july catchall

[deadthenred]

WHO: Eugenides, Bucky, Lottie + Various
WHERE: dreamscapes, perhaps others
WHEN: throughout IC June / OOC July
WHAT: Closed starters, PM me or hmu lightfellows to plot something!
NOTES OR WARNINGS: Violence, mental coercion, Nazis, the usual.

Comments

[deadthenred]

I'll have the same.

[ He isn't picky, and she seems to know what she's doing. Bucky smiles at the taco truck owner, a reflex of politeness, and nothing about it seems strange. But as soon as he does it, it feels awkward to him, fake.

He feels like that a lot. ]

Thanks.

[sestra]

[ she does not respond again, she just seemingly prances to the cart, ordering two of her usual, and she rocks back and forth on her heels while she waits. she gathers it up when finished, pays, then prances back over to bucky, holding out his bag. any fakeness he feels is lost on her. ]

For you. Apartment is this way, follow. [ she doesn't wait for him to acknowledge, just leads him towards a shabby looking building jammed between two others. the neural implant unlocks it and she slips in, holding the door. ] No elevator.

[ sorry to say! once bucky is in, she moves up the stairs in what could definitely be considered a hop. ]

[deadthenred]

[ "Nice place" would be an overstatement, but it's not Bucky's first time in a crummy apartment complex. He gives the entryway a quick once-over, and accepts it for what it is. ]

S'okay. I have two legs.

[ He doesn't hop, because he's opening his food bag, more hungry than he realized. ]

You know, this really isn't bad.

[sestra]

[ her door isn't even till the top of the steps, but she lets him in easily and locks it behind her, out of instinct and out of the simple ability to do so. ]

[ the apartment is tiny. her bedroom door is open but all there is to see is a messy mattress on the floor, with all the blankets she took with her from the safehouse. the kitchen and living room are more or less a shared space, also with very little personalization. she does not have a lot of stuff. ]

[ she puts her own food on the kitchenette island table, gesturing for bucky to take one of the mismatched stools. she's a good host, taking the one with the wobbly leg, and not just because she likes to rock back and forth on it. they are currently the only chairs in the whole apartment. ]

I like it. It came with fridge.

[deadthenred]

[ Bucky doesn't like mess. If you meet someone whose physical space is a lot more tidy than their life in general, chances are they've spent time in prison or in the military. For him, it's both.

But he knows how to be a gracious guest, at least. And as far as dingy apartments go, well, he knows it's nice to have a space that belongs to you. He really is happy for her.

But that isn't the only reason why he's here. He draws a breath, exhales. ]

About the dream.

[ What about it, Buck? It's hard to summon the words. ]

[sestra]

[ helena honestly never had a lot of Stuff to make a mess before, so in her case it's a combination of the freedom of it plus not really knowing what to do with it in the first place. ]

[ she takes an enormous bite of her taco just as bucky speaks up, and then she doesn't know if she should keep chewing or talk with her mouthful. a middle ground: shove most of it into her cheeks, puffing them out but opening up her ability to (mostly) speak. ]

What about it? You get free?

[deadthenred]

In a manner of speaking, I guess.

[ He's been himself for years now, but that doesn't change the shape of the past, or that the memories still grab him, like stray threads that catch on corners. ]

I'm not… that. Anymore.

[sestra]

[ she finishes chewing, eyebrows crinkling thoughtfully. ]

Not what? Living in tube?

[ she isn't particularly bothered by whatever actions were implied from the dream, so she's not connecting it on that front. ]

Not a tool?

[deadthenred]

That word can mean a couple different things.

[ Tool. And he's not sure if he can say he's escaped that designation. He doesn't live in a tube anymore, though. That's nice. ]

What I did in there wasn't living.

[sestra]

Then what are you calling it?

[ her tone is simply curious. bucky offered to explain, so she is willing to listen. people don't usually just tell her things. ]

[deadthenred]

[ And Bucky doesn't usually tell this story. Even when he was on trial for all of it, his lawyer didn't think it was a good idea to testify. ]

I didn't know who I was, then. [ He doesn't say: it wasn't me, the way he used to. ] I had an accident, near the end of the war. It made it hard to remember.

[sestra]

[ this gets a frown out of her. isn't she still trying to figure out who she is, after years of indoctrination? ]

Amnesia? Brainwash? [ a beat. ] There are many wars. Which causes your accident?

[deadthenred]

[ He leaves the first question alone, for a minute. He'll get back to that one later. ]

The one with the Nazis.

[ She was from Ukraine, right? They probably remember it better than the Americans. ]

[sestra]

[ there's a pause. ]

You are looking very good for old man.

[ she knows all the horror stories, both about the nazis and the soviets that followed. how parts of ukraine even welcomed the nazis at first because the soviets had already been brutalizing them. beginning to end, ukraine was fucked from all sides. ]

[deadthenred]

Maybe not as old as you're thinkin'. [ He's not sure why he says that. It doesn't matter. ]

But yeah, I get that a lot.

[sestra]

So you are not very old man, with very forgetful past.

Why do you tell me this? [ she likes that he has, simply because it means she is a person who can be talked to. but she still doesn't get... why. ]

[deadthenred]

[ Why, Bucky? He did go through a period where he'd tell anyone what he'd done, like a confession without a priest. Is that what he's doing, here? ]

I wanted you to understand, what you saw in the dream. I would've hurt you— probably. [ It didn't get that far, did it? ]

But I won't now. [ Not like that, anyway. ]

[sestra]

Lots of people have hurt me. [ she points her taco at him, sounding very casual. ] My sister stabbed me once.

[ more like impaled but semantics. ]

Why is now different for you? Because of your memory?

[deadthenred]

That doesn't make it okay.

[ She knows that, right? ]

And yeah. I— a friend gave me my memories back. Made me remember who I am.

[ The good and the bad. And there was a lot of bad, but some good too. ]

They did a lot of stuff with me. To me. To take advantage of what I didn't know.

[sestra]

[ hmmm, but really, what is okay and not okay??? ] It was self defense. [ a beat. ] For her.

[ so technically THAT part was probably ok. ]

Tomas did this to me also, but was not memory problem. I do not care what you did. [ he said he would have hurt her, so the implication that he's hurt others is there. she just... doesn't care about what he might have done. ] And you remember now, so problem is over, yes?