#sergeant o’neill x you

[senka-mesecine]

Would you be willing to write something about Barnes being in love/really having a thing for Elias’ girlfriend? And maybe incorporate some of Elias’ reaction? Thank you, I love your writing style!

Living Inside of Someone's Locket

― An AU where Barnes survives the war and decides to rotate back into the world and take what doesn't belong to him...yet.

Barnes x Reader x Elias

―

Elias always had this damn picture he carried with him.

Three years in and he never once stopped bragging about it.

Not bragging outright, mind you, but in that subdued, honor-filled way typical of the man. Like he was showing off a holy relic instead of a person. A protective charm or whatever nonsense that pothead believed in.

Now Barnes, he hated that. Resented it, really. He supposed the private should be kept fucking private out in the bush so the men could focus on what really mattered and took top priority over everything; actually waging this war to goddamn fruition and doing the job they all came here to do, but no, there Grodin was, occasionally leaning over the fresh meat and rookies during long patrols, squatting on the ground, trying to befriend them and get all social, rifles by their sides, chatting away quietly into the night and Elias would always do this thing — pull a picture out from inside of a locket hanging around his neck on a long chain in the company of the cross he tended to wear, tucked into the slit of his unbuttoned camo-vest and show it to them, that stupid, inane, blissed-out smile always present on his face. Where would this whole campaign out in the country end up if everyone started flipping open their wallets to flaunt their squeezes back home around? In the shits, that’s where it would end up and although Barnes was privy to the contents of the locket himself, he couldn’t quite remember when or how he saw it but he did, in a time that frequently bypassed memory, it seemed.

He’s been here that long.

 Then again, so was Elias.

-"I’m telling you, Bob —"- Red’s glued to his shoulder like a mosquito, as usual, ranting away, feverishly immersed into his story as they mutually watch Elias pass them, arm slung over one of the newbies like they were invested into a talk all of their own. Probably on the topic of that broad starry-eyed pothead boy was salivating over. -"The bazongas are this big,"- Red takes to demonstrating in a hushed tone, recounting a description of the picture that elicited so much collective interest, his hands painting an image right before puckering his lips. -"And her mouth’s like this!"- Barnes has to roll his eyes wordlessly, disgusted, cigarette in his mouth, taking a huff of smoke, letting it exhale through his flaring nostrils, not having anything of note to say to all that hoo-ha. This was, at the end of the day, another Sergeant's woman. Truth was, O’Neill had the habit of wildly exaggerating things with the nerviest edge possible; perhaps it was the looming threat of them possibly getting court martialed over that gook village what got him so high strung and maybe Barnes himself was pondering the issue of a broad to distract himself momentarily, but something about hearing you being talked about that way itches him, like a sore that couldn’t be scratched, causing him to simply nod Red’s way mid-sentence and leisurely leave, not intending to let the man finish. Red didn’t even sound surprised by it. Barnes had a habit of his own. Leaving when he felt the conversation was done.

That night, in the bunk, after three rounds of poker won and the taste of whiskey still burning on his mouth, for someone who seldom dreamed or even slept, he dreams of shooting Elias and taking a folded flag to your doorstep once he rotates back into the world. You cry your pretty tears into his shoulder and he passes the threshold of your house and never comes out again.

-"Elias."- 

The next day, Barnes singles him out, addressing him personally once they’re all gathered, drawing out strategy, supposing it irked him to see the locket hanging from Grodin’s collar bone as they all squatted in the fox hole, it was there, ever-present like an unspoken thought. He points his nose at it like he would at all accusatory material, not feeling the need to address things outright. These men knew him well enough to know what he meant just off of a look alone and that’s how he liked it. -"If you’re done raising the collective morale of the men, you take your boys up the hill for some scoutin’ and don’t come back ‘til the area’s secure."- The golden chain dangles from the edges of Elias’ neckline tangled with his dog tags and for a second, that’s all Barnes can see. The venom of sarcasm pools in Barnes’ mouth and the words that drawl forth from their precipice sound sour, even to his own ears. -"Don’t want an ambush of gooks up our tail because ya’ll too busy playin’ with your dicks out here in broad daylight."- He remarks and albeit doing it with all the calmness in the world, Elias’ expression seems to still as his eyes travel back and forth for a moment, between Barnes and the exact point he was staring at. It’s as if then that he catches on. His locket was being glared at. Barnes almost expected the man to snap, but the ire never comes. Instead, Grodin simply chuckles into his own chin, fingers caressing the smooth surface of the carved gold right before slinging the belt of his rifle over his shoulders and standing up, looking down at the company still squatting in the foxhole around him.

-"Hey, don’t have to hate on happiness, Barnes."-

Elias shrugs, always so above it all, taking his leave and all Barnes can think about is that if was his woman being talked of, he’d be wrestling the other man down in the dust by now.

He ponders that notion weeks later.

Ponders it while separating from the platoon to find Elias alone in the jungle.

Hunting him.

Hating on happiness.

Yeah, maybe he was. Maybe a loudmouth ratting out what goes on out on the field of combat to the higher ups needed to be silenced because if everyone ratted on everyone in the middle of a goddamn war, penalizing every single thing they did out here, they'd be all in Long Binh by now and there would be nobody left to fight this damn thing --- if Elias was so hellbent on morality, he should've joined the Peace Corps, not the army. Shouldn't have left you behind either; that's the prevailing thought as he holds his position and aims the barrel of his rifle faced with Elias' smile as the sounds of gunfire and combat fade in the background, obscured by jungle foliage. Barnes shoots once he finds the other man's expression changed, the realization striking Grodin he's about to die and with three gunshots to the chest, he does. Once he's down on the ground, head slumped against the mud, Barnes tentatively approaches him, taking him in for a moment, saint-like and dead and without pondering it any longer, he reaches for the locket from around the man's neck, tugs at the loosened chain, holding it for a moment, cracking open the lid to observe your picture hidden inside, smoothing the protective glass cover over your face with his thumb, right before turning around towards the booming sound of skirmish still going on, disappearing back into the woods. Once Elias emerges from the jungle, wounded and alive, pursued by armed gook brigade shooting him down and all the accusatory glances in the evac helicopter fall upon Barnes who's throat was sore from how definitely he barked Grodin was dead, dead, dead, goddamnit, encouraging everyone to retreat back, squeezing the locket in his pocket, he almost envisions that Elias wasn't running for his life down there. He was running because he realized you weren't around his neck anymore. That someone took you from him and if he was going to die today, he'd die without you.

Barnes squeezes the chain of the locket around his fist at the idea.

Trophies.

Yes, it was a trophy.

He had the habit of collecting those --- and not unlike the red star belt buckle fastened around his waist picked off the corpse of a dead NVA, toes, finger charms and live human ears, this could be counted into one such trophy. After all, Elias lost for having such a big mouth, but you didn't have to know that. All you had to know that he was here now, in solidarity towards a fallen compatriot.

Knocking on your front door having rotated back into the world, discovering your address an easier feat than one would ever anticipate, you nearly collapse on the porch at the sight of him to the degree you don't even have time to react to the scar across his face. You knew what this was going to be about. Of course you did. He was alone, with no Grodin in sight. It was already considered in good faith that someone representing the platoon would emerge to offer their condolences. You were no widow as such, which is why he knew nobody else but him would bother coming with tremendous urgency; worked like a charm for the way he imagined this playing out. So many grieving families, mothers and wives military attachés with folded flags had to visit that this wasn't the time for girlfriends. He understood that. He was here in their place, though. Last man standing. -"Ma'am."- He nods his head, grimly, observing your face twisted in grief. Your own picture hardly did you justice. After a moment on the front threshold, watching you sob, he decides to lie as you shakily hold the door of your home ajar, letting him inside, barely being able to speak in your state. It wasn't a case of stolen valor. He didn't need to talk another man's valor like he didn't have to usurp his kill count; he had plenty of his own. But you? You were another subject altogether. He wanted you. Earned you. Two dogs fight, one wins and takes the bone.

-"He was a good friend of mine."-

Barnes says as the knob turns behind him, choosing to be deceitful.

He steps through the door and decides to never leave that house again.

[red-riding-wood]

Heroes - Chapter 8

Chpt. 1 , Masterlist , Chpt. 9

Pairing: Sgt. Elias Grodin x Female OC (Alexis Ryder)

Fandoms: Platoon (1986), Cherry (2021)

WARNINGS: I'm just going to put down a blanket for the entire book/all chapters: graphic depictions of violence and gore, torture, explicit sexual content, attempted sexual assault, language, marijuana use

The adrenaline was still tapering from my bloodstream when the supply chopper landed and I was tasked with handing out empty letters to the soldiers – those who had survived, anyway.

Our platoon had launched our ambush on the Taliban village this morning, seizing it and its hostages. Most were Afghan, though a couple Americans had been flown back on one of the medevac choppers.

We were instructed to stay here for a few days to a week, to maintain our presence and convert the village into a U.S. camp, which meant that we needed more ammunition, medicine, and rations. Someone in authority had provided paper and envelopes for us to write home to our families in case we wouldn’t be able to call back at base anytime soon.

New soldiers would arrive in a couple of days. Slowly, and yet all too quickly, the faces of my platoon were becoming strangers; fresh faces filled the roles of the dead as if replacing the rusted cogs in a machine. It was both a relief and a tragedy when I locked gazes with someone familiar, knowing that they were still here, and knowing that they might not be the next day.

Barnes and O’Neill’s squads had been clearing out the rest of the camp for any Afghans that had hidden; we’d had to pull a few out from under the floorboards of one of the huts, and I’d watched Barnes throw a frag into a hole that still had a screaming child in it. Lerner had tagged along with us, to translate, and I could tell from the grim, about-to-hurl look on his face when he was dismissed that he hadn’t yet witnessed the complete horrors and moral ambiguity of the Two Bravo sergeant’s commands.

When I handed him his letter, I told him that if he wanted to keep his job, that he shouldn’t write about anything he’d witnessed today. 

Though he hadn’t been on clearing-duty, psychologically-speaking, Cherry was probably in the worst shape. The whites of his eyes were glazed red, still watery with tears – they’d been like that since the firefight. Crawford had been one of the unlucky casualties this morning, and the friend he’d made in his squad couldn’t seem to shake his death. Taylor and I had been the ones to drag him off of Crawford’s corpse, his entire body shaking as he tried desperately to resuscitate him.

“I’m supposed to hand out letters,” I told him as I approached. He was sitting cross-legged on the ground, staring blankly at the dirt. Dark, glossy eyes that had shone so brightly with mirth in the Underworld were now as hollow as the sky. Gone was the man who’d slung his arm over my shoulder and danced to CCR and laughed at the stories of his fellow soldiers; I almost felt as if I didn’t recognize him, as if he were one of the replacements, or perhaps a ghost of the Cherry who had really died in our last battle and was now haunting the village with his blank stare and the sullen slouch of his shoulders.

Cherry didn’t answer me, his gaze still fixed somewhere on the dirt, but he swallowed, which was enough of a sign that he’d heard me, at least, so I handed him a letter.

“No,” he spoke, swallowing again against the broken fragments of his voice and shoving the envelope away.

“You don’t want to write to Emily?” I asked. She was one of the things that Cherry hadn’t been able to stop talking about during basic, and there had been more than one occasion when I’d given up my phone time so that he could spend more time talking to her, since I didn’t have anyone to call, myself, and since he’d gotten in trouble the first time he hadn’t hung up the phone when he should’ve. He was crazy about this “Emily”, the girl he had waiting for him at home.

Cherry shook his head, gaze flitting down to his boots. “I’ll call her back at base,” he said. But he spoke it as if it were an afterthought, each syllable as hollow as his eyes. I knew that his thoughts were elsewhere.

