After the World Has Fallen~ John Egan x Reader

We're Losing It

It had been a few weeks of trial and error. New radio? Failed then worked. Escaping? Some men had already tried that but didn't make it far before they were shot in the back.

Buck and Marge got engaged over letters and Bucky was asked to be his best man.

The events came one after another, almost as if God was telling them that whatever they would try to get out of the camps wouldn't work and the hope to get rescued by their bombing squads became slimmer each day.

Bucky seemed to be going insane, talking to himself, and making up his own baseball games in the courtyard. Except for the fact that he was alone. Buck had already tried to talk to him, but he assured him everything was fine.

It wasn't.

The boys had created a system to pull up stumps from the ground to help keep their fires going. Looked more like a torture device to Y/N, but she wasn't complaining. She was left to observe, leaning on the side wall of a cabin as the boys said she didn't need to help. She argued, but they shut down her offers.

Bucky then walks up to the group with a bit of pep in his step. "Woah, this looks like a work camp the way you jackasses are grinding away."

"Now the grounds loosened up, we got a chance of getting wood for cook fires", Buck explains.

"Take a break. Come on, let's play some ball", he tries to convince him. "Boys, you wanna play some ball?", he asks the group, while acting as though he's swinging a bat. "No? Y/N?", to which she just shakes her head. "Ball, Murph? Come on. Skins versus bones. What do you say? Skins can be the away team-"

At this point all the men had stopped turning the machine to watch Bucky as he ranted about how they could play the game. Swinging his arms around in the air, the group observed his little rant.

"Actually, no, no. We're all away. We're both the away teams. So, bones can take first bat by mutual agreement-"

"Either pitch in, or knock it off", one of the boys say, getting annoyed with his lack of aid.

"Why don't you shut the hell up?", Bucky says passive aggressively, pushing him back.

Y/N rolled her eyes before rubbing her face with her hands. When things didn't go his way the moment they stepped into these fences, he became extremely defensive over his words.

"What the hell is wrong with you?", Buck asks him, pushing him back, but this time he landed in the mud. "You ain't gonna help, stay out of the way"

"Awe, you're the new king of the camp, and I'm just in the way? Oh, King Cleven says, 'no baseball. Just work, work, work.' That's all he wants to do."

"I'm sorry, come on", he apologizes, sticking out his hand to help Bucky back up to his feet.

"No, no, no, no, work", he kicks his hand away. "You got a stump to pull. King stump stumpidy stump. Get to work."

"Come on, get up you loony. Come on, get up", he tries again, but he just continues kicking his hand.

At this point, all the campers and guards were watching the two argue.

"No, get back to work."

"Get up you loony", he snaps grabbing his leg and dragging him about two feet.

"Get off me", Bucky says, pulling him down with him, so they were in a quite ridiculously looking fighting position. "How's that? How's that?"

"Get off me", he grumbles.

Bucky continues pulling on his leg, "What can't handle it? Can't handle i-"

He didn't get to finish his sentence before Gale punches him square in the face, which makes him fall backwards.

"Hey! That's enough fellas", a man yells at them.

Almost on cue, the speakers had turned on. He was shouting something at the guards, yet Y/N couldn't make out what they were saying due to all the static it was emitting. The guards began to shout at their prisoners to get back in their barracks.

"Looks like the Krauts got some bad news", Gale says looking over at the man in charge who had a distraught look on his face. "They landed, didn't they?"

Y/N rushes over to her friends on the ground, grabbing their hands. "God, get up you idiots before you get shot."

After getting up with the help of the girl Bucky comments on Gale's remark. "You think?"

"We're in Western Europe. It finally happened."

They run inside to turn on their new makeshift radio, hoping to get a sense of how much damage their bombing squad did. They surrounded the table, pointing at different points on the map while Bucky was sitting on his bed with Y/N playing doctor. She stood in between his legs while he kept his grip on her hips, gazing up at her face. You could say he always looks at her like she has hung the moon.

She was wiping the blood from his lip, while he held a cold rag to his eye.

"You don't have to do this y'know. I can take care of myself."

"You also didn't have to be so arrogant, yet here we are."

"Ouch, low blow", he says sarcastically making the girl in front of him shake her head.

"Are you alright Bucky?"

"What do you mean?"

She puts the rag aside. "You know what I mean. You're not acting right."

"I'm doing great", he smiles.

"Look, I know this is hard and we've been stuck in here with little to no chance of rescue for way too long, but you need to keep it together. Or at least try to keep it together. The whole team is counting on you to help out, but you're just making a fool of yourself."

She sighs at the lack of response and examines his features, hoping to find any sort of clue as to how he was feeling. "Bucky, just say something..."

"Would it help if I said you look absolutely beautiful right now?"

She lets out a scoff of laughter and shakes her head, grabbing her stuff. "Thank you, but no", she says, bringing a hand up to the side of his face and caressing it gently before walking to the other side of the cabin and standing beside Buck, listening in to their conversation.

Bucky had to snap back to reality since the group started to discuss how they would need to prepare if the Germans decided to execute them if the Americans found their base. After a few ideas were thrown around, blurting out whatever came to mind they decided on making weapons with whatever they could scavenge, including, advancing their load of yard work to build stamina incase they'd need to defend with force.

They needed to be ready for anything.