#mota ocs
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Chapter 10: The Soliloquy
Gale Cleven x Hope Armstrong (ofc)
Series Masterlist
This story is based on on the fictional portrayal of these men from the MOTA to series.
Summary: After finding themselves in German territory the girls find themselves under interrogation and have a less than pleasant stay at Dulag Luft. Meanwhile Gale has to face his feelings of losing the woman he loves.
Collab: A Pair of Silver Wings by @major-mads
October 22nd: Dulag Luft: Frankfurt, Germany
Lying on the cold, stone floor was a far cry from the bed she was used to back at The Grove, or Thorpe Abbotts for that matter, yet it was still better than the rough cot in the corner. The fabric seemed to move on its own accord, and she could only imagine the infestation that had taken over between the sheets. The mattress was barely a few inches thick and the material was horrible rough.
Heavy footfall sounded outside the cell door before it swung open, grating against the floor with a harrowing screech. The two Luftwaffe officers stood before her, standing over her small form.
"Steh schnell auf!" The first officer called, marching over to her, "Up, now!"
The second officer appeared beside him, yanking Hope upwards despite her protests. She dug her feet into the cobbled floor, pushing her full body weight against the officers, but they didn't resist, continuing to drag her down the corridor.
Hope found tears forming in her eyes as she fought against the men that likely decide her fate. Were they going to kill her or worse would they torture her first? Death would be the easy way out at this point, in fact she would welcome death if it meant finding peace again.
The officers marched her into a small, office-like room and shoved her down into a rickety leather chair in front of a large mahogany desk. It was stacked high with folders, classified documents, and piles of letters. Her dark eyes roamed over the desk catching a glimpse of a familiar faces. Ruth. The picture was small and only half exposed but she'd recognise those blonde curls anywhere. Hope wondered if Ruth had been in this room recently. Whoever owned the office had clearly been looking over her file. She wondered if Frank's and her own file were in that mound too. What information would they have on her?
"Warren Sie heir," one of the officers instructed, slamming the door loudly behind them.
Hope knew very little German but regardless of what they had said she wasn't moving from the spot. Her heart was racing and she felt nauseous, the bile building in her throat. Her eyes remained trained of the half exposed image of Ruth in front of her. Somehow it bought her some comfort that her friend was okay. But the niggling question of , where was Ruth, and was she okay filled her mind? Her mind was full of unanswered questions and she wondered if she'd ever see her friend again. It felt like it had been a lifetime since she had seen the last glimpse of Ruth's face as she'd disappeared into her cell. Hope wasn't sure how much time actually had passed but she was sure it felt longer than it was. Her mind drifted to Frank too and she found herself reaching forward, a shaking hand brushing over the files on the desk to expose them. What would become of Ruth and Frank?
She turned to the sound of the door clicking open and saw another officer enter, his hair smeared down to his head and he wore a friendly smile, too friendly, the kind that made Hope feel uneasy.
"Ah, Lieutenant Armstrong, how nice to meet you. Are you well?" He grinned cheerfully at her, his bright white teeth seemingly dazzling in the dimly lit office and it made Hope feel uneasy. She shuffled her feet beneath her chair and continued to stare blankly at him.
From her very basic interrogation training upon joining the 806th MAETS, she knew everything was a tactic, a ploy to get her to talk. The best thing she could do, for everyone's sake, was to stay silent. There was nothing useful she could tell them anyway, she was a nurse after all and surely they would find the British pilots far more interesting than she was.
"I see you are not much of a talker, Lieutenant," the officer mused, sitting down opposite her, his hands clasped in front of him. "I am Lieutenant Haussmann."
Haussman's eyes bore into her but Hope continued to leave her eyes on the desk in front of her, not giving him the satisfaction that he could somehow get under her skin, despite the fact that his presence made her flesh crawl. Just the way each breath he took seemed to grate of her and each exhale caused his nostrils to whistle. She probably wouldn't have noticed if the room hadn't been so quiet, but there wasn't even the sounds of birds, of vehicles rumbling by, or even people talking. In this office Hope felt as though she was far away from the rest of the camp.
"Shall we begin then? I'm sure you want this over as quickly as possible," he began to shuffle the papers around on his desk until he found the folder he wanted, thumbing through the pages.
"Ah yes, here is your file. Hope Armstrong, that is not an American surname, it has Scottish origin, yes?" Haussmann raised an eyebrow expectantly at her.
"Lieutenant Hope Frances Armstrong, serial number N-770062." Hope bit her tongue, resisting the urge to spit the words at Hausssman.
Haussmann merely sighed, "Alright then. Why don't you tell me of your friend, Ruth Morgan?" Hope's stern exterior faltered slightly, the thought of them holding Ruth prisoner somewhere in some dank, dark cell like her own made Hope shudder. She only hoped that they found a Kraut doctor to assess Ruth's injured arm, the makeshift sling she had made after the jump was doing very little now to support the injured limb. She hoped Frank had been seen to as well, although she feared he would probably resist any kind of help from a Kraut.
"I believe she is an avid baseball fan. The Boston Braves. Are you a baseball fan, Lieutenant Armstrong?"
How did he know so much? How could he possibly know so much about them?
She knew Ruth wouldn't have uttered a word to him, even if she was scared out of her mind, and Frank would have rather died than told the Germans anything.
"Or what about Frank Martin? He is a baseball fan too? You Yanks and your baseball," Haussmann laughed. It was the kind of laugh that haunted Hope, it was particularly menacing but it chilled her to the core. She swallowed hard, watching as Haussman's lips turned upwards into a smile.
"He did not want to go quietly, your Frank Martin. I'm afraid, put up a fight. The guards sorted him though," Haussmann spoke plainly, flipping through Hope's folder. He stopped on a particular page, chewing his lip thoughtful as though he was going to ask a tough question. Hope felt as though she was in some sort of job interview and the real questions were about to start.
"What about Gale Cleven?" His words hung in the air, frozen in the moment as everything around her seemed to stop. Her Gale. Her beloved Gale who she may never see again.
Haussmann knew he'd struck a nerve with Gale, watching as Hope's face contorted at the thought of him. He picked up a loose photo from the file, turning it towards Hope. It was the photograph taken by the photographer from the night of Dye's party. It was Gale, dancing with her. They hadn't realised the photo was being taken at the time and Gale had been leaning down to kiss her, their lips inches apart when the camera captured the shot.
"Is he the one who gave you this?" Haussmann pulled out Hope's engagement ring that they had confiscated from her on arrival.
"Give that back!" She snapped, lurching from her chair and tried to grab the ring but Haussmann raised his hand in warning.
"He is your fiance , yes? He signs this letter 'Your Gale'. How sweet is it not?" Haussmann's lips formed a malicious smile, his words venomous as he spoke of Gale. "Do not worry, I have no use for your ring. Although I fear you will be missing your wedding very soon."
He tossed it carelessly back at Hope and she quickly slid it onto her finger. "No, I want to know about this Gale Cleven. He is a pilot, with the 100th Bomb Group at Thorpe Abbotts, yes?"
Hope's face must have had confusion written all over it because he picked up Gale's letter, turning the envelope to Hope, "I do love return addresses, don't you?"
Hope continued to stare blankly at him as she had done before. She couldn't let him get under her skin, couldn't let herself give anything away. Her mind seemed to turn over and over and her internal soliloquy of thoughts continued. It felt as though she was speaking out loud and maybe she, maybe that's how he knew so much.
Haussmann continued to press, asking about Gale, about Frank and Ruth, about Thorpe Abbotts and what base they had come from. Hope remained firm, resisting the urge to punch the officer and make a run for it. Her finger dug title into the leather chair, digging the fabric up beneath her short nails.
"I see," Haussmann finally gave up, he wasn't getting anywhere and he knew it. "Well, you have been...somewhat helpful I suppose. Thank you Lieutenant Armstrong, you will go back to your cell now."
The two officers from earlier appeared in the doorway, eyeing Hope with the same matching smiles that Haussmann wore. Those same smiles that would haunt Hope during the long hours spent in solitary confinement with nothing but her thoughts for company.
They yanked her from the chair, ignoring the way she dug her heels in and fought against their advances and hauled her out of the door.
"I look forward to our next meeting, Hope," Haussmann called after her as she was dragged away, her blood boiling at his words.
"I hope I never see you again," she mumbled under her breath, cursing the ground Haussmann walked on.
Upon returning to her cell, the large metal door slammed shut behind her and she was once again left alone in the dimly lit room. She sighed, falling down the stone floor once more, avoiding the rudimentary cot in the corner of the room.
Hope's back remained against the wall, glaring at the riveted, metal door, her eyes training on the small amount of light that came through the crack at the bottom.
The darkness seemed to close around her, making the small glimmer of light shine brighter. The air was cold, clammy against her skin and claustrophobic at the same time. Hope curled up on her side, her eyes remaining on the light, the small glimmer of hope that there was a way out of here.
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Hope groaned, rolling over on the cold, hard floor, her hand sluggishly feeling for the cup of water the guard had left on the tray that had been delivered with her daily bowl of soup.
Her throat was sore, raw from the hours she'd spent crying in the corner of her cell, clutching her knees as she rocked herself. The small amount of water did little to soothe it, but she drank it anyway, ignoring the potato soup that sat stagnant in the metal bowl.
She'd eaten it at first, glad of the sustenance but as the days crawled by the food became less appetising, and she began to doubt the RAF pilots from the mess hall.
"You shouldn't be at Dulag Luft too long."
Hope had lost count of how long she'd been stuck here. After her first interrogation, she'd been filled with a fighting spirit. With the return of her engagement ring, there was a return of hope that maybe she would see Gale again after all. Haussman had other ideas and after he called her back into the interrogation room again, asking her the same question, she began to wonder if they'd ever be moved out of their cold, damp cells.
Each time she fought more, resisting the questions, the guards, the regime, to the point that she'd ended up with a black eye and her abdomen felt like she'd been run over by a Dodge ambulance.
Haussman stopped his interrogation after the fifth day and Hope had been left in her own company, other than the guards bringing food and the latrine trip. She wasn't sure what had drawn Haussman to her, or whether he was interrogating all the prisoners like that, but she was glad when she didn't have to see his unsettling grin that only filled Hope with dread.
"You intrigue me, Miss Armstrong. I do not know why but you are different from other American women I have met."
Hope but back the urge to spit back a sarcastic comment but she managed. She didn't want to give him anything he could use against her, or her friends.
"But you will not talk," he sighed, clearly exasperated as he stood from his chair, moving around to Hope's side of the desk. "If you would just talk to me, Miss Armstrong I'm sure we could come to some kind of agreement."
His hand trailed up Hope's arm, causing her to flinch. She could feel his warm breath on the back of her neck as he leant forward, whispering in her ear. "You can talk to me, Miss Armstrong. I am your friend."
Hope leapt from the chair, sending it flying backwards and crashing into a filing cabinet.
"I won't tell you anything!" She screamed, throwing herself at Haussman as her fist nearly missed his thin cheek. The guards came rushing in, hearing the commotion and coming to Haussman's aid.
She was thrown to the floor, the but of a rifle slammed into her abdomen. She fell to the floor, wheezing as the air slipped from her lungs. Two arms, wrapped under hers, dragging her from the room. She fought against them, scraping her short nails against their clothed arms, doing very little damage.
She was thrown back into her cell, her heart pounding. She wasn't entirely sure what came over her. How could she be so stupid as to fight back? It was then that she noticed the blood trickling down from her left eyebrow and she noticed the blurred vision in her left eye. Feeling along her cheek bone, she winced at the sudden discomfort. Despite her discomfort she hoped that would be the last time she saw Haussman.
Although being alone with her thoughts wasn't a better option. Sometimes the memories of happier times soothed Hope and she could cling to those memories. Hugh often filled her thoughts, his bright smiling face filling the dark corners of her cell, promising that everything would be okay. Other memories were with Frank and Ruth, their visits to the local pub by the airfield, evenings spent chatting with Ruth, and Frank acting like an older brother.
She wondered if they were even still alive, trapped just like she was. Would she ever see them again?
And then there was Gale...
Memories of Gale should have brought more comfort than most, they had been the happiest days of her life, and yet they always ended with Hope crying herself to exhaustion. Her heart ached in her chest, as though the memories were slowly killing her from the inside.
She stretched out across the floor, her right leg knocking against the rudimentary bed against the back wall. She refused to lay on it, despite the floor causing her bones to stiffen and her muscles to ache. The straw mattress was lumpy, uncomfortable and alive with more insects than Hope cared to think about.
She ran her short nails over the scratches on the concrete floor. She'd ripped her nails off days before, scraping against the door to her cell, clawing away until her fingers bled. The guards had gotten used to her cries, choosing to ignore her until she gradually fell silent. She'd always considered herself a strong person who could withstand tough times but solitary confinement was gradually breaking her down, slowly wearing away at her soul. She felt hopeless. She was going to die here.
She rolled over, facing towards the door where a small crack of light filtered through, casting a light glow over her face. She hadn't seen sunlight in days and the only recognition of the changing hours was the noise around the camp. Hope began to wonder if it was the light from God as if he was calling to her and eventually, she would fade into his heavenly light.
That day didn't come.
A loud commotion in the hallway brought Hope back to her senses, as though she'd been in a daze for the past ten days and finally, she was awake again. The door swung back on its hinges with a loud groan, scraping against the rough floor.
Hope sprung to her feet, clutching her sore abdomen as a guard appeared in the doorway. She raised her hand, squinting at the sudden bright light streaming into the room. Hope had forgotten how dark her cell was.
"Out!"
She shuffled forward, following the guard sheepishly. She recognised him as the one who'd given her the black eye and she knew better than to test his patience again.
Her dark eyes drifted up to meet those of a few other prisoners all being led down the hall. She followed them out of the building, her heart racing as she tried to catch a glimpse of Frank or Ruth. There were several men dressed in Air Force blue RAF uniforms but she didn't recognise any of them.
Her legs felt heavy as they carried her across the muddy, overgrown courtyard. The ground reminded her of pictures she'd seen in a book of the trenches of The Great War. Her right foot slipped in a puddle and she felt her knee buckling beneath her. A strong pair of arms gripped her hips, steadying her against their chest.
She turned, pushing herself away until her eyes found the familiar, kind ones of the man she knew so well.
"Frank?" She whispered, her hand reaching up to cup his cheek, feeling the rough stubble of his cheek grazing her hand. He was here. He was alive.
"Oh, Frank."
Frank didn't utter a word, instead, he pulled Hope flush against his chest, pressing her head beneath his chin as he held her.
Hope hadn't realised that she still had more tears to cry until they began to fall. Her shoulders were wracked with a sob as she clung onto Franks's A-2 jacket, her sore fingers clutching the fabric for dear life. She couldn't believe he was here, he was here.
Frank pushed her away, his hand immediately coming up to run over the bruise that ran beneath Hope's left eye.
"God, Hope! What happened? Who did this?" His face creased with anger, his eyebrows creasing into a hard line. "Did they...they didn't?" His lip quivered as he spoke and Hope knew what he was asking.
Hope shook her head, grasping Frank's hand in hers, "It's okay, they didn't," she gulped back another sob that threatened to spill. "I'm just glad you're alive."
Before Frank could speak again a guard appeared beside them, his hard face glaring at them before he ordered them to move forward.
Hope and Frank joined the line of prisoners that disappeared into a small dilapidated building that Hope hadn't noticed upon their arrival at the camp. The prisoners, all men, seemed to filter through the building, appearing on the other side clean-shaven and looking far less scruffy than before.
Hope froze in the line, realising the guards were expecting them to shower. The thought of having to strip down in front of so many men was more than Hope could bear.
"I can't go in there, Frank, it's the showers...I can't...you can, but..."
Frank cut her off, squeezing her hand tightly, "If you think I'm letting you out of my sight again, Hope, then I'm afraid you're mistaken."
He wrapped his arm protectively around her shoulder, guiding her out of the line and to the other side of the hut. The guards watched but didn't seem to care whether the prisoners were clean or not. Hope wished she could have showered, to wash away the dirt and sweat from the past ten days, but she couldn't.
They moved to join the larger group of prisoners surrounded by guards with dogs, all barking and causing the prisoners to shuffle tighter together. Hope realised then that they were waiting for the train and within a few minutes it chugged into view, blasting smoke into the already damp, grey sky. Its wheels screeched painfully as the locomotive came to a halt in front of the group.
The dogs seemed to sense the change in the situation and began to bark louder, tugging on the ends of their leather leads and jolting their handlers. The shrill shouts from the guards signalled the group to move forward as they were shoved towards the awaiting compartments.
"Move! Go!"
Hope's hand never left Frank's as she felt the crowd of bodies moving as one, all pushing forward with the same common purpose.
A young RAF pilot reached his hand down, helping to pull Hope up into the carriage. She sent him a grateful smile, pleased she didn't have to struggle to pull herself up despite the pain in her abdomen. She in turn helped pull Frank up, abundantly aware that his ribs were still incredibly painful despite him not complaining.
Hope winced as the strong smell of urine and vomit filled her nose once more. Her stomach churned and the nausea bolted in her throat. She wasn't sure whether that was due to her lack of food or the stench from within the carriage but she swallowed back the bile.
Frank led her to the back of the carriage, never once letting go of her hand as they wound their way through the other pows.
Hope glanced at the faces of a few they passed, so many young faces, both English and American alike. She had never seen so many faces so gaunt and lifeless that she felt the small amount of hope that had bubbled when she found Frank diminish.
"Hope, look!" Frank stopped, causing Hope to crash into his back. He raised a shaking hand towards a small figure bundled at the corner of the carriage. The mass of blonde hair was faded and no longer in neat curls but Hope would recognise her anywhere.
"Ruth!"
"Hope! Frank!" Ruth called out, her voice trembling as tears of relief welled in her eyes. She pushed herself up from the corner and hurried over to meet them halfway. When they reached her, Hope enveloped Ruth in a tight embrace, holding her close as if she was afraid to let go.
"Oh, Rue, l've been so worried. I'm sorry," Hope cried. "I'm so sorry. I was supposed to watch out for you, and-"
Pulling back from the hug, Ruth's brows furrowed as tears glistened in her eyes. "Stop. You've got nothing to apologise for. You didn't know they'd separate us."
Frank then pulled her into a tight embrace, careful of both her arm and his still-healing ribs. "You alright?"
"Yeah, just hungry and grimy. But I'm just glad to see you both."
Hope wiped a tear that leaked from her eye and nodded. "Me too."
When even more men climbed aboard, they were pushed back into Ruth's corner and sat down, watching the entrance warily as the rail car became increasingly crowded.
How many prisoners were they going to shove in there?
Before long, there was barely any room to move, and the trio were thankful they sat before the door was slammed shut, plunging them into darkness except for the light shining through the cracks in the wooden slats. Most of the men were forced to stand. The train moved forward with a shrill screech and rumbled on toward its destination. Ruth sat between Hope and Frank, her good hand held tightly by her best friend.
"Were you interrogated?" Frank asked, turning to the girls with a creased brow.
Ruth swallowed thickly, thinking back on her visit with Lieutenant Haussman. "He...uh, tried to get me to talk about John," she said quietly, staring out at the dozens of legs before her. "But I didn't. He did send me to the infirmary, though."
"Really?"
She nodded. "A nurse splinted my arm. It still hurts, but I'm managing. What about y'all?"
Hope didn't meet Ruth's eyes. She was didn't want to talk about her time in the cell, the things she'd thought, the things she'd done.
Frank noticed the uncomfortable look on Hope's face and spoke up. "Well, my ribs are still pretty banged up but Hope's expert bandaging skills are holding me together."
The three chuckled and Hope shot Frank a grateful smile. Even though they sat in pure filth, had no idea where they were being taken, and were struggling with the mental strain of their ordeal, they were together...And that gave them more hope than anything.
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September 24th, Thorpe Abbott AAF base 09:00
Gale sat, hunched over a steaming mug of coffee in the mess hall, allowing the aroma to waft under his nose. Hopefully it would be enough to keep him awake. His eyelids dropped heavily as he fought against the sleep that tried to envelope him. He hadn't slept properly for over a week, not since the news of the girls plane going down, but yesterday after the letter had arrived he'd spent the whole night sat up in 'Our Baby', rereading the last words that Hope had written. He'd barely seen John, who had also received a letter from Ruth, and Hugh had his own letter from Hope to deal with.
The safety of the cockpit had been inviting and he'd crawled in, shaky hands finding their way to his seat as he calloused. The sob wracking his body shook his whole body, his hands crushing around Hope's letter.
How could this have happened?
His calloused fingers ran over her words.
To my darling Gale,
His chest squeezed, compressing his lungs as he gasped for air, choking on the sob that wracked his body once more.
He could feel her next to him, as if her ghost was always nearby. He could smell the scented soap she used, hear her quiet inhales, feel her hand in his...
While John became closed off and angry after the girls went down, he tried to remain strong for his friend, and for Hugh, but when he was alone...
The picture of Hope was pinned to the plane's control panel. Her dark eyes seemed to shine despite the picture only being black and white. He smiled through the tears at her, enjoying the way she looked snuggled in his arms.
If only he could go back to that moment...or any of the moments with Hope really. The dance, the picnic by the river, his proposal, their first night together, Dye's party. Any of the precious moments spent with Hope would live in Gale's heart forever. That evening he had made a promise to himself, and Hope, to continue the fight.
"Major Cleven? Major Cleven, Sir?"
Gale jumped, his bright eyes shooting up to meet the sympathetic eyes of Helen.
"Major Cleven, I...I have something for you."
Gale sat up straighter, taking a long sip from his black coffee, trying to compose himself before the Red Cross girl could say anything else.
"Here."
She pulled a small piece of white fabric, folded neatly in a square, from her handbag. Gale took the fabric, his fingers running over the familiar white lace and he was instantly transported to that moment just weeks before when Hope had been making. He caught a sneak peak of the dress as she was bent over the sewing machine. The others had all finished up for the afternoon but she'd been so desperate to finish it.
He held her close as she finished the last few stitches, impatiently kissing along her neck and distracting her. She'd scolded him at the time, but he was glad for it now. He would remember every single kiss he could, for as long as he could.
"The rest of the dress I've folded up and given to Hugh to put in your footlocker, but I thought you'd like a piece of it with you."
Gale nodded slowly, thanking Helen who retreated slowly, leaving Gale with his own thoughts once more.
He tried to keep the tears at bay, pushing his chair back and hurrying out of the mess hall. The worried eyes of his fellow crew members following his retreating figure.
Harry sighed, reaching out for Hugh's shoulder and giving it a quick squeeze. Hugh gave him a small, grateful smile. Between Gale and John, he was just trying to keep morale up. It wasn't until he'd received a letter from his grieving parents that everything came crashing down. It had been Harry and Rosie who picked up the pieces, taking it in turns to comfort their friend as his whole world fell apart.
He wanted to be that friend to Gale, he just wasn't sure how.
