( so that first bloodied night getting patched up in karen page's apartment had been... an interesting way to meet someone.
they've stayed in touch in the couple months since. at first it was her wanting to interview him, the notorious winter soldier, and get his take on the legendary events that brought back half a world, and yet left the avengers disassembled and gutted and defunct. he'd shied away from it. he doesn't do interviews. but then he'd looked her up and found her work on the punisher, years ago. and some pieces had tumbled into place and he'd realised this knack that karen has, of prying beneath the outer walls of armour of a person; of seeing through to the man underneath; of painting a more sympathetic picture. one that isn't just a murderer.
he was still skittish about it, but in the end, he'd accepted, and talked — in halting sequence, omitting much, asking for other redactions — about steve rogers. about the avengers. he'd simply refused to discuss wakanda at all; the country valued its privacy too much. he'd opened up a lot about brooklyn in the 1940s, about the howling commandos, about captain america's earliest days. and then somewhere along the way, the recorder had been turned off and then it had simply become coffee between two people who knew each other, and liked talking to each other. coffee had turned into drinks, the conversation just drawing out longer and longer, until it had finally ended.
their dynamic isn't entirely professional — how can it be, when they met with her hands slick with his blood? — but it's straddling a strange and undefinable boundary, too. he's not sure if they're friends yet. bucky doesn't really have friends these days, but his therapist had teased him about another contact showing up on his phone, and he's eyed karen's name in his phonebook too many times — but he can't easily get drunk enough to work up some liquid courage to call her again. so he doesn't. thinks about it, but doesn't do it.
so it's a late night and he's absentmindedly browsing tinder (sam made a profile for him without him realising, and then bucky had simply admitted defeat and decided to roll with it). he always noses around, sees what's out there, then eventually panics and force-quits the app and has to go for a walk. he's not ready. he's not sure he'll ever be ready. even when he matches with someone, the conversation tends to peter out, the more he has to lie and lie and lie about who he is or what he does. walking circles around that giant elephant in the room.
but then, one night, he sees a familiar face. and he stops, surprised. and laughs, swipes right, and messages her: )
she'd found him at the velvet-black entry of that alley, nothing but unresponsive bodies, a russian tongue and the hollow dripping of pipes left in his company. he didn't need to tell her anything, then, and even when he'd peeled off that shirt to fall to the floorboards of her apartment, revealing an ugly, glaring wound and most notably an arm that gave him away, she hadn't questioned him. that first night and every night that'd followed, karen had seen him as no more than a man with a story of all of the men he'd been before. a story she wanted to hear, but one she wanted to earn.
she understands better than anyone how the mainstream media can paint you red, how readily the public is willing to turn a blind eye to the truth beneath it all and accept someone was a monster. irredeemable, because then it didn't have to be faced. then there wasn't forgiveness. it's never what she wanted for herself when she started writing, when she took up odd jobs and worked up to the bulletin. she didn't want surface level, half-truths that fail to look at the human buried beneath the words.
she wanted the bones, the flesh, and all of the blood that hummed between.
typically she doesn't pay much mind to her phone, especially not at this hour, usually lost to the cushions of her couch or left atop the kitchen table with her keys. it vibrates gently beneath her notepad, and she's half inclined to ignore it, all the more so when a peak offers her some insight as to where the notification came from. while she may be able to argue that she'd had to download the app because of a lost bet, said bet hadn't included keeping it installed. she tells herself it's boredom, some inane form of entertainment, and whatever it is has her thumbing to open the message, amusement dancing in her hues as a smile takes full-bloom to her lips.
she snickers to herself, only because she can hear him saying those words, see that coy little expression that comes with it. )
We're really getting up there in the world, aren't we?
yeah. and of all the gin joints in all the world--
( he'd seen casablanca in theaters, too; it was one of the last movies he'd managed to catch stateside before he shipped out to england. thankfully, that particular pop culture reference hasn't aged out of relevance. )
is it more or less depressing to say that i don't actually look at this thing much? can't tell if that's better or worse
my track record with alleyways is better than apps right now, for what it's worth
don't really get all the etiquette of it, either. who texts first? are there rules on who texts first? how quickly are you supposed to reply to things? people seem to think you've fucked off forever if you just vanish for a few days. i don't get any of it
( they've made it this far, haven't they? underrated. )
You'd think it'd all come down to what you want, what the other person wants, and on and on it goes. It should be that way. Except everyone just dances around it because they have an idea what interest looks like.
