Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It's my favorite time of day, driving you. - Love Actually

There’s paint crusted on Gale’s fingers, dried tight like elmers glue, wrinkling his skin until his hands take on the appearance of a much older man. It’s a haunting glimpse into the future, though he doubts his skin will ever be the color of Benjamin Moore’s, Tranquility . He picks at a peeling edge by his thumbnail, surveying the still-wet walls with a calculating gaze. 

“I still think we should have gone with Dragon’s Blood ,” Benny says from where he leans against the doorframe, patchwork sleeve arms crossed thoughtfully and smile crooked. 

“You just like the name.” 

Shrugging, Benny slaps his hand against the frame, a finalizing gesture and nods his head towards the dark window. 

“It’s late, and the weather app says there’s gonna be snow, you good if I head out?” 

Gale waves a painted hand, takes another step back to survey the walls again, looking for any flaws or missed spots, “Go home, Benny. Sure your wife won’t be happy if I make you late for supper.” 

Benny snorts, “Jack isn’t allowed near the stove, or my new pans, for that matter. He’s on lockdown until I get a bit of a season on them, at the very least.”

“Sure he loves that.”

“If he had it his way, he’d be eating egg whites and avocado every meal.” 

Gale huffs a smile, adjusts the tarp over the brand-new Husky cabinets he’d ordered, sealed a tasteful black that wouldn’t showcase any ink stains. Benny regards him for several long seconds, heavy jacket draped over one arm and bearded throat bobbing. 

“You’re welcome to come, by the way. Meatball would love to see you.” 

Shaking his head, Gale pivots back to the safety of the wall. Benny’s piercing brown gaze had always been painfully astute in a way that Gale would resent, if Benny weren’t also unbearably kind. 

“Gotta feed the cat.” 

The floorboards creak beneath Benny’s shifting feet and Gale stubbornly keeps his eyes forward. There was a spot, up by the ceiling trim, that had a smear of hot pink – from the business that had been here previously – peeking through. 

“I’m driving upstate tomorrow to pick up the custom seats and benches, but I’ll be back in shop Monday for the opening,” Benny pats the doorframe again like it’s the side of a dog or Gale’s shoulder. Three quick raps rather than the usual two, long since picked up from Johnny, punctuated by the quiet clink of his new shiny wedding ring. “You sure you don’t want me to order you–”

“You’re getting as bad as Brady, Ben.” 

A quiet sigh. 

Gale listens to the creak of footsteps and the sound of a bell, the front door shutting and locking. His thumb brushes over the bare spot on his heart finger, empty now for nine months and  change. Still strange for the lack of weight, for the lack of hard metal. Bare for the laser removal of a name that had been inked there for the times he couldn’t wear his ring while working. 

He’d done all the steps. Moved cities, started a new business with his best friend, gotten an apartment, gotten a cat, promised said cat would never sleep in his bed, was sharing his pillow by the first week. Had gone on a few dates – awkward, stilted encounters all – and wondered if thirty was an acceptable age to investigate celibacy. Had become increasingly patient with the coddling of Benny DeMarco and his newly wedded husband, who tried their very best to be slightly less in love while around their heartbroken friend and, of course, failed spectacularly. 

All in all, he was managing. 

Rumination was the enemy, and Gale wasn’t about to give in to his foe, so instead of allowing himself further chasing of the rabbit, he sets about unpacking needles and ink bottles and gentian violet markers. Hangs the last few pictures out in the main waiting room of the studio, slotted between the front bay windows and the curving wood-paneled front desk that was original to the bar-turned-business. Out here the walls are painted a lighter cream, setting off the warm wood floors and half-wall panels, accented by the mustard couch and scattered, cushioned chairs. 

It made his head spin sometimes, how quickly it had all come together. How quickly Benny and he had gone from a casual late night ‘what if’ conversation to finalizing the LLC for Stroke of Luck Tattoos . A matter of months, a ‘what else have I got to lose’ moment for Gale, and a fresh start for Benny and Johnny, now at the beginning of their new life together. 

Gale had never liked the holidays, even before he’d become a divorcee in his twenties, and this year is gearing up to be an exceptionally gloomy one. 

Sure, his friends would invite him to things, invite him to celebrate, but there was no getting around that, for all they enjoyed his presence at the genuine level, any offer would be made out of at least some modicum of pity.

 It was far more than Gale’s pride could allow. 

The rest of the shops on the little street were dark when Gale finally locks up for the night, his breath clouding in front of him. All save for the business right next door, the front window crowded with halloween decorations and orange floral arrangements. The glow of the light is orangey and warm, highlighting the snow just beginning to fall and cling. It was setting up to be a cold November, and a colder winter; the kind they hadn’t had in years. 

Gale hated the cold, had since he was a little boy, and the turn of the season was already making something inside him curl up, prickling and defensive. He fumbles with the keys, teeth already chattering and watches the blurry figure shuffling around behind the florists window. Probably, he should introduce himself. But it was nearing ten o’clock and Gale was starving and sore and had a hundred things to do at home before even thinking about returning to the shop in the morning. 

It’s not a short walk to his apartment, nearly forty minutes if he aims for speed, and Gale’s fingers are frozen by the time he unlocks his front door, tossing the plastic bag of take-out on the counter and avoiding, with practiced ease, the trip of Pilot winding around his ankles, maw open and yelling for her dinner. Picking her up is a good excuse to warm his fingers in her thick, splotchy fur, and she purrs hard enough to rattle through his chest, tail wiggling with happiness. Of course, she abandons him the moment he upends the can into her dish, but he can’t begrudge her much. He’s all but ready to inhale his own dinner, barely tastes it as it goes down. 

Pilot warms his lap as he checks through websites and social media and calenders, glasses low on his nose and the rest of the apartment left dark to hide how bare bones it is. 

A sofa and TV set with a coffee table from Ikea, a two-seater round kitchen table he and Brady had found free on the curb. A massive cat tree, up against a window so Pilot could oversee the birds and critters. And a few framed photos; Johnny asleep in Gale and Marge’s first apartment, mouth open and Benny throwing up bunny ears behind him. Gale and Benny out front of the first shop they worked at, Benny’s shirt pulled up to show the fresh ink on his hip, a bright, colorful bomber plane adorning the bony curve. They were young and smiling, Gale’s hair still long and Benny without his beard. Gale, nose to nose with Pilot, leaning against moving boxes and smiling faintly. The three of them at Benny and Johnny’s wedding, Gale, the Best Man, at Benny’s shoulder. 

His own wedding photo had once been next to it, arm around Marge’s waist and her head on his shoulder. 

It was in a box shoved in the back of the closet now, along with several other albums and photos, alongside mementos and legal documents Gale wasn’t sure whether he was supposed to keep or not. 

He works until the sun is beginning to turn the skyline blue, shuffles himself off to bed and barely wakes when Pilot settles herself daintily by his face, purring softly. 

-*~*-

Opening on a Friday night is a flawless idea for all the ways it goes right. And a disaster for all the ways it doesn’t. A flash day for opening, twenty percent off if one booked a second appointment. Gale has inked more daggers and trad skulls in the last four hours than he has in the past four months, there’s ink on his boots and the smell of blood and cleaner lingers permanently in his nostrils even when he joins their piercer, Macon, for a cigarette. Or really, Macon smokes and Gale stretches his wrists and chokes down an egg sandwich before the next client. 

“It’s going good,” Macon reassures him, the plug in his bottom lip flashing pale opal against his dark skin, “Really good, Gale.” 

“‘Course it’s good,” Gale rasps, licks an orangey drop of egg from his thumb, “It’s seven pm on a Friday and I’m offerin’ eighty dollar tattoos.”

“And been left three phone numbers. Benny’s been pinning them up in the breakroom.” 

Gale snorts. 

He’s already beginning to shiver, the jacket he tossed on not enough to prevent his sensitive core temperature from feeling the chill. His body had always been this way, cold even well into summer, wearing a hoodie until the thermometer broke the low eighties and sleeping with a heavy duvet all year round. Marge had complained about his cold feet at night so many times that he’d started marking the days she didn’t . Giving Macon a goodbye nod, Gale takes a few minutes to warm his hands by the ancient curling radiator before the phone pulls him away. 

“One second,” He tells the waiting customer, holding a hand, “I’ll be right with yo-Hello?”

“Hi there, I was wondering if you were still accepting orders for–”

“You’re looking for the business next door,” He says flatly, accepting the stuttered apology before hanging up. 

They’d been fielding calls all day, confused customers looking for begonias and petunias and chrysanthemums. Sympathy bouquets and romantic arrangements and apology roses. Easy Bein’ Green , the cheerful sage-toned flower shop beside them, had plenty of clients it would seem. And appeared to have no way to be contacted by them.

“You have your form filled–Good. And you’re looking for a tattoo? Piercing? Yeah– Macon !”

Gale hands the client off to their harried piercer, who was still blowing the last vestiges of smoke from his lungs, as he gestures the girl into his booth. There’s still ten minutes on the clock for Gale’s break, and once ascertaining that there’s nobody in immediate need of help, he steps back out through the front of the shop. Crosses the gap between their two angled front door faces and yanks open the opposing handle the an offensively cheerful tinkle of a bell. 

Inside is hot and humid, like a balmy July day and the air is so rich with the smell of fresh, wet soil, Gale can almost taste it on his tongue. Everywhere are plants and plant pots and bright fridges of precut flowers. To the left of him is a wall of refrigerated flowers, to the right leafy-green house-plants. Down the middle are tables of succulents and pre-made arrangements in vases and tchotchkes for sale. The shop is less busy than the Stroke of Luck , but far more cramped of a space and Gale navigates down a claustrophobic hallway towards the service counter, gently batting leaves out of his face the entire way. 

It’s easy to spot the clerk, he’s the tallest person in the store by measure of inches, and broader too, his shoulders poking out on either side of the speckly tee. Blandly handsome, broad and square with a bit of curve, he had a wide nose and wider smile and a forehead that twisted like expressive putty when he grinned while handing over a bouquet of roses to a customer, whiskery mouth pulled to one side. There was a presence and charisma to him that turned it all a little breathtaking, deep rich blue eyes and a voice that was too quiet to make out the words of, but traveled for the the rumble of it all the same. 

Gale flexes his hand, rubs the blank spot on his ring finger and waits until the line has dissipated to sidle forward.

“Hey,” the clerk greets him, wiping chlorophyll-stained hands on his smock, “What can I do for you?”

“Is the owner around?” Gale asks.

That easygoing smile fades slightly in wattage. 

“That would be me,” he says. His green apron has a nametag labeled ‘Bucky’ and his hand when he holds it out is still stained, smelling of dirt and sap and fresh, cold water, “what problem can I fix?” 

Bucky had a loose-limbed way of moving, leading with his extremities rather than the bulk of his body, like a dog not quite grown into its frame. Gale feels himself prickle, the faint spice of attraction, though it could just be irritation lost en route. Regardless, it’s politeness that doesn’t have him rubbing the sticky cling of sap from his fingers or from outright asking if he had any idea how to run a business. 

“Your phone,” is the compromise of temper, only a brief window for this conversation to happen, and a preservative interest in getting away from those eyes. 

Bucky's smile doesn’t falter, though it takes on a puzzled slant, “My phone.”

“Your phone is routing to our shop,” Gale explains, slowly, like one might to a child, “I’ve been fielding calls all day asking if you carry sunflowers.”

“We do,” Bucky informs him, reaching for the phone by his shoulder, an old wall-mounted plastic thing.

“That’s great,” Gale answers mildly. 

They can both hear the sound of the dial tone, and Bucky’s brow creases in a frown as he pulls his phone from his pocket. The screen is cracked, the phone case covered in stickers of different national parks, the wallpaper a picture of a sports stadium. It’s a far cry from the smooth, black case of Gale’s own phone, his home screen a picture of Pilot asleep on his chest, hugging her own feet. 

“Been watching you guys paint, kept meaning to come over and introduce myself but holidays are killer,” Bucky explains, still fiddling around with his phone. 

Gale resists the urge to tap his foot, straightening his back the longer he waits. 

“It used to be a hair salon, and god those ladies would come over here all the time just to flirt. We could barely get any work done, broke their hearts when I had to shoot them down. I mean you boys are welcome to come over and do the same thing, cos’ I don’t discriminate, but I’ll ask you gotta at least buy some flowers when you do.” 

“I’ll be sure to let them know.”

Making a soft noise of triumph, Bucky holds out his phone, close enough to Gale’s face that he has to squint, reach for his glasses until he realizes he left them back in the studio. He squints harder, frowning. 

“Google’s got my number over your shop,” Bucky wiggles his phone as if that would make it any easier for Gale to read. He pulls it away and Gale blinks his eyes back into focus, frowning harder.

“How do we fix it?”

“I dunno,” Bucky shrugs, “Usually you can go in and edit it yourself, but I can’t get into mine. I think it’s down.”

Checking his own account is much the same result and Gale bites his tongue on a curse, wanting a cigarette with an ache that borders on nausea, “Fine. I gotta get back. Look– just. Keep trying will you? I don’t know what the hell an Azaelia is.”

Bucky points behind him with an uncapped blue pen, a scribbled-upon green sticky note clamped between his two fingers, “That one.” 

“Thanks,” Gale says, voice slightly strangled. 

“This is my number. Shoot me a text if you need help answering any floral questions.” 

He would not be doing that.

“Sure,” He pinches the piece of paper between two fingers, winding his way back to the front door. 

-*~*-

The final phone number tally is thirteen, though four are for Benny, three of which were from women, and two are for Macon, who seems to weigh both before pocketing the left one. Bucky’s green sticky note had somehow found its way into the collection and Gale bites his tongue on commenting over the error. 

“You gonna tell Johnny you got other prospects?” Gale asks Benny, who was peeling his own numbers off one by one, dropping them into the trash like they might bite him. The shorter man snorts, his normally carefully styled hair flopping over his forehead from fatigue.

“Have you ever seen him find someone hitting on me? I’m hiding the evidence for their safety.” 

Gale presses his thumb to his lips to hide a smile, deciding to leave his collection up because there’s no use drawing attention to the amount of them. 

“I’ve seen it,” Macon nods, a tray of jewelry bound for the autoclave balanced in one hand, “he’s a straight killer.” 

Benny’s mouth curves into something wholly tender, hand patting his pocket for his keys as if he were already picturing the drive home. 

“It’s ten,” Gale tells them both after glancing at the large clock on the wall, “You boys killed it today, you deserve to get headed home.” 

“Not gonna leave you to clean all up by yourself, Gale,” Macon argues, “There’s like, three trash cans worth of biohazard in here right now.” 

“Four,” Benny says, “I emptied halfway through the day. He’s right though,” he adds, “I clean my own messes.” 

“I like it,” Gale argues, “Gives me some time to unwind--” the front bell tinkles and all three men lean out the entrance of the door frame to look. 

“Sorry, dude, we just closed–” Benny calls.

“No, it’s fine, it’s the florist.”

Gale steps out into the main room again, striding up to meet Bucky at the counter. 

Smock abandoned, he was wearing a dark flannel hoodie, hands shoved in his pockets and head tilted to admire the art on the walls. By his elbow was a splash of pure chlorophyll green, stuck in a frog-shaped pot and trailing its leaves nearly to the floor.

“I have a black thumb, you should know,” Gale drawls.

Bucky turns, head lolling on a smile and nudges one of the leaves with a large finger. Most of his hair was finger-combed back off his face, but there was a single errant curl flopping rebelliously over his sun-freckled forehead. Gale has the inconvenient urge to hook it back into place.

“These are the cockroaches of the plant world, I guarantee there’s no way you can kill it. Just water it like, maybe , once a week and it’ll love you forever.” 

Gale stares at him, unimpressed and entirely sure the plant will be dead in two. Bucky smiles at him for a few extended, expectant beats. When that fails to crack Gale’s facade, the expression fades slightly but doesn’t dim. Bucky holds out his hand again, wrist cocked and a clearly hand-braided fabric bracelet dangling from it. Most of the color of it had been bleached by years of sun and wear, the hanging ends frayed and ragged. He had the casual wardrobe of the West Coast, a midwestern handsome face and an East Coast drawl to his words. And his hand was blisteringly, pleasantly warm. 

“I realized,” Bucky continues, “I never got your name, Buck. And seeing as we’re, hopefully for both our businesses sakes, gonna be neighbors for some time, I thought I’d come ask for it and give you a housewarming gift.”

“Buck?”

“Had to call you something in my head, didn’t I?”

“So you named me after yourself?”

Bucky grins at him, squints his eyes and lowers his pitch like there’s a secret to share, “Makes it easier to remember that way.”

“Well my name’s Gale, Gale Cleven.”

Bucky’s mouth twists, the mustache flattening and spreading. It’s a touch paler than his dark curls, a faint blonde shimmer to it in the artificial light. When he smiles, his teeth are movie-star white, though the front one was heavily chipped. 

“What kind of name is Gale, huh?”

“My name,” he answers stiffly. There’s a burning at the back of his neck, a pair of curious eyes that, when he glanced over his shoulder, were very obviously trying to appear busy while sorting through needle sizes. It was, normally , a one man job, which told Gale either they’d really become disorganized throughout the day, or his coworkers were attempting very hard to appear as if they weren’t hovering. 

“I prefer Buck.”

“I’m sure your future children will be delighted.” 

Bucky’s eyes sparkle and he drops Gale’s hand. 

Taking a half step back that feels more like a retreat, Gale gestures over his shoulder, “This is Benny, and Macon.”

“Co-owner, and our resident piercer, in order,” Benny adds, shaking John’s hand, shuffling aside so Macon can take his turn.

“John Egan– call me Bucky though.” 

“Any luck getting the numbers fixed?” Gale asks, staunchly pretending not to notice the plant, or the way Bucky was smirking at him like he knew Gale was holding onto politeness by the teeth.

“Still down,” John sighs, then raps his knuckles on the polished wood of the counter, “But hey, seems like you guys did alright even with the mixup. I heard the bell going all day.” 

“So long as we can maintain it,” Gale agrees.

Behind him, Benny grimaces. It had been one of the points of contention. Winter was the slow season, the cancellation season. It was, objectively, the worst time of year to open a studio and Benny had figured they should wait until spring. Gale, operating on stubbornness and a budget not stretched thin by wedding planning, had strong-armed them all into getting his way with a lethal lack of guilt. 

“Come on Buck, nobody likes negativity around Christmas,” John teases like they were old friends. 

There’s a traitorous sound of snickering behind them and Gale barely glances behind his shoulder, “Thought I told you two to git goin’?” 

Benny hums, “Macon is technically the only one of us two you can order around. I’m a full owner, I have rights.” 

Macon, never a man who needed to be told anything twice, was already reaching for his jacket. It was one of the main qualities Gale had hired him for, after the fact he was good at what he did. 

“Sure, let me just text Johnny that I’ll be keeping you until midnight.” 

Benny swears at him good-naturedly. 

“Ice cold this one,” he remarks to John as he and Macon pass around his broad frame for the front door, “Text if you need anything, Buck .” 

John watches them go and Gale watches the back of his head and wonders if his hair was naturally that curly or if he styled it to be that way. If they’re soft and natural or crunched tight together by gel. It’s about as useful a line of thought as trying to figure out if Marge would take him back. She wouldn’t and Gale wouldn’t try and he certainly wasn’t going to ask this stranger about his hair products. He likes to move, Gale can tell, drumming his fingers in a useless tune on the desk, needling his bottom lip between his teeth and looking around again.

“I like it better than the salon,” John admits, “The pink was a little much.” 

“Interior designer and florist, huh?” 

John smiles at him, eyes going crinkled and sweet, “Listen, I know how wild it is opening your own business, especially these days. I do wanna apologize for the mix-up and I’ll let you know as soon as I get it fixed – you still got my number, right?” 

Leading him to the back room, Gale fingers the sticky note and waves it at John as if in proof he hadn’t been planning to throw it out. John eyes the rest of the collection up on the board with an amused twist and Gale, fighting the heat rising up his neck, snatches them from the cork and tosses them vehemently into the trash alongside Benny’s.

He doesn’t need to justify himself. 

“It was a stupid competition I didn’t ask to be roped into.” 

“Did you win?” John fingers a thumbtacked photo, Macon and Benny asleep on the couch together after Benny’s bachelor party, Gale scrunched onto the last few inches on the end, nursing a coffee. 

“What does it matter?” he asks stiffly. 

John cuts him a smile, crooked and toothy and as bright as it was sleazily handsome, “Betcha did.”

Gale tries to hide his own smile, pressing his knuckles to his chin and twisting his mouth to the side, “If you were thinking your’s was the number that edged me out on top you can snip your ego right there.”

“Me? Ego? Buck you barely know a guy and you’re already castin’ judgements like that?”

“I’m told an excellent gauge of character,” Gale drawls.

John scoffs, but only with his voice. The rest of him keeps grinning. He takes up a lot of space in the shop, in this bare-bones back room. More than he should, more than his size. His presence was big, his existence loud. He was making a headache form between Gale’s eyes, right in the center where he knew there was a faint, permanent crease. 

“Well, look,” John says, tone going quieter, “I’ll keep cracking at this phone number thing, and if it keeps happening into tomorrow, I’ll keep my phone on and you can text me to pop over whenever you get a call.” 

Gale puts John’s number in his phone. Can’t think of any polite way to avoid it, though he saves it as J. Egan in some petty act of rebellion. John smirks at him like he understands and is amused by it rather than offended.

“I need to clean up,” Gale says eventually, when he’s had enough of listening to John breathe and smelling his aftershave and soil smell, “Go and feed my cat.” 

He walks John to the front door, stepping deftly out of the path of the cold air that gusts in, “Get home safe, Bucky.” 

John tosses him a beam, a lazy loose salute and Gale has the sudden urge to bite the inner curve of his wrist like a blood-seeking animal, “See you around, Buck.” 

-*~*-

The phone number is fixed by the next day, the only calls coming through are people looking for some fresh ink or mothers calling for their daughters first pair of earlobes. 

“Sorry,” Gale says to an expectant Macon, checking to make sure the call has truly disconnected, “Another five-year-old.” 

“We should get a front desker,” Macon says, “I can’t swear at you about it.” 

“I wouldn’t have you swearin’ at them either.” 

The phone numbers are fixed, but it doesn’t stop John from hovering around like a large and annoying fly. 

He’s respectful of business hours, likely because he too is working. And, at least on weekdays, their closing times line up with each other. The bell will ring sometime around six-fifteen, monday through wednesday and Gale could feel John’s presence fill the studio without even having to look up. Two parts voice, one part scent; rich and wood and planty. Like a hike after a good rain. Warm. John comes in, charms Benny and Macon with easy smiles and easier humor, which means Gale can’t cold-shoulder him without criticism. 

Not that he dislikes John. 

Quite the opposite, he finds himself fighting amusement more often than not the moment that wide mouth opens, but Gale’s got no more room in his life for people, not now, when there was so much else going on, an apartment to build and a new city to learn and a business he has to keep pushing full steam through the woes of a slow season. Sleepless nights editing photos and videos for social media, watching other artist’s work and methods of bringing in clientele. He had spreadsheets and charts and scribbled lists on the counter and his desk was covered with a dying light box and sketch paper covered in ideas. 

He knows Benny’s only marginally better, because Johnny has texted Gale twice today demanding he let him home early to rest before he collapses. 

But they make it through the first week, and John drops off a second plant in celebration.

“They do better in company,” John explains, twisting the heavy fronds in a careful arrangement over the half wall separating the waiting area from deeper into the shop. This one had splotches and streaks of white on it, like someone had splattered the light green with white paint. 

“Do I have to water this one too?”

Straight, white teeth. Chipped horribly in the front. Gale’s tongue would catch on it as he licked is way into John’s mouth. A harsh, bony drag against flexible muscle. 

“Y’gotta water all plants, Buck.” 

Gale rubs one of the leaves between thumb and forefinger, the texture slick and waxy, slightly damp from condensation. 

“I’m going to kill it, kill them both John,” he complains, “I got enough to look after ‘round here.” 

His palms – tattooed with radiating sun rays, tracking over his fingers in perfect lines and combining together for the empty center in a mimicry of brightness, to form a perfect circle between his cupped hands – were covered in ink. It was a few shades darker from the soil and green streaking John’s own. 

A blue eye winks at him, short lashes but thick enough to still be pretty, “That’s why I’m doin’ it for you. Free of charge, of course.” 

“Jesus,” Gale sighs, running a hand through his hair and shaking his head on a smile.

It was a problem, how John wiggled his way right under Gale’s skin, sinking tiny hooks in veins and sliding right in. He was endlessly amusing, didn’t seem to run out of things to say, and hardly blinked at any of Gale’s rebuffs. As if he alone were immune or blind to Gale’s cool exterior. Like he’d found the codebook or the map to Gale and realized that everything was two parts bark, no parts bite, and the last little bit was merely self-preservative caution. 

Or perhaps Gale was just suspicious, or paranoid, or just much easier to read than he’d thought. 

He drags his thumb over the bare spot on his finger, watching John watch him, a crooked close-lipped smile on his face. Like a boy, pulling pigtails on a classmate. Every conversation with John felt a bit like a pigtail pull, or a verbal chess match, and Gale was so far stubbornly unwilling to enjoy it. 

What he would admit to himself, is that he very much enjoyed the way John looked at him; considering and a little hungry.

“You could say thank you,” John croons, sauntering into the backroom like he knew his way around, heading right for the metal sink, stained with dye from the hairdressers who once used it. He’s got a watering can and everything, dangling from one large finger and bumping hollowly against his thigh in a jaunty swing. 

“I didn’t ask for the plants in the first place.”

“Didn’t they ever tell you not to look a gift horse in the mouth?” 

“Always checked the teeth of any horse I was buyin’,” Gale watches the water splatter dark droplets on John’s shirt. He’s wearing a greying Yankees tee today, tight across the shoulders, loose in the chest, and pleasantly filled out around the middle. Leaning against the sink, one hip cocked and opposite arm resting on the drywall above. 

“So you ride then.” 

Gale frowns at him. 

John’s got one arm crossed across his chest, tucked up underneath the other and is looking at him with that same off center twist of a grin. The hollow sound of water hitting the bottom of the watering can echoes around the room. There’s a smear of dirt on John’s neck, just before the start of his uneven stubble. A lack of response seems to be no deterrent to this man, Gale is learning, and John frames Gale with one broad hand, closing one eye and tilting his head consideringly.

“Yeah, yeah I can see it, Buck. Cowboy hat and kerchief and straw hanging from your mouth. Like an old-time lawman.” 

“Who says I wouldn’t be the outlaw,” Gale lets the rasp through on his voice, leaning his own hip against the door frame.

John gives him a considering once-over again, mouth pursing. Deep blue eyes dragging from shoulder to hip to knee to mouth and back ‘round again for good measure. Smiles again like a dog with a bone he doesn’t want anyone to know he’s got.

Absently, Gale notices his heart is beating faster than usual, and there’s a prickle of sweat at the back of his neck like the height of summer.

“Naw,” John drawls, “You’re too sweet.” 

He can’t bite back the noise he makes in the back of his throat, amused and derisive and dismissive all at once. One, two strides. He’s across the small room, close enough to smell the dirt on John’s neck. See the way it clings to his stubble and turns him something earthen and real. Takes in the damp humidity smell of him; spiced cologne and faint sweat of a day’s work and pulpy soil. Faintly he smelled of flowers, though Gale wouldn’t begin to know what kind. Sweet and soft and not at all obnoxious. 

John’s lips, when Gale puts a hand on the back of his neck to draw him down, are soft and wide and the perfect amount of damp to make the caress pleasant. His mustache pricks against Gale’s skin, scratching nicely against already hypersensitive flesh. Broad chest vibrating in a groan, John slips his hand into Gale’s back pocket to pull their hips flush. Gives him an assessing, possessive squeeze that sets Gale’s gut clenching hungrily. They part, just for a brief moment, a split second of eye contact where John laughs softly, leans down against his hand still resting above Gale’s head and bumping their noses together until Gale pulls him back into another kiss. This one stickier, rougher, full of tongue and bite and John’s bottom lip dragged between Gale’s teeth. 

For all that he smells of earth and green, he doesn’t taste of it. Saliva warm and rich with coffee and cinnamon. Trading the flavor back and forth, Gale moves his hand from the back of John’s neck to the nest of his curls, finding them loose and soft. He fists, then pulls experimentally and is met with an encouraging hiss. Parting again, John’s head drops back against the wall with a thunk, face flushed and eyes hazy, looking at Gale with a self-satisfied expression that should be ruined by the wet streaks of saliva on his chin from the fervor of their actions. In contrast, it adds to the debauchery of him.

Something classical, grecian and erotic, lit all up by flourescent lights that should wash him out but simply but every delicious detail in bright highligh. 

Gale presses John back against the wall with a hand to the flat expanse of his stomach, breaks their kiss to lap at his neck, feeling the gritty drag of soil against his tongue. Earthy and rich, spiced with human sweat and Gale groans at the flavor. John’s boiling like a furnace and Gale’s eager to tunnel against that heat, pressing limb to chest, John’s hand still kneading his ass with a indulgent slowness, as proactive with helping himself to Gale’s body as he is with grinding their hips together in a slow bump and roll that has the front of Gale’s jeans tented. 

His lips barely leave John’s skin save for where they travel over his rucked up shirt, chasing the path down to his knees, fingers working at John’s belt and batting his hands away when the other attempts to assist.

“Fuck–” John curses, a hand knotting in the hair at the top of Gale’s head, pupils blown wide and mouth a wet circle of surprise, “Jesus, you don’t have to–” 

Gale seals his lips over the damp spot in John’s underwear, suckling the salty spill with relish. Above him John gasps softly, uttering another quiet ‘ fuck’ . 

The watering can is overflowing. Gale can hear it sloshing into the bottom of the sink.

Dark hair peeks above the waistband of John’s boxers, brushing Gale’s nose as he mouths along the fat, blood-plumped line of his cock. The rough strands tangle in his fingers as he drags down the fabric just enough to pop John free, stiff, and oozing, and flushed with want. John’s other hand comes to cup Gale’s cheek, draw him down onto the steadily weeping head, but Gale catches his wrist in firm fingers. Presses it back against the wall and restrains him there. For a moment John fights, tugs at his wrist in a half-hearted manner, just to test the mettle of him, and then gives up easily when Gale tightens his grip. The bones of John’s broad wrist press firm and painful against Gale’s palm– hefty down to the marrow. 

“Please,” John offers him, without any prompting or leading on Gale’s part. Lays it on the table like he’d been expecting to beg from the start.

