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antiquitea · 6 months ago

Text

𝐧𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭 𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐫𝐨𝐫.

pairing: john "bucky" egan x gale "buck" cleven

summary: while resting during the march from the stalag to the train, gale helps john sleep. after the war, john returns the favour.

warnings: mature, minors do not interact! semi-public sex, hand jobs, frottage, ptsd, and the horrors of war.

word count: 3.7k

author's notes: i am cross eyed from banging this out over the course of a couple of hours save for a couple of paragraphs. i didn't think i could do this anymore. apparently i just need sunshine and the largest iced coffee that i can stomach before barfing to fuel me.

many thanks to @swifty-fox for yelling at me in all caps while i wrote this. shout out to laura marling's "night terror" for being a loose inspiration and letting me steal both the title and a lyric even if she doesn't know i did that.

» read on ao3

February 1945

Gale couldn’t sleep.

Both in the sense that he agreed to stay awake, and even if he could have slept, he wasn’t sure that he would have been able to. They’d found an abandoned farm house to take shelter in for the night between leaving the stalag and heading to wherever their next destination was, and while it assisted in keeping the snow out, it did nothing to protect himself and the rest of the men from the bitter cold.

John had, in a moment of brilliance, grabbed a blanket before they left, and the two men made good use of it, as threadbare as it was. The two men huddled together beneath it, using each other for warmth more so than the blanket itself. Dire as their circumstances were, they were both silently and secretly grateful for the excuse to get closer together out in the open; they were not the only two cuddling for warmth. “Weather purposes” as John had put it.

“I can’t sleep,” John grumbled into Gale’s chest.

Gale’s jaw clicked, his eyes fixed on the German soldier who stepped over bodies in various states of slumber and wakefulness as he made his rounds. “Try, John,” he murmured quietly, chin resting on top of his friend’s head. “It’ll be my turn soon and I don’t want to hear your bellyaching.”

John snorted, and despite the layers of clothing between them, Gale could feel the way his lips quirked upward into a small smile against him.

The upside to being a prisoner of war, with every single day and night being a test of their ability to survive? Being able to be close to one another, like this, with no judgment. They weren’t the only ones holding one another for warmth, the only ones who shared a bunk from time to time back at the stalag. That they couldn’t have this elsewhere without someone raising eyebrows was terribly unfair.

The downside? Everything else.

Gale didn’t have the heart to tell John that he had actually nodded off for a couple of hours already. He knew that their sleep had been dreamless and restless for over a year. And that was the best that anyone could hope for. The worst were of course the nightmares, the night terrors, men bolting upright in their bunks sweating, screaming.

He and John had been two of the lucky ones.

At least so far.

Gale’s hands idly soothed over John’s back, hoping that the gentle touch would lull him back to sleep. John shivered against him, and Gale couldn’t tell if it was from his touch or the cold. He hoped that it was the former, but the bitter cold was likely stronger than John’s desire for Gale and his touch.

In the depths of his mind, he liked to imagine that they were back stateside, before John shipped out, bed sheets tangled around them, touching one another slow, sweet, soft. Not the hurried manner which they went about it all since Gale had arrived in England. They stole moments together whenever they could, no longer afforded the luxury of time. At least in the stalag they could make excuses for being close to one another, sharing a bed.

If anyone saw anything, no they hadn’t. And even if they had, they wouldn’t have said anything.

“S’nice,” John mumbled against Gale’s throat, as strong, sure hands rubbed over his back.

“I know,” Gale said, eyes darting about to make sure that there were no other eyes on them. If there were, they weren’t scrutinizing enough for him to take notice. The other men were too busy trying to keep themselves warm and sleep as well, the guards not truly giving a damn, concerned with their own warmth as well.

“Lower,” John said, his fingers curling in Gale’s thick coat. “And in the front as opposed to the back.”

Gale stilled for a moment, and then bumped John’s forehead with his own. “I know you’re not that foolish.”

“Maybe I am,” John retorted. He inhaled sharply, exhaled shakily. “You know it puts me to sleep. If that truly is your end goal here, Buck.”

He looked around once more, before meeting John’s gaze. “Are you crazy?” Gale hissed, teeth clenched. “Your insatiable damn lust will get us both killed.”

John smiled sadly, then ducked his head and nuzzled at Gale’s throat. “We’re as good as dead already, sweetheart.”

Even it was the truth, Gale wanted to continue foolishly believing that there still might be a shred of hope. That their stories didn’t end with them receiving bullets between the eyes, left to rot wherever the Germans saw fit. That he and John might live to see a few more sunrises, that they might see the end of the war, that they might go back home.

Despite Gale’s optimism, it seemed less and less likely that he would know anything but this ever again.

