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bakerstreet2018-08-09 01:17 pm
lumeria) wrote in bakerstreet2018-08-09 01:17 pm
Entry tags:
MACHINES CANNOT LOVE
The Teach Me How to Love Meme
No matter how straightforward it may seem, the human emotion of "love," especially true, unconditional love, is complex and often hard to understand. All that forgiveness, all that dedication, all that light in the dark - how can one person have all that inside of them? You don't understand that, possibly because you're not a human. You're a calculating robot, an alien with a completely different frame of reference, or an artificially created being told only to feel certain ways. If you are a human, however, that doesn't necessarily clue you in to all the secrets of affection. Cold, uncaring assassins, brutal warriors, ruthless womanizers and maneaters, or the just plain broken can often feel like robots among their own kind.
But you want that to change. You have a stirring in your chest for someone and you want to know what love is so you can make them happy. This is the first time you've ever wanted to do so and be so unselfish. Hopefully, they can be a good teacher and help you open up, getting you both closer...
...or you could end up with someone as inexperienced as you. Well, there is something to be said about learning together.
- Comment with your character, preferences, and what side you'll be playing (learning, teaching, whatever you'd like).
- Reply to others.
- Do the thing.
no subject
"From the marrow out," he agrees, toasting to the notion because that's how it is for him.
He's trying to picture Steve from the description, but it's piecemeal for now--without a mention of the serum or the transformation, he's still picturing a man who's tiny, who has remained sickly all his life...who might not even be alive now, the way that Barnes checks and then rechecks himself on verb tense, so he'll need to handle that delicate terrain with care.
"My Steve's name is Hakkyuu. He probably wasn't much more'n 90 pounds either for a lotta years. Not so sickly though, just small. He's kinda like a really loud firework squeezed into this small package." Talking about him makes Vrenille's eyes light up, brings this helplessly fond smile to his face.
"Place we grew up, city called Ebonhawke. It's this stronghold built out against a mountain. City at war. By the time Hakkyuu and I were born, it had been under siege near two and a half centuries--enemy army camped right outside the city walls, just beyond reach of our trebuchets. Every now and then they'd manage to lob some kinda bomb in, destroy a building here or there, that sorta thing.
"Hakkyuu never knew his parents, never knew what happened to 'em either. That's just how it was sometimes. Mine I knew were dead, left my uncle to raise me, then he died too. Hakkyuu and I met when we were 'round twelve. We were all each other had in the world. We lived on the streets, slept in ruined buildings." It's strange that he almost seems to remember it fondly, but then maybe it's not so strange at all, because it's not the conditions he's thinking of, it's the companionship.
"When we were sixteen, the whole world fell apart. This elder dragon, Kralkatorrik, woke up, flew right across Ascalon, barely missed the city itself. The whole landscape, every living thing in its path changed. They became these crystalline monsters--the Branded, we call 'em. And all they wanna do is kill.
"It was chaos. I think Ebonhawke nearly fell. And I couldn't find Hakkyuu anywhere. Everyone said he was dead." He shakes his head here, takes a long drink of his beer to cover the parts of the story he's not ready to tell--the way that Hakkyuu had materialized again, seemingly out of nowhere, days later. The way that he had changed, all the pigment drained from him and these strange amethyst eyes the color of Branded crystal. Everyone said he was Branded, and Vrenille, scared half out of his head and rattled by shock and trauma, had believed it.
"Turns out the tenacious little bastard wasn't dead. Y'know, I wrote him off. I got nothing to do but own that. Nearly ten years I didn't see him. Lotta things changed. And then there I am in a bar one night, and he just walks through the door." He snorts a huff of dry laughter. "It was not an easy reunion. He nearly punched me in the teeth. And, y'know, since he'd basically become a trained assassin, I reckon that probably woulda hurt." He grins.
"We're good now though. It took some work, but I'd say we're closer now'n when we were kids."
no subject
"That...could have been my story," he admits quietly. Vrenille has told him so much and he's offered so little in return. Bucky's not used to someone being around that wants to hear the truth. He's absolutely not used to being comfortable around someone enough to even consider telling the truth to. But then there was this strange man.
