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builder051 · 2 years

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At least we would know that the sparks didn't glow

Powers/No powers

Steve whump

Whumpmas in July 2022 Day 3: Lost

___________________

It's the slamming of someone else's locker that makes Steve grind his teeth. He swallows through his bitterly clamped jaws, and one of his ears pops. The other gives a rather weaker crackle. Like if he stepped on an ice cream wrapper.

Steve does due diligence, picking up his feet and glancing down, just to be sure there isn't any litter that's gone and become his responsibility to pick up.

The big blonde guy, the All-American, the guy they call 'Captain' in the office, the one who's just burned himself out with calisthenics, free weights, and a five-minute plank that he counted out himself instead of passing the time listening to over-excited HGTV in the background.

Steve knows he has a fan club. The girl who swipes key tabs behind the front desk, well, there isn't much he can do about her. But the others... experienced mountain bikers on arm day ,right down to pushing 18 and struggling to program the most basic equipment... Steve's gon back to some of his old practice of avoiding people's faces.

To be completely honest, he has kind of been waiting for someone to just reach out and grab him. Kiss him. Force him in for a photo. He's relieved it hasn't happened. Yet. But if this...yes, it the crinkling outer wrapper for a bag of regular M&Ms...is any prediction for what's coming. Steve shakes his head. He sincerely hopes that it isn't a foot fetish.

Steve throws away the paper, which rattles slightly with one or two candies still trapped in the packet. To ensure he's free of all chocolate scents and essences, Steve pulls hand sanitizer from his dopp kit. Chocolate on people's feet...He'd take a professional pedicure massage as much as the next person. An indulgence to take care of a utilitarian need, Steve supposes. But with a food element... It's like drawing then nonsexuality out of something already asexual, so it boomerangs in reverse and hits him painfully in the face.

Steve's sinuses feel abraised, as if he's been slapped across the cheek with a metal yardstick. M&Ms are a bastardization of chocolate. More than half a century past their moment of need, but still on sale. Popular, even. People make M&M cookies, which is a mystery to Steve. Baking chips ar cheaper, and the color betrays the flavor. On the rare occasion some idiot leaves peanut M&M-related something on the welcome desk, Steve pretends not to take personal offense as he sniffs, asks several people if they think it is safe, then acts the total dick on purpose when he chopsticks a cookie onto a plate between his inhaler and epi pen.

The sanitizer mini-bottle belches at Steve as he squeezes it and snaps it closed. He cleans his hands, then uses a dab as he would cologne, behind his ear, under his beard line, in the crook of his navel, and the rest rubbed randomly across his chest until his hand is dry.

Steve thinks he smells good now. Or clean, at least. The salty gym aura has dissipated from his t-shirt, just like the junky candy scent has gone from his fingers. He should probably do the bottom of his shoe for good measure, but he stops himself. That's a bit much. As long as he takes advantage of the mesh laundry bag and the fact that always is a good time to sanitize and refresh the kitchen towels, he can clean his sneakers in the washing machine. "Chill," he murmurs to himself. "Just... go."

After a couple of deep breaths, which do nothing for confidence; they just prove that his uncomfortable sinuses are and may be planning to stay problematic. Air coming in through Steve's nose halts as it contacts a blockade of gummy slime, which, in turn, vibrates into the part of Steve's upper side-mouth that is neither uvula nor tongue. One slow breath would've marked the presence of an issue and the need to blow his nose, force a gag, scrape his tongue across the roof of his mouth... But now that he's standing before his closed locker, Steve robotically locks it up, picks his bag up briefcase style, and holds it a waist height as he walks purposefully to the door out into the parking lot.

The silver sedan is in the first spot, next to the area marked handicapped accessible, with the deep van parking place in the center, and two lanes of extra space painted in white and yellow lines. It's always been Steve's spot, because, depending on the time of day, he's oft to arrive before morning staff, during the afternoon cleaning break, or at the same time as the night manager. He also thinks of himself as protection, of the subtle variety, in case anyone in legitimate need of the accessible spot gets bullied about it. About a year ago, some motorcyclist tried parking his bike in one of the yellow and white non-parking lanes. The gym's girl behind the counter called the cops, but it was Steve who picked up the thing and placed it into an empty, albeit less convenient spot at the end of the strip in front of the Pho restaurant.

