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jakes3resin · 7 months ago

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Modern Reincarnation AU Part 4 ✨️

Part 3

"John?"

Bucky storms past Jack into the townhouse. It's rude, but he'll apologize later. He doesn't know why he came here instead of his apartment. Old habits dying a hard drawn out death, maybe? He hadn't been thinking clearly. Hadn't been thinking at all really until he found himself waved through by his father's security detail.

"Oh, is that John?" He hears his father call out, dress shoes clicking against hardwood as he walks closer, but Bucky stomps up the stairs towards his room before he sees the man. His breaths come out in rushes as tears keep burning his eyes.

Shit, he thought he'd gotten those under control on the train.

Slamming his door, he slides down until he rests against the floor. He tosses his bag to the side wincing at the sound it makes. Hopefully his laptop survives. At some point he does actually have to do the work he went to the library to finish.

The library.

Buck and Curt.

They wouldn't, Bucky tells himself. They wouldn't. Curt was one of his best friends, and Buck loved him. They...

Fuck they were roommates! Why the hell were they talking about that shit in public? In the place Bucky considered his? Why even pretend? Why drag Bucky into this? Why?!

Bucky buries his face into his hands. His chest hitches as he tries not to sob. He doesn't want his father or Jack to worry about him. He doesn't want to talk this through.

He wants...

He wants Buck. He wants the other to pull him into his arms. To kiss him again as if today had never happened. There was something else about being with Buck, something he'd never felt with anyone else be they friend or lover. He made Bucky feel safe and wanted. Wanted not because of his family and connections but because he was himself.

Buck would know how to make him feel better.

He laughs quietly through his tears. Distantly, he can hear Jack briefing his father downstairs, the words faint but he hears his name and tears used together. His laughter is more sob than anything else. Of course, the one good thing he'd found would end up belonging to someone else. Story of his life.

✨️

There's too much work to do. At least that's the excuse Bucky gave himself for not confronting Buck and Curt immediately. There wasn't time for a confrontation and subsequent blowup of his life.

At least that's the lie he tells himself.

Bucky chews on the straw of his iced coffee as he skims yet another chapter. There's a pumpkin muffin in front of him that he swore would be his reward for getting through this fourty page reading. Midterms have come and gone, but Bucky still has deadlines to meet and research to complete. He can't sit in his room forever, as much as his father and Jack would sometimes prefer that. Better protection from whatever sent Bucky crying to his room as his father would argue. Better protection for his father's political career Jack would quip.

Speaking of protection, Bucky glanced to the side of the cafe towards his security detail. At least these guys attempted to blend in. His father must have briefed them on his track record with previous details. Bucky smirked around his straw. They'd be easy to lose come rush hour. A bit of fun even.

Bucky turned back to his reading, squinting down at the words.

"American airmen during World War II had a dismal life expectancy. It was not a matter of if an airman was going to be shot down but when. Once downed, airmen faced an uncertain 'reception committee,' as Second Lieutenant Kenneth C. Reimer noted in a drawing he made as a POW in Stalag Luft I in Barth, Germany... 'for every [ground combat] soldier killed in action, three or four others would be wounded; air combat was completely the opposite. For every man wounded, three were killed.'"

"Bucky?" A hand settles on his shoulder jolting him out of his reading.

Bucky kept his shoulders loose as he turns around. Buck stares down at him, a bright smile on his face that Bucky can't help but match despite his grief. It wasn't even something he could control. Buck smiled at him, so he smiled back. Bucky felt pitiful.

Buck's sky blue eyes are clear and happy as they dart across Bucky's face. There's no sign that he realizes Bucky overheard him yesterday.

Bucky lifts a hand to calm his detail, all alert now after Buck's friendly greeting. He sees the nearest agent settle back into their chair but knows none of them are relaxed. He darts a look up at Buck, peering at the other through his glasses to see if he'd noticed the disturbance.

Buck's gaze, as it always does, doesn't leave Bucky's face. Even when he rounds the table to sit down, his eyes are pinned on Bucky and nothing else.

