hydratrashmeme | Dumpster #3: The Great Pacific Garbage Patch

I'm sorry, James almost says, and that's when he knows he's in trouble. Begging is not tolerated, not unless he's given permission, and will earn him a broken jaw or worse. The soft-hearted ones, he remembers, used to gag him.

Sam and Steve are not so kind. James wishes they would flip him over, let him hide his face and muffle his sounds, but he is on his back in his own bed, completely exposed. Steve's hand moves lazily over his tortured cock, stroking and stopping, keeping him on the edge. He is flushed, panting, his whole body taut and desperate, his skin so sensitized that every touch threatens to overwhelm him. He doesn't know how long it's been, has stopped tracking time the way he should. His cock leaks as Steve's calloused palm drags over the head, and when he can't stifle his moan, Steve does it again. Sam kneels between his spread legs and fucks the hated thing into him, slow and deep and cruel, and James is so afraid he'll turn it on again that he wants to cry.

This is the strictest punishment he's suffered from his new team - his new friends, he reminds himself, because he no longer fights beside them, and though he'd feared retaliation for that, it hadn't come - and he was so stupid, he'd mistaken it at first for indulgence. Don't come, Steve had said, his mouth hot and wet against the back of James's neck, his cock splitting him open. Not until I tell you. He'd nodded acquiescence, confused but grateful, and allowed his attention to wander from his body, tuning out the discomfort and the stimulation both as Steve used him, while Sam leaned against the headboard, stroking his own cock, watching them. When Steve was done, he'd rolled James onto his back and grinned at him, pure mischief, before bending to take his softening cock in his mouth. James tried to ignore it - the heat, the suction, the skillful tongue - but it was difficult: when people did this, in his recent experience, they wanted him to come, were pleased when he did, and his body has begun to associate this act with orgasm. Then Sam was showing him something, a toy, and asking the usual questions, and James gave the proper answers while his hands curled anxiously in the sheets. He spent as little time in his own skin as he could, when he was having sex, and even when he had to be hard, had to come, he tried to hold some part of himself separate from the sensations. But Steve's mouth was insistent, and he was responding, and he wasn't allowed - and he felt it, couldn't help but feel it. When Sam slid the toy inside him, stroking over his prostate, he gasped at the shock that ran through him, and Sam laughed, and pressed a quick kiss against his thigh. Then he turned it on, and James cried out as the vibrations flooded his nerves with fire. The buzzing thing inside him demanded a response, wrenched him toward it, and for a moment he thought he might disobey, come helplessly into Steve's hot mouth, and the terror of that was enough to bring him back from the edge.

It's off, now, but still inside him, still a threat. He feels raw, flayed, horribly and inescapably present in his own body, all protections burned away. Steve's hand on his cock is almost more than he can bear. "Look at you," Steve murmurs, and he sounds stunned with arousal, drunk with it. "You're so gorgeous." What did I do, James thinks again, reflexively, but he's had time to review every infraction, real and probably imagined, in the last few days, and he thinks he knows. He'd woken that morning tangled up in them, Steve's arm flung across his chest, Sam's leg snug between his. When Sam had stirred and stretched, grinding his morning erection against James's ass, James had rolled over and slipped a hand obediently into his boxers - but Sam had caught his wrist. "Can't," he said, his voice still fuzzed with sleep. "Would love to, but can't. Early meeting, have to - " The rest had been lost to a yawn. It hadn't seemed so bad, at the time - a mistake, but a small one, and then Steve had woken up as well, and he didn't have an early meeting, and there'd been no chance to dwell on it. But it was bad, of course it was: an unwelcome advance (you fucking slut) when Sam had no use for him. And for offering himself in error, he thinks, this punishment makes a certain awful kind of sense. If he's so desperate for it, they will give him all he can take. They will give him more. He'd beg forgiveness, but he doesn't want to make it worse, and he doesn't want - he doesn't need them to tell him he deserves it.

The ugly night staggers on. Sam eases the toy out of him, finally, and Steve takes his hand away, and then they do turn him over, and there's a moment of relief as he presses his aching face into the bed. The corners of his eyes are wet. Then Sam's hands are on his hips, and Steve is leaning across him, gripping his wrists, and Sam's cock is sliding against his hole. No, he thinks abruptly. No more. But they don't ask him, for once, and when Sam pushes into him, he has no name for what he feels. He wishes, with sudden and shocking intensity, that this weren't happening here. They can punish him, of course they can, but it's wrong for them to do it in this apartment he loves, this place that's meant to be his, where he's meant to be safe. In his bed.

