#nathan writes

The bottle had come out of nowhere in what had otherwise been an almost friendly bar brawl, shattering over Bucky’s head and creating the longest second of Curt’s life as he watched Bucky stagger, blood trickling down his face, and nearly smash his head open on a table as he went down onto his knees. 

His eyes had looked so shockingly blue amidst the red. 

That had been the last straw for the landlord. He had already been yelling about calling the law, but in the silence that followed the broken glass he gave them one last chance to get the fuck out of there before the MPs and local police turned up. All of the fight gone from him, Curt had gotten Bucky onto his feet and out the door before he could even see what the other guys they had been fighting with decided to do.

Hell, it wasn’t until he was halfway down the street that he realized Buck wasn’t with them, on Bucky’s other side like always. Torn between dashing back to find him and worrying about Bucky’s slurring in his ear, Curt had hesitated in the road until Buck appeared like a phantom out of one of London’s many creepy little side-streets, wiping his nose with his knuckles and striding towards them with a vicious little glint in his eyes. He had nodded at Curt, slung Bucky’s arm over his shoulders, and they had marched back to their rooms in heavy silence.

Now, Buck was watching from the corner of the small washroom of their digs with a concerned expression as Bucky hissed and fussed at being tended to, the knuckle of his thumb rubbing harshly against his bottom lip. The skin there was red and bruised, and Curt knew he would have to take a look once he was done cleaning Bucky up.

(He’d deal with his own hands later.)

On the other was Lord Quekliso Pentor, former apprentice to Darth Baras.  This was a piece of history shared by each of them, and one neither enjoyed remembering.  He had a firm and grounded stance, wielding only one saber with two hands.  This allowed him to deal great damage with mighty cleaves, though it did affect his speed.

Between the two of them Baras had caused decade’s worth of suffering, the effect of which Quekliso still felt to this day.  He seethed with rage looking upon Tezanna, the woman who had killed Baras, the woman who had denied him his vengeance.  

“You stole what was rightfully mine!” he bellowed, gripping the hilt of his weapon tightly.  

Tezanna scowled at him. “You will speak to me with the respect afforded of my position, welp.” She responded, almost hissing at him. How dare this mongrel speak to her in that manner.  

From the crowd, that continued to gather, a young dark haired Sith girl looked on.  Ceanne was no more than a teenager, but had great respect for both her mother on one side and her master on the other.  This was a fight that she had to admit she was curious to see, but not like this.  Not when the two looked as though they would rip the other to shreds.  

A blonde woman emerged from the group, standing in the middle of the two warriors and raising her hands to each.

“Come on, come on.” She repeated, trying to appeal to the two.  “Let’s just deactivate the laser swords and hash this out over a nice cup of…flagon of ale.  I’m buying?” Ryl’lil tried her best, darting her eyes back and forth between them.

The moments of silence that followed almost made her think she’d made progress before she felt herself hurled back into an adjacent wall.  Quekliso’s hand outstretched tingled with Force energy that had launched Ryl’lil.  She smashed into the rock with a huge thud before dropping to the ground.  The crowd fell silent with the impact.  

“I’ll deal with you later, it’s your fault I’m even in this mess.” He snarled, turning his attention back to Tezanna.

She did not say a word, only glared in anger at this brute who she’d had enough of putting up with.

Ryl’lil now rose to her feet, stretching her back and cracking her neck from side to side.  She hadn’t come here for a fight, but she was about ready for a threeway.  She stepped back into the ring, made by the surrounding people, reaching for her double saber on her belt.  

The three exchanged glances, waiting for the other to make their move.

“Can you all keep it down!” a tired sounding voice echoed through the hall as the crowd parted to reveal a sleepy looking Mirialan, with bedhead, walking towards the three combatants.

His hair was messy with no real style to it, another indication that he’d only just got out of bed. The jacket he wore was beaten, it had seen some wear and tear over the years.  In fact Ryl’lil could even see where it had been messily stitched up on one of the sleeves.  

He yawned when he stopped walking, barely even acknowledging who it was he had just interrupted.  

“Some of us are trying to sleep.” He commented, shooting cold glares at the three saber wielding combatants.  

Tezanna had no recollection of this scruffy looking individual.  It had been years since she’d even been in the same room as someone as messy looking as him.  

Ryl’lil on the other hand knew who he was.  She’d spent many nights drinking her sorrows away in his bar, occasionally performing in there too.  She hadn’t even noticed Charl’iee arrive at the resistance HQ.  It would have been a tearful and drunken reunion, had she not been suffering with a huge headache.

