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james-bucky-barnackle · 7 years ago

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Frostbite (End)

Requested: can i request a fic between Y/N and Steve where they’re secret lovers but Y/N chooses team Ironman in Civil War and then fast forward to infinity war she finds out that Steve has moved on with Nat.

Part 6 | Frostbite Masterlist

Pairing: Steve x reader

Warnings: slight angst

Word count: 3.9k

A/N: Thanks for the memories, I love you guys. Thanks to everyone who’s read this mini-series. This chapter was inspired by the song Say it Again by Frances.

Day 74 since Steve’s confession

Y/N feels like she’s young again, being courted. Like the girl in the books she’s read, although she still hasn’t remembered. Though she admired Steve’s dedication to see her whenever he can – which is perhaps every time – she’s decided to run at night. It was her time to think. She knows no one is pressuring her to decide, but seeing Steve’s face every single day, knowing he was anxious to know what she was feeling made her unhappy. She wanted him to be happy, to not wake up every day without an answer.

The street lamps have become silent sanctuaries for her soul when she’s done running, she would always walk back. After the jolt of racing from point a to point b, wanting to get away from the tower as fast as possible, she would be coming back the slowest way she can. In these nights, she would think of Steve’s eyes, and how they sparkle like the stars in the sky; how each time, they’re a constellation to be identified. Steve’s in love with the girl she used to be. She shook her head, no it can’t be. It’s still me, isn’t it?

She was terrified of being alone too, who was she not to understand what Steve must’ve felt all those years? Was it so wrong to crave for attention and claim one that’s right there, in arm’s reach? There are twenty-two lamp posts before the tower, and it feels as though her steps get slower and slower. There are still people wide awake, with the light on their windows floating in the sea of darkness. Could they be thinking of their lovers too? Maybe even during this one time she could relate with the people in their bedrooms, their lights still on, and their minds on the people who love them. Did she love him? Although he’s been nothing but kind to her, and her feelings have been swayed, there’s still something lacking. Like the last bit of gap between land and air before she could fall into the cliff, into his arms. She’s still on the edge, lacking that one step to fall. That’s what she thought of every night.

She wanted to cast snowfall for the people outside, light enough to make them look and receive something from above, but maybe not tonight. Nine more lamps until she’s back in the tower that had slowly unraveled from its being foreign. It felt like a box of memories, and she still hasn’t found the key. The council has approved for Y/N to be on missions now, and she’ll be on her third one the day after tomorrow. Her task being to monitor them, it was enough, just standing in the shadows. Everyone was still worried about her being on the field, so she was assigned on the sky.

She remembers the day she sat on the quinjet, the first time she’s ever had since forgetting. Her hand felt like it fit perfectly on the control; like they’ve been reunited to a place where they’ve always belonged. It was funny, that her hands knew where they belonged but the rest of her body didn’t. But it was enough, for now. Three more lampposts and she’ll be home. Home is such a strange word. The tower was nothing but a concrete fortress, shouldn’t home be a person? Was Steve hers?

One, she was standing in front of it now, the last lamppost; and behind it the tower stood proudly, although she thought of it coldly, it was the only place she saw herself in. Maybe it was because she really had no other place to go, and maybe it’s true, when you’re lonely, you take what you can get. Y/N walked back inside, her steps light and quiet. She walked straight to the direction of her room, and once there, she jumped on her bed, on her back and huffed. Looking to her right, was the book. She extended her arm and grabbed it. Her fingers rubbing on the yellow stain on the cover. That night would never be erased from her memories, it was the first time she’s been reminded of something she still hasn’t remembered anything about. Even when her life had been relayed to her like a history book, it’s not the same until you really have gone through it. It was all talk and no show. By now she’s practically read the book too many times to count.

Y/N sighed, put the book on her chest and laid her arms wide on the bed, her knees dangling from the edge. Another night finished, another day still not remembering, another morning to deal with.

---

“Steve,” Y/N greeted, a smile on her lips as she saw Steve in the hallway waiting for her. It was music to his ears, his name escaping from her lips, the only melody he’d let a broken record play.

“Hi,” he whispered back. And although he wanted to hold her hand as they walked to the meeting, he knew that she still wasn’t ready. It was small, but waiting another millennium just to touch her hand would be alright. After all, here she was already greeting him with her lips turned up. “You ready?”

“Yes,” she bit her lip and they started walking. Her hair had grown long, he wanted to tuck it behind her ear.

“Do you want to drop by the bookstore later? Maybe we could find something new to read?” Steve asked. Y/N didn’t want to say it, but there’s only one book she’s interested in. But the look on Steve’s face is too hard to wipe away.

“Yeah, that’d be nice, Steve.” she nodded. Say it again, Steve thought. Say my name again. Steve looked to his side, trying to hide his boyish grin. He too felt like he was the boy back in Brooklyn, the prettiest girl walking with him. He wanted the world to know.

“They’re here. Let’s get started,” Tony declared the moment the two had stepped in.