He breaks Steve's grip without thinking, and there's a terrible, weightless moment, like a long fall. Then: "Yellow," Steve says, lifting his hands - I mean no harm - and Sam's hips still. "James. Are you okay? Do you - "

And then the world snaps back into focus, and he is apologizing, uncontrollably, lightheaded with fear. "I'm sorry, I'm - fuck, I'm sorry, don't stop, I didn't mean to - "

"It's all right," Sam says, petting his flank like James is a nervous animal, gentling him. "Is this too much? We can - "

"No," James says, because whatever waits at the end of that sentence is unthinkable. We can remind you what too much really means. Or, unimaginably worse: We can leave. We can leave you alone. "It's good, I'm good, I just - I couldn't - "

"I was holding you down," Steve says. "Is that a problem?" James shakes his head. He doesn't trust himself to speak.

"Did you want to fight us?" Sam asks slowly. "Not for real, but - to struggle, a little? That's - a lot of people like that."

He can't grasp what this means, not exactly, but he recognizes the tone, studiously nonjudgmental, the one people use to tell him that the situation is normal, even if his response to it is not. A lot of people like that. "Yes," he gasps. "Yes, that's - I - " And then, thank fuck, he remembers. "Green. I'm green. Please."

After that, time starts to stutter. Pierce is fucking his mouth, making him choke, while another handler pounds into his ass, and he's supposed to struggle, a little, only that makes no sense, he'll be punished for that, and he thinks that if he starts struggling the panic coiling in his gut will overwhelm him, and he won't be able to stop. But none of this makes sense, Pierce is old now - Pierce is dead - and then time falters again, and Sam is coming, and he and Steve are switching places. Sam strokes a thumb across his cheek, and James knows what's there, but he summons his will and gives his color. Notice, he thinks, as he's been taught. Four things you see. He hasn't slipped like that in months. Also, this isn't going to work, because his eyes are shut, and he refuses to open them. Three things you feel in your body. Similarly unhelpful. Two sounds you hear. But it's still not over, and he gives up, waits for past and present to collapse again. It's Pierce, he thinks, tentatively, when they don't. Come on. That was a long time ago, after all, and he's already survived. It's safer there. But time has righted itself, and he's stranded here, now, where this is really happening: Steve fucking him, Sam holding him down.

When Steve lets him come - finally, finally - James nearly blacks out. He's aware, dimly, of a warm damp cloth caressing his skin, cleaning him, and covers being pulled over him. When he wakes in the night, Sam and Steve are wrapped around him, close as his own breath. This is the part he likes, normally - the part he loves, if he's being honest with himself - but tonight, lying still in the dark, he feels no relief, no contentment. There is something cold and heavy in his chest. He wants very badly to be home. But, of course, he already is.

FUCK this is the SADDEST -- Bucky not being able to say no while feeling so violated in his safe space by people that he trusted. ;_____; Being triggered like crazy (conflating Steve with Pierce T_T) and still afraid to express anything but enthusiasm.

I can't help but wonder -- why is being left alone the worst?

(Also, if it's not obvious -- absolutely loving this and anxious for more!)

Not the author, but your comment popped into my mind today, and I realized I really like that what he's afraid of is being abandoned. Bucky's damaged enough to think that Steve and Sam expect full sexual compliance from him, and he fears punishment if he fails to perform. But my reading of it is that he isn't so broken that he believes they'd torture him on the scale Hydra did -- and even as difficult as it is for him to resist the will of others, he might not let them get away with it if they tried. Abandonment, on the other hand, is a much more realistic terror. He fails to please them, they leave. I don't know why abandonment is the worst (he needs love so badly? he'd be so vulnerable on his own?) but it's really effective as a choice of motivation.

Re: more for less, 4/?

(Anonymous) - 2016-01-17 15:36 (UTC) - Expand

On the one hand - I'm sorry! But on the other - I'm writing for a prompt that provides in relevant part just fuck me up, so this delicious comment makes me feel like I'm doing something right. <3

I'm so glad that Bucky's fear of abandonment/rejection stood out to you - that line was meant to set up one of the themes going forward. I'm going to try to answer your question in the story itself - and if I can't pull it off, I'll come back here and tell you exactly what I was going for. Fair? :)

I'm so happy you're enjoying this, anon - thank you for letting me know. Next part should be up soon!

