The Floor is Lava
"Your foot burned off, I saw it touch!"
"No, not the whole foot, just a toe. The littlest toe."
"That's not how it works."
"That's totally how it works."
Bucky looked up from the peanut butter and jelly mess on the kitchen counter and glanced toward the living room just in time to see AJ step from the armchair to the end table by the couch. Bucky blinked. A soft squishy plush ball rocketed into the chair he had just been in. AJ scrambled back toward the chair to claim the ball, ducking down as another plush ball came flying at him.
All right then.
Bucky slathered another layer of homemade strawberry jelly from Miss Sue's stand at the farmers market onto a sandwich. "Guys, be careful on the furniture, okay? There's not a hospital visit scheduled for today." He stuck the butter knife into the jelly jar and muttered under his breath. "Or furniture repair."
"We will!" they chorused.
He went back to work on the peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, fixing them the way the boys liked them. One sandwich needed to be cut into triangles and the other needed both grape and strawberry jelly. For his own, he had thrown on bananas and Nutella instead of jelly because his sweet tooth was acting up.
Sam and Sarah had left to go visit one of their family friends, and Bucky had come over to watch the kids. A few weeks ago, he had given up his apartment in New York and bought a fixer-upper house from the 40's down the road from the Wilsons. Working on making it more livable and less potentially haunted (Sam's words, not his) was one of his current pastimes. New York didn't exactly feel like home anymore, and Sam had been right, the people were nice and welcoming in Delacroix.
Plus, Sarah was here. 1,323 miles had been too far. Sometimes three miles felt too far. There was something real between the two of them, and he thought the world of her and her boys. He and Sarah were still testing it out, going on dates and stealing kisses here and there, but…he wanted to be here. With her.
Cass came into view, jumping from the coffee table to a couch cushion that had been thrown onto the floor. He frowned at his younger brother. "C'mon, you have all the ballistics."
"You threw them at me! Where's the other bean bag?"
"By the TV."
"Go get it."
"You go get it!"
"You're the one who needs it!"
Cass twisted to the side, and one of the plush balls hurtled past him, landing in the kitchen, where it was quickly joined by a second one. Another plush ball bounced off his head, and AJ burst into victorious laughter. "That's two points for me."
"Yeah, whatever." Cass turned and pushed his glasses farther up onto his nose as he gauged the distance between himself and the two plush balls. "Time out, I have to go get them."
"There's no time out," AJ said, "They're gone."
"You're just making stuff up. I'm going to get them," Cass said.
"Then your feet will burn off and you'll lose points!"
"Not if I can find stuff to step on. Or wait, hey, Bucky!"
Bucky was busy pouring lemonade into three glasses, the sandwiches finished and ready on the kitchen island. "Yeah?"
"Can you get those for me?" Cass pointed toward the plush balls that were scattered over the kitchen floor.
Bucky nodded. "What're you guys doing, anyways?"
"If Bucky gets them, he's in the game," AJ said. He was standing on the couch now, which was completely devoid of cushions. Actually, there were no cushions or pillows left on any of the living room furniture. As Bucky picked up the first plush ball, AJ pointed at him. "You're in the game!"
"I don't even know what the game is," Bucky said with a laugh. He tossed the ball to AJ, who caught it with one hand.
Both boys stared at him.
"The floor is lava," AJ said, waving his hand at the pillows and cushions as if that explained everything.
"Huh. That's…" Bucky shrugged. He had no idea what that meant. "Okay?"
"No, that's the game," Cass said, "The Floor is Lava."
"Haven't you played before?" AJ asked.
Leaning down, Bucky swiped up the last two plush balls. He threw one to Cass and the other to AJ. "That one wasn't around when I was your age." Or if it had been, he had never played it.
AJ and Cass shared a look and then abandoned their spots to rush into the kitchen, swarming Bucky and excitedly peppering him with information.
