Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

John arrives in Casper two weeks before the wedding, exactly like he promised. It is supposed to be warmer than Manitowoc in early April, if only for a couple of digits, but the cold here bites with teeth sharp enough to sting. The air is drier too and he, in the confines of his car, feels it acutely, sipping in through the cracks; an air of resoluteness and finality.

He heads west of the city. It isn’t a large one, but it is still bustling with life in the late afternoon. The Army Air Base has closed, the facilities left behind, deserted, as if the war was a fever dream everyone does their best to forget. And for the most part, they do.

Center Street is lined with shops, most constructed in the last five years if Bucky had to guess, and littered with neon signs. He passes a movie theater, America spelled in bright, showy letters across the front, the bulbs still shining even in daylight. The name makes him snort.

Oilfield offices and the businesses that cling to them dominate most of the city, but here and there, coffee shops and bakeries try to soften the edges; a town still fighting to shake its frontier character. To the north and east, the refineries rise like smoke-stained monuments, their stacks belching a steady plume. The sight leaves Bucky oddly hollow.

Casper’s people are a mix of oilfield men, railroad hands, ranch wives, and newcomers chasing the postwar boom. Their drawls are slow, their words plain and unhurried, their faces carved from weather and patience. It’s the kind of steadiness Bucky associates with Gale; in the afternoon light of Casper’s downtown realizes it is not a Buck trait, but a Wyoming one.

He has to stop twice before he reaches his destination. Once at a mechanics, because the Ford has been making that same whining noise since Sioux Falls. The kid behind the counter can’t be older than twenty, and Bucky ends up showing him how to fix it. The second stop is for coffee at a roadside diner, one cup turning quickly into two. The waitress keeps his refill without asking, eyes soft, curious, and mercifully quiet.

It’s a picturesque place, if you’re the sort to like that kind of thing. The mountains sharp on the horizon, the land stretching out clean and endless; a space that wants to pretend it possesses freedom.

John hates it.

He parks the car in the designated space opposite the inn; the one marked with a crooked wooden sign. The engine ticks as it cools. He lets out a sigh, craning his neck until it pops. The half-empty Camels lie on the seat beside him and he pockets them without lighting one. Not yet.

His hands are clean now, though the smell of oil still clings, faint under the soap. He rubs his thumb along his palm anyway, feeling the itch to scrub again, or drink, he can’t tell which would quiet him faster. The thought comes quick and unwelcomed, a muscle memory. The first swallow, the first burn that turns everything to static; the ones that follow, never numbing, but engulfing everything in a hazy blanket— diluting.  He pushes it aside.

Amy’s voice drifts up— What would Dr. Mallard say?

He exhales through his nose, slow. That I’m fine, he thinks. That I just need to rest for a moment. He grips the steering wheel once more, the plastic solid under his hands, before getting out.

John has spent the last four months hating the man more than the sessions themselves have helped him, though being honest they have helped. He sleeps through most nights now. Sometimes even breathes without feeling like his ribs are being pried open. Still has he deep-seated need to drink himself stupid. Every morning he doesn’t pour some into his coffee he feels both steadier and smaller for it, like he’s proving something only to lose a little more of himself in the bargain. More he hates that it still takes effort.

He thinks of Amy— still two heads shorter than him, still bossy, still persistent, still laughing with the same carefree edge to it that John had missed so much. Still looking out for him. He’d left her a girl of eighteen, and now she’s a young woman. The relief of seeing her like that, alive and untouched, carries something sharp beneath it: jealousy, mourning, guilt, that John trumps down. The ache of knowing someone survived the same world you did, only cleaner.

That December, Amy had dragged him into some last-minute Christmas shopping, had driven them downtown and had told him to follow her a flight of steps. He had, trusting, without checking the plaques outside. It was how he had ended up in Dr. Mallard’s office.

He’d left an hour later with an appointment for the following week. Never went. But after the holidays, after five nights without sleep, a fight with his father that its fragments still burn, a shouted word at his mother, and a look from Lizzie and Amy that cut deeper than both, he gave in.

Your hurt doesn't justify hurting others, Lizzie had said.

Then, came an even worse fight. One that left the already quiet house, with only John and his mother in it that cold morning, deafening quiet and John shaking for minutes later.

Guilty, but stubborn and ashamed enough not to call to apologize. It ended with Johnny driving up to see him, shoulders tight, eyes pinched and already knowing more than John could say.

John watching him meet his sisters and parents, had thought, I always drag him down with me.

And a darker voice inside had whispered back: Good.

Johnny, in his all-Brady manner, the one that all emotions had the same face and same frown, had called Dr Mallard’s secretary, had set an appointment, and had dragged John to that building and sat outside like a mother waiting for her child. It was embarrassing.

It was how John had found himself in a chair across from a short, middle-aged man who smelled strongly of coffee and faintly of antiseptic, trying to untangle the hodgepodge in his head.

It is helping, somehow. Even if it feels like flying through flak or like having your skull cracked open and walking through soup, dazed and raw. Even if every nerve in his body wants out of that room. The doc had been a soldier, too, from the war before his. Maybe that’s why it works. The man knows the shape of the noise in his head. And that, more than anything, has started to ease him, just enough to notice the air again.

Johnny had left Manitowoc two days later with, “Music helps. Hurt at first, but now- now it helps. There are others who get. It helps to talk.”

John had nodded, not promising anything but not dismissing either.

Yesterday at noon, he’d phoned from Manitowoc before setting out, the receiver cool against his ear. The Ford, his father’s old ’40, the one he’d given to Bucky after he returned, waited in the drive.  It had taken him two weeks to even touch the keys and Amy missing the last bus for him to finally drive it. No one at home had said anything about his silent denial to do so beyond pointed looks between his mother, father, and Lizzie, and then Amy, who would shrug, but her face would tell them drop it, and John would pretend to be none the wiser.

In the brief call, Buck had given him directions to the inn, voice low and steady over the crackle of the line.

“Call again when you’re close,” he’d said.

John had called this morning dutifully from a diner in Sioux Falls, sometime after six in the morning, waking the Spencer household. He had apologized to a yawning Marge, told her that he wouldn’t call again, and that he would be at Casper at 1700. It is 1650 now when he steps out into the cool afternoon. The light’s slanting low, throwing long shadows from the telephone poles, the kind of gold that makes the cold look sharper than it feels. His breath ghosts once, then fades.

Across the street, the Stevens Inn stands tidy and trim against the pale-blue sky. The siding is freshly painted, cream with green shutters, and the sign above the porch — Vacancy in clean black lettering — hangs straight. The porch rail’s been sanded smooth, and pots of early pansies huddle near the steps, their color almost too bright for the season. The curtains in the front window are drawn halfway, light slipping through.

He crosses the street, gravel crunching under his boots. The boards of the porch give only a mild creak beneath his weight, solid, well-kept. Through the window, he catches a glimpse of the edge of a polished counter.

He lingers a moment, hand on the door handle. The air smells faintly of dust and pine from the thawing trees down the road. For a second, he thinks about turning around, driving until the light dies and the road gives out.

He gripes his bag tighter, pushes the door open and steps inside.

The reception room is small, bright, smelling faintly of lemon polish and bread. A polished oak counter runs the width of the room, its edges worn smooth from years of elbows and keys. A rotary phone sits beside a ledger, the pages neat and squared. A pink-shaded lamp softens the light.

He presses the call bell once, letting the duffel bag fall next to his feet with a dull thump.

The sounds seem too loud in the hush of the little room, and he feels too big for the small area. He puts his hands in the pockets of his trousers and hunches his shoulders, lets his eyes wander on the frames on the wall of people he doesn’t know, nor will he ever meet, at the staircase going up, back out the windows.

He leans his weight on the left and peers around him. To the left, a short hallway leads toward what looks like a dining room; to the right, a doorway opens into a parlor with dark-green wainscoting and a small sofa set beneath a curtained window. The whole place has the stillness of something well-kept.

A moment later the quick sound of heeled shoes on polished floor, and a woman appears; strands of gray in her otherwise brown hair, cheeks flushed.

“Mr. John Egan?” she says, breath still caught, keen brown eyes taking him in.

“That’s me.”

He watches as she notes in the ledger in neat handwriting.

“For a fortnight?” John nods when she looks up at him, and she unhooks a key from the key holder behind her. “Room 9, second floor, end of the hall, has a private bathroom.” She hands it to him, and he thanks her, reaching for his bag.

“Breakfast is served between six thirty and ten. And the front door locks from one in the morning till six. Understood?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Oh — I’m Emily Stevens, by the way.” She colors faintly, realizing she’d forgotten to introduce herself.

“As in Stevens’ Inn?” John asks, just enough charm to ease her, pleased when she laughs.

“Yes. I made quite an impression.”

“You certainly did.” He can’t help the small grin that follows, the kind that sits easy on his face but never quite reaches his eyes. She shakes her head at him, smiling all the same.

He phones the Spencer residence ten minutes past five from the phone in the reception. It is Marge again; she tells him she is going to pick him up in ten minutes. He offers to drive himself, but she insists, and he relents. He is not going to be a nuisance. It is going to be two weeks of his best behavior.

Amy had given him a weird look when he told her that the night before he left, as if John was three sheets to the wind. He had ignored that too, along with the concern etched to her face since the moment John had accepted going to Casper early.

Marge picks him up in a pale-blue Chevy, the color sun-faded and soft. She smiles at him, dimples deepening, and he returns it, easing into the passenger seat.

“He is fixing something in the shed,” she explains of Gale, unprompted.

The inside of the car smells powdery, and a cold current goes through him that has him zip his jacket. The seat’s too far forward; his knees press close to the dash, but he ignores the discomfort.

They turn through the streets, Marge asking about his trip, and John replying politely. He even cracks a joke at some point, which earns a chuckle. It is all so normal, so ordinary.

“It’s good to see you again, Bucky.” She is so breezy he envies her.

He tells her it’s good to see her too.

But under the small talk, he feels like he’s one step from drowning. Something gurgling in his throat that he is afraid is going to bleed into his voice at some point. His palms are slick, and he subtly wipes them on his trousers, only for them to sweat again. The third time, he stops. He doesn’t want Marge to notice his nervousness. There is really nothing to be nervous about.

Buck had called him from a payphone eleven days after arriving in Casper, had repeated that he doesn’t have a landline – John already knew, they had talked about it before parting – had told Bucky a bit about the town and Marge when asked. John had done the same, trading questions and answers that sounded casual but weren’t. Then Buck said he’d call again. He did, fifteen days later.

It had driven John up the wall. He’d wanted to hear from him sooner. It had nearly made him ask, that second time, when he would call again.

They spoke sparsely through the months, and when January was bleeding into February, the wedding invitation arrived, followed by the call that morning. Buck had left him with the Spencer residence number “in case he needed anything”. It was said so casually in such un-Gale like manner that John knew that even on gunpoint he’d never use it.

Sometimes he wondered if Buck never had the landline installed because he knew John would call.

They pull into the driveway of a well-kept two-story house, white with gray roof tiles and large windows curtained wide. Marge doesn’t roll the car all the way up; she stops a meter short of the porch.

The house faces east, sunlight catching on the roof as it begins to dip. Gale stands from the porch bench, and John, stepping out, watches him freeze for half a second. Then Gale takes two steps forward, stopping at the top of the steps, looking down at John who stands with his hands at his sides, every nerve in his body waking at once; the giddy feeling accompanying the sight of Buck eclipsing everything else. His heart skips. He grins so big it hurts his face.

Buck darts his tongue across his lips, then smiles. “There you are.”

John can only nod, because fuck, his voice sounds better in person, and he’s missed him something awful. It makes his eyes sting.

He is introduced to Marge’s parents, makes polite conversation, fits back into the role of Buck’s best friend so easily it’s almost convincing. As if the long months of silence mean nothing— except they do. Buck glances at him now and then, each look a jumble of something John can’t name.

Before dinner, John slips out into the back yard with the excuse of a smoke. He exhales the overwhelmingness mixed with the effervescence that comes with being around Buck and lights a cigarette. He’ll have a headache before the night is through. Shouldn’t have had that fourth coffee. Should’ve insisted on driving himself.

The glass door opens behind him, and he knows it is Buck by the way the air shifts before any sound. He doesn’t turn. Exhales slowly and watches the smoke rise and dissipate. He has another drag as the other man settles beside him.

“Was it a good drive?” He is not looking at John, so John is not looking at him. He can’t for too long anyway, not with the jeans Gale is wearing, dark blue and dotted with a variety of colors from painting jobs. He has never seen him in jeans before.

“Yeah. Saw the beautiful Iowa and Nebraska and the even more charming Sioux Falls.” John’s tone is dry enough to earn a chuckle. “Car gave me some trouble, but I got it fixed at a shop here. Fan belt needed snugging.”

Buck hums, quiet for a beat, his gaze on the cigarette between John’s fingers. The faint crease between his brows deepens, there and gone, like he’d caught a thought he didn’t mean to show. John doesn’t notice; he’s too busy watching the smoke curl away, the end burning a steady orange.

Buck shifts his weight, folds his arms loosely. “You made good time,” he says eventually.

“Didn’t stop much,” John answers, eyes steady on the horizon. “Figured I’d rather see you than another diner menu.”

“You always did rush the good parts,” Buck says, quiet, almost to himself. He looks up at the darkening sky. Some of the stars are already showing.

John lets him be and waits patiently.

It comes to him in a fragment, just the tip of something, when he is lighting the second cigarette, half afterthought, half confession.

“I am glad you are here, John.”

Somehow the words feel heavier than they should. They slot something back into place inside John.

They should have probably gone inside by now. John doesn’t move.

“Me too.” He tells him quietly. He may not be all the way where he is meant to, but he will make it eventually.

The scent of strong coffee and scrambled eggs hung in the air when John comes down for breakfast the next day. Mrs. Stevens and a younger woman are just straightening the silverware, their conversation low and easy in the morning quiet. The windows of the dining room are foggy on the lower parts, the sun is starting to ascend, and the blue of the sky is John’s favorite. The blue hour.

“My daughter stayed out in Casper. Married now, with a baby on the way.” She tells John amidst idle chatter when it is just the two of them.

“That so?” John says, watching the steam rise from his cup.

“Her husband used to work the ranch, before… well, before the war took his arm.”

The spoon in his hand pauses mid-stir, the clink against the cup gone sharp for a moment. She gives him a compassionate look, brown eyes too kind, and he takes a big gulp of coffee, the liquid rich and burning his tongue and throat. In the same breath she tells him that her son, Carl, has gone back to law school in Seattle.

“He served in the Navy. He did his part,” she says, her voice gentler now. She looks out the window at something that John can’t see, somewhere beyond the pines.

John tells her, after allowing her her thoughts, “Air Force.”

She turns back, meets his eyes, and nods once. The silence that follows is heavy but not uncomfortable, like two people standing at a graveside who don’t need to speak. Her gaze softening.

“You are here on business?” she asks at last, offering both of them a way out of the heaviness between them.

“Nah. My best friend is getting married.”

“Oh- I hope it is great wedding.” Her face brightens and she refills his coffee.

John puts two sugar cubes in and milk until it turns the color of wet sand this time.

“It will be.” John nods, “Gale is a stress hen but-”

“Gale Cleven?” She interrupts, her voice catching just slightly. Then her eyes widen, disbelief lighting her face. “You’re Bucky?”

“Yes,” he says confused, squinting up at her.

“I’ve known him since he could barely talk,” she explains, her expression warming with memory. “I’m invited to the wedding, you know.”

John smiles back, though behind her small brown eyes there was something, a flicker he couldn’t name when she said the word wedding. Before he could ask, the steady rhythm of footsteps break across the floorboards. A man enters, greeting her with a broad grin, and Mrs. Stevens turns away, her voice quick and cheerful again.

John watches her go, the sound of her laughter trailing behind, and wonders how did Gale know this woman.

Buck had said he’d pick him up at 0900 hours. There were errands to run, a stop at the flower shop for the checks Marge couldn’t get to, a detour to pick up the white tablecloths, then over to her house to prepare mason jars and review the reception plans.

He arrives exactly as he said. Spends five minutes in the small office the inn has at the back with Mrs. Stevens — something about a receipt or a favor, John didn’t ask — before they finally pull away.

“I walked,” Gale says with a shrug when John fixes his questioning eyes at him once they have settled into John’s car.

John hums and turns onto the road. Gale watches out the window the fields slipping by in muted greens and golds.

They don’t make it to Marge’s until just shy of five. Mostly because John couldn’t stop getting distracted by the world around him, as if every Casper sight demanded to be touched or tasted.

First it was the distillery. A squat brick building he swore hadn’t been there the day before when he was heading to the mechanic’s shop. He’d dragged a reluctant Gale inside, through the yeasty haze and the sharp, sweet smell of brewing beer. The owners, charmed by his enthusiasm, had given them a quick tour and insisted he try a few samples.

Gale, all stiff shoulders and measured breaths, refused the first three offers. By the fourth — John’s offer — he gave in. John had laughed outright when Gale took a reluctant sip, grimaced, and muttered, “It’s ten in the morning.”

They’d left to the sound of John’s laughter still echoing through the doorway and promising to come back before he leaves the town.

Next came the cows on an open stretch of land, unfenced. A small herd grazing under the noon sun, their lowing heavy and patient. John had insisted on stopping.

Gale stayed in the car, one hand drumming against the door panel.

He knew Gale was starting to get genuinely irritated by his stalling.

John thought about the linens waiting, the white house with the grey roof tiles, with a picket fence waiting to be built around it, and how every delay seemed to pull them farther from wherever it was they were supposed to be going.

His gaze fell on the mountains in the distance, peaks still covered in snow, the valley stretching below them. He took everything with a newfound avarice.

By the time they reached the Ladies’ Aid Society, Gale’s patience was a thread, if his rigid posture, clipped huffs, and cutting glances were any measure as John had found a girl with clear blue eyes.

The girl, standing behind the counter, dark blonde hair neatly combed and styled, smile ready but cautious handed them the stack of folded white linens.

“Thanks, sweetheart,” John said, as Gale took them, setting them on the counter. “You got a name, or do folks just call you angel around here?”

She blinked, surprised, then laughed softly. “Beth,” she said, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. “You’re not from around here, are you? We don’t usually have charm like that.” Gale made a sound at the word charm and was equally ignored by both of them.

“Beth,” he repeated, tasting the name.

“Bucky.” Gale exhaled, one of those quiet, precise sighs that carried more reprimand than words ever could.

“You’re helping Marge with the reception, right?” Beth had asked as Gale started counting the linens.

“Trying to,” Gale said before John could open his mouth. “Though someone keeps turning errands into detours.”

John lifted a brow. “That a complaint or a compliment?”

Beth laughed, glancing between them. “Sounds like you’ve got your hands full.”

“You have no idea,” Gale murmured.

“Oh, she’s getting one.” John said with a grin, just shy of turning into a smirk, tilting his head toward Beth.

On Gale’s final exasperated sigh, John caught the girl’s blue eyes and, just because he could, drawled, “If I’d known the Ladies’ Aid Society had eyes as blue as yours, I’d have joined months ago.”

“Come on now, Bucky,” Gale cut in evenly, “let’s give the lady some peace.”

Beth’s laughter came a little quicker this time, cheeks pink. John grinned, leaning an elbow on the counter.

“Don’t mind Gale-” he said, voice easy, teasing. “He thinks I can’t be trusted near pretty things.”

Beth tilted her head. “Can you?”

John’s smile deepened. “Guess that depends on whether they smile back.”

Her laugh was softer then, a little uncertain but still genuine. “Then I suppose we’re both lost causes.”

John half expected Gale to stomp his foot, and the thought alone had him sniggering all the way to the car. Gale stayed silent, jaw tight, eyes forward. John didn’t care. He was determined to enjoy what he could of this week.

The flower shop came last. The air inside was thick with scent: roses, daffodils, lilies, soil. John wandered between the aisles, fingers brushing petals, asking questions that had nothing to do with the wedding and everything to do with his sudden fascination for the living color around him.

At some point, one of the assistants, a girl with green-stained hands, placed a flower crown on the counter, something she’d been making for another event. Without thinking, John picked it up and set it on his head, calling to Buck, who was listening as the manager went over the pick-up times.

When he turned, he caught Gale mid-sentence with the manager. The words died in Gale’s mouth. The crown sat crooked in John’s curls, petals brushing his temple. The scent of wildflowers filled the air; too sweet and too alive.

Gale was staring, that quiet, steady gaze that made John feel like he’d crossed some invisible line.

“What?” John said, grinning too quickly. “Never seen a man in touch with his floral side?”

For a heartbeat, neither of them moved. The crown sat crooked in John’s curls, petals of whites, reds, and yellows brushing against his temple, smelling faintly of rain. Then, feeling suddenly foolish, he lifted it off and set it back down, offering the girl a wink that drew a blush to her cheeks.

Gale turned back to the discussion, expression unreadable.

John lingered a moment longer, eyes resting on a cluster of daffodils, yellow as sunlight, by the window before following him out into the afternoon.

“The candles-” Marge takes a seat on Bucky’s right, one chair over, “-we will get three from Mrs. Lynch and five from Mrs. Elliot, so that is enough for the ceremony, along with the ones I have.”

Gale nods concentrating on his writing. They are going over the sitting arrangements, while Bucky ties ribbons on the jars. Beige and green- sage green as he was repeatedly corrected by Marge earlier.

“I was thinking, perhaps we shouldn’t put Lucy and Zoe at the same table,” she says glancing at Gale’s chart, who lifts his eyes in question.

John had watched him agonizing over it for the past hour as Marge cooked dinner, and John broke the silence every time Gale’s shoulders would hunch too much with questions and little bits of nonsense that made the man broke in a tiny smile even for a brief second.

“They- It’s just- It is best if they don’t.” She settles finally, not really making it a request in the end and not providing any explanation.

Gale takes the rubber and wipes one of the names. He looks it over.

“Your aunt Leah will have to seat with my mum’s sisters.” John hasn’t said anything about the number of people on Gale’s side of the family; the 100^th making for more on his side than them. Or the dad, that got scrubbed and replaced with Henry or the M for his mother.

Marge makes a displeased sound, pursing her lips in thought. “It will be fine.”

Gale raises his brows.

“Ok. Maybe not fine fine. But fine enough.” She smiles and Gale mirrors it.

John grabs another jar. He has two more to finish.

“John, what do you think?” Marge asks and he doesn’t look up.

“About your aunt Leah?”

She laughs softly. “About the chart.”

“I don’t know two thirds of these people.” He bites his tongue, looping the beige ribbon like she had shown him, getting each side equal before tying, then taking the knife in his hand to curl it.

“Yes.” Gale kicks him under the table and John points the knife at him making him roll his eyes. “About us Bucky.”

“You don’t need my opinion.” He places the knife on top the ribbon resting against the side of his forefinger and pulls. Doesn’t curl as much as he needs it and goes over it again.

“Yeah, but-”

“It’s not a mission Buck. We are not dropping bombs at krauts. We’ll eat and dance.” Then, because Gale shifts, displeased, and because John really doesn’t understand why he needs his approval, “I’ll sing.”