I knelt down next to him, hugging the stack of envelopes to my lap. “You know, there was nothing you could have done to save him, Cherry,” I spoke hesitantly, but as soothing as I could to my friend.

Finally, his gaze met mine, though it drilled a hole through my heart. He blinked, some of the moisture of his reddened eyes collecting into a tear that suspended itself in limbo beneath an eyelash. For several moments, we sat like this, as he held my gaze, and then he looked back to the earth and said absently, “I know.”

He didn’t believe me, and he was telling me this only because he didn’t want to be convinced he was wrong. He would likely think for the rest of his days if things would have been different if he’d gotten to Crawford a little sooner, if he’d cinched his bandages tighter or if he’d administered more morphine.

I didn’t know what to say – what could I have said? – and carried on to the next soldier with a certain heaviness to each step that I hadn’t possessed before.

Taylor was tying his combat knife to the barrel of his rifle with a piece of twine from one of the huts, wrapping the fabric several times around the now-bayonetted weapon. I wondered if it was because he’d watched Crawford die from a similar invention.

“Mail’s in,” I said, and handed him one of the envelopes. “Do you want extra pages, for your manuscript?”

Taylor’s hands stilled on his rifle, and his eyes darted to the envelope, but he didn’t reach for it. “Nah, it’s okay,” he said, and went back to fastening the bayonet. “I don’t know who would wanna write about this place.”

I frowned, and settled the envelope back on the stack. Ever since he’d arrived at basic, Taylor had been writing letters to his grandmother, with the hopes of someday turning the pages into a novel that documented his experiences in the war. He’d been pretty consistent with it, always writing away in his spare time. For him to pass up the opportunity was unusual. Though I understood not wanting to write any more about Afghanistan, I didn’t understand why he wouldn’t want to give his grandmother the peace of mind that he’d made it another week.

“You’re not even gonna write to your grandma?” I asked, and took a seat beside him on the log pile underneath one of the poplars that he’d made a small haven.

Taylor shrugged. “Don’t know who would wanna read about this place, either.”

My heart sank a little bit. I was no literary genius, but if I had someone to write to, I’d be writing every day, even if it was just about how much I missed them.

But he seemed disinterested enough that I didn’t argue with him, and I could feel stares on me; I was meant to be carrying out my mail-duty a lot swifter than I was.

“That reminds me,” I said, and dug into the duffel that contained letters and "care packages" for the soldiers. “Something came in for you.”

I handed him the small parcel, and his hands stilled on his rifle again. He took it in his hands and went to set it to the side, but I raised my brows at him, and he gave me a confused look.

“Are you gonna open it?” I urged. I didn’t want him sitting here all day stewing in whatever thoughts were plaguing him, mindlessly wrapping that twine around the barrel of his gun over and over and over. 

He gave me a bit of an uncertain look, and tore at the outer plastic of the package, revealing a vintage copy of The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

“You can read it,” he said, and handed it back to me. “I got in shit for humpin’ too much stuff on my first day. Had to send back a bunch of my grandma’s books.”

I took the book in my hands, which was only maybe a half-inch in width, and said, “Taylor, this barely weighs anything.”

Taylor bit his lip, and fumbled with the knot of the twine, before deciding to loop the ends beneath the material a few more times. “I don’t really feel like reading,” he said, and I nodded, though my actions were separate from my thoughts. It seemed that it wasn’t just Cherry who’d taken a serious hit to his morale today. And now that I looked out over the village, I noticed that many of the soldiers were hanging their heads and busying themselves absently with cleaning their rifles or opening mail.

“You should, though,” he said, still fixated on his little project. “It’s a classic.”

“Alright,” I said, reluctantly. “Tell you what, I’ll read this, if you write something. Doesn’t have to have anything to do with this place. Doesn’t even need to be addressed to anyone. Just… something.”

Taylor finally set his rifle aside and met my gaze for more than a few moments. “I appreciate it, Ryder, but I don’t need the therapy.”

“It’s not therapy. It’s accountability.”

“Yeah, right.”

A light sigh escaped my diaphragm, and I looked across the clearing of the village as King shouted some string of obscenities at me, of which I was only able to decipher half of.

“I think that means I have to go,” I said. “Look… just… think about it, alright?” I set a few of the envelopes down on the log beside me before I took my leave.

King was as chipper as ever, impervious to this morning’s grueling battle. “You fuck the sergeant yet?” he asked me as I handed him his mail – an envelope, which contained a letter and some nude photographs of a lover that he had no issue with ogling in front of me.

I nearly choked on my own spit, and I glanced around, but thankfully, I didn’t think that anyone had heard.

“It’s been a day,” I said to him.

“That don’t sound like a ‘no’.”

“Is fucking all you ever talk about?”

“I’ll have you know I’m a man of variety, little lady. I also don’t mind a lil’ bit o’ rimmin’ action, and I’ll tell ya what, the things a woman can do with her feet – “

“Please stop talking.”

King flashed me a toothy grin, and I felt my mood lighten, if only slightly. “I really do look forward to our talks, King,” I said, as I turned to start towards one of the other men, my steps not feeling quite as heavy as they had a minute prior.

“So that’s a ‘yes’ on you fuckin’ Elias, then?”

I stilled, and turned my head, and though I should have felt more anxious than anything, I was focused more on the blush that rose to my cheeks. I continued on my way, sucking a breath in through my nose and channeling it from my pursed lips. From behind me, the last I heard of King was him shout,

“Hey, Manny! You owe me ten bucks, man!”

After finally making my way through the camp, Wolfe was next to last; he sat on one of the ammo crates near the LZ, working on packing mags. He accepted one of the envelopes with a gentle smile and asked if he could have another.

I took a glance at the stack in my hands, which had seemed to get no smaller, and then another out at the soldiers that I had already delivered to.

“Yeah, there’s plenty to go around,” I said, and sifted off a few from the stack. “Who are you writing to?”

Normally, I wouldn’t have been caught dead talking with the lieutenant of the platoon, but last night had broken a barrier I’d spent so long forging; a piece of my cowardice had chipped away, and a part of my soul felt just a little more free – free, like Elias, who wore his heart on his sleeve; free, like a deer, bounding through a meadow; free like that eagle, soaring over the jagged peaks and the love and the hate. Perhaps the freedom I had found was courage.

Surprise registered on Wolfe’s face, but he replied affably, “My parents, and a girlfriend back home.”

I nodded, the faintest of bittersweet smiles crossing my lips. I thought of him returning to his family when this was all over and hugging and smiling, laughing over a dinner table. And though it tugged cruelly at my heart, I could not help but feel the slightest bit of contentment that at least one soldier would be making use of these letters.

I didn’t get to dwell on this thought for long, however; Elias, who’d been nowhere to be seen during the supply drop, had appeared, having walked from the huts. He was standing with Lerner, who was chatting his ear off about something, but his attention wasn’t on the translator; it was on Wolfe and I.

I noticed the way his eyes seemed to trace over the letters in our hands, the way the mirth disappeared from those pretty blues and his shoulders sunk a bit, like Cherry’s had. He turned to Lerner to utter something briefly, and then he was off, back in the direction of the huts.

“Ryder?” Wolfe’s voice snapped my attention back to the lieutenant, but I was no longer present; I turned back to him with a furrowed brow and a distant stare.

“Here,” I said, sifting one of the letters off and leaving the rest of the stack beside him on the chopper gate, alongside the emptied duffel that had contained the packages from home. “I only have one more delivery to make.”

Wolfe didn’t protest when I left, hurrying through the clearing, past Lerner, through the door of one of the wooden huts, letter in my hand.

The floorboards creaked beneath my boots as I entered the ingress that Elias had disappeared through, and immediately, I recalled the women and children that had been herded out like lame sheep. But I pushed those thoughts to the back of my mind, focusing instead on finding my blue-eyed soldier in the now-barren building.

Subtle, but still audible in the silence of the hut, was the groaning of fabric stretching, and as I rounded the corner, I caught sight of the swinging hammock from the Underworld. Elias’ weight had sunken into it, and he merely flopped his head to the side so blue eyes could witness my approach.

“Got mail for me, sweetheart?” he asked.

“You tell me,” I said, and handed him the envelope. “Are you gonna write?”

Elias’ eyes wandered from me, to the envelope, to the dusty floor, and he said, “Haven’t spoken to my family in over a decade. They’d be gettin’ a letter from a ghost.”

Elias had never spoken of anyone back home – I’d assumed he had no one, but from the pain in his poorly-veiled gaze, I could tell that a part of him, however buried, did want to write to someone.

“Why don’t you come up here and join me, sweetheart?” he said, his eyes now glittering with their usual playfulness. He sat up in his hammock, motioning for me to take a seat on his lap.

I smiled faintly as a heat suffused my cheeks, and I found myself tempted by the way his eyes shamelessly raked over me and a few locks of wild hair flopped over his headband at the motion.

“Fine,” I said around a broadening smile, and I clambered up onto the fabric, the ropes groaning again at the stretch of the added weight. Elias made room for me between his legs, forming a little crook by pulling his left knee up to support my back and letting the other lay flat so that I could swing my calves over it. I settled in, a contented sigh nearly escaping me from the way his body heat percolated through his fatigues. I could’ve been in the desert, and I still would’ve ached to feel it seep through my pores like honey.

My world swayed beneath me, the lines of the wooden planks and the woven straw of the walls undulating like the waves of the sea. So I let my head rest against Elias’ chest, sinking into him, my hand loosely gripping his shirt for stability. He untied my hair, letting it tumble in loose waves over my shoulders, and hot lips brushed my cranium as he blessed me with a soft kiss.

“Tell me about your family,” I said, my other hand fumbling idly with the envelope in my lap.

A sigh escaped from Elias’ lungs, disturbing the strands of hair on my skull, and bringing my torso up and down with his own.

“Is that really what you wanna talk ‘bout right now?” he murmured into my ear, voice husky and sparking something in my gut. His hand slipped from where it had threaded into my hair and down to my spine, fingers tracing it through the fabric of my shirt and travelling lower and lower and lower. His groin, where it cradled the underside of my thigh, rocked slowly upwards, his khakis stiffening beneath me.

I breathed a little moan of yearning as I felt my heartbeat drop to my lower abdomen, and I bit my lip as I pushed back from his chest to stare up into blue-black eyes.

“Yes,” I told him, my voice light and almost scarce. Though I wanted nothing more than to repeat last night, I knew that this letter business would weigh on me until he gave me a better reason for not writing.

The line of his lip twitched, and something shifted in his eyes as he stared down at me – their tragedy pained me, tightened my chest – but I continued to stare up at him expectantly, my thumb running soothingly over the bare flesh between the buttons of his shirt.

“You’re a real piece o’ work, y’know that?” he said to me, and I chuffed out a laugh.

“Yeah, I know,” I said.

Another sigh rolled from his lungs, moving my body with it, and he said, “My old man was always sayin’ I didn’t work hard enough, didn’t dream big enough. Didn’t get the right grades, or the right girls. Nothin’ was ever good enough for him. I think he was bitter, think he was tryna project onto his sons. One of them took it. I didn’t.”

Elias paused his story to root through a small pouch of woven weeds and tossed a wild strawberry onto his tongue. I could smell the sweetness as he popped it in his mouth, and I looked curiously at the pouch. So that must have been what he’d been so busy doing. Picking wild berries.

“Always knew my mom didn’t agree with what he said, but she never stepped in. Just made our dinner every night and tucked us in and wished us good luck in school. She was real sweet, y’know. Can’t say I blame her for not sayin’ nothin’. My dad was a scary guy.

