This idea hasn't left me alone for a long time. I can't say how consistent I will be posting, but I am sharing it more to help to get it out of my brain.
All mistakes are mine.
XXX
Chapter 1:-
Holly bit back the sob that threatened to escape her lips, tears silently sliding down her face as she cradled her left arm to her chest. It ached with a throbbing pain that always made her want to be sick. She knew if she gave into the temptation of yelling, she would be in for far worse. Although she was six years old, Holly knew better than to make a fuss, knew better than to make a sound that would draw their attention, their wrath, onto her because the consequences would be far worse if she did.
A soft hiccup escaped her as she pushed back the tears. She froze, her blood roaring in her ears as she listened hard to any sign of movement that signalled, they had heard her. Only letting going of the breath she had been holding when nothing stirred. The house was quiet except for the familiar sounds of Dudley's snores and groans.
She hated it here, hated it with all her heart.
It was in the night's silence, hidden in the darkness of her cupboard, securely knowing that for a moment she was safe, that Holly dared to allow herself to dream of something better. To wish upon a star she could not see that she wouldn't have to be alone forever.
I don't want to be alone anymore. I want friends who love me.
The familiar click of her lock sliding open echoed loudly. Holly blinked in surprise as the door slowly opened an inch or two on its own. Letting light shine in her cupboard that Holly knew shouldn't be there, because everyone was asleep, and it was night. Except the door was open.
Holly uncurled herself, feet touching the floor, and stood so she could creep to the door and pressed as close to the crack as she could, enough that she could see without pushing the door open any further than it already was. Holly frowned as she peered through the door, where there should have been the door leading into the living room of number 4 Privet Drive. There was instead an unfamiliar room, with a boy in a bed. She held her breath, her heart racing against her chest as she chewed on her bottom lip.
This couldn't be real. Couldn't be possible. It was a cruel joke, except she didn't think her aunt and uncle were capable of anything as imaginative as this.
"Hello, is anyone there?" A weak voice sounded, followed by a splutter of coughing seconds later.
Holly gasped as she shrunk back away from the door, hand darting to cover her mouth and the muffle any other sound she could make.
"I can hear you, you know, and it's rude to linger in doorways."
Holly crept forward, pushing the door open a little further, ignoring the warning voice that said she was going to get into trouble.
"Bucky, is that you?"
Holly could see that the boy had pushed himself up enough to get a better view of the room. He looked pale, too pale, with shadows under his eyes and sunken cheeks. He looked ill.
He coughed loudly, a hoarse sounding cough that had her wincing in sympathy because it didn't sound pleasant or as though he could breathe while he did so.
"Buck, come on, come out of there. It's not funny anymore."
Holly swallowed the lump that seemed stuck in her throat and ignored the butterflies currently fluttering in her stomach, and gently pushed the door of her cupboard open, so as not to make any more noise than she had to. She blinked as the bright light blinded her until the room came into focus around her.
It wasn't the Dursley's living room.
The pink striped wallpaper was missing, as were the many photos of Dudley, and the dark pink couches, which she hated, were absent. Instead, a bed, that was far bigger than her own, was positioned in the centre of the room, the walls were plain except for sheets of paper with various drawings that pinned around the bed, and above a desk that was neatly tucked away along one wall. A medium size Chester drawer, in a dark brown wood, took up space in the corner next to the desk.
Finally, her eyes settled on the strange boy. That wasn't where he should be, but then, none of this was where it should be, and it was something that would make her aunt and uncle angry.
They liked nothing that wasn't ordinary.
"You're not Bucky."
XXX
Steve stared in surprise at the girl who had unexpectedly stepped out of the cupboard in his bedroom that his mother used to store what extra towels and other things they had that wouldn't fit in the kitchen or the cupboard under the stairs. At first he had presumed it was Bucky, hidden away while he had been sleeping off his fever, choosing to skip school and keep him company as he often did when he was ill. Much to both his mother and Bucky's chagrin.
But it was not Bucky who had appeared.
He blinked, and rubbed at his eyes, wondering whether this was nothing more than a feverish dream and that she wasn't really there, but the movement caused his chest to tighten as a heaviness pressed down on him, and it was hard to breathe until he was hacking up his guts and wondering whether this was going to be the thing that finally killed him.
