#ii. ( arc ) — with brklynlost

[unexceptional-broken]

( @brklynlost​ ) « starter call

               “I’M ABOUT TO say somethin’ that I didn’t say about a million years ago.” She reached over to fix the lapel on his uniform jacket; he looked so similar and yet... so different. She supposed she did, too. 

It had been a long road to seeing him back in the uniform, involving a lot of fighting by the people around her brother; she herself had written a letter, hand delivered by Steve, about how she had an American flag with her brother’s name on it which she’d happily return, with public fanfare, if they really didn’t think her brother had served well in the military. She might have also asked to then have all of the props they’d kept on display in the Smithsonian if they really felt that way as well... but soon enough, there was an event scheduled. 

None of them wanted the actual pomp and circumstance of all of this, but there was something cathartic about the fact that Jimmy was going to be recognized for being the truly good person that he was. 

“You look good in this uniform,” she finally said, glancing up at him before focusing her attention on the way his ribbons were pinned. She wondered if his mind had gone just where hers had gone: the last time he’d stood in front of her in his uniform, she’d been so scared of what could happen to him that she’d said he’d looked ridiculous and not handsome in the least, and after his bus had turned the corner, she’d made her way up to the apartment they’d shared and she’d cried into his shirt. This time was different. 

“I love you a whole lot,” she said with a small, proud smile, her eyes crinkling in the corner and looking more like him than she ever had before. “A whole, whole lot.” 

[unexceptional-broken]

@brklynlost​ «  send a ♡ for your muse to suddenly hug my muse

               IT WAS LIKE a reunion every time he pulled her close to him. They were both making up for a few lifetimes spent apart, a few lifetimes changing. And though it had been some time since she had awoken in the middle of the night to knocking on her door, him saying nothing — and needing to say nothing — when she saw in his eyes that he’d finally remembered her, it still brought a small piece of her back to her every time Jimmy embraced her. 

At first, he’d been sparing with his hugs, but each time he pulled her in, it took less and less time, and less and less hesitation. If she had to guess, Becky, thought he may have been fearful that she was breakable now, fragile... small and cold and glass. And even with one arm, he had felt enormous and strong. He’d always been unbreakable in her eyes, especially when they’d been very little, but now? — Now, he really was. 

Becky wrapped her arms around him, used to the way her right arm wrapped around his left side was a little colder, that empty space becoming more and more familiar, and she lay her cheek against him. 

                                                It was like coming home. 

“What’s the occasion this time?” she asked, looking up and smiling. “Just because it’s a day that ends in Y, or did something happen?”  She didn’t care. To her, they had about a million hugs to catch up on.