[closed] there's no sure footing

[3ofswords]

WHO: Kira Akiyama
WHERE: Midland river island, ruins, southeast of the Southern Village.
WHEN: Late August / early September
OPEN TO: Bucky Barnes
WARNINGS: Possible drug mentions, definite snakes, hallucinations, peril, PTSD.

---

Lashing out at Frank hadn't exactly made him feel better, but it had reminded him that the only way to cope in this place is to do; to set up situations just dire and interesting enough that the mind can't stagnate in existential crisis. And if the uncertainty of river-travel can't accomplish that, silence and banter prove equally easy with Bucky. It's hard to imagine himself angry with the man, even in an unrelated sense.

They don't dig into each other. They don't dig into other things together. When Kira had planned to follow the river down to the shore and forage on the way back, he'd chosen the man as a kind of antidote to exploring those tree houses.

It didn't hurt that Bucky had fried the Wendigo queen. Alpha? Whatever the fuck they are. He's the brawn, probably a large chunk of the brains. Kira can settle for being the impetus, directing conversation and energy in his backhanded, teasing way. Point is, they enjoy each other. It doesn't have to be anything more than that, even as the salvaged and borrowed boat glides over the smoothing patch of river where it opens to meet several others, an island visible, some structure hulking between its trees.

"Anyway, that's why you always hit on the Catholic boys," he says, tilting his whole body against the rudder to get a better look across the water and aim them to cut across the current toward the shore. "If they aren't already freaks, they're desperate to try."

Try what, he'll wind his way back to on some other flight of fancy. Right now, he wants to know what else they've built this far south. "You see that? We should check it out."