#curtgale

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Crosby: Which one?

Gale: ....The-

Demarco: I don't think John or Curt are in the same place right now

Gale: ... Excuse me-

Brady: Oh Curt's in the mess hall

Gale: What-

Bubbles: And John's out by the runway!

Gale: ...I-

Gale: ....I meant my clothes

The others: .....ooooooh

Demarco: ....It's under your pillow

heart's flying high (5235 words) by littlelansky chapters: 1/1 fandom: Masters of the Air (TV 2024) rating: Mature warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings relationships: Curtis Biddick/Gale "Buck" Cleven, Curtis Biddick/Gale "Buck" Cleven/John Clarence "Bucky" Egan characters: Curtis Biddick, Gale "Buck" Cleven additional tags: Developing Relationship, Airplane Sex, Hand Jobs, Power Play, Power Exchange, Dom/sub Undertones, Dirty Talk, curt's in it of course there's dirty talk, Internalized Homophobia, gale's in it of course there's internalized homophobia, BUT IT'S LIGHT I SWEAR, POV Gale "Buck" Cleven, OT3 is background series: Part 1 of three bluebirds b-sides

summary:

“Got a patched engine, needs some slow time. Feel like bein’ a body in the right seat?” “Sure thing,” Curt says, easy. “Thought you could use one flight with no bandits comin’ your way.” Curt barks a laugh, loud and startled, and the sound of it settles warm in Gale’s belly. “Well, thanks for thinkin’ of me, Major,” he shoots back through a wide grin, clapping his nav on the shoulder as he gets up and makes his way over to Gale. “Be a nice change.”

30. Why does it work (or not work) between them?

OHOHOHOOO

CURVEBALL

OKAY

okay. so. the thing is. To Me. is that curt and gale are VERY similar. they are both internalizers, they both look before they leap, they both have that vibe of Contained Violence sitting right under the surface, they're both willing to take BIG risks to get the job done, they're both stubborn as mules. they're both moths to bucky's flame whether they like it or not

the cornerstone though, for me, is that curt genuinely HAS control over himself and knows what he wants, and he TRUSTS that control and that knowledge. gale absolutely does not. gale has all his real feelings and wants locked down SO tight he doesn't even know what most of them ARE. and to me that's what makes them Interesting—gale might be the major, but curt's the one with life experience being responsible for other people, not just himself, before enlisting. gale might want to step up when he and his men are insulted, but curt's the one who goes into a tense conversation KNOWING he's DELIBERATELY going to pick a fight. curt doesn't have to yell or threaten to get what he wants—he gets it with a light touch to the chest and a dozen words max.

and i think gale could use that! i think gale wants a firm hand holding the end of his leash to keep him from fucking up, from going too far, from being too like his dad. curt can be that hand! curt's HAPPY to be that hand, he's good at it and he likes it—but where i think curtgale gets ESPECIALLY interesting is that i ALSO think curt knows when to let go of the leash. gale thinks he needs to be on-leash all the time; curt knows there are moments where gale giving into the harsher, more violent urges he has can be a good thing, can get channeled into Protective rather than Harmful. that's my read of curt's "think we could do some real damage" line in ep 3—if it was bucky he was talking to, the better phrasing would be something more humanitarian, how the mission's going to HELP people. but he emphasizes the damage. because gale has that anger that he's afraid of. but it doesn't always HAVE to be a bad thing, to be angry, to want to beat an enemy, and to me gale AND curt both kind of… lack that humanitarian inclination bucky has so innately. bucky enlisted to Help People, in the abstract, on the other side of the globe. curt and gale never get their "why i enlisted" moment, but neither of them seem very concerned about People In The Abstract, just keeping the people in their immediate circle [curt] safe, or keeping themselves [gale] safe. so gale might be afraid of himself, but curt isn't afraid of him. and i think gale could use that, especially in combination with the qualities that gale tries to use as his facade being genuinely present in curt's entire everything.

[obligatory mention here: this is the cocktail that makes curtgale daddy kink compelling to me. curt's a little older, a LOT more settled in himself, demonstrably capable of holding gale back when he needs to be held back, and both competent and willing to guide/teach in a way that i think Gets To Gale. i think gale wants/needs the disciplinarian aspect, not just the caretaking and spoiling aspect—otherwise what's the point? and curt just likes it when pretty boys do what he tells them to. so it works and is also hot.]

so maybe 75% of the time, it's all good. where i think they DON'T work is when curt's refusal to pretend to be something he isn't collides with gale's need to maintain the status quo and not be different enough to stick out. it's more of an issue for post-war curt-lives kind of circumstances, because in canon everything is necessarily clandestine anyway, and it's something i think is a problem for gale in any queer relationship, but curt in particular is just. not willing to hide who he is. he's not flashy about it and he's not shoving it in people's faces—he's not stupid, he's not careless, he's not interested in putting himself in danger—but he's ALSO not gonna, like, go out on dates with women to assuage other people that he's not queer. gale, on the other hand, is pants-shittingly terrified of anyone finding out he's anything other than a normal red-blooded american man, because that's Dangerous. that gets you noticed, and getting noticed in that way gets you hurt. gale, i think, also wants to stay in the military after wwii, whereas after seeing the bomber strategy turn to bait, curt wants OUT. and gale is objectively in a lot more danger if he's Still In and can be connected to a Known Queer like curt. so i think gale runs the risk of getting scared and trying to control how curt lives his life, to keep them both safe, and THAT is a relationship-ender for curt.