( a second too late, bucky realises how blunt that sounds; how it's starting to nudge up against a line he hasn't crossed in too long to count. he's still not all that used to talking to people via text; the man prefers phonecalls. so, overthinking it, he pivots slightly and sends a quick followup: )
( karen likes to think she's different from the countless bodies on those apps, all reaching for something, but how can she be so sure? the question leaves lips folding in on one another, mindlessly chewing at the thumb of her free hand. can she be so sure she knows what want looks like? that it didn't just disguise itself as a different suitor every night?
he deters her before she can put thoughts to words, but she lingers on it, still. )
I got too comfortable. In my defense, I think I was just being fed beers to throw off my judgment.
What's your excuse? ( she's toying, mostly. he doesn't need a bet or a reason to delve into the good ol' human experience, but she didn't exactly peg him as the tinder type. )
a frie teammate said i needed to "get out more" and "blow off some steam" and "not be such a grumpy weirdo all the time". he made the profile without me realizing, wrote that i liked underwater basket weaving, and then i found out when my phone started going off
had to fix my profile and then, i dunno. figured there wasn't much to lose in at least keeping it around.
( enjoy underwater basketweaving or get out more, reader's choice. she'd gotten the impression when she'd found him in that alley that he was used to taking care of himself; preferred it, even. that's usually the sort that has the nudging friend insisting they find something 'more.' )
I have to say, I think the underwater basket weaving is a much more enticing introduction.
( it had been easy when they were with each other in-person; unexpectedly simple, even breezy, managing to accidentally tumble right past any last walls and barriers under the guise of banishing that loneliness and longing. the hours could have slid on and on and on. he could've stayed at karen's apartment all day long, if either of them had let themselves slip into it and indulge themselves. but in the end, they'd both cautiously retreated after breakfast, finally parted ways, finally had him leave and go back to his own empty apartment.
which just created another conundrum.
now, bucky's back to not knowing what the hell to do. because the order of operations is all wrong. he'd fooled around commitment-free in the forties, sure, but now the standard etiquette of dating and courting has been thrown right out the window, and he's not exactly sure what part comes next. he should've brought flowers the night before— why the hell hadn't he stopped by a midnight bodega to bring flowers? should he ask her out? is he supposed to text after getting home again? how soon is too soon to text? would he seem needy? also, how do you say thanks for a great evening of mindblowing sex?
also, he hates texting.
there's always too much lost between the lines, too many subtleties stripped down in the text, too much nuance to the smiley faces and emojis that he can't wrap his mind around. he has to keep resisting the automatic urge to include a signoff in every single message, like he's signing a letter. it's stupid. texts are stupid. they're simultaneously too fast and too slow; he hates that interminable wait, the pacing circles around the room waiting to see if someone's paying attention to their phone, if they're around to reply, ever-aware of the irony that he's been leaving sam people on read, too. he can be a hypocrite, okay, it's fine.
so. fuck it. it's much later that day after their breakfast together, now leaning into evening again, and it's too late to actually take her out anywhere — but the least they can do is figure something out for next time. if there is a next time. (god, he wants there to be a next time.)
so in the end he just picks up the phone, and he calls karen. )
( herein lies the problem with letting another in — finding a way to get them out of your bones once they've left.
there'd been a lingering kiss at the door, the familiar scratch of his stubble along her chin leaving it slightly flushed as she'd shut the door, pressed the heart of both palms against it, almost as if she could will him back to her. how devastatingly she'd lost herself in him, how quickly she'd forgotten about the rest of the world that spun madly on around them — the cases, the city, none of it was there when his skin had met hers, electric from the moment he'd crossed over that island. and maybe this is why she doesn't date, because it makes the normal all the darker to return to, makes her question what it is she knows of softness anymore if it's not by another's hand.
karen manages to busy herself, but it's a frustratingly futile effort. he's left a swell of color at her pulse point, every so often reaching up to brush her thumb there before having to sharply avert her thoughts before a rich, tempting throb works its way through her inners. she finds herself checking her watch, scrolling a glaring screen at her desk before eventually it stares just as blankly back. she thinks to message him — if there's anything she detests about the modern dating world, it's the teetering game of who should reach out first, as if there's some guidebook to suggest what a text might mean 'x' minutes past when you'd seen them last. as if it was truly such a sacrifice to let another know you were thinking of them.
she hasn't stopped.
