jctuneyes ! + @brilliancemade !
damn, how he wishes he were productive. on days without clients, without their tedious stories to drag him through the day, loki finds it remarkably hard to even remove his blankets. five more minutes, he tells himself. an hour. TWO. five more minutes ; truly a mantra without purpose.
after silencing his internal alarm clock for the seventh time, he hears the shower start up. shit, someone’s beaten him to it. as they usually do. it’s undoubtedly bucky, he notes, as it’s still too early for helen to have emerged from the cave she refers to as a bedroom. that gives him some time, approximately ten minutes, before she exhausts the rest of the day soaking in her knock-off bath bombs.
suddenly, it’s quiet ; the water having shut off and the countdown beginning. scrambling for ( what he believes to be ) clean clothes, loki summons all his energy into racing down the hall. NAILED IT, he praises himself, opening the door with a small voice in the back of his head telling him to take his sweet ass time to see how she likes it——
unfortunately, the silence returns, both internally and out, when he realizes his timing was a little off. for standing there in newly cleansed glory is good ol’ james barnes. fresh, glowing and most certainly not wearing a single piece of clothing. loki is uncharacteristically silent for a moment before taking a deep breath and turning away. he can almost hear bucky pleading him not to, but has loki ever been one to take orders ??
❛ HELEN ! IT’S HAPPENED.❜
bucky’s morning has been uncharacteristically QUIET so far. the stillness of the apartment he’d woken up to had come to a surprise to him, and it almost felt wrong not to hear loki and helen’s antics outside his door. he figures his thanks is due to that fact that it’s loki’s day off and that helen . . . well, he’s not entirely sure what she’d been up to the night before to be sleeping like the dead.
as he fixes himself a bowl of oatmeal ( from one of those quaker oats packets you stick into the microwave because bucky barnes can’t be bothered with boiling his own oats, apparently ) he takes stock of their fridge and pantry situation. it’s ALWAYS pretty sad -- - bucky’s never been a great cook, even when he had both of his arms, and helen’s a pre-med student for christ’s sake -- - but right now it’s especially tragic. bucky tells himself he’ll badger either of his roommates into a trip to the grocery store with him later.
he eats his oatmeal with his bowl on the window sill while watching the street below carry on its morning bustle. then, for possibly the FIRST TIME since he’s moved in, bucky doesn’t need to wait on anyone in the bathroom so he waltzes right in and starts up the shower.
once bucky switches off the faucet there’s steam sticking to the mirror and drifting toward the ceiling. it’s as he’s humming ‘ mack the knife ’ , arm outstretched for the towel rack, that the door cracks open. there’s a BEAT of silence -- - no, scratch that -- - SEVERAL BEATS of silence that bucky just sort of stares at loki who’s staring back. and bucky just knows what his roommate’s about to do so he shoots him a look. then, loki does exactly what he’d hoped he wouldn’t.
❛ nope. FALSE ALARM, helen -- - ❜ as he hollers in vain he's fixing the towel around his waist. water drips from the ends of his hair.