#Shiny summer challenge

[lesparaversdemillina]

Bilan du Shiny Summer Challenge 2024

Bilan du Shiny Summer Challenge 2024 J'ai adoré le créer et y participer avec vous. J'ai aimé lire vos retours et voir que malgré le thème sur l'Egypte difficile, vous vous en êtes bien sortie.

[alapagedeslivres]

Addiction aux livres : La bibliothèque des livres brûlés de Brianna LABUSKES

[sansaorgana]

hii 😊 can you please write benny x yn where she thinks he’s a player so she doesn’t want to give him a chance and go on a date with someone else and that drives him crazy and he does everything for her to see him differently, even asks kathy to put in a good word for him

hi! 💝 I know you sent it like 2 hours ago – I swear, I am not insane but I was itching so badly to write something about Benny that... it's already here 👀 as much as I adore the fics with innocent, sweet Readers – my Reader talks back 😇🤭 I hope it's fine 😘

[ I haven't abandoned the three requests from my inbox from the last time, I promise ]

requests for benny are open 🥺🎀

Benny Cross was an insufferable guy. He was showing up at your diner nearly every day and always asking for the same thing with the same smug smile on his pretty full lips – and always getting your annoyed eye-rolls each time. Yeah, he was pretty and you wouldn’t deny that. And yeah, you could see why so many girls saw the appeal. Bad boys were in fashion now… Well, actually, where had they not been? But you didn’t want to end up as a girl in trouble. Perhaps you were just an ordinary waitress but you still didn’t want to ruin your life for a player. And you couldn’t understand why he wanted you so badly.

“I think it’s because you turned him down,” Kathy explained to you the other day. She was your friend and recently she had also been strangely associated with Benny’s motorbike gang – The Vandals. Ever since her breakup, you could not recognise her, honestly.

“I turned him down, exactly,” you emphasised. “Why can’t guys learn that no means no?” You sighed.

“Oh, please, it must feel… Flattering to be chased by a guy like Benny, right?” Kathy giggled and you looked away, trying not to reveal that yeah, she was right.

“Listen, I just don’t want to end up like my cousin. She had a one night stand with this bad boy at college and guess what? She had to drop out, now she’s a single baby mama and the guy? God only knows where. Some say he married another chick in Nevada,” you explained to Kathy.

“But you’re not in college,” she pointed out as her eyes widened and you just rolled your eyes.

Jesus, what was going on with her these days?

You couldn't know that it was Benny himself telling her to "spread the propaganda" so you'd be more willing to finally agree to go out with him. You couldn't know that you were driving this man crazy – driving him crazier than his motorbike. He would wake up at night all sweaty and all he could think about was you.

You were a tough cookie and you were a challenge – that was for sure. But Benny knew it was more than that. He already knew that his desire would not disappear after claiming you. In fact, it would only grow once he'd get a taste. He was serious about you and he was desperate for you to see it.

When Marcus Lane asked you out, you were speechless. You were walking out of a flower store with a fresh bouquet to put on your grandfather’s grave and he whistled at you.

You turned around and raised an eyebrow at the guy leaning on his car. And God, what a car that was… A shiny, black Cadillac that made your eyes sparkle.

“Hi!” You waved at him. “You’re back from college,” you pointed out.

“Yeah,” he nodded at you and lit a cigarette. He offered you one but you shook your head. “Couldn’t wait to visit my neighbourhood. I’m staying with my ma until the end of summer,” he explained. “Then I got a job for myself in New York City,” he bragged so casually.

You had always thought he was full of himself and full of shit, too, but out of all the guys in your high school year he had been the one who would succeed most likely. Apparently, it was true. He was going places.

“And how’s Camilla?” You asked him.

“We broke up,” he winced. “What you doing tonight?”

You blinked a few times and fixed your skirt. Marcus Lane asking you out?

“Nothin’,” you answered and tilted your head.

“Wanna go and see a picture?” Marcus asked.

“Yeah!” You nodded, not even asking what picture.

“Still living with your ma?”

“Yeah,” you answered.

“I’ll pick you up at six,” he winked at you and you only nodded at him before walking away, not being able to hide a smile.

On your way back from the graveyard, you stopped by the laundry to tell Kathy the news but she didn’t look excited.

“He’s a knobhead, isn’t he? Always has been,” she shook her head.

“Wow, gee, thanks for being happy for me! You know he’s goin’ places and… He’s gonna be somebody,” you couldn’t help a grin.

“Don’t even start,” Kathy put her hands on her hips but you kept on a dreamy expression, so she snapped her fingers right in front of your face. “Guys like Marcus Lane do not date girls like us, wake up.”

“Why would he ask me out then?” You got defensive because your feelings and pride were hurt – mostly because you had a feeling Kathy was right.

“Because he’s back for the summer and bored? He saw you and thought he could play with you for a while before he leaves forever? Because he thinks a silly girl he remembers from high school might be an easy fuck for the summer?” Kathy asked and asked as your anxiety grew.

“Wow, thanks,” you got angry because you hated how right she could be. And sometimes you hated how honest she was instead of feeding your delusions. “I’m going out with him tonight and I’m not gonna sleep with him,” you told her before walking out to go back home and prepare for the night.

You wore a red polka dot top and tight jeans for the date instead of a dress. Marcus didn’t comment but he looked a little disappointed and you could see that on his face. He kept staring at your thighs as he drove you to the cinema, which increased your anxiety that Kathy could had been right indeed… More than you had expected.

You went to see Bonnie and Clyde and after the movie, Marcus insisted on taking you to a club in the neighbourhood. It was one of those places you would never go to alone but with a man around, you felt safer. At least you should feel this way. But something about Marcus was not right. Why would a proper guy like him even want to take you to a club like that? Perhaps because he was seeing you as a girl like that. You didn’t disagree, though. The idea of getting free drinks was tempting.

“Looks like some of those dirty bums have a meeting here tonight,” he murmured to himself as you walked inside and you sighed at the sight of The Vandals themselves.

The whole place was full of cigarette smoke and it stank of sweat, leather and grease.

“I hate those punks,” Marcus winced. “Sit here, I’ll get us something to drink,” he winked at you as he sat you down by one of the tables and you nodded,

He walked away, without even asking you what you wanted. You looked around, feeling out of place and then you spotted him… Benny Cross by the pool table. You quickly looked the other way but he glanced in your direction and smirked.

You pretended to be very fascinated by the posters on the wall but he sat by the table next to yours and kept grinning at you with his flashy smile, his muscles all on display as he rested his arms on the chair’s backrest.

Seeing you there, it made his heart skip a beat. And those tight blue jeans, that red top... Benny was smug for a moment, thinking that you finally decided to hang out with him. He had been inviting you to this club many times before.

However, he quickly realised that you weren' there alone. And the guy you came with made him feel sick in his stomach. Not only because he looked like a typical piece of shit that would take advantage of a girl like you... But also because this guy represented everything that Benny was not. And it was making him feel insecure at the moment. Of course your standards were higher than a guy like him. That was one of the reasons why he liked you so much.

Still, he decided to play his little game and annoy you a little.

Marcus came back with two drinks in his hand and he looked Benny up and down before placing a drink in front of you.

“That punk bothering you?” He asked – quite bravely, you had to admit. But Benny remained the same as if he was a statue.

“For weeks now,” you chuckled and watched Marcus take a seat in front of you, still glancing angrily at Benny on your right. 

“Is he stupid or somethin’?” Marcus asked.

“It’s fine. Let’s just pretend he’s not here,” you shrugged your arms.

In fact, you enjoyed it. And you wanted to pretend to like Marcus more than you did so Benny would finally realise you were not interested.

Still… You couldn’t help an odd feeling of safety now when he was sitting next to you and some part of you didn’t want him to walk away and leave you alone with Marcus.

“So, what do you think about the movie?” Marcus asked and sipped on his drink as you sipped on yours. Benny raised an eyebrow at you.

“We were in the cinema to watch Bonnie and Clyde,” you informed him quickly as if he was in the audience and you were an actress in the theatre but he was late and you wanted him to catch on. He nodded his head like a little boy and Marcus gritted his teeth. “Well,” you addressed your date now as you fixed your hair nonchalantly. “I adored it. And Warren Beatty was beautiful as always.”

“I don’t like him,” Marcus commented. “And I didn’t like the movie much. My favourite part was when they got killed.”

“Why?” You asked. It was already getting difficult to pretend to like him. And Benny seemed to be interested by his answer too – he tilted his head.

“Because they were outlaws and a couple of twisted psychos!” Marcus got irritated – at Benny still being there and at you asking such silly questions with such obvious answers.

“Yeah, they were but there’s also some romanticism to it, don’t you think? That’s why they made a movie about them. And why did you even go to see a movie about people you despise so much?” You asked and sipped on your drink again.

“You can’t be serious. There’s nothing romantic about murdering people,” Marcus started sounding very patronising and you suddenly realised that Kathy had been right. So, so much. You were a silly girl in his eyes.

“Murdering – no. But the life they had. The love, the freedom on the road,” you tried to explain.

“You want freedom on the road? Ask one of those bums here to show you,” Marcus laughed with irony and he squinted his eyes at Benny. “What you still doing here, punk? How can I get it into your thick head that you’re not a part of this conversation? It’s my date,” he scoffed.

“It’s my girl,” Benny leaned back with a smug smile and your heart skipped a beat.

Usually, when he’d call you that, you would get angry. But now, when Marcus had been annoying you for the whole evening, you actually enjoyed that. Because Marcus’ face was priceless. He looked at you with disgust.

“Is this true?” He asked you. “What the hell is going on?”

But before you could answer, some drunk and loud biker entered the club loudly as he laughed out loud.

“Fuck, I’ve scratched some Cadillac in the front!” He announced and sat by the counter to order beer. You couldn’t help but chuckle at that and Marcus’ face went as red as tomato.

He stood up rapidly, gave you a furious look and then ran outside to check on his beloved car, surely. Not caring much about the fact he was leaving you alone with dangerous men swarming around.

“So…” Benny started lazily as he licked his lips before looking you up and down. “That’s your type?” He pointed his thumb at the door Marcus had just left through. “That why you didn’t want me to take you out?”

“Why did you do that?” You asked, genuinely and his face got serious now.

“I saw you sittin’ here all alone, for a moment I thought… You came here for me,” he admitted with a laugh. “Then I saw that guy and I thought to myself: Jesus, what an asshole. So, I wanted to watch,” he shrugged his arms and you couldn’t help but stare at the flexing muscles and all the tattoos.

“He’s a proper guy. Graduated from college and with a job waiting for him in New York City,” you explained.

“But you’re not a proper girl,” Benny pointed out with a grin and you suddenly got a flashback of Kathy telling you the same thing – that you were just a silly girl for Marcus, just an easy fuck for the summer… 

You stood up rapidly and Benny looked up with a confused look on his face but you ignored him and left the club, hoping Marcus was still there and you could explain to him that you weren’t Benny’s girl… Maybe he’d drive you home?

But Marcus wasn’t there anymore. The only vehicles in the parking lot were motorbikes. You sighed and started walking in the direction of the bus stop but the door opened behind you. You heard heavy footsteps and then the sound of lighting a cigarette. Turning around slightly, you spotted Benny following you.

“Just wanted to point out that proper girls don’t find Bonnie and Clyde romantic,” with a few big steps he was now walking next to you.

“It’s not the murdering aspect, gee, why do I have to explain it so many times?” You got irritated.

“I didn’t say anything ‘bout it. You said something about the freedom and the road. You ever been on the open road like that?” Benny asked and you already knew what he wanted to propose because he had been mentioning it many times before while flirting with you at the diner.

“Fine,” you rolled your eyes. “I need a ride home,” you admitted and bit on your lower lip. “And no, I’ve never been. On the open road, I mean,” you added, feeling your cheeks heating up.

Benny didn’t say anything, he only nodded before throwing his cigarette on the ground and walking away to jump on his motorbike. He started the engine and patiently waited for you to finally join him. Feeling the rush of adrenaline going through your body, you clumsily sat behind him and he made the engine roar like a lion – a very sexy sound, you had to admit – but he didn’t start driving. You realised he was giving you a signal to hold onto something before he would drive away. It was considerate of him, you had to admit. Other guys would just drive away and laugh at your squealing. But Benny wanted you to be safe and for the second time on that night you realised that he was making you feel safe. Safer than a proper guy like Marcus – for sure. And you just didn’t know what to do with this information.

You wrapped your arms around his waist, told him your address and that was when the engine roared again but this time he drove away.

And God, something broke inside of you that moment. It was as if your brain chemistry changed completely. The speed, the wind in your hair, the freedom – this odd feeling that he could take you anywhere like this and you would go with him… To the point that when you spotted him taking a turn that led to your street, you nearly felt disappointed that he wasn’t “kidnapping” you. Perhaps in this moment you understood your cousin even – why had it been so tempting to risk everything for a handsome bad boy.

Benny parked the motorbike in front of your house and you could already spot your mum standing by the window upstairs and looking out through the curtain. You chuckled at the realisation you would have to explain to her how your date with Marcus ended with a guy like Benny taking you home.

“Thanks,” you only said as you got off the bike, still clinging to his leather jacket to make sure you wouldn’t trip and fall. You were a little breathless after that ride.

“And? What do you think?” He asked as he raised an eyebrow.

“It was… Okay,” you grinned, not wanting to give him satisfaction.

“Why do you tease me so much?” Benny sighed.

He was done with playing for now. He just wanted to know the answer. Perhaps it would finally make him give up. Or perhaps it would educate him on the matter how to flirt with you better. Either way, he just wanted the truth.

“Why do you insist so much? I mean, I ain’t nothing special to chase me around for weeks,” you shrugged your arms. “And don’t get me wrong – or actually do get me wrong, the hell do I care? – but I don’t want to be just another number in your book, Benny,” you explained and Benny thought to himself that he wished you could see yourself through his eyes.

“You’re a whole book, kitty,” he winked at you and you couldn’t help but chuckle at that. Sometimes his flirting had this effect on you whether you liked it or not. “And I can’t wait to read it all,” he added, encouraged by your reaction.

“You can read?” You asked, teasingly.

“I’m full of surprises,” he smirked.

“That I see,” you laughed. “Um… I should go now… My ma’s watching us.”

“I can see,” Benny nodded and looked up at the window upstairs. He waved his hand and you grabbed him by his wrist to pull it down.

“Stop it!” You kept laughing at him and then you realised your face was only a few inches away from his as he was still sitting on his motorbike, ready to drive away any given moment.

A short moment of silence occurred between you two and you just kept staring into each other’s eyes as playful smiles disappeared from your faces. You swallowed thickly and fixed his jacket, not knowing what to do with your hands.

“You have a shift tomorrow?” He broke the silence.

“In the evening,” you nodded.

“So… See you?” Benny asked, unsurely.

“See you,” you smiled at him and he smiled back, relieved. “And hey, thanks for… For being there for me when I was with the… With the asshole,” you lowered your voice and took a step back to give him space now – finally.

“No need to thank me,” he shrugged his arms. “It’s just the thing I do, ain’t it?”

You furrowed your brows at those words.

“Protectin’ my girl,” he winked at you and the engine roared, making you take a few more steps back. And then he drove away – just like that.

Shaking your head and hugging your own self to feel warmer, you walked to the front door of your house, biting on your lip and not being able to help a chuckle.

Apparently, Benny had already decided that you were his girl. And, apparently – you enjoyed it.

MASTERLIST || BENNY MASTERLIST

[precious-little-scoundrel]

Masters of the Air Fanfic

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

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

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

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

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

Word count: a monstrous 12k

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Suggestions” was Egan’s term for regulations.

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

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

“-I don’t have the authority-“

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

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

-Americans and their nicknames.

“Yeah.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Damn.” he swore, playing at dejection.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“And now the texas girl has-“

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

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

“Well, no-“

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Where’s that?” he asked.

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

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

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

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

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

“To the Poles?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Other performances. For instance, in bed.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

“-Do I what?” you prodded softly.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

He was hugging you, you realized with delayed surprise.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“I guess that’s true.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“A cherub.” he repeated in disbelief.

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

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

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

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

“None.”

“I’m terribly sorry.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Only to kiss you.

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

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

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

“Not Wordsworth!” Harry clarified.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

If you’d have only known.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“There are things of which I may not speak;

There are dreams that cannot die;

There are thoughts that make the strong heart weak,

And bring a pallor into the cheek,

And a mist before the eye.

And the words of that fatal song

Come over me like a chill:—

“A boy’s will is the wind’s will,

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

Strange to me now are the forms I meet

When I visit the dear old town;

But the native air is pure and sweet,

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

As they balance up and down,

Are singing the beautiful song,

Are sighing and whispering still:—

“A boy’s will is the wind’s will,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“I know.” he agreed miserably.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“I guess you did.” you agreed.

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

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

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

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

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

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

“No?”

“No.”

“So where’d they go?” Buck asked.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“And I’m yours.” he concluded.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Yeah, Buck?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[wildemaven]

confessions | tim rockford

pairing: tim rockford x f!reader word count: 1349 warnings: 18+ blog; beer consumption, Tim is older than reader but no age given (not more than 10+ years), fluff, pining, secret crushes, kissing, fluff, one mention of calling Tim ‘old’ in a playful manner, (none of these pictures dictate the appearance of reader, this is all purely for vibes and up for your own interpretation) notes: this is my first Tim fic and I’m so excited to be apart of the Summer Lovin’ challenge out on by @pedgito @chaotic-mystery @amanitacowboy Big shout out to @gnpwdrnwhiskey for giving it a once over for me!! I appreciate you!!

“Thanks again for coming.” You lean over and say before hiding behind the sip from your plastic cup of ice cold beer. 

“Of course. It’s a bummer your date couldn’t make it.” Tim says now leaning slightly over in your direction so you can hear him. 

The music isn’t loud. More of a steady hum as a slower ballad is played on stage. Low enough that you can carry on an easy conversation without shouting over blasting speakers. 

“Yeah. Definitely a bummer he couldn’t make it. I don’t think I’d be having as much fun as I am if I was alone— so thank you.” You almost feel bad about lying. Your date that canceled on you last minute for this very concert you’re attending right now with your partner instead. 

Expect Tim doesn’t know that there never was a date prior to him accepting your last minute invitation to be your plus one. His detective skills certainly are not keen on the slight crush you've had for the man for some time now. 

“You don’t have to keep thanking me. I wouldn’t have come if I didn’t want to be here. It’s kind of a bonus that they’re one of my favorite bands. Missed out on getting tickets. So I should be thanking you.” Tim bumps your arm playfully with his elbow before directing his attention back to the stage where the lead singer is ripping on his shiny black electric guitar. 

“Oh! I didn’t realize that when I asked you. I’m so glad it worked out like this.” Another lie. 

You knew it was one of Tim’s favorite bands. Overheard him one morning in the break room talking about this upcoming tour and how it’s been a dream of his to see them live. The only problem was this exact venue had sold out before he had gotten a chance to even attempt to get tickets. 

It pays to know people. Especially the kind of people who owe you favors. You had immediately called in the favor and you were able to secure two tickets that were relatively close to the stage without any issues. 