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Tags: @georgieluz @docroesmorphine @major-mads @violetdaze25 @bcofl0ve @precious-little-scoundrel @blurredcolour @artlover8992 @b00ks1ut @xxluckystrike @hockeyboysarehot @groovin2beats @kmc1989 @ginabaker1666 @hesbuckcompton-baby @beebeechaos @forsythiagalt @prettyinlimegreenboots @blueberry-ovaries
#masters of the air#on a wing and a prayer#hbo war#gale cleven#john egan#gale cleven x oc#hope armstrong#mota#MOTA OCs#John Egan x oc#ruth morgan#two bucks#buck cleven#bucky egan
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🌙 Patron Saints of Going Through It ☀️
#ch: holly#ch: woody#mota oc#mota ocs#i like these better than the ones i posted earlier…they needed something extra
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“First Steps First” Jessamine ‘Lark’ Waterson (OC) x Neil ‘Chick’ Harding
A/N: so I’ve really been wanting to write something for Jessamine and Chick for a while but was super anxious and self conscious about it for a couple of reasons. The first being that I don’t write much fanfiction anymore and the second is because I’m not wholly convinced I nail the atmosphere of period shows/movies. But this idea just wouldn’t leave my head so I’m biting the bullet and swallowing my doubts!
This fic takes place in episode 4 during Dye’s celebration party (I can’t get over Harding saying “single fillies”, okay?) and inspired by the song “First Steps First” from the musical Bandstand. The song they dance to is “It’s Been a Long Time” and I don’t care that this version came out in 1945, it’s my favorite LOL
also hey autocorrect pls stop changing Chick to Chuck, thanks
Word count: 1,730 words (😧)
Warnings: none, other than the fact I don’t know how the military works so please ignore inaccuracies🤡😂 this is about the FICTIONAL version of Col. Harding
I saw that you said it was okay to tag you in OC stuff @rosies-riveters, so I hope this is alright and that you enjoy!
“Pardon my brashness, dear
Seeing you standing here
Dancing's more customary
For a soirée."
As much as Jessamine Waterson took pride in her work as a nurse on the Thorpe Abbots base there was no denying the fact that it was grueling, emotionally draining and often went without the accolades that came with other roles in the war. And while most days she was just fine with that, today had been particularly tiresome and Jessamine was glad for the change of pace the evening’s festivities allowed. The anxious energy that had gripped every person on the airbase had been exchanged for easy laughter, jokes, and celebration. After all, it wasn’t every day a pilot and crew successfully flew 25 missions.
As she sat with Beth and Ginny, an American nurse and mechanic respectively, who had become two of her fastest friends, listening idly to them chat about the dances they’d returned from moments ago, it took much of Jessamine’s will to avoid allowing her gaze to linger for too long on the man who had just entered the room. She had spent months chiding herself for the way her heart started racing at the mere thought of Colonel Harding being so near and despite the effort she put into acting completely normal on the instances their paths crossed, she feared her feelings were all too transparent.
It was inconvenient to have a crush during war and even more inconvenient that it was on a man who was not only a good handful of years older than she was, but compounded by the fact that he was an American soldier. An American soldier who was dashingly handsome and confident, who had just looked in her direction and caught her staring. Jessamine busied herself with the drink in front of her trying to ignore the heat burning in her ears.
“Oh well that was just adorable.”
Beth’s voice with it’s charming southern accent was usually a source of soothing reassurance and good advice, was now riddled with mischief and good natured humor now that the two women’s attention was focused on their friend. “You know there’s no shame in a little flirting, a little conversation. Why don’t you go ask him to dance?”
Ginny nodded in agreement, leaning across the table, “It’s not like you’ve never spoken to him before,” before turning conspiratorially to Beth, “remember how she gave him pain medication for his headache that one time.”
Jessamine’s hands came up to cover her face, the full weight of her body resting on her elbows as she suppressed a groan and a laugh. Of course the two of them remembered the first time she had met the Colonel; a simple exchange of names and him asking for something for a headache. Jessamine, partly sleep deprived and partly fighting off the butterflies in her stomach fumbling with the bottle before spilling a handful of pills across the floor of the nurses station.
It certainly wasn’t necessarily the most romantic or charming first meeting on her part, but Col. Harding had only smiled before kneeling and helping her gather the runaways. There had been a quip about how she could’ve just said no that resulted in flustered laughter from her and another grin from him. And her friends hadn’t let her live it down since she confided about it to them the following day over breakfast.
“I’m surprised he said anything to me after that.” Jessamine admitted and revealed her face to her friends. Though there had been more interactions with the Colonel after that, they remained confined to mostly professional settings save for a few pleasantries while off duty. “And to answer your question, Beth, I’m certainly not going to bother him and ask for a dance!”
Ginny rolled her brown eyes and tossed her head back in a sign of exasperation, looking up to the ceiling pantomiming someone experiencing a great tragedy which in turn caused another round of laughter at the table. “Well, if he asked you to dance, would you say yes?” Beth finally asked. This time all the hints of teasing had left her friend’s tone and there was nothing but curiosity and sincerity.
Jessamine nodded slowly, allowing the fantasy to tease at the corner of her mind just for a moment but unable to answer because just as she parted her lips to reply another voice cut in.
“Excuse me, ladies.” Colonel Harding’s voice sent a rush of heat through Jessamine’s body and she felt her posture straighten. She pried her eyes off of Beth to glance up, up, up at the tall soldier now standing beside their table and found that, despite him addressing them all, he was looking determinedly at her alone. “I don’t mean to interrupt, but I was wondering if I could steal Miss Waterson for a dance.”
“You’re not interrupting at all, sir.” Ginny chimed in, eyes flitting from the Colonel to Jessamine, “In fact, we were just talking about how much Jessamine was wanting to dance.”
Oh, that Ginny was going to get stern talking to later, Jessamine promised herself, but at that moment she was already standing. Hardings’ hand reached out and enveloped hers as he guided her to the dance floor.
"Isn't the band sublime?
And as it happens I'm
Just in the mood to do
A two-step, Do step
Out on the floor with me.”
The two of them found a place surrounded by three or four other couples just as the band changed from the upbeat, two step to a slower tune that made Jessamine’s heart pitter faster. If Harding felt any nervousness at the now much more intimate situation the change of song put the two of them in, he didn’t show it. Instead he wrapped an arm around her waist with the ease and confidence of a man who knew what he was doing. Her breath hitching just slightly before she felt him placing the flat of his hand lightly, respectfully against her back.
Every nerve was firing at once, each hair on her arms standing on end, she was sure of it as her mind raced. She was trying to remember just how one slow danced fighting through the nervousness, when she felt the firmness of her foot under her own.
“I’m so sorry, colonel.” The apology came out high pitched and squeaky and with the attempt to pull away from the man in front of her. But Harding kept his gentle grip and shook his head.
“It’s not the first time someone’s stomped on my foot. At least this time it wasn’t on purpose. And Neil is fine, or Chick if you think Neil is too familiar.”
There he goes again, Jessamine thought, being so effortlessly charming and saving me from my own awkwardness. Sometime in the desperate squeak of an apology she had been repositioned to properly be dancing. One soft hand held in his much larger one, the other placed on his shoulder, and her face precariously close to his as she found herself peering up at him. The rhythm was easy to find with Neil leading and the familiar trumpet crooning at the stage and Jessamine had to fight to keep her eyes from closing.
“Might you be charmingly coerced
No need to be so shy
Take reassurance, I
Know how to guide you through
The worst steps, first steps first
“It’s not too late to admit you picked the wrong dancing partner.” Jessamine finally found her voice and the confidence to add just a bit of a teasing tone to it, a smile itching at the corner of her lips. Her cheek had come to rest just slightly against his shoulder as they swayed to the music and as a result her voice was slightly muffled by the material of his dress shirt.
“You’re selling yourself short. It’s been at least a minute since we’ve had another incident. You’re a natural.” Each time he spoke she could feel the rumbling of his chest against hers and her head felt dizzy with the warmth and solidity of him.
“And I’m certainly not going to say that after I finally got up the guts to come ask you for a dance in the first place.” Neil’s confession took Jessamine by surprise and she pulled back to look him in the eyes searching for any signs of jest but only finding an intensity that sent her stomach exploding into a storm of butterflies.
“You...you had to work up the courage to ask me?” The image of Colonel Neil Harding having to work up the nerve to ask anything of Jessamine was too comical to be taken seriously but there was no denying the truth behind his statement. “You’re a beautiful woman, Jessamine. And smart and successful. Hell, you’d have every reason to reject a dance from an old colonel like me.”
This was almost too much for Jessamine to take and she struggled to wrap her mind around his confession. All she could do was blink dazedly up at him as her cheeks flushed bright red. A smile broke out across Neil’s face and he laughed, arm tightening around her waist for a moment. “I hope that wasn’t too out of line and that I haven’t just read this entire interaction incorrectly. But your friends made it pretty clear to me earlier that you felt the same about me.”
Oh…oh…oh it was all coming together now.
Jessamine couldn’t help the laughter that bubbled up from her chest and she leaned forward to rest her forehead against his shoulder. His own rumbling laugh was mixing with hers and soon Jessamine had relaxed with the words of his confession replaying in her mind. The song faded and another slow ballad picked began, nothing but their breathing and the shuffling of shoes on the floor mixing with the music to fill the space between them. “So,” Neil murmured, dragging Jessamine’s attention to his face once again, “you do feel the same?”
This time, Jessamine didn’t shy away from the intense and earnest way he was looking at her. Instead she lifted herself up on the tip of her toes just enough to bring her lips to his cheek.
She would have words with Ginny and Beth about this. But later…after another dance.
Yes, after another dance with Neil.
#my writing#🏷️ my writings#oc: Jessamine ‘lark’ Waterson#jessamine x neil#mota ocs#mota oc#mota x reader#mota x oc#masters of the air x oc#Neil Harding#chick Harding#masters of the air#mota
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A worthy man
Or tommy butted in and made it about himself when this was supposed to be a cute diane x buck cleven one shot, part of the no one has to know universe
Did i edit marjorie's hair to match diane, yes, yes i did
While Tommy Shelby was shocked that his eldest daughter would have a dalliance with a soldier while her fiancé was at sea and become pregnant from said dalliance, he was relieved to know the Yankee who knocked her up was better than any boy she’d ever brought home.
Gale Winston Cleven, despite being an American from fuck knows where, was somehow worthy of his daughter’s hand.
He had no vices, a good reputation and was a math genius with the intention of finishing university once the war ended. That last bit he had not expected, but at least he knows the family company would have someone competent running it if left in his hands.
Should he survive the war and prove he is deserving of his little witch, Tommy Shelby may actually be proud to call him family.
“Mr. Shelby.” The young Major, who was the same age Tommy had been when he himself was at war, greets him courteously and with only a hint of embarrassment for the circumstances.
“Major Cleven.” Neither he nor the blond soldier believed they’d meet dressed in their best clothes at the latter’s hastily arranged wedding. Frankly, they weren’t supposed to meet each other at all, but they have and now their lives would be forever tied thanks to Diane. “I don’t know if I should kill you for knocking up my daughter or thank you for doing the right thing.”
“The Luftwaffe might do it for you, sir, but even if there was no baby, I’d still marry your daughter.” I love her, the words are unspoken but the message was clear all the same.
“Good.” The dark haired father fought the urge to smoke knowing his soon to be son in law frowns upon the habit.
A man who hates gambling marrying the daughter of a man who made his fortune gambling, odd pair they make.
But Tommy has to admit he’s never seen his little girl so in love with a man before ---and for that man to even look worthy of her--- and even if Wyoming is too far away, at least he knows Cleven will be a good husband and father.
“He reminds me of you. Sigmund Freud wins again.” His wife, Eva, whispers quietly as Diane becomes Diane Cleven before their eyes.
“How so?” he asks the all-knowing witch beside him.
“Both of you saw what your fathers were and decided to be the best man you could be instead.” His wife answered and for a moment he decides to believe he is a good man.
“No grandson named James, then.” Perhaps he and Gale were more alike than he thought. Tommy looks at his son-in-law and wonders how his own life would have been if he had let his mother’s good sense win instead of his father’s devilment the day he first donned his cap.
#eva smith shelby#tommy shelby x oc#diane shelby x gale cleven#no one has to know series#mota ocs#mota fanfic#masters of the air#gale cleven#peaky blinders meets masters of the air
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some small things i associate with rhona:
- picnic benches with their paint stripping
- bent dune grass from a strong sea breeze
- constantly fiddling with your jewelry
- turning your face up to the sun on an overcast autumn day
- saving the poststamps from letters
- mismatching socks
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bucky who very openly manspreads, he always sits down with a grunt, slumping down into the seat with his legs instantly parting from each other. and it’s not like it was a little part, something barely noticeable— no, his legs were spread as far as they could possibly be. buck always gripes at him about it, telling him he looks ‘easy’ in which bucky just scoffs, rolling his eyes and spreading even farther just to annoy buck.
bucky who reeks of mint, coffee, and the cologne he deems the best ever made, pour un humme.
bucky who rarely ever gets hurt, but when he does? he loves to put on a show for the nurses, wincing and groaning in pain over something simple like a paper cut, or stumbling into the infirmary with a busted lip after he decided it would be funny to box one of the majors on the british air forces. he’s always flirting, too, saying something cheesy like, “gonna take good care of me, doc?“
bucky who makes you call him sir when you’re in the empty barracks with him, as everyone else is attending the bar, he’ll tease and tease you until you’re pathetically begging him for him to fuck you— but you left out the one thing he wanted, making him click his tongue disapprovingly, “please who, huh? you gonna be good for me and call me sir, right?”
bucky who puts his military visor hat on you when you’re riding him, chuckling whenever your thighs shake at the feeling of his thick cock stretching you out, making some idiotic joke like, “tryna ride me like ‘m an airplane, huh, doll-face?”
#୨୧ (jules yapping) .ᐟ#♡ ׂ bucky ៵ 💋 ࣪ ִֶָ ⋆#major john egan#masters of the air#john egan x you#john egan#john egan x reader#john egan x oc#john egan fanfiction#bucky egan#mota smut#mota fanfic#mota#mota spoilers#mota cast#mota edit#mota oc#major john egan x reader#major john egan x oc#bucky egan x reader#bucky egan x oc#callum turner major john bucky egan#callum turner fanfiction#callum turner x reader#callum turner#callum turner imagine#austin butler
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Birdie
John "Bucky" Egan x female!reader
Summary: A rare night out in London has Bucky coming to terms with his feelings for you.
Word Count: 2.9k
Tags: mechanic!reader, songbird!reader, female!reader, she/her pronouns used, drinking culture, cursing, mutual pining, moderate bouts of denial, insecurities, women supporting women because it's what we deserve, let's pretend that The Old Therebefore is an ancient Appalachian folk song in this universe, maybe she's a Mary Sue idgaf, I just wanted to write something happy so LET ME LIVE, WWII era, there's no Y/N but reader has the nickname "Birdie"
A/N: Yeah, I'm obsessed with Masters of the Air. I had to write something for my mans before the creative procrastination literally killed me. Please leave a like, comment, or even a reblog if you're so inclined :)
You can read my OC version of this story on AO3!
Songs Mentioned in This Fic:
Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy by The Andrews Sisters
G.I. Jive by Johnny Mercer
The Ole Therebefore (Accapella) by Rachel Zegler
Disclaimer: I own nothing. This story and any recognizably named characters are based solely on dramatic portrayals of the characters from the series, not the real individuals they represent. All the respect to the actual service people who fought and died in the Second World War. Also, don't copy my writing without explicit permission. That includes you, you AI sonuvabitch.
Your heels clicked on the cobblestone streets, turning into the pub you’d heard so much about. You were out celebrating a very rare weekend off. The Brass had somehow allowed you and twenty other mechanics from base two days leave, so you took advantage of the opportunity and headed straight to London.
Your two best girlfriends from base were with you. Teresa was one of the toughest nurses you’d ever come across. She could give you a wide grin, crinkles around her hazel eyes, and reset a broken bone without breaking a sweat. It helps that she was already working towards becoming a nurse back in New Mexico, the war just sped along that process. You had bonded over your love of books, giving each other recommendations almost weekly.
You’d met Irene on the boat to England. She puked on your shoes almost thirty minutes exactly after leaving the port in New York. You gave a small grin, offering her a handkerchief and a piece of ginger candy and the rest was history. Finding out that she was a fellow mechanic was the icing on the cake. Coming in at a whopping five foot two, the spritely blonde could easily be found in a crowd with her loud Appalachian accent.
It seemed almost like fate for the three of you to have found each other. Being some of the few women on base naturally made you close, but you were closer with Irene and Teresa than any of the others. That’s not to say that you weren’t friends with any of the men, because you were. Friendly.
All three of you were dressed to the nines, in contradiction to your everyday work wear. You all got ready together in your hotel room, giggling while you applied makeup here, spritzed some perfume there. You all felt confident and were ready to have a good time. You spotted some familiar faces and made your way over towards them, your friends linked arm-in-arm with you. Lemmons was the first to greet you.
Of the fifty men on the ground crew, Sgt. Ken Lemmons was the most welcoming of them all. From the get-go, he didn’t care if you were a man or woman. He just wanted to know that you were capable. You were sure he had to go through some hazing because of his age, which probably changed his perspective on gatekeeping the job. This made earning and maintaining respect a lot easier for the women on your crew. We all came over with the same goal, it was better for all if we just helped each other out.
“Hey Birdie! Nice to see you out and about.”
Ah, the famed nickname. You tend to hum and sing under your breath when elbow-deep in a project. It helps you pass the time and clear your mind. Of course, the rest of the ground crew quickly caught on to this habit of yours, which quickly earned you the nickname “Birdie”. You, of course, never sing solo in public, so this confuses anyone who’s not around you while you’re working. But the name stuck, so here you are. Birdie.
Chairs are quickly cleared for you and your friends, which you all graciously take. You go up to buy some drinks, knowing what your friends like, and quickly return with your drinks of choice. Conversation flows, laughs are shared, and a few drinking games are played over the next hours. Teresa soon speaks up on a topic you’d been hoping to avoid.
“Do you think he’ll be here tonight?”
You shrug and look into your drink, “Dunno. Why does it matter?”
Irene, the ever supportive best friend that she is, backs up Teresa. “What do you mean ‘why’? This is your chance to finally make a move!”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” You quickly deny, taking another sip.
An unladylike snort leaves Irene, “My ass! You and Major Egan have been making googly eyes at each other when you think the other’s not looking for months. I’m saying it’s time for you to perk your tits up, buck on over and ride that—!” You slam your drink on the table, pressing your hand over Irene’s mouth, heat rising to your cheeks in embarrassment.
“Are you insane?” You whisper harshly, looking around to make sure no one overheard you. You seem to be in the clear, which makes you calm down a bit. Irene pushes off your hand, takes a swig of her drink, and consults the person who started this whole conversation.
“Am I wrong?” You look to Teresa, who cringes slightly in agreement.
You gape at the pair of them. Normally, you were the median between the two girls who had vastly differing opinions. But this is what made them come to a consensus? Unbelievable.
“Look, I’m not saying that I don’t want to.” You start, which makes your friends nod encouragingly at you. “It’s just that… Is he really as interested as you think he is?”
They both groan and slump against each other, like they’d just run a marathon. Teresa sits up, scooching your chair in closer so that the three of you were in a private triangle, cut off from the rest of the group.
“Let’s look at the facts here, okay?” Teresa starts to tick off a finger with each point she and Irene make. But you seem to always have a rebuttal at the ready.
“He brings you coffee every morning.”
“I thought he does that for everyone.”
“He constantly fixes his hair when you’re around.”
“He takes care of his appearance!”
“He walks you to the mess hall every day for dinner.”
“We just happen to be going the same way. And we happen to have the same dinner schedule.”
“He read The Hobbit when you said how much you loved it.”
“He’s an adventurous guy, it’s an adventurous book, what’s not to like about it?”
“You two literally will walk and talk outside alone for hours.”
“A man can’t have a stimulating conversation with a woman?”
“He laughs at all your dumb jokes.”
“Hey! They’re not all dumb. Like, the one with the goose and the—”
“Point proven. Anyways! He has your picture in the inside pocket of his jacket.”
That one stops you in your tracks. You brain tries to justify this meaning but comes up blank.
“He…” You struggle with an excuse. “He…” Your best friends give victorious smirks in your direction.
“He… likes the extra padding in his jacket?” You stutter over what is possibly the most pathetic, sorry excuse you could have ever come up with.
“When are you gonna admit to yourself that he likes you? Like, actually truly likes you?”
You gave a sad sigh, letting the insecurity you were feeling deep down come to the surface. “I just… He’s just so…” You had stomped down your feelings for so long that it was becoming hard to articulate what exactly you’re feeling.
“He just seems so unreal. Like, of everyone he could have chosen, why me? I mean, I know I’m great. But you’ve seen the other girls on base. They’re all so beautiful, smart, classy… and none of them are covered in engine oil ninety percent of the time.” You looked down at your hands, specks of grease and oil peeking out from beneath your nail beds. It seems like it would never completely wash out, no matter how hard you scrubbed. You hadn’t even painted your nails for this weekend, knowing it would be money wasted come Monday morning when you’re back on the clock.
Teresa and Irene share a look that you don’t see, then come forward and grab each of your hands.
“The words you just used to describe those girls. All of that is you, Birdie. That and more. You being a mechanic doesn’t make you any less of a woman, and to hell with anyone else who thinks otherwise.” You nodded in agreement, Irene’s words of encouragement slowly washing away your anxieties.
Teresa spoke up next, “You deserve someone who will rearrange the stars and the whole night sky for you. And I’m more than willing to bet that Major Egan is up for the job.”
“Besides, none of that 'unreal' stuff. At the end of the day, John Egan is nothing more than a man. If he can’t look past his nose and his d—" You gave a squeak to cover up the vulgar word Irene was about to blurt in public. She rolled her eyes fondly and continued.
“If he can’t see what you’re worth and make the effort to treat you a hundred times better than that? That’s on him. Not you. You know what you deserve, and you deserve everything you want. Absolutely everything.”
You sniffed, happy tears coming to your eyes. You brought your best friends in for a hug, thanking them profusely.
“Don’t sweat it,” Teresa grins into your shoulder “every girl needs to be pulled out of her well sometime.”
You pull back from the hug, grabbing your glass and tipping your head back, finishing the rest of your drink. “Even if he’s not gonna be here, let’s have a ball!” Your girlfriends cheer as the three of you go to the bar for refills.
One drink turns into two, which turns into a few more, and suddenly you’re buzzed. Your group are having a rambunctious time, Irene dancing by the local piano player. Once Irene looks over to you, she stops and whispers in the player’s ear. He nods, then starts a new tune. Irene starts up her voice, walking over to you and Teresa, encouraging you to join her.
The alcohol has loosened you up enough that you don’t feel the nausea you usually associate with being perceived, so you join in the harmonies you and your friends have practiced in your bunks at night.
He was a famous trumpet man from out Chicago way
He had a boogie style that no one else could play
He was the top man at his craft
But then his number came up and he was gone with the draft
Soon the whole pub was jumping and dancing along to the tune as you brought a new vibe to the pub. It was like a spark that started an entirely new night and everyone was eager to go on forever.
