Work Text:
I'm floating
Feels like time is slowing
Suspended in your ocean
And there's nowhere I would go
When you hold me in this moment
I'm caught up in your torrents
In the beginning, Bucky concludes two things: one, that rank does have its privileges; and two, that Kenny Lemmons is a very astute kid.
The latter, in this very specific case, might be debated, however: Bucky's practically buzzing out of his skin, zipping along the shiny, undamaged, miraculous Fort in a jeep, grinning so wide he feels like his face will split from the force of it, and so bright it should be visible for miles to any idiot with a pair of working eyes, smart or not.
Seeing Gale's disbelieving smile spread honey-slow across his face, a true smile for the first time in over a year, is an electric feeling; it gets him yelling and jittering like a madman who stuck a fork in a socket, a thousand volts coursing through his veins, lighting every nerve ending aflame, until he can practically see St. Elmo's fire crackling blue-violet around him. He can hear Gale's voice clear as a bell, even over the roar of the engines spooling down, the smoky caramel timbre of it so familiar, it settles warm in his gut like a shot of good whiskey:
"Look who it is! Stone in my shoe!"
"Oh, I'm back!" Bucky hollers.
The 'baby' at the end of that sentence is silent, out of respect and consideration for Gale, an active serviceman and uptight son of a bitch.
Gale still laughs like he can hear it.
He's glowing and beautiful, achingly, victoriously so; and John thanks the Lord above that airstrips are straight, because he doesn't want to look away long enough to mind the road ahead.
He doesn't want to look away ever again.
I love you, I love you, good God I love you.
It's been trapped behind his teeth for weeks now, months; a simple truth more devastating than any bomb, his awful little secret he wants to yell from the top of the world, now that Buck, his Buck, is here, within arms reach, alive, alive, alive. He wants to scream it into Gale's face, put it into writing, get Harding to sign off on it; he wants to broadcast it on the radio, tattoo it over his heart, carve it out of his chest before he bursts from it like an overfilled balloon, and hand it to his Buck on a silver platter.
He can't, but by God he wants to.
The shutdown and after-landing checks take an eternity and a few minutes more. John fidgets, bounces his legs, hums what feels like a whole discography's worth of songs, smokes like a chimney, and glares at the belly hatch hard enough to melt it the whole while. When it finally swings open, and Gale hops out, landing gracefully on his feet like a cat, his heart skips a beat, then begins hammering so loud he fears for a moment that Gale will hear it.
His Buck stops a polite arm's length away, and Bucky wants to resurrect James Cleven just to strangle him; he wants to strangle three generations of cowboys and oil men, and the entire system of the US military, too, while he's at it, for making Gale wary of public displays of affection between men, lest they call him a fairy; he wants to strangle Gale, and his stupid, bloody-minded need to be more of a man than his father ever dreamt of being.
He wants to pick Buck up and spin him around until he's as dizzy and breathless as he is; he wants to crush him into an embrace until his ribs crack; he wants to bite into his smiling cheek, his exposed neck, eat him alive, absorb him into his bloodstream, so they'll never be apart again. He wants…
He wants.
All he gets is a firm handshake, the altitude-cooled leather of Buck's glove smooth and dry in his hand. They talk a few words, about something, empty platitudes and well-used inside jokes; but it doesn't matter, because his Buck is here, he's alive, and he's smiling at him, soft and apple-cheeked, so familiar it hurts, so new it's thrilling, and the world could turn out of orbit, the stars could fall and shatter like glass, and John wouldn't give a damn.
He just wants.
Others spill out of the Fort, and he has to force his attention away: to Croz, yammering about something; to Kenny, all laughter and sunshine; to the new guy Rosie, greeting him with a reserved politeness that doesn't sit well on him.
Well. New to him guy, he supposes: at this point, Rosie has been flying for longer than Bucky ever did during this damn war. The weight of it all shows in the way he holds himself, the wary smile he gives Bucky, the subtle steel of authority in his voice; miles, ages away from the bright-eyed and bushy-tailed rookie babbling nonsense at them. He may have not seen the same hell they did, but he's seen his own hell, and it solidified the molten core of his enthusiasm into cold iron, steady and heavy.
Bucky meets his eyes, and finds understanding, simple and deep and lived through and through. He gives him a slight nod. Rosie nods back, and turns his attention back to Gale.
