the fruit is rusting on the vine;

[freightcars]

WHO: (Who is making the post)
WHERE: the greenhouse
WHEN: July 16
OPEN TO: Frank Castle
WARNINGS: (Please warn for adult content or anything triggering) violence, ptsd, horror

---

The earthquake caused some minor structural damage; most of it was repairable, and most of the village seems to be keen on pitching in to patch up the buildings. Clint is by far the most useful person here for it, he's drawn up easy plans that Bucky's learning to follow through their casual carpentry apprenticeship sessions. The inn is obviously the most important undertaking, followed by the few other communal buildings they use regularly.

Personal homes come at lower priority, and it's in the checking of them that Bucky realizes one place they haven't thought to pop in on. The greenhouse is imperative, he's told, to the food stores and rations for winter. It's not much of a trek, though it's just southwest of the second village. He heads there with a pack of tools strapped to his back just in case, a hatched, a hammer, the basics.

What he arrives to see is sudden and surprising rampant overgrowth. Blue and purple flowers snake their way along almost the entirety of the western wall, a creeping and beautiful vine that spreads up and starts to wrap around the roof of the place. It's not exactly the structural damage he was expecting, but if it stays unchecked it will crack at the seams of the greenhouse and break the foundation, crack the glass, eventually overtake and ruin the whole damn thing.

With a sigh, he sets forth, rummaging around in his hatchet. It takes a second look for him to realize he's not alone. There's a figure there before him, a hatchet discarded at it's feet, facing toward the flowers. Vines creep up around him, a slow and living twist like tentacles winding their way around his wrists and working their way up his arms.

Strangely enough, he seems to just be taking it.

A beat later, he realizes who it is he's looking at, and he bites out an incredulous, concerned sounding, "Frank?"

Because barking out the word 'hotdog' right now just didn't really seem appropriate.

Comments

[oorah]

There's a look of contentment trapped on Frank's broad face, eyes half-lidded as he goes through the calming tasks of his day-to-day life in Reims. He would be wrapping up his work on the sand-paths about this time, heading to his treehouse to get some rest. Max and himself would sleep that way, curled up, until his nightmares started to rouse him. And then the dog would nudge him awake just in time to patrol the area surrounding the town. With nothing but a knife and an eerily quiet pitbull to defend him against any number of horrors, Frank would take to the newly filled in paths and begin his rounds. Sometimes he'd cross paths with Bethany or Buffy, or sometimes even Jessica, though the latter would be harder to convince to stick together. Sometimes they would, meandering along in silence, and they both knew that Frank was safer with her as a partner than any other protection he could conjure up.

Things would go on that way, sometimes chatting over devices and other times just walking and watching each other, and the dark, silent world around them. It should be creepy, but it isn't. It's become a home of sorts, a safe space carved out in a land of horrors. At Bucky's approach, the landscape shifts, however, and red dust starts blowing through the air. He turns, but Max and Jessica are gone. Frank tastes copper in his throat, that awful itchy feeling of it coating his eyes; but when he tries to raise a hand to wipe it away from his face the vines constrict and he lets out a gasp in distress. The monsters are circling in, though he can't see them, no one ever could until it was too late.

Whatever sound he makes in the dream is enough to get one's attention and it would seem his good luck streak has run out. There's still a bizarre, pleasant haziness to the scene as Frank's mind is influenced by the clematis vines coiling around his body, but it isn't enough to shake the nightmare scene his mind is now running with, the Sound Eater knocking him to the sand and looming over him as younger monsters move in as well. There's no escape. Reset Room, here he comes.

[freightcars]

Without any sort of peeking into Frank's mind, the situation is quite different from Bucky's perspective. It's just Frank's back and shoulders, just the back of his head, and the rest of him obscured by vines growing near him and latching onto him. He doesn't seem to respond, to acknowledge his name at all. He does nothing but make only the softest of gasps, a sound Bucky only hears because he's so tuned in.

