. Gale had waited, and then waited even longer…and then at some point it was over again.
The salty tears had dried and the hugs had disappeared. He had felt his chest expand again so clearly that it felt like a thousand pinpricks on his skin.
He hadn't wanted to talk about England or the flights or the many dead friends. Not even when his younger sister asked him about John. Something about songs sung out of tune and whether he had someone at home waiting for him.
Just me, Buck thought quietly. But of course he couldn't say that in front of his little sister. What would she think? Her brother who loved a man and almost broke. No, he couldn't say that. Gale didn't know how to explain it either. During the war it had somehow… just happened. Bucky and he had somehow - he couldn't remember exactly when it had started to change - got caught up in a maelstrom of emotions and the next thing Gale had noticed was John's soft, full lips on his and from then on everything had been somehow clear.
Gale had just shaken his head mechanically and mumbled in a raspy voice: "No, there's no one there."
As the words left his lips, dark fangs had tightened around his chest and neck. The pressure inside him had risen further and when he thought he couldn't breathe because he missed Bucky so much, he stood up loudly and stumbled out of the room. "I'm going away for a few days."
…and that's exactly what Gale had done. He had stuffed some clothes into his rucksack, summoned Meathball and got into the jeep and set off that very evening.
He wasn't sure exactly when or how he'd ended up at his uncle's log cabin, but when he unlocked the door and stepped inside, a huge weight fell from his shoulders.
Gale was only vaguely aware of everything around him. He stumbled further into the house, lit candles and ended up lying in bed with Meatball in his arms, crying loudly and unrestrainedly. His tears soaked into Meatball's soft fur and as he gasped repeatedly, it somehow felt like he was back in Stalag III.
The uncertainty of what would happen to him and whether he would ever see Bucky again had almost completely consumed him.
Maybe he felt so lonely and numb because it was the first time he hadn't been with John in a while. He could hardly remember a day when he hadn't had him around. They hadn't been apart since basic training and fighter school, and the fact that they were now scared Buck to death.
It was warm, completely calm and he felt wrapped in cotton wool. Buck woke up slowly and when he opened his eyes, fluttering, he felt momentarily disorientated.
Then a wisp of a thought flashed through his mind and he groaned softly as he realised the slight buzzing headache throbbing behind his temple.
He missed John, blockhouse by the lake, Meatball, he felt like he was drowning….er missed John.
He buried his face deeper into the pillow and squinted. His whole body felt cramped and as he slowly turned from side to back, his tendon and ligaments rebelled.
"Hmmm," he grumbled and rubbed the bridge of his nose with one hand. It briefly helped to push back the buzzing headache a little, but as soon as he dropped his hand back onto his chest, the buzzing in his head became louder again.
Gale lay there for a few more minutes, staring out of the bedroom window. He watched as the pink and red colours in the morning sky blended into a beautiful sunrise and thousands of grains of dust flew around in the air.
Lost in thought, he stroked his chest with the flat of his hand and as his fingertips brushed his dog tags, the corners of his mouth twitched gently.
He slowly closed his eyes and was carried away by a warm and sweet memory.
It was the beginning of July. The first weekend pass since…forever, and Bucky had surprised him with a few days in London. It was the first time since their first kiss and since everything between them had somehow become closer, more intimate and meaningful that they had been able to spend time together.
Warm rays of sunlight tingled on his bare skin and Bucky's rough, warm fingers traced lifeless patterns on his back. Their clothes were all over the floor, all jumbled and crumpled, but it hadn't mattered.
They stayed in bed together for a long time. Covered in white, rose-scented sheets and living a dream. Gale still remembered that weekend as intensely as if he were reliving it.
He smiled and stroked his thumb over his dog tags again. Flashes of memories flashed before his eyes and he inhaled deeply and slowly, then exhaled. A pleasant shiver ran through his entire body and he sighed softly.
Gale had felt so sexually inexperienced that weekend. John's every touch made him tremble and he felt like he was burning up. Every gentle caress of his fingertips, every soft, panting and passionate kiss, every suck and lick on his neck had aroused him and he had come almost instantly like a teenager in his black boxers.
But Bucky had only smiled reassuringly and whispered dirty, sweet things in his ear. He'd taken the pressure out of everything for Gale and Buck had been so damn grateful that John hadn't pushed him to do more…more.
