Chapter 1
Notes:
If you're interested in a tailored playlist for reading this story, you can find one here.
Chapter Text
| story by |
the1918
| embroidered art by |
BritBrit99
prologue
“This is the last one.”
The worn leather duffel—filled with ladies’ shoes, Steve recalls—makes a soft thud when he lets it fall to the carpet. He keeps his eyes trained on the bag instead of looking forward.
It’s funny, he thinks, gaze tracing the loopy pattern of blues and grays. He still remembers the day they bought this rug.
“Steve.”
He never can avoid those achingly familiar eyes for very long. Peggy’s always had that effect on him.
Steve breathes in. He lifts his chin.
“Twenty years,” he says, and it’s soft. “Twenty years since I saw you on that playground.”
It’s easy to spot the weight of memory as it shapes sad lines across Peggy’s face. Steve knows he must look much the same. He has no reason to back away when she comes forward, closing the gap between them, and he doesn’t move his head when she reaches up with one small hand to cup the curve of his cheek.
“Nothing can take those years away from us, Steve. Not even this.”
Gently, Steve encircles her delicate wrist with his fingers, as though he could hold her hand there forever. The turning leaves of the aspen tree rooted on their front lawn wave at him in the corner of his vision, flashes of autumn color winking through the slits of the living room blinds. He pays the sight no attention.
As though drawn with the tug of a thick, invisible string, Peggy’s gaze falls to the side of Steve’s neck. He doesn’t have to ask what she’s thinking; he knows she is taking one final look at the expanse of unmarked skin that’s hung over their heads for a decade.
“I do love you,” he croaks, as though that simple fact is still enough.
Peggy meets his eyes again. She smiles, a thing full of softness and something unnamed. It feels too much like regret.
“And I love you, too, in so many ways. I’ll always love you.” She brushes a thumb over his cheekbone, just a whisper of touch. “But we both know I cannot stay.”
Steve wants to start crying again. He squeezes his eyes shut against the deluge of water and salt, drawing in an uneven breath. Peggy is the only person he’ll ever let see him this way.
“I’ve never been without you, Pegs.” His voice breaks, cracking down the middle, a brand new injury from holding back a sob. “I don’t—I don’t know what I’m going to do.”
And though Steve cannot see it through his eyelids, he knows the expression Peggy wears on her face, and he feels every ounce of devotion in it when she stands up on her toes, pressing their foreheads together. It’s been an age of the earth since either of them have needed words to say how they feel.
Neither of them try to push the moment away before it’s run its course. When they do finally part, Steve wipes his nose on his sleeve, not caring about the mess he must look. Days of salty tears burn his throat when he watches Peggy pick up her last bag.
Ignoring the water brimming in her own eyes, threatening to spill, she leans up once again. Ruby red lipstick brushes Steve’s cheek.
“You’ll figure it out, my love,” she tells him, turning towards the door but not yet walking away. “I know it may not always seem like it, but you’re meant to be happy. Somewhere out there is a person you can love like you couldn’t love me.”
Moments later, Steve listens, but he doesn’t watch the front door as it shuts. He doesn’t peer out through the windows when he catches the sound of her car engine coming to life. He doesn’t run to watch her wheels move as they crunch over pinecones, crackling out a hundred farewells as Peggy Carter backs out of the driveway for the last time.
i. washed ashore
“Continue on U.S. Highway 1 North for eighty-three miles.”
Bucky lets out a long sigh. He tightens his grip on the steering wheel, not to better hug the asphalt, but to stretch the road-weary ache from his knuckles.
Jesus Christ. This grand plan for his solo vacation—however thrust upon him said plan may have been—seemed a lot more relaxing when presented to him on paper.
The drive from the city has been shorter than some long-winded, cross-country thing he could have been forced into, but it still feels like more than Bucky bargained for. The bite-sized state of Connecticut is behind him by now, and it had been exactly how Bucky remembered it from summers spent at his grandparents’ house: scenic in a cheap postcard way in a handful of spots, wretchedly boring in others. After that, Massachusetts had dragged by slowly—too slowly given the surprisingly reasonable traffic gifted his way—but at least the restroom at the gas station he’d chosen to stop at was nice enough. New Hampshire had been… exactly eighteen miles of coastal highway. Bucky had blinked and nearly missed it. The small city of Portland, Maine had been a nice lunch stop, but nothing to write home about—at least, not from the interstate.
It’s not the first time Bucky has driven I-95 through New England in the fall, but it’s the first time he’s driven it this early in the season. The last week of September has barely begun to show the golds of the beech trees, the brilliant reds of the sugar maples, the burgundy of the ash trees. The red oaks are only beginning to turn orange and fiery crimson at the tips.
He takes his foot off the brake and accelerates through the stoplight. The little town of Freeport on Maine’s mid-coast isn’t much in the way of size, but its streets are lined with charming old clapboard houses, white picket fences, and traffic light banners announcing the upcoming Fall Festival. Brunswick comes next—larger, but similarly quaint—followed by the town of Bath, where the trend of well-preserved nineteenth century homes continues. There’s a picturesque bridge crossing over the Sheepscot River in Wiscasset, accompanied by little signs advertising the location as “Maine’s Prettiest Village.”
Bucky rolls through each without stopping.
He’d ventured out of his hometown of Brooklyn into New England often enough in his youth on leaf-peeping family road trips, or—after the divorce—on weekend getaways with his father, but Bucky’s never been further north than Boston before. He’s got nothing against the area, honestly, but he’d be lying if he said he’s got even one single ounce of desire to be here now.
Not for the first time, Bucky thinks to himself that this whole thing better be worth it.
The trip hadn’t been his idea, not by a longshot. Bucky had been perfectly content to stay in Brooklyn and continue his year-long streak of keeping the acquisitions department—his department, the division of Howlie Publishing House under his purview—two months ahead of their goal for reviewing new submissions. It’s brutal work; while Bucky spends most of his time on oversight and approvals, he gets his hands dirty with new reading material almost as much as his staff does, standing in line at the supermarket with a manuscript in his hands to keep the ball constantly moving in an effort to keep up the team’s numbers.
Tiring as it may be at times, Bucky has been doing his job for more than a decade now, and he loves it. Sure, he rarely gets more than five hours of sleep on any given night, and he’s lucky if he sees the inside of his own condo for more than a handful of waking moments each day. He still wouldn’t spend his time any other way—if the choice were his and his alone, that is.
Unfortunately, Bucky’s choice can be wrenched from his grasp. He had learned as much when Morita stomped down to his office last month and slammed the door behind him, livid with his recent discovery that Bucky hadn't used a single day of vacation in the last six years. Doing his best to hide his wincing, Bucky had quickly devolved into a pathetic mess of honest-to-God begging, pleading with Morita to turn a blind eye and set aside company policy for him—“C’mon, how long have I been the best manager in your group? How much have I done for this organization?”—but despite his best attempts, his boss had kept the conversation sweet and short.
(“I won’t have my best guy burning out while he’s still at his peak, Barnes. Get the fuck outta here.”)
After a night of fitful sleep and heavy brooding during which Bucky sorted through every conceivable way out of the situation, he’d returned to the office the next day and begrudgingly assigned his assistant the unsavory task of finding and booking a four week trip for him to waste time on, since Bucky couldn’t have given two shits about doing it himself.
(“I don’t need a fuckin’ tropical beach, Darce, and I don’t need some European city. Just pick someplace close—and quiet.”)
The resulting itinerary is what’s at hand now. It consists solely of a reservation at a vacation stay in some tiny town on Maine’s coast, some little place Bucky has never once heard of, but he’s satisfied with Darcy’s choice; Maine sounds like the perfect place to hunker down, open his work laptop, and set his Microsoft Teams status to ‘appear away’ so Morita will be none the wiser that Bucky is spending his vacation—his forced vacation—getting shit done remotely.
After what feels like endless miles of roadway dotted with scenic vistas, the car’s navigation system finally directs Bucky to turn south off the main highway onto the local route. He passes a sign on the right-hand side soon after.
Bell Harbor
18 Miles
In many ways, Bell Harbor looks to the eye just like every other town Bucky has passed through today. There are hundred year old houses in classic New England Colonial style neatly lined along Main Street, a well-kept affair of gleaming white clapboards and navy blue shingles. Understated-yet-complex Victorians, tall and narrow, add a subtle bit of flourish to the roadside scenery with their handsome turrets and crested, prickly roofs.
A curiosity tickling the base of Bucky’s neck compels him to roll down the driver’s side window. Despite the density of trees surrounding the town, a mix of colorful deciduous and stoic evergreen, he’s immediately met with the whimsical scent of a salty ocean he cannot yet see.
Maybe later, he thinks. He rolls up the window.
Main Street becomes less residential and more commercial as he drives into what appears to be the town’s main square. It isn’t much; there are a handful of stores, including a market Bucky makes note of for later, and a few small boutiques he has no interest in visiting. A Fifties-themed diner is situated in the middle of it all. He reaches the end of the brief strand and gazes off to his right, where he spots a little place signed The Red Room. It looks like it might be a pub—and it’s open.
Jesus, Bucky needs a drink.
Parking is no issue; there doesn’t seem to be many spaces along the street anywhere in town—it must be more of a walking sort of place—but every one he sees is wide open. Bucky pulls into a spot right in front of the door and gets out, grabbing what quarters he can scrounge up to feed the antiquated meter.
With a deep breath, Bucky pulls his coat tighter to his body. He turns to the door.
When he enters the bar, the first person Bucky spots is a red-headed woman behind the counter. There are just a couple other patrons, both of them tucked away at a high-top table in the corner. One is an enormous man with flowing, blond hair like a Viking, and he’s sitting there looking like he belongs shirtless on the cover of one of the cheesy romance novels Howlie House publishes. He’s talking to a lithe-looking man with black hair that looks like it could use a wash.
The relative emptiness of the place makes sense; it’s three o’clock on a Tuesday afternoon. He looks back at the bar and finds the red-headed woman regarding him with an unreadable expression on her face.
“You’re new.”
It’s an odd thing to say to a patron, Bucky thinks. He only quirks an eyebrow and shrugs.
“Yeah, just got into town. I’m...” He cracks his knuckles quietly at his sides to settle his sudden, weird nerves. “I’m supposed to be here on vacation.”
The bartender regards him with interest for a bit longer. Finally, she gestures towards the nearest barstool, and Bucky feels like she’s decided he’s… allowed. Like he’s passed some sort of screening process.
Fuck, this town is weird already.
“Welcome.” There’s no smile on her features, but nothing unkind either. Her expression is stoic with her piercing eyes. “I’m Natasha. You should probably get used to my face if you like to drink on your vacations. My bar has the only liquor license in town.”
Bucky nods as he slowly pulls out the stool and gets himself settled. “Good to know. Thanks.” He extends his hand, but he’s halfway sure she’s just going to stare at him instead of taking it. “I’m Bucky.”
