Chapter Text
Silver of the moon drowns in the dirty yellow of numbered street lamps. The wind brushes gentle against the sidewalk, still warm from the day’s blazing heat. It moves in a whirl of quiet towards the openings of life, living spaces where living do their living. Newspapers catch onto its tail, a woman with patched skirts pushing a cart sends a muttered prayer of gratefulness when it wipes the sweat off her forehead.
Sounds of laughter roll into the flections as it shuffles through a group of men and women, music pooling into the street. It carries of a few notes to a cat two alleys away, who perks its ears in the middle of chasing a rat down a manhole. Night loses a few shades as a stray cloud swallows the moon.
For a still moment, it loses momentum, tangled in the leaves of a willow oak before the night sighs, breezing through the streets of Brooklyn, leaving wisps and whiffs of it at windows left open.
“Remind me again why you have the better bed?” Bucky asks as he closes his eyes to the wind whirling lethargically through the open window, drying the sweat on his skin.
“So that I can breathe, asshole” Steve says, elbowing him in the rib. “And you have the better bed in winter.”
“And that’s why you should share. Come winter, I give you my precious body heat so that you aren’t cold.”
“As long as you stay on your side of the bed, I don’t mind sharing. I just don’t want you all sticky up my side by morning.”
“You hurt my feelings.”
“Is that why you have that shitty smile on your face?”
“Shh, Steve. I think I felt a little breeze.”
His profile is a marvel in the dim light coming through the window. Steve watches him with a habitual intent, eyes skimming down the arch of his eyebrows, across the bridge of his nose, the full curve of his lips, reminiscent of an inverted staircase climbing down to the plains of his jaw, lower to his neck, where his adam’s apple is prominent against the soft orange light.
“Bucky.”
“Mmm?” he hums, Steve feels the sound vibrate through the nearly bare mattress save for a single thin sheet stretched over it.
His stomach knots, a wave of sweat completely unrelated to the August’s suffocating heat comes over him.
“You saw them, haven’t you?” he asks, glad that he sounds much calmer than he feels, convincingly casual.
Bucky opens his eyes, staring straight up at the ceiling. He doesn’t answer right away but Steve already knows. He knows the moment Bucky opens his eyes.
“Yeah.”
For one stretched moment, there is only two sets of heartbeats Steve’s sure they can both feel through the damn mattress. His mouth goes dry.
“Was it the wind?”
“Yeah.” Bucky gives a small nod. Then his head turns to meet his eyes. Steve’s heart stutters.
“How did you know?”
“I know you wouldn’t go through them.”
Bucky holds his gaze, quiet for nearly an entire minute before he mutters, “I wish I had before.”
Steve swallows the spit he doesn’t have, looks away, down at the mattress between them. Bucky had asked him during dinner what he had done today, like he had done nearly every evening before that and Steve had said that he had sketched a bit, like he too had done so many times before that and Steve had kept his eyes on him, to gauge his reaction, to see a hint on his face that he had seen what he had been sketching all this time. Bucky had nodded, managing a ‘Good’ around a spoonful of bean stew. He had almost fooled him. Almost. Save for the split second glance he had shot across the room, where Steve’s sketchbook sat on the coffee table, Bucky’s ashtray still on it. They had talked about his work, about Steve going back to his own in two days. They had talked about the war in the newspapers. The possibility of it reaching all the way there. They had talked like they had every night before that, except, Bucky held his gaze. All night, as Steve ate, as he brushed off Bucky’s concerns for his health, as he told him about the neighbor across the street that unknowingly dumped his trash down his window onto a copper. Bucky held his gaze, steady and warm and Steve felt increasingly certain that he had seen, that he knew. He knew.
“You don’t need to worry about it”, he manages with a low voice, still unable to meet his eyes.
“What do you mean?” Bucky asks, right away.
“I mean…” and now, Steve meets his gaze, suddenly realizing how small his stupid single bed is, how Bucky is just a head away from him. “I mean nothing has to change. I’ve…” It isn’t exactly new, he wants to say. I’ve felt this way for years and never wanted you to be anything other than what you are. It isn’t worth risking it, he wants to say. I’m fine as long as you are my friend.
Words get stuck in his throat. “I’ve got it,” he says instead.
Bucky is still staring at him, eyes intrusive but infinitely gentle. Dark for reasons Steve can’t comprehend.
“And is that what you want?” he asks.
Steve stares at him without understanding. What do you mean if that’s what I want?
What do you mean if that’s what I want?