Gale lets out a loud, “No!” at the same time Marge asks all curious and excited, “You sing?”

“No,” Gale directs at her, with a finality and a plea in his eyes.

“I do.” John nods happy at his handiwork and starts working the other end of the ribbon. “Don’t listen to him. I do.”

“He sounds like a dying-”

“People clap.”

“To get you to stop.”

“Aw, Buck-” he looks at Marge with a grin, an impish look in his eyes, feeding her amusement, “you wound me.”

“You won’t sing.” Gale grips the pencil tight and stares at his eyes with such intensity and a deep cut of desperation, John nearly relents.

“I'll convince Johnny to play something, which no offence,” Bucky glances at Marge, “he will end up a hundred percent better than whomever you’ve got. I’ll get him to play something I can sing to.”

“He was in one of Berigan's bands.” Gale explains and she lets out a sound impressed.

“Mhm.” John nods, refocusing on his work.

“He is Bucky’s little golden trumpet boy.” Gale continues, with a strange tone, almost sour, and John stills mid pull.

“Don’t be jealous, Buck.” He teases and brightness at Gale’s sharp inhale. “And he prefers the saxophone.” Then remembering- “I’m sitting with him, right?”

“You are seated with us.” Gale says as if John was supposed to know that and wipes with the rubber at something on the paper.

“Where’s he sitting?”

He allows Gale to study him for a moment, but he maintains his amiable, playful expression and nothing more. Gale looks down at the layout, even though they both know he doesn’t need to.

“With Crank, Jack, Croz, Rosie, and Soly.”

“No, no, no, Buck.” He leaves the jar and takes the chart out of Gale’s hands. The man resists but ultimately let’s go at John’s insistence. The back of his hand touches John’s. It is nothing, barely a second, but it left a static heat that lingered longer than it should have.

“Rubber.” He opens and closes his hand until Gale drops it in it. “Give me the pencil now.”

“First, Jack is seating with us in that empty chair you left on our table. What you need it for? Your purse?” He puts Jack, next to him and moves Buck’s parents a seat over, further away from the man. “Now, Douglas, takes Jack’s place and that table, gets swapped.” He starts drawing an arrow but thinks better of it and wipes all the names on that and the one behind it. “First, Croz is coming with Jean.” He thinks aloud. “So, they, hmm. They will want to sit with Rosie.”

“I know, Bucky.” He goes for the pencil, but John is faster.

“Evidently, you don’t. The table,” he points to the one closest to the one they are seated on. “This table, will have, Johnny and Benny, Crank, Soly and his wife. Then, you put Hambone and the missus over there.”

He writes until they are all where they are meant to be, and at the end tells Gale, “And, on the table with Johnny, you have Croz, Jean and Rosie. Ménage à trois. The table with the, ugh, specials.”

Gale kicks him hard on the shin, enough that Bucky winces through his laugh, while Marge erupts in a fit of giggles.

Weddings, John quickly realizes are a hassle. There is an overwhelming amount of planning and preparing for something that will last only for a few hours and has just a marginal effect on people’s lives. Or it is that he’s getting bitter and resentful the more involved he becomes.

He calls Chicago on the third night he is in Casper. Only for it to ring two times before he hangs up, guilty, because it is John’s problem and no one else’s.

“Gale”, Marge says and he turns, eyes half lidded, there is a lazy smile on his face as he answers, “Yeah?”

A drawled-out sound that has John look down at the beer bottle in his hand, half of it gone now, churning in his stomach, along with the casserole they had for dinner. It hits something low in John’s chest.

There is a claim in a name, John knows. Growing up, he was John Jr.; meant to be the studious one, the steady one: only funny when required, taking everything in stride, calculating his every movement. He was supposed to be an extension of his father. When he turned out not to be, he fought tooth and nail to exist on his own terms, the “Junior” wore out.

And eventually, in time, his father was satisfied with him. John got good grades, finished his pre-engineering degree, was supposed to become a mechanical engineer too. A clean future. But by then John had already chosen flying, chosen the war. His father, disappointed had taken a long time to speak to John after that decision.

John is quieter now, the kind that comes from bleakness, from carrying something too big that in order to fit inside a person it has to break a few bones and leave them broken. The bright excess of him has dimmed, and in its place a thorned tree has taken root. Beneath the careful face sits a darker thing: the anger that sometimes blacks out the world until he cannot see, until he becomes the Stalag-John, the one that wants to spread that blackness and scorch everything in its path until everyone else is full with it as well. The one that wants to give up.

There are moments when he’s terrified. Of breathing, of seeing, of being— terrified he might actually infect everyone around him and have no way to stop it. Terrified, he’ll end up like Albert Riley, barely a month after coming home— found in a creek north of the city, body eaten by insects, face scattered across patches of green and brown. John hadn’t seen him, but he knew what he would’ve looked like, what he would’ve smelled like, what the air around him would’ve tasted like. The memory of a sound, metal and bone and the hollow quiet that follows, still lives somewhere behind his ribs, waiting.

He’s terrified that Gale, if he looks long enough, will see it too. Like he did in Stalag. Worse, that he’ll try to pull him out again, the way he tried back then. And John knows it would swallow Gale whole, because Gale always took everything inside him, let it eat at him, slow and quiet, like woodworm, no matter how much he liked to pretend otherwise. It got to him like it got to everyone eventually. John can still see it, the small flickers of it, beneath all that easy normality he’s built around himself.

So, John tells himself it’s still him at the core, and that him that surrounds that is worth something. That the fact he keeps fighting for it, every Wednesday, even when it’s uphill, even when he loses more than he wins, means something. That the trying itself is proof. Maybe it’s what Gale would want from him.

Some nights, when he wants to give up, he opens his closet, hears the hinges moan, and sees his flight jacket hanging there, the sheepskin still holding the smell of oil and wind (Jack had left it in his truck—an act that Jack had dismissed far too quickly and for too jerkily). In those moments, he can almost feel that other John, the Bucky one — reckless and laughing — breathing beneath the ashes. He keeps him close, a stubborn ember under the dark.

There’s a claim in a name, John knows, always has been. There are lifetimes in names too, and people and something so, so goddamn viscerally, humanly tragic.

So, Gale is Gale, not Buck, because there is no one here that has any reason to call him that, and all the things that were alive at war are dead now.

There are times when John thinks that Gale doesn’t fully understand him.

And while Gale was the secretive one, getting him to open up was, still is, like pulling teeth, John always could see him. Could see the hurt, guarded boy underneath the well composed young man. But he believes that Gale only knows and sees the twenty-five-year-old John and the after one. The one who had grown into himself. By then, the enormous part of him that he was carrying around before, had settled into his bones. It was not half-dragged and half-dragging him. All the thoughts and all the emotions inside John excessive and in equal measure to each other.

He’d learned how to be himself by then, he was not afraid of the space he was taking, both physically and mentally. He wasn’t afraid of his voice, had learned not to hide behind too many jokes, that he could allow himself to demand of others without being scared that he was turning into father. That he could want things, could like things, without apologies. Without the constant guilt that used to dog every thought.

John discovered about boys in the first fall of tenth grade, when Buckley Sullivan moved to Manitowoc. It wasn’t Buck who caught his eye, hanging out after school, it was his nineteen-year-old brother working at the docks on Lake Michigan. Now he, he looked like Gale; blond and blue-eyed, tall, though broader or at least that’s how John remembers him. John wonders if he is taller than him now. It doesn’t matter.

He had a sweetheart since high school, Carol, same name as John’s oldest sister. Had short caramel-brown hair, shinning red in the sun, and blue eyes. Still does. John ran into her at the neighborhood grocery store at the end of November. She hadn’t recognized him; her sister who was in the same AP chemistry class with him in college, had. It was how he learned amidst rows of cereal that Paul died somewhere in Europe over a year ago. And the thing in John, the young, naïve part of his childhood that was only ever alive in memory, untouched, wilted some.

He had left in a hurry after, only buying half of what he’d come for, and trying to scrape the image of a five-year-old boy staring up at him with fearful blue eyes and blond hair from his mind.

John doesn’t know if they are his mother’s or father’s. It doesn’t matter, he supposes.

The bar is half-lit, half-loud. A long counter ran along the right, lined with worn brown leather stools, all occupied. The space, longer than it was wide, was cozier than Bucky would have guessed from the exterior– a faded maroon color, the double door an ugly chipped brown. Photographs cover the walls, framed in dust and memory, and a handful of sconces throw out soft gold light, fighting the dim. Two naked bulbs buzz above the bar.

The jukebox wheezes out an old Miller song from before the war.

Marge, after spotting an empty booth near the back — just before the floor raises a step, for a small dance floor and more tables — is already halfway to the counter, waving at someone behind it.

There is a familiarity in her movements and the bartender’s when he spots her.

They come here often enough, John realizes.

“Don’t look so grim,” she says coming back, with a whiskey, a ginger beer, and a Tom Collins, bright as a match strike. “You two look like you’re headed to a funeral instead of a Friday night.”

“I’m here, aren’t I?” Gale says, straightening his sleeves.

“That’s what you call it,” John murmurs, getting comfortable on the plush seat.

Marge laughs, sharp, delighted, alive. “I forgot how you are, Bucky.”

“I get told that a lot.” He gives her a convincing grin that might’ve been trouble in another context.

“Cheers to that then.” She raises her glass and John mirrors her.

“Cheers to that.”

Gale hesitates a beat before following suit.

The first swallow burns clean through John’s throat and chest, taming the thing that has been fluttering around all day. He leans his forearms on the table, eyes sliding towards Gale. The other man’s reflection flickers in the antique mirror above the bar, angled to reflect the patrons on the tables, the strong line of his jaw, the tension in his shoulders, the faint crease between his brows. He looks tired, like someone bracing against a storm that hasn’t even started yet.

The song drifts on, Billie Holiday’s voice like smoke over glass.

“You’re thinking too hard again.” John says aiming for lightness.

Gale’s gaze meets his in the mirror, trying for unreadable but John sees the crack. “Somebody’s got to.”

“Sure-” John shrugs, he is not going to examine this too much; doesn’t believe will do either one of them good. “Just doesn’t always have to be you.”

Before Gale could answer, Marge nudges John with her elbow. “Don’t let him drag you into his mood. He gets serious when he’s nervous.”

Gale frowns, half-heartedly. “I’m not nervous.”

“You’re marrying me,” she says, smiling into her drink. “You should be.” At that Gale smiles, nearly bashful.

John laughs, the sound caught between genuine amusement and something he doesn’t want to name. “You two make quite the pair.” A repetition of something said years ago, still hurting the same.

Marge turns her full attention on him. “And what about you? Any girl in Manitowoc caught your eye yet? Waiting for you?”

It’s not an odd question, they have been back for seven months now, plenty of time for him to have met someone.

He pauses for a second too long, enough for Buck’s eyes to clear, then shrugs again- “Nah. I think I missed my chance.”

“I don’t believe that for a second,” she tells him seriously, eyes kind but sharp. “You’re one of those men- the ones people wait on longer than they should.”

John wants to laugh at that, all choked bitterness and false affability. If anyone is left hanging by the seams waiting, is John.

Gale’s glass pauses halfway to his lips, and for a moment, no one speaks.

Then John smiles, easy and careless, the way that makes people stop to look and then push past. “Guess that’s one way to put it.”

Marge laughs again, breaking the spell, and slides her hand over Gale’s on the table. “Let’s not brood too much.” She gives Gale a look, squeezing his hand, that Gale reads without a thought. A language well learned between them.

John takes a sip, and she withdraws her hand, smile returning to her face.

“Let’s dance.”

Gale groans softly, “Marge- Come on.”

“Just one. You owe me from two weeks ago.” She is already sliding out of her seat. “It’s only three minutes. I promise not to step on your feet.”

“Okay. I’m right behind you.” He says, still sitting down watching her make her way to the records by the jukebox. He turns to John. “You good?”

“Yeah. Yeah. Why wouldn’t I be?”

“I’m not the only one who thinks,” Gale nudges him with his shoulder.

“It takes some time adjusting, don’t it?” It’s what John settles on, something safe.

He feels Gale tense beside him and glances at him. He is looking at him with a myriad things in his eyes and John averts his gaze feeling oddly like he is the one caught.

Smiles again, the same smile as before, and nudges him back. “Go dance, Buck.”

He goes.

John stays where he is, swirling the last inch of whiskey in his glass. The two of them moving toward the small space, cleared near the jukebox. She hands him a record and Gale shakes his head, reaching for another. They debate it briefly.

The song changes.

Someone to Watch Over Me starts, the piano sweet and melancholic. Gale moves stiffly at first, then slowly, lets himself move with her.

He watches them for a while; the way she fits against him, the way Gale’s hand rests just shy of her waist before settling there, careful.

Marge turns her head to say something and Gale’s mouth curves, not politely, but softly– the real kind of smile, rare and almost boyish.

In the mirror, they almost looked like another life, one where things turn out softer.

John looks away.

He heads to the bar, orders another whiskey, no ice this time. The bartender, not much older than him, eyes him.

“You a friend of Marge?”

“B- Gale’s.” He takes the offered glass.

“Bucky.” He adds, at the man’s expectant stare.

"Johnny." He says with a smile, showing crooked upper teeth.

The name knocks something loose in him.

John takes the offered hand and grips hard; the kind of grip he used to give new recruits, or brass that rubbed him wrong. Now he does it because all he can think of is a frown, strong jaw, determined squared shoulders, more determined and serious all-knowing pale blue eyes that protect their people, either by making sure they jump off a plane, or they get the blame for someone else’s wrongdoing because they know.

They always know, silent and so solemn. They call every two to three weeks to catch up with John, even when John is being an ass. They call when they get a wedding invitation and say stuff like-

You are being a dolt, Bucky

Johnny is only for John Brady.

It is an irrational thought, John is aware. He goes back to the table with it.

When the song ends, Marge and Gale return to him, laughing lightly. Gale’s shirt slightly wrinkled, and Marge looking radiant, cheeks flushed.

There is something soft in the way Gale looks at her, something that should be easy to bear and isn’t.

At the end of the night, he goes to the bar to pay and calls the man, John, ignores his raised brows as if he’d said something offensive and walks out behind the happy couple.

Johnny would have frowned at Bucky, all sharp disapproval, and Bucky would have made a show of ignoring him. Because somehow through all the hell of the last few years, Johnny became the brother John never had and never wanted but got all the same.

He’d dreamed of him when he was young, when his mother was pregnant with Lizzie, then Amy— someone less serious, more open. Someone who’d punch him when asked, who’d say both the hard thing and the easy one. Someone easier on John’s hands.

Someone like Curt.

Instead, he got Johnny. Because Curt is dead, and when he’d been alive, he hadn’t exactly fallen into brother territory. Siblings are that way, John knows, they come at you unexpectedly, and you don’t get a say in them.

He catches Gale’s eyes and sees himself being read like an open book. It should make him shiver. Instead, there is just warmth, a hum under his skin— the thread of anticipation for some great unknown.

It says-

Easy, Bucky

and he answers-

I’m always easy

He holds Gale’s gaze until they can’t hold it anymore. Not in the car. Until John relents, and the hum turns softer.

When they drop him off at the inn, he calls Chicago, despite it being ten after midnight.

He was reserved, John had realized in the second week of bunking with him in basic. The icy, stoic young man who only spoke when he needed too, just enough to be part of the group, just enough not be considered a pushover, was reserved, not cold.

It made for something warm in John’s chest, that grew when he glimpsed beneath that restraint. He’d been allowed there, into the quiet part of Gale where most people weren’t invited. Beneath the composure lived an opinionated, stubborn, competitive man who could chew you out clean if he wanted to. He just needed a bit of a nudge and John – privileged – had given it to him.

Marge has a friend, Ellie, and he is introduced. She is blonde with kind, blue eyes; quieter, but firm, self-possessed. If John hadn’t known better, he would’ve sworn she and Marge were sisters. They shared the same quick intelligence too, though he gets the sense that Ellie is more watchful, more patient.

“Schoolteacher.” Marge had said proudly that afternoon of introductions. They were seating in the backyard, sun low in the horizon. “Best one in the county. Just like her father.”

Ellie had shaken her head, her faint smile still in place, the wrings of her curls swaying slightly. “Don’t let her exaggerate. I just try to keep them reading more than they talk.”

John likes her straightaway.

He thinks that perhaps Marge needs to set him up with someone, so she won’t worry. It was absurd and stupid.

The thought barely takes hold before it slips away.

The tailor’s shop smells of wool, mothballs, and ironing starch. It tickles John’s nose.

Light slants in through the windows, cutting the small room into rectangles of gold, motes of dust floating in the air. Rows of suits and uniforms hang along a wall, orderly, pristine, and rigid as if they are on a parade. They step inside, the bell over the door jingling lightly. John feels the air tighten around him, almost suffocating, and he has to clear his throat, the sound loud in the quiet shop.

“Afternoon,” the tailor says, without looking up, shears in hand and adjusting a jacket on a mannequin. “You fellas here for fittings?”

“Yes,” Gale answers. He glances at John, a brief flicker in his eyes that passes too quickly. “Cleven.”

“Right. Right.” The tailor moves to the rows of hanging jackets toward the back, where a thick black curtain hangs, and pushes it aside. “You can change back there.”

A narrow corridor and two changing rooms separated by a thin wooden partition.

John follows Gale. He takes the one on the left, as Gale hangs his garment bag on the right. The tailor lets the curtain fall, and they are alone in the half-lit confined space. John’s shoulders nearly graze the walls of the changing room.

He unzips the bag in one sharp, hasty motion.

Eyes the olive drab of the jacket, the gold oak leaf on the shoulders and something lodges in his throat.

He removes his pants, belt clanking as he unbuttons it, and hears the same sounds coming from Gale’s dressing room. He tries not to think.

Pants first, then the jacket with the service ribbons. His fingers brush over the bombardier wings, and he swallows with a struggle. A bittersweet taste in his mouth.

He buttons it silently and with steady fingers.

It could fit better. The fabric across his stomach creases ever so slightly; not all the weight has come back. He stays there, looking at himself in the mirror, trying to think of the man three years ago wearing it. For a moment, he allows himself to feel grief for him, allows the pain to bloom and burn.

For all the talk about remaining in the army, John has only ever worn his uniform the day he received the cross and medal. In the base it was the blue one he wore, the one that was tailored to fit his frame after returning from Germany.

With a ragged breath, he pulls out of his memories and the faces at the periphery of his mind that demand attention and focuses on the present.

“Good?” His voice is all hollowed, and he closes his eyes tightly, face scrunching at the sound of it.

Gale doesn’t fare better if his gruff, Yes, is anything to go by.

John steps into the limited space in front of the dressing rooms and finds Gale. Let’s his gaze roam. The uniform hangs a tab loose across Gale’s shoulders. His chest hasn’t filled out yet, not as it should; the months in the camp left him narrower, smaller somehow, though still deliberate in posture. John’s stomach twists.

“Jacket first?” John asks, his eyes going to the crosses. Distinguished Flying Cross and Air Medal like John, and a third one. The Distinguished Service Cross. He raises his eyes and finds Gale’s all steel and fire blending into something molten and hard to hold for anyone else. John only looks away when he’s sure the younger man understands he does so because he wants to, not because of Gale. Glancing down, John sees his lip trembling ever so slightly.

John moves closer, adjusting the sleeve at the cuff before Gale can protest. The fabric under his fingers is thick and cold. There is a sharpness in Gale’s next breath, and it nearly amuses John; he knows Gale doesn’t do it consciously, would deny having tells. John waits for the bite.

“Don’t touch my uniform like that,” Gale says all teeth and acid.

“Relax.” John doesn’t step back, letting his fingers linger just long enough. Because John has withstood bites that aimed for his throat, and this is Gale— John would bare his throat if he thought it would make for something. Only Gale is not going to lose it in the backroom of some tailor shop; John has already decided that.

“Just making sure it sits right.”

Gale’s jaw tightens.

“I think it fits fine.”

John glances up, eyes finding his. Gale paints a sharp, deliberate, controlled image, but John sees what’s underneath, the tension that Gale refuses to name. Has the memory of a younger, more guarded Gale hiding beneath the well-composed young man fresh on his mind as if it was yesterday: all that sleeping anger, that sharp, bottled thing that Gale refuses to name. All attenuated, all measured down to the inch and sipped with equal precision; rationed like breaths that needed to be saved.

It was only when they got on the birds that John saw him. Found that part of him that existed deep into his eyes that the other man is always shoving down, has even let himself believe is tamed.  Gale chasing any emotion that might swallow all the others, that part of him that isn’t exactly as he wants, and him with it.

The way Gale came alive in the cockpit. How the sky stripped him bare and made him honest. The rush at takeoff, that moment when the earth lets go and your insides rearrange themselves. When you are pulled apart and then pieced back together. The sheer abandon of it.

The thrill of landing.

They’d made a competition between them of who could land smoother. John always won. Because Gale, who would never admit it, likes it rough. Likes it on the edge. Likes the jolt, the shove forward, the break in control. John had seen the glint in his eyes when the plane shuddered under their weight—the joy in it, raw and alive. John knows it thrills him in a way nothing else can.

“You’ve- You haven’t gained-” John cuts himself from the sudden utterance. The words are quiet, but heavy as stones.

Gale’s eyes lift, steady. “I’ve had some… changes.”

“Changes.” John repeats, as if tasting the word.

And suddenly it’s too real. The wedding. The inevitability of it. It hits like a blow. He needs the uniform off. Needs air. Needs out of Casper. In the same breath he finds he has nowhere else to go.

Instead, he rolls his shoulders and stifles it down.

Gale steps back, folds his arms. “You know, this isn’t about you.”

John’s laugh escapes his throat sharp and humorless, leaving a long cut in its wake. “Funny, I thought this was about both of us.”

The tension coils between them, hot and tight, like a pressed seam. John feels the anger rise in both of them. If he opened his mouth, he is sure he would taste it. Gale stands rigid, jaw tight and working around the ghost of a toothpick. As if standing still could make everything go away.

Gale’s eyes flick away, half turns, but John catches it: the guilt, buried under his composure. Anger he understands, but guilt—he has no idea what Gale could be feeling guilty about.

John steps closer again under the pretense of straightening the jacket’s shoulder. Gale doesn’t move, but the air between them hums with unspoken words. It makes John’s chest tighten. It wasn’t supposed to be like this between them. The need to balm it all is getting too much. He feels like he is the one responsible for this because he is the one with the more unspoken words and feelings.

There is another part though that stirs inside John; an ugly thing, wounded and starved, teeth aching with the need to wrap around flesh and rip. It wants to scream, grab Gale, shake and let it all out, because-

“Better?” John asks, deliberately casual.

Gale’s jaw flexes. “It’ll do.”

A pause stretching long enough for both of them to feel the weight of everything. John looks at the reflection in the mirror. Gale’s controlled, deliberate, taut form, and himself, tense, angry, aching. It hurts to see him like this, John realizes, folding himself into lines. How long before the seams give way? How long will Gale mend them before it gets too much?

