#mine: oc | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

emma-ofnormandy · 4 months ago

Text

Ooof- I haven’t written anything of significance in at least six months, probably more. So a big shout out to @mercurygray for hosting the 2025 @blind-dates-fest. It got me writing a bit and hopefully I can keep it going. Without further a do, an introduction to Felicity Collins- an OC for the SAS: Rogue Heroes fandom.

She hated the damp, she hated the cold, and it seemed like that was all London offered once the sun went down. At least in Cairo, even in the darkest depths of the night, the air was warm, and the breeze carried a hint of something wonderful rather than the lingering chill and the overwhelming scent of depression.

At least it was what she imagined depression would smell like if it had a scent.

Felicity didn’t remember this place being so miserable as a young girl. Then again, London hadn’t been thrust into a world war back then, and she hadn’t yet experienced the feel of regular sunshine. God she missed Cairo. She missed the sun, she missed the food. She missed the simplicity of it, of her existence before she’d thought she needed to do more.

Why had she thought she needed to do more?

It was a question that grated every time she sat through another meeting, more often than not a useless one, filled with people who carried too many secrets and couldn’t tell full truths.

The most recent one she had been forced to endure, the one that had her dragging her feet through the dark and damp hours long past her planned outbound train departure, had been another one of those… the useless kind.

British SOE had spoken ad nauseam about things she had already been briefed about and drove home the fact, in no uncertain terms, that her bosses answered to them, damn what the Prime Minister believed. Anyone under the guise of the twenty committee, or any other SS moniker for that matter, were allowed to operate as they did simply at the benevolence of the Army.

As if the fact that they were a security office, outside the confines of military protocol and therefore free to pick and plant and decipher as they saw fit, was irrelevant.

The disastrous meeting still grated. They had spoken to her as if she was a trained carrier pigeon sent only to deliver mail between the infighters, a person of little consequence with not a brain in her head, rather than someone sent with important operational information that she had translated and would be pertinent in the coming months of invasion.

“Ridiculous men,” she grumbled. Of the two sexes, they were far more enamored with their own importance and Felicity had very little patience for it.

On the days they left her feeling more like a punching bag than an intelligence asset, she had to remind herself that she was doing good work, important work. Work that she needed to do because others were not capable of doing it. Work that they had sought her out to complete.

I am important.

The blinking lights of the Ritz shimmered as she turned the corner, and Felicity could feel the irritation and frustration begin to subside. Sight of the opulent hotel meant she wasn’t far from the rooms the agency kept down a shadowed side street and for a few blissful hours she’d be able to forget about the insanity and egos that came with war. And, if she couldn’t forget it, she’d at least be able to drown it in whatever cheap liquor the last inhabitants of the rooms had left.

A cacophony of shouting carried above the London street and her attention was drawn to the hotel’s main doors as a collection of soldiers tumbled through them.

While not the first men in uniform she’d seen tossed from the Ritz, it certainly was the most at any one time. In the dim light, it was hard to make out their insignia, but they were British by the sounds of it.

Speaking of ridiculous men…

Not wanting to get caught up in the chaos of what she could only assume was a drunk regiment on leave, Felicity made a move to cross to the other side of the street, her attention distracted as she searched for her keys. Unaware of the movement ahead of her, she ran headlong into someone, scattering the contents of her purse along the pavement.

She cursed under her breath, irritated with the bodies that continued to congregate, unaware or uncaring of the coming and goings of those around them. She didn’t bother to look up at the man she’d run into as she bent down to collect her things.

“I am so sorry, I was just getting ready to cross and wasn’t watching-.”

“Felicity?”

Whatever excuse she had been ready with promptly left her as shock and unease coiled in her stomach at the sound of her name on the soldier’s lips.

There was only one she knew with that accent. Of all the regiments stationed in London, of all the men of her acquaintance that could have come out of the Ritz, it was the one from Cairo.

Felicity peered up at him as she finished collecting the last of her belongings, his eyes unreadable against the bright backdrop. Silence settled, both determining the next best move to make, months of things unsaid hanging in the air between them.

Her gaze swooped over him as she rose. He appeared the same for the most part, though there was the unmistakable look of a man that has been to war about him. The hollows of his cheeks were a little deeper, the purpling around his eyes perhaps more pronounced than she remembered. He looked tired, physically and mentally, and something inside her ached.

He wasn’t the same man she’d left in Cairo.

