#To Cry for the Moon fic | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

rambleonwaywardson · 30 days ago

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Clegan Astronaut AU - Part 19

Masterpost Read on AO3

AU Summary: the boys as modern day NASA astronauts. Taking place in 2025, Bucky is heading to the moon as mission commander of Artemis III while Buck is CAPCOM at NASA. Established relationship (obnoxiously in love).

Author's Note: I hope this chapter makes you all feel as much as it made me feel.

---

Our world may have shattered. But I promise, we will put it back together again. Piece by piece, no matter how long it takes, no matter how much I grit my teeth in pain. With bare, shaking hands I will gather the remains, even if they shred my skin until I bleed. I will not give up on you if you don’t give up on me.

I won’t give up on me.

You told me once that it will be hard, that it will hurt, and it does. But no matter how hard it is, no matter how much it hurts, every moment is worth it to see your face when I wake up in the morning. Every moment is worth it to hope that someday, I’ll just be me again. And you’ll be you and we’ll be us, carefree and fearless and madly in love as we find the next adventure. The next small step. The next giant leap. The next stop on the road to everywhere and nowhere. And everything will be back to normal.

Normal.

Everyone keeps saying that the hurt and the hard stuff is normal. That everything I’m going through is normal. That the pain and the confusion and the fear are normal.

But how can it be?

When my normal is so unachievable with the way I am now. Major Bucky Egan. Artemis commander. Wild, reckless, competent.

Broken.

I don’t know what normal is anymore. I don’t know if I’ll ever feel it again. I don’t know what to do if I don’t. Sometimes I think it’ll be unbearable. And sometimes I think, if we can’t find normal, we’ll just redefine it. You and me. We can do that, can’t we?

It does hurt. It is hard. Some days I feel like I’m drowning, and some days I feel so fuckin’ alive. It’s like I can’t keep up. Like I’m sprinting into the future until I run off a cliff, just waiting for the ground to reappear again. I need you to remind me why it’s worth it. I need you to remind me why I fought so hard to keep breathing. I will fight tooth and nail to make our life whole again, as long as you’re there to guide me home.

We’re all made of stardust, you like to say. And when I look into your eyes, I see it. I feel it. The stuff of shattered stars and baby universes and every atom that has forged this existence in which we live. Every breath that’s ever been taken. Every speck of sunlight that’s ever brightened my day. It’s all right there, staring back at me when you look me in the eye. And you smile. And I feel like I’m drowning, for once, in a good way.

Maybe our world nearly crumbled to pieces, but it’s still turning. I see it when I look at you, and it gives me the hope I need to keep going. Even when it’s hard. Even when it hurts. We made it this far, and we will make it farther. I promise you, we will find a way to put our future back together. We’ll find normal, whatever that means.

Our world may have shattered, but I promise we won’t.

—

December 18 Nassau Bay, TX

Bucky doesn’t know when he started calling Gale “Angel.”

He called him “Buck” from the moment they met, two lanky kids sizing up their new college roommate, couldn’t be more opposite and yet Gale Cleven was the most beautiful thing John had ever seen. All other men, women, ruined for him the moment he set eyes on that perfect fucking angel with the soft, unsure smile and the messy blonde hair, bright blue eyes locked on the stars just like Bucky’s.

“So what’d’ya say, Buck?” he asked that first night, clapping Gale on the shoulder like they were already old friends. “Wanna see what this college town has to offer?”

“My name is Gale,” Gale muttered back. All Bucky could do was hum noncommittally, because it didn’t even matter. Sure, Gale Cleven had always been, would always be Gale Cleven. But from that moment on, he would also always be Buck.

From that moment on, they were tied to one another. Even if Bucky never, even in his wildest dreams, could have anticipated how beautiful their life would turn out, they belonged to each other. Their names said so.

Buck. And Bucky.

But, angel? He can’t remember when that started for the life of him.

That’s what he’s thinking about as he sits alone on the living room couch, staring at the unadorned Christmas tree in their bay window. It sits tall and proud right in the center so you can see it from the street. They pick one out every year, wandering through the Christmas tree lots with a far too critical eye, carefully selecting the perfect one to take home and decorate for the holiday season.

They were late getting it this year, and it still doesn’t have a single ornament on its branches. When Bucky was in the hospital, it hardly even occurred to Gale to decorate for Christmas, much less to buy a tree. He wasn’t exactly in the holiday spirit. After all, the tree was always something they shared. After all, Gale wasn’t sure they’d ever share it again.

But with Bucky home, their undecorated house suddenly felt so incredibly wrong.

Sure, the guys had taken it upon themselves to string up the lights along the roof the day Bucky came home, but no one had touched the boxes of interior decorations stored in the shed in the backyard. That same day, once everyone had gone, Bucky looked sadly around the house and said “It’s almost Christmas, Buck. Why does it look so… un-Christmassy in here?”

Gale went outside that very moment and started hauling boxes in from the shed.

They spent all afternoon hanging wreaths on the doors and displaying the various decorations they’ve accumulated over their lifetime together. Christmas candles and reindeer figurines and garland and colorful lights to hang around their window. They hung three stockings on the mantle of the fireplace they never use: a white one for Gale, a red one for Bucky, and a green one with paw prints all over for Pepper. That night, while Bucky watched and tried not to fall asleep in his chair, Gale made sugar cookies that filled the house with the scent of vanilla and a certain joy that had been missing for weeks. He hummed as he baked, blushed when Bucky pointed it out, and repeatedly had to smack Bucky’s hand away when he tried to eat the raw dough.

When, after being home for a few days, Bucky insisted that they needed a Christmas tree, Gale was bound and determined to find one. Usually, they get their tree a good few weeks before the holiday, when Bucky finally convinces Gale to give in to the Christmas spirit. This late, Gale was worried the lots would be picked over, leaving nothing up to Bucky’s standards. But they kidnapped Benny from his house down the road, and the three of them drove out around the Houston area. They had to go to three different lots, but eventually, they landed on something promising.

Gale pushed Bucky between the rows of trees in his wheelchair, turning left or right or backtracking according to Bucky’s whims. Gale was getting nervous that this lot would be a bust, too, but damn near the end of the last row they walked down, Bucky pointed enthusiastically to a tree in the corner, just a hint taller than the others around it. “That’s the one!”

“How can you tell?” Benny asked skeptically as they approached the tree. Gale looked it up and down, studying its trunk, its height, the integrity of its branches. Bucky stroked the dark green needles, smiled brightly, and he nodded. He didn’t answer Benny. Because when you know, you know.

So Gale shelled out the money for their last-minute tree and they got it strapped to the top of the car. Back at home, once Bucky was settled on the couch with Pepper and Meatball, he watched dutifully as Gale and Benny hauled it in through the front door. “Be careful,” he called out as they struggled to maneuver it into the living room, Benny yelling back a “Fuck you.” As they placed it in the stand in front of the bay window, Bucky helped by saying things like “A little to the right,” or “It’s leaning too far forward,” or “Turn it so we can see its good side… no, the other good side… Benny are you blind?”

Pepper definitely did not almost knock the tree over before they could get it secure or start trying to eat the pine needles as they fell onto the floor, and she definitely didn’t try to drink the water out of the base once or twice or over and over and over again. Bucky definitely did not laugh when Gale came away covered in pine needles himself, specks of green stuck in his blonde hair. And Benny definitely did not flip Bucky off for his ‘unnecessary commentary’ and ‘false sense of superiority.’

Their house finally smelled and felt like Christmas, and that was the first day since coming home that Bucky actually felt normal. Or at least like he could feel normal again. Eventually.

The whole process of acquiring the tree drained him, though. Then the next few days weren’t so stellar; he felt sick and lethargic, the brain fog making it hard to focus on anything or move real well. Gale was at JSC for several hours every day, so Marge spent her afternoons with Bucky, “working remotely” even though they mostly ended up watching movies and gossipping. Bucky declared he didn’t need a babysitter, but having her around quelled some of his anxiety, reminded him that he was fine, that low points were part of the healing process and not indicative of his future, not signs of worsening.

So here they are, days after they brought the tree home, and it sits, green and bare, in front of their window. It’s the middle of the afternoon, but Bucky feels like he’s been awake for ages, his brain and body getting tired even though he’s done a whole lot of nothing all day. Gale went to JSC in the morning, but he came home after just a few hours because Bucky texted him I miss you, come home.

Months ago that text would’ve gotten an eye-roll emoji.

Months ago, Bucky wouldn’t have even been home alone long enough to miss Gale, instead spending all his time in sims or doing training exercises.

Now, though, those words are enough to make Gale stop whatever he was doing and leave for the day. Bucky felt a little bad about it. It wasn’t his goal to make Gale actually blow off work to come home, truly. Especially because, so far, it’s a pretty good day. His head feels clear. His hands aren’t shaking as bad as they were yesterday, he doesn’t feel nauseous, the pain in his leg is dull enough that he can push it to the back of his mind. He feels… okay.

He sits on the couch with Pepper. She hasn’t let him out of her sight since she came home, dedicated to watching over him and trying to make him smile. He strokes her soft fur and stares at the tree, and he wonders if somehow plants can see, too. Then he wonders if, since the tree was cut down days ago, it’s technically dead, and it therefore doesn’t matter if it can see or not. Then he wonders if, since they have to give it water, it’s technically still alive, and it’s their job to keep it that way for a while.

Like life support.

Like Bucky on Orion. Or in the hospital.

IVs and oxygen and antibiotics and cooling blankets. Beeping heart monitors. Concerned voices. Flashes of fear. Unbearable pain. And his crew’s pure determination not to let him die… You just keep pushing through, alright? Whatever you need to do, Bucky. It’s alright.

“John? You okay?”

Bucky shakes his head. Then he nods, tilts his head as he looks at the tree again, trying to refocus his vision so it’s not just an amorphous splotch of green shrouded with visions of a blurry crew cabin. He feels like he can still hear Curt’s voice ringing in his ear.

“Yeah,” he says absently. He looks over at Gale, who is leaning against the wall in the entryway to the living room, arms crossed over his chest. His hair is messy from running his hand through it too much, but his eyes are bright, the corner of his lip quirked up in a smile. Bucky tries not to stare too much at the way his fitted gray sweater accentuates the muscle in his biceps, then he remembers that Gale is his husband and he’s been ogling him for 15 years. “Just some morbid thoughts about the tree.”

Gale gives him that nuanced look of questioning, amusement, and exasperation that was tailor-made for Bucky, perfected over the years since they met. “Do I wanna know?”

Bucky doesn’t give him a choice. “We killed it. But then we put it on life support.”

Gale squints at him, then at the tree. He considers the water filling the base of the stand. “Okay, sure.”

“We’re holding it captive,” Bucky goes on. “But it needs us to live.”

“It’s a tree,” Gale says slowly, stifling a laugh.

“It’s gonna develop Stockholm syndrome.”

“... it’s a tree.”

“And that means it doesn’t have feelings?” Bucky crosses his arms and exaggeratedly mimics Gale’s facial expression, which is shifting more toward exasperated.

Gale pushes away from the wall and crosses the room to stand in front of Bucky. Bucky grabs onto his waist, one hand on either side, and pulls him close, so he can rest his forehead against his abs. “You’re somethin’ else, you know that?” Gale says. It’s fond, though, and he strokes his hand over Bucky’s hair, pausing at the patch that was shaved. It’s nearly grown back now, hardly noticeable as it blends in with the rest of his curls.

Bucky hums in acknowledgement. Gale’s been telling him that since the day they met. But here they are, married, standing in front of a Christmas tree in a house that they bought together. Gale is officially stuck with him. “Maybe decorating it will make it happy,” Bucky offers.

“You sound like Maggie.”

“I can only hope to be half as smart as that little girl someday.”

Gale looks down at him. “Will decorating the tree make you happy?”

Bucky looks right back up at him, a bright, love-struck grin on his face. “Happier than an astronaut on the moon… even before he almost dies.” Gale goes tense before rolling his eyes, and he flicks Bucky lightly on the forehead. “What?” Bucky asks innocently. “Too soon?”

Gale kneels down in front of him, taking both of his hands in his own. “Too soon,” he agrees. Bucky pulls one of his hands to his lips, though, and presses a kiss to his knuckles. It never fails to make Gale smile, at least a little bit. “Fine,” Gale relents. “I’ll get the ornaments.”

