Lux Brumalis: "The light of winter"/"Winter's light."
After defeating the Flag Smashers and conquering his inner demons, Bucky is trying to live a quiet life in New York City. While being Cap's sidekick has brought him (mostly unwanted) fame and at...
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A/N: Academic jargon dictionary is at the bottom of the page! This might be the closest I've come to writing about my actual job lol and the closest I've come to writing about a very old breakup.
I only did what I had to do, I believed in me and you. - 8mm, "Bones"
They stand in the kitchen, Charlotte leaned up against the counter by the dripping sink that their landlord promised to repair months ago and never did. Luke's eyes are bloodshot from exhaustion and Charlotte can barely lift her coffee cup without feeling her hand shake. He's slept on the couch for three nights in a row. They haven't said a word to each other in almost four days. Charlotte doesn't even remember what the fight was about. They've been on the rocks for the last year, fighting constantly.
She hides herself away in her work, staying in her office until 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning when she knows he's gone home and gone to bed. Luke works in the Fine Arts department at NYU as a part-time professor. Charlotte is a PhD candidate. They work in two different departments across campus, so the chances of them running into each other when they have a fight are low unless one of them inevitably gives in and goes to apologize. It's usually Charlotte, but sometimes if the fight is bad enough, it's Luke who cracks first.
This time, though... this time it feels different. There's no malice in the fight, no slamming doors, just a sad acceptance that this has become their new normal. They're exhausted and broken. Charlotte takes a deep breath and turns around to pour the rest of her coffee in the sink. It's not doing anything to cure the exhaustion that lives so deep in her bones at this point, she doesn't think there's any way it'll find its way out.
"I'm going to go to work early—"
"Charlotte, I can't do this anymore," Luke says softly in his gorgeous Irish accent.
She looks over her shoulder and sighs.
"Luke, I know. I'm sorry, I don't even remember what we were fighting about. It's—"
"I think we should end things."
Tears prick her eyes and her throat clenches.
"What?"
"We fight all the time, Charlotte! About everything! Do you know what our last fight was about?"
She turns around, her entire body shaking. Her eyes are fixed to the floor."
"No."
"Neither do I!" Luke laughs. "I don't remember what the last ten fights have been about, but what I do know is that this isn't working anymore." When she looks up, he has tears in his eyes. "We aren't working anymore."
She knows. She feels it too. She's felt it for the past year. It's like both of them have been holding on to a cliff's edge, watching and doing nothing while their fingers begin to slowly slip. They've accepted their fate; accepted this fate.
