phlegmatic
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When Gale smashes a backhand, and Egan lunges for it, but the quick bounce spins it just past his racket, he stumbles, catches himself on his hands with his racket clattering against the hard court, and he starts laughing, wet and winded—laughing still as he straightens up, cheeks reddened, glistening under the sun. He scrubs the back of his wrist, his black sweatband, over his forehead.
“See? You love it when I make your dad mad.”
“Egan,” Gale warns, but all the authority is lost in his panting. Egan wipes his forehead again, racket tapping his thigh.
“Missed playing with you, Buck.”
“We played two weeks ago, in Cincinnati. C’mon, still your serve.”
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Gale meets John Egan at a Challenger in Bordeaux when they're both 19 years old. After that, he can't seem to shake him. But what's more is, despite what his dad says about Gale's game, and what the commentators say about their rivalry, and what he's been told about tennis his whole life, Gale doesn't think he wants to.
a Buck/Bucky tennis AU
Series
- Part 1 of it's tennis
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i'm steppin' out with a memory tonight by phlegmatic
Fandoms: Masters of the Air (TV 2024)
02 Nov 2025
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“I’d bet we could get away with it again. Everything’s upside down on Halloween.”
“What?”
“Dance with me, Buck.”
“You’re crazy.”
“Yeah, you’re probably right. Can’t promise I won’t try to kiss you again.”
“Jesus, John.” Gale’s back is straight, and he can’t look at John, alert to the whole party once more and searching for anyone giving them a second look—anything that says someone heard, anything that says they’re noticed, but it’s all the swollen dance floor and the hopping band and Marge bouncing on the spot with James Douglass now, and no one noticing the clown wooing the devil.
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a Halloween MargeBuckies romance
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and you may tell yourself, “this is not my beautiful house” by phlegmatic
Fandoms: Masters of the Air (TV 2024)
12 Oct 2025
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“I should’ve let you jump.”
“Wasn’t ever me that was jumping, Bucky.” They pass a sign that reads Wrong Way Go Back. “’S just for as long as it takes. You’ll be tucked back between your silk sheets eventually.” He hits the brakes with a wrenching screech, and when Bucky casts around for something familiar, he realizes they’ve just circled the block. Someone lays on their horn behind the Jeep, but when it becomes clear that they aren’t moving, blazes past with a pointed rev of their engine. Bucky stares at Curt across the console, and Curt grins back, impervious to Bucky’s rage.
“What are you, the Ghost of Christmas Could Have Been? Ghost of Christmas Your Ticket’s Punched? I already know what I’m owed, I don’t need the goddamn glimpse.”
“Tell you what: when you’re ready, you ring a bell. You’ll know the right time.”
Bucky snorts. “And you’ll get your wings, that it?”
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Ten years after a breakup, Bucky gets a glimpse of what could have been if he'd never ended things with Gale Cleven. Also, it's Christmas.
Inspired by the film The Family Man (2000)
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“If you see the ghost of Granddaddy Egan on the road, don’t you dare tell me about it. I don’t need to know that shit,” Alex quips, broad and light, and he’s facing Bucky with a loose-lipped smile that sits odd beneath the tight pinch of worry around his eyes. It’s a familiar expression.
“It is the snow you must watch for first.” Paulina sets down the tags, and stubs out her cigarette before patting the clump of nickel and sliding the necklace, slow and rasping, across the table towards Bucky. He reaches for it; her fingers are cold to the touch.
“Snow? It’s late for snow, isn’t it?” The scoff in Alex’s tone still has a laugh in it, and despite the vodka and what they’re talking about and what’s waiting for Bucky in the morning, Bucky can’t help but smile at him.
“It is the sign that the dead are coming. Travelers will see the snow, and then the marching corpses. Sometimes, they—” she clicks her fingers sharply, and Bucky’s smile widens— “poof, taken.”
“Taken?” Alex’s skepticism is still delighted, liquor having made him giddy. He laughs louder, and Bucky watches his eyes crinkle, his shining teeth. “What, by the ghosts?”
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a Bucky/Buck time slip romance
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if that isn’t love, it’ll have to do by phlegmatic
Fandoms: Masters of the Air (TV 2024)
10 Aug 2025
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“You’ll manage, Bucky,” Gale says before he can think better of it, and when John looks up at him with eyes wet and glistening, he wishes he could take it back. Maybe not just the cold, then.
“I’ll manage?” He sounds level at least, hot drunk but no different to normal. A little edge, a little rasp.
“Without ‘im. I know it’ll be—But you’ll manage.” John’s answering scoff has a meanness in it, and he does look down again, but thankfully he doesn’t stop walking.
“I’ll manage. Yeah, I’ll manage. I’ll manage without him, because I managed before, that right?”
“That’s right.” Gale’s murmuring again, and you don’t grow up in Wyoming without learning how to soothe a horse, and somehow that’s the voice he’s using right now. Tempted, even, to soothe like he would a horse: hand rubbed broad along John’s flank, cupping his neck like he’d cupped Gale in the pub, rubbing solid and firm. Might quiet those jitters, still jittering even though John’s trudging along with his sight on the ground, trying to sniff away his wet eyes.
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In the aftermath of Curtis' death, Bucky struggles to grieve. Gale struggles to help him.
Finding each other, in four parts.