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Stalag Luft III reminds Gale of home in the worst way imaginable. Someone always looms over his shoulder, and no one hesitates to pull a gun if they deem it necessary. Guards and POWs alike are quick to fight, and even quicker to shout. The food is terrible, and Gale can’t remember the last time he felt full. The cigarette smoke in their room reeks and makes the air heavy to breathe, and the few times there’s something stronger than water to drink, it feels as if his entire crew sinks into the bottle.
Worse than all of that, however, is how difficult it has been to sleep. As a child, before everything went to shit, he would sometimes sleep in the master bedroom, safely tucked between his mother and father. His father snored, and sometimes his mother would get those coughing fits that the doctors much later identified as tuberculosis. It was what finally killed her in the end, and what made his already lousy father even worse.
To sleep in Stalag Luft III feels a little like trying to fall asleep next to his parents. Worry gnaws at his insides, and when he manages to fall asleep, it rarely lasts longer than a few minutes. He wakes at every sound, at every rustle of the scratchy blanket or their worn uniforms, at every half snore or cough. It’s hardly uncommon for people to be running a cold around here, and there’s little to do but wait it out, but it keeps Gale Cleven awake regardless.
It’s after one of those nights, when Gale has spent most of the night staring up at the bunk above him, that he wakes alone. This, too, makes his insides knot uncomfortably. He knows Bucky must’ve ushered everyone outside when Gale has been so exhausted that not even the sounds of footsteps have woken him up, but the idea of not having at least someone in his line of sight… Gale pushes himself up and swings both legs over the edge of the bunk, and his shoulders hunch forward in a rare moment of vulnerability he can’t show in front of his men.
He’s a Major, and he better fucking act like it. To show any signs of weakness, to the guards or to his boys, is not acceptable. Besides, he’s terrified of what’ll happen with Bucky if he allows himself to slip, even just a little.
Unfiltered sunlight shines through the window, where someone has pulled the curtain. He scans the courtyard and the people, and doesn’t relax until he finds Bucky walking together with the rest of their bunk mates. They talk, and Gale gets to see a rare smile from Brady because of something Bucky has said.
He keeps watch, even though his body is screaming at him to lie down, and eventually allows himself to pull a chair from the table to the window.
His chest aches strangely, the way it has on and off for weeks now, and his head spins. Actually, his whole body hurts in a way he can’t ever remember it hurting, not even during those intense first weeks of training, when it was a feat to get out of bed every morning. The headache comes and goes, and some days it feels as if someone has forced him to wear his late nan’s glasses for an hour, eyesight blurry and strained.
Still, he feels relatively okay. He has it better than most, and he tries to share all of that with his men. The occasional extra potato, because he’s a white American and Germany may not
like
them, but there are a lot of other people that they wish to see dead before they want to see somewhat healthy, white Americans gone. And, perhaps, especially one like Gale, with his blonde-ish hair and blue eyes.
The thought alone makes him sick to his stomach, and he promises himself to give Jefferson and his friends some, if not all, of Buck’s lunch. If there’s lunch.
“We have to do something about Buck.”
It’s DeMarco that says it, on their trek to the cabin where some poor guy hands out the pitiful portions of food no more than three times a day. Even that is a rarity, and if they get to eat twice a day, they can consider themselves lucky. The food is shit, Bucky will be happy if he’ll never have to see another turnip in his fucking life, but it’s better than nothing.
“What about him?” John asks, mind already wandering to the way Gale had looked so exhausted when he finally fell asleep, John had been courageous enough to get everyone up and out, lest they all wake him up again.
“He’s exhausted ”, DeMarco continues, as if it isn’t entirely obvious. It is, even if Buck tries to hide it. He’s slower, somehow, as if he’s moving through molasses, and his quick thinking has taken a bit of a backseat to focus on things that actually matter. Once or twice, Bucky has even caught him drinking straight from the plate instead of using a spoon. Only ever when he’s alone, and only ever when he’s so bleary eyed and tired his eyes might as well be crossed. “We need to do something.”
“We are doing something”, John quips back. “We’re going to let him sleep.”
DeMarco is about to protest, but John waves him off. He understands the worry, but he knows Gale would hate it. It’s better, Bucky decides, if he’s the one worrying. The guys have enough on their mind as it is.