the sun burns across the city, painting her apartment in those ethereal golden hues by the time she makes it through the front door, and she's in her kitchen with heels kicked off, chewing the edge of her thumb while tossing back and forth the idea of putting dinner together or ordering in. her phone buzzes in the distance, and she has half a mind to ignore it, save that little spark that ignites in her chest — fittingly so the moment she sees his name written across the screen.
when she answers, an already-blossomed smile warms her tongue. )
You have impeccable timing. I'm having a bout of indecision, and the circumstances are getting more and more dire by the minute. ( a hand to her belly, grumbling at her miscare. )
( thank god she'd just launched right into it, the casual conversation, not leaving an opening for an awkward stuttering start to the call. it's a relief.
then again, what did he expect? conversation with karen had always come so much more easily than he thought. a slow smile grows on his face, and it loosens some of that knot of tension in his stomach as he paces the echoing empty space of his apartment. which she can hear, a little, in the tinny acoustics behind him — there's almost no furniture for his voice to bounce off. )
there was a stray neighborhood cat that my sisters fed, which kind of became ours, even though it didn't live with us. been trying to think if i could keep a cat here, but i don't even have a houseplant. maybe i should start small
[ she hasn't even seen his place yet. which bucky thinks about sometimes — hopes she hasn't taken it personally, wonders how he'd explain that ascetic cell of a studio apartment, and knows he'll have to find some way to deal with it sooner or later. but not right now. ]
The kind that's home ( — she could leave it at that, but why put a damper on the night so quickly? ) Dinners around a table, warmed in the winter and the windows open in the summer. A yard for him to have room, space to spoil him, the american dream.
( not hospital bills and college admissions stuffed between her mattresses, not a home built on grief. )
You know, you seem like a cat guy. I've heard they're independent, just a little affection here and there. On their terms, of course.
Debatably, they might even be easier than a plant. Plenty of strays in the city.
true. and i always liked the idea of rescues. adopt don't shop, and all
what was your home like then, growing up? not warm in winter?
( that last question is lightly teasing, but he's already aware he might be tiptoeing into dangerous territory. family's a sore spot for so many people he's ever known. )
( she knows the words are softened with jest, but it doesn't make it's answer — whether spoken or kept folded in, hidden — any less biting. )
It was for awhile. Vermont was a completely different kind of cold, it's like you couldn't get it off of you. We'd come home from school when we were young and by dinner you'd still be trying to chase it away.
( we. plural, made to sigular. )
We didn't exactly have a lavish life growing up, but my parents tried. You know? And I didn't know any different. If an electric bill was late, it was on all of us.
kinda know what you mean. like not to play the great depression card, but winters got brutal and heating got expensive. ma always found a way to make things work though. vermont must've been even chillier.
you had any siblings?
( they really had started off on such an uneven footing. bucky's biographical details were right there in the wikipedia article, the museum placard: the oldest child of four. still, he'd been going about slowly filling in the details and the flavour for karen, the personal touches that the textbooks couldn't carry. remembering his family. a kind of tribute, in the remembering.
the woman on the other end of this phone, though, is such a blank slate in comparison. )
New York comes close. It's just all the buildings, all the life, it cuts it a little bit.
( she enjoys those little windows into the man he'd been before someone had tried to decide such a thing for him — something as simple as that 'ma,' and yet just as readily as that warmth had slipped over her, the thought of learning someone, it's stripped from her again in a single breath. her heart lurches; thick and uncomfortable, a threat: there is nothing soft here. she doesn't mean to go quiet, doesn't realize the time that spans between his question and her reply. some part of her, splintered, is grateful for the tense he'd chosen: had. because she doesn't have to say it. not yet.
had. verb. past tense. )
A brother. It was just the two of us and my parents. They owned one of the only diners in town, we both worked there so we were just always with each other til my mom got sick. ( she clears her throat, as if any of it had been said aloud at all. ) I think we were closest then, even if we didn't act like it.
( it was an accidental slip of the tongue on bucky's part, a byproduct of talking about the past, and his and steve's own childhoods being so far behind them with everyone dead in the ground-- and yet that past tense treads so much closer than he realised. had. was. were. )
so that must be why you've got such good taste in nyc diners.
( another small joke. he's bad at this; keeps reflexively leveraging that gallow's sense of humour. )
but i'm sorry about your mom. 'got sick' never really entails anything good, i'm assuming
( she doesn't mind the little glimpses of reprieve he provides, maybe because she can see through the overcast humor, maybe because it reminds her of another gruff voice doing all too closely the same thing. they all had their ways of coping — hers was just battering herself down into stories that weren't hers. )
It might have a thing or two to do with it.
