Work Text:
Steve’s eyes blink open at 4:13 AM. He tries valiantly to fall back asleep but his stubborn insomnia refuses to give in and he sighs and sits up. When he can’t sleep, Steve draws. He was diagnosed with insomnia when he was 15 and, though he’s gotten better at dealing with it, he often finds himself up too early and unable to slip back into sleep. His saving grace is his sketchbook and pencils. If Steve’s lucky, he can listen to calming music and let his mind wander to get himself back to sleep but other times he prefers to draw his disorder into submission.
Bucky doesn’t know that Steve wakes up as often as he does. If he were to look at one of the sketchbooks Steve keeps hidden in his bedside drawer in the dorm room they share, he’d see the dates and the time stamps Steve puts somewhere on every page after he’s drawn something and he’d know.
If Bucky were to look in his sketchbooks there’s a lot he’d know. Because every book has Bucky drawn in it somewhere. Steve honestly can’t help it; trying not to draw Bucky is like swimming against the current. Bucky is his muse, his favourite thing to draw. Steve was always a weak swimmer anyway.
So at 4:47 AM, he decides he’s not sleeping and he pulls out his pencils and one of his more empty sketchbooks. He sits cross legged on his bed and faces Bucky’s bed. Bucky’s shirtless and sprawled out on his stomach, the blanket just covering his ass. His hands are shoved under his pillow, making his muscles stand out. Opening to a blank page, Steve touches his pencil to the paper.
He spends a fair amount of time on the bed and the sheets, drawing the ripples and rifts in the fabric. But what he spends most of his time on is Bucky. Steve wants to make sure he gets all the lines just right, gets the shape of his nose and shades him perfectly. Once he’s finished, he yawns and writes the time and date just above Bucky’s back. Throwing the sketchbook to the end of the bed, he burrows back under the covers and falls back to sleep at 6:30 AM.
~
Steve sighs as he walks into his residence building. University classes are kicking his ass and all he wants is to put his earphones in and fall the fuck asleep. A quiet chuckle falls out of his mouth as he notices the “out of order - sorry for any inconvenience!” sign on the elevator button. Stairs it is, then. Just his fucking luck.
He takes the stairs at a regular pace so as to not irritate his sore muscles or his asthma. When he reaches his floor, he rubs his shoulders and makes his way to the dorm room he and Bucky share. Bucky is majoring in linguistics where Steve majors in art. Steve had originally been looking at other schools but when Bucky told him which schools he’d applied to, Steve checked to see if they had art programs and he coincidentally applied to the ones that did. And coincidentally accepted the one Bucky had accepted. The art program is great here, anyway; he’d made sure. He wasn’t going to go to a subpar school just because of a crush.
When he walks into the room, Bucky turns in his desk chair.
“Hey buddy,” he greets. His voice sounds oddly strained.
“Hey,” Steve walks over to his bed and flops on it. “Ugh, class is killin’ me. I wanna sleep for like, three years.”
Bucky stands and goes over to sit on his own bed. Wiping his palms on his jeans, he says, “Yeah, about that… How have you been sleepin’?”
Steve sits up on his elbows. “... Fine? Why?”
“It’s just, uh.” Bucky shifts uncomfortably. “Okay, I know I shouldn’t have but… you left one of your sketchbooks out on your bed and I uh, maybe peeked?”
Steve sits up straight. “You what?” His heart is pounding. Bucky saw, he saw himself, he saw his face, his smile, his body, he saw how Steve sees him. He saw everything.
“I… looked. I know we agreed to keep private things private even though we share the same space and all but curiosity got the best of me and I’m so sorry, man, honestly. I just need to know if you’re,” God, don’t ask me, Steve thinks. Don’t ask me if I’m gay. Or worse: if I’m in love with you. I don’t think I can lie. “sleeping. I know you have insomnia but we’ve figured out way to deal with it together. I know you don’t like hearing about your health as often as you have to but your heart, Steve, it’s fuckin’ weak. I don’t want this puttin’ you in an early grave, alright?”