Bucky turns on a Spotify Christmas playlist while he waits, and by the time Gale comes back with the box of ornaments, they’re both singing along to Winter Wonderland. Pepper hops off the couch, wagging her tail in excitement to reflect the relaxed, cheerful energy of her people. Bucky reaches down and grabs both of her front paws, lifting her up so she’s balancing on her hind legs. He moves her paws back and forth like they’re dancing, and he serenades her until she howls along with him.

“Baby girl’s first Christmas,” he thinks aloud as he lowers her back to the ground so she can run over to Gale.

Gale scratches under her collar and kisses the top of her head. “First Christmas as a family,” he agrees, and it makes Bucky’s heart skip a beat. “Now come on,” Gale says, and he helps Bucky to his feet, carefully supporting his weight as they take the few steps over to the tree.

They start by stringing lights around it, Gale winding them around and around as Bucky helpfully – or sometimes unhelpfully – holds them in place, standing with most of his weight on his good leg and a crutch under one arm. Finally, they reach the end of the final strand and get them plugged in, lighting the tree up in soft yellow-white.

Bucky leans against the wall beside the bay window and watches Gale pull an ornament from the box. Every year, it’s the first one to go on the tree – a small glass angel. It belonged to Gale’s mother, and it’s one of the only things he still has from his childhood home. He looks at the tree as he holds it delicately in his hand, trying to decide which branch is worthy. Bucky points to a sturdy one front and center, and Gale nods, carefully slipping it over the pine needles. Bucky watches his lips move, and even though he can’t hear them, he knows they’re the same words that Gale whispers every year: Merry Christmas, Mama.

Bucky hops away from the wall, leaving the crutch behind, and he takes Gale’s hand gently in his. In a moment of sad, loving silence, they look at the little angel in its rightful place on the tree. Bucky has an urge to reach out and touch it, but he doesn’t trust his fingers not to knock it off, shatter it to pieces. “Hey Buck?”

“Mmm?”

Bucky looks at his husband, wondering if he should even ask. “When did I start callin’ you angel?”

Gale thinks for a second, studying Bucky, and then he chuckles quietly, a breathy little huff of laughter. “Of course you wouldn’t remember.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Gale lets go of his hand and kneels down to rummage around in the ornament box, deciding which one should go next. “You were drunk.”

Bucky points to an ornament – a space shuttle wrapped in Christmas lights – and Gale pulls it out and hands it to him. “That… that tracks,” Bucky acquiesces. The ornament has a gold string instead of a hook, and his fingers shake as he tries to get them through the loop. He bites down on the inside of his cheek as he tries to concentrate, but eventually Gale has to stand up and separate the loop for him. He tells Bucky to spread his fingers out wide, and he hangs the ornament on them so the loop stays open enough to slide onto a branch. Bucky slips it onto one somewhere above the angel.

“Thanks,” he whispers self-consciously. Gale wraps an arm around his lower back and kisses him gently on the lips, trying to take away the little bout of disappointment. It’s okay, the kiss says. You’re doin’ just fine. It makes Bucky smile again. “So, I was drunk?”

The story goes that Buck and Bucky were at a college party. This was sometime during the second semester of their freshman year, maybe at the end of spring break, but Gale isn’t clear on exactly when. It was before the big push toward finals, and before the two of them started dating. Now, make no mistake, Bucky had been shamelessly flirting with Gale since the day they met. But Gale didn’t like the idea of jumping into a relationship as soon as he started college, and certainly not with his roommate, a wild-card flirt with a disregard for rules despite being in ROTC. From day one, they were a package deal, to the point that Gale’s pretty sure everyone thought they were dating anyway, but he refused to give them a chance, no matter how Bucky tried to convince him.

Anyway, Bucky was, in fact, drunk at this party. There was a lot of beer. Some crappy vodka shots. Some shitty concoction they slapped with the label of jungle juice. Bucky was – still is – a fan of beer pong, and Gale is sure he had just lost a game. Bucky claims that that can’t be possible, because he dominated at beer pong, even drunk as fuck.

Either way, after he was done playing, he wandered over to where Gale – sober – was sitting on a couch with some of their friends. They were playing Space Invaders on the PlayStation – he maintains that it wasn’t nearly as good on a console as it was as an arcade game, but Gale Cleven was, admittedly, something of a legend at it despite having zero interest in any other video game ever made. Bucky collapsed down on the floor in front of Gale, so he was sitting cross-legged facing him, and he rested his chin on Gale’s knee, staring up at him with wide puppy-dog eyes. The distraction made Gale lose the game, and he looked at Bucky in exasperation, asked him what he wanted.

Bucky smiled at him, soft and drunk and in love. Just like he still does now. “I must’ve died and gone to heaven, ‘cause you’re the prettiest angel I’ve ever seen.”

Here in 2025, a small, nostalgic smile plays at Gale’s lips as he recounts the story, his gaze a little far off, lost in the past before he blinks and tilts his head. He looks at Bucky like he’s seeing the entire temporal roadmap of their lives. All at once, they’re college kids and young aviators and thirty-somethings with wedding bands on their hands. They’re them.

Buck and Bucky.

“I don’t remember that at all,” Bucky chuckles, blushing as he stares at the little angel on the tree, holds tighter to the angel in his arms.

“I know,” Gale says. “But you’ve been callin’ me that ever since.”

Bucky looks over at him. Tall and lanky but stronger than anyone would ever know. Messy blonde hair. Pretty blue eyes, light freckles splashed across his cheeks, perfect lips. Everything is softened in the dim glow of the Christmas tree lights. “You are.”

“I’m what?”

Bucky presses his hand to Gale’s cheek, and he kisses him again, soft and slow. “The prettiest angel I’ve ever seen.”

They take turns hanging ornaments, selecting the perfect spot for each until every last one is on its designated branch. Gale helps Bucky here and there when his fingers won’t cooperate, and sometimes Bucky does it all on his own, small little victories. Some of their ornaments are just collections of colorful bulbs from department stores, bought when they brought home their first Christmas tree and realized they had nothing to put on it. But they have personal ones, too. Some are air and space themed, planets and planes and bulbs painted with constellations. Then there’s ornaments from places they’ve visited, like a turtle from Honolulu with a pineapple wrapped in Christmas lights on its back, or an Eiffel tower from France. They have reindeer and snowflakes and gingerbread men and a Star Wars ewok in a Christmas sweater.

Bucky is balancing on his good leg, focusing hard on placing the ewok on a branch on the side of the tree, when he realizes that Gale isn’t beside him anymore. Once he manages to get the metal hook secured, he looks over at the box, where he finds Gale kneeling on the floor. He’s staring at Bucky with a funny expression on his face, eyes a little glassy, and he’s biting at his lower lip.

“You okay?” Bucky asks.

Gale blinks, and he seems to realize all of a sudden that Bucky is looking at him. He rubs a hand over his eyes and nods. “Yeah. Yeah. All good.”

You’re here, he wants to say. You’re here, decorating our Christmas tree. Your leg is broken and you can barely stand and your fingers won’t work and sometimes you forget where you are but you’re here and for a while, I didn’t think… didn’t dare to hope…

You’re here.

It stopped him cold. Because just for a second, he couldn’t quite believe Bucky was standing in front of him, putting an ornament on a tree. It made him feel sick and sad and so incredibly happy at the same time and there was nowhere for that emotion to go. But he can’t say that.

There’s no words for that. It’s something you can’t know unless you’ve lost someone. Unless you’ve come too damn close to losing someone.

It’s something Gale knows too well. Has known for too long. Feels too deeply.

But he’s never found the words.

Bucky can’t move real well on his own, so he holds his hand out, and Gale stands up to take it. He steps in close until they’re toe to toe, a single breath being shared between them. It’s so natural for Bucky to put his hands on Gale’s hips, where they belong, but for once, it’s his turn to wrap his arms around Gale’s neck, needing the support to stay standing. Gale’s hands easily find Bucky’s waist, and it feels backward, but it feels good. Safe. Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas is playing, and Bucky starts swaying, taking Gale with him until they’re dancing in their living room.

It’s starting to get dark outside, and the lights on the tree glow and reflect in the window, sending dancing, twinkling golden specks across Gale’s eyes. It smells like pine. Like home on Christmas morning. Bucky lets his head fall tiredly against his husband’s shoulder, lets the warmth overwhelm him as he nuzzles against his neck.

Gale’s smooth voice softly, delicately blends with the music. “So hang a shining star upon the highest bough, and have yourself a merry little Christmas now…”

When the song ends, the energy is sapped from Bucky’s body, but he feels more at peace than he has in months. Gale leans down to pick up the last ornament, a Christmas tree shaped frame with a picture of the two of them. He delicately slips it onto a branch. “There’s something missing,” he observes, even though he knows full well what it is.

Bucky is typically the one to put the star on top, but he frowns down at it when Gale hands it to him. His eyes flick down to his leg and then back to his unsteady hands. “Buck…”

“You can do it,” Gale insists. “I’ll help. Come on.”

He shifts so he’s behind Bucky, his chest pressed to Bucky’s back, and he holds him steady with a firm arm around his middle. His other hand lays over top of Bucky’s, guiding him, and together, they lift the star onto the top of the tree.

—

Bucky kneels down in the alien regolith, his knees crashing unceremoniously to the surface, and, carefully, he scoops up a small, peculiarly shaped moon rock. Lifting it closer to his face, he inspects it through the glass of his helmet. He’s suddenly glad he decided to take this extra hundred or so yard trek away from the rover in which they drove out to the middle of nowhere. The middle of nowhere meaning far enough away from Starship that he really hopes said rover doesn’t break down or some shit way out here. He can see the lander rising in the distance, but it would likely take too much oxygen to walk all the way back.

“You think we got enough?” Curt’s voice buzzes over the coms, and Bucky looks up, searching for the other astronaut. He’s met with nothing but the horizon and long, dark shadows peeling off the craters in the distance. He can see the Earth, perpetually rising over the lunar south pole. Even from way out here, he can make out the browns and greens of the continents, the white, wispy weather systems looping in seemingly random yet surprisingly predictable patterns around the planet’s curvature.

“Comin’ up behind you,” Curt clarifies, and Bucky can hear him grunting as he tries to navigate the rocky terrain around them.

Rather clumsily, Bucky turns in a half circle, nearly tripping over a divet in the grainy surface. He clutches the rock in his gloved hand. Their second full day on the moon, and he still isn’t used to the one-sixth gravity or the awkward way of moving, even after months and months of training for it. He retracts his gold-coated radiation-blocking visor when he sees Curt bunny-hopping toward him, carrying the scooper that they’ve been using to collect rock samples. Bucky is carrying a large sack that they’ve been dumping the bigger rocks into. Their materials for smaller soil samples were left on the rover so they could do a more thorough pedestrian survey.

“What, tired of pickin’ up hunks of rock?” Bucky asks. He opens up the bag so Curt can dump a few more into it. They look to be mostly anorthosite, though they’ve also found a lot of what Mission Control calls breccias, rocks made of other rocks that were smashed together during meteoroid impacts.

“‘M tired of you wanderin’ off with the fuckin’ bag.” Curt bumps Bucky’s shoulder. “Get your head on this planet.”

“Moon ain’t a planet,” Bucky retorts. He shoves the bag forward. “You hold it then.”

Gale: “Surface crew, be advised, you have about two hours of oxygen left.”

Bucky: “Copy, angel.

Bucky looks down at the rock cradled in his palm. Curious, Curt crowds against his side and peeks over, so close their helmets bump.

Curt: “Oh so your head definitely isn’t on this planet.”

Bucky: “Fuckin’ shut it.”

Curt: “Buck, be advised, your husband-”

Bucky: “I said shut it, smartass.”

Curt holds up his hands, but Bucky can see the sassy grin on his face.

Curt: “Geez, sorry, commander.”

Bucky shoves him playfully, amused by the lack of force it takes to make Curt stumble back in this microgravity. Rolling his eyes, he keeps the rock clutched in his hand as he heads for the rover.

He’s nearly there, headed toward one of those eerie, long shadows and the rover parked just in front of it, when he blinks, and the world changes somehow.

It’s dark. Bucky looks around, his boots sliding in the fine, dry soil. He can see streaks of sun illuminating the ground far, far away. Wasn’t he just over there? How did he get so deep in the shadows?

