Moving Out

By the time they’d found the only pet supply store open within thirty miles of their house and then grabbed dinner from the Thai place nearby, it was nearly pitch black outside. The days kept ending faster and faster the further they got into fall, leaving Bucky disoriented at how little time he really has to get things together.

But it wasn’t like he could skip the pet store tonight. Not after RJ conned him into bringing that damn cat back to their house.

RJ had half-dragged his father down the gravel road that winded through their small neighborhood towards the main road where his bus stop was. They both walked straight into the yard of a condemned house with busted out windows and jungle grass crowding the yard and weaving its way through the chain links of a rusty, gnarled fence surrounding the property. It wasn’t difficult to find the dusty white kitten, not with the way it was crying out pitifully as it tried to wiggle its bottom half out from under the bottom of the fence. 

Both of them had squatted down in front of the fence, Bucky trying to assess the situation while RJ cooed at the small kitten, patting her tiny little head soothingly. The poor thing was scrabbling at the dirt with a single muddy paw, unable to drag herself out from under the fence like she would have been able to, had she had two front legs. 

“Oh wow! One arm!” RJ gasped, laying it on a little too thick. “What a coincidence! D’you think it’s fate, dad?”

“Uh-huh, sure,” Bucky rolled his eyes as he tugged the bottom of the gnarled fence up so his son could gently scoop the kitten out from underneath and cradle her to his chest. The tiny animal quieted almost instantly, staring up at Bucky with wide, blue eyes.

“Dad, we HAVEto keep her,” RJ whined, turning his own sad, brown eyes to Bucky. How could he evenTHINK with the both of them staring up at him like that?

Bucky glanced away, unsure of what to say to his son, and that was all it took for RJ’s bottom lip to start wobbling a little too realistically for puppy-dog eyes. The poor kid had to be exhausted after today. Yesterday they had said goodbye to the only home RJ had ever known, he’d had to leave his childhood friends, his hometown. Then today he’d had his first day in a new school, a new MIDDLE SCHOOL, as if being new wasn’t bad enough on it’s own. These last three months had been hard, and RJ had been steady through it all. Through his dad losing an arm, through his dad losing his job, through them moving them the next state over, all of it, and he’d hardly asked for anything.

So, really, what else could Bucky do besides smile softly and ask, “Got any good name ideas?”

It had been the right decision, if not for the way RJ’s face completely lit up upon seeing the kitten waiting at the door when he came home from school, then for the adorable, shrill mews that came from the large cardboard box he’d placed her in when he was repainting the living room that morning.

The newly named ‘Winter’ is absolutely darling. She’s a bit wobbly from the combination of her kitten clumsiness and the missing leg, but it doesn’t stop her from wildly attacking the feather toy RJ drags across the kitchen floor while Bucky cooks dinner Thursday night.

“Can I bring Winter into my room tonight?” RJ asks through his giggling over the way the kitten hops up on her hindlegs to swat at her toy.

“Sure, but you know you can’t let her sleep in your bed, right?” Bucky hums as he drains the spaghetti noodles, the boiling pasta water pouring straight down the sink drain with ease. RJ groans loudly and as drawn out as he can manage. “Don’t give me any of that, boy. Your bed’s too high off the ground for her, she’d be stuck.”

“Not if I wake up and just put her on the ground,” RJ pouts as Winter gives up on the feathers and takes to attacking his hand, tiny kitten teeth gnawing at his index finger. 

“Okay, sure,” Bucky shrugs causally. “And when she pees in your bed?”

“FINE! You win, you greedy cat hog,” RJ huffs, rolling onto his back and letting Winter claw her way up to sit on top of his chest.

Bucky snorts and rolls his eyes. “She’s all yours when she’s big enough to climb all the furniture. Dinner’s ready, grab some plates outta the kitchen box,” He instructs, pointing to the stack of cardboard boxes lining the dining room wall. 

