The Favorite (Crimsoned)
first half of whatever this is. TWs for blood, mild gore, hints of sexual humiliation and dubcon
“And Strife was joining the throng of battle, and Tumult, and painful Death, holding now a living man new-wounded, now one unharmed, now dragging a man who had died by his feet through the press of battle; and Death wore around her shoulders a cape crimsoned with the blood of men.” —The Iliad, Book 18, lines 535-538, translated by Caroline Alexander
His angel wears a dirty sheepskin jacket, goes by the name of Bucky, and smells, always, like blood.
Gale doesn’t believe in angels—certainly not ones that walk on Earth, and certainly not ones that call themselves Bucky of all things—but Curt had put the suggestion of a guardian angel in his ear once, way back when Bucky didn’t have a name or a face, when he was just this feeling Gale would get sometimes when he was flying—stronger and more foreign than intuition—and for lack of anything else to call it, him, the title stuck.
The angel tells Gale his name the first time he’s solid enough to really be a he rather than an it. They’re flying back from Le Bourget, Judy-E teetering towards becoming a glider, engines 1 and 4 both shot to hell, a jam on engine 3, a fire in engine 2 and another back in the tail section. They’re much too far behind enemy lines to think of letting her go. The air rumbling with flak and the comms clouded with shouted checklists and Gale feels steady. Deep in his gut, down to his toes, his hands refuse to shake as his mind whirls through his options. A hand over his hand, a voice underneath his voice. Clarity, instinct, a pure kind of knowledge that this is the answer, this will get them home. An understanding built so deep that it appears natural. Inevitable. Genius.
But Gale knows there’s no such thing as genius. Or if there is, he’s never been one. He works and he studies and it all comes together, but it has never been this simple. It’s that unease and a memory, Curt’s voice, someone’s up there watching your back, Major, that keeps him from screaming as a pair of hands, weighty and real, appear on top of his own. Duncan is in his ear, yelling, “—nose down! We gotta get that fire out!” But Gale’s focus has been over his shoulder, working through the jam with De Los Santos, so he’s a half a second behind—stupid, human, deadly—when a burst of flak rips through the right side of the cockpit, severing Duncan’s hands at the wrist. It’s only the hands over his that keep Gale, full force and pressure, on the yoke. Pushing Judy-E into a sharp dive.
“The hell—” is all he gets out. The hair on his neck raises and he goes prey-still. A shape appears behind him, beside him, hands over hands turning to arms next to arms, face next to his face, like Gale’s sitting on its lap. A beaked nose, a thin mustache, large white teeth, laughing eyes. Gale stutters through a lungful of crisp ozone, sharp-metallic-warm, creeping back up his throat to lay heavy on his tongue.
“It’s just me, Gale, just Bucky, you got this.” He says it like they’re old friends. Pulling from a well of trust that doesn’t exist. They’re swimming through cloud break, murky white on all sides. The blood spewing from Duncan has slowed to a trickle, rhythmic in the sudden quiet. The fire in the no. 2 gasps once then smokes out, orange flickering to black. Gale can’t hear it spin back up through the cotton in his ears, but he watches the prop become blurred. In one smooth motion they pull back on the yoke, easing her back up, making sure she doesn’t roll too far to the right.
Bucky makes a frustrated sound in Gale’s ear, “C’mon, wake up!” And it’s unclear if he means Gale or the no. 3, but both of them unfreeze at the same time. The engine splutters thick black smoke once, twice, before starting up her normal purr, cheers of the crew almost covering the gentle hum. Gale’s grip relaxes on the yoke, his shoulders relaxing, and he turns his head to face his angel, nose to nose. He’s smiling, the corners of his eyes and mouth crinkled with it, and it does something odd to Gale’s head. A weightlessness, the rush of relief from muscles untensed, ears freshly popped. He’s beautiful. Boyish and lively, unfazed by the blood that coats half his face.
The angel winks and disappears. Gale gets his boys home, the soft press of sheepskin never fading from his cheek.
---
Gale checked the duty roster. Read and reread the reports to interrogation. No mention of a Bucky. No mysterious 11th crew member slipped by unseen. No mention of Gale talking to himself either, which should be a relief. At least if he’s losing it, he’s keeping it to himself. Instead, a swift dread runs through him. Losing it would be easier. Shameful, but mappable. Figuring out where you are is the first step for getting yourself out.
Gale has no idea where he is. He has no choice but to sink deeper.