"Sorry I couldn't meet up yesterday," Buck dumps his bag onto the chair next to him. Bucky's smile twitches. Buck sits down across from him. His legs tangle with Buck's own under the table, Buck's foot gently bumping his ankle.

"It's fine," Bucky chomps down on his straw. "How was your advisor meeting anyway?"

"It was good," Buck smiles at him, not even a hint of guilt on his face. "Real good."

Buck had told Bucky he was called to fill in a shift yesterday and that was why he supposedly hadn't been able to meet up. A lie Buck hadn't even bothered to remember. His advisor meetings were also always in the morning on Thursdays. Today was Tuesday.

Buck was still lying to him, and he wasn't even guilty about it.

✨️

"I went by your place yesterday. You weren't home." Buck swings their clasped hands through the air.

"Hmm?" Bucky glanced away from the traffic around them. His detail were staying a conspicuous ten feet back, but they were annoyingly keen when Buck offered to walk him back to his apartment.

Bucky would lose them another day.

Buck laughed, deep and airy. Bucky struggled not to lose himself in it. That was what made this so hard. Bucky still loved Buck, and Buck still acted like Bucky was his whole world and then some.

"Oh," Bucky finally processed what Buck had said. "No, I went to my dad's for the night."

"Really?" Buck squeezes his hand. Bucky hates how much comfort Buck's touch gives him.

Does Curt receive the same...? No Bucky doesn't let himself finish the thought.

"How was it?" Concern bleeds into Buck's voice. Bucky hates how genuine it sounds. He's starting to use that word more than any other. The longer he looks at Buck, the more he has to hate to save his heart.

"Fine," Bucky shrugged stepping further away as they came to a stoplight. "The usual."

"The Bucky I know wouldn't give such a short answer," Buck stepped closer eating up the space Bucky had put between them. "Not unless something happened yesterday. Come on, you okay?"

Bucky felt the words bubbling up his throat.

I saw you. I saw him. Why are you here staring at me like I'm the most important thing in the world when you have him? Why are you doing this to me? I love you. I love you so much it feels like my soul hurts. I hate you.

"Spent most of the night avoiding his staffers." Bucky lied. "Barely saw him, Jack either, yet he still asked me to move home at breakfast."

Buck nods, accepting his lies. Was that what they were now? Not a relationship, simply a lie? Bucky wasn't sure anymore. His heart thumped against his rib cage, anger and love in every other beat, but he wasn't sure which would win.

Buck had become his whole world in such a short amount of time. He thought the feeling was mutual, but yesterday showed just how stupid Bucky really was.

"How about this," Buck nudged his hip. "Why don't I stay over tonight? We'll binge a few movies, order something, and have night in. Then,"

Buck paused with a stupid grin that, despite himself, Bucky still found charming. Fuck, he was truly pathetic for this.

"I'll sweep you off your feet and take you to bed. How does that sound?"

"Won't Curt be expecting you?" The question pops out of him without meaning to. Gale furrows his brow, confusion growing in his eyes.

"Curt won't miss me tonight."

Sure, he won't, Bucky thinks bitterly.

✨️

"John," Jack's voice was a surprise. Especially considering it was his father's number calling him.

"You've gotten much better at your Jack impression," Bucky answers just to be annoying. "Does he know you impersonate him on official numbers?"

"You're not as funny as you believe."

"Ooh, you even have his disapproving tone down. I feel like he's in the room with us!" Bucky laughs. He peers around the corner. Buck's still where he left him, buried in his phone texting someone.

Bucky doesn't let himself think about who that person is.

"Your father wants to invite you to a dinner tomorrow. You can even bring that boy that walked you home. The one that hasn't left." Pages flip in the background as Jack talks. Probably governmental reports his father was supposed to read.

"You know you're not his chief of staff anymore?" Bucky leaned his hip against the counter. "You don't have to read reports or wrangle his kid to government dinners to help his image as a family man. You're his husband now, you're the family."

