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-17’s 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 wasn’t sure there was a single inch of him that wasn’t 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 German— of which he could only catch fragments of— thrown in a cold cell to wait. At least they’d 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 he’d 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 didn’t come back. They’d seen enough of it.
But John had never expected it to be Gale going down, had he? He’d 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 couldn’t smell weakness if it wasn’t 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 men— his friends, because yes, many of them were his friends, whether he liked he liked it or not— 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. They’d survive. That’s what they did. Survived. They pushed forward, adapted, continued. They’d be okay. It would keep them safe, too, if he was gone. The Krauts wouldn’t 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, he’d said. Like going to sleep.
I totally forgot to shoutout @hogans-heroes for giving me the title too 🥹🥰 I literally don’t 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 💖💖
it’s the little things as the whumpee recovers. Cleaning their piercings; trimming their hair/facial hair. Applying aftercare to the tattoo they just got. Adjusting their blankets so they’re just so. Keeping their room tidy; throwing on that load of laundry that's been there since before The Event. Filing that one bit of paperwork the whumpee kept meaning to do, but ultimately forgot about.
Just all the little things that don't seem like much, but make the whumpee feel seen.
common advice for social anxiety is to tell yourself "people aren't going to think less of you just because you said something a bit daft" but the thing is. sometimes they will. and you just have to learn to be cool with that and to treat it as a dnd random encounter rather than letting it ruin your whole day
recent example. lady at my careers appointment had a post-it with her name on it stuck to the monitor, so i introduced myself by saying "hello, i'm eliot! you must be [name], it's nice to meet you!" and she stared at me as if i was the stupidest person alive and said icily, "yeah, i'm [name]. congratulations, you can read."
in bygone times this would have reduced me to a sort of quivering blancmange. thankfully i am now in a place where i was able to pull back, calmly evaluate this interaction, and say to myself "this woman should probably not be working in a customer-facing job"
i really appreciate seeing all the posts on my dash recently to the effect of "shutting down conversations about race/gender/minorities in fandom spaces because 'fandom is meant to be fun' is just an excuse to not think critically about the bigoted behaviors you are exhibiting". i hope that this energy carries over into the gaming sphere next pleaaseee
pokemon is a series about building Your own team and going on Your own adventure with creatures that You collect and befriend, and is designed from the ground up to be personal and immersive. i have never been able to look like myself in a pokemon game. if i bought pokemon z a today and booted it up and tried to customize myself, i would not be able to look like myself. just fuck me i guess.
if vampires existed in real life i think there would be shady companies advertising "organic blood" sourced from "willing donors" who are coincidentally all poor people being paid like $5 per blood donation. and like haughty vegan vampires who only drink a synthetic blood drink thats brewed in a way thats actively worse for the enviroment. and radical traditionalist vampires who go on tiktok and claim that true alpha chads have to drain and kill people and anyone who leaves their victims alive is a liberal cuck. enter the world of hypothetical insufferable vampire politics with me.
it’s so special to me that so much of fan culture is textual analysis for the love of the game. like thank god there are people in my phone who are also thinking about this thing i love so much that they are writing transformative fiction as character studies and setting clips of the show to music with theme-relevant lyrics and writing long text posts analyzing every line of dialogue like!! yay!!!
I think the ideal mutual is someone with some solid common ground but who also has a bonkers niche interest that’s totally foreign to you. It’s like a friendly educational experience
I will never understand why people upload cropped, low-res, uncredited art. Here's the full piece, originally created for a collaboration with watchmaker Ulysse Nardin:
Milo Manara, 2019, Ulysse Nardin, 2, mixed technique on paper
I don’t 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.
