Holy Shit What The Fuck Is That
The storm comes in around 3 in the morning. The crash and beeping that comes with losing power comes about 4:20, and yes one of them makes that joke. And yes, it’s Sam. But thankfully, they both sleep through it until Sam realizes his beloved ceiling fan has gone off about 10… Even then Bucky would like to note that’s the longest Sam has slept with it off.
Sam makes hamburgers for lunch to use up the meat in the freezer, Bucky empties most of both the fridge and freezer to figure out what will live in heat and what won’t. Sam resigns himself to a day of cooking, Bucky sits on the floor of the living room staring at the boarded up window, like his stare will keep anything from blowing through it. Sam, who has been on the receiving end of that stare, figures it's a good strategy.
“What are you going to make?” Bucky asks after a little while, still munching on a burger. Sam shrugs, looking through everything on the counter in the dark since the sun won’t shine through the dark clouds. It feels like it’s still night.
“I’m thinking of spaghetti with the rest of the ground meat because it won’t go bad too fast and yum… Then I’m thinking the fish will be the first to go back in the freezer once we turn the generator on… And the chicken I’ll probably cook last but will inevitably cook it in some way.” Sam replies, hand on his chin still thinking apparently. Bucky nods and picks a piece of bun off and sticks it in his mouth. “So spaghetti for dinner, then chicken probably for lunch tomorrow. Then spaghetti, chicken, and hamburger left overs for the foreseeable future.”
“Word.” Bucky leans back on the couch, still staring at the window from the floor.
“You know that staring a hole in that is really counterproductive.” Sam says, doing something in the kitchen that makes pots clang together and echo through the house. Bucky almost mistakes it for the weirdest sounding thunder ever, then scoffs. “Nothing is going to happen.”
There’s a thunk somewhere from outside, loud enough that they hear it over the rain and wind. Sam looks to the door and Bucky stiffens and hardens his glare at the window. They both stare for a second waiting for something to happen, nothing does.
“See? It’s fine.” Sam waves his hand and goes back to lighting a fire. Bucky doesn’t move, and certainly doesn’t relax. The thunk comes back and Sam looks back to the door, puzzled. There’s a bout of thunder, and lighting shines through somewhere they didn’t fully board up. The thunk comes again, Bucky tilts his head.
“I think something is hitting up against the docks.” Sam says, still staring at the door. “We can wait for the eye and then go check it out, given it doesn’t float away.”
“You think it’s already flooding?” Bucky asks, finally looks away from the window and to Sam in the kitchen. Sam gives him a look. “I guess it has been raining for like 10 hours now.”
“Approximately.” Sam laughs, pouring something in the pot. Bucky huffs and leans his head back on the cushion. “Buck, it’s fine. I promise.” Bucky waves him off. The thunk comes again.
“When do you think the eye will get here?” Bucky asks, Sam shrugs.
“Couple hours.” Sam pulls his phone out and scrolls and taps. “I lied, forgot how long this bitch is lasting. It’ll be in… damn- some amount of time.” Bucky chortles, Sam laughs. After a bit of Sam cooking and singing, paired with Bucky sitting in silence, Sam comes over and sits on the floor next to the other soldier and leans his head on the other’s scarred shoulder. The thunk comes again.
“It’s getting fewer, but louder.” Bucky notes. Sam nods but makes no move to do anything about it. He feels Bucky relax under his cheek, they both sit there looking at the window.
“I’m surprised you haven’t pulled a book out yet.” Sam says, Bucky smiles and leans his head on top of Sam’s.
“If this is lasting all damn week I’m saving it for the last moment. For when I get really bored.” Sam nods lightly, not wanting to dislodge either of their heads from the comfort of the other. Bucky shifts after a minute, rolling the shoulder Sam is laying on.
“Is it hurting you?” Sam asks, starting to pull his head off, Bucky reacts by pushing his head down to keep Sam’s in the same spot.
“Yeah, but not your fault. It’s stereotypically the weather.” Bucky says. Sam should’ve known the shift in pressure would cause pain or discomfort in the scarred arm. It’s only natural once someone is injured that predicting weather becomes an arthritis joke, but it’s only a joke when it doesn’t actually hurt. Sam can tell it actually hurts.
“Bad?” Sam asks, grabbing the scarred forearm and rubbing at it with his thumb in a light massage. Bucky smiles with half his mouth, the thunk comes again.
