Gale doesn’t believe in angels—certainly not ones that walk on Earth, and certainly not ones that call themselves Bucky of all things—but Curt had put the suggestion of a guardian angel in his ear once, way back when Bucky didn’t have a name or a face, when he was just this feeling Gale would get sometimes when he was flying—stronger and more foreign than intuition—and for lack of anything else to call it, him, the title stuck.

The angel tells Gale his name the first time he’s solid enough to really be a he rather than an it. They’re flying back from Le Bourget, Judy-E teetering towards becoming a glider, engines 1 and 4 both shot to hell, a jam on engine 3, a fire in engine 2 and another back in the tail section. They’re much too far behind enemy lines to think of letting her go. The air rumbling with flak and the comms clouded with shouted checklists and Gale feels steady. Deep in his gut, down to his toes, his hands refuse to shake as his mind whirls through his options. A hand over his hand, a voice underneath his voice. Clarity, instinct, a pure kind of knowledge that this is the answer, this will get them home. An understanding built so deep that it appears natural. Inevitable. Genius.

But Gale knows there’s no such thing as genius. Or if there is, he’s never been one. He works and he studies and it all comes together, but it has never been this simple. It’s that unease and a memory, Curt’s voice, someone’s up there watching your back, Major, that keeps him from screaming as a pair of hands, weighty and real, appear on top of his own. Duncan is in his ear, yelling, “—nose down! We gotta get that fire out!” But Gale’s focus has been over his shoulder, working through the jam with De Los Santos, so he’s a half a second behind—stupid, human, deadly—when a burst of flak rips through the right side of the cockpit, severing Duncan’s hands at the wrist. It’s only the hands over his that keep Gale, full force and pressure, on the yoke. Pushing Judy-E into a sharp dive.

“The hell—” is all he gets out. The hair on his neck raises and he goes prey-still. A shape appears behind him, beside him, hands over hands turning to arms next to arms, face next to his face, like Gale’s sitting on its lap. A beaked nose, a thin mustache, large white teeth, laughing eyes. Gale stutters through a lungful of crisp ozone, sharp-metallic-warm, creeping back up his throat to lay heavy on his tongue.

“It’s just me, Gale, just Bucky, you got this.” He says it like they’re old friends. Pulling from a well of trust that doesn’t exist. They’re swimming through cloud break, murky white on all sides. The blood spewing from Duncan has slowed to a trickle, rhythmic in the sudden quiet. The fire in the no. 2 gasps once then smokes out, orange flickering to black. Gale can’t hear it spin back up through the cotton in his ears, but he watches the prop become blurred. In one smooth motion they pull back on the yoke, easing her back up, making sure she doesn’t roll too far to the right.

Bucky makes a frustrated sound in Gale’s ear, “C’mon, wake up!” And it’s unclear if he means Gale or the no. 3, but both of them unfreeze at the same time. The engine splutters thick black smoke once, twice, before starting up her normal purr, cheers of the crew almost covering the gentle hum. Gale’s grip relaxes on the yoke, his shoulders relaxing, and he turns his head to face his angel, nose to nose. He’s smiling, the corners of his eyes and mouth crinkled with it, and it does something odd to Gale’s head. A weightlessness, the rush of relief from muscles untensed, ears freshly popped. He’s beautiful. Boyish and lively, unfazed by the blood that coats half his face.

The angel winks and disappears. Gale gets his boys home, the soft press of sheepskin never fading from his cheek.

---

Gale checked the duty roster. Read and reread the reports to interrogation. No mention of a Bucky. No mysterious 11th crew member slipped by unseen. No mention of Gale talking to himself either, which should be a relief. At least if he’s losing it, he’s keeping it to himself. Instead, a swift dread runs through him. Losing it would be easier. Shameful, but mappable. Figuring out where you are is the first step for getting yourself out.

Gale has no idea where he is. He has no choice but to sink deeper.

---

As if a dam had broke, Bucky’s with him for nearly every mission now. Not always fully present. Sometimes he’s just a flutter in Gale’s chest. A firm pressure around his wrist. A whisper of wind past his ear. He finds himself waiting for it. When he goes up with Demarco and Our Baby and they have to turn back for a mechanical failure, he’s disappointed at the lack of company.