Tim Rockford has been your partner at the police department for the last three years. The crush you’ve been quietly harboring for him has been alive for nearly the same amount of time. 

You tried to not feel guilty while flat out lying to him about the whole thing. Especially right now with how much he is enjoying himself. His head bobbing in time with the beat. The words so effortlessly fall  from his mouth as he sings along to each song. 

As the song plays on, you don’t see the way Tim is admiring you thoroughly enjoying the music. Your arms high in the air, falling into a rhythmic wave that mirrors the other concert goers. What surprises him most, and finds almost angelic, is the way you sing word for word without missing a beat, making him even more grateful you asked him to come now, so he could witness such a sight. 

“I’m surprised you know all the words.” He says with a grin that makes your stomach swoop instantly. 

“Of course I do. It’s a good song.” You’d only discovered it when you began your rigorous studying of the band’s entire discography after securing the tickets. But Tim doesn’t need to know that— yet. “They’re a great band for being around for so long.” 

He shoots you a pained look.

“A great band for being around for so long? Sweetheart, I was listening to them in high school. You calling me old?” He turns fully to you in the small row where your seats have been abandoned for the better part of the show. His signature Detective Rockford stance, hip cocked out and hand secure at his waist band, is way less intimidating when he’s dressed in his off duty casual clothes and unarmed. 

“Well, not as old as my dad…” Technically, Tim isn’t not much older than you, but the years between you were enough for there to be a difference in tastes of music. You shrug your shoulders at him, not sure if he’s picking up the flirty tone you’ve adopted in the last few minutes. “But if the shoe fits, I guess.” 

“I’m hurt— wounded.” Tim grabs at the front of his shirt, the fabric bunching under his grip. 

“What was that?” You cup your hand over your ear and lean back into him. “I can’t hear you over your knees popping every time you stand up.” 

His smile drops and it has you feeling like you might have crossed a line that has blown any chance of ever being something more serious with Tim. 

“Tim— I was totally kidding. I’m so sor—“ Tim cuts you off before you can properly apologize to him. 

Tim’s lips are softer than you had imagined them being, slotted perfectly over yours. The music playing is no longer the main event for you, fading into the background as Tim conveys to you his own undisclosed feelings for you through the kiss. It’s a moment that feels straight out of one of your favorite rom-com movies. 

“I hope I haven’t been reading this whole thing wrong and I didn’t just make an ass out of myself by shutting up that pretty mouth of yours.” Tim’s musky cologne mixes with the beer he’d been savoring as his words fan across your face at such a close proximity. 

“No. You definitely didn’t— to both things.” A cool breeze sweeps through, alleviating the warmth that’s settled on your skin. “I have a confession to make.” 

“What’s that?” His thumb grazes over the apple of your cheek. It’s gentle effort helps ease all of your shot nerves. 

“There was no date. I got the tickets and planned to ask you. I didn’t want to sound desperate or weird, so I made it seem like I was going with someone else and that they canceled at the last minute.” 

“Oh— well I guess I should confess something to you then.” There’s a small hint of relief that you detect in his voice at your confession, you wouldn’t be one of the best detectives in your department to let that tell slide by unseen. “I was jealous of your non-existent date.” 

“Really?!” 

A light fluttering sensation swirls through you. Sincerity etched in the flecks of the warm brown eyes staring back at you. 

“Yeah. Heard you talking about it with everyone at work. I’d be lying if I said there wasn’t a small part of me that had wished it was me going with you.” 

“You’re only saying that because it’s your favorite band playing right now.” 

You amusingly roll your eyes and push at his solid unmoving arm, but he catches your wrist before you can pull away. 

“Nah, I would have been jealous even if it was that Bieber kid.” Tim maneuvers his hand around yours, interlocking your fingers together. 

“Good to know, Rockford. I'll remember that for next time.” 

The chords of a new song fill the air. A vivacious energy spreads through the crowd like a wildfire. It’s not enough to break the small bubble Tim and you are currently existing in. 

“Next time? So what does that mean for us then, Sweetheart?” His brows knit together. He’s hopeful at the prospect of a next time, but doesn’t want to be too expectant and scare you away before he even has a chance to have you. 

“I don’t know. Let’s listen to the rest of this concert. Then afterwards you can take me to that old diner you love over on Pine Street. Order some food and we can talk until they threaten to kick us out.”

“If I’m not mistaken, that kind of sounds like the perfect first date.” He delivers another weak-in-the-knee inducing smile and you can’t help but mirror it with a little wink. 

“Way to use those detective skills.” 

It’s your turn to kiss him. It doesn’t linger as long as you’d like, but the night is still young. 

[almostfoxglove]

AIN'T THAT A BITE

written for @studioghibelli's writing challenge

Fandom: The Last of Us (TV), The Last of Us (Video Game)

Rating: Mature

Central Characters: Reader, Young!Joel, Sarah

Central Relationship: Joel / Reader

Word Count: 6k

Pre-Outbreak & No-Outbreak AU

SUMMARY

It's the night of Jackson High's Sock Hop, the 8th grade dance which took you weeks to organize, and everything seems determined to go wrong. Thankfully, one student's dad—the handsome and brooding Joel Miller—comes to your rescue. READ ON AO3, if that's your jam!

Four weeks ago, volunteering to organize the eighth-grade dance committee had seemed like an excellent idea—a chance to make a solid first impression on the PTA and the chilly cast of your new colleagues while giving yourself a little excitement, some frivolous living beyond the usual boredom of your repetitive existence. Lesson plan, grade, report card, lesson plan, grade, report card—you love your job, but it gets old.

But now, on the night of Jackson High’s September Sock Hop, you know you’ve made a terrible mistake. Someone brought cookies with walnuts that had to be ceremoniously tossed, one of the speakers in the gym is crackling, three of your parent chaperones have bailed, and oh, yes—a sink in the girls’ bathroom has decided to spring a sudden leak and flood the place a mere fifteen minutes before the kids are due to show up.

Drenched and sweating, you make a hopeless attempt to mop the flood of water with the gym’s supply of linens, turning the tiled floor into a swamp of soggy towels that squelch beneath your shoes. It’s all a futile effort—the burst pipe beneath the far left sink is spewing water faster than the towels can sponge—but here you are, trying anyway, looking like you’ve just taken a long walk in a fucking monsoon. 

A row of square mirrors sits framed above each ceramic sink, taunting you with your reflection. Your red poodle skirt has gone burgundy with water and your once pristine white button-up clings to your chest, translucent, peek-a-booing your bra. 

Real professional. 

“Miss Green?” comes a voice on the other side of the door, followed by a weary knock. “Believe students are arriving now.”

With a sigh, you take a final glare at your reflection as if looking again might fix things, then call out, “Alright,” with as much patience as you have left to muster. Outside the calculus teacher is waiting in his pin-stripe vest with a sorry grimace. He agrees to lock up that bathroom from use and with a tired thank you you click down the hall towards the school doors, stomach raw with nerves.

As promised the first, eager attendees stand outside Jackson High’s wide glass doors, giddy to be let in for the night’s event. Kids are in everything from pastel poodle skirts to leather jackets and waitress get-ups—you even spot the Broderick twins in matching, vintage baseball uniforms striped with strawberry red. Behind them stand their parents, some smiling and others bleary-eyed, who you force yourself to smile cheerfully for as you let them in, a clipboard held over your chest to hide your bra.

You don’t miss how the parents stare at you—soaking wet and clearly befuddled—and you mutter your apologies as they shuffle into the school. All but the main hall has been blocked off, leaving the children a one-way path to the gymnasium for the dance. You check your watch quickly; maybe you can sneak in a quick smoke around the corner before the rest of the eighth graders arrive.

Outside the air is perfect: your one reprieve. Blue-dark clouds haunt the star-pocked sky and the balmy remains of the dying summer sweep through the parking lot as a breeze. You breathe easily for the first time in an hour, lift your face, and close your eyes, stitching yourself together in the calm. 

When you’re steady again, you decide against the smoke break. Too many parents pulling up in shiny cars with the kids. It’s enough to feel them in your skirt pocket—an escape hatch when you need them, a totem when you don’t. A nasty habit, your mother always says. But you only allow yourself two cigarettes a year. Not so bad, as habits go.

You’re about to turn back in and see if you can’t call a plumber at this hour when a pickup groans into the lot—steely-blue, bold text stickered on the side. It pulls not into a parking spot but the drop-off zone, right in front of you.

Miller Construction Ltd.

Maybe miracles are real after all.

As the passenger window rolls down and the cab light blinks on inside, you rush over, desperation rocketing your heart around in your chest. A girl in a lilac poodle skirt blinks up at you from the passenger seat, eyes wide with surprise. She’s got her hair pulled back in two big, curly pigtails ribboned with bows, and looks adorable—exactly what you’d pictured when you took on the behemoth task of putting this whole stupid evening together—complete with a matching neck scarf and shiny black shoes. You give her what you hope is a friendly grin and start rambling.

“I am so sorry,” you say, before you bother looking at the driver. “But we’ve got a plumbing emergency and if there is any chance you might have a few minutes to take a look at it, you’d be a—”

Your sentence drops off as you at last hunch down to make eye contact with the man in the driver’s seat through the open window. Dark-eyed and frowning, all curls and scruffy beard and thick flannel shirt: your type to a T. In your pause his daughter stifles a chuckle, and you shake your head to restart your brain. Focus. Sinks to fix, floods to mop.

With a tight grin, you tuck a stray hair behind your ear. “Would be a lifesaver if you could, I don’t know, take a look. Even if it’s just to tell me we’re fucked and need an emergency plumber. We had a bunch of parent chaperones bail last minute, so we’re a little short on hands.”

Now the kid snorts, giggling. Shit—your teacher-voice has slipped. 

You close your eyes, horrified. Seems there’ll be no end to your embarrassment today.

Sighing, you step back to open the passenger door so the girl can hop out. “If you promise not to tell any grown-ups I swore in front of you,” you tell her. “I’ll give you all As when you get to my class in a couple years.”

“Deal,” the girl says, grinning at you. “But I’d probably get an A anyway.”

Despite yourself, you smile—this time for real.

“You ain’t her teacher?” comes the driver’s voice. Deep and coarse, all Texan. When you glance back, he’s still frowning, eyes narrowed at you.

“Tenth grade English and History,” you say. 

“And you’re workin’ the eighth-grade dance,” he says.

You shrug. “I’m new. Thought it’d go over well if I came in eager and offered to plan the thing.”

He hmphs, expressionless, his skin golden under the overhead light, eyes glinting with amber. You’re almost glad the kid’s not in your class; parent-teacher interviews would be torture. Sitting across your desk from this man, forced to pretend you don’t want him to ruin you. 

Beside you on the sidewalk, the girl shoots her dad a daggered look and crosses her arms. “He’s free,” she says. “He can do it.”

“Sarah,” the man hisses. 

“Oh, I’m sorry,” she snarks. “Do you suddenly have a social calendar I don’t know about?”

After a brief stare-down which Sarah seems to win, he huffs and mutters a cranky one second before pulling out of the drop-off zone to park. 

“I like your skirt,” Sarah says when he’s gone. Streetlamps have you both in a cloak of shadow, and the pale light radiating from the school’s front doors doesn’t quite reach this spot, but her inquisitive expression is unmissable in the dark. 

“It’s a little ruined,” you say sheepishly. “But I like yours.” 

Pleased, she gives you a little twirl, purple fabric blooming from her waist. “Thanks,” she says, when she stills again. “My dad sewed on the poodle.” 

Across the lot you hear the harsh slam of a car door cracking shut and spot her glowering father stalk across the asphalt, silhouetted by a distant streetlight, his shoulders unfairly broad. You nod toward the front doors. You’d never admit it to anyone, but the thought of this surly figure lovingly stitching a felt poodle to his daughter’s costume makes you a little weak in the knees.

“You can go on in,” you tell Sarah, and she waves at her dad before running inside.

Then he’s walking up the pavement, growing closer. Of course he smells good—like patchouli and something earthy and skin. Of course he’s rolled up his sleeves, baring his tanned forearms, one tensed by the toolbox clutched in his hand. You manage a stiff grin as he approaches, no teeth, to which you receive only a curt nod in reply. 

In silence, you walk him through the glassy doors, heels clicking as swing music crackles from the gymnasium some distance away. You catch, in the corner of your eye, the shape of his head turning as he watches Sarah running full-speed down the main hall to catch up with a group of girls that must be her friends. She launches herself at them, and even at this distance you hear the shrill of their joy, the sugar-high laughter, and smile to yourself.

“She’s sweet,” you say, guiding him into a branching hallway, away from the main event.

He grunts, then mumbles, “Pain in my ass is what she is.”

You chuckle. When you dare to look back at him again, you see his begrudging tone doesn’t match his expression. You swear his eyes flit quickly away as if you’ve caught him already looking at you. Hard to be sure, you think, in this dimmer light. But his cheeks almost look pink.

After a beat too long, you realize why.

You’ve dropped your clipboard to your side without thinking, unveiling your water-logged shirt, which clings sheerly to your skin. Grimacing, you cover yourself again. “Not much of a plumber,” you say quietly.

Once you’ve grabbed the keys back from your colleague, you drag this poor, probably busy dad to the girls’ bathroom and unlock the door, glancing down at his boots before you open it. “You don’t love those shoes, do you?” you ask.

His eyebrows lift, jaw tensing. “Sure they’ll be fine, darlin’,” he grunts.

You push into the bathroom before your brain has the chance to recover from darlin’. You’ve been in Texas all of six months and you still aren’t used to the pet names. Everyone here seems to call each other everything. Even the old woman who works the till at the grocer by your apartment calls you honey or angel, and you wouldn’t exactly describe her as the friendly type. Darlin’ isn’t even irregular. Bus drivers call you that. 

Difference here is that it’s this man saying it—which is to say, someone gorgeous with a voice that could melt you if you let yourself listen close enough. Your heart purrs, thrilled.

The bathroom is a calamity. Though the drains in the center of the tiled floor have meant no water has flooded into the hallway, there’s still an inch or so blanketing the tiles wall to wall. Under one of the mirrors, the guilty sink continues to spew: a graceful font of silver gushing from a fault in the pipe.

Over your shoulder you hear Sarah’s dad clear his throat before you step out of his way.

Fearless, he trudges through the mess unfazed, dodging the tides of boggy towels like this is the most natural habitat to find himself in. His boots and the ankles of his jeans blacken with water, and though you’re in some stupid, clacky pair of heels to go with your outfit, you follow him into the shallows anyway, riddled with shame. At the slosh of your footsteps behind him, Sarah’s dad turns to give you a cutting stare you cannot read and you freeze, caught.

“What?” you say.

“No reason you gotta be in here for this,” he says. “Might be wise to dry off a little, don’t you think?”

Does the corner of his mouth twitch upward, or do you imagine it—you can’t decide. “Right,” you manage. “Sorry. Thank you, seriously.”

You pivot to leave him to it, splashing weakly as you go, your skirt bunched in one hand to keep it safe from the splatter. In the doorway you can’t help but look back, and see him kneeling in the mess, tool in hand, his toolbox open and shelved on a not-broken sink. He spots you looking and this time, you don’t imagine it. He lets slip half a grin. 

“Got it from here,” he says.

You nod but don’t move and you don’t know why.

Well, that’s not true. You do.

Sarah’s dad cocks one dark eyebrow at you, bemused, maybe, by your hesitation. “You really have chaperones bail?” he asks, voice low.

“Three,” you say.

He grunts, then turns his attention back to the spitting sink, and you step out into the dim hallway without goodbye.

You slip into the bathrooms in the teacher’s lounge to stand under the hand dryer for a bit, letting your shirt dry out. When it’s no longer see-through, you stand in front of the long mirrors looking at yourself, fussing. You retouch your lipstick—red, like your skirt, like your nails—though the hair’s a lost cause. The best you can do is run a hand through the end bits and say an empty prayer.

Then, finally, you emerge, and take off with a sidelong glance thrown at the closed door of the flooded girls’ bathroom as you pass.

You volunteered four weeks ago, and you spent three of those weeks working on the decorations in tiny pockets of time between the school day, your commute home, and all the hours you spend every evening and weekend on lesson plans and marking. Maybe it’s only September, but the whole staff has been working since August and it’s no slower now than it will be in the spring. Still, you gave up sleep. Gave up seeing friends. Gave up proper, home-cooked meals and reverted to the habits of your college days, eating boxed mac and cheese straight from the pot over the stove. 

Now, it all pays off. 

The gymnasium’s a goddamn ritz. Ribbons of twinkle lights droop from the rafters, sparkling above the scatter of a disco ball. You thrifted huge, vintage neon signs—with your own money, thanks so much public school district—that cast pools of candy-colored light on the shiny floor. Gingham tablecloths sheath the drink stands. You had to bribe the theater department to let you repurpose an old bartop set from some long-gone play. Painted that sucker with black and white checkers, even scrounged up some round, pleather bar stools to match. Instead of a bar-bar, it’s a snack bar—pastel cupcakes and dairy-free milkshakes and huge metal bowls of nut-free, everything-free snack mixes displayed behind the bar. Kids all get three snack tickets ‘cause the PTA had strong feelings about sugar intake, but hey. All the bar stools are full; the kids seem to love it.

Despite the last-minute disasters, you’re tempted to cry with relief. Slept three hours last night, painting the last of the stars that hang overhead, but they look like magic now. Glossy and twinkling while Elvis plays. It looks pretty close to perfect. And the kids, by some miracle, are dancing. The gym teacher comes out to show them some simple swing steps, and as clumsy as they all are, it’s fucking adorable.

“Hope you’re willing to do this for all the dances,” one teacher mutters to you as you pass. 

You flit from table to table, refilling and wiping down and checking in with chaperones—twenty minutes zing by in the blink of an eye. When the gymnasium door creaks quietly open, the dark shape of Sarah’s dad appears in the doorway. You set down your punch glass with a grin and scurry over. 

But he’s looking up when you make it to him, starstruck by twinkle lights, his face pink and blue with the neon light. Christ, he’s easy on the eyes. Facing this way, with none of the gym or kids or decorations in view, you can almost imagine that you’re standing in a bar looking up at some handsome stranger you might have a shot in hell at taking home. 

“Everything okay?” you ask, when he still hasn’t looked down, his hand flat and broad on the door to prop it open.

He blinks, wakes from his daze, and the look of wonder that just now softened him fades, his face stiff again. You step into the hall and the door slides shut behind you. The honeyed voices of The Isley Brothers muffle.

In the direct light of the hallway you can see he’s soaked—jeans wet to the tops of his thighs, his whole flannel clinging to his chest. One curl lays flat and damp against his forehead. He would’ve had to kneel right in the spray to work on the sink. Might as well have set a hose on the poor man.

Jesus, you must have ruined this guy’s whole fucking night. 

“Oh my god,” you say, eyes wide with horror. “I am so sorry—”

He lifts one hand as if to say stop and your mouth snaps shut. “Just water,” he grumbles. “Sink’s fine now. Joint was old and brittle. Had a part in the truck that’ll hold you over till Monday, but you’ll need someone to do a proper repair next week.”