“My older brother, he came home one night, drunk as a skunk. He’d lost his apartment, lost his job. Even lost his girl. My parents were out and he was lookin’ for our dad and I was the only one ‘round, so he started yellin’ at me, blamin’ me for his failed marriage and his student loans and his empty bank account.”

He chewed at another strawberry, as if they were pills to numb the memories, before continuing,

“I don’t like takin’ peoples’ shit. Especially since my dad had been tellin’ me earlier that I should be more like him, just ‘cause he was a good boy and did as he was told. So when my brother started takin’ everythin’ out on me, I told him to go to Hell.”

Elias seemed to still then, his exhale lingering beneath me.

“That was the last thing I said to him before I walked out that door and never came back. Haven’t seen or spoken to him since,” he said, a remorseful waver in his tone.

I looked up at him again, my cheek grazing the rough fabric of his shirt, but his gaze was fixed somewhere past me, blue eyes glittering with sorrow.

“What did you do after that?” I asked.

“Got a job in the oil fields,” he said. “I was young, hadn’t finished school. Just needed somethin’ to keep the rent money comin’ in.”

I nodded in understanding, and asked, “Is that why you got involved with drugs?”

Elias chuckled, and shook his head. “That was my ex-wife. She was all into psychedelics – the hard kind, mainly LSD. Blew all my money on drugs and gurus and all that shit, pinned the evidence on me.”

I’d never thought about Elias having a girl back home, or being married. I supposed it made sense; he was in his early thirties. I admonished myself for the slight twisting of jealousy in my gut, though I was more concerned in this moment how Elias must have felt, betrayed by both his family and his lover.

“So that’s why you’re here,” I breathed against his chest, and he chuckled again, notes a low rumble in his diaphragm.

“Surprised King didn’t tell ya. That’s one of his favourite stories,” he said.

“That’s an awful story,” I whispered. “I didn’t know, I’m sorry, I wouldn’t have – “

“Shhh,” he said, stroking his thumb over my hair. “Not your fault, sweetheart.” A pause, and then the wry quirk of a smile. “I think King tells it better, though.”

A slight smile graced my lips, and I sank back into his chest, running my fingers this time over the chain of his dog tags.

“You got family, sweetheart?” he asked me, and cold seemed to seize my chest.

“I used to,” I murmured, half into the fabric of his shirt, half into the stale, dusty air. “They’re not around anymore.”

“That have anythin’ to do with that Bowie song you listen to so much?”

I’d nearly forgotten how intuitive he was, even without those piercing eyes eviscerating my soul.

“I sang it to my mother…” I began, words so quiet I wondered if he could even hear them, his hand stilling where it stroked my hair. I swallowed, and continued, “…when she was dying in her hospital bed. It was her favourite song.”

“It’s a beautiful song,” he said, hot breath soothing against the top of my head, and slowly, the warmth of his body began to seep past the cold that seized me, and I relaxed.

“Elias,” I said, tilting my head back up at him as his thumb resumed its languid motion over my skull. “Do you still love your brother?”

He looked down at me, sadness darting through those pretty blues once more, and he said, “Yeah, guess I do.”

“Why don’t you write to him? Or call him?”

“Alex, I’ve been through a lot o’ shit. Run headfirst into firefights, gone head to head with Barnes, went through tunnels with IEDs. But whenever I pick up that phone, I just… I can’t do it.”

I settled my head back against his chest. A moment of silence passed between us, and in that moment, I thought of my parents, of my mother’s lips parting gently to form the lyrics to her favourite song as her heart rate slowed, and my father, wrapping an arm around me and grinning at me in my youth.

“I think you should,” I told him. “The things I wouldn’t give to hear my mother’s voice again. See my dad’s smile.” I tipped my head back again, making sure to capture his gaze in mine. “Don’t let those things slip away from you, Elias. ‘Cause when they’re gone, they’re gonna make you ache.”

Maybe I should’ve let it go, let him live his life, but yesterday, he’d taught me something I wouldn’t have been able to realize myself, had released me from a demon I had forged. It was my turn to impart some of my own wisdom, the words I’d wanted to say to Cherry, to Taylor, to every soldier out there who’d turned their noses up at the envelopes I handed out.

I remembered the paper now, and pressed it to his chest where my head had been.

Slowly, a lazy grin spread across his lips, and Elias gently pushed the envelope away. “Don’t worry ‘bout me, sweetheart,” he said, his eyes glittering again with affection rather than regret. “I got all I need right here.”

My heart swelled with warmth, and my mouth quirked again into a smile. Though part of me thought that he was just saying that to distract me from the unpleasant subject, another part of me – the part of me that ached for family, for a bond – eagerly accepted his words, let them sink in and spread along every nerve of my body, making my skin fuzzy and my gut all giddy with electricity.

And I decided that in that moment, I didn’t need to hear my mother’s voice, or see my father’s smile. All I needed was Elias. Maybe it wouldn’t last – though I wanted it to –, but it would be enough to get me through.

I tucked the envelope away into the hem of my khakis, and smiled back at him as I watched him catch another strawberry between his teeth, tipping his head back to let it land on his tongue.

“Can I have one?” I asked, licking my lips. The MRE I’d had earlier was still settling in my stomach, though I reckoned that the dry bread and cold beef stew wouldn’t even compare to just one of those little red delicacies.

Elias smirked at me, and plopped one of the berries on his tongue, sticking it from between his teeth invitingly.

My gaze darted from his mischievous gaze to the strawberry on his tongue, and my gut stirred with a different sort of hunger. I giggled and leaned in to capture the strawberry in my teeth, the seeds gritting against my molars but the tart yet sweet flavour exploding across my tongue.

I’d barely swallowed the sugary syrup of the berry when Elias pressed his hot lips to mine, and tugged me closer to the warmth of his body, my thighs to the hardness that had redeveloped in his trousers. His tongue still tasted potently of the berries, and his lips were slightly slick from their juices, but every bit as heavenly as they’d been last night.

I swung my right leg around his waist so that I was straddling him, pressing my own pounding arousal against his now, grinding the coiled heat into him eagerly. We went to work swiftly on unbuttoning each other’s shirts; he had less to accomplish, since I’d never replaced the one Bunny had torn from my collar, and soon enough, I was baring my flesh to him.

He sank back into the hammock, our kiss breaking so that I could kick off my trousers and undo his belt. Beginning to tug down his khakis, I positioned myself up on my knees, but they wobbled beneath me from the sway of the hammock, and I caught myself from collapsing by letting a hand fall to his chest and my spine to curl over above him. I laughed against the bare of his chest, and his own grin mirrored mine, mirth in his eyes. His member was pressing against my stomach now, and as the laughter ceased, I caught my lip in my teeth, a devilish idea forming in my mind. 

I watched as his face fell slack from sharp cheekbones and those blue eyes darken with lust as I sidled down, panting my breaths against his navel and inhaling the scent that was of both him and the wilds, my lips brushing the mound of dark hair that crowned his length.

I panted out one last breath against his flesh before letting my tongue run along his length, and he immediately bucked his hips, a moan stirring from him as his hands sought my hair, fingertips just barely managing to hook a few of the strands.

It did cross my mind that Barnes, or Bunny, or anyone could’ve walked through that door in that moment, but I didn’t care anymore. I needed this, in this place that only brought sorrow and guilt, needed to indulge myself in this thing that made me human in this place that made me a monster. And I could tell that Elias needed it, too, from the way that he clawed desperately at my hair and writhed his hips beneath me and bit his tongue to hold back a moan every time I licked or kissed at him.

“Quit bein’ such a goddamn tease, sweetheart,” Elias rasped between heavy breaths. It was oddly reminiscent of when he’d kissed at my thighs last night and I’d told him to fuck me, and I grinned as I felt him twitch beneath my lips, my tongue darting against his sensitive flesh almost wickedly.

His hips bucked again, and I ground the sopping mess that was my panties against the fabric of his leg, seeking my own satisfaction to the burning desire in my groin. A pleasured breath passed from my lips, and I drew my tongue along his length one last time to savour the taste of him before attempting once again to steady myself on my knees.

He nudged my panties aside, a shiver dancing across my flesh as his finger brushed a bundle of nerves, and I lowered myself onto him. I clamped a hand over my mouth to stifle the gasp that poured fast from my lungs as he filled me, stretching walls that still seemed to ache from last night.

It took me a minute, but eventually I got into a rhythm, and the spring of the hammock helped rock my hips up and down, a strangled moan parting from my lips every time the bare flesh of my thighs met his. I tried to keep as quiet as I could, in case anyone outside heard, but I only devoted a small portion of my efforts towards the discreetness, for I was far too enraptured by the movement of my hips, the pleasure that ran from my core all the way to the top of my head, the man who still moaned and squirmed under me as his hands grasped at my waist and his length shuddered inside of me.

His fingers curled firmly into my hipbones as he kept my thighs pinned to him, his hips bucking madly upwards as he spent himself inside of me, and I shivered around him, my head feeling light and my core flooding with the warmth that I craved.

I stayed like this for several moments, head swung back, hair teasing the line of my nude back, riding out the beginnings of my own high, walls tightening around him and my sweat-slicked thighs still trembling on top of him.

When euphoria finally claimed me, I drew myself from him and collapsed on his chest, honey-blonde hair pooling across his neck and shoulders and my fervent breaths panted across the musky sweat of his collarbone.

Elias’ thumb stroked the back of my head again, sending tingles through my overly-sensitive nerves, and with his other hand, he entwined his fingers through my own. And he murmured against me, “See, told ya I got all I need right here, sweetheart.”

[hotdamnhunnam]

Sgt O’Neil: like a horse

Thanks for another fun request! ❤️

Drabble Fest Rules (3 words –> 💯word smut)

Drabble Fest Masterlist

..................................................

Sergeant O’Neill (True History of the Kelly Gang) x F!Reader

like • a • horse

👍🅰️🐴

He’s an asshole in the deepest, damnedest, downright most despicable sense of the word. But he’s also so dashingly handsome it hurts.

It’s not like you to be so attracted to such an insufferable bastard; your inner slut really has no fucking shame when it comes to her thirst.

As the sergeant rides up to your shanty this fine afternoon on a noble black steed, just the sight of him fills you with need...

Thankfully the man also has hungers to feed.

Thankfully they’re as filthy as yours.

Soon he’ll be riding you even harder than he rides his horse.

--- 💯 words ---

..................................................

Main Tag List – Join Here!

Drabble Fest Tag List – below; if you’d like to be added, just let me know!

@est11 @itspdameronthings @rayslittlekitten @alexa-rae-dreamz @20david50david @niki-xie @abby-splace @autumnleaves1991-blog @classyhorseeclipseduck @coffeebooksandfandom @jitterbugs927 @happyhenners

[samayla]

A Losing Proposition

AO3

A S04E06 Window of Opportunity episode tag for @badstargateimagines​ as part of the @stargate-winter-fic-exchange​

They requested the guys playing Monopoly, but as I have never finished a single game of Monopoly in my entire life, I had to get creative. I took my inspiration for the vignette style from the format of the episode itself. Hope this soothes all your crack-fic cravings, dear!

Summary: Jack is just trying to find a game he can win...

“I do not understand the objective of this game, O’Neill.”

“The objective is to get rich, T.”

Teal’c turned over a crinkled, baby pink $5 bill. “I do not believe we can spend this currency in any establishment in your United States.”

Jack snatched back the bill and continued sorting out the money.  “It’s symbolic. Now, do you wanna be the shoe or the thimble?”

Teal’c gave him a look that said quite plainly he did not much care to be either one.

“Look,” Jack said bracingly. “I know it’s not much for choices. I’m partial to the top hat myself, but this is what we’ve got. This has gotta be better than another round of ‘Are you really sure I told you sun and not fire? I think it’s fire. Why would it be sun? Oh. It is sun. Would you look at that?’ with Daniel.”