“Pat,” she said, hitting him with the warmest smile she could muster, but before she could get a word out, he took hold of her upper arm and moved them away from the collecting group of men.

“What are you doing here?”

She arched a brow, put off by the tone in his voice. Not even a half hearted ‘nice to see you’ or a ‘surprise seeing you here’, just straight to the heart of it.

She resisted the urge to yank her arm from his grip.

He must have been able to sense her irritation because he released her arm and shoved it into the pocket of his jacket but made no attempt to reword his question. He simply stared at her, expecting her to explain.

Uncomfortable with his scrutiny, Felicity brushed a speck of invisible dirt from her coat. “I am working in Woodstock. I had to come into London for a meeting.”

“Woodstock?” Pat’s eyes narrowed as he seemed to flip through a reel of information, connecting the dots on some imaginary board in his mind.

Upon his realization, his lips formed a thin line as he bit out, “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.”

“Calm down,” she snapped, gaze searching over his shoulder to the soldiers who didn’t seem to notice his outburst. “It is not as dramatic as you are assuming.” She took a breath, once again glancing about to ensure they had not attracted unwanted attention. “I am doing translation work.”

Mostly, but it did not seem wise to borrow more trouble so she left it at that.

The idea that she wasn’t in the field, nor involved in something more clandestine, seemed to settle him a little. She knew where Pat’s mind had gone when he’d made the connection and knew what the imagined implications of it meant in regards to their relations in Cairo.

His immediate concerns no longer a worry, the tension that had taken him receded by a fraction. “When?” he asked.

“When, what?”

“When did you,” he hesitated for a moment, “move back to England.”

“March.”

Rather than look right at him, Felicity watched the passing traffic. She’d known her flight date that last night they’d seen each other, and, if he had looked around her room with any scrutiny, he would have seen the bag. She hadn’t said a word, though, had acted as if it was just another night, and she knew if she looked at him, she would see the realization in his eyes, and possibly the hurt.

She didn’t think she could handle the hurt.

“A gentleman my father knew stopped by the museum when he was in Cairo from time to time,” she said, trying to justify… well, everything. “And I assisted in some translation work for him, off record of course.”

Their gazes finally did meet, and Pat looked at her skeptically. Nothing with MI-5 or any other intelligence agency was off record.

“When it looked like Africa was going to be secured,” she continued, refusing to give him the acknowledgment of what she also knew to be true, “he asked if I wanted to help in a more official capacity. It seems my father’s instance for certain academic skills has proven useful.”

“Last I knew, you said you had no interest in joining.”

Felicity didn’t miss the skepticism that laced his words.

“I never said I wasn’t interested in joining the cause,” she said defensively, “just that I wasn’t interested in saluting to a man who knew less than I did.” His lips quirked as she continued. “Luckily for me, no one in Blenheim requires salutes, at least from me, so it seems to be a good fit for the moment.”

Distantly, a car honked and a ways down another group of men loudly stumbled in their direction. More soldiers on leave she assumed. Their last hurrah before the inevitable.

“I looked for you,” he admitted, the words almost inaudible over the ruckus around them. “The next time I went into Cairo, I stopped by. Your roommate said you’d left the city, but didn’t know where you’d gone.”

She knew; Winnie had written to her almost immediately. God bless that woman for keeping secrets. Her roommate may have brought home every stray from the streets of Cairo, but she was as loyal as the day was long and would have never given up what Felicity told her, no matter what charms the American had tried.

Felicity had thought it best to make a clean break from him, given the situation he’d be going into and her unknown future with her move. It had seemed to be the simplest option, and the decision had paid off until this very moment.

She shuffled her feet, uncomfortable with the words left unsaid. She hadn’t expected him to care. A part of her didn’t want him to.

“I thought it was best that… well you know how…” she gestured vaguely, at a loss of any sort of acceptable excuse.

There wasn’t one, she knew. It’d been a shit thing to do, but there was no taking it back now.

Pat shifted away from her as a loud, mustached soldier hollered incoherently at the passing group of men, and for a moment Felicity thought that was the end of their conversation. It would have probably been for the best, given that she had just admitted running out on him purposely, but he didn’t make a move to leave, simply watched the commotion for a moment.

“I should thank you for those Italian lessons you insisted on,” he finally said, turning back to watch her. “They ended up coming in handy.”

Felicity blushed. While the Italian lessons had started for practical reasons, the longer they had carried them on, the more they had felt like a farce. He’d certainly been an eager student, but at their last lesson he’d only uttered a few phrases, and they weren’t ones a person used in securing important military assets and locations.