The boys flow around Gale to John like river water around a stone, and Gale falls silent, letting them flood John with their enthusiasm. John endures bear hugs, hand shakes, claps on the back, makes himself show interest in Kenny's first flight; but his gaze keeps wandering to Buck, always finding him looking back at him with a slightly astonished expression, like he can't quite believe Bucky is here; and not saying a damn word, placid like a frozen lake.
To be fair, Bucky can't quite believe that he's here either, breathing the same air as his Buck again; air that's not freezing, not filled with the snap of German or the stink of dozens of unwashed men; that they're free and clean and alive, alive, alive, both of them, and they're together again, and still, Bucky can't just reach out and hold his Buck and not let go again; not here, not with people watching, not like he wants to, and he wants so much it's killing him.
Their eyes keep meeting, and one of them keeps snapping their gaze away, like bashful new lovers on their first date. It's probably what Kenny picks up on; either that, or he reads the desperate wish in John's mind to just be alone with Gale for one fucking second. He grabs John's hand, ostensibly just to shake it, and passes him a worn key, subtle like a magic trick. In answer to John's questioning eyebrow raise, he shoots a quick look at Buck and then back at John, and winks, all cheeky and knowing.
Smart kid.
Bucky risks subtly inspecting the label attached to the key while he herds everybody to the jeep. It's for a little-used and oft-forgotten storage shed at the edge of the base, way out of the way, where they keep surplus; the few people who have access to it use it as a private hole for an undisturbed nap.
In short, it's perfect, and Kenny is a genius. Bucky needs to buy him a drink sometime.
If he's even old enough to drink yet.
The drive to debrief is so familiar, it's like they were never away: John in the driver's seat, steering the jeep out of pure muscle memory, barely paying attention to the road; his Buck to his right, quiet and introspective like he always is after a mission; Croz in the back, giving him updates on anything and everything; the anemic English sun trying valiantly to warm them; the hustle and bustle of the base around them, humming along, never having felt their absence. It feels like the last time they made this trip was yesterday, not damn near two years ago.
Time flies, and Bucky is standing still in the middle of it, watching it all go by him.
Long damn war. Long damn war to sit out.
When they finally arrive, and the others hop out of the back seat, Bucky just places a hand on Gale's knee, and gives him a significant look. His Buck gets it immediately: he asks no questions, raises no objections, just settles back into his seat, and gives a lackadaisical wave towards the men gathering around the debrief hut.
"Later, boys."
"Where are you going?" Croz squawks.
Bucky leans across Gale, and gives Croz his most charming grin and cheekiest wink.
"Wouldn't you like to know."
Kenny laughs and pats Croz in the back consolingly; Rosie gives Gale an odd look, full of undecipherable emotion, and John could swear the answering look from Gale is smug.
Before he can get too into his own head about this little interaction, he stomps on the gas pedal, and they're off in a cloud of dust and disbelieving yells.
The undisputed privilege of rank is that nobody questions two Majors hauling it across the base in a jeep, distinctly away from the debrief they're supposed to be attending; not even when Bucky damn near crashes into a group of officers, because he sees his Buck take off his gloves with his teeth out of the corner of his eye, and the image makes his brain skip like a scratched record. Thankfully, wrestling off the parachute harness and the Mae vest while sitting in a moving vehicle is a less overtly erotic process, so the rest of the drive passes without incident.
No words are exchanged between them, as John parks the jeep in front of the equipment hut. The lock jams a bit, and he has to jostle the knob to get it unstuck, but once he manages to push his way in, Buck in tow, the inside is filled with nothing but shelves of surplus and dusty, glorious silence.
The door clicks quietly shut behind Gale, and with that, they're alone at last.
Bucky takes a long second to compose himself, before turning with a careful slowness, like his Buck might have evaporated as soon as the door closed. It was a reoccurring theme in his nightmares, ever since he saw him escape: his Buck, alive and well, and close enough to touch; but when Bucky reaches out for him, he's nothing but smoke between his fingers, insubstantial and smelling like that damn aftershave: gone forever, never there.
When John finally turns around fully, and his Buck is still standing there, with the coiled anticipation of a jungle cat waiting to pounce, the sight takes his breath away.
