Chapter 5/8 Now Available On AO3

Rely On Time

Wherein I'm a whore for Jewish Bucky Barnes and love writing things inspired by religions and myths.

────

2023

Bucky had never truly felt alone in the world.

Of course, as the Winter Soldier, he hadn't had much of a consciousness to even consider that idea. Even when he was in Azzano, he had his men. Strapped to Zola's table in experimentation, the idea of being alone hadn't mattered so much, knowing he would be dead. Before the war, he had Steve.

Steve.

Fastened to his side, Steve had always been there. It had been a month, and he still couldn't believe it. That he would leave so easily, after all they had gone through. But that was just it, wasn't it? Steve had time taken away from him, had his freedom stripped under the stripes of that shield in an attempt to fight for the freedoms of others. Of course he would choose to go back for a second chance.

Bucky didn't have that option.

Eve was her own being, her own thoughts. Though fashioned from Adam's rib, she was not him. Her own desire lived within her and the snake knew it. But why is that a sin? The pursuit of Knowledge in the name of growth, even at the risk of disobeying God? Could it have been what He intended all along? He planted the Tree, he created the snake, he fashioned humanity knowing they would question it all - all for humankind to learn and grow, to plant their roots alongside the Tree.

He wondered, sometimes, what he was. Was he a collection of thoughts? Are people only the recollections of times past? He walked as living proof of not only a time that no longer was, but the strength of a people who lived despite all odds.

Despite all odds.

Was that all it was? Random chance? Did he ever fight anything? No choice but to accept the draft. Too sick to fight Zola back, barely lucid enough to keep himself from biting off his tongue. The chair, the abuse, was that all some twisted fate that he had to live through because it was meant to happen? Did all that happen so he could be where he was now, laying on cold hardwood floor because he was falling through his bed?

Could he rely on time, when it was ripped from him?

He sometimes thought about what his life could've ended up like, if he hadn't gone to war. He thought, at one point, that he would get married. As Adam and Eve wed under the Tree, he could stand under the chuppah in their image surrounded by love and life and foliage. Sometimes he thought about what it could be now, if things somehow got better. If he could sleep in his bed without drowning. If he could look a man in the eye and not see his ancestors instead.

Could he be a shadow?

Something that varies, melding and changing. If he was made of memories, what would happen if he forgot again? Hands of Esau but Voice of Jacob. Was he now building to the divine Israel? Making up for his wrongs, turning to virtue.

Was it worth it? Trying?

At this point, what could be good? What all could he love? Everything was a mess. He wandered.

Maybe he was meant to be lost. He could choose to believe he was worthless, aimless without his other half. Or he could make his own choices; eat the apple like Eve, take the virtue like Israel, and trust that someday, everything that happened to him would make sense.

And that one day, he could trust that he wouldn't ever be alone again.

Essays for my Destiel Playlist Pt.1

Turning Page - Sleeping At Last

Turning Page is literally my #1 Destiel Anthem. It's a crime to humanity that I haven't seen it respected as such. In this essay, I will argue my points for your consideration.

If you'd like to view my full Destiel playlist, I've tagged it at the end of this post. I add to it frequently and it has a mix of many genres. I'm actually very proud of it.

Turning Page is pining, yearning, learning. It's so effortlessly deep, just like Dean and Cas are.

There is magnitude to everything he says.

Everything he could ever tell Dean about this cosmic thing, because isn't that what it is?

Cosmic love?

Defying the will of God,

fallen from grace for it,

dragged down by it,

death-abating love?

I've waited a hundred years

But I'd wait a million more for you

Never since the dawn of creation had he ever truly felt a thing

He was never meant to, never coded and programmed for it

Nothing would ever come close, he knew

He thought -

Dean Winchester was raised as Castiel was dragged down,

eye for an eye

He had noticed the change in himself,

the doubts he had never dared to even think suddenly clouding his judgement,

things he knew he could only ever confess to Dean

How was he, forever unfeeling, supposed to know that looking into Dean's soul would burn through the lies?

Nothing prepared me for

What the privilege of being yours would do

How could he ever turn back from that?

From this?