Gale: “Major Egan, be advised, you have about 75 minutes of oxygen left.”

Bucky squints, trying to see ahead of himself. He presses the button of his flashlight, smacks it. Why won’t it turn on? “Curt?” He starts walking in the direction he’s facing. He can’t even see where he’s going. Is he still near the rover?

Blink.

His heart rate is too fast. He needs to control his breathing, or he’s gonna run out of-

Gale: “Major Egan, be advised… your oxygen…”

Bucky: “Buck? What was that?”

Gale: “John? Are you there?”

Bucky: “Gale?”

Silence.

An alarm is sounding in his helmet. He clutches the rock in his palm, finds that it’s gone. When did he lose it? Where did he lose it?

He stops in his tracks and turns in another circle. The slope of the ground beneath his feet is strangely familiar. “Curt?”

Silence.

Okay. Okay, this is fine. Everything’s fine.

Blink.

His flashlight flickers to life, and he finds that he’s alone. Somewhere at the base of Shackleton Crater. The ringing in his helmet is getting louder as he unsteadily walks across the slippery rise towards the rover. Something in his brain is screaming at him not to get on it, but he doesn’t see what choice he has, out here in the middle of nowhere, alone and with his oxygen depleting fast.

Bucky: “Houston? Do you copy?”

Gale: “Can you hear me, Major Egan?”

Bucky: “Yes, yes Buck. Do you copy?”

Gale: “Bucky?... gonna be… just breathe… Bucky?”

Blink.

Bucky feels his lungs constricting. His vision is fading in and out as he turns on the rover. That alarm won’t go away; it’s getting louder, louder, louder.

Gale: “Don’t… the rover… Ple-. John.”

Bucky: “Gale? I can’t hear you.”

Bucky feels like his heart might beat out of his chest with how fast it’s going. He can’t breathe. He can barely see. Where is Curt?

Gale’s voice is ringing in his ear when he feels the impact crush his body into the ground.

If iron can kill a star it sure as hell can kill you. A supernova in the dark.

“John, darlin’, come on, sweetheart. You’re okay. You’re okay.”

Bucky’s eyes snap open with a gasp so deep that it sends him straight into a coughing fit, withholding oxygen from his lungs until tears stream down his cheeks. Gale’s steady hands help him to sit up, and Bucky grapples to find purchase on his arm, his fingernails scraping fragile skin as he desperately searches for something to hold onto, to ground him. When the coughing subsides, he holds his breath and squeezes his eyes shut.

“Look at me, John.”

Bucky blinks as Gale tilts his chin up, and their eyes meet in the dim light of the bedside lamp. He feels the weight of gravity holding him down. A full 9.8 meters per second squared. He feels the soft blanket brushing against his bare abdomen. He feels the itchy cast on his right leg, which is throbbing with pain. He feels Gale’s hand brushing back his sweaty hair. He feels the mattress shift as Pepper whines and tries to lay down in between them, and he feels a small, reassuring weight on his hip as she rests her chin on it, watching with wide eyes.

His hand is shaking so bad as he reaches out to her, resting it on her head. Something soft. Something real. “W-What day is it?”

Gale shifts so that he’s pressed close to Bucky’s side, and he pulls him in so he’s laying propped up against his chest. He takes Bucky’s other hand and rubs soothing patterns across his knuckles. “It’s December 23rd. 2:30am. You had a pretty bad dream.”

“Clearly,” Bucky mutters, but he tries to let himself relax. He feels like he can’t move, and everything aches like he got crushed by that rover all over again.

“You feel okay?” Gale asks. Bucky realizes he’s trembling because of how tense he’s holding himself. He tells himself that he will not cry over this, but Gale wipes a tear off his cheek anyway. “You didn’t take the max dose of your meds, so I can get you more if you want. Or maybe some water?”

Bucky shakes his head and more fully tucks himself against Gale, holding as tight as he can to his husband’s hand. “Just stay, please.”

Bucky feels Gale press his lips against the side of his head. “Always.”

—

December 23

A lot of people assume it would be really difficult to sleep in space. In reality, though, the sleep Bucky got on the station was some of the best in his entire life. In zero gravity, there’s not much sense of direction. No real up or down. Close your eyes and you could be facing any which way, so it doesn’t matter what orientation the sleeping bags are in – mostly, they’re upright against the walls of the cabin. They sleep strapped into them so they don’t drift away, and once they get used to the zero G sensation – and the increased sinus pressure and the flashes of EM radiation – having nothing weighing them down feels like sleeping on a goddamn cloud.

Orion was similarly set up. At least, on their moon-ward bound trip. The trip back Bucky doesn’t remember so well, and what he does remember was rather unpleasant. As for Starship, he couldn’t complain. The hammocks they slept in were the same as those on Orion, except on the moon they had some semblance of gravity to contend with. Bucky and Curt are military men. They’ve slept in worse accommodations, and the quiet of the moon, the darkness of the cabin, made for a pleasant, if eerie, stay. He could look out the window and see the cosmos beyond, stretched out to infinity with constellations sewn together in the fabric of space and time. He could count the stars until he lost his place, until his eyes drifted closed, and he fell asleep knowing that he was exactly where he’d always wanted to be.

If Bucky’s ever had trouble sleeping, it’s been right here on planet Earth.

He yawns as he sits in a chair across from a news reporter in their living room, and it makes his ears ring. He slept terribly last night, isn’t convinced he got even a couple hours of real shut-eye. After that nightmare, he couldn’t sleep. His heart rate was too high and his head was pounding. If he wasn’t in pain, then he was having a coughing fit that had his chest aching and his face burning. Or Gale had to help him stumble to the bathroom in the middle of the night. Or Pepper was moving around too much and making too much noise. Or there was too much goddamn noise in general even though there was nothing but the rustle of leaves outside.

By the time the sun came up, Gale tried to convince Bucky to stay in bed and rest until OT. Bucky had agreed to an interview this morning – his first since splashdown – but Gale insisted they could just reschedule. Bucky was so pissed off, though, that he threw in the metaphorical towel and refused to stay in bed. Now he wishes he’d listened, because the lack of sleep makes absolutely everything worse.

He pushes through the interview with a cocky grin, a level voice, hardly even a cough. It’s easier in the morning. He manages to hide his shaking hands and stay focused.

He felt a pressing need to let the media see his face. The rhetoric over him going to the moon in the first place – and then over him nearly conking out up there and whose fault it was – was just too damn loud, and he needed to shut it up. So Gale helped him shower and gel back his hair and get dressed in a white t-shirt and a NASA flight jacket.

He lets the cameraman get shots of his cast, because he isn’t hiding the fact that he got hurt up there – he’s not about to feed those conspiracy theories. He talks openly about his injuries and the TBI. He answers painful questions about what he remembers, what happened, what it was like. He talks about his good memories of the moon, too, trying to remind people of why they’re going.

“A lot of people are wondering if a new lunar program is too risky,” the interviewer says. “I think we’re all wondering. Is the risk worth it?”

“It is absolutely worth it,” Bucky insists. He watches her glance down at his broken leg, at the way his fingers shake as he grips his knee out of the camera’s view. But he looks right at her. “Sure, space travel is dangerous. We’ve known that since the 50s. But we’ve learned so much. And we have so much to gain-”

“Even at the expense of your life?”

“I’m here ain’t I?” He can see that she isn’t sure what to say. If she should point out the obvious – that he almost wasn’t. So he goes on. “Listen, did this-” he motions to himself – “suck? Yeah, it sucked. But I’d go back. This program is exactly what science and the public need right now; we are doing amazing things. And you know, I’m glad it was me up there, working through these problems.” Bucky rubs a rand over his mouth as he thinks about how he wants to say this.

“You wanna talk about risk?” he asks. “Of all the things that could’ve gone wrong, the thing that did was so small – a bad wheel on a rover. It could happen to any of us here on Earth. It was just… wrong place wrong time. You better believe that NASA’s learned from that. And you better believe the reason I’m here right now, actually functional, is ‘cause I had a top tier crew up there. Curt, man, he saved my life every second of every day. And Rosie, that’s a true professional, right there, keepin’ my ass alive. Alex came in and took over when I couldn’t do my job, and he did it beautifully. My crew, my team on the ground, my husband, I am so lucky to have had such an amazing team working to get me home. And that’s what we do at NASA. We have the best of the best, and we are dedicated to making every mission as successful as possible.”

He takes a deep breath, looks at the interviewer, at Gale, at the camera, back at the interviewer. “And, well, we’ve learned a few lessons. Sure. We learn something new every time we go up, whether it’s to the station or to the moon. And NASA will take those lessons and use them to make expeditions safer for future astronauts.”

The interviewer looks a little taken aback by his answer, in a good way. Like she’s in awe of him, and it fuels his ego just a bit. “And speaking of future astronauts,” she goes on. She glances at Gale, off screen. “The commander of Artemis 4 is Major Gale Cleven, your husband. Do you have any reservations about him going into such a dangerous situation?”

Bucky laughs, and he laughs more when he sees Gale’s raised eyebrow. “Buck? Listen. I mean, sure, he’s my husband. I love him with everything I have. I worry about him all the time. I worried about him when I was the one dyin’. But we both know the risks. We’re astronauts, and we’re Air Force. We’ve been throwin’ ourselves into danger since we met.” He looks away from the reporter, towards Gale. “Buck Cleven is one of the best pilots in the world. And he’s a hell of an astronaut. He’ll get the job done, and I’ll be here for him when he comes home.”

By the time the reporter and cameraman leave, wishing Bucky and Gale happy holidays, Bucky feels like he’s lived through a whole day even though he’s only been awake for a few hours. After having to focus and act like cocky Major John Egan for so long, he completely zones out as Gale helps him get ready to head to occupational therapy – his second appointment in the last week. He hardly even remembers getting in the car, or walking through the door.

He didn’t want the media to see it, but he’s still in the early stages of a healing process that will likely take months. The pain has been slowly receding, but it won’t leave him be. His fine motor control hasn’t improved since he was in the hospital. The brain fog gets better and worse, better and worse, accompanied by mood swings.

He has another appointment for a CT – or is it an MRI? He can never remember which is which – just a few days after Christmas, to see how the TBI is healing. Right now, he isn’t particularly hopeful. He won’t talk to Gale about it, doesn’t want to utter the words aloud, but he’s terrified that he’ll never get better. He’ll be stuck just shy of normal forever, never again to feel a jet’s power in his hands or look down on this Earth from space.

“John? John, can you hear me?”

“Bucky?”

Bucky blinks, and he sees his OT across from him, staring at him in worry over top of their current activity set-up – a bunch of objects of varying sizes on the table and a small basket to his right. Gentle fingers are stroking his hair back.

He looks down at his hand, clasped firmly in someone else’s. Wonders why his fingers aren’t shaking anymore. “You with me, sweetheart?” The second voice says.

Gale. It’s Gale.

Bucky tries to squeeze Gale’s hand back, but he can’t get his muscles to work right. He glances up at his husband, who looks just as worried as the OT as he kneels beside Bucky. “There you are.”

Bucky frowns and pulls his hand away. “Sorry,” he mutters.

The OT smiles at him. Too perky. “No worries, hon. It’s normal.”

Bucky is tired of hearing that. Because nothing about any of this is normal. But he sighs and nods, because it’s not worth fighting. He looks at Gale. “I’m alright,” he tells him. Gale looks skeptical, but he kisses Bucky’s cheek before returning to his seat in the corner of the room, where he’s been observing. Every once in a while the OT has him come over to show him how to help Bucky work on these skills at home.

She reaches across the table now and puts her hand over Bucky’s. His fingers are shaking again even though he isn’t even trying to do anything with them. “I just need you to focus for a little while longer.”

He nods again, stifling a yawn. “Yeah,” he says. Even though, right now, he’d rather do literally anything other than this, fighting with his brain and body to accomplish something as simple as squeezing a piece of putty or writing his name on a whiteboard.

But she told him when they started: these simple tasks are the first hurdles on his road back to the cockpit. “You will fly again,” she promised. “But this is where we start.”

Bucky doesn’t understand how she can be so certain. He’s always been a cocky son of a bitch; at least, that’s what people tell him. So why doesn’t he feel cocky now?

But no matter how badly he just wants to crawl back into bed and hide from the world, the words of Gene Kranz echo in his head: “Failure is not an option.” They have guided him his whole life, and he isn’t about to let them go now.