A shiver goes down Gale’s spine, his eyes rolling slightly as he drags his lips along the slippery length of John’s cock. Mouths at the blushing flesh and laps the slick residue of arousal from the vein along the bottom. A fresh bead well at the tip and Gale catches it on his tongue as it drips. It’s newer, sucking cock, but not unfamiliar, and Gale gives John just enough teeth as he goes down to have the other man hissing in pleasure. Fits enough in his mouth he no longer needs the steady grip of his fist and places it across the heaving line of John’s stomach instead, dragging his shirt up so Gale can nuzzle his way into the coarse hair at the base of John’s cock, swallowing thickly. 

John’s fingers spasm in Gale’s hair, holding it clear and when Gale rolls his eyes upward he finds the other man staring down at him, mouth open and panting. The eye contact appears to be too much, and John’s eyes flutter closed with sudden overwhelm before his head drops back against the wall, hips bucking forward. 

“Fuckin- that’s perfect, Doll, that’s so fucking good.” 

Gale chokes and pulls off, replacing his mouth with his fist, working the slick of his throat over John’s cock wetly, “Stay still,” he orders him.

Giving John a couple seconds to contemplate the order, Gale presses light, sticky kisses along his shaft, nuzzles up against the root where the hair was damp with saliva and clear viscous precome. Here there is no scent of earth and soil. Skin and woodsy soap and the faint tang of sweat. Hot as a furnace, Gale nuzzles into it and hums. Jerks John off slow so the head bumps his cheek. John trembles for it, but holds himself obedient. 

“That’s good,” Gale says against the soft skin. 

“Jesus,” John answers, strangled. 

Unable to help the smile, sinking into the heavy burning arousal slowing his thoughts. He focuses on razor sharp on the hitch of John’s breathing and the way his body shakes like that of a prize racehorse under Gale’s fingers. 

“That’s good, John,” he says again, feels the way John quakes under the praise and sets his teeth to the bony plane of his hip bone, biting down until the flesh swells in irritation. 

John groans, deep and guttural. 

Once he’s left a chain of bruises across the tanned swath of skin, cut through with old stretch marks from a rapidly grown body, Gale seals his mouth back around the head of John’s cock. Wiggles his tongue against the slit and suctions him deep, paying attention to what got the other man whining, got him gasping and slumping against the wall, the cords standing out pretty on his neck with the effort of keeping still. Gale pictures him with a pair of cuffs, jeans undone and shirt shoved up to his chin, leaking pretty on his belly and mouth too occupied to run its one act show. Moaning, taking John back down his throat, Gale works him over with single-minded relish. Feels every bit of the stretch and bruising of John’s size slipping past his soft palette. Swallows around him to feel the way it resists the contraction of his muscles, reminding him with dizzying, breathless clarity, exactly what he was doing. 

Above him, John gasps weakly, high and needy and face turned towards the ceiling with fingers brushing through Gale’s hair. Thighs flexing and relaxing against Gale’s cheek, his large frame is shivering with every bob of Gale’s head, every hum and sound of relish he makes as he feasts. Every twitch, gasp of pleasure, every point of vibrating energy dictated by Gale’s whim. 

Gale grips John’s hips in his hands, tanned flesh between paler fingers decorated with black ink a tantalizing sort of contrast. He squeezes, digs his thumbs in, feels John’s whole body respond to him. Rides the headrush of it all as John begins to fall apart, breath stuttering and hips beginning to jump and squirm even with his best efforts to remain obedient. 

“Can I–?” John pants, torn between dropping head back for support and staring down at where Gale had his lips in a tight seal around him. Voice cracking through a groan, “Gale, I’m gonna – can–?”

Gale hums, looks up at him through his lashes and feels the twitch of hardened flesh in his throat. Gags himself on it. Just a bit, just because he likes it.

 The question has him shivering, digging his nails harder into John’s muscled body like he could latch on permanently. Frees John from the clutch of his throat so he can taste the salty flood that spills, suckles and laps and licks every drop from the flushed, twitching head, dipping his tongue into the slit to get it right from the source. Lets John thrust through the soft pillow of his mouth and lips, keening with abandon. 

Waiting until John stills to pull away, Gale’s stands. Grimaces as his knees click, reaching over to turn off the tap and saving the overflowing watering can. The ensuing silence is loud, nothing but the last trickles of water down the drain and John’s ragged panting. 

The other man appears utterly debauched, hair clinging to his forehead with sweat and stuck up in the back where it had dragged against the wall in his passion. His hands shook as he tucked his cock away, shirt rucked up around his ribs. He looked delectable, delightful, edible. Gale’s molars ache with the desire to bite him. 

John pulls him into a kiss and Gale allows it for as long as it stays just that. When John’s hand drags down his chest, down to palm at the tent in Gale’s jeans, he pulls away. Takes a moment to adjust himself, the chains on his dark jeans jingling slightly. Sniffs, wiping at his chin subtly and avoids the way John’s gaze is on him, liquid dark and confused.

“It’s late, “ his voice sounds more ruined than he’d expected, “I gotta feed my cat.”

John’s mouth opens, closes, lips pressing thin, “Right.” 

After a prolonged silence, he offers Gale a smile and reaches for the watering can, droplets splattering on the floor beneath, “I’ll just take care of this and get out of your hair, Buck.” 

Gale bites his tongue on the urge to apologize and watches John leave the room; he’s got nothing to be sorry for. Wasn’t his fault John had come in here every night, trying to make friends out of a situation that was supposed to stay distant. Wasn’t Gale’s fault that John had been giving him eyes each time, like he’d wanted to know exactly what Gale looked like on his knees. It was Gale’s choice to indulge him that, and nothing more. 

There you go, Bucky, now you know. 

It’s not that he hides in the backroom while John waters the plants, there is work to be done back there, but there’s work he could do up front as well, if he were to be honest. Still, when there’s a knock on the doorframe minutes later, he looks up. Finds John leaning there, one elbow raised to take his weight and stomach bared by the stretch of his shirt. The quick taste hadn’t sated Gale, it seems, because he looks at the dark scrawl of hair and still wants . 

“It’s cold out there,” John says, “You gonna be alright?”

Gale stares at him and feels himself soften, just slightly. John’s own mouth loosens in response, like he understood. 

“I’ll be fine, Bucky.”

John’s fingers drum on the doorframe and he nods in a quick jerk of his head, mouth twisting in a wry smile that seemed more directed at himself than at Gale, or, at least, it was directed at the floor. 

“I’ll see you around, Gale.” 

Locking the door behind John, Gale cycles through the radio stations until finding something low, and crooning. It keeps him company through the radio speakers while he sweeps and then through his earbuds as he walks home, collar popped up and blue scarf Marge got him two birthdays ago wrapped around his nose. 

Last winter had been a divorce stubbornly trying to remain amicable, and there had been no presents. 

It’s altogether too early for Christmas lights, Thanksgiving hadn’t yet passed, but displays were starting to pop up here and there, pale yellow light sprinkling front yards and porches and gutters. They’re bare and sad in the lack of snow, but it at the very least makes Gale’s walk a little less dark. Sparse as he leaves the arts district where his shop was located and cuts through several alleys and across busy streets to reach his apartment complex, the plastic christmas tree in the front ground-floor hallway the only source of cheer. 

He can hear Pilot yowling on the other side of the door before he’s even sliding the key into the lock, and then he’s doing the hop-skip dance into the kitchen to avoid her lithe body tripping him up. Blocks her with his elbows with all the skill of a hockey player as he dishes her food into the bowl.

“I should get you an automatic feeder,” he says affectionately, scratching behind her ears as she grumbles her way through her dinner, “But then I think you’d not care a single bit about me coming home.”

She flicks her ears at him but doesn’t disagree, so Gale gives her one more scritch around the collar where he’s sure it’ll be appreciated and shuffles his way into the shower in the dark.  Turns the knob all the way to red and lets the water scald his skin, billowing smoke around the bathroom like a blanket. He’d always liked the safety of nighttime showers, the quiet and the calm and solitude all a sort of meditative experience. The later the better, when Marge was asleep and the cars were only an occasional rumble past their small house. 

The shower water kisses his shoulders, boiling hot. Hot like how John’s body had been under his hands, alive and full of movement. If Gale traveled his tongue around his mouth he swears he can just taste those last salty remnants of him, tucked away like a secret. Closing his eyes, tilting his head back until water slides over his face in rivulets, Gale calls back to the flex of John’s muscles under his hands. The way his belly shivered and quaked with his pleasure, muscled but with just enough give that Gale wanted to grab and squeeze . Mostly clothed through it all, those flashes of skin had been like the flash of a Victorian ankle; teasing and tantalizing and almost more exciting than if John had stripped there under the fluorescent light. The way his clothes draped over thick muscle and girth, tangled curls darkened with sweat and sun-roughened skin that bore missed patches of stubble, like he’d shaved half asleep. 

John’s cock, thick and syrupy with need, clear and glistening and stretching the muscles of Gale’s neck to accommodate. 

He presses a hand to his throat now, feeling the faint soreness there, other hand tracing down his stomach slowly, gliding over wet skin and tangling in darkened honey curls. Still half hard, the arousal had never really gone away since he’d heard John ask to come down his throat. 

“That’s good, John,” He repeats now to the empty shower, just to hear it echo around him. 

Grips the base of his cock and squeezes lightly with a groan. Feels the arousal spark back to life, colored with images of John’s lips and his smile and the blue humor in his eyes. Dragging his fist down to the head of his cock, Gale imagines it to be John’s lips suctioning around him, his broad hand. Warm, hot, boiling, chasing the chill of this entire wretched season away. 

Water beating against his back, muffling his noises despite there being no need to, Gale pretends it’s John’s heat blanketing his shoulders, his broader, thicker hands working him to completion with rapid, bruising efficacy. Watches the white swirl down the drain and presses his forehead against the cool tile, feeling the sudden exhaustion pressing down on him.

Pilot curls up by his head on the pillow, her paws pressing and curling happily against his forehead until he falls asleep. 

-*~*-

They make rent two weeks in, and as Thanksgiving creeps up, Gale focuses more on paying his own bills, on paying for supplies and tries to parse the finicky temperament of social media until Macon takes the chore off his hands. 

“I don’t gotta go home and draw for some picky client tonight,” He reasons, gold glittering in his ears as he scrolls through their website. 

“I can’t ask you to do that, Rich,” Gale says, pushing his glasses up his nose and picking at the last sad leaves of salad from his hasty lunch. 

“Did. Done. Fire me for insubordination or say thank you.”

Gale smiles at him.

-*~*-

John stays away for a few days, a week, just long enough that Benny corners him and asks what sort of fight he picked with the florist.

“We didn’t fight,” Gale says honestly, “You know I don’t pick fights, Benny.” 

Benny winces faintly. It had been one the few barbs Marge had thrown, towards the end when the ‘amicable’ part of the divorce had become a concentrated effort rather than a given. Gale didn’t fight, he didn’t argue, he hardly cared if Marge was home or out or fucking someone behind his back so long as things remained stable. 

Certainly, it would do no good to tell his friend that he’d blown the other man two feet from where they were both sitting. And kicked him out after. 

“He’s got a business to run,” Gale continues dryly, dragging his stylus across the glass screen as he sketched, “Sure it’s gettin’ real busy this time of year.” 

“We should offer our help.”

His fingers tighten, going white-knuckled, “You can.” 

Benny watches him. He’s got dark eyes, brown like a cow’s and so serious like the news reporters Gale used to watch on TV before he got tired of tragic events. Not dark like John’s, where there was a flicker of bright spark amusement, dark but kind, and wild. Gale’d seen eyes like his before, bright, pale blue that squinted and stung in the sun, but he’d never really seen them dark like John’s. Less easy of a color to capture, the depth and richness of it, without turning it something too saturated. 

“Also, I was thinkin–”

“I got Thanksgiving plans,” Gale interrupts, “Thanks, Ben.” 

Gale wasn’t a liar. He had plans. 

They did not, however, include celebration or good eating. Thanksgivings past had been spent with Marge’s family, surrounded by her parents and her cousins and her sister’s children with all their picket-fence functionality. They’d been politely close-lipped about his tattoos, skipped their eyes around them like it was rude to acknowledge. When Marge’s father asked about if he made enough to support children, Gale had answered with the same polite candor.

Marge and I haven’t talked about kids.  

One of those moments, where hindsight was key and everything seemed horribly obvious. Gale had never wanted kids, Marge had never seemed to care either way until, apparently, she had. 

There’d be no Thanksgiving at the Spencer’s this year, no nieces and nephews begging him to draw on them with crayolya markers or Marge’s mother’s cooking. His day would consist of a late wakening, a few hours lounging with Pilot, and then working through the bookings at the shop until it was late enough to go home without feeling unaccomplished. 

“Right,” Benny agrees slowly, flipping a page of his sketchbook. 

He liked Benny’s family well enough; they’d chosen Chicago in the first place to be closer to his mother since his father had passed. So Benny could fill in the shoes of parentage for his young sister. But there wasn’t a way Gale could see himself not feeling like an intruder at best and a pity invite at worst. 

Benny’s his oldest friend these days, and even kind as he is, Gale can see the frays in his infinite patience. The guilt he feels he refuses to show on his face, only so that Benny won’t call him on his lie. 

“I don’t want to leave Pilot alone for so long, or miss her dinner.” 

“Should get an automatic feeder.” 

Gale shifts, “I heard they’re unreliable.” 

“Right,” Benny repeats and drops his chin in his hand, “So you really didn’t have anything happen between you and Egan?”

Gale gives him a wordless frown. 

Benny holds his hands up in a placating gesture, mouth twisting, “Look, I’m just trying to figure out why you hate the guy is all.”

“I don’t hate him.” 

Benny snorts in disbelief and Gale drops his hand to his lap, staring up at the ceiling, “I don’t,” he slowly insists. 

“You look at him half the time like you expect him to bite you.” 

“He wanted to fuck me,” Gale mutters.

“ Wanted? ” 

Gale stands, gathering his things, “I got a client. Quit worrying about Bucky and I, and put–” he steps back into the breakroom, one finger outstretched accusingly, “ – your phone down. Neither Johnny nor Macon need to be in on this conversation.” 

Benny’s phone clunks onto the table. 

“So, did you fuck him?”

“No,” Gale says shortly.

-*~*-

Thanksgiving morning Gale spends two hours laying in bed staring up at the ceiling. Pilot makes biscuits on his bare chest, kneading with her sharp little claws but the warmth and weight of her smooths over the sharp pinpricks of pain. He’s sure she’s merely trying to coax him to breakfast, but he appreciates the affection all the same, scritching behind her perfect triangle ears and down along her spine.

“Should get you that feeder,” he tells her, “You’d be off me in a flash if I did.” 

She blinks at him, slow and steady. 

By the time he makes it to the shop, the sun is directly overhead and the streets are void of any single other living soul. There’s something cold and unfamiliar about the space, empty without the presence of Macon or DeMarco or any sort of customer and he flicks on the radio just to fill it up with sound instead. Sets about sweeping and mopping and hanging up a few more framed flash sheets, slotting them into the blank spots and rearranging them until he’s happy. It takes a few hours and he’s sweaty by the time he steps back, hands on hips to stretch the ache in his back. 

He hears the faint tinkle of a bell, the sound of Easy Bein’ Green’s door opening, and bites back a curse. 

Faintly, he hopes John is just stopping by to water his plants before heading off to whatever family celebration he had. Regardless, his booth is an easy place to park and draw, with the added benefit of it being hidden from the front windows, and so Gale tucks himself down in his seat, a cup of coffee balanced on his Husky case, and sets about losing himself in sketching and brushpen inking new designs. Every so often he has to shift his spot, avoiding the shards of light stretching further and further across the studio until they turn dark orange and then fade away. 

When Gale finally looks up, rubbing between his eyes where it’s gone sore from his glasses, the only source of light is the lamp above his head. 

It’s far less subtle of a hiding spot than it had been during the daytime, and he’s just considering moving to the back room, or perhaps calling it quits and sketching at home under a mound of blankets and some same-tone historical documentary on in the background, when there’s a knock on the storefront window. 

Gale closes his eyes, draws in a breath through his nose and exhales it out through his mouth before wheeling his stool around the front of the booth to peer out.

John smiles at him, silhouetted by streetlights and breath fogging around him as he cups a hand over his eyes while leaning against the window. Holds up a bag of takeout, wiggling it enticingly and Gale, for a split second, considers scooting back into his booth like a rat into its hidey hole and waiting the other man out.

He goes and unlocks the door, stepping aside as John shuffles in, the fried smell of Chinese food following behind. 

“You were here when I arrived, and I know I’m about ready to eat the next thing that moves, so I figured you’d probably be pretty starving too.”

Gale stares at him, “I guess.” 

“You a chopsticks guy or a fork guy?” John asks, setting the bags on the counter and beginning to take out the packed-to-the-brim white boxes, “I kinda just got the basics, gyoza, fried rice, sweet and sour.”

“I’m vegetarian.”

John’s hand hits the counter, his mouth pausing mid-word, and Gale is gifted with the intriguing experience of watching red flush creep across the other man’s stubbled face. It starts at the bold outward jut of John’s ears, right at the tips where the cartilage looked soft and downy with peach fuzz, spreading to the lobes and up his cheekbones in a rapid blush that meets in the middle across the crooked bridge of his nose. 

“Shit, I should have checked or somethin’ instead of assuming.”

Gale watches as John scrunches his face up and drags a hand through his curls. Pulls his phone out of his pocket and swipes the screen open.

“I think they’re still open. I can–”

“It’s fine,” Gale interrupts, “I can just pick the vegetables out.” 

John tilts his head, giving Gale a considering look and then crooks his mouth slightly to the side. It’s a smaller smile than any of the rest, but there’s something gentle to it that has Gale’s shoulders relaxing just a hair.

“Question stands then,” John says, voice quieter, “Fork or chopsticks?” He holds out both, one wrapped in plastic and one in paper. 

They end up on Gale’s booth again, trays of food set out on the table bed in a steaming array. The carton of rice is nudged towards Gale sheepishly, John letting Gale take as much as he’d like before taking his own share. For the rest of his meal, he uses his chopsticks to pluck various steamed and grilled vegetables from whatever John was sampling. Carrots and Bok Choy from one, and Broccoli drenched in a dark brown sauce from another. 

“Not your first rodeo with picking out the rabbit food, huh?”

Gale makes a face, lifting a round carrot to mix it with the sauce as well, “You get used to it.” Pops the orange slab into his mouth, chews and swallows,“My W- my college ex and I’s apartment was above a Chinese place.”

Gale feels eyes tracking over him, slow and considering. 

“Mmm,” John hums. 

There’s precious little room under the table, their feet are not quite tangled, but at least overlapping. Gale can feel the warm point of John’s knee pressed against his thigh. Their elbow brushes every time John reaches for the sweet and sour chicken, dipping it into the alarmingly bright sauce and pulling it towards his mouth quickly before it drips. John’s eyes keep flickering over to the stack of drawings and Gale wordlessly nudges them over, careful to avoid any staining.

“Would you think I’m condescending you if I say they’re good?” John holds up one of the sheets, squinting at the brushpen lines and watercolor gradients.

Gale’s lips twitch, “No.” 

“Well, you’re really good, you draw really good.”

“Thank you,” he answers dryly, “You grow plants good.”

John snorts, sucks a glob of runaway sauce from his thumb, leaving the skin wet and glistening, “I do, don’t I?”

Gale thinks about kissing him again, the way he’d taste of soy sauce and dough. How hot his tongue would be and the way he’d let Gale, go pliant under his touch, head lolling back and large body gentle. He steals another carrot instead. 

“Bit of a paltry Thanksgiving,” John watches the carrot’s journey from his plate to Gale’s mouth, “A couple of soggy carrots and broccoli.”

Shrugging, gesturing around to the empty studio, “Not like I had grand plans otherwise.” 

John hums again, wipes his mouth on a napkin and pivots smartly on his stool to face Gale fully.

“About the other night –”

Gale goes stiff, “Forget about it.”

“I just wanted to apologize–”

“For what?” he snaps, then takes a breath, setting his chopsticks down slowly on the edge of his paper plate. 

John stares at him, head slightly tilted, cocked to the left like a dog, ears fluffy and perked forward. His words start slow, like he’s wary of poking something tender and Gale feels a bit of a wretch. All his sharp thorns turned outwards instead of towards the center where they couldn’t hurt anyone.

“If you’re closeted, or if it just wasn’t like that, or if you felt I was putin’ some sort of pressure on you to let me reciprocate–” 

“Ain’t closeted, Bucky,” Gale says around the heat in his cheeks, “Sure didn’t feel any pressure, either.”

John’s bigger than him, broader and heavier and thicker. Strong hands pricked with red from thorns and a body that was naturally athletic but gone a bit soft from disuse. Laying atop Gale he’d press the breath from him, and underneath, Gale’s thighs would ache with the spread across his torso. But there’d not been a single second he’d worried. 

“Just don’t want it to hang above us. Make things awkward between neighbors.” 

The other man is still looking at him, chin propped in one hand and brow furrowed. 

“Don’t count on it,” Gale drawls. 

The furrow deepens, blue eyes shadowing under a heavy brow, and Gale sucks his bottom lip against a grin. John picks it up immediately and the expression flips, curling up instead of down and a huff escapes him. Turning, picking his fork up again and stabbing a piece of chicken, he takes a voracious chomp. 

“Water under the bridge, Buck.”

Gale watches him chew and wonders what family gathering John was avoiding; what had driven him to his shop same as Gale had been driven to his. He can’t ask, because that would open up the doors to him sharing his own reasons, but he’s curious how a man as friendly as John Egan had ended up spending a holiday alone. 

Glancing out the window, Gale tilts his phone just enough for the screen to light up. It winks back at him, just past eight-thirty and Gale drops the phone with a sigh. Overly familiar and shockingly bold, John picks the phone up, turning it this way and that under a scrutinizing eye. 

“Where the hell’d you get this case?”

“It came with it.”

John snorts, holds the phone out between two fingers and Gale takes it after a moment's debate. It was his phone. It felt like some sort of acquiescence to accept it.

 “That’s gotta be the most boring, sad phone case I’ve ever seen.”

“I didn’t get it ‘cause I liked it, John,” Gale slips the phone into his back pocket, beginning to gather up their mess.

“Why not get something you like then?” John pulls out his own phone as if to prove a point, showing off the stickers all over it, some gone so wispy and cottony from age they were barely legible.

Gale stares, “I’ll get ink on it.”

“So?” John shrugs, “Let it have flaws, get a new one. But the black has got to go.” 

Gale twists his mouth at him, not quite a scowl but certainly enough to express his disagreement. His phone case was simple and practical and did its job. 

John shrugs his shoulders up to his ears, grinning at him easy like they were old friends, “Just suggesting.” 

Instead of replying, Gale checks his phone again as if some grand amount of time had passed.

“Gotta feed your cat?”

Gale feels his ears burn, he knows they’re flushing. 

“I got her a bit of fresh salmon, for a Thanksgiving treat,” he admits.

“That’s–” John starts, then to cut himself off, “Can I give you a lift home at least?”

Gale hesitates.

It’s so cold out he can feel the chill seeping in from the glass, setting his teeth on edge from where they stood at the door, John shrugging on his heavy sheepskin jacket and Gale reaching for his own long coat. It was warm enough, but wouldn’t protect against the temperatures forever. 

“I’m headed uptown,” he says, hoping for simple geography to make the choice for him. 

“How ‘bout that,” John flips his keys around his finger, “You’re headed my way anyhow.” 

“I can pay you back the gas,” Gale says when they’re in the car and John’s punched in the address into his phone navigation. The interior of the beat-up old Corolla smells like cigarettes and cologne, something a little dirty and rich that called to mind highschool dates. Only Gale had been in the driver’s seat with Marge at his side and the cigarettes were his father's instead of his own. It’s a decade in the past, and lifetimes longer than that, but he rubs the sweat from his inked palms subtly all the same. 

John waves him off.

Ella Fitzgerald croons soft from the radio, and John drives with a lazy sort of confidence, body loose for all that he keeps two hands on the wheel. One of these things is as surprising as the other is expected, and Gale alternates between looking at the passing lights and the dimly lit profile of the man beside him. The silence between them is loud, but not uncomfortable, and Gale finds he likes a John at rest just as much as he does a John running his mouth. 

By the time they pull onto Gale’s street, the station has rolled into Bing Crosby and John’s whistling along like he’s a fan. 

Killing the last moments of the car ride, Gale busies himself by examining the clustered array of coffee shop logo buttons pinned to the passenger seat’s sun visor. Small indie shops, with their own logos and imagery ranging from well done to minimal effort given. He reaches up to touch one emblazoned with a grinning military plane, his nail clinking against the metal. 

John’s watching him look at the buttons, “How do you like your coffee?”

“Black.”

John laughs, like Gale’s said something funny, but doesn’t say much else until they’re pulling up to Gale’s complex. For a moment, Gale hesitates, caught with the odd expectation that he’s meant to invite John up, or offer him a goodnight kiss. Anchoring a hand behind Gale’s headrest, John twists to check behind him for any cars, the street not really quite wide enough for idling cars. 

Faintly, Gale can smell his cologne. 

“Look,” John says slowly, turning back towards Gale. His voice is pitched low, slow like he meant every word, “Not to dredge up the previous conversation or nothin’ but I really mean it. We can put that in the trunk. Bury it in the backyard. Not make it weird. I’d like us to be friends.”

Finding himself fighting a smile again, Gale presses a finger to his lips, “You seem like a good sort of guy to have as a friend.” 

John’s eyes crinkle up as he smiles, dragging the expression all over his face in laugh lines, “Oh, I’m the best.” 

His knuckles brush against Gale’s cheek, dry and rasping. But not so slow as to take it for anything but casual affection. A quick caress as he folds his body back to his own side of the car. Gale’s skin is warm at the point of contact, flushed even. The door handle is already cold under his hand. 

“I know you live downtown,” He says as he pulls the latch open, slipping out into the cold, “I see you leaving every day.” 

John doesn’t give Gale any sort of satisfactory reaction, no guilt or shame or anything that would indicate he’d been caught in a lie. His smile just widens, goes lopsided with amusement as he puts the car back into gear. Drums his hand a couple times on the back of the passenger seat as if to punctuate his lack of embarrassment. 

“You still got my number?” 

Gale considers saying no, counters with the fact he’d just agreed they could be something like friends, and nods. John winks at him, and it would be infuriatingly cocky on just about anyone else, but somehow he found a way to make it gentle, endearing. 

“Send me a picture of the cat, would you?”

Chapter Text

My dearest friend, if you don't mind... I'd like to join you by your side. Where we can gaze into the stars...And sit together, now and forever. For it is plain, as anyone can see. We're simply meant to be. - Nightmare Before Christmas

Pilot brushes her cheek across his chin, purring like a motor and wafting fishy breath right up Gale’s nose. 

He allows it. 

Bebcause it’s nice. Because Benny had sent a picture of him and Johnny at Benny’s mother’s; Johnny asleep on the sofa, head in his husband’s lap, Meatball with his head in Johnny’s. Because Marge had not reached out, and it’s not so much that he had expected, or even wanted her to. But some part of him had wondered if maybe she would, if only for the fact that they were friends before they were ever together. 

Pilot rubs across his face again and, with a faint flush to his cheeks, he snaps a photo, angling to keep most of himself out of frame. Pulls up the J. Egan in his contacts and sends it off before he can convince himself it was a childish thing to do; sending a picture of his cat to another grown man. It’s late enough that Gale doesn’t expect an answer, but typing bubbles pop up almost immediately.

I think she deserves more fresh salmon

Pressing his thumb to his lip to hold in the smile, Gale gnaws at the corner and types one-handed. Pilot objects to this quickly, dragging her face along his again and he drops his free hand to the curve of her spine instead, stroking slowly. 

She’s had plenty.

it’s thanksgiving Buck.

You’d have to kill me before I get out of this warm bed.

J. Egan laughed at your text.

what’s her name?

Pilot.

bit of a flyboy are you?

Wanted to be an astronaut like every little boy.

i wanted to be a truck driver

Florist seems like a good compromise

J. Egan laughed at your text.

Pleasure warms Gale; a childish reaction to approval. A familiar feeling of being the new kid at school, unsure of his reception until he said just the right thing to be welcomed into someone’s circle.

so how come you never became the next buzz aldrin

buck aldrin

You laughed at J. Egan’s text.

Dad was an airforce pilot. Fell in love with the birds, but got a bit jaded with the personality. And the moving around.

got a specific personality type do they

Cocky.

what’s wrong with cocky? 

Just don’t care for it.

shoot, just see myself out should I then?

You laughed at J. Egan’s text

As long as you don’t bring me any more plants I’ll consider letting you stick around

J. Egan laughed at your text

-*~*-

“We got a problem,” John says, leaning against the brick wall. The two of them were around back of the building, Gale having gone out to chat with Macon on his smoke break and John indulging in his own cigarette. 

Macon has since gone back inside to escape the cold, Gale left with the awkward decision of whether to linger without an excuse or retreat right alongside Macon and come off as avoiding John. Which he was trying not to do, especially with the way he’d somehow begun providing the other man with near-daily pictures of Pilot. It was juvenile, and sometimes he didn’t have much else to say besides sending the image itself, but John never seemed to mind much. 

“Is it actually a problem that involves me, or one you want to involve me in?”

John gives him an easy, crooked grin that was all mischief and sincerity. Gale was finding it to be a particularly lethal combination. 

“Tomorrow’s December first,” John says.

“Thanks for the heads up.” 

John looks at him funny, like there’s something obvious that Gale’s missing. He’s pretty sure there isn’t, is pretty sure John’s just doing that thing he did, acting like he was the only competent man on Earth. Gale’s learned if he doesn’t rise to the bait, just waits him out rather than trying to guess or bluster, John would tell him.

“The ice rink opens up tomorrow,” John prompts.

Gale frowns at him, tucking his hands into his jacket, fisting his fingers into his palms for warmth, “How is that a problem that includes me?”

“‘Cause, see, it’s not totally open, they do an early special. Half off and exclusively couples only for the first week.”

“So wait until the second week,” Gale says, spine straight like it’ll stop the heat from rising to his cheeks. 

John clicks his tongue, shakes his head regretfully, “Ice is ruined by then, and so’s the novelty.” 

Gale stares at him.

“So you want to swindle some poor teenager by pretending we’re a couple for them just so you can save, what, ten bucks?” 

“Fifteen bucks, and saving one Bucky,” 

Gale sucks on his cheek so the corner of his mouth won’t quirk up, “You’re serious.” 

A careless shrug, cigarette smoke wafting up around John’s head in a cloud. His curls would smell like it, rich and bitter. Gale’s dad had always smoked, always had a packet of Marlboro Lights on him. He should hate the smell, on principle and in practice, but he’s curious how the flavor might transform if it was sampled off of the other man’s tongue. 

“S’not like they’re gonna make us suck face for proof, it can just be a buddy thing.” 

You son of a bitch, Gale Cleven, don’t let him see you smile.  

“What makes you think I even know how to skate?”

