Chapter Text
The first time Buck flew a mission with John next to him in the cockpit he tasted bile at the back of his throat for a week. It wasn’t because the engine became starved, or because the left wing began to drag so hard he kept smashing his cheek against the window pane.
No. When Bucky was there the cockpit felt cramped. Suddenly there were too many things to control and adjust. The instrumental panel became a nightmare. John kept looking at Buck’s fumbling hands like they belonged to a stranger. A stranger who couldn’t fly a bloody B-17.
But the truth was, Buck had never had someone he cared about enough in his plane. Correction, he had watched a lot of men he cared about die under his jurisdiction as pilot in command. But never someone whose death would colour his world so grey it’d become damn nearly not worth inhabiting.
“One vertical fin and one rudder completely gone. A hole in the wing nearly 16 feet long. I could kiss you Cleven”, John breathed out once their tailwheels touched the landing strip.
Buck laughed, removing his oxygen mask, “yeah?”, but the look Bucky gave him made him want to put it back on again.
John smiled at him in that private kid-like way, it reached the creases of his eyes, and it reached the centrefold of Buck’s heart. John leaned over to swipe at a bit of blood beneath Buck’s eye, gentle, calloused fingers.
“Yeah”, Bucky replied plainly, sweetly, meaning nothing and everything by it.
“Never took you for a romantic Eagen”, Buck finally smiled sincerely at him. Then he laughed that golden laugh. Bucky thought he really could have kissed him then.
Instead, he opted to open the door and shriek loudly at the oncoming jeeps, jumping down and asking who was going to make him a stiff drink.
Gale just watched the spectacle. He hated spectacles personally, but oh how he loved to watch John make them.
ִֶָ. ..𓂃 ࣪ ִֶָ་ ཐི༏ཋྀ ༘࿐
An English dusk drew in over the barracks as the chimney swifts retreated for the night. The evening brought the warm glow of a local pub, the sour taste of whiskey and the acrid burn of one too many Old Golds as John exhaled all over Buck’s face.
Buck shoved him, laughing fondly. He truly looked relaxed, but John could see something at the back of his eyes.
Relief.
There was no telling that they’d both be sat here this evening on scratchy, garish seats in a crowded, village pub, thighs pressed impossibly close together. Gale, pretending to enjoy an Old Fashioned, leant back in the far corner of the sofa, with John beside him, constantly jostling him with his sudden laughter, lunging forwards across the table, engaging Curt in some ridiculous bet.
Not that Gale was ever really the life of the party, but John noticed him grow quieter than usual and moved to recline into the sofa behind him, noting too late Gale’s outstretched arm, suddenly making their position all too intimate.
He shifted forwards awkwardly before twisting his whole body to face Buck. There was this kind of intricately patterned, frosted glass border around their booth which had been keeping Gale occupied for the past 15 minutes, but now he fixed his eyes on John.
“Yes?” Gale enquired, giving him his best false dour expression, a smile playing at the corner of his lips.
“Doing a lot of thinking there Major”, John brought a hand up to rest on Buck’s shoulder in a friendly pat.
“Don’t hurt yourself”.
Pointedly, Buck’s eyes flicked down to where John’s hand rested, then drew back up with a raised brow.
“I’m going to call it a night”, he replied, bringing the crystal glassware to his lips.
Bucky snorted in response.
“Don’t pretend to drink that Buck”, John snipped with a grin, his hand drawing lazy circles on Buck’s shoulder.
“It’s unbecoming”, he continued.
With that Gale really laughed.
Distantly John heard Brady joke that Gale was sweet on him. Nash laughed hysterically at that, joining in and commenting something along the lines of ‘I’d just about suggest Bucky was sweet on him too’.
“Okay we call it a night”, John slurred, glancing around at the other guys in the booth. Buck really hadn’t meant for John to disband his merry making but he couldn’t pretend he wasn’t happy, already looking forward to the cool, sobering (well sobering for John), walk back to the barracks.
Bucky said his goodbyes. Curt had said he’d be joining them soon. Blakely and Nash had made to leave with them but become embroiled in an elaborate drinking game.
“G’night then fellas”, Gale ushered John out of the pub as he stumbled over chair legs and made eyes at some hapless girl near the door. Buck took his thumb and forefinger to the bridge of his nose, closing his eyes in disbelief as John knocked over the entirety of someone’s drink.
The stars in Norfolk were something.
“You got a light Cleven?”, the breeze whistled around them so loudly that Buck didn’t even hear what John, who was lolloping several paces behind, had said.
But Bucky had brought out his dad’s little silver tin and so Gale got his inflection, tossing him a lighter he carried for god knows what reason.
Once John had caught up with him he slung an arm around his middle before realising the miscalculation and moving it to rest around Gale’s shoulders.
“I don’t want to sleep yet”, John said to the inky sky.
“What am I s’pose to do about that John?” Gale drawled, shooting him a bemused look.
“Play Bridge with me till we fall asleep?” John half jutted out his bottom lip in an entirely unmanly way, his eyes grew wide and pleading.
Gale ran a hand through his own wind swept hair.
“After today”, he began, stopping in his tracks, lost in a memory, then meeting John’s eyes with an intense and heartfelt expression.
“Well I think I’d probably do just about anything for ya”, he mumbled.
He didn’t really know why he was saying all of this. Surely the few sips of his drink in the pub hadn’t made him go this gooey.
No, it was something else.
John laughed at that with glee, flashing a full toothy smile before pressing down on Gale’s shoulders and jumping, trying to summit the stars.
Gale huffed as he brought his arms back to secure him before he dropped clumsily to the ground.
“You’re ridiculous John”.