Re: more for less, 4/?

(Anonymous) - 2016-01-17 16:59 (UTC) - Expand

For fuck's sake. I actually whimpered out loud while reading this. This is one of the saddest stories I've ever read on here.

I'm sorry! *wraps you in a blanket of dubious cleanliness* *hands you half a takeout cup of lukewarm tea some rich asshole threw away*

Holy SHIT this story is ruining me T.T

When Bucky started having flashbacks and thinking Steve was Pierce I was about ready to scream because JESUS SAM AND STEVE PLS NOTICE SOMETHING IS WRONG. But at the same time Bucky's been trained for 70 years to not slip up so I know he's too good of an actor but oh my god this is killing me (the pain is so good)

*ROLLS GLEEFULLY IN TRASHY ANGST

TRASHY ANGST FOR EVERYONE

The flashback (or rather, Bucky's preference for the flashback) is pretty much my favorite part of this story so far, so I'm delighted it worked for you. *hugs you, if you're into that* And yes, Bucky's skill and determination not to fail are formidable!

Oh, ouch! Love this fill :)

Thank you! :D

One thing that I'm trying to figure out is how the kink negotiation would gone down. As in, wouldn't Sam and Steve notice that Bucky was saying yes to all of their kinky proposals without offering any of his own? Or was Bucky actually so good at faking that he had answers ready for things like "what's something that'd turn you on?" or "what kind of thing would you prefer for holding you down?"

for turn ons, what about him saying "I don't know but I want to find out" or "you"?

Not author, but it seems believable to me. Maybe they asked if it was okay to try X, he said yes and appeared to really like it, then they were like, "hm, maybe if you like X you would be interested in Y?" he seemed really into that idea, and so on. Like if they were suggesting things based on their impressions of what he might like, and he kept enthusiastically saying yes. In that situation, people without certain experiences would be more likely to think, "I'm a good judge of things he's going to be interested in," than, "he can't say no."

I am curious how he responds to questions about his preferences, though. I mean, he has to say yes but if someone asks him to choose between 2 sexual acts? I guess he'd think it's a test and try to figure out which one they want more.

Re: more for less, 4/?

(Anonymous) - 2016-01-09 10:59 (UTC) - Expand

Re: more for less, 4/?

(Anonymous) - 2016-01-09 15:30 (UTC) - Expand

Re: more for less, 4/?

(Anonymous) - 2016-01-17 16:19 (UTC) - Expand

Honestly even before you wrote it I was thinking: fuck, they're in his bed, his bed that he likes so much. and that just makes it so sad, that he can't feel safe anywhere really.

And damn, Sam and Steve, c'mon guys, notice he's not okay already!

Yes! As a ridiculously sentimental person with an overdeveloped sense of attachment to inanimate objects, that was definitely the saddest detail for me as well.

Re: more for less, 4/?

(Anonymous) - 2016-01-18 05:34 (UTC) - Expand

Re: more for less, 4/?

(Anonymous) - 2016-01-18 06:09 (UTC) - Expand

Re: more for less, 4/?

(Anonymous) - 2016-01-18 13:36 (UTC) - Expand

(OP) reading this entire section was a serious !!! experience because WOW IT HURT SO TERRIBLY BUT SO DELIGHTFULLY

Your depiction of Bucky's misery is so compelling that I was yearning for him to just erupt out of bed, especially when he came so infuriatingly close to making his house of cards topple, like when he thinks "No more" and it feels like the smallest push would have had the truth spilling out. But no, we shall all suffer with him hopefully a whole lot more. And speaking of his bed, it's a seriously evil detail that he sees this as a violation of his beloved safe space, his home. The last couple lines -- implying his sense of safety in his apartment has been so trashed that he no longer feels at home there -- that's murder to my heart. :(

Other wicked, horrible, great things that I loved:

- As some other people have pointed out, this isn't even hardcore bdsm, it doesn't even hurt, it's just that for Bucky, pleasure is the torture. That's incredible piece of character work that adds a lot of power to the rack you're breaking us, your weeping readership, on. The torture is sex, just sex, and what makes this night so awful is that Bucky was forced to be fully present in his body for it. I love it. #LetBuckyDissociate2k16

- Bucky gets triggered into a flashback and then tries to get BACK into the flashback because he's already survived getting raped by Hydra and those memories feel SAFER than what Sam and Steve are doing to him. Wow. WOW. Related note: TRYING TO USE GROUNDING TECHNIQUES WHILE LITERALLY IN THE MIDDLE OF A RAPE D:

- The fact that Bucky let some actual clues to his mental state slip in this one made me think, again, about how Sam and Steve are going to take it. All the things they're going to look back on and recontextualize. Bucky breaking away, his broken speech. How panicked he must have been to do that. And they didn't see it! Such horror for all the bbs.

