Chapter Thirty-Four

Several days passed this way. The rocks were large enough to keep silent Steve beached and Bucky stayed with him day and night, laying up against his rock, provided that Steve didn't push him away, and watching him run all his markers dry with his coloring. He ought to make some sort of supplies run and find more writing supplies to share between them, but he was afraid that if he turned his back on Steve, he'd come back to find him gone. He didn't want to lose him again, so he made do with what he had.

It wasn't like Steve read what he wrote anyway, so it didn't matter.

He knew he'd have to do something though when Steve's stomach grumbled for the hundredth time and Steve was beginning to look rather distressed.

"I'll get you something," Bucky wrote while Steve glared at him. "What do you want?" Steve shrugged, still adamantly silent. "Do you eat…" Bucky's pen hovered over his board, but Steve was staring at him, so he went on. "Do you eat fish? Or something else?" Steve just looked away and let out a long breath. "If I go, will you stay put?" Bucky wrote and Steve refused to answer, so Bucky just set his writing materials down next to him on the rock and sunk back into the water.

Finding and catching fish was so easy it wasn't even sport and Bucky came back in minutes with five dead fish in his hands, uncertain of how Steve would respond. He remembered doing this once before to return to Steve's sarcastic disdain, but he couldn't say no now. Or rather, wouldn't. He refused to communicate at all. And Bucky wondered if he ought to bring back something like what he ate, but Steve wasn't a siren. That was all Bucky had been able to conclude in their long and silent days together, that whatever Steve was, he wasn't like Bucky. So he probably ate fish. At least, Bucky hoped.

Steve was still there when Bucky returned and pushed the fish up onto the rock for him expectantly. Steve sifted through what he'd been brought before picking one up and biting into it almost delicately. Bucky was reminded of the vicious way sirens, no, he, hunted and ate. It was gruesome and in comparison to Steve's human-sized, square-toothed bites, almost darkly comical.

"Is that alright?" Bucky wrote and Steve ignored him, slowly polishing off each fish like he had all the time in the world, peeling back scales and flinging them into the water, like he hadn't been so fiercely hungry earlier. "I'm going to assume this is fine," Bucky wrote again and Steve rolled his eyes.

That night, as Bucky was falling asleep with Steve curled up on the rock above him, Steve spoke.

"Your story's bullshit," he said out loud and Bucky was so startled he breathed in a mouthful of water and choked. But this time, Steve didn't help him, only looked at him coldly, and he had to remind himself how to breathe.

He scrambled for his board.

"What?" He scrawled. Steve straightened his back and looked away. The moonlight shone off his scales, turning them a distractingly beautiful light purple and Bucky studied him intently.

"I don't know you," Steve said.

"Are you sure?" Bucky wrote.

"I'd remember something like you," Steve said. "So your stupid story about us being human is just that. Stupid and a story."

"It's true," Bucky wrote mournfully.

"I don't have anything to say to you," Steve said. "I don't even know what you want." There was a pause and Bucky lowered his board. He didn't know what to say.

"Are you going to let me go free?" Steve said and Bucky looked away. "Well?" Steve said. Bucky tensed up, unsure how he wanted to answer. Steve let out an angry breath. "I know how it is with you sirens," he said accusingly. "Is this a new thing for you guys? Catching mermen? Are you gonna kill me when you're done playing around?"

"Mermen aren't real," Bucky wrote slowly.

"You mean mermen are practically extinct," Steve replied. "No thanks to you."

"I've never killed someone like you," Bucky wrote. "I've never even seen someone like you."

"Yeah, well, we keep to ourselves pretty well," Steve said. "You sirens like to kill us just for fun, after all."

"I would never," Bucky wrote and Steve only glared. "Your name is Steve," Bucky continued slowly after a brief pause. "We used to know each other. I don't want to kill you."

"I've never known you," Steve fired back. "Never! How do you even expect me to trust you? You've taken me prisoner!" Bucky frowned.