RJ did as he was told, Winter nipping at his heels as he crossed the kitchen towards the open box of dishes they’d been grabbing things out of the last few days. 

“Ugh, dad, they’re all gross and dusty,” RJ’s nose wrinkled in disgust as he grabbed two plates and brought them back to his father who was turning the burner off.

“Alright, princess, lemme rinse em off for you,” Bucky teased, although the plates were pretty dusty. They’d been using paper plates for the last three weeks while they were getting ready for the move, so these were well overdue for a good wash. “Go get Winter food while I do that?”

With a quick nod, RJ ran to the pantry where they kept the cans of wet food, the kitten still following him like a shadow. Bucky set the plates at the bottom of the sink, staring at the drain as if daring it to start something today. The pasta water had gone down without a hitch, but he hadn’t made a second attempt at the necklace he’d found in the drain since Monday afternoon. Before he could work himself up about it, he turned the water on, holding up the first plate to rinse the dust off of it. 

He managed to rinse and scrub both plates without any problems, the tap water gurgling down with ease. Like there’d never been a problem to begin with. Bucky rolled his eyes, setting the dishes on a hand towel.

“This stuff smells gross,” RJ laughs from where he’s watching Winter devour the can-shaped lump of fancy feast out of a food bowl.

“I dare you to eat some,” Bucky grins, drying off the dishes with the folded-up edge of the towel.

“What!?” RJ exclaims, making Winter mewl grumpily in protest of her interrupted meal. The preteen reaches down to pat her head. “No way, if I did that my breath might smell as bad as yours!”

“Excuse you??” Bucky barked out a surprised laugh, whipping around to glare at his little shit son. “That’s it. Find something else to eat for dinner, spaghetti’s just for me.”

“I take it back! I take it back!!”

-

The last four days had been filled with work. It was an old house, way older than Bucky, maybe even older than his parents. He knew that when he signed for the mortgage, knew that it would take a bit of work to get it in decent shape. In all honesty, the place was in better condition than it could’ve been for a house that’d been all but abandoned for the last ten years, but it was still a lot of work for just one man. One man with one arm.

And maybe that had been Bucky’s fault, still thinking like everything was normal, that he could handle all these things on his own. It was easy to forget while sitting at the dinner table with RJ, laughing and eating when his son asks him to pass him a napkin and reaching out for it with a left arm that wasn’t there.

It was a constant battle. Filling the holes in the wall took three times as long as it should have. The boxes took forever to be emptied because he couldn’t lift them on his own. For fuck’s sake, he couldn’t even hold a dish up and wash it at the same time. Thanks to whoever installed a dishwasher in this hell house, or they’d be drowning in dirty dishes.

But it was fine, Bucky was coping, or he would learn to. 

Regardless of how well he was really keeping it together, Bucky was dead tired. Every night since they moved in he’d barely stayed awake through his shower and fell straight into bed after checking that Winter had a bowl of water and a clean litter box.

Tonight was no exception.

So, imagine, how aggravating it was to wake up at just half past midnight to the sound of scratching against his closet door.

Bucky groans, thinking of a million curse words to describe just how pleased he is to be awake in the middle of the night, and buries his face into his pillow. His plan of waiting for the scratching to stop proved pointless, as every time the scratching dies off it starts back up just as he begins to fall asleep.

“Winter, please stop,” Bucky grumbles after the third round of ear grating scritching against wood. The sound stops immediately. With a content sigh, he snuggles back down into his bed, trying to get comfy. Exhaustion filled every weary bone in his body, it wasn’t hard to close his eyes and slowly start drifting off, warm and cozy and-

scritchscritchscritch

“God fucking dammit!” He grumbles, kicking off his sheets and stumbling out of bed. “It’s ass o’clock Friday morning, cat, please give it a rest.” Assuming Winter accidentally shut herself in the closet while he slept, he tears the door open, the scratching dying off abruptly.

