#john egan x you

[blurredcolour]

The Only Truth... | Part Four

The Only Truth I Know Is You Masterlist

John "Bucky" Egan x POW Flight Nurse!Female Reader

The day Stalag VIIA is liberated ought to be one of pure celebration. Unfortunately, fate has other plans in store.

Warnings: Language, Angst, Death, Blood, Brief Battle, Serious Reader Injury [gunshot wound], POW Camp Setting, SS Officers, Mental Health Struggles, References to Christianity, Reader Scars, Hospital Setting, Kissing, Inevitable Historical and Military Inaccuracies, Rating - 18+ ONLY.

Author’s Note: Thank you all ever so much for your patience! At last we come to the end of our tale. This is a work of fiction based off the portrayal by the actors in the Apple TV+ series. I hold nothing but respect for the real life individuals referenced within.

Word Count: 6267

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

The morning of Sunday, April 29, 1945, dawned cloudy but bright. The chill of early spring still hung in the air, your breath hanging from your lips as you ducked out into the tent to collect the clean yet still-unfolded laundry that had been awaiting your attention throughout the drama of the rainstorm. You had just managed to tuck it away into your room when Fitzgibbons arrived with a new book for you to read, a more recently published fantasy novel called The Hobbit, though you had other priorities before diving into it.

You had almost gotten away with your clandestine chores, rags folded, and three-quarters of the bandages rolled, when your former surgical technician appeared at your door, knocking on the frame with an admonishing look on his face.

“I see you’re taking it easy on your day off, Ma’am.”

Huffing in irritation at being caught, you shook your head. “I’m off my feet, Fitz, can’t we just call a truce?”

He made a non-committal noise before cracking a grin. “Actually came to ask a favor, so I’m thinking we can come to an agreement. Menzies,” his deliberate mispronunciation of the British Captain’s name made you roll your eyes affectionately, “ordered me to flush a wound using your make-shift tools and honestly, I cannot make heads or tails of what you’ve jerry-rigged.”

Biting back a laugh, you nodded quickly, well aware that your cobbled-together system was more than a little unorthodox and not at all surprised Menzies had not taken the time to ensure Fitzgibbons knew how it worked. “Certainly, let me walk you through it.”

Grabbing the laundry you had thus far folded, you made your way down the hall to collect the items from the supply desk and followed him to the bedside of a new patient. Introducing yourself warmly, you learned the man’s name was Michaels and he hailed from the frigid wilds of Canada.

“Fitz and I are going to use this here to flush that wound, alright?” You nodded to the nasty laceration on his calf, your makeshift instruments cradled in your arms.

“Sounds fine, Ma’am.” He nodded patiently, vowels clipped remarkably short in that efficient Canuck way of speaking.

“Alright so if you take this, Fitz.” You held out a funnel with a piece of tubing secured to it, watching the tech take it carefully.

The mundane calm of the morning was shattered by the sudden hum of an airplane engine, your eyes shooting to meet Fitzgibbons’ sharply moments before the eruption of gunfire.

“Everyone get down!” He shouted and you both lurched into motion to begin helping your patients from their cots onto the wooden planks of the tent platform, abandoning your instruments on Michaels’ cot.

Panic rising as you once again found yourself in a wildly unsafe place while under fire, you urged the men from their beds to get low, presenting smaller targets for the errant bullets that were punching holes through the canvas of the tent every so often. The cacophony outside only increased with the rumble of approaching vehicles – tanks quite possible given the depth of sound that carried across the camp – and you nearly tripped over your own feet in an effort to reach the last two patients who simply could not move on their own.

Heaving one, Sidhu from India, out of his cot and depositing him onto the floor, you were just sliding your arms beneath the shoulders of the last, Hernandez from Texas, when searing heat and pain punched into your side. Your arms and legs gave out beneath you instantly, your body collapsing atop the poor boy still on his cot, both of you gasping for breath. With a grunt of annoyance, you flung a hand back to your hip, eyes widening as your fingertips were quickly covered in a warm, slick fluid.

“M…Ma’am?!” Hernandez warbled from beneath you, watching as you lifted your fingers to inspect just what was going on, his face blanching at the unmistakable scarlet of blood. “Doc?! Medic!! Help!!!” He began to shriek all the words he knew to summon assistance, making you wince at the racket as you forced yourself to roll off him, crashing to the floor in a pile of uncooperative limbs.

Taking a moment to try and catch your breath, pulse rocketing at an alarming rate, you began to realize that no matter how long you lay there, things were not improving. In fact the situation was growing a lot more serious as a deep ache was settling into your right side and you could feel your clothes growing damper with blood by the second. Rolling onto your stomach, you had just begun to feebly pull yourself across the floor of the tent when the racket outside subsided momentarily, Hernandez’s cries summoning several sets of boots to run in your direction.

A great, external cheer erupted in the same moment you were lifted by many hands onto one of the recently vacated cots, Chalmers, Menzies and Fitzgibbons all hovering above you as they yanked at your shirt and pants to get at your wound. The striking similarity between your plight and that of Simms set your teeth on edge, tears brimming in your eyes at the sudden thought that this could really be it. You might very well die here in these filthy, mud-covered clothes while the rest of the camp cheered on outside.

“Keep breathing for me, Nurse. You’ve got an entry and an exit wound, you just stay with us now.” Chalmers barked firmly and you managed a brief nod despite the shakes that seemed to want to rattle your bones. “Fitz go find out if they’ve got a Medic with them – we need sulfa and plasma, and she needs an aid station and surgery.”

“Sir!” He replied before you heard his frantic footfalls leave the tent.

Menzies applied a ruthless amount of pressure to the front and back of your hip and it was all you could do not to wail pathetically at the lances of pain that shot through you. “I know, Nurse, I know. For your own good, now. Why’d you have to go and get yourself shot in the middle of our liberation, hm?”

“Libe.r.ation?” It was difficult to form the word, your mouth clumsy and filled with cotton, head buzzing with adrenaline and pain.

Your heart was beginning to lose its rhythm, stuttering and skipping beats every so often. Your medical training offered a whispered explanation of ‘blood loss’ which did nothing for the suffocating feeling of panic in your chest.

“Looks like your American Army showed up to bring you home, so let’s make sure you can get there alright?” Chalmers added firmly and you nodded again, trying to take deep breaths.

You were so close. They were right there.

What had started as a frigid day seemed to be growing colder, your fingers tips positively icy by the time you heard Fitzgibbons return, giving someone a rundown. The familiarity of it made your heart ache for a simpler time when the two of you were the ones saving people, taking them from danger to safety. Now you were the one in peril, finding it remarkably difficult to keep your eyes open. The unfamiliar face of a young man in an Army helmet came into view before you felt the sting of sulfa on your wounds.

Your left sleeve was rolled up, your nonsensical protests going unheeded as the man began to search for a vein, inserting an IV for the bottle of cheery yellow plasma – the bright color anachronistic to the monochromatic color palette that pervaded the Stalag. Bandages were wrapped tightly around your middle once more and they were just about to lift you, cot and all, when another set of heavy footfalls sounded on the floorboards.

“Jesus christ…angelfish…” Bucky’s voice was unmistakable, though anguished, and you rolled your head to the side to look at him with a weak smile.

“Bucky.” You managed to form his nickname at a volume no more than a whisper, vision narrowing in on his pinched, tight features, the normally rosy hue completely drained from his cheeks.

Suddenly everything tilted and whirled as your cot was hoisted onto the shoulders of Chalmers, Menzies, Fitzgibbons, and the Medic.

“Take the plasma, Egan. Hold it up, keep pace.” Chalmers ordered sharply and the ceiling of the tent began to blur as they rushed out into the daylight, your vision going completely white before all was darkness.

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

The morning had seemed like any other, crowded around a small campfire trying to keep warm, trading suppositions about the end of the war with Jefferson, when the unmistakable sound of an aircraft engine had broken through the din of the camp.

“Hey Macon, that’s a P-51!” Jefferson had shouted and instantly the entire population was on their feet, cheering on the pilot as he took out on of the guard towers.

Their elation was short lived, the abrupt sound of incoming artillery sending all the prisoners into the dirt as every single German soldier seemed to open fire as one, the camp instantly an active battlefield. Bucky’s eyes strayed to the hospital tent, its canvas walls helplessly pinned between the encroaching American tanks and the defending German guards. They needed to put a stop to this from the inside before any more lives were needlessly lost. Even as this thought crossed his mind, men were falling all around him.

“Fellas! Take out the tower!” Bucky shouted as he ran for the tent where the majority of the Americans were sheltering, seeking out the homemade stars and stripes they had carefully crafted and transported from camp to camp, kept hidden from goons, just for such an occasion.

It took a few tries before Jefferson successfully came up with the flag, passing it to him quickly. Dashing through the chaos of prisoners running hither and thither through the camp, some fleeing, some fighting guards, Bucky was boosted onto the roof of the administration building. The flagpole was less than sturdy as he climbed it but as he removed the Nazi war flag and tossed it to the cheering crowd below, the guns fell quiet. Securing the ragtag American flag, watching the breeze immediately catch and fly it high, an immense feeling of relief wash through him and after taking a moment to celebrate, he pressed his forehead to the hand-hewn timber of the pole to soak in his gratitude for making it this far. Though the ragged appearance of his country’s flag undoubtedly mirrored his own.

As he carefully climbed down the rickety pole, his eyes caught on a somewhat familiar figure running frantically through the crowd toward the gate, moving against the flow of those milling around the yard, celebrating. The man’s shouts carried intermittently on the wind across the crowd and Bucky managed to pick out “Medic,” his heartrate picking up at the word “Nurse.” His stomach dropped when the word “shot” reached his ears.

“Angelfish.” He whispered and quickly scrambled his way off the roof, wincing a little at his rough landing, before he began to shove his own way through the oblivious celebrants towards the hospital.

Skidding to a stop on the threshold of the tent, he was startled to find all the patients cowering beneath their cots while you lay on one of their abandoned beds, a bloody mess surrounded by men frantically trying to save you.

“Jesus christ…angelfish…” He choked out, throat clenching painfully as your head lolled to the side, slightly unfocused eyes meeting his.

“Bucky.” Your faint whisper of his name propelled him forward, a frown settling over his features at the state of your clothes, wanting nothing more than to cover up the expanse of your abdomen and the scar on your arm – you surely hated to have that so prominently on display.

Chalmers’ sudden directive for him to manage the plasma grabbed his attention and he quickly grasped the glass bottle, holding it high as they lifted the entire bed to begin carrying you out of there.

“Just hold on, angelfish.” He rasped, heart lurching painfully as your eyes rolled back in your head, your body going slack.

Running alongside you to the gate despite the way his lungs ached, the crowd mercifully parted before their odd little group. A jeep was waiting with a stretcher strapped to the back, and Bucky watched helplessly as your unsettlingly limp form was transferred from the cot, the bottle of plasma wrenched from his fingers by the Medic before he perched atop your legs. As the vehicle took off, the Lieutenant Colonel of the armored division strode over sternly.

“How the devil did a nurse end up as a POW?” He demanded as Lieutenant Colonel Clark came to stand on Bucky’s right.

Chalmer’s sighed deeply before sharing what he knew of your story, of your arrival back in January including the fact that the Red Cross was informed through the usual process, and how you were housed separately in the hospital. As Fitzgibbons, the very same surgical technician you had earned your burns pulling out of your plane, filled in the rest of your service history, Bucky could only reflect on how little he really knew you. How short his time with you had actually amounted to be. Hell, he would not have even known your squadron number if it was not for that conversation right then.

“What a SNAFU.” The man muttered and Bucky could certainly see the resemblance of the man’s commanding officer, Patton, in him. “Well, let’s get this formal surrender over with so we can get these boys home.”

Clark nodded in return and Bucky shuffled back to sit heavily amongst the men of the 100th, waving off Brady’s look of concern. Watching the salutes and handshakes, he was completely numb, his thoughts miles away with wherever they had taken you, only able to hope against hope that their aid station was of the highest calibre.

Bucky had not resorted to prayer often throughout the war. Sure he had worn a crucifix and crossed himself reflexively when flying into a hail of flak, but conversations with higher beings had never been something he had put much stock in. Faced, now, with this gnawing feeling of helplessness, your very survival in the balance, it seemed like the only tool left at his disposal.

Crammed into the tent that night, shoulder-to-shoulder with his neighbors, he felt rusty and self-conscious as he addressed the god of his childhood Sunday school and fairly begged for you to make it. He stopped short of bargaining his own life away, but barely, before sleep overtook his aching body, the exertions of the day overtaking him.

As he found himself jostling in the back of a transport truck on his way to Paris the next day, handpicked by Lieutenant Colonel Clark to be among the first sent back to England, he could not help but feel as though he was being driven further and further away from you. It was near night by the time they pulled into the base and Bucky took his first warm shower in over a year, changing into a fresh uniform and feeling almost human. They were served white bread that might as well have been cake, with steak and eggs that were too rich for him to endure more than a few bites before he crawled into a remarkably clean bed and slept deeply, exhaustion winning out over his continuous concern for your well being.

Climbing into the belly of a B-17 for the first time in over eighteen months felt awkward and painful, the crew from the 100th consisting of unfamiliar replacements, the space feeling more cramped than it ever had as he wedged himself into the cockpit behind the pilot. The deep-seated terror he had desperately been trying to supress, his fear that Buck had not made it to safety despite their planning and the beating he had taken to distract the guards, surged to the fore of his mind. It competed ruthlessly with his anxiety over whether you were still drawing breath, the fact that he may have to face the truth of losing both of you leaving him silent and withdrawn as the plane took flight.

There was no immediate answer awaiting him at Thorpe Abbotts either, no familiar faces lining the tarmac – not even Lemmons was around, which struck him as unsettlingly odd. Making his way to the CO’s hut, his eyes at last landed on a familiar face as Herrmann emerged from one the equipment sheds.

“Hey Winks! Where is everybody? Guy comes back after a year-and-a-half and no one’s around?” He plastered on a playful smirk as the boy’s face broke out into a grin of astonishment, shaking his hand vigorously as he rushed over.

“Buck took Rosie, Douglass, Croz, and Kenny up on one of those mercy missions they’ve been practicing for, they should be back any time now, sir. Gosh it’s great to see you back here.”

Bucky’s attention immediately snagged on the first name Herrmann mentioned, finding it immensely difficult to continue listening as he exhaled half of the tension that had strangled him all the way across the English Chanel. “Good to be back, Winks. Think you can give me a lift?” He raised an eyebrow, desperate for a moment of levity.

With a quick nod, Herrmann was promptly driving him towards the control tower. The most difficult part of getting up there was making it past all the congratulatory pats and handshakes, but Bucky was able to pull off his surprise, the sound of Cleven’s voice over the radio going a long way to mending some of the deep wounds he was still sporting.

More handshakes and pats-on-the-back awaited him at the hardstand and it finally felt like he was back amongst the familiar faces of these men. He did not miss the way Cleven’s eyes were quietly scrutinizing him, however. The gratingly familiar feeling that his friend was looking right through him was undeniable as he joked and smiled with the boys who had never been imprisoned. Who had not endured the things they had. As the crowd around them thinned out, Bucky turned to watch Cleven pull out one of his toothpicks, sliding it between his molars in a familiar yet long-lost motion.

“So what you been up to since I left?” His friend asked.

Bucky swallowed and shrugged a little walking over to the jeep, Cleven immediately sliding into the passenger’s seat out of habit.

“That terrible, huh?” Cleven muttered and Bucky sighed as the vehicle roared to life.

“Ended up in Moosburg.” He started out slow, with simple facts. “Got a little hurt on the way, so Brady and Hambone took me to the hospital. Turns out there was a Nurse there, POW since January.”

The look of shock on his friend’s face registered in the corner of his eye and Bucky did not have the heart to fully face him.

“The German’s held a woman prisoner?” Cleven shook his head with a sigh of dismay.

“She got shot during the liberation, stray bullet. Medics from the armored division took her and I have no idea if she made it.” Now that he had started telling the story it all just came pouring out of him.

“You care about her more than just on moral grounds.” Cleven stated matter-of-factly and Bucky sighed as he pulled up in front of what used to be their hut.

Who knew if it still was.

“Yes.” He begrudgingly admitted, though his admission was addressed to the steering wheel.

There was a long, drawn-out silence, the incessant chirping of sparrows filling in the gap in conversation and Bucky realized he had not really heard a bird his entire time in captivity. His head snapped sharply to look at Cleven as he suddenly spoke again.

“If anyone can find someone in the chain of evacuation it’ll be Smokey.”

Bucky furrowed his brows a moment before it clicked. “Doc Stover? You think?”

Cleven shrugged. “He’s our best shot I guess.”

“Our…”

“Are you going to drive us to the hospital, or should I?”

A grin pulled at Bucky’s lips as he started the jeep back up and took a sharp U-turn, heading for the base hospital. He pretended not to notice the way his friend’s eyes lingered on the stiff movement of his body as he climbed out of the jeep – he was definitely sore but was most certainly not going to admit to it. The wards were just as populated as they had been in 1943, something he found rather infuriating. It was another feeling he tucked into a neat little package and shoved down to be ignored until a more convenient time. Or perhaps never to be acknowledged again.

Stover was easy to find, dressed in his white coat, just finishing his rounds.

“Majors, what can I do for you?” He gestured for them to follow him into his office and Bucky sank down into a chair heavily, once again ignoring another man’s assessing gaze on him.

“Well it’s an odd request really but…” He trailed off, hesitating as he smoothed his too-long hair, reflecting once again that he needed a proper haircut.

“We’re wondering if you might be able to track someone down for us. Someone who was injured at a camp in Moosburg and evacuated to an aid station.

Stover raised an eyebrow curiously. “One of your fellow POWs?”

“Something like…. well yeah, she is.” Bucky corrected himself midway through, watching the doctor’s eyebrows shoot up dramatically. “Flight Nurse from the 802nd MAES, POW at Moosburg since January of ’45, shot during liberation and taken to the aid station of Patton’s 3rd Army – armored division. Which division I don’t know.”

They watched as Stover quickly grabbed a pen and started jotting down the important details, including your name.

“How bad was she hurt?” Stover asked and Bucky swallowed tightly.

“I didn’t see it happen but there was a gunshot to her stomach somewhere. They got her on plasma quickly.” He added hopefully but Stover’s face remained grim.

“I can’t promise you anything Major Egan, it doesn’t sound particularly hopeful either, but I’ll see what I can do.”

“Thanks, Doc.” He nodded, leveraging himself out of the chair with a barely concealed wince.

“And what do you have going on?” Stover stayed seated, eyeing him expectantly.

Bucky noticed Cleven had not budged either, the bastard. Emptying his lungs with a heavy exhale, Bucky put his hands on his hips and shrugged.

“Couple of broken ribs, I’ll be alright.” He replied nonchalantly.

“And how old are these broken ribs?” Stover prodded and Bucky ignored Cleven’s pointed look up at him.

“Couple weeks, I’m halfway mended, just overdid it getting in the fort to come back.”

Stover rose from behind his desk and opened a cabinet, fetching a bottle and holding it out to him. “Aspirin, to keep you comfortable. Take two every four hours as long as you need. Come back if you run out.”

Bucky accepted the bottle with a nod of thanks, the memory of you scrounging up two rare pills for him in the Stalag flooding back, furrowing his brows. The things you could have done in a place like this with limitless supply.

“Thanks again, Doc.” Cleven’s expression of gratitude pierced through his reminiscing and Bucky nodded quickly, tucking the pills into his pocket before heading out quietly.