You run a hand over your face, so grateful to him that all logical thought and processing flutters right out of your head. “Jesus, I could kiss you—thank you so much, seriously,” you start to say, hand still over your eyes as you stutter to a halt, realizing your mistake.

Heat boils in your face as you split your fingers to peek at him through your hand, but he doesn’t look horrified. He just rolls his eyes, a little playfully you think, and shakes his head like you’re being ridiculous. “Not necessary,” he says. 

You let your hand drop. “I’d insist that I’m normally the epitome of professionalism, but there’s no way in hell it’d be convincing,” you say, grinning sheepishly. 

Shrugging, he remains silent. Maybe you should take your friends up on their offers to set you up—you clearly need to get laid. Just him shrugging is doing things to you. Nevermind the tiny flick of his tongue that graces his bottom lip as he looks off down a roped-off hall. 

“Still short on chaperones?” he asks, not looking at you. 

“Yeah,” you admit. “But we’ll make due.”

Another shrug. “Could help out—‘m already here.”

Your eyes round. Though part of you wants to refuse, insist he’s done more than enough already, that he ought to get home and into dry clothes and forget about this mess, you don’t. It’s definitely selfish, almost greedy, but you don’t want him to go. Even if you only get to look at him across the gymnasium without saying another word to each other the whole rest of the night, you’d like him to stay.

A grin squirms across your face before you can stop it; you have to look away to smother it as you tap one foot against the floor. 

“Okay,” you say coolly, returning your gaze to him once you’ve gathered yourself. “But you can’t go in there looking like this.”

The theater department’s costume room gives you the creeps. Has since the first day you stepped foot in this place back in August when you got the grand tour—anywhere with this many mannequins is cursed, frankly—and it turns out it’s even worse in the dark. When you swing open the door, pale light from the hall slants against the black floor, and you reach blindly across the wall for the switch as your heart patters with dread.

Then finally: light. Weak, stuttering, yellow, but light all the same. You breathe.

Regardless, stepping into the costume room feels like being squeezed. Cramped alleyways have been formed by clothing racks stuffed well past their capacity—gowns of past Shakespeare productions hang beside the gothic frocks of Morticia and Wednesday Addams—forcing you to inch between racks, grazed by a parade of empty sleeves.

Sarah’s dad, bless him, hardly fits at all, and has to shuffle through the aisles sideways to follow you on what must seem to him like a blind mission without any destination. 

But you’ve been in this place. You know exactly what you’re looking for. Turning a corner, the next section is too narrow for the man to fit through, so you point out a chair across the room by the mirror and tell him to wait. 

“And you can ditch the flannel,” you call out as he goes. “Can hang it over the heaters to dry.”

Though you hear the low thunder of him mumbling, you miss the words.

When you emerge from the dusty racks, unnerved by the looming, half-dressed mannequins standing guard over their lot, Sarah’s dad is sitting where you asked him to wait, stripped out of his flannel, left in a slightly damp white t-shirt, his shoulder blades faintly visible in the stuttering light. If him shrugging was doing something to you earlier—this is likely to kill you. 

You clear your throat as you approach and he quickly straightens his posture. When you’re close enough, you hold out the hangers to him, even give them a little shake when he cuts his eyes at you, doubtful. You roll your own in reply. “Come on,” you insist. “Sarah will love it.”

That gets him to stand, albeit with a scowl, but it still makes you grin. With a grumpy hmph, he takes the hangers from you and you duck between racks again to give him some privacy. Sure, maybe you’d like a peek as he strips off those wet jeans, but even you know better than that. So you stand in the disordered aisle of costumes and listen instead. 

For a long time you hear nothing, like he’s hesitating. You did have to guess the sizes, but you worked plenty of retail jobs in your early twenties. Aren’t so bad at guessing. Every breath in this room, now that you’re silent, feels agonizingly loud. Not just yours, but his. The swelling of his chest with air. 

Then finally—clink. A belt buckle slacking open. Your eyes slam shut even though you’re looking in the opposite direction, at some 60s-style dress from what must’ve been an old Hairspray production with construction paper polka dots duct-taped on. He lets out a soft grunt. There’s a shuffle of fabric. Then a wet slop as his jeans hit the floor.

Your whole body throbs with heady, certain want.

Yes, you definitely need to get laid. This is humiliating. 

When you hear the belt buckle’s metal clink again, signaling he’s got the new, dry jeans on, you feel it’s safe to speak again. “I never asked you your name,” you say, still staring at the costumes. You hear him set the next hanger on the chair and even though putting it on requires no further undressing, you’ll stay exactly where you are until he’s done. Don’t trust yourself not to leer.

More shuffling, this time of sturdier fabric. “Joel,” he gruffs, and after a pause adds bitterly, “I look ridiculous.”

Chuckling, you squeeze out of the aisles and find him standing before the full-length mirror wedged in the corner of the room, into which Joel is sneering at his reflection. 

Also, he’s dead fucking wrong.

The jeans are a little tight, but frankly they’re better this way. His thighs taut beneath denim, his calves hugged. He’s a little bow-legged. So Texan. From the waist down he might as well be a cowboy. From the waist up, however, he looks like he’s just strutted off the set of Grease, putting even 1978’s Travolta to shame. His white t-shirt sits crisply beneath the black leather jacket, which he snaps to adjust the lapels. Fits him perfectly, like it was made for those shoulders, and he’s raked back his wet hair, giving it the look of being gelled, one stray curl rebelling over his forehead.

He catches your eye in the mirror, mouth twitching again, but it doesn’t become a grin or a frown. You raise an eyebrow at him. “Don’t know what you’re looking at,” you say. “But you do not look ridiculous from where I’m standing.”

His nose scrunches as he breaks his eyes from yours in the reflection, ducking his head to rub the back of his neck. Seriously, you’d crawl all over this guy if he weren’t the dad of one of your students. Future students—whatever. But you’ll save yourself the humiliation, gotta get this show on the road, and so you jut your chin in the direction of the door. “Let’s go. Got kids to supervise, hands to keep from wandering.”

Joel balks, hands flat to fists in an instant, ready to kill.

“Oh please,” you tease, and wave one hand dismissively as you make your way to the door. “Like you weren’t thirteen once.”

You listen as he stomps after you, muttering a cranky, “Gonna have to be at all these fuckin’ things,” that makes your head fall back with a sudden laugh.

The moment you return to the gymnasium, you’re needed by everyone—so and so needs to know where the extra ice is; what’s-her-face is concerned about the sugar content of the fruit punch; and some parent wants to talk about their kids’ English grade like this is the appropriate venue for such a conversation. You immediately lose Joel to the call of teacher-slash-host duties, and he slips past you, hugging the wall as he strides over to man the drink table which, in your absence, has stood without supervision. The man might as well be a saint—you manage to catch his eye and mouth a silent thank you across the gym, to which he half-grins from a pool of neon pink glow, setting you ablaze.

Most of the night you spend running around like a madwoman, responsible for switching in new music as each CD ends, refilling snack bowls, and pulling one student off another when you catch them kissing in the hall. Thankfully neither of them is Sarah, but you do have to give the kids a talking-to.

Late in the night, you’re chatting to some of your colleagues against the gymnasium wall and watching the kids shimmy to Rock Around the Clock, poodle skirts billowing like spinning tops, when you spot Sarah rush across the floor toward Joel—apparently only spotting him now. You’re too far to hear them, too far to read their lips, but Sarah’s runaway smile is obvious at any distance. She hops in place, delighted, and forces Joel to do a little spin for her. 

Though smaller, you catch his smile too. The dimple in his cheek as he fails to restrain his contentment at her approval. How he shakes his head, embarrassed to be fawned over. Adorable.

When the Spanish teacher makes his rounds with the school’s camera, snapping flash photos of the kids’ eager smiles and costumes as they pose with their milkshakes or friends, you tap him on the shoulder and point in Joel and Sarah’s direction. “Get one of them, would you?” you whisper, and he nods, shuffling off.

Joel spots him coming a mile off, camera in hand, and immediately frowns. He makes eye contact with you across the gymnasium like he knew exactly where you were standing, and shakes his head as if to say no way. You smile, wicked, and mouth yes. One of his hands balls to a fist. 

But when Sarah spots the photographer a second later, she wraps an arm around Joel’s waist to pose and his resistance crumbles. When you were thirteen, you’d have been humiliated to be seen posing with your parents in front of your classmates, but Sarah doesn’t seem to mind at all. Her adoration is obvious, abundant. Anyone can see how much she loves him—you can see, too, Joel’s love for her. Once the Spanish teacher raises the camera to shoot, he throws his arm around Sarah’s shoulders, looking down at her with a soft, grump-less grin. The white flash snaps in the dark gymnasium, photo taken, then Sarah returns to her friends.

You cut your eyes away when he starts to turn his head in your direction, returning your gaze to your colleague. Don’t need him catching you staring. Your dignity has suffered plenty tonight.

You cave about twenty minutes before parents are due to pick up the kids at the end of the night—not due to stress, just exhaustion—and sneak out into the black night to smoke. Tucked just out of view of the parking lot and doors, you sink onto a wooden bench and light up, letting the tension unwind from your body. Gray smoke tendrils as you exhale a half-formed smoke ring. Never could get those right, but it’s fun to try while crickets croak unseen from the shadows, braiding their eerie melody. With every drag, you relax into a kind of trance, at one with the night. 

Eyes shut, you don’t hear him coming. It isn’t until he clears his throat that your eyes snap open and you realize someone’s caught you smoking.

“Shit,” you mutter, adjusting your posture to sit up straight.

Joel stands over the bench, caliginous in the dark. His hair has dried, curls loosening from each other. You hear a low chuckle that must come from him, but you can’t quite make out his face until he lowers himself onto the bench beside you—then you see he’s smirking. 

You tap ash onto the sidewalk beside your feet, away from him, unable to look him in the eye. “Not worth trying to defend myself, is it?” you joke sheepishly.

He adjusts his position, thighs spread just a touch, and crosses his arms over his chest. The leather jacket is practically criminal, it fits him so well. 

“That’s alright, darlin’,” he replies. “Don’t need to.”

You bring the cigarette to your lips to smother your impulse to smile, the filter stained crimson by your lipstick. You risk a glance at him. “You want one?”

Shaking his head, the corner of Joel’s mouth tugs. “Quit when Sarah came around,” he admits.

“Very responsible,” you say, and though you really shouldn’t flirt, it comes out a little snarky, like you’re teasing him. “Quit after college, but I get to indulge twice a year.”

Joel quirks an eyebrow at you, though doesn’t question the obvious flaw in your logic. “Miss it?” he asks.

You shrug and exhale a thin stream of smoke from the corner of your mouth. “Always think I do,” you say. “But it’s so much grosser than I remember. Can’t believe I used to smoke these everyday.”

He lets out a deep hmph, not quite a laugh. 

“I’m serious,” you say, grinning now. “These things are vile. They reek and make kissing gross. I might as well burn the clothes I’m wearing after this. Don’t even like it anymore—it’s just nostalgia, I think.”

Shifting again, Joel’s legs spread a little wider, though from the other side of the bench you’re still nowhere near touching. As you click one lacquered nail against your cigarette, ash rains softly to the ground. 

“Never minded,” he mumbles. He’s looking out at the dim street, not you. Streetlamps dot the street with coins of gold between cedar elms that have already begun to drain their color. The breeze is next to perfect, whisking your smoke politely away from Joel.

“Minded what?”

“Kissin’ someone who smokes,” he says matter-of-factly. His tone isn’t flirtatious—nor is his expression, his face still profiled to you—but goosebumps scale your arms all the same.

“Hm,” you hum in reply. 

Best not to dwell in this breath of quiet. The long pause in which you feel yourself want. You shift on the bench, cross your legs, and prepare to change the subject—but Joel beats you to it. 

“Looks good in there,” his voice rumbles, and in your periphery, he turns to look at you for just a moment, handsome and leather-clad. Practically put on this earth to punish you. You hold your breath until he turns his head away again. “Impressive.”

Your heart squeezes like he’s crushed it in his fist, but you tilt your head back and forth nonchalantly. “Guess it doesn’t look so bad,” you admit. To your surprise, this drags a quiet chuckle from Joel, and your eyes drop quickly to his hand where it hangs from his still-crossed arms—a brief and discreet glance, you think—and see no ring. It shouldn’t make a difference, but you're glad.

“Gotta be more subtle than that, darlin’,” Joel mumbles, despite the fact that he’s not looking at you.

You feel your face rash with heat. “Fucking eagle eyes,” you mutter, pinching the last of the cigarette to your lips for a final drag. You hold the smoke in your lungs as Joel laughs again, this time with more warmth.

He shakes his head. “Could’a just asked,” he says.

“You’re not even looking at me,” you say, smiling despite your embarrassment. You bend over to crush your cigarette against the bottom of your shoe, then pocket the spent filter, disappearing the evidence. “How the hell did you even catch that.” It isn’t so much a question as it is a whine. 

Joel shrugs. “Don’t have to be looking at you to be watchin’,” he says.

You can’t decide if you’re glad or disappointed that the moment you both look at each other, the whole of his face finally visible in the murk of nightfall—warm eyes, summer skin, that stubbly beard you’d like to nuzzle into—a caw of noise erupts inside the school and shatters the moment. The sound of students emerging from the gymnasium into the hall draws Joel’s attention first, and you allow yourself a long look at the back of his head to study his curls, just beginning to thread with gray, before you let the noise draw your attention, too.

“That’d be our cue,” you say, and you both rise from the bench.

As Joel starts shrugging off the leather jacket, you put a hand on his bicep to stop him and shake your head. So solid. Warm. He freezes under your touch, black leather slumped part-way down his arms, until you withdraw your hand. 

“Nu-uh,” you say. “You’re keeping that.”

He frowns. “Not sure I like the idea of stealin’ from Sarah’s school,” he says. 

You roll your eyes, wave one hand dismissively. “You saw where it came from, they’ll never miss it. There were at least half a dozen more in there.”

When Joel narrows his eyes at you, you narrow yours back stubbornly. Finally, he sighs and snaps the jacket back over his shoulders—a gesture that turns you to honey—and shoves one hand into the back pocket of his jeans. The also-stolen jeans. You’re gonna make him take those too. Not like anything that fits him is gonna fit any of the students here. You don’t even know why the theater department has costumes this size. 

“Least take this and sign me up for,” he gestures vaguely with one hand as he pulls something from his pocket and holds it out to you. “Whatever. More chaperonin’.”

Pinched between his fingers is a crisp business card bearing the same logo stickered to his truck. Miller Construction Ltd—Joel Miller, Co-Owner. His phone number is printed squarely at the bottom. You take it, running your thumb across the printed text. 

“Very generous,” you tease, and Joel looks down at you and grins, one dimple creasing his cheek. When you smile in return, his dark eyes slip down your face, landing on your lips.

As you make your way back up the path to the school, he walks close enough that his arm brushes against yours just once. Your body purrs with want, made worse when he smirks and leans toward you, lowering his voice. “Trust me,” he rumbles quietly. “Offer’s entirely selfish.”

Then, entirely composed, Joel yanks the front door open for you and winks.

Moodboard created by @studioghibelli!

[cute-sucker]

birthday boy

[30.3.2024]

note: haha once again this is so self indulgent, but i love it so much so like >>> (please let me know if y'all want a party 2) words: 2k warnings: mentions of drinking, swearing, angst :)

"hey! [name], come 'ere!" a voice yelled after you.

you were putting on your lipgloss, lips puckered and shiny. 

you knew exactly who it was, but you chugged your drink and then kept walking even as you heard the light footsteps of a teenage boy. you couldn't help but roll your eyes, infuriated at the only one and only rafe. 

"i'm not your lap dog, rafe!" you said through gritted teeth, as he reached you. finally, you turned and stopped to see rafe's arrogant face. 

he glanced at your face, his tongue darting out of his mouth to lick his lips. 

it was the bonfire at kildare. the one place where kooks and pogues went to party all night. of course rafe was here, and you were there to have fun and get loose and if he created some sort of problem for you, you'd sack him in the eye. maybe a blossoming blue bruise would look great on his 'perfectly,' simetral face. your brother had taught you to defend yourself in the summer, and you wondered what your nasty hook would do to hid face. 

"make it snappy," you said glaring at him. he looked unfazed, smirking. 

"as lovely as always, aren't you?" he flirted, leaning against the wall. the expensive watch on his wrist glinted in the light. 

"speak." 

finally, he gave up sighing dramatically, looking as if he was going to fess up. though he looked incredibly cocky. 

"come to my birthday party. it's on the 19th" he told you, a mischievous glint in his eyes. the nerve he had! 

you groaned, "no." 

surprise flashed across his face, and then something like challenge flickered in his eyes. 

"but i'm a very good boy," he pouted. 

"could you kindly fuck off?" then you turned around, strutting to your friends. you wanted to say you weren't blushing, as your heart stuttered violently at his voice. 

rafe would be the end of you. 

10 years ago. 

"rafe! where are you?" you called, your 8 year voice squeaking with fear. you felt frantic, your small thudding. rafe and you were inseparable, and in that same fashion you had made him a hand turkey and he hung in his cubby. 

that was true friendship. 

and now he was gone. 

"[name]?" a small voice called. it was rafe hiding near the bushes. 

you ran as fast as your tiny legs could carry you. rafe eyes were pink from crying, and you felt yourself tearing up, as your hands trembled. 

"rafe? what happened?" you asked gasping. he was crouching, his little hands red. 

now he peered up at you with watering eyes. 

"i fell." 

the red welts on his hands and knees bled so properly you cried out in fear. 

"c'mon let's go to ms. asha!" you yelled and held out your sticky hand. he took it, and the two of you hobbled away. 

when you reached your teacher, rafe told her all about your help. he smiled at you, as you found yourself blushing.

"a sticker for your bravery," ms. asha fussed, giving you and rafe two firefighter stickers. 

"did you save him?" benny asked you, her eyes wide with wonder. you pushed from the admiring tone and felt your heart swelter with pride. benny was so smart, and for her to be admiring you...that was everything a kid wanted. 

rafe nodded, rubbing his knee, a sweet smile on his face. 

"yeah," you whispered out, as you puffed out your chest. you were a hero. 

2 years ago. 

you were nervous. it was after 8 years that you were going to go to the same school as benny and rafe. after second grade, your parents took you to europe for your studies. only plans had changed and now here you were in america. 

in america, looking at kildare academy with it's daunting building and high standards. 

"she'll be in good hands," the principal chuckled. your parents smiled, and you wanted to go back tightly holding your mother's hand.

you winced, as your mother slowly unwrapped your fingers from hers. she kneeled to kiss you on the forehead. 

"you'll do great things here. i mean-" then she gave your father an adoring look, "it's where the two of us met." 

then your principal led them away, as your parents waved goodbye. 

here was your future just waiting to be taken. 

the day passed quickly, and it was all going well until english. you'd so far completed all the classes and ate lunch alone. everything was fine.

at least that's what you kept telling yourself. 

yes. oh yes, it was fine that benny had passed without a single glance, or the fact that no one remembered you at all. 

hell, a few girls did remember you though, and they gave you half-hearted hellos. some of the guys eyed you with recognition but the people who mattered...didn't remember you. 

but you still hoped that maybe rafe would remember you, but that was until you realised that rafe was right there, and instead of recognition in his eyes, he looked at you with scrutiny. he'd changed, and you were surprised to realise that he was handsome

his frame had filled out, no longer a wiry little boy, instead he towered over you. he loosely wore his tie, his shirt ticked and a smirk that stayed on his face. his hair was a dirty blonde adorned with golden highlights. 

class began and you stumbled into our seat. the teacher introduced herself, ms. wetherbell and then turned her eye on you. her hand was outstretched in your direction. 

