Steve had wondered what would come after death. He’d always been curious. Who wasn’t? It was inevitable, something that was coming no matter what. Unavoidable, inescapable, ever looming. Living the life he did, there was always the chance he would discover the mystery sooner rather than later. He’d come close so many times; he’d thought he’d died more than once.
In the ice was the closest he’d ever felt to it. He thinks, sometimes, that he’d been so close that on nights so dark and so cold he could still remember the taste of it, the feel of it crawling over his skin. He’s still not sure if the freezing, bone-numbing cold he’d felt had been a result of the ice or the numbing grip death had had on him. The only thing he’d ever been sure of was that he’d find out one day.
Despite the many brushes with death he’d experienced, somehow he’d still not expected it to come like this, or this soon. Trying to stop an evil sentient robot from destroying the world was not what he had ever expected to see written on his gravestone. In the beginning, he’d always thought it would read something like useless lungs finally gave up or got punched in the head too hard this time. Later he’d anticipated a KIA headstone, or something along those lines. In the future, he hadn’t even really had time to think about it.
Now, falling to his death, watching robots swarm Sokovia above him, he has time to fear what will come after. Because—God, not even his body can survive this, surely? He’s going to die, and he’s not even said goodbye to anyone, and what will happen to the world without him and—and he never found Bucky, did he?
It hits him, like shards of razor-blade ice right through the chest, that he’s going to die before he’s told Bucky he loves him. Before he’s cupped Bucky’s face in his hands and pressed kisses to his skin, before he’s whispered everything he loves about Bucky in his ear, before he’s held him close and listened to whatever Bucky was willing to tell him about what happened.
He wonders, briefly, if this is what Bucky had felt when he fell. If these thoughts had ever passed through his mind; if he’d bemoaned his regrets even as death rushed up to meet him.
As his body careens towards Earth, all he thinks of is Bucky. He finds he doesn’t fear what comes after, because every thought he has is regret for what he didn’t do. He dies crying. He dies with Bucky’s name on his lips. He dies before he can even feel the pain, the crushing terror or his body folding in on itself, the agony of each and every one of his bones snapping and his blood becoming one with the forest floor.
He...he dies.
He should have known, after the life he’s lived, that even death was never going to just be that simple.
*
Some people, when they die, have unfinished business. They might be tied to the place they died, or a moment in their past, or a person. Some people are able to pass right on—onto what, no one knows. No one’s come back to reveal what’s ahead. Those who linger behind either pass on eventually, or fade as the thing they’re tied to fades as well.
Some people become wreaths, ghosts, spirits, poltergeists. They are the deathless death, the unrest, the unfinished. There are countless names for the things people become, the things that the dead appear to the living as. Some are seen, some are felt, some are heard. Some barely exist at all. The thing they all have in common is that they are dead, and they have not let go of life.
Some call this state purgatory, some call it limbo, some call it the inbetween. No one can agree on the name for it, not even that it exists. It is a place of torment, stuck between one place and another, some lost to it, others sure of what they need to do to move on. Some need to complete a task, some need to see a loved one happy before they can go, some need to simply accept they are dead.
Some are simply stuck, terrified and hanging suspended between here and there, confused and aggressive because all they know is that they died in agony and they are still experiencing it. There are echoes of who they once were like slivers of heaven in their chaos-filled minds, anchors to keep them from slipping away entirely.
They are tied to something, perhaps to what killed them, perhaps to their last thought. Perhaps their unfinished business was so great that it latched onto them and created a chain of purpose, but their minds are so scrambled they cannot possibly work towards fulfilling whatever is keeping them from moving on.
They may be tied to someone, and in this case their terror, their agony, their confusion is felt double, because they will rain all of it down on the person they are tied to. They will be unable to communicate with words, left to wreck havoc and induce fear, because their anchor, their person, will have no idea what to do. They may not even know what is happening. They may not even recognise who is haunting them, unintentionally torturing them, begging them to help.
There are rare cases of this, all of them horrid, all of them wrought with sorrow and despair. Each and every documented case ends one of two ways; either a professional is called in to dispel the dead, to tear what remains of them from their anchor and leave them to their fate, or the living kills themselves.
No one knows what happens if the anchor—the living—dies, only that it can be nothing good. All that is left of them are bones, burned or frozen, ash or whole. The remains are buried far away where the terror, the agony, the darkness that lays in them can touch no one.
Some people, when they die, have unfinished business. Each and every one of these people, and whatever they become, whatever in between they go to, wishes they had died with no regrets. Because what comes after is worse than any consequence they could have suffered while they were alive.
