forasecondtherewedwon

[forasecondtherewedwon]

"Very much the Doctor of the modern age."

#never watched an ep. of DW in my life but I adore Ncuti Gatwa #good for him #and good for whoever's doing these costumes #Ncuti Gatwa

[forasecondtherewedwon]

trading paper dolls - chapter two

Fandom: Masters of the Air Rating: T (may change) Chapter: 2 / 3 Word Count: 2628

Summary: Tired of the pin-up girls, Alex draws Buck Cleven in a similar style, never intending for the sketch to fall into the hands of Bucky Egan.

read on tumblr: one

Stalag Luft was full of secrets. It was the one thing there was plenty of. If Alex looked as though he were hiding something, well, that was unexceptional; it made him look like everyone else. It made him, if anything, safer, because it increased his trustworthiness in the eyes of those around him. And those eyes were always looking, always peering, always glancing away with a quick flick that you couldn’t quite prove. Luckily, Alex was quick too. While most of those boys had flown (or flown in) bombers, he and Macon knew planes of a different velocity. That made them observant, made them careful, and Alex wanted to be careful with those boys’ trust now that he was gaining it. Trust was the one commodity he knew he wouldn’t be able to buy back if he lost it.

He was still drawing. Actually, he was drawing more publicly than he had before, even testing out a sketch on the hut’s front step, the cold biting his fingers as he gripped the pencil. Two goons on patrol passed his perch. Alex glanced up and saw one of them looking at the page in his hands, but then the guard only sneered and continued on, neither alerting his companion nor disciplining Alex for whatever crime they might’ve decided he had committed by drawing a pretty white girl in close-fitting pajamas. Spreading filth? Having a hobby? Surely those were both extreme offences in the eyes of cogs in a genocide machine, Alex thought sarcastically as he retreated into the bunkhouse, flexing his freezing fingers.

“You know I’ll help you no matter what,” Macon announced from his bunk. “Unless you get frostbite from bein’ stupid. That’s where I draw the line.”

Alex rolled his eyes and crossed the room to sit heavily on his own bunk.

“Got it.”

He knew that wasn’t the end of it though; he could feel Macon looking over his shoulder, like he always did, like a judgemental angel.

“What’re you doin’, doin’ that out there?” Macon demanded.

“I thought…” Alex sighed and set the half-finished drawing aside. “I thought I could make a trade.”

“With Nazis?”

“Yeah.”

“Shit. Guess they’re horny too. Maybe you should draw a girl in a… what’s the dame version of lederhosen?”

“Dirndl.” The answer came from Crank, reading at the table.

“Dirndl,” Macon repeated, instead of telling Crank to mind his business, like Alex knew he probably wanted to. They were both feeling fortunate for the group’s tentative acceptance of them though, and Alex was glad Macon seemed equally unwilling to jeopardize that over a small annoyance. Crank could hardly help overhearing them anyway.

Alex laughed.

“Yeah, maybe next time.” He hunched forward and rubbed his forehead. “Or it was just stupid, like you said.”

“What’d you think they’d give you?” Macon wondered.

“Not much they have access to—not much material. I was hoping, you know, information.”

Macon burst into laughter that startled the book out of Crank’s hands.

“You thought…” he panted. “You thought those damn Nazis were gonna take one look at those perky cartoon sweater-fillers and let you in on their plans?”

“I don’t see you tryin’ anything!” Alex said defensively. The plan hadn’t sounded quite so foolish in his head as it did leaving Macon’s mouth.

“Maybe you could bandage my damn neck with something and see if one of them goons feels tempted to write secret information on it.”

“Alright,” Alex said, signalling the end of their talk with a dismissive wave over his shoulder at Macon.

So, his plan hadn’t been any good. At least it hadn’t made anything worse. That was always a very real danger, and one Alex did not wish to bring down upon the heads of himself and his bunkroom fellows.

Feeling his ambition had been frustrated but not yet blunted, Alex tucked the pencil behind his ear and left the bunkroom. He went to the library, where he hoped he’d be able to make some real progress. It was empty when he arrived. Skimming his fingers over the spines, Alex drew a book from the shelf seemingly at random. He made sure to sit away from the windows and facing the door so he would be able to see if anyone walked in.

Cautiously, he cracked the book open, then thumbed a few pages back from where the leaves parted naturally. He had left a folded sheet of paper there, and there it remained. Though this wouldn’t have been how he’d have found out had the drawing been discovered (there would have been more violence—more fists, more guns, more dogs), Alex sighed in relief to see it still in its place. He shot another look at the empty doorway before sliding the paper free and unfolding it.

It was a map—one of his. Most days, he had nothing to add. Some days, he added little things, like guessing at the density of a stand of trees. All information was valuable; if anyone tried to escape, perhaps it would be necessary for them to double back, to hide amongst those trees. Lately, Alex had also roughed in dashed lines to represent the routes the goons took when they patrolled the camp. These, of course, weren’t fixed, but he could tell the cold was getting to the Germans too, and that they often followed the same path when they were keeping out of the sharp, dry wind that whipped between the huts. Alex found the line that represented the route the guards had travelled today as he’d sat outside and pressed his pencil to the dashes, darkening the path to indicate repeated use.

