Bucky reached over to grab Sam’s hand with his right one and as he did Sam suddenly flashed back a few hours to kneeling on the bedroom carpet, Bucky’s fingers twitching around his after he begged for a response.
The only noise in the room was Bucky’s loud, short breaths and Luiz’s quiet, steady voice asking him to move his legs apart, asking him to relax, telling him where she was going to touch next. Sam’s head was spinning again and he could feel the air of the room pressing in on him. It felt like the only stable things were his own hand clenched on his knee and Bucky’s hand around his, squeezing so tight it hurt. He wanted to leave. He wanted to look away. He wanted to tell Bucky to close his eyes instead of looking from the ceiling to his own spread knees, with the sheet over them and the crown of Luiz’ dark head visible above them, and back again and again.
He tried to focus on the way Bucky’s shoulders, the way they tensed and un-tensed, the way the pillowcase creased around his head, the lines at the corners of his eyes, anything but the lump in his own throat and the weight on his chest that weren’t going away, or the image in his mind’s eye of Bucky lying on the bedroom carpet, naked, bloody, looking like a doll or a dead thing.
Sam heard Luiz announce that it was all done as if from a long ways away. Bucky gave no indication of having heard except to finally relax and close his eyes. It took a moment for Sam to realize she was speaking to him, and another to understand that give us five minutes, please meant leave the room.
The hallway again. The MPs flanking the door. Sam stood there blinking, feeling like someone stumbling into the sunlight even though the big windows were dark now. And there was Steve, unfurling from where he had been sitting with his back to the window, taking Sam by the arm and saying words that were hard for Sam to string into sentences.
Steve, thank God, had been busy. He had a bag of clothes – sweatpants, t-shirt with the SHIELD seal on it, a sweatshirt, a pair of sneakers, as if he’d raided a gym locker and, Sam realized, since he and Bucky were almost the same size, maybe he had.
They would stay at the facility that night, which wasn’t a surprise for Sam. They’d done it before, when they were too tired to want to make the trip home or thought they might get called out again before the end of the night. There was a room ready for them.
“And everything’s going to be okay, right?” Steve was asking. “With Bucky?”
“Steve, I don’t think Bucky’s going to be okay for a damn long time.” Steve took a step back, which was when Sam realized he must have snapped harder than he’d meant to. But since Steve was actually listening to him, he pressed on. “No one knows how something like this will hit another person, but it usually hits them hard. And no, he still hasn’t changed his mind about seeing you tonight. So you might want to go before we leave.”
Steve ducked his head. When he spoke, it was quieter than usual. “It just doesn’t seem right to go without seeing him. Feels like leaving him behind. And we never left each other behind, except –” He cut off and oh, Sam should’ve seen this guilt pile coming.
“Hey. No one’s getting left behind here. Bucky’s trying to hang onto his pride.” His shame. “And he doesn’t want you to see him when he’s down.” Sam pulled a smile that he didn’t feel. “Remind you of anyone?”
“Remind you of anyone?” Steve’s smile was just as flimsy. “If you want me for anything, let me know. I’m going to be up the rest of the night anyway. We still need to find the guys that did this.”
Bucky made Sam turn away when he changed into the sweatpants, but he let him stay through Luiz giving him care instructions, which was good because Sam wasn’t sure Bucky was actually listening to anything she said. It was mostly a list of symptoms that should be reported to medical immediately. Headache, dizziness, numbness or tingling, vision problems, sudden weakness, shortness of breath, vomiting, sudden sweating, runny nose – “This kind of nerve agent probably would have killed a normal person, and we still don’t know how your body will react to it. So don’t wait for it to get ‘bad enough’ before you call us.” When to come to medical for what kind of followup. “I want you to think about seeing a counselor, even if you feel like you don’t need to.” A single, pre-loaded syringe with a supersoldier-strength sedative in case Bucky had trouble sleeping. A warning that even Bucky might hurt for a few days. An instruction to call medical immediately if the pain was getting worse. An instruction to wait before having sex again, even if he felt fine.
Luis chased off the MPs, and the walk over to temporary quarters was quiet. Bucky moved slowly and kept his head down, but shook off Sam’s guiding hand on his elbow, so Sam was stuck carrying the plastic bag with Bucky’s effects. Really the syringe with the sedative, sheets of care instructions, and the sheet Sam had wrapped him in at home.
They were standing in front of the door to their quarters when Bucky broke the silence.
“You remember that week in Vietnam?”
Did Sam ever. It had been when Sam had that gash on his thigh, the one that wasn’t supposed to get infected but did. He had to lie low while it healed, and Bucky came with him. At the time Sam thought it was a particularly cruel joke by the universe but later he realized Bucky must have volunteered. And then because Sam’s allergic to half the antibiotics that actually work, first one made him vomit for a day and the second one only made him think he was going to vomit for the whole week. He slept when he could, watched Vietnamese TV when he couldn’t, and drank a lot of strained soup.
“You feel like you’re gonna throw up?”
“I’m not really going to.”
What Sam really remembered was that he had bitched and moaned at Bucky for doing everything wrong – Sam was a paramedic okay, he knew more about wound care than Bucky did about wound care, he was right – and Bucky had never told him to knock it off. Every time Sam woke up Bucky would be lounging somewhere in their shabby little room, usually in his undershirt and drinking some kind of layered sweet thing that made Sam nauseous just to look at, but always watching over him.
