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The garden was filled with that odd, golden, threatening afternoon light that drew everything with sharp edges against the dark sky. The wind teased the trees with brief, hard gusts, tugging and shoving them this way and that. It had the feeling of a protesting crowd on the verge of chaos, the first threatening lunges, the first person bending to grab a chunk of stone. Bucky shuddered and closed the curtain, plunging his bedroom into darkness, and swaddled himself back in his bed.
He had a couple of hours before Steve would come home, enough time to balance himself just on the edges of sleep, where movement was unnecessary and thoughts came slow. If he was lucky, if today was one of the good days, he might be able to tip himself over into enough of a pretense at it that Steve'd leave him be when he came to check.
It was dark outside by the time he cared enough to pay attention again.
He wasn't great at sleeping any more. Sleep dredged up memories, wound them together with fears, left them on his pillow like a cat leaves things that should be dead but bleed and scrabble and shriek. It was a little easier in the daylight hours, though, when he could scream himself hoarse without waking Steve, when waking told him exactly where he was, the framed pencil sketch of Peggy watching him struggle out of sweat-soaked sheets with gentle concern.
The middle of the night, on the other hand, the empty hours before the sun came back, were somehow reassuring in a way that didn't make sense to Steve.
Sure, Bucky had been kept in darkness, over there. Darkness and pain, and harsh incomprehensible voices, and occasionally - when they moved him - a sky without any end to it, an impossible depth of stars.
Day was loud and bright and fast, every damned place the same, too much to take in enough to know where the hell you were. In the dark, every voice was a little louder and even slurring, the words now were familiar. Darkness gave you just enough for the character of the country to come through, rising to your nose and your ears and through the soles of your feet. And of course, this was goddamn America, so even out here in the suburbs there were only so many stars.
Just about midnight every night, Bucky pulled on an oversized sweater, snuck downstairs to make himself a coffee by the dim light thrown by appliances, and went outside to curl up on the porch swing that Steve had always longed for as a kid. Sometimes, if he'd managed to get a couple hours of rest, he'd bring a book out and turn on the porch light, taking down the bug zapper that Steve had installed 'cos the idea of it turned his stomach, these days. He read back through the things he'd always loved before; Pratchett and Verne and Heinlein and Le Guin. He knew how they ended, and kept himself safe. Other nights, he just wrapped his arm and the other arm around his knees and rested his head and didn't think.
Steve had moved out here from Brooklyn when Bucky had come home. He said the two were unrelated, but he said a lot of bullshit before he worked out how Bucky wanted to play this. He'd always been a city boy at heart, and it was a little hilarious watching him navigate the suburbs. He'd already gained a fluttering audience of fans for his daily runs, and he'd started talking about maybe getting a crosstrainer instead to keep in the shed out back.
It was the first time either of them had had a yard that was more than concrete, though, a couple of straggling potplants that Bucky had fought tooth and nail to keep alive. As a result the place was a mess, overgrown bushes and precarious trees, grass that came up as high as your knee. He meant to learn something about it, fix it up into something nice, but it was never quite the right time.
Tonight it was raining, heavy and loud, living up to the afternoon's threat. Bucky could see more of the downpour, the trembling leaves and sparkling raindrops, from just the edges of orange light that snuck back from the front of the house, so he kept the porch light off; it'd never rained, out in the desert.
The flood of bright light from the kitchen of the house next door made him flinch and curl tighter.
The fence between the two yards was, at most, waist height. Steve hadn't had the money for more, but he'd insisted they needed it 'cos the neighbour had a dog. Cute as hell, one-eyed, and a force of descruction on the begonias that had died by now anyway. Steve had the blackest of goddamned thumbs.
(It had been a project for Bucky; it had required leaving the house.)
It meant Bucky could see the neighbour, though, when he opened the back door, stared outside with something that looked very like dismay.
"Aaw, rain," he said, like it was a surprise to him, like he hadn't been able to hear the pounding of it against his windows and doors. Bucky extended the hand he'd been given, watched the raindrops sparkle against metal, and waited patiently for the guy to go back inside.
He didn't. He sat down just inside the back door and pulled on a pair of battered sneakers that'd hold up about five minutes under the deluge, picked up the rustiest garden fork Bucky had ever seen, and forged out into the darkness with only the light falling from the kitchen to guide him. So he was gonna get tetanus and die, probably. Whatever. It wasn't Bucky's problem.
It was a little soothing, though, watching him dig away at a patch of ground be the porch, digging weeds away from whatever the hell it was he'd actually planted. And -
Bucky's libido had pretty much taken a nose-dive for the past few months. It was no massive surprise. The therapist he had phone appointments with said something about the lack of bodily autonomy or something, he'd been playing Tetris and hadn't paid all that much attention. He had to admit, though, the rain, and the white shirt, and those goddamn shoulders - call it his aesthetic sensibility, if you like, like Steve did when he went to a museum to ogle the goddamn nudes.