Every mark he made on this paper, every line he added, was meticulously straight. Straight fence, straight rows of huts, straight guard paths that turned corners and turned back on themselves with right angles. It was how Alex was managing now, since that other drawing had gone missing. He kept the curves for the fantasy pin-up girls (who were girls, exclusively) and the straight lines for reality. No crossover. He wasn’t tempted to go there again. His truce with Egan felt far too tenuous.

He would feel Egan looking at him at all hours, only to have the man glance swiftly away when Alex summoned the nerve to meet his stare. Alex suspected Egan was paranoid that he was already watching him, which made Alex absolutely certain Egan still had that drawing of Buck Cleven. Neither could expose the other without dooming himself, and Alex guessed he really didn’t know Egan well enough to be sure, beyond doubt, that he wouldn’t do something so unprofitable and reckless.

Alex had no plans to give up Egan’s secret—secrets: that he’d kept the drawing, and what continued possession implied about his other hungers—and he wished more than anything that he could just forget he’d ever done the sketch. Unfortunately, he knew it was out there. So slight, so fragile that paper. So relatively meaningless, considering the scope of their circumstances and their precarious chances in the hands of capricious tormentors, but so valuable for the raw need it betrayed in the one who concealed it. War, Alex knew, confinement… these things winnowed down desires until a man could only want one thing or else feel the lack so sharply that his mind would starve long before the meagre rations gave out. Egan’s one thing was Buck Cleven, and Egan knew Alex knew.

Did he really think Buck didn’t?

—

If Bucky could’ve burnt the paper, he lied to himself and told himself he would’ve. As it was, the drawing kept him warm, no flames needed, making him feel as though someone had dropped a hot spark down the back of his shirt whenever he peeled open the page’s softening folds and stole a glimpse. It wasn’t always easy to resist.

He kept it with him, down in the pocket of his coat. Out in the bitter chill of the yard, hands shoved deep, he would twitch the page between his cold fingers, curl it around his thumb, all while glowering at the goons or chatting with Brady or fetching a pail of water like a goddamn dystopian nursery rhyme. At night, Bucky smoothed the page flat and slept on top of it. He could hear its muffled crinkle when he shifted. He ached with how hard he needed it to not tear, but he couldn’t bring himself to hide it elsewhere. This was how the paper had become worn; this was why it was no longer crisp, but soft, like skin.

The beds weren’t warm, and neither were the bunkrooms that housed them. Still, Bucky managed an occasional sweat. This, added to his body’s persistent grime, was fading the pencil lines Jefferson had drawn. He was seeping into Buck, the lines that made Buck up rubbing off onto his skin and clothing. When he erased him completely—and it was a when, not an if—Bucky wondered whether it would feel like a loss or an accomplishment, a man gone or a single body holding traces of them both. Because he felt, some days, to be only a trace of himself. A lone shot in the night, a slicing sheet of rain snatched away by the wind. He felt sharp and cold and intangible. He clasped the drawing of Buck all the tighter to feel like he was real.

The thought of telling this—telling any of it—to Buck the man terrified Bucky. He couldn’t unzip his skin and unbuckle his ribs and unclasp his heart and say, Look here. This is where I need you. It’s gettin’ pretty desperate, Buck. Better to use the drawing to wipe the filth off his face than to dirty the man.

It would be fine, Bucky told himself—lying again—if not for two things: that Jefferson was a loose end, and that Bucky knew a day was coming, faster and faster, when his body would overrule his brain. Some morning, his eyes would find Buck’s as they were just waking up; some afternoon, he would stand too close to him; some evening, he would lean his leg against Buck’s under the table while the boys played cards; and, late some night, he would go to Buck in the dark and remind him of the radio, would remind Buck how he had gathered what he’d asked for, would say, Put me to use, because I only feel the edges of myself when you define them. Beyond that was an abyss, a haze, a pit—and Bucky’s imagination was too scared to jump.

“Your mouth”—those words were the dual harbingers of Bucky’s collapse. He spoke them to Buck while watching him eat a thin soup with a shallow spoon. Buck paused with that referenced mouth open, spoon on its way up. He lowered it back to the bowl.

“What’s that?” he asked, like he hadn’t heard.

Bucky cleared his throat, then shook his head, wearing a vague smile.

“Your lips are cracking,” he said. “From the cold.” He added, “Mine too,” like that would make it better, but now he was thinking about Buck’s mouth and his own and his head was swimming, only partially from hunger.

Slowly, Buck replied, “Uh huh.” He kept eating.

Bucky stared down into his bowl as he finished the meal. He worried Jefferson was watching him, but he wouldn’t look up to prove it; he preferred being discrete to being right. That might have been a first. Where his glance eventually landed was back on Buck, who wasn’t looking. Regardless, Bucky suspected his suspicion. He felt stupid and obvious. He felt he was one big pair of eyes.

It took minutes for him to fuck it all again, but worse. Dizzingly so.

He’d pushed away from the table after eating, donned his coat, and sought his solitude in the yard. Hadn’t worked. Buck had followed, just long enough after that Bucky knew before he even turned to look at the inevitable owner of the approaching footsteps that he’d taken time to wind the thick blue scarf around his neck. He always took more care than Bucky did; this, this situation, Bucky felt, would never happen to Buck. He would never have succumbed to the same insanity, falling asleep on a drawing of his best friend and waking up with a pale grey tattoo on his stomach where the graphite had transferred.

