SamBucky one shots

choice

A/N: words: 1038. im sorry guys. i really am. but i like feelings. sad feelings. and this one is SADDDDDDDDD. oops :). anyway, enjoy!

"Bucky, what are you telling me?"

It started out simple. It started out reminiscent. It started out bittersweet. It had been Sam's choice to open up about Riley one night. It had been Sam's choice to tell Bucky what he had meant to him. It had been Sam's choice to tell Bucky how Riley had died. It had been Sam's choice to let himself feel safe with Bucky. It had been Sam's choice to let Bucky into his life. It had been Sam's choice to let Bucky's blood soaked hands cradle him in his most vulnerable state. Because Sam knew that Bucky had been soaked in that blood, and that he dripped in his own just the same.

"You're lying to me." Is what fell from Sam's mouth first. Then, "I don't believe you." Sam didn't have the heart to believe Bucky. Didn't have the will, the strength, to feel the force of the fact that life and love were two complicated rigged games that could never be played right.

"Sam, I'm sor-"

And Sam refused the apology, refused to believe it was really. The moment slowed down. The clock ticked down slow like molasses, the residue of what Bucky is telling him dripping into his mind, his skin, his bones, his heart. He felt sick, he felt truth churning in his stomach. He felt a thousand realities and simple days reduced to one small truth.

Silence fell as Sam sat with the truth. Sam didn't have the will to scream. To scream at Bucky that he hid this from him. That he held Sam the same way Riley did, every night, but the blood that coursed through Riley's veins were inevitably on Bucky's, no matter how much Sam tried to love that past away. Some things can never be truly gone. Some things can be ripped from your hands you can only watch.

"Sam?"

It wasn't Bucky. It was the Winter Soldier. The Winter Soldier emptied the world of bright green eyes and a symphony laugh. The Winter Soldier ripped that life from the world. From Sam's hands. But when Sam meets Bucky's eyes, he can only see Riley's green eyes, only see what those eyes tore from the world.

But Bucky didn't have a choice.

"I can't..." Sam breathed out. He had no words. It was as if life took a final swing at him. His lungs empty, his heart heavy, and his mind screaming. He loved Bucky. He thought he'd always love Bucky. But he loved Riley. He thought he would look into Riley's eyes forever and ever, but cold grey eyes stole that future. He can't love Bucky knowing how much his hands took from Sam.

It wasn't Bucky. Sam wanted to scream at himself. Scream the words over and over again. But, that would accomplish nothing. Riley wouldn't come back, and Bucky's hand would still be coated with blood that made Riley's heart pump. A heartbeat that was a chorus that used to sing Sam to sleep.

Knowing how it happened somehow made it worse. It didn't feel like fire, burning rage. It felt like something he had to unravel, something he had to hold in his heart for the rest of his life.

"I can't love you knowing..." Tears sprung from Sam's eyes before he could stop them. He swallowed down every word he wanted to say. Every word he wanted to scream and shake and promise. And yet he said nothing at all. He took the picture of Riley from the counter, his legs taking him out their front door, cold air biting at his skin.

His Riley, his everything, his sweetie, was gone. If it were a simpler world, maybe every part of this painful mosaic that Sam held to his heart would crack. Would crack and let Sam stop caring. Stop putting his heart on the line. It had been Sam's choice to fall in love with both of them, and to lose them both by different ends of the same sword. Maybe life would never give him a chance. Maybe this imperfect life was something that was meant to dig deeper into your heart and soul, until you admit defeat.

~~~

Sam watched as Bucky left. Tinkering with something on the dock, he watched as Bucky packed his things from afar. They hadn't spoken. They didn't need to. Sam had bled enough. Bucky gave him everything. A home, a love, what they thought would be a forever. But the past came back with a vengeance, and ripped whatever love they had for each other apart, leaving shreds of love letters, along with broken pieces of a glass heart.

Some cruel part of him would blame Bucky. Blame Bucky for the misery that he held with him for so many years. Blame Bucky for tossing away a future that seemed to be written in stars and sung in ballads. Blame Bucky for not just burning down the future of Riley and Sam, but the future Sam had planned for Bucky and him.

But the cruellest, most painful thing Sam has to carry with him, is that he still loves Bucky. As backwards as it was, Sam couldn't let that man go. He couldn't let Riley go, either. Riley was a love lost to the wind. But, Bucky? Bucky was an intricate puzzle that Sam had been determined to memorize. Every fleck of his blue eyes, every scar that is too stubborn to fade. Bucky was complicated. He was broken and put back together over and over again. And so was Sam. So really, they were the same piece of the intricate chess game life bestowed upon them. But, Bucky was played by hands that weren't his own, thus defeating Sam at a game the devil called love. Sam would call it a torturous thrill that always ended up in flames.

The Winter Soldier dragged a bloody knife across Sam's heart, but Bucky was the one to patch him up. Sam owed him a lifetime, but life had Sam pay the price of loss. Loss that was relentless. To lose Riley costed him Bucky. And wasn't that just damn ironic. Love twice, and lose them both to the same cruel knife.