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“Ungh.”
Bucky rolls his eyes and runs his fingers through the guy’s hair again. For, like, the seventh time in the last five minutes. Honestly, who would’ve thought an apocalypse would be so taxing on his romantic reserves of patience.
But, as he said, seven times. “Ungh,” the guy says. Make that eight.
Zombies, or rather people working on reanimation, are a pain. Bucky just so happens to be one of those people who isn’t working on reanimation, and one of those people who is working on getting his basic mental functions back decided to imprint on him.
Of course, the guy is pretty cute. Small, blond, too big blue eyes clouded only slightly with that yellow-ish muck that zombies get. He’s worked up to guttural sounds; trust Bucky when he says that’s an improvement.
“Ungh.”
“Yeah, you’re hungry, I get it Mr. Ungh,” Bucky replies, sifting through his pack and getting some of the jerky he salvaged from a looted gas station. The guy takes it and sniffs at it apprehensively before taking a tentative bite.
Truthfully, that’s why Bucky kept the guy around; he’s so damn strange for one of the dead. And Bucky knows he's one of the dead; he lent him an arm when he wasn’t strong enough to crawl out of his grave like the others. An undead woman just sort of looked at him before blinking lazily and muttering something like ,”St-t-t-,” when Bucky helped the guy up and gave him his jacket when he saw that his was all but eaten through by the years.
Well, the kid hasn’t been. Thank God because that would’ve been a shame.
“Ungh,” the guy says, on cue.
“I already fed you, dude,” Bucky replies, rubbing the place between the guy’s shoulders until he stops with that painful wheezing he does when he breathes. Bucky’s been thinking of how this guy could’ve kicked it. It must have been something to do with his obvious frailness. Perhaps it was starvation? But the guy’s still got some muscle on him, however slight. Maybe it has something to do with that awkward wheezing.
“Ungh.”
“Okay.”
“Ungh-uck.”
“What is it that you want? I don’t speak unintelligible noises.”
“Uck.”
Huh. That’s a new one. Bucky turns and puts his hands on the guy’s shoulders, stares into the guy’s oddly alluring eyes, still that same bright blue even after… what was it? His grave said he passed in 2012, so just two years? Damn, those years have either done the guy extremely well, considering, or he was extremely beautiful. Regardless, that’s in the past, and it’s not the time to be thinking weird pseudo-necrophilic thoughts.
“U-uck,” the guy says, tilting his head and reaching up a hand to tug at Bucky’s jacket. He takes the other hand and taps his chest. “St-t-t-.”
Sometimes, Bucky thinks he’s trying to communicate with him. He’s been particularly chatty these past few days, especially for one of the undead. So Bucky’s been telling him stories about before. He tells him about his sisters, who scurried off to Europe where they heard that people weren’t rising. He tells him about his ma, his pa before he bit the dust and didn’t end up with the risen. He tells him about his first girlfriend, Nat, and his friends from school.
He tells him all he can tell him, then he starts to tell him about stories he liked as a kid. Comic books, fairy tales, anything really to make the guy have that almost smile that he gets whenever Bucky talks about himself or fantastical things.
But, chatty. The guy is totally chatty. “Uck-ck-y,” he stutters, his voice oddly nice for one of the risen folks. He could sing, if he wanted to, if he remembered how to. He tugs on Bucky’s jacket again, but slides his hand around Bucky’s waist and presses himself firm against Bucky’s front. That’s different. But Bucky hugs back anyways; figures if it helps the guy come back, he might as well give it his best.
The truth is Bucky doesn’t know why he chose to help this guy out of his grave. Maybe it was something familiar in the set of his eyes, or lips, or just his face. He looks a lot like this guy Bucky had a crush on in school; some artist who ended up having a terrible asthma attack that was too much for his body to handle and the nurse was too slow to administer his inhaler. He died with paint in his hair and charcoal on his fingertips.
Skinny Steve Rogers; Bucky was teased by his friends for liking the guy, but he could create beautiful things. He was beautiful, like this guy.