Buck still looks thin and haunted, dark circles heavy under his eyes, but to John, at that moment, he is the most beautiful thing in the world: back in his pilot leathers, hair musseled from the cap, the grayish pallor of starvation and cold gone from his skin. The sleepy sunlight gilds his edges lovingly in platinum; an icon of an old saint, just recovered from a dusty attic, to be placed on an altar again. His eyes burn with an intensity John is not sure he can survive.
It takes Bucky a step, two steps, a tiny, brief moment of hesitation; then he's crushing his Buck into an embrace so tight he nearly lifts him off his feet. Buck lets out a breathless little gasp— right into John's ear, and that sound sears itself into his brain instantly, forever— and throws his arms around John, one hand gripping his jacket with such force John half-expects to hear stitches tearing, and the other sliding into the short-cropped curls at the nape of his neck with dizzying gentleness. Bucky forgets to breathe, forgets to think, just letting his Buck's warmth seep into his every pore, letting his head fill with his own galloping heartbeat and the dusty silence around them, until…
"Bucky… I can't breathe." The hushed, strained admission stirs the fine hairs around John's ear, and he just barely suppresses a shiver.
"Shut up and take it." Bucky stubbornly squeezes harder. He thinks he hears Gale's spine pop, but he couldn't care less: for the first time since that awful London morning, he feels alive. "Fuck, I missed you."
His Buck melts in his arms.
Gale Cleven is not a soft man. He's rigid as wrought iron, rarely letting much emotion seep through, not prone to dramatics like Bucky is; and usually bearing his outbursts of affection with an awkward sort of stiffness Bucky can't bring himself to fault him for. A hard life among hard men stifled all the softness in Gale, leaving him standing tall and straight-backed, like a weathered stone spire holding out against the storm that is Bucky Egan's love.
This time though, in this half-forgotten shed, with only surplus and dust bunnies as witnesses, Gale Cleven goes boneless in Bucky's arms, letting him take most of his weight, and John does it gladly, easy as breathing. Gale melts and bleeds into the Buck-shaped yawning hole in his soul, fills and overflows its borders, until John is drowning in him, the solid, warm weight of him, his breath in his ear, his fingers tightening convulsively in his hair, the deep rumble of his laughter he can feel against his chest, the sweet words he would die just to hear over and over and over again in that beloved raspy voice:
"I missed you too, Bucky."
John always knew where the unspoken boundaries of their friendship lay —when to touch, how much, how long; what to say, in what company, with what sufficiently-joking intonation— carefully avoiding the telltale crease between Gale's brows, the subtle stiffening of his posture, that told him he went too far. He only violated those boundaries when he was drunk enough to explain it all away, or when Gale was in a good enough mood to let it slide; the former a far more common occurrence than the latter. Today is neither, but the sheer strength of Bucky's want overpowers every rational thought in his head, until all that remains is the crackling hum of electricity buzzing under his skin, begging to be let out.
Unspoken boundaries be damned; his Buck is here, in his arms, alive, alive, alive, and no booze has ever made John feel this drunk in his life.
I love you, I love you, good God I love you.
He can't say that, that would be a very long step off a very short cliff, but he can feel it, and feel it he does, with every fiber of his wretched being. It's electric; better than taking off, better than the first glass of whiskey at a celebration, better than sinking into the sky at dawn and forgetting that the ground ever existed.
He snakes his hands into the humid heat under Buck's sheepskin, smoothing one palm over the knobs of his spine, to feel his lungs expand with each miraculous breath; slots the other neatly under the jut of his shoulderblade, to feel his heart beating fast and strong. Instead of stiffening, his Buck melts impossibly closer under his touch; he so startlingly, vividly alive in his arms, John is dizzy with it; he's warm like the summer sun under the thin fabric of his shirt, slightly damp with sweat.
John shamelessly buries his nose into the collar of Gale's shirt, and takes a deep, deep breath. Gale snorts gracelessly, flinching and thumping his fist on Bucky's back with a muffled protestation of "John…!", but he doesn't move even a fraction of an inch away; Bucky's too far gone to mind either way. His Buck smells dizzying, intoxicating, heavenly: all woody and masculine, but with the sweetest kiss of vanilla from close up enough; mixed with the salty heat of his skin, it's maddening and addictive, and Bucky never wants to breathe anything else ever again.