"come here, dear." 

you sat up too quickly almost falling as you did so. you blushed and there was something inside of you that was glad for this call out. maybe now rafe would recognise you. 

"we have a new member joining our class, [name] [last name]." 

you waved awkwardly, painfully smiling. 

then you watched rafe scrunch up his nose, and mutter something under his breath. 

you didn't hear it, yet everyone in the class heard it and started laughing. 

they kept their mocking eyes on you, laughter echoing through the classroom, ms wetherbell caught up quickly enough. 

"what did you say mr. cameron?" she asked coldly, and he smiled innocently. you could feel tears prick your eyes, 

"nothing at all," he mustered sweetly. his eyes followed you again and it was only then he realised who you were.

but it was too late. 

present. 

you lay in your bed now, your silk pink night gown on. you never thought of those memories, ones that reminded all that you had lost with him. after that day he had tried to apologise to you, following you until you told him that none of it mattered. 

you didn't want to hear anything from rafe cameron and that's why you wouldn't give him any of the attention he so badly craved. 

just as you drifted off to sleep, settling your paperback back on your side table, a sudden noise woke you up. it was the sound of a pebble hitting your window. you peeked out the window to check. 

there he was in all of his glory. rafe kneeling on your roof, clearly intoxicated, his eyes full of excitement as he swayed.

"why are you here birthday boy? you hissed mockingly. but as you watched his sway fear pricked your heart. you knew he would fall and break his neck if you didn't pull him into your room. 

he sighed, eyes closed as you roughly guided him into your room.

 "i missed you," he slurred and leaned on you. you tried to calm yourself, and not scream at him. you didn't want your parents to know he was in your room. 

maybe they'd think he was having a secret relationship with you. at that they would be pleased but at night? your mother would kick both of your asses and really? no thanks. you would rather not be grounded. 

"you liar," you whispered out. then you inspected him to make sure he wasn't hurt. he noticed you eyeing you, and gave you a crooked smile. he was always in his element. 

"like what you see?" 

you rolled your eyes, your voice a gasp "you wish."  

it was only then did you realised that he had a busted lip. curious . . . even more curious first dipping drunk out of his party, and now it looked as if he had fought. 

"did you fight someone? where else are you hurt," you asked him slowly. as much as you disliked him you couldn't let him wander around hurt. 

he winked in a drowsy manner. "i won, sweetheart. and just the one here." 

then he lifted his shirt to show a yellowish-blue bruise. it looked so bad you hissed quietly. then you slowly approached him with your cream. 

you peered up at him, round eyes full of worry. 

"may i?" 

he nodded, swallowing deeply. 

you tried to apply the cream as gently as you could. 

he hissed quietly, "a little softer, sweetheart." 

you dropped your hand, realising what you were doing. god, damn it! you looked at him again. drunk rafe, shirtless in your room as you treated him. 

you were crazy! instead of breaking down, you took a deep breath and applied some bandage. 

"why are you here?" you asked coldly. he opened his eyes and you fell still. 

"i told you . . . i missed you." he pouted, and you shook your head ready to get up. goddamn it. just as you going to get up, and tell him to get the fuck out of your room, he stopped you. 

"please don't leave me," his voice cracking, "i'm so tired of everyone leaving me." his hold was tightened on your wrist. instead of inching away from him, your whole body melted into his embrace.

he could make you do anything for him. and yet right now you thought you hated him but you were pressed to his side as he nestled his head in your shoulder. 

"tell me why you left that party," you asked him again, and you felt him touch your hair. he played with it, and you could smell the wine all over him.

"i couldn't take it. i had to be with someone who always cared about me. someone who i-i didn't treat every well," he murmured and you felt yourself recoil only for him to grasp your chin to turn you around to face him.

he sighed, "i'm sorry." 

you watched his eyes flicker with vulnerability. someone every single time this boy sneaked past your defence and broke your hold on reality. 

you got up to walk into your bathroom. 

"i need to change," you muttered, picking stuff from your cabinet.

"please [name]." 

"what, rafe? what do you want from me? i always tried to be your friend, but you didn't want that. what am i supposed to do?" you whispered as you felt your hands tremble at your sides. 

rafe shuddered and then turned to look at you. his eyes were clearer than ever. 

"i like you." he slurred, "i'll treat you like a princess and i have the money," he stumbled after you. 

you felt like screaming. "i don't want that! and you know that." your voice cracked, as you felt your whole body shudder with sadness.

"trust me. please trust me, this will be good. you're so pretty and kind and i can't get enough," he whispered, his scraped hands reaching for you. 

you paced around the room. "stop it! stop it!" you said finally. 

"i can't stop thinking about you and you're the only person i want," he whispered harshly, holding your hand, begging for you to look into his eyes. 

you walked away from him. 

"get out of my room," you yelled, "get the hell out of my room, rafe." 

and as he walked out of that door, your heart begged him to stop. you felt yourself drop-down, tears soaking your nightgown. 

your heart broke into a million pieces when he walked out of that room. 

[couldsewyouastitchandsavenine]

Sunshine [Joel Miller]

this is my entry to Summer Loving Challenge by @pedgito. Thank you so much for creating it and letting me be part of it. You're a star! Or shall I say, sunshine??

pairing: no outbreak joel miller x f!reader

wordcount: 1.7K

warnings: reader is she/her, sexual content/mild sexual themes (implied only), mild language, mentions of violence, overall safe to read.

prompt: ROADTRIP #2

She smiles too much, he thinks. 

And Joel ain’t too fond of folks who smile all the damn time. Reckons they must be hiding something behind those shiny white teeth. 

Thing is, he ain't even sure how Tommy managed to rope him into this foolishness. He’d stopped by his brother’s place for a cold one and somehow left having agreed to ferry his obnoxiously cheerful sidekick across the state to some new job she landed in Joel’s neck of the woods. Must have been the quiet begging in Tommy’s eyes that did it, he supposes. Joel may be a surly son of a bitch, but he ain’t heartless.

So here he is, with the sun barely up and her sitting pretty beside him. Sneakers-clad feet up on the dash like she owns the place, skirt of that yellow sundress riding up her tights.

Tommy’s friend. The motormouth. The endless goddamn ray of sunshine that Joel just knows is gonna make his jaw ache from clenching before they even cross county lines.

“Mind if I turn this thing on?” she breaks the silence, stretching a little to fiddle with the radio dials. 

He fucking does. He’d rather drive in silence. But just shrugs instead.

Figures out it’s not worth the argument.

And as expected, her taste in music is as saccharine as the rest of her, all twangy guitars and lyrics about truck beds and tan lines. When she starts humming along off-key, he has to work very hard not to grind his teeth to dust. 

It's going to be a long drive.

Joel sighs and glances over at her. Shifts a bit in his seat and admits, albeit grudgingly, that she's easy on the eyes. Has been ever since he's known her.

But the problem is, she’s just so… much. Never still for a minute, fingers tapping, foot bouncing, mouth running a mile a minute. He can practically feel all that restless energy buzzing under her skin, setting his own nerves alight. Makes him wonder if she even knows she's doing it, all them little twitches and squirms. If she's got any idea how it gets him all riled up without even trying. Joel ain't sure quite what to do with her.

And sweet Jesus can she talk. About this, about that. Everything and not a damn thing. About the weather and politics. The heat and some harvest festivals she’s helping throw. A whole slew of crappy dates, some dog she’s thinking of adopting. The gossip about people Joel barely knows and could care less about. So, he tunes most of it out, just grunts now and then so she thinks he's listening.

But at some point, whether because he’s getting bored or because of the heat, Joel catches himself actually paying attention. Learns she's a teacher, spending her days trying to cram knowledge into the heads of a pack of rowdy kids. 

"It's thankless work," she laughs, "but I guess somebody's gotta do it."

Joel thinks it's pretty admirable, choosing a job like that. Lord knows he's had his share of crap gigs. Brings to mind those long, hot days pouring concrete under that merciless Texas sun. The way heat would shimmer up off the fresh pavement and make him feel like he's in some kind of fever dream.

“Look, I didn’t expect you’d want to give me a ride,” she pipes up after a bit. “I appreciate it.”

"Mm," he grunts, committing to nothing.

“I mean it, Miller. I was really close to sticking out my thumb and hitching.”

Joel's hands tighten on the wheel at the thought. "That's a good way to get yourself murdered."

She cuts her eyes over at him. "How do I know you're not some kind of murderer?"

He snorts. "Do I look like a murderer to you?"

"I don't know. What's a murderer look like?"

"Not like me."

"Hm. That's exactly what a murderer would say, I reckon."

He shakes his head, more than a little annoyed now.

This damn woman.

When they pull over for gas and to stretch their legs, Joel finds himself watching her as she arches her back like a cat in the sun, that sundress pulling taut across her chest; the skirt riding up even higher. Makes him look away real quick.

“I’m going inside to pay,” she chirps. “Want anything? Coke maybe? A three-day old sandwich?”

Joel peers at her. Mutters, “Nah, I’m good.”

“Suit yourself, Grumpy.”

Grumpy. 

It's hardly the worst thing he's been called, but it chafes at him for some reason. For a second, he wonders what it would be like to be someone different. Someone who said yes to Cokes and gas-station sandwiches. To yellow dresses and sunshine smiles.

"You ever think about how weird it is that we can just go anywhere these days?" She starts in again before he even gets back on the road.

He squints over at her. "How do you mean?"

"I don't know. Cars and planes and those talking maps on phones. World's gotten real small. Used to be folks who didn't stray more than a few miles from where they were born. And now here we are, two random people rolling down the road in the middle of Bumfuck, Nowhere. Just 'cause we felt like it."

Joel's not sure he'd say he felt like it, exactly. But he gets her point. "I guess," he allows. "Makes you wonder what it musta been like. Back then."

"Doesn't it? No AC, no snacks, no radio to bicker over." She grins at him, teasing. "Though I suppose you would've done just fine without that last one, huh?"

He huffs, but there’s no real annoyance behind it. “They wouldn’t need a radio with you doing all the talking. Probably would've driven the whole wagon train up the wall with your yammering."

“You mean, I would’ve livened things up?”

"Livened," he repeats, dry as dust, and she laughs. It's a good one, Joel thinks. Bright and uninhibited in a way he hasn't heard often in this life.

Suddenly gets the strangest urge to reach out and touch her. Trail his knuckles down the line of her throat, feel the vibration of it under his fingers.

Wraps his hands around the wheel instead, wondering where the hell that came from. If she notices his odd moment, she doesn't let on. Just keeps rambling on about dysentery and fording rivers and how she definitely would've been the first to die of cholera. Joel lets those honeyed tones wash over him and tries not to dwell on the tight, hot feeling in his chest.

By the time they pull up at the little house Tommy helped her get settled in, it's pitch black out. He can just make out her face in the glow of the dome light, those big eyes soft and serious for once as she gathers up her bags.

"Thanks again for the lift," she says, real quiet. "I know I'm not exactly your favourite person to be stuck with."

"Wasn't so bad," he admits, and it's almost not a lie. "Glad I could help."

She hesitates with her hand on the door handle, worrying that plump bottom lip with her teeth. "I'd invite you in for a beer but I know you probably want to get home."

He does. He should. But maybe it's that little waver in her voice, the uncertain set of her shoulders. Maybe it's knowing that the second she steps out of this truck, the strange little bubble they've been floating in is going to pop. Things will snap back to how they've always been, her grating on his last nerve from a nice safe distance and him avoiding her as best he can.

And maybe he's just not quite ready for that.

"Well..." he drawls, "I reckon I could come in for a cold one."

The smile she gives him could put the sun to shame, all dimples and crinkly eyes. Makes that tugging feeling in his chest pull so sharp it steals his breath. 

He follows her up the porch steps and into the cosy hallway, his chest tight and his palms clammy like some nervous teenager. As she putters in the kitchen, fetching beers and clinking glasses, he stands in her living room and looks around at the organised clutter, the artfully arranged photographs, the bunches of wildflowers stuck in mason jars.

The whole place is so absolutely, utterly her it makes something behind his ribs ache fiercely.

When she comes back with two frosty beers, pressing one into his hand, they just stand there for a minute. Look at each other with the heavy weight of something hanging in the air between them. She takes a pull off her bottle, throat working as she swallows and it's more than he can take. The urge to put his mouth right there, to lick the sharp tang of hops right off her skin.

“So…,” she murmurs softly as she places her beer on the counter behind her and looks back at him. Her eyelashes flutter, and her gaze latches on his mouth. It’s a split of a second but Joel decides that he’s had enough. 

He sets his own bottle down carefully. Cradles her face in his rough hands and leans in slow, so slow, until he can taste her shaky breath. She meets him halfway, arms winding around his neck as she opens up for him, soft and sweet as summer rain. He tips his head to kiss her deeper and she mewls into his mouth, hands flexing against his shoulders, and Joel is lost. 

It doesn’t take long before they are stumbling back to her bedroom, all tangled up in each other. When he rids himself of his shirt and hovers above her, she is smiling, her fingers moving slowly to graze the warm skin of his back, and it’s so good Joel feels drunk on it. 

Later, after, with her curled up asleep on his chest, Joel stares up at the lazy spin of the ceiling fan. Marvels at the strange turns a life can take. How somebody can get under your skin until one day you wake up and realise you forgot how to breathe without them.

He runs his fingers through the wild tangle of her hair, feels her sigh contentedly against him. Lets himself imagine, just for a minute, that this could be his life. That he could have something this soft, this sweet, and keep it.

Joel blows out a long breath.

Drops a kiss to the top of her head and lets his eyes slip closed.

Maybe there's something to be said for all that sunshine after all.

[sometimesanalice]

Wildest Dreams (Part 2)

Summary: After meeting Bradley during Fleet Week, he shows you whether he is more of an officer or a gentleman in the bedroom. And while you haven’t been able to stop thinking about that night, you also hope he hasn’t been able to stop thinking about you.

Pairing: Bradley ‘Rooster’ Bradshaw x Female Reader

Warnings: Smut, Fluff, and Bradley in Summer Whites (minors dni)

(Author’s note: this was written as part of @laracrofted’s 1989(TV) Challenge! This a 2 Part series.)

You don’t remember finding your keys in your clutch.

Or the elevator ride up to your floor.

Or the winding hallway to reach your apartment.

What you do remember is the way his fingers toyed with the flimsy strings of the bows tied at the nape of your neck as you searched for your keys. You remember the heat in his eyes and the way they trailed over every inch of you as the too small lift climbed to your floor. You remember his lips on your neck and the way the embossed wallpaper that lined your hallway felt against your back.

And you already know you’ll never forget what it feels like to be pressed up against your door by Bradley Bradshaw and the way your world explodes into technicolor at the easy slide of his tongue against yours.

His hands can’t seem to stay in one place very long, like he wants to commit the shape of you to memory. You grip his shirt tightly as you try to pull his body even closer to yours. He moans his approval when you rock against his thigh, the thick fabric dragging against the soft skin between your legs.

His uniform has been driving you wild all night. And for as good as he looks in it you want it off. You want him naked. You want to know if he got his callsign for the reason you think he did.

Your hands trail down his chest, down his abs on a mission. You can feel the way he tenses under your palms as they move lower, lower. There’s no hesitation in the way you grasp and stroke him with one hand as you work to unbuckle his polished belt with the other.

Rooster groans into your mouth, the brim of his hat just grazing your temple, “You didn’t have me fooled for a second, I knew you weren’t a good girl.”

The way he says it makes it sound like it’s the best compliment in the world.

You feel his smile against your lips before he moves to take advantage of your amused laugh by dipping down and licking a line up your neck in a what that had your knees threatening to give out in your tall, sparkly heels.

Rooster’s hand slips under the short hem of your shiny dress. His mouth finds a spot underneath your ear that has you gasping as his thumbs slide under the waistband of your panties. He pulls away only to work them down your legs and watch as they puddle at your feet-

“What the fuck are those?” 

“U-underwear?” The word comes out a stutter the moment Bradley starts moving his big hand slowly, purposely up, up, up the inside of your thigh. 

The high-cut thong was something you’d purchased on a whim. The floral embroidery on the barely-there sheer mesh contrasted with the thin silky straps of the bright pink panties that had caught your eye right before you’d gone to check out with the set you’d bought as a gift for your friend’s Bachelorette party. 

You always did enjoy a theme. 

You’d barely felt them all night. That is, until you’d gotten in the cab with him, and then you were almost hyperaware of them and how wet they were getting. But pooled on the floor of your entryway, they look almost indecent.

“That’s some damn dental floss and you know it,” he rasps as his fingers find your clit. You suck in a sharp breath at the contact. His hot mouth returns back to that spot under your ear, “Now I’m mad at myself for not getting to see them on you.”

Your body erupts in goosebumps at the way the coarse hairs of his mustache feel against your skin. You’re so wet that his fingers have no problem sliding and circling and gliding over that sensitive part of you.

“You want me to put them back on for you?” you offer breathily, hips tilting forward trying to seek more of his touch.

“Don’t even think about it,” he states heatedly. Like he is personally victimized by even the idea of you putting a layer back on.

And then he sinks two thick fingers into you.

“Bradley,” you gasp, your hands flying up to clutch his biceps.

“Mhmm?”

“I-” Your words are lost to a keen when he flicks a thumbnail over your clit. It’s a little mean, but it has your toes curling and tensing in the most delicious way.  

His firm thigh keeps you pinned open as he works you. His lips and tongue mapping out the areas that make you squirm and pant. Your whole body seizes when he teases you with the possibility of another one of his fingers.

“You what, pretty girl?” You can feel his smirk against your neck.

Oh, fuck him. He knows exactly what he’s doing to you. You’d be more annoyed at him if he wasn’t so good at it.

“I-I,” you try again, “I had-oh god, that feels good. Your hands.”

“Hands of a pilot,” he says, satisfied and smug, “I’ll be sure to pass along your compliments to the Department of Defense.”

Rooster’s eyes are molten with pride as he takes you in, from your kiss swollen lips to where the tendons of his forearm are shifting and flexing beneath sunkissed skin half hidden under the hem of your skirt. 

He is frustratingly still so put together while you’re quaking against the door like a leaf in the breeze. You want to make him just as needy for your touch as you are for his, you can feel how hard he is pressed against you.

Your hand goes for his zipper, you’re only able to tug it down half way before Bradley catches you by the wrist and pins it above your head with a tsk.

“I had plans, Rooster,” you pant, finally are able to get out the words.  You’ve never had a man make you feel this good this quickly, he’s picked up on every cue your body has given him. He’s got you teetering along that edge, but he’s still toying with you rather than sending you over it.

“And what were those again?” he hums teasingly, his thumb making infuriatingly featherlight circles against you, “Remind me what was on your agenda.”

