Routine Adjustments, Catch-All Log for February [Open+Closed prompts]

[worthallthis]

characters: Soldat etc, open and closed prompts
location: Various, see each prompt
date/time: February 4 - 15, non-event stuff
content: Some new additions to the usual routine, some quiet grieving, and some dancing
warnings: Just the usual Bucky shit


I. Expanded Patrols, All Over + Invincible [Open]

With downtown open, and so far away in the snow, patrols take a little longer. Soldat spends a week in early February balancing locations until they find the optimum route for the morning and afternoon patrols (or, the 0500 and 1600 patrols, since there's no real morning or afternoon in a world of endless night). After that, snow and ice or not, they can be found reliably following one looping path or the other, depending on the time of day. Sometimes with company, sometimes not. Sometimes stopping at the scrapyard to give the dog-spirit a treat and sift through the junk in search of something useful. Sometimes wandering the halls of the school, wondering what it would have been like to attend one. Sometimes glowering at the mall downtown with the stupid crocodile spirits in the lower level.

And after, lingering in the warm Invincible tavern room and kitchen, listening to people, playing music softly on their tablet, and munching idly on sandwiches or whatever Midge has made that day while they play a newly remembered boredom-dispelling game: solitaire.

They're willing to segue into poker, should anyone come to join them before they get up to clean their dishes in the kitchen and go home to sleep.


II. Expanded Hours, Gym [Open]

Wednesday and Friday, like clockwork, after the 1600 patrol along the downtown loop, Soldat is at the gym with Javert and Jason for weapons and survival lessons or, if no one shows up for those, sparring and practice. Because practicing outside is kind of dumb when it's freezing, and because the trees behind Aziraphale and Crowley's cabin are starting to look rather worst for wear, Soldat winds up adding another day during the week-- sometimes Monday, sometimes Saturday, whenever they have time. They just show up at the rec center and throw knives at things, slash at imaginary opponents all across the gym floor, and hit things with the flesh fist (the metal one doesn't need to practice; it's a machine).

Feel free to join in. Or watch and wolf-whistle. Whatever.


III. Fading Hope, Church [Open]

Between actual routine activities, Soldat has spare time. They don't normally like spare time, and try to find useful ways to fill it, but the first week or so of February, it's good that they have it, because they spend most of it in the church.

Scarlett, their very first friend since Steve Rogers, had an obituary. Scarlett has been gone for possibly weeks. Scarlett might still come back, and Soldat wants to be there when she does. Or at least find her as soon after as possible. Make sure she's all right.

So they sit in a pew near the back, feet propped unrepentantly on the pew back in front of them, and hold a notebook over their knees, sometimes writing (slow and halting, occasionally hasty scribbles), sometimes just staring at the blank pages. Waiting.


IV. Buck Up, Sad Boy [Closed to Misty]

Scarlett is gone, apparently for good, but. Well. They're not. And other people are not. And they can only wallow in Sad for so long before the Sergeant nags them into doing something they enjoy, even with the Asset apparently enjoying the mope. So after clearing out Scarlett's things from her old room (boxing up the more personal effects in their own room, distributing her canned food supply to the store), they head to Misty's.

They have a plan. This will cheer them both up, they hope. So they knock, tablet already out and clutched to their chest, and hope she's awake.


V. Dragged Along for Research [Closed to Sora]

The library is not really Soldat's favorite place, but here they are anyway, trailing along behind Sora, looking around at the books in a somewhat blank and lost manner. There's so damn many. How do you even know where to start.

Thankfully, that's what hyperactive teenagers are for. Start them in the right direction, Sora. Or at least start them somewhere.


VI. Wildcard

Got an idea not on here for something you'd like to do with Soldat before the memshare event? Hit me up, I am open to p much anything and everything.

Comments

[worthallthis]

Soldat twitches all over when Aziraphale drops onto the pew next to them, looking up sharply from their current notebook scribblings and blinking once. That's Aziraphale. The angel. Who's been missing for the past week.

