Chapter Text
Eerie quiet sleeps in the camp as Bucky sits with his back to a wooden pole, heavy bones and hunger-thin skin, ragged clothes, dirt in his pores. The dome of the night sky is vast and dark above him, but he finds comfort in its ink-black embrace. It’s just like the dreams Gale has nowadays. If he lets his eyes unfocus, he can feel a weight on his lap, thighs bracketing his own, hands clutching at his clothes the way Gale’s spirit holds him in his sleep.
With a heavy heart, he wonders if Gale worries about him on nights like this, when it’s Bucky’s turn to keep vigil for a few hours, to make sure the guards don’t massacre them all in their sleep as the Allied troops creep ever closer. This is the last POW camp Bucky will ever be in, he’s sure of that now. Soon, his captivity will be over, one way or another. He’s ready for the final stretch. He doesn’t know what comes after the finish line, but he feels a new will to fight because the end, at last, is in sight. Every night when he’s asleep, he clings to Gale’s soul in that lightless, shapeless space Gale keeps dreaming up and tells him that each day brings them closer to each other now.
At the sound of approaching footsteps, Bucky tenses, but it’s just Alex. Not someone Bucky would have bet on being his friend, yet here they are. War shakes the odds in unexpected ways, doesn’t it? You win some, you lose some. Bucky lost more than he won in the past two years, but he can’t help but continue to hold out some hope for a final lucky streak. Some habits are impossible to shake.
In companionable silence, Alex sits back against the pole too, perpendicular to him. Their shoulders touch. Bucky doesn’t pull away. They sit listening to the crickets and the rustling breeze for long minutes before Alex speaks.
“Sky’s CAVU tonight.”
Bucky scoffs. “That’s why it’s so goddamn cold.”
Alex lets out a quiet chuckle. “Could be worse.”
“Tell that to my hands.”
“You should tuck them under your armpits.”
Bucky grunts. He knows perfectly well that it would help, but then, he wouldn’t be able to fidget with them. To drum the memories of pub songs on his knees or to squeeze the tips of his trembling fingers. He ran out of cigarettes, and in the absence of distraction, his craving for one makes him jittery. Is this how Gale felt after he finished the last of his sleeping pills? Did he hold onto the last one for as long as he could, like Bucky did with his last smoke? Does it feel good to be back on the pills, now that he’s in Thorpe Abbotts? Bucky knows they’re giving Gale something. Why else wouldn’t his dreams ever form shapes for longer than a glimpse?
“When I was a kid, my ma used to tell me and my sister stories about the stars.” Alex says idly, a nostalgic tone in his voice. “She didn’t know any of the constellations. Made it all up.” He snorts a laugh. “Trying to unlearn that was a bitch, I'll tell you that.”
Bucky grins. “Buck already knew every star in the whole damn galaxy before basic training.”
“Yeah?”
Bucky's eyes turn back to the sky, searching for the one distinct shape he tried to rename the Unicorn on one drunken night on an empty English field with Gale. There it is. The Big Dipper. His gaze traces its lines, and the gentle memory of that starry night drifts to the forefront of his mind. A fond smile pulls at the worn-out lines of his face. There aren’t many things that get past the iron shield around Gale’s heart, but he sure loves his stars.
“Did he tell you he wanted to be an astrophysicist?”
“Really? Never mentioned it.” Alex muses. “He didn't share much, I realize.”
That draws a wry chuckle out of Bucky. He’s not surprised. Gale has always been deliberate about the cards he showed and the ones he kept so close to his chest that not a single ray of light could shine through the cracks. Bucky couldn't stand it sometimes, how it made him feel desperate and needy as he tried to pry those cards away from Gale’s hands. But he’s not sure where his own limits are now, if they still exist at all. He just wants to be with Gale. Looking up at the glittering canopy cradling the camp in peace, he daydreams about that night in England, when he first told Gale he loved him, and Gale told him he had wished on a shooting star. It seems impossible that Bucky would ever feel so carefree again.
It wasn't long after their altercation with those RAF pricks in the beginning of summer. Bucky was pleasantly drunk again, the pain and the guilt of all the men lost numbed in his chest as he and Gale lay in the grass on an abandoned field of wildflowers and dust. Gale deserved a better bed, Bucky thought. He deserved soft sheets and a mattress to sprawl on, but they couldn't get a weekend pass. Gale was a good sport about it though. He told Bucky he liked the smell of the earth and the whiffs of linden blossom in the air, and that he found the jeep uncomfortable anyway for what they wanted to do. So there they lay side by side under the stars, Bucky's trousers still unbuttoned and his shirt riding up his stomach, sweat soaked into his clothes. Gale's head rested on his right arm even as Bucky tried to gesture at the sky with both hands, his words stumbling over each other in his mouth.
“No, no, listen - that's… the Unicorn. See, there's the horn and -”
A firm hand cupped Bucky's face and turned his head to the right. Gale's mouth caught the drunken wisdom on his lips and pushed it back on his tongue gently, with an amused ebb and flow of pressure until Bucky rolled onto his side. It was almost enough to make Bucky forget his point, but as soon as Gale pulled away, the idea came back. He turned his head towards the sky and pointed up, wide off his target.
“- and four legs. The tail, I don't know, there -”
Gale's lips were back on his within seconds, his hand pulling Bucky's down from the air and placing it on his own hip. His exhales came staccato against Bucky's skin as he laughed into their kiss.
“Stop kissing me.” Bucky put up a token protest, but then he went and dipped down to kiss Gale himself. Yes, the Unicorn was important, but other things drew his attention just as strongly, like the sweet buzz of Gale's hums on his lips or the warmth of Gale's skin where pleasure left it flushed.