It’s dark inside the closet, the dim moonlight streaming in through the window blocked by the shadow of the open door. Bucky doesn’t see Winter lurking underneath the cuffs of the jeans hanging from the rack, but he does hear a shrill mew from under his bed.

Turning around, it’s easy to spot the shock white cat curled into a tight ball between the head of his bed and his night stand.

“How did you…?” Bucky glances at the closet, empty besides his clothes, then back to the wide-eyed cat staring just past him. “What-the-fuck-ever.”

He leaves the door open and falls face first into his bed, promising that he’ll set some rat traps in his closet when the sun’s out. 

The warm feeling of being half asleep is gone though, his room’s cold and no matter how much wriggling he does under the blankets, he can’t seem to chase away the chill. From his bed, the yawning mouth of his closet is even more pitch black. Bucky tries closing his eyes tight against it, but can’t get rid of the feeling of being watched.

It’s like that for hours, restless tossing and turning where every creak and groan from the old house brings him back to wakefulness. Then it’s six in the morning and he can hear RJ getting ready for school down the hall.

Groaning, he drags himself out of bed, pulling his bedroom door open and watching as Winter sprints out of his room as fast as her three legs can carry her.

If he can’t sleep he might as well get started on breakfast.

-

Bucky groans dramatically from where he’s strewn across the living room couch. All he managed to get done today was emptying the boxes in the dining room, meaning the kitchen was fully equipped and standing by for a masterpiece to be created within. That is, if Bucky wasn’t dog-tired after a night of shit sleep and a week of busting his ass cleaning this place up. Looks like the pots and pans could wait another night, takeout sounds good right about now.

“RJ! Where you at?” Bucky called out, voice echoing through the hall and empty foyer.

RJ had just gotten home from school and had asked if they could watch Jurassic World for what was probably the 5th time this month. When Bucky agreed, the boy practically sprinted up the stairs to get the DVD out of his laptop. That’d been nearly ten minutes ago and now he was starting to wonder if the kid had gotten lost.

“My room!” RJ calls back, voice tiny from upstairs.

Bucky heaves himself off the couch with a loud grunt, instantly missing the warmth from where he’d wedged himself into the seam of the couch. It’s worth it for pizza, he tells himself as he shuffles up the stairs to where he can hear giggling from RJ’s room. Curious, he pauses before entering his son’s bedroom, leaning against the door frame.

RJ is sitting on the floor rolling a small jingly cat toy underneath his bed, still quietly laughing.

“You good, goob?” Bucky asks, raising an eyebrow at his patiently waiting son.

“No, no, look!” RJ shushes his dad while waving a hand at him, not taking his eyes away from the shadows under his bed. They wait in silence for another ten seconds before the cat toy rolls right back out and bumps into RJ’s legs. “Winter and I are playing ball!”

“Uh-huh, I see,’ Bucky snorts, watching as RJ bats the jingly, little ball right back under the bed. “You made any friends at school yet?”

RJ’s smile falls off his face, replaced with a look of teenage exasperation that takes Bucky by surprise. 

“Dad, I’m fine. Can’t I just be excited about my first pet for five minutes?” He rolls his eyes and catches the sparkly toy when it lazily rolls back out from under the bed. Taken aback by the abrupt change in attitude from his son, Bucky changes tactics.

“I just came up to ask if you wanted to get pizza for dinner tonight,” Bucky asks gently. RJ continues to hit the cat toy back and catch it when it rolls back. “It’s the only place that delivers this far out into the country.”

“That’s fine, dad,” RJ responds, refusing to look at his dad, eyes trained on the ball going back and forth between him and the bed.

“I’ll get our usual,” Bucky nods, not sure how to act when his son gets like this. It’s all new, and he has no way of telling if it’s the usual teenage angst or all the change in his life as of late. Either way, Bucky misses his sweet boy and feels like an asshole for making him upset in the first place. “We still watching Jurassic World?”

“Yeah, I’ll be down in a second.”

