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eddiestightywhities · 4 months ago

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100% in the Buddie Team Switch tent over here btw bc these bastards are honestly just far too complex to ever be anything else imo. like Buck with his praise kink, all somebody please tell me i did good as i wasn't told this growing up by the people who were supposed to say it to me and it changed my brain chemistry by denying me of positive affirmations and molded me into a pliable thing that cannot help but take any shape others want me to so i just need need need you to please please tell me that i did good and that i am good and please will you help me to believe that i am as good as you're telling me i am by holding me down and forcing me to take all of you into all of me until I'm fucking convulsing with just how good it feels and how good i am at it, and bc i now know for sure how much you love it too as you're saying it out loud to me, over and over and over again... and Eddie, with absolutely everything in his life (outside of work) feeling so very out of his control and needing to gain some of it back by crushing Buck with his body weight and telling Buck exactly what it is he should be doing and precisely how to do it and have Buck whining and keening with how desperate he is to comply bc Buck has complete trust in Eddie, in Eddie's ability to make the right decision for whatever it is Buck needs, for what they both need, and having that allows Eddie to have the courage in his convictions that he often struggles to have outside of the(ir) bedroom when it comes to his emotions and that just feels so good to Eddie, to be doing it right, to be the one making Buck feel good, so good, and to actually be taking—for once in his life—what it is that he wants and allowing himself to have the things he desires, to have Buck, all for himself, because that is what feels good to him... but then there are those other times in Eddie's life that he has had to and has to be a sure and steady hand, a reliable go-to, be totally unshakeable and unbreakable and in charge of making decisions that affect countless people's lives—victims of war, those he tries his best to serve and save on calls, colleagues, friends, the people he cares for and those he loves the most in his life—and it's, well. it's A Lot. so much, actually, that Eddie sometimes needs to turn it off and just let it all go and allow somebody else take over and tell him what to do and when to do it bc he just needs to not think about it anymore, to not think at all, needs to just be a vessel for somebody else's decisions and desires and put his trust wholly in somebody else, in Buck, bc he doesn't always trust himself but Buck knows Eddie so well and so completely and understands what Eddie needs to get out of his own head and just have somebody tell him (outside of his job) that he did good for once, that he can get matters of the heart right instead of always wrong wrong wrong and have Buck tell him that yes, of course he's good for something, good for this, good for splaying himself wide open and taking everything he is given by Buck... and then there's the whole Buck (outside of work) having zero fucking clue of what he's doing and even tho he is trying his very best all of the time he's getting it wrong A Lot of the time, bc his best isn't always good enough so he has to try harder but then he's trying too hard, too much, which means he still isn't getting it right. and so to be able to be the one in charge of things and have his will and instruction be absolutely the right thing? the very thing that Eddie needs? that's such a heady experience, such a rush, and when he makes Eddie beg and cry with it and Eddie loves loves loves Buck for it—loves Buck for telling him how it should be and for Buck insisting on what he's giving being what Eddie deserves—that is Buck living and thriving and loving loving loving Eddie right back, with all the plundering depth that he has in him and can give and is... and that, all of that, is just. how it is. every facet of it; every logistic; every angle; every way and any way you look at it; every (s)which way.

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anachilles · 7 months ago

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[INJURY]: after having been badly wounded themselves, the sender tries to reassure the frantic receiver by cupping their face and comforting them.

Oh my god I love this prompt list! Requesting ^ with Gale and John if you’d like to write it ☺️

same, buddy! and i'd love to. hope you enjoy this one! 🫶 -> prompt lists i'm currently accepting requests from: [ x ] [ x ] <-

“Holy Mary Mother of God! Buck, are you hit?! Are you hit?!” Curt screeched from the co-pilot seat, having just been thrown sideways with the great lurch the plane gave as the other man momentarily lost control of the craft.

For a single heart-stopping second, Gale presumed that he had been.

It sounded cliché to say so, but the burst of firepower, hot on the heels of Curt’s frenetic “Fighter, 10 o’clock!” warning, truly did feel like it came out of nowhere. They weren’t far off the chosen industrial targets in Abbeville, and had gotten eerily lucky with the flak up to that point, a couple of solid knocks but no major casualties or issues reported from the crew. For all intents and purposes, it should’ve been a clear run to the IP.