He picks up one of the objects. It’s a square building block, the biggest on the table and the easiest to grasp. His hand shakes, his brain too exhausted even for this, but he manages to drop the block into the basket. Then a stress ball made to look like the Earth. Into the basket. Then he picks up a small toy jet, not even as long as his hand, and his fingers struggle to wrap around the textured plastic.

But he can see the pattern in these objects, the subtle way the OT is trying to keep his mind on the prize, and he takes a deep breath, grits his teeth, focuses with all of his energy on gripping the toy. In his head, he can’t let this plane fall before it reaches its target. Can’t let it tumble out of the sky.

—

By the time they leave the outpatient clinic, Bucky isn’t feeling much like holiday cheer, no matter how many festive decorations they put up in the lobby. He’s on crutches today, with his balance and strength slowly improving, but he’s starting to feel overwhelming fatigue set into his whole body. The world feels off-kilter around him, and he has to focus too hard on each step. Gale stays right by his side as they make the slow, slow progress back to the car.

Bucky slumps in the passenger seat, not even complaining when Gale reaches over to buckle his seat belt for him. As tired as he is, though, he notices when they don’t turn the right way to go home. “Um. Buck?”

“We have another stop to make.” Gale doesn’t even take his eyes off the road.

Bucky thinks about the road they’re on. The direction they’re going. “No. No, Buck. No.”

“I just need to grab something from my office. We’ll be in n’ out.”

“I don’t wanna go there.”

Gale sighs. “You can’t avoid it forever, John.”

Bucky scowls and crosses his arms. His eyes flick over to Gale before he looks away, out the passenger side window. “Haven’t even been home from the hospital for two damn weeks.”

“Usually nothing can keep you away. Remember, I had to beg you to come home for dinner.” Gale stops short of saying before our wedding. He doesn’t want to fight right now.

“That was before.”

“So?”

Bucky clenches his jaw, digging into the way it makes his head hurt the harder he does it. “I’m kinda fuckin’ broken right now,” he points out, motioning to his leg and his head, waving his useless fucking hands. “Did you forget? Don’t really think they’re expectin’ me at work.”

“It’s not just work, Bucky,” Gale says, his voice level despite his frustration. Bucky, admittedly, has always admired that: Gale’s ability to sound calm even when Bucky himself is being a prick. “It’s your family.”

They don’t speak the rest of the drive.

“This is Mock-up,” Bucky observes, unimpressed, as Gale slows down approaching the parking lot for a large, warehouse-like building. The lot is mostly empty two days before Christmas.

“Benny left some files in there. Asked me to grab ‘em.” Gale glances over. “Wanna come in? They’ve got the HALO module set up. Not complete, but it’s kinda surreal.”

The hint of excitement that creeps into his voice makes Bucky’s heart a little lighter. His husband has done little but worry and fuss over him the past two weeks. There’s something here that feels “normal,” whatever that even means for them. And Bucky’s glad Gale has that. Really, he is. But it’s also the antithesis of everything Bucky’s brain is feeling right now.

He shakes his head, closes his eyes and sighs as Gale puts the car in park. “Not today.”

It took some convincing, but in the last week, Gale has finally started spending more time at work, catching up on training protocols, reorienting himself to Artemis 4 in the wake of 3. He never stays the whole day, but he’s trying to find that sense of normal, even as neither of them know if or when it will come. He insisted on taking off today to take Bucky to occupational therapy, and yet here they are anyway. At the space center.

The place Bucky has been avoiding. Gale may be chasing normalcy, but Bucky can barely stand to think about the Center right now. He thinks about the mission enough, that’s for damn sure. Gale has offered to bring him a couple of times, but Bucky always says no. He isn’t ready, even just to visit. He can’t walk, for fuck’s sake. He still has a lingering cough and was still sick up until late last week. His brain still gets all weird and he can’t even buckle his own seatbelt. He’s rather useless, really.

He can’t stand the idea of being here, when absolutely nothing about him is up to those NASA standards that landed him here in the first place. He can’t stand to be here when he doesn’t know if he’ll ever make it back. They wouldn’t let him go, he knows that. If nothing else they’ll stick him at a desk, make him a flight controller, maybe put him in some directorship role. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad.

But John Egan wasn’t born to sit at a desk.

Gale unbuckles his seatbelt. “Are you sure?”

“Didn’t wanna be here at all,” Bucky mutters. The idea of seeing the vehicle mock-ups fills him with some drifting sense of anxiety that he can’t get a grip on. Part of him thinks that if he could just see them, he’d feel better. If he could just run his hands over Orion’s hull. Wander through Gateway. Feel the awe of what they’ve done here, what they’re doing… maybe everything would feel okay.

Or maybe it would send him spiraling.

Gale nods quietly, trying to hide his frown, and Bucky has half a mind to feel bad at the attitude he’s giving his husband when he’s done absolutely nothing wrong. “I’ll be back in five minutes,” Gale tells him. Then he opens the car door, steps out, and Bucky watches him walk toward Building 9, leaving him alone in the car with Christmas music playing softly on the radio.

Ever since they started pre-launch quarantine, Bucky has been with at least one other person at almost all times. Since he survived re-entry, there’s always someone watching over him, trying to help him, making sure he’s comfortable, that he’s okay, that he’s still alive. Sometimes he finds himself just wishing everyone would leave him be.

And yet, being left alone never feels as satisfying as he thinks it might. Usually, it just makes him feel on edge, unsafe. He doesn’t get why. He never once had an issue with being alone before Artemis. But since he came home, every time he finds himself left to his own devices, he feels hollow, dizzy… scared, maybe. And now isn’t any different. His leg hurts from all the activity today. He has a headache. He misses Gale the moment he’s out of the car and wishes he’d just gone in with him.

He picks up his phone, and he tries to choose some social media app to scroll through, but his fingers shake, his muscles and brain too exhausted from therapy, and it makes him grit his teeth in anger as he reminds himself not to violently throw solid objects in his husband’s car. Instead, he unthinkingly slams the phone down on his leg, sending ripples of pain through it that make him scream “Fuck!” into the void of this lonely, empty parking lot.

He hates this. He knows he should be grateful for his life. He should be grateful that he came away with so few permanently debilitating injuries and symptoms. He knows he should be grateful for all the people who have worked tirelessly to keep him alive, for his crew and his husband and the flight controllers and the hospital staff… He has so much to be fucking grateful for.

But he just wants to be Major John “Bucky” Egan again – carefree, limitless, adrenaline junky, wild child. One of NASA’s favorite pilots.

He wants to be the man who put humanity back on the moon. Not the man who almost died on the moon.

He wants all of the pain and the fear to stop. He wants everyone to stop worrying about him. He wants to stop worrying about himself. He wants to stop feeling too much and too little at the same time all the damn time. He wants… Fuck…

Chalk it up to a bad day. A bad night. This is just what happens when he doesn’t get enough sleep right now. Yet another thing that the doctors tell him is “normal.”

Michael Bublé’s voice comes on over the radio, low and soothing. I’ll Be Home For Christmas. Please have snow and mistletoe… And presents on the tree…

It reminds Bucky of Gale, and he turns up the volume. He remembers Gale singing this song to him in the hospital, one of his first truly lucid moments here on Earth. There’s something warm about it, and also something haunting. He stares out the window at the massive building in front of him. The vehicle mock-up facility.

God, Bucky feels like he’s spent a whole lifetime in there. Training to go to space. To the moon. He logged hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of hours in that Orion sim, running through every possible situation they could encounter.

He remembers one day, early this year, when they were in there for hours. Gale, Benny, and Helen were running the sim for the four crew members, and they were absolutely crushing them, sending them into impossible situation after impossible situation. Bucky, Curt, Rosie, and Alex were all exhausted, half delirious probably. But they wouldn’t give up. Just kept on going, insisting they needed to “run it again, run it again.”

They were over their scheduled time, but at JSC, what the lunar crew wants, the lunar crew gets. So they kept on going. “Don’t you think you oughta take a break boys?” Gale asked them through the coms.

“Fuck no,” Curt responded, taking the words right out of Bucky’s mouth. “We ain’t leavin’ ‘til we start actin’ less like a buncha kids playin’ spaceman and more like we belong here.”

“Don’t even think about throwin’ somethin’ easy at us,” Bucky added.

Before the CAPCOMs could start up a new sim, though, Marge came in, pulling Gale aside. Bucky could hear it through the coms. He was flaking on his scheduled interview, she told Gale. The crew wanted to run more sims, he replied. They went back and forth, bickering like siblings, as the whole crew stifled laughs inside the mock-up. Finally, Gale agreed to give the reporters waiting outside a moment of his time, staying silent when Marge reminded him that he’d already agreed to it days ago.

“Bucky, how’s it feel to know that your fiance’s already got a wife?” Alex teased.

“Pretty sure Marge wears the pants in that relationship,” Rosie chuckled.

Bucky reached behind him and threatened to sock both of them in the face.

“Well fellas,” Gale’s voice cut in. “Let’s see if you’re laughin’ in thirty minutes.” They could hear as he gave Benny and Helen instructions. “Run them through scenario 22C. If they’re not done with that by the time I’m back, they need to do some serious review of their spacecraft if they wanna be home before Christmas.”

“Don’t worry, angel, I’ll be home for Christmas,” Bucky reassured him, smiling as he settled back into his seat. In exaggerated tones, he started to sing, “You can plan on me…”

Fuck, he misses those days. When they were all so cocksure, on the precipice of making history. He felt lighter, then. Now, he doesn’t even know how he feels. When he feels fine, he feels good. When he feels low, he feels fucking low. Like he’s scraping at the sides of a hole in the ground, trying to climb back out. Like he fell into Shackleton crater instead of down it.

The world around him feels a little blurry now, and he squints his eyes as his ears ring, some feeling of nausea rising up in his stomach.

Gotta be home for Christmas.

Promised to be home for Christmas.

Not gonna be home for Christmas.

The pieces of what happened in Starship don’t fit together right. The border between conscious or unconscious was so blurry. Alive or dead. Dead or dying. Wanting to live or wanting everything to stop.

But for some reason, that moment in the sim broke its way through the haze one day. Or night. Or somewhere in between. Don’t worry, angel. I’ll be home for Christmas.

And all Bucky could do was lay there, half alive, knowing he needed to wake up wake up wake up but he couldn’t. His brain wouldn’t focus. But through the pain and the fog, the understanding that he probably wouldn’t make it home to his husband for the holidays after all rang in his ears with a deafening volume that sent what was left of him spiraling into panic until he couldn’t feel any of it anymore.

He remembers Curt’s voice cutting through, drifting like mist around him. “His heart rate is spiking… oh god, what the fuck…”

And then Bucky was gone again, flickering out like dying starlight. I’m sorry, angel

He distinctly remembers knowing that he was about to die.

“Hey, hey now.” Bucky is startled back to reality by a hand on his cheek, a thumb stroking away a tear he didn’t realize even fell. “What’s wrong?”

He blinks, feels more unshed tears force their way between his eyelashes. His body doesn’t feel right. His head. He looks out the window, finds the SVMF staring back at him, not the lunar landscape.

Christmas music is still playing. He looks at Gale, can’t remember him getting back in the car. Why can’t he remember him getting back in the car? Surely he should’ve noticed. He looks back out the window, trying to sort it out, but his brain won’t work right and he doesn’t understand what just happened.

He can’t breathe. His chest feels fluttery, his limbs somehow disconnected from the rest of his body, like he’s floating. But he’s on Earth. In a car. At JSC. He’s not in space. He’s not in space not in space not in-

His face feels hot.

He needs oxygen. Why can’t he breathe?

“You’re alright, darlin’, look at me. Come on, look at me.”

Gale’s voice is steady, but Bucky can hear the subtle trace of nerves winding through it. “Look at me,” he says again. So Bucky does, and the way Gale smiles at him, relief and worry mixing together, starts to clear the noise swarming in his head. “There you are,” Gale whispers. “Take a breath, okay?”

Bucky parts his lips, tries to say that he can’t. But Gale takes his hand and presses it to his own chest, takes a deep breath in, out. “Feel that?”

Bucky nods.

“Good. Now breathe in with me.” He feels Gale’s chest rise beneath his hand, and, shakily, he draws breath into his own lungs. Because he’s alive. On Earth. With his husband.