Accommodations were procured and there was not much for him to do around base aside from rest and learn how to eat properly once more. It took several days for any news of your condition to reach him, via Stover’s connections, but when the man pulled him into his office on the morning of the May 5, he was stunned to learn that not only were you alive, but that you had been air evacuated to Redgrave Hospital just thirty minutes away from Thorpe Abbotts.

You were safe. You were close.

“Seems they weren’t quite certain what to do with her, but as she serves under the Army Air Force, they sent her to our main hospital.” Bucky realized Stover was still talking and he shot him a warm grin before grasping his hand to shake firmly.

“Well I really appreciate your help, Doc. I’ve gotta…” Bucky glanced over his shoulder at the door, desperate to make his way to you.

“Yeah, go…” He chuckled and shooed him out of his office.

No longer a squadron commander, Bucky technically did not have a jeep of his own to disappear with off base and so he was in the process of grabbing one of the stray bikes outside the control tower when Crosby emerged into the daylight, eyes squinting in fatigue at the brightness.

“Where are you off to Major?”

“Redgrave Hospital!” He replied brightly, watching the younger man blink.

“Sir that’s a good eleven miles, that’s a terrible idea with your ribs.”

Word seemed to have spread fast…

“Take my jeep, I’m not gonna need it today.”

“Croz, you are a lifesaver.” Bucky dropped the bike he had been wrangling to slap him on the back before diving into the jeep allotted for use by the Group Navigator. “I’ll be back!” He shouted, taking off in a spray of dust and gravel.

Turning onto the two-hundred-acre country estate, Redgrave Hospital, consisting of nearly forty Nissen huts, stuck out like a sore thumb amongst the trees and landscaped green. As he pulled up to the headquarters of the hospital, Bucky quickly realized that the staff there were not nearly as excited to see him. In fact, they were downright reluctant to allow him in to visit you, but assured him that while you were ‘heavily medicated and resting’ you were still ‘on the mend.’

While relief still permeated his system, it was a new agony to have you so very close and yet still out of his reach. If they were not going to permit him as a regular visitor, Bucky realized he was going to have to get a lot more creative in order to lay his eyes on you, and until he did, there would be not real peace.

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

Moments of clarity punctured through the blackness – a blur of trees, the flurry of activity of an aid station, the masked face of a surgeon speaking to you reassuringly, the heartbreakingly familiar interior of a C-47 – but it was not until you were settled in a bed inside a hospital with four walls, windows, and nurses that true cognizance really returned to you. Casting your eyes around the sterile, white space, you noted you were situated at the end of a row and walled off from other patients with a set of privacy screens. The most striking feature of this hospital was the very stern-faced Bucky parked in a chair to the left of your bed.

As you began to stir, his eyes lifted quickly to meet yours, some of the tension easing from his frame. “Have a good rest, angelfish?” he whispered, and you furrowed your brows up at him, so full of questions. “They got you on the good stuff don’t they.” He chuckled fondly, reaching out to brush his fingertips across your cheek tenderly.

“Kick a girl when she’s down, why don’t you.” You sighed, speech slightly slurred from pain medication and the dryness in your mouth, but still capable of using his own lines against him.

His resulting grin contained all the brilliance of the sun and made you look down with a self-satisfied smirk. Your eyes immediately fell on your exposed arms laying atop the blanket, the scarring along your left forearm lain bare for all to see. Jerking your hands back roughly, you clumsily tried to shove them beneath the covers despite the warmth on the ward. Bucky’s gentle tut before his hand came to rest atop yours halted your attempt.

“Shhh, you’re just fine you brave, beautiful woman. Stay right there.” He murmured as he laced his fingers with yours, pinning your arm to rest above the blanket. “You have nothing to hide or be ashamed of.”

Swallowing thickly, you slowly lifted your gaze to meet his. “I think I’ve acquired a few more…” You sighed, the feeling of thick bandages padding your hip acutely registering as you spoke.

“Probably.” He nodded softly. “You also probably saved that boy Hernandez by taking the bullet, so I’d say they were well earned. Besides, they’ll make an excellent target for my mouth one day.”

Your soft smile transformed into a look of disbelief, your free hand rising to whack his shoulder gently. “John Clarence Egan.” You chided half-heartedly and he pressed his face to the side of your head where it lay propped up against several pillows, his heavy exhale ruffling through your hair. “We are in a hospital, and you are making inappropriate jokes.”

“Mmmm.” He hummed in agreement, stroking his thumb against yours affectionately.

“Which hospital is this, anyway?” You asked curiously, finding its curved roof and white walls lacked distinguishing features.

“Redgrave Hospital, you serve in the Army Air Force after all.” He pulled back slightly to answer.

“Redgrave…” you repeated thoughtfully. “Sounds awfully English.”

“Hit the nail on the head, angelfish. We made it.” Bucky’s lips brushed against your temple, and you smiled softly. “Despite our best efforts.” His teasing made you laugh softly, and you shook your head.

“If we’re in England, where’s the King?” You raised an eyebrow expectantly and he smirked, shaking his head.

“No King, unfortunately, but I did bring you this?” He reached behind him, pulling out a newspaper to lay across your lap.

“Victory in Europe.” You read the headline aloud, pausing a moment as the words sunk in before gasping and looking to him wide-eyed. “Truly?”

A look of solemn earnestness overtook his features and he nodded softly. “Truly. German army surrendered yesterday.”

You gulped roughly and looked back to ready to date of May 8, 1945, on the top of the paper – you had lost nearly nine days. You really had been so close, everyone had. And the fact that you were here, and others were not seemed so very arbitrary. Sighing heavily, you squeezed his hand gently.

“By the skin of our teeth.” You murmured thickly, looking up as a nurse shuffled past with a faint nod of acknowledgement before making a sharp about-face to come and check your vitals.

“How’re you feeling?” She asked you and you nodded slowly.

“I’m alright, thank you. Bit foggy but things are the clearest they’ve been in days.”

“I’m going to fetch the Doctor.” The nurse turned to eye Bucky sharply. “You’d best make yourself scarce.” She commented before continuing on her way.

“How on earth did you get in here?” You raised an eyebrow as you came to realize how unusual his presence was.

“Bought my way in with a few bottles of champagne – your flightless comrades are quite friendly if one knows the price.”

You coughed out a laugh as the comment made Nurses sound like some species of bird and his lips twitched into a smile, your eyes unable to look away from the soft, rosy skin of his mouth.

“Hey before you go…”

“Hmmm?” He turned to you, half risen from his chair.

“I don’t have the mental capacity to think of something self-deprecating right now, so can I just get a kiss?” You murmured before pursing your lips shyly.

His face transformed into a warm smile, eyes crinkling adorably at the corners as the tips of his ears flushed pink. “I always said you just had to ask, angelfish.”

Echoing his smile, you turned your lips up expectantly as he braced his hand on the pillow beside your head, leaning in to gently brush his lips against yours, drawing a contented sigh from deep beneath your breastbone. Bucky’s lips pressed closer, a tender hum rumbling from his throat just as a sharp cough sounded from the end of the bed and he slowly pulled back with a rueful huff.

“Just checking her breathing, Doc.” Bucky grinned wolfishly as the man raised an eyebrow sharply. “She’s doing great.”

“Hn.” The doctor intoned, clearly unimpressed. “And how are your ribs doing, Major Egan?”

Inhaling sharply, you looked him over quickly, the litany of his injuries flooding back to you from your sub-conscious.

“Much better, thank you Doc. Who knew Smokey was such a gossip. Well, angelfish,” he brushed his knuckles down your cheek, “guess that’s my cue.”

Nodding slowly, wondering who on earth Smokey might be, you watched him leave before your Doctor took over, running through numerous checks with you before discussing the extent of your injury and the surgeries that had been performed to save your life. It was nothing short of remarkable, what they had thrown at you to prevent your death, the conversation a very sobering one. It would be a long road to recovery, and one, it turned out, you would mostly be taking back home in the United States.

After a week or so in Redgrave Hospital, you were deemed fit enough for transport back to the Zone of Interior for convalescence and recovery in a domestic hospital. Though the sympathetic nurses had not seen fit to permit Bucky onto the ward again, they had taken a shakily written note, the loss of strength you had suffered in just over a week was startling, and promised to deliver it to him. The trip via Prestwick to Greenland, then Newfoundland, and ultimately Grenier Field in New Hampshire felt luxurious on the much more spacious C-54. You were admitted to the Station Hospital there to continue your recovery and rehabilitation, enjoying phone calls with your family instead of delayed correspondence for a change.

It took two months for you to be fully back on your feet, back to yourself. The same amount of time, it seemed, for the 100th bomb group to be repatriated stateside. Freshly discharged and clad in a brand-new olive drab dress uniform, proudly bearing your silver 1st Lieutenant’s insignia following your promotion and the ribbons from your two purple hearts, you had sweet-talked your way back onto the base. One of the more sympathetic MPs who had heard your story – admittedly there were few in New Hampshire who had not heard your story at this point – had not even protested your request. It seemed that fate saw fit to land Major John Egan in your life a second time, with Grenier Field the destination for his bomb group on their return flight.

Standing in the warm summer breeze, watching the sky for the silhouettes of their planes, it honestly felt odd to be wearing a skirt. The complexity of affixing your stockings to the straps of your garter belt had briefly made you long for the convenience of slacks, but with your properly cut and styled hair and feminine clothing you felt like an entirely new woman as you stood outside on the grass with the ground crew. Would Bucky even recognize you?

At last the distant droning of aircraft engines reached your, and everyone around you’s, ears, the shapes of B-17s multiplying on the horizon before they began to circle in for a landing. Honestly, there were so many of them you briefly doubted you would be able to find him with any manner of efficiency. Clamping a hand over your officer’s cap to hold it in place as a plane taxied onto a nearby hardstand, your eyes began to scan the crowd of men as they filtered past, surely headed for the mess hall or officer’s club. Catch a glimpse of those unmistakable ears, you stepped forward and called out to him.

“John Clarence Egan!”

His head whipped around so fast he nearly took out the man walking beside him.

“Do I really look so different in a skirt that you would walk right by me?” You teased fondly.

“Angelfish!”

His flight bag hit the asphalt with a sickening ‘crunch’ that had you worried for its contents, but the impact of his body against yours drove that thought quickly from your mind. Wrenching his cap from his head he tilted his face to nestle beneath the brim of yours and kiss you soundly. Distantly, you were aware of all manner of cheers and wolf-whistles from his comrades, but you were too busy clutching at his shoulders to truly mind.

“How did you-? What are you-? God, it’s good to see you.” He rambled before pressing his mouth against yours firmly, not even giving you the opportunity to reply.

Laughing brightly into the kiss, you became vaguely aware of the sound of footsteps approaching much nearer and pulled back slowly, smiling fondly as Bucky’s lips made as if to chase yours, but his friend’s question interrupted him.

“You gonna introduce us, John?” A tall blond man with striking blue eyes and a pair of unsettlingly symmetrical facial scars asked sardonically.

Bucky cleared his throat and stepped back, though you noted his arm slid around your waist in a rather proprietary move. You found you did not mind in the least, particularly as your fully healed wound gave no protest of pain whatsoever.

“Angelfish, this Gale Cleven – call him Buck, Robert Rosenthal – Rosie, and Harry Crosby – Croz.” He followed up by introducing you by your full name.

“He give you that nickname, too?” The one he told you to call ‘Buck’ raised an eyebrow and you laughed.

“It’s a long story….”

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

The Only Truth I Know Is You Masterlist

Tag list: @gretagerwigsmuse, @luminouslywriting, @softspeirs, @sunny747, @storysimp, @slowsweetlove, @httpsmoon, @buckysegan, @justheretoreadthxxs, @precious-little-scoundrel, @jointherebellion215, @timetowastetime8, @mads-weasley

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

[callumsturn]

Sweet John

Summary: John keeps finding ways to stop by the hospital to see you, until he finally gets what he wants.

Pairing: Major John "Bucky" Egan x female reader Content/Warnings: John Egan being a charming bastard, 18+ smut (minors don't interact), unprotected sex. This starts real innocent, but it's really not. Notes: If you have any requests you’d like me to write please let me know! Comments and reblogs are always appreciated! Thank you!

As you're helping wounded soldiers, rushing through the corridors of the campaign hospital at base, you bump into none other than Major John "Bucky" Egan.

You look up to see his smug smile. "Sorry, sweetheart." His hand gently over your arm as a way to balance you.

If you didn't know better, you'd even believe he might have done it unintentionally.

"It's alright Major." You tried to rush past him, with towels in both your arms to the end of the corridor.

"You shouldn't carry all that yourself." He takes half of the load from your arms. "Let me help. It's the least I could do."

He carries on up the corridor, following close behind you. You turn your head to him for a few seconds. You know you should be resisting. But he's very, very persuasive. Even when his uniform is covered with blood.

"You have blood on your uniform." You simply state.

"Oh, yeah." He shrugs, not bothered to wipe it off. "You know how it is." he tells you "Can't even breathe at battle without getting some blood splashed on you." He looks at you. "You've got some on you as well."

You look down at your own white uniform. "It has seen better days, yes." You continue to walk to the end of the corridor, entering one of the patient rooms.

John follows after you and looks around as soon as you're inside. "Oh, you're taking these to..." he trails off a bit as he sees who's playing in that bed. One of the men from his squad.

"Hi Sergeant. How are we feeling?" You spoke to the man resting on the bed.

The Sergeant looks up at you. "I've been better." As soon as he sees the Major behind you he tries to sit up, still a bit shaky. "Major." he says, his voice hoarse.

"I'm gonna clean that open wound and switch it up, is that alright?" you asked the man in the bed.

"Thank you, miss." he adds as you begin to gather your tools.

You can feel the Major's gaze on the back of your head as he watches from the doorway.

"It's gonna hurt a little. Take this." You hand the patient a bottle of alcohol to drink.

He takes it, grunting a little from the pain of just moving. He takes a sip and sets the bottle down. As you pour liquid over the wound to clean it, the Sergeant's leg moves in pain. He grunts loudly and moves in his bed. You feel the Major aproach the bed and hold the Sergeant with no trouble. He tries to move again but the Major's grip is firm.

"It's alright. Just hold still now." Major Egan tries to calm the man. You see the compassion and concern on his face. His hand is still on the Sergeant's lower body, ready to steady him again if necessary.

You say nothing, continuing to clean the wound and prepare the needle to stitch. The Major remains close. He watches you work, and his focus is almost entirely on exactly that. The Sergeant squirms in the bed again, but the Major remains in place.

"Easy." the Major tried to calm him down.

"Almost done, Sergeant." you mention as you finish stitching him up.

"Th- thank you." The Sergeant glances toward the Major. "She's real good, I'm telim' ya, sir."

You chuckle as you begin bandaging his wound. "Now... you shouldn't get up. Just try to rest and no missions for a few days. This needs to heal properly."

"Roger that, nurse." the Sergeant replies with a smile. "Will do." he finishes. "Could I get some more of that bottle, though? You know how it is."

You smile as you hand him the bottle for the second time. He takes another sip, as you hear Major Egan chuckle, keeping his eyes on the man and then on you as you put the remainder of the supplies away in a near medical cart, back turned to both men.

"She's pretty, ain't she, sir?" the Sergeant asks his Major who's sitting beside him still, in a lower voice.

As you barely hear the Sergeants comment, you tried to pay no attention to it, not curious to hear the Major's response.

You hear the Major chuckle again. "She is. I'm sure she's even got herself a fella already. Some lucky bastard."

"Probably some high rank fella, too." the Sergeant continues jokingly.

"Not a high enough rank for that, no." You barely hear Major John say.

As you finish storing all utensils, you approach both men again. "You rest up Sergeant. I'll tend to other soldiers now."

The man thanks you, as he rests his head back on the pillow and closes his eyes. The Major still has his gaze on you as you walk past him.

You continue to go about your shift, working on other patients in other beds. You do your best to ignore the Major's gaze when he is watching you from afar.

"Am I under some kind of evaluation, Major?" You asked unfazed, not looking at him, but still tending to a patient.

Somewhat caught off guard by the question, the Major's calm demeanour slips a bit. "Uh... no. I was-" he clears his throat "Just... checking up on... on your patient care."

"On my patient care?" You chuckled. "How's that going then?"

"It's going very well." he replies a little too quickly.

"Well I'm glad." You paused. "Thank you for the help back there."

"Any time." he replies. You see that he wants to say something else, but stops himself. "You've got everything under control in here then?"

"Sure thing."

"Great." He clears his throat again. "I'm..." He's having trouble finding the right words. "I'll let you get back to work then."

"Thank you, Major."

"Yeah. Sure, no problem." He finally leaves the room. You don't see him again for a while, but notice his eyes on you several times over the rest of the week or so.

A few weeks passed and the hospital became less busy. Patients were recovering and the missions were being successful over all. You notice the change. It's more peaceful, which is just what both you and the soldiers needed.

But there is one thing that has changed your routine. Major John "Bucky" Egan has been coming by to see you more often. And each time he does, he stays a little longer and talks a little more. He always makes sure to pay careful attention to everything you say, and always makes an effort to keep the conversation going. You can feel the other nurses and doctors giving you disguised looks, wondering if there's something going on with the two of you.

The Major even shows up when you're not working, and seems to hang around to see when you start your shift or finish for the day. He's always just hanging back, not being too obvious about it. You found it quite charming actually, the effort he would go into just to talk to you for a little while. It was definitely flattering. He's a handsome man, and he's got a certain charm and confidence about him that you can't help but like. Although you're still unsure how to feel about all of the attention, and that uncertainty definitely shows on your face as he approaches you yet again, and starts up another conversation.

"Major Egan." You say after he approaches you.

"Nurse." he replies with a polite smile. He's carrying a coffee mug and offerts it to you. "I figured you might be tired after your shift."

You gladly accepted it. "That's incredibly thoughtful of you."

"I try." he shrugs his shoulders with a smile. You can see his gaze still on you as you take the mug. For a little while he doesn't say a thing, just watching you as you take a small sip from the cup.

Suddenly, he clears his throat a little and speaks again. "I was wondering... there's a cafe outside the base... I though it'd be nice to go there and get something to eat." he says. He's still looking you straight in the eyes while saying it, his body relaxed and his hand resting casually on the mug. "Would you like to join me?" he adds after a moment.

"Right now?" you ask calmly.

He nods after a moment. "If you'd like." he responds. "We could both do with getting some real food. Maybe something more comforting than camp rations." He gives you a small smile, still watching you carefully as he waits for your answer.

You smiled at him for a second. "I'd like that."

His smile grows a little wider. "Great." He starts to back away. "I'll... I'll head out there now." he says "I'll be waiting just outside. The cafe's not far."

"I'll be right there." you smile.

He gives you one more little smile before making his way outside and waiting just out front of the camp, leaning agaisnt the wall and looking out the gate.

You head to the locker room where you find a colleague. You head inside to change out of your work clothes.

"Hey there." she grins "how have things been with you?"

"Good." you smile.

"Major's been going around again today, hasn't he?", she asks, glancing over at you.

"Um... yeah, he has." you continue to change into your clothes.

"Yeah, I figured as much. He coming around more often now? Spending more time talking to you?"

You chuckle, embarrassed. "I guess, yes."

"Well, I figured he had a thing for you" she laughs. "It was only a matter of time before he started getting a little flirtatious. He's not very good at hiding it."

"I think he's just being nice." you said as you buttoned your shirt.

"Sweetie, he's more than just nice. Major Egan has a reputation aroud here, you know. He doesn't go around being sweet to just anyone."

"Well, I don't know. I don't want everyone to go around and talk about this. The other nurses are real nosy!"

