#hrrrrm

I was six missions deep in my new position as lead navigator when I had what might have been the closest call of my entire military career. 

There were a lot of close calls throughout my time with the 100th.  Some were harder.  Some were bloodier.  Some weighed so heavy on me that I could barely get out of bed for the weight of them.  Every mission was like dancing along the edge of an abyss, a sheer cliff that was sharp as a blade, with death—or worse—waiting hungrily at the bottom, skeletal hands outstretched.  Every time we went wheels up, we knew we teetered there with our toes hanging over the blackness—just out of reach of those curled, bony fingers, unsure who would fall and who would slip by to safety once more.  Knowing that if we made it out today, we would just turn around and try our luck again tomorrow. 

It was nothing new.  In all honesty, I had grown to expect it—to watch men go down, sometimes with chutes and sometimes without, knowing full well if that rocket had been aimed half a degree further north, or if our gunner had been a millisecond slower shooting down that fighter, it could have been me with a hole blown right through something vital, all my warmth bleeding out onto the freezing floor of a B-17 twenty thousand feet above the ground.

That day, the day of that sixth mission as lead, the reality of just how close a call I’d had was so immediate on my heels that I swore I could feel Death itself breathing down my neck. 

It stuck with me that day.  Even long after we touched ground it hung there.  Cold, unshakable.  An albatross around my neck.  A hair’s breadth away, it had slipped inside my guard like a lover, announced by the prick of a poisoned knife between my shoulder blades.  No other thoughts had room to surface between me and the looming beast—I just kept thinking about it, obsessively reminding myself of it, over and over and over and over.  Even long past the point where it sharpened my senses or kept me vigilant I couldn’t let it go, until it inevitably started to grate on my every nerve, rattling me apart from the inside out. 

I was wired.  My entire body was electrified.  It was as if the fear of my own mortality had grown into something with a mind of its own, alive like Frankenstein’s monster was alive, filled with an arc of splitting, branching, sparking lightning that surged continuously up my spine.

I suppose that’s why I said yes to the Majors when they extended the invitation.  It was a simple answer to the question of what the hell to do with myself, with this energy inside me.  Don’t think, don’t cry—just follow the path of least resistance.  Lightning to a lightning rod, the needle of a compass seeking North.  What was I to resist it, that desperate need for relief?

Sometimes you just… you need a moment.  A few seconds, a breath, to seek shelter from the unrelenting sun.  The daylight exposed us, our vulnerability writ across the clouds in trails of blazing white exhaust—no man can live in that inexorable spotlight twenty-four/seven.  We needed time to be safe in the shadows, where the world was still and calm and sure.

I’m just grateful that the two of them came to me that day.  That they found me, and before I managed to rattle myself apart into so many pieces. 

It happened three hours after we landed, in the barren no-man’s-land between interrogation and dinner in the mess…

***

There was a strict routine to military life.  Missions happened a certain way, from wake-up to breakfast to briefing to wheels up to landing, all the chaos contained only to the parts outside our control.  Enemy fighters, mechanical failure, weather conditions—those things were unpredictable.  But the order of operations, the build-up and the climax and the cool down?  That never changed, not really. 

Except.

“Jesus, Croz, you aimin’ to wear a hole through the floor?”

Halfway down the length of the barracks for the eighth time in the last five minutes, I paused just long enough to wince, running a hand through my just-washed hair.  “Uh.  No?” I tried.  It felt insincere even to my own ears, like a little kid who’d been caught red-handed with a fist inside the candy jar. 

Bubbles, currently perched on the end of his bunk with his fists shoved in his pockets, raised a brow at me.  “Well, if you ain’t aspirin’ for it, maybe you oughta give it a rest.”

Right.  Yeah.  That… yeah.  “Sorry, Bubbles,” I said, turning my feet in his direction. 

I needed to sit down.  I knew that.  My muscles were overworked, my brain filled with static, my vision more blurry than not.  It had been a hard mission—and, fuck, there could be another tomorrow.  My body required some serious rest.  I knew it, I did.  In a distant, clamoring way, like the sound of air raid sirens way off in the distance.  And so, I was going to go and sit down.  I was going to relax next to my friend, who I hardly ever saw these days, and then I was going to go eat dinner, and maybe have a drink, and go to bed, and—

—I made it all the way to the foot rail of his bunk before I veered off, ricocheting away on a tangent like a stray bullet loosed in friendly territory by some inexperienced gunner.

“Sorry, sorry,” I said again, dragging a hand down my face.  I was beginning to think that was the only word I knew how to say.

It was true, though.  I was sorry, guilt plucking at my insides.  Ever since his promotion to Group Navigator, I’d seen less of Bubbles than I thought possible in a base where we bunked in the same barracks every night.  His free time was precious… and yet here he was, spending it watching me fidget and twitch and all around fail to stop moving for some inexplicable reason that I couldn’t hope to put into words.

At least he was kind enough not to point it out again.  He just watched, a hint of concern dancing in his eyes, as I started to circle the perimeter of the room like some kind of wounded animal, a captured lion prowling the confines of its cage.

I had never had a reaction like that before.  The airsickness I understood—I’d never been real good with cars, either, but it was like finding your sea legs, or so I figured.  You just had to ride it out until you got used to it, let the motion fall to the background in its own time.  And it would.  Almost always, it would.

This, though?  This was less like a slow adjustment and more like something had hijacked my body, setting my every nerve alight.  That restless energy was mindless, and there I was, trapped right in its grip, unable to breathe let alone pull free.

