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neptunes-blue · 2 months

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CORPSMAN’S PRAYER - VINCENT KRAWCZYK - THE PACIFIC

short summary: Vincent Krawczyk graduates from Illinois’s Naval Hospital Corps School after first enlisting on the 8th of December, 1941

warnings: implied child neglect (sort of?), sailors get drunk and slip off chairs

(Main) characters: Vincent Krawczyk (oc), Terence Flynn (oc)

word count: 1.8k words

notes: this is like. The only time ever I will post my writing… if it disappears tomorrow I have succumbed to my shame and deleted this 😔. I had to format this on my iPad with no idea how any of this works…. Also if you see spelling/grammar mistakes no you didn’t I was too scared to share this to a friend to proofread ☹️ (looks at the ‘art blog’ in my bio hmmmm)

🚢

Grant me, oh Lord, for the coming events;

Enough knowledge to cope and some plain common sense. Be at our side on those nightly patrols; And be merciful judging our vulnerable souls. Make my hands steady and as sure as a rock; when the others go down with a wound or in shock. Let me be close, when they bleed in the mud; With a tourniquet handy to save precious blood. Here in the jungle, the enemy near; Even the corpsman can't offer much lightness and cheer. Just help me, oh Lord, to save lives when I can; Because even out there is merit in man.

If it's Your will, make casualties light; And don't let any die in the murderous night. These are my friends I'm trying to save; They are frightened at times, but You know they are brave. Let me not fail when they need so much; But to help me serve with a compassionate touch. Lord, I'm no hero—my job is to heal; And I want You to know Just how helpless I feel. Bring us back safely to camp with dawn; For too many of us are already gone.

Lord bless my friends If that's part of your plan; And go with us tonight, when we go out again.

— Navy Hospital Corpsman’s prayer

When Vincent was 5, he woke up in his home to nothing.

When he tried to focus on where he imagined the hallway, there was nothing but black. And from the kitchen he heard a faint drip and nothing more.

It’s hard to recall a memory in the muffling black dark. It’s more of a feeling really, cold icy dread that travels down your spine and keeps you at a standstill.

Vincent still remembers how his body— much smaller in his youth, chattering with fear on the dusty couch. Too scared to call out for his parents.

10 years later, he’d brought up the memory at the dining table and was flattened by his father’s admittance to a fuzzy memory where he forgets to take him off the couch and into bed.

Currently, Vinny is 19 and fumbling with the neckerchief of his dress blues. His brow knotted while Terence Flynn shined his shoes.

“Vinny, how in hell are you gon’ take care of your wife? 20 and you can’t tie your own kerchief?”

Krawczyk swivels to face Flynn like you would in drill. His face in a crooked smile.

“20 in a week actually. I thought I told you yesterday that I was 20 next week.” He says in a voice dripping with a very matter-of-fact tone, a crooked grin plastered on his face.

“I’m gonna start praying for your future wife.” Flynn half-snorts, rolling his eyes.

Vincent listens to Terence’s back click as he stretches, taking a ‘well deserved’ break from his shoe-shining; it was a lousy attempt to seem presentable and handsome for graduation. Terence Flynn, mousey-faced and dark-haired tucking away at least some of his antics for today.

Vincent had complimented how nicely Flynn’s chevrons were stitched once. Terence had flushed red and muttered ashamed that his mother had sewn them on for him.

Within each stitch a gentle kiss of a mothers love tucked under the dark fabric of the Navy’s pride— that’s what Vincent imagined anyways. He had responded with a quiet ‘oh’ and looked at his own chevrons that still had stitches leaking from the edges of blue fabric.

Krawczyk tried to stare back into the mirror and ignore the eruptions of jealousy that burst across his face.

Men dressed neatly in their Navy dress blues begin to leave barracks, putting away shaving kits and slicking their hair back with their caps in hand.

“Bu-ddy?”

Terence whistles and clicks his tongue, already standing at the door out of barracks.

“Christ!”

Vincent glanced at Terence and then back at himself in the mirror before quickly scampering after his friend. Finally figuring out the intricacies of his neckerchief while his shoes hit the plywood floor.

Vincent's rowing team had been best in Missouri, he was the best batter in baseball, captain of the swimming team, and one of the top boxers in school.

It didn't count for much, all his trophies and awards were in a box underneath his bed.

Krawczyk wouldn't know until after his enlistment had ended that his parents had pawned his gold medals off when he'd left for the Navy. Vincent would understand when he came back. Forgiving, sweet, war-torn Vincent who would believe his family was going through tough times.

His photos remained in the box however– the same crooked grin even as his face matured. Collecting an inch of dust.

The winter wind had calmed to a soft breeze (thank the lord) and Chief took to the stand saying speeches Krawczyk seemed to block out with his anticipation.

Rows of navy men with their chests puffed out with the boyish pride that never left them even as men. Preparing to leave for war with the promise to serve and a prayer for survival.

Thomas Murray, a tall, gawky man with blue eyes and blonde hair had been a surgeon before all of this; Chance Henderson always wanted to be a doctor who and thought this was the quickest a cheapest way to get there; shy Samuel Davis who blushed easily and hated using the communal showers was plain kind-hearted and liked the idea of helping wounded; Dayton Bishop was smart and steady-handed, he was suited to the role of a corpsman with square eyes and a handsome jaw.

Terence had smirked at Vincent when he told him he joined up because he thought it’d make him popular with the ladies.

Vinny had roared with laughter, telling him that he’d, ‘never even get a nice girl to look his way’.

Flynn had tried to counter him, reminding Vinny that he had a girl— ‘A girl that left him’, he had responded with. Flynn wanted to argue but Vincent turned the topic too quick.

‘Colours, present arms!’

Vincent was beaming.

The whole thing felt like his High School graduation but fancier. And if it wasn’t an important ceremony he wouldn’t have stopped himself from laughing but, he’d be lying through bared, grinning teeth that he wasn’t pouring over with pride.

He (rather excitedly) stepped onto the stage, shaking hands with the CPO and then to the SCPO who passed him his graduation paper. Vincent was only able to glance at his name ‘Vincent Phillip Krawczyk’ scrawled in the middle of the paper before he had to ‘calmly and mild-manneredly’ walk across the stage.

"I solemnly pledge myself.”

"I solemnly pledge myself…” The bright faced men echoed.

“Before God and these witnesses.”

“To practice faithfully all of my duties.”

“As a member of the Hospital Corps.”

“As a member of the Hospital Corps…”

The band marched out soon after the Corpsman Pledge, Anchors Aweigh cutting through the dewy morning air and sending out that good ol’ Navy pride. Vincent could’ve sworn he saw Terence’s eyes water as he muttered the lyrics under his breath.

“STAND NAVY TO SEA, FIGHT OUR BATTLE CRRYY!”

Flynn roared, hopping from bar stool to bar stool— hand on heart while the other swung a bottle of beer.

Davis was bright red, with 7 drinks too many he had joined Terence in his performance. Vincent clapped, repeating Terence and Davis’ “So vicious foe steer shy-y-y-y!”, despite not having even one drop of alcohol that evening. The rowdy sailors had scared off most of the other bar patrons. Dayton sat smartly as ever, Murray was playing craps with the increasingly drunker Chance and the other boys— Mark, Jones, Sutton, Kidd, Freeman, West, Patrick… were either pink-faced and whooping or challenging the other to another game, drink, or bet.

“Y’know, back in my home-place, Missouri I used to drink like there wasn’t a God!”

“Anchors aweigh my boys! ANCHORS AWEIGHH!”

Dayton didn’t seem to be really paying attention to Krawczyk’s yammering.

“My pal, Nate, he drank beer like it wasn’t a Wednesday afternoon. Never trust a usual mild-mannered Missouri man, we might all seem pleasant but as soon as he gets a drink too many he’ll sock you right in the face if you even mention his favourite sport team’s rival team— I nearly got socked in the face for it once, can you believe it?”