Natasha surprises him by grasping his hand with a dauntingly firm handshake, a half-smirk appearing on her face. Now that he’s said hello, Bucky takes a moment to subtly scent the air.
She’s a beta, like him. Like most people.
“‘Bucky,’” Natasha repeats. It sounds as if she’s testing out the name on her tongue. “Alright. What’ll it be?”
Bucky considers the time again. He still needs to get to his rental and unpack, and he knows there are emails waiting for him—even if he’s not supposed to be checking them.
“Just a beer,” he answers, then considers the request further. “Something… Something local.”
Natasha nods before turning her back, grabbing an amber bottle out of the cooler.
“Cold glass?”
“Nah.” Bucky waves a declining hand. “Bottle’s fine.”
Natasha pops off the top and grabs a napkin, sliding it and the bottle in front of Bucky. “Bell Harbor is the only town I know of whose only grocery store has a microbrewery in the back.” She nods toward the freshly opened bottle. “That’s their New England IPA. Better than any you’ll get outside of this place.”
Bucky tips the neck of his bottle in her direction—“Cheers”—and takes a sip.
“Mm.” He lets the smooth, citrusy hops sit in his mouth for a moment, noting the roundness of the taste before he swallows. “Damn,” he laughs, “you’re not wrong about that.”
A deep roar of laughter suddenly booms from the blond man sitting mid-conversation in the corner with his friend. Bucky jolts—Jesus, that sounds like a damn clap of thunder—but Natasha doesn’t even flinch.
“So, Bucky,” she starts, wiping non-existent droplets of water off the bar’s surface with her rag. “How long are you in town?”
“Four weeks.” He takes another swig.
Natasha raises her eyebrows. “In Bell Harbor the whole time?”
“That’s the plan.”
“Wow,” she says, sounding genuinely incredulous. It’s the closest thing Bucky’s heard to a laugh from her so far. “You’re gonna be drinking a lot, then, because that’s about the only thing there is to do around here.”
Bucky gives her a nod. “Yeah, it seemed quiet here, a little out of the way.” He thinks about his laptop back in the car, about his waiting email inbox and the strong Wi-Fi connection that was promised on the listing for his vacation rental. “It’s kind of why I picked this spot.”
“Fair enough,” Natasha shrugs. “Where are you staying?”
“Renting a guest suite.” Bucky pulls out his phone and quickly opens the rental app. It only takes a few seconds for him to pull up the page for his reservation. “Somewhere… ‘704 Juniper Court.’”
He tucks his device away back in his pocket. When he looks back at Natasha, there’s another one of those unreadable expressions on her face.
“So you’re staying with Steve, then.”
Bucky’s eyebrows go up at her instantaneous recognition of the address. He thinks back to the confirmation email he’d just had open.
“‘Steve,’ yeah. That’s what the profile said.” He draws another sip from the bottle. “Haven’t really talked to the guy yet. You know him?”
“Everyone knows everyone here.” Natasha nods towards the two men in the corner. “The big one over there is Thor, and that’s his little shit of a brother, Loki.”
“I can hear you, Ms. Romanov.”
“Good. Go shove it.”
Bucky feels the corner of his lips tick up. Small town, indeed.
“Point taken.” Bucky readjusts his seat on the stool. “So… this ‘Steve.’ You kinda looked like you wanted to say something about him.”
Natasha pauses for a moment before she answers. “Not really. Honestly, I can't speak ill of the guy.”
And Bucky… Bucky’s not totally sure how to read that answer.
“You sure he’s not some douchebag, and you just don’t want to tell me because you want me to stay in town and throw money at your bar for the next four weeks?” He gives her a grin and drains another sip. “Cough it up—what’s wrong with him? Is he some chauvinistic alpha asshole?”
Natasha smirks. She sets down the pint glass she’s just finished shining.
“Not at all. Steve’s an omega.”
Bucky registers the probable implications of what he’s hearing and blanches. Designations aren’t usually the kind of thing people post on their profiles on vacation rental apps, but still, Bucky was hoping he wouldn’t have to deal with a territorial alpha partner looming around.
“I see. His host profile didn’t say anything about a mate in the house. How about his alpha—are they a total dick?”
“No,” Natasha answers without looking up. “Steve isn’t mated.”
Bucky is taken aback by her response—visibly so, he imagines, if he could see himself through Natasha’s eyes.
Male omegas are exceedingly rare in the population. Those that do exist are almost prized by society—by alphas, especially—admired for the beauty in their perfect mix of a broad, masculine frame with an almost feminine kind of glow, hard lines cut into natural softness. They’re practically like unicorns; omega men nearly always end up mated as young adults. Alpha admirers will knock down their front doors for as long as they remain single and unclaimed.
“Really?” Bucky doesn’t try to hide his surprise. “No alpha at all—boyfriends? Girlfriends? Partner?”
Natasha shakes her head. “Not anymore.”
“Oh.” It may be unusual, but it’s not unwelcome news. “That’s… good for me, I guess.”
Natasha gives him a funny look of interest. She settles one hand on her hip.
“And why do you say that?” she asks, really smiling now like she finally can’t stop herself from it. She’s teasing him.
Bucky arches one eyebrow at her. “…Because I won’t have to deal with having some alpha knothead sniffing down my back while I stay on their property for a month?”
He’s honestly confused by her question. What else does she think he could have meant? What other reason would Bucky have to be relieved that Steve is unmated—
Oh.
Well.
That’s a bit odd.
It’s not that it’s totally unheard of for a beta to be interested in an omega that way. It’s just… not the done thing. It’s not talked about. Anyone who listened during a basic grade school history course knows that every social structure that existed between the dawn of Western civilization and the Gender Rights Revolution of the twentieth century was dominated by alphas governing the wider world of beta men and women—with their omega mates dutifully on the throne beside them. Being born with any designation other than beta was once an automatic path to the ruling class. Bucky remembers learning about the medieval era, when alpha and omega children born to betas were ripped straight from the breast of their mother shortly after birth, stolen away from farms to the estates of barons and dukes and princes. Likewise, beta children born to omegas had the same rights as bastards, unable to inherit land or titles.
Different as society may be now—to a degree, at least—one thing has never changed: omegas are partners only to alphas, and anything else would earn that omega the label of “queer.” While omega-beta relationships aren’t illegal anymore in the United States, that’s only due to the courts ruling that the government cannot interfere in the private affairs of its constituents where it concerns mating. Even those rulings were handed down after omega-omega couples sued their states for the right to bond each other; ultra-rare omega-beta couples merely benefitted as an off-shoot result.
It’s an unwritten rule, but a social reality nonetheless: when betas get around to biting, it better be another beta’s neck they’re sinking their teeth into.
And yet here Bucky is, a beta without a scar on his neck, sitting in front of a stranger who thinks he’s got designs on wooing the first unmarked omega he comes across in her quaint, small town.
“You’re clearly a city boy if you’re so worried about a mate in the house,” Natasha says, breaking through Bucky’s thoughts. She’s still smirking like she’s got his number. “You might be used to all that aggression where you live, but the alphas around here aren’t so bad. I mean, Thor over there”—she nods in the direction of the blond man in the corner—“is basically an overstimulated golden retriever, but he wouldn’t hurt a fly... unless that fly looked at Jane the wrong way, I guess.”
First Steve, then this Thor, now some omega apparently named Jane… “Sounds like you got a lot of ‘a’s and ‘o’s for such a little town,” Bucky comments. “Haven’t been here twenty minutes, and already I’m hearing about three of them.”
Natasha shrugs in reply. She doesn’t seem to think much of the question. “Maybe more than the population average, but that’s probably the whole of Maine’s Mid-Coast.” She leans forward a bit with her elbows on the edge of the counter. “It’s different for them than it is for us betas, you know. So many smells in big cities, too much for their sensitive noses. I think ‘a-o’ couples just like to come here, retire early. Maybe escape.”
The service door to the backroom suddenly swings open, making Bucky jump again. An unfamiliar man makes his entrance—another beta by the new scent in the room—and he’s about Bucky’s height with sandy blond hair. He’s carrying a large crate of what looks like the same bottle Bucky now holds in his hand.
“Barton,” Natasha greets, nodding his direction. “You’re early—”
“—He’s new.”
This guy—this ‘Barton’—is looking straight at Bucky like he expects an explanation for his presence.
What is it with the people in this town? Have they really never seen a tourist?
“He’s here on vacation,” Natasha answers, taking the crate from Barton and setting it down on the back bar.
Barton raises his eyebrows in interest. “Well damn. Can’t say we get many of those around here, do we?”
Bucky lets go of his bottle, making a questioning gesture with his hands.
“Okay,” he says, “I’m confused. I thought tourism was half the economy up here.”
“If you’re talking about Wisscasset or Rockport, sure,” Barton answers. “But not in Bell Harbor.”
With that, Barton turns and opens the cooler, restocking the rows of beer bottles. Bucky is seriously starting to think he should abandon the rest of his drink and go back to his car—go back to Brooklyn—tell Darcy to find him some other small, quiet town to stay in while he burns his excess of vacation days.
“Why is that?” he asks instead. “Is there something wrong with this place? Why wouldn’t you have the same vacation traffic the rest of the area has?”
Natasha shrugs. “No reason. We just don’t.”
“Nothing interesting here,” Barton adds, calling over his shoulder. “Too quiet. Too far off Highway 1.”
Barton finishes stocking and disappears through the service door again, only to return a few seconds later with another full crate. The logo on these bottles is the same as before—Lucky Shot Brewing—but the label looks like it’s some sort of wheat beer instead of Bucky’s IPA.
“He’s staying at Steve’s,” Natasha tells Barton, completely unsolicited.
“Oh, yeah?” He sets the crate down and looks at Bucky with interest and—wonderful—the same weirdly knowing smirk Natasha’s been wearing since Bucky said ‘Juniper Court.’ “Well, that’ll be good for Steve... If he manages to pop his head out of his house to finally speak to another person.”
Bucky cocks his head to the side. “Is he a shut-in type of guy?”
“I wouldn’t say that,” Natasha interjects. “He’s just been… a little self-isolated. Lately.”
Despite the tickling at the forefront of Bucky’s brain telling him it’s exceptionally weird that he already knows so much about his host before even meeting him, a part of Bucky is relieved by what he’s hearing. He may have been forced on this vacation against his will, but if he’s landed a place to stay where no one is around to bother him while he works his way through a pile of manuscripts… perhaps the next month may not turn out to be so terrible.
The afternoon continues to tick away on the clock, so Bucky decides to finish his beer, watching Natasha and Barton make witty swipes at each other as they stock the bar. Bucky leaves a ten dollar bill and signals his goodbye with a mock salute.
Natasha’s smirk follows him on his way out the door.
Juniper Court isn’t far from the bar. Bucky scans the street numbers on each of the houses he drives past, following as they count down to the address he’s seeking. Finally, he spots his destination. He recalls instructions from the email to park on the street.