He turned and nodded at Buck. The blue made Buck look colder—his skin more wan, his eyes that squinted in the pale light bright and diseased—but also more beautiful. In spite of the distress holding the one drawing was causing him, Bucky wanted Buck captured like this too: this pallid, enduring creature against the barren landscape of dirt and huts. Buck walked close and Bucky sighed hot air in his direction.

“Y’alright?” Buck checked, and Bucky nodded but turned away. He didn’t want company.

He strode to the lee of the hut, out of the wind, but Buck came. They went together. Didn’t they always? Bucky leaned back against the wall, hands in his coat pockets.

“John,” said Buck, and that was all.

Then, he did something he hadn’t before, slipping his hand in next to Bucky’s, down in the pocket where Bucky was toying with the folded paper. Bucky stiffened and Buck frowned in confusion. He hadn’t felt it yet, but because Bucky didn’t try to extricate himself, Buck was able to explore. His fingers slid between Bucky’s, slow like rain, and Bucky closed his eyes, knowing it was all over, deciding he was at least going to enjoy these final moments. Buck’s fingers felt slim, his palm rough, his hand an easy one for Bucky to hold. He felt Buck hit the paper and stall his movement. Tears rose like a tide behind Bucky’s eyelids until one rolled out, so cold on his cheek that it was almost hot.

“Something they shouldn’t see?” Buck asked under his breath. He didn’t mention the crying, so Bucky assumed he hadn’t noticed.

He knew who Buck meant: the Germans. He thought Bucky was carrying plans of some kind, maybe a map.

Bucky shook his head, spilling more tears, and now, Buck saw.

His hand went to Bucky’s face. By the time Bucky opened his eyes, it was gone, but he still felt the way Buck’s palm had curve to cup his cheek.

Buck said things, many things, attempting to soothe Bucky even though he didn’t know what was wrong. He said them in the low voice that seemed to roll out of him. But, like a man adrift in the ocean, Bucky had given up. He smiled at Buck as if he were a hallucination—a final sight before his head went under. A kindness from his panicked mind. He understood that this was alarming, what with his wet eyes, but he sniffed and pressed the paper into Buck’s palm, still in his pocket. He felt the back of Buck’s fingers as they closed around it. And then the handoff was over. The waves were rising. His legs were too tired to kick.

Buck concealed most of his confusion, but Bucky knew he would be curious. Even so, he didn’t leave right away. He stayed. The two of them, sheltered from the cutting wind.

“Don’t… just don’t ask where it came from,” Bucky said when Buck finally pushed away from the wall. “That doesn’t matter. I take full responsibility for that.” He darted a look at Buck’s closed fist in explanation. “It’s just mine. Anything now… it’s between you and me, Buck.”

Buck smiled like this was the first thing that made sense.

“Always is,” he said simply.

Bucky nodded his gratitude.

#my writing #Masters of the Air

[forasecondtherewedwon]

MILO MANHEIM and PEYTON LIST in SCHOOL SPIRITS

#cute👏as👏hell👏 #School Spirits #I text a postcard sent to queue

[forasecondtherewedwon]

Being brave for me means... Failure? I think we are all a little perfectionists. We become obsessed with the idea of ​​winning and that if you don't it will always be seen as a failure. But the reality is that if you win all the time, where does it get you? You become lazy, in a sense, because you no longer challenge yourself. Sometimes losing is much more valuable than winning: that's where you create fire and inspiration within you. Leaving your comfort zone is always the most exciting thing because you grow and evolve. JESSICA CHASTAIN Harper's Bazaar Mexico, 2024

#Jessica Chastain #I text a postcard sent to queue

[forasecondtherewedwon]

trading paper dolls - chapter two

Fandom: Masters of the Air Rating: T (may change) Chapter: 2 / 3 Word Count: 2628

Summary: Tired of the pin-up girls, Alex draws Buck Cleven in a similar style, never intending for the sketch to fall into the hands of Bucky Egan.

read on tumblr: one

Stalag Luft was full of secrets. It was the one thing there was plenty of. If Alex looked as though he were hiding something, well, that was unexceptional; it made him look like everyone else. It made him, if anything, safer, because it increased his trustworthiness in the eyes of those around him. And those eyes were always looking, always peering, always glancing away with a quick flick that you couldn’t quite prove. Luckily, Alex was quick too. While most of those boys had flown (or flown in) bombers, he and Macon knew planes of a different velocity. That made them observant, made them careful, and Alex wanted to be careful with those boys’ trust now that he was gaining it. Trust was the one commodity he knew he wouldn’t be able to buy back if he lost it.

He was still drawing. Actually, he was drawing more publicly than he had before, even testing out a sketch on the hut’s front step, the cold biting his fingers as he gripped the pencil. Two goons on patrol passed his perch. Alex glanced up and saw one of them looking at the page in his hands, but then the guard only sneered and continued on, neither alerting his companion nor disciplining Alex for whatever crime they might’ve decided he had committed by drawing a pretty white girl in close-fitting pajamas. Spreading filth? Having a hobby? Surely those were both extreme offences in the eyes of cogs in a genocide machine, Alex thought sarcastically as he retreated into the bunkhouse, flexing his freezing fingers.

