sit yourself down, and meet the best inn keeper in town ( O P E N )

[checkingin]

Who: Everyone!
Where: The initial arrival rooms, the main lobby, all over the place.
When: February 3rd
What: Welcome, newbies.

ARRIVAL.

you wake up when you hit the floor in a dark room, and the air is knocked out of your lungs. the carpet is threadbare, worn with use, kind of dusty. and you're not the first person to endure this crash landing. nor will you be the last.

once your vision rights itself, you can see the well-lit hallway through the doorjam straight ahead of you. not to say there’s monsters in the shadows, but something propels you towards that door and out into the bright hallway beyond.

and once outside your room, you can hear it: the steady thrum of rain outside.

MAIN LOBBY.

there's a staircase at the end of the lengthy hallway you tumble out of. grab your suitcase and follow the dull green exit signs on the ceiling until you reach the disappointingly bland stairs that lead you down to the ornate old fashion hotel lobby.

to your left is a warmly crackling fireplace, to your right is a lobby desk. straight ahead are three large sets of doors, though only one of them is open to the public. and outside the few (curtained, permanently dark) windows is the continually steady hiss of rain.

welcome to the hotel.

FRONT DESK.

though there is a bell and a plaque designating the desk to be the main desk, the customer service desk, there are currently no staff members behind it. none shall answer your calls, either.

terribly sorry for the inconvenience.

SCREENING ROOM.

on a tall pull-down screen, a silent version of nosferatu will be playing on loop. at the back of the room, between the neat rows of fold out chairs, mounted on a wobbly table is the old timey projector, and mounted on the walls are some rather old speakers that warble out "terrifying" old timey music.

along the curtained windows is another long table, with a large bowl that looked like it once would have held popcorn. but is now unfortunately empty. same for the large hot drink dispensers labeled "hot chocolate" and "coffee".

OTHER.

the ballroom and breakfast hall are currently closed, grand doors locked.

there is no main door leading to the outside, good luck trying to find one.

the door to the courtyard is locked.

ROOMS.

you've a room key with your assigned room number on it. all the new guest residences will be located on floors one & two. while there is an open elevator in the main lobby, and the buttons light up inside, the doors will not close. all in all, you'd be better off taking the stairs.

while they're the same stairs you undoubtedly came down to get to the lobby, the door to the endless hall everyone woke up in will not reappear between the main floor and the subsequent residential halls.

there are twenty rooms per floor. feel free to get to know your surroundings; or your neighbors as they trickle in around you.

Comments

[starspangled]

You do?

[Steve sounds surprised, maybe a little more hopeful than he meant to. If Bucky knows, it can only be because he remembered something. There's a soft, amused huff when he goes on to say that they never watched another horror movie again. It's true, and Steve never knew why Bucky never wanted to watch another one. Until now.]

I wonder if they have any old cowboy flicks. Remember them? Or maybe something with Lana Turner. You were always a little sweet on her.

[dislocked]

[ The hopefulness in Steve's tone makes his heart ache in ways he thought were lost to him a long time ago; and he can't help but wonder if the man is searching for Bucky, the real Bucky, the dead Bucky inside of him. He's not that man anymore, no matter what it seems like, and he wonders if he's only setting Steve up for tragic disappointment.

Bucky tries to remember that, but he comes up blank, fingers clenching in his seat as the memory refuses to surface, smudged away into uncooperative silence. He doesn't remember who she is, or what he used to like; if he had any girlfriends before. Did he love any of them the way he loved Steve? How much did he love Steve? ]

Maybe. [ He says at length, but he's more tense, strained. ] Who was she?

[starspangled]

She was an actress.

[Steve moves, hesitant, and perches on the very edge of the seat at the end of the row. Everything about his posture says that he expects Bucky to bolt at any second. And he's not sure what he would do about it.]

She had great legs. You used to talk about them for days. I drew a picture of her for you once.

[And there's a bittersweet moment where it might as well have been a scene from the past playing up on that screen: It was a summer day, and there was a light breeze that kept fluttering the page of his sketchpad. Bucky's hair. Monochrome, just the way he remembers.]

[dislocked]

[ Even in the darkness, Bucky could almost taste the oncoming disappointment, the reminder that memories are unreliable, and so is the man who's lost so much of them. He glances at the exit, wonders how swiftly he can slip from him, from the conversation that they're having.