The modest, single-car driveway sits empty. Bucky’s host must not be home.
He pulls his car up to the curbside, steps out, and gives himself a moment to better survey the face of the house before him. Its exterior speaks to a home that is well cared for; the stylish, darkly painted sideboards are clean, as is the neat white trim. The landscaping on the front is simple but filled with early fall color, and the lawn is perfectly manicured. Bucky has the passing thought that he’s about to step into a story book setting.
He takes out his phone and refers back to his email. Following the self-check-in instructions, Bucky passes through the small gate on the side fence to enter an equally well-tended backyard. Straight ahead of him—beyond the subtle but enchanting bird baths, the picturesque flowerpots, and the wrought iron garden benches—he spots the guest suite, as described. It sits at an ‘L’ shaped angle to the rest of the structure. Bucky can tell by the way the slab sits just a little bit lower than the main structure that it was probably some sort of after-the-fact addition to the house.
He enters the four-digit code into the keypad above the door handle. There’s a snick as the lock opens, a little green light flashing up at him. Bucky pushes the handle down and forward.
When the door opens, he finds himself entering into a full kitchen, attractive, outfitted with plenty of appliances despite its small size. Bucky makes a note to himself to visit that local grocery-slash-brewery to stock up his pantry for the month and take advantage of the cooking amenities, but he otherwise passes through the room without stopping.
A charming arched doorway leads to a living area. The room is compact, with a plush-looking loveseat and a chaise lounge, both of them facing a television of moderate size on the opposite wall. There’s an open door off to the side leading to a spacious bedroom with a large king bed at the center, then another door to what Bucky assumes is the bathroom. The decor in each room brings the whole place together with tastefully understated earth tones and a mix of contemporary and early twentieth century design. Last, Bucky sees an antique desk in the corner—the perfect size to accommodate his work laptop.
It’s comfortable, he muses to himself. Maybe this trip might be relaxing after all.
Bucky sets his digital bookmark in the PDF file he’s been working through for the last two hours and exhales heavily, finally shutting his laptop for the night as he scoots his chair out from the quaint little writing desk. His bad shoulder—an old injury from a childhood car accident—gives him a faint twinge of pain when he lifts his left wrist to check his watch.
He’s just registering the late hour just when his stomach gives an angry rumble. Bucky groans into the otherwise silent room as he considers his options, realizing they’re slim. It’s almost ten at night on a Tuesday; he highly doubts there’s any place in this small town still open to diners, and he never did make it to the local supermarket after settling in. He’ll have to make do with the pair of granola bars he knows are stuffed away in his laptop bag, even smashed to bits in their wrappers as he’s sure they are. It’s better than no dinner at all.
Once he’s eaten, taken care of the mess of crumbs, and dutifully brushed his teeth, the quilted King bed in the next room is eagerly calling Bucky’s name. He goes through the suite and shuts off each of the lights, starting in the kitchen and ending with the little lamp desk next to his laptop. When the rooms around him have sunk into their own quiet darkness, now lit only by exterior sources of light, he spots a shifting figure out of the corner of his eye.
It's an unexpected curiosity that turns Bucky’s head to the window. He sharpens his focus as he peers out of the guest suite, looking across the charming courtyard on the back lawn and through the broad panes of glass on the home’s main structure. He finds a silhouette.
It’s not much—just the shadow moving under a dim light—but the broad shoulders and clean lines comprising the shape are unmistakably that of a man. The man in question has his head down, hands moving methodically over and over again with the billowy edges of some unknown fabric changing shape between his fingers.
It’s Steve Rogers, Bucky realizes. It’s his host in the flesh. Steve Rogers is folding laundry.
It will later take Bucky a long time to understand what it is about that image that makes him stand there for so long, stock-still, simply staring through the windows. He can hear the thrumming of something unfamiliar sounding out in his mind. Rogers seems to remain ignorant of his guest’s attentions all the while, continuing to go about his business while Bucky looks on at him tucking away bath sheets and dish towels.
And then Bucky becomes aware that his eyes have grown dry. He hasn’t blinked in over a minute. He draws in a belated breath and screws his eyelids shut, chasing away that sandpaper feeling, pulling himself out of this unexplained trance.
When he opens them again, Rogers is gone. Bucky blinks blearily at the place the man had just stood, tracing the outline of his missing subject with his mind: the specter of Steve. His heart hiccups stupidly in his chest.
For that briefest second—that endless blink—Bucky is in love with a ghost.
And then his phone buzzes. Bucky tears his eyes away to look at the illuminated screen in his hand, finding the nightly notification from his meditation app. The reminder of the time arrives not a second too late.
He somehow finds a way to keep himself from looking back through the window as he turns, walking to the bedroom. Resisting is—for some reason—no small task.
It’s easy for him to wake with the sun when the wide bay window in the bedroom faces east.
The water pressure in the shower turns out to be perfect, a pleasant surprise first thing in the morning. Bucky’s just thrown on a comfortable pair of sweats and an old t-shirt after the shower, standing in the kitchen trying to figure out the coffee maker, when there’s a quiet knock on the door.
His brow furrows in confusion. He sets down the empty mug in his hands and walks over, turning the knob. At the bottom of the small set of steps he finds an unfamiliar face: a man carrying a stack of neatly folded bath towels.
Steve.
Bucky can actually see his host now that he’s standing in front of him bathed in daylight. Looking over his face, his first impression—beyond that Steve Rogers is objectively a striking, gorgeous man—is that those eyes are a unique shade of blue. He bears a handsome and clean-shaven jawline, and his nose looks to be the slightest bit crooked. Soft rays from the morning sun bounce off his straw-colored hair and give the illusion that it’s gold enough to glitter.
A stubborn breath catches on its way into Bucky’s lungs.
Steve gives him a polite smile from the bottom of the steps, looking up at him through long eyelashes. He tucks the stack of towels into the crook of his opposite elbow and rises up onto the first step with an open hand.
“Hi.”
After an uneven pause, Bucky silently takes the offered hand, giving it a shake as he looks the rest of Steve over. The guy is certainly well-built, even more so than the typical omega male; Bucky only manages to compete with Steve’s impressive stature because he himself is tall for a beta, and because the gym is just about the only place he makes it out to when he leaves his apartment—other than his office, of course.
“Morning,” he greets in return. They finish their handshake and drop their arms back to their sides. “I take it you’re Steve?”
Steve steps backwards down to his original spot and restores the feet of space between them. It’s a cool, breezy day outside. Bucky isn’t sure if the faint notes of lavender wafting into his nose have ridden in on the wind or if they’re a part of Steve’s natural scent. He isn’t standing close enough for Bucky to tell.
“That’s me. You’re James, right?”
Bucky nods and stuffs his hands into his pockets. “Right. Most people call me Bucky, though.” He pauses for a minute and considers that he doesn’t usually give away his informal nickname to people he’s only just met, but he’s already done it twice since he came to town, and he sees no real reason to regret it.
The corner of Steve’s lips tick up like he wants to laugh, but he doesn’t. Bucky finds himself wishing he could see into his head and learn what he’s thinking.
“Alright,” Steve says. “Bucky, then.”
They pass the next several seconds simply staring at each other. Bucky can admit it’s a bit awkward, but he’s not sure why. He’s beginning to wonder if he should just offer to take the stack of towels from Steve—are those for Bucky, is that why he’s here?—when Steve clears his throat and speaks again.
“I just came by to drop off some fresh towels for you,” he explains, like he’d known exactly what Bucky was thinking. “There are a few already in the cabinet, but I figured a few more couldn’t hurt.”
Bucky blinks. “Oh, great,” he says dumbly. “Thanks.”
“Sure thing. Let me—um…” Steve awkwardly passes over the towels. A lock of sandy blond hair falls onto his forehead. “Let me know if you need anything while you’re here, alright? Anything at all. I want you to have a good stay.” He gestures towards the stack in Bucky’s arms, where the terry cloth feels particularly plush and luxuriant against the palms of his hands. They must be a nice brand. “I’ll come by later this week to switch those out for clean towels if… if that’s okay.”
Despite the crisp autumn air, Bucky feels parched. He licks his dry lips.
“Yeah… Yeah, sounds good,” he answers. “Um. Thanks, Steve.”
Steve nods, but he doesn’t move right away. He stands in front of Bucky looking like he doesn’t know what to do with his now empty hands, or like he’s not sure where to look.
“Never had someone from the app stay for a whole month,” Steve comments, giving Bucky a small shrug and a raspy, nervous chuckle. “I guess I’ll be seeing you.”
Bucky nods lamely. He switches the towels from one arm to the other, hoping the smile on his face looks half as warm as he inexplicably feels inside.
“Guess you will,” he answers. “Thanks again, Steve.”
Steve bows his head slightly as a polite acknowledgment and parting gesture. Then he turns, and he leaves.
Bucky steps inside and closes the door only to watch through the window as Steve returns to his house.
Chapter Text
draft one/thursday
Grant lies alone in bed, twisted up in sheets. The bedding has quickly grown humid with heat and sweat. His skin is on fire despite the dampness; every inch of him screams as he’s scorched by invisible flames, burning, reduced to nothing but pain and wanting.
His body is growing weak. It cannot contain the inferno much longer.
He longs for relief He is so empty.
“Grant?” calls a voice from beyond the bedroom door, distant and so very close at the same time. “I—I know I’m not supposed to be here.” The voice quiets. “But… Grant? Are you home?”
The door creaks on its hinges as it swings open. Grant’s vision has gone blurry, but he can still spot the moment Arnie catches the wave of his scent. He can only imagine the suffocation.
“F-Fuck—!” Arnie coughs. He grips the door frame to steady himself, wobbling with dizziness. “Fuck, baby honey sweetheart, you… You’re…”
Grant opens his mouth to answer—to plead—but a fresh wave of fire suddenly consumes him. His spine curves deeply as his back arches off the mattress. He digs his blunt fingernails into the skin of his palms, seeking a different kind of pain to distract him from this full-body torture.
“Yes,” he chokes, struggling for breath. “Arnie… I’m in heat.”
ii. riptide
It’s another two days before Bucky actually makes it to the store.
His first morning waking up in Steve’s guest house—after meeting the man himself face-to-face—he had dazedly driven himself over to the little diner he’d spotted on his way into town instead of going out for groceries. He’d ordered a too-big breakfast from a very chatty waiter called Scott, eaten however much he’d cared to, and then taken the leftovers home to pick at all day while working his way through a manuscript. Steve’s car, a modest blue sedan, had sat in the driveway all the while, but Bucky didn’t catch a glimpse of him again, not even through the window in front of his desk. It had been a quiet day.
But today, Bucky wakes up (a bit late, thanks to one extremely comfortable mattress) and throws on the first outfit he manages to pull out of his suitcase. God, he should really take time to actually unpack his shit. He gets in the car and heads to the market down the street: the building emblazoned with Barton and Sons in swirly, purple script. He watches the papery wisps of orange and yellow leaves tumble over the asphalt road as he drives, looking on as they passively move in whichever direction the autumn wind decides to carry them.
