#my oc: Vera | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

upontherisers · 12 days

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in this room 'til we die

a/n: it has been ages, truly ages since i posted my work on here and, well, mota has given me brainrot. this tumbled out of me between midnight and 2:00 am and i'm happy to share it with you. title is from 'The Elevator' off of lizzy mcalpine's newest album. meet lieutenant vera west, bombardier

She’s trying to remember the feeling of it as she lies on the floor behind her seat. The moonlight flowing in from the nose dome brightens the space just enough to remind her where she is, but keeps the details hidden. Good. The thing she’s here for is in her mind. The rest is set dressing.

She closes her eyes and pushes her shoulder blades into the bottom of the machine below her. She’d melt herself into the floor if she could, mix with the metal until there’s no difference between person and plane. She’d become the bird herself. The belly of the plane pushes back at her and the pain activates her heart, which activates her instinct. She can do this. She can do this.

Pilot to bombardier—Ginny’s voice washes over her—the plane is yours.

She knows what to do next, easy as breathing. Get the target in her bomb sight, give the crew the count down, hit the release, and bombs away. Bombardier to pilot, the plane is yours. I’m giving it to you, Ginny! The plane is yours. Do you hear me? You can come back, the plane is yours. They shake and jolt through flak as behind her, Knick Knack shouts the new heading to the pilots. All Vera can do is get back on her turret and pray that they make it through.

They get hit. She knows they get hit from the monstrous boom on their left side and the sudden lurch the plane takes. There’s barely enough time to grab her chute as she’s screaming for everyone to bail, do it! do it now! But the bell doesn’t ring. Knick Knack keeps giving their bearings and Ginny keeps her steady. Can’t you hear me? Get out! Get out! It all goes black.

She gasps back into her body with a shout, the dark flooding her eyes. The shaking in her hands is back and she curses herself. Do the damn job. Her hands shaking could be—no—would be the difference between someone’s life and death, and she could not bear another nine on her conscience. She’ll run it until her hands stop shaking. If it takes all night and all of the next day and all of the next war. She has a job to do and she will not fail. Not again.

One measured breath, then another up into the roof of the nose, then she closes her eyes again, hears Ginny’s voice. Pilot to bombardier, the plane is yours.

The hatch to the nose opens but she ignores it. There’s a job to do. Give the crew the countdown. Bomb bay doors opening. Hit the release. Bombardier to pilot, the plane is yours. Ginny doesn’t answer. Bombardier to pilot, like being louder would do anything, the plane is yours. The plane is—

“It’s late.”

Benny DeMarco climbs into the nose, brushing his shoulder with hers as he lies down next to her.

She doesn’t open her eyes. “I’m tryna fly.”

“That’s my job.”

The Ginny in her head goes silent and Vera sighs, opening her eyes. The roof of Our Baby is too obscured in shadow to make out much, but she can see the dents and dings she knows are there. How many more could it take? How many more Luftwaffe shells could find their way inside before they’re careening out of the sky, too? What would it feel like as the bottom drops out? She wishes Ginny or Tanner or Knick Knack or her dear Kitty or Gusty were here to tell her. But they aren’t and she is with her shaking hands and racing heart and fear of flying or falling and she wasn’t sure which it was.

“Hey, hey, now.”

She doesn’t realize she’s crying until Benny sits up to brush at her cheeks with a gentle thumb. She lets him and tries to stop more tears from welling up at his sincerity. There’s no judgment in him as he holds her face, only that soft, knowing smile and those bright eyes, the light in them not gone yet. Thank God for you, Benny Demarco.

He doesn’t say anything once he withdraws his hand, tucking his knees to his chest and laying his elbows out so that he could rest his head in the crook of his shoulder while looking around, arched brows giving away his curiosity. His genuine inquisitiveness makes her sniffle a giggle, and he nudges her with his foot. “What?”

“You look like you’ve never seen the nose before.”

He shrugs. “I’m never in here.”