Missions were predictable, but I was finding out the hard way that my own body was not.

“Well,” Bubbles said, on my third circuit around this new route.  He was dutifully following me with his body, twisting around to keep me in sight.  “Suppose you might want to play some pool or some such?”

I hummed, the idea skittering on the surface of my mind for all of a second before it hopped away again, like a drop of water vacating a hot pan.  “No, no, I—I’m good, really.  I just—I just need to—“

Whatever I ‘just needed to do’, I may never know, because it was at that moment that the barracks’ doors opened, two familiar figures striding inside.

“Major—Majors,” I said, my voice attempting to break into a stammer as at the same time a cold sweat broke on my chest.  Oh, god, I was in trouble—I’d fucked up the mission and someone else had died and they were there to court marshal me.  I was never getting another chance to write to my wife—I’d be executed by firing squad by morning light, and for all the rest of time my name would be a cautionary tale on how to not fuck up so badly that the only reasonable course of action was to be wiped from the face of the earth.  God, what would they tell Jean?  What would they tell my mother?  I was going to hell for this, as surely as a bomb drops from the sky—

“Lieutenant!” Bucky called, interrupting my inner spiral.  “At ease, soldier.”

“Sorry,” I said, failing again to come to a full stop.  I at least managed to stop circling, but that left me in the awkward holding position of rocking backward and forward on my heels, my hands jittering at my sides.  I stared at the Majors like a worm waiting to be stepped on, the only thing stopping me from spouting a whole series of apologies the sudden thought that I was only going to make it worse.

I was so caught up in my impending doom, my heart jackrabbit-fast in my chest, that I jumped about a mile when Major Cleven’s hands came to rest on my shoulders, pinning me in place.  I immediately transformed from a worm to a beetle, stuck fast to a piece of cork board, displayed for all to see.

If I had been in a better frame of mind, I would have taken more note of the way they looked at each other then.  The way Buck raised his brow toward Bucky, and the head-tilt shoulder-shrug Bucky gave back in response.  It was an exchange that I’d seen a dozen, two dozen times by then, so easy it was like an extension of a mother tongue, wholly subconscious and implicitly understood.  In that moment, though, all I could see was two superior officers, each larger than life itself, turning their scrutiny on me like two blinding white spotlights.

I flinched as Major Cleven tightened his hands on my shoulders for a moment, dizzy with dread and anticipation. 

“Easy, now,” he said.  He was using a voice I’d heard him use before, the sort of tone easily recognizable from all the times it’d been directed toward Major Egan. 

With a jolt, I realized that off to the side Major Egan had turned to address Bubbles, one hand on his hip and one waving good-naturedly toward the doors.  “—take it from here, no worries,” he was saying, his mustache twitching upward to show his teeth.  It wasn’t a particularly sharp smile, but in my volatile frame of mind all I could think of was a big game hunter, having come to spring his catch from its cage so that he might have something new and interesting to chase.

I don’t know what my face looked like in that moment.  Probably was about as pathetic as a wet puppy covered in mud, pleading eyes locked on my best friend.  But Bubbles, thankfully, must have had a better reading of the situation than I did, because he just looked from the Majors to me and then back again for a long moment before he nodded once.

“I’ll catch you at mess, Croz, alright?” he said, pushing himself to his feet.  “We’ll play that game of pool later.”

I wanted to ask him not to leave.  I wanted to beg him, plead with him, to stay, to not leave me alone like this, god, not like this.  But as my best friend slipped out the door, Major Cleven captured my gaze once again, tilting his head to get a better look at my face. 

His palms were warm through the fabric of my uniform shirt.  All my attention honed in on those piercing blue eyes.

He wasn’t hurting me.  Not him, not Major Cleven, though his hands were certainly strong enough to, firm as packed earth under an unsteady boot where he had me held tight.  Buck, my frazzled brain reminded me—he was Buck, and Bucky was Bucky, and they weren’t here to drag me kicking and screaming to my death.  I was okay.  I was safe.

…Probably.

A low whistle brought my attention back to Bucky.  “You look a little wound up, Croz,” he said, his eyes squinting up in the sort of amusement that always made me feel off balance, like maybe I’d missed a joke. 

“Sorry, sir,” I mumbled, the words coming out on autopilot.  Then, the fact that they seemed like they’d come looking for something sank in, and I jerked my spine up straight, my eyes going wide.  “Shit—is there an emergency?  Is there a mission?  I can be ready in ten—I mean, probably five—I mean, maybe three minutes, if—“

“At ease, Croz,” Bucky said again, visually underlining the words with an elbow thrown up on Buck’s shoulder, a lazy lean that elongated all the lines of his body.  “You think we’d send everyone off on another mission so close to dusk?”

I frowned, my insides lurching a little as Buck’s hands slid down from my shoulders to my biceps, and then off of me altogether.  “Well, no, but—“

“Ain’t no buts,” Buck said, and then he smacked Bucky’s chest with the back of his hand like he was heading off a joke before it could take form.

I… wasn’t following. 

“Then why are you… here?” I asked, helpless and turned around and still completely on edge. 

Another of those looks, cast between them.  A whole conversation told in tilts of a chin and twitches of a brow.  I had the distinct feeling that I was about to be tested, though I couldn’t fathom what the test could possibly be on.