Vinny bursts into laughter, not really taking note that Dayton didn’t join in.

"Farewell to foreign shores, we sail at break of day-ay-AY-AY!”

“You’re not drinking.”

Vincent perks up when Dayton speaks.

“Yeah— yeah, no, I'm not a drinker," Vinny shrugs. "Christian, I keep it to special occasions." He finishes, grinning.

“Uhuh. Isn’t this a special occasion?”

“Someone has to be sober enough to hold caps when you all retch whiskey in the bathroom.”

Dayton shrugs, swirling his brandy on the rocks.

“Drink to the foam, until we meet once more! Here's wishing you a happy voyage HOME!”

And with the end of the second verse, Flynn missed the barstool he was jumping to by a foot and cracked his head on the side of the counter.

The sand was soft at Nunn beach.

Vinny liked beaches, he liked the waves, how the seawater dried on his arms and left white salt stains on his skin. He even liked nursing his good friend after slamming his own face into a bench, who now had a rapidly growing lump above his right brow.

The sun had sunk halfway under the ocean, sending out stretching wands of orange light that sparked crashing waves yellow. It turned his and Flynn’s faces amber and made his bruise just slightly more obvious.

“Finally put those corpsman skills to good use.”

Vincent was grinning— Terence was not.

He reached into his wrinkled blues, pulling a silver rosary over his head, careful to not bump his tender lump. Terence cleared his throat, trying to clear the shame in his voice.

“My gal got it for me but you know uh. We broke up”

“She left you.”

“We broke up!” He insisted, with a huff. Flynn turned from Vincent and admired the carving of Christ. Hanging by his hands on the silver cross, intricate swirls that seemed to grow from his hollow body and border the cross he was strung across. It seemed to glimmer white in the setting sun.

“Take it. A parting gift. Or an apology— I don't care. Or really believe in that crap anymore anyways”

“Don't call it crap.”

“Sorry.”

Vincent tenderly accepted the gift from his friend, thumbing the cross.

“Tell me a story, Vince.” Terence’s voice was flat, eyes glued onto the horizon instead of his friend.

“Well. Once me and my pal Nate thought it'd be funny to throw rocks at the school greenhouse.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

#oc: Vincent Krawczyk #hbo war #the pacific #Hbo war oc #The pacific oc #Ww2 oc #Original character #i had to hype myself up to post this #AGHHH #might drop the occasional vinny lore like how he isn’t actually religious #but this is probably all the proper writing I will release from the depths that are my google docs #I don’t really like sharing my writing but i hope you enjoy nonetheless 🫡

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precious-little-scoundrel · 1 month

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Masters of the Air Fanfiction

Requested: yes…Virgin!Gale + Maureen/Gale bonding

Universe: Friends in the Crucible (pacific au)

Summary: “Get laid, Buck.” Doc Egan prescribed with his peculiar brand of deathly serious compassion, “Hell, I’ll write you a prescription for it, if it soothes your conscience, but I’m serious. Serve your jitters better than any syrette or Amphetamine.”

Warnings: all the sex! 18+.|| both tender and feral || Doc Egan being a unorthodox but loving menace, a theme of ptsd and body tremors/insomnia -poor Gale is going through it after a whole war, drug mentions, erectile disfunction, Maureen is aggressive but everything’s consensual, usage of the word “Jap”. Graphic descriptions of Gale’s virginity loss, male overstimulation and an amusing amount of thought given to Bucky’s existence during the act … im sure that won’t lead to anything when Maureen returns to base and reports to Egan about it, right? Hahaha of course not, that would be craaazy

Word count: 10k

“Buck, come on now, it’s not a prison sentence, it’s just a little time off.”

“I don’t need time off.” Gale reiterated, a panicked sort of fierceness creeping into his tone as his appeal now stretched into something longer than the usual flippant favors Egan was customarily so eager to dole out.

“Those hands suggest ya do.” John gave a not unkind glance of sympathy at the twitching fingers rattling on the armrests of Cleven’s chair.

12 rescue missions in 15 days. Flying upwards of ten hours each. He’d done worse before, but then again, that had been when he was fresh, younger, less banged up from the head hitting the cockpit wall.

“Sending me to go watch flamingos and contemplate sand or some shit isn’t gonna make me steadier.” Gale very much feared his gripes were beginning to sound like begs, “Don’t send me off like this. Don’t.”

“Petrified of flamingos?” John hummed, glancing down at his chart as if contemplating making a note of this new malady, “Maybe if your dad had taken you to a zoo once or twice as a kid you’d not be scared stiff of the prospect.”

Cleven stared back at him with the most hurt eyes John had ever seen. He balled his own fist up to remember the rightness of his point, even if he’d delivered it about as clumsily as a marriage proposal at a funeral. “The hell would you say something like that?” Buck whispered, not even angry, just utterly lost.

“Buck, I’m just sayin’ -inability to slow or be alone, it’s classic symptoms of battle fatigue.”

“I don’t wanna sit on a beach when I could be helping, I’m perfectly capable of still helping! You know it!”

“But you can’t sleep.” John circled back to where this all began, with Gale asking if there was anything to knock a fella out when 82 hours of insomnia wasn’t sufficiently exhausting.

“Give me something, you’re a doctor! Goddamnit, John!” Gale finally broke, voice raising and fists clenched.

“Surgeon, technically.” John gave him a wane smile, “And I can’t dope up an active pilot.”

“Just an active surgeon.” Gale sneered, tit for tat on the insults.

John nodded grimly but murmured, “The day Gale Cleven becomes John Egan is a day this whole operation can pack up and go home.”

“So you're being the better man,” Gale scoffed, “-sending me to watch flamingos.”

“I’m not givin’ you shit.“ he confirmed, “Unless it’s an assignment.”

“Will it keep me outta the flak asylum?”

“If you comply to all the regulations, maybe.” Egan shrugged.

“Go on?”

“Get laid, Buck.” his friend prescribed with his peculiar brand of deathly serious compassion, “Hell, I’ll write you a prescription for it, if it soothes your conscience, but I’m serious. Serve you better than any syrette or Amphetamine.”

“That’s your ultimatum?”

“No, no, my ultimatum is that you go on a little sabbatical with one of my nurses, she’ll keep an eye on you and you can make yourself useful, helping her unload heavy shit at the aid station they’re setting up at Peleliu. My recommendation is that when she comes into your room at the end of the day and drops her knickers, you lay back and think of Wyoming.”

Major Cleven had thought of a million and one ways to bribe or ally the prospective nurse to his side of the deal once he knew which unfortunate female Egan was going to pick for this deplorable detail. Calling his friend a pimp and a bastard had done little good, threatening malpractice and a hardness of heart towards Gale’s own principles -even less. So Gale figured when the time came he’d just gently turn the well meaning comfort gal away and maybe pay her off to lie that they’d done it: for his hand’s sake.

After all, if she was willing to do this, was she even a nurse or was she someone Bucky dressed up in Red Cross arm bands like some sleazy fantasy? Gale didn’t think any of the nurses he’d encountered would be willing to go along with such a sordid “assignment.” Sure, some of them were -carefree. Indulgent. Easy, as the men sometimes called them before getting a stinging cheek that proved them wrong. But they were a proud bunch and they had earned it.

Rolling a toothpick in his cheek, Buck pondered these things while sat on the bench of a Goony Bird waiting for his nurse to hop into the cargo hold with him and off they’d go to Pelilu. The situation was made worse by the suspense of who it might be and the insulting foreignness of being on a plane but not piloting. It made Gale feel an odd sort of feeling close to self pity that he hadn’t felt in ages, not since he was a kid and the nostalgia of it wrung him out of all energy. He made himself sit on that metal bench motionless as the heat index rose on the tarmac and made up a fun little game involving trying to see if he could get his hands to stop tremoring for five seconds straight.

So far he’d lost his own wager each time. He told himself if he could make it to five seconds then the nurse Bucky had sent would be a gray haired matron and this really was just a sabbatical to lift boxes and breathe ocean air and get Gale to laugh at himself.

