farsickness | February: For Love & Monsters

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February: For Love & Monsters

[A CATCHALL]

Who: Merlan and YOU
What: Feb. Catchall
Where: Gazin, Merlan's Clearing
When: All of Feb.
Warnings: Language, maybe.

❅ CHOP WOOD, BUILD STUFF

The trees are thick in her clearing, some need to be removed, yielding wood for cooking or for warmth and that means lots of chopping for her to do with an axe and a thick stump Merlin had felled himself for just such a purpose. It had been a large tree once that had become part of her main house and a tool shed. She could have used magic but the labour felt good.

Swing, crack, toss.
Swing, crack, toss.
Swing, crack, toss.

Eventually, she had enough to leave piles at the front doors of her residents to make sure they were warm and cared for. If they were home, she also had a basket with a knitted blanket, a scarf, mittens, a nice mug, and a hot beverage. No sense in people being cold.

"Good morning, wood and warmth calling," Merlan sang out.

❅ ON THE HUNT

Just because it was winter didn't mean the monsters stopped calling. Trapping them wasn't always an option, which she always thought was unfortunate. This time, though, something was eating a three-eyed crow who'd done nothing to deserve it and she'd been after the stupid bog wight for ages. Chasing it down had become an irritant to sat the least. She was sodden with snow, her horse was covered in mud, and she was miserable.

She nocked an arrow.

"Put down the crow," she grumbled, "or I'll put you down."

It roared at her and she sighed, releasing the arrow aimed for an eye.

❅ WILDCARD - Find her in Gazin, at home wherever, whenever.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"I guess you should mess with it. I just want to feel...what people are supposed to feel. It's difficult to go through life knowing you're half a person, in some ways, and I do feel like that sometimes."

He takes another swallow of coffee, draining the cup. "And a half a person isn't going to be good for someone else. Not the way a boyfriend ought to be."

"Bucky, that's absolute shite," she says. "You're not half a person, you're making new memories every day you're here and with that you're making progress into who you want to be, who you are now. Just because you're missing some pieces here and there doesn't mean you're not...compatible with someone else. Much less me. Take it easy on yourself. Right now, you have an arm that needs tinkering with, but its an arm with a hand that works, and a chance with someone who interested in you and who's gonna not let you get hung up on stupid shit."

Merlan gives him a look that says he's better than he thinks he is and drains her coffee like it's a competition.

"I think you're plenty good, which is really all that needs to be said. Even for a possible, would-be boyfriend."

Edited 2021-03-03 23:25 (UTC)

"I don't want to disappoint anyone, is all. Because I let people down. I'm not going to be good for you," he warns. "And I want that said up front because when I hurt you, even if it's not my intention, I want you to know that you knew that going in."

Self-sabotage is the thing he does best.

"Can we take a look at my arm now?"

"Even if you do hurt me, you won't lose me. Shit happens, we forgive, we move on," she says with a bit of a long-suffering sigh. That whole thing says enough about his insecurities that she just grumbles softly at him and starts working on his arm.

Her eyes close as she concentrates, adjusting the settings to make it so his hand feels more like a hand instead of a blunt instrument of destruction.

"You make things so difficult."

It's not said with any animosity, just simple fact. And then with a slight movement of her fingers, Blowin' Up A Storm by Woody Herman and his orchestra starts playing softly.

"Good music choice," Bucky says, glad to shift the conversation off himself for a little while. God, anything but talking about himself. He flexes his hand a little and looks at Merlan expectantly.

"All right. Let's see how it works. Touch my palm?" he asks, turning his hand over and showing his open palm to her.

She ran her thumb across the surface of his palm, the touch light as she watched his face for a reaction. It was always fascinating to see how her work, specifically with artificial limbs, directly impacted the people who used it on a day-to-day basis.

Her hand and his were worlds apart in size. But she was pretty proportionate, against his, she looked like a child.

"How's that? A little more sensation? Too much? Too little?"

"A little more, I think," Bucky says. It feels good to have the touch of skin on skin again and it's been way too long since he's had that. It's kind of intoxicating to have the feeling again and to pretend, at least for a little while, that he hasn't been mangled up.

"I can feel your touch but it feels like I'm wearing a glove or something," he explains. "It doesn't feel like if you were actually touching my hand."