John won’t ask him now. There is a place and a time. He doesn’t know how close they will be in the coming months or years, but John will be damned if he watches Gale be eaten alive from the inside. Even if he will have to drag him to his own Dr Mallard and probably strap him in that chair. Even if, after, Gale never speaks to him again.

He exhales, hands lowering slowly. “Good enough,” he says, though the sound bounces, not quite real.

Gale turns toward him, eyes meeting his again, just long enough for John to see the fissures clearly, the quiet acknowledgment that both of them are walking around with ghosts in their chests.

The tailor clears his throat from behind the curtain, breaking the spell, and John steps back. “Ready Major?”

Gale nods, shoulders squared, hands tightening at his sides.

John observes him again. There’s anger there, and guilt, and something soft and almost painful— a tenderness Gale would never name. John wants to reach for it, touch it, call it his. But he doesn’t. Instead, he adjusts the next sleeve, hands steady and heart pounding.

Outside, the light has gone thin and pale.

They drive in silence to Marge’s parents’ house; the last place John wants to be.

After dinner, Marge goes upstairs to change. They are going out, not to the bar from last time, but one further from her house. They are meeting Ellie there.

Gale takes a seat beside him on the bench. And John, leg bouncing from nerves and playing house, tells him, “Sometimes I get so angry I want to burn the world. Dr Mallard-” Gale shifts towards him, and John stares straight ahead, voice stable, “He says-” runs a hand across his mouth, “-says it isn’t wrong to be angry. That, it’s only proof I still want the world to make sense. Says anger’s just pain that still believes in something. That one day it’ll settle into something quieter. Not gone, just- bearable.”

He takes a deep drag, speaking through the exhale, the need for something denser and satisfying more prominent than ever. He won’t allow himself. “Can’t wait for that fucking day. Other times I think that anger is all I am.” He nods to himself. “And when it is gone, I’ll be just a hollow shell.”

“No.” Gale says fast and firm. He shakes his head, eyes boring into John’s profile. “No. You won’t be. You aren’t. I know you, John Egan. You are not less of anything.”

John’s eyes sting into the silence that follows. He can’t say anything to that. His hand trembles around the cigarette.

Then, Gale says quieter but not less unequivocal, “You are built of good stuff.”

It draws a choked laugh out of John. “You think?”

It’s not really a question, but Gale answers anyway.

“Yes.”

“Be careful, Buck. Can’t have people thinking I’m soft.”

He catches Gale roll his eyes, shoulders relaxing marginally, and John can’t help the stretch of his lips.

“No one ever thought you soft. Big-hearted, perhaps, but not soft.” John raises his brows, and Gale smirks. “You had people wetting themselves. Literally. Twice.”

“They were barely twenty.”

“Everyone did what you told them- no questions asked. You commanded them easily.” There is nothing behind the words, just stated facts. Makes them more severe somehow.

John hums, flicking the ash of his cigarette. “You did too.”

“No. Not easily. I was like Jack- it took time to fill the shoes.” He crosses his arms, leaning back. John follows the movement with his eyes. “You- you had- have, a-” He takes a breath for the next word. “An authority. Like it’s a fact that others will do what you say. No one bats an eye. All you had to do is say jump and they wouldn’t even ask how high. They already knew what you wanted. Brass saw that. That’s why you became air exec. They could see it.”

Then, lips twisting into a smirk— “Harding loved you for that too.”

John shakes his head, smiling self-conscious. “I wouldn’t say-”

“Please, Bucky.” Gale exhales exasperation bleeding in his voice, but still amused and teasing. “Reserve command pilot.” It is a poor imitation of the man. It has them both chuckling.

“Still can’t believe you pulled that.” Gale tells him, shaking his head again, gaze distant with memory.

“You know me- I’m a man of action.” John lights a second smoke, the lighter flicking to life with its familiar sound. “Wasn’t gonna let you all go without me.” I wasn’t gonna let you go up there alone

“Crank complained for a week after.”

“Yeah, Crank can suck it.”  No one bats an eye. Crank had batted an eye on that last mission. Johnny had too, just silently and resigned to his fate. On some of John’s nightmares all he sees is Johnny’s face, same expression as the one on the back of the truck, just before John kills them both because neither has time to jump; flank cuts Johnny head and it somehow ends on John’s lap, cradling it in his hands strapped on the seat while someone bashes his head in. And John strapped in that chair can do nothing but sit there and take it.

They lapse into silence, broken only by the occasional passing car and the muffled movements inside the house.

Gale shifts again, hands tightening around his elbows, then loosening. His eyes fall on the pack of Camel's left open next to John's thigh. When he raises his eyes again his face gives nothing away.

“Who is-”

“Psychiatrist.” Then as an explanation, because John is not the levelheaded one with the reasonable decisions, “Amy.”

Sees Gale nod in his periphery. Jaw tightening again, ticking.

He mules it over, John knows, gears turning in his head.

“That’s what you think I need?” he asks eventually, teeth showing. John wonders if Gale believes that John will get tired of them— of the teeth he bares, the instinctive fight he puts up and leave, even now, after all these years.

Even if this Gale isn’t much different than the one he had met in basic, though he’s changed in ways that cut deeper. He’s more measured now, more deliberate; his bite can draw real blood because he knows exactly where to strike him. And John wonders, not for the first time, if after all these years Gale still doesn’t see it: he knows where the jugular is, but he never goes for it, unless he’s cornered, in real danger.

John had seen from the first moment he laid eyes on him— that thing, the anger, that lives inside Gale. How it grew out of too much pain and neglect, desperate to save itself, desperate to preserve what little it has left. Desperate to be wanted, yet certain that hands that want will also strike, so no touch is allowed. It pains John, knowing Gale had to learn that.

His anger is more refined nowadays, but it still comes from the same place: hurt, survival, that deep need to be known but not touched.

John takes a drag from his cigarette, doesn't let it go down, blows the smoke out immediately.

“You ever get tired, Buck?”

Gale tilts his head. “Of what?”

“Of keeping it all inside.”

Gale looks away, jaw tightening. Seconds pass before he says, in a measured voice, “I’m fine, Bucky.”

“Yeah,” John says quietly. “You are.”

A beat. Smoke drifts, thin and slow between them.

"Lizzie’s getting married in September."

Gale’s mouth softens into something close to a smile, features relaxing. "He good?"

John nods, a small smile despite himself. Mark is a good guy, a bit uptight for his taste but fits Lizzie perfectly if there is such thing. He tells him as much and watches Gale’s expression turn into what John would call wistful if it was on anyone else.

"You don’t think there is?"

"Sure. Doesn't mean you get to have it." It’s as close as he can get to saying what he means, especially to Gale, who nods at John’s words as if he hears and understands all the things Johns doesn’t say.

From inside, Marge’s voice calls out, bright and distant. The sound of her heels on the stairs cuts through the silence like a reminder of the world waiting outside their small bench-sized truce. Gale straightens his sleeves. John stubs out the cigarette against the wooden step, watching the ash scatter.

“Ready?” Gale asks.

“Always.”

The porch light flickers on as they cross the yard. In the car, they don’t talk. The hum of the engine fills the spaces where their words should go.

John drives, Gale watches the dark roll past, while Marge sits at the back in serene silence. John knows she has sensed the tension and has chosen to remain on the outside of it.

Streetlamps flash gold across Gale’s face, cutting it into light and shadow, and John looks away before he can’t control his face.

When they reach the bar, the sign is half lit, one bulb flickering like a pulse. Music hums low from inside— trumpet and laughter and the clatter of glasses.

John squares his shoulders before stepping in, forcing a smile that doesn’t quite reach his eyes.

Gale holds the door. For a second, the smell of smoke and whiskey rushes out into the cold night air between them. Then they go in.

Marge finds Ellie at a corner table, hair bright in the dim light, waving them over.

At some point, after John has downed two whiskeys that have him loose and sprawling more than he should be, they’re talking about math of all things, Ellie’s students, and Gale teaching calculus to POW prisoners with a lightness that tugs at John’s chest.

“I don’t know how to do an equation anyway, Marge.” John says with a grin and takes the final sip of his whiskey and avoiding Gale’s frown and accusing eyes.

Marge chuckles softly, believing him, and stands with Ellie to go dance.

“You might get stuck this say,” John tells Gale, toying with his glass after a few too many seconds of silence.

Gale lets out something between a chuckle and a sigh, and says, with an urgency, though for what, John doesn’t know, “You studied pre-engineering in college, Bucky. I’m pretty sure you did advanced math and physics.”

He can’t help the pull on his lips or the stupid words after, laced with enough wonder to make embarrassment shimmer in his stomach. “You remember that?”

“Of course.” Gale nods, all serious, as if John was crazy for suggesting otherwise. John looks away, down at his hand engulfing the glass.

“And I know about the acceptance to Michigan.”

John splutters and coughs, feels his face heat, and croaks a weak, “What?” He glances at Gale who is still frowning, though softer now, arms crossed loosely around him.

His expression mends further when their eyes lock and says with no heat, “You’d left it on the desk, moron.”

That was back in January of ’41. John had done it on a whim. Wanted to see if he could get accepted, if his professors at St. Thomas where right, if his father was wrong about him. It was for John’s eyes only.

When he had filled out the application in October, he’d done it angry. Angry at his father for his last letter, saying that if he’d stayed in Wisconsin and gone into engineering there, he’d be contributing more to the war effort, since Manitowoc Shipbuilding was becoming crucial for submarine construction. Angry at the lieutenant teaching them aircraft mechanics, for singling him out in front of the class, even though they both knew – and everyone else in that room – that Bucky was right in his assessment, in what he had pointed out.

That letter from the University of Michigan had been just for Bucky– stashed away, never meant to see the light of day again. It was for the validation of a twenty-five-year-old who needed to believe he could do something; that choosing not to hadn’t meant he wasn’t good enough, but that he’d wanted something else.

Bucky had been sure Buck never knew about it. Certain he’d tucked that letter at the bottom of his trunk as soon as he had gotten it. Evidently not the case.

He swallows thickly not knowing what to say without sounding exactly as he feels, choked on emotion and bound by memories.

There is something so tragic about being remembered, John realizes.

He can’t take it. He stands, goes to the bar, and orders another whiskey, which he downs there, then another to bring back.

That’s four, he counts.

When he returns Marge and Ellie are back at the table. Gale is smiling, arm around Marge, listening as they talk. Relaxed.

John doesn’t think about how they’d mentioned their college majors in passing that third week of knowing each other, or how Gale couldn’t stand him back then.

Next morning John wakes with a dull headache. Not a hangover, but on the tip of it; the kind that makes him wish he’d either drunk more or not at all. His teeth ache, a sharp throb that makes him press his jaw shut. Light cuts through the curtains, and he curses softly.

He takes an aspirin before breakfast, and downs three cups of coffee in silence. Makes two makeshift sandwiches of scrambled eggs and bacon, that he devours barely tasting anything.

He has the day to himself. Gale is doing some work on a farm, a last minute request from a friend of Marge’s father, that needs extra hands for fixing the fences and mending the windbreaks. The past winter in Wyoming was harsh; wind and snow had taken down fences and battered wooden posts.

John would have liked to go along. If anything, just to watch Gale sweat and strain under sun and labor; a sight that always has John’s stomach tighten and indulge helplessly on the urge to touch him however and wherever he could. The effort of suppressing that urge a thrill of its own.

There was one time in basic, after running laps around the track, Bucky, despite his exhaustion had put his hands on Buck’s narrow waist – hot and sweaty, white t-shirt almost see through and clinging to him – under the pretense of lifting him. Only, after the two seconds of pushing the other man up on the air and his dramatic squawk, John’s hands had stayed on that waist for far longer than it was appropriate. For this reason, and his sanity he chooses to stay in the safety of the city.

He walks. Past a churchyard, past a barbershop, then another, a park with mothers and toddlers. Past a school where the bell rings just when he rounds the corner.

He doesn’t smoke, every time he reaches for a cigarette, he ends up just holding it between his middle and ring finger, letting it dangle a while, puts it back on the pack and repeat.

He has lunch at a diner. Takes the stool farthest from the door, back turned on the other patrons. The man next to him has his newspaper open between them and John’s eyes skim over the page but he doesn’t read any of the words other than Three fatal shootings in New York City and First elections for the Japanese Parliament and Fiorello La Guardia in favor of national health insurance.

He walks back to the inn; takes the car. Drives north of the city because he knows Gale is south. Squashes the desire to find him.

He finds the river almost by accident, following the sound before the sight. Water moving steady and low, dragging light across its back. He sits on the bank, where the soil is soft and the grass damp, beneath the loose canopy of a boxelder. The air smells of wet earth and wood, the faint sweetness of silt rising when the breeze shifts.

Across the water, life drifts on as if nothing has ever broken. Couples walk the length of the bank, slow and unhurried; a few people sit like he does, reading, murmuring, existing quietly. Children run the shallows, shrieking when the cold hits their ankles. Further down, two groups of boys—four, maybe five each—fish in a half-serious competition, their laughter carrying like stones skipped across the current. Somewhere behind him, a radio hums a tune too old or too far away to make out, the sound catching on the wind like static memory.

A breeze lifts off the river, cool against his face, carrying the smell of moss and iron. A couple passes close, their joined hands brushing. The woman laughs, light and unguarded, and something in his chest tightens—an ache so small and ordinary it feels like it might undo him. He looks down at his hands, still restless, the skin of his fingers itching for something to do. He smokes more.

A boy’s shout carries across the water, bright and sudden, a man’s laughter follows it from somewhere on John’s left. He almost turns, half expecting to see Gale’s head among them, fair hair catching the light. Foolish.

He can see him in the corner of his eye all the same, if he squints.

Gale would work without much talk, shirt sleeves rolled, breath misting in the morning air, the smell of damp earth heavy around him. He’d like those hours best, before the sun rose high enough to blind you, a time that still carried its own quiet.

A physical job that would let Gale lose himself in labor. Cutting new posts, tightening wire, hauling brush. The repetition and quiet dulling him; he wouldn’t go highwire like John.

By noon, mud would streak his trousers and John knows that would bother him more than the strain on his arms. His palms would burn where the hammer had rubbed the skin raw. His face, glistening with perspiration, would be set on scowl that John always dreams of kissing. So utterly tempting. Taste the sweat on his upper lip.

John can almost see the muscle of his forearm flex, the line of his throat when he tips his head back to drink; parch his thirst. He thinks of the way the light would hit his skin, the faint tremor in his thighs after crouching and standing for hours.

He thinks about the heat that would cling to Gale’s shirt, the thin cotton sticking to his back. Thinks about pushing it up, just enough to slide his hand under, to feel the hard pull of his stomach beneath his palm. Darting his tongue across his lips, he can almost taste the salt on Gale’s neck, the sunburned skin under his mouth.

And John would put his hands there too. He would touch. Because he’d be allowed. Feel the muscle under his palms, drag hands up and down, until they would settle on hips and grip.

John presses his thumb against the filter of his cigarette until it burns. But the image won’t let him go.

Gale turning to look at him; scowl deepening for a moment at John’s ministrations, and then take on that look. The one that Gale has when watching John make a fool of himself by his own choices, just because John wants to do something. That helpless attempt to hold back a grin that blossoms despite Gale’s fight and he has to put a hand on his face to cover it, eyes shining. The look that said you’re impossible, but I’m still here.

The sun would shine on them. Burning. John would tumble them on the grass and Gale would chuckle. His hands on John now, touching back.

His breath catches halfway down his throat. The cigarette trembles between his fingers, ash spilling onto the grass.

He can almost hear Gale laugh, that quiet huff in his throat. He’d say- I need to finish the fence before it gets dark. Go back to the house, Bucky

John would kiss him anyway. Until they were both breathless—aching, desperate and sun drunk. He’d take him right there on the grass, because they could. Because there’d be no one else but the earth, the sky and them.

It is a fantasy that hurts. It always does. John is familiar with its shape, the way it wrestles its way inside him and settles. Like pressing on a bruise just to feel it bloom again.

Like the guilt that follows it. Catholic to his core, as Curt once said with that half-smile that made John want to hit him.

It is a feeling that he had thought he had gotten rid of. It sneaks up again now. Immense, unrelenting, and exhausting in a way only guilt is. It wraps around him like a heavy coat on a freezing winter, all weight and no warmth. And John always wore his clothes as if they were his alone.

He stays out long after the light fades, letting the wind strip the heat from his skin until even the guilt feels distant. Only when it is well and dark does he return to the inn. The cold settled deep in his bones, and he is sniffling, hungry and spent.

He washes up, changes into dry clothes, and goes downstairs where he knows Mrs. Stevens is. The air smells faintly of lemon polish and smoke. The floorboards cricking on the last three steps of the stairs, three short sounds that have become familiar.

Archie, Mrs. Stevens nephew, sits in the reception area. He is a bit over eighteen, his face holding on to baby fat that accentuates his boyish features, a struck contrast to the tall, stocky body. He moves like John when he was his age and hit that sudden growth spurt.

The first night John met him, the brunette man had greeted him cooly if a tab reserved, and all John could think looking at dark round eyes, was: no war has ever touched him. There was something good in that, almost relieving. Mothers deserve their sons unmarred. Sons deserve to stay whole. Not angry at the world or scared at sudden loud sounds or cut in half by flank or getting gangrene in Germany.

John nods to the boy wordlessly and crosses to the parlor, sinking into the brown armchair angled towards the hearth. The leather sighs under him. He feels the warmth soak in, thawing his hands.

In the corner, a new record player gleams. Artie Shaw plays low, the clarinet traveling around the room, bright and clean, with a melancholy around the edge.

Mrs. Stevens sits opposite, pencil in hand, a half-filled page of neat lines before her. She glances up from her writing, pencil hovering midair, tired eyes softening.

“Gale,” she says, tipping her chin toward the record player, when John keeps staring at it.

“Figures.” John leans back, thumb grazing the spine of the book he’s not going to read.

“I don't know how he knew,” she shrugs, the corners of her mouth never quite rising, but her expression melts into fondness— quiet and deep. John understands then that this woman means something to Gale, and he to her.

He thinks of how little Gale has ever said about his mother. All John really knows is that she is alive. He had the sense that she was less present than his father was, but there was a different kind of detachment in Gale when he spoke of her, a stillness, even a coldness.

Her eyes rest on him a moment longer and she disappears down the back, returning a few minutes later with a cold chicken dish. He eats quietly, thanking her. After he picks up the newspaper left on the small round table next to the armchair, skimming through the headlines never settling on an article beyond the first sentence.

There is a gentle quiet in the room; it is peace or something near enough.

Until the front door opens.

The noise is too sudden and too loud. Footsteps, hurried and heavy, hit the wood. Both he and Mrs. Stevens look up.

Marge stands in the doorway in a pair of overalls, with a thick jacket over it, hair undone and nose red in her otherwise pale face. Her eyes – wide and wild – find him immediately.

For a heartbeat, the world stops and empties.

John thinks, clear and sharp—

He is dead-

He fell from a roof in the farm-

He got hit but a tractor.

And more stupidly

He was shot

and John had spent the day in a lake inside his head. Away from him like always.

He feels his body fall in a bottomless pit, and it takes seconds for him to find himself back in it.

He unsticks his tongue from the roof of his mouth, enough for him to say, “Marge.”

She doesn’t answer right away, her breath comes fast, uneven.

He is aware that Mrs. Stevens stands, takes a step closer to her and John realizes he has stood up, newspaper fallen in front of his boots.

"He is-" Marge stops, swallows hard, words evading her. John’s throat goes dry.

"What's wrong sweetie?" Mrs. Stevens asks softly, but her voice wavers.

John doesn't know what his expression is, but it can't be anything good because Marge avoids his eyes, glancing to and away constantly.

"He is not harmed. At least I don’t think so." Her voice wobbles, unsteady and John has no idea what that means. I don’t think so. He either is or isn't.

His arms, he realizes peculiarly, are heavy.

“What do you mean?” he asks Marge.

“I need your help.”

“Tell me what you mean.” His voice is flat now, too even.

“He won't stop.”

“Stop what?”

“Perhaps we should-” Mrs. Stevens starts.

"Stop what?" John takes a step towards Marge and uses the voice that gets him answers, the one that comes from high in his chest and booms loud and harsh. He sees her flinch and can't bring himself to care.

“Washing his hands.”

John frowns. That, he can handle. He bypasses her, already thinking, but he needs more information.

“What happened?”

She stumbles after him. Archie raises his eyes at them wide eyed and alarmed. John ignores him.

“I don't know. He was fine when I went over to the farm this afternoon. Tired but fine. We ate some sandwiches with Tom and Anna. Then, I- I went by his house and- I- John.” She doesn't choke but it is pretty close.

He stops on the threshold. Turns back, finds Mrs. Stevens behind Marge with her pinched expression, worry rolling off her, a disapproval when their eyes meet, and then his eyes go down to Marge. Her eyes glisten with unshed tears.

She loves him, he reminds himself, all that he feels she feels.

“What happened at his house?” He softens his voice as much as he can, which isn’t much, but his effort is appreciated by the other three people.

“He- he's washing his hands.” She says again. “Too much, too much, John. And he- I don't-” she takes a breath, “He's- he’s angry and and and talking- not making sense. And I couldn't get him to stop.”

He inhales. “Did you drive here?” He uses another voice, devoid of any emotion, just precise steadiness.

It has the effect he wants; she swallows, takes a breath, composes herself as much as possible. She nods.

“You are going to have to drive again. Lead me to the house.” Then adds, because they are not in the army, and they are all holding their breath around him- “Alright?”

“We could take mine.”

“No.” His voice leaves no room for argument. “You lead me. Then you go home.”

“Bucky-”

“You go home, Marge.” It’s the voice that ends all debate— pointed, controlled and final.

They should be driving by now. They should be there already.

She bites her lip, then nods again once.

“Let's go.”

It is a seven minute drive through streets that thin and darken the farther they go. The houses grow smaller, older, with sagging porches, peeling paint and fences leaning toward the street as if they are tired. A few lights burn behind curtains, pale squares in the cold. The rest is dark. Even the streetlamps seem dimmer here, the ones that work, their glow smothered by the frost in the air.

Marge’s car leads the way, her taillights a red pulse through the gloom. Neither of them drives fast. The roads are narrow, half-patched and cracked, the kind that grind under the tires. John’s foot itches to step on the pedal until it reaches metal.

He keeps the window cracked an inch. The night air cuts in, sharp with woodsmoke from nearby chimneys, and he tells himself it helps him stay alert. The stinging on his face to wake him.

Marge slows as the street bends. She turns onto a road of one-story houses, built shoulder to shoulder, separated only by narrow runs of earth or cracked concrete. A few front yards are fenced; most are not. A stray dog trots along the ditch and vanishes into the dark between two houses.

She pulls up in front of a chipped dark-green house, its porch light dead, the paint flaking from the trim. One shutter on the left window is closed, hanging crooked on the frame, missing a couple of slats. The right window glows yellow. John rolls to a stop behind her.

He steps out, the cold biting through his shirt at once. The ground here is hard, grass frozen stiff and silver-edged. Marge is already standing by her car, arms crossed against herself. The engine’s still running.

