[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

[nerves_of_ice]

"Uh-huh." He's quiet again for several seconds.




"I don't know if you know what it's like," he says, eventually, each word careful and slow. "How it feels. For... when someone knows, thinks they know, who you are. What you are. Before they ever meet you."

[from_the_outside]

She listens, feeling the way her head rises and falls with each slow breath he takes, how his voice vibrates low in his chest.

"Not that way you do," she says. "Expectations, yeah. Things they see because they want to see them. From my parents' friends to people in school... hell, I weaponized it at SHIELD. Why do you think Fury sent me undercover like he did?"

She shakes her head. "But I was a secret. There weren't any stories about me. Not like you. So it's not quite the same."

[nerves_of_ice]

"And you're good at it," he confirms. "And you were in control. Of crafting the identity. Identities. Figuring out how to - what to let others see. Instead of having that taken away from you."

He swallows, once, hard, trying to keep his words from locking in his throat.

"I w... I wanted. You to have that. You to decide what you were willing for others to know."

[from_the_outside]

He swallows hard and she leans to press a kiss to his throat as it works. "I get it," she says, softly. "And I appreciate it, baby. I do. You remember how hard it is for me to talk about who I am. Practically my whole adult life is classified. I'm still getting used to it. With you. With the elders. People at the bar."

She lifts her head to look at him, but doesn't move her arms from around his neck. "But I'm always willing for them to know about me and you. I don't want you to omit parts of your life you might want to talk about just to preserve my privacy. Unless it's someone dangerous, in which case you'd know better than me, there."

[nerves_of_ice]

He nods. "Okay." Bucky meets her eyes and adds, "I could never be ashamed of you. You're one of the most amazing people I've ever known."

[from_the_outside]

That makes her smile, just a little, crooked and warm. "Right back at you," she says, and lifts a hand to tuck a fall of his hair back behind his ears.

"But you're wrong about one thing, baby. It's not that I don't like it there."

[nerves_of_ice]

Bucky blinks. "What is it, then?"

[from_the_outside]

She toys with the ends of his hair, trying to find the right words.

"I always feel like I'm one step behind everyone else," she says, finally. "It seems like something always happens to put me on the back foot. There's no way to prepare for it. And I don't make friends as easily as you do. People can tell I'm holding back, and that makes them hold back, too. They ask me what I do and I don't have a good answer for them."

His hair is getting so long again; it might almost be time for another trim, if he'll let her. "But there's a lot I like. And some of the people there are starting to like me for me, I think. Which is nice."

[nerves_of_ice]

"Well, you're pretty likeable," Bucky tells her. "So I can see why."

"It's a weird place, baby, no question. And I know you hate surprises."

[from_the_outside]

"You like me," she says, amused. "But I don't think most other people would agree with your assessment. At least at first."

She shakes her head, though it's not in negation, exactly. "I wish I could roll with it as easily as you do," she murmurs. "It feels like your space. And I'm already in your space all the time, almost every day. Sometimes I feel like an interloper."

[nerves_of_ice]

"I've just been there longer," he murmurs. "You'll get used to it, I think. If you want to."

He holds her a little closer. "I don't think you're an interloper, baby. In any way."

[from_the_outside]

She puts her head back down on his shoulder, watches the lake water lap back and forth along the muddy shore.

"I will," she says. "I want to."

Honestly, it's probably good for her, getting her out of her comfort zone.

[nerves_of_ice]

He runs one hand up and down her arm, slowly soothing.

[from_the_outside]

Sharon curls against him and sets her hand at the curve of his neck so she can sweep her thumb slowly along the cord of muscle there, savoring his warmth and steady strength, soaking it up like sunlight.

[nerves_of_ice]

"Feeling any better?" he murmurs, after several minutes pass.

[from_the_outside]

"Yeah," she can say, honestly. "You?"

[nerves_of_ice]

"Mm-hm," he agrees. "Do you want to tell me about that dream?"

[from_the_outside]

"Mm. I dreamed Aunt Peggy."

She lowers her hand to his chest and smooths the pad of her thumb along his collarbone. "It might sound crazy, baby, but... I'm not sure it was a dream."

[nerves_of_ice]

He frowns a little. "How do you mean?"

[from_the_outside]

It really does sound crazy. She knows it does.

"I mean... it was a dream. I know it was. Because she was young, and we were in her office at first, and then here. But it felt just like I was really talking to her. I was telling her everything that happened and she was asking questions just like she would have."

[nerves_of_ice]

"I believe you, but," he starts, and then, "... wait. Wait. What's the date that the bar's going by right now? Did you happen to notice? It's fall there right now, right?"

[from_the_outside]

She thinks back to following Wei Wuxian out to the back porch and needing to wrap her arms around herself, surprised by the brisk cold air. "Yeah," she says, "I think so. It's a lot colder than here for sure, so maybe fall."

Sharon lifts her head to give him a puzzled look. "What difference does that make?"

[nerves_of_ice]

"Because that's another one of the weird things that happens there sometimes," Bucky tells her. "If you spend the night around Halloween. Sometimes you can talk to someone who's ... passed on."

[from_the_outside]

"What?"

That place is insane, but is it really that insane? "You think maybe I really talked to her?"

[nerves_of_ice]

Gently, he says, "I think you could have, yeah."