She concentrated, fine-tuning the way the nerves attached to the prosthesis using his sensitivity feedback. It was a different sort of magic meeting machinery but it served its purpose to help her help him.

"And now?" Her eyes found his as she ran a fingertip across his palm. "We can still go up as many levels as it takes. The only limit is your mind."

"The real answer would be to tell you the truth but I think I'm supposed to lie so I can keep hanging around," Bucky says, laughing a little. It does feel more like his hand, though, and he can feel the subtlety of her fingertips against his palm.

"So which do you want? Real answer or fake answer?"

"Real answer and you can keep hanging around anyway." She says this with a soft smile and a slight nod. "If the hand is feeling good, that doesn't mean we're done with it. What other tests do we want to run to see if its sensitivity is high enough?"

She brushes her thumb over his palm, the motion absently done as she thinks, her gaze a little off into the distance as she works on potential problems or solutions or just trial runs at normal things.

"We should probably compare it to the other hand. That'd be logical," Bucky says. He's not good at this and he doesn't think he's ever going to be good at this but sneaking in a little...something can't be that bad, can it?

"If you think that's a good test. I don't know, you're the capable...wizard. Magician? Whatever you prefer."

"Mmm," she nods and offers him a cheeky sort of grin. "Sound logic. I prefer mage, actually. Less pointy had and possibly mad about it."

It's not bad at all and works well in the context. Merlan isn't difficult when it comes to flirty-type situations but really, it would be normal to see how the prosthetic held up against the natural hand. Her hands are petite, like the rest of her, and sliding her other hand over his palm makes her realise how tiny she really is against nearly everyone she's met.

"It's a good test," she murmurs. Skin-to-skin contact has always been a bit of a craving for her, so this is lovely, really. Her hands are warm from the coffee but chilling quickly but it's not uncomfortable. She wonders if discomfort is a human thing or if angels find any discomfort as well. But she can feel and find pleasure in things, so...no complaints there.

It feels really nice to be touched. The prosthetic feels like his real hand now, too, so there's no need to tinker with it further as far as Bucky is concerned. He probably ought to leave because his purpose in being there is gone but instead he just sits here and lets a girl (a mage) touch his hands.

It's smoother than he expects it to be but he flips her hand so he can kiss her wrist and then everything freezes up. That was stupid.

"Sorry. I shouldn't have."

Oh. A wrist kiss is nice, too. Very nice. Just touching in any way is just a wonderful sensation of sparks and impulses skittering along her nerves and she draws a breath when his lips find her wrist.

"No apology needed," she says half breathless. "And I'm glad you did." Her gently flushed cheeks say as much, as does the slight bite of her lip. All of it is most definitely encouraging.

"...you could quite possibly do that again."

"Look, I haven't done this in seventy years or so," Bucky points out, madly trying to get out of a situation that he both wants to be in and is terrified of at the same time. It's not her fault, at all, but it's definitely overwhelming for him that he just reached out and did it.

"You're really okay with it? Because I just jumped out on that limb there and I'm not sure it was the smartest thing. Could have really fucked it up."

"I'm really okay with it," she says quietly. "I've not done this to much of any degree, so I think you're doing just fine." Merlan threads her fingers through his for a moment and squeezes a little.

"You're alright," that's a soft sigh of a murmur that says exactly what it means to - that all of this is very welcome, feels good, is right. "It's been a very long time since I've wanted to be touched and I do, very much, want you to touch me."

Her voice is gentle as always, soft, with an electric undercurrent of desire and longing she hasn't felt in ages. It makes her shiver a little in all the right ways.

"How does it feel to you?" Bucky asks, touching her palm with the fingertips of his left hand. "Does it still feel like metal or does it actually feel like the other one to you? I'm a little in my head about it."

It's a hard thing to admit but since she's messed around with his prosthetic for a while, it's easier to talk about it with Merlan than with other people. He threads their fingers together and squeezes her hand.

"Hope so. Otherwise, I can wear a glove? Probably bother you less."

Merlan closes her eyes for a long while, thinking on the question and letting her senses go wide, the better to really interpret the data the non-native arm puts off now as it's tuned correctly.

"It's something in between, I think, but definitely not unpleasant. Sometimes it still goes a little cool but that's alright. We all have variances in our temperature," she says quietly, shaking her head lightly.