This human being that chose other people over himself every chance he had,

that gave up his childhood for his brother

This man that was more than what his father molded him to be, just like he was himself

So he watched him

Noticing intimate details he had never noticed on another person before,

dragging in thoughts he had never had,

these emotions he was never supposed to feel

If I had only felt the warmth within your touch

But what was doubt compared to Dean's hand on his shoulder? Slung over his back?

If I had only seen how you smile when you blush

How could his fear compare?

Or how you curl your lip when you concentrate enough

How could anything compare to how he felt when Dean smiled?

Under that direct hit of light, so bright he couldn't help but return it,

he made his choice

I would have known what I was living for all along

What I've been living for

So he fell

Your love is my turning page

Where only the sweetest words remain

Into humanity,

Every kiss is a cursive line

Every touch is a redefining phrase

Embracing the earth,

I surrender who I've been for who you are

For nothing makes me stronger than your fragile heart

The light of Heaven was no match for the sunshine in Dean's smile

No match for the individuality of mortality,

No match for the feeling of family,

love that he had never understood or known,

even if the piece he wished he had wasn't meant to be

If I had only felt how it feels to be yours

It was never planned, never written

Out of thousands of drafts, his love for Dean Winchester only existed in one

Well, I would have known what I've been living for all along

What I've been living for

This cosmic thing

Though we're tethered to the story we must tell

When I saw you, well I knew we'd tell it well

strong enough to defy the Will of God,

With a whisper, we will tame the vicious seas

won't get a happy ending

Like a feather, bringing kingdoms to their knees

but it will forever be his and only his

santa saw you reading all that gay porn

chapter 1/8 now available on AO3 <3

→ marvel (mcu/comic), captain america: the first avenger

→ bucky x steve, bucky x peggy

→ flawed super soldier serum, dark!steve rogers, mcu compliant with comic influences

→ gore, faked relationship, canon-typical violence

──────────────────

Bucky thought he understood rage.

Steve was his primary example. He saw it all over Joseph Rogers before he had passed. He saw the marks and bruises on Sarah Rogers’s face, her wrists. Both of Steve's parents had been fierce in their own ways, two sides of the same coin.

Steve had always been an angry son of a bitch. Shake a bag of wet cats, that was what it was like to handle him. He lied when he didn’t have to. He gave one word answers to piss people off. He took every little thing as a challenge, as something personal, so convinced that he needed to prove something about himself.

But now? It was entirely different.

Bucky had known Steve all his life. He knew all his tells; when he lied, when he was about to go into an asthma attack, when he was simmering in rage and about to blow a fuse. He knew how to read his expressions like a book. He knew something was wrong with Steve, just as he knew there was something wrong with himself. His near-dead delirious ass was able to notice it in Azzano, as soon as Steve pulled him off that table. His eyes were - empty? Mostly? He looked like nothing phased him, like nothing made him feel anything - the only emotion he had seen on Steve’s face up until they returned to camp was rage as he faced Johann Schmidt on that catwalk.

It was in himself. He’d felt rage before, he knew it well, but - to his core - he wouldn’t consider himself an angry person. But watching Steve walk around like he was, with the little context Bucky had, god's gift? He just got out of experimentation. Pulled off that death bed by the man who walked like he was the baddest soldier on Earth, like he was chosen by Divine Right when all he did was sign up for a dangerous experiment - it was a slap in the face.

Steve towered over him, and that certainly wasn’t the issue. He acted like he had to be better than him. Bucky’s training didn’t matter, because Steve thought he was better than all the men he’d pulled from Azzano combined. The old Steve had never acted like that. But despite the belief, the narcissistic pride that stained the ground he walked on, he seemed to think he still had something to prove. To the world. To himself. To Bucky. He’d never needed to prove himself to Bucky - he had always been the one person who saw Steve more than anyone else, that knew him as well as he knew himself; from childish friendship to learning how to kiss to leaning on each other after both their families were gone, they had been through it nearly every step of the way. Three years they had been torn apart, longer than they had ever been separated before, and that whole time Bucky was hoping Steve had been blocked enough by the system that he’d keep getting deferred and - Bucky didn’t care how much it tore at Steve to see it - declared unfit. He’d stay safe at home, he’d keep going to art school, Bucky would get back to him and his world would go back to what it was -

But the fucker willingly let an an entity running on agendas pump chemicals in him, because he had something to prove, and now Bucky had to work with a man he couldn’t recognize.

if you'd prefer to view on AO3 🌒

"hello. and welcome to staying awake."