That’s definitely his cue to leave. Bucky nods, sparing one last glance at the cat toy speeding out from the shadows of the bed, then heads back downstairs.

He is wholly unprepared to deal with teenage angst, especially not on his own. Objectively, he knows he’s honestly lucky he’s gone as long as he has without a meltdown, but most days it feels like a guessing game whether or not he’ll say something to upset his son. As RJ’s only parent, he’s supposed to have all the answers, but Bucky’s making this up as he goes along, with only the odd bit of unhelpful advice from his own parents. (He loves his parents, don’t get him wrong, but they made PLENTY of mistakes of their own that Bucky isn’t keen on repeating. Breaking the cycle and all.)

Bucky rubs his right temple tiredly, trying to push back the growing ache building behind his eyes. He flops back onto the couch, nearly jumping right back up when Winter scrambles out from underneath it.

“Jesus, fuck, Winter!” Bucky wheezes, grasping at his chest like that might stop his heart from racing. “Winter? Weren’t you ju-”

“I got the movie, did you order the pizza yet?” RJ asks as he comes down the stairs. 

Bucky glances from his son back to where Winter had bolted into the kitchen and out of sight. She must have come downstairs after him and he was too stuck in his own head to realize. God, he could use a nap right about now.

“No, not yet. You want something different than pepperoni?” Bucky stands back up from the couch as RJ turns the DVD player on.

“Can we get supreme this time? I got pepperoni pizza at lunch today.”

“Sure thing, booger boy. Lemme go call the place.”

By the time he’s dug through the honestly impressive stack of takeout menus they’ve accumulated through the week and orders a large supreme pizza, the once sunny afternoon is slowly clouding over. Thunder rumbles ominously overhead and the fat grey clouds above look fit to burst any second. Bucky’s starting to feel bad about ordering delivery when there’s a storm brewing, but before he can bend himself out of shape, RJ’s calling him into the living room. The movie’s started.

The pizza’s alright, the movie is good, RJ’s mood gets better. The evening isn’t a total bust despite that ten minutes after they settle in with their dinner it starts pouring buckets outside. It’s almost eight by the time they finish the movie and RJ groans and complains enough to convince his dad to watch the second movie, Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom. Then it’s pushing ten when the credits roll and Bucky has been half asleep for over an hour.

“Agh! These movies never get old!” RJ gushes, bouncing on the couch in excitement. Much too lively for this time of night, if you ask Bucky. “I can’t wait for the third Jurassic World movie, how ‘bout you dad? Dad??”

Instead of responding, Bucky closes his eyes and flops over onto his son, pushing him into the arm of the couch with a loud, fake snore. 

“Nooo! You’re crushing me!!” RJ yelps, smacking at his dad’s shoulder and trying to squirm out from underneath him where he continues to snore in his ear. “Winter! Save me!”

Winter gives an unimpressed mew from where she’s curled up in the recliner.

“Your knight in shining armor, huh, kid?” Bucky grins, watching as the kitten yawns and buries her head into her front paws.

“She’s a ferocious beast, actually,” RJ rolls his eyes. “Show some respect, dad.”

With a snort, Bucky stops smothering his son and groans dramatically as he stands up from the couch, his knees cracking loudly enough to catch RJ’s attention.

“Not a word from the peanut gallery.”

“Getting pretty old, huh, dad?”

“What did I literally just say?” Bucky scoffed, swatting at RJ’s shoulder and making the boy giggle as he ducked out of reach. The boy slides from the couch and scoops up Winter from the armchair.

“I wasn’t sure if you could hear me, old man,” RJ is wisely backing away from his dad, walking backwards out of the living room.

“Oh, wowww,” It was a struggle not to laugh at his son’s antics and feign annoyance. “Y’know what? Just for that you can deal with Winter tonight. Have her scratching at your closet door all night instead of mine.”

“Yes!!” RJ cheered, making Winter growl in protest from his arms. “We can have a boy’s night, Winter. Just me and you.”

“Winter’s a girl, goob.”