At some point in this comment I was going to call you a master builder of emotional rollercoasters, but actually reading this like being on a rollercoaster's first long drop, and it just keeps going down, faster and faster, forever.

OH GOOD IT WORKED :D

A few people have mentioned the bed, and the sad trashiness in general of this happening in Bucky's beloved home, and while I hope to continue delivering evil details to your doorstep, I think there's also a cautiously hopeful interpretation. When people want him for sex, Bucky has no concept of personal boundaries, no ability to process his sense that those boundaries have been transgressed. So when he's at the end of his rope and Sam fucks him anyway, he has no name for what he feels, because what he feels is violated, and that's not an idea that makes sense with respect to his body in its capacity as a sexual object. So he projects that sense of violation onto his space, his apartment, which he's allowed to love and value, the integrity of which he's allowed to defend. (Or at least feel defensive of.) This could be, potentially, the first tiny shift in a serious realignment of perception for Bucky. That doesn't happen yet, of course, BECAUSE TRASH PARTY, but the sense of wrongness he feels here (even if he can only process it on behalf of his apartment) could be a good sign.

I'm so glad you liked Bucky's conclusion that the flashback was safer/less upsetting. That was my favorite part. (I might have a problem.)

And YES, I wanted Bucky to slip, to give Sam and Steve a chance to figure things out. If his performance was always perfectly seamless, they'd have less to torture themselves with. To maximize the eventual train wreck, I feel like everyone should have a chance (not much of one, admittedly, but still) to see it coming, and a moment where they fail to head it off. In the next part, it's Bucky's turn: he takes a serious look at his life/choices, considers that something might be seriously wrong . . . but nah, it's probably fine.

Your last comment, OP, I just. http://tinyurl.com/j5vjmwl

Next up: The calm before etc. ;)

Re: more for less, 4/?

(Anonymous) - 2016-01-17 21:05 (UTC) - Expand

God damn this things is so horrifically good. I am just one long wince through every update of this, because you capture the logic of Bucky's mind so well. He is trying to be so good, he IS being so good, according to the rules he knows. It just twists the knife that he is able to be kind to himself in some ways (seeking out consolation when he feels bad about his arm), but has this massive blind spot that's causing all this horrible dissonance. This last part was fantastically horrifying. I love that you showed us a glimpse of what sex (and even mild kinkiness) is like with Bucky, Sam and Steve. Poor Bucky, feeling violated in a place that he's actually found safety before, and being so afraid of punishment, even now. *sobs* *offers you a grease-stained receipt for lube and Doritos*

It just twists the knife that he is able to be kind to himself in some ways (seeking out consolation when he feels bad about his arm), but has this massive blind spot that's causing all this horrible dissonance. YES GOOD. <3 I love stories where Bucky is broken - let's face it, I'm easy, when it comes to torturing my favorite characters I love everything - but I thought it would almost be worse here if he . . . wasn't, particularly? Yes, he's dealing with the after-effects of trauma, but he's trying so hard to take good care of himself, and his recovery has come so far. And it makes his performance of consent more believable, I think, because in other ways he's doing so well, and his personality is altered but intact. There's just, as you say, this ONE THING . . .

It's a lazy, perfect Sunday. Gorgeous weather to stay in and do your reading, Steve had teased him, and James had manfully refrained from throwing the casebook at his head. Steve was right, though: it's cold and cloudless, the sky in the window a hard bright blue, the kind of early March day when spring starts to seem possible again. James is stretched out on Steve's sofa, Processes of Constitutional Decisionmaking propped on a pillow, highlighters lined up neatly on his chest. Steve has gotten out his sketchbook and is probably, James thinks, drawing him, the way he loves to. The way he's always loved to.

