James Buchanan "Bucky" Barnes (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
trainwrecked) wrote2013-11-23 02:54 am
trainwrecked) wrote2013-11-23 02:54 am
Revelations. For onthedot and oldfashionedhero
Over the last couple of years, most of the dreams had abated, generally. Not like they had been the first months, at any rate.
But the return of the colder weather seemed to make them worse, to the point where Bucky'd taken, recently, to avoid sleeping as much as he could. Quietly and without disturbing Steve or Peggy, he thought.
Predictably, that didn't work for long. Eventually, he simply... nodded off, one late morning, when he was going through the morning press with a dictionary. (The Spanish morning press, thank you very much, he could read English without reference material.)
The dream started ... almost acceptably, with him climbing up a snow-thick slope. He'd had no map, no much reference about his starting point, back then, and his memory was spotty at best. And it hurt, hurt all the time. The missing limb, the cold, the exhaustion, the hunger, but mostly the missing arm. It kept him off-balance, it kept. Just being wrong. Reminding him of all he'd lost. All.
Suddenly, he reached a ledge, sheer rock face dropping down far bellow, right in font of him in the snow. He gasped and stumbled back, falling to his knees in the snow and trying to look-not look-look at the precipice. Creeping closer, despite the vertigo (it had to be vertigo, right? Nothing more?) He would have to go to the other side, to keep moving west, somehow. It felt too much, like even the smallest snowflake was weighing him down until he couldn't contemplate getting up again.
Then, there was crunch of boots in the snow behind him. Familiar boots, he'd woken up on the cot on the ground, looking at those boot, manacled because he'd killed two people when he was first recovered.
"It's no use, you know. No matter how far you get, we'll catch up with you. Maybe you could've run from us before you first fell, but now? Now you're just ours." He could swear he should be able to place the accent, but he hadn't been able to, this far. "Where are you running to, anyway? There was nothing there - nobody who won't spurn you, even if they remember you. They didn't come to even look for you."
He didn't answer. Just grunted, and pushed himself unsteadily to his feet. Keep going.
But the voice beside him laughed, clearly amused, not impressed, by his action.
"Oh, now you make our work so much easier. You get to fall again."
And the other man pushed him. As hell, he could ear the voice from above. "Let's see what you lose this time, little soldier. Maybe this time you'll cause so much trouble. Maybe you won't know who you were..."
"No!"
It wasn't even a shout, as Bucky started up from where he'd slumped against the textbook's edge. It wasn't a shout, but it was a croak, full of despair and pain.
He fucking hated nightmares. And falling. And waking up shaking like a leaf, like a weakling.
But the return of the colder weather seemed to make them worse, to the point where Bucky'd taken, recently, to avoid sleeping as much as he could. Quietly and without disturbing Steve or Peggy, he thought.
Predictably, that didn't work for long. Eventually, he simply... nodded off, one late morning, when he was going through the morning press with a dictionary. (The Spanish morning press, thank you very much, he could read English without reference material.)
The dream started ... almost acceptably, with him climbing up a snow-thick slope. He'd had no map, no much reference about his starting point, back then, and his memory was spotty at best. And it hurt, hurt all the time. The missing limb, the cold, the exhaustion, the hunger, but mostly the missing arm. It kept him off-balance, it kept. Just being wrong. Reminding him of all he'd lost. All.
Suddenly, he reached a ledge, sheer rock face dropping down far bellow, right in font of him in the snow. He gasped and stumbled back, falling to his knees in the snow and trying to look-not look-look at the precipice. Creeping closer, despite the vertigo (it had to be vertigo, right? Nothing more?) He would have to go to the other side, to keep moving west, somehow. It felt too much, like even the smallest snowflake was weighing him down until he couldn't contemplate getting up again.
Then, there was crunch of boots in the snow behind him. Familiar boots, he'd woken up on the cot on the ground, looking at those boot, manacled because he'd killed two people when he was first recovered.
"It's no use, you know. No matter how far you get, we'll catch up with you. Maybe you could've run from us before you first fell, but now? Now you're just ours." He could swear he should be able to place the accent, but he hadn't been able to, this far. "Where are you running to, anyway? There was nothing there - nobody who won't spurn you, even if they remember you. They didn't come to even look for you."
He didn't answer. Just grunted, and pushed himself unsteadily to his feet. Keep going.
But the voice beside him laughed, clearly amused, not impressed, by his action.
"Oh, now you make our work so much easier. You get to fall again."
And the other man pushed him. As hell, he could ear the voice from above. "Let's see what you lose this time, little soldier. Maybe this time you'll cause so much trouble. Maybe you won't know who you were..."
"No!"
It wasn't even a shout, as Bucky started up from where he'd slumped against the textbook's edge. It wasn't a shout, but it was a croak, full of despair and pain.
He fucking hated nightmares. And falling. And waking up shaking like a leaf, like a weakling.
no subject
Then his eyes turn to Steve, and there's some self-mockery there, there's little guilt, per se.
"Used to sometimes just curl up and try not to think. Then - we were lookin', there were always things to go over again, maps, new ways to try and triangulate the location.
"Now I... try to read. And go for runs." Physical activity doesn't quite shut up his mind, but it helps, a little. The awareness that, even though short a limb, he's not helpless or weak - that also helps. Not enough.
Things that are conspicuously missing from the list - keeping Peggy awake (before or now). Praying.
Drinking.
Anything that would wake either of the other two up.