psl: Disney cartoons

[abyssum_invocat]

Sinthia often didn't sleep. It was difficult to sleep for long periods, and hard for her especially to get back to sleep if she'd already been woken by nightmares, so she stayed up and watched Disney until she felt tired enough to doze again. Sometimes it was movies, sometimes the old cartoons they'd produced, but the noise kept her mind occupied enough that she didn't worry over every tiny sound she heard.

Tonight it was a little animated cartoon, one with two hats and a song playing in the background, and Sinthia watched it lazily from her bed, the flickering light illuminating her face from where she lay against the pillows, humming with the song.

Comments

[noblecaptain]

Steve too had a problem with sleeping. For him, he'd slept so long that his body didn't want to miss a thing. Some days he went for hours until he was so exhausted that he crashed. It was a thing that he really needed to focus on, his body balance.

He was just quietly making his way back to his room when he heard the music. He smiled at her as he lingered in the doorway. The last thing he wanted to do was bother her, but he wouldn't mind some company either. "Sinthia," he murmured softly from the door frame. "Everything okay?"

[abyssum_invocat]

She lifted her head to look up at Steve, a slow smile blooming on her face as she curled her fingers in a little wave.

"Steve. Hi," Sinthia murmured, voice barely louder than the television. "I'm okay. Just couldn't go back to sleep. I have a lot to catch up on anyway. Sometimes this helps." The sights and sounds and styles of the things she watched taught her about the shaping of the world during the years she'd been either asleep or on a mission and unconcerned with anything but her target.

"Why are you up so late?"

[noblecaptain]

"Same. Can't sleep." Carefully, he entered the room and moved over to the other side of the bed. "I love this one. I remember seeing it in the cinema with Bucky when we were younger." He turned to the television, smiling fondly as he watched the cartoon.

"I love the song. The Andrews Sisters, I think."

Turning back to Sin, he couldn't help but notice how little she was wearing. Steve had on a tight t-shirt and a pair of sleep pants. "Uh, can I, um, can I watch it with you?"

[abyssum_invocat]

"I like the cartoons," she said quietly, sliding over to make room for Steve on the bed. Thankfully she was wearing the pajamas Bucky had gotten her to keep her from stealing his all the time; the set had a camisole and short tap pants that kept her mostly decent at least. Not that it covered much more than it had to.

"It's easy to watch. Nothing horrible happens." She folded her legs up to make sure Steve had space since he was broader than her, and motioned for him to join her. "You can watch it with me. We can keep each other company."

[noblecaptain]

Steve smiled and scooted on the bed, making sure to sit over the covers and not under them. His eyes glanced back to the television as he focused on the cartoons and not his best friend's girl beside him. "Cartoons are easy, aren't they," he murmured softly.

He looked over at her as he spoke. "Happy endings. Nothing traumatic. They can convey a meaning and still make you smile." He shrugged his shoulders, running a hand through his hair. "I didn't think they still aired these. It's nice to know they're not forgotten."

[abyssum_invocat]

"They are," Sinthia replies, looking over at Steve. "Easy. It's not like watching other channels on this, it's all just the same. People are angry and scared and violent everywhere." And it didn't help her to see it everywhere, so she avoided news channels. Anything that important would filter around the others and she could pick it up eventually. Or Bucky would tell her.

"You don't have to be nervous, Steve. About being here." She lifted a shoulder in a shrug. "Bucky knows I don't sleep a lot. He'd be okay with you spending time with me."

[noblecaptain]

Steve looked over at her, his smile almost shy. "Oh, I know. Bucky and I have been friends a long time. He knows that you're safe with me," he teased. "It's not so much about the nervous as I'm trying not to see something I shouldn't, Sin."

He wondered just where she had dug up the cartoon online. "If it's something important, we'll tell you." His smile faded a little. "People told me that we won the war while I was asleep. Still seems like a lot of fighting is going on. Sure doesn't feel like we won."

[abyssum_invocat]

"Please don't call me that," she said softly, turning her head down and her face away from Steve. She reached for the robe that had gone with the pajamas, shrugging into it though she didn't like being tangled up in fabric while she slept.

"My father used to call me that."

Sinthia brushed her hair back behind her ear, now long enough to catch and stay tucked away from her face. Bucky had told her to grow it out. "They put me to sleep not very long before you came to where we were, and I wasn't woken up again until I had a mission. I don't remember much of the war. It doesn't feel quite...real when I read about it in books."