One song turns into an entire set, which ends with a full rendition of G.I. Jive, which had everyone singing along. It was a magical moment; made you feel like you were a part of something important.
Irene sidles up to you, giving you a hug. She says in your ear,
“I think it’s time to slow it down a bit. How about you sing that song I taught you.”
She means an old Appalachian folk song that’s been in her family for generations. You had heard her sing it one night and immediately loved the dark, but strong nature of the lyrics. It was an honor to learn it from her.
“I don’t know, it’s your family’s song and…”
“And I can’t think of anyone better to sing it to these soldiers.” You gave each other a look, her slight eyebrow raise gave you the courage to nod in acceptance. She smiled, hugging you again, her voice yelled out to the crowd.
“Birdie’s gonna sing solo!”
The announcement is met with raucous applause, Irene and Teresa shoving you towards a dodgy looking table. Crank offers a hand up, which you take gratefully. As you find your bearings on the tabletop, you quickly spin around and find all eyes on you.
The crackling energy in the air seemed to simmer, the fast-beating hearts of the pubgoers recognizing a moment to acknowledge you. Nausea starts to make an appearance, but a deep breath quells the sensation within you for the time being.
You take another deep breath. Inhale, exhale. Inhale. Exhale.
You close your eyes, open your mouth, and sing.
Meanwhile….
Majors Gale Cleven and John Egan walk down the familiar street, one eager to catch up with his fellow countrymen’s alcohol intake, the other just happy to spend time with his friends. They were arriving later to the festivities due to being caught up in filling out reports. By far the worst part of having a higher rank was the paperwork.
“It’s pretty quiet.” Buck acknowledges. “They’re usually rowdier by this point.”
Bucky sniffs, shrugging off the concern. “Ah, it’s probably nothing.”
As the two men approach the pub, they find that a crowd has formed. Soldiers, civilians, RAF, USAAF, old, young— people had obviously stopped to watch whatever was going on. It was dead silent, save for a voice singing. Was there a radio show on or something?
A familiar face peeks out at them from the crowd, DeMarco quickly waving them over.
Bucky is quick to question, “Hey, what’s going on?” but is immediately shushed by nearby crowd members. Buck cringes in apology, despite not being the one to disturb the peace. His best friend, ever unshaken by the opinion of strangers, carries on.
DeMarco leans in, whispering, “Your girl’s taking us all to church.”
“My girl..?” Bucky’s nose scrunches in confusion. He makes space through the crowd and quickly makes sense of DeMarco’s words. It was you.
I’ll catch you up
When I’ve emptied my cup
When I’ve worn out my friends
When I’ve burned out both ends
Standing on a tabletop, watchful eyes sat all around you like baby ducks flocking to their mama. You were captivating everyone with each note and word that flows from your mouth. Damn, you've got a set of pipes— a voice that belongs on the radio, in concert halls, on Hollywood records. He had no idea.
His little Birdie.
“Wow.” Buck mutters in awe from behind him, and Bucky couldn’t be more in agreement.
When I’m pure like a dove
When I’ve learned how to love
He hadn’t noticed before, but her eyes were closed. Like she needed to concentrate on each and every breath she took, every single movement her body made, before letting them out in an angelic melody.
As if by divine intervention, her eyes pop open and lock on his as she belts “how to love”
It could’ve been an eternity, for all he knows, the amount of time that they spent locked in each other’s gaze. The world pauses around them, everything frozen. Her eyes were already the kind to knock a man clean off his feet with a single gaze, but he thinks- for a brief moment- that his heart completely stops beating.
John Clarence Egan would swear every day from then on, until his dying breath, that the course of his life was altered in that very moment. He knew how it would continue from then on, and how it would end. How he wanted it to end.
Then the world starts back up and carries on.
Right here in the old therebefore
When nothing is left anymore
Her final hums are joined by a short blonde woman who stands nearby, another face he recognizes from base.
The applause that picks up after the end of the song is near deafening. The star of the hour gives a shy smile, a quick curtsy and is given a hand to step down from the table.
Everyone soon starts mingling, the normal chatter of the bar returning. But Bucky is stuck in his spot, dumbfounded. In all the conversations you’d had together, somehow this never came up. He should’ve put two and two together, as he recalls overhearing your hums one morning as he made his daily coffee delivery to you. But you had been caught off guard, so much so that you tripped off the ladder you stood on and fell. Luckily, his quick reflexes kicked in to catch you before any serious injuries occurred.
Remembering the sensation of his hands on your waist and thighs, face just inches from yours, sent his brain into a tailspin. That’s not even considering just how damn cute you were when, after a beat, you turned away from him and playfully mourned the cups of coffee that were splattered all over the hardstand.
“John. John?” A hand waving in front of his face knocks him out of his reverie. He blinks once, twice. Then looks to his best friend.
His voice comes out uncharacteristically weak in response, to which he then clears his throat and corrects. “Yes—yeah?” He pops the collar of his sheepskin jacket to try and hide the rampant red of his ears that signals the heat radiating from them.
Buck just shakes his head and gives him a knowing smile. “You sure know how to pick ‘em, Egan. Never thought I’d see the day.”
“See what day?” Bucky starts to consciously return to his body, leaning on the bar.
“The day when a girl finally knocks you on your ass. I knew you had a thing for her, but that?” He points to his face and motions to indicate where they had just been standing. “That’s something else. That’s something real.”
Bucky gives another shrug in response, to which Buck throws back an unconvinced frown. He turns his head to gaze over the pub patrons and is distracted by you once again. Any denial he was about to spout immediately dies in his mouth when you lock eyes with him again and give him a dazzling smile. The world starts to fade away again.
His heart pumps faster in his chest at the sight. Damnit. He sighs, telling his best friend the truth he’s been privately wrestling with for a while now, all the while keeping his eyes locked on yours.
“I know, Buck. I know.”
Bucky smiles back at you and is elated when your face lights up. You give him a wave.
“She kinda snuck up on me.”
#masters of the air#mota#john egan x reader#john egan x oc#john bucky egan#john bucky egan x reader#bucky egan x reader#bucky x reader#bucky x female reader#john egan x female reader#bucky fanfic#bucky egan fanfiction#mota spoilers#ken lemmons#gale cleven#buck and bucky#buck x bucky#john egan#bucky egan#crank cruikshank#charles cruikshank#curt biddick#buck cleven#gale buck cleven#harry crosby#bubbles payne#hbo war#hbo war fanfic#hbo war fandom#hbo war oc
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i come to you on my knees (i’m ovulating) BEGGING for a black!fem!reader fic where bucky is the fucking munch he is PLEASE
poetry in motion, major john egan
pairing: john egan x she (black!fem!reader)
warning: 18+ sexual situations and descriptions.
content: in which john teaches her a thing or two about bodily poetry.
tag list: @neeville @turn-thy-paige @ihe4rtisa @ineedafictionalman @lovebyceleste @alliewassobonum
an: I don't typically write smut, so I hope this met your expectations at least just a little bit.
John Egan was known to be an impulsive man. He acted animalistically, on instinct and emotion rather than logical and thoughtful comprehension. When it came to her, however, he was more meticulous, patient, and calculated. Slow and intentional.
She was like him, an enigma. A code that took much time to decode. The rearranging of pieces (his approach) would occur many times before the lock clicked and fell off the guard box that kept her withdrawn from him. Then a dark door opened and the safe guarded treasure was revealed.
It didn’t come without struggle and resistance. Even upon agreement, she still shuddered at every attempt to pull her soul from her body. Her hands fisted the neutral sheets beneath her as her legs shook like leaves in the wind.
The scene from his perspective was tantalizing. Her eyelids sat low and her brown eyes were hardly visible, but still, he maintained a piercing gaze with her. That, in combination with the impassioned feeling of his mouth against her sensitivity, was overstimulating.
Her stomach clenched as she writhed against the sheets. She sobbed woefully, her nails scraping against his shoulder as she attempted to back away. It was too much.
For just a moment, she got a break. But, it didn’t last long. The dampness of his tongue was replaced by the skin deemed of his fingers. She jolted as her eyes shot open.
John Egan was salacious. Dripping with sensuality and eroticism. Beneath the faint light of the candles, he stood as a shadow above her. He had shed his jacket and was dressed in a wonderfully fitting black t-shirt. His hair was tousled from her constant tugging and his lips. Her eyes rolled backward at the sight. Swollen and dripping.
She sighed his name slowly and closed her legs around his forearm. He shook his head in disapproval and pushed her thighs open with his free hand. “Keep them open.” His voice dripped with arousal. She put up a good fight, but lost when the overwhelming pressure began to boil over.
He was attentive. Her end was near and he knew it. And how desperate he was to bask in it all. Once more, he found his place between her thighs. His eyes trailed the richness of her skin as he gently placed her legs on his shoulders.
She was enticing. From her scent to the way she tasted on his tongue. Sweet and succulent. He found himself getting lost in her pleasure. From the way, she screamed his name and begged for mercy. Oh, how he would pay to stay in this position forever.
“John,” she squealed, sitting up on her elbows. Tears filled her eyes and threatened to spill. His blue eyes shifted upward to meet hers. “Please…” He hummed. She screamed.
It reverberated against the walls and fueled the fire that burned within him. He’d store it to keep him warm for the rest of eternity.
With a string of whimpers and incoherent words, she came down from the high she rode deliciously. Her bare chest heaved as she fought to catch her breath.
She held her hand out tiredly, desiring his closeness. John wiped his lips with the pad of his thumb and crawled on top of her shuddering frame, dropping kisses against her neck, cheek, then lips. “You okay?”
She grinned tirelessly and wrapped her arms around his shoulders. She’d waited a long time for a moment like this and she was glad she held out for him. She nodded and pecked his lips again, “I’m okay. I’ll feel better if you do it again…”
John’s eyebrow quipped in amusement. A sultry smile crept on her lips. He said lowly, “Yeah?”
She opened her thighs just enough to slot his body between then engulfed him. Her hands dropped to his pants which were secured by his belt. John’s eyes fell. She nodded, “Yeah.”
Who was he to deny that? Only a fool would do such a thing, and John Egan was no fool.
#saturnville#black!reader#black reader#masters of the air#mota#major john egan#callum turner major john bucky egan#john egan#john egan smut#john egan x reader#major john egan x reader#major john egan x amelia mae egan#bucky egan x black reader#bucky egan x reader#x black!reader#black!oc#mota fanfic#mota fanfiction#fic inspo
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All The Things I Did:
(Just So I Could Call You Mine)
Canon Universe:
"The most beautiful part is, I wasn't even looking when I found you."
Chapter One: All The Things I Did
Chapter Two: It's All Around, It's All The Time
Interlude: A Sight For Sore Eyes
Chapter Three: Don't Leave Me Alone
Interlude: A Feeling I Want To Get Used To
Chapter Four: The Only Thing That I See
Chapter Five: I Hope I Don't Lose You
Chapter Six: All's Well That Ends Well
Chapter Seven: I Thought About Thinking It Through
Chapter Eight: That Girl Is Going, Going, Gone
Chapter Nine: It's Not Fair To Make Me Feel This Much
Interlude: I Want To Give You The World
Interlude: I'm Such A Fool
Interlude: All I Brought Back With Me
Interlude: The One Thing I've Been Wanting
Interlude: My Little Bunnies
"Souls don't meet by accident."
The Modern Era: John x Cass Modern AU
You'd Have to Stop the World Just to Stop the Feeling
"And then she knew, that you could become homesick for people too."
Special Editions:
Four Times They Speak About Each Other And One Time They Spoke To Each Other
"Darling, you are all I ever wanted love to be."
Misc.
Cass x John Blurbs
"The day I met you I began to forget a life without you."
For A Fortnight There We Were:
(Forever Run Into You)
Hollywood Universe:
The story of Callum Turner and Evelyn Shaw, the actress who plays Cassandra Cooper in Masters of the Air.
One Shots:
It Fit Too Right
"You are too well tangled in my soul."
Misc.
Evelyn x Callum Blurbs/Inspo
"I told the stars about you."
#masters of the air#john egan#callum turner#mota#masters of the air fanfiction#john egan fanfiction#callum turner fanfiction#mota fanfiction#masters of the air fanfic#john egan fanfic#callum turner fanfic#mota fanfic#john egan x reader#john egan x oc#callum turner x reader#callum turner x oc
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ʙᴀʙʏ ɪ’ᴍ ʏᴏᴜʀꜱ
Chapter 2 - “Hates the Perfect Word”
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“Don’t stay out here too late, Baby.”
Sergeant Ken Lemmons was only partly joking with Baby when he said this to her. However over the three weeks of getting to know the stubborn blonde, he realized it wasn’t so far fetched for her to lose track of time.
And that would be proven correct as Baby was still out on the Airstrip, working away. She found it difficult to leave seeing as the view was so beautiful. The sunset painted the sky a warm orange and pink tone. A calm breeze briefly passed her, ruffling the tall grass, the trees, and even the bottom of her dress as it did so.
Sighing, she found a comfortable spot on a nearby crate. Busying herself by screwing two engine pieces together with a basic rod. The action was done smoothly like muscle memory.
A loud sound of an engine and the screech of tires had broken her peaceful state. Internally rolling her eyes, Baby prepared herself.
That could mean only one thing.
The jeep made a rough stop in front of her causing her to look up at the person responsible for the interruption.
Major John ‘Bucky’ Egan.
Even the thought of his name sparked annoyance in Delilah. She couldn’t pinpoint what it was about him that was so infuriating.
Maybe it was the way he walked around base like he was the king of the world. He had everybody under his spell, especially her brother Gale. She couldn’t understand how the two had ever became friends.
Or maybe it was how he would sometimes get caught looking at her but would never say anything.
It was like a game of tug of war. Always giving her signs of interest but then taking it back as if he physically and mentally couldn’t bring himself to go there with her. Like something was stopping him, more like someone.
She had a pretty good idea of who.
“A little birdy told me you were out here.” Leaning back in his seat, Bucky faced the woman.
Delilah, uninterested, gave him a nod before focusing back onto her work. “Never really liked birds.”
“Sad to hear that. They’re real fascinating creatures. I’m more of a unicorn guy myself-”
“I bet you are.”
After a beat of silence, Delilah glanced up to see him staring at her once again. It could’ve been because she had just rudely interrupted him but by the way the corner of his mouth twitched into his signature smirk made her think differently.
His eyes held nothing but admiration as he kept his gaze on her. The way she smoothly worked away like it was her second nature was wildly attractive. Not to mention the quick wits that shamelessly left her pretty mouth, which instead of feeling insulted he would always feel more amazed by her.
“Gale send you out here?”
“No.”
“So tell me…Major Bucky,” The name rolled off her tongue as a taunt. Placing the tool and engine piece down beside her, she leaned back onto her hands. “To what do I owe the pleasure of being in your presence?”
Bucky watched as she seductively crossed her legs and tilted her head awaiting for an answer. The reminder that she was his best friends little sister kept blaring in the back of his mind. But it was so damn hard to listen to.
“Maybe I just want to be in yours.” Copying her action, Bucky tilted his head. “You ever think of that?”
”It’s hard to when you’ve been avoiding me like the plague.”
He knew exactly what she referring to. Part of it was intentional but at the same time he really never knew how to approach her. Which was odd for him.
John Egan never struggled in talking to women. However he would always overthink with Delilah. She made him nervous, in a good way.
“Can’t say I know what you’re talking about, sweetheart.” Bucky let out a nervous scoff knowing he had been called out.
The use of the nickname made Baby raise her eyebrows in surprise. “That’s a new one.”
“You like it?”
“I’m not sure yet.” She shrugged her shoulders. “I’ve been called many things, Major Bucky, but sweet has never been one of them.”
“What?” He dropped his jaw dramatically, pretended to be shocked. “You’re the sweetest.”
Bucky watched as she let out an adorable laugh as she threw her head back. A small wave of pride washed over him at the fact that he got her to smile, let alone talk to him for more than five seconds.
“If I’m sweet then you’re a good singer.” She playfully jutted.
“Oh,” He placed a hand on his heart. “You wound me, Baby. I’d have you know I’m an excellent singer.”
“A little birdy told me differently.”
Looking away Bucky chewed away on the piece of gum in his mouth. Damn, she was good.
“If this birdy happens to be tall, boring, and has a head full of blonde hair on his head than you should ignore him and come see for yourself.”
Delilah laughed not taking him seriously. “Yeah, okay.”
“I’m serious.” He said. Eyes connecting with her honey brown ones. “There’s a dance, day after tomorrow. Come and I’ll make it worth your while.”
“Might skip out on this one.” She declined.
Nodding Bucky looked down. An idea popped into his head that might change her mind.
“Huh, guess you Clevens are more alike than you want to admit.”
If there was anything he learned from witnessing the Cleven sibling duo was that they both were complete opposites. Buck was more serious, rule follower, and never really liked to do anything risky.
And although he didn’t talk to Delilah much, he would notice how she liked to do things in an untraditional way. Her presence here as one of the first female mechanics proves that. She also loved to make fun out of most situations. A small joke was always at the tip of her tongue and she could never keep it there.
He’d like to bet she loved to dance too.
Picking up the tool beside her she pointed it at Bucky with an annoyed glare. “Take that back right now.”
Bingo.
“Makes sense.” He shrugged his shoulders innocently. “Guess the ‘never have a good time’ genes got passed down to both of ya.”
“I can have a good time.” She rebutted.
Bucky nodded, not really convinced at all. “Okay.”
A moment of silence passed as Bucky continued to poke fun at Delilah as she thought over his words.
Letting go of her cheek, the one she was anxiously biting, Delilah sighed. “What times the stupid dance?”
A smile of victory took plastered across the Major's face as he mentally celebrated. “I’ll be there at 8:00, that’s when the real party starts.”
“Can’t wait.” She gave him a fake smile.
Taking a look around, they both knew that it was about to get dark soon and should head back.
Reaching over the passenger seat of the Jeep, Bucky propped open the door with one arm. “Hop in, sweetheart. I’ll give you a ride back.”
“I have a bike, you know?”
“That old thing?” Simultaneously the two turned to look at the bike leaning on the side of the crate she was sitting on.
“Yeah,” Delilah smiled proudly. It was one of the things she built on her own when she first got here. “Isn’t he pretty?”
“He?”
“Well you men always refer to your cars and planes as woman, so I’d thought I’d return the favor.”
As the blonde continued to admire her piece of work, Bucky’s gaze shifted to her. Taking in her smooth tan skin and pretty freckles that he’d like to individually kiss. And finally her full lips that were just calling his name.
He watched as she grabbed the handles of the bike and easily kicked her leg over to get on it. He furrowed his eyebrows. “Baby?”
“I’d rather ride a thousand miles on this old thang than one in there with you.”
He was left speechless as she petaled away without a second thought. The fact that her and a Buck were siblings was still a shock to him.
No matter how different the two were they both had something in common. The Clevens had captured John Egans heart. With a Buck it was respect and friendship. And with Delilah.
Oh, Delilah. He hadn’t even got to know her fully yet and she already had him hooked.
Snapping out of his trance he started the engine before catching up and riding along beside her. Now he was back to looking between the road and her pretty side profile.
“Still got you to go to the dance with me.” He gloated.
Once again, John Egan had managed to make her smile. Shaking her head she tried to petal faster but he would just match her speed. “I hate you!”
“Hates a strong word.”
“Hates the perfect word.”
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A/N : As y’all can tell I love a good slow burn. Hope y’all liked it! Let me know your thoughts on it please, I love to hear feedback.
ALSO DAYUM YALL REALLY CAME THREW WITH THE LIKES ON MY POSTS
Tag list(I can’t believe I have those now🤭):
@valenftcrush
@justheretoreadthhx
#john egan#john egan x reader#john egan x oc#madelyn cline#callum turner x reader#bucky egan#gale cleven#callum turner#buck cleven#austin butler#masters of the air#mota fanfic#motaedit#mota#mota spoilers#ken lemmons#harry crosby
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Masters of the Air Fanfiction
Requested: yes…Virgin!Gale + Maureen/Gale bonding
Universe: Friends in the Crucible (pacific au)
Summary: “Get laid, Buck.” Doc Egan prescribed with his peculiar brand of deathly serious compassion, “Hell, I’ll write you a prescription for it, if it soothes your conscience, but I’m serious. Serve your jitters better than any syrette or Amphetamine.”
Warnings: all the sex! 18+.|| both tender and feral || Doc Egan being a unorthodox but loving menace, a theme of ptsd and body tremors/insomnia -poor Gale is going through it after a whole war, drug mentions, erectile disfunction, Maureen is aggressive but everything’s consensual, usage of the word “Jap”. Graphic descriptions of Gale’s virginity loss, male overstimulation and an amusing amount of thought given to Bucky’s existence during the act … im sure that won’t lead to anything when Maureen returns to base and reports to Egan about it, right? Hahaha of course not, that would be craaazy
Word count: 10k
“Buck, come on now, it’s not a prison sentence, it’s just a little time off.”
“I don’t need time off.” Gale reiterated, a panicked sort of fierceness creeping into his tone as his appeal now stretched into something longer than the usual flippant favors Egan was customarily so eager to dole out.
“Those hands suggest ya do.” John gave a not unkind glance of sympathy at the twitching fingers rattling on the armrests of Cleven’s chair.
12 rescue missions in 15 days. Flying upwards of ten hours each. He’d done worse before, but then again, that had been when he was fresh, younger, less banged up from the head hitting the cockpit wall.
“Sending me to go watch flamingos and contemplate sand or some shit isn’t gonna make me steadier.” Gale very much feared his gripes were beginning to sound like begs, “Don’t send me off like this. Don’t.”
“Petrified of flamingos?” John hummed, glancing down at his chart as if contemplating making a note of this new malady, “Maybe if your dad had taken you to a zoo once or twice as a kid you’d not be scared stiff of the prospect.”
Cleven stared back at him with the most hurt eyes John had ever seen. He balled his own fist up to remember the rightness of his point, even if he’d delivered it about as clumsily as a marriage proposal at a funeral. “The hell would you say something like that?” Buck whispered, not even angry, just utterly lost.
“Buck, I’m just sayin’ -inability to slow or be alone, it’s classic symptoms of battle fatigue.”
“I don’t wanna sit on a beach when I could be helping, I’m perfectly capable of still helping! You know it!”
“But you can’t sleep.” John circled back to where this all began, with Gale asking if there was anything to knock a fella out when 82 hours of insomnia wasn’t sufficiently exhausting.
“Give me something, you’re a doctor! Goddamnit, John!” Gale finally broke, voice raising and fists clenched.
“Surgeon, technically.” John gave him a wane smile, “And I can’t dope up an active pilot.”
“Just an active surgeon.” Gale sneered, tit for tat on the insults.
John nodded grimly but murmured, “The day Gale Cleven becomes John Egan is a day this whole operation can pack up and go home.”
“So you're being the better man,” Gale scoffed, “-sending me to watch flamingos.”