Re: No Saltwater Lake (7/?)
The only noise in the room was Bucky’s loud, short breaths and Luiz’s quiet, steady voice asking him to move his legs apart, asking him to relax, telling him where she was going to touch next. Sam’s head was spinning again and he could feel the air of the room pressing in on him. It felt like the only stable things were his own hand clenched on his knee and Bucky’s hand around his, squeezing so tight it hurt. He wanted to leave. He wanted to look away. He wanted to tell Bucky to close his eyes instead of looking from the ceiling to his own spread knees, with the sheet over them and the crown of Luiz’ dark head visible above them, and back again and again.
He tried to focus on the way Bucky’s shoulders, the way they tensed and un-tensed, the way the pillowcase creased around his head, the lines at the corners of his eyes, anything but the lump in his own throat and the weight on his chest that weren’t going away, or the image in his mind’s eye of Bucky lying on the bedroom carpet, naked, bloody, looking like a doll or a dead thing.
Sam heard Luiz announce that it was all done as if from a long ways away. Bucky gave no indication of having heard except to finally relax and close his eyes. It took a moment for Sam to realize she was speaking to him, and another to understand that give us five minutes, please meant leave the room.
The hallway again. The MPs flanking the door. Sam stood there blinking, feeling like someone stumbling into the sunlight even though the big windows were dark now. And there was Steve, unfurling from where he had been sitting with his back to the window, taking Sam by the arm and saying words that were hard for Sam to string into sentences.
Steve, thank God, had been busy. He had a bag of clothes – sweatpants, t-shirt with the SHIELD seal on it, a sweatshirt, a pair of sneakers, as if he’d raided a gym locker and, Sam realized, since he and Bucky were almost the same size, maybe he had.
They would stay at the facility that night, which wasn’t a surprise for Sam. They’d done it before, when they were too tired to want to make the trip home or thought they might get called out again before the end of the night. There was a room ready for them.
“And everything’s going to be okay, right?” Steve was asking. “With Bucky?”
“Steve, I don’t think Bucky’s going to be okay for a damn long time.” Steve took a step back, which was when Sam realized he must have snapped harder than he’d meant to. But since Steve was actually listening to him, he pressed on. “No one knows how something like this will hit another person, but it usually hits them hard. And no, he still hasn’t changed his mind about seeing you tonight. So you might want to go before we leave.”
Steve ducked his head. When he spoke, it was quieter than usual. “It just doesn’t seem right to go without seeing him. Feels like leaving him behind. And we never left each other behind, except –” He cut off and oh, Sam should’ve seen this guilt pile coming.
“Hey. No one’s getting left behind here. Bucky’s trying to hang onto his pride.” His shame. “And he doesn’t want you to see him when he’s down.” Sam pulled a smile that he didn’t feel. “Remind you of anyone?”
“Remind you of anyone?” Steve’s smile was just as flimsy. “If you want me for anything, let me know. I’m going to be up the rest of the night anyway. We still need to find the guys that did this.”
Bucky made Sam turn away when he changed into the sweatpants, but he let him stay through Luiz giving him care instructions, which was good because Sam wasn’t sure Bucky was actually listening to anything she said. It was mostly a list of symptoms that should be reported to medical immediately. Headache, dizziness, numbness or tingling, vision problems, sudden weakness, shortness of breath, vomiting, sudden sweating, runny nose – “This kind of nerve agent probably would have killed a normal person, and we still don’t know how your body will react to it. So don’t wait for it to get ‘bad enough’ before you call us.” When to come to medical for what kind of followup. “I want you to think about seeing a counselor, even if you feel like you don’t need to.” A single, pre-loaded syringe with a supersoldier-strength sedative in case Bucky had trouble sleeping. A warning that even Bucky might hurt for a few days. An instruction to call medical immediately if the pain was getting worse. An instruction to wait before having sex again, even if he felt fine.
Luis chased off the MPs, and the walk over to temporary quarters was quiet. Bucky moved slowly and kept his head down, but shook off Sam’s guiding hand on his elbow, so Sam was stuck carrying the plastic bag with Bucky’s effects. Really the syringe with the sedative, sheets of care instructions, and the sheet Sam had wrapped him in at home.
They were standing in front of the door to their quarters when Bucky broke the silence.
“You remember that week in Vietnam?”
Did Sam ever. It had been when Sam had that gash on his thigh, the one that wasn’t supposed to get infected but did. He had to lie low while it healed, and Bucky came with him. At the time Sam thought it was a particularly cruel joke by the universe but later he realized Bucky must have volunteered. And then because Sam’s allergic to half the antibiotics that actually work, first one made him vomit for a day and the second one only made him think he was going to vomit for the whole week. He slept when he could, watched Vietnamese TV when he couldn’t, and drank a lot of strained soup.
“You feel like you’re gonna throw up?”
“I’m not really going to.”
What Sam really remembered was that he had bitched and moaned at Bucky for doing everything wrong – Sam was a paramedic okay, he knew more about wound care than Bucky did about wound care, he was right – and Bucky had never told him to knock it off. Every time Sam woke up Bucky would be lounging somewhere in their shabby little room, usually in his undershirt and drinking some kind of layered sweet thing that made Sam nauseous just to look at, but always watching over him.