[noblecaptain]

"Sinthia. I'm sorry." He lost his focus on the television, instead turning to face her and focus on her fully. His head tilted to the side and he watched her, wanting to reach out to her but stopping himself from doing so.

He was quiet, biting his bottom lip, hesitating. "You're not that person anymore. Like Bucky. You're both growing, learning, better people. You know that, right?" He sighed. "You're safe here."

[abyssum_invocat]

"I know. Bucky keeps telling me it's safe here and that I'm not... That I don't have to do the things we did when we were assets," Sinthia replied, voice wavering. She trusted Steve almost as much as she did Bucky, and she hadn't made any move to turn the cartoons off or make him leave. It just bothered her to be called that name again.

"Sin is what they used to call me. I don't like that name or what it means, Steve. It means I'm not a person anymore, just an object. Something you can program and reset and play with until it does what you want."

[noblecaptain]

"Hey, it doesn't mean that at all. It's just a nickname..." Inching closer, Steve wrapped an arm around her shoulders and hugged her, letting his hand rub against her shoulder. He remembered how Bucky felt when he'd finally got the programming out of his head, how he'd worried Hydra would still come for him. He didn't blame either of htem for being scared.

He wondered if it was nightmares that kept her up. That sometimes happened to Bucky.

"Okay, we'll think up a new nickname for you, okay Sinthia?" He sighed, holding her close. "You're not an asset anymore. You're not an object. Nothing will happen to you if the reset of us have anything to say about it."

[abyssum_invocat]

"I don't want anyone to hear it," she murmured, letting Steve wrap his arm around her and letting herself be pulled close. It was hard to put into words, the fear that the scattered HYDRA would regroup and come after them again, though it sent her heart kicking into panic if she thought on it too long.

"It's hard to remember how to not be an asset sometimes. I spent so long not being anything else," Sinthia explained, laying her head on Steve's shoulder. "I just didn't want to keep him awake. It's why I was watching the cartoons alone."

[noblecaptain]

"Yeah, we all kind of are light sleepers around here. Bucky and I are the worst, or we were before you showed up." His hand moved up to her head, stroking her hair as he held her close. He didn't want her to be upset. "Won't let anyone hear it. We'll get you a nickname, okay?"

His head nodded. "Sometimes I don't know how to be anything but a soldier. Living life. White picket fences. That's a world I never thought I'd ever be able to live in." He sighed. "Sometimes I wonder if I'm better off being a soldier." He sighed, glancing up at the television. "I know. I'm here. I'll watch them with you."

[abyssum_invocat]

"I don't sleep well when I'm alone," she confessed quietly. "But when I try to sleep next to Bucky I get confused when I wake up. I don't mean to try to hurt him, but it happens." She still remembered trying to strangle him in her sleep, though she'd been unsuccessful, thankfully.

Sinthia let Steve stroke her hair and comb through it, loosing the strands so the air from the fan blew them across her cheek as the television changed again. "I know it's hard for you. Everyone wants you to always be Captain America, all the time. Bucky says with him you're just Steve, and...that's okay with me too. You can just be Steve."

[noblecaptain]

"We make a good trio, don't we?" Steve laughed, gently holding her as he felt her start to relax. "It's hard when you wake up and you're not sure where you are. I've been there. Honest. Sometimes I still feel worried I'm going to wake up under the ice or something." He sighed. "Thankfully Bucky and I can handle ourselves," he murmured.

Looking down at her, he smiled. "At least we all can just be us. No nicknames. No assets. No weapons. Just... Just us."

[abyssum_invocat]

"I'm trying." Bucky and Steve had the gift of already being easygoing around each other; they were still learning how they fit together after the changes to both of them, and Sinthia understood that. But she was an entirely new, not-yet-quantified variable in this equation. She was trying not to throw it all out of balance.

"Just us," she echoed, growing more comfortable with the way Steve held her against his side. "Do you think...am I only Bucky's girl? Or am I yours too?"

[noblecaptain]

"And we know that." He smiled as he leaned down, kissing the top of her head. "We're all trying. We're all a little broken inside. The best way to heal is for us all to do it together." He just hoped she understood what he was trying to say.

Steve took a breath, pausing as he thought about her question. "But, you are Bucky's girl." He pulled back a little so he could look into her eyes. "You're my friend. I care about you. Do you... Do you know what it means to be someone's girl?" He sighed. "There... There's a meaning to it. You... Have you talked to Bucky?"