This evening, though, Steve's relieved that there's hardly a walk before he can fall into soft upholstered seating. Tonight the driver's seat feels more like it's made of memory foam, though, or maybe even a water bed. Now that his ass is in contact with the cushion, there's no way of getting him back out.

Steve's gym bag is small enough to pass between his chest and the steering wheel, and he plops it into the passenger seat. He'll have to take it inside as soon as he gets home, but that's, what, at least 10 minutes away? For now he can just enjoy the comfort and cleanliness of his own car. Besides the folded Map of the State of Virginia in the side pocket, a spare suction cup for the phone stand and a folded napkin in the console, and one of Bucky's hoodies folded in the passenger footwell, the car is empty.

Steve cracks the windows to get some airflow before the air conditioner works up its own breeze. Nothing flaps or flies around. The night is still, and the air in the car is still, even though pausing and turning to follow the rules of the road sometimes brings in a draft and a whiff of outside.

Steve knows the mechanics intuitively; he interacts with much more challenging circumstances all in a good day's work. So maybe it's the simplicity of it, then, that is quite literally hurting his brain. The back of his head, the bottom portion, perhaps an inch or so above his tidily shaved hairline is developing a steady throb. Which is odd. Which is vision-related. Which is...

Steve takes one hand off the wheel and scrubs at his eye, though he misses badly and gets a knuckle dug into his brow and another jamming his tear duct before he so much as considers that it's his hand not behaving, rather than his face.

He's all a massive tremor. Steve's insides jolt with panic. "Keep control. Keep control. Keep control..."

And he tries. But with one eye clouding and dribbling hot saltwater, the other realizing he's arrived at the slew of speed bumps that lead up to the private drive behind the townhouses. He's not lost. He's... thinking with his subconscious.

There's no way he's going in from the front, even if that's the way Bucky will be watching out the window for him. The troop of apartment kids that appear randomly from doorsteps around them seem to have a collective cognition level somewhere around the level of Bugs Bunny. Between the lush grassy park and the twinkling, uncovered swimming pool set within the village's fencing, there is, or at least there was least last year, an assumption that children and explosives can celebratorily interact over the rough-cut time span of the first week of July.

Steve has the state and city laws memorized, and he mumbles a few lyrics from the vintage Smokey the Bear infomercial that used to cross the line between light entertainment and the threat of preemptive and over-calculated guilt. Who thought it was a good idea to plant the seed of an ulcer in kids' stomachs as they swallowed their spoonfuls of Frosted Flakes, the sugary sweet part of a complete breakfast? And anxiety was certainly suggested where it shouldn't be when at least one of the early-rising weekend kids squinted and tried to remember whether Fat Albert's breakfast had come off a gas or electric stove. Only you can prevent forest fires. Yeah, and when your local forest is three pine trees and a grassy traffic circle between the next bank of apartments...

Inconsistencies between his sight and his stomach. Steve hangs a right. He wants to be relieved; perhaps two minutes left, depending on what he gets at the flashing yellow, and if he can manage to slide past the stop sign without notice. Breaking the rules of the road... Not his usual, but when the neon stripe on a tennis ball lost to the gutter seems to fly up and give his eyelashes a solid pull in, well, not the way he wants to go...

The sedan's front tire scrapes the curb. Steve feels gutted again. Shocked at his own stupidity, quick and sharp in the areas of heartbeat and breathing. He doesn't do this.

Goosebumps spread down Steve's arms, right across his hands, knuckles, and down to his fingernails. His teeth chatter, but don't clunk; they've developed a coating of the sick mucous that's all inside the rest of him. His natural desire to clean up, to apply toothpaste, takes a turn at being in charge, but a prognostication of foam and chemical mint and stomach acid and rivulets of rust-colored blood makes him wrinkle his nose. He brushes too hard; he always does. He tastes bitter copper even now.

"Pull yourself together, dammit." It sounds like gargling, like speaking under the water during dive training as he splashes around with his coworkers, smooshed into snorkeling masks and still allowed not to take any of it seriously--not until the bald guy in decorated fatigues approaches the edge of the pool with the oxygen tanks.

