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It’s not very crowded in the bar. It rarely is, even on a Saturday night like this. TJ comes here often, when he needs a place to calm down, to lay low, to sip his whiskey in a place he won’t be judged. It’s quite a closed in place, with its low ceiling and dim lighting. The regulars are in here; the woman with liquid gold irises and slim fingers clutched around the perpetually full wine glass, the gaunt man whose hair is falling out in clumps of burnished bronze that holds whispered conversations on a phone with a cracked screen that glittered like crushed diamonds. There’s a new guy in there too. He’s too pretty for a place like this, with the telltale moisture rings imprinted in the wood of the bar and the wallpaper peeling around the door and windows especially. His blond hair looks like tarnished gold and his eyes are the blue of a storm-wrecked sea, dark and churning. They’ve been focused on the glass clutched in his hand. TJ can see his white knuckles, and he’s waiting for the glass to shatter in the man’s grip.
Still, curiosity overcomes him, and TJ slips down from the cracked leatherette stool and crosses the short distance between them, leaning on the bar.
“If you finish that one, I’ll buy you another.”
Bucky.
Steve chokes a little, the breath in his lungs being forced out in one forceful push. He looks so much like Bucky that it hurts. He remembers all the things he never got to say, all the things he’ll never hear from Bucky again. Bucky is dead.
But that damn smile, all wry and inviting. It’s purely Bucky’s. From the bright, barely contained mischief his pale eyes hold to the way he holds himself, this stranger doesn’t seem so strange.
“If you’re tryna get me drunk, it’ll take a while.” He murmurs eventually.
TJ isn’t discouraged. He sits up on the stool beside Steve, calling the bartender over to buy himself a measure of whiskey. He stirs the molten amber around the glass for a moment, wondering how to approach this.
“What’s your name?” Steve asks.
Maybe he’s hoping for it to be Bucky. Maybe he’s hoping for a second chance with the boy he never got to have. Maybe. He’ll never confess. That’s strictly his business.
“TJ.”
It’s honestly a little surprising that TJ has had to introduce himself. He’d expected the same wide eyes, the same feigned nonchalance, the same clumsy flirting and even clumsier sex afterwards. It’s also slightly refreshing. This means there’s a chance that all of his troubles, all of his scandals, aren’t going to be a point of conversation later in the evening.
“Steve.”
Not Bucky. Steve knew it wouldn’t be. He shouldn’t be so hurt, he shouldn’t be so surprised.
Steve doesn’t want to think about all those memories. He downs his drink instead.
“So, Steve. Why are you here? It’s not exactly the biggest hotspot in town.”
TJ is captivating, though. His easy manner is drawing Steve in.
“It’s quiet. I don’t get a lot of that these days.” Steve answers truthfully.
TJ nods. He knows that feeling.
“What about you? Pretty thing like you. You should be out enjoying yourself.”
Chuckling, TJ shifts closer.
“Who says I’m not enjoying myself?”