Chapter Text
Steve would rarely admit that he’s lonely.
Sure, he’s been alone since his ma died when he was 17, but he’s always been a ‘pull yourself up by your bootstraps’ kinda fella and he doesn’t wallow. Wallowing isn’t conducive to productivity… Or whatever other shitty mantra he saw on Instagram overlaid on a nice picture of a sunset or a bunch of lilies.
Lilies were his ma’s favourite flower and, therefore, there had been a flood of them at her funeral so, subsequently, the sight and smell of that particular flower makes him nauseous and want to claw his own skin off.
His therapist says it’s linked to his PTSD. But he’s never had trauma so he doesn’t know how he could have post-trauma. His insurance couldn’t give him the top-notch therapist so he assumed she was an idiot and never went back.
So he’s not lonely.
And he usually works from home. Working from home is a blessing for him. With chronic health issues, he works from the confines of his bed more often than not. It’s saved his ass more often than he could admit. Including that one time when he was delirious with pneumonia and managed to finish up some pet shop logo without actually sending the first draft of his email that contained the phrases, “I love you,” and “do you think cats can smell fear?”
So sure, he’s usually alone but he’s never been so lonely before.
Sharon lives six blocks away and he can’t see her. Working as a nurse, she could be asymptomatic and carry a teeny tiny little speck of the virus into Steve’s apartment and fucking KILL him.
(She is the one who included ‘KILL’ in capital letters.)
Of course, she’s right. She’s always right. Because he is high risk and he knows he is high risk but then he hears his neighbours having dinner parties and party parties and he wonders if other people just manage to think.
Think about others.
He wonders if they think about how lonely he is. How they are completely healthy and not so at-risk - but still susceptible - and there are others around them, ill or old, who wish that others would stay in for a few weeks so they might manage to see their loved ones in less than a fucking year.
HE’S SO FURIOUS SOMETIMES HE WISHES - he just wishes. Fuck, he shouts out his window at all times and stomps his feet when Martha and Gordon downstairs have some of their fucking boomer friends over for drinks and, probably, swinging. And he might grab his broom and take out his anger on his ceiling when Kaitlin and Robert upstairs have people over.
So, yeah, he wishes. He wishes he shared his apartment with another person, any other person. So he doesn’t spend his days trawling through Twitter and answering back The Property Brothers when he’s eating spaghetti and wrapped in a fleecy blanket.
Steve is so lonely but he’ll ignore the tears when they come.
He sits on the floor at the big window overlooking the street below at all hours and watches emergency or front-line workers scurrying to and from their places of work. He wonders if his ma was still around would she have to stay somewhere else. Knowing Sarah Rogers, she would’ve slept in a dumpster to save her poorly son from any risk.
He wishes others were as selfless. Like Sam.
His best friend calls around every couple of days and drops groceries or meals or other supplies outside his door, fulfilling the text message Steve sends the night before.
Might he add, he sends it under duress.
Those few times he didn’t send a text, Sam had left him that spray cheese shit he hates and pickles, that he hates even more, and no ingredients that he could make a frigging meal with. Steve immediately called him and was answered with Sam’s deep, warm laugh.
“I told you, man! You gotta tell me what you want or I’m gonna give you random shit from the back of my cupboard.”
So Steve sighed, groaned, held his head to stave off a tension headache.
“FINE. Fine. Okay, you win. Please, just no more shit I can’t stand. Please.”
“Send me a text every few days with your list and I’ll get what you want, don’t send me a text and I’ll give you as much random shit as I can carry. You got that?”
“Fuck, I hate you.”
Sam sniggers, “y’know you love me.”
Steve makes grocery lists now and sends them to Sam and if he does it all in separate texts just to piss Sam off, well, he would deny it if ever asked.
So his kitchen is full and he does his laundry under cover of darkness because he’s more paranoid than he would like to consciously register but he still showers every day and dresses like he’s a normal functioning member of society to Zoom with colleagues that he likes and others whose apartments he would never want to see. He doesn’t want them to see his own apartment either so his background is always some relatively creative idea he manages to come up with.
Like standing in as the wife in American Gothic.
But work is harder now.
