Combining two prompts of Gale’s childhood and Gale flinching from Bucky because he smells like alcohol.
****
Bucky is several whiskeys and several more stories into the wee hours of the morning when he noticed Gale was curled up in a chair that was wedged in the corner, fast asleep despite the party that showed no signs of slowing down. One leg was pulled up into the seat and his head and arms were pillowed against the wall and chairback in such a way as to appear the corner had been chosen especially for this purpose. Even in sleep he looked far from peaceful, and the whispered fragments Gale had once told of his childhood trickled through Bucky’s mind.
I’m scared of the dark. Or actually, being left alone in the dark
Dad would be out all hours of the night, all nights of the week. Gambling, drinking, getting in fights. Parties till dawn.
I can sleep anywhere, through any noise, it’s a good skill to have.
Bucky’s stomach turned, guilt blooming in his chest, and set his drink down.
“I’ll see you later fellas,” he said to no one in particular, and pushed his way through the ground to Gale’s side. He crouched down and shook the boy’s shoulder.
“Hey, Buck let’s–”
Whatever he was going to say was cut off by a violent flinch from Gale, shoving himself backwards and covering his head, and Bucky’s heart sank straight to the floor. He snatched his hands back and froze, holding his breath while Gale blinked at him with wide, bleary eyes until they focused and softened in recognition.
“Bucky?”
Bucky swallowed. “Yeah, it’s me. Ready to go?”
Gale nodded, rubbing his eyes like a toddler, and Bucky ached again. He helped Gale stand and ushered him out of the mess hall, grabbing a coffee on the way out. Even if he kept him up all night, it would help get rid of the smell of alcohol and the tense line of Gale’s shoulders as they walked back to their room, Bucky’s mind still racing.
Little Gale spent most nights being jolted out of sleep, shoved and dragged places, struck if he did something wrong or didn’t move fast enough. One time Gale was half asleep when he heard the betting grow louder, his dad running out of valuable things to wager.
‘How ‘bout the kid?’ someone crowed. His dad laughed it off but for a second Gale had gone cold with terror. His dad had traded their car and some of their furniture before, did he really need a kid?
Gale stumbled while stepping over the door frame, but caught himself before Bucky could help, then huffed a laugh and grinned sleepily.
“M’tired,” he drawled, and the guilt in Buck’s stomach grew heavier.
“We won’t stay out so late anymore,” he replied, but Gale shook his head.
“It’s alright, I know you like to party.”
“I like being with you more.” Never going to be the cause of that look again if I have anything to say, his mind screamed, but Gale only smiled up at him as he began to undress. He must have seen something in Bucky’s expression because he paused, frowning, and opened his mouth.
“I’m sorry,” Bucky rasped before he could say anything. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”
Gale shook his head. “Not your fault,” he said, pulling his pajama shirt over his head. “I was just startled when I woke up, smelled the alcohol, and…I don’t know. Instinct I guess.”
Bucky nodded. It made sense but didn’t do much to make him feel better. He looked down at himself, wondering if he still smelled of whisky.
“M’ gonna take a shower,” he murmured.
Gale frowned again and moved closer, reaching out, but Bucky shook his head and took a step back. Gale’s face fell.
“John.”
Gale gripped Bucky’s arm, pulling him to his chest and wrapping his arms around him, but Bucky still tried to resist. He still smelled of alcohol, and he would die before he caused Gale any more suffering.
“It’s ok and I mean it,” Gale murmured into Bucky’s neck. “I know you’d never hurt me. It’s not you I’m afraid of, ok? You’re the one who makes me feel safe.”
Pain shot through Bucky at the confirmation that Gale was afraid of something, someone, and he could only nod, not trusting his voice. Gale pressed a kiss to his shoulder and Bucky gave in, melting into the touch and wrapping his arms tight around Gale. He didn’t deserve that trust, but by god he’d try to live up to it.
As the founder of the 'Austin Butler Voice Addict' club, this is a very special topic for me. (Hi dear members!) I just fell in love with his voice. Doesn't matter what he's talking about, I will listen to it.
For most of 2023 I fell asleep to his voice through numerous podcasts or audiobooks. It's instantly soothing for me.
So here's my Spotify playlist that maybe lulls you into sleep too.
I know Bucky shipped out first but I can’t help laughing at the idea of what if Buck had gone first so anyone that hadn’t trained with him would only know calm cool and collected Major Cleven that they’re kinda terrified to approach and then weeks later this dude shows up and immediately starts draping himself all over the Major and squeezing his cheeks and they all hold their breath for a second in absolutely horror only for Buck to roll his eyes and get the softest smile on his face (12 dead 37 injured)
This is gold anon thank you so much 😆❤️
They leave a trail of poor swooning victims of Gale’s angel smile! What a shock it would be to everyone, especially since I imagine Gale would be extra serious and focused and keeping to himself when Bucky isn’t there. The others would respect and admire him of course, but when Bucky shows up, suddenly there’s the new side of Major Cleven! He giggles and leans into Bucky’s draping and listens to his rambling with smitten eyes and follows him around! It’s all over the base like wildfire and guys may or may not be going out of their way to catch a glimpse of the two of them because no way, really? Major Cleven??
Completely agree with the above comment. This is what makes it so much better than some of the other performances that people consider good. (I’m particularly thinking of Channing Tatum’s performance here.)
Tom Holland didn’t seem like he was dressing in women’s clothes and dancing like a woman as a lighthearted gag done for laughs. Even if that’s what he intended (I have no idea), once he was out there on that stage, he played it seriously. He went out there and delivered a serious performance. It was intense, and he injected his legitimate (not exaggerated for laughs) sex appeal into the performance.
you’re used to dealing with people like chrissy teigan and serena williams, game for it sure but 0 dance training or experience and not really a performer (although i’ve still not figured out what it is chrissy teigan actually does so many I’m wrong about that? not important)
and then this guy comes up to you and says hey, i’m gonna be on the show. i went to stage school so i have literally no shame or performance anxiety, i’m a trained dancer in ballet tap and modern, i was billy elliot on the west end so you don’t have to worry about me not remembering the routine, and i’m in the best shape of my life because i’m spiderman right now, literally hit me with your absolutely worst i can take it
if i’d been them i’d have fucking burst into tears on the spot
ao3 user hart’s personal favourites. this may be very specific and self indulgent but if you’re anything like me i can’t recommend these enough. in no particular order:
yield by @swifty-fox
[gore]
stray/ vanish/ return by @switchgrassdevil
don't want you to wonder, darling I need you to know by @joeyalohadream
Symmetry by @avonne-writes
Take My Hand by @bucking-mustangs-with-wings
my kingdom for a kiss upon your shoulder by @swifty-fox
[referenced past noncon]
rainfall by @switchgrassdevil
washed clean by @sig-nifier
Asking For a Friend by @whirlpool-blogs
[noncon]
feel free to add if you have any more recs of buck getting his ass whooped <3
sending my most powerful healing vibes across the oceans to you ❤️🩹 and I know this is not in the wip list, but I can't stop thinking about Buck walking forty minutes both ways to the knitting store because Bucky wasn't there to win him a bike 😩 and he never gave Buck his lucky deuce 😩 and they never cuddled so hard that the Brits called them slurs 😩 Who was at Thorpe Abbots? Was anybody?
There’re two ways a member of the Hundredth is most likely to get himself killed: the obvious one, involving being in a fort flying over hell; and the unspoken one, of asking Major Gale Cleven who he writes to all the time. No funerals have been called yet, but that’s only because none of the boys at Thorpe Abbots are yet dumb enough to try out how far he’d go.
Dumb enough to join a war and get rattled around in a tin can chucked through the air over Western Europe, for sure, but not dumb enough to see whether the Major would really kill a man with his fists.
