7 from the February Nosebleed Club prompts for Jo/Egan🖤 - @lostloveletters
7. "pinky," Bucky Egan/war correspondent OC.
@mercurygray or @basilone didn't know they were collaborating with me on this but they did:)
If she’s keeping count, this is the second time Bucky Egan has acquainted his fist with someone’s face on her behalf.
That she knows of. If she’s keeping count.
Someone. William. Her William. Was. If he’s anyone’s William he’s not hers anymore, as he stumbles back, his fingers grasping at the worn, smooth wood of the bar. Rubbing his jaw as it makes a noise that curdles her stomach. He tries to hit back but he’s too stunned, too fuzzy from the beer, and Bucky just leans back and lets him miss.
His shoulders slope towards her like an aside, as he demonstrates with his hand. Behind them, the publican starts making noises, about the lack of respect, the threat of throwing them all out. It’s all true. She’s seized by a sudden flight in her feet, but he’s standing here next to her, and she doesn’t move. “See, just like I told you, gotta keep the thumb in like this-”
William runs his tongue over his teeth, his voice ragged and angry and different. “Jo.”
She opens her mouth to speak — to say, she doesn’t know what — but all John does is stand between them, the threat of more should someone dare try, the blood rushing in her ears.
The woman William had been chatting up — the one in the blue dress — the one whose name she does or doesn’t know — is gone.
And he leaves. Turns and leaves like a coward before she’s had the chance to throw the ring in his face. Not that she's one for that kind of display, but considering that her companion, tall enough that he has to watch his head for the beams, had just been moved to fisticuffs completely sober, well-
It all sounds different now, in her voice. Breaking, light. “John.”
“You alright, Captain?” he says, before he catches himself, realizes what she’s just called him. She’s not a captain tonight anyway, and maybe that’s one in her army of mistakes. Her trousers, her blouse, the medallion beneath the neckline. She wears it now instead of keeping it safe.
Is it raining outside? It smells like it will, or did, when she pushes through the door, the air thick and almost warm. He follows her out, the bike or two parked outside and a jeep. Around the side of the pub, a quiet path.
“Jo.”
What is she supposed to say? William doesn’t think she deserves to be here. William doesn’t think anything she writes is any better than anything any man with a byline could spit up. And she’d agreed to marry him. She’d thought that was ok.
And John-
The day they’d come back from the scrapped mission, the one she’d been allowed to observe. Observe. A miracle she can hardly still believe, in more ways than one. Dumb luck, more like. It still sets her heart racing, if she thinks too hard about it.
The ground beneath their feet again, and her knees knocking together and her ankles, the relief. The scarf damp against her collarbone. I knew you’d get up there, he’d said. You don’t let us tell you no. Mention how good I looked flying past you n’ Buck, alright?
Like it wasn’t a question.
“Jo, tell me you don’t think he’s got the right to do that to you.” She’s frozen, like something could wind back what just happened. Her eyes fill with tears. He sees them, she knows he does. She’s still wearing the goddamn ring. She shakes her head, the smallest noise.
"What do you want, Jo, huh?” The question moves through his whole body, his arms, his hands. He means it, every word. You want me to find him and hurt him? I’ll do it. You want me to go kill a guy, I’ll go kill a guy. I do it all the time, it’s easy. “What do you want?"
You.
It’s a shock in her chest, for the times she’s thought it before. Like a match lighting in a dark room.
Quieter now, his eyes trained on her. “What do you want?”
“You to kiss me.”
He stops. Only a second, trying to see her in the dark-dusk, against the trees and the tangled hedges, the last slivers of fading light.
She’s looking up at him, watching him, before he stoops, so close that she can feel the curls against his forehead. A breath, that shaking pause, before he presses his lips against hers. Seeking her. He doesn’t taste like the beer he hasn’t drank, only toothpaste and the smell of aftershave, and warmth, and a little sweat.
Her top lip in both of his, her hands at his jacket, her fists balled like she’ll drown.
“Easy there,” he says, the words dancing with a laugh, the complete absence of meaning it. She can’t help it, the stupid grin on her face, his hand cupping her jaw, his thumb on her cheek. The way he doesn’t stop kissing her.
The smallest stuttered noise in the back of his throat, the kind she feels in her hips. God-
“John-”
“Say that again.”
She whacks her palm lightly against his shoulder, pulls it back slow as his tongue catches at her front teeth. “Won’t push my luck on a Bucky, then-”
“Since when-” she says, and he wants to laugh again, how breathless she sounds. He’s here, he’s here, for how long, for how long- “Since when don’t you push your luck-”
He smiles against her mouth. The noise of people leaving the pub, or coming in. She straightens up, but he doesn’t pull all the way back. “If that’s all it took to get you to smile-" The back of his neck is warm under her hands, the short hair. He’s a little breathless too, the kind that stops her heart. “Am I better?”
Her lips press the soft spot against the side of his mouth, so firm she feels the gums beneath. “What do you think, Major?”
He’s beaming, here in the dark. “I think I like it when you call me Major.”
“Do you, now?”
“Or John.” He presses his thumb against her chin, her bottom lip.
“Or Bucky.”
Soft against her ear, his voice. “Or Bucky.”
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