Shot down and in the stalag, Gale makes a questionable choice, one he has to pay for. And pay he does.
Trigger warnings: suicide attempt, violence, beating, torture, and I'm sure more I can't think of.
Read on AO3
Shoutout to @ignalina-c0re for the amazing moodboard and proof reading it for me!
This was supposed to be for the bonus day of @mota-collab's Whumpfest and it was meant to be like... 10k. Clearly, it spiraled a little out of control and is more than a little late, so it's probably just, at this point, inspired by that and not for it. It's based off this post.
Opening snippet below the cut:
Getting shot down was never in the plan. It was supposed to be Bucky and him, the last two pilots left in the sky, the last two B-17âs flying, side by side. But now Gale was in a cattle car and Bucky was tucked away somewhere in London. At least he was safe, Gale rationalized. At least one of them could make it out, maybe not unscathed, but still flying till the end. He had bruises on his neck, his ribs, his back, his hips⌠Everywhere, really. Gale wasnât sure there was a single inch of him that wasnât bruised or scraped in someway. And everything hurt. Every jostle of the train sent pain shooting through his already frayed nerves. Only the tightness of how closely the men were packed in kept Gale on his feet.
And then the train was whistling to a stop, harsh and jarring, and Gale knew nothing was getting better for any of them.
He was stripped and searched, beaten and berated in Germanâ of which he could only catch fragments ofâ thrown in a cold cell to wait. At least theyâd returned his clothes and his sheepskin, dirty and tattered as they might be, to offer some respite to the biting, frigid temperature in the small cell. He sat, eyeing the door and the window in equal measure, waiting for something, though he had no idea what. It reminded him of his childhood, the anxiety simmering in his gut, the fear of an angry man coming through that door, belt or switch in hand, come to beat him some more. Gale hated every second of it, tried not to think of the memories coming, unbidden, to the surface, swirling through his mind unhelpfully.
Waiting, he could do. The cold, he could do. Waiting in the cold, he could do. Being beat, he could do. Waiting to be beat, he could do.
As long as John was safely tucked away in London, Gale told himself. As long as John was safe, tucked away with whatever women heâd inevitably charmed into his bed when Gale had refused to go with, Gale could deal with whatever the goons threw his way.
Rationally, he knew that, sooner or later, John would hear about the mission, about the losses, about Gale. He just had to hope that John would keep his senses about him. For once. This was war, after all, people went down, people didnât come back. Theyâd seen enough of it.
But John had never expected it to be Gale going down, had he? Heâd said it himself, plenty. You and me, Buck. Guilt clawed at him, rivaling the anxiety, and Gale felt like he might be sick just then, grinding his jaw to try to keep the beasts battling inside him at bay. Any moment now, a Kraut would walk through that door. And if they smelled even the slightest bit of weakness⌠Gale knew exactly what would happen.
They couldnât smell weakness if it wasnât there, though, Gale decided, sucking in a breath through his teeth, feeling for the small pouch concealed in his sleeve. If it would keep anyone else safe, if it would keep John safe, Gale had no problem taking the hidden pills. His men would just assume the Krauts had beat him to death, he was sure, even if they tried to say otherwise. None of them would think their strong, steadfast Major would desert them.
That thought stilled his fingers, no longer rubbing over the hidden seams. Gale hesitated, the thought of leaving his menâ his friends, because yes, many of them were his friends, whether he liked he liked it or notâ there alone making the guilt in him grow, clawing at his empty belly with a vengeance.
No, Gale decided, his men would be fine without him. Theyâd survive. Thatâs what they did. Survived. They pushed forward, adapted, continued. Theyâd be okay. It would keep them safe, too, if he was gone. The Krauts wouldnât be able to leverage them against him either.
Another weakness.
Another thing the Krauts would sniff out.
Gale could solve it all. It would be easy. Smokey had told him as much, quick and easy, heâd said. Like going to sleep.
I totally forgot to shoutout @hogans-heroes for giving me the title too đĽšđĽ° I literally donât think I could have gotten this fic done without Em and Sachi, between the proofreading, moodboard, and title, but also all the plotting and discussions in our DMs. Thank you both so much for everything with this fic and also just for being in my life I adore you both so much and am so glad I have you đđ
I donât like how you put these two photos together, as if to imply that the dumplings with the paw print have anything to do with this sweet, innocent angel who has never done anything wrong.
remember when websites were written on purpose, and not generated by autocomplete in the instant you run the web search? anyway, unrelated, this webpage purporting to relay expert knowledge on which plants are safe for my snake's tank just told me I would know if he was biting them and getting irritated because he would start pawing at his mouth.
Wordle is running out of words. Only 2,000 five letter words remain. When that supply is exhausted the Creation shall begin. One day the word will be ZHURM, and all shall get it, and all shall understand it to mean "an ache from suddenly remembering a long-ago friend, who meant something to you once, but whose face you can no longer conjure". The next day the word shall be JOROL, and all will get it, and all will know it means "the melancholy confusion of passing by somewhere where you once could have died". The next day it will be GREFT, and all will understand it to be a small brown bird with white streaks found only in South America, and suddenly, it will appear, in the shrubs of the Atacama desert, in the streets of SĂŁo Paulo, and all will know that it once was not there, but now, will always be
You should be able to say âdonât touch meâ to anyone ever in any context and not have it be considered in the realm of surprising or insulting imho if we ever needed to normalize something itâs this
I think for a lot of people âI am completely helpless and powerlessâ and âI am completely powerful and in controlâ are both basically comforting fantasies because most of us live our lives in an in between place where we have enough agency to be responsible for our actions but not enough agency to have true control over our lives and the tension between power and powerlessness in the day to day is psychologically wearing and exhausting