Maybe there wouldn't be a funeral if he truly did snap—Blakely joked, after it all blew up, like a way of getting the boys calm which didn’t work at all, “Tread careful, eh? They’d never find the body.”
Friedkin tried to argue later, though no one was really listening, that if the Major didn’t want to be asked about what he was writing, he shouldn’t have brought his letters to the local pub, and anyway, other guys were joking around (“Hey, Major, who’s the bigger cold fish—you or your girl? Put the pen down and have a drink!”). He’s just the one who said the direct question out loud.
“You worried she’ll forget about you or something? Who is she, anyway?”
The Major had been slow about it at first, taking the toothpick from the corner of his mouth and dropping it into an empty glass; capping his pen and slotting it into his right breast pocket; folding the letter up, and slipping it inside his jacket. He’d stood up so easy, all of his natural elegant swagger, and adjusted his cuffs and watch. Then, he’d grabbed Friedkin’s collar like he was grabbing the scruff of a dog’s neck, and it must’ve been the shock that stopped anyone from intervening just yet.
By the time someone got the wherewithal, he’d had Friedkin in the lane outside the pub, laid out on the cobblestones with one fist still on his collar and the other meeting his face. It had been Major Veal who made it outside last but was the only one of them able to step in—there were a whole lot of Lieutenants and Captains, and even with one of their boys getting his face tenderized, the dangers of intervening were twofold: the Major might round on them next, and he was turning out to be a dab hand with his fists, but then there was the matter of rank.
Major Veal had hauled him back with arms wrapped around his middle, and Major Cleven had fought against it for all of five seconds before going still right in front of everyone, going still and straightening up and adjusting his cuffs and watch like nothing had happened between him standing in the pub and coming outside.
“Thank you, Major,” he’d said, and Veal had stepped back, and there wasn’t a single sound in the lane except for Friedkin’s blood-wet breathing as Major Cleven took a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped neatly at his knuckles. His careful-combed hair had barely loosened by a strand, and the only difference in him that any of the fellas could note (but that all of them kept to themselves) was that his cheeks were all flushed like he’d been painted up with rouge.
Friedkin was alright, in the end, nothing more than a cut lip and a well-bruised jaw. The inside of his mouth was likely sliced up a bit too, chewed by his own teeth, because he spent the rest of the week wincing through mouthfuls of coffee and nursing sore looks.
It’s some time later in the very same pub that a RAF officer runs his mouth, by which point there are a few things which go steadfastly unmentioned amongst the Hundredth: the Major’s knitting, which he never seems to wear and no one ever sees the end product of; the letters he sorts through on his bunk before picking one out to tuck into his sheepskin each morning of a mission; the ones he writes himself, filling pages with cramped words that are more than anyone has ever heard him say out loud.
“Your Major could give a lovesick girl a run for her money, with his dedication to his letters.”
A verbal challenge isn’t needed, because the whole Hundredth now knows what it means when Major Cleven puts his toothpick aside and starts folding up his letter, so he hasn’t even started getting to his feet when Curtis Biddick rises up and says, “I’m gettin’ real tired of all your squawkin’. You gonna keep gabbin’ like a girl, or put your fists up like a man?”
Something like about every fella in the Hundredth there in the pub that night is the tight, sick, disappointed lurch at Biddick being the one to stand up first. It was disrespectful, that was the fact of it, for this English sonofabitch to be running his mouth about their tactics and the boys they lost, then eyeing up Major Cleven like a rare steak.
The Major hadn’t been doing anything to earn it, just drinking his ginger ale and writing his letter and lifting a hard look now and then to say more with his stare than words would. But not a single one of them had missed it, the way this slimy RAF boy kept trying to draw him in, glint in his eyes like he wanted something twisted.
The Major doesn’t need defending, they’ve all seen the proof of that. But knowing it doesn’t stop a single one of them feeling their liquor boil up all indignant, fists clenching and ready on every side of Major Cleven because that English prick is thinking something he shouldn’t (something else that none of them say, that sometimes when the Major looks a certain way and there are no ladies about—) yet Biddick does get there first.
It’s one hit in the end, and a lot of everyone glancing between Biddick and the Major, who watches the whole thing chewing on his toothpick once more and arms folded. But every American out in that laneway is waiting for him to do or say something, like surely Biddick deserves a thanks or a reward of some kind (something else that none of them say, all of them drunk and the backs of their brains whispering Next time it’s gonna be me, all of them waiting for what you get if you fight for Major Cleven—) though he just smiles with his lips closed and claps Biddick on the shoulder, saying, “Good show.”
For the boys who don’t have a girl to write to, and even some of the ones who do, there are daydreams to be had while watching Major Cleven put pen to paper, especially after a few whiskies have been thrown back. It’s better not knowing, really, who the Major is actually writing to, because though the thoughts are private and will never ever be shared, it’s an illusion that not a single guy wants shattered: the thought of blue eyes on a page and a reddened lip bitten, furrow in a golden brow and pink dusted over apple-sweet cheeks, as some pretty thing far away writes down words for their reading only.
(more of this AU in which Gale knits can be found here)
To his surprise, Buck reached out and gave his arm a gentle, appeasing squeeze.
Oh. Oh.
It shocked him to immediate attention, and it took everything he had not to visibly react. Buck’s palm was cool and a little dewey from handling the ice cold glasses and bottles, that’s why the sensation against his bare skin just under the hem of his t-shirt sleeve damn near sent a shiver up his spine. It was the first time Buck had physically touched him. Even when he pulled his hand away, Bucky could still feel the imprint of his palm, and he distantly hoped that it would linger a while longer.
Maybe also that he’d do it again. The sooner the better, preferably.
New recruit Gale who has been praised by everyone and never met Bucky until he arrives to England. And Bucky doesn’t like mister perfect until he sees an angel come out of the plane. What if Buck was younger and looked like a sweet little baby and Bucky became even more overprotective than he was with normal Buck.
Yes, Bucky "love at first sight, let me name you after me" Egan would absolutely adore and treasure new replacement Gale 🩷
If anyone on Earth deserved tenderness, it was Gale Cleven.
Throughout the years they’d known each other, he had dropped little morsels of his history into John’s lap, one piece at a time.
It was almost off-hand, how he’d do it. Like he somehow hadn’t expected John to capture every one, savour them, commit them to memory and file them away in a special box in the back of his mind. To take them out as he did every so often and piece them together again, wondering about what young Gale had been before he was John’s ‘Buck’, so he had an entire landscape laid before him of what made Gale Cleven who he was.
TL;DR: Winter falls in Stalag Luft III, Gale's sick, and John has feelings about it all.
-> read here on AO3 <-
A Nazi prisoner of war camp was hardly a place one would ever want to be, at any time or for any reason.
If Bucky had the choice, however, he sure as hell wouldn’t particularly choose to be in a Nazi prisoner of war camp in the middle of what was turning out to be a brutal Germanic winter.
It came on so suddenly, too, or at least that’s what it felt like. One day, the entire camp had been bathed in incandescent autumn sunshine. The kind that illuminated every leaf on every tree, lit the sky up so bright you could barely look at it, and sparkled off the surface of the puddles left behind from the early morning rain. The next day, and the next, and the next after that, it was like someone had gone and thrown a blanket over the sun itself. Everything was grey. Everything was dark. Everything around them started to wilt, to shed, to die.
For every degree the temperature dropped, for every shiver that raced up their spines in the dead of night, and for every dull, drizzly day that inched them through November and closer to Christmas, morale had started to plummet. It crept up on them and burrowed in like a degenerative disease, infiltrating their ranks one by one and slowly, gradually, started to break them down. Tired minds began to conjure bittersweet memories of good food, good music and the encompassing warmth of their families thousands of miles away, such imaginings only making their reality even starker. Anywhere at all outside the perimeter of the compound was beginning to feel like a whole other plane of existence.
