It's a distant snatch of wry thought that doesn't negate the confusion or dread or impulse to try to jerk free of the tubing, but all of those, too, are familiar. Steve's hand is already halfway to his head before he realizes that his fingers have broken the surface, blue fluid draining from around him; he grasps at empty air at the back of his head just as the tube down his throat starts to pull free, and there's nothing tugging on his arm, either, countering and slowing his reach: he's not jacked in. That's the first difference.
In the first moments when his body has to keep his airways open on its own Steve starts to cough, a gagging, constrictive sensation farther down in his lungs than the tube had reached, and at least he's already pushing back against the fear hard enough that this part is so much old hat. When he hits the— floor? wall? he's just a guy trying to breathe here — it's less kind than the long flush of extraction, but he'll take it. Steve well knows how to tolerate pain, and it's preferable to nearly drowning in human waste (best and impossible not to think of exactly how much human that meant). At least he's breathing air, even if it's like trying to inhale through cotton and hurts like hell. That's the second difference.
The next (maybe not last) is this: around him he sees others through the alternating gloom and flashes of red, in various stages of weakly pushing to their feet. Steve can't make that attempt and hope to draw a real breath any time soon, but— he's not alone. He's not sure why it's important, but something's changed, and he's come too far to have lost again what he came for. He presses one side of his forehead to the damp floor, temple throbbing to the cry of the alarms, and he manages to overcome the press of gravity enough to punctuate a cough with a weak thump of his fist to the floor beside him. Suck it up, Rogers, you've been hit harder than this.
It's a while before his body's willing to listen.
the lockers;
He doesn't let himself think too hard on the contents of the locker. Most of them have already been emptied by the time he's able to get up and move in that direction, but he only pauses briefly. He pulls on the jumpsuit, tying the arms around his waist to cinch it, then shrugs into the roughspun material of the light gray sweater, scratchier still for the flakes sticking to his skin. The blue pill he closes inside of a compass he hasn't seen in a good six months; on Peggy gazing up at him from inside even in the red dark washing out the newsprint photo. He straps the shield to his back, and the bag, with the rest of the locker's contents shoved inside, thumps hollowly against the wood when he puts that, also, over narrow shoulders.
He'd found, over the last six months, that it helped to fall back on old habits. Old ways of surviving when he didn't have a body that could do the heavy lifting. It's one breath at a time, and one step in front of the other. Now it takes Steve to where the ship (he's been in enough of them lately to recognize what he's in) slopes upward, broken and smooth all the way up. It's the light he fixes on regardless, but his breath is still coming thin, winded before he even starts, and it's one of the few times in his life that he's not sure he can make it.
He closes his eyes for a brief moment, thinking of the remembered shouts of his drill sergeant when he'd gone back to Jersey — he'd reflected once, in Zion, that it was easier to feel nostalgic about it when you weren't currently tangled in barbed wire, but it's oddly focusing right now — then starts to climb.
base camp;
The tents are a dead giveaway for a base camp, makeshift as it may be, but there's little relief upon seeing it, despite the knowledge that he's taken long enough getting here that he ought to make sure he's got a place to sleep before night falls. His clothes cover the jacks on his body, his hair grown long enough to mostly cover the one at the base of his skull, though the sticky mess of it may make that moot. He's clearly pale and in need of the place to rest, but instead he scans the area with sharp eyes as he comes nearer, like a man who intends to turn over every tent until he finds what he's looking for.
His certainty in that faint flicker of hope from earlier takes on a more stubborn edge the longer he holds on to it.
( please feel free to be the one who helps steve out of the tranquility! )
no subject
It's a distant snatch of wry thought that doesn't negate the confusion or dread or impulse to try to jerk free of the tubing, but all of those, too, are familiar. Steve's hand is already halfway to his head before he realizes that his fingers have broken the surface, blue fluid draining from around him; he grasps at empty air at the back of his head just as the tube down his throat starts to pull free, and there's nothing tugging on his arm, either, countering and slowing his reach: he's not jacked in. That's the first difference.
In the first moments when his body has to keep his airways open on its own Steve starts to cough, a gagging, constrictive sensation farther down in his lungs than the tube had reached, and at least he's already pushing back against the fear hard enough that this part is so much old hat. When he hits the— floor? wall? he's just a guy trying to breathe here — it's less kind than the long flush of extraction, but he'll take it. Steve well knows how to tolerate pain, and it's preferable to nearly drowning in human waste (best and impossible not to think of exactly how much human that meant). At least he's breathing air, even if it's like trying to inhale through cotton and hurts like hell. That's the second difference.
The next (maybe not last) is this: around him he sees others through the alternating gloom and flashes of red, in various stages of weakly pushing to their feet. Steve can't make that attempt and hope to draw a real breath any time soon, but— he's not alone. He's not sure why it's important, but something's changed, and he's come too far to have lost again what he came for. He presses one side of his forehead to the damp floor, temple throbbing to the cry of the alarms, and he manages to overcome the press of gravity enough to punctuate a cough with a weak thump of his fist to the floor beside him. Suck it up, Rogers, you've been hit harder than this.
It's a while before his body's willing to listen.
He doesn't let himself think too hard on the contents of the locker. Most of them have already been emptied by the time he's able to get up and move in that direction, but he only pauses briefly. He pulls on the jumpsuit, tying the arms around his waist to cinch it, then shrugs into the roughspun material of the light gray sweater, scratchier still for the flakes sticking to his skin. The blue pill he closes inside of a compass he hasn't seen in a good six months; on Peggy gazing up at him from inside even in the red dark washing out the newsprint photo. He straps the shield to his back, and the bag, with the rest of the locker's contents shoved inside, thumps hollowly against the wood when he puts that, also, over narrow shoulders.
He'd found, over the last six months, that it helped to fall back on old habits. Old ways of surviving when he didn't have a body that could do the heavy lifting. It's one breath at a time, and one step in front of the other. Now it takes Steve to where the ship (he's been in enough of them lately to recognize what he's in) slopes upward, broken and smooth all the way up. It's the light he fixes on regardless, but his breath is still coming thin, winded before he even starts, and it's one of the few times in his life that he's not sure he can make it.
He closes his eyes for a brief moment, thinking of the remembered shouts of his drill sergeant when he'd gone back to Jersey — he'd reflected once, in Zion, that it was easier to feel nostalgic about it when you weren't currently tangled in barbed wire, but it's oddly focusing right now — then starts to climb.
The tents are a dead giveaway for a base camp, makeshift as it may be, but there's little relief upon seeing it, despite the knowledge that he's taken long enough getting here that he ought to make sure he's got a place to sleep before night falls. His clothes cover the jacks on his body, his hair grown long enough to mostly cover the one at the base of his skull, though the sticky mess of it may make that moot. He's clearly pale and in need of the place to rest, but instead he scans the area with sharp eyes as he comes nearer, like a man who intends to turn over every tent until he finds what he's looking for.
His certainty in that faint flicker of hope from earlier takes on a more stubborn edge the longer he holds on to it.
( please feel free to be the one who helps steve out of the tranquility! )