Bradley doesn’t give you the chance to reply because he’s hooking his fingertips against you and dragging them against that spot inside of you that causes your head to fall back against your door with a gasp. He shows you just how well practiced in giving pleasure he is as he does it again and again and again.

You try to arch into his touch but his strong body pressed against you so securely that you can’t do anything more than take what he gives you. The short hem of your skirt is riding dangerously high, gathered and bunched between the two of you.

“You’re not playing fair,” you whine as he runs his teeth along the tendon of your neck, “I was going to suck your cock.”

“It’s all yours, baby. You just need to come for me first. I’ll even let you wear my cap as a reward.”

“Such a gentleman.”

“Damn straight,” he says before licking deep into your waiting mouth, “Now show me you can be a good girl and come on my fingers.”

You don’t get a chance to reply because Bradley’s thumb changes up the patterns it’s making on your clit making you cry out. There’s nothing teasing about his touch, he’s playing your body to pull exactly what he wants from it. His movements are controlled and precise even as you writhe against his hand.

When you come it’s with his name in your mouth as your orgasm coasts over you in a whiskey wave. The heat and force of it radiating through your whole body from your fingertips to your toes. Bradley murmurs sweet words into your ear as shivers work their way down through your spine.

You’re still breathing hard when you flutter open your eyes just in time to see him pulling his shiny spit-slicked fingers from his mouth with a devastating smirk.

So pleased with himself, so damn handsome.

Not to be out done you kick away that hot pink thong and pull his face to yours seeking the taste of yourself from his mouth. He welcomes your tongue with a satisfied moan, his hungry hands running up your back to tug at one of the sets of ties on your dress.

“Nuh-uh,” you tut against his mouth as you push him up against your door, “It’s your turn, Lieutenant Commander Bradley Rooster Bradshaw.”

You’ve only managed to undo two of the little white buttons on his uniform, and while you’re dying to see more of his skin, the hard length of him against your stomach has your full attention.

Your knees only just skim the floor before he’s hauling you back up.

“Wait, wait. C’mere, baby,” Bradley says, his hands on your elbows, “Show me your bedroom and then I’ll let you have my cock.”

“‘Come on my fingers’, ‘show me your bedroom’,” you parrot back to him, stroking him through his pants, “You’re going to give me a complex if you don’t let me give you a blow job. I have a theory about your callsign and I need answers, Rooster.”

“You can, I promise,” he huffs a laugh, running his thumb under your bottom lip, “We’re skipping over a few things, let me be a little romantic with you before we smudge that lipstick up.”

You try to ignore the way your heart somersaults at his words and the affection in his eyes.

“It’s longwear,” you reply, with a cheeky half shrug,  “But you’re certainly welcome to try.”

“We’ll see about that,” he smirks, dipping down a bit to get an arm underneath you and picking you up like it’s nothing. Your legs wrap around his waist as he carries you from your entryway and past your kitchen towards the open door on the right where your bedroom is, the lamp on your nightstand that you’d left on before leaving for the evening guiding the way.

“How is your hat still on?” you mutter before laving at the scars on his neck that had caught your eye earlier at the bar.

“How is your tiara still on?” he tosses back, leaning his head to the side to give you more access to the skin at the base of his throat.

“It’s a headband.”

“It’s cute.”

You pull away with a grin, “I knew you wanted to try it on. Big, strong, Naval aviator has an affinity for pretty shiny things.”

“Guilty as charged,” Rooster agrees. His hands run down the sides of your waist as he sets you down, his fingers stroking the material of your sparkling pink dress. “Where do you want me, baby?”

You don’t answer him, instead you press him back lightly until he takes the hint and sits on the side of your bed, legs wide so that you can step into the space between his thighs. He makes an enticing contrast of tan skin and white uniform against the pale blue of your comforter.

Holding Bradley’s heated gaze, you take the pristine white hat off of his head and set it on the nightstand next to you. The sight of his sunkissed curls is a treat you weren’t expecting to see and you can’t help but run your hands through his hair.

You take a minute to indulge in the feeling of his soft strands between your fingers as he leans into your touch. There’s a ribbon of desire that is still wrapped around the two of you, one that pulls tighter with every pass of your hands.

“Take your cock out,” you murmur.

“Yes, ma’am,” he says with a wink, his voice like rich espresso.

He’d gotten his way, now it was your turn.

You lean forward to kiss him, wet and deep, before finallyfinallyfinally sinking to your knees in front of him.

Rooster is all efficient hands and fingers as he unzips those dizzyingly snug pants the rest of the way down. You swear that smirk of his gets a little wider as he pulls his cock out for you. 

You’re almost annoyed at how perfect it looks, at how big it is. But that feeling fades quicker than it came on at the pretty way his large hand fists and pumps himself. It makes your breath get caught in your throat as you watch.

And then he’s holding it out for you like an offering, “This what you wanted, sweetheart?”

You don’t shy away from his intense gaze as you flatten your tongue underneath him and obscenely lick up the length of him.

“Goddamn,” he says hoarsely, as he throws his head back.

You beam, pleased and preening, before you pull him fully into your mouth. That smirk is entirely wiped off his face and you can see the way his jaw is clenching and releasing as his face is angled up towards the ceiling. Your hand replaces his on his cock to stroke him in time with the bob of your head. He groans low and ragged at the twist of your wrist at the base of him as you swirl your tongue right underneath the firm ridge of his head.

You feel your Bridesmaid headband slide back on your head with all your enthusiastic movements, and it falls to the floor with a metallic clatter. You wait until he’s looking back at you before you hollow your cheeks as you draw his cock further into your mouth.

“Knew that smart mouth of yours was going to look so good around my cock. God, you’re so fucking pretty,” he says, running his thumb along your jaw, “That little pink dress of yours did a number on me, I couldn’t stop looking at you.”

Bradley’s pretty praise and compliments goes straight to your head, like a rush of bubbles from a freshly popped bottle of champagne. You like the way he is gazing at you- his eyelids heavy but his eyes greedy- and the way he looks sitting on your bed, his presence filling the space of your room.

“If you like it so much I can tell you where I got it from,” you tease, “Don’t think they’d have your size though.” You treat him with another long lick, taking a moment to catch your breath to work him in your hand. It slides easily over him with the mix of your spit and his pre-cum.

“We both know how much I like pretty shiny things. I like seeing them on pretty girls, but I think I like seeing them on the floor even more.”

Rooster reaches out to slide his hand up the valley of your breasts and up around your neck to the back of your dress where the duo of bows of the halter top are still tied and starts tug on the ends of them.

You run your fingernail gently along the underside of his cock, smirking to yourself when it jerks in your hand. You take the tip of him between your lips, flicking him with your tongue as you let him work on the bows.

“Jesus, what kind of knots did you tie on this thing,” he grunts, still pulling on the thin pink strings.  

“I thought you Navy men were supposed to be excellent with knots,” you say with a laugh, moving your hair aside so that he can see better.

“I fly planes that land on ships, the only knots I’m tying are the ones on my boots.”

“Well now, that’s a shame,” you say with a sigh, blinking up at him with your best doe eyes. You give him a couple more slow pumps and watch with pleasure as his eyes flare with heat as he catches on to your meaning.

The way he moans your name sounds like both a curse and a prayer.

You pull away from him and sit back on your knees reaching up behind your neck. He watches you with rapt attention as you untie one and then the other. You hold it up with one hand at your collarbone and run the fingers of your other hand over the swells of your breasts before sliding it behind your back to release the final bow dancing along your mid-back.

And then you let go of the top.

It flutters down to your waist and you’re bared before him.

“Fuck me, knew you couldn’t be wearing a bra with that sexy little dress,” he groans as you pull him back into your mouth.

His fingers fly to your hair as you work to take him further and further into your mouth. It’s impossible to look away or close your eyes when his heady gaze is trained on you so intensely. He goes slack-jawed as you swallow around him, humming your approval to his reaction around his cock.

It’s easy to lose yourself to the rhythm of it. Of the staccato of his breath and sounds of satisfaction coming from in his broad chest. Of the weight of his cock pressed against your tongue.

Bradley’s thigh is taut and tense under your other hand with the strain of holding himself back. You are almost tempted to tell him to use your mouth how he wants, but there is something so exciting about having this man wrapped around your finger and at your mercy. He’s looking at you with such open want in his eyes that it makes that place low in your stomach spark with desire.

You pull off of him to drop a few open mouth kisses to the length of him. You look up at him from under your eyelashes, making sure you have his full attention when you use your tongue to trace along the thick vein on his shaft.

“How’s my lipstick holding up, Rooster?”

He barks a laugh, his smile wide and broad with amusement, “Hasn’t budged. Guess I’ll have to work harder to make a mess out of you then, huh?”

“I guess you will.” You shift forward like you mean to brush a kiss to his lips, but pull away with a mischievous smile right before his lips could meet yours. He groans and leans forward chasing after your mouth.

“C’mere, pretty girl,” Bradley says, hauling you up off of the cream-colored carpet of your floor. He hastily shoves your dress down the rest of the way down your hips and onto the floor before pulling you into his lap.

“But-” The words die in your throat as you whimper at the contact of your soaked cunt as it rubs up against his thick cock. Rooster runs his nose along the line of your neck as your hands tangle in his curls. He squeezes your ass with his hands encouraging you to continue your rock and grind against him.

When you tug him back up to your mouth, he goes willingly with a self-satisfied smile. You keen when your nipples catch against his nametag and the ribbons decorating his chest and you’re reminded that he’s not nearly naked enough for your liking.

“Why are you still dressed?” you huff, your insatiable hands roughly pulling at the buttons of his shirt, “If you were as interested in furthering those civilian-military relations as you claimed to be earlier, Sailor, you’d take that uniform off.”

“My apologies, ma’am,” he drawls, not sounding the least bit sorry, “Please allow me to show you just how committed I am to cultivating strong bonds with the local community at hand.”

And in a move so smooth and powerful, Bradley’s got you pinned to the bed. It doesn’t even register to you until he’s crowding into you, his head dipping down to drag his teeth over your peaked nipple. His large hand comes up to cup and massage your other one as he laves over you in broad and long strokes of his tongue.

He rolls against you teasingly and the way your thighs come up to bracket his hips is almost instinctive as you sink further into the cloud of your bed under his sturdy weight.

That mustache feels even better against your chest as it did against your neck when he had you pressed against your front door. But the drag of those damn buttons is impossible to ignore even as his hot mouth works its way down your sternum and stomach.

“Bradley.”

“Yeah, baby?” He nips at your hipbone as he strong-arms your thighs open further for his wide shoulders to settle under.

You’re so tired of feeling that sure-to-be-well-made fabric under your hands and against your body. You want to feel his skin against yours. You want his heat. You want to smell like the cedar and spearmint scent of his cologne.

He’s been derailing your plans since the moment you saw him enter the bar, but in this you will not be swayed, “If you’re not naked in the next ninety seconds, I swear I’m going to kick you out.”

“I can work with ninety,” he says with a toe curling glint in his eyes right before he licks into you.

The coarse hairs of his mustache against that most intimate part of you has you seeing not only stars, but entire galaxies. He slides his hand under your back to get you to arch further towards him. His tongue is relentless against your needy clit and when he sucks it has your hips canting right into his charming mouth.

“Can’t keep those hips on the bed, can you? Keep tryin’ to chase my mouth,” he smirks at your frustrated whine when he pulls away from you all too soon. He’s all lithe grace as he moves and stands up at the end of your bed.

You can’t find it in yourself to be embarrassed. There’s no reason to be when he shoots you a wink so easy and playful and so endearingly cocky that you think you might just melt on the spot.

“Tick-tock, Lieutenant,” you say breathily as you sit up and lean back on your elbows.

“Now you’re just being difficult on purpose. That ok, baby, I think you’ll enjoy it when I fuck that attitude right out of you.”

“Promises, promises.”

You already know that lazy smile he’s wearing is going to take you down as he starts to undo the buttons of his uniform. He’s definitely past the ninety seconds you’d threatened him with, but there’s no way in hell you’re going to kick him out now.

Rooster does it slowly. One by one until he is shrugging it off his frame. He looks like sin standing there tall and broad with his belt dangling open and his cock hanging out proudly from the open fly of his formfitting pants.

“Oh, this is getting good now,” you muse, not unaffected by the increasingly unclothed man in front of you.

Feeling brave you bring your fingers down to your clit, teasing yourself lightly as he pulls his thin undershirt up and over his head. And finally, you get to see all of that bronzed skin on display. The sight of the smattering of chest hair between his full pecs and the ridges of his abs in the soft light of your nightstand lamp has your mouth watering at the sight in front of you.

“That’s it,” Bradley says lowly, his eyes glued to the shiny, slick part of you, “Show me how you like to touch yourself.”

You let your legs fall open wider for his gaze as you continue to touch yourself. Your heart hammers against your chest as you put yourself on display for him. As you show off for him. With every passing second your need for him ratchets up even higher. He gives himself a few pumps, his cock still shiny and wet from your mouth and pussy, before he’s shoving his pants down his thick thighs and kicking them off.

He works his way back up your bed and props himself against your tufted headboard and pulls you back into his lap. You sigh as you lean into him, your bare skin against his. At last. He feeds you his tongue as he tips up your head for a fevered kiss, his hands skimming up the length of your spine and into your hair as he commands your mouth with his.

“What’s it going to be, sweetheart?” he murmurs against your lips, “Do you want to be fucked by an officer? Or do you want me to be sweet with you? I’ll show you just how much of a gentleman I can be.”

A shiver works its way through your body and you feel the way his lips pull up at your response to his raspy voice and the sultry promise laced in his words. The night has been building up to this, the feeling of his hands in your hair and having his clothes on the floor in your room shouldn’t feel so right. But it does.

And if you’re only going to have this one night with him, you already know what you want. You knew it from the second he kissed you back at the bar.

You pull back just enough to lean over him to grab his hat off your nightstand. His hands flex on your hips when you set it on your own head. It’s heavier than you’d thought it would be and it tilts down your forehead a bit. Rooster tips it up for you and adjusts it, his eyes seeking an answer you have yet to give him.

“I want to be fucked by an officer, Lieutenant Commander,” you say, running your thumb down the divot of his chin.

You’ve never felt more powerful than you do at the sound of his wrecked groan.

“Grab that condom, baby,” Bradley’s voice is thick with need.

“Yes, sir,” you say cheekily, pulling open the drawer next to the bed.

You aren’t expecting the hand that connects with your ass or the sound of the sharp slap that seems to reverberate throughout your bedroom or the way it makes you even wetter than you already are.

The tequila and champagne from earlier wore off long ago, now you’re just drunk on him.

You pass him one of the gold foiled squares and watch as he rolls it on with ease as you hover above him on your knees. He’s got you so spun up in such a short amount of time, you’d know from the moment you saw him that he was trouble, you just didn’t realize at the time that he was going to be your kind of trouble.

He holds his cock in one hand and guides you onto it with his other hand heavy on your hip. You expect him to rock up into you, to give you both that air stealing bliss, instead your jaw drops open at the way he’s coaching you to sink onto him slowly, slowly, so so slowly.

It’s been awhile since you’ve taken something other than your fingers or one of the toys discreetly hidden in your bedside drawer and he has you whimpering as you stretch and spread around him. You can feel his want in every devastating touch, in every heated kiss. You cling to his shoulders to keep you from floating away.

“There we go. Nice and easy,” Rooster murmurs, watching the way his cock disappears into you, “Felt how tight you were around my fingers. I know ‘m big. You’re doing so good for me.”

He’s got a hand wrapped around the base of your neck and around your waist holding you there when your hips finally connect, keeping you from squirming as your body works to relax around him. Your pussy flutters around him at the sheer size of him.

You gasp in surprise as a shiver of an orgasm flurries through you unexpectedly. 

“Goddamn,” he grunts, you can hear the relief in his voice as he continues to rock up into you gently pulling out more of those ripples from you.

He’s still holding you in place, controlling just how much of him you’re getting, his fingers are pressed tightly into your hipbones. His hair is a mess and his eyes are hungry. Bradley is flushed the prettiest shade of pink along his cheekbones and across his chest.

You’re about to tell him so when your eyes snag on a patch of scarred skin on his shoulder and you suddenly must know what it feels like under your tongue.

The second your seeking tongue glides over it Rooster’s hips jerk into you in a way that steals all the air from your lungs. You wrap your arms around him and bury your face into his neck as he does it again and again in smooth, measured strokes.

But it’s not enough. That whisper of an orgasm was nothing like you know it could be. It did nothing to take the edge off, all it did was make you more desperate for him. 

He feels so solid beneath you that you need more of him. You start to roll your hips against him trying to get him to move faster, to fuck you in the way he promised he would.

“Oh, you wanna take the lead, huh? By all means,” Bradley says, putting his hands behind his head in a way that makes his biceps look massive, “C’mon, pretty girl, show me what you got.”

Not one to turn down a challenge, you reach behind you to brace your hands on his thick thighs and lean back. You’d show him alright.

Show him just how good you look wearing his hat. Show him just how good he looks buried in your cunt. Show him just how good he looks covered in your arousal. Show him just how good you look working his cock as you roll your hip and raise yourself up and down on him.

“Jesus, fuck. Look at you. Good girls don’t ride cock like that. Shit, you look so damn pretty. You feel so good like this, you’re taking me so well.”

His eyes are torn between watching your face and the way your breasts bounce and the way his hat on your head bobs in time with the rhythm you’ve set. The new angle has the pressure building up swiftly in your lower stomach. And it’s so good, but it’s not what you want. It’s not what you need.

“Stop being such a gentleman, Rooster. I thought you were going to fuck me,” you say, leaning forward and nipping at his bottom lip.

“Pretty sure I told you I was both,” he says tracing a finger down your soft stomach to your pussy, you shiver as he starts making tight circles on your clit, “But if you wanna be fucked, then you’re going to be fucked.”

Bradley shows you just how honed his body is in the way he pulls you off of him and onto your hands and knees in front of him. Your arms never had a chance at keeping you up when he roughly pushes into you. He grips your hips tightly forcing you to bend and arch up further to meet his powerful thrusts.

His hat topples off your head and onto the edge of the bed, where his next drive of him into you sends it dropping onto the floor.

“Tell me how much you like getting fucked by an officer, sweetheart, I want to hear it.”

“It’s good,” you moan into the crevice of your elbow, trying to muffle some of your whimpers.

“Just good? The way your pretty pussy is clinging to be, I’d say you’re feeling more than ‘good’,” he taunts, slapping your ass for good measure in a way that makes you jerk back against him.

“Just think there’s room for improvement, you’re so chatty for someone who could be fucking me harder.”

“Had to work you open before I could fuck you. This how you want it?” he snaps his hips harder and faster into you. You gasp at the sensation and clutch at the comforter beneath your hands.

“Yes, yes.”

The pace he sets is desperate, hungry, and unrelenting. When he skims a hand up your back, tangling it in your hair and tugs, you swear you’ve never made the sound that he pulls from you before.

Every time you adapt to rock and grind of his hips and start to thrust yourself back to meet him, to take him deeper, he changes up his tempo forcing you to only take what you’re given. His touch is so electric you feel like you could light up a whole city.