Bucky looks at him appraisingly. Like he couldn't kill him easily with one metal hand if things went south. He's just so used to being on his guard that he's nearly forgotten what it was like to have even one of his walls down. And now nearly all of them had crumbled. Nearly. Enough that he could say something in return.
"I was your Hakkyuu, in the end part. We were close. So close. Then there was a fight... Steve thought I was dead." Bucky raises his hand and flexes the plates in his arm, letting them make that damned whirring noise. "I wish I had been dead. But...years passed. Lots of years. And now I'm back but..."
He sighs and gets up to go and refill their bowls with the soup. It's so thin that they could probably drink the whole thing and still be hungry. He plops some of the softened vegetables down for both of them and takes his time with it. For some reason, he doesn't want to look at someone right now. Least of all someone who's presence he's beginning to enjoy.
"Your Hakkyuu is braver than me, it seems. At least he had the guts to go and punch you. I ran to the other side of the world."
no subject
"He may have nearly punched me first, but then he pretty much bee-lined as far from me as he could get and just...hid. We'd probably never've gotten past that if it wasn't for this one really stubborn little plant--er, sylvari. You probably don't have those here--sentient humanoid plant-people?" Also probably not the most important point to focus on at the moment. "Anyway, it took someone who was gonna stick his damn nose in where it didn't belong and just keep the two of us banging heads 'til we cracked before we managed to come together again."
Much as Vrenille obviously loves the stubborn little plant in question, he also knows at once that Barnes is going to be looking for parallels, making extrapolations, because even if the man has told him comparatively little, he can see that the story he's sharing matters, that it makes a difference for him to share it, and he feels the knit of it weaving the two of them together as he does. Vrenille's never had reason to wonder if he could do for someone else what Kyinnlen--his tale's stubborn sylvari--had done for him and Hakkyuu. Now though, the question just presents itself.
But then Steve isn't here, of course, which rather changes the terrain of the whole thing: if Vrenille is going to be something for Barnes, it's got to be something else--something bespoke, not a recast from a ready-made mold. Does he want that--to suss out the need, open himself to its demands? The answer is surprisingly simple, barely a question at all: of course.
It's not a transactional matter like bartering goods for services. It's that in the midst of the royal clusterfuck that the universe has seen fit to make of his life by dropping him into some random world through an anomalous rip in space-time, it has also seen fit to give him Barnes: one supremely bad roll of the dice followed by one that's better than he had any right to expect. When that kind of chance happens, even if it's messy and complicated and maybe hurts sometimes, you don't hold back. Every now and then, people come into your life in a big way; because it's rare, experience has taught him to value and embrace it.
So he watches Barnes with warm blue eyes, extends his right hand across the table towards Barnes' left, a motion of his fingers requesting that the metal hand be extended to him--for a further examination, perhaps, but also simply for contact. He doesn't need to be told about Barnes' assassin training to know that arm could probably crush the bones in his hand or snap his neck with minimal effort, yet he invites its touch anyway without hesitating, because it's not about the arm for him; it's about the man.
"It must've hurt, this." Somehow even the soft whir of the mechanism seems a testimony to it. "And I'm guessing that it wasn't so much your idea."
no subject
Vrenille's touch is something Bucky is getting comfortable with, now. He likes the warmth of it, even when he can only get a vague impression of it from the plates in his hand. This is something human that he'd lost over the years; people could touch one another and want nothing more than to just feel them. No pain. No control. Just the simple expression of one person reaching out for another and taking what they can get. It's something he hadn't known he'd missed until Vrenille starts giving it to him without even a hesitation.
Bucky's hand shifts over his, not holding it but pressing down to make sure the gesture reads as intentional. He's growing to understand that these small movements for Vrenille can open up entire worlds of meaning that Bucky never even knew he was revealing. But it's nice. No one's heard his story from him. This is almost a test drive of what he'd say to someone else. Maybe even to Steve, one day.
One day.