They all sat round the table, while Steve analyzed the way of the mission and started assigning tasks. It was a rescue mission, and a quick retrieval operation. Something of Hank Pym’s technology was stolen, Hank and his wife have been kept captive, forced to create more. Hope was now part of the team for this mission, Y/N saw the sadness in her eyes, her worry, her not being able to sit still on the chair and wait for tomorrow. Time was ticking, but there wasn’t much of a choice. Hank had signaled that he bugged the replica they were creating, self-destructing the moment it will be turned on. The plan was to rescue him and Janet before the terrorists would activate the device. Their hideout would be obliterated. It was simple.

Y/N nodded as she was tasked with being the main pilot, to drop them off and wait until they’re ready to be picked up. Though her powers have come back and she was able to control it, it was still best for her to not be in combat, with her still recovering from amnesia. It was a risk they couldn’t take. When the meeting had ended, she saw Scott hug Hope, she saw the tears in her eyes, not wanting to lose her parents again and Y/N was more than willing to help Hope to get a piece of herself back.

The afternoon had flown by quickly, Steve had his jacket on and Y/N wore a sweater over her collared blouse. The sun was hiding behind the clouds, the air was cold but it didn’t matter. They both walked on the pavement, his hands in his pockets and hers on the strap of her bag. They were heading to one of the oldest bookstores in the city, a place she’d always went to before. The store had huge windows, and upon entering was the scent of coffee and old books. The mahogany wood floors and the army green wallpaper blending perfectly to look like a literary jungle. Black pendant lamps were hung through the aisles, warm light emitting from the bulbs, the books looking bright and yellow below. The store sold old books as well as new ones, but Y/N always walked past those crisp new copies and went straight to the withering ones. Those were the one that held memories. She would open one and flip through the pages, creases of the folds made by the previous owner, the writings of a blue pen underlining the best lines said, the dedication in front. She loved it.

“Look at this one,” Steve called out, holding a small gray book in his hand. “I used to have this book when I was young.” It was a book by Thomas Hardy. He opened the book revealing the yellowing pages. “After I read it, I started drawing the scenes the way I imagined it in my head. It wasn’t the way I always ended up the picture to be.” He closed it, it was a newer edition, with an illustration on the cover.

“Do you find anything you like?” She asked.

“I have,” he nodded, but not continuing to say what. He pressed his lips together and smiled. Y/N walked to another aisle. As she stood on the opposite side of the shelf, the books creating windows where they could see each other, she spoke.

“Would you like to have coffee after this?” Steve couldn’t hide his delight.

“S-sure, I’d love that.” He looked through the books, at Y/N’s face focused on looking for the perfect novel. She was beautiful, especially under this light. She tied her hair in a low pony tail, a strand of hair falling from her face. Seeing her made his heart melt every time.

After a few more minutes in the store, Y/N decided not to purchase anything at all. She followed Steve to the counter where he paid for his. It was packed in brown paper, and tied with a beige string. Y/N wondered what he got, he didn’t say when they were skimming through the books. But her curiosity would soon be over.

“Here, I got this for you.” Steve handed the brown package to her as they made their way to the café. Y/N’s breath hitched, she looked up at him and smiled.

“You didn’t have to.”

“I wanted to.” He put his hands back in the comfort of his pockets.

“Thank you.” She started to pull the string. And he paused, biting his lip.

“Can you open it later instead?” he asked, gently.

“Why?”

“I think it’s the best time for it.”

“Oh, okay,” she nodded.

Steve was happy he’d ask Bucky about coffee, he didn’t know a place to get the best one. So, when Y/N asked him to have coffee this afternoon, he had an idea of where they should go. It was located just at the edge of the town, before it went south. It was a hidden gem, it was never full of people. It was perfect. They were greeted by one of the staff mopping the black marble floor, gold veins stretched over it. The young man looked at the pair and for a second was in awe, but quickly regained composure and gave them a friendly smile. Steve smiled back, a silent thanks for giving them privacy.

“I never thought there’d be a day where we’d be inside a café,” he said with a light chuckle. Y/N smiled, and looked down, remembering the stories where all she ever drank was water and juice.

“My past self would be shocked,” she replied.

“What would you like?” Steve asked getting up from his chair to order.

“I’d like a hot latte, with a little bit of cinnamon sprinkled on top.” She intertwined her fingers, and rested her elbows on the round table.

“Coming right up,” Steve gave her a playful salute.

When he was gone, she stared at his gift. Why was there a need for this to be opened later? Why not now? She looked at Steve who’s standing by the counter the barista wide-eyed at the super soldier as she tapped in his order. When she’s moved to the sink to make the drinks, Steve looked back at the table, his eyes locking with Y/N. She flustered, having been caught gawking. He winked, and she shook her head, keeping a laugh in. Every time she looked at him, she was in search of that one thing. And every time he’d catch her looking, her heart would pound so fast, like it’s going to jump out of her chest. When he came back, a tray in hand, she asked him a question that almost had the staff needing to mop the floor again.

“Do you like dancing?”

“Uh w-well, I wasn’t really good at it.” His eyes round, looking at hers, what is it, Y/N?

“But do you like it?” his pulse quickened. Her voice was soft, like fingertips brushing a petal.

“Yes, I d-do,” he breathed, “especially when it’s with the right partner.”

Her eyes looked back into his, and for a moment they were in their own bubble. Steve waited for more, ask me more, Y/N.

“Will you take me dancing when the mission’s over?” he almost died, right then and there. This girl sitting across was the death of him. A sheepish smile cascaded all over his face, like little boy given the biggest present on Christmas morning.