Christmas is in two days. He made it. He fucking made it.

“There we go,” Gale is saying, and Bucky’s senses start to calm down. They breathe together, in, out, in, out, for what feels like ages. “Feel okay?” Gale asks.

Bucky nods. “Yeah.” He looks away from Gale, pulling his hand away from his chest but letting their fingers lock together. “I just… I dunno. I get lost… up there. Sometimes. I-“ he shakes his head.

“It’s alright,” Gale tries to say. He’s been good about not pushing Bucky to talk when he doesn’t want to.

But Bucky needs to say certain things. Talking is supposed to help or some shit like that. “No. I just… I promised you I’d be home for Christmas, y’know?” He laughs shakily to calm his nerves. “There was a point, on Starship, when I didn’t think...”

Gale stays quiet as he looks out through the windshield, his face giving nothing away even as his stoic, silent expression says everything anyone needs to know. Bucky looks down at his lap, letting his words hang suspended inside the car, their echo mixing with Have a Holly Jolly Christmas on the radio. He tries to curl his fingers into a fist, stretches them back out, watches them shake. They both know there was almost a reality, just millimeters to the side of this one, where Gale would’ve spent Christmas grieving. Where Bucky made him a widower.

One where not a single Christmas decoration adorned their house and Benny and Marge had to drag Gale out of bed, hold him up even as he tried to tear the world down, hold him tight when he didn’t think he’d ever be whole again.

There’s no words for that. There’s so. many. almosts. It still makes both of their blood run cold, drives both of them to a fearful, grateful silence, stops them short at even the most mundane parts of their day. And there’s no words.

So Gale just nods, squeezes Bucky’s hand tight. They’re here now. It’s Christmas. Those almosts, they don’t matter. They can’t matter, even when they try to matter with all their might. Gale glances over with a wobbly, barely-there smile that grounds Bucky to this planet, calms the storm, reins in the tides. It doesn’t fix everything, but it makes this moment easier. “Come on,” he says. And he puts the car in drive.

—

When they park in front of the astronaut office building, there’s significantly more cars filling the lot. Gale turns off the car, unbuckles his seat belt, then reaches over and unbuckles Bucky’s. Bucky glances over at him. “No.”

“Yes.”

“No.”

Gale sighs, looks down at his lap, and runs a hand through his hair. Bucky knows he’s been less than cooperative since they left the house. He started the morning by refusing to eat breakfast, refusing to talk about anything that was bothering him, and after the interview, Gale basically had to carry him to the car because he didn’t want to go to OT. But no matter what, Gale isn’t giving up here.

“Please just come in with me.”

Bucky slouches down and crosses his arms over his chest. “Why?”

“Cause I’m asking you to.”

Bucky frowns. “Buck.”

“Bucky.”

Bucky works his jaw and rolls his eyes like the petulant child he’s pretending to be. But he meets Gale’s eyes, sincere and hopeful and just as tired as his own, and he feels the fight leave his body. “Fine.”

Gale nods, opens the door, and asks, “Do you want the crutches or the chair?” Both are stowed away in the back.

“Might fall over if I have to use the crutches for another minute.”

He doesn’t know what he expects, walking back into JSC for the first time since the day he left for quarantine back in October, but they don’t get far before he realizes that Gale needing to get something from his office was a load of bullshit. And yet, no matter how much he’s been actively avoiding everyone in his life, Bucky can’t deny that seeing them all lifts his spirits, at least a little.

The lobby of the building is filled with holiday decor and NASA personnel wearing Santa hats, but the banner strung across the wall says “CONGRATULATIONS ARTEMIS III” and the massive sheet cake on a table to the side has their crew photo plastered on top of it. Behind it are four large portraits displayed on easels – their Artemis portraits, to replace their ISS ones. The entirety of Mission Control is here. Every single person who kept Artemis III online, kept Bucky alive. He spots his crew, all three of them, chatting with Harding and Croz and Benny.

“What the fuck?” Bucky whispers, and Gale laughs as he wheels him toward the crowd of people.

Curt spots them, grabs Rosie and Alex, and they start heading for Bucky and Gale. “There he is!” Curt exclaims. “Our commander.” He gently shoos Gale away, taking over the job of pushing Bucky himself as Rosie and Alex flank him on either side.

“What is this?” Bucky asks.

“Our party,” Curt tells him, like it’s obvious. “We never got our welcome home celebration, since you had the nerve to almost die and all.”

“Attention everyone!” Alex calls out. “Please welcome home, from the brink of death and the expedition of a lifetime, Mission Commander, Major John Egan!”

The upset from just minutes ago starts to melt away as Curt brings Bucky to a stop, and everyone in front of them raucously applauds. Four crew members stand – or sit – in a line; Alex, Curt, Bucky, Rosie. American astronauts. American heroes.

“Thank you, thank you,” Bucky calls out, waving his hands in the air like a king addressing his subjects. “I know how devastated you all would’ve been to lose your best pilot.”

Everyone laughs, even though the memory, the fear, the dread of losing Bucky Egan is still fresh in their minds. The almost. The what if. It’s something that he would’ve said before, too, over far more trivial things. Something normal.

“But it’s Christmas,” Bucky goes on. “I’m alive. We had a hell of a mission, and we’ll have many more! So let’s fuckin’ celebrate.”

Cheers go up around the room, and Bucky’s crewmates clap him on the shoulder and ruffle his hair. Chick ducks through the crowd to get to him, and Bucky finds himself looking up at this man who he’s looked up to for years, who gave him this dream life to run with, who John and Gale have come to see as family.

“Hey Chick, you comin’ over for Christmas?” Bucky asks as the man puts a hand on his shoulder. Somewhere behind the wheelchair, one of the crew members – Bucky thinks Rosie purely by how gentle the hands are – puts a Santa hat on his head, and Bucky has to shove the pom pom at the end out of his face.

Chick nods. “You can count on it. Wouldn’t miss your wife’s cooking for anything.” Bucky can’t help but laugh, a real, bubbling, joyous laugh that surprises him after the day he’s had. Chick chuckles, too, and he leans down to wrap Bucky in a half hug. “Welcome home, son,” he says quietly. “Can’t tell ya how glad I am to see you back here.”

Bucky’s heart lurches, caught off guard by the emotion those words stir in him, and he finds himself hugging Chick back, holding on tight.

He thought he was home when he landed in the Pacific, blue skies and sunlight above. He thought he was home when Gale wrapped him in his arms, warm and strong and safe. He thought he was home when he rolled through the front door of his house, when he saw Pepper again for the first time.

He thought he was home already. But turns out there was still a missing piece.

He looks around at his friends, his chosen family, gathered in the astronaut office building of Johnson Space Center, celebrating him and his mission. He looks at his Artemis portrait, at how happy and competent he seems. He looks at the spaceflight photographs and astronaut portraits adorning the walls all around him. A history of spaceflight – a history of everything he ever wanted to do and be – and he can’t believe he was scared to come back here.

Because now, really, he’s home.

—

December 25

John gets a full night of sleep on Christmas Eve. Doesn’t even wake up until Pepper is standing on his chest, licking his cheek, wondering why the hell he’s still in bed. His alarm clock, which hasn’t been set since he’s been home, says 7:30am. Bright morning sunshine is streaming through the window.

It takes him a moment to realize it’s Christmas. It never really feels like it when he wakes up down here; he misses the snow. The cold. He misses waking up on Christmas morning to a blanket of white, teasing Gale for being wrapped head to toe in a blanket on top of his sweats.

“Buck?” Bucky groggily looks over to the other side of the bed, shoving Pepper away. But other than her, it’s empty.

“Gale?” He calls out again, kicking the blanket off with the foot he’s capable of moving. He grunts as he sits up, seething through his teeth as he tries to get his broken leg off the bed. He feels a strange, unbidden sense of panic rising in his chest as he realizes he’s alone. “Gale?”

He eyes the crutches resting against the wall by his nightstand, just barely out of his reach, and Pepper whines, like she’s warning him: don’t do it.

His husband clearly knows him too well, because he comes barreling through the door, sliding on the hardwood in his socks with a spatula still in hand, eyes wild and worried. He’s wearing Bucky’s Yankees sweatshirt, and it’s dusted with flour. “Stop right there,” he commands, pointing the spatula at Bucky.

Bucky freezes as he’s leaning over, reaching for the crutches. He looks at Gale, and he laughs at the messy morning baker look he has going on. The panic instantly drifts away. Gale motions with the spatula, telling him to sit back down. Bucky puts his hands up and watches as Gale calmly walks around the bed, grabs the crutches, and hands them to him. Then he helps Bucky climb laboriously to his feet and get the crutches positioned under his arms.

“Good?” he asks.

Bucky nods. Good enough to get out of the bedroom at least. “Are you making pancakes?”

“Feel up to it?”

Bucky is very, very up to it. Last time he had pancakes, he still couldn’t eat without getting sick, but his appetite has been coming back, and holiday pancakes sound like the best idea Gale’s ever had. They eat on the couch with the TV turned to one of those channels that shows a Christmassy fireplace all morning and plays Christmas music in the background, and they argue about the best pancake flavors and toppings and whether or not butter is necessary if you use syrup. Gale went all out while Bucky slept, apparently, and Bucky is shocked he didn’t wake up to all the noise he surely made in the kitchen. There’s plain pancakes and blueberry and chocolate chip and banana. Three flavors of syrup and fruit to top it all off. It’s too many pancakes for them to even eat, but Gale didn’t know which kind Bucky would want this morning – he has a new decided favorite every time they make them – so he just made it all.

Bucky could kiss him. And he does, lips sticky and sweet with syrup and blueberries.

Gale even made a mini pancake that he tears into pieces and feeds to Pepper when they’re done. She eagerly licks each piece from between his fingers before trying to get at the leftover syrup on his plate, and he has to shove her away. As he stands to clean up, though, Bucky reaches his hands up and waves them insistently until Gale reaches back down to haul him to his feet.

“What?”

Bucky smiles and pecks him on the lips, their noses bumping. Then he kisses him again, clutching onto him for balance as he presses closer and closer and gently bites at Gale’s lower lip.

“Hey now,” Gale whispers.

“What?” Bucky asks innocently. Another kiss. Deeper. Gale tastes like chocolate and maple syrup. Bucky grips his soft hair between his fingers as best he can. “Thanks for breakfast,” he breathes.

Gale smiles against his lips. “Merry Christmas.”

They’ve had gifts stacked under the tree for a few days now, Gale having finally gotten around to wrapping Bucky’s, once he was sure he’d be able to give them to him after all. Bucky had to ask Marge to help wrap Gale’s – otherwise, they all would’ve been stuffed haphazardly into gift bags since his fingers fumbled too much with the wrapping paper and scotch tape. They open them after breakfast, throwing crumpled wrapping paper at each other or kissing each other silly in thanks in between. For Bucky, there’s a 2025 Yankees World Series sweatshirt, a baseball signed by Aaron Judge, whiskey glasses that say I went to the fuckin’ moon, and a few new vinyls for their record player. For Gale, there’s a new flight jacket, new headphones for his morning runs, a fancy travel mug, and plane tickets. “We’re gonna go on our honeymoon,” Bucky tells him. “I know it’ll be over a year overdue, but when you come home from Artemis 4, we’re gettin’ outta here, doll. You and me.”

Gale hugs him tight, tucking his face against Bucky’s neck, and he doesn’t let go for a long time.

Finally, there’s a gift from Marge that she tucked in among the others when she came by to help Bucky the other day. Framed prints of some of their favorite wedding photos – their first look, the moment before their kiss, Pepper crashing it, and their first dance. They stare at those photos just as long as they did the first time, and for just a moment they can almost – almost – believe that they’re just typical, run-of-the-mill newlyweds, nothing special other than the fact that they see the whole world in one another.

Even Pepper gets presents, spoiled almost as much as a real child. She gets treats and bones and several new toys. There’s a new frisbee that Gale tells her they’ll play with later in the backyard. And there’s a new stuffed cow squeaky toy that he gives her immediately. He even gets down on the floor to wrestle and tug with her, mimicking her playful growling noises and making Bucky laugh as they make even more of a mess of the shreds of wrapping paper scattered about.

Once all their presents are open, they sit surrounded by the carnage. The fireplace is still on TV, and Pepper lays in front of the tree gnawing on a new bone while Gale sits on the floor in front of the couch, his head resting against Bucky’s leg.