At this point in the season, even the hours of daylight they were afforded were seemingly war-rationed. Dark moods, irritability and the icy tendrils of hopelessness had started to permeate the stalag as the sunsets came altogether too quick, and the daytimes were overwhelmingly bleak.
That night, Bucky shifted awkwardly in his bunk, trying to get comfortable in spite of the threadbare cushioning underneath him. It would have been pitch dark save for the slightest crack someone had left in the black-out curtains, letting moonlight spill in and make vague silhouettes out of the sleeping men around him. Several of them were snoring to various degrees of severity (God help them when Demarco properly got going), bed frames periodically creaking, someone even seemed to be humming slightly in their sleep.
The incessant background noise wasn’t the problem, though; the opposite, actually. From basic training, through flight school, then all the way to the war, Bucky had spent far too long now in shared quarters through every point in his military career to be able to sleep surrounded by absolute silence. In fact, if he closed his eyes and concentrated real hard he could probably have imagined himself being back in the barracks at Thorpe Abbotts right then, far, far away from this Kraut hell hole. Okay, the food wasn’t much better there, he’ll admit, but at least there was a stocked bar, actual showers, and no Nazi goons on a hairpin trigger when it came to pointing rifles at them for doing the sum total of jack shit too hard for their liking.
Bucky’s foot bounced in place as he stared a hole into the wooden slats of the bunk above him. Tension pulsed behind his eyes. When he exhaled, his breath materialised as a humid cloud, before dissipating again into the dark. Rain hammered against the window that was definitely draughty. His fingers were so cold they were starting to go white at the tips.
A sharp gasp suddenly pierced through the din, and in the same beat Bucky instinctively snapped towards it, the whirlpool in his brain suddenly stilling, sharpening down to a single point; like someone had ripped the plughole out of a bathtub. In the middle bunk directly across the way, in the shadows of the darkened cabin, the outline of Buck’s body jerked forward with a strangled little click… a pause… and then another. It was an oddly vulnerable sound, the action was chased by a heavy sniffle, and Bucky let out another long, visible breath.
With the insidious chill of deep winter now catching at their heels, illness was quickly becoming another looming problem with their fucked up sleep-away camp experience in the Glorious Third Reich. The often sub-zero temperatures, paired with a widespread lack of proper food, sleep, and provisions, as well as with them living on top of each other in such poorly built cabins (Bucky’d seen more insulation built into the damn backyard chicken coops he’d been roped into helping his neighbours build back home as a kid), meant that it was rife. Take a walk from one side of the camp to the other, and every third guy was coughing and spluttering with something.
It wasn’t even stuff that would necessarily be anything to worry about in any other time or place. Anywhere else in the modern age they lived in, it would be the usual winter crud that went around every year. Stuff that’d have them downing cough syrup, maybe a bit of hot whiskey, and being fussed over a bit by wives, girlfriends, or moms. Here, though? Despite how the men may joke about it to try and outrun the worry, lurking in a darkened corner of the room was an unavoidable reality that if the cold managed to sneak down into your chest and take root, lay you up with a fever you just can’t shake, in these conditions… well. Who knew what could happen?
There were some guys with a decent amount of medical training who acted as makeshift ‘doctors’ in a makeshift ‘hospital’ on site. Although, naturally as airmen, that leant more towards snapping back in dislocated shoulders, setting broken bones, and patching up bullet and/or shrapnel wounds well enough to get the victim to solid ground alive. There was little, if any, actual medicine to go around.
Before, it had been an abstract, underlying kind of concern, one he’d glance at every now and again before turning away, putting it out of his head again. Let himself be distracted by something else, not that there was much else to distract yourself with in here.
But then it was Buck.
Now, John’s body thrummed with a twitchy, nervous beat underneath his skin, some sort of momentum growing within him as his heart rate picked up and an internal debate played out in his head; one he’d been having with himself for several nights now. After only a handful of seconds from when he’d turned around in the first place though, there was another noise, something delicate and unplaceable. Whether it was the sound of teeth chattering or a stone rattling against the wall of the cabin, or whatever else it could be, it had John dropping down on his feet and gathering up his blanket, wincing as the chill of the room enveloped him all at once.
Crossing to Gale’s bedside, John wordlessly and unceremoniously chucked the blanket over the other man’s body, before leaning a hand against the wooden frame of the upper bunk above Gale’s own. He was curled up tight in on himself, arms stiff as they crossed over his chest, as if he was trying to gather any heat to be had around himself and keep it there by force.
John watched, and waited, as Gale sluggishly unfurled himself a little and turned around to face him, expression sleepy. His face caught the moonlight, something jarring in John’s chest at how pale he looked.
“Bucky?” he asked softly, his already rumbling voice now gravelly and shot to pieces. “Did I wake you?”
Unable to help himself, John heaved out a disbelieving huff of laughter, his voice dropping into a murmur “What, with your bizarre, near-perfectly silent sneezing? Yeah, you did, actually.” Gale rolled his eyes.
“Please, just try to be a bit more considerate to the other guests at this fine establishment.” Success curled fleeting warmth within John when he got a hint of a smile out of the other man. It was the first he’d seen from him in nearly two days, and the twitch of his mouth alleviated an increment of pressure in John’s chest he hadn’t even noticed he’d been holding. “God bless you, by the way.”
It would’ve sounded like a taunt if it wasn’t so fond.
“What do you want then, Bucky?”
In pursuit of cutting to the damn chase, because this was all fun and games but now John really was freezing his balls off, he replied “It’s too cold now for any of us to be sleeping by ourselves.”
At that, Gale’s rheumy gaze sharpened, his eyes scanning the room. John briefly followed them as they took in nearly every other man in the cabin having broken off into a pair to bunk down with for the winter.
“It’s okay, Buck,” John supplied, loosening the valve and letting sincerity bleed into his tone even as he lowered it. This is probably the most ‘okay’ we’ve ever been or ever will be to do this where people can see it.
Memories rise unbidden then; awkward, inexperienced fumbles and a hurried kiss in the barely-lit supply closet off an aircraft hangar in Texas while all the other cadets were asleep. Hidden away in Bucky’s short-lived Air Exec office while he still had it, a rare moment of stolen solitude behind a blessedly locked door with frosted windows. The one time they’d dared risk venturing into the woods at Thorpe Abbotts in the dead of night. They were more experienced by then, but somehow only more repressed and desperate for having now known the other’s touch, but having had to go without it for so long.
“Those RAF pricks were right about one thing for certain.”
“What’s that?”
“You were getting too handsy” Gale had said, voice edged in grit, grabbing John’s wrists and yanking them away behind his back.
In the next breath however, John shrugged, adding “And, well, you have my blanket now. So you either scoot over, or I go back to my bunk and freeze to death. Your choice.”
Gale levelled him with a withering look that only made John want to smile in return, but after a brief contemplative moment, a pregnant pause and a steely gaze edged in wary scrutiny, the caginess seemed to melt out of him, like he physically couldn’t hold onto it any longer. He acquiesced with no more fuss about it, shifting closer towards the wall and pulling up the blankets to invite John in. It was a bit of a tight squeeze, these bunks barely made to fit one fully grown man, never mind two, but suppose that was kind of the point of this, wasn’t it?
John hopped up onto the bunk, the wood groaning slightly under their combined weight, and took the liberty of adjusting Gale a little further onto his side so that he could bracket right in tightly to his back. The length of Gale’s body seemed to slot perfectly against the curve of his own. Back to chest, thigh to thigh, shin to calf. As if by muscle memory, underneath the blankets John’s hand traced a reverent trail down the length of his side, the feeling warm and honey-sweet with familiarity. As was the way he felt Gale relax into his touch, his head turning a tantalising fraction of an inch back towards his face. John’s next exhale came more comfortably than any had in weeks, despite how his heartbeat kicked a little bit harder against his ribcage. Tracing upwards from where his hand had wandered to Gale’s thigh, because he’s nothing if not a goddamn hedonist, John indulged himself with another handful of stolen seconds to touch, to rub and knead affectionately at the curve of Gale’s waist.