Work is harder because he’s creative and he takes inspiration from the couples he sees in the park or a mom and kid by the swings or a handsome cyclist or a sweet barista. His inspiration comes from the colors and sights of huge billboards and magazines in bodegas and brazen New York dogs that will piss wherever they please, thank you very much.
So this situation he is in right now is really all Sam’s doing.
Steve will blame him anyway.
Sam was on the phone and Steve was whining (Sam’s word, not his) about his state of affairs and how little inspiration he has and how much he hates everything because life is terrible and awful and he’s so lonely… Of course, he’d rather pull off his own foreskin with his fingernails than admit to Sam that he’s lonely.
“So why don’t you, I dunno, draw something?”
Wow, such great insight, Sam.
“I’m drawing all the fucking time, what do you think keeps me in wine and inhalers?”
Sam’s snort is louder across the phone than it might be in real life.
“What about all those people who are, like, doing life-drawing classes online and stuff?”
What?
“What?”
So now Steve is sitting in front of his laptop, dialing into a Zoom meeting with some guy from a forum that Sam had put him onto because he’s clearly much too engaged in Steve’s life. Steve would complain if it wasn’t a gentle reminder of Sarah Rogers’ overbearingness.
Steve is going to end up dead, isn’t he? But it’s too goddamn late because it’s calling and he’s sitting there like an absolute fucking lemon waiting for ‘James Barnes’ to answer.
And then there’s a messy brown head tilted forward, grumbling something.
“Hi, James?”
The grumbling stops and then there’s a face and where was the loss of inspiration again?
Because James? James is fucking perfection. James’ face looks like it was sculpted by a select team of particularly talented gods with a penchant for plastic surgery and renaissance art.
Soft, tanned skin laid delicately over sharp cheekbones and an even sharper jaw. Stormy blue-grey eyes set among thick dark lashes. The long hair that Steve thought would cover his features only enhances his looks.
“Steve, hi!” His voice is rough but warm, though his eyes are a little guarded and, maybe it’s the lighting, but his face is a little grey.
There’s an awkward silence that is either a lag on one of their sides or maybe it’s just them. But this was Steve’s idea and he wanted to draw someone, maybe interact with someone, so it’s really up to him to try to move this beyond sheer, blood-draining awkwardness.
“It’s really nice to meet you,” Steve begins, shoving his glasses back up his nose, “it’s kinda weird, huh? I mean, not that weird, I guess, but weird that we can, like, do this?”
As he speaks, James’ mouth spreads into a small smile.
“Yeah, I guess,” James out and out grins then and fuck, “I think I’ve spoken t’more people since all this stuff went down then I have in years.”
Steve laughs, “tell me about it. I gotta interact with the assholes I work with more now than I ever had to before.”
James has a pink flush to his cheeks and Steve already has multiple paintings and sketches planned. Fuck, he might even turn his hand to sculpture.
Silence stretches between them, James’s eyes focused on what must be the window behind his computer screen. The natural light hits him in a way that makes Steve a little breathless. He can’t take his eyes off him so he notices when he starts moving around in his seat, shuffling uncomfortably.
Steve doesn’t understand how such a beautiful man could ever be uncomfortable.
“So what made you do this?” Steve asks, “not that I’m complaining, like, I didn’t even know this was a thing and then my friend said he was sick of me complaining about having no inspiration and it’s pretty important for my work so then he was like, well there’s this thing you can do -”
Okay so he’s rambling, and he realises he’s rambling when he looks up and James is looking at him with these soft eyes and he stops abruptly.
“Sorry,” Steve continues on a whisper, “I been told I talk too much.”
James shrugs a shoulder and smiles this little lopsided thing that makes Steve’s chest go numb.
“S’good ‘cause I been told I don’t talk enough.”
Steve grins, hoping the fire in his cheeks has lessened enough and his shitty lighting can help disguise it. Before he can say anything else, James continues.
“To answer your question, my friend - he’s more of a pain in the ass, really - took care of the whole thing and said, y’know, if I didn’t like it, I could just log off and never come back.”
Steve is sure his face betrays how his stomach drops at that.
“You decided yet?”
James glances away, his eyes shining in the light from his window.