The store is moderate in its size, but it’s well-stocked. Bucky finds himself reaching for all the same basics he typically buys from the market back in Brooklyn, tossing an unremarkable array of vegetables and proteins into his cart without any real plans for what he’ll make with them. He despises grocery shopping, so he grabs enough goods to last him for several weeks. It still doesn’t take him more than ten minutes to finish up and make his way to the counter. The guy he’d met at Natasha’s bar—Barton—is attending the empty checkout line.
“Welcome, stranger,” Barton grins. “Been wondering if I’d see your face come through here.”
Bucky greets him with a courteous nod and starts transferring the items from his cart onto the counter. “Nice to see you again. This is your store, I’m guessing?”
Barton gives him a mock salute. “Clint Barton, at your service. Are you getting yourself comfortable over at our little Steve’s humble abode?”
“It’s a great place.” Low, mechanical chirping sounds come from the register each time Barton—each time Clint—scans an item. “Pretty quiet so far.”
Clint hums like he knows what Bucky is talking about, like he’s been there many times. “Well, that’s what you came for, isn’t it?”
“Yep,” Bucky answers. “You won’t hear any complaints from me.”
Clint starts separating Bucky’s items into cans, produce, cold items, and everything else as he works. “How is Steve? I feel like I rarely see the guy these days.”
Bucky truthfully isn’t sure how to answer. He doesn’t have much to go on.
“Hard for me to say. Only talked to him once so far.”
“Huh.” Clint finishes scanning—he’s impressively efficient—and starts moving Bucky’s items into paper bags. “Well, he works from home, so I suspect you’ll see him around plenty while you’re here.”
Bucky cocks his head in interest. “Yeah? What’s he do?”
“He’s a writer—according to him, at least,” Clint laughs. “If he’s actually published anything, it’s apparently under a pen name, and he refuses to tell anyone what that name is.”
“He writes novels?”
“Yep. That’s what I hear.”
Bucky’s eyebrows have climbed halfway to his hairline. Writers turning out novels are a dime a dozen, sure, but he still finds it funny that he’s somehow managed to pick a vacation stay owned by a guy who works in his same professional sphere as him. He gathers the bags of various supplies and moves them back to his cart, preparing to wheel them out to his car.
“Well, you gotta figure he’s got at least a few things published,” Bucky muses aloud. “He’s got a pretty nice abode for a writer who ain’t earning royalties.”
Clint shrugs. “Yeah, well… His alpha took good care of him.”
Bucky doesn’t miss Clint’s choice of tense. Took care.
“Oh… that’s right.” He keeps his tone casual, as though the absence of an alpha in Steve’s house isn’t something he’s thought about extensively over the last two days. “I think Natasha mentioned they’re not around anymore.”
“Nah. But they split amicably, and she’s got a great job. Pretty sure she left him set for the foreseeable future when she moved to D.C., if I know Peggy at all.”
Bucky finds himself unable to hold back his curiosity, but that’s no surprise. Self-control has always been one of his weak spots.
“When was that?” he asks, though he’s not even sure why he wants to know the answer. “That—That they split, I mean.”
There’s the ghost of smirk on Clint’s face when he looks up. Bucky can’t help but squirm a little.
“About a year ago now.”
Bucky actually does manage to reign himself in from asking any further questions about Steve after that. He doesn’t dawdle once he’s got the bags ready to go in his cart; he thanks Clint for his help and heads out to the car, where he stows his purchases and turns the engine, takes a left out of the parking lot, and heads back to stock up his quaint little kitchen.
The house is less than a couple of miles away from Clint’s grocery. Even so, Bucky doesn’t fail to catch red lights at all two of the ‘major intersections’ along Bell Harbor’s Main Street. He tries to occupy himself by taking in little details he hasn’t noticed about the town the few times he’s driven through.
And yet, as he idles behind the wheel, Bucky’s mind once again drifts to Steve Rogers. It’s not that he can’t admit to himself that he finds the man attractive; to him, beautiful people are beautiful people, no matter their gender or designation or whatever else. He just can’t put his thumb on what it is about Steve that makes it so damn difficult to banish him from his head, and it’s becoming an honestly troublesome problem. Thoughts and questions about his new acquaintance consistently tickle at the back of Bucky’s brain, and they have ever since that first conversation with Natasha at her bar. The issue only became worse after he actually met the guy two days ago—however brief their exchange had been.
Perhaps he’s so drawn to Steve because he’s sort of… exotic? Maybe? It sounds kind of shitty of him when he thinks of it that way, but that has to be the reason for his fascination. Bucky can count on one hand the number of male omegas he’s met in his life, and the marks on their necks had spoken to the fact that not one of them was unmated. If Steve had once been with an alpha like Clint and Natasha say, why did she never claim him? Had there been something complicated going on? Or is Steve—much like a number of progressive female omegas Bucky has known—simply opposed to the notion of being permanently bonded? He can’t help but wonder if the unsealed future of their relationship had something to do with its ultimate demise.
It doesn’t matter, he thinks, shaking his jumbled-up head as he parks parallel to Steve’s curb. It’s none of his business, and besides, he’s barely even spoken to the guy; it’s probably just Bucky’s brain getting confused now that he’s breathing fresh, smog-free air for the first time in recent memory. I’ll be gone in four weeks. I won’t even remember him.
Bucky sighs as he pops the trunk and exits the car. He takes a moment to look over his haul, strategizing the best way to carry everything inside in the fewest number of trips, and his ears catch the soft opening and closing of a door somewhere nearby. He pays the sound no further thought.
After gathering a paper sack full of produce in one arm and a bag stuffed with canned goods in the other, Bucky turns to walk toward the house. He’s just registering the flash of golden hair and the lines of broad shoulders in the corner of his vision when—
“Fuck!”
—when the bottom drops out of one of his bags.
Aluminium cans of chicken broth and garbanzo beans meet the asphalt with a series of dull thuds, rolling towards the curb. Just his fucking luck. He grumbles as he sets down the still-intact bag of fruits and vegetables on the manicured lawn and gets to work picking everything up.
“Can I help?”
Bucky’s surprised the two cans he drops don’t just burst when they meet the pavement a second time. His head snaps up.
“St-Steve,” he stutters, suddenly winded for no reason at all. “You don’t—oh, um…”
Steve brushes off Bucky’s meek protest like a breeze. He steps down the curb and lowers himself to a squat, grabbing cans and tucking them into the crook of his arm so he can pick as many up as possible in one go. Bucky stares at him like an idiot for a few seconds before finally kneeling down to help.
Still dazed by Steve’s sudden appearance, Bucky realizes he’s got no plan for what to do with the ten pounds of dented cans they’re now picking up together. He stands and starts awkwardly setting each of them flat on the floor of his trunk; a pointless stop gap until he figures out the best way to transport them inside. There’s no room in the other bags.
But Steve, also standing, doesn’t follow his lead. Bucky looks up and lets his gaze fall below the expanse of that wide, muscled chest towards that narrow waist, and it’s then that he notices Steve happens to have an impressive wealth of empty reusable totes hanging from either arm. Huh.
“I’m, uh…” Steve begins, but then pauses to chuckle. Cans cradled in one arm, he stretches the other behind himself to scratch the back of his neck. Bucky watches him wince—a little adorably—when the dangling canvas bags knock against his cheek in the process. “It’s funny, I’m actually heading over to Clint’s myself. Been a long time since I stocked up. But—here!” Clumsily, Steve wriggles one tote from his arm and hands it to Bucky. “For your runaway cans.”
Bucky stares down at the offering dumbly. “But… you’ll need those, right? For your shopping?”
“Nah,” Steve answers, shaking his head. “I got way more than I need. I won’t miss one.”
“Oh…okay. Thanks. Um...” Bucky goes to take the bag from Steve, and their knuckles accidentally graze against each other’s. His brain short-circuits so completely and brilliantly that he forgets everything he knows about the English language, so all he can do is stupidly repeat himself. “Th—Thanks.”
“It’s really no problem.” Steve gives him another polite smile, but he only holds his transfixed gaze for a second—shit, Bucky hopes he’s not coming off like a total creep right now—before dropping it. His eyelashes brush against the tops of his unfairly gorgeous cheekbones. “Here, let’s…”
Steve dumps the cans he’s holding into the open tote now in Bucky’s hands, then kneels down to pick up more. Bucky only fumbles with own limbs a little bit as he follows.
They get everything in the bag pretty quickly while working together. Soon they’re standing again, and there’s more of that odd awkwardness hanging in the air between them now that they don’t have a joint task to work on.
“You makin’ a five course meal or somethin’?” Steve asks with a little laugh. He’s looking over the large number of bags still in the trunk. Bucky can admit it looks a bit excessive.
“Oh, no,” he answers, “just sort of stocking up for the month I’m here. It’s kinda like you said… don’t like to go to the store much.”
Steve chuckles again, soft and breathy. He’s picking at a loose thread on one of the many empty bags on his arms.
“I get it. I used to live in the city, too. That’s probably where I got the habit of making big trips—big as I could carry, at least—so I wouldn’t have to go back for a while. It’s not so bad at Clint’s, though, you know? Nice place. He’s usually got something different every week.”
Bucky latches on to one part of Steve’s response. “You say ‘the city.’ Where from?”
This time, Steve’s smile isn’t soft or awkward or polite. It’s an ear-to-ear grin.
“Brooklyn.”
“No shit!” An excited grin of Bucky’s own spreads across his face. “Me too. Moved there with my family from Indiana when I was pretty young. Never really wanted to be anywhere else since.”
“Born and raised,” Steve tells him. Bucky can spot something wistful behind his expression.
A natural silence falls between them again. Bucky figures he could say goodbye now and let Steve go on his way, or he could start a conversation about their shared hometown, or maybe he could ask Steve how he ended up moving from Brooklyn to coastal Maine.
Bucky does none of those things.
“Nice clear day out,” he says instead—because right, no one has ever found small talk about the weather to be awkward. “Is that… pretty normal for this time of year?”
If Steve thinks Bucky’s comment is as lame as it surely sounds, his face doesn’t show it. He only shrugs. “Early fall is a mixed bag up here. Sometimes you get sun, sometimes you get clouds and a whole week of drizzle.”
“Oh… cool. My boss was bugging me to go on a vacation,” Bucky says, as though Steve had asked or could care at all. “He kept saying I needed fresh air. But I’ll admit I didn’t do much research before I hopped in the car and drove up.” He takes a steadying breath to keep himself from unraveling further into his nerves. “Any recommendations for what to do around here?”
Steve thoughtfully looks off to the side like he’s considering Bucky’s question. His eyes fall to the curb.