Today’s excuse for breakfast looks like most of their meals nowadays. Broth with less than a handful of diced parsnip at the bottom and half a loaf of the worst bread John has ever had the misfortune of eating. It’s dry, heavy and tastes like coal. Sometimes, if things are especially bad, they have to cut mold from the crust and eat what’s left.
It takes some back and forth with the guard in the window that’s handing out food before he finally agrees to give John another plate, because even the German soldiers know that Bucky and Buck come as a pair, and something has to be wrong if they don’t pick their food up together. He balances the two plates, one in each hand, and immediately turns back toward their cabin.
“Maybe we could finally get him that London leave he always turned down. I think he’d like the Ritz.”
Brady chuckles, and it’s enough to have some of the tension seep from Bucky’s shoulders. It’s nice to hear them laugh, it makes everything feel more normal even if it’s not.
Truth is, John thinks Gale would hate the Ritz. It’s too much, too over the top, and nothing like what Gale is used to. It’s not like either of them grew up piss poor, but they did grow up just after the first war and some things were scarcer than others.
“You boys eat outside. I’m going to go check on him.”
John finds Gale slumped against the windowsill. His own back aches at the sight of the uncomfortable position, but he doesn’t say anything about that particular problem.
“You up already?”
Gale glances over his shoulder, and John’s heart sinks in his chest at the sight. It’s strange, because while Bucky has been lashing out at everyone and everything, he feels physically okay. Sure, he’s starving and the bunks aren’t exactly comfortable, but he thinks he’d look about the same as he did when he left base all those months ago if he got a proper shower, a nice long sleep, an even longer fuck, and a hot meal that didn’t consist of potatoes or parsnips or broth.
Gale, on the other hand, looks worn. He’s lost more weight than any of the others, the circles under his eyes keep getting darker and his cheeks have grown hollow. The look on his face is going to haunt John’s nightmares forever if they ever make it out of here alive.
“How long was I out?”
“Not even two hours, Buck”, John replies. “Breakfast, then you’re going back to bed.”
“I have things to do.”
“You don’t ”, John says, not unkindly but stern. “I’ll keep an eye on everything, I promise I’ll behave. The boys are getting worried about you.”
Their eyes meet when Gale turns around in the chair, and he reluctantly moves closer to the table. John places one of the plates in front of him, then joins him.
“Eat up. You can have my bread”, John says, and sends his half flying. Any other time, when Gale isn’t as exhausted as he is now, when he’s not in a German POW camp, when he’s been eating and sleeping as properly as any of them can on base, he would’ve caught it before it hit the broth. Today, he barely blinks at the splash of mostly water.
“You ought to eat it”, Gale says, and picks it up. When he tries to hand it back, John shakes his head.
“If I have to eat another one of those loaves, I might never take another shit. They mess with my digestion.”
Gale ponders this, tries to give the loaf back one more time before he relents. John knows he would save it for someone else if it wasn’t already wet with broth, which is exactly why he was aiming for it. Gale’s own bread, Bucky had mindfully pushed a little too close to the edge to make it soak. Soaked bread isn’t anything to save around here, and John fully intends to make sure Gale eats as much as possible.
They eat in silence. Gale’s hand trembles slightly, and John has half a mind to spoon feed him the rest of the food if that’s what it takes. He doesn’t, he knows Gale would never allow it, but it’s a nice thought nonetheless.
Bucky misses that. Doting on Gale, when they’re all alone.
The meal is finished within ten minutes, not because they’re wolfing it down but because there’s so little of it, and despite their earlier conversation, Buck rises from the chair with the intent of finding his coat. It’s left in his bunk, probably used for extra warmth during the night.
“You need to sleep, Buck.”
Their eyes meet. Behind the exhaustion, behind everything that has happened, John thinks he sees fear. Just a glint of it, there one moment and gone the next, and he can’t help but wonder what it’s all about. Maybe he’s just worried he won’t get back to Marge, or about the guys, but it feels different. It feels an awful lot like the look he gets whenever he talks about his old man.
“I’m fine ”, Buck insists, as he drapes the heavy coat over his thin shoulders. “Come on, we have things to do.”