*
All he knows in the moment he regains what could be sneeringly called consciousness, is that he should have tried harder to find Bucky while he was alive. Because this feeling—it is like nothing he has ever experienced before, like no agony he has ever known, like no despair that has ever filled him up and tipped right over, surrounding him, drowning him.
He knows this is death like he knows he had five fingers, when he was alive. He has no shape or form here, no face, no hands, no breath. He struggles to breathe for a long time before he realises he simply cannot. It’s torture; what remains of his mind trying desperately to gasp every time a particularly strong bolt of pain sears through him and not being able to.
He spends unknown lengths of time writhing, knowing nothing but this; ice, confusion, terror.
Ice. Sometimes he gets...flashes. Of sheer ice cracking beneath him, rushing towards him, exploding around him. He thinks...maybe he remembers, maybe what’s left of his mind is trying to make sense of the frost that pumps sluggishly through metaphysical veins in the place of blood. All he knows is that he’s...does he know? What does he know?
Confusion. Cold. He is cold. And..is there a he? He—there is cold. There is pain. There is...agony. This is all there is. It’s dark, too. Lonely. There is nothing but the feeling of...feeling? And then there is no feeling. But not a moment later, or at the same time after an eternity passes, a whirlwind of everything and nothing fills the space that was once...maybe...him.
Terror. Lost. He is lost. That’s it—he just needs to find his way back. Way back where? Well, he doesn’t know, but he knows that there is somewhere he should be, right? But where is that? He doesn’t know. He just has to find it, just has to move forwards and keep himself together until he finds...until he finds…
Finds what? What are you looking for? Well, now he’s just confused again. It’ll come back, surely. He just has to wait. The pain will keep him awake, at least there’s that. But wasn’t...wasn’t he looking for something? What were you looking for? He doesn’t know. He—is there a he? He doesn’t feel awfully real, right now. Now? Are you sure you didn’t feel this before? No—no, he would remember if he knew this feeling, right?
Right? He’d...he’d remember. Remember what? Remember? What is there to remember when there is this pain? This cold? This image of...of...Image? What do you see? Nothing. There is only darkness! Why can’t he see anything? What is happening? Happening? Is there something happening? Oh, no, has it always been like this? Was there nothing before? He feels like there was something before this...this…
This? This...feeling...he can feel, still, can’t he? But, no, there is only pain, pain and—and he remembers blood, he remembers it everywhere, always, a constant. He remembers ice, all around him, inside him, becoming him. He remembers…
Remembers? What do you remember?...Nothing. He remembers nothing. He...he? Remembers? No, no, that’s not right, there was another thought—another thing to focus on, anything but the ice, the pain, the confusion, the darkness, please, please, oh please, no…
*
A swirling maelstrom of equal parts ice and metal; shards of both dig under the spirit-flesh until said flesh melts away. A bone-melting mixture of the two spreads over the metaphysical skeleton until there is nothing left but the screaming remains of a once-human soul. Sensations become a rarity, the senses are barely a memory.
Sight; long gone. Flashes of things like...green, like golden sunlight, and blindly grinning faces. Flashes of things like red, like bloodied teeth and bloodied knuckles and blood dripping from a red-white-and-blue uniform. Flashes of things like hands; trailing fingertips over bare skin, working oil over a gun, washing dirt from underneath fingernails. All of this is ripped away, bit by bit, and nothing is remembered.
Taste; oranges, bananas both wrong and right, pancakes in the morning. Morning breath, someone else's tongue, sweat on skin. Blood, the taste of teeth grinding together, the inside of one's cheek. This all fades and all that’s left is ice that tastes like darkness and darkness that tastes bitter, like ash sticking to the roof of one's mouth. This taste is all that is known, for a short while, is all that can be focused on, until that, too, is ripped away.
Smell; this is perhaps the most confusing, wrapped up so much in taste. It is torn to shreds and forgotten almost at the same time. Wisps of it remain for a few precious seconds; the pancakes, the oranges, the lover. The blood. Blood fills every sense so far, and is the last thing that is remembered as it all washes down the drain; not unlike blood itself, thick and bright.
Touch; wishing this had gone first. There is so much that has been touched, so much that had been physically felt. Pain of all different varieties all over a body that had once been. A staple in a life once lived. Among the pinpricks, the aches, the stabs and the all-consuming, there is pleasure. Eyelashes brushing over a throat, scars felt underneath calloused palms, grass soft beneath bare feet. Blood, again, always, dripping down a chin, an arm, a forehead. It is all felt, and it all goes away until nothing is left but the ice and the pain.
Hearing; like an avalanche, the last sense left crashes down and consumes. Wind ripping past, voices—so many voices—whispering, yelling, laughing. Music. Footsteps. Metal crunching, breaking, bending against ice. Birds, the city, inhales and exhales, and a heart beating strong, pumping blood around the body long gone. All of it goes. Nothing is left but silence and, sometimes, the echoes of a scream.