"It wasn't, no." He looks down at his hand and arm. It's just as alien now as it was when it was first installed. Like something malignant and intrusive that took the place of something else. Something better. Sometimes Bucky wants to rip the damn thing off entirely and learn to work with one arm. He's still not sure why he hasn't other than the fact that the circuts would be tricky. Probably.
"I was...found. There was an accident on a job with Steve. He tried to save me, but I fell. Shoulda died." Oftentimes wishes he had. "It took off my arm and I thought that was it. But people found me and gave me this arm and a whole lot of other things.... Nothing I'm fond of, 'course. But. It is what it is."
It takes nothing for him to switch hands with his spoon to continue eating. The other one stays on top of Vrenille's.
"It's couldn't argue. I was....out of it. Stayed out of it for awhile. Till after it was done. Now it's just... there. Doesn't hurt anymore. But yeah. Not my choice at all."
no subject
All that notwithstanding, prosthetic limbs are rare in his world, and he doesn't know of any like this one. The spirit of what was done, however--the way that Barnes seems to have been made into something like a test subject, an object for the whims and disposal of others--that, for Vrenille, has an easy comparison: Inquest. It sounds, in fact, almost like textbook Inquest. And the association puts enough flesh on the story's bones for him to understand, to sketch an outline of the acres and acres of suffering, the pain he must have endured, the dehumanizing disregard, being treated like a thing.
That Barnes is alive and sane at all speaks to a strength of character that he doubts the man even gives himself full credit for.
"And that's how you ended up here." Half a world away from the home you're not sure how to find anymore, with a memory you've maybe only half pieced back together from however out of it you were. It's what he tallies up and reads between the lines of everything that Barnes has told him. He knows so much about the man now that it's strange to think he still only knows his last name.
"You know, Barnes, if I was a betting man, I'd wager that the next time you see Steve, it's not gonna be 'cause he wants to punch you. And even if it is, it won't be because he misses you any less. You survived. I ain't even heard half of it all yet and I already know that's a helluva feat."
no subject
He doesn't feel Vrenille's fingers as such, but he can feel the moving pressure. It's soothing in an odd way Bucky can't explain. It's like someone is doing maintenance and actually caring for what they touch and what they break in the process. No one ever had before which makes the whole thing novel in a very pleasant way. His own fingers duplicate the gesture. It's just as soothing and nice on the other side as well.
"You're right. But Christ, I wish he'd let me go." Bucky stopped eating and just leaned forward over his bowl. "He wants someone who doesn't exist anymore. Ya know? I barely even remember all of our past. He's going to find me and he's going to miserable and disappointed. I'd rather he hit me and move on."
His thumb curls around Vrenille's as he talks about Steve. He used to do the same thing with him, once upon a time. Out on a fire escape, looking at the sun. Pretending they weren't when they both knew they were.
"Enough with my sob story." He looks up at Vrenille with a smile. "I swear, it doesn't get much better. Maybe yours does, though?"
no subject
There's a kind of morbid, defeatist attitude that Vrenille can't see helping to support here. He can't see just moving on and talking about himself without saying anything back to it. It just feels wrong. What feels right is to shake it up, and so that's what he does. If Barnes resents him for it...well, he can't hang life on second guessing himself. He'll just have to take his lumps as they come.
"You wanna know what I see when I look at you?" On impulse he reaches out and pushes the curtain of hair back from Bucky's face, cups his cheek, feeling the gentle roughness of stubble against his palm and the warmth of his skin. There's a conviction in his eyes that's earnest and unwavering. And he does look at him, directly, without an ounce of hesitation (or misery, or disappointment for that matter).
"I see a man who was willing to help a total stranger, who didn't stop and say 'I don't have much, I can't afford to get involved,' or 'It's not my problem, let someone else worry about it.'
"I see a man who wasn't interested in sticking his head in the sand, who asked questions because wanted to know. That kinda thing doesn't come from nowhere. It comes from the part of you that damn well does remember who you are, that core that exists right through, all along, from start to finish, even if you can't call it all right to mind.
