Starward Bound

[toddkinn]

the way everyones mood sours whenever john opens his mouth like Girl you’re so unpleasant to be around i love you!❤️

[mountain-star]

The people you love can push your buttons like no one else, can't they? And John tries Gale so badly you know it can only be true love!

[pleasuretrade]

hey. dont cry. bucky egan snoopy ok?

[toddkinn]

who else just really really loves talking about gale and john from the show masters of the air

[guessimherenowtoo]

Song: 'Opening (Score to Brokeback Mountain)' by Gustavo Santaolalla (from the 2005 Brokeback Mountain Soundtrack)

Accompanying oneshot under the break:

“We could do it, Buck.”

John’s whisper is, as ever, hardly much of one, but it doesn’t matter. The boys are too exhausted to wake up for anything less than guns firing in the yard, and as much as Gale wishes he could sleep too, he just can’t. He can’t.

“No, John. We can’t.”

It’s a cruelty, to be so pragmatic now of all times, but John doesn’t seem to care.

“It’d be so easy. So good.” Gale pretends like he can’t feel John’s hand slipping around his waist, tucking too easily underneath him on the other side. He’s getting so thin, but so is everyone. Winter is hard, food is harder, one of mankind’s oldest enemies. “We’d be all alone up there, just you and me.”

Against his better judgement, Gale fills in the last part of John’s constant refrain whenever he starts in on this again. “And the sheep?”

“Yeah.” John’s smile stretches oddly on a face no longer used to it. He presses his teeth to Gale’s forehead and puckers his lips to turn it into a kiss. “You, me, the sheep. Nice life, Buck.”

“Uh-huh.”

Gale doesn’t ask what he’s supposed to do about Marge in this fantasy and John doesn’t offer his own thoughts, if he’s had any. It’s always the same: they’ll get out of here, they’ll go home, they’ll get up into the mountains, somewhere boundless and free where no one will ever look at them again but each other. They’ll herd and they’ll ride and it’ll be enough, because it’ll be the two of them, just them and nothing else.

Gale hasn’t told the men yet that John’s finally cracked.

“Mountains’ll be green,” John mumbles, lips barely moving and eyes closed, exhausted, “summertime. You’n’me Buck. Just like this-” he squeezes Gale’s waist, kisses his forehead and breathing in deep like he doesn’t even notice how long it’s been since Gale was last able to stand washing his hair with water hardly warmer than ice, “-always.”

“Don’t count on it,” Gale whispers into the hollow of his throat. John falls asleep grinning, teeth cool and hard on Gale’s skin.

–//–

“We still on for it, Buck?” John asks, shivering and trying to look like he’s not as the train rattles and sways with them trapped inside, them and every other sorry soul who survived the march out of the stalag.

“Yeah, John. You and me, we’re on,” Gale breathes. He’s done fighting it, and what’s one more harmless illusion, huh? One more what-if that they’ll never see, but if it keeps John going then it’s worth indulging, isn’t it?

John can’t kiss him here in the middle of the shivering misery of everyone else, but he looks at Gale like he wants to and that’s good enough until they can steal one later, when everyone’s asleep.

–//–

“Go Buck, get outta here!”

He goes, he runs, and as he runs he clings so hard to this harebrained scheme of John’s that he leaves bloody claw marks in it, the fantasy worn so thin he hardly even knows what else to hope for besides John coming back to him to tell it to him again.

The two of them somewhere far above the world, answering only to each other. He’ll have to leave Marge. When he gets back to Thorpe Abbotts by some miracle, he writes her a letter saying as much and how sorry he is and how she deserves better than this, than him, warns her that she wouldn’t even recognize him to see him now anyway, he’s not the man she fell in love with and he’ll never be able to give her what she wants. It’s cowardly of him, to hope she’ll exhaust her anger and her hurt before he ever returns Stateside, and cowardly too of him to wait to send it until the day after John makes his way back to him, the letter like a talisman against the possibility that he somehow wouldn’t.