“You know I’ll help you no matter what,” Macon announced from his bunk. “Unless you get frostbite from bein’ stupid. That’s where I draw the line.”

Alex rolled his eyes and crossed the room to sit heavily on his own bunk.

“Got it.”

He knew that wasn’t the end of it though; he could feel Macon looking over his shoulder, like he always did, like a judgemental angel.

“What’re you doin’, doin’ that out there?” Macon demanded.

“I thought…” Alex sighed and set the half-finished drawing aside. “I thought I could make a trade.”

“With Nazis?”

“Yeah.”

“Shit. Guess they’re horny too. Maybe you should draw a girl in a… what’s the dame version of lederhosen?”

“Dirndl.” The answer came from Crank, reading at the table.

“Dirndl,” Macon repeated, instead of telling Crank to mind his business, like Alex knew he probably wanted to. They were both feeling fortunate for the group’s tentative acceptance of them though, and Alex was glad Macon seemed equally unwilling to jeopardize that over a small annoyance. Crank could hardly help overhearing them anyway.

Alex laughed.

“Yeah, maybe next time.” He hunched forward and rubbed his forehead. “Or it was just stupid, like you said.”

“What’d you think they’d give you?” Macon wondered.

“Not much they have access to—not much material. I was hoping, you know, information.”

Macon burst into laughter that startled the book out of Crank’s hands.

“You thought…” he panted. “You thought those damn Nazis were gonna take one look at those perky cartoon sweater-fillers and let you in on their plans?”

“I don’t see you tryin’ anything!” Alex said defensively. The plan hadn’t sounded quite so foolish in his head as it did leaving Macon’s mouth.

“Maybe you could bandage my damn neck with something and see if one of them goons feels tempted to write secret information on it.”

“Alright,” Alex said, signalling the end of their talk with a dismissive wave over his shoulder at Macon.

So, his plan hadn’t been any good. At least it hadn’t made anything worse. That was always a very real danger, and one Alex did not wish to bring down upon the heads of himself and his bunkroom fellows.

Feeling his ambition had been frustrated but not yet blunted, Alex tucked the pencil behind his ear and left the bunkroom. He went to the library, where he hoped he’d be able to make some real progress. It was empty when he arrived. Skimming his fingers over the spines, Alex drew a book from the shelf seemingly at random. He made sure to sit away from the windows and facing the door so he would be able to see if anyone walked in.

Cautiously, he cracked the book open, then thumbed a few pages back from where the leaves parted naturally. He had left a folded sheet of paper there, and there it remained. Though this wouldn’t have been how he’d have found out had the drawing been discovered (there would have been more violence—more fists, more guns, more dogs), Alex sighed in relief to see it still in its place. He shot another look at the empty doorway before sliding the paper free and unfolding it.

It was a map—one of his. Most days, he had nothing to add. Some days, he added little things, like guessing at the density of a stand of trees. All information was valuable; if anyone tried to escape, perhaps it would be necessary for them to double back, to hide amongst those trees. Lately, Alex had also roughed in dashed lines to represent the routes the goons took when they patrolled the camp. These, of course, weren’t fixed, but he could tell the cold was getting to the Germans too, and that they often followed the same path when they were keeping out of the sharp, dry wind that whipped between the huts. Alex found the line that represented the route the guards had travelled today as he’d sat outside and pressed his pencil to the dashes, darkening the path to indicate repeated use.

Every mark he made on this paper, every line he added, was meticulously straight. Straight fence, straight rows of huts, straight guard paths that turned corners and turned back on themselves with right angles. It was how Alex was managing now, since that other drawing had gone missing. He kept the curves for the fantasy pin-up girls (who were girls, exclusively) and the straight lines for reality. No crossover. He wasn’t tempted to go there again. His truce with Egan felt far too tenuous.

He would feel Egan looking at him at all hours, only to have the man glance swiftly away when Alex summoned the nerve to meet his stare. Alex suspected Egan was paranoid that he was already watching him, which made Alex absolutely certain Egan still had that drawing of Buck Cleven. Neither could expose the other without dooming himself, and Alex guessed he really didn’t know Egan well enough to be sure, beyond doubt, that he wouldn’t do something so unprofitable and reckless.

Alex had no plans to give up Egan’s secret—secrets: that he’d kept the drawing, and what continued possession implied about his other hungers—and he wished more than anything that he could just forget he’d ever done the sketch. Unfortunately, he knew it was out there. So slight, so fragile that paper. So relatively meaningless, considering the scope of their circumstances and their precarious chances in the hands of capricious tormentors, but so valuable for the raw need it betrayed in the one who concealed it. War, Alex knew, confinement… these things winnowed down desires until a man could only want one thing or else feel the lack so sharply that his mind would starve long before the meagre rations gave out. Egan’s one thing was Buck Cleven, and Egan knew Alex knew.

Did he really think Buck didn’t?

—

If Bucky could’ve burnt the paper, he lied to himself and told himself he would’ve. As it was, the drawing kept him warm, no flames needed, making him feel as though someone had dropped a hot spark down the back of his shirt whenever he peeled open the page’s softening folds and stole a glimpse. It wasn’t always easy to resist.