“I'm not kissing you.” Gale mumbled and kissed him again. His fingers scratched at Bucky's nape, tugging at the short curls there in a way that sent quick, rolling shivers down Bucky's spine.
Bucky snickered like he only would after a night out in an English pub, with woozy joy. The world was swimming around him placidly and Gale was his raft, so he clung to him. He rubbed up and down Gale's side and nuzzled his lips because he could barely muster the coordination for a proper kiss that landed in the right place.
“What are you doing then?”
“Sparing my ears from your bullshit.”
Bucky didn’t feel offended at all. He flashed Gale a loopy grin and rolled on top of him. It was hard to see, but Gale’s eyes reflected some of the starlight. Bucky's hands fumbled their way up from Gale’s shoulders to his face and cradled his round cheeks.
“I love you.” Bucky said through his smile and kissed Gale again.
Gale stroked his back as though he was trying to soothe Bucky into silence, but he let the kiss linger until Bucky grew tired of holding his head up and dropped his forehead to Gale's collarbone.
Gale rubbed his ear. It was a touch he knew that Bucky found irritating because it tickled, but he did it anyway, probably to keep him from passing out. Sure enough, Bucky stirred and wrestled Gale’s hands to the ground, pinning his wrists there. The flexing of his tendons under Bucky's palms felt satisfying.
“You can’t annoy me into taking it back.”
Gale laughed with his mouth closed, little high-pitched sounds trapped in his throat. “What was in that whiskey, huh?”
“Ice.” Bucky said dumbly, lowering his lips to Gale's forehead, then rubbing his own forehead against the spot he had just kissed.
“I love you.” He nudged Gale's nose with his. “Do you love me too?”
Gale tipped his chin up to capture Bucky's mouth and hummed. It sounded like an affirmation. In his intoxicated happiness, Bucky's muscles went pliant again, and he rolled over obediently when Gale pushed him to lie next to him again in the grass they flattened in the shape of two conjoined angels. They went quiet for a moment, just breathing together as the wind swept over the field.
Then Bucky felt Gale move, his weight pressing to Bucky's side and his forehead to Bucky's temple. His hand popped a few buttons on Bucky’s shirt and snuck inside. Warm over Bucky's undershirt, his thumb trapped the crosses and dog tags around Bucky's neck against Bucky's chest.
“Did you know that the first time we shared a dream, you scared me?” He whispered.
Bucky's mind fought the haze of alcohol to sober up. “I looked like a twig.”
Gale huffed a laugh. “That’s not what I mean. You scared me because you bailed as soon as you saw me.” His thumb swiped back and forth on Bucky’s chest, from his heart to where the crosses lay. “I thought you hated me, and I didn't know how to make it better. So I didn't sleep the next night.”
Something in Bucky's chest twitches. “You never told me.”
“I thought you knew.”
“I -” Even through his jumbled thoughts. Bucky knew he shouldn't tell Gale why he stayed away. “I couldn't sleep either that night.”
Gale breathed out. “Did I disappoint you that much?”
Yes, the truth lingered on Bucky’s tongue. He bit it back. “I expected a girl.”
“I figured.” Gale said with resignation. “So I stayed up, snuck into our neighbour's backyard and sat in their tire swing the whole night, looking at the sky. And I saw a shooting star.”
Bucky raised his right hand to cover Gale's on his chest. He stared up at the constellations, walking the lines of their silhouettes, and wondered if Gale had found it soothing to name all those stars like imaginary friends once upon a time.
“I wished on it.” Gale continued. The admission sounded heavy in his voice. Another deep exhale caressed Bucky's cheek. “I wished you'd love me.”
“I love you.” Bucky repeated, but he could tell that there was a tension in Gale he hadn't resolved. “I'm your soulmate.”
That didn't help. Bucky was too drunk and too oblivious to find the right words to say.
“Biology is never a guarantee.” Gale said. “Blood doesn’t make a father love his son, does it? You don’t have to love your soulmate.”
He sounded sad, but when Bucky turned his head to look at him, his smile shifted the shadows in the dim light. He kissed Bucky again, indolent like the grass swaying in the early summer night. Cherishing something he had wanted for so long that the ache was laced into his bones.
“You feel that?” Alex jolts Bucky out of his reverie.
“What?” Bucky squeezes the fingers of his right hand, then the left to quell their shaking.
“The wind.” Alex sighs. “It’s warm.”
“So?”
“I thought you believed in signs.”
A jaded feeling coils in Bucky's stomach like nausea. “Hell knows if I do anymore.”
Alex hums. He doesn’t try to tell Bucky he shouldn't lose faith. He just takes a deep breath, his shoulder warm against Bucky's. “We'll be free tomorrow. I can feel it.”
We're all just different angles of crazy at this point, Bucky thinks. It’s reassuring.
It turns out that Alex is off only by one day. Two days after their conversation, they’re liberated. The German guards are overpowered within minutes. Bucky climbs a flagpole and tears down the symbol of their long misery to replace it with the stars and stripes of home. He hugs the weathered wood that holds him high up above everyone's heads and, for a moment, he feels like he’s flying again.
When the weight of his relief finally crashes into him, it’s devastating. He imagined it many times over, the moment when he gets his freedom back. He thought he would be singing, dancing, drinking, or even just joking around and sharing stories with the soldiers who freed them, but he can’t. The weariness soaked into his spirit is too heavy to lift with skeletal arms and a mind fraying at the edges. It feels pointless to say anything, and now that the fellas don’t need to rely on him to keep their hopes up because it’s over, he goes quiet. Suddenly, sleep is the only thing he wants to do.
