[oom] when you're weary, feeling small

[from_the_outside]

The problem with getting a full night's sleep at Milliways is that the night is still only just tilting toward dawn when she goes out the door and back to her room in the Citadel. Sharon showers and changes, her head full of everything the place had packed into her night, which feels more dreamlike now than the dream she'd woken from afterwards.

It's not, though. And that's a problem she's going to have to face head on.

The stars are just beginning to wink out as she makes her way back down to the hut by the lake. She takes a moment to make sure the goats are still sleeping and comfortable, then goes to the spot at the side of the hut where they so often sit and watch the sunrise, drawing her knees up and looping her arms loosely around them.

She's pretty sure Bucky will be up and out soon. No need to wake him up beforehand.

Comments

[from_the_outside]

"No," she says, then amends: "I don't think so. I was asking him about what happened, and he got really squirrelly about it and kept dodging all my questions."

She looks rueful: he knows. After SHIELD, after the CIA, nothing pings her radar faster than someone who won't give a straight answer. "But it wasn't just dodging, it felt dismissive. Like I wasn't worth taking seriously. And I got pretty frustrated. I didn't understand why he was refusing to talk to me."

[nerves_of_ice]

He manages, somehow, not to wince. Seems like training and instinct both have worked against her here, but how could she have known.

"There's some history," he says, after a moment of thinking how to explain. "From his world. It might've ... influenced his reaction a bit."

Dryly, he adds, "As for the dismissive part, we're talking about a guy who once described getting attacked with a sword as a bit of 'light stabbing.'"

[from_the_outside]

"Right," Sharon says, after a long moment where her fingers tighten on her mug.

"Okay. Well, I didn't know any of that. Like I said, I fucked up. If you want, I can finish and you can defend him then. But I don't have to keep going."

[nerves_of_ice]

Bucky stares at her. "What-- no. No." He sets his coffee aside and braces his hands against the table to keep himself from moving.

"I wasn't ... you said you didn't understand," he tries, carefully. "I was only trying to explain."

[from_the_outside]

Are you going to explain to him about me? is too poisonous even to let herself think too hard. She chews on her lip and watches him, feeling suddenly lonely even in this little hut with just the two of them.

"I wasn't done," she says. "But go ahead."

[nerves_of_ice]

He shakes his head. "No."

[from_the_outside]

"Okay."

But now she is defensive, holding herself tense and wary against the makeshift sideboard, and fine: she deserves it. She'll admit that. But she doesn't love telling him she'd felt dismissed only to be dismissed again. What being stabbed has to do with it she's unsure, aside from how she's thinking it might be preferable to reliving this conversation.

"Well, so I got frustrated, he brushed me off, apparently with good reason, I said that the next time you guys did something reckless and dangerous to leave a note or take back up. It was a stupid thing to say and I offended him, but he just brushed that off too, which made me even more frustrated because it seemed like he was taking the whole thing way too lightly. Again: seemed off, because he's your friend and he brought you to the infirmary, so I assumed he took it seriously enough at the time."

[nerves_of_ice]

He listens quietly, intently, damn near sawing his tongue apart with his teeth in order to keep from saying a single word until she's finished. He can't stop himself from shaking his head in disagreement when she calls what she said stupid, though.

[from_the_outside]

She shakes her head back at him. "No," she says. "It's one thing for me to say that to you. I shouldn't have brought him into it. I should have – anyway. After that he just... got up and left. And maybe I should have let it go, but I'm already persona non grata with one of your friends, I didn't want to fuck this one up, too, so I followed him and I asked him why he wasn't talking to me, see if I could find a way to fix it. He said he wasn't going to say anything to someone he didn't know was trustworthy. Okay, that's a good reason, and it's when I finally realized he didn't have any idea who the hell I was. So I asked him, did you ever tell him anything about me?"

She shakes her head. "He said no."

A beat. She stares at her coffee, watching it ripple, and wishes this didn't hurt just as much the second time around. "But that you'd told him all about the goats."

[nerves_of_ice]

The edge of the table shatters under his left hand.

"Sharon."

[from_the_outside]

The sound of splintering wood snaps her out of it like a gunshot; she sets her coffee down so quickly it sloshes, then hurries over to pry at his metal fingers, trying to get them to release. "Baby, the table!"