A jealous twinge churned in her stomach at the thought and she tried to tamp it down. She had no right to that emotion.

“I’m glad they came in handy,” she said flippantly, “had I known you were headed for Italy, I guess I would have insisted on less distractions.”

There was a flicker of a sly, almost mischievous smile on his lips before it disappeared into the darkness once more, and Felicity imagined his mind went to the same place hers had and her blush only deepened.

She cleared her throat, eyes jumping to the hotel, too embarrassed to look at him. “I guess I’ll have to admit, then, that I ended up keeping tabs on your advance through Italy.”

“Worried I’d go and get myself killed?” He drawled.

It had crossed her mind only dozens of times since she’d met him and only once she had left Cairo had she been able to set it to the back of her thoughts.

Until they’d been dumped into Italy, at least.

“I had tried not to keep tabs on SAS. Didn’t want to know that very thing, but after you took Bagnara, the Axis communications blew up and I was assigned.” Truthfully, she had felt a moment of pride for the men then, for him especially, as she translated the intercepted hysterics of their eminimes. She had been glad to see success in spite of the absolute insanity she knew they reveled in. “I’m glad you made it through.”

Her words softened the harsh lines in his face and for a moment she saw a glimpse of the man from the earlier days, from the before times when SAS was just finding its wings and the weight of what was to come wasn’t such a burden on his shoulders.

“Riley!” A large man called from the truck that idled just beyond.

Pat waved, but his gaze didn’t leave hers. Finally, he mumbled, “I’ve got to-”

“Of course,” she interrupted. “I should get going as well. Train out is bright and early.”

He looked as if he wanted to say something else but when he just stood there, seemingly lost in his own thoughts, Felicity stepped in and kissed his cheek. “It was good to see you Pat.”

She moved just far enough away to study his face as she gave his hand a squeeze before dropping it back to her side. SAS was not going to have an easy time moving forward, not that the past had been a walk in the park, but she knew that what was coming from France would be the worst yet.

She hoped this wouldn’t be the last time she saw him, but she was not foolish enough to believe it.

“If you find yourself in a writing mood, Ludlow Street. Apartment 5B. My aunt will make sure I get it.”

He nodded and the corners of his mouth lifted in a half there smile. “I imagine you’ll know where I am headed before I even know where I am so…” the words hung there in invitation, and she returned the gesture.

“Take care of yourself,” Felicity reached up and fixed a lock of dark hair that fell across his forehead. “And if you make it to Paris, snag me a good bottle of wine. Maybe we can share it someday.”

Without another word she stepped away and continued towards the far end of the block, not daring to look back and watch him load up and drive away.

#blind date fest 2025 #sas: rogue heroes #sas rogue heroes #mine: writing #mine: oc #felicity collins #ive finally got her situated where i am ready to share her #she has been in the works for a long time 💜

21 notes · View notes

emma-ofnormandy · 13 days ago

Text

Hey look, I wrote a thing! No one asked for it, but the lovely Felicity and Pat Riley have been banging pots and pans in the front of my mind recently so I sat down and wrote a little bit for them.

And I don’t believe for one second that Sgt. Pat Riley would make a flag for the Free French without prompting from someone with a benefit to him (unless it was Jock Lewes asking and it couldn’t have been) so here you go.

A little spice but mild when compared to most stuff. Enjoy!

The fan moved in a lazy circle above him, its ancient motor squeaking in effort with every rotation as the air it pushed barely ruffled his partner’s hair. An hour ago, the noise would have driven him mad, so much so, maybe he would shot it with his service weapon. But, not now. Now, he couldn’t even muster the energy to light a cigarette, let alone fire his weapon.

Besides, he didn’t imagine it would win him any favors.

Pat looked over at the brunette beside him. An hour ago, her hair had been impeccably styled, her outfit even more so, and he’d had to do considerable sweet talking to pry her away from some freshly arrived HQ man. Now, her hair was a mess of curls, her outfit was in a useless heap somewhere in the hallway, and she’d cut short what had appeared to be a girls night out with friends.

No, shooting her fan was not in his best interest.

“Santa merda.”

The words were muffled by the pillow, but she’d taught him enough gutter Italian to know it was a compliment and he smiled. He had been of the same thought.

“Don’t look like that.”

“Like what?” He asked, his gaze finding hers through her veil of hair.

“Like you’re entirely too pleased with yourself.”