John stands from his chair, and comes to meet Gale in the middle of the room.
“Alright, tough guy. Make me a list.”
Gale halts, and John sees that as a win in itself. If there are things to do, Gale should be able to make a list. Get water, wash up, try to catch that bunny that has been hopping along the fence, make sure the boys eat their lunch. What else is there possibly to do, when they’re confined to the most boring place on earth?
“I-…”
“ Exactly ”, John says, and he reaches out to brush the coat off Gale’s shoulders again. “You’ve got nothing to do. You need to rest, big boy. I’ll check in on you as many times as you need me to, but you need to rest. You’re running on fumes at this point.”
Silence falls between them. Outside, someone shouts and a dog barks.
John hates this place, he hates that there’s nothing to do and nothing to eat and nothing to see and he hates the bed and the blankets with holes and the godawful cold how little clothing they all have, but what he hates most is what it’s done to them. To all of them, but to Gale especially.
“I don’t know, Bucky.”
John shrugs, and finally he slips his fingers into the arms of the wool coat and forces it off, as gently as he can but determined not to give up. Gale doesn’t seem to have the strength to fight back.
“Well, I do know. You need to rest, because this whole camp would fall without you. The boys need you, but they need you rested .”
Another silence follows, when John helps Gale out of his coat and leads him back to his bunk. It takes some effort, but Bucky manages to half lift, half push Gale into bed, and only leaves his side when he knows he won’t get up. He gathers the blankets in the room, returns to Buck’s side, and drapes five of them on top of him and leaves the rest by his feet.
“I’ll sing you to sleep”, John says, and it rewards him with a half scoff of affection.
“Don’t you dare.”
John smiles, leans closer to brush a hand over the top of Gale’s hair. The moment of quiet, careful intimacy is so rare around here that it sends a spark down John’s spine.
“Sleep”, he says, again. “If I see you up before supper, everyone in this room is going to wrestle you to the ground and hold you there until you’ve gotten a full night’s sleep.”
Gale’s lips twitch into a faint smile. John thinks it’s the closest thing to an agreement they can reach. Buck hasn’t outright accepted, and John knows he never will, but it’s close enough.
“Wake me if anything happens.”
“You know it.”
John dares to lean even closer, to brush his lips against Gale’s forehead, and squeezes his shoulder in an attempt at comfort.
“Now, sleep. I’ll check in later.”
Gale dutifully closes his eyes, and John watches him sink into the mattress in a way that could be comical if they were anywhere but here. An unhelpful and unwanted memory resurfaces at the way Gale presses half his face into the pillow, one of Curt doing the same thing every time he asked for five more minutes.
John backs away slowly. He doesn’t want to startle Gale if he has already fallen asleep, and it feels as if he needs a moment to collect himself out of view before he rejoins the guys outside.
He has all but reached the door when Gale speaks.
“John?”
“Yeah?”
A brief pause.
“Could you stay? Just until I’ve fallen asleep.”
“Alright”, John agrees, and takes the two steps needed to return to Gale’s side. “Scoot over.”
Gale moves as close to the wall as he can, but even then it’s a tight squeeze. It takes a moment to find something comfortable for the both of them, and John ends up with his chest pressed to Gale’s back, one arm around him and the other underneath his head, nose just barely brushing the top of Gale’s head. It’s too close, it’s too much, they shouldn’t be doing this, but if this is what it takes to get Gale to sleep, John will spend the remainder of the war like this.
Besides, during the nights it gets so goddamn cold that most of them bunk together to keep warm. If anyone sees this, they can blame it on the cold.
“Told you I’m the big spoon”, John whispers, and the sound that leaves Gale sounds an awful lot like a laugh. “Curt’s a nasty liar.”
Is. Was.
It doesn’t matter.
John closes his eyes. Gale’s breathing evens out eventually, and John gets to press tiny kisses to the back of his head, the hand resting on his stomach drawing mindless patterns.
It’s with a start that John realizes that there’s nowhere else he would rather be. He has been longing for home for months, for something to do, to get up in the air, for his own bed and his own apartment, but it dawns on him that this is what he has missed the whole time.
With Gale in his arms, he might as well be home already.