“Hey,” Bucky says. He’s idly playing with Gale’s hair, but he lets go as Gale tilts his head and flicks his eyes up towards Bucky, even though he can’t really see his face. Something about it makes Bucky’s heart flutter; they’ve been together nearly half their lives, and these little moments still make him feel warm and nervous and so, so lucky. “I have something else for you.”

“Oh?”

Bucky nods. “A couple things, actually. They’re on the shelf in the closet. In the corner behind my briefcase.”

Gale narrows his eyes skeptically, but he slowly, reluctantly gets up and walks to their bedroom, his socked feet shuffling tiredly on the hardwood floor. “Be careful,” Bucky warns. “They’re fragile.”

Gale comes back with two square boxes, neither one wrapped. The larger one is about eight inches wide and covered in protective fabric. The other… is a ring box.

“You do know we’re married, right?” Gale asks. “Or did the TBI affect your memory that much?”

“Thought we said it was too soon for jokes,” Bucky shoots back. He motions for Gale to set both boxes on the coffee table and sit beside him. “Now, I know we’ve talked a lot, since I’ve been back. About, y’know, what happened. And feelings and shit. But, before you open them, I just… I need to say it again.”

He takes a deep breath and coughs weakly when it aggravates his chest. Gale takes his hand, and it makes Bucky feel stronger even as it makes the words harder. It’s Christmas, and he desperately doesn’t want to bring the mood down, but he needs to say this in order for everything to make sense the way it should. The way he wants it to. “When I was up there,” he starts, focusing on keeping his voice measured. He looks Gale in the eye. “I thought about you every day. Constantly. And not just ‘cause you were on the other side of the coms. I meant what I said in my vows. I went to the fuckin’ moon, but marryin’ you was the best thing I ever did. And not just ‘cause I got hurt real bad up there either… I really do think you kept me alive, Gale. And, I dunno, I-I can’t help but think that I should’ve died. I th-thought I was gonna die. I was so sure…”

He breathes slowly, carefully, forces himself to smile, tells his heart to calm down, and he tilts his head like a nervous tick. Too much emotion and nowhere for it to go. Gale grips his hand tighter, telling him it’s okay. It’s all gonna be okay.

Bucky swallows thickly. “And it’s been hard,” he admits. “It’s been so fuckin’ hard since I’ve been back. And I know it hasn’t been easy for you. I know that. But I am so grateful, too. That I made it home. And I’m grateful to you, every day, even when I don’t say it. So this, uh.” Bucky motions to the two remaining gifts on the table. “It was planned before I even set foot on the moon. But it feels so much more important now.”

Gale opens his mouth to say something back, but Bucky shakes his head. “No, just… can you just open them? The big one first.”

Gale chuckles a little nervously, raising an eyebrow in confusion, but he reaches for the larger box. Bucky tells him to be careful again, leave it on the table and just take off the fabric covering it.

“John,” Gale breathes out as he pulls off the protective cover. He’s so stunned that he pulls his hands away from the display case sitting before him, not wanting to damage it. His lips part again, and he doesn’t even know what to say as he leans over closer to the glass. “This- You brought this-”

Bucky can’t keep the grin from taking over his face, and he nods, satisfied and excited in that giddy kind of way when you know you gave someone the best gift they’ve ever gotten. It mixes with the emotion still filling the air between them, making his voice a little strained as he tries to explain. “It’s a moon rock.”

Gale looks back over at him, eyes wide in wonder. “You found it?”

“Picked it out special for you,” Bucky tells him. It was the only part of his dream the other night that was real, Curt teasing him as he looked down at a perfectly shaped moon rock cradled in his palms. Now sitting in the center of a display case, it’s dark gray in color, and it’s shaped roughly like a heart. When he found it on the surface, he so carefully packaged it up in its own bag, and he labeled it with a sharpie, ignoring every one of their protocols: ‘FOR BUCK CLEVEN FROM HIS HUSBAND.’

“It’s amazing,” Gale says, still in complete awe as he studies the rock. That doesn’t even begin to describe what he’s feeling right now, but it’s yet another thing that he finds he doesn’t have the right words for. “How’d you even get it away from NASA?”

“Curt really came through,” Bucky laughs, and that’s all he can say because that is legitimately all he knows. He points to the black velvet box. “Now open the other.”

Gale wants to stare at the moon rock forever, but he picks up the box as instructed. When he flips it open, he quirks an eyebrow. “It is a ring.”

“Pull it out and bring it over here.”

Gale leans back on the couch, letting his weight fall against Bucky’s side, and Bucky wraps an arm over his shoulders. Gale pinches the ring between thumb and forefinger and holds it up so they both can see.

“So, I understand if you’re attached to the wedding band you already have,” Bucky starts to say. “But, see that line?” He points to a mottled dark streak with a glimmering, glittery sort of quality going all around the middle of the silver band, about a third of the width of the entire ring. Gale rubs his thumb over it, just like he does to the one already on his finger, and it makes Bucky smile. “It’s an inlay. From that rock.”

Gale follows Bucky’s finger, which is pointing to the moon rock so casually sitting on their coffee table. Because that’s a typical thing in any American household, right? “How…?”

Bucky shrugs. “Helps to have good contacts at NASA. Had geology take a sample from the rock, and turns out one of their guys does this kinda thing as a side gig. Obviously, usually with things found on Earth.” It also helps to have almost died on the fucking moon; people tend to want to do things to please you after that.

Gale blinks again, staring at the ring. His brain isn’t working right, like he’s short-circuiting. But it’s in a really, really good way, instead of the doomed universe-collapsing feeling that he was experiencing in this living room a month ago.

“Well put it on,” Bucky insists.

Carefully, Gale removes his old wedding band and slips the new one over his knuckle. It fits perfectly. “I… John.” He doesn’t know what to say.

“I know you’re going to the moon, too,” Bucky tells him. “But I wanted to bring you back something anyways. Somethin’ outta this world for my beautiful wife.” Gale rolls his eyes, but Bucky goes on. “And I know it wasn’t easy for you, startin’ our marriage with me jetting off the planet. God, you started our marriage not sure if you’d ever see me again…”

Gale bites his lip as he hears Bucky choke on the words, but Bucky takes his hand, and he meets Gale’s gaze even though they both feel like tears could well up in their eyes at any moment. “But these missions, they’re a part of us. And I want you to remember the good of it, not just the bad.”

Gale looks at the rock, at the ring. His heart doesn’t know what to do anymore, and he feels like it’s lodged in his throat. He rubs his thumb over the band again, feeling it beneath his skin. A piece of the moon to carry with him. A piece of Bucky. He looks up at his husband, and he sees the depths of the universe in his eyes.

Stardust.

Later today, their house will be full again, with their crew, their friends, Chick, even Maggie and Jane and old Mrs. Mason. But for now, Gale tucks himself against Bucky’s side, and Bucky mindlessly messes with his husband’s fingers as they exist in this moment together. For now, it’s just them and Pepper, sitting on the couch in the comfort of their home on Christmas morning.

Some semblance of normal.

A world can shatter. But piece by piece, it can be put back together again.

I’ll Be Home For Christmas is playing.

“John?” Gale says.

“Yeah?”

“I love you.” Gale looks up at Bucky, then down at his ring finger. He twists the new ring around and around until Bucky grabs his hand, lifts it to his mouth and presses a kiss to his knuckles.

He looks up at Gale as he does so, clear eyes and a soft smile. “I love you,” he says. “To the moon and back.”

#raise your hand if you're crying over the gay space boys #I am crying over the gay space boys #this was a rollercoaster to write #guys this is the last real chapter #before the epilogue #and literally I don't know how to feel #this has been crazy and so amazing to write and #thank you #clegan astronaut au #to the moon and back #clegan #mota #masters of the air #john egan #gale cleven #clegan fic #buck x bucky #mota fic #buck cleven

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firapolemos05 · 1 year ago

Text

No devil hides beneath my bed

Part 1, Part 2

@whumptober | Ao3

No. 3 "Like crying out in an empty room, and no one's there except the moon."

No. 9 "Learning everything ain't what it seems, that's the thing about these days."

CW: NSFW (minors dni), noncon, captivity, pet whump, mind control, forced kiss, forced arousal, past whipping, licking wounds, mentioned death of a minor, multiple whumpers, creepy whumper, intimate whumper, object insertion (used to hurt and punish), spanking, bath scene, nudity, forced stripping, disassociation, restraints, future forced prostitution, whumpee injures whumper, begging, non-human whumpee, 'master' as a title, thoughts of self-harm, muzzles

(This fic is a direct sequel to my other story Still your heart, so much to prove so I recommend reading that before this. And of course Please Mind the Content Warnings.)

Tonight was not a fight night, so the Champion was rather alarmed when the silence of the dark cell was broken by the approaching footsteps of several people. Perhaps there was an event he'd forgotten? Did Master have company tonight, someone she wanted to show him off to? Was she angry?

The notion made him shiver as his blood ran cold. He thought he'd been good since the last time he was punished. Memories flooded back from that horrible night at the fighting pit. A too-young body lying cold. The bite of shackles and Master's whip. The wounds on his back were still sore.

It's why he was here, in a cold, dark stone box rather than his more comfortable quarters. His disobedience had cost him that privilege. He scrambles off the pallet serving as his makeshift bed, pushing himself to his knees as the door begins to open. But it was only a couple servants and one of the manor guards.

"You are being summoned to meet the master’s guest. She has ordered that you be presentable."

Most of the tension and anxiety drains out of the Champion’s shoulders. Ah, so it was just some company for the night. Nothing too out of the ordinary. He wasn't in trouble. Master wasn't angry.

He rises to his feet, following them down the familiar corridor to the baths. If he was being displayed to a guest, then he needed to look his best. He may be a fighter who got himself covered with blood and bruises for other's entertainment, but outside the caged arena, all he was was Master Scarlet's pretty little trophy. And pretty little trophies shouldn't be soiled with dirt, or unkempt hair, or the smell of old stone that enclosed his cell.

None of them speak a word, not during the walk, and not when they enter the bright, cold marble room. The servants because it was unnecessary; they knew the procedure. The Champion because he was not permitted to speak to them. Or at all, and he learned long ago what doing so without permission would get him. The guard takes post at the door while the other two strip the tiefling of the sparse fabric adorning his body. The enchanted gilded gold shackles chaining his wrists, along with his golden collar, are left untouched.

The hot water is a rare comfort. It chases away the chill of the stone tiles where he kneels, glittering black streaked with bold white. The servants pour the water and lather various scented oils and lotions into his skin and hair.

There was once chains dangling from the ceiling, forcing him upright as they hosed him down.

He lets his mind drift off. The air smells of roses and apricots.

He'd snap at any hands that drew close, until they forced a muzzle over his head and sedatives into his bloodstream.

Indifferent hands scrub a bit too rough at his still healing back. It hurts, he doesn't dare move.

' "He's forgotten that he is first and foremost a slave." '

It's far from the worst bath the Champion has ever had. He at least now has the privilege of being allowed to clean his lower half on his own.

He buries the memories back down.

One moment the warm steam curls up his skin, and he lets himself get lost in the feeling of being somewhere else. Someplace with no chains, cages, or whips to assault him. Someplace he can finally see the sun as much as he wants.

Then the next moment, he blinks and there's the touch of smooth, cool fabric. The water is gone, and he's standing as the servants dress him. By now he's already accustomed to the disappointment. Pants of sheer black chiffon embroidered with tiny red gemstones secured with laces up his thighs. Opaque black cloth with golden thread hangs from his waist, front and back. And finally a sash of red silk, set across his lower back before looping around to criss-cross his chest. The gold hooks fastened to either end clipping onto his collar.

It's certainly on the more revealing side of outfits Master has made him wear. But if the tiefling's opinions had mattered at all to her, he wouldn't be here.

Then came the jewelry. Dainty gold chains and more red gems. Draped elegantly around his arms, hips, horns, and tail. Tonight's guest must be expensive clientele if Master is decorating him this much. But they're finished with preparing him, so perhaps the Champion can finally get this meeting over with.

A lift brings them up to the main part of the manor, the churning of the mechanisms a pleasant break to the absent voices. Its doors open, and their master is waiting for them. All three kneel upon stepping off the platform.

