#nameless excerpt

[anamelessdragon]

are you still working on broking power?

Yep! Have an excerpt:

Where are we? he wanted to ask, but the moment he opened his mouth, he knew he wasn’t going to be able to say it. A thrill of terror flooded in behind that knowledge, and he closed his jaw quickly, teeth clacking together, bracing himself instinctively.

“We’re safe,” Sam said, putting his hand down against the clammy skin of Bucky’s rapidly heaving chest. “We’re on a plane heading home. That shithole’s long gone. You need to rest.”

Bucky let his eyes rove over the interior of the cabin. Plane. Air Force. There were no weapons within visible distance.

How had it touched down on Madripoor undetected? How had they gotten him onto it? Were they being followed?

“Please just rest,” Sam murmured over him, with a kind of resignation. Like he’d been saying it repeatedly for a long time.

[anamelessdragon]

Six Several Sentence Sunday (02/20/22)

“Looks like everything worked out,” Steve said, a little surprised that he managed to get the words out without too much of a sign of the dozens of questions he had. 

Loki laughed, soft and bright. “Yes.” His grin held, lips stretched in a show of honest delight. “It was very informative.”

“He can’t do anything,” Bucky said bluntly.

“We have a way forward,” Loki said, plowing insistently over Bucky’s disagreement. “Once I have rested a while longer.”

Bucky gave Loki a long-suffering narrow-eyed look, his face pinching like he was actively pained. “God,” he said, eyes going to Steve. “I was right. Now there’s two of you.”

[anamelessdragon]

Six Sentence Sunday (04/11/21)

Bucky huffed in exasperation, his previous apprehension fading to be replaced by something a lot more irritated. “You didn’t tell me you’d let Loki in on this exercise.”

“He is not interfering with my side of the tests,” Shuri said over the earpiece. “Tell him to go away - he is your boyfriend.”

Bucky sighed but kept the lines of his body tight, scanning the ground for any signs of green magic. “You can stop saying that any day now.”

[anamelessdragon]

Six Nine Sentence Sunday (04/25/21)

“You are fighting with your friend,” Loki said, his tone carefully moderated.

Captain Rogers glanced at him in surprise and confusion, brow drawing low. “I’m not fighting with Bucky.”

Loki reached for one of the drinks set next to him, noting in relief that the weight of it was easier to manage than it had been during his previous awakenings. He was still far too weak, and the hunger inside of him only seemed to grow more ravenous each time he felt it, but he knew the latter was a sign of his body’s more efficient mending. 

He took several long pulls on the straw, shuddering as he filled some of the gaping emptiness inside of him, his eyes stinging with the desperate gratitude that yet insisted on welling up. The action also served to give him a few extra moments to consider and discard the risks of pursuing such a conversation. 

When he was done, he gazed at Captain Rogers again. “So he is fighting with you, but you are unaware of it.”

[anamelessdragon]

Six Sentence Sunday (02/28/21)

He pulled out his obedience disc controller. Loki stiffened against the wall, his eyes narrowing attentively; he was obviously already well acquainted with the punishment it could dispense.

Bucky unclipped a pocket on his utility belt and pulled out the book with his metal hand.

Loki frowned, still tense, squinting like he wasn’t sure what he was seeing.

“They tore out some of the pages,” Bucky said, thrusting it forward through the bars before he could change his mind. “But I think most of it is all there.”

[anamelessdragon]

Six Eight Sentence Sunday (02/14/21)

Barnes’ expression firmed. “I’ll give you a choice.”

“Wonderful,” Loki chimed. “I would like to pick the one where you open this cell and have the shock disc removed from my neck.”

“Do you want a quick death, or do you want to win?”

Loki’s pride was taking rather more of a beating than he had expected with this interaction. He stared furiously at Barnes, who evidently believed he held the literal power of life or death over him.

“Is there a third option,” he asked, the bite beginning to creep into his voice. “We could always simply have sex again.”

[anamelessdragon]

Six Seven Sentence Sunday (03/28/21)

Bucky sighed, wondering at that punch in the gut feeling he was getting. “I got offered a deal.”

Loki looked up, hands pausing over a torn page. Most of his expression remained blank, but interest sparked in his eyes. “What sort of a deal?”

“Usually sorcerers don’t make it far in the fights here,” Bucky said. “If I put bets on you and you exceed expectations, I’ll make a lot of money.”

[anamelessdragon]

Six Sentence Sunday (03/21/21)

He was carefully carried back to the nest of padding his caretakers had built, his muscles wildly spasming with fatigue after his brief venture. He wanted to leave consciousness and only return when the sun was back. He could not see the night directly, but he knew it was there, waiting to swallow him. A void of black and distant stars, of freezing cold and constant pain and unending nothingness. 

He knew such fears were irrational. Even had he been blind, all he would have to do was touch the cradling softness beneath him, feel the fullness of his belly, or hear the sound of his own breaths to know that things remained radically different from the vacuum of the universe.