sixthiterationlogs | [LOCKED] It feels so close, but always disappears;

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[LOCKED] It feels so close, but always disappears;

WHO: Liv Moore
WHERE: House 42
WHEN: 28 Nov 2018
OPEN TO: Bucky Barnes
WARNINGS: n/a

After Ravi disappeared, after I spent the better part of several days looking for him, waiting to see if he'd pop back out of the fountain, something occurred to me that he and I both missed back the first time Major went: There's a list of everyone in the village on our smart watches. If someone's not there, it's a good bet they're not just lost.

And yeah, I said 'the first time' up there. As in there's been a second. As in, I woke up today and all of Major's stuff he arrived with was gone, and guess what? He's as absent from that list now as Ravi.

It's been a couple of hours since then, and the truth is, I'm not really sure how I'm supposed to feel. Objectively, if this was happening to somebody else, I'd probably tell them that they're allowed to feel however they feel, that's nothing's right or wrong. But Major and I have been complicated for a long time now, and mostly what I feel is scared.

There is no one else here anymore who is a zombie or half-zombie or has actual experience with zombies. There's just me and my freezer full of squirrel brains.

Because it's Major, and because it's complicated, I wait longer to text Bucky than I probably should. Even then, it's brief and a little ominous: Major's gone. We need to talk. I just don't have the energy to clarify my muddled emotions via wristwatch right now. He'll figure it out quickly enough when he gets here.

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To Bucky's credit, he handles the we need to talk text a hell of a lot better than most people might. It's either a testament to how rock solid he feels in their relationship, or it's proof that Barnes grew up outside of the era of instant text-based communications. We need to talk wasn't so heavily stigmatized; back then the big things were Dear John letters.

So.

You know.

At least it ain't that.

He gets the text while he's running, and it's only the first part that gives the sentiment urgency. Major's gone, two words in this village that are never to be taken lightly. Name, gone. Not so long ago it had been Ravi's gone, and before that Natasha's gone, and the list goes on.

So he heads over, still sweaty, hair in a greasy ponytail, not exactly the picture of an appealing source of comfort but at least he's an expedient one. He lets himself in, searches her out, and broaches the subject with a tentative sounding, "Hey."

I hear the click of the front door, booted footsteps after, and push myself up a little straighter where I'm seated at the head of my bed with a Snuggie wrapped around my shoulders. I am dressed, I did actually get out of the bed today long enough to figure out what had happened, and I'm not so far gone that I'm back under the covers now, but I kinda want to be. I don't think anybody would blame me.

"Hey," I reply, pulling my knees in a little closer, and then hesitate a moment, squinting. "What were you doing? Don't say chopping wood."

"Chopping wood," he answers immediately, not because it's the truth but because she told him not to. There's a sort of quirk to his mouth that suggests he might just be full of shit, might just be pulling her leg.

Not that it's the right time for joking, and so he brushes past that quickly. Kicks off his boots and moves to perch precariously on the side of her bed, mouth leveling out into thinly veiled concern.

"I see you're snuggie bad but not blanket bad," he observes keenly, probing gently.

"It's weird," I admit with a sigh. "I don't know, I just— I'm sad? But I can't get wasted like last time. That was just— I don't even know what I said that night." I do, however, remember how fun the next morning was.

I can't even really feel bad about not being more depressed over this, and I don't know if that's worrisome or not. Part of me is actually a little relieved, which makes me feel guilty as hell, but for the most part I'm just freaking out over the idea of being alone.

"Kinda feel like I'm losing it a little, though, what with being the only zombie person in the vicinity." Which I'm sure some people would think was great, cutting our zombie population down by two-thirds. But it's really, really not.

He's on the cusp of her personal bubble, torn between reaching out and giving her space to process it all. Sometimes people just need an ear, they need to talk themselves through their feelings, and dragging her into a sweaty chest isn't exactly the right move for that. He curls his fingers in her blanket, watches her expression studiously, and does his best to keep his face from dipping into something too close to pity.

Sympathy might be a better word. Empathy. He could imagine how he'd feel if Steve left — not that the context of their relationship was anywhere close to Liv and Major, but it's the closest he's got.

