Because I’m evil and I feel like I know what it is: bro I hate it here 👀👀
the way i hate you??????? i did not want to talk about this fuckass fic on main and yet i included it in the wips list and you immediately zeroed in on it, so here we are, i guess
"bro i hate it here" is hr fic, which you know, and i'm writing it because the fandom is making me grind my teeth into dust, which you also know. i should be working on my novel, but the problem with running on spite is that sometimes you have so much of it you gotta write The Spite Thing even when you'd rather be writing something else. alas. anYWAY bone apple teeth or whatever:
The air is cold and mean when they land in Boston.
The guys bitch about it as they deplane, complaining about the wind, the gusting snow, the salt on the streets. Shane stays quiet. It's harmless chatter, no different than ragging on the shitty ice in Florida or the godawful locker room in Carolina, but today it grates on him.
last song: dawn is a feeling by the moody blues (best. album. ever.)
last book: like, one chapter of a dance with dragons by grrm which i really should pick up again lol
last movie: persuasion (2008) which i loved! and since i’ve never read the book before i plan to read it very soon
last tv show: squid game season 2
last thing i googled: sickly meaning (i was looking for synonyms)
favorite color: yellow and blue
sweet/savory/spicy: depends ?? savory i guess
looking forward to: going to bed since it’s 2am (serious answer: starting my local 4th semester clinicals in summer and graduating nursing school in august!)
current obsession: x-men movie prequelverse cherik because the hyperfixation backshot me again after several years… in my heart it is 2011 again and x-men: first class has just been released in theaters <3
@terrarot @tommyjop @waterandsilver @cdo499 @mapofyourstars @airlocksandaviaries @liass-21 @faeratil @calkale and anyone else who sees this and wants to!!
tagging @sluttyhenley and @redbelles since you guys asked about it to AND ALSO
bell you're getting called OUT 😈
sooo this is actually the first thing i started writing for mota and it was an unclog-the-pipe kind of idea and is self-indulgent with regards to wanting more bucky whump. i may actually never post it in totality for... a couple reasons, but i actually did a fuckton of research into how the stalags were run and kriegie culture inside of them, so it was a good exercise on a lot of levels even if it never sees the light of day. because it's sort of backburnered, that means i feel more comfortable posting BIG CHUNKS OF IT 🎉 but uh, that said, this one IS going under a cut because in addition to there being a lot of it, it's. dark.
cw noncon and psychological torture, you can probably guess where this is headed. the structure i settled into with this one is gale POV for the first part, wherein Something Is Wrong With Bucky:
Bucky shrugs, a quick, smooth shuffle of his shoulders that’s as big a lie as what’s coming out of his mouth. “Krauts get a little rough sometimes. Nothing anyone else didn't get.”
“They didn't do anything to me,” Gale says, every word feeling heavier than the last, pulling him down. “Just asked me some questions.”
Two things happen then. Something in Bucky’s face twitches, a flinch stealing over it so quick Gale barely catches it. But his shoulders drop, just a bit, some tension leaving him. Gale for the life of him can’t make sense of it.
“‘Course not, Buck,” Bucky says, light, easy, like Gale doesn't have a pit the size of the Atlantic opening up in his gut, cold flooding in. “Who'd wanna damage that pretty face of yours?”
From any of the boys, there might be some bitterness in it—it’s not like Gale doesn't know some of the goons cut him a break, ’cause of rank or coloring or whatever else. From John there’s just… relief. It feels wrong. The pit yawns wider, and the water gets higher. “Roughed yours up, though,” he says, the words feeling distant as he remembers the black eye John was sporting, that first day. The way John had grabbed his chin, tilted his head around, looking for something. Something like the beating he got, maybe.
That's what Gale had thought at the time. Now he’s not so sure that’s where it ended.
Bucky’s eyes go dark again, as distant and near-drowned as Gale feels, so he claws his way back. Tries, anyway. “Yeah, well,” John mutters, “better me than you.”
and what's wrong is not only was bucky sexually assaulted post-interrogation, but the guards told him they did the same to gale when he passed through the dulag, and he spends months beating himself up about not being there and being able to take it instead of gale, until he says something about it and gale's like ??? and bucky realizes it WAS instead but now gale KNOWS. second part's bucky's POV of the assault, so it's not chronological, and maybe it doesn't need to be shown/written at all but i wanted to because i like whump.