“She’s one of the boys, don’t be rude,” RJ rolls his eyes like it’s obvious before running back into the living room to give his dad a quick hug. “Thanks, dad. Goodnight!”

“Night, booger boy,” Bucky grunts back, barely getting the chance to pat his son on the back before he’s bolted out of the living room and up the stairs towards his own. This arrangement will probably benefit everyone and maybe Bucky will actually be able to get some sleep tonight.

Vowing to shower in the morning, he falls into bed and hopes he’ll fall asleep quickly.

-

“Dad, don’t get mad at me but I think the washing machine is broken,” RJ says meekly from where he’s peeking in through Bucky’s cracked bedroom door.

“Broken how?” Bucky rasps, trying to unwrap stiff limbs from the sheets he’s tangled in. A glance at his alarm clock shows it’s only a couple minutes past eight, meaning he got a grand total of three and a half hours of sleep last night. His spine pops loudly when he straightens up and three other joints crack when he stumbles out of bed, making RJ wince.

“You sound like a bowl of rice krispies,” RJ ducks under the glare his father sends him at that comment. “And I don’t know, when I try to run the machine it just beeps at me. I’m sorry for waking you up, I thought I could do it myself.”

“I’m not mad at your RJ. I just didn’t get much sleep last night, is all. Don’t mind me being a grumpy, old man,” Bucky rubs his son’s back comfortingly, waiting for a small smile before gesturing towards the stairs. “Now let’s go see what the problem is.”

Bucky follows his son down the stairs and into the foyer and then into the basement. The door to which was swung wide open without the box of books he’d put in front of it after the garbage disposal incident on Monday. Outside the sun is shining bright, warming the house, it’s shaping up to be a beautiful day. None of it touches the basement, which practically radiates a chill the second you step out onto the staircase.

Before buying the house, the realtor had warned there had been some water damage in the basement and that it was prone to flooding. At the time, Bucky hadn’t thought twice about it. They were on the coast, of course there would be mild flooding, he’d deal with it as it comes. What he didn’t expect was that he’d have to deal with it so soon.

As soon as he finishes descending into the basement, the problem is immediately visible in the form of a murky puddle, slowly spreading out from underneath the washing machine.

“I thought you said it just wasn’t starting?” Bucky murmurs, kneeling down next to the machine, trying to see where the water was coming from.

“There wasn’t any puddle when I was down here!” RJ insists, shifting nervously. “There wasn’t any - maybe it...I probably just didn’t see it, it’s dark down here.”

It was dark. The only lighting they had to work with down there was a single light bulb and a worn pull string in the center of the small room. Come to think of it, this was more a cellar than a basement, what with how small it was compared to how big the ground floor was. Brushing the thought aside, Bucky gets down lower beside the washer and tries to peer into the gap between the wall and the machine. 

“I think the leak’s coming from the back,” Bucky mumbles before glancing up to his son who’s still anxiously standing towards the bottom of the stairs. “Grab me a flashlight?”

RJ bolts up the stairs before Bucky’s even finished asking and Bucky would laugh if he didn’t want to be down here either. His knees were already chilled from where the bitter cold of the concrete floor had seeped through his pajama pants. He stood back up, giving the washing machine another onceover before deciding he’d try and wiggle the washer away from the wall. 

Figuring the best way to handle this is by pushing with the washer with his left hip and brace against the wall with his right hand, he wiggles his left foot in between the machine and the concrete wall behind it. Bucky grimaces as his foot lands right in the middle of the sludgey puddle that’s slowly inching its way across the basement floor.

“What is this shit?” Bucky hisses to himself as he manages to push the washer far enough away that he can immediately see the problem.

There was an outlet hidden by the washing machine along with a decades worth of spider webs and dust bunnies. Most alarming is the viscous grey slime leaking out from the bottom socket of the outlet, oozing out and down the stained concrete wall into a disgusting puddle that Bucky still has his foot in.