This place was hell. A labyrinth of endless days filled with grey, bleak, monotonous nothingness on top of a vague, torturous hope that one day will be the right one; that that day they’ll escape. Or be liberated. They’d been keeping up to date with the state of the war on their homemade contraband radio, listened to and dutifully recited by Gale every night as they forced down boiled garden scraps swimming in dishwater broth. They couldn’t be long now from the invasion of Europe, they tried to reassure each other. It proved enough to get the men out of bed every day and keep them going through the drudgery.
John, though; if he had this. If he had Buck solid and tangible and living and breathing before his eyes and underneath his fingertips, he’d find his way out. The embers that sparked to life in his chest with the feeling of just being near him would light his way out.
A shallow cough sounded from somewhere across the room, and John’s hand froze, even under the shroud of the blankets. Despite arguing the logic of this himself only minutes ago, of why it was ‘okay’, the sudden reminder of the ambient presence of the other men in the room amplified then. John couldn’t help but be aware of it, a shred of unease fluttering to life in his chest.
Swallowing it down, and simply unable to truly pull himself away anyway, he retired his wandering touch and looped his arm around Gale’s middle. His broad hand splayed wide across his chest as he brought the other man impossibly closer. John could feel just how cold he was, even through the fabric of his clothes. That was worrying enough in and of itself, but shock jolted through him like lightning as Gale’s hand brushed his own.
“Jesus, Buck! You’re like ice,” John ground out, reaching to grab it before Gale could move it away again. He knew he likely wasn’t much better, all-too-aware of the pervasive and unshakable chill infecting his own fingers. Whatever last vestiges of warmth he may have had remaining within himself though, hidden away in some forgotten or unreachable nook or cranny, he’d give to Gale in a heartbeat if he could. Even if he couldn’t, he’d try regardless.
Gale’s fingers flexed around his own, joining them, before bringing them up to his mouth and huffing a breath of hot air over John’s hand. The breath caught a little in his throat though, triggering a bubbling of thick, stilted coughs. “You are too.”
John laughed, but there was no humour in it. “Yeah, no shit. We all are…” he said, his tone softening then, even as he prodded the back of Gale’s knee with his own “...but you’re sick. So I’d argue it’s definitely more important to make you not so.”
He felt Gale’s body squirm a little uncomfortably in place against him, shaking his head a little, tilting it down. “It’s just a cold, John.”
“Yeah, for now. But you don’t…” The whispered words fall between them with a heavy clang, echoes of meaning slipping through where maybe they hadn’t been intended. John’s eyes were trained on the back of Gale’s head in the dark, his forehead resting on the other man’s golden crown. Even then, John felt more than saw him stiffen, then pull away as much as he physically could from John’s vice-like hold. He pitched forward with two more clumsily pinched back sneezes, grumbling in annoyance as he then groped underneath the pillow, eyes teary and nose dripping, for the now-worn handkerchief he’d been holding there.
Yeah, it wasn’t exactly convenient, particularly at a time such as this, that they all tended to only have the one on them that they’d had when they went down.
Oh, it was so uncharacteristically inelegant it was actually endearing. A peek behind the curtain at Gale Cleven, the mere mortal. Happy to let himself be sidetracked from his worry for a moment, John dipped into one of the inner pockets of his long coat and pulled out his own handkerchief, gallantly offering it over.
Gale’s head swivelled back, his gaze questioning, and John shrugged. “It’s clean, I promise,” he said, though his eyebrows drew together in sudden contemplation. “Well… mostly. I might’ve washed up with it earlier today…” He made a show of trailing off, pulling the collar of his sweater up over his face and taking an experimental sniff down into it. “Ah, no, definitely not, actually. You’re all good.”
Thoroughly used to his antics, Gale didn’t even blink, though his chapped lips did pull up into a fleetingly small, slow, reluctant sort of smile, before eventually taking it from him. He let the fabric linger in his fingers for a mysterious extra beat, his thumb swiping once over it, before putting it to use. When he did speak, his voice was completely mangled with congestion. “Well, beggars can’t be choosers. Probably would have taken it anyway.”
John winced, the levity leaking back out of his countenance like a faulty fuel line. “You sound awful, Buck,” he mumbled seriously, “C’mon, lie back down.”
Though he dismissed the concern with a telling look, Gale complied and they fell into an easy sort of silence. Their breaths, underlined by the tangible rise and fall of John’s chest against the other man’s back, fell into the slow, steady rhythm held by the rest of the room. Even after a handful of minutes he could tell Gale wasn’t sleeping, though. Neither was he, evidently, feeling like a live wire despite how exhausted and perpetually bone-weary his body had become. He was tired, probably needed to sleep, but at the same time didn’t want to miss a second of their contact now that they had established it. He didn’t want to close his eyes, open them again, and it be morning time again so damn soon, that chasm of emptiness in the space between them returning all too quickly.
If only to give himself something to do, have somewhere to put that gnawing awareness, John gave into temptation. Ducking his head, he pressed his lips to the nape of Gale’s neck. Just once, at first. Experimental; his eyes flitting up briefly to catch Gale’s reaction. With the sight of his lips dropping further open around a sudden inhale he tried to conceal, John took the silent approval and continued in his work. One kiss here, another one there, he marked a languid trail down the column of Gale’s neck and back up again, an answering shiver racing up the length of his spine when John’s mouth teased that one little spot under the hinge of his jaw. It was addictive; and what was Bucky Egan if not an addict?
Having thoroughly surveyed all that he could reach, John’s hand slipped down and palmed at Gale’s hip, urging him to turn back over and face him. When he did, his cheeks were flushed. His eyes still heavy, but now with pupils blown and trained right on him. They pinned John in place, made the cabin, and the camp, and all of Germany, all of Europe itself disappear around him. As if pulled by magnets and with the weight of the last couple of months bearing down on him, John moved to kiss him properly. His eyes snapped open when his mouth met the soft pressure of cold, unyielding fingertips, mere centimetres from the IP.
There was something brittle now in Gale’s gaze when John looked again, that feeling scooped back up and the lid put back on the jar. It still shone through though, muted but simmering away under the surface. Behind the shield of darkness and John’s broad body, Gale’s hand twisted, cupping John’s jaw as his thumb delicately swiped across the seam of his lips. “You’re gonna end up getting sick with me lying here breathing in your face all night.”
John let out a huff of annoyance, exaggerated maybe just a little bit in the hopes of making Gale smile again. “No, I won’t.”
“Yes, you will.”
Despite his amusement at the childish back and forth, John relented, changing course. “Okay, well, if it’s doomed to happen anyway I’d rather it was from you than any of the rest of these clowns, so…” He peeled Gale’s hand from his jaw, his phantom touch lingering in a way he hoped remained corporeal right through until the morning at the very least. In the same fluid movement he turned it around and mouthed his knuckles, then with a heart so full it could’ve burst right out of him, leaned in, slowly, carefully, kissed him anyway.
Oh, he could feign all the long-suffering exasperation he wanted to, but John knew the truth of the matter in how the tense lines of the other man’s body loosened under his hold then, how he nudged himself closer in the new position to close out any hint of a gap and the biting chill that could and would find its way through.
God knew he needed it, too. John wasn’t sure if it was just him that noticed the trail of signs left in Gale’s wake wherever he went throughout the day, subtle or not, that gave away just how crappy he was feeling. Sitting in the same room as the rest of them but far enough away at any given point. The way he’d pinch the bridge of his nose, presumably against the pressure there and the ache behind his eyes. How his chest sometimes seized with the need to cough that had been swallowed back. How he’d been keeping it all held back behind a tight jaw and clenched teeth, a brave face on for the sake of their men and the general morale. Whether he’d choose it or not, Gale knew he was a symbol, much like John, much like any other group’s commanding officers. He had a responsibility.