“Well… I see you got all these fresh veggies from Clint’s.” He points to the full bag of produce. “Maybe you could go down to the wharf and get yourself some fresh fish from one of the stalls.”
And that… that actually sounds like an idea Bucky could get behind. He’s a sucker for good seafood.
“How fresh are we talking?”
“Like, swimming in the sea this morning,” Steve laughs… and then they’re staring at each other for another one of those too-long, too-quiet moments because Bucky’s too busy ogling the strong angles of Steve’s smooth jawline to string together a verbal response. At least Steve makes a point to break up their awkwardness. “I… I’ll leave you to it, I guess. Just knock on my door if you need any more recommendations, okay?”
With that, Steve waves farewell. He’s already turning, heading towards his little blue sedan with a contingent of empty grocery totes in hand, when Bucky finally realizes his own mouth is hanging open and lax. He quickly forces it closed and makes himself pull his shit together.
Well… He pulls something together.
“Clint told me you’re a writer.”
Steve stops in his tracks. He’s slow to turn around and face Bucky again, but when he does, his expression is unlike any Bucky has seen on him thus far. It’s cautious; guarded.
“He… did?”
And Bucky knows without a doubt that he’s royally fucked this up. If Steve really is a writer, it’s clear now that it’s not something he wants to talk about—at least, not to a total stranger. Bucky can’t blame him; writing can be a deeply personal thing.
“Oh, yeah, Clint just—he really just mentioned it,” Bucky scrambles, wracking his brain for some way to salvage his screw-up. “Just in passing. I only bring it up because I actually, um… I work at a publishing house?”
He doesn’t know why he says it like it’s a question. The sentence is only just out of his mouth when Bucky realizes it sounds like he’s offering the guy some kind of book deal, and—gorgeous and enchanting as Steve may be—that’s not exactly something Bucky goes around offering to authors whose work he’s never even read.
“Oh,” Steve murmurs. There’s a wary furrow forming between his eyebrows to match his confused tone. “That’s… I—”
“—Crazy world we choose to work in, isn’t it?” Bucky might sound a little hysterical. He desperately wishes he had just let their earlier interactions die when Steve had turned to walk to his car, instead of steering their nascent acquaintanceship into this unbelievable mess of a conversation.
Steve is looking down at his loafers instead of Bucky’s face.
“I guess. I don’t even really know if I’m a writer, to be honest.” Bucky watches him toe at a pebble on the driveway. “I’m not published. I’ve never even sent in my stuff.”
If Bucky weren’t so glued to every little thing Steve has said or done in the last five minutes, so stupidly captivated by his very existence, he might have missed the shadow of heartbreak beneath Steve’s quiet voice.
Something fierce and foreign bubbles up in his chest. Suddenly, the awkward shroud wrapped around their conversation ceases to matter.
“That’s not true,” Bucky argues, and for once his voice comes out strong. “You write. You tell stories.” He keeps his eyes trained on Steve’s face, determined, even when Steve’s gaze is still cast to the ground. “Published or not, that makes you a writer.”
Steve stays quiet at first—but he does look up. Slowly, Bucky sees something different begin to peek through all that wariness and caution. He’s blushing. His eyes dart across Bucky’s face like he’s analyzing it for something; suspicious, but maybe even hopeful. He’s looking for sincerity.
“You’re nice,” he says, so quiet that it’s barely audible. Even if Bucky couldn’t hear it, he’s been transfixed by Steve’s mouth for so long he could have read it on his lips. “For saying that, I mean.”
“I’m not just saying it. It’s true. You’re a writer even if you never choose to show your work to anyone.”
And like a miracle, Steve actually smiles. It’s shy and reserved, just the corner of his mouth curving up, but that doesn’t matter. Bucky feels like he’s just won the biggest victory of his entire life.
“Thanks, Bucky,” he says, and his name on Steve’s lips steals the breath from his ribcage.
“I… I’ll come by later to return the bag.” Bucky gives himself a mental pat on the back for managing to tie up the conversation while it still has a chance to end on a high note. He needs to get away from Steve before he embarasses himself further, or before this endless flustered feeling turns into a raging headache. “Have a good trip to the store.”
Steve nods. He pauses for only a moment longer before finally turning, walking to his car.
Bucky manages to get his groceries inside in just two trips—and without busting any more paper bags. Back in the kitchen, the counters covered in bags, he’s slow to put away his haul. His mind reels.
He’d been wrong earlier, alone with his thoughts in the car; Bucky knows now for certain that it isn’t Steve’s rare combination of gender and designation that fascinates him thoroughly. It’s just… Steve. Bucky has spent what feels like a lifetime reviewing manuscript submissions from all types of writers, all manner of stories, and if there’s one thing he’s learned about himself as a reader, it’s that he’s always felt drawn to characters painted with the unexpected.
And that’s just it: Bucky never expected Steve Rogers. He didn’t come to the Maine coast expecting to give a shit about the man hosting the vacation stay—the place where he’d planned to do nothing but hole up and chip away at his workload in secret—and he certainly never expected to want to learn more about the guy. He never expected to find himself captivated, inexplicably, by something so mundane as a silhouette beyond a window, or by a shy man decorated in canvas bags. He never expected to care whether that faint hint of lavender came from the neighbor’s garden or the beautiful omega standing on the bottom step.
Because above all, that’s the most troubling part. Bucky never expected to think twice about the truth that he’s a beta, and he could never touch an omega, even if he wanted. Even if there was an omega who actually wanted his touch. Even if the world they live in were altogether a different place.
Steve is not meant for him.
The refrigerator door protests when Bucky puts too much force into slamming it shut.
Bucky doesn’t go down to the docks that day.
In fact, Bucky doesn’t do anything. He doesn’t go anywhere. Pissed off and frustrated that he’s allowed himself to become so distracted by a stupid… what—crush? Fascination? Fixation?—Bucky locks himself in the house for the next three days. He won’t call it punishment, per se, but he does use the time to relearn self-discipline, throwing himself into his work. He demolishes no less than eight manuscript submissions.
The accomplishment doesn’t feel as good as it once would have, but it’s still enough to get him back to a place where his head feels screwed on straight. He is once again Bucky Barnes, Badass Publisher, Man Who Knows What He Wants and Makes It Happen—not Bucky the Bumbling Vacationer, Lost Boy Drooling Over the Unattainable.
But, by Sunday, Bucky’s back has started to object to such extended periods of sitting; he does not count the chair at the suite’s little desk among the array of comfortable amenities in Steve’s guest house. He decides after lunch that he’ll wander down to Natasha’s quiet pub. The walk and a cold bottle of beer may actually refresh him.
“How’s that vacation going?”
Bucky looks up from where he’s tracing a fingertip along the edge of his drink coaster. The bar is just as empty as it was the first time he came, with only a couple of other patrons whom Natasha calls Phil and—legitimately—Fury. The two of them are more quiet than that brick shithouse blond guy and his greasy brother had been last week.
“Let’s see,” he begins, answering Natasha’s question, “I’ve read over seven hundred thousand words in the last three days. I would say it’s going according to plan.”
Natasha looks up from her diligent work cleaning pint glasses. She wears a deadpan expression on her face—as she almost always does.
“I think that’s the saddest thing I’ve ever heard,” she says. “You’re on vacation… God, go to the beach, at least. Drive up to Rockland and go on a whale watching cruise. Take a bad selfie in front of a lighthouse.”
Bucky takes a swig from his beer. Even as he rolls his eyes, he inwardly admits that his idea of ‘time off’ is shaping up to look a little pathetic. He can only imagine what Morita and Darcy would be saying if they could have seen him these last few days.
He’s about to ask Natasha if she can recommend a beach, something quick and close by, when a thought pops into his head. It’s not entirely welcome; intrusive, even.
“Steve, he…” Bucky sighs, looking down again. He’s been trying so hard not to think about the guy. “He did mention something about going down to the town docks to get some fish. Said it’s all pretty fresh.”
“How are things going, by the way?”
Bucky lifts his gaze from the peeling label on his bottle and finds Natasha’s eyes boring into him.
“How are… what?” His forehead wrinkles in confusion. It takes him a few beats of silence to realize what she’s asking, and—fuck. “Steve?”
Natasha quirks one perfectly manicured eyebrow at him. “Steve. How’s that going?”
Bucky tries to maintain whatever’s left of the composure he’s kept thus far, but it isn’t easy under her stoic brand of scrutiny. He’s never met someone so adept at acting like they can see directly into his head. He really kind of hates her.
“I mean…” Bucky shrugs casually, breaking eye contact, “not much to say. We’ve only talked a couple of times.”
He tries to leave it at that. Natasha, of course, presses.
“What about?”
Yeah. Bucky hates her.
“…Towels?” he answers, somewhat comforted by the fact that he doesn’t actually have to lie about this. “Vegetables? Why do you care?”
It’s obvious now that she’s gotten under his skin. Natasha smirks like she’s proud of herself.
“No reason,” she says. After a few moments of tense silence, Bucky finally feels her intense gaze fall away, no longer drilling holes through his skull. She turns the bar’s sink faucet on again. “He’s right, though. You should visit the docks. What time is it now?”
Bucky peeks at his phone. “Almost two o’clock.”
“If you finish that beer soon, you’ll be able to make it to the stalls before they close.” Natasha sets down the last of the newly cleaned pint glasses and shuts off the water, grabbing a dry rag. “Get your car and head down Main Street. It dead ends at the wharf.”
If nothing else, Bucky is grateful for the exit opportunity. He’s only had one beer in the short time since he arrived this afternoon, and he knows if he finished this one too quickly and tabbed out now, Natasha would know he’s trying to run away before she can make him squirm a little more by talking about Steve fucking Rogers.
“Great idea.” He downs what’s left in the bottle in one go, despite protests from his stomach. “I’ll—yeah. I’ll close out.”
By the time Bucky has paid, walked home to his car, and driven west to where Bell Harbor’s Main Street ends, the clock reads half past two. He pulls into the little gravel car lot situated not twenty yards from where he can see a small line of merchant stalls. Behind them, the town’s tiny harbor consists of what Bucky assumes is just a shallow alcove; it’s not far across to the rocky shoreline on the opposite side, beyond the docks. He thinks he would find the wider inlet from the ocean if he went on a hike along the water’s edge. He won’t.
A wave of sea salt and fish overtakes his sense of smell as soon as he climbs out of the driver’s seat, gravel crunching beneath the soles of his shoes. Bucky is surprised to find it isn’t an unpleasant sort of fishy odor, even if he can already spot the huge, scaly filets and shiny oyster shells nestled in ice; there’s something unmistakably fresh underlying the scent. Instead of offensive, the smell is downright appetizing. He’s looking forward to seafood for dinner.
It’s a short walk to the nearby stalls. Before Bucky has a chance to stop, stare at the many offerings, and get caught up in his own chronic indecisiveness, a woman’s voice calls in his direction.
“Whatcha lookin’ for, stranger?”
