Chapter Text
Gale choked as the vile liquid he’d become too familiar with was poured down his throat yet again.
A faceless goon pinched his nose shut as he tried to spit and splutter it out. Gale writhed in his restraints as he accidentally inhaled some of the grotesque concoction.
He was released to cough violently. His arms, tied behind him to the back of the chair, caught him from falling forward onto the floor. Groaning at the way it pulled at his already sore back and chest muscles, Gale righted himself, gasping for breath.
The dimly lit room was deathly silent as they all waited for the sensation Gale had come to dread even more than watching his squadron get decimated. It took less than an hour for the terribly familiar tendrils of cottony fuzziness and unawareness to fog Gale’s thoughts and senses yet again.
“Let’s start easy today, Major,” Huasmann announced smugly, ashing his cigarette before smirking and leaning forward to make sharp eye contact with Gale. “When do the Allies plan to invade Germany?”
Gale fought to keep his mouth shut, watched as Hausmann’s left eye twitched at Gale’s resistance. He’d come to learn that it meant Hausmann was frustrated. Without having to be asked, the goon nearest Gale backhanded him.
“You can either comply or I can see what information that other adorable omega from your pack might have,” Hausmann threatened.
That was new. He usually threatened Benny. Gale was the only omega from their pack here when they’d been carted from the first round of interrogation and herded into the Stalag.
Dread pooled in his belly as he considered who else might’ve gone down and arrived since Gale had been stuck in the camp’s version of an interrogation cell. He’d been dragged away after being shown to their bunkroom post processing. Benny’s angry growls and shouts followed him nearly the entire way to the interrogation hut.
Gale’s surprise at seeing Hausmann in front of him again had been palpable. The surprise quickly shifted into horror as they forced the wretched liquid down his throat for the first time and Gale learned just how effective the Nazi’s interrogation techniques truly were.
He wasn’t sure how many days he’d been holed up there. He swore sometimes that days passed between one interrogation and the next. When they did happen, it always followed the same, terrible pattern.
The words fought to be let out like usual and Gale desperately tried to resist answering, like he had every other time the last few days. It was no use. When Hausmann repeated his question, Gale forced his mouth closed until Hausmann ordered a guard to go grab Captain John Brady.
Gale found himself answering honestly with a ragged gasp.
Gale was weak.
Gale was a traitor.
Gale didn’t know how he was supposed to face his pack whenever they finally decided to release him back to the masses.
Gale was thankful that John wasn’t here to see him fall so far.
He didn’t plan to stop fighting each and every time despite learning how useless it was. He would never stop readily offering himself up every time Hausmann suggested they bring in someone else from the 100th.
Teasing Gale with new names each and every time. Sometimes reporting their death only to take it back and threaten to bring them in to watch just how far Gale had fallen or to get interrogated themselves.
Gale didn’t miss that they never threatened to bring John in no matter how many questions they asked about him. It allowed Gale to delude himself into thinking that maybe, just maybe John was still tucked away safely in base.
It left Gale resolute to try his hardest and make sure his pack never had to endure this. The beatings, the awful liquid, the horrible taunting.
Gale might never fly again, but the war was far from over for him.
✈️✈️✈️
After a confusingly long blur of time and pain, Gale was shoved out of the hut and into blinding daylight.
“Buck?” A familiar voice asked before Gale stumbled and was caught by someone that smelled comforting.
He looked up into Benny’s dirty face and sagged with relief at finally seeing and smelling one of his packmates for the first time in too long.
“Hey, hey,” Benny cautioned as he pulled Gale upright. “Johnny c’mere!”
Brady.
Gale felt a body come up beside him and a shoulder shove up under his armpit as Benny did the same on his other side.
“Lookin’ a little worse for wear there, Buck,” Brady huffed as he and Benny started helping Gale toward what he assumed was their hut.
“Guys,” Gale choked out.
He needed to warn them that he’d told the Luftwaffe everything . To caution his pack about the liquid they’d been pouring down his throat.
