Real Estate.

[onlyforthedream]

Being free to walk the island is almost as gratifying as being free to scour it will be. I'm taking care with my shoulder and the mostly-healed incision long my right side. A tropical environment is rife with opportunities for infection, as careful as I may be and as skilled as the clinic staff demonstrably is. Still, I'm out of bed, feeling better than I have in weeks- in just about as long as I can remember, if I'm honest- out in just blue jeans and a white t-shirt, surveying the layout of the place. There are boardwalks that lead out to the beach, well trodden paths, a sizable junkyard, it looks like- and people's homes. Some look like traditional, stilted island huts, of a good size and solid build. Some look more like small, modern houses. It definitely feels like a settlement, though, a community. One that I am not at present a part of.

I follow a trail south, crossing a creek as I do, and come out on sand that slopes down to ocean that looks like it goes on for forever. It's a pretty stretch- you can see a sort of curling peninsula that comes off the main body of the island a little ways out, like a sandbar. The place where the island curves northward, maybe the next direction I'll head, is lush and a darker green where it curves around the base of the mountain.

It's nice, down here. After a moment I turn and start to walk in the direction of what I have been told is dinosaur territory, and as I go I see a figure that is instantly familiar. I lift a hand, my right one come to that, in greeting.

"Bucky."

Comments

[onlyapassenger]

"...by, uh, the stream that runs down from the mountain," Bucky admits, biting back a short laugh that he tries to pass off as a cough. It's silly; he's spent so much time trying to run away from Steve since he got his memories back, but Jason's nagging apparently planted a few ideas in Bucky's head.

Rolling his eyes, he adds, "I'm just a little north of here. Had the same idea as you, with the water."

[onlyforthedream.livejournal.com]

I've thought about the conversation I had with Jason that first day numerous times, of course, but to have come around to it with Bucky is, I have to admit, gratifying. I had meant what I'd said- that I would give Bucky the space he needed, not just regardless of but in part due to the number of questions I have, the things that lie between us that I don't think either one of us is entirely equipped to resolve.

It would be a lie to say I didn't want to regain the closeness we once had. It won't be the same- it can't be, because we're very different people than we were- but for whatever reason, the thought of being neighbors feels like a good first step.

"Show me," I say with a nod, and it's half a request for a look at the life Bucky's set up here.

[onlyapassenger]

It's a simple request, one Bucky honestly should've expected, but he's almost taken aback by it. He blinks once, his expression going blank for just a moment before he gathers himself, and musters up a smile.

"Yeah, of course," he says, shaking his head slightly, and he briefly claps a hand to Steve's good shoulder. "C'mon."