“I’m not givin’ you shit.“ he confirmed, “Unless it’s an assignment.”
“Will it keep me outta the flak asylum?”
“If you comply to all the regulations, maybe.” Egan shrugged.
“Go on?”
“Get laid, Buck.” his friend prescribed with his peculiar brand of deathly serious compassion, “Hell, I’ll write you a prescription for it, if it soothes your conscience, but I’m serious. Serve you better than any syrette or Amphetamine.”
“That’s your ultimatum?”
“No, no, my ultimatum is that you go on a little sabbatical with one of my nurses, she’ll keep an eye on you and you can make yourself useful, helping her unload heavy shit at the aid station they’re setting up at Peleliu. My recommendation is that when she comes into your room at the end of the day and drops her knickers, you lay back and think of Wyoming.”
Major Cleven had thought of a million and one ways to bribe or ally the prospective nurse to his side of the deal once he knew which unfortunate female Egan was going to pick for this deplorable detail. Calling his friend a pimp and a bastard had done little good, threatening malpractice and a hardness of heart towards Gale’s own principles -even less. So Gale figured when the time came he’d just gently turn the well meaning comfort gal away and maybe pay her off to lie that they’d done it: for his hand’s sake.
After all, if she was willing to do this, was she even a nurse or was she someone Bucky dressed up in Red Cross arm bands like some sleazy fantasy? Gale didn’t think any of the nurses he’d encountered would be willing to go along with such a sordid “assignment.” Sure, some of them were -carefree. Indulgent. Easy, as the men sometimes called them before getting a stinging cheek that proved them wrong. But they were a proud bunch and they had earned it.
Rolling a toothpick in his cheek, Buck pondered these things while sat on the bench of a Goony Bird waiting for his nurse to hop into the cargo hold with him and off they’d go to Pelilu. The situation was made worse by the suspense of who it might be and the insulting foreignness of being on a plane but not piloting. It made Gale feel an odd sort of feeling close to self pity that he hadn’t felt in ages, not since he was a kid and the nostalgia of it wrung him out of all energy. He made himself sit on that metal bench motionless as the heat index rose on the tarmac and made up a fun little game involving trying to see if he could get his hands to stop tremoring for five seconds straight.
So far he’d lost his own wager each time. He told himself if he could make it to five seconds then the nurse Bucky had sent would be a gray haired matron and this really was just a sabbatical to lift boxes and breathe ocean air and get Gale to laugh at himself.
Then Maureen Kendeigh climbed into the hold and squeezed past their cargo of medicine crates and plopped down right next to him, leg bumping his and breathing like a race horse. “I have jogged here the entire way from administration.” she wheezed, tugging at the collar of her shirt where her glistening throat was bobbing in thirst. “Sorry I’m so late, Major. Am I late?”
It could have been Bucky sat next to him: the choice of phrasing was so familiar, the damnable ability to force forgiveness for tardiness with a single smile so predictable. Gale found dread knotting his stomach at the realization it would be her, even as a warmth spread all over him at her sweet presence that had the odd effect of steadying his hands despite the panicked fuzz of his brain at her proximity.
Oh he didn’t want this. No, no, no. He’d like to think of Maureen very much apart, apart from anything but her heroism, not her wide spread stance on the bench beside him or the idea of her dropping her knickers and making him think of Wyoming. He preferred her very much not attainable in the deeper ways and very much not what he saw himself with when all this was over. Whatever she and Doc Egan had was between them and he’d held it up like a shield to keep himself in check, a boy's code of honor about not encroaching on his friend’s girl. Even if said friend didn’t have the decency to make said girl “his” girl.
But to have Maureen dished up to him on a platter by John when John must have suspected some of Gale’s appreciation for her professional merits -it was somehow worse than any dressed up floozy or the easy new intern. He’d not be able to pay Maureen off without insulting her. Or outing Egan’s intent. Maybe she didn’t know. What if Gale spilled the beans and she was as harmless as himself? What if—
“God, Major, did you sleep at all?” Maureen’s steady fingers were gripping his expressionless face and suddenly turned him towards her, one thumb swiping a tender crescent in his under eyes.
Gale’s eyes seemed to forget blinking was a thing, they grew wide and stayed wide at her inspection and the sandy wind blowing in from the tarmac stung at them as they dried out. “No,” he found his voice and it came out more winded than hers, “you’re not late.” he lied.
Once they get to the island, touchdown and unload, there’s then three hours of driving around the pitted old warzone to the aid station. There’s more foliage the more they go, less mortar pitted earth, but the increasing tropical paradise surroundings put Gale on edge. Maureen drives them to their unexplored destination as confident and recklessly as Bucky would, little surprise there. Gale can’t help glancing at her with unabashed amusement for the way she keeps her pistol propped on top of the steering wheel with one grip, facing out like a top turret for their hood, while keeping the map balanced on her thigh.
He cradles his own BAR with loose arms, ready to use it. Sure they secured the island months ago, but still, not infrequently some Jap comes out of his hiding hole, a cave, or whatever fucking tree he resides in and surrenders. Or, conversely, some of them have charged with guns blazing or sword drawn, deciding to go out and a bang of glory and take with them whichever hapless American happens to be nearby. That Emperor worship shit ain’t happening on on Gale’s watch, and so Maureen gets to drive -she didn’t have to beg like that, he was going to let her- and he shoulders the duty of keeping his eyes peeled for the next bush becoming animate and running at them, pulled pin grenade in hand.
“Some relaxation.” he jokes as their jeep lurches into another crater. If it’s not the bomb pits it’s the massive roots crawling over the smashed earth the Marine Corps call a road.
“It’s a reverse strategy!” she informs, grin wide as a shark’s and Gale could almost draw a little pencil mustache above that top lip and pretend it’s Bucky torturing him thus -hey, that might be a good mode of thought to keep everything strictly professional- “Like when nothing else works, you kick the broken thing.” Gale politely ignores the urge to argue about being broken, that’s not her point… he hopes, “You’re all shook up,” she goes on, voice raised to be heard over the rev of her driving, “and calm hasn’t worked, so why not shake you up worse?!”
He squints at her, fully aware he isn’t being chummy like she is trying to be, knowing he’s being a stick in the mud but he’s dying under the uncertainty, chafing under the pretense. Does she know? Or does she not? Five times today he’s resisted the urge to slap her chest like he would Demarco’s and ask her levelly, man to man, if she knows. “If this doesn’t work then what?” he asks anyway, sober as hell despite the comedic jostling and even Maureen’s joviality dims in the face of his dour mood.
“Then we’ll have to get real unorthodox.” she replies, allowing something close to annoyance at his attitude to seep into her own expression and Gale refuses to pull his eyes off her.
Do you know? He wants to ask.
“Stop scowling at me and watch for Japs.” she snaps at him so suddenly and so heated he genuinely spooks and turns his body back towards their horizon.
It’s worse than he thought. Worse than he imagined on the times he lost the bet with his hands and let his mind go somewhere besides a practical joke from Bucky and a gray haired spinster nurse as his companion. The aid station is on the edge of the new camp, far off enough to be genuinely secluded from both sights and smells of the navy station. It’s a tiki hut, thatched roof and swinging mesh door and lovely little veranda and palm trees and waves lapping up the back steps.
It looks like the sorta place people advertise for honeymoons and Gale stares at it with a 100 yard stare once Maureen grinds the gears to park.
“Jesus.” he knows his mouth is curling in disgust and beside him Maureen huffs in disgust with him.
She jumps out of her side of the jeep, not a shred of amusement left on her face. Gale sits and stares and listens to the roar of surf and the clinking of the cooling engine.
“Not bad.” she grunts under the burden of a crate which Gale should be lifting if he could just make his legs work and his mind obey. “But I bet it’s gonna be a bitch to keep the gnats out though, so much foliage around.”
Her hips sway like a tantalizing pendulum when she jogs up the bungalow stairs, her waist somehow accentuated by the way her arms are lifted to keep the crate hoisted on her strong shoulder and Gale has the perfect seat to watch it. How did he never notice the lines on her before she was doing hard labor? Then he recalls, she’s mostly been in flight suits around him, he’s never seen her paired down to collared shirts and belted pants. How’d he never notice the lines on that gi-
“Don’t make me drive this thing in the surf to wake you up.” her slap on his listless forearm rouses him to realize she’s back out at the jeep, standing beside him looking at him as he sits here catatonic like the mental case he’s showing symptoms of being. “And take your jacket off, you’re gonna get overheated being so formal.”
“Are you in on it?” he snaps suddenly as she grins at him over his first crate. He can’t tell if she’s mocking him or not but he’s damn tired of it.
“In on what?” Her face falls.
He can’t do it. He just can’t do it and he hates himself for being such a coward. “This.” he chooses vagueness and it tastes foreign and awful on his tongue.
“It’s a week out of the cockpit in paradise, Cleven,” Maureen’s own expression holds back no disdain for his pissy attitude, “man the hell up.”
What Maureen, Gale and five other technicians had loaded into the jeep and it’s buggy in the course of two hours, takes the mere two of them close to four to unload. And that’s even with Gale keeping a rapid pace to his work like a sweating maniac, feverishly wanting to stop thinking for once. His jacket and shirt are thrown over the chairs that are actually provided as furniture in the place and Maureen’s tie lays discarded on the accompanying desk. The rooms are bare but there’s two beds in the bedroom with crisp sheets that have only a bit of pollen dusting them and there’s a desk, as mentioned, three chairs in the main room and Maureen insists they can use crates for a table.
The back room is for the actual medical aid, and Maureen insists nothing gets moved into it until she can sanitize the whole place. So they stack the boxes in the main room and in the bedroom and when the sun gets lower they’re relieved to find there’s some dubious provisions for electricity in the place.
“I can get it to work.” Gale decides as Maureen tries flicking the light switch ten times as if to see if the bare bulb will grow a will of its own and turn on for her. It reminds him so much of Bucky’s brand of idiocy that Gale almost forgets himself and reaches out to swat her hand away from the futile flicking.
“Ok, then you do that while I keep unloading.” she insists, “Won’t be able to do anything if it’s pitch dark in here.”
So Gale drags a chair over and begins to fiddle with the wires tacked to the ceiling, risking electrocution so Maureen Kendeigh can see her way around as she tromps past him again and again in the same path with yet another crate.
He’s good with his hands. Excellent, in fact, judging by how one bulb flickers then stays steady, then another and another until the inside of the bungalow is aglow with cozy light: enough light for Maureen to appreciate his sweat soaked singlet and the way it rides up his belly when his arms are up and how it’s bright enough for her to scrub the exam room effectively when laying in a room with an insomniatic Gale Cleven gets to her at 3:00 am.
As it surely will. God! -the man is as impossible as he is beautiful, and while she doubted she’d manage it with him before, the sheer amount of fury she feels towards him right now leaves no doubt. She’ll shake him up. Like a Fuckin’ Martini. And he doesn’t have to like it, probably won’t, but they’ll both feel better after. “In on it” -he’s got the gall to ask but not the balls to spell it out, she can’t abide a quasi gentleman and so far Gale Cleven’s been nothing but the genuine article. Until now, now when he can’t accept certain human things about himself like fatigue or attraction, and he takes it out on her with a sullenness belonging to a much older man.
Maureen’s fine with that, she thinks as ogles the glowing golden skin of his sheened shoulders on one of her passes with a crate, she can take her mad out on him, too. And she’s got a lot of it. More than John Egan was ever able to lick away.
By 15:00, and some change to the second hand, Gale Cleven was still awake. Little surprise there, not to him, but even though it didn’t matter he found himself thoroughly annoyed and taking it out with a lethal glare at the vague gray ceiling, lit by a massive moon over the ocean. Wire and chairs but no curtains -an oversight about the furnishings. It wouldn’t have mattered, he knew that, and still the racket Maureen was making put his teeth on edge. It wasn’t Benny’s snoring or John’s drunken mumbling but it was a consistent *swoosh, swish* of industry that had Gale feeling a mixture of guilt and determination to keep lying here while she scrubbed.
It had not occurred to him she might’ve needed this break, too. Such as it was, effective as it was not proving. He knew she’d seen some combat in the beginning at Manila, maybe even worse than Iwo but long hours doing what she was doing now, where she was doing it, was no joke.
The urge to get up and help her was strong but then, so was the crippling fear of being around her in the dead of night and inviting any more of the bossy familiarity she’d tucked him into bed with. A magnesium capsule! She’d made him take three of the maternity horse pills and told him to calm the hell down as if he didn't have ample reason to be on edge with her laying a foot away on another bed, stripped down to her cotton slip. Of course Gale would cite war horrors if anyone asked why he couldn’t sleep but to be frank, he wasn’t sure why he wasn’t managing it these days and it had started awhile ago. Before Maureen Kendeigh glowed sweaty and luminous in the moonlight while gripping his cheeks and puckering his protesting mouth and plopping pills on his lolling tongue.
Thinking of it made his face flame with embarrassment for such a childish resistance. But god, her nursley familiarity sent a cross signal to his brain each time she helped herself to his flesh and no amount of berating himself while sweating in these rough sheets could dislodge the reaction. Closer to fifteen hundred than was remotely chivalrous, Gale threw off his sweat soaked bedding and tromped into the glow of light outside their bedroom, shuffling blearily into the little exam room. He faltered for a brief ten seconds at the doorway watching her undulating movements with sponge in hand and knees on the floor, white slip clinging like a second skin from the sweat.
He felt the sudden medical urge to lick her like the cattle back home lick at the salt block, a strange way of quenching thirst. Was ninety two hours without sleep considered genuine grounds for insanity? He felt like maybe he should be keeping a diary of these fevered thoughts to report back to John and see if he needed to get turned in. This wasn’t horniness, this was salt cravings. Yeah, yeah that’s what it was.
“You hypocrite.” he felt emboldened to tease and his voice came out rough and lower than even he expected, the disuse of laying there for ages taking a toll.
Maureen looked up like she’d been spooked herself, a slip and stall of her scrubbing, hair hanging about her face so unprofessionally he realized he’d never seen it in such…disarray. “Oh, the baby’s awake.” she grinned back and he felt an indulgence settle in his gut for her he didn’t know existed, “I see my magnesium capsules were a cure all.”
“Oh yeah, knock a horse out.” he agreed derisively.
“Your eyes are droopier.” she found a silver lining and as if reminded of the grit in them, his large fists came up and rubbed them meanly.
Like a little boy, she thought, watching him in the harsh light of the bare bulb, warm wood all around him the same color as all that sweaty skin and those skivvies hanging onto the lithest set of hips she may have ever seen. Looked as if one deep breath of that lean belly and the fabric would be goners, slipping down to the floor dramatically like a woman’s pantyhose in those unfortunate comics where that’s always occurring just when she wants to cross a busy street. Maybe if she could make him belly laugh-
She wished she knew how. She wondered if he knew how.
“Got another Sponge?” he asked and she was reminded why she liked him so much.
“Top crate, there, left, there that one.” She directed him with jerks of her chin until he was at the right one, “I’m using antiseptic.” she warned.
“I know,” he answered, dropping to his knees beside her and making use of her bucket to dunk his sponge, “smell’s been givin’ me a headache.”
Maureen’s mouth twitched at his tired grumpiness, more endearing now he was still putting effort into being near the caustic shit and the way his golden hair flopped on his forehead with his scrubbing movements. If his hips were that fluid, that rhythmic in cleaning a floor, how much more could she teach him to be—“Yeah, I’m sure it’s the anti-septic giving you a headache.” she snarked.
They ate sandwiches he’d gotten from the navy camp’s mess on the back porch, letting the sea water lap at their feet. A little stale but it was a much needed breakfast and Gale brought fresh water back, too, and a report that they were nice fellas and entirely too undressed for her to ever go see. That suited her fine, they’d be a pest if they knew a woman was up here and personally speaking she only needed one man for company, crate lifting, and doing the job well. And she rather had her heart set on it being Gale Cleven. Especially now she got to stare at him under the bright morning sun with a tropical breeze and more skin on display than at a swimsuit contest. He’d put on a singlet, as if to mark that a day had begun even if they hadn’t slept the night, but that was promptly sweat soaked and tiny nipples were pebbling under it from the breeze.
“Did they ask if a nurse came with you?” she pressed him between bites.
“Yeah.” he swallowed his bite thickly and licked at the mayo collecting at the corner of his mouth with typical precision, “And I lied.”
“Well, well,” she cooed, making him roll his eyes, “how’d that feel?”
“I have lied before.” he balked.
The look he gave her was both thunderous and remincent and she repented that line of questioning, used to distinguishing in her patients whether a wound was from wartime or stemmed from childhood. “Well who’d you say came with?” she asked.
“A technician.” he mumbled, blushing for some reason.
“Mm, someone nice and hairy and stinky-“
“Stop.” he begged.
“-not anyone they’d wanna meet.”
“I did it for you!”
“-if that makes you sleep at night, Cleven.” she humored him and like lightning, the back of his hand had flicked out and thumped her on the sternum, hard.
“Shit!” Maureen clutched the place, more in surprise than pain although he’d walloped her good and well.
“Shit!” He parroted in mortification, holding his hand like it was an offensive weapon.
“What was that for?” she laughed, “Do I remind you that much of Benny? Are you missing him that bad? Is that who you pretended was with you up here? Huh? Huh? Benny Demarco, now that’s a beauty to hide under a bushel-“
She was crowding him in on the steps and he was teetering towards falling off, too alarmed at his own outburst to trust his instincts now to shove her off without causing harm -and she knew it. She pressed her advantage and crawled over him with her teasing comments about Demarco until his long body had bowed so far away from her’s it was levitating and then toppled predictably into the surf.
“Fuck it’s cold!” he wheezed out as the embrace of the old pacific drenched him and rolled him about at her feet for a few delightful moments before he got his footing and rose, shaking his hair out of his eyes and grabbing for the steps.
“Sea bathing was in doctor Egan’s regimen.” she informed remorselessly before extending a merciful hand to help him up. He was slippery and shiny as an eel coming up and the grip of his hand was as strong as she expected. And still she found it intoxicating, the duality of him as he stood there pouting and bitchy over being cooled off. “Stay right there baby, I’ll get you a towel.” she patted his chest, right where he’d smacked hers, and went inside.
“I’m not your baby.” She heard him holler to her through the door-less porch. “I’m not your baby.” he reiterated vehemently but lower again when she came out with the towel.
“Yes you are.” she argued, “For this week you’re my baby, whether that’s a literal infant or not is your choice -and don’t start arguing, you’ve got to stop it, no one’s making you do a damn thing.” she insisted, hand raised and his mouth closed satisfyingly as a result, “You’ll be my baby. I know you already had a baby, no? Our baby? Shared her with ten other men, that’s generous of you-“
“-Ensign!-“
“-so I’m not gonna be your baby. You’ll be mine and you can find me something to be for the week.” she watched closely as recognition of her logic began to dawn and settle on him, “I could be anyone. I could be Benny Demarco, for instance. If that’s who you wanna lay next to.”
Gale didn’t speak for a long while, eyes off to the side watching the surf lap at the steps and she was still standing there, holding his unused towel. “Who do you want me to be?” he asked finally and his grave perception just about winded her in its raw honesty.
“You.” she replied honestly, “Whichever version of you made it here with me.”
“An infant -a baby.” he scoffed and she was suspicious those eyes were watery. And too delayed for it to be from the salt.
“My baby.” she replied, “Never had one before.”
“With respect ma’am, that’s Bullshit.” he argued in a fierce hiss, “I know you have, with John and -and-“
“I’ve been somebody’s,” she clarified, “but I think I’ve grown out of that. You’ll be my baby, huh? It’s not marriage, Cleven, it’s a week in paradise and hopefully some shut eye, too. So do you want me to be Benny?”
Those watery eyes let one single tear go trickling down his pink cheek alongside the rivulets of ocean water dripping from his hair and Maureen had never felt a single thing heat her up quite like it. “No,” his chuckle was thick and he sniffed, “not Benny. Maybe uh, God, I dunno, I’ve never had anyone.”
“Then we can make it up entirely.” she was pleased by the idea of not being a stand-in, although god knows she and John could sympathize more about the need for that than anyone. “We’ll be castaways.” she suggested, sitting back down on the porch now the confrontation was dwindling and in full confirmation of her suspicions, he sat again beside her without fuss.
“Marooned.” he disagreed, chin resting on his hands and a boyish tug pulling up the corner of his lips. “Something insane you did landed us here.”
“Mm, took liberties with the captain's daughter, perhaps?” she teased, daring to run a finger along those golden shoulders and collect a few salt drops. He shuddered under her but stayed put.
“I’m not playing fair maiden for you.” he retorted but his eyes were fond.
“Mm, I’ll believe it when I see it.” Maureen was still impossible and Gale felt his gut burn in a bizzare sort of drive to prove her wrong. He’d hardly ever felt this even with all the jokes from the boys, not even with all the temptations from the girls, it just hadn’t seemed something that needed proving. Every flea and salmon could do it, he never doubted when he got married he could manage it credibly enough.
“Mr. and Mrs. Jones.” his voice sounded like he’d come to a decision and Maureen squinted at his profile until it clicked.
“I’ve never been married before.” she observed breezily.
“And I never planned on being married for just a week.” he replied.
“Isn’t there a film about this?” she asked, “Cary Grant gets stuck on an island and he marries his castaway but then they get rescued and there’s a first wife?”
“Yeah, I think so, actually.” he thumbed at his bottom lip in contemplation and Maureen found it endlessly distracting, along with the bird song and the ocean crash and the sunshine.
“Mr. and Mrs. Jones.” she agreed then, settling back on her elbows to stare up at the sun and let it add a few freckles, “And when it’s over and you’re rescued, I’ll be the better woman and let Our Baby have you.”
“You’ll always be the best of women, Maureen.” he sounded like the admittance took every fiber of his resolve to say, but she’d heard it before in his voice weeks ago when she was patching him up.
If a tear slipped out the corner of her shut eyes and down a sun warmed cheek, she wasn’t going to make a deal of it, not until she felt his finger catch it tenderly before it dropped from her jaw and rolled it back up.
She felt her lip wobble traitorously and perhaps there were more tears planning to follow and betray her but the shivering shock of his full lips, pressed to her bare shoulder, stemmed the flood. Maureen held her breath and kept her eyelids sealed, an orange glow of sunshine behind them as all her senses attuned to the drag of his caresses up to the juncture of her shoulder, the press of his body next to her on the porch boards, the suspenseful absence of his hands. They were soft as marshmallows, those lips, and a stray tip of his tongue caught her clavicle as he worked his way up a path that almost seemed premeditated, as if he’d thought of doing this a million times but held back. Now he allowed himself and the assured intimacy of his mouth made her body heat soar almost beyond her endurance as he crept up her throat and onto her cheek.
A kitten lick to that tear track down her cheek and Maureen was whimpering from something else entirely, breaking ranks and turning her head to gaze at him, nearly stunned by how close he was, how alive, how beautiful, how blue. There were his hands now, one propped beneath her shoulder, the other cupping her cheek. Her lips were tingling with anticipation by the time he’d lowered his face far enough and brushed her mouth with his.