[abyssum_invocat]

"Not since he went to bed," she answered, tilting her head back so she could look up at him. In truth she'd simply never questioned the meaning of being someone's girl: Sinthia had always assumed it had denoted order of precedence in comfortable relationships. Since Bucky was the first one of them she'd ever relaxed around.

She knew she'd asked a strange question by Steve's answer. She just didn't know why it was strange. "What does it mean?"

[noblecaptain]

Steve sighed. "So, at least where we come from, being someone's girl means that you're with them and them only. Another word for it is monogamous. Like, you love them, you date them and you're only with them." He paused, looking up at her. "So, I... I would think you're dating Bucky."

He hesitated. "That said, there are other people who look at it differently. They love who they love and they can't settle down with one person, so they'll have two or three boyfriends or girlfriends. They will share." His eyes narrowed and he looked at her with concern. "What do you feel in your heart?"

[abyssum_invocat]

She was quiet a while after that, trying to piece together how she felt--or what of it she could recognize--into something she had words for.

"I don't know," she settled, voice quiet. "I like Bucky. He makes me feel...less like an outsider. He understands what it's like, and we don't try to make each other talk. But I like you too. You make me feel safe." Both of them did, just in different ways. The solidity of Steve's frame when they were leaned together on the couch was entirely unlike the weight of Bucky's arm resting against her waist at night or curled around her back when she shook in the grip of some kind of nightmare memory. But both of them helped.

"We didn't ever talk about this. It's just...neither of us sleep well when we're alone."

[noblecaptain]

Steve nodded his head in agreement. Sometimes, rare times, he had found his way into Nat's bed. It was never anything romantic, just not wanting to be alone. He too had nightmares he never discussed with anyone, except sometimes Natasha. He didn't want Bucky to feel responsible.

"I can understand that. Bucky. You, you both have been through a lot." He sighed. "And you are safe here. You and Bucky. I will never let anything happen to either of you if I can help it."

Reaching down, he found her hand and gave it a squeeze. "He's a good teddy bear."

[abyssum_invocat]

"So are you," she answered; she knew what a teddy bear was, though she'd had to re-learn it. The concept was nice.

"I don't want to have to have to choose between you," Sinthia murmured, lacing her fingers around Steve's and staring at their hands. "I want to be around both of you."

[noblecaptain]

"I'm trying. Bucky and I are both a bit bulky, not really cuddle creatures," he teased.

He gazed down at her, gently rubbing her knuckles with his thumb. "You need to have this conversation with Bucky too. He has a right to know and decide..." He sighed softly. "I don't know if he'd share you. I don't want to hurt him. He is my best friend."

[abyssum_invocat]

"It doesn't have to be cuddly. When I sit between you I feel...happy. Content," Sinthia corrected. Like she was safe and warm and protected, and that was good.

"I don't want to wake him up right now. But...I'll talk to him. I don't think you'll hurt him by sitting with me, though." They were clothed, watching cartoons, and nothing inappropriate was happening. She desperately didn't want to lose Steve's friendship even if the question of them dating was answered. "You're getting furrier like a teddy bear, too."

She had indeed noticed Steve hadn't shaved.

[noblecaptain]

"We can talk to him in the morning. And I don't think he'd care." Steve inched closer, holding her in a careful embrace. "That is what friends do, we take care of each other and we support each other. He knows that."

Steve has the grace to blush, reaching up to scratch at his jaw with his other hand. "Yeah, well... I should shave, shouldn't I?" He looked down at her. "It's not a bad feeling, being lazy. You okay with it?"

[abyssum_invocat]

"I'm okay with you not shaving," she said, close to a laugh as she smiled up at him, playing her fingertips over his jaw. "It looks nice on you."

It was a little scratchy, but less prickly than Bucky's usual day's-growth that he shaved off. She didn't mind either way, it just made them feel different. "It's nice to be able to be lazy."

[noblecaptain]

"Are you now?" Steve laughed, leaning into her touch. His eyes closed and he smiled at the feel of her fingers against his skin. A shiver ran through him. "Nat said I look like I'm wearing an animal," he joked.

It felt good, being close to her. His arm around her tightened a little. "It's nice to have friends to be lazy with."

[abyssum_invocat]

Sinthia leaned into the firmer embrace and settled herself against Steve comfortably, laying her head on his shoulder. "Natasha is biased," she teased softly. "I like it. It's soft."