Gale watched as a guard literally stepped over his and John’s bodies to get to the front of the building, and for the moment he froze, waiting for them to pass. He turned his head, his back to the entrance of the farm house, and watched as the majority of the men tasked with guarding them stepped outside. There was a brief flicker of fire from a lighter, the flame passed around until all three cigarettes were lit. Gale turned back toward John, looking into his dark blue eyes, heavy lidded with exhaustion, and something else that he had only ever shown to Gale.

Neither of them spoke of it.

Gale pulled the glove off of one of his hands, and John shifted in front of him, wriggling excitedly. It was a moment later when Gale realized that it wasn’t excitement, it was John undoing his pants and pushing layers of fabric up, down, out of the way. Gale held John’s gaze as he spat discreetly into his palm, and John’s lips parted with a soft sigh before he caught his bottom lip between his teeth.

“For once in your life, be quiet,” Gale rasped, his hand disappearing beneath the blanket.

That insufferable, wolfish grin passed over John’s features, and if Gale was going to die that night he could think of no sweeter death than while making the man in front of him feel pleasure and happiness one last time.

Through the layers of clothing, his own and John’s, Gale’s fingers finally, blissfully, wrapped around John’s cock. Gale watched as John bit his lip so hard that for the moment he was terrified that his teeth would go through it. So focused had they been on their plan, on trying to make it out of the stalag alive, that they hadn’t found the time to do little more than give each others’ hand a squeeze in passing. Too long had it been since either of them had known the touch of the other somewhere a little more intimate.

“Quiet,” Gale reminded as he watched John’s lips part in a soft gasp.

“I know. I know,” John whispered hurriedly, before pressing his face into the long, delicate column of Gale’s throat. There had been a scarf in his way; Gale had felt John bite it to shift it out of his way.

Gale reminded himself that he needed to be quiet. The brush of John’s lips against his throat, an errogneous spot for him (that John had figured out, incidentally), had him wanting to roll onto his back, haul John on top of him, and arch beneath him until they both came, chasing a pleasure that they had never been rightly afforded, one that they were frightened to come to terms with perhaps never having again.

Some other time, perhaps.

Gale flexed his fingers, stiff from the cold, but thawing so close to the warmth of John’s body. John’s cock was thick, heavy, in his palm, just as it always had been. The normalcy of the act, despite the horror of the location, comforted Gale in a way that he hadn’t anticipated, and he let out his own quiet sigh, which he pressed into the knit cap that John wore.

He longed to press his face into those soft, wild, dark curls that he had come to love in the years since he’d met John.

“Buck,” John rasped against his throat, bringing him back from where he drifted off to. A place where they could be warm, soft.

Safe.

“I’m here,” Gale whispered, droplets of damp in John’s cap catching against his lips. The sickly sweet scent of John’s sweat, his musk, filled Gale’s nostrils, and his free hand clutched at the back of John’s coat.

John’s hips twitched against Gale’s fingers, his body, trying to move with him, trying to chase the high that he was so desperately seeking, that Gale was desperate to give to him. His lips were parted against Gale’s pulse point, attempting to quietly gasp for air, dropping tender kisses that were so warm that threatened to burn Gale alive. He welcomed it.

Gale dragged his spit along John’s shaft, thumb collecting the precome that gathered at the head and smeared it over his length. John muffled a soft, desperate sound against Gale’s skin, damp with sweat from the effort of trying to be quiet, be still, of finally discovering some manner of warmth, before lifting his head slightly, to peer over Gale’s shoulder.

“Hurry,” was all he said, and Gale knew that outside the butts of cigarettes were being stomped out beneath boots, that they were running out of time.

“Five seconds,” Gale gasped, before swallowing thickly. John had met his gaze, held it, and Gale swallowed past both a lump in his throat and a louder noise that threatened to escape. Gale flicked his wrist as John attempted to move quickly, and yet keep his movements imperceptible. “C’mon, John. You can do it.”

“Buck,” John breathed, lips centimetres from Gale’s. They both wanted it. But they couldn’t risk it. “Please.”

Gale had never heard John be so polite in all of the time that they knew one another. He craned his neck slightly and looked out of the corner of his eye, unable to see the Germans, but knowing that they were coming in from out of the cold.

“Five,” he whispered, turning back to John. His fingers, desperate to give John his release moved faster, and John chased them as best he could.

“Four.” Brushing against John’s balls, Gale could feel them draw up toward his body.

“Three.” Gale looked at John’s face, so fuckin’ happy to see his cheeks rosy with colour. He looked like he was burning up, too big, too warm for his skin. But it sure as hell beat the alternative that they currently faced.

“Two.” John’s eyelids began to slip closed, eyes rolling toward the back of his skull, head tipped back slightly, lips parted. Gale knew the expression that John wore as he came better than he knew how to fly a B-17.