“Of course, it w-would be a dream to.”

Y/N picked her mug and placed it close to her lips, hiding her joy behind it. Steve chewed a piece of his muffin to keep his mouth from smiling so much, but his eyes failed to hide it.

“All set and ready for lift off.” Y/N spoke on her lapel, her hands on the controls. Clint sat beside her, her co-pilot. Natasha has been laying low for now, and Y/N felt gloom when she found out she used to be the one who sat beside her. But she knew she was in pain, and maybe one day they can talk about it. For now, everyone was settling themselves on the quinjet. Tony has flown ahead, and when the perimeter has been cleared, they set off. It wasn’t long before they were hovering on top of the building, a huge industrial structure sitting in the middle of the forest. The vines dancing around the cement, greenery has blended into its cold façade.

“You ready?” she heard Scott ask Hope, as they both stood on the edge of the jet. She nodded and put on her helmet. Steve started another rundown of the plan to clear it before they engage.

“When you get Hank and Janet, Y/N will be ready to pick you up. Vision and I will retrieve the tech, the others will block the gates. The moment we’ve gotten that we all clear the building, before they could activate the double. Okay?” They nod and Y/N started her way to get everyone in their places. Steve looked at her before he jumped off. With one look they could already speak without words. She’d know that Steve wanted her to be safe and that she wanted him to be the same.

The moment she’s left by herself she was already anxious for the to get back. She watched as Bruce, Tony and Thor fought the soldiers from the outside. Clint was shooting arrows with finesse, his targets oblivious to the man in the trees. There she was with this four men in her view, with half of the team taking care of the dangers inside, the tall walls blocking her from them, making her more curious to what’s happening. She could only ever hear their voices on her earpiece, the commands they’re spewing out, and the corridors they’ve cleared. Everyone was moving so fast, but time felt like it was too slow.

“I’ve got Janet!” I hear Scott on the wire. “But Hank’s not here.”

“I see three men with the double, Hank’s not on this floor either.” Sam reported.

“We have five minutes ‘til they power up the decoy. Exit the building, take Janet to the quinjet.” Steve’s voice rung through the earpiece.

“Where are you going?” I hear Bucky.

“To get Hank.”

“I’m going with you,” Hope beeped in.

Y/N quickly flew the quinjet to the rooftop, where she saw a beautiful gray haired woman in Scott’s arms. The soldiers outside seem to be coming from different directions, but the team has been fighting them with ease. Three minutes, there still wasn’t any sign from Hope or Steve. Janet is worried sick about her daughter and her husband, whenever one of them is safe, two will always be in danger. Two, Tony has started flying around the perimeter, Bruce has held Bucky, keeping him from coming in the building when they’ve only had a few seconds left. Even though Bucky knew he wouldn’t get to help Steve in time, it was better than waiting. But Bruce knew better than to risk one more life. One, the three hasn’t still been heard of. Where could they be? Time was ticking, Janet looked like she was dying, Y/N’s hands was shaking, but she willed herself to be strong as she held them all up in the air. The ladder swinging idly. Thirty seconds, they heard Tony shout, Hank was on the rooftop, his arm draped around Hope as they trudged towards the quinjet.

“Where’s Steve?!” Bucky screamed.

“They were too many, I-I lost him ins-side,” Hope looked ashamed for getting out without him.

“Steve!” Tony called out, but static only replied.

“Come on, come on, come on.” Y/N whispered as she shook her head.

Nine seconds, eight, seven – Y/N’s heart was racing, she didn’t know what to do. She couldn’t fathom losing another piece of her past.

“You have to speed off Y/N,” she heard Tony command. “The impact of the explosion is vertical, you have to get off the roof.”

“But, Steve-“

“I’ll get him,”

“Tony, I-“

“Go!” the force in his voice was frightening. Y/N flicked the switch and there they were lifting off the ground. The moment Clint sat beside her on the cockpit, she unbuckled her seat belt and ran behind to look at the structure, looking for any sign of Steve. Clint looked back at her, sorrow in his eyes. Three, two, one. Dust started spiraling out of the building, fire and smoke all together, concrete crumbling. And that’s when her breath paused for the longest time. Her eyes grew wide. In that moment, she saw the kid in her arms, the child she couldn’t save who was standing just five feet away from her. The dust floating in the wind, the cement pressing on her leg, the gravel scattered all around her; the red stain growing bigger on his polo. She was looking ahead, at the building that had just crumbled before her. She saw her body covered in ash, when she wiped it off there weren’t any. She remembered the hours she was stuck underneath, the child still in her arms, lifeless, and her eyes red from the endless streak of tears.

Her head felt like she hit a wall; she was seeing visions of Steve’s shield hit on Tony’s suit. The look on Steve’s face, his blue eyes pleading. Y/N put a palm on her head, where a scar has healed.

“Ah!” she screamed, stammering, Thor caught her. She felt blood streaming from her head but when she reached to touch it there was nothing.

“I h-hate how I-I still love you even though you’ve hurt me so much,” it echoed through her ears, suddenly it was all coming back to her. He was the one she told this to.

“Steve. It’s Steve. I love him, it’s him” she pulled herself away from Thor. “Let me out, I need to save him.” Clint looked on, not knowing what to do. The building’s already broken down, gray as covered the sky.