“It’s this one.” She points to the house needlessly, breath clouding in the air. She is more put together now but not less worried.

John nods, eyes fixed on the house.

She draws a breath and John catches her words. “It’ll be fine.” Then after a heartbeat, “Go.”

“I should go in with you.”

John sighs, turning to look at her. “It’s best if he only sees one of us.” She frowns and he adds, “No need to gang up on him.”

She blinks and licks her lips. “Okay- Okay. There is a key taped behind the letter box, lower side.” If he doesn't open, left unsaid.

John crosses the patch of frozen ground, each step crunching faintly. The house remains soundless and still. There is a large overturned ceramic pot on the opposite side of where the rusty mailbox is. The name Cleven nearly faded and the 307 above it a dull metallic color. The front door is scuffed near the bottom where years of mud and boots have left their mark.

He raises a hand and knocks once, twice. The wood cold, its’ white paint smoothing the splinters underneath. He waits for a sound, for an indication of movement. Nothing comes. The wind scrapes through the gutters, dry and cold as sandpaper. He hunches his shoulders.

There’s a small metal bell fixed to the frame — not electric, the kind you twist by hand — but he doesn’t use it. He knocks again, harder this time. He is not going to shout, conscious of how late it is.

No answer.

He waits. Hears nothing but the ticking of the car engine cooling behind him.

The next knock shakes the door hard enough to rattle on its hinges. The faraway sound of something hitting wood reaches him. He waits, counts to ten and when the door doesn’t open, he closes his eyes, muttering under his breath, “Fucking hell, Buck.”

He searches the mailbox. Finds the key and fits it in the lock.

Inside, the air is slightly warmer, smells of soap, some cleanser and stale nicotine. John pockets the key. He knows he is heard. It is too quiet. The only light comes from the kitchen on the right, spilling weakly down the room.

He follows it.

The kitchen is small, has barely enough room for the table, a narrow counter, and a squat icebox in the corner. The light coming from the ceiling sconce gives everything a sickly yellowish color. It is cold in the small kitchen with the white cabinets and mismatching chairs. The smell of cleanser is so strong in there that it scratches John’s throat and he wants to scratch his neck the more he breathes.

Gale is there, leaning over the sink, wearing a grey undershirt, tucked into his dark trousers. His forearms are sunburned, his shirt dusted and wet, but not from labor, perspiration on his back, damping the hair at the nape of his neck.

There is a pool of water on the floor where he stands, soaking his soaks.

He raps on the wood of the doorframe and sees Gale’s shoulders rising to his ears at the sound. Still, he doesn’t turn or stop. His breaths small, through his teeth. His hands move under the stream in frantic rhythm; soap, rinse, soap again, as if starting over each time.

“You good, Major?” He tests and comes back failed. Gale curls around himself. The sound of water keeps filling the room.

John shifts his weight, watches the frantic movements.

“Gale,” John says quietly. No response. The scrape of skin against soap, deliberate and compulsive makes goosebumps rise on John’s arms.

“Gale,” he says again, his voice firmer this time. Gale flinches like he’s been touched but doesn’t turn.

“I’m fine.” His voice is taut, escapes from clenched teeth, a hiss. He’s teetering, John realizes, balanced on the edge of something he can’t hold steady, pulling at the seams as if he can stitch himself shut.

John steps forward, and he has to stop his own sharp inhale, eyes closing momentarily, the sight burning something behind his ribs. Gale’s hands are raw, red and cracked, the creases of his palms opened to pink. The water running through his fingers and down the sink is pink too. His fingers tremble, the bar of soap slipping from his grip and striking the porcelain with a hollow clack.

He smells faintly of hay, sweat, and the astringent smell of cleanser.

“Gale,” John tries again. He wants to reach for him but waits. Watches instead as he rinses his hands once more. His breathing is shallow, lips pressed thin, eyes fixed on his hands as if what he’s washing away might surface if he stops.

“I think that it is enough, don’t you?”

His fingertips are wrinkled and prune like after hours in water, nails transparent. He doesn’t give any indication he heard John, and the taller man feels his stomach drop. He swallows thickly, observing Gale’s profile, the determination of his frown, the downturn of his lips, the way he grinds his teeth in every other breath.

“Gale.”

He reaches for the soap again, and something in John gives. He grabs at hands, grimacing at the freezing water. Gale jerks, tries to fight him off, but John grips harder. The soap slips. One hand around palms, the other over wrists. He knows it hurts something awful, the fragile skin gives slightly under his grip and he feels Gale’s sharp gasps against his ear.

“Hey. Easy- easy.” He grasps the wrists, ignores Gale’s protest, and puts them under water one more time to rinse the lather away, before shoving him back and turning the tap off.

The sudden silence drums in his ears.

There is harsh breathing behind him, and he turns just as Gale pushes up, glaring at him, but his eyes are wide and unfocused.

“Why are you here?” he grits, hands dripping on his sides, small trails of diluted red, and John knows it takes effort for the words to come out, for Gale to collect his mind enough to ask.

“Marge told-”

“Yeah-yeah.” He is not really hearing John. His expression twists, a muscle jumping in his jaw. His gaze slides past John to some place farther off.

“Because you are not well.” John tries again and watches, helpless, that once the words sink in – and that also takes a second too long – Gale gets a look on his face. A twisted sharp thing, and his eyes glaze over in a way that has John’s spine stand rigid.

“That’s all they do, isn’t it?” he mutters looking at the ground. Shakes his head, small, quick motions like he’s trying to throw something off.  “Worry. Good load of crap that does.”

He moves past John into the narrow hallway. John follows, his steps loud in the quiet house. The air around them thin and even colder in the hallway.

“Hey, listen to me.”

“And I can’t find it.” Gale continues, voice taut and high.

John raises his hand, finding the wall. He fumbles for a light switch, finds none. He can barely see him now, just the faint outline moving ahead.

His voice keeps unraveling in front of him, words coming out ragged, the shape of panic behind them.

“I can’t find it.”

God, John needs to see.

“And they all do the same thing over and over and over again. They all do.”

John stumbles over something that rolls on the ground. An empty glass bottle.

“And I- I-I-” It sounds as if he foams at the words, as if they are too much, as if the emotion behind them is too much and John needs to find him.

Then light floods from a doorway at the end of the hall.

He’s in a small room; bed neatly made, everything squared off and sparse. Gale is pacing in the space between the bed and the wall, hands twisting, the skin on them already starting to split where the air dries it.

“I hate them.” He is saying. “I hate them all. All.”

“Gale.” John’s gut clenches, wretched and sour.

He is scratching at his arms now- “More than they ever did me.” His voice rises and catches on itself, “And I was- I didn’t- You see? I was-”

“Gale.” John crosses the room carefully, like approaching a wild animal too close to snapping.

He reaches for his arm, but Gale jerks away, nails dragging across his forearm until thin white lines bloom. John grabs for his wrist again, and this time Gale shoves back, hard enough that they both stumble.

“Hey!” John snaps, steadying them both. “Look at me.”

“I don’t understand how you do that to a kid.”

“Gale-”

The next second, Gale’s fist hits his ribs. It isn’t a clean punch, more of a wild swing. It still steals John’s breath. He catches the arm, pulls him in. Gale shoves on John’s hurt side and they go down hard. The floor thuds beneath them.

He kicks and John kicks back. Gale manages to free his hand. And now they are both pushing on each other’s faces and upper body- scraping and punching. Gale tries to get away from John, but he is faster. He manages to hold him down.

“Look at me.” John follows Gale’s eyes fleeting everywhere until they meet. “Where are you?”

“I know where I fucking am.” He screams it, pained and it echoes in John’s chest. He tries to keep his face even.

“Do you know who the fuck I am?”

“Yes.” He spits the word, and thrusts against John, manages to push him on the side with an elbow colliding against John’s hipbone that draws a sharp intake of breath.

They end up with John on his back again and Gale hovering above. Rough carpet scratching at John’s back where his sweater rises from the struggle.

John puts his hands on either side of Gale’s face and says firmly, “Listen to me.”

He shakes his head, frantic, taking John’s hands with him. He pushes up, knee digging painfully on John’s thigh. “You don’t get it John. You don’t.”

He rocks back and forth, muttering something John can’t make out. And it is worse, worse than before. His hands move again to scratch, and John sits up going for them, but Gale scrambles away, back hitting the bed.

“Leave me. Leave me.”

He starts gripping at his throat and John finally gains some ground and is able to seize him. They are wrestling again, only this time John doesn’t care if he hurts him. He ends up twisting Gale’s arm behind his back, enough for the other to howl and kick out on instinct and pain.

He repositions them and traps him. A hand around his torso trapping his arms, and his legs go over Gale’s. John feels the perspiration on his back clinging to his sweater as he leans against the wall, the clammy skin under his palms. Gets a hold on his breathing, and listens, heart thumbing with the effort of their physical altercations, at Gale’s short erratic breaths. Feels them against his chest; feels the rigid muscles under him and closes his eyes a moment.

“Gale,” he starts, “you are alright. You are alright.”

He shakes his head again fast, and he is so close that the back of his head pushes at John’s nose painfully.

A litany of no falls from his lips, his hands curling and uncurling on his sides, bracketed between John’s thighs.

“You are.” John says insistently. “W-”

“They-” he hiccups, something between a choke and a whimper and John’s chest burns. “He is dead, John.”

John closes his eyes at the wrecked tone. “Who? Who is dead?” His mind starts a list of all the people they’ve lost; glitches on Curt and John tries to push forward.

“They killed him.” He shifts involuntary, a twitch of muscles. “They killed the horse, John. Took the- straight between the eyes.” He speaks in gasps, tormented. He is crying, John realizes shocked and anguished at the fact.

“Behavioral problems.”

John closes his eyes, exhales through his nose. “Alright,” he says softly. “It’s alright, Gale. It’s alright.” Except it’s not, he knows it’s not.

“I don’t want-” He heaves, his sobs come out strained and uncontrolled.

Gale’s shoulders collapse inward. The tremors come harder now, choked sounds escaping between breaths. John doesn’t loosen his grip, just shifts it, pulling Gale closer until his back rests against his chest.

“Gale.” John tries gently.

Suddenly, he lunges forwards, escaping some from John’s arms. His eyes are still too far away and wild.

“Gale.” John grabs a forearm, pushes a leg back down that starts to bend with one of his.

He keeps holding him unrelenting. It earns John a twist of his wrist and a pinch that has the muscle of his inner thigh tense and a hiss falls from his lips. Gale shoves at him, taking advantage of his momentary suspension, and gains ground enough to start kneeling.

John yanks his arm hard enough that something pops in the joint. Gale gasps — not dislocated, just close — and collapses back down.

“Buck.” He says in a harsh voice, all command, and Gale stills. Turns his head fast. Their eyes meet.

“Enough.” There is a suspended silence, where they just stare at each other. John exhales and Gale breaths it in.

“Breathe with me.” It is the wrong thing to say again. Gale breaks the stare and tries to free himself again. John gets a leg in front of his thighs and forces him close. Tightness his grip painfully.

“Gale.” He gets a groan and nails digging into his wrist. John feels the skin break.

“Buck. Buck.” John feels him settle at the name somewhat.

He moves them again so he can find Gale’s eyes, still glazed, still elsewhere. “Buck,” he repeats and feels the shaky broken breaths.

For a while, they just breathe, until the fight goes out of Gale. He drops against him, exhausted, breath stuttering in his throat. John holds him there, feeling the weight and heat of him and the faint, awful tremor that won’t quit, but it is enough for him to know Gale won’t try bolting.

For a few minutes, neither of them moves. The house is quiet again except for their breathing, the faint tick of the pipes, and the ghost sound of the faucet still echoing somewhere in John’s head. Gale vacillates from rigid to a momentary sag against John several times, as if he won’t allow himself to fall back against him. John doesn’t push.

When he finally asks, “You good to have some water?” Gale nods once after a beat, without looking up.

They don’t move to get up. The air in the room feels stale and damp, like it’s been held too long between them. Gale sits hunched forward on the carpet now, his elbows on his knees, head low. John stays close, not touching him anymore.

Gale’s breaths come shallow, every third one hitching like it hurts to draw in. His hands twitch now and then, curling against his thighs as if he can’t stand to feel them empty. The cracked skin is starting to swell; the raw patches angry and red. John studies them for a moment, the familiar ache of uselessness settling behind his ribs.

“Alright,” John says, softly. “You did good.”

Gale makes a sound that is not quite a word, but it’s enough.

John leans back against the wall, feeling the cold through his shirt. His tailbone throbs, and his legs have gone half-numb from the way they’ve been sitting, but he doesn’t shift. Afraid. Even breathing feels like it might unsettle the quiet.

Then, faintly, a sound threads through the stillness. Tires on gravel. A car door slamming in the distance. Boots on the steps.

John’s head lifts.

A second later, the front door opens hard, and bangs shut against the wall. The noise is so sudden that Gale jolts like he’s been struck. His head snaps up; his eyes go wide and unfocused again.

“Buck,” John says quickly, alerted. “Hey- It’s alright.”

His breaths stutter and break in his throat again. Shoulders climbing, hands flexing against his knees. He stiffens. John ignores the sounds of whomever it is that has walked into the house — though he is fairly certain he knows who it is — and holds at Gale’s arm.

His mouth moves soundlessly before sound catches up. “No. No, no, no.” He shakes his head.

“Listen to me,” John starts, but the panic’s already in motion, sharp and electric, all that effort slipping away.

“You weren’t supposed to-” Gale’s voice breaks, and he scrambles forward a step, arms free, eyes glueing to the door. “You need to leave.”

“Who?” John asks, needlessly. His gut’s gone tight and cold.

“You need to leave John. Please.”

He is crying again, John can hear it without seeing his face, there is no heaving, but there is that dip in his voice.

John rises slowly, to meet him kneeling, clasps each hand around Gale’s arms and brings him back down. Elbows connect with John’s stomach, a sharp thud that makes him wince.

“You weren’t supposed to meet him.” The words come out half-delirious, splintered with breath. Gale repeats them, over and over, please tumbling between, frantic, shoving at John as if he could still make space where none exists.

The pain of it — seeing him come apart, hearing him beg — is unbearable. Gale doesn’t beg.  It cracks something deep and private in John. It’s too raw, too helpless. The anger that flares in him, fast and scalding, is almost a relief; it’s something he knows how to hold, not entirely how to contain.

He forces through the chaos, wrestles Gale down until he can catch his eyes, just for a heartbeat, before Gale squeezes them shut.

“Look at me,” John says, rough, steady. “I need you to look at me, baby.”

Gale jerks against him, gasping. “John- John-” His voice breaks open, raw with agony. “John, you need to leave. Please. Please.”

That please again, thin and desperate. It makes something behind John’s ribs twist. He leans in, presses their foreheads together, forces the air between them still. “We are leaving,” he says, low, final.

Gale breath hitches. Pulls back so they don’t touch and shakes his head hard, as if trying to shake the words themselves out of the air. “You don’t understand.”

John exhales through his teeth. “Then help me.” John scruffs closer, their nose nearly graze. “Tell me what I need to understand.”

Gale’s lips tremble. His eyes open, flick to the closed door, then down to the floor. His breathing is so loud it fills the small room, ragged and uneven.

“You weren’t supposed to meet him,” he says again, barely above a whisper now.

John allows for a few moments of stillness. Gathers his thoughts. He’s already mapped it in his head; he already knows how this will go down, he just needs Gale to be calm enough to follow it.

Gale shoves at him weakly, like a man trying to fight off sleep. “Please.”

John catches his wrists, firm but not harsh this time. “Here is what is going to happen,” John says voice resolute. “You’re gonna get a change of clothes. Put it in a bag. Then you meet me at the door. You can do that.”

A sound slips from Gale, half whimper, half breath, and John knows he’s still present enough to hate himself for it. He feels it in the way the body beneath him locks up.

“Say it.” John demands, sharp but not unkind. He waits.

“A change of clothes,” Gale murmurs. “In a bag. Meet you at the door.”

“Good.” John swallows the other word hard, presses it down into his chest where the rest of it sits, tight and burning.

He gets to his feet slowly, steadying himself against the wall. He feels the tremor in his own hands now that he’s not holding on to him. He looks down once more. Gale is still sitting on the floor, staring at nothing, jaw working as if he’s chewing through the phantom of something.

He opens the door, steps through, and turns towards the hallway. His legs feel like they belong to someone else and his stomach churns. John would have given everything for this moment to be different. Maybe not even come at all.  

He pauses, listening. There is movement in the house. The air occupied, heavy and expectant. He stands still, long enough for his pulse to catch up with his breath. Then he follows the sound.

The floor creaks as he moves down the hall. With each step towards the kitchen, he stands taller and bigger, rises to his full height. His hands won’t stop shaking, and he has to steady them through the anger in his chest that wants to lash out.

The smell of a freshly lit cigarette reaches him before he steps through the doorway.

The man at the sink, muddying the dented wood with his boots and the water that had pooled there from Gale’s washing, is tall. Roughly the same height as John. Same kind of shoulders— built to carry weight or throw it. His blond hair is greying, more prominently on his temples. Deep lines carved into his forehead, and his blue eyes sharp and disdainful, cut into John.

For a second, John sees Gale there. The eyes. The set of the jaw, the cheekbones. It knocks the air out of him, that resemblance. Then the anger comes, swift and merciless.

Neither speaks. They just regard each other, like two dogs weighing distance, waiting for a reason. The air between them feels charged, thick with something almost familiar. Not respect. Recognition, maybe; a strange understanding. The kind that makes John’s stomach twist with anticipation and thrill.

Smoke drifts up from the cigarette the man holds between two fingers. It curls lazily toward the ceiling, leaving its smell in the walls and on John’s tongue. He glances at the Raleigh pack on the table, with only two cigarettes left.

He clicks his tongue without thinking.

He gets a weird sound from the man, something between a grunt and a laugh without any affability.

“Who you might be?” he asks, with the boldness of someone who is in his own lair. He puts a hand behind him on the counter, where dishes have long dried. His dark brown jacket is old, has various stains on it mostly from oil spills, opens further, the brass buckle contrasting with the dark brown leather of the belt.

“John Egan.”

The man’s mouth tugs sideways, almost amused. John is itching to punch him.

He doesn’t introduce himself. “You know who I am.” He takes a drag.

You know who I am too. John realizes and it hits somewhere deep, a rough, wordless satisfaction. The kind that feels too close to violence. Sick with claim.

He looks over his shoulder where a sound comes from Gale’s room then back at his father. The man’s expression is self-satisfied and assured, as if he had made an assumption and is rewarded with being right.

In that moment John realizes two things. First, Gale gets his smarts from this man. Second, if he stays a moment longer in the room with Henry Cleven his anger is going to erupt, thick and red and scorching until it chokes them both.

The look fades, replaced by the same arrogant mask as before. John clenches his fists and bites his tongue. He hears Gale walking behind him, he doesn’t stop in the kitchen, goes straight to the door.

John forces his gaze away from the silent contest, just when Gale has finished tying his shoes. He joins him at the door and opens it. Letting the cold in. Wordlessly, he stands between the rusty truck and the doorway. Gale doesn’t look at him, more over his shoulder, and Henry steps forward behind them.

“It was nice meeting you.”

They really need to leave before John does something that will put him behind bars or worse. There is a mental image that has been fighting to surface ever since he heard the man walk in the house; he doesn’t know for how long he can fight it.

Gale freezes, his eyes not clear enough, and John fights the urge to yank him towards the car.

He nods, one jerky movement, says, “You too.”

Neither means the words.

John shuts the door in the man’s face. Puts a hand on Gale’s back, not pushing, just steering. He breathes through the slap of cold air and keeps them moving. Keeps himself from turning back.

The car ride is tense. A kind of quiet after a storm that hasn’t decided whether it is really over. John drives with stiff shoulders and Gale keeps his eyes on the windshield, fingers worrying the cuffs of his sleeves. His jacket sits in his lap, sliding off a little every time John takes a sharp turn. 

With every street they pass, Gale’s eyes grow a little clearer. There’s still that hazy look, like he’s under a thin veil, when John glances at him near the inn’s driveway. But he’s mostly back in his bones now.

His breath catches at the sight of the white building. John spends too long contemplating driving around the block until Gale calms, but doesn’t; the longer the car idles, the more Gale tenses.

He is out first, taking his backpack with him. He slams the car door closed and he flinches at the sound, shoulders rising to his ears. He takes two steps towards the inn and stops. John follows. Gale takes three more, then stops again and looks back.

John holds his gaze for a beat, then moves ahead, leading them both inside.

The reception is warm, lamplight low and amber against the cream walls. The smell of lemon polish still lingers faintly. Mrs. Stevens looks up from behind the counter, Archie beside her, his eyes flicking between the two men before settling on something on the desk John can’t see. She’s waiting, hands folded over the ledger, as if she’s been expecting them all along. Her worry dissipating some when she sees them, the lines on her forehead smoothing.

“Everything all right?” she says softly, relief in her tone, though her eyes flick quickly to Gale, still a step behind him.

John gives a taut smile. “All good now.”

They share a look, and she gives half a nod in quiet understanding.

“Gale,” she says taking a step towards them.

“Hello.” His voice is hoarse, the muscles in his cheeks twitch. In the lamplight, his face looks carved out of chalk, the scars on his cheek more prominent than they’ve been in over a year.

She glances at John, questioning and he smiles in encouragement.

“He is staying tonight.”

“Of course.” Her eyes shift to the key holder, and there a shuffle behind John enough to draw her attention, saving him the explanation. “Of course,” she repeats kindly, a small smile making its way to her face. “You boys need anything, let me know.”

“Will do,” John says, turning to Gale who hovers behind him, uncertain, and tries to obscure himself from Archie, who, bless him, tries to appear as nonchalant as possible, while still cutting glances their way.

“Wait,” Mrs. Stevens calls from the bottom of the stairs and John pauses as Gale continues climbing. She disappears for a moment, then returns with a towel, handing it to him. “There is probably no hot water left, but-”

John nods, his expression mollifying.

“Good night.” Her eyes shine, kind and sweet, and something in John’s chest swells painfully at the simple grace of it.

“Good night.”

The second-floor hallway is narrow, the carpet worn thin along the center from years of footsteps. Their shoes make soft, uneven sounds against it.

The room itself is modest but well-kept. A brass bed at the center of it, neatly made, the quilt tucked sharp at the corners– Mrs. Stevens doing not John’s. A small writing desk stands by the wall, where John’s toiletry bag rests with most of its contents left haphazardly across the surface. There’s a wardrobe in the corner, its mirror slightly foxed at the edges, and a straight-backed chair with his jacket over it and more clothes on the seat.

John leaves the towel on the bed and leans against the wall as Gale steps further inside, placing his bag on the trunk beneath the window.

“You can use the bathroom first,” John says, his voice rough around the edges.

Gale nods without looking up. He unzips his backpack, movements deliberate, careful in a way that makes John’s throat tighten. He watches him for a moment longer.

“Go take a shower,” John prompts when he sees him laying his clothes out neatly on the bed. Carefully folded and carefully laid.