*
Somewhere far, far away from where the remains of a human soul writhes and screams and loses everything that it once was, lays the body it once inhabited. The body lays crumpled on the forest floor. Woodland creatures crawl over it, beetles and bugs and worms and maggots. Scavengers pick at the rotting meat, take it home to their hungry children to devour.
As time passes, the soil below the body will slowly claim the bones. The leaves that fall from trees above it will cover the ugliness and turn it into new beauty. A cage of ribs will become a home for new grasses to grow. Buttercups will twist through vertebrae, wild thyme will sprout between brittle toes, sweet violet will rest on a breast bone. The body will not belong to anyone but the forest, anymore.
People search for it, despair when they cannot find it. They search when the body is still crumpled but whole enough to recognise, but they do not find it. They will continue to search when the first fox takes a bite, but they will not find it. They will continue to search when the first leaf comes to rest inbetween bared teeth, but they will not find it. They will continue to search until they are unsure what they are searching for, but they will never find it.
They will never find it. It lays undisturbed. It feeds the forest, and will continue to do so. In turn, the forest makes it a promise and holds it close, keeping it safe, should the spirit ever return.
The spirit never will.
One day the body will be forgotten and will become but decomposing bones.
*
It has no idea how long it takes to be ripped to pieces and put back together again. All it knows is that it is wrong. Everything about it is wrong. It was never supposed to be this, never supposed to feel the blackest feelings, never supposed to be the darkest of beings, capable of such chaos and fear.
The first thing it feels in this existence that isn’t all-consuming confusion and agony is...a splash of light against a backdrop of putrid red and mesmerising void-like black. The light brings choir-like quiet, when it focuses on it. It’s like...it is aware of its presence, and it tries to hold onto it, tries to catch it, but the light slips from its grasp before it can really figure out what’s happening.
It feels something, being close to that light. It feels almost...real, instead of this floaty nothing-and-everything. The feeling doesn’t last, and it’s not long until it is consumed by snapping jaws of ice and screaming despair once again.
Time...is not a thing, wherever it is. Time passes, it’s sure of it, but time doesn’t have meaning. Doesn’t make any difference. Time is incomprehensible. Time is something it thinks it may have once understood, back when it was alive. These moments of pondering are a rare clarity that it treasures.
As soon as the moments of clarity are gone, it forgets that it ever experienced them. It forgets that it is an it. All it knows, if such words could be used, is the experience of what’s left of it’s shredded, black hole of a mind being torn into even tinier shreds. It is close to disappearing from existence. This is the one thing it is sure of, in the moments of clarity that dance tantalisingly in around it.
The light returns, sometimes. It’s like a moth to flame, drawn in only to feel the agony of the burn. But at least it feels something, anything apart from being snuffed out of existence. The beauty of being near the light makes returning to the darkness all the worse, of course. This means nothing to it, if it could only experience the light again.
Time passes, or it doesn’t. Sometimes it isn’t even sure if it is.
The light comes. The light goes.
It is. It isn’t.
Light. Dark.
Dark...light.
Slowly, the light brings things back to it’s awareness. The light brings...him. It brings him. In the moments of clarity, it realises that it is a him, and that he has a purpose. He needs to hang onto the light with all that he has, which is not very much, and figure out what it is. He needs the light. He craves it, craves everything that it is. Everything that it may or may not mean.
Anything but the darkness, please.
*
The light is not the means to an end. The light...feels, just as keenly as it does. In moments of clarity, it is able to remember that it is a him. The light helps. The light is something important, but not the other side. It’s...it’s something else. Someone else.
He tries to hold onto the moments of clarity with bloodied fingernails, gritted teeth, and sheer force of crumpled will. But the clarity always slips away, down the drain, right out of reach as if it were never there. And the darkness comes back tenfold, sneering with it’s ice-and-agony claws, ready to rip and tear and bite.
He loses himself all over again. It’s worse each and every time. The torture makes seeing the light much better each and every time, relief flooding him like a dam breaking. It has him reeling, whipping back and forth between sugar-sweet light and blood-sour darkness, between knowing and not knowing, between some hint of peace and all-consuming war.
Sometimes he can...hear things. He catches a noise, something that makes him all warm inside, because usually the only sound that surrounds him is that of an avalanche and echoes of his own screaming. Weak and shaky, he tries to hone in on the sound, tries to draw it close to him and hold it, figure out what it is and remember it.
It always, always slips away. Without fail. But it gives him something other than the freezing despair of the darkness. He has two things, now; the light, and sound. Sight and hearing.