Steve is taking it seriously. He grasps the steering wheel at 12 o'clock with his dominant hand to swivel away from the curb, and uses the other to swipe under his nose. Heavy, sticky biological material comes off on the back of his hand. The urge to look down at it surpasses the need to keep his eyes on the road. Mottled semi-solid mucous in shades of orange juice, cloud grey, coffee grounds, and dripping scarlet sit in a blob like a dead rain forest grub, melting against his body heat.

Steve reaches over his own lap and finds the sunbleached, crispier than when it started, fast-food napkin in the drink console and rather pastes it to the back of his hand. It's less successful that what he was hoping for, but at least now he doesn't have to look at it. He takes a light breath, visualizing himself in the car on GPS aerial view, creeping slowly down the left-hand turn lane toward the stop sign, the other one, the three-way, which cannot be ignored when convenient. Then it's... how many doors in? Five? Six? Five from one way, six from the other. It hardly matters. He'll use the garage door opener.

He's going. He's going to make it. Steve can see the corner.

Someone screams, and a red ball of light shoots straight up from a bank of trees to Steve's right. The last spark makes contact with the curved bulb of the streetlight set a few yards diagonally from the launch point. A green ball follows immediately, this one sizzling harder. A purplish blue sails clean over the street light. There's an audible whoop, and much overlapping laughter. Then there's a white light. A tail of sparkles like a comet. Which stay. And stay.

Steve doesn't realize he's stomping the brake pedal until the kids set themselves in motion, and it contrasts with his relative stillness.

There are five or six of them, running out of the trees, making circles around the street lamp, one does a cartwheel in the grass. They poke fun at each other, trying to take yet more unlit Roman Candles out of a package that one of them holds close. Another seems to be the fire bearer, and they scrounge up a stick of medium length, light its end, and threaten their friends like an angry cave-person.

It's illegal. All of it. Roman Candles. Need an age 18 or older ID to purchase. And not legally for sale in this municipality. Too big for residential areas. Too dangerous. They might've fucked up a streetlamp. That's against city ordinance. They could've fucked up someone's house. That's personal property damage.

Kids aren't supposed to play with fire. They're not supposed to light sticks and wave them in the air, adding oxygen and making huge mistakes, like losing an arm to massive, irrecoverable cell death. Or doing the same to one of their friends. Or dropping the thing and setting a tree, which would set a fence, which would set an apartment, which would set the complex...

They start running across the street, jaywalking in front of Steve's car. To be fair, he isn't moving, so they might have the messy, youthful unawareness that in actuality, he knows way more than they do. The scent of electrical char follows them, wafting through Steve's still-cracked windows, as well as the irresistible smell of campfire.

But, no. This is, no. Steve shakes his throbbing head. He flicks on his high beams and slaps his sweaty palm down on the horn. He thinks about touching the accelerator and gunning it up a few feet, but he doesn't trust his awareness of spatial judgement. Nor theirs.

"What? Hey!" the kids shout at him. Some try cussing at him. But he beeps his horn again and flashes his turn signal, a weak reply of 'I'm bigger and badder and will run you over."

There's another second of stalemate. Steve picks up his phone and turns the brightness up, then makes the display a giant keypad. He dials 9, then hovers his finger over 1. The kids scream and scatter. The one holding the burning branch drops it, right there in the middle of the street.

Once he's clear of all running bodies, Steve accelerates and eases the car forward until the stick cracks under his tire. He reverses and runs over it again. Three more times Steve does his damage control, then he has to stop, panting, with clammy sweat dribbling down his temples. His stomach seems to have invited itself to take up residence in his chest. That's ok, Steve supposes, sighing. As long as his esophageal muscles are still cool with being a one-way street. He swallows for good measure. It's thick and gross and glues his tongue to the roof of his mouth, but Steve wills his body to maintain stasis, if not function.

He turns at the 3-way stop. Steve isn't sure whether to close his windows and recirculate the air conditioner or to just leave everything be. The smokey air feels heavy, as if it's proof of what he just experienced, how terrible he feels, and how very much he despises this time of year. The molecules of burnt ozone, melted plastic, and caustic chemical reaction will drift through the car and settle inside the nooks and crannies of the interior. The campfire odor which did not come from a campfire may as well be guilt branded into the essence of the vehicle.

