Secretive - Bucky Barnes

21 || Die For You, Literally

There is a silent moment in which neither of us says a word, and it is yelling at me for just dropping a bomb like this. I know, if James opened up, let my empathy in, I would feel the explosion inside him, everything rattling and quivering until it would eventually crumble, the house of cards crashing, falling into itself. I am sure I would feel the blow even in my toes. 

»W-What do you mean, the both of us?« he asks carefully, the echoes of the detonation making his voice shiver. I feel his arctic eyes boring into my neck, into my consciousness, making my vocal cords fail me. 

The bed shifts again, dips behind me until his warmth in my back gives me goosebumps, as does his breath stroking along my bare skin. It has become irregular, just as his pulse that is still galloping, thrumming inside his chest as if it wanted to break out. »Nova« he says so seriously, so alarmed that the world stops for a second.

»I'm-« I start, but not only my voice, words fail me. It is like they turned into my losing game from one second to the next. And still, I know somewhere deep down that it was right to tell him at least this. Should I die in five days; it would have been worse for him to find out all by himself. Lord, I do not even want to imagine this. Seeing everyone else around him getting wrinkles, growing grey hair, and him still forever stuck in his current body, slowly getting that he probably will not die, and will not ever find his peace by leaving his demons behind in the mortal world to forever be forgotten. He will not ever get rid of them.

Well, either that, or I die and he becomes mortal again. Does that make more sense? Does anything make sense in this god forsaken world? »I'm sorry, Jamie. A-All I know is that... that, as long as I live, you continue to live. And I'm,« a sad laughter escaped me, a chuckle so dark it would make abysses jealous, »I'm a fucking Goddess. I'm going to live forever. Which makes you, as the only thing keeping me in control, live forever too.«

His eyes widen, but they are blank, empty as if the sky would have turned into its own desert. Blue, but no chance to spot the smallest living thing in sight. 

I threatened this moment for what feels like an eternity, although I myself do not know for too long. I feared that James's realization would hit him slowly, piece by piece, second for agonizing second. That it would be like a cancer, maybe not even directly in the second I tell him setting in, but with continuing days, weeks, the merciless blade of life would sink in deeper by millimeters. That awareness would spread inside him the same time this tumor dug its claws into the roots of his brain, and it would poison him, it would steal his identity by destroying cell for cell of his character. That he slowly grew into a kind of insanity that only the divine would ever understand, because the divine, too, live with this cancer that has no cure, that won't let you die but kills you day for day like a horrible nightmare that you just won't get rid of. I feared it would be like this for him, feared it so much that goosebumps raked all over my body in an attempt to keep that icy feeling away, but from the first second on that I knew, I knew I would be standing by his side if it was his wish. I wouldn't ever leave, no matter how sick he got.

But it turns out different. What I thought to be a small ignition, turning into flames and taking some time until the fire eventually feeds on everything and anything of his insides, is a roaring burst of a supernova-like heat that drowns him from one second to the other, and only leaves behind the wasteland of a dead horizon. 

His gaze drops for a second in which he inhales deeply, almost like my sight literally stole his breath, but not in a good way. Then, arctic eyes strike me, pupils smaller than I imagined possible. All softness is gone, exchanged by this blank stare of his that he always had for everyone but me. Well, I assume that I am now just anyone for him, too. After all I have done, all that I have and will continue to put him through, I cannot blame him.