hydratrashmeme | Dumpster #4: I Don't See How That's a Party

Dumpster #4: I Don't See How That's a Party

Okay, kids, you know the drill. Don't be a jerk except to fictional characters. Warn if you want, but read at your own risk, because

hydratrashmeme is about as far from a safe space as you can get. Garbage we like: noncon, whump, aftermath, violence, mind control, inappropriate uses of Bucky Barnes' metal arm, bad guys doing dirtybadwrong things to your faves. Garbage you should find a different trashcan for: a/b/o, D/s-verse, soulbonds, mundane AUs, OOC evil!good guys doing dirtybadwrong things to your faves, rotting leftovers dressed up as a romantic gourmet meal. Nothing wrong with 'em, but this isn't the crowd you should be pitching to if you're trying to sell Brock Rumlow as anything but a human dumpster fire.

Link your fills on the fill post, post unprompted fills as replies to a header comment so the wall o' text is collapsible, and let me know if you're interested in helping out with the Pinboard archive.

[Rules in full] [Round 1] [Round 2] [Round 3] [Fill post] [Chatter post] [hydratrashmeme Pinboard archive (maintained by

greenkirtle)] [Round 4 in flat view (comments in non-threaded chronological order, most recent last)]

All prompts or fills that contain Infinity War spoilers must go on the Infinity War spoiler post until May 26th. Spoilers in the main dumpsters will be deleted.

Round 4 is closed; comments and fills in existing threads are still welcome, but all new prompts go to Round 5.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

In high school Sam’s guidance counselor had told him that he should always have a plan for where he would be in 18 months. The further away he got from high school, the more convinced he was that she had been full of shit.

18 months after he ended his service, he was going to grad school during the day and working as a church custodian on nights and weekends. 18 months after he moved to Washington he was two-timing the VA with Steve Rogers’ Assassin Retrieval Service. 18 months after he admitted he was going to be mostly-full-time Avengering, he was an internationally-wanted criminal, although through no fault of his own thank you very much. Not to mention that he went from hooking up with Steve’s annoyingly-hot other best friend, to swearing that he was done with all that (and keeping on doing it anyway), to Bucky slipping him candy bars and English-language paperbacks and showing up to save his ass like a knight on a shitty motorbike. And then there was the thing with the aliens, and next thing Sam knew he was looking at apartments with Bucky Barnes, because it turns out when you’re an internationally-wanted criminal you lose your house.

Sam was used to something happening every time he thought he had his life figured out. He was used to rolling with it.

He didn’t know when he’d felt this lost.

The maroon scrubs they had given him made Bucky look too pale. If he was a patient Sam would describe him as subdued, which was a problem. Bucky had a quiet watchfulness about him that Sam had at various times found creepy, annoying, and comforting. Now, he would react if someone moved or spoke to him, but the rest of the time he was staring into space, mouth slightly open.

The doctor on call was a slight woman with big glasses named Dr Luiz, pronounced “Lewis” because what the hell did Sam know. When she introduced herself as Rebecca Bucky automatically said, “That’s my sister’s name.” It might have been the sentence with more than three words Sam had heard out of him. He got half-way through saying he wanted to see a sketch artist on the way over, but then he threw up into a bag.

The first thing Dr Luiz had done was look around and demand, “Can we get less people in here, please.” The mess of medical personnel had cleared out, as had the MPs, although not without an argument. Dr Luiz, it sounded like, had pulled rank and patient confidentiality.

Sam stayed out of it because right now for him, there were three options: try and run this show (bad), go into the hallway and start crying (bad, but appealing), or stay calm, keep himself under control, and give Bucky whatever he needs.

What Sam kept thinking of, even when he tried not to, was a one-to-one he had done back at the VA with a long-term group member who told him about being raped when she was in the Army. What he kept coming back to was her saying that the worst part was going to the hospital after. That she had never felt so ashamed, exposed, or alone.

Bucky was hooked up to every kind of monitor known to man and maybe a few more. A sample of his blood had been rushed off for testing. They were all doing some version of wait and hope. Wait and trust the serum, maybe.

“I want to talk about how you’re feeling. On a scale of one to ten, with zero being no pain and ten being the worst pain imaginable, how much does it hurt right now?”

“It’s four,” Bucky said slowly, “I think.”

“Oh, come on!” Sam burst out and he didn’t know who he was snapping at, Dr Luiz for throwing the useless as fuck pain scale out there or Bucky for giving the wrong answer.

Bucky actually turns to look at him. “She said worst pain imaginable.”