Quekliso’s eyes burned with fury as he lay them onto this man.  He recognized him too.  There were few he’d ever fought with who’d lived for him to recognize again, but this one was one of them.  He turned to face the green skinned alien, who took note of this attention.  

“Can I help you big guy?” he asked casually, scratching the back of his head and stretching his back.

“You don’t remember me, do you?” Quekliso smirked, his fist shaking with rage.  

“Lotta big and lonely guys visited my bar over the years, tiny.  You’re gonna need to be more specific with me.” Charl’iee quipped.

Quekliso, having enough of this banter, leapt forward to rush the Mirialan with all his might.  

“LET ME REMIND YOU!” he shrieked.

The sound of sabers clashing reverberated through the empty rock corridors of the base as Charl’iee held back Quekliso’s strike with his own lightsabre.  The Sith pushed against Charl’iee, doing his best to gain the advantage in this contest of strength.  

“Still kinda hazy…” Charl’iee shrugged, pushing Quekliso back and taking a few steps back away from the Sith himself.  

Quekliso jumped towards Charl’iee again, who quickly noticed how easily his attacks were being telegraphed. He continued to avoid them gracefully, leaping out of the way of each impact in the ground.  

“Were you the guy who had that attraction to droids?” Charl’iee taunted between attacks.

The crowd continued to separate as the fight spilled out from the enclave into the corridors.  

Quekliso grew angrier with each missed swing.  He continued to strike the ground harder, leaving consecutively larger impact craters every swing.  

“Oh no, you were the one who thought he was turning into a wookiee, right?”

He continued to lead the Sith down the corridors, towards the hanger.  The new arrivals to the base had already been shown out, and with the ships all out on escort missions it made for a much more open battleground.  

Quekliso stopped for a moment as he realised where he’d been lead.  

“Bravo, you took me on a sightseeing tour of the base.  You wish here to be your grave?” he asked, readying his saber for another strike.  

“No, but this hanger is the only room with blast doors.  I figured I’m not gonna get more soundproofed than that.” Charl’iee responded, lowering his weapon and shaking his free hand a little to loosen it up.

“Cute.” Quekliso laughed. “But answer me this:  Do you think I’d let you just walk away?”

“Oh no, not at all. But then you don’t have a choice.” Charl’iee gave a teasing smirk to the Sith who seemed only more confused by this remark.

An explosion at his feet took Quekliso by surprise.  His initial instinct was to jump away, but he couldn’t.  He struggled for a moment until the smoke around his feet cleared revealing a large carbonite block extending up to his knees, freezing his feet solidly to the floor.

“Wh..WHAT?!” he yelled, struggling as much as he could to break free of the frozen restraints.  

Charl’iee laughed loudly, deactivating his saber and pointing at the Sith.  

“Wow, you really are just as easy as you were back then.”

“So you did recognize me!” Quekliso shouted angrily, still trying to free himself.  

“Nope, just got a little voice in my head that has a better memory than I do.” He continued to laugh.

“Honestly.” Another voice came from behind Quekliso, catching his attention.  

A green skinned female Twi’lek, giving him a wide berth, strutted confidently by the frozen Sith and went to stand by her partner, handing him two small round devices.

“You sure you don’t want me to use the rest of these?  He’d be better off frozen to the head.” She looked back with concern at the writing Sith.

“Nah, he’ll be a good greeting for the new arrivals.  I’m sure the base commander won’t mind.”  Charl’iee wiped a tear away from his eye where he’d been begun to cry from laughter.

Quekliso stopped squirming, his mind was filled with rage and anger.  He had been humiliated and now had to endure this mocking.

“Very well…if I can’t cut you down..” he said, extending his hand into an open palm and surging kinetic energy to it.  “I’LL BLAST YOU OUT INTO THE MOUNTAINS!”

Before he could even raise his hand to strike, Charl’iee stood in front of him.  The gap had been closed so quickly that the Sith could barely even register.  He felt a sudden sharp pain in his forehead as the Mirialan delivered a swift flick, knocking him off balance and causing him to tumble back.  He was completely immobilised.  

“What have you done to me?” Quekliso asked in a subdued tone.  His anger could barely manifest itself.  

“Take it easy,” Murph said gently. He kept flicking worried looks up and down Crank’s body. “Take it easy, Crank, okay? Can you hear me?”

Just about, Crank thought, knowing his mind was moving too slowly, struggling to piece everything together.