“No, it’s a noticeable pain but not one that’s going to make me complain yet.” He says. The thunk sounds again, this time so hard they feel it in the floor. They both look to the door this time, staring. “What is it?”
“No idea.” Sam replies, standing and laying on the couch and letting his arm dangle to play with Bucky’s hair. Bucky takes a deep breath that ends in a sigh. “All rain and no power makes Sam a sleepy boy.” Bucky doesn’t hold back a snort, Sam chuckles though it quickly becomes shoulder-shaking laughter. Bucky stands and straddles Sam’s thighs, flopping down on the other man who immediately wraps his arms around the service dog-man. Dog-man? Man-dog? Bucky. Wraps his arms around Bucky who responds to the affection by relaxing completely and providing Sam with wonderful deep pressure therapy. They lay there, Sam panics for two seconds thinking he left the fire on- thinking something is cooking- then realizes that no, he turned it off and put everything in a container. He lets himself fall asleep, Bucky’s breathing even on top of him, the man snoring softly in the way he does when he’s really comfy and knows he’s safe.
Sam wakes up to Bucky laying stiff as a board, and the thunking from earlier louder and frequent. He runs his hand through Bucky’s hair, making the other man relax his shoulders enough to not look painful, but the sniper doesn’t take his eyes off the door. Sam sits up enough to crane his neck to look over as well. It’s still dark, the clock above the TV reads 5pm, which means Sam slept for five hours which is crazy.
“What is it.” Bucky says, not asking. Sam takes a deep breath as the noise continues. The rain has slowed enough they could go out to look.
“I don’t know.” Sam says, sitting up more. Bucky gets the hint and climbs off him, sitting on the couch stiffly next to the man as they stare together. This goes on for about two minutes, before Bucky finally stands and walks to the door, putting his hand on the knob and turning to Sam to get the okay. Sam nods, Bucky opens the door.
The rain doesn’t hit him immediately, thankfully the wind is pushing it the other way enough it doesn’t come in the house or in Bucky’s mouth. He shields his eyes and looks around the yard. Nothing looks out of place, everything is still tied down the way they left it, none of the boards are loose and the boat is still in place though it’s waving quite a bit. Nothing to worry about, Bucky knows from repeated infodumping from Sam. He continues looking, using what he can hear from the thunks to follow the noise with his eyes. He lands on the dock closest to the house, the one that connects to the foundation even though it floats more than the other. The one that Sam keeps saying he needs to replace the poles on so it doesn’t fully collapse into the water even though they both know it’s not that bad. He doesn’t see anything and is about to turn back to Sam to report his not-findings until the specific glint of gold catches his eyes. His head snaps back to the dock and he stares until his eyes catch it again.
His legs are moving before his brain can stop him from running into the storm. He hears Sam yell for him, then hears the sound of Sam following him. But his eyes are too focused on the figure in the water. He knows when Sam sees it too, because his yelling gets louder and his footsteps more frequent.
“What the fuck?!” Sam yells as they both reach the dock, peering over the edge into the water. “What- how- what do we do??” He asks Bucky, who is busy staring and panicking internally. Again his body moves before his brain and he reaches into the water and grabs the only thing sticking out from under the dock- a bloody hand.
Sam’s hands appear next to his on the bloody wrist, and they both tug together. The rain is picking up again hitting their backs almost painfully hard. The wind is sending Bucky’s hair flying around him like he’s in a drama movie. But neither of them falter, they keep tugging until the brunette head of a man appears from under the dock followed by another hand. Sam lets go of the hand Bucky is holding in favor of grabbing the other and pulling.
It’s definitely a man. And he’s definitely stuck on something, because they’re tugging and pulling and only down to the man’s collarbone appears from the nest of wood. And it doesn’t help that the man is wet and bloody and the two men keep losing their grip on his arms. He doesn’t wake, doesn’t even stir. His eyes stay closed the whole time, though fresh blood comes from his mouth that opens briefly. Sam lets loose a string of curses that are shrouded in such a panicked and heavy Cajun accent Bucky barely understands him. Bucky panics that Sam is panicking, and doesn’t think for the third time.
Bucky jumps in the water.
He hears Sam yell before water floods his ears, then his head is back out of the water and way too focused on the mystery man to hear Sam cursing his name.