*
It seems like the moment he has a solid grasp on those two things, the rest come like an artery exploding. He bleeds out: sight, hearing, touch, taste, and feeling pooling around him and drowning him, suffocating him. He loses time again, if he ever had it, and when he crawls out of the pit of torture back into clarity, he is so bruised and battered he hardly realises he can think.
He sees. He blinks open...not eyes, but he is aware of light around him, and he sees...a room. He is in a room. Something about it has him wary, as though he’s done this before and nothing good has come of it. Like a trick. And—could it be a trick? Surely, in this state, there could never be anything as good as this.
He realises what he’s seeing is sunlight dancing across carpet sometime later, after he’s been staring at it for who knows how long. The realisation has him stumbling, reeling, and from behind him something smashes, the sound—
Oh the sound. It’s loud and sudden, and it has him flinching away, and he’s so much more confused than he ever was when he was losing himself. He’d been torn apart, stripped down to nothing but a wisp of pain, and he’d clawed and fought his way back to existing in...some form. Whatever he is now, he’s fought for it.
And he can hear. And he can see. He looks behind him, the sensation of moving—and, oh, he can feel, he can feel as though on skin the air moving around him as he turns. He is always breathless, but it is but a memory of the torture he’s endured that has him doubling over with the need to breathe now. To gasp, to cry, to hyperventilate. But all of those things are human, something he absolutely isn’t.
He isn’t human.
He looks down at the broken glass he’s somehow knocked off a table, and sinks down to examine it. He isn’t even in a human-like shape, he is more...simply there. He is aware of human reflexes that he remembers, but the shape he is in now cannot reach out and pick at the glass to see if he can still bleed.
It hits him then that while in life he had been constantly surrounded by blood, here and now, wherever and whenever this is, he cannot bleed. And, when had he remembered something from his life? Hadn’t he forgotten everything? He cannot remember his very name, but he can remember the exact colour of blood, can remember it pumping around his body and spilling out over onto the ground.
He thinks that perhaps he loses more time, staring down at the glass thinking about the ways he had bled when still alive. When he looks up, it’s to cast his attention back to the patch of sun, which has moved up the wall. He rises, want filling him up to the brim, threatening to tear him apart. He moves, he does not walk, but he moves over to the sunlight and—
It washes over him, whatever he is, and it burns.
He screams, he screams and he writhes and he is being torn apart and oh no, please, please no, please, anything but that, please don’t take me, don’t—no! Please!
And the darkness, the torture, claims him again, consuming him whole.
*
The next time clarity takes him up in cool, peaceful hands, he takes his time to look around the room he’s in. There’s no sun this time, the room is inky in the dim light, but it is nothing like the darkness he knows.
There is a kitchen pressed up against one wall, a sofa in front of it. There is a counter covered in notebooks and pens and paper and various other items like chocolate bars and plums and bananas. He wants to examine every item, but he turns his attention to the rest of the room first. There is a door leading to what he somehow knows must be a bathroom, and as he makes a slow circle, he finds—
I know him.
He shudders, the thought rippling through him like a wave. There is a man laying on a mattress underneath a window. Blankets are piled over his waist but his chest is bare, revealing the metal of his arm. His face is slack and pressed into a pillow, eyes moving rapidly behind eyelids. He looks tired, even in sleep, and something aches deep inside, like sorrow or despair.
I know him.
He is sure of it. He knew him from when he was alive. And now...that means he’s come to him in death. He’s important then, surely, because why else would death send him here? Why would the darkness ease it’s grip on him to allow him these moments?
He moves closer without thinking, sinking lower to the ground until he is beside the mattress, taking in every eyelash, every freckle, every rise and fall of breath. He watches goose bumps crawl over the man’s flesh, watches his brow furrow in his sleep, watches his lips part like he’s about to say something.
He watches, enraptured, unable and unwilling to look away away. He remembers that last time the pain of the sun had sent him back to the darkness. Right here, in this moment, he feels as though he could never be torn away.
The man that he knows shivers and frowns, and then he’s blinking open eyes and staring right through him. “What the hell?” he mutters, pulling the blankets up over his chest, right up to his chin.
He’s cold. He realises this with a start, moving away the moment it all connects. He is cold, and therefore the man is, too. He is made of ice and terror and pain and darkness, and therefore he is projecting this onto the man simply by being here. As the thoughts spin through him, he grows more and more distressed and he watches the man roll over in the blankets, like he’s trying to create friction to warm up, and then he’s sitting up, he’s frowning, he’s looking directly at—
“Hello?” he asks, and he’s reaching for something, he’s got a gun in his hand, and he looks afraid, he looks terrified.
The darkness swallows him back up before he can cause any more damage to the man he knows.
