disheveled [ sambucky bingo collection ]

4 | We Almost Became When

Title: We Almost Became When

Square Filled: Antique Shop AU

Warning: Swearing; hinted PTSD/PTSD coping; angst; creepy antique shop theme

Summary: Bucky comes and goes from that one Antique Shop in Washington, D.C. for that sense of familiarity; definitely not because Sam comes by every Thursday without fail, no, it wasn't that...

Word Count: 6537

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History in itself was a mistress: lovely, seductive, and young, and whoever fell in love with her would die in bed with lace tucked around their arms, bruised kisses on their neck, and palm prints tarnished on their legs, stained with the tragedy of their affairs and the patterned sheets of records of blissful blasphemy. It was melodic, a siren call to those practically obsessed with the idea that they were abandoned by the people in their timeline, offering the idea that they were born for an entirely different era. It's wicked, sick, and stained with the rubble of the columns of what was supposed to be the worshipping grounds of the gods.

Bucky Barnes wanted to be stained with the idea of history, almost being hurt to want something so badly; the desire to become burdened as a war hero and to stay a war hero was an "almost" to him.

He always believed that he was unfit to recall time itself, envisioning an entirely different reality than his own. He begs to have that control, to bend and mend broken bridges and crackling skies—to learn how to will reality with a swift flick of the wrist was a dream young Barnes didn't think was possible, so it stayed a dream. He was stuck in war days with a soldier for a father and a memory as a mother, his sister a letter and his lovers a flicker, and if only he could bend time and reality, he wouldn't have gotten this, no—He only received more war days and a soldier for a leader and a memory as a caretaker, his actions a letter and his consent a flicker, and he wouldn't remember that he once bent time and reality when he was lying on his bed, staring at his bedroom ceiling, all the ripe age of eight thinking that if that nosy kid Dicky hadn't thrown their ball in old Smith's house, then none of this (mess of a birthday) would happen.

Dicky hadn't thrown his ball into old Smith's gutter and never got it back, but Barnes wouldn't know. He couldn't know. Did he know?

This was probably the "almost" we hear about so much. Almost a perfect dress. Almost a pretty drawing. Almost a perfect writer. Almost a pretty date. Almost a perfect night. What is it about the word that made it so sorrowful? Was it because it spoke of a lesser quantity we should've gotten our hands on, and that we wished for it to be greater than it should be? We begin to want this "almost" with every breath we breathe that it almost defines us, enrages us because we cannot claim it. So, what? Almost perfect. Almost pretty. Almost mine.

Sam Wilson was that almost; to Barnes's vision, at least.

There was something off with the way Sam Wilson carries himself that made Barnes believe that the man cares nothing of the world. Sam Wilson isn't faultless, but he was almost perfect. Sam Wilson wasn't exactly bold, but he was almost fearless. Sam Wilson isn't particularly utopia, but he was almost what heaven would be like. To see Sam Wilson as anything before the latter descriptions were almost unacceptable—Sam Wilson is, Sam Wilson was, Sam Wilson will. This man, Barnes thinks, will be the death of him, and, honestly, who doesn't think of that?

It's a constant thought, Barnes would admit. He wishes to remove it, to distract himself away from the pull of this man, yet it seemed futile. It always seemed futile with Sam Wilson—when wasn't everything feeling as if it was almost ending?