“You should stop by more often, see what a real job looks like.”

He jabs at her this time, and she really laughs. “Hey!”

“I didn’t come here to get razzed.”

“Then why’d you come at all?”

“Got back from the pub, saw your bed was empty,” he says, and he’s looking around again. She wonders why. “Buck wanted a head count. I had a feeling I knew where you’d be.”

“So you’re here for Buck.” She doesn’t know why she says it. He’s doing a nice thing for her as a friend—in his Army issued tank-top under his leather jacket, no cap, hair slipping out of its pomade. He should be in bed but he’s not, he’s here with her and she’s too stuffed up with her grief, her anger to thank him like she should.

He looks at her again and gives her a rueful half smile. “I’m here for you.”

That sits painfully on her heart. That’s not right—it’s the other way around. He’s the pilot and she’s the bombardier; it’s her job to get past herself and do her duty. Benny gets them through the flak and firestorms and all she has to do is drop the bombs. It isn’t so difficult and yet she nearly failed him the last two times they were in the air, with her shaky hands and Ginny in her head and Buck having to bellow over them both in order for her to drop.

Her face burns with shame as tears bubble up again. She’s a coward, plain and simple, and she knows it. Everyone else can move on, get into the air again and complete the mission without being paralyzed, stuck between flying and falling, but she’s here night after night, begging her hands to steady just enough not to stutter on the release hatch.

She thinks of the girl she was when she landed in England, bursting at the seams with fight and fervor, unstoppable, hungry to get up there. That girl trusted herself and her hands and her crew… her crew, the women who’d lived in her head as much as she lived in theirs. The women who’d made flying as easy as breathing. Her sisters in arms, the other parts of her brain, the reasons she couldn’t think straight anymore. She calls out into the blue once more—bombardier to pilot, the plane is yours—but it’s silent across the sky.

She wants to scream, she wants to throw something, she wants to kick and break and howl like the boys get to do but instead, all she can do is cry, and Benny is right there when she does, gathering her in his arms and cooing into her hair. “I know, I know.”

It takes a while for her to stop, longer than she’d like to admit, but he’s with her the whole time, patient as a saint. She holds on for dear life; there is no other option. There’s falling or flying or him, and he’s the only place that feels safe. His arms are warm as he tucks her into his chest and his legs bracket hers, holding her anguish, not letting it drop to the floor. He smells of cigarettes and his whiskey of choice and the sweet, spicy cologne he puts on when they’re on a stand down the next day. He smells of himself as she forgets what her girls smelled like—Ginny’s orangy perfume and Tanner’s hot comb oil that lingered after doing half the hair on base.

You’re all I have now, Benny. And what if I lose you, too?

The thought redoubles her grief and her breath eludes her until she’s heaving.

He sits her up. “In and out, West, c’mon.” In and out. That’s usually Buck’s line, reserved for getting her out of her stupor and back on her gun after the bomb bay doors close. Benny says it with none of the major’s disappointment and all of his own kindness.

“I’m sorry,” she eventually croaks, trying to smooth out the wrinkles her fists put in his shirt.

A comforting hand runs up her back, between her nightshirt and jacket. “Don’t be.”

Silence falls.

It’s quiet on the hard stand, a rare night when the ground crews aren’t hammering away until dawn. From the dome, she can see straight down the runways and out into the fields of East Anglia. The town’s lights are low in the far distance. It’s quiet for them, too.

The entire base has tomorrow off, which would normally mean raucousness to the nth degree, but things haven’t been the same since they came back from Algeria. Well, maybe John Egan’s the same, but the rest of them, the rest of them can’t stomach it like they used to—the empty beds in the barracks, the new crews that only last a few weeks, the war of attrition in the air, the sawmill, the fact that there’s no end in sight. They’re going up again in two days, to heaven or hellfire.

She shudders and asks her hands to steady, if not for her then for Benny and the rest of the fort.

