6782/1943: Sam, you awake

1943: Sam, you awake
Date of Scene:	03 July 2021
Location:	1943 Brooklyn, the Branston House.
Synopsis:	Buck's bad dreams drive him to seek out Sam in the middle of the night, in 1943. In the end, he takes two steps forward and only one back, progress.
Cast of Characters:	James Barnes, Sam Wilson

---

James Barnes has posed:
    Bucky knew that, well, himself - this time Bucky - would be home at some point during the night, so he had no choice but to finally end up at The Branston house. He fell asleep pretty quickly on the floor in the living room downstairs, but when his nightly nightmares woke him in a cold sweat and with a scream barely rising in his throat, he couldn't go back to sleep.

    Instead, he went creeping through the house until he found... Sam. "Sam, SAM..." Hiss whispered in the dark as to, maybe, not wake anyone else. "Sam, you awake?"

Sam Wilson has posed:
    Sam's not sure how long he'd stayed out there on the roof, or how much of that whiskey bottle he and Cael had managed to put away. Late and too much are his guesses, respectively, but he'd stumbled through a shower (wow, have they not invented the concept of water pressure yet?) and into an unoccupied bed in the house, which is a blessing. It's in a tiny cramped room that is a little too warm to be properly comfortable, but the alcohol in his bloodstream is enough for Sam, who is generally more a beer-and-wine kind of guy than hard liquor, to knock out pretty quickly.

    So, no. Sam is not awake. Or was not awake, until he jerks up into a half-sit with a groan that Bucky will no doubt be able to hear in the relative quiet of the house. And he's not even hungover, he's still a little drunk, so it takes his brain a second to process what's woken him up. "Uh, yeah, I am. What's up?"

James Barnes has posed:
    There, in the dark, with just moonlight to see by, he almost looks like Bucky from the bar. During his trip to his childhood home, he snagged a few things. One of which is the Dodgers baseball hat he has his long hair all tucked up under. They were still Brooklyn in 1943. He also shaved and changed his clothes into something from his 1943 closet.

    "Nothin'," he whispers a little awkwardly. He finds a place to settle down on the floor, leaning against a wall - not too far up in Sam's personal space but close enough.

Sam Wilson has posed:
    After everything that's happened today, which has basically kept Sam's stress levels somewhere between 'no, nope, absolutely not' and 'fuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuck' all he'd really like to do is get some sleep. Well, first it had just been to unwind, and that'd kind of been the whole point of going to the bar, which certainly hadn't been as integrated as he'd been led to believe, had it? Now, though, sleep.

    But he sits himself up a little bit further, adjusts the fall of his undershirt from where it's twisted into an odd angle during the brief, but agitated sleep he'd managed to get so far, and looks over at Bucky.

    "Nice hat," he says. Sam's a baseball guy; played all through school. He knows the history of the Dodgers. "You good?" Which is maybe a bit of a loaded question, given to whom he's asking it, but Sam's too tired to really find a better way of phrasing it.

James Barnes has posed:
    Silence. It seems like Bucky might not even answer. Between the 'nothing but the moonlight through the window' ambiance and the bill of that hat, it's really hard to see his expression and sometimes it's hard to speak 'Buck' without seeing that expressive face of his.

    But there's a battle going on there.

    Finally, "No." He bites out the word and it ends up sounding a little petulant and pouty. Truth be told, it was just really REALLY hard fo him to admit it all. So it came out snappy because that's the only way he could get it out.

    Some might say that's progress? He didn't just say he was fine, after all.

Sam Wilson has posed:
    Sam's pretty effectively in the dark here. Which is fine. On the whole he's a patient person, and his senses are dulled enough by the whiskey in his system that he's not really thinking too hard about how long it takes for Bucky to answer. All he does as he sits there is tuck his hand against the side of his face and breathe.

    And then there it is. Progress, definitely, but Sam will only be able to remark upon it in the morning. Right now he just makes a quite noise, wordless but acknowledging. He twists to grab one of the pillows from where they sit against the headboard and tosses it Bucky's way with little care for whether or not it's going to smack him in the face.

    Though even half-unconscious, Sam's kind of betting on those good super soldier reflexes.

    A blanket from the foot of the bed goes flying next, and then Sam is horizontal again. "Yeah," is what he eventually decides on saying. And then, as he doesn't have any filters in place, he keeps going. "I hate this place, but... no one's pretending here, are they?" Sam's not sure if that makes any sense, and he lifts a hand up to scrub his face. "I'm used to people talking a big game about how supportive they are but then they go home and side-eye the black family that moves into their neighborhood, plays passive-aggressive bullshit because they're gonna 'run down the property values'. That kind of shit. World's too interconnected for people to be out-and-out racist anymore if they want to keep from being cancelled. Guess it's kind of refreshing to have them announce what they right off the bat."

    He inhales, holds it in, breathes it out slow. "No, never mind. It's awful and I hate it here."

James Barnes has posed:
    Bucky doesn't disappoint. He snags the pillow out of the air before it even gets close.

    He's a little lost, not too sure at all what Sam's talking about. It might be niggling a little bit at the back of his brain, but... well, he's still pretty beat to hell and back and exhausted. That memory just isn't clearing yet. Oh, he *gets* what his friend is saying in general, but not the direct reference.

    "I never pretended," he comments quietly. "Never had to, I guess. It just never mattered to me. Good man is a good man no matter the color of their skin." Quiet again, a little too still. It might even be startling when he speaks again and breaks the silence.

     "... I can't really get it, understand what that's like, not entirely. Because I'm not black. I do kinda understand what it's like to get the side-eye though, have people pretending they're okay with you being around. I got a lot of that when Steve brought me back. Difference was, I deserved it, you don't."

Sam Wilson has posed:
    "Dibs on you as shortstop on our intramural team, y'know if SHIELD is ever a thing again," Sam says, because yeah, he saw that catch. And his brain has latched onto baseball, apparently.

    He stares up at the ceiling, or at least the shadows that conceal the ceiling from his view. Sam doesn't have the enhanced vision to make out anything more than that. "I know, Buck. The SSR was integrated." He thumps his head backwards against the pillow once, his back sliding against the sheets. Now that he's awake and his mind is spinning, he's nowhere near as comfortable, but he's still clutching onto a desperate hope that he might get back to sleep.

    Seems like it could go either way, though, the longer Sam lays there and stews in the distress and anger brought on by what happened in the bar, the memory Bucky can't quite hold onto. Sam's jaw clenches, teeth grinding, and then he lets out a sharp breath. "I'm gonna be real honest with you right now, man, I do not have the patience to lay here and listen to you blame yourself for what a bunch of asshole Nazis did to you. People are fucking *awful*," and that's not really how Sam feels, it isn't, he can see the good in almost anyone (except Nazis) but right now his vision's a little clouded. "You were a prisoner of war. Someone side-eyes you for the shit you went through then it just means they're an asshole too."

James Barnes has posed:
    "Yeah, well..." Bucky takes the pillow and tucks it between his head and the wall rather than laying down. He doesn't bother with the blanket. "Shortstop it is?"

    There's that damned silence again, loooooong.... this time it's a little heavy. He's obviously thinking hard about his next words. When they finally come out, they're barely whispered but they're said without heat, without anger, without anything but gentleness really. "You kinda did it at first, Sam, and you're not an asshole."

    It's true isn't it? At least from where Bucky's sitting? How long did it take Sam to actually trust Buck? "I get it, I do... I don't... it doesn't matter now because you see it different, you see me different."

Sam Wilson has posed:
    Well, that takes the wind out of Sam's sails real quick. Bucky will hear him inhale sharply, and then it's Sam that's silent for a long, long while. Almost like he's fallen asleep, but his breathing isn't anywhere near regular enough for that.

    The sheets rustle as he sits back up. "You know what?" He stops for another breath, and his left hand spasms into a fist. "You're right. There was a lot going on back then when Steve found you, but that's not any kind of excuse. If anyone should have known better, it's me, but I let myself get caught up in it instead of doing the right thing."

    He opens his hand and looks down at it, spends a moment rubbing at the calluses on his palm with his thumb. "So I absolutely was an asshole, and I'm sorry, Bucky."

James Barnes has posed:
    "It's okay, man. It really is. I *get* it," Bucky insists. He reaches up and takes his hat off so when he looks down at lap, that mop of hair falls in front of his face. "I wouldn't have trusted me either," he adds once his face is hidden away.

    "But I guess the point is... sometimes people just don't fuckin' know better, you know?" He grew up in such a different time, the racism and hatred was more normal than the opposite then. "Some of'm *are* just assholes, but some of'm, they just gotta learn to see different, like you did with me."

Sam Wilson has posed:
    And the thing is, that's nothing Sam doesn't know already. He's just... upset, and frustrated, and part of him wants to head for the hills because it's all just too damn much, but the rest of him--the majority of Sam Wilson--is too stubborn and too loyal to ever even consider it. "Yeah," he finally says on an exhale.

    He looks over to where Bucky's sitting, but he's just a silhouette in the dark. No matter how long Sam stares, nothing ever properly resolves into anything more than that. His voice drops into that liminal space that isn't quite Sam-the-counselor and at the same time isn't just Sam, Bucky's friend, but something quiet in-between. "So when are you going to learn to see different about yourself?" he asks.

James Barnes has posed:
    "I dunno, Sam, maybe when I'm standin' at the pearly gates and St. Peter lets me pass?" Sometimes it's easy to forgot Bucky's Christian upbringing. It's sad though, how fucking easily he dismisses himself and the forgiveness he deserves to give *himself*.

    His left hand flexes into a fist, once, twice, three times. "The ones that I remember? I can still see the the look in their eyes as they were dying, wondering why, what they'd done. Sometimes I can still feel their bones breaking or their neck snapping or the blood and brains splattered on my face from the bullet hole." Whoa, it just got dark up in here, up in Bucky's head.

    He sucks in a few breaths, rapid though, not deep. Little panicked hiccuping sounds. His hair's still covering his face, thank God, but fuck all, his voice is *thick* with *tears*. Bucky Barnes is *crying* in front of someone. "...I know it's what they made me do, but how can I... ... I *remember* and what I *remember* was me, my hands choking, my hands pulling the fucking trigger."

    He shoves himself up suddenly and walks across the room such that it is - it takes what, three steps to get him there. He stands there, leaning against the wall, head down, arms crossed over his chest, quiet and shaking.

Sam Wilson has posed:
    Religion isn't something Sam talks about, himself. He acknowledges that it's a lot of things for a lot of people, but his own relationship with it is... complicated, to say the least. Not so complicated that he's going to avoid the subject in the here and now, though. "So, what, you're going to spend the rest of your life waiting for someone else to provide you forgiveness rather than trying to find it in yourself?" That doesn't sound like any kind of way to live, in Sam's opinion, but he doesn't say it. Maybe someday, someone will be able to convince Bucky that he's worth the effort. Sam's under no illusions that it's gonna be him to do it, much as he wishes it could be.

    Just to spare Bucky any more of this.

    Because Sam gives a shit. Call it a fatal flaw, maybe, because he'll always default to it, even when there are safer, saner options. Case in point: they're presently stuck in 1943. Tossing Buck a pillow and passing right the hell back out probably would've been the safe, sane option here. But instead Sam climbs out of bed and walks over, feet brushing the floor like he's trying to make it super obvious that he's on the move even though he knows Bucky's going to hear him regardless. "Yeah, yeah, and you gotta live with that, I know." He reaches out, careful, until he manages to land a hand on Bucky's shoulder, or maybe upper arm. It's dark, he's doing his best. "You ever think that maybe it was just another way for HYDRA to torture you? Making you live with those memories in your head, even if you'd managed to get away from them? Sounds like something they'd do."

James Barnes has posed:
    Bucky holds up a hand sort of halfway to 'stop'. Why? It's definitely not because part of him doesn't crave the comfort of physical human contact, because part of him really really does. He hasn't had a Peggy hug in MONTHS and she's really the only one he allows to do so.

    In the end, he lowers his hand and allows it, but it costs him. He almost chokes on the sob he forces back down. "Fuck!" Hissed out a little too loudly. Sadness and despair to anger. Who didn't expect that?

    Few more of those little hiccuping breaths and one big one later and he sighs out, "Just go back to bed Sam, I'm gonna take a walk."

    Really though, it's more of a win than a loss. He took two forward and only one back tonight instead of the reverse?

Sam Wilson has posed:
    Sam's hand absolutely freezes in midair, because that's Bucky establishing one of his boundaries, and he's here for it. It isn't until he gets the go-ahead that he moves again, and then all he does is grip Bucky's shoulder. He's quiet after. Because he gets that Bucky is barely hanging on, and as much as Sam thinks it would do him good to let go and embrace some catharsis, it's not something he's going to try and force it.

    "You know you don't have to do that, right?" he asks. "Go out, I mean. You can stay. You're not bothering me, Buck."

    And it's true. Honestly, given the chance, Sam has absolute certainty that he could pass out within two seconds of his head hitting the pillow, because this has straight tapped his emotional reservoirs out. "I'm not going to stop you if that's what you need to do, but you don't have to hide it from me either."

James Barnes has posed:
    "It's hot up here," Bucky excuses - it's verb with him, truly. "I'm okay." He's clearly not, but he no longer sounds like he's going to burst into an ugly cry jag and bawl himself to sleep anymore. Maybe it would be better if he did?

    He does manage to look Sam in the eye for just a second or two when he repeats, "I'm okay. I'm gonna go boost us a car, maybe a van. We gotta get to Flushing Meadows tomorrow." - later today really.

    "Thanks Sam, for not side-eyeing me, y'know... even when I'm fallin' apart." He doesn't really wait for Sam to reply before he's slipping to the side, out from his friend's grip on his shoulder and moving for the door.

Sam Wilson has posed:
    "Great, man, now I'm going to lay up here the rest of the night and think about how warm it is," Sam grouses, but it's a transparent attempt at breaking up some of the tension. He pulls away when Bucky does, and though Sam turns to watch his friend go, he grits his teeth and doesn't do anything.

    Except say, "Any time, Buck," and mean it.

    Once Bucky's gone, Sam slumps back into bed and punches the pillow a few times before he lays back down. And yeah... it's hot. But he's still able to pass out after just a few minutes, even if his sleep after is doomed to be troubled.