“I know, Steve.” She blinked, her tears now coming rapidly, “I-I kn-know even if you can’t s-say it.”

“Clint, open the damn door.” She hissed, her head still aching.

“Y/N, it’s not safe out there,”

“Please,” she stared into Clint’s eyes. Without waiting for his reponse, she shot a shard of ice hitting the controls perfectly, the door opening, the wind rushing violently. She jumped off and her powers surged through her. She raised her arms in front and her feet landed on a mountain of ice, tall enough to touch the sky. She knew the risk of using too much of her powers, but she didn’t care. She slid faster than she’s ever did. Her heart was raising, “come on, Y/N.” she scolded herself for being too slow even when she’s almost as fast as Pietro ever was. Her tears froze and dropped heavy like bullets.

The moment her feet landed on the remnants of the building, her heart pounded harder. Where could he be? She ran all around, clenching her fists as a roar of wind made a path for her, clearing the stone and anything that could cover anything.

“Steve?!” she cried out. “Please! Come back to me, please.” Her last words, almost a whisper. She was whimpering, she didn’t want to lose hope even when the whole world would tell her to.

She saw something glimmer under the ashes, blue and red. Her breath hitched, it was his shield. “Steve!” she ran towards it, dug it out of the rubble and there he was. His face covered in black powder, his suit in muck. Her heart leaped out of her chest, she grabbed his body and hugged him tight, rocking him slowly. “Wake up, please wake up.”

She pulled his hand and put it on her cheek, “It’s me, Y/N. I remember you now. Please, come back to me.” Tears are falling on his suit like rain. “It’s me, Steve. Me.” She repeated her words as if her identity is the antidote to bring him back to life. She was losing hope. She put his body down, raised her hands as the gravel around him flew off, giving him space. She was desperate, she pressed on his chest and started pumping. Her hands were shaking, and she hated herself for being so feeble at a time like this. “Stay with me, I won’t ever forget you. I promise, just wake up.”

He eyes were still closed. She was panicking, her palms on his chest became fists. She was hitting him hard, desperate. “Steve!” she growled, “Don’t leave me My heart was only ever yours to break.” She was huffing. “Help!” she shouted into the distance, her fists hitting Steve’s chest. She hit him again, nothing; and again- nothing. And agai---.

He coughed, “Y/N,” the first words that escaped his lips. She pulled him close, his head on her chest, the sudden contact stunning Steve.

“Oh my god.” She breathed.

“I’m okay, don’t cry.” He spoke, his breath tickling her neck.

“I love you, Steve.” Steve couldn’t believe it. Was he dead? This was too good to be true.

“Say it again.”

“I love you.” A tear shed from his eye as he heard her say that.

“I wished I could’ve done that sooner.”

“What?”

“Almost die.”

She hugged him closer, an audible squirm from her lips. Steve let out a laugh even when they’re covered in dirt, he was home. She was home.

“I still have a beautiful woman to take out dancing.”

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beserked2 · 8 years ago

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Sometimes a Memory is not Enough

Entry for round 8 of the ‘Choices Creates Carnival’

Prompt: Friendship

Relationships: Diego and MC (Endless Summer)

Hosts: @hollyashton @firefly-hwufanficwriter

A/N: I read the deadline for the Round 8 entry wrong, so this is late. It’s also long. I wanted to brush off the rust and start writing again, so I wrote this thing because Diego is awesome.

Set just after the group skip into the future and find Rourke in that hybernation pod.

***

Its Estela’s idea to post sentries, because of course it is.

It’s Zahra who groans and says she’s too tired for it, tells Estela to do it herself if it’s that important to her.

Their bickering – if you could call it that – is as snappy and quick as it is to end. It’s Sean that shuts it down, because of course it is.

It’s Grace who figures out who’ll work sentry when. She draws up a timetable in messy scribbles, her eyes darting over to the elevators every few seconds.

It’s Quinn who worries aloud if Jake, Michelle and Aliester are alright upstairs with Everett Rourke. Though with the way Grace is acting, you guess Quinn’s not the only one.

It’s you that watches it all and you know, you know there’s more you should be doing.

You’re not upstairs with the others, waiting for Rourke to wake up from his post-hybernation pod slumber.

You’re not out there, scouring the jungle for Diego and Raj like your heart longs to. The rest of the group would come after you and you won’t do that to them. That’s not your particular brand of stupid.

You’re just there, standing stock still in the middle of The Celestial’s lobby, hating how it’s Craig by your side and not Diego.

You can’t look at Craig, at the rigid set of his shoulders or the tight balls of his fists because that anger is on you. It’s on all of you. Not going back for Raj settles a guilt so deep in you that you’re not sure you’ll ever be able to reach it; to grab it and scrape it away, even if you do manage to get him back. Anger has more use and you almost envy Craig his; wonder at how it is he got past all the other stuff and landed there. Meanwhile all you’ve got in you is your useless guilt and the ache of Diego’s loss.

“I’ll take first watch,” you say, because this isn’t you. You don’t just stand around watching other people work at the problem, no matter what you’re feeling.

The way Sean looks at you is soft, the hand he lays on your shoulder, comforting. “No,” he says gently. “I’ve got the first shift. You should… get some rest.”