“We’re still on, John,” Gale tells him that night, voice pitched low in their darkened corner of the infirmary, John on a cot and Gale sitting beside him, curled over to press his mouth to the inside of John’s wrist, kissing the proof of his beating heart with every steady bump against his lips. “You, me, and the goddamn sheep.”

“I’ll take that bet,” John chuckles and he reaches across himself to stroke Gale’s hair, clean once again, and soft between his fingers. “You wanna climb up here? Tight fit, but we’ve had tighter.”

He does want to so he stands without a word and lays down where John makes room for him, potential blue tickets be damned. War’s almost done anyway, the hell are brass going to do about it now? They might as well be untouchable, and that’s a novel thing to be.

–//–

“C’mere Buck,” John calls. He’s laying in the grass with his hat resting lightly over his face, one arm behind his head and the other down at his side, hand patting the ground by his hip.

Gale settles down beside him and says, “Hey darlin’. Thought you were asleep.” The grass is soft and springy, wet from a quick rain shower at dawn but he doesn’t mind. “You alright?”

“Never better.”

Gale sets their shotgun down at his hip and rests his forearms over his bent knees. The flock is meandering at the bottom of this little rise they’re at the peak of. John’s hand creeps across the scant space between them until he can curl his fingers around Gale’s calf, wriggles his hand up under the leg of his jeans and holds on just above the top of his boot.

“We gotta move them this afternoon,” Gale reminds him. The breeze that ruffles the grass and his hair is soft, sweet with fresh growing things, clear mountain air.

“Sure.” John strokes his thumb back and forth slowly, skin to skin.

They lapse into easy silence again, just the rustle of the breeze and the occasional bleat from the flock below grazing peacefully. Gale watches the clouds scud along, wonders not for the first time and certainly not for the last if they’ll ever go up there again. Here, like this, he almost doesn’t miss it.

John’s thumb slows and then stops, his breathing slowing with it. Gale looks down at him, gently lifts John’s hat from his face to hook over his own knee so he can see him properly, dozing off, perfectly relaxed. He doesn’t stir when Gale strokes the back of his index finger against his forehead, or down his cheek. He traces the line of his nose with a fingertip, does the same to his lips, gently parted for steady, puffing exhales.

John sleeps on. He had a nightmare last night, kept him up until he’d given in and saddled up to come check on the flock at first light. Gale’s glad to see him sleeping now, happy to stand guard and make sure it stays restful. He’ll wake him in a little while, and they’ll move the sheep down the slope to the creek at the bottom of it for some water, take them on to the next grazing area a little closer to the cabin. Later, though. For now Gale just tucks his fingers into John’s unruly curls, longer than regulation would have ever allowed and in need of a trim the next time they think about it, and settles in for another quiet day on their mountain.

[youokaybucky]

@daysofxavierspast pointed us on discord towards a post on the 100th bomb group's official instagram and I know it's a serious post and document but I'm laughing.

It's written by gale, for gale, but signed by his best friend john egan. These are the vibes this gives

They really be out here like "if you want something bestie I'll sign it off for you 🫶"

[blood-suits-and-tears]

// numb little bug - em beihold // if- by rudyard kipling // you're a man now, boy - raleigh ritchie // left behind - orla gartland // waiting for the end - linkin park // left behind - orla gartland // alone - lennox amott // excerpt from The Forgotten Man - the mechanic - the Kenneth A. Lemmons Story (special thanks to @bcofl0ve for that one <3) // ruin - the amazing devil // la belle dame sans merci - john keats //

[ebookporn]

[mountain-star]

Why is summarizing your work the WORST?

[sadist-babypink]

when haussmann said that john is defintely not married, was he calling him a hoe or was he calling him gay

[mountain-star]

Well... Hausman didn't ask about any of the women as a follow up, did he? 🤣🤣🤣

[magneticghouls]

put some goddamn moves on you, god knows you need it

[angelfruittree]

Everyone’s like ‘bucky nooooooo’ EXCEPT FOR GALE. Number 1 Bucky Egan enjoyer.