“One.” Gale felt John’s spend slipping through his fingers, hot, sticky, and abundant. John’s lips were parted in a silent cry, as he carefully bucked his hips toward Gale’s touch.

In that moment Gale had been incredibly proud of John, mostly quiet throughout it all save for a few whispers and gasped breaths. He was an extremely noisy lover, and short of having something stuffed in his mouth could always be counted on to be loud. Even when discretion was key. John seemed to think that Air Force wouldn’t give a damn if he was a fairy, only one person flew planes better in his mind, and that was who he would be undoubtedly be found with.

Spent, John pressed himself against Gale, and his trembling body could easily be explained away with the cold. Gale held him close, eyes on the guards as they began to filter back into farm house, not daring to move, even if he could feel John’s come cooling and congealing on his hand. He was already absolutely filthy. If anyone noticed the slightly sweet smell of come, no one acknowledged it.

Gale managed to worm his hand out from under clothing, the blanket, and brought it to his mouth, licking and sucking his fingers clean. Not in an attempt to be seductive, but to clean himself. If John noticed, he didn’t say a word, instead looked down as he put his cock away, did his pants back up.

Grabbing the edge of the blanket, Gale pulled it up toward their chins, hoping his own movements would mask John’s. Satisfied with the state of himself, John glanced back up at Gale, giving him a fond smile. Gale managed one back.

“Roll over,” John murmured. “You can be the little spoon for once.”

Despite himself, Gale managed a small smile of his own, thoughts momentarily shifting toward a dear friend, who had once been John’s big spoon. It hadn’t been that long ago that the three of them had laughed into the phone together, and yet it might as well have been another lifetime.

Gale did as he was told, John’s strong arms wrapping around him and pulling him back against his chest. This way, Gale could keep an eye on the front door, on more of the men. The only downside of this position, as far as he was concerned, was that he could not see John’s face. He wasn’t sure how much longer that he would have the opportunity to commit it to memory, as if he hadn’t already.

He felt John’s body go lax against his, heard him snore into his shoulder, and smiled.

October 1945

John couldn’t sleep.

He often couldn’t. It was too quiet. He had gotten used to noise, whether it be the sounds of dozens of other men sleeping around him, bullets, bombs, and bigotry. It had been five long years of never being alone, to suddenly the sound of silence becoming a deafening thing.

Sitting up in their bed, knees to his chest, arms resting atop them, John corrected himself. He wasn’t alone.

John turned his attention from the moon hanging outside of their window to the restless figure beside him. Whatever sleep Gale had lost during the war, he was trying to find it in the house that they shared in Kansas. Not Wisconsin, not Wyoming. A fresh start, where no one knew them. They could be anonymous, buy a plot of land in the middle of nowhere. Fix up an old house that had been lost to time. Two friends who had come back from the war, no longer used to being alone, needing the other to help quiet the noise in their head.

Tender as the thoughts of a quiet life together made him, it was Gale’s agitated frame that had John watching his lover like a hawk.

He knew what came next, and preferred to be awake for it instead of startled out of his sleep, feet on the creaky, old hardwood floors before his eyes had fully opened.

Gale bolted upright, screaming.

Had he been in his right mind, Gale would have known what came next as well. They had discussed it at length in the daylight, when the ghosts more or less left Gale alone.

The bed clothes fell away from John’s body as he straddled Gale’s thighs, large hands first on his shoulders, carefully anchoring him, bringing him back to the present, then moving to his back, drawing him closer. One hand mooring Gale against him, the other cradling the back of his head, bringing his face to the juncture where his shoulder and neck met. Gale would press his face into John’s shoulder until the screams subsided, sometimes turning into choked off, broken sobs, sometimes turning into ragged breaths. But always turning into a mumbled, “I’m sorry, John.”

To which John would always say, “Ain’t nothin’ to be sorry for, sweetheart.”

Had it truly been not even a year since the stalag? All of the horrors that they had seen, experienced?

Gale lifted his head, and John’s thumb swept over his cheeks, gathering the damp that leaked from his eyes. Neither of them were too proud to shy away from tears, their own and each other’s, at least with one another. Gale looked up at John pathetically, blue eyes wide, bright, and wet with unshed tears that he blinked away as quickly as he could.

“It’ll get better, won’t it?” Gale asked the older man, voice thick.

John’s mouth formed a thin line and he sighed. Neither of them knew. It didn’t stop Gale from asking.

“Don’t look at me like that,” Gale whispered, his hands reaching up and tangling in John’s hair, touching at his face.

“Look at you like what?” John asked, tilting toward Gale’s desperate and frantic touch. He knew what his love was doing; ensuring that he was still there, ensuring that he was real.

“Like I’m off my loop,” Gale replied, his eyes searching John’s.