Then Maureen Kendeigh climbed into the hold and squeezed past their cargo of medicine crates and plopped down right next to him, leg bumping his and breathing like a race horse. “I have jogged here the entire way from administration.” she wheezed, tugging at the collar of her shirt where her glistening throat was bobbing in thirst. “Sorry I’m so late, Major. Am I late?”

It could have been Bucky sat next to him: the choice of phrasing was so familiar, the damnable ability to force forgiveness for tardiness with a single smile so predictable. Gale found dread knotting his stomach at the realization it would be her, even as a warmth spread all over him at her sweet presence that had the odd effect of steadying his hands despite the panicked fuzz of his brain at her proximity.

Oh he didn’t want this. No, no, no. He’d like to think of Maureen very much apart, apart from anything but her heroism, not her wide spread stance on the bench beside him or the idea of her dropping her knickers and making him think of Wyoming. He preferred her very much not attainable in the deeper ways and very much not what he saw himself with when all this was over. Whatever she and Doc Egan had was between them and he’d held it up like a shield to keep himself in check, a boy's code of honor about not encroaching on his friend’s girl. Even if said friend didn’t have the decency to make said girl “his” girl.

But to have Maureen dished up to him on a platter by John when John must have suspected some of Gale’s appreciation for her professional merits -it was somehow worse than any dressed up floozy or the easy new intern. He’d not be able to pay Maureen off without insulting her. Or outing Egan’s intent. Maybe she didn’t know. What if Gale spilled the beans and she was as harmless as himself? What if—

“God, Major, did you sleep at all?” Maureen’s steady fingers were gripping his expressionless face and suddenly turned him towards her, one thumb swiping a tender crescent in his under eyes.

Gale’s eyes seemed to forget blinking was a thing, they grew wide and stayed wide at her inspection and the sandy wind blowing in from the tarmac stung at them as they dried out. “No,” he found his voice and it came out more winded than hers, “you’re not late.” he lied.

Once they get to the island, touchdown and unload, there’s then three hours of driving around the pitted old warzone to the aid station. There’s more foliage the more they go, less mortar pitted earth, but the increasing tropical paradise surroundings put Gale on edge. Maureen drives them to their unexplored destination as confident and recklessly as Bucky would, little surprise there. Gale can’t help glancing at her with unabashed amusement for the way she keeps her pistol propped on top of the steering wheel with one grip, facing out like a top turret for their hood, while keeping the map balanced on her thigh.

He cradles his own BAR with loose arms, ready to use it. Sure they secured the island months ago, but still, not infrequently some Jap comes out of his hiding hole, a cave, or whatever fucking tree he resides in and surrenders. Or, conversely, some of them have charged with guns blazing or sword drawn, deciding to go out and a bang of glory and take with them whichever hapless American happens to be nearby. That Emperor worship shit ain’t happening on on Gale’s watch, and so Maureen gets to drive -she didn’t have to beg like that, he was going to let her- and he shoulders the duty of keeping his eyes peeled for the next bush becoming animate and running at them, pulled pin grenade in hand.

“Some relaxation.” he jokes as their jeep lurches into another crater. If it’s not the bomb pits it’s the massive roots crawling over the smashed earth the Marine Corps call a road.

“It’s a reverse strategy!” she informs, grin wide as a shark’s and Gale could almost draw a little pencil mustache above that top lip and pretend it’s Bucky torturing him thus -hey, that might be a good mode of thought to keep everything strictly professional- “Like when nothing else works, you kick the broken thing.” Gale politely ignores the urge to argue about being broken, that’s not her point… he hopes, “You’re all shook up,” she goes on, voice raised to be heard over the rev of her driving, “and calm hasn’t worked, so why not shake you up worse?!”

He squints at her, fully aware he isn’t being chummy like she is trying to be, knowing he’s being a stick in the mud but he’s dying under the uncertainty, chafing under the pretense. Does she know? Or does she not? Five times today he’s resisted the urge to slap her chest like he would Demarco’s and ask her levelly, man to man, if she knows. “If this doesn’t work then what?” he asks anyway, sober as hell despite the comedic jostling and even Maureen’s joviality dims in the face of his dour mood.

“Then we’ll have to get real unorthodox.” she replies, allowing something close to annoyance at his attitude to seep into her own expression and Gale refuses to pull his eyes off her.

Do you know? He wants to ask.

“Stop scowling at me and watch for Japs.” she snaps at him so suddenly and so heated he genuinely spooks and turns his body back towards their horizon.

It’s worse than he thought. Worse than he imagined on the times he lost the bet with his hands and let his mind go somewhere besides a practical joke from Bucky and a gray haired spinster nurse as his companion. The aid station is on the edge of the new camp, far off enough to be genuinely secluded from both sights and smells of the navy station. It’s a tiki hut, thatched roof and swinging mesh door and lovely little veranda and palm trees and waves lapping up the back steps.

It looks like the sorta place people advertise for honeymoons and Gale stares at it with a 100 yard stare once Maureen grinds the gears to park.

“Jesus.” he knows his mouth is curling in disgust and beside him Maureen huffs in disgust with him.

She jumps out of her side of the jeep, not a shred of amusement left on her face. Gale sits and stares and listens to the roar of surf and the clinking of the cooling engine.

“Not bad.” she grunts under the burden of a crate which Gale should be lifting if he could just make his legs work and his mind obey. “But I bet it’s gonna be a bitch to keep the gnats out though, so much foliage around.”

Her hips sway like a tantalizing pendulum when she jogs up the bungalow stairs, her waist somehow accentuated by the way her arms are lifted to keep the crate hoisted on her strong shoulder and Gale has the perfect seat to watch it. How did he never notice the lines on her before she was doing hard labor? Then he recalls, she’s mostly been in flight suits around him, he’s never seen her paired down to collared shirts and belted pants. How’d he never notice the lines on that gi-

“Don’t make me drive this thing in the surf to wake you up.” her slap on his listless forearm rouses him to realize she’s back out at the jeep, standing beside him looking at him as he sits here catatonic like the mental case he’s showing symptoms of being. “And take your jacket off, you’re gonna get overheated being so formal.”

“Are you in on it?” he snaps suddenly as she grins at him over his first crate. He can’t tell if she’s mocking him or not but he’s damn tired of it.

“In on what?” Her face falls.

He can’t do it. He just can’t do it and he hates himself for being such a coward. “This.” he chooses vagueness and it tastes foreign and awful on his tongue.

“It’s a week out of the cockpit in paradise, Cleven,” Maureen’s own expression holds back no disdain for his pissy attitude, “man the hell up.”

What Maureen, Gale and five other technicians had loaded into the jeep and it’s buggy in the course of two hours, takes the mere two of them close to four to unload. And that’s even with Gale keeping a rapid pace to his work like a sweating maniac, feverishly wanting to stop thinking for once. His jacket and shirt are thrown over the chairs that are actually provided as furniture in the place and Maureen’s tie lays discarded on the accompanying desk. The rooms are bare but there’s two beds in the bedroom with crisp sheets that have only a bit of pollen dusting them and there’s a desk, as mentioned, three chairs in the main room and Maureen insists they can use crates for a table.

The back room is for the actual medical aid, and Maureen insists nothing gets moved into it until she can sanitize the whole place. So they stack the boxes in the main room and in the bedroom and when the sun gets lower they’re relieved to find there’s some dubious provisions for electricity in the place.

“I can get it to work.” Gale decides as Maureen tries flicking the light switch ten times as if to see if the bare bulb will grow a will of its own and turn on for her. It reminds him so much of Bucky’s brand of idiocy that Gale almost forgets himself and reaches out to swat her hand away from the futile flicking.

“Ok, then you do that while I keep unloading.” she insists, “Won’t be able to do anything if it’s pitch dark in here.”

