battlescarred

[battlescarred]

but you’d know all about that. /  finnegan o’malley , mutant oc. est. 8/15.  rbt. 6/18.  written by stella.

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thrownsoul.

  Her hands lay palms-down on the counter. It takes effort not to close them into fists, and at first she manages it, because she does know. It’s not like Fynn’s concern exactly comes out of left field. But before her name has quite left his lips, she snaps upright, her nails digging into her palms.

     “Jesus Christ, his name is Bucky, would it kill you to say it?” 

  For a few seconds, she’s so angry ( so fast, is it always going to be like this, one moment cool and the next scarab hammering at her brain to burn something down? ) that she can’t think of anything else to tell him. Alice turns around, pressing her back to the counter and clutching the edge behind her. 

     “I didn’t think you knew so much about it.”   Honestly, it hadn’t occurred to her — whatever stories survived, Fynn with his background probably would have heard them. Roughly, she pushes curls out of her eyes.   “But you know me.”

  My word should be enough for you, she wants to say. The protest struggles in her ribcage. Arguing Bucky isn’t the Winter Soldier would be like arguing she isn’t a Reach infiltrator. Untrue, in every way that matters to the one who still has to carry it with them. Missing the point. And yet — and yet, you make choices about how you see someone.

  Bucky… is a lot of things. He either moves as silently as a cat or knocks around like he doesn’t know his body, without much apparent in-between. As much as possible, he keeps to his own space. He says very little. He shouts in his sleep; she knows why. Though he seems afraid to brush up next to her, he’s tried to give her weapons before, which she doesn’t need. He likes books. He doesn’t like public transit. Plus a hundred other pieces of him. Fynn might never fit them all together to his liking, and Alice hates that about this conversation — the frightening idea that Fynn only wants to see him one way.

     “I’m gonna ask you something. I need you to be honest, even if you don’t get why I’m asking.”   Her voice shakes. Just a little, but she wishes it wouldn’t.   “How do you know scarab and I won’t hurt you? On any given day. Any minute. Right now. How do you know.”

     Knew all along he was setting flame to fuse, with this. Knew she was going to blow up at him, somewhere in here. And a part of him knows she has every right to. There isn't any one right and proper side to be on, here. It's a tangled, bloody, emotional mess. They're all right, in their own way.

          Barnes is RIGHT to want to be free. To be safe. To be better.

                ( ------ And that goes for all three of them, doesn't it now? )

                     Alice is RIGHT to defend him while he searches for it.

                          Fynn is RIGHT to be cautious. Protective, as he can't help but be.

     She's pinning him, a bit, in this tiny kitchen. Even when she shrinks back against the counter --- and the look of her twists a knife in his stomach --- he'd still have to crawl over her to get to the door.

     As it always does, the urge to abandon this and everything else claws at him. As he's been doing for years now, he smothers it. He stands, spine a little too straight, shoulders a little too square --- mouth set in a hard line, jaw jutting just a bit mulishly.

     He's worked up enough, himself, that the weakening in him shows on his face. His eyes, most of all. They're still sharp and hot with anger, but at the same time deep with so bloody much care for her. It's what's got him doing this, in the first place: CARE.

     Fynn drops his head. Scrubs at his face with a rough, frustrated hand. When he comes back up to her, he gestures with it. Almost helplessly.  “‘S ‘cause I TRUST y’.”  His expression contorts with frustration. He does expect he knows where she's going with this. Put him on the spot, why don’t you?  “It's been years, Alice. Long enough f'r me t' get convinced y'r worth it.”

     A cringe. Implying that Barnes isn't, just because he's new? Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, O'Malley --- not really helpin' your case here, are y'?

     “I don't know th' man! But I know somethin' o' what he was.”  And this, he says, with more feeling, than just anger. Something more like an appeal. Fynn jabs a stiff, scarred finger into the middle of his own chest.  “Jus' like I know what I was. An' you answer me this --- 'f you had a brother, would HE have welcomed me with nothin' but open arms, when y' took me in?”

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@takinghertime.

Send me a ☄ for a random dialogue starter!

    “He was unconscious when I found him.”

    Fynn, hands coming to rest on his hips, took a good moment. Studied the situation. Not that there was much to study: his bright-eyed Time Lady, stood with a hulking, grey-skinned ex-warlord  ( wanted for a list, longer than both his gorilla arms, of war crimes )  out cold at her feet.