Bucky turns. A short-statured woman tends the stall at the end of the row, her brunette hair pulled back in a ponytail. She’s waving his way with a warm, friendly expression.
“Um, not sure yet.” Hands in his pockets, Bucky steps towards her stall, closing the distance between them. “Just visiting on vacation. The… The guy who owns the guest house I’m staying in recommended I come down here and get a look around, maybe pick up some dinner.”
The woman flashes him a bright smile, nodding. “Good choice. I’m Jane.” She doesn’t extend her thickly gloved hand for a handshake, but Bucky figures she’s been handling fish all day, so that’s probably a good thing.
“Nice to meet you, Jane. I’m Bucky.”
He takes a moment to look around the stall. Instead of the enormous fish and unshucked oysters Bucky saw along the rest of the row, packed on hundreds of pounds of ice, Jane has no visible inventory. There’s a clipboard on the short folding table between them, and Bucky tilts his head to read it. It’s a stack of empty invoice slips with a cheesy piece of clipart at the top—a thundercloud—next to what he assumes is the name of their business: Son of Odin Tails and Claws.
“Where are you staying?”
Bucky blinks a few times, returning to focus. “Sorry, what’s that?”
“You said you were on vacation,” Jane answers. “Said you were staying in someone’s guest house. Who are you staying with?”
“Oh,” Bucky mumbles. He sighs, coming to terms with the fact that everyone in this town always wants to talk about everyone else in this town, which means that every conversation Bucky has with someone involves him having to say the name of the one person he’s trying not to think about. “I’m staying with Steve. Steve Rogers.”
Jane’s eyes fall just below Bucky’s face for a brief second, like she’s looking for something, and then her nostrils flutter as she unmistakably scents the air around them. It’s clear she’s trying to ascertain his designation, but Bucky doesn’t know how she possibly could with the strong scent of the wharf behind him.
Her face lights up after a moment.
“You are? That’s great! Steve’s such a good guy. Haven’t seen him out and about much lately, though. But he used to come down here all the time with—well,” but Jane stops, obviously trying to catch herself before she says something she shouldn’t.
But Bucky already knows what she’s going to say, of course. He’s had this mystery-filled conversation with more than one person this week.
“His alpha?” Bucky ventures. “Yeah. I heard he was separated.”
He watches a mix of things flit visibly across Jane’s face. Bucky gets the distinct impression she’s deciding if it’s her place to be talking on the subject, and that thought alone gives him comfort. Maybe not every one in Bell Harbor spends all of their time gossiping about Steve Rogers.
Or maybe they do. Jane sighs, and Bucky can spot the moment one thought wins out in her head.
“It’s complicated,” she says. “Or, it was complicated. The two of them were never actually mated, but Steve and Peggy…” Jane shifts her eyes to the side like she’s trying to recall some little bit of forgotten information. “God, they were together forever. I think they were actually high school sweethearts. But, yeah.” She pauses, shrugging. “Peggy moved away about this time last year. It was mutual, but I kinda worry about the guy sometimes, you know? Like I said, I hardly see him these days.”
Bucky isn’t sure how to answer, or if this conversation requires his response at all. He’d be lying to himself if he said he’s not even further intrigued by Jane’s story—but, the very next moment, any chance Bucky might have had to ask questions is gone.
“Jane, my darling!” comes a big, bombastic greeting from the direction of the nearest dock. “You shall introduce me to your new friend!”
Bucky is so taken aback by the booming voice and utterly bizarre fashion of speaking that he doesn’t recognize the new guy at first. He’s wearing something very different today—a huge set of overalls that look like they’ve seen better days—from the first time Bucky saw him in the bar the day he arrived in Bell Harbor. After a minute, he remembers this alpha Natasha called Thor.
“Hi honey,” Jane smiles. “This is Bucky, he’s on vacation. He’s renting Steve’s guest house”—because yes, yes, of course, Bucky just needs to accept this new reality where there is no more important aspect of his existence other than the fact he is sleeping in Steve’s backyard.
Thor’s obnoxious biceps bulge as carries two five-gallon buckets their way—Bucky tries to look, but he can’t tell what’s inside them—before setting them down in the stall. After giving Bucky a brief up-and-down, Thor’s face does the same thing Jane’s had when he’d told her, lighting up like a goddamn Christmas tree.
“Splendid!” he declares, clapping Bucky on the shoulder. “Steve is a true friend to the Odinsons, I am pleased you have chosen to share in his company. I am Thor, son of Odin. And I see you have met my Jane—Jane, my shining star”—he gestures to one of the two buckets he’s just hauled in—“please send our new friend home with this pair from our finest catch of the day. Free of charge!”
…And then the giant hand is gone from Bucky’s shoulder and Thor is leaving. Thor has turned. Thor has walked away and is stepping onto a rickety boat, and Thor, son of Odin, is doing something complicated with a really big net. Bucky thinks he might literally have whiplash from whatever the fuck just happened here.
“This is so great!” Jane gushes. Her voice draws Bucky back from his deep well of confusion. “Oh, here—Let me grab a lid for you.”
A lid, Bucky repeats in his head. For… For the bucket. For Thor’s “finest catch of the day.” He walks a few steps over and looks down into the container, peering through a foot of greenish seawater.
He may never have seen one outside of a fish tank at one of many New York restaurants, but Bucky can recognize live lobsters when he sees them—and these two are huge.
“Yep, these are some big ones,” Jane says, and Bucky realizes he’d spoken that last part out loud. “Gonna be a big dinner for you!”
Dazed, Bucky tries to blink away the muddled static in his head. He watches Jane as she snaps on the PVC lid.
“What… What do I do with them?”
Jane stands from her kneeling position and places her hands on her hips, chuckling. “Well, you eat them, silly!”
“Right, but how do I—like…”
“How do you cook them?” Jane looks at Bucky like he’s an adorable puppy when he nods his answer. “Easy—you boil lobsters. Get yourself a big stockpot and throw ‘em in live.”
He winces as he looks down at the bucket, sealed and ready for him to take home. “Right,” he swallows. “Okay, a stockpot. Okay.”
As he makes his way back to the car, Bucky is very glad he’s always kept it a priority to stay on top of his weight training; it turns out that a five-gallon bucket full of seawater and shellfish is really quite heavy. After checking the security of the lid, he sets it down in the passenger’s seat and—because it just feels like he should—fastens the seatbelt across it. He only rolls his eyes at himself a little as he climbs into the driver’s seat.
A stockpot? he thinks, still bewildered. These are truly nice lobsters, and Bucky isn’t going to squander this unexpected gift, but where the hell is he supposed to get a stockpot? Although the kitchen in the guest house is well-equipped with various cookware, he doesn’t recall seeing a stockpot.
… But, fuck.
But he does have a neighbor who might be willing to lend him one.
draft one/friday
“Arnie… I’m in heat Arnie… I need you so bad.”
Grant watches as Arnie’s mouth drops open wide, sucking in air like he’s either gasping for it or drowning in it. His firm, sculpted chest heaves with the movement. Suddenly, his whole body lurches forward from the threshold into the room, and euphoria builds in Grant’s core as he braces himself for sweet, passionate relief.
But then Arnie halts.
“No, Grant, I—” Arnie stumbles, nearly falling forward with his own momentum after the abrupt stop. “We… This can’t…”
The pain intensifies into something far worse than ever before. Grant’s agony no longer comes only from inside, from the flames licking at his bones, but from the heartbreak of denial.
“Don’t—” he gasps as Arnie turns to leave. He tries not to sound so pathetic not to swallow his own tongue as he powers through the words, begging. “Arnie, please, please stay.”
He watches in desperation as Arnie braces himself against the wall, trying to stay upright. His back is still turned as though he cannot bear to look back.
“I can’t stay,” Arnie laments. “It would be wrong, and I... ” His voice begins to fail with the last of his words, as though his own voice doesn’t believe the lie. “Even if we could be together, I can’t give you what you need right now.”
“Stop that!” Grant shouts wails. “Don’t say those things! You are perfect You are gorgeous You are amazing You are what I’ve always wanted You are what I need You are ___
fuck this
i quit
Notes:
A quick note about sexuality in this AU: In this particular a/b/o universe, the concept of sexuality/sexual preference refers almost entirely to designation (alpha, omega, or beta) and has nothing to do with gender identity (man, woman, non-binary, etc). This is because, to alphas and omega, gender and biological sex are pretty much irrelevant beyond people's personal preferences, because all alphas can impregnate and all omegas can get pregnant. And since alphas and omegas have historically written all the rules and standards of society—as touched on in the first chapter—the same applies to the world of betas: no one really cares about gender. When it comes to gender attractions, pretty much everyone in this world would be considered pansexual in our world (not accounting for individual preferences, of course). Although gender doesn't matter, designation is massively important to "sexuality." That said, no one talks about sexuality very often, because people aren't exactly given "options"; although Bucky is attracted to all kinds of people and designations, he wouldn't say that out loud, and there's not really a label for that preference. It's not a very progressive society in that regard.
So pretty much anything outside the normative is taboo, and the normative is this: alphas mate omegas and betas mate betas. The end. Anything else will earn that person the title of "queer" (which I have decided—because I can—was historically never a slur in this AU, just a label, but not one with good social connations in most places). Although there are queer couples, most of those that are out are omega/omega couples, which is probably relatively more acceptable because the world sees two omegas and thinks "well, how much trouble can they really get up to together?" (gross attitude, I know). Hope that all makes sense!
Chapter Text
iii. breakwater
It won’t be that bad.
You’re just borrowing the pot, and then you’re leaving.
You’ll hardly have to talk to him at all.
Bucky stares down at where the lidded plastic bucket now sits on the front porch. Between the ten minutes he’d sat curbside in his car and now the—shit—nearly five minutes he’s been standing in front of Steve’s door, he has changed his mind about what he’s about to do at least fifteen times over.
Getting the pot, then leaving. Gone before anyone can start a conversation.
It’s now or never, he figures, because this is getting goddamn ridiculous. He spares one last glance—one last glare, really—at the villainous bucket before finally putting his eyes forward.
Bucky knocks: first twice, then once more for good measure. A shadow appears behind the curtains, shuffling about and gradually moving towards the door.
It will be fine. He will be fine.
And then the door opens, and Bucky instantly knows he’s fucked.
“Bucky,” Steve says, his voice breathless for some reason. The sweatpants he’s wearing are entirely too perfect at hugging such shapely, thick thighs. “I… Hi.”
Bucky despises the way his own knees go wobbly and weak when Steve greets him with all that brightness shining from his face. His smile looks so damn genuine.
“Hey, Steve.” Bucky does the best he can to sound direct and confident and not at all like he’s trying to remove himself from this situation as quickly as possible. “Did I catch you at a bad time?”
Steve shakes his head. Bucky watches his long fingers curl around the edge of the front door, holding onto it like a child gripping their parent’s hand during a doctor’s visit. He tries his best to not be endeared by it—and he fails.