He'd feel hollow. Conflicted. That it's happening right at the cusp of Ravi... well, he can't even imagine she's had enough time to fully get over that loss, and in rolls another.

And then there's the zombie thing. Yeah, so maybe he can't really fully understand. Much as he might try.

"If you're worried about staying stocked, I can help with that," he murmurs quietly. It's about all he's got to offer, he can't exactly volunteer himself to be turned. Staving off the fear of starvation and consequence, though... that he can do.

"No, I'm— I'm actually good there. Brains aren't that high on the list of favorite protein for most people, I'm sure that shocks you." I help in the kitchen with the lunch. Sort of like how I worked in the morgue. You do what you've got to do.

"But," I continue, and heave a sigh, fingers curling in against the edge of my Snuggie, "I can't have you being responsible for me, and you're the only person left who knows other than Sam and Kira, and they definitely can't be responsible for me. Kira weighs like eighty pounds sopping wet, and Sam's obviously got her own thing to worry about."

My face pinches and I look away. What a terrible person I am. Major's gone, and all I can think about is how now I have nobody to wrangle me if I go all red-eyed and bitey.

It's good to hear, frankly. He's willing to go out hunting and bring her back what she needs, but then who would chop the wood? Realistically nobody else is eating those brains, though, and it takes a hell of a lot of game to keep a community running. She should be okay. He'll go out of his way to keep a particular eye on her stock.

As far as the second part, though...

His lips press together unhappily. His first instinct is to protest, but he's always been practical. Pragmatic. He's not going to make unbiased decisions in the field if she goes off. He's not going to be strategic, he's going to fight with his heart. Risking himself is one thing, risking others...

They can't keep up with an outbreak.

He exhales slowly.

"We could tell Tony. Maybe Steve." People who could help, people with experience in this kind of thing. They may not fight together much anymore, but their individual skills alone...

My shoulders stiffen a little with a tilt of my head, gaze fixed on my sock-covered toes where they're peeking out from beneath the Snuggie. "Yeah," I answer, and push out a breath through my nose. Tony's fine. Tony I'm honestly surprised hasn't figured it out before now. He probably would have if he wasn't building flat irons and sewing machines all day. But Steve just— It's like a little ping, just a tiny one, on a very specific nerve.

I'm not saying I don't like the guy. He seems fine, nice, thinks I've got moxie. He's tall and blonde and probably eats apple pie with cheddar cheese after coming home from a game of baseball in a sandlot with rag-tag orphans. But the thing is, that guy doesn't really see me as me. He sees me as an extension of his best friend. And maybe that shouldn't bother me, but it does, because I'm a lot of other things and if he bothered, he might know that.

"Tony will just compartmentalize it," I add. Which is fine, really, and possibly helpful from a certain perspective, but it's not going to be something he can solve. "And I'm gonna need more people than that, if the worst happens."

Which I don't expect. Bucky knows this. But that doesn't make it any less frightening to contemplate.

He doesn't know the depths on Liv's feelings about Steve, nor Steve's about Liv. The truth is, Steve's been hiding away in his own mind like a closed book since he got here. By now, he'd have expected family dinners, he'd have expected Steve to be giving Liv gentle razzings in passing like he did any other girl Bucky ever went steady with for more than a couple dates. He'd expected...the past, basically.

What he'd gotten instead were polite smiles, distance, and closed doors. Two enormous parts of his life neatly separated and not overlapping. He can't say it feels great.

He can say Steve would still do everything he could to help Liv, even if it was only because of Bucky, which... is enough for him, even if it isn't enough for her. He wouldn't blame her, though, for how she felt.

Tony compartmentalizing it is pretty par for the course, but if letting the two of them in on things isn't enough...

"What'd you have in mind?" Because it sounds like she's already formulating a plan. He'll back her, no matter what she decides.

I slide my hands down my legs, grip against the front of my ankles as I chew on my bottom lip. "I have to tell everybody."

And fuck if that doesn't scare the hell out of me, because this is my life now, my home, and this decision could take virtually all of that away from me. You might be thinking that's hyperbole, but I'm betting you've never had someone you loved physically recoil from you, literally run away from you and not come back, not for months and months, because of what you are. You've never had someone you love unknowingly tell you they want you and everyone like you dead. This thing I have, it's not all fun time with wacky Liv and her brains. It destroys all the things you hold dear if you let it.