“…You up for some stress relief?” Buck asked, after a moment.  His eyes, dancing with a soft, knowing mirth that mirrored Bucky’s, traced a path down from my face to my chest, dipped lower, then slowly rose back up.  The corners of his mouth were tilted up—not enough to completely counter the deep, uneasy pain that seemed to reside in the unfathomable blue pools of his eyes when he thought no one (except maybe Bucky) was looking, but… enough to bring an intentional thought to mind. 

A thought that took me a solid four seconds to parse, my jittering body doing an exaggerated double-take. 

“Wait, what?” I asked, my eyes now about as wide as plates.  Surely, surely that couldn’t mean what I thought it meant.

And yet…

“Stress relief,” Bucky reiterated from his perch against Buck’s shoulder, a grin that could almost be described as lazy drawing across his lips.  It was deceptive, the ease of it concealing a spirit that was as quick to nip as a wild fox, always hungry for something just out of reach.  He didn’t push, though—neither of them did, not then.  Both of them simply watched me, waiting, patient, for an answer.

Having no real clue what I was getting into, I probably should have paused there to give the offer due consideration.  I’ve never been impulsive—have always preferred a great deal of preparation, in fact.  Even for the simplest of tasks, really.  I always, always had a list before I set out shopping.  But in that moment?  That no-man’s-land after the dust settled and before the world pushed me back into line?  With electricity in my veins instead of blood, and the smell of superheated metal haunting every inhale like a phantom? 

…Yeah.  I said yes before the thought of accepting had fully crossed my mind.

I didn’t have time to regret it.  All it took was a moment, a glance between them, and Buck had gestured the taller of them forward with a quirk of his lips.  “After you, Major,” he said, in that deep voice that I had never paused to fully appreciate.  I didn’t pause then, either, despite the low buzz that was sinking down low in my gut at the look on his face.  I simply didn’t have time before Bucky was leaning in, his hands reaching up as if he intended to strangle me, his cheek pressing to my cheek with a hot, burning slide of stubble that had my knees turning to jello. 

He did not strangle me.  Not then.  Instead, his fingers curled around the collar of my shirt, dragging me close and holding me there.  His skin was so warm, like the jumping sparks of a forest fire waiting to catch flame; he smelled of cigarettes, and bar soap, and a hint of spice from a cologne that I couldn’t name. 

“Tap out if you need to, Croz.  Y’hear?” he said, a low breath in my ear.  “Not interested in leveraging rank, here.”

“Yessir,” I said, more reflex than anything.  I had been functioning on maybe fifty percent brain power since wheels down—with the turn the day had now taken, I was lucky to have about five left at my disposal.  Still, I managed to shake myself a little, a laugh coming a bit too harsh up my throat.  “I mean, absolutely.  Will do that.  Has been n-noted.”

The last bit came out stuttered, less because I was uncertain, really, and more because that was the moment that Bucky dragged his fingers up the back of my neck and into my hair.  I needed a cut, had been putting it off for a week or more, which only meant that there was more for him to grip.  And grip he did—knuckles curling against my scalp, the tug firm but not painful, tipping my head back and drawing my chin up until my mouth met his mouth in a sudden burst of heat.

Any last doubts about what exactly they were proposing flew from my mind right about then.

I might as well have been struck dumb for all the outward response I gave.  Inside, though… inside, my heartbeat was jack-knifing up to heights never before seen, in or out of a B-17.  It was dizzying, feverish, wild.  I could feel it in every inch of my body, a percussive beat that had more in common with the flutter of bird wings than anything human.  Bucky’s lips moved against mine, his tongue swiping across my cupid’s bow in hungry, coaxing licks, and I felt like I might just lift off, my heart a propeller and my body light as air.

If I could have made myself do anything, I would’ve already been long gone, drifting into the atmosphere.

“Relax into it,” came Buck’s soft voice, then, from somewhere behind my left shoulder.  I hadn’t realized that he’d moved, taking a slow circle around me, sharp eyes watching.  He had his brows drawn low in focus, tongue shifting the toothpick in his mouth from one side to the other.

His command was my saving grace, something easy for my frazzled mind to latch on to.  I sucked in the first breath I’d taken since Bucky got his hands into my hair, pulling it in past his bold, impatient lips.  It stoked the fire growing in my belly, my entire body twitching from the overstimulation of getting even that tiny taste of him, his scent a flood washing over my tongue.  I let my mouth drop further open, the tense muscles at my temples relaxing as my jaw lowered, and let him begin to work his way in.

Fully behind me now, Buck hummed.  “Good.  Good.  I want you to focus on his touch now, Crosby.  Forget the room around you, forget today’s date—let all the extra things fall away.  Breathe him in, Croz.  Feel his hands, his mouth.  Touch him.  Taste him.”

A shiver worked down my spine, though I couldn’t have been sure if it was from the deepening strokes of Bucky’s tongue pushing past my teeth or the eyes I knew were watching at my back.  At Buck’s command, I finally raised my hands, my jittering fingers hovering, unsure, for just a moment before they found a place to land on Bucky’s sides.

“There you go,” Bucky huffed, amused.  He was pulling back, but it was just far enough to drag my head to the side by his grip on my hair so that he could start mouthing at my cheek, my jaw, working his way down to the side of my neck and the pulse flying through the arteries and veins there.  Everywhere he went I felt the scrape of his teeth, the wetness of his tongue—in his wake the air was blisteringly cold, a mirror-like chill reflecting the air of altitudes high enough to burn with it.  My breath, quick and shallow, was like the bellows of a blacksmith, stoking a fire inside me.  I flexed my fingers, clutching at Bucky’s shirt.