That night, he doesn’t go to Gale. He concentrates and dreams up his imaginary cottage on the coast again. The door, the representation of the barrier between their minds, still remains lodged in the dream-bedroom, but at least he’s able to unlock it now. He throws it open, then leaves the house to sit in the sand on the beach instead, watching the waves lap at the shore with rhythmic, languid whispers of peace. Sunshine stumbles on the grey water and its fringe of white foam. Pale purple meets blue on the horizon. He can’t tell if it’s dawn or sunset, or both at once, perhaps, a transition between mindstates. Between imprisonment and freedom.
When Gale enters his mind, he can feel it. He imagines he hears the creak of the door, then the whoosh of the air as the dream ripples around Gale’s soul, then the soft patter of footsteps. Bucky looks over his shoulder, his lips ready to smile, but he sees nothing. No one. Grains of sand shift in boot-sized patches on the ground, approaching him. Amusement tickles Bucky’s chest.
“Did they drag you out to the pub?” He snorts.
“No.” Gale says, a vague note of confusion in his tone. It’s not enough to make him ask why though, and Bucky wants him to reach that point, so he says nothing in response.
He can hear Gale sit next to him, even though he can’t see him. The rustle of clothes, then, a tug on the front of Bucky’s short-sleeved blue shirt. When Bucky raises his arm, a weight settles on his shoulder and something tightens around his waist. He lets his hand drop and sees it suspended in air, even though he feels the sensation of a coat under his palm and Gale’s back against his elbow. He laughs.
“Care to share the joke?” Gale’s voice grumbles drily.
“Remember what you used to do when the fellas got too drunk around you?”
There’s a pause. Gale’s hair tickles Bucky’s neck as they sit there hugging in silence. “I can’t remember anything.” Gale says eventually. His voice sounds peaceful. “What fellas?”
Bucky’s grin fades. Sometimes, a dream is just a dream, and lucidity remains beyond reach even during dreamwalking, as well as the weight of memories. Exhaustion can keep the mind in a sleep deeper than one's awareness. It used to happen to him more often than to Gale, because Gale had practiced lucidity as he grew up. But it did happen once in a while. The last time has been so long ago that Bucky isn’t sure if he should just let him stay unconscious of what he’s doing or make him aware of where he is, at the risk of waking him up. In the past, Gale always let him stay down deep and just enjoy oblivion, so Bucky did the same in return. But tonight, he wants to tell Gale that he’s free. That all the pain and fear is over now. He made it, and he’s going home. To Gale.
“You’re a pilot, Buck.” He starts, rubbing Gale’s invisible arm. “You and I serve in the Air Force.”
“I know.” Gale mumbles, even though he was blissfully unaware of it just a second ago. So far, so good, Bucky thinks.
“You don’t like loud, drunk crowds.”
“They’re out of control, John.”
Getting closer now… “You used to turn invisible in your dreams if they annoyed you too much before you fell asleep.”
“Invisible?” The weight of Gale’s arm lifts from Bucky’s stomach. He must be looking at it now, seeing himself as he is. “Oh -”
There’s a gasp, then the transparent air holding Bucky’s arm away from his body fills with textures and shapes, and the contours of Gale’s body become visible again. Pushing away from Bucky, Gale sits back on his haunches in the sand and stares at his own hands until they look just as solid and pale pink as ever. But he doesn’t stop there. As he watches his own fingers, the dust of purpling cold damage settles across his knuckles. Mud speckles his face, and dark shadows appear around his eyes, the skin sunken around their socket. His hair is limp and mousy-brown with dirt.
“Sorry about that.” He gives Bucky a faint smile, assuming that Bucky’s stricken expression is because he wasn’t lucid for a moment there, and not because he looks like he’s still forced to march between one stalag and the next every day. He looks around with an innocently mild expression. “Bournemouth?”
“Yeah.”
“I like it.”
Bucky hums. “You’d dream it better.”
Gale’s face falls. He looks down at his fingers and rubs the dirt off them as though he has just noticed it. “Don’t count on it.”
“We could try.”
“No.” Gale says with finality. He tugs at the old, ugly coat he’s wearing. His voice sounds low and dejected. “Bucky, I can’t even change.”
“Just take it all off then.” Bucky says, then winks. “I know you look good in your birthday suit.”
At the unimpressed glance Gale shoots him, he chuckles. He reaches out and pushes his hands under Gale’s lapels, peeling the fabric off his shoulders along with the dirt caked into it. It falls on the ground like a heavy chain. With its weight finally gone, Gale breathes more easily. It’s like a catalyst. Suddenly, Gale’s pulling at his holey sweater with frantic force, the buttons of his old shirt, then his trousers and boots, until he’s left barefoot in the long johns he’d put on before they left Stalag III. Clothes that he surely doesn’t wear in the real world anymore, but something in him still clings to them as though he doesn’t believe he’s allowed anything better.
“Hey, Buck?” Bucky says as he watches him. “Do me a favour.”
Gale’s tired blue eyes meet his. “Sure.”
“Get my locker from the orderly’s hut if they’ve still got it.” He waits until hope burns bright in Gale’s gaze like a flare of light, then he grins wide. “And kick the fella out of the bed next to yours, will you?”
Gale tackles him into the sand and kisses him on the mouth.
In a way, climbing out of a fort in Thorpe Abbotts is such a deeply ingrained routine that it feels like Bucky has never even left. As though what he’s coming back from was just a long, long mission. For a moment, the familiarity of it brings him a burst of joy he hasn’t felt since Dye finished his 25th. A part of him still remembers how to be playful like he used to back then, and he pulls a prank on Gale, spurred on by the excitement that he’s going to see him soon, that he’ll hold him in his arms and check him over for new scars, see if his cheeks have filled in again, if his hair is all golden like it used to be.
The moment Bucky sees him in the pilot seat, smiling, it feels like time has restarted again, one and a half years after a phone call in London that stopped Bucky's clocks from turning.