“Did I ever tell you about this guy I liked before the rising?” he asks, walking the guy to a bump in the hill and sitting them down. “He looked a lot like you, y’know, same eyes, same lips. Hell, you could be twins, but I think he was cremated.”
The guy stares at him bemusedly before shaking his head and tugging on his fingers. His eyebrows are knotted together, lips pursed downwards. That’s also strange; the guy’s starting to show expressions more and more frequently, even his little not-smiles are blooming into wide toothy things that crinkle his ethereal eyes.
“I don’t think he knew I existed,” Bucky says. The guy’s still tugging on his fingers, pulling them up to his face, touching his wrist. He’s muttering that same “St-t-t-” under his breath, but with urgency behind it. Bucky attributes it to some unknown emergency the guy is thinking of. “He was real good at art, loved to paint and draw. I modeled for him once.”
More “Uck-uck-y” and “St-t-t-”. More frantic tugging. Bucky glances down to find the guy’s entwined their fingers, his knees pressed together almost like a little boy’s. “You have the same smile as him, you know, the same eyes and everything. His name was-”
“Steve!” the guy exclaims.
Bucky frowns, and twists his fingers into his. “How’d you know that?” he asks, instead of asking how he’s figured out how to talk.
But he’s still shaking his head, still frantic and concerned. He disentangles their fingers to pat his chest, keeping his eyes locked with Bucky’s. “Steve,” he murmurs. “Steve, Steve, Steve.”
“You knew him?”
“Steve.”
Bucky looks at the guy a little closer, finds that his looks really haven’t diminished, despite his time spent underground. “How’d you die?” he asks, sliding his hands up to the guy’s shoulders.
“A-a,” the guy frowns and clears his throat. “Asthm-aaaaaa.”
“No freaking way,” Bucky breathes, taking in the same golden hair, the same sky-blue eyes, the same skinny body and waif-like limbs. He even has the same wheezing, for God’s sake. But he’s never in danger of dying from an attack. At least not again. At least not until he gets back all his senses. “Steve?” Bucky asks, combing his fingers through the guy’s hair.
“Steve,” he replies. Then, he tilts his head and tries, “B-uck-uck-y.”
Bucky smiles before he can stop himself, and pulls the guy-well, Steve- flush against his chest. He doesn’t care that he’s still dead, that it’s going to be a while before he regains full function, that he’s not going to be able to perform higher level functions for at least another two months at the rate he’s going.
It’s still damn better than the other undead.
“Yeah,” he murmurs into Steve’s hair when he just says that broken version of his name again. “I miss you too.”
“Bu-ucky.”
“It’s nice to see you, buddy.”
“I-I Bu-ucky.”
“Huh?”
“L-l-yk-liked Bu-uck-ucky too,” he says, in that broken voice. He’s hearing himself, Bucky can tell when he frowns with every broken word, as though there’s a disconnect between his mouth and his mind. There probably is.
Still, he understands him, and he blushes.
“Nuh-uh, you always hung out with that Wilson kid.”
Steve shakes his head and presses a fingertip to Bucky’s chin. “Bucky,” he says, nodding his head and leaning his head against Bucky’s shoulder.
“Huh,” Bucky replies. He supposes that of all people, Bucky would be the one to get closer to his dead crush two years after he kicked it. “You could’ve told me, y’know, I would’ve taken you to that fancy restaurant on Main.”
“Bu-ucky du-umb-ass,” Steve says, smirking a little.
“Fuck off, I didn’t know anything about art kids.” And he didn’t; Steve was something of an enigma. He still is even in death. “I’d try again though. Hell, I’ll ask you out right now if you don’t mind looted candy bars and old hot dogs.
“Yeah.” That one isn’t broken. Steve says it again, this time with a big smile. “Yeah.”
And, hell, call Bucky a necrophiliac all you want; Steve’s still awesome, even if he has yet to regain his higher functions. Even if he stinks to high heaven and could use a shower or nine. Even if he’s technically still dead and doesn’t have a heartbeat.
He’s still the last guy Bucky liked, still the same eighteen-year-old hipster artist that’s so distant, but finally close.
“Yeah,” Bucky says, echoing Steve. He pushes their foreheads together and giggles with Steve. “Yeah.”