John snorts, “You’re a Wyoming boy aren’t you? Bet you were born wearin’ skates.”

“I moved when I was seven, Bucky.”

“Mini Mite leagues started at five.”

Bringing the cigarette to his lips, grinning around the pale paper and the two fingered grip he had around it, John raises his brows expectantly, “So, like I said, we got a problem. But we’ve also got a solution.”

“I’m still trying to find the part where this is my problem too,” Gale drawls, folding his arms across his chest against a shiver. 

“Cos’ I’m gonna mope if I don’t go. And a sad florist is bad for business. And, likely, I’ll forget to water those plants I gave you, so they’ll die.”

“They’re just plants, Bucky.” 

John stares at him, smile still quirking his face, chipped tooth on full glorious display.Gale looks up at the sky, cloudy and grey, down at the street strewn with leaf litter. Back at John, and then somewhere at the wall instead. Heaves a sigh and rubs above one brow tiredly. 

“It’s fifteen bucks?” 

“And the second best hot chocolate in the entire damn city.” 

-*~*-

It’s not a date, but Gale still stops at home to shower after work, unwilling to wear blood and ink tainted clothes out. Puts a spot of cologne on, because it’s an excuse to wear down the bottle Marge had given him; too expensive to waste. Puts on a loose sweater instead of a shop sweatshirt, and one of the few nicer jeans he owned. A heavy jacket, dark and soft and falling to his knees, and a knit hat with matching gloves. Pilot is banished to the couch so as not to infect him with cat hair, and she blinks at him slowly in judgement. 

“It’s not a date,” he tells her, lacing up his shoes, “I’m not underdressed.” 

Blink, blink.

His apartment is closer to the rink than the shops, so John’s offered to pick him up and drive them both. He texts Gale when he’s outside and when Gale slips into the car’s interior he finds it pleasantly hot, still smelling like cologne and cigarettes, and filled with the soft crooning of Aretha Franklin. John himself is dressed in his sheepskin, a cap pulled low over his head so only a curl peeked out here and there, and he smiles crookedly at Gale. 

“Digging the coat, Buck.”

It’s not a date, but Gale can’t help but feel a little flush as he slides into the car. And if John shares any of his awkwardness, the other man doesn’t show it, drumming along with the music and singing badly in a way that was almost good. It’s only seven-thirty but it’s well past dark this time of year, and Gale spends most of the drive looking at the Christmas lights starting to go up, pointing out the more elaborate designs to John, who took the time to look at every one. 

“I like the white ones,” John says, nodding at a line of white Christmas-light reindeer, “Looks like something out of a movie.”

Gale shakes his head, “I’ve always preferred the rainbow lights.” 

John gives him an over-indulgent once-over, “Yeah that makes sense, colorful guy like you.”

Gale snorts, “They’re cozy. The white lights are so cold.” 

“I’ll keep that in mind.” 

John’s missed a spot shaving, Gale can see it now and then, lit up by the passing streetlights. Up in front of his ear, small enough Gale could cover it with the top of his thumb. Wispy, curling hair, like it had been a couple days since John’s last shave. He hasn’t got the facial hair of someone who can grow it well, but something about that fact makes it all the more tantalizing. Some last cling of boyhood to him, like a worn shirt, logo faded and hemline gone thin. All warmth and comfort. 

Gale drops his gaze and picks at his cuticles for the rest of the short drive. 

True to John’s word, the bored teenager manning the front entrance barely gives them a second glance, handing them two tickets, which Gale thinks he’ll have to argue over paying his half of, but John steps back easily when Gale comes forward. It’s only fifteen per person, but he clings to his sense of triumph all through lacing up his skates, hobbling with determined ease towards the near-flawless ice. It’s still early in the night, and there’s only a few couples already out there to cut lines into the mirror-like surface and he rests a dignified hand on the rink barrier as he tests the slip of it beneath him. 

John’s skating in slow, lazy loops beside him, watching Gale gather his balance with an odd expression on his face.

“You actually don’t know how to skate?” 

Gale flushes, “Mini Mite League was about twenty-five years ago for me.”

“Hah,” John says, more a breath of air than anything truly mocking, “I’m older.” 

“I know how to skate, I’m just rusty.”

“It’s like riding a bike, Buck,” John skates closer, his big frame oddly graceful on the sharp-bladed shoes, holding a hand out, “Come on, not gonna get back into the swing of things stuck to the side like a barnacle.”

“Just give me a second.” 

John’s not laughing at Gale, but by the tightness in his cheeks he’s not not laughing at him.

“You were gonna hop all over the moon, risk life and limb and all that, but you won’t let go of the wall at a skating rink?”

“Bucky,” Gale warns. 

John swoops in another loop, gesturing over his shoulder with a thumb flushed from the cold, “I can go get you one of the kiddie sleds for balance.”

He’s smiling, crooked and bright in the dim lamplight, and there’s no snow but it’s in the air with crisp promise, breath clouding in front of John’s mouth and bits of frost beginning to cling to the whiskers of his mustache. Slowly, he drops his thumb and reaches out his hand again.

“Come on. Won’t let you crash, Gale.” 

His hand is warm, even through the wool of Gale’s mittens, fingers just as long and elegant as Gale’s, but with an extra thickness to them. They wrap around Gale’s loosely, just enough to steady his faint wobble as he pushes away from the wall and out onto open ice. John skating backward and Gale re-finding his rhythm with every push-off of his legs. And he’s going to be sore tomorrow, he can already feel it somewhere in his hips, but they’re picking up a bit of speed now and when John laughs, Gale lets out a breath of his own that he thinks might pass as a chuckle as well. 

John’s face flushes in the cold, right on the apple of his cheeks, and the tip of his nose, both right like cherries. 

“I think I’ve got it,” Gale tells him, tugging his hand from John’s grip gently.

He lets Gale go easily, dropping his hands to his sides and spinning round to skate at Gale’s side, keeping pace with him on far more practiced feet. 

“Told you,” John teases, “Just like riding a bike.” 

“Riding a bike ain’t half so deadly,” Gale smiles, turning his head to the other side so John won’t see. 

“Nuh-uh,” he taps his nose, right across the bump of it, “Busted my beak riding my bike for the first time.”

“That why it’s so crooked?”

“Hockey fight. Wasn’t supposed to be fightin’ in the minors, but they insisted on being rough with our guys.”

“White Knight Bucky, to the rescue?” Gale muses, eyes fixed on the ice in front of him. It’s still clear enough he can see his reflection, hat low on his head and scarf tight around his neck. 

Shrugging his shoulders with fake modesty, John once again pivots to skating backwards and Gale considers tripping him just for the ego check, “More just a big ol’ goon with a decent right hook.” 

“Nah,” Gale disagrees, “You don’t strike me as a half-ass sorta guy.”

John smiles, something small and pleased. Shrugs once again, this time far more sincere with it, “I got an assist here and there.” 

Gale leans his weight to the side, just enough to veer into John and bump his shoulder lightly. Overcorrects on the pull away until John reaches out to grab his hand. His are still warm, and the temperature is only dropping, so Gale lets the touch linger as they skate. Every now and then John’s thumb brushes absently over the back of Gale’s palm. Calloused, dry and a little bit chapped, either from the cold or working with wet flower stems all day, it rasps over Gale’s skin pleasantly. Marge had warm hands too, always slightly sweet smelling from the soap she bought and the perfume she rubbed on her wrists. 

John smells like cigarettes and cologne and just a bit like dirt, always lingering around the edges, like it had sunk right into his pores. 

“So, where’d you go after Wyoming?” 

“Texas,” Gale says, watching the light twinkle in the trees. White ones, like John preferred, “Then Utah for a bit, even England for a couple years.” 

“I spent my whole life in Wisconsin,” John admits, “Always swore to my Ma I’d move to New York City and become a baseball player.”

“This was after the Truck Driver dream ended?” 

John huffs, looking down at the ice so Gale only sees the sharp edge of his smile, “Yeah, post Truck Driver.” 

It’s a little more crowded now, and John skates closer to Gale to make room for another couple, laughing and spinning around the ice. He watches them for a moment, a faint smile on his face, burned a soft orange by the floodlights above the rink. 

“So why didn’t you ever go to New York?”

John wets his lips in a movement Gale can’t help but notice, tongue pink and moist and bottom lip wide and soft-looking, “Opened a flower shop instead.” 

-*~*-

Eventually, despite his layers, Gale begins to shiver. So John leads them back to the exit of the rink, hopping onto the rubber with practiced ease. Gale stumbles but stays upright and without John’s help, so he counts it as a triumph.

“I was promised the best hot chocolate in the city,” he says as they unlace their skates. 

John’s broad beside him, heavy in the way he fills up the space, shoulders working to remove his own skates and slip his shoes back on, “ Second best.”

“Who makes the first?”

“Me, of course,” John winks at him. 

Gale snorts, claps his broad shoulder as he stands and walks past, towards the small shack on the opposite end of the skating rink. There’s a respectable line in front of it and John and Gale spend the wait not speaking much, shoulders silently brushing now and then with the sway of their bodies. 

It’s a shockingly comfortable silence, John content to let Gale be quiet. It’s unexpected, with the way John seemed to have no issue ever finding something to run his mouth about; discussing baseball scores with Macon in the morning and bickering good-naturedly with Benny over eighties slasher flix. And now with Gale, he was comfortable to speak little beyond the occasional anecdote. A chameleon of a sort, but without any trace of insincerity. Gale wonders if there’s any sort of person John wasn’t able to find a way to get along with. If he’d been born with the skill or had developed and honed it over years and practice, same as Gale had with his craft. 

Customer service had never been his strong suit; that’s what Benny had been for. 

“The whipped cream is from a local factory– that’s vegetarian, right? You can have it?” 

Gale bites the inside of his cheek against a smile, “Yeah, Bucky, whipped cream is fine.”

“Cool,” John taps the side of his head, mouth quirking, “will remember that.”

Gale doesn’t doubt him. 

Again, John lets Gale pay for his share. The cardboard cup is almost scalding in Gale’s fingers, even through his mittens, and he burns his tongue on the first sip. Presses his tongue to the roof of his mouth, both to lessen the sting and to catch the quiet noise in his throat at the taste. Sweet, just a touch salty. And thick like cream, the cocoa flavor rich and the whipped cream light. Closing his eyes to savor the flavor, Gale sighs out through his nose and risks burning his tongue a second time just to taste it again. 

“Good?” John asks. 

Gale opens his eyes, finding the other man grinning at him with full wattage, mustache gone thin from the spread and eyes crinkling at the corners. 

“Well,” he says slowly, “I heard it was only second best.” 

John laughs, slow and easy like syrup, and leads them over to an empty picnic table, just slightly out of the strongest spill of the rink lights. It’s a bit chillier, this far from the crowds, but pleasantly quiet, and, paired with the heat of the hot chocolate, Gale is content to sit and sip it to stave off the worst of the shivers. John’s leg presses against Gale’s own, hip to knee, and the heat of his thigh spreads through Gale’s entire body, pleasant and grounding. When he looks over, the other man is looking at the crowd and the rink, a subdued expression on his face. 

“This was fun,” Gale admits, swirling the last few mouthfuls of drink in his cup, “Don’t know the last time I did something like this.”

“What, skating?” 

“Just…” Gale pauses, finishes his hot chocolate just to give himself some extra time to choose his words, “doing something not related to work. Opening the shop has been priority one for so long, it’s strange not to be planning the next fifteen steps every second of the day. Worrying about paying rent or the paying others or whether we’re just on a lucky streak and it’ll wear off.” 

It’s more than he meant to say, so he fiddles with the lid of the cup to displace the awkwardness. 

Beside him, John nods, “Sometimes it does wear off,” he drains his own cup, smacking his lips loudly and lobbing the cup with impressive accuracy into a nearby trash can. Plucks Gales from his hands and sinks it with similar ease. 

“Then it comes back. Someone has a wedding or a birthday party, and all their friends ask where they got the flowers from and it comes back.” 

Gale hums.

“Tattoos don’t wilt,” John points out.

There’s a spot of cream on John’s mustache, right by the corner of his mouth and smearing into the bow of his top lip, foamy and thick. 

This isn’t a date, but it feels a bit like one, Gale with a nervous clench in his stomach that he remembers from ten, fifteen years ago, when all he wanted was Marge to smile at him and laugh at his jokes. Highschool-aged and sweaty-palmed and desperate to have someone find him worthwhile. It isn’t a date, but John’s leg is warm against Gale’s leg and there’s whipped cream on his mustache, and so Gale puts a hand around the back of his neck and pulls him in for a slow kiss, making sure to lap up the sugary smear in the process. 

If John is surprised at all he doesn’t show it, letting himself be kissed at a slow, syrupy pace. 

-*~*-

The windows of John’s car are fogged. Narrowing the entire world down to just the interior of the vehicle, to the large body under Gale’s spread thighs and the wet mouth working against his own feverishly. They’re making out like teenagers, too few pauses for oxygen and far too much spit between them. John’s hands are on Gale’s hips, teasing under the hem of his sweater and slipping down to knead at his ass now and then. 

His mouth tastes like chocolate and cigarettes.

Pressed together in the driver’s seat together, it’s a cramped fit at best. The steering wheel digs into Gale’s lower back every time he grinds down against the hard line of John’s cock. It’s large, like he remembers, a hefty firm press against the back seam of Gale’s jeans, and he wonders how much of a stretch it out be to fit inside. John’s fingers flit under the waistband of Gale’s jeans, and he can feel the callous of them against his skin. Gale ruts his hips forward, chasing the rough friction of denim, of John’s fingetips.

John groans for him, vibrating against Gale’s chest. 

The opening chords of Uptown Girl burst through the car, John startling so badly they’re both lifted out of the seat from it for a moment, knocking Gale’s head against the roof of the car. Cold-water shock slips down Gale’s spine and he slides off John’s body like he’s been burned, falling back into the passenger seat sideways and grabbing for his jacket.

“Fuck– sorry, I gotta– It’s my ex-wife,” Gale says without thinking, scrambling through his pockets for his phone.

“Oh,” John says.

Regret and vicious embarrassment hit Gale when he registers his own words, but he’s located his phone already, Marge’s smiling face looking up at him from the screen. He answers it to avoid facing his verbal slippage just yet. 

“Cleven,” He says, because he didn’t know what to say if it wasn’t ‘ hi sweetheart’ . He leans as much against the passenger door as he can, anything to get a bit of distance from the heat still radiating between John and him. 

“Are you working?” 

Gale flushes, scratching the back of his neck, “Ah, no. No I’m not.” 

Marge hums, which could be surprise, or judgment, or simple acknowledgment. Once, he would have known, one had known all her quirks and tells and idiosyncrasies. It hadn’t been until close to the end that he’d suddenly realized this was no longer the case. That she’d grown, or he’d grown, or perhaps they both had, and that it hadn’t been together. She hums and Gale works his lip between his teeth and looks out the window and finds himself resenting her silence, her prompting him to guess what he was guilty of, like a child stood before their parent. It makes his skin crawl and he sinks his teeth into his tongue, determined to give her stubborn silence right back.

“How come my lawyer is telling me you’re ignoring his emails? There’s some last thing you need to sign.” 

“I haven’t gotten any emails.” 

Now Marge snorts, derisive and a little mean and there’d been a reason he’d gravitated towards her, quiet and shy in highschool. She hadn’t been afraid to tell anyone to fuck off, least of all him. And the rush of getting into her good graces, gaining her approval and her attention had been like the first drop of a rollercoaster. Sickening and exhilarating all wrapped up together as one emotion. 

“Well, he sent them,” Marge uses in her ‘wrangling five year olds’ voice, though with slightly nastier of a tone than she’d ever use with a child.

“I thought everything was finalized.”

“So did I.”

“So– hold on,” Gale pulls the phone away from his ear, swiping into his email and through any subfolder he can find, “I found it. It got filtered into spam. I’ll look it over and get it to you in the morning.”

She doesn't question him. Regardless of anything else, Gale kept to his schedules. 

“Thanks.”

Gale thumbs his lip, glances at John out of the corner of his eye. He was doing a good job of pretending to not be hearing everything, scrolling through his phone with a focused frown. There’s still a noticeable curve to his jeans, even with how he had one leg braced up agaisnt the dashboard. Gale figures he should feel slightly more guilty than he did, eyeing up someone else while on the phone with his ex wife. 

There’s a pause, then Marge’s voice softens slightly, “Shop is going well?”

Some part of Gale aches. Less so for the marriage, but more so for the friendship that had mattered to him far more.

“Yeah,” he says with equal quiet, “Yeah, it’s goin’ real well, Margie.”

“Good,” she says, like punctuation, “I’ll wait for your email.” 

After the call ends Gale fiddles with his phone for a moment, opening his email again to scan the first paragraph. It’s only three pages but he’s realizing, probably, he’s going to need to call his own lawyer in the morning. Dropping his phone into his lap, he gnaws on the corner of his thumb, staring out the window just beginning to lose its white film as the air inside cools. Listens to John adjust himself in his seat, adjust himself in his jeans. 

“So,” John begins, drawing it out and drumming his thighs a few times in pondering, “She taking the dog too?”

Gale smiles into the tang of blood, “Nah, the- the, uh, office misspelled my name so we need it all corrected–” stops himself and snorts, “stupid stuff you definitely don’t care about.” 

John shrugs, “Can’t say I’ve ever been divorced, but sounds like it’s a lotta fuckin’ documents all the time.”

“That’s what I told Benny,” Gale says dryly, “Right before he got married. Asked me what the worst part about divorce is, like he didn’t kiss the ground his husband walked on. Told him the goddamn paperwork.”

“What’s the second worst part?”

Gale thinks for a moment. John’s still not looking at him, staring out the front windshield with his hand on the gear shift loosely. There’s a purpling bruise under the hinge of his jaw, mostly obscured by stubble. 

“Nobody to eat dinner with.” 

John hums, then sets the keys into the ignition, starting up the car and cranking the heat. The fog has mostly left the windows now, and for the first few moments of the drive, Gale holds himself ready for John to ask more questions. To ask about Marge, or the divorce, or whether Gale wanted to resume their previous activities. None of them he has good answers for, and John doesn’t ask any of them. Merely cranks the radio and hums softly along to Bing Crosby’s voice. 

He drives with two hands on the wheel, like an old man. 

It’s getting closer to ten o’clock now, the roads beginning to empty, people hurrying along their way with heads down and breath clouding around their heads in whisping trails. John drives carefully, and Gale should be getting home but there’s something good about the quiet between them. Something soothing, sitting in silence with someone and having that alone be enough. He’s warm for once, making his limbs heavy, his eyes sore. Dozing, when the car comes to a halt, the soft click of John setting it to park rousing him. 

They’re outside a small diner sort of establishment, the lights yellow and friendly, the air in the car growing spicy and sweet smelling. 

“Oh–” Gale starts, “John, you didn’t have to–”

“Come on, Buck,” John says, folding himself out of the car, “everyone knows sweets don’t fill you up.” 

Gale frowns at him, but follows into the restaurant because, without the engine running, the cold will seep in quick. The smell is better inside, stronger and richer, thick with cumin and nutmeg. It’s a sitdown place, even this late at night, with a bored teenager working on homework in one corner and a few college students occupying one of the booths. John’s scanning the menu like he’s never been here before, but the woman behind the register had greeted him by name when they’d walked in, so Gale joins him in looking so as not to stand there awkwardly. 

John orders some sort of lamb curry and Gale gets a serving of Malai Kofta. It’s not made to order at this hour, but still comes out steaming hot and richly scented. Tucked into a booth of their own, Gale tries to eat slow, savoring the way the potatos have soaked up all the sauce. 

It’s warm enough that they shrug out of their jackets, Gale pushing his sweater sleeves up to his elbows and John stripped down to a faded Minnesota Wilds shirt. He’s got the same heft to him that Gale remembers, broad in the shoulders and broad in the chest and broad around his biceps, though it wasn’t so much muscle as it was just size. There’s a cross tucked under his shirt, Gale can tell by the delicate nature of the chain, see the faint shape of it pressing against the worn cotton. Something about that surprises him, John didn’t give the air of someone who cared much for church. 

John’s watching him eat, watching his hands around his utensils, so Gale sets them down.

“Are your hands the only thing you got ink on?” 

Gale shifts, laying his hands palm up on the table and flexing his fingers just slightly. Inside end of palm beside inside end of palm so the perfect negative-space sun, circled by peppered shading and long, bold rays, lines up perfectly. John’s tracing the steady lines of it with his eyes, hand twitching on the table like he’s resisting the urge to reach out and touch. Gale curls his fingers. Nods slightly.

“I won’t let anyone tattoo me but myself,” he explains.  

John huffs, eats the food off the end of his fork with a vigorous chomp, “You’re a bit of a freak, huh?” 

Somehow, coming from John, it doesn’t sound like an insult. Gale huffs right after him, shrugging one shoulder. 

“A bit, I guess.” 

“Fine by me,” John shrugs, “Some people call me crazy.”

Gale’s lips twitch, “And why’s that?”

“‘Cause I’m about the only sonofabitch in this city that believes in unicorns.” 

“You–” Gale catches himself, and stares.

John looks back at him, guileless in his faint smiling expression. 

“ Yeah, Bucky, that’s pretty crazy,” Gale admits. 

John nods, scrapes the last of his stew from the bowl, “They’re just extinct is all.”

-*~*-

Later, after Pilot’s been fed, she sprawls by his socked feet in a lavish bid for attention. She’s got one white paw sprawled out, braced just against the reflective surface of his wall length mirror, and he snaps a quick photo of the sight. 

Catascuro.

hold on, googling

yeah that’s funny

John Egan laughed at your text

Gale presses his thumb to his lips, trying not to smile.

thanks for indulging me with the skating thing Buck

There’s little I wouldn’t do for a good hot chocolate.

Typing bubbles appear, then vanish, then pop up again. Gale watches as the chat goes empty of activity once again and then stays that way. It’s late, his phone lighting up as nearly midnight when he puts it on his nightstand. But, still, there’s an odd feeling in his chest that has him scooping Pilot up and squeezing her purring body to the spot like the vibrations might fix it. They don’t, of course, but he kisses her head and listens to her purr with every pleased exhale.

“You’re going to get me in trouble,” he whispers into her soft head, folding them both into the bed. 

-*~*-

Gale knocks on the front door to Easy Bein’. The sign was set to closed but he could see a faint glow coming from under the door to the office. His breath clouds in front of him, the wind cutting through his jacket like knives. There’s still no snow but the air continues to reek of it. He knocks again, a little more firmly, and watches as the office door cracks open. 

He lifts a hand in an awkward wave, and John gives him a grin. 

“ The Buck Cleven, gracing my doorstep,” he announces with the opening of the front door. 

“Quit it,” Gale sighs, stepping inside and making a beeline for the grow lights he knew would be warm, “I have a favor I need to ask.”

“And needing my help too,” John wonders with mock breathlessness.

Gale gives him a look. 

John winks at him, swipes some dirt from his palms and leans on the counter, the sleeves of his shirt going tight around his arms. Waits expectantly, one brow raised. 

“Macon’s got a bunch of old signage he’s had to move to the shop so I can bring it home and repaint it.”

“And you don’t have a car,” John concludes for him, stepping around the counter and bracing against it so they’re hip to hip, facing opposite directions but head turned towards one another. John smells like dirt, and cigarettes, and just a bit of work sweat. 

Gale shrugs a shoulder, “I can pay you for gas.” 

John purses his lips, nods slowly like he’s working out a problem in his head, “How about you introduce me to the missus?”

Gale stares at him until John clears his throat, ears slowly beginning to turn pink.

“The, ah, the cat, I mean.”

There’s a spread of half-bound floral arrangements on the counter, a rainbow vomit of colors and shapes and more types of flowers than Gale could ever hope to name. The scent of sap is thick in the air, cutting through the cloying smell of roses and baby’s breath. Gale traces his finger across one soft petal, letting John squirm for a moment with the depth of his faux pas .

“Yeah,” he finally says, “Pilot loves people.” 

Nodding his head seriously, John nudges Gale, “Must get it from her pops.” 

Gale nudges him back. 

The signs are around the back, stacked up against the wall and John backs his car up as close as he can before the two of them spend a good half hour huffing and puffing – and cursing on John’s part – trying to fit them inside. At one point, John strips out of his jacket, dark sweat stains under his arms and arms goosepimpling in the cold. Gale stays bundled, but sweat trickles down his spine in a stomach-churning path that has his skin itching. 

Managing to tetris the last of the signs in place, John cranks the heat as soon as they’re in the front of the car, Gale blowing on his fingers as the overhead lights go dark. Switches the stations until finding the oldies once again. It was December now, and the world had firmly switched to Christmas music. Armstrong’s Winter Wonderland fills the car with his rough crooning and Gale makes a face. Noticing his grimace, John grins at Gale.

“What? Got a problem with Satchmo?”

“Got no issue with Armstrong,” Gale shrugs, “Just can’t stand a month of the same six songs.”

“Ah,” John nods, pulling out onto the main road slowly, “You’re one of those, huh?” 

Gale smiles at him, because John somehow manages to never come off as insulting. Only lightly teasing and perhaps mildly irritating. He talked to talk, and teased because he found it fun, but he seemed to have a remarkable sense for avoiding poking any truly tender bits. Or he just had a good read on Gale in particular. 

“Afraid so, Bucky.” 

John hums thoughtfully, “Don’t worry, we’ll find one you like.”

Gale presses his thumb to his mouth, “Can’t say it’s high on my list of concerns, not having a Christmas song I like.”

“Well it’s top of mine,” John mimes sticking a tack in a wall, popping his lips, “Priorities as follows; find a Christmas song for one Gale Cleven, fix the leaky faucet, call my mother at least once a week, and fold my laundry.”

Surprised to find himself laughing, Gale presses his thumb firmer against his runaway smile, catching the flesh between his teeth as if he might bite back the noise of it. Shakes his head slowly, making sure John can see it and tells him to watch the road. John obeys, grinning like he’s coveting something sweet and Gale resists the urge to poke at him, elbow his shoulder or prod at his ribs to see if he can get him to squeal. They’re driving, and he’s thirty years old, and neither of them have mentioned the other night, so he’s going to all it a fluke, and a mistake, and for as long as John continues to act like the teenage-like makeout in his car never happened, then so will Gale. 

“What’s that plant called?” he asks instead, “The one you got the store.”

John looks over, mouth twisting in a smile and wrist cocked lazily on the steering wheel, “Pothos.”

He’s got a scar through one eyebrow, a split off spidery thing like an impact instead of a slice, the skin splitting like cracked concrete and leaving faint crevices of scar tissue where hair no longer grew. It looked old, a childhood injury, the mark of it gone silvery and pale. Gale traces it with his eyes like he might the lines on a paper, or someone’s skin. 

Armstrong fades into Bing Crosby and Gale suffers through more winter wonderlanding, and the more pleasant sound of John’s off-tune humming.

“Do you ever listen to anything released before eighty-five?”

“Can’t sing to ‘em,” John shakes his head, pulling into the parking lot of Gale’s complex.

“You can’t sing to them.” 

“It’s all fuckin’ editing and stitching together sound. None of what plays on the radio is real anymore, it’s not just some guy singing his heart out in a sound booth with the band right there. You go to a concert now and sometimes the artist doesn’t even sound like themselves, or they have to change the notes or the pitchs because they can’t pull it off without a computer helping them.” John kills the engine and points to the radio like it’s Bing’s face himself, “This? This I can sing to.” 

“Bucky,” Gale says very quietly, “You’re a horrible singer.” 

John, appearing unoffended, grins at him, “Maybe. But if you sing loud it matters a whole lot less how good you are.” 

“I don’t really think that’s true.”

The other man winks at Gale, “Come on, Buck, I’ve got a celebrity to meet.” 

Gale’s apartment is more of a split condo, the left side belonging to a young couple expecting their first baby, and there’s only a few concrete steps they have to lug the signs up. He unlocks the door while resting the heavy wood against his knee. Gets it open and then guides their progress down his front hallway and into the kitchen, making sure to tell John to shut the door behind them. 

“Watch the paint,” Gale grunts, leaning the signs up against the wall between the fridge and pantry.

Beside him John pants, swiping his hat off his sweaty curls with one hand and unzipping his jacket with the other. Gale’s in much the same state, his shirt sticking to his chest in spots when he shrugs out of his jacket and pulls off his sweater, tossing them both on the counter. The heat’s rolling off John in a slow radiation, warming Gale’s fingers as he takes John’s jacket from his hands and lays it on the counter as well. The underarms of John’s shirt are damp again, as is the center of his stomach, outlining his belly button in reverse. 

“I think,” John says, rolling his shoulders and looking around the apartment, “I’m gonna need more than a cat petting to get them back out of here.” 

Gale laughs, “I’ll buy you dinner.” 

“I’m an expensive date,” John warns him, toeing his boots off and sauntering into the living room.

“I’ll check the tip jar at work,” Gale drawls, setting a cup of coffee to brew and taking down two mugs. It’s an automatic movement, and when the realization hits, he gracefully dodges the grief by reasoning that petting a cat really isn’t enough of a thank-you. “How do you take your coffee?”

“Ah–” John covers his surprise quickly, widening eyes curving with a smile, “Cream. Bit of sugar. I’m easy.” 

Gale nods, feels a brush against his leg and looks down to Pilot winding past in a rapid trot, tail high and curious. There’s a bit of a pang at being ignored for the sake of a stranger, but Gale can’t begrudge her curiosity as she investigates John. He looks delighted, crouching down and holding a hand out for her to sniff. 

“The lady of the hour,” John croons, “Look at you.” 

“It’s funny,” Gale says, watching as she flawlessly coaxes herself into John’s arms, “when I first brought her home she hid under the bed for almost two months. I only knew she was eating ‘cause the food bowl in the kitchen would be empty, but she’d only come out when I was at work. The rescue’d told me she was shy, she’d been returned a few times for just that. But I told myself to just give her a little more time. And now she’s–” he gestures. 

Watches his cat purr in the other man’s arms, looking tiny like a kitten. 

“Little bit of time, huh?” John grins at Pilot, scritching his fingers through the fur under her chin. 

Gale can hear the rasp of her cheek dragging against the stubble of John’s jaw. 

The coffee machine beeps and Gale turns away from the wet, loud sound of John pressing a kiss to her head. Prepares John’s cup to his request, sucking the spoon clean before placing it in the sink and leaving his own coffee black. John has to set Pilot down to accept the steaming mug, but she’s back on his lap the moment he settles onto the couch. He scratches the back of her neck as he takes a sip of his coffee, smacking his lips with a pleased hum and Gale burns, just a little bit. 

