smidgens of their cadence ripple in the quiet of the moment, swallowed by the breaths that mingle in the proximity as they lie in the bed. he is on top of steve, the side of his face pressed close against steve’s chest, listening to the calm of the lubb-dupp that colours the silence in syncopated serenity. there’s temptation to let sleep carry him adrift to a shore where dreams become nightmares, but he fights it with all his might, as he does with each moment he spends with steve. each moment that could be last, anytime. there’s no telling as to when their peace will be ruptured, the gossamer chrysalis of their little nook punctured. and so, he believes that sleep is a waste of time, even when his body demands for rest. fatigue is relative, however, and he’s learned that.
recalls the moments when he stayed up three consecutive nights across his target’s house, spying for the right momentum for him to exploit and eliminate. the memory brings a deluge of discomfort that he frowns slightly, sighing before he turns his head slightly to press a lingering kiss against the bare skin. the night has withered into dawn, as they returned from the diner quite late prior to the intimacy shared behind the closed door of steve’s apartment. a moment worth remembering, and he wishes that he could carve all the influxes of sensory responses that he’s given into the back of his head. he wishes that he could remember forever—rich, for a ghost story like him. he isn’t meant to be remembered. he isn’t meant to remember.
thoughts that don’t need to be rehearsed resurface, and he wills them away. he looks up, searching for steve’s eyes in the depth of the near pitch black darkness that has been adjusted to his eyes. it feels like a long-lost dream, the succulence of this simplicity. he just wants to spend the rest of his life with the man that he was supposed to know all his life, sans the bridge of gap. even when he detests the memories of hydra, he’s still grateful, for it means that he wasn’t truly dead. and even when he knows he’s going to regret this gratitude sooner or later, he feels warmth surging into him for the reminder that a life is a life nonetheless—regardless of the origin. and he gets to spend the time with steve, which he’s thankful for. “you used to be so small,” he says, breaking the brittle edges of the quiet in a whisper. “how tall were you again?”
feat. @sarpelui: steve rogers.
