[oom] I'm right here beside you

[from_the_outside]

 Sleep is a joke.

It's not just the intel that she stays up sifting through, blue light straining her eyes; it's not just the coffee she drinks, trying to keep her brain sharp and her thoughts on track. 

It's time.

Minutes that slip away, that she can't get back. Hours that tick ponderously past. She lies alone in her bed and can't close her eyes because if she does, if she sleeps, it's another night gone, another night closer to the day Bucky goes back under and –

So she stays up and works. 

It means that when she waits for him in the morning to come find her before they meet with T'Challa and the others, her skin is pale and translucent and she has that sick feeling of an all-nighter, fatigue poisons running rampant through her bloodstream – but she has a list of observations from her analysis, and two mugs of coffee kept warm on the credenza: one pale with milk and sugar, the other black and as strong as her little coffee maker could handle.

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[nerves_of_ice]

He kisses her back, slow and lingering and lazy, enjoying the feel of her against him, of her hands in his hair.

There's no rush. Morning's hours away.

[from_the_outside]

She slips a foot over his calf and props her other leg up to lean against his hip, luxuriating in sensation, in his slow, sweet kisses, in the weight of his warm body over hers, his hand at the back of her neck and all the electric jolts that drift across her skin every time he sweeps his thumb lightly back and forth.

[nerves_of_ice]

He tangles his fingers in her hair and keeps kissing her, occasionally moving from her mouth to trail more kisses along her jaw, then the line of her throat, before returning to her lips again.

[from_the_outside]

His mouth trails along the channel of her throat and her pulse races to catch up, and it's not long before these lazy kisses become lazy shudders become hands on skin and soft sounds and their quiet voices whispering promises and endearments in the dim, flickering light of the battery-powered candles.

And later, when they're lying all twined together in the wreckage of his sheets and blanket, slicked with sweat and utterly content, she falls asleep in the warmth of his embrace as easily as if she'd stepped off the edge of a pool to slide into warm, dark water.

[nerves_of_ice]

Sharon's breathing levels off into the slow, deep rhythms of sleep long before his does. He watches her for a while in the dim light of the hut, reminding himself that she'd asked him not to stay awake, to let her help if he dreamed.

He hadn't known how to tell her that it's a 'when,' not an 'if.' He's pretty sure that wouldn't have made a difference, anyway.

A while passes before he sighs, turns his face into her hair, and closes his eyes, willing himself to sleep.

After a little while longer, he does.

And dreams.

---

The room is dark, the only light a red flicker that sears the eyes. He can't see anyone outside the glass walls of the cell.

He knows they're there. He can hear the whispering, and waits in agony for it to resolve into words.

(zilánie.)

"No."

[from_the_outside]

She wakes into warm darkness, bewildered for a moment before she realizes that the candles have switched themselves off. Some small sound must have woken her up. She listens for it again, but nothing comes and she's just about to close her eyes again when –

"No."

Muttered next to her. She pushes herself up, her eyes adjusting to the dim light. "Bucky," she says, softly.

His whole long frame is slowly tensing next to her; that must have been what woke her to begin with. "Bucky," she says, again, putting a hand on his chest. "Sweetheart, you're dreaming."

[nerves_of_ice]

The pressure on his chest is restraining him from movement. Somewhere, dimly, he thinks he hears his name, but that can't be right. No one here would call him that. Every muscle in his body tenses as he tries to prepare himself for the shock of pain that's sure to come.

--sweetheart, you're...

He shakes his head from side to side, and draws a harsh breath, then another, faster and faster.

[from_the_outside]

"Bucky," she says again, a little more urgently, as his head pushes over the pillow, as his muscles tense into cords, as his breathing turns shallow and ragged. It feels like each breath scrapes against her own lungs.

She shifts her hand to his shoulder and shakes him slightly. "Baby. Wake up, you're having a nightmare."

[nerves_of_ice]

--wake up--

Something shifts him, moving him, and he jolts, back arching as he braces himself--

--and wakes, eyes wide and empty, as he jerks into a sitting position and stares blindly into the dark.