"Oh cm'on, don't worry. They'll just tease you a bit if they can tell that something's going on. And besides, nothing exciting happens around the hospital, so they cling to anything." she paused "But you're lucky. The Major's a looker, and I'm sure that you wouldn't mind his attentions, huh?" She gives you a playful nudge as she asks.

You chuckle as you looked at her. "He really is a looker isn't he?"

"Hell yeah he is." she laughs "A real man after my own heart. And the more things continue like this between you guys, the more certain I am that you might be the lady that gets to keep him to herself."

"Well, I don't know about that."

"Oh, come on. Just look at him. Just waiting right outside for you."

"Alright now. Enough of this." you said as you put your coat on. "I'm heading out."

"I'll see you back here later." she chuckles as you head out.

You find Major Egan just where he said he'd be. As you pass him and make your way to the gates outside, he starts walking with you, keeping his hands in his pockets.

"That's your work done for the day?" he asks casually.

"I have to get back in a few hours.... night shift."

"Ah... sure. Night shift. Busy workload tonight?"

"I don't think so."

He keeps his hands in his pockets the entire time, but he seems comfortable, confident, and content. "I bet it'll get busy in there." he adds, pointing to the cafe. "They have some of the best coffee and food around here."

"Have you been there lately?" you ask.

"It's been a little while now." he replies. "I had some time off last night and was going to go there, but I ended up making a stop by the hospital." he shrugs a little. "Had to see if you were looking after these soldiers properly, of course." he adds jokingly, raising an eyebrow at you.

"Yeah, you've been a real caring Major these last few weeks."

"Well, I was just making sure you were up to the task of caring for our troops." he continues.

"Oh, your soldiers never complained."

He smiles at your comment. "Glad to hear it." He looks at you again, a small grin on his face. "Or maybe it's just that they have something nice to look at while they're recovering?"

"Alright now Major Egan."

"Oh come on, why don't you just call me John, hm?"

You looked at him for a couple of seconds. "If you're sure."

He gives you a little nod, still smiling. "Absolutely."

You approach the cafe and he holds the door open for you as you walk inside.

The cafe is busy as John said it'd be. Off duty soldiers fill the place with their drinks, raised voices and the smell of cigars. Most of them are playing a game of cards at the tables. Several are chatting and laughing with each other, making it a very lively environment. Major Egan steps inside and closes the door behind him.

"It is busy, isn't it?" he asks as he guides you to an empty table. He holds your seat out for you before sitting down across from you. "You don't mind it being so busy, do you?"

"Not at all."

He smiles, his hands still in his pockets. A waiter comes to your table and takes your order. John asks you what you want and then orders for you. You just smile politely at the waiter before he heads off.

"I'm glad you agreed to come with me this afternoon." he says after a moment in silence. You notice him leaning forward on the table as the conversation continues. He seems quite calm, but you can tell how focused he is on you.

At one point, one of the soldiers at another table glances over at the two of you, and then nudged the others at the table. There's a murmur of conservation and a few more glances as the others take note of the Major and the nurse sitting together again.

The Major doesn't seem to notice though. It remains a lighthearted conversation, but there's an undercurrent of something a little bit more going on underneath the surface.

Before either of you realize, both of you have been talking to each other for half an hour. The Major shows no signs of losing interest in the conversation.

After a while, a couple first year Sergeants approach the table curiously, excitedly presenting themselves to John.

"Major Egan, sir!" the first says confidently.

"Major." the second follows. They both glance at you a tad nervously.

The Major looks up at them and smiles, still sitting at the table casually. "At ease, gentlemen" he says, raising his hands off the table, but still relaxed.

"Sir, a few of the men were wondering if they could get an extended leave, due to the successful mission earlier today."

The Major stares at the first Sergeant for a second, and his eyes dart over to you. He's still smiling a little, but there's a serious side to him that comes through as he talks with them.

"I understand that you were planning on extending their leave to allow them to rest?" he replies to both men.

"Yes, sir." the first replies "if that's alright with you, sir?"

"It's alright, Sergeant." the Major nods again. "There'll will be no issue on my part in regards to that. How many days are you looking at?" he asks, looking between the two Sergeants.

"Around a week" one of them replied boldly "if that's fine with you sir?"

"A week, hm?" he stares at them for a moment. "A week should be sufficient for them to recharge, especially after a mission like this morning. Make it happen."

The Sergeants both nod their heads. "Yes, sir." They both give you a resrpectful salute before turning back around and walking to the larger table.

"Major Egan..." you say mockingly. He was so different when he talked to you.

He glances over at you with a little half grin. "Yeah?" He laid back in his chair as he waits for you to continue.

"And just when I was about to call you John." You say.

He chuckles softly at that. "Go ahead and call me John. If anyone around here is going to call me that, it should be you." he took a sip from his beer.

That gave you a chill down your spine, out of nervousness.

He sees that he has gotten some sort of reacting out of you, but that smile still remains on his face. "Go ahead, call me John."

"Alright, stop that." you chuckle.

"I just want you to call me by my first name. Is that too much to ask?"

You look at him in the eyes for a second, before smiling. "In here?"

"Here" he pauses "or anywhere else if you'd like." He lays back and continues to smile. That damn smile.

As you take in his comment, music starts to blast and all the soldiers rise from their seats and grab the women to dance. The cafe instantly becomes an athmosphere of fun and liveliness.

The Major glances over at the dance floor. "Would you like to join me?"

You nod your head shyly, and take John's hands as he pulls you into the dance floor. The music is a classic swing tune, and the soldiers all seem to know the moves perfectly, moving with rhythm and flow in a very playful mood.

Major Egan seems to be familiar with the dance, and as he moves with you his confidence and skill is undeniable. He leads you easily, gently pulling you around and twirl you in his arms, and all the while, he stays completely focused on keeping you steady, stable.

"You're a good dancer." he tells you, still smiling playfully as he does. He spins you around in his arms and then back around again, pulling you close enough so that his face is inches from yours. He's still maintaining a comfortable distance between you two, but it's evident that he wants to be so much closer.

The music begins to pick up more, and as it does, his moves become just a little bit more intimate and playful. His arms around your waist. It's clear that he's more than just enjoying the dance.

Moving his hands down to your hips as he holds you, not giving you quite as much space as before. He tilts his head and gets closer to your face, maintaining that same playful grin.

"Careful, John." you say over the music, teasing him.

He chuckles at the teasing, but he doesn’t pull away, nor does he stop dancing with you.

His movements get a little bit more playful now, bringing you in even closer.

"John..." you begin.

“Yes?” He stares at you with that same grin on his face, but his eyes have become more intense now, as if wanting to know where this is going.

"Kiss me." you ask.

His eyes remain on you as he stares quietly for a second, but then he finally leans in to meet your offer. There is nothing playful or light-hearted about this exchange. This is a serious and bold moment for the both of you. Major Egan goes completely for it, pressing his lips against yours. And as he does, his hands moves to your hips and pulls you even closer to him. The kiss was slow but eager, like weeks of tension have been building up. Every movement and gesture felt intentional. His hands on your hips feel more intense and firm now. You pulled back and heard the music echo.

The moment of silence was deafening.

The music was no longer all that you could think about. He stares back at you, clearly still wanting more, but he holds back from following through in that very moment.

"Let's go." you say looking up at him.

He doesn't answer, but simply nods his head. He takes your hand in his own, and together, the two of you exit the dance floor and leave the cafe. As soon as you hit the street night air, John grabs your hand and pulls you close again, his lips finding his way to yours. Your bodies are pressed against one another, and the intimacy of the moment is undeniable. His lips find yours again, this time, more eagerly. And he lingers for a second or two, savoring the kiss. This time, it feels like he’s taking it further, as his hands start moving down to your waist more playfully.

“You wanna take me to bed?” You simply say.

He looks back at you, a bit amused at the question, but also somewhat surprised that you had the boldness to suggest that.

He stares for a second, his lips partially parted. “Yeah. I do.”

His answers are blunt and straightforward. But there’s also a confidence and assertiveness about him that makes it very evident that he is completely and totally up for that idea.

You smiled. He smiles back at you, before leaning forward to take your hand again. But this time, he doesn't just hold your hand. He interlocks his fingers with yours, his hand more possessive now as he glances down at your interwined fingers.

He leads you back into the base, guiding you towards his quarters.

The silence between you two is punctuated with little whispers and small talk here and there, but overall, the atmosphere is very much still intimate and playful between the two of you.

You noticed your environment. You've never been in this part of the base before, as it was only reserved for the Majors. It’s clear that this is a very private side of the base, for these higher ranking officers to be able to relax in the company of their women.

As you walk down the corridor, you hear the song My Funny Valentine by Chet Baker echoeing from a hall near by. Major Egan guides you through the hallway, the two of you still following hand in hand, until you both finally arrive at his room. You enter and before you could assimilate the space around you, John grabs your waist from behind, spins you around and you watch him close the door behind him so effortelessly, just before he kisses you gently, but passionately.

Everything around you has become a blur now, but you feel his hand on your back, leading you closer to his bed.

You start to walk backwards as he guided you. You put your arms around his neck, looking for support as he kisses you eagerly now. You jump, clinging into his body, as he grabs the back of your legs with his hands, easily supporting your weight. You moan quietly as he starts to feel your skin under your skirt as he holds you with both his hands.

John exhales soundly. "God..." he trailed off "You even sound beautiful."

His lips attack yours once again, filled with desire. His comment gave you chills all over your body. You felt him sit on the bed, you now straddling his lap. Being this close to him left you intoxicated, even speechless. You had nothing to say to him. Your attempts seemed to only come as careless whispers or moans as he explored your body with his hands.

"John..." you finally spoke.

You felt him smile into the kiss. "Yes?"

You took a second to answer, processing his touch. "Fuck me." You finally said.

He couldn't hide his smile. "I wanted to do this right." he paused as you looked at him. "I wanted to make love to you first."

The smirk plastered on his face made you melt. His eyes glistening with adoration for you.

You retributed the smile. "Sweet John..." you began tracing his features with your fingers. "Please do that."

You saw his smile grow slightly wider just before he closed the gap between both your lips.

He held you closer, his grip on you more firm, but never once hurting you.

“I imagined this moment a lot.” He confessed.

You began to take his uniform off. His shoulders so broad and his arms like two comforters around your torso. He did the same with your clothes but taking his sweet time to take in every little detail about you. The curve of your neck, the shape of your breasts and the freckles on your skin. Most of all he noticed the way your expression changed slightly when you became blushed with arousal.

His pants were bothering you, they were in the way. Your hand flew to his belt, trying to unbuckled it with no success. You saw him chuckle, surprisingly out of nervousness, as he helped you take it out. You always thought the Major John Egan would be swift in these manners, he had experience after all. It was the only thing nurses talked about, how much luck he had with women, inside or outside base. Was it so hard to believe that he could be actually nervous because you were the one unbuttoning his pants and trying to discard them? That was hard to grasp.

John grabbed the low of your back with one arm, supporting the other on the bed to lay you on top of it. He stood sat on the bed even after kicking his uniform pants, watching as you lay naked waiting for him to join you.

His expression was a mix of desire and adoration.

"What is it?" You asked laughing.

He shook his head slightly. "Nothing." he opened his mouth for a second before speaking. "I just think you're the most beautiful thing I've seen walk this earth."

You visibly blushed. How could you not? "You're just saying that because-" he interrumpted you immediately.

"Clothed or not." He said plainly, guessing the rest of your phrase. He looked at your face for a couple of seconds, and you did the same with difficulty. He was so handsome, his hair dischevelled falling perfectly on his forehead.

Not bearing it being away from him one more second, you grabbed his hand and pulled him to lay on top of you, opening your legs, allowing for him to fit in the empty space.

He immediately kissed you, your bodies now glued to each other. You could feel his hard member press against your core. You bent your kness, allowing him access. Your way of letting him know what you wanted.

He positioned himself at your entrance, ever so carefully. He looked at your expression as you gasped slightly, feeling him. He then kissed you gently, but eagerly, as he pushed himself inside you, slowly. Your mouth hang open as you threw your head slightly back on the pillow. He looked down at you, and he swore he could come undone right then and there, watching you in that blissful state.

You felt his lips on your neck, beginning in the low of your jaw until the base of your neck. You exhaled when you felt his touch and he could feel the vibrations of your voice on his lips.

His thrusts were purposely slow so you could adjust to his size. Soon enough he started to go deeper as you dig your nails in his upper back muscles.

"Faster." You pleaded, your voice only coming out as a low whimper.

He could hear it alright. John picked up his pace and you moaned louder as you felt every inch of him molding you.

"You feel so good." you heard him say between grunts into your lips.

You brought your lips to his, kissing him deeply. You broke it to speak finally. "John..." you called out his name. "I'm- I'm close."

"I know sweetheart, I know you are." his voice intoxicated you with desire, you could barely control yourself. "I can feel you closing on me." he continued thrusting in and out at that perfect pace. "You can let go... I wanna see that perfect face when you cum."

That was enough for you to explode. You soon came undone, your voice a higher pitch when you moaned his name a couple of times. You felt his warm release spill inside you. His face inches away from yours, mouths open, exhaling as you both reached your high. The moment that followed seemed like completely silent, only your breaths almost in perfect sync.

He smiled after noticing tears of pleasure in the corner of both your eyes, kissing each one of them away from your face. You both moaned when he removed himself inside you, both still very much overstimulated.

He laid next to you, immediately pushing you into his chest, arms wrapped around you. There were no words needed. You guys didn't have to talk about what happened. It was clear.

A few minutes were passed in silence. You looked at the clock on his wall, which marked almost twelve.

"Shit, I have to go. The night shift." you grabbed a bed sheet instinctively to cover yourself as you sat up, looking for your clothes scattered on his bedroom's floor.

"No." his voice lingered, pulling you back on the bed again. "You're staying here tonight."

You smiled as you looked at his sleepy expression. "I don't think that's up for you to decide. The doctors do our schedules, I have to show up to work."

His voice became deeper with tiredness. "I'm Major Egan. I can make a few calls." He suggested, his voice now more playful. "If you'd like to stay here with me tonight." his demeanour expectant.

You looked at him for a couple of seconds, giving thought to his offer. A smile escaped your lips, as you lay in the bed again, slightly embarrassed.

"They can get by without you one night. I can't." he admitted while wrapping his arms around your torso, setting the covers on top of you both.

#john bucky egan #major john bucky egan #john egan #bucky egan #john egan x reader #john bucky egan x reader #callum turner #mastersoftheair #john egan x you #john egan fanfiction #john egan x female reader #john egan smut #john egan imagine #mota fanfic #callum turner major john bucky egan #callum turner x reader #callum turner imagine #callum turner fanfiction #callum turner x you #callum turner x y/n

[kafkasmuses]

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

[alwaysmoncheri]

summary: you wake up in major john egan’s bed and remember he drunkenly kissed you the night prior—you wonder what that means for your relationship.

cw: fem!reader, mentions of sex, fluff, kissing, confessions, mentions of alcohol, mentions of drunkenness, cuteness, but also cheesiness, 1k words

<3

It’s quiet when you wake, the sun peaks through the curtains, creating a ray of light that just misses your face. The sheets are comfortable, warm with your own body heat, but they’re not yours. You sit up with a start, the realization as to where you are washing over you. You were in Major John Egan’s bed, oh my god, what were you thinking? You whip your head around, desperately searching for the man you spent the night with. Throwing one of the pillows off the bed, you hear a quiet grunt from the floor, causing you to scramble over to the edge of the bed. Carefully leaning over with a cautious gaze, you see Bucky laying on the ground, a blanket half covering his bare torso and the pillow you previously threw next to him. Heat rises to your cheeks as your eyes find his. His arms are behind his head and there’s an agonizingly charming smile on his face as he looks back at you.

“Good morning.” Bucky’s voice reaches your ears and you feel weak. Your lips part and you draw in a nervous breath, blinking a few too many times, you struggle to gather your thoughts before finally managing to speak.

“You’re on the floor.” you state simply, chasating yourself for the obvious observation.

“It appears so, yes.” Bucky responds with a hint of amusement in his tone, his smile grows wider and you grow more nervous under his gaze, so you look away.

“You don’t need to be.” you offer softly, a gentle invitation hanging in the air as you lean back onto the plush comfort of the bed. Bucky, catching the subtle implication in your words, lifts himself onto his elbows, his expression curious. With a simple nod, you confirm your desire for him to join you on the bed.

Without a word, Bucky rises, his movements fluid and controlled, as he gathers the scattered pillows and blanket, the fabric rustling softly in the quiet room. With practiced ease, he arranges them on the bed before settling himself beside you, his presence a comforting weight against the mattress. As he sits next to you, the warmth of his body radiates, drawing you closer. You catch the scent of his cologne, a subtle blend of musk and cedarwood, mingling with the faint aroma of lingering alcohol from the night before. The mattress dips slightly under his weight, a silent invitation for you to move closer. You shift, your shoulder brushing against his as you settle into a comfortable position beside him.

For a moment the two of you sit in silence, the memories of what happened last night weighing on your conscious. You’re overwhelmed, confused, and attempting to put the pieces together.

“You were drunk.” you remind him, the words a hesitant admission of the truth. “I was drunk.”

“That is also true,” Bucky acknowledges with a nod, his gaze softening as he senses the rising panic in your voice. Your breath quickens, and your eyes widen, “Look, honey—” Bucky begins, his voice gentle and reassuring, but before he can finish, your words tumble out in a rush of desperation.

“Oh my god.” you gasp, leaning closer to Bucky, your voice barely above a whisper as you say your next few words, “Did we have sex?”

Bucky's laughter fills the air, a warm, affectionate sound that doesn't quite match the gravity of the situation. Your reaction is immediate, confusion and annoyance contort your features.

“It's not funny,” you insist, your voice tinged with frustration as you search his expression for answers.

“Honestly, honey, I couldn’t tell you.” Bucky replies with a shrug, his demeanor nonchalant despite your obvious distress.

“John,” you whine, the plea in your voice betraying your need for him to be serious and clarity of the situation. As your words dissolve into incoherent mumbles, Bucky reaches out, his hand gently squeezing yours in a gesture of reassurance.

“Hey, I’m sure nothing happened,” he interjects, making an attempt to alleviate your worries, “if we had sex, you probably wouldn’t be wearing anything right now.” Bucky adds, with a playful wiggle of his eyebrows and a smirk.

The implications of his words send a shiver down your spine, mingling with the warmth of his touch as you recall the kiss shared between the two of you the night before, “You kissed me last night.” you say with a hint of uncertainty, searching his face for confirmation.

“And you didn’t stop me.” Bucky counters, his gaze unwavering as he meets your eyes.

“Why would I?” you admit softly, “You’re all I think about.”

Bucky's smiles, that adorable smile that never fails to make your heart skip a beat. You watch as his gaze flickers to your lips and back up to your eyes. A giggle bubbles up from your throat, a nervous sound expressing your uncertainty of the moment.

“What?” you ask in response to Bucky’s wordless expression. Your heart pounds in your chest as he reaches out to tuck a stray hair behind your ear, before leaning in to whisper.

“I’m so in love with you.” Bucky confesses in your ear before leaning back with a wide smile, eager to see your reaction. A smile spreads across your face and you turn to slowly wrap your arms around his shoulders.

“If you don’t kiss me—”

Before you can finish, Bucky leans in, closing the distance between you, pressing his lips to yours. A hand holds your cheek, while the other rests on your waist, pulling you closer. He kisses you like he needs you and he knows he does. You melt into his touch, surrendering to the warmth and intensity of the kiss. Before you know it, you're straddling his lap, your hands tangling in his hair as you deepen the kiss.

“I love you more.” you murmur against his lips when you pull away and Bucky chuckles, his airy laugh fanning across your face.