"It's all lava," AJ said, "The whole floor is lava and you can't touch it or you start dying!"
"But we play that if you hit someone with a ball or a bean bag, you get points," Cass said, "And then if you touch the lava, you lose them. You start out with five points. First person to ten points wins."
"And if you touch the lava with your foot or hand, you can't use it anymore," AJ added, "It's burned off."
"You have to stay off the floor, but you can use stuff as stepping stones, like the couch cushions."
AJ crossed his arms and looked at Bucky's left arm. "Would his metal hand melt off? Or would it have to touch the lava more than once?"
"Lava melts everything," Cass said, "It starts melting things that just get close to it."
"But it's metal."
"It can still melt. How do you think they made it in the first place? With their minds?"
"I don't know, maybe. It's from Wakanda."
"As fun as this sounds, I think I may be too big for this game. Literally," Bucky said, reaching back to rub the back of his neck. "Your mom might have something to say about me jumping on the furniture since I'd probably break it. You probably shouldn't even be on the furniture..."
"You don't have to step on the furniture," Cass said, "We could play outside. There are some stumps and stuff we use out there, and then no one has to tell mom we were on the furniture." His grin was big and innocent with just the right touch of shenanigans in the making.
"I knew you weren't supposed to be up there," Bucky said.
Both boys beamed, and AJ grabbed him by the wrist, hauling backward toward the front door. Bucky let the kid drag him to the screen door and out onto the porch.
"Don't you guys want to eat lunch first?"
"No, this is important. I can't believe you've never played. The Stone Age must've been really boring," Cass said with a smirk.
"He was too busy running away from dinosaurs," AJ said.
"Dinosaurs and humans weren't alive at the same thing, dork."
"You don't know for sure, you didn't live back then."
Both of them looked at Bucky, who snorted out a laugh and crossed his arms over his chest. "I don't remember running away from any T-Rexes in Brooklyn. In New York. In the 1920s, which had cars and electric lights and movies."
"See?" Cass said, giving his brother a light, teasing shove.
AJ rolled his eyes. "Whatever. We're here to play the floor is lava, not for history class." He gestured to the yard with an expansive gesture. "Outside is better anyways. It's okay as long as we don't get on the hood of a car. Or the top."
Cass smirked. "I thought Mr. Liu was going to end you for that."
"It was a super small little dent. But anyways, we gotta stay off all cars."
"Too bad they took the truck. You can stand in the bed of a truck and no one yells at you."
Bucky smiled. "I feel like I might get yelled at anyways." Probably by Sam.
New "ballistics" (bean bags, plastic balls, and a Frisbee) were gathered, and a few buckets, boxes, crates and other things were set out around the yard. While the boys debated the placement of everything, Bucky sized up the "stepping stones," deciding which ones would hold his weight. He was probably going to have to limit himself to the buckets, the overturned wheelbarrow, and the stumps.
When everything was set up, Cass turned to Bucky and AJ and clapped his hands together. "Okay, remember, everyone starts with five points. First one to ten wins. We start from here on the porch. Got it?"
"Yeah!"
"I think so," Bucky said, eyeing the Frisbee that was over by the farthest stump.
"All right…go!"
The boys took off, and Bucky gauged the distance from the porch to the stump. A little too far, but if he could get to the wheelbarrow first... Taking a few steps back and dodging a red bean bag aimed at his head, he took a running start and jumped for the wheelbarrow. He landed on it, and the metal crunched just a bit. Um... He'd straighten it out later.
"Dang," Cass said appreciatively.
"No jumping more than ten feet!" AJ said, the more competitive of the two boys.
Bucky grinned. "That wasn't in the rules."
"It's a new rule for people over six feet tall!"
"AJ, it's not a rule," Cass said, rolling his eyes.
"I said it was new," AJ said with a shrug.