( it's easier to talk about that, the surface-level idea of where she hides herself. )
She was diagnosed with cancer. It did't really give her much time, and you'd think you'd want more of that, we're all kind of desperate for it in the end, but she suffered. For it to stop was peace for her. We tried to keep everything up and running after she was gone but it wasn't the same. ( teeth pinch at the inners of her cheek, but she tries to keep herself here: a lesser cliff. not as much of a sentence. )
( a gentle patter of rain has picked up against the city streets, almost as if coercing them sweetly to duck back indoors, to huddle beneath doorsteps or hurry their limbs to one or the other's apartment for when and if the sky decided to open it's mouth wider. it's nothing she shies against, despite the opaque taupe of her shirt, enjoying the ever so often pricks of cool droplets that tease her temple, adding a welcome, slight chill to the summer air that sticks to the back of her neck. she'd managed to drag him to a homey sort of theater — one that offered drinks throughout the film, worn and staticky at times.
it's an adaptation of a book she's read countless times over, and despite how enamored she remained throughout it's life, she's walked away a bit disappointed. books were never quite the same when they weren't just words. she figures a lot of things are that way.
she thinks to hook her hand at the crook of his arm beside her, yet despite the fact that they've grown familiar with one another's flesh, there's a hesitance there. something that can't be taken back once it's breached, that casual touch, the thoughtlessness of it — normal. instead she takes to holding her own ribs as they walk, none in a hurry and lazing side to side with their steps, almost as if neither of them are willing just yet to end the night. and so they walk, aimlessly at best; he'd mentioned the theater was closer to his place. the note of just that hums in the back of her mind, a careful reminder. prodding.
she sifts through her mind for an excuse to keep him just a bit longer. they were, in fact, walking the streets of a city that hardly slept. she thinks to suggest thai... takeout, perhaps? she'll chew on it a bit longer. )
It was just too... I don't know, gaudy. Like it was trying too hard to make you feel something rather than just letting you decide how to feel. You know? With a book, you can take it apart however you want to. You can't be wrong.
( bars chatter noisily as they make their way past various entrances, content to stay on the outskirts, a world for just them. a grin bears across her lips, feeling almost silly for how long she's dragged this out, but a sigh leaves her as if it's refused to let go of her. )
( sauntering along beside her, hands in the pockets of his worn leather coat, bucky snorts a small noise of amusement even while he sneaks another look at karen. it's a comfortable conversational patter, being able to talk about normal things like books and movies. like they're just any other couple (and that's a word that terrifies him, too, but they haven't named it and haven't defined whatever the hell they're doing here, and he's actually fine with that too) wandering the streets of new york, talking culture, without skeletons in their closet and blood on their hands. it's nice.
and he likes seeing her like this: talkative, opinionated. )
Maybe you could become an actual movie critic. Write up reviews for the Bulletin.
( he's teasing, but there's a fondness in his voice. he could watch her do this all night, animatedly talking through her opinions. it's a window into a world he thought had been closed off to him entirely. )
I think you're right, though. That fucking soundtrack— it wanted to make you cry at certain scenes, and like, it wasn't being subtle about it and hadn't earned it. Kinda cheap. Manipulative.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
→ tinder.
they've stayed in touch in the couple months since. at first it was her wanting to interview him, the notorious winter soldier, and get his take on the legendary events that brought back half a world, and yet left the avengers disassembled and gutted and defunct. he'd shied away from it. he doesn't do interviews. but then he'd looked her up and found her work on the punisher, years ago. and some pieces had tumbled into place and he'd realised this knack that karen has, of prying beneath the outer walls of armour of a person; of seeing through to the man underneath; of painting a more sympathetic picture. one that isn't just a murderer.
he was still skittish about it, but in the end, he'd accepted, and talked — in halting sequence, omitting much, asking for other redactions — about steve rogers. about the avengers. he'd simply refused to discuss wakanda at all; the country valued its privacy too much. he'd opened up a lot about brooklyn in the 1940s, about the howling commandos, about captain america's earliest days. and then somewhere along the way, the recorder had been turned off and then it had simply become coffee between two people who knew each other, and liked talking to each other. coffee had turned into drinks, the conversation just drawing out longer and longer, until it had finally ended.