Bucky frowns a little, makes a little jerk with his jaw, “Or let me ask this way, do you think that’s what I want?”
Steve can do nothing but gape at him, heart racing in his chest, his last breath still locked behind his throat. He watches sheepishly as Bucky turns to his side, facing him fully and then he is reaching out with his hand and then its pressing warm against his own and Steve cannot register the feeling until his eyes follow the gesture, until he has visual proof that on this mucky damn August night, Bucky has reached across their single bed and held his hand.
When he looks up again Bucky’s eyes are barely visible with the street lamps casting an orange halo around his head. They are alight in shadow, like sparks on a flint stone and when he speaks, his voice is low, deep, thrown off with something so profound Steve can’t breathe.
“I am not an artist, Steve. I can’t give you a sketchbook full of drawings to show you how I see you…” His thumb brushes against the skin of his wrist.
“But I can tell you. And if you let me,” he moves closer, forehead inches away from pressing against Steve’s. “I can show you.”
This is happening. This is actually happening, is all Steve can think as he releases an excruciating breath held in too long. Bucky’s face is just a breath away from his, eyes still locked to his own. His hand keeps brushing circles on his skin and Steve with all the wit and rash God has put liberally in him, cannot form a single sentence in reply.
“I-what?” he blurts and Bucky is smiling and then he pulls his hand up in between them, pressing it against his lips. Soft as morning dew in April that gathers on their clothes hung out to dry and warmer than how sunlight feels after a cold winter; bone deep and listless, they linger on his skin for so long Steve thinks that some distant shred of the universe has torn apart and time has stopped. Bucky finds his gaze again.
“The first time I wanted to hold your hand, Mayfield brothers had pushed you into that ditch behind the school. I wanted to help get you out but you kept refusing my hand. You were just nine, stubborn as a mule, prideful like a prince. You wanted to climb out of it on your own. And I could do nothing but watch you try over and over again, feeling my gut wrench every time you slid back down to the bottom. When you finally got out, you had this huge grin on your face. You had a purple eye and your lip was split and there you were, grinning like you had conquered the world. I wanted to hold your hand all the way home. Not cause I thought you needed it. Cause I thought if I did, I thought maybe I could be half as strong as you are.”
Bucky says all this without pause, never breaking his gaze, never letting go of his hand and Steve feels his throat tighten, his heart swelling in his chest in a way he can’t control. He had kept his gaze barren, devoid of all that fills him to the brim, had restrained the impulses of his hands, swallowed confessions blooming on his tongue for so long, something stretches taut in him, on the verge of breaking. He struggles to hold on, fearful of the voice in him that tells him it can’t mean what he thinks it means, that there is no way Bucky could think of him the way Steve did of him for years without his knowing.
Bucky moves Steve hand into his left to free his right hand and then he is cupping the side of his face and his eyes are molded to his, dark, his voice trembling.
“The first time I realized how much I wanted to kiss you was when Sarah Covington told me you had really nice lips. I was dating her then and she said if you were willing to do a bit more with your lips other than mouthing off bullies, you could get any girl you wanted. I didn’t see her again. I told myself it was cause I wasn’t interested in her but it was cause I was jealous. I watched you… “ Bucky leans in, eyes traveling south. Steve’s hand tightens in Bucky’s hold, his heart sore in his chest with a decade-old abuse, he feels like crying.
“I watched your lips for days after that. I drove myself crazy with want.” Bucky whispers against his lips and the feel of his breath is enough to snap the pressure mounting in his gut. Steve surges forward, Bucky presses in and then they are kissing and Steve feels ashamed for the way he can’t slow down, he can’t ease in, he is just naked hunger and a kind of desire so desperate he is tearing up with the release and Bucky kisses back with just as much need, he only lasts for a moment before Steve’s moan seems to unravel him and he cards his fingers through the nape of Steve’s neck and then his tongue is meeting Steve’s and they both gasp at the sensation before Steve pulls him back in with hands in his hair and they are diving, surging and surfacing only for breaths too superficial to feed their lungs and Steve is so dizzy he doesn’t know where the ceiling is, what he is lying on, what he is pressed against. It’s all Bucky.
“The first time,” Bucky pants, lips hovering over Steve’s. “… the first time I knew I loved you was the night you nearly died in my arms.” He runs the tip of his nose against his cheek, eyes closed, lashes wet. Steve brushes his thumbs against his eyes, his heart alight, cupping his face, holding him like he has wanted to hold him for the better part of his life.