On the other side of the hospital bed, Dr Luiz said calmly, “Okay. So that was a stupid question.”

They got somewhere by going off the script. Bucky kept asking when they could start taking evidence, and Dr Luiz ket saying that she wanted to make sure Bucky was okay first, and Sam kept clenching his jaw to stop himself from breaking in. When asked how much it hurt Bucky said he was “uncomfortable,” but refused to lie on his side for the third time, and Sam didn’t say that he was still understating it and really, the patient should be on their side already.

Dr Luiz wasn’t cold, but she was good with euphemisms. Very professional. Six ways to avoid saying “gang rape.” It was like one of those group sessions where everyone has to say “the event” instead of “when we got blown off the road by an IED” and “engaged in a coping mechanism” instead of “I’m drinking again,” except a thousand times worse.

What was a thousand times worse was the number of times Bucky answered, “I don’t know.”

One of the MPs announced his entrance by rapping on the door, but not much else. “Captain Rogers is here.”

Bucky pushed himself from leaning back to sitting upright so fast that half the monitors started making noise and Sam automatically reached to push him back. “Is he outside?”

“He’s in the building, on his way.”

Luiz was halfway off of her stool, eyes fixed on Bucky while she made a shooing motion at the MP. “What’s wrong?”

Sam hadn’t expected Bucky to whip around and grab him by the arm, and when it happened he almost jerked back with surprise. For an insane split second he wondered what if they brainwashed him?, then Bucky pulled him close. All Sam could see was everything that was wrong. The slight tremor in his right hand. The wildness of his eyes. The thin sheen of sweat and the pallor of his skin. “Sam. You have to stop him.”

“Hey.” Sam used his most soothing voice. Just think of him like a patient, any patient who’s in shock and needs to calm down. “Steve’s here because he’s worried about you. He wants to see you.”

“I know. You can’t let him in, Sam. Don’t let him see me like this.”

God. Every time I think this can't get any more exquisitely awful, you knock it out of the park with a whole new devastating suckerpunch. Honestly, I think this might be my favorite trash I've ever read! (And thank you for including Sam in this, by the way, and all the Sam/Bucky interaction; there's not nearly enough of it on the meme.)

Everybody's loss is the reader's gain. Also, thank you very much – I'm really glad you've liked it so much.

I originally went with Sam as Bucky's partner because he's a lot more emotionally adroit than Steve (or Bucky) and yet this is something for which nobody could be prepared, so how would that go? And then I got really attached to my vision of their life together and felt even worse for shattering it.

A/N: late, but I wanted to give background on two things from Sam's internal monolog.

Therapy/support groups often have rules about how detailed members can be about things like traumatic events or self-destructive behaviors, basically to avoid members triggering each other. It's a delicate balance between keeping it safe for everybody and making people feel like they can be open and honest, and I'm guessing Sam has had to work with it.

In a one-on-one, a facilitator and a group member break off and talk privately. This usually happens if the group member is obviously upset, needs to discuss something potentially triggering in detail, needs to discuss something they're not comfortable sharing with the group, has a problem with the group itself, or would otherwise benefit from more privacy and individual attention than a group setting offers.

For a long time I've been working on the assumption that Sam is a licensed mental health counselor, something which would require him to get a master's degree, do a practicum, do additional post-graduate work, and pass a certification exam.

Sam had to shoulder past the curtain, the door, and the MPs to get into the hallway. It seemed too big, and the light too blue after the close, quiet treatment room. But he didn’t have time to dwell on that because Steve was coming down the hall. He was in track pants and a windbreaker, his face dark, and creases around his mouth that Sam had never seen before. Sam went to meet him. He needed the momentum right now. Steve didn’t look straight at him, and he wondered for a moment if they were going to collide, if Steve would try to shove past him, but he pulled up at the last second.

“Where’s Bucky,” Steve demanded. Everything about him was nervy, radiating barely-contained energy like he would still be moving if Sam’s body wasn’t blocking the way.

“Listen, man.” Sam kept his voice down and tried to pitch it calm and reassuring to soften the blow for both of them. He wounded a lot fucking calmer than he felt. “Bucky doesn’t want to see anyone right now.” Bucky’s lying in a hospital bed begging me to keep you outside, but he couldn’t think about that right now.

Steve blinked and Sam could see it, could see this sentence getting rearranged, somewhere between Steve’s ears and his brain, so that he was still right.

“He’ll want to see me,” he said, with a conviction that made Sam want to shake him until his teeth rattled. Somehow he had inched forward, by sheer force of fucking will or something, and Sam put a hand on his chest to stop him.