Whatever Luftwaffe pilot, speeding down from the clouds above, that happened to catch an opening to get a lucky shot in at the side of their fort, however, had other ideas. When all's said and done, it could’ve been worse; the couple of bullets that actually made impact having just about caught the metal frame bracketing the port-side window rather than shooting straight through the window itself. But all the same, the pane still shattered in a blinding spray inward. His reflexes quick, Gale had managed to duck his head and avoid the worst of it, but…

“Oh, God” Curt squeaked out, the last of the colour draining from his face when Gale turned to look at him.

Although in reality only taking place over the course of a couple of seconds, it stretched on what felt like several minutes when he saw it in his peripheral vision, swallowing down the wave of nausea that threatened to break over him at the realisation of the little shard lodged into the corner of his forehead through the lined leather of his flight cap. As if he’d needed to see it to activate the relevant neural pathway, only then did he feel the warm, sudden wetness of blood on his face, soaked into his bangs where they were flattened against the cap.

Alright, turned out he was hit.

Beneath the rush of blood in his ears, the roar of the engines, and the rattling of the ship's frame, he was distantly aware of a frantic flurry of chatter in his ear over the radio, but for that little pocket of a few moments it may as well have been miles away.

“Major Cleven, are you hit?!” “Is Cleven down?!” “Bombardier to pilot, what the hell’s going on up there? Curt, is Buck hit? Over.”

Disregarding the demand of the voices echoing in his own headset, “A-Are you okay?” Curt stuttered, blatantly making a real effort to look him in the eye and not at the shard just above his eyeline, whilst still keeping one eye on the sky in front of them as Gale remained holding the fort steady.

Gale blinked hard, and allowed himself half a moment to consider it, taking brief stock of all his senses. Could he see? Yeah. Hear? As much as he could before over the general racket of piloting this thing. His cognition seemed to be fine beyond the shock, his hands were trembling a little, but they were still held firm on the yoke with a mindless but steeled determination. The adrenaline was clearly preventing him from feeling any sort of immediate pain from the wound beyond the sticky dampness of the blood that...

...he also realised had stopped actively flowing. Long-forgotten lessons from first aid classes ranging from his Boy Scout days right up to mandatory medical training through basic and at flight school flashed through his mind with a violent jolt. The shard mustn’t have lodged too deep, the cap likely softened the impact a great deal, and the wound must've already started coagulating around it, like a stopper in a bathtub plughole. He just could not take it out, despite how every natural instinct he possessed screamed and banged from the box he'd locked them up in in the back of his mind to get it the hell out.

Surprisingly, he surmised he actually was okay, relatively speaking. Enough so to get them to the target and with as much chance of getting them back as he ever did.

With a deep, fortifying breath and a hard swallow to push down what remained of the urge to panic, Gale engaged his radio, addressing the entire crew. “Pilot to crew, I’m fine, boys,” he reported, willing his voice into the steadiness that the rest of the men had come to expect from him. “Mission continues as normal. ETA, um… 15 minutes or so to the target, so bombardier, standby.”

Curt was looking at him, pale faced and wide-eyed, like he’d lost his mind, but there was no time to argue about it, as enemy fighters continued to dog what was left of their formation on the approach to the target.

What else could Gale do, though? What other option even was there for him other than to bear down and carry on, especially when he was physically able to do so?

So they carried on, only a little bit chillier and more blustery than they were used to thanks to the broken window.

"It's probably good I get a spot of fresh air, all things considered..." Gale had tried to joke at one point, when he feared the stony silence after all of the commotion was getting to Curt. He didn't seem to like that one, though.

"Yeah, well, crack open a window next time rather than have it shot through."

They did eventually make it to Abbeville, they hit their targets, and then by some miracle limped their way home back across the Channel, through more Kraut fighter fleets and a floating minefield of flak. All the while, Buck grit his teeth against the constant, corroding paranoia about moving too fast, knocking his head on something, forgetting it was there in all his blind determination to get the job done and get them back, or accidentally jolting the shard, goading it to shift and allow it to start bleeding again, properly this time.

