Even if the stars don't shine

Poetry

  She glanced out of the window absentmindedly, not forgetting him across from her. It was a fairly warm day and she was noticing less and less people wearing scarves, adopting shorter sleeves and skirts but mostly she noticed how in the midst of this he still clung to his long sleeves and gloves. Then again, unlike them, he was hiding something.

  She took a slow breath taking in the smell of coffee grinds in the heated air, the low chattering around them drowned through her ears but didn't make it far enough to her thoughts. She could feel eyes on her and found them familiar, those blue eyes she couldn't help but adore. She glanced down at her coffee cup, feeling the side of it as to whether it was cool enough to drink yet. It wasn't so she looked up.

  "Hey..." she said softly, not wanting to disturb his thought process.

  He smiled something small and innocent, some sort of recognition that he was listening, that he was alright and wouldn't explode.

  She smiled back and felt the cup again. She looked up quickly, feeling a more foreign set of eyes nearby. It was a young woman and she wasn't staring at her; her eyes were glued on him with a small smirk to her thin lips. Blonde hair, brown eyes, pretty. She didn't even notice when the girl sitting opposite her prey looked down out of embarrassment for not being as pretty.

  He noticed her blush and begin to retreat into herself, he reached out for her hand and slowly rubbed his thumb against her skin to reassure her who he wanted to be sitting with. She smiled lightly, looking down still despite his kindness. "What do you... do you want to do something today?" he asked rather quietly and glanced up to meet her sweet eyes.

                                        **

  He found himself standing with her hand in his and staring at the rippling ocean waves. He had tied up the top half of his hair, letting the hair by his neck remain because it wouldn't bother him as much. Of course, she was on his right side so that she didn't feel his curse, sometimes it made her want to switch sides and see what would happen. She led him down to the sand and showed him the abundance of pebbles and smooth rocks the size of a child's fist that spread out as far as they could see.

  "What are we doing?" he asked with slightly furrowed brows.

  She shrugged. "I kinda saw this cool thing... we have to look for a rock that matches the other's eye colour, if you don't want to it's alright, we can sit and watch the waves-"

  He smiled. "No, it sounds... cool," the word sound slightly foreign but he tried to adopt it. He brought her closer by her waist and placed his right hand on her cheek to get a better look at her eyes. He studied them a moment while hers darted between his. "Okay..." then he let her go abruptly and set off on his own little mission.

  The sun felt pale and she didn't notice how it was creeping across the sky at an alarming rate and was almost mid-afternoon when she somehow found the bluest rock she could. She was proud of herself when she went up to him quickly and grabbed him by the face to compare, she grinned and placed the rock in his hand.

  He looked down at it then up at her and without saying anything went back to his mission like he was on the clock, he was losing the game. She had completed the task and lay down on a relatively flat patch of rocks some way away from him. She watched the sky above her and was shocked when it began turning twilight. She sat up quickly and looked around for him.

  Her eyes widened at the empty view she received instead of seeing him digging around still. "Bucky?" she questioned and started to stand.

  "Yeah..." came behind her and made her scream, she placed a hand over her mouth and turned to see him standing there with a rock in his hand and a guarded pride in his eyes. "I found it..."