He kept it with him, down in the pocket of his coat. Out in the bitter chill of the yard, hands shoved deep, he would twitch the page between his cold fingers, curl it around his thumb, all while glowering at the goons or chatting with Brady or fetching a pail of water like a goddamn dystopian nursery rhyme. At night, Bucky smoothed the page flat and slept on top of it. He could hear its muffled crinkle when he shifted. He ached with how hard he needed it to not tear, but he couldn’t bring himself to hide it elsewhere. This was how the paper had become worn; this was why it was no longer crisp, but soft, like skin.

The beds weren’t warm, and neither were the bunkrooms that housed them. Still, Bucky managed an occasional sweat. This, added to his body’s persistent grime, was fading the pencil lines Jefferson had drawn. He was seeping into Buck, the lines that made Buck up rubbing off onto his skin and clothing. When he erased him completely—and it was a when, not an if—Bucky wondered whether it would feel like a loss or an accomplishment, a man gone or a single body holding traces of them both. Because he felt, some days, to be only a trace of himself. A lone shot in the night, a slicing sheet of rain snatched away by the wind. He felt sharp and cold and intangible. He clasped the drawing of Buck all the tighter to feel like he was real.

The thought of telling this—telling any of it—to Buck the man terrified Bucky. He couldn’t unzip his skin and unbuckle his ribs and unclasp his heart and say, Look here. This is where I need you. It’s gettin’ pretty desperate, Buck. Better to use the drawing to wipe the filth off his face than to dirty the man.

It would be fine, Bucky told himself—lying again—if not for two things: that Jefferson was a loose end, and that Bucky knew a day was coming, faster and faster, when his body would overrule his brain. Some morning, his eyes would find Buck’s as they were just waking up; some afternoon, he would stand too close to him; some evening, he would lean his leg against Buck’s under the table while the boys played cards; and, late some night, he would go to Buck in the dark and remind him of the radio, would remind Buck how he had gathered what he’d asked for, would say, Put me to use, because I only feel the edges of myself when you define them. Beyond that was an abyss, a haze, a pit—and Bucky’s imagination was too scared to jump.

“Your mouth”—those words were the dual harbingers of Bucky’s collapse. He spoke them to Buck while watching him eat a thin soup with a shallow spoon. Buck paused with that referenced mouth open, spoon on its way up. He lowered it back to the bowl.

“What’s that?” he asked, like he hadn’t heard.

Bucky cleared his throat, then shook his head, wearing a vague smile.

“Your lips are cracking,” he said. “From the cold.” He added, “Mine too,” like that would make it better, but now he was thinking about Buck’s mouth and his own and his head was swimming, only partially from hunger.

Slowly, Buck replied, “Uh huh.” He kept eating.

Bucky stared down into his bowl as he finished the meal. He worried Jefferson was watching him, but he wouldn’t look up to prove it; he preferred being discrete to being right. That might have been a first. Where his glance eventually landed was back on Buck, who wasn’t looking. Regardless, Bucky suspected his suspicion. He felt stupid and obvious. He felt he was one big pair of eyes.

It took minutes for him to fuck it all again, but worse. Dizzingly so.

He’d pushed away from the table after eating, donned his coat, and sought his solitude in the yard. Hadn’t worked. Buck had followed, just long enough after that Bucky knew before he even turned to look at the inevitable owner of the approaching footsteps that he’d taken time to wind the thick blue scarf around his neck. He always took more care than Bucky did; this, this situation, Bucky felt, would never happen to Buck. He would never have succumbed to the same insanity, falling asleep on a drawing of his best friend and waking up with a pale grey tattoo on his stomach where the graphite had transferred.

He turned and nodded at Buck. The blue made Buck look colder—his skin more wan, his eyes that squinted in the pale light bright and diseased—but also more beautiful. In spite of the distress holding the one drawing was causing him, Bucky wanted Buck captured like this too: this pallid, enduring creature against the barren landscape of dirt and huts. Buck walked close and Bucky sighed hot air in his direction.

“Y’alright?” Buck checked, and Bucky nodded but turned away. He didn’t want company.

He strode to the lee of the hut, out of the wind, but Buck came. They went together. Didn’t they always? Bucky leaned back against the wall, hands in his coat pockets.

“John,” said Buck, and that was all.

Then, he did something he hadn’t before, slipping his hand in next to Bucky’s, down in the pocket where Bucky was toying with the folded paper. Bucky stiffened and Buck frowned in confusion. He hadn’t felt it yet, but because Bucky didn’t try to extricate himself, Buck was able to explore. His fingers slid between Bucky’s, slow like rain, and Bucky closed his eyes, knowing it was all over, deciding he was at least going to enjoy these final moments. Buck’s fingers felt slim, his palm rough, his hand an easy one for Bucky to hold. He felt Buck hit the paper and stall his movement. Tears rose like a tide behind Bucky’s eyelids until one rolled out, so cold on his cheek that it was almost hot.

“Something they shouldn’t see?” Buck asked under his breath. He didn’t mention the crying, so Bucky assumed he hadn’t noticed.

He knew who Buck meant: the Germans. He thought Bucky was carrying plans of some kind, maybe a map.

Bucky shook his head, spilling more tears, and now, Buck saw.

His hand went to Bucky’s face. By the time Bucky opened his eyes, it was gone, but he still felt the way Buck’s palm had curve to cup his cheek.