Where had they just been? The sky, surely - Murph was in his flight suit, dirtied from what could only have been a parachute landing. Had Crank jumped too?

No, that didn’t feel right. He tried to focus, but it sent a wave of painful nausea through him, and all he could summon was a feeling of swooping fear and the certainty that he was about to die. The last minute wave of peace that must have struck him right after the realization, some latent faith in the mercy of God that his Judgement would be fair. Trying to search himself beyond that felt like trying to peel his skull apart. The pain of it, and the steadily growing awareness of his own body, forced a wheeze out of his mouth. His tongue wouldn’t form the words he wanted, the questions he needed to ask his navigator.

Murph looked pleadingly up at somebody Crank couldn’t see. There was murmuring in what sounded like German, getting slowly closer.

When they lifted him, the world slipped away.

It’s hot in the desert, and Bucky’s hands are on him, inside of him, his mouth burning trails over his skin. There’s laughter in his ear and soft words, and teeth digging into the tender flesh of his neck and shoulder. Crank can’t see anything but he sighs and arches and reaches for Bucky in return, tries to catch him but only slides his fingers through shadows.

And then freezing England, all of Crank’s saints sitting in judgement, the cold of Bucky’s voice as he asks ‘Are you flying today or not?’, the unfamiliar flint in his commands that makes the hair on the back of Crank’s neck stand up.

‘Yes, sir’, and Cranks mouth is full of bile, burning his throat and tongue at billowing white parachutes tumbling from a burning fort, one two three four five six seven eight-

“Y’alright, you’re alright, just breathe, please just breathe, Crankshaft, please-”

Not Bucky’s voice, this one young and Southern and scared, thin hands on Crank’s face turning him so the bile fell out of his open mouth and he could take in air again.

The ringing in his ears had gone, but the thick sourness in his mouth had only gotten worse, and Crank forced his eyes open despite the weight of his eyelids.

“M’ph?”

Christ, but his worst hangover had nothing on this. He felt leaden all over, like he had rusted solid. Murph was beside him, looking slightly cleaner but even more worried, his hands still on Crank’s face.

“Here, I’m here. C’mere, drink this.”

He let go of Crank to pick up a cup and bring it to his mouth. Lukewarm water washed away the worst of the buildup of blood and stomach acid. Breathing came slightly easier, and Crank caught his breath before attempting to speak again.

“What happened?” He rasped. 

His eyes were still adjusting. They weren’t outside any more. There were gray walls encompassing them, a metal door closing them in. Crank was laid on a low cot of some kind, Murph crouched so they were eye-to-eye.

“German MPs came an’ got us, moved us here. You weren’t wakin’ up enough to do a medical on, so they let me stay with you in case you got worse,” Murph explained.

It didn’t answer for all the dark spots in Crank’s memory, but it gave him enough to work backwards.

“We jumped?” He asked.

Murph’s face creased into even more of a frown.

“I did, but you musta stayed with her all the way down. Found you just outside the wreck. Pure luck the fort hit so close.”

Fragments came back to him like snatches of dreams; the fort’s controls going mushy on him, the nosedive she kept wanting to dip into, hitting the bailout bell and yelling at Glenn to get out and take the boys in the nose with him. 

No wonder he felt like shit. It was a miracle he was even alive.

“Jesus,” he muttered.

Without thinking, he tried to sit up, but only managed to raise his head before his whole body protested and he had to drop back down with a curse. He took deep breaths through the pain, and then started again more slowly, flexing his fingers and working from there. His ribs ached, and his shoulders, and his neck. There was a constant, pounding pain through his skull.

When he tried to curl his toes, his stomach dropped. He tried again. The same result. His foot wouldn’t flex, and his ankles wouldn’t turn. He tried to will his knee to raise, or his hips to shift, but nothing below his navel was responding.

With his heart crawling up into his throat, he tried to shuffle himself up into a position that would let him see the length of himself. It was difficult, and painful, but everything seemed to be there. Like staring at them would make them work, Crank tried again to force some movement into the limbs.

They stayed as still as if he was still unconscious. They didn’t even hurt, he realized.

“What? What is it?” Murph asked hurriedly, frightened by the sudden way Crank had moved and then stopped, hands hovering around him like he wanted to help but didn’t want to accidentally hurt him more.

Trying to swallow his panic, Crank fixed his eyes on the space just above the tips of his shoes.

“Can’t feel my legs, Frank,” he croaked. “I can’t feel my legs. Can’t move ‘em.”