Bucky tired of it all before the neighbour did. He got up, bare feet splashing in the puddle that had drifted in on the wind, and opened the back door, the neighbour not even lifting his head at the creak.
"Bucky?" Steve's voice floated out of the darkness, and Bucky climbed the stairs towards him, letting Steve wrap him up in his arms. He was kind of an octopus when he was sleepy; Bucky didn't so much mind. "You're all wet. You been outside?"
"I was watching the neighbour do some gardening," Bucky told him, and dealt with the unintentionally patronising grin.
Bucky managed to sleep a couple of hours in the safety of the morning, woke up panting and sweating but managed not to scream. He told his therapist about his crazy neighbour - a little to trigger her rant on ableist language, he wasn't gonna lie, 'cos he didn't feel all that much like talking, that day. There was about five minutes - after the sleep, and the therapy, after he'd managed to heat himself up some food - when he considered walking down the block to the grocery store. He rocked back and forth in the open front door for a moment or two, then swore and retreated back into the house. Curled up on the couch with a new book, read two pages before he had to go find something he knew.
He had things he could list as progress, at least. Steve'd be proud.
Sometimes he didn't recognise himself in the mirror, any more. Months of not leaving the house in the daylight had left him pallid and sickly; his hair was getting long; he hadn't shaved in about a week.
He thought about calling his sister.
He climbed back into bed.
There was a gentle tap on the door, some indeterminate amount of time later. Bucky grunted something that worked as enough acknowledgement for Steve to come on in, the evening sunlight pouring in after him until he looked a little bit like a work of art. Like one of those saints with the beautiful longsuffering expressions; maybe they had useless asshole best friends, too.
"I'm going out for dinner with Sam," Steve told him, and yeah, that was one of his nicer shirts. "You wanna come with?"
"I'm not crashing your date, Stevie," Bucky told him, and hey, progress, this was the first time that Steve just blushed, didn't reach for the automatic denial. "Besides," he added, "I'm starting to offend myself, I'm gonna change my sheets and take a bath."
"Sure," Steve said, doing a pretty poor job of biting down on his grin. "Sure, that's great, just leave the sheets by the basement door."
Bucky grumbled another response and ducked back under his blankets, 'cos he hated that he still couldn't - the basement was solid stone, and dark, and it didn't have enough windows. He couldn't.
Steve left with a cheerful jangle of keys and a slam of the front door, which was echoed by the slam of the door on the neighbour's truck. He seemed to work weird hours, leaving before light and stumbling back when it was just about dark, and Bucky felt kinda sorry for his dog. He contemplated, for a second, offering to walk the mutt for him; it was just about as fantastical as the books he read.
It'd be nice to get a closer look at those shoulders, though.
Bucky peeked out of his bedroom window just long enough to get a glimpse of the top of a scruffy blond head, then efficiently stripped his sheets and bundled them together, dropping them over the banister so they landed directly outside the basement door. He had to venture into Steve's room - neat as a new pin - to find himself a clean towel, but the shower was too long denied bliss.
He gathered up his clothes and then threw 'em in a bag with half the contents of the laundry basket, dropping that beside his blankets; he figured he could pay Steve back by cooking him some lunches, give him a break from cardboard-dry sandwiches from the office canteen. He used to love cooking, wasn't sure when that changed.
Half an hour later, hanging over the rail of the back porch, emptying his guts at the scent of cooking meat - yeah. He remembered.
His second attempt was mushroom risotto. That one, he could do. He served himself a bowl and packed the rest of it up into lunch-sized portions, stacking them neatly in the refrigerator. It was tempting to go sit out on the back porch, but he wasn't sure he could deal with the sun, so he settled himself on one of the stools by the kitchen island instead, folded his cold feet over each other and reminded his body how good food could be.
Midnight found him out on the porch again. Steve hadn't made it home, which he'd sent many alternating judgey and lewd texts about, but the truth was it made him kinda restless. He wasn't gonna stare out the front window like a creeper, though, so he came out and curled on the back porch instead, leaving the kitchen light on so he could see enough to sketch spaceships.
He wasn't an artist, not like Steve. His drawings were always kinda businesslike, no emotion. At least, that was how he had always thought about it. His therapist had found it interesting that when he put pen to paper he exclusively designed spaceships, said something about looking for escape. Bucky didn't see any problem with that.
Bucky looked up, startled, when the neighbour's back door slammed open, a bundle of golden fur shooting out. The neighbour followed at a more sensible pace, rubbing the back of his neck, his hair standing up on end like he'd only just woken. He glanced over, startled a little when he caught sight of Bucky, and lifted a hand in greeting.
"Hey," Bucky said, which was the first time he'd spoken to anyone outside of Steve and his therapist in... a month and three days. Man, he really needed to call his sister.
