#John Brady imagine

[majoregan]

The Johns.

[blurredcolour]

Undone Before You

[One-shot]

John Brady x Female!Reader

John Brady's wedding day with his sweetheart has arrived at last, but the war and events back home have certainly left their mark upon him. After years of waiting, he cannot help but wonder if love is really enough to build a life on? All you have to do is take him into your arms and prove that it is.

Warnings: Grieving, Death, Graveyard, Wedding, Alcohol Consumption, Catholicism (light), Inevitable Historical and Military Inaccuracies, Mature/Explicit Themes [fingering - f receiving, oral sex - f receiving, virginity loss - m/f, premature ejaculation, multiple orgasms, cum play] - 18+ ONLY.

Author's Note: Technically a sequel to Parting Gifts but can be read as a standalone. Special shoutout to @precious-little-scoundrel for helping foster this from day one - this is truly a product of countless DMs.

Word Count: 3728

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John Brady’s wedding day began in a graveyard, which was certainly not how he had imagined the start to one of the happiest days of his life. Yet he had also not imagined spending over a year-and-a-half as a prisoner of war, nor his own father dying back home in his absence. All told, the last four years of his life had been entirely constructed of the unimaginable, most of it horrific and unspeakable, but there had also been meeting you. Asking you for directions, insisting on escorting you home, only to become even more hopelessly lost on the cold January streets of Sioux City, Iowa. Falling in love with you over those short months the 100th trained there, the letters which you sent to sustain him throughout his time at Thorpe Abbots and later in prison camp.

The war had torn the world apart and obliterated much of the life he had known and yet it had brought him you. A woman beyond compare, who had not only waited for him, but had made the journey to New York harbor to await his return on board one of the many ships of men recently freed from German captivity. He must have imagined proposing to you a thousand times – the style of ring he would buy you, the words of devotion he would speak as he sank to one knee as he slid it onto your finger. As it was, he had barely wrapped his arms around you before the plea for you to be his bride had flown from his mouth into your sweet-smelling hair.

You were even prettier than his memory had been able to maintain.

To his immense relief, you had agreed without hesitation, pulling his lips to yours, the softest sensation he had encountered in months. It was not easy to secure a date at the local cathedral. With the war in Europe over, marriage seemed to be on everyone’s mind, and so the pair of you had opted for the first available date near the end of August. It had worked well enough, meant your family could make the trip, allowed him to make the short journey to see the family of the waist gunner, Clanton, they had lost in the Munster raid. But the agony of waiting was made all the more acute with you so close at hand, just in the guestroom. While the paid of you had committed a great deal of sneaking around to satiate your need for one another previously, something about the idea of doing so under his mother’s roof had turned his stomach and had kept his hands very respectfully to himself.

It did nothing to stop the looks of longing across the dinner table or lingering kisses good night, however. And when your parents arrived and bundled you off to a local hotel for the last few nights before the wedding, he had felt your absence like a hole in the foundation of his childhood home. The very size and depth of his feelings for you was honestly terrifying at times, leaving him feeling lost, adrift in the churning expanse of them. It was the desire for a grounding conversation that had taken him to the graveside of his father, before his mother had even risen to make breakfast. Setting a simple bouquet of cheerful, hand-picked daisies, collected during his walk over, against the headstone, he crouched down to try and initiate a facsimile of the conversation he ought to be having with the man who raised him.

“I’m getting married today, father.” John murmured in the hush of the church yard, the birds only just beginning their morning song. “Wish you could have met your daughter-in-law, she’s something else.”

He exhaled deeply at the awkward silence that ensued, driving home how truly one-sided an endeavor this was. About to give up, to straighten and make his way back to the house to put on his nicest suit, he blurted out the question that he wished he could get an answer to.

“Were you terrified? I’ve flown into combat, marched across all of Germany through ice and snow, but I feel ready to jump out of my skin. Not of marrying her – god no, would’ve done that the first day back if I could, but…of disappointing her. I love her so much, I just want to make her happy and what if I’m not…” He trailed off, birdsong quickly filling the vacuum left by his silence.

“John?”

He straightened quickly and turned towards the sight of Father Hastings making his way through the rows of headstones.

“Morning, Father.”

“Thought that might be you, you’re up with the birds this morning.” His green eyes glittered beneath bushy grey eyebrows though the rest of his hair had gone stark white. John could not help but smile a little with a sheepish shrug. “Can hardly blame you I suppose, it’s the big day after all. Nice of you to visit your father.”

John nodded as the pair of them turned to look at the headstone, a little less lonely looking courtesy of his posy of daisies.

“Suppose today would be a day to sit you down for a talk about manly responsibilities and all that. Sorry this old, unmarried man is such a poor substitute – the only advice I can offer you is to love that woman with all your heart and soul. I’ve seen the way she looks at you, I’d say you two will be just fine.”

With a rough gulp, John took a shaky breath and offered the priest a nod of thanks. Somehow the answer had still managed to make its way to him, the very words he needed to hear. “Thank you very much, Father.”

With a warm grin, Father Hastings glanced at his watch. “You’d best go home and get some breakfast in you, don’t want you fainting on me at the altar. I’ll see you at one o’clock, John.”

He huffed a short laugh. “That you will, Father.” He replied before turning to make his way home.

Time took on a hazy, hastened quality, breakfast blurring into setting up the borrowed chairs and tables in the backyard for the homespun reception before he took his shower and shaved, then carefully dressed in his suit. His thoughts strayed often to you, pondering the lengths of your preparations as well, certain you were being subjected to all manner of womanly things that were utterly unnecessary as you were already stunning, in his opinion.

Stepping into the sanctuary, bedecked with flowers by your family that very morning, stretched an undeniable grin across his face. The blooms brought the familiar space to life with beauty and fragrance, gave him something to focus on as he and his brother took their places at the front of the church along with several of his schoolmates. None of the boys of the 100th had been able to make the trip, unfortunately, though the pair of you had extensive invitations to visit on your honeymoon. Kansas, Wisconsin, New York City, Wyoming. Perhaps not conventional destinations but certainly fitting for the connections made during his time in the service.

His perception of time seemed to inverse as the doors to the sanctuary opened and you followed behind your bridal party, everything slowing to a crawl as his vision narrowed in on you. For someone who was gorgeous every day to become so breathtakingly stunning…John was briefly worried he might faint on Father Hastings after all as he struggled to take in a sufficient amount of oxygen. And yet the moment your hand landed in his, balance was suddenly restored. The pace of the clock, and of his breath, returned to normal and he found his feet by focusing on the faint shimmer of happy tears in your eyes.

Vows were spoken, rings exchanged, and your union was blessed before everything was sealed with a ceremonial kiss – much to the delight of your gathered guests. Photos followed before the entire crowd descended upon the festooned backyard of the Brady family home for champagne, sandwiches, and cake. For the cobbled-together nature of it all, it felt like utter perfection. His hand rarely surrendered its hold on yours until you demanded freedom to change into your going away dress so the pair of you might make your escape to the Canandaigua Hotel where your families had booked you several days of privacy as a wedding gift.

“For that, I suppose I can let you go, Mrs. Brady.” He murmured with a small smile, which promptly widened as your lips pressed against his, to the nigh-obnoxious tinkling of cutlery against glassware. “Get me out of here.” He tacked on, basking in your responding giggle and releasing your hand so the pair of you might flee as soon as possible.

Packed into the car with much fanfare as the sun began to set, the sudden silence inside the vehicle was striking, your gaze meeting his as he navigated his way out of town, sending you both into a short fit of laughter.

“We did it, Johnny.” You breathed, your hand coming to rest on his shoulder, making him swallow thickly as the skin well-hidden beneath the layers of his suit jacket and dress shirt still came alive at your touch.

“We sure did, sweetheart.”

He set his hand, palm-up, upon his thigh and you promptly laced your fingers with his. The feel of the bands on your ring finger immediately drew his attention, his thumb shifting to trace along them as he glanced at your brilliant smile. It was difficult to maintain his focus on the road as you lifted his hand to brush your lips against the back of it, shifting along the bench seat to press against him, laying your head on his shoulder and setting your entwined hands in your lap.

John was acutely aware of the warmth of you, the faint scent of your shampoo and hint of icing combined with champagne on your breath. His lower belly ached with the need to taste that on your tongue.

“Just ten minutes.” He breathed, perhaps more for himself than for you.

You hummed against his shoulder in response, squeezing his captive hand but making no move to release your hold on him. As you neared the westernmost of the Finger Lakes, it was his turn to lift your hand, placing a kiss of apology to the back of it before gently releasing it, navigating his way to the modest four-story hotel that had become a main-stay of the area in the 1920s. Check-in was smooth, with your small amount of luggage, and the suite your families had booked was spacious enough to include a sitting area in addition to the bedroom.

“I’m going to freshen up, I’ll be right back.” You said with an enigmatic grin that had him swallowing again, his trousers feeling slightly too tight as he pulled you in to indulge in one thorough kiss before acquiescing to your request.

Licking his lips absently, he set about slipping his suit jacket from his shoulders and hanging it in the closet, unpacking the rest of his suitcase with well-trained, military precision. The sudden appearance of your bare arms slinking around his waist from behind halted his movements, his hands dropping to your elbows to palm along the soft skin of your forearms before unentangling himself. Stepping back and turning, his breath stuttered in his throat at the vision of you in the most ineffective underclothes ever produced – truly they left very little to the imagination, practically see-through and utterly tantalizing.

“Sweetheart…” He exhaled roughly, faintly registering the way your mouth ticked up in delight before his lips descended upon yours ravenously, grasping your waist to pull you flush against him.

Feeling you arch against him, pressing closer, he shuddered slightly and quickly began to manoeuvre you towards the well-appointed bed in the middle of the room, determined to take his time and please you in an appropriate place at last. No more bathrooms or closets or whatever locked door you could hide behind. You were his wife, and he would lay you out upon the bedding and worship your body accordingly. You let out a faint squeak as the backs of your calves found the mattress and he pulled his lips from yours to guide you to lay upon the pillows, shucking off his dress pants and shirt to remain only in his singlet and boxers.

Taking a moment to drink in the sight of you, laid out on the bed like some kind of offering, he took a deep breath before crawling onto the duvet beside you, trailing hot kisses down your neck as the hand not supporting his body began kneading at each of your breasts in turn, teasing the fabric of your lingerie against your nipples. Soft noises of pleasure echoed from your throat, sealed between bitten lips, swallowed down.

“No need to hide it now, Mrs. Brady, let me hear how good you feel.” He whispered into your ear, shuddering at the intensity of the moan his statement earned him, the sound of it sending a rush of blood straight to his cock.

“Mmm, Johnny!” You whimpered as his mouth dampened the lacy fabric over one nipple and then the other, leaving his fingers to toy with the taught bud he left in his wake.

“Yes, sweetheart?”

“Feels good…don’t stop…” The obvious difficulty you were having forming words stroked some egotistical part of his brain and brought a smirk to his face, eased some of the nerves that had been plaguing him for quite some time at the thought of bedding you fully.

“Good.” He murmured, quite pleased, and removed the fabric from the top half of your body, revealing an expanse of skin to be tasted and conquered by his greedy mouth.

Lips curling against the warmth of your sternum as he slid his hand between your thighs to find a generous accumulation of warm slick, he began to tease your folds until your chest was heaving beneath him, fingers digging into his shoulders, pleas falling from your lips.

“I’ve got you.” He placated with a kiss to your side, sliding from your grip to remove your underwear and settle on the bed between your thighs, the pressure against his throbbing length requiring he take a moment to steady his breath and regain his focus.

Draping your legs over his shoulders, he craned his neck forward to seal his mouth over your core and deliver a devastatingly thorough kiss to your folds. He could feel your thighs tremble against him, your fingers threading into his hair as a high-pitched moan floated down to him. It took all his self-control not to grind his hips into the mattress self-indulgently in response. As you began to buck and writhe in response to his ministrations, his hands slid beneath your buttocks to grip at your fleshy globes, both holding you still and angling you closer to his mouth, making it that much easier for him to dole out his pleasure to you.