All their aircraft make it back that day. Still, they’re not without losses.

Gale watches from hardstand 17 as the medics whizz by. The clamor of reentry fills the countryside. Screaming, sirens, shouted orders. The crew trucks bound for interrogation pass, haunted faces Gale won’t look away from. The air quivers, and Bucky’s arm slides around his shoulders.

Gale can’t remember when keeping company had turned to more. When his eyes had first wandered to Bucky’s lips. When he began anticipating Bucky’s weight against him for the response it would stir, rather than the solid comfort of his guidance. When, exactly, he’d decided that having more of Bucky would be worth forsaking everything else.

He has no idea what drives Bucky to this either. Why Gale would be worth such corruption.

They stumble into an empty room, and nothing matters but the how.

Bucky grips Gale’s chin, fingers firm and beckoning, and slips his tongue into Gale’s mouth, sweet and seeking. Desire crashes through him, sure as a puzzle piece clicking into place.

Gale tries to speed it up, give more, take more, hands insisting, wandering, harder, uglier, the way it’s supposed to be, but Bucky doesn’t relent. Traps Gale in this open, empty room with only the gentle bulk of his body and the tender press of his lips. Twines his hands through Gale’s hair, but doesn’t touch him further. Painful, aching sweetness and not a drop more, like all the pleasures of Gale’s body are contained solely in his lips and Bucky’s determined to uncover them without any aid—no bite of teeth, no pressure, just enough unyielding patience to get Gale kiss-drunk and whining. Only once Gale’s past the point of pride does Bucky leave him, slack-jawed, to mark his neck.

It’s overwhelming. His lips feel numb from over attention, but the rest of him, ignored for so long, feels newly untouched. A fresh crop of nerves for Bucky to defile. Sensitive. Hair trigger. Youthful exploration but devoid of fear, of anxious violence, because there’s nowhere safer for Gale than the surety of Bucky’s embrace. God-sent, unseen. If they’d promised Gale this sort of heaven earlier, maybe he’d have lived like he was earning this.

When Gale cums, shamed face hidden in Bucky’s chest, a last ditch effort to muffle his groan, Bucky doesn’t stop. He unzips them both and digs them out. Sure-handed, ignoring Gale’s attempts to join in.

He pushes them together, his velvet hardness bullying Gale’s limp, cum-covered cock. “Aw, cute,” Bucky mocks, as Gale’s cock twitches, “trying to wake back up, how polite.”

He props Gale up and back, leaning against the wall so he’s forced to watch. Bucky takes them both in one hand, slicked only with Gale’s cum and the pre leaking from Bucky’s tip. Gale’s never let himself process before, what other men look like. Keeps things perfunctory or professional or hurried, whichever is called for, and none of those call for Gale to stare. Now, the sight of Bucky against him, pale and heavy, is startling. A twist of Bucky’s wrist and Gale grunts, too much, too soon. It feels so nice, or maybe not nice at all.

Horribly, a tear catches at the corner of his eye. Gale grits his teeth, determined not to let it fall, but Bucky must be watching him instead of the slow tug of his hand, because he laughs a little, short and pleased, before he pauses. He worms the fingers of his unoccupied hand past the buttons of Gale’s shirt to brush over his nipple while he slowly runs his pinky along the ridge of Gale’s cockhead. The sound Gale lets out this time is closer to a whimper and the tear escapes down his cheek, all of Gale’s fight in tow. Bucky catches it with a kiss.

Bucky makes him cum again, dry, and maybe he’d have forced Gale to his knees, supplicant, if Gale had any bones left to maneuver. Instead, Gale watches Bucky spit in his own hand and finish himself off, saliva gathering in the back of his mouth, wishing nothing was holding him up, just so he could be closer. Bucky aims it so his cum lands in the ruined front of Gale’s pants.

Gale reaches out and swipes up the last bit of it clinging to Bucky’s slit. Sticks it in his mouth, quick, like there’s anybody here to stop him. It’s curiosity, of course. Investigation into the sound and touch and taste of an angel. But there’s no taste. No sensation of anything being in his mouth at all. A nothingness.