Teal’c bowed his head in acquiescence and accepted the thimble.

“It’ll be fun. Trust me.”

***

 It was not fun. 

Teal’c beat the pants off him.

Twice.

It did not improve Jack’s mood in the least.

 ***

 “Um, sir?”

Jack, leaning carefully over the rail at the top of the safety ladder, held his breath as the tower of 2x4 segments swayed dangerously, then stilled. “Your turn, T,” he chirped, skipping lightly down the steps. “What is it, Sergeant?”

Siler glanced from Jack to the small crowd of onlookers who’d gathered on the ramp, and back again. “I was just wondering, sir, when my team and I might be able to complete our gate diagnostic?”

“Go right ahead,” Jack answered absently. He watched as Teal’c laid his block from the middle of the tower alongside his at top. The damn thing didn’t so much as wobble.

“But, Colonel,” Siler protested as Jack and Teal’c swapped places once more, “we —”

Jack shouted as Siler’s anxious grip on the ladder rail nearly cost him the game. The sergeant released the metal as if burned, and at Teal’c’s silent stare, he backed away several steps as well.

“Sorry, sir,” Siler said, “but it’s just that you’ve got our ladder, and —”

Alarm klaxons blared to life, signaling an incoming traveler. Jack cursed as he fumbled his block. All fourteen feet of the tower leaned first one way, then the other, then collapsed at the foot of the ramp with a crash that was drowned out by the stargate flaring to life.

Jack cursed again and stomped down the stairs.

“I believe another ‘Jenga’ is in order,” Teal’c intoned, somehow managing to convey an entire victory dance’s-worth of smug superiority with a single arching brow.

“Best four out of seven,” Jack grumbled, already beginning to clear space for the base of the new tower.

“Sir —”

“Siler,” Jack snapped, kicking blocks out of the way, his toes protected by the steel in his boots, “the gate’s fine. Consider your diagnostic complete and your ladder thoroughly commandeered.”

“But, sir—”

“That’s an order, Siler. Diagnostic complete.”

 ***

 “O’Neill, I do not believe you currently hold enough currency or property to win this round.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Jack muttered, doing the mental math himself as he passed Teal’c a handful of bills for rent. They were thirty minutes into their latest game, and Jack was practically hemorrhaging money already.

“There is no shame in admitting defeat,” Teal’c offered serenely.

Jack suddenly wished he’d set up the board somewhere other than the massive conference room table. There was something cathartic about flipping a table and watching the de facto winner duck and cover in a hail of tiny plastic buildings.

 ***

 “Watch it!” Jack shouted.

Walter, in a show of shockingly quick reflexes, caught his fumbled stack of folders and leapt onto the nearest chair, like a 50s cartoon housewife who’d spotted a mouse.

Jack climbed down from his perch atop a file cabinet and into one of the office chairs.

“What is it, sirs?” Walter asked, scanning the floor anxiously.

Teal’c tipped over another file cabinet to make a bridge, scattering files across the carpet before he answered. “The floor has become covered in semifluid molten rock. If you touch it, you will die.”

Walter stared blankly for a moment before chuckling a little nervously. Clearly, he wasn’t sure whether to take the threat seriously or not.

“Just stay put, Walter,” Jack ordered. He shoved away from his file cabinet, but the wheels on his chair were no match for the carpet of the briefing room. The chair toppled, but Jack launched himself out of it as the back hit the ground. The edge of the conference table forced the breath from his lungs, but he hung on and hauled himself up onto the tabletop after a moment.

“O’Neill,” Teal’c called. “Are you well?”

Jack gave him a thumbs-up from where he was sprawled, though he suspected Teal’c might be winning this game, too. “All good, T.”

 ***

 “Uh… whatcha doin?” Daniel asked warily, peering up over the top of his notebook as Jack erased a huge swath of Ancient text from the blackboard.

“Quitting.”

“Jack, you can’t just—”

“Can,” Jack corrected, sketching out a quick grid. “I can, in fact, just. We’ll start this all over again in a couple hours anyway. T— X’s or O’s?”

 ***

 “What the hell is going on in here?” Hammond demanded as he entered to briefing room to see nearly a dozen of his personnel perched atop various pieces of overturned furniture in what looked to be the epicenter of an explosion.

“Careful, General,” Walter shouted. “Don’t touch the carpet!”

Hammond jumped back over the threshold to the concrete of the hallway. “Why not?”

“There is some sort of semifluid, rock-like substance on the floor, sir,” Captain Rodriguez answered, wobbling a little in her chair as she snapped into a salute at the general’s tone. “There seems to have been a containment breach from one of the labs. Not sure how it got all the way up here, but it seems confined to the carpet, at least for now.”

“Why was there no alarm?” Hammond demanded. “Colonel O’Neill?”

Jack held his hands up helplessly from his seat on the bookshelf, to which he and Teal’c had retreated to watch SG-9 fumble their way through the ‘containment breach.’ “Peters knocked the phone off the shelf, sir.”

“The handset appears to be broken,” Teal’c added.

“We were trying to contain the substance using pieces of furniture, General,” Peters offered, desperate to salvage his image in this bizarre situation.

Hammond’s reply was cut off as the alarm blared and electricity crackled to life around the stargate once again.

“Best. Loop. Ever.”

“Indeed.”

 ***

 “We seem to have reached an impasse,” Teal’c said.

“We call it a ‘cat’s game,’” Jack answered.

“Why?” Teal’c asked. “I see no cat.” He cocked his head to the side, as if he might discover a hidden image on the board.

“You know, I have no idea,” Jack admitted.

“Actually,” Daniel offered without looking up, “there is a theory that it’s called a cat’s game because tac spelled backwards is cat. Other theories tie it to the idea of a null or scratch outcome, like a cat’s scratch, while a third camp—”

“I thought you were pouting,” Jack cut in.

“I wasn’t pouting,” Daniel answered. He flopped his sheaf of notes dramatically on the table. “I just don’t understand why you’re not more concerned about this.”

“About a tie in tic-tac-toe?”

“About the time loop, Jack!” he shouted, throwing his pen down as well. “Teal’c, you’re with me on this right?”

“We have endured the loop a great many times, Doctor Jackson,” Teal’c said. “We will undoubtedly endure it many times more before the translation is complete. Panic has not yet improved the situation in any significant way.”

“But you can’t just give up!”

“Sure we can,” Jack declared brightly. “We get a do-over no matter how this turn out, so why worry?”

“Why worry?”

“Cheer up, Danny-boy: you won’t remember this in a couple of hours, and I promise we’ll get right to work next time. T, I’m X’s this time.”

 ***

 Jack ducked as red and green houses went flying across the commissary, raining down on the unsuspecting diners.

“You are correct, O’Neill,” Teal’c said, righting the table again. “That is indeed a much more satisfying ending to the game.”

"I told you it'd be fun."

[capsized-heart]

Warbirds

Pairing: Carol Danvers x Reader

Summary: Ships and planes and weapons of war named after women and dubbed she, her. Powerful, deadly. Yet, the real thing, the real body is demeaned and made less than man. When you and Carol are up in the sky and screaming through the air in your metal birds, they will see just how fragile you are.

Following Carol and Reader throughout their training in the Air Force. 

Word count: 4.6k+

Warnings: smut, mild violence 

A/N: It feels so good to post again! I’m so sorry I haven’t written anything in a bit, my finals this semester have been c r a z y, I’ve written 20 pages worth of papers and I still have one more left before I’m fully on winter break :’) but almost there! 

I’ve had this idea for a while and....I honestly had too much fun with this. I did a lot of research and watched some documentaries on what trainees experience through basic training and I find military uniforms more attractive than I should so I didn’t hold back on this one. 

Please enjoy my girl Carol!!!

“Wake up! Wake up! Open that day room door! Lights on! PT uniform of the day, PT shorts and shirt!”

The piercing voice of Dorm Chief Williams shatters the air. Fluorescent white blinds you, pulse thundering as you’re jerked from sleep, kicking off your covers. Your muscles scream, vision blurred and swimming and you stagger to your feet. 

Cadets around you are already making their beds and changing into their gear. You reach for your own combat uniform, pull on the deep navy tracksuit with the reflective insignia of the U.S. Air Force glowing over your left breast. 

You turn and see your bunkmate starting to stir. You feel your heart hammer in your throat and push at her shoulder.

“Carol. Get up. Hey, let’s go, Warbird.”

Williams, a tall and intimidating woman personifying dread itself, marches over to your bunk.

“Danvers, am I keeping you from your beauty sleep?” Williams barks with the most intensity you’ve ever heard from her at 0600. “Should I call the canteen and have them bring you breakfast since you’re so busy slowing down my whole squadron?”

Carol jolts to attention. “No, ma’am!”

“Then get the hell away from me and into gear. Now.”

“Yes, ma’am!”

Williams scowls, watching Carol fly to her post to dress before she turns on her heel and makes her rounds through the rest of the dorm. Finished with your own tasks, you help with Carol’s bed, smooth out her uniform, secure her hair in a tight bun. She gives you a tired smile. 

“Fall out!” Williams calls.

You’re out the door in a minute flat. The short, sharp blasts of Reveille drive motion around you as you fall in line with the male recruits. 

The morning is brisk, stimulating, turning your breath into puffs of steam as sweeps of indigo crack open the sky like the pearly, iridescent insides of seashells. It’s pretty, the color reminding you of waves and ocean.

Maybe you should have joined the Navy instead, Carol would say, a quick quip about how you would make such a charming sailor girl bobbing away on a ship. She always likes to tease you for your love of beautiful, superficial things. 

From the moment you shed your civilian status, the Academy taught you to appreciate the little things in life; the glow of morning that tints the clouds with amber and cream as you watch the world from your cockpit. Chirping birdsong, a sort of secret you like to think that exists only between birds and Airmen, the few humans capable of sharing the sky. 

You loathe how much Carol affects you, since day zero, the very start of BMT. How you can hear her voice in your mind this goddamn early.

Your MTI picks up a cadence and you match your step to the young men and women beside you, your wingmen. You feel unity, harmony beating through your bloodstream as you jog in time with your sergeant’s calls, the crisp air making you feel well rested and energized despite getting your usual four hours of sleep.

Moments like these that give you purpose, the indescribable excitement of being a part of something bigger than yourself. Of belonging. 

“Lookin’ good and feelin’ good! Who are we?” Your drill instructor booms. 

“USAF! Aim high! Fly, fight, win!” The squadron sounds off in unison.

**

You’re three weeks into BMT. Twenty-one days of primal shock, verbal abuse, blood, sweat, tears. Four weeks, twenty-eight more days until you graduate from the ranks of cadet, four weeks until your MTI awards you your dog tags and the title of Airman. The start of your career as a fighter pilot. 

But until then, you’ll have to survive the next twenty-eight days.

You’ve learned more about yourself in these three weeks than you have in your entire life, your mind and body hardened with discipline. Broken down psychologically and physically and molded into the young woman your squadron needs you to be.

You and Carol are reminded of your womanhood every day. You and the others have to push yourselves harder, faster just to prove you can keep up. O’Neill, a petite little firecracker of a girl and fresh out of school, had gotten her period last week. You’d watched her wretch up bile after morning drill, the exertion and stress and cramps too much for her body to handle. The MTI had screamed at her, blue in the face, ordered her to drop on her stomach right there and crank fifteen pushups. 

You cannot separate your femininity from your body, even in a military unit that declares that all are treated equal as soldiers. You are not an equal by default.

It’s belittling. Exhausting. 

But you’ve shown that you can hold your own against the boys. You’ve learned how to shoot clean and fight with your bare hands, how to assemble, disassemble, and repair your M-16. You could do it in your sleep, the sharp click-click of a reloading magazine heard in your dreams.