Your room is filled with the sounds of skin connecting on skin, of sharp breaths and shattered sighs and pitchy keens. The angle he pounding into you has the ridge of his cock rubbing against that spot that has you trembling and writhing beneath him.

“Oh fuck, fuck. Bradley. Please.” You’re babbling nonsense now and you know it, but you’re so, so close.

He knows it too because when he slides his hand around you to run his thumb over your aching clit you shatter around him with a choked sob into your arm. You don’t fight the waves of pleasure crashing over you, you let them pull you under.

“That’s it, that’s my girl,” he rasps as you quake under his touch, “Good girl.”

His own hips start to stutter against you and his breathing starts to run ragged as he fucks into you. He is clutching your hips so tight you wouldn’t be surprised if you were wearing his fingerprints tomorrow. His groan as he comes is the best sound you’ve ever heard.

Somehow through the haze you realize that you’re not just smiling, you’re beaming.

Bradley is so perfectly heavy on top of you and so warm. You’re so thoroughly worn out and well fucked it’s all you can do to lay there with your eyes closed as you float in that post-orgasm bliss. You make a noise of disapproval when he pulls out of you.

“Gotta get rid of the condom, baby,” he says with a little laugh. You feel the bed shift as he makes his way to your bathroom, already missing the feeling of his body against you.

You know you should get up. Maybe take your makeup off or get some water, but you’re just so content. So satisfied. You’ve had a few one night stands before, but you’ve never felt so comfortable with someone before.

You hear Bradley’s steps get closer as he comes back into your bedroom, but the feel of a damp washcloth gliding up your thigh to the center of you takes you by surprise, “Oh, that’s warm.”

“Is it too warm?” he asks, pausing. You were lucky if your ex would hand you a tissue, so Bradley’s thoughtfulness makes something in your stomach flutter.

“’s nice. Thank you,” you sigh, arching into his tender touch.

You know you should take over, it’s too intimate of a gesture. You should, you should, you should. But you don’t. You let him clean you up while you will your heart to stop fluttering behind your ribs.

You’re pliant and boneless as he climbs back into your bed and pulls you against his chest. Your body shouldn’t fit so perfectly against his. It shouldn’t, it shouldn’t, it shouldn’t. But it does.

“You still with me?” Rooster teases lightly, brushing back some of the sweaty strands of your hair that were clinging to your forehead.

“Just resting up for round two.”

You feel his smile as he presses a kiss to your cheek, “Mmhm.”

Time slips away under the gentleness of his warm hands. Your breathing slows down to match the way he smooths his palm up and down along your spine. You don’t realize how close you are to sleep until he’s pulling you back from the wisps of slumber that were rising up to meet you.

“Do you want me to stay?” he asks quietly. You think you hear a string of hope threaded through his words.

It’s late, but not too late that he’d have a hard time finding an Uber or a cab to take him back to wherever home is for him, but you’re not quite ready to let go of him just yet.

“Yeah, you should stay,” you murmur into his chest.

You feel as he pulls up your comforter around the two of you. You nestle in even closer to him, draping your arm over his stomach and tucking your head under his chin. He reaches over you carefully and turns off the little lamp on your nightstand.

“Ok, I’ll stay.”

It doesn’t take long until the sound of Bradley’s steady breathing lulls you to sleep.

When you wake up, the first thing you notice is the way your body aches in the most pleasant of ways. You allow yourself to stretch luxuriously, your high thread count sheets skimming against your still naked body.

The second thing you notice is the sound of the shower running in your bathroom.

You’re glad to have this moment to yourself to grin madly into your pillow.

Because he stayed. He’s still here.

Once that rush of giddy energy works its way through the rest of your body, you get up to find your clutch with your phone in it and bring it back to bed with you. You shoot a text off to your best friend so that she doesn’t worry and get caught up on all the things you missed in the chaos that is the group chat. The amount of missed notifications are in the triple digits, you love to see girls supporting girls.

A few minutes later Rooster comes out of the bathroom with one of your fluffy white towels wrapped low around his hips. There’s still a part of you that still can’t believe last night even happened even as he stands in front of you, giving you a wide grin when he sees that you’re awake. 

His hair is damp and the sight of those curls make you want to run your fingers through them again. Those muscles of his look even better in the morning light that is filtering through your blinds, you’re getting more than an eyeful of him.

“I hope you don’t mind,” Bradley says gesturing to the open bathroom door, “I wanted to sneak in a quick shower just in case. You seem like the type of girl who would know about her Third Amendment rights.”

“You never know, there’s still time,” you say with a coquettish little shrug and a Cheshire cat smile, “Although it seems rude to kick someone who made me come three times last night.”

“Four,” he says, the left side of his mouth ticking up a bit as he leans a hand on your dresser.

“Four?”

“Mmhm, four. I know what I felt.”

“Would you be up for reminding me how that fourth one went?” you ask, teasingly pulling the soft sheet down your body to sit up on your knees at the edge of your bed.

“Sure would, ma’am. Anything to solidify those civilian-military bonds,” Rooster says, strutting towards you.

He’s ducking down to greet you with a kiss when you stop him with a hand on his chest, “Wait, what time do you have to be back?”

You see that easy smile of his falter for just a moment, “18:30. Sorry that’s-”

“I know military time, Bradley,” you say with a smirk, toying with the loose knot of the towel. You do the math in your head, there’s still almost seven hours before he has to go. It’s an easy decision when you offer, “What do you say, Lieutenant, you want to spend the day with me?”

Rooster answers with an enthusiastic kiss and greedy hands that tell you everything you need to know. It doesn’t take long before you’re pushing off his towel, pulling him on top of you and getting  tangled up with him again.

It only took you a few passes of his tongue to realize what he was spelling against your clit before he had you coming on his mouth. 

L-I-E-U-T-E-N-A-N-T-C-O-M-M-A-N-D-E-R

And then after he reminds you of just how that fourth orgasm went, you set him up with some coffee in your kitchen as you go take a shower and get ready feeling entirely too weak in the knees for a man you’d just met.

You opt to skip the make-up and go fresh faced to have those extra minutes with him instead. Although you do end up finding a spot beneath your ear, a remnant from his mouth last night, that you do have to take a minute to conceal.

Swathed up in your silky robe, you sift through your closet looking for something to wear when your eyes catch on a different pink dress. There are other comfier, easier things you could wearbut it’s the tie on the mostly open back that seals the deal for you. You grin to yourself as you tug open the bow before pulling it on.

He lets out a low whistle when you emerge from your bedroom.

“I know it’s not sparkly, but I think it’ll do,” you joke, twisting your hips a bit so the material of your floral print ruffle sundress floats around your calves.

“It’ll more than do,” Bradley says, staring at you with the same open desire as you’d probably given him when he’d emerged from your bathroom wrapped in that towel.

You turn and look at him over your shoulder, “Do you mind tying this for me?”

You could easily tie it yourself, but it wouldn’t be nearly as much fun as having him do it for you.

“That ok?” he asks, his voice dropping a few notes lower as he fiddles with tying the flimsy straps in the back for you.

“It’s perfect. Thank you, Rooster.”

He drops a kiss to your shoulder when he’s done and then spins you so that you’re facing him.

“What about me? How do the Summer Whites measure up?” he asks, clearly fishing as he gestures to his uniform. It’s still white and pristine and surprisingly devoid of any wrinkles from the night it spent on the floor of your bedroom.

You give him a contemplative once over taking him in, “It’ll more than do. Although, you’re missing a little something.” 

You walk over the island where you’d set his hat earlier so that it wasn’t forgotten on the floor in your bedroom and pick it up. He bends a little for your benefit as you place it on his head. 

“Cute,” you say, adjusting it so it sits just right, “But I think I wore it better.”

“I think you did too,” Bradley says, tugging you in for a thorough kiss before he laces your fingers together, “You ready?”

“Yeah, let’s get this show on the road,” you say with a wink, repeating the same thing that you said back at the bar when you decided to take him home with you.

The first stop is to your favorite little café not too far away from your apartment. Coffee and food were very necessary after the way the two of you had worked each other out the night before.

Bradley had looked so cramped in your little VW Golf on the way over that you decided to ditch it there and walk around the area instead. The two of you popped in and out of the bookshops and plant shops and record stores that dotted the area. You were surprised to learn he had really great taste in music and ended up picking out a few new vinyl records to take home with you.

In line at the checkout, he’d plucked your credit card from your hand, nodding to the sign advertising the store’s military discount and whispered into your ear, “I won’t tell Uncle Sam if you don’t.”

A ten percent discount never felt so thrilling.

You caught more than a few men and women checking him out in his Summer Whites as you walked around. But you couldn’t blame them because he’d caught you checking him out more than once. But it wasn’t your fault that his ass was a revelation in those tight pants. And he clearly knew it.

When you see the marquee for the small theatre on this side of town that is known for playing the classics and art house films advertising a showing for State Fair you offhandedly mention how much you like that movie as you peek in the widow of one of the antique shops, and then next thing you know he checking his watch and pulling you with him to the box office window for tickets.

“If you don’t let me pay for something here soon, you’re going to give me a complex,” he complains when you stop him from pulling out the credit card that he has tucked in the pocket of his uniform.

“Sorry, Rooster, it’s still Fleet Week and rules are rules,” you joke, bumping him out of the way with your hip sliding your card to the attendant before he can argue with you any further.

“Baby, I need you to stop Richard Gere-ing me,” he says, taking the tickets and wrapping an arm around your waist then leading you in the building.

“Alas, they’re playing Pretty Woman today, but I think you have the potential to make a pretty Julia Roberts,” you tease him, “I’d bet red would look very fetching on you with those undertones.”

The pinch on your right butt cheek makes you jump, startled. You whirl to see if anyone caught him, but the lobby is fairly empty. You turn to send him a heatless glare, but his face is the picture of innocence.

You shake your head at him amused, “Ok, fine. Just for that I will allow you to buy me a small soda from the concession stand, Bradley.”

He looks very pleased ten minutes later when he’s carrying a large bucket of popcorn, three types of candy, and two giant cups of fizzing soda as you go to find your seats.

“So much for free Fleet Week drinks,” you tut, taking a sip of your drink.

“But I did get laid today, so I’ll call it a win,” he winks.

The two of you trade whispers as the lights go down and the music of the opening credits starts to play. You grin as you reach over for some popcorn and hear him humming along.

Just as Vivian Blaine starts strutting away from Dana Andrews, her hair bouncing vivaciously with each step, Rooster angles over, “Hey, that’s how your friend looked last night walking away from Hangman. He’s been harassing me all day to get you to give me your number so he can call her.” 

You hold back the snicker that tries to escape your throat when he gets shushed by someone a few rows back, whispering even louder, “Sorry!”

You lean in closer, admiring the way half of his face is illuminated from the screen and confide, “Where do you think she learned it from?”

You and your best friend had taken the same film studies class in college and she tested out the move that night at the bars near campus with an almost perfect success rate. It’s been her go-to move ever since.

“No shit?”

“I’m serious,” you say with a giggle.

The shusher makes their displeasure known again and this time the both of you burst out laughing.

“We should probably go before they start throwing popcorn at us. I don’t think even with military grade detergent that you’d be able to get butter-flavored oil out of those Summer Whites.”

Bradley agrees readily and your heart flip-flops knowing that he’d rather be talking with you than sitting silently for the next two hours. He even tosses one of the boxes of candy to the shusher on the way out as an apology.

The two of you head to the beach instead, sitting on the sand and watching the waves. Tossing some of the popcorn kernels to hungry seagulls who approach. The two of you are both a little overdressed for it, but if anything, that makes it more fun.

You’re surprised at how easy it is to talk to him, to tease him. Surprised that he’s more than just a pretty face with a good body. The way he is so at-home and comfortable in his own skin makes you feel like you don’t have to try to be impressive, you can just be yourself. 

As the sun sinks lower in the sky, you’re both increasingly aware there’s a ticking clock above your heads and that this has to come to an end soon. And far too soon you end up making your way back together to where you’d left your car a few blocks away from the café you’d taken him to for brunch.

“Do you need to drop by your place for your things?” you ask Rooster, toying with your car keys.

“I packed last night. I asked a friend who is shipping out with me to grab them for me,” he says, scrubbing a hand down the side of his face.

“Not Hangman?” You wonder fleetingly if your friend ended up caving and giving him her number or not.

“Not this time. Which I’m not too mad about since he snores.” You know he is trying to make you laugh, but you just press your lips together and nod.

“So I should head there.” It’s not a question. You know your time is up.

“You probably should,” he says, with a sigh and a small smile that doesn’t reach his eyes.

It’s a quiet ride as he directs you to a public lot near the Naval Air Station where he says his friend Bob is going to meet the two of you, explaining that he doesn’t have the pass that would allow you to drop him off inside the gates.

There are a few cars in the lot, but he points out where you should park near an older, but well maintained Chevy truck. When you look over as you pull into the space a couple spots away a man in glasses waves, you don’t miss the two duffle bags that are in the second row of his cab.

“Hey, I’ll be right back. Don’t leave yet, please,” Rooster says, unbuckling and getting out of your car. And for whatever reason, you do too.

You linger in front of your car as you wait for him to come back to you. You watch as his friend Bob passes him a pen and some paper, you can tell he’s trying to fill it out quickly based on the way his hand seems to be flying over it.

There’s an intensity to the way that Bradley walks back to you. Your feet are pinned to the asphalt beneath you as his eyes stay trained on you.

You both stand there nearly chest to chest just taking the other in. 

He’s still too breathtaking for words in his uniform as the golden hour light makes the sun-streaked strand of his hair gleam like threads of gold. His eyes slowly run over your face and down the dress he’d carefully tied you in this morning.

If this is it, if this is all you’re ever going to get with him, this is how you want him to remember you. Standing in a nice dress and staring at the sunset.

He reaches out and cups your face in his warm hand.

“Say you’ll see me again,” he says, holding your gaze. You can see every color of brown reflected in his pretty eyes.

Your heart seizes in your chest, “Bradley, I-”

He lightly puts his thumb over your lips to stop you before you can finish.

“Listen, I really like you. But it wouldn’t be fair of me to ask you to wait for me, so I’m not going to.” You’re unprepared for the rock that sinks to the pit of your stomach. “What I’m going to do is give you this,” he says handing you the thin paper packet, “This has all the information you need to get on base if you wanted to meet me there in two months when I get back. They give it to all of us when we get our deployment papers mailed to us, I’ve just never had a reason to fill one out for anyone before.”

You hold it in your hands and look at it. The letters are slightly sloppy in that way that men seem to have. The sheet is filled out his full name, Bradley Nicholas Bradshaw, as well as what you assume is his military I.D. number and other crumbs of information about the handsome man standing in front of you.

And you’re reminded again, that you’ve only gotten to see just the tiniest sliver of him.

“Say you’ll see me again,” he repeats, quieter this time, “Even if it’s just pretend.”

You hear what he is really saying: lie to me, please.

His friend is waiting for him in his idling truck.

And Bradley is waiting on you.

But you feel like you’re out of time.

This was supposed to be one night.

One night, one moment.

So why does this feel so big? Like you were on the precipice of something monumental.

You haven’t even known him for twenty-four hours and yet you’ve never felt like this about anyone else before. The potential of him and of what this seemed like it could be was too good, too perfect. And it scares you. Because the reality of it could crush you if you let yourself give into it and he changed his mind. You don’t want to get swept up in a daydream or a flight of fancy.

What-ifs are just heart aches, not heart breaks.

You can’t give him what he wants, not right now. But you can’t lie to him either.

Even if you want to. Even if you’re dying to.

“Stay safe, Lieutenant Commander Bradley Rooster Bradshaw,” you say, softly not trusting your voice.

Bradley leans in and tips your chin up with a finger under your chin, your eyes flutter close and your breath catches in your chest when you feel his warm breath ghosting over your face. He brushes the softest kiss you’ve ever been given against your cheek. The sweetness of it melts against your skin like a snowflake, like a wish.

“I hope I see you again,” he murmurs, lips lingering.

And then he’s gone, taken away on a summer breeze.

Those two months had moved slower than you thought possible.

You’d learned that your best friend hadn’t been able to give Hangman her number when she’d ended up being the one to try and corral the gaggle of drunken bridesmaids at last call and shepherd them into the waiting cabs. Apparently, she’d tried to look for him but by the time she’d had a moment he’d already left.

That packet of paper you’d kept on your island had taken on a life of its own.

At your friend’s wedding, you’d stood off to the side in your intricately beaded bridesmaid dress watching on with a glass of champagne in your hand as she had her first dance with her new husband. And let yourself imagine what it might have felt like if he’d have been there too. The next day as you had nursed your hangover, you’d regretted indulging those thoughts in addition to drinking the full bottle of champagne you’d snuck away with.

It felt like you were just going through the motions. Like your head was somewhere else, with someone else.

The more you tried to talk yourself out of it and forget about how he’d made you feel, the more he chased you in your dreams.

All the hours you’d spent wondering about what-if you went, what-if you waited, what-if you met him there had led you to this moment here and now. 

The drive had been made, the papers had been handed over and you were approved for entry, it was all happening.

You at Naval Air Station North Island wearing the same pink floral ruffle sundress that you had dropped him off in two months ago.

The smell of jet fuel and rubber mix with the ocean air as the planes start to land one by one and make the slow taxi along the long airstrip that leads to the ramp where they are to park. The perfect lines of them were just as immaculate on the ground as they were in the sky.

As more and more of them make their final descent, the more antsy the crowd of friends and families of the squadron members get. There’s an excited tension steadily building as they wait for the go-ahead to leave the hanger to greet the people they’ve been missing.

You can hear your heartbeat beating in your ears like a drum.

He’s here. He’s here. He’s here.

You hope you’re not making an idiot of yourself. You hope that he hasn’t forgotten you. You hope he remembers why he wanted you here in the first place. You hope he still wants you.

When the final engine of the final plane is turned off, the officer in charge announces that everyone is free to exit the hanger and another cheer goes out. This one much louder than before when the aviators had done the flyover in their faultless formations.

It’s a rush of people as they stream around you out of the domed arch of the hanger and onto the open tarmac under the cloudless blue sky.

The names on the planes had been clocked well in advance by their keen, anticipatory eyes. They know exactly which aircraft they’re heading to and who is going to be climbing out of that cockpit to greet them with equal enthusiasm.

You can see the beaming smiles, you can hear the giddy laughter.

Yet your feet stay stuck on that line between the cracked industrial cement floor and the sundrenched tarmac as you watch all those happy moments happen around you.

It’s the sound of a raspy, full bodied laugh that catches your ear and has your head whirling to the left.

And there he is.

Even from a distance the sight of Bradley Bradshaw has your heart fluttering in your chest.

You see him meeting up with a couple of other pilots with his helmet in hands. You recognized Bob by his glasses, but they’re joined by a fierce looking woman. Rooster is all smiles as she gives him a friendly, playful shove before slipping her hand into Bob’s.

There is nothing you want more than that smile of his to be directed at you.

You catch the way he seems to be checking over his shoulders and looking around to observe the joyful homecoming scenes unfolding around him.