[mountain-star]

Bucky is Gale's subconscious, walking and talking outside his body. Like Obama's anger translator, but for a broader range of emotions.

[wickeddraven]

Sick Buck. Someone get him some soup.

[mountain-star]

You know this is a deeply held belief of Bucky's too. They need Buck, not Bucky 😢. And you'd have to break him down to get him to say it when Gale would actually hear him.

[doodleoo]

what you learn from hobbies:

consistent practice opens up whole worlds of skill that you couldn't imagine

making mistakes in the process of learning is not only natural, it is also essential

activities that you enjoy can give you more energy back than you spent on them

wow everything is so expensive

[doodleoo]

my hands hurt

[elleviral]

thinking about wildfires right now because of the everything and while I still think super scooper pilots Clegan would go hard I think maybe dc-10 tanker pilot Gale is actually truth because look at this thing - think of the adrenaline, they have to fly these huge jets at super low altitudes it’s wiiiiiild he would be so excited to turn off all of the warning alarms

[hogans-heroes]

tell me more about the Buckies failing out of flying fighter planes pls you’ve awoken something in me

Re it’s likely the Buckies flunked out of fighter pilot training

YES OK FIRST it’s very important we keep in mind that THIS is the era of Buckies we’re talking about:

Absolutely smol boys who just met and suddenly are having this new chaotic life and all these feelings and have latched onto each other HARD. Bucky is lanky and awkward and eager and hasn’t grown into his hands and feet and still gets growing pains for Pete’s sake, and Gale might have shown up fresh off the recruit bus with no belongings and some fading bruises from his dad.

They advance through the levels of training absolutely glued at the hip. And somewhere along the line things get hard. Not the flying, they’re passing that with, well, flying colors. But it’s the other stuff. Weather theory is fucking HARD, so is learning all the radio systems and engine systems and endless math required for every goddamn second of flight planning.

Bucky flunks a test, one of the seemingly millions of papers with letters and numbers that made his head swim, and gets the boot. He’s inconsolable, wrecked not because fighters are no longer an option (he thinks the bombers are cool too) but because he and Gale will be separated, and “it was supposed to be the two of us” is the only thing he can whisper in the privacy of their bunkroom. The second Gale sees Bucky crumble—failing to hide tears that he’s ashamed of but he can’t help it because it hurts to fail but it’s unbearable pain to lose Gale—suddenly Gale knows what he’s going to do. Bucky’s gangly hands are clutched in his jacket and his eyes are wet and heartbroken and his breath is hitching with dry sobs he’s trying to hold back because he’s a grown-up now. Gale’s trying to smear the tears off his flushed cheeks, trying to comfort Bucky who just buries his face his Gale’s shoulder. He tells Bucky it’ll be alright.

Bucky gets on the bus out of there that day. On to his new assignment. Golden student Gale Cleven flunks an electrical systems exam the next week, and “gets lost” on a cross country also.

John has his suspicions. He finally gets it out of Buck, in a word or two admission, months later, that it was on purpose.

[pleasuretrade]

gale who is actually a junior named after his father and who secretly relishes the way bucky gave him a new name even though it still ties him to another man

[igotyoubabeheffron]

Bucky Cleven and Bucky Egan, the two squadron leaders who went down over Bremen and Münster, were the very soul of Romanticism. - A Wing and a Prayer, Harry Crosby

Masters of the Air | The Selected Poems of A.E. Housman

Books in HBO War, Part III

Shout out to @stereobone's eagle-eyed anon for ID'ing the book!

[igotyoubabeheffron]

More on A.E. Housman because I was not at all familiar with him until this. It took me a minute to really vibe with his poetry but I fear I've grown quite fond of him, and the choice to give this book to Gale is making me insane. Ramblings below:

He spent his life in unrequited love with his best friend Moses Jackson (athletic, outgoing, straight); Housman was very shy, stiff, and one person described him as being "descended from a long line of maiden aunts".