At ten years old, he had far too many brushes with death as it was, and yet each time he came close, there was a tug at his navel and something helped pull him back and he fought tooth and nail just to keep breathing.
The girl didn't waver for a moment, didn't flicker out of existence, instead she stood there, as though she was rooted to the spot. Watching him with wide curious eyes, that were such a jarring colour that had him both wondering how he could have come up with such eyes in a feverish state, and also wanting to capture their likeness on a piece of paper. They were green, a glittering jewelled green, underneath long lashes. Eyes that seemed to pierce his soul, and pick apart every inch of him in a single glance, until he had no secrets.
"Who are you, and what are you doing in the Dursley's living room?"
Steve opened his mouth, snapping it shut as he fell back into himself, and unable to hold himself up any longer, leaned back into the pillow. He hated how weak his body was, how weak this illness made him.
"The Dursley's?" he frowned. "Um, I think you have made a mistake. This is my bedroom, and you came out of that cupboard."
Her nose, which was straight and upturned at the end, wrinkled as she glanced behind her, eyeing the cupboard warily, before throwing him a look as though he was mad. But then Steve supposed he was arguing with a hallucination, after all. The fever was getting to him.
He watched her shift on her feet, hesitating for a moment, before she took a step closer to him. It gave him the chance to study. She was a young, thin thing. A couple years younger than him if he was going to hazard a guess, and from the distinctive sound of her accent, she wasn't from Brooklyn, or at least hadn't been for long. Steve hadn't crossed paths with many English folk, except in the local shop, and she sounded both similar and different at the same time. The pale blue shirt, that looked more grey than blue, was miles too big for her, and seemed to drown her thin frame as it fell off her shoulder, and it reached her knobbly knees. A mass of long black messy waves cascaded below her shoulders, framing her face, was a stark contrast next to the paleness of her face.
Her features were sharp, angled, and looking most ethereal, though he noted there was still some baby fat she had yet to lose. Steve could see an angry jagged scar that, at second glance, looked like a lightning bolt splitting down her forehead.
"Are you real?"
The girl scoffed, eyes narrowing at him, as though the question offended her.
"Of course I'm real. Are you?"
"Yes," Steve coughed. "I am very much real."
The frown deepened. "I don't understand why you are in the Dursley's living room. They don't like strange things happening, and I always seem to make strange things happen. I don't mean to."
"I'm not in the Dursley's living room," he said, keeping his tone calm and patient. "I am in my bedroom, and you came out of the cupboard. And I know nothing about strange things happening."
Though he could admit that this whole thing was strange.
He watched as she chewed on her bottom lip; her gaze darting unsurely around the room, before she took another step closer to him, reaching the foot of his bed. Her head tilted to the side as her gaze settled on him again.
"My name's Holly," she said, uncertain, as though she wasn't sure exactly how he was going to react, and yet, even through the uncertainty, he could see a fire within her eyes, a glimmer of defiance shining through.
"I'm Steve," he answered, before another bout of coughing consumed him. It was as though he was hacking up knives with every wheeze of his chest, sharp stabbing knives whose only purpose was to make him bleed and hurt.
It surprised him when the glass of water appeared near him, Holly, waiting patiently holding it out to him. He took it off her, their fingers brushing as he did. Huh, well she feels real, but then maybe it's just a convincing fever induced hallucination.
Not having the energy to question it too much, Steve sipped the water slowly, his eyes never straying far from Holly in case she disappeared when he blinked.
"Are you sick?"
"The flu," he answered slowly.
"Why haven't you had the flu vaccination?"
Steve frowned. "There is no vaccination for the Flu."
Holly nodded, "Yes, there is. My Uncle has it every year."
Steve opened his mouth, but quickly closed it again, shaking his head slightly, because that had to be the strangest thing about this whole encounter. He could accept in his loneliness of being stuck at home and missing school, again, that his mind was playing tricks with him, especially with how high his temperature was, but the idea that there was a vaccination for the flu was too strange for his brain to come up with alone. Such a thing didn't seem possible.
Not that he could give it too much thought, with the sound of the back door opening and closing and the familiar footsteps of Bucky echoed through the tiny apartment. A flicker of panic flared to life, forcing his already racing heart to beat that little faster, work that little harder. Eyes widening with not fear, but the moment of realisation he was going to be proven right and Holly was nothing more than a feverish vision, and he was actually a lot closer to death than he thought, or that there was actually a girl currently in his room and he had no logical explanation on how she got there. His gaze darted between Holly and his bedroom door. Holly was picking up on his less than subtle panic by the way her body tensed and she stepped away from the bed, inching back slowly towards the cupboard as if seeking refuge.