Gale’s eyes find his, a small pinch between his eyes. He glances at the half-open bathroom door and back again, skeptical and hesitant enough for John to repeat, “Shower.”

“You saying I smell?” It still comes with a delay, the mock offense lukewarm, but there is a sharp glint at the edge of his eyes. Enough for John to think with immense relief-

There you are. You are coming back to me.

“You stink.” It earns him a wobble pull of lips, fleeting but real.

Gale takes the towel and disappears into the bathroom, closing the door behind him.

John checks his wristwatch.

Changes into his pajama bottoms and the soft, loose cotton shirt he sleeps in.

Three minutes.

He hears the water open and close, the pipes complaining. The faint scent of soap, cheap and sharp, hits him, and he clenches his jaw. He bites the inside of his cheek to stop the image from forming: Gale’s back, striped with scars he knows too well.

He rests his elbows on his knees and rubs his palms together, then stops. They are shaking again. He stares at them until they still.

He taps his foot to a rhythm of a song he can’t remember the words to. Two more minutes. He closes his eyes, lets the sound of running water fill the room, letting it wash away the image of Gale on the floor, and the rawness of his voice.

Gale can shower in less than five minutes; as much time they were sometimes given after physical training during basic and as little as ninety seconds during drills. He could take as much as twenty minutes the rest of the time when they were to shower and shave and do all the mandatory hygiene disciplines in the army.

It takes him eleven minutes to emerge now. Towel wrapped around his hips and skin fully dry, hair damp. His skin in goosebumps.

He dresses quickly, shorts and a t-shirt, and then freezes, looking at the bed. John stretches, silently, holding out the extra pair of pajamas. Gale stares at them long enough that John nearly loses his balance, the muscles in his stomach protesting.

He puts them on. They hang loose around his hips and thighs. John doesn’t let his gaze linger. Gale packs away the rest of his things and hangs the towel to dry.

John lies back into the bed, half prompted on the pillows, pushing the covers on the side, creating a barrier in the middle.

When Gale returns, he sits on the other side, movements hesitant and muscles stiff. The mattress dips again, and for a few seconds they just sit there, the silence between them steady, almost tender.

John doesn’t touch him, but the impulse hums under his skin. He watches the faint rise and fall of Gale’s shoulders, the way his hands still fidget, the way his eyes trail all over the room. They settle at last on the nightstand; on the book John hasn’t finished reading, the half-empty glass of water and the unopened pack of Camels.

“Tomorrow,” John starts, licking his lips. “What did you say we need to do?”

Gale turns his body towards John and looks at him for a second, before standing just long enough to pull the covers back and slide under them.

“We have to pick up the wine bottles.” He shifts under the cold sheets, wiggling his legs for warmth.

John exhales, long and low, staring at the ceiling until the tremor in his chest softens. He gets up to turn off the main light, leaving only the lamp on his side, a soft washed out yellow glow.

Gale is watching him openly as he climbs back  into the bed. John covers himself and groans, eyes closing, relief spreading through the muscles on his back. He needed that. Gale shifts beside him.

“John?”

“Mm”

He hesitates, long enough for the quiet to stretch into a lull. John keeps his eyes shut, throws an arm over his forehead.

“Remember when Tommy Fletcher was sick with the flu?”

John frowns. That’s not what he had expected. It takes him a second to remember and another to get a clear image of the face.

It was the beginning of June, first summer of flight school. Tommy had gone home on leave for a week, caught something from his kid brother, and brought it back to base. Half the cadets ended up sick: vomiting, fevered, barely speaking through swollen throats.

John had been furious, keeping his distance and threatening anyone who came closer than a meter and a half to him or Buck. Buck had been more relaxed. Until he got near Blakely, who’d been down for days. Then John had thrown him out of the room, made him bunk with Jack and Robert instead. John was not cruel; he had made sure he’d get a bed, just not near him. He wasn’t unreasonable, he just wasn’t going to spend his first pass in five weeks hurling.

They hadn’t gotten sick. John had earned a bruise — Gale had shoved him so hard he stumbled into the desk in their room — for the trouble. But John had convinced him to join him in San Antonio on Sunday.

John hums- “Yeah.”

“We went to Travis Park,” Gale is saying in a low voice, “had Coke. You spend too long sweet-talking the girl at the-”

“Grand Café,” they say together. John smiles, still with his eyes closed.

“You dragged me to the zoo-”

“You loved it.”

He had. More than John. He got way too excited about the tigers; his grin split his face, and he couldn’t take his eyes off them. And had stared too long at the peacocks roaming freely around them.

“Watched that awful movie- His Girl Friday.”

“Hey now. Cary Grant is the man.”

Gale chuckles lowly. “We had lunch at Stephanie’s. I’m pretty sure she hasn’t forgotten you. Still hates you.”

John nudges him lightly with his foot. “I warmed up to her in the end. And I’m pretty sure the real reason she didn’t like me was because her daughter had a crush on me.”

He feels Gale’s eyes roll and gets a kick back when he mouths along his dry reply: “Not every woman wants you, Bucky.”

They both laugh, quiet and easy.

“We went to the River Walk,” Gale sighs. A pause. “You had ice cream,” he murmurs, even softer now.

It had been blistering hot, all past thirty days had been and were getting hotter and drier, and the cicadas an unrelenting soundtrack.

He had seen people holding the cones when they had arrived at the River Walk that afternoon, with the white or brown swirl on top, bought from a shop with a yellow-white striped awning. The ice cream had melted faster than he could eat it.

“You asked if I wanted one and I told you I didn’t like ice cream.”

Yeah, John remembers. He smiles faintly. He also remembers saying-

What kind of heathen doesn’t like ice cream?

And Gale, dry as dust- The kind that doesn’t like stains on his clothes.

Gale had gesture at the mess over John’s right hand, trails of white running down his wrist over his arm, droplets on his trousers. John had started to lick his fingers and Gale had rolled his eyes, walking the distance back to the ice cream shop and coming back with a handful of paper napkins shaking his head, with that expression on his face John felt like the sun was shining only for him.

When he opens his eyes now, Gale is lying on his stomach, facing him. His eyes find John’s immediately.

“I lied,” he says. As if confessing a felony. As if John hadn’t already known. Three weekends later they had gone out to San Antonio again with the others, and they all had ice cream, Buck included.

“I-” his voice fades. “I do like ice cream,” he says, quieter.

“I know, Buck.” John smiles. The genuine kind. The one that the John from July 1940 watching bewildered as Gale licked on a chocolate ice cream couldn’t have mastered. “I’ve seen you eat ice cream since.”

There is a faint color on Gale’s cheeks. He looks away and says coyly, “Sorry.”

John chuckles, reaching to turn off the lamp. “You are forgiven.”

There is a beat of silence. John shifts to get more comfortable and Gale says, “You shouldn’t forgive so easily.”

“I don’t.” John feels slightly offended at the notion. He doesn’t.

“Even me,” Gale says, so softly John almost doesn’t hear it.

His stomach twists.

“Go to sleep Buck.”

The last time they’d seen each other was a week before Bucky’s thirtieth birthday.

It was the first of September, and they were back in Texas, one month after returning to the States. There had been processing, debriefings, endless logs and reports, somehow more exhausting than the ones in England after Stalag.

At the airport, waiting for different planes to different destinations, Buck had reached for his arm, his hand wrapping around John’s forearm. He pushed a carefully wrapped package into his hands.

“Happy birthday, John.”

He had given him a small, barely-there tilt of lips, a smile that was all Buck. Nervous, with an almost dusty pink on cheeks healthier than they had been in two years; edged with hope and something that might have been sadness if one looked too closely. John always did. And at the center of that steel blue gaze was the same familiar solidity that was Gale. John had to force himself to hold it, mute and stranded amid all the emotions rising like a tide inside him, threatening to drown him where he stood.

“I’ll see you around, Bucky,” he had drawled.

It was all a lie. Regardless, John had smiled, a tight, stubborn, fighting for its life, little thing.

“Don’t count on it,” Bucky had said. “You have a good flight. Say hi to Marge for me.”

It appeared to appease the situation, mend the loose stitches between them, at least on the surface. John was rewarded with a fuller smile then; more refined than any since they were shot down. It was vast for such a small thing, open in a way Buck rarely was. Strange, how it could be sad, hopeful, wistful, and content all at once.

John hadn’t examined it too much. He still doesn’t. It stays in his memory anyway.

It was all a lie. A neat little fantasy.

He’d realized it somewhere on the train from Milwaukee Airport to Manitowoc— the entire flight he’d been listless, miserable, hollowed out. Somewhere between the stations he remembered the elephant that had been circling his mind since England, trumpeting through every quiet moment.

John had been good about it. He had mentioned her only once after landing in Texas. Through those four weeks on base he had fallen into a false security, a fragile denial. He could half close his eyes and convince himself it was summer of 1942, and there was no wedding bearing down like a train on fire.

John, who had wanted to hug Buck at that airport. The burn of it scorching him. It was a good thing he hadn’t; he would’ve held on too long. Pathetic like that.

He opened the package the night he reached home. After all the tears from his mother and sisters, after his father’s bruising grip, the kind that said you’re alive.

It was a novel — the new one from Raymond Chandler, The Lady in the Lake — two packs of Lucky Strike (he still hasn’t used them), a photograph taken in Thorpe Abbots in July of ’43, and a lighter. A simple silver one, and for a week, John had left it in the box next to the packs, smooth side shining up at him.

He picked it up a week before Halloween. They had talked on the phone that morning, and John left staggered the rest of the day, had decided to poke the wounds. He had wiped a thin layer of dust from it and took it out of the box. Had felt the engraving under his fingertips and had swallowed. In the minute that it had taken to flip it over, John had stopped breathing. He saw the words and threw it out the window before he could choke on the sound it made in his throat.

Amy had found it. She had placed it on his nightstand the night of Halloween, after catching him looking out the kitchen window at the grass and jardinieres with a mixture of anger and grief.

He had taken it carefully into his hands, had run a finger over the words, exhausted, agitated and numb at the same time.

it'd be me and it'd be you

and beneath B.C.

That same week, he picked up Reflections in a Golden Eye from Amy’s nightstand, mostly because he knew she’d missed the bus on purpose, and because she knew. She always knew when it came to John.

John couldn’t bear finishing the book.

He brought it with him to Casper. That, and the lighter he hasn’t used and can barely stand to touch.

John wakes to the smell of warm spice, citrus and faintly of coffee.

For a moment, still half-dreaming, he thinks he is home. It could be his mother in the kitchen, the sun barely up, the smell of yeast and sugar and something warm in the oven. Then he opens his eyes and the memory slips away.

The ceiling above him is whitewashed, sparsely uneven with age. Gale’s side of the bed is empty, the sheets still warm.

He sits up slowly, the muscles in his back protesting the movement. Footsteps pass in the hall. Guests heading down to breakfast or out for the day. He woke up much later than usual.

He rubs his face and swings his legs over the edge of the bed. He heads to the bathroom; a small frown etched on his face.

The scent lingers in the room, faint and familiar. It takes him a moment to recognize it. His aftershave. The realization lands strangely, low in his stomach. Makes something shimmer, low and anticipating.

Downstairs, the dining room glows with the light from the chandelier, and the smell of fried eggs and coffee fill the air, mingling with the faint scent of the freshly wiped tables, eclipsing everything else. Mrs. Stevens, her hair pinned neatly, an apron tied at her waist is talking to a couple on the side. Archie sits by the window near the door, spreading jam over toast with the slow precision of a someone who’d rather still be in bed.

She spots John immediately and excuses herself from the conversation. “Good morning, John,” she greets him. “You look like you could use a strong cup.”

“I’ll take three.”

She smiles small, pours him a mug from the pot that’s been sitting on the warmer, and gestures toward the corner table. “Gale’s already eaten half the bread basket. I told him to leave you a roll, but-”

“I’m sure he did.”

He finally spots Gale by the window in the far back, hunched slightly over his plate, a thread of light catching on the side of his jaw. He looks up when John approaches, his eyes clear and keen. John exhales the relief, quiet and measured, before it can show on his face, then takes the seat across from him.

“Morning,” he says.

John nods, taking a gulp from his coffee and grimaces, reaching for the sugar. “Sleep all right?”

Gale shrugs. “Didn’t dream.”

That, John knows, is as close to good as it gets.

Mrs. Stevens brings a plate, two eggs and a couple slices of ham, and sets it down in front of him. “You boys headed out today?”

Gale doesn’t look up, but his mouth softens, just slightly. Mrs. Stevens pats his shoulder in passing, and something in his posture loosens.

“We’ve got to pick up the wine for the wedding,” John answers.

Gale glances up at her, hands around his mug. “Some crates from the store up on Lincoln.”

Mrs. Stevens brightens. “Ah, from Duval’s place. Tell him I said hello, would you? He still owes me a bottle from Christmas.”

“Will do.” Gale smirks faintly, and John steals the bread roll from his plate.

“It’ll be a nice drive,” she says, looking pointedly at Gale. “The weather’s supposed to hold till evening.”  

Gale nods, and she moves off to fuss with the other tables.

For a while they eat quietly, the clink of cutlery and the low murmur of morning around them. John downs another cup of coffee and is halfway through his third when he glances up. Gale is looking at him, not smiling, not guarded, not scrutinizing- just watching. There’s something searching in his gaze, something that makes John look away first. He tears a piece of bread, dunks it in his yolk and shoves it in his mouth.

When they are done eating, Gale starts gathering his plate and Mrs. Stevens swats his hand lightly with a dishrag. “Go on, now. You’ve got work to do.”

John sniggers at the way Gale snatches his hand away and the look on his face. He gets a cutting glare in return that makes him laugh into his cup.

The air outside is humid, foreboding the evening’s storm. The car sits where they left it, moisture on the windows, the world outside the inn washed in early spring light.

John wipes his hand along the windshield, smearing the dew. “You good?” Because he needs it out in the open, in words.

Gale meets his eyes, hands deep in his coat pockets. Tall, not a single speck of yesterday in his posture. Something has shifted, though, John can feel it, he just doesn’t know what it is yet. “I’m good-” he opens the passenger door, “-I’ll do better if I drive.”

John huffs a small laugh, unlocking the driver’s door. “Yeah- this’s my car, pal.”

“I drive better than you.”

John says, mock-offended, “You do not.”

He shakes his head at the light chuckling and slides behind the wheel. The seat is cold, the key stiff in the ignition. The engine coughs once before catching.

Gale smiles and places a toothpick in his mouth, from the ones he stole from Mrs. Stevens’ dining room.

“Just navigate.”

Gale doesn’t answer; his smile widens. John shakes his head, biting his cheek to keep his own at bay.

The road out of Casper runs straight for miles before bending towards the foothills, the kind of stretch that makes you forget how long you’ve been driving. Morning sun hangs low, caught in the haze over the horizon. The windows are cracked an inch and the smell of wet earth and gasoline drifts in with the wind.

Gale sits turned slightly so his shoulder rests on window, one hand on the open map in his lap. He calls out directions now and then, quiet and certain— “Next right,” “Keep on till you see the sign for Lincoln.” His voice is steady, clearer than John expects, and something about that steadiness makes John’s chest ease.

Then the silence starts to bother him. The faint scrape of Gale’s boot against the floorboard, the rattle of the glove compartment, even the way the map keeps crinkling every time Gale adjusts it. Small things, harmless things, but they pick at him.

He turns the radio on, finds only static. Turns it off again. His fingers tap the steering wheel until the sound irritates him, too. He catches the sideways glances Gale throws at him and pretends not to see them.

They pass low fields, still gray from winter, fence posts glistening with dew. A pair of horses stand near a half-collapsed barn, their coats dark with mud. John flicks the radio on again, a tune fades in and out — Jo Stafford, maybe, or someone trying to sound like her — a little scratchy through the static.

It is something. John half hums to it.

“Think it’ll actually hold?” John asks, nodding toward the clouds piling up in the west.

Gale glances at them, squinting against the glare. “Till evening,” he says. “We’ll make it back in time.”

John nods, tapping his fingers against the steering wheel. “Good. I’d hate to see you get drenched carrying cases through downpour.”

That earns him a squint of disbelief. “You are assuming I’ll be the one carrying.”

“I’m driving. Seems fair you do the heavy lifting.”

Gale snorts, quiet, and turns back toward the road. “Always fair, Bucky.”

For a mile, the only sound is the radio, the engine, the hum of tires on asphalt. The quiet stretches are just quiet now, though something in John’s chest stirs, restless; it reaches his limbs, fingertips tingling with it. His hands flexing on the wheel.

When the small town comes into view — a scatter of buildings, a few shopfronts and gas pumps, a church steeple that looks newer than everything around it — a small retreat from Casper, John slows.

Mr. Duval’s store sits at the far end of the street where the church is, a squat two-story with a hand-painted sign and a bell that doesn’t jingle when they push the door open. The air inside smells faintly of wood polish and cork, warm and dry after the damp chill outside.

“Morning,” Duval calls from behind the counter. “Cleven.” He nods at them, eyes staying on John a moment longer. Gale nods back.

Duval waves towards the back. “Got your order ready. A couple of crates. California sparkling, some claret, a case of white. Miss Spencer has good taste.”

“She sure does,” John says, following him toward the back room. Gale moves ahead to check the labels, fingers brushing over the stamped letters on the wooden crates.

The aisles are narrow, the air thick with dust and cork. Gale bends to read a tag, close enough that his shoulder grazes John’s chest when he straightens. It’s barely a touch, but the smell hits sharp and strong. Familiar enough to make something twist low in his gut.

He takes a step back, too quick, muttering, “Watch it,” sharper than he means.

Gale glances at him, eyebrows raised but says nothing.

“Place is cramped,” John adds, voice low, dismissive, and turns away as if the shelves demand his attention. He grips a bottle by the neck, too tight, the faint creak of glass under his hand steadying him.

He breathes once, slow, through his nose, until his pulse settles.

John doesn’t think too much about how Gale smells like him— soap to aftershave.

“Enjoy it, then,” Duval is saying. “Not every day I get to sell wine for a wedding around here. Feels like old times.”

John helps lift the first crate, which is heavier than it looks, bottles clinking softly inside. The two of them move in easy rhythm, practiced in silence. Outside, the clouds shift, light falling briefly through the doorway, catching on Gale’s hair when he straightens.

For a moment, John watches the light trace the side of his face, the calm that has returned there. He looks away before it lingers too long. He stares at the window of the winery, the careful curated display that has gathered dust.

Gale closes the car trunk, dusts his hands, without turning to him. “You done admiring the merchandise?”

“For now.”

A beat later, John climbs behind the wheel. The engine coughs awake, the crates of wine clinking in the back. He can still smell the shop, oak, cork, and Gale.

Or himself on Gale.

The thought curls inside him, sharp and possessive in a way that nearly chokes him, as he sets the car in gear.

“We’re done early,” he says, voice easy, despite the tension on his shoulders. “There’s a place I want to see.”

There is something he wants — John feels it humming through him — unkind, unreasoning and unrestrained. Unappeasable. He would call it morbid in its core, because there is no other word for it.

There is an excitement mingled in there as well. A giddiness.

“Bucky.”

“Oh, don’t give me that,” he says. “It’s my first time in the cowboy state. I want to sightsee.”

“Bucky.”

Good, John thinks, he knows where I want to go.

He hears the rustle of paper as Gale puts the map on the glove compartment.

“No,” Gale says, resolute. “We are not going.”

“Buck, come on-”

“You can go alone after you drop me off.”

John laughs, short and not with nearly enough humor in it. “You’re no fun.”

Gale exhales annoyed. “I’m serious.”

When John’s expression doesn’t change, and he keeps his eyes on the road, Gale leans in, hand catching John’s shoulder, the pressure firm. Gives it a brief shake.

John keeps himself from flinching, bites his tongue, hands flexing on the wheel.

“I’m serious, Bucky. We are not stopping. It’s not even worth it.”

“Oh, so you have been.”

“No-”

“So, how do you know?”

“Wanna see a horse?” Gale snaps, exasperated. “I’ll take you to a ranch. You’ll see a horse.”

“I’ve seen a fucking horse before, Gale.”

A beat. “Wanna ride one?”

“Wanna shut up?”

John flicks the radio on; music fights through the static. And just because John likes a good punch, but is not sure he wants to give or receive one-

“What ranch are you going to take us to?” He still doesn’t look at Gale. “As far as I can tell, people in this place don’t really hear “Cleven” and pop champagne.”

There is a sharp inhale. A weird feeling – honey sweet and warm – makes it into John’s chest and oh he knows what it is he wants; can see it in his mind’s eyes clear as day. Makes his teeth tingle with the urge to sink into something.

“Hell, I’m not even sure they open a door.”

“Shut up– now.” The warning is low and dangerous; John knows if he weren’t driving, Gale would try to sock him. His jaw set, muscle jumping, trying desperately to keep everything in check. Maintain a control he doesn’t really have.

Satisfaction roots deep.

He makes a derisive sound, smirks, doesn’t answer. He can see Gale in the corner of his eye, jaw tight, shoulders wound. The road bends, what little sunlight there is sliding through the windshield. The muscle in Gale’s neck jumps once when he swallows.

John wants to make him do it again. He wants to make him-

He says it pressing on the wound, wanting it to open. “Careful, Buck. You’re wound up like your old man on a Friday night, right before he’d drag you along and park you outside till morning.”

The air in the car goes thin.

John’s mouth twists, but he doesn’t glance at him. “Guess you were right, though.” A pause. “I do remind you of him.”

His fingers drum the wheel, and he leans back slightly, trying for an aloofness that knows it’ll irate the other. The sound of Gale breathing beside him makes his skin prickle. He wants to laugh, or hit something, or both. It’s the same spark that used to flare before a fight, that never really left him. Maybe it’s this state, or the silence, or the smell of him still hanging in the air. Maybe it’s that thing inside him again, waking.

Gale’s reflection catches in the glass, mouth set, throat working when he swallows.

“Why,” Gale starts slow, “are you doing this?”

John flexes his jaw, doesn’t look. The question sits heavy between them. Gale keeps staring.

“You know.” Gale tells him in a voice that so desperately wants to be brave and sure.

John feels something in him jolt, that same hot pulse twisting cruelly sweet in his gut. He hates how much of him likes the sound of it— the broken, desperate way Gale sounds, the want to tip him over more. How it sweetens the air between them until he has to bite down hard on the inside of his cheek. The honey curdles, sour and terrible on his tongue. He takes hold of the logical part in him and tries to grip it.

“You know.”

“Do I?” John bites back; the part diminishing but still alive.

“You are smart, John.”

“Yeah.” John nods once, clipped, voice louder than he intended. “So are you.”

They fall quiet. Gale settles into the seat and looks out the window, the song on the radio too faint to make out.

When Casper comes into view and they pass the river, the town spreads out pale and flat beneath the morning haze. Neither of them has spoken for miles. The air inside the car has cooled; the fight sits somewhere behind them, not gone, just dulled to an ache.

Gale exhales through his nose, almost a laugh, almost not. “It’s a monstrosity.”