This week, along with your usual physical conditioning, you have CBRNE training, MOPP training. You’ll be exposed to CS gas and simulations of biological warfare, your leadership skills put to the test. 

You can do this. With Carol by your side, you feel like you can do anything. Little fledglings earning your wings, pushed from the nest, learning to fly when the ground is rushing up to meet you. Make or break.

Twenty-eight more days. 

**

The gas is meant to simulate suffocation, they tell you.

“Masks off! Break the seal! Break, break, break!”

You’re already dizzy, head spinning from the chamber exercises when you stick your fingers in between the small space of your mask and pull hard.

The seal breaks with a sharp hiss. 

Fire floods your eyes, your sinuses, down your throat, constricting tight like smoke and flames and hellfire. You taste fireworks, poison. Your eyes instinctively shut, blurry with tears and you cough hard, sputter, hear the echoes of other cadets hacking and gasping.

The simulation is meant to put trust in your equipment, to make you vividly remember that your mask and gear will save your life. And as you stand there with your lungs struggling to expand and the MTIs rounding on each of you in the hazy, cloying smoke, you believe it.

“Airman Recruit Danvers, Division 164!” You hear Carol pant somewhere in the fumes, along the walls of the chamber where you’re all lined up. You keep your mask raised above your head as instructed, waiting, suffocating in silence until it is your turn to state your name and division number. The MTIs move down the line with their masks still fixed. Haunting, weaving through the gas and toxins like plague doctors. The image of death. Vultures tearing fledglings apart with pointed beaks and white bone as you watch cadets choke on their own breath.

The primal impulse of fear trickles from your hypothalamus as the minutes tick on, until your lips and tongue buzz like fire ants, until you can no longer feel the tips of your fingers. You’re sweat-slicked and gasping when an MTI turns to you, screams for your identification.

You sound off. Your entire body is shaking, fevered. You are the last in your row. 

You burst through the doors and out into the afternoon air with a stream of cadets behind you, taking flight as you thunder on the asphalt to the open courtyard. 

You all cough, spit, clear out your lungs with curses and muted laughter as your squadron stands together beneath cotton clouds and blue sky. 

Carol finds you in the mix, the few precious seconds where you’re not forced to fall in line. Seconds to catch your breath. Her skin is flushed and wisps of hair fall to frame her face, her bun messy. She grins and the two of you bump fists, playful.

Your cheeks redden, lungs tight with something other than CS gas. It’s strange seeing Carol disheveled when you’ve been so hardwired with self-control, down to how you’re expected to wear your hair, present yourself.

You like seeing her like this.

“Do we have confidence in that gear?” MTI Galloway emerges from the chambers and asks of you all. 

“Yes, Chief!” You roar. 

**

Carol calls you Phoenix after that, running so fast out the chamber and looking like a fire had been lit up your ass.

The nickname is fitting for a duo like you. Raptors, birds of prey, fierce and skilled and yet simultaneously embracing and shielding your femininity with unfurled wings. 

Have women not been compared to birds in art and literature throughout history as a means to show fragility? Fleeting beauty?

Why not strength? Why ever not for sleeker attributes, or as hunters?

It’s curious. Ships and planes and weapons of war named after women and dubbed she, her. Powerful, deadly. Yet, the real thing, the real body is demeaned and made less than man. 

When you and Carol are up in the sky and screaming through the air in your metal birds, they will see just how fragile you are.

**

You hit the ground so hard that the air rushes out your lungs in a loud wheeze. You can’t breathe. Your face burns, ears ringing. You can hear the screams of your MTI. You’d rather die of embarrassment right here.

The rope dangles in front of you, fifteen feet straight up, still swaying from where you’d fallen, taunting. Physical conditioning for your Basic Expeditionary Airman Skills Training examination next week, fittingly dubbed the BEAST. Rope climbing and complicated field obstacle courses after you’ve crawled through miles of sand and dirt, navigated through tactical drills with your full pack of gear.

Your arms tremble, your entire upper body drained of all strength, skin biting from the sand. Weak, exhausted. Your palms raw from the rope. Tears of frustration sting at your eyes as your MTI screams out your surname in another bloodcurdling roar to get your ass up out of that dirt.

Yet, the low scoff of a nearby cadet is what piques your attention.

Dalquist. A boy a few years older than yourself with an ugly, crooked grin and sandy hair. A show-off, a boy who thinks himself a man. He smirks again with crossed arms, tuts his tongue as his eyes flicker over you.

“They’ll never let you fly.” He snickers.

Then, Carol is there beside you. She grips your waist strongly, shifting your weight and the two of you slowly rise together amidst the swirling dust. You draw in a shuddering breath.

Maybe he’s right. Maybe they’re all right. Maybe you don’t belong here.

You feel Carol’s muscles tense and manage to squeeze her arm in a silent warning. The entire squadron watches the three of you. The last thing you need is falling to Dalquist’s level and getting punished for it.

So she hits him with a reply quite enough only for the three of you to hear.

“You better hope not.” She rasps.

**

Your time in the classroom is a welcome break from the stresses of field training. You meet Dr. Wendy Lawson, an incredibly gifted and terrifying brilliant quantum physics scientist when she’s brought in to give you post-deployment training. She teaches you flight mechanics, squadron resources and financial management. You learn about her research on quantum energy.

Lawson is especially kind to you and Carol upon hearing your aspirations to take to the skies as fighter flyers. Her standards are higher for you and she encourages you to speak out when you’ve been too timid to respond to the whole class, the twinkle in her eye giving you courage, a voice for the first time in your life. 

Together, Lawson and Carol work to coax you out of your shell. 

**

The days trudge on. You throw Dalquist’s remark behind every new simulation you’re given, every mile, every pushup of your physical conditioning.

And it shows. 

Your endurance and stamina have nearly doubled, bringing out new muscles in your back, your arms. You’re stronger than you’ve ever been, strong enough to grapple an unsuspecting Dalquist to the ground during field training. He stares up at you in humiliation and horror and you push him harder into the dirt, until your MTI snorts and tells you to let him up. 

The mile and a half lap you take known as the Airman’s Run the week of your graduation is a breeze. Your body is familiar with the motion and exertion, the rest of the cadets who’ve made it through BMT with you dressed in new uniforms of pressed blue shirts and the trademark navy garrison cap.

Family and friends watch as your squadron marches in a parade of waving flag and timed step. Your heart swells with pride, with unparalleled accomplishment.

You’re finally presented with the Airman’s Coin and your dog tags. You’ve completed Basic Training. You are no longer a cadet, a trainee, but an oath-sworn member of the Air Force. Next weekend, you’ll be moved into dorms and officially begin your pilot training. 

And then you’re free. For the first time in seven weeks, you are dismissed after the ceremony and to spend the rest of the weekend however you please. 

Free time. Privacy. Privileges you took for granted as a civilian. You feel giddy, excited.

“We did it, birdie.” Carol’s voice sounds from behind you. You turn, her smile radiant as ever and mirroring yours. 

She looks like she was born to wear the uniform, her shirt crisp and cap perfectly straightened atop her pinned back hair. Your pulse stutters, you find it difficult to swallow. 

“We did it.” You laugh, a little too breathless with the way she’s looking down at you with that mischievous glint in her eyes. Her gaze catches your lips, a smirk tugging at the corner of her mouth.

God, so self-assured. So confident. 

Honestly, you could use a little of that confidence. 

“What do you say we get out of here? Go see what this city has to offer aside from base?” She says.

Your knees nearly buckle. You have a feeling that you know what will happen off base, at least, what you hope will happen. 

Technically, you wouldn’t be breaking protocol. 

And with the two of you buzzing with adrenaline and boosted egos, how can you even think of saying no? You deserve to celebrate. 

You leave Lackland Base and head to downtown San Antonio for the rest of the weekend, for two whole days all to yourselves. 

**

You visit the River Walk and explore as much of the fifteen-mile long city park as you can, strolling along the banks and gorging yourselves on street food and local cuisine. No curfew, no officers screaming orders, just the two of you leisurely enjoying a Friday night beneath a soft sunset and twinkling fairy lights.

You have dinner and drinks at a quaint little steakhouse with a live band and music, the musicians donning cowboy hats, boots, chaps and all. It’s corny. It’s absolutely perfect. 

The lime juice is sharp and bitter on your tongue as you throw back your third shot of tequila, lap up the salt you’ve sprinkled over your knuckles. Carol isn’t far behind you. Pretty soon, the tavern lanterns swim pleasantly before you and you sway gently to the music in your seat, blissed out, flushed, content. 

Carol’s fingers fondly brush your cheek and she laughs, her eyes crinkling and you think it’s the most beautiful sound you’ve ever heard. You grin back, a bit too eager and lopsided, lean across the wooden table to grasp her hand. 

You drag her to the attached karaoke bar next door and slide a few quarters into the jukebox before she can stop you. The two of you belt out your renditions of Nirvana, Heart, Elastica. Your blood is warm and Carol dances beside you with wired microphone in hand, laughing so hard you’re both crying, pulse pounding behind your temples until finally the jukebox clicks with the last of your change and the next requested song is queued up. 

The hotel you check into is just down the street and you practically fall through the doorway trying to get each other out of your uniforms. It’s jumbled and chaotic as you slip out of your combat gear, tripping over boots and pants as you finally touch overheated skin, giggling like children.

Disorderly when your lips meet, her hands coming to cradle your face, holding you still with a low groan, a grip that surprises you. It heightens the flush of alcohol sitting in the pool of your lower belly as you kiss her back, wind your arms around her.

You gasp when she tightens a hand in your hair and pulls, mouth ravaging the skin of your neck with tongue and teeth. She walks you blindly until you’re flush against the wall, turns you around with her frame pressing hard against your back.

Her fingers are sure and true when they cup, caress your heated flesh, not an ounce of hesitation in her. You keen, circle your hips hard into her as she works at unraveling you, forearm circling your neck, leaning to put her lips at your ear, breath hot.

“So pretty. My birdie is so pretty.”

It’s been so long since you’ve last been intimate. The military discipline over your physique has made you forget what it’s like to treat your body with love, to feel pleasure, to be touched by a young woman you’d do anything for.

“Let’s see you fly high, hmm?” She breathes. “You want it faster? I wanna see my little birdie soar. Can you do that for me?”

 It’s so easy to let go.

Your flesh clenches around her and you sigh, your entire being quivering. Carol braces you, holds you close as you tremble with aftershocks, burning and burning. 

Your world is hazy, melting when Carol leads you to the bed and hoists you on top of her, thighs straddling her lap. The liquid courage returns, coy when you grasp the cool metal of the dogtags between her breasts and yank her forward for another breathless kiss. 

Her arms are strong, hard with muscle and hands splayed against the naked skin of your back as she coaxes you to earth shattering heights again and again. Until the grey light of day.

Sunday morning, you sleep in until ten o’clock, roused by streaming sunlight and birdsong. Peaceful quiet, a treat in itself with Carol’s arms lazily draped around you. 

**

Your stomach drops when the sergeant cracks open the C-17 door and the atmosphere shrieks into the aircraft. Your gear is heavy, you’re sweating hard, and your Airborne Division is about to jump. You find it hard to breathe and try not to lock your knees, try not to faint. Gut wrenching, everything inside you screaming that this is suicide. Leaping from a roaring aircraft with nothing but a kevlar sac to break your fall. 

You see the Airman in front of you subtly cross himself, pretending to scratch his chin.

You feel like you’re going to be sick. 

Fingers grip your waist. Carol stands beside you.

It’s too loud for conversation, the air and engine pressing down on your eardrums with tight pressure, but she gives you a nod, another squeeze of your hip. Her lips mouth a single word. 

Fly. 

