find me

30. real

Bucky had spent the rest of the day wandering in the town, going from one store to the other asking if they needed help. Finally after countless attempts, he found a small shop selling fruit and vegetables whose owner had just lost her only employee and needed someone to help her load and unload all the crates and bags.

The pay wasn't going to be much but it was enough to buy groceries and pay rent, and since I'm this tiny village there wasn't much else to spend money on, he accepted.

As he walked back to the house, dinner and ice cream in one hand, the sun was setting over the sea. It was so beautiful his steps got slower, his eyes glued to the view. The sky was tinted in a bright red and pink hue, mirrored in identical shades on the swirling water.

He enjoyed being near the sea. Some people minded the weather, the stickiness and saltiness left over on the skin at the end of the day, the vulnerability that came with facing wide open displays of nature, often forcing them to look within and listen to themselves; the loneliness.

But Bucky didn't mind, quite the opposite, he enjoyed staring at the sea and let its energy start this search inside of him. He never knew what to expect every time he sat down and spent time in front of an ocean, his eyes taking him miles away from the shore, exploring the open sea with curiosity and almost desperation. And even when that search found ugliness and darkness, he welcomed it. Because being aware of that ugliness brought trouble within him, and that was comforting to him. Trouble was something he knew very well, he was used to it.

He liked trouble; not as much as Steve maybe, but he got a kick from it too. Of course, that doesn't mean he was necessarily good at dealing with it, but it definitely didn't scare him.

Peace scared him a whole lot more, because he had never really experienced it, not truly or for long enough to be comfortable with it. And even those times he had started to learn how to live peacefully, things had gone so terribly wrong he never really trusted peacefulness thereafter.

And so he welcomed the anguish and torment that he was feeling in that moment, staring at the powerful presence of the ocean. He knew it was fear bubbled up inside him, fear of what the coming night might bring. Fear of hoping, of wishing, of messing up even more badly than he had already done. Fear of closing that distance between them which had strained his heart and soul for longer than he was willing to accept.

His thoughts wandered as his feet kept walking, absentmindedly.

Before he'd even realized, he was back at the house, a soft warm light was coming from the open windows, casting bright shapes on the surrounding sand.

His heartbeat fastened, a lump in his throat making him struggle to swallow.

As he closed the main door behind him, he stumbled on a bag on the floor. He stared at it with a puzzled look and noticed a folded paper fastened around the zip slider of one of the pockets.

He unfolded it, it was a handwritten note.

'I'm out. Left the lights on, didn't want you to worry. I'll be back at sunset.'

Bucky's lip tilted slightly on one side as he slid the note on the back pocket of his denims. It had been a long time since he had received one of her notes and the gesture, for how small it could seem to someone else, it was huge to him. He walked through the living room and left the bag on the kitchen counter. They didn't have much in the kitchen except for a few plates and mugs, some cutlery and, luckily, the fridge. They couldn't really cook anything so the past few days they had been eating mostly fresh food or take-away meals he had bought and collected himself. Pizzas a couple of times.

Bucky had tried different shops and restaurants, to see which one they liked most, luckily everything was pretty cheap there. Tonight he decided to try the panini from the local bakery; he also got a few beers and ice cream, which he immediately put in the fridge and freezer. He didn't know how long the walk from the bar to the house was but he guessed he walked at least half an hour. He knew the beers were fine but the ice cream had already probably melted away. The hope was the freezer would bring it back to the right temperature so they could have some tonight.