If you want to break my heart, youâre going to have to do a better fucking job than that, little knight.
( not that itâs entirely put together as is, but iâve learned how to stop needing anything from you is like poison in his veins. itâd be kinder to put a bullet in his chest, right through the pulpy center of his stupid heart. )
It hasnât been that long for me. I donât know what you want me to do. Do you want space? You can have it. But you donât get to hollow me out of your heart like I didnât mean anything to you. You donât get to hide from me. If I have to grab you by the neck and force you on your knees, Iâll do it.
[He regrets it the moment it's sent. Knows that, no matter what role Ash may have been taking at the time, his heart is the one thing that Bucky could never once doubt. A strength disguised as a weakness, and one he doesn't have the right to draw in to question. Even now.]
( it needles at an old insecurity ash thought himself well outgrown as a man â whether he really is this impressive leader, the war sung hero everyone seems to think he is, or if heâs a wolf in sheepâs clothing. the problem: ash has never really considered himself good. he tries to be good, tries with all his might and everything he has, but thereâs this inexorable darkness inside him, this living, breathing need to own things, to hurt things. it feels telling that bucky knows exactly where to hurt him to make it stick, to call into question the very thing he has a middling understanding of inside himself.
at the same time â it isnât buckyâs fault. ash did fail him. ash, whoâs never supposed to fail at anything, who doesnât have the space to be anything less that completely perfect when the stakes are as high as buckyâs heart. failing him is ashâs fault, like failing embry is his fault, like inevitably failing greer will be his fault. this is who he is â the byproduct of several different heartbreaks all stacked up on top of each other, this emotional, sensitive, wounded piece of flesh still stubbornly insisting on forward momentum, despite having his heart gutted a dozen times over. he has to believe he can make things right, has to believe he hasnât hurt bucky beyond repair. )
[It should be easy. Just six letters, and it'd put an end to everything. Would give him back his freedom to-
To what? To carry on trying to cut himself off from the world entirely? To keep spending each night sitting in the dark, praying for a sleep without nightmares to plague him, only to spend the dawn, covered in sweat with a racing heart and the memory of blood on his hands? He's been going through the motions for years. Has a therapist back home who sees through the mask and still has no idea what she's dealing with.
There's nobody left in his life that knows him. Steve's gone, run off to a place that he can never follow. Wakanda was only ever a temporary home. And then Natasha- He lost her the moment they both lost Ash. Only for him to go home and lose her all over again.
One word, and he could protect himself from having to feel any more.]
Iâm not breaking my heart for you. I donât want to be safe from you. You want it, you do it.
( thatâs his line in the sand â the same one he has to draw with embry every time their relationship gets a little bit too real. embry always pulls the plug, always. ash â ash doesnât even want to give bucky the chance, with the same childish inclination of thinking please, please donât leave me is actually convincing and not just pathetic. )
We have to talk, anyway. Embry is here. I told you about him. Greer is here, too. I never mentioned her to you, because there wasnât much to say. Things are different now. You deserve all the facts.
[Which is the problem. What they used to get up to behind close (and not so closed) doors was different. Saying no was part of it. Would push Ash in to playing harder. But actually pulling the cord on all this is something Bucky doesn't know how to do. Can't find it in him to type out that one, simple word.
The mention of Embry though, of Greer- That keeps him from dwelling on it for too long, at least. Stops him trying to push back and get Ash to do the dirty work for him. There's no need, when he has people from home here who matter.]
there's nothing to talk about i know how you feel about him told you before that i wouldn't get in your way
( bucky knows how he feels about embry, he just apparently doesnât know how he feels about bucky. thereâs the undeniable fact that heâs probably doing bucky a disservice here â if he actually wants to say no, if he canât find it in himself, then it is ashâs duty to pull the plug, to stab himself on buckyâs proffered sword to make it easier for him. he just â canât. never could. loving bucky, loving any of them isnât something he can just turn off for convenience sake. if he could, this whole conversation would be a lot easier. )
Embry will always have part of my heart, but so will you. Whether you manage to tell me no or not, that will always be the case. I canât be any other way.
( and embry doesnât want him either, which he doesnât say. thereâs no sense of guilting bucky, or making him feel like heâs a second choice â ultimately, his relationship, or ex relationship with embry shouldnât effect whatever he has with bucky at all, unless it does. in which case. )
If it makes it easier for you to leave me, then there it is. Embry is here. We arenât together.