He’s got a headache the size of Texas, blood—his own, his own, not some kid in a cart’s, they let him wipe that off, so what's left is just his own, thank Christ—itching as it dries behind his ear, and a pit in his chest every time he thinks about Bremen and London and Russelheim and the way the woods smelled when he was running through them, clean and green and endless—
The door slams open, and Bucky gets two seconds to berate himself for jumping, for being so in his own head he didn't hear them coming, before one of the goons grabs his arm and yanks him up, spinning him to face the wall. Turns his head to the window on instinct, but the light spilling in catches him off guard and sends a new wave of pain spiking through his skull.
“Heya, fellas. Couldn't get enough, huh?” He shoots over his shoulder, hands up but grinning like nothing’s wrong, like he’s back at Thorpe Abbotts joking with the boys.
(Later on, he’ll wonder if that was what did it. If he’d just kept his eyes forward, his mouth shut, if they’d have—)
and the third part's gale POV again, after their little yard spat and is........ kind of recovery? inasmuch as one is capable of recovering while still stuck in a POW camp and going crazy with fear because no one takes your warnings about needing to get the fuck out seriously, and also your best friend punching you in the face is the most normal you've felt in almost a year:
“I’m sorry.”
The noise that comes out of Bucky’s bunk is barely human, a snarl more suited to Meatball, or the Kraut’s dogs. “You’re sorry,” Bucky snarls. “You are a real piece of work, Buck.”
He rolls over, kicks his legs out of the bunk, boots on, to glare up at Gale. “Saint Cleven,” he sneers, and he’s just pissed and it's nothing Gale hasn't heard before, but it still stings a bit. “I pick a fight and you’re the one who's sorry.” His eye’s already swelling up, purpling a bit at the edge. Again. Gale’s stomach roils looking at it. “It’s not bad enough that’s the first time you’ve treated me like normal—”
“Hittin’ you ain’t normal,” he bites out, before he can stop himself. He scrubs his hand over his eyes, just for a second, and when he looks back John's anger has dimmed a bit, banked coals instead of the inferno.
“It’s better than whatever the hell you’ve been doing the last few weeks.”
How’s that?” Gale says, sharper than he means to. Whatever he means, there’s nothing better in hurting Bucky. Not when he’s already had plenty more than his fair share.
“You won't touch me, Buck!” It’s hissed through John’s teeth but it hits him with all the force of a baseball bat to the face. It sits between them for a moment, heavy.
“That's not true,” he mutters, but there’s no strength in it, and John barely dignifies it with a scoff.
He tries again. “I didn't think you’d want…” He trails off, feeling stupid even as the words come out of his mouth. Bucky can't go ten minutes without slinging his arm around a pal’s neck, a clap on a shoulder, an elbow in someone’s side to get their attention. He couldn't, anyway. Before all this
“The hell d’you know about what I want,” Bucky snaps, like he doesn't wear every thought on his face clear as day. “I'm damaged goods, I get it, but I’m not some china doll—”
“You’re not damaged goods,” Gale shouts, the words bursting out of him like water from a burst pipe and loud enough to make John flinch back, shock all over his face.
sooo yeah! that's stalag shit! if i do ever get it done, i think it'll need some revisiting on the characterization, but honestly probably not that much. it is however the only purely-clegan wip i have, which means it would probably do better than alllllllll my other stuff even WITH the caveat that it's dark content. which is very funny to me in a bitter sort of way.
From the prompt list: icemav + 6. patting the other’s head?? If it inspires
icemav + patting the other’s head
i do not know the meaning of brevity.
send me a pairing and a prompt!
To be a fighter pilot, you have to have ego.
It’s not just a requirement, it’s an immutable law. It’s on the checklist of fighter pilot eligibility. One: candidate must be a United States citizen of sound mind and body. Two: candidate must have a four-year degree from an accredited educational institution. Three: candidate must have ego the size of the Grand Canyon and the guts to back it up.
Fighter pilots are young, good-looking guys who grow into stately, well-tailored men. Elegant. Gentlemanly. Airs of class that have since ebbed away in the general population, but which find a home in the handful of officers who call themselves naval aviators, and they wear them damn well.
Ice has always been particular about his appearance; it’s hard not to be painfully aware of it, with twelve years of detentions earned for uniform infractions at elite private schools and four years of the Naval Academy bearing down on him. He holds it together through the six months of hellish diagnoses it takes for the doctors to figure out what’s making him sick (cancer), where the cancer is (his lungs), and where it metastasized to (his throat). There’s never a hair out of goddamn place through the whole endeavor. But when they finally figure it out and get him on a chemotherapy plan, the pristine picture of the Iceman falls apart.