The garage door opener clips neatly to the driver-side sunshield. Steve depresses its large grey button when he makes it about halfway down the block of narrow townhouses, almost identical in the moonlight. A couple of them are unique, like the unit with the added screen door and cactus-shaped birdbath, but for the most part, dark driveways loom in the same enticing and slightly creepy manner before giving a driver a visual of the friendliness of a house's front door.

The proper garage squeaks as it folds upward. Steve automatically thinks to the can of WD-40 that he's not sure if he bought for home use or for an ongoing project at work... It is much easier to move the helicopter pilot/copilot training sim into the building next door if all the bolts on the robotic legs aren't rusted to the floor. He's pretty sure it went to work. Yes, he even let Nat present it, subtly spraying the bolt above Tony's head, unscrewing it by hand, and asking him what his trouble was.

It's definitely Steve that has the trouble now. He has to force himself into movement, tossing his legs out the driver-side door whilst scooping his gym bag over his shoulder. He makes sure to collect his keys, but leaves the car windows as they are, hoping the neutral mechanic-y aura of garage will help air out all the anxiety-provoking leftovers.

The door into the house is unlocked. Steve steps inside and closes it gingerly, his body very opposed to the sound and feel of it slamming.

"You're home?" Bucky's voice asks from the vicinity of the living room.

"Um." Steve has to un-gum his throat before he can make actual words. He's alarmed at how hoarse his voice sounds once he can. "Yeah. Um. Finally home."

"The gym didn't eat you, did it?"

Bucky turns off the television and stands. He loops around the couch and sits backward on the arm so he's facing Steve across the carpet.

"No..." Steve's head objects to being upside-down as he unlaces his sneakers. It's a strain on his neck to look forward while he finishes stripping down to socks, but at least he doesn't feel in imminent danger of drowning in unreleased vomit.

There's a box of Kleenex on the side table, and once Steve straightens up, he reaches for it. Bucky intuitively fills the gap, picking it up and throwing a few tissues at Steve while he puts on a concerned face.

"You feeling ok?"

Steve uses the first tissue to wipe his clammy forehead and upper lip. Then he blows his nose, gently, one side at a time. The thin layers of lotion Kleenex soak through with thick, neon-brite mucous. Steve feels it shifting and burbling against the back of his throat as if he's removing just the head of an enormous gooey rope that's still well-adhered to the inside of his body.

"Um." Steve wipes his wet hand on his shorts, then takes another tissue to wrap his disgusting used ones. "Is something, like, blooming?" he asks. "You know, like an intrusive weed from, I don't know, Kentucky or someplace?" Steve hides a snuffle behind his hand. "Like the purple flowers that always die when you plant them in the median and in front of the WalMart?"

Bucky raises his eyebrows. "I thought you grew out of most of your allergies."

"I have a freaking peanut epi-pen." Steve complains thickly.

"I mean, like, rolling in the grass and stuff. Even when we had to dive into bushes in Central Park with our asses hanging out--"

"Ok, ok, I don't need reliving of that..." Steve's stomach twists, and his heart beats at the base of his neck, like a boxing glove set on a spring to wallow him upward and alternately block his ability to breathe and swallow. He would be able to deal with that if there wasn't so such fucking bloody much inside him, like jello that had somehow set outside the limits of its mold

"Are you going to feel better when you throw up?" Bucky jumps off the couch and takes Steve by the shoulder. It's basically another quarter of a rotation, a pause to open the door, and then a hip bump to get him directed over the toilet. "I think you're, like, all junked up."

Steve weakly nods. His mouth immediately begins to water. His body recognizes the escape route. He feels topheavy, frontheavy. Steve crashes to his knees, clipping them against the edge of the toilet seat before Bucky negotiates him backward a few inches and slowly curls him down properly.

The gags start without warning. Nothing coming at first because it's too sticky to pass. Then liquid acid from the deepest depths. It probably didn't need to come out, but, hey, if we're having an evacuation... Eventually Steve's throat gives up an intense globule of slime, and its extended family shifts out of his nasal cavity, sinus, and off the coating of his uvula in a slow, sickening mass exodus.