Buck, having passed my right shoulder and now nearing a full orbit around us both, nodded appreciatively.  “He’s responding nicely, ain’t he, Bucky?” he asked.  When my eyes met his over the top of Bucky’s dark curls, his lips quirked up into another of those secret smiles.  His own blue irises had been nearly swallowed by black, black pupils.  When he winked, it was so quick I almost missed it.

Bucky, still working his way down, hummed in agreement, his voice vibrating through the hollows of my chest for a moment as he laved at my collarbone.  He’d lowered one hand to pull at my shirt collar, tugging it aside until the top button strained.

“Yeah,” Buck said, looking at me with an appraising eye.  His hand, strong but fine-boned, rested for a moment on his chin, a king surveying his lands.  “Yeah, I think he looks real good.”

The words were heavy, hot, an intentionally weighted comment that could have been directed at Bucky or at me.  I found that I didn’t particularly care at the moment which it was—I just wanted more, a desperation firing up in me like the engines of a fort, one-two-three-four, only growing stronger with each successive blaze of internal combustion. 

I gasped, something finally kicking into gear in my head.  I wanted to feel Bucky, from the still-sweat-damp hair at the crown of his head down to the place where his foot would slot right between mine, legs locked together like the teeth of two gears, his long body a line of fire against mine.  My hands had a mind of their own as I yanked myself toward him, aching with it.

The response was immediate.  “Be good,” Bucky muttered against my skin, the hand in my hair tightening.  His other was working off the knot of my tie, pulling it free inch by grating inch with an intensity only matched by the way his eyes found Buck after every mission—unerring, unfailing, absolute.  His teeth nipped at my collarbone, sharp enough to sting.

“He’s been good,” Buck said, assured, his voice as dark and rich as honey.  “You want more, Croz?  Need something else to help get your mind off things?”

“Please—“ I gasped, surprised to hear the breathlessness of my own voice.  My heart pounded somehow harder, every sensation ratcheted up to a hundred and ten percent.  “Please, I—“

Buck didn’t force me to formulate the rest of the words.  Thank god, because I wasn’t sure if there were any more coming.  All I had left was the adrenaline ache of desire in my throat, choking me from the inside out—and then that, too, was gone, soothed away by Buck’s warm hand, curling under my chin.  Staring straight into my eyes, he reached up with his other hand to pluck the toothpick from between his teeth, tossing it carelessly away without once breaking eye contact.

I might have moaned then, the sound yanked up from deep in my chest.  If I did, it was lost to the firm but so, so gentle push of Buck’s lips against mine.

It was different from what Bucky had done.  Softer, easier, with no nicotine kick at the seam of his lips.  I wasn’t sure if Bucky’s open-mouthed takeover could be categorized as a kiss, but this definitely was, something so patient that it felt endless, an almost alien sensation in this godforsaken mud-hole of a base.

The gentleness, somehow, felt more stark, more pointed, than Bucky’s barely-restrained chaos.  Like it had pinged something in my brain that I knew I should be listening to.  There was a little soap bubble of a thought trying to push up through the clutter of sensation in my mind—small and pearlescent, it hardly managed to surface before it popped, the guilt of sharing intimacy without my wife quickly swallowed by the desperate need for someone else to keep me contained, to please, god, just hold me together. 

I closed my eyes.  Then, breathing as deep as I could, I pushed forward to deepen the kiss.  With a recklessness that I had never felt before and have not felt since, I poured myself into it, a thousand volts of electricity and a cascade of sparks and a boiling flow of lava surging from my mouth, all of which Buck drank down, steadfast and solid against my frenetic energy.  I hardly even noticed Bucky working at the buttons of my shirt, I was so captured in my exchange with Buck—and what I did notice I couldn’t find the capacity to care about, letting Bucky, Buck, both take charge. 

All I had to do was let go.  So, fingers clenching at anything and everything, skin tingling at every point of contact, I let go. 

I couldn’t tell you exactly how we found our way to my bunk.  It was all a blur, impressions of tugging fabric and grasping hands, a perfunctory transition borne of military efficiency.  I had an idea that Bucky was hindering more than helping at points, pausing to dig his fingers or teeth into every inch of my skin as it was bared, but Buck kept us on track, moving with single-minded focus.  Any attempt I made to help was swallowed up by one or the other, my reaching fingers sucked past saliva-wet lips or tucked up in the crease between a warm neck and a steady shoulder, out of the way.  I was simply swept along, caught up in the current of their desires.

Somewhere between seconds and eons passed like that.  A vast eternity crammed into a handful of gasping breaths, a lightyear crossed in just a few quick steps.  Then, while my head was still spinning from it all, I found myself lying on my back, my spine pressing down on the scratchy wool blanket that was identical to every other scratchy wool blanket in the base, except for the fact that it now had three full-grown, stark-naked men piled on top. 

I couldn’t say it was a fantasy I’d ever had before that point, but that didn’t stop my body from buzzing with a restless, agonized arousal.  My cock, so often ignored in a bunkroom filled with too much company to pay it mind, had grown hard against my belly, bobbing gently with each heaving breath.  I felt splayed open—I felt exposed.  For the first time I spared half a second to wonder if the door was locked—or if, god forbid, they had someone keeping watch for them—before my attention was drawn back to Buck.

He was kneeling on the end of the cot, the long lines of him displayed like a Roman statue, every distinct hue of his skin bare to see, sun-tanned to lily white.  He had allowed Bucky to take the lead for a moment, focused on a small tin of something I couldn’t make out.  Not that I was trying very hard—not with the attention Bucky was laving on my left nipple, the flat of his tongue dragging obscenely across the hair there and catching every nerve ending on its way. 