"You're my kid too by that logic, so wrangling you gets to stay on my resume." Bucky snorts out a laugh. "Besides, it's not a state dinner or anything. He just wants to see you."

Guilt gnaws at his heart. Buck pokes his head into the kitchen, phone no longer holding all of his attention.

"Fine," Bucky groans. "But if he brings up the apartment again, I'm walking out with my food on my plate even if it's the good plates."

"See you tomorrow at 7 then. Bring your boy." Jack hangs up without a goodbye.

✨️

It'll be me, and it'll be you, Buck.

Don't count on it.

Bucky jerks awake. His dream flashes through his head too fast for him to remember anything. Scenes superimpose over each other, words jumble together. At least this one wasn't a nightmare. Those always left him shakey and off balance all day.

His dreams have always been vivid, ever since he was a kid. The child psychologists he'd gone to had said it was normal and simply a sign of a well developed imagination.

Bucky runs a hand through his hair groaning when he glances towards his bedside clock. It's nearly an hour until he has to get up, but he knows that he won't be getting back to sleep before then.

Buck lays curled up next to him on the bed. Bucky reaches out to brush a hand through the other's hair. Buck twitches leaning into the feeling for half a second but doesn't stir beyond that.

Bucky sighs. Extricating himself from Buck's long limbs takes time. Somehow in the night, Buck had nearly fused them together as if even asleep the man refused to let him go. Arms layered over arms. Legs tangled together. It's an excellent distraction from his dreams but not from the problems of the waking world. If only he could forget those once he woke up like he did his dreams.

It's only when he's pouring water for his coffee that he realizes he recognizes the voice from his dream. A first for him.

It'd been Buck's.

✨️

(Not a confrontation I know, but it builds my AU lol)

#i know i already used that picture of austin for part 3 but that pic for some reason is so Modern Buck who can't take his eyes off Bucky #buck for me in this au is a touch obsessive because he's lost bucky once in their old life and now he has a chance again #but that chance is being strained because bucky doesn't remember him or their past life resulting in Buck lying to himself and bucky #one of the things i want to focus on in this au is how traumatizing reliving and remembering these memories can be as well as how alienatin #buck certainly has his own trauma and part of his journey is learning to let go and understand the difference between the past and present #shit i need to go work on stalag arc but also i got blessed by some muse for this au and who am i to doubt the will of a muse?#oh also i actually do have this whole backstory for Bucky as well as who his father is his importance and why Jack Kidd is in his house #if anyone wants to guess he is someone we see in MOTA and its a really popular Jack ship lol #the quote Bucky is reading is from an actual book called Terror Flyers by Kevin T Hall #I've personally only read portions of it for a class i took but its an interesting read from the bits I remember and skimmed for this #mota #masters of the air #buck x bucky #john bucky egan #clegan #gale buck cleven #bucky egan #buck cleven #john egan #gale cleven #buckbucky #modern reincarnation au #modern reincarnation

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marlynnofmany · 1 year ago

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Stars and the Slapping Thereof

If the last spaceport had been a flat parking lot kind of place, this one reminded me of a hollow skyscraper made for birds. I don’t know how the whole thing stayed up, honestly; the walls were more open air than anything else. Spaceships parked at every level. Elevators and gravity tubes zipped around vertically, while moving sidewalks spun in opposite directions.

From where our ship sat, I had a fine view of a mixed-species group in teal uniforms all trying to crowd onto the inner sidewalk ring at the same time. They moved off to the right with only minor awkwardness. Behind the ship, I heard the unmistakable sound of a human falling over and swearing about it, most likely after stepping on the other ring accidentally.

Not that I’ve ever done that, mind you. Nooooo, not a bit of personal experience with undignified pratfalls.

“Is that— No, that isn’t them,” Paint said, paying attention to something completely different. “I hope there will still be a spot near us when they get here.” She rubbed her knuckles together in agitation, orange scales clicking.

Zhee flicked an antenna. “Kamm is always punctual,” he said. “It will be fine.”