It was the first time he had seen Steve look desperate. Not angry or determined, but looking at Sam like he needed him something unnamed and maybe unknown from him, and Sam wanted to yell that right now, he couldn’t give him shit.

“He’s my best friend,” was all Steve said, like there was nothing else he could say. Sam was getting ready to say that he knew that, but it didn’t mean he was gonna let Steve into that room. Then Steve pivoted to face out the floor-to-ceiling window, feet shoulder-width apart and hands behind his back as if he was surveying a command post. Well, fine. If pretending he was in control was what he needed to do Sam wasn’t going to knock it, especially since Sam felt like he was doing the same thing himself.

“How is Bucky?” Steve asked, as clipped as if he were asking for a sitrep. Well if that was how he needed to play it, fine.

“I think he’s still in shock,” Sam said honestly.

Steve frowned. “That doesn’t sound like him. We both usually bounce back pretty fast.”

“Yeah, well,” said Sam, and cut himself off before he said the next part of what he was thinking. Nothing like massive sexual trauma to show you a new side of somebody.

“Your family’s safe.”

Sam’s hand hit the windowpane with a thump. He could feel his hand against the cold glass and his feet on the floor, but everything else was whirling. He had to breathe. He had to get somewhere stable, somewhere where his head wasn’t spinning one way and his feet another.

Sam used to feel like this all the time, when he first got back. He kept going to the doctor and calling Sarah or his mama right after. He remembered one time, standing on the curb waiting for the bus, and knowing he shouldn’t be yelling into his phone but doing it anyway – “Everyone keeps telling me that I’m crazy and I’m not crazy! I have a brain injury Sarah, I have all the symptoms and they’re not listening to me!” – while his sister tried to get a word in edgewise from the other end.

Steve was saying his name.

“I didn’t even think about them,” Sam admitted. It sounded like a betrayal. “My mama lives in –”

“Everyone’s together.”

“How much do they know?”

“Just that this is only a precaution, and you’re alright. We’re doing the same thing for the other Avengers’ families.” Steve pulled a bit of a face. “Everyone who isn’t already living in a secure location, which most of them are.” Steve didn’t mention how few of them actually had family, and Sam wasn’t going to bring it up.

“Do you think that’s what this was about? People’s families?”

Steve shook his head curtly. “We don’t know. We’re not going to fine out by letting someone get hurt.”

Steve wasn’t leaving and Sam wasn’t leaving him alone, so they ended up in the hallway across from the door, across from the MPs. Sam leaned back against the window, concentrated on how it felt against his back, his arms, his palms, and tried to think about that and his breathing and absolutely nothing else. He was okay. He had to be okay. Shit, what was the treatment-appropriate version of that joke that they used to make? FINE: Freaked out, Insecure, Neurotic, and he couldn’t remember the last one. Yeah, Sam was just FINE right now.

He was fine right up until the sound came from the other side of the door, a high keening noise that didn’t sound like Bucky but couldn’t be anyone else.

Two of the MPs were going through the door by the time Sam had pushed away from the window. He tried to follow them, but another blocked his way.

Sam didn’t remember what the MP said, all he knew was that by the time he realized what was going on he had his own fist up and back, ready to hit, and Steve had shoved himself between them, hands on Sam’s shoulders, pushing him back. Sam felt like the floor was dropping out from under him. Steve was yelling at the MP, the MP was talking back, and somewhere there was a woman shouting, or maybe that was just the noise in his head.

It didn’t take long for Sam to be let in.

Bucky was on his side with his hands cupped over his face.

“What did they do to you?” Sam demanded, as much at Dr Luiz as to Bucky. Luiz ignored him in favor of pointing at the MPs on either side of the door and snapping, “Out, both of you. And don’t come back.”

“But ma’am,” one of them started.

“If I think my patient is going to hurt me,” said Luiz acidly, “I’ll scream for you.”

Sam was beside him now, and Bucky lowered his hands to look up at him, although he didn’t meet Sam’s eyes. He had been crying. “I didn’t want to do the test,” was all he said.

“You have the right to say no,” said Luiz, her tone strained in a way that made Sam think they’d talked about this before. “You don’t have to do anything that you don’t want to, or that makes you uncomfortable. And you can take as much time as you need.”

“I want to do the whole thing,” said Bucky thickly, and cupped his hands over his face again. If Sam hadn’t seen his face or didn’t know him so well, he might not know what his steady, hard breaths meant.

