ettersberg | duplicity

Until 2014 is a very long time.

[ more decades than anyone should spend as a pow, but that's an easy standard to satisfy because no one should spend any time as a pow, much less decades.

more decades than a human lifetime, almost. ]

If you would like to talk about it, I'm here.

It was't like that for me.

[ but ]

For me, the aftermath was almost worse.

[ The thing is that Bucky kind of does want to talk about it, but he also doesn't. It's painful and awkward and he has the same fears with Thomas that he'd had with Steve. He doesn't think he can handle being looked at like a monster by someone he cares about, even if he kind of feels like one. ]

thanks. I'm just glad Steve managed to break through enough of it for me to get away, even if it took me a while to figure out who I was again.

and same goes for you. I know people who weren't there just don't get it. things weren't easy even before I was captured.

War and easy do not go hand in hand, no.

[ as close as he'll come to say that he struggled? maybe. ]

I saw how many people it broke. [ all of them, in some way. thomas no longer wakes up screaming every night, but there are enough that he can't sleep still, decades later.

these are not the kind of ghosts he knows how to exorcise. ]

I would take actual ghosts over the phantoms of war any day.

Steve?

my best friend/dominant. you'd like him. he was in the war with me. extreme do-gooder type.

[ Which of course Bucky means in a 100% positive way here. ]

I was captured twice. the first time, Steve saved me and I went back into the war with him. the second time, no normal human could have survived the fall I took. I don't blame them for not coming back for me, but part of me wishes he'd found me sooner. a lot of things could have been different.

Who captured you?

[ "no normal human could have survived". thomas finds himself thinking of the experiments the nazis had run at ettersberg, of the black library and its contents, of the rumours of actual werewolves.

he thinks of all the horrors he'd seen.

some things may be worse than death, but he still finds himself glad that bucky is here. that he survived. it feels, for a moment, utterly selfish. ]

HYDRA. I know they don't seem to exist in every world. they were like a Nazi offshoot group. Steve had let the US army do something to him to make him stronger. they were trying to recreate that with me the first time I was captured. seems like they got pretty close, but I didn't know what they'd done until much later.

In my world, the Nazis were experimenting with magic. Trying to weaponise it more than it already is.

[ he'll say no more on the topic than that. ]

If what was done to you was even half as bad as what I've seen in Ettersberg, I truly am sorry.

[ he'd said that before, but it bears repeating. this is not the sort of thing thomas has ever understood. the need for people to do terrible things to one another. ]

they made me hurt a lot of people. I'm just glad I don't have to do that anymore. I don't want to hurt anyone ever again if I can avoid it.

[ Reluctantly, Bucky will fight to defend himself. He'll still fight when the fight seems worth it, but less and less does. Short of saving lives, he's not sure how much violence he'd really want to be near. ]

funny because I'm not sure what other skills I really have, but the modeling has been working out alright here.

[ not wanting to hurt people? that's something thomas can admire. at the same time, part of him wants to push, wants to ask more questions and get more information. a professional hazard, perhaps.

he doesn't. this isn't a case, this has nothing to do with magic. knowing that bucky has hurt people, has been made to hurt people changes nothing for him, doesn't change the way he sees bucky. (maybe it does, a little - but if anything, it makes him think of bucky as even stronger than before.) ]

modelling?

for artists. it doesn't pay impressively well, but it's been a nice change of pace for me.

[ On paper, he knows it's a strange job for him to have, but he's done a little drawing with Steve and he's let Steve draw him enough that it feels like it's at least familiar to a simpler part of his life that he misses. ]

Well. I can see why they would appreciate it.

[ bucky is... a very attractive man, after all. ]

any time you want to get my clothes off, you just have to ask.

[ He almost doesn't send it, but then he really does mean it. He likes Thomas a lot. He likes the idea of taking off his clothes for the other man, maybe even in less of a hurry. ]

[ oh.

well.

well.

that is certainly - an offer that catches his attention for several long moments during which he thinks back to sleeping with bucky.

how does he even begin to respond to that? apparently with a hopefully neutral ] Is that so?

guess you'll just have to test it out some time to find out.

[ yeah, Bucky knows he's not subtle. why start now? for all his general reserve, Thomas never seems to be put off by Bucky and that's important. Bucky doesn't actually want to make him uncomfortable, even if he likes pushing the other man's buttons a little. it's not fun if they aren't both enjoying it. ]

I will certainly keep that in mind.

[ is this... what the youths call... flirting...? ]

and you'll tell me if you want me to lay off, right? I care about you. I don't want to cross a line or anything.

I will. Should it become necessary.

[ it - hasn't yet. for all that it's odd to find himself the centre of someone's attention this way, for someone to care so much while thomas barely knows him (although he's getting to know bucky better and better), it isn't unpleasant. ]

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