Maybe he’d done his fair share of kissing the girls back home goodbye, or maybe it was a talent given along with this impossible lips, or perhaps she’d wanted it so long that the final having of it sent Maureen spiraling with something oddly like obsession.
Kissing was enough for the longest time, the shore sounds and the squawking of ocean birds and the feel of Gale Cleven laying more and more atop her as his tongue met hers and danced. She scratched the back of that tanned neck like she dreamed of doing a dozen times, little scritches to his hairline that had him sagging against her kisses to the point of crushing.
She allowed herself the liberty of running her hands along his lean sides, taking in the graceful taper of his waist, the dip of his back, the sopping wet waistband of his briefs. She wondered if this is how men feel with a young girl, when there’s so much loveliness one wants to maul it and mark it and watch it respond. Anything to make him moan again into her mouth, wrenched and helpless and appreciative of her all at once, anything for him to hump his hips against her thigh in a manner so mindless he didn’t seem himself at all.
When he pulled away, dazed and winded from his own exertions, he seemed to have left behind all his inhibitions, stark need written on his face and only some doubt of what he was allowed yet remaining. “Are we gonna?-“ he trailed off, raspy voiced and trembling with suspense.
“Going to what?” she couldn’t abide it any longer, his demureness, “Say your mind, Cleven.”
“Do it.” he let out with a wince.
“Well I don’t know, Mr. Jones, you tell me. Are we gonna?”
Gale huffed and threw his head back, trying to regain some sense of mind, lip savagely pulled between his teeth. “Yeah. We are.” he decided.
“Then finish your sandwich.” she patted his waist and pushed him off.
“I can’t!” he begged with a groan from where he’d spilled out on the porch like a boneless dummy. “Not now.”
“You’re gonna need it, the water too, trust me on this.”
“Are we gonna -make love? Or go for a forced march?” he protested but lifted the canteen to his lips anyways when she gave him a look and proceeded to drink it dry.
“How would you know the difference?” she teased and he had the good humor to roll his eyes. If all went according to Egan’s plan, they oughta hibernate for twelve hours of sleep afterwards and she wanted him hydrated and ready for that. Maureen had a plan of her own, which certainly might lead to such a sleep, but it also involved not getting off that boy for love of God or money until he was as useless as a wet rag and the impertinent gnawing between her own legs was replaced by a good ache.
Cleven was staring at his sandwich remorsefully, “I can’t get this down, Maureen.” he declared with sudden finality and then, without preamble he threw it into the sea. “C’mon, Mrs Jones.” he held out his hand for her as he stood up, something close to an excited grin taking over his face.
He was so confident now, having come to a decision, and Maureen found herself naturally bending to his direction, placing her hand in his large palm and allowing him to haul her to her feet as gently as a dance partner. “We’ve got a bed.” she reminded blissfully into another kiss, anchored to his face by the persistent hands snarled lovingly into her salt tousled curls: this hair Maureen, this hair drove me mad.
“And we’re gonna use it.” he agreed, walking her backwards up the porch until he feet were skidding over the threshold, his tongue still sucking her own.
She stopped him there with a hand to the willowy plane of his belly, a regulated, principled woman to the last, and snapped the still soaked waistband of his drawers. “Off, you’ll make the sheets wet and sandy.”
Their sweat would accomplish dampening them enough in this muggy heat, they didn’t need sand and ocean water to boot. Maureen ducked beneath his arm and went back out to grab the discarded towel.
“I don’t want a trail of drips on our clean floor.”
Gale smiled softly at the usage of “our” -it felt right somehow, to share things with her. They’d been at it for some time, it came naturally like it had with Bucky and the few other boys who he knew would be something special and unlike anything else after this. It was a little bittersweet to know he was living the best days of his life, right here and now, enviable, irretrievable moments of raw connection slipping away with each drip, drip, drip onto the threshold. It was a heartache in the making and it was a spur for the moment. Back home they’d never understand, and any old observer would see nothing unique, but Gale could allow himself the rightness of sharing just one more thing. Why not cement it fully, irrevocably, as the closest brush he’d ever come to with another soul- he’d asked himself the same with Bucky, knew it was already an established fact.
Maureen’s lips were warm where they pressed to his back, the space between his shoulders, towel held to his waist. “You’re not shy of me, are ya, baby?” she whispered in his ear, thumbing at the still worn briefs.
He could feel himself this past hour hardening and softening, so many times in the space of so many minutes he was dizzy with it, the way his brain would have the upper hand and then, suddenly no, it all rushed south. Which now left shyness as the only real excuse for the way he burned and shrank and burned and shrank in turn at each of her touches.
“You gonna give me the towel?” he asked instead.
“Once it’s safe to do so.” she replied primly, in her familiar nursing voice, and he hated the shudder that tore through him. She stepped under his arm again, around him and into the house, and stood in the shade of the it with the towel spread invitingly, tauntingly. A whole yard and a half between then and she’d decreed no drips past the threshold. Gale’s cheeks burned as did his eyes, smarting with brimming tears from an odd frustration he’d only ever felt over a botched mission, an anger at not being able to bomb his target and make it worthwhile, a petty frustration he always felt before the cold rage of lost men fully registered.
Futile tears: Gale yanked the skivvies down and stepped out of them efficiently.
Maureen wasn’t smiling at him from the shade anymore, not even a smirk, she looked hungry. She looked like Bucky, taking in “a view.” Gale didn’t know ladies ticked that way -or maybe they didn’t, maybe only Maureen did. The blush in his cheeks ran down his chest and spilled onto his belly and his fists clenched without thought.
“When the man of the house,” Maureen was reciting some inane pamphlet she no doubt did not heed or else they’d never be here, “respects the whims of the lady in small matters, he will find the lady more submissive to issues of larger stake such a-“
Gale made a dash at her, to shut her up, and she fled from him to the bedroom, feet smacking on the hardwood and cotton slip fluttering up her thighs -his towel with her.
“I want you bare.” he told her when he had her, struggling in his arms before the bed, a lush friction where he pressed tightly behind her.
“Then sit,” she sounded genuinely breathy, trapped to him and he had never heard her like that before, it made him want to hold fast, “and I’ll make your dreams come true.”
It was just a slip, no garters and no braisere or girdle, yet still Gale sat himself on the bed and Maureen bit her cheek to keep from laughing at the modest way he deposited the towel on his lap, covering what she’d been eyeing and thanking her luck for. A cock as pretty as his face -now if she could just make it stand up fully.
“You ready?” she deferred to him as she stood there before the bed, being looked on with all the reverence and trepidation of a goddess by this seated acolyte.
“Please,” he nodded furiously, “please show me.”
It felt a little wrong to expose oneself in front of such an angelic being, curtainless windows throwing in the sun on him all golden and untouched, white scratchy sheets and white draped towel making it a bower of innocence for a brief moment. It also felt right, to throw off everything but what they’d been born with. Off went rank, obligations and expectations, as easily as dragging the slip over her head.
She tossed the article of clothing behind her for good measure -and dramatic effect- then noted with satisfaction the bleary eyed comprehension of her charms from Gale Cleven where he sat with his mouth hung so slack he was liable to drool.
“Incredible.” he muttered, husky and a little slurred, his hand raising without his own volition to beckon her closer, a plea, command.
Maureen swayed on her feet, nearer and nearer until she was standing above him, between his parted legs and she shuddered as he laid that broad palm on her hip and dragged it up her side in an admiring swath, thumbing at her belly and catching her ribs in his hold.
“Those flight suits of yours, they don’t…they don’t let show the half of it.” Gale declared, mesmerized, face hovering closer and closer until his lips were pressing against her flesh, right under her sternum, his forehead pressed to the underside of one pendulous breast, nuzzling as he became aware of that, bunting like a calf at her breast with his face, gone silly with access.
“Whadda ya think?” she giggled, the silliness of Gale Cleven gone stupid over making yams jiggle being the exact sort of thing that made life worth living, and being a woman exquisitely satisfying.
“They’re so goddamn soft.” he moaned around a bit of the underside, still hadn’t worked his way to a nipple. He seemed too preoccupied with their give and bounce to make a more calculated use of them. Maybe if men hadn’t been told what to do with them, they’d do what Gale Cleven was doing and rub their face against them and let them rest on their foreheads. There was a charm to this ignorance as he licked the salty sweat from their undersides with a surprisingly brave tongue.
The clumsy misuse was oddly effective for Maureen, what Gale lacked in skill he made up for in unstudied appreciation and nothing got her quite so ready as being appreciated to the point of foolishness. Her first conquest had been a boy at school who hadn’t minded tripping in his track shoes, day after day, to try to catch up to her on her bicycle, just to give her a flower or trinket. He was laughed at for his devotion until he broke the school track record next year, and Maureen was sure to remind him of her role in his success. They’d soon found a mutually beneficial reward system and Maureen had adopted that attitude as a maxim for the future, her dates and conquests may have been many but each of them in their own way had been appreciative -or else she was jumping out the window, damn the twelve foot drop out the dormitory.
No one, however, had looked quite so gifted by her mere existence as Gale Cleven did while he clutched at her hips and smushed her flesh between his hands like it were some fine dough and he was an artisan.
Discreetly, and it was easy to be so with his face buried in her bosoms, Maureen glanced between them at the tool she had such hopes for and found it, unsurprisingly, twitching and dribbling against his thigh, half hard but flapping about like a fish on dry land, the discarded towel no match for its movement. He’d need a hand, literally and metaphorically, and as she raked her nails through his blond curls and directed his slick mouth to a nipple, she felt him sag even further into her hold. Maureen weighed her next step carefully, trying to tamp down her own wants. She’d need to be sure but slow, careful not to spook him, or antagonize or embarrass.
She wondered if he even realized the same banged-up-head condition that sent him out here was most likely responsible for the jitters that kept him flopping. She wasn’t so conceited as to assume he’d not bedded a woman yet out of mere dysfunction, Cleven was a man of principle and strict notions regarding how the world should be, and he wasn’t one to build those notions on passing medical conditions.
“You like ‘em?” Maureen teased him, shocked at how hoarse her own voice had gone in the interim.
“Gonna make a home in here.” he mumbled in the affirmative, slack grin molded to the valley between them, blue eyes wide as the skies outside peering up at her.
“Got a job for you, baby.” she murmured, thumbing at the scar on his cheek.
“What’s that Mrs. Jones?” his voice alone made her mad with need, as did the saucy turn of his mouth so wonderfully foreign she didn’t know how she’d control herself until he was ready.
“Need you to lick a little landing strip, right here.” she ran her finger along the somewhat tacky skin between her breasts, sweat and his sloppy kisses having partway done the job already.
“What for?” Gale asked, hushed and curious.
“You’ll see soon enough.” she recalled how effective her nursing voice had been on him, and pulled it out now it seemed beneficial.
She had been right, with only a hesitant spark of aggravated defiance, Gale dipped his head and stuck out that pink tongue, lapping a swath up between her breasts as directed, flaming eyes locked on hers as she shivered from the breeze on spit slicked flesh.
“Again.” she told him, and his hands came up to hold her breasts apart as he did it again, and again and once more under his own direction until it was shiny and messy and his nose was gleaming, too.
“What’s it for?” He demanded once more, pink cheeked and swallowing hard as his mouth had dried out from his efforts.
“I told you, silly,” she replied casually, “it’s a landing strip.” and with as little fuss as possible she got to her knees before he’d registered the absence of her standing above him. “Gale, let go of the damned towel.”
She held in a laugh of delight at the tortured color he had grown to, veins running like so much ivy up and down him and a vibrant pink tip that matched his lips. Maureen wasn’t sure she’d ever be able to look him in the face again without thinking of this drizzling little pink mushroom.
“You oughta count your blessings, Gale Cleven, it was a close call, my coming along at all.” she informed him soberly while his mind visibly vacated his body at the repeated sighting of his sputtering cock emerging from between the pillowy press of her breasts, “It was pretty touch and go there for a bit, I was quite sure in fact, that Bucky was gonna help himself to this assignment.”
“Maureen!” Gale thundered, except his usual imposing ire was much diluted by his quivering belly and hoarse voice.
“What?” she brushed off his scandalized displeasure with a grin, feeling cocky herself as he hadn’t flagged on her in minutes and was beginning to gush in earnest, “Bucky loves the beach.”
“Sure, Maureen.”
“In the end he decided I had what it takes.” she went on conversationally, ignoring the inhuman sounds that came out of him when she casually spit on his tip, the better to work her lips around him, “These.” she clarified, pressing her breasts to his thighs as she wrapped her mouth around him and sucked.
“Fuck, hell, Maureen! Sorry, sorry, oh fuck!” -not even Gale Cleven had expected his hips to fly up that hard and fast, knocking on the back of her throat.
She laid her hands on his squirmy hips and did her best impression of a Listerine gargle round his tip, which sent a shudder through him so strong she thought he might’ve climaxed already.
“Maureen, Maureen come on, get up here, please.” now he yanked at her hair, desperate for once and that was a pleasure to hear.
“What baby?” she pulled off him.
“Gotta kiss you.” he told her firmly, and hauled her bodily up by her armpits, rolling her under him in the bed.
Kisses -sure, Gale, kisses.
He was moaning atop her, wiry and flexing his hips against her, wriggling to get between her thighs and she let him, hungry and expectant when he slotted easily in place. He pressed his lips to hers ardently, then reared back in shock at the taste of his own precum in her mouth and on her lips.
“Salty.” he whispered as if to himself before licking his lips and going back for more. “What do I need’to do?” he whispered urgently against her mouth as she rocked against him and he rocked back until they’d frustrated each other thoroughly with mere caresses.
“Put it in, my baby.” she whispered back.
“First though, don’t I need to-to do- something? Something first?” he could barely think straight but he’d heard enough talk about this, about gentlemen and the necessity of some form of chivalrous preparation. The way discipline and intuition set apart an average pilot from an excellent one. Bucky had talked a lot about getting girls ready, making them squirm, revving them up, for all his apparent disinterest during the topic, Gale had been listening.
“You’ve done it already, Mr. Jones.” she giggled, reaching between them to drag him more firmly through the wanton swamp he’d made of her. “I’m ready, I’m so ready.”
“Oh fuck, s’wet.” he mumbled the obvious before willingly letting her guide him in, his body following her tug like his cock were a leash.
“Jesus,— Gale!” Maureen choked as he bottomed out in a sudden plunge, shocked at the stretch despite the gauging of his size. “You’re so deep, oh baby you’re a big one aren't ya.”
“You ok?” he whimpered, shuddering on top of her again and again at the incomparable feeling of being inside another’s body.
“Oh yeah, yeah I’m fine,” she gasped, “Hurts so good, you can move, baby.”
“You’re so warm.” he sounded close to worshipful he was so drunk off her, and Maureen spared a moment to smirk at the fate of man: come tearing their way out of a woman to begin their lives only to spend the rest of it trying to and needing to get back in.
He did try to move, she’d give him that. And while Maureen was more than half expecting it, still, it was mildly comical to see the confusion flash across his blissful face right as the buildup was snatched from him and he was suddenly shaking into the real event before he knew it, betrayed and euphoric all at once. The muscles in his belly and back and neck seized and his hips lunged in a series of uncoordinated pumps and she could read the panic in his eyes right before they rolled back -a begrudging admittance that this was nothing at all like the steady predictability of his hand.
“That’s it baby, that’s my baby, feel nice, huh?”
Gale didn’t answer her, too occupied whimpering with a taut throat and jaw clenched so tight he could snap a hinge like that. He was shaking worse than before when the spasms subsided and the tiniest pressure to his sweat slicked neck had him buckling to lay pressed against her, half senseless from the force of his release.
Maureen had always loved this part of sex, the pliable, bewildered, smushed man atop her like she’d sucked his soul out, when he’d rendered it up to her so willingly, so desperately, forcefully even, chasing his own eventual weakness. Long limbs aligning on top of hers, the hot pants of winded breath against her breasts, the hands listlessly holding on wherever that had last tried to grip and control her. The view from above with Gale Cleven was something additional, beautiful and glistening with bronzed swaths of sun exposed skin and the pale whites of his thighs and ass making a perfect little outline of absent shorts, his golden hair tousled beyond salvaging and that luscious mouth, drooling like a babe’s.
“So this is what Bucky’s been talkin’ about.” he mumbled into her breast, cheek smashed and enunciation shot to hell.
Maureen laughed in disbelief, “Thinking of him even now? Really, he’s going to be impossible if we tell him.”
“Just sayin’, now I know.” he defended, lazily rubbing his partly softened cock inside her with a shimmy of his hips that was quickly followed by an overly sensitive mewl.
“You don’t know anything, Angel boy.” she insisted and Gale raised his head at that, sour that she’d still contradict him after thirty seconds of vigorous pumping. “Let me see your hands.”
He had some trouble recalling where he put them but eventually he found them under her hips and withdrew them from their warm shelter to present them, warily. “Well, damn.” he muttered to himself, somewhat shocked by just how badly the shakes had worsened. “Looks like that treatment backfired.”
“More of a dose dependent case, I’d say.” Maureen corrected and circled each wrist with her hands and brought them up to her lips to kiss.
Gale’s face smoothed at her softness and a shy smile lit up his bleary eyes while she felt a twitch of his spent cock deep inside her, swishing about the mess he’d made like a dog’s tail after getting pats. “You have the most beautiful hands.” she informed him earnestly and balls deep inside her she watched as one single innocuous compliment sent him scarlet with a blush. “And they’ll be yours again soon.” she promised.
His gentle expression and bright red cheeks crumpled rather suddenly and before either of them seemed to expect it, fat teardrops had escaped the blue of his eyes and rolled down the crimson flesh of his face.
“Goddamnit.” he cursed hoarsely, in an absolute rage at himself, regaining his hands from her grip insistently to bring them up to his own face, hiding from her behind harsh fists that rubbed at his wet eyes like he could grind the grief and weariness out between his knuckles.
Unbalanced as he was without hands to support him, and legs gone jellied from his fast fading pleasure, Maureen chose to capitalize on it as a nurse would a brief state of insensibility to move a patient to a cleaner cot. Remorselessly she pressed at his shoulder and lifted their still joined hips until he tipped over, rolling onto his back beneath her. “We’ll have none of that.” she told him with loving adamance from her new perch, prying his hands away and pressing them to the sheets beside his head. “The hiding, I mean.” she clarified and he looked all of hardly past twenty laying there with wobbly lips and wet eyes unobscured, “I’m a very great proponent of crying,” she went on conversationally which confused him more but kept him too preoccupied to stifle his tears, “De-sanguination is still a highly esteemed practice, you know, it means to drain the body. One type of draining often triggers the other.”
“You gonna start bleeding me?” he asked wryly.
“Oh, maybe, you’d look so pretty all streaked up.” she teased and ran a sharp thumbnail over his pinned wrist.
Well, that got him hard again. Fascinating.
“You know what’s got your hands like this-“ she whispered softly, “-probably the same reason you flop, too.”
“Huh.”
“Pretty common.” she assured.
“Quit tellin’ me I’m common.” He growled, tickling her sides and she grabbed his hands, pinning them again playfully.
“Nothing common about you, sweet baby.” she swore, leaning down to kiss him and enjoying the way he met her strongly, surely, “Gale, can I move?” she asked, half strangled by the taut string of need coiled in her belly, tugged to madness by the bulk of him still resting limply inside.
“Move?” he was perplexed.
“I’m going to die if I don’t get some friction.” she whispered, somehow shy to admit that in the face of his innocent bewilderment, “God -please tell me someone has informed you women finish, too?”
“Bucky says they clamp up so tight you can’t help but blow.” Gale recited dutifully, “Which is what just happened, right?”
Maureen grinned wide and wicked before dragging her hips up till he was barely in, then plopping down into the cradle of his hips, making him let out a “oomph.”
“Maureen?” he questioned, half knowing already he had been mistaken but hell, to go again? “Maureen- I’ll die if we go again.”
“What a way to go.” she muttered, her pace atop him increasing as did the tortured gasps tumbling from his lips. His spunk was making terribly wet, lewdly sloppy sounds of suction each time she slammed down on his cock and the visual of her exerting herself on top of him was something so blatant and jiggly he could hardly endure the visual feast of it.
“Shit, shit I can’t-“ he growled while his trembling hands latched onto her hips in a grip that was anything but dissuading. “Maureen.” he begged her for…he knew not what.
“Come on Mr. Jones,” she clasped her hands around his face and aligned their noses, rubbing like a kiss with each movement of her lower body, “you’re not one to leave your missus needy, I know you’re not. Not when you’ve got such pretty hands-“
-a shudder from him.
“and a clever tongue-“
-a whine from him that sounded close to a wounded dog’s it was so lasting.
“-or a tool this capable.”
“Maureen.” he groaned.
“Baby, my baby.” she begged, “You’ve got what I need, come on, take me apart.”
Like he trusted himself for the first time since they began this endeavor, she felt his body bow up beneath her, his arm flexing strongly across her hips, his legs braced beneath her and a heavy hand clutching her neck, then he was driving up into her with a wild abandon she only ever hoped was simmering beneath that cool exterior. When she finished he hadn’t stopped, and Maureen found herself crying out like a feral thing into the hollow of his clavicle as the brutal pummeling went on, satisfaction drug out of her over and over in harsh ruts.
“That more like it?” he panted the harsher he grew, a hand around her jaw pushing her face away from his so he might see the damage he was doing.
“Yes, yes oh baby, yes!” she swore through clenched teeth, it had been too long and each blissful peak only aggravated her further, made her hungrier, that and the fact he was so proportioned as to be a constant delight just shy of pain, “Hell Gale, do ya hear us?” she gloated, propping herself back on his thighs to watch the shiny pink of him flash in and out of her wet sheath.
Mesmerized, Gale didn’t reply, but he dragged a hand up her belly and felt for the way it tensed at each intrusion, the span of his fingers an incredible thing across her skin. “Can’t believe you can take it, easy as that.” he marveled, his thumb straying and pulling apart her petals the better to watch.
“Thumb it right there.” she directed gently, reaching down to move his calloused finger over her bud, right above where he split her apart, “That’s it, ya feel that too, huh?”
“Fuck you’re tight.” his voice cracked and his eyes shot wide again.
“Are you -?”
“Maybe.” there was a wobble of blissed uncertainty in his voice until she stopped her movements and he let out a sob before he could catch it. “Maureen, please.”
“Please what, baby?” she was chuckling at him, pushing his hair off his sweaty forehead, “I let you-“ he pleaded, still thinking things worked that way, “-now I need, please Maureen...”
“Oh you can.” she assured and his face lightened but his eyes stayed wary, “But just know, I won’t be stopping.”
“What?”
“You remember how that feels, don’t ya baby?” she reminded, gently pushing him to lie back and beginning their movements anew, “So good you can’t stand it, so messy and easy for me, so tender and much for you?”
“Jesus.” he wheezed, his lean belly caving in with his heavy pants, but she felt him throbbing inside her and his pupils were large as saucers, “You’re as mean as Bucky.” he whined, voice gone high in panicked pleasure.