His tan is the first to go; if he’s being honest, it was already on its way out. It’s been nigh on ten years since he was last in a cockpit, and trading his F-14 for another stripe on his sleeve meant he hardly saw the sun in his cramped offices. Maverick used to tease that he looked like a vampire, losing the California bronze that’s been embedded in his skin since he was old enough to walk. Jokes like that are far and few between now that it’s no longer the job that’s draining his color, but his own body.
In the end, it’s easy to let the tan go. What really gets him, what really hurts, is when his hair starts falling out. Iceman has impeccable hair. The sun rises in the east. The facts of life. He puts off shaving it as long as he can, because yes, it’s just hair, and yes, it should grow back—the doctors assured him it would probably grow back—but dammit, he’s a fighter pilot, and he has his pride.
He sulks about it for weeks: gently combing his hair, putting as little product into it as possible so as to prolong the life of the strands that remain, taking shorter showers to reduce the likelihood of tufts of blonde falling out and running down the drain.
Maverick is solid at his side, his own hair dark as the day they met. In the deepest parts of his heart, he hates Maverick just a little bit for it. The asshole doesn’t even have the decency to be going gray yet, and here Ice is losing it all.
But then Maverick will tell him he passed his driving test and got a proper driver’s license so he could drive Ice back and forth from his appointments so Ice wouldn’t have to ride in a smelly taxi on the way home when he’s already starting to feel nauseous, or he’ll smile at Ice when he gets home and say, “Hey, I called up Wolf and he found that baked potato soup recipe from that place we ate at in ’96,” or he’ll sit at Ice’s side at two in the morning on the bathroom floor when the vertigo has Ice kneeling at the altar of the porcelain throne, even though he has to be at the base at five-thirty to do briefings and pre-flight checks, and Ice can’t remember why he was annoyed about Maverick’s hair at all.
Maverick drives him to his next chemo appointment. He sits in the waiting room, perusing the latest copy of People Magazine. Maverick hates People Magazine, but there’s not much else the hospital waiting room can offer in terms of salient literature, so People Magazine it is.
Ice goes back for his chemo treatment. Phil, his technician, doesn’t say much as he putters around the room, hanging IV drip bags here and flipping switches on medical equipment there. When Ice is all hooked up, they chat about inane things. Phil recounts his daughter’s swim meet. Ice responds with tales of his own swim meets, back at the Naval Academy. Phil says his son signed up for flag football, but God bless him, he’s shit at the sport. Ice promises that he’s not going to get much better at it, if he sucks this much at it now; he’s got his own scars from high school to prove it.
Phil unhooks him from the infernal treatment and books him for an appointment in two weeks. Maverick puts down People Magazine—a different issue than he was reading before, Ice notes—and drives them both home. He helps Ice into the living room and lays him down on the couch with the quilt that Carole made for their sort-of-fifteenth-anniversary. He kisses Ice on the forehead and goes to the kitchen to start dinner, and Ice is out like a light.
When he wakes up again, the sky is a dusky gray. It’s just past sundown. Maverick let him sleep for hours.
“Mav?” he calls out. Ice pushes himself up off the couch, his elbows creaking as he goes. “Maverick?”
“In here!” Maverick replies from the guest bathroom. “I’ll be just a second!”
Ice hums and goes into the kitchen. There’s a pot on the counter, but it’s not one of theirs. He lifts the lid; savory chicken congee, with ginger root and scallions. The Reyes’ must have dropped something off while he was asleep.
“Oh, yeah, Martin came by with some soup,” Maverick says behind him. “He says there’s no better cure than his wife’s arroz caldo, not even your mama’s chicken noodle soup.”
Ice puts the lid back on the pot. He turns to Maverick, ready to bear all of his weight down on his partner, because chemo is a bitch and he feels exhausted just standing here in his own kitchen—
—And flinches.
“What the fuck did you do to your hair?” Ice cries. Maverick cracks a grin, his signature Colgate smile.
“Do ya like it?” he asks.
Like it? Ice reaches out for his head, and Maverick leans in. He runs his hand over Maverick’s scalp, feeling the smoothness of his skin. He passes over the whole landscape once, twice, his fingers tripping over the tips of Maverick’s ears and the nape of his neck, as if he’d find something there like a magician performing a sleight of hand, but there’s nothing there.
“It’s all gone,” Ice laughs, somewhat hysterical. “It’s gone, it’s gone! What did you do? What the fuck did you do!”
Maverick shaved all of his thick, dark hair off. All of it is gone. All of Maverick’s damnable, doesn’t-have-the-decency-to-go-even-a-little-salt-and-pepper hair has disappeared.