It’s comfortable enough with just the two of them sitting in silence, sipping their coffee and letting the sweat of their exertion cool. Eventually, of course, Pilot grows bored of pets and wanders off into the dark of the apartment. Gale can hear the jingle of a toy, somewhere in the spare bedroom that served as an art room, and smiles into his mug. It’s eight o’clock, traffic beginning to slow and Gale can hear the faint sound of the neighbor’s TV filtering through. He savors his coffee, savors the sight of John, in an old Star Wars shirt and worn jeans, sitting on his sofa while Gale himself is in an armchair nearby. 

“About the other night,” John says slowly.

Fingers tightening on his mug, Gale flicks his eyes from his slow examination of the crook of John’s wrist up to his face. The oven light, the only source of light in the room, turns his profile a soft orange. 

“We’re both adults,” John continues, “And it doesn’t have to be anything, if you don’t want it to. But,” John grimaces, mouth pulling to one side as if he wasn’t satisfied with his own words, “I liked–like kissing you.” 

It’s a simple statement with a lot of weight behind it. The sort of thing that was bigger than the number of its words. 

Gale stands, taking his mug in one hand, and plucking John’s empty one from his own grip with another.

“I’d like to keep doing that,” John says quietly, looking up at him. One curl flops over his head, loose and disobedient. 

His forehead comes to just above Gale’s sternum, Gale’s nearly standing between the bracket of John’s thighs. Gale takes a breath.

He pivots, setting the two empty mugs on the coffee table and finds John’s hands already guiding him into his lap when Gale turns back around. Smelling slightly of stale sweat, dirt, cigarettes and sap, it’s becoming a familiar bouquet, the taste of John’s tongue a familiar flavor. Kissing him in a slow suck that leans them both against the back cushion of the couch, Gale shuffles up flush against John. Leaves his mouth quickly to lick over the plane of his neck, feeling his heartbeat up somewhere between his collarbones. Slips his fingers under John’s shirt, the other man hissing at the chill temperature of his fingers, but Gale relishes the heated skin beneath his touch, trailing up John’s belly and across the broad expanse of his chest. Tangles in the chest hair there, patchy like his mustache, and thumbing at the peaked bud of one nipple. The skin is still a bit slick from sweat, bloated and spongy. When Gale grasps at John’s ribs he feels his underarm hair, slimy and wet from similar perspiration, and groans. 

“You want–?” John reaches for the hem of his shirt.

Gale nods, feels John’s cock twitch against his thigh,“ Yes .”

Drawing his shirt up over his head, tossing it somewhere behind them, John holds his arm up and out of the way so Gale can dive right in, mouth open and tongue flattening for the first broad lick. John's fingers knot in the hair at the back of his neck, bracing him as Gale gets his first wet taste, pressing his nose in deep and chasing every drop. His hands brace on John’s ribs, kneading the muscle there. Fat over refined strength, the body of someone who’d grown up active but not quite stuck to the upkeep. Gale wants to sink his teeth into John, into the slight swell of his stomach, into the meaty stretch of his shoulder, and into the tender, sensitive divot of skin beneath his tongue. He groans in the smell of John, earthy even here in the creases and folds of his body, the fresh exertion peppery and bright. 

“Jesus,” John breathes, the gust of it tickling Gale’s hair. His thumb brushes along Gale’s cheekbone and he follows that hand right to John’s mouth, fingers replacing his tongue under John’s arm. Tangling in the long hair, he grips and pulls slowly, until John arches with a hiss that turns into a yelp, head falling back and mouth curving into a reverent smile, chipped tooth on full display.

 “ Jesus , Buck.” 

“Just me,” Gale mutters, and John laughs. 

“I’m gonna get my hands on you this time,” he croons, said limbs going to Gale’s waist to tug them flush, “Gonna make you come, mark my fucking words.” 

Gale grinds down against him, enjoying the way his cock pinches against the seam of his jeans, sharp and grounding, and the way John’s grinding right back. Hands slide up the back of Gale’s shirt, savoring over the flex of his muscles and dragging the fabric with them. Briefly he’s blinded as John tugs the clothing over his head, fingers stroking down his biceps with quiet appreciation. Shivering a bit in the chill air of the room, Gale lines up against the heat of John, cupping his jaw with both hands and pressing him back further into the sofa. Kisses him like he might climb inside that heat and teases his thumbs along the corners of John’s mouth just to feel the drooling connection of their lips. Their hands are almost the same size, but John’s feel huge palming across his ass. 

He does bite now, sinking his teeth into John’s bottom lip and not releasing until the other man whines. Suckles away the hurt and then shoves himself into standing, chest heaving and hair flppping into his eyes until he brushes it back.

John’s in a similar state of dishevelment, curls sticking up in odd places and chest and cheeks blotchy with an aroused flush. 

“Stay there,” Gale orders him. 

The bathroom light is jarring, fluorescent bright and highlighting the flush on Gale’s cheeks, the awkward mess of his hair and the way he was fumbling through his cabinets for lube and a condom like an underprepared teenager. They both look small in his hand, awkward and uncomfortable. Like he was doing something naughty, rather than engaging in a regular encounter between regular adults. Briefly, he wonders if John would find him stupid for expecting they use a condom, if people just took their chances these days. But John’s face is relaxed when Gale returns, wiggling the foil between two fingers. 

“I had one in my wallet,” he says as Gale slides back into his lap, trying to conceal the shake in his fingers by reaching for John’s belt.

“Just being a good host,” Gale says, flicking open John’s button and reaching inside to find his cock. It feels just the same as he remembers, thick and heavy and curved just slightly in a way that’s easy to wrap his fingers around. 

John snorts, then breaks off into a shuddering groan as Gale takes him in hand, fingers tickling over the flushed head and reaching down to squeeze his base. Raises his hips eagerly, a dog on the leash, and Gale pulls his cock out fully, leaning over to spit a slow drip of saliva onto the head. The wet splat of it has John cursing, his head dropping back against the wall again and hips jumping up needily. Using the lubrication, swiping his thumb over the head to spread it evenly, Gale works John to flushed eagerness, eyes hungry to catch every minute expression on the other man’s face, ears straining for every little noise. Presses his thumb into the pillow of John’s bottom lip and drags his jaw open. John parts his lips for him obediently, tongue wet and pink and the perfect landing pad for Gale’s spit to land. Pushes against John’s chin to close his mouth for him, sliding a hand up to cover his mouth completely.

“ Fuck ,” John hisses against his palm.

“Put on the condom,” Gale murmurs. 

John’s a good guesser, or perhaps merely observant, and it’s his own cock he takes in hand, jerking himself a few times after spitting into his palm. Gale, who had released his mouth to tear open the condom foil, hides his shiver under the movement. Watching John roll the rubber over his leaking, flushed cock is a particular kind of foreplay that Gale finds himself enjoying. Anticipation sitting alongside the arousal at his own personal show. 

“Slower,” he orders faintly, resisting the urge to lick his bottom lip for one last taste of John’s sweet coffee on it. 

John pauses, the condom halfway down the thickest part of him, and Gale watches as a faint flush travels over his face. Feels him shiver beneath the spread of Gale’s thighs. 

Taking a steadying breath, John resumes covering himself, movement more slow and savoring now, thighs spreading just slightly to make a show of it. And a show it is, jeans open and caught around his thighs, the waistband of his briefs tugged down just enough to expose himself and a healthy tangle of dark curls. Gale slips off John again, just to tug his own jeans down his hips. It’s been years since he’s done this, not since college when Marge and he had had a brief ‘break’ while she studied abroad for a semester and he was too deep in his apprenticeship to try to follow the time difference. It’s been years, and Gale finds himself almost trembling with anticipation, until he decides he’s just cold instead. Steals the lube from beside John’s thigh and braces one hand on the wall above John’s head, kissing him roughly as he preps himself. 

Their teeth scrape together, John groaning, and Gale only knows he’s touching himself too by the huff of his breath, the way his bicep is flexing rhythmically. It’s dizzying, listening to John pleasure himself simple at the feeling of Gale’s hips, at the sight him him opening himself Gale’s quick with it, efficient, and he’s wiping the excess lube onto the head of John’s cock, John hissing at the sensation.

“Your hands,” John babbles, and Gale pauses.

“My hands?” 

He spreads his fingers, glistening and wet with lube, the ink dark against his palms, then cups along John’s flushed cock. John arches like Gale’s’ got a leash around his dick, head falling back, and Gale takes the invitation for what it is, latching onto the other man’s pulsepoint with his lips and teeth. Leaves a dark imprint of a bruise there.

“You like my hands?” he murmurs.

John nods, some sort of helpless exhale escaping his chest and Gale resists the urge to bite down again, bite down harder. He’s throwing a leg over John’s thigh, sliding forward until he feels the head of John’s cock against his ass, but he’s lost in the sudden image of John tied up, splayed out, flushed and shaking and desperate. His big body tinted with the shimmer of sweat, flushed and swollen with need and that bawdy voice gone breathless and desperate. Putty under Gale’s hands, a toy he could play with and not break, not lose. 

Taking John’s wrists in both his hands, wrapping fingers around the broad diameter of them, he pulls them up above John’s head, grins back against him and watches from inches away as John’s eyes roll, as his lashes flutter, bottom lip sucked between his teeth helplessly. 

He’s a specimen. The sort of thing Gale might like to pick apart and examine, find every flaw and feature and figure out how they fit together into something so undeniable masculine. Huge in presence and in body. Gale straddles him like he might a horse and thrills at having tamed him. 

“You want it?” he can’t help but asking.

John doesn’t hesitate; he’s smart, and he’s shameless in a way that makes Gale want to keep him, wrists flexing in Gale’s grip but letting himself stay caught.

“Fuckin’ need it, doll,” he sighs, “Tight as that throat of yours is, know you’re gonna feel even better around me.”

Transferring John’s wrist to just one hand, Gale reaches behind him to line John up. He feels huge, hot and firm and Gale can feel the pulse of his heart thrumming nearly as fast as Gale’s own. Takes the sink down slow, to give himself time to adjust and so he can savor the reaction on John’s face. His mouth dropping open, eyes rolling in his head and back arching. Big inside him like Gale’s fingers never could be, warm and alive in a way a toy could never mimic. Gale bites the inside of his cheek against a ragged groan, exhaling sharp through his nose in controlled pants. 

“Feels good, baby?” 

Gale’s said those words before, to a much smaller body writhing beneath him, back when Marge and he were still fucking. Before she got tired of handing him the reins every time, or they just got tired of fitting it around their lives. He covers John’s mouth again with his free hand, fingers sticky from lube, and grinds his hips down in answer. 

Pleasure sparks up his spine, buzzing and warm and he’s still chill across his shoulders from the air in the room but he’s warm through every point of contact with John, sliding sweaty against each other as he shifts lightly, raises and drops his hips again as John curses. 

“ Feels good, John? ” Gale echoes back, voice breathless.

John laughs, all teeth and wet mouth and shameless moaning at the way Gale grinds their hips together in a slow circle. 

“Like a dream.” 

Gale drops his hand to John, drops his hips down at just the right angle to turn that spark into a full burn, liquid and delicious. John’s a quick study and rolls his hips up at the right moment, the right position, the both of them working Gale’s prostate with single, solid focus that has him gasping into John’s ear, nails digging into the thin skin of his wrist and cock weeping between them. Slips his tongue inside John’s mouth and tastes every whimper running up his throat, swallows it between them and works his hips in a slow, driving rhythm that has them both panting. Has Gale dizzy, biting John’s lip against the urge to reach down and touch himself. Wants to draw this out, work out the itch inside him like one might work out a sore muscle. 

“Take it–” John’s rambling, “Take it, take it, baby, take all of it, Jesus Christ.” 

He cups John’s face with his hands, slips both thumbs into the wet wound of his mouth, feeling the sharp pinch of his bottom incisors. 

“Hands,” Gale warns as John begins to reach for him. 

“ Fuck ,” John whimpers, pressing his wrists back against the wall. 

John’s body is flush, soft where it counted and muscular underneath everything else, his arms solid and chest broad. All beneath Gale for the touching, and the tasting, and the taking. Pinching John’s nipple with one spit-slickened thumb and forefinger, Gale swallows John’s hiss of pain, other thumb still probing inside the florist's mouth right alongside Gale’s tongue. It’s a kiss full of teeth, rich with sting. The impact of their skin, the backs of Gale’s thighs against the top of John’s broader ones, is a damp, animalistic sound, the couch creaking faintly with every thrust. Every groan from John’s throat vibrates out into Gale’s fingers wrapped loosely around it, tingling up his arm and going right to his dick, rutting against the hairy scratch of John’s stomach with the forward roll of his hips. It’s perfect, it’s all the sort of sex Gale’s forgotten one could have.

Nothing but animal need and readily-given pleasure.

Gale’s chasing his orgasm with single-minded focus, barely fucking himself onto John now, more just rolling his hips back and forth, the head of John’s cock a constantly bullying pressure against his prostate, clenching his stomach with painful pleasure. John’s got his head thrown back again, stubbled chin brushing against Gale’s lips with the movement of their bodies and so Gale feels the pleasure locking the other man up tight, stiffening his whole body as sudden heat floods inside Gale, even through the protection of the condom. 

Stilling, holding John inside him to ride out his orgasm, Gale finally, finally, drops a hand to his own cock and wrings his own orgasm out. Paints the sweat-shiny expanse of John’s stomach, the skin fluttering and shaking with the other man’s panting. 

“Jesus, Buck,” John breathes, laughing a bit shakily. Drops his arms like they’re sore and brushes the sweat-darkened tangle of curls off his forehead.

Gale’s knees click as he stands, letting John slip out of him and onto the mess on his belly. Pinching the condom to keep the milky contents inside, John accepts the wad of tissues Gale hands him from the coffee table and cleans his stomach, then ties off the condom and shuffles with still open jeans to the kitchen trash to dispose of the evidence. Gale stands in his living room completely naked, staring out the window to the brick wall of the next building and tries to calm his own racing heart. He feels tired. Warm from the inside out, like John had left a bit of his heat behind when he’d slipped from the clutch of Gale’s body. 

He wants another coffee, wants his pillows and his bed and a warm body next to his own instead of an empty mattress. 

There’s a box of Christmas decorations, labeled in Marge’s hand in quick, angry writing, sitting in one corner of the room like a joke. Benny had convinced him to pull it out of the closet, at the very least, and it had sat there for the last few days collecting dust. He eyes it, wondering what bits of their shared life Marge had decided he deserved. 

His jeans are a crumpled pile on the floor, and he tugs them on, wincing faintly at the scratch of denim against sensitive skin, and follows John into the kitchen. 

Now that activities had ceased, Pilot ventures back out from the office, winding around John’s legs and purring in tiny motor puffs. Her tail wiggles slightly, just the very tip, as John crouches to scratch around her chin again. His palm is bigger than her entire head. 

“I’m going to steal her,” John tells him honestly.

“Wouldn’t be stealing,” Gale drawls, reaching for the half empty can of tuna in the fridge, “Just open the door and she’ll follow you right out, so long as you give her some attention.” 

John laughs softly, letting Pilot wind her way out of his grip to scarf down her dinner, “You should  get an automatic feeder.” 

Gale frowns at him. 

-*~*-

The next day John texts him a photo of charts and test results.

no pressure

but just so you have it. 

You liked John Egan’s text .

-*~*-

“Stay still.”

“It hurts.”

Gale looks at the thickly tattooed patterns on Benny’s throat. The other man waves him off, a smile despite the dismissive motion. 

“Hands suck, you know that.”

“Stay still so I don’t fuck it up,” Gale answers, setting his needle back to Benny’s skin after a moments wait and pulling the last few lines. Wipes away the excess ink with a paper towel and then gestures Benny out of the seat while he changes to a fresh needle. “You’re next, Rich.” 

“I think Benny’s getting old,” Macon drawls, setting his hand on the table in front of Gale, who sets about laying the stencil and refilling his ink cap, “Your easy days are behind you, old man. Nothing but back-aches and pillow-biter tattoos from here on out.” 

“I can take it easy,” Benny drawls, wrapping his hand up, the four diamond stars on the back a perfect match to the sign outside. Spreads his fingers where the gold band gleams, “I’m an honest woman now.” 

Gale snorts, feeling the buzz of the machine rattle up his elbow, pull out the ever-present ache in his wrist, and starts on the largest diamond, “Six months and you’re already domesticated.”

“I’m in love ,” Benny croons, hand to his chest. The tattoos on his knuckles, HOLD FAST , eternally in need of touching up.

Gale pokes his tongue in his cheek, focusing on pulling a clean line, “And yet,” He says, sitting back and wiping away the blood and ink from Macon’s hand, “Rich sits better than you all the same.” 

“Ha,” Macon says with monotone maturity, lifting his hand to examine the new tattoo. 

“Dunking on the sensitive guy is so high school.”

Gale snorts, laying his own hand out next, the half-sun tattoo spreading across his fingers and running into the purple stencil just slightly. The buzz of pain is familiar, sharp and bright for the location and he bends his head closer, fingers curling slightly on reflex as he puts the ink in. There’s the faint tinkle of a bell, the front door open and Benny half-steps out of the booth to loom.

“Sorry, we’re closed for– Oh, hey Bucky.” 

“DeMarco!” John crows, “Having a party without me?”

“You know we’d never leave you out,” Benny grins, leaning forward to clap John on the back. 

After greeting Macon in similar fashion, John pivots to Gale. His grin is wide as usual, and with Gale sitting, he towered high. Gale has to tilt his head back to look up, shoving his glasses up the bridge of his nose with the back of his gloved wrist. John’s smile fades slightly, but he recovers quick on an impressed whistle. 

“Bet you boys don’t even feel it anymore.”

Gale snorts, adjusts the power supply to a lower speed and goes back to finish the last couple stars.

“It still hurts, Bucky.”

“You got any?” 

Gale almost answers Macon for John, the no right on the top of his tongue before he bites it away. 

“One,” John admits.

The buzzing of Gale’s machine stops, his foot pausing on the pedal. He covers it by taking the time to wipe away the excess ink, ignoring the sandpaper drag of a dry towel. Still, he feels Benny’s eyes on him. 

John spins, tugging his sweatshirt up and the waistband of his jeans down, below the top swell of his ass, right where the hair begins to swirl. Gale tries not to look, or at least tries to appear like he’s not looking with anything but vague curiosity. John had kept his pants on the entire time, had tugged them back up into place after, and the tattoo was low enough to have stayed hidden. 

NIN

“Nine Inch Nails?” Benny reads, arms crossed and bending low to make out the fading blotch.

John shrugs, rucking his jeans back up and Gale swallows the faint dryness in his throat, “Went through a phase.” 

“It looks like shit.” 

John shrugs, smiling guilelessly, “Sure does.” 

“Would y'all quit blocking my light,” Gale snaps, “Can barely see my own stencil.”

“Try not to wipe it away,” Benny suggests but they all step out in the studio hallway to chat. 

Gale finishes his tattoo, cleans his station, and tries to ignore John’s gaze on him the entire time. 

-*~*-

Christmas lights, a few cheap decorations like a wreath and some tinsel. A stocking with his name on it, and the nativity set Marge’s aunt had gifted them at their wedding, too ugly to ever set up. Gale stares into the open box, clenching and relaxing his fist. Pilot winds her way between his crouched feet, butting her head insistently against his knee for attention. 

“Got no treats for you,” he tells her softly, “Sorry.” 

He reaches into the box and pulls out a packet of ornaments, the kind that came in sets and were painted aluminum rather than the fancy glass ones Marge had begun collecting. The plastic wrapping around them crinkles under his fingers slightly and he tries to remember if he’d bothered to decorate last year. In the middle of divorce proceedings, every time his phone rang bringing about a sick sort of dread and more paperwork and legal terms than he’d ever thought he’d need or want to know. 

December seventh, realizing that no, he wouldn’t be doing anything for Christmas because he was no longer part of Marge’s family. 

He drops the ornaments back into the box, startling Pilot. 

Murmuring an apology, he stands and sets about dragging the cardboard back to the hall closet, where he could shove it out of sight and out of mind. Resists the urge to kick it across the dimly lit apartment in a childish expression of frustration. 

“Don’t suppose you care about skipping Christmas?” he asks his cat. 

Ultimately, he hangs the lights across his kitchen window, rainbow like he preferred, with a few bulbs missing here and there. It ends up more depressing of a sight than no decorations at all, a weak attempt at cheer that wasn’t enough to fill up the rest of the empty space. Pilot nuzzles at the bulbs curiously while Gale stands there and considers ripping them right back down. His phone chiming in the bedroom is what stops him, and he leaves Pilot to her investigation to go check who’s bothering him so late at night. 

what would you say to a booty call?

I would say you’re thirty-two and way too old for that.

where’s your sense of adventure Buck

Not in my dick.

John Egan laughed at your text.  

Gale taps the screen a few times with his nail contemplatively, pressing his other thumb to his lips.

So, are you actually trying to booty call me? 

i’m an equal opportunist

A photo of John, at the perfect high angle to see the sweatpants slung low in his hips, a faded Packers sweatshirt and a stove positively covered with full cookie sheets.

kinda went too far on the gingerbread baking

Jesus, John.

 need someone to help me eat and decorate

I don’t have a car.

i’ll come pick you up

it’s no trouble

It’s 9:30.

you can say no.

Gale nibbles on his cuticle, glances at the clock, and his own hoodie and sweatpants getup in the mirror, and around his starkly empty bedroom. Watches the bubbles pop up in the chat again as John starts typing. Stops. Then starts again.

it’s seriously no pressure

It’s way too many cookies for one person, Bucky.

John Egan laughed at your text.

be there in ten : ) 

Gale sets the phone down and rubs a hand over his face, looks over at Pilot now blinking at him from the pillow. 

“This is stupid,” he tells her.  

Still, ten minutes later he’s grabbing his phone without checking who’s lit up the screen – because nobody else is going to be texting him so late at night – and heading out his front door to where John’s car is idling by the curb. They’re both still in sweatshirts and sweatpants and Gale’s not looking for the line of John’s cock against his hip because John isn’t looking for Gale’s, except he's pretty sure John’s not looking only because Gale isn’t. Still, despite that quiet thread of heat, John’s oddly subdued, gnawing on the inside of his cheek and staring over the dashboard with a faintly furrowed brow. It’s not the sort of quiet that leaves Gale uneasy, the sort that would have him braced for impact – or a finger hooked on the door handle to escape– and that fact leaves him somewhere in the realm of surprised. John was big, and he was loud, and a bit of a friendly bully, if such a thing existed, but he was as unthreatening of an individual as Gale had ever met. 

So he lets John brood, resting his forehead on the cold windowpane and watching the lights flicker by. When John reaches to turn the radio on, turn up the heat, Gale smiles faintly.

“I like this one,” he says quietly as the opening notes of Billy Joel’s Vienna filters through the speakers. 

John’s thumbs, both of them wrapped securely around the steering wheel, tap in rhythm to the music, “Yeah?”

“Yeah,” Gale says, quiet because the night asks for it, quiet because he’s listening to the music.

John nods slowly, kissing his teeth in contemplation, “Billy Joel, huh?” 

Gale hums, letting himself sink into the heat of the car for the last few minutes of the drive. Faintly, he suspects that John’s taking things slower than usual, to allow for the entirety of the song to play before they pull into a small street of modest houses. A line of single floor bungalows; starter homes built in the seventies that reminded Gale of summers jumping through sprinklers and staying out until dark, until all the lights in whatever house they were staying at flickered to darkness. Everything is cold and dead now, the grass brown and the trees bare and the taste of snow in the air, but there’s that same faint fluffy calm around the area. 

John’s house is painted yellow, there’s a few remnants of garden beds out front, and a string of white lights wound around the driveway lamp post. They go in through the garage, John gesturing for Gale to toe his shoes off in a well-used mudroom and leads him into the kitchen where the smell of cinnamon hits Gale like a warm, nutmeggy slap to the face.

The counters are clean, the sink similarly tidy, the dishwasher belching humid steam as it runs a cycle, but now that Gale’s here in person, he can see the cookies spill from the stove onto the counters on either side. Some batches are better than others, overcooked and crumbling, or clearly still doughy in the middle. The gooey ones have several missing, and it’s endearing in a way Gale refuses to admit to himself.

“Experimenting?” he asks, reaching for another of the visible failures, snorting as it breaks right in half at his touch. Suckles the piece he managed to keep hold of from his fingers and hums at the taste. Cinnamony, sweet, and just a hint of lemon.

“Trying to remember a recipe,” John grins like he hasn’t wasted what looks like a hundred dollars worth of cookie-making supplies. 

Making another wordless noise, Gale can’t help but reaching for the other half of the cookie, the sugar crunching between his teeth pleasantly, “Did you work it out?”

“Oh yeah,” John points to the two trays on the stove; the best looking of the bunch, “Complete mission success.”

“They taste amazing,” Gale admits, tucking his hands into his pockets to avoid reaching for another and instead opting to look around the space instead. 

Similar to his apartment, the kitchen opens out into the living room, though there’s a handful of steps leading down to the den area. The kitchen was bright, the cabinets a classic orange wood and the counters linoleum, the tile beneath them a pale beige. Two couches populate the den, facing an impressively sized TV surrounded by an array of shelves and photos. There’s a dining table covered in cookie decorating supplies situated near a pair of glass sliding doors that lead out into a darkened back yard, and a hallway to the rest of the house. Gale tries not to look too hard at anything in particular, reining in his curiosity with iron will.

“For some reason I expected you to have a dog.” 

John laughs, a quick bark of sound, “Naw, I– shop keeps me too busy.” 

Brushing past him, a steadying hand on Gale’s waist in a way that makes his stomach lurch just slightly, John carries one of the trays over to the dining table. Thuds down the steps with heavy familiarity of a house he’s well accustomed too and jerks his head for Gale to follow.

“Come on, they’re cooled off enough now the icing won’t slip off.”

Snagging another one of the rejects, Gale follows, sliding into the chair beside John just close enough that their elbows brush unless they actively try to avoid the contact. 

“What’re you gonna do with them all?” Gale asks, watching the way John’s tongue pokes his cheek as he carefully draws a reindeer face on one of his cookies.

 It’s not great, but it’s identifiable and much better than Gale’s own mess of icing and color. John had taken one look and laughed, asking how Gale could be so bad at cookie decorating and be an artist.

They’re two different mediums, Bucky.

It’s icing, Buck. 

John pauses, “I hadn’t really gotten that far.” 

Gale stares at him for a moment, then blinks, biting the corner of his mouth against a smile, “I’m sure Benny and Rich would be more than happy to take some off your hands.” 

“Yeah? What about you?”

Focusing on his snowflake, something he’d tattooed hundreds of times, Gale shrugs one shoulder, “Maybe a few.” 

“Or six…” John drawls, reaching for the next cookie, “or seven…eight even.” 

Gale muffles a snort of amusement. 

“It was kind of stupid,” John says after a long silence. They’ve gotten through a good portion of the cookies now, and the stove clock is closer to eleven p.m. than not, “I don’t even like sweets that much. I just remember these being so damn good as a kid.” 

“They are good,” Gale says. There’s a slight sticky film on his fingers from the sugar and icing, and he cant help licking it off as he sets his most recent design onto the tray, “Can’t imagine bein’ a kid and not loving all the cookies and icing on offer right now.”

“What, never decorated cookies before?” 

Gale picks up the icing, holds it like a machine and behind a skull with a santa hat on it, “Christmas wasn’t a big deal to us growing up. My father worked so much all he wanted was peace and quiet.” 

John watches him, halfway through a snowman. 

“Can’t say I blame him,” Gale continues, “My ex-wife’s nieces and nephews ran their parents ragged around the holidays.” 

“Holidays are meant to be exhausting,” John says, adding a carrot nose, “That’s why you eat so damn much.” 

“I don’t mind the quiet.” 

“Well, how do you like decorating cookies as a calm, composed adult?” 

Gale presses one sweetly flavored finger to his mouth on a grin, “Can’t say I hate it.”

-*~*-

John almost asks him to stay the night, Gale almost considers waiting for him to ask. 

John drives him home instead, a tin of cookies on his lap and icing caught in the back of his teeth. They do kiss in the car, just a little bit, John’s hand warm and large-feeling on Gale’s cheek, and Gale almost invites him inside. 

He doesn’t, and he sleeps with Pilot curled by his head, purring like a tiny heartbeat in his ears.

Chapter Text

 The best way to spread Christmas cheer is singing loud for all to hear- Elf

Gale finishes locking up the shop as Benny and Macon trade a cigarette by his shoulder, discussing the sharply dropping temperatures of the coming week. They’ve all managed to get out on time, nobody held back by clients or cleanup, and Gale eyes a crack up near the corner of the display window as he double checks the knob. 

“Gale, you wanna swing by Johnny and I’s tonight for a late dinner? He’s got some PPT meeting tonight.”

“Nah,” Gale says, pocketing his keys and reminding himself to call someone about the window, “I gotta feed the cat.”

Benny brings Macon’s cigarette to his lips, stubble illuminated by the orange glow, “Yeah, how is Excuses doing?”

“Come again?”

“The cat.”

Gale stares at Benny. 

There’s a thunk of glass behind them, and Macon raises his hand in a wave, mouth quirking to the side. 

“He looks like he’s about to fall,” Benny muses. 

Looking over his shoulder and to the left, Gale sees John balanced on a wooden ladder, one hand braced on the glass face of the window window and the other reaching out in an attempt drape a rope of Christmas lights across the top. 

With a strange pang of feeling, Gale realizes they’re multicolored. 

In the position John was in, like Benny had mentioned, he looks close to a nasty tumble, the ladder wobbing as he leaned most of his body weight dangerously out over open air. He tosses the three men a wink as he stretched just a few inches farther. Gale has the sudden image of the ladder giving out, John’s head cracking against one of the heavy ceramic pots below. He steps forward, opening the door to the shop and slipping inside its familiar earth warmth.

 “Jesus, Bucky, would you just ask for help?” 

“Come to rescue a damsel in distress, Buck?” John grins down at him, letting the rainbow string of lights fall to the ground with a clatter and hopping down off the ladder.

“Come to stop you from breaking your fool face.” 

“Worried about my looks that much, are you?”

“Hi, Bucky,” Benny says, slipping in behind Gale and poking him in the back until Gale steps aside for his friends to enter, “It looks good in here.” 

It did, once Gale took a moment to look around. Holly, and wreaths, and twisting brown branches dotted with fuzzy grey buds everywhere. Huge red flowers in crinkly foil wrapped pots and a few wooden Santa statues here and there; the sort one might find in small mom & pop stores that had been around for half a century or more. It smelled like flowers, and like cinnamon, and cider now too. There’s a plate of gingerbread cookies on the counter, a skull with a santa hat right on top and Gale reaches out to take it, biting down until the design is sufficiently disfigured. The lemon-cinnamon taste floods across his tongue, turned just perfectly cloying from the sugary icing. 

“I took a picture when I bought the place from the previous owners,” John says, “Set it up the same exact way every year.” 