His true liberation.
His soul feels like Gale’s fort in his dream in Walla Walla. All engines feathered, gliding through his skies of euphoria.
“Oh, I’m back!” He shouts, and he means it in more ways than one.
He and Gale slip away from the rest of the men as soon as they find an opportunity. It’s hard to sneak around in broad daylight, but Gale finds them a small corner in a storage room where the stacked shelves and the walls hide them from view, away from the door and the windows. It will do.
There, in the dim space where dust motes float in the air, the strings holding the stitches of Bucky's heart together snap loose. The blood of his sorrow floods his chest and steals the air from his lungs.
“Stone in my shoe.” Gale murmurs through a smile, tugging on Bucky’s collar with one hand. The other grips Bucky's elbow. “I missed you.”
Bucky nods. Here, in this stolen moment of privacy, he finds that he can’t look into Gale's eyes. He stares at Gale’s chest instead, his clean uniform. The healthy shade of pink at his throat, his smooth jaw. When Gale pulls him closer, he can smell his aftershave. The same heady scent after one and a half years. His love, safe again. Long-forgotten memories dance in the blurry, watery lights that suddenly flood his sight. His inhales stutter. Each one comes harder than the one before. His throat is gripped by the illusion of a hand that feels like his own, and the warmth spilling from his eyes and down his cheeks is like the blood in his chest overflowing, trickling out of his body in salty rivulets.
“John.” Gale says as though something is breaking in him. His ever-cold hands cup Bucky's cheeks, and his thumbs swipe through the flood of pain there, but the tears continue to fall.
Bucky's eyes close. His head bows forward until their foreheads touch, and his hands find Gale’s waist. At the end of his long journey, he’s finally home. Gale holds his head in place and gives him a soft kiss. His lips against Bucky's are a whispered welcome back, his sigh a shaky missed you. It doesn’t feel like their first kiss in four months, but their last given to the past one and a half years. Their bodies embrace each other as though they had never forgotten how to be whole together, and the way Gale kisses him now is just the universe righting itself after all those months of spinning miserably out of kilter. Gale's arms wrap around his back, holding him so carefully that Bucky’s heart pumps more pain into his ribcage to make space for all the love he can't contain in it.
When he pulls away, he drops his head to Gale's shoulder and presses his face to Gale's warm neck. In the fragrant darkness there, he can pretend they're in the log house, and he doesn’t have to wake up just yet. They hold each other until he has no more tears left.
Being back in Thorpe Abbotts is nothing like Bucky imagined. He knew he had changed. He knew he wouldn’t be the life of the party anymore and that none of the new faces would know him or would have even heard of him. But what he didn’t expect is that despite all this, he’d feel that he should return to the way he used to be. In the stalag, waiting, hoping to survive and be free again, he didn't realize that he would be shackled not only by grief for the loss of his old self but by shame at his failure to return to it.
To the men who had known him before he went down, he’s a ghost returned to life - but he can’t fit into his living skin anymore. He’ll continue to carry the touch of death for the rest of his life.
He can see the disappointment in their faces. Where they expect him to laugh, heartily from his belly like a man too cocksure to hide his joy, he can only smile now. Wryly, as if there was a bitter aftertaste lingering on his tongue no matter how sweet the joke lands in his throat. The ones who never knew him tense up in his presence more in fear than out of the excitement of meeting a revered idol, and he thinks about easing their mood with a playful quip or a friendly touch, but he can’t muster the care. Let them see him as Major Egan. Harrowed officer, not one of them anymore. Good. For the way he feels now, Bucky might not have made it out of Germany at all.
No one asks about the camp, which is for the better. There’s nothing to be said about it that isn’t said by the hollow light in the eyes of those who returned.
But good food, rest and safety do wonders as well. It’s hard to tell when the face in the mirror still looks like a skeleton reminiscent of Bucky's father, but he does see it in the boys. How their cheeks regain colour and their smiles lose their edge. How, after a few days, they start eating with less voracious bites, and how they don’t sit so closely huddled together anymore. The grime washes off their skin and life returns in its wake.
In Bucky's eyes, the best change of all is that Gale sleeps. Peacefully, like a child, with his hands tucked under his pillow.
On his own, without pills. Bucky thought that the reason behind the constant pitch black dreams was some kind of medication, but when he asks Gale about it, Gale reveals that it's his own choice not to build a dreamscape. He never told the doctors in England about what he went through.
“It’s my business, John.” He tells Bucky one afternoon as they stand leaning against the sunlit wall of the Tower. Their crispy clean uniforms feel warm in the bright light. Between Gale’s lips, a toothpick again. He moves it from one corner to the other. His eyelashes cast long shadows as he stares into the distance where another mercy mission is about to take off. “Ain’t for them to know. Another goddamn look of pity and I'm gonna lose it.”
“Wouldn’t that be a sight?” Bucky snorts. He wants to throw his arm around Gale’s shoulders but he can’t find the strength to do it. He toes idly at a daisy in the tuft of grass that broke through the gaps in the concrete. “Well, if you're not on those pills, we can try doing things like we used to.”
Gale fiddles with the box of toothpicks in his hands. “Do you still want to?”
His voice sounds strange, so Bucky turns his head to look at him, but Gale keeps his gaze on the ground. They're not talking about dreams anymore, Bucky realizes. “Of course I want to.”
“Won't be the same.”
“Nothing’s the same.”
Uncertainty shimmers in Gale's blue eyes when they meet his. There’s nothing else Bucky can say, so he stays silent, but his arm moves until it rests around Gale’s shoulders. Bones on bones.
But something in that conversation lodges itself in Gale's mind and grows roots, because that night, their shared dream crashes like a trainwreck that Bucky is helpless to stop.
