The Winter Files~

For the Friend Who sticks with me to the "end of the line"~

Chapter One: Two Men And A Cage~

A pale hand stretches out to the moon, and shakes like the leaf that withers in the breath of the wind.

He still hears Moriarty in his head, all the time.

" You're gonna love being dead, Sherlock."

Love...being...Implying purpose and conscious.

He loved...He's dying to save...

"Games..." says a voice in the dark.

American accent, cracked tone, hasn't had water in 3.5 days, comes from a direction level with me. Fellow prisoner.

"Games..." Sherlock replies, leaning against the bars of the bird cage he is swinging between heaven and earth with.

"Yeah...like cages..and pits...and swinging in between life and death. Barely awake, barely remembering who you are...why you did what you did...even though you probably lost your soul for it..."

"Yes, or who it was for..." Sherlock replies.

The winter wind howls between them like a pair of wolves discussing the shares of their bones. It will truly be a meager feast, when the East Wind and the night take these two war-ravaged souls, at the tip of the thirst dying tongue.

" Who it was for...Now there's a conversation starter..."laughs the American.

Sherlock smiles, knowingly in the man's direction. Tonight they share the Pit, and that is an Empty Chalice that never runs dry of emptiness. They will be drinking very deep of their shared loneliness tonight...and there will be echoes of their voices, now that one is aware that the other can speak...

"Obviously delirium hasn't gotten to you yet...Implying that we are having a conversation...and I'm not just a voice inside your head..."

"Ha!, I'm from Brooklyn, man. The voices in my head have never had velvet English accents. Least of all ones that sound like college professors. There's no way I could have dreamed you up..."

" Likewise, I'd have to be very delirious for the voice in my head to sound like an American sniper..."

" How'd you know I was a sniper?"

"The position you're sitting in , of course, implied by the degree of your shadow's angle, poised for the killing shot. You're a marksman...a highly trained marksman...And you're American, didn't guess that, you've admitted to it..."

"You've been in jail too long, pal. Observing all that..."

"Oh, trust me, I've always been like this..." Sherlock laughed.

"Got a name?"

"It's Sherlock...You?"

"Sergeant James...Buchanan..Barnes. Or just "Bucky"..."

"...'Bucky' ?"

"Hey, don't knock it,...it may be weird, but it's my name, and I like it, a'right?"

"Alright, alright! In all fairness, Sherlock isn't exactly the name most mothers would choose either..."

Silence...

"So who we did it for...Yeah...a conversation starter right there..." Sergeant Barnes laughed, proceding into a hacking fit that frightened a flock of crows roosting in the cliffs about them.

Sherlock swallowed..."John Watson...An army medic...Bravest of soldiers...My one friend..." Sherlock said to the night, and to the American soldier who would understand.

There was silence as if he was listening, weighing it in the scales of his head and heart.

" Captain Steven Rogers...best friend since childhood...The infamous 'Captain America'...Been trying to save him from my bosses for years..."

"And who are your 'bosses'?"

"That's what you're here to find out, eh, Sherlock? That's why they've got you in the cage, isn't it? Sherlock Holmes...Yeah, I recognized that name right off the bat. You're the English super- sleuth that Agent Peggy Carter tutored as the child ' science of deduction' prodigy for MI6 and SHIELD..."

Silence, Sherlock feeling he'd been compromised, feeling absolutely stupid for speaking the name of John Watson in this man's presence.

"Don't worry, kid, I may be forced to work for Hydra, but I sure don't "Hail" them. Your secret's safe with me...As for secrets,...you can ask away , all my bosses' dirty laundry right on the line...It's not like I've got anything left to lose, yeah?"

"Because you're dying?"

"Deduced that how, ace?"

Sherlock scoffed, and couldn't help but smile.

Yes, he'd heard of "Bucky" Barnes from his nanny, Ms. Carter...