“Jesus, you—you’re good at that—“ I said, unable to help the surprise in my voice. 

Bucky grinned, wolfish.  Before I could so much as blink, his fingers replaced his mouth, rolling the pink flesh between his knuckles and tugging until I was gasping from the sting, my back arching and my mouth falling open, eyes screwed shut.  “If you’re still able to talk, I might need to step my game up,” he said, his head tilting.  He waited a moment, listening to the shallow wheeze of my breath, before nodding.  “That’s more like it.  Hey Buck, you ready back there or what?”

“Hold your horses,” Buck drawled.  When my eyes decided to focus again, I found that he had set the tin aside and was working something between his palms.  His hands passed each other in long, slow strokes, back and forth and back and forth, a hypnotic rhythm—and I had just put two and two together when he hummed and said, “Throw or catch, Croz?  You can throw and imagine you’re with your wife, if you want.”

Already Bucky was laughing, muttering a ‘to fuck or be fucked’ into my ribs, but as the words penetrated the electrical buzz in my head I found myself flinching back.  “No,” I said, too vehement by far for the tone of the whole affair.

That stopped them both short, Bucky’s eyes going wide as Buck paused in his ministrations with whatever substance they’d appropriated for lubrication.  “Jesus, Croz,” Bucky said, raising his hands off me, his mouth twisted in a mixture of emotions that I couldn’t quite parse.  Irritation, fear, apathy—sometimes they looked similar on him, like one was a badly-made mask for another.  “If you felt that way then you shoulda said something—”

Mortification seized my stomach, an iron grip that came only second in strength to the sudden, choking fear that they were going to leave.  “Wait, no, that’s not what I meant—“ I said, my voice near-cracking with the stress rising within me.  I found myself following him as he pulled back, struggling up onto my elbows like I was some kind of newborn colt, wobbly and unsure. 

It was Buck who halted us both, his firm elbow jamming into Bucky’s back and pinning him in place.  “How ‘bout you explain what you meant, then,” he said, and though there was a tension in his shoulders where there hadn’t been before, I was so grateful that he was willing to listen that I collapsed backward, landing hard on my back.

“I just…”  I swallowed.  My racing thoughts were threatening to overwhelm me, swirling up into a vortex that felt like it could rip me to shreds.  I fought through it, picking out the words with as much care as I could summon.  “I can’t… I can’t think of Jean right now.  The last thing I want, the last thing I’d ever want, is to bring her here into the middle of all this… all this death.  I can’t… I won’t.  That’s… that’s all I meant.”

The Majors shared a glance.  Bucky’s mustache twitched, Buck’s brow rose—I squeezed my eyes shut and pressed my hands over them, feeling unmoored all over again, and this time from my own damn stupidity.  They were going to leave—they were going to report me to the Colonel.  How they’d do that without implicating themselves I wasn’t sure, but given five more seconds to catastrophize I was sure I could think of a way.  This was it—the end of the line, the final stop, hello firing squad it was always nice to see you—

“Croz, would you look at me?”

Fuck.  Breathing in as deeply as I could, which turned out to not be very deep at all, I let my hands drop to my chest, wincing as I brushed the nipple Bucky had been tormenting.  My erection was still obvious, confusingly so—I felt small and humiliated and afraid, but my body hadn’t gotten the memo quite yet, and it made me want to squirm right out of the bunk and into the nearest hole in the ground.

Buck, though.  He wouldn’t let me wriggle away.  His eyes scrutinizing, he prodded Bucky in the side with the tips of his slicked-up fingers before I could so much as cover myself, startling Bucky into motion.  Bucky, who clearly understood the unsaid command much quicker than I did, promptly dropped his haunches down on top of my thighs and his forearm on my ribs, weighing me down as surely as I would’ve been if Meatball had decided I was his new best bud. 

I grunted, Bucky’s mass squeezing an ‘oof’ of an exhale out of me.  “Got him,” he announced, a tad unnecessarily. 

“Thank you,” Buck said, rolling his eyes.  He then leaned in, one elbow propped on Bucky’s back and his chin resting on Bucky’s shoulder.  He sighed, so low and soft I might have imagined it.

I could feel the weight of them both like that.  And it wasn’t just physically—their attention was like a pair of dumbbells, planted right on every part of me that I’d rather stay hidden, every exposed, achingly vulnerable piece that I couldn’t be sure wouldn’t break under the pressure.  My hands were trembling, curled up over my sternum the way a young child might tuck a stuffed animal to their chest—I wasn’t sure how long I’d be able to stand it.

Buck, thankfully, didn’t let the moment linger.  He paused just long enough to gather his thoughts, mulling them over like a handful of marbles, before he said, “Croz… if you want this to be a distraction, it can be a distraction.  Ain’t no one gonna make this into something more’n it is.”

I swallowed, turning my stare up toward the plain barracks ceiling above me, my heart in my throat.  “I just don’t want to—to feel like this,” I said, miserable.

“…What is it you feel like?” Bucky asked, when Buck only nodded with his mouth turned down in a frown.  The bony edge of Bucky’s arm was digging into my chest, more now as he leaned forward with a strangely intent look about him.  He was peering at me like he was… searching, seeking out the answer to some ineffable question in the planes of my face.

I wasn’t sure he would find what he was looking for.  Probably wouldn’t, actually—I was hardly more substantial than storm clouds just then, held together by the capricious whims of an electrical maelstrom.  One charge too many and I was going to come apart at the seams, a strike of lightning taking out everything in its path. 