It starts innocently enough. Bucky's lucidity returns in his own dream first. He’s climbing the wooden steps leading down to the beach. He doesn't know the reason why he’s going up but he knows he has to get there as fast as possible, so he pushes his thighs until they burn, but the more distance he clears, the longer the staircase grows. At one point, he stops, and sees that the cottage on the beach is just a speck on terrain that looks like he’s watching it from a B-17. An urgent feeling tells him he needs to go back to the house, so he starts going back down, but the staircase never ends.
Cornflowers and daisies grow out of the gaps in the wood or where the steps meet the dirt. The longer Bucky's journey down takes, the more densely they pop up by his feet.
“I know, Buck, I know. Shit.” Bucky swears as he almost trips down on an overgrown root. He would have broken his neck in the fall. “I'm coming.”
It's only then that he remembers that he’s in a dream. He doesn’t have to confine himself to the laws of physics, and Gale’s clues will take him to Gale anyway if he grabs them. With a rush of relief, he bends down and plucks a handful of cornflowers from around his shoes, then thinks of Gale.
He feels the pull of it in his navel as he’s snapped out of his dream, past the battered frame of the door Gale bashed open, and into Gale's dream.
This time, it’s not the swirling, lukewarm darkness that greets him, but green grass and a river that sings to him like an old friend. Sunshine kisses his skin and sweeps over the dreamscape, happiness chased by the shadows of the clouds that drift across Gale’s blue skies. In the distance, the mountain stands tall and proud. The trees in the forest bow gently in the wind as if to welcome Bucky back.
Gale is sitting on the hill overlooking their old log house, with his arms resting on his pulled-up knees. There’s a piece of grass sticking out of his mouth, and he’s in denim trousers and cowboy boots again, shirtless in the warm summer weather. Bucky spots a heap of dirty stalag clothes behind him, but he ignores it, as well as the ashen colour of Gale's hair, because his joy overpowers every other emotion he feels.
He laughs, jogging up to Gale. Every breath fills his lungs with the familiar, crispy peace of the mountain air. He throws himself down on the ground next to Gale and wraps his arms around him, kissing his cheek.
But Gale doesn’t respond with the same enthusiasm. He throws the blade of grass from his mouth away and grips Bucky's shirt with hands so desperate that the seams strain audibly from the force.
“Can we go now? To your beach?” Gale whispers, his voice full of fear.
Bucky's smile vanishes. He looks around but the landscape seems comforting as ever. There’s no laundry on the drying lines and there's smoke trailing out of the log house, now that he’s looking at it, but otherwise, every corner of the dream feels like home. But if something is distressing Gale, they’re not going to stay.
“Yeah. Let’s go.” He pulls Gale to his shaky feet.
They only take a few steps before Gale stills and his body grows rigid next to Bucky's.
“It’s too late.” He says in a voice that sounds like the air rushing out of a cut oxygen line.
That's when Bucky sees it. One of the clouds turns grey from white and starts unraveling at the edges until it forms a spiral that swirls and swirls in place. Around it, the sky ripples, and more pieces of it break off to begin pulsating and rotating at an increasing speed that matches Gale’s panicked breathing. Like an infection, the fragmenting reaches the mountain, and as soon as it claims the peak, it escalates. The entire landscape flickers and breaks into checkerboard patterns as if they were a breakout of hives. Everything is moving and pulsing in different rhythms and different directions. Nausea rises in Bucky's throat.
He clutches at Gale’s hand and tries to imagine his own dreams to snap them out of there, but he has never been good at maintaining focus, and the fear exhaled by the crumbling dreamscape of Gale's mind is strong enough to lock him in place.
“Gale!” He raises his voice, trying to turn Gale’s head to face him. Gale's eyes are wide, his skin white as a sheet. Cold sweat breaks out on his brow. “You’re dreaming, it’s not real! It’s not real!”
But Gale doesn’t listen to him, and the sickness flares up. A black funnel opens up in the grass and starts feeding on the dreamscape, gaining size with every inch of land it consumes. It’s going to suck them in as well if they don’t move, but Gale’s feet are rooted to the spot.
“You need to wake up!” Bucky snaps at him.
But Gale just squeezes his eyes shut and the funnel swallows them both.
The space they end up in is cold, dark and utterly silent. It takes Bucky a moment to orient himself, but he spots a ray of light coming in through a gap that resembles the space between a door and the floor. Gale doesn’t breathe at all as they hold each other, waiting for something to happen.
The sound of boots on concrete comes from the direction of the door.
Gale bursts into tears in his dream. “I don’t want it, I don't, I don't -”
The ray of light is broken by a shadow, and Gale gasps. He grips Bucky's arms so tight that in the real world, they would bruise. “You’re not supposed to be here.”
A forceful shove hits Bucky's chest, and Bucky wakes up in his bed in the barrack.
“Fuck.” He mutters and pushes himself off the mattress.
It's too dark to see but Gale is in the bed next to his, and he would be able to navigate through the space between them even if Gale was on the other end of the building. He makes his way to him as fast as possible, and he breathes a sigh of relief when his hand comes into contact with a warm shoulder.
Gale hyperventilates but doesn’t stir awake until Bucky shakes him.
At first, for a moment, he panics and tries to push Bucky away, but he goes limp when Bucky’s quiet shushing registers in his brain. When Bucky folds over him and pulls him into an embrace, the salt of his sweat and tears smear on Bucky’s lips with the soothing kiss he presses to Gale's cheek. The harsh contrast with the kiss he gave Gale in his dream breaks Bucky's heart.
“It was just a nightmare.” He murmurs into Gale's ear. “Just a nightmare.”
Gale makes a gasping sound and his arms tighten around Bucky. “Mesca-dream.”