"Hi," his neighbour said back, and grinned, lopsided and kinda charming before it spread into a yawn. "You're Bucky, right?"
"Yup," Bucky said, tapping his fingers restlessly against the notepad on his lap. "Sorry, I don't -"
"Aaw, Steve didn't mention me? I thought we were bros!" The guy actually held his hand out, like he hadn't registered the distance between their respective back porches, and then looked awkward and rubbed the back of his neck again. "I'm Clint," he said.
"Hey, Clint." Bucky stood abruptly, losing the pen he'd been drawing with into the darkness of the yard. "I'm gonna -" he gestured loosely and headed back into the house, so goddamn unsettled by an exchange of words with someone he didn't know that he had to turn off the kitchen light and curl up on the floor there, breathing in deep with his head between his knees.
Once his heart was a little steadier, he climbed the stairs and took a right instead of a left at the top, opening the door to the spare room that overlooked the garden. He was just a little worried, he told himself, 'cos Clint was using sharp tools and he'd looked more than half asleep. Just making sure there were no injuries.
(Didn't stop him laughing like hell, though, when Clint tripped over his goddamned dog.)
It took a couple weeks to get past greetings, even if that was only a conversation about why the hell Clint did his weeding in the dark. Turned out he had two jobs, a mailroom job in the day and an archery range after hours; he slept through some of the evening, gardened a little, slept a couple hours in the small hours of the morning too.
"I'm not great at sleeping," Clint said with a look that Bucky recognised.
"Yeah," he said softly. "Me too."
It was kind of inspiring watching Clint gradually taming the wilderness behind his house, by kitchen light and torchlight and the light of the damned moon. It ended in more injuries than Bucky was happy with, he'd admit, and he took to keeping a tube of Bactine and a box of band-aids under his seat. First time he grabbed Clint's bloody hand, even with the safety net of the fence stretched between them, he'd felt like his heart was gonna pound its way out of his chest.
(Three months, six days since he'd touched anyone that wasn't Steve. Two and a half years since he'd touched anyone he wanted this bad.)
Clint was somehow an idiot and whip-smart. Clint was
clumsy as hell and a freaking gymnast. Clint was so strong it was making Bucky weak for him, and he felt like he was getting pulled in so many directions that it was tying him up in knots.
Clint made Bucky laugh. He'd forgotten he knew how to do that.
"Maybe I'll come over there and sit by you someday," Clint said one night, his voice just loud enough to be heard over the gentle patter of rain. "Judge whatever you're drawing like you judge my totally awesome pruning skills."
Bucky's heart leapt into his throat and he nearly choked on it. He shoved up to his feet violently enough that the swing crashed into the side of the house and locked the kitchen door just as soon as it closed behind him.
Fuck. Fuck. Why in hell was he so goddamned scared?
"Hey," he said to his therapist the next day. "I want to - how do I get better at talking to people? How do I - I want to do that." He felt like an idiot, choking on his words.
He didn't go sit on the back porch for a couple of weeks.
The next time he went out, it was edging into dawn, just on the edge of whatever opposite twilight had. Clint's garden showed signs of furious activity, the bushes neat, the beds dug over, only the grass to go. It was pretty impressive work for someone who refused to use anything with a motor, not wanting to piss off his neighbours by waking them up in the middle of the night. Of course he wasn't out there. Bucky didn't even bother pretending to himself that he wasn't disappointed.
He lurked pathetically for a minute or two, looking towards the back door of Clint's house like his longing'd be enough to draw the guy out. He squinted at something leaning against the back door there, and swore when he managed to make out that it was a goddamn scythe. Nuh-uh, no way; he'd seen the damage the guy could do to himself with a pair of goddamn scissors.
"You're sure about this?" Steve said, the next morning, helping him haul the mower they'd never used over the rickety fence. Bucky was a little lightheaded about being out in the daylight, but he set his jaw; there was no way he was gonna let Clint get tetanus and die. Not without Bucky getting to kiss his dumb face first.
Steve called him downstairs that evening, after texting him once or twice to make sure it was all right. It'd given Bucky enough time to get himself dressed, something a little better than the stretched out shirts and sweatpants that were his normal attire. He came down the stairs, chewing on his lower lip, hesitating in the doorway for a moment or two before he swallowed his heart back down to where it should be and made himself walk into the lounge.
Clint looked different in lamplight. More solid, more beautiful, more like he was something that could be touched. He got to his feet as Bucky approached, shoving his hands deep into his pockets like Bucky wasn't the only one feeling tactile about this. Clint smiled, and Bucky couldn't help mirroring him, pleased at the way Clint's eyes dropped helplessly to his mouth.
"You cut my grass?"
Bucky shrugged. "I was saving you from yourself," he said, and stepped a little closer, looking up into Clint's blue eyes. "Seemed only fair; you kinda did the same for me."