“Are you fucking kididng me?!” Bucky groans, trying to shake what wall sludge he can off of his foot. “First the fucking holes in the wall, then the stupid garbage disposal, and now this fucking basement from hell. Can’t catch a God damn break this year.”

Stomping across the basement, leaving a single wet footprint on the hideous woven rug the old owners had left behind, he starts digging through the laundry basket RJ had brought down for an old towel. 

He didn’t notice it at first, the creeping sensation that crawled up his spine. The same feeling that he’d felt when he stuck his hand down the drain on Monday, the same feeling that he felt staring into the open closet Thursday night, the feeling that’d kept him up tossing and turning and sweating last night. His aggressive digging through the basket slowed to a stop. Bucky hadn’t been able to place the feeling before, but standing with his back to the basement he knew what it was with absolute certainty.

He was being watched.

Bucky spun around quickly, his limbs feeling heavy and awkward and cold. The basement was still empty except for him. From the other side of the room he watched as more grey sludge bubbled out from the outlet.

Shaking his head, Bucky tried to will his uncooperative feet to turn around so he could find a towel. Every cell in his body was telling him not to turn around. 

‘There’s nothing there,’ Bucky thought to himself. ‘I’m exhausted after a week of work and little sleep. The move’s been stressful. I’m still healing from the accident. There’s nothing there.”

Without looking away from the wall socket, he grabs the top piece of clothing from the basket, figuring it’s already dirty so what does it matter? Reluctantly he tears his eyes away from the outlet and starts briskly wiping the grey residue the puddle had left on his foot, every second not looking across the room increasing the feeling of doom in his chest. It’s so cold he can see his breath. Over the sound of his heavy breathing there’s a soft noise. A noise like dress shoes on concrete. There’s a shadow in the corner of his eye and he jerks upright, stumbling backwards and hitting the concrete wall behind him roughly.

“Dad? Are you okay?” RJ asks, brows knitted together in concern where he stands in front of him. “I couldn’t find any flashlights, I’m sorry.”

“I’m...it’s fine, RJ,” Bucky tries to catch his breath, heart pounding in his chest. It had just been RJ, there was nobody else in the room. He ignores the fact that RJ’s barefoot and the figure he’d seen had been much larger. He needs a good night of sleep. Maybe some motrin for the pounding in the back of his skull. “That’s fine. I found the problem anyway.”

RJ looks back to the washing machine and makes a disgusted noise similar to the one Bucky had made earlier.

“I didn’t know outlets could leak,” RJ wrinkles his nose in distaste. “How do you even fix that?”

“No clue. I guess I’ll have to call someone. An electrician?” Bucky wonders aloud as he hits the lights and starts to usher RJ back upstairs. The exhaustion’s sinking in hard and Bucky’s not going to feel better until he’s laying on the couch and the basement doors closed up with the heavy box of books shoved in front of it. “Maybe a plumber?”

“The basement creeps me out,” RJ admits sheepishly once they’re well out of there and Bucky’s toeing the books back into place.

“Me too,” Bucky chuckles, trying to stop thinking about the feeling he got down there. “But it’s just a basement. Nothing to be scared of besides maybe some gross wall slime.”

“Ugh, yeah. I can’t believe you stepped in it,” RJ fake gags and clutches his throat theatrically. “I’d go sterilize that if I were you.”

“Oh, what? You don’t like the slime?” Bucky feigns surprise, steadily creeping towards his son. “‘Cause that’s what’s for dinner tonight!” He lunges at RJ, only for the boy to duck out of his grasp at the last second. 

“You’ll never catch me alive!” RJ yells as he bolts through the foyer and the living room and slips out the backdoor. Bucky gives one last glance to the firmly shut basement door. The box keeping the door shut feels very much like putting a band-aid on a bullet wound, but at least he got RJ to stop worrying about it. Taking a deep breath, he plasters a smirk on his face and chases after his son.

“Who said anything about catching you alive?!”