Once again memory had failed him here, failed to capture and retain the erotic nuances of your sweet musk, and particularly combined with your newfound vocal liberty, John found himself in a new struggle for self-control. One that had him only doubling his efforts to obtain your release, wanting nothing more than to satisfy you before he attempted anything further. Plunging his tongue deep inside the alluringly plush warmth of you, and relentlessly nudging his nose against your clit, seemed to be the key to driving you over the edge as it did not take long of that combination until you were shaking and crying his name while flooding his tongue with still more sweetness.

Charting a course up your body with sporadic kisses, he smiled at you softly as he smoothed some errant hair from your face. “How’re you feeling?”

“Greedy.” Your murmur following by the sight of your teeth sinking into your lip punched the air from his lungs, gave him little warning before you pulled him down for a kiss and tugged at his undershirt.

“Yeah?” He puffed against your lips, feeling your eager nod in reply before straightening to efficiently strip himself completely, hissing a little at just how sensitive he was in his current state of arousal.

The look on your face as your eyes raked him over gave him pause, made him raise his eyebrow to confirm yet again, to which you nodded and opened your arms. Easing into them carefully, he settled his hips between yours, shivering almost violently at the smear of your slick across his length.

“Tell me if it hurts…” He ground out, throat wanting to clench up on him as he took his cock in hand, slowly pressing forward into your entrance.

While John was no stranger to the feel of your wet heat, the way it seemed to grab at his length and pull him in, wrapping around him so snuggly, had his eyes rolling back in their sockets. Pressing his face tightly against your neck, he bit off a string of curses, gritting his teeth against the prehistoric urge to slam home. Somehow prevailing upon himself to be a gentleman, he waited for your nod until moving again, the friction unlike any earthly feeling he had ever experienced, forcing an agonized moan from his throat and quickly driving his hips back into the warmth of you. Sweat beading along his hairline, he could feel his balls growing dangerously heavy and tight, the imminence of release not obeying his usual iron grip of self control in the face of the pleasure of you.

“Oh fuck, sweetheart…” He rasped in warning, in apology, before his hips seemed to take over, snapping into yours in quick succession as his orgasm overcame him.

Briefly disconnected from reality, there was only mind-numbing, blinding pleasure, until he returned to full consciousness, panting against your collarbone. Your hands were stroking lovingly across his shoulders, down his back, as you craned your neck to kiss at his temple.

“Mmmm Johnny.” You purred, not sounding the least bit annoyed with him and he slowly raised his head, eyes widening as you ducked in for a kiss. “Good?” You murmured against his lips, and he huffed a laugh.

“You are heaven itself, Mrs. Brady. I definitely didn’t intend for that to be over so quickly…”

A soft tut sounded before you were kissing him again. “How much pleasure have you given me, Mr. Brady? Thank you for letting me return the favor, though I hardly did a thing.” You smiled warmly, your fingers carding through his hair so very soothingly. “Regardless, we have our whole lives to practice.” You added with a mischievous grin that sent a molten flash of desire through his abdomen.

“Why Mrs. Brady…” He smirked slowly and nipped at your lower lip, fingers seeking out your still weeping core, determined to finish what he had started with his cock. “…that sounds an awful lot like a proposition.”

Your gasp as he found his target had his tongue dragging across his lower lip.

“Is it a proposition when you’re my husband?” Your voice took on a deliciously breathless quality as he sunk two fingers into you, but he was immediately distracted by the extra slickness he found there, suddenly recognizing that you were full of his cum.

Yet another jolt of desire rocketed to the apex of his thighs, and he found himself sinking lower down the bed, driven by deep curiosity as he continued to work you towards released. The sight of his white, sticky mess dripping from you as you once again began to climb towards climax, his thumb circling at your begging clit – it was all having an unexpectedly powerful effect on him.

“Uhn, Johnny s’good…please…” You whined and he pressed his lips to your quaking inner thigh in acknowledgement.

He could feel you beginning to tighten around his fingers, a sure sign you were not far off, and one subtle pump of his cock confirmed he was fully hard, by some miracle. That miracle being the sheer eroticism of you, surely. Pulling his fingers from you earned him a pitiful cry of protest and he quickly pressed his lips to yours.

“I know, sweetheart, I know.” He soothed, taking a deep, steadying breath before thrusting into the sinful heat of you.

The mixture of your cries was practically pornographic, the fingers of his left hand lacing through yours, his wedding band pressing tightly to your skin, as the thumb of his right kept up the pressure on your clit as he managed twice as many thrusts this time. Combined with the thorough groundwork he had lain, it was enough. Enough to push you first into orgasm, clenching around him so tightly he forgot how to breathe, vision going white as he followed quickly behind with a cry so intense it erupted silently against your shoulder.

Laying on your backs, shoulder to shoulder with your fingers still semi-intertwined, panting weakly, John turned his head to find you already smiling at him adoringly.

“I love you, Mr. Brady.”

“Good thing too, can’t return me now, Mrs. Brady.” He smirked and kissed the scoff right off your face, caressing your neck warmly. “C’mon let me run you a bath.”

“Mmm, we sure made a mess didn’t we…” You remarked, shifting to stand.

“Sure we will again, too.” He chuckled, knowing full well he had a lot of practice ahead to perfect his technique. It was something he found himself very much looking forward to. Following your lead, he slid to his feet, retrieving your lingerie from the floor. “We also should get you new underwear, sweetheart. These really do absolutely nothing to cover you up…” He remarked, holding out the flimsy garment hooked on his fingertips with a raised eyebrow.

“They were a gift for you, Johnny…seeing as you stole my last pair.” You raised a pointed eyebrow in return, and he feigned complete innocence.

“Have no idea what you mean sweetheart, c’mon now, bath.” He slid his arm around your waist, kissing your temple as he guided you into the ensuite, knowing full well those pilfered panties were still hidden in the bottom of his footlocker back home.

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Masters of the Air Masterlist

[precious-little-scoundrel]

MotA Fanfiction: John Brady and first person/reader/insert no use of y/n.

18+: John Brady had me at “like you told me” five seconds before “son of a bitch that’s France” and now we’ve got seven kids and a mortgage. The following could be a very existential diary page about the first few months of that marriage.

But basically, John Brady makes me rabid: here have some purple prose smut about it mixed into an essay on happiness

My mother readied me for many things but not for this. I dig through the archives of her heavy advice, her off handed comments, her jubilant prognostications, all I keep so dutifully in my mind, and I search for some hint from her that she knew it could be like this. But I find nothing, it is all too weak or strong or wordy.

Did it not come in words?

Were her misty eyes when she settled the veil over my face the true meaning of it? Had I mistaken her emotion as a presentment of missing me when it was instead tremulous excitement for what was in store? Had she known when she wrapped me in white and insisted it fit me lovingly to my proportions that it was not tidiness and appreciation for good seams but instead, that holy knowledge of what more awaited me? That a wedding dress in its fit reflects what happens when the groom removes it?

She knew I had myself a good man. Did she suspect how well he’d fit me?

And I thought it was merely cloth, I had been too busy even for my own wedding. I was too busy loving him, the idea of him, of him being mine. Perhaps if we had met in peacetime, if he had courted me between his hours at the office and my semesters I would have looked forward to my wedding, planned each detail and worried over all manner of things that brides are said to care about.

But we had not; I’d no sooner loved him than he’d gone, and no sooner had death returned him on loan than I married him. I loved him and everyone else but me seemed to know what that meant as he kissed frosting from my wrist.

I had thought I’d known at the registry office, signing in ink my name, scrawling a practiced B that ended with a flourished Y.

Mrs. Brady.

I’d thought I’d known then. I had given the benign judge a saucy smile of the fully enlightened. I had no idea. To ask me if I was happy that day would have been a good joke, to ask me if I could be happier when we waved out a window chalked with news of our nuptials: it would have been more than half insulting.

I was happy. I thought I knew. And that night, what little doubt I had about the gaps in my theory, he filled. Love in its rawest form, breaking me apart, making a place for himself, I clung to his shoulders; this part my mother had told me of. She told me it got better; I can’t speak to that. He was pushing and petting and I endured until surrender turned to fascination and again to arousal by his rhythm, the concrete sense of his need, the clarity of his release. And still I was urging my sweet boy to take and take; it did not get better, it got sublime. I could not fault my mother for her faulty preparations, even though I think she knew -for her own sake I hope she knew. There are no words for it when two bodies become one, minds meld and he finds his way eased by your blood till he’s in so deep you think he’s probed at your heart. I don’t hear of people speaking about that part, and mother didn’t tell me, but I think they know.

I am quite forgiving of her that night, I thought I knew then, I assumed what she left unsaid, it was merely out for lack of vocabulary. Lying beside him, having tasted heaven, I am generous. She tried. I know.

He had put a pillow under my hips before he opened me, it tilted me kindly for his invasion and I wonder who told him of that. His innate desire to please had long ago led me to find he was good at kissing, and that he liked to kiss me everywhere. He was as delighted by the back of my knees as he was by my throat, and he forgot all reason when he tasted between my thighs, only his firm and unyielding hands on my hips gave a mottled clue he kept at such kissing for his own satisfaction as much as mine.

I know that I am happy then, on my wedding night, and next morning I am happier still. I might try at being cross with my own self, for sabotaging my arrival at absolute knowledge except that I cannot help but be giddy for it; he loves to kiss me, my boy, and he has a warm blush on his face in the sunlight, this first morning I’ve woken up beside him, and his hands are already busy with me. Mine grow busy with him and I know this is how we will spend our days, kissing with him inside me, and I am happy.

No one who encounters me in the coming weeks can doubt it. My parents whisper amongst themselves, his too, church members and fellow servicemen. My Johnny is not settled with a job and so we lodge at various places in the next two months, and soon each of our hosts knows it, too. It cannot be stifled beneath his quieting palm when he breaks me apart, thin walls and no place to call our own except the harbor of my body, that’s his home and he goes into it. Often and more vigorously each time until I associate happiness with the most alarming strength of exertion from the lithe length of him rolling against mine, noses to toes; I draw blood from his hand.

Even my boy is beginning to see: he makes me happy. He has the most melancholy eyes, my boy, I recalled them as being calm and observant before he went away. But he has observed too much though he never says so, and out of his army greens there is not a speck of baby blue left in them, they’re cold gray and the only time I see them sparkle are when I’ve made him laugh so hard a tear rolls down his creased cheeks. I am impatient with his happiness, I know it and I know I’m wrong for it, but I miss the sky blue of them and the way I didn’t used to have to guess at what roils beneath them.

If he can’t feel happiness as thoroughly as me, he at least presents with quiet confidence as he finds a peacetime footing, there is a job offer in Maryland and we take our first road-trip. He is full of plans and maps and well drawn schedules and I am full of 55 mph breezes up the nose, feet in his lap and face hung out the window merrily, there are endless rows of pines and the feel of bark against my back at the rest pavilion. More, more, more, I demand of him and he gives it, it’s happiness turned hungry, greedy, close to vicious. Happiness that needs topping off.

We fight that night before his interview. A silly thing, inconsequential, hotel room adding to the displaced feeling I have begun to feel after our adventure calmed into adult necessity. He is preoccupied with being excellent and I am preoccupied with happiness. Chiefly if I make him happy or not; this is the first night he has not been so undivided in his passion and I allow it to vex me. I am young and I am happy and I guard it jealously, thinking that holding it -gripping him- tight fistedly desperate about it, will keep it all the closer.

“I am doing this for us.” his tone cuts me, I have admired it slashing others but it has never been directed at me before. He is wiser than I am and a self proclaimed cynic. I think he is fighting me in my happy quest, but, “For us, I’m doing this for us.”

His fingers dig into my cheeks and it is assurance enough. I have to agree that even heaven must have some maintenance work intruding on the celestial revels from time to time.

By the time I stand on the bed and cinch his tie the next morning before his interview, I have never been more in love. I am happy, yes, but there is admiration for him there too, but I struggle with finding a place for it.

Love, it seems, multiplies and I remain fixated with happiness in its tidiest form. Like the moment we cut the cake. I ask him that night if he has ever felt that, felt it simple and tidy.