their dynamic isn't entirely professional — how can it be, when they met with her hands slick with his blood? — but it's straddling a strange and undefinable boundary, too. he's not sure if they're friends yet. bucky doesn't really have friends these days, but his therapist had teased him about another contact showing up on his phone, and he's eyed karen's name in his phonebook too many times — but he can't easily get drunk enough to work up some liquid courage to call her again. so he doesn't. thinks about it, but doesn't do it.
so it's a late night and he's absentmindedly browsing tinder (sam made a profile for him without him realising, and then bucky had simply admitted defeat and decided to roll with it). he always noses around, sees what's out there, then eventually panics and force-quits the app and has to go for a walk. he's not ready. he's not sure he'll ever be ready. even when he matches with someone, the conversation tends to peter out, the more he has to lie and lie and lie about who he is or what he does. walking circles around that giant elephant in the room.
but then, one night, he sees a familiar face. and he stops, surprised. and laughs, swipes right, and messages her: )
fancy seeing you here
no subject
she'd found him at the velvet-black entry of that alley, nothing but unresponsive bodies, a russian tongue and the hollow dripping of pipes left in his company. he didn't need to tell her anything, then, and even when he'd peeled off that shirt to fall to the floorboards of her apartment, revealing an ugly, glaring wound and most notably an arm that gave him away, she hadn't questioned him. that first night and every night that'd followed, karen had seen him as no more than a man with a story of all of the men he'd been before. a story she wanted to hear, but one she wanted to earn.
she understands better than anyone how the mainstream media can paint you red, how readily the public is willing to turn a blind eye to the truth beneath it all and accept someone was a monster. irredeemable, because then it didn't have to be faced. then there wasn't forgiveness. it's never what she wanted for herself when she started writing, when she took up odd jobs and worked up to the bulletin. she didn't want surface level, half-truths that fail to look at the human buried beneath the words.
she wanted the bones, the flesh, and all of the blood that hummed between.
typically she doesn't pay much mind to her phone, especially not at this hour, usually lost to the cushions of her couch or left atop the kitchen table with her keys. it vibrates gently beneath her notepad, and she's half inclined to ignore it, all the more so when a peak offers her some insight as to where the notification came from. while she may be able to argue that she'd had to download the app because of a lost bet, said bet hadn't included keeping it installed. she tells herself it's boredom, some inane form of entertainment, and whatever it is has her thumbing to open the message, amusement dancing in her hues as a smile takes full-bloom to her lips.
she snickers to herself, only because she can hear him saying those words, see that coy little expression that comes with it. )
We're really getting up there in the world, aren't we?
no subject
( he'd seen casablanca in theaters, too; it was one of the last movies he'd managed to catch stateside before he shipped out to england. thankfully, that particular pop culture reference hasn't aged out of relevance. )
is it more or less depressing to say that i don't actually look at this thing much? can't tell if that's better or worse
no subject
Guess it depends what you're looking for. I wouldn't say this is the golden standard to meet someone nowadays, but...
I probably don't have the best judgment in that area. Then again, alleyways tend to surprise you.
no subject
don't really get all the etiquette of it, either. who texts first? are there rules on who texts first? how quickly are you supposed to reply to things? people seem to think you've fucked off forever if you just vanish for a few days. i don't get any of it
no subject
( they've made it this far, haven't they? underrated. )
You'd think it'd all come down to what you want, what the other person wants, and on and on it goes. It should be that way. Except everyone just dances around it because they have an idea what interest looks like.
Maybe none of us really know what we want.
no subject
so what do you want?
( a second too late, bucky realises how blunt that sounds; how it's starting to nudge up against a line he hasn't crossed in too long to count. he's still not all that used to talking to people via text; the man prefers phonecalls. so, overthinking it, he pivots slightly and sends a quick followup: )
or put it this way, how'd you lose the bet?
no subject
he deters her before she can put thoughts to words, but she lingers on it, still. )
I got too comfortable. In my defense, I think I was just being fed beers to throw off my judgment.
What's your excuse? ( she's toying, mostly. he doesn't need a bet or a reason to delve into the good ol' human experience, but she didn't exactly peg him as the tinder type. )
no subject
frieteammate said i needed to "get out more" and "blow off some steam" and "not be such a grumpy weirdo all the time". he made the profile without me realizing, wrote that i liked underwater basket weaving, and then i found out when my phone started going offhad to fix my profile and then, i dunno. figured there wasn't much to lose in at least keeping it around.
no subject
( enjoy underwater basketweaving or get out more, reader's choice. she'd gotten the impression when she'd found him in that alley that he was used to taking care of himself; preferred it, even. that's usually the sort that has the nudging friend insisting they find something 'more.' )
I have to say, I think the underwater basket weaving is a much more enticing introduction.
