[OPEN] the sun settles hard in the south

[anotheroldsoldier]

who: Bucky Barnes & You
what: Monthly catch-all, including illness, memoria, and more.
when: May
where: Around
warnings: Sickness.


i. Floating Lanterns - Memoria
[Bucky likes Memoria, in a way. It's a quiet, reflective holiday, the kind of holiday that makes sense to him, over holidays for sex or holidays for love. Mourning is easy when you've lost as much as he has. He doesn't always participate in the monthly festivals the Quarantine throws, but for this one... for this one, he takes part, buying some lanterns and a pen and some tealight candles, writing names and regrets on the thin paper walls.

Sitting by the bank of the river, he's finishing off his lanterns. The names of the Young Allies on one, the names of his family on another. A third is crowded, each name written neatly, but small, to fit them all. It's the names of every victim of the Winter Soldier that he remembers, starting with Jack Monroe.

The fourth lantern... It only has one name written on its side. James Buchanan Barnes. A death that has not quite come, but a death he is letting go of all the same. That one he's less likely to talk about than the others, but still company is not entirely unwelcome.

As night falls, he holds that lantern with his own name on it, and then leans over to set it gently into the water, the candle unlit.]

ii. First Symptoms, Perimeter Guard Training Room
[With Memoria mostly passed, and Bucky's remembrance done, he slips back into his daily life here in Riverview. Taking time off of work is an almost unknown concept; he actually enjoys his tenure with the Guard. When he isn't out past the fence on missions or patrolling the walls, he spars with the newer recruits or teaches the greenhorns hand-to-hand combat in the training gym.

He's taking sparring partners as they come, moving fluidly through maneuvers, matching his partner's skill level while giving them a challenge still, and all seems pretty normal, at least until one of the newer, less experienced recruits manages to land a kick - because Bucky has doubled over in a vicious coughing fit that makes the kid stumble back, wide eyed.

He rasps out,] Ain't your fault. Don't flatter yourself. [When it starts to subside, and then straightens, wiping his hand on his sweatpants.] I'm fine. C'mon, back on the mats.

[There is a distinct smear of blood where he wiped his palm.]

iii. Mid-Month
[Refusing to admit he's sick hasn't made it any better. Other people are showing symptoms too, some worse than others, but his stubborn streak is a mile long, and he doesn't have to admit he's feeling worse as the days pass, prone to coughing fits that he tries to hide, fever that leaves him sweaty and achy, a bone-deep exhaustion he tries to push past.

It's three in the morning when he finds himself in a corner store, shivering into a hoodie that is probably too heavy for the weather, glazed eyes scanning the shelves of over-the-counter medications and barely reading the words on the bottles and boxes of pills.] Something for fever... Come the fuck on...

iv. Wildcard!
[If you want something different, toss a prompt at me or hit me up at nekky and I'll write you one!]