*
He remembers the taste of oranges, sticky and sweet. He remembers the feeling of sweat dripping down his back. He remembers the smell of toast burning. He remembers the sound of someone’s laugh, bright and delighted. He remembers the sight of a city skyline, an image so familiar he cannot believe he ever forgot it.
He’s not sure how he forgot any of the things he slowly remembers.
The memories return distorted; some stay, some don’t feel quite right, some slip right out of his grasp the moment he gets them. In every moment of clarity he finds himself getting desperate—he cannot remember the room he appears in, he cannot remember the man who lives there even though he knows him, and he cannot remember his own name.
He knows he is dead. He knows that the thing he has become is not good, he knows that him coming back to clarity causes the man pain. He carries ice with him, in him, around him like a cloak. He draws close to the man and the man flinches away, shivering.
It takes him a while to realise that the man appears haunted. Dark circles under his once-bright grey-blue eyes become a normal thing. Shaking hands reaching for a blanket to stay warm, face draining of colour, lips pressing into a thin, bloodless line. These are all normal reactions for when clarity comes knocking.
Thing is, clarity was once a refuge from the darkness. Now? It is slowly becoming just as bad, because whenever he is aware, whenever he is awake, this man that he knows, this man that he cares for for reasons unknown, is in pain. Clarity is trading his pain for another, and he comes to dread both sides of his torturous existence.
The man he knows does not talk again, after that first meeting. He seems to want to, sometimes; he’ll shudder as clarity takes over and open his mouth as though to greet him, but he snaps it shut just as fast.
He’s tired. There’s an unbelievable weight pressing down on his shoulders.
Time passes, both of them dancing around each other, both of them wanting the dead to go and never come back. But...there is reluctance, in both of them. They are drawn to each other, despite the ice, despite the pain, despite being dead and alive. And they cannot stop coming back to each other.
The man he knows speaks to him, after a series of moments of clarity. “I’m Bucky,” he says. “And I know you might not remember me, but—God,” is all he says, and then he doesn’t speak again. He—Bucky—leaves the room and he, ghostly, undeath, once-human, is left crumpled in a corner.
He is left screaming, sobbing, clutching at straws and threads of memory because that name—
He knows him. He knows Bucky. He knows him and he cannot remember him but if he is here, if this is where death brought him then Bucky is important, he is so important, he is what is holding him to this Earth, to this torturous state and he cannot remember him.
He practically thanks the darkness now, as it takes him and rips him to pieces all over again. At least he doesn’t have to think, when he’s being tortured. All he has to do is endure.
*
Some people, when they die, have unfinished business. They are known by many names, but one thing that is known for sure is that if one comes to you, you are doomed. There are books, blogs, professionals that all have opinions on what can help, what can make the time you have left easier. It’s not fair, for the dead or the living, to suffer what they will, but there is advice out there on what can be done to help.
Kindness; this is a risky one, but everything about life with the dead is risky. Kindness could help, or could turn the dead into a cloud of rage, like smog filling a room and suffocating everything in it. Never tell the dead their name. This is a surefire way to join them, and join them quick. Small things; stories, your name, music. These things could help, or could hinder.
Aggression; sometimes the dead respond well to aggression. In this existence, as they are, all they know is that they are dead and that they are in pain. They remember nothing else. Keeping things within what they know, telling them to leave, yelling at them, screaming at them about how much pain they’re causing you, could help. Or it could hinder.
Ignorance; ignoring them will either be good for the both of you, or could simply make the dead try and get your attention by means of violence. It might make them give up and calm down, leave you alone, or it might make them angry and send them into a fury, trying anything and everything to get your attention. It could help, or it could hinder.
There aren’t many other things that could help. Anything else has proved, quite simply, to speed up an inevitable process. The dead are dangerous, they are echoes of the things they once were. They are not human, they do not recognise when they are causing pain because it is all they know. They live a cursed existence, but they are not immortal. They will fade, or they will go out with a bang and take you wil them.
Some people, when they die, have unfinished business. If these once-people end up with you, the best thing you can do is pray they fade fast, and that you do not suffer too much in the process. No one knows what happens when the dead take the living with them when they go. One thing that is law if you do not want to die; do not tell the dead their name.
*
“I was undone, too. Unmade. I was kept on ice when I wasn’t needed, thawed in the most horrible way wh*en I was. I was volatile, unpredictable in the beginning. I lashed out at any unexpected sound, resorted to violence the moment anyone came near. I was—God. I was so afraid, St—”
Darkness.
“You were in the ice for a long time, too. That’s so weird, ain’t it? That we both spent those years in the ice? I never got to ask you if you remember anything from the ice. I ran. I’m sorry I ran, I just, I didn’t know what to do. I needed time. I wish I’d just gone to you, because now you’re—”
Darkness.
