#twobucks

He leaned against the bedroom doorway, blinking blearily into the dark, yawning hallway. “John,” he rasped. He cleared the sleep from his throat. “John.”

Silence was his only response, so he made his way downstairs. 

It was quiet here too, save the steady drip from the kitchen sink. John would want to fix that this week. Gale smiled, mildly surprised that he wasn’t under there right now working on it, but there were plenty of things in their home to occupy idle hands on sleepless nights. 

Their home.

A place they could call their own. A place where they could exist as nothing more than themselves, together, two sides of the same coin.

It was still a heady thought, even a year later. 

Down in the basement, John had wedged a workbench against one of the walls, the one without the leak. He’d taken to tinkering with various woodworking projects down there. Right now, he was refurbishing an antique captain’s chair he’d picked up at the church flea market to accompany the drop-leaf table he’d refinished last month. Gale often found him down here in the middle of the night. 

“Might as well make myself useful if I’m not sleepin’,” he’d joke with a smile that never quite reached his eyes. 

Not tonight, though. The basement was as dark and quiet as the rest of the house. 

The garage was dark, too, indicating that John had decided that Gale’s old pickup was not currently in dire need of yet another upgrade. 

Gale understood John’s need to work with his hands, especially now that they were no longer manning yokes or guns. While he enjoyed fixing a car or shed as much as the next guy, Gale preferred to take his pencil to paper, which is why John usually found him holed up in the second bedroom that served as a makeshift study with a weighty textbook on nights when he was the insomniac. 

“How can you make sense of all this stuff,” John would say, shaking his head fondly so his overgrown curls fell across his forehead in an entirely too charming – and enticing – fashion. 

“The more complex the equation, the more closure I get from solvin’ it,” Gale would reply, already distracted, pushing a soft, rogue wisp of dark hair behind his ear. “Guess it’s kinda peaceful.”

Peace. 

Gale couldn’t believe he’d ever thought it would come easily, now that the war was over. 

No one had warned him how maddening it would be, trying to cram himself back into civilian life, a puzzle piece that had once fit, now warped beyond hope of its edges ever matching up to the negative spaces. 

Unable to find John in any of his usual haunts, Gale returned to the kitchen. He was toying with the idea of putting on a pot of coffee when he spied movement in the backyard. 

John was out in the pitch-black garden, mid-summer moonbeams bouncing off of his white tee shirt. 

Gale approached cautiously, not wanting to startle him. He was kneeling in the dirt beside a neat row of sprouting string beans, labored breaths syncing up with the silvery strike of the trowel into the earth.

Gale rested a hand on John’s shoulder. “John.”

John said nothing, just kept digging and digging, until he finally threw the trowel to the ground with a frustrated grunt in favor of his hands. 

“They didn’t bury him,” he said, voice straining. Gale knelt beside him as he heaved clumps of dirt and mulch into a growing pile. “They didn’t bury him, Buck.”

“John.” Heart aching, Gale grabbed his forearms. His skin was clammy with effort in the slight evening chill. “John. Stop.”

John turned to him, eyes wild and mournful, the ghosts of tears etched on his cheeks like an epitaph. 

It had to have been a bad one, to upset him like this. 

Gale knew the feeling entirely too well. 

“What happened?” he asked softly. “Tell me.”

“There was…” John thrashed, a half-hearted attempt to buck Gale off, but Gale tightened his grip. “There was just…nothing. He was there, he was with us, and then he wasn’t. And there was nothin’ left.”

“I know.” John could have been talking about any of them: their lost brothers, lying dead in a ditch somewhere, bodies slowly rotting back into the earth, little more than a home for maggots and fungus, or burnt to nothing in the sky, antimatter. “I know.”

Each of them still visited Gale, too. 

“I have to…he has to rest. It’s not right.” John glanced at the hole in the ground, eyes glittering with fresh, unshed tears. Gale wished he could wipe them away before they fell, along with all of the hurt. “I gotta lay Curt to rest, Buck.”

