[After]

[onlyforthedream]

My body is still in shock, or the memory of it, when I stagger and catch myself with one hand against a palm. My breath is pulling raggedly in my lungs and throat and every part of me feels raw, wind burned or frozen or scraped. The enormity of what we just went through is already slamming into me with the same kind of force as the waters of the North Atlantic and I feel such a powerful surge of nausea that I have to clench my jaw, breathe through my nose, and stay half bent against the tree.

Eventually my breath works itself free of the place it was coiled up and constricted in my chest and, eyes burning, I gasp, "Oh, God."

Comments

[onlyforthedream.livejournal.com]

That's about the most I could hope for.

"...Want to get a drink?"

Not that it'll do a damn thing for me, but Bucky looks like he could use one.

[onlyapassenger]

The noise Bucky makes isn't quite a laugh, but it's close enough to count, humorless as it is. He looks up, though not at Steve.

"I want to get a bar."

[onlyforthedream.livejournal.com]

"I think that can be arranged," I return with the same hollow tone that could, under completely different circumstances, have been filled out with humor.

"..." I stand, finding nothing else to add. I don't want to go off again, and I don't know how long I can stay steady, but for the moment we both seem to be breathing- coping, somehow- and given circumstances that means we're batting a thousand.