Buck said things, many things, attempting to soothe Bucky even though he didn’t know what was wrong. He said them in the low voice that seemed to roll out of him. But, like a man adrift in the ocean, Bucky had given up. He smiled at Buck as if he were a hallucination—a final sight before his head went under. A kindness from his panicked mind. He understood that this was alarming, what with his wet eyes, but he sniffed and pressed the paper into Buck’s palm, still in his pocket. He felt the back of Buck’s fingers as they closed around it. And then the handoff was over. The waves were rising. His legs were too tired to kick.

Buck concealed most of his confusion, but Bucky knew he would be curious. Even so, he didn’t leave right away. He stayed. The two of them, sheltered from the cutting wind.

“Don’t… just don’t ask where it came from,” Bucky said when Buck finally pushed away from the wall. “That doesn’t matter. I take full responsibility for that.” He darted a look at Buck’s closed fist in explanation. “It’s just mine. Anything now… it’s between you and me, Buck.”

Buck smiled like this was the first thing that made sense.

“Always is,” he said simply.

Bucky nodded his gratitude.

#my writing #Masters of the Air

[forasecondtherewedwon]

reblog and put in the tags if you had to be stuck in one month forever which one you would choose. i think i’d pick september

#May #forever planting my veggies

[forasecondtherewedwon]

NATE MANN as ROBERT "ROSIE" ROSENTHAL in Masters of the Air

#Robert 'Rosie' Rosenthal #MotA #Masters of the Air

[forasecondtherewedwon]

#!!!!! #The Sound of Music

[forasecondtherewedwon]

#*aggressively reblogs*

[forasecondtherewedwon]

Masters of the Air - ✨Variety Pack but it's just Rosie, Crosby, and Gale✨

13/?

#Second's MotA edit #MotA #Masters of the Air #Robert 'Rosie' Rosenthal #Gale 'Buck' Cleven #Harry Crosby

[forasecondtherewedwon]

#witch's hat of COURSE

[forasecondtherewedwon]

the ladies reading and relaxing

#yeah #books books books

[forasecondtherewedwon]

trading paper dolls - chapter two

Fandom: Masters of the Air Rating: T (may change) Chapter: 2 / 3 Word Count: 2628

Summary: Tired of the pin-up girls, Alex draws Buck Cleven in a similar style, never intending for the sketch to fall into the hands of Bucky Egan.

read on tumblr: one

Stalag Luft was full of secrets. It was the one thing there was plenty of. If Alex looked as though he were hiding something, well, that was unexceptional; it made him look like everyone else. It made him, if anything, safer, because it increased his trustworthiness in the eyes of those around him. And those eyes were always looking, always peering, always glancing away with a quick flick that you couldn’t quite prove. Luckily, Alex was quick too. While most of those boys had flown (or flown in) bombers, he and Macon knew planes of a different velocity. That made them observant, made them careful, and Alex wanted to be careful with those boys’ trust now that he was gaining it. Trust was the one commodity he knew he wouldn’t be able to buy back if he lost it.

He was still drawing. Actually, he was drawing more publicly than he had before, even testing out a sketch on the hut’s front step, the cold biting his fingers as he gripped the pencil. Two goons on patrol passed his perch. Alex glanced up and saw one of them looking at the page in his hands, but then the guard only sneered and continued on, neither alerting his companion nor disciplining Alex for whatever crime they might’ve decided he had committed by drawing a pretty white girl in close-fitting pajamas. Spreading filth? Having a hobby? Surely those were both extreme offences in the eyes of cogs in a genocide machine, Alex thought sarcastically as he retreated into the bunkhouse, flexing his freezing fingers.

“You know I’ll help you no matter what,” Macon announced from his bunk. “Unless you get frostbite from bein’ stupid. That’s where I draw the line.”

Alex rolled his eyes and crossed the room to sit heavily on his own bunk.

“Got it.”

He knew that wasn’t the end of it though; he could feel Macon looking over his shoulder, like he always did, like a judgemental angel.

“What’re you doin’, doin’ that out there?” Macon demanded.

“I thought…” Alex sighed and set the half-finished drawing aside. “I thought I could make a trade.”

“With Nazis?”

“Yeah.”

“Shit. Guess they’re horny too. Maybe you should draw a girl in a… what’s the dame version of lederhosen?”

“Dirndl.” The answer came from Crank, reading at the table.

“Dirndl,” Macon repeated, instead of telling Crank to mind his business, like Alex knew he probably wanted to. They were both feeling fortunate for the group’s tentative acceptance of them though, and Alex was glad Macon seemed equally unwilling to jeopardize that over a small annoyance. Crank could hardly help overhearing them anyway.

Alex laughed.

“Yeah, maybe next time.” He hunched forward and rubbed his forehead. “Or it was just stupid, like you said.”

“What’d you think they’d give you?” Macon wondered.

“Not much they have access to—not much material. I was hoping, you know, information.”

Macon burst into laughter that startled the book out of Crank’s hands.

“You thought…” he panted. “You thought those damn Nazis were gonna take one look at those perky cartoon sweater-fillers and let you in on their plans?”

“I don’t see you tryin’ anything!” Alex said defensively. The plan hadn’t sounded quite so foolish in his head as it did leaving Macon’s mouth.

“Maybe you could bandage my damn neck with something and see if one of them goons feels tempted to write secret information on it.”

“Alright,” Alex said, signalling the end of their talk with a dismissive wave over his shoulder at Macon.