Steve lets out a sharp laugh and Bucky’s eyebrows contort in confusion. “What’d I say?”
“Nothin’, nothin’. Alright, Buck. I’ll sleep.”
“Okay. Okay, good.” He pauses and looks about 10 times more uncomfortable as before. Steve even finds that he seems pretty scared and maybe a little… sad. “I really am sorry. I know I wouldn’t want someone rootin’ through my private stuff. I’m sorry, dude. I’m really--” he notices his hands are shaking and he’s started bouncing his leg a little.
“Hey, Bucky. It’s okay. I mean, I’m kinda pissed but it’s alright. I know you didn’t mean anythin’ bad. Why are you so jittery?”
He looks down. “I’m just still scared you’ll leave, that’s all. Realize I’m a shitty roommate and find someone else.”
Steve’s eyes widen as he realizes what this is about. Bucky was given up by his parents when he was young and was put in the wrong foster family. His foster parents never really cared about him and even hurt him. Steve remembers him coming over randomly with new bruises, few times a split lip, once even a black eye. Steve will never forget the way the blood rushed through his veins, the way the anger traveled up his body like a hungry fire. That man and woman that treated Bucky so badly, nothing like he deserved, are probably the only people on God’s Green Earth that Steve Rogers has ever hated.
The point is, Bucky hasn’t experienced a lot of love in his life. He expects everyone to one day realize that he’s a shitty person and leave him. Because it’s all anyone’s ever done.
Except Steve. Steve was the first one to take after the quiet and angry looking kid at school. Bucky has tried to push Steve away countless times but Steve won’t ever have it. He’s as stubborn as they come and when he wants something, he tries his damnedest to get it. And he wanted to be Bucky’s friend.
Steve takes Bucky’s hands and makes him look into his eyes. “No. Never, okay? You’re my best friend. I wouldn’t trade you for anyone. It’s you and me, Buck. End of the line.”
Bucky gives him a wet smile and nods. “End of the line.”
~
That night, when Bucky goes to bed, Steve is finishing a paper for one of his other classes. Bucky’s wearing nothing but a thin pair of pajama pants and he falls onto his back on the bed. He points at Steve.
“Sleep.” he commands.
“I will, I will.” he replies. “Got homework.”
Bucky yawns and pulls the blanket over himself. “Sleep,” he says again, with his eyes closed. Steve has a moment of weakness and looks over at him. He’s still got his eyes closed and he’s still burrowing under the covers, searching for a comfortable position. Steve thinks he looks like a sleepy puppy and he smiles and turns back to his computer.
A few minutes later, he hears a soft “sleeeeeeep” from Bucky’s bed. He’s got his face scrunched against the pillow and Steve isn’t certain that he’s still awake. He finishes up his paper and shuts his laptop off.
After another few minutes, Steve is almost asleep when one of Bucky’s pillows hits his face. “Sleep,” Bucky murmurs.
“How can I when you’re talking and throwin’ things at me?” He chuckles. Throws the pillow back at him.
Bucky lets out a breath of a laugh. “Just sleep.”
“I am, jeez. You’re obsessed.”
“Says the one who keeps drawin’ me at 3 AM.”
Steve stills and is silent.
Bucky sighs sleepily. “I don’ mind.” His words are slurred with sleep. “Like ‘em.”
He pauses and Steve doesn’t know what to say. He thinks they’re going to finally go asleep when Bucky breaks the silence.
“Love you, Steve.”
“I love you too, Buck.”
Bucky sighs. “No, I love you.”
Steve sits up a little and looks over to Bucky’s bed. It’s too dark to see him and he doesn’t have his glasses on. Steve kind of feels like he’s on the urge of an asthma attack, he’s breathing but it doesn’t feel like it. Don’t be fucking with me, he thinks. “You do?” he whispers.