[nerves_of_ice]

"I don't give a damn about the table," he grits out, low and taut, but he makes himself let go of it as she tugs at his hand. Bucky makes himself keep his left arm from doing anything at all for fear he'll overcontrol the prototype and do more damage.

[from_the_outside]

"You should, it's the only table you've got."

She lets go once his hand is free, but stays where she is, looking up into his face. "Look, I get it. I'd been poking at him and trying to get him to talk and from his perspective he didn't know me from Adam. I didn't know what you guys were experimenting with, only that it was some protective talisman that I assumed he was calling the restless spirits or whatever to come and test out, but he rightfully got pissed that I implied he would attack you with angry ghosts. And I said it seemed like he was against a note or back up – I was trying to be facetious but I insulted him. You know I'm not... I grate on people. I'm too aggressive. I pushed too hard, so he pushed me right back."

[nerves_of_ice]

"Stop it." He looks down at her, and his eyes are blazing. "Don't do that. Don't."

[from_the_outside]

"You know it's true," she insists. "SHIELD didn't train me to be a good conversationalist; they trained me to get answers. And when it's you – I wasn't thinking clearly about it. I should never have let it get that far."

[nerves_of_ice]

"Stop blaming yourself!" Bucky shakes his head.

"Do you think I can't tell you're hurt? Do you think I don't care? Why are you so insistent that it's all your fault?"

[from_the_outside]

"Because he had a perfectly good reason not to talk to me!" she says, and yes, she's hurt and frustrated and she hates the idea that she's fucked up with yet another of his friends just by virtue of being what she is, but none of that means he was wrong.

"Yeah, it would have been great if he'd said so at the beginning, but – I just – I – "

She's faltering now. "I tried," she says, unhappily. "He's your friend. I really wanted it to work. I apologized. And I was trying to find a way for us to relate to each other, but honestly by that point it felt like I was just digging myself deeper and deeper. I mean, eventually we got onto safer topics, but I don't think either of us really wanted to linger."

She shakes her head. "I wanted to thank him and maybe get to know him but it blew up in my face, so yes, it hurts."

[nerves_of_ice]

He lets out a long, slow breath and holds his right hand out to her, silently asking if she’ll come to him.

[from_the_outside]

She takes his hand and steps in, feeling like she's going to prick him all over like he's holding one of those spiky sea urchins instead of a flesh and blood woman.

But she goes. She can't not, and she doesn't want to stay away.

[nerves_of_ice]

Carefully, he folds her into his arms, and just holds her for a moment.

“I’m sorry,” he says, finally, murmuring it into her hair. “Sorry for snapping at you. Sorry that you and Wei Wuxian got your wires crossed. Sorry that you’re hurting right now. But I don’t think it’s all your fault.”

[from_the_outside]

"You didn't snap at me. You're fine."

She puts her arms around his middle, feeling like a long, taut string vibrating with every small touch. "Don't worry," she mutters, "I wasn't so charitable at the time. I thought he was being an ass. And I didn't like that crack about the goats."

[nerves_of_ice]

“I don’t either.” His tone is very flat.

[from_the_outside]

The real problem, she knows, is not rubbing Wei Wuxian the wrong way – although that's bad enough. It's how she always feels just a little out of step there, like she'll never quite catch up. She's been a few times now and it hasn't stopped feeling like she's trespassing in a part of his life that doesn't know her and doesn't especially want her for herself. Which is probably why what Wei Wuxian said hurt so damn much.

She wants him to fill in the blanks so she hits fewer hidden trapdoors next time and she wants to ask why his friends don't know she exists and she wants to make sure he can smooth things over with Wei Wuxian for himself, because she's damned if she'll be the reason someone who helped him before decides not to again, but it all knots into her chest and she can't pick a thread clear, so she just holds onto him instead.

[nerves_of_ice]

After a few moments, he starts running his hand back and forth over her back again. “I’ll talk to him,” he promises. “Make sure it won’t happen again.”

[from_the_outside]

"I don't want him to take it out on you," she says, stubborn.

"It's the whole reason I followed him to begin with. I know he helped you in the past. I don't want him mad at you, so just tell him I'm sorry about it. Maybe that'll help."