“That’s not possible, honey.” he replies, his voice filled with adoration as he leans his forehead against yours.

“Why don’t you kiss me again and find out?” you tease, a playful glint dancing in your eyes, leaning in to kiss the corner of his mouth.

“Yes, ma’am.” Bucky says with a grin before capturing your lips once more, sealing your love in a sweet, lingering kiss.

<3

masterlist . john "bucky" egan masterlist . taglist

thank you for reading, my darling! remember to like! reblog! and comment! i’ll give you a smooch if you do, ily! send requests to my inbox!

alwaysmoncheri © ─ all rights reserved. please do not repost/translate/copy any of my work.

#my works ──★ ˙☕️ ̟ !! #masterlist #john bucky egan #john egan #john egan x reader #john egan fluff #john egan angst #john egan x female reader #john egan x fem!reader #john egan x you #john egan x y/n #callum turner #mota #masters of the air #john egan mota

[claireelizabeth85]

So I’m a little bit obsessed with #MoTA Major John Egan. He’s infected my brain and I can’t get him out!!! His smile, charm, his confidence 🥵

I have inhaled most of the fiction that’s out there about him so I’m going to try my hand and see if I can write something. If it turns out anywhere near half as good as @instructionsnotincluded’s TrueNorth or @blurredcolour’s Trust, I’ll be happy.

If anyone wants to gossip or sound out ideas with me about John- please drop me message cos I’d love to chat.

#john egan x female reader #john egan imagine #john bucky egan #john egan fluff #john egan x you #john egan x reader #mota fanfic #masters of the air fanfic #I can’t get John Egan out of my head #I think I love a fictional character

[precious-little-scoundrel]

Masters of the Air Fanfic

As requested by sweet @arianatheangel-girl and the subsequent poll for a “Buck Cleven Fic before the series comes out” -and I, being a madwoman with no impulse control and a faint recollection of the book, have delivered…this…whatever this is

Song Challenge: i was challenged by dear @the-ugly-swan for a twenty favored songs challenge and I’m gonna go ahead and make this part of it. August by Taylor Swift informed some of the bittersweet timeline here, with infidelity not being the enemy but rather the lack of possessing oneself fully during wartime to give to another

Spoilers: historical accuracy and inaccuracy abound here so, beware there are some biographical facts about Cleven in here that might count as spoilers to those who wish to watch the series with a blank slate. While to the history purists I must beg for a substantial amount of artistic license to be granted me, and obviously I’ve not seen the show yet and I crunched the timeline to my own will

Reader insert but without the use of “y/n” -I’m utterly fudging a bit on the likelihood of a WAAF lady being part of the American ground crew, however, I had in my minds eye the vision of a greasy mechanic and a glamorous flyboy and it wouldn’t budge, so shhh, go with the vibe

Warnings: mature, 18+. Fluffy smut was requested and while it is very brief and mild in here, not very explicit in phrasing, it’s quite present and a plot point so beware. Also, Virgin!Gale has my heart so we went with that. No shade to dear Marjorie irl, I’ll probably end up writing fics about her once the show gives me Inspo. Some angst due to war, POW’s, etc, mild language

Word count: a monstrous 12k

They came in like locusts at the height of summer, long prayed for, oft cursed in moments of perilous isolation, those ever so intriguingly shiny Americans.

Swarming with a metal buzz over the flatlands of East Anglia, big hulking beasts touched down on fresh tarmacs with more grace than anything that size ought to have, flashing the most bizarre and suggestive paintings on their gleaming fuselages. Flying Fortresses, they were called, and deserved the name. Nothing but the biggest, the loudest, the most alarming machinery would do for the American war effort, and now all this mighty strength was Britain’s too, no longer alone, no longer enduring.

Now the fight could be taken to the enemy in earnest. Out of their flying ships poured the most alarmingly young looking faces, jaunty hats and leather jackets, they looked every bit the sort of fellows war was advertised to.

Farmers in their tractors, mothers with daughters still under their command and RAF veterans all looked askance at such pristine warriors. Had their fertile fields been paved into airfields just for this? Were these gum chewing boys the long expected aid? It wasn’t anti-climactic, nothing American could ever be, it was all just alarmingly fresh. It was understandable then, the initial tentativeness the locals felt towards their new occupants, the way the boys took up such space in the rural villages, made such a racket in the pubs, chased every skirt that swished in the rainy summer breeze, stuck hands out for a shake no matter the introduction. They were a warm, boisterous and confident lot, all much needed attributes in wartime Britain, and soon, the initial distrust of the citizenry thawed, hands were shaken in return and invitations made. An amiable amalgamation eventually occurred, Norfolk never to recover or return to whatever placidity had been her’s before the arrival of the 100th.

Personally, you couldn’t wait to get your hands on them. The planes, that is.

Amalgamation was less a choice for yourself and your service members than a duty. It was abnormal, having a mixed ground crew, British and American servicemen too often clashing in hierarchy disputes for it to be standard, but with deployment rates so high and casualties mounting, ground crew became a case of whichever skilled individuals could be called upon to keep the operation running, the pilots up and the enemy bombed.

You were just glad to be near home, first time back since ‘39 when you’d signed up in the Women's Auxiliary Air Force -even if your rural hometown was now overrun with Americans. They weren’t a bad lot at all, at least not the ones you’d encountered so far on base. Amiable and unexpectedly eager, undeterred by veterans’ grim looks and tales of the woodchipper across the channel, that line of anti-aircraft that shredded anything trying to penetrate the continent.

“Better get crackin’ then.” Was the common response followed by a grin.

Your crew chief sergeant, Ken Lemmons, an American with a forelock of sandy ringlets and the patience of a saint, made the job easier even as every ounce of expertise was exacted from each man -or woman- under him. Feeding a fiery chain of bullets into the turret gun under a hot July sun, you thought your papa may have had the right of it when he tried to dissuade you from choosing the harsher duties of the Auxiliary Force. You could’ve been pouring over a map in the cool of the boardroom right now, or passing on radio messages, even shuttling planes would’ve been more relaxing, but no, you’d spent your life passing him tools in his garage, your papa had been building flying machines when most for these boys were still in diapers, and that path called to you, too. So for you it was grueling maintenance work and the ever present grime of grease on your hands and the awkward reach of twisted metal repairs. Gratefully, after their first mission, there were plenty of them back safe, however riddled their fortresses might’ve been.

It was interesting, the way certain of the flight crew treated the ships. Some were endeared but indifferent to their repairs while others hovered at each hole and tear, like over protective mothers, while you and your mates tried to do your jobs.

Why, one plane in the five assigned to your care was even named “Our Baby”. With such a moniker it made sense that its porcelain faced pilot would caress the shredded wing with a misty eyed frown at each wound, like it were a breathing thing, a race horse, a friend. You didn’t judge it, and he didn’t seem aware of his audience, he’d be back out there doing his own check up after debriefing. Never interrupting your work, always quick to step aside or duck out of the way of a ground crewman’s path, it wasn’t time to chatter or make introductions, although sometimes when the work took long and his reports longer, he’d be there to bid goodnight to you all, soft, American drawl saying “Goodnight, thank ya, goodnight, good work, thank ya” again and again to each.

You grew to recognize them, the ones each mission spared, there were so many and under hats and bundled in leather jackets they tended to blend together, but there were those who made their mark, if not on you then on Dorace in cartography and Eileen at the Red Cross. There was much tittering and speculation, after all, spread thin as their time was, there was also plenty of off time, made all the more charged and anxious as it came in the form of waiting for new orders. The men would be vibrating with nervous energy and generous in the flush of a recent victory and they took it out on the little villagers who in good British fashion took it on the chin and challenged them to a contest of good spirits.

Those were happy days, less anxious than the preceding ones and less heavy than those making up the year after. You dared be roped into the multiple pub crawls, often choosing the most sensible and quiet of the group as your victim and attaching yourself to their side for the evening. This tactic had its fallibility, sometimes those moderates were such a bore as to be unsupportable or hadn’t enough verve to make a full night of it and retired early like respectable, curfew-abiding saps. That’s how you found yourself one night ensconced in a beer pungent corner of Flaggen’s, green leather seats sticky under your palms, with Major Egan fanning out a wad of cash in front of you. It was a blatant attempt to bribe you to clear his aircraft sooner than the last inspection suggested.

“Suggestions” was Egan’s term for regulations.

If you were less tipsy you wouldn’t have giggled at the man’s idiocy, but his arm was heavy around your shoulders and this very cash had bought you one too many gin and tonics. “These regulations keep you alive!” You chided him, shaking your head and feeling the room tip as you did. Truly these Americans could hold their liquor, almost as well as the Polish Squadron when it came to a binge.

“A little flack isn’t gonna keep her down.” he scoffed, “I’ve been grounded for a week now-“

“-I don’t have the authority-“

“-and I’m not gonna sit here while Buck goes up and racks up his number!” Eagen was vehemently slurring and your drunken mind tried to process who Buck was, if not Egan himself.

“Aren’t you Bucky?” you asked, bewildered.

-Americans and their nicknames.

“Yeah.”

“So who’s Buck?” you concentrated very hard on the ancient coaster beneath your latest pint.

“It’s Buck! It’s Gale, Cleven, Major Gale Cleven!” Egan waxed louder and more dramatic with each addition. “You keep clearing his plane! But not mine! Why’s that, huh?”

“How do you know that?” you asked, dubious and only in the raucous of this little pub would his loud voice go unheeded. Compared to the ongoing dart game to the left behind the half wall, an elephant’s trumpeting would be considered bashful.

“ ‘Cause he tells me?” he replied, bewildered at your slowness, “Says you and your crew are little fairies, crawlin’ all over his plane and patching it up better than ever after each mission. And then you clear him. Simple as that.”

“I don’t have authority to clear anyone.” you repeated.

“Huh,” Egan grunted, “how’does he mean then?”

“I don’t know.” you replied firmly, “I doubt I’ve even got your plane, i don’t see you around.”

“I don’t stay around, that’s your job, patching up. I just fly the damn thing.”

“Oh, well.” you shrugged, “I’ve had five, it’s down to three after last mission.” Three years ago the mention of that ratio of losses would’ve sank your mood to the floorboards, by now it’s horrifically routine. “What’s yours called?”

“Mugwump.” he grinned proudly, a flash of white beneath his dark mustache, the man’s face positively shimmered with sweat.

“Serial?” you asked demurely, just to be difficult.

He squinted his eyes shut briefly, head tilted back as if to ask the heavens for help and the recited in a drill master’s staccato “42-30066, ma’am, yes ma’am.”

You giggled again and Egan’s arm jostled your shoulders, smushing you further into him. They were good fun, these boys, didn’t even mind your horrifyingly unflattering uniform with its bulging pockets adding bulk where your curves should take center stage and your stupid pleated cap making you look to be half baker, half doll. You preferred your plain navy coveralls but you’d hardly be let into an establishment in them. Egan’s warm arm didn’t seem to mind the excess poof of the material, he smashed it right down with his hand’s firm grip, he was fun, you decided, no harm in good fun. “Alas, not one of mine.” you sighed, focusing hard on the serial number.

“Damn.” he swore, playing at dejection.

“No,” you went on, “but I’ve got this one, a very spoiled one, maybe you know whose it is. They named it ‘Our Baby’!”

Poor manners and personnel etiquette though it was, you couldn’t say it without tittering.

Egan didn’t laugh, he just looked at you like you’d proved his point. “Yeah,” he replied vehemently, “That’s Buck Cleven’s!”

“Oooh.” -So it was him, the fighting cherub, the walking doughboy, toothpick, baby at wings: there were a dozen or more nicknames you and the ground crew gave the wing-petting Major behind his back. “He always says goodnight to us.” you said instead.

“Is that where he is when I wanna go for a drink?” Egan exclaimed, “Ha! You’d think he was married to the ole ship.”

“He handles her beautifully.” You feel oddly compelled to defend, he’s a master at flight and as someone who must repair each fault of his landings and his leavings and his missions, you feel some loyalty to his finesse. “He handles her so well.” you repeat in the tone of a woman who’s seen some aviation in her time, young though you may be.

“Well let me let you into a lil secret,” Egan smirks and you brace without knowing why, he is, after all, not the respectable and dull men you choose to go out with, he is the dangerous sort you bring those dullards along to deter, “shes the only ‘she’ that boy has ever ‘handled’ -if ya get my drift.”

The sleazy wag of his eyebrows leaves no room for ignorance, you feel your face heat up, wether in prudery for the topic or second hand embarrassment for his friend’s sake, you don’t know.

“Nothing wrong with that.” you reply coldy, only to distance yourself from the road his body language seemed to be hurtling you both down.

“Quite right. Nothin’ at all!” Egan agrees vehemently, his smile easy and his eyes clever “But I’d be a poor friend if I didn't try to remedy his predicament.”

“Telling me is somehow part of this remedy?” you were suspicious, rightfully so.

“Maybe.” Egan drawls it out, shifting in his seat to no longer corner you, his attention drawn to the nearby dart game. The man of the moment, the subject, the handler of planes and none else, was not here. He had such a luminous head of golden hair, it would be a beacon amongst the muddy haired crowd flinging darts. “The thing of it is, dear,” Egan confided, “I've had an absolutely marvelous time since I got here. And I think that’s rather essential, for sanity and for international relations, don’t you? I’ve gotten to know all sorts of wonderful people, lovely people like yourself-“

“-word is, you’ve known them a little too biblically, no wonder Cleven avoids your outings.” You could not help but temper him. “Half of Great Britain has had the privilege, if some are to be believed.”

“And so what if I have? I love dancin’!” he laughed quite happily at your barb and you didn’t have it in you to pull down any further a man who was sacrificing so much day in and out. “Getting to know Great Britain is a better occupation than pettin’ plane wings under the moonlight.”

You tittered again at his words and the oddly endearing memories you had of watching Major Ceven petting and whispering to his plane like she was his long-standing beloved, loitering ground crew unheeded. “He does do that.” you agreed.

“Hey, everyone’s got their method.” Egan insisted in his friend’s defense, “But I have told him, it’s good for the morale to mingle, even if he hates drinkin’.“

You pucker your face at that. “I know he mingles, Violet says he’s a doll when he goes to market.” you point out, small town chatter gets around and while you can’t say you know Cleven, you know he’s mild mannered and precious. And a terribly pretty face too, which isn’t fair, he oughta be an ass which a face that cute. “And he got a tan from somewhere last week.“

“Oh, so ya noticed!” Egan is triumphant, “A bunch of us used our day passes to go messin’ around in boats on the canals.”

“Good for you.” you didn’t know what else to say. “Why are we talking about him? What’s your point? I can ask for your plane to be transferred to my crew, but it won’t get you a sloppy clearance. And if your friend is so socially awkward he can’t even manage a pub night, you can hardly expect me to be flattered that you consider me prime material to throw at him.”

“He’s not awkward.” Egan cut to the chase quite serious, in mission mode, “Buck just had his hopes tangled up back home, and now he’s here he’s finding it hard to accept that hopes were all they were. She’s real moved on.” Well that had hurt, you winced in sympathy. “I warned him, everything during this war has got to be taken as a bit inpermanent. Don’t fall in love with Texas girls when you’re headed to England -via: Louisiana, Indiana, hell, by New York she’d stopped writing.”

“And now the texas girl has-“

“-found a Texan, I guess.” He shrugged and chugged the last of his pint. “She’s gettin’ married, it's really over. So, -“ he made a broad gesture as if to explain his reasoning for this entire segue. “-you like projects, you wouldn’t be in the line of work you’re in if ya didn’t, so whaddya say?”

You looked around the dimly lit pub in search of two things, sunny blonde hair and a clock to tell you how badly you were going to regret this night, come morning. “He’s not even here.” you balked.

“Well, no-“

“-what I say is,” you grinned at him disbelieving, “you owe me another gin and tonic for subjecting me to such inane chatter.”

His grin should have served as warning enough that he would neither drop the subject nor let you off free this evening. In fact, the ticking clock and its late curfew breaking hours became the least of your concerns come morning. The cool wash of bitter juniper blended into the pungent flow of beer, it blurred everything, soon there was a great swelling of pride for your native village, a pub crawl was on, all three visited and drank from, an army Jeep was requisitioned without authority, there was some incident regarding a policeman‘s helmet. The latter being the reason why you found yourself in “jail” the next morning, nursing a raging headache and questioning life decisions while glaring at John Egan’s polished boots.

There was very little talk about bail or Air Force hours being exceptioned, the more pressing concern to the Bobbies who had nabbed you was the coed holding cell. Thorpe Abbotts was a small place, after all, and you liked it that way. If this overly indulgent night could be kept away from the military police, all would be well.

You had one hope: Harry Crosby was sensibly absent from the holding cell, having a keen sense of when to depart from the raucous joyride at the precise moment to save himself a demerit. It was an extreme embarrassment to you that you’d not had the same sense. In fact, fond as you were of a bit of a knees up, you couldn’t quite credit the fact you had allowed yourself such free reign, or accomplished such foolishness. Glowering at Major Egan’s face now, animated with delighted chagrin at your shared plight as it was, you vowed to never again hook your fortunes to his, as it were.

Your resolve, and humiliation, was about to be compounded, exponentially.

There was a bustle of a visitor entering the precinct, easily heard in the small space, followed by the low hum of mild mannered conversation. It went on for sometime, and no amount of straining at the bars and cocking of ears would allow you, Egan or your fellow misfortunates to ascertain the gist of it. Violet’s husband was the main constable, and you were quite certain he’d be moderate in his sentence, he had his helmet back, after all. It was the Air Force penalty of not being on base in time this morning that you feared, a growing nausea that compounded the misery of your aching head. They’d not discharge Egan, they’d probably not even demote him, he was too crucial and he’d done this one too many times for it to be grace alone saving him. When he was needed, really needed, he was there. That’s what counted. The same could be said of you, but that hardly mattered given your low rank.

Violet’s husband, also known as constable Herbert, came in sight and with a jangle of keys and a tap to the side of his nose, swung open the bars of infamy and gestured for you and your fellow inmates to file out.

“All sorted.” He declared. His gaze lingered on you as it had many times in your life when you’d been caught jumping in puddles after church, “Let this be a lesson and a warning to you.”

You tried your best at both obeisance and penitence, both of which were rather natural feelings at the present time, while hurrying past as fast as was respectful, your approaching shift hours making your heart thump in panic.

On the steps outside, your savior was loitering against the wrought iron fence, thumbing at the petunias in the nearby window box. Gale Cleven was a mile long of lanky body in perfectly pressed and tailored Air Force greens, fresh faced as the good conscienced are, hair combed without his cap and a smile on his soft face that was composedly long suffering, rather than endeared, as he watched you miscreants pour out of the modest brick building.

You stumbled to a halt on the first step at the sight of him and allowed your instincts to take over, hands smoothing down hair and skirt with frantic self consciousness. You must’ve looked a rumple.

“I hope last night was worth it.” Cleven drawled in that voice of his, so oddly deep for so fresh a face, his placid smile growing into something more genuinely mirthful as Egan smooched at him in gratitude and swore that he knew his Buck wouldn’t abandon them, that his Buck would pull through for them. “I order a round of toothpaste for everyone and cold showers, you stink.” Gale shied away without any real effort, nodding in greeting to the boys he recognized.

Then, as if in the most painfully slow motion with all the strong string accompaniment of a silver screen scene, his eyes landed on you and an odd ache formed in your chest at the anticipation of his disapproval.

It made you tense and draw yourself up to your full height, looking about as regal as a drenched bantam in your disheveled dignity, but you weren’t about to be relegated to another tier than these boys he so amusedly indulged.