His poems are rather bleak and pessimistic, with lots of talk of death and suicide, unrequited love, and the “attitude that the universe is cruel and hostile, created by a God who has abandoned it”. But he writes it with a quiet acceptance, and there’s some irony and wit to them (and in some cases a little wink, where I think he might be playing up the drama a bit.)

A lot of his poetry is laced through with queer subtext but in a few it's pretty much just text--probably most notably in two about a suicide he read about in the paper, one written after Oscar Wilde's arrest (he even sent him a copy of his book when he was in prison), "He could not stay for me" and "Because I liked you better" (those last three were only published posthumously)

Because I liked you better Than suits a man to say, It irked you, and I promised To throw the thought away [...]

Given his repression of both his sexuality and his emotional/poetical side--and they way they were intrinsically linked--it's maybe not a surprise he once referred to his poetry as coming out of him like "morbid secretions"(!)(christ, my guy)

As a scholar, he was "worshiped and hated for his meticulous standards and his appalling sarcasms on the unscholarly". Truly, he was suuuuch a cocky little shit towards other scholars and after his death, his brother found notes with pre-written barbs awaiting assignment: “If we all knew as little as __ does, we should doubtless find the classics as easy as he does.” “Nature, not content with denying to Mr __ the faculty of thought, has endowed him with the faculty of writing.” (I ❤️ him, I'm sorry!)

He spent nearly 30 years on translating his edition of "Astronomica", a 5 book Latin poem about astronomy and astrology, which he himself described as “so dull that few professed scholars can read it”. The undertaking was summed up by others as both an opportunity to show off and establish THEE authoritative text, and as an act of self-punishment.

He was so in love with his best friend that there's an acclaimed play about it--"The Invention of Love" by Tom Stoppard (of “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead” fame). It's pretty dense with esoteric references (and a fair bit of Latin)--a lot of it went over my head this first read but if you just let it wash over you, the meat of it is SO good and funny and bittersweet

@hogans-heroes raised the question of whether one of the Buckies washed out of fighter pilot school intentionally to follow the other—Housman failed his final exams despite being a promising student and ended up getting a job with Jackson in the Patent Office. The Invention of Love implies it was intentional:

Jackson: Someone said you ploughed yourself on purpose. […] We got what we wanted, Pollard at the British Museum and here's me with an Examinership and three hundred a year with prospects… You were cleverer than any of us, Hous! Housman: I didn't get what I wanted, that's true, but I want what I've got. Jackson: Pushing a pen at thirty-eight shillings a week. Housman: But here we are, you and I, we eat the same meals in the same digs, catch the same train to work in the same office, and the work is easy, I've got time to do classics … and friendship is all, sometimes I'm so happy, it makes me dizzy - [...]

The play also sums up his feelings for Jackson like this (!!!):

Housman: What do I want? Chamberlain: Nothing which you'd call indecent, though I don't see what's wrong with it myself. You want to be brothers-in-arms, to have him to yourself… to be shipwrecked together, (to) perform valiant deeds to earn his admiration, to save him from certain death, to die for him—to die in his arms, like a Spartan, kissed once on the lips… or just run his errands in the meanwhile. You want him to know what cannot be spoken, and to make the perfect reply, in the same language.

And that bit pulls from what his brother shared in an essay after Housman's death:

In Seven Pillars of Wisdom T. E. Lawrence gives the following introspective account of himself: “There was my craving to be liked--so strong and nervous that never could I open myself friendly to another. The terror of failure in an effort so important made me shrink from trying; besides, there was the standard; for intimacy seemed shameful unless the other could make the perfect reply, in the same language, after the same method, for the same reasons ….” Against this passage, Alfred wrote in the margin "This is me."

In that same essay he says he found Jackson’s last letter to Housman, written as he was dying in faint pencil; Housman had gone over all the letters in ink 🥺😩

If you read this far, have a bonus gif! That I cut for being too much reading lol