They’d only released him because they’d allegedly run out, but Gale knew there was more coming his way if the parting smirk Hausmann had given him was any indication.
Before he could say anything, an alarm sounded, drowning out all other noise temporarily. Benny and Brady changed course, ushering Gale towards the entrance gates.
“Bucky’s not here yet,” Brady whispered into Gale’s hair, his voice full of enough certainty to dampen his initial panic at learning John had gone down. “But I watched him jump, Buck, I promise I made him go first.”
A surge of adrenaline helped him get his own feet underneath himself and Gale wobbled weakly towards the fence with them to watch incoming soldiers for familiar faces. It wasn’t long before Gale heard shouts of ‘Egan !’ and ‘Bucky !’
His stomach sank as his heart soared.
How was he supposed to tell John what he’d done?
Despite his inner turmoil, Gale found himself calling out to his mate. Smiling helplessly in response to John’s wide, relieved grin at seeing him. His euphoria at seeing his mate was short lived as John was ushered out of sight to be processed and the crushing weight of his guilt settled on his chest once again.
Gale was going to lose everything.
Hell, he knew he deserved to lose everything.
His pack crowded around him as they all seemed to simultaneously realize he’d been released from interrogation. He looked at the eager faces of Benny, Brady, Crank, Glenn, Hambone, and Murph, struggling to find the words to tell them he had doomed them all.
He stumbled under the weight of his guilt, caught by Benny and Brady again. They were practically carrying his heavy, tired limbs this time.
When Gale tried to warn them, to just let the truth spill out like it had been for whoever knew how long, his weak voice was drowned out as they crowed about Buck being liberated right as Bucky arrived at the camp.
They all shuffled towards their hut to eagerly await Bucky’s arrival and shouted back and forth about what they should show him first. Crank frowned at him as Gale slumped bonelessly into the bunk they’d deposited him in and stared helplessly at them vibrating out of their skin in excitement.
He allowed himself a moment to soak it all in before Crank inevitably asked him what was wrong and Gale would be forced to ruin their good cheer. As Crank opened his mouth a goon burst into their room, shocking them all into silence and stillness.
“Line up for interrogation,” he barked.
The boys dutifully lined up, grumbling and muttering in annoyance at having to go back after their initial round when arriving at camp. Gale trembled as he tried to stand to get in line with them.
They couldn’t have more of the awful liquid already. Could they?
“The Major stays,” the guard snapped.
Everyone’s head whipped around to look at Gale in concern but the guard was shoving Hambone out of the door and commanding the rest to follow. Benny’s pinched brow as he rounded the corner haunted Gale as his body gave out and he sprawled helplessly in the bunk.
He was in desperate need of a wash and he needed to come up with a solid plan to reveal the depths of how he’d betrayed his pack and country. Gale was just so goddamn tired though.
Without thinking, he let his eyes flutter closed, he reasoned it was only for a second. He’d just rest his eyes for a moment and then he’d come up with a plan.
It felt like he’d been asleep for mere seconds when he found himself violently dragged out of sleep as his body was yanked from the bed. Gasping, he clawed at the hands squeezing viciously at his arm.
He was momentarily transported back to being 9 years old in Wyoming, when his father had hauled him out of bed by his hair, and screamed in his ear so loud he thought his eardrum might burst.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?”
It was Hambone.
Hambone was shaking him so hard he thought his neck might snap, his red face so close it blocked out everyone and everything around him. Though he couldn’t see them, he knew the rest of the pack was there, could smell John somewhere nearby too.
“Betraying your country wasn’t enough?” Brady hissed somewhere off to the side, his scent growing stronger quickly like he was rapidly approaching.
He snapped his gaze sideways and didn’t even have time to flinch before Benny was pulling Brady away from him. Brady screamed, feet kicking out, hitting Gale and the bunk a few times before Benny pulled him far enough away. There was a cacophony of noise as the rest of the boys started angrily badgering Gale with questions.
Glenn, Murphy, Hambone, and Crank started demanding answers from Gale that he still wasn’t entirely sure how to answer. He’d let his gaze search desperately until he found the person he was looking for. He couldn’t take his eyes off John.