---
As if a dam had broke, Bucky’s with him for nearly every mission now. Not always fully present. Sometimes he’s just a flutter in Gale’s chest. A firm pressure around his wrist. A whisper of wind past his ear. He finds himself waiting for it. When he goes up with Demarco and Our Baby and they have to turn back for a mechanical failure, he’s disappointed at the lack of company.
All their aircraft make it back that day. Still, they’re not without losses.
Gale watches from hardstand 17 as the medics whizz by. The clamor of reentry fills the countryside. Screaming, sirens, shouted orders. The crew trucks bound for interrogation pass, haunted faces Gale won’t look away from. The air quivers, and Bucky’s arm slides around his shoulders.
Gale can’t remember when keeping company had turned to more. When his eyes had first wandered to Bucky’s lips. When he began anticipating Bucky’s weight against him for the response it would stir, rather than the solid comfort of his guidance. When, exactly, he’d decided that having more of Bucky would be worth forsaking everything else.
He has no idea what drives Bucky to this either. Why Gale would be worth such corruption.
They stumble into an empty room, and nothing matters but the how.
Bucky grips Gale’s chin, fingers firm and beckoning, and slips his tongue into Gale’s mouth, sweet and seeking. Desire crashes through him, sure as a puzzle piece clicking into place.
Gale tries to speed it up, give more, take more, hands insisting, wandering, harder, uglier, the way it’s supposed to be, but Bucky doesn’t relent. Traps Gale in this open, empty room with only the gentle bulk of his body and the tender press of his lips. Twines his hands through Gale’s hair, but doesn’t touch him further. Painful, aching sweetness and not a drop more, like all the pleasures of Gale’s body are contained solely in his lips and Bucky’s determined to uncover them without any aid—no bite of teeth, no pressure, just enough unyielding patience to get Gale kiss-drunk and whining. Only once Gale’s past the point of pride does Bucky leave him, slack-jawed, to mark his neck.
It’s overwhelming. His lips feel numb from over attention, but the rest of him, ignored for so long, feels newly untouched. A fresh crop of nerves for Bucky to defile. Sensitive. Hair trigger. Youthful exploration but devoid of fear, of anxious violence, because there’s nowhere safer for Gale than the surety of Bucky’s embrace. God-sent, unseen. If they’d promised Gale this sort of heaven earlier, maybe he’d have lived like he was earning this.
When Gale cums, shamed face hidden in Bucky’s chest, a last ditch effort to muffle his groan, Bucky doesn’t stop. He unzips them both and digs them out. Sure-handed, ignoring Gale’s attempts to join in.
He pushes them together, his velvet hardness bullying Gale’s limp, cum-covered cock. “Aw, cute,” Bucky mocks, as Gale’s cock twitches, “trying to wake back up, how polite.”
He props Gale up and back, leaning against the wall so he’s forced to watch. Bucky takes them both in one hand, slicked only with Gale’s cum and the pre leaking from Bucky’s tip. Gale’s never let himself process before, what other men look like. Keeps things perfunctory or professional or hurried, whichever is called for, and none of those call for Gale to stare. Now, the sight of Bucky against him, pale and heavy, is startling. A twist of Bucky’s wrist and Gale grunts, too much, too soon. It feels so nice, or maybe not nice at all.
Horribly, a tear catches at the corner of his eye. Gale grits his teeth, determined not to let it fall, but Bucky must be watching him instead of the slow tug of his hand, because he laughs a little, short and pleased, before he pauses. He worms the fingers of his unoccupied hand past the buttons of Gale’s shirt to brush over his nipple while he slowly runs his pinky along the ridge of Gale’s cockhead. The sound Gale lets out this time is closer to a whimper and the tear escapes down his cheek, all of Gale’s fight in tow. Bucky catches it with a kiss.
Bucky makes him cum again, dry, and maybe he’d have forced Gale to his knees, supplicant, if Gale had any bones left to maneuver. Instead, Gale watches Bucky spit in his own hand and finish himself off, saliva gathering in the back of his mouth, wishing nothing was holding him up, just so he could be closer. Bucky aims it so his cum lands in the ruined front of Gale’s pants.
Gale reaches out and swipes up the last bit of it clinging to Bucky’s slit. Sticks it in his mouth, quick, like there’s anybody here to stop him. It’s curiosity, of course. Investigation into the sound and touch and taste of an angel. But there’s no taste. No sensation of anything being in his mouth at all. A nothingness.
The mission light blinks on and off. Sound finds its way back into the room. Bucky’s gone.