“I feel a million things about you.” he swears instead; his tone suggests it is the most devout compliment.

I pray for wisdom next Sunday. I can feel that there is more to happiness than I know and it unsettles me. Our fight has long been made up but those million things that Johnny thinks and knows of me haunt the little life I try to construct, they haunt it as badly as whatever plagues his dreams at night.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” he begs a hundred times to me night after thrashing night; he suggests the sofa, I won’t hear of it. The bruises his flailing limbs land on mine are no darker than those he makes in calculated romance. His dreams respond to the feeling of my hands on his belly, he wakes easily with it, I have something to wake for and it is not perfect or quiet or even gentle always, but I am in love and when he allows me, I feel powerful and needed, hands on his belly, a thin tickle of hair beneath my palm. “You’re an Angel.” he swears to me, lips warm and plush against mine, I am so in love.

My cycle stops soon after the interview trip. I wait until I am sure to tell him one night, we are sprawled across our bed gasping back breath and I tell him, simple and direct as he prefers. I had wanted him one last time before he thought of me as a madonna. It had not been so different, I had been preoccupied with the child but I had also found my peak, and he had grasped greedily at my breasts, my nipples knotting beneath his fingers and only a lingering soreness in them to remind me of my secret. With his seed dripping from me, redundant and warm, I tell him.

“A baby?” My husband’s eyes glow, he cups my face like I am holy, his lips thank me with kisses to my nose and eyelids, “We’re havin’ a baby?”

He is all preparedness now. Striding with purpose and when he kisses me he is kissing the mother of his child; he gets the job in Maryland. We tell my parents of our happy news before we go, it surprises no one and yet there are celebrations as if we waited a decade. My Johnny is pleased and his smile is fixed, but I remember him when I told him, the glow about him, the naked press of him to me, his kisses on my belly. These are things I wish I could tell my mother -these are things that make me happier. Even more than the child itself.

On the way back to Maryland, our car trip is sedate, I eat ginger candies to quell the nausea and Johnny contemplates an unspoken thing. When I contemplate at all I think of driving down here over a month ago and the feeling of bark behind me and his hips snapping into me. I wonder if our child was made in the pines -how very different a few weeks makes a trip. He has foregone smoking his pipe indoors out of consideration for my queasy stomach.

“There’s somebody out here I should see.” He answers me at the gas pump, knowing I can tell he is preoccupied.

One of his crew lives off this exit, it’s why he’s filling up when the tank is half full. Johnny says he should go see him, and where he goes I will too.

Waist gunner Timmons is missing both legs. Together he and Johnny speak of bonds and education, his new job and the likelihood of drought, tidbits about the other boys' peacetime business failures, they laugh without malice. They laugh at themselves too. When taking our leave Johnny tells him our news. It makes me blush and I don’t know why, I was proud of our making the child. I should be proud of our finished product. I see him slip a hefty dollared bill in the coat pocket of the garden cover by the door as we leave.

Johnny stops our car at the end of the long gravel drive and while it confuses me, I know he is in a turmoil. His fists suddenly slam against the steering wheel and his face goes red beneath its freckles.

“Baby?” I question him but then he is weeping, forehead pressed to his knuckles on the steering wheel, aggravating buzz of a fly against the windshield unheeded.

It’s ugly and hiccuping and half panicked, he can’t seem to stop though the angry set of his shoulders tells me he wishes to, and after helpless fluttering beside him, I undo my waist belt and slide over to his side, arm thrown over his shoulders, forcefully prying him from the wheel. He lays in my arms and weeps for what feels like hours, letting me hold him and swear to him and soothe him. I’ve never known him like this, he speaks of Whys and Who’s and What’s He Got Going For Him to Deserve So Much Good Luck.

I am his good luck, his lips tell me as they press to my belly, he has fully sagged into my lap in his misery. I am his good luck, me and the baby and the job in Maryland and it is the first time I’ve ever thought of happiness as guilt.

The first days in Maryland, I cannot say that he is happier but he looks at me more openly, the guarded set of his eyes is gone and something sheepish but trusting shimmers there instead. Still steel gray but I notice the flutter of lashes around them and the dusting of pink cheeks more often. We never speak about Timmon’s driveway but I come to realize with a jolt: he’s softer for having let me see one of his million parts. I know him better now and it shows in his loosened shoulders and his shy smiles, the almost joyous eagerness he has to begin life here.

We close on an offer on a house, brick with a little porch, a small front drive and boxy lawn but in back there is a tall whitewashed fence going round and garden beds that are empty and waiting. It’s a prize and we are both delighted and he swoops me up, light as a feather, and brings me over the threshold.

“You’ve been waiting to do that!” I realize, he didn’t do it on our wedding night at the hotel or any of our other lodgings.

“We’ve got ourselves a home.” he grins back and there is such relief in his face I wonder at how much concern he was harboring before.

I begin to watch my man the way he watches me, I think less and less of whether he is happy and more and more if he feels safe. It’s why I’ve made no move to couple since he has not, not since I told him of the baby. We have been traveling, then moving in our boxes and he has been feeling whatever it was he felt in Timmons driveway. Some modicum of selflessness takes up residence in my childish heart, allowing him to hold me and not demanding proof of happiness from him. He cradles my belly every night as we spoon and I can feel his lips quirking in smiles as he gently hums to our child.

I watch my husband like he first watched me, from the bandstand, boyish cheeks blown full and nimble fingers flying over brass keys, I knew I wanted him then before he did. I went after him fast and furious, unlike myself in the way I tenaciously kept our first halting conversations going, shocking myself with the way I fanned my skirts around his lap and let him play beneath them -he was better at that than talking and I obliged him ravenously. Told him he looked handsome in his uniform and he told me he’d like to marry me. He came back to me as promised, four years late, yet the happiness that his first glittery eyed glance sparked in me is something I crave now as if I have not dabbled in far more heady pursuits with him thus far. His child grows in my belly but I miss his blush when I first stared at him past his bunker behind his music stand.

He watched me first, I wanted him worse. His eyes were blue then.

I admit my petulance to my mother after a week at the new house. Not that I am so wanton as to be bereft after a ten day abstinence, but that I cannot seem to settle some gnawing resentment that has begun. Again, not over the coupling. I am not sure what it’s over. I love him more than ever, and yet, that first blush of blazing white happiness of our first few days has given way to a nurturing watchfulness, an almost heartbreaking sympathy, a self effacing desire for his joy that robs me of my own. I ask her for a remedy.

She tells me I loved the idea of him before, and now I love him. And love is not made of happiness alone. She tells me to talk to him. “If you don’t know what it is,” she says, “he may. He knows you.”

He loves a thousand million parts of me, he had said. And then I had scoffed, feeling so sure I was comprised of only one: happiness.

Amongst the other basic necessities of settling in, we do our best to scope out the town, having arrived on a Thursday we attended mass soon in the only Catholic Church to be found in the small place, we find the town’s rec hall more promising, I keep my eyes peeled for a music store. There is one in Millersville, I find it when I go to inspect a couch that caught my eye in the Hutzlers catalog.

I do not know if he needs reeds. He hasn’t played since he got back, he may have a stack of extras in some box. But the sentimentality fills me strongly, the memory of missing him and waiting for him and having no ability to reach him over there except by sending the packages. And each of his letters with their little sheepish addendum: please send more reeds.

I got up from dinner that night to give them to him. He had asked about my day and as if I had some horrid secret to cover I had choked on my descriptions of the couch until I had broken down and admitted there was more. I place the item beside his plate and he puts down his fork while I stand in suspense.

An innocuous plastic wrapped package of saxophone reeds was probably not what my Johnny was expecting but he lets out a cut off little laugh about it.

“Did you even need more?” I am weirdly in knots over it, fingers nervously bunching at my dress and he leaves off opening the package to slip his own into mine to prevent the tick.

“I did.” he murmurs warmly, pressing a kiss to my forearm that dangles beside him, “Thank you.”

“Is that why you’re not playing?”

He looks surprised. “I -just busy, I suppose?” he questions himself.

“I miss it.” vocalized at last, I realize just how much.

“Do you?” his lips curve in a smile against my arm and move across to my belly, the hot gusts of his affection damping my dress. “Well, if my sweetheart misses it…” his lips have moved so low along my dress I feel an ache where I am missing other things.

He cleans his instrument that night while sat at the table while I do the dishes, our clearing of it a joint endeavor. He fusses over the need to grease it and other things too technical to be questioned but I understand, it won’t be played tonight. But it’s good to see him at the familiar task, his affection and seriousness for his work both manifesting across his face.

The next day he goes with me to Hutzlers, his opinion on household furnishings having been impeccable thus far and far more decisive than my own. He humors my myriad of hypotheticals regarding comfort and staining and color schemes, hands shoved easily in his pockets and a gentle smile on his face, I know by look alone he is categorizing each of my expert arguments into tidy little categories that he will present to me again in fifteen minutes time when a decision must be made.

In the end we purchase a pale blue couch with roses imprinted tone on tone into the fabric. It was decided upon only after he had hauled me down to the cushions to see if it were a plausibly good place to kiss. I now wonder if we have gotten a blue couch instead of a peach one simply due to the fact it was further from the window and he felt free to dip me down over the arm for a brief half minute.

Either way, it is set in stone that our new couch will be blue and on the way to the cash register, he immovably halts at a counter displaying the most heart wrenchingly cute baby items.

“We have to get somethin’.” he sounds almost exasperated at the previous weeks’ oversight.

We leave with ten different things, not having agreed upon what gender our child will be and I am unable to argue that booties are always a sensible option for either sex, I also want to strangle the woman behind the counter whose over eager desire to help robs me of the unguarded delight Johnny was showing over the little things before she came up.

He is opening my car door and teasing me for being so mercurial when he himself turns mildly glum before a hard determination sets his jaw.

“What?” I question, half wondering if he sees some old acquaintance or is having some awful recollection. I can’t imagine what amongst this urban place and departmental hedonism could inspire it but, stranger associations have done so.

“It’s midway through September.” he mutters, keen eyes fixed at the store’s grand facade, hand still heavy on the window before closing my door.

“Yep.” I am at a loss.

“But the seasons are milder down here.” he is presenting a case of his own for something and all I can do is agree, Maryland is more temperate than New York.

“Your mother even gave me a book about the different zones.”

“Yeah.” he is pleased with my perceived understanding, face lighting up, “So it’ll stay warmer down here.”

“For longer.”

“Yeah.”

“Johnny? What?”

He seems to realize I’ve not understood what he keeps looking at so intensely across the parking lot. “I want to buy bushes and flowers but it’s September.” he admits.

An extravagance this late in the season, and my man is not extravagant. “They’re very pretty.” I settle for acknowledging, knowing this is something he must decide but he looks so torn I would do anything to smooth that creased brow.

“It would make the place more, I dunno,” he stares down at his hand on the still adjar car door and shrugs, “…homey?”

“Some things are perennial.” a little blossom of hope tinges my own voice, my mind had gotten away with me -if he is this invested while yet undecided, I cannot imagine what diligence he might display at husbandry were he to act on it. And there’s nothing I have grown to love more in all my watching than him at some diligence.

We don’t get them. But in the car on the ride back there is discussion that the place is only a fifteen minute drive. Which pertains to the delivery of our couch, and we must hurry back to have the front door opened and I wanted to sweep where it will be once more. The delivery boys thump the blue thing on our floorboards carefully and its large presence is exactly what Johnny was saying we needed -Hominess. Emphatic. Settled. Ours.

No sooner have they left with his kind tips in their pockets than he is pulling me down on it, a hungry imitation of his actions at the store with hands more risky and insistent. I have been missing him so badly I come apart easily from his finger’s ministrations between my legs, sidetracked in trying to pull off my panties and garter belt. When he sees me go, he takes mercy and lets up, a gentle swiping through his prized currency of sticky pleasure and I watch him bring those long fingers to his lips, sucking them clean.

“You taste different.” he admits with heavy lidded eyes, “Since…” he doesn’t finish his explanation of the change in my belly, the slight swollen pooch that is our child.