The wary, concern-filled glances Curt kept sending his way, even as he was clearly doing everything he could not to throw Buck off his rhythm, weren’t helping. They just kept reminding him that it was there, something sticking out of his goddamn head that wasn’t meant to be there.

That thought became more and more pervasive, growing vines and burying deep into his subconscious the closer they closed in on the Thorpe Abbotts runway, unable to be avoided now even if he tried as the ache gradually started to set in. Gale wasn’t the squeamish sort, but even he couldn’t help the queasy feeling as he went through the motions of the landing procedures. Every time he shifted now, he felt it. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Curt reach for the little pocket where they kept the flares.

By some miracle they’d had no other significant casualties.

“Don’t bother with a red flare, Curt” Gale said, steadfast gaze fixed on the runway as it grew closer below them.

Curt froze, his hand slowly retreating from the pocket, looking at him like he had three heads. “You’re kidding me, right? You're as white as a sheet.”

Gale winced and let out a pained huff of a breath, the wound twinging as the altitude dropped on the descent. “Some of the other boys got chewed up rightly out there. Clearly, I’m surviving here. They need the priority for triage.”

“Major,” Curt said, tone imploring and although referring to him by rank, it was imbued with an unmistakable, desperate kind of affection. But Gale just didn’t have the capacity for it right now, to think about anything other than getting them on the ground after getting them this far. He’d apologise for any liberties of manner later. Later, later, later…

“Look,” he snapped, voice rigid and brittle. “I’m landing this damn plane, and then I’m gonna get up and walk off it of my own volition. Is that understood?”

Curt looked momentarily surprised, and like he wanted to put up a bit more of a fight about it, but it must’ve been clear either in his expression or tone that Gale wasn’t for having his mind changed. Curt gave up with a dissatisfied huff, settling back down into his seat.

“Pilot to crew, prepare for landing. We’re home, boys. Over.” Gale said, hands shaking but sure of themselves as he went and landed the damn plane.

With a shard of his port-side window lodged in his head.

There was blessed finality in the sensation of rock solid tarmac under their wheels as they taxied into their ship's designated spot, and Gale resigned to let himself sit in that for a little bit, breathing, breathing, trying to get his bearings about him as well as letting all the other men clamour out first.

With the crushing weight of duty and the mission and getting the boys back safe above all else lifted from his shoulders, it quickly relocated itself to right on top of his chest, that sickly, queasy feeling trickling back in until the trickle became a flood and it started pooling in his stomach. He realised was cold all over, but all clammy at the same time. He didn't want to get up, was starting to fear it, not trusting his feet under his own weight, but he knew he couldn't just sit there.

"You go on Curt," he drawled out, just as final as the Earth under their landing gears, but... Curt being Curt, who'd pointedly lingered behind as the other men departed, gave him an incredulous look. "I'm right behind you," Gale insisted.

He went, albeit muttering 'crazy son of a...' under his breath, and then louder, "I'm waitin' outside, y'know!"

Gale knew there was going to be a whole big to-do when he did emerge, even just the thought of the flap and attention itching uncomfortably under his skin before it'd even happened yet. Christ, when Bucky sees him like this...

Gale hoped like hell he hadn't landed yet, that he could slip away to med without him having to see.

God his head was hurting now.

Sucking in a lungful of air, he forced himself to stand through the light-headedness, forced himself out of the cockpit and out the hatch, down onto the tarmac under overcast British skies through the dark spots that were dancing around in front of his vision. The world grew fuzzier around him with the harshness of the drop down, the organised chaos of ambulances and shouting and bodies running to and fro suddenly sounding far away, like he was listening to it with his ear pressed up against a door that separated him from it.

Gale bit back a heave and tried to put one foot in front of the other, in what direction and with the intention of going where he didn't quite know (he just needed to go, he knew that much), swaying a little until a hand caught him under the forearm. He turned his head to see where the hand came from, who it belonged to. Instead, he caught a slightly warped, blurry reflection of himself in the shiny metal of the fort's shell in between the flak holes, actually saw with his own two eyes the piece of that plane stuck in him, melding itself with his flesh, making itself a part of him. He dropped down onto his knees then, falling under the weight of some invisible force acting against him as the last of the blood in his head drained away.