Sam put a hand on Bucky’s shoulder. It was his soft, warm right one. Once Sam had touched it, he couldn’t stop. He let himself rub the long, familiar curve of Bucky’s back, let himself lean over and bring his other hand up to cradle the back of Bucky’s head as he curled into the shadow of Sam’s body. Luiz was moving in the background, making some excuse about going out to check the tox screen results and leaving the two of them together.

“You don’t have to do it,” Sam said quietly as Bucky’s breathing evened out. “We can leave right now if you want to.”

“I want to do it. The whole thing.” Bucky groped out with one hand, the other still shielding his face, and Sam pushed a handful of tissues into it. “I want to get all the evidence we can.”

“You still want the sketch artist?”

“No good.” Bucky kept one hand up as he wiped his face. For Christ’s sake, Sam wanted to yell, you’re ashamed of this? But it didn’t matter what Sam wanted right now, it didn’t – “I didn’t see enough. Most of the evidence is – in me.”

When Dr Luiz came back, she announced herself with a quiet knock and, “It’s Rebecca.”

“What,” Bucky asked, straightening his face as he looked up, “No MPs?”

Everyone paused for a moment. Sam didn’t know what was going through her mind but for him, it was the sudden realization that this might be the longest he and Bucky had gone without picking a fight or making a joke.

Luis smiled, although somewhat tightly. “I told them to leave, again. I don’t think you’re gonna hurt me.”

“I’m ready to do it again.”

A/N: as per usual, an error from autocorrect and my shitty proof-reading skills.

Sarah is the name of Sam's younger sister in 616, so I reused it as the name of his older sister here.

[AGONIZED WHALE NOISES]

Is... Is there anything I can do to help your whale?

This is so good!!

Thank you!

I'm sorry that I can't comment anything more eloquent than "Oh god, Bucky" and "Oh god, Sam," but every single instalment of this is like its own suckerpuch right to the feels. Augh. Poor Bucky. Poor Sam. (And if it isn't clear, I am really loving this despite - or rather, because of - how devastating it is. Aftermath trash is my jam and you are absolutely delivering it perfectly <3 )

Well then that means I'm doing my job, doesn't it! :D

I started writing it because I thought I had a good idea for the rape scene but during the writing process I realized (and whined extensively to my long-suffering writing partner) that what I really wanted to write was the aftermath. So eventually I glossed over the former and got to the latter.

yeeeeeeeeeeeeeees aftermath!

I am so painfully happy you're doing the aftermath.

Aftermath is, apparently, my shit. :D

(Also sorry for such a late reply!)

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.

A/N :

Sorry for the long delay. Life picked up a bit and I wasn't able to write regularly for a while.

I absolutely love all of this gentleness plus the horror of lingering after effects. And yay sambucky!! Thank you for returning, this update is perfection .

Thank you very much! I'm really glad you enjoyed it and hope to have another installment soon.

This is gutting me, I especially like Sam and Steve's interaction, the trying to help and fumbling and "remind you of anyone" because they're all so stubborn... wow.

Poor Steve. I don't think the magnitude of this has even started to sink in for him yet. Sam has a higher level of emotional self-awareness but it's not really helping in this situation.

Sam set the bag on the table and looked around. The temporary accommodation rooms had been designed so that two people could live in them without feeling like they were trapped in a ping-pong ball. Couch, table and chairs, closet and drawers built into the wall, bathroom off to the side, single bed. It was bigger than a lot of places Sam had lived in and cleaner than most of the places they'd stayed in on the run, but Sam didn't relish living in it for the next foreseeable. It was a little too sterile for him to really feel comfortable. The small, high Windows didn't help. And no privacy without one of them leaving. And the single bed.

Bucky was standing just inside the door, looking at nothing again – not at Sam, not at the furniture or the gray carpet or the little windows, not at his own arms, crossed over his torso like he was protecting himself from something.

Sam was going to cry.

"Do you want a shower?" He said it because he had to say something, had to help do something, but Sam wanted to kick himself once the words were out of his mouth. Bucky would never use the word "trauma" or "torture" about himself, but when they were looking at apartments he didn't want to live somewhere with only a shower cubicle. "Sometimes," he'd said "When I'm rattled I get funny about having water on my face." Sam had put two and two together.

Bucky just gave a minute shake of his head, and again when Sam said, "It doesn't have to be a shower, you can just sponge off."

But Bucky did the little head shake to that, too, and if he let this go on Sam was going to end up bossing him into taking the shower, into doing whatever he thinks Bucky should be doing just because it’s going to make him, Sam, feel better.

