Chapter 4
He sits on the bed silently while you try to clean his wounds as best you can without alcohol and bandages. You’ve rinsed the cuts and gashes with the rest of your water, and then ripped little pieces of the thin white sheet on the bed to dress them. It wasn’t of much use against the cold anyway.
He seems to be doing better, if not okay yet. You watch him carefully as he sits on the bed, blood dripping slowly onto the floor with a steady pittering sound. His expression is neutral, but there’s a fragility to it that wasn’t there before. He looks almost tired, resigned, instead of the tight mask of emptiness you were used to from him.
From Bucky.
What a strange name, you think. He sits there, bruised and bleeding, long dirty hair hanging over his eyes, looking both like a dangerous man and a scared boy. The name doesn’t fit, somehow. But it makes him more human.
Maybe that’s why you decide to get up and sit next to him, instead of just crouching in front of him a safe distance away. He lets you, merely glancing at you out of the corner of his eyes and then looking ahead again. The blood is seeping through the cloth already, dying it a deep crimson.
You fidget. He glances at you again.
“When I was six I fell off a tree” it’s a dumb thing to say, but you’ve already opened your mouth and the silence is already broken, it feels terrifying to try and stop the tension from taking the words from you like it’s pulling on a string. You tilt your head as you tie a knot on a makeshift bandage “hit every single branch on the way down and then just lay there for like twenty minutes.” You huff in amusement at the memory. You reach for Bucky’s arm and he gives it easily. “I didn’t start crying until my mom asked me what happened. And then she wrapped me up in bandages until I looked like a mummy, I’m sure she was secretly laughing at me.”
“Hm” Bucky says.
You exhale heavily and tie one last knot on the piece of cloth around his arm.
“I don’t remember…” when you look at him his brow is tightly furrowed, you pull your hands back in and onto your lap, but keep looking at him in case he decides to speak again.
He takes so long that you start to think maybe he won’t.
“I was opening a letter, I think. And I was having a hard time reading it because I only had a small candle lit, and it was burning down to a stump” he’s talking a bit faster now, but his voice still sounds rough and unused. “But I couldn’t read by daylight because I had work, and if I left it there then Steve would see, I don’t even remember what it said but I- I burnt it the letter. I stared at the fire until it singed my fingertips. It looked so red, like…” his head swivels around, looking at the room, but everything is dull and gray. He twists to his side, pauses to look down at his metal arm and scowls. Then he sits straight again, his mouth stays shut.
“Who’s Steve?” You whisper, when it’s clear he won’t speak again.
He looks startled. His brow furrows darkly again.
“Dunno”