( he has the extreme desire to grab bucky by his broad shoulders and shake him, until some sense falls out of him. failing that, the only thing ash has: honesty. )
I canât be acquaintances with you. I love you. The only thing I want is to be old and gray and happy with you, on a farm, with goats. Maybe as old as you are now, if Iâm lucky. I canât be with Embry. He doesnât want me. Iâll make things right with Nat â Iâll start from the ground up if I have to. You will not disappear from my life just because you donât want to be with me. A knife couldnât carve you out of me. Youâre here, and thatâs where youâll stay. If you want to move on, you can. Itâs okay. But Iâm never moving on from you â I love you too much.
[The response is read, and read again. But then the phone is simply set down, abandoned on his bed in favor of heading outside for a run. Of the four-legged variety. It's easier that way. He doesn't need to think. Doesn't need to do anything more than be the animal he's been since the moment Hydra first got their hands on him.
So his reply doesn't come for a long time. Not until the sun starts to peek up over the horizon, and Bucky's crawled his way back inside again. Shifting may not be a solution to his problems, but it at least gave him a chance to escape. At least for a little while.]
you went home natasha moved on without me
[Granted, that's not exactly how things went. But pushing Natasha away had been the only way he could protect himself.]
she died, at home tony too then steve left me behind i can't do this again
( after years of handling embry, he should know better than to just â spill his heart and expect it not to be trampled. this is the way of things. ash, feeling too much, and his lovers, not wanting to hear it. the wait hurts. but ash doesn't sleep and so he responds when bucky texts, frayed at his edges by the prolonged silence.
he used to sleep better, when bucky was in his bed. )
I am not allowing you to live a life in isolation. I can't control what happens. I can't promise you tomorrow, though I wish I could. All I have is right now, and all I can give you is the guarantee I will never give up on us, even if you do.
[It's himself. People keep leaving, and he's the common factor. Who can blame them though, when he has nothing to offer?
There's another delay again. Nowhere near as long as the last. But noticeable enough. He's trying to work out what to say next. How to explain what he wants from all this. Or rather, what he needs.]
find me
[Not in the physical sense. That comes hand in hand with the rest. No, he needs Ash to find him. The version of him that he used to be. The man that Ash tore to pieces and rebuilt from the ground up. The man who had a purpose. One he chose to follow.
He needs to be that person again. Even if he doesn't want to take that risk.]
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
( not that itâs entirely put together as is, but iâve learned how to stop needing anything from you is like poison in his veins. itâd be kinder to put a bullet in his chest, right through the pulpy center of his stupid heart. )
It hasnât been that long for me. I donât know what you want me to do.
Do you want space? You can have it. But you donât get to hollow me out of your heart like I didnât mean anything to you. You donât get to hide from me. If I have to grab you by the neck and force you on your knees, Iâll do it.
no subject
[He regrets it the moment it's sent. Knows that, no matter what role Ash may have been taking at the time, his heart is the one thing that Bucky could never once doubt. A strength disguised as a weakness, and one he doesn't have the right to draw in to question. Even now.]
you don't get to tell me what to do
not anymore
no subject
at the same time â it isnât buckyâs fault. ash did fail him. ash, whoâs never supposed to fail at anything, who doesnât have the space to be anything less that completely perfect when the stakes are as high as buckyâs heart. failing him is ashâs fault, like failing embry is his fault, like inevitably failing greer will be his fault. this is who he is â the byproduct of several different heartbreaks all stacked up on top of each other, this emotional, sensitive, wounded piece of flesh still stubbornly insisting on forward momentum, despite having his heart gutted a dozen times over. he has to believe he can make things right, has to believe he hasnât hurt bucky beyond repair. )
Until you say your safeword, yes, I do.
no subject
To what? To carry on trying to cut himself off from the world entirely? To keep spending each night sitting in the dark, praying for a sleep without nightmares to plague him, only to spend the dawn, covered in sweat with a racing heart and the memory of blood on his hands? He's been going through the motions for years. Has a therapist back home who sees through the mask and still has no idea what she's dealing with.