I leaned out of the ship’s shadow to count the empty spots. “We can always go stand in one to reserve it for her.” I reconsidered. “Right? Or do the pilots land too quickly here?”

Zhee was saying something disparaging about the general population’s safety awareness when a hoverchair separated from the crowd and whirred up to us. The driver was a pale human with glittery star crystals in his dark hair, thin legs that clearly didn’t get much use, and bare feet. The toenail polish was even more galaxy-patterned than his hair. Stylish. He called out as soon as he was within polite speaking range.

“Is this the Unflattenable?” he asked, pointing at our ship.

I looked up and back. “Oh! No, but it’ll be here soon. We’re waiting for it too.”

“Ah,” he said. “Sorry. Your ship looks a lot like it.”

Zhee didn’t move, looking in both directions with his big bug eyes. “Same manufacturers,” he said.

Paint was more enthusiastic. “We haven’t seen them in forever!” she told the man. “They’re going to help us deliver a bunch of stuff in one trip.”

The man nodded. “They’re bringing cargo for me. I hoped they’d be here by now.”

“Should be soon,” I said, peering around at the many directions a ship could approach from. No sign of another lemon-looking craft with solar sails.

He nodded again. Everyone was awkwardly silent for a moment. A distant ship landed with a thump of faulty thrusters. Pedestrians on both sidewalks held loud conversations as they slid past.

“So what’s your ship called?” the man asked.

Zhee straightened up. “This is the good ship—”

Paint beat him to it. “Slap the Stars! Isn’t that a great name?”

The man burst into laughter, then apologized at the angry tilt to Zhee’s antennae. “Sorry. I love it. I’m not much of a spacer, and I keep being surprised by some of the names that ships have around here.”

“That is a perfectly normal name,” Zhee told him with an abrupt motion of one pincher. “Strongarm manufacturers. It is human ships that have the truly absurd titles.”

I grinned at him. “You’re still not over the droid jousting ship Hold My Beer, are you?”

Zhee’s tone was extremely dry. “I will never be over that.”

“I saw some great ones earlier!” Paint said, unfolding a screen and connecting to the port’s public information hub. “Let’s see, there’s the Glorious.”

“A fine Mesmer name,” Zhee put in.

“The Deep Thrum; I like that. Might be Frillian? Oh, and there’s the human warship Funwrecker.”

I laughed. “Yup, definitely human.”

“And the Better Than You.”

“That could really be either human or Mesmer,” I said with a look at Zhee.

Zhee flexed his pinchers, looking haughty. “It all depends on whether it is true.”

Paint kept reading. “What about the Solar Flare? That could be anybody.”

“Heatseeker,” Zhee said. “Solar flares are hot.”

Paint, a Heatseeker herself, scoffed quietly. “Not everything is about heat.”

“Don’t most Heatseeker ships have food names?” I asked with a glance at the other human, who was following all this with open curiosity. “Pretty sure Captain Sunlight has family with a ship called the Worm Jerky.”

“I guess they do,” Paint said thoughtfully. “It’s a good luck thing. I didn’t realize it was that common.” She looked back at the screen. “Oh, and that might explain this other ship called the Raw Flesh.”

The human spoke up at that. “The what?”

I held up both hands. “It’s got to be a translation issue. A food thing. Some specific uncooked dish. Like sushi?”

The human just shook his head and made a face like he’d tasted something unpleasant.

“There’s also the Conqueror of the Next Ocean,” Paint offered. “That one’s probably Strongarm.”

“Yeah, that makes sense,” I said. “They’re so proud of crawling out of their first ocean.”

“Strongarms are the ones with tentacles, right?” the human asked.

“Right,” I told him. “They look kind of like an octopus or a squid.”

“You said your ship was designed by Strongarms? What was it called again?”

“Slap the Stars,” I said. “Strongarms do slap a number of things with those tentacles. It’s a fun bit of sass in a ship name.”

“It’s not sass,” Zhee said scornfully. “It’s an intent to master all things, whether the things want to be mastered or not. Very admirable confidence.”