“Bad?” I ask with feminine panic at the very notion.

He is settled on his belly between my thighs, blue couch a plush landing beneath us both, “N’bad.” is emphatically mumbled against me and my legs kick out the buzz of his voice. By his vocal and insistent enjoyment of it, I cannot help but be assured. Not bad. I keen up at our ceiling as he wrings one and then two and then -he won’t stop and I am needy for it, enjoying the familiar span of his hand dominating my belly, only this time it is cupping my swollen womb. I settle in relief that the proof of my maternity beneath his palm does not deter him, or at least, distract. He hums into his messy work and noses at me where I am all lightning and pulsing need, his hips jerking down into our plush new addition each time I pull at his dark locks.

Different, he says of my taste, and wedges his face in deeper, his hips beginning to move with the movements of his face against my parts and I swear to him that he is good, that he is perfect, that I’ve missed him, that he is beautiful and that he should have gotten those flowers.

His corresponding laugh makes me gush onto his tongue and his humor turns into a moan that only prolonges my delicious agony. He pushes my legs wider so forcefully I think he would like to take them off entirely if he could, his face smothered in my heat.

“You have a job now.” I present a case of my own to him, about the flowers as I try to get on top of the feeling, it is too much and he is unrelenting and I try to grasp onto something that is not his rocking body and clever lips, “A very good job and a car and -and we have this house, a-nd a-a a very nice couch -aaah God!”

His grip on my hips is deathly as I list his accomplishments until he seems to seize and then sag, tongue grown listless at last as his lips part and a shuddering groan fans over my tacky thigh.

“And we deserve flowers.” I whisper hoarsely, petting the dark strands from out of his eyes.

He’s spent himself in his writhing, I can tell by the molten expression on his face when his eyes finally drag up to meet mine over the small swell of my stomach, and set off by our new couch, they are the sparkliest of baby blues.

I have never been more startled. Or pleased. I had forgotten to watch for it, and so it had returned of its own skittish volition. I cling to that glimmer of blue until his smile grows wider and his eyes flutter shut in exhaustion.

Happiness.

At the end that night, bathed and fed and having inspected our new assortment of infant wear and argued once more over the likely gender, he brings his instrument out of its case with the package of reeds in hand. He has been offered a part time job at the high school, teaching music. It would be a hobby, he protests against his own interest in it, it would take away from time with me and Little One.

“I could go, too.” I point out.

“You’d like that?” he is pleased, the lamp is too dim for me to discern if there is blue but his lashes flutter briskly and I kiss his cheek, it’s hot beneath my lips.

“I always love watching you play.”

Before he fits the reed to the mouthpiece he makes me close my lips around it, a red stain marking it after, much to his satisfaction.

“You’ll be teaching children!” I swat at him, utterly pleased despite my own remonstrance.

“And I am married.” he says as if it were a universal absolution for all things.

The clock strikes five fifteen the next evening and he is not back. I have a plentiful assortment of excuses to choose from to explain his variance from routine. Traffic, work, a waylaying colleague -he has only been at work a couple of weeks, it is absurd to expect a forever unchanging home time. By five forty I cannot pretend expectation of what may have occurred and so keep the meatloaf warm with its proper cozy and when there is a bustle at the front door, I sprint to it like he’s back home from the war again.

It’s well I opened the door myself, he was endeavoring to while juggling three large potted plants in his arms. There is dirt in his white collar and I let out a little whoop at his uncharacteristic impulsiveness, stepping aside to help him get them through to the back porch. It doesn’t even need discussing, the large sliding glass door gives a beautiful view of the backyard from the living room and it’s sheltering insures privacy and a deterrent from our children’s stray balls flying to the next lot. At least for a few years. And the plants will go in the empty beds at the perimeter.

It is a Friday, and we eat my tepid meatloaf in between his smooching apologies for having been tardy and garbled plans for where we will put each plant and how we will stagger them according to their eventual size. It was far more than the three pots he brought, the trunk and also the cab were full of fauna.

Our excitement next morning is idiotic, we manage to snicker at ourselves for being so domesticated that this inspires frenzy but the self awareness gets not further than that, I throw on my rattiest -and coolest- sundress and he his jeans and with only his white singlet, breakfast is inhaled while standing at the backdoor, last minute plotting being discussed between bites. And then we spend our entire Saturday at it.

Johnny digs the holes and carries the plants to their allotted places and only then allows me to gently labor in filling soil over the roots, we eat cold meatloaf and slug down ice tea under the afternoon heat, not even bothering to go inside. When I have no other job, I weed the beds in preparation, watching unreservedly the way his shoulders glisten in his hard work. I have caught him eying the neckline of my dress, the recent changes he has imposed on my body now ensuring it does not gap so much as bulge while I lean over and grasp the next offending dandelion. I know he is watching and he knows I am watching and we are happy at our work, tidy garden beds filling out and his tongue pressed to his top lip to catch a drop of sweat.

The sun is a glittering soft light through the western trees by the time we take stock.

“Nothin’ left to do but water them.” he has his arm over my shoulder, hand nearly brown with caked soil where it hangs against my smudged breast, his undershirt gone translucent from sweat, the oddest attraction to his underarm blooms in me as he huffs in satisfaction next to me. I press a kiss to the swell of his pec instead, he folds with a shocked giggle, he is ticklish.

“It’s very homey.” I pronounce, feeling indeed a bone deep satisfaction over our garden at our own house from our own hands. His elbow crooks further and he has my neck secure in the bend, golden hour light the prettiest thing in the world as he nuzzles our sweaty noses and slowly claims a kiss.

“Our kids are gonna get to play out here for years.” he seems to realize as he lays his head atop mine, his voice sounds so softly comforted I can feel my eyes smart with tears.

He can feel my nod beneath his chin. “And us.” I suggest.

“And us.” he agrees with a laugh, “I’m gonna mow.” He decides suddenly and he is giving me one more smooch before moving away, headed at a jog to the garage for his machine before the sun fully dips. Never one to leave a job slightly imperfect.

I water our new additions while he pushes the mower, strip after strip, along our back yard, closer and closer to complete perfection. I have little doubt that once he finishes this he may find yet another task and knowing we have done enough, I go inside as he finishes the last swaths and grab a tablecloth, an opened bottle of wine along with salami and a brick of cheese. I have these waiting for him on a cloth, laid upon his freshly shorn grass. He cuts the engine, I watch him as he heedlessly take off his soaked singlet and uses it to rub the grass from his eyes. He is beautiful, my boy, where tan skin blends to fair and a strong, lean back disappears into jeans. There are dimples on his back, right below that belt, I know them, I’ve traced them with my tongue.

“C’mon, we’ve done enough. Sit and look at how perfect it is.” I beckon and his face lights up at my little spread, sauntering over, undershirt still clasped in his hand.

“Im filthy.” he warns and runs his hand along his sweat sheened belly in a motion I find obscenely captivating.

I pat at the tablecloth, “So am I.” for my dress is soiled and I am sweaty and only my hands are really fit for food as I scrubbed them thoroughly.

He holds his own up to show their grimey palms yet sits himself beside me anyway, and I notice the callouses dotted along the pads of his hands. I want to kiss them, soil and all.

“Then I’ll feed you.” I reply to his unspoken question and bring a bite to his lips.

We toast each other with the wine, drinking from the bottle and we watch as dusk begins to throw her first veil over the golden light.

“I’m not nauseous anymore these days.” I report and he is sweetly relieved for me, I pull out the pipe I packed for him and hand it to him between salami rolls.

His eyebrow, mobile and ever so empathetic, asks if I am sure but I am, and I watch as the match recreates a golden glow on his face once more today as he lights up and I watch him with the most lazy feeling in the world as he watches our gardens go muted by dusk.

“We’ve really done it.” he observes, relief dripping in his voice, a long exhale tinges the air around me with sweet tobacco and I am reminded of courting, of chasing him down while trying to appear reserved. Of wanting him so badly I had little choice but to remain devoted. The smell of smoke in the street would stop me dead in my tracks, thinking of this young man an ocean away.

I think I know what he means but I need to be certain, and I find I am hungry to know everything, every bit of him. If his current happiness is placed in stark relief against some previous melancholy, I want to know that, too. “What have we done?” I ask teasingly, scooting nearer to him on the cloth and kissing at his shoulder. He smells of gasoline and grass and pipe smoke. And I taste salt when I lick my lips.

“We’ve got ourselves a home.” he grins so easily, my boy, and if it were earlier in the summer there might be fireflies out in the twilight. “And you’re not nauseous anymore.” he giggles.

I’ve wanted long enough these many weeks, when my lips trail from the meat of his shoulder to his beautiful neck, he cannot mistake my intentions.

“O-out here?” he stutters out, hissing at the end by my bite on his fragile throat, i place my hand on his jeans and palm at him. There is still nothing so thrilling to me than the feel of a man firming, the way he awakes to me and only me and at my least whim, even while his mouth is all stuttering questions and his eyes are startled shimmering pools. He is always surprised when I initiate, as if he can imagine his own desire being that needy but not my own, he is always surprised and I realize it may be the only one of the million parts he does not fully know of me: how badly I love him at all times. “N-now?” he is rocking denim clad hips into my palm and their fit has grown impossibly taut.

I have the zipper down, my hand meeting the sweat soaked crease of his thigh and wiry curls that are equally wet from his work, when I wrap my small fist around him, he is clammy and pulsing in my hand. It should be revolting, perhaps, with dirt and gasoline and sweat acting like a gritty lubricant, but nausea has been replaced by something else hungry and while he may have found comfort in having provided the necessary civilian checklist for our lives, I am a woman whose body he has forever altered with his child and I have never loved anything so much as watching him at work. I want to smell it, feel it, taste the gritty earth of the man who has renovated my very flesh.

“Yes, now,” I beg, giving him one last squeeze before I lay myself back, sundress riding up my thighs, “I want you to take me under our gardenia.”

He watches me raptly, boyish eyes fawn-like and batting lashes fluttering like moth wings in the dim light; he rises to his knees and stays there as I unbutton my soiled dress. There are twenty four buttons to the hem and I make theater of each until I am bare. More than he anticipated, for while at work I did enjoy the last bit of clement weather on all my parts.

He makes a pained noise of want at the sight, maybe he too loves the sheen of sweat that makes us both shimmer in the far off patio light, how it reflects off my swelling belly, breasts grown large enough my necklines are impossible to keep discreet. I stop him from tasting me with a foot to his clavicle, I love his mouth but I want to be taken. And he indulges me, shimmying between the parted scraps of my dress and laying himself against my body, denim rough and thrilling against my bare thighs, the slightest space between our bellies lest he crush me. I am hardly large enough for it to be a concern but I can see his fascination with it, his preoccupation, his hair hangs into his eyes as he stares down at where his desire parts my petals and I can feel the drag of him against me, sweat and unabashed want making a swamp of me.

I peak and thrash from the torture of his steady grind alone, and in a typical moment of firm implacability, I feel my husband press into me while I am yet writhing. He scoops the back of my knees into the crook of his elbows, leaning over me with mischief on his face as he folds me, “You started this.” he still has enough self possession to remind before he gives into the grip of my heat and begins to move in me, engaging work-sore muscles not yet fully fatigued.

If my novel new shape has created some preoccupation, if my symptoms and moods had once ruled me in earlier weeks, it is worth it now for the way my body goes alight beneath him, electric delight curling my toes and fuzzing my sternum at each thrust, I respond to him half possessed and he snickers like he knew of this before me. I swell until my sheath is so tight it makes us both keen from it, slippery to the point of cacophonous. I claw at his back and his shoulders don’t stand a chance at remaining unmarred as he stays unperturbed and sweetly vicious inside me, jamming himself deeper. When I begin to scream he lets down a leg and cups my neck, forcing my mouth against his own.

He tastes of wine. I hook my toe into the denim of his waistband and tug it further down, till I can fully see the pale swell of his backside and I think the motion tickles him as he giggles in his rhythm. I can register that the air has grown cool as the sun fully deserts us, leaving us to it with a final curtain call on the happiest day I’ve ever known.