Steve breathes hard out his nose and quickly waves at Bucky for a Kleenex so he can wipe at the trails oozing down his face before he retches again.

The violent attacks of illness back off, leaving behind clearish, thick strings that won't depart Steve's lips. If they want to live behind his teeth for the time being... Steve doesn't care. He has a pressure headache like nothing else, and the shimmers edging in across his visual field are certainly due to exhaustion. Imbalance between what he can see and what his body feels. They only occasionally go red or green or blueish purple, and he's able to catch himself and actively stop before he yells to Bucky that the bookcase of presidential biographies is going to catch a spark and burn to the ground.

And that odd, nature smell? The one associated with the loud beep, after which Bucky left towels draped over the sink, but vanished into thin air?

Steve makes it as far as the end of the couch, then breathes deeply. It's not campfire, though his senses are willing to read it as campfire and throw him back down into another sick panic attack. Bucky doesn't make campfires. Not in the apartment.

The kitchen would make sense. Steve steps up to the table and holds the back of a chair for stability. The kitchen light is on and the backsplash display of the stove is illuminated. The part that controls the oven.

There's a soft clatter, and Steve sees Bucky, waist deep in a cabinet, then emerging with a wire cooling rack. Bucky catches a glimpse of Steve watching him. He places the cooling rack on the counter, then says, "I'm not letting you scald yourself. Not on your birthday."

It takes a second for the words to sink in. "It's... it's not my birthday."

"Well, I'm not having another birthday for you tomorrow." Bucky grins. "I was planning on tinfoil-ing the windows anyhow, but you're quarantined to bed and drinking honey lemon tea all day. That's strictly un-celebratory."

Steve takes a shaky breath out, and his throat wibbles uncomfortably. He doesn't dare cough to clear it, lest he start another uninvited deluge. "I'll give you that one."

The timer on the stove beeps again, and Bucky pulls on a mitt. He carefully opens the oven and removes the baking tray with ease. Closing the door with his knee, Bucky focuses on placing his creation in the exact center of the wire cooling rack. He removes the mitt, takes up a red spatula instead, and whirls to face Steve.

"So," Bucky says. "I suppose you're burning with curiosity?"

Steve nods, but knits his brows as he tries to fill in blanks he really ought not to have forgotten. Trees and outside and char and paper wrappers. Kids passing one along to the next along to the next... Boom pop illegal... Don't set the forrest on fire...

"Please tell me it's not a Roman Candle..." Steve covers his eyes.

Bucky laughs. "Uh. No."

"Army?" Steve guesses. "Or... before...?

"Both, actually." Bucky waves the spatula like a magic wand, then uses it to cut a sharp line through the steaming decadence in the baking pan. Swirls of heat and sweetness rise from the crack he's made, releasing yet more of that sharply pleasurable backyard smell, now mixed with what's undeniably...

"Chocolate?" The spot of Steve's memory that's stuck in threat-check, that hasn't gotten over an M&M wrapper being stuck to his shoe with fuck-knows-what as adhesive, sends up an anxious flare.

He doesn't pack his own flight bags, so the powder stick meant to catch on one paper end with the standard BIC lighter supplied to him might go up in red. Or green. Or blueish purple. The PJs say they like green, because it shows up better in night-vision goggles. The powder stick is meant to be handled with gloves. By an adult. With training. And it's purchased en mass. By a corporation. Invested in National Defense. Ironic how any fake 18-year-old can come by more fire power with less supervision and cause more damage.

"Oh, come on." Bucky pulls an annoyed grin. "Just because you have a head cold doesn't mean you get to forget about the existence of pot brownies."

"Oh." It all comes together in a fast-motion set of confirmations, and he berates himself for continuously looking in just barely the wrong spot. "Oh. Ok." Steve lets his face relax. "Thank you."

"You've been really tense," Bucky says. "I hope it isn't mean to point that out."

"No, you're right." Steve waves his hand over the pan of brownies and directs some of its intoxicating steam toward himself. "It's this time of year, I think. But, just, stuff... and I..." He breaks off. "Hard."

"Let's schedule you an un-birthday on the 5th, too," Bucky suggests, cutting the brownie into serving-sized pieces.

"Huh?"

"You need to be not-sick in order to go to work." Bucky balances his tone between know-it-all and especially caring.

