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i've written over 50,000 words of mota fic, which is absurd, so here! have them all in one place!! (in order of length bc oof 🫠)
unicorns, and other extinct animals (goes from ep1 to post-canon—also has a Russian translation linked on the fic!)
The first letter Gale gets from Bucky is about a unicorn.
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Gale’s used to John rambling when he’s drunk, usually while hanging off one arm hooked around Gale’s shoulders, but there’s a different note to his written word. When he’s drunk in person, he likes to pester Gale with questions, get Gale to talk about himself. When it’s just John and a pen, it seems he simply shares every little thought that crosses his mind.
He lets the letter close on its own again, staring down at his eggs until he hears “Good morning, Major!” from outside the mess hall. Hurriedly, Gale tucks the letter back into its envelope and the envelope into the pocket of his trousers. By the time the doors swing open, John sauntering in like he owns the base and the mess and the doors themselves, Gale’s sure all knowledge of John’s words—of that lipstick print pressed onto paper beside John’s name—has been wiped from his face.
All the same, he can’t resist taking a peek. John’s walking on air. Gale smiles.
peacetime like a liminal space (post-canon)
After the war, Bucky tries to lose himself in New York City. Gale finds him anyway.
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With a yawn, John unlocks the door and pulls it open, and that yawn becomes a squeak, which becomes a cough, which becomes “Buck?” He squeezes his eyes shut, rubs them with his knuckles, and pries them back open.
Gale is still there in the soft light of the hotel hallway, the leather of his A-3 jacket gleaming and crusher cap angled just-so, toothpick a taunt and temptation both in the corner of his mouth. He’s smirking and, if John didn’t know better, blushing as he gives John a quick once-over. John looks down at himself. Lipstick is still smeared on his nipples. Clearing his throat, he tugs the robe tighter shut, shielding his chest from Gale’s sight.
Blue eyes flick up to his, amusement crystal clear. John feels faint. Perhaps this is how a Victorian felt upon seeing an ankle.
“Hey, Major,” Gale says, his familiar drawl like fingernails over John’s skin, scattering goosebumps. John wants to shiver. He abstains. “You’re a hard man to find.”
flak-happy, fancy-free (takes place toward the end of episode 9)
The war is over, but some questions remain about where Gale and John go from here.
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Gale’s not sure who he’ll be without the war, without the Hundredth, without a B-17. But he knows he won’t be Buck without Bucky. Won’t be himself without John.
Perhaps that’s why John tried to slip away unnoticed tonight, why he came out here and tucked himself into the copilot’s seat. An attempt to sever a limb, one he knows he can’t take home with him. They’ll hang up their dog tags, box up their flight jackets, try to forget the rumble of a nine-cylinder engine and the buzz of a voice over the radio and a blue, blue sky.
Gale doesn’t know how to tell John that a life without him would be like never feeling the sunlight again.
my type (starts where episode 2 ends)
It happens, as John always knew it would, on the wing of a plane and in the middle of the night.
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One corner of Gale’s mouth ticks upward. John wants to press his thumb to it. Gale has to know John is looking, but he doesn’t protest it, doesn’t try to stop it. He doesn’t even look back, as if content to let himself be watched.
They’ve been dancing around this for so long now that even Gale, with his two left feet, is an expert at it. He could dance it without music, upside down, and backward, and still make it look pretty. They linger and the music begins. They lock eyes and take that first step. They laugh and twirl in time, easy and free. It feels weightless. It feels like an anchor. One day, they’ll cut the chain loose and see where the wind takes them.
lightning strikes twice (post-canon one shot, takes place during the plot of unicorns, and other extinct animals)
Three days after Gale and John finally kiss, they find themselves as close as they can physically be.
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During the war, Gale had chased every horizon, discovered the sky’s every nuance: the shape of a cloud like a storm’s herald, a curl of wind like a gust’s forewarning. In the pilot’s seat, days became weeks became months became years, the sky as familiar as the back of his hand, the inside of his eyelids. It used to steal his breath away.
But nothing—not the clearest blue, the brightest sun, the purest clouds—could compare to Major John C. Egan.
two-dollar kisses (set at the beginning of episode 2, originally posted on tumblr)
After failing to bomb Bremen but losing three forts, Gale is unwilling to die with regrets.
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It’s been an unspoken thing between them for too damn long. Now, when they could die at any moment, it seems fucking stupid to leave the truth unsaid, to let it decay in the soft tissue of their lungs like an illness they can’t cough free.
There’s only so long that Gale is willing to choke on blood.