The force of our endeavor has shoved me up the blanket until I am well and truly beneath the far branches of our gardenia. I tilt my head up and smell the blossoms’ heady scent, their leaves and white flowers blending into the canopy of nightly stars beginning to show. Johnny’s warm face is tucked, groaning, into my neck, our bodies so close as he begins to falter in his control that I cannot watch him. So I watch the blossoms above sway in my vision as his need rucks my body up and down beneath them for a few more desperate minutes. I turn my face and press a kiss to his temple, his hair damp with sweat and smelling so much of him I clench. I love you, so good, you’re so good to me, so deep, so deep, I love you- my mind is adrift and where he rocks inside me is all I know and I babble and beg and praise him for it.

His breath is a hot steam over my clavicle, dirty hands tenderly grasping at a swollen breasts, he bites at my lower lip to hush himself when the pleasure overtakes and I too go under one more time, legs drawing up again under the wracking delight and my modest man groans and pants the filthiest appreciations, for taking him, slippery beautiful thing, tightest little cunt, could spend all my days in you, milk me, that’s it milk me sweetheart, you like it when I make you?

What he babbles to me as he spurts is never something later to be answered, it is gibberish and rhetorical and yet I believe every word, treasure them when he rolls off and pants beside me, I will rehearse them in my mind when he is gone to work. I know this last set will have me ready down to my thighs long before five o’clock.

In the cold night air his hands are soothing the damage his forceful want has done, petting my trembling flank down like a horse after a race, it gives me zapping little after-quakes that make him hum into our kisses as his warm palm feels me twitch and clench and melt.

We should go inside soon -we both mumble it at the same time and barely have energy to laugh over it. We stay on the tablecloth, grass texturing our backs, his only movements are to roll me closer to him, pulling my gaping dress with me, and plucking a white starry blossom for behind my ear. After he has placed it he drops his head again, pillowed on my upper arm and I can feel his breath even out across my throat.

My mother did not tell me of this. I have asked others in the most discreet way I can summon, but they all just say they hope I’ll be happy, they’re sure I’ll be happy, he seems to make me happy, they themselves are happy.

It is likely only myself at fault, but now I think of happiness as a very desperate thing, tentative and elusive and ever watchful. I did not expect to find its most distilled essence in quiet things. There is nothing more to write as our happiness did indeed persist after we woke and rose and went to shower, chilly from our exposure, it went on after we had wrapped ourselves under the bedding and clutched at each other like twins. But what is there to relate of such happiness? It has no great drama, it is not so very vigilant unless it is to actively prevent sadness, and even that is welcome here when it must be passing by. Perhaps the poets, or the preachers, or my wise boy would tell me it’s joy I feel. Maybe that was what I was looking for all this time.

Maybe that is what feels so foreignly precious about lying on a blanket with his spend cooling between my legs, our shrubs like loyal sentinels dotting the fence line and my man gently snoring atop me after having created a life sworn to himself when he thought he might die. It is sobering to be integral to that dream, but it is also peaceful.

It is joy, I suppose. Or a sort of Garden Variety Happiness.

Here’s my widdle Brady Taglist, thanks to each of you for expressing such interest and always showing such love. This was a bit of a weird passion project and I’ve got no idea if it actually “worked” but it was the branching out my creative brain needed. So many of y’all are already nailing this Man so well, 🤨😏 I’ve been such a happy recipient of all yalls works. Scream at me. Lemme know. Xoxo

@luminouslywriting

@ktredshoes

@archival-hogwash

@gigisimsonmars

@steph-speaks

@ab4eva

@lilfreebee

@slowsweetlove

@xxanaduwrites

@blurredcolour

@venus-planetof-love

@pearlparty

@winniemaywebber

@sagesolsticewrites

@ginabaker1666

[obessedwithfictionalmen]

✨️Masterlist 1✨️

John Egan:

I'll come pick it up after / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / 6 / 7 / 8 / 9 / 10 / 11 / End /

Did you just kiss me?

Alright, bet!

Protect You

Back to black

Until you come back home / 2 /

Stop trying to feel everything

Inventor

Soft and prude

Small space

Run!

You want my jacket?

Kiss me before you leave

I hate / love you

Princess and the fool

I have a plan

You're like me, but better

New Girl

Never felt so...

Too Sweet

Chicken

Callum Turner:

Co- Stars / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / 6 / 7 / 8 / 9 / 10 / 11 / 12 / 13 / 14 / 15 / 16 / 17 / 18 /

Qué serà serà

Finals season

Joe Rantz:

Training / 2 /

Theseus Scamander

Young, dumb in love

Curtis Biddick

Daylight

Your idiot?

You have to live

Gale Cleven

Told you she was real

Who did this to you?

Robert 'Rosie' Rosenthal

Therapist

Ronald Speirs

Disguise

John Brady

Misunderstanding

Austin Butler

Fame / 2 / 3 / 4 /

[bunbunbl0gs]

Cow girl with z

masterlist

nhl masterlist

join my tag list here

tag list : @ivy-34 @books-hlmc

[speirslore]

domestic john brady hcs

(a/n: so.... i went a little insane today and wrote these but hopefully someone else enjoys them! pls send me an ask if u want to chat about brady because he might be ruining my life right now... just a little bit.. also this includes vague mentions of pstd)

lmk if you would like to be on my taglist! @ronsparky @bcon24 @blueberry-ovaries @1waveshortofashipwreck @beautifulbluejay

okay starting off... imo john brady is super domestic like he definitely has had a 2.5 kids and a dog, white picket fence fantasy for a good portion of his life <3

and he loves routine... most days you come home to soft jazz music playing and john sitting on the sofa, brows furrowed in concentration as he flips through a book, pipe in his mouth, and the familiarity always makes you feel so warm

john is very loyal... and can definitely be stubborn and determined, but it all stems from a protectiveness over you and the love you two have

yes he can be a bit sassy or snappy especially from others people's perspectives but john is a really great partner

he has a tender side that you see very often but others might not immediately pick up on... i think john is super attentive and caring in his own, analytical way, and that's extended to all the people in his life that he cares about

when you first meet and start dating i do think he is a mess trying to flirt and gets very flustered very easily, especially if you're more confident in your own flirting abilities... but he quickly gains confidence in that area

john is not hugeee into pda

but does like to be touching you in some way, like hand on the small of your back, around your waist, head resting on your shoulders (or vice versa), he loves all of it

john is SO supportive: you want to go to/finish school? go for it! he’s your number one supporter, no matter what stage of life you guys are in

if you're already married and have kids by then, he definitely helps you study after the kids go to sleep

will help make flashcards to study and proofreads over your essays for you

obviously music is a huge part of his life whether he sticks to teaching music after the war or pursuing something different, it’s a huge part of him and loves getting you equally obsessed with it

will most certainly be in a community choir/orchestra of some sort and is so proud of it... loves spotting you in the crowd and having you there to support him

is ever the realist, very practical about settling down after the war, having kids, buying a house, etc... he genuinely enjoys budgeting and ofc couponing... he gets very into it

john really values your opinions and input on all things

i think john's love language is mainly words of affirmation... like okay, yes he can be a little snarky at times but john is extremely thoughtful

he's great at picking up on your emotions and how you're feeling

words of affirmation- complimenting, uplifting, and supporting you is how he communicates that he cares

when john can tell you're upset, he wants and will do anything to solve whatever problem there is and make you feel better

john is really perceptive, like annoyingly so, "what's wrong? are you sure you're okay?" you can't fool him at all

he really prides himself on knowing the people he loves

a big problem solver, will come up with a game plan to tackle whatever you come to him ranting/upset about

john can be fiercely protective, especially after the war- after he's seen so much loss first hand. not even jealousy really and it's never because he doesn't trust you or is possessive, it stems more from how much he loves you and how vulnerable that makes him feel sometimes

is he as impulsive and scrappy as curt or bucky? no but could definitely be pushed to that point and definitely will not let himself be intimidated by some asshole at a bar (referencing a specific event when you were dating back in new york after the war, john does not take lightly to someone trying to upset/scare you refusing to take no for an answer)

he definitely does enjoy you doting on him afterwards, cleaning the nasty bruise and scrape on his jaw/cheek

i think john would for sure enjoy pet names, he loves any symbols or reminders of how close/intimate your relationship is, specifically loves "honey", "dear", or an occasional "darling"

your relationship starts to have some serious old married couple vibes very quickly, like months into dating you?

john is a not so secret romantic

would be annoyingly good at big romantic gestures, is the best at anniversaries

john lovesss and really romanticizes the idea of settling down, knowing someone that deeply, someone else being your person, your soulmate, having children, and having a shared life

he does believe in true love and soulmates and would blush furiously if you were to ask him about it but he'll manage to get it out, barely able to look at you when he's affirming, "yeah i think you're my soulmate. nbd."

wants to know all about you, even the most trivial things i think he would be so interested in learning about

for sure one of those people who's had a list of baby names they've had picked out since childhood

john is a great person to share a life with, he's organized, methodical, responsible, and respectful

would be the sweetest dad, would feel perpetually unprepared and terrified for fatherhood

would always be researching the best foods, products, etc

like not full helicopter parent/soccer mom but he's very involved and always trying to find new experiences for your kids

LOVES planning the annual brady family road trip in the summer when all the kids are out of school and y'all take off work

he always creates such a detailed and efficient route and makes sure to get everyone's input on where they want to go and want to see... that's when he's in his element fr

he would love having a bigger family and knowing each of his children's different personalities and interests

i think he does struggle after the war with ptsd, especially during the winter when it's super cold outside

he has to get out of this initial phase of pushing you away out of not wanting want pity or sympathy

there's embarrassment and shame there and it's hard for him to navigate that and he doesn't want to burden you or others. doesn't want to be fussed over or taken to the doctor like a child, doesn't want to feel broken

for a while he struggles with falling asleep and would always make excuses about coming to bed late, only once you're sleeping, because he's embarrassed about how long it takes for him to fully relax and actually feel safe enough to sleep

it gets better with time... and when john realizes how much he values transparency and vulnerability between the two of you and after you reassure him it's not burdening you or dumping anything on you

might be (is) a lip biter like first time he did it was on accident, he just got very excited but you both quickly discover he lovesss it

i think john is masterfully good at foreplay, especially if we assume he was raised in a good ol' catholic family... yeah he has the foreplay down pat

he's methodical in everything he does... including uh... physical intimacy

john has a lot of self control and he prides himself in that... but he is also soooo sensitive he just thinks it's incredibly unfair

like just running your hands through his hair and scratching his scalp lightly, oh he's meltinggg

john absolutely has to have the perfect music for everything including anything physical... he'll break away from a heated kiss to to flip through vinyls, hunched over the record player while you're lying in bed like... babe... come back pls

a very intense lover like his eye contact, his touch- firm grip, his voice- always lower and quiet, intense in the best way possible

oh and once you're married he loves always mentioning or name dropping "my wife," in conversations

overall... john brady loves being in love! he loves having little inside jokes, petnames, shared memories, etc and wouldn't trade it for anything in the world <3

[luminouslywriting]

Infertility anon back; thank you for your kind words! And your headcanons were, as always, so lovely and spot-on. I am here to shamelessly request a part two, if you have time: the guys' reactions to their partner finally getting pregnant after struggling with infertility. ❤️

^^Gif does not belong to me, it belongs to rcbertleckie^^

A/N: Hi sweetheart! I'm sorry it's been so long since you sent this! I hope this is everything you wanted and more :)

Warnings: Sensitive topics below, infertility mentioned, paragraph format

Bucky Egan:

I know that his initial reaction is just whooping and laughing for joy. He's utterly happy and so so proud of you and knows how big this is for you, just as much as he's happy about it himself. He's definitely going to sweep you up into his arms and kiss you senseless.

He'll immediately want to head to the store and get stuff for a nursery and starts asking the most random of questions. "What can you eat/not eat?" "Are we still able to have sex?" "What does it mean if you're nauseous?"