John stood on the exact opposite side of the room, arms crossed over his chest, jaw clenched as he looked to the side rather than Gale. He just knew that if John looked at him, he’d know Gale wasn’t lying when he explained what happened when they forced the liquid down his throat.
He waited and waited, ignoring his pack’s increasingly frantic questions, Benny and Brady rejoining the fold to ask after just what else he’d revealed to the Germans. John never looked at him though, just continued to stare off to the side, shoulders growing increasingly tense, creeping higher and higher.
As he grew overwhelmed by just how powerful the stench of anger roiling off of his pack in front of him, Gale cleared his throat and tried to find the words.
“I swear on my life I didn’t reveal any of it intentionally,” Gale gritted out, his throat feeling raw.
“Because your life is worth so much right now,” Murph scoffed, grinding his teeth.
“So it wasn’t intentional when you told them the names of my entire fucking family?” Brady snapped, held back only by Benny’s arm around his waist.
He didn’t know how long it would hold with how livid Benny himself looked.
“I swear it,” Gale promised, desperate to find something, anything to get them to understand and believe. “There’s this liquid and it’s like nothing I’ve ever heard of before, but I couldn’t lie, I couldn’t stay silent, and I -“
“A truth serum , Buck?” Crank huffed incredulously. “You can’t be serious.”
“I am,” Gale insisted, trying to look them all in the eye, silently begging them to believe him. He just needed John to look at him. John would know he wasn’t lying. “You have to be careful! Don’t let them for-“
“You must take us for fools,” Glenn grit out, his face redder than a tomato.
They all burst into shouts and screamed questions as they closed in on Gale where he sat hunched in on himself in the bunk. Everything stopped so suddenly it left Gale’s ears ringing when a deep growl cut through the noise.
The boys spun around to take stock of John who’d let out the menacing growl. Gale felt hope spark in his chest that John would finally look at him and know . That his mate could set their pack, or what little of it was there with them, right and they could work on a plan to make everything as okay as they could.
“Should’ve known you’d get special treatment,” John finally spat out, still not looking at Gale. “Looking the way you do in a place like this.”
Gale felt like he’d been stabbed straight through the heart as John stalked off without another word. The boys all gave him one last glance before he was springing up and tiredly pushing through them to rush after John.
“John!” Gale called out at the figure marching towards the Lufftwaite commanding officer’s hut, his progress was stumbling and slow, his exhausted body struggling to keep up despite John’s limp. “John, look at me!”
John ignored him, the only indication that he’d heard him being the set of his shoulders creeping towards his shoulders.
“John!”
Just as John reached the entrance to Simoleit’s hut, he whirled around on Gale. His anger radiated off of him so palpably, Gale swore he could see it. His gaze was still directed somewhere off to the side rather than Gale’s face.
“John, please,” Gale begged for the first time in so long that he couldn’t even remember the last. “Please just look at me, you’ll know I’m not lying!”
John growled low in his chest as he pinched his nose.
“I can’t look at you right now, or I’ll do something I regret,” John promised through clenched teeth.
Gale nearly crumpled to the ground right then and there. John was supposed to help him fix this. John could always tell when he was lying and telling the truth, he’d never been able to surprise the other man no matter how hard he tried.
“John,” Gale whispered brokenly, pleadingly.
“They knew the names of my sisters’ best friends, they knew the names of the ladies in my Ma’s book club, where I hung out as a kid, who my first kiss was with, what my dad said when I pitched my first strike out,” John was panting as he listed off everything Gale had unwillingly spilled to the Germans. “It doesn’t matter how much I love you. If I look at you right now, I’m going to kill you, Cleven.
Cleven.
Not doll. Not Gale. Not Buck.
Cleven.
Gale’s breath rattled in his chest as he watched John turn on his heel and force his way into Simoleit’s hut.
Gale just needed to try harder.
He might have been used goods, marked for eternal doom as a traitor and the most rotten sort of human, but he could still protect his pack from falling victim to the same interrogations he’d endured.