It feels like half hope, half agony when you take that first step out of the shady hanger, onto the tarmac, and into the bright San Diego sun. There were still more than a few warm summer days to look forward to.

Summoning more courage, you take a few more tentative steps in Rooster’s direction. You feel like you’re holding your breath, waitingwaitingwaiting for him to look over and see you.

You’re noticed by his dark-haired female friend first, who nods her chin in your direction. You see the rise and fall of his shoulders as he takes a deep breath before he turns towards your direction and sees you for the first time in two months.

And for a moment, it’s just you and Bradley.

Across a crowded bar. Across a teeming tarmac.  

His eyes locked on yours and yours locked on his.

That easy smile he’d already been wearing is transformed into a wide grin that lights up his whole face.

Your stomach swoops and your feet start moving like they have a mind of their own towards him. He hands his helmet to Bob before he’s taking long strides to meet you halfway. You’re almost toe-to-toe with him, but you stop a respectable half-step further away than you’d like to be.

The two of you are a little greedy in the way you take in the other up close.

You can almost feel the warmth of his brown eyes on your skin, he’s looking at you like he is trying to soak up every inch of you. He has a heart-fluttering crinkle around his eyes as his gaze sweeps over your dress. And you know you’ve made the right choice by wearing it.

Rooster is more tan than the last time you saw him. Sweat dots his temples and his pretty curls are a little flat, no doubt from the shiny red and yellow helmet he’d all but blindly shoved into poor Bob’s hands. You notice that his lips are chapped and his nose a little sunburnt.

He’s still handsome as hell. Maybe even more so now.

“Hey, Sailor,” you greet him, giving him a grin of your own. “You look awfully familiar. Although I think the flight suit is throwing me off, maybe if you put those Summer Whites back on it’ll help jog my memory.”

He laughs and slides a finger under the thin strap of your dress and gently tugs you in even closer.

“Huh, that’s funny because I definitely remember you,” Bradley says, scooping you up with one arm, “Pretty sure you’re the girl of my dreams.”

And then he’s kissing you in a way that you’re pretty sure is going to screw you up forever.

Your wildest dreams never could have prepared you for the reminder of how good it feels to be held in his arms.

Your wildest dreams never could have prepared you for how good it feels to have his lips sliding against yours again.

Your wildest dreams never could have prepared you for a man like Bradley Bradshaw.

He was real and he was in front of you and he wanted you.

“I need you to stop smiling so much, sweetheart, so I can kiss you properly,” he says, pulling back to nudge your nose with his.

“My apologies, I’ll try to take this more seriously,” you tease, still smiling as you pull his face back to yours.

As Bradley presses you even closer, you realize this might not be a bad idea at all, but possibly the best one you’ve ever had.

There's no man quite like Bradley Bradshaw! Whether he is in his Summer Whites or in a Flight Suit he's That Man™️!

Many, many, MANY thanks to @gretagerwigsmuse for her support and endless cheerleading! He's finally got his pants off, Jordan, we did it!

If you missed Part 1 you can read it HERE! Or if you haven't read the story that started it all check out Hey, Sailor!

Moodboards: One || Two

You can read my other stories here!

Taglist:

@gretagerwigsmuse @sehnsuchts-trunken @notroosterbradshaw @tongue-like-a-razor @laracrofted @bradshawsbitch @starryeyedstories @top-hhun-main @startrekfangirl2233 @callsign-viper @teacupsandtopgun @shanimallina87 @angelbabyange @oneelleandaneye @mizzzpink @cornishkat @alana4610 @20th-centu-fairy-girl @pono-pura-vida @donttouchmycarrots @eg-dr3amer3 @whaledots-blog @a-beaverhausen @hangmanscoming @mandolin22 @theweekndhistorybook @lilpeekabooze @high-bi-imgonnacry @ahintofkiwistrawberry @ruewrote @spiderman-stilinski @jayniebop @my-soulmate-is-mycroft @imaginecrushes @keyrani @chicomonks @artemissunn @mayempress @eddiemunsonreader

[fabricated-misslieness]

ᴘᴀɪʀɪɴɢ: alhaitham x gn reader

ꜱᴜᴍᴍᴀʀʏ: alhaitham answers a seamingly meaningless question while cuddling with you

ᴡᴏʀᴅ ᴄᴏᴜɴᴛ: 562

ᴍᴀʏʙ'ꜱ ɴᴏᴛᴇ: that this is the second time the reader is akin to a cat in an alhaitham fic is pure coincidence I swear. No beef vs dogs

"What animal would you be?"

Kaveh had asked this on a stray night, a couple drinks in, buzzed and free but not sobbing-drunk as he always is. He had meant it as an innocent question, a fun fact, and said that he would love to be a lion, coincidentally his Darshan's insignia, because they looked cool—well, he listed a lot more reasons, but that's what it boiled down to.

Alhaitham that same night said it was meaningless to answer. It's not like one would be able to achieve such a thing–morphing into an animal–anyway. Thus, he did not answer, and neither had you at the time, since conversation had moved on quickly after Alhaitham had shut his former roommate down.

However, despite his claims of it being meaningless, it seems to have stuck to his mind. He finds himself pondering the question whenever his mind drifts off work, which is a rare occurrence in itself, since he is a very focused individual.

Would he be a dog? Absolutely not. A crow? No, he didn't much care for shiny things. On the broader spectrum, a solitary animal? No, he had you.

The question, after everything, proved to be quite challenging.

The answer finally comes to him on an empty weekend afternoon which he's got no choice but to fill with physical contact from his undoubted "love of my life"—he says it that way, but he's got plenty choice and he chooses without hesitation.

Alhaitham's holding you, and you are merely enjoying your time together, when he says, "I think I'd be a cat."

Quickly recalling the conversation, you perk up to follow up, "Yeah? How so?"

"They're solitary beings, to a point, both enjoying alone time and company." He nods to himself, "They have fine taste, unlike dogs, they groom themselves and display a sense of discipline regarding so. Plus, if I really was a cat, I would have nothing to do around the house except lounge around. I wouldn't have any work to do, which is always a plus."

"To be fair, Haitham," You snicker in return, "if you were any animal, you wouldn't have to work."

"I meant that as a cat, you don't even have the burden of "tricks" automatically placed on you." Of course he thought it through.

"Guess you're right." You snuggle closer to his chest, and he thinks that's that.

But then you're perking up again, pulling away from his tight embrace, turning it loose as you meet his eyes. "I think I would be a cat too."

"Oh, yeah?" He shifts too, interestedly.

"I'd get to show you my love that way." You grin up at him, and he can't help but to smile back, despite the lack of elaboration so far. "Cats kiss each other by licking, I think, and they cuddle all the time. Could you imagine laying under a stray ray of sun, together?"

Strangely enough, he can.

There's the warmth of the summer, or of heat in the winter, on his fur, hot but pleasant, and he's got yet another source of heat between his paws, so to speak. He can also imagine himself with a nice black coat, and you with an orange one. It's a nice thought, oddly domestic.

"Yeah." He hugs you closer, the thought freshly laid to rest behind his closed eyelids, and you can tell he's satisfied.

Finally, that's that.

[babyyhoneyyyyy]

✩ 🔦 𝓥𝓲𝓰𝓲𝓵𝓪𝓷𝓬𝓮🍸 ༘⋆ - One Shot [h.s]

Storyline: The sole goal that Harry pursues in his existence is to secure his position as the bodyguard of the prime minister's daughter. However, he faces a singular challenge that prevents him from achieving it: his unavoidable attraction to the rebellious and charismatic young lady he is supposed to protect. Word count: 4k+ Smut: 🔞

─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ──

"Second room is secured. I repeat. Second room is secured."

The sound of the announcement echoed in his ear, his concentration fading as he gazed out at the pool from one of the balconies.

"First floor is also secured." A deeper voice from his next companion echoed.

The summer breeze brushed against his face, causing him to squint, yet his gaze remained fixed on the pool.

"Styles. Need confirmation on the main courtyard." His surname sounded foreign through the earpiece, blurring as the sound of laughter reached his ears, sweet and soft.

"Repeat, confirmation on the main courtyard, Styles." His companion's attempt to elicit a response continued to be ignored, whether by his senses or his mind. His pupils dilated and his lips parted as he watched the strawberry drink being absorbed through the thin straw. His throat felt drier than usual, and he had to close his eyes as he straightened up. He couldn't afford to be distracted any longer.

"Styles?"

He breathed in the fresh air as his eyes snapped open. His fingers brushed the small button on his earpiece as he turned away, leaving behind the hallway, the strawberry drink, and the young woman who had decided it was a good idea to remove the top of her bikini just as she had seen the man enter through the balcony.

"Main courtyard secured." He confirmed as he continued on his way in the opposite direction, ignoring the whisper in his mind urging him to turn back. But the prime minister awaited him downstairs, ready to assign the month's tasks due to his unexpected trip.

A business trip to Paris, lasting at least a week, and one in which he definitely couldn't take his daughter. The instruction was clear: "Don't lose sight of her", prompting everyone to nod before he climbed into the van with the other half of the team.

Harry scanned the faces of those present, noting the indifferent expressions of some friends and the friendly one from Carrie, his closest companion. Carrie had been the first to greet him upon arrival and, by chance, had introduced him to Audrey Coldwell.

He remembered that moment as if it were yesterday, perhaps because he had replayed it countless times in his mind since that night.

Audrey had been dining—or her version of it, with wine and cheese—sitting at the far end of the table. The first thing Harry noticed was her hair, cascading curls down her back. A throat-clearing from his companion wasn't enough to gain the young woman's attention, prompting Carrie to maintain her gaze on her before both approached.

Warm lighting filled the grand dining hall, where an excessively long wooden table dominated the room. As he approached, he began to notice the small details: the chandelier in the room's center, the shiny floor reflecting his image, the abundance of untouched food served in golden dishes, and the classic style of the house that contrasted completely with his own, which was more modern and not at all luxurious. Still, his house had been enough for him at the time, though he had to sell it after getting that job, which was one of the reasons that forced him to stay in that position.

That's precisely what forced him to draw a small smile when he found himself next to the young woman, whose face he still hadn't seen well because of the curls that fell over her face. He could only see her outfit, which consisted of a white silk nightgown over black fabric, which Harry supposed was her usual pajamas.

"Who's this?"

The question brought him sharply back to reality, filling him with discomfort. Harry blinked, confused, and his eyebrows furrowed slightly before Carrie gave him a reassuring look, then addressing the young woman looking for an answer.

"His name is Harry Styles, Miss Coldwell. He will be joining our team starting today."

Then, for the first time, Audrey's eyes met his. A contrast between deep chocolate brown and emerald green, yet despite that, the discomfort was evident in her intense gaze. Harry didn't fully understand Audrey's attitude, although his mind filled with possible explanations, like the typical arrogant behavior of people from her social class. However, he tried not to show his discomfort and growing displeasure, preferring to keep his gaze ahead rather than look at her, maintaining his expressionless face. Seconds later, it was the young woman who broke the silence.

"Did they change Alex for him?"

Harry decided not to inquire further about the matter after he and Carrie left the room once Audrey's attention turned back to the wine. Carrie also chose to remain silent, but both understood what it meant.

The answer was yes, and Harry could only speculate about the reason for 'Alex's dismissal. However, he was sure of one thing: if something similar happened to him, his fate would be humiliation and immediate replacement.

And that was something Harry was not willing to risk.

But for Audrey, the situation wasn't a risk but an adrenaline rush; a reality that Harry would discover the next morning, after their boss's departure.

The day started early at seven in the morning, but long before his alarm sounded, he heard the squeak of the door. A cry echoed down the hallway: "She's gone!" 

Still with heavy eyes, he got out of bed. Suddenly, his own door swung open without warning, revealing Carrie in what Harry supposed was her usual pajamas, consisting of sweatpants and a loose polo; however, and more disturbingly, was the strange expression on her familiar face. Realization hit him immediately, as the commotion began to spread through the hallway.

She's gone.

Audrey had left.

The rest of the day had been extremely distressing. The team scattered completely, exploring every place that seemed a plausible option for each of them. From yoga classes to university courses, passing through extracurricular activities, their favorite spots, external places like parks and streets, and even the different rooms of the house, but they found no trace of Coldwell.

And then, was there any place he hadn't considered at all?

Traffic forced him to stop in front of the church, prompting him to sigh with irony. Perhaps with a prayer, he could find her before his father found out, risking his professional career. He briefly closed his eyes as he took a deep breath, opening them again at the honking of the car behind him, urging him to move. However, his attention first focused on a line of nuns crossing the pedestrian crossing with notable patience, even after the traffic light turned green.

Harry observed their dark habits and the veils covering their heads, some tall, others short, but his gaze stopped at one in particular, notably younger. Unable to help himself, his eyes traveled her figure from head to toe.

A nun in designer shoes.

Unbelievable, yet true.

He reflected on the contemporaneity of the environment he was in, considering how common it was to associate the concept of a petite woman, with a face marked by years and the serene air of a nun. He had his aunt as an example, who had embraced religious life, which, she believed, had contributed to her own personal development. He deeply respected her and had contemplated the idea of following a similar path, and now, facing the possibility of being fired from his job, he found himself contemplating that option again. Perhaps all this time his true roots were destined for religious life. He imagined himself wearing a clerical suit with black pants, along with the alb; he even pictured himself carrying his own cross, the same one hanging around his neck at that moment.

The noise of the car behind him resonated loudly, catching his attention as he watched it move forward, the driver visibly angry and hurling insults.

Harry turned his gaze back to the church, watching the nuns' habits disappear behind a distant door.

He moved his hand to the handbrake, releasing it to press the accelerator.

Designer shoes.

Instead of the accelerator, he pressed the brake.

The elegant designer shoes no longer seemed extravagant in his mind when he remembered seeing that exact model and how he recognized them.

It was at a party in the Coldwell garden, days after he had started working there. Audrey Coldwell herself had worn those shoes, and he swore they had been custom-made for her then.

The roar of car horns behind him had never been as deafening as when he made a U-turn, regardless of the risk of hitting another vehicle, to quickly park in front of the church. He hastily locked the car and ran through the streets.

Once inside, he felt completely out of place. The atmosphere of the mass immediately intimidated him, and the looks he drew when he interrupted seemed to judge him severely. He murmured an empty apology, his heart racing and his eyes anxiously searching every corner of the church.

His eyes wandered between his wrist, the clock, and the scene before him. Finally, he identified the door through which he had seen the last nun enter. However, as he tried to move forward, an institution guard stopped him, with strict orders to allow access only to the nuns. An ironic smile crossed his mind.

If Audrey could be a nun, then he could consider being a father.

Despite his attempts to persuade the guard, he was unsuccessful. Finally, he was forced to resort to his only option: creating a distraction for the guard and finding an alternative way in. As soon as the guard looked away for a moment, he slipped inside.

A garden unfolded around him, his feet running on the grass, and the dress shoes began to discomfort him.

He walked with lighter steps as the surroundings around him seemed to empty out, only a few figures dressed in habits that stood out from his stature continued their course, seemingly unaware of what was going through his mind. His lips parted as he ran his hand through his hair, carefully adjusting it as some curls began to bother him on his forehead. Then, his hand slid toward the start of his tie, pulling slightly to loosen it. He felt the oppression increasing until, like a sign from fate, his senses sharpened to hear the sound of wood hitting something like that.

They were heels.

His attention immediately shifted back, where he recognized some of the nuns he had seen before. Beyond them, he saw the shoes he had been looking for. Without receiving any orders, his feet resumed their path, but nothing seemed to make her feel more distant. With effort, his throat was forced to act, leaving aside the little shame that remained to finally speak aloud the name that had been echoing in his mind, finally catching her attention.

Audrey's eyes widened in surprise, but just when Harry thought that would be his exit, the corners of Audrey's lips curved into a subtle smile, completely transforming her expression. With her hands together and a small bow, she caused the expression on Harry's face to change from satisfaction to anger.

Without wasting time, Audrey murmured an "amen" as she turned to head to another room.

Harry's eyes followed her; she could feel it on her back, his gaze gripping tightly and penetrating her very being. Perhaps that's why she had chosen the church as her hiding place and not somewhere else.

Purification was what she had in mind.

Her footsteps echoed in the deserted halls, the stillness marked by the time of day. Most of the nuns were at the public mass being held at that moment.

Although the church wasn't her usual place, she had visited enough to know the corners that nuns typically didn't access until a certain time, especially during mass.

It was precisely in that same room where she had found her outfit for the day: the custodian's area, fortunately vacant during the weekend.

Finally, she reached the door. As she attempted to close it behind her, a hand forcefully landed on the wood, stopping it and entering the space beside her.

"What are you doing?"

The rough tone in Harry's hoarse voice startled her suddenly, aware of her recent predicament as they both crowded into the cramped space near the shelf filled with cleaning products.

"Do you realize how many people are looking for you right now?" His body pressed against hers, the proximity accentuated by the annoyed expression on his face. "You've got everyone scouring every corner of the city."

Audrey smiled wider as she watched Harry's cheeks turn rosier, spreading across his face as he stared at her intensely. She wondered if he noticed his blush, if it was due to his own discomfort or if, like her, he was feeling the heat rise in that confined space.

"Let's go," he declared firmly, taking her arm, which she immediately withdrew.

"Or what?" Her voice barely whispered but was audible enough for both. Her brown eyes seized the silence to examine the face so close to hers. With a dark look towards her, furrowed brow, lips slightly parted seeking air as his breath became uneven.

It was the same expression Audrey had dreamed of before running away from home.

"Or I'll tell your father."

The threat seemed amusing to her.

"Tell him," she replied. "Then he'll realize how inefficient you are at doing your job."

The cold treatment made Harry roll his eyes in exasperation. He was already used to Audrey's bouts of arrogance, but this time, his patience wasn't what it had been on previous occasions.

"I'll see what I do."

"I don't think it's appropriate for you to talk to me like that," she replied.

"And how do you expect me to talk to you when you've got me chasing you through a fucking church?"

Audrey slightly arched her eyebrows at his exasperated response, making Harry avoid her gaze. Even though he could feel her eyes fixed on him.

He desperately needed to take a breath, and he took a few seconds to do so, but when he finally commanded his feet to move to leave, whether with her or without her, it seemed as though his senses had somehow disconnected.

His duty forced him to return to her side, no matter what.

But she made it so hard.

"Even more inappropriate," she suddenly declared, breaking the silence that had filled the place. "Cursing in a church." Her heel softly echoed on the polished floor as she stepped forward, feeling the brush of Harry's nose against her face. "What other inappropriate things do you plan to do here, Harry?"

Her name resonated in a whisper that tormented him, swirling in his mind like a treacherous melody. He didn't know how else to feel, mixing the rapid beating of his heart from the growing adrenaline, the desperation, and, worse, the temptation.

He closed his eyes for a moment, wishing to see only darkness, but reality hit him as his other senses awakened, and Audrey's sweet perfume permeated his being.

He opened his eyes.

"Take that off so we can leave," he murmured again, and to his surprise, the young woman nodded.

"As you wish."