"However much of your past you've forgotten, you remember enough to know--now--that it still matters to you. Even if that's 'barely,' it's a lot."
no subject
Bucky can't respond. The touch is warm and reaching toward a cold center in himself that he hadn't allowed anyone to see since he was pulled up, off a metal slab. It's not until he notices how he's leaning into it that he accepts how touch-starved he's been since then. How desperate he's been for someone to reach for him and to be allowed to reach back.
Distantly, his mind turns to Steve. It always turns to Steve. He wonders if this is what it would be like, were he to let his friend find him. The idea is as appealing as it is terrifying. Somehow, it's easier now with this stranger who's quickly becoming a friend. It's easier both because of and in spite of his similarities to Steve.
His similarities to himself.
"Vren..." He starts and stops. Speaking seems wrong. He has nothing that can sum up what he's feeling at the moment. Nothing that seems right. There's only one thing he can think of to do and it's a huge fucking mistake. But he's doing it anyways. One hand planting into the table for balance as the other grips Vrenille's chin lightly, pulling him in for a short kiss.
It's his first kiss since 1945. First one with a man, too. Chaste and soft, it's hardly the best one he's ever had, but it's so desperately needed that he hardly even cares. It's only when he's starting to lean back that he realizes it was probably the wrong thing to do.
"Sorry..." he mumbles, embarrassed for the first time in decades as well. A night of firsts. "I... Sorry. I shouldn't have done that." A lie. He should have made sure Vrenille didn't mind, but he needed it. He swallows and sits heavily back in his chair.
"Just. Thanks. That means a lot more than you probably know..."
no subject
Only it's a part of his life that Barnes doesn't know about yet and that might be more difficult to speak about after this contact than in the hypothetical alternate version of events where he told him before, the version where he's properly managed to get out in front of it all by saying what he is right from the get-go.
"No, it's fine," he refuses the apology with a small shake of his head. His hand has dropped from the man's jaw to the collar of his shirt, but he is still touching him, and he raises a forefinger to nudge his chin a little, almost like a playful teasing for his embarrassment.
He sits back in his chair then and looks at Barnes squarely. "I don't mind mind it, and you're welcome--not that you gotta thank me for bein' honest. But listen, since we're here, I am gonna tell ya, lay my cards right out: I'd do plenty more than just kiss you that way." There's the slightest tilting of his head, but the look in his eyes is what says it--there are acres of sexual availability here, the land all unfenced and wild, should Bucky wish to step off the road and let himself wade through the high grass all around him. There are kisses that could go places far beyond that innocent brush of lips, and rolling waves of hands and backs and hips, peaks and valleys and glens of pleasure that Bucky might not even know.
"I'm not saying I need to, or that we should, or will. But we can." And Vrenille would like to, if it goes that way.
"I don't wanna string you along though, like I ever wasn't straight with you--I don't want you feeling that way." So he's got to tell him. And he does: "I got by most of my life having sex with men for money. And if it's something I gotta do to get by here, I'm gonna do it again." Barnes should know exactly who he might be getting into bed with, even if the knowledge makes him reevaluate or recoil, even if it angers or disgusts him, Vrenille isn't going to lie by omitting what he knows to be a very important truth.
no subject
It's a regression.
"I see." And he does. Bucky leans back to dislodge Vrenille's hand from his chest as he reaches over for the beer and takes a long swig of it. He's not angry. He's certainly not disgusted. But he is disappointed, distantly, and in himself. It opens up more shame inside of him than he thought he was capable of.
"Look. You don't know everything about me, either. So probably now is as good a time as any to let you know what you're living with. I've been an assassin for a long time. A good one." The shame deepens as he acknowledges the fact that he spoke that truth not out of kindness but as a blunt weapon. It's humiliatingly petty; its the lashing out of someone who thinks they look foolish and wants company. "I don't do it anymore. And I won't again. But I've done it. I'm older than I look and I've got all those year's worth of blood on my hands. So. There. We got that open."
He takes more of the beer and gets up to start putting dishes into the sink.
"I don't care if you wanna open up shop again. I don't care what you do for money as long as you're not doing it because you think there's no other way. We will need to figure out some sort of system if you're staying here, though. And..."
