Winterhawk Writing

Twenty 8

Sometimes Clint allowed himself to think, and he always thinks about how some things are worse than death. There's long moments where he contemplates it. If he could get a guard angry enough to put him out of his misery. But they would never allow it, because prisoners aren't brought here to die. They're brought here to suffer, a suffering with no end and no release.
At some point in his private hell, he gets a cell mate. His cell mate is pale with large grey eyes and limp hair and Clint quickly discovers that his only expression is that of a scowl. He tries to ask what he did to end up here and is met with nothing but stony silence so quiet he thinks his hearing aids have gone out.
There's no sound in the prison. Unless you scream but the dark stone that makes the walls of the prison gobbles up all of the sound and light and happiness. The guards don't make sound either and sometimes Clint wonders if he's actually still alive or suspended in some sort purgatory.
His cell mate eventually talks and it's almost like he's shouting when in reality it's nothing more than a whisper. The only sound Clint has heard has been his own talking, the quiet sounds of his movement, and the screaming from the chasm at the center of the prison. But the chasm only makes noise every once in awhile. If there's a pattern to it, Clint has yet to figure it out. Time works differently in the prison.
"They said I'm here because I spent my life killing," his cell mate said and his expression had morphed from a scowl to an ocean of sadness. "I don't remember my life."
Clint couldn't find the words then and after an unknown amount of time is still searching. He thinks maybe it's been a day or two but it could've been a year since his cell mate had spoken and he'd be none the wiser.
"I'm here because I murdered my best friend. They don't believe that I hadn't wanted to." Clint found himself saying one day. "She was beautiful and I had never loved anything more than I loved her. I would never have hurt her and yet she's dead because of me. Sometimes I think and when I think, I think of dying and seeing her again."
His cell mate, who had at some point said his name was James, had stared at him for a long while before smiling sadly. "I guess we're the same then."
"It would seem so," Clint agreed.
James had a silver arm and while there was no such thing as art in the prison Clint often found himself studying it as though it were a piece from Van Gogh. Intricate and inexplicably sad.
"How did you get that," he asked.
"I don't know," was the answer, one that seemed to be James' only one.
"Will you ever remember?"
"Sometimes memories come back but they come in pieces. Like a puzzle that I don't have a reference picture for."
"Oh. I don't like puzzles," Clint said. "I like things to be simple."
"I don't think anything about you is simple," James replied and then they didn't speak for a long time.
Food in the prison came at undetermined times. Sometimes it felt like he had just ate when another slid through the slot and other times it felt like he hadn't eaten for a week. It always looked delicious, chili and cheese with cornbread or mashed potatoes with thick gravy and a large piece of chicken. But when you ate it, it always tasted the same: like nothing. It smelled delicious, and tasted like nothing and sometimes Clint felt that was the worst part of the prison.
He had tried starving himself to death once, but then the guards had come in and forced it down his throat for the next several meals until he got the message. The food doesn't seem to bother James. He ate each meal and never even commented on the lack of taste. When Clint asked him why he never complained the response made him wish he could take back the question.
"It's better in here. I'm never forced to sleep and there are meals. I don't kill anyone in here." He had said. "I just miss Steve but he's dead so I'd miss him even if I wasn't here. I killed him, you know. Because I was told to and I never crossed my mind not to."
The best part of the prison, Clint decided eventually, was James. Even though he didn't like to talk and he often ignored Clint, having another person to share the cell with was... nice. It made the tasteless food easier to swallow, it made the screaming from the chasm easier to listen to, and it made the timeless spell of the prison seem like it was passing.
"Did you kill Steve like I killed Natasha?" Clint asked.
"Depends on how you killed Natasha," James replied, head resting against the dark stone walls.
"Unwillingly," Clint whispered.
James looked down at Clint from his bunk and gave a forlorn smile. "Yes."
"We're the same?"
"We're the same," James confirmed and resumed staring at the ceiling.
Clint stared at him but James didn't look his way again, but he know James could feel his gaze. He opened his mouth, trying to find a way to ask for the thing he's missed the most since coming here but closed his mouth and looked away. James wouldn't. James could barely handle being in the same room with Clint when he was having a bad day let alone touch Clint.
Natasha had a way of always knowing when Clint needed attention. Some sort of sixth sense she never explained. She would sit close to him on the couch, let him press and mold into her side. She'd bump him with with her shoulder whenever she walked by and always straighten out his perpetual bed head. Clint missed Natasha and Clint missed her affection.
He glanced up at James again and was surprised to find grey eyes staring back. "James," he choked.
"Clint," James raised his eyebrows and sat up. "Are you.. okay?"
James said it like it hurt to ask. Clint guessed no one had asked him in a long time how he was feeling.
"No. Are you?" Clint rasped, trying to get above the sudden wave of sadness.
"Never have been," James smiled sadly and Clint's brain suddenly fixated on how beautiful he was. Maybe it was a coping mechanism, but he was still stuck on it.
"I need," He heaved. "Fuck, James, I can't keep doing this." Where'd the goddamn waterworks come from?
James swung his legs down, dangling off the top bunk as he examined Clint's hunched form. He didn't say anything, nearly silent as he dropped onto the cold stone. Clint flinched at the first touch of his hand on his shoulder but quickly melted into whatever comfort James was trying to offer him. It was a little awkward, given that James was a good five inches shorter than Clint but he was strong and solid, able to hold Clint together when all he wanted was to crumble into dust.
"You're not okay, no one here is," James said softly into his shoulder. "And I don't think you ever will be okay but you can learn to accept it. And if you accept that all of this is bullshit, maybe it'll make it easier to deal with... one day."
James was awful at comforting people, Clint decided. He was exceptional at helping them, though. Being told he was never going to be okay made his chest feel like it was being cleaved open.. but it was what he needed to hear.
"Thank you," Clint was still trying to steady his voice. "You're awful at making people feel better though, James."
James huffed dryly into his shoulder and smoothed his left hand up Clint's back. "Bucky. I used to be called Bucky."
"Bucky." Clint tested the name out, pulled back and examined his only friends face. "As terrible of a name as it is, it somehow suits you."
And somehow, in the indeterminable amount of time he'd been in the prison, Bucky's smile made it all worth it.

I don't even know what this is. Some weird magic prison or something.