#gale gets a bubble bath thats it thats the fic

[swifty-fox]

For the bathing prompts, #1 for clegan PLEASE 🙇🏻‍♀️

¹⁾ sitting on the edge of the bathtub and letting them lay their head against your thigh as the fatigue starts taking hold

What they're supposed to do, what their loose orders are is to stay on base. To rest and heal and have medical eyes on them to make sure their wasted bodies weren't about to give out on them.

Gale had been back months before John had, and though he'd regained muscle that John was struggling to catch up to, there was a haunted animal look in his pale eyes that just wouldn't quit. There were bags under his eyes like he hadn't had more than a few hours of sleep since his return. A fact, John knew to be true because the restless paranoia wafting off of Buck like a physical scent was keeping him up as well.

The doctor kept telling him to sleep, he kept telling them "I can't"

I can't, not when my other half lies awake.

So, really, neither of them are sleeping. Neither of them are relaxing and the nurses keep warning John about what stress and starvation did to the heart and poor Buck had gotten smaller than the rest of them. And so when Bucky marches into Chick Harding's office for two weekend passes he's back out before the ink had even finished drying.

He drives them to the nearest inn, somewhere off campus where the doors locked and they had a double-bedded room to themselves. There's a small balcony with squashed but comfortable-looking cushions and two pairs of dressers to match the two beds and through a cracked door John can make out a warmly tiled bathroom with a clawfoot tub dropped in the center like a great contented cat..

Buck, who had gone silent the moment he'd no longer had to act as God-come-home for their flyboys and the new recruits they'd become legend and fable to, sat on the bed slowly removing his cufflinks and staring at his feet. His face, while not particularly concerning in its expression, aches with exhaustion and a quiet melancholy that John felt mirrored in his own chest. They had looked into the horrors and the horrors had looked right back and now they both carried the scars of it with them.

He's fine for now, so Bucky leaves him to his undressing, smoothing a thumb across Gale's forehead as he goes and gets a faint smile in return. He takes his time unpacking their duffels, heads down to charm to the lady of the house into some cucumber and chicken sandwiches made with real saw-dust free bread and scampers back put to the room with his prize.

Gale's still on the bed, stripped down to his undershirt and briefs, sprawled on his back now with one hand over his eyes and the other on the hollow rise and fall of his stomach. Not asleep, but resting at the very least and John takes full advantage of the chance to admire the graceful curve of the other man's body. The delicate just of his wrists, and relaxed put of his flush lips. The smooth jaw that would be stubbled by midnight and the flat downy hair on his thighs and legs.

He was too skinny, wasted muscle and shoulders that were angular where they should be soft and rounded, his collarbones a series of mountains ratner than hills. But he was alive and breathing and free and for the first time in years he's all John's.

He sets the plate of sandwiches and a pitcher of lemonade he'd gotten just for the reward of being so handsome - the madam's words not his - on the nightstand and pads into the bathroom. His knees click and his body protests as he kneels in front of the giant tub, and he remembers he too is running on fumes and stubbornness and pure Pilot luck. Running the water he waits for it to heat up before plugging the drain. There's a bottle of something sweet-smelling on a stool by the faucet and he tips it into the churning water experimentally, exclaiming quietly when bubbles smelling of lemon and lavender foam up.

Leaving the tub to its filling he makes his way out to the main room and brushes a soft kiss over the knuckles covering Gale's eyes.

"C'mon doll, lets get some food in you."

Gale makes a soft noise of protest but rises, eyes drooping tiredly and happy to settle against John's side.

They're both silent as they eat, both reverent to the point of religion at the freedom to fill their bellies.

"Real bread," Gale comments.

They each eat two apiece, drink half the pitcher and John kisses the sour-sweet droplets of lemonade from the pillow of Gale's upper lip. Tugs him up gently to be led across the room and into the now steamy bathroom.

"Bucky come on we were going to sleep -" he cuts off, looking at the tub and the popping chromatic bubbles covering the surface like a cloud. His face pinches inwards, brows lowering over his sunken eyes in an aching expression.

"Jesus, John."

Slipping behind him, dragging his hands up the stepstones of Gale's ribs and dragging his shirt with it, John presses a soft kiss to the nape of his neck, "You hate going to bed unclean."

Johns hand is spread across the center of Gale's chest, a soothing slow circle of pressure he knew made Gale melt into relaxing, so he feels clearly the ragged sobbing inhale that shivers through the blonde. But when he looks Gale's face is dry, lips parted just slightly and eyes fixed on the tub.

"I don't want to fall asleep in the bath on you."

"I won't let you slip under, sweetheart."

John slides out from behind Gale, stealing his shirt as he goes and settling on the stool. He toes his shoes and socks off, rolls his army regulation slacks up past his knees so he can stick two feet in the tub and gestures.

"Come on in Major, waters fine."

Gale shakes his head, puffing out a laugh and drags his briefs down his legs.

It's equal parts admiration and grief in how Bucky stares at his lovers body. Wasted from what it once was. Beautiful to him always. He schools his expression into something more neutral when Gale looks up, lifts a hand to help him into the tub without slipping and guides him down into the water.

The delicious groan Gale lets out, lashes fluttering, shoulders and head slumping forward in relief is better than any reward.

"That's good," Gale sighs.

"Yeah?" John whispers, rubbing his hands along the hills of Gale's spine, drags his thumb along the bump of them and massaging his fingers along the nape of Gale's neck until he makes another helpless noise and grows more boneless.

"Y'wanna get in?"

John shakes his head, fingers still working at the tension around Gale's spine, "Naw, enjoying watching you have a good time. You look cute with all the bubbles."

Gale chokes out a laugh, shudders out another one of those awful sobbing breaths. This time his shoulders flinch with it, and the roll through Gale's body like a tidal wave and John makes a noise of concern.

"Hey Buck," he says softly, scritching his nails along Gale's scalp, "Hey my man, my fella."

"It feels so good," Gale repeats, words clicking and wet and young.

Gale wasn't a man who needed coddling, and he certainly wasn't prone to outbursts of emotion and John is loathe to do anything that might put a stop to the release of emotion. So he lets Gale weep, lets him cry out all the poison he'd been carrying around and rubs his back and when he's finally done, bends to press a kiss the center of Gale's spine.

"Tired," Gale mumbles softly, sniffles wetly and the water splashes as he reaches up a hand to rub at his eyes.

"Okay," John says softly, "You wanna get out?"

Gale shakes his head and John hums, plucks at the blonde strands that had fallen out of the careful coif from the humidity.

"Alright," John says, guiding Gale's head to his higher where the other man sighs, nuzzling into his hip and relaxing bonelessly, "I've got you, won't let you slip, doll."