“I knew before then,” Bucky continues, staring into his eyes. “I always knew, but that night I accepted it. I knelt by your bed that night and prayed to God to spare you. That I’d do anything, be anything, accept anything if he only spared you. I held you in my arms all night and twice I was sure you had stopped breathing and I kept telling you I loved you, that I couldn’t live if I lost you, that if it was the end of the line, it was for me too.”
“Bucky,” Steve sobs against his lips and holds him tight and they stay still, breathing each other in with foreheads pressed until their past settles in the shadows of their room, until they are calmer, quieter. They reach with anything they can, coiling so that they can’t be undone. Bucky keeps kissing him; tender, drawn-out kisses that somehow feel deeper than the ones before and Steve runs his fingers through his hair, slicked with sweat at the nape of his neck, smooth against his skin. Bucky’s lips part from his and then they are against the side of his neck and Steve gasps, heels of his feet pushing against the mattress. Bucky leaves lengthy, open mouthed kisses on his neck, lips closing around the back of his ear at last and Steve’s fingers dig into his scalp, a tremulous moan climbing in his throat.
Bucky’s breath fans against his ear and he is panting when he speaks.
“I don’t remember.. the first time.. I wanted to touch you. But I know.. I’ve been thinking about you.. every time.. I had my hand down my pants since I was sixteen… Nothing else does it for me.”
Steve curses through gritted teeth and pulls Bucky half on top of him, sliding his hands in his shirt, desperate to feel skin. Bucky lets out a throaty groan at that, lips finding his mouth with fervor yet again. It isn't long before Steve claims his lips. They kiss long and hard and then Steve is pressing against him and Bucky presses back down and they gasp in unison once more, before Bucky’s hand runs down the side of Steve’s body, coming to a stop over his hipbone.
“Please.. let me touch you,” he mutters hoarsely against his lips and Steve’s nails scratch all the way down his back in response and Bucky is cursing and Steve is begging him to do it and there is nothing smooth or hesitant about it before Bucky is palming him in his shorts and Steve arches against him, Bucky’s name on his lips. It doesn't take long until Steve is undone, much shorter than how long they have been kissing but the release is so powerful it nearly knocks the lights out of him and he falls spent on the mattress with Bucky’s face pressed against his chest and he has his arms wrapped around Bucky’s head, swimming in sweat.
Steve listens as the pound of his pulse in his ears recedes and the sounds of the night catches up to him. The whisper of the wind, the screech of cicadas and music slowly register through the languid buzz surging through him. Bucky’s arms are tight around his torso, his ear laid over his heart and Steve runs his fingers through his hair, wondering how the two of them could have felt the same, known the same, withhold the same for a decade through thick and thin and it was just some damn wind that knocked it all to shambles around them. He wonders how many times they had come an inch away from this before, how many times by sheer luck or intention they have avoided it and doesn’t dare wonder for the ache in his heart, what would have happened if Bucky hadn’t seen his sketches.
“I love you, Buck.” Steve whispers, and it’s dark so Bucky shouldn’t be able to see his tears but when he raises his head and gazes at him, Steve isn’t ashamed, he doesn’t hide, doesn’t pretend. Bucky moves to kiss his tears and then the salt from his eyes is on his lips, on his tongue and Bucky holds him tight, settling around him with Steve’s back to his chest.
“Don’t regret that it happened now and not before,” he tells him and Steve curls against him and Bucky kisses his hair, a hand cupping his face. “Remember that Future Fair we went to last year? That Russian scientist with crazy white hair, talking about universes in universes?”
“Yeah?”
“He said we might have lived a million lives. That we were living hundreds of other lives at once. If that’s true, and if you know that I love you in just one of them, you’d know it in all of them cause in our souls we are the same people. No matter the universe Stevie, no matter who you are and no matter who I am, where we are and if the wind ever scatters all your sketches across the floor or not, there isn’t a life that I don’t love you.”
“I thought you weren’t an artist.”
“I am not.”
“Well,” Steve turns to him, lips grazing. “There is no way I could draw what you just said.” They kiss, soft, long, deep. “But maybe I could show you too.”
It finds them in the pale of dawn, tangled in each other. It runs cool across arms flung over chests, raising goosebumps on legs entwined, and as it breezes through the living spaces where the living do their living, they move closer in their sleep, attuned even when unconscious. The sketchbook lies on the coffee table where it was last, but it won’t move with it tugging, an ashtray holding it secure against the wind.
It pours back into the grey of daybreak, blowing through the silence of empty streets and stillness of suspended summer mornings.