Tucking my chin down and to the side as if I could hide my face away, I struggled to shrug a shoulder under their combined weight.  “Lost?” I tried.  That wasn’t quite right.  “Broken?”  No, not that one either.  “Just… wrong,” I decided, my mouth pinching down into a frown.  “Do you… do you ever feel like that?”

Bucky tipped his head back, rolling his neck as a muscle in his jaw flexed.  Above him, Buck hummed, his unbearably intuitive eyes finally turning away.  “Yeah… well, a distraction it is, then,” he said, pushing himself off of Bucky’s back.

It wasn’t exactly an answer, from either of them… but it was answer enough, all the same.  I pressed my hands flat against my collarbones, willing my body to calm from the jittering waves of adrenaline.  Wondered if I would ever relax, would ever feel like I was anywhere but a taut wire a hundred stories off the ground.  Waited, filled with nameless tension, for them to guide me, to tell me what to do.

It didn’t take long.  Buck, hands still filmed with a slippery, oily glimmer that had a mild scent I vaguely recognized from my mother’s kitchen, murmured a word or two to Bucky.  The next thing I knew, Bucky had rolled us both on our sides, facing one another.  One of his large thighs had slotted easily between my own—he tugged my hips forward, crowding in.  In moments, he’d lifted my knee up and over him, letting it rest on his hip—my hands, he nudged up to his shoulders, where they flexed and twitched, unable to quite hold still.

“You’re gonna want to hang on,” he said, smirking.  His fingers were commanding my attention, my chin pinched between the pads of his forefinger and thumb—keeping me looking right at him, at the crinkles around his eyes, the creases in the skin of his lips, the fan of his dark lashes.  I was so close that it was hardly anything at all to push forward and claim his mouth again.

Bucky let me, opened his lips for me to scrape my tongue against his teeth.  Welcoming, eager even, his fingers found my bare side and pulled me even closer, until his thigh was grinding up against the sensitive skin of my balls, the underside of my cock.

It occurred to me here, in a fleeting epiphany I had no hope of shaping into words, that for them to be so comfortable with this, so experienced with another man’s body and, more than that, with each other, then they must have done it before.  They clearly knew what they were doing, what they wanted, and I—well. 

I most certainly did not.

The jolt that shot through me as Buck settled at my back and slowly, gently, began to stroke slick fingers into the cleft of my ass might have been humorous in another context.  “Oh, shit—“ I said into Bucky’s mouth, my hands gripping his shoulders so hard that I left fingernail marks in his skin that stayed for a full day afterward. 

“Breathe,” Buck commanded, and I sucked in a lungful of air, my eyelids fluttering.  Bucky grinned, nipping playfully at my bottom lip.

It wasn’t much at first, despite how quickly my body was heating up, my muscles bunching and my hips jerking.  Buck didn’t move fast, but he had an inevitability about him, a surety, that carried us all toward the outcome he sought.  If I had known what to expect, I might have had the wherewithal to be nervous as the pads of his fingers began the process of massaging me open.  In hindsight, it was clear that I was seriously out of my depth, the odd man out—but even so, they never once let me feel like the blustering, near-virginal idiot I surely was.  Instead, they drew me in—easy, familiar, and somehow, against all odds, extending that ease and familiarity to me like I deserved it, like I was worth it, like I was one of them.

“Relax, now.  Let yourself go loose, from the inside out.  You feel that?”

“I—I feel it,” I said.  Already choking on a whimper, already lightheaded from the sensation of it, sinking a little deeper in with every inhale of cigarettes and soap and sweat and spice.  Buck hummed, satisfied with my answer—he’d crept closer, the heat of his chest blossoming against my back, and I could feel the vibration of his voice like it had made a home inside me.  My core flexed, twitched, unsure whether to push myself back against Buck’s whipcord-strong arm and clever fingers or forward onto Bucky’s insistent thigh, pressing my legs open like a flower bursting into bloom.

Thankfully, the only real answer I had was to give in to them both.  Trapped right between them—moving with them as they moved, and arched, and rutted—seeking out anything and everything that felt good so we might take the edge off it all.  It was deceptively casual, and wildly passionate, and in no time at all I’d been swept away in it, mouth open and moaning as sweat beaded on my skin.

“You’re doing great,” Buck’s voice murmured in my ear, low and a little rougher now.  He’d gotten two fingers in me and was currently easing in a third, drawing them slowly in and out.  The slick drag felt decidedly different from anything I knew, but it was all the more consuming for that, requiring every last bit of attention I had in me to give.  Until, that is, he crooked his fingers and I saw white.

If I’d had words at my disposal, I might have called it a shock, pure and sharp and consuming.  It felt like something had taken my raw nerves and exposed them, but in the best way possible.  My limbs jerked, my mouth opened—I think I may have stopped breathing altogether.

“There you go,” Bucky said, low and throaty.  He was talking to me, his lips pressing the words into my skin between lavs at the sweat beading at my temples, but his eyes had focused over my shoulder on Buck, watching him with a rapt attention that looked like something that was waiting for a chance to pounce.

He didn’t stop watching.  Not as Buck worked me wider, stretched me open.  Not when those fingers slipped away, gone just long enough to be replaced by something larger, warmer, more solid.  Buck pushed in, his ribs expanding against my back in deep, level gasps.  All the while Bucky stared and stared and stared, a quirk to his kiss-swollen mouth and an eagerness to the leg grinding against me, so insistent that it might have lifted me right up to the clouds if not for Buck’s hand, holding me down by the hip.