Casper, Wyoming is far from the worst place John has ended up. Quaint little main street surrounded by a handful of houses, which quickly sprawl out into ranches as far as the eye can see. Train station on the east end of town, handful of bars and whatnot to the west, Edna’s restaurant sits square in the middle, the destination for dates, promotions, anniversaries and the like, not for the quality of the food, but because it’s apparently the only place in town. Means there’s enough people around on a Sunday that John’s been elbow deep in the sink since he got here and it doesn’t seem to be letting up any time soon.

John had been aiming for California, the promise of wide sandy beaches and a job sourced through the friend of a distant cousin. His savings had petered out somewhere in Iowa. After hitching and rail-jumping and odd-jobbing his way across Nebraska, Mary Ann had taken one look at his sorry ass in her nice restaurant and offered him a job as her dish boy. It was more pay than he was making on the road, and if he slept rough instead of buying a room at the inn, it’d only be a matter of weeks till he had enough for a ticket to San Diego.

John’s on his second-to-last stack of this round when Mary Ann pops her head through the door and tells him she’s closing early.

“You feeling alright?” John asks, out of politeness more than anything—the stable he normally bunks down in isn’t exactly out of sight, and daylight means more people asking questions, more chance of the owner spotting him and running John off his land.

“Oh it ain’t me, sweetie. Someone’s spotted the Cleven boy in town. No use staying open if there’s no customers.”

John follows the click-clack of her heels to the front of the restaurant and, sure enough, the room that’s been full all morning is steadily emptying. Meals half-finished, coffee pots full, up and out like there’s been some kind of alarm.

“Kid got the plague or something?” John mutters, starting to gather plates from the closest table.

Mary Ann laughs from all the way over at the till. More proof of her bat-ears. “No, no,” she shakes her head, “Well, I suppose it’s just superstition, but people spot him walking around and know it’s time to clear out.” She winds a chestnut curl around her finger and counts out .72¢ for John. “Roy Cleven’s boy only comes to town to collect his daddy right before a dust storm rolls in, since he was yea high, if you can believe it. Don’t know how he knows it, but he’s usually right.” She shrugs, tucking the rest of the till into her navy blue purse.

“Casper’s got its very own Paul Revere?” John’s imagining a little kid in a three point hat, holding a lantern and banging on people’s doors.

Mary Ann scoffs, “You’d think, but he’s a shy thing. It was cuter when he was little, then he never grew out of it. Only cares about his daddy, no mind for the rest of us. I think it was a couple of years ago, what would he have been, about thirteen? Fourteen? Kid crosses paths with Old Joe Patterson on his way into town—doesn’t say nothing to him, doesn’t give him a heads up what he’ll be walking into, just keeps on his way. Takes a seat next to his daddy at the blackjack table, never mind that he’s too young to be in that kind of establishment, meanwhile Old Joe hits this dust storm—fast and mean, must’ve been right on the boy’s heels—nearly killed him! Lucky one of the Clancy brothers came along and dug him out, he was half-buried and could barely move.”

Together John and Mary Ann get Edna’s ready for the incoming storm. Dust storm’s aren’t an uncommon thing in the Midwest nowadays. John had encountered a handful as he’d made his way across Nebraska. Howling wind, grit clinging to every crease and curve, sky blacked out like the end of days. Last storm he got stuck in he’d been sleeping in a rail car. Safe enough, but the train had been stuck in place for days till people could dig it out. He’d thought getting to the mountains meant leaving all the dust behind, but it turns out Casper’s on the wrong side of ‘em.

John finishes the last of the dishes while Mary Ann boards up the windows. The dishes get covered with one of the tablecloths, rags get stuffed under the pantry door, then the front door. John agrees to come in early tomorrow, to get a head start on the cleaning if one or more of the windows give out.

Mary Ann doesn’t offer John a place to stay, and he doesn’t ask for one. She’s got two omega daughters at home, so the most she could offer John was somewhere covered outside. He’s resting for a minute against Edna’s door, contemplating the risks of bunking at his regular spot or if it’ll be worth the three dollars to get a room, when he sees them. Two dusty blond heads, one streaked through with grey, shuffling down the street. People notice them and cross to the other side of the street.