“Y’all know what time it is?” he asked mildy, those azure orbs with their batting dark fringe didn’t waver and you realized he indeed had more guts than you’d given him credit for.

There was a chorus of “no”s and various guesses based on the fast evaporating fog and the lightening sky.

“Zero five thirty.” he ended the suspense with the cock of an eyebrow at you.

“Shit!” Egan was suddenly animated, “Shit, shit-“

“Hey, you keep your swearin’ away from my sweet lil corporal.” Cleven chided, and it took you a brief moment to startle upon realizing he meant you. And he thought you sweet? “C’mon Miss,” he waved you down the steps and for some inexplicable reason you felt very compelled to obey and suddenly stood beneath his gaze like a dutiful child awaiting deliverance or censure, “I’ve only got this bike, petrol allotment ran out when we went to the canals last week. But it’ll get ya back faster than this lot. Reckon you can manage on the handlebar?”

“Wha-?“ you glanced sideways at the bike with its large, sweeping handlebars and second guessed his meaning until he himself was straddling it. His legs required the seat to be hiked up impossibly high and the narrow nip of his waist was accentuated by the posture. Those padded, fleece puffed jackets you had seen him in had done no credit to his form, a toothpick he may have been with how terribly lean he was, but he was firm in all the right places. He was also waiting on you to answer while you ogled him.

“Gosh yes, I can, if you’re sure? Awfully kind of you.” you blathered and moved in a hurry to make up for your stalling, keenly conscious of his eyes on your back as you shimmied your backside up onto his handlebars, feeling the warm press of his hand as he helped steady you from tipping all the way back. You wiggled on the thin metal bar, spreading your legs on either side of the front wheel and doing your best to ignore the raucous commentary of the still tipsy audience of your fellow inmates swaying on the precinct steps. “Y’all just be glad there’s no mission scheduled today.” he snarked to them instead and they chimed up that last night’s idiocy was calculated with that in mind.

“Huh.” Cleven uttered, unimpressed, behind you and it made you shiver, worse than if your father caught wind of this stunt. “Darlin’ put your hands over mine, s’gonna get wobbly takin’ off.” he directed next and you did as you were told, looking back over your shoulder at him with a grateful smile that you were relieved to see returned, pink lips stretching and a freckled nose bunching up sweetly when all of the sudden a rush caught you by surprise and the bike was in motion and you whipped your head back to view the street as it rushed up ahead of you. “See ya boys!” he hollered out as a mutinous babble rose from his friends at being left to jog back.

The young man could put some speed on a bike, uphill too. Or, as much of a hill as could be found this far East. You could hear him chuckle when you squeaked at the first jolt of a pothole, your thumbs hooking under his hands and curling into his palms. They were warm and calloused, dry from the cool breeze and you may have imagined the way he squeezed them in assaurance but you did not imagine the way his voice piped up again, smooth and conversational: “Harry told me if I was quick I could get you out in time, I think we’re gonna make it. S’dont worry, even if Sergeant Lemmons gives ya trouble, I’ll insist.”

“That’s really too kind of you.” The chill of windburn and a substantial amount of remorse made your cheeks glow scarlet. “All of it is. I’m rather ashamed.”

“I didn’t take you for an all nighter sort.” he agreed but followed it with a soothing compliment, “You’ve always been nothin’ but perfect. P-p-perfectly punctual, I mean, and there’s no reason to let Egan’s idea of fun ruin your record.”

“Wasn’t his fault. Not wholly.” you sighed, giving Violet a bashful wave as you passed her opening the shop, a wave which Cleven mirrored behind you and between the two of you letting go the bike, it nearly dumped you both. It was luck and sheer persistence that righted you and kept your balance. “I’m afraid it’s a bit of a bad habit, picked it up at Northolt.”

“Where’s that?” he asked.

“South, by the coast.” you said, unsure why you felt the need to explain your debauchery away, “I was working a ground crew down there for a bunch of Polish Pilots. Spitfires mainly. That squadron nabbed the most kills of any in the RAF back in ‘40. Why, even Churchill visited more times than I can count, he found them good fun. Too much fun, they never went to bed without downing half a barrel. There was dice built into the bottom of the pints at the Black Bull, rather addictive, rolling to see who would buy the next round. —There was always a next.” You added upon reflection.

That was also the year you had lost your brother. The correlation between the habit and the loss wasn’t to be dwelt on.

“Huh,” Cleven let out one of him contemplative hums, “and how do we compare?” he asked surprisingly.

“How?” you laughed, daring to crane your neck back to see him in the early morning sunshine, pretty and sweet and arch in his expression. Dusk had not done his mama’s work on his face any justice, it made you want to pant he was so pretty.

“I dunno, in any way,” he laughed in turn, not even breathless as he sped the bike over the cobblestones, the village barely awake and mostly quiet, “how do we compare?”

“To the Poles?”

“Or the French. Or your own, the RAF ain’t no joke.” he amended, “Whoever is our competition.”

“So it is a competition.” you smirked -how very American of him. “Depends,” you hedged playfully, “Our boys are so very nice, familiar, they never run out the right coinage during a date either. But the French are better flirts while the Dutch are better dancers. But the Poles, they know how to romance. Lots of hand kissing and flowers, so many flowers there had to be rules made for overstocking the billet.”

“Sounds like we gotta step up our game.” he decided.

“Is that what you meant? How you compare? First impressions?”

“I-I- guess, yeah.” he now sounded confused, “I mean, what else? You got scores for aircraft?”

“I do.” you replied, as it was true, “But that’s unfair, you’ve only just arrived. I thought maybe you wanted to know something more -salacious.”

“Like?” His tone behind you was guarded and you doubted if the alcohol of last night were not still buzzing and fortifying your brazenness, that you’d ever go through with what you said next.

“Other performances. For instance, in bed.”

You felt his fingers flutter around the bars beneath your own, you gripped them tighter, not just because the stretch of old road before the air base was ancient and pitted but because you were in an agony of suspense as to how he’d take your forwardness.

“There’s a record of that somewhere?” he asked at last, a beat too long, too delayed for casualness, too morose for flippancy.

“In fact there is.” you responded carefully. “A little diary of rankings, actually, there’s multiple and whenever there’s a grand assembly of the WAAF or the WACs, they’re passed about and tallied.”

“Sweet Jesus.” he swore behind you, “And here I’ve been chalkin’ up railways and munition dump targets like they’re some achievement.”

“Oh it’s all a bit of silliness.” You assured, not intending to make him glum.

“Do-“ he hesitated and you prayed for strength for him to spit it out as the airfield came in sight on the flat plain ahead. He didn’t.

“-Do I what?” you prodded softly.

“Are one of these little tallies yours?” he asked miserably.

You grinned to yourself and felt the sunshine seemed brighter and the air crisper than ever before as it rushed in your face with the slowing speed of his bike. “No, not in the least. I merely keep track of Sally’s ledger. It’s all a bit too -messy, for me.”

You dared peak behind you again and he looked relieved, then blushed furiously at your observance of him. “Well, who does Sally say is winning?” he dared.

“Romania.” you chortled and he did too, in shock if nothing else. “But Egan’s caught wind of it, he’s quite determined to save your country’s dominance, you don’t need to sweat it.”

His frown was back and you had to focus on not falling off as he slowed the bike to a halt, momentum precarious as his long legs kicked out and walked it the last yard to the segregated barracks, you felt his hand again on your waist to steady you. “Does that bother you?” he asked earnestly, sorrow in his blue eyes.

He offered a hand for you as you hopped down and it was you who held onto it long after it was needed. “Bother me?”

“Yeah, him -consortin’…with Sally?” he pressed, hands quite engulfing your one, “Does it hurt you? Bucky, see, he doesn’t mean to hurt, he’s just so-“

“-Blimey, you are a dear.” you marveled and then amended your interruption as your amusement only further creased that sweet face, “If I am ever again in Major Egan’s company, it will only be to escape it just as quickly. I’ve had quite enough of…consorting.”

“That so?” The lackadaisical confidence he exhibited outside of the precinct was back again, a not unattractive smirk plastered on his vulnerable face, a scheme in his guileless eyes. “Had enough of holding cells?”

“Quite.” you smirked back. “A quiet family dinner is more my style, the occasional picnic, even a zip round Oxford as one must show the foreigners about.” you paused and squeezed his hand once more, “And I do enjoy a bike ride.”

You did not know if he cataloged your preferences for an ideal date or not, life was busy, after all, and the momentary frolics in the July sunshine and banter on the tarmac and evenings in the pub were the exception. Time went on. Most of life was spent in the air, in his case, and in yours, beneath the belly of his beast, wrench in hand. But ever after his gallant rescue of you, there was more than the passing “goodnight” paid to you, there were cheerful smiles on his exhausted face when he returned from a mission, as if you were the one face he was coming back to. With an old familiar dread you noticed the way you begin to take each hole and dent and damage to his plane personally, as if it had been exacted on something precious to you. You have begun to care, for him and for his men, and your tired heart could barely do more than dread what that might lead to.

Good fun. That’s what these boys were supposed to be.

Gale Cleven hadn’t proven much fun. And somehow that was worse. It was worse and also unbearably honoring to be the last face he saw before taking it off, flags in your hands waving in front of his hulking bomber, giving the old familiar directions for a perfect takeoff, one he executed sublimely time and again. His sober, purposeful nods to you before he engaged and taxied out for a mission of death was more intense and intimate than any bouquet or even, your thought, a kiss. It was true the donut dollies on the sidelines were often the last faces of home that many of those boys would see. But in the his cockpit, looking down at your shrimp sized figure on the tarmac, both Major Cleven and you knew that for him, it was yours.

Once, there was a scare, in the first days of august. More than a scare if you were being honest, your heartbeat about stopped and didn’t pick back up for a few hours until word came in. The rest of the base wasn’t much better.

Ten planes had not come back. -Among them, Our Baby. And Mugwump. For two officers, so crucial, so senior, idolized and beloved as they were, to not return, was a blow like none other. You weren’t alone in hovering around the control shack, taking license of your friendship with Dorace to get a play by play of any news. When news came, such as it was, it was both relieving and exasperating.

It would seem there was some problem, a defect or too great of a hit. Orders to land in enemy territory were ignored, however, by Cleven no less. He had doggedly pushed on, safely landing them in allied Africa, of all places. It took almost a day for this information to finally be pasted together, by the end of it you were sad, haggard and half useless in your coveralls, stupendously relieved for a man you were supposed to feel professionally about.

Instead, that night, tucked in your own bed after a meal with your parents and little brother, you thanked God for keeping him -them, all of them- safe. And found yourself pondering the tan on him when he got back from his African foray. Some jealous part of you feared he might be kept there but a week later the thunderous hum of approaching bombers buzzed the air overhead of Thorpe Abbotts and the satisfying thwump of wheels touching down brought them back. There was a frenzy of greetings, flight and ground crew eager to welcome them back, the radio operators, too, and even the civilians who’d managed to get on base.

Your little brother among them. Donald wanted to see them back safe and it wasn’t dangerous, and it wasn’t dire, not returning from a mission the planes wouldn’t be in such poor shape. They’d been repaired in Africa, enough to fly them all the way back to England. So little Donald was nearby and when the crowd parted and a bee-line for Cleven became apparent, he took advantage and gave the young man a firm handshake in greeting.

“Hey buddy, thank ya, who do you belong to?” Buck laughed while returning the firm grip.

“I’m her brother.” Donald pointed you out proudly among the dispersing crowd and you rolled your eyes at his expectancy for Gale to know or care about you, more than your most pertinent work on base.

“Oh are ya now, hers, huh?” he grinned at you, “Been talkin’ about me?” he greeted, there was a still healing scrape on his left temple that your fingers itched to soothe. How badly had he hit his head?

“Of course I have.” you defended, happiness bubbling under your lips and threatening to make you smile more than was professional, you could see Sergeant Lemmons observing you from the side and tried to keep some decorum. “We thought you’d died.” You stated plainly, it wasn’t any secret to Donald, as soon as the plane had gone missing and before radio contact had been reestablished, you’d rushed home and made the family pray over supper.

“We’ve been praying for you.” Donald agreed, and you saw Cleven startle, a gasped intake of breath between those lush lips and his eyes seemed to water as he searched first your brother’s face and then your own.

“You have?” he choked out, raspy and touched.

“Yes.” you whispered, mouth twisting in a ugly grimace to hold back your own emotion. It was of little use, something beyond War Effort investment in his well being had been admitted. “We thought you might be dea-“

-you didn’t finish your reiteration of your dread. Your face, a greasy and mist spattered face, was suddenly smushed into the padded leather of his bomber jacket, nose tucked right into the fleece apex where his pale blue scarf always rested on his throat.

He was hugging you, you realized with delayed surprise.

“-even though it made the potatoes cold, Da insisted on prayin’ every night after she told us-“ Donald was waxing eloquent on his own sacrifices of having one added prayer request lengthening his mealtime but you were oblivious to more than the firm press of Cleven’s still gloved hand to the back of your scarf wrapped head, some strong emotion shuddering through his body against your own. A tremor of terror and pain, you suspected, emotions he’d been suppressing all week.

After all, the saved weren’t supposed to be shaken up. They’d been saved, what was there to be off about? You’d seen enough pilots after a close call to know it was every bit as bad or worse than actual disaster. They’d send him right back up again in days, and that was what was expected, demanded, required. He was tremoring against you and you gripped him tighter, sympathetic and aching to cure it somehow. Even for a moment.

“We’ll keep praying.” you assured, and you heard him clear his throat, snotty and rough. “Oh, blast, I’ve positively greased your jacket.” you mourned as he let you go, finally, and you caught sight of the mess your filthy hands and face had imprinted on it during the embrace.

He chuckled as he looked down at the imprint, “S’fine.”

After such an exchange of emotion the air felt charged between you two, without privacy or precedence, it felt unthinkable to linger in that mood. You turned to his plane and pet the fuselage with unstudied fondness, it had been horrid having the old bird absent. You were not above having favorites and the love he poured into his ship, somehow, like some old fairytale truism, made the hulking metal beast lovable, in turn. “How’s our baby, hmm?” you asked him, giving him a sly smile and he took your proffered out seamlessly, joining you in cataloging the damage that had not been deemed severe enough to hamper his return.

“Don’t crawl under here, sir!” you protested as you wiggled under the belly only to find him beside you in the plane’s shadow, “You’ll be a mess!”

“I’ve already got stains.” he brushed your worries off, and you knew it was true. Bloodstains in fact. He had lost a man, the report said, and apparently, judging by his trousers, Buck had held the poor fellow as he bled out. “And I wanna show you the spot I’m worried ‘bout.”

“Alright.” you conceded, allowing him to direct you to the nose. “Watch it Donald!” you had to reprimand your little brother who predictably followed after, “You’ll burn yourself if you touch that, this thing was just running.”

“Careful buddy.” Gale echoed gently beside you and pushed his little head down, more into a crawl. You refused to allow the gentle way he treated the brat to warm you, you refused. Or at least, you refused to let it show, the tingle and heat you felt being all too consuming to be denied.

He was lovely. But you already knew that. He was even more lovely when, upon crawling out from under Our Baby, he took his scarf from around his neck, silk decadently soft, flesh warmed and smelling strongly of his exertions, and swiped it across your greased cheek.

“You’ve got just a lil more…” he practically mumbled and wiped down to your chin, firm, gentle little rubs of the silk which required his other hand to grasp your chin to steady you. You weren’t sure when he’d taken off his gloves, but the feel of his skin on yours was heady.

“It’ll take a couple days.” You predicted regarding the repairs, “Which means you’ll have a few days free, if they don’t drown you in reports.”

“Oh they will.” he laughed, “But s’long as my days are free, means yours aren’t.” he pointed out.

“I guess that’s true.”

“We shoulda thought of that when we chose this line of work.” he joked and your cheeks flamed at the realization he wished to spend time with you. “But you’ll have your nights still, yeah?”

Coming from anyone else, the request for your nights to be reserved would strike you as suggestive indeed. But this was Buck, and when he mentioned nights you imagined nothing but taking him home for a tepid potato and rationed powdered milk supper and the warm reception of your family. His weary eyes suggested how badly he needed that. You could give it to him, and it made your heart glow.

“Yes, I’ll have my nights.” you agreed, “And you can have them, too.”

Sergeant Lemmons agreed with your estimation of Our Baby’s damage the following day and four long days after were spent patching up damage that suggested what a hellish ride that must’ve been. Someone else hosed the blood out of the bay but it turned the puddle on the concrete beside you sickly pink.

To and fro from office to barracks to observation tower, Cleven would stop by to see his ‘baby’ on these occasions. The heckling the ground crew gave you regarding this potential double meaning was agonizing and almost made his attentions not worth it. But then he’d be dropping to a squat to chat with you as you soldered metal, heedless of the sparks, or else bringing scones from the mess to refresh you and, again, wiping your face often with his fancy scarves despite your protests that it was futile.

And at night, on the second day, you made good on yours and Donald’s word and brought him to dinner. It was a quiet walk from the base to the end of the long main road, right to the outskirts of the village, where your family’s unassuming little thatched cottage nestled amongst mama’s victory garden, daddy’s aeroplane hanger and repair shop loomed ugly and dark behind.

The look on Buck’s face when you met him outside the base’s gate at seven in the evening in a dress and heels was worth capturing. But you hadn’t a camera with you and it wasn’t like you were liable to forget. His pure look of awe and appreciation for your cleaned up and girlish state was nearly comic if it weren’t so flattering.

“Darlin-“ he began in a rush but did not finish, only taking you lightly by the fingertips and spinning you slowly, his eyes wide like he was seeing a marvel, which, maybe he was, -your womanly form finally liberated from puffy uniforms and ugly coveralls. Wholesome as your intentions were for the evening, and indeed for him in general, it was some relief and delight to know he was capable of getting hot under the collar. His mama’s well drilled manners soon caught up to his unbridled appreciation and a deluge of charmingly proper compliments rained down on you next until you had to put a stop to his babble by tugging him down the road with the reminder of dinner as incentive.

“You’re sure they won’t mind?” he began his worries again, nervous to meet your parents.

If he’d been like the rest of the boys he’d know just how much mingling was already common. It wasn’t remotely odd to bring him home, not when you lived so near. “Don’t be silly, they’ve been begging to meet you and Donald has plans of torturing you with his plane models and Papa wants to show you his shop and mama thinks you're much too skinny, I’m sure she’s gone to the black market to grab something to fatten you-“

“-how’s she know that?” he interrupted in shock.

“Oh,” you flushed, realizing your misstep, “I’ve talked of you. And she recognized you, she and Violet are thick as thieves and -it’s not like you’re unremarkable. A physical description is rather easy to give when you, well, when you look like…you.”

“What do I look like?” he cried out but his cheeks were smiling despite his outrage, “Malnourished?”

“Like a lanky cherub.” you refuted and were pleased that the late summer sun was still bright enough at this long hour to show his pretty blush.

“A cherub.” he repeated in disbelief.

“Yes.” you were firm, both in tone and the press of your hand in the crook of his offered elbow, “And as we’ve been commended to entertain angels unaware, how much more when we are certain of one?”

“Oh shut up.” he begged you and you two staggered into each other as you laughed your hearts out. It felt good to laugh, for the both of you, and a little too foreign, as well. It left a hollow melancholy in its wake that was soothed by the near and swaying proximity of each other’s body.

“They’ll be glad to have you at the table.” you dared go on, feeling you should prepare him, should the subject arise, “I’ve a brother, you see, an older brother. Rafe, he was stationed in Burma. We’ve not heard of him in over two years. There’s an empty seat at our table, it takes a certain sort of soul to fill it without it feeling like a sacrilege. But you fit the bill nicely, I think.”