John glances sideways, the corner of his mouth twitching. “If you hate it that much, we’ll leave.” His voice is easy again. “We’ll throw a match. Watch it go up in flames.”

Gale huffs, the ghost of a smile tugging at his mouth.

John keeps his eyes on the road. “Because,” he says, quieter now, “stealing one of the B-17 left to rust on that base would be far too obvious.”

Gale turns toward the window, but John catches the small curve of his grin reflected in the glass.

It’s enough to make something in his chest unclench. The hum of the engine steadies; the silence between them starts to feel less dangerous.

A small sign leans crooked on a post.

Casper Pioneer & Western Heritage Museum – Exhibits Inside

He pushes the door open with his shoulder, lets Gale step in first. Dust floats through a shaft of light cutting across the floor, the particles bright and slow, like something suspended in amber.

The museum is smaller than John expects, two rooms stitched together by wide corridors and a front desk that doubles as a coat check. The place smells faintly of polish and leather; a kind of quiet that swallows every footstep whole, makes everything stale.

Gale pauses just inside, scanning the room. “Christ,” he mutters, “it’s like a mausoleum.”

John hums. “A mausoleum with spurs.”

Glass cases line the walls, each filled with pieces of another life. Spurs, saddles, cracked leather boots, rifles pitted with rust. Faded photographs stare back at them from behind the glass, faces worn to ghosts.

Gale moves ahead, his reflection slipping through the dim light. John follows, slow, his eyes dragged not to the displays but to the slope of Gale’s shoulders, the easy line of his stance. He moves like he’s trying to remember how to relax.

John feels that same current from before humming through him again, muted now, but there. It pools low and steady, turning every inch of air between them electric.

There is a family in the space with them, three kids- the eldest not older than fourteen, with a sour expression on her face, that deepens the more animated her brothers get at the displays. Her eyes travel to Gale standing in front of a case examining old articles from newspapers of the times, along with photographs and wanted posters. She blushes and averts her gaze.

John smiles small, despite his mood. Stops in front of a display marked Homestead and Range. Old tools, a cracked saddle, a child’s tin cup. Gale joins him, leans forward to read the placard, voice low when he says, “Imagine living on nothing but dust and stubbornness.”

John glances at the case, half snorts. “Sounds familiar.”

That earns him a look, flat and unimpressed, but not quite angry. The silence after stretches, tight but not uncomfortable. It feels like they’ve both forgotten how to breathe right since the car. John is deluged with the need to smooth it and the need to stay in it.

They drift into the next room, the exhibits giving way to larger relics. A wagon wheel, an oil-stained anvil, the half-hollowed shell of a plane propeller hung from the ceiling, the voices of the family trailing with them.

John catches himself thinking about the air base outside of town, and the earlier edge returns sharp as a tooth.

They stand in the middle of the room — ordinary, unremarkable, like the next person — as if they are not an amalgamation of anger; haggard, feeling older than they are, scar tissue thick enough to make a limp they drag behind them. It leaves an acid aftertaste on John’s tongue. A faultiness; as if they — he — are fake, and it blurs until the world feels the false one instead, unable to stand its own creations.

He stares at the oil-dark anvil, the heavy thing dead and gleaming, and thinks: isn’t it funny, how you die with people and get reborn with them, and then one morning you wake up and never see them again. Like it never happened. A twisted dream conjured by a lonely mind.

He moves his hand to the railing, fingers tapping once, twice. Gale’s gaze flicks down at the sound, and for a second their eyes meet. Neither says a word.

By the time they reach the gift shop, the quiet has softened, drawn thin. The little shop is cramped and sun-warm, filled with the smell of varnish and cotton and something faintly sweet, cherry tobacco maybe.

Postcards hang from a spinning rack, all of them the same blue sky and empty prairie, that one of the boys spins around like a toy while his mother tries to stop him. Rows of keychains, paperweights, mugs. A shelf lined with small plush horses. And, on the far wall, a line of cowboy hats stacked in every shade of brown and beige.

Gale stops there. Picks one up.

He turns it over in his hands first. Examines the stitching, the little metal concho at the side. Then, he settles it on his head.

John laughs under his breath before he can help it. “Didn’t know you were auditioning for a rodeo,” he says.

Gale glances at him, one eyebrow raised, a faint grin playing at the corner of his mouth. The hat tilts slightly, shadowing his eyes, and for some reason it makes his face look older, sharper. He looks good, and John can’t quite think the word without something in his chest going tight.

He believed he had no hope left. That he had strangled the little fucker; shoved it in a box and left it back in Wisconsin to rot with all the other things that John couldn't carry with him in Casper. Looking at Gale now smiling through the shadow of the brim, eyes sparkling, impish, as if they’re in on some secret that belongs only to them, as if they’re the only ones alive in the room  —reminiscent of something that John believed stayed in England amongst dead people, should have stayed there perhaps, too raw and too much — John feels it flicker alive as if never truly gone.

For the first time John wants to go home. Wants to return to Manitowoc with his Frankenstein’s creature-hope, and this strange, stitched-together thing he’s become, crawl into a bed that he never rests in, and wait for the both of them to burn on a pyre.

“Doesn’t suit me,” Gale says, taking it off, but John can’t look away.

“You sure?” he asks, voice quieter than he means.

“Positive.”

Gale hangs the hat back on the peg, turns toward another shelf. John stays where he is, staring at the spot where Gale stood. The air feels heavier now, denser, as if the room’s grown smaller. His movements feel heavy.

He reaches for the same hat and tries it on.

The brim dips low, cuts the light in a way that hides half his face. He tips it slightly, catching his reflection in a strip of glass near the counter. He doesn’t recognize himself for a second. The set of his jaw, the narrow eyes. Something meaner, hungrier, looking back. He doesn’t know what to think of that, but he does think it ought to feel foreign, instead of belonging to him.

When he turns, Gale’s watching him.

There’s a flicker there on Gale’s face, something startled and sharp, a pull that John can’t name. It passes in a heartbeat, but he feels it catch low in his stomach like a spark waiting for air.

Before either of them speaks, one of the boys — the middle one, maybe nine — darts up beside John. He’s holding a toy revolver, the kind painted silver with a bright orange tip. “You look like Wyatt Earp,” he says with a grin, utterly sure of himself.

John blinks, then huffs a laugh, tipping the hat up a little. “That right?”

The boy nods solemnly. “He was a lawman. Shot bad guys.”

“Is that so?” John murmurs. “Guess I’ll have to keep an eye out, then.” John winks at him and the boy grins.

Then his father calls from across the shop. “Ollie! Don’t bother the man.”

He approaches a moment later, a stocky man with a kind face weathered by sun, hat in hand out of politeness. “Sorry about him,” he says to John, glancing up at the hat with an approving nod. “Can’t get enough of this stuff. We’ve been to every cowboy museum from here to Cheyenne.”

“No bother,” John says. He adjusts the brim. “Suppose you’ve got to start them young.”

The man chuckles. “That’s what I tell their ma.” His gaze shifts between John and Gale, something appraising but not unkind in it. “You boys passing through?”

“Something like that,” Gale answers, polite but flat.

“Fine town,” the man says, as if convincing himself. “Got heart.”

“Sure does,” John says, tone dry but not enough to offend.

The man laughs politely, nods, and shepherds his son back toward the counter. The eldest girl, lingering near the postcards, meets John’s eyes just for a second, then drops her gaze, color blooming faintly on her cheeks again.

The father’s voice trails off as he talks to the clerk.

John takes the hat off then, laughs to fill the space they’ve both created. “Don’t look so nervous, Cleven. I’m not buying it.”

“Good,” Gale says, too quickly. Then softer, almost an afterthought- “Doesn’t suit you either.”

“Guess not.” John puts it back. His fingers linger a moment longer than they should on the brim.

Something connects with John’s elbow when the boy from earlier barrels past waving his toy revolver. His mother follows, an apology already on her lips.

“Sorry,” she says to John, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. “They see cowboy hats and lose their minds. I’ve stopped trying to keep up.”

John huffs a small laugh. “No harm done. Kid’s got good aim.”

“God help me if he ever gets his hands on the real thing.” She pauses, studying him the way mothers do, not suspicious, just quietly taking measure. “You local?”

He shakes his head. “Just passing through.”

“Thought so. You’ve got that look.”

He raises an eyebrow. “What look’s that?”

“The kind people get when they’re somewhere they don’t belong but can’t quite leave yet.”

John’s smile twitches, thin. “Guess that’s most folks, isn’t it?”

“Maybe.” She glances toward Gale, who has turned away to examine a shelf of postcards, shoulders drawn but John knows he is listening. “You two on the road long?”

John’s mouth opens, but the answer hesitates. “A while,” he says finally. “Long enough to forget what day it is.”

“That sounds either lovely or miserable,” she says, not unkindly. “Depending on who you’ve got beside you.”

Something in the way she says it makes John look away. His fingers tighten briefly on the counter before he lets go. “He’s good company.”

“I’m sure he is.” Her tone is gentle, knowing in that casual way only strangers can manage. She gives him a smile that feels both harmless and uncomfortably precise. “Well, you two drive safe, all right? Roads get lonely out here if you don’t keep talking.”

Her hand brushes his arm as she passes, the briefest touch, the kind that shouldn’t mean anything, and yet it lands in him like static.

Gale walks towards him, as the teenage girl lingering behind raises her eyes to them. He steps so close that the heat of him brushes against John’s side. Then, without hesitation, almost absentminded, he slides a hand into John’s pocket.

She looks between the two men — John standing still, jaw set; Gale half-turned, his hand already in John’s pocket — and something in her face tightens. Not comprehension, exactly. Just the faint, stunned awareness of something private she wasn’t meant to see.

Gale pulls the keys free, his knuckles brushing John’s hip.

John doesn’t move.

Gale turns, and without a word pushes the door open, the jingle of metal cutting through the hush. The girl flinches at the sound and follows her family out.

Sunlight spills across the floor, harsh and grey-gold, catching the back of his neck as he steps outside.

The door swings shut behind him, the bell above it giving a half-hearted jingle that dies too soon.

John stays where he is, jaw tight, pulse hammering at the base of his throat. He stares at the door, at the strip of sunlight still glowing along its edge.

His pocket feels suddenly, stupidly empty.

He closes the passenger door harsher than he should, rocking the car. The sound of the engine running fills his ears and he looks at Gale’s profile as he puts the car to drive.

His frown deepens; Gale’s expression remains passive as he merges onto the highway.

The restlessness from before returns, itching under John’s skin. He reaches into his jacket, takes out the pack, lights one, and tosses both lighter and cigarettes into the space between them. The wine bottles clink. On his third exhale, he turns the radio on. The road hums under the tires, endless, empty but for the occasional truck.

Gale turns it off.

They do it five times, until John grits, “It’s my fucking car.”

“I’m driving.”

“Didn’t tell you you could.”

“Didn’t push me off either.”

John snarls. Runs a hand across his face. “You are impossible.”

“I’m impossible?”

“Yes.”

John’s elbow rests against the window. Finally, he says, “You didn’t have to take the keys like that.”

Gale doesn’t look at him. “Didn’t trust you not to do something stupid.”

John huffs, dry. “What, buy a hat?”

“Or talk to someone else like that.”

That hits harder than it should. John turns toward him slow. “Like what?”

Gale’s jaw works. “You know damn well like what.”

A bitter laugh escapes him. “Christ, Gale. You jealous of a woman twice your age and her three kids?”

“No.”

“Right.” John laughs humorlessly. “Right. My bad. You don’t feel anything you aren’t supposed to.”

“Don’t start.”

“I’m not starting.” He takes the last drag of the cigarette and lowers the window more to throw it out.

The problem are Camels, John reasons. Slightly spicy, slightly aromatic, with a sweet leathery edge. Light. Haven’t decided what they want to be beyond resembling something exotic. Not woody and faintly sweet, dense, tobacco sitting heavy on your tongue like burnt sugar. No strong, warm, dark after-odor lingering on your clothes, on spaces. Full-bodied and taking.

John needs a Lucky Strike now. Needs it between his lips. Needs to blow its smoke on Gale’s face and watch him widen his eyes and cough, because Gale has been around smokers all his life, but he still can’t take that type of smoke. Not on the first blow.

Then, John is going to strangle him. For the past seven days, for the past six years, for ruining Luckies for him. Maybe even push that lighter on John’s jacket pocket inside his mouth deep enough to swallow it; throat working around sharp metal angles.

“You shouldn’t do that.” Gale admonishes. “Not near fields.”

They are not near fields. They are passing a refinery. All concrete and stacks.

“Sorry mum.” John mocks, furious. Lights another cigarette. “Didn’t see the field over there.”

“John.”

“Don’t John me.” The sound revibrates in the small space and Gale hunches his shoulders.

John looks out the window, at clouds gathering darker grey now.

The hum between them — that dark, honey-sick pull — is back, stronger now, but twisted with anger, confusion, and something that’s been following them for years.

His hand tightens on the edge of the seat. “You think I liked her?”

“I think you like being liked.”

John huffs a breath. “Who doesn’t?”

The silence after that is loud. Wind rushes through the cracked window; a truck passes, its shadow cutting briefly over them.

Gale’s hand tightens once on the wheel before he speaks, the kind of control that came from years of learning not to say what he wanted to.

“You scare me sometimes.” It’s what he settles on in a moderate tone. John knows he is trying to placate, to reason, but they are a bit too tilted on the side for that. And it infuriates him that Gale won’t allow even that to be fully lived.

John turns his head, not looking at him entirely. “Yeah?”

“You get that look- like you’re gonna tear something apart just to see if it’s real.”

For a second, John can’t breathe.

They are not in Stalag, he tells himself once.

His voice comes out rough. “Maybe I already did.”

“Then do it somewhere else.”

It lands heavy. A bottomless drop in his stomach. His first instinct is to bite back, meet hurt with hurt, sharp and fast. But what comes out instead is nothing. A half breath, a hum swallowed by the engine’s low growl.

The skin over his knuckles tightens white around the seat. He wants to speak, to say something stupid like I didn’t mean it, but the truth sits too close to the bone.

In the reflection of the windshield, he can see Gale; his jaw set, the hard outline of his throat shifting when he swallows, the stiffness on his arms as he drives. Every line of him says don’t. And John doesn’t.

After a while, Gale reaches forward, adjusts the vent, the small click loud in the car. His hand lingers there, fingers brushing the dash, before retreating.

John glances sideways, the words still there, lodged in his throat—

sorry

stay

but they die before they reach his tongue.

He stares out the window again. The highway unspools ahead, endless and white under the sky. He can see their reflections faintly in the glass. His own face hollowed by light, Gale’s unmoving expression. He gets that feeling, like he did in Germany, skin prickling, hands twitching. He wants to let out a shout. Wants to walk to a fence just to make everything stop. Make Gale stop.

“Don’t look at me like that,” John mutters, though Gale hasn’t turned.

“I’m not.”

“You are.” His voice drops. “And you are doing that thing.”

“Doing what?”

“That thing—” he gestures vaguely, frustrated. “That fucking thing like you’re trying to fix me with your eyes.”

“Maybe I am.”

John laughs, sharp. “Yeah? How’s that working out for you?”

Gale exhales hard through his nose, bites his lip. “You don’t make it easy.”

“I’m not trying to.”

“I know.”

That last part lands a breath after. Quiet, not accusing, not forgiving, just tired. It crawls under John’s ribs. He doesn’t answer.

The road hums. The cigarette burns low between his fingers, ash trembling. He taps it once against the window frame, smoke curling out into the slipstream.

But because Gale is a stubborn fucker, who doesn’t know when to stop when it is good for him, he says, casual as if lighting up a jerry can of gasoline—

“Since when do you smoke these?” he asks, nodding toward the pack between them, voice too casual, too sharp at the edges.

Oh God, John is going to kill him. He is going to kill him, and it’s going to be slow and torturous, the kind that will have tears rolling down his face, blood down his body, and John is going to drink them like a man starved.

He turns, gaze burning.

“You want to know everything?” John says finally, voice low and dangerous. “Fine. I switched brands. I sometimes need to sleep with the light on. I can’t stand milk anymore but in coffee. Anything else you’d like to fix while you’re at it?”

Gale doesn’t answer. His jaw tightens; his eyes stay on the road.

John smiles thinly. “That’s what I thought.”

The silence that follows hums with static.

John, angry and done with it all, indignant, extinguishes his cigarette on the dashboard. Watches with a giddy, self-satisfied fascination at the single string of smoke rise, curling up to the roof.

He hears Gale’s breath come out in small, controlled puffs and knows his knuckles on the wheel have gone white.

John grins at the scenery, all teeth.

John had cried that February in an office overlooking a garden, with a man who, he learned later, had fought in the first war.

It was a place that had started, silently, to feel safe.

He cried for the people they had lost, for the war in its entirety, for the ghost of his past self who he couldn’t get back, slipping farther and farther away.

He had cried for Gale— who remained an unraised thought, but a topic he couldn’t avoid forever.

He cried for the ache he carried around, the one so close to what he’d felt that night in the payphone in London, only now there was no terror following it.

The floor didn’t disappear under him in one swift motion. He wasn’t falling too fast and not fast enough to hit the ground and crash.

It was slow.

A slipping. Lethargic, dragging, stinging. Oozing.

Like separating skin that had been cut deep by a sharp knife and had just begun to heal, only to be forced open again with blunt fingers. Hear that sickening sound blood and fluid make under skin when it’s pulled apart.

There were times when John would dip a finger into that opening, searching for the muscle, the gristle, the bone underneath, just to feel something else.

Something other than grief, devastation, desire, and love.

Maybe if he stretched the wound far enough with his fingers, let it bleed freely, everything inside him would bleed out too.

(He never did.)

Benny and Johnny show up early. Five days early.

Benny shoves Johnny when he hovers in the doorway of John’s room at the inn and gives him a pointed look that John pretends not to see.

Johnny eyes him with that canny, quiet look of his as he and Benny make small talk, the kind of look that makes John feel caught and exposed. He masks it with an exaggerated salute and a clasp on Benny’s shoulder that has the man nearly buckle under him.

He knows why they are here early. He just needs to figure out whose idea it was.

He had left Gale on the porch of the Spencer residence the day before. A silent agreement that it was best to be apart for a day.

It is why he had Johnny call them after lunch to announce their arrival. He hadn’t been in the mood to hear either his voice or Marge’s.

They agree to meet at a bar. The one they went to the first time.

The three of them – Meatball stays at the inn with an overenthusiastic Mrs. Stevens – arrive first and linger outside the chipped brown double doors, waiting for the happy couple.

By then, John, who had managed to settle the static in his chest through the hours of yesterday and today, feels something twist up again when he sees two familiar heads of blond hair moving towards them.

It is Johnny’s turn to nudge him with his shoulder when John freezes for a second too long, his mouth twitching.

Gale finds his eyes, and they hold each other. It starts calm, tentative from both sides. Smooths when they both find the other willing. Then, after stepping closer, close enough that they are a breath away, it turns almost predatory beneath the surface, before they’re both reminded of the others standing nearby. They reel it back.

With an exhale they both walk inside the bar.

They take a table near the back. The bar is not as crowded as on a Friday, but busy enough to half-drown the jukebox under the chatter.

Benny and Johnny sit on one side of the round sofa, shoulders brushing every time one of them moves. Marge is beside Gale on the opposite side, her hand resting easy over his wrist as she laughs at something Benny says. John sits at the end of the sofa across from Gale; shoulders loose, smile just sharp enough to gleam. Their bodies turned slightly inward—never fully facing, never fully apart.

Gale looks at ease in that way he sometimes does when he is watching others; elbow on the table, glass in hand, smile small but present. The sight of it pulls something tight in John’s chest.

It almost feels easy.

“Didn’t think you’d be eager to be this far out west, Johnny,” John says. “Last time I saw you, you swore the next train you took would be straight into the ocean.”

Johnny grins, a little crooked. “Got tired of saltwater. Needed dust instead.”

“Always knew you liked things that choke,” John says, too quick, followed by a laugh that sits wrong in his chest. He washes it down with whiskey.

Benny smirks, kicks his boot lightly under the table. “Good to see you still got that bark on you, Bucky.”

“Comes and goes.” His eyes flick to Gale’s. A flash of apology, or challenge, it’s hard to tell when he hasn’t decided yet.

He sees a certain playfulness simmer in the other’s eyes, just below the surface, and John  finds himself itching to drink more. Order the whole bottle and sit in a corner, or outside where the cold bites your skin red, and down it all, until he can convince himself he doesn’t feel anything.

“Few days early,” Johnny says, grinning at Marge, steering the air back toward something lighter. “Thought we’d help the groom work on his vows.”

“Speak for yourself,” Benny says. “I came to watch Bucky make a speech sober for once.”

John smirks. “That’ll be the miracle of the decade.”

Gale glances at him, half a smile, the kind that still catches John off-guard. “You could do it.”

John shrugs, keeps his eyes on the rim of his glass. “Guess we’ll find out.”

“I’m sure Gale can manage on his own.” Marge says, teasing. Her smile lingers.

Gale hums, amused. “You don’t know these two.”

“Hey,” Benny cuts in, “we’re model citizens, Buck.”

“Yeah,” Gale says smiling. “Heard about the school Johnny. How’s that going?”

“Nothing being a captain didn’t prepare me for,” he responds, and the table breaks into laughter.

The rhythm of it feels easy, the kind that only exists when everyone is pretending hard enough.
Gale’s laugh fades first. His gaze drifts across the table, catches John’s for a fraction too long before returning to his glass.

Marge leans forward, still smiling. “I’m just glad you’re all here. It means a lot to Gale.”

“Means a lot to me too,” John says before he can stop himself. The words come out smoother than he expects. The thing lodged in his throat turns over, folding on itself.

Marge nods, touched, and turns towards Johnny to ask him about music. Gale doesn’t look up but John sees the small movement, the way his fingers drum once against the glass before going still.

Benny nudges him on the arm. “Need smokes. Wanna come with?”

John frowns but is already sliding out the seat. Benny adds, “We passed a tobacco store in the corner. Buck?”

They both know he won’t come.

“Nah, I’m good.” Gale says shaking his head, turning his attention to Marge and Johnny.

Outside, the air is cool. They walk to the store with idle chatter about the ride and Chicago, and John wonders if he was wrong—if it was Benny who wanted to come early.

They buy cigarettes and linger outside to smoke, a silent agreement to stay a while longer.

In the end he doesn't have to push too much.

“Johnny.” Benny says simply, cigarette dangling around the syllables. John already knew deep down. “I know you know he moved to Chicago in October.”

John knew. Because before going down there, Johnny had passed by to see him. Had bonded way too fast with Amy and had left John winded and way too emotional.

Still, he narrows his eyes at the words, scrutinizes through information he already knows.

“He- he moved in after New Year’s.” That Bucky didn't know. “He hasn't told you ‘cause he is worried. ‘Bout you I mean.”

John rolls his eyes through the drag. Typical Brady.

“He really likes teaching at the school, you know? And I’m pretty sure the students love him, despite the-” Benny gestures wildly across his face in lieu of Johnny’s everything and John huffs a laugh. Of course they do. It is hard not to like Johnny. “But he misses the band.”

