Chapter Text
Sweat stuck the thin fabric of his shirt onto his back. Bucky glared up into the bright sunlight. The day was warm, unusually so, with the season hovering on the cusp of autumn and summer. He’d have to hurry home before his mother scolded him for dawdling in the streets.
There should’ve been no reason as to why he paused outside a gap between two buildings. Voices were shouting—a few boys his age, maybe. Bucky wasn’t sure why he had decided to go in. It wasn’t his normal route home, but he went anyway after hearing the commotion.
He saw a straw-haired boy being pushed around. Impulsively, he had stepped in and told them to piss off. When they told him to shove it, Bucky punched the tallest-looking boy as hard as he could. Right in the face. He had earned a split lip for his efforts, but they ended up leaving the two alone.
"What were you doing on your own?" Bucky winced as he prodded his lip. His mother was going to kill him.
“I was doin’ fine before you came along." He wiped at his bloody nose.
Bucky grinned. “I’m sure you did.”
The boy gave him a funny look, then stuck out his hand. “I'm Steve.”
“My name's James, but everyone calls me Bucky.” Bucky shook it.
That handshake cemented the start of their friendship, that warm sunny afternoon. Somehow, they kept bumping into each other after that; it wasn’t hard at all to start talking more. Bucky wasn’t wishy-washy—far from it, but he’d like to think it was fate. Fate, who had dragged him down an alley to a skinny boy who didn’t know how to back down from a fight.
Life suddenly became Steve and Bucky, instead of just Bucky. They stuck together like glue during their childish adventures. Whatever one did, the other would always be there. The years melted into each other; they grew up from wide-eyed kids to teens.
Bucky hit a growth spurt early on. He ended up being taller than Steve by an entire head, and inevitably more built too. Steve’s many medical problems continued to plague him. It never seemed to keep him down for too long; the teen was a born fighter.
And so, over the years of bickering, adventures, promises, and memories, falling in love with Steve seemed fated. Bucky spent most of his childhood hopelessly head over heels with his best friend. He had loved Steve before he even knew what love was. He’d fallen and fallen, not knowing how deep it went, until one day it had hit him, out of the blue. It felt like the breath had been punched out of his lungs, his mind dizzy with the sheer amount of feeling.
That one day was a particularly sunny afternoon.
It was too warm to go out; the air was hot and dry. Even the stray dogs had curled up into the alleys, instead of wandering about. The two had decided to stay in instead of venturing out to their old haunts. It was a particularly uneventful, with no trouble to stir up or places to go.
Steve had been half-curled up on a chair, afternoon sun sending fat beams of light through the window behind him. A thin stick of charcoal stained his fingertips black as he deftly sketched something out. The sketchbook he was using had been a birthday gift from Bucky, and it quickly became one of his most prized possessions.
Sprawled across the worn green couch across from Steve, Bucky watched him draw. Bucky wasn’t an artist; it never interested him. He had asked Steve once, w hy do people like to draw? Steve had answered— to capture bits of life. Whatever you find beautiful.
He had never understood it, until recently. There had never been anything particularly worthy of the word—until Steve. God, Steve Rodgers was the very definition of beautiful. Even now, with his white shirt drawing crisp lines against his throat, and the almost-golden hue of his skin in the light, it made Bucky's breath hitch. He was a wondrous blend of sharp angles and soft lines, stunning cheekbones accentuating the curve of his jaw; Steve was incomparable to anyone Bucky’s ever met before.
Nobody makes me feel the way Steve does, Bucky thinks. His feelings seem to be too big for his heart. They fill him up to the brim yet seemed to hollow out his insides at the same time. A sort of aching hunger, to kiss the tips of his fingers and the corners of his lips.
He loves reverently, like a prayer. Bucky dreams of reaching his hands out, how the white church spires seemed to pierce the sky. If just maybe, he could feel the warmth of skin underneath his fingertips, it would be like reaching God.
Blasphemous thoughts. Sinful in a way that would condemn him to eternal suffering. He knew the scripture well. Men shouldn’t love other men. There should be no one before the Lord. The church said so, the neighbours said so, almost everybody said so. Bucky didn’t get it—how could something so inherently terrible feel so right? Steve was closer than God ever had seemed to be.
Loving him is the same as breathing. A natural, unconscious motion that keeps his heart beating. Trying not to love Steve was a losing battle, and Bucky didn’t want to win it.
He could never tell Steve. What if he decided to stop being friends? If he walked out through the front door and never came back? The notion seemed overwhelmingly appalling. Bucky didn't want to lose the heart that beat in time to his own, the friend who knew him more than anyone else. He spent the years by his side as a best friend, nothing more. It’s enough, Bucky told himself sharply, time and time again. Just being with Steve is enough. It’s selfish to want more.
Aren't humans naturally selfish? Just as he told himself to be content with what he had, he longed for more. He wanted to press kisses to the bumps of Steve’s spine and wrap his hands around his hips. He wanted to dance together on rainy days and steal kisses while they were half-asleep. Everything they could never have.
But that isn't happening, Bucky thought bitterly. Steve's treated me the way he always has. He couldn't possibly ever feel this way.
Steve cares for him. He knows that. As a friend—an unusually close one, but that at most.