He pulls her into him again, murmuring into her hair. “You’ve been scaring us, Vee.”

“I don’t mean to.”

“I know, but you do.”

“I just,” she starts without knowing where she’s going, “I just—” I’m drowning in the air, the floor’s out from under me and there’s nothing but sky above. “I miss my crew,” she settles on.

He scoffs. “You have a crew.”

“No, I have a bunch of guys that let a basket case sit at the front of their fort—”

“Hey.” A hand cups her jaw, tilting it so that she looks him in the eyes. She’s never known brown to shine like that, in the light or in the dark. “I’d take a bullet for you, so would everyone else.”

Ain’t that the worst thing you’ve ever heard? That there’s another nine willing to leave her all alone with no thought to how it’d make her feel. No one’s ever the poor sap they tell stories about—the only paratrooper that survived the jump, the last woman standing out of three platoons, a lone P-40 fighting its way home, all that’s left of a mighty squadron. No one’s ever the poor sap until they are, and then they’re just another story to tell. I know a bombardier who took some flak to the chest, had to be grounded for a few days. The day before she’s discharged, her whole crew goes up without her and ends up crashing, no chutes. They’d just beaten the odds, too, flew twelve missions, went down on thirteen.

Then she becomes another superstition to add to salt and mirrors. Make sure your crew’s together for your thirteenth, never go up without your original bombardier. She’s a walking ghost story, the frequent recipient of poorly concealed pointed fingers and whispers behind hands. She’s not a hero who landed a bird on one engine and three dead crew. She’s the left behind, the abandoned, she should’ve gone down with her ship. No one wants to be her.

Some days, she thinks that’s a fate worse than death.

Benny can’t understand that and she doesn’t want him to, but he’s searching her face for an answer nonetheless. She reaches up and holds his cheek. He leans into her touch and she’s proud that her hand doesn’t shake, that he takes a breath for himself as she brushes her thumb over his soft, warm skin, touching that darling beauty mark that she finds so charming.

“Vera,” he whispers.

That’s not enough, because he doesn’t get it yet. I can’t lose you. She lifts her other hand, cradles his face, and beholds—really looks—as if her gaze would be enough to protect him. He’s always been good to the girls, always quick to check a man who was out of line, a confidant, a shoulder to cry on, and since her girls went down, a genuine friend, careful and brash with her, keeping her feet on the ground.

I can’t lose you, I can’t lose you, I can’t lose you. All the quiet meals in the mess, the long walks with Meatball when she needs to get out of the barracks, all the nights in the nose spent talking her back into bed when she insists on one more practice run. I can’t lose you. A lump forms in her throat and her eyes burn. She scrunches up her nose to stop herself from crying again and furiously swipes at her eyes. There’s been enough tears tonight.

He laughs, bright and brassy, and sits back as she sits up.

“What?”

“You’re the toughest bombardier I’ve ever met.”

It’s her turn to kick at him but he grabs her ankle. “I’m serious.”

“You’re always serious, Benny.”

There’s that smile that picks her spirits up.

She sighs and lies back down, wiggling as flat as she can. He takes the place next to her and it’s quiet except for the sounds of their breathing just above their faces. The floor is cool and he’s warm, and she wants to practice some more, but maybe she could rest for a bit.

He nudges her arm after a few moments. “Can’t sleep here.”

“'M tryna fly.”

“Enough trying. You fly, you’re a flyer. You need to sleep.”

She doesn’t do that much these days and she tells him such.

“I’ll let you take Meatball tonight.”

She opens one eye. “Yeah?” Meatball has a bed at the foot of Benny’s, but occasionally he parts with him long enough to let her have a night of snuggles with her favorite canine.

“Sure, if you promise to stay in bed until reveille.”

Now that’s tempting.

#my writing #vera west #bernard demarco x oc #mota #masters of the air #there's not a name for this universe yet but i'm sure i'll find one soon #straighten up and fly right #vera x benny

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