→ marvel (mcu), moon knight (tv series)

→ character study of the introductions of steven grant and marc spector

→ content warnings: psychological horror, moon knight canon mental health

──────────────────

❛ 𝐖𝐇𝐄𝐍 𝐖𝐄 𝐀𝐋𝐋 𝐅𝐀𝐋𝐋 𝐀𝐒𝐋𝐄𝐄𝐏,

𝐖𝐇𝐄𝐑𝐄 𝐃𝐎 𝐖𝐄 𝐆𝐎? ❜

──────────────────

"Hello, and welcome to staying awake. Let's start with try to solve a puzzle. Solving puzzles is a great way to keep your mind awake."

The bags under Steven's eyes weighed tons, marring his features with the bruises of crescent moons.

How much longer can I go on like this? It seemed like he asked himself that every night, memorizing the torn edge of the tape in case his other self tore it off and tried to replace it, securing the lock around his ankle.

"Bored of a puzzle? Try a book. Reading can keep your mind alert and focused. Imagine being in the story you're reading. Is there an exciting chapter you'd like to be a part of?"

He hated this. He hated this life, its limits - what did he do to deserve this? He's lived a good life. He called his mum every day to let her know he was okay. Didn't he deserve happiness? Allowed to be a tour guide in the museum, get enough money so he could fly his mum out so she could visit, maybe even find a girl. But there'd be no chance of that until playing this tape and the cuff around his ankle weren't necessary.

"Just remember, you'll need about five hours to keep your natural self."

His natural self. What even was that anymore? The gaps in his memory were expansive and endless, the dried blood under his fingernails continuously shocked him, the voices and the moving shadows haunted him.

Anymore, he just lived in a house of horrors.

──────────────────

❛ 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐃𝐄𝐁𝐓 𝐈 𝐎𝐖𝐄

𝐆𝐎𝐓𝐓𝐀 𝐒𝐄𝐋𝐋 𝐌𝐘 𝐒𝐎𝐔𝐋 ❜

──────────────────

Steven wrung his hands as the storage unit employee led him through the halls. He wasn't sure what was waiting ahead of him, what this "Marc" was hiding from him or if he was even truly part of him. He wasn't sure what was happened, why he'd woken up in that little village and left with blood on his hands, but whoever this Marc was...he was dangerous. He knew that much.

More than anything, he wanted to separate himself from him. Or make sure Marc couldn't take over again and ruin both their lives or kill anyone else. Figured if he was going to be living like this for the rest of his life, sleep deprived and alone, the least he could do was keep others safe.

Stepping inside the unit and the door closing behind him, it looked more like an...apartment, more than anything else. A hidden stomping ground, so to speak. A cot in the corner with a dented pillow, a little standing rig to hang some clothes, stacked military grad storage cases. The sickening yellow-green lights reflected off the walls, and he saw himself staring back, eyes falling on the duffel bag sitting on the case beside the cot.

Naturally, curiosity got the best of him. Wasn't that part of the whole reason why he was there?

His feet slowly carried him across the metal floor, the texture and pattern of it seemingly stabbing through the soles of his shoes. He leaned over as he kneeled down, flicking the strap from overtop the zipper before undoing the zipper itself. Lifting the top, his lungs pushed out the air. "Oh, my god." Carefully picking the handgun up by the handle, he moved it to the side to riffle through the bag. Different currencies were stacked in it, but finally - finally - he found something more interesting than scary. A passport. "Marc Spector," he read, finding a photo of himself staring back. The sight made him think, for just a moment, why didn't he - Steven - have a passport?

Dropping it back down, he reached deeper. His fingertips touched cool metal, and wrapping them around the object he pulled out the scarab. An amazed breath left him as the wings unfolded and the beetle rose from the dock plate, floating in the air and seemingly leading him away.

"I'd say you're a compass," he murmured to himself, studying the direction it was pointed, as he turned with it and rose back to his feet. "but you're not pointing north."

"Steven." That voice was it. The one he's been hearing. It was his own, but not - the accent was entirely different, unsettling so in some way. But he looked away from the scarab, his gaze falling on the reflection in front of him - the version of him that stared back stood differently than he was now, his stature bold and strong instead of tired and drooping. "I need you to listen to me very carefully."