“And what if I am?”

She gave a cat like stretch and Pat was unable to keep his eyes off the movement beneath the sheets, his pulse beating at an erratic pace. He was hooked far deeper than he’d ever admit out loud.

“You should at least attempt to be a bit remorseful for interfering with my evening out.”

“Forgive me,” he muttered, “if I’m struggling to find the negative side of your evening ending with me rather than the shiny cadet from HQ I stole you from.”

The jealousy of his words was unmistakable and her smile told him she was quite thrilled with the development.

“Now now, there is no need for that.” She left a lazy kiss on his lips before reaching for a lighter and her robe, the deep purple fabric almost lost in the darkness as she draped herself in the silk, a hip hitched on the window sill with only the moon as her light. “He was simply being friendly.”

Pat arched a brow. He had no doubt that the man from HQ was being friendly. Who wouldn’t want to be friendly with a woman like Felicity; there was something about her that drew others in, both men and women, and she had an uncanny ability to make a person feel as though they had been friends for years, despite having just met over a cocktail. Not to mention she was smart as a whip and easy on the eyes.

No, he had no problem believing just that of the new recruit or that he’d also been hoping for more.

“Friendly… sure.” He drawled, wholly unconvinced.

Had he known what he was getting when he ran into her the first time, perhaps he wouldn’t have waded into the waters so easily. He could have kept their drinks and dances to a respectful, friendly distance; kept himself farther apart from her rather than allow himself to be drawn to her for more. Maybe he would have been leary when a dalliance had been offered up along with dinner the night they’d sent Lewes and Stirling up in the air.

He scoffed at the thought.

It would have never crossed his mind to have been cautious or leary, not even if he’d been able see the future. Caution was not a trait he was known to have a plethora of and he wasn’t in the habit of weighing the consequences of his actions. If he was, he wouldn’t be so good at what they’d been accomplishing in the desert over the last months.

No matter what, he would have ended up in this position one way or the other.

“I was surprised to see you in the bar,” Felicity said as she blew a stream of smoke out the bedroom window. He couldn’t see her eyes in the shadows, but he could feel them watching him, trying to build the bigger picture in her mind. “I wasn’t expecting you back in the city so soon.”

“It was granted at the last minute. A few of us came in with Stirling when he was summoned for orders.” Itching for a cigarette and her company, he sauntered to her spot at the window and stole a drag off her butt. “Disappointed?”

Her smile was quick and unabashed. “Not in the slightest.” She reached up and scraped her nails along the stubble that covered his cheek, “Though I fear the beard burn you’ll leave me with will give away why I made such a quick exit tonight.”

“If that doesn’t, your dress that’s in a pile in the hallway certainly will,” he murmured against her neck.

While the other ladies she had been out with had paid no notice to their quick departure, her roommate had shook her head in disapproval as they’d snuck out a side door.

The roommate was no fool, she knew exactly what was up the moment he’d sauntered into the bar, but, like any good man, Pat had always tried to leave Felicity an out for plausible deniability should she want to use it.

He hadn’t left such an option this time.

“Winnie didn’t approve,” she noted vaguely, as if she’d been able to read his mind.

“No, I bet she didn’t.” He nipped at her ear lobe before stepping back. “I don’t think she likes me.”

Felicity waved him off. “She spends her days connecting calls in HQ and I have a suspicion that more than a few of the irate ones she's fielded are coming because of your unit. I don’t think it’s anything personal.”

Of that, Pat had no doubt. SAS was not a welcomed unit in most of Cairo and he could only imagine the chaos they’d caused at HQ over their short existence. He supposed he couldn’t hold the young Corporal’s displeasure against her, if that was the root of it.

Not that it might matter for the future. Part of their return to Cairo was to gather weapons to go with the order to cross into enemy territory, invade the Italian occupied Benghazi, and set it ablaze.

He might not make it out, so the young lady’s opinion of him wouldn’t matter in the slightest.

The thought stirred an uncomfortable sensation, one that, in the past, he’d never given much notice too. But he found that it plagued him more often now, provoked only by his own train of thought in rare moments when he was able to put his guards down. As if it was a way for his subconscious to force him to address his own mortality in a moment of otherwise contentment.

And that was terribly inconvenient. No man in the SAS addressed his own mortality until it was at its end, and by then, it was over before he could give it much more than a faint farewell.

Pat chanced a glance at the woman in front of him and wondered if she thought of such things. If the fear of his imminent demise weighed on her when he disappeared for unknown weeks on end.