But I know the moment it's out of my mouth that there's no other option. Ravi and Major being here let me slide on doing the responsible thing, but I don't have that excuse anymore.

"And I need to talk to Bull."

He thought it might be going somewhere like that. Everybody, she says, announcing it to the network so the entire community knows. His lips twitch at the thought, but he's grounded by the knowledge that it's not terribly unlike what Sam did. Came straight out with it, announced her vampirism, and got flooded with offers to be her personal juice box. He's not exactly expecting a mirror-image repeat, nobody's gonna be keen to donate their god damn brain, but it means the community... might be more accepting than one might think.

They've all got something going on with them. They're all something. Him and Steve are genetic freaks. There's a guy here who literally looks like a bull. There's Bruce.

Maybe it's not such a bad plan.

He passes a hand along his mouth in quiet contemplation, looking down at her floor for a long beat. At the mention of Bull he glances back up, eyebrows lifting.

"Why?" Gentle curiosity, spared commentary for the moment.

That he has to ask drives a few things home for me, most importantly that Bucky loves me but probably isn't fully prepared for the reality of me, if it happens. I've tried to gently explain in the past, but I don't think he really gets how much of a genuine monster I am. Probably never will unless he sees it, really sees it, with his own eyes.

"He's big enough," I quietly reply, flicking a glance up to Bucky. "Plus, I trust him."

Another flicker, a slight annoyance, a slight frustration — pure masculine pride taking a dent, the thought that he wasn't enough to contain her if it came to that. He can't say a damn word, though, because he doesn't have the serum anymore. Isn't as strong as he used to be, no matter how much wood he chops.

He breathes out slowly, internalizes his frustration. Puts it in the back seat for now, and says only an unhappy, "Alright."

A beat passes, contemplative, and then he circles back.

"If... you're not ready for this, if you're only doing this because you're scared, we can come up with another plan."

That went over about as well as expected. I sit there, watching him swallow it down like he does everything that's difficult, but I just let it go. If we were talking about something else, I'd reach out, try to coax him into talking about it even if I could only expect a 50% chance of success. But we're not talking about something else, and he's just going to have to deal with it.

"I'm absolutely terrified, but that doesn't change anything," I huff out on a mirthless laugh. "It's a public health risk. If there was an outbreak of measles or polio or bubonic plague, we'd have to tell people. I'd have to tell people. I took an oath."

It's not that he means to be closed off with her, not that he's hiding anything, it's just that he's combating emotions with logic half the time. Knows talking about it wouldn't accomplish anything, knows she's right, doesn't spend time dwelling on something that won't serve them in the long run.

So here they are, with him swallowing down and her valiantly throwing herself on a potential pyre.

He breathes out, and at the bottom of his exhale, transitions it into a word.

"Okay."

They'll do this. And what he means by that is he's gearing up to knock out any asshole who gets the bright idea of doing anything to her for any god damn reason.

Hope she realizes she just bought herself a 24/7 guard dog until he trusts nobody has plans.

It's not an unexpected response, but there's a finality to the two syllables that feels like a door swinging closed. Or open, maybe, for a better metaphor. I thought I'd settled on what I needed to do before he got here, but I hadn't really. Not until I'd confirmed he was in this with me.

I pull in a breath, and on the exhalation, I scoot forward, tip over so that I'm laying with my head pillowed on his thigh. God, this is going to suck.

Correction: It already sucks.

"I really love you, you know," I murmur, staring out across the room.

He can't think of any real situation he'd ever not be in with her. At this point she's got him, hook line and sinker. His loyalty might be slow and tentative at first, but once it sets it sticks around, lingers on skin like a tattoo. She tips, he brings an arm up automatically, settles it around her middle in the closest approximation to holding her he can manage from this angle.

Cards the fingers of his metal hand through her hair, gently. Carefully. Smooths out tangles, slides along her scalp.

"I know," he murmurs back, reassuring, soft. "I really love you, too. It's gonna be okay. We'll figure it out."

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[LOCKED] It feels so close, but always disappears;

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