     His brows arched, expressively.  “Was he now.”

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takinghertime.

     He’ll live. Probably an understatement, there. She might have laughed if she wasn’t feeling the weight of her own mortality so acutely at the moment. But at least it was a small bit of comfort in what had become an especially unsettling ( and upsetting ) situation.

     His hand at her back was a small comfort as well, though she hated the weakness that was working its way through her system. It was as if that creature had sucked the life out of her, though perhaps ( now that she thought about it ) it was a bit more like it had infected her in some way.

     She furrowed her brow and shook her head again, but felt a small twinge of resolve in the motion. “No–scans. I’ve got to run scans. I’ve got to figure out what the hell that was before it’s too late.” Before all of the evidence burned off when she regenerated.

     She turned and willed herself into motion, mostly fueled by fear and the adrenaline generated by the urgency of her impending regeneration. Despite her intentions, her arms and legs were sluggish and clumsy, and she had to lean heavily against the console again as she scrambled for the keyboard and screen to adjust settings.

     Before it was too late? 

     That did it. That pushed him over the edge. Not all the way. But bloody far enough.

     “’Meda---”  His voice was raw, as she pulled away, his fingers reflexively trying to recover his grip on her. She slipped away from him, though, and he was pretty sure he was about to be sick. Pain lurched its way through his guts --- the stress, or still that thing, who could tell --- and he was doubling over, a harsh catch in his lungs.  “---Fuck.”

     The fear was in his eyes, now, sharp as broken glass as he watched her struggle with the machine’s controls. A part of him knew she was right. That thing had come after them like a dog after a rabbit; focused, hungry. Something that came at its prey that way, would be back again.

     Fynn tried to smother a ragged breath. All he wanted to do just now was grab her up and hold her to him --- fight the rampant terror that he was losing her. But he knew better. Wished the pain in his chest would just go ahead and crush his heart over it, already --- but he knew.

     “‘Meda---”  The call was firmer, this time. She’d been teaching him some things, about the ship. Maybe...  “Tell me how t’ help.”

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father: PATRICK O’MALLEY , classic drunken deadbeat dad ; moved through jobs at the docks like a revolving door, partly thanks to friends who pitied his family, and let him go when he got too drunk, only to eventually take him back when he was sober.

mother: ROSE O’MALLEY , former singer / songwriter ; would’ve been better off touring for the rest of her life with her musician boyfriend. married a dockworker instead in search of a “steady” future. a warrior woman. used every ounce of her might to raise six children in spite of every obstacle, all of whom know which parent they owe their survival to.

first son: SEAN O’MALLEY , the rowdy one ; took after his father a bit too much in his adolescence, but, unlike his father, grew out of it. eventually escaped the too-small house of his childhood to take to the ships he grew up around. sends money and souvenirs home when he can.

second son: MICHAEL O’MALLEY , the intellectual one ; became engrossed in studies of irish history, language, and lore early on. never attempted to escape the draw, but instead took steps that would bury him in debt to go to university and eventually put him on a path to becoming a professor of the subjects he loves.

third son: FINNEGAN O’MALLEY , the angry one ; often the oldest child stuck at home while his brothers made their own lives, did what he had to in order to survive school, his father, and his own rage against the unfairness of the world. went to war at eighteen carrying the prayers of his mother and the vitriol of his father.

first daughter: CARA O’MALLEY , the bookworm ; permanently lost in the written word from the moment she could read it on her own. quiet and introspective and far more intuitive than she’d ever let on. attempted to write more than one novel, eventually shifted most (but not all) of her focus into training in psychology and counselling.

second daughter: MAEVE O’MALLEY , the adventuresome activist ; inherited her mother’s warrior heart but made it a point to avoid letting it ever be restrained by the wrong person. sometimes too much of a fighter for her own good, danger or scraped knuckles never stopped her from standing up for what’s right.

fourth son: KIERAN O’MALLEY , the agrarian ; was always happiest as a child surrounded by plants and animals, and the lush countryside of his homeland took his hand and led him gracefully into a contented life involving cottages, pastures, and sheep.

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◆ photo credit

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béa dres

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Say goodbye to disaster. Shake hands with the unknown, what becomes of us once we’ve been torn apart and returned to our future, naked and small, sewn back together scar by scar.

