#obsidian.writes

The back doors of the van swung open, and the freezing winter air rushed in, suffused with the faint tang of industrial bleach and cooking onions. Wrinkling his nose, John shrank back. A guard with a heavy mustache and a sagging midriff held together by a too-tight belt reached in and grabbed him by the bicep. 

“Out. Move it. You think I wanna stand out here all night, waiting for you to get your ass in gear? This ain’t the ritz.”

John stumbled out of the van. His legs had fallen asleep and were now coming awake with a vicious attack of pins and needles, and the step-chains tripped him before he had a chance to get his balance to rights. He went down on his knees on the icy asphalt, bruising pain streaking up his leg and his hands, too restrained to do much more than catch the brunt of the fall. The guard didn’t help him up, just yanked on the belly chain, forcing John to scramble onto unsteady feet and clench all his muscles to avoid pissing himself. 

Once he was standing, he shivered miserably, appraising the windows that rose high above him, staring back soullessly. Inside, he knew there were eyes watching. Searching for weakness. In his hands, the first real tremors of withdrawal began, a fine, high-frequency vibration that the black box couldn’t hide and that sent his chains rattling far too loudly. His vision blurred for a moment, the limestone walls seeming to shimmer and melt together before rearticulating themselves. 

Gale sighed as he spooned the last mouthful of something that might once have been turnips and potatoes into his mouth. It was bad. Rotten. Occasionally, the soft texture of a maggot came through the bready, wheaty flavour of mouldy root vegetables. He could hardly stand it, when his teeth would slide through one. The first time he’d eaten a worm, he’d thrown up. But they were all getting used to it – getting used to the reality that they either ate this, or starved. And since John had come back, Gale didn’t want to starve anymore. John was counting on him. He needed to pull through, even if that meant stomaching a maggot or two now and then.

That didn’t make the taste any better, though. Didn’t make the nausea any less. Especially when Gale’s stomach had felt unsettled and on edge all day. He’d never been good with eating, and trying to force-feed himself something that so deeply disagreed with him had left him gagging over the pits they called toilets in the Stalag more than once since he’d been shot down.

He was trying to keep that from John. His not eating regularly had been easier to hide at Thorpe Abbotts. Now, with them all piled on top of one another like so many pickled fish, trying to eat regularly had Gale tied up in knots, sick with the normalcy.

As they lined up for their after-lunch appel, John sidled up next to Gale. He had a look on his face, twisted and sour. There were still bruises fading around his eye. Neither of them had brought them up yet. Like everything, John would tell Gale when he was ready – if he ever was.

“You’re looking green there, Major. Lunch not up to your standards?”

Gale grimaced. He didn’t like John’s snide remarks, his commentary – like he was a sports narrator in a box, high above the action, rather than on the ground, living it with the rest of them. He didn’t understand why John couldn’t acknowledge that this was their reality now. That it wasn’t changing. That he couldn’t just separate himself from it the way he drank to separate himself from his problems in England and America. 

Gale knew John had been trying to trade for hooch. He hadn’t brought it up. It didn’t feel worth his effort, not when he knew John would do whatever he wanted anyway.

“Not really sure what you were expecting, John,” he replied, unsure, as usual, how to deal with Bucky when he was like this, “Not like they’re trying to keep us fit and healthy in here. Gotta eat what we can, when we can. Doesn’t really matter whether or not it’s to our taste.”

John gave a snarling sort of laugh, and stared down at his boots. Shook his head like he was surprised and disappointed. Gale felt his heart sink. He hated this, hated the way John looked at him like he was some sort of disappointment for trying to survive. It made a sick feeling rise in his throat, anger curdling with the rotten leftovers of his lunch in his mouth.

“Dunno why you’re acting like this, John,” Gale implored, hurting but also angry and unsure how to balance those two emotions at once, especially in this place, as hard-eyed German soldiers worked their way down lines of bedraggled men with dogs snarling at their feet, “Like we get a choice. Gotta make do with what we got, don’t we? And…and it would really help me. With the boys, I mean. If I had your support. If I knew I could count on you to back me up, y’know?”

He saw John bristle. Saw his hackles raise like he was a dog, greasy brown curls practically rising off the back of his neck. When he turned, his eyes were flinty and his expression was closed, empty, veiled in some sort of emotion that Gale couldn’t possibly discern.

“You think that’s what this is, Buck?” John said, a sad sort of detachment in his voice, like he was talking to someone who wasn’t really there, “Think this is me not supportin’ you? Takin’ this all too light? Did it ever occur to you, huh, that I’m trying to do what I goddamned well have to do to survive? That I feel like walkin’ into that fence and lettin’ those Krauts shoot me at least once a day, but I can’t, ‘cause I got you, and I need to support you? And in order to survive, maybe that means goin’ a little screwy in the head, so I don’t fucking let them put a bullet in my skull?”