So they'd spent hours kissing, making out and touching each other. It had been perfect, and as a new wave of warmth and tingling rolled over his body, he opened his eyes again.
The duvet rustled as he sat up and swung his legs over the edge. He stroked his blond hair with both hands and rubbed his eyes. The wooden floor felt cool under the warm soles of his feet and he walked over to the desk. Gale sat down and reached for a pile of paper and a pen. Then he licked his lips and wrote:
Dear John,
I can't stop thinking about you.
I grabbed a few things and left with Meatball. Do you remember the house by the lake? I told you about it on our first weekend in London. It's peaceful out here and I needed a break.
To be honest, I don't even know why I'm writing to you…but actually I do. I miss you and everything feels so strange without you.
After I left the barracks, I visited my mum and sister. If I told you that it was happy, nice and warm, I would probably be lying to myself. It was…overwhelming and it scared me, John. What if I can't handle all this? This life after war, you know. This living on, and smiling, and being happy…it feels like a curse and a blessing at the same time, and when I have nightmares again, Stalag III feels like the greatest place of peace in some strange moments.
I think I'm losing my mind…people keep asking me how I'm doing, and every time I smile and reply: "I'm fine. Everything's okay."
But not once did I mean it that way.
But if you look at me, you already know everything that's necessary to know before I've even said a word. You know me, Bucky, and to sit here now and be alone…
Gale hesitated and smirked slightly, salty tears stinging his eyes again. He glanced at Meatball, who was lying on the carpet at the end of the bed, looking at him through half-closed eyelids. "That is so dumb, isn't it Meatball?," Gale laughed hoarsely and sniffled.
Meatball raised his head slightly and looked at him silently. Then he stood up and came stomping over to Buck. He rubbed his head against Gale's thigh and Gale felt himself burst into tears once again. He sniffled and wiped the tears away before clearing his throat, "You're right…I should pull myself together."
Then he frowned and continued writing.
...scares me. I feel like I'm drowning and there's no water anywhere in sight. Every time I close my eyes, I see all these burning aeroplanes and a shiver runs through my body. I can feel the icy, biting cold in my bones again. My fingers get cold and then slowly numb and then there is all this darkness.
You know I hated the dark as a child, but now…it's somehow even worse. It's dark and cold, and all these shadows are wrapped around me, robbing me of air to breathe, and there's nothing I can do about it but hope it passes quickly.
There were times when all this darkness was limited. There was still hope and light. But now it feels like there's only darkness left and I don't know what to do.
My mum thinks I need a distraction. A bunch of girls or something…I just need to find one that's worth it, she says…and then there's Ginger. My sister keeps asking me where you are Bucky. If you're single and I want to shake her and scream at her to keep her mouth shut. I want to tell her that you're with me, but everything in me resists saying it. It would be so loud and final, and I don't know if she and Mum could take it.
My mum told me about a young woman. Her name is Marge and she's sweet, really. But she's not you, John. All I want after this god damn war is you. Why is nobody asking me what I really want?
When I think back to London, I think of you, me, sweet kisses, wandering hands and crumpled clothes on the floor.
God, you looked so good with your brown, soft, tousled hair and those bright blue-green eyes. I think I nearly had a heart attack the first time you kissed me, John.
Before the kiss, everything felt kind of conditional and wrong. The flying, the burning and crashing aeroplanes, our dead friends, none of it made sense to me, but then you kissed me in that London hotel room...everything suddenly felt good and right at some point.
I think that's what happens when you're in love. No matter how much the world is on fire, as long as you're okay, I'm okay too. Nothing really matters anymore, and don't get me wrong all the blood and death was aweful, but I still had you by my side.
Right now you're not with me and I'm wondering where you are and what you're doing.
I wonder if there will ever be a time when you and I can be free. Being with you feels like flying and jumping without a parachute at the same time. Everything is tingly and exciting, and yet there is a sense of security that I can't explain. It's simply because it's you, John, and nobody else.
I love you. I always will.
Gale
#masters of the air#mota#gale cleven#buck x bucky#john egan#john bucky egan#callum turner#mota fanfic#let’s talk mota#austin butler major gale buck cleven#callum turner major john egan#major cleven#major john egan#fluffy#fluff#cry of fear#tears#men loving men#post war#mental illness#mental health
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I hate/love you
John Egan X Plane mechanics! Reader
Summary: Bucky "hates" the new mechanics...
