01 | 🕐 | audio

[mirrortouch]

[ It's not something that really ever becomes routine, it doesn't matter how often he wakes up someplace strange and uncharted. The voice on the line sounds about as scattered as he feels. ]

My name is Will Graham, it's- [ He's pulling back his sleeve to look for a watch that's not there. ] I don't have the time. I don't- I don't have the time.

[ Hang on, don't get too lost. ]

It's not clear to me exactly where I am, but- [ a dry laugh ] you probably already knew that. This isn't even my phone. But you probably knew that too.

[ He's missing details. He's missing plenty. His voice trails off for a short while before he can get his bearings enough to speak again, and even then it's almost unconsciously. ] I don't know. I don't know.

[ It's as if the fact that he has no idea sparks him back into the present. His voice grows more composed, if somewhat cracked. ] So if you're hearing this, if anyone is hearing this - [ is anyone hearing this? ] - any singular indication will be key.

[ Another beat. ]

I feel as though I've strayed a long, long way from home.

[ The air goes dead, and then so does the line. ]

Comments

[imfollowinghim]

Pretty much.

You like doing it?

[mirrortouch]

[ That's actually more difficult a question than he should be giving it credit for. ]

I'm saving lives.

[ Which isn't really a 'yes' or a 'no'. ]

[imfollowinghim]

Doesn't mean you like it.

[Sorry Will...]

[mirrortouch]

[ Heh. ] I guess it doesn't.

Were you a particular fan of the military before ending up here?

[imfollowinghim]

Why would ending up here change my mind?

[mirrortouch]

It wouldn't, not particularly.

But did you?

[imfollowinghim]

No. I'd do it again in a heartbeat, if I had to.

[mirrortouch]

And so would I.

There's a certain - feeling of justification in the traumatic but necessary. Working with the FBI ... has and could have broken me. [ Contradictory statements, but he presses on: ] But it doesn't make it any less important.

[imfollowinghim]

[Kind of makes you wonder how you wind up on the other side of the fence, here. But Bucky doesn't point that out, because he can be an asshole, but that's a pretty dick thing to say.]

Anyone who tries to tell me I made the wrong call really needs to pick up a goddamn book.

[mirrortouch]

Hey, I'm not arguing with that.

[ He has respect for Bucky, regardless. It comes with the job, partially with the fact that he's not one of the many people here just insisting that he's dead and he ought to work on that rehabilitation. ]

I'm no soldier. I can't say [ though he can imagine ] that I've been through the trauma of it, whatever may have happened behind the lines.

I was a cop once, though; they told me it wasn't the job for me. [ He smirks, a secret joke only for himself. ] Maybe the FBI isn't either, but it sure feels like it's where I'm meant to be placed.

[imfollowinghim]

[Thus far, Bucky doesn't doesn't really have anything but respect for Will too. Sure, maybe there's some wariness there, considering there's some chance he's lying about everything, but it's not hard to see some common ground here, and that common ground is probably better to focus on instead of giving him the sound and dance routine about redemption and shit.

God knows he wouldn't exactly be thrilled to hear all of that if their positions were reversed. And without knowing for sure what Will's in for, maybe they could have been.]

What kind of cases did you work?

[mirrortouch]

Whatever ones they couldn't figure out.

[ At first, mostly. ]

The twisted and ugly minds of those who find themselves with higher purposes in life but for all of the wrong rhymes and reasons.

Thus and largely, serial killers.

[imfollowinghim]

That's a rough thing to specialize in.

[Says the guy who specializes in blowing people's heads off, but. Yikes.]

[mirrortouch]

And the army isn't?

[ it's okay bucky he's gotchoo ]

There's a specific kind of - unsettling to the cases I find myself working on, especially [ and, oh, the stories he could tell ] but. Well, if it was either this or a boatyard -

[imfollowinghim]

Guess that's a little less glamorous.

[Which is said as half a joke and half not.]

Why a boatyard?

[mirrortouch]

Boats, as a general rule, haven't driven me wrong. [ A beat. ] Until now, I suppose.

[ But it's not enough to cause a certain disdain for them. ]

It would be quiet. I'd work with my hands and I would function. My father worked in a shipyard.

[ That's said with some mild disdain. He's not his father. ]

[imfollowinghim]

Well, my dad was in the army, so I can't really speak for how much better off you'd be following your old man.

[Again, it's not that he regrets it, but if he'd had some factory job or worked in an office or whatever the hell else and gotten lucky with the draft, maybe he wouldn't have gotten himself killed.]

[mirrortouch]

I'm not my old man.

[ He says it almost reproachfully, but there's definitely something clear-cut there, definitive. ]

But I'd much rather be saving lives than - [ Oh, he doesn't know. ]

Dwindling.

[imfollowinghim]

Sounds fair enough to me.