Macon reaches past Gale for a cookie, regarding the reindeer on the front before taking a bite, “Oh fuck,” he mumbles around the crumbs. 

“Help yourself,” John tells them, “I made way too fucking many the other night.”

He smiles at Gale behind Benny’s back.

 Gale offers a faint one right back.

The radio is crooning Christmas carols, and there’s still a few boxes of decorations left unpacked, and the shop is so warm it’s like being wrapped in a blanket, even when Gale shrugs his jacket off.

“Do you want some help finishing up?” he asks. Nods at the window, “Hanging those lights?”

John blinks, then covers his surprise with a ear to ear smile, “Shit, you’re just trying to stick around so you can steal my cookies.” 

“Correct,” Benny says.

Gale, who still had an entire box at home, just smirks at him.

“Well,” John drawls, “Since Buck here is so worried about me, I better say yes and set his poor mind at ease.” 

“Anything for Buck,” Macon agrees, reaching into the decoration box and pulling out a soft plush reindeer, examining it with a critical eye. 

Gale sighs, “I’ve known these guys ten years, and you waltz right in and in a goddamn month have them calling me by a whole new name.” 

John shrugs, procuring another stepladder from behind the counter and handing the other end of the lights to Gale, “Not my fault you look like a Buck.” 

Shaking his head, trying not to let the smile overtake his face, Gale climbs up to to the top step of the ladder, bracing himself on the window frame. Sees John watching the flex of his bicep out of the corner of his eye and leans just a bit more, just to see if John will continue to look. He does, and it’s not so much heat as it is playful flirtation, but it warms Gale all the same. 

There’s a lot of things about John that were warm. 

Up on the ladders they’re above the soft chatter of Macon and Benny arguing about the placement of decorations, and it feels almost private when their fingers brush on the middle nail, John’s browned just slightly with dirt and Gale’s just faintly speckled by ink.

 “Rainbow, huh?” he asks quietly.

John smiles out the window, a mild, sweet thing. Shrugs and pokes his tongue into his cheek as he adjusts a few of the strings until they lay flat, “Thought I’d try something different this year.” 

The Ronettes are singing about sleighs, and Gale can see the dark press of John’s underarm hair through his white shirt and John’s lights look far better than the sad drape back at Gale’s apartment, and his friends are down below and–

Gale’s foot slips on the ladder.

It’s only a few heart-wrenching seconds of fall, a stomach-dropping feeling of weightlessness, mild shock, and a bit of amusement, before John’s catching his arm with one hand and helping him turn his fall into more of a a graceful stumble to the ground than a full blown collapse. He stares up at the other man, heart racing, and John looks down at him, eyes wide and mouth pressed to a thin line of shock. His hand around Gale’s bicep is shaking slightly.

Still, his voice is steady as he asks, “Alright, Buck?”

Gale’s tongue feels dry and he works it around his mouth a couple times, “Fine, Bucky.” 

Fingers press into his arm, not quite bruising, but a firm squeeze. 

“Didn’t think you’d be the type to fall so easily,” John teases, though there’s still something a little dazed to his face.

“Usually I’ve got better balance,” Gale says, feeling like he’s missing a piece of a puzzle he wasn’t aware he was expected to solve. 

Dropping his arm, John hops off his own stool and together they step back with hands on their hips to assess the lights.

“Think it might be crooked,” Gale says.

John’s elbow pokes Gale in the rubs as he brushes past, playful and light, “Embrace the imperfect.” 

The radio has switched to a call hour, and John fiddles with the dial for a moment before crowing with excitement as the speaker begins belching piano chords at them. Even Benny and Macon glance over at Gale, who holds his elbow and presses his thumb to his mouth as he tries not to smile at John, who had somehow managed to find Billy Joel on the radio once again. 

“Well isn’t that just ironic?” John grins at him, cranking the volume and reaching for a broom to sweep away some fallen sprigs of holly and pine needles. 

The sharp scent shaken loose from the disturbance tickles Gale’s nose pleasantly. John spins to another spot, humming along to the lyrics. Gale watches John, leans against the counter and thinks that so long as John didn’t graduate to words, his voice really wasn’t all that bad. Rich and low and off-tune for sure, but maybe he had some point about enthusiasm and passion. Maybe it was that Joel’s voice was so good, or that Macon had a decent voice and was singing too. Maybe it was that Gale was warm, which seemed to be something that John carried with him; warmth and growth and living things even when the rest of the world had gone dormant. Like he defied nature itself, too bold and brash and stubborn to allow something as primordial as temperature keep him from his work. 

Gale feels it too, as he watches the other man bounce about the studio with the broom as a stand in for a microphone. It radiates from John, his whole body like a furnace. Maybe it was the excess energy, the excess muchness of John burning all up and keeping him from feeling the cold. Keeping anyone around him from from feeling it too. 

 In John’s presence, there was no winter. 

John’s belting the words to Piano Man now, using the handle of the broom to balance himself as he leans his head back to the ceiling, other hand flung out wide to an invisible audience.

"Well, I'm sure that I could be a movie star, If I could get out of this place!"

Gale presses his hand to his mouth, tries to hide the broadness of his laugh with futile fingers. John spots it the moment they make eye contact and he grins right back, curls sticking to his forehead from exertion.

Warm. It was warm in here.

-*~*-

 The temperatures drop sharply over the weekend, Christmas beginning to loom and the shoppers starting to become frantic. Stroke of Luck starts selling more giftcards than they book appointments, but Gale doesn’t mind so much. It gives him time to work on painting his signs  and adding the final decorative touches to the shop, pouring all his effort into the four walls of the studio rather than making any attempt to bring his own apartment out of the just moved in stage. Nights begin to creep down into the single digits, and when John appears at their eight o’ clock close with car keys in hand, Gale puts up a fight only until he steps outside and takes his first lungful of frigid air. Tries to convince himself the misery of the walk home would be preferable to the reliance on John. 

It’s not, not really, not with the way the wind bites at the tips of his ears, turning them numb and prickling in seconds, and the way his eyes water with every blink, the shivers coming from the very center of his chest. 

“Just during this cold snap,” he tells John, sliding into the passenger seat. 

“I’m a negotiating sort of man,” John drawls. 

It’s short drives, ten minutes, maybe fifteen if traffic is bad or there’s a song on the radio that John wants to hear in its entirety. But Gale hardly minds, he’s warming to the Christmas music John will occasionally play, and had never really hated his classical taste in the first place. And he doesn’t mind it; spending these quiet few minutes with John. A gentle transition from the frenetic energy of the shop and clients to the empty silence of his apartment. It’s enough time to talk, to hear about John’s love of baseball and of Broadway plays. To hear about his mother and younger sister and how his dad had passed in his forties of a heart condition so John was trying to eat a bit healthier.

He’s good, the one time Gale takes a call from his lawyer to tell him the paperwork was finally filed correct, that everything was well and truly done. 

Thanking his lawyer, dropping his phone to his lap, Gale feels suddenly ill. But his voice is calm, evenly measured, when he asks John if he could pull over.

“Are you still in love with her?” John asks quietly when Gale’s done leaning out the open door, swallowing thickly now and again against the waves of nausea.

“No,” he shakes his head, wipes his mouth on his sleeve even though there’s nothing to remove, and then at his dry eyes, “Nah, not for a long time. That marriage had been dead for a good while before she served me.” 

John nods, looking out over the empty road, “How’d you know?”

“Know what?”

“That, ah–” he scratches behind his hear, a rapid, energy dispelling movement, “that it wasn’t working out.”  

Gale reaches for the heat but John is already there, turning the dial up and on a higher pressure. Warmth begins to creep back through the interior, chasing away the chill of the open door. 

“I didn’t,” he says, holding his fingers to the grate. The knuckles had begun to split and chap from the cold, from washing his hands after every tattoo, “I had no idea until I came home to her sitting at the dining room table with a folder of legal documents,” His heart begins to pound a bit in memory, the ghost of that stomach-swooping realization tapping him on the shoulder with ghoulish delight. 

Of course , had been his first thought. Nothing more, nothing detailed. Simply those two words; of course.

“She said I refused to see it, that I was too busy with my head stuck in the sand, too busy with work. Pretend everything fine, so long as things continued as normal I didn’t care to wonder or question.” 

John looks at him, brow furrowed and mouth pinched in tight, his mustache twisted with the expression, “Did you?” 

Gale closes his eyes, thinks about Benny’s indignant anger on his behalf, and Macon’s quiet pity and the way Johnny had taken down every photo of Gale and Marge from the walls of his and Benny’s apartment. 

“I guess it didn’t occur to me, that just because nothing was awful, didn’t mean it was good either.” 

John inhales slowly, a contemplative sort of sound, and then exhales in a ragged gust, “But it wasn’t amicable.”

Gale shakes his head slowly, listening to the occasional car pass, “I was hurt. She was hurt. Things got sour.”

“Do you wish you had fixed things?” 

Opening his eyes, squinting faintly against the glare of headlights, Gale rubs his thumb across the bare spot on his finger, feeling akin to a dog without its collar, a boat without its harbor. An anchor he’d had for years and suddenly had lost in the midst of a storm. And he had no way to return to shore. 

“She’s my best friend – was my best friend,” he corrects himself quickly, “I mourn that. I’d fix that.” 

“You've got time,” John tells him softly. 

-*~*-

Gale kisses him in the car, sometimes. Shrugs their jackets off and steams the windows and grinds their hips together until they’re both panting. He doesn’t invite John up, and John only ever texts him late at night to send him quotes from whatever book he’s reading that he thinks Gale will find amusing. 

It’s becoming something close to regular, or maybe even routine. It makes Marge’s voice ring in Gale’s ears, quiet and more sad than angry like memory served.

Got your head in the goddamn sand, Gale . 

-*~*-

Stop putting plant stickers on our door window.

Bucky Egan laughed at your text.

-*~*-

“He’s going to knock you on your ass,” Benny warns as he fits the keys of their little egg-shell blue two-story into the lock. He’s got groceries balanced on one hip and a beanie pulled low over his brow, unlit cigarette dangling from his lips. It makes him look young, like the nineteen-year-old Gale had first met, back when he’d been just as fresh-faced. 

There’s grey in Benny’s beard now, and he’s got lines around his eyes that weren’t there over a decade agp. Happily married, with a housel, and a do,g and a spouse who expected him home at certain hours, and something like a plan for a future. 

“Just tell Johnny to sit and stay.”

Benny snorts in amusement, pushing the front door open, and sidesteps with practiced ease to avoid the barreling lump of fur that launches itself at Gale. 

Meatball was of the opinion that he was two years old instead of ten, with only the faintest ticking of grey around his muzzle, and the energy level of a dog half his age. The vet said he might live forever and Benny said it was because he was part wolf. 

Gale takes the eighty-pound impact with a dignified grunt, managing to keep his balance but dropping to his knees quickly to allow the canine to wiggle himself all over Gale like the puppy he’d never forgotten what it was like to be. Tells him he missed him too through slobbering kisses and ruffles the thick fur around his neck as Meatball whines high and excited. It had only been a couple months since Gale had last visited, but the husky acted as if it had been years, and Gale tries to squash the bug of guilt under a mental shoe. Meatball was a dog, of course he was excited to see one of his favorite people. Still, it takes a fair amount of coaxing to get him to calm down enough that Gale and Benny can shuffle their way inside, Benny peeling off to deliver his groceries to the kitchen and Gale parking himself on the couch so Meatball can pin him with paws on his chest and give him a thorough sniff. 

“You shoulda brought Pilot,” Johnny says, leant in the entrance to the living room, a S troke of Luck hoodie draped over his skinny frame and sleeves pushed to his elbows, “Meatball misses his buddy.” 

“Hey Johnny,” Gale says. 

Johnny frowns at him, face severe and hair brushed off his face damply, like he’d just stepped out of the shower. Gale tried not to take it personal, Johnny tended to frown on a default and only talked nicely when it was to one of his younger students, but Gale thinks in this case he may be just slightly in the dog house. Johnny was every bit as forgiving as Benny, but he was more willing to make it known there was something to be forgiven in the very first place. 

“You stayin’ for dinner?”

“Long as you’re not cooking.” 

Johnny’s mouth quirks up at the corner, brows drawing down in a scowl and Gale smiles right back, scratching behind Meatballs ears. Johnny watches them for several moments.

“He missed you.”

“I missed him.” 

Johnny nods at him, resting his shoulder against the doorframe and dropping his temple against the wood trim, “My cooking’s just fine.”

“No–” Benny pops his head from the kitchen, pressing a kiss to Johnny’s cheek, “ – it’s not. Hi, doll.” 

Gale presses his face to Meatballs forehead, inhaling his soft dusty scent and rubbing his ears until the dog grows tired of the cuddling and wiggles out to follow Benny into the kitchen, nose in the air hopefully. With no choice but to follow or be left abandoned in the living room, Gale trails after into the kitchen he had helped paint that summer. Perches on the island counter as Benny fiddles with the stove and Johnny works his way through the dishes, washing and drying them and placing them out in careful neat rows for Benny’s use. 

Not offering to help only so that he can sit with Johnny, Gale watches the meal take form and snacks on discarded stalks of celery and listens to the couple talk about their day. Benny working on a project piece and Johnny who’d spent most of the day helping one of his students learn a new composition. Gale feels a bit like a teenager watching his parents make dinner, only never in a thousand years would Gale’s father have been in the kitchen and his mother would never have tolerated Gale breathing down her neck curiously. And he doesn’t think he should be feeling grief and yearning ,and picturing warm, broad hands on his lower back the way Johnny’s was resting on Benny’s as he passed by to brew them all some coffee. 

“How’re you liking the new place, Johnny?” Gale asks him, accepting the steaming mug and happily burning his tongue on the first few sips. 

“It’s nice having a yard for Meatball, and somewhere for Benny to keep all his brushpens that isn’t the kitchen table.”

“I still do,” Benny corrects, stirring a spoon through the quick sauce he had thrown together, “Now I just have to move them instead of us just bickering about it.” 

“I got ink on Marge’s good linens once,” Gale says, feeling oddly hollow at the words, “I tried to bleach ‘em clean but it just discolored the fabric.”

Johnny snorts, “The neighbors aren’t right by our bedroom wall either.”

Benny smirks into the stove. 

Meatball sprawls at Gale’s feet, white belly up to the ceiling invitingly, and Gale drags his foot across the soft fur absently as they catch up. It’s a stark realization, that even seeing Benny most days, there were things to catch up on. That Johnny and Benny had been living their lives outside of the shop, and Gale had somehow missed some of it. Caught up with his head in the sand, caught up with John. Focused on the shop and the time of year and whether he was engaging in some sort of childish hookup or slipping into something he wasn’t sure he was ready for. 

Watching Benny and Johnny navigate making dinner together, thinking about John’s elbow brushing against his own, Gale sips his coffee. 

“So how’s being a passenger princess for Egan going?” Benny asks, setting the pasta water to boiling. 

Gale thinks about John’s wrists crooked to hold the steering wheel, the bony jut of his thumbs and the way the Christmas lights played on the shine of his curls. The low timber of his voice humming to the radio and the rolling ocean movement of his big body beneath Gale’s spread thighs. 

“Fine.”

Johnny takes a pointed sip of his coffee. Benny hums. Gale shoots them both a frown. 

“It’s just–” Benny starts and then pauses, stirring the sauce like he’s choosing his words very carefully, “ – it’s not like you and Marge were having sex much before the divorce. From what I remember.” 

“Keeping a calender of every time I fucked my ex-wife, Ben?” 

“You did used to tell me things, you know,” Benny drawls, “But Bucky’s been hopping around you like Meatball when Johnny has a toy and I just think you deserve to have someone to at least pass the time with. Especially since he’s so clearly interested.”

Gale drains his coffee in place of a response. 

“Egan sounds annoying,” Johnny says.

“He is,” Gale says.

“Obnoxious, really,” Benny agrees, dumping the cooked pasta into a strainer.

“He is obnoxious,” Gale echoes, because it bears repeating. 

Spins his empty coffee mug, the ceramic bottom clattering agains the countertop. Thinks about John’s hand around his bicep in a rescuing grip. His deep, creek-colored eyes, and the way his entire face joined in on the effort of a smile. The hulk of his shoulders and how he went down easy for Gale’s touch. John smiling at him across the string of rainbow lights, the two of them with their heads above the rest of the shop, like they were the only two ones there. Remembers the way he was warm, and loud until he was quiet; when it was just the two of them. 

“I like him,” he says, voice sounding odd even to his own ears. 

Benny half turns, hand cupped to catch any sauce dripping from his wooden spoon.

“That’s not a bad thing,” Johnny says for him, “Gale that’s– you’re not–” he seems to flounder for something that didn’t come off as entirely insulting.

“It’s okay to be ready,” Benny supplies. 

“I’m not looking to jump into domestic bliss with the first guy who looks my way.”

“Nobody’s saying pledge yourself to him,” Johnny sets a plate in front of him, two more by the other stools of the island counter, leaving Gale squashed in the middle, “You’re just not married anymore.” 

Gale winces, even though he shouldn’t, even though he really didn’t want to. He’d meant what he’d told John; he didn’t so much miss Marge as his spouse as much as he did her mere company. As much as he simply missed not being alone. 

“He’s a good guy, Gale,” Benny says, “He’s got my blessing, or whatever.” 

“Thank you, Benny.” 

 Benny winks at him. 

-*~*-

“You really need to get a car,” Benny says, shrugging his jacket on in the front hallway.

 Gale tucks his tupperware of leftovers under one arm, tugging his gloves on clumsily. Shoves his feet into his boots and gives Meatball a few last pats goodbye, “I know,” he says, “Once we get a good return from the shop.” 

“Once you get sick of Bucky chauffeuring you around?”

Gale sighs.

They’re almost out the door again when Benny touches his elbow, light enough to barely be noticed. “Hey,” he says softly, “Johnny and I are behind you a thousand percent, whatever you wanna do –or not do– with Bucky, but you deserve to be happy.”

Not knowing how to answer, throat dry, mouth dry, Gale gives his friend a nod. 

-*~*-

The storm comes quietly, a slow snowfall through midday. Picturesque for the way the snowflakes were fat and fluffy and sticking immediately to everything. Gale spends the day working on his signs, and painting flash. And as the sun starts to set he eats the last of his leftovers from the DeMarco household, makes himself a cup of hot chocolate and tucks himself into bed with a good book and a paper napkin of John’s gingerbread cookies. 

They’ve gone a bit stale now, but the sugar and cinnamon still crunches pleasantly between his teeth as he nibbles on them between mouthfuls of rich cocoa. Scrolls social media and checks their booking calenders and answers emails until his eyes are drooping low, burning and every bit as gritty as the crystal sugar still hiding in his molars and around his gums. Pilot, curled in his lap, purrs like a tiny motor engine until he settles back against the pillows, head turned to watch the snow fall and feeling some sort of small, forbidden thrill. 

He’d never much liked snow days, but he’d always liked the snowfall; how everything went soft and quiet and safe like a blanket over his head shutting off the rest of the world. 

The alarm on his phone for the shop going off wakes him. 

He sits up, glasses falling off his face into his lap and rubs his eyes a few times, reaching for the lit up screen. Pilot, offended by the shrill sound, hops off his chest to go drink from the water fountain, tail flicking crossly. Swiping his phone open, he pulls up his alarm app, tapping the security footage and finds that instead of any sort of break-in there’s instead a whirlwind of snow whipping around the front of the shop, already beginning to pile in the corners, and fat snowflakes clogging the camera view. There’s a faint shimmer of broken glass all over the floor, glittering between the snowdrifts and Gale realizes that the front display window, the one with the crack, had been blown inward by the force of the storm. The time stamp on the security camera marks the current time as a little past midnight.

Glancing outside, the fairy-tale snowfall of earlier has turned to a full blown blizzard. 

Nearly jumping when the phone rings, Gale answers the call from his alarm company, reassuring them that no, there was no intrusion; just a broken window from the storm. No, he doesn’t need police sent to the location. 

Hanging up, he stares at his phone for several moments, heart racing. It’s quick math, adding up the costs of damage, and the likelihood of him being able to walk there in this sort of weather, even if he throws on every jacket he owned. Bringing the phone back to his ear, it only rings a handful of time before being picked up.

“Hello?”

John’s voice is rasping and fuzzy from sleep, a low baritone that would have Gale’s stomach clenching with want if it wasn’t already twisted in panic. 

He’s doing the costs of repairs in his head; the window and the water damage and the ruined supplies. 

“John,” he says, “I–fuck I’m sorry I know it’s late. The storm’s–” he’s shaking he realizes, starting with his hands and traveling somewhere in his chest as he presses his palm to his forehead. “The front window’s fucked and I was gonna walk but–”

John’s voice sharpens, a touch more alert now, “Fuck walking, it’s a shitshow out there, Buck.” 

“I don’t want to make you drive in this,” Gale says, even though he’s the one who called, even though he doesn’t have much of another option, Benny too far out of the city to make it safe. 

“No, it’s fine,” Gale hears the creak of bedsprings as John presumably rolls out of bed, a faint thumping and the sound of a door opening and closing, “It’s gonna take me longer, the roads are fucked but.”

“Thank you,” Gale says, a touch dizzy, unsure of what exactly he’s feeling only that he knows it’s big, and a little bit choking. “Thank you – I’ll make it up to you.”

“It’s fine,” John repeats, his voice slow unlike Gale’s own frantic pace, “I’ll drop you my location so you know when I’m arriving.” 

“Be safe.” 

He can hear the smile on John’s words, “You know me.” 

Pacing the apartment for the entirety of the half hour it takes John to arrive, he watches the dot creep through the city with slow caution. Switches between that and the security camera, watching the snow pile up with mocking enthusiasm. Every minute more to clean away. 

The cold wind smacks him in the face, like a punch to the jaw or a shoulder to the chest, and he tugs his hat as low as he can without blinding himself, though it would hardly make a difference for how heavy the snow is, how the wind blows it nearly sideways until the entire world is a white sheet of ice and damp. Scrabbles at the passenger door of John’s car and flings himself inside with a ragged gasp, gulping down the heated air like he’s drowning. 

Hair stuck up in tufts and curls, sweatpants shoved into snowboots and jacket zipped to his neck, John gives him a concerned once over. 

“Alright?”

“Fine, John,” Gale mutters, pulling up his phone again and taking note of every poster that’s been ripped off the wall, the plants John had brought him surely crusted in ice. Guilt pierces him in a sharp sliver and he sets the phone facedown on his lap with a frustrated thump. 

He should have gotten the window fixed; should have made it a priority instead of letting the chore fall by the wayside. 

“Just drive,” Gale tells him. 

“I brought a tarp,” John says, easing out onto the main road that Gale could tell had been plowed sometime in the last hour, if only because the snow here was mere inches thick rather than a foot or more like on the sidewalk, “And some duck tape.”

Gale’s eyes sting, and he pinches the bridge of his nose to ease the sensation. 

No music plays during this commute, nothing to cut through the whisper of the heat on full blast, and the crunch of the tires inching their way cautiously through the still falling snow. Every minute driving is another minute that his shop is further buried, but asking John to go any faster would be like asking him to jump out of a plane with no parachute. Picking at his nails, jiggling his leg, checking his phone with periodic frequency, Gale watches the windshield wipers fight valianty against the snow until there’s a familiar turn, a familiar back facade of their building where Macon and John had their smoke breaks. 

The snow has gotten worse, chunked through with ice and blowing straight into Gale’s eyes as he steps out into the blizzard, raising a hand around his face to block the worst of the flakes. John grips his arm, the lapel of his jacket tugged up around his ears, and drags the both of them towards the back door of Stroke of Luck . Stands behind Gale while he fumbles with the keys, blocking the worst of the wind and snow from Gale’s sight. He has to brush the ice cling away from the doorknob, misses the lock a few times with how he’s shivering. It takes both their shoulders against the heavy metal to force the frozen door open, John catching himself on the opposite wall with one hand. 

Inside is no relief, the shop equally as freezing and a horrible whistle shriek of wind coming from the front end. Someone, probably Benny, had left the door to the back room open and there were papers swirling across the floor; inventory and order forms and a few photos. The phone numbers they’d tacked up on the corkboard were fluttering in the gusts, defiantly still in their place. 

Gale can make out the first few digits of John’s number from where he stood. 

“Come on,” John says, tarp and duck tape under one arm. 

Out in the main room of the shop is in even worse condition; contact paper and the several foot-high snow drifts scattered about the room and peppered with glittery shards of glass. Most of the tattoo stencils have been ripped off the walls, the light paper ripping and growing damp easily until purple runs all over the place, turning the slush a vivid violet. It stops Gale in his tracks. Just a little bit, just for a minute. 

“Worry about clean-up after,” John has to raise his voice slightly above the wind, “Let’s get this window covered.” 

“Yeah,” Gale agrees. 

Ice stings his cheeks as they clamber up behind the waiting bench, boots slipping on the congealed snow and Gale has a vivid memory of being next door, up on the stepladders and reaching up for the top of the windowframe in a similar position. Has a vivid memory of those few seconds of slip and fall, and John’s hand on his arm. John doesn’t have a hand around him now but Gale feels steadied all the time. This time, his feet remain planted, the storm fading to a muffled roar as they painstakingly drag it over the open maw of the window, careful to avoid any leftover sharts of glass. The sudden silence of the wind against the tarp makes his ears rings after the previous chaos. 

John drops back down to the shop floor with a thumb of boots, snow crunching audibly under his feet now that the worst of the bluster has been tamed. There’s still a faint angry whistle, like nature was offended at having been blocked out, but the tarp and tape combo seems to be holding. 

Gale follows him in stepping back, wiping a hand across his nose to catch the drip of it. 

“Thank you,” he says hoarsely, breath clouding in front of his face and fingers numb from cold. Swallows a few times, throat dry and sore, “Thanks, I–”

There’s paper everwhere, carefully drawn art reduced to purple wet smears, trampled under their boots and stuck in the corners where the snow piled highest. It needed to be removed before it melted and ruined the floors, ruined the walls and the trim and the foundation. They needed to clean up the papers, and pick the fallen pictures off the wall and sweep away the shards of glass that dotted everywhere. They needed to assess the damage, figure out what could be saved and what needed to be replaced. Gale needed to figure out what this was all going to cost him.

The weight of responsibility is crippling, everything he worked for for the last eight months, this lifeline he clung to as everything else stable in his life blew up now in smears of once-drawings on the floor. 

There’s a grinning skull, the black eyeholes weeping purple ink, stuck to the bottom of his shoe. 

Breathing slowly, in through his nose, out through his mouth Gale walks across the wreckage to the coat closet. Takes out their broom and dustpan and narrowly avoids colliding with John’s chest, who had followed behind him and was reaching for the mop. The urge to say something rises, to tell John he doesn’t have to, or that he doesn’t want him to, but the other man just gives him a steady look.

Gale gives him a nod in return.

They clean together, sweeping up the snow and the glass and the paper into piles that John scoops into trashbags to be dropped at the dumpster once the snow has stopped falling. They pick up picture frames and stand up knocked over ink bottles and Gale spends a good few minutes going through their stock of needles to make sure the snow hadn’t found its way in there. John goes over the tarp with more tape and it’s not until the space is somewhat close to tidy that Gale realizes his teeth are chattering, the cold cutting through his winter clothes like they were no more robust than the paper on the floor and sinking into his very bones. Even John looks chilled, his nose red and skin icy pale as he pops his head out the front door and withdraws quickly, shaking fresh snow from his curls.

Shakes his head a second, slower time, “Roads are fucked, Buck. Pretty sure they’ve stopped plowing and I don’t think my car will even drive, even if we could get through.” 

Gale stares at him, then around the empty studio, oddly unfriendly looking without the lights or usual inhabitants. 

Rifling through his pockets, John pulls out his own set of keys and jangles them like a treat.

“Come on,” he says, “I’ve got blankets and a sofa and a coffee machine next door. We can wait out the worst of the snow there.” 

There’s nothing more to be done tonight, Gale looking around again like he might miss something; like there was some button he could press to put things all to rights. It feels a bit like the rest of his life, the hope and conviction there has to be some fix for the carnage. Some way to make it all go away, make everything regular once again like it was supposed to be. Like he wanted it to be. 

You got your head in the sand, Gale , Marge-in-his-head tells him. 

“Buck, you’re shivering,” John adds, reaching out with one gloved hand to squeeze his chin in a tender touch. 

At his nonreaction, John gives Gale a gentle shake by the chin, thumb pressing beneath his bottom lip just a little bit firm.

 “Gale.”

Inhale. Exhale. In through his nose, out through his mouth. Gale tears his gaze away from the room and fixes on John’s eyes instead, black in the gloom but he’s got the hue of them memorized either way; blue like the sky in the last few minutes before night. Soft. 

“Yeah,” he says, “Yeah, coffee sounds good.”

Shivering their way next door, John punches in the security code while Gale shuts and locks the door behind them. It’s warm in the flower shop, the heat cranked to keep the plants and flowers comfortable, and Gale’s got both of John’s gifted plants under each arm like precious cargo, the snow already beginning to melt and drip off their green leaves. John relieves him of his burden, placing them under some grow lights and giving them a comforting pat.

“Temperature shock might fuck some of the leaves, but they’re hardy plants. Should be fine.”

“That’s good,” Gale murmurs, surprised to find himself meaning it. 

Stroke of Luck didn’t have a basement, but that did not appear to be the case for the flower shop, John leading them down a flight of rickety wooden steps into a sizeable, semi-finished basement. The walls were stone and the light a bare bulb hanging from the ceiling connected to a timer switch, but there was a sink, and more rows of plants and a small pull out sofa bed and a microwave atop a small refrigerator that buzzed away pleasantly. There’s a coffee machine tucked onto the scant counterspace by the sink, covered in state park stickers and cracked in several spots, the logo nearly worn off. The entire space smelled of soil and sap and pine air fresheners and while not quite as warm as the space above, it’s enough that Gale unzips his jacket, draping it over an unused box of christmas lights by the sofa. Toes his boots off and shivers as his socked feet touch the chilled concrete. 

Unzipping his own jacket to reveal a bare chest, John grins sheepishly at Gale’s incredulous look. 

“I was asleep,” he shrugs. 

“You’ve got to be freezing,” Gale says.

“Naw,” John shakes his head, but his nipples are peaked and his skin goosebumped as he tosses the jacket over the coffee table, stepping to the sink counter to fiddle with the coffee maker, “Can’t even feel it.” 

The lights click off, and John leans over to reset the timer.

Sitting on the sofa, pulling his feet up and tucking them close to his body like a child, Gale rubs his knees and watches the flex of John’s back muscles as he pulls out two mugs, drops a new filter into the coffee machine. One of his crucifixes is twisted, resting along the line of his spine in a line of glittering gold, shifting with the flex of his shoulders and the twist of his torso. His sleep sweats, damp from the snow and stained from years of wear, sit low enough on his hips Gale can see the top peek of his tattoo. He clenches his fist in his own sweats, resting his forehead on his knees. 