You let him have it, because you can see how he wears the weight of losing Raj to the Watchers; how it leeches some of the light from his eyes and you know he carries more than his fair share of the guilt.

Sean wants to say something more, you can see him figuring out how to and you know this is about more than Raj, the Watchers or Rourke. He’s here, comforting you when Quinn is the one with lashes that are still wet from tears.

You take a step back and let Sean’s hand fall from your shoulder. You don’t want to hear it, whatever it is he has to say about Diego; about losing him. Since arriving in La Huerta Diego’s bonded with the group plenty, but Sean doesn’t know him – not the way you do. It’s not fair to Sean, to any of them, but the memory of Diego slipping away from you is still too fresh, too raw, for you to care.

You turn away before Sean can say anything, and it’s not just his eyes you feel watching you leave.

Watching Rourke sleep is about as appealing as standing around the lobby, so instead of making your way to the others, you head towards your room.

Except – God.

Diego had died in your arms in that room and you hesitate outside the door. It hadn’t mattered so much when you’d been given a second chance; when you’d gone back and saved him. He’s gone now though, and there’s no magic necklace for you to grip tight and rewind time. You’ve got nothing to get back the six months he’s spent locked up with the Watchers or worse – dead.

You can’t go in there.

You stand in the hallway, at a loss until something knocks at your shins. You look down to find Furball tugging at the hem of your jeans, trying to pull you along. You don’t know much about the tiny creature, but you know enough to trust him.

It’s not like you’ve got anything else to do, so you follow his bushy blue tail down the hallway. He leads you along to the East Wing and up two flights of stairs before halting in front of the busted in door of Diego’s room.

You’ve kept your room as clean as you found it but Diego’s is the kind of mess that would’ve driven your last foster mother into hysterics and you know it isn’t all the fault of ransacking Watchers.

Empty chip packets and an inordinate number of socks litter the floor. Dirty dishes and discarded clothing cover nearly every other available surface. The mattress has been overturned and on the bare base of the bed you spy Diego’s portable hard drive, battered and cracked open.

Everything is cast in a gentle blue glow from the aquariums that line the walls; the dead fish in them floating somewhere near the ceiling. It’s fitting, you think, to be find a place that looks as sad and as lonely as you feel.

You take one step forward, then another and another and surround yourself with Diego’s things. Furball is busy freezing the dregs of soda in the bottles stacked by the bathroom and you sit down on the floor at the edge of the bed, turning the broken hard drive over in your hands.

Diego would be heartbroken, with actual tears in his eyes if he could see it. Hours and hours he’d spent selecting the best, most absolutely necessary, movies that he had to have with him when he left the house. Just in case. Hours more, he’d spent downloading and copying them onto the thing.

Carefully, you tuck the battered plastic into the pocket of one of Diego’s hoodies and fold it up on the floor next to you, to take when you leave.

Not ten minutes later, Furball is nudging something out from between the bed and end-table. Diego’s phone slides face-down on the carpet, towards you.

A sad smile curls your lips. Diego can’t go more than a couple hours without the thing. He’s the type of person that has six apps running in the background and endless notifications littering his lock screen. He’s that person that snaps dozens of selfies and captures every memory like holding it in your head, in your heart, isn’t enough.

You almost wish you were that person too, because right now the memory of him isn’t enough.

You reach for the phone and find it’s still connected to the charger but it’s powered off. The loud melody it makes when you turn it on slices through the quiet like a knife and the luminescent screen is so bright it makes your eyes water.

When they clear it’s a picture of Furball’s face poking out from the head of Diego’s Batman robe on the lockscreen. Your smile is warm this time because yes, Diego would bring his ratty Batman robe to a tropical island.

“His wallpaper used to be a picture of Wonder Woman,” you tell Furball as he clambers onto your lap. You tilt the phone down so he can see. “It takes someone pretty special to dethrone an Amazonian warrior princess, you know.”

“Gotta say, I wouldn’t have pegged you as the comic-book type.” The sound of Jake’s voice startles you so bad you have to fumble to keep ahold of the phone.

You look up to find him leaning in the doorway to Diego’s room, arms folded across his chest, the side of his mouth kicked up in his trademark smirk.

This would be the part where you’d tell him that you’re a woman of many mysteries or that comics were filled with enough awesome they were everyone’s type.

“Diego’s my closest friend,” you say instead, like it’s an explanation, and in a lot of ways it is.

The smirk slips from Jake’s face and he jams his hands into the pockets of his jeans. “Yeah,” he sighs. “Yeah, I know, Princess.”

“No you don’t,” you reply quietly. “You don’t even know Diego.”

“Maybe not,” he replies, “but I know you.”

You snort, want to laugh but you can’t. The number of people that really know you amounts to one, and you’d let him slip right through your fingers.

“You don’t think I know you?” Jake asks and you can hear him moving closer but you can’t bring yourself to look at him.

“I know you,” he says again, with more force this time. The toes of his boots edge into the field of your vision. When he crouches down before you, your vision goes blurry – and oh look, there are those tears you were looking for earlier.

“Hey.” Jake’s voice is too quiet – too tender. Heat envelops you as he moves to put his arms around you but you jerk back, away from the warmth, from the comfort he’s offering.