“I think, before, it was warm a lot, wasn’t it? Back...back home. Before the war. Before everything went right to Hell. I can remember flashes, splayed out on hardwood floor, the open window doing nothing. God, everything smelled of sweat for months on end. You struggled with your asthma in summer more than winter. I can’t imagine ever being that warm again. I haven’t been warm in so long, and now you—”
Darkness.
“I wonder if you remember anything. Everything I’ve read, everything I know says that you don’t, but. If you found your way to me, surely—”
Darkness.
“Fuck, why did you have to up and die, huh? I was gonna come find you. I was gonna come home, and you upped and died, fuck, how dare you, and now you’re here but you’re not—”
Darkness.
“I miss you. I’m sorry for yelling. I don’t know where you go when you’re not here, but I can’t help think it ain’t anything good. Whenever you’re here I’m so cold, it’s so painful, I feel like my bones are being broken one by one, but I miss you—”
….I miss you too, Buck.
“St—are you...you’re s-still here? F-fuck, I’m s-so cold, wh-what the h-h-hell,” the man he knows, Bucky, who has been talking to him every time he’s there during moments of clarity. He cannot hold on for very long, and every word feels like the ice is gouging his eyes out, but he craves each and every syllable.
He, the deathless, has been working on drawing closer. Bucky is the light that pulled him from the neverending darkness, the light that continues to do so. He wants to touch, wants to devour Bucky. He wants to wrap him up and keep him forever, craves being near him. He doesn’t know what will happen if he does, but despite the horrible feeling it won’t be good, he cannot help himself. It’s ingrained in him, as much as the pain is now.
“The books s-said t-t-talking would h-help. Is it h-helping? F-fuck, okay, b-b-bud, th-that’s close enough, hey, st-stop, f-fuck, God, s-so cold, stop, pl-please, St—”
The man he knows, the man who is Bucky, the light, flinches away from him. He stops. He’d been unaware he’d gotten this close. Bucky’s skin is shades of ugly purple and blue, mottled over the arm he’d held out as though he could stop him with it.
Something in him wants to laugh, something in him wants to cry. Bucky keeps cutting off his sentences, like he’s holding something back. It’s something important, something that would bring about the means to some kind of end. He quivers with the anger he feels; Bucky has talked about life, about things that have come and gone. He has attempted being kind.
The deathless death wants to rip him to shreds, and he is horrified with himself at the very thought. He backs away, right up against a wall he can never get past and rises up. He begs for darkness, he wants to go, but he’s still looking at Bucky, who is wearing the face of fear.
Bucky looks in his general direction; he cannot see him. “Wh-what are you d-doing?” The words are quiet. The words are afraid. Bucky is afraid.
The deathless death wants nothing more than to disappear forever. He cannot. Instead, he reaches inside what is left of him and screams, the soundless sound erupting in shards of physical ice, ripping through the walls that trap him. Volatile, uncontrollable, driven by insanity.
The ice is the physical manifestation of his pain, his anger, his confusion and desperation. It embeds itself in peeling wallpaper and begins dripping down the walls. Bucky’s face is pale, his lips are blue and he shaking. He is quivering.
The deathless death howls like the wind screeching over Alpine mountains, and the darkness finally, finally takes him. A damnation disguised as a mercy.
*
“Get out! Please, just go, get out of here! Why are you even here? Why didn’t you pass straight on, huh? The hell did you do in your life that made you come here? You don’t deserve this, God, fuck, just get out of—”
But Bucky, you’re all I have. You are the reason I keep coming back to clarity.
“Fuck off! Leave me alone, why are you here? You don’t have to stay! There’s nothing here for you! Stop it, please, you’re torturing me, I can feel your pain, you know that? This is worse than HYDRA, you don’t deserve this—”
I don’t know how to leave, Bucky, if I could I’d leave you alone but I can’t.
“How could I ever have meant this much to you, huh? There’s no way—what unfinished business did you have with me that made you into this? That condemned us to this, this half-life, God, why can’t you have just died and gone—”
I’m so sorry, Bucky, I’m so sorry that I’m hurting you but I don’t know how to leave.
On and on it goes. He comes to clarity and things are spiralling, everything is getting worse. He wakes and there is frost crawling over the walls, he wakes and there are bowls smashing on the floor, he wakes and Bucky is curled in a ball, crying and screaming at him to go, to leave. He doesn’t know how. He doesn’t know how to leave.
Every time it takes him, he thanks the darkness because at least there it’s only him hurting. He watches the circles under Bucky’s eyes grow, watches the weight on his shoulders press him down, watches the weight on his body drop. Bucky becomes haggard, tired and lost and it’s all his fault. He doesn’t know what to do. He can’t stop coming back.