Either way, he's a doting husband who is more than thrilled to have this opportunity with you. He doesn't really care if it's a boy or a girl, he just wants the baby to be healthy and for the two of you to be happy. He's definitely obsessed with the baby bump and super overprotective of you. Prepare to be pampered for nine months straight.

A side note: You could decide to paint the house the ugliest shade of puke green during this time or tell him that he can't watch baseball a single time during your pregnancy and he'd go along with it haha.

Gale Cleven:

Definitely someone who plays more on the shock reaction, at least at first. He's so pleased and happy for you and for him—but also feeling a lot of emotions given his own upbringing. Be prepared for a surprised hug and some gentle kisses, but not so many words.

He may take some time to express it—but listen close when you're falling asleep. He'll be talkin' to that baby bump for hours about how he's gonna protect the baby and how much he loves you and is grateful for you.

Also someone who isn't 100% sure on certain things, but he's very logical. He knows that he's going to need to invest in some baby blankets and clothes. He's absolutely convinced he can build a crib without instructions. And he's ready to help you in whatever way you need.

A side note: He didn't think he could fall more in love with you but as the pregnancy glow appears, he decides that he's never been more in love and clearly this is a sign that you should have more kids haha.

Robert Rosenthal:

He's honestly so excited and views this as a result of working hard to figure out ways to increase fertility tbh. Logically, it all just makes sense. But he does also attribute some of it to being a miracle. Either way, he gets this grin on his face and immediately starts kissing you and kissing your stomach.

Definitely the type to call all of his family to immediately tell them the news and is so excited about the entire thing. He's gonna bring you home little presents just because and is so patient during the entire thing. He treats you like you're literally royalty.

Isn't too worried about getting everything done and bought already. He's very attentive to the things that you want to get done though. He wants you to prioritize your health and taking care of yourself and the baby, so that's his number 1 thing at the moment.

A side note: You can do no wrong during this time in your life and he's already imagining the future children down the line.

John Brady:

Immediately starts crying? I'm sorry, there's just no other way that I see this going. He's so thrilled and emotional about the entire thing, you'd think that HE'S the one pregnant, rather than you, but I digress. He's definitely going to say a few prayers of gratitude and he's going to shower you in attention and praise.

You thought he was bad before? Skipping work to spend time with you? Now he's leaving work early because he saw an ad for a baby carriage that you just need to have or he knows that there's a sale for maternity clothes and you'll just look divine. He's the sweetest and most attentive husband, and someone who really just wants a healthy baby.

His entire family will rally around you to help with literally anything you need. At the drop of a hat, you can have several in-laws over to move the couch or to reach something that's too high for you.

A side note: Brady definitely samples the baby food beforehand and decides that it's just not very good. So yes, he's making his own baby food for his child.

[wexhappyxfew]

hi i need to know more about this development… mrs. and mr. annie brady are turtle parents?

HI SWEET ANON!!!!!!! 🤩

i can happily confirm that the bradys in their postwar life do become turtle parents 😭 mainly because i have done a lot of think-thoughts regarding postwar for the SB girlies (shout out to u kara <3) and have really been thinking on the bradys and they make me EMOTIONAL.

first of all - they have twins. i just see it in my mind. brady’s the ultimate boy-dad and girl-dad in their own ways and it’s the cutest thing (and annie finds it ADORABLE) and one day his daughter most definitely comes home with the idea of wanting a pet turtle from something she learned in class (and brady CAN’T say no) so he finds himself going out to get a pet turtle that very night. and of course, this seems to pair nicely with annie’s orange cat that she got immediately after the war was over (his name is peanut). but then, it’s about a year later and their daughter mentions that their pet turtle is looking a little lonely and so they get a second pet turtle.

and those turtles are SO WELL LOVED AND CARED FOR!!!!!!! they make it on the christmas card, the bradys take such good care of them and they live, long, happy lives at the brady household :)

AND ITS ADORABLE!!!!!!!!

[thegoldenretrieverandthegaynerd]

Kit on the cover of The Guardian on Saturday Magazine! 🍂🍂

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[kafka-ohdear]

hello duck :D since i just came back from a grocery run 💀😭 for brenny and dougley post war or modern au (whatever) what's your thoughts on them going shopping for groceries?? i mean of course dougley is the old married coupleᵀᴹ type and brenny would take meatball with them for sure (yes unfortunately this is exactly what i was thinking when I went for groceries 💀💀)

idk what kind of coincidence is this but my mom just asked me to get some groceries when i was answering this ask 😭

!!!!! alright you got me when you hit send this ask 😈

tw: long ass and random post about my headcanons for them 😭,,,

*

for dougley, i think it's like:

- blakely pays. of course.

- blakely is (un)surprisingly good at choosing fruits & vegetables etc, and he is like a professional yk. he has everything planned out and follows the exact list. nothing more, nothing less.

- dougie? that man doesn't know what is a shopping list. he likes something, he'll buy it.

- maybe i'm delulu rn but i think dougie can literally buy anything (mostly candies and random stuff) because: one, he doesm't meed to pay under any circumstances; two, blakely likes to see him smiles when he gets his favourite treats.

- okay. the neckerchief. based on the fact that blakely handles grocery runs very well, i'm convinced that dougie has tried at least once to tie the neckerchief onto blakely's head in the babushka style (idk im sorry about my poor vocabulary 💀💀,,,).

- blakely didn't resist him doing so, but he's already working on the plot of his revenge on dougie (yes i'm talking about the "coquette" bow 💀...).

- the kids in the supermarket/grocery store likes them (😭 idk because blakely has the grandpa aura to me,,, and dougie surely loves playing with kids) so whenever the kids see them doing grocery, they'd wave at the couple and talk to them.

- blakely does most of the things, and dougie will help him with smaller stuff like putting the groceries into their vehicle or help him carry some of them back home.

- dougie would steal some of the treats or some random stuff when blakely is unpacking the bags, which usually is blakely's.

- blakely knows but he wouldn't say a thing but plots on his great revenge mission instead

*

and in my mind brenny would be like:

- they certainly would bring their child aka meatball along with them whenever they are going out for groceries.

- they have zero clue what to buy for their meals and end up taking loads of random stuff back home.

- brady like canned meat. demarco doesn't. they argue over the problem that demarco throws up whenever he smells canned meat, but brady always wins and gets to buy some because their beloved meatball likes canned meat as well.

- brenny is the kind of couple would buy ice cream or other small treats after getting groceries.

- hmmm i have a feeling they might take a walk around (somewhere near there idk,,,) so meatball could enjoy some fresh air before going home.

- BTW ABOUT THE CLOTHING. i think brady would dress kinda??? like a fashion icon??? and demarco would wear clothes like some random ass guy with white t-shirt and black shorts with some slippers,,,

- demarco packs & unpacks things for almost all the time while brady uses entertaining meatball as an excuse.

- demarco doesn't mind because he loves seeing his two favourite person (i kinda feel like he would refer to them as "creatures" to tease brady 💀) happy together,,,

*

i'm really sorry for this long ass post and shitty headcanons but 😭😭😭 i hope you like them,,,

[tkachunk]

would you be able to record and post tim's interview on the ice after the game please and thank you? he's just so cute

unfortunately as helpful as my screen recorder is it's not great at synching audio, so this is the best I can do

[shawty-bae]

really wanna know should i write fan fiction on here?

[blurredcolour]

Parting Gifts

[One-shot]

John Brady x Female!Reader

John Brady cannot stand watching your oblivious Department Head make continued advances towards you while he is stuck on the bandstand performing at a concert. He expresses this displeasure to you with actions rather than words as soon as he is free to do so.

Warnings: Era-typical Sexism/Misogyny Alcohol Consumption, Unwanted Advances, Smoking/Tobacco, Inevitable Historical and Military Inaccuracies, Mature/Explicit Themes [softdom!Brady, possessive!Brady, fingering] - 18+ ONLY.

Author's Note: Really not a whole lot of plot here folks, mostly just the need for Brady to do unspeakable things...and play his saxophone. Special shoutout to @precious-little-scoundrel for the Brady brain rot and listening to me scream about him a lot lately.

Word Count: 2337

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

Sioux City, Iowa - January, 1943

Leroy Anderson was going to get himself killed. Well, he would if it were possible for looks alone to kill a man, for the pure fury in John’s eyes as the frustratingly oblivious man approached you for the fifth time was unmistakable even though his cheeks inflated rather adorably as he continued to dutifully play his saxophone. You were honestly only in attendance to watch the performance of the 100th’s band, entertaining the local populace of Sioux City, Iowa in gratitude for tolerating their invasion earlier that month, and not interested in dancing with anyone other than their handsome saxophone-playing pilot Lieutenant John Brady.

You had been quite taken with John Brady since the moment you had laid your eyes on him late on January 2nd, lost in the streets of Sioux City with the address of a local tobacco shop clutched in his hand and a bewildered expression on his face. On your way from your job at the T.S. Martin Department Store to the apartment you shared with your close friend Fern Westcott, you had stopped to try and give him directions. When his eyebrows had crinkled helplessly in confusion, it had not taken long for you to decide to guide him there yourself, waiting patiently for him to make his purchase of rather fine pipe tobacco as he then insisted on escorting you home in turn. Never mind that he did not know the way and only ended up more lost on account of it.

What had followed had been a rather intense few weeks of courtship whenever he managed to escape the base, quickly learning his way around the city…and your skirts. The entire group was growing convinced they would be cleared for overseas duty any day now and your time with him was feeling precariously short, making the continued interruptions of your department head, whose advances you had been dodging for months now, all the more tedious.

Upon arrival at the dancehall, decked out with streamers in the blue and gold of the 8th Air Force and a huge banner that read ‘We’ll Miss You 100th’ you had selected a spot along the wall with a clear view of John. Fern had offered to check your winter coat and returned, briefly, with the tag before allowing herself to be swept off by one of the many handsome young men in attendance. She was a stunning blonde with green eyes and a bright laugh, fairly having to beat them off if she wanted a break – though it never seemed she did, happy to dance for hours. Meanwhile you could barely get through one song without being proposition by the nasal voice of Leroy, his shiny face inserting itself into your view. You did your utmost to remain polite and not turn him down too harshly.

“Oh maybe the next one.”

“Just enjoying my drink, thanks.”

“I’m still a little tired from work, Leroy, but thank you.”

“I’m sure Fern would love a dance with you, Leroy.”

“Almost ready, Leroy.”

You tried changing sides of the dancefloor, hiding behind other couples, nursing a drink. None of these tactics worked for very long. With each of his intrusions, you noted John’s lips growing tighter around the mouthpiece of his instrument, his grip turning his fingertips white, but he remained on the bandstand, dutifully playing out the set which, to your recollection, only had a few more songs. After the fifth rebuffed invitation, Fern mercifully intervened and pulled you out onto the dancefloor to join numerous other pairs of friends who were dancing with one another.

“You’re a lifesaver Fern…” You muttered gratefully and the pair of you tried not to laugh too loudly as you struggled to figure out who would lead.

“If that man wasn’t responsible for signing our timecards…”

You gave her a knowing huff, wishing more than anything you could firmly dismiss his advances, but to do so risked your position in the housewares department. “I put in for team lead with the mail order department since Artie left, we’ll see what happens.”

“Well we’d miss you dearly but for your sake I truly–”

Fern’s reply was cut off by the sharp tap on her shoulder by the fairly grinning Leroy, his gleeful expression making you shudder involuntarily. You had not even made it one song before he had found you amidst the sea of swaying humanity.

“May I cut in?”

To turn him down on the edge of the dancefloor was one thing, but people were already casting glances your way for the obstacle your trio was creating. If you were to refuse now it would truly qualify as making a scene, and that must be avoided at all costs.

“Certainly.” You summoned a polite smile and nodded reassuringly to Fern who immediately found another partner to whisk her away.

Keeping your arms stiff, you managed to maintain a generous amount of distance between your bodies, despite the insistent pressure of his hand on your lower back. The other hand that clung to yours was remarkably clammy and there was something sour on his breath. It took a great deal of strength to maintain a polite expression on your face as he clumsily led you through the last two songs of the set, his brassy blond hair plastered to his skull with an excessive amount of pomade as he leered at you triumphantly. You often wondered why a man like him, only a few years older than you and seemingly 1A, had yet to enlist or be drafted. If only.