So, his plan hadn’t been any good. At least it hadn’t made anything worse. That was always a very real danger, and one Alex did not wish to bring down upon the heads of himself and his bunkroom fellows.

Feeling his ambition had been frustrated but not yet blunted, Alex tucked the pencil behind his ear and left the bunkroom. He went to the library, where he hoped he’d be able to make some real progress. It was empty when he arrived. Skimming his fingers over the spines, Alex drew a book from the shelf seemingly at random. He made sure to sit away from the windows and facing the door so he would be able to see if anyone walked in.

Cautiously, he cracked the book open, then thumbed a few pages back from where the leaves parted naturally. He had left a folded sheet of paper there, and there it remained. Though this wouldn’t have been how he’d have found out had the drawing been discovered (there would have been more violence—more fists, more guns, more dogs), Alex sighed in relief to see it still in its place. He shot another look at the empty doorway before sliding the paper free and unfolding it.

It was a map—one of his. Most days, he had nothing to add. Some days, he added little things, like guessing at the density of a stand of trees. All information was valuable; if anyone tried to escape, perhaps it would be necessary for them to double back, to hide amongst those trees. Lately, Alex had also roughed in dashed lines to represent the routes the goons took when they patrolled the camp. These, of course, weren’t fixed, but he could tell the cold was getting to the Germans too, and that they often followed the same path when they were keeping out of the sharp, dry wind that whipped between the huts. Alex found the line that represented the route the guards had travelled today as he’d sat outside and pressed his pencil to the dashes, darkening the path to indicate repeated use.

Every mark he made on this paper, every line he added, was meticulously straight. Straight fence, straight rows of huts, straight guard paths that turned corners and turned back on themselves with right angles. It was how Alex was managing now, since that other drawing had gone missing. He kept the curves for the fantasy pin-up girls (who were girls, exclusively) and the straight lines for reality. No crossover. He wasn’t tempted to go there again. His truce with Egan felt far too tenuous.

He would feel Egan looking at him at all hours, only to have the man glance swiftly away when Alex summoned the nerve to meet his stare. Alex suspected Egan was paranoid that he was already watching him, which made Alex absolutely certain Egan still had that drawing of Buck Cleven. Neither could expose the other without dooming himself, and Alex guessed he really didn’t know Egan well enough to be sure, beyond doubt, that he wouldn’t do something so unprofitable and reckless.

Alex had no plans to give up Egan’s secret—secrets: that he’d kept the drawing, and what continued possession implied about his other hungers—and he wished more than anything that he could just forget he’d ever done the sketch. Unfortunately, he knew it was out there. So slight, so fragile that paper. So relatively meaningless, considering the scope of their circumstances and their precarious chances in the hands of capricious tormentors, but so valuable for the raw need it betrayed in the one who concealed it. War, Alex knew, confinement… these things winnowed down desires until a man could only want one thing or else feel the lack so sharply that his mind would starve long before the meagre rations gave out. Egan’s one thing was Buck Cleven, and Egan knew Alex knew.

Did he really think Buck didn’t?

—

If Bucky could’ve burnt the paper, he lied to himself and told himself he would’ve. As it was, the drawing kept him warm, no flames needed, making him feel as though someone had dropped a hot spark down the back of his shirt whenever he peeled open the page’s softening folds and stole a glimpse. It wasn’t always easy to resist.

He kept it with him, down in the pocket of his coat. Out in the bitter chill of the yard, hands shoved deep, he would twitch the page between his cold fingers, curl it around his thumb, all while glowering at the goons or chatting with Brady or fetching a pail of water like a goddamn dystopian nursery rhyme. At night, Bucky smoothed the page flat and slept on top of it. He could hear its muffled crinkle when he shifted. He ached with how hard he needed it to not tear, but he couldn’t bring himself to hide it elsewhere. This was how the paper had become worn; this was why it was no longer crisp, but soft, like skin.

The beds weren’t warm, and neither were the bunkrooms that housed them. Still, Bucky managed an occasional sweat. This, added to his body’s persistent grime, was fading the pencil lines Jefferson had drawn. He was seeping into Buck, the lines that made Buck up rubbing off onto his skin and clothing. When he erased him completely—and it was a when, not an if—Bucky wondered whether it would feel like a loss or an accomplishment, a man gone or a single body holding traces of them both. Because he felt, some days, to be only a trace of himself. A lone shot in the night, a slicing sheet of rain snatched away by the wind. He felt sharp and cold and intangible. He clasped the drawing of Buck all the tighter to feel like he was real.

The thought of telling this—telling any of it—to Buck the man terrified Bucky. He couldn’t unzip his skin and unbuckle his ribs and unclasp his heart and say, Look here. This is where I need you. It’s gettin’ pretty desperate, Buck. Better to use the drawing to wipe the filth off his face than to dirty the man.

It would be fine, Bucky told himself—lying again—if not for two things: that Jefferson was a loose end, and that Bucky knew a day was coming, faster and faster, when his body would overrule his brain. Some morning, his eyes would find Buck’s as they were just waking up; some afternoon, he would stand too close to him; some evening, he would lean his leg against Buck’s under the table while the boys played cards; and, late some night, he would go to Buck in the dark and remind him of the radio, would remind Buck how he had gathered what he’d asked for, would say, Put me to use, because I only feel the edges of myself when you define them. Beyond that was an abyss, a haze, a pit—and Bucky’s imagination was too scared to jump.