“Burma.” he repeated with all the gravity of a man who understood, who knew the ache of almost hoping a dear brother, a beloved son, was dead rather than enduring the slow hell of a Japanese internment camp. How awful to almost wish for a decisive end for one so loved. “No word at all?”

“None.”

“I’m terribly sorry.”

“Thank you.” you whispered, “And thanks for making it back, yourself.” you squeezed his arm jovially and felt his other hand fall atop yours there in the crook of his elbow and a sweetness filled you at the gesture, such as you’d never known before. It was peaceful and lovely and your little village suddenly looked as pretty and idyllic again as it was always supposed to, the routine route home was seen through his eyes, the eyes of a homesick boy with a soft girl on his arm, bound to meet her parents and inspect Donald’s plane models.

Your mother and father loved him, little surprise there, he was a darling and homesick and yours was a happy home, humble and wounded though it may be. Your mother was obnoxious in her delight the moment father took him out back to see where your expertise for welding first began, the little aerodrome, no longer fitted with pleasure craft but now fitted to scrap the more useless casualties. Mother pestered you as you helped clear the table, asking after him and whatever this thing was between you. When you assured her it was only dinner to fill that chair and some unfathomable knowledge that had grown each time you stood before his propeller and waved him off to death, she knew it for what it is.

War and the urgency of living that goes with it, shrinks long emotions into fast passion and steady hearts into foolish daring. Neither of you were the sort to tumble into the passing vogue passions that had seized hold of your friends and comrades. Yours was a quieter path. Even so, after the fourth evening of dinner rations and quiet fireside chatter and the patter of late summer rain on the roof, there was a kiss as he walked you back to base, his jacket over your shoulders, his shirt clinging to him and the sweetest intent etched on his misted features as his lips descended to yours.

“Thank you,” he had said so passionately yet so subdued, a wall of wisteria at your back and his honey blonde hair dripping into his eyes, “I’ve needed this bad.”

His words suggested the family dinners, his scorching lips suggested the molded flesh of your body in his large palms.

“So you’ve wanted this?” your breathed mixed, a hazy little cloud between you in the damp evening air, your little alcove of shelter from the rain under old Mosley’s shed was like another little world entirely, fauna filled and peaceful, even the ever present drone of machinery was drowned out by the downpour.

Your mother had been right, you should've waited longer till the clouds passed but you had both cited curfew -and maybe even subconsciously sought just such a predicament as the one that had you necking Gale Cleven in a wisteria claimed tool shed.

“I’ve wanted you.” he clarified, firm grip on the base of your neck punctuating his turmoil, his lips met yours again and whatever oath of abstinence he had chosen, it did not seem to include kissing. He was soft and persistent and all consuming, those restless hands migrating in an ever mapping caress, making every part of you thrum with butterflies. “Wanted you for a long while.” he spoke into your lips, “I think you’re just great.” And there was happiness then, untinged with anything temporal beyond the feel of warm flesh beneath cold, rain soaked cloth and lips that tasted of honeyed biscuits.

It was impossible to maintain the stoic propriety of behavior you’d once managed before, on base, after that. You knew now how he sounded when he moaned into your mouth and he his stare alone could make you blush, you had spoken to his mother on the phone and he had seen your childhood bedroom. He learned once, laying amongst sea grass on the beach during a cloudy Sunday, the silky moist feel of you beneath your swimsuit, his long, bashful fingers that were ever so fond of petting anything and everything, finally finding a place that responded to his swipes with jolts and gasps and sighs and pleasure. You peaked three times on that sand dune, Buck none the wiser as he had nothing to compare your little deaths to, you kept a firm grip on his forearm and told him he was doing marvelous and that’s all it took for him to be persistent. Persistent beyond what you imagined any other man could be due to cramp. He was getting freckles from so much sunshine, but it was well, the rains would be here soon come autumn.

These happy days had you risking your life to pause your work and watch his pretty form swagger across the asphalt to his next destination and he, ever so right and proper and by the book, became devil enough to lie in wait for you and catch you by the waist when you least suspected it and drag you into some abandoned corner.

Only to kiss you.

To kiss and to ask after your day, as if your evening was not to be spent sat beside him at table or the movies, lying on a picnic blanket with him near or in the back of a jeep on top of Mayberry Rise, the tallest point around where the stars ran into the sea on the horizon.

One of the first days of September, you made good on your promise to Harry and drove with him to muck about Oxford for a day and see the college, the library, too. It was a long ride and as you were at the wheel, Harry was gem enough to allow Gale along, too, and by the end of it, driving back late and in a rush before the headlights would be needed, you were quoting favorite literary passages to each other. As if you were all students, not misplaced youths in the business of killing.

You said as much and in the burgeoning gloom Gale’s rich voice asked if you knew any Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

“Not Wordsworth!” Harry clarified.

“No, I don’t.” You admitted, for all your chiding today of their not being cultured enough, you didn’t know your American writers as you should.

“He’s got a poem for that.” Gale said, “For what you said. Or at least, it makes me think of today -that verse, ‘member Crosby?- the one it goes:

-I remember the gleams and glooms that dart across the school-boy's brain; The song and the silence in the heart, That in part are prophecies, and in part, Are longings wild and vain. And the voice of that fitful song, Sings on, and is never still: "A boy's will is the wind's will, And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts."

The deafening silence for the rest of the car ride was filled with truth and your own heart was heavy when you bid them both goodnight that evening, headed to your seperate billets. You paused in you departure to turn back once more at the door and holler to Buck in the chilled September air, “That poem, is there more of it?”

“Lots more.” he’d spun round on his heel, pleasantly surprised at your inquiry.

“What’s it called?” you intended to search it out, though it was doubtful that a copy would be found near this remote place.

“How about I write it out for ya?” he suggested as if thinking the same.

“You’ve got a whole damn poem memorized?” you balked, incredulity warring with amusement that you should’ve guessed he’d be the sort.

“I-I-I might.” he stuttered before laughing.

“Then please do.” you grinned and threw him a kiss across the distance which he jumped up and caught from the air in a grand show of dedication. “Goodnight, cherub.” you wished him, “Sleep tight.” He had a mission in the morning, a daylight one.

“Goodnight old Bean.” He teased your accent and the door swung shut behind you blocking out the cold and the retreating sound of his footsteps.

If you’d have known that was the last time you’d hear them you’d have stayed an age out in the cold night listening to him go, memorizing the cadence of his gait, the sway of his shoulders disappearing into the twilight, the turn of his head as he’d throw a glance back at you, sweet and handsome and cheerful despite his ominous itinerary.

If you’d have only known.

It wasn’t like last time, like Africa. There had been no loss of contact. Dorace had heard every awful minute until the clock ran out. They’d been shredded, their precious ship turned into a raging inferno and Major Cleven’s gritted and garbled transmissions left only one hope that some at least had jumped out. Jumped out only to land in Nazi occupied Europe, it was a faint mercy to cling to.

The empty chair sat next to you again at the table and mocked you all. Mocked your hope and your resilience to dare love again. How foolish to bring home a man who belonged to a group they were calling “Bloody”, and not as a curse but an epithet.

The losses had been staggering all summer and now in September they hit close. You were confident that Crosby and Egan were every bit as dismal inside as you felt, Egan’s warm hand had clasped your shoulder like you were a fellow officer and told you he was sorry. You took the condolences and gave them back, a stupid little exchange that only highlighted how unspeakable some pain is.

Three weeks later, Egan’s plane didn’t come back either.

In your more fanciful moments you allowed yourself to imagine Egan and Cleven alive, somewhat whole and reunited. You could almost hear Cleven’s joking welcome, “What took you so long, Bucky?”

You’d indulged these fancies for Rafe, too, until years of silence suggested the worst.

However, this time, well into October and with an entirely new set of planes under your care, word came at last through the Red Cross, and the truth was exactly as you’d dreamed. There was only the paltriest letter back to command but it said they were well, they were alive, together indeed and being moved to the Polish border. Away from their own comrades' bombs. It was more than most ever got, and your family celebrated the news with the gratitude it deserved.

As October turned to November and your gloved fingertips froze as you worked, every sharp needle of chill reminded you of him, how much more awful it must be that far north, snow piled deep and muck everywhere and lice covered blankets and illness left untreated. As the holidays hurtled nearer, days of peace and goodwill you had planned to be spent with him, you were consumed by the dread of losing him to the elements since war had proven too clement. At night you lay abed and reread the one bit of handwriting you had from him, that damned poem he had written out, left under your door in the early dawn that had taken him from you.

My lost youth. That was the title of the thing. It cut like glass every time you read it, but Buck had touched that paper and looped those letters and dotted those i’s and it was precious to you. It became a prayer of sorts.

“There are things of which I may not speak;

There are dreams that cannot die;

There are thoughts that make the strong heart weak,

And bring a pallor into the cheek,

And a mist before the eye.

And the words of that fatal song

Come over me like a chill:—

“A boy’s will is the wind’s will,

And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts.”

Strange to me now are the forms I meet

When I visit the dear old town;

But the native air is pure and sweet,

And the trees that o’ershadow each well-known street,

As they balance up and down,

Are singing the beautiful song,

Are sighing and whispering still:—

“A boy’s will is the wind’s will,

And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts.”

Then, in January, as if prayers got heard, the most unexpected happened.

Major Gale Cleven, what was left of him after cold, starvation, murder and a treck across Europe, had returned. Things like this, seeing your lost beloved ride up to your workplace in the shotgun seat of a jeep, was the stuff of movies, hopeful propaganda or a woman’s mind that had finally cracked. You just stood there, welding helmet in hand, frozen rain spitting down at you, watching him jump out, watching Harry tear down from the observation tower to embrace him.

Dully, you could hear behind you Segreant Lemmons kind cheer of “so it was true, he got away from the bastards!” and a congratulatory thump between your shoulder blades. It was a moment of truth, to realize how far your faith had dwindled when the very answer to your prayers stood steaming with life in the cold air and yet you still could not accept it as reality.

“Baby.” his hands were warm compared to your damp cheeks and the span of them, so familiar and large, cupping your jaw with the calloused thumbs swiping at your temples, that was reminiscent of August and of happier days. Yet still, you had dreamed of him doing this, dreamed of a million different embraces and each time you woke up. “Baby, I’m back, I came to ya.” his voice was wrecked, from disuse and illness and whatever misery that had subjected him to. That, that was real enough, the rattling cough more so, you’d imagined his suffering in your worst nightmares too, this was something you could believe.

Familiar flesh was gaunt under your touch, gray cheeks where once there’d been freckles and the sinful pout of his once ruby red mouth was a dull violet, as if the vitality had been leached out of him. “What’d they do to my cherub?” you mourned, worst nightmares and wildest hopes blending into this one moment.

“Don’t cry, don’t cry f’me, I’m back. I came back.” he cooed to you, rough and sad himself, and your face was buried again in the placard of his coat, a great woolen overcoat this time, no fleece or any vestige of the swanky finery that got the flyboys ribbed for being soft, fancy, spoiled.

Nothing soft about these men, nothing gentle about their lot, nothing glamorous about being hurled down from the skies in a ball of fire.

“We kept praying for you.” you realized, it seemed important to tell him that however hopeless you all had felt, you’d gone through the motions anyway.

That was faith, wasn’t it? The hope of things not seen?

“I felt ‘em.” he said. “How else you think I managed it?”

It. -had managed it, that tiny word represented a host of terrors and miseries and unforgettable incidents that ricocheted in his brain like the lead fired into his boys head’s when they couldn’t manage a forced march, barefoot and underfed, in the snow.

Christmas had passed but January was not so very advanced, that evening your family turned back the clock and it was a matter of guessing as to who was celebrated more, baby Jesus or Buck Cleven. The two seemed intertwined at this point and in the warm glow of gas lamps and rationed toddy, with Buck’s hollow cheeks beginning to bloom and his dull eyes starting to animate, some part of you finally understood why so many felt worshipful on the holiday. The shit war rations felt like a feast, mama’s canned vegetables being the freshest thing he’d eaten in ages and with him sat at table again, empty chair filled, his hand creeping into your lap to lace with your own, there was peace.

Even the airforce, hard driving and high demanding though it was, took one look at his battered condition and admitted a period of conveyance was due. It wouldn’t do to send up a shoddy pilot, lose another plane, yet another crew or a hero of the hundredth. It’s not every day one of your squadron leaders escapes a POW camp and marches over occupied Europe and fordes the Channel to get back home.

A month was set aside. And you took as many weekday passes as you could during that month, happier than anything that he had been permitted to stay in town, to lodge with one of the locals. Rafe’s room was now occupied by him and mama’s broth was poured down Gale’s throat twice daily and his days kept busy with paperwork and Donald’s math problems. The ticking clock, the passing days, like the evil crocodile gobbling up time, was politely and britishly ignored in favor of enjoying what was. You no longer slept with the tear stained and crumpled poem clasped to your throat but his head lay there often enough instead. The thump of your heart helping him sleep, because exhausted and sick as he was, sleep and solitude were not comforts.

He was wracked with guilt for leaving Egan and his men behind, it had been every man for himself during that brutal forced march, he knew that and yet he’d left a friend behind. Buck waited for news of Egan like you’d waited for news of him. Nameless and senseless guilt ruining much of his own success and peace.

“He’d have expected nothing less of you.” you had taken to reminding him, “He’d be angry if you hadn’t taken the opportunity like you did.”

“I know.” he agreed miserably.

You admitted to him then, the horrid guilt of feeling that somehow, some missed defect or some lousy flaw had been the reason he’d been downed. Your work somehow not sufficient to keep him in the skies. When you’d admitted as much, Sergeant Lemmons had looked at you with all the censure such moronic introspection deserved: “Cleven got bombed to hell. He expected it, daytime raid and all. Blame the Nazis.”

“Blame the Nazis.” you suggested now to Gale as he lay sprawled in your arms, sweaty and feverish but his color was back and he looked pretty as anything so alive and near.

He looked ready to dare something, his face hovering nearer yours and the heavy weight of his limbs suddenly feeling full of intent but then his sparkling eye caught sight of something in the doorway and his lips quirked and his body shifted away.

“Whatcha doin’ sulkin’ out there Donny?” he addressed your brother and sure enough the little scamp emerged from the shadow of the doorway and joined you two on the bed, comic book clutched in his hands. They had a routine, apparently, Papa was no longer the chosen one for bedtime stories. It made you want to wince in anticipation for when Buck would move back to base and things would become full of dread again.

That day came sooner than you’d counted on. A month is not so very long, after all, and it was filled with so much work and business, stolen moments at home hardly being the norm.

“It’s an easy mission.” he’d said at dinner, as if arguing the point to you all. You knew he was trying to convince himself more than anything and so you all let him specify just how easy, how routine, how utterly unworrying tomorrow's flight would -should- be.

If it’s hard to get back into the saddle after being bucked off, how much worse to climb back into a plane after being tossed from the skies.

That evening he lounged on your bed instead of Rafe’s, the house emptied as your mother and father took Donny to the movies, the appeal of a new film finally showing cited as being too alluring to resist. He was lost in his thoughts, watching you go about your little evening routines that you tried to maintain when at home. It was domestic and cozy, warm where the world outside was cold and then there was Buck, golden as anything in the low lamp light, utterly unaware of the figure he cut lying on his side.

“I’ve missed it.” he told you, “Flying, I’ve missed it.”

“Of course you have. You were born for it.” you murmured.

“Ya know,” he reflected, “I signed up for the Air Force before it all got hot, before Pearl Harbor. I was gonna fly no matter what. I remember grittin’ my teeth durin’ training and tellin’ myself it would all be worth it. Just hang in there and it would pay off. I just felt something important would need me. Hell, guess I got more than I ever bargained for, didn’t I?”

“I guess you did.” you agreed.

“I couldn’t do this if I didn’t believe in it.” He insisted and you knew he was talking to himself again, until his face turned towards yours and the softest look of fondness crossed features turning them almost pained when he said next, “I couldn’t do it, get back up there, if it weren’t for love. The rightness of it but -love, for my boys, my family. For you.”

“I know, and we’re terribly lucky to have your devotion. -And…and I love you, too.” you vowed earnestly, then giggled at the absurdity of this being the first time to admit it.

“I’d had my suspicions.” he grinned back, some of that old cockiness returning along with his vigor as he snagged your wrist and pulled you down beside him.

“Do you know why my parents have gone?” you asked him pointedly, turning on your side to face him.

“To see a movie.” His face was so innocently perplexed you almost lost control of yourself and ruined the game right then with something terribly forward.

“My parents aren’t in the habit of seeing movies.” you corrected him soberly.

“No?”

“No.”

“So where’d they go?” Buck asked.

“Oh they’re at the movies.” you smirked, “But they’ve gone for us.”

Gale’s eyes narrowed in suspicion, if not of you then of his own naïveté. “For us.” he repeated and his voice had dropped an octave in the interim.

“Yes. Something about wanting us to have a goodbye.” you quoted.

“I’m not dying tomorrow.” he pointed his finger firmly in your face and it made you smile to see him so fiesty again.

“No,” you agreed with his prophecy, “but I wanted to give you some incentive to hurry back.”

“Oh?” those lips of his puckered again in confusion before his smarts caught up with him and the pink corner tugged up in mischief, “Ooooh.” he repeated, suddenly very close, his energy, his body, his heart, inches from being one with you. “Are you sure?”

“Yes, oh yes.” you confirmed, slotting your lips against his gently only to be met with eager, desperate need in his own kisses.

Your childhood bed was narrow and the counterpane below you familiar and dear, stitched by your mother in colors you’d once wished to update upon entering maturity. Now, laid out in perfect security and familiarity, you watched Buck Cleven dangle a toe off the abyss before diving in, pausing to caress the blanket beside your hip, smiling to himself.

“What?” you were breathless to know every thought in that dear head.

“My mama made me one, looks lots like this.” his eyes were watery soft yet his smile was glad, his hips narrow and sharp in the cradle of your own, stark hipbones not yet padded by your mother’s cooking pressed you down into the bedding, grounded and right. “You’ve made me real at home here.” he whispered and it pleased you ever so much. “Do I dare take this last liberty?” he muttered as if to himself, even as those blue orbs bore into your own, his fingers fiddling with the hem of your skirt and you ached from need long deferred and the weight of remedy lying heavy between your thighs.

“It’s no liberty,” you whispered, catching his dog tags and bringing his face to yours, the size of the man so very apparent now he was hovering above you, “it’s yours.” you watched his pupils blow out at the statement, his ragged breath fanned minty across your face, even angels wield swords. “I’m yours.”

“And I’m yours.” he concluded.

With that exchange of truths something snapped between you, like a ribbon cut, gone was the hesitant cordiality and deference that had marked your courtship. Here now was fierce possession and the gloated satisfaction of those who possess something cherished and are no longer kept from partaking of it, buckles and garters snapped in the quiet room and the rustle of sheets and shirts wafting to the floor made your breaths hitch with anticipation. Precious flesh came into touch with every brush and it was enough for many minutes merely to cling and grasp, imprinting desire into the back and the arms and the throat of each other, like an armor of love against the decay of death.

“Yours, yours.” you swore as his finger played you once more, his breathing hard and rough in your ear, harsh commands for you to say it again and again, reminding you he was fearsome when he wanted to be.

“Don’t look,” he begged when you realized through a haze of joy what he was about, pressing in with all the finesse of a cricket bat knocking at the wicket, hoarse and doe eyed above you, there was only the whine, “please, darlin’ don’t look, just, my eyes, please.”