He turns back to look Vrenille in the eye so there is no misunderstanding here, "I want you right now to agree that I'm not a client. Alright? I made time in my day with lots of girls and I don't blame anyone for wanting to do the same with anyone. But I did it because of how I felt. I don't...want to be a job of yours, alright? You don't owe me anything. Least of all your body. That's yours." It's something he's fiercely passionate about. "I've had a lifetime of being fed lies about who I am and I don't need it, even with the best intentions. Understand?"
no subject
So there's this moment of the two of them sitting back in their chairs looking at each other, a moment in which Vrenille notices quite keenly all the places where he doesn't know Barnes all that well yet. What he can't tell, and what really worries him, is whether even coming now his confession is already arriving too late, already feeling like a betrayal, like he's been stringing Barnes along.
He spends a moment taking in all of what the man has said and turning it over in his head before he answers.
"Y'know, when Hakkyuu and I first started talking again, he seemed 'bout ready to tie himself in knots not to say what he'd been doing all those years we'd been apart. Not the time he spent with his mentor in the desert, not the work he did for the guild, but the stuff in between.
"Finally, when he just couldn't wiggle outta it any more, he told me 'Sometimes bad things need to happen to bad people. That's what I got paid for.'" He lets the remark settle for a moment before going on.
"From what you've said about what happened to you, maybe you had less say in it all than what he's had. I'm not askin' you to tell me--if you ever wanna you can, but I don't need to hear you say it either. Point is, I don't have a problem. The skills are the skills. The way I see it, there's no right or wrong with 'em. Good or bad, that's in the choices you make now. But you won't be the first assassin I've laid down and closed my eyes beside. I'm not gonna trust you any less for knowing."
Now as for the rest. Well the rest is complicated. It's a lot more complicated than he thinks Barnes knows or is even ready to hear about right now. He's going to try though: try to say as much of the truth--his own personal truth--as it's possible for him to.
"You're not a job. I can tell you that and it's true. But it's also messy. It's not so black and white, and you gotta understand that part too. What I do, it's about fucking and it isn't. This kinda work, there's all kinda ways you can do it. I do it by talking to people, listening to 'em, being what they need. Lotta the time, it doesn't start so far off from how I've been with you--bit less disclosure about me, bit more keeping my information private. But on the surface," he shrugs.
"So what makes the difference? How's the line drawn between you and them? If you expect that with them it's just sex and there's nothing personal about it you're gonna wind up pissed at me fast. Sometimes it is--quick suck in an alleyway for some coin, that sorta thing. Mostly it's not though.
"The best I can tell you is it's about boundaries. That's where the difference comes. I've thrown my lot in with you. That's what I'm doing here. That's the part that I don't sell."
And as should be perfectly clear from what he's saying, this is all the bald truth. If he was going to lie, then he could just offer empty, easy assurances in place of these messy ambiguities, pay lip service to putting Barnes' mind at ease. He's not doing that though. The truth might be difficult and complicated, but he's not going to gloss it over and pretend it's something it's not.
Still, the question is going to remain whether the thing that Vrenille can offer--the parts of himself that he has to give, even tarnished as they are--will be enough of him for Barnes to want to bother with. And for the moment he stays seated where he is, gives the man his space, and doesn't try to press for an answer.
no subject
He's not lying. And that helps soothe the frayed edges that still think Bucky'd been fed more lies and drank them up like a man in a drought. He leans forward a bit and lets the hardness of his gaze fall away.
"The people I let close to me? There's Steve. And then there's Steve." He looks at the floor, letting his metal finger idly trace against the edge of a plate. "Even before things went to shit. There was just him and me. And yeah, I got around with girls. That was how things were, then. Guys were with girls and no one really talked about any other options. Wasn't done."
There's a pause behind those words that probably screams to Vrenille how much Bucky wished it had been otherwise. But honestly, he hadn't wished that until now when he's able to look back and really think about that time. Before, it just wasn't something one examined closely. It was something you shoved down until you couldn't even see it anymore.
He turns back to the sink and flicks the water on.