Then, the men in front of you are rushing towards the yawning mouth of the plane and you and Carol are running together, side by side, fearless. And then you jump, spreading your arms, dive like hawks. 

The sky is a dome of robin’s egg blue, sun shining and tipping the edge of your gloved fingers with liquid gold. You fall fast, hard. Wind rips through and around you, weightless as gravity pulls you to earth.  

Pulse ramming, pure adrenaline, ten agonizing seconds of freefall. You pull the pin and your parachute deploys, rocking you backwards as the fabric unfurls and catches the air. You grip your harness tight, float through the heavens and watch as dozens of parachutes dot the horizon around you. 

You whoop, shoot Carol a “hang loose”, smiling wide, goofy and vibrating with excitement. 

Her laughter carries across the sky. 

**

You’re there beside her when the two of you are promoted to officer rank. First in your class, looking out over a sea of grim, bored looking faces that stare back at you with quiet hostility. 

Your officer uniforms are sharp, handsome. Crisp navy suits decorated with shining medals and visible proof that you have fought tooth and nail to be on the stage where you stand now. You wouldn’t want anyone else here with you but Carol. Your wingman. Your everything.

Your names are called and you rise together in unison as Senior Airman Dalquist pins your new patches to your uniforms. 

**

Weeks later, you learn that Dr. Lawson’s plane has gone down. It punches a hole straight through your chest, wrenches up your insides when the news is broken to you.

After BMT, you’d lost contact with her. You wish you could have told Lawson that you’ve done it, that you and Carol are dominating the skies. 

And now she’s missing. 

You’re in the hangar and up in the air before anyone can stop you. 

**

The crash site is still smoldering when you touch down at a hidden lake surrounded by a halo of pine and sand. You and Carol rip off your helmets, jump out of the cockpit as soon as your wheels are on solid ground, racing towards the wreckage of an eerily familiar F-16 Fighting Falcon.

Lawson lies slumped forward, still strapped into her seat. The glass of the cockpit has exploded all around her, leaving her open and exposed. It looks grim.

“Doc?” You say. Your voice shakes a bit, but you quickly will all fear out of your mind, take a deep breath and allow your body, your muscle memory to take over. Let your training come back to you. 

You push back at her helmet visor, sit her upright. Press three fingers against the artery of her neck.

Cold. No pulse. 

Then, you see the smoking hole in her chest, where plasma energy has burned through her jacket and blood drips bold and blue onto her lap. 

You exhale hard, ignore the strangeness of the latter to check Lawson’s dashboard for any working electrical machinery. No luck. All fried, all scrambled from the crash.

“Carol, we need pararescue stat. Get them here.” You order. 

Carol nods wordlessly, composed, turns on her heel to radio them from your own plane. 

You brace yourself against the frame of the cockpit, hang your head in shock. You can’t bear to look at Lawson like this. You don’t want to remember her like this. 

In those tense moments of silence, a soft, strange humming reaches your ears, seeming to emulate from the F-16 itself. You take a step back to fully survey the wreckage. 

The crash has exposed most of the plane’s wiring and paneling, including the engine. Though, this is no engine like you’ve ever seen. 

Monstrous, pulsing with blue light and an aura that draws you closer, pulling at your curiosity. It distracts you long enough for you to almost miss the approaching silhouette of a man from behind the suffocating smoke. 

He’s dressed in a bizarre emerald jumpsuit with a blazing yellow star in the center of his chest. His step is charismatic, unfaltering. 

And what scares you most is the unholstered gun in his hand.

Carol calls your name in a frantic shout. 

You put two and two together. Lawson’s killer.

“We have no interest in hurting you.” He tells you, finally pausing at the crest of the crash site. His voice is surprisingly charming and it sends a chill straight down your spine.

We?

You’re afraid. Your old commanding officer, one of the strongest women you’ve ever known, lies shot and killed with blood the color of toxic waste. Her engine looks foreign, otherworldly. Your mind begins to race. 

“The energy core. Where is it?” The man asks and brandishes his gun. You force your breathing to steady, to find a sense of calm. You have to focus. Questioning will make him irritable, panicking will get you killed. 

Intuition is enough to tell you that the core is not to leave in this man’s hands by any means.

You catch sight of the glinting handle of a pistol resting between Lawson’s knees. You flicker your gaze away and to the proximity of the engine. Then, you look to Carol.

Her eyes shine with tears in the shimmering heat. Her body is tense, drawn tight like a bow, fight-or-flight. You fear she’ll run to you, that she’ll get herself killed trying to protect you. If the roles were switched, you know you would do just that. 

So you act before she has the chance to. In one fluid motion, you draw Lawson’s gun and fire a single shot at the exposed engine. 

It explodes like heat and magma. Azure energy engulfs you in a millisecond. Like lightning striking your bones, fire that scorches through your entire being and condemning a blazing death of unbearable, burning power, collapsing like a supernova reborn. 

Your nerve-endings detonate, a fusion of flesh and skin and pyro that incinerates you to your very core, destroys you from the inside. 

You scream, high and horrible. You’ve never felt such pain. 

Your eyes ignite in crimson, red hot, flaring with light. Everything inside you rushing upwards and expanding until your mortal frame can no longer contain this threshold and you burst, combust with starfire. 

The blast hits Carol next, lifting her up and dissipating, coiling like mist through her skin in synergy. She glows like an iridescent comet, blue light rolling off of her like water and waves, her own eyes flaring turquoise, then white. 

When the two of you hit the ground, trees and sand bend and blow around you, knocking the man unconscious as the inertia from your combined energy throws him backwards.

You cry out as you try and hold yourself, crumpled. You are charred, your body humming with poison, radiation and flame, eager to crackle out of you at your slightest impulse, eyes still flaring powerfully.

“I-It hurts..” you gasp weakly. 

A true phoenix. Broken and born from ashes.  

Carol is there cradling you as tears leak down your face. Wisps of magenta and teal ripple around her with every movement, glittering with cosmic potential, like she contains her very own galaxy. Achingly beautiful.

“I know, birdie.” Carol murmurs as you choke, sputter from the pain. “Fight it. Give it to me.” She says and reaches for your hands. 

Carol yelps softly when you push a bit of your glowing gold into her, as she trades starpower for fire and you watch the cage of her chest bloom like a lantern, veins and eyes rimming with ember. She does the same, giving you the moon and stars and the gleaming, lavender milky way.

You let go and Carol gasps as she absorbs a new piece of you. Your mind clears, the pain nothing more than a dull ache. 

Exhaustion and shot nerves finally set in as the two of you lie there, quiet enough to hear the wind whistling through pine. You throw your arms around her, your kiss tasting like tears and sand and flushed sunlight. 

Carol braces you against her, hoists your arm around her shoulders and lifts you upright. Side by side until the very end. 

Then, you take to the skies, blazing like comet streaks and crimson hawks.

[back-and-totheleft]

An Ex-Marine Sees ‘Platoon’

In the voices of the soldiers you hear sensibilities that are rarely heard. One black grunt says the rich have always taken advantage of the poor, “always has…always will,” imparting this wisdom as useful background information without anger or indignation. He is the man in whose mouth Stone puts the American dream secretly held but rarely uttered in the American working class, that the American social system is a tough place where you might be able to save your own ass with luck and fortitude, but it will be the only one you can save. It is a place where sympathy and pity are the psychological luxuries of the rich.

But if they are shown as being cheated by the rest of America, the film still holds them to a morality that they can honor or betray. This is shown in a scene of great emotional power and ugliness when the platoon sweeps through a village after two of their own men are killed in action and the film shows the platoon’s “revenge.” These scenes struck me as horribly sad and truthful. The heat and exhaustion and fear play as much a part as revenge in bringing Taylor close to murder and another baby-faced soldier actually to it. It seems right that it is the sensitive soldier, Taylor, who lurches toward homicide first, while the brutal lout, Sergeant O’Neil, tries to stop it. At one level, this scene draws its power from the way the sequence of familiar images of thatched huts and conical hats and flak jacketed GIs prompt an “I know, I know” reaction that comes from the bogus knowledge gained from watching pictures. But this immediately changes to stupefaction as the scene turns to murder and the reaction becomes, “Wait! This isn’t how it goes.” Or, “We didn’t know about this,” as the columnist Anthony Lewis recently said about the film. 

You didn’t? 

How come?

Leo Cawley, ”An Ex-Marine Sees ‘Platoon,” Monthly Review [x]

[barpurplewrites]

How to babysit a scientist.

This spawned from the Pretzel Week prompt Forced Partners Trope in Sci-Fi AU. I have a different fic in mind for that, but this wouldn’t leave me alone till I wrote it up.

Rush & Belle

Stargate Universe pre-season one

-x-x-x-

“Colonel O’Neill. SG5 is inbound from MK-632, erm Sergeant French reports there has been an incident.”

Jack dropped his head into his hands with a barely suppressed groan.

“Would the cause of this incident be short and Scottish?”

Doctor Nicholas Rush was Daniel’s latest recruit, and he’d rapidly taken the prize for most difficult scientist in the whole SGC with his cranky, snarky ways, and total disregard for simple rules. Jack actually liked the man; Rush automatically assumed everyone around him was stupid and tailored his explanations accordingly, so never gave Jack a science headache.

“I did get the impression that there was a Glaswegian component to the incident, sir.”

Jack frowned, Sergeant French always delivered full and clear reports when she called in, unless…

“How Australian did she sound?”

Airman Phelps mouth twitched into a tiny smirk.

“Crocodile Dundee, sir.”

Jack gave a low whistle and got to his feet, Sergeant French’s accent would get thicker the angrier she got, from the sounds of it their newest scientist might be coming back in pieces.

“Let’s go see the damage.”

 Rush wasn’t in pieces, but he didn’t make in back through the Stargate under his own steam. He was carried over the shoulders of Belle French. When she reached the bottom of the ramp she dropped her unconscious load to the ground, apparently indifferent that his head bounced off her boot.

“Sergeant, I recall asking you to babysit Doctor Rush.”

“With all due respect, sir, Mary Poppins would beat this man with her handbag.”

Jack bit the inside of his cheek to stop himself from laughing. The medics were already lifting Rush on to a gurney to move him to the infirmary.

“What did he do?”

“MK-632 has identical fauna to MK-631, including the Sleeping Beauty plant. He was told twice to give it a wide berth. I even had him repeat the order back to me, but apparently his mouth can work without interference from his brain.”

Jack blew out a slow breath, Rush wasn’t hurt as such, although he might have a few bruises depending how often French had dropped him on the way back to the Gate. This did however mean paperwork and Jack loathed paperwork.

“I think it would be best for you to accompany Rush to the infirmary Sergeant.”

French frowned at him; “Sir?”

“He’ll be waking up soon and someone needs to tell him ‘I told you so’.”

Her face lit up at the thought.

“Thank you Colonel.”

Jack grinned to himself as she strode after the medics. Rush wasn’t going to know what hit him when he came round. Jack glanced at his watch; he had time to stroll by the infirmary before he started on the injury reports.

[red-riding-wood]

Heroes - Chapter 3

Chpt. 1 , Masterlist , Chpt. 4

Pairing: Sgt. Elias Grodin x Female OC (Alexis Ryder)

Fandoms: Platoon (1986), Cherry (2021)

WARNINGS: I'm just going to put down a blanket for the entire book/all chapters: graphic depictions of violence and gore, torture, explicit sexual content, attempted sexual assault, language, marijuana use

Dawn was rolling over the horizon, filtering in through scraggly branches and needled boughs with its warm, soothing touch; and although it made my eyes dart less nervously around at the shadowy brush, it did nothing to help the sweat that funneled in rivulets down the grooves of my back.