“I know.” Bucky says somberly. “Need a bucket?”
Gale takes a few deep breaths, then shakes his head. His right hand slides up to Bucky's nape and squeezes. His breathing starts to slow down.
“You okay?” Bucky asks. He can feel Gale nod, and his hand slips to Bucky's neck, stroking mindlessly. Bucky's hands run up and down Gale's sides until he feels like Gale is calm enough to let go. He presses a soundless kiss to Gale’s temple, then pulls away. “Give me a second.”
He walks back to his own bunk quietly and grabs the old sheepskin jacket that Jack gave back to him upon his return. Bucky hasn't worn it since. He couldn’t bring himself to put it on. But it's his all the same. A keepsake from easier times. To Gale, it won't be a reminder of Münster, but of Texas and Nebraska. Of good-natured teasing and nights spent cuddling in empty forts, drunk on love. It will be a comfort, not a sign of grief.
Bucky takes the jacket, tiptoes back to Gale's bed and drapes it over Gale. The new boys bunking with them won't know the significance of it, the old ones won't care. He feels safe to leave it with Gale for the night, a replacement for the embrace of his own body that he can’t risk to be seen.
Gale snakes an arm out of his cocoon and holds Bucky's hand as Bucky sits on the mattress by his hip. “Did you have to choose this hideous thing?”
Bucky chuckles soundlessly through his nose. “Admit it, you love it.”
Freeing his other hand to stroke Bucky's cheek, Gale smiles. It’s audible in his voice. “I might.”
When their war ends with a radio broadcast, catharsis eludes Bucky just like it did when he was freed from captivity. It’s a fleeting thing. One moment, it sits on the back of his hand, but it flits away as soon as he turns his palm to grasp it. He feels hollow and tired again. The war has given him purpose for so long that he can’t remember what it was like to function without it, and he doesn’t know what comes next.
Some strange twist of an emotion turns the celebration that erupts around him into overwhelming cacophony, and he wants nothing to do with the boys cheering at the top of their lungs, with the dancing, the drinking, the songs. His eyes find Gale’s in the crowd, and Gale gives him a smile of understanding. Bucky knows all too well now what drives a man to turn invisible in his dreams after a night out.
They slip away together. They don’t need to discuss it. Bucky sees Gale walk out, and he follows. He knows they won't be missed. The fellas are more used to them not being there than they’re to their presence. A few perfunctory handshakes, a clap to one or two men's back, and Bucky has done enough to earn his leave. He exits the Officers’ Club like the shadow he feels he is. He leaves them to their joy and to the celebration of their lives, and goes to find the way to Gale instead.
They end up sitting side by side on the roof of the Control Tower, watching the makeshift firework show the ground crews throw using flares. Sizzling, whistling lights explode on the night sky. It reminds Bucky of Gale's first mission. The green light, then the endless wait until, at last, Gale’s fort returned to base.
“You okay?” Gale breaks the silence when the long minutes of it begin to stretch into an hour. Bonfires burn where the men horse around in drunken celebration.
Bucky hums, nodding at the flask in his hands. He forgot to take it with him on the Münster raid, but he’s glad for that now. The familiarity of that small piece of metal warms him. He always gets attached too deeply, doesn’t he?
When Gale’s hand brushes his, he startles. He looks up and finds Gale watching him with knowing eyes. Colourful lights flash on his face as more flares are shot in the dark.
“You promised me a drink if we won.” Gale says.
Bucky's smile comes slowly, but when it does, it's rooted in the strings of his heart. “I did, didn't I?”
He holds the flask out and Gale takes it. Their fingers touch. Their eyes never break contact while Gale raises it to his soft lips and takes a sip. His jaw tenses at the unfamiliar burn as he swallows, but he doesn’t cough or wince, and something about that makes Bucky grin. He takes the flask back and drinks. He imagines he can taste the sweetness of Gale's mouth on the neck of it.
“So. This is it.” He sighs.
“This is it.” Gale echoes. There’s a mellow expression on his face that makes Bucky feel more content too.
“What’s the move now?”
“I don’t know.”
“Come on. You ain’t a betting man. I know you've got a plan.”
Gale's pause is long, but Bucky can tell that he’s going to answer, so he waits, and eventually, Gale opens his mouth again. “I want to study.”
Bucky nods. A spark of joy lights up in his chest. He loves how smart Gale is, always has - and with the new bill, Gale will finally be able to afford doing something with it. “You should.”
“But I don’t know where.”
Bucky slouches down in his seat a bit more. He imagines his Gale at the most prestigious of colleges, sweeping those green, naive academic kids off their feet with his brains and his hard-earned confidence, and he can’t help but smile. “Where do you wanna go?”
“Wherever you go.”
Bucky looks at Gale in the dark, and Gale stares right back at him. For a moment, he’s seventeen again and full of hope that his love loves him back, and it almost feels like a second chance to say the right thing at the right time. Bucky's heart races with the excitement of it. “What are you saying, Buck, you gonna make an honest man out of me?”
“As honest as I can.” Gale replies, utterly serious. “If you want it too.”
Another flare bursts in the sky. Green light burns over the warmth of the bonfires.
Bucky nods. “I do.”
They stay there drinking and sharing the quiet for a long time, just listening to the boys sing and laugh in joy. Bucky feels better already, knowing that no matter what comes next, they'll be together. A slow, gently rising happiness starts to spread in his chest and leaves him loose-limbed from contentment. When he and Gale decide to leave their vantage point and head back to the barracks at last, he realizes that he doesn’t need any catharsis to make this one of the happiest days of his life.
The Tower is deserted inside. Normally, there would be personnel bustling around at all times, but no one thought to stay around manning the weather room on this magical night. The war of their lifetime is over - no one cares if their stations are abandoned for a few hours. As they pass the empty weather room, Bucky feels Gale’s hand slip into his and pull.