Bucky stepped into sight, a smile spread across his lips. His hair was messy and wild, as though he had run the entire way from school.
"Sorry, I couldn't get here earlier, Stevie. Becca tattled on me," he greeted, stepping into the room, turning his head as though something had caught his attention from the corner of his eye.
Steve watched as Bucky's eyes widened, darting between him and Holly and back again, his grin widening a fraction.
"You sly dog, I've only been gone a day and you have already made a new friend, a girl friend at that."
He stepped towards Holly, extending his hand. "I'm Bucky."
Holly eyed him for a minute longer than was probably considered polite, before taking Bucky's hand. "Holly."
Steve blinked in surprise. "You can see her."
Bucky turned to face him. "Of course I can see her."
"I thought I was hallucinating."
Bucky frowned as he moved towards the bed, pulling Holly along with him. Steve wasn't sure his friend was even aware he still had hold of Holly's hand in his. But then that was Bucky, warm and friendly. Some would even say charming, and his own mother often said he would be a man to watch out for when he grew up. Steve wasn't sure what exactly his mother had meant by that statement, but that Bucky was eleven and able to charm even the hardest of people to him, said something about his personality.
Bucky sat on the end of the bed, leaving enough room for Holly to join them, who seemed uncertain about if she should, and Steve couldn't help but wonder if she was uncertain because she wasn't sure she was allowed, or because she was nervous. He shifted his legs a little, ensuring the message was clear enough that he was happy for her to sit on the bed with him.
"Why would you think you were hallucinating?"
"Fever, and because she came out of the cupboard. I thought it was you hiding at first, snuck in while I was sleeping."
Bucky turned to Holly, taking it in his stride as he usually took things. "So where're you from, Holly?"
She shrugged. "I was in my cupboard and the door opened, and then I was here."
Steve twitched slightly at the mention she was in her cupboard. A hundred and one questions raised around his mind, and he couldn't help but take a closer look, seeing things he had explained away with one reason. That clearly meant another. Like the darkening bruises along her shoulder, or the way she was cradling her left arm to her chest, being careful not to move it too much. An anger stirred inside of him, at the meaning of what he was seeing. If there was one thing Steve hated, was the thought of other people bullying those they considered smaller than them.
He shared a look with Bucky. Neither of them could say why or how she got here. It wasn't something that made sense and there wasn't an explanation that they could fathom, but Steve could see anger, hurt, pain, loneliness in her movements. From the way she darted her gaze between the two of them, as if she hadn't had a conversation with another person, as though she wasn't sure how friends were supposed to work. Steve knew what that was like, before Bucky, when he hadn't had a friend his own age, but even then he had his mom. But Bucky made everything that much better.
As if his friend were reading his mind, Bucky smiled at the girl. "Well, you are here now, so you can help me keep this one entertained and out of trouble. Have you ever played snap before?"
Holly shook her head.
"It's dead easy, and you will love it. I know you will."
The girl faltered, confusion and apprehension bubbling across her face. "You actually want me to play with you?"
"Absolutely, ain't that right, Stevie?"
Green eyes turned to him expectantly, as if waiting for a refusal. Steve smiled softly at her. "Yeah, you can help me kick Bucky's ass. He likes to cheat."
"I do not, take that back."
"You do too." He sniped back with a laugh that turned into a coughing fit, "Urgh, please don't make me laugh."
"I've never had friends to play with before."
Bucky gently shoved her shoulder with his own as he grinned at her. "Well, now you got us."
Holly looked between them before a smile crossed her lips.
"Right, so that it's settled, here is what you have got to do."
Steve listened as Bucky explained the rules to Holly, all the while shuffling the cards before dealing them out between them and the game began. He lost track of how many games they played at the giggles and chuckles that escaped from all of them, as they played. It was nice, the three of them, even if he couldn't stop the questions spinning in his mind, or that when his mother returned home from work, she didn't comment on Holly's presence as though she couldn't see her at all. It brought more questions to the front of his mind, questions he wanted to ask but wasn't sure how to voice, because he didn't want to spoil the afternoon and the fun that they were having.