So Gale drags a chair over and begins to fiddle with the wires tacked to the ceiling, risking electrocution so Maureen Kendeigh can see her way around as she tromps past him again and again in the same path with yet another crate.

He’s good with his hands. Excellent, in fact, judging by how one bulb flickers then stays steady, then another and another until the inside of the bungalow is aglow with cozy light: enough light for Maureen to appreciate his sweat soaked singlet and the way it rides up his belly when his arms are up and how it’s bright enough for her to scrub the exam room effectively when laying in a room with an insomniatic Gale Cleven gets to her at 3:00 am.

As it surely will. God! -the man is as impossible as he is beautiful, and while she doubted she’d manage it with him before, the sheer amount of fury she feels towards him right now leaves no doubt. She’ll shake him up. Like a Fuckin’ Martini. And he doesn’t have to like it, probably won’t, but they’ll both feel better after. “In on it” -he’s got the gall to ask but not the balls to spell it out, she can’t abide a quasi gentleman and so far Gale Cleven’s been nothing but the genuine article. Until now, now when he can’t accept certain human things about himself like fatigue or attraction, and he takes it out on her with a sullenness belonging to a much older man.

Maureen’s fine with that, she thinks as ogles the glowing golden skin of his sheened shoulders on one of her passes with a crate, she can take her mad out on him, too. And she’s got a lot of it. More than John Egan was ever able to lick away.

By 15:00, and some change to the second hand, Gale Cleven was still awake. Little surprise there, not to him, but even though it didn’t matter he found himself thoroughly annoyed and taking it out with a lethal glare at the vague gray ceiling, lit by a massive moon over the ocean. Wire and chairs but no curtains -an oversight about the furnishings. It wouldn’t have mattered, he knew that, and still the racket Maureen was making put his teeth on edge. It wasn’t Benny’s snoring or John’s drunken mumbling but it was a consistent *swoosh, swish* of industry that had Gale feeling a mixture of guilt and determination to keep lying here while she scrubbed.

It had not occurred to him she might’ve needed this break, too. Such as it was, effective as it was not proving. He knew she’d seen some combat in the beginning at Manila, maybe even worse than Iwo but long hours doing what she was doing now, where she was doing it, was no joke.

The urge to get up and help her was strong but then, so was the crippling fear of being around her in the dead of night and inviting any more of the bossy familiarity she’d tucked him into bed with. A magnesium capsule! She’d made him take three of the maternity horse pills and told him to calm the hell down as if he didn't have ample reason to be on edge with her laying a foot away on another bed, stripped down to her cotton slip. Of course Gale would cite war horrors if anyone asked why he couldn’t sleep but to be frank, he wasn’t sure why he wasn’t managing it these days and it had started awhile ago. Before Maureen Kendeigh glowed sweaty and luminous in the moonlight while gripping his cheeks and puckering his protesting mouth and plopping pills on his lolling tongue.

Thinking of it made his face flame with embarrassment for such a childish resistance. But god, her nursley familiarity sent a cross signal to his brain each time she helped herself to his flesh and no amount of berating himself while sweating in these rough sheets could dislodge the reaction. Closer to fifteen hundred than was remotely chivalrous, Gale threw off his sweat soaked bedding and tromped into the glow of light outside their bedroom, shuffling blearily into the little exam room. He faltered for a brief ten seconds at the doorway watching her undulating movements with sponge in hand and knees on the floor, white slip clinging like a second skin from the sweat.

He felt the sudden medical urge to lick her like the cattle back home lick at the salt block, a strange way of quenching thirst. Was ninety two hours without sleep considered genuine grounds for insanity? He felt like maybe he should be keeping a diary of these fevered thoughts to report back to John and see if he needed to get turned in. This wasn’t horniness, this was salt cravings. Yeah, yeah that’s what it was.

“You hypocrite.” he felt emboldened to tease and his voice came out rough and lower than even he expected, the disuse of laying there for ages taking a toll.

Maureen looked up like she’d been spooked herself, a slip and stall of her scrubbing, hair hanging about her face so unprofessionally he realized he’d never seen it in such…disarray. “Oh, the baby’s awake.” she grinned back and he felt an indulgence settle in his gut for her he didn’t know existed, “I see my magnesium capsules were a cure all.”

“Oh yeah, knock a horse out.” he agreed derisively.

“Your eyes are droopier.” she found a silver lining and as if reminded of the grit in them, his large fists came up and rubbed them meanly.

Like a little boy, she thought, watching him in the harsh light of the bare bulb, warm wood all around him the same color as all that sweaty skin and those skivvies hanging onto the lithest set of hips she may have ever seen. Looked as if one deep breath of that lean belly and the fabric would be goners, slipping down to the floor dramatically like a woman’s pantyhose in those unfortunate comics where that’s always occurring just when she wants to cross a busy street. Maybe if she could make him belly laugh-

She wished she knew how. She wondered if he knew how.

“Got another Sponge?” he asked and she was reminded why she liked him so much.

“Top crate, there, left, there that one.” She directed him with jerks of her chin until he was at the right one, “I’m using antiseptic.” she warned.

“I know,” he answered, dropping to his knees beside her and making use of her bucket to dunk his sponge, “smell’s been givin’ me a headache.”

Maureen’s mouth twitched at his tired grumpiness, more endearing now he was still putting effort into being near the caustic shit and the way his golden hair flopped on his forehead with his scrubbing movements. If his hips were that fluid, that rhythmic in cleaning a floor, how much more could she teach him to be—“Yeah, I’m sure it’s the anti-septic giving you a headache.” she snarked.

They ate sandwiches he’d gotten from the navy camp’s mess on the back porch, letting the sea water lap at their feet. A little stale but it was a much needed breakfast and Gale brought fresh water back, too, and a report that they were nice fellas and entirely too undressed for her to ever go see. That suited her fine, they’d be a pest if they knew a woman was up here and personally speaking she only needed one man for company, crate lifting, and doing the job well. And she rather had her heart set on it being Gale Cleven. Especially now she got to stare at him under the bright morning sun with a tropical breeze and more skin on display than at a swimsuit contest. He’d put on a singlet, as if to mark that a day had begun even if they hadn’t slept the night, but that was promptly sweat soaked and tiny nipples were pebbling under it from the breeze.

“Did they ask if a nurse came with you?” she pressed him between bites.

“Yeah.” he swallowed his bite thickly and licked at the mayo collecting at the corner of his mouth with typical precision, “And I lied.”

“Well, well,” she cooed, making him roll his eyes, “how’d that feel?”

“I have lied before.” he balked.

The look he gave her was both thunderous and remincent and she repented that line of questioning, used to distinguishing in her patients whether a wound was from wartime or stemmed from childhood. “Well who’d you say came with?” she asked.

“A technician.” he mumbled, blushing for some reason.

“Mm, someone nice and hairy and stinky-“

“Stop.” he begged.

“-not anyone they’d wanna meet.”

“I did it for you!”

“-if that makes you sleep at night, Cleven.” she humored him and like lightning, the back of his hand had flicked out and thumped her on the sternum, hard.

“Shit!” Maureen clutched the place, more in surprise than pain although he’d walloped her good and well.

“Shit!” He parroted in mortification, holding his hand like it was an offensive weapon.

“What was that for?” she laughed, “Do I remind you that much of Benny? Are you missing him that bad? Is that who you pretended was with you up here? Huh? Huh? Benny Demarco, now that’s a beauty to hide under a bushel-“

She was crowding him in on the steps and he was teetering towards falling off, too alarmed at his own outburst to trust his instincts now to shove her off without causing harm -and she knew it. She pressed her advantage and crawled over him with her teasing comments about Demarco until his long body had bowed so far away from her’s it was levitating and then toppled predictably into the surf.

“Fuck it’s cold!” he wheezed out as the embrace of the old pacific drenched him and rolled him about at her feet for a few delightful moments before he got his footing and rose, shaking his hair out of his eyes and grabbing for the steps.