Warning: Ennemis to lover/ smut/ 18+/ p in v/ oral sex (m and f receiving)/ unprotected sex/ swearing/ use of Y/n/ violence/
Word count: 3.2k
She didn’t know why, but he infuriated her. His cocky attitude, his dumb moustache, his curly hair and his devilish smile. But sadly, she had to see him everyday, as a W.A.C, she had to be on the base all the time. She was an airplane mechanic, and for some reason, Lemmons liked to assign her to work on John Egan’s plane each time his plane needed to be fixed. At first, he didn’t bother her, but time went by, and he started to bother her; his plane had a weird noise, he blamed it on her, the mission didn’t go well, blamed it on her and the weather was shitty, it was Y/n’s fault. She needed that job, and beside him, she loved her job. When the planes came back today, she fixed her ponytail before heading in her jeep to drive to the runway. When she arrived, she saw Major Egan’s plane and drove towards it. She took a deep breath before getting out of her car.
‘’Y/l/n, we have a problem with engine 3, it barely shut down. I thought I was going to blow up!’’ he spat. ‘’Hello Y/n, how are you, by the way I have a problem with engine 3, can you please look at it? Of course, Major, since you ask so nicely, I’ll do it right away!’’ she said sarcastically. ‘’Whatever, can you fix the plane, please’’ he taunted. Y/n snorted before rolling her eyes. ‘’Right away, Major’’ she blinked multiples times and said it with a sweet but sarcastic voice. He cursed under his breath before walking away. ‘’Girls, hook it up and bring it in the workshop’’ she ordered the other mechanics she worked with.
She’d been working on Major Egan’s plane for hours, the sun was down, and she was hungry, other girls went to bed, it was late. She decided to stay up all night to work on his plane, because recently, they flew more missions. Y/n was only going to eat, and she would go back to work after. When she entered the cafeteria, she saw the one person she couldn’t bear. ‘’You got to be fucking kidding me?’’ she mumbled, annoyed that he was here. Non the less, she took a plate that was left and went to sit as far away from him as possible. ‘’How is the fixing going?’’ he asked. She was surprised that he was speaking to her, she stops chewing for a second and swallowed her food. ‘’Good, I’m almost done, why?’’ she was genuinely curious about why he was suddenly interested in her and her work. He rose his shoulder before shaking his head. ‘’Just wanted to know, and I wondered why you were still awake’’ this hole conversation was awkward, but it was the first in a long time that they weren’t mean to the other. ‘’Because I’m fixing it alone, the girls worked hard enough today. I thought I was going to be okay alone, but it’s complicated.’’ She explained.
He rose from his seat, plate in his hands and came to sit in front of her, she was surprised. But she didn’t say anything. ‘’Maybe I could help’’ he proposed. She blinked and looked at him with a confused look. ‘’Why would you want to help me, you can’t stand me and then you want to help me’’ she states. He scoffs and looks at his plate. ‘’Yeah, you’re right, but I want my plane ready for tomorrow’’ he fakes smiles. Y/n rolls her eyes and exhales. ‘’Alright’’ she breaths out.
She ties her overall around her waist, it’s so hot inside the workshop. Her hair is in some kind of a messy bun, but it’s too messy to tell. She has a white tank top that’s covered in grease. ‘’Can you pass me the screwdriver?’’ she asked as she whipped the sweat off her face with a tissue. ‘’Which one?’’ he asked, looking at the table were the tools are. She rolled her eyes and pointed one screwdriver on the table. ‘’No, not that one’’ she exhaled. He scoffed in annoyance. ‘’Which one, Y/n? There’s like 7 screwdrivers on the table’’ he exclaimed. She slid down the plane, he looked at her breast as she did so. She took the famous screwdriver and took a breath. ‘’Can you help me get back up?’’ she asked. He nodded and began helping her get up. His hand came close to her butt. ‘’If you touch my ass, I swear I’ll sabotage the engine’’ she warned. ‘’It’s either your ass or you fall’’ he sighed. ‘’I’d rather fall’’ she muttered as his hand pushed her ass up to help her. She puts her legs each side of the plane and bends over to reach the engine. Bucky had a perfect view of her ass.