With seemingly one part of his fortitude giving up the ghost, others took that as the cue to follow, his stomach finally committing to rebelling properly, as he promptly fell forward onto his hands and vomited down onto the asphalt.

*********

"Ooooh, Jesus" Bucky had winced in sympathy as he inched the yoke a little to the right, adjusting them so they were properly in line again where they were supposed to be in the formation (he could always tell - just knew in his gut - when they weren't properly positioned), his gaze cast out the window and down to the left. "Who's fort was that? That hit looked nasty."

He'd heard the garbled "Fighter, 10 o'clock!" from one of their gunners and snapped to look, but by the time he had it had already swooped down and set upon one of the ships below, the fort lurching in an all too telling way that whoever was piloting it was in some sort of trouble. In the next second it was gone though, zipping away to circle back around again and likely have another go.

Beside him, Brady paused for what felt like a deliberately extended few seconds, like he knew the answer to the question but was still considering his words and if he really wanted to say them. The nosedive Bucky's heart took down to his stomach started before Brady had even had the chance to grit them out as his eyes remained scanning the horizon.

"That's, uh... Cleven and Biddick, I think," he said, in that plain, no-nonsense way of his that Bucky actually to some extent appreciated most of the time.

He hated when they assigned Buck and Curt to the same goddamn plane. Like they deliberately placed all of Bucky's eggs in one tiny, fragile, threadbare basket that was ready to come loose at the seams any second.

His jaw tense, Bucky chanced another look down at the fort in question, safe in the knowledge Brady was watching the rest of the skies while Bucky watched out for them, unable to leave it alone until he could see with his own two eyes they were alright. The knot in his chest loosened to find that they'd seemed to quickly correct course. Brady's eyes followed his own, leaning over a bit as he strained to get a look.

"I think they're fine though, Major. Looks like they mustn't have hit anything important."

Bucky allowed the reassurance of that to wash over him, tide him over for the time being, if only for the sake of being able to focus back in on the mission. Buck and Curt, they hadn't dropped out of formation, they were keeping pace, they hadn't radioed any of the other crews for assistance, their engines weren't trailing any smoke. All signs pointed to them being okay. He could live with that. He'd have to.

*********

The world around Gale was muted and muffled like he was hearing it from underwater, narrowed down into a single point like he was trying to look through the eye of a pin as he tried to catch his breath after heaving up his breakfast. The chill he'd felt creeping in before was now permeating his bones, his teeth beginning to chatter with it. His head was killing. He wanted to stand up, to move away from all the commotion, but the strength it would have taken for him to do so seemed to have abandoned him.

As if in slow motion a pair of legs came into view from the corner of his eye. He couldn't hear the stamp of the boots against the ground but it was almost like he could feel them reverberate through the tarmac they were hurtling towards him so fervently. That's when he knew who it was, and all at once the thick fog of the disorientation began to clear, Bucky's stricken face coming sharply into focus, bringing the chaos of the world around them with it. He wasn't sure whether the ache he felt was distress or relief.

"Bucky..." he murmured dumbly, uselessly, his name the only word clear in his mind as he tried to will his tongue to conjure the right words, whatever they were, as the other man immediately fell to his knees beside him. Gale lazily followed Bucky's eyes as they scanned his body first and then his face. He was able to pinpoint the moment he must've forced himself to look at the head wound, take necessary stock of it, all that blood, his nostrils flaring, breath catching in his throat as his complexion paled to a sickly greenish-white. Now he looked like wanted to throw up.

In the next breath though, one strong, decisive hand found purchase in between Gale's shoulder blades, rubbing gently in precaution, though the gagging had now stopped. When he yelled out into the crowd, it came out rough and strangled. "We need help over here!", and sent a couple of the younger lieutenants running. The other hand pressed gently then into the centre of Gale's chest, pulling him back so that he was leaning onto the support of Bucky's body.