I gasped, unable to help how I choked on the sound.  It was so much—so, so much—and a glance back told me that it wasn’t just me feeling it.  The pupils of Buck’s eyes were blown wide as the deep, dark depths of the sea as he guided himself in, cheeks flushed a heady, blazing red, Bucky’s hunger mirrored right back, building and building and building.

And what a hunger it was.  It was so clear in that moment that it couldn’t possibly have been mistaken for anything else.  I had been raised to always try and think the best of people, to respect my fellow humans and see the good in them—and while there might have been certain higher-ups who looked down on John “Bucky” Egan for the sharpness of his untameable nature, the unruly wildness of him, I could only see a man who was willing to leap toward an unknown fate no matter the cost, even when others cringed back in fear. 

…Honestly, maybe especially then.

I couldn’t help the way I was drawn in.  It didn’t matter that I knew how easily hunger could become desperation.  My own aching heart was willing to give into that wildness, that fearlessness, that spirit—even if, in the end, these were the very things destined to swallow me whole.  I just… I couldn’t bring myself to care.

What would it matter, if I stepped over the edge and into that gaping maw?  What would it matter, when Buck was already there, a steady hand waiting down below, ready to cushion me should I fall?  A safe landing, a sure bet, that was Buck.  Like a stone, a monument, he kept his footing, forever unmoved by the whirling chaos that was Bucky.  Cocky and confident and so damn sure of what he wanted, how to get it, Buck felt like the only certain thing on the face of this whole, entire Earth.  I wouldn’t have so much as thought to question him, not even if I’d had the brainpower for it, the breath punched from my lungs as he finally, achingly, slid all the way home.

For a split second, we just breathed, the three of us, Buck’s exhales ghosting along my hair and Bucky’s warm against my face.  I wanted more—wanted movement, friction, more of those deep, raw-nerve shocks—but I didn’t know how to make the desire known.  My fingers were nearly numb from my grip on Bucky’s shoulders, too tight by far.  I didn’t care, couldn’t care.  I felt like I was still there—on the edge of the abyss, waiting for death or waiting for life, not sure which path I was going to take, which way I was going to fall.

Then, with a honey-sweet, bass-deep moan, Buck pulled most of the way out and fucked back in.  And then he did it again.  And again.  And again.

It wasn’t an intrusion, foreign though it was.  It was like he was making space for himself inside of me, rearranging the furniture to fill me up.  He was so close at my back that I felt his voice in my spine, the vibration of it causing tingles all the way in my toes.  I was making noises, too—these half-choked whimpers, small and breathless, eased along by Bucky’s fingers, which had started to explore again, seeking whatever struck his fancy.  They danced down my ribs, across my nipples once more with special attention paid to each, over the trembling plane of my belly, and ghosted along my cock, thumbing at the tip until I couldn’t help but thrust into it, disrupting Buck’s rhythm.

“Be good, now,” Buck said.  The command was short, his voice less level now, roughening with exertion, movement, arousal, but it felt just as imperative as it ever had.  I moaned, fingers flexing.

“I’m good,” I said.  “I’m good, I’ll be—I’ll be good—“

Buck nodded, his nose rubbing against the back of my neck as he kept thrusting, slow and steady.  “And you, Bucky?” he asked.

“Tell me a time I’ve ever been bad,” Bucky said, grinning sharply as he hooked his foot behind my leg, tugging me impossibly closer.  His hand was big and warm on my cock, not moving much except to thumb lazily at the head, letting Buck’s movement give it friction.

“Hm,” Buck said, sounding unconvinced.  Before I could attempt to contribute to the banter, however, he suddenly sped up, adjusting the angle in such a way that he immediately hit that pleasure spot once again, making stars burst before my eyes. 

This time, however, he didn’t stop.  Each thrust, faster and faster, seemed to hit that spot with unerring accuracy, a relentless torment of pleasure.  I couldn’t think, let alone keep myself from shouting—with a delighted laugh, Bucky pressed his lips to mine, as if attempting to swallow the noise.

It didn’t help.  I was lost to it, every shred of decency and decorum stripped from my body.  I’d never fucked like this before—never been fucked like this before.  It had tapped into something feral and wild inside of me, a creature that was nothing but need, drive, desperation.  Bucky’s callous-rough hand left my cock as his lips and teeth and spit-slick scruff worked at me.  A moment later, I felt his knuckles brush my throat, his long fingers curling up around my jaw.

I wasn’t sure exactly what happened just then.  What noise I let out.  Maybe I cursed, or maybe I bucked—maybe I begged him to keep doing that, yeah, god, please.  All I knew was that there was another of those looks, the Majors exchanging a conversation in the blink of an eye, and suddenly Buck was shifting, rolling over until he was under me with my back to his chest, his arm curled securely ‘round my throat.

It wasn’t meant to hurt.  Just a hold, a little experiment of sorts, I’m sure.  But as Bucky levered himself down on top of us, wrangling my legs up around his waist and pressing down on my chest, my chin nestled just there in the crook of Buck’s elbow, immobile… god.  It felt like I was safe.  For the first time since the war began, since the very first time my boots left the ground on a trajectory to the heavens, I felt like I didn’t have to be afraid.

That was what did it, I think, more than anything.  That feeling of being caged in, protected, as Buck thrusted into me from beneath and Bucky ground his hips down against me from above—it got me good.  The world had narrowed down to the shaking of my limbs, the sweat on my skin—the two of them, holding me together, as I drew in air past Buck’s arm, letting it flow in from my mouth to my throat and deep, deep into my lungs.