Eyes closed, the rest of the world blocked out, there’s only the math to run through in his head. The forward planning and the backwards regrets and the mild horror at being stuck here, in a quiet room, alone with a man he thinks he might be feeling something significant for. 

John’s hand on his shoulder almost makes him startle, a steaming mug held in front of his nose when he lifts his head. Taking it in hand, the heat of it almost scalds his fingers through the ceramic. He lets the first sip do the same to his tongue as John settles down beside him, leaning back with a sigh and taking his own mouthful.

“I don’t think it’s as bad as it looks,” John starts, setting the coffee down on the side table and looking over at Gale.

“I don’t even want to think about it right now, frankly,” Gale mumbles around the steam filling his sinuses, “Good or bad.”

One heavy paw comes to rest on the back of Gale’s neck, kneading the tense muscles there. He allows the touch, eyes sliding shut and forehead resting on his knuckles, elbows braced on his knees, his entire body held up by angles and physics instead of any sort of conscious effort. Heat spreads from that single point of contact between them, down over Gale’s plain shirt and loosening his muscles into something liquid and burning. 

Dimly, he realizes he’s hard. 

The lights click off plunging the room into darkness, aside from the soft yellow grow lights in the corner. John shifts, his hand slipping off Gale’s neck to go turn them back on but Gale catches his wrist, setting his own coffee mug down beside the one John had discarded, and gives him a tug. For how big his body was, how hefty and weighted, John goes easy into Gale, catching himself with an arm on the back of the sofa and the other on the seat cushion. Silent now, save for the fluorescent buzz of the plant lights, Gale can hear the faint whistle of John breathing. See where his sweats sit so fucking low and loose, waistband long ruined by wear, that he can see the beginning of dark curls.

“What do you want?” John asks softly.

“Don’t ask me that,” Gale tells him.

His hand is on the back of John’s neck, slipped up from his arm, the top of his thumb and index just brushing the soft strands of hair there. Reels John in for a kiss, their mouths already open for the deep dive, and Gale swallows the rumble of noise from John’s chest. His skin is still chilled, cheeks tight with cold, and the burn of John’s skin almost hurts as he tugs them farther back into the soft of the couch. John’s knee comes up to settle between Gale’s own spread thighs, and Gale can’t help but grind up against the unexpected friction, gasping softly. Curls his head to the side to take John’s tongue in deeper, feeling the thunk of that crucifix strike between his collarbones, dragged down by gravity. 

A string of saliva connects their lips when they disconnect for a few brief moments. Wet shine on John’s lower chin and the bristle of his mustache. It breaks as Gale licks his lips, tasting the bitter coffee flavor of both their mouths. Coffee. Cigarettes. Sleep-sour spit and something vaguely sweet that might be from Gale’s own mouth. John leans in to kiss him again, the syrupy sort, the audible sort. Kisses that echo around the room as they part between each one. Fingers go from resting to knotted in the back of John’s hair, their noses pressed to each others cheeks for the deepest angle, rather than brushing one another in a tamer caress. Gale rolls his hips against John’s thigh again, the head of his cock pinching deliciously between their bodies. 

John groans again, his hand coming up to cup Gale’s neck, thumb resting against the flutter of his pulse and Gale tugs again, pulling John down onto the couch and underneath him in a scramble of limbs, sticking as close to each other as possible without making the action impossible. Braces one hand on the center of John’s sternum, tattooed fingers splayed just below the crucifix resting haphazardly between his pecs and allows himself to stare.

Eyes hooded, mouth swollen, John was lit merely by the plant lights to the left of them and the faint string of rainbow lights draped with careless grace over the back of the futon. His hands rest on Gale’s hips, sliding up his waist under his shirt where they feel massive, hot like a brand and traveling along his spine in a slow savoring drag of skin on skin. 

Gale allows the touch, aching for that warmth, reaching down to palm John through the thin fabric of his sweats. Cock and balls together, filling his fingers to their limit as he presses and squeezes, feeling John arch into him in eager response, head falling back.

It leaves the light curving over the sharp jut of his collarbones, the round of his shoulders and the flat of his chest and the soft hairy swell of his stomach. One leg on the couch, the other hanging over the edge so the meat of his thigh spread out in a delicious span of muscle. The bulge of his cock, head peeking just barely from the waistband of his sweats. Clear crystal droplet oozing from the tip, sticky and bright, turned a soft golden from the lights. Gale swipes it away with his thumb, catching the bead against his skin and raising it between them. 

John, ever on the same wave-length, opens his maw obediently and allows Gale to smear the moisture against the flat of his tongue.

Gale groans slightly when John suctions his lips closed around the digit, making sure to clean every bit. Doesn’t pull his thumb out until his lips are right there, feeling the slippery slide against his own mouth as he replaces finger with tongue, lapping at John’s gums like he might find the taste of his arousal there still. 

“Fuck,” John mumbles into their kiss, “Fuck, baby, you’re freezing.” 

His fingers trail up Gale’s spine, under his shirt and then down under the heam of his sleep pants, taking a handful and squeezing in a slow appreciation that has Gale’s stomach flipping. Has his hips rolling forward until he’s grinding his clothed cock against John’s exposed one, shoving the hem of his sweats down until he can pull himself out, rut the hard lengths of them together as they gasp into each other’s mouth. 

“Can’t even feel it,” Gale murmurs in an echoed lie of John’s earlier words.

John huffs a laugh. 

The sound is tender, the two fingers he drags along the top seam of Gale’s ass propritary and exploring, the other hand creeping up Gale’s back warm like the sun. He draws Gale down for another kiss, hand on his neck, hand on the small of his back. Gale pulls away, enough for John’s hands to fall away, enough to catch them with one of his own hands, the other reaching for that string of lights.

Looping them around John’s wrists, down his arms, it’s more a suggestion of restraint; the wires too stiff and pinching to be worth a real tie, but they glimmer multicolored and soft against John’s skin, hold him tight because he was good at obeying, wrists falling back above his head and mouth crooking to one side. 

“Want to throw a Santa hat on me too, Buck?” 

“Lube or spit?” Gale asks him.

“You ever gonna let me prep you?”

Gale frowns at him.

John just stares back, eyes tracking over Gale’s face a few times before he jerks his head toward the desk. 

The label is close to its three year expiration date when Gale pulls it from the drawer, but it’s still got a few weeks left and feels fine when he squirts some of the slippery liquid onto his fingers.  John’s watching him with hooded eyes, body splayed out like a sacrifice, chest rising and falling in slow breaths and cock oozing onto his belly. He’s kicked his sweats off fully, leaving them a tangled grey lump at the other end of the couch, and the broad splay of his thighs has Gale’s mouth dry with want. The dark splash of pubic hair around his groin that thinned out into a trail up his stomach, vanishing to near nothing at his chest only to reappear thick and tangled under the muscular spread of his arms, atop his head and covering the endearing jut of his ears. Ribcage flexing with his breaths, body tight with arousal, lit by the christmas lights tangled around his arms. He watches Gale right back, gaze hungry. 

“Done it a time or two,” he drawls, mouth loose with the words, “I’ll make it good for you Buck, get you dripping, squirmin’ on my fingers.” 

Something in Gale does squirm, twisting and hungry and a with a faint hint of teeth that he directs into the kiss he strides over to plant on John’s mouth. Cuts off the train of John’s fantasy as Gale swings back over the frame of him, parting only to tug his shirt off over his head and watches John’s gaze take him in, lids lowered, eyes hungry. His hands shift, the lights scratching against the fabric of the futon, like he’s about to reach out and touch. Fists his fingers and then relaxes, and Gale in a moment of giddy hunger, tugs them a little bit tighter, just enough to make John hiss.

Kisses the grit of John’s teeth and scrapes his own down the sharp edge of his jaw, breathing heavy and hungry. John’s grinding up against Gale, mostly into the air for how Gale’s up on his knees, fingers hooking in his sweatpants to banish them to the foot of the couch with John’s own pile of clothing. 

“You’ve got a pretty cock, Buck,” John murmurs between their kisses, voice breathy as if to keep his composure over the building desperation, “You’re pretty all over but that cock’s somethin’ special. Pink and honey and feels so goddamn good pokin’ against my belly while you’re stuffed full.” 

Gale presses a hand over John’s mouth, across the burning, swollen pillow of his lips, feeling where they’re wet from his kisses, wet from lube. Slips his other hand between his legs, knuckles brushing the burning line of John’s cock as he slips two inside, spine arching at the sting.

“Please,” John says against Gale’s fingers. 

“You switch up fast the moment there’s somethin’ you really want, John,” Gale breathes, shivers traveling up his spine as he crooks his fingers inside, massaging out the ache and stretch. “You’re just all mouth.”

John licks his hand, which should be gross, and Gale stubbornly refuses to let himself snort amusement. Gets his licks in by putting on a show of slipping himself a third finger, lolling his head back and groaning in slow approval. Rolls his hips in a languid full bodied drag. When he leans forward again he slips his freshly-licked hand down to cup John’s neck, looms over him with sticky hunger. Takes in the way John is staring right back, face a little flushed and eyes dazed like he’s been knocked a bit silly. 

“Gimme that please again,” Gale murmurs into the corner of John’s mouth. 

John gives him his mouth instead. Kisses him. And kisses him. And kisses him again. Like he wanted to, like there was something to be found between Gale’s kiss. Like he might give him something back. Gives him his mouth and his breath when he sighs open-mouthed. Lays trussed and trapped and fully able to free himself but meeting Gale right where he was at. 

John kisses him. 

John kisses him.

Gale kisses him back, tongues to the backs of throats and teeth clicking together and the brustle of John’s mustache rubbing Gale’s top lip raw. Kisses him back and trades a moan back and forth between them on a boat of slick spit. 

Slipping his fingers out, Gale adds more lube to the digits, rubbing it warm before sliding it down the burning length of John, feeling the phantom stretch of his throat as he feels the length and heft of it. Proportional to the man beneath him, heavy in the same way as the rest of him, and throbbing with a steady racing heartbeat. The angle, the focus on their activities, it all had led to Gale achieving only a shallow stretch, the inner muscles still left underprepared, and the slow invasion of John’s cock into his body as Gale choking on his breath, head falling back and John arching with a ragged curse. 

“How’re you so goddamn tight huh? Like you barely tried at all, baby, let me get my fingers on you next time I’ll get you perfect and open for me. Slip inside like a dream.” 

Gale can see the wet tip of John’s tongue as he speaks, glistening and teasing and he seals their mouths back together, letting go of John’s cock to slide his hand up his ribs, through the slick underside of his arm, taking a moment to tickle through the hair there. Up the taut back of John’s arm, tricep and elbow and flexed forearm. Over the cross of his wrists, the lights clacking together and shifting against his skin and over the warm span of one palm as he leans down, down. 

John’s fingers curl down, Gale’s slip through the emty separation of them. He kisses John again, feeling John pressing somewhere up behind his gut, nothing to separate Gale from the wet spill of him. He works his hips down, John pressing upwards in a steady rhythm, slow like their kisses and their breaths and, faintly, lightly, John squeezes his hand. 

Fucking with their fingers intertwined, palm to palm, slippery skin against slippery skin. Gale’s skin, faded from his summer tan, leaner against John’s broad inner wrist, both of them lit by soft chromatic light. 

“Fuck,” John hisses, breaking their kiss to toss his head back, words breaking off into a whimper, “ Fuck, fuck, fuck , Gale.” 

Gale gasps against John’s skin, lips scratching against morning stubble, thick and rough like he hasn’t felt before, pleasant and scratchy as he drags his tongue across the bob of John’s throat. Tastes his sleep and his sweat and feels the thrum of a groan under his mouth. Sets his teeth there, pulling a mark with slow sharp efficacy. Teeth and suction and the tickle of his tongue, sloppy with spit, leaving a glittering wet sheen over the dark purple and red of burst blood vessels when he pulls away. 

It takes a moment for John to open his eyes when Gale sits back, lashes sticking together and face flushed. When he does, the look between them is glittering, sparking like flint. Gale leans down to kiss him once more, changing the angle, and with with next thrust John hits him dead on. Gale groans at the flood of pleasure, John groans at the clench down around him. 

“Like that,” Gale gasps, dropping his forehead to John’s shoulder, vicing his fingers tight and dropping the other hand to brace against John’s ribs. Feels the flex of muscles as John grinds into him, “ God , John, just like that.” 

Once again John starts to reach for him, once again catches himself in a show of obedience that has Gale feeling a little wild. Makes a noise of frustration as if Gale cannot feel the way John’s cock twitches inside him.

“God baby, please, let me touch you– make it so good for you.” 

“You’re doing perfect John,” Gale breathes, exhaling roughly every time their hips meet, the sound wet and visceral.

John whines.

Sweat beads around John’s temples and Gale leans forward, licking the salt away and kissing a trail through the wet curls on the side of his face. Stops along the way to breathe in John’s ear, let him hear every quiet sound of pleasure his cock wrings from Gale’s body, before coming to a rest somewhere by the apex of his cheek.

Tremors shiver over John’s body, ebbing and flowing with the grind of their hips. They’re both gasping, the sound echoing around the room and their hands are still intertwined, the grip tight and a little bruising now. All of this a little tight and bruising now; from the way they move together to the way something in Gale’s chest is crackling like a shattered eggshell. 

Gale sits up, sits back; braces a hand on the flutter of John’s stomach and watches the pleasure and need play over the other man’s face. Chases his own pleasure with soft gasps and a rhythm that has his muscles burning. But it’s good, it’s perfect, it’s sending them both to the edge, sending them both to the sky right side by side. 

“Please,” John gasps again, eyes dazed where they fix on Gale’s face. 

Opening his mouth to speak, finding the words caught sticky in his throat, Gale swallows, then nods. Lets go of John’s hands to fist his own cock and watches the way John’s fingers clench around nothing, then fist around themselves white knuckled. John thrusts up, a groan echoing around the room and their fucking takes on a wetter quality, slipping down over John’s thighs and smearing between their bodies as Gale comes into the tight clutch of his fist, riding his pleasure out on John’s softening cock. 

They’re both shaking in the aftermath, John in the thighs and Gale more on the inside. Ragged panting gasps and Gale slowly coming to terms with the soreness of his muscles; hips and stomach throbbing faintly. They stay like that until John’s too soft to stay inside and Gale stands on wobbly legs, reaches behind him to feel the slick mess left behind by their activities. John sits up, the lights slipping from his wrists and leaving behind only faint marks. 

“There’s paper towel in the closet,” John says then grimaces, “It’s not really–”

“It’s fine,” Gale rasps, “Not a delicate flower.” 

“I try to be a good host,” John hums, standing and taking a moment to roll his shoulders. 

“Doin’ fine, John,” Gale murmurs, slapping the light on and rifling through a small closet until he finds the paper towels, cleaning up the worst of their mess. 

He feels oddly dazed, the casuality of their conversation not in line with the intensity whatever had just transpired. Or perhaps he’s just exhausted, tired now body and mind. John seems unaffected – or perhaps it’s only something Gale feels – setting up the pullout with pillows and sheets he pulls from a bin tucked underneath. It’s big enough to fit two adults if they didn’t mind a little bit of contact. Gale, already shivering, tugs his sweats and shirt back on and hugs one elbow while watching John work. 

“Next time I’ll get you candles,” John breezes quietly, “A hot bath and some rose petals. Get myself a better than ‘fine’.”

Gale’s lips quirk, “I’ll take the hot bath.” 

John clicks his teeth at him with a wink and a half-hearted throb of desire travels though Gale.

Upon finishing setting up their temporary bed, John goes for another bin that has an assortment of knitted blankets, dusty smelling and in a rainbow of colors. They look handmade, and warm, the sort of thing that was made by gnarled hands and with plenty of love. 

“The previous owners left these all behind,” John says, flapping out the blankets and laying them down, “I thought for a bit I might sell ‘em, capitalize on the vintage appeal, but I can’t seem to let go of them now. I want to make sure they’re taken care of, you know?”

His throat is dry, so Gale swallows, nods like he understands. 

The sheets smell dusty and cold, the blankets like they hadn’t seen the sun in a few years. But John –his arm around Gale’s waist, his nose tucked up by Gale’s ear and his knee slipped between Gale’s own– he smells like soil, and flowers, and living and warm. His knuckles brush against Gale’s stomach, slow and then slower as sleep crawls over them both. 

“What’s those flowers over there?” Gale whispers.

“Matthiola.”

“They smell nice.”

John hums, tugging Gale closer. 

-*~*-

Gale’s warm when he wakes. Warm all over and to the point of persperition. There’s a solid weight against his back, a lesser weight around his waist, the soft sound of breathing in his ear. He luxuriates in the sensation, in the heat and comfort; loose-limbed and sore like he’s had a long workout. The scent of flowers is in his nose, sweet and bright even as he can feel the chill in the air outside of his little cocoon.

But here, tucked up agaisnt John, he doesn’t feel a bit of it. 

“Morning,” John hums, his breath a humid puff of hair in Gale’s ear, sleep sour but not unappealing for it.

Just to make sure, Gale half turns his head and find John’s already picked up on his thought, lips pressing to his own in a slow greeting. 

“Time is it?” Gale asks when they eventually part.

John sits up for his phone, breaking the seal on the warm air and Gale shivers. Noticing his discomfort John reaches out with an absent hand to tug the blankets back up, rests it on the crown of Gale’s head where his fingers tease and twist a few wayward stands of sleep-mussed hair.

“Time for you to get goin’ home I think.”

Gale blinks at him and John grins, crooked and sweet.

“Gotta feed that cat of yours.” 

They clean up, Gale fetching a spare shop sweatshirt for John from the freezing Stroke of Luck . Find the roads still barely driveable, but the snow had at least stopped. John takes his time, both hands on the wheel, but every red light one drops down to thumb over the curve of Gale’s knee. Gale allows it, because it feels too damning to not allow it. Because he doesn’t think it should be wrong for him to allow it.

Because John’s hand was warm, and his touch light. There’s a faint furrow between his brow, thoughtful discomfort or some sort of unease. But he’s gentle with Gale, so he leaves it for now, giving him a squeeze of one meaty thigh back when they finally pull up to Gale’s apartment

-*~*-

They close for a few days to get the window fixed, to sweep and clean and put to rights what can be repaired and replace anything that cannot. It feels a bit like the genesis of it all. When they were still putting in new floors and arguing about paint colors and the only people in the shop with Gale were his two best friends. 

Macon and Johnny are in the back, trying to refile their papers in a way that makes sense, so Benny and Gale are giving the floors another once-over for broken glass. Benny’s turned it into a sport of who can find more pieces, and Gale only joins in because Benny swears they’re playing for bragging rights only. 

Still, Benny’s winning and it’s got something comeptitive itching up Gale’s spine. 

“Christmas is in a week and a half,” Benny says, slowly dragging a dust brush over the floor. 

“Yeah,” Gale says, fishing in his own corner for any glimmer or sparkle of glass, “Was thinkin’ of givin’ you guys pretty much the whole week unless you’ve got some project you wanna work on.”

“Love you, love it here, but fuck no, I’m going to wear clothes that aren’t black and fuck my husband every morning.” 

Gale snorts.

  Tink! goes a piece of glass in the garbage can and he scowls.

“Wasn’t bringing up vacation time though,” Benny says, then sucks his teeth, “We decided we’d host this year, so I wasn’t leaving my mama and sister to jet off to Jack’s folks, and so we thought–”

“Jesus, Benny,” Gale fishes a piece of glass out from under the front desk. Tink! “‘Not your and Johnny’s charity case.” 

“No,” Benny agrees, settling back on his haunches to give Gale his fully attention. “You’re our friend. Who doesn’t deserve to spend Christmas alone.”

“It’s just a day,” Gale says slowly, “Like any other fuckin’ day.” 

“So spend it with us.”

“Go be with your family, Ben. Not interested in the whisperin’ and the questions and your mother tellin’ me I’ll find a nice girl soon as I put myself out there.”

“Watch what you say about my Ma,” Benny snaps, a rare flare of temper and a button Gale knew was easy to push. “Stop being a jerk, just come spend christmas with us.” 

“Stop being a martyr.”

Benny’s glaring at him, hands on his knees and jaw set, “You’re so stubborn . Everyone thinks you're so goddamn easy going but you’ve got more control issues than anyone I’ve ever goddamn met. And you–” Benny jabs his finger, “ –need to move on a bit Gale. She left you. The world keeps spinning.”

Gale hides his flinch by fisting his hands. Feels a sharp burst of pain and looks down to find blood welling from his palm from a shard of glass he’d distractedly plucked from the ground. It’s meant to be a sterile environment, so he walks calmly over to the trashcan and drops the shard in.

“I don’t need you fixin’ me, or rescuing me, or setting me a pity spot at the table.” 

“I’m your friend! ” Benny’s voice echoes around the room and he glances to the back before taking a steadying breath, “I have been your friend for ten years. I saw you marry that woman and I saw you be divorced by her and I care. I would be happy sharing my holidays with you even if she was still in the picture because Jack and I want you around .”

“Ten years you should know I don’t need any of that,” Gale snaps, stuffing a tissue into his fist to catch the blood, “I’m a grown man.”

“Do you ever think,” Benny says slowly, “That’s why she left?”

Gale freezes. Forces himself to freeze because the other option is swinging on the other man.

“You’ve always got a foot out the door Gale. Ready for us to ask you to go; maybe she got tired of worrying whether you’d take the other step yourself.”

“Oh go fu-” 

“What’s goin’ on?” 

Johnny’s dressed in a hideous green sweater leftover from the few years Benny decided to take up knitting. It bunches oddly around his neck and wrists, but so old and stretched now that it draped softly everywhere else. Gale’s got a hat in similar condition somewhere in the back of his closet. Marge had hated it with a vengeance, smiled politely when they’d opened it but thrown it at the bottom of the winter gear drawer the first chance she’d gotten; but Gale had never had the heart to get rid of it. 

“Nothin’ Jack.” 

“Just letting Benny know I won’t be your two’s guest of honor for christmas this year. Maybe try inviting Macon.”

Slowly, Johnny crosses his arms, fingers disappearing in the too large fabric, and cocks his head, “Shockingly, we have room for you both. You’d know if you bothered to come see the house more.”

“I’m good,” Gale says smoothly. 

“I’m sure.” 

There’s teeth in the back of Gale’s mouth, right where words begin to form, and he bites his tongue on letting them out. Reaches for his coat up on the rack and shrugs it on in sharp, angry movements. Something like a half-remembered memory twists in his gut, or maybe he himself is the half-remembered memory. A sudden, unexpected shadow of a man Gale hasn’t spoken to for almost as long as he’s known the men in front of him. He tries to loosen his movements, takes a deep breath.

“I’m going home,” he says firmly, “Gonna try to order the stuff we need to replace. Maybe it’ll get here before the holiday shipping delays.” 

“Right,” Benny says, returning to his dustpan.

Gale hesitates at the door, caught somewhere between deja-vu and childish unease.

Johnny notices, his mouth taking on a slightly softer cut and opens his mouth–

“I appreciate you guys,” Gale rushes out, feeling the icy chill of the doorknob under his fingers trickling up his arm. Outside the snow is just beginning to turn grey from passing cars, the sidewalks a mess of rock salt and boot prints. The tarp over their window gives them all a faint blue cast. “I just really don’t want to intrude.” 

Benny throws a wad of paper towel into the trashcan with force. 

-*~*-

Gale apologizes over text, and Benny accepts it because the only person worse at holding onto his temper than Benny is his husband. But things are stilted and awkward, the two of them dancing around the subject of their argument with clumsy efficiency. 

Mostly, they stubbornly refused to talk about it. Benny stops mentioning his Christmas plans altogether, and Gale isn’t surprised when their tentative Sunday tradition of dinner at the DeMarco’s isn’t confirmed for the next week. Mostly, he thinks Benny’s trying to give him space, leery of being bitten again by Gale’s protective fangs. But he feels a bit like there’s something precious here slipping through his fingers. Not too fast to catch, if he could just figure out how to close tight in a grip around it. 

Macon’s not the sort to intervene so long as it doesn’t affect work, but he’s eyeing the two of them like a hawk and clicking his tongue now and again when the silences become a touch too obvious. 

It’s awkward, and Gale’s not so ego-blind to think it’s not his fault, but he doesn’t quite know how to go about setting things to rights. Instead, he finds himself frequenting John’s shop in the evenings, after they’ve both closed for the night. John’s in his busy months now, spending hours clipping and cutting and bundling flower arrangements for christmas parties and christmas events and to be sold the next day. It leaves John covered in cuts and soil and sticky sap, his smock and shirtsleeves darkened by water and Gale apologizes every time for bothering him but John waves it off every time.

“You’re easy company, Buck.”

Gale fiddles with his glasses, spinning the clear frames between his fingers, “If you say so.”

Billy Joel spills from the speakers and this time it’s Gale humming along softly to New York State of Mind . 

“I do,” John trims the stems of a bundle of roses, tongue poked between his teeth in concentration, “You don’t stick your beak into places it doesn’t belong and you don’t kick your feet against my counter.”

Looking down to where his feet dangle just an inch or two above the ground, perched on the only clear spot in the back room, Gale notices an array of scuff marks, like there’d been guests previous who’d been far less courteous, “So I’m a step above a toddler.” 

“Better conversationalist than one too.” 

Gale snorts.

Multicolored ribbons scatter between the flowers, alternating piles of color and texture and Gale slots his glasses on his head to hold his hair back, picking up a scrap of blue ribbon and tracing it through his fingers, “You ever get bored of making the same arrangements over and over?” 

“Not really,” John knots a perfect bow, drags the tails through a hefty pair of shears to curl them. It all looks a bit like magic to Gale, who’d always left the wrapping to Marge. “It’s kind of like playing tetris. Every flower is a bit different even in the same setup. Gotta slot them together perfectly.” 

“I suppose,” Gale twists the ribbon his hands, lets it unspool.

“You get tired of drawin’ the same spooky skull and crossbones over and over?”

His lips quirk, “Sometimes.” 

John nods to himself, pulling the roll of ribbon towards him and beginning to cut equal length stips, “I like doing funeral arrangements best.” 

It’s an unexpectedly morbid preference, and Gale blinks, fingers pausing their fiddling. Leans back on his hands and gives John the full weight of his attention. “How’s that?”

John’s jaw works over itself, like he’s debating whether he wants to answer, eyes fixed on the cloth in front of him, fingers smoothing over the bright lines to check their length in down to the milimeter. They’re perfect even under scrutiny; muscle memory precision in each cut. 

“Last gift you get in a way, right? Other than the headstone,” John reaches for a pile of baby's breath, “Baby showers, Graduations, Weddings; all those are about impressing everyone else. Funerals, it’s your last show of lovin’ someone. A woman orders a whole bunch of flowers ‘cause they want to show how much they cared about their mother. Or they’ll ask for yellow flowers since that was their brother’s favorite. Or pink, cause their daughter was a fan of Barbies. And it all has to be perfect .” 

Gale watches John, who doesn’t pause in his work for all that his mouth keeps moving, his gaze fixed on what he’s doing but attention not quite all on the same thing. 

“Funerals,” John continues, “That’s where I’m doin’ something that really matters.” 

“I get that,” Gale says quietly, “I remember my first memorial tattoo, for a guys buddy who was killed in a motorcyle accident–” he shakes his head slightly, still remembers the exact lines of the piece if he closed his eyes, “ – I went out back and called my– called Marge. Told her I was thinkin’ of her. But it felt like that, like I was actually making a difference in this guys life” 

“Yeah,” John kisses his teeth, starts bundling his next arrangement, and when he plucks a sprig of tiny green flowers from the mix, Gale accepts it with quiet dignity, “But holiday ones are nice too.”

“Beats truck driving?”

“Shoot, Buck, shoulda been a lawyer instead– askin’ tough questions like that.

Chapter Text

You want the moon? Just say the word and I'll throw a lasso around it and pull it down. Hey. That's a pretty good idea. I'll give you the moon - It’s A Wonderful Life

Stroke of Luck goes slow, and Easy Bein’ picks up; John spending long hours at the shop and Gale closing early some days. It’s fine – financially. They’ve got a cushion from the months previous to compensate for the lull. But Gale’s not used to the idleness. 

He passes the time by working on the signs, beginning to sketch out the final designs on the now stripped and primed wood panels. Decides to explore the local library, checking out various encyclopedias with font so tiny it hurts his eyes to read even with his glasses. Texts John. Tries not to admit that he’s begun keeping one eye on his phone, hopefully for a response. 

no sports at all???

I like boxing.

you just like seeing all those muscles and tiny shorts

It’s a time-honored American sport. 

Bucky Egan laughed at your text

I’m serious.

never met a queer so obsessed with being straight as possible

You disliked Bucky Egan’s text

don’t worry they booed jesus too

-*~*-

“Johnny liked a video on instagram the other day of a gay couple and their new baby.”

Gale sets his stylus down and looks over where Benny’s painting a fresh batch of flash, the cup of watered-down soy sauce sweet smelling in the air. The other man’s face is carefully blank, caught only in profile and leant down close to the damp paper. 

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” 

“Johnny’s good with kids.” 

“Babies scare him.” 

Picking up his stylus again, Gale adds a few more sketchy lines to his current project, “Doesn’t have to be a baby.” 

“I think he wants it to be,” Benny sounds a little dazed, “I think I want it to be too. His sister offered to surrogate at the wedding and then it’s– then it’s in the family. Then she could still be involved.” 

“The nice sister?”

“Yeah, the nice one.” 

They used to be twenty years old; they used to stay up until dawn and order horrible pizza and watch cartoons before they rolled into work in the same clothes as the day before. Gale used to smoke and Benny used to have titanium through both eyebrows. They used to talk and dream about opening their own spot someday, sure it would stay nothing but a quiet hope. 

They used to be twenty years old and that was ten years ago. 

“You’re already raising your sister and doing a hell of a job, Ben. You’d be a good dad.” 

Benny dips his brush into the soy, dragging the tan stain of it over the black lines of his designs, dying the paper something close to skin-tone, “Thanks, Buck.” 

-*~*-

u up? 

Reiterating my stance on booty calling.

nah wondering if you wanted to go on a little adventure with me tomorrow morning

Time? 

call it eight

dress warm

You liked Bucky Egan’s text

-*~*-

Gale’s breath billows around him in a white fog as he exhales into the early morning air. It’s a winter sunrise, the light a watery yellow and glinting across the white ground. Clouds sit low in the sky, promising a few more inches of snow later in the day and Gale’s put on two long-sleeved shirts and a sweater along with his jacket to combat the low temperatures. 

Still, he’s shivering until the moment he slips into John’s car, inhaling the smell of cigarettes and soil and cologne and exhaling in relief. 

