(no subject)

[semi_stable]

When Bucky wakes up in an unfamiliar bed with a headache, he isn't exactly surprised. He's been drinking more than usual lately, being a little too careless, because it's bad enough coming to terms with the fact that he's attracted to men. Realizing he wants his best friend in some carnal, impossible way is a little harder to handle.

He still likes women. He still loves women, and lately he's been feeling the need to prove that to himself, going out multiple times a week to drink and pick up girls. He always has a good time, always loves it, so he doesn't understand why he still looks at Steve sometimes and wants. It's a problem that he doesn't know how to solve, and can't seem to ignore.

The last thing he remembers is shooting back cheap whiskey at a jazz hall and flirting with a girl with gorgeous cocoa skin. She drank gin like water and Bucky had tried to keep up with her, which probably led to him being in a stranger's bed with a hangover and a big blank spot where his memories of the night before should be.

A sea bird squawks in the distance and Bucky turns his head, surprised to see the ocean just yards from a door leading out onto the sand. Had they left Brooklyn?

The bed next to him is empty but there's evidence that someone slept next to him. The blankets are thrown back and the other pillow is twisted. Bucky yawns and reaches up to stretch, rubbing at his eyes and then looking down. He's in a white tank and matching boxers, which sort of surprises him. If he can't even remember the night before, how was he with it enough to put on his undergarments?

He can hear movement outside of the bedroom and he wonders if he should get up and go out there, or just wait here, when there's a sudden meow from his left. He turns his head to see a very fluffy white cat staring at him almost suspiciously, sitting primly with its tail covering its feet.

"Hello," he says to the cat. "Don't suppose you could tell me who lives here, huh? Always embarrassing when I can't remember names."

Comments

[semi_stable]

What the woman is saying makes no sense, but Bucky can't help but to empathize with her. She doesn't seem like she's lost her mind, or like she's lying. She doesn't seem crazy, and Bucky starts to realize the gravity of his situation. He doesn't know what's going on, but this isn't a case of him waking up somewhere unfamiliar and having an understanding. Something is very wrong.

"Whoa, hey," he says once she raises her voice at him, reaching out to let his hands hover over her upper arms without quite making contact. He gets the feeling she might not like being touched. Still, he tries to school his expression to show her that he means no harm, and he's just as confused as she is. "I-- I don't know what's going on. I don't know how to do that. I-- this is the only Bucky that I can ever remember being, and I don't know where I am, and I-- I'm really fucking scared, okay?"

He swallows hard, and then winces a bit. "Sorry for cursin' at you."

[the_variant]

When Bucky lifts his hand, Sylvie steps back again, putting more distance between them. She doesn't know who this is. Bucky, maybe, but not the Bucky she knows and she shakes her head, then coughs out a disbelieving laugh when he apologizes for cursing.

She turns and grabs her phone from the bedside table, then opens it to a series of pictures. The most recent is the two of them at their anniversary dinner.

Without a word, Sylvie shoves it toward Bucky. The man in the picture is the one she wants back, the man with lines around his eyes and weight on his soul and one who won't apologize for using the word fuck, but will instead delight in her using it when she describes what she'll do to him.

[semi_stable]

"What the hell is that thing?" Bucky asks when the woman picks up a slim device from the nightstand. The display shifts rapidly, like a tiny picture show in her hand, and Bucky is so distracted by the concept of it that he doesn't even realize what he's looking at when she shoves it into his face. He blinks a few times and registers her, looking far more happy than she does in the current moment, and then his eyes widen slightly once he realizes that the man next to her is him. He's older and bearded, with lines at the corners of his eyes and a smile that looks like it's a little rusty.

"Whoa." He reaches up to take the device and swallows hard, glancing from the screen to the woman and then back again. "That's me? I dunno why I'm asking. It's obviously me but, uh-- wow."

He sinks down to sit cross legged on the bed, still staring at the photo as the dog worms her way under his arm, whining a little as she presses her head to his chest. Eventually he looks up at the woman again. She looks the same now as she does in the photo, except for her expression. She looks prettier when she smiles, but he's almost certain that if he even hinted toward anything of the sort, she'd kick his head clean off his body, so he keeps it to himself.

"So, I'm in the future?" He finally asks, looking up at the woman again. "Are you my girlfriend?"

[the_variant]

Bopp's behaviour toward him is one of the few things keeping Sylvie from telling him to get out of his own home. She's still too wary to sit on the bed with him, too wary to give him more information, even though she thinks it would be likely to help him.

But her heart aches. Is it just Bucky? Is it Loki, too? Like everything else, have they both been taken from her?

"Yes," she says, her voice still tight. "But I hate that bloody word."

[semi_stable]

She looks so unhappy. Bucky supposes that he can't really take offense to that, given that he's apparently woken up at least half the age that she's to, with no memory of her, but it still stings a bit and he finds himself wanting to fix it, but he has no idea how. His heart is racing and he feels terrified, so it's easy to bury his face in the dog's fur for a moment when she whines and nuzzles against him. He takes a deep breath and lifts his head up again, unintentionally giving the woman puppy eyes that would rival the dog's.

"Could you tell me your name?" Bucky asks eventually, wrinkling his nose a little because all of this is so strange, and he has no idea how to make it better, but he wants to so badly. "And-- I'm sure it'll be okay. There's gotta be an explanation for this, right? I mean, it's not like I'm just never gonna see my family again, right? I've gotta get home."

Suddenly he feels very much like a lost little boy, and he stares at the woman with a slightly pleading expression, because he doesn't know what else to do.

[the_variant]

"Sylvie," she says, though for a moment she can't say anything else. He's looking at her, utterly innocent, like she's never seen him before and she has to tell him he won't see his family again. Not only will he not leave Darrow, they're likely all long dead, because the man she loves is well over a century old.

She's not a coward, not by far, but this is too much.

"I don't know," she tells him instead. "No one has been able to leave Darrow by choice so far."

[semi_stable]

"Oh. O...kay," Bucky breathes out slowly, blinking a few times and pushing his hair back from his face. "And we're sure that this isn't some very weird dream? I mean, last I remember I was knocking back what I'm pretty sure was bathtub gin, so maybe?"

He reaches over and pinches hard at the soft inside of his left forearm, wincing as he does, and then sighs harshly. His fingers left a red welt behind, little crescent moon indents from his nails, and he rubs at the spot as he looks up at Sylvie again. She's staring at him so intensely, like he's an imposter or a ghost, and Bucky clears his throat as he awkwardly shuffles off of the bed and goes to stand.

"I should probably--" He hooks his thumb over his shoulder and then puts his hands on his hips, letting out a bit of a crazed laugh. "Actually, I don't have the faintest fucking clue what I should do right now."

[the_variant]

"This is your home," she says. "You're not going to leave."

But she can't leave either. If she leaves him alone, he's going to get himself into some kind of trouble, she can already tell. With a sigh, Sylvie rolls her eyes and gestures toward the bathroom.

"Have a shower and get dressed," she tells him. "You'll come with me. I can't leave you alone, you'll probably piss off the vampire mayor or something equally stupid and get yourself killed."

And this man is not her Bucky, but she doesn't want him to die either.