“Thank you, but really I’m not.” she laughed, gently thumbing away an errant tear that rolled down his cheek. “Not quite.”
“Maureen, please, please you’re too pretty!” he begged nonsensically even as his hips began to snap into hers, invigorated and forceful.
“Hold it Gale, try to hold it.” Maureen gasped, staring down at the prettiest face she’d ever seen as his brow began to furrow, “Or don’t, all the same to me.”
“I’m gonna flip you.” he swore and a few seconds of inaction passed, marked by the slam of her hips down onto his, and she thought he didn’t mean it until she gave him a daring look and suddenly she was careening backwards, head jolting against the sheets and body laid out firmly beneath him.
“Goddamn.” she swore at the way he hadn’t dislodged an inch during the whole maneuver, suddenly pressed just as deeply as before, his hips working like a piston and his hands tight and strong on her neck. “Goddamn baby. Oh goddamn that’s good.”
“S’good?” he begged her to repeat, some dizzying natural force propelling him harder and faster and needier.
“You’re so good.” she was adamant as she hung about his neck and locked her ankles in the small of his back. “You’re so good I’m - I’m -gonna-“
“What was that about holdin’ it?” he hissed, smile cocky and smug.
“Bull ain’t out of the gate yet Cleven,” she cautioned but her hips had begun to lift of their own accord, a tremble taking hold of her, “But I’m close, I’m, i'm real cl- oh God!”
“Come on sweet Maureen, wanna make ya -wanna do it for ya. Give ya what you need, Mrs Jones.” Gale’s hoarse and sweet nothings poured hot and breathy in her ear and Maureen found herself locked and gripping him before she knew it, moaning into his neck as he moved in and out, in and out as she’d only ever dreamed of.
When she cracked her dazzled eyes open again he was panting above her, the clink of his dog tags gently bumping her chin with each sway deeper, lashes batting in a golden flutter as he too began to lose himself, slower, more drawn out and yet every bit as desperate as the first time.
“Look at me baby, look at me when ya do.” she pleaded, gently gripping his chin as his mouth fell open in a series of little noises of effort that went straight to her belly grown hot and molten with the feeling of him spurting inside.
“Ugh, ugh, ugh,” Gale was working atop her in pained delight, lips so smeared and face so sweaty he looked like he might melt at any minute, “thank you, oh fuck, thank you, sweet Maureen.” he chanted low and dreamy, again and again until he drove in once more and stayed.
Those clear blue eyes fagged in an exhausted ecstasy, his head dropping impossibly further with each ragged pant until his face was barely hovering over her breasts, neck bent and forhead slowly pressing into the swell of them. His forearms gave out and those hands of his stayed trapped beneath her shoulder blades.
“Sleep Angel baby,” Maureen coaxed, hand cradling the back of his dear head to her breasts, feeling a low lazy peace settle over her at the feel of his dead weight plugging her up and the lovely wringing out she’d just endured, “let’s just sleep, dear boy.”
Hope you enjoyed! Feedback is a writer’s lifeblood, please feel free to scream in comments or the inbox, I love it and wanna hear it all. Trust me, nothing is “too dumb”. Your thoughts mean the world to me.
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#masters of the air#mota#mota fanfic#mota fanfiction#masters of the air fanfiction#the pacific#friends in the crucible#mota smut#gale cleven x oc#gale cleven#gale cleven x john egan#hints of at least#Gale x Maureen#Gale Cleven fanfic#austin butler#austin butler fanfiction#austin butler smut#austin butler imagine
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Jessamine ‘Lark’ Waterson x Neil “Chick” Harding Fic Teaser
"Someone has to make the very first move
Starting is daunting, true
Trusting in something new
Fearful your luck will be reversed
But I have a feeling I'd
Steady you if you tried
Soon you'll be dancing through rehearsed steps
First steps first"
#jessamine x neil#oc: jessamine 'lark' waterson#neil harding#chick harding#masters of the air#mota ocs#mota#mota ships#🏷️ my ocs
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Chapter 1: Welcome to Thorpe Abbotts
John "Bucky" Egan x Ruth Morgan (OFC)
Series Masterlist
A/N: Ruth has been living in my head for months now, and I'm so so so excited to share her with y'all! This series is Jess (footprintsinthesxnd) and I's brainchild. Our ideas just seamlessly fit tegether, and here we are! We actually wrote this first chapter a week before the 26th, so if anything happens to almost exactly match the show, we came up with it before we saw it on there! (we're just good like that 😎)
Collab: On a Wing and a Prayer by @footprintsinthesxnd
Word Count: 5.3k
The hum of the engine was the only sound in the C-47 as it soared over the English countryside. The patients had finally settled, and the morphine finally took effect and brought them some sense of relief. Hope slumped back into her seat with a sigh, smiling over at Ruth who looked as exhausted as she was.
“You looked tired,” Hope smiled at her friend who just sighed.
“It’s been a long day. I can’t wait to get back to base,” Ruth pushed her short blonde hair out of her eyes, sighing again.
“Hey Frank, how much longer have we got,” Hope called to one of the pilots.
“We’ve had to make a detour, doll. We’re heading to Thorpe Abbotts airfield and will evacuate the wounded to Thorpe St. Andrews Hospital. It’s not far now.”
Hope felt her heart flutter, her throat drying as she slouched back against her seat.
“Hey Hope, what’s wrong?” Ruth leaned forward, gripping Hope’s hand and squeezing it, her large blue eyes filled with worry.
“It’s Hugh,” Hope muttered, her eyes a little teary but a smile on her lips nonetheless. “My brother is stationed at Thorpe Abbotts with the 100th Bomb Group. I haven’t seen him in so long.”
Ruth’s concerned frown turned to a smile, “So I’m finally going to meet this Hugh I’ve heard so much about.”
Hope laughed, patting her friend on the back gently, “You will, but don’t get any ideas.”
The aircraft soared towards its destination, and the occasional jolting and shaking on the metal bird brought no fear to the flight nurses anymore. Once, the ratting metal coffin struck the fear of God into them but now this was a peaceful ride.
Hope watched out the window as the lush, green countryside grew closer and closer.
“Hey, Frank! Stop hugging the hedgerows for crying out loud. Don’t let the girl down before we’ve reached the field,” Hope called, grimacing as the trees seemed to grow ever closer.
“Who’s flying this bird, Armstrong? You or me?” Frank retorted, not looking away from the cockpit.
“Well, maybe you could use some lessons in keeping the old girl airborne then. We’ll beat up the airfield at this rate.”
Ruth laughed, watching Hope argue with the pilot once more, “You know Hope, maybe you should have gotten your wings. Then you could be flying us instead of Frank.”
“You’ve got a good point there, Ruth. Ya hear that Frank, Ruth wants me flying instead of you.”
Frank’s reply was a muffled curse, and both girls found themselves giggling in response. The plane tooled along for a while longer until it finally began to descend, rattling as it lost altitude and shaking its victims vigorously. The wheels touching down on the tarmac filled everyone with great relief.
“Well that was one ropey landing, Frank. Maybe I could give ya a few lessons?” Hope asked politely, batting her eyelashes at the pilot who just huffed.
“Shove off, Hope. Now get to it, your blood wagons are waiting.”
Hope cringed at the nickname the ambulances had been given, they were lifesaving vehicles transporting sick men, why make it sound so ominous?
Hope hopped down from the plane, instructing the stretcher-bearers on which soldiers were in the worst condition. Between them, Hope and Ruth helped carry three wounded men to the ambulances when an obnoxiously loud voice called, “Well, I’ll be damned!”
Hope spun round, her boots scuffing at the earth.
“HUGH!” Her brother laughed jovially, jogging over to them.
“Gosh, I’ve missed you, Little Bird,” Hugh threw his arms around Hope’s shoulders, nestling his head into her neck as he always did. Hope couldn’t comprehend what was happening. She was finally in her brother's arms, finally reunited with him after so long. She gripped tightly onto the back of his uniform, burying her face in his chest. He smelt of smoke and engine oil just like he did back home.
“I’ve missed you so much,” she murmured, just loud enough for Hugh to hear as he tightened his grip on her further. She could feel Ruth hovering awkwardly behind her and she turned to greet her friend, pulling out of her brother's arms.
“Ruth, this is my brother, Hugh. Hugh, this is my friend, Ruth.”
Ruth smiled sweetly, sticking out her hand to shake Hugh’s but instead, he pulled her into a bear hug.
“Any friend of Hope’s is a friend of mine,” he assured Ruth and she smiled, her cheeks turning a deep red at the embarrassment of the situation.
“Hugh, put her down. Look, you're making the poor girl blush,” Hope laughed, which only caused Ruth to blush harder.
“My apologies Ruthie, where are my manners,” he bowed, taking her hand and placing a gentle kiss on her knuckles.
“Oh, uh- nice to meet you.” Ruth stumbled over her words, quickly using the excuse that she needed her flight jacket as an excuse to return to the plane.
“You’re a real pain in the ass, you know that?” Hope groaned, shoving her brother playfully in the ribs.
“I don’t know, I’ve always considered myself rather charming,” Hugh protested, puffing out his chest in pride.
Hope nodded, spinning around to call Ruth to join them. The blonde soon was walking back toward the group, now wearing her fleece aviation jacket, and to her relief, without a rosy dusting on her cheeks.
“I still can’t believe out of all the airfields in England, you managed to land at this one,” Hugh laughed, throwing an arm around both girls' shoulders. “You two are in for a real treat.”
As they walked through the base, Hugh pointed out the various hard stands.
“See, right there,” he pointed at a few heavies. “That’s “Just-a-Snappin’, Our Baby, and the M’lle Zig Zig.”
“Where do you guys get these names, Hugh?” Hope laughed, her eyes trailing over each one’s elaborate nose art, along with some very proud-looking engineers and artists who had clearly put so much love into the bombers.
Shrugging his shoulders, Hugh sighed, shaking his head. “I couldn’t tell ya. What’s your plane named?”
“Just the Angel of Death,” Hope chirped.
Hugh stared at her for a moment before shaking his head. “Always with the dark humor, aren’t you, Hope.”
After hearing so much about the man from Hope, Ruth felt as if she’d known Hugh for years when in reality she’d only known him for a few minutes. She knew the stories of how the siblings played in the woods of Columbia, Missouri, exploring the famous rock bridge that brought hikers and tourists into the town. She knew of his love for the St. Louis Cardinals, and how he wore his battered and dirty Dizzy Dean jersey for a week straight after they won the World Series in ‘31 and ‘34. Maybe he’d heard so much about Ruth from Hope that he felt the same way.
‘It would make sense based on his initial reaction.’ she thought, absentmindedly reaching up and grabbing the small pendant hanging from her neck, running her fingers over its smooth edges.
Before they knew it, the trio reached their destination: his officer nissen hut. They were long semi-circular metal huts, not known for their warmth or comfortability, but they were a soft place to land at the end of the day…which is a lot more than most young men of the time could say.
“Welcome to my humble abode, ladies,” he announced as they neared the building, holding out his arms in a ‘ta-da’ motion. “She’s not much, but she’s home.”
He began to open the door for them, but a voice in the distance stopped him.
“Charlie! No girls in the huts,” the voice called. “I told you that a few weeks ago.”
Turning toward the voice, Hope did a double take when she saw who its owner. Approaching them was a tall, tan, brunette, who wore a bomber jacket with his hair messily combed to the side. He walked with a swagger that instantly put a bad taste in Hope’s mouth.
She sighed to herself, thinking, ‘Why do all the cute ones have to be cocky?’
Hugh groaned, pointing at Hope. “Buck, come on, this is my-”
The man finally reached them, and Hope stopped herself from being captivated by his blue-green eyes.
“I don’t care who she is. You know the rules,” he interrupted, turning to the girls. “Sorry girls, but I think it’s time for you to go.”
Ruth cringed and side-eyed Hope, already expecting a snarky response to his comment.
“Well,” she paused, checking her watch for effect. “Seeing as we have patients in the infirmary, it actually isn’t time for us to go.”
It was then that he looked down at her upper arm, taking in the bright red and white medic band that adorned her uniform. Ruth could see the slightest show of remorse in his expression as his eyes rose back up to Hope’s.
“My apologies, ma’am. I didn’t know-”
Hope didn’t let him finish, cutting him off. “Maybe you should know all the facts before you make an assumption, Buck.”
“Hope!” Ruth hissed, trying to placate her friend, but the woman ignored her.
“See, other than my brother, this is why I can’t stand airmen. They’re cocky-”
Realizing the flaw in Hope’s argument, Ruth ran a hand down her face, secondhand embarrassment filling her. Just when she was about to interject, Buck beat her to it.
“Now hold on. Maybe you should know all the facts before you make an assumption, sweetheart.”
Hope’s mind ran rampant with frustration, and she stared up at him with contempt as he smiled cheekily at her. His eyes were locked on hers as they had a stare-down, neither wanting to be the first to give in.
“So,” Hugh cleared his throat in an attempt to break their silent battle. “Let me introduce you guys. Ladies, this is my squadron commander, Major Buck Cleven.”
Buck tilted his head slightly, not breaking eye contact with Hope. “Nice to meet you.”
“Likewise,” she replied dryly.
Ruth shook her head and sighed, amazed at her fellow nurse’s childlike stubbornness.
“And Buck, this is my sister, Hope, and her friend Ruth. They’re flight nurses with the 806th MAETS.”
Ruth raised a hand and waved with a quiet, “Hello,” and Hope felt a little satisfaction when the man’s eyes widened at the word sister.
Buck’s eys left Hope for a moment to acknowledge Ruth, who stood beside her, with a nod and a smile. “Nice to meet you, ma’am.”
“You, too, Major,” she responded with a small grin. He then turned back to Hope.
“So, you’re the infamous little sister we’ve all heard about?” Buck chuckled, placing his hands on his hips.
The woman glanced over at Hugh, who wore a guilty expression. “All good things, I hope.”
“For the most part,” Buck chimed, a mischievous glint in his eyes.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means I know about your little escapade to Kansas City, and how–”
Hope’s eyes widened in disbelief that her brother had divulged her most embarrassing moment. “Hugh!!” she cried, smacking his chest. “You lying piece of crap! You promised!”
“It’s not like I thought you’d ever meet anyone here, Hope!”
Composing herself, she took a deep breath and sent Buck a tight-lipped smile. “It looks like you know a lot more about me than I do about you, Major.”
“It would seem so, Nurse Armstrong.”
As Ruth amusedly listened to Gale and Hope’s banter, she felt like she was being watched. Glancing around the group, her heart skipped a beat as her eyes met another set of icy blues, ones that were new to the group.
‘How did I miss him walking up?’ she wondered.
Their gazes locked for a few seconds that seemed to last minutes, and a shudder ran through her. Breaking from his stupor, he quickly looked away with a light pink dusting on his cheeks. Ruth felt her own blush creeping up her neck and wrapped her flight jacket closer to her body, the English chill suddenly getting to her.
Her eyes seemed to have a mind of their own as they fought to return to the handsome stranger. It took all her willpower to keep them on Hugh, who was talking to the group.
“I can’t imagine going up without weapons on board. We’ve got 12 50-cal brownings and sometimes I feel that’s not enough.”
The battle within herself became too much, and Ruth finally gave in to her temptation. Her eyes flitted over to the man, and she silently sighed in relief when she found his gaze elsewhere. It was then that she discovered her first assumption of the man being ‘handsome’ was an understatement. He had a strong and well-defined jawline, expressive and striking blue-grey eyes, a straight nose, and a slightly curved lip, which held a pencil-thin mustache.
She liked the mustache.
He wore a crooked crusher cap and a white fleece-lined flying jacket that looked somewhat dirty, accompanied by his brown service top poking out at the jacket collar.
Ruth was mesmerized by the man, and she didn’t even know his name. A wide grin broke out on his face as he engaged in the group’s conversation, his upper lip curling up, allowing a few teeth to peek out the top, and Ruth felt her stomach lurch for the second time in a short few minutes.
Focus, Ruth. Focus.
An elbow to her side broke her stare, and the group’s eyes were suddenly on her as Hope looked at her expectantly.
“What?” Ruth asked, looking like a deer in headlights.
“I said that we would go insane without each other up there.”
“Oh,” she sighed with a small smile. “You would probably kill Frank if I weren’t there.”
The group broke out in laughter, and Ruth found her eyes absentmindedly moving to the mystery man. As he chuckled, his eyes wrinkled at the edges, and his full smile revealed a dazzlingly straight set of pearly whites. His loud laughter was infectious, and a few giggles escaped her mouth.
As the group’s chuckles started to die down, Hope looked over at Ruth. She took in her friend’s shy smile and blush, then followed her gaze to the airman across the circle. Realizing what was happening, she nudged Ruth lightly, a teasing eyebrow raised.
“What?” Ruth grumbled under her breath, leaning closer to her friend’s ear as the guys carried on the group’s conversation.
“You like him.”
The blonde’s smile fell and heat rushed up her neck. “Who?”
Hope tilted her head incredulously, rolling her eyes. “You know who.”
“No, I don’t,” she defended,
“He’s staring,” Hope grinned, nodding his direction subtly.
Ruth’s eyes rose to his, and sure enough, his striking eyes were gazing into hers yet again. This time, however, he didn’t look away. The corner of his lips quirked up into a barely noticeable grin, and she felt as if she was shrinking under the intensity of his gaze.
“Uh, I need to go check on the patients,” she sputtered, pointing her fingers in the direction of the infirmary. With a curt nod to Hope, she quickly turned and started toward the infirmary, her blonde curls bouncing with each step. A few seconds later, she spun to face the group and called, “But it was…uh…nice to meet y’all.”
Hugh didn’t miss a beat and hollered back his reply. “You, too, Ruthie!” He then paused until she was out of earshot. “She alright?”
“She’s fine,” Hope sighed, used to her friend’s more timid personality. She had hoped that over time, her extroversion would rub off on the nurse, but so far, she had no such luck. Ruth was more of a one-on-one person, not one for groups of people unless she knew them pretty well. It seemed the smaller the group got, the more Ruth seemed to come alive. It was like pulling teeth to get Ruth to agree to go out with the other girls of the unit, but when she finally stepped out of her comfort zone, she usually had a good time filled with friends, fellas, and amazing big band music.
Ruth’s admirer joined the conversation, and Hope smirked, watching his eyes follow her friend. “How far away is your base?”
“We’re in Berkshire, so by car, it’s about three hours, but by plane, probably 45 minutes.”
“So not far,” he chimed, raising his eyebrows and nodding to himself. Before anyone else could comment, he spoke again.
“See you boys later,” he said absentmindedly as he watched Ruth’s figure go around a corner. Clapping Buck’s shoulder, he set off and followed the nurse’s path around the corner, missing the raised eyebrows and confused expressions sent his way. All eyes followed him as he, too, disappeared around the corner.
Hope pursed her lips at the new development, unsure of the man following Ruth. “Should I be worried?”
“Yep,” Hugh confirmed with a curt nod.
Buck hit him on the chest, chuckling under his breath. “Johnny’s a good man, darlin’.”
Hugh suppressed a snort thinking of the commander’s wild habits and how Buck didn't exactly answer her question.
“Anyways, back wh-”
And just like that, the conversation continued, and Hope had a strange feeling of contentment being on base. Finally being with family again.
As Ruth briskly made her way around the nissen huts to the infirmary, her heart continued to beat rapidly in her chest, and her mind replayed his smile non-stop.
Get it together, Ruth!
When she finally reached the infirmary, she stopped at the door, taking a deep breath to gain some composure. Within seconds of opening the heavy door, the base’s head surgeon approached her, wiping his hands with a rag.
“Hello,” he greeted. “I’m Captain Emory Kinder, and I’m assuming you’re one of the flight nurses who landed earlier?”
Ruth wore her signature toothy grin and nodded. “Yes, sir. Ruth Morgan. My other half is visiting with her brother as we speak.”
“Brother?”
“Yep, Hugh Armstrong,” she replied, her smile widening as his face lit up.
“Charlie! Oh yeah, I know him. He’s been in here for a few hangovers after a rowdy night in Dickleburgh.”
“Really?” Ruth chuckled, picturing the confident young man drunk as a skunk.
“Oh yeah. We love him though. He’s a good one for sure.”
A patient called out to him, and with a nod, he was off, helping the man. Ruth busied herself however she could, bringing airmen water, re-wrapping their bandages, and pretty much anything that would get her mind off the man from earlier. She was inspecting a man’s arm wound when the creaking of the door opening filled the building. Paying it no mind, she kept working, noting how the tissue was already healing.
“It looks good, Sergeant. You should be back in the air soon,” she said quietly.
His wide-eyed morphine-induced expression looked pitiful, but he managed to mumble out a, “Thank you, ma’am.”
Ruth gathered her supplies and stood to her feet, throwing away the bloody bandages when Emory's voice rang through the air.
“Speaking of rowdy nights in Dickleburgh...Major, what can I do for ya? Is that shoulder giving you problems again?”
“No, Doc,” the newcomer began, his deep voice breaking the relative quiet. “The shoulder’s fine. I just wanted to, you know, come see the boy-men.”
When she turned toward them and saw the white jacket, the roll of bandages fell from her grasp and hit the floor with a thud, rolling a few feet away to the man’s feet. The heat returned to her cheeks in a rush, and her eyes froze on the bandages for a moment, silently cursing the little white bundle. She watched in horror as the man slowly bent down and picked it up, walking toward her as he threw it up in the air and caught it.
“I think this yours,” he said, one side of his lips quirking up into a smirk as he held it out to her.
Raising her eyes from the bandage to his eyes, she prayed her voice would stay steady. “Thank you, sir.”
She took the bandage and tried to remain calm, her free hand raising to run her fingers over the cool metal of her locket.
“John. Major John Egan,” he introduced himself, extending his hand to her. “But you can call me Bucky.”
Ruth’s brows furrowed in confusion as she took his much larger hand and shook it gently. It was surprisingly soft compared to the men she’d treated from the lines. “Bucky? It’s there another-”
“Yeah,” John chuckled and slowly released her hand, shoving his in his pockets, rocking back on his heels. “We call Cleven Buck, too. He hates it, but he deals with it.”
Grimacing playfully, she decided to go out on a limb despite her pounding heart. “Well, I, um, don’t know if I’ll be able to remember who’s who.”
“Oh no,” John tutted, his eyebrows raised and a wide-mouthed smile painting his lips. “We can’t have that. You can call me John, Johnny, whatever you want, doll, but I don’t think you’re going to have a hard time remembering my name.”
“And why would that be, Johnny?”
“Because you’ll see it at the bottom of each letter you’ll get from me.”
The blonde froze, dropping her necklace in disbelief as she swallowed thickly.
‘There is no way he just said that,’ her mind repeated. ‘There is no way he just said that.”
Pushing through her reserved personality and the tingling sensation swirling in her stomach, she decided to take a page from Hope’s book.
“What makes you think I’d let you write me, hotshot?”
Her mind went haywire. ‘‘Why did I just say that? I’m never taking Hope’s advice again. This is too stressful.’