"What I did...with you," his voice is soft but loud enough to get over the noise, "I did it because I wanted to. But I don't want you thinking you have to give it back because I need you to or because it's what you do. You can throw in with me for as long as you want to. You don't owe me for it. I don't want you feeling like you do."
Bucky'd always been the sloppy one at home. Steve took care of their apartment and handled the cleaning up when he was too sick to have any other job. The result of that is the man here, still unsure of how to wash up without soaking his shirt in the process. The sprays that arch off the bowl and against him make him curse, but it's a welcome distraction from the heaviness of this conversation.
It's a welcome distraction from everything.
"Nevermind, alright? I'm okay with you and what you do. Long as it's your choice and you don't come home with bruises you didn't ask for, I'm fine. And you and me? We're fine, too. Long as you pitch in."
He gestures with his chin at a towel by the sink, finally shooting a smile back at Vrenille, even if it is still a little tighter than it had been before. "Dry and put away. Tomorrow I'll see about getting another mattress if you plan to stay. You can have mine, tonight."
no subject
Along one path, Vrenille would step seamlessly here into the everyday, take up the dishtowel, start playing his part in the housework like a row of cast-on stitches in a knit of domesticity. He'd be good at it too, because it's familiar--the way the guild house is at home in Lion's Arch and the way that he helps Kyinnlen prepare the meals, lending a hand in cleaning up after them. Before he'd begun to learn magic or skills for the field, he'd found his place in the group by doing such work, and he'd never really stopped doing it, not even when he'd learned to do quite a lot else. So yes, he'll pitch in. He wouldn't be able not to.
But that will happen anyway, as a matter of course. The second path doesn't avoid it. Perhaps it merely gets there through the thick of the woods.
When he steps closer to Barnes, it's not to take the towel, though at first it might appear that way.
Instead what he does is reach over to the tap and turn the water off. There's a soft seriousness in his eyes, almost an outright vulnerability. He touches Barnes' wrist, a signal for him to set the washing up aside, leave it be for now.
"Later."
He's standing close, their chests nearly touching, and he lets the quiet stillness of the moment stretch out, lets meaning pour in like water to a breached hull. He looks at Barnes purely like he wants to be near him and he's not ashamed of it, not second-guessing himself or spinning out with worry over questions of whether he feels compelled by circumstance or necessity to act this way. The clarity in his eyes should make it perfectly clear that this moment is nothing to do with debt or exchange. He doesn't need to do this. He was almost encouraged not to.
And it ought to be perfectly clear what he intends well in advance because he's making no secret of it, playing no coy games when he reaches up to caress Barnes' jaw again, fingertips soft against the stubble. The kiss this time is slow, and light, the angle of mouths a tender brush but not a chaste one, and if Barnes is willing to let it linger, it will linger and, should he accept it, maybe deepen and grow.
no subject
As they stare at each other, Bucky almost asks if Vrenille is sure. Not just that he doesn't feel obligated but that he wants to do this with him of all people. But he can read the answer loudly in his eyes. Bucky drinks it in; here someone is who wants to be close to him. Chooses it without fear and of their own volition. He's forgotten what that could feel like.
Just like he's forgotten the feeling of fingertips against his face and the racing of a heartbeat when someone comes in to kiss you.
It's quick but there's potential in it. Bucky's arm loops around Vrenille's back to keep him close as he thinks this over and makes his decision. It's no real decision at all, really. Bucky is touch-starved and lonely and Vrenille is here and...frankly just what he needs.
Someone to tell him he deserves this. That he's wanted. Someone who reaches for him and accepts what they get in return. It's been such a short time but Bucky already can tell he won't regret this. Won't regret Vrenille. It's been so long since he's felt like this that there's no way it could be a mistake.
It feels like coming back to life.
"Vren..." He exhales, their noses still close enough to bump. Slowly, his mouth curves back into a smile. "Yeah. Later."
And with that he leans back in for a far less chaste kiss than they'd shared before. Both arms curl around him as Bucky lets one kiss bleed into another, taking as many as he's allowed. Glutting himself on what this could feel like after so long without. If it's not stopped, Bucky will do this for a long, long time.
He's got seventy years to catch up on.