d-is-humming

[d-is-humming]

Lullaby and an elephant in the room

Bucky Barnes x Reader (platonic)

Summary: James Barnes has nightmares; his neighbor has insomnia. Maybe with a lullaby, things can get better.

Warnings: (I would say none, but to be sure) nightmares, insomnia.

Hello dear, apparently I'm trying again to write in english. There will probably be mistakes and some repetition, I'm sorry. This came out more as a scenario than a real story, but I needed to take this idea out of my head and here it is. Also, I don't really know why the metaphor of the elephant took so much space. The song quoted is Come wander with me by Agua de Annique e Anneke van Giersbergen, I heard it on Spotify and it stuck in my head. Enjoy (I hope). D.

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One last scream.

And then silence, mixed with frantic breathing. His torture has ended, for tonight. He will probably wait for daytime watching the empty walls of his room or swallowing whatever is on tv, everything just to not fall asleep again.

On the other side of the wall, you take a long breath, but it’s not relief. Sitting against the headboard of your bed, knees to your chest and your head on them, you want to relax, to let your anxiety dissolve, but the last half an hour of someone else’s nightmares has left you with a deep uneasiness. You think to yourself, the worst part it’s not being awaken in the middle of the night by the screams, even when you’ve just closed your eyes after hours of your own insomnia. You surrender to another sleepless night, watching your still empty room walls or anything is on tv.

In the morning, when you and Sargent Barnes cross paths outside your adjacent rooms, you politely greet each other with a nod of the head, ignoring the elephant in the room, not wanting to embarrass each other. You have no right to meddle; he has no intention of acknowledging with a co-worker, a stranger, his own problems.

And again, another night, another day, another nod of the head, another week and another again.

It's been almost a month and the lack of proper rest it’s getting you. You already had a bad sleeping habit before moving to your room at the compound, but at least you didn’t have to cope with the infectious anxiety of a traumatized neighbor. You’re not blaming him, you would never. But it became a problem.

Because the worst part of it's not being awaken in the middle of the night; it's not even the screams themselves. It’s that they’re incessant, continuous, lasting minutes, hours, sometimes more. Entire sessions of skin-crawling screams and dreadful cries, with intervals of dire silence, when you’re not sure if the man next door is finally resting or if he’s in one of those dreams where your mouth just can’t produce sounds and you feel like drowning.

In the dark room, you press your hands a little harder on your hears. You already tried with tv or music, or just earplugs, but somehow knowing the screams were just hidden made them worse. Made you feel guilty – for listening to something so intimate without permission and because you can’t do anything for the man.

Still covering your ears, you quietly start humming the first song that comes to your mind, more to soothe your nerves than to cover his cries.

He said / Come wander with me, love / Come wander with me / Away from this sad world / Come wander with me

It’s really not much, but enough to distract you, so you keep singing, softly, ending the song and repeating it again. You manage to lose yourself in the melody, to loosen your tense body in the hypnotic repetition, letting your voice grow a bit firmer, a little less affected by the nightmare next door. After a while silence comes from the other room. You sing some more, slowly turning to humming and finally falling asleep.

Next door, Sargent Barnes has just awakened and while he tries to remember how to breathe, he listens to your voice and, somehow, tonight it seems a tiny bit easier finding his foot on this world again.

In the morning, when you and James Barnes cross paths, you politely greet each other with a nod of the head. You’ve become good colleagues, you work well together, grew a bit closer, even though you’re not properly friends. Therefore, the elephant stays in the room, unbothered. You know he goes to therapy and you still don’t feel the right to meddle; he’s still too ashamed of waking up every night his nice neighbor.

And again, another nightmare, another song, another day, another nod of the head, another week and another again.

You’ve started to sing every night, a bit longer following the last cry before he wakes, a silent agreement to sing him to sleep that you two sign every morning with your polite nod of the head. It seems like he has started to scream a bit less. He awakens a little easier from his nightmares and, apparently, he’s also getting some proper sleep after. You feel more at ease, your faithful insomnia is still there, but you’re getting more sleep too.

Months pass by and in the end you and Bucky become friends. You still nod your head politely in the morning, then you go on with your days spending time together, be it for training of for fun. Bucky’s still going to therapy, more willingly than the first times, and you’re just happy to know he’s feeling better; he is a bit shy of telling you he’s falling asleep every night listening to your sweet voice. That's why your elephant stays there.