They had talked a bit about that on the phone. Johnny evasive, testing the air, gauging John’s opinion. John had let him sit with his uncertainty, hadn’t said-

Just fucking do it, you are way too good to not to.

Even though the words burned in his tongue. He understood that Johnny needed time. They all do.

“And I'm- well thinking about not leaving the army.” After Bucky’s pending silence he continues, “He is not all that thrilled.”

“It's hard, isn't it?” He throws the butt of his cigarette on the ground, grinds it with his heel unnecessarily. “To stay behind.”

“Was thinking training if they'll have me.”

John let's out another huff of a laugh. "They will. You were one of the most competent pilots of the 100th Benny. And copilot to Buck. That gives easy a hundred extra points."

Benny laughs and they light another cigarette.

When they've burned more than half, John can't help but ask, punishing himself, “Was it hard?”

Benny looks something awful then; a mixture of sympathy and guilt that has John’s fingers twist at his side, still he holds his dark eyes.

“Not really.” Then, after a pause, “Took him a while.” Points with the hand holding the cigarette towards the bar- “He’s a stubborn asshole. Pain in my ass.”

John grins, because yeah, Brady is. The jealousy in his chest unfair, but not less sharp. He pushes it down.

“Is usually right too,” Benny says pointedly. “When he was up my case about coming here early, he didn’t say anything about the nice drive or any of that crap. Just, Bucky needs us, since he is stupid enough to agree to best man.”

John has to look away, the pressure behind his eyes too sudden and too much.

“I think he was plotting to kill Gale all through Nebraska.”

John tries to laugh, but it comes out wet. Benny doesn't say anything.

John runs his tongue across his teeth, takes a drag. “I am happy for you two.”

He means it. He means it with all his heart, and Benny knows it.

When they get back inside there is a girl talking to Johnny at the bar and Benny winks at him over the heads of the other patrons, smile easy, posture relaxed.

“All good?” Marge asks, as the two of them slide into their seats.

“Yep,” John says.

Later, after the first hour, the tension has melted into a warmth that sits low on John’s stomach. Benny is at the bar with Johnny chatting with some girls and the bartender chips in from now and then when he isn’t pouring drinks.

He leans against the bar, half-smile fixed in place, the kind people take for charm when it’s really just a way to keep from folding in on himself. The mirror behind the bottles throws his face back at him, too pale, too still.

Gale and Marge have been pulled into a dance, there is another couple with them, friends from school apparently. She laughs, turning under his arm, the hem of her dress brushing the floorboards.

The girl next to him has been watching him for a while — early twenties, hair up, nails painted red — and John has been half open about it. She’s got that curiosity in her gaze, the kind that stings a bit when it touches something raw.

“You’re not from here,” she says eventually, her tone bold with a hair of uncertainty.

He smiles without turning his head. “Is it that obvious?”

“You don’t look like you belong to anything small.”

“That a compliment or a warning?”

“Guess that depends on what you’re running from.” She says, now certain of herself, her smile turning more refined.

John laughs, quiet, knows she is going to grow into something brave, if the world doesn’t smother her. He hopes it doesn’t. “That’d be a long list.”

She tilts her chin, playful. “Maybe I could handle a few names.”

He finally turns towards her, more curious and amused than anything else. “You think so?”

The jukebox switches to a slower song, and the room softens. Her reflection caught in his glass, her perfume light, sugar-sweet. Eyes green, flecked with brown, candid and shrewd.

He leans closer, voice low. “You ever been so far away from something you start wondering if it ever really existed?”

Her brows pull, unsure. She assesses him for a moment. “You mean like home?”

“Yeah,” he says. “Something like that.”

Her hand moves, tentative, brushing his sleeve. He lets her, doesn’t pull away. He’s watching her, but his eyes keep flicking toward the dance floor where Gale spins Marge, easy and smiling. Because, Gale, despite his protests he is half good at dancing.

The girl follows his gaze. “She yours?”

John laughs, that brittle, breathless sound. “Not even close.”

She blushes and he watches her do it. Watches the color rise in her cheeks. Something in him twists, cruel and hollow, and he reaches up, smooths a strand of hair behind her ear, fingers grazing her neck.

“Pretty,” he says, kind if a little cocksure. “You should stay away from men who drink like they’re remembering something.”

Then he’s gone, pulling back, tossing coins on the counter, half-empty glass abandoned.

When he turns, Gale’s watching from across the room, still but taut, like something coiled. Their eyes catch, brief and flaring, then gone as Gale looks away to Marge. He tells her something.

John exhales slow. The warmth of the room turns sour.

He does something stupid then, he turns back around and asks the girl for a dance.

The song that plays isn’t as slow as before, but it is mellow enough to allow closeness if you want it. She hesitates for a heartbeat when he offers his hand, then takes it, smiling. Cool fingers curling around his own.

The floorboards are warm, varnish dulled by years of boots and spilled drinks. Her perfume hangs faint and sweet between them. He lets her lead the distance, close enough to feel her breath, not close enough to be indecent.

He laughs at something she says a little too loud and too sharp at the edges. His chest tightens in the act. There is a familiarity in the whole act, something he has done before countless of times, with countless faces and bodies.

The sound of his laughter startles her a little; she laughs too, but there is uncertainty on the edges of her, and he softens, guiding her into the rhythm. She’s light, easy to move with. His grip on her waist tightens.

Across the room, Gale’s hand is at Marge’s back, steady, guiding her in slow circles. Her hair brushes his jaw when she turns, his smile breaking through in those unguarded seconds. The kind that belongs to him when he isn’t watching himself.

John’s gaze catches on them like a hook. Feels everything land somewhere deep, like an ache spreading quietly outward.

The girl follows it again, eyes darting toward the other couple, her smile dimming. “You sure she’s not—”

He cuts in, voice too calm. “Yeah.”

“Then you’ve got a funny way of proving it.”

He huffs out a breath that’s almost a laugh but more a sigh, and pulls her closer, enough to make the air between them thicken.

It’s not desire that drives him. It’s the old hunger, the one that lives where loneliness meets fury. A want to feel something he can control.

When he looks back, Gale’s eyes are already on him. A look in his blue eyes that is not anger or jealousy, just something searching, raw in its stillness. Then it is gone, like it never happened.

John knows what he is doing. Knows it is cruel in a quiet, cowardly way. He feels the protest rising in his chest, and the sweetness of it too. A weird sense of punishment.

The jukebox crackles, skips. The lights above the dance floor flicker through red and amber, painting their faces strange. In another life John would have fallen in love with someone like her.

When the song ends, she looks up at him, breathless and flushed, like she’s waiting for him to say something. He only smiles, the kind that has is a bit too much in it for someone to discern anything; he knows she’ll get the message, and steps back.

“Thanks for the dance.” His voice soft when he says it.

He leaves her there, brown hair shining red from the lights, and heads for the door, the cold spilling in when he opens it.

The night air hits like a slap. Cold, clean, stings his eyes. It drags the heat from his skin, leaves behind the thrum in his blood.

He leans against the brick wall on the side, the neon from the bar bleeding red over the street. A couple passes him, laughing, and disappears inside.

He lights a cigarette with hands that aren’t quite steady, watches the smoke curl up, ghostlike. His throat feels raw. The laughter and music spill faintly from the windows, warped and distant. And John, a stranger in the world, feels the weight of that loneliness engulf him. Something always tilted wrong in him. Even this.

The door opens behind him. Footsteps. Then the soft click as it shuts.

He doesn’t turn, though he doesn’t have to. He knows the shape of that silence, could trace it with his fingers in his sleep.

“Not like you to sneak out before the night is done,” Gale says. His voice is low, placid, but there’s something underneath it. John almost wants to tear it out, take it onto his hands and hold it until Gale looks at him without any of that awful restraint that haunts them both. 

“Needed air,” John answers. “Too warm in there.”

“Mm.” Gale steps closer, enough that John can smell the scent of cedar and something citrus; familiar and safe.

For a while, neither says anything. The silence stretches, a taut wire that neither wants to pluck. It wraps around them, binds.

Gale leans beside him, shoulder brushing the wall. “You know,” he says, almost offhand, “she thought you were trying to be polite. The girl.”

Smoke leaves his mouth in a long, slow stream. “You watching me that close, then?”

“She looked young.”

John tips his head, eyes narrowing at the tone. “You are not jealous. So, what the fuck are you, Gale?”

He doesn’t say anything. John watches the way his throat works around dead words. The light from inside catches the edge of Gale’s jaw, the faint shadow under his eyes. The frown on his face. He looks exhausted. He looks beautiful, even in John’s anger.

“Worried,” he tells him finally.

John looks down at the cigarette burning low between his fingers. Feels the heat nip at his skin before taking a last drag and dropping it.  The ember falls, scattering light before it dies.

“You could stop doing that,” Gale says after a beat, looking towards the street. “Trying to pick at old wounds just to make sure they still bleed.”

John’s jaw tightens. “You think that’s what I was doing?”

“I think you were trying not to feel anything.” Gale’s voice is quiet. John knows if he turns to look he’ll find big sad eyes looking at him; he swallows thickly. “And you’re not half as good at it as you think.”

He says them soft; they land hard.

John feels them deep, a slow, deliberate ache, curving his bones. He wants to laugh, cut the moment before it swells, but it catches in his throat.

“Don’t flatter yourself,” he says finally, though his voice is rough now. “Not everything I do is about you.”

Gale turns his head then, eyes finding him for a breath too long. The streetlamp catches in the blue— pale and glacial.  “I didn’t say it was.”

John’s heart stutters once, then steadies. He can feel the heat of him now, close but not touching. The kind of closeness that hurts more than distance.

“She looked happy,” John says, just to fill the silence; to remind himself why they are where they are.  “You looked happy.”

“She is.”

“That’s good.”

“It is.”

The space between them hums, full of things he doesn’t trust himself to name, let alone hold for too long.

John shifts, breath fogging between them. “You shouldn’t be out here. Marge will be looking for you.”

Gale gives a half-smile that doesn’t reach his eyes. “Yeah. Probably.”

He turns, starts towards the door, then pauses. Looks back. “You can stop punishing yourself, you know,” he says quietly again, it makes something lodge in John’s throat, something he will never swallow. “Whatever you think you did- it’s done.”

John doesn’t move. Doesn’t look at him. His lips pull into something between a grimace and a smile, and he lets out a soft huff.  “I’m not sure it ever will be,” he says, so low it barely travels the distance between them.

He finds his eyes.

Gale watches him for a long second, something flickering across his face, his yes — pity, anger, tenderness, maybe all three — then nods once.

“Goodnight, Bucky.”

“Night,” John says.

The door closes. The bar swallows him whole again.

He stays where he is long after the door shuts. The neon hums above, bleeding its slow red pulse over the street. The air still holds the shape of Gale— cedar, warmth, the ghost of breath that hasn’t yet faded. It lingers the way heat does after a fire’s gone out. Makes the crack inside John yearn to open further.

Somewhere down the street, a car backfires; laughter follows, spilling from another bar, another life. It sounds distant, like something happening in a dream he’s already woken from.

He rubs his thumb against the brick, feeling the grit, the cold. The ache in his chest folds in on itself, smaller now but sharper, the kind of pain that knows how to wait. The night smells of smoke and beer and rain that won’t fall.

He tilts his head back, eyes half-closed, lets the cold bite until he can’t tell if it’s the air or what’s left of him that’s shaking.

Then he drops the cigarette into the gutter, watches the ember hiss out, and goes back inside.

The next morning, Johnny sits across from him at breakfast. Mrs. Stevens has gone to brew another pot of coffee, and Benny is out walking Meatball. There are two couples, and a lone businessman scattered in the dining room with them.

“Crank knows too,” he says without preamble, voice flat, and just his usual frown and hard look.

Bucky freezes, fork halfway to his mouth, then shrugs in a jerky motion. “What? You want a Hail Mary?”

“I’m pretty sure Blakely does too,” Johnny goes on, ignoring him. “Most of us did. Do. Maybe not Croz, but he’ll come around once he’s caught up.”

Bucky nods, waiting for more. When nothing comes, he leans back in his chair, his left arm hooked over the one beside him. “You just have the balls to talk to me about it now?”

Johnny rolls his eyes, then looks at him with something Bucky would call pity—except Johnny Brady doesn’t pity anyone. “You just say the word,” he says, casual as anything, like this is a normal conversation.

John laughs once, brittle. “And what? You come and whisk me away? I won’t ruin the wedding, Johnny.”

Now Johnny gives him that look, the one that says you’re being an idiot. Makes John bristle.

“We’ll support you.” He says it so simply, like a truth carved into stone. John’s chest tightens; he drops his hand to his lap, fist clenched. He hadn’t expected that. He isn’t sure he even wants it.

“If you want to be whisked away,” Johnny adds. “Or if the wedding doesn’t turn out like it’s meant to.”

John just stares at him.

“You fucked up last night.” Johnny says without raising his voice, but there is enough heat underneath to burn an army. Nostrils flare.

“Wouldn’t call it that.”

“You did.” Johnny purses his lips, turning away, makes a tsk sound, shakes his head at a thought and then looks back at John, eyes hard. “I don’t know how. But when he walked back inside, he looked like-” He stops, jaw tightening. “Like you did after he went down. And you still don’t get it.”

“I didn’t do anything.”

“Bucky.”

“Nothing he can’t handle.” The anger rises fast, sharp. Because this isn’t just on him. Gale’s always been the one who knows better, the one everyone trusts to keep steady. “Didn’t tell him to follow me.”

Johnny sighs. “I’m aware. But you don’t make it easy for anyone.”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” His voice lifts, sharp, too loud for the quiet room.

“I’m not picking a fight,” Johnny says, reasonably as ever. “I’m just saying you are the imponderable factor.”

John exhales hard, shoulders slumping. “I know,” he says finally, “I’m not the best at being… reliable. At being there for people. But-”

“You were there for us.” Johnny snatches the words out of John, because he knows what he means.   

“Buck was there for you too.” He sees Johnny’s mouth open to argue and rushes on, “In Stalag. I wasn’t there.”

“You were when it mattered.”

John knows this isn’t an argument he’ll win. Johnny looks out the window, the morning light glancing off his cup. “Even when you picked fights with all of us,” he says softly. “We knew if the guards came, the first one to stand up would be you.”

John’s whole body vibrates; The dining room is too small or perhaps he is. His head splits in two. “Shut up, Brady,” he mutters, because there’s nothing else to say.

Johnny only smiles, a soundless chuckle breaking through. “The only reason I went to Benny was because I thought of you.”

John groans, dragging a hand down his face. “Christ, I paint a dramatic pining picture, don’t I?”

“No.”

Johnny meets his eyes. Then, after a beat, “Yes. But I thought- you needed him dead just to convince yourself to fly again. So, you could find him under the ashes and bury yourself there.”

John swallows at the words, his stomach churns and he feels his body tremble.

“When I saw you jump from the pickup for Jack’s jacket, all I could think was- this is it, John. You are going to die. Finally last mission.”

“Johnny.” It comes hollow, small.

“I followed you. And I would again.” He presses, the words tumbling out of his mouth as if he can’t stop them. “Even though it was stupid and reckless and a suicide. Because it was what we did. Because I would stand over your graves, until they killed me too.”

“Jesus.”

“We all would have,” Johnny says, quieter. “What was left of us.”

John thinks suddenly of a pub in England; RAF boys and locals and their own ragged band, Curt still alive, everyone drunk and draped over one another, dizzy with something that resembled youth and borrowed time. They had been enamored with each other and themselves. Pet names and heavy petting.

Johnny looks down at the table, almost bashful, and it’s so foreign on him that John’s hands open and close without meaning to.

“I knew,” Johnny says. “The moment I joined his squadron back in Texas, I knew Bucky. And when we went to England— it gave me something like hope.”

There is something coming up John’s throat and he coughs uncomfortable, but Johnny keeps going. “A sense that there is a life beyond. Even in Stalag, when you were too far up your own ass. When he needed something, you woke up.”

He shakes his head, then adds in an all-Brady manner, “It was unnerving to watch. All of it.”

John smiles meekly, lets the words settle into him until they find their place and he can breathe without whizzing. Most he knew in an abstract way to be true; hearing them aloud takes more patience than he thought he had.

“I’ll be fine, Johnny.”

“No, you won’t.” Johnny takes a sip of his coffee, eyes closed. “And that’s fine. Just— pick up the phone. I’m working. Can’t be leaving the school to drive up to Manitowoc or wherever you end up stationed, every time you go dark.”

John laughs, a little too watery. Johnny doesn’t look up.

Much later, after dinner at the Spencer residence — meatloaf on the table, Marge’s parents gone to her aunt’s — John steps onto the porch with Johnny for a smoke, because Mrs Spencer doesn’t allow it in the house, he tells the other man,

“I think that’s the most I’ve ever heard you talk.” Observes as Johnny rolls his eyes silently, declining the offered cigarette and taking out his pipe instead.

They don't talk about how they both believe that John will snap harder than he did the night before.

It unravels like a yarn ball; expectantly, predicably and all jerking movements that go from one side to the other. And like all things, it is half his and half Gale’s.

They are at the bar again, the five of them and Ellie, after the makeshift rehearsal and setting up the space for the reception. Three days before the big day.

The rehearsal had gone well enough. Marge had stood in the center of the room, veil half-pinned, giving orders between laughs; Benny and Johnny argued over the lights; Gale carried tables like they weighed nothing; Ellie fussed with the centerpieces and candles. There had been music from a small radio crackling through the room, and half a bottle of gin passed around.

Everyone had looked happy.

Everyone except John, who had stood too quiet, too still, like he used to before an operation. The pit in his stomach widening, everything inside him turning hot and stinging and too much. He was going to collapse under the weight of it all; breaths haggard and hurting his lungs with every exhale. At the end he was left thrumming with electricity, the tips of his fingers tingling with the need to grasp into something.

They don’t find an empty table this time, so they sit at the bar. Gale is talking with Benny near the corner, hushed with heated intervals. John stays farther down with Johnny, Marge, and Ellie, contributing to the conversation only when needed. His eyes dance all over the room, only ever settling into the other man for a couple of seconds before looking elsewhere.

Gale’s half turned from him, and a group of strangers fills the space between them. John can’t make out what’s being said, only knows the line of his body that he can see. Lean, but tensed, his face goes from harsh lines to something softer, near sad at times, stays argumentative more often, determination in every shadow of his. He is wearing a dark green shirt, the kind that turns his eyes bluer, almost cruelly so. There’s something in the way he frowns. John feels the pull in his own body, the irrational, aching urge to smooth it away with his fingers, to touch him, and to taste.

He looks beautiful in a way John can barely stand.

It’s Johnny’s hand on his shoulder that pulls him back. He’s smiling, that easy, knowing smile that says you should have been listening. John forces a huff of breath that could almost pass for a laugh and takes half a step back.

“We’ll dance,” Marge says, shrugging and giving John an easy smile.

“We?” John echoes, dumbly.

“No.” Johnny says, points between himself and Marge- “We.”

“See you in a bit.” Marge laughs, taking the last sip of her drink and follows Johnny to the dancefloor.

“Right.”

They disappear into the press of people, Marge’s words dissolving into the song. John turns slightly, pretending to study the bottles lined up like a small city of glass and amber behind the bar.

Ellie’s quiet beside him, fingers circling her glass. The light catches in her hair, gold painted red. For a moment, neither says anything. Then John’s eyes wander again, not towards Gale, but to the people dancing. He bites his lip. He needs something, anything warm and alive instead of this cold dread that’s been wrapped around his ribs, squeezing with clammy hands.

“Would you like,” John starts, less smooth than he would have wanted, “to-”

“No.” Ellie says.

He turns, startled at the decisive tone. She is looking at him, assessing and he finds he can’t look away. The air between them hums with something familiar, but weird in that John can trace it but can’t tell what it is exactly. . Makes way for excitement, but it is muddled; there is something he should know, something that nudges the back of his mind.

She gives a little nod in whatever she finds in his eyes. Whatever it is he’ll find it soon.

“But I would like to get some air.” She says then, her voice turning just enough for John to get the message.

His mouth parts, eyes squint for a second. Feels the way his stomach turns for the first time that night with something almost sweet; an anticipation that has his heart thump faster for something pleasant. He thinks it over for a split second and nods once. He sees her shoulders relax and she nods back a smile playing on her lips.

Outside, the night folds around them. The air is damp, smelling of the earlier rain. They slip behind the building, the alley narrow and half-shadowed, the single streetlight pooling sickly yellow on wet pavement.

She turns to him, half-smiling, some of her uncertainty returning. He bents down and kisses her.

It starts tentative, hesitant, the way people do when they’re testing the shape of something they don’t believe in. Her lips are soft, her lipstick heavy in his tongue and her hands colder than they should be. His hand finds the back of her neck, thumb tracing the edge of her jaw, grounding himself in the warmth of her skin. His fingers tangling in soft curls.

Then she moves closer, one hand fisting his shirt, the other sliding up the side of his throat, and the kiss deepens. It doesn’t taste sweet, not even clear desire, just hunger of two people who have both been standing too close to something they can’t have.

John’s breath catches. He pulls back and in the little light they have from the street lamp he finds himself in her eyes. He should have seen it before. Should have realized it in the way Ellie carried herself. That quiet grief, the ghost she carries. There is pain where there should be none.

He wants to ask who. Wants to hunt the man down, shake him, ask what kind of fool could leave someone looking like that. It is absurd, no amount of shaking or fighting can fix any of this.

He leans in again. This time, when his mouth finds hers, he doesn’t fight the trembling that comes with it. He closes his eyes, and for one blind second, he almost believes he’s kissing the ache out of both of them.

They stand too close now, breath and pulse tangled in the narrow dark. The air feels thicker here, close to the wall, the hum of the bar fading into a low throb somewhere behind them.

She’s the one who leans in this time— no hesitation, no searching. Her mouth finds his, sure, and the kiss turns heavy almost instantly. He answers it like he’s starving. Their hands are clumsy, eager, sliding over fabric, over skin. The world narrows to the sound of breath, the scrape of brick on clothes, the soft hitch that leaves her throat when he presses closer.

They are not fooling each other; they know the other wants someone else. But it feels good; the weight of someone, the warmth of skin against skin, the sound of a breath caught and shared. It feels good to be wanted.

John’s fingers trail down, find the edge of her skirt. He hesitates, just once, long enough to see if she’ll stop him. She doesn’t. He pushes the fabric higher, feels the heat of her thigh under his palm. She keens softly into the touch, body turning towards him, and he moves higher.

Her hands are on him too, at his jaw, his shoulder, his chest, tracing like she’s trying to memorize him before she forgets. The night presses closer, the air smelling of rain and smoke and something human.

“Wait—” he says when she pushes his trousers lower.

She stills, looks up at him, one brow arched. He smiles a soft, small one.

“Face to face, or you want to turn?”

Her mouth twitches. “You gonna ask for that?”