Audrey could see the frown on Harry's face before her hands lowered her habit. The silk slipped off her shoulders and body with a smooth motion, revealing the black babydoll and matching set she wore underneath. The noticeable change in Harry's breathing brought a smile to her face. She could feel his breath, with a hint of mint, that caught her attention. Audrey glanced down for a moment, just long enough to pick up the uniform that had fallen to the floor, then lifted her head to meet the green eyes that were watching her.

Seconds passed with unsettling slowness as she rose. Audrey could perceive every detail of his face accentuated by the dim light, with a curl falling over his forehead, his chest rising and falling with measured breaths. In that moment, Audrey wondered if he was breathing properly.

"Do you do this often?" she heard him ask when he was facing her again. She tilted her head to one side, pretending not to understand. "Seducing your bodyguards."

The answer was already reflected on Audrey's face when her eyes sparkled as she responded.

"Only the ones I find interesting."

Harry couldn't pinpoint the exact moment his heart began to pound, but with that response, he couldn't help but imagine the same situation with someone else, causing his steady breathing to falter.

"Now I understand why Alex found it so hard to keep his job."

The confusion on her face vanished instantly when she felt the push of Harry's body against hers, finally perceiving him above her, though unable to yet savor the mint taste of his mouth. Harry chose another route, bringing his lips to her neck, allowing his saliva to taste the sweet perfume, which in his mouth turned bitter, but this lacked importance when Audrey's soft moans echoed directly in his ear.

Desperation and compassion manifested in his hands as he kept her in contact with his skin, his fingers gently gripping her hips and raising her leg to bring her even closer to him. The friction of her underwear against his pants was starting to become uncomfortable, and as his tongue slid down her neck, the urgency to calm the throbbing in her most intimate area intensified. To her surprise, Harry seemed to perceive it immediately, pulling back slightly to look at her.

Audrey's eyes, filled with pleading, seized his face. For a moment, she believed their tongues would finally intertwine; but soon she realized her mistake as she watched Harry kneel. Now, she was leaning against the wall and one of the cleaning shelves, while Harry, from the ground, pressed his face against her skin.

The sound of her own breathing filled her ears as Harry's fingers moved over her panties with agonizing slowness. She felt his lips traveling over her skin, unsure if they were trying to silence her or provoke her to speak more. His tongue explored forbidden corners, while his fingers maintained a continuous game of approaching and retreating.

Then, her hand descended to grab his hair once more, urging him to act, only for him to react faster and hold her back. Instead of pushing her away as Audrey had thought, Harry took her hand, guiding her fingers over his, and with a swift motion, he pulled her panties aside, exposing her intimacy.

Forcefully, her fingers clung to the fabric as Harry's touch focused on the exact spot where she needed it most. Audrey felt his breath on her, but not with the intensity she desired, leading her to look at him with narrowed eyes for a brief moment. He looked up with a half-smile.

He knew exactly what he was doing.

"You're so wet," Harry murmured, letting his words seep into Aubrey's senses. "Is it for me?"

She quickly nodded, exhaling a deep sigh.

"Words." Harry ordered in a rough voice, sending a shiver down Aubrey's spine. Swallowing with difficulty, she responded, "Only for you."

It was then that Aubrey noticed how the amusement in those green eyes transformed into the itch of his own lust in the blink of an eye.

"I'll make sure it stays that way from now on."

With only a warning that would echo in her mind forever, she felt Harry's tongue on her. A singular suction, a desperate pleasure. His lips pressed against her, his saliva mixing with her own fluids, and she heard him sucking and licking in perfect harmony, making the sound itself fuel her arousal.

She then thought about the possibility of living only from that pleasure, from the delight Harry provided her, from his muffled sounds between her thighs, from how he molded her ass while bringing her clitoris closer to his mouth, and from the way he looked at her from his kneeling position.

She could even live from a photo of him just as he was at that moment. So unreal.

The adrenaline increased as her fingers brushed against anything they could touch while she tried to keep her balance. She stumbled upon more cleaning items and even a small book, whose title she avoided reading so as not to remember the fate that had been imposed on her.

It was a direct ticket to hell, which at that moment was worth it for a small slice of paradise.

As the heat invaded her cheeks, she felt the space around her shrink. Her moans escaped her lips, and in a desperate attempt to contain them, she pressed her own hand against her mouth, biting down hard on her palm, hoping the pain would mitigate her desire, though it only seemed to intensify it.

Suddenly, feeling Harry's fingers joining his tongue inside her, entering with two dry fingers that, once they crossed the barrier, became wet in her essence, a muffled moan escaped her lips, followed by an abrupt silence around them. Harry had stopped.

"N-no, no." Audrey's words barely escaped her mouth as her dry throat burned, and the man kneeling before her locked his green eyes with hers. Audrey swallowed hard.

Harry chose silence over speaking, lowering his gaze. In a movement that escaped Audrey's sight, his free hand slid towards her panties, pulling them down until they fell around her heels. Once Audrey managed to lift each foot to free herself from them, Harry picked them up with his fingers.

"Open."

Harry's harsh voice filled the silence as he brought the panties to Audrey's lips. With that single command, a jolt of electricity coursed through her body, and she obeyed, parting her lips, feeling the lace brush against her tongue and gag her.

Without warning, the fingers reunited inside her, this time three of them, moving swiftly and adjusting to her contours. Harry's tongue swirled around her clit as if he were in a personal competition, and perhaps he was, challenging himself to see how quickly he could bring the woman, who struggled to make no sound in a sacred place, to the highest point of pleasure.

Whether it was the excitement, the adrenaline of being discovered, the sensation of Harry's tongue, or her own skill, Aubrey finally reached that moment, feeling the tension spread to her cheeks, making them burn just like her body. Her eyes squeezed shut, and her grip on the shelf tightened, clinging to it as if her life depended on it.

Her cry of release was trapped in her underwear, wet from the mix of her saliva and parted lips. But as if that wasn't enough, she soon felt a more intense pressure in her mouth when Harry's hand firmly covered her outcry.

Her eyelids finally lifted as her breathing began to stabilize, and when she thought she couldn't take it any longer, she found Harry's gaze fixed on her.

In the dim light of the room, his face emerged clearly, his hair tousled from her fingers that had run through it, with his curls spilling over his forehead, and his lips slightly parted, still wet from the fluids she had left on them.

A sigh escaped her lips without warning. Though she wasn't sure if it was from exhaustion or from the new wave of heat from having that sight right in front of her.

In one last effort to uncover her true desire, Aubrey mustered the courage to move forward and firmly grasp Harry's neck, pressing him against her body once more, feeling the bulge in his pants pressing against her stomach. But before her hands could slide further down, he quickly stopped her.

"There will be another day when you can make it up to me," he murmured, causing her eyebrows to rise, mixing surprise and disappointment, although that feeling quickly faded. Did this mean there would be a next time? Her eyes gleamed in the darkness. "Go to the car."

The command had almost turned into a question. The confidence in Harry's gaze faded before Aubrey left the room, already changed and seemingly more presentable, no longer in the nun outfit and dressed in clothes that truly reflected her personality.

"I'll go to the car," she confirmed as Harry's hand squeezed her wrist. "I have no other church to take refuge in," a crooked smile began to form on her face. Harry swallowed hard. "Or any other janitor's closet to dirty."

Finally, he nodded, his cheeks reddened, which contrasted with the attitude he usually displayed. It was fascinating to observe those small changes in him for her. Every time, it became more intriguing to see him.

"Oh, I almost forgot. About Alex..." Aubrey bit her lips, struggling to hold back a smile that threatened to appear at Harry's immediate reaction. "You would have had more chances with him than I did. Alex is gay."

With those words, she turned. A mischievous expression forming on her face as she saw his green eyes widen.

As she exited the room and re-entered the green space, several men dressed in black suits quickly passed by her. She averted her gaze, avoiding looking at them, just before hearing a new shout behind her.

"Catch him!"

Before she could react, she felt a tug on her arm that forced her to move quickly. Harry's fingers had gripped her again, and once more, adrenaline coursed through her body as they both hurriedly fled from the church.

[lesparaversdemillina]

Ma PAL pour le Shiny Summer Challenge 2024

[alapagedeslivres]

Changer de ciel pour mieux voir les étoiles de Sandra MARTINEAU

[ctimenefic]

uhh sooo this needs fic for science (and me) pls could you oblige

always and forever my darling. thank you for this absolute treat of a photo set. you'll notice I basically didn't get past photo one, hope that's alright

“Can you do my back?”

George sounds fucked out; that’s the only reason Alex cracks open an eye, to check the sun and sea and sand haven’t decided to challenge him personally on making George William Russell achieve ultimate bliss. From his own lounger he can just about see George’s face smushed into the crook of his elbow, the corner of his mouth tipped up, and what is no doubt a pleading look unfortunately entirely concealed behind sunglasses. 

“Please,” he adds, and Alex can’t tell if he imagines eyelashes fluttering madly beyond the dark lenses. “I’ll get tan lines.”

“Just take your shorts off,” he grumbles back. He has; an artful grecian fold of towel is all that lies between him and cockburn. It’d been a faff to get it just so, and he’s at that itchy-good stage of his tanning, where sweat’s beading on his skin enough to make it feel tight and stretched, but not uncomfortable. A primitive pleasure. Not something to interrupt with the slime of factor five.

George hmphs into his arm. “It’s not a nudist beach.”

“It’s a private beach. On a private island.” Alex tries to sound annoyed, but it’s actually a fucking marvel that George’s inhibitions reset on a goldfish-like timer; it doesn’t seem to matter how many times Alex fucks him til he shouts on the sand, or sends him back to the villa glistening chin-to-chest with his own come, a few hours later it’s back to baseline, and Alex gets to make a spectacle out of him all over again.

“Aleex.” It’s always like that, stretched out just long enough to be noticed, but short enough to read like a typo, sound slurred and drunk and happy, like George just wants his name on his lips a little longer. And it’s always enough to work, Alex has to concede, as he scrabbles in George’s beach tote for the spray. 

“Alright princess,” Alex snarks, but even that can’t shift George’s smug expression. He straddles George’s thighs and over-spritzes til George’s back is gleaming wet with the stuff. It’s shiny, and smells faintly of cucumber; it makes him think of his sisters doing spa days at home, face masks and fluffy slippers. George might like that.

Another spritz for good measure and George huffs. “That’s expensive.”

“You’ll get another win bonus after the break,” Alex retorts, fond. He follows it up with a smooth press of both palms, right the way up George’s back, either side of his spine, and down his arms, and George melts under him. The cucumber scent darkens as it meets skin and sweat; Alex feels thirsty even as his mouth waters. He skims up the sides of George’s ribs next, even though George could obviously have reached there himself; lets the pads of his fingers linger in each hollow just a second. There’s not a part of George he hasn’t touched, but there are places he hasn’t memorised yet. It’s summer. They have time. 

When he glides his palms up to George’s neck, rubs the suncream with his fingertips right up to the base of his hairline, George shivers and stretches like a cat under him, pliant and satisfied, and it takes more of the weight of a bad half season off Alex’s shoulders than a dozen hours of sunbathing and swimming could. He presses his thumbs in at the top of George’s traps, revels in the open mouth moan he barely muffles against his arm. 

“Maybe I should take my shorts off after all,” George murmurs, smug - and there it is, there’s the fucking play. He wiggles a little, arse suddenly straining to escape his Hilfiger swim trunks.  

Alex swats his shoulder. “Hussy.” Just to be petty, he slides over George’s arse instead, wedges his knees against George’s ribs and lets some of his weight sit there against his mid-back. That’ll teach him not to ask for what he wants flat out. 

And then George shifts his arms - moves his head round, to give Alex a look, maybe, or just to get comfy - and his shoulders pull in. Just a fraction. Just enough to turn the long line of his spine into a gully between thick, strong muscle. Just enough to catch the head of Alex’s dick where it sat soft against one of his vertebrae, and squeeze.

George doesn’t even notice, that’s the thing. But Alex - Alex can see it, how fucking fast he’s getting hard at the feel, the look of it, the pink of him against the soft brown of George’s tan. He can imagine how it might-

No. No, that’s not- He’s heard of blowing someone’s back out, but it’s not literal, it’s an expression. It’s George last night, shiny eyed and weak all over, when Alex gave him fingers to suck and fed him ice cubes and mango slices and stayed inside him until he was hard again, because he could, because it’s summer and they have time. 

He’s not going fuck George’s back. He’s not. He’s- he can be normal about this. Even if it would be like when his ex-girlfriend would lie him flat on the floor, core tensed, and then run her pussy over his cock, slide back and forth until her thighs shook and she was dripping wet - actually dripping, fat drops he could hear hitting the skin of his stomach, his dick. Like that, but better, because it would be George stuck just taking it, feeling it, not even able to watch as Alex fucked up into the tight space between his shoulderblades.

He’s utterly hard now, dark and straining. A drop of precome appears. If he moved, it’d smear on George. He could rub it in. He could smear more. 

He could watch his come sluice down the whole long length of George’s spine, pool in the small of George’s back, or slide down to his arse, push it inside and fuck him there too, fuck every place he could be fucked until he was more inside George than out. 

He’d had an idle plan to finger George until he gaped for their last night on the island - not fisting, that was one of the words George couldn’t say, had blinked at rapidly when Alex had tried probably the world’s most ill-advised conversation on kink. But as close as he could get without George bolting. Four, and his mouth, until George cried, late enough into the night that he’d squirm on the jet home in the morning, empty and needy. Maybe then he’d finally let Alex fuck him mid-flight, whatever the pilot might hear. 

George shifts again, a tiny movement, but enough that Alex hisses at the change, the heat of a fresh centimetre of George’s skin under the head of him. Precome rolls down, splatters silently out of sight, in the gully of his spine. Alex closes his eyes for a breath.

“Georgie,” he starts. “Be a very good girl for me and stay still.”

[simlishpiadina]

Call Me Oppa - A KDramas Legacy Challenge

Welcome everyone to this brand new, shiny legacy challenge! Based on the most iconic tropes from k-dramas, the Call Me Oppa Legacy Challenge will make your dreams come true. Romance, drama, adventure, this challenge has it all.

Will oppa finally notice you?

Sure he will… you’re the main character after all, aren’t you?

Find the legacy document HERE!

(Please, tag your posts with #CallMeOppaChallenge so I can follow your stories!)

Call Me Oppa is a 9 Generations Legacy Challenge based on the most common and iconic K-Dramas tropes. Each Generation has the name of a K-Drama, but you won't necessairly have to base it on that one drama, it is just a rapresentative drama that uses that trope.

The Generations are:

Generation 1: The Heirs (poor girl rich guy trope) Generation 2: So I Married An Anti-fan (enemies to lovers trope) Generation 3: Hometown Cha Cha Cha (from the city to the village trope) Generation 4: True Beauty (cinderella story trope) Generation 5: Our Beloved Summer (past lovers trope) Generation 6: A Business Proposal (workplace romance trope) Generation 7: Reborn Rich (revenge drama trope) Generation 8: My Demon (supernatural lover trope) Generation 9: Castaway Diva (idol drama trope)

[artaxlivs]

“Ok, when I say go - squeeze as hard as you can.”

Eddie was going to lose it. There was absolutely zero chance he was going to be able to sit through this display without having a display of his own. He squirmed where he was sitting in the grass, bringing his knees up in a way he hoped was real fucking casual.

“Smooth,” Robin whispered from her spot in the shade next to him. She was leaned back on her hands, giraffe legs sprawled out in front of her so she could poke Henderson with her toes. He kept swatting back at her and ignoring the fact that he was missing entirely. Too focused on the stopwatch and notebook in his hand. What a nerd.

Max got up from where she’d been sitting on the other side of Robin and joined Lucas in his patio chair. Poor Lucas looked like he was on cloud nine which must mean they were currently off on the on-again-off-again cycle of their relationship. Settling in, Max turned to grin at Eddie, sharp and evil. It was clear she’d only moved there to see how this was affecting him. She was a horrible child. His least favorite. 

Except that she wasn’t.

Sticking his tongue out at her, Eddie looked back to the scene in front of him.

The ground around them was littered with crushed fruits. Steve’s thighs were shiny with orange juice. His tiny little shorts had ridden up so high that it had passed indecent before he’d even finished with the citrus fruit. Eddie gulped as his eyes traced over the clear bulge in Steve’s little green shorts. He refused to lift his eyes to Steve’s bare chest with his smattering of moles and coarse hair.

And there was not a chance in hell that Eddie was going to make eye contact with that smirk of Steve’s. He knew what the fuck he’d started. With the kids around and everything! Granted, all Steve had done was crush an empty soda can between his thighs and then the challenge had been on. Lucas had sworn he could do it, too. And he did. But he couldn’t manage to do the lemon. Steve had though. And the orange. and whatever the fuck a papaya was. And on through all the fruit in Steve’s kitchen - did he stock up for this? Who kept that much fruit on hand?

Now, he had a whole ass melon between those thick thighs of his. And Steve had been working out all summer. Running, yes, but it was the squats that drove Eddie to madness. The sunkissed skin wrapped around thick muscles, covered in downy hair, begging, screaming for Eddie to touch them. To run his fingers up them and squeeze, to bury his face between them and finally clear his head with the musky scent of Steve Harrington.

Fuck. Eddie should have escaped into the house. He was never gonna be able to keep his cool. Steve sat back, adjusting around so everyone could see the length of his legs as he crossed his ankles, shifting the melon a little as he got into position.

Eddie whimpered.

“Oh, who cares?” Mike scoffed, “So your big dumb jock legs can make us a fruit salad. Big deal.” He elbowed Will who was staring very intently at Steve. Eddie grinned, covering his mouth and flicking his eyes at Robin who’s eyes were wide and who’s mouth was an O of shock. “We aren’t impressed. Right, Will?”

“Shhh, Mike.” Will waved a hand but didn’t shift his focus away from Steve, “Later.”

Mike sputtered, looking from Will’s intent gaze down to Steve’s thighs. Eddie saw it the moment Mike realized what was going on. He looked shocked. Then angry. Then jealous. And last, scared. There it was. Finally. Jesus.

If Eddie had to suffer through this, at least some good would come of it. Mike would finally realize that he needed to get his head out of his ass. It was about--

“Go!” Dustin yelled, clicking the tab on the top of the watch.

Steve grunted, squeezing his thighs together. His fingers flexed against the ground behind him and his ass came up off the patio a few inches as he sort of ...oh dear god...arched up into it. He clenched his thighs, his hips, his gorgeous fucking ass, Eddie held his breath, clenched his own thighs to not arch up in response, biting his lips to keep from panting and moaning and then--

CRACK! The melon split clear up the middle, splooging juice right up the seam of Steve’s clenched thighs. It dripped out under him and Eddie could taste cooper he was biting down so hard on his bottom lip.

Dustin had already released the timer, cheering with everyone. Eddie resolutely did not look up, keeping his eyes trained on the slowly growing puddle under Steve instead. It was so hot. It was fucking obscene. 

“Alright, what’s next?” Dustin said with a sunny smile, looking up from where he’d noted the time in his spiral notebook.

“Me.” Eddie heard himself say and launched himself at his boyfriend. Steve muttered something about it being about time right before Eddie smashed their mouths together.

“Um...should I...start the timer?” he heard Dustin ask. 

There were a bunch of squelching thuds as people must have thrown crushed fruit at him.