“Hey.” Gale says through a smile as he tugs Bucky into the room. “Come here.”
It's a small space. Just two tables, some equipment, several boards with scribbled weather data on the walls, and a bunk bed in the corner for the fellas who'd be here to man the place around the clock if it wasn't for the extraordinary day. They might come back anytime. But it feels like a lucky night. Their lucky night. When Gale closes the door behind them and kisses him in the middle of the room, Bucky puts all caution aside and kisses him back with a hunger he hasn’t felt in two years.
Their fumbling hands tug each other's jacket off, and the garments land on the floor with a rustle of fabric, ignored. Their ties follow. Gale makes a noise in the back of his throat and pushes eagerness into the kiss with a tilt of his chin, licking into Bucky's mouth. Alcohol is an unfamiliar taste on his tongue but feels all the sweeter for it. Bucky sucks on that taste, then gasps into the warmth of Gale's mouth when Gale guides him into a table with his hands firm on Bucky’s hips.
Bucky perches on it and spreads his legs for Gale to fit right there in their cradle, his fingers tugging on Gale’s hair as Gale’s growing hardness rubs against his. He tilts his hips up, and Gale grinds down to make them both hum at the delight of it. His hands slip to the small of Bucky's back to keep him like that and he keeps rocking in small circles as they make out in the dark. The table creaks rhythmically under their weight. It’s the only noise that breaks up the muted murmur of the celebrations outside and the soft, damp sounds of their kisses.
When Bucky tips his head back, Gale stops rolling his hips and kisses the exposed underside of his jaw.
“Weather report?” He asks as he undoes Bucky's belt and shifts one of his hands to Bucky's fly.
Bucky laughs. His gaze meets the mischief in Gale's eyes, clear even in the dim light that comes in through the small windows that face away from the bonfires. He licks his lips.
“It seems that we have, uh, hot temperatures tonight. Weather pressure could be higher.” Bucky starts. His exhale leaves him in a rush when Gale obliges him, squeezing him tighter through his trousers. His thumb rubs at the head of Bucky's cock so tantalizingly that Bucky feels dampness soaking into his underwear. “There’s a… cumulonimbus rising to uh, 40,000 feet. High chance of precipitation.”
When Gale laughs, the corners of his eyes crinkle with it, and he makes those high-pitched sounds of amusement in his throat that Bucky hasn't heard in so long that he thought he made them up. When he grins and wraps his arms around Gale's waist, Gale kisses him again. He curls his arms around Bucky's neck, combs through his curls, then peppers kisses all over the left side of his face, up to his temple then back down to his mouth. When their lips meet and part with a soft sound, Gale sighs as though the weight of the world has just dropped from his shoulders.
“I love you, John.” He says.
Bucky's happiness rushes through his skipped heartbeat, and a love calmer than the sky above the clouds flows through his veins. He captures Gale’s chin with his fingers, using his forefinger to stroke his burning cheek. “Is that the whiskey talking?”
“I didn't have that much.”
“Hm, but you're a lightweight.”
“I'm no such thing.”
Bucky smiles and leans in to kiss Gale again. “I love you so much.”
Gale drags his fingertips down Bucky's spine. “I love you too.”
This time, when his hand wanders to Bucky’s fly, it doesn’t stop there. His fingers push through the folds of Bucky's clothes and pull his cock out through the gap. The heat of Bucky's body has warmed them up enough that they feel pleasant even on Bucky’s overheated, sensitive skin as they spread precome over his length and start pulling him off in lazy strokes. Bucky pushes his thighs against Gale's legs to trap him in place and draws him close to mouth at his neck, where he knows that every exhale on damp skin sends shivers down to Gale's hips. His hands work through the buttons of Gale's uniform.
When he bites the spot above Gale's collarbone and doesn’t let go, Gale stills, panting through his nose as wave after wave of pleasure shudders through him. He leans his head against Bucky's.
“I think there's a first aid kit in one of those cabinets.” He mumbles.
“Yeah?” Bucky breathes against the skin he has just marked with his lips. He kisses a path up to Gale’s face, careful not to bruise where the clothes won't cover it. He kisses the shell of Gale's ear. “Give or take?”
Gale moves his fist over Bucky's cock just once before he stops again. “Take.”
It consumes all of Bucky's restraints not to whine at that. “God. We haven't had sex like that in twenty months.”
It earns him a breathless laugh. “Still keeping count?”
“Always.”
Gale shakes his head and tries to step away. When Bucky doesn’t let him, he folds back in against the table and gives in to the temptation of another minute of kissing and rolling their hips together. The material of his trousers is just the right side of rough against Bucky's cock. He pulls Gale in tighter and Gale bucks against him. The table groans in protest, pushed back half an inch.
“Better not break this thing.” Gale says and drags Bucky back to his feet.
“Good point.” Bucky runs a hand through his hair, taking a deep breath to calm himself. “Go get that kit.”
Wordlessly, Gale steps away from him to root through the cabinets. In the meantime, in a blink of clarity, Bucky moves the table to barricade the door.
“Just in case.” He says awkwardly when Gale gives him a questioning look.
With their momentum broken, their insecurities creep back in. Bucky knows he should save them time and take his clothes off but he stops once he’s half-naked and can’t bring himself to pull his trousers off. The sight of his own torso puts a dent in his confidence. They're both thinner than they should be but Gale escaped the slow starvation in the stalag a few weeks earlier, so he's in better shape. He looks attractive even if Bucky can see the lines of his ribs and has less meat to grab if he touches Gale’s ass. But Bucky doesn’t know if the sight of his body could still arouse Gale in this state or if it’s better not to even try to avoid disappointment.