My armour, helmet, rig, and rucksack lay in a heap beside my shovel, which I thrust into the earth with another lethargic swing.

I’d barely gotten any sleep since my turn on last night’s watch, and I was running off of adrenaline.

Wolfe and the sergeants of each squad had met early in the morning to discuss a converging mass of al-Qaeda on our position, and had been strategizing – though mostly bickering – about how we would tackle this threat.

Most of us new fry were tasked with digging foxholes, while the more experienced soldiers would flank the hostiles and flush them towards us.

O’Neill had stayed to keep an eye on us, make sure we were doing our jobs, but really, it was just so that he could kick back his boots and leave the work for someone else.

I huffed out a strained breath over the handle of my shovel, arms quivering over it. My head felt as if it were growing light, from my lack of sleep and from not allowing myself a single break over the past two hours.

“Hey, Sweet Cheeks!” O’Neill’s voice cut through the air, and with my back turned to him, he couldn’t see my wince, the curling of my gums over my teeth as I panted out each laboured breath.

“Get back to diggin’ that hole, will ya? I was enjoying my little show,” the sergeant remarked, and I clenched my jaw, but said nothing.

This was precisely why I hadn’t allowed myself any breaks.

I drove the shovel deeper into the soil, and with reluctance, bent my aching spine with it. My shirt rode up at the base of my spine, catching on the stickiness of my perspiration, and a cat-call behind me signalled that I’d appeased the NCO.

As I went to heave another load of dirt from my shovel, I caught sight of a flicker of movement across the dirt, and I heard the guy next to me – Taylor, his name was – suck in a sharp breath.

I stilled for a moment, watching as a scaled, mud-brown rope curved and slithered its way around his boots. I narrowed my eyes, studying the dull patterns on its body, and then flicked my eyes up to meet the wide, fearful ones of Taylor.

“It’s non-venomous,” I told him, under my breath. “It’s just a dice snake… I think.”

A week into basic, some of my fellow recruits had found out that Taylor had a fear of snakes, and had gathered a few cobras from the outskirts of Kandahar and stuck them under his blanket. Poor guy hadn’t seemed to shake the feeling of scales on his flesh for a good couple days after that.

That was when I’d learned that you never told people of your fears in the army.

Taylor was the transfer that had taken Cherry’s spot in Two Bravo. I hadn’t properly been introduced to him yet, but we were digging the same foxhole and had been working alongside each other all morning. He wasn’t like Bunny, or Junior, or any of the other guys that had been giving me grief all morning. He was quiet, shy, kind of like Cherry, and seemed to be just as rattled as I was by everything that was happening.

And though everyone got their fair share of teasing, Taylor was one that everyone loved to just take out their aggressive, restless energy on. He’d been some rich kid, apparently, had shown up on his first day smelling like La Chatelaine soap and sporting luxuriously-styled locks of hair that had since been mercilessly buzzed like the rest of the new men.

As rough as I had it, I didn’t have it as rough as the rich white kid amid a platoon of uneducated men who’d joined because they had no money or no place to be.

Taylor nodded at me, though the fear didn’t leave his eyes until the snake had, its lithe form disappearing beneath a few fallen branches.

I resumed my digging, though Taylor, in his gratitude, said to me, “Thanks. I still don’t know which ones are the gonna-bite-your-dick-off kind or not.”

My lip curled into the slightest of smiles, and I said, “Well, I’m not really an expert on that myself.”

“I’m Chris,” he said. “Chris Taylor.”

I looked up at him from where I laboured over my shovel, and nodded. “Ryder,” I reciprocated.

“Heard some talk ‘bout snakes over here?” Bunny cut in, sauntering over from the foxhole he dug with Junior. He flashed me a toothy grin, and added, “Taylor bein’ a pussy again? Might have to shove it down his pants, this time. Heard there’s plenty o’room.”

I eyed the man warily, and said, “Snake’s gone.”

“’Course it is,” Bunny said, wild eyes flashing and fixing me with a look. “What’re you two chummin’ ‘bout, anyway?” The wiry soldier shoved his way between us, knocking my shoulder with his.

“We’re talking about books,” Taylor said, and I caught his eye over Bunny’s shoulder. In our gaze, for a mere second or so, flickered the seed of an alliance, and I forced back a smile.

“Fuckin’ books? ‘Course fuckin’ rich boy’s yabberin’ ‘bout books. You don’t really wanna be hearin’ ‘bout that, do ya, Sugar Tits?” Bunny jostled my shoulder again, intentionally this time, and I felt his fingers graze the sweat-slicked fabric on my lower back.

I hoped he didn’t notice how I’d stiffened, and I cast a glance back at O’Neill. Was he not going to tell Bunny to get back to his foxhole?     

O’Neill simply flashed a wink at me, leaning back against a pile of rocks like they were a throne.

“No,” I told Bunny, because disagreeing with this maniac would’ve been suicide. “I don’t wanna hear about books.”

With Bunny’s attention now fixated on me, Taylor went back to digging, trying to mind his own business. I wish I could’ve. Suddenly, the physical toll of working the shovel didn’t seem so bad if only Bunny’s wandering hand and the stench of his sweat would take their leave.

Instead, I found myself fake-laughing at some fucked-up joke he made about one of the al-Qaeda he’d killed yesterday. Something about them sucking air through the hole he’d blown in their spine, how he’d thought of sticking his dick in it for a quick blowjob… I had a feeling that Bunny’s creativity would never cease to amaze me, nor would his blatant lack of regard for human life.

But I shouldn’t have been talking. I’d blown away three men yesterday out of peer pressure and hate.

“You like that one?” Bunny said, grin spreading from ear to ear. “Wait ‘til I tell ya about – “

Thwack.

My head snapped around to glimpse the remnants of a tree’s bark exploding in a puff of air, a gunshot announcing its presence along with the sound it made against the wood.

I dropped my shovel, and dove into what Taylor and I had managed to dig so far of our foxhole, fingers dragging across the earth and soil lodging itself beneath my fingernails as I grasped desperately for my M-4.

My heart thudded rapidly in my chest, but I couldn’t hear it over the ringing in my ears; more gunshots followed suit, and equipping my headset wasn’t my priority at the moment.

The gunfire was coming from the trees to the north of us, where the platoon officers had said the al-Qaeda would be headed from. But if these were the same ones, they’d arrived much earlier than their estimation.

Bunny was shouting something; I could tell that much from the way his ribcage expanded and contracted so fervently against my side, where he’d fallen into cover between Taylor and I, and I was just propping up my elbows to open fire when he stuck his head up and began reefing on his trigger, spraying the forest wildly with rounds. Casings landed beside me in the dirt, and I tried not to flinch every time the brass caught a wink of sunlight.

With him laying cover fire, I had enough time to toss my helmet and headset on and pull my plate-carrier around myself before getting myself back into position to shoot.

I was working up the nerve to poke my head out from my foxhole, but seemed to be frozen.

Just do it for a second, I told myself, but another part of me caught the splatter of blood and the violent whiplash of a skull and I also thought to myself, I don’t want to die.

So I thrust my arms up so that barely my wrist was showing, and my gun was held over my shoulders, and I fired blindly into the trees.

When I was out of bullets, I pulled my rifle back down so that I could grab another mag from my rig, little rivers of dirt cascading down around my face as I did so. My eyes and sinuses burned as I inhaled, and a cough wracked my body, but I shoved the mag into place with a relieving click.         

With my headset now protecting my ears, other sounds were starting to trickle in past the gunfire: the frenzied shouting of al-Qaeda, the hammer of sandals and boots against earth above me.    

And suddenly, my M-4 was being kicked from my hands, and I was staring up at one of the terrorists, their dark eyes wild from where they peered at me beneath their distinguishable black niqab, though the rest of their uniform was camouflaged, designed to mimic U.S. soldiers.

But darker than their wild eyes was the barrel of the AK-47 that stared down at me, maybe a foot from my face.

Though my heart had been palpitating wildly, I thought for a moment that it might have stopped.

I was being yanked upward by the collar of my uniform, and I gritted my teeth, hands lunging for their arms, their throat, but all in vain, for I was seized, not just by one soldier but by three.

But the gunshots had finally ceased, and the al-Qaeda had descended on us like an inexorable tide. Grunts and screeches of defiance mingled with their shouting as my fellow soldiers fought against their clammy, choking hands and their ruthless shoves.

One of these shoves sent my body flying to the earth, a spray of dust raining around me, coating a tongue that was exposed by my panicked breaths, and wedging itself between rheumy eyelids.

Beside me lied a bloodied and mangled Gardner, his chin quivering as he rolled his head to meet my gaze past dying eyes. I swallowed bile as the metallic stench of his blood and the sordid tang of his punctured guts filled my nostrils, and I reached for the rifle that rested beside him, his fingers attempting weakly to close around its stock.

But Gardner shook his head at me, fear laced brightly into those dying eyes, and I hesitated, pulling my hand back beneath me.

Don’t try and be a hero, some part of my mind narrated this action. Just live.

So I was yanked viciously back up, empty-handed, my unlatched helmet falling to the earth, and then my world became blackness; my breaths were coming hot and fast against burlap, and someone’s hand tightened the bag around my throat for a moment just to choke a sputtering cough from me.

But I conceded, allowed rough, calloused fingers to shove me forward over perilous terrain that I could no longer see, and allowed the compensator of an AK to rest assuredly against my spine.

---

Brilliant light blinded me as the burlap sack was torn from my head, and I cringed, wincing against the flashlight that someone was holding to my retinas. It strobed a few times, and I blinked hard against the rheum and dirt and dried mucus that rimmed my eyes. I felt my head roll like a bobble-head’s on an unsteady axis, and a knife split my skull, hot and fiery. My jaw gaped open, and I inhaled the musty stench of straw, the staleness of the air, the faint yet rotten tang of dried blood that my weary eyes now glimpsed beneath my bound legs.

The room was dim, brighter than the burlap sack only by a few shades; it took my eyes a second or two to adjust since the flashlight, and as they did, I dragged them deliriously across the fractured seams of the walls, where daylight spilled in and highlighted clouds of dust that clung thick to the stale air.

My legs burned as hot as my skull, and I was almost certain that I’d torn a ligament or two when they’d escorted me down the rocky terrain of the mountains. Though I’d no idea what direction we were facing, we’d lost plenty of elevation.

Two men stood in the room with me. One uttered unintelligibly into his partner’s ear, though I recognized a few of the syllables, the cadence of his language, to be Arabic. I was fairly certain he’d been the asshole with the flashlight.

The other simply stared at me from those dark eyes, nodding along to who was probably his superior. I couldn’t really tell apart from their body language; their uniforms mimicked ours, though they bore no badges of honour. As far as I knew, terrorists had no real honour.

Fucking pigs, I thought to myself, though I kept my lips sealed. And it was only after my mind uttered these words did I recognize them to be Barnes’.

Once the first man had spoken into the second’s ear, the latter of the two revealed himself to be a translator, for he spoke to me in accented, broken English:

“Tell us mission. How many of you? Where? Purpose here?”

I swallowed past a dry throat, and my gaze flicked to the man who now left the translator’s side to pick from an array of tools on a splintered, deteriorating bench. He was the torturer, and I was his prisoner of war. If I didn’t talk, he would make me.

I hissed in a sharp breath, and clenched my teeth, now glaring up at the torturer’s dark, emotionless eyes and bracing myself for whatever was to come. But something in those veiled, glassy eyes, something in the way he walked toward me told me that there was no way, not even from the training that I had received, that I could prepare myself for anything that was to come.

The torturer held an iron rod that glowed hot with fire; he muttered something to the translator.

“Look down,” the translator told me. “Don’t look in his eye.”

I furrowed my brow, confused, but dropped my gaze to the floor, my eyes once again tracing over the dried blood that had spattered the dirty floor beneath my chair.