You could not wrench yourself from Leroy’s arms fast enough as the band finished their final number with a flourish, flashing him a tight smile and wishing him a ‘goodnight’ before quickly making your way toward the front of the stage as the audience applauded the soldiers-turned-entertainers. It was not long before a uniform-clad arm was sliding around your waist.

“You did great, John” You rushed out brightly as you turned to look at him warmly, but he was already guiding you around the side of the stage, face still tight.

“Come help me with something, sweetheart.” His voice was taut, and his statement was not really a request, even though the words would normally have comprised one.

Chaos erupted in your abdomen, an erratic swooping in your stomach contrasting sharply with a newly familiar heaviness lower down, and all from just the tone of his voice. The promise it carried. You knew he was not annoyed with you, but the mood he was in was certainly one that usually held certain physical outcomes for you. Or at least it had the last time he had acted this way. Following without comment, John led you into the green room where all sorts of cases lay open, ready to store the band’s instruments once they returned.

So far it seemed he was the first to return here and the pair of you paused briefly for him to secure his saxophone before he resumed his progress toward a door at the back of the room which was revealed to be a small washroom. You were not afforded much time to take it in, however, as his mouth was promptly on yours while his free hand focused on closing and locking the door behind you once he had pulled you inside.

Gasping sharply, you gripped the lapels of his uniform jacket, tilting your head back to yield to his demanding kiss as he backed you against the edge of the counter, arm around your waist coiling tighter. Gripping your chin with his long fingers, he pulled back to look over your slightly dazed face with darkened eyes, pupils eclipsing his blue irises as he began to pluck at the front buttons of your dress. As he bared the skin of your collarbones and the tops of your breasts, his head bowed to possessively nip and hungrily suck along your flesh, leaving you to grasp at his shoulders, desperately seeking anchor whilst attempting to smother your noises of pleasure in the back of your throat.

Clenching your thighs together as your folds grew increasingly damp and desperate for attention, you bit your lip in a mixture of regret and anticipation as John’s eyes flicked up to meet yours, a teasing huff escaping from his nostrils across your damp skin as he had clearly caught the movement.

The hems of your dress and slip fluttered as his hands slid to skate up the backs of your thighs, his fingertips making you jump slightly as they met your skin, breath hitching in your throat as gooseflesh erupted in the wake of his touch. Reaching the waistband of your underwear, John peeled them from your body, sliding the fabric down your legs before gripping your hips to guide you to sit up on the countertop. Bending down to slip your underwear over one shoe and then the other, you opened your mouth to inquire what he intended to do with them only to be met with his tongue sliding along yours, erasing any and all thought from your mind.

Fingers sliding into the longer strands of his hair, the feeling of his palm cupping your weeping core had a needy whimper spilling into his mouth as you arched eagerly. Huffing in amusement for a second time, John pulled back to drink in your facial expression as he worked his fingers through your folds, collecting your growing slick on his fingertips before seeking the source of your pleasure. Circling your sensitive bud, yet maddeningly denying direct contact, you rocked your lower lip back and forth beneath your teeth in time to his movements, brows knit up plaintively, tiny whimpers slipping through despite your best efforts to keep quiet.

When, at last, he slid his finger across your clit, your hips surged toward his hand with such need that he pressed his lips to your nose fondly. “Feel good, sweetheart?”

“Uh huh!” You breathed enthusiastically, with a firm nod, earning repeated strokes exactly where you wanted them, making your toes curl in your shoes.

“Remember how good I make you feel when I’m gone.” He murmured and you panted, punctuating your eager nods with several soft keens of delight.

“I will, god, I will miss you so much.” You whispered, voice growing alarmingly loud as he began to slide his middle finger into your wet heat.

“I know, I know.” John soothed, pressing a quick kiss to your lips as he added his ring finger, beginning to work the long digits in and out of you in a way that had your eyelids fluttering shut. “Ah, eyes on me sweetheart.” He gently yet firmly gripped your jaw, angling your eyes to meet his as you quickly forced them open, and he smiled. “There’s my pretty girl.”

Abandoning his attentions on your clit, he began a demanding pace as he curled the ends of his fingers and worked them against a spongey spot deep inside you. Your jaw dropped open in a silent moan, hips fairly levitating from the counter as your fingers dug into his scalp. His thumb shifted from the side of your jaw to slide along your lower lip before coming to rest on your tongue. Reflexively, your lips wrapped around the digit, and you began to suck, shuddering at the way his nostrils flared in response, struggling mightily to keep your eyelids open and gaze meeting his.

Your eyes were growing glossy with need, his internal stimulation, while heavenly, just not quite enough to drive you over the edge to release. At last, John seemed to take pity, his thumb manipulating your clit in short, sharp circles that had your eyes rolling back into your skull no matter how hard you fought it as your orgasm pulled your entire body rigid before dropping you lax onto the countertop.

John pulled his thumb from your mouth with a faint ‘pop’ before leaning in to feather your face with tender kisses, gently pulling you up into his arms and rubbing your back as you rested against his chest. There was that alluring hardness in his trousers again, one that he had not let you act upon or explore to date, insisting that he only wanted to focus on pleasing you.

“So good for me, sweetheart. You did incredible.” He murmured once he finished licking his fingers clean.

“Mmmm…thank you, Johnny.” You murmured and turned your face to brush your lips across his jaw, resting against him until your body felt able to support itself once more, sitting up slowly.

“Really am going to miss you…” He muttered, brushing his knuckles across your cheek and you frowned, nodding in return.

“Not as much as I’m going to miss you. Oh! I got you a present it’s…in my coat.” Look down at the state of your dress and could only imagine the state of the rest of you. You really did want to give him the two tins of his favorite tobacco tied together with a ribbon though, particularly as there was an envelope slipped between them containing your photograph.

John smirked a little and stole a kiss. “I’ll fetch it for you, you wait here.”

You laughed ruefully and dug the ticket out of your dress pocket, sharing one last, lingering kiss before he stepped out into the green room. There were more voices out there, the rest of the band surely returned from the stage, and you slid onto slightly wobbly legs to lock the door behind him. Buttoning your dress back up, you turned to the mirror and gasped before frantically trying to sort out your hair and the lipstick smeared all around your lips.

Straightening your slip, you froze as you realized you had no idea where your underwear was. A glance around the miniscule space with just a toilet and the vanity revealed they were nowhere to be found. Perhaps John did not need another gift from you. It seemed he had already taken one.

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

Nerdy Post-Script: While everyone thought the 100th would be cleared for overseas duty at the end of their training in Sioux City they were still considered unfit. The group was split up over multiple bases across the US for further training before their disastrous training flight to California in April 1943. It wasn't until an additional twenty days of intense remedial training in May 1943 that they were finally declared fit for overseas duty.

Read the sequel - Undone Before You

Masters of the Air Masterlist

[precious-little-scoundrel]

The Passion of Johnny 🥀

Summary: Bucky Egan takes it upon himself to give some wedding night advice to his dearest and most cunty, capable and very Catholic captain. Did it have to be five minutes before the aisle walk? Did it have to be by the stale communion wafers? Did it have to have include practice fingering? Brady has so many objections but better to get this over with than have it bleed into Egan’s best man’s toast…

Requested? OH YES ✔️

Circa: late summer 1945

Warnings: so much innuendo and dirty talk, this is sex Ed, after all. Catholicism but it’s not really impacting shit beyond vibes, and a decent amount of homoeroticism…it’s war buddies in a church y’all. That’s a staple. Brief illusion to past male SA.

Full credit to my babe Ashely who more than co-wrote this, she was possessed by the spirit of Bucky Egan in our chat and out came this, I have merley sprinkled verbs and adjectives and cohesion throughout her masterpiece. And to Christi who added copious devastating one liners throughout and held my damn hand while I choked on this hotness

They’re in the back of the church, in the vestry room, attending to all those last minute wedding details -the ring checks, the tie-fixing, the last minute dizzy spells. And once left alone with him, Bucky spots the lump in the groom’s pressed slacks from across the room. He snickers. Ah this'll be fun. “C'mere kid...come talk to me.” he cajoles, “Ya fast? Ya loose? Feel like throwing up?”

Bucky claps him on the back extra hard and Jack coughs dryly, hands falling from his tie.

“Listen,” Bucky goes on without being answered, “good ole Father Peter Paul Frank whoever is gonna get up there and try and tell you all about marriage and devotion and all that jazz...and he means well. sure... but I wanna make sure this marriage starts off right...so let's have a little chat. I ever steered ya wrong, huh?”

“Bucky, I uh...kinda wanted a minute alone.”

Bucky racks his eyes over the pristine and quite filled out uniform. “Yeah trust me I got eyes kid, we can get you all settled so ya don't make a complete fool of yourself in front of the entire church.” Bucky for his part is smoking in church, after having lit a cigarette off the candles, and Brady supposes this talk is necessary. Not he thinks, for the education Bucky so benficently seeks to relay, but rather to stave off the likelihood of all these tips and tricks of the trade coming out in a groomsman’s toast.

Bucky’s rowdy, handsy behavior normally never bothered him. Until now. Every back slap and chest shove and cheek pinch has him feeling funny, tingly, oddly eager and terribly alive. Johnny shouldn’t have spent all night trying to tug one out in vain, now he’s a goddamn confused mess. But he knows he wants to please Bucky, unfortunately always has and in lieu of a father in his life today -though god knows this dangerous, grinning man is no replacement- he acquiesces. Jack takes a seat in this same room he did as a child to review his catechism and Ten Commandments, and marvels how despite all the partying of last evening and the week before, with booze and anecdotes and bawdy jokes flying like flack, Bucky would wait until they’re beside the stale, surplus communion wafers to discuss conjugal functions.

He's absolutely sweating and that makes sense, it’s August. But Bucky is clapping him on the back again, beginning the talk like they didn’t already do this routine, “Ya look great kid.” He compliments. “Almost as handsome as Ida.”

It’s a very sincere compliment, Jack knows this, and it makes him roll his eyes all the harder although his cheeks burn.

“Ya nervous? Yeah? Good. You should be.” —this is followed by a signature cheek slap. “-you’ve got maneuvers to learn.”

Jack’s eyes grow a little panicked. More than nervous then. He wasn't this hard before. But the more Bucky talks about ‘maneuvers’ he's getting almost fully so. Frantically smashing the front of his pants down, groaning, “Bucky, stop. I beg you, stop. I'm about to walk down the aisle!”

Another cheek smack. “Don’t fuckin' roll your eyes at me kid, where else ya gonna learn this? The goddamn Padre? Now listen up, those two fingers, raise your fingers, those two- what the hell is that one even doing? -not like that, c'mon take this seriously.” Bucky presumptuously adjusts Jack’s long, elegant fingers, “You ever felt a cat's tongue? You know how it's sorta rough, like sandpaper? Well there's this spot inside her, it's gonna feel sorta like that, only softer. And that's the magic spot, kid. I'm telling ya, aim for that spot and you'll be golden.”

Brady, he was pleased to see, was no longer rolling his eyes. The pupils, however, had taken over the blue. "Can I- can i get to it with my tongue, Bucky?"

“Uh, no, my dear young novice, but that shouldn’t stop ya from trying. Never stop trying to get at it with whatever, anything God or your job gives ya. Christ kid, you even seen a pussy before?"

Brady manages nothing more than a big swallow, "She showed me hers."

"She showed you- when?"

"Last Wednesday."

"She showed you her Tussy Muzzy last Wednesday? Holy hell, Miss Tilly!" Egan whoops loudly before Brady shushes him with a few scowling smacks to his chest. "Well, tell me, wha'd she say when she showed you her pussy?"

Brady begins to retract, "Sir I can't

-I can't say,"

"Oh listen up, listen up good and hard, right now. What a lady says? She means, and you should always listen to her, but she never says it when she means it. So you gotta remember it and file it away. To use against her later. Nicely, of course. Jack? Wha'd she say?"