“No. I can’t –“

“Okay,” he says, in that same tender tone and settles beside you instead. “Okay.” He’s close enough that his shoulder is pressed up next to yours; far enough away that you’ve got room to breathe.

You sit in silence for a good long while, the both of you pretending to ignore the tears that roll fat and heavy down your cheeks, the sniffles that are the only things that break the quiet. You were looking for them before, when you were alone and now that you’re not, here they are. You try and will them to stop but typically, they just won’t quit.

Your eyes are so bleary it takes you four attempts to enter the password to Diego’s phone correctly and the picture of Furball is replaced by Diego dressed as Indiana Jones and you as Gandalf. Affection sweeps through you and though the tears don’t stop, they slow.

Beside you, Jake snorts. “You never told me you were such a nerd.”

I thought you said you knew me, you could say – you could tease. That’s too much just now though, and you don’t have it in you to be zippy either.

You tap through to the photo gallery. “I met Diego at a costume party,” you tell Jake as the pictures fan out before your eyes. “It’s our thing.”

“Yeah?” He asks, leaning closer. “Tell me there’s one of you in a princess c-“

“There isn’t,” you reply too quickly.

Jake raises one brow and ever so slowly, the corner of his mouth ticks upwards. “Liar,” he breathes and before you even have the thought to tighten your grip on the phone, it’s plucked from your fingers.

You lunge forward sending Furball leaping off your lap, but Jake’s too fast and he pulls his arm back out of reach.

“What is it, huh? Frilly dress with pink taffeta? Sexy Princess Jasmine? Slave Leia? ”

Your cheeks tinge pink and your efforts redouble. Jake scrambles to his feet, holding his arm above his head as he dances backwards. You follow and the two of you stumble and trip on the overturned mattress, going down in a flurry of limbs.

“Oof,” he grunts as you land atop him. “Those are my kidney’s you’re crushing.”

Uncaring, you climb up the length of him and just as your fingers brush the cool glass, the speakers cackle to life.

“SURPRISE!” Diego’s voice shouts tinny and loud.

Beneath you, Jake freezes but you know this memory, you know it. You pull the phone from Jake’s slack hand and see yourself standing in the doorway to your apartment as Diego throws bits of Christmas wrapping paper at you from behind the camera.

“Why are you throwing rubbish at me?” asks the you in the video.

“It’s confetti!” Diego replies brightly. “Homemade, because that’s how much I care.”

The smile that stretches your lips mirrors the one you wear on the screen.

You don’t need the video to remember this, but you let it play anyway.

***

(Five months earlier)

The wrapping paper is that foil stuff and it glints in the low light as Diego continues to throw at it you from behind his phone. He’s wearing a blonde wig, a red tank that looks awfully familiar and light wash jeans.

“Are you wearing my clothes?” You ask, squinting at him.

“People dress up as Jesus on his birthday. I can dress up as you on yours,” he says, throwing confetti over himself.

He’s the only other person in the room, but you realize then, that this is a surprise party. It’s the giant strip of butcher’s paper hanging behind the television that you notice first. ‘Happy Birthday’ it reads in Diego’s elegant cursive.

Your eyes scan the rest of the apartment and find a white plastic table-cloth patterned with streamers and polka dots taped to the studs of the plaster-less wall that separates your bedroom from everything else. Brightly coloured paper plates are stuck to the other walls in the shape of wonky ‘20’s and crepe paper dangles down from at least a dozen balloons on the ceiling.

“It’s nearly four a.m.” you tell him. The words are curled around a smile as big as the sparkling thing that sits on the counter in front of Diego. “Is that – what is that?”

“Any time is party time and this,” he says, rolling the papier mache over, “is a piñata, also homemade. I’m an awesome friend.”

It looks more like a giant blob of congealed glue rolled in glitter but you love it because not only did he have the thought to give you something like this, he’d made it. He’d made the effort – gone to the trouble of doing something nice just you on your birthday.

He’d come all the way over here at four in the morning on New Year’s just for you.

“No,” you tell him, striding forward to wrap your arms around him. “You’re the best friend.”

“Yeah, yeah,” he sighs. “Tell me that when I haven’t just handed you a giant paper ball filled with candy.”

“You threw me a birthday party,” you say more to yourself than to him. “I’ve never had a birthday party before.”

“I know.” His tone is disbelieving. “The only thing sadder than that is this party.”

“It’s great,” you say, pulling away to look around properly. He’s stolen his Uncle’s chilli-pepper lights and wrapped them like boa-scarves around his life-sized cardboard cutouts of Han Solo and Ripley, making them glow an ominous red and the party hats he’s stuck on them, sparkle.

“Prettiest fire hazards you’ve ever seen, right?” He asks. “I know the decorations are ugly, but I thought Han and Ripley’s pretty would take the edge off.”

“It looks amazing, Diego.” You turn back towards him so he can see just how much you mean it. “I love it.” You say it to reassure him, but that doesn’t make it any less true.

“You love the party because you’ve never had one before,” he points out with a roll of his eyes.

You consider your next words carefully. He’d covered his insecurities with humour and faux bravado only moments ago, but he’s letting you see them now and you know this is your chance. You’ve been trying to help Diego with his insecurities for a long while but assuaging them with words alone is surprisingly difficult.