Sitting at the edge of the lower bunk in the corner, he waits for Gale to come back with the vaseline. When he does, he pushes Bucky on his back and climbs over him. He gives Bucky the small jar to hold while he shucks his clothes.
“Are you nervous?” He asks, hovering half-naked over Bucky, his trousers undone.
“Why would I be nervous?” Bucky tries to cover his shaky exhale, but he fails when Gale leans down and presses kisses to the lines of his chest, up to the juncture of his neck.
“I'm nervous too.” Gale confesses quietly. “Twenty months is a long time.”
The fears in Bucky's chest begin to ease. It's reassuring that he’s not alone in this. That just like when they first started, they can figure it out together. He cups Gale’s cheeks and strokes his thumbs over the scars there.
“I want you just as much as I did two years ago.”
Gale takes a deep breath and gives him a smile. “Let’s get on with it then. We have a lot to make up for.”
Bucky grins. “That we do.”
Some things come back quickly, as easy as breathing. Their naked bodies, tangled with each other. Rolling Gale on his back and parting his thighs, pushing vaseline-slick fingers into him and soaking up the way desire changes his voice when those fingers move inside him. Gale's fingers on Bucky’s nipples, rubbing in circles and teasing between his knuckles as they kiss and rock against each other. Gale's hand between their stomachs, holding their cocks together.
But there are things that don’t go as smoothly, that take effort and adjustment from them both. Gale is so tight and so nervous that it takes a few tries before Bucky is able to sink in at all, and it still hurts, he can tell. He wants to stop, but Gale’s palms press to his lower back and urge him to continue. He starts rocking gently but the frown on Gale’s face only deepens, and his teeth worry at his lip restlessly.
“Push back into it.” Bucky whispers.
“It’s the angle.” Gale hisses, so they put a pillow under him.
On the next thrust in, the noise he makes sounds better, and he moves his hands from Bucky’s back to his head to pull him into a kiss.
Their dog tags clink together as Bucky makes love to him for the first time in two years. With their foreheads pressed together and their lips brushing as he thrusts in deep and knocks quiet gasps from Gale’s mouth. Their eyes are closed, and they don't talk. They only need to feel. Outside, a flare still lights up every now and then, but the base is starting to get quieter as the men's rush of joy settles into a slower flow. Only now does the true meaning of it all reach Bucky's mind, here, in Gale's arms - that he gets to go home and build a life with his soulmate, where they can be together like this every day, where he can kiss Gale in Gale's bed, their bed, and doesn’t have to worry about getting shot by a Kraut for it.
When he snaps his hips forward and grinds down, Gale makes a needy noise and nips Bucky's lip.
“Good?” Bucky pants, doing it again.
Gale looks at him with half-lidded eyes and moves a hand between them again. “So good it hurts.”
Still weak from his captivity, Bucky's arms start trembling from holding himself up, but he keeps going, hardly able to stand the pleasure. His thrusts go easy now, slick and steady, as Gale relaxes into it, and the bed shakes with them. The heady smell of sweat and sex fills his nose, and Gale’s breathing keeps hitching with the moans he tries to swallow.
“Fuck, I missed this so much.” Bucky grunts and loses himself to it, his face tucked into Gale's sweaty neck and stars behind his closed eyes. He knows that Gale likes it like this, mindless in the rush to the peak, and it feels good to let go and just chase the catharsis.
He mouths his desire into Gale's skin. “Oh, doll.”
“John.” Gale moans, and he goes so tight that all the nerves in Bucky's stomach light up in pleasure as he pushes them both into gasping, messy rapture.
They don’t have much time left when it's over, but they risk a few minutes of afterglow. Bucky shifts to lie on his side and rests his head on Gale’s chest, listening to his pounding heart slow and his breathing even out. He strokes his wide palm over Gale’s thighs where his bones bruised them, then the jut of his hips, the mess on his stomach, then his side, where Gale’s slender hand captures his hand and keeps it still.
Suddenly, Bucky doesn’t feel tired at all. The emotional relief he missed after the broadcast seems to slam into him now, in the wake of his bliss, and he catches himself smiling at nothing. He knows that the hollowness and the sorrow will come back. But it's good to remember how to feel alive.
Gale's free hand strokes Bucky's hair, then cups the back of his head. “Do you think you could still ride a horse?”
Bucky props his chin up on Gale’s chest to give him an amused glance. “I could ride you.”
Gale tugs at his ear. “A horse.”
Bucky swats Gale’s hand away from his head, then changes his mind immediately and pulls it back to kiss his palm. “An old one.”
Gale snickers. “An old one?”
“Too weary to buck.”
With a soft smile, Gale cups his face. “I promised Marge I'd visit her in Wyoming when all this was over.”
“It’s over.”
Gale hums. He runs his thumb over the barely-there scar that mars the bridge of Bucky’s nose. “You know, there’s an abandoned cabin in the mountains that you can only visit on horseback. My uncle lost it on poker a couple years back. But I've still got a key. She doesn’t live far from there.”
Bucky pushes himself up on his elbows to lean closer to Gale's face. Gale looks up at him with hope bright in his eyes.
“I wanted to take you there. Always have. Just didn’t know how to ask.” Gale looks away, then back to Bucky's eyes. “Will you come with me?”
“I will.” Bucky nods and gives him a kiss. “And if you want -” He whispers into Gale's cheek. “- I will learn how to dream it for you.”
Gale hugs him tight, and they breathe together as the sounds of singing and cheers start up again outside. If Bucky closes his eyes, he can smell the mountain air on Gale’s skin. The rush of Gale's pulse is like a river, the tickling brush of his hair the grass against Bucky's bare body. His warmth, the sunshine. And in his arms, he holds Gale’s soul, bright and whole - and his.