The notebook gets tossed aside and their feet come down so they can turn around and grab Aziraphale's wrist, which isn't much in the way of contact, but still more than they've done voluntarily. "Aziraphale! Where have you been! I was afraid you'd gotten eaten by something!"

[lunchbreaks]

Aziraphale nearly jumps out of his seat when Bucky takes his wrist.

"Oh--"

Oh, that's almost sweet.

"--I wasn't feeling right. And you know, Crowley needed the bed, he's asleep. Didn't want to... transfer it to him, so I. Ah, left."

It's technically the truth.

[worthallthis]

Aziraphale wasn't feeling well. In the middle of everyone's lanterns malfunctioning. So he just decided to vanish. They stare at him for a long moment in baffled consternation, before coming up with, "And you couldn't leave a fucking note?" Soldat shakes his wrist once, not gently exactly, but not hard enough to hurt. Just hard enough to make a point, that they're holding it, and want him to maybe pay attention and shape up a little.

Look, just because you make them nervous, doesn't mean they don't care about you, angel, Jesus. Living in that house alone with just Crowley asleep in the next room was more torture than spending half that event with all the metal in their body going nuts and slicing up their back.

[lunchbreaks]

Aziraphale looks at his wrist and then jerks it away. "No. I couldn't have you coming after me, or anyone, to be honest, and it wasn't-- It's very complicated, but I assure you that I acted out of safety for everyone else around me."

"Would've... been best, if everyone had just assumed I had died and would be returning in a week," he admits.

[worthallthis]

They let him go, snatching their hand back at the first sign that Aziraphale doesn't approve of the contact. They absolutely overstepped there, but Jesus, who wouldn't? They look back at the pew in front of them, torn between frustration, relief that their housemate is in fact all right, the familiar spike of fear, and stupidly wanting to cry. (Why does everything make us want to fucking cry lately? No. Shut up, Asset.) None of it shows on their face, at least.

But their voice is maybe a little bit wobbly when they say, "You are a technician. If you tell me to do something, I do it. I wouldn't have followed if you said not to." They can't criticise him more than that. But being left alone and not knowing what had happened was almost worse than the threat of punishment.

[lunchbreaks]

"I couldn't risk it," he answers, firmly. "And, besides. I am back. I am healed." He crosses his arms over his chest. "If I had been gone longer, I would've written a letter. Couldn't very well get the spirits sick either; I'd've had to have gone into isolation."

[worthallthis]

Soldat considers, seriously considers, telling Aziraphale that they're like 98% sure they can't get sick, that whatever HYDRA did to them made it impossible. So it would have surely been fine. But that is "I am done with your backtalk" body language, which means they've already probably protested too much as it is. So instead, they pick up their notebook again and slowly fold it closed. "You're back. That's good. The house won't be as empty."

[lunchbreaks]

"Yes," Aziraphale replies, happy to change the subject and look at Soldier again.

"Have you-- have you been taking care of Crowley?" He asks, hopeful. "I wouldn't have-- wouldn't have left if you weren't around to do so."

[worthallthis]

Not that there's much to do for someone who sleeps all day. "I checked on him. When I was myself, I checked on him. I tried to wake him up once or twice." They look at their closed notebook, on their knees now, and add, "Left him an origami fox."

[lunchbreaks]

"Oh," Aziraphale says. "That's sweet. He likes foxes." Aziraphale had also left some letters on his pillow, and had probably braided Crowley's hair for the day before leaving that day.

"And... what have you been doing recently?"

[worthallthis]

Sora had asked what animals would go with which friends, from the ones Soldat knows how to make, and fox had seemed so natural they had to make him one right then and there. (Sora is a frog. Misty, of course, is a crane. None of the animals Soldat knows how to make really fit Aziraphale well enough.)

They don't look up, but do look aside a little. Well, if anyone would understand sitting in the church in all their free time, Aziraphale would.... "Waiting. Scarlett was in the obituaries." Does Aziraphale even know who Scarlett is? They probably don't exactly move in the same kinds of circles. Scarlett kind of doesn't move in any circles, as far as Soldat could tell.