There's nobody left in his life that knows him. Steve's gone, run off to a place that he can never follow. Wakanda was only ever a temporary home. And then Natasha- He lost her the moment they both lost Ash. Only for him to go home and lose her all over again.
One word, and he could protect himself from having to feel any more.]
i need you to say it
because i can't
no subject
You want it, you do it.
( thatâs his line in the sand â the same one he has to draw with embry every time their relationship gets a little bit too real. embry always pulls the plug, always. ash â ash doesnât even want to give bucky the chance, with the same childish inclination of thinking please, please donât leave me is actually convincing and not just pathetic. )
We have to talk, anyway. Embry is here. I told you about him.
Greer is here, too. I never mentioned her to you, because there wasnât much to say. Things are different now. You deserve all the facts.
no subject
[Which is the problem. What they used to get up to behind close (and not so closed) doors was different. Saying no was part of it. Would push Ash in to playing harder. But actually pulling the cord on all this is something Bucky doesn't know how to do. Can't find it in him to type out that one, simple word.
The mention of Embry though, of Greer- That keeps him from dwelling on it for too long, at least. Stops him trying to push back and get Ash to do the dirty work for him. There's no need, when he has people from home here who matter.]
there's nothing to talk about
i know how you feel about him
told you before that i wouldn't get in your way
no subject
( bucky knows how he feels about embry, he just apparently doesnât know how he feels about bucky. thereâs the undeniable fact that heâs probably doing bucky a disservice here â if he actually wants to say no, if he canât find it in himself, then it is ashâs duty to pull the plug, to stab himself on buckyâs proffered sword to make it easier for him. he just â canât. never could. loving bucky, loving any of them isnât something he can just turn off for convenience sake. if he could, this whole conversation would be a lot easier. )
Embry will always have part of my heart, but so will you. Whether you manage to tell me no or not, that will always be the case. I canât be any other way.
( and embry doesnât want him either, which he doesnât say. thereâs no sense of guilting bucky, or making him feel like heâs a second choice â ultimately, his relationship, or ex relationship with embry shouldnât effect whatever he has with bucky at all, unless it does. in which case. )
If it makes it easier for you to leave me, then there it is. Embry is here. We arenât together.
no subject
you could have a relationship with him here
and we can just [How to put this...] be acquaintances
[Cause he doesn't think a straightforward friendship will ever be on the cards for them. Not after everything they've already shared together.]
natasha's here
she doesn't remember duplicity
[One less problem for him to deal with, at least.]
no subject
( he has the extreme desire to grab bucky by his broad shoulders and shake him, until some sense falls out of him. failing that, the only thing ash has: honesty. )
I canât be acquaintances with you. I love you. The only thing I want is to be old and gray and happy with you, on a farm, with goats. Maybe as old as you are now, if Iâm lucky.
I canât be with Embry. He doesnât want me. Iâll make things right with Nat â Iâll start from the ground up if I have to.
You will not disappear from my life just because you donât want to be with me. A knife couldnât carve you out of me. Youâre here, and thatâs where youâll stay. If you want to move on, you can. Itâs okay. But Iâm never moving on from you â I love you too much.
no subject
So his reply doesn't come for a long time. Not until the sun starts to peek up over the horizon, and Bucky's crawled his way back inside again. Shifting may not be a solution to his problems, but it at least gave him a chance to escape. At least for a little while.]
you went home
natasha moved on without me
[Granted, that's not exactly how things went. But pushing Natasha away had been the only way he could protect himself.]
she died, at home
tony too
then steve left me behind
i can't do this again
no subject
he used to sleep better, when bucky was in his bed. )
I am not allowing you to live a life in isolation.
I can't control what happens. I can't promise you tomorrow, though I wish I could. All I have is right now, and all I can give you is the guarantee I will never give up on us, even if you do.
no subject
[It's himself. People keep leaving, and he's the common factor. Who can blame them though, when he has nothing to offer?
There's another delay again. Nowhere near as long as the last. But noticeable enough. He's trying to work out what to say next. How to explain what he wants from all this. Or rather, what he needs.]
find me
[Not in the physical sense. That comes hand in hand with the rest. No, he needs Ash to find him. The version of him that he used to be. The man that Ash tore to pieces and rebuilt from the ground up. The man who had a purpose. One he chose to follow.
He needs to be that person again. Even if he doesn't want to take that risk.]