“Yeah.” Steve can kind of see a shape rising from Bucky’s bed and he makes room in his for him. Bucky turns the light on on his way over.
Steve takes a breath and decides fuck it. “I love you, too.”
Bucky lifts the covers and crawls under. “Really?”
“Yeah.” he whispers. Steve kind of (really) can’t believe this is happening. He still can’t believe it when Bucky grabs Steve face in his hands and kisses him. His lips are a little rough and absolutely perfect in every way.
“Your drawings,” Bucky says when they break apart. “They’re what made me wanna tell you. I wasn’t sure you’d feel the same but… I couldn’t keep it from you anymore. I don’t like keepin’ things from you.”
“I don’t like keepin’ things from you either. In a way, I was glad you looked in my sketchbook. I mean, thinkin’ of you lookin’ at my drawings of you scared the shit outta me but. I’m glad I don’t have to keep that a secret from you anymore.”
Bucky smiles. “You really like drawin’ me, huh?”
Steve laughs, embarrassed, and looks away from Bucky. “Yeah, I do.”
Bucky kisses Steve again and pushes him onto his back. Steve sighs a little and thinks, this. This is what I could do for forever. Bucky straddles his hips and Steve feels slightly lightheaded.
“How bout this,” Bucky traces his lips with the tips of his fingers. “whenever you wake up and can’t get back to sleep, you wake me up.” He lifts his eyebrows suggestively. “However you want to. And I can help you fall back asleep… However you want me to.”
Steve mouth drops open a little and his dick takes interest. “Sure.” he breathes.
“What about now, Stevie?” And shit, Steve never imagined that Bucky calling him ‘Stevie’ in a situation like this would be hot -- he actually thought it’d be the opposite -- but it is, its hot as fuck, and Steve can feel his body heating up, probably flushing pink all over. “Think you can sleep?”
No, god, fuck no. He tries teasing to cover up the fact that Bucky is playing him like a well tuned instrument. “Not when you’re crushin’ me.”
“Oh, so you want me to get off?”
“Yeah. Yeah, I want you to get off.”
Bucky gasps and sits up, looking down at Steve with a face of mock surprise. “Steve fuckin’ Rogers, sayin dirty words! What would your ma think?”
“Well, its a good thing she isn’t here, ain’t it? Now, kiss me.”
And Bucky does. He laces his fingers with Steve’s and brings his hand up above his head, pinning them to the mattress. They kiss and kiss and their lips tingle when they break for air.
Again, Steve thinks about how he could do this forever. In a million different ways, Steve wants to kiss Bucky always. Steve thinks about what it would be like to kiss him on the street, at family functions, on good days, on bad days, what it would be like to kiss him hello, kiss him goodbye.
And the incredible thing is, Steve can. Steve can feel what it’s like to kiss Bucky in every way they can think of and he will.
Steve gets a little distracted by Bucky squeezing his hands and gently rocking his groin against his. He likes being pinned down by Bucky but he thinks about what it would be like to pin Bucky down. Bucky is bigger and stronger than him, but there would be that trust that is always between them, that knowledge that Bucky can easily break Steve’s hold. The important thing is that he wouldn't.
The feeling of Bucky releasing Steve’s hands and sliding them down to his crotch jars him out of his thoughts and sends a wave of uneasy nervousness through him.
Bucky takes notice to his nervous breath. “You doin okay? We don’t have to do this if you don’t want to.”
Steve looks away. “I’m sorry. It’s just... I want this but I’m nervous and a little overwhelmed, honestly.” he chuckles. “I don’t really want to rush, y’know? Is that okay?”
“Yes, yes, of course.” Bucky grabs Steve faces and kisses him. “I’ll wait as long as you want me to, baby.” Steve smiles and kisses him again.
They fall asleep in each other’s arms and it’s better than any fantasy Steve can conjure.