Now, though, in whatever new strange semi-privacy they’d stumbled upon and could seemingly kid themselves for a few hours they were alone within, it started to crumble.
In the extended silence, with sleep still out of reach, John couldn’t help but reflect on all of that. Right down to the very position he’d found him in when he gathered the nerve to approach his bunk, Gale was so damn protective of himself. Fiercely so, at times, that stoic, guarded veneer serving as a concrete wall between himself and the sometimes inexplicable chaos of the world. When they first met, oh so many moons ago now, John had been tempted to simply assume he lived with a stick up his ass and leave it at that.
Maybe it was because he was pretty in a way that his teenage self didn’t quite have the vernacular to understand yet, maybe it was the quiet echo of his mom’s voice in the back of his head scolding him about not judging a book by its cover, maybe it was divine intuition. But whatever it was, Bucky would thank whatever may have been out there in the sky looking down on them that, for whatever reason, he’d chosen instead to throw all of his chips in on Gale Cleven and insist on knowing him anyway. To push and prod and tease and question and irritate and somehow charm his way into the other boy’s life, into the most genuine, heartfelt friendship he’d ever had, and then further into, well, this. One that allowed him to pull on the thread of the image of himself that Gale presented to the world, bit by bit, without reprisal.
Throughout the years they’d known each other, Gale had dropped little morsels of his history into John’s lap, one piece at a time. It was almost off-hand, how he’d do it. Like he somehow hadn’t expected John to capture every one, savour them, commit them to memory and file them away in a special box in the back of his mind. To take them out as he did every so often and piece them together again, wondering about what young Gale had been before he was John’s ‘Buck’ and how he wished he could’ve been there for him, so he had an entire landscape laid before him of what made Gale Cleven who he was.
If he was stubborn and headstrong and fiercely protective of himself, fine. He had every right to be; had made himself that way out of necessity. Thinking about the circumstances of how and why made John’s heart ache something stupid just to think about, so he made a point to try not to.
If anyone on Earth deserved tenderness, it was Gale Cleven. For having taken the shitty hand life had dealt him and still come out the other side so kind and compassionate, to have taken all the hurt and the loneliness, bottled it up, and somehow turned it into white-knuckled determination to do better with himself. For having made his life something, even if his ambition was originally rooted in defiance against what had been laid out for him. For having the hordes of men in the squadron he presides over look upon him with deferential reverence, for giving them hope by making himself look invincible. Truly uncatchable, even despite having been caught.
If it ever got to be too much, though, especially in here, where home seemed so far away, and the idea of safety such an abstract, unreachable concept, Bucky would shoulder it. Without a second thought, every time. Gale Cleven deserved tenderness, and by hell was John Egan going to do everything he could to give it to him.
John had his moments when he let the darkness in; indulged in thoughts of disillusionment, found himself questioning any number of aspects of what they were doing, how they were doing it, and for what. One thought always ended up shing through the murky din though, a guiding light that pretty much always managed to pull John back in its direction. Back on path.
So long as he and Gale Cleven were on the same side, he knew he was in the right spot.
“Bucky?” His voice reached out, barely there and so soft John could’ve denied even hearing it at all. “You still awake?”
John’s eyes fluttered open, readjusting to the dark again as he blinked away the cobwebs from the sort of half-sleep he’d drifted off into. He hummed in affirmation. “What d’ya want then, Buck?” he echoed from earlier, chucking the other man’s own words back at him with a teasing, heavy-lidded smirk.
The question hung still and charged in the air between them as Gale hesitated, teetering on the brink of losing the nerve to ask whatever it was he wanted. Surely he should know by now, with John being the blatant and irredeemable sucker that he is, could ask quite literally anything of him and he’d find a way to grant him it?
Gale looked like his mind was half somewhere else, eyes unable to fully meet John’s own, and still seemingly debating whether to continue or not right up until the moment the words left his lips. “Y’know what, um… what this needs right now?”
John’s eyebrows furrowed in confusion.
When it came, it came small and vulnerable. “...vocals,” he said, before catching himself, the word ghosting across John’s chin. “Very, very quiet vocals.” Gale’s hand wound around John’s back, before slipping up the back of his shirt to flatten against John’s freckled back.
John couldn’t help the smile unwinding across his face, eyes sparkling in the dark with sudden mirth. “From me?” he questioned, infused with faux-disbelief. He made a show of pressing the back of his hand up under his dirty blond bangs to Gale’s forehead, half-teasing about checking for fever, but breathing a very real sigh of relief when he found little evidence of one yet.
“I mean, I did always say you would all eventually come around and see me for the true musical talent that I am. I’m just glad it’s finally being acknowledged, so I won’t hold the delay against you.”
Gale rolled his eyes, though it drew a smile out of him at the same time, even so.
He may have had no hope of being privy to all that went on inside Gale’s head, despite knowing all the important coordinates and the routes to get there. But he could see the sickbed request for what it was, the reminder of where they’d come from. A tether to an old life that felt sickeningly distant now, lost in the soupy abyss of the camp. A yearning for something familiar; anything. He sees just a hint of Gale’s impatience, his growing frustration at their situation and the longing for home, and it fractionally lightens the loads bearing down on John’s own chest. That for all his calm, careful control on the surface, it was confirmation that he felt it too.
Catching them both by surprise, and with grumbled curse, Gale twisted away with another desperate sneeze, newly acquired handkerchief hastily raised. Newly, and sort of relievingly, unrestrained, the harsh sound echoing off the walls of the small cabin.
Uncharacteristically flustered and with an apology quick on his tongue, Gale immediately moved his entire body so they were chest to back again, and he was facing the wall. “Right, that’s it. I’m turning back around.”
“You do whatever you need to get comfortable, and I’ll ahem, warm up,” he replied through a smile, the dismissal of the apology silent but palpable.
Gale fell asleep that night to the soft, dulcet tones of Blue Skies butchered in his ear. Despite the cold, despite the illness, it was the easiest sleep since he’d arrived.
The next morning, Douglass and Hambone were the first to reluctantly extricate themselves out of bed, it being their turn to do the first water run of the day and collect the cabin’s assigned jugs. Once they were outside, confident in being completely out of earshot, the gossip flowed freely.
“Jesus, you’d think Cleven and Egan gab enough to each other during the day, now they’re going to be at it at night too?!”
WELL ALRIFHR THEN GIVE US THE SMUT GIVE US GALE AND MARGE TAG TEAMING BUCKY MAKE THAT MAN CRY TEARS OF LOVE AND JIY
The first time it happens, Bucky is certain he's misreading the situation. He's been out to dinner with Buck and Marge. Marge had promised her friend Anna would join them, but when Marge and Buck had met Bucky at the restaurant, Marge had apologized.
"I hope you don't mind putting up with the two of us without reinforcements again, John, but Anna came down with a cold."
Bucky grins because it's polite but also because if he has to choose between being the third wheel or flattering one of Marge's friends, he wants to be the third wheel every time. He adores them so deeply, Buck and Marge. He knows he's in love with them, but he also knows it's not something you can easily bring up. So, he spends whatever time they invite him to and plays whatever part they need to make it fun.
He'll get over his crush at some point, he figures. But tonight, with a sudden cancellation, he plans to just enjoy himself. To make them laugh and smile and enjoy themselves.
And then, halfway through the appetizers, John feels the tap of a foot against his ankle. He glances up from his salad, expecting an apology from Buck, but Buck's focused on his own appetizer, and Marge is giving him a small, teasing smile.
And then the foot slides up his inseam to his knee.
