INBOX

[frostythehitman]

JAMES (BUCKY) BARNES

Hey, this is James. Text me if you need me. Or leave me a message if you want, but I'm probably not going to listen to it because, seriously, this is 2017 and no one uses voicemail any more.

VOICE | TEXT | VIDEO | ACTION

Comments

[frostythehitman]

Where one is no difference at all and ten is totally, completely different?

[ He hums as he thinks about it, twiddling the ice cream spoon in his metal hand. ]

...Three.

[usurpers]

[ hm!! hm. ]

I’d say two or three, too. And I’m not bothered by it.

[frostythehitman]

Hah. I used to be.

But then I realized there isn't any difference between him and me. A person's just a jumble of memories, right? And I've already got most of his. All that's different is that I technically don't have a body count, but I tried pretty damn hard to fix that myself even before I remembered it. Which goes a pretty long way towards saying I'm the same guy.

[usurpers]

I remember that.

[ and the fact that back then eren was starting to feel his colors mesh from strictly black and white to grey, hm.

now all of him is as muddy as a thundercloud. ]

The only thing I see different about me now is the circumstance I’m in. [ he has a good life. a great, life, actually. he has a mother, a sister, his father in memory and in will, considering all of what he owns. he has a fiancé, he has a career, and he has a life to live now. it’s not three or four years, like he used to have. ] And— I wouldn’t want to be different.

[ because he knows who he is, to the core. eren jaeger doesn’t back down from responsibility or duty (no, he probably takes too much of it on his shoulders, is the problem) especially with this life, you know.

he has some comfort knowing he’d still do the same thing for life. ]

[frostythehitman]

Really? You wouldn't?

[ Even with everything he's remembered?

James doesn't know the full details of Eren's memories, but he knows enough that they can relate on some pretty horrific things.

And James considers those things enough that he, himself, would definitely want it to be different. He'd love to not be this person that he is. He'd love to go back to being that teenager two years ago. He may have been embarrassing, but at least he wasn't some criminal lost cause.

He doesn't see how Eren can embrace it so much as to be proud of it. ]

[usurpers]

[ eren doesn’t respond to this like he should. it’s quiet and he just fills his mouth with ice cream, looking at the screen but not really looking at it.

it’s not how he truly, truly feels, he’s lying about it. not directly to james, at least. it’s a lot of lying to himself. of course there’s a part of him that’d like to be happier, like he used to, but . . . ]

It’s hard to think I’d be ignorant again.