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Sometimes Gale has these dreams.
He’s lying in a field, on his back, watching the flak above. There’s chunks of B-17 all around, blown to bits but just in-tact enough to pin him into the mud. His arms and legs are all either trapped or injured, none of them moving an inch. He can barely breathe. The flak above him pops and bangs and smokes. There’s blood in his mouth, probably in his lungs. He can't lift his head. Everything is heavy, heavy, heavy. And he just stares up at the sky, waiting for it to end, one way or another.
He’s in the water. On his way down, he didn’t get his clips undone, he doesn’t remember if he even tried. The chute engulfs him, his lines tangled in an instant, webbing pulling at his arms and legs. Everything is wet, everything is heavy, heavy, heavy. His life preserver keeps him just buoyant enough that he can almost get a breath or two in as he bobs, the soaked chute follows the air in, covers his mouth, stops his lungs from expanding fully. Eventually he stops flailing his limbs against the lines, just bobs helplessly under the cloth, waiting for it to end, one way or another.
Bucky has his arm around Gale’s shoulders. They’re drinking—all the guys are drinking, Gale’s got a Coke. They lost ten men in the air yesterday, and one in the infirmary after they got back. Bucky has his arm around Gale’s shoulders. Gale remembers being told, over and over in advanced training, that death wasn’t scary, death was just like sleep. Losing a man to the enemy had to be avoided at all cost, but when it happened, it was just like sleep. Protect your brothers, but when they die, it’s just like sleep. Bucky has his arm around Gale’s shoulders. Marge held him the night before he left, and he melted into her, more desperate than he would ever show that he needed that contact, he needed that touch. Embarrassing, but he was only a man. He was human. He had wanted to hide in that touch forever. Bucky has his arm around Gale’s shoulders. Weight, breath, waiting for it to end, one way or another.
“I gotta piss,” Gale mutters. He stands from his chair and shuffles out from behind the boys. The way Bucky’s hand slips down his back, lingers on his flank as long as it can, until Gale is just too far away to touch, the way it does when Bucky is needy, when he’s drunk, when it’s one of those days.
The bathroom door opens while Gale is still standing at the urinal and he knows the sound of Bucky’s stride by now, long and sure. Bucky leans on the wall next to the urinal and crosses his arms. “You okay, Buck?”
Why did anyone ask that anymore? “Fine,” Gale offers, shaking his dick off and tucking it back in.
“Hey,” Bucky grips his jaw in a firm hand and for just a second Gale lets his eyes close. Suffocating, weight, breath, waiting. “Why do you get like this sometimes,” Bucky says, doesn’t really ask because he knows Gale’s not answering.
“‘M fine,” Gale says again, but he knows there’s nothing behind it, he knows the look in his eye when he says it because he’s told himself in the mirror. The hand on his jaw slips down to the back of his neck. Gale imagines Bucky kissing him. He suffocates on the thought for the hundredth time, is pinned down by want. Waiting. It’ll be over one way or another.
And then Bucky gets real quiet, and he has that look on his face that says ‘I know,’ and Gale’s stomach sinks because no, he doesn’t. He doesn’t know at all. Lack of oxygen makes you lightheaded. Gale heaves a breath, covers his eyes with a hand. “Hey hey hey,” Bucky’s saying, grabbing Gale’s shoulders now, holding him like he might fall over. Bucky’s never seen him like this before. Gale’s barely seen himself like this before. If he’s dying, why is his heart beating? Why is it beating so hard? Death is just like sleep. Why can he feel every inch of his skin and every hair on his head and every finger Bucky is grabbing him with? Breathe, oxygen. The flak above him pops and bangs and smokes. “Ay, come on, man. Buck .”
A parachute will save your life. Many men are lost drowning in waterlogged parachutes.
Gale wakes up in the infirmary. The sky is overcast, but the blinding gray sheet outside the windows is still too bright. There’s no one in the beds to his right. He rolls his stiff neck the left and finds Bucky, reclined in a bed, fully dressed, noticing him. “Hey hot shot.”
Gale sits up, expecting pain, but there’s nothing there but a little soreness all over. No injuries, then. “What‘m I doin’ in ‘ere?” he asks, slurring with a tiredness that doesn’t usually win.
“You uh,” Bucky sits up but he doesn’t look at Gale at first, he looks to the side. There’s no one else in the infirmary. “You had a hard night last night.”
Gale remembers now, at least partly. He remembers suffocating under Bucky’s arm, under his hand, under the want weighing him down day in and day out, he remembers being pinned by the yearning for comfort in the hellish reality that his life had become—yearning for John. His stomach rolls and it makes him flinch.
“Hey now,” Bucky says, like he’s about to lean forward and steady him when he doesn’t need to be steadied.
“Did I…” Gale starts to ask, gets scared.
Bucky takes a breath, waits.
“What happened?” Gale says. What did I do, he wants to ask, terrified he broke down crying, or did something crazy like try to kiss Bucky, or—
“You were just,” Bucky shakes his head, thinking, his brow furrowed, “I don’t know. Like you couldn’t breathe. Hyperventilating. Thought you were gonna pass out so I brought you in here for the doc to look at.”
Neither of them say the words they’re thinking, which in Gale’s head are endless; hysteria, constitutional inferiority, functional illness, psychoneurosis . Moral deficiency. Psychological deficiency. Sexual neurosism. He didn’t make it through training for this, he didn’t get thru OCS for this, didn’t fly fifteen goddamn missions for this . Gale props his elbows on his knees and holds his face in his hands. He’s seen so many guys crack up. Seen just as many swept under the rug as excluded, sent home, and discharged, because they needed the men, but he doesn’t like those odds. This can’t be the thing that does him in. Waiting for it to end, one way or another.
Gale swings his legs out of bed. Your body will keep going, even after you think it can’t, because you trained it to, let it work. He’s still in his undershirt and pants, belt undone, socks on. The rest of his clothes are folded on the bed next to Bucky, and he grabs them as he stands. Get your mind straight, let your body do the rest. Drive forward, always forward.
“You gonna be alright?” Bucky asks, squinting up at him.
Gale flicks his wrists through his shirt cuffs, adjusts his collar, starts buttoning himself back up. “Fine. Just had a long day, I guess. Needed some sleep.”
Sleep had come to him just fine the night before, and Bucky would know, he slept in the bunk next to Gale and had a habit of waking at the slightest noise Gale made, even when he’d fallen asleep soused. He’s not about to call him on it, though.
Bucky nods up at him, pats him on the flank and holds his hip as he stands. Gale breathes. Drive forward. Gale breathes. Always forward.