With the Champion’s head bowed low, he feels his master’s eyes rove over his form, before she gives a pleased hum. "Good work with him, you two," she praises the servants. "You are dismissed. Follow me, my pet."

She leads him down one of many hallways, lined with various artworks and shining sconces. It's unfamiliar, and while he's supposed to keep his eyes cast downward, he can't help but take in the decor. Usually when Master presents him, he's brought to the dining room or the parlor, or some other gathering area for guests.

She stops at a pair of wooden doors, and once opened, gestures for him to enter.

It's one of the guest bedrooms.

A crackling fireplace bathes the space in a warm glow, colluding with the darkness leaking in from the night outside the windows and balcony doors. The glow lights up the rich browns of the wooden furniture, carved with ornate motifs that must be the bane of whomever was tasked with keeping them polished and free of dust. His eyes are immediately drawn to the large four-poster bed. The columns at its corners taper to spire-like points above the canopy frame, from which hang silk drapes of burgundy. A cushioned bench sits at its foot, and a plush rug of intricate patterns ('looks like Muthamian make,' says a far-off point of his mind) spans the area of dark hardwood surrounding the bed.

"Ah there he is." The voice pulls the Champion’s attention back to the opposite end of the room. A figure rises from an armchair in front of the fireplace, and years of training make the tiefling drop to his knees, eyes down. "My my. You have my compliments, Scarlet. This is quite the ravishing introduction."

Something about the man's tone doesn't sit well. It twists a knot in his stomach. He can't pinpoint exactly why, it's not like this was the first time someone made condescending remarks towards him.

"I figured this would be to your liking," Master replies. One of her fingers strokes the spikes on his horns, flicking a dangling gemstone. "You did mention wanting to see him in red."

Footfalls approach, and black leather shoes with gold buckles enter the Champion’s vision. A snap of fingers tells him he should look up. Pale stockings, slate blue pants rising high on the waist, a white dress shirt frilled at the collar and cuffs, and a smiling face framed in brown hair. In his hand was a wooden cane with a curved ivory handle.

"A pleasure to formally meet you, Champion," the man greets, words rolling with a thick Mężnydzik accent. Short, rounded ears speak human and high-quality clothes plus a well-trimmed beard speak high class. "Ivan Mitreski, I am an associate of your master."

"It's nice to meet you, sir." The Champion’s reply is automatic.

"Ivan here is rather new to the business with the fighting ring. He was witness to some of your most recent matches."

"Indeed, I was quite impressed. Though it's a shame you weren't able to handle killing that last dark elf fighter."

The comment feels like a slap to the face. Why did he have to remind him of such a failure, a horrible act he was forced to commit?

"His disobedience did come as a surprise," Master states, the coldness of her words further chilling his nerves. "But he won't be foolish enough to repeat such an offense, isn't that right, pet?"

"Yes, Master."

"Why don't you show Ivan what happens when you disobey." She snaps her fingers again and points down.

The tiefling bites his lip and quiets the part of his mind that bristles with humiliation. He hated this command. Lowering his chest to the floor, he crosses his shackled wrists to rest his head on, then raises his hips with an arch of his back. With nothing but a single sash of silk over his torso, there was barely anything to hide the tender stripes now on full display.

He awaits Ivan to make some sort of remark, relieved that he at least didn't have to see the man's face. But instead he was nearly jolted out of his skin as Ivan touched one of the wounds.

"So sensitive."

He wishes he could bite him. Touch still stings.

"If there’s anything else you find yourself desiring, feel free to ring one of the servants. Though come straight to me if he gives you trouble."

'Wait, what?'

"Of course, Scarlet. Again you have my sincerest gratitude for this."

And without a single regard for her pet's confusion, Master turns and departs the room. The Champion was left breaking position to stare at the closed door in bewilderment.

Master never left him alone with a guest.

'What's going on?'

"Your master has allowed me to spend time with you for a little while." Ivan sits on the bench in front of the bed, cane to the side, and gestures for him to come closer. "Don't be shy now, I'd like to talk with you."

The expression was soft, inviting. A warmth washes over him, easing his nervousness and tension, and he crawls over to kneel in front of the man. Ivan just wants to talk with him, almost no one ever wanted to make conversation with a slave. This would be a nice break from the norm.

"What would you like to talk about, sir?"

"I'd love to hear more about you. Tell me, how did you come to be Scarlet's fighter?"

He usually didn't like to think about this, the memories were often unclear, but with clarity began tragedy. But Ivan wanted to hear what he had to say, so it'd be rude to not answer his questions. "I don't remember everything, sir, but I did something unlawful and got caught. Master says she brought me here as punishment."

"I see, I see," the man nods, no judgment in his tone. "And how long have you been here?"

Another one he didn't know for sure. Prior to the fighting ring, Master had him held under some sort of spell that left him nothing more than a feral animal. Time and language meant nothing. He had no idea how long she kept him like that. "A few years. Sorry I don't know the exact number. But I do know I've been brought to the fights for about four years."

"And from what your master tells me, you became the Champion not too long after joining. That's quite impressive."

"Thank you, sir."

Simple questions like that Ivan asks him. Back and forth they went. The man asked him his age (Master says he's in his early 20s), if he had any family (not anymore), where he grew up (the outskirts of Altruek Atea). The question if he'd ever been in a relationship before seemed a bit off, but when he answered in the negative, Ivan didn't press further, so it was probably harmless.

"Has anyone ever told you how pretty you are?"

That catches him off guard. Without thinking, he looks up and Ivan is leaning forward, arms resting on his knees, leveling the tiefling with a strange smile. He doesn't scold the Champion for making eye contact.

It was a compliment, right?

"N-not really. Master sometimes calls me that, but not in a serious way."

"Well that's a shame." His hand reaches over and brushes a lock of black hair behind a pointed ear. "I'm positive you'd be quite popular, little devil."

The touch was gentle, affectionate even. He should’ve detested it. He always did when Master touched him like that, a controlling caress meant to remind him of his place. But somehow this felt different. This stranger . . .no, Ivan's hand and words didn't frighten him. This was the first normal conversation he's had with another person in years.

"Thank you," he replies, as that was the polite thing to say.

Ivan smiles some more, then pats his thigh. "Why don't you come sit with me here?"

He . . .he wanted him to sit on his lap?

"Master says I'm not allowed to sit on the furniture."

"Oh I'm sure she won't mind as long as I'm allowing it, right? Plus she's not here right now, isn't she?"

That did make sense. If Ivan is requesting him to sit with him, it must be okay in this case. And yes, Master had left them alone, with the order to call her only if her pet was being disobedient.

He doesn't want to disobey Ivan.

Rising to his feet, he walks closer. He'd been expecting to simply sit on the man's leg, so he jolts in surprise when Ivan takes hold of his arm and waist and pulls the tiefling onto himself.

"Relax, Champion."

That was a little hard to do now when he was straddling the man. This seemed too close, too . . . intimate. "Is. . .is this what you wanted?"

"Yes, you're being very good, Champion."

Good, Ivan had said. That was reassuring. He wants to be good. So he continues to be good and not move when an arm wraps around his waist. When a hand cups his chin.

When Ivan purses his lips and angles his face towards his. The pressure of the hands holding him told the Champion he should allow himself to-

'What are you DOING?!'

A bubble bursts. A sudden brick shatters the veil that was the charm spell from his mind. Just in time for his wits to scream at him to get away and his body to respond.

It was a trick. A cruel lie.

He shoves at Ivan's chest, pushing the two of them apart. His shoulder takes the brunt of the impact as he fell, but that hardly mattered now. Putting distance between them, the tiefling scrambles back, then faces the man with a snarl.

"Get the fuck away from me!"

The moment those words leave his mouth, he realizes he'll be made to regret it.

Ivan's face holds no trace of that once kind smile. Only cold disappointment.

"Well then," he begins, standing up and dusting off his shirt, as if the Champion pushing him somehow dirtied it, "I had thought you would've liked to have this the easy way but it appears that isn't the case."

His hand traces a sigil in the air, one all too familiar, and for the second time that week, the Champion feels his mind shut off.

The average charm spell is valued for its subtlety. It falls over the mind like a friendly embrace, the warmth of an inn, a pair of rose tinted glasses. Most people won't even recognize the change until the spell lifts, and certain mages could make it so that their victims won't find out at all.

But a dominate spell holds no such features. It does not need to be subtle. It forces itself onto the mind like a muzzle and cage, locking down the conscious so that the body is a pliant little puppet.

So the Champion can't question it, can't fight back, when Ivan orders him to crawl forward. A hand grasps his jaw and the tiefling is incapable of resisting when Ivan leans in and presses into him with a possessive kiss, devoid of the faux affection. A tongue worms into his mouth, and even through the spell he tenses with revulsion, a small whimper escaping.

Ivan purrs into his ear when he withdraws. "Oh I'm definitely going to enjoy you tonight.” He turns away to drag the bench away from the bed before facing him again. “Be a good boy and kneel right here for me, facing the wall. Arms raised."

His body moves on its own, against his will. He takes his place on the mattress as commanded, lifting his arms over his head without a word. He can only wait in terrible silence as Ivan fixes his shackles to the canopy frame. The man then retrieves several cords of silken rope, tying his ankles to the bed posts. Even his tail was restrained to his leg to keep it out of the way.

The spell goes as easily as it came, allowing the Champion’s awareness of his predicament to set in.

Trapped. Vulnerable. Exposed.

Too similar to the position he found himself in mere days ago. The ache in his back grew into a throb until he could practically feel the stone pillar against him and smell his own blood.

"Wait." At this point, Master Scarlet usually wouldn't allow him to beg. The damage had been done and he needed to be taught a lesson. But Master wasn't here and maybe Ivan would show mercy. "Sir please, I'm sorry I re-. . . I disobeyed you. Not the whip again, please, anything but that. I can't-"

A hand on his horn pulls his head back, and he cuts himself off to bite back a pathetic sounding mewl as Ivan licks a wet stripe up the shell of his ear. "You beg quite nicely, little devil. Rest assured, I don't intend on lashing you."

The Champion’s thoughts are caught between distrust and relief. He wants to believe him. He can't begin to imagine how painful it would be for his wounds to be assaulted so soon after. That punishment had been agony, he can't handle it again. Is Ivan telling the truth or only trying to lure him into a false sense of secur-?

Something touches his thigh.

His gaze shoots downward and Ivan is undoing the laces in the silk.

"What are you-?" he begins to say, fear tainting his voice, but the man presses a finger to the tiefling's lips and orders him to be quiet. The undone threads bare more skin from thigh to hip, and soon the pants are tossed aside.

It's when the black cloth is removed, with the red in quick succession before he can protest, that the pieces fall together into a vile puzzle.

No.

The revealing outfit, Master leaving them alone, the charm spell, the lurid stares and honeyed words on his looks, the kiss, the fact that he is now naked as the day he was born with his legs spread.

No. NO!

"Oh did you figure it out?" The damning chuckle accompanying that question took a sinister tone. A harsh squeeze of his ass shocks the denial right out of him.

The Champion jerks away, body trembling in revulsion and terror. "Don't touch me!" But he can't go far, and the bindings hold tight.

Hands latch onto his hips, and Ivan pressed up against him. To the tiefling's dismay, he can feel the man's hardened member against his thigh. "Let's make something clear, little devil. Your master has given me full permission to use you to my desire. So I have full allowance to touch any part of you I want. Understood? So I have a question for you."

He's prepared to ignore it, or say some lie or refusal depending on what the question is. But then Ivan runs his finger up the length of his tail.

"Is it true tiefling tails are quite sensitive?"

An unfamiliar sensation rushes up his spine. His breath hitches in his chest. A strange heat begins to build up within him.

"Judging by that reaction, I'd say my presumption is correct." And Ivan continues his caresses with a heightened vigor.

What is this?

His tail is sensitive, and each stroke is sending jolts of . . .some feeling throughout his body. It makes him shiver and bite down on his bottom lip, the heat in his face darkening his cheeks and ears. It pools in the region between his legs and he tries to close them to no avail. His toes curl. He can't even thrash his tail to dislodge the offending hand, whose fondling is clouding his mind into fuzz. His brain keeps saying this is wrong, invasive; he doesn't like what this sensation is doing to him.

So why does it feel good?