It was a fumbling entry but nature and pleasure prevailed, as it had since the first couple. And dear boy that he was, he knew you had indulged in a leg up, one or two at least, before he came along but still, he could not bear it for you to see more, not this time. He wanted it just to be the kisses and the sight of your precious face contorting at the fullness of your belly and the force of his hunger for you. All the rest were vulgar details left somewhere under your skirts, and, unbeknownst to him, reflected in your childhood mirror situated on the wall behind his plump arse.

“Oh god.” he had choked out, winded and in awe as his body shook at the feel of you accepting him deep, “You’re a slice of heaven, heaven that’s-that’s what you fee- oh god, oh god.”

He had giggled at the absurdity of this dance and then broke off with a moan that made you giggle in turn and back and forth it went as his body jerked into yours as if he’d no control over it, led quite literally by the part of himself buried inside you. He knew it was foal-like and a poor showing as a lover and he also knew you didn’t care a bit, your eyes wide at the size of the intrusion and captivated by the sight of his newly enlightened face.

“You alright?” he asked urgently, as a sudden and familiar feeling took over his body. The feeling of his brakes giving out, his flaps malfunctioning, the hydraulics failing -it took over him, his spine tingling and his vision beginning to blur and only your punched out gasps and sweet smile wavering on his horizon as the frantic, masculine, natural need to drive in deep enough to puncture your heart seized him and propelled him in you, against you, above you with such force you forgot to breath. For all Egan’s teasing of Buck’s hatred for athletics, the man wasn’t shabby when it came down to it, even after months of internment, or maybe due to that stolen time, his life force seemed to pour out in a torrent and your belly buzzed at the sweet abuse.

“I’m perfect.” you managed at some point, “You’re perfect, so perfect.”

He shuddered at the praise and as if terror struck him then, he was suddenly pulling away and moaning “I should- I shouldn’t -I’m gonna, darlin, I’m gonna lose it-“ and young and sweet and clumsy as anything he rutted against your slick frantically, mouth pressed to yours until the hot gush of his satisfaction spilled out and added to the mind fuzzing feel of him sliding against your little pearl.

You encouraged his shaky limbs to collapse on you, the lanky frame of him a sweet weight, sweaty cheek pressed to your breast, you could feel the dopey curve of his smile against your plump flesh. His hair curled at the nape from the sweat of his exertions, all winter chill forgotten in this bed. War and missions and bombs, too. You petted each other for a while before he raised his head and, gazing at you adoringly, he murmured “thank you.” his nose nudging yours and the steadiest of kisses lingering in the tingly aftermath.

“Darlin?” he broached the subject a while later, cheek again pressed to your chest and his fingers sliding in a hypnotic caress over your thigh.

“Yeah, Buck?”

“Later,” he prefaced, tentative and raw, “when -when the war’s over, and when, well, when I can make my own promises…”

Your heart hammered beneath his ear and you squeezed your legs around him, as if to shore him up enough to say what you wanted him to say so very badly. “Yes?”

“Would you marry me then?” he begged and somehow you knew this, what you had just indulged in, was never going to happen without that hope for him.

Perhaps that’s why it felt so strong, like a communion of souls more than anything else. “I’ve half a mind to make you wait and get my answer when you come back tomorrow.” you teased and his head reared up with a dangerous glint in his eye.

“Don’t you dare.” he warned, grin breaking out despite himself.

The sound of the front latch grating on the door startled you both but he pressed you down when you went to scamper and clothe yourself. “The door’s closed anyway,” he argued in a whisper but you knew he felt as nervous as you at being caught, if not more so, yet still he was a stubborn one. His hand was firm and large clasping your cheek, expression arch and expectant. “Promise you’ll be a good little girl and say yes when I do ask.”

You laughed at his gall, to make you wait, to make you promise when he wasn’t even proposing. But then again -you had said you were his, and he was yours. It had already been done. Sometimes life was as simple as Gale Cleven made it out to be.

“I promise.” you whispered happily, bringing him back down to your embrace and willing away thoughts of tomorrow and flagging him out to danger.

One day he’d come back for good. One you could make promises again. Until then, there was hope.

Thank you for reading and I hope you enjoyed. Feedback is a writers lifeblood, I’d adore hearing your thoughts. 💋

#masters of the air #mota #masters of the air fanfiction #gosh is that a first tag? i don’t think so I know I’ve seen schemes at the very least on here #mota fanfic #austin butler #gale cleven #john egan #Major Egan #Major Cleven #buck cleven #Gale Cleven fanfiction #austin butler fanfiction #austin butler x reader #austin butler x you #austin butler x y/n #austin butler fluff #Austin Butler imagine #Austin butler smut #callum Turner fanfiction #callum turner #harry crosby #anthony boyle #hbo war #band of brothers #the pacific

[3d-wifey]

WHAT?! WHAT?! "IT SHOULD'VE BEEN ME AND YOU GETTING MARRIED." WHAT?????!

Either Callum Turner made that up and is in love with Austin Butler, or the actual ppl were very tragically gay. It's probably both

#3d wifey talks #i love you austin butler #austin butler #callum turner #callum turner x Austin butler #austin butler x callum turner #john egan #john bucky egan #gale buck cleven x john bucky egan #buck x bucky #gale buck cleven #buck cleven #bucky egan #gale cleven #gale x john

[carnevol]

Callum?? Oh you're awful!

#austin butler #callum turner #masters of the air #interview #major gale cleven #major john egan #mota #mota spoilers #I never thought it could be him! #imaginaryplaythings #you were right! #I don't want my buckies to fight #wouldn't it be sweet though if Bucky felt so guilty after that #buck x bucky #burner

[bucking-mustangs-with-wings]

Via: https://robertviglasky.com/masters-of-the-air/

#ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME #ARE YOU KIDDING #GOING FERAL #ABSOLUTELY FERALLLLL #*throws hands up* #i am DONE with BOTH of you #FUCK #buck x bucky #clegan #mota #masters of the air #john bucky egan #john egan #gale buck cleven #gale cleven

[johnslittlespoon]

– i think of you all of the time.

#in which there is no happy ending #the boy never gets the boy #wisconsin is a lonely lonely place #and 45 is too young. #john egan you deserved a better life sweet boy #this is the way the world ends not with a bang but a whimper type beat y'know. #has this been done yet idk but this song's been in my bucky playlist for weeks itching for an edit #one of those nights but we move #sorry bout this one fr #johnslittlespoon edits #buckbucky #buck x bucky #curtbucky

[blurredcolour]

The Only Truth... | Part Three

The Only Truth I Know Is You Masterlist

John "Bucky" Egan x POW Flight Nurse!Female Reader

There are all sorts of hazards inside a Prisoner of War camp - guards, disease, injury, infection. One that none of you were banking on was the weather itself. Despite it all, and a severe lack of time to linger in one another's presence, you still find yourself growing ever closer to a certain Major.

Warnings: Language, Angst, Death, Blood, Disease, Reader Scars, Hospital Setting, POW Camp Setting, Kissing, SS Officers, Depictions of Nazi Atrocities Against Russian Soldiers, Threats, Fear, Mental Health Struggles, Inevitable Historical and Military Inaccuracies, Rating - 18+ ONLY.

Author’s Note: This is a work of fiction based off the portrayal by the actors in the Apple TV+ series. I hold nothing but respect for the real life individuals referenced within.

Word Count: 6337

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

April 21, 1945

Despite heeding your request and allowing others to bear the body of the late Freddy Simms, the boy whose name he learned only after his death, from the hospital to the corner of the camp where other bodies were also awaiting transport to the graveyard, Bucky still found himself tremendously sore the next morning. If not for roll call, he would have much preferred to remain on his makeshift sleeping palette tucked beneath the eaves of a fully occupied tent only half-protected from the elements. As it was, the resident goons needed him upright and counted, and so, with no shortage of grunting and grimacing, he had forced himself up and into line.

Considering the overwhelming population present, it was a wonder the guards did not just spend all day counting the prisoners to satisfy their twice daily checks. A few mouthfuls of broth later and Bucky had just lain back down to rest before it seemed like he was having to repeat the arduous process all over again. It had taken another day of rest to recover from his overexertion, but when he awoke this morning, things seemed a little less torturous. The warmth in the sunshine certainly helped, and he felt energized enough to accompany the delivery of the hot loaves of dense, black bread to the hospital. As his eyes scanned the rows of cots in the tent and then the clapboard building, he barely concealed his frown as you seemed nowhere to be found.

“Major, would you mind taking this pail of bandages out back for me? The Nurse seemed to miss them when she collected the laundry this morning.” There was a knowing tone to Chalmers’ request that made him swallow sheepishly, his ears heating up slightly, but he quickly nodded.

Grabbing the rather light pail with the hand of his uninjured side, he walked down the hallway to drop off a loaf of bread in your sparse quarters, brows furrowing at the lack of windows therein, before continuing out the back door. The sight of you crouched beside a basin, sleeves rolled up as you scrubbed at the sudsy rags with a large pot of bandages boiling away on a small fire nearby was so utterly domestic, Bucky could not help but let his mind wander. To imagine you in a kinder place doing something so very mundane without the fear of being shot or starved to death. That was where you ought to be – not here trying to scrub blood and other filth out of tattered cotton under the thumb of SS goons.

Bucky swallowed painfully as you paused a moment to smooth some errant strands of hair from your face and he was able to fully see the painful scars on your left arm. Scars that he had previously caught small glimpses of, despite your best efforts to hide them from him, but the full extent of them made his skin ache in sympathy. That explained why your nightmares featured fire.

Your sharp inhale, swiftly following by the sound of your boot impacting the pail behind you, pulled him from his reverie. Sent his eyes flying back up to see your horrified expression. You were frantically tugging down the rolls of your sleeve as you backed away from him, gait horribly off balance due to the obstacle you had encountered, and he was both afraid you would fall over and that he had offended you. Dropping his own pail, Bucky once again found himself chasing after you across the small, mud-filled yard behind the hospital, sliding his arms around you to haul you tight against his chest.

“Sorry, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to stare. It just looks like it hurt a lot.” He murmured into your hair, hating the way your entire body was rigid and stiff against him.

There was an agonizing, drawn-out silence where the ambient sounds of the camp bled into the intimate moment until finally some of the tension melted from you.

Sniffing indignantly, you muttered against his chest, “it did. Well not at first, I was too busy trying to get out of the damn plane and take my surgical tech with me. But after…” He felt your head bob in a nod against him and he pressed a reassuring hand between your shoulder blades.

“He make it?” Bucky whispered, immediately feeling guilty for prying, but he could not take back the words now.

“Fitz? Yeah, he’s here – helps out at the hospital once a week…” You leaned back in his arms to look at him with dewy eyes, that wicked grin tugging at your lips and the depth of his longing to kiss you took his breath away. “Don’t see him quite as often as certain prisoners, though.” You teased, making him grin warmly in response.

“Maybe I’m still a patient in a way, angelfish. Maybe you’re still healing me.” He had meant to parry your jest with one of his own, but instead all that had come out was a vulnerable truth, and you both stood there, eyeing one another intensely before Bucky felt your arms, previously trapped against his chest, slide around him properly.

The way you pulled him closer should have felt comforting, reassuring, but instead all it resulted in was a lightning bolt of pain ripping through his back and he was barely able to smother the resulting hiss. You pulled back quickly, fairly ripping yourself from his arms as you frowned at him with your hands on your hips.

“John Egan you are still very injured.” You chided, gripping his shoulders to maneuver and guide him back to the stairs before forcing him down to sit on the edge of them.

“Like it when you say my full name, angelfish. Middle name’s Clarence if you want to really give it all you got.” He smirked up at you incorrigibly and you huffed in what he hoped was a mix of fondness with that obvious infuriation.

“Don’t think I won’t add that to my arsenal Major. Now you stay right there, that way I know you’re not off getting yourself into more trouble.”

“Yes Ma’am.” He grinned, loathe to admit it aloud, but it really did feel better to be sitting down.

Nodding sharply, you grabbed his abandoned pail of bandages to add them to the pot of water, fanning the flames of your small fire until they burned hotter to boil off anything infectious, before returning to your bucket of rags. You continued to scrub at them, casting scrutinizing glances his way every so often before transferring them to a rinse bucket.

“Did you really meet the Pope?” Bucky suddenly asked the question that had been burning at the back of his mind since he had heard you speak the words to the Simms boy.

“Yes, I did.” You nodded, wringing out the clean rags one at a time before draping them across your ersatz clothesline. “The whole squadron did.”

“You were in Italy then…” He mused quietly and you nodded with a quiet hum of agreement, the pair of you swapping information without giving too much away to anyone who might be listening in. “Well I definitely did not meet the King.”

Your sudden peal of laughter had him both grinning and bristling defensively.

“That far-fetched an idea, hmm, angelfish?” He raised an eyebrow demandingly and your hand pressed against your lips, trying to smother giggles you seemed to be unable to stop. “Alright, alright… If I wasn’t stuck on these steps on your orders.” He threatened playfully, basking in the way that only made you throw your head back and laugh harder.

God, you did not belong in this place.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” You apologized as he huffed, coming over to tousle his hair fondly.

It took all his willpower not to press up into your touch like some demanding housecat. Slinging an arm around your waist, he pulled you down to sit on his broad thigh.

“Think all this hard work is making you hysterical, angelfish, take a load off.”

“Bucky…” You murmured, reluctantly holding your full weight off him until he forced your hips down fully.

“Rest dammit, isn’t that what you’re always tell me to do?”

“But you’re actually injured…”

“So were you. They let you rest when this was fresh?” He asked softly, fingertips trailing across the abnormally smooth yet ridged surface of your burned and healed flesh.

Bucky could feel you twitching slightly in his arms, obviously not entirely certain how you felt about his touch on your scar and so he shifted to lace his fingers through yours instead.

“There were too many people to help.” You sighed. “Still are, I–”

“Just sit another minute. Can’t save ‘em all if you’re too tired to stand up.”

Your fingers closed around his as you exhaled shakily, head coming to rest on his shoulder. “I do want to save them all…and it’s never enough.”

“I know.” He whispered squeezing your side, lips brushing against your forehead.

The sound of voices caught his attention then – voices growing louder, growing closer. You leapt from his lap, and he reluctantly released you, assuming a casual posture as you grabbed a long stick to pull sterilized bandages from the pot and dump them into the sudsy water for scrubbing. Two guards rounded the corner, immediately barking at him.

“What are you doing back here?!”

“Hospital staff only, get out of here now.”

“Major Chalmers asked me to assist the Nurse, you can confirm it with him.” Bucky replied with a shrug, watching your eyes widen with curiosity.

“We will go confirm with him together, up.” The first guard spoke again, and Bucky rose stiffly, nodding to you before they led him inside.

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

As you awoke the next morning to the sound of rain hammering against the roof, you were filled with relief that you had managed to wash and dry all of the laundry yesterday. It was still waiting in its baskets to be folded, but it would hold until your next free moment. Forcing yourself to feel satisfied with a few slices of the loaf of that black bread that had appeared in your room – you held your suspicions that Bucky may have played a role in its arrival – you dressed and emerged as your door was unlocked, blinking in surprise as Fitzgibbons entered the hospital along with Chalmers and Menzies.

You had honestly lost track of the days, a serious risk in the camp, and the fact that it was now Sunday, his shift and your day of rest, had completely slipped your mind. As a medically trained Sergeant, it was well within Chalmers’ rights to order Fitzgibbons to work in the hospital more often, but an early clash of personalities between Menzies and your surgical technician meant that his presence was only requested on a more limited basis.

“Morning Ma’am. Brought you a book to try and keep you off your feet.” He held out a battered paperback and you shook your head with a fond sigh as you accepted the copy of The Great Gatsby.

“Thank you, Fitz…sure you boys don’t need any help today?”

“You can help us by taking the day off as intended, Nurse.” Chalmers replied in a tone that brooked no argument and you nodded, retreating to your room to sit at the small table to crack open the book curiously.

The selection of reading material in the Red Cross library in camp was limited, dated. This book had been published twenty years ago, and you had a feeling you might have read it before, but it was hopefully going to keep you relaxed and your mind off the dozens of tasks you felt like you ought to be doing instead. Despite your predilection to turn inward and get caught up in an overwhelming sea of introspection, the story proved engaging enough to lose yourself in until a knock on the door jamb startled you.

“Mail call.” One of Bucky’s friends stood there, the blond with the gold teeth, grinning. He had a box tucked beneath his arm.

Confusion bloomed unabated across your face as you had not once received a piece of mail since you had been taken prisoner in January. No one had.

“I didn’t think that we were getting mail…” You slid a piece of scrap paper into the book to save your place.

“We’re not, Hambone, stop confusing angelfish.” Bucky appeared over his friend’s shoulder and snagged the box out from under his arm. “It’s those Red Cross boxes we thought we might get.”

“Man, I just wanted to say it once, still a kind of mail.” He grumbled as he strode back down the hall.

Bucky sighed, shaking his head as he set the box down on your table. “Sorry if he got your hopes up.”

Laughing dryly, you set your book down to pry open the already portioned box – each package meant for two servicemen. “Don’t worry, I’ve learned not to expect anything here.”

Spotting the can of powdered milk you held it out to him. “You take this.”

“Angelfish, why are you giving me your rations?” Bucky eyed you suspiciously and you raised an eyebrow in response.

“You’re healing bones and I’m not?”

“At least take half, put it in one of your old cans…”

Glaring at him a moment, you relented with a sigh, unable to deny the fact that it would be nice to have some to add to the bitter coffee. Digging through the remnants of your last box, you found the empty can from the allotment of powdered milk that had arrived in February and began decanting half of the fresh supply.

“You haven’t gotten a single letter? Not even your parents?” He asked quietly, leaning against the door frame.

Swallowing tightly, you slid the metal lid back into place on the cannister, shaking your head. “Figure things must be pretty bad if they can’t get the mail through. Not that I got a lot of mail before but…” You shrugged and held out the powdered milk to him. “Pretty sure it’s got a hole so use it quick.”

Stepping forward to take it carefully, Bucky’s eyes traced over your face curiously. “No handsome fella desperate for your scented stationery, angelfish? I find that hard to believe.”

You could not help but roll your eyes with a sarcastic noise. “Fellas don’t want girls like me, Bucky. They want some pretty thing waiting back home with the time to write pages long letters in looping cursive and those saucy acronyms and pretty spritzes of perfume. Not girls who spent so much time making a living they forgot to make a life.” Your eyes dropped to study the cans of corned beef, of ham, the fresh box of crackers, and small block of American cheese in your ration box. “I’m sure you’ve got a beautiful girl waiting stateside. Sweet and kind and not a whisp of a scar on her. Doesn’t know the sound of jackboots on floorboards or how to use a parachute or what it looks like when the life leaves someone’s eyes. That’s the kind of girl a man like you deserves, Bucky. To completely forget this nightmare even happened. Not this beat up, grungy, girl who wouldn’t even remember which fork to use at the dinner table–”

You barely registered the press of his lips against yours at first, mouth fumbling against his as you continued your litany of reasons why you were utterly unsuitable for him until at last you became fully aware of his warm palms cupping your cheeks, his kiss growing firmer until you stilled against him. An exhale sighed its way through your nose as the tension seeped from your bones, melting against his tantalizingly firm and broad chest. With a noise of deep reluctance, you forced yourself back, licking your lips slightly.

“You could get yourself in serious trouble doing things like that John…”

“Long as it’s not in trouble with you, angelfish.” He murmured fondly, tracing his fingertips along the curves of your ears before slowly pulling them back, tracing your jaw as he went, your nerve endings shimmering in the wake of his touch. “I just couldn’t bear to hear another word of that horseshit.”