"I missed your damn aftershave even more." Unspoken boundaries be damned: John lets his mouth brush softly against the bare, creamy skin of Gale's neck as he speaks; for one crazed second, he thinks about kissing along the pulse he can feel rabbiting under his lips, thinks about biting down; he wonders if Gale tastes like angel cake, if his skin would crack under his teeth like sugar glaze.
His Buck shivers, but he doesn't move even a fraction of an inch away; Bucky feels like he's going insane. Time stutters to a stop.
There's nothing around them but shelves of surplus and dusty, glorious silence; broken only by both of them breathing, out of sync and way too fast. Buck still doesn't move even a fraction of an inch away; his grip tightens in John's hair ever so slightly.
John trails his lips — feather-soft and barely there, still deniable, still toeing the line — along Buck's neck, trying desperately to keep time stalled to this singular, glowing moment of maybe; but out of the two of them, Buck has always been the more stubborn bastard.
"John…" he starts, then takes a deep, shuddering breath. Bucky involuntarily clutches him tighter, fingers digging into the sharp bone of his shoulder blade. Gale lets out a hiccup of a noise. "John…"
"Gale." It's barely a name; just a damp, warm exhale, an animal begging for mercy the only way it knows how.
"Bucky I'm… I'm sorry."
This time, when John clutches his Buck tighter, it's entirely deliberate.
"What for?" He knows, he knows, but he prays his Buck isn't that stupid.
"Leaving you." Buck is being that stupid. His voice is rawer than it ever was, deeper, quieter; the rock-salt grit of it a consequence rather than choice or design, like many things about Gale Cleven are: an old pack-a-day habit, the flare-offs, and matching his voice to the rough men around him left him with a ruined rasp that set like a stain. For once, John doesn't want to hear the sweet bassy rumble of it.
"You didn't leave me, Buck." He grips his Buck yet tighter, like he could crawl inside his ribcage and curl up around his heart. "I told you to go."
Gale makes another little hiccup of a noise.
"I should've gone back, should've gotten that guard off of you." He's babbling, rapid and cracking around the edges. "…I'm a coward. I'm sorry, Bucky."
John straightens up at that. One of his hands leaves the safe harbor of his Buck's sheepskin to take his jaw in a harsh grip and force him to meet his eyes.
"Stop saying that." He almost shakes Gale to try and knock some sense into him. "Stop saying you're sorry. If you came back, what good would that have done, huh? Then we'd both be dead."
"You don't…"
"I do know that. Clark barely prevented a riot when the men saw that guard hit me. If you came back, they would've shot the lot of us for planning an escape." It comes out more heated than he means it to, but he needs Gale to understand. "Come on, Buck, you're smarter than this."
"I would have talked us out of it, or killed that sucker." Always a stubborn bastard. Gale's eyes still have that unbearable intensity in them: like looking into the sun. John doesn't know if he wants to look away, or wants to let it burn him up, body and soul.
"Sure," he ends up saying after a pregnant pause, and does not look away.
He burns.
Silence hangs between them for a heavy moment as they stare at each other, each willing the other to give ground first. John is simultaneously so aware of his body, of this moment in time, of Gale in his arms, the warmth of him, the weight, the life, that he feels like he might just combust; and at the same time, he feels the frosty bite of the air in that nameless German town, the snowflakes melting on his cheeks, the crunch of dirty snow under his feet; he feels the weight of decision: Gale's life, or his?
It was the easiest choice he's ever made.
Don't look back, go, run.
Gale looks back at John, just before the wall, just before the butt of the rifle connects.
Orpheus looks back at Eurydice, dooming them both.
John gets dragged back to the Underworld. Gale vaults over the wall with a look that says he'll carry this guilt until it suffocates him. All John can think is I love you, I love you, good God, I love you, before the Underworld swallows him back up.
It was the first time the thought entered his head with such a startling clarity, and he hasn't been able to un-know it since. It has been scratching at his ribs from the inside, trying to claw its way up his throat, fighting to be born, to be said.
He can't say it, though, can't afford to put it out into the world, the last stich holding him together, the last stitch that will be his undoing.