Each time he tries to pull away, some semblance of his body resists him, tries to lean in for more of this pleasurable touch ('No, this is not pleasurable. You're not enjoying this.') He tries to ignore it. Ignore the touch, ignore the hands and chains. Instead he bites his lips until blood drips down his chin, digs his claws into his palms until they bleed, and focuses on the pain.

And it almost works, if the fingers hadn't been replaced by a tongue.

The Champion's vision floods with blurry stars and the sound he makes is some cross between a gasp and a moan. He would feel ashamed and disgusted with himself if his senses weren't being overwhelmed by his tail being licked and nibbled and dear gods one of you please burn that fucking thing out of Ivan's fucking mouth.

"Oh, you like this don't you? That won't do."

He wishes he could tell the bastard to go fuck himself. This was nothing likable. This was wrong and violating. But unfortunately, he was having a hard time convincing his body of that. He refuses to look down and see how else his body is responding to it. He doesn't even hear the second statement over trying to stop himself from whining and panting like a dog in heat.

When the mouth leaves his tail, it's a breath of relief. Until he lets out a pained yowl as it introduces itself to the wounds on his back.

Saliva stings abused flesh and the Champion writhes in agony. Ivan begins with a stripe across the small of his back and works upward, aiming for all twenty-five. Meanwhile his hands resume their torment of the tiefling's tail, assaulting the poor creature's body and mind with a simultaneous barrage of pleasure and pain.

"S-stop, pl-please!"

"But you taste so good, little devil."

He doesn't want to. He doesn't want any of this. But the touch won't stop.

The whip would be preferable to this, and that terrifies him.

Each stinging lick sends him squirming, arching his back desperate to escape. With every movement, the dangling jewels mock him with their chimes. They only entice his assailant on further. Further. A painful stripe running between his shoulder blades. Strokes at the base of his tail that almost make him break. It's maddening.

And then a single digit slips under to edge the rim of his entrance.

NO!

The Champion tosses his head back under a surge of panic, and the tip of his horn catches Ivan right in the face.

The hands release his body with a grunt of pain as the man stumbles back. Looking back over his shoulder, he sees Ivan hold a hand to his bloodied cheek and lets himself bask in the satisfaction. Serves the bastard right, he wishes he gouged out an eye.

But that vindication soon melts away as reality comes to slap him in the face with the enormity of his actions.

He hurt one of Master's guests.

Oh gods, he hurt one of Master's guests.

The dread returns in full, and only grew when Ivan composes himself and levels the tiefling with a knowing look.

“I- I didn’t mean-.”

“Save your breath. We both know that’s a lie.” He pulls a white handkerchief from his pocket to dab at the wound. “Now I am going to go fix this little mess you made, and when I return, it will be with your master."

"Wait!"

Ivan exits the room, ignoring the Champion’s protests.

His gut twists into a knot. If he wasn't chained up like this, he would've crawled into the smallest space he could to hide.

It's been years since the last time he lashed out. The last time he'd bitten a woman's hand for yanking on one of his horns. The punishment he received for that kept him from ever repeating that mistake again. Until now.

Master's going to be furious.

Whatever's going to happen next will be horrible.

It's futile to try and break free, but he tries anyway. He yanks at the chains holding up his arms, tries to wriggle his legs free of the ropes. Hopes that something will give.

Nothing.

The dread takes hold, squeezing at his insides like a snake constricting prey. The fireplace continues to crackle, yet soon there's more sounds filling the Champion’s ears. It takes a moment before he realizes what he's hearing is his own hyperventilating breath and the rattling of chains from how violently he's shaking. Terror takes root and his fear and anger feed it.

He doesn't know how long they keep him waiting. It simultaneously feels like both eternity and a brief moment.

Footsteps echo from the hallway.

The Champion’s never been the religious type.

'Dear gods.'

The door opens.

Maybe now's the time to try.

'Please don't let this happen.'

"Did you think that just because I'm absent from the room means you can ignore the rules, pet?"

Ever since Master Scarlet first captured him, her voice always felt like icicles stabbing into him. Sharp and cold. Even her words of praise held an icy undertone he could sense under the mask she placed over her apathy.

Scoldings felt like getting trapped in a blizzard.

"It was an accident-" A force he cannot see slaps him across the face.

"I don't recall giving you permission to speak."

He snaps his mouth closed, burying the hopeless frustration far down so it wouldn’t show. It was always a gamble with her. Sometimes she would ask the tiefling questions expecting an answer, others were only rhetorical. It was up to him to guess the difference.

"Besides, it doesn't matter if it was an accident or not. You're in no place to strike my guests at all. So you are going to apologize to Ivan, now."

His training egged him to submit. He messed up big time and punishment would be worse if he didn't say he was sorry. But anger clawed up his body like a cornered cat. Why should he have to apologize to the bastard? Ivan stood besides Master, puncture wound nowhere to be found, not even a blemish. That only further boiled his rage. Years have gone by without him managing to lash out, and now that he did, there's nothing to show for it? Ivan's wound is gone without a trace, yet the Champion has scars (from far more painful wounds) that will last the rest of his life.

It's not fair.

Does Master know what Ivan's planning to do? Maybe he should tell her. Perhaps she'll stop Ivan to prevent her pet from getting damaged like-

' "Kill the girl." '

No. She wouldn't care.

She definitely knows already. Ivan no doubt has informed her. She doesn't care. She forced her Champion to kill a little girl, of course she wouldn't have anything against this. She doesn't care.

He forces down the rage. The injustice. Forces it down into the deepest pits of his gut. He can't show it. Getting angry is showing disrespect. Hissing his words is showing disrespect. Giving an apology that doesn't sound genuine is showing disrespect.

He growls with venomous sarcasm, "I'm sorry for hurting your fragile pride, sir."

He's not sure how his grip slipped.

By the way her eyes narrow and fill with disappointment, Master doesn't find it funny. "So easily you forget your lessons. Did we not just have this discussion the night of your recent fight?"

' "He's forgotten that he is first and foremost a slave." '

It doesn't even target him, but the Champion senses her magic take. The shackles above him unhook from the canopy frame and suddenly he's being pulled forward by an unseen force. He falls onto the mattress, arms outstretched, and is helpless as the chains magically meld into the headboard. The position leaves no doubt as to what is meant to transpire.

He won't let himself feel regret. The bastard doesn't deserve it. But the little voice in his head still yells at him. Calls him an idiot for not obeying.

The bed is soft. Far more comfortable than anything he remembers sleeping on in his life. It feels nice against his face. Maybe if he tried hard enough, he could lose himself in the rare luxury enough to drown out everything else around him. Like with the bath.

A hand grasps onto his horn and his head is pulled back so he can face his Master standing beside him.

"Let me make this clear, since you're having trouble remembering." Her finger presses into his side and traces a shape. The Champion can't see, but he knows exactly what she's touching. The branded initials of his master’s name seared into his flesh. "What does this mark mean?"

That definitely isn't a rhetorical question. There's an answer that his training won't allow him to forget. "It means I belong to you, Master."

"Good. And given that fact, it should be obvious by now what you are. I own you, pet. You are my slave. You have the title of Champion in the ring because I trained you. You fight for the entertainment of your betters since that's your purpose. To obey your master and entertain however your betters wish you to, whether it be fighting, being a pretty little server, or more private favors. Do you understand?"

His blood runs cold. 'Private favors.' A sugar-coated term for sexual favors.

Did-

Did that mean this would be a regular thing now? Would there be more people than Ivan who would use and violate him? More pain and more punishments if he refused or didn't satisfy? More-

He feels sick.

In his panic, he forgets to answer Master's question. She snaps her fingers. He senses Ivan behind him again but he can't see what-.

A sharp yelp rips from his throat.

Something is pushed inside of him. It's cold and hard and covered in some viscous substance. His body instinctively tenses around the foreign object, that strange heat already beginning to sink in.

"If you continue to defy your purpose, expect to receive this punishment more in the future."

This-.

This heat isn't the same as before with his tail. It lingers in the area it started and intensifies. It festers first into a sting, then a burn.

"Take this, Ivan," Master says as she hands over a flexible metal rod, the correction device she often uses on her pet. Said pet barely notices through the tears filling his eyes. He clutches onto the sheets with a desperate but futile wish for escape.

His insides are on fire.

What the fuck did they put in him?

"Strike him."

The rod cracks across the top of his right thigh, an acute twinge that gets drowned out by the burning spike as he tenses against the fiery intrusion.

It hurts in such an intimate way. He should’ve known; the rod by itself was too easy a punishment.

"First question: what are you?"

The moment he requires to register the question is taken as hesitation, and upon the next strike, the pain only grows worse and worse until it’s an effort to keep his words coherent. “S-stop!"

Smack!

"What are you?"

"Please, I'm sorry!"

Smack!

"Make it stop! Master, please!"

So this must be what the Infernal Hells are like. How ironic that a being of fiendish blood faces his own hell on the mortal plane. Devils did always like to scope out evil, and Master Scarlet had enough of it to last an immortal life. Hellfire would be a measly candle compared to the sear that tears through him.

"What are you?"

He can't even try to turn onto his side, the way his legs are bound won't allow it. The rod strikes an already tender welt and he howls.

"A sl- a slave," he finally chokes out, because this is too much. He'll do whatever Master commands to get this to end.

But the rod falls down on him again and Master repeats her question. So the Champion cries out the horrible word again because that is the right answer, isn't it? It has to be, there's nothing else it could-

Oh.

"I-I'm your sl-slave!"

There's a pause as Master acknowledges the correction, and her frown lifts into a pleased grin. "Again, louder."

Tears streaming down his face, he screams as the agony flares once more. "I'M YOUR SLAVE!" He wants this to end, he can't take it anymore.

Pathetic. Weak.

"Good boy. Second question."

He hates her. There is not a single fiber of his being that doesn't roar with contempt for this woman. He mentally prays to every god he knows to curse her with an excruciating death.

"What is your purpose?"

A far off point of the tiefling's mind hears this and thinks, 'To rid this world of you someday.' It's a wishful thought, wrapped in a fantasy. It barely registers to him through the fire.

"T-to obey a-and entertain!"

Smack!

All he can focus on right now is the pain and doing what his master wants.

"Say it the right way, pet."

"I'M TO OBEY AND ENTERTAIN!"

His face hits the mattress, and it takes several seconds of heavy, uninterrupted breathing and no more strikes of the rod for him to realize Master finally released him. It's over. His breath is short and ragged, throat full of cotton. He tastes salt and iron from his tears and ruined lip. His wrists probably don't look very good either from how much he tugged on the chains. He doesn't want to know what his ass and thighs look like right now. The rod doesn’t usually draw blood, but there’ll definitely be some nasty marks that’ll swell.

Another sudden touch startles him, and he doesn’t have the energy to stifle the whimpers as that awful whatever-it-was is pulled out of him. He nearly cries again in sheer relief as that burning presence fades.

"You have thirty more minutes, Ivan."

That picture of relief is shattered. Ivan is still here. Ivan still hasn’t finished with him. This isn’t over yet, they aren’t done hurting him yet. This man is still going to rape him.

"Oh that should be plenty of time," the man replies, unfazed by the tiefling's broken wail.

"I would hope you have some form of covering, or else that cream will give you a bad night as well."

"Worry not, I've come prepared."

"Good. Have him repeat his rule until he no longer hesitates. Let me know how he performs."

With that final damning note, Master Scarlet made her departure. And Ivan turned to the battered and crying slave before him, cruely brushing his thumb over a welt before unbuttoning his pants. "Well, little devil, it's just you and me. I'm still waiting for that apology."

The Champion buries his sobs into the bedsheets.

----

They chained him up and muzzled him for his second bath.

He didn't want any more hands on him. No more touch.

But since when did the Champion’s desires matter?

The water could wash away tears, blood, and other bodily fluids. It could not wash away bruises and bite marks that were definitely going to scar. Soreness and pain where it shouldn’t be. Nor could it stop making him feel sick, wrong, filthy, disgusting, weak.

He's back in his cell, lying on his palette curled up in a tight ball. Not a scrap of clothing adorns him, only the dainty little jewels that, with his hands bound behind his back, he isn't able to rip off.

He isn't able to rip at his skin either. To tear away soiled flesh and let blood chase away the phantoms that wouldn't cease their tormenting caress.

Master had stopped by minutes ago to tell him the news. She would be hosting a dinner party in a couple nights, and he would be present.

She informed him of its purpose.

The events of tonight weren't going to be a one-time occurrence.

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