Bruja

⠀↳⠀1.3

( T h r e e )
Present

She lay awake in bed with her hands resting on her lower stomach above the sheets.

After the little healing incident, they spent the majority of the time talking by asking questions and getting to know each other. While their answers were incredibly vague, they weren't exactly far off from the truth.

She found out he was in the army, and he found out she went to a boarding school. She found out he grew up in Brooklyn, and he found out she was born in Mexico before moving to Chicago and then settling in New York—where she is now.

Making the most of their night, they didn't realize it was well past four in the morning until one of them accidentally looked at the clock. Bucky slithered in the excuse that because it was late—or early, depending on how you want to look at it—he would not mind taking her home. If anything, he preferred to because he'd know she was safe. But, yet again, she told him he had already done enough, and therefore, she declined. After much back and forth, he persuaded her to have his room with a promise that he would stay in the living room.

And that led to where she was now: lying on the right side of his bed, staring up at the ceiling with the covers on the lower half of her body. Not once did she attempt to close her eyes to get some sleep. She was wide awake all this time.

Sighing, she sat up and lazily rubbed her eyes. A faint sound coming from the living room caused her to freeze. She kept still after spotting movement through the gap between the cracked open door, something she promised to have in case he needed her or vice versa.

She could sense discomfort based on the sound of the wooden floor creaking and the rustling of the bedsheet. It was enough to make her quietly remove herself from the bed and slowly open the door to spot a struggling Bucky too deep in his sleep. At least he kept his promise of staying there.

They say you're not supposed to wake people up when they're sleepwalking, but does the same apply to those who are having a nightmare?

Getting on her knees and keeping a distance of two feet away, she couldn't help but wonder what was happening inside his head. It was obviously a nightmare, those they already talked about, but how traumatic does a nightmare have to be to get the sleeping person to react?

She leaned over to hover a hand above his head. She noticed he stopped twitching when she did so, and when she pulled away, he started fidgeting again.

She gently grabbed his arm and shook him. It did nothing. She tried again, but this time with more force. That did the trick. She pulled away when he jerked his body awake.

He sat up with heavy breaths leaving from his dry lips. Feeling like the single bedsheet was burning him, he thrust it away from himself. The black shirt he wore to sleep was soaked from the collar to his back, and his pants felt heavy despite being made of a thin material—typical cheap pajama pants.

"Hey, hey," she whispered in a hushed tone to not further startle him than she already has by simply waking him up. "You're not in there anymore. You're alright. You're in your apartment. It's," she looked around for a clock to spot the time, "almost five in the morning."

His eyes didn't meet hers; they remained on his knees. He swallowed thickly before mumbling, "I'm sorry."

She almost didn't catch that. Confused by the apology, she frowned and shook her head. "No, you shouldn't have to apologize. Why are you sorry?" Her words might seem harsh, but her tone continued to be the opposite: soft and gentle.