Paint looked up in distress. “I thought it was a game!” she said. “Something with pebbles on a table, right? Isn’t that a thing?”

The door to our ship opened to admit the scaly yellow form of Captain Sunlight. I turned to her for answers. “Hello, Captain! Can you tell us what the name of our ship actually means?”

Unflappable as ever, the good captain barely quirked a browridge as she walked over to join us. “Something about slapping stars, I imagine,” she said. “I always thought of it as a nod to the way damp tentacles can put out sparks of flame without getting burned.”

I threw my hands skyward in mock exasperation.

Captain Sunlight kept talking. “But then, I’m not a Strongarm. Let me ask one.” She spoke into her communicator, addressing the pilot on duty. “Wio, what is the Strongarm association with slapping stars?”

Faint and tinny, Wio’s voice said, “Pretty sure it’s something about gathering food. Spiky ones. I don’t know; I’m from a different planet.”

The human was chuckling quietly to himself at this point, while Zhee looked grumpy and Paint scrolled through more names for clues. Captain Sunlight glanced at me.

“Looks like we’ll just have to ask someone who was actually there when the ship was named,” she said, nodding toward the next dock. “Here she is.”

A bright yellow ship with folded solar sails came in to rest beside ours, remarkably stealthy when I wasn’t paying attention. The other human said a quick goodbye to us before scooting over to wait for the hatch to open.

As eager as we were to see the crew again after long last, we kept a professional distance while they did business. A pair of Heatseekers brought out the human’s crate — a fancy model with its own hover engine — and a Strongarm tactfully proffered the payment tablet.

Then Captain Kamm herself appeared, in all her deep green glory, with a polite greeting for the human and an enthusiastic wave of several tentacles toward us. “Hello over there! It’s been too long!”

“It has!” Captain Sunlight said, strolling over while the human handed back the tablet and hitched the crate to the back of his chair. I followed, with Zhee and Paint right behind. Captain Sunlight continued. “We’ve got a burning question for you. What was the original meaning behind our ship name? We seem to have come up with several. I’d ask Pockap, but…”

“But he’s far away, and also an idiot,” Captain Kamm finished, speaking about her cousin with complete honesty. He’d only been in charge for the very beginning of my time on the ship, and “idiot” was generous.

“As you say,” Captain Sunlight agreed.

“Well, if I recall correctly, it was actually inspired by a human thing,” said Captain Kamm.

“What?” I blurted. In my peripheral vision, the other human paused before going on his way.

“That thing you do,” Captain Kamm said, waving a tentacle. “Slapping each other in camaraderie.”

“We what?” I repeated, sharing a baffled look with the other guy.

Captain Kamm waved the one tentacle again, then flopped two against each other, making a wet sound. “You know,” she said. “You slap hands. Very friendly. The idea was to bring that kind of cheerful energy to the stars.”

I held my hands apart, thinking of applause, then it hit me. “Oh! Do you mean a high five?” I turned and demonstrated; the other human matched it perfectly.

“Yes!” Captain Kamm said. “That! That’s what your ship is named for!”

I laughed; I couldn’t help it. Zhee made an opinionated hiss while Paint exclaimed that that was much better than the game explanation.

“Glad I could be a part of this,” said the human. “See you around! May you slap many stars.”

“The same to you!” I said, waving as he steered onto the walkway. “Hooray for solving a mystery that we didn’t realize needed solving.”

“Those are the best kind,” said Paint, and I had to agree.

~~~

The ongoing backstory adventures of the main character from this book. More to come!

#hey did you know I've written over 40 stories about this crew #without naming the ship?#well it's got a name now #and I love it #also a new favorite way to wish people well #'may you slap many stars'#my writing #The Token Human #humans are weird #haso #hfy #eiad #writeblr #short stories #spaceships #there's a story about the good ship Hold My Beer if you missed it #that one was fun #called Stabby the One and Only #you can guess what kind of droid jousting they do

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