For a moment, Gale just stared. A sharp, horrible pain stabbed through his gut, worse than any hurt from eating rotten food. He nearly doubled over from it, the air sucked from his chest the way it had been when he’d bailed out of his fort. 

John looked at him, cold triumph in his eyes. Victory, for making cool, calm, collected Major Cleven stutter. For stealing the air from his lungs, the warmth from his soul. His face crinkled, a cruel version of his usual smile. 

Shame filled Gale from his frozen toes to his head. Something hot prickled at his eyes. He was so nauseated suddenly, so sick to his stomach. Waves of hot and cold washed over him in turns, and the sky was spinning before him in a cruel vortex. Dogs barked, someone shouted. He couldn’t find it in himself to care, because he was supposed to be protecting his men, and with John, he’d failed.

The moment they were told to fall out, Gale stumbled to the side, making for the block of toilets on the east end of the compound as fast as his shaky legs could take him. He swallowed back bile until he didn’t need to anymore. Rotten potatoes and half-digested maggots splattered into the hole at his feet. He couldn’t even smell it over the reek of shit and piss and thousands of men eating and digesting in close quarters.

When he was done, he looked up. Scanned around the open lavatory. It was empty. 

Foolishly, he’d hoped there would be footsteps behind him. A hand, big and warm, comforting on his shoulder while he lost nutrients his failing body couldn’t afford to lose. But the room was barren, vacant. Not even the sound of a few rats could overlay the sounds of Gale’s hiccupping misery, the hole of failure boring into the centre of him. 

Rubbing a hand over his face, not bothering to wash his hands, he stumbled out into the cold. Pulled his coat close around him, shivering, feeling suddenly feverish against the cold as he made his way back to the hut. John wouldn’t be waiting for him, he knew. But he couldn’t find it in himself to care.

When he made his way back, he just slumped on his bed. He still felt sick and miserable, cheeks flushed and eyelids heavy with exhaustion. It took very little time for him to sink into a restless, fitful sleep.

-

“Hey, Buck,” a voice filtered in Gale's subconscious – dark thoughts and twisted images of a fort falling, dark curls mixed with blood in an empty field, a noose around a pale throat that wasn’t his own, “Buck, wake up. Gale!”

His given name made him start. Gasping, eyes teary, he jolted upright in his bunk.

The light had shifted from day to night. He’d slept the day away. The boys had needed him, and instead he’d curled away from his responsibilities. Guilt panged through his gut, and he frowned, rubbing a hand over his face and his sweaty forehead. Someone had slid a hat over his head. It smelled like greasy hair and cigarette smoke. 

“Gale,” the voice said again, reminding him suddenly of why he’d woken up in the first place, “Hey, you awake in there? You sick or somethin’? Need me to call the doc?”

Bucky. Gale shook his head. He was tired. Sad. Sick to his stomach, yes, but so was everyone. Dysentery, probably food poisoning. He wasn’t sick in any way a doctor could fix.

“I’m fine, John.” He said shortly, sitting the rest of the way up and planting his socked feet on the floor. The tan fabric of his long underwear was slowly going grey from months of not being washed. At one time, it would’ve drive him mad. Now, Gale couldn’t find it in himself to care. 

The mattress dipped next to him. Surprised, Gale looked over to find John’s bulky body hunched next to him. He wasn’t wearing his hat. His face was red, scrunched up with something that approximated shame. Shuffling his boots back and forth on the floor, rubbing his hand over his chin in that awkward way he did when he was searching for the right words. It didn’t happen very often. Bucky always had the right words. It was Gale who was left wanting. 

They sat for a moment, before John stood back up. Gale frowned.

“You want something, Bucky?”

“I…ah. I got you something. I-I’m sorry, Gale. I shouldn’t’a said what I did earlier, at appel. I know you’re trying so hard. Hell, I see you trying. See you fallin’ apart when you’re trying to convince the guys you got it together. This place us driving us all crazy. But I shouldn’t have said that to you. You ain’t trying to hurt me. Just…sometimes I feel like I can’t be as good as you. Can’t be goddamned Major Cleven, when I’m a major too. Just the worse one. The one no one goes to, ‘cause he’s losing his marbles, and his best friend is trying to keep him from walking up to that fence.”

Gale just cocked his head. Sleep still had him in its clutches, and he felt hazy and sad and confused. Wasn’t John angry at him?

But then John produced a small golden bundle from his pocket. Held it out before him like it was more valuable than gold. And really, it was – when Gale saw the label, he couldn’t contain a small gasp of wonder. He hadn’t seen that in almost half a year. 

He reached out, hardly daring to hope. Almost closed his fingers around John’s precious cargo. 