“Not at all. I’ve kind of just been staring into the refrigerator trying to decide what’s for dinner.” Steve scratches the back of his neck, laughing at himself. “What can I do for you?”
Bucky glances again at his plastic bucket while he works on untying his useless tongue, then looks back to Steve.
“I went down to the wharf like you suggested—thanks for that, by the way, it was really great—and that big guy… Thor, I think?” Steve smirks and nods his acknowledgment, so Bucky continues. “Yeah… him. Well, he sent me home with these two massive lobsters.” He gestures to the container beside him. “Gave them away for free, actually.”
Steve chuckles and shakes his head, his smile fond. “That definitely sounds like Thor.”
“Yeah.” Bucky goes silent for a beat while he swallows the lump in his throat. “Anyways, I’d love to cook them tonight, but I don’t exactly have the right equipment. Do you think I could borrow a stockpot?”
Steve smiles and nods without hesitation. He seems eager to fulfill the request.
“Sure! Just—” he starts to turn inside—“Here, hold on just a sec.”
He disappears back into his house but leaves the door wide open when he goes. Bucky wonders if it’s Steve’s way of inviting him in, or if he should stay where he is on the porch. He does the smart thing for once, staying put.
Steve reappears in the doorway before long holding a deep, shiny steel pot.
“Here you go,” he says, passing the pot over to Bucky. It’s weighty in his grip. “And I hope you don’t mind my skepticism, but, um…” Steve’s mouth curls in an almost coy grin as he cocks his head, gesturing towards the lobster bucket. “…Do you know what you’re doing with those?”
“Absolutely not.”
Bucky can't help but join Steve as he laughs at the painful, raw honesty. There’s something about the way Steve’s eyes do this squinty thing when he’s happy that makes Bucky’s heart beat two times faster.
It’s actually a nice moment, but—once their shared chuckling has faded and gone quiet—Steve’s demeanor changes. His cheeks begin to go pink, and he takes his bottom lip between his teeth. He’s leaning against the doorframe now with one shoulder, his hands tucked into his front pocket, almost looking small.
He seems… nervous.
“I could show you, if you wanted? Like…” Steve points vaguely behind him towards the inside of his house. “We could cook them here? You said you had two, and I have this really great salad I could make and…” All that pretty color drains from Steve’s face as he blanches, his expression shifting from shy to absolutely mortified. “Oh, god, I just invited myself to your nice dinner, I’m so sorry—”
“—Yes,” Bucky blurts out before he can think better of it, and fuck, no, no! “I… Yes, please. I’d love it if you could show me.” He bites down on his lip almost to the point of pain. “And if you could help me eat them.”
Steve is shocked by Bucky’s answer, if his face is anything to go by. He shifts his weight from one foot to the other, mouth opening and closing, apparently unsure of what to do next now that his invitation has been accepted. Bucky wonders if he’s regretting extending the offer in the first place.
“That’s…” Steve takes a shaky-sounding breath, but his eyes have brightened so gorgeously. “That’s great. This will be great, I—Here, come in!”
With that, Steve steps backwards and to the side, extending his arm out in a gesture for Bucky to enter the house. He takes back the stockpot so Bucky can carry the lobster bucket with two free hands.
It’s been sunny outside, so Bucky’s eyes have to adjust for a moment once Steve has closed the door behind them. He finds himself in a small foyer upon entering. Bucky notices Steve is already barefoot, so he takes a second to toe off his own shoes.
Steve continues on through an arched doorway. Bucky follows, treading into what appears to be Steve’s living room. The whole place is tidy without feeling sterile. Wide windows allow natural sunlight to pour in through the curtains and fall across beautifully upholstered furniture, as well as several oak-polished end tables and one coffee table. Bucky trails behind his host as he turns towards an expansive kitchen attached to the larger room. Steve points to a corner cabinet near his gas stove.
“You can set that down over here,” he says. His voice goes a little throaty with the words, and Bucky almost thinks he can spot Steve’s eyes on his arms when his muscles flex, lowering the bucket to the tile floor. He knows it’s nothing but his traitorous mind playing tricks.
“Thanks again, Steve.” The rational part of Bucky’s brain is still screaming at him for creating this situation, for willfully trapping himself in a room with the object of his impossible crush, one-on-one, no escape.
The rest of his brain is telling the first part to shut right-the-fuck up.
Steve tucks his head down with a laugh as he sets the stockpot in the sink and turns on the faucet, filling it up. “Pretty sure I’m the one who should be thanking you. Dinner was probably going to be fettuccine alfredo from a box, but thanks to you—”
“—Thanks to Thor, really—”
“—thanks to you,” Steve stresses, “I’ll be dining gourmet tonight.”
Bucky lets it go, opting instead to watch Steve as he shuts off the water and sets pot down on an empty stove burner, his biceps bulging under the weight. He steps back around to the opposite site of the kitchen island to stay out of Steve’s way.
“So you just… boil ‘em?”
The stupid question echoes inside Bucky’s skull, mocking his own awkwardness. Steve will surely catch on to Bucky’s illicit affections if he doesn’t get his shit together and stop acting so weird. The last thing he wants is to live out the three weeks left in his vacation knowing his host finds him creepy and gross.
But if Steve does find their present interactions weird, he doesn’t show it. He still seems a little nervous—shy, even—but Bucky can find no sign of unease. He figures Steve is probably just bashful around people he doesn’t know very well.
“Pretty much,” Steve answers. Little blue flames burst to life as Steve flicks on the burner, setting the heat on high. “This will take a while to boil, but I can put together the salad while we wait. Can you grab the salt grinder and give it a few turns over the pot?”
Bucky’s brain—sluggish as it always seems to be around Steve—takes a moment to process the request, but he eventually gets it. His eyes fumble over the kitchen’s many countertops until he spots the mentioned grinder mill, and then he grabs it, taking Steve’s place at the stove while Steve moves to the refrigerator.
He’s turning the mill when, miraculously, a totally appropriate and actually-not-stupid topic of conversation pops into his head. Bucky clears his throat.
“So I gotta ask,” he starts, finishing one last turn before returning the salt to its home on the countertop, “I think you’re the only vacationer host around here, and your bartender down the street told me Bell Harbor doesn’t get many tourists.” Bucky backs up, getting out of the way in case Steve needs to take his place again. “Why is that? I mean, everywhere else down this part of the coast has tons of inns and fishing excursions and little boats that take you to see fuckin’... puffins.”
Steve emerges from the fridge with an armful of produce and a bottle of salad dressing. He sets everything down on the island, the side opposite Bucky.
“Oh, Natasha,” he sighs, faking comic lamentation. He grabs a thick cutting board and sets down a crisp-looking head of lettuce. “Always underselling our sweet little town.”
“Seriously—you got a serial killer on the loose I should know about?”
Steve’s voice rings out with bright laughter at the joke, and pride bubbles up in Bucky’s chest. It’s nearly a giggle.
“Well, I could tell you… but then I’d have to kill you.” Steve smirks as he steps over to a drawer and grabs a knife, teasingly flashing it in Bucky’s direction before setting it down on the cutting board. “And I think you’ve been reading too much Stephen King.”
“I won’t pretend like I haven’t been avoiding walking within ten feet of a storm sewer inlet.”
That beautiful laughter—softer, this time—fills the kitchen again as Steve fetches a large bowl and begins chopping up lettuce. Bucky could listen to that sound every moment of the day.
“I mean, that little bit of extra cash is nice on the rare occasions I do have guests to host,” Steve says, “but I’ll admit I’m not too disappointed about the lack of tourist traffic. No one here has ever really made it a point to draw in visitors—not like Rockland or Camden or way up in Belfast. Those places got whole websites dedicated to telling people where to stay and where to park and where to eat the best lobster roll.” He scoops up large handfuls of green and drops them into the salad bowl, then shrugs. “For the most part, I think everyone here likes the quiet. That’s what most people come here for in the first place.”
“Is that—Is that why you moved here from Brooklyn? For the quiet?” Bucky’s eyes get wide and his hand flies up to cover his own mouth as soon as he’s heard his own words. “Shit, nevermind, I—that was so fuckin’ nosy of me. You don’t have to answer,” and great, he’s back to embarrassing himself and stumbling over words. “It’s really none of my business.”
And yet Steve doesn’t falter. He may pause for a beat, knifework stilling the second Bucky says ‘Brooklyn’—but then he just keeps on chopping.
“It’s okay, I don’t mind.” Steve finishes his task and drops the last of the lettuce in the salad bowl before grabbing the pint of cherry tomatoes. He begins halving each one. “But, yes… The quiet is what brought us here about six years ago. Me and my ex-partner.” His volume falls just the slightest bit as he speaks. “I’ll always love Brooklyn, but the city wasn’t the place for us anymore.”
Steve stills his hands and raises his chin. His little smile, while soft, doesn’t look fake or forced. There is distance in the depth of his eyes.
“There’s a lot of appeal,” Bucky agrees, “I can definitely see it.” Something in Steve’s expression—maybe interest, maybe confusion—tells Bucky he’d expected him to dig in after the ‘ex-partner’ comment. He doesn’t. Perhaps Steve’s friends and neighbors have no qualms about poking at what could very well still be an open wound, but Bucky does. “And I’m sure the Norse god of an alpha giving away free lobsters doesn’t hurt the case for living here.”
It’s the right move to crack a joke. Steve throws his head back and laughs loudly, grabbing one of his own pecs with his empty hand as though the touch will ground him. Bucky explicitly does not wonder if Steve purposely buys his shirts two sizes too small.
Conversation flows easily after that. For as flustered as Bucky always feels in Steve’s company, he’s surprised to find how much he enjoys being around him; they get along almost effortlessly. Steve asks Bucky about his work in publishing, so they talk a bit about his job while Steve finishes the salad, and then the water is fully at a boil and it’s time for Steve to show Bucky how to handle the lobsters. Bucky avoids gazing into the black beads of their tiny eyes when Steve lowers them into the water alive.
Twenty minutes go by while the metal lid of the stockpot trembles steadily from the pressure of rising steam. They pass the time leaning against the kitchen cabinets and talking about a little of everything, from their favorite spots back in Brooklyn to Bucky’s self-admitted workaholic tendencies. Once the lobster is finally cooked through and they’ve got two gorgeous specimens sitting on plates, vivid red and just waiting to be slathered in butter, Steve teaches him how to crack the claws and butterfly the tail without butchering the hell out of it.
(Bucky ends up standing right next to Steve for that part, their elbows only inches from touching, and he’s never been this close to a male omega before. He’s never been close enough to scent. Most of the omegas Bucky has come across in his life smell like some variation of flowers and honey, but Steve is all herbal notes, earthy tones, and maybe a touch of cocoa. Bucky is thankful for the aroma of food masking at least some of the scent; he might black out in pleasure if he got the full blast.)