He feels around under the dock, making sure to try his hardest to not to touch too much of the man if it’s not necessary. It feels weird to, especially considering now he knows the man isn’t wearing a shirt, but instead is wearing some amount of netting that covers enough to be sort of modest. Bucky wonders why very briefly, then the thought that it could be a shirt that has gotten torn over the course of time he’s been out here.
God him and Sam heard this guy hitting the dock for hours and just left him here, it’s a wonder he’s still breathing.
Bucky feels around some more, before taking a deep breath and submerging his head in the water. He can’t see much, but it allows for more reach. Something cold and weirdly slimy touches his arm and he doesn’t muffle the yelp of surprise, watching the bubbles of air from his mouth float to the small space between wood and water. He feels around more, and finds netting that has fallen off Paul and Darlene has wrapped its way around the man's lower half and secured him to the wood. Bucky feels around some more and realizes very quickly that the slimy thing that touched his hand was the man’s lower half.
He comes back out from under the dock and breathes fresh air, looking for something he could use to cut the netting.
“What do you need?” Sam yells over the intense rain. Bucky looks up at him and makes a slashing gesture, Sam gets the idea and lets go of the man, runs off, and comes back seconds later with an army knife. Bucky nods at him, takes the knife, and goes back under.
He cuts the net with enough ease, and feels it release the man as the waves get more intense. Some wave that decides to be nice and strong comes under the deck and slams his head into the wood, his ears ring, and he squints but manages to grab the wood and orient himself to get back to the surface. When his head pops back up he yells for Sam to pull.
Sam grabs both of the man’s hands and tugs while Bucky pulls himself out of the water. He lets himself sit for a second, making sure he’s not bleeding from his wave attack, then hops up to help Sam. They get the man up from under his arms and yank him onto the land. They both fall gracefully on their asses, and Bucky huffs and falls onto his back, letting himself breathe for just a second. He looks to Sam, who is staring wide eyed at where the man landed. He tilts his head and sits up on his elbows to look at what Sam is seeing… And Sam’s reaction is pretty damn tame.
Turns out the slimy thing that Bucky kept touching was a tail. A tail that’s attached to the lower half of the injured man. The evident merman. That’s in their backyard and bleeding into their grass.
Bucky wipes the rain from his face, and they both continue staring.
“Buck.”
“Uh huh?”
“What do we do about this?” Sam asks, chewing on his lip like he does when he's nervous. Bucky takes a deep breath and pulls his knees to his chest.
“We gotta take him inside- we can’t leave him here.” Bucky says finally, standing up and walking to the merman. Sam nods slowly, watching the other man move but making no attempt to do so himself.
“Can he live without water?” Sam asks. Bucky turns to look at him then back at the man.
“How the fuck should I know??” Bucky says, Sam smiles and nods, looking thoroughly in shock. Lightning strikes through the sky, illuminating the body of the merman and that gets Sam moving. Bucky takes his tail with some complaining, Sam takes him by under his arms again, and together they move him inside and immediately into the bathroom to lay him in the bathtub.
Once they’re all inside safe, the backdoor is shut, and they’ve both changed back into warm dry clothes, they sit in the bathroom and watch as the bathtub fills with warm water. The candles aren’t a lot of light, but they can see the merthing better than they could outside. His eyes are still shut and his mouth is slightly open, but no more blood has spilled out and he’s still breathing.
Bucky is sitting on the lid of the toilet bouncing his leg so fast it looks like a blur to the human eye. Sam is sitting on his knees on the floor doing his best to stitch and wrap all the injuries the thing in their bathtub has littering his body.
“Why don’t you take the…” Bucky makes a gesture with his hands, “all the jewelry off?” He finishes. Sam sits back on his ankles, checking over his work. None of the cuts are very deep, thankfully only a couple need stitches. It’s still not something Sam is happy about having to do.
“I… don’t know?” Sam cranes his neck to look back at the man behind him. “I think I don’t want him to be even more scared when he wakes up. This,” Sam gently grabs at elaborate gold chains laying on the man's chest. “Seems to act like a sort of shirt. I don’t want to take his shirt off if I don’t have to, I want to let him keep the modesty he has.” Sam lets go of the chains and goes back to carefully wrapping the man’s arm in gauze. Bucky just nods and continues watching, eyes tracing the scars already littering the man’s body.