‘’Can you start it up?’’ Y/n asked. Bucky was seated in the cockpit, waiting for the woman to boss him around. He kind of found it convenient, because for a wicked reason, he had a boner. He spent almost 45 minutes watching her ass and that white tank top embraced her tits beautifully. Even though she was seated next to him, he could try and hide his growing problem. When he started the plane, the engine sputtered a little bit before fully starting. ‘’Christ on a stick! It’s working!’’ she cheered, resting her arms behind her head, making her tits pop out a little bit. ‘’You kiss people with that mouth?’’ he teased. ‘’I kiss whoever I want with that mouth’’ she replied. She turned to look at him, but when her eyes trailed down, she noticed a weird shape on his pants. She scoffed as she looked at him in the eyes. ‘’I thought you hated me’’ she laughed. He fixed his jacket, to try to hide it, even though it wasn’t necessary anymore. ‘’It’s a hate boner, I swear!’’ he exclaimed. She laughed even harder; she couldn’t believe he was hard right now. ‘’Shut up!’’ he exclaimed. ‘’Make me’’ she dared.
Before he could do something about it, the bomb raid siren was heard. They quickly got out of the plane and made their way to separate bunkers, she couldn’t believe she almost kissed him; him! Why was she feeling like this, all flustered and hot. She tried to get him out of her head, but even the bombs dropping near by couldn’t distract her. Neither could they distract him, plus he still had that stupid boner he needed to get rid of.
That morning, she woke up after having a wet dream about him. It was disturbingly hot, and she couldn’t get it out of her head. It made her angry, why the hell was her brain sex dreaming about him?! She got dressed in a new pair of overalls as she made her way inside the cafeteria, she spotted him instantly. She shook her head as she made her way to her table with her girls. Y/n tried to ignore him, without success. ‘’Hey! Bitch, can you come fix my engine!’’ one pilot said. It was something the girls were used too, but Y/n was not having it, not this morning. She got up and looked at the man. ‘’The fuck did you say?’’ she confronts him. ‘’Come here and fix my engine’’ the man had his hands in his pants. She scoffed. ‘’As if you had an engine to fix’’ she sassed. The girls at the table laughed and the man reacted. ‘’Why are you being such a skank?’’ he spat. Bucky looked at the man. ‘’Dude just shut up already!’’ he groaned. Y/n was surprised and mentally cursed herself and her uterus for reacting the way it just did. The sexist man sat back down and so did Y/n. ‘’That was amazing’’ one of the younger girls exclaims. ‘’Thanks – ‘’ she cuts her off. ‘’Yes you, but Bucky protecting you’’ Anna giggled. Y/n rolled her eyes and scoffed. ‘’Whatever, my coffee is not finished and it’s too early to have this conversation’’ she said.
No one had the right to be an asshole to her but him! Who did this guy this he was anyway?! ‘’What the hell was that?’’ Curt asked. ‘’What was what?’’ he asked. ‘’That, standing up for her’’ he said, moving his hand in a circular shape. ‘’That was nothing, that dude was annoying.’’ He tried to explain. The guys at the table didn’t believe it, but they didn’t want to push him. He watched her from the corner of his eyes, he couldn’t believe what happened last night, he almost kissed her if it wasn’t for this damn siren, who know what would’ve happened.
‘’Faster please’’ she moaned. He was trusting inside of her as one of his hands played with her breast. ‘’I love it when you beg for me like that. It makes you sound so desperate’’ he teased as he rolled his hips harder, hitting her g-spot. She arched her back as she rolled her eyes. ‘’Keep rolling your eyes like that’’ he ordered.
She was zoned out, thinking about her wet dream. Anna snaped her fingers in her face. Y/n shook her head as she looked at Anna. ‘’What?’’ she mumbled. ‘’What planet were you on?’’ she chuckled. ‘’Let’s go, we have to do some touch up on planes’’ Y/n got up and went outside. Bucky watched her as she left, looking at her ass as she passed next to him.
She jumped out of the plane since everything was okay, but she was in front of the prick from this morning. ‘’I just fixed your actual plane, your welcome’’ she smirked. ‘’Thank you, bitch’’ he spat. Y/n whipped her hands on a tissue. ‘’Shut up, asshole’’ she responded. Before she knew it, he grabbed her by the throat and pressed her against the plane. ‘’I’ve had enough of your bratty attitude. You’re going to do as I say. Now say Yes Chris’’ the man named Chris ordered. Y/n had enough room to try to fight. She tried to wiggle her way out of his grip, Chris’s hand loosens his grip, only to slap her. But Y/n took the opportunity to hit him in the balls. Chris falls on the ground, moaning in pain. ‘’Fuck you, Chris’’ Y/n says, out of breath, before walking away.