[from_the_outside]

She sits back quickly as he moves so he won't smack right into her – she's got the feeling that would put an end to this experiment, of letting her be here with him in the middle of the night, quicker than she could blink.

"Bucky," she says, as soothingly as she can, and reaches for his shoulder again, moving slow and cautiously. "You were dreaming."

[nerves_of_ice]

Sharon's hand settles on his shoulder, and the breath rushes out of him.

"Right," he murmurs, low and defeated. "A dream." After a second, he adds, "I woke you up. Sorry."

[from_the_outside]

"It's okay," she says, trying to put as much reassurance into it as she can, rubbing her fingers into the tense muscle curving up to his neck.

After a minute or so of just sitting quietly with him, she asks: "Do you want some water?"

[nerves_of_ice]

He starts to nod, then shakes his head.

"It's all right," he murmurs. "It'll fade soon."

[from_the_outside]

"Okay," she says, quietly, and doesn't push.



"Lie down with me?"

[nerves_of_ice]

This time he does nod, and shifts position until he's once more stretched out alongside her.

"Think you can go back to sleep okay?" he murmurs.

[from_the_outside]

"Don't worry about me," she tells him, softly, and settles her hand back on his chest. "I can always sleep."

She watches his profile in the dark, feeling him breathe into her palm. "Will you?"

[nerves_of_ice]

"Eventually."

The dream's already fading faster than usual. He's not sure if that's because it hadn't fully gotten its claws into him, or because he's not alone in the dark.

"Sooner rather than later," he adds, and thinks it's even true.

[from_the_outside]

"Okay."

She shifts close enough to kiss his cheek and settles back against him, her arm over his stomach, her chin brushing his shoulder.

[nerves_of_ice]

He's quiet for a while, almost long enough that it might seem he's dozed off again before he murmurs,

"It might not be the only one."

[from_the_outside]

She's relaxed, her arm heavy across his torso, but she hasn't drifted back off either.

"Okay," she says, her sleepy voice soft in the dark. "We'll deal with them one at a time, then."

She's not worried about it. She's already slept better here, now, than she did without him the night before.

[nerves_of_ice]

He doesn't say anything at first, but shifts beside her. Bucky bends his head and presses a kiss to the top of her head, holding it for a long, long moment.

"Okay," he whispers, finally.

[from_the_outside]

She makes a soft sound as his lips press against her hair and tucks herself a little more securely against his side.

"Get some sleep," she murmurs. "I'll be right here."

[nerves_of_ice]

"Okay," he says again, and attempts to do just that. Here in the night where he's not alone, with Sharon curled against him, it's easier than he might have expected it would be.

The next time he wakes, blinking from amorphous nightmare to awareness in a single cold flash, he finds that she's still sleeping peacefully beside him. Bucky takes a moment to be grateful, then forces himself to relax and slip back into sleep.

[from_the_outside]

This time when she wakes, it isn't slow or peaceful at all.

Bucky's shuddering next to her – no, not shuddering, she realizes, shivering, like he's freezing, even though he's throwing off so much heat he feels nearly feverish, and as she sits up, blinking sleep out of her eyes, he groans in such despairing agony that her heart feels like it stops in her chest.

This one is worse. Whatever it is, it's worse than before.

"Bucky," she says. He reaches with his hand, grasping for something she can't see, and she takes it in hers. "Bucky, wake up."

[nerves_of_ice]

The cold sinks into his bones like poison, dragging him down, even as he fights against it, trying to resist. He can see Steve through the cryo chamber's thick glass window, can see him talking to Sharon, the two of them deep in conversation -- neither of them noticing the danger that's racing their way from the blackness beyond. He presses his hand flat against the window, trying to get their attention, then bangs his fist against the glass.

"God, please, look at me, please, you have to--"

Bright stars shatter through the glass, transforming into frost patterns, and he throws his head back with a scream, gasping for breath.