“Maybe not,” you hedge, “but I’ve had friends and I’ve had family and none of them have ever done anything like this for me.”

He already knows it, but he needs to be reminded of the kind of friend – the kind of person – he is. It’s hard to find any as thoughtful or as sweet as he is.

Diego winces. “Stop trying to reassure me. It’s just depressing the both of us.”

“Not me,” you say brightly.

Now that you’ve come around the counter you can see the craft supplies on the table; the little tubs of facepaint that looks like Diego’s already had a go at and yeah, you see it now, the photo of you and him on the bookshelf has been defaced.

“I got bored waiting,” Diego offers in explanation.

“It’s New Years,” you say softly. “You didn’t have to waste it waiting around here for me.”

“The only thing that could make this party worse is if you got off work early and came home to all of this,” he says, swiping a party blower off the table, “with no one here.”

That he didn’t want you to be alone on your birthday goes unsaid.

There’s a warmth that has settled in you since laying eyes on all of this. It swells in your chest now, and you can feel it as it works its way up and out. Your smile broadens, your cheeks lift and for the first time in a very long time, you feel tears – happy ones – pooling in the corners of your eyes.

The sight of them brings Diego up short. “Umm,” he stutters, patting at his wig nervously. “Way to kill the mood.”

You laugh, turning away to swipe at the wet on your cheeks. He’s not comfortable putting things like emotions out in the open; doesn’t like to talk about them at all, if he can help it.

“So, what? Facepaint first?” You ask thickly, trying to lighten the mood for his sake.

“Noob,” Diego sighs, reaching for the bucket full of water next to the couch. “If you’re going to go bobbing for marshmallows, you put the facepaint on after.”

***

The video cuts out there. Water and electronic didn’t mix, Diego had said before tucking the thing away in the bra he’d worn beneath your tank, because, well. Because he was Diego and if he’s going to dress up, he does it right.

“That was the ugliest damn piñata I’ve ever seen,” says Jake.

There’s a lot Jake could have said and your heart warms because of all the things he didn’t.

“The one he made me this year was even uglier,” you say.

Your tears have stopped, but wet still clings to your lashes and with both hands, Jake reaches up to thumb it away.

“Better?” He asks.

You didn’t need the video to remember that night, but seeing Diego’s smile, hearing his voice? It soothes the ache in your heart.

You smile at him, small and wavering. “A little.”

#choicescreates #playchoices #endless summer

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micaramel · 5 years ago

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Artists: Urban Zellweger, Amelie von Wulffen, David Weiss, Emily Sundblad, Daniele Milvio, Ella Mathys

Venue: Weiss Falk, Basel

Exhibition Title: Watercolour, Chapter I

Date: June 27 – August 8, 2020

Click here to view slideshow

Full gallery of images, press release and link available after the jump.

Images:

Images courtesy of Weiss Falk, Basel

Press Release:

Everyday Washout

David Weiss’ art is as good as The Velvet Underground’s first record. It is funny and heartbreaking; sexy, alive, understated, fearless, pedestrian–everything I miss right now. – Emily Sundblad

Daniele Milvio’s Watercolours, Chapter I exhibition poster takes after the poster for Paul Thomas Anderson’s feature film Magnolia (1999). In one of the movie’s most memorable scenes, frogs rain down on the San Fernando Valley. The downpour is torrential: careening cars into strip malls, splatting on sidewalks, interrupting a suicide attempt. Like the second Plague of Egypt in the Book of Exodus, the flood of frogs connects a cast from separate storylines, reminding us that their individual experiences share a geographical setting. The current pandemic—and the climate crisis—invite easy analogy to biblical plagues. Simultaneously triggering end time anxieties and compulsions, the ongoing moment of uncertainty underscores how distinctively collective events are experienced. But yet: marketing campaigns insist we are in it #AloneTogether, the willful naïveté that such shared experience might soften the separations of subjectivity or of market-shaped, strident individuality, are also present. It feels like the perfect moment to start a series of exhibitions featuring watercolors. The medium that is unambiguously ambivalent: watercolors are neither drawing nor painting—and somehow they’re always both. The medium’s liquidity begets speed, touch and mistakes, but it also encourages wistful strokes. Motifs in watercolor invite comparison to children’s designs—but they more often than not insinuate mannerism and gravity. Simply put, aquarelle washes the everyday into an absurd daydream, rendering fantasies mundane in turn. That’s what constitutes a fantasy: it feels unique, but everyone’s got them.

But does everyone have graphic fantasies? Or maybe it’s just some do some don’t. A fantasy like making up a little story. Or replaying a scenario, embellished with what ifs. Remember sexual fantasies without sex, like in elementary school, elaborate scenarios that climax in kissing by the water fountain, things like that. Watercolor is ideal for daydreaming: it lets fantasy slip in easy. Can you catch yourself dreaming? Commit it to paper? Is that what’s happening, like that’s what watercolors are for? What if you waited for a taxi so long that you started to grow roots? Or skeleton arms salted your feet? Or you gave a blowjob with your pandemic mouth? Watercolours, Chapter 1 brings together artists that suffuse the everyday with the fantastic, make space to move fast and play things out. To slip from limitless dreamscapes to the comfort of your own bedroom—and back.