For the first time in their interaction, his confident bravado seemed to fade and he didn’t quite know what to say. Perhaps he was always used to women giving in to his advances easily, but Ruth was not just another woman begging to be wooed. Johnny stood before her with furrowed brows, his upper lip sticking out slightly. He pushed back his jacket and placed his hands on his hips, his head ducking to the floor.
“Because I’d like to get to know you,” he replied earnestly, taking off his cap. “You’re gorgeous, and I would like to write you, Ruth.“
That was the last thing she expected.
In that moment, Ruth Morgan had a decision to make. Was she going to reject the airman or give him a chance? She knew she was attracted to him and there was chemistry there, but was she willing to put herself out there? The timid parts of her personality screamed at her to tell him no, but the parts that Hope had influenced were urging her to accept his offer. In the end, Ruth already liked Johnny, and she saw the sincerity in his statement as a deciding factor in the matter.
“Alright, you can write to me,” she answered quietly, pushing her hair behind her ear.
John watched as she walked to the infirmary desk and got a sheet of paper, scribbling down what he expected to be her address. He took in her features, just like he had earlier. Starting at her light blonde hair, his gaze traveled down her face to her familiar blue eyes, down her adorable nose, to her lips, which were pursed slightly as she concentrated on writing down her information. She was stunning, and Johnny knew that he wanted to see her again just from their short conversation.
Approaching him again, she held up a slip of paper, a toothy grin on her lips. “This is sensitive information, Major. It better not end up in enemy hands, and that includes your fellow airmen.”
“Yes ma’am,” he nodded once before fake saluting her, unable to keep his excitement inside. “Mission understood.”
“But just to be safe, I’m going to hold onto it for a little bit.” she leaned a little closer to him, her voice dropping to a whisper. “Just in case I, you know, change my mind.”
John grinned down at her and yet again raised his eyebrows as he nodded. Ruth noticed he did that a lot. “I’ll be on my best behavior, scout’s honor.”
Sliding the slip into her pocket, she started her nursing tasks once again, looking at him over her shoulder. “So, you were in the Boy Scouts?”
“No,” he chuckled, putting back on his cap as he moved next to Ruth to help. “I wasn’t, but Buck was. He ended up being an Eagle Scout before he aged out. One of the best in Wyoming, he says, but I don't buy it.”
He stood a good 5 or so inches above her, so his chin was at her eye level. In the small area at the nursing station, his shoulder was just barely pressed against hers as they both worked to roll bandages, and Ruth could feel the warmth radiating from his touch.
“It seems like you know each other pretty well,” she stated, looking up at him briefly.
His concentration remained on the bandage in his hands as he spoke. “Yeah. He’s my best friend.”
“How long have you known each other?” She asked, reaching up to mess with her necklace.
“We both joined up in ‘40 and were roommates in basic. Been together ever since.”
“That reminds me of Hope and I, although we haven’t known each other for nearly that long.”
John placed the finished bandage in the basket and turned to face her, leaning a hip against the counter as his earnest expression returned. “War makes people closer. Makes ‘em realize who’s important. What’s important.”
The blonde mirrored his stance, taking in his words. He was right. War did have a way of bringing people together. She gazed up at him with a shared understanding of how something as terrible as the war had brought out the best and worst in people, as well as brought people into their lives for the better. The pair’s eyes remained locked for a few moments, both realizing that perhaps there was something deeper than the flirting between them. His warm eyes seemed to search hers, and to her surprise, she didn’t feel nervous in that moment. Johnny’s gaze was like a warm blanket enveloping all of her senses to the point that all she could see was him.
“I feel the same way,” Ruth finally answered, fixing a stray curl that had fallen into her eyes.
Half of his lips curled up in a grin and he took a step toward her. “Ruth, I-”
The loud opening of the door jolted them from the moment, sending both their heads in the direction of the entrance. There stood an out-of-breath Frank, whose face was bright red and shimmering with sweat.
“Ruth! Do you know how long I’ve been looking for ya?” He cried, approaching them quickly.
Unsure of the man’s intentions, Johnny straightened and moved just barely in front of her, holding out a hand towards Frank. “Woah, buddy.”
Although it was an endearing effort, she couldn’t hold in a loud giggle at Frank’s offended expression that followed. “No, Johnny,” she laughed, gently lowering his hand. “This is our pilot, Frank. Frank, this is Major John Egan. What is it?”
The pilot’s eyes flicked between Ruth and Johnny for a few seconds before he sighed. “I’ve filled the Angel up and it’s time to go. Find Hope and meet me back at the plane.”
Just like that, he was out the door again, probably to get ready for takeoff. Ruth’s heart sank at the realization that she was having to leave. It seemed he also came to the same conclusion as he turned toward her and sighed.
“Looks like you’ve gotta go,” he said softly, slightly tilting his head to the side as he peered down at her.
The nurse looked at the door, then lowered her gaze to her feet. “It sure does.”
She almost gasped in surprise when something warm grasped her hand gently. Her eyes shot up to John’s hand that held delicately held hers. The contact sent a tingle up her arm and seemingly straight to her mind, muddying her thoughts.
“I'd like to see you again,” he murmured where only she could hear.
This quieter, softer version of him was unknown to Ruth, but she knew instantly that she liked the duality of Johnny.
The blush she’d resisted finally won and dusted her cheeks as she looked up at him. “I’d like that, too.”
John softly tugged her hand closer and bridged the distance between them slowly, his entrancing eyes flicking between her eyes and lips. Ruth could hear her heartbeat in her ears as she stood on her toes to meet him. She felt his warm breath on her face, and her eyes fluttered closed, anticipating the kiss. But before their lips could meet, the door opened again, and Frank called out to her.
“Ruth, come on! You can neck the Major later!”
The door quickly creaked closed.
Heat rushed to Ruth’s face, and she reluctantly pulled back from Johnny, setting her heels back on the ground. Johnny awkwardly stood to his full height, glaring at the door where Frank stood moments before.
“I’ll see you next time, Johnny,” Ruth smiled bashfully, gently squeezing his hand once before dropping it. She walked backward to the door, praying she wouldn’t trip.
Johnny let out a huff of air as the biggest smile grew on his face. “So there will be a next time?”
She simply grinned at him, shrugging her shoulders when she turned to open the door. With one last look over her shoulder, she closed the door behind her.
The infirmary was silent for a few seconds, and then the patients erupted in hollers, cheers, and whistles.
“Way to go, Bucky!”
“Leave some for the rest of us, Major!”
Amid their uproar, John remembered a crucial detail: She hadn’t given him her address! He took off toward the door, reaching for the handle when it creaked open, revealing a laughing Ruth on the other side. She held out the slip to him.
“I think you behaved well enough, Major.”
“Told you,” he chimed, his eyebrows raising. “Scout’s honor.”
John took the paper from her outstretched hand and watched as she left once again. When the door had slammed shut behind her, he read the note to himself with a wide smile.
Hotshot,
You can write me at the Grove, Berkshire, Hut 4. I like you, so try not to get shot down before I can return your letter, and I’ll do the same.
Safe Flying,
Ruth Morgan
Johnny shot his hand with the paper into the air, and the men cheered once again. Ruth, on the other hand, was in disbelief of what had just transpired. She had almost kissed him! She wanted to kiss him! Running her hands through her hair, she tried to focus on the task at hand: finding Hope.
Ruth ran around the base like a chicken with her head cut off looking for the woman, and was about to give up when she saw her sitting in a jeep with Buck in the distance.
“HOPE! There you are, I've been looking everywhere. Frank fueled up the plane. We have to go,” Ruth huffed, clearly out of breath from running, but her flushed cheeks, Hope thought, told a different story.
“Okay, I'll be over in five minutes,” Hope promised, but Ruth didn't look convinced.
“Your five minutes or an actual five minutes?” She asked, and the glare Hope sent her way had Ruth turning around and heading back in the direction she’d come.
“Okay, but I'll be timing you,” she yelled over her shoulder.
When Ruth looked back to see Hope kissing Buck on the cheek, it occurred to her that maybe there were more trips to Thorpe Abbotts in the cards for both of them.
Tag List: @xxluckystrike @precious-little-scoundrel @bcofl0ve @violetdaze25 @docroesmorphine
message or comment if you want to be added to the tag list!! <3
#masters of the air#hbo war#john egan#gale cleven#callum turner#austin butler#major buck cleven#gale buck cleven#major john egan#major john egan x oc#major buck cleven x oc#mota#mota x oc#masters of the air oc#masters of the air fanfic#hbowar#hbo war x oc#hbowar x oc#masters of the air x oc#ruth morgan#hope armstrong#hugh armstrong#on a wing and a prayer#a pair of silver wings#mota edit#mota fanfic
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I'm Your Man - Robert 'Rosie' Rosenthal x OFC - Chapter 1
Masterlist |-| Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6 | Chapter 7 | Chapter 8 | Chapter 9 | Chapter 10 | Chapter 11 | Chapter 12
AO3
Summary: As Frankie reaches the end of her second week at Thorpe Abbotts Airfield, she begins to find her footing among the men of the 100th Bomb Group
Warnings: Excessive alcohol consumption, language
Word Count: 4k
Tags: @mads-weasley @xxluckystrike @curaheehee
The setting sun cast a golden blanket over Thorpe Abbotts airfield, basking everything in an idyllic, orange glow that was almost beautiful enough to distract from the heady stench of motor oil that lay thick on the air, permeating hair and clothes so thoroughly that anyone who spent even five minutes in the place would carry it with them for the rest of the day.
Frankie Bevan clamped a flashlight tight between her teeth, the narrow beam of light illuminating the underside of the B-17's gun turret as she surveyed it for any cracks or gaps in the glass that could compromise its integrity. The rest of the ground crew had called it a day almost two hours ago, but the Yanks always did prefer to work in the daylight. She was nearing the end of her third year in the Women's Auxiliary Air Force, and after so many nights spent running the airstrips in the darkness for the RAF, Frankie was well accustomed to toiling away into the night.
Thorpe Abbotts was new, and yet much the same. It was only her second week here, compensating for the Americans' manpower shortages. The job was always the same, no matter where she went or what planes she worked on - checks, fixes, refuelling, over and over again - but thus was the nature of a mechanic's job. What she was not yet quite used to was the Americans themselves. Loud and brash and self-assured, Frankie was sometimes glad they worked different hours.
Taking note of a few cracks in the glass panelling, she reached up to swipe the torch from her mouth, offering a satisfied nod as she completed her checks for the night. All that was left was to pin her list of concerns up on the board inside the mechanics' Nissen hut, and then it was off to the pub for her.
Once she changed out of her oil-stained coveralls, that was.
"They're working you like a dog down there on the strip," Georgina, one of Frankie's bunkmates, pointed out, flipping nonchalantly through a magazine as she lounged on her bed.
"Someone's gotta do it," She shrugged, kicking off her coveralls as she rummaged in the shared wardrobe for the correct service uniform. "Some of the mechanics they've brought over are practically kids, not sure I'd trust 'em to fix my plane if I was going up there."
"You'd better show 'em what for, then," George smiled, glancing over as Frankie finished buttoning up her blouse, reaching for the navy blue jacket.
"You coming for drinks?"
"Uh, nah - I'll go tomorrow. Sandra thinks we'll be starting early tomorrow so I wanna get a decent night's sleep."
"Ooh, luxury," Frankie teased, shimmying her shoulders as she made her way to the door of the hut. "Alright, see you later."
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The pub was crammed from door to door as she forced her way inside, the sound of chattering overpowering the music blaring from a radio in the corner. The American invasion of Thorpe Abbotts had well and truly been successful, scarcely a flash of RAF blue visible amongst the sea of khaki as Frankie burrowed her way through the crowds towards the bar.
"Pint of Guinness, please," She called over the din, the bartender offering a friendly nod of affirmation as she felt the crowd behind her push her body further into the edge of the bar.
"There y'are, love," The man nodded, placing the pint glass in front of her as she smiled her thanks, foam lining her top lip as she took her first sip. Frankie barely had time to wipe it away, turning to take a step back from the bar, before another body collided with hers. She gasped as the beer she had so looked forward to sloshed over the rim of the glass, pooling on the floor and staining the front of her uniform, as the other man's drink did the same.
"Woah, careful there!" The man cried, flicking a few stray droplets of spilt beer from his hand onto the floor. A deep frown creased her features as she peered up at him. The soldier was so tall that the tip of her head didn't quite pass his shoulder, and yet the irritation in her expression was so palpable that he took a full step back.
"Oh, that was my fault, was it?" Frankie tutted.
"Well, sweetheart, maybe if you'd been looking where you were going-"
"Maybe if you bloody Yanks gave us some room to breathe in here we wouldn't have a problem!"
There was an easy smile on the man's face that struck her as distinctly annoying. Discarding his now almost empty glass on the bar, the man put up his hands in surrender. "Alright, alright. Look. We're not gonna agree on this, so what d'ya say we settle this with a little friendly competition?"
She raised a brow. "What sort of competition?"
"Uh... how 'bout a drinking contest?"
Frankie let out a guffaw so forceful that the man's confident smile disappeared, and a few nearby airmen turned to watch the scene unfold. "Y'know what? Yeah. You're on."
With a nod, he turned away, marching towards the closest table. "Alright boys, gimme some space, I got a contest to win against half-pint over here."
She approached the table, sitting down opposite the soldier, smirking at his arrogance. The airmen he had kicked out of their seats were lingering to watch the spectacle unfold, and it was clear their bets were on her opponent.
"Now," He sighed, taking a seat. "In the spirit of good sportsmanship, I oughta introduce myself. John Egan," He said, reaching a hand across the table.
"Frances Bevan. Frankie," She nodded, shaking his hand.
Egan nodded. "So, normal rules apply. No spilling, no vomiting, gotta drain the glass. Still wanna do this?"
Frankie nodded firmly. "I'd never pass up such a wonderful opportunity to humble you Yanks," She grinned.
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Egan was turning red, his smug smile long since vanished, the motion of his arm slowing as he reached for the next shot glass, glancing across at her with a slightly nauseated expression. The crowd surrounding them had long since grown since they had begun, although how long ago that was she couldn't quite remember. The huge pile of empty shot glasses in the centre of the table did nothing to jog her memory.
"Oh, come on, Egan, you've gotta do better than that," Frankie teased, reaching forward and downing her next shot. In fairness, she too was beginning to feel light-headed, but it never showed on her face, her demeanour as cool and collected as it had been when she first sat down.
"I thought... I thought this would be easy," John complained, grimacing as he brought the next glass to his lips. "You're so small, where are you storing all this liquor?"
"I'm British - pretty sure it's in our bloodstream," She teased. Egan's eyes narrowed as he weakly upturned the contents of his glass into his mouth, screwing up his face as the liquid ran down his throat.
"I really like her," John admitted, letting out a long sigh as he drew a hand over his eyes. A few of the airmen laughed, clapping him over the shoulders.
"I think we're done here," Frankie chuckled.
"You forfeit?" He asked hopefully.
"No, I'm saying you're about to. That or you're gonna throw up - either way, I win."
"Nuh-uh," Egan shook his head. "Not gonna happen," He fought to suppress a burp, and the room seemed to brace itself for the inevitable vomit that would follow, letting out a collective sigh of relief when he swallowed his nausea back down. "...Yeah. Ok."
She clapped, throwing up her hands in victory as a couple of the men standing behind her cheered. "Well, it's been a real pleasure doing business with you Major," Frankie chuckled, fighting through the splitting headache that was growing in her temples as she rose from her seat, offering him a hand to help him stand.
John batted her away, but stumbled as he got up, one of his friends pressing a firm hand on his back to keep him upright. She smiled. "I'll help you get him back since it's my fault. Gotta get back to the huts anyway."
The airman accepted, each of them slinging one of Egan's arms around their shoulders as he tilted haphazardly over to one side, struggling to prop himself up against her due to her height. Trailing towards the door, a few of the men let out celebratory whoops at her as she passed, praising her victory.
"Thanks for the night, gents - I'm here all war," Frankie called over her shoulders, a cheer erupting from the crowd as they dragged Egan sideways out of the door.
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It was growing difficult to see as they marched John back to the huts, the street lights growing more and more sparse the closer they got to the airfield. "You gotta teach me how to do that," He slurred, tilting his head down towards her, the smell of liquor thick on his breath.
"You gotta get more practice in - you Americans with your 'no alcohol until you're 21' rule never stood a chance, we've just been in the game longer."
"Ah," He nodded, pausing for a moment. "Hey, why'd you call yourself Frankie?"
"Because Frances is a terrible name," She scoffed.
"Can I call you Fran?"
"Only if you want to die."
"Fair enough."
As they reached the end of the row of men's huts, she shrugged his arm off of her shoulders, relinquishing custody of John to the other airman, who thanked her for her help.
"See ya 'round, Shortcake!" Egan called as they trailed away, grinning proudly to himself at the nickname. Frankie scoffed, rolling her eyes and massaging her temples as her headache steadily worsened.
"You look like shit," George whispered as she wandered back into their hut. She had rolled her hair up into pin curls, protected beneath a headscarf, and was reading a copy of Wuthering Heights in the dim light of her bedside lamp.
"Got into a drinking contest with one of the Americans," She shrugged, tossing her beer-stained blouse and jacket into a crumpled heap at the foot of her bed, a reminder to wash them tomorrow.
"Did you win?"
"Of course."
"Shh!" One of the other women hissed from the opposite end of the room, shrouded in the darkness. Frankie pulled a face at her scolding, dragging a brush through the knots in her dark brown hair as George stifled a laugh, discarding her book and turning off the light once her friend had changed and gotten into bed.
It was silent for a while as she lay beneath the blankets, staring up at what would have been the ceiling if not for the complete absence of light. Her alcohol-induced headache thrummed behind her eyes, a constant, dull pain keeping her from sleep.
"George?" She whispered.
"What?"
"Do you have an aspirin?"
The sound of quiet rummaging was audible in the stillness of the hut, and she struggled to suppress a laugh as she felt the tube smack her in the face, a result of Georgina tossing it blindly in the darkness.
"Thank you," She giggled, trying not to gag as she took the pills dry, lying back and waiting for the pain to subside as she thought back on the night's events.
I'm not that short.
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The blinding morning sun was unwelcome the next day as Frankie made her way to the airfield from her hut, bike resting against her hip as she made a momentary stop to fix her hair for the day ahead, hair tie held between her teeth as she scooped it into a ponytail. Most of the women she shared the Nissen hut with had left over an hour ago, hurrying to the flight tower in anticipation of the arrival of yet more American pilots, but her job didn't begin until after the planes landed, so fortunately for her, she had been afforded a little more sleep, her headache now more or less dissipated.
A loud honking startled her, the hair tie slipping from her teeth and falling to the floor. As she bent to pick it up, a jeep rolled to a stop in front of her, the horn parping once more.
"Fuck's sake, what?" Frankie muttered, glancing up to see the cheery grin of Major John Egan smiling down at her.
"Mornin'."
"Are you even fit to drive after last night?"
"Fifty-fifty. Hop in, throw your bike in the back."
She frowned as she noticed the pile of bikes already forming in the back of the car, but stacked her on top all the same, sliding into the passenger seat beside him. "Starting a collection?"
"Won them in a bet, night before last. Got one for me and my buddy Buck, he's arriving today."
"Is that Major Cleven?" She asked.
"Sure is," John nodded as the engine roared to life, taking them sailing along the road towards the airstrip, the wind ruining her hair before she even had a chance to finish it.
"So..." He began, swerving slightly to dodge a few maintenance workers on bikes. "Where ya from, Frankie?"
"Stratford."
"I... do not know where that is."
"I didn't expect you to," She chuckled. "Grew up with my dad working his garage, that's what got me into it. Always preferred planes to cars, though."
"You and me both," John nodded, slowing as they neared the landing strip. Up ahead, the flight crew were beginning to disembark, and Frankie's eyes narrowed as she noticed one of the airmen carrying a large dog.
"If they let that dog shit in the plane, I'm not cleaning it up," She stated. "You've heard me say it, that's on the record now."
"Yes ma'am," Egan affirmed, pulling to a stop, a grin spreading across his face as he got close enough to recognise his friends.
As he clambered out of the car, stepping forward to greet his comrades, she climbed out of her seat, wandering around the back of the jeep to disentangle her bike from the pile, tugging it free as the sounds of wind and aeroplane engines overpowered the men's voices.
"Oh, and, uh - This is Frankie Bevan," John called, guiding Cleven towards her, speaking louder so that she could hear. She raised her hand in a somewhat awkward wave, almost dropping her bike on her foot as she hauled it off the back of the jeep. "Best damn mechanic we've got, she's holdin' us together, that's for sure."
"Ma'am," Cleven greeted her with a tilt of his cap.
"He's never seen me work," Frankie shook her head, stepping forward to shake Cleven's hand. "We only met yesterday, he's just being nice in the hopes I won't tell you about how I drank him under the table last night."
John scoffed. "That is not what-" She raised a brow and he stuttered. "Yeah, that - that did happen."
Cleven laughed, squeezing Egan's shoulder. "Well, I'm sure glad he's had someone to keep him humble before I got here. Thank you for your work, ma'am, I'm sure we'll be seeing a lot more of each other soon."
She nodded, grinning at Egan's embarrassment. "How was your flight?"
"Smooth sailin', not sure there'll be anything to fix up this time."
A soldier she had heard John greet as Demarco spoke up from where he was stood, scratching his dog's stomach. "The dog dropped a deuce in the cockpit."
Clicking her fingers, she pointed to Egan. "She's not doing that!" He called, craning his head over his shoulder as Demarco put his hands up in surrender.
"Well, that works wonders," Frankie chuckled, lifting her leg to straddle the seat of her bike. "Now, if all you gents have planned is standing around, I've got work to do."
"Bye Shortcake," John grinned as she pedalled the bicycle into motion, ringing the bell and offering up a middle finger as she left. He chuckled, feeling Cleven clap him over the shoulder again.
"She's interesting... nice," His friend began. "Bucky, I know you're sick of Marge tryna set you up, but she is definitely-"
"She's definitely my friend, Buck. Besides, I could never date a woman with a higher alcohol tolerance than me. That's just embarrassing."
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The wind whipped her hair this way and that as Frankie hammered at the pedals, gaining speed faster and faster with each second until the rolling fields beyond the airstrip were little more than a green blur. She'd always loved to cycle, preferably as fast as she possibly could. Her father used to say she should try racing, but his ambition curtailed rather when she got in trouble for almost taking out a couple of tourists outside Shakespeare's birthplace on her way home from school. Besides, she'd never quite had the discipline for sports.
Her breaks squeaked noisily as she rolled to a stop outside the mechanics' Nissen hut, stationed just beyond the main runway. They had been given a single hut for all of their operations, much to the chagrin of many. The back end was an orderly pile of spare parts - buckets of rivets, piles of sheet metal - but someone had supplied them with a table and chairs, and the recent addition of a gas stove and kettle had proved a huge hit.