But even your polite elephant can't remain silent forever. A mission gone particularly wrong makes more demons resurface from the depths of slumber and the worst nightmare in a while echoes through the wall separating you from one of your best friends. Dread fills you again, a feeling you hadn't in months.

You slowly walk to your shared wall and rest your head on it. You don’t know if it will help, but you can’t - you don’t want to ignore him. Softly, you start to sing.

He said / Come wander with me, love / Come wander with me / Away from this sad world / Come wander with me

The first times you tried to sing during Bucky’s nightmares, it was to survive. It was selfish. Then it became something like a mutual secret, a tool for the both of you to reach the end of the night as unscathed as possible. And now, now it’s an act of love, your way to try and protect him from something you can’t save him from.

He came from the sunset / He came from the sea / He came from my sorrow / And can love only me

You sing as sweetly as you’re capable of, but you feel more powerless at every cry that resonates in the room, your heart being torn together with his.

You don’t know how many times you start the song again, crying, your voice quivering. You’re scared but, finally, the screams turn into crying. You’re almost relieved when you hear him awake and weeping. You collapse against the wall, tears streaming freely down your cheeks, but keep on humming gently, because you don’t want to leave him alone.

Maybe an hour passes and you don’t hear sounds coming from the other room. You stopped crying but grief fills your heart. You swore years ago to never leave alone the people you love and yet, there you were, hating a wall and yourself for not being able to help a friend.

Then, a sound so soft you would have missed it. A door closing. Some silence. A knock on your door. You bolt on your feet to open it: Bucky stands there and though you can’t really see his face in the dark, you know he’s stressed.

-Can you sing for me, doll, please?

He’s voice is so thin your heart breaks. You take his hand gently and guide him to sit on your bed. You sit close enough for him to reach at you, if he wants. Softly, you start again.

He said / Come wander with me, love / Come wander with me

He tentatively reaches for your hand and you take it, starting to caress it tenderly, with a regular rhythm. You can feel his ragged breathing evening a bit.

Away from this sad world / Come wander with me

He came from the sunset / He came from the sea

He’s trembling slightly, silently crying. You don’t leave his hand, repeating the short lullaby again.

He came from my sorrow / And can love only me

Oh where is the wanderer / Who wandered this way

A third and a fourth and a fifth times you sing for him. At a certain point he’s rested his head on your thighs and you’ve felt the tears through the fabric of your pants. You gently move your fingers through his hair and slowly, so slowly, his body starts to relax, his breathing now regular.

/ He’s passed on his wandering / And will never go away

He sang of a sweet love / Of dreams that would be ...

You softly turn to humming the last verses of the song, rocking both of you to sleep, and, after a while, the soldat seems to find peace, leaving the man to rest.

Tomorrow, you will gently acknowledge the elephant that lived in your rooms for too long. But, for now, you will enjoy your slumber.

[d-is-humming]

Yo, lovebirds. I’m trying again with a more lighthearted text. The idea is quite simple, and it comes from one of the first things Nicky says to MC at the speakeasy (I don’t know why I found so hilarious Nicky’s remark about cursing in Italian as an opera singer). It’s just an excuse to write some cute interactions between MC and Nicky. The premises are: 1) Nicky sometimes curses 2) MC speaks Italian / is Italian (that’s the case for my MC, that is also an heavy swearer, oops).

There are probably problems with punctuation, but I’m not very familiar with english editing. Soo sorry. Buona lettura (enjoy the reading), D.

A big one

Nicky had been working all day on some important stuff, the documents spread all over his desk from the early morning. You had barely seen him for lunch and could spot a hint of frustration on his face. It’s almost evening when you hear it loud and clear, coming right from his office – right from his voice: a good old Italian curse.

You stare blankly for a second, registering it. Then you start laughing, covering your mouth, knowing exactly what he said. After recomposing yourself, you exit the room you’re in and reach Nicky’s office: you never heard him curse and you’re pretty sure that whatever he’s working on has to be trying enough to get that reaction.

You peek in the room, to see Nicky with his head resting on a hand, fingers on the temples, his expression definitely unpleased and tired.

«Honey, are you ok? » You ask.

He raises his head, looking at you standing at the door, the shadow of a smile starting to appear on his mouth: «Hey, sweetheart, of cour- oh. »

Then, he freezes, suddenly remembering that you speak Italian and that the blasphemy that got out of his mouth isn’t a mystery for you. «I, uh, I’m sorry, love, I didn’t mean …» He visibly blushes.