The name tore into Gale’s tender heart like shrapnel. Of all of the names, all of the faces, all who had been lost before their time, Curt had hurt the most. It hurt to the point that they rarely spoke of him, though he had been a dear friend, someone who they could easily envision occupying a third bar stool, or seated at their table for Sunday dinner. Though the memories were fond, the knowledge that he would never get to see what it was like, after, cut too deeply to invoke them. 

“He’s gotta…” John hung his head, voice breaking as tears began to fall. “He can’t…”

Gale pulled John close. John buried his face in his neck, clutching at him fiercely as he let out great, body-shuddering sobs. Gale held him as the stitches holding his heart together itched and popped, reopening wounds that time had failed to heal. 

“It coulda been us,” John mumbled against Gale’s neck. “It coulda been…it coulda been you.”

“But it wasn’t.” Overwrought, Gale grabbed his face. He searched his eyes, as desperate to remind himself as he was to remind John that they had survived. “It wasn’t me. It wasn’t us.”

John’s kiss was sudden, hot and urgent as a summer thunderstorm. That raw, jagged crack in Gale’s chest began to close itself back up as he returned the kiss with equal fervor, driving away tear-salt and anguish with every pass of tongue and clack of teeth, cloaked away from the world in the night, here in their little garden behind their little home that they had made together after everything, in spite of everything. 

“I’m sorry,” whispered John wetly, breaking away from Gale. “I’m sorry.”

“Nothin’ to be sorry for.” Gale brushed their noses together, a near-unslakable craving for closeness blooming deep within him. “Come inside. I got you.”

John allowed Gale to help him up, abandoning the trowel in the disturbed dirt. He didn’t let go of Gale’s hand as he led him up into the bathroom.

“Sit,” said Gale, and John obeyed. In the light, Gale saw the streaks of dirt and hastily wiped tears on John’s face, the smudges on his white tee shirt, the stains on the worn knees of his pajama pants.

John started to protest when Gale ran the bathtub tap, but any objections died in his throat as Gale stripped off his shirt. “Let’s get you cleaned up.”

The tub was too small to comfortably fit the both of them, but that had yet to deter them. John got in first, then Gale slid in between long, bent legs to face him. He said nothing as he ran a warm washcloth over John’s face, gently ridding him of sweat, tears, filth, and mucus. Gale expected at least one less than subtle overture, or for John to bat his hand away, but John just let himself be washed, a helpless adoration eclipsing the sadness in his eyes as his breathing steadied. 

Their gazes met as Gale ran the cloth down John’s arm. Gale’s knee brushed against John’s as he scrubbed him clean, one large hand after the other, evoking a lovely, helpless little whimper. 

The negligible amount of space between them suddenly seemed an eternal abyss. 

With a wry smile, Gale teased his hand between John’s legs. 

“Buck –” inhaled John, but Gale simply rested his fingertips against his inner thigh. He relished in John’s shiver as he softly dragged them down to his inner knee, his calf, until he lifted one of John’s feet out of the water. 

Thrown off balance, John gasped and slipped down until his calf pressed against Gale’s shoulder. Alarmed, he grabbed the lip of the tub to stop himself from sliding further underwater.

The sight was so endearing – and ridiculous – that Gale couldn’t help himself. He laughed. 

John’s eyes crinkled up around the edges as he laughed, too. Gale could have cried with joy at the sound – not only was it his favorite sound in the world, it was also the sound of fear and pain leaving John’s body, at least temporarily. 

“You good?” Gale bent his leg to kiss the inside of his ankle. 

“I think I’ll manage, somehow,” said John, rolling his eyes as he pulled himself back to a seated position. 

When Gale moved to wash his foot, John gently kicked the washcloth away. “Okay, Saint Cleven,” he said, eyes bright with mirth and more than a little desperation. “Just take me to bed already.”

Gale dropped his leg and surged forward. Way too much water sloshed over the side of the tub as he kissed John as though his life depended on it, because it did, it always did. John groaned and kissed him back, his need sliding hot and hard against Gale’s stomach. 

“We’re here,” he whispered into Gale’s mouth, almost like he hadn’t meant to. “We made it. You and me.”