"'Prisoner' is a pretty negative word," he wrote.

"You're the weirdest siren I've ever met," Steve said. "And negative or not, its what you've done."

"I just had to talk to you!" Bucky was in the middle of writing. "You don't know me anymore and-"

"I don't believe that you're not going to kill me," Steve continued and Bucky looked up, interrupted from his writing. "You attacked me! And you sirens are all the same. You're all awful and manipulative and heartless. That's what makes you sirens in the first place." Bucky held his pen still hovering above the words he'd been writing, looking up and listening to Steve. He had picked up his pen, that was usually Steve's cue to stop. And he would have, had things been normal. Steve always waited patiently for him to stop writing. At least, he used to. Bucky supposed he used to care about what he had to say.

He finished his sentence mournfully and held it up.

"You don't know me anymore and I had to make you stop and listen somehow. I'm sorry."

"The more you write, the crazier you sound," Steve accused.

This was supposed to be happy, Bucky thought again. He let out a heavy sigh and began writing. If Steve talked over him again, he didn't care. He'd finish what he had to say.

"I know you don't believe me," he started. "But you and me knew each other in another life, where we were both human. And then we died and now this is who we are. And I love you very much." Steve scoffed.

"I'm not sure which part of your story is more unbelievable, the part where we're human or the part where you claim to love someone," Steve said and Bucky sucked in a breath.

"I have feelings, you know," he wrote furiously. "I'm not this monstrous killer you seem to think I am. I'm a siren, that doesn't mean I'm automatically evil." Steve rolled his eyes. "Can you stop being an asshole for five minutes?" Bucky demanded. "Please?"

"I've seen things like you rip people apart," Steve said. "You rip each other apart if you can get the chance! You-"

"I didn't ask to be a siren!" Bucky interrupted Steve, shoving his board in his face. "I didn't choose this! All I said was 'please don't let me die because I still have things to do' and this is what the ocean did to me! I didn't ask to be made into a sea monster!"

Steve looked at him over the board and his face was unreadable. He was silent while Bucky wrote more.

"You're so beautiful," he wrote. "And I've missed you so much. Please don't ruin this for us before we even have a chance to make it work." He looked up at Steve pleadingly. "Give me a chance here." Steve was quiet for a moment.

"Alright," he said finally. "Well if your story's true, why don't I remember any of it?"

"It was another life," Bucky wrote. "When you started this one, you had a clean slate. I did, too. I only know everything because I died first and I knew human you. Now the same thing had happened to you that happened to me." He hesitated. "Well, not exactly the same thing. You're like something from a fairytale."

"Sure," Steve said casually. "So, say your story's true. Where's your proof? How do I believe you?"

"I don't have any proof," Bucky realized. "All I have is what I remember." His heart sank. I'm the only one left to remember our story and I don't even know all of the details, he thought. Steve stared at him.

"Let me go right now," he finally said and Bucky sucked in his bottom lip. He shook his head. Steve glared. "I demand you let me go," he said and Bucky squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head again. "Are you just going to hold me here forever?" Steve cried. Bucky honestly didn't know. He couldn't do that, never, but he could keep Steve for a little while, surely. Just a day or two more. And then, maybe Steve would see how much he was loved and he would stay. Everything would work out and they could finally, finally be together. Steve waited a while to respond and Bucky opened his eyes back up and looked at him. He had his arms crossed and he was turned away.

"I'm not the bad guy," Bucky wrote slowly on his board. It must be unconvincing. Anyone looking in would say the ugly siren holding the pretty merman captive was the evil one and thinking about it outside himself like that made Bucky hate himself even more. Steve glanced at his board and looked away silently. "Talk to me?" Bucky said. "Please?"

"Let. Me. Go," Steve said back and didn't turn around to look at Bucky and Bucky sunk back into the water mournfully, watching Steve over the top of the water. Steve curled back up on his rock and flicked the tip of his tail and Bucky hugged himself and stared.