Silence settled around them, one of his hands resting against her while the other took the cigarette she offered. He took a long drag in the hope that the nicotine would quiet the thoughts that threatened to plague him, of wondering about what the woman before him thought.

It was not that kind of dalliance. He was not in the position to wonder about such things. And yet…

After a while, with nothing but the hum of music from a distant bar around them, she said into the night, “Sounds like a few of the Free French have found their way into Cairo.”

With the lightness in which she spoke of such things, it took Pat a moment to register the words she’d said. She’d mentioned something that was not even known amongst military personnel, let alone civilians, and Pat was more than curious as to how she came into possession of the information.

“I don’t believe that is a widely known fact,” he mustered to say.

“You know about it, I assume.”

Of course he did, Stirling wouldn’t have kept such a thing a secret, but he wasn’t a civilian and they were being shipped out to SAS’s camp in the middle of the desert. It was only right that he knew.

Felicity turned in his hold when he didn’t respond, her legs brushing against his, and she swept a lock of hair from his brow, the moon’s light bringing her unbothered features into full view. If he didn’t know any better, he’d think she made a habit of dealing in military information.

“People in this city talk about all kinds of things, especially in a museum when they think others are not listening,” she said, as if it was just another tid bit of local gossip and not possibly damaging troop information.

“And you listen to everything,” he countered.

Her lips quirked, amused. “Usually it’s just talk about who’s wife stepped out or the latest cricket match results. It’s rarely anything as good as military plans, but it would seem some of you get a bit loose lipped when the rum hits.”

“Is that so?”

The men he knew had more of a tendency to throw fists than lips, but that penchant for violence may not run so hot in other ranks.

She shrugged. “Who in the confines of the Cairo museum is going to spill state secrets? It’s not as if mummy’s can talk.”

Pat chuckled. “No, they can’t. But nosey socialites can.”

She gave him a playful shove. “I take offense to the nosey part of that comment. I am simply curious.” She considered him for a moment longer. “And I am not a socialite. My family is nowhere near the English standard of being allowed to have a socialite in their ranks.” She drug him down for a kiss. “Though, as an American, I imagine you don’t know better, so I shouldn’t hold it against you.”

“How considerate of you,” he teased. “Anything else about the Free French?”

“Sadly, that was all. I got pulled away to take a call before I could hear anymore of the conversation.” She trailed a wanton foot up his bare leg. “It did not sound especially exciting, though. If anything- the man was quite irritated by the whole thing.”

He hummed his agreement, not particularly concerned about the men who were supposed to show up or the officials who disliked the orders.

No one he’d spoken to had sounded thrilled at the idea of welcoming the French into the ranks, the upper brass had always hated interlopers and the enlisted were weary of strangers on principle, so it was not surprising that adding these strangers left people weary, but there was nothing to be done so he saw no reason to worry.

Besides, what this woman had hidden beneath haphazardly worn silk was far more enticing than any war plans or opinions of those she may have overheard.

The worries of war could wait until the sun broke the horizon.

Pat trailed his hands up her legs and let them rest where her robe met her thighs, his lips returning to the junction of where her neck and shoulder met. He had a few hours at most before he was expected to report back to the convoy headed back into the desert and he’d be damned if the time was spent doing anything but the most enjoyable of things.

Afterall, for a man in his position, it could always be the last time.

“It’s sad,” he heard her mummer, that always spinning mind of hers doing what a woman does best- multitask.

His brows furrowed, momentarily confused by her train of thought. “What’s sad?”

“That the men from France coming here to fight have no flag to fight under, no flag to wave in victory.” She trailed a lone finger down his arm enticing a tremor from the muscles just below the surface. “They should rectify that.”

“Why?”

Felicity gave a small shrug. “Everyone deserves their own banner in times of war.”

Pat stopped what he was doing, his forehead coming to rest against hers. He had no idea what had put that thought in her head, but he knew there was no chance of rerouting her train to more entertaining pursuits until he acknowledged her current track.

“I assume you have a suggestion.”

Felicity eyed him through sooty lashes. “I have some old sheets that would work perfect.”

He sighed. Resigned. “If I agree to whatever hairbrained idea you’ve cooked up, can we get back to the previously scheduled plans?”

She smiled and reached up to guide his lips back to her. “Absolutely.”

#sas rogue heroes #sas: rogue heroes #pat riley #felicity collins #mine: oc #mine: writing

10 notes · View notes