A long, silent moment stretched between them. Then Frank was scrambling upright.

“It’s okay. It’ll be okay,” he said, not at all convincingly. He walked over to the metal door and started pounding on it. “Hey! We need a doctor in here! Hey!”

Fear lodged in his throat like a rock, Crank laid himself back down. He stared at the gray ceiling through increasingly blurry eyes, and decided God wasn't that merciful afterall.

Slooter’s was more of a dive than the place they had been with the girls, popular with the local military personnel and civilians alike, and was decently busy that late. Together they had slid over to the bar, ordered another round, and settled in to pass the night shooting the shit until they had to stumble back to their bunks.

The real trouble started when they decided to do just that.

Crank didn’t really keep track of how much he drank, except for how it lightened his wallet, so he didn’t know at what number of drinks it was that Ev lost some of that infamous control of himself. Not by much, but just enough that as they were making their way to the door, Ev tripped into a man going the other way and nearly sent them both to the floor. The guy tried to make it a problem, even as Ev threw out apologies and his winning smile, so Crank had kept pulling him towards the exit.

“What an asshole,” Ev muttered. Crank laughed, and with the shortsightedness of the drunk, immediately forgot about it.

They stood outside in the cool night air of the alley for a moment. Ev always got generous with his smokes when he drank, and Crank waited patiently for him to shake out his pack so he could steal one and save his own.

Later, Crank would wish he had gotten them walking and smoking at the same time.

The guy Crank had already forgotten about had followed after them, his buddy trailing just behind. Ev didn’t even get a chance to put his lighter away before a fist had connected with his jaw. 

Everything else happened too quickly for Crank to understand.

One moment he was twenty six and an Army Air Force pilot, the next his head collided with the wall and he was ten years old again, a man twice his size throwing him around because little Charlie Cruikshank had never been good at keeping his trap shut, especially not if it was about his sister.

There was a weight on his throat, and the memory was overwhelming. Sixteen years apart, he hollered and the same sound came out of him. He could hear his mother in the corner of the room, choking on tears and begging for her husband to stop, telling him Charlie didn't mean it, that he's just a kid, won't he let him go before he does some real damage?

All the damage was real, Crank had thought afterwards, every bruise and scrape and sprain. What did his mom even mean by real?

(He found out eighteen months after that, splayed out at the foot of the stairs with blood in his eyes and bone poking out of his arm. That was real, the kind of damage that couldn't be covered up or hidden away. The injuries that needed hospital visits and lies in class. But Charlie never learned, and he was never going to let his siblings take that kind of beating when he was there to take it instead, so that kind of damage dogged his life until the old man dropped dead when he was seventeen.)

The pressure was gone now, but Crank stayed frozen. Breathing was still hard. His throat hurt. He had slid down the wall until he was slumped against it. When had that happened? 

“Shit, Crank-”

His ears were ringing. He was hot and cold all over, and his tongue felt like a lead weight in his jaw. Nobody had called him Crank until flight school. He wanted to touch the pins on his collar, to make sure, but his hands wouldn’t listen to him.

“Hey, look at me, look at me, you there?”

His eyes were open but it was dark, and then Ev’s face was swimming into focus. There was a thin trickle of blood going from his nose. It darkened his mustache and chin, and Crank stared at it until it seemed to change colors.

“You alright?” He rasped.

Ev’s laugh had a hysterical edge to it. Knelt in front of him, he clapped a relieved hand onto Crank’s shoulder.

“What happened?” Crank asked, trying not to show how much not knowing scared him, how it made him feel like he could be that little boy trapped in a nightmare again any second.

“They took off. Got a few good hits in myself, but I think you collapsing scared them.” Ev let out another shaky laugh. “Shit, scared me. Thought he’d cracked your skull or something.”

Crank tried to laugh with him, but it just came out as a wheeze. He focused on the warm weight of Ev’s hand through his jacket. His body felt too small, like he needed to be crushed back into it. Finally, some return of sensation in his hands let him bring one up to keep Ev’s there.

“Musta just knocked it,” Crank lied. He didn’t know what the hell that was, but he wasn’t about to try and explain it. The thought already had shame roiling in his stomach. He could play it off as  a concussion. “Feels funny, but I think I’ll live.”

For a long moment Ev just looked at him, searching for something Crank wasn’t sure he wanted him to know. Then he nodded, and squeezed his shoulder.

“Good. Think you’re ready to stand up? We should probably get out of here. We can tell Buck all about what he missed in the morning.”