And then, he wondered. What had John done for that? For something so rare, so precious? What had he given up? 

Gale recoiled and shook his head. He couldn’t take that. Not knowing the sacrifices John must’ve made. He couldn’t do that.

John’s face fell. He prodded his gift closer, frowning. 

“Come on, Buck. I know for a fact that lunch left a bad aftertaste. Take it.”

Gale was frozen. Entranced, almost, by the golden wrapper. It was better than Christmas, after so many months of nothing but rotten turnips and potatoes; Red Cross packages picked over for anything better before they ever got to the men.

In the end, he was weak. John’s eyes were big and apologetic, and Gale’s stomach hurt for something better, something more. He reached out and took it. Read those words – chocolate – embossed on the shining paper.

“Jesus, John,” he breathed, “What the hell did you trade for this?”

Bashful, John shrugged. Handed the food over like not even a little bit of him wanted to keep it, squirrel it away for himself. 

“Cigarettes,” he said easily, a smile twitching on his face, hoping for forgiveness, “Been trying to quit anyways. You forgive me, doll?”

Gale tore open the wrapper carefully, broke off the smallest chunk of dark, chalky chocolate. He placed it on his tongue and let it melt in the warmth there. It was sweet, dark, succulent. Oozing across his bereft tastebuds and indulging every single one. He couldn’t help the delighted moan that escaped his mouth, the way his head threw back and his eyes shut in ecstasy. It was sinful. Wonderful. It was everything. 

When he opened his eyes again, carefully folding the wrapper back up and stuffing it into the little hole of his straw mattress, John was waiting. His brow was wrinkled, concerned, and Gale realized he hadn’t given him an answer yet. 

“I forgive you, Bucky.” He said softly. Wrapped his arms around John when he was sure no one was going to come barging through the door. He was warm and real.

It didn’t surprise John when Gale didn’t come out with the rest of his cohort. Didn’t surprise him when they passed by John’s car, giving him a wave, on their way to the pub. He waved back tiredly. It had been a long day running ground training on the base, and John had felt wrung dry even before he’d driven into town to pick Gale up. Eyes prickling with dryness, he slumped back against his seat. Twiddled his thumbs, ran a finger over the errant hairs of his moustache. Checked his watch once, twice, three times. Dreamed of a warm chicken dinner, the kind Gale liked to surprise him with on Saturday evenings.

Fifteen minutes passed. Then twenty.

Finally, John cut the engine with an irritated sigh, letting the headlights go dark and watching the night instantly flood back into the parking lot. It was snowing, a gentle dusting covering the ground. The moon hung high in the sky, enough light on its own to illuminate the well-trodden path from the astronomy building down to the lot.

Trying to tamp down a feeling that John couldn’t isolate as either anger or worry, he heaved himself out of the car and slammed the door with a creak of rusty hinges. The sidewalks were well-sanded, John noted as he made his way to the double oak doors of the entrance to Gale’s building. Easy for Gale to walk on, which meant he wasn’t simply waiting inside because the way out was too treacherous. But, if that had been the case, John knew he would’ve asked one of his classmates to come get John to help him. Hoped he would have, anyways.

But the entrance hall was just as quiet as the path. Lit with the eerie yellow glow of round-the-clock lights shining off anemically cream-coloured walls and dark walnut doors and beams. Gale had asked to have his office moved to the first floor when he’d returned – and gotten an entire professor’s office for his troubles. John had helped him move his books down. It was the only time he’d ever entered Gale’s space. He’d always felt out of place there: not smart enough, not quick enough to keep up. The banter of Gale’s classmates, their jokes shrouded in enough layers of scholarly mystery to be inaccessible to outsiders, made him uncomfortable. Every time he’d met them, he’d shifted about, feeling stupid and slow, as Gale chatted back and forth in that quiet way of his, words flying seemingly a hundred miles over John’s head.

John was relieved, now, that he’d still helped Gale move. Otherwise, he’d have had no idea where to begin looking for him. As it was, he made his way to the end of the hall, footsteps slapping eerily off the white tiled floors. The last dark door on the left was labelled with a small brass nameplate: G. W. Cleven. PhD Candidate, Astronomy. 

John bit back a smile at that. He couldn’t help but feel a thrill of pride for his Gale. His brilliant, quiet, charming Gale. Smartest person he’d ever met, and not a shred of the ego to go with it.

Lifting his hand, he rapped his knuckles in a soft tattoo he knew Gale would be familiar with: it was the rhythm he’d always tapped on the door of their quarters when he was coming back from a drunken night out, so Gale knew it was him and didn’t lock him out.

There was silence from inside. No light was leaking from under the door. But there was nowhere else Gale could be, not this late. He’d lamented enough times about how the graduate students’ kitchen and lounge were shuttered after 6 o’clock.