“Your mouth”—those words were the dual harbingers of Bucky’s collapse. He spoke them to Buck while watching him eat a thin soup with a shallow spoon. Buck paused with that referenced mouth open, spoon on its way up. He lowered it back to the bowl.

“What’s that?” he asked, like he hadn’t heard.

Bucky cleared his throat, then shook his head, wearing a vague smile.

“Your lips are cracking,” he said. “From the cold.” He added, “Mine too,” like that would make it better, but now he was thinking about Buck’s mouth and his own and his head was swimming, only partially from hunger.

Slowly, Buck replied, “Uh huh.” He kept eating.

Bucky stared down into his bowl as he finished the meal. He worried Jefferson was watching him, but he wouldn’t look up to prove it; he preferred being discrete to being right. That might have been a first. Where his glance eventually landed was back on Buck, who wasn’t looking. Regardless, Bucky suspected his suspicion. He felt stupid and obvious. He felt he was one big pair of eyes.

It took minutes for him to fuck it all again, but worse. Dizzingly so.

He’d pushed away from the table after eating, donned his coat, and sought his solitude in the yard. Hadn’t worked. Buck had followed, just long enough after that Bucky knew before he even turned to look at the inevitable owner of the approaching footsteps that he’d taken time to wind the thick blue scarf around his neck. He always took more care than Bucky did; this, this situation, Bucky felt, would never happen to Buck. He would never have succumbed to the same insanity, falling asleep on a drawing of his best friend and waking up with a pale grey tattoo on his stomach where the graphite had transferred.

He turned and nodded at Buck. The blue made Buck look colder—his skin more wan, his eyes that squinted in the pale light bright and diseased—but also more beautiful. In spite of the distress holding the one drawing was causing him, Bucky wanted Buck captured like this too: this pallid, enduring creature against the barren landscape of dirt and huts. Buck walked close and Bucky sighed hot air in his direction.

“Y’alright?” Buck checked, and Bucky nodded but turned away. He didn’t want company.

He strode to the lee of the hut, out of the wind, but Buck came. They went together. Didn’t they always? Bucky leaned back against the wall, hands in his coat pockets.

“John,” said Buck, and that was all.

Then, he did something he hadn’t before, slipping his hand in next to Bucky’s, down in the pocket where Bucky was toying with the folded paper. Bucky stiffened and Buck frowned in confusion. He hadn’t felt it yet, but because Bucky didn’t try to extricate himself, Buck was able to explore. His fingers slid between Bucky’s, slow like rain, and Bucky closed his eyes, knowing it was all over, deciding he was at least going to enjoy these final moments. Buck’s fingers felt slim, his palm rough, his hand an easy one for Bucky to hold. He felt Buck hit the paper and stall his movement. Tears rose like a tide behind Bucky’s eyelids until one rolled out, so cold on his cheek that it was almost hot.

“Something they shouldn’t see?” Buck asked under his breath. He didn’t mention the crying, so Bucky assumed he hadn’t noticed.

He knew who Buck meant: the Germans. He thought Bucky was carrying plans of some kind, maybe a map.

Bucky shook his head, spilling more tears, and now, Buck saw.

His hand went to Bucky’s face. By the time Bucky opened his eyes, it was gone, but he still felt the way Buck’s palm had curve to cup his cheek.

Buck said things, many things, attempting to soothe Bucky even though he didn’t know what was wrong. He said them in the low voice that seemed to roll out of him. But, like a man adrift in the ocean, Bucky had given up. He smiled at Buck as if he were a hallucination—a final sight before his head went under. A kindness from his panicked mind. He understood that this was alarming, what with his wet eyes, but he sniffed and pressed the paper into Buck’s palm, still in his pocket. He felt the back of Buck’s fingers as they closed around it. And then the handoff was over. The waves were rising. His legs were too tired to kick.

Buck concealed most of his confusion, but Bucky knew he would be curious. Even so, he didn’t leave right away. He stayed. The two of them, sheltered from the cutting wind.

“Don’t… just don’t ask where it came from,” Bucky said when Buck finally pushed away from the wall. “That doesn’t matter. I take full responsibility for that.” He darted a look at Buck’s closed fist in explanation. “It’s just mine. Anything now… it’s between you and me, Buck.”

Buck smiled like this was the first thing that made sense.

“Always is,” he said simply.

Bucky nodded his gratitude.

#my writing #MotA #Masters of the Air #Alexander Jefferson #Richard Macon #John 'Bucky' Egan #Gale 'Buck' Cleven #Bucky x Buck #MotA fic

[forasecondtherewedwon]

hatin:

if you ever feel bad about yourself remember that zac efron has a yolo tattoo

#genuinely burst out laughing #but good for him

[forasecondtherewedwon]

characters in their 30's and older exploring their sexuality and discovering themselves beyond their teens and twenties is so important and beautiful and worth telling

#🩷

[forasecondtherewedwon]

#*SNORT*

[forasecondtherewedwon]

#hamster dance came back full throttle just reading that one but salad fingers triggered the most jarring flashback so that one wins #do not recommend DO NOT RECOMMEND #what a time etc. etc.