“Do you think he’s going to be angry?” Bucky asks after another minute. Sam finally sits all the way down, done with patching the merthing up as best he can. He shrugs.
“Why would he?” He asks, starting to wash his hands in the tub and wipe them dry on his sweatpants.
“Why wouldn’t he?” Bucky asks in return. They exchange a look, Bucky sighs. “Maybe angry isn’t the right word- in my experience fear turns into anger… Or hostility is the word I’m looking for. I mean- the last thing he probably remembers is being in the water injured, then he’s going to wake up in a confined space with two dudes watching him… that would scare the shit out of me pretty thoroughly. So, I assume he’ll be a bit… hostile.”
“Yeah, that’s a good point.” Sam scoots back from the tub a bit, resting his shoulder and head against Bucky’s leg and sighing. This has been a long night already and they haven’t even had dinner. Should they wait for their visitor to wake to eat? Does it matter? Will this thing even speak English? If it doesn’t, Sam knows French and Spanish and Bucky knows those two along with German and Russian… They should be fine. Unless it speaks some sort of mythical language no one knows. That would be unfortunate.
“When do we eat?” Bucky asks, Sam can’t stop himself from laughing. “What? It’s a valid question! I like spaghetti.” Bucky says, crossing his arms but quickly moving his arm down so he can run at Sam’s head.
“I’m not laughing at you, I’m laughing because I was wondering the same thing. Do we wait for our guest to wake up?”
“I don’t know… Mostly because I don’t know when he’ll wake up. And if he doesn’t wake up in under an hour I say we eat without him.” Sam snorts, fair enough.
“Give it five more minutes, I don’t want to get up.” Bucky laughs and continues petting his Sam at his side. They both watch the thing in their tub breathe, not that it’s the most entertaining thing in the world… but what if they look away and he stops breathing? Sam assumes Bucky will stay in here while he makes dinner. “You’ll stay in here while I cook?” He asks, never hurts to be sure.
“Yeah, I assumed that’s what I and you would both want me to do.” Bucky answers, Sam nods. “It’s not like he’s ugly.”
“What?”
“Well, I mean not that I want to watch him sleep- if sleep is what you would even call it- but if I have to then it’s not like he’s bad to look at. Right?” Bucky rambles in record time. Sam just rolls his eyes fondly. Sure, he’s not bad to look at, tail and all. In fact, now that they’re both just sitting here really looking at the thing, he’s really quite pretty.
His tail is quite long- longer than a normal person's legs for sure- if Sam had to guess he would say at least three feet, probably three and a half or four from where it joins his torso to the tip of the fin at the end. And it’s a nice ombre of a deep purple to a golden yellow. The gold of his tail matches the amount of accessories the man is sporting. Going from the belt around his waist (that held a sword that Sam and Bucky agreed would sit off to the side for now), the bracers on his arms, the chains weaved together acting as a shirt, and the accents in the purple shelled crown that was sitting on his head (and is now sitting on the counter so his head can relax safely against the wall.) Not to mention the purple scales that wrap up his wrists shortly and pop up in spots along his arms and shoulders, the purple fins that surround his ears, and the transparent purple membrane between his fingers… Yeah, he’s interesting and very nice to look at. Sam does wonder about the crown.
“You think the crown means he’s mermaid royalty?” Sam asks, sitting up and stretching his back, arms above his head. Bucky huffs a laugh.
“What, like in the Barbie movie?” He asks, smirking. Sam nods, exactly like that. Bucky shrugs, “Maybe.” Hm. It might get a little fishy- pun intended- if they’re housing mermaid royalty in their bathtub. Hopefully him being in their bathtub isn’t seen as an insult. Sam thinks briefly if he were mermaid royalty he would see being thrown in a small human-sized bathtub as an insult. Uh oh. Hopefully them trying to help doesn’t end up in war.
“I’m gonna go cook.” He says instead, standing up so he doesn’t get stuck in his thoughts anymore. “Spaghetti still good?”
“I said that earlier.” Bucky responds, looking up at Sam with the grossest smile Sam has ever seen. Steve would say that Bucky was smitten with him, but Sam didn’t believe it until he caught Bucky looking at him one day with that exact smile. Disgusting. (Sam can’t stop himself from grinning like an idiot back.) “I like spaghetti.”
“Uh-huh.” Sam walks out the door, leaving Bucky with their new fish friend. It’ll probably be fine.