“Think I’ll stick around for a while.”
Steve grins, “really? Y-you’ll let me draw you?”
James does that one-armed shrug again, smile dimming a little.
“Um, you, you don’t want, like, nudes or-or topless or anything, right? S’just your blurb said you didn’t and apparently others were really into it and I’m not-”
Steve blushes, shaking his head, trying to bite back a smile, “no, I mean, it’s mainly faces I like to draw, portraits and stuff, y’know?” And now that he’s talking about art, Steve can’t really stop, “I wouldn’t mind, I guess, full body would be great with, um, clothes.”
James bites his lip, “maybe start with the face?”
So Steve just nods, his mind already flicking through multiple ideas, images, how they could position James and the source of light in his apartment and how good he would look in that early morning greyness just before the sun rises or the smokey glow just after the sunsets and maybe James could use his phone so they could move it around and he could see what the -
And he only realises that he’s been spouting some words at random when he glances between the scribbled notes at his right hand before looking up and seeing James’ face beaming, expectant like this is the most hilarious thing he’s ever seen.
Steve immediately balks, “oh god, James, I’m sorry… I just start to get these ideas and they come pouring out of me and it’s usually best that I work alone because I think it’d drive most people crazy!”
But James just leans his cheek against his palm, “it’s pretty fascinating to see someone’s brain work in real-time.”
Steve is blushing again and this guy might just be the end of him.
“Um, do you have to work or anything with all this going on?” Steve asks suddenly, “just so we can work out a time to do this if you still wanna? I have meetings around lunchtime but I pretty much just do my work at whatever time suits…” Steve stops then, looking up from his notebook, “that is if you’re still sure?”
James’ pretty eyes look almost blue in the light and Steve wishes he knew what the real colour was without a screen and terrible lighting between them.
“I’m sure,” James smiles, his eyes downturned like he’s shy, “I’m free most of the time. Um, I have some stuff I gotta do, meetings and stuff, but maybe let me know a time that works for you and I can work around it?”
Steve wants to thank him, wants to tell James how much he appreciates sharing himself with Steve this way, sharing his body and his face and his beauty with Steve so that he can be inspired. How it might make him feel less lonely, how he’s already made his day, his week, his lockdown a little easier. How absolutely beautiful he is and Steve couldn’t ask for someone better.
Instead, Steve settles for, “I can do that.”
James’s smile is shy again before it goes purposefully blank, like a shutter coming down and it makes Steve cringe, “you sure you don’t wanna try this with someone else? I mean, I’m not-”
“No!”
It’s only a split second later that Steve realises how desperate and quick he was to respond.
“I mean, no, I… I’d like to draw you.”
James smiles, glancing down again, and his nose scrunches up when he smiles and jesus he’s beautiful.
“Okay.”
##
“-and I’ve already started sketching again, just for fun and he seems nice and he didn’t wanna do, like, nudes, so I told him that was fine obviously!”
Sam chuckles down the line, “so I’m a genius and you should thank me for everything I have done to make this happen?”
Steve rolls his eyes and makes sure to scoff loudly into the receiver because fuck you, Sam, that’s why.
“OH YES, THANK YOU, SAM. FOR INVENTING THE INTERNET AND CREATING THIS FORUM AND COMING UP WITH THE CONCEPT OF ART AND BIRTHING JAMES A-”
Sam is already cackling, “fuck off, Steve, you can’t pretend that this wasn’t my idea! You can thank me for ALSO telling you to mention that you aren’t into nudes. James wouldn’t have given you the time of day!”
Steve potters around his kitchen, reaching for his fifth mug of coffee.
“Yeah, yeah,” Steve snorts, “you’re the greatest person in the world and I will be forever in your debt.”
“You want me to give you nothing but pickles tonight? Because I’ll do it, Steve, don’t test me.”
Steve hates Sam a great deal.
“You’re the worst person I’ve ever met,” his hands shaking with the amount of caffeine in his body.
“Well, while I’m the worst person in the world, I gotta go have a meeting with a client. Talk to ya!” He ends the call and Steve goes back to work, creating a wolf for a business logo.
He can’t decide if the eyes are more grey than blue.
##