[lunchbreaks]

"Oh, Scarlett," he says. "I've seen her before. Talked to her, I can stay with you awhile if you'd like the company. Otherwise, you know, someone should probably stay with Crowley. No green-eyed monsters, I hope, but just in case."

[worthallthis]

"Won't stay too long. Got a schedule to keep to." Plus, they wind up getting really mopey if they stay sitting in here too long. "But maybe for a little while. If you want to. The kid stayed there some, when I couldn't, so. He hasn't been along for longer than my patrols."

The kid being Sora. Aziraphale will know well enough by now that Soldat never uses Sora's name, at Sora's own request. Since he's the only one Soldat refers to as "the kid", it's usually clear enough.

[lunchbreaks]

"Oh, alright, I'll stay with you until you leave for your patrol," he says. "How are those coming? Is Sora helping?" he asks; he wasn't given the instructive not to use his name.

[worthallthis]

Soldat doesn't judge. Sora has told different people different things regarding his name(s), so Aziraphale is perfectly within his rights to use the actual name. "We meet up for the second half of my 1600 patrol and sometimes dinner. We're working on his observation skills." Sora is, in many ways, a pretty typical teenager: he is distractable, often stuck inside his own head, and not great at noticing things. Not great traits for someone on a patrol.

[lunchbreaks]

"Ooh," Aziraphale answers, curiously. "And how is that going?" He hadn't thought of Sora as someone who would immediately come to mind when thinking about patrolling, but he has been wrong before in the past.

[worthallthis]

Soldat considers this a moment. "All right. Slow. I try to make it a game. Find this many red things, tell me where they were. Find this many trees that are climbable, describe them. Sometimes I put things on his route to find." It's kind of fun for them. Not entirely sure how fun it is for Sora, but they do think he's getting better. It's just a slow process, like learning any new skill.

[lunchbreaks]

"Like a scavenger hunt. How wonderful. Perhaps when Crowley is awake again I might come with the two of you one time," he offers. "It seems like the sort of game I'd enjoy!"

[worthallthis]

That earns him a look that edges into amused surprise. "You want to train your observation skills?" Or he just wants to play a game, maybe.

[lunchbreaks]

"Oh, yes," he says. "I think that might be important here. After all, I've always sort of got my head stuck in the clouds." Good investigational skills, though, when he applies himself.

[worthallthis]

Well. If Aziraphale really wants that. Soldat smiles a bit at the thought of teaching their own technician something. An angel technician, who should honestly have had thousands of years of time to hone observation skills, but pretty obviously never even considered doing so. (Will this be a good thing or a problem, with him dealing with us? Dunno. He has to actually try, first. Or fail. New words, there, Asset? No.)

"Okay," they say, while the Sergent snipes at the Asset. "Want me to start sending you the same things I send the kid? Just once a day. A little list of things to find. You can tell me when I come home where you found them."

[lunchbreaks]

"Oh, yes! I do love a good mystery," he comments, and what is trying to find something out but a mystery?

Plus, he needs to get out of the house. He's increasingly worried about Crowley, and it just simply won't help him to stew in the negativity.

[worthallthis]

Soldat would probably agree. Getting out of the house is good for everybody. (Just don't stay out of the house for multiple weeks, Aziraphale.) "I'll do that, then. When I leave for my 0500 patrol. Starting tomorrow, unless you want something now."

[lunchbreaks]

"Oh, no, I'll give you some time to prepare. I just came to pray and... possibly grocery shop, and..." And go home and sadly read books to Crowley in an effort to wake him up.

[worthallthis]

"Yes." Soldat knows what the end of that statement would have been, at least in gist. Checking on Crowley. "Tomorrow morning, then." It'll at least be something they can talk about each day. It might be nice to have something set, that neither of them have to think too hard to come up with. And getting Aziraphale's head out of the clouds might in fact be a good thing.

Might as well both check on Crowley. It's getting time to move, anyway, and moping in the church longer will just make them sad. They put away their pen and pick up their notebook again. "Let's go back. I'll make lunch before I go out again."