Bucky doesn’t tell him stories anymore. He’s trying a different tactic; aggression. He shouts, he yells, he curses. He cannot keep it up, though, and always ends up a mess and he wants to comfort him so bad but he can’t. He doesn’t even know where the impulse comes from but he holds onto it because it’s something from when he was alive.
Bucky means something so much to him. Bucky is the reason he is trapped here, whatever ‘here’ is. He just wants it to stop. But he doesn’t know how. He starts panicking everytime Bucky yells at him; things break, they smash and they get covered in ice that doesn’t melt. The ice hurts Bucky; he watches his lips turn blue.
And slowly the anger melts away. He watches the fight seep out of Bucky until he’s nothing more than a shell going through the motions, tears pricking at his eyes that freeze before they get the chance to roll down his face. It’s worse than the anger. It feels wrong.
But then again, so does everything.
*
Bucky is ignoring him. Everytime clarity drags him from the depths of darkness, he is kicking and screaming, and ice shatters across the walls. Bucky doesn’t flinch anymore. He barely reacts at all. He wants to leave him be, let him heal, let him rest but he cannot. He does not know how. And in this state, anything he wants is damned to never be.
So he tries to get Bucky’s attention, because he wants—needs— him to react. Somehow, being ignored is a thousand times worse than Bucky yelling at him, because then he feels like he doesn’t exist. But, oh, how he does. He exists in the cruelest way, the most hellish state of being. He is in so much pain. His very excuse for a breath causes him pain, and the worst of it all? He causes Bucky so much pain. He wishes he didn’t exist. It would be so much easier.
Having Bucky acknowledge him would help bear the load of this hellish existence. And that, too, is so very horrible because it’s so selfish. He wants them both to be free of this, wishes himself gone so Bucky can at least try and live some semblance of a life, after he’s torn it to shreds and covered it in ice and sorrow.
But it cannot be. It does not work that way. It is never that easy.
So he tries to gets Bucky’s attention, hating himself every inch of the way. He figures out how to control when he breaks something, when he grabs something, when he follows Bucky around. Soon, he’s breaking glasses and bowls and knocking chairs over in the hope that Bucky will talk to him. He doesn’t know why he’s doing it; he just wants. But Bucky doesn’t acknowledge the things he does, the mess he makes, the noises that are surely disturbing. He doesn’t notice him at all, except for a twist to his lips, a wince here and there, and the ever-present exhaustion written all over him.
He is making this worse for the both of him, he knows, but any moment of clarity he has is clouded with despair and grief. It makes him act out. It makes him spread ice over the walls. It makes him turn hot water freezing. He’s wearing Bucky down, but what will happen when he finally breaks, well. He doesn’t know. But he fears it.
And, oh. How he wants it. Even in the darkness he aches for it.
*
He gets his wish.
He has no idea how long he has been suffering, how long Bucky has been suffering with him. It feels like an eternity; it feels like a blink. Bucky stops ignoring him the next time he comes to clarity, though. It’s both heaven and hell, because, well.
Bucky stands from the couch he’d been on, right after he has stopped him from ripping a book from his hands. Bucky stands, and he looks directly at him, and he has never felt anything like this and he is—he is screaming. Bucky is looking at him and he is screaming. It’s awful, like no sound he’s ever heard, but it is such sweet release to finally be able to voice his agony.
He’s not sure what’s shifted, but Bucky’s taking a step towards him and wincing, and the noise cuts out. And—and Bucky speaks.
“Steve,” he rasps.
And he—and he—no. He can’t take it, that’s not—that can’t be...no. No, it can’t be. No. He is making a wreckage around them, the kitchen utensils wreaking havoc on Bucky’s walls, on his home, and then Bucky’s taking another step forwards and he’s reaching out a hand and he’s crying, they’re both in so much pain and oh God he’s not sure he can do this.
“Steve,” Bucky chokes, the pain rippling through the air, cutting into both of them as Bucky’s skin starts turning purple.
He is torn between embracing Bucky and forcing the darkness to take him so he can get away. He is sobbing, and the battle between decisions ends quickly. He envelopes Bucky and it’s—it’s like coming home, and he’s remembering, there are flashes, and he is dead but he is oh so alive and it hurts. He thought he’d known pain. He wants to laugh at himself.
He rips himself away as Bucky writhes under his touch. “Steve…” Bucky begs, still reaching out to him, and oh God, he’s hurt him so bad, how could he do this to Bucky?
And he can feel Bucky’s pain, suddenly. He can feel it as clear and as strong as his own. It overwhelms him, washes over him like as fresh wave of saltwater, cleansing him inside out. He feels apart of Bucky, in this moment, feels like there is nothing else in this world but them and the pain they feel together.