"I can work with it," Bucky said. He stepped from the wheelbarrow to bucket that was almost too far away to reach. A plastic ball almost caught him on ankle as he was moving, but his reflexes kept it from hitting. Hmm, he needed to keep that in mind. He wanted it to be fair, after all.
"If someone catches the Frisbee, do we get extra points?" AJ asked. He was climbing up onto the second rung of a step ladder.
"Nope," said Cass, "You already made your one new rule."
"This would be a good rule."
"No."
"Fine, be not fun," AJ said, doing his best to reach a up-turned five gallon bucket. He had to settle for stepping onto a wooden box instead, which put him in range of Cass and a bean bag.
While AJ dodged bean bags, Bucky kept moving toward the stump and the Frisbee. It wasn't long before projectiles came flying his way, launched by both boys who burst out laughing when he accidentally put a foot on the ground instead of his next stepping stone target, a squashed metal pie pan.
"Your foot burned off, you can't use it," AJ declared, "It's gone."
"And you lose a point," Cass added.
Which meant Bucky now had to hop around on one foot.
By the time the truck pulled back into the yard, Bucky was stuck sitting on the stump, stuck there unless he wanted to get around on his hands. AJ and Cass were dodging as quick as they could to avoid Bucky's "insane Frisbee skills," since he had managed to claim the Frisbee. As Sarah and Sam exchanged a glance and climbed out of the truck, the Frisbee bounced off a tree, hit a porch column, pinged off another tree and nearly hit Sam in the head. His hand instinctively flew up and caught it before it could bounce off his forehead. He shot a glare at Bucky, who was waving at Sarah, all innocence.
"I'm losing," he said cheerfully.
"Not surprising," Sam said, tossing the Frisbee to AJ.
"Did you touch the lava?" she asked Bucky with a laugh. She must've seen this game played out a lot over the years.
"A couple times," Bucky replied.
"Y'all!" AJ shouted. "Get back in the truck! The ground is lava."
"I'm fireproof today," Sarah said instantly, "So's your uncle." She smiled at Bucky. "How long have you been playing?"
"Half an hour?"
"I'm surprised you're still in the game," Sam teased.
Cass suddenly gave Bucky a wide-eyed look while AJ started to argue about how being fireproof wasn't a thing and they had to get back in the truck or on the porch. "We didn't clean up the living room," he hissed, gesturing toward the house.
Bucky eyed the house with consideration before giving Cass a conspiratorial look. "How long do you need?" he whispered back. The kitchen was still a mess too but he'd worry about that later.
"I dunno, ten minutes?" Cass said.
"Okay…" He held up his hands, palms open, toward AJ. The younger of the boys noticed and sent the Frisbee soaring back toward him, and then Bucky tossed it toward Sarah, who was turned away from him, out toward the dock. It bounced gently off her hip and landed in the grass, and she blinked and gave him a curious look.
"I'm not joining this game," she said, though the corner of her mouth was quirking up in a smile.
"Aw, why not," he said, standing up from the stump, "I just learned how to play."
"I already said I was fireproof."
"Then we could play something else." His grin was all kinds of mischief.
Sarah's eyebrows rose and a slow smile spread across her face. "Are you talking about Frisbee or…?"
On the other side of the truck, Sam groaned and walked over to the Frisbee, which he snatched up while Sarah and Bucky gave each a long look.
"Frisbee," Sam declared, tossing the Frisbee to Bucky with a considerable amount of force. "Just. Frisbee."
"Yeah, yeah," Bucky said, plucking it out of the air. "What'd you think I meant, Sam?"
"Man, I don't even want to know…"
Bucky sent the Frisbee back toward Sarah, and this time she caught it easily before throwing it to Sam. "So this is what you do all day, Sam? Just with a bigger Frisbee."
"Hey!"
With the distraction in full swing, Cass took off toward the house, grabbing AJ's arm to pull him along so they could clean up the living room. Out in the front yard, the afternoon Frisbee game and gentle roasting continued, lazy and momentarily carefree.