Work Text:
The first thing that always strikes Steve is the coldness of the city.
Wind finds its way around buildings and touches to his skin. He burns constantly, yet this wind chills him.
A glance at his wristwatch tells him little more than three minutes have passed since his train rattled through the portal. He wraps his arms around himself and hopes Sam would remember how hopeless at these kind of things Steve could be, would remember to pack him a thin jacket.
Steve hears him before he sees him. Unhurried footsteps of a person skillfully dodging the bustling crowds, heading to a fixed destination.
"You're a mess," Sam greets, breaking through the crowd to stand before Steve. A smile plays on his lips. "Don't get me wrong, the horns look good. But... You're just a mess."
"Kinda happens when you have an eight hour train ride. Maybe next time you should come visit me."
"I don't think you're worth my time." The words are said on a low chuckle. Dead weight, both men know they mean nothing.
In the midst of the chaos, they are two points of momentary silence. Staring at each other. Taking in each other's new lines and unfamiliar creases.
Wrinkles dance at the corners of Sam's eyes, at the space between Steve's own.
The beard engulfing Steve's face almost matches the one Sam has had for months. And, when Sam pulls Steve in for a hug and they become one large tangle of limbs, it is coarse against Sam's neck.
"I missed you," Sam says into Steve's ear, his voice only for them.
Steve nods. He keeps his every emotion in the folds of his body, when his hold tightens around Sam Steve may as well be trying to put together the broken pieces that he has come to be made of.
Against the skin of Sam's neck, Steve says, "I missed you, too. Sammy... I missed you, too."
✴️
He wakes to the chirps of birds perched outside the window. Loud, sweetly insistent. And the long inhales, heavy exhales of the man curled around him.
God, he has hated the distance. But never as much as when faced with what the absence of it promises.
So close that the spaces between their bodies are infinitesimal; that his warmth is Sam's warmth; that Sam's breath is his breath; that fingertips end where fingertips began and they were joined as if by the very fibres of their souls.
Sam stirs. "Hey." Voice rough and raw, sleep-husky.
"Every time I think I miss waking up to you, I gotta remember your morning breath," Steve teases, just as rough.
"You're not a bundle of roses either, you know." A huff.
Steve swallows a yawn, and lets his eyes slip shut as he slips his arms around Sam.
They fall in and out of a sleep that keeps them at the very edge of wakefulness, in that place where dreams linger and they just feel the touch of each other's skin, of the weak sun falling through the window.
The building groans barely an hour later, awakens as its tenants do. With the ringing of alarm clocks, the banging of doors and the running of tired showers, Steve and Sam open their eyes.
Moments are delicate, shattered often by movement. By the wrong movement.
Steve places a kiss to Sam's forehead. "I just..." his sentence follow his eyes as they drift out to the city beyond. A sigh settles in the room. "I just want to lay here forever."
"What will all your work buddies say when you tell them about how your boyfriend didn't feed you?" he queries, low and scandalous.
"They'd probably cheer me on," Steve says. A smirk begins to play on his lips, matches the mischief in his eyes. "Y'know, think we've been having too much fun."
His arm, crooked comfortably around Sam's neck, brings the other man closer. Into a light kiss.
"I bet you won't tell them how—"
"Ssh—" Steve interrupts, a blush colouring his cheeks. "Can I kiss you again?" he asks quickly and waits for a nod.
Years of dance have made Steve agile.
He moves so he is balanced over Sam, their bodies pressed tight together.
Settles over him in something that is almost a straddle.
Smiles at the soft laughter which fills the room at Steve's assault of kisses— a flurry of them to the creases in Sam's face, the bridge of his nose, the scarred curve of his neck. To every inch of exposed skin Steve can find.
His train leaves at midnight, Steve absently remembers. He buries his head into Sam's shoulder, breathes him in and prays that the scent of him will live in the damaged bends of Steve's lungs.
Each separation is harder than the last.
Each time he has him, it is harder for Steve to let him go.
°
Across the room, Sam runs a towel over wet hair.
"Plans for tonight?" Sam catches Steve watching him, meets his steady gaze in the mirror, and questions.
An easy shrug of solid shoulders. "I just care about getting something in me now."
"You already had something in you." It is his turn to smirk.
Sam relishes in the pink dusting Steve's neck.
"Food, Samuel. Actual breakfast," Steve huffs. "You know what I haven't had in ages? iHOP."
Sam pauses from doing up the buttons on his blue cotton shirt. "Oh," he begins. "You haven't heard about iHOP?"
"No... We don't exactly get cable news in the Underworld."
"They're iHOB now," Sam explains. "Burgers."
Steve pulls his mouth into something stiff, something much like a grimace. Shudders.
Sam glances over his shoulder, nods his agreement.
Hands smooth down the front of a recently ironed shirt. Familiar hands that have caressed Steve more times than he could not even begin to count. That he has kissed, has held in darkened rooms. Has cherished the cuts and knobs of.
The grumble of his stomach breaks through the settled quiet. It calls for attention, calls to be heard and to not be ignored.
"We could go shop around town for something else to eat," Steve says, lips drawn in a sheepish grin. "There's no way I'm going back without having at least one legendary pancake."
Sam sighs. And Steve recognizes the exhaustion, the same tired and tired of understanding exhaustion it carries. "You don't— Maybe you don't have to go back this time."
"I didn't want to tell you—" Steve pulls at a stray thread, hanging from the hem of his oversized green sweater. "There's a position opening up at Shield's above-world branch. Uh, a managerial position."
"So...?"
"Yeah," Steve says. "I get to wake up to your nastiness every morning."