“Think I’ll take you to the laughing farm if you are?” John asked, leaning in closer to Gale’s face.

Gale closed the distance between them, kissing John frantically. It was less a kiss, more Gale smashing their lips together so hard that John worried he might have chipped a tooth. His own or John’s.

“Don’t torment me,” Gale pleaded, and John instantly felt bad for attempting to soothe Gale’s mind with his usual antics.

John didn’t apologize, Gale hated it when he did, despite having done it moments ago himself. “What do you need, sweetheart?” he asked. The sentence hadn’t truly been completed, Gale’s mouth seeking out his again, the remainder of it dying between their lips.

“Make me forget them,” Gale replied, fingers searching for purchase against John’s chest, finding it in warm skin, wiry, dark curls. “Keep the ghosts away.”

Wrapping his arms around Gale’s slender frame, John pushed him back down onto their bed, covering Gale’s body with his own. His mouth descended upon Gale’s, forcing his lips apart with his tongue, licking inside until the tip of his tongue brushed against Gale’s molars. Gale clutched at his arms desperately, one leg hooking over his hip in attempt to keep him close, to keep him from moving away.

As if there were any place else in the world than John wanted to be than in a falling apart house in Kansas, wrapped up in the sheets and limbs of the man that he loved.

John felt Gale’s cock hard against his hip, and began to reach down between their bodies, only to have Gale’s long, elegant fingers wrap around his wrist. John lifted his head, alarmed, to find Gale shaking his head.

“No,” he rasped. “Not like that.”

Instead of asking what Gale would have preferred, John waited for Gale to show him. Gale reached between them, and John had half a mind to bat Gale’s hand away, but the thought turned to soup when Gale wrapped his fingers around John’s prick, guiding it against his own. John rolled his hips tentatively, face searching Gale’s for approval. Gale closed his eyes, breathless, and nodded. John repeated the motion, and was rewarded with the sweet sound of Gale’s moan.

In the middle of nowhere, they could be as loud as they wanted. They made up for the farm house, the stalag, the barracks, and everywhere else they had ever muffled the sounds that they made.

John moved slowly at first, cock already so wet just from the mere thought of even having Gale against him, grinding against his lover. Gale’s arms went around him, clutching at him, blunt edges of fingernails digging into his back, leaving crescent moon indentations in their wake. To go with all the other crescent moon indentations that he had left in recent days, nights.

Gale, not satisfied with sweet and slow, bucked beneath John, encouraging him to move faster, harder, letting out an annoyed little grunt at not being given what he wanted, impatient in his desire. Desire to feel pleasure, desire to forget.

“I’ve got you,” John breathed, hips snapping forward. He was rewarded with Gale’s sharp gasp, his body responding in kind. “Buck, I’ve got you.”

Gale smeared his mouth over John’s jawline, the days old stubble that he hadn’t bothered to shave, partially out of laziness, mostly out of Gale’s request. Evidently, he loved the burn. John’s eyelids fluttered shut, the leg draped over his hip urging him closer, even if there was nowhere for him to go.

John dragged his cock through the pool of gathering precome in Gale’s blonde pubic hair, his own mixed with Gale’s. Bracing one hand against the bed, the other tangled in Gale’s hair. Gale’s eyes, which had been closed, opened to meet John’s in a hazy gaze, begging him to not look away. John gave Gale a brusque nod, grunting as they moved together. Despite its desperateness, erraticness, it was a rhythym that they have perfected, one that was theirs.

Grunting, John movements became frenzied, and Gale’s lips fell open in soft, short gasps, head tipped back against the pillows. John was overcome with the urge to both bite at, and protect Gale’s vulnerable throat, tipping his head forward and mouthing along the pulse point that he had found so many times before.

“John. John,” Gale gasped, his lover’s name a mantra on his lips as his body tensed. He came beneath John with a cry that it sounded like he might asphyxiate on, coming across his own belly and chest.

John tumbled wordlessly after, moaning into Gale’s throat, tongue and teeth marking their rightful place against his skin, damp with sweat.

They laid there together in their bed, John’s body still atop Gale’s, pinning him, giving him the weight that he knew that Gale desperately craved. Gale’s touch over John’s arms became feather light, tender, bringing him back from the edge of the intensity that they had just experienced together. John turned his head, kissing at Gale’s fingertips, looking into the eyes of man fucked back toward the edge of sleep.

Satiated. Happy.

Safe.

“If they want you,” John whispered, lips still dancing over Gale’s fingers, “they’re going to have to fight me.”

/end.

#masters of the air #mota #masters of the air fanfiction #mota fanfic #john egan x gale cleven #john bucky egan x gale buck cleven #john egan #gale cleven #john bucky egan #gale buck cleven #clegan #antiquitea.fic #bucky x buck

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