"How the hell did you manage that, huh?" Bucky stammered out through breaths that were coming quicker and quicker, gesturing vaguely to it, his gaze flitting between the crowd rushing around in front of them and Gale's face. He'd had to strong-arm himself into looking just a minute ago, now he couldn't seem to look away from the angry red outline around the embedded crystal shard, the dried up blood tacky and dark crimson where it stained down the side of his face, his nose, soaked into the once fair strands of his hair.

Head injuries always bled much more than they were worth, somewhere just unreachable they both knew that, even the most superficial of flesh wounds likely to give most people a scare at first glance. But Bucky looked like his very foundations had been shaken.

Knowing he needed to do something, but clinging onto what little thought he had left in the moment for relative propriety, Gale hooked a hand around Bucky's forearm where it was still crossed against Gale's chest, giving it what he hoped was a reassuring squeeze. "Bucky, I'm fine, I promise," he said, voice gravellier than he would have liked.

The other man nodded jerkily. "You're fine. Of course you are, why wouldn't you be? We're going to get someone over here," he echoed, raising his voice and projected it outwards, "...and then you're gonna be fine."

Gale could feel the other man's unsteady breathing in the uneven rise and fall of his chest against his back. He flexed his fingers, held tighter. "I'll have you know I got us to the target, back from France and got two wheels down on that very runway like this; I'm fine now," he insisted, faux-annoyed and trying for humour to snap him out of it, soothe his nerves. But it clearly didn't help none, a crease of worry just crossing Bucky's face before he looked back out again into the distance, eyes slightly wild, waiting for someone, anyone to emerge from the pandemonium. To fix this.

Pulling himself up a little so he was sitting up straighter, Gale twisted round in the other man's hold. It was lost on him in the moment just what violence was apparently necessary to make what they were doing now acceptable in the eyes of society rather than repugnant. It was something he'd ponder later, when he had little else to be doing than laying up in the infirmary. Now though, he brought a still-trembling (but still equally sure) hand to cup Bucky's pallid cheek in his palm. He even dared, in a beat of pure uncharacteristic recklessness and capitalising on the chaos, to swiftly swipe his thumb across the handsomely sharp angle of Bucky's cheekbone.

Gale's gaze snared Bucky's in his own in that moment, refused to let it go in the name of sitting down, shutting up, and listening to him.

"John," he damn near pleaded, his voice low and slow, heavy with purpose and meaning, leaving no room to be denied or argued with. Miraculously, it seemed to cut through, go some way to grounding him, the frantic edge of Bucky's movements suddenly sanded down, right down to the sharp swivel of his eyes up, then down, then up, and back down again. "It's all going to be okay. Trust me."

Bucky was powerless to do anything but nod in his palm, just about restraining himself from pressing a most definitely and irrefutably improper kiss to the centre of it, before Gale lowered his arm once more, robbing him even of the chance to ruin them both. Spoilsport.

Somewhere in the not too distant future, when he was feeling more himself, Gale would look back on this and be mortified at the scene he was causing; the dramatics. Half-fainting, on his hands and knees heaving on the ground on account of a non-fatal injury while other men were being pulled from their forts with limbs missing, flesh torn apart, maimed irrevocably.

It felt like both seconds and hours, though it was likely only minutes, before Curt, who'd promptly disappeared as soon as he arrived by Gale's side, returned with an ambulance crew. The sight released a shuddering breath from Bucky he hadn't even seemed to know he'd been holding.

"Look, if there are other guys worse off needing help, I can hang in here-" Gale dared to start from below his chin, ever the martyr, only to be unceremoniously cut off by a much more robust, bordering on menacing bark from above. Gale wasn't sure whether the tone was meant for them, or him.

"Get over here, now."

#clegan #buck x bucky #masters of the air #gale buck cleven #john bucky egan #is this anatomically or physically realistic in the slightest? probably not #but i had a lot of fun writing it so maybe the believability was simply the friends we made along the way<3 #idk if you've picked up on this but i really do just be italicizing stuff for the craic. based on vibes and vibes alone.#if i accidentally randomly switched a POV out of nowhere i'm sorry i'll probably do it again #me when i can't decide whether to jump inside and knaw on buck or bucky's brain #my writing

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