"The illusion holds quite nicely, I think. If I hadn't known it was metal before, I wouldn't have guessed it. I do believe that having it connected correctly will probably help that along. The more a part of you it becomes, the better the illusion will work -- on you, too, I suppose. It's all in how your synapses connect with your arm and hand, which has a distinct mental component to it."

Merlan smiles, then, and drops a kiss across one of his knuckles because she can.

"You don't need a glove, Bucky." Her other hand curled against his prosthetic wrist. "I'm truly not bothered by the prosthesis. How can I be when it belongs to you?"

She squeezes back, the pressure gentle and steady. Her thumb brushes over his knuckles to reinforce her words because she means them. Everything in front of her, she accepts without question. His arm, his memory losses, the way, sometimes, he's not quite there and just a little touch or look sort of brings him back home again, so to speak.

"It feels like you," she adds after a moment, opening her eyes again. "The hand, the arm. I'm probably rather biased but I happen to like the whole package."

"You've got real strange taste in men. I guess older guys are your thing," Bucky says, laughing tightly. He doesn't know how to do this. He used to know how to do it and do it very well but 1943 Bucky is not a man he can summon anymore. 2019 Bucky is someone else entirely, someone who is still putting his brains together piece by piece.

Shuri had told him it was like a jigsaw puzzle - the pieces were there, it was just a matter of assembling them correctly. Sometimes you think you've got the right piece and you jam it in only to realize no, that's not the one. Bucky has a lot of those moments these days.

"I'm not...you shouldn't, you know. Like the whole thing. The whole thing is a fucking mess. Most people are afraid of me."

"Mm, he says to the woman who routinely takes on messes and gives them a semblance of order." Her eyes sweep across his face for a long while as she takes him in.

"I see chaos and struggle but not anything I'd have to fear. You've been through some serious shit and so have I. This isn't even really my body. That died as I was being remade into an angel." She gestures with a soft hitch of her breath, her thumb against his wrist.

"I'm brand new. Everything is new, battle-ready, I can do things with this body that I couldn't do before and it's frightening. It's made to kill things, really unpleasant things. So most people should be afraid of me, too. Some of the locals are. Some of the things in the forest have stopped dropping by, too. I'm made for war but I'm living in peace here, for the most part. It's--" She laughs softly.

"I'm a fucking mess, too, but I'm still standing. Every day, I still go at it and that's all I can do, really. I can't go back to being Old Merlan, so I gotta try and figure out who I am now, who I want to be, and then do my best."

Bucky identifies with that more than she could possibly know or understand. He feels the same way a lot of the time - made to kill things but trying to live in peace. He associates angels with peace, though, so he's not sure how it works in her world but it's clearly gotta be different than his own.

The touch of her thumb against his wrist feels good and he closes his eyes and exhales slowly. He really shouldn't be doing this, not with his brains scrambled and a list of war crimes under his belt but it feels good. When's the last time he had something that felt good?

"So, maybe I'm being vain or insecure or something so the whole thing is working for you? I haven't had a woman look at me like that in a long time. Don't know if I'm carrying the years well or something like that."

"Women ought to be looking," she says with the softest of laughs that lights up her face as she leans forward a little. "You look fantastic and you ought to have someone tell you that once a day until it sticks."

Her eyes are bright things from gently teasing to definitely interested because she can't hide or help what she feels. Maybe that's an angel thing or maybe it's a her thing, she doesn't really know anymore.

"Guess I'm that somebody, mmn?" She actually winks at him, too, and then laughs at herself for doing it.

"So, let me get this straight - you're going to compliment me once a day until I believe it? I gotta do anything in return for that? Firewood, hauling around bricks..."

It is flirting and it's coming easier than it came before but Bucky doesn't know if he'll ever be as good at the serious parts as he is at the back and forth. He rakes a hand through his hair and seriously looks at Merlan, assessing her more than he has before. She's gorgeous. How had he not noticed that? Or had he and he'd just tamped it down out of self preservation?

"Guess you'll think of something. You wanna dance with me? We've got the music going."

"I definitely want to dance with you," she says, smiling brightly. "As for something you need to do for compliments, well, I can think of a few things, I'm sure. Dancing is a good start."

They're holding one another's hands so Bucky tips his head a little to indicate they ought to get up and work on that dancing thing. He hasn't done it since about '43, so he's rusty, but he thinks it's something you don't forget. It's muscle memory as much as fighting or shooting, after all.

"C'mon then. Let me show you a good time."

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