“Sea bathing was in doctor Egan’s regimen.” she informed remorselessly before extending a merciful hand to help him up. He was slippery and shiny as an eel coming up and the grip of his hand was as strong as she expected. And still she found it intoxicating, the duality of him as he stood there pouting and bitchy over being cooled off. “Stay right there baby, I’ll get you a towel.” she patted his chest, right where he’d smacked hers, and went inside.

“I’m not your baby.” She heard him holler to her through the door-less porch. “I’m not your baby.” he reiterated vehemently but lower again when she came out with the towel.

“Yes you are.” she argued, “For this week you’re my baby, whether that’s a literal infant or not is your choice -and don’t start arguing, you’ve got to stop it, no one’s making you do a damn thing.” she insisted, hand raised and his mouth closed satisfyingly as a result, “You’ll be my baby. I know you already had a baby, no? Our baby? Shared her with ten other men, that’s generous of you-“

“-Ensign!-“

“-so I’m not gonna be your baby. You’ll be mine and you can find me something to be for the week.” she watched closely as recognition of her logic began to dawn and settle on him, “I could be anyone. I could be Benny Demarco, for instance. If that’s who you wanna lay next to.”

Gale didn’t speak for a long while, eyes off to the side watching the surf lap at the steps and she was still standing there, holding his unused towel. “Who do you want me to be?” he asked finally and his grave perception just about winded her in its raw honesty.

“You.” she replied honestly, “Whichever version of you made it here with me.”

“An infant -a baby.” he scoffed and she was suspicious those eyes were watery. And too delayed for it to be from the salt.

“My baby.” she replied, “Never had one before.”

“With respect ma’am, that’s Bullshit.” he argued in a fierce hiss, “I know you have, with John and -and-“

“I’ve been somebody’s,” she clarified, “but I think I’ve grown out of that. You’ll be my baby, huh? It’s not marriage, Cleven, it’s a week in paradise and hopefully some shut eye, too. So do you want me to be Benny?”

Those watery eyes let one single tear go trickling down his pink cheek alongside the rivulets of ocean water dripping from his hair and Maureen had never felt a single thing heat her up quite like it. “No,” his chuckle was thick and he sniffed, “not Benny. Maybe uh, God, I dunno, I’ve never had anyone.”

“Then we can make it up entirely.” she was pleased by the idea of not being a stand-in, although god knows she and John could sympathize more about the need for that than anyone. “We’ll be castaways.” she suggested, sitting back down on the porch now the confrontation was dwindling and in full confirmation of her suspicions, he sat again beside her without fuss.

“Marooned.” he disagreed, chin resting on his hands and a boyish tug pulling up the corner of his lips. “Something insane you did landed us here.”

“Mm, took liberties with the captain's daughter, perhaps?” she teased, daring to run a finger along those golden shoulders and collect a few salt drops. He shuddered under her but stayed put.

“I’m not playing fair maiden for you.” he retorted but his eyes were fond.

“Mm, I’ll believe it when I see it.” Maureen was still impossible and Gale felt his gut burn in a bizzare sort of drive to prove her wrong. He’d hardly ever felt this even with all the jokes from the boys, not even with all the temptations from the girls, it just hadn’t seemed something that needed proving. Every flea and salmon could do it, he never doubted when he got married he could manage it credibly enough.

“Mr. and Mrs. Jones.” his voice sounded like he’d come to a decision and Maureen squinted at his profile until it clicked.

“I’ve never been married before.” she observed breezily.

“And I never planned on being married for just a week.” he replied.

“Isn’t there a film about this?” she asked, “Cary Grant gets stuck on an island and he marries his castaway but then they get rescued and there’s a first wife?”

“Yeah, I think so, actually.” he thumbed at his bottom lip in contemplation and Maureen found it endlessly distracting, along with the bird song and the ocean crash and the sunshine.

“Mr. and Mrs. Jones.” she agreed then, settling back on her elbows to stare up at the sun and let it add a few freckles, “And when it’s over and you’re rescued, I’ll be the better woman and let Our Baby have you.”

“You’ll always be the best of women, Maureen.” he sounded like the admittance took every fiber of his resolve to say, but she’d heard it before in his voice weeks ago when she was patching him up.

If a tear slipped out the corner of her shut eyes and down a sun warmed cheek, she wasn’t going to make a deal of it, not until she felt his finger catch it tenderly before it dropped from her jaw and rolled it back up.

She felt her lip wobble traitorously and perhaps there were more tears planning to follow and betray her but the shivering shock of his full lips, pressed to her bare shoulder, stemmed the flood. Maureen held her breath and kept her eyelids sealed, an orange glow of sunshine behind them as all her senses attuned to the drag of his caresses up to the juncture of her shoulder, the press of his body next to her on the porch boards, the suspenseful absence of his hands. They were soft as marshmallows, those lips, and a stray tip of his tongue caught her clavicle as he worked his way up a path that almost seemed premeditated, as if he’d thought of doing this a million times but held back. Now he allowed himself and the assured intimacy of his mouth made her body heat soar almost beyond her endurance as he crept up her throat and onto her cheek.

A kitten lick to that tear track down her cheek and Maureen was whimpering from something else entirely, breaking ranks and turning her head to gaze at him, nearly stunned by how close he was, how alive, how beautiful, how blue. There were his hands now, one propped beneath her shoulder, the other cupping her cheek. Her lips were tingling with anticipation by the time he’d lowered his face far enough and brushed her mouth with his.

Maybe he’d done his fair share of kissing the girls back home goodbye, or maybe it was a talent given along with this impossible lips, or perhaps she’d wanted it so long that the final having of it sent Maureen spiraling with something oddly like obsession.

Kissing was enough for the longest time, the shore sounds and the squawking of ocean birds and the feel of Gale Cleven laying more and more atop her as his tongue met hers and danced. She scratched the back of that tanned neck like she dreamed of doing a dozen times, little scritches to his hairline that had him sagging against her kisses to the point of crushing.

She allowed herself the liberty of running her hands along his lean sides, taking in the graceful taper of his waist, the dip of his back, the sopping wet waistband of his briefs. She wondered if this is how men feel with a young girl, when there’s so much loveliness one wants to maul it and mark it and watch it respond. Anything to make him moan again into her mouth, wrenched and helpless and appreciative of her all at once, anything for him to hump his hips against her thigh in a manner so mindless he didn’t seem himself at all.

When he pulled away, dazed and winded from his own exertions, he seemed to have left behind all his inhibitions, stark need written on his face and only some doubt of what he was allowed yet remaining. “Are we gonna?-“ he trailed off, raspy voiced and trembling with suspense.

“Going to what?” she couldn’t abide it any longer, his demureness, “Say your mind, Cleven.”

“Do it.” he let out with a wince.

“Well I don’t know, Mr. Jones, you tell me. Are we gonna?”

Gale huffed and threw his head back, trying to regain some sense of mind, lip savagely pulled between his teeth. “Yeah. We are.” he decided.

“Then finish your sandwich.” she patted his waist and pushed him off.

“I can’t!” he begged with a groan from where he’d spilled out on the porch like a boneless dummy. “Not now.”

“You’re gonna need it, the water too, trust me on this.”

“Are we gonna -make love? Or go for a forced march?” he protested but lifted the canteen to his lips anyways when she gave him a look and proceeded to drink it dry.

“How would you know the difference?” she teased and he had the good humor to roll his eyes. If all went according to Egan’s plan, they oughta hibernate for twelve hours of sleep afterwards and she wanted him hydrated and ready for that. Maureen had a plan of her own, which certainly might lead to such a sleep, but it also involved not getting off that boy for love of God or money until he was as useless as a wet rag and the impertinent gnawing between her own legs was replaced by a good ache.

Cleven was staring at his sandwich remorsefully, “I can’t get this down, Maureen.” he declared with sudden finality and then, without preamble he threw it into the sea. “C’mon, Mrs Jones.” he held out his hand for her as he stood up, something close to an excited grin taking over his face.