They were trying to ingrain subordination into me, I realized; it was their first attempt to break my will.

Though my gaze never left the floor, I promised to myself in that moment that I wouldn’t break, that I wouldn’t compromise any of the men that I had trained and fought with. Not Barnes, not Elias, not even Bunny, who would’ve probably given my name up without a moment’s hesitation.

I felt the heat of the iron grow closer to my flesh, to the sleeve they had ripped upward on my arm.

“Start talking!” The translator screamed at me, and the torturer gripped my jaw in his firm, merciless grasp, dirtied and bloodied fingernails digging past the flesh and feeling as if they might scrape bone.

I gasped, pain searing along my jaw, but I kept my gaze on the floor, and my tongue bound.

A pair of knuckles struck my cheekbone, and my head whipped to the side, but I merely breathed, listened to the sound of my heart drumming against my ribcage, counted the beats and kept my mind off of the horrors that were only beginning to unfold.

Then, it was the iron that struck my flesh, and I convulsed in my chair as pain greeted every nerve of my body, and I wailed, screeched, lamented my pain until a filthy, sour rag that tasted of urine and grime was stuffed between my molars.

When the iron left, its searing pain did not; I glanced down at my arm, at the reddened, swollen skin that seemed to be starting to peel away like old leather. I panted short, frenzied breaths around the rag in my mouth, and I counted the beats of my heart again.

One, two, three, six, eight, eleven… I couldn’t keep track anymore.

“Talk!” the interrogator yelled at me again, but I remained still, my body a statue in every way but the fervid heaving of my chest and the shaking, quivering curling of my fingers into a loose fist.

My shirt was torn from my torso, which, for a moment, was almost a relief, for the room, in the heat of the summer and its stagnant air, was like a boiling pot. Sweat glistened across every inch of my flesh, beading and collecting to form rivulets down the grooves of my abdomen and back.

But then, next came my bra, and my trousers, and even my boots and socks. I shivered, the sweat that had beaded on my flesh beginning to chill me, the sensation so alien in contrast to the magma that boiled on the flesh of my arm.

My whimpers were made into what I was now convinced was a urine-soaked rag, and I resisted the urge to curl in on myself, to appear weaker to my torturers. They wanted to humiliate me.

And then my world tipped over, my head growing light as it fell like an iron weight to the floorboards, the backings of my chair digging harshly into my bare spine and the impact sending a jolt through my quivering body.

The rag was ripped from my mouth in time to unleash a cry, but then blackened my face, and my heart, which was already running in time to a racehorse, skipped a beat in my chest.

In survival training, every soldier had been water-boarded for a number of seconds to prepare us for times like this. Even in training, nearly every recruit had given in to this method of torture. I’d hoped and prayed that day that it would’ve been the last time I ever experienced it.

I wormed beneath my bindings in anticipation, the ropes twisting into my flesh and allowing bubbles of blood to emerge along my wrists, hot against my skin, metallic in my nose.

Someone’s fingers were laced into my hair, holding my head down, and the rag flattened against my face, curving around the orifices of my mouth and nostrils as a cold liquid poured across it.

And I began to drown.

Oxygen became nonexistent, though my lungs fought for it like a ravening wolf would its prey; they filled, tightened, and convulsed, and my mind could not even count to one with the beating of my heart, because all I knew was panic. All I knew was helplessness. All I knew was the flood, the burning of my nasal cavity and the absence of life from my lungs.

And finally, after an indeterminate amount of time, the cloth was removed, my bulging eyes darting across the cracks in the overgrown ceilings, and an elbow struck my abdomen, made me heave the watery contents of my lungs or my stomach or both onto my chest and the floor next to me.

The torturer pulled me up by the roots of my hair, contorting my face in pain, and he asked me again to talk.

When trained for becoming a POW, every officer always told you that there was a point you would reach when you needed to start talking for your survival, but to only give up information that was irrelevant, that bid you time.

With my body trembling, my flesh on fire and my muscles seizing and my lungs burning so intensely that tears poured from my eyes, I realized that now was this time.

“My name is Private Alexis Ryder,” I coughed, spurts of water flying from my lips. “I am a soldier in Two Bravo, a squad in the second platoon of Bravo Company.” I panted out a couple more frenzied, wet, gurgling breaths, and then recited my serial number.

Spittle landed across my cheekbone as the torturer communicated some words in Arabic, and his translator said,

“More, girl. More, or your punishment won’t stop.”

My trembling lip curled over my teeth, and my eyelids fluttered, delirious, but the torturer’s hold tightened on my locks.

I thought of my father. He wouldn’t have given up the details of his mission, wouldn’t have been broken.

I thought of Barnes. He would’ve spat back in their faces.

And, strangely, I thought of Elias, and his bright, blue eyes, and the stars that glittered above him in a hollow, black sky.

And I wanted to ask him what he saw in them. I wanted to ask him if he ever looked up and thought about Heaven, or a life after death. I wanted to ask him if he feared death as I did, in this moment.

The torturer released my scalp, but landed another blow to my stomach, and I keeled over, ropes tightening against the abrasions on my wrists.

And then the two left, and my tears pooled on quivering, naked kneecaps before trickling down aching calves like venomous snakes leaving a lifeless corpse.

--- 

I had blissfully nodded off, and when I peeled back crusted, tear-ridden eyes, I noticed daylight again through the seams of the walls, and the air around me felt cold, frigid against the sweat and tears and blood that had congealed on my bare form.

It must have morning again.

The first sound I noticed was the screaming.

The wails that echoed down the halls, beyond my room of isolation. The howls that were likely from the rest of my teammates, the “cherries” that had been digging the foxholes.

Taylor was probably one of them.

And then I heard the faint humming of music, so low that for a moment, all I could do was close my blurry eyes and listen, gulping against the dryness of my throat and the taste of bile and urine on my tongue.

Ever-so-softly, “Heroes”was playing, and with how heavy each limb weighed, with how much pain still coursed from the charred flesh of my arm and the chasm that split each leg, and the sting that had formed beneath each rope, I wondered if this was my passing, my ascent through the pearly gates themselves.

But when I blinked open my eyes, forcefully blinking the rheum from them, I saw one of the al-Qaeda men sitting with his back leaned against the wall, and a niqab pulled back around his ears to make room for a pair of headphones. He rocked his head gently to the beat.

“Hey,” I snapped, though my voice came out quiet, weak from my strangled lungs.

“Hey,” I spoke, louder, collecting the deepest notes of my diaphragm and thrusting them into the stale air between us.

The al-Qaeda’s head snapped up, and he set the headphones and the iPod aside next to my other belongings.

“That doesn’t belong to you,” I hissed, and swallowed again past the taste of bile as I bravely – or perhaps foolishly – met his eye.

“You belong to us now, girl,” The terrorist growled as he strode forward. His English sounded crisper than the last, though I couldn’t tell them apart. They all wore the same thing, all shrouded their faces in darkness. I’d begun to wonder if it was more than a cultural custom, or a means of obscuring one’s identity – if, perhaps, it was yet another variable to drive one mad.

“So you’d better talk,” he added, his fingers wrapping around my throat and emptying my lungs of any breath.

Past my strangulation, I mouthed a few vulgarities, and this caused his grip to loosen, his eyes to narrow from between the dark lines of his niqab.

I remembered how helpless, how useless and impotent I had been after my first firefight, and I refused to be that pathetic, scared child again. I refused to be anything less than my father, or Barnes, or the hero that I’d set out to be.

“No,” I panted.

Rage danced in those beady, dark eyes, and a clammy hand ran down my flesh, streaking blood across it. A dirtied fingernail dragged over my nipple, and I winced.

“I’m going to rape you, if you don’t talk, girl,” the al-Qaeda warned, his thumb now hooking the hem of my underwear and his filthy fingernails digging deep into my hipbone.

I swallowed. I panted. I counted my heart-beat again. And I closed my eyes.

The jingle of a metal buckle nearly made me flinch, but I steadied myself, forced a calm to wash over my trembling form that nearly rocked from each beat of my heart.

I heard the thud of a rifle being placed on the ground, felt the brush of its wooden stock against my toe.

My wrists began to fumble with my bindings, pushing the rope past the abrasions of my flesh. They were looser than they’d been before, perhaps from my struggle, and hope flared from somewhere deep inside my chest. Somewhere dark, somewhere buried, it blazed to life, a sole light in an endless expanse of black.

As the belt hit the floor alongside the AK, I jolted, not from the sound but from the freeing of my wrists; the rope had sidled down and was now cradled delicately over the hillocks of my knuckles.

And then, shouting, and the hammering of boots against the floor joined the echo of wails, and my eyes shot open, gazing past the al-Qaeda torturer and to the door that remained closed.

Gunshots rang in my ears, and his head snapped to the door, too.

This was my chance, and I took it.

I tore my bloodied wrists from my bindings and lurched forward, sending my chair tumbling over where my ankles were still bound to its legs. My finger wrapped around the trigger of the AK, and the others elevated it enough to fire a round into my captor’s leg.

His scream curdled my blood, but it also stoked something in that abyssal wasteland in my chest, a human instinct to survive, to hate, to kill.

I shot a couple more rounds somewhere into his chest, and he collapsed on the floor beside me, blood pooling at my fingertips and staining the long strands of blonde hair that clung to the floorboards.

I took the butt of the AK and began slamming it against the rope that bound my ankles, my muscles straining with each effort but adrenaline giving every cell a newfound strength.

Finally, I scrambled free, frayed ropes falling from bruised and bloodied ankles, and with one hand cradling the AK, I reached the other to pull my khakis over my legs, and hastily pulled my shirt around my shoulders, but didn’t bother with the buttons.

My head spun, and I teetered, but I steadied my shoulder against the wall. Even though every instinct told me to curl up against it in the fetal position and let the battle rage on outside the door, I forced myself back into the fray.

I shoved the iPod into the pocket of my khakis, hooking the headphones in their hem, and then thrust the barrel of my weapon towards a door that rattled and shook on its old hinges.

My finger tensed, the iron sights moving and blurring out of focus as I fought to steady my breath.

And then a cloud of dust rained down on me, and I raised the barrel of my weapon to the roof, because the uniforms that greeted me bore the stars of the American flag, and the faces that stared at me, though once intimidating, were now so wonderfully familiar.

“Clear!” Warren – the sergeant of Two Delta – shouted, before moving on through the halls with a cluster of followers.

A few others rushed in to my aid, but one gestured the others away.

“Get back in the fight,” Elias barked at them. “Go, get the other prisoners, now!”

A sigh of relief escaped my aching lungs as my gaze settled into blue eyes, and my grip loosened on my rifle as a dizzying wave struck my skull.

“Ryder,” he said, his eyes raking across my form with urgency. “Are you injured?”

“Elias,” I breathed, and as I staggered across the floor, my fingers reached for him, brushing the fabric of his shirt and grazing the hot flesh of his neck.

“Alex,” he repeated, and asked me the same question as his hands wrapped around my waist.

“I don’t know,” I breathed, my words barely a whisper as darkness teased the edges of my vision.

He smelled of sweat, but also of wildflowers, and earth; and when I inhaled, my head reeled again, the darkness threatening to consume me. But I was okay with that. I was okay with being transported from this nightmare into a place where I could embrace those beautiful scents of nature, where I could be cradled by the warmth of his touch – it soothed my aching body, like honey melting and oozing through every pore.

I wasn’t thinking anymore. My world was being fed in broken fragments to me.

The baritones of his voice murmuring above me, the brightness that streamed through the cracks in the ceiling, the weightlessness that seemed to consume me, the warmth of that honeyed-touch lulling me into sleep as the final thread of my consciousness snapped like a wire.