As the former fist of Hydra, James finds con law gratifying. Whoever came up with the notion that humanity could not be trusted with its own freedom was an irredeemable pessimist. He likes the famous dissents, the ones that get vindicated in later decisions; there is something encouraging, and a little moving, about the ability of powerful people to admit fault. Remember that utterly asinine thing we said? Yeah, well, it was wrong then and it's wrong now. Sorry we were such dicks about it. Order through pain? More like order through learning from your mistakes. Order through never shutting the fuck up.

The second semester is proving harder than the first, though, and he knows that's not normal. It's fine, he's keeping up, but the reading takes him longer than it used to. Between one sentence and the next, these days, his attention will slip, and when the text swims back into focus he'll find he's lost five minutes, ten minutes to the most unproductive sort of worry. Did he fuck up last night, or were Sam and Steve pleased with him? Is he likely to have sex today, and if so, when and with whom? Is he likely to be hurt? I'm having trouble concentrating, he'd told his therapist, because impaired function (however minor) meant a potential problem, and had to be reported. When she'd asked why he thought that might be, though, his gut had cramped with sudden nausea, and through the ringing in his ears he'd heard himself say I don't know. So they'd talked a little about how recovery wasn't linear, which made sense, and how it wouldn't help to get mad at or frustrated with himself, which he didn't think he was, and how frequent breaks and adequate sleep would make the work easier, which was inarguable.

Leaving her office, he'd felt dizzy. He didn't lie to doctors, not ever: it was their job to make him stronger, more capable, and even when they seemed cruel, they were on his side. Weren't they? (Wipe him and start over.) And his therapist was anything but cruel, so what the fuck was he doing? I don't know, he'd said, but he did know, though he couldn't explain how: the lapses in concentration, the useless worry - those things were linked, in some way, to all the sex he was having. It defied rational explanation, because the use people made of his body these days was nothing, was for the most part laughable, but it was true. And he'd never discussed the sex with her, and now he'd lied to her, because - well, why? The sick feeling stabbed him again. Because it was shameful, wasn't it? Because he was ashamed.

He sat down on a stoop, his head in his hands. He hadn't forced himself to admit, until now, why he never mentioned the people who fucked him to one another - why he'd indulged in the half-truths, the omissions, that meant Katie didn't know about David, and Sam and Steve didn't know about anyone, and none of them, none of them knew about Hydra. He didn't want them to see him for what he was. Some of them, of course, were like David, and couldn't be fooled - but strangers didn't matter so much, weren't so important. It was Steve, the person he loved, the person he'd known when he hadn't known his own name, he had to hide from. Steve and Sam, because they went together now. If they knew what a broken thing he was, how used up, how twisted and deformed, they wouldn't be able to stand it. They wouldn't be able to stand him.

He sat there until the February sunlight faded, until a normal person would have been shivering: until the truth came home to him. He was being stupid, and worse, he was being unfair. Hadn't he just been thinking that he knew Steve? And he did, he did, he'd known him at the end of the world, it was the one thing no one had been able to take from him. Well, then he knew Steve would never think of someone that way. If he told Steve tomorrow about every other person he'd had sex with, before and since his escape from Hydra, Steve would tell him it didn't matter. You have nothing to be ashamed of, Steve would say. It doesn't make you broken, or dirty, or any of that other shit. It doesn't mean you can't be good for us.

And he tries to be good. Since last week, when he'd almost fucked up badly, breaking away in the middle of a punishment, he's tried very hard. Steve and Sam are charmed by physical affection, and so he kisses them like he just can't stop himself, and doesn't see why he should anyway, because they're wonderful and perfect and right there. In bed, he works to anticipate them, to know what they want before they have to tell him, so he can ask for it and see them smile, see their eyes fill with heat. (That's a calculated risk, of course, because there's a chance he'll get it wrong, and he is newly acquainted with the limits of their indulgence - but he's practiced at this, he reminds himself, and they're easy to read as ever, really, if he can get past his nerves.) And he's doing well, he thinks: they seem happy with him. They seem happy in general, even beyond this last week of compensatory sweetness on James's part. Sam's nightmares are less frequent. Even Steve, under whose feet the ground has shifted so awfully and irreparably, seems somehow lighter.