Bucky doesn't know what to do. Marge keeps stealing glances between bites of her own salad, and her foot travels up and down Bucky's leg. It never goes higher than his knee, but it makes him feel wild all the same.
"Pardon me, boys," she says after the appetizer plates have been taken away and they've ordered their entrees. "A lady needs to powder her nose." Buck pecks her on the nose, which makes her giggle, and then she leaves the table.
Bucky stares at his whiskey and wonders how to tell Buck what had happened over appetizers. He doesn't want to ruin dinner, but he also doesn't want Buck to think he's held back if he finds out some other way.
And then there's a different foot against his ankle, trailing up his leg.
Bucky manages not to collapse against the table. When he looks at Buck, Buck's watching him with a calm look.
"Marge thought we should be obvious," Buck says, his voice a rumbling whisper.
"What do you think?" Bucky asks,dropping his hands into his lap. He can't help but reach out and grab at Buck's ankle, rubbing his thumb up and down the tendon above it.
"I think Marge might be smarter than the both of us," Buck replies. He's pink at the tips of his ears but otherwise looks fine.
"What's going on?" Bucky asks.
Buck shrugs and flexes his foot. "Whatever you want, i guess."
Marge comes back. Bucky shifts Buck's foot to his left hand. "I would say I missed you while I was gone, but seems you called someone in for your shift," he says.
Marge gives him a wicked, hot smile. "He's the only one who knows the job," she says.
Bucky feels like he can't breathe, so turned on by the way they're both looking at him. "Think something in my food might have turned," he says. "We should get the entrees to go."
"I told you never trust clams this far inland," Buck replies. When Bucky lets go of his foot, he gets excessively bold, pushing his toes against Bucky's dick lightly.
Before Buck can recover from that, Marge slips around the table and presses the back of her palm to Bucky's forehead while slipping her other hand until his jacket. Her hand is hot against his back, her nails pressing just right into his skin.
"Oh, you poor thing," Marge coos. "I think you have a fever."
"I'll find the waiter," Buck says and gets up from the table.
Marge leans close, her lips just brushing Bucky's ear. "I don't have any friends named Anna," she murmurs. "We just wanted an excuse to talk you into dinner."
Bucky shivers at everything that confession tells him. "What happens when we leave?" he asks.
"Oh, John, anything you want," Marge says.
*
Buck comes back with their dinners in take-out containers. He helps Bucky to his feet, passing the containers to Marge so he can get an arm around Bucky's waist to support him.
"I'm not actually sick," Bucky says in an undertone.
"You have no idea how long I've waited to hold you," Buck replies.
And that feels like cheating, so Bucky does the only thing he can: Waits until they're next to Buck's car and grabs his ass hard.
Buck grunts and turns his head, bites Bucky hard on the neck.
"Boys," Marge says, "No starting without me."
Bucky gets in the back of the car. Marge and Buck get into the front. He expects Buck to turn left out of the parking lot and point them towards the hotel where he and Bucky are staying. Instead, Buck turns them right.
"Honey," Buck says, "feel free to check on our fella."
Bucky stares as Marge kisses Buck's cheek, then climbs into the backseat, directly into his lap. "Um–"
"We've been paying attention to you, John," Marge says. She reaches under herself and pulls her skirt free on all sides. When she settles, John groans. She's pressed so hard against him he can feel the drag of her panties against his crotch. "And you are always paying attention to us. So, we had a talk."
"Several talks," Buck says, turning left at a light and taking them down a road with very few streetlights.
"And decided we'd let you know how much attention we wanted to give you," Marge adds. She holds John's face in her hands, pushing his chin up with her thumbs. "I know it's unfair to ask while I'm on your lap, but do you want to fuck us, John?"
Bucky stutters and presses his mouth closed. He swallows hard. He nods.
"Out loud, please," Marge says. "So Buck can hear you."
"Yes," Bucky says. "Please. Always. Not just–" He groans when Marge leans in and nips at his bottom lip. "I love you both," he says. "It's not just–"
Buck shifts so he can throw a hand over the seat. His hand is stretched taut as he reaches for Bucky. "We love you, too," he says.
"So much," Marge says. She picks up Bucky's hand and presses it against Buck's. She smiles when Bucky grasps Buck's wrist and holds on. "Can you feel that, honey?" she asks.
"Yes," Buck says, and he sounds breathless. "Hold on."
Marge gives Bucky a series of tiny kisses on his face as Bucky holds tight to Buck's wrist. A minute later, Buck turns right, and the car bumps unevenly. Marge laughs as she bounces in Bucky's lap. Buck doesn't let go of Bucky, so Bucky doesn't let go of him.
The car stops. Buck squeezes Bucky's wrist, then lets go. A moment later, he steps out of the car, then opens the door of the backseat. He crowds in next to Bucky, closing the door behind him.
"What if–"
"Under construction," Buck murmurs. His hand splays over Bucky's chest, and Bucky can't help the way he melts at the touch. "Car's off. No one's coming this way unless they're really nosy."
"Okay," Bucky says, instantly relaxed that they're tucked away like this. "What…" He doesn't know what else to say.
"Kiss Buck, would you?" Marge asks as she opens the buttons of Bucky's jacket. "He's been going crazy thinking about it."
Bucky turns his face towards Buck. It's dim, but there's some moonlight, so he can see Buck's jaw and his eyes. "Really?" he asks.
"Really," Buck promises. He runs his thumb along Bucky's bottom lip. "Watching you dance and romance those girls Marge set you up with made me antsy as hell."
"Like they'd ever be you," Bucky replies.
Buck dives in, pressing his mouth open and hot against Buck's own. He slides his tongue alongside Bucky's own, sucking lightly, and then he pulls away. "Come here," he says. He shifts so he's leaning against the car door, and he positions Bucky so his head is resting in his lap.
"What–" is as far as Bucky gets before Marge shifts to, leaning down so she and Bucky are nose-to-nose, her cunt pressed hot against him.
"My turn," Marge says. "If you don't mind."
"Jesus, no," Bucky gasps, and he gets a hand in Marge's hair as she holds his face hard and kisses him senseless. When she pulls away, Bucky can't breathe. Buck leans down and kisses his forehead and his cheeks, and then Marge is wiggling off his lap and into the footwell.
"She wants to sit on your face," Buck says like it's a perfectly common sentence. "Do you mind?"
Bucky shakes from head to toe. When Marge rubs his stomach, he grabs her hand and pulls, using his other hand to grab behind her thigh and lever her up over his mouth.
"Oh," Marge breathes out when Bucky tips his head back into Buck's lap so he can lick her cunt with his tongue. "Oh, god," she says as Bucky wraps his arms over her thighs and presses her down against his face.
"Come here," Bucky hears Buck say, and he can hear the wet sound of their kissing, Marge mewling against Buck's mouth as Bucky eats her out, massaging her clit with the flat of his tongue and breathing hard against her slit before using his nose to open her folds and taste her there, too. He's trapped between her legs and her garter, and his hips jerk when he suddenly feels Buck's hands over his on Marge's thighs.
A moment later, Buck takes away one hand, and then he's pressing two fingers fingers into Bucky's mouth. Bucky sucks hard, drooling over them as Buck pushes them in and out. Then Buck takes them out of Bucky's mouth and shoves them into Marge's cunt.
She shouts and clenches all over, riding Buck's fingers and rolling her hips so Bucky's tongue drags up and down her entire slit.
"Suck her clit, Bucky," Buck says. He twists his fingers and drags them downward so Bucky can fit his mouth over Marge's clit and suck as he's been told.
Marge shivers and shouts. One hand grabs Bucky's hair hard and holds him in place. Bucky goes limp, letting Marge use him as she sees fit. Buck finger fucks her through the experience, his other hand dropping from Marge's thigh to spread wide over John's belly.
"Come on, beautiful," Buck says, and like he'd planned it, Marge shudders and groans and comes on Bucky's face.