Brady, with eyes heavenward and looking like all he was missing were the drops of blood, "She said she wanted me to take her and that it -it-it was throbbing and -fuck uh, that- that it would be mine Saturday, uh that’s today, that it’d be mine anyway? Oh Fuck."

Bucky, he sees, is eating this shit up. Bucky practically whoops again, right here in church. “Miss Tilly.” he murmurs in the most salacious voice ever. “Goddamn.” he utters, “GODDAMN!” a second time much louder.

Brady stares at the embroidery on the chapel cloth. Green and gold stitching interweaving to make leaves. Eternal life and shit.

“Well,” Bucky is rallying, “since ya seen one -fucking idiot not touchin' it when you could’ve…First rule of marriage: don't go turnin' down offered pussy. And you heard her, none of that timid chivalry shit, you take her, you hear me?”

“I’m hearing you sir.”

“Didn't think she was the type.” he whistles, still stuck on the fact that Miss Tilly Macon with her straw hats and white gloves begged Jack Brady to take her in a car seat just days before, “Right, well, tell me, did ya get a good look? Was she shiny?”

“It... glittered.” Brady spaces out recalling the petals of it in the red glow of the stop light.

“Well that’s good, we’ve got something to work from kid. Alright, that cat tongue I told ya about? Can’t get to it with your tongue, gonna need your fingers. Now c’mere, closer, come here dammit. Yeah ok, so,” Bucky holds up his palm, like he’s gonna swear an oath, “you're gonna find the spot and when ya do, you’re gonna rub and rub and keep rubbing -go on, try, try it against my hand, c'mon Jack don't be a prude"

Egan watches as Brady shamefacedly begins rubbing between Bucky's thumb and forefinger with surprising skill. The kid’s a natural. “Damn, fixing my headache, ok yeah like that uhuh.”

“It’s just the C major cord.” Brady rebuts with a small eye roll that morphs into a cringe in expectation of another loving slap.

But Bucky holds his peace and bites his lips, and Brady wants to please him so, he lets Bucky ramble on and do his odd little puppet show with his fingers.

When that is over, Bucky turns and casts about for his next prop before grabbing a stack of charity bibles, cigarette still hanging out of his mouth. He begins stacking the Bibles and pretending his fingers are now Tilly and Jack and the Bibles are a makeshift bed. Like Johnny doesn’t know what human limbs look like. And Brady, he knows he’s lost a great deal of mental capacity since seeing Tilly’s scared parts, -running into doorframes and spacing out during planning, to the point where Ida and Eugene think he needs to be shrinked- but this feels more than a little silly.

“Well that’s that part. But, back to the beginning.” Bucky straightens from his demonstration, puts one leg up on the desk and despite the absence of his animated fingers, the Bibles look terribly suggestive stacked there on the mahogany edge, “First thing,” he is pointing at Jack, “when you get upstairs, ya ask her...if she's ever had an ice cream cone in July.” Bucky is nodding with a big smirk that Brady feels like he should answer, “Know what I mean huh?”

Brady shakes his head and rubs his neck bashfully, to be perfectly honest he has suspicions but this is Bucky, and it’s safer to admit he hasn’t a goddamn clue. "I'm gettin' that the ice cream cone ain't literal.” He ventures.

“Trust me,” Bucky insists, “all this boring church business... the dancing, the punch, I'll make a nice little speech that won't make your ma keel over...soon you'll be the god damn ice cream cone right there in those nicely pressed pants.” Bucky saunters over to where Jack is sitting on the table top part of the desk, takes the back of his hand and whacks Jack's noticeable bulge. “There's your ice cream cone kid.”

Jack jumps back startled on the desktop, and Bucky cackles, muttering something about Goddamn Prudes and Jack has to keep shushing him.

“Anyway...so she gets a couple licks... and then..” Bucky is pacing and wagging his finger, “…you get a little taste of your own... real important now... work the tongue in that pretty little hole and get her started…”

Jack is about to hyperventilate at this point as Bucky starts throwing out more ice cream analogies. Lots about cream. And licking. Something about cherries. Then somehow baseball works it's way in. Predictably. So many bases, first and second and bats and stroking and more cream. There is a fly on the rim of the gold chalice, at least it’s stopped it’s buzzing little circles.

“Ya got stamina buddy boy?” -Jack has got no idea how to answer that. “Ya don't wanna be the husband who blows the second ya slide into home.”

“Trust me...after last night…” Jack grouches, letting the details slip through in his angry belligerence at his own stubborn erection.

“That sucker is from last night?” Bucky howls. “You friggin Catholics don't even wear rubber socks either do ya?” Bucky is rubbing his hands together, Brady feels half sick, half close to coming untouched from all this talk about condoms and such, “I'll be uncle Bucky before the year is out and the first one better be named after me!” Bucky crows, then softens as he sees Johnny’s overwhelmed face, “It's gonna be great kid, I'm telling ya.. worth all that Nazi camp bullshit.” He sniffs roughly, “Plus..uh, ya know Tilly seems like a swell girl...makes a decent meatloaf I heard...sickness and health all that jazz…” He comes closer and claps Jack on the shoulder a few times.

Brady feels the overwhelming and embarrassing need to assure him he’s always welcome to the meatloaf.

Bucky acknowledges this with a soft, saddened smile before his beautiful, capable hands slide up Brady’s stiff shoulders and come up to cradle Jack's sweaty, rosy face, “Damn proud of ya kid.” he swears gruffly, “Think of me when ya slide in tonight... Lord knows I'll be wishing I was there…” Bucky whistles but it doesn’t feel crass, not the way it did even ten minutes ago. Brady has a lump in his throat and a stupid desire to say ‘same’ but he doesn’t because it must be some sorta fucked for him to long after a man he fought for, a man he got ready to die with, a man he’d gone to hell for, a man who he’ll still be obeying. Even tonight of all nights. Maybe the camp fucked him up worse than he knew. Or maybe it’s just Bucky and how Bucky’s always been, how he’s always been around Bucky -always his aggravated fool.

Whatever Tilley will prove to be for Jack, she’s not that. And that’s as it should be. Still, he feels like meatloaf is a small thing to offer as those hands finally slide away.

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[obessedwithfictionalmen]

Misunderstanding

John Brady X Navigator! Reader

Summary: Brady has a crush on Y/n, but it seems like someone is already with her, or is he...

Warning: Fluff/ use of Y/n/ kissing/

Word count: 1k

Y/n and Bucky have always been Y/n and Bucky since they arrived at Thorpe Abbotts. Everyone knew that they were the best of friends, and they came in a pair; everyone except John Brady. When Brady saw Y/n for the first time, he immediately fell in love; the way she walked, she smiled, she laughed, he loved everything about her. The only problem was John Egan. They were together all the time, Brady assumed that they were a couple.

She was a navigator, but she didn’t fly. She helped organise the missions, calculating where the boys would drop their bombs and how much fuel they needed, she was pretty important on the base. Egan loved to praise her, mostly her brain. Saying how smart she was and how easily she did her job. That didn’t help Brady’s mind, he was convinced that they were a couple. Instead of asking about their relationship, like a normal person, he preferred to assume their relationship, he didn’t want to embarrass himself by asking them.

Y/n was currently in her office, doing some calculations when John Brady knocked at her door. Since it was open, he just leaned against the door frame. ‘’Lieutenant Brady, hi, how may I help you’’ she smiled as she looked up at him. ‘’Hi, Lieutenant Y/l/n, I was just coming to see if, uh, you would like to go get coffee with me?’’ he asked. Y/n smiled and looked at her charts, she could use a break. ‘’Sure! I’ve been doing this for decades; a coffee wouldn’t hurt’’ she smiled as she got up her chair. Brady had to contain his joy; he bit the inside of his cheek to stop his growing smile. Y/n walked in front of him, he closed her door as they walked to the cafeteria. It was the first time he made a move on her, he’d usually watch her from afar, but today, Bucky was out of sight, so he decided to make a move.

‘’What are you working on?’’ he asked as he took a sip of coffee. ‘’Upcoming missions, I have to choose between two target spots, I have to calculate the distance, the fuel and determinate which one would be more effective and cost less in resources.’’ She explained, her eyes were sparkling. She was talking about something that she loved to do, and it showed. Y/n looked up to see Brady looking at her in a way that sent butterflies to her stomach. ‘’Why are you looking at me like that?’’ she chuckled as she took a sip of her drink. ‘’Like what?’’ he played the innocent card. ‘’Like this’’ she laughed as she mimicked his face. He giggled as he looked at her. She looked at her watch. ‘’I gotta get back to the plans, I’ve been gone for too long, and I have to do more so I can go to the party tonight’’ she babbled. He loved to listen to her, she had a beautiful voice, and he couldn’t complain about hearing it.

‘’How come you didn’t ask Laura to come with you?’’ Y/n asked Bucky as they entered the room. ‘’Because I wanted to go with you, my best friend’’ he replied. ‘’Fair enough’’ she rose her eyebrows as guys came to talk with Bucky. ‘’Excuse me for a second’’ she smiled as she walked away. Brady looked at her from across the room, she looked amazing with her dress, it changed from her usual uniform. Brady decided to not talk to her, since she came in with Bucky, he didn’t want to take their moment.

He looked at the couples dancing, imagining what it would be like to dance with Y/n, as he watched the couple, his eyes stopped on a familiar face. Why was John Egan dancing with a woman that wasn’t Y/n? And why was he kissing her?! Then, everything clicked inside his mind: They weren’t dating, Y/n and Bucky were best friends! How could have he been so stupid? Of course, and everyone on the base has been talking about their friendship. He had been blinded by love. But wait a second, if Bucky wasn’t dating Y/n, that meant she was single! He had to find her!

She was talking with Harry Crosby when she saw Brady walk towards them. She blushed as she saw him, he was her crush. She liked him a lot, he cared about her, and he was the sweetest person she’d ever met. ‘’Croz, Y/n, can I talk to you for a second?’’ he asks the woman. She nodded and they walk outside. ‘’You look beautiful’’ he complimented her. She blushed, hoping he didn’t notice the color on her cheek. ‘’Thank you, Lieutenant’’ she smiled. ‘’Please, call me Brady’’ he said, looking at her. ‘’Thank you, Brady’’ she corrected herself. ‘’Are you enjoying yourself?’’ she asked him. ‘’Yeah, I’m having fun, but I’m quite nervous’’ he admitted. ‘’Why are you nervous?’’ she asked, clueless. ‘’Well, uh, you and Bucky aren’t together, right?’’ he asked as the woman shook her head. ‘’B-because I have to be honest. I like you, Y/n, a lot’’ he blurted out. She bit her bottom lip as they stopped walking. ‘’I like you too, Brady’’ she admitted. He was in shock, she liked him back! ‘’R-r-really?’’ he stuttered. She nodded. ‘’Yeah, I like you a lot, too’’ she said again.

He was grinning like the town idiot, and she was smiling and blushing. They were like 12-year-olds, they were holding hands as they walked around base. ‘’Is it okay if I kiss you?’’ he asked her. ‘’It’s more than okay’’ she replied, smiling. He leaned in to kiss her, she stood on her tippy toes to help him. When their lips touched, it felt like fireworks, passion, love and attraction was in the mixt when they kissed. Both of his hands were on her cheeks, holding her. Y/n’s hands were behind his neck. ‘’Well, I’ll be damned. Finally! It was painful, seeing you guys drool over the other!’’ Bucky exclaimed, his arm over Laura’s shoulder. Brady and Y/n took a step back as they looked at the disturbance. ‘’You guys are so cute together!’’ Laura exclaimed. Y/n giggled as she looked at Brady. ‘’Damn right we are’’ he said, putting his arm over Y/n’s shoulder. ‘’But if you hurt her, watch your back’’ Bucky warned. ‘’I don’t plan on it’’ he said, holding eye contact with Y/n. ‘’You better’’ the woman smiled as they watched Bucky leaving. ‘’Yeah, I’ve liked you for too long to hurt you’’

[bunbunbl0gs]

Sunset date with Trevor ☀️🌅

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