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
→ action.
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
→ date night.
which just created another conundrum.
now, bucky's back to not knowing what the hell to do. because the order of operations is all wrong. he'd fooled around commitment-free in the forties, sure, but now the standard etiquette of dating and courting has been thrown right out the window, and he's not exactly sure what part comes next. he should've brought flowers the night before— why the hell hadn't he stopped by a midnight bodega to bring flowers? should he ask her out? is he supposed to text after getting home again? how soon is too soon to text? would he seem needy? also, how do you say thanks for a great evening of mindblowing sex?
also, he hates texting.
there's always too much lost between the lines, too many subtleties stripped down in the text, too much nuance to the smiley faces and emojis that he can't wrap his mind around. he has to keep resisting the automatic urge to include a signoff in every single message, like he's signing a letter. it's stupid. texts are stupid. they're simultaneously too fast and too slow; he hates that interminable wait, the pacing circles around the room waiting to see if someone's paying attention to their phone, if they're around to reply, ever-aware of the irony that he's been leaving
sampeople on read, too. he can be a hypocrite, okay, it's fine.so. fuck it. it's much later that day after their breakfast together, now leaning into evening again, and it's too late to actually take her out anywhere — but the least they can do is figure something out for next time. if there is a next time. (god, he wants there to be a next time.)
so in the end he just picks up the phone, and he calls karen. )
no subject
there'd been a lingering kiss at the door, the familiar scratch of his stubble along her chin leaving it slightly flushed as she'd shut the door, pressed the heart of both palms against it, almost as if she could will him back to her. how devastatingly she'd lost herself in him, how quickly she'd forgotten about the rest of the world that spun madly on around them — the cases, the city, none of it was there when his skin had met hers, electric from the moment he'd crossed over that island. and maybe this is why she doesn't date, because it makes the normal all the darker to return to, makes her question what it is she knows of softness anymore if it's not by another's hand.
karen manages to busy herself, but it's a frustratingly futile effort. he's left a swell of color at her pulse point, every so often reaching up to brush her thumb there before having to sharply avert her thoughts before a rich, tempting throb works its way through her inners. she finds herself checking her watch, scrolling a glaring screen at her desk before eventually it stares just as blankly back. she thinks to message him — if there's anything she detests about the modern dating world, it's the teetering game of who should reach out first, as if there's some guidebook to suggest what a text might mean 'x' minutes past when you'd seen them last. as if it was truly such a sacrifice to let another know you were thinking of them.
she hasn't stopped.
the sun burns across the city, painting her apartment in those ethereal golden hues by the time she makes it through the front door, and she's in her kitchen with heels kicked off, chewing the edge of her thumb while tossing back and forth the idea of putting dinner together or ordering in. her phone buzzes in the distance, and she has half a mind to ignore it, save that little spark that ignites in her chest — fittingly so the moment she sees his name written across the screen.
when she answers, an already-blossomed smile warms her tongue. )
You have impeccable timing. I'm having a bout of indecision, and the circumstances are getting more and more dire by the minute. ( a hand to her belly, grumbling at her miscare. )
no subject
then again, what did he expect? conversation with karen had always come so much more easily than he thought. a slow smile grows on his face, and it loosens some of that knot of tension in his stomach as he paces the echoing empty space of his apartment. which she can hear, a little, in the tinny acoustics behind him — there's almost no furniture for his voice to bounce off. )
Sounds like an emergency. What's up?
→ midnight texts.
no subject
How about you?
no subject
there was a stray neighborhood cat that my sisters fed, which kind of became ours, even though it didn't live with us. been trying to think if i could keep a cat here, but i don't even have a houseplant. maybe i should start small
[ she hasn't even seen his place yet. which bucky thinks about sometimes — hopes she hasn't taken it personally, wonders how he'd explain that ascetic cell of a studio apartment, and knows he'll have to find some way to deal with it sooner or later. but not right now. ]
no subject
( not hospital bills and college admissions stuffed between her mattresses, not a home built on grief. )
You know, you seem like a cat guy. I've heard they're independent, just a little affection here and there. On their terms, of course.