Maverick smiles, teary himself. “Yeah, babe, it’s all gone.” He takes Ice’s hands in his and holds them tight. Ice tries to fight his own tears, but they’re doing what they please.
“Mitchell, what the hell?”
Maverick laughs. “C’mon, Kazansky, give me some credit. Don’t think I haven’t noticed you worrying about your hair falling out.” He cups Ice’s chin with one hand, looking straight into his eyes. “I thought you’d be less scared of it if we did it together.”
“Maverick,” Ice starts.
He doesn’t know where to go. It’s a grand gesture, that’s for sure, and if fifteen-odd years of knowing Maverick have taught him anything, it’s that you cannot always listen to what Maverick Mitchell says, you must only listen to what he does.
“Maverick,” he says again.
“Ice,” Maverick replies. “Let’s eat. And when we’re done, we’ll call Slider up and tell him what I did, and you can make as much fun of me as you want—for tonight only!—and we can talk about what you want to do next.”
They end up eating dinner in the bathroom. Maverick takes bites of his congee in between bouts of shaving off Ice’s hair as Ice huddles in the tub, ducking his head keep anything from falling into his own bowl. When they’re finished, they cram next to each other in Ice’s office and call Slider on Skype. His laughter is piercing through the laptop speakers and echoes down the hall.
And when Slider arrives ten days later, to, “Make sure Mitchell isn’t leaving you to fend all for yourself, I mean does he even know how to make a proper chicken noodle soup,” he knocks on Ice and Maverick’s front door sporting a grin and a freshly-shaved head.
Fighter pilots might have egos, but they’re a fiercely loyal bunch, too.
oh penny!!! i love her! but also hello undercover vegas marriage? 👀
thank you for the ask!!
penny!!! i don't even know if i have much new content on that front, the jag brainrot has taken over with a VENGEANCE. i have no idea when it will release me but i am hoping in the next year. but do not fear i still plan to finish it for sure!
anyway, yes, undercover vegas marriage! this is one of the wips i am cowriting with @odakota-rose. it's a jag harm/mac fic where harm and mac have to get married during an undercover investigation in vegas. however, due to Shenanigans it turns out the marriage is actually legal.
anyway neither of them wants to get it annulled but they don't tell each other that because, y'know, they're idiots and mutually pining. harm suggests that they stay married because "it's easier" or something stupid like that, and mac rejects that proposal because "is romance actually dead."
cue harm proposing in increasingly "romantic" (read: ridiculous) ways.
have an excerpt from the only part of this fic written, which was the speech-to-text discord chat message i sent to ren (odakota-rose) at 2 in the morning a month ago. (i've cleaned it up a bit and you should all thank me, because the original version has some...interesting?...typos.)
Mac was hopeful when Harm called her up and asked, well more like told, her to dress up for the evening. Formal wear, he'd said.
Whatever hopes she had were dashed when he showed up on her doorstep in full mess dress. She followed him dubiously to the car, badgering him about what was going on out of habit more than out of any assumption that he was going to actually tell her. It was patently obvious -- to her at least -- that this was going to be some kind of ridiculous production. At this point she had resigned herself to being mostly amused and only mildly heartbroken about these situations.
It wasn't until he pulled off the highway and headed downtown that alarm bells started to ring in her head.
"Harm, where are we going?"
"Not now, Mac," Harm said distractedly.
He was apparently trying to navigate into the left turn lane, although Mac couldn't possibly imagine what restaurant venue was on that street.
"Harm, that's the way to the White House."
"I know."
"Why are we..." Mac trailed off as she glanced into the back seat and caught a glimpse of three bundles of red roses. Shit. This was rapidly turning from amusing to potentially dangerous.
"Harm, why are we going to the White House Rose Garden?"
"I didn't tell you where we were going."
"Why are we going to the White House Rose Garden," she repeated.
Harm sighed.
"As far as I know, that's where we first met, and--"
"Please tell me that you are not going to attempt to break into the White House."
(spoiler: he was going to attempt to break into the White House.)
Anyway, if you made it this far in my ramblings, extra kudos XD thank you again for the ask!!!
what's like a castle-in-the-sky/pipe dream/bucket list thing you hope to do one day?
I had to think about this for a little while!
I’d love to visit all 7 continents, seems kind of cliche but I think it’s a relatively achievable! I love to travel and see the US, but haven’t been able to swing an international trip yet. Another thing I hope to do is hike the Enchantments in WA, it’s something I’ve working towards for a few years.