Glancing over at Steve now, James feels the old familiar ache of tenderness. He's intent on his drawing, the lines of his face serious, beautiful. It wasn't the exposure of institutional malignance, James knows, the Shield-is-Hydra revelation that had torn something vital away from Steve. If anything, the days of the Howling Commandos had been an anomaly - over the long run, he thinks, Steve's brand of patriotism was more likely than not to find itself in dissent. It was the betrayal of his team, the people he'd led into danger and out again, the people he'd thought were his friends - and Steve had needed friends, here in the impossible future - that had robbed him. James doesn't think about the Strike team, not if he can help it, but he knows Rumlow at least had been as close as Steve allowed anyone to get. Steve had liked him, respected him, probably looked up to him - Christ - and if James hadn't wanted him dead anyway, he'd want him dead for that. So it melts his stupid fucking heart, to see Steve happy. To make him happy - that's a fucking privilege.

Mostly, of course, the person who makes Steve happy is Sam. When James had rescued enough of his own shattered personality to climb out of his awkward phase back to the land of the living, and Steve had started to look at him in a way he knew how to interpret, James had worried that Sam would resent him. Sam's was the prior claim: their friendship had become something more, James knew, in the months after the disaster in the Potomac, before he himself turned up on Steve's doorstep. (The sex he and Steve had had in Brooklyn, in a different life, didn't count. He remembers it, as he remembers almost everything by now, but there is something fundamental about it that he can't access, something important he doesn't understand, and he can't think about it.) But in the end, James had been something they could share, and so he does his best to be good for both of them.

It had been Sam who brought home the flyer for the evening art class Steve is taking. Steve is shy about it, but it's obvious he's having fun, and James emphatically approves of Steve getting out and meeting people who have nothing to do with what's left of Shield. He's supposed to go to a gallery opening tonight, in fact, with a few friends from the class, and James thinks that if he can get through a few more cases first, he'll go with them. Social gatherings had unsettled him, at first, and small talk had been impossible, but being in school has done wonders for him on both fronts, and he's getting better. He'll never be outgoing, probably, not the way he used to be, but the thought doesn't bother him. If there's one thing he's been clear on since the beginning of this crazy second chance, this afterlife, it's that he's not the person he was - and he won't apologize for that, or blame himself, or tolerate any suggestion that he should.

He does go, that evening, and he has a good time. The paintings don't do much for him, but Steve likes them, and gets drawn into an argument about some technical aspect of the work, and James is content to listen to the easy rise and fall of his voice, his quiet laughter. Afterwards, they go to a bar, and it's hot and dark and loud, and James gets a little tipsy, which is fun in no small part because it's a giant fuck you to the relentless, inhuman vigilance of the Soldier. Then a girl from Steve's class grabs Steve's hand and drags him away from James to join the dancers, and James watches them, and has another drink, and thinks again with inebriated fondness how beautiful Steve is. Eventually he makes his way through the press of bodies to the restroom, and as he's on his way back to what's left of their group - or not, he sees, because the last shy stragglers have been lured to the dance floor, and are lost in the crowd - someone puts a hand on his arm. He turns into the touch, and there's a boy grinning at him hopefully, a skinny blond kid in jeans that leave absolutely nothing to the imagination. "You're hot," the kid says, his gaze raking over James's body with a candid appreciation that ought to be frankly alarming. "I'm Tim. You wanna dance?"

He doesn't, not really, but he can see what Tim is after, so he goes with it, and it's not long before Tim is leading him through a back exit into the cool night air. He leans against the brick wall of the alley while Tim goes to his knees with practiced grace and reaches up to undo his jeans, still smiling like he can't believe his luck. This isn't so bad, he thinks, as Tim swallows his cock, showing off. It's really not such a big deal. He can't remember now where the certainty had come from, that his bouts of worry, his wandering attention were tied up with the sex he had. It's a lot of sex, maybe, because so many more people have access to him now, but so what? That doesn't mean anything. It's fine, he's fine, he can handle it. With the alcohol buzzing through his veins, he feels more comfortably distant than ever.

The back door swings open again on the clamor and music of the bar, and some part of James knows what's going to happen a second before Steve steps into his line of sight. There's a kind of inevitability to it, he thinks, as Steve says his name, his voice gone strange. But it's fine, it's still fine, he's already been over this, he's worked it out: Steve isn't going to care, isn't going to judge him, isn't going to get rid of him. He knows Steve, and Steve isn't going to think less of him for this.