Bucky can only gasp for air, causing Marge to shake against him.
"Don't stop, John," Buck says. "She's loving it."
And Jesus fuck, that's the hottest thing Bucky's ever experienced: Making Marge come and having Buck tell him to keep making her lose it with his breath. He breaths in and out slowly, lapping at the outside of Marge's cunt each time he breathes out.
She yelps and grinds against his face briefly, and she lifts herself off his face face, leaving him in the perfect tent of her skirt. Bucky can't help but stretch upwards, getting one last kiss to her slit before collapsing back into Buck's lap.
Bucky floats for a few minutes, hard and horny and desperate, but surrounded by the smell of Marge's cunt and the feel of Buck's hand on his stomach. Just as he starts to wonder what to do next, Marge shifts so she's in the footwell, and she rests her cheek on her hands. Buck moves, too, more slowly and carefully, keeping Bucky secure with an arm around his waist as he stretches out behind him, then throws a leg over Bucky's waist and slides down until he's curled up with his mouth pressed against Bucky's dick through his trousers.
"Buck–" Bucky says, strangled. Marge combs her fingers through his hair and kisses his cheek. Buck opens Bucky's trousers and pulls his dick from his underwear. "Buck–"
"Shh," Marge murmurs. She kisses his temple. "I've shown him a few things. Let him show off."
Bucky chokes at the image. Marge somehow showing Buck how to suck dick. "How–"
"Oh, you can get all kinds of things by mail," Marge says, sing-song.
Before Bucky can ask anything else, Buck sucks the head of Bucky's dick into his mouth and aggressively works his way down. "Fuck!" Buck yells, one hand dropping to Buck's head.
"Lovely, isn't it?" Marge asks. She turns Bucky's head and kisses him on the mouth. Bucky blearily thinks she must be able to taste herself. "He loves to suck my clit like I suck his cock, so he was very easy to teach."
Bucky's hips jerk, and Buck rolls with the movement. When he strains towards Marge, she kisses him again, then slips two fingers into his mouth.
"You need something to keep you quiet," she says. Her eyes are bright even in the dim light. Bucky's only response is to suck hard on her fingers, mimicking how Buck is sucking his cock.
"Oh, Buck, he might be even prettier than you," Marge says, eyes locked with Bucky. "He sucks nicely, too."
Buck moans in response, and Bucky feels him shift. A moment later, he feels the repeated brush of Buck's arm against his leg. Buck's sucking him off and jerking himself off, and Marge has her fingers in his mouth and is kissing his eyelids and his nose and the corner of his mouth.
Bucky comes with a long, deep whine. Marge presses her fingers down on his tongue, and Buck sucks harder at Bucky's dick, and Bucky swears he sees stars as he loses the battle and coems in Buck's mouth.
When his vision and his mind clear, Buck's hunched up against the far door, Marge in his lap. She's holding his cock and leading it into her cunt. Bucky manages to sit upright and grab at Buck's ankles, stretching his legs for him before crowding behind Marge and kissing the back of her neck.
Marge makes a contented sound as she tips her head to the side. Bucky catches Buck's eyes. He's got his hands on Marge's hips under her dress, and he's grinding deep and hard against her. He looks up and meets Bucky's eyes, and Bucky hooks his chin over Marge's shoulder.
Buck meets him for the kiss, taking one of Bucky's hands off Marge's waist and slipping it under her skirt. Their fingers tangle on her thigh, and Marge rocks between them, panting and gasping. She turns her head and kisses Bucky's cheek while he keeps kissing Buck, and then the three of them are all kissing each other, a messy and uneven slip of their mouths against one another.
It's the greatest kiss Bucky can remember getting. He cups one of Marge's breasts and squeezes, and her mouth opens when he tweaks her nipple. Bucky licks into her mouth, then Buck's tongue is there as well, and then they're kissing each other as Marge yanks her head the other direction and seems to concentrate on riding Buck's dick as hard and fast as possible.
Buck moans into Buck'ys mouth and goes very still as he comes. Bucky tongue fucks his mouth and wishes he could be flat between them, watching Buck spunk into Marge and then licking anything that trickled out before Buck pulled free.
Marge grinds a few more times, then drags Bucky's hand from her breast to her clit. He rubs hard, slipping his fingers down low, then back up. She shouts and comes, and Bucky slips his fingers into his mouth, tasting her and Buck at the same time.
In the quiet after, they all catch their breath. Marge rocks on Buck's dick a few more times, making him moan, and Bucky can't help but give in to what he wants, swiping spunk off Buck's dick and tasting it.
"You're trying to kill me," Buck says. His eyes are closed. His head is leaned against the window.
"It was your idea," Marge says before Bucky can taunt the same. She leans in and bites his neck. He makes a quiet, dangerous sound and grabs hard at her ass.
"John," Marge says, sweet as sugar and twice as dangerous, "Would you mind cleaning me up?"
Bucky isn't sure if he or Buck groans louder, but he happily slides into the footwell and waits for Marge to rest her feet on his shoulders before he licks every bit of slick, sticky wetness from her thighs and her cunt. When he's done, he rests his chin on the seat and tips his head back so he can see them both. Buck's got an arm around Marge's shoulders, and his other hand is just barely touching Bucky's neck. Bucky turns his head and kisses Buck's hand, and then Buck's holding him more securely.
"John," Marge says, and he shifts his gaze instantly. She touches his cheek. "Do you mind sharing us?" she asks. "Just between the three of us?"
Bucky turns his head to kiss her inner thigh. He rests his cheek on the same spot and watches Buck and Marge watch him. "Not really sharing if you ask me," he says. "I've always wanted to have the set."
The way Buck blushes but looks pleased is only matched by Marge's giggle and the way she drops her leg so her knee rests comfortably on John's shoulder.
Baseball AU part 2/? | ya'll wanted more so here it is, takes place later in the same day as part 1 (which can be found here)
John slams open the locker room door like a man insane.
"Brady, Brady, Brady, Brady, Brady--"
"What?!" The man in question whips around in the middle of changing to glare at Johh, just like normal, and thank fuck for that because John's pretty sure he's somehow slipped into an episode of the Twlight Zone.
It's just Brady and a couple other of their teammates in the locker room and John trips over absolutely nothing in his haste to get across the room.
"You gotta help me, man, I really fucked it up this time." He pleads, fully aware of how crazy he sounds and probably looks.
"No shit you did, what the hell happened to your face?!" Brady drops his shirt in favor of cradling John's head in an uncharacteristic display of concern. "Thank god you're not pitching tonight, Bucky, what--"
"I'm gonna get sued by the hottest guy in the world!" John blurts out, wide eyed and clearly failing at trying not to panic as Brady pokes at his face.
"You've said some pretty stupid shit since I've met you," Brady frowns in concentration as he thumbs at the shiner around John's eye, making him wince, "but I think that's probably the stupidest, Jesus, what's going on?"
"Would you quit it," John smacks away Bradys hands, "it was all over ESPN this afternoon and God knows where else now and this is bad." John drags out the long vowel as he slumps down on a bench. "Bad, bad, bad, bad--"
"You're freaking me out, stop it." Brady smacks lightly at the back of his head as he lowers himself down beside him, clearly worried. "What'd you do?" He demands not unkindly and John's never been more thankful for their friendship.
For all that they convey a love-hate relationship to the public built on a solid foundation of childish pranks and generally trying to out annoy one another, Brady's never left him hanging.
"OK, so--"
"From the beginning." Brady cuts him off because he knows how John tends to ramble.