You get into the office, badly holding the giggles, and sit on the chair in front of the desk, looking Nicky in the eyes:

«That was … a big one, really. »

He flushes even more and you can’t stop a laugh: «I mean, it sounds like those papers must have really annoyed you, so I thought that, maybe…» You reach for his hand and smile softly «…you could use some help. I’m not good with financial things,» You glance with disgust at the papers «but I’m a pretty good listener, and also quite fussy, so if you want to, I don’t know, revise everything aloud, well, I’m here. »

Nicky rests his forehead on the palm of your hand, snorting, then he raises his eyes to meet yours, smiling sheepishly: «Yeah, I’d really need some help…but, also some Y/N sugar wouldn’t be bad. » He playfully smirks at you.

You try to remain serious and not to chuckle «I don’t know, Nicky, as I said, that was a reeeally big one…» but you already got around the desk, hugging Nicky to smooch him on the cheek.

He takes you in his lap, you slide an arm over his shoulder, and he kisses the palm of your hand. «Amore mio, what would I do without you? »

«Heh, what: you would curse a lot more. » You wink at him. «Now, tell me about those horrible documents. »

Nicky laughs, still tired but less exasperated, and starts to tell you about it, eventually reaching a solution without further cursing – and with a more pleasant ending for the night.

[d-is-humming]

Who you’re goin’ to call sweetheart this evening

It’s one of many nights at the speakeasy. The room is full of people drinking at the tables and listening to the singer and the pianist on the stage. Nicky Valentino is sitting in his special booth separated from the other people, a million dollar smile on his face while he fondly watches his companion sit beside him.

They are beautiful and in love while you are standing at the opposite side of the room, smiling softly on the stage at the end of the last song you performed, a sweet cheerful love ballad for young lovers like them. The pianist nods at you, letting you the time to drink something and allowing himself to fire another cigarette, and then he starts playing again. You hear the first notes and already know what you’re going to sing. Oh, that one seems written for you. You take a plastic pose, one side raised, arms bent and hands held high, and start with a long held note

Who

You lower your eyes and lightly tilt the head

You’re goin’ to call sweetheart this evening?

You look at the customers sitting around the stage and give them a soft smile

Who you’re goin’ to kiss goodnight?

As drunk as those people might be, that song always get their eyes and ears to you – or maybe is the way you sing it, you don’t really care. You turn your head and close your eyes, putting a hand on your chest

It’s not me, not my eyes The one thing that makes you smile

As drunk as they might be, they all always turn to you. All of them. Just one person in the room isn’t listening, he probably doesn’t even hear you, too enchanted by the pair of eyes of the one sitting in front of him. He’s not listening, he stopped doin’ it some time after you got the job

It’s not me, not my mouth

You watch the crowd again, still with a sweet suffering smile, avoiding one precise spot of the room

The one you’re goin’ to kiss tonight

You bring a hand to your face, theatrically, repeating again the verses of the song, with growing bitterness in your voice. You should have known better than getting a crush on him, but happy endings happen in films and when you stepped in it – because you stepped in without a doubt that it would have been your film – you thought that he was the one.

If you knew What would you knew?

You start the last part of the song, glancing at his private booth. He gave you a job when you had nothing but the clothes on your back. He was nicer to you then a lot of people you had known for longer. He was a kind man while you, on the other hand, were in love.

If you knew Well I wouldn’t be anyway The one you’re kissing tonight

You avert your eyes from the couple in the booth and lean on the back of the piano, striking a dramatic pose for the last verse. This time Murray was wrong, it’s not your role the main one, the lovebird, the place in the protagonist couple.

It’s not my role the loved one, so Who

You manage to laugh a heartbroken laugh while you end the song as it started

Who you’re goin’ to call sweetheart tonight?

Silence fills the room while the last piano notes are played. Nicky and his lover have already left. Among the customers, you see some stray tears and misty eyes. Well, you’re probably not the only heartbroken one in 1920s New York.

--

Hello there, it’s D. talking. It’s been at least six years since I last wrote a fanfiction, so I might be a bit rusty and this is my first attempt at writing something like this in english. I hope there are no major mistakes in the text. This fanfic is quite sad, I know, but I also know we all like some tears (I do, oops).

I really hope you enjoyed it, kisses, D.