He was so confident now, having come to a decision, and Maureen found herself naturally bending to his direction, placing her hand in his large palm and allowing him to haul her to her feet as gently as a dance partner. “We’ve got a bed.” she reminded blissfully into another kiss, anchored to his face by the persistent hands snarled lovingly into her salt tousled curls: this hair Maureen, this hair drove me mad.

“And we’re gonna use it.” he agreed, walking her backwards up the porch until he feet were skidding over the threshold, his tongue still sucking her own.

She stopped him there with a hand to the willowy plane of his belly, a regulated, principled woman to the last, and snapped the still soaked waistband of his drawers. “Off, you’ll make the sheets wet and sandy.”

Their sweat would accomplish dampening them enough in this muggy heat, they didn’t need sand and ocean water to boot. Maureen ducked beneath his arm and went back out to grab the discarded towel.

“I don’t want a trail of drips on our clean floor.”

Gale smiled softly at the usage of “our” -it felt right somehow, to share things with her. They’d been at it for some time, it came naturally like it had with Bucky and the few other boys who he knew would be something special and unlike anything else after this. It was a little bittersweet to know he was living the best days of his life, right here and now, enviable, irretrievable moments of raw connection slipping away with each drip, drip, drip onto the threshold. It was a heartache in the making and it was a spur for the moment. Back home they’d never understand, and any old observer would see nothing unique, but Gale could allow himself the rightness of sharing just one more thing. Why not cement it fully, irrevocably, as the closest brush he’d ever come to with another soul- he’d asked himself the same with Bucky, knew it was already an established fact.

Maureen’s lips were warm where they pressed to his back, the space between his shoulders, towel held to his waist. “You’re not shy of me, are ya, baby?” she whispered in his ear, thumbing at the still worn briefs.

He could feel himself this past hour hardening and softening, so many times in the space of so many minutes he was dizzy with it, the way his brain would have the upper hand and then, suddenly no, it all rushed south. Which now left shyness as the only real excuse for the way he burned and shrank and burned and shrank in turn at each of her touches.

“You gonna give me the towel?” he asked instead.

“Once it’s safe to do so.” she replied primly, in her familiar nursing voice, and he hated the shudder that tore through him. She stepped under his arm again, around him and into the house, and stood in the shade of the it with the towel spread invitingly, tauntingly. A whole yard and a half between then and she’d decreed no drips past the threshold. Gale’s cheeks burned as did his eyes, smarting with brimming tears from an odd frustration he’d only ever felt over a botched mission, an anger at not being able to bomb his target and make it worthwhile, a petty frustration he always felt before the cold rage of lost men fully registered.

Futile tears: Gale yanked the skivvies down and stepped out of them efficiently.

Maureen wasn’t smiling at him from the shade anymore, not even a smirk, she looked hungry. She looked like Bucky, taking in “a view.” Gale didn’t know ladies ticked that way -or maybe they didn’t, maybe only Maureen did. The blush in his cheeks ran down his chest and spilled onto his belly and his fists clenched without thought.

“When the man of the house,” Maureen was reciting some inane pamphlet she no doubt did not heed or else they’d never be here, “respects the whims of the lady in small matters, he will find the lady more submissive to issues of larger stake such a-“

Gale made a dash at her, to shut her up, and she fled from him to the bedroom, feet smacking on the hardwood and cotton slip fluttering up her thighs -his towel with her.

“I want you bare.” he told her when he had her, struggling in his arms before the bed, a lush friction where he pressed tightly behind her.

“Then sit,” she sounded genuinely breathy, trapped to him and he had never heard her like that before, it made him want to hold fast, “and I’ll make your dreams come true.”

It was just a slip, no garters and no braisere or girdle, yet still Gale sat himself on the bed and Maureen bit her cheek to keep from laughing at the modest way he deposited the towel on his lap, covering what she’d been eyeing and thanking her luck for. A cock as pretty as his face -now if she could just make it stand up fully.

“You ready?” she deferred to him as she stood there before the bed, being looked on with all the reverence and trepidation of a goddess by this seated acolyte.

“Please,” he nodded furiously, “please show me.”

It felt a little wrong to expose oneself in front of such an angelic being, curtainless windows throwing in the sun on him all golden and untouched, white scratchy sheets and white draped towel making it a bower of innocence for a brief moment. It also felt right, to throw off everything but what they’d been born with. Off went rank, obligations and expectations, as easily as dragging the slip over her head.

She tossed the article of clothing behind her for good measure -and dramatic effect- then noted with satisfaction the bleary eyed comprehension of her charms from Gale Cleven where he sat with his mouth hung so slack he was liable to drool.

“Incredible.” he muttered, husky and a little slurred, his hand raising without his own volition to beckon her closer, a plea, command.

Maureen swayed on her feet, nearer and nearer until she was standing above him, between his parted legs and she shuddered as he laid that broad palm on her hip and dragged it up her side in an admiring swath, thumbing at her belly and catching her ribs in his hold.

“Those flight suits of yours, they don’t…they don’t let show the half of it.” Gale declared, mesmerized, face hovering closer and closer until his lips were pressing against her flesh, right under her sternum, his forehead pressed to the underside of one pendulous breast, nuzzling as he became aware of that, bunting like a calf at her breast with his face, gone silly with access.

“Whadda ya think?” she giggled, the silliness of Gale Cleven gone stupid over making yams jiggle being the exact sort of thing that made life worth living, and being a woman exquisitely satisfying.

“They’re so goddamn soft.” he moaned around a bit of the underside, still hadn’t worked his way to a nipple. He seemed too preoccupied with their give and bounce to make a more calculated use of them. Maybe if men hadn’t been told what to do with them, they’d do what Gale Cleven was doing and rub their face against them and let them rest on their foreheads. There was a charm to this ignorance as he licked the salty sweat from their undersides with a surprisingly brave tongue.

The clumsy misuse was oddly effective for Maureen, what Gale lacked in skill he made up for in unstudied appreciation and nothing got her quite so ready as being appreciated to the point of foolishness. Her first conquest had been a boy at school who hadn’t minded tripping in his track shoes, day after day, to try to catch up to her on her bicycle, just to give her a flower or trinket. He was laughed at for his devotion until he broke the school track record next year, and Maureen was sure to remind him of her role in his success. They’d soon found a mutually beneficial reward system and Maureen had adopted that attitude as a maxim for the future, her dates and conquests may have been many but each of them in their own way had been appreciative -or else she was jumping out the window, damn the twelve foot drop out the dormitory.

No one, however, had looked quite so gifted by her mere existence as Gale Cleven did while he clutched at her hips and smushed her flesh between his hands like it were some fine dough and he was an artisan.

Discreetly, and it was easy to be so with his face buried in her bosoms, Maureen glanced between them at the tool she had such hopes for and found it, unsurprisingly, twitching and dribbling against his thigh, half hard but flapping about like a fish on dry land, the discarded towel no match for its movement. He’d need a hand, literally and metaphorically, and as she raked her nails through his blond curls and directed his slick mouth to a nipple, she felt him sag even further into her hold. Maureen weighed her next step carefully, trying to tamp down her own wants. She’d need to be sure but slow, careful not to spook him, or antagonize or embarrass.

She wondered if he even realized the same banged-up-head condition that sent him out here was most likely responsible for the jitters that kept him flopping. She wasn’t so conceited as to assume he’d not bedded a woman yet out of mere dysfunction, Cleven was a man of principle and strict notions regarding how the world should be, and he wasn’t one to build those notions on passing medical conditions.

“You like ‘em?” Maureen teased him, shocked at how hoarse her own voice had gone in the interim.

“Gonna make a home in here.” he mumbled in the affirmative, slack grin molded to the valley between them, blue eyes wide as the skies outside peering up at her.

“Got a job for you, baby.” she murmured, thumbing at the scar on his cheek.

“What’s that Mrs. Jones?” his voice alone made her mad with need, as did the saucy turn of his mouth so wonderfully foreign she didn’t know how she’d control herself until he was ready.