Debatably, they might even be easier than a plant. Plenty of strays in the city.
no subject
what was your home like then, growing up? not warm in winter?
( that last question is lightly teasing, but he's already aware he might be tiptoeing into dangerous territory. family's a sore spot for so many people he's ever known. )
no subject
It was for awhile. Vermont was a completely different kind of cold, it's like you couldn't get it off of you. We'd come home from school when we were young and by dinner you'd still be trying to chase it away.
( we. plural, made to sigular. )
We didn't exactly have a lavish life growing up, but my parents tried. You know? And I didn't know any different. If an electric bill was late, it was on all of us.
no subject
you had any siblings?
( they really had started off on such an uneven footing. bucky's biographical details were right there in the wikipedia article, the museum placard: the oldest child of four. still, he'd been going about slowly filling in the details and the flavour for karen, the personal touches that the textbooks couldn't carry. remembering his family. a kind of tribute, in the remembering.
the woman on the other end of this phone, though, is such a blank slate in comparison. )
no subject
( she enjoys those little windows into the man he'd been before someone had tried to decide such a thing for him — something as simple as that 'ma,' and yet just as readily as that warmth had slipped over her, the thought of learning someone, it's stripped from her again in a single breath. her heart lurches; thick and uncomfortable, a threat: there is nothing soft here. she doesn't mean to go quiet, doesn't realize the time that spans between his question and her reply. some part of her, splintered, is grateful for the tense he'd chosen: had. because she doesn't have to say it. not yet.
had. verb. past tense. )
A brother. It was just the two of us and my parents. They owned one of the only diners in town, we both worked there so we were just always with each other til my mom got sick. ( she clears her throat, as if any of it had been said aloud at all. ) I think we were closest then, even if we didn't act like it.
no subject
so that must be why you've got such good taste in nyc diners.
( another small joke. he's bad at this; keeps reflexively leveraging that gallow's sense of humour. )
but i'm sorry about your mom. 'got sick' never really entails anything good, i'm assuming
no subject
It might have a thing or two to do with it.
( it's easier to talk about that, the surface-level idea of where she hides herself. )
She was diagnosed with cancer. It did't really give her much time, and you'd think you'd want more of that, we're all kind of desperate for it in the end, but she suffered. For it to stop was peace for her. We tried to keep everything up and running after she was gone but it wasn't the same. ( teeth pinch at the inners of her cheek, but she tries to keep herself here: a lesser cliff. not as much of a sentence. )
Sorry.
2/2
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
→ action bc we're incorrigible
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
→ if you show me yours.
it's an adaptation of a book she's read countless times over, and despite how enamored she remained throughout it's life, she's walked away a bit disappointed. books were never quite the same when they weren't just words. she figures a lot of things are that way.
she thinks to hook her hand at the crook of his arm beside her, yet despite the fact that they've grown familiar with one another's flesh, there's a hesitance there. something that can't be taken back once it's breached, that casual touch, the thoughtlessness of it — normal. instead she takes to holding her own ribs as they walk, none in a hurry and lazing side to side with their steps, almost as if neither of them are willing just yet to end the night. and so they walk, aimlessly at best; he'd mentioned the theater was closer to his place. the note of just that hums in the back of her mind, a careful reminder. prodding.
she sifts through her mind for an excuse to keep him just a bit longer. they were, in fact, walking the streets of a city that hardly slept. she thinks to suggest thai... takeout, perhaps? she'll chew on it a bit longer. )
It was just too... I don't know, gaudy. Like it was trying too hard to make you feel something rather than just letting you decide how to feel. You know? With a book, you can take it apart however you want to. You can't be wrong.
( bars chatter noisily as they make their way past various entrances, content to stay on the outskirts, a world for just them. a grin bears across her lips, feeling almost silly for how long she's dragged this out, but a sigh leaves her as if it's refused to let go of her. )
Maybe I'm being too much of a critic.
no subject
and he likes seeing her like this: talkative, opinionated. )
Maybe you could become an actual movie critic. Write up reviews for the Bulletin.
( he's teasing, but there's a fondness in his voice. he could watch her do this all night, animatedly talking through her opinions. it's a window into a world he thought had been closed off to him entirely. )
I think you're right, though. That fucking soundtrack— it wanted to make you cry at certain scenes, and like, it wasn't being subtle about it and hadn't earned it. Kinda cheap. Manipulative.