ᵗʰᵉ ᵃᵐᵉʳᶦᶜᵃᶰ ᵈʳᵉᵃᵐ

Tim O'Brien, The Things They Carried

Submitted by: themanatthecenter - Thank you so much! 

You’re walking in a canyon of condos.  The sun reflects off of their broad expanse, blinding you, although you can’t see the sun itself.  You think you’re walking to the waterfront, but you’re not sure.  Everything has become a condo.

It’s 3 am on the Queens bound side of the Hoyt Schermerhorn station. It is always 3am, and the G train will never come.  There’s a noise like a slide whistle, and the dripping of water somewhere you can’t see.  You are alone on the platform, except for one person down at the other end of the platform.  They have the same color hair as you.  It’s styled the same way too.  Oh god, they’re wearing that jacket you threw away last month.  They’re alone on the platform, and the train will never come.

The neighborhood you live in is changing.  You used to live in Bed Stuy.  Now it’s Bedwick.  Now it’s Bushwick.  Now it’s East Williamsburg.  Now it’s South East Williamsburg.  The boundaries of your neighborhood are growing smaller.  Your bodega is now a Planet Fitness.  The halal place is now a Dunkin Donuts.  All of your neighbors are white.  You’re white too now.  Eventually your neighborhood is only your apartment building, then only your apartment.  You live in Williamsburg.

You’ve met someone.  They’re beautiful.  You think they really like you.  Then the bad news: they live in Astoria.  You think of the journey you will have to undertake, to have sex - four buses, three trains and a pack mule.  Your heart falters.

It’s the West Indian Day parade, and you’d forgotten.  You’ve been trying to reach your apartment for nine hours.  Everywhere you look is cut off by feathers and bared skin.  An air raid siren splits the air.  Everyone cheers, and the drums begin again.  

You step into the oddly empty train car, and the lights flicker out just as the smell of decay overwhelms you.  The tunnel ahead is closed for Hurricane Sandy repairs.  This car is not going to Manhattan.  This car will not be going anywhere.  In the corner of the train, something moves.

              The last month had been one long—-continuous onslaught of retained knowledge that he’d already allowed to fall into the further reaches of his mind.  No one cared about the complexities and details of human physiology here within the reaches of the bar closest to campus & his personal favorite (currently). Between the slow, occasional sway of a warm body attempting to invite someone to dance & the steady flip of the jukebox switching gears, he was allowed to focus on the dull hum of the small groups of people spaced out from one corner to the next from his lone seat at the bar. Nothing particularly interesting, relief that finals were over, panic that their GPA was going to drop, anticipation to return home on break for the holidays.                There’s a lone break—-in the generic mental ramblings of students, someone going against the tide. Outside of their school, someone that had somehow stumbled upon a bar that was primarily populated by students & the occasional professor. Whiskey, dry, in a crystal glass in hand, he had been sipping it, slow instead of shooting it back with a desperate need to become intoxicated. Though, not his usual style he had all night to reach a pleasant state of inebriation. 

                     “—–Tourist?”

It’d been a long, grueling day--full of arguments about Russia and its nuclear power.If this were 1933, he would’ve had a beer and that would’ve been enough to get him pleasantly inebriated. Now, Steven can’t get drunk, but he still likes the taste of whiskey anyways. So, upon dressing down into slacks and a button-down shirt, he goes to the bar closest to his hotel room. Unfortunately, he hadn’t quite realized it was full of students.

Aiming to simply enjoy a few beers and maybe some pub food, Steven claims the only vacant stool in the bustling bar. There are kids with clothes worth more than his wardrobe surrounding him--kids who are the same age as those in the killing fields of Vietnam right now. He tries not to think about war, for once.

The sound of a voice talking to him breaks him out of his brief reverie, and he glances at the man beside him. Young--or at least, he looks it--Steve studies him. Then laughs at the question.

YOU CAN NEVER ESCAPE ME. bullets don’t harm me. nothing harms me.  

                 but i know pain. i know pain. sometimes i share it–

The other Avengers were cool too, but she didn’t grow up learning about them in school.

          “  Is that all he told you? Cause he also               totally ate my entire Pop-Tart stash.  “

YES HE’S BRAVE, BUT DID YOU NOT WATCH THE FIRST HALF HOUR OF THE FIRST AVENGER? DID YOU NOT WATCH ANY OF THAT MOVIE? THAT LITTLE SHIT LIED ON FEDERAL FORMS TO GET WHAT HE WANTED. HIS AMBITION WAS TO JOIN THE ARMY AND HE DID IT BY ANY MEANS NECESSARY. HE WAS RUTHLESSLY EFFECTIVE. HE WAS UMAPOLOGETICALLY BADASS. HE’S CLEVER AND DETERMINED AND RESOURCEFUL AND A LEADER, ALL SLYTHERIN QUALITIES.

She knows Steve is getting stir-crazy at home. She knows he hates the late hours she keeps. Maybe it would be easier for them both to distance themselves, but that is a sacrifice Peggy is unwilling to make. She loves Steve and everything he stands for. While she has to keep her own opinions of McCarthy and Hoover and the whole lot of them much closer to the vest, she’s made no secret of the fact that she disagrees with them. And personally, she finds them reprehensible.

And she’s never going to give up having his arms around her. Not if she can help it.

     “Darling, if I invite you, I have to worry you may kill the man. At least if it’s just me, I’ll just break his nose.”

… a little dark humor never hurt anyone. Peggy’s eyes close, letting him hold her. It’s nice to be held.

Steve Rogers isn’t subtle or quiet. Maybe that’s his problem.

Swaying them side to side a bit--a ridiculous sight in the messy kitchen, probably--he smiles wide. At least he’s got Peggy in all of this mess--and he’s taken her advice of laying low and being quiet pretty well so far because he doesn’t want to lose her. Even if it’s only temporary.

       “I will, Peg. I’ve been checkin’ for bugs all around the apartment. There are none, yet.” Yet’s the key word.