“Need you to lick a little landing strip, right here.” she ran her finger along the somewhat tacky skin between her breasts, sweat and his sloppy kisses having partway done the job already.

“What for?” Gale asked, hushed and curious.

“You’ll see soon enough.” she recalled how effective her nursing voice had been on him, and pulled it out now it seemed beneficial.

She had been right, with only a hesitant spark of aggravated defiance, Gale dipped his head and stuck out that pink tongue, lapping a swath up between her breasts as directed, flaming eyes locked on hers as she shivered from the breeze on spit slicked flesh.

“Again.” she told him, and his hands came up to hold her breasts apart as he did it again, and again and once more under his own direction until it was shiny and messy and his nose was gleaming, too.

“What’s it for?” He demanded once more, pink cheeked and swallowing hard as his mouth had dried out from his efforts.

“I told you, silly,” she replied casually, “it’s a landing strip.” and with as little fuss as possible she got to her knees before he’d registered the absence of her standing above him. “Gale, let go of the damned towel.”

She held in a laugh of delight at the tortured color he had grown to, veins running like so much ivy up and down him and a vibrant pink tip that matched his lips. Maureen wasn’t sure she’d ever be able to look him in the face again without thinking of this drizzling little pink mushroom.

“You oughta count your blessings, Gale Cleven, it was a close call, my coming along at all.” she informed him soberly while his mind visibly vacated his body at the repeated sighting of his sputtering cock emerging from between the pillowy press of her breasts, “It was pretty touch and go there for a bit, I was quite sure in fact, that Bucky was gonna help himself to this assignment.”

“Maureen!” Gale thundered, except his usual imposing ire was much diluted by his quivering belly and hoarse voice.

“What?” she brushed off his scandalized displeasure with a grin, feeling cocky herself as he hadn’t flagged on her in minutes and was beginning to gush in earnest, “Bucky loves the beach.”

“Sure, Maureen.”

“In the end he decided I had what it takes.” she went on conversationally, ignoring the inhuman sounds that came out of him when she casually spit on his tip, the better to work her lips around him, “These.” she clarified, pressing her breasts to his thighs as she wrapped her mouth around him and sucked.

“Fuck, hell, Maureen! Sorry, sorry, oh fuck!” -not even Gale Cleven had expected his hips to fly up that hard and fast, knocking on the back of her throat.

She laid her hands on his squirmy hips and did her best impression of a Listerine gargle round his tip, which sent a shudder through him so strong she thought he might’ve climaxed already.

“Maureen, Maureen come on, get up here, please.” now he yanked at her hair, desperate for once and that was a pleasure to hear.

“What baby?” she pulled off him.

“Gotta kiss you.” he told her firmly, and hauled her bodily up by her armpits, rolling her under him in the bed.

Kisses -sure, Gale, kisses.

He was moaning atop her, wiry and flexing his hips against her, wriggling to get between her thighs and she let him, hungry and expectant when he slotted easily in place. He pressed his lips to hers ardently, then reared back in shock at the taste of his own precum in her mouth and on her lips.

“Salty.” he whispered as if to himself before licking his lips and going back for more. “What do I need’to do?” he whispered urgently against her mouth as she rocked against him and he rocked back until they’d frustrated each other thoroughly with mere caresses.

“Put it in, my baby.” she whispered back.

“First though, don’t I need to-to do- something? Something first?” he could barely think straight but he’d heard enough talk about this, about gentlemen and the necessity of some form of chivalrous preparation. The way discipline and intuition set apart an average pilot from an excellent one. Bucky had talked a lot about getting girls ready, making them squirm, revving them up, for all his apparent disinterest during the topic, Gale had been listening.

“You’ve done it already, Mr. Jones.” she giggled, reaching between them to drag him more firmly through the wanton swamp he’d made of her. “I’m ready, I’m so ready.”

“Oh fuck, s’wet.” he mumbled the obvious before willingly letting her guide him in, his body following her tug like his cock were a leash.

“Jesus,— Gale!” Maureen choked as he bottomed out in a sudden plunge, shocked at the stretch despite the gauging of his size. “You’re so deep, oh baby you’re a big one aren't ya.”

“You ok?” he whimpered, shuddering on top of her again and again at the incomparable feeling of being inside another’s body.

“Oh yeah, yeah I’m fine,” she gasped, “Hurts so good, you can move, baby.”

“You’re so warm.” he sounded close to worshipful he was so drunk off her, and Maureen spared a moment to smirk at the fate of man: come tearing their way out of a woman to begin their lives only to spend the rest of it trying to and needing to get back in.

He did try to move, she’d give him that. And while Maureen was more than half expecting it, still, it was mildly comical to see the confusion flash across his blissful face right as the buildup was snatched from him and he was suddenly shaking into the real event before he knew it, betrayed and euphoric all at once. The muscles in his belly and back and neck seized and his hips lunged in a series of uncoordinated pumps and she could read the panic in his eyes right before they rolled back -a begrudging admittance that this was nothing at all like the steady predictability of his hand.

“That’s it baby, that’s my baby, feel nice, huh?”

Gale didn’t answer her, too occupied whimpering with a taut throat and jaw clenched so tight he could snap a hinge like that. He was shaking worse than before when the spasms subsided and the tiniest pressure to his sweat slicked neck had him buckling to lay pressed against her, half senseless from the force of his release.

Maureen had always loved this part of sex, the pliable, bewildered, smushed man atop her like she’d sucked his soul out, when he’d rendered it up to her so willingly, so desperately, forcefully even, chasing his own eventual weakness. Long limbs aligning on top of hers, the hot pants of winded breath against her breasts, the hands listlessly holding on wherever that had last tried to grip and control her. The view from above with Gale Cleven was something additional, beautiful and glistening with bronzed swaths of sun exposed skin and the pale whites of his thighs and ass making a perfect little outline of absent shorts, his golden hair tousled beyond salvaging and that luscious mouth, drooling like a babe’s.

“So this is what Bucky’s been talkin’ about.” he mumbled into her breast, cheek smashed and enunciation shot to hell.

Maureen laughed in disbelief, “Thinking of him even now? Really, he’s going to be impossible if we tell him.”

“Just sayin’, now I know.” he defended, lazily rubbing his partly softened cock inside her with a shimmy of his hips that was quickly followed by an overly sensitive mewl.

“You don’t know anything, Angel boy.” she insisted and Gale raised his head at that, sour that she’d still contradict him after thirty seconds of vigorous pumping. “Let me see your hands.”

He had some trouble recalling where he put them but eventually he found them under her hips and withdrew them from their warm shelter to present them, warily. “Well, damn.” he muttered to himself, somewhat shocked by just how badly the shakes had worsened. “Looks like that treatment backfired.”

“More of a dose dependent case, I’d say.” Maureen corrected and circled each wrist with her hands and brought them up to her lips to kiss.

Gale’s face smoothed at her softness and a shy smile lit up his bleary eyes while she felt a twitch of his spent cock deep inside her, swishing about the mess he’d made like a dog’s tail after getting pats. “You have the most beautiful hands.” she informed him earnestly and balls deep inside her she watched as one single innocuous compliment sent him scarlet with a blush. “And they’ll be yours again soon.” she promised.

His gentle expression and bright red cheeks crumpled rather suddenly and before either of them seemed to expect it, fat teardrops had escaped the blue of his eyes and rolled down the crimson flesh of his face.

“Goddamnit.” he cursed hoarsely, in an absolute rage at himself, regaining his hands from her grip insistently to bring them up to his own face, hiding from her behind harsh fists that rubbed at his wet eyes like he could grind the grief and weariness out between his knuckles.