Thank God someone's got some common sense right now. "I went out last night," John starts again, "and this guy got all up in my face because he doesn't think there should be any fags in America's past time--"
"Fucking again?!" Brady throws his hands up incredulously as John just rubs tiredly at his face. "It's fucking 2023 for Christ's sake, what the fuck--"
"Yeah, yeah, yeah, you're a grade A ally, do you wanna hear the rest of it or not?" John complains as Brady quiets down beside him with a bone deep sigh, probably just as tied of this bullshit as John is. "So that happened and I just...went on a one man bar crawl, I guess, to...to try to forget about it, about all of it." He shrugs.
"Why didn’t you call me?" Brady chides him with a poke to his leg. "I could've picked you up."
"No offense, but I didn't wanna see anyone last night." John admits quietly. "It's been months, I thought...ya know..."
"That people'd be over the whole gay rookie thing?" Brady guesses quietly and John just nods, head cradled in his palms and staring at the floor.
"I ended up passed out on a bench in Central Park--"
"Bucky!"
"Calm down, I'm fine, didn't even get mugged or anything." John peeks up at Brady with a reassuring grin that falters as he thinks about the next part. "Only reason I got up was because this dog started licking my face."
Brady just once again sighs deeply and rubs one handedly at his eyes. "Then what?" He asks warily.
"I opened my eyes and Gale Cleven was staring at me." He admits quietly and Brady freezes. Drops his hand. Stares at him.
"Gale Cleven?" He repeats stupidly. "Gale Cleven." He states incredulously, staring at John before bursting right into laughter.
John groans and falls sideways on the bench as Brady doubles over, hiccuping and slapping at whatever part of John he can reach.
"Bucky, oh my god." He wheezes out, face wet with tears from how much he's enjoying himself at John's expense. "What, what--" He can't even get the words out, "what'd you do?"
"Well, I didn't recognize him at first, and then when I did I pretended I didn't know who he was, and then I, uh...um..." John mumbles the rest into the wood of the bench, flinching as Brady grabs at his arm to pull him back upright.
"What?"
John takes a deep, solidifying breath and explains, "I, uh...I asked him why his dog was wearing a sex harness...?"
Brady falls backwards off the bench he laughs so hard and John can't help but crack a grin at his own stupidity now that he's looking back on it.
It's minutes before Brady's able to calm down, still giggling as he rights himself on the bench, red faced and boyish, John's favorite version of him.
"Someone apparently got a picture of us together, a fan or paparazzi or something, and ESPN ran it during their afternoon segment with some bullshit love is in the air angle because, well..."
"You're gay and laughing in a park with the most beautiful man in the world, yeah, that'd do it." Brady nods sagely, laughter still twinkling in his eyes as he looks at John. "Bucky, it's not...they were just looking for a good story to start shit, this isn't the end of the world, what are you so worried about?"
"Gale Cleven is the most beautiful, straightest man in the world." John stares at him like he's stupid. "The last thing the man probably wants are gay rumors following him around, think about it!" He's starting to feel crazy again.
"I am," Brady snorts and shoves him away by the face, "and you're freaking out over nothing, it was one random meeting in a park, not a sex tape or dick pics or something."
John makes a high pitched gurgling noise he didn't think himself capable of as Brady just pats at his back. "Give it a couple of days and it'll all blow over, you'll see," Brady reassures him, then, more gently, "you're not some kind of disease, John, and if Gale Cleven thinks being seen with you is like catching one then he can go straight up fuck himself, I don't care how pretty he is."
John huffs out a laugh even as tears start to burn at his eyes. "Thanks, Johnny."
"Shit, no, don't start with the water works, anything but that." Brady throws an arm around his shoulders to hug him in close. "Just don't be a fucking idiot next time, alright, you fucking call me, understand?"
"Yeah, yeah," John shakes off his arm, dabbing at his eyes. "I will." He promises.
"Good, you better." Brady blesses him with a hearty slap to the back, finally snatching up his discarded shirt and slipping it on over his head. "I bet the memes from all of this are going to be amazing." He snarks and John smiles, tugging out his phone to check the time, only for his heart to stop at the number of notifications for everything; texts, missed calls, voicemails, DMs from four different apps, emails, fucking hell.
"You're making that weird noise again." Brady says from behind and John feels him press against his back to lean over his shoulder. "Holy shit, I didn't know you could get triple digit texts."
John just weakly offers up his phone for Brady to take as he once again slumps over sideways on the bench.
"Don't know any of these numbers," Brady gives him a play by play as he goes through the melee, "lots of emails from I think newspeople? Same with texts, but it's mostly people you know also freaking out...Jesus, Bucky, did someone steal your identity, how is all your shit just out there on the internet?"
John just gurgles again.
"Instagram's a mess, but the DMs are hilarious, oh my god." Brady cackles as he continues to go through everything. "Oh." He suddenly grows quiet and John peeks up at him. "Oh."
"Oh?" He repeats. "What's oh mean."
Brady glances down at him, clearly nervous. "Um." He squints between John and the phone in his hand. "There's a message on Insta from, uh...from Gale Cleven's manager...?"
"What?!" John rockets upright, fumbling to snatch his phone back as Brady relapses back into hysterical laughter against his locker.
"Her name's Marjorie Spencer and she's reaching out on behalf of her client Gale Cleven," John summarizes out loud in a panicked ramble, "she says her client hopes I'm doing alright and that he's expressed an interest in meeting again in person, no!" John draws it out in a groan, nearly throwing his phone across the room as he falls back over.
"What, why?! Why no?!" Brady shakes him roughly by the shoulders.
"He just wants to sue me in person!" John wails.
"No, he doesn't." Brady snatches the phone back, reading the message for himself. "He wants to meet for fucking coffee so he can properly introduce himself, you fucking nut!"
Another concerning gurgle.
"Jesus, Bucky," Brady huffs, pushing and pulling at him until he's back upright and slumped in on himself. "He's like super famous and you're you, this is probably like charity work for him to save face."
"Mean." John whines. "You're so fucking mean to me."
Brady cackles and grows suspiciously quiet, enough so that John looks up to see what he's doing only to spot the infamous John Brady smirk, the one he flashes for the cameras just to see himself on the jumbotrons in the stadium during a game.
"What are you doing?" He demands, levering himself up as Brady hurriedly steps away, tapping frantically at John's phone with a look of pure glee.
"Nothing!" He claims with a shit eating grin.
"Brady, I swear to god--"
"There!" Brady crows, still dancing in and out John's frantic grasping. "You're confirmed for coffee later next week!"
"You asshole, you didn't!" John launches himself off the bench with a shocked laugh, tackling a cackling Brady to the ground, his phone skittering off under a distant bench as they lie in a tangled heap on the ground, breathing heavily.
"Hey," Brady volunteers once he's caught his breath and John's made himself comfortable lying on top of him. "I at least said you wanted to apologize for any kind inconvenience, so all you gotta do is whatever the manager lady says and you'll be golden." He thumps at John's back. "There's no way you can fuck this up any more than you already have, right?"
"Right." John agrees, determined to be smart about this.
***
Two days later Gale's standing in his kitchen with a bouquet of tulips and other spring flowers in one hand a miniature card reading sorry I kinkshamed your dog in a near illegible scribble in the other.
Gale always doodles on napkins and stray bits of paper, and Bucky starts collecting these
Before they get together, during one of their private modelling sessions, Bucky insists he feels too hot and needs to take off his shirt. It bites him in the ass because next time, Gale has the heating on low and he’s wearing the thickest, cutest sweater, and Bucky now has to suffer pining for him in the cold
Bucky buys body paint one day and asks Gale to apply it on him. He says it's for an event / bet. Gale regrets ever signing up for art school (not really, he has never been happier, but the yearning hurts!)
Bucky stalks Gale's art Insta and accidentally likes one of his posts from like 5 years ago. Gale cringes when he sees the notification because he thinks his old art sucks.
Once they get together, Bucky tells everyone they meet that his boyfriend is an amazing artist who had exhibitions too, and he starts showing off his photos of Gale's work
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