A smirk tugged lazily at your lips, the tender flesh of them still humming slightly. “So if I spout nonsense, I get kissed, is that how this arrangement works?”

He exhaled sharply through pursed lips. “You can just ask, too. No need for all the absurd self-deprecations. Because the ‘fellas’ you speak of are idiots. You are a damn treasure, angelfish. Anyone who can’t see it isn’t worth your time.”

Feeling moisture gathering at your lash line, you grabbed a fistful of his shirt and hauled him in to lay a firm kiss of appreciation on his lips, briefly glimpsing his look of surprise before your mouths collided. Mindful of his ribs, you slid your other hand to his hair, holding him close as his arms encircled your waist.

“I like this ‘arrangement.’” He breathed against your mouth when the pair of you were forced to come up for air.

“Mmmm. Well you’d better get out of here before someone comes looking for you.” You muttered, not making a move to release him.

“Absolutely.” He replied, only pulling you closer into him.

“Bucky…” You sighed, tone not nearly admonishing enough.

“Thirty more seconds.” He whispered.

The unmistakable and aforementioned sound of jackboots scraping across hardwood echoed down the hall and you started to shove at him. “Goon, goon!” You hissed and he back pedaled quickly to the threshold of the room, cradling the powdered milk under his arm.

“I tried reading that book, didn’t really understand the green light business.”

Chest heaving, you furrowed your brows, watching him gesture sharply to the paperback on the table beside your ration box and you inhaled in recognition.

“I think it’s some kind of metaphor in futility?” You blurted out, a long-lost lecture on the novel suddenly flooding back to your rescue as a guard strode past him down the hall, narrowing his eyes suspiciously.

“Yeah, got enough of that in my real life.” Bucky huffed with easy nonchalance before shrugging. “Well, see you around, Nurse.”

“Thank you again, Major.” You nodded, desperately trying to even out your shaky breaths as Bucky disappeared down the hall and the guard continued out the back door, sending you slumping into your chair in relief.

Your trembling fingers traced the tiny smile that curled at your lips, not at all certain what had just transpired, but things between yourself and Bucky had definitely changed.

What most certainly did not change was the weather. The deluge persisted through the night and into the next day, Chalmers and Menzies arriving mud-splattered and damp after being released from their combines. The humidity was of absolutely no help to Desmond Brown, an infantryman from Pennsylvania who had been battling pneumonia for nigh on a week now. Dusty, as he was affectionately known, only seemed to grow weaker, and you were quite dismayed to note a bluish tinge to his fingernails and around his lips today.

“Won’t be long now.” Menzies uttered as you made your rounds and you nodded silently. “Doubt we have anything to prop him up and make him more comfortable?”

Scouring the hospital with your gaze, you shook your head with a frown. “I’ll move his cot against the wall and try to prop him against it – not the best but better than…” You left the fact that he surely felt as though he was drowning in his own fluids unspoken.

Menzies was smart enough to understand and nodded firmly. “Try and sit with him as much as you can today.”

“Yes, sir.” You nodded and the pair of you parted ways to put your various treatment plans into action.

Pushing the cot flush against the wall, even with its occupant still in place, was not terribly difficult. Malnourishment and illness had devoured much of Dusty’s muscle mass, though you did need a moment to catch your breath and recover, given that you too were three months into your POW diet. What proved hardest was keeping the man propped upright. Any time you would leave his side to check on another patient or help one of the surgeons with a task, you would find him slumped to the side or slid down into what he deliriously claimed was a more comfortable position.

Most concerning of all, a soft rattle had taken up residence in the back of his throat, audible with each exhale. It was worryingly known as the ‘death rattle’ and usually signalled the end was not far off. Fetching a cool cloth, you settled him into the most comfortable yet still propped-up position you could manage with a combination of his pillow and blanket and the wall before laying the cloth across his fevered forehead. Dusty blinked his glassy hazel eyes at you once, then twice, before his eyelids fell shut for the last time. His labored, rattled breathing continued on for a remarkable duration, and all the while you sat at his bedside, cradling his hand in yours.

You tried to remember sweet things to talk about – spring and its flowers, family dinners, Hershey bars from his native Pennsylvania, anything at all so he would know he was not alone. The men in the adjacent beds grew quiet, the only sound the insistent rain striking the roof and the fading breaths of your patient until even those were gone too. Confirming Dusty had passed by checking his pulse, you shifted his body to lay flat on the cot and covered him with the blanket, standing with a start to find Bucky leaning against the wall, soaked to the skin, watching quietly.

“You know where his friends are bunking?” He asked in a hushed voice, and you nodded, fishing out his chart to find the number of his combine, providing it softly. “I’ll tell ‘em.”

“Thank you, Major Egan.” You nodded, looking quickly as Menzies arrived to note the time of death as you glanced back at another meaningless loss, wondering when it could all just be over.

Bucky’s knuckles brushed against yours gently and you offered him the ghost of a smile before Chalmers was calling for you. “Try and stay dry, this is perfect trench foot weather.” You gave him a meaningful look, willing him to not become another tally on the death sheet, another hole in the POW graveyard.

Bucky nodded sharply in return. “Doin’ my best, angelfish.”

“Good.” You breathed before rushing off to try and keep someone else alive.

Another night, followed by another day of incessant rain, had the yard outside resembling a sea of mud. It kept everyone trapped indoors, even the prisoners who had been sleeping outside found their fellow men making room wedged between sleeping palettes lest people get swept away in the night. There was no meeting Bucky out back whilst doing laundry, nor any excuse to sneak off to quiet corners for a moment of privacy. There was simply too much to do and so all you were able to share, when he and his compatriots delivered another allotment of black bread that day, was an intense look of yearning before duty pulled you away once more.

The state of the tent had been weighing on your mind as it sagged lower and lower beneath the three-day onslaught of water, and it was no surprise when the canvas gave way the morning of the 25th, a mighty sound of rending fabric echoing through the space. A deluge of frigid, accumulated rainwater poured down onto the three men who had the misfortune of being positioned below the gaping tear, its ragged ends flapping in the breeze. Grabbing some towels of rough cotton, you were rushing along the slickened wooden floor to try and move them, dry them off, when the entire corner of the tent lurched and collapsed with a groan and further cries of distress.

“Help!!” Was all you had the mental capacity to yell in the face of the sight before you, hoping to summon Menzies and Chalmers.

To your immense surprise and relief, a flood of men began to pour in from the yard, most likely summoned by the sight of the collapse, but also perhaps your scream. As the lot of you began to unearth men from beneath the debris, you recognized Bucky’s friend with the gold teeth – Hambone, he had called him – as well as the brunette who had tried to give him the benefit of the doubt over ‘angel face.’

“Where should we put ‘em, angelfish?” Bucky’s voice broke through the cacophony from behind you and you turned back to him quickly, wondering when he had arrived.

“In the hall, towards my room.” You thought quickly on your feet, the very last available space in the hospital coming to mind.

With over half of the tent still intact, you worked with the group of volunteers to reinforce the structure that remained standing and ensure the men resting there were all right. Mercifully, the rain slowed for the first time in days, before stopping altogether. Barricading off the collapsed portion of the tent with the sodden, unusable cots, you turned to take stock of the rest of the patients, pleased to find them resting as comfortably as possible. You were drenched and filthy, but that was a secondary concern. Squelching your way inside, you gnawed on your lip to see a total of eight patients now sheltered in the hall with no bedding to speak of.

The feel of a towel being draped over your shoulders jerked your head to the right to see Bucky roughly rubbing at his dripping curls with a towel of his own.

“I am once again in your debt, Major Egan.” You sniffed, wringing out your shirt slightly into the rough cotton.

“Don’t mention it. I’m guessing the only beds you have for them are out there in Lake Moosburg?”

A small, incredulous snort escaped you despite your ragged state and he huffed an exhausted laugh in reply. Shaking your head with a sigh, you furrowed your brows. “We’ve got nothing but a few more towels, and an abundance of dirty rags and bandages…It stopped raining though.” You tagged on the tiniest piece of good news and lifted your knuckles to rap against the wooden wall for good luck, to help it hold, grinning fondly as he practically mirrored the motion.

“Small mercies. I’ll see if I can convince some of the others to part with their blankets in the name of the unwell. I’ll be back, angelfish.”

“You’re a good man, John Clarence Egan.” You murmured tenderly.

Bucky froze, eyeing you intently, unmoving. Not even breathing for nearly a minute before he exhaled heavily. “Suppose you did warn me you’d weaponize my full name, angelfish…” He rasped, fingers wrapping around your wrist to squeeze in a subtle but emotive gesture, his thumb stroking across the sensitive skin of your inner wrist, making you shiver.

“Sorry.” You whispered, having not anticipated the heaviness of the blow it would land, but Bucky quickly shook his head.

“I look forward to you almost killing me again, soon.” He smirked and squeezed one last time before releasing his grip on you to head outside, sloshing his way around the camp to scrounge up enough bedding to keep the displaced patients comfortable.

A variety of guards and their officers came to inspect the damage throughout the day, Lieutenant Colonel Clark making his presence felt as he appeared on Bucky’s heels and immediately demanded the tent be repaired to provide appropriate care for the men.

The next morning dawned sunny for the first time since the 21st, but the cheer brought by the change of the weather was significantly dampened by the appearance of the skeletal figures of Russian labourers. You had glimpsed them from time to time through the barbed wire of the fence behind the hospital, ghoulish figures forced to work in the kitchens, on camp maintenance and repairs, and burying the dead, but you had never been this close to them before. Clearly summoned to complete the repairs on the corner of the hospital tent, they moved in a slow shuffle, clothing barely more than limp rags around their spindly frames. Rumor had it they did not even receive Red Cross ration boxes, subsisting solely on the scraps provided by the SS camp administrators.

Your heart ached at the sight, and you longed to smuggle them food or something of comfort, but they were, at all times, surrounded by a ring of guards to keep them separate. To keep them apart from the rest of the POWs. Casting sympathetic glances their way, you collected the rest of the cots and bedding they unearthed from beneath the partial collapse and shifted it all outside to dry out in the sunshine, noting the increased presence of guards kept Bucky and his compatriots from dropping by.

You assumed the same would be true throughout the 27th as well, however, shortly after the sun reached its zenith, you straightened from a patient’s bedside to see him leading in an unfamiliar face, the shorter man cradling a bloody hand to his chest.

“McLeod here sliced himself good on one of the ration tins.”

“Sorry to trouble you, Ma’am, it just won’t seem to stop bleeding.” The Scottish brogue tumbling from McLeod’s lips matched his shock of red hair impeccably, even if it was a bit difficult to decipher.

“Take a seat right here and we’ll take a look.” You smiled and gestured to one of the freshly dried cots, wedged between other patients at it awaited the completion of its normal resting place.

As you perched on the edge of the cot beside him, setting a pile of bandages in your lap, you noted Bucky eyeing the crowd of SS guards and their waif-like labourers hard at work in the corner of the tent. Gathering McLeod’s injured hand in yours, you gently dabbed at the blood pooling in his palm, nodding as the depth of his cut was revealed.

“Think you might need some stitches here, let me fetch the surgeon.” You smiled reassuringly, pressing a wad of bandages over the wound, coaxing him to apply pressure to it before approaching Chalmers who was working just a few beds away from the construction zone.

The clatter of tools striking the wooden floor caught your attention before the frail body of a workman collapsed to the ground. Acting on instinct, you surged forward to check on him, a professional hazard when on duty in a hospital. The nearest guard, not quite so tall as the others and thereby twice as mean to make up for it, barked at you sharply.

“Get back, schwester.”

He gave you little warning before the butt of his rifle cracked against your shoulder, making you lurch back in pain and chastisement. The cramped quarters combined with the mud-slickened floorboards to send you sprawling backwards onto your hip, mortified, but as you immediately tried to scramble back up to your feet, a wall of humanity was in your way.

“She’s just tryna do her job, keep your shirt on.” You recognized Bucky’s terse growl first, followed by Chalmer’s British accent, made all the crisper in his annoyance.

“You would strike a woman who is only trying to help an unwell man?!”

Sliding backward across the slimy wood, you felt a gentle tap on your shoulder.

“Let’s get you on your feet, lass.” McLeod grasped your elbow with his uninjured hand and hoisted you up despite the way your boots seemed reluctant to find purchase on the ground, holding you steady until you nodded that you were, in fact, stable.

“Nein!” The guard shouted back through the men who had formed a barricade between you. “No help!”

Frowning deeply you balled your fists to see the Russian POW laying in the mud, unaided, unacknowledged by any of the guards or his fellow labourers.

“Nurse, go get cleaned up.” Chalmers’ orders snapped your eyes to his face, and you swallowed tightly before turning on your heel, making your way to the utility room to fetch some water.

You could vaguely hear the surgeon arguing for the man’s life as you transitioned from the tent into the main hospital building, but you narrowed your focus to carefully stepping over the men sheltering in the hallway. To trying not to cry at the meaninglessness of it all. Stopping at your room to grab your wash basin, you looked yourself over in the mirror, sighing as you were thankfully not as mud stained as Chalmers’ order led you to believe. Bucky’s reflection as he peered into the room made you turn sharply to face him, gulping back tears as there were patients just steps away.

“You hurt?” He asked softly, seizing your hands.

You shook your head quickly. “Just a little bruised, but I’ll live.”

Bucky tugged on your hands to pull you against him, wrapping you tightly in his arms. “You’d better.”

Burrowing your face into his neck, you could only muster a nod in reply, clinging to him, careful not to hurt him, until you felt able to take more than just the tiniest sips of air for breaths. As the crushing weight lifted from your chest, you lifted your head to look at him apologetically. “Sorry…”

“Don’t apologise, angelfish, you were just trying to help that poor man.” He sighed, pressing his lips to your forehead. You felt one of his hands leave your back and heard him huff a laugh. “You might want to change your shirt though, your back’s covered in mud.”

Tensing, you craned your neck to look over your shoulder, muttering bitterly. “So that’s what Major Chalmers meant…”

“I’ll get you some fresh water and make myself scarce, too many goons watching.”

Nodding softly, you passed him the basin, hoping the construction would be done soon and things could go back to their bleak yet relative normalcy. As if hearing your wishes for the first time in months, the universe actually conspired to have the repairs to the hospital tent completed that evening, all eight patients returned to the cots in the corner, the hallway cleared. Everyone seemed to breathe a little easier that night as you settled them down for sleep, awaking to yet another gloriously sunny day and finally the chance to catch up on the overwhelming backload of laundry.

Setting your water to boil out back and prepping your wash basins, you returned to the hospital to collect the pails of rags and used bandages, smiling warmly as you found Chalmers in conversation with Bucky about one of the American patients. He sent you a friendly nod without breaking his concentration and you bent down to grab the pail that rested between the central desk and the cot where one of the medium-term residents, Pete Thompson from Ohio, was recovering quite well.

“Nurse, you gotta be the prettiest girl I’ve ever seen.” He gushed, as he was prone to do, fluttering his long, dark eyelashes.

The young man had lain it on pretty thick since the moment he had arrived several weeks ago, before traversing a brutal course of bronchitis, which he was thankfully coming out the other side of.

“Oh come off it, Thompson.” You laughed warmly. “You boys are so desperate for female company, I’m sure you would propose to Eleanor Roosevelt if she had the misfortune of crossing your paths in this place.”

The guffaw your joke earned had you grinning brightly in return, and you made sure he was comfortable before turning to grab the last couple buckets, blinking to find them in Bucky’s hands.

“This all of ‘em?” He raised an eyebrow and you nodded, leading him out the back way to set your load down in the nearly dry yard.

You hard barely turned around when his lips were crashing into yours, hands gripping your elbows, kissing you breathless.

“Wha…” You tilted your head at him, stunned, when he finally pulled back.

“That’s for slandering our First Lady but also diminishing yourself. Couldn’t just kiss you right there in front of everyone though, angelfish. Specially not that soldier boy getting fresh with you. Had to wait ‘till we were alone.” He smirked and pressed his lips against the tip of your nose, making you giggle airily.

“John Clarence Egan, never change.” You sighed dreamily.

His chest rumbled softly before his lips surged forward, already parted, to take advantage of your surprise and slide his tongue along yours hungrily. In retrospect, his ‘attack’ may have been well warranted, give your twice use of his full name. It was also not unwelcome, making you cling to his shoulders and whimper down his throat as he seemed to taste every inch of your mouth. The way the hair dusting his upper lip brushed against your face threatened to undo your knees, your head swimming with lack of oxygen and emotion until the sharp snap of the door’s hinges had Bucky wrenching back from you.

Pressing your lips together to take greedy breaths through your nostrils, you watched Menzies moodily deliver a missed bucket of rags, eyeing the pair of you suspiciously.

“Best move along Major, we have guests inspecting the handiwork of our unfortunate neighbours.”

Bucky nodded to him firmly, sucking in a deep breath as though to muster a reply. “Thanks for the heads up, Captain. See you around, angelfish.”

He tipped his imaginary cap to you, and you nodded in return, watching him disappear around the side of the building, heart hammering beneath your sternum, before lurching back to focus on the task at hand. To say that your thoughts stayed to him often throughout the course of the day would be an understatement.

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

Read Part Four

The Only Truth I Know Is You Masterlist

Tag list: @gretagerwigsmuse, @luminouslywriting, @softspeirs, @sunny747, @storysimp, @slowsweetlove, @httpsmoon, @buckysegan, @justheretoreadthxxs, @precious-little-scoundrel, @jointherebellion215, @timetowastetime8

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

[getinthefuckingjaeger]

Just as Bucky's favourite thing to do is to pull a smile and laugh from Gale, Gale's most favourite thing to do - he'll even say it rivals flying because it feels so similar - is to make Bucky blush.

Loud, bright, brazen Bucky Egan getting all flushed and bashful, eyes lowered to the ground or to his hands if he's fiddling with something - anything - to avoid Gale's eyes. It feels extra good if Gale can spot the tiniest lipbite before the smallest, sweetest smile finds its way on Bucky's face. Oh, his boy will try to hide his face, but Gale will always catch that smile.

And when Bucky looks up from under his lashes, big doe eyes sparkling in amusement at Gale? Nothing. Nothing beats that fluttering feeling in Gale's chest. Feels like the first time he learns to jump from a fast moving swing. Addictive, exhilarating, rewarding.

Other people can have a little of Bucky's brightness, but the blushes and secret smiles are all Gale's.

#buck x bucky #bucky x buck #john egan #gale cleven #its just that ive been so obsessed with Bucky's face in e1 when hes talking about their friendship- you guys gotta find the gifs of that #and see what im talking about ok i swear to u i have never seen John Egan look as sweet as that

[kafkasmuses]

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

[swifty-fox]

Little Beasts Sequel is out and boy howdy is it chock full of John Lore.

#swiftywrites #little beasts #john egan #gale cleven #buck x bucky #clegan #bucky egan #buck cleven #can YOU spot all the john hints in the art

[antiquitea]

masters of the air: a summary

#masters of the air #clegan #bucky x buck #john egan x gale cleven #john egan #gale cleven #antiquitea.pdf #otp: what took you so long? #john bucky egan #gale buck cleven #is this anything?

[kcsplace]

Brady: Can you keep a secret?

Bucky: Yeah, we can keep a secret.

Brady: What?

Bucky: Yeah, me and Buck are like a vault. No one else will know.

Brady: No, I want you to know. I don't want Buck to know.

Bucky: If you don't want Buck to know, then why are you telling me?

#masters of the air #mota #clegan #john bucky egan #gale buck cleven #otp: what took you so long #ben radcliffe #buck/bucky #bucky/buck #buck x bucky #bucky x buck #austin butler #callum turner #john brady