When he saw her walking with a bloody nose, he felt worried about her. What the fuck happened? He walked up to her, trying to contain his anger. ‘’Oh, hi Major’’ she said, surprised to see him. ‘’Who did this to you?’’ he asked, touching her upper arm to prevent her to walk away. ‘’No one, I, uh, hurt myself while fixing the plane.’’ She lied. He knew she lied. ‘’Who. Did. This. To. You?’’ he insisted. ‘’Chris, the guy from this morning. But I dealt with him. Kicked him in the balls’’ she admitted. ‘’I’m going to fucking kill him’’ he mumbled.
A bloody Chris was walking towards her, she was so confused. ‘’Y/n, I’m sorry for slapping you.’’ He sounded nervous. ‘’It’s, uh, okay? Are you being held at gun point?’’ she asked, concerned. ‘’Kind of, Bucky said he’ll kill me if I touch you again, and he hit me’’ he explained. She scoffed, in complete shock. ‘’Apology accepted’’ she mumbled. She turned around and walked to her room. When she closed the door, she was still in shock. ‘’WHAT THE FUCK?!’’ she exclaimed.
He saw her coming from the air, driving her jeep like a champion. He was still angry with Chris, that idiot had no right to touch her like this. When he landed, Y/n practically ran to his plane. ‘’Hey, Y/n, the engine 3 is still messing around, could you look at it please?’’ he asked nicely. ‘’Are you sick or something or was that you actually being nice to me?’’ she said ironically. She looked at her colleagues. ‘’Hook it up and bring it to the workshop, like usual!’’ she mumbled the last part. ‘’No, I’m not sick, I just tried to be nice’’ he said. ‘’Okay, that’s weird, but nice. I gotta go’’ she said, in a monotonous tone. ‘’Hey, uh, could I help you out later?’’ he asked, scratching the back of his head. ‘’Sure, whatever’’ she jumped into her jeep and drove away.
She was alone, working on the goddam 3rd engine of this freaking plane. She heard the door opened; she didn’t see who it was. ‘’Anna, I told you to go to sleep!’’ She said, keeping her head down. The person that was in the room didn’t respond. ‘’Hello?’’ she asked. ‘’Hey, you’’ Bucky said, walking beside the plane, looking up at her. ‘’Major, you scared me’’ she breathed out. She slid down the plane, landing in front of him. He watched her tits, again. ‘’I have a question’’ she asked, wiping her hands on her overall. ‘’What’s up buttercup?’’ he said. She rolled her eyes. ‘’Did you punched Chris this morning and threatened him if he didn’t apologise to me?’’ she asked. He smirked and proudly nodded. ‘’Are you kidding me?!’’ she shouted. ‘’Not at all, that asshole had it coming’’ he stated. ‘’I can’t believe you. And I clearly don’t understand you either?’’ she exclaimed. She tried to climb up the plane, but almost fell. He did like he did yesterday, put his hands on her ass. But it annoyed her. ‘’Put those hands away!’’ she snapped.
Bucky was walking her up to her room, he didn’t want to be alone. ‘’Why did you punch Chris?’’ she blurted out. ‘’Because he was being a dick’’ he responded. She face palmed, as she started to feel rain drops on her skin, damn English weather. ‘’You can’t punch people just because they’re dicks! Otherwise, I would’ve punched you a long time ago!’’ she exclaimed. Bucky smirked. ‘’Sorry I should’ve let you handle it?’’ he raised his voice. The rain was pouring, they were both soaking wet. ‘’Maybe, I had it under control without you!’’ she exclaimed, moving her arms as she spoke. ‘’Fine! I’ll let him beat you up next time!’’ he breathed out. ‘’Why do you even care?!’’ she asked. They were both panting from the emotions. He came closer to her, practically breathing in her face. He could see her chest rising from the heavy breathing. ‘’I care because you invaded my mind. There’s not a second that goes by where I don’t think about you. The idea of another men touching you infuriates me. You’re mine, Y/n, don’t you get that?’’ he said, against her mouth. She looked at him, then his lips and his eyes again. She blushed hard. ‘’Fuck it’’ she mumbled before pressing her lips against his.