An incendiary yearning flared in Gale’s chest. He wrapped his arms around John’s shoulders, nearly climbing into his lap as he pressed their bodies as close as they could get. “That’s right. You and me, baby.”

John clutched at him, sighing and kissing, touching and grinding. For a delirious moment, Gale thought that they might not make it to bed before forcing himself to pull back. He needed to be closer, and judging by the way he was looking at him, like he might not survive a moment’s separation, John felt the same. 

Gale dried them both briefly in the same towel, just enough to avoid trailing water from the bathroom to the bedroom. 

Their bedroom.

He couldn’t find it in his heart to feel the crushing weight of guilt he so often did when he thought of all of those who hadn’t made it as he laid John down on the bed, near-feverish desire colliding with the burning joy that they were alive. He kissed him deeply before guiding him onto his stomach, entranced by the way his back muscles rippled in the moonlight. He pushed morbid thoughts from his mind as he trailed kisses across bath-damp skin from John’s shoulder to his neck, pausing to nibble on his ear, choosing to focus on the delicious sound of John’s breath, heavy with pleasure, rather than sorrow, as he worked him open. 

Sometimes he couldn’t believe that they were able to have this, that they had survived and prospered when so many others had not. 

But they had. They had survived, and John was here, so wonderfully, beautifully alive, and so wonderfully, beautifully Gale’s. He arched beneath him and whispered the name he’d given Gale when they’d first met, as indelible as ink in skin, as holy as an ancient prayer.

Gale pressed his chest to John’s back as he sank into him, sighing as blood-stained memories and grief melted away in the heat of ardor. Gratitude lit him from within as he laced their fingers together and buried his nose in the damp tendrils plastered to the base of his neck. He inhaled deeply and nearly finished on the spot; the scent of the man who had been with him through the best and the worst times in his life, who understood him better than he understood himself, was an intoxicant like no other. And John was just as gone as he was, moaning and drooling shamelessly onto the pillow as he pushed back to meet Gale, desperate to be closer, closer, closer. 

“Love you,” panted Gale against a flushed cheekbone, his heart hammering against John’s through layers of bone and muscle, rushing blood and heaving flesh. “God. I love you.”

John let out an ecstatic sob and tightened his grip on Gale's hands until his knuckles turned white. He turned his face into the pillow, and Gale saw him through a rapturous release, vision blurring with adoration as John’s body trembled beneath his, before following him quickly over the edge of bliss with a gasp. 

Afterwards, they laid on their sides in the sticky sheets, fingers and legs tangled together, watching each other breathe as they came down. The droop of John’s eyelids signaled how quickly he was fading, but he kept forcing his eyes open, like he couldn’t stand not to look at Gale as long as he was awake.

“Think I’m gonna pass out,” he finally mumbled.

“That’s alright.” Gale pressed his hand to his lips. “So am I.”

“Good.” John’s chuckle turned into a noisy yawn. “You could use it.”

Gale stared at him long after he drifted off, tracing everything from the slope of his nose to the delicate jut of his collarbone with his eyes. 

No detail was too small to be savored. 

As sleep eventually overtook him, he hoped that if he did dream, he would dream of John, just like this, face unmarred by tragedy, snoring softly beside him. 

The night of Dye’s party, John is hopelessly nervous to share the same space with Gale again. 

He’s sick of the habit they’ve fallen into – sneaking cautious glances at each other across the mess hall like they are strangers instead of best friends. He’s sick of hiding himself away from Gale, too afraid that he’ll cut the other man with all of his sharp edges. He misses Gale more than he misses the whiskey that taints his bloodstream and clouds his mind. He misses Gale more than the sweet promise of dreamless sleep that eludes him. 

John hovers like a schoolgirl with a crush around the table that Gale is seated at. He laughs and jokes with his buddies, but he can barely tear his eyes away from his best friend. He looks smaller in his uniform, like he hasn’t been eating. John can’t help but to worry, though he’s sure he doesn’t look like he’s in top form, either.

 When the boys rib him for his joke about Dye’s mother, he can’t help but to lean in towards Gale, who’s grinning despite himself. His smile is beautiful, infectious. John feels like a starving man, eyes glued to Gale’s lips like the tilt of them could fuel him for days. He swings around the table to stand behind the other man, as close as he can get, as he talks baseball.

 Dye wanders over with his girl in tow and the men all congratulate him for his 25 successful missions. But then he says, “We’re all that’s left, aren’t we?” 

John feels the gaping darkness emerge inside him, threatening to swallow him whole. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Gale’s smile fade away, eyes cast downwards as he’s drawn back into the memories of Regensburg. John’s anger boils beneath his skin, prickling the edges of his nerves. He nearly loses himself in it, but Gale steers the conversation back to the celebration of Dye, so John reels himself in and toasts his friend, determined to not ruin the night. Because tonight is about Gale. Not his own grief, not his own anger, but Gale and his smile and calming voice and his gentle hands. 

After a few more minutes of chatting with the boys, Gale suddenly stands up and leans towards John. He nods towards the dance floor, where a few of the new replacements are standing near the fringes, ogling the pretty ladies. John claps Gale on the shoulder with a grin and leads the way. They introduce themselves to the four men - Rosenthal, Nash, Speas and Lewis. They keep the conversation light, but John feels the cruelty lingering within his bone rear its nasty head at Rosenthal’s hopeful, naive wishes. 

 “Oh, you’ll do something alright,” he says sarcastically, before he can stop himself. Rosenthal stares back at him, clearly confused by his remark, but smiling nonetheless. 

Suddenly feeling sick to his stomach, John stalks off towards the bar, Gale riding his heels. He orders a whisky and downs the glass in one, deep gulp as Gale watches him with concern. And just like that, John wants to hide himself again. Wants to burrow into the ground where he’ll eventually rot away with the maggots, where he can’t hurt anyone but himself. But then Gale reaches out to brush his hand against John’s, and he would think it was a mistake except Gale is staring right at him, eyes a dark, stormy blue in the dim light. 

John wants time to freeze there, in that moment, with Gale’s hand resting on his and Gale’s eyes watching only him, but then DeMarco is settling next to them with Meatball. Gale pulls away to nod hello, but John’s not done with him yet. He leans towards Gale and asks about Marje, a sure way to keep his attention. Like hooked fish, Gale talks about his letters from his sweetheart and naturally, they gravitate closer to each other.

But then Rosenthal’s back, invading their space, and John wants to snap at him like a possessive dog. The young pilot asks them for advice, nerves radiating off of him, clearly anxious to be around the two majors, who to him, must seem larger than life. John bites back his scathing reply. He decides to let Gale answer for them instead. Gale has always been better at hand-holding, anyways. Surprisingly though, Gale’s only response is for Rosenthal to try to stay alive and after that, well. John can’t be held responsible, now can he? 

“For at least 11 missions,” he finishes Gale’s thought, eyeing the man standing in front of them. He feels Gale’s shoulder pressing against his and tries to ground himself. 

“Yes, sir. What happens after that?” Rosenthal asks, curious, like Gale and John somehow hold all the answers to his success. 

“You beat the odds,” John says, biting back his scorn with a smirk, “Or you didn’t. You know?” 

Rosenthal walks away with a tight smile and a polite thank you. John feels Gale watching him and suddenly feels too tight for his own skin. Recognizes too late that his pain is seeping from his pores, gliding over his skin like a shield. The anger in his marrow licks against the hollow shell of his bones, soothing and burning like the whiskey he’d been drowning himself in all night. 

“All these new faces…We go down and they won’t remember us either. Like we never existed, Buck,” he says slowly, swallowing against poison hatred that rises steadily in him. Gale’s eyes sear into his skin and John wishes that he’d just go away, wishes that he’d just step closer. 

“What does it matter?” Gale asks, gravelly voice like a life raft, desperately trying to reach John. But he’s already buried beneath the vast, deep sea. 

John shakes his head, refusing to meet Gale’s gaze. Still drowning in bloody, ocean water. “Nothing, I guess.” 

Before Gale can say anything else, Colonel Harding saunters over to say hello and give one of his drunken speeches. And all the while, John can taste the poison coating his tongue, can feel that ever-growing anger erupting from his bones, bursting desperately from marrow. His head swims with his pain, drowning him in the ever-present agony that coats his nerves and numbs him. So when Harding leans in with some half-cocked joke of a plan, John leans forward and hisses, “Now who’s flak happy?” 

“Who?” Harding asks, staring John down. 

But John, never easily intimidated, simply replies, “You are.” 

“You are.” Harding says, waiting for John to back down. 

“No. You are,” John smacks his hand against the front of Harding’s uniform, itching for a fight, itching for hurt, “Sir.” 

He feels the stares of the men around them, eyes bouncing back and forth between Harding and John, waiting for the inevitable punishment. John can practically taste the apprehension in the air, but he lets it feed him. He gnaws on their fear like a wolf with a bone and uses it to boost his bravado, uses it to fuel his anger. But Harding lets him down and laughs the tension away before leading the rest of the boys towards the dance floor. John sucks his teeth, searching for more poison, searching for more pain. 

Gale inches closer to him, chewing at his toothpick, and says quietly, “You need a break. I think the colonel ought to fix you up a weekend pass.” 

John wants to laugh, wants to cry. But his lungs are still full of water and his gums are still coated with toxins. He thinks of leaving Gale behind, thinks of Gale flying alone, thinks of that first mission. 

“You should come,” he says before he can stop himself, “London. Let’s do it up, Buck. Paint the town red.” 

He knew Gale’s answer before he finished asking. Knew it was futile, hopeless because Gale would never leave his men, never leave his fort. Not for John, not for anyone. Gale would keep going, keep fighting, even when he grew gaunt with grief, even when his agony hollowed him to empty. And John would be forced to watch, forced to fade away with him. Because without Gale, John is nothing. Gale is the only good in him, the only bright he has. 

His sharp edges finally collapse as Gale dances away with Meatball. He watches affectionately as Gale sways to the music with the husky in his arms. Without his shield, John feels the full brunt of his anguish and swallows against the tears that form a lump in his throat. Because the reality is, John loves Gale. John is in love with Gale, has always been in love with Gale. And John will always, inevitably hurt him because of the anger that’s burrowed in his bones, because of the venom that flows through his veins. So, Gale won’t come to London with him and Gale will fly his mission, and John will numb with his whiskey and John will wound with his poison. 

Head suddenly spinning and skin itching, John turns away from the blinding sight of his best friend and slips through a backdoor to get outside. He lights a cigarette with trembling fingers and leans against the side of the building, gazing up at the star-filled, night sky. He tries to even out his breathing, tries to hold the ocean water at bay. 

“John,” Gale’s voice beside him startles him into dropping his cigarette to the ground. He whips around to see Gale standing in the darkness, mere feet away from him. 

“Buck? What’re you doing out here?” John asks, hoping his voice doesn’t sound like tears. 

“Needed some fresh air,” Gale says, then reaches out to grip John’s wrist, “and came to check on you.” 

John freezes like a deer in headlights, stares down at Gale’s hand wrapped around his boney wrist and stumbles for words. But then Gale steps forward, pulls John’s arm around his neck. He’s so close that John can smell the addicting, woodsy scent of his aftershave. 

“Wh-What, um.” John starts to ask, but Gale shushes him, wraps an arm around his waist and pulls them together chest to chest. 

“Dance with me,” he whispers, pressing his cheek against John’s. John can feel every single nerve within his body short-circuiting. Gale starts moving his feet, swaying them side to side. John follows, blindly, loyally, like he always does. He’d follow Gale anywhere. 

“I’d come to London, you know,” Gale finally says, speaking directly into John’s ear. John can’t help the shiver that snakes down his spine. 

He clears his throat, asks, “Then, why?” 

Gale pulls away slightly to press his forehead against John’s. His eyes are crystal clear, blue like the sea. John wouldn’t mind drowning in them. “This one’s for Curt.” 

Understanding blooms within John’s chest. For Curt. He closes his eyes, shifts closer to Gale, always so helpless to this man. 

“I meant it, John. Next time,” Gale says, and John feels more alive than he has in his entire life.