— Dorianne Laux, from “Blossom,” published in Poem-a-Day

[battlescarred]

Through a medieval window…. St Catherine’s church ruins, Co Wexford

[battlescarred]

thrownsoul.

     Alice rolls her eyes.   “Yeah, you looked real broody all those times you slung me over your shoulder, or stole fries off my plate, or got me a puppy.”   He didn’t answer the question. So that’s a solid probably, then.

     “I’m not, for the record,”   she adds, quietly enough that he can ignore it, if he wants to.   “Not replacing you. I don’t think like that, and I never will.”

  The statement hangs in the air for a moment before she pushes her chair back, going for the undersized watering can she keeps under the sink. The sound of water after she turns the faucet keeps her from answering, too, right away. She waters the potted plants in a line along the counter until they’re elbow to elbow, then sets the can down. Looks Fynn in the eyes.

     “Wanna tell me what makes you think we wouldn’t be? Before I jump to any nasty conclusions.”

     A soft grunt, at her  ( appropriate )  mocking of him. Purposefully, he neglects to dredge up all those times he hadn't been buying her puppies or carting her about just because he could. All the times he'd been sat on the steps, playing mournful shite on his guitar. The times she'd have to pull his attention back to her when his brain went places. The times he'd come round with bloody, broken knuckles, from a few too many faces, a few too many walls, or both.

     Fynn doesn't make any sound, to the other part. The absence of a reaction the reaction in itself.

     The bag's folded up now, small as he can manage. He shoves it deep into a trouser pocket, watching-not-watching as she waters ever closer. There's no escaping her, or that LOOK.

     “Oh, y' KNOW what.”

     They all know it. For himself, personally, at least something of what it's like, being what Barnes was. HER, now --- she knows even better. And it's not that he doubts her; her ability to handle herself. But he can't be completely sure that even everything The Bug gives her would protect against getting her throat cut while she sleeps. 

     It's the risk of it that keeps him lying awake in the small hours.

     He's got the strongest urge to shout at her, but makes the effort to grind it down until it's about a step better than gritting it from between his teeth. Doesn't stop his gaze from burning, though, as he says it.  “ ------ Y're livin' with the Winter bloody Soldier, Alice.”

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& grief was eating all that I’d let it.

Yves Olade, from “Liturgies,” published in Bombus Press (via lifeinpoetry)

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When I wake knee-deep in shipwreck & night-muck, when I am the storm & the storm pummels me, whose lie is that?

— Stevie Edwards, from “Weather Report,” published in Sixth Finch

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There’s a patron saint for everything. Nearly all the early ones were martyred. The world has always been this bloody.

—  Nancy Reddy, from “Feast Day,” published in EcoTheo Review

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Remarkable Old Photos of Ireland

Source 

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takinghertime.

     She was very much not okay. That much would be clear within a few minutes. But for now, she tried to stay calm–to keep her composure. No sense panicking him over something that had become inevitable. She clenched her jaw and gave her head a tiny shake, her eyes meeting his only fleetingly before she turned them down and away.

     She knew he was a mess as well, if the assorted noises and swearing he had expressed were anything to go by. Once she swallowed the lump that was forming in her throat and wiped  her nose against the back of her hand, she directed the conversation back to him (while rubbing the blood that had transferred from her nose to her hand on her trousers). “Are you?”

     She somehow managed to keep her voice steady. She wasn’t sure how long that would last.

     That one shake of her head was all it took to put a good, solid crack in the wall he’d been determinedly trying to raise against a devastating flood of anxiety. An icy sensation washed down from the crown of his skull, and he fought it. Fought it hard.

                    She’s gonna be fine.

                                            ---------- But what if she wasn’t?

     “Don’t be worryin’ about me. I’ll live.”  Softly, small shake of his own head, this time. And he regretted the words, the instant that fear surged in again.

     He’d live. He’d always live. Somehow. But he didn’t want to go back to doing that alone.

     He wasn’t ready.

     Fynn’s hand wasn’t anywhere near as steady as he would’ve wanted, as he raised it to dab at the blood escaping her nose. His brow furrowed fiercely, when he pulled his thumb away to inspect it.  “Would th’ Zero Room help?”  His eyes held a silent appeal in them. His tone as brittle as wrongly-tempered steel; looks tough, but one good hit away from shattering. Christ, he needed to do something. Anything.  “Let’s go to th’ Zero Room, yeah?”