The war wasn’t over for Gale, he just wasn’t fighting it as a pilot anymore.
✈️✈️✈️
After the initial barrage of questions from his pack, Gale was treated to radio silence and the appearance that he did not exist.
Days passed in a monotonous blur of walks around the camp, avoiding soldiers and goons alike. Lingering around other squadron’s to try and learn the lay of the land. The canteen was easy enough to parse out but Gale was desperate to find the library.
He was eager for any help he could get in trying to bring his pack around so they could at least come up with a plan to avoid the miserable interrogations or best them.
When it was time for them to get locked into their bunkrooms, Gale simply curled up, back to the rest of the boys as he carefully read John’s letter that he always carried with him. It was an unremarkable letter, sent to Gale from Greenland with the porcelain unicorn.
It was a letter from John though. A sign that he was still alive despite leaving for England without Gale. A token that furthered Gale’s resolve in the air when things got tough. A reassurance here on the ground, in this shithole, that Gale might still be loved even if John hated him at that moment.
Nobody blinked when the goons came to retrieve him one morning or when it happened nearly every morning after. Nobody so much as glanced his way when he was returned a little more bruised and broken each and every time. Nobody cared that Gale hadn’t given up a single thing, merely fed them false, unverifiable information when they threatened his pack if he didn’t cooperate.
His routine over the following months consisted of fitfully sleeping, morning count, being dragged to interrogation, being smacked around in interrogation, being dropped off just in time to grab a bowl of soup and some water for dinner, evening count, laying down as his pack chatted quietly and played subdued games around him, staring longingly at John when he could manage it without getting caught, wishing that he woke up to see it all had been a terrible nightmare, before jerking awake multiple times throughout the night from actual nightmares, and then being woken up to do it all over again.
Gale found himself silently grateful that they had yet to make or find more of that vile liquid. He couldn’t find it in himself to be shocked when he was happy to go back to being interrogated the traditional way.
Months in and the only person that paid him any mind other than the goons that dragged him around, or the goons that leered and called out at him, was a Lieutenant Colonel that had arrived a week or so after John. A few months after his arrival he eyed Gale suspiciously any time they crossed paths and he feared that news had spread of his betrayal far enough that other squadrons now knew just how weak Gale was.
The only relief Gale got from his new normal was a couple of months in on his birthday.
He’d slept and read Christmas away, listening to his pack sing carols off key as they exchanged various handmade or pilfered gifts. Gale had been left alone to curl up around his letter from John and the latest book of poetry he’d nabbed from the library.
On his birthday though, Gale woke to find a coveted Red Cross chocolate bar on top of the poetry book. Without thinking, Gale opened it eagerly, cooing, eyes fluttering closed when he took a rich, delicious bite out of it.
Gale loved sweets. He considered it his only vice.
Just as he swallowed his first bite, the bar was snatched out of his hand and Gale’s eyes flew open, breath stuttering in his chest as Hambone held it loftily in triumph. His heart broke as Hambone bit into it with a sneer, offering it to the others.
Glen and Murph took their own bites, but Crank frowned, shaking his head. Benny and Brady declined with matching looks of annoyance. John’s nostrils flared as he glowered at Murph until he quickly handed it back to Hambone with a squeak that he was done.
When Hambone took another defiant bite, eyes locked on John, the alpha stormed out of the room and an awkward silence fell over the remaining occupants.
Gale fought the burning in his eyes and curled up facing away from his pack. He grabbed John’s letter and held it to his chest, waiting for the goons to order them out for the morning count and then breakfast.
He’d grown so used to the routine that a few months in, when he was handled a little more rough than usual one morning, he thought nothing of it. It wasn’t until his restraints were being tied so tight that he swore he could feel them slicing his skin that he glanced up at Hausmann, petrified at what he might find.
He had every reason to be.
“It seems your usefulness for information has run out, Major Cleven,” Haussmann stated simply. “We’ve been unduly attacked and neither you nor that insipid Lieutenant Colonel had anything to say about it. It looks like we’ll have to find another use for you moving forward.”