"Marc? There he is, here he comes." He raised his arm in a small wave, immediately hating himself even more. "Hello, man in the mirror. I was wondering if you'd pop up again."

"I know you're scared." He sounded so calm, but so tense at the same time. Tension was just evident in him - the lines around his eyes, the angle of his jaw.

Now that's an understatement. What the hell was slipped into his drink? "A bit, yeah."

"I know you're confused. You weren't supposed to see," he gestured to the entirety of the storage space, as if that summed it up entirely, "any of this."

"No? Well, a bit late for that, innit? So-so what?" His body trembled, as if in time with his voice, nerves and jitters getting the best of him. "Am I, like, meant to be some sort of mad secret agent or something?"

"Yeah, it's a little more complicated than that."

"More complicated? What, am I possessed? Are you l-l-like a demon or -?" Was that why that timeless deep voice had been in his head? The worm, the parasite, that was himself?

"You're in danger, and I can save us. Just like I did last night. But I can't have you interfering in what I have left to do. So this is what's gonna happen." He pointed back behind Steven. "You're gonna go lay down on that cot back there. You're gonna take a nice nap -"

Oh, for goodness sakes. "Are you joking? Sleep - I'm never gonna go to sleep again, you hear me? Look, I don't care how bloody handsome you are. Tell me what it is you are. What are you?"

"You sure you wanna know?

"Yes, bloody - yes!"

"I serve Khonshu. I'm his Avatar. Which means you are, too. Sort of." When Steven was silent, he added, "We protect the vulnerable and deliver Khonshu's justice to those that hurt them."

"Khonshu?"

"Yeah."

"The Egyptian god of the moon?" Marc just nodded, and Steven pulled away from the elastic pulling him closer to the reflective wall. "Oh my god, that's the stupidest thing I've ever heard. I eat one piece of steak and, bam, I go bonkers." He dropped down onto the cot, anxiety hooking its nails in his back. A fist wrapped around his lungs, knives scraping at his ribs. He pressed his hand to his chest, rocking forward. "Oh, god. I'm having a panic attack."

"I made a deal with Khonshu."

Stop. "I need to go to the hospital, I think."

"That deal is contingent on you not interfering, Steven." Steven glanced down at the gun resting beside him, finding Marc staring back, insanity sharp in his eyes. "Now give me the body. You let me finish this and you'll never hear from me again."

"You want my body? Right, yeah. Marc, how about this for a deal?" He pushed himself up, despite the hurricane in his legs. He quickly started to throw everything back in the duffle bag. "I'm gonna take this bag full of illegal shit, yeah? And I'm gonna go straight to the authorities. They're gonna put me away, so I don't hurt anyone else. And hopefully they fill me with enough pills so that you get out of my head!"

The door slammed shut, his hands pressed against it as if he could lock Marc behind it, silence suddenly surrounding him. The only light on in the hall being the sickly yellow spotlight above him. His heart hammered in his chest like a drum, and he took a deep breath and slowly released it to try and convince it to slow. But no - a light thudded on down the hall, catching his jumpy attention.

But nothing was there.

It shuttered off. Then, after a few moments, on again. Then off, on, off, on, off, thundering like a heartbeat. On again, a figure suddenly illuminated, startling him a step backward. Then off, then on, and it was gone.

──────────────────

❛ 𝐁𝐔𝐓 𝐖𝐄 𝐊𝐍𝐄𝐖 𝐑𝐈𝐆𝐇𝐓 𝐅𝐑𝐎𝐌 𝐓𝐇𝐄

𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐑𝐓 𝐓𝐇𝐀𝐓 𝐘𝐎𝐔'𝐃 𝐅𝐀𝐋𝐋 𝐀𝐏𝐀𝐑𝐓 ❜

──────────────────

Marc's chest practically cracked open, as the engraved linen wraps pulled away from him, unwinding and disappearing, the will of Khonshu momentarily vanishing from his body. As soon as he was able to, he reached into his pockets, searching for the scarab. Instantly, as he came up empty handed, panic swept through him, that crack in his chest splintering further. "Where is it?" he whispered under his breath, hands patting at all his pockets. "Where is it? Shit. SHIT!" The dread knocked him to his knees, pulling him down like an anchor to the wooden platform beneath him.

