#big thank you to the internet for the baseball and old radio info! lifesavers!

[shoshiwrites]

Decided to try my hand at a little postwar. Big thank you to @basilone for the prompts that inspired this ♡ Bucky Egan/War correspondent OC, also on Ao3! NSFW.

the nearness of you

The table’s littered in paper, a handful of pens, black-red-blue, the bound copy of her manuscript beside, her wristwatch, the coffee cup separated from its saucer.

The clock behind her, above the stove, reads just after one. 

She should probably try and get some sleep, she knows, but he’s due back in tonight, the tiny D. C. apartment they share until the paperwork goes through on a house. She hasn’t seen it in person yet, but he’s told her about it. Says she’ll love it. It’s got a nook for her desk, he says, a big window to the backyard.

A yard.

That’s a new thing, too. Hydrangea bushes and trees to watch the birds.

She inspects the coffee grounds at the bottom of the mug, dark specks in the dim light of the bulb above her head. There’s more sugar to be had now, a whole canister of it there on the counter, labeled in blue, and she can’t break the habit of only sprinkling a touch with the tiny spoon.

She doesn’t know if she’ll ever get used to it, waiting.

It's not like she hasn't done. The landscapes blur in her mind, the muddied boots, the blood, the tall dry grass, the leaden skies and swoops of birds — starlings, and the flies.

The radio next to the canisters of sugar and salt punches out the program sign-off in static, the tinny “Star-Spangled Banner“ that follows. She keeps it on for the baseball games, when he’s not here. The noise keeps her company, the promise that he’ll ask about the scores. Thank you for listening. Good night and good morning.

She makes it through half of the next page before she hears the turn of the lock.

“In here,” she says, like a stage-whisper, and her voice is thick, like she’s been sleeping. Like she hasn’t spoken since he left. 

“You’re up,” he says, and it’s a statement and a question at once, colored by his own face and curls that look like they might have seen a moment of shut-eye in the back of a taxi. He sounds a little surprised, maybe that she’s awake, that she’s greeted him before he’s opened his mouth. His cap must be by the door, and no need for an overcoat in the summer. She knows it’s only the hour and the neighbors that have kept him from coming in with a boom. He looks tired, the same softness to his face that she knows comes from exhaustion. She wonders how he’s been sleeping.

It’s the usual questions and answers, slow this time, and still rushed — have you eaten, how was the train, how’s the story going, hear anything good, and the last one means she gets to produce the little scrap of paper with her pencil marks, the scribbled notes. Two to one Yankees. Chandler walked nine in the first four innings but took a no-hitter into the ninth. Someone hit a one-out single. He guesses until he hits the name that rings a bell. She nods, and his eyes crinkle in delight — at the win, at the paper, at her own eyes warm with love.

He sees the manuscript pages too, the coffee grounds, the hunch of her shoulders. There’s a question in it, like maybe it’s not going as fine as she says it is. She reaches for him. “I missed you.” Maybe it doesn’t help anything, saying that, when this is what they do. Have done. Maybe it does. He smells a little bit like a smoking lounge, the faint scent of aftershave applied many hours earlier.

“Missed you too,” he says, wrapping his arms around her when she stands. “I missed my wife.”

She doesn’t know when she’ll get used to that, either.

Maybe she doesn’t feel like one, a wife, here with a dirty plate in the sink, and the coffeemaker that needs cleaning, and her slacks, and her hair curling away from her forehead.

He kisses the top of her head and maybe she does, here in his arms.

“How much,” she asks, and the feeling gathers in her throat, something tumbling.

He pulls back, the smallest smirk playing at the corners of his mouth. “I’d say — a hell of a lot.” He cups her face with his hand, traces his thumb at her chin, kisses her like he’s passing a secret. “A whole hell of a lot.”

“Mmph,” she says, into his shoulder, and he looks like he might laugh.

“How much for you?”

She tucks a curl behind his ear. “”Bout the same. Maybe more.”

“More, huh?”

She pokes her tongue into his mouth, in the next kiss. His hands grasp the small of her back, his fingertips wandering lower. She shivers when he travels beneath the hem of her top, skims his fingers along the bare skin of her hip.

“John-” Her voice is a little breathy now, half-serious. “Don’t go starting something you can’t finish.”

“Now, just what are you accusing me of, Josephine?” His thumb presses against her hip, a promise. She starts to unbutton his jacket, the back of her hand falling to ghost against the front of his trousers. “Where’s the goddamn couch?”

They’d moved it to the spot themselves, not-so-gracefully accounting for the difference in their heights. It’s not as plush or as comfortably upholstered as either of them would really like, but they’re not about to waste too much time complaining. He settles himself over her, or tries to, hipbones framing hers. 

She bites her tongue with a crack about needing coffee, even though she knows he’d laugh. He’s like that, he can laugh at himself. She lets him work his hand between her legs, over the brown herringbone. 

Maybe they didn’t think it through either, as clothed as they are. It doesn’t stop either of them, her from pulling him down to her mouth, the wet kisses and flushed cheeks, the growing hardness of him under the olive wool.

They hardly wiggle out of them, the inconvenient trousers, just enough for her to grab at the back of his thigh and squeeze. “Alright there, Mrs. Egan.” 

She goes redder, a sight, and the dark tufts of hair just above the waistband. He sighs out against her throat. 

She’s wondering just how comfortable he is exactly, knee wedged like that against the couch, until she feels him against her, slick and swollen, until-

Her exhale’s sharp, the twist of it, the little gasp-groan of it, of them, her nails against the curve of his back. 

He covers her like a blanket, heavy and warm, the dull oak moss of his aftershave, like everything she’s ever missed. The movement of his hips grows quicker, spooling tight in the bottom of her stomach. 

“Got me right where you want me, huh,” he asks, and his eyes are hazy with it, stormy-beautiful-blue. 

“All I dreamed about-” she breaks off with a noise, a whine, a spot inside hit just right. 

“Missed me, huh?”

“So much-” Every day, since-

She clenches around him, the edges of her sight shimmering, watches his mouth fall open that touch it always does. A second or two before he remembers just what exactly they’re doing, how they ought to be careful if they don’t want-

She arches, her gasp swallowed with a kiss. He comes in her hand, a dribble sliding down the crease of her thigh. The sound the sticking makes, between their bodies, pulls another noise from her chest.

Heavy, unthinking kisses against her nose, her forehead, her lips. Her shoulders lift, needing more of him. 

“I kept thinking about this,” he says, hoarse. “On the train.” A fresh thrill runs through her, touches her cheeks. “Almost missed my damn stop.”

She doesn’t push the errant curl back that brushes her forehead from his. “That wouldn’t have made either of us too happy.”

“Me in Richmond, and my darling wife here on this couch.”

“My darling husband in Richmond and me here on this couch.” Her fingers play at the back of his neck, the moments before they’ll get up and clean and dress for bed. “Good thing you wised up, then.”

“With the real thing here at home? Be pretty hopeless if I hadn’t.”

She traces her thumb against the corner of his mouth, watches his eyes follow her collarbone. “Does Mr. Not Pretty Hopeless care to join the Mrs. in the shower?”

He dips his head, kisses the crook of her neck and shoulder, intent on kissing across her chest. “Care to? That’s the best offer I’ve heard all week.”

#bucky egan x oc #john egan x oc #shoshi writes #smut under the cut #jo's tag #motaverse #i have no idea what's happening here actually #big thank you to the internet for the baseball and old radio info! lifesavers! #also just need everyone to know that jo has been my oc since [redacted] and any naming coincidences are uh. exactly that! #l o l