As they entered her room, he kicked the door to close it, there was no going back. The tension they felt was finally broken and they were hungry for the other. He pressed her against the wall while still holding her thigh. ‘’You don’t know how much I’ve thought about this’’ he growled. ‘’Shut up and show it to me’’ she said eagerly. ‘’Bossy, I like it’’ he mumbled against her lips. He laid her down on the bed, taking her overall off at the same time. ‘’God you’re breathtaking’’ he praised. ‘’And you talk too much’’ she said, pulling him by the tie to kiss him. Their tongue danced together as she worked a way to take his shirt off. She trailed her hands on his abs, biting her lips. ‘’How can we go from hating each other to wanting to do the most unholy things to the other’’ she teased. ‘’Right now, I don’t hate you’’ he said, unbuckling his pants. She crawled to the end of the bed, where he was up. She seated in front of him, her face was right in front of his hard dick. She looked at him, her eyes were killing him, so innocent, yet filled with dirty thoughts. Y/n took her shirt off and threw it on the ground, she didn’t wear a bra, so she was left in her panties. Her hand was touching his lower stomach, she loved how his breath deepened when she was near his boxer line. She gently tugged them down, still maintaining eye contact. Slowly, she took his length in her mouth, pressing kisses to the tip, before fully taking him inside her mouth, he let out a shaky breath. ‘’Oh shit’’ he moaned. She started to bob her head at a sensual pace, maintaining eye contact with him. Bucky’s hand found her hair and pulled it slightly, from pleasure. ‘’If you keep doing this I’m going to cum.’’ He warns, she giggled, the vibration making him moan. ‘’Afraid you can’t keep up, Major?’’ she teased. He lifted her by under the shoulder, he made her back up from the bed, he laid down between her legs.
‘’Tell me, do you care about those panties?’’ he asked, she shook her head in confusion. He tears her panties off, like actually rips them off her body. ‘’Did you just?’’ she looks at him, confused. ‘’I’ll buy you a new pair’’ he said before diving in between her legs. He kissed her inner thigh before pressing small kisses on her clitoris. She moaned as she arched her back, he smirked as he continued his work. Y/n’s hand found his hair, tugging hard. He was grinning like the town idiot. ‘’As much as I’m enjoying this. Please Major, fuck me, please’’ she begged. He thought he was going to faint; she was begging him to fuck her. ‘’God, you’re so pretty when you beg’’ he grins.
He rests on top of her, she bucks her hips, trying to have contact. ‘’Look at you, so desperate for my cock’’ he teased. ‘’News flash, Major, you crave my pussy too’’ she moans against his lips. With one trust, he penetrates her, she arches her back and moans his name. ‘’Keep moaning my name like that, shit’’ he moaned. She bites her lips, trying to hold her moan. Bucky rocks his hips to a fast pace, they’re both close and crave a relief. Her breast that he like so much bounce up and down with every trust, he lowers his head to go and kiss them. She tried to match his pace with her hips, but her walls were clenching, and her breath quickened. A part of her didn’t want this to be over, but it felt too good to hold back. ‘’Come on, Y/n, come for me, let me hear those pretty sounds. Come for me’’ he praised. That was all she needed to let the knot explode in her stomach, she came hard, her back arched even more and she was saying his name like it was a prayer. He kept thrusting into her for a split second before releasing into her, he growled her name as he crashed on top of her. ‘’Y/n’’ he moaned.