Dinner turns out decadent and delicious. Bucky’s mouth is watering so profusely by the time they get everything plated up and set on the table that he doesn’t even wait for Steve to finish pouring the chilled chardonnay before taking a bite, rudeness be damned. Steve only chuckles at Bucky’s initial reaction to the taste—“Jesus wept, this is fuckin’ incredible”—and joins him. He takes a few bites of salad before finally digging into his own buttery lobster, but when he raises that first forkful of succulent tail into his mouth, Steve closes his eyes and lets out a quiet but unmistakable moan. Bucky nearly chokes to death on a crouton.
He loses the fight with Steve for the right to do the dishes afterwards, leaving them for Steve to do in the morning, which Bucky is secretly disappointed about; for as much as he was fearing even asking to borrow a pot just an hour ago, he now finds himself hoping for a little more time before he has to say goodbye for the night. It’s unexpected when Steve surprises him with an entirely different suggestion.
“It’s nice out tonight,” Steve muses aloud. He keeps his tone casual as he peers out through the blinds, but Bucky swears he can spot a tinge of pink high on his cheeks. “You… Would you want another drink?” He nods towards the backyard. “We can grab a couple and sit on the patio.”
Bucky can’t stay—he shouldn’t—but he is nothing if not a weak man.
“Yeah, Steve, I’d love that.”
There’s a touch too much honesty hidden in that answer. Steve only beams like Bucky has just delivered him the moon.
“You a scotch sort of guy?” he asks, walking towards a bar cart Bucky hasn’t noticed before.
Bucky flashes him a grin. He nods.
“A man after my own heart.”
It really is perfect weather to share a drink outside. A cool darkness has begun to settle over the evening, and while it isn’t too chilly yet, Steve supplies them both with fleece throw blankets he snatches from a little basket nestled by his back door. They pick a pair of thickly padded chairs from Steve’s wrought iron patio set to sit in. They’re only a few feet apart.
“So,” Steve begins, setting his drink down on the small side table while he covers himself with his throw, “how is your boss not going to notice that your to-do list mysteriously got shorter while you were on vacation?”
Bucky chuckles, tucking his own blanket over his lap like an old man. “He really doesn’t bother with oversight of my group, he trusts that to me. Plus, I keep my status invisible when I’m working online here.” He makes a show of leaning over and lowering his voice to a conspiratorial tone, winking. “And I may be logging on late at night and removing one or two manuscript reviews from each of my staff members’ backlogs, taking them for myself. Their lists are so long that none of them will notice just one going missing. Besides, even if my boss does find out, by that time I’ll already have burned four weeks of paid time off.” Bucky sips from his tumbler, then decides to seize an opportunity he sees while they’re still on the topic. It’s a little bit of a risk. “What kind of fiction do you write?”
Instead of shutting down like he had the first time Bucky asked about his writing, Steve gives him a sheepish smirk. Perhaps the wine at dinner has done for him what it did for Bucky, settling his nerves.
“Romance,” he answers.
Bucky raises his eyebrows. “No kidding? That used to be just about all I worked with back when I first started. Fast-paced world. And man…” He rubs his face, chortling into the warmth of his palm. “The things I could tell you, bizarre stories about the artists we commission to draw those beefy alphas for the covers. You’d die laughing.”
The corners of Steve’s eyes crinkle as he chuckles, but his face doesn’t split with a radiant grin the way it had other times when Bucky made him laugh this evening. There’s something reserved to his expression.
“Yeah, well…” Steve swirls the liquid around in his glass, looking down at his ice cubes as they slide around. “Those aren’t exactly the characters I write.”
“Oh—niche romance,” Bucky says, feigning a gasp, “I like it. That’s selling real big these days.”
He watches Steve shift in his seat. Bucky would be afraid he’s pushed the conversation too far again and made the guy uneasy, but he’s not; there’s something about Steve’s demeanor that tells him it isn’t discomfort delaying his response.
“What I write is kind of… very niche. If that’s even the right word for it.” He takes a small sip of his scotch. “No one would ever publish it.”
Bucky is quick to jump in. “I wouldn’t bet on that—you’d be shocked at what people will buy. If there’s someone who wants to write it, there’s an audience who wants to read it. I’ve published steampunk goblin romances, vampire harem stories, hunky alphas with tentacles, every version of whips and chains you can imagine… You name it.” He laughs, but Steve doesn’t join. “Even if you can’t name it, there’s probably someone out there writing it.”
“If you say so,” Steve shrugs. His smile is back to looking polite and restrained, tight, and Bucky…
Bucky just can’t have that.
“I’d be happy to take a look sometime.” He keeps his eyes steady on Steve, even as Steve averts his own. “Seriously. I bet you’re a great writer.”
Steve’s head pops up. It looks at first like he can’t believe what Bucky is offering, like excitement… but then his face falls again after only a few seconds spent painted with hope.
“I don’t know,” he admits. “No one… I’ve never shown anyone my work before. Not even my ex.” He lowers his voice, nearly too quiet to hear now. “And she, um. She left last year.”
And there it is: the very thing everyone in this town has never failed to mention any time Steve’s name is brought up. Bucky shifts his eyes down at his own glass in his hands.
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be,” Steve replies without hesitation. “I miss her every day, but it was for the best.”
Bucky can recognize pieces of his own past in the way Steve speaks. He’s past thirty now, and he’s had heartbreaks of his own, and Bucky knows that sometimes the best thing is to talk about it with someone who had never known them as a couple. He thinks of small towns, of the social claustrophobia that comes with everyone knowing your business. He wonders if Steve needs him to be that person now.
“How long were you together?” he asks, taking a shot. If it turns out Steve doesn’t want to talk about it, then they won’t, and Bucky will push no further.
“Forever,” Steve answers. Bucky is surprised to hear the barest hint of laughter. It’s wistful. “Kind of hard to mark a beginning, you know? We’d been friends since… I don’t know, since before I can even remember. It sort of naturally evolved into something more when we got older and presented—her first, then me a year later.” The tiny tilt at the edge of his mouth disappears, smoothing away. “It was a shock. To me and Peggy, to my parents. But we all figured that if I was going to have to deal with all the things omega men do, it seemed perfect that I already had this amazing alpha in my life, always by my side. I don’t think anyone ever questioned whether she and I would end up together.”
“You didn’t, though,” Bucky points out. “End up together. Not really.”
Maybe it’s the alcohol, maybe it’s something else entirely, but he thinks he’s learned to read Steve pretty well in just the past couple of hours. Bucky knows he should feel bad about his outright rudeness, or—if not that—about the way he so pointedly glances at Steve’s unmarked neck. But he doesn’t. Instead, Bucky has the gut feeling Steve might actually appreciate a segue into the awkward truth; a helpful push, however uncomfortable.
“No, we didn’t,” Steve agrees, still quiet but apparently unoffended. Bucky’s gut feeling had served him right. “She’s the only person I’ve ever been with, but we never mated.” He pauses—silent for longer this time around—and Bucky gets the distinct feeling he’s about to hear things Steve has never shared with another person. A tension fills the air, tight as a high wire. “I think she always knew it wasn’t what I really wanted.”
What Steve’s saying seems obvious, but Bucky needs confirmation. “You think she knew you didn’t want to be bonded?”
“Not exactly.” Steve is plucking at a loose thread on his blanket. His growing nerves are visible now, quickly overcoming him. Bucky has to fight the urge to jump across the distance to hold Steve’s hand; to provide comfort. “I think she always knew that I wasn’t attracted to alphas,” he finishes, nearly whispering, “that… that I was queer.”
The answer hits Bucky like a punch square to his chest.
Queer. The word holds no single meaning in their world, but it isn’t supposed to. It’s not a slur—although those exist, too, numerous and nasty—but more of a catch-all for those who have chosen to come out and tell everyone who they are: alphas who love alphas, omegas who love omegas, betas who love any designation that does not match their own, and—more rarely—anyone who dares to love in some other way that defies society’s millennia-old standards. Bucky would quickly earn himself the label if he were to tell another soul about his crush on Steve—a crush that’s even more impossible than he’d realized before.
Steve Rogers is queer. Steve Rogers, omega, is attracted to other omegas.
…At least, that’s what Bucky assumes.
“Oh,” he says dumbly, instead of just keeping his fat mouth shut.
“Sorry.” Steve’s voice is soft, his eyes averted. He might be shaking beneath that blanket. “That was probably weird to spring that on you. I’m still kinda figuring out how to tell people.” He peers up through long eyelashes, getting a quick look at Bucky’s face, before resuming his nervous thread pulling. “You can go, if you want. I get that it’s not something you normally hear.”
“No!” Bucky blurts, leaning forward so far that the blanket nearly slips from his lap. “I—It’s fine. Seriously.” He rubs a hand over his face and groans at himself. “Shit, sorry I’m so awkward. I just didn’t know how to react.”
Steve laughs dryly. He still isn’t making eye contact. “Well, you aren’t coming at me with a baseball bat right now, so I’ll call that a win—”
But Bucky’s interjection is instantaneous and fierce.
“I would never, Steve,” he swears. He’s practically baring his teeth in warning to some invisible aggressor, so Bucky takes a steadying breath, forcing himself to level out before he goes on, “I wouldn’t do something like that. Not to you, not to anyone…” He makes an overly vague gesture with his hand, terrified of screwing up and saying the wrong thing, of using the wrong words. “Not to anyone like you.”
Like us, his mind supplies, but his lips remain sealed.
Finally, Steve stops picking at the stitching. He lifts his chin slowly and meets Bucky’s gaze with glassy eyes—not tears, but maybe distance, a frightened man hiding behind his defenses—and the blue in them is somehow vivid even in the dim light. Bucky’s heartbeat pounds against his ear drums.
Steve holds that gaze for ten long seconds before breaking the contact once more.
It occurs to Bucky all at once just how much courage it took for Steve to spill his secret to a person he hardly knows. It was more than just an act of bravery on his part; it was a potentially dangerous risk. The notion that Bucky could have reacted badly—violently, even—is not so far-fetched. More often than not, their world is not a safe place to express one’s true self. Bucky doesn’t know what to do with the knowledge that Steve has chosen to reveal himself to him anyway.
The muted sound of ice cubes knocking around in a glass pulls Bucky back to the present. Steve sits across from him, draining the last of his amber-colored drink while staring blankly into the distance. He hasn’t said anything in a long while. Bucky would be concerned about Steve’s white-knuckled grip on his tumbler if the glass weren’t so thick.
“Thank you for trusting me with that,” Bucky says, breaking the silence gently so as not to frighten Steve. He nods towards the empty drink. “Can… Can I refill your glass?” It’s an offer, but nothing expectant; a warm, extended hand. “If you want to keep talking, that is. If you’re not too tired.”
And Steve is staring at him now. There’s no missing the surprise on his face, especially not when it morphs into raw, desolate relief after a moment. It takes everything Bucky has not to gather him into his arms and hold him.
“Thank you, Buck,” