Chapter Text
He wakes up slowly. It’s rare that he is allowed the morning to sleep in but for once the Gods have allowed them a day in bed, a morning in and a day of missions, it’s as rare as a unicorn as he can get and so he wakes up slowly enjoying every moment of the day snuggling close to the warm body at his side and basking in the sun that filters through the windows despite the wooden slats that keep them out. There’s a soft kiss to the top of his head and a huff of a smile and he curls around the body tighter his omega purring as if he can burrow under skin and bones and hold himself there nice and quiet in the luxury that is Gale Cleven.
But life never works out that way for John Egan and so his eyes are open soon enough. Lie ins are something he’s never had and have become a distant memory since 1939 when the world went to shit and he knew that despite all the talk America were going to have to go in and get this shit done.
Gale is looking at the ceiling when he catches sight of him, his hands are still playing with the odd curl that curls around John’s nape and Gale is oddly obsessed with but he doesn’t say anything. He seems deep in thought. John watches for a second and—
“Morning sleeping beauty”
Gale looks at him with a start as if he has forgotten John was there and then he smiles his entire body relaxing.
“Morning baby” he mutters.
Baby…baby…somewhere down the line he became Gale Cleven’s baby.
John could sing a chorus of Blue Skies at the thought of it, it makes him squirm like a child being tickled.
“Morning” he rasps again and Gale bends down and kisses his forehead. John pouts, he was hoping for a kiss on the lips, a morning in bed, a couple of rounds of sex and that was so mind blowing and maybe that lovely game where Gale finds five hundred places on his body to put five hundred kisses on.
Yes that sounded nice.
Gale chuckles.
“Have a meeting with Kidd about the newbies” he rasps. “No rest for the wicked”
John smirks.
“And you were very wicked last night” he says sliding his hand down Gale’s side brushing his fingers down the part of his body where he feels especially soft and ticklish. Gale smirks at him.
“God your pretty” he mutters. John tries very hard not to preen at the compliment but his inner omega is singing at the praise. It’s easily flattered when it comes from Gale and Gale knows all the best comments to get him purring a happy mess or hormones and emotions.
“You gonna stay all day in bed?” Gale asks swinging up as John kicks aside the covers. He takes a great amount of joy in seeing the way Gale’s eyes darken, the way his vocal cords stand out, alpha desperate to go when he sees John lying there lazily naked, on display, legs slightly spread. He swallows as if saliva is filling his mouth and he has to swallow it down. John strokes down himself down to his little cock and cunt and slips a finger in playing with his clit, it’s still tender from where Gale’s mouth attacked it last night and Gale groans eyes flashing and John grins.
“Not fair” Gale chokes out.
“You need to see Kidd right away?”
“Yes I need…”
John gives a little breathy gasp twisting his hand just the right way and—
“Oh you fucker”
Gale slips back into bed with him and John laughs and opens his legs and pulls the covers back up over Gale’s head as with a wicked grin Gale drops his head to where his hips are gently begins to lavish over the marks he so ever helpfully left the night before.
This is all subjective of course, all running down a clock, because if the Germans don’t get him, if the war doesn’t get him then time does. People think the Germans are their worst enemy and to be fair they are but for John Egan it’s duelled with time. Time is his greatest enemy because eventually this war will end. And if he is still alive at the end of it then this ends too.
John is under no illusion as to what he is. He is a bedwarmer, a cockwarmer to be even crasser, something for Gale to fuck out his frustrations into. A warm body, mouth, cunt, whatever Gale wants John provides. He is an omega who needs the stench of an alpha on his skin and he is a man desperately in love with his best friend. John knew all of that before he even came to England. He knew this and he went for it willingly.
He knows about Marge.
Marge.
Marge.
Fucking Marge.
Okay…that last one is a tad unfair. He gets it, really he does, John likes Marge as a person, if he was at anyway inclined towards woman he might have even put his cap in for her. She’s stunning, all blonde hair and big blue eyes, the perfect picture of an alpha girl that comes in all those magazines next to the big blue eyed, blonde hair, bulging muscles of an alpha boy. She is kind and attentive, she treats omega’s right, she listens to John, talks to him, makes him feel included. Hell before they went to England she brought home a sweet omega girl to dance with him so she and Gale could sit in the corner and gossip.
And John likes Peggy too. She’s quiet but she’s quiet in a good way and her Dad drove a decent enough car that she’s able to talk about how he rebuilt it which is interesting. If she was an alpha and again he was inclined towards woman he might have offered to write to her.
Gale is the one who initiated it with him and John had melted like sugar in a saucepot right up against the barracks wall. To be fair it’s nothing that they aren’t all doing. If you want to be sleeping your way through the war Thorpe Abbotts is the place to be. Not that he doesn’t think it’s different anywhere else. Quinn told him of an Airbourne Regiment where it’s so rampant it’s almost like a hormone choking fest. Apparently the Pacific boys are popping out pups like bullets and even the Brits apparently have a unit in the desert where all they do if fuck on the sand which sounds deeply, deeply uncomfortable.
It’s rampant here, Rosie and Kenny are particularly bad for it, it’s like sunshine and love hearts, Crosby and Bubbles are just about respectable but they cling to each other in a way that tells everyone everything. Curt and Dickie are borderline obscene, Benny and Brady are quiet but they orbit each other in a way that is soft and beautiful. Bill and Claytor, Dye and Lil, Nash and Helen, Red and Miss Tatty hell even Kidd and Chick orbit each other in a way that makes it clear what the other one is to the other.
So he’s not entirely surprised. He’s gratified even. He gets this, and then when this is over he gets the memory of this, he gets this for better or worse. He gets to be the thing that right now Gale comes home too and as he runs a hand through his hair and gets dressed he finds that he doesn’t mind. He inhales the smell of their coupling and tells himself again that this is enough and when this is over when Gale chooses Marge he will be okay.
And then…naturally. It all falls to shit.
He is walking past Gale’s fort to his own when he hears Gale’s shout of frustration. He ducks past Munroe who is looking particularly hangdog and is about to pop his head up into the hole when—
“Jesus Fucking Christ I can’t take much more of this!”
It’s Gale and he sounds furious. John skids to a stop. His hands come up to play with the scent patch that standard army issue requires him to wear and he toys with taking it off. Usually they only do that when they are alone but…but he pauses. Somehow he doesn’t want to make Gale aware he is here even though he sounds furious and John doesn’t know why.
“I mean it he’s fucking…I just…Curt he’s a fucking nightmare!”
Who are they talking about? And why is Gale swearing? He doesn’t swear? It’s one of the things that they joke about, no drinking, no gambling, no smoking, no swearing. Boy Scout through and through. Unless you’re talking about bed. Then he is a menace. All mouth then. John has quite literally gotten bite marks on his inner thighs, his ass his neck, his hipbones and once randomly his ankle though Gale still won’t tell him why.
“I can’t take much more of it I really can’t he…he’s just so fucking clingy”
Curt hums.
“I bet he’s like that in bed” he says and John can see him nodding.
“Please” Gale mutters. “I know he is”
And suddenly it becomes crystal clear who they are talking about.
It’s him.
Him.
Oh.
Oh.
He feels as if an ice cub has been shoved down his spine, he feels like he is has failed all of his engines and he is falling out of his fort and his parachute has not opened. He feels as if his heart is falling out of his chest and landed on the floor by his feet.
He knew it, he fucking knew it…he fucking knew this was too good to be true. That this was going to end.
He knows what he is.
Clingy. Pathetic. Needy. Dirty.
Not good. Not good. Never been good. He’s never been good enough to keep, never been good enough to set up house with. Never been good enough for Gale.
The thought of it makes his eyes water. Curt laughs lowly at something that Gale has said and John takes a step backwards trying to hunker down through the humiliation that is burning through his body like morphine paralysing him into place.
He knew he was a fucking stopgap, knew that when he went into this but at the same time he never expected…this…in his head Gale always let him down gently with the promise of being friends, of being in each other’s life…of John orbiting the sun that was Gale Cleven…now…now…
What is he supposed to do now?
He takes one step back and then another and—
“How’s the courting going?”
And then he stops.
Curt sounds interested. Like genuinely interested, John can see him fiddling with the wires in his fort as Gale sits there legs swinging. It’s all too domestic, all too…is this…when Gale sneaks off after fucking him is this what he does? Bounces courting ideas off other omega’s, talks about Marge and how wonderful she is and how horrible he is by comparison.
Suddenly it’s not just Gale’s betrayal that hurts. That he can take, John has shitty low self esteem despite all the confidence he always has, maybe that’s why he is so confident. But at the same time he did think that he had a good relationship with the men, enough for them not to gossip about how pathetic he is.
“Yeah” Gale says and John finds tears are beating a steady track down his face. “Yeah I…I have a plan” he says if so softly and then John can feel him smiling. It’s that soft smile he knows, that soft lovely smile that he has for the things he loves. That soft smile that has remained untouched from the war and he hates it, hates himself, hates the world.
He takes a step back and then another and then another and then he turns and walks away tears drying on his face. He walks until he cannot walk anymore, until he is outside his hut then he turns around and walks back to the base tower.
Gale wants him gone?
Fine…
Consider him gone.