She was playing with his curls; they were still naked and tangled up together. ‘’I’m sorry for all the mean things I said to you’’ he apologized. ‘’Trust me, I forgive you’’ she giggled. He chuckled before kissing the top of her head. ‘’I have to go; I have a mission tomorrow’’ he sadly announces. ‘’It’s okay, I’ll see you tomorrow, Major’’ she said, smiling to him. As he was getting dressed, he kept looking at her, smiling to her as he did so. ‘’I’ll see you tomorrow, my dear’’ he said, kissing her before he left. That was definitely not a one time thing for them…
#callum turner#callum turner x reader#callum turner imagine#master of the air#john egan x reader#master of the air imagine#major john egan#john egan#john egan smut
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MASTERS OF THE AIR (2024)
BAND OF BROTHERS (2001)
#it's the same picture#except i love dick with all my heart#love you too gale#band of brothers#bob#masters of the air#mota#hbo war#hbo war trilogy#dick winters#lewis nixon#john egan#gale cleven#bucky egan#buck cleven#captain nixon#major winters#major cleven#major egan#callum turner#austin butler#ron livingston#damian lewis#my gifs#my edit
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#i live for the last one#the amount of time he just bothers and taunts people just because be feels like it#iconic#he has clown blood fr#major john egan#john egan#john bucky egan#major john bucky egan#bucky egan#callum turner#mota#mota spoilers#masters of the air#mota memes#YALL I HAVE A PAULINA ONE#AND A CLEGAN#IDK WHICH ONE IS COMING NEXT#bye bye and kisses
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send you away, major gale cleven
pairing: major gale cleven (masters of the air) x black fem oc (eden marie cleven)
content: eden is anxious about having to be separated from her husband when he reveals that he has to serve in England.
an: I was burnt out from writing elvis content, but, now we're on masters of the air content, yay!
“I’m sorry, baby, but I gotta go.” His voice was a song sung by an old church choir; soothing, warm like her mama’s hugs, then it got disruptive. Like the snares of the drums as the song reached a climax. “They need us in England.”
The pained look on her face would be engrained in his mind forever. There would be no way for him to forget it. Her thick eyebrows eat in a deep frown, pushing the rest of her features further down. Her eyes, those beautiful brown eyes, glistened with tears. She refused to blink. The gentle rivers would transition to monstrous waterfalls with no dam to keep them at bay. And her lips, full and swollen from tender kisses, quivered as she clenched her jaw to keep her composure.
“For how long?” Her voice was quiet. Gale sighed heavily and ran a heavy hand through his hair. If he had an answer, he’d give it to her. But, his silence spoke loud enough. She hummed and brushed his hand off her lap and began to trudge upstairs. A defeated sigh came from him.
“E,” Gale called out. He followed her up the wooden steps. “Eden!”
His large hand palmed their bedroom door that threatened to push him out. The lamp on her side of the bed was on, the blankets on the left side were pulled back, and she stood in front of the mounted mirror brushing her freshly pressed hair. Her sad expression had morphed into one like stone. He could see her jaw tick as each second passed.
Gale took slow steps toward her. He could only imagine what she was thinking. Her husband, whom she’d only been married to for six months, was being shipped off to England to assist them in bringing down Germany. How coulde she not be upset?
Gale stood behind her, wrapping his arms around her waist. His advances didn’t keep her from wrapping her hair and tossing her satin scarf around her head. He leaned down, nose brushing against the shell of her ear. Eden’s breath hitched. His lips followed, pecking at the sensitive area below her ear. He pulled at her skin with his teeth and she whimpered softly, her hand falling on top of his. “Gale…” A warning.
“Talk to me,” he pleaded. “Please.”
“I don’t want you to leave,” she said after some time. “I knew what I got into when I married you but that doesn’t change the fact that I’m scared, Gale!” Finally, she turned to meet his gaze. So big and blue, they were. Filled with sympathy and remorse.
“I knew what I was getting into when I married you, but still! I gotta send my husband away and I don’t want to think about the day where someone could knock on the door telling me--”
Gale shushed her softly and pressed her body against his in a tight embrace. His warm hand gripped her chin and tapped softly. She met his eyes. “So let’s not think about that. I leave in three weeks. We’re gonna focus on making these three weeks worthwhile, and we’ll cross the other bridge when we get to it. But I’ll always be with you one way or another, you know that, darlin’. You do know that, don’t you?”
Eden nodded. Gale raised an eyebrow. “I know, baby.”
Gale hummed and drew invisible lines along the bare skin other thigh. The lace of her slip tickled her leg. His hand inched up slowly. “How about we practice for that final send off?”
Eden smiled knowingly and broke away from him, peeling the straps of her nightgown off her shoulders her bare body on display. “C’mon, we’ve got all night.”
All night indeed.
#black authors#austin butler x reader#austin butler x black!reader#austin butler#writers and authors#black!reader#masters of the air#gale cleven#john egan#curtis biddick#callum turner#major gale cleven#major gale cleven x black!reader#major gale cleven x eden marie cleven#just a little something#austin!elvis x reader#austin!elvis x black!reader#austin!elvis x black!oc#gale cleven x black!reader
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