And then he gasps, and is nearly shredded to pieces at the feeling of taking a breath. He’s breathing and he’s crying and Bucky’s calling him by...by...oh. His name. He has a name. It’s like a storm stilling for a moment as he processes this, an unsettling calm spreading over the room.
And then he’s screaming again, because before he’d been nameless, nothing, and something who is nothing does not care about the pain he is in, the confusion he feels, he does not care about being deathless death but oh! Oh, now he has a name and it comes crashing down all at once and he is drowning and in his ears ring Steve Steve Steve Steve Steve Steve Steve Steve—
And Bucky’s on the floor. He’s curled into a ball, shaking and sobbing, and Steve—Steve, he is Steve—cannot stop screaming, howling, shrieking. Bucky is in so much pain and all Steve wants for is to comfort him but he’s caused him so much agony already, how could he possibly help? But it’s like a red string that tugs him closer, that has him settling over Bucky’s shaking form like an avalanche.
With it comes icy stillness.
And Steve tells him; Bucky, I’m so sorry, Bucky, Bucky, Bucky, I love you, I am so sorry, I don’t know what’s happening, I am so cold, I am so afraid, I am—
He is.
He is, but he is not deathless death. With his name, Bucky has freed him. What comes after is no cause for fear, because Steve knows that they have each other. He will hold Bucky close until they are both safe and calm and there is no pain, and then Steve with bare his teeth at whoever and whatever dares come close.
And so he whispers to him, once his frantic caterwaul of confused babbling dies down into soothing murmurs of I love you, I am sorry, I will keep you safe now, nothing will happen to us. He’s not sure if Bucky can even hear him, but he holds him and whispers it all anyway.
As he does, the strangest thing begins to happen. It’s like the out of control not-form Steve had been all this while his slowing down, coming together, becoming a shape. Barely able to hope, Steve holds his breath—his breath!—and does it best to let it happen. He does not know what comes after the deathless death’s anchor utters their name; no one knows.
But he knows that Bucky has freed him. And they are together. And morning is coming.
“My dearest love…”
*
Ice-burned bones lay in a puddle of freezing water.
When the shy, quiet man who used to wander the Bucharest farmers market with a timid smile on his tired face doesn’t visit his usual stalls for the third time in a row, authorities are called. Only one person knows where he lived. A lady who sold plums and other fruits insisted on helping him carry a mattress up the stairs after he bought it from her shows the authorities the apartment.
The bones are found, and everyone knows exactly what’s happened. They call the proper people, and those people examine the bones for an answer they’ve been searching for for centuries; what happens when the anchor of a deathless death says the ghost’s name?
The bones reveal no secrets. They are just bones, half-decayed with ice already. The next question comes; who’s were they? The apartment is leased under a fake name, and there is no sign in the sparsely decorated home of who the person was. Even the people who knew him knew very little, and only ever saw his face clearly a few times. Not enough to confidently describe it.
So the mystery remains.
The bones are taken to the woods, as is proper, and are buried underneath an old oak tree. The darkness that hovers around the apartment fades, as does the lingering cold. People forget about what happened there; they give up on the mystery of who it was that suffered such a fate. Some things will never be known.
The bones lay in the dirt. Bugs of the woods crawl over them. The Earth lets them become apart of it, almost cradling them, caring for them, accepting them. The bones decay. The bones, if they were to ever be unburied, could hardly be recognised as human. The great oak, the protector, would see that that never happens, though.
The bones lay unbothered.
Not too far away, similarly claimed by the Earth, not-yet forgotten bones rest in a forest. Connected by the soil both set of bones lay in, peace finds them as they rot. They will never be dug up, never be identified, never be disturbed. In the Earth, they lay forever. The spirits that once inhabited them, however, are far, far away.
The spirits that once inhabited them are free.
*
This is nothing like clarity. This is nothing like darkness. This is not pain, this is not confusion, this is not despair. This is not regret, this is not wishing for things that should have been said, this is not punishment. This is not deathless death, this is not ice, this is not fire.
This is home.
It’s quiet. There is sunlight coming from somewhere. It’s warm, and he can feel someone holding him. He breathes—deep, in and out, in and out—lets the air fill his lungs and expand his chest, nice and easy. He lets it out slow, feels his body deflate and relax as he does. Opens his eyes.
Bucky’s looking down at him, the dark circles under his eyes gone, like they were never there. His face is soft and bright, and he’s smiling. The blue of his eyes shines like twin stars in front of Steve, and he finds himself smiling back without realising it.
“Bucky,” he murmurs.
The corners of Bucky’s eyes crinkle as he smiles back. “Steve,” he says, and presses a kiss to Steve’s lips.