The words are tight in his chest, and he checks his desire to flee; Steve's tension is similarly felt, and perhaps they're more in tune with each other than they'd thought. ] I don't know that.

[ And maybe his words come out harder, more defensive than he intends for it to be, because he doesn't want to disappoint him. He's not the man Steve remembers; that man died in the snow, more than seventy years ago, and Bucky's not sure how to break it to him. His fingers flex, metal rubbing against metal. ]

...You look different.

[starspangled]

It's the uniform.

[Steve murmurs it, the softness of his voice now hinting at that disappointment, maybe in himself for expecting things to be easy when it would be the first time ever. But Steve also sees that Bucky's just as frustrated, and the last thing he wants to do is make it worse. He's distracted enough that he doesn't even realize what Bucky might really be getting at. You look different. Different from the last time he saw him, maybe. Different from the helicarrier. He's not Captain America right now, just Steve Rogers, and that's different.]

[dislocked]

No.

[ Not the uniform, not anything like that. Younger days: a boy he had to protect. Small. So very small. He glances at the exit again, wonders how quickly he can excuse himself, to spare them both the inevitable pain of this conversation. Just one hurting is enough, just Bucky's enough.

Maybe he can come back again and they can talk about other things. Maybe they don't have to talk about anything at all. But he wants to. He wants to know this man who haunts the recesses of his memory, his waking thoughts. ] You were smaller.

[ Did it hurt? ]

[starspangled]

[Steve's eyes are fixed on him again, patiently waiting for him to explain without letting himself hope too much this time. When it comes, Steve feels this mixture of happiness and a punch to the gut that has Bucky Barnes' name all over it. His best friend is broken, but the pieces are still right there in front of him.]

Before the serum. [He makes sure his voice is under control before he speaks. Just the facts, without the pressure of anything else.] I was skinny and sick. You're remembering me before you went off to war.

[Before Steve followed him right into it.]

[dislocked]

[ The problem, see, is putting those pieces back together. The problem is forgiving all the cracks that run through them, unsightly, present, and always a reminder for everything that's happened to him. To them.

Bucky remembers the serum vaguely, remembers how Zola worked obsessively to perfect it. He remembers the pain, excruciating, terrible -- and he has his answer: it hurt for Steve, too. And -- ]

If I'm the one who went to war, why are you a soldier?

[starspangled]

Because you went to war.

[Bucky and so many other good men, and Steve didn't have the right to stay behind. So when Erskine all but whispered to him from a dark alley, Steve was more than willing to suffer for the chance to join him.]

It's what I wanted.

[And it seems important to make that clear, the difference between the two of them. None of it was forced on Steve; he's angry every day that it was forced on Bucky.]

[dislocked]

[ That's not an answer, he wants to say. But that's exactly what it is, and he realizes it when he meets Steve's eyes, when the truth is written in his face for him to see. He swallows hard, unable to help an instinctive coil of anger in his stomach.

A long buried anger, perhaps, something that twists uncomfortably in him; because he knows Bucky was more than willing to suffer for the chance that he didn't. But then again, if he didn't, they both wouldn't be here today.

They would be in their graves, side by side, perhaps; inseparable on the playground, inseparable in death. And without Steve, that end would have come a lot faster than predicted.

He exhales quietly, feeling a familiar headache coming on. ] I didn't want you to come.

[starspangled]

I know you didn't. We argued like cats and dogs about it, more than once.

[It frustrated him at the time, but Steve can't help but think back on it fondly know. He knows Bucky's reasons, what he was trying to do. If only he'd been half as good at protecting him.]

I kinda hope those days are behind us. Think they could be?

[The question makes him feel nervous, oddly vulnerable, because he's afraid of the answer. But no matter what it is, Steve's not giving up on him.]

[dislocked]

[ Bucky's silent for a long moment, not knowing what to think about that. It's strange, when the memories that stick to him are fragmented but powerful enough to break through the programming. Steve asks questions he doesn't know answers to, and he's not sure whether he should be angry at Steve or himself.

Steve Rogers, his oldest friend -- the man he couldn't let die when it came right down to it. Bucky will end up disappointing him, over and over again, in a hundred thousand little ways. But he still squares his shoulders, meets his eyes. They're both afraid and hurting, and he's not sure if there are right answers to anything. ]

I'm not the man you remember.