He gives his Buck something else he realized in the long, lonely weeks of his captivity instead:
"You did what I told you to do, and I'm glad you did, because you gave me something to come home to." It's a confession all the same. John wills the truth of it to reach through Gale's guilt, and settle into his heart. "I came back for you."
Gale takes another deep, shuddering breath, but he doesn't move even a fraction of an inch away; his eyes drift shut. He brings John's face in closer, and presses their foreheads together.
"Sap," he murmurs, his smile audible, breath whispering over John's lips. John only hums in reply, still drowning in his Buck, all his remaining coherent thoughts exhausted in his confession. Only echoes remain: for you, for you, came back for you, for you.
I love you, I love you, good God, I love you.
He doesn't know which one of them moves first.
Maybe it's Buck, rolling with the punch, going where the motion takes him; maybe it's John, trampling those unspoken boundaries like the dumb animal he is, crushing the last fragile line between sanity and abandon; maybe they move in sync, anticipating each other like they always do, call and response, action and reaction, spark and fire.
The kiss is gentle, tentative, warm; just the soft press and movement of lips, a question, an assurance: I'm here, we're here, we're alive, we made it. It's barely anything; it's everything. Bucky's hands go tingly numb from the enormity of the feeling rolling through him like thunder, a wave of sparks setting everything inside him on fire, burning away everything but the sweet relief of finally; and the thought that his Buck's lips are unfairly soft, and every moment they're not being kissed is a damn waste.
Then Gale flinches away with a little shocked gasp, and Bucky loses the last shred of his sanity.
He chases after Gale with the desperate hunger of a starving man who tasted heaven just once and can't go without for another second; one hit of the most powerful drug in the world, and the addiction set in like a lightning strike, turning him helpless against the undertow dragging him under. He gets a flash of Gale's wide eyes, the cornflower blue of them barely a thin ring around swallowing black, the sun in full eclipse; then he's coaxing his lips apart with his thumb and claiming his mouth in a greedy kiss.
It's a revelation, an explosion, a wildfire scorching through his blood and shorting his nerves out with crackling electricity. He briefly registers that his Buck tastes like his odd clove chewing gum and merciless heat; then Gale is surging up to meet him hunger for hunger, desperation for desperation, messy and feral, and he no longer registers anything but the want.
Gentleness is long forgotten, so are boundaries: John kisses Gale deep and savoring, clinging to his waist and his neck for dear life; Gale kisses John back like he wants to devour him, body and soul, and he's tired of waiting. Their tongues meet in a dizzying dance, tasting, mapping, caressing; Gale's fingers tighten painfully in John's hair, tugging them both impossibly closer, like they couldn't be close enough until their very atoms intermingle, until not even God can pry them apart. Every nerve in John's body is singing a heavenly chord, singing Gale's name, singing more, more, more. Gale's taste, his scent, the heat of his skin, the softness of his hungry lips brand themselves into his soul, and he never wants to stop.
Then Gale flinches again, hard.
He breaks their kiss by turning his head so Bucky's lips skim across the soft skin of his cheek, then for the first time in Lord knows how long, his grip on Bucky's shoulder falters, and then drops away entirely; he jerks back a shaky step, and finally, he meets Bucky's eyes.
He's flushed a beautiful rosy color, parted lips wet and kissed blazing red, chest rising and falling rapidly, like it wasn't just kissing they were doing; there's no panic in his eyes, no disgust, just a dazed, untethered sort of look, pupils blown wide as black holes.
For a split second, all John can think is that he looks so gorgeous like this that he wants to wreck him, see him lose his mind to pleasure; another split second, and he opens his mouth for an apology, for a plea, for a confession, for anything but this.
Then Gale stumbles out of the hut, nearly crashing into the doorframe in his haste, and the door slams shut behind him with an echoing bang, leaving behind shelves of surplus, Bucky standing dumbstruck and still reaching for him, and dusty, deafening silence.
In the end, Bucky concludes two things: one, that Gale is not going to report this; and two, that it will never happen again.
He touches the ghost of Gale on his lips, a motion more like drawing a cross in worship than it is just a touch.
He knows that either he’ll take this to his grave, or this will be what takes him to his grave.
I followed you up to where the water's clear
You went and left me floating in your atmosphere
You brought me up and now I finally see
Oh how I'm falling in your gravity
I'm falling in your gravity