Gale tensed at the implication in Hausmann’s tone. He knew what it meant to be an omega in enemy territory. He had to endure whispers of it all through basic, all through flight school, all through training, and at every base he’d ever been to.
“Such a shame to ruin the beautiful face of such a perfect specimen,” Hausmann tutted, his smirk saying otherwise. “But the men are hungry for vengeance and who better to take it out on than a weak, helpless, omega that no one will miss when he doesn’t show up for dinner.”
The first hit to his gut knocked the breath out of Gale so wholly that he essentially leaned into the fist that struck his face. From there it was a haze of fists and feet as Gale fought against his bindings to try and escape.
He’d never felt so much pain or fear in his entire life. Not when his dad beat him as a child. Not when he’d had to wave John off to England 2 weeks before himself, not when he’d flown his first mission, not even when he’d bailed or subsequently been attacked by that farmer.
Gale fought to keep his reactions constrained, to not give them what they so clearly wanted. However, when a kick landed squarely to his ribs and he felt like he’d been shot before hearing a deafening crack, Gale couldn’t help the cries of pain that escaped him.
It just seemed to egg the goons on.
Through the delirium that came with such overwhelming pain, Gale found a second to feel grateful that they hadn’t tried to fuck him like he though they would.
Still, Gale was going to kill each and every one of them himself so that they could never lay a hand on his pack.
✈️✈️✈️
The first thing Gale noticed as his mind fought to the surface of consciousness was the searing, all consuming, pain radiating throughout his entire body.
It hurt so profoundly that he couldn’t even peel his eyes open before he was retching. He blinked into sudden awareness as he heard groans of disgust around him and saw his pack staring at him horrified from various parts of the room.
The wooden floor was cold and rough under his cheek as Gale fought another heave, succumbing all too quickly and vomiting bile once again. He must’ve lost last night's dinner in the blur of getting beat to be puking up pure bile.
The voices around him were indistinguishable through the ringing in his ears and over what he realized was his own voice whining ‘sorry’ repeatedly. He reached around desperately for some kind of fabric to clean the vomit up with, unable to peel himself off of the floor as everyone’s voices came into sudden sharp focus.
Their words made his head throb even more and he groaned out more apologies as he creakily pushed himself up onto his elbow to better look for something to clean his mess up with.
He could hear his pack arguing about who was going to clean up his vomit and emphatically refusing and insisting Gale himself should. He agreed, it was his mess.
Gale almost hummed in triumph when his fingertips connected with scratchy fabric and he blindly started to clean up his puke.
“What the hell?” Glenn’s angry voice filtered through the ringing in his ears and the throbbing of his head.
The fabric was yanked out of Gale’s hand so forcefully that it had his elbow slipping out from under him and his ribs slamming into the unforgiving hard floor. Gale screamed so fiercely at the sharp burst of sensation tearing through his body that he swore he could taste blood from how his throat shredded before he passed out in a pathetic heap.
The next time Gale was aware again, he was blinking awake to the sound of goons slamming their door open and marching over to him. He was propped, sitting up against a wall, head leaned against a bunk with no clue how he’d gotten there, covered in his own dried vomit.
His mouth was absolutely rank with the taste of bile and blood as the goons seized him by the arms and began to drag him out. He fought against their hold, crying out at how much it hurt him to do so. He knew he couldn’t survive another beating though.
Gale looked around frantically at his pack that were averting their eyes as he struggled against the goons’ grip. John was looking out of the window next to his bunk.
“John!” Gale screamed desperately. He just needed his mate to look at him. “ John, please!”
John flinched but refused to look.
The goons grabbed Gale around the waist, cursing him in German as he flailed wildly despite how much it hurt him to do so.
“John!”
One of the goons slammed the door behind them.
Hausmann finally threatened John when Gale caught him with a particularly nasty kick. When it resulted in him getting choked, his awareness blacking out slowly and steadily, Gale made a vow.
He promised a God he didn’t believe in that he’d kill himself, take the burden off of anyone else, if only his pack could get out of there without ever knowing what this was like.