The look on Steve's face, though. It's not good. "What - " Steve says, and stops. "What are you doing?" His voice is too loud. He looks appalled. The kid pulls off of his cock, his gaze darting back and forth between them, uncertain, beginning to be scared.

You're not supposed to be mad, James wants to say. You're not supposed to be disgusted. I know you. You're supposed to tell me it's fine, you get it, and it doesn't matter. But he can't say any of that. His chest feels like something is crushing the air out of him. His throat is locked tight. When he's able to speak, all he can say is the truth. "He wanted to."

Steve flinches, the way he wouldn't if James punched him. Then he's swinging away from them, wrenching the door back open, and James watches it fall shut behind him. "Shit, man," Tim says, standing up, backing away. "Is that your boyfriend? I don't want any trouble." He tries to tell Tim it's okay, but speech has deserted him again, and after a moment the kid takes off down the alley. James does up his pants, mechanically, and leans there against the wall until the thing lodged in his chest retracts its claws. Then he goes inside to look for Steve.

But Steve is gone.

1) Aw, Bucky regressing and being able to figure out on his own what's happening, and even getting at the shame/guilt part. He needs all the hugs.

2) Absolutely LOVE the understated tension at the end there -- so few words exchanged and such a gulf between them, and the part of Bucky that's like "but I worked it out in my head, why isn't it working in real life?" I hope Steve is smart enough to start figuring things out!!

3) The saddest tears at him knowing that sex with Steve was different before the war, but not quite being able to pinpoint why.

Re: more for less, 5/?

(Anonymous) - 2016-01-18 07:18 (UTC) - Expand

<33

Re: more for less, 5/?

(Anonymous) - 2016-01-18 07:19 (UTC) - Expand

Noooooooooo (yessssssss). I love how Bucky works out that Steve wouldn't care about Bucky being raped, and wouldn't see him as dirty for other people wanting him. He just keeps missing the part where Steve thinks he is capable of consent on his own side now, and would see the sex since Hydra as cheating. I'm really curious if Steve will take a good hard look back over his time with Bucky and realize at least some of what, "He wanted to" meant, or if he's just going to go into sad Steve mode who consumes himself with sadness and doesn't think over the implications of what he saw/what Bucky said.

Re: more for less, 5/?

(Anonymous) - 2016-01-18 08:16 (UTC) - Expand

(OP)

Ugh, it's so FRUSTRATING that Bucky was this close to getting himself out of this disaster before it turned into a total catastrophe. He knows the sex is messing him up -- and compromising the parts of his life he does value -- he realizes it's safe to tell Steve, he has all the pieces to inspire him to confession, and then he doesn't do it. Imagine if he had told his therapist, and they had figured everything out together, and then come up with a good, healthy way to break the news to Sam and Steve and to prevent further harm to Bucky? I mean, that's way too wholesome for my disease-infested trash preferences and I'm masochistically glad it didn't go there, but IMAGINE!

Crying @ Bucky knowing something was different about sex back in the day but no longer being able to even remember the feeling of wanting it. Also at all his worry about whether he performed well for Sam and Steve and if he's going to be hurt today. That line really drove home how terrifying it must be for him to know that anyone can have him, anywhere, at any time, and he has no way of predicting or preventing that day's possible slew of rapes. And also crying because he thinks of all his ongoing rapes as laughably endurable compared to what he suffered under Hydra, and therefore not even worth reporting to his therapist, like she'd just laugh them off with him. Oh no.

You have nothing to be ashamed of, Steve would say. It doesn't make you broken, or dirty, or any of that other shit. It doesn't mean you can't be good for us.

I was nodding along like yes, yes, yes... NO!! Bucky's right that Steve wouldn't view him differently, but his broken perspective on sex is so ingrained that it even imposes itself on his otherwise very clear evaluation of Steve.

On a happier note, I enjoyed your depiction of the normal moments of their lives. Bucky studying, Steve drawing, the fun and real affection all of them share, and that Sam and Steve are doing better -- it's a nice contrast to the secret trash underpinnings only Bucky knows about, and it makes me afraid of all of that coming crashing down! :D

I can't believe the cat is finally at least halfway out of the bag and I'm so excited for the next part. Poor Bucky, thinking Steve understands the context and is just supposed to say that he doesn't hate Bucky for being used. I cannot wait to see how the rest of their night goes down.