In, and out.

In, and out.

In, and out… and the last thing I recalled before the world exploded into pure, vivid, orgasmic pleasure was Buck’s voice, low and rasping, murmuring in my ear, “You’re still breathing, Croz.  You’re still breathing.  I can feel it.  Can feel all of it—your breath, your heartbeat—you’re still alive—“

I was.  I was alive.  Not waiting to die, not already dead—I was living, breathing, filled to the goddamn brim with it.  And then I was gone, all other thoughts had been wrung from my head by the sheer force of my orgasm.  I don’t think I had ever come as hard as that, and I sure haven’t since.

In the aftershocks, my body shook, my hands limp and legs all but numb.  Buck worked me through it, and I think he followed just behind, though my memory of it is hazy.  I do remember him pulling out, the ooze of cum at my hole—he was breathing hard, his chest heaving as he lifted his arm from my neck, fingers dragging soothingly through my hair.  “There you go,” he’d said, the curve of his brow tucked behind my ear.  “There you go.”

I tried to nod, blinking tear-wet eyes open.  Bucky was still pressed down against me, but he had a mischievous look about him—his glittering blue eyes locked with mine, and I could only watch, dazed and awed, as he palmed at my spend, smearing it where it had been trapped between us.  His brows twitched, his mouth falling open as he then began to stroke himself off, using it to smooth the glide.  He was putting on a show, his face so close, so open—below me, Buck hummed in appreciation, one of his hands rubbing slow circles into my hip.

He came a moment later, groaning low and breathy.  He worked himself through it, lowering his head down against my collarbone—when he’d finished, he lay there breathing for a long moment before he drew his hand up toward his mouth.  With a long swipe, he licked the cum from his palm.  It was lazy, hungry—followed by a low moan of satisfaction and a quirk of his lips as Buck laughed, the sound vibrating through us all.

I couldn’t help it—I laughed, too.  I felt like a giddy schoolgirl, giggling and unable to stop.  It was just—it was just so ridiculous, something I’d never thought would ever happen.  Not here, not to me—certainly not here, now, in a place like this. 

I wanted to savor the feeling of it.  To never let it go, to keep them there with me forever.  But as the sweat dried I felt my skin start to prickle with chills.  The laughter petered away, and I felt myself sobering.  I closed my eyes as Bucky began to extricate himself, searching for something to help clean up.

It was then that I realized.  Something inside of me, that terrible, foreboding feeling, all the electricity that had been buzzing in my veins… it had settled.  For the first time since wheels up, or even before, I felt calm, like I was truly there in my body.  Like I could sleep, without being gripped by the fear that I was going to be woken up in no time at all to fly back into the land of Death.

“You did good,” Buck said, a murmur in the quiet aftermath.  He’d managed to roll us onto our sides and was feeling around for the blankets, one hand squeezing my shoulder.  He started shifting, slowly peeling himself away from me, and I knew that this had to end at some point but I also knew that I didn’t want it to end yet.  I wanted to feel their heat, hear their breath next to mine—I wanted this place, this cot, this moment, where all of us were alive and Death wasn’t quite so close.

“Would you…” I began, and then bit my lip, feeling somewhat foolish in my newfound clarity.  I glanced over, found the two of them looking right back at me, spent and tired and patient and sad and light all at once.  I cleared my throat.  “You could stay,” I said.  “Just for a bit.”

Bucky shrugged, tugging up his briefs.  “We could,” he said, like it was an idea, and cut his eyes over to Buck.

Buck hummed, reaching out for his underwear and pants when Bucky handed them over.  “Yeah,” he agreed, after a moment.  “Sure could.  Only if you budge up, though.”

I huffed a laugh, levering myself up on a shaking elbow to give him room.  I expected him to lay back down, maybe force Bucky to sit at the foot of the bed or else lie on top of us both, but instead he pulled on his underwear and settled down at my head, drawing my cheek down to rest on his warm thigh.  After a moment, Bucky took the place at my back, crowding in and lounging with his head on my side, and elbow sprawled over my hips.  A zippo clicked, the sizzle of a cigarette lighting a familiar refrain.  I closed my eyes, curled up beneath the blanket, the chill of a creeping English evening kept at bay by the warmth of the Majors.

We didn’t talk.  Didn’t discuss the last mission, or the next.  I didn’t need to face it.  Not right then, at least.  Not in that bed, with my skin still sweat-hot, my head resting on a warm thigh as cigarette smoke curled up around my shoulder from a cig lodged between the fingers of a hand that I knew could, and would, wring pleasure out of pain.  Just then, for that moment, as I laid there with my heart bared, the easy breathing of two of my brothers-in-arms rising and falling on either side, salt-slick skin close enough to touch, to feel… I could let it rest.  I could let them all rest.

It was an oasis, a mouthful of cool water tucked away in the depths of miles upon miles of burning desert dunes, a cradle of shadows where I could hide away.  It was a lull, a breath, a respite, a ceasefire.  Buck and Bucky… they’d done it.  Together, the both of them.  They had held the weight of the skies.  Just for a time, just until I could get my feet back under me—just until I could stand up once more, pen in hand, our banner hoisted anew, held aloft to guide me back into the fight at the dawn of a new day.

In that moment… that one small, delicate moment… god.  It almost felt like peace.  The closest we could get.  The closest this war would allow.  And for that…