For as long as he could remember himself, his dreams were never clear or vivid. Between the two of them, that had always been for Rebby only, with that artistic, crazily architectured mind of hers. Even now Bucky, were he to try it, could have easily recalled a good dozen of ridiculous narrations that were fed to him meticulously during various points of their shared history. Were he to try it, he thought he could even reconstruct in mind all those little sketches that were always a natural result of some great impression with Rebby. He could do that, Bucky thought, he'd always had a good memory. Bucky could do that, because he is dying and he's got nothing else to do now.
Everything hurt. But hurt in some feverishly detached, purely physical way. As if it was happening to someone else, a performance set up for his benefit only, and he was a mere spectator sitting in the last row. Must be the cold. His mind was clear and fussy all at once, like a swirl of snowflakes in the bright, crisp winter air around him.
He couldn't get off his back, probably never would now, so he just lay there and let the frozen water tickle his burning face and neck. It actually felt pretty nice. Nice and pretty. It's good to have things like that at the end. He wanted the last thing he experienced to be something beautiful.
So those drawings, they had been everywhere. Their apartment was littered with them, because, like a good joke, the sketchbook was never there when it was needed, simultaneously with Reb's muse. And so she had to use a million tiny, separate pieces of paper, and sometimes she drew on newspapers and sometimes on napkins, and on one occasion right on top of Bucky's Orwell.
He thought of that poor book now, lying somewhere on the other side of the Earth, on its back without a motion just like him, carefully outlined patterns of graphite mirrored by those of blood on his own sorry, torn cover. No one would ever pick them up again.
Dramatic. Of course they would be picked up again. Sooner or later. Just not by someone you'd expect or want to. New tenants? As for him, that would be wolves.
The death was taking her time.
He must have been drifting in and out of consciousness, like that little paper ship they'd made with Reb eons ago, getting thrown around in a fast current of rain water. Anyway, the pain seemed to lessen, and he was able to lift his head without having it falling off on him.
He couldn't see very well, but he knew at once he was fucked. The filthy mess of cloth and muscle that had been his forearm a few hours, days or years ago didn't provoke an adequate emotional feedback. Or, if it did, it had gotten lost in a smashed mess of electric passageways in his head. He cast a glance at the rest of his body with the air of dumb wonderment.
Even with the blurry images his aching eyes provided the situation was crystal clear. He thought numbly that the absence of pain would have been no good a sign if he weren't a dead man anyway. He wondered idly just how it'd happened for him to still have something to think this nonsense with.
He blinked a couple of times and glanced up at the sky above, squinting. He regretted his bout of recon now, for his head was starting to hurt. The sun was absent, which caused him vogue, idle distress. He suddenly tried to remember the last time he felt its warmth on his skin. It was as if he'd been in this place all his life, and the past as he remembered it was just an elaborate dream, the kind that had hunted him ever since; that only seemed painfully real, but wasn't much more than a brief flicker of smoke in itself.
There and gone.
Can dogs evolve back into wolves?
There was a flock of birds in the air above, whirling slowly like tea leaves. Blobs of bright red paint floated over them like glazing, apathetic.
What it would take to make them do it? How long it would take?
The paint, it was transforming, bizarre metamorphoses ate up little bird dots and were swirling now, mad like a giant crimson vortex pulling dragginghim along and there ws nothingnot a thing at all except-
Footfalls.
Awareness snapped back like a headshot. Somewhere to his right the snow creaked.
Something was coming.
He was too tired and hurting to worry about the wolves and everything else, and the moment a blurry, shifting figure came into view he knew he was right. Because he was still hallucinating.
Bucky relaxed and eyed the creature curiously. It was tall, clad in a heavy dark fabric with one end of it thrown over the shoulder, and it was blue.
They looked at each other, the creature's eyes the color of the bloody sky above. Its silhouette was constantly shifting, moving in odd patterns, intervening with the background. It was as if a strong wind was carrying its pieces away, bit by bit. Bucky wanted to throw up.
"Hm."
The figure suddenly knelt down, lowering itself right onto the freezing ground without a care in the world. It bent over him and appeared to study the gore of his broken body attentively. Now that the creature was some two feet away, he was able to survey it in turn, quietly marveling on how his mind was able to conjure something quite this bizarre.
A hand suddenly appeared before his eyes. A single fingertip stilled itself an inch away, hesitant, then carefully touched his forehead. It evoke the burning sensation, his fried system being unable to distinguish if the appendage was freezing or iron hot. Or rather if he himself was freezing, given that the thing was not real. He peered up at it, curious of what it would do next.
The icy hot finger slowly dragged itself over his forehead, and then the creature lifted it up and examined the red paint covering it.
How has it gotten on him.
Bucky was thinking it through when the creature frowned and put the finger in its mouth.
"Interesting," it said. And then, "Where have you come from?"
It didn't seem to be interested in the answer, and then Bucky would not be able to come up with one even if it did.
The creature paid him no mind, it looked like it was thinking something through. The next moment three things appeared to happen at once. The creature's head jerked sharply to the side. The movement disturbed the snow that gathered on top of the black head and sent it flying. Bang! and the bullet hit the creature in the head.
Bucky's throat closed up. The momentum threw the hallucination to the side, partially over Bucky's body. Then it caught itself on one arm and gasped, hair veiling the face that should have been smashed into pulp. Instead, the thing huffed, irritated, blew the hair out of its face, still out of breath, and turned towards the shooter.
Bucky had had enough of this. He closed his eyes and willed it away. There was a brief shuffle to his right, the faint sounds of voices from miles and miles away. And then only one was left. The one right beside him. It said:
"And you will come with me."