“Yes,” he says simply. “Because we’re both doing this for the same reason. And if I turn you around, this turns bad.” For me, left unsaid. She catches it, the space between them too small not to.

“So why ask?”

He exhales, the sound rough. “Because maybe you’d rather not look at me.” He says it half-joking, but his eyes give him away.

Ellie takes a breath. The edge of her face softens; the blue of her eyes turns to something sorrowful. When she touches his cheek, it nearly undoes him.

“John,” she says quiet, wistful, far too gentle for what they’re doing.

He swallows hard. “Come on, Ellie. I’m not a fool.”

“No,” she murmurs, shaking her head, a sad smile flickering and dying there. “You’re something else altogether, though.”

He doesn’t ask what that means. He kisses her instead, deep and hard, until they both gasp, until the heat finds them again. Until thinking stops. After that, the rest comes in flashes— breath, heat, the sharp scrape of brick, her hand at the back of his neck. It’s rougher than it means to be, but there’s a kind of mercy in it too.

Afterwards, he helps her straighten her clothes, fingers trembling just enough to betray him. Neither of them says much. The humid air heavy with the scent of wet asphalt, and they both linger a moment in that alleyway.

“Come on,” he says finally, voice low. “Let’s get you inside.”

She nods, and he leads her back towards the glow of the bar lights. At the door, she touches his arm, a brief squeeze, before slipping inside without looking back.

Inside, the light feels too bright. Benny catches John’s eye from across the room and lifts his brows, a silent question John pretends not to see.

He looks around — at Gale’s back bent toward Benny, at the room moving, the swell of a slow song, life going on as if nothing happened — and for a moment he thinks he can still taste her, that same mix of need and sorrow that’s been following him for years.

John stands there a moment longer. Then he turns the other way, walks down the street to the corner where the tobacco store is still open.

He asks for two packs and the clerk, the same unsmiling, gruff bold man from two days ago, slides them across the counter wordlessly.

Outside the bar again, he taps one free. The warm, nutty Burley leaf with the faint woodsmoke hits his nose, familiar and comforting. God, John had missed the smell. The weight of it, full of body before you even put it in your mouth. Roasted, deep, and earthy.

He lights it, draws deep until the burn settles somewhere under his ribs. It is heavier, slower and denser. Feels it roll through his mouth like warm syrup, sweet, nutty, slightly bitter, coating his tongue and teeth slightly. Taking everything with him.

 Smoke curls thick and creamy into the dark. John has missed this like a starved man.

The door gives under his hand with a low groan, and the noise from inside hits him, a foreign contrast to the outside stillness. The air is heavy with cigarettes, and perfume and the warm tang of too many bodies packed close together.

He steps inside, blinking against the light. The gold and red hues from the lamps create sharp, sickly angles across the room, make everyone appear alive but suspended.

He orders a whiskey. Drinks it in one swallow. It burns on the way down, sweet then bitter. He feels its burn expand in his chest, washing some of the lingering taste of burnt sugar away. He is getting warmer.

There’s a group near the jukebox, laughing too loudly. John reaches into his pocket, pulls another cigarette free, and lights it. He ignores that old gravity at first, low and electric, coiling somewhere beneath his ribs. Heat climbs the back of his neck. Smoke curls over his face as he exhales, a thin veil between him and everything else.

He signals for another drink.

He doesn’t look right away. Doesn’t need to. He knows the feel of it on his skin, like heat finding a nerve. He feels the weight of Gale’s stare before he sees it, steady, assessing, the kind of look that strips the air of sound.

The bartender slides it over, and John takes his time with this one, tongue tracing the rim, the taste sharp and metallic. He lets his eyes wander; anything to ignore the pull across the room.

He drifts toward the group by the jukebox. A woman with glossy hair leans into him, says something he doesn’t quite catch, and he gives her a smile that costs him nothing. Another man claps him on the back, offers a cigarette, asks if he’s from around here. He does this easily, they way he knows. Doesn’t take the offered Camel. Lights a Lucky and feels the thunder rippling through the air behind him.

Nothing dulls the awareness. The slow, steady burn of being watched. He can taste Gale’s disapproval from here, the way it lingers on his tongue like smoke, dry and the right amount of sweet and bitter. It shouldn’t thrill him, but it does. Makes his pulse stumble. Makes him a little dizzy.

He finishes his drink, then gets another. The heat in his stomach settles into something restless, alive. The kind of ache that wants to break something open.

When he finally looks up, Gale is still where he’d felt him; back corner of the bar, shoulders drawn, jaw set, Benny beside him with that easy grin that smooths over any tension.

John pushes off the jukebox, glass still in his hand, and threads through the crowd. The air seems to shift as he moves, heads turning, laughter thinning. By the time he reaches them, Benny’s already reading the room — the static between them — and with a half-smile, he mutters something about finding Johnny and disappears into the noise.

John stays where he is, half a step from Gale, the ghost of the last drink still burning his tongue. For a moment, neither of them speaks.

“She’s a nice girl,” Gale says pointedly, a small frown on his face. “Ellie.”

John’s mouth curls, amusement coiling low in his stomach. “That the sermon?”

“Didn’t think she was your type.”

“Didn’t know I had one.” He tosses back the whiskey, wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. “Maybe my type is I don’t like when people touch me unless they mean it. Maybe you can add that to your list.”

“Enough, Bucky.”

“No.”

Gale’s throat works once before he speaks, eyes shining, nostrils flaring ever slightly. “You don’t let anyone mean it.”

That hurts; sudden and white-hot. It takes the breath out of him. John wants to double over. He motions for another drink. “And you think you would?”

Neither moves. The air between them unbearable. John leans against the wall, watches Gale exhale, his blue eyes gone sharp in the dim light.

“Stop looking at me.” John shoves him then, not hard, but enough. Fed up with everything, with the ache that never stops humming under his ribs. With Gale who-

“I’m not.”

“You are.”

“You’re drunk,” Gale hisses.

“Not nearly enough.” He takes the forgotten ginger beer and drains it in one breath. “You always are,” he mutters, shaking his head with a snarl. “Looking.”

“And what do you think I’m seeing?”

John almost laughs, but it comes out strangled. “You tell me. You’re the one who stares like you’re trying to carve something out of me.”

“Drink some water.”

John laughs again, rough, mean, all wrong. “What do you think will happen,” he says softer than he thought himself capable of, “when you finally get it?”

Gale’s jaw tightens. His hand curls into a fist. “Stop talking.”

“Yeah,” John breathes, stepping back just enough. He pats Gale’s cheek- “That’s what I thought. We are back on track, Buck.”

Gale recoils like he’s been burned.

“And tomorrow,” John tells him, finishing the last of his whiskey, “you won’t remember a thing.”

He watches Gale swallow, throat working, eyes flicking with something John knows he can’t bear naming.

For a long moment, neither moves. John wonders if this is all they’ll ever be— two men pretending to have everything under control. Maybe, after the wedding, when they will lose touch with each other (because they will have to, Marge will ask that of Gale, and he, the ever loyal one, will oblige because there is not question between who can stay with him), when distance and silence finish what they started, Gale will speak of John the way people speak of the dead— softly, with pity, only good things and a misplaced would have been hue. Rarely.

“I’ll drive you to the inn,” Gale says, voice flat.

John grins, wicked, his heart humming in amusement.

“Go on,” he urges, “take them.”

For a heartbeat, Gale freezes and a sweet satisfaction ignites in John. Coward, he thinks. Then, Gale exhales, slow and reaches into John’s jacket pocket.

John watches him find the keys and the lighter beside them; sees the way Gale’s face flickers, the crumble that follows as his fingers curl around it. John runs his tongue behind his teeth, steadying the want that surges sharp and dizzy. He wants to grab him. Wants to bite and kiss him until he draws blood. Until there is no one but John.

He feels the lighter drop back into his pocket. Watches Gale pull his hand away, fingers trembling, his breaths coming short.

John takes pity on him then. Retrieves the keys and tangles them between them. Gale doesn’t move to take them.

He presses them into Gale’s palm, closing his fingers around them. Feels the warmth of his hand, the pulse beneath the skin. Gale blinks once, twice.

“I’ll tell the others.” He says after a moment.

John nods, watches him go before turning towards the door. The air shifts when Gale’s gone, colder, emptier, but he is not any less agitated. He walks out into the night, the noise of the bar fading behind him.

John stands there a moment, blinking against it, the sound of the bar muffled behind the door. His hands are empty now, and he hates the stillness, the waiting. He puts his hand in his pocket and grips the lighter until it stings.

Gale walks out the bar a moment later and they both walk to the car. The cold sobering John somewhat, thoughts coming clearer. Or it is that he is not that close to Gale anymore.

The car is warmer. Gale turns the heaters on and the whirring sound of the fan fills the silence, the windows fog near the edges.

He drives in silence, one hand loose on the wheel, the other resting against his thigh. The road stretches out, black and endless. John watches the passing blur of light, the smear of neon reflected on wet asphalt.

He lights a Lucky.

Gale coughs once dutifully.

“Say it,” he mutters after a while, voice raw, a bit tired. “Whatever you’ve been dying to.”

Gale doesn’t look at him. “You want me to?”

“Don’t start pretending you don’t.”

Gale stares straight ahead, hands curling and uncurling on the wheel. “You keep pushing,” he says finally, his voice low, drowned under the hum of the heater. “And pushing. And I don’t know—” he takes a breath. “I don’t know what you’ll do after.”

“You mean what you will do after.”

Gale shakes his head- “No.”

“Yes.” John nods, eyes clear.

Gale exhales through his nose, tight. He hits the wheel once with the heel of his hand, frustration bleeding through the motion. “I know you’re— scared.”

John turns to him sharply, pulse tripping. “I’m not. You don’t know what I am.”

“But I do,” Gale says, and it is too measured, like he’s holding on by his teeth.

“We haven’t talked in months.”

Gale bites his lip, and John wants to shake him.

“I know. I-”

“If you say you are sorry, I swear I will kill you.” John’s voice rings through the small space, and Gale’s shoulders lift in reflex. John drags in a breath, trying to balm the hurt in his tone. “You didn’t want to talk to me. That’s fine.”

“That’s not—”

“It is fine.” John’s voice comes sharp and thin, slicing the air between them.

They’re near the inn now, and John can see the edges of Gale starting to fray.

“John—”

“Don’t,” he says. “You are never going to say what needs to be said so what’s the point?”

He shakes his head, looks out the window. The buildings blur past. He finishes the cigarette, flicks the butt out into the dark.

“You’re angry with me,” Gale starts.

John huffs.

“But I haven’t—”

“Do me a favor,” John says, voice low and flat. “Don’t talk.”

They pass another street. John watches the way Gale tenses, how his shoulders shift, how the words hang on his lips but never make it out. John sighs.

“Alright. Fine. Come on, give it to me. Like you always do and I let you. Finish the lecture. And in the morning we can both go on pretending that I’m not—” He cuts himself off, hands curling into fists in his lap.

They pull into the inn’s parking, gravel crackling under the tires. Gale kills the engine but doesn’t move. The only sound is the ticking of cooling metal.

Gale looks at him, finally, and something in him flickers, a mix of anger, want, grief, all twisted together. John can’t stand the sight of it.

“Ellie,” Gale starts, voice deep, heavy. “That was a mistake. She is—”

“Jesus fucking Christ.” John rolls his eyes. At Gale’s bristling silence, he says, “You don’t need to worry about Ellie. She can take care of herself.”

Gale shakes his head, a humorless chuckle falling from his lips. It lands somewhere between them and cracks.

“You really don’t see what you do to people.”

“Yeah?” John breathes, hurt and done. “What is it that I do, Gale? We were both consenting adults. Stop talking like I tarnish everything.”

Gale recoils, turns toward him. “That’s not what I meant. You do not tarnish anything. Don’t put words in my mouth, John.”

“Then what?” John demands. “What do I do to people?”

Gale exhales shakily, draws back into himself, shoulders sagging. “You’re being self-destructive.”

“What do I do to people?” John repeats, because he needs to hear it. He can’t take Gale changing the subject again. He needs to know what it is, what makes up that rip in Gale’s blue every time he looks at him a second too long. Those fond eyes that turn sorrow on the edges, soft and hard at once.

“Why can’t you just hold yourself together?” Gale’s jaw tightens, anger ticking under his skin. He tries to swallow it and fails.

John wants it out in the open between them.

“Like you do?” John mocks. “’Cause we’re so different.” He watches Gale frown, the way his eyes darken, holding all that rage.

“Abstinence and indulgence are two sides of the same coin, Buck.” John spits it, full of venom. He sees the flinch and it satisfies something in him, something primal, something he has to tamp down, because it asks him to do it again.

Gale licks his lips, looks away, at the fogged window. Then he takes the keys out of the ignition and opens the door. The hinges squeak in protest.

“Yeah,” John calls after him, a humorless chuckle breaking from his chest when Gale freezes, shoulders hunching. “That’s what I thought.”

John steps out of the car. Walks around it, the crunch of his boots on gravel the only sound in the dark.
A thousand things sit on his tongue, waiting to come out. What finally does — almost whiny — is, “I’ve been good. I’ve been so good with this.”

He has. He knows he has. Gale must know it too. John needs him like the air he breathes. “I was but you don’t make it easy.”

“What do you want from me?” Gale looks at him like he’s about to shatter. His hands flex at his sides, but his voice comes out angry, accusing. “Because I’m not the only one looking—”

John raises a finger to his lips. “Shhhh. Don’t want the world to hear,” he says, meaning to sound mocking, in control, but it comes out all ache.

Blue eyes stare back, wide and pleading. They say John, don’t. They say please.

And John loves him.

But even as he says it, he knows he’s handing himself the knife. Something in him breaks open on the way out, and he knows it won’t close again. He knows the echo of it will follow him, soft and ruinous.

“Can’t have the world hear I’m in love with you.”

Gale goes very still and closes his eyes. The kind of stillness that feels like recoil, as if the words struck him somewhere unseen. His throat works once; a small, visible swallow. His hand twitches at his side, as if wanting to reach for him, but doesn’t.

John feels the tremor in his breath, the shake of it, the way his mouth parts against John’s finger, the way he swallows hard.

John withdraws his hand. He looks wrecked and John smiles, rueful and broken.

When Gale opens his eyes again, John takes a step back. The air rushes in between them, cold and cutting. He feels numb and highwire all at once. He doesn’t know if he can hold Gale’s eyes, raw and full of everything but mostly alert and accusing.

John doesn’t want to get angry again.

“I should leave,” he says, turning.

“Of course.”

It makes John freeze. The anger surges up from somewhere low, blinds him for a heartbeat. His nostrils flare.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

He turns. Finds Gale’s eyes, furious and bright, and John barely keeps his snarl at bay.

“You always leave,” Gale says, voice low, taut.

“Do I?”

“Yes.” John watches the flex of his jaw, the way something inside Gale goes still. “When I needed you, you were gone. For more than a year John, you were gone.”

John lets out a short, bitter laugh, his chest burning. “I’m sorry my suffering inconvenienced you,” he spits out.

“I was there too. I was suffering too,” Gale says. “But I had to keep it together.”

“Congratulations. You’re fucking golden.”

And in that singular moment, John hates him. For the way he says it. For expecting John to always be the strong one. For every choice that led them here. It consumes him, chokes out everything else he feels for Gale. He lets it. And then — just as suddenly — it drains away. The anger remains, swimming in the sea of love and want, and John has to blink back tears of frustration.

“What do you want, John?” Gale challenges, not daring to move.

“I want to leave.”

John does want to leave, only he doesn’t know how far he will make it. Because the reality is he can’t live in a world without Gale or too far apart from him.

In the seven months they’d barely spoken, John — always searching for scraps like a stray dog —had learned to exist with it, to accept Gale’s distance, the decision that ended everything. He’d accepted it the way he accepted everything else when it came to Gale: quietly, like penance.

He couldn’t stand talking about the wedding. And what would they even talk about now? Both back in civilian life for the moment. Gale hadn’t asked John where he would go in one of their scarce phone calls, so he hadn’t asked either.  Just pressed the receiver to his ear as if he could feel the other through the wire.

Amy never said anything about it. About how the phone calls would paint a wet grin on John’s face how his body curled around the phone, how he’d end the night hollowed out.

John has a drawer up in his room, locked, filled with letter he is never going to send.

Curt had once told him, still in Texas, “You’re like a dog that likes to get kicked when it comes to him. And you need to put an end to it for you own good.”

John had looked at him — resigned, lovesick, half-drunk — and Curt had just shaken his head, hand heavy on his shoulder.

He wonders now if Curt knew then what it took John two years to admit: that between anything else and John, Gale would always choose anything else.

It had been inevitable. Standing here now, he sees it clearly— how it had been written from the start. From the moment Gale walked into his barracks three weeks into basic, replacing a kicked-out roommate, and John had looked up, awestruck and unsure, and felt something that would take months to settle into his bones. But once it did, there was no removing it.

If Curt were here now, John doesn’t know whether he’d punch him or stand behind him in solidarity.

Doesn’t matter. John is here and Curt is rotting somewhere in Europe.

“Alright. Go then. Leave,” Gale snarls. And John knows what’s coming; doesn’t hurt any less. “Like always.”

“No. Fuck no.”

The words rip out of him, from somewhere deep. They vibrate through his chest, and Gale flinches, steps back, colliding with the car. It satisfies something dark in John.

“I always gave everything I could,” John shouts, stepping closer. “Always. And you—” he spits the word “—you knew. You’ve always known.”

Gale’s eyes widen. His mouth falls open. He shakes his head slightly, like any sudden move might set John off.

John laughs, sharp and cruel. “Yes, you have.” Another step. Half a breath between them now. “You’re just a coward.”

“No.”

John smiles, sardonic. “Yes.”

“I didn’t.”

“You did.”

John’s voice softens, but the ache in it is worse than anger. “I would have taken it to my fucking grave, do you know that?” His teeth clench. He watches Gale’s face. The fear, the confusion, the dawning comprehension that doesn’t quite reach his eyes. A shimmering apprehension behind everything.

Gale is trying to hold himself together. John can see the way his chest trembles, the way his fingers curl against his sides. He wants to reach out and shatter Gale, bring him down until they’re eye to eye. The anger inside him rises sharp and blinding; he hates how Gale stands there, so damn composed, when John knows, knows, he isn’t. That Gale lives on the same knife’s edge, the same hunger for adrenaline, for feeling too much if only for a second.

He knows, because he loves that Gale too. The one who believes no one could; the one Gale believes no one should want to see.

Gale shakes his head. “That’s—”

“—why you escaped at the last minute during the march.”

“You told me to.” His voice shakes. The look on his face is almost unbearable to watch, but John can’t stop now.

“You told me to,” Gale says again, choked.

“And you always knew I would,” John bites back. “’Cause deep down, you’re a coward.”

He knows he’ll regret this later, knows the words are already cutting him on their way out, but there’s a part of him that demands it. The satisfaction of hurting Gale. Of making him feel it.

“Sometimes— sometimes,” John starts, and hates, burning hot, how his voice cracks, “I believe you to be noxious. A special kind of poison I’m addicted to. Sometimes I look at you—” he remembers Meatball in the other’s arms “—and I think you know that too.”

“Shut up.” Gale’s eyes shine, and he blinks hard, voice coming out a hiss that doesn’t land nearly as sharp as it wants to.

“No,” John tells him. “And cruel. You’re cruel. A special kind too.”

He shoves him hard enough for Gale to hit the car with a dull, hollow thump. The sound punches through the quiet. The pain in Gale’s eyes slices straight into John’s core, feeds that beast a little more.

“So,” Gale says, taut and hurt, “what do you want now?”

“I want to leave.”

“Ok then. Go.”

John grinds his teeth, and something in him snaps. He shoves Gale again. This time Gale reacts; grits his jaw, fists a hand in John’s jacket, voice strangled but low.

“Go. You don’t understand, so just go.”

John doesn’t. Can’t. He pushes with everything left in him, hears the air leave Gale’s lungs as they collide. Gale grabs his jacket, yanks him forward. Their bodies hit, dull and heavy. John shoves back hard, catches Gale’s shoulder and twists, feels bone and muscle give beneath his grip. Gravel grinds under their boots. The world narrows to the scrape of breath, the jolt of contact, the faint echo of the highway somewhere far off.

Gale tries to push him off, but John’s already inside the motion, fists tight in his jacket, using his weight to drive him backward. The car door catches Gale’s hip with a metallic thud. He gasps, shoves John again, and they stumble together, locked in a rhythm that’s closer to a dance than a fight— ugly and graceless, but intimate.

They hit the ground hard. Gravel bites into John’s palms, into his knee. He winces, breath knocked out of him, but he doesn’t stop. Doesn’t want to. His hands find Gale’s shoulders and push, pinning him halfway to the dirt. Gale grabs his wrist, fingers digging deep, and flips him with a sound somewhere between a groan and a growl. They roll, a tangle of limbs, breath and fury.

Then Gale swings. Catches him on the cheek, a clean, hard snap of contact. John’s head jerks, teeth clacking together. For a heartbeat, the world whites out. Then he grins through the sting, breathless, the taste of blood copper-sweet on his tongue.

 “There-” he says, breathless, almost reverent, “There you are.”

“Shut up.” Gale’s voice cracks. He shoves down hard, trying to keep John still.

“Why are you doing this to me?” Gale grits out. It isn’t anger anymore, it’s raw, stripped to pleading. His chest heaves, breath shallow between them.

“Because,” John says, rising halfway, “I’m tired of pretending.”

Gale turns to him then. His eyes are bright in the half-light. “You think-” he starts, but the control in his tone is breaking apart.

John grabs him by the lapels, both of them panting, breath fogging in the cold. He stares into the barely visible blue of Gale’s eyes and in one quick, desperate motion, kisses him.

It’s a collision. Nothing tender to it.

All teeth and breath and hunger, clumsy and searing, years of swallowed words finding their way out through skin. The sound is obscene against the quiet night. John tastes smoke and the ghost of whiskey and the metallic tang of blood; his or Gale’s, he doesn’t know. His mind blanks. The world reduces to pressure and heat, the scrape of stubble, the muffled sound Gale makes into his mouth— half protest, half gasp. John drags him closer by the front of his jacket.

His fingers dig in, pulling like he could anchor himself in the other’s bones. His own heart is thundering, a low roar in his ears. He hates himself for wanting this like that, for needing the fight and the resistance, for the way Gale’s trembling feels like permission.

For a breath, Gale yields. His mouth opens under John’s, and the world tilts. It feels like every denied thing spilling free, too bright, too much. Then Gale’s hand comes up between them, palm pressed to John’s chest, trying to push him back. John bites his bottom lip — hard — feels the sharp shock of pain and the sound Gale makes in response, a small, wounded noise that breaks him open.

John hates himself for wanting that noise too.

He pulls back only when he feels Gale’s breath falter against his mouth. His chest aches. He moves closer again. Their temples brush, and he says against Gale’s ear, low and sharp enough to cut,

“Go, Gale. Go back home like the good boy that you are.”

He lets go and steps back.

Gale doesn’t move. Doesn’t speak.

John turns toward the inn.

He doesn’t look back.