John returns his good morning, but there’s a quietness to the response, a contemplative, subdued energy about him. He keeps the music turned down low and doesn’t hum along. But he drives with one hand on Gale’s knee, thumb brushing along the curve of it, heat seeping through the denim to warm Gale’s skin, so Gale is willing to bide his time and let John speak on his own time. 

Their destination appears to be slightly outside of the city, out where there’s a few more trees and a few less bus stops, the houses bigger and sporting yards. The snow is deeper out here, and the energy sleepier, people tucked up in their beds still, and Gale thinks they’ve got the right idea. 

When they come to a stop outside a cemetary he shoots John a subtle, assessing look. Tries not to twitch, or make a noise or let any ounce of surprise show on his face. He’d been expecting something silly, maybe even ridiculous. And certainly fun, as was becoming the understood norm with John. This isn’t anything he could have guessed.

The other man is giving him nothing, unbuckling his seat and reaching into the back seat to pull out the bouquet stashed back there. Starts getting out of the car then pauses halfway, speaks on a deep inhale.

“Sorry– kinda realizing this might be– you don’t gotta–”  

Gale unbuckles his seatbelt and John closes his mouth. 

Their shoulders brush as they crunch up the snow-covered pathway. Gale thinks if it were less cold, if John’s hands weren’t occupied with cradling the bouquet, that he might reach out and take the other man’s hand. Can feel the phantom squeeze of John’s fingers, the spread of his own fingers to curl around. His hand flexes faintly in his pocket, squeezing back. 

Off the path, into carefully shoveled lanes, Gale watches the trees around them. Small curated things, with branches that were bare and dry now, but would surely be heavy with greenery in the spring, dipping low to brush over the headstones in soft wind-driven caresses. Around them the headstones are newer, still shiny and polished without any lichens or moss in the rough granite sections. 

Towards the end of the row, only a handful of headstones between them and blank areas waiting to be filled, John crouches down on his haunches.

There’s an old bouquet, the petals turned brown and crushed from the elements, that John plucks away, setting it off to one side and putting the fresh one in its place. Scratches a bit of ice off one of the letters with his thumb, skin gone flushed in the cold. 

Gale spends some time watching John first, the quiet concentration on his face, like there was something else written in the stone that Gale could not discern. Something extra to the name and date and epitaph craved onto its surface. 

“ Curtis B. Egan, ” Gale reads, “ Son & Husband. ” 

The birth date was a few years before Gale’s own, the death a few before his divorce.

“I need to get somethin carved underneath – the epitaph, or whatever. But can’t come up with anythin’ good enough yet.” 

Gale’s throat is dry, his body going numb from the cold, or perhaps the gravity of what John was placing before him.

“How long were you married for?” 

John fiddles with the strings of his hoodie, peeking out from his unzipped winter jacket. He’s not wearing a hat today, the curls loose around his head, and a few snowflakes are dotted here and there, bright amongst the dark strands.

“Seven-ish years.” 

Gale rubs his thumb over the blank spot on his finger. There’d never been any sign of a ring on John’s hand; no photos in his house that Gale had seen. But, then again, there were no pictures of Marge in his home. No ring on his own finger. 

 He watches John reach out and wipe more snow from the letters, off the top of the headstone, and then rearrange the flowers; white snow cluttering their deepest nooks and crannies. Snow begins to drift down now with gentle intent, settling thicker in John’s hair and it’s not until Gale can no longer keep his shivers inaudible that John stands with clicking knees. Hands Gale his jacket and begins the trudge back to the car in just his hoodie. Gale pauses a second longer, looking at the gravestone again before following. 

John’s already started the car by the time Gale makes it to the passenger door, the air from the vents still chill but rapidly warming up. There’s the faint lingering smell of the bouquet, tickling sweet and floral in Gale’s nostrils, and a faint tinge of tobacco from the cigarette dangling from John’s lip. It’s not lit, and John makes no move to reach for his lighter. Gale slides into the passenger seat but doesn’t bucks himself quite yet. Sits and watches John nibble on the end of the cigarette and stare out the windshield in a squint, brow furrowed. 

“I was out of state for a wedding. Curt didn’t want to go, and he didn’t really know the bride or groom anyway; so it was just me. And it’s– I stayed an extra couple days to catch up. And Curt and I were big hikers; we’d done every major mountain in the country. It wasn’t some dangerous route he went on.” 

John’s phone is on the dock between them, the state park stickers more frayed and faded than even two months ago. Gale sinks his teeth into his tongue, feeling the faint sting and tickle of pain.

“They’ve already got him in the hospital by the time they call me, and I’m six hours drive away while they tell me they’re doing everything they can for my husband. And would I like to make this decision, and would I want this treatment and would I–” he cuts himself off, plucks the cigarette from his mouth and sighs a steadying breath, “You don’t think about that when you get married, you know? The– the what if shit. That’s for people who have been married for years. For a long time. Not when you’re twenty-nine.”

Snowflakes fleck on the windshield, blown across like tiny white tumbleweeds in the faint breeze. 

“They said there was a chance, tiny fucking chance, like, a one in a million chance, he’d wake up but –” John shakes his head, “Nobody said I’d be making a call like that; not even thirty and taking my best friend off life support so I could sit there and watch him die without tubes down his throat.” 

Swallow, a faint sniff and then a rough clearing of John’s throat, “And his mother never forgave me for killin’ her son.” 

Gale exhales shakily. 

“I hate Christmas now,” John admits, “I mean– I love it. But I hate the- the everything else. The baggage. The way there’s this tiny calender in my head; next to the holiday one. Here’s the day he fell. Here’s the day they told you the odds. And the day you made the call. I hate goin’ home and it’s not just ‘here’s Bucky home for the holidays’ it’s the– fuckin pity. Them lookin’ at me like they only ever see the empty spot at my shoulder. I hate that. Don’t think it’s even worth the drive this year, you know?”

John’s looking down at his hands and Gale’s looking over at him, and outside the snow is starting to fall in earnest now, the skies a soft fluffy gray.

“It was Curt’s idea to take over the shop. And I ended up being the one falling in love with the whole thing. It was his idea, instead of movin’ to New York.”

It’s Gale’s turn to speak and he thinks of a dozen empty platitudes, knows all the things you’re supposed to say when someone has died. Remembers standing beside Marge at her grandmother’s funeral and shaking hand after hand, accepting them all like he was blood relative to the woman and not just an extra addition.

“What would you do otherwise?”

“I dunno,” John shrugs, “start a band, dye my hair green, do a shit ton of coke. Wanna join me?”

“I’ll pass.”

John huffs a laugh, matching Gale’s tentative smile.

“I’m sorry for askin’ you here. I know this is kind of– I just hate doin’ it alone.” 

Gale taps his fingers against his knee, pushing his glasses more securly up his face, “No, no I appreciate– I’m honored.” 

“Curt woulda loved you,” John admits, taking the car out of park and taking off down the carefully plowed roads to the front entrance of the cemetary, “Like seriously loved. He’d think what you did was so cool.” 

-*~*-

They get brunch at a run down diner with the same interior decoration as it’d had since opening in ‘59. The food is average, but hot and served quick and the coffee brewed strong. Mostly they eat in silence, John looking out the window occasionally with a furrowed expression. Gale’s doing the math in his head, thinking of the late night texts and the invites over and the abundance of gingerbread cookies; a recipe John no longer had access to. 

There’s a bit of Gale that feels wretched, for all his bemoaning the holidays when all the tragedy in his life had been a product of his own decisions and actions. There’s a bit of him, small and horribly childish, that wonders what sort of replacement he was for Curt. If the blue eyes and the blonde hair were a common thread; if John preferred them tall and stoic and quiet. He can’t help but picture it; looking at a picture of Curt for the first time and finding it more akin to looking in a mirror than at a ghost. 

Like he’s been cast in a play that he’d been under the impression was reality. 

“Maybe it was a bit early,” John says finally, paying the bill with a quick scribble of a pen, “I should– It was early. We’re just–” he rubs his face rapidly, inhaling sharply and making a frustrated noise, “Would appreciate some sorta feedback here, Buck.” 

Gale winces, “It wasn’t what I expected when you said adventure but–”

“Right,” John says. 

“I’m just takin’ it all in, Bucky.” 

John’s mouth is unhappy, but Gale’s not quite sure it’s all about him, because he still gives Gale a weak smile, “I’ll drive you home.”

-*~*-

It’s not that they don’t talk over the next few days; things are busy and they’re both adults. But it’s not as frequent as it was before, John still driving Gale home in the evening while humming along to the radio. But they don’t kiss in the car, and neither of them invite the other over. It could be the way John’s busier than ever, the way Gale’s trying to catch up with administrative work with all the downtime from tattooing. 

But it’s less than it was.

A couple times Gale thinks about texting John, only he doesn’t know if John’s giving him space, or silently asking for it. So instead he holes up in his apartment in the days leading up to Christmas Eve and paints his signs. Stops into work for a few tattoos and tries to ignore the questioning looks from Benny the one time their shifts overlap. 

It feels a bit like two months ago more than anything else. It feels a bit like managing, more than living. 

Gale tries to do the math on when it had turned to that in the first place. 

It’s an impossible task, so he turns back to the much more manageable task of painting his signs. 

-*~*-

It takes twenty-four hours for sealant to dry, Gale forced to do it out on his tiny living room balcony to protect Pilot from the toxic fumes; but he finishes the last of his signs on Christmas Eve and sets about on the arduous task of hauling it down to the shops.

It takes longer than the regular forty minute journey. Gale has to stop several times to catch his breath and shake his arms out, avoiding eye contact with curious passer-bys. Even with the temperatures, he’s shivering by the time he arrives at the conjoined storefront of Easy Bein’ and Stroke of Luck . They made a good picture together, green and black and framed by fresh snow around decorated windows – one freshly installed. Decked out in lights –rainbow in John’s shop and white in Gale’s because he thought it suited the palette better – they were picturesque and perfectly in order. All except for Easy Bein’s sign, which was a worn, off-white paint job with a simple hand-painted name card. The wood was cracked, and some of the lettering had been faded away to near nothing by years of exposure to the elements. 

There’s a ladder still in Stroke of Luck from cleanup, and he balances precariously on it to carefully unhook the sign, white and green paint crumbling away in flakes at his touch. Rust cakes the hinges and it takes long minutes of swearing and chipping away with the end of a screwdiver to get it unhooked. He gets it free from the first hook and force of momentum has the second one tearing free as well. 

It crashes down inches from John’s foot, who was staring up at Gale with his hands in his pockets, air clouding in front of his face and mouth twisted in a bemused smile. 

Gale freezes. 

“Thought I was gettin’ robbed,” John says, and nudges the rotted wood with one boot, “Only couldn’t figure out why anyone would want this ugly old thing.

“How’d you know I was doing this?”

John gestures with his keys, “I got a security camera.”

There’s a childish urge to scuff his feet that shamefully that zips through Gale. Like he’s been caught doing something wrong; only John had mentioned wanting to replace the sign weeks ago. And, if he wasn’t careful, he would tumble right from the top of the ladder. 

John’s reaching for the new sign, wrapped in a blanket from home to protect it from any scuff marks and the elements.

“Wait–”

He stops, fingers just resting on one corner where the cover has come loose, shiny new paint glinting in the bright wintery sunlight. 

Gale drags his tongue across his teeth, works his jaw and then takes a steadying inhale against the heat creeping up his collar. “It’s supposed to be a surprise.” 

John’s face contorts for a second, almost vulnerable in the twist of his brows before it’s hidden behind a slow crooked grin, “Why Buck,” he drawls, “I thought you weren’t about the whole Christmas spirit.” 

His thumb taps along the wood, but movies to tug the blanket back up over the corner, then smoothing along the edge in a gentle caress. Pats it – still gentle – like the side of an old tired hound, faced turning away to survey the length of it.

“You’ll need someone to hand it to you,” he says, still in profile so Gale can only guess at the emotion on his face, “Promise I won’t peek.” 

“Pass it up then,” Gale answers with a dry mouth. 

He’s had to take his gloves off in order to undo the sign, and they’ve chilled well into numbness now, stinging faintly when they brush against the warmth of John’s own, their fingers tangling for a second while they transfer the weight of the sign from John to Gale. It’s not that heavy, but enough so that he grunts. Is grateful for the hand John places against his lower back even as it makes his face flush. Can feel the heat radiating from the bracing point of contact, John’s fingers spread wide. The blankets slipped some, and when Gale looks down to check John’s reaction he finds that John’s got his free hand covering his eyes dutifully. Like a child, save for the stature, and the mustache, and Gale feels choked by sudden fondness. 

It had only been a week, and he’d missed John a bit like a limb.

“You’re being ridiculous,” he says.

“Don’t wanna ruin your big reveal, Buck.” 

“If it falls on your head you’re not going to see it coming.”

“Just shout real loud.” 

It feels a little bit like being unable to breathe, whatever the emotion Gale was feeling. It feels like summer and mist and like the warm hand on his lower back. 

The chains creak slightly under the weight of the new sign; built of sturdier stuff than the last one and a little wider, a little less long. A soft off-white, like pale sand, and hand-painted in slanted, looping letters. An illustrative plant in a hanging pot, Pothos leaves curling around the words in an underline and a gilt border around the entire thing. It was the last design Gale had finished, the longest one it had taken to conceptualize; to convince himself it wasn’t an overstep. 

“Alright,” he says, “you can look, Bucky.”

He stares at the sign rather than letting himself analyze the other man’s reaction, but feels the way John’s fingers flex against the fabric of his jacket. But hears the sharp inhale, and ragged swallow. 

“Shit, Buck,” John exhales and then laughs, “I didn’t get you anything in return.”

The blush is well on its way to his ears now, “It’s not like that. Ain’t keepin’ score.” 

Gale steps down off the ladder and makes it halfway down before both John’s hands are on him, more helping him down than lifting but there’s a sense of weightlessness all the same, a dig of strong fingers into his hipbones, the soft fleshier hollow of his stomach. He steps back into John’s chest, and even though the scant two inches of height John has on him is barely noticable, the way the width of his torso spans nearly the entirely of Gale’s shoulders has him feeling cradled all the same. 

It’s a new sensation.

Unwelcome for how Gale finds himself liking it. 

But he doesn’t move away from the cage of warmth, the faint smell of soil and cigarettes clinging to John like an expensive aftershave, the steadiness of his breathing. Lips press against the side of Gale’s neck, painfully chill on the outside and hot at the seam. He shivers.

“How long you been planning this, huh?”

Gale purses his lips, presses one chilled thumb to his mouth, “How long ago’d you help me bring ‘em home?” 

John makes a quiet noise; somewhere in the realm of a laugh, or maybe a gasp, his fingers curling around Gale’s waist again where they still sit. Heavy, and unignorable. Gale presses his thumb harder into his teeth, sinking into the flesh just a bit, and tells himself it’s not anything more than what they’ve already been doing. 

He doesn’t want it to show, but John picks up the thread of it any way, his hold tensing for a moment before falling away, leaving twin spits of cold on Gale’s torso, across his back where they’d been pressed close. There’s no other choice but to turn, face John fully who was still staring up at the sign. Throat bobbing on a swallow, the angle allows for Gale to see a spot of stubble missed by shaving under the hinge of his jaw. Blue eyes find his, a little damp, a little bruised around the edges. John offers him a faint smile, head tilting slightly. 

“Think we need to talk."

There’s a lot that could mean, and Gale’s got Marge’s voice in the back of his head saying the same damn words to him while sat at their kitchen table, done up like a fancy night out and telling him he’s got his head stuck in the sand. 

He nods. 

-*~*-

There’s a photo album on the dashboard of John’s car, no wider than a hand journal, but thick with plastic sleeves of photos. No title or embellishments on the cover but it sits there and Gale knows what it is and it feels a bit like getting into a car with a strange animal; one he’s not quite sure won’t bite him. 

John starts the ignition but doesn’t drive, taps his fingers on the wheel and cranks the heat for Gale and turns the radio down to silence. Gale looks at the photo album and wonders and wonders and tries not remind himself of his own features in the rearview mirror. 

“It was too soon,” John starts.

Gale shifts, “No, Bucky–”

“No,” John squeezes the steering wheel until the leather creaks, “It was too soon. Maybe not for sayin’ something but taking you there, without warning. It was ripping the bandaid off and the easy way out. I could have been more,” he seems to chew on his options for a moment, “elegant.”

Gale snorts at the word choice.

John laughs with him, a hand coming up to scratch at the back of his head, “Ah,” he squints out at the road, bare save for a few desperate, last-minute shoppers, “I brought some fuckin– album my Ma threw together. Thought you might be curious,” he gestures at the black cover, ears turning pink, “Realizing that might also be stupid, now.” 

The leather is chilled under Gale’s fingers, wrapped over light cardboard, it clunks against the parking brake as Gale flips open the front cover, smoothing the crinkling pastic out so he can see the first photo without any blue-sky glare. Stares for long moments as John jiggles the whole car with how he bounces his leg nervously. 

John had been shockingly dainty as a kid; broad, with bird-like shoulders and thin wrists and a chest that showed every bone and curve hidden under the flesh. All limb and sunburnt skin and long curls plastered to his face with lakewater as he laughed. Two missing teeth, a mystery scratch on his cheek and more scrapes on his knees, his elbows. Flexing one skinny limb, muscle barely more than a bump on a log, every tendon locked tight with the effort of it. Arm around another boy, smaller, daintier, with muscles just as lacking and with a smile as wide and wrinkling at John’s own, like they’d crafted made as a matched set. His hair was less curling, but just as dark, with a round nose and eyes closer to Gale’s own shade than John’s. It’s the only similarity between them, really.

Gale flips through the pages slow.

Curt grows into a muscular, handsome man; though his height never seems to catch up to John’s own. Middle school, to highschool, to college; John turning from child, to boy, to man, to the adult sitting beside Gale now. The album ends somewhere around college, the veneer of friendship mantained through most of the album shattered by a shot of them cuddling asleep in their graudation robes. Their fingers are intertwined, bare of any sort of ring. 

“Kinda happened, or I guess it felt like what we were supposed to do,” John says slowly, “bein’ best friends for so long. And it was good, like– I mean it’s your best friend, right? You’re spending all your time with your favorite person in the whole world and he’s handsome too, and so you date; and that goes well ‘cause you get along. And you get married because the dating thing was going pretty well. And you love him like you’ve only loved your mom and your sister. You do. But sometimes you miss just being friends.” 

Gale closes the album, tucking it into his lap with careful delicacy, like it was glass and silk instead of leather and plastic. Watches John stare out the window, working through his memories with darting eyes like they were all playing out just past the front of the car. 

“I dunno,” John exhales, “I think maybe he was starting to wonder the same thing too. Not that we were fighting, or hated each other. But– well. Doesn’t matter now; now I’m his fuckin’ widow. I’ll never know ‘cause now I am always stuck being the person who loved him. And that’s all nothing– less than nothing. Cause he was my best friend and I wasn’t there.” 

“Seeing the road when you look behind you,” Gale says quietly. 

“Exactly,” John rubs his face, the heels of his palms into the deep divots of his eye sockets, curling them again and again and again. “I don’t know if he’d want me to move on, or to keep mourning him forever; if he’d be jealous of you or push me right at you ‘cause he’d see it. I sit there running that shit in circles around my head. And I’m never gonna know the answer.” 

Gale’s heart is in his mouth, just past the cage of his teeth; eager for them to open so it can taste John’s words in the air like perfume. 

“I like you,” John says, like this is some schoolyard confessional. Simple like that; sweet like that. Like there wasn’t any complication to it. It couldn’t be simple now that they were adults; nothing was anymore.

But John said it like it was simple. 

“I like him.”

“It’s okay to be ready.”

“It’s alright if you’re not feelin the same,” John continues, as Gale plays with the corner of the album holding his dead husband, “If you just want to– well, keep doin’ what we were. But I’m– I mean I’d rather have it all out there on the table. Make my play known.” 

“You using sports talk with me?” Gale rasps. 

“If you squint.” 

“Did Curt like your baseball metaphors?”

“Yeah,” John says, grinning faintly, “Yeah he thought I was hilarious.”

“I don’t think you’re that funny, John.” 

John’s hand on his knee, squeezing just enough for the bone to ache, firm and warm, “That’s alright.” 

The album in his lap smells like plastic, and like dust. It’s got John’s dead husband’s life in it and Gale’s ex-wife is back in Cheyenne wrapping gifts with her mother like she did every year. Her father would be sitting in front of the TV with a beer and a rerun of It’s a Wonderful Life playing. Gale used to be beside him, sipping a seltzer and trying to ignore the smell of sour hops. 

He liked that John drank whiskey. It tasted clean on his tongue. 

And he’s sat in John’s car, John’s hand on his knee, John laid bare next to him and wonders what kind of mettle one needed to be born with to grow up as someone like this man beside Gale. 

“Do you like me?” 

“Margie says I need to come ask you if you got a crush on her, cause she still needs a date to Junior prom and she’s gonna go with Charlie if you don’t have a crush on her.”

“Yeah, I guess I do”

“You guess?”

“I do– I like Marge.” 

“A lot,” Gale says quietly, pressing his palm flat to the front cover of the photo album.

John’s teeth are white as he smiles. He takes the album from Gale, very gently, very carefully, and places it atop the dashboard once again. The parking brake stabs into Gale’s stomach as he leans over to kiss John, feeling the roughness of his skin under his hands and licks the wet shine of his teeth. 

“I like you a lot,” he repeats, feeling almost giddy, “I like you a lot,” 

John’s fingers against his mouth, in the corner, feeling the shape of his smile and Gale kisses the pads of them, kisses his dazed laugh. 

“A whole lot,” John agrees, leaning Gale back into his seat, lips trailing across his face, nose bumping against his own and wet kisses pressed to the smile on his cheek. 

-*~*-

They end up at John’s house; mantaining composure until the door is locked behind them, until the album has been placed back on the living room coffee table, until they’ve shucked layers of jackets and hats and mittens and Gale is eyeing the spot of sweat on John’s t-shirt over his stomach, around his neckline where the fur of his jacket had hugged. 

Allows John to slip warm hands around his waist, draw their hips flush and sway them just slightly backwards until Gale’s shoulderblades press against the wall, John’s breath damp on his neck. John’s fingers dip underneath the waistband of Gale’s jeans, down the front, palm flat to skin and fingers leading the way. It’s a tight fit, the bones of John’s fingers pressing firm into Gale’s hipbones, into his thighs where they make a weak attempt at squeezing as John mouths sloppy at his neck. 

He reaches down to grip his wrists, but John beats him to the punch, his own long fingers wrapping tight around Gale’s forearms. A gentle, barely there restraint; all hovering skin and faint fluttering pulse. Gale freezes, feeling his own heartbeat kicking up a notch when he realizes John’s hands are big, can wrap fully around his wrist and still touch. 

“Why don’t,” John nuzzles up to speak in Gale’s ear, quiet and savoring, “you ever let me take care of you?” 

Exhale sharp, the breath almost hurting his chest in the exit. Gale lets his head thump back against the wall, squeezing his eyes shut against the dizzy crash of arousal. John’s thumbs brush over the bone of his wrists, circling over tendons that were always just a bit sore and aching, working it like he knew it was there. His thigh slips between Gale’s knees, nudging them aside with practiced manner. 

“Why won’t you let me touch you? Let me open you up, get you all ready for me?” 

They’d fallen into the dynamic early, Gale and Marge had. He more soothed with control and Marge excited by the novelty. Content to slip into their roles of man, wife, giver and taker and Gale happy to take the lead. Feeding that part of him that equally craved closeness and cringed away from it. With Marge he didn’t feel small, or breakable, or in need of protection. 

A blind spot, in hindsight; there had been plenty of hurt by the end. 

John makes him feel small now, makes him feel delicate for all that they really weren’t so dissimilar in stature. It was the nature of him; the inherrent Buckyness of him, perhaps, that made him so large. 

John’s thigh presses harder, teeth bony and warm against Gale’s ear in a smile when he lets out a cracked groan. Devotes a lingering kiss to the sharp point of Gale’s jaw, to the plump of his cheek and then nuzzles up against his mouth. A gentle kiss, another, a third and a fourth; each wetter, deeper, tongue flicking against Gale’s teeth in a silent tease until Gale’s chasing it, chasing John’s mouth with a burning, hazy need. John lets go of his wrists, cups Gale’s jaw, thumbs tilting his head for his own preferred angle and presses his knee upward until every breath, every shift of their bodies, has Gale’s hard cock grinding down against the rough denim. 

“ Fuck, ” Gale gasps into his mouth. 

He’s got one hand fisted in the front of John’s shirt, the other tangled in the hair at the back of his head; less of a guiding grip and more of an anchor. There’s still a part of him that feels dizzy, oxygen deprived and struck dumb. John’s in the drivers seat, the pilot’s seat, he’s calling the shots before Gale even realized he’d handed the reigns over. John’s tongue slips into his mouth again, slack for need of air, stealing what little oxygen he’s managed to gather and humming like it tastes good. The grind of their hips is a subtle, teasing pulse, John against his hip and Gale against John’s thigh, a barely there ebb and flow pressure that has Gale leaking a sticky mess into his briefs. 

“Let me work you up,” John croons, thumbs circling against the bone of Gale’s jaw, teeth plucking at his bottom lip between words. “Let me ease you open. Won’t even sting a bit, baby.” 

There’s a livewire sparking inside Gale, a downed powerline shooting electricity across the asphalt. Abortive in nature but still grasping at life. 

John’s fingers find the button of Gale’s jeans, knuckles brushing his heated stomach, and flicks it open easily. Draws down his zipper with a loud metallic sound and Gale gasps at the sudden relieve of pressure. Fabric bunches loosely around Gale’s hips now with each roll of his hips; stretching across his spread thighs and slipping low enough that it’s more his underwear that hold him in place; the damp front of it leaving a faint sticky smear on John’s knee. 

The hard line of John’s cock bumps against Gale’s hip, John’s hands are on Gale; on his neck and his shoulder and along the bony ridges of his torso, ribs and hips and slipping back inside the looser clutch of his jeans. 

Grip and squeeze, broad fingers and blunt nails and callouses that catch on tender flesh. John drags two fingers down the center seam of him, wiggles one finger against his hole; not penetration but teasing pressure and huge for how the press is wholly dry. His other hand is guiding Gale’s face into the cradle of his shoulder before Gale even drops his head. 

Hips stuttering, groaning gone guttural, his fingers gnarled and twisted in John’s shirt he opens his mouth to ask for the stretch, for a bit of spit – he’s got his own he can provide– just enough to get that sting going. But John croons, shushes him and presses a sticky kiss to his earlobe, mustache tickling the delicate skin. 

“Just feel it,” he murmurs, “I’ve got you.” 

Two fingers now, the same press and circle. Like John’s mapping the territory, formulating his plan of attack, his teeth sunk into lower lip and eyes well beyond half mast, staring at the wall like every sense is focused instead on the motion of his hands. 

Gale’s cock is aching, desperate for more friction, or a helping hand and he’s got two but the shores of his pleasure are too rocky to risk releasing his grip of John’s shirt. But John’s receptive, or observant, or more of a cunning planner than Gale wanted to give him credit for and all it takes if John giving him a bit of teeth, a faint nip to the flushed hot shell of his ear, tongue tracing the curve of it and tickling the fuzzy hairs there and Gale’s spilling in his jeans like a teenager. Mouth open silent and body locked tight, it’s the sort of orgasm he usually reserved for the heaviest sex; the sort that left his tongue metallic and numb and heaving for air like he’s run a marathon. 

“Jesus, John,” he gasps, lips swollen and tingling, gut clenching with the aftershocks.

The other man hums, slips his hands out from the warm cage of Gale’s pants and strokes soft hands up and down his sides. Doesn’t lower his knee until Gale’s worked through the last thrusts of his pleasure. 

“Not done with you yet, Buck,” John nuzzles against his ear, “That was just the starting pitch.”

Gale groans and feels John’s chest shake with laughter. 

Coaxing kisses, a trail of clothes; Gale’s shirt and then John’s and then his jeans awkwardly hopped out of, John’s belt yanked so quick from the loops it bruises Gale’s hand and he takes a second to hiss in pain before John’s tugging him close again. Kisses him while he shimmies out of the heavy denim and they’re both naked, standing in the center of John’s bedroom and trading kisses that set Gale’s body stirring again. Fingers loose around his cock, John getting the feel of him and humming when Gale cringes with oversensitivty. With how he’s still soft, body no longer a teenager and set on a hair trigger.

“‘S’aright,” John murmurs, backing them up and downwards until theres a soft, dark duvet against Gale’s knees, against his shoulders and John’s above him, wider than his entire view it felt like, “Not in any rush. Santa doesn’t care if we’re awake.” 

“You’re ruining this,” Gale tells him between kisses. Means it absolutely not at all and keens when John gives his slow to wake cock another chastizing squeeze. Would close his knees against the too-much sensation only there’s a broad torso between them, a hand holding them open until his hips ache pleasantly. 

“Mmm,” John agrees, letting go of Gale with one hand to reach into his bedside drawer.

The other he tickles up Gale’s side, drags his knuckles back down in a smooth caress. Kisses Gale in slow relaxing presses of his lips and puts just enough weight on him for Gale to feel the pressure. The snick! of a plastic cap unsnapping makes Gale flinch and he half sits up to reach for it before John’s hand is on his chest, holding him in place half-raised on his elbows.

“At ease, soldier,” John says, dropping him a wink as he works clear viscous liquid between two fingers, “Let Major Egan take care of you.”

“Major, huh?” Gale slips back down into the catch of the blankets.

“‘Course,” John breezes, hand vanishing between them and Gale gasps at a sudden wet pressure between his legs, “You are too.” 

“Am I?” he breathes, closing his eyes and biting his lip at the slow circle of John’s thumb. 

“Uh-huh,” the bed creaks as John shifts, lips trailing down the center-line of Gale’s chest, “Pilots, like you wanted to be.” He slips one finger inside, and Gale arches on a gasp. “Off savin’ the world.” 

The slow pump of John’s finger, bigger than Gale’s own, has him biting his lip. Sucking back another dizzy suck of air as John wiggles his tongue against Gale’s soft cock his voice cracks slightly, “What we flying?”

“Hmm,” a second finger, lips on Gale’s thigh, teeth a firm press instead of anything sharp, “B-17’s. The big birds.”

Gale smiles on his moan, “We fightin’ Nazis, Bucky?” 

“Hell yeah we’re fightin’ Nazis,” John gives him a third, and Gale’s amazed for how easy he opens up, liquid press and smooth glide and a burning sort of arousal that was all heat and no sting, “We’re flyin’ over England, and France, and Austria.” 

John’s sitting up, sitting back and his fingers slipping out. Going to Gale’s hips again, lifting them and tugging him forward until John’s knees are tucked under Gale’s tailbone, until there’s a larger, blunter pressure at Gale’s hole; slick and dripping wet. Gale’s molars ache for it, his brow furrowing and mouth falling open. 