“You have... stuff in your hair.”

The bathroom was small enough that they were right next to each other in front of the sink. This close, Sam could see that the stuff was on Bucky’s forehead, too. All he could tell was that it had dried clear. Sam spit on the cuff of his shirt and started to wipe it away as gently as he could. He thought about the corpse on their bathroom floor, and how Bucky had looked just as dead when he saw him, and the bloody thing lying next to him on the bedroom carpet, and the last time they had been in one of these rooms, standing by the sink. They had both been stripped to the waist, Bucky laughing, eager, still running high from the mission and taking any excuse to insinuate his crotch against Sam, who was this close to snapping that unlike some people he was just a regular human and it had been more than 24 hours since last time he woke up and the only thing his body could get excited about right now was hitting the mattress.

Sam had to run his hand through Bucky’s hair to flake the last of the stuff out of it. Bucky smelled like sweat and hospital linens and horrifyingly like sex. His eyes were fixed on the middle distance somewhere over Sam’s shoulder.

Sam reached in the clear plastic bag and held up the street of sedative in its wrapper. "If you want to take this, I want you to wake me up, okay? Any time. You can do it yourself if you want to. I’ll just talk you through it.”

Bucky jerked his head once. Yes.

“C’mon, Bucky, talk to me.”

Sam didn’t know what he expected, but it wasn’t Bucky saying, “I’m sorry about the pictures.”

“What?”

“Our service pictures.” Bucky mimed pulling something apart with his fingers. “Two tore them up before he – did me.”

Did me, fuck. “Bucky,” Sam said, trying hard to keep his voice calm and steady. “I don’t give a fuck about the pictures. I give a fuck about you. I love you.”

Sam had once gone along with a “plan” that consisted of him flying at the target holding Bucky by the straps on the back of his jacket, while Bucky fired some kind of laser gun that none of them really knew how to use or had seen before that afternoon. He had watched that awful Flash Gordon movie with Bucky without rolling his eyes once. He woke up next to Bucky every morning in their shabby one-bedroom. They shared a bank account and a bathroom sink. Of course Sam loved him.

"Can I hold you?"

One jerky nod.

Bucky felt like he always had. Same warmth, same span of shoulders in Sam’s arms. Sam gave himself one long moment, one wet, shaky exhalation into Bucky’s shoulder, before he made himself step back.

"You should... Do what you want." It sounded as stupid as I love you.

I just read this all the way through. Damn.

You are such a gifted writer, the perfect blend of external and internal details. The way you write Sam is just all-around exquisite, as well as Bucky's reactions, and Steve's stubborness.

Thank you for this beautiful, painful story.

Oh my gosh, thank you very much. This means a lot to me.

At first I decided this was going to be Sam/Bucky for variety's sake (and because once I thought of a dynamic for them I really wanted to write it), but once I started to think about the structure of the story it was clear that there was going to be Sam POV later on, and I was looking forward to it the whole time. I wanted to try and write Sam as someone who had a pretty high level of self-awareness but isn't infallible or anodyne, and also as someone who has obviously gone through mental health treatment and training without sounding like a walking, talking Psychology Today article. And I was also looking forward to putting him in a trash context because ~~I love to make my faves suffer~~ Sam is all of the above and he's still unprepared for this, because really, who the fuck could be?

Anyway, I am very glad you've enjoyed it and hope to have another update ready... sometime before the next geological epoch.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Dumpster #4: I Don't See How That's a Party

Re: No Saltwater Lake (5/?)

Re: No Saltwater Lake (5/?)

Re: No Saltwater Lake (5/?)

Re: No Saltwater Lake (5/?)

Re: No Saltwater Lake (6/?)

Re: No Saltwater Lake (6/?)

Re: No Saltwater Lake (6/?)

Re: No Saltwater Lake (6/?)

Re: No Saltwater Lake (6/?)

Re: No Saltwater Lake (6/?)

Re: No Saltwater Lake (6/?)

Re: No Saltwater Lake (6/?)

Re: No Saltwater Lake (6/?)

Re: No Saltwater Lake (6/?)

Re: No Saltwater Lake (7/?)

Re: No Saltwater Lake (7/?)

Re: No Saltwater Lake (7/?)

Re: No Saltwater Lake (7/?)

Re: No Saltwater Lake (7/?)

Re: No Saltwater Lake (7/?)

Re: No Saltwater Lake (8/?)

Re: No Saltwater Lake (8/?)

Re: No Saltwater Lake (8/?)