"So this is what it's like?" Oh, god. Marc looked over his shoulder, knowing already what he would find. Steven stared back at him, face shattered into pieces in the broken glass. "Being in the inside."

"...Yeah."

"It's horrible," he breathed.

This wasn't meant for him. "It's alright. You're alright."

"I feel like I can scarcely move."

"It's alright. Breathe through it. It gets easier." No, it doesn't.

"How long you been doing this?"

He turned back around, head dropping between his shoulders. "I don't know, it's - a long time."

"I don't like it."

"Long time."

"I don't want it." Marc pushed himself up to his feet, as Steven asked, "Can I have my body back?"

"I can't do that right now, Steven."

"Please." Marc closed his eyes for a moment, unable to convince himself to respond. This was gutting, the knife practically twisting in his gut. None of this was okay. "I'm taking it back." Steve groaned with the strain, and Marc finally convinced himself to turn back to the glass.

"Sorry. We've always managed to keep a walk between us, but something's changed. The one who controls the body has become stronger." He reasoned, "The reflections help, but most of the time it'll take all your willpower just to be a fly on the wall."

"You can't do this, keeping me trapped in here, you have no right. My whole life..." Marc shook his head, but Steven went on. "I can't go in a bloody date. I can barely keep a goldfish alive. I lost my job." The stage of grief shifted, turning head-first into denial and blame. "It's been you, it's always been you - eating away at parts of my life like a parasite."

No. He wasn't going to linger on that, he wasn't going to let it sink in to that bad place where he locked all those other things away - "Look. When I am done, when I have repaid my debt - I swear to you, you will never see me or hear from me again. I promise you." Nobody is more okay with that than I am. "We wouldn't be alive if it weren't for Khonshu. And my... servitude is the price that I pay."

"...What kind of servitude?

"The kind that leaves me covered in blood."

"Yeah, well, that blood is on my hands." He turned away, shaking his head, doing his best to shove the words out even as they came in. "You ruin people's lives." Steven can't be saying these things to him. "Everything you touch, you ruin." Steven was the one good thing. "You hurt people. You abandoned your wife, you left her stranded -"

Now that was it. Marc spun around, anger lighting up in his chest. "I did not. I am protecting her. You don't know what you're talking about."

"Yes, you did, I saw!"

"Khonshu has his eyes on her. He wants her as my replacement. I'm never gonna let that happen." Over my dead body.

"You're a liar! I don't believe you, I don't trust anything you say, you hurt people!"

"I'm never letting him near her!" But he'd never let me die -

"I won't let you hurt anyone again!"

"Just shut up!" God, why can't I die?

"I will never -"

"Steven, shut up."

"- give you a moment of -"

"Just shut up!" 𝘚𝘵𝘰𝘱𝘴𝘵𝘰𝘱𝘴𝘵𝘰𝘱𝘴𝘵𝘰𝘱 -

" - peace, I promise -"

"SHUT UP!" The glass screamed beneath the sole of his shoe, crunching over and over again, less graceful than that of fresh fallen snow in Chicago. Steve wasn't ever supposed to say those things - he was the only good - he was never supposed to see any of this - protect your brother - how dare he?

How dare Marc hit him, like their mother?

The anger subsided to a tired simmer, and Marc stumbled back, the fight dripping away. Steven - Steven, who was never supposed to feel that pain, looked at him in fear, eyes shining, shoulders hunched.

No, no, I couldn't have done that.

The wind howled in his ears, eerie whistles sounding as it hooked over the sharp edges of the shattered glass. The chairs in the amphitheater fell over from the strong gust, and Marc was silent.

He was here.

"You swore he would not interfere."

Following the voice, Marc turned his gaze up to his left. Khonshu, in all his horrible glory, stood at the top of the church. "I know. I'll handle it." He had to handle it, he would. He'd get this done, Layla would stay safe, Steven wouldn't have to see these horrors that were never meant for him.

"You have proven you cannot."

"I will."