Ken Lemmons was sat at the table as she wandered in, glancing at the corkboard by the door where she and the others posted notice of anything in need of urgent repair.
"A couple of the guys replaced the glass in the gun turrets earlier - thanks for the shout," Lemmons spoke up.
"Ah, good," Frankie nodded, taking a seat opposite him. As much as she bemoaned her younger, American co-workers, she had grown fond of Ken. He was sipping a cup of coffee, and by the look on his face, he was not enjoying it. She tossed the paper bag containing her lunch onto the table, retrieving a cucumber sandwich - meagre subsistence, and a sight that made the boy frown.
"I think I'd actually murder someone for some Hershey's right about now," He remarked, grimacing as he took another sip of coffee.
"Hey, we make do with what we've got," She shrugged, attempting to devour the sandwich before the cucumber could soak through the thin slices of bread. "I know one of the girls in the Land Army - I darn her jumpers in exchange for a bit of her extra cheese ration."
Lemmons chuckled, leaning back in his seat. "I miss good chocolate. I can't get used to... Cad-berry's?"
"Oh, that's sacrilege," She laughed, tossing a slice of cucumber at him, which stuck to the breast pocket of his coveralls. "If you'd come a couple years ago when they were still making Dairy Milk you'd've thought you'd died and gone to heaven."
"I'll believe it when I see it," He grinned, plucking the slice off of his clothes. There was a pause before he spoke again. "One of the fellas says they're actually taking off later."
Frankie nodded, lifting a hand to cover her mouth as she spoke around her food. "Oh yeah? This gonna be your first proper go at it?"
"Yeah..." Lemmons admitted, looking momentarily nervous. "You?"
She snorted back a laugh. "Nah. I've been in the WAAF nearly four years - moved around a bit, but whether it's Attlebridge or Docking or Thorpe Abbotts, it's all the same gig. You stick with me when the planes start coming back down and you'll be fine."
The corner of his mouth tilted upwards in a smile. "You're gonna babysit me?"
Frankie grinned, standing up to reach across the table and ruffle his curls. "With a cute little face like yours, who could help it?" She teased, laughing as he batted her away.
"Get off, I'm serious," Lemmons chuckled, but the smile never faded from his expression.
Ken's buddy hadn't been wrong, per se, but his fabled mission had come not hours, but days later, with a hammering knock on the door to her hut, the women stirring from their sleep in a wave of disgruntled moans.
"What time is it?" Frankie whined as she rubbed the sleep from her eyes, resisting the urge to burrow her head beneath the pillow and block out the relentless knocking outside.
"Four thirty," George groaned, frowning vindictively at her watch as she put it on, as if time itself had caused her personal grievance.
"They're flying today, get ready!" A young male voice bellowed from the other side of the door, clearly too shy to bare his face to a room of half-dressed, irritated women.
"Fuck me, I'm coming," She muttered, brushing her hair with one hand as she buttoned up the front of her coveralls with the other.
"Spot me! How's my lipstick?" George called, and Frankie leant across the bed that separated them to wipe a stray smudge of red away with her thumb.
"All good."
"Right," Her bunkmate huffed. "I'll see you later, yeah?"
"See you later," Frankie affirmed.
"I'll join you for drinks this time if all goes well!" George called over her shoulder as she scurried towards the door.
"I'll hold you to that!" She replied, smiling as she laced up her boots.
The planes left and returned in mere hours, but the in-between had felt never-ending as the ground crew waited in tense anticipation to see how many would return and in what state. Frankie had sent Egan away to the flight tower after his nervous hovering had started to get on her nerves, and she had since spent the last half-hour sitting in the grass beside the runway making daisy chains with a few of the local children as a way to pass the time.
"Frankie! They're comin' in!" She heard Lemmons yell from across the airstrip. Hurriedly sending the children back to their parents as the sound of plane engines grew steadily louder overhead, she scrambled to her feet, grass stains streaking the knees of her coveralls as she jogged over, raising a hand to shield her eyes from the sun as the planes began to descend towards them.
"...10, 11, 12..." Frankie muttered, coming to the slow realisation that many of the men they'd sent away that morning had not returned. But that loss did not negate the importance of the work they had to do now. "Ok, let's go," She patted Lemmons on the shoulder, and they reached for the bikes they had discarded on the ground nearby, pedalling hard towards the landing strip.
From the second they arrived, she was surveying the damage, scanning the planes for the areas that would need the most attention. It was impossible to pick just one.
"There's a reason we go at night," She muttered, so softly no one else could hear over the din of shouts and dying engines. The mechanics weren't emergency staff, but she'd seen a fair few planes come in either on fire, half-collapsed or both over the years, enough to learn it was best to get in as soon as possible.
"Shit," Lemmons huffed beside her, staring up at a huge, jagged hole in the metal of one of the plane's wings.
"Send a couple of the boys back to the hut - tell them to bring a car back with all the sheet metal they can put in it. Oh - and get me a welder!" She called to him, and the young man began barking orders at the other mechanics, the crew erupting to life around the plane as they began to fix the mess that had returned.
"Frankie!" Egan's voice rang from down below as she climbed up onto the top of the plane, marking out the areas of the body that needed replacing. She looked down at him as he yelled again. "You need anything?"
"Nope, we're good here!" Frankie replied, holding up a thumbs-up in case the wind drowned out her voice. Looking down at the work to do below her, it was as if she could map out every fix in her mind, envision every action in order, play it out in her head until the beast was as good as new. She smiled to herself. "This is what I do."
#masters of the air#masters of the air fic#masters of the air oc#mota oc#hbo war#john egan#gale cleven#ken lemmons#rosie rosenthal x oc#oc: frankie#mota#fic | i'm your man#oc: george
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major gale ‘buck’ cleven and major john ‘bucky’ egan loved to share the pretty things they picked up at the bar. it always started the same, bucky scanning all the girls at the bar with their perfect dresses and rosy perfumes that reeked off them as he walked by, until one eventually caught his eye. you. and as soon as he saw you, he’s bumping his elbow to buck’s arm, who would roll his eyes and remind him of marge. well, at first he would care about her. poor marge, awaiting him at home, she had no idea how many girls he had picked up whilst away, how many lipstick stains coated his skin at the end of the night.
buck was more quiet, as opposed to bucky’s cocky, loud demeanor— so bucky always made the first move. “what’s a pretty thing like you doin’ here all alone?”
he always loved watching the sweet girls like you bat your lashes up at him, sweetly hitting him with a, “major?” which is soon followed by a shy, quiet, “‘m not sure.”
and that was bucky’s cue now, of course, to wave buck over, “y’know, we could give you some company.”
and of course, like all the others you would agree, nodding your head and following them back to the barracks. when you did eventually get there, it seemed like a ritual for bucky and buck with how quick they were to put you between them on one of the nearest beds. bucky sat to your left, and buck to your right. buck always took it slow, pressing soft kisses to your cheek where you melted into them, whereas bucky would move your jaw so you were looking at him, lips pressing to yours.
it wouldn’t take long for bucky and buck to assume their typical positions, bucky always called dibs on the mouth, whilst buck prefered to be balls deep inside of you, watching the way your lashes flutter as you slobber over bucky’s cock. something about it was so dirty, so sick, and yet they loved it so much— and of course, bucky loved to play with you as you’re being fucked dumb by buck, teasing his tip on your tongue and making you call him sir.
he always had a thing for that.
#masters of the air#mota spoilers#mota#mota fanfic#motaedit#john egan#gale cleven#austin butler#callum turner#john egan x reader#john egan x oc#john egan x you#bucky x reader#bucky x you#buck x you#buck x reader#mota smut#callum turner imagine#callum turner x reader#callum turner edit#austin butler x reader#austin butler x you#austin butler smut#austin butler fanfiction#callum turner icons#bucky egan#buck cleven#major john egan#major gale cleven#major john egan x reader
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Worth
John "Bucky" Egan x female!reader
Summary: You're swept off your feet by one Major John C. Egan, and you love every second of it. Sequel to Birdie.
Word Count: 3.0k
Tags: female!reader, mechanic!reader, women™, period typical sexism & misogyny, fun date night, dude w/ a small dick gets rightfully called out, mostly just fun date stuff, tons of fluff
A/N: Hello all! Thank you so much for the kind words on Birdie. I really appreciate everyone's comments, they warm my heart right up. I almost didn't write this, but the thought of having these two smooch it up was too good to pass up. I also completely headcanon that Bucky has the biggest sweet tooth, oops. As always, I'd be most gracious if you were to leave a like, comment, and/or reblog :)
Read the OC Version of this story on AO3!
Disclaimer: I own nothing. This story and any recognizably named characters are based solely on dramatic portrayals of the characters from the series, not the real individuals they represent. All the respect to the actual service people who fought and died in the Second World War. Also, please don't copy, repost, or translate my writing without explicit prior permission. Don't even think about it, AI!
A knock at the door brings butterflies to your stomach.
“Oh, he’s here!” Irene shouts, which is immediately met with your shushing, as well as Teresa’s.
You nervously pat your hair and check over your outfit for the evening. You’re spending your second day’s leave on a date with Bucky Egan. He had approached you last night at the pub, asking if you wanted to grab dinner. Alone.
You, of course, said yes.
Teresa and Irene go to answer the door while you gather your purse, stuffing it with your essentials. Your friends greet him at the same time, sounding like twins.
“Good evening, Major!”
“Good evening, Major!”
You hear his deep voice reply, only a small bit of surprise leaking into his voice.
“Good evening, ladies. Is Birdie around? We have dinner plans.”
“I’m here! Hi.” You step around the wall that hides you from the front door, taking a look at the man you’d been crushing on for months. He stands tall and confident in his neatly pressed uniform, hat covering most of his dark curls. His mouth gapes, giving you a once over and attempting to speak up.
“I- You-…Uh, wow. Y-you look…” But any sweet words he attempts to say are interrupted by Irene, who comes in hot with a manic smile.
“Did you know that my daddy taught me how to shoot when I was just a little girl? I’m real good at it. They call me Oakley, back home, cause of how great a marksman I am. Y’know, like Annie Oakley?” She stepped forward, puffing up her chest and giving a frightening grin to Major Egan. You and Teresa exchanged confused looks, not knowing quite where she was going with this.
“I’m not allowed a sidearm or a rifle over here, but I’m sure I could easily borrow one from any of the fellas on base should you break my best friend’s hea—”
“OKAY! We don’t wanna be late, all the tables might be taken soon. Gotta go. Love you. Bye!” You quickly shove past the blonde, stepping over the threshold. You take Bucky’s hand and practically drag his tall form down the hallway, away from your best friend’s attempt at a shovel talk.
You faintly hear Teresa’s well wishes to you amid the aggressively whispered conversation she has with Irene. The last words you hear before the elevator door closes in front of you are a heavily accented protest from Irene.
“What? I was just trying to..!”
The pair of you stand in the elevator in silence. A slight rocking indicates the starting motion of it, which snaps you back to reality. Looking down, you realize that you’re still holding hands with Bucky. You quickly separate your hand from his, heat rising to your cheeks.
“Your friends seem nice.”
Your head snaps to glance at Bucky, who is already looking at you. A sincere smile graces his face, not a hint of mocking in his eyes.
“I’m glad you have them looking out for you.”
You feel your face start to cool down, making you comfortable enough to respond.
“They drive me nuts sometimes. But they’re the best friends I could ever ask for.” You mean every word.
You see John nod, so you turn back to look to the elevator doors in front of you. An awkward pause.
“You look beautiful.”
Another pause. “What?”
“It’s what I meant to say earlier. That you look beautiful. Because you do.”
Heat quickly returns to your cheeks, spreading throughout your whole upper body. You give a bashful smile, peeking up at him through your lashes. You gaze into his eyes for a moment.
“Thank you, Johnny. You look quite handsome yourself.” The Major adjusts his hat, covering just the tips of his ears. He returns your gaze with an uncharacteristically nervous grin. The floor gives a slight rattle, elevator door and gate opening to reveal the lobby.
John straightens up, holding out his arm for you to take. You tentatively weave your hand within the crook of his elbow. He gently presses his arm in, bringing your body closer to his.
You meet your other hand in its position and let Bucky lead you out of the hotel and into the evening air.
✨
“That was so delicious! I never knew that a roast could be so tender…”
The pair of you were walking arm-in-arm down a cobblestone street, just having finished dinner. It was a wonderful time. Bucky had been the perfect gentleman, but made his interest in you clear without being sleezy.
He was entirely focused on you the whole time. He asked questions and was genuinely invested in your answers. Conversation came to the two of you like a duck to water. After a shared glass of wine, his hand had slowly inched towards yours. Soon he had cradled it in his, like you were a precious commodity, until your meals arrived. You could hardly keep your eyes off of each other long enough to even promptly acknowledge the wait staff, which you were sure annoyed some and amused others.
Safe to say, John Egan was doing his best to sweep you off your feet.
You hadn’t discussed any other plans for after dinner, but the walk you’re on now is nice enough to give you reason to stick close together.
Bucky nods along, “And that fruit tart? Incredible.”
You laugh, leaning into your date, “I knew that would be your favorite part. You’ve got a bit of a sweet tooth, don’t you?”
Bucky holds his hands up with a mischievous smirk on his face, “Hey, I plead the fifth.”
“I’ll admit, I’ve never seen someone so adamant on having some coffee with his sugar.” You continue to tease him. He nudges you playfully, giving a smooth grin in return.
“Hey, we’re in a war! If you see something sweet,” Bucky surprises you by picking you up and twirling you around, getting a full belly laugh from you as he sets you back on the ground.
“You gotta snatch it up and enjoy it while you can.”
You have a feeling that he wasn’t just talking about food.
By that point, you’re leaning against his front, hands on both of his shoulders. The moment has shifted into something else. Something different. His eyes roam your face, eventually stopping on your lips. Just as he starts to lean in, the moment is shattered by the sound of instruments starting up nearby. Bucky flinches, cursing the ill-timed disruption.
Oblivious to his turmoil, you gasp in delight and look around for the source of the music.
“Do you hear that? I think there’s a band playing!”
You spot a few people walk into what looks like a club. It barely a stone’s throw from where you’re both currently standing.
Bucky quickly recovers, “Should we grab a drink? Have a dance or two?”
You beam at him, and his heart stutters in his chest once more. After you give a nod, you place your hand in his arm and let him lead you into the club.
The two of you step into the establishment, and the energy is almost electric. There are mills of people walking about, drinking, talking, laughing. There’s a great score more on the dance floor, hopping and jiving along to the band you now knew you’d heard earlier. There weren’t a lot of uniforms present, but the ones that were were RAF.
Bucky guides you to the bar, hand on your back until you're both sat on a pair of stools. Your drinks are quickly ordered and served, so your night continues. You both allow yourselves to talk shop for a moment, so your conversation turns towards what you were working on before your leave. As you get to discussing the more intricate parts of your project, you hear a scoff from behind you.
John quickly looks over your shoulder, spotting the culprit.
“Excuse me, is there a problem here?”
You turn around to find a uniformed man taking a sip of his whiskey, RAF logo plastered on the lapel. He mockingly shakes his head, placing the glass down on the bar.
“No, no problem at all.”
Bucky, ever the confrontationist, persists. “It seems like there’s a problem here.”
You gesture towards the man, silently indicating that he was welcome to speak his mind.
“It’s not enough that you Yanks come over to our country, destroy our pubs and disrespect our women with your recklessness. But you can’t even keep your own women in check! She should be at home, away from the war, for God’s sake. Taking care of the house and the children. You know, doing feminine duties.”
You had heard all of this before, so it was no skin off your back to hear it again. You roll your eyes and decided to just ignore him. Then the man started to laugh, as if he was in on a private joke.
“I mean, a female mechanic? Between that and your daytime missions, it’s no wonder you’re all dropping like flies.”
You let out an exhale, letting the air stream out through your nose. In your periphery, you see Bucky start to stand— to, no doubt, escalate the situation. You stop him with a hand on his chest. He sits back down, looking between you and the man who had just insulted you. You set your glass down, hopping off the stool and giving a slow clap.
“I’m so glad to know that some people still live in the Stone Age, where apparently all a woman is good for is cooking and giving birth! Thank you so much for showing us exactly what a lack of education and individual thought looks like! See where we are—over in modern times— women can do whatever the hell they want. That includes fixing your planes and jeeps, operating your radios, driving your trucks, and even training your allies to use machine artillery!”
The RAF soldier realizes what he’s gotten himself into but is backed into a corner of the bar as you pace forward with each scathing word that leaves your mouth.
“Never mind all the bullshit you just spouted about what a woman is fit to do. I think that women can decide for ourselves exactly what we can and cannot do. As for my countrymen, I’m proud to serve alongside them. They go up every day willing to sacrifice themselves so that the rest of us don’t have to. They’re gonna be remembered for their bravery and grit. They’re not cowardly enough to hem and haw and stick up their noses at the thought of a woman doing something other than popping out a kid and ironing their pleats.”
The music has dulled down, but you don’t have the complete attention of the club. That gives you the courage to say your final piece.
“Never you mind. I'm confident that the men I serve with, including the man I have with me tonight, aren’t anything like you. Thank God for that! They're not so…” You take an exaggerated glance towards the man’s crotch, scrunching up your nose. “…small-minded.”
Leaving the gaping man behind, you turn to Bucky and ask if he wants to go get some air. He picks his jaw up off the floor quick enough to nod and lead you back outside into the street.
Hey, hanging around Irene pays off sometimes.
As you step out into the night air, you close your eyes and take a deep breath. You feel John step up behind you, voice carefully asking,
“Hey, are you okay? Birdie?”
You continue to stand with your eyes closed. You just needed a moment.
“I’ve come too far to let anyone’s opinion of me, or my career choices, effect me.”
You open your eyes and look over your shoulder at your date. He gives an understanding nod, stepping closer to you. He places his hands on your arms, rubbing up and down in a soothing motion. You lean back into him, closing your eyes once more, letting him comfort you for the time being.
“Sorry if I ruined the night.”
You can feel a rumble from Bucky’s chest as he chuckles. “Oh, this night’s far from ruined. In fact, that was probably the best thing I’ve ever seen.”
One of your eyes pops open. You crane your neck to peek at him, “Even better than the time you told me about Curt knocking out an RAF officer in one punch?”
“Yep.”
“Winning that bet to get your bicycle?”
“Oh, for sure.”
“Better than your fruit tart from dinner?”
His smile widens, “Okay, let’s not get crazy here. Maybe it was top ten.”
“Top ten?!” You playfully gasp, turning around to face him again. You rest your hands on your hips, “What’s a girl gotta do to rank above a fruit tart around here?”
“Well…” You scoff and shove Bucky at the cheeky smirk he gives you. You’re quickly distracted by the sound of the band inside starting up again. This time with a familiar tune.
“Oh, your song’s on, Johnny!”
Bucky tosses his hat to the side, steps back and gives a very unserious bow. He then sneers with a hyper-nasal impression of the RAF officer you’d just affronted.
“My lady.”
You roll your eyes and give a joking curtsy in return, taking his offered hand. He pulls you into a proper stance for a waltz, which is a complete offset to the jive song that reaches your ears. You both jokingly hop along in the awkward squared formation for a moment, giggling to yourselves.
He gently pushes on your hip while outstretching his hand, so you take the cue and twirl until you’re both standing at each other’s fingertips. A quick grasp of your hand and a pull twirls you right back into his arms, bumping into his chest. The moment made you burst into laughter, leaning into your dance partner until the song ends.
The next song is a much slower tune, giving Bucky the chance to pull you in close. You hum along to the band playing, sidling up to the Major’s chest. He places a hand in yours and loops the other around your waist. Your free arm gently drapes under his and over his shoulder, encouraging a lean into his firm body. You both give a slow sway, leading each other back and forth in the quiet echoes of the street. Closer than before.
“You know, I’ve been plucking up the courage to ask you to dinner for a while now.”
You lay your head on the knuckles of your hand that rest on his shoulder, responding lowly.
“Really?”
You continue to sway.
“Yeah.”
You’re curious, so you ask, “What made you finally do it?”
He thinks on the answer for a moment, almost chewing on his thoughts. John is not the kind of person to typically contemplate over an answer, so you gift him all the time in the world to respond. You recognize how important that is to him.
“I… I think that it was a lot of little things.” He pulls you in closer. “Your smile, your eyes, the way you talk about the things you love. Birdie, you are so personable with everyone you come into contact with and it’s so magnetic.”
The flow of compliments shocks you, not expecting this barrage of details to come from the man in front of you. But you dance on anyways.
“But I really think what did me in was yesterday, at the pub. When you looked at me during your song.”
You remember. You know exactly what he was talking about. Whatever he must have felt, you know that you felt it too.
He continues to speak in an intimate tone as you sway along in the street.
“I felt my entire life click into place. It was like everything suddenly made sense. I didn’t have to wonder about what my life was going to be like in five, ten, fifteen years. Because I knew.”
He pulls back to look you in the eye, and the amount of vulnerability in his eyes floors you.
“I’ll be honest, it scared the shit outta me. It terrified me.”
You understand what he meant. This is all new to him, as it is to you. You pull his forehead to touch yours, noses gently brushing one another, as you offer your best words of comfort in that moment.
“Sometimes, you have to do what scares you the most to find out what’s worth doing.”
He cups your face, letting his lips ghost against yours. He made his intentions clear, but it was up to you to decide how you move forward.
So, you close your eyes and take the leap.
Your lips press into his, hands stroking the arms that were framing your face. He immediately responds in kind, lips moving in tandem with yours. You melt into him at the reciprocated motion. His arms soon move to your waist, pulling you impossibly close. Your arms reach around his neck, hands resting at the nape of his neck. As he deepens the kiss, you run your hands up, down, and through the dark curls on the back of his head, earning a groan from your partner.
A burst of warmth sparks from within your very being, traveling further and further through your body until you’re consumed by flames. Half of your mind is scrambling to make sense of reality, and the other half is completely consumed by passion.
After a moment, you reluctantly separate from one another, panting to catch your breath. It’s as if the world stopped spinning when you connected, and then started up again when you parted.
Giving a nervous look to the man you just kissed, you’re elated when he gives you an ear-to-ear grin. He grasps one of your hands in his, intertwining your fingers. His other hand comes up to cup your face again, thumb gently stroking your cheekbone.
You stay silent for the time being, letting the moment marinate. He brings up your joined hands to kiss the back of your palm. Your heart jumps with joy at the sight.
Bucky gives an exhale before breaking the silence.
“You are most definitely worth it.”
#masters of the air#mota#mota fanfic#mota fanfiction#john egan x reader#bucky egan x reader#bucky egan fanfiction#bucky x reader#bucky x you#john bucky egan x reader#john egan x female reader#john egan x oc#major john egan#masters of the air fanfiction#mota fic#bucky egan x oc#bucky egan x female reader#bucky fanfic#hbo war fandom#hbo war fanfic#curtis biddick#mota spoilers#hbo war oc#WWII era#jada writes sometimes#callum turner fic#callum turner fanfiction#callum turner x reader#callum turner imagine#john egan imagine
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