Daniele Milvio made watercolors of the view from his bed—closet ajar, feet tented under the sheets—just before the lockdown. So this series takes on an eerily prophetic quality and continued unimpeded in happy isolation from the outside world. But the closet—something that can shut, caught up with shame—has had a recurring presence in his practice. A selection of works from 2007-8 take a look inside, a stack of folded shirts, printed wallpaper. In line with his evolving examination of domestic and architectural fixtures, he has also used the closet as a framing device, mounting a work in collage on wool inside of closet doors so that they could close and obscure the work entirely. He scrutinizes the domestic as a private space: structured to shroud secrets, skeletons in the closet. And then slices the house open like a delicate chicken breast, looking at interiors from the outside, the tempta- tion of a dollhouse view. He pictures two skeleton arms reaching out of the closet to sprinkle salt on feet, setting the scene for the age-old torture technique in which a prisoner’s feet were doused with salty water for a tethered, greedy goat to lick until the flesh wore away.

For Emily Sundblad, watercolors are for window gazing and longing for a tangle of sweaty limbs in a dark room somewhere. To picture Dolly Parton’s beehive, to get carried away by the jungle and the creatures that prowl there. She started working in watercolor because it fit into a life lived on the go, though the medium has accompanied her in recent months of stasis, rendering studied views of Stockholm’s rooftops from her window. Sundblad taps into the medium’s propensity to move between reality and fantasy, hovering somewhere between memory, imagination, postcard and portrait. These imagined club scenes continue a series of erotic drawings, which the artist has returned to since illustrating Pierre Klossowski’s Living Currency with auto-erotica drawn with eyeliner on Colony Club stationary when she moved into the hotel during Hurricane Sandy. The stationary design becomes a part of the works themselves, a nod to Kippenberger and Salvo’s hotel drawings. What was a very real life of endless travel, close contact and sexy shared spaces assumed a dream-like quality in a world abruptly grinded to a halt. The watercolors manifest desire for a lifestyle that distance rendered increasingly radical and essential to the artist. She’d risk a lot for it.

What if you stayed still so long you turned into a tree? Like you’re waiting for a taxi, you want to catch a last-minute flight, but no car comes and planes aren’t flying and you can’t go anywhere so you start to sprout, grow roots. Life takes over. More water, less control. Urban Zellweger uses a lot of liquid in his watercolors on paper and to thin the paint in his works on canvas. His works carry their washedoutness with grace. Taking water as a subject matter as well, he imagines it as the source of transformations. Zellweger started working with tree imagery about a year ago. His trunks are usually in some stage of germination from humanness, still wearing jeans or a sweater like a vestige of a former state. For a while now, he has been interested in metamorphosis, through the classic transformative figure of the butterfly, for instance. A monsterish amphibian—possibly a rain frog—emerges from a slosh of blue-green like some sort of shapeshifting sea monster. In a collaboration in textile with artist and architect Ella Mathys, initiated with a curtain installation created last month, butterflies staccato paint washed fabrics.

Amelie von Wulffen’s watercolors cast foods and objects in petty human narratives. A melon lies on the sofa, knees knobby and lips thin, staring into space, while its partner chops charcuterie. A pair of sausages are couch shopping with a little one in toe, one leans over to stroke a ribbed green velvet couch as the other rolls its eyes. When New York painter Amy Sillman saw von Wulffen’s watercolors in 2011, she thought of them as “a lampoon of our failings.” Von Wulffen rakes up those everyday experiences of boredom, pride, irritation, staging them as scenes between lipsticks and a lighter or a pair of mushrooms. She proffers these interactions as the inevitable core of the bourgeois human experience. The shameful banality of bickering, the humiliation of being a body among bodies. Von Wulffen started working in comic-like pencil drawings around 2008, which inform this ongoing watercolor series, often confessing art world anxieties or acting out childhood memories.

David Weiss’ watercolors from 1978-79 offer a glimpse into his practice before his ongoing Fischli/Weiss collaboration. There was something about the medium that didn’t make sense to him in collaboration, like sculpture or video did. The Quiet Nights series, like the Blaue Stunde in light washed violet, orange, red, are like a love letter to the city at night. A series following the wanderings of a cartoonish flower figure enact his chafing at the conservatism of postwar Swiss society, as the flower-flâneur sprouts up in a variety of everyday scenes. In Die Funktion der falschen Gefühle (1), a flower with a maniacal grin leans over a picket fence typical of a suburban Swiss single-family home. It seems to personify the purpose of wrong feelings, as the title suggests, popping up out of painterly shrubs with crazy eyes, lusting for what lies beyond. Weiss was a part of a burgeoning bohemian movement within Switzerland’s rigid contours, living in a commune in Meret Oppenheim’s house in Ticino for much of the Seventies. Indeed the influence of Oppenheim’s surrealist compositions is also palpable in his works, as Weiss also draws upon the cartoonishness he admired in Philip Guston. Emily Sundblad calls his watercolors as good as The Velvet Underground’s first album, something that always makes her feel better. His watercolors have something of the feeling of a musical score, the energy of a quick and light notation. The melody chimes both somber and sunny.

Tenzing Barshee & Camila McHugh

Link: “Watercolour, Chapter I” at Weiss Falk

from Contemporary Art Daily https://bit.ly/30h9XQ8

#micaramel

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