"Ungrateful, Marc." The voice was closer now, and Marc turned to look up behind him, following the god as he came closer. "altering the terms of our agreement? You were nothing more than a corpse when I found you. You think you own this body?" The god laughed, eerie and ominous and promising so many worse things for him. But still, Marc turned, meeting that empty gaze with his own. "It belongs to me."

──────────────────

❛ 𝐂𝐀𝐔𝐒𝐄 𝐈 𝐂𝐀𝐍'𝐓 𝐒𝐀𝐘 𝐍𝐎

𝐍𝐎, 𝐈 𝐂𝐀𝐍'𝐓 𝐒𝐀𝐘 𝐍𝐎 ❜

──────────────────

Ok so. "Why does this sound like a goodbye?" Was fucking heartbreaking, right; we have the full-on uninterrupted eye contact, the head tilt, Dean's already open mouth twitching before the scene cuts to Cas' "I love you," like he had more to say, but Cas beats him to the punch. It's great, we love that. But for the dialogue to be sequenced that way, and to have Dean reply with, "don't do this, Cas."

I'm only just realizing how fucking insane it was. And sure, I might just be coping here, at the end of the day who fucking knows, but look at it. Think about it. Now let yourself feel it all over again.

It's Dean's death knocking on the door behind Cas, and it's Cas' death emerging behind Dean. Like this, they're directly facing their own demise—but they're too stuck on each other, in their moment, to give a damn. And then Dean doesn't say, "I love you too." He says, "don't do this."

He isn't disgusted or ashamed or put off in the slightest by Cas' confession, because if he is then why is he on the verge of tears? In what world would it make sense for him to want to cry after his best friend confessed to him, if the confession was something he did not want. He says don't do this here, don't do this to me now.

Even if, and that's the most unlikely if to ever exist, Dean did not reciprocate Cas' feelings—don't do this is still so fucking powerful. Because Dean's connected the dots, happiness [...] is in just saying it, and Cas said it, so where does that lead Dean? That's right, with Cas dead again, trying to save him again.

Don't do this. Don't die for me, don't love me only to die for me, don't love me at all, just stay with me.

Don't let me watch you die again and not even let me follow you—because, at the very least, that was a consolation. She's gonna kill you, which Dean knows that Billie knows will hurt him more than his own death, and then she's gonna kill me.

"Don't do this," was actually so fucking powerful, I don't know how it slipped past me until now...

Athena: So... who's the big spoon and who's the little spoon?

Odysseus: We're chopsticks!

Athena: Well... that's cute!

Telemachus: Does that mean you two snuggle together perfectly?

Penelope: No, it means that if you take one away, the only thing the other is good for is stabbing.

steve not taking care of himself in ways that are basically self harm but no one knows because of his healing factor

he'll ignore wounds on purpose and that would get most people infected, but he heals faster than the baseline human and is immune to disease so no one bats an eye when he skips medical again

he drinks enough high proof liquor to give the baseline human alcohol poisoning ten times over but no one thinks he has a drinking problem because they think he can't get drunk, but it's not that he can't get drunk, his body just processes alcohol more efficiently

he's in the gym too much but everyone brushes it off because of course cap is a gym rat, he's an avenger so of course he has to train, he has to keep up with the job somehow, no he's not over-exerting himself, he'll be fine, he's a supersoldier.

oh theyre about to have the best sex imaginable i bet

chapter 4/8 now available on AO3

→ marvel (mcu/comic), avengers (2012)

→ bucky x steve

→ flawed super soldier serum, dark!steve rogers, mcu compliant with comic influences

→ faked relationship, canon-typical violence, amputation

──────────────────

Steve's head whipped toward him. “You told me you didn't tell anyone you had it.”

“Why didn't you tell me what Zola did?” Steve asked from the couch that had become his bed after Peggy's funeral.

Bucky knew it would come up at some point.

He kept his back to Steve as he answered, “I never told anyone.”

“- and the Tesseract is no different. Just because America has it now doesn't mean it isn't any less dangerous or that you have better intentions -”

“Bucky!” Steve said louder, harder.

He snapped, turning on him so fast his hair flew over his forehead. “What?”

“You lied to me.”

“You should take a deep, hard look at yourself and ask yourself why.”

For the first time since before the ice, Bucky looked into the eyes of the bloodthirsty Captain America. And Tony just had to push. “Ooh, someone's still pissy he got benched."