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Jan. 8th, 2024 10:55 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
semi_stableWhen 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."
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."
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Date: 2024-06-13 11:35 pm (UTC)Sylvie gets really close to him before Bucky notices that she's there. She speaks and it startles him a little, and he sniffs as he turns to look at her, grateful that she hadn't shown up just a little earlier. There had been no one to see him cry except for the dog, and he doesn't think she'd tattle, even before Sylvie tells him what she does. Bucky looks at her and then back at the dog, meeting her big eyes, and smiles a little as he scratches under her chin.
"That's pretty neat," he says after a moment, but his expression morphs into one of vague concern, smile slowly drooping into a frown as he looks from the dog to Sylvie again. "I'm not sure if I want to know why I would need a dog trained for such a thing. I've never considered myself to be an anxious person."
He looks at her and then lets out a self-deprecating sort of chuckle. "Today doesn't count. Special circumstances."
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Date: 2024-06-17 08:00 pm (UTC)"You lived through a war, Bucky," she tells him. "You were taken prisoner. An act like that changes people." She touches her head, then her chest. "Here. And here."
He doesn't need the details, but she won't lie to him and say there's no reason.
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Date: 2024-06-17 08:15 pm (UTC)The news surprises him, though he supposes that it shouldn't. There had been news of growing conflict, and the states getting involved, but Bucky tried to put it out of his mind. He knew about the draft, knew that his dad was too old and his sisters all women, so he would be the only one in his family who could serve at all. He remembers how his grandpa had been after the Great War, how he'd sit there sometimes with a haunted look in his eyes. Bucky never wanted to be like him. He never wanted to fight and only did it if he had to. With a war, he supposes that he'd have to.
His eyes well up slightly and he clears his throat, blinking a few times and nodding as he looks down at the dog again. It's a lot to take in and process, a lot on top of everything else, but he appreciates that Sylvie is honest with him. A little sugarcoating might be nice, but the truth is better. Even if it hurts.
"At least I survived. There are plenty that don't," he says after a moment, sniffing and wrinkling his nose before looking up at Sylvie again. She's older than him, and so tough. He wonders if she's disappointed in this younger version of him, the one who hasn't been to war or ever even lived away from home. "I must be so different than what you're used to."
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Date: 2024-06-21 09:05 pm (UTC)“It isn’t a bad thing,” she adds. “To have not been touched by war, I mean. You’re different, but it isn’t a bad thing.”
Selfishly, she doesn’t want him to stay this way. She misses the man she knows. All the same, this is better for him, to have forgotten the trauma and the horrible things that have been done to him.
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Date: 2024-06-24 07:25 pm (UTC)"The bad things just haven't happened yet," Bucky says quietly, brows furrowed as he reaches out to drag his left hand down the dog's back, soothing himself with the repetitive motion. "Loki said things will be back to normal soon. I wonder if I'll remember being here."
He swallows hard and turns to look at Sylvie. She's so beautiful and she's been through so much that he has no idea about. Her and Loki both seem to have been touched by some sort of darkness that Bucky could never possibly understand, at least not as he is now. It frightens him to think that he does at some point in the future, but it's balanced by a comfort in knowing that he wouldn't be alone. "I don't want to forget you. I think you might be the most interesting, beautiful person I've ever met."
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Date: 2024-07-04 12:07 am (UTC)About her, the things she's done, the people she's killed and the violence she's wrought. He has, too, but she won't go that far into it. Not with him like this.
"Loki does always seem certain things will work out," she says. "Though in this case I suppose he has Darrow history to lean on."
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Date: 2024-07-08 08:37 pm (UTC)"Am I not unbearably charming in the future?" Bucky teases, smiling over at Sylvie even though the thought does frighten him a little. "I can't have changed that much."
He takes a deep breath and lets it out with a slow sigh, pressing his hands into the sand so he can lift himself up and move a little closer to her. He reaches out and puts his hand on her knee, prepared to move it if she gives him any sign that the touch is unwelcome.
"Maybe there's a lot that I don't know, but I know myself. I know my heart," Bucky tells her, one corner of his mouth quirking up as he studies her face. "And if I've put myself in this crazy situation with the two of you, then it wasn't for no reason. Maybe I don't know why, but I know that I must love you. Especially if I do change as much as you say I have, because I have a hard time doing that even now. So, you don't have to tell me anything. It wouldn't change anything anyway. I know what I know and that’s enough for right now.”
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Date: 2024-07-15 06:41 pm (UTC)He hasn't been hurt yet, just like she hadn't been. Now she's this version of a Loki, someone who lost it all, and seeing Bucky before it's all come down around him is just painful.
"It's enough for right now," she agrees and lays her hand on top of his.