"Mm. Point." Steve accepts the perfectly square brownie Bucky has cut for him. He pulls it delicately toward himself on its folded paper towel, relishing the contrast of the crunchy edge to the flaky top to the miniscule glimpse of green visible within the body of dark chocolate. A tiny thought in the back of his brain tells him that he's being gross. Steve tries arguing back that he's not being unreasonably judgemental, but one tiny shift and he's no better than the so-called lessers who have intercourse using their feet and M&Ms.

Steve tears off a tiny corner and drops it onto his tongue.

"Don't go at it too fast, now," Bucky warns thickly, already going to town on his serving.

"You don't say..."

Steve's walking Bucky home from football practice, and they know up to the minute how long the can dawdle before Mrs. Barnes will consider them "late." Sometimes they puff on a blunt, but that has to be done up by the school so the rest of the walk neutralizes the smell. Sometimes they stop off in the alley to kiss and get in each other's pants. That's more fun. Except for once in a while it takes too long, and Steve's stuck walking home with a raging hard-on.

Steve can't hide his grin as he swallows and takes another bite.

Years before that, when Steve's chin didn't reach the ice cream counter and his lisp made him the joke of the entire grade school, he and Bucky had an entire act worked out. Bucky would push him a little and fake bully him out of his money. Then he'd drag Steve into the soda fountain, seeming like he wanted to humiliate him, too. But he'd just order himself some exotic sundae, the add on, "Oh, and scoop 'o vanilla on a brownie for the kid, too."

"Where'd you get this recipe?" Steve asks slyly.

"I'm taking it to the grave." Bucky wipes crumbs on his own paper towel.

"Nat, right?" Steve guesses. "You begged?"

"Requested," Bucky corrects, then winks and smiles. His face takes on a more relaxed expression. Then he says, "I know you're not feeling good. Like, stressed, and sick, and all that stuff. And these next few days..." He shakes his head. "Usually not so good."

Steve rests his forehead on his elbow, trying to focus only on what he can hear now, smell, taste, everything in this exact moment.

A moment passes, and Bucky's at his side, inviting Steve to lean on him instead. "C'mere," he murmurs. "I'll make it better. Try my best?"

Steve takes a slow breath. He can smell weed and chocolate on himself now, and on Bucky, along with Bucky's soft scent. Though Steve's body has yet to completely relax, his instinctive mind has shifted to an unguarded sense of safety.

"You always take care of me best," Steve whispers. All his feelings of exhaustion and sickness and anxiety and fear and anger dull under a blanket of gentle relief. Whether it's the drug, or Bucky's soothing presence, or just time ticking by, Steve's stiffness begins to unravel.

"Couch, right?" Bucky offers. "Stairs are..." He waves his hand dismissively. "Blankets and pillows and maybe Ken Burns?"

Steve nods gingerly. It's Bucky who claims the bed, who watches documentaries and fishing shows on loop without knowing what they're called. But when Steve's trauma comes leaching through what he thought were well-sealed barriers, when beds just don't work, when the only soothing of wartime wounds is the continued explanation, curation, and presentation of war... There's a reason the shelf under the presidential biographies is PBS special edition box sets. And the shelf under that is stacked with extra blankets.

Bucky swats at the kitchen light and walks Steve into the living room. The couch cushions are fluffed for sitting. Bucky automatically flattens them and flps the largest throw against the far arm like a bed pillow against a headboard. Steve lies down and pulls one blanket tightly around him. Bucky wrestles a DVD out of a multi-pack sleeve; from it's relative placement, Steve guesses it's Vietnam.

Another blanket fluffs over Steve's legs. Bucky surpasses the DVD menu, sets the sound and TV brightness to lower degrees where they're less likely to blow out Steve's eyeballs and eardrums.

Bucky builds himself a place to kip with a blanket and pillow in front of the sofa. He lies down, then reaches up to intertwine his fingers with Steve's. Bucky squeezes gently. He makes no movement to let go.

Steve listens to the narration coming from the TV. He enjoys the latent taste of spiked chocolate still in his mouth. Steve squeezes Bucky's hand. He wonders if he's going to cry. He breathes deeply again and decides he doesn't care.

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