“What if we get shot down?” 

Penetration goes as smooth and easy as everything else, John’s hips coming flush with Gale’s ass in one easy motion that has pleasure sparking up Gale’s spine. Leaves John gasping above him. Eyes still closed, Gale tastes the smile on John’s mouth when he suddenly finds his lips right there for a deep kiss. 

“I’ll follow you,” John says simply, rolling his hips forward, “Right across all of damn Germany.”

“God–” 

John leans forward, Gale’s knees coming up around his hips and Gale chokes at the new depth of angle. The way John bumps right up inside him. Drags one set of nails down Johns back to grasp at the curve of his ass, feeling the swirlng hair there. John moans encouraginly 

“Ain’t gonna get shot down, Buck,” John breathes, pulling away just enough until they’re nose to nose, sweaty forehead pressed to sweaty temple. He’s got no color in his eyes other than blue, a perfect monochrome palette.

“No?” 

Gale’s voice sounds breathless in his own ears, ragged and needing and he reaches down to give his still mostly-soft cock a squeeze, finding it wet anyways. It’s strange, being fucked without the other bits of him in place. Dizzying and more intense; there’s no arousal-itch telling him to get off; at least not quite yet. It’s all John, and John’s cock inside him and the way he’s warm, and large, and working Gale boneless from the inside out. 

“Nah, we’re lucky. Gonna fly all over those blue, blue, blue skies.” 

His thumb presses to the bottom plush of Gale’s lip, slick with lube. Gale feels the pressure of it against his bottom teeth. 

“Me and you, Buck.”

They’re fucking like they’ve been doing it for years, a slow grind and rub that allows for little space between their bodes, John broad and heavy between Gale’s thighs and the slow ocean roll of their hips a full-bodied press that has John hitting him deep. Gale’s mapping out the curve of John’s spine, feeling the bumpy vertebrae and strong flex of shoulder blades. Faint bump of a mole; here and there. Quiet surprises in the otherwise smooth texture of him. 

Open mouthed, Gale fights for his air. All stolen away by John’s weight and his crooning voice and the way Gale isn’t quite sure he’s ever been fucked like this. Wanted it quite this badly.

 His cock is thickening against his hip again, plumping with blood and oozing sticky strings across his belly and the sounds escaping his throat take on a higher, needier pitch. John groans, lips against Gale’s cheek, nose pressing against the side of Gale’s own and then he’s pulling out. Gale only has time to gasp a faint protest that has his cheeks flushing, before John’s turning him onto his belly, a hand braced against Gale’s waist and the other guiding his cock straight back inside. 

“ John, ” Gale groans, deep and guttural as John hits him deep, hits him hard, forcing the breath from his lungs same as a blow. He grips the edge of the bed with one hand, the other reaching back to tangle in John’s hair.

He can feel the puff of John’s damp breath against his ear, a ragge, hungry sort of exhale. And panting with need. The rough duvet is near-painful against his cock, a constant friction right on the edge of too much. All his skin feels hypersensitive, raw like a sunburn; only it’s just John’s touch on his skin, gentle and firm in perfect equal amounts. His hand cups Gale’s jaw, turns his head until theyre kissing again, trading sounds and whimpers and a little bit of teeth. 

John fucks him rough, fucks him like he needs him, the sound of their skin impacting a fleshy, animal sound that echoes in Gale’s ears. 

“That’s good, Gale,” it’s John’s turn to croon now, fingers slippery on Gale’s skin, or maybe his are dry and it’s Gale’s own skin that’s slick with sweat. 

Because Gale is warm, sweating even, the sheets a moderate level of relief against his cheek but he’s burning up from the inside out, John hot against his back. The sheets under his cheek smell like John; dirt and cologne and fresh lemony bodywash but underneath the faint sour of sweat and sleep, like it’s been a few days since he’s changed the sheets.

John’s hand smooths down Gale’s spine, arching his back. The touch is heavy, that same self-assured drag of relish, John helping himself to the planes and angles of Gale’s body as he kisses the wet open slash of this mouth. Over the curve of Gale’s shoulderblade to squeeze at the tendon between arm and neck, down the front of his chest to palm at one pec, thumb over his nipples. Hugging Gale back against him, their bodies moving in a slow grind that Gale panting through open-mouthed pleasure. 

He sounds ruined, even to his own ears. Eyes rolling and thighs shivering; there’s an orgasm flirting around his gut, slow to rouse and irate about it. Barreling towards peak with a slow fury that leaves Gale no mind left but to take, to feel. 

Whines John’s name again, warning and plea wrapped together and is answered by a ragged groan, a squeeze of his arm around his chest and lips pressing against his ear, too close, too close, breath curling there with ragged-gasp pleasure; like John’s every bit as lost in it as Gale himself. 

“With me,” John pleads in a rasp, “With me, Gale, fuck– ” 

Gale can feel the first twitch of John’s orgasm, a hot flood of warmth inside him and Gale’s as noisy with his orgasm as John is silent with his, the sound from his chest thick and choked and full-bellied. It rolls through him like a thundercloud, deep and foggy and rendering him boneless and shivering for breath. 

John’s of a similar status, his arms trembling against Gale’s sides as he pushes up onto his knees. Gale winces as the slippery exit of John’s cock, sore and stretched and suddenly shockingly empty. Then John’s thumb is there, circling through the mess he’s left behind, smearing it sitcky and cooling acdorss sensitive skin. Dips his head low.

“Oh, Jesus , John–” 

A tongue, flattened to a broad plane, slipping between his cheeks. Wiggling around the loosened clutch of his hole and delving inside to sample. Gale feels the virbation of John’s groan against his taint, and he answers with a choked off sob of his own as electricity arcs up his spine.

John laps into him, wide licks and slower, deeper drags of his tongue, fingers slipping inside to open the pathway, to make sure he’s getting every drop of what he’d left behind. His other thumb circles down behind Gales’ balls, a slow lazy constant pressure that has Gale gritting his teeth, cringing away and then back against the too-much pleasure. 

“I can’t– John, John, seriously. It’s too much–”

John just rumbles at him, a faint groan like Gale’s protests only add to the treat. 

It’s the knifes edge of pain, nerves sparking dully, tired and panting and sending shivers over Gale’s entire body. He whines. John just hums again, knuckles brushing the underside of Gale’s softened cock slowly, collecting the beading moisture there and dragging it back up. 

The orgasm is painful – too quick and strong like a kick to the head – every muscle in his body clenching in waves of press and release. Coming dry, coming full-bodied. He sinks his teeth into his fist to keep in the shout that wants to escape. 

John works him through it with long swipes of his tongue that leave Gale twitching until he finally pulls away, seemingly satisfied with his clean-up job. 

With the way Gale’s shaking with aftershocks, his body a mess of tingling warmth and soreness.

John helps him roll onto his back, helps him arrange his limbs and then is draping across his body, tugging the blanket free and up over their bodies; racing against the cooling sweat that was already setting Gale shivering. His fingers, wiped dry on a corner of the sheets, drag up and down Gale’s stomach, his nose tucked up by his ear. He hums in Gale’s ear softly, tune only vaguely familiar. 

It takes Gale a moment to place, his brain still sparks and cotton-fluff

“Billy Joel?”

“Mhm,” John hums, “ She’s Right On Time . You know that one?” 

Gale smiles up at the ceiling, blinking his eyes open and finding John right there, just to his left, his face little more than the proud slope of a nose and heavy curve of a brow and wave tufts of brown hair.

“I do,” he says, reaching out with a thumb to trace the line of John’s eyebrow. Can tell by the shift of muscle that John’s looking up, “I like that one.”

“Hah,” John laughs softly, triumpahnt “It’s a Christmas song, Buck.” 

John’s warm, enough to make Gale sweat a little bit; just at the backs of his knees and around his temples. A pleasnt warmth with a familiar scent and hands pricked and scabbed from building floral arrangements dragging over Gale’s skin. 

It’s different. It feels more right than anything Gale’s ever felt befor and he rubs a hand against the center of his chest, feeling for the source of the sudden tightness there, a sharp ache like a stitch in his side. Only instead of by his lungs it’s up behind his heart, or maybe right inside of it. Couldn’t be a crush, because that was juvenile and already admitted, and couldn’t be arousal because he’s still trying to regain feeling in his extremities. Tired, but not exhaustion, and the closest thing he could call it is heartbreak but he doesn’t feel like curling up in defense against it. 

But it’s loud. 

-*~*-

They doze for a few hours. Until the light fades into soft blue night, and then John drives Gale back home. 

John kisses him at his front door, chaste and gentlemanly and it shouldn’t make Gale feel young, or silly, or giddy. But it does, each emotion chasing on the heels of the one previous. 

“I’m serious about that cat feeder,” John says, crouching down in the open door of Gale’s apartment to give Pilot a scratch hello, “Make both your lives easier.” 

“I like feedin’ her,” Gale says. His whole body is heavy with tiredness, sore in all the most pleasant places and even though they’d slept the afternoon away he’s already looking forward to his own bed, “Keeps her thinkin’ I’m different from the furniture.” 

John gives him an odd, contemplative look, like Gale’s said something horribly sad and John’s trying to figure out how to tell him. 

“Animals have feelings, you know. She loves you every bit as you love her, Buck.” 

Gale blinks.

“I guess.”

Pilot purrs so hard it shakes her little body as she nudges up between them both, putting two bold paws out into the forbidden carpet of the hallway and Gale scoops her up where she flops happily, belly warm and dusty when he nuzzles there for a second. John reaches out to rub one of her ears between thumb and forefinger. 

“I’ll make you a bet.” 

“I don’t gamble, Bucky.”

John grins crookedly at him, boyish and teasing, “Gonna get you that feeder; and if she abandons you completely for her new mechanical god I’ll cover the heating bill for both our shops for a month.” 

He’s got his finger pointed at Gale in emphasis, brow raised and mouth lax as if he’s making the sell of the century. If Gale looks closely theres tension around his eyes, a forced lightness to his voice and he realizes that maybe John’s stalling, just a little bit, to avoid going back home to an empty house. Void of even a cat. 

Gale pulls him in for another slow, chaste kiss. Pilot lets out a faint surprised mrrp! from between them, finding herself suddenly squished between two broad chests.

“Go home to your family, Bucky.”

John pauses, and Gale pulls away just enough to look him right in the eye, like his father taught him to when he had something important to say. 

“It’s Christmas, John,” he says quietly, “You’ve got a family who wants you, even if there’s ghosts.” 

The leather of John’s jacket creaks as he straightens and though he’s silent he doesn’t look angry so Gale continues on.

“My family's not–” he cuts his words on his teeth and shrugs, “I guess I can’t claim any sort of high ground. But I think you wanna go. And you should –I think you should.”

-*~*-

Christmas morning brings a fresh blanket of snow. 

The heavy, dry, kind. The kind that sticks to the windows and leaves Gale’s entire room dark, save for the weak blue light filtering through the lumpy clods stuck to the glass. Pilot’s curled by his head, her pink nose fluttering with heavy determined sleep breathing, each exhale vaguely fishy smelling and he wakes her slowly with one finger scritching around her neck. Relishes her sleepy sounds as she rouses herself and then drops down off the bed with a heavy thunk, shaking herself out and leading the way into the kitchen with tail held high. 

He follows after dutifully, rubbing the sleep from his eyes and snagging his glasses from the bedside table, squinting out into the living room that is similarly lit up blue from snow clinging to the windows.

The entire apartment feels quiet, sound muffled by the snow. Gale’s body is warm and pleasantly sluggish, his phone telling him it’s a little past ten in the morning. It’s the latest he’s slept in years and he considers texting John to see if his advice was taken. But he doesn’t want to be a nuisance, doesn’t want to come off as pushing and really he’s got no reason to pry. 

They liked each other, and even if there’s an itch in Gale’s chest, in his fingers, it’s just a like and attraction and maybe the idea of it being something more. If it works, if Gale doesn’t stick his head in the sand again. 

He doesn’t want to, he can’t imagine not. Being with John left him feeling terrifyingly present, aware of himself and of John in a way he’d never felt with Marge. 

Left him warm. 

Feeding Pilot her Christmas breakfast – another slice of salmon as well as her favorite pate– he strokes the bony jut of her spine and runs it over in his mind. Analytical-like, from top to bottom, start to finish. Looks at like a puzzle, or a math problem, or an overly complicated client request. Puzzles it over as he nibbles through a slice of plain toast and black coffee. As he works on flash sheets on his sofa, feet stuck in fuzzy socks and It’s A Wonderful Life playing on TV. 

Halfway through he blinks and gives the movie on screen a long, quiet look before switching it to a space documentary. 

He ponders it as the sun starts slipping back down to the skyline sometime around two, the light turning golden and hazy. 

John’s hands on his hips over his jacket, his heavy arm around Gale’s shoulder and the white splash of whipped cream across the bristly twist of his mustache. The way he talked loud when he wanted and spoke quietly when he needed to and seemed like he’d never considered there might be someone who didn’t want to be his friend. He’s not like Marge at all, not even a little bit – save for where they both made something in Gale feel warm. 

By five o’clock there’s an answer in his mind, but the vastness of it floors him. 

He’s abandoned all projects by now, laying on the sofa with his arms across his chest and Pilot curled on his sternum, purring softly and blinking at him in slow winks. It itches at him like a mosquito bite, like poison ivy; the sort of thought that leaves one tossing and turning awake at night. Leaves him shaking just a bit, jittery just enough to reach for his phone and dial. 

It’s the sort of miracle longshot saved for sports movies and war flicks. Plane on, one engine type of chance, a plane with no engine type of luck. 

“Hello?”

“Merry Christmas, Marge.” 

“I– Merry Christmas, Gale,” she sounds shocked, falling back onto her manners. 

There’s a heavy beat of silence, Gale silent until he realizes he needs to speak, “Ah– sorry. Can you– do you have a moment?”

“A few,” she says haltingly, “We’re about to sit down to eat.”

Gale used to be seated on her left, squished close enough their elbows would knock, Marge carefully filtering the vegetables towards him and taking the tray of ham off her mothers hands, because Marge’s mother never remembered Gale didn’t eat meat. 

It still stings, but maybe not as much as he thought it would. 

The words sit right on the tip of his tongue, his palm sweating around the phone and he’d never really done this the first time ‘round, when he’d thought the name of it was a little different. Never felt the need to answer to or explain to anyone. He’d never really had anyone he cared if they knew; save for Marge who’d never felt the need to discuss it. She wasn’t rigid like that. Bisexuality wasn’t something that mattered, because it had only ever been her for Gale. Or at least, he’d thought.

“Marge, I’m gay.”

“What?”

“I realized,” Gale rushes out, “I realized that was the problem, it was– I was gay.”

“I don’t–”

“But it was because I love you.”

“ What? ” 

“I love you. But I couldn’t– it never felt the right kind of way. But I just loved you so much I thought it was just something wrong with me. Something when I was little that went a bit wrong. But I’m gay. And that was it. That’s why our whole marriage went up in flames.” 

“Gale–”

“It’s my fault,” he exhales and is shocked to find the sensation wet, the sound thick and shaking. There’s salt on his cheeks, dripping into his mouth, “I refused to realize, denial all the way through like you said. It’s all my fault and I wasted your whole twenties. And I hurt you.” 

“Jesus, Gale.”

“I’m sorry, Marge. You deserved better than I bothered to give you.”

He’s sat up now, Pilot jostled from her throne his chest but settling bedgrudingly into his lap, paws tucked up close and tail flicking. He strokes her spine until his hands shake just a little less. Listens to Marge start to speak, catch herself and then sigh in a great gust.

“I guess I can’t say I forgive you now, It’s all–”

“No, It’s sudden I understand,” Gale says quickly.

Marge hums, then inhales, and Gale knows she’s pressing her wrist to her forehead in thought, “But– I’ll call you. Once the holiday madness is over. I’ll give you a call and we can talk.”

“I’d like that.” 

Marge hums again and there’s a few moments of silence where Gale can hear laughter, the shout of happy voices.

“Your grandad still sneaking the sherry?” Gale asks hesitantly and she laughs.

“Oh, he’s already been caught.” 

-*~*-

He roasts a squash for dinner, layering over seasonings until the orange flesh pits and bubbles in the oven. Pilot sits on the counter, tail flicking and nose twitching as she scents the air hopefully, neck stretched out towards where Gale was poking through the fridge. 

“More salmon will make you sick,” he tells her.

She seems to disagree, hopping down to twine around her legs, squeaking expectantly and he drops a few treats into her dish as a compromise. He thinks about texting John, just to see what he’d chosen to do, to invite him over for an, admittedly simple, dinner if he’d chosen to stay. 

For a while, he’d been wrung out after his conversation with Marge, a little dazed and dizzy and running it through his mind again and again, just to examine it from every angle. And then it had become a quiet sort of lightness. Not so much a weight off his shoulders but more so like a too-tight belt finally released. A quiet expansion.

An exhale.

He eats at the counter, Pilot by his elbow like a furry gargoyle. There’s a tiny bit of squash void of any spices and he feeds her it off his fork, smiling when she spits it right back out, giving the orange mush a disdainful sniff before turning to him again with expectant eyes. He huffs a laugh and grabs another fork.

“Sorry, rabbit food’s all I got.” 

He glances at his phone again, the face of it dark and blank. 

Sometime around noon the DeMarco household had sent him Merry Christmas texts and a photo of Benny in his snoopy pajamas, holding a mug of coffee almost as big as his head. He’d sent back a photo of Pilot in the christmas sweater they’d gotten her before she’d prompty wiggled out of it. One from Macon, showing off the opalized wood plugs Gale had bought him as a thank-you gift. 

There’s been one text from his Mother, a simple Merry Christmas, Junior that he’d returned with similar stilted disconnect. 

No text from John. 

By ten p.m. he’s back in pajamas, a faded shop-shirt from the first studio he’d ever worked at and loose joggers that used to fit but were now too short at the ankles. He’s put fresh flannel sheets on his bed, warm and fleecy and he’s ready to fall asleep to the sound of snowplows quietly going about their job. He’s not expecting a knock at his door, and certainly not at this hour. It surprises him when it comes, both him and the cat turning their heads simultaneously towards the front of the apartment.

Pilot beats him to the door, tail on high alert like a tiny guard dog, and paces back and forth in front of the mail slot. 

It’s maintenence he expects when he opens the door, not John with a giftwrapped box under his arm and snow slowly melting on his curls. A smile on his face, crooked and almost uncertain.

“Jesus, John,” Gale says.

“I made you a bet,” John shrugs. 

-*~*-

Gale watches John flip through the instructions, the feeder in a series of parts on Gale’s island counter. Gale, fiddling with the second smaller box John had handed him from his back pocket, fights back a smile. 

“I think you need to–”

“Hush. I’ve got this handled, Buck. No piloting my ship.”

“She wants her dinner.” 

“Well, I’ve never kept a lady waiting before.” 

Gale sips his coffee, setting it on his knee and humming, “I called my ex-wife today.” 

John sets his screwdriver down, cursing faintly and rubbing his face for a moment. Drops his hands and turns fully to Gale, “How’d that go?” 

“I told her I was gay.”

John blinks once, and then a few more times; rapid and shocked, “You’ve never–”

“I have,” Gale interrupts quickly, cheeks flushing, “I have. It was less a realization about men and more so about women.”

“Ah,” John picks up the screwdriver again, and a different piece of the feeder.

“She always said I had my head stuck in the sand,” Gale says, “Don’t think she meant it that way– was pretty taken aback when I told her. But she had her finger on the mark all the same.”

“She was nice about it?”

Gale smiles, sets about opening the second gift, “Yeah, she was nice. She’s a good girl, Marge.” 

A noise of triumph, John slotting the pieces of the machine together, knocking the instructions booklet to the ground with a grand sweep of his arm. He holds it up to Gale for approval, but Gale’s looking at his hands, where there sits phone case deocrated with stars and moons and galaxies. 

“If you hate that one we can return–”

“No– no it’s– I like it.” 

John smiles at him, one curl falling loose over his head, “Couldn’t stand to see you with that sad black brick one second longer.”

“I see,” Gale says, hopping off the counter and taking the feeder to fill it with kibble. Pilot comes darting in, already yowling and excited, “the gift was about you.”

Guileless, John shrugs.

They end up on the couch while Pilot eats, Gale’s head on one of John’s large thighs and his fingers carefully plucking the strands of hair off his forehead. Every now and then he bends to kiss Gale, and Gale slips a hand around the back of his neck to hold him there. There’s plenty of heat to it, a fair amount of promise; but more anticipatory.

 Later. 

“Did you end up going home?”

John pauses, fingers catching on Gale’s temple, “I did.” 

Gale swallows, dry and a little bit nervous, “How’d it go.” 

“It was–” John catches himself and clears his throat, “It had its moments. My Ma still set a place for Curt. And she’s still got our wedding pictures up. But my sister brought home some poor boy from college and it– that distracted them a bit. And they were beside themselves that I surprised them. That felt good. And I guess it was nice, seein’ the pictures.” 

Gale pets John’s wrist slowly, fingers tickling over the faint beat of his pulse. 

“Texted Curt’s Ma,” John continues on an exhale, “wished her a Merry Christmas. She didn’t answer but– ‘least she’s got some kind of son tellin’ her it.” 

“My mother’s out in Wyoming still,” Gale says, “She wished me the same. Haven’t seen her since my father died.”

“Good way or bad way?”

Gale stares up at the ceiling for long moments, “Good for us both, I think.” 

John’s thumb smooths across Gale’s forehead, gentle and tender. He lets his eyes slip shut, heavy-limbed and content. John’s thumb traces down over the brudge of his nose, across his lips and catching on the bottom one just slightly. 

“Does it bother you?”

Gale opens his eyes again, tilts his head back to meet John’s vaguely troubled face, “Does it bother you that I’m divorced?”

“Little bit of a different monster here, Buck.” 

“It don’t bother me. So long as you’re doin’ what you wanna do.”

John smiles, “Long as you’re doing what you want to, too.” 

“Good. So everyone’s doing exactly what they want to.” 

“I’m gonna fall in love with you someday, Gale.” 

John says it calm, maybe a little teasing on the last words. But calm, like he means it. Like it’s a promise or already a done deal. Like this was all exactly that easy. I’m going to fall in love with you . Once it’s less fresh, once they’ve been doing this for longer than a couple months. John over Gale’s place, John driving him home. John with his leg under Gale’s head. Maybe him asleep in his bed, his clothes in Gale’s dresser and his toothbrush in Gale’s bathroom. Gale’s things at John’s too, tucked in around his life. 

Easy. 

“Bit of a romantic, aren’t you, John Egan?” 

“I’m a regular old Hallmark commercial.” 

There’s a faint thump of paws on linoleum floor, and John exhales sharply as Pilot hops tight onto his stomach, walking across it confidently to find a perch on Gale’s chest. She curls there, tucking her paws in tight and purring softly, rising in volume as Gale strokes one knuckle along her cheek. She rubs back against him enthusiastically, then sets about cleaning her paws.

Gale swallows thickly and John lets out a quiet puff of a laugh.

“Guess that electric bill is all yours, Buck.”

-*~*-

Question for you. 

i can be there in ten minutes and got lube in my car

That’s not the question.

John laughed at your text

Not sure if you already got an invite but Ben and Johnny are throwing a NYE Party. Was wondering if you wanted to go.

With me, if that wasn’t clear. 

asking me out Buck? 

Do you want to stay the night, too? 

your seduction skills have charmed me

-*~*-

John and Johnny don’t get along. 

Don’t get along in that way where where Johnny enjoyed not getting along with someone, but really liked them a fair deal. And, of course, John enjoyed pulling pigtails like it was an olympic sport. So far, in the hour since John and Gale had arriced together, they’d bickered about the Yankees, and about music taste, and about whether Meatball was a girl or a boy – 

You’re welcome to flip him over and goddamn look Bucky! 

Jeeze, man, don’t make it weird.

– and about whether whiskey or wine was better. And now about the best way to string a guitar. Benny watches with a fond, gentle look as he sips his wine, eyes traveling with luxurious audacity down over the form of his husband clad in a tight belt and loose sweater. 

“I’m glad you showed up,” Benny says, slowly tearing his eyes away, “only I’m curious about–” he nods back in the direction of the two Johns

John was starting in on the curtains now, which Benny had picked out, but Johnny was defending like a battle position. They were both smiling. 

“They never tell people what nosey hens tattoo artists are,” Gale says, scritching his fingers through Meatballs fur.

“Avoiding answering, Buck?” 

Gale thinks he should tie John up again. Get an apology from him for turning all his friends onto the nickname. He shrugs, takes a sip of his sparkling water and then shrugs a second time.

“I like him,” he says simply. 

Benny inhales, like he’s going to keep at his prying, and is interrupted by the front door opening, sending Meatball into a frenzy; nearly upending Gale’s drink in the effort to reach the door as fast as possible.

“I’ve got wine!” Macon calls, “And the last of the Cirroc!”

“No,” Benny groans, head dropping back, lifts it to answer in a louder volume, “This is an adult party, Rich! Cirroc has been banned.” 

Leaving to go attend to their new guest, Benny brushes past Gale with a gentle clap to the back. John’s still talking to Johnny but he catches Gale’s eye over the shorter man’s shoulder, tosses him a wink. He thinks about going over to join them but finds that he enjoys simply watching; observing. Seeing John interact with his friends like they were his too. He’d never cared before, not really. But with John he did. With John, Gale cared deeply. 

He sips his sparkling seltzer again and offers John a smile in return as Macon bustles into the room, radiating chill from outside. 

-*~*-

By ten p.m. most everyone’s drunk aside from Gale.

 Macon was wrestling on the carpet with Meatball and Benny was sprawled in the armchair beside Gale, chin in hand and nodding off every now and then. Johnny has now engaged in a vigerous conversation with the Everett Blakely, who had been Benny’s client-turned-friend and Johnny’s college roommate, their hands moving fluidly with the rhythms of conversation. Everett’s wife Helen was perched on his knee, spilling champagne onto his flannel shirt every time she laughed. 

Benny’s mother was here, and Benny’s sister who had parked herself on the arm of the sofa with a book and was reading and stubbornly ignoring everyone including her older brother. 

Gale shoots Benny an amused smile, who raises his eyes in an exaggerated roll.

“At least she’s reading something normal, instead of like Brideshead or some pretentious shit.” 

“I read Brideshead.”

Benny toasts him. 

-*~*-

The music goes back on around eleven with John the obvious culprit. He’s the only one at the party who would put on The Chantels. And was the only one singing along, aside from Benny’s mother, who he was spinning around the spot left empty by the now-gone christmas tree. Gale watches John dip her, the two of them laughing and then deposit her safely back on the sofa. Sets his sights on Gale, who shakes his head as John prowls forward.

“Oh, no, John,” He sets his sparkling water down, raising a hand to ward the approaching form of.

“C’mon, Buck,” John grins, “One song.” 

The hand is useless, it only gives John leverage to tug Gale up, loose limbed and strong in a way that had Gale’s stomach flipping pleasantly. John wasn’t drunk beyond his means, but enough that his movements were loose, fluid with liquid-induced grace, and his breath was pleasantly sharp. 

“I don’t dance.”

“I do.” 

Helen and Ev are dancing off to one side now, as well as a few other guests. Benny and Johnny were swaying in one corner, heads bent together and speaking softly. Both their faces where serious, Benny’s hand rubbing small circles on Johnny’s back. 

“C’mon, I won’t complain if you step on my toes, even.”

John was already shuffling them in a circle, Gale’s movements stiff, and he fixes the other man with an unimpressed look. John’s thumb brushes his pulsepoint, the other resting across his lower back at a polite height. His hair was beginning to be in need of a cut, the curls soft and loose; clean shaven for once except for the dark line of his mustache. And a long-sleeve henley shirt that the top buttons were undone for was showing just a touch of collarbone. His shoulders were broader than Gale’s, his eyes just farther up enough that Gale has to turn his own gaze up, and he’s smiling in that specific John way that left his entire face a map of happy lines. 

They’re doing more of a spin and shuffle than any sort of real dance, but John’s still singing along to Arlene Smith, and his grip on Gale is gentle enough he knows he could pull away if he really wanted to.

He really doesn’t want to. 

And maybe, if I kissed your lips, I’ll be at your command . 

The clock’s ticking down now, the numbers on the screen big and shimmering and John’s shouting the numbers along; Benny’s shouting, and Johnny and Macon, with Meatball in his arms. Gale’s going along with it, a thumb pressed to his mouth, then his chin against his smile, John’s mouth tickling up against his ear and voice booming. 

The ball drops and so does Gale, and for a split second he remembers being a kid and jumping out of trees imagining they were planes. Imagining he was a pilot like his father, and grandfather before him. There’s no ground impact now, no air knocked from his lungs. John’s arms around his waist and lips against his own mouth. He’s dipping Gale, kissing him in celebration and Gale’s laughing, heart racing at the fall that didn’t happen, yet again, thanks to John’s arms around him. 

“Got you fallin’ for me again, Buck.”

Gale brushes that offending curl off John’s forehead, where it flops right back in stubborn disobedience. 

“Not giving me much of a choice, Bucky.” 

John winks at him. 

-*~*-

The lights pass by overhead, like stars come down to earth in swirling, streaking glimmers of color. 

Gale watches them half asleep and content. Arms crossed on his chest and seatbelt cutting awkardly across his neck; but not so much that he’s willing to adjust himself. John’s driving them home; back to Gale’s apartment where John is going to spend the night. He’s got a backpack in the back seat. There will be clothes in there; ragged, aged sleep things that John is probably fond of. That are probably worn and stained and probably a little goofy, because that seemed like a very John thing for them to be. A sweatshirt, even, that will perhaps be conveniently left amongst Gale’s laundry. There will be a toothbrush, too. One that John might leave in the cup beside Gale’s, because that would be easier. 

Aftershave, and cologne, and hair gel that would line Gale’s counter, at least for a little while.

He’s warm, like a fireplace or a good blanket. Perfect comfortable temperature from his nose to fingertips. John’s got the heat on high, driving two-handed and careful. He smells like cigarretes, and aftershave and warm, rich soil. He’d quit drinking around eleven to sober up, even though Gale had offered to drive them both. 

Look too good as my passenger princess, doll. No-can-do. 

Gale’s voice sounds rasping, rich with sleep when he speaks, turning to take in John’s profile.

“I’m gonna fall in love with you someday, too, John.” 

John smiles at him, his hand on Gale’s knee and the radio blasting Billy Joel, “How ‘bout that, huh?” 

-*~*-

I let bad love betray me once

But I was barely outta high school then

And I guess I fear the same results

That none will take me as I am

I wanna be loved, I wanna be whole again

So tuck my hair behind my ears and touch my soul again

The window is wide, the post unfulfilled

And I just ask you to be patient if you'll have me still