Unbalanced as he was without hands to support him, and legs gone jellied from his fast fading pleasure, Maureen chose to capitalize on it as a nurse would a brief state of insensibility to move a patient to a cleaner cot. Remorselessly she pressed at his shoulder and lifted their still joined hips until he tipped over, rolling onto his back beneath her. “We’ll have none of that.” she told him with loving adamance from her new perch, prying his hands away and pressing them to the sheets beside his head. “The hiding, I mean.” she clarified and he looked all of hardly past twenty laying there with wobbly lips and wet eyes unobscured, “I’m a very great proponent of crying,” she went on conversationally which confused him more but kept him too preoccupied to stifle his tears, “De-sanguination is still a highly esteemed practice, you know, it means to drain the body. One type of draining often triggers the other.”

“You gonna start bleeding me?” he asked wryly.

“Oh, maybe, you’d look so pretty all streaked up.” she teased and ran a sharp thumbnail over his pinned wrist.

Well, that got him hard again. Fascinating.

“You know what’s got your hands like this-“ she whispered softly, “-probably the same reason you flop, too.”

“Huh.”

“Pretty common.” she assured.

“Quit tellin’ me I’m common.” He growled, tickling her sides and she grabbed his hands, pinning them again playfully.

“Nothing common about you, sweet baby.” she swore, leaning down to kiss him and enjoying the way he met her strongly, surely, “Gale, can I move?” she asked, half strangled by the taut string of need coiled in her belly, tugged to madness by the bulk of him still resting limply inside.

“Move?” he was perplexed.

“I’m going to die if I don’t get some friction.” she whispered, somehow shy to admit that in the face of his innocent bewilderment, “God -please tell me someone has informed you women finish, too?”

“Bucky says they clamp up so tight you can’t help but blow.” Gale recited dutifully, “Which is what just happened, right?”

Maureen grinned wide and wicked before dragging her hips up till he was barely in, then plopping down into the cradle of his hips, making him let out a “oomph.”

“Maureen?” he questioned, half knowing already he had been mistaken but hell, to go again? “Maureen- I’ll die if we go again.”

“What a way to go.” she muttered, her pace atop him increasing as did the tortured gasps tumbling from his lips. His spunk was making terribly wet, lewdly sloppy sounds of suction each time she slammed down on his cock and the visual of her exerting herself on top of him was something so blatant and jiggly he could hardly endure the visual feast of it.

“Shit, shit I can’t-“ he growled while his trembling hands latched onto her hips in a grip that was anything but dissuading. “Maureen.” he begged her for…he knew not what.

“Come on Mr. Jones,” she clasped her hands around his face and aligned their noses, rubbing like a kiss with each movement of her lower body, “you’re not one to leave your missus needy, I know you’re not. Not when you’ve got such pretty hands-“

-a shudder from him.

“and a clever tongue-“

-a whine from him that sounded close to a wounded dog’s it was so lasting.

“-or a tool this capable.”

“Maureen.” he groaned.

“Baby, my baby.” she begged, “You’ve got what I need, come on, take me apart.”

Like he trusted himself for the first time since they began this endeavor, she felt his body bow up beneath her, his arm flexing strongly across her hips, his legs braced beneath her and a heavy hand clutching her neck, then he was driving up into her with a wild abandon she only ever hoped was simmering beneath that cool exterior. When she finished he hadn’t stopped, and Maureen found herself crying out like a feral thing into the hollow of his clavicle as the brutal pummeling went on, satisfaction drug out of her over and over in harsh ruts.

“That more like it?” he panted the harsher he grew, a hand around her jaw pushing her face away from his so he might see the damage he was doing.

“Yes, yes oh baby, yes!” she swore through clenched teeth, it had been too long and each blissful peak only aggravated her further, made her hungrier, that and the fact he was so proportioned as to be a constant delight just shy of pain, “Hell Gale, do ya hear us?” she gloated, propping herself back on his thighs to watch the shiny pink of him flash in and out of her wet sheath.

Mesmerized, Gale didn’t reply, but he dragged a hand up her belly and felt for the way it tensed at each intrusion, the span of his fingers an incredible thing across her skin. “Can’t believe you can take it, easy as that.” he marveled, his thumb straying and pulling apart her petals the better to watch.

“Thumb it right there.” she directed gently, reaching down to move his calloused finger over her bud, right above where he split her apart, “That’s it, ya feel that too, huh?”

“Fuck you’re tight.” his voice cracked and his eyes shot wide again.

“Are you -?”

“Maybe.” there was a wobble of blissed uncertainty in his voice until she stopped her movements and he let out a sob before he could catch it. “Maureen, please.”

“Please what, baby?” she was chuckling at him, pushing his hair off his sweaty forehead, “I let you-“ he pleaded, still thinking things worked that way, “-now I need, please Maureen...”

“Oh you can.” she assured and his face lightened but his eyes stayed wary, “But just know, I won’t be stopping.”

“What?”

“You remember how that feels, don’t ya baby?” she reminded, gently pushing him to lie back and beginning their movements anew, “So good you can’t stand it, so messy and easy for me, so tender and much for you?”

“Jesus.” he wheezed, his lean belly caving in with his heavy pants, but she felt him throbbing inside her and his pupils were large as saucers, “You’re as mean as Bucky.” he whined, voice gone high in panicked pleasure.

“Thank you, but really I’m not.” she laughed, gently thumbing away an errant tear that rolled down his cheek. “Not quite.”

“Maureen, please, please you’re too pretty!” he begged nonsensically even as his hips began to snap into hers, invigorated and forceful.

“Hold it Gale, try to hold it.” Maureen gasped, staring down at the prettiest face she’d ever seen as his brow began to furrow, “Or don’t, all the same to me.”

“I’m gonna flip you.” he swore and a few seconds of inaction passed, marked by the slam of her hips down onto his, and she thought he didn’t mean it until she gave him a daring look and suddenly she was careening backwards, head jolting against the sheets and body laid out firmly beneath him.

“Goddamn.” she swore at the way he hadn’t dislodged an inch during the whole maneuver, suddenly pressed just as deeply as before, his hips working like a piston and his hands tight and strong on her neck. “Goddamn baby. Oh goddamn that’s good.”

“S’good?” he begged her to repeat, some dizzying natural force propelling him harder and faster and needier.

“You’re so good.” she was adamant as she hung about his neck and locked her ankles in the small of his back. “You’re so good I’m - I’m -gonna-“

“What was that about holdin’ it?” he hissed, smile cocky and smug.

“Bull ain’t out of the gate yet Cleven,” she cautioned but her hips had begun to lift of their own accord, a tremble taking hold of her, “But I’m close, I’m, i'm real cl- oh God!”

“Come on sweet Maureen, wanna make ya -wanna do it for ya. Give ya what you need, Mrs Jones.” Gale’s hoarse and sweet nothings poured hot and breathy in her ear and Maureen found herself locked and gripping him before she knew it, moaning into his neck as he moved in and out, in and out as she’d only ever dreamed of.

When she cracked her dazzled eyes open again he was panting above her, the clink of his dog tags gently bumping her chin with each sway deeper, lashes batting in a golden flutter as he too began to lose himself, slower, more drawn out and yet every bit as desperate as the first time.

“Look at me baby, look at me when ya do.” she pleaded, gently gripping his chin as his mouth fell open in a series of little noises of effort that went straight to her belly grown hot and molten with the feeling of him spurting inside.

“Ugh, ugh, ugh,” Gale was working atop her in pained delight, lips so smeared and face so sweaty he looked like he might melt at any minute, “thank you, oh fuck, thank you, sweet Maureen.” he chanted low and dreamy, again and again until he drove in once more and stayed.

Those clear blue eyes fagged in an exhausted ecstasy, his head dropping impossibly further with each ragged pant until his face was barely hovering over her breasts, neck bent and forhead slowly pressing into the swell of them. His forearms gave out and those hands of his stayed trapped beneath her shoulder blades.

“Sleep Angel baby,” Maureen coaxed, hand cradling the back of his dear head to her breasts, feeling a low lazy peace settle over her at the feel of his dead weight plugging her up and the lovely wringing out she’d just endured, “let’s just sleep, dear boy.”

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