#beersheba

🤕

John tells him 'go', in the immaterial of predawn dark, and nothing feels real anymore. Not the march. Not the shadowy side street that swallowed Aring and George in turn like a fairytale maw. Not John himself, even though his eyes are as hard as stones: there's only Gale. He feels like the only vital thing for miles, blood-hot and terrified, about take a gamble so stupid even his Pa would think twice.

So he goes, and then John's shout cuts through the air behind him, and it's just his mind, just the hallucinatory offspring of exhaustion and panic, but when Gale looks back it's like he's staring down the gun-muzzle of memory. Something he's forgotten and is just now remembering, or something he's revisited in anguish a thousand times, something important, something that will change him, unmake him: Bucky, wrestling a goon to the ground under the bar of his own gun.

And the thing is, he has seen it before. They've been enacting scenes like this between themselves since summer, in the scant hours between curfew and lights out. What do you do if the goon has a knife. What do you do if there's two of them. What do you do if this, if that, if when. They took it in turns to play the guards, arming themselves with ladles and chair legs, putting all they had into the performances. It wasn't like the real thing would go easy on them. Even still, none of them ever beat John. He was too big, too determined. He darted past them every time, maybe letting out a little yip of triumph on the way, if his spirits were up. Maybe that outcome could happen now, the next frame on the film reel. But Gale is trapped in the cold fear of this moment alone, and he can only act according to the scream of his heart.

It's hardly a reward when the second soldier materializes, but it fills Gale with relief that he turned back nonetheless. He's there to stop the rifle's descent. If they're going to be shot for this, stripped for their layers and left in a ditch, John's body will lie there purpled by one less bruise. He shoves into the man gracelessly, grappling for the gun, the same as John did for him moments before.

'What are you doing!?' John's yelling behind him, which is neither helpful nor subtle, but the guards are yelling too: their friends are already drawing in close like a noose. Gale feels their hands grab at him, hauling him back so that he goes sprawling into the dirt. There's no time to get up: he curls in on himself ahead of the blows, and hopes to heaven that John is still standing. This can't be a universe in which they both get kicked to death. God has to let one of them has to go out clean.

He huddles over to protect his belly the best he can, but he feels the boots hard at his back, his ribs and the soft ungirded flesh lower down, skin and fat and muscle and beneath those, his kidneys, his guts. The pain breaks his guard, cracks open the curl of his spine and they get him in the stomach after all, fracturing a few of his fingers along the way.

John is still yelling, but it sounds more angry than agonized, and it surges out into the air clear and unmuffled. He's on his feet, must be. Being restrained, no doubt, but they haven't laid him low. It's about the last thing Gale's able to think before someone snaps their foot into his skull, and his head is filled with such blinding pain there's no room for anything else.

When it clears some, Gale can still hear John's voice, and maybe it is agonized now after all, no longer demanding release or shouting insults at his captors, but instead calling desperately for Gale's attention. There's a new voice, though, tight with fury but controlled despite that, authoritative. Clark, Gale thinks hazily. The kicks stop coming. Gale's body loses some of its impossible tension. He moves his head a little to try and make out what's going on above him, panting mouth collecting the grit. The Lieutenant General is squaring up, shouting for Glemnitz, and in his failure to immediately appear he's wasting no time giving the goons orders in his stead. Senior officers, Gale makes out. Hell to pay. Bucky, where's Bucky? Gale's heavy eyes travel on restlessly and find him flanked by two men pinning his arms down, with another one behind holding a fistful of his coat. His face is pale, but unmarked.

Gale tries to get his hands under him, to push up from the ground. He's shoved back down again, and there's a fresh burst of expletives from Bucky's direction.

'What is happening here?' clips out a voice. The W is fricative.

Clark's response is immediate, too fast for Gale to follow, but between him and the newcomer there seems to be a peace negotiated. Gale's aware of the black boots retreating on all sides, as well as the thundering sound of someone skidding down next to him, touching his shoulder and lifting his face with a trembling hand.

'Buck. Buck. You all right? Fuck, can you stand?'

Gale isn't sure. He doesn't think they went for his legs, but the rest of him is on fire.

'If you help me,' he croaks out, and John nods before dutifully helping him into a sitting position. He doesn't do it with any particular force or urgency, but Gale's stomach lurches warningly. He's vomiting before he can even say anything, blurting bile humiliatingly down his front.

'Fuck,' John says again. 'I told you to go. You loony, why didn't you run?' He has Gale's puke on his sleeve, but this is what he's mad about.