Chapter Text
"(6) And the seven angels which had the seven trumpets prepared themselves to sound. (7) The first angel sounded, and there followed hail and fire mingled with blood, and they were cast upon the earth: and the third part of trees was burnt up, and all green grass was burnt up. (8) And the second angel sounded, and as it were a great mountain burning with fire was cast into the sea: and the third part of the sea became blood; (9) And the third part of the creatures which were in the sea, and had life, died; and the third part of the ships were destroyed.
(10) And the third angel sounded, and there fell a great star from heaven, burning as it were a lamp, and it fell upon the third part of the rivers, and upon the fountains of waters; (11) And the name of the star is called Wormwood: and the third part of the waters became wormwood; and many men died of the waters, because they were made bitter."
— Revelation 8: 6-11 (KJV)
JULY 1940, TEXAS
"So, when’d you go and decide you’d like to feel up a guy who looks like your brother?" John Egan’s all green-envy, though she doesn’t think he’s entirely aware of how it stinks up the place (not yet, at least). He’s got a mean-mouth, which she likes but wouldn’t admit to aloud, and beautiful, thunder-blue eyes.
"Never had any brothers, John." Marge swirls the tip of her nail 'round the top of her sprite. She wants to ask him when he went and decided Gale was his to mark, his to keep. She doesn’t. "Besides, our noses are different—didn’t you notice?" She’s playing a strange little game, one entirely to herself, and perhaps one that Gale perceives (in that underwater-way he perceives anything that isn’t flying—be it at a gallop across the open, Wyoming plain or at full-throttle across the spanning, cerulean sky), but won’t bother himself commenting on.
"That you do," John hums after a moment, thoughtful. His gaze coasts across her features—lazy, just the right side of lecherous. "What was he like as a kid?" It’s too familiar a question, and the both of them realize it at the same time.
Marge is delicate; she gives him the out: "Lookin’ for something embarassing, Bucky?"
"'Course," John ribs, grinning against the lip of his glass.
He’s too lush for someone like Gale. She doesn’t say that.
Continuing: "The boys all think he’s a saint—Christ come down to the rabble."
"You know a lot about Christ?" Her gaze flicks (not for the first time) to the silver cross dangling from his throat. He swallows under her appraisal, but his eyes are distant the way Gale’s are (for entirely different reasons—he really has had too much to drink tonight, and they haven’t been here long).
"Sure do, Marge," he rolls her name off his tongue like its something honeyed, heavy. "'Nough to know Saint Cleven might just be the second coming."
"Might," She plucks out.
"Might," he echoes, a glint in his eye. "Got some gaps—don’t quite know if Christ got up to the same thing before the sun’s come up."
"Oh, is that so?" Marge takes a sip of her sprite, imagines Gale taking hold of himself in a shared barrack and wringing out his pleasure. He wouldn’t need to try so hard to be quiet—he’s always quiet. "You listening for him? Bet it’s a strain."
John sucks in a breath, eyes dancing with wild mirth. That distance is gone, and that envy is back but set alight. Both of them acknowledging some illicit, shared knowledge. "Thought you were a good, Christian girl, Marge?"
"'Bout as good as any other," she fields, glancing down the hall obscuring the scratched, worse-for-wear restroom door. "He’s not much different," she says, watches some strange emotion flicker across John’s face before clarifying, "from how he was growing up."
"Always a saint?"
"Always shy," she says, even if that’s not quite true. Reserved is the better word, since Gale doesn’t quite balk at conversation or at going out, just isn’t effusive in either context. "You and your saints, Bucky. You must’ve been a good, Christian boy yourself."
John opens his mouth to sling something back, ready to continue that knife’s edge dance they’ve got worked up, but instead Gale sinks back down into the booth next to her, his thigh settling against hers a heavy, warm weight. "I’m wouldn’t be too sure about that," he says, words all liquor smooth rolling off his tongue. She tangles their ankles together, shooting John a look as she does it, but he won’t get too worked up 'cause he hasn’t even noticed; his eyes are only for Gale in that moment, and he wears the besotted look of some schoolyard puppy-crush with a sort of unmatched charm.
Gale doesn’t ask: what’s got the two of you talkin’ about God?
But he does ask: "Getting on well, Bucky?" His hand falls into Marge’s lap, squeezes 'round her thigh like a stocking might.
"Like a house on fire," Bucky replies, kicking back the last of his whiskey. "Say, Buck, how’d you go and convince her you were so sweet?"
Her brow arches.
"Not sure I ever made the effort," Gale drawls, flicking open his toothpick case and selecting a fresh stake to fondle at the corner of his mouth.
"And I don’t think I ever said Gale was so sweet," Marge quips.
John placates with his hands all theatrical, like he belongs on some brightly lit stage. "Is he not?"
"You’re the one who said it like he wasn’t," Marge continues, brow furrowing ever-slight. She’s hunting for the angle, doesn’t quite know where Bucky’s going with all this.
'Cause John might think he knows Gale—rough and tumble, sweating from the drills and drunk on adrenaline—but Marge knows him better. Marge went and found him after his daddy ran him off into the desert. She’s the one that knows the man she brought back isn’t the same one she grew up with. Saw it clear as day in the middle of a red, desert sky with George Neithammer sitting back by the trailhead just in case she found something that made her need to scream.
Gale’s not sweet.
John doesn’t even know the half of it.
A squeeze to her thigh brings her back to the present. Both men are watching her—John like he knows she went somewhere he ain’t ever been, and Gale like he knows exactly where. "Speaking of sweet," Gale murmurs, tossing her a rope when normally it’s the other way around. "Why don’t you tell Bucky 'bout that friend of yours?"
"Francine?"
"Believe that’s the one…"
And Marge knows safe-territory when it comes up, knows how to tread it and bed it. She launches into the pitch and is glad to know that Bucky’s gonna go ahead and humor her. Thinks he might just do for Buck, and Buck alone.
***
"She’s a doll, Buck," John overcompensates in tone and manner, and knows it shows. He’s been floundering since Marge went ahead and bit back at the bar—totally at ease with flexing that she’d get that rock, sure as stone. "Looks like one, too," he waggles his brows, trips on the step up into their shared barrack. Buck’s hand twists in the back of his shirt, hauls him steady by sheer force of will alone (Buck’s not small, but John’s big, even being five years closer to adolescence than the six years closer to the middle). "Must’ve felt like fate finding her all the way out here— what was it you said? Last saw her somewhere out in Laramie?"
"Casper," Buck corrects, smooth and even-toned. He’s especially patient tonight, considering John and Marge weren’t at all subtle about their back-and-forth. It’s comforting, actually, that Marge sees through him in the way he’s convinced Buck does not. "Felt dreamy enough."
"Now that’s no way to answer," John slurs. "C’mon, Buck. Sell it. That’s your lady, right? Must’ve felt like fireworks seeing her under the Texas sun that first time."
"Sure, Bucky." He stays dry and even-keel, rolls his eyes to boot.
"You’re no fun."
"If you say so."
"Oh, I say so."
Buck lets go of the back of his shirt, pushes him into his cot with no venom and no offense—instead, it’s all the brusque, but gentle fondness that is characteristic of Gale Cleven. John lets himself fall in, rolls over onto his back, and preens all pretty and sharp when Gale crouches down to his knees and reaches for his bootlaces.
Marge prances around, hot-to-trot in her pretty little heels. She doesn’t need Buck like this, and so it’s probably something unique to just the two of them. And John’s a selfish bastard when he wants to be. Likes that he has this on her, when she has almost everything else. "You gonna marry her?" He asks, talking up at the ceiling 'cause he doesn’t think he wants to see Gale’s face when it lands.
"Might do," Gale replies, opening up the tongue of the first boot and tugging it off all practiced, easy skill. "Got somethin’ to say about that?" He knows John well enough to know he’s angling at something, or stewing in something.
"She doesn’t think you’re sweet." It’s not what he plans to say, but it’s the first thing that comes to mind. It’s the thing that’s been nagging at him all night. That last little quip before Gale went ahead and changed the tide of the conversation. "What’s that mean?"
Gale hums, his breathing slow and steady and thoughtful. When John props up on his elbows, peers over the edge of the cot, he’s got his eyes shut like he’s really considering what he wants to say. Normally, he’s quick with it. Might not say it fast, but sure does think it fast. Gale’s a whip—sharp as a tack. The hesitation is uncharacteristic. John’s the one that chews on his words all-too-long or just spitfires them out not-a-thought-to-'em.
"You had a good home, John?"
"Don’t change the—"
"Humor me," Gale interrupts.
"My dad spent most days still in Belgium; talked tough like I was out there with him, too," John says, the truth of his shuddering out of him all uncomfortable and rancid in the pit of his stomach. He signed up for this 'cause its what was expected, and also 'cause it’s what he wanted—one way in which he could be like his dad, make him proud, make him see him, make him care. "He wasn’t rough, though."
"Yeah, well my daddy was." Gale tugs off his other boot, clasps them in one hand and deposits them at the end of John’s cot with a thump! "Marge knew him, so she knows me."
John waits ’til he hears Gale sink back down in his own cot. "You’re not your daddy, Buck. And if Marge thinks—"
"She knows, Bucky." He doesn’t sound angry, just tired. "She knows exactly what I am."
A damn good man, John thinks. But he lets the matter rest.
***
SEPTEMBER 1941, LOUISIANA
He’s all of twenty-six when some man shoves him down on his knees, fucks him rough and gaping, tears open his throat with a flash of teeth (dazzling like diamonds in the glinting, sideways glance of the full moon), and runs off howling like some dog. The first part, he’d barreled into willingly (there wasn’t any other reason to go trotting off shoulder-to-shoulder outside the Korner), but the second part he thinks he might have plaintively tried to refuse, had he known it coming. Thinks he might have raised hands that hadn’t yet calloused; might have begged like he sometimes did come Sunday mass; might have ducked for the sopping, murking puddle beneath him and tried flinging that up into his pursuer’s gleaming, hot eyes.
It happens too quick.
Kind of like those crash-drills back at base.
Time slows down, but not enough.
Strangely enough, all he wishes he had is Buck.
The blood pours onto the cement beneath his knees.
***
"The pussy maul you or somethin’?" Gale doesn’t talk crass, but it seeps out anyway. In the rare occassions it does happen, it’s John’s fault about half-the-time. The other half, they owe to shock. And it’s shock that washes across Gale’s poster-pretty features—slackening his jaw, arching his brows, drying his lips—when John comes staggering on into the barracks at Barksdale.
"Dirty words for such a pretty mouth!" John croaks, clapping a hand to his throat. Shock is one thing—he thinks the gaping tear he ought be wearing is worth a bit more panic. Feeling the length of his neck, though, something’s changed. The wound’s there, yeah, but it’s knit up a bit (a whole, lotta bit, to be perfectly honest with himself and what he does remember). "You know I like 'em wild."
Gale’s brows shoot up even further. He’s non-plussed, still soaking in the look of him. "That’s too much blood, John."
It’s everywhere, John knows. He’s been smearing it around, dazedly touching himself as though he can’t quite believe he’s alive. "Little iron never turned me off."
"Still too much," Gale comments, all mild and curious and confused. "The hell’d you go?"
"Shreveport."
"Walked back looking like that?"
"Flew, actually."
Gale rolls his eyes. "Should sit. You actually bleeding?" There’s so much he can’t even tell John’s gashed open. Fancy that.
"She caught me with a nail’s’all."
"Digging it deeper, John."
Fuck.
He just needs to shut up and let Gale fill in the gaps himself.
Gale stands.
John sits.
He leaves the room. The silence is stifling (as it often—always—is), but it doesn’t last. Gale returns with a damp rag and a toothpick between his lips. He’s all easy grace, cowboy nonchalance when he crouches down between John’s knees and slaps the rag onto his shoulder with a thwack! "Not you’re momma," Gale murmurs, gaze like the great lakes (deep, unknowable, chilled). "So, clean yourself up."
"Here I thought you’d offered to help," John tries, voice uncharacteristically weak.
Gale’s brows climb back up. He cocks his head. "Stop lyin’."
"Not—"
"About the rest of it." Gale reaches out. His hand’s close enough to see the hair dusting his knuckles (normally too light to see in anything other than the backlight of the burning sun). He plucks up the edge of the rag and knocks John’s hand away from his neck. Pauses. Then, he drags the rough cloth over the bloodied tendons, the mauled crook of him. "What happened?"
"Wouldn’t believe me even if I was honest, Gale." John won’t tell him. The wolf’s the easy part—explaining how he got up close and personal, that’s less easy. Gale might not kill him for losing a fight, but he might kill him for going down on his knees and taking it.
"Mhm—'m Gale now?" He sounds unimpressed, but doesn’t stop cleaning the—
It’s then that John registers the ragged cloth isn’t digging into the jagged line of torn-up, still healing skin. It’s just scrubbing over it unbroken and easy, cleaning up the blood but not a wound. It’s gone. And Gale noticed, but he didn’t say anything. So, John can’t help but ask: "The hell’s up with you?"
"With me?"
"Yeah, with you, Buck."
"You’re the one who came in looking like a rat got by a dog."
"That’s rather rural of you."
"Like you’re not straight out the Midwest yourself," Gale slings back. He’s quick with it when he is talking, just takes time to get him going. John gets him going, knows that Marge does too. "Nothing’s up with me."
"Don’t get all defensive now!" 'Cause that is what this is. Gale’s hackles are rising and John’s are too. Typical. "Think you’re acting a bit blasé, even for you."
Gale shoots him a look like he’s not even going to grace that with a comment. "Said you caught a nail." He’s all serious, even if the both of them know he doesn’t buy the story. John might’ve shot himself in the foot—probably should have just come clean off rip, 'cause then Gale would be all disbelieving because it was unbelievable and not just because he wants to stick it to John by leaving it all unsaid. "Or that you ate a girl on the rag." He rubs away the last of the blood clinging to John’s neck. He knows it only because Gale’s lips purse (satisfied for a bare second, like the moment he makes a good landing in bad weather). Then: "t’s a bit of a toss-up where you were planning to land this one." The story. He’s telling him to get it right next time. If he’s gonna lie, he’d better double-down on just the one.
John waits until Gale’s stood back up and climbed back in his cot before he says: "Thought you’d’ve been asleep." Didn’t think I needed a story.
"Like to wait for you. You know that." No. He doesn’t. Normally, Gale’s asleep when John comes stumbling through the door stinking like a drunk (maybe he just is a drunk, now, he never considered where the distinction falls between casual and lush). At least, he’d been under the impression Gale slept through his every late entrance.
For a moment, they’re both quiet. Gale settles in to sleep like he hasn’t said anything earth-shaking, and John lingering with blood stains all down his collar and a throbbing chill deep in his feet. Then, Gale clears his throat: "I don’t much care, Bucky, 'less I go read the paper and some dead girl’s painted 'cross the front cover."
"Wouldn’t help me hide a body?" Bucky quips, even though it feels like an awful joke to make.
Gale inhales anyway, in that sharp sound that signals he’s all amused. "Nah, John." Find someone else.
He’s on the edge of sleep when he dreams it.
Buck drinking heavy from his neck.
***
It’s a late season storm that shoves every goddamn Louisiana-based USAAF asset inland. The hurricane brings with it a strange pattern of weather bands of the sort that John wouldn’t claim to be used to, that he knows Gale isn’t used to. Gale’d know more about tornado country (and even that’s a bit too far east for him, same as it’s a bit too far west of John), but even then, he seems oddly pensive in the face of one, massive tornadic storm—all humid and dense and wretched.
The chaos is doing him some good, though. John, that is. He hasn’t been paying much attention to Gale. Not right now, when everything since that night out in Shreveport has been a mix of a mess. 'Cause John woke up the morning after that night and could smell the metal in his own bloodstained collar hundred-fold to anything he’d ever caught scent of before. And that was just the first thing. Soon as he eased into knowing that smell (recognizing, cataloging, and compartmentalizing it), he’d started to pick up every other smell: the dry scent of piss off the side of the path between the barracks and the latrine-trailer; the scent of come and sweat and soap all mingling below the grate of a shower drain; the musk and leather and cologne of tens and tens of men all packed in one little commune, one little place. And it was making him want to shake out of his skin, was making him want to lose his head.
Was making him want to bolt and not look back.
"Penny for your thoughts?" Gale flicks a copper at him. It lands with a wet noise in the mud just beneath his boots. Gale pays it little mind, so John pays it even less, gaze still fixed on the dark, clouded horizon. Gale settles next to him on the barrack steps; he rests his elbows on his knees, plants his heels down in the mud like something steady. He’s like a rock in the river of time—weathering, never crumbling. "Making Veal nervous. He ain’t ever seen you so quiet." He enjoys when Gale lets his words get twanggier. It’s mostly show, John’s realized, but he’s always liked a bit of theater. Louisiana’s been bringing the accent out a lot more.
John chews on his tongue.
Gale’s the constant.
He smells same as he always did. That smooth cologne and masculine musk. It’s neither heightened nor absent. John doesn’t know if it’s 'cause he’s so goddamn used to it, or if it’s something else. Like how, for all the other boys can’t seem to stop making a racket (it’s the unconscious things, the swell of their lungs and the whoosh of breath through them; the rustle of their clothes against their leg hair, their arm hair, that thicket at their groin; the creak of their joints when they bend too far or stretch up too tall), every single noise Gale makes is intentional. He makes noise consciously. Even in his sleep, every breath of his is perfect rhythm. He’s the only one like that. Even John can’t do it, consciously trying.
"Thinking about Marge," is what he says, and again, he’s not quite sure where it comes from. On second thought, he does. It all goes back to that night at the bar, and he hadn’t known what to make of it then (still doesn’t), but Marge had known something that John had not. Something deeper than skin (cause John knows all the sounds Gale makes getting off, same as he knows she does—his catalogue isn’t that diverse even if he’s more creative about how he rubs one out).
"Can’t say that’s a surprise," Gale eventually says. Which should probably be insulting, except that John’s fairly accepting of his horndog reputation, and doesn’t think he’ll tire of being so. "Care to share?"
"Nah." He needs to stew on it a bit more. Maybe, he just needs to get her alone, again. "You notice anything weird lately."
"Aside from the quiet?" Gale shrugs. "Mostly the hurricane." His tone has that lilt, that strange quality that John’s learned to mean he’s not telling a whole truth.
"Mostly," John echoes. What else?
Gale’s an old hand at silence, though. He’ll be good in the war, if they ever get sent out there. Even if he goes down (and he won’t), he’s not gonna break. Lucky bastard, getting the practice in early, when it was more likely to stick.
John sighs: "Tell Veal he’s not my mother-hen." Then: "You think they’ll let us fly in this? Practice a tough one?"
"Could ask. It’s good practice," Gale agrees. He doesn’t continue his interrogation. When John glances at him, Gale’s looking back with eyes that seem to see right through him—pink lips parted around a question he’s not gonna ask. Sometimes, in these half-glances, John thinks he sees some other face there too—like a double image, film twice exposed—something older, colder, and twin to the pale, dawn sky. He catches a glimpse of it now, but blink, and its gone.
Gale’s got a heartbeat, same as John and all the other guys.
But it’s regular. Perfect rhythm. Not a tick out of bounds.
John gets permission from the brass, and it’s all mechanical, all auto-pilot until he’s up in the sky and looking over and Gale’s just there, looking like he’s present. It’s a look he reserves for those bare moments few-and-far between. John’s seen him look at Marge like that, and he himself’s been at the end of it. But even then, it’s a glancing thing. In the worldly realm, they’ve got his attention (split it only when they’re together, John dares to think) up to the point of the incorporeal. Gale’s a study of two spheres, two spaces: real, not real—waking, not waking. In the sky, Gale is all whole. He sees John and he’s there and he knows it and he knows everything else too. He breathes it all in, becomes it all. In the sky, Gale’s in his element. John loves him in it, for all that it scares him too.
No man should look at bone-deep peace thousands of miles from the ground.
'Cause no man never comes down.
"You ever fly before Randolph?" John doesn’t think he ever asked.
"Here and there." It sounds like sarcasm, but Gale’s got that lilt in his voice. Half-truth.
John swallows the flicker of annoyance in the back of his throat. "Seems like you were born to it."
"Momma always said a stork dropped me off on the porch," Gale continues with his line of simple, good-natured humor. "Suppose I never asked where the stork got me from." His hands are steady on the yoke, his eyes ever-conscious of the gauges and the controls. John relaxes; he’s comfortable letting Gale’s firm hands carry the bird up above the rain.
"Just saying most fellas have a healthy amount of caution."
"John Egan commenting on caution?"
"Hey now—"
"Came back to base covered in blood just the other day."
"Hey now—" John repeats, not liking the new angle.
"No one up here but me, John."
"You wouldn’t believe it."
"We’re flying in a tin-can."
"I got jumped." And he wants to say more, wants to open his mouth and explain that someone tore open his throat, that they had a wolf’s head and wolf’s teeth, and long, silvery claws and cock that curved just right and big, hairy balls. But it’s a lot. It chokes him—packs up his throat like cotton. "To be honest, I didn’t entirely remember what happened." It’s not a lie. After the mauling, things get hazy. He doesn’t know how he got from Shreveport all the way to Barksdale ('cross the river and several miles to boot) in the state he’d been in.
"That’s not the whole of it."
Thunder rumbles through the plane, and Buck is steady all the way through it. In the grey wash of the storm, he almost becomes it. The golden tan of his skin seeps out and the sky replaces it. Again, like he was born of it. It makes him look a little harsher, a little harder; gives the round of his cheeks a sharper cut, the jut of his chin a stronger angle, the curl of his lashes a pointed end. It’s almost like he becomes part of the bird, all metal and strong, welded joints.
"C’mon Buck, give me a rest," John tries. "You know I’ll come to you when I’m ready." Like a dog to its master. Buck has him on leash and collar, and John’s not stupid. He knows Gale knows it, too. Just as surely as he knew Marge could see it.
"I know a thing or two, John, s’all I’m tryin’ to say."
"Wouldn’t know a thing about this."
"Try me."
"Nice try, Buck!" He grins, wild when he takes a heavier hand to the yoke. Gale cedes, lets him take lead. "Next time, you might catch me with that, but I told you already—I’ll come when I’m ready." And he snickers a bit, for the wordage and little else. And Gale? Gale just groans, and grins, and lets him be.
***
It’s Sunday night, and John’s about half-aware of just how royally fucked he is, and half-aware of just how little he cares. October’s got a bit of a chill, and John definitely feels it along the naked backs of his thighs and soaking across the bare arches of his feet. His neck’s warm, though, covered in a collar of thick, black fur that John thinks he’d find remarkable if it didn’t come with a snout and whiskers and great, big ears, and eyes that glimmered like the flame of those feu follet the locals regale about in the dingy bars. As it stands, the wolf’s head is wiggin’ him out and the fact that he’s clawed himself naked just about seals him in the shivers—all discomfort and awful, reedy complaint.
The worst part is he’s not unaware. Hasn’t been unaware of any of it.
Remembers thinking he had to get naked, and also not procuring the pressing reason why? Remembers rolling with the thought regardless and grinning wolfishly (hah) once he started free-balling it in Louisiana’s (somehow) muggy, autumn breeze. Even chilly, this place is wet. Like a soup he can’t quite swallow. Fuck how he hates it; put him back in Wisconsin, where at least the humidity had a lick of timing to it.
A twig snaps and John is up.
His fingers grope through the black earth, sinking in the mud. His toes dig deep and his muscles bunch like he’ll go bounding off like some beast, and his jaws hang loose like maybe—just maybe—he needs a treat. But he’d expected something like this (wolfing out, that is); had gotten used to the scents and the sounds—he knew the taste of acrid fear and also the thump of a steady, beating heart. In the moment, he heard neither.
So, he relaxes, infinitesimal. His great, canine head swings low, snuffles at the dirt ('cause for all of how fucked this was, it was wondrous too. John didn’t much care for being a dog, but god did it afford a strange freedom he’d never once known). But when he glances back up, he is not alone.
Buck’s standing halo-ed by the great, silver full moon. It gives him a pale, glowing outline—shapes the cut of his shoulders and the line of his jaw. The rest of him—expression and all—is a mystery. John only knows its him 'cause he’s intimately aware of the line Gale cuts in uniform and out. If Gale’s always watching, so’s John. Matched set, they are.
John shifts on his feet, tracks backward just a step. The mud squelches under his toes.
Gale shifts then, just enough that the moonlight illuminates his face, and arches a neatly trimmed brow. Vain fucker. He doesn’t say anything, but he does hold something up. And when John breathes in, it’s his scent he catches—not Gale, not anyone else. Gale’s brought him his own change of clothes, laundered and clean.
He makes a show of setting the folded clothes in the knob of some cypress knees—out of the mud, but only just. It’s like a peace offering; it is a peace offering, in some ways. 'Cause Gale just sets it there, and then he leaves.