"Frank," he tries again, edging closer warily. A few possibilities flit through Bucky's mind; that he's drunk, stoned, having some sort of traumatic flashback or dissociative episode. He's sure as hell not the right person to help with any of those, but judging by the way the vines continue to twist around his prone form, Buck figures there isn't enough time to go get someone more qualified to wake up a sleepwalker. If they start circling around his neck it'll be a bad day for Frank.

He edges close enough to reach out finally and wrap a metal hand around Frank's thick shoulder; he gives a firm shake, and the vines seem to constrict in displeasure as he does. He'd really like to not start hacking at these things without knowing if Frank's going to snap out of it mid-chop and join him in the amputee club.

sorry this is so late

[oorah]

His name pounds through the darkness, an all too familiar sensation of someone trying to wake him. Maria's voice thunders past the monsters and he looks back at Bucky, eyes unseeing. At least, they don't see reality, but an image of his late wife bathed in bright light as she reaches towards him, shaking his shoulder gently. "Wake up, sleepyhead," she murmurs softly into his ear, setting off a full-body shiver that only has the vines squeezing him tighter in protest. She's calling him towards the light, but that's the end. He had already refused her once, does he have the strength to do it again?

"Maria..." he whispers as he turns away from her (Bucky). "I can't come home. Not yet."

It's a copypaste of all the times he ever told her he had to stay overseas, a beg to forgive him; to kiss his kids goodnight for him. To be mother and father and counselor while he was away. But somewhere deep, Frank is aware that life is over, and that his wife is dead. She had beckoned him towards death with her on more than one occasion, she was the last thing he'd seen before waking up in the Reset Room the last time. That's when he realizes he's dying, again. That's the only time he sees Maria anymore, and selfishly he doesn't want her to go. But he has to say goodbye again, he has to tear himself away.

Frank drops her hand and the illusion shatters, his heart pounding as he looks around at the greenhouse. He lifts his hands (or tries) to sign for David, but they're pinned to his side and that's when he really starts to panic. His teal senses are in overdrive, hairs raising on his arms against the vines still constricting him. Wait - vines? Plants are trying to kill him now, too. That's just great.

not a single worry my dude

[freightcars]

It's about the time that Frank calls him Maria that he realizes he's going to have to start hacking before Frank gets his shit together. He knows his hair is long, but he figures unless Maria's got the most testosterone on the planet she wouldn't have a beard to match.

"Sorry, pal," He mutters, head dipping in resignation for just a sec before he tosses the hatchet up an inch to get a better grip on the handle. That's the only warning he gets before Bucky starts hacking. A flesh hand grips Frank's shoulder as the left one works, not because he's just so damn comforting but rather because if Frank comes to or jerks forward he's gonna lose a limb in the process and Bucky's not about that life.

The vines aren't too happy about this whole thing; they tighten their grip on the hand Bucky's not currently working on freeing, cutting off circulation, twining around his fingers like it's trying to hold god damn hands. Worse, they start to creep up Bucky's own ankles without his notice, too busy fighting god damn Jumanji.

It's not a great time.

[oorah]

He gasps with a start at being grabbed, but goes still a moment later, some part of him realizing he's being rescued.

"B-Bucky?" comes the soft voice, realization steadily dawning. His arm clenches, trying to fend off the vines holding him prone without struggling too much, lest that bury him deeper.

[freightcars]

"Welcome back," he grunts in reply, but he doesn't take the time to stop or look at Frank as he says it. Instead, he releases that hand on his shoulder and uses it to grip the vines together in a thicker bunch. It takes an extra whack to chop through them, but it means an entire free left hand for Frank. He might be too confused still to make good use of it just yet, but at least he can get a handle on the creeping vines threatening to overtake his throat and strangle him to sleep again.

"Hope you were having nice dr- Fuck!" He'd shifted to take a step forward and free the other arm, but evidently the vines did what they do best and got a secure hold around his feet. he stumbles, hand jutting out to catch himself on the vine covered pane of glass before them. He grips it, it grips back and then he's one hand down. He snaps out a frustrated, exerted, "What the hell is this stuff?"

[oorah]

Biding his time until the second his arm is free, Frank swings around with all his power and manages to tear through the weakened bonds on his right wrist. He grabs for Bucky's shoulder, trying to pull him out of the vines but they clamp down. God, that's just unnatural.

"It looks like... clematis?" The fuck. Frank turns from where he's locked in place to grab the hatchet he'd dropped earlier, reaching Bucky's free arm and meeting his eyes. Then he's carefully sheering the plants away from his wrist so he can break free enough to hopefully free Frank's legs so he could return the favor. Holy shit.

[freightcars]

"Whatever the fuck that means," he grunts in turn, jerking his arm back the second Frank frees it. He's not exactly a plants guy, the extent of his nature skills end with herding goats and killing tomato plants. Generally speaking, the tomato plants don't try to kill him back.

It takes a shit ton of maneuvering to whack Frank's legs free without accidentally getting his hands rebound, a sort of awkward crouch with his hand braced behind the direction he needs to be chopping for support. The second he gets them out he's barking a quick, "Back up- back up-"

Because his legs are still tangled and if they keep getting themselves caught trying to peel each other out they're gonna be here all damn day.

[oorah]

He inclines his head as if to concede the point. Indeed, whatever the fuck that means.

"They're usually annoying, not homicidal," Frank clarifies, creeping back at Bucky's behest before shooting him a look from the mirroring crouch he slips into to avoid the vines. Then he's chopping between the other man's feet to target the most concentrated area so hopefully the other man can just step out of the trap.

[freightcars]

Would you look at that, it works. It only takes two highly trained murderers to best the crap that little old ladies grow on their entertainment centers. Someone alert Hydra, he's really doin' it, he's really makin' it out here.

Legs free, arms free, disgruntled and plucking leftover severed vines from his metal arm, he stands and shoots Frank a look.

"You just standing there hoping to peacefully protest them?" When he first showed up, he means. He knows it isn't the case, it's a roundabout way of asking what the fuck Frank was seeing in the vines.

[oorah]

Frank wrinkles his nose, trying to suss out what Bucky means. "No, I was-- I think I was asleep." Why was he sleeping in the greenhouse? He can't remember why he came in here to begin with now. "You wanna get the fuck out of here?" Because he does. Please?

[freightcars]

Hard to say why he might have been there, maybe for the same reason as Bucky - checking the structural integrity of the thing after the earthquakes. Maybe he'd been there to try and keep the vines from breaking apart all the town's hard work by busting through glass and bending support beams. Maybe he'd just been popping in to grab some weed, who the hell knows?

All he can think is he'd like to get a couple miles between him and that right now, and maybe tell people later on about the threat to their building. Maybe they can just do a controlled fire, burn them off or something. Either way, it's a job too big for two men and one hatchet.

"Yeah," He agrees darkly, shooting the vines a pissy look. "I need a damn drink."

[oorah]

He snorts, if only because it's so familiar. Frank nods in agreement as they head out before he remembers... there's no booze in this abandoned shithole.

"You know, in Reims a case of whiskey would just show up every month at my door. That's about the least this fucking place could do."

[freightcars]

It's true that this place was nearly as dry as a Christian county on a Sunday, but Bucky's got the hookup on some of the worst god damn vodka anyone's ever had. Honestly, though, the comment had mostly been rhetorical, about the sentiment rather than with any actual intention to follow through.

He huffs in agreement, chartering a course through fields and toward the worn path back into town. "No kidding."

A quiet beat passes, and his curiosity gets the better of him. Lips twitching into an expressionless line, he flicks his eyes back to Frank and has the audacity to ask, "Who's Maria?"

[oorah]

Had he said her name? He must have for Bucky to ask that way. Frank turns to face forward and mutters a simple answer. "She was my wife."

[freightcars]

A prickling sort of silence settles over them then, the sound of a man lodging his foot into his mouth while he vibrates understanding and remorse. He gets the air in Frank's tone, gets the use of the word was, and gets why he'd stand there staring into the vines if he was seeing her.

And so he nods silently, pushes no further, and leads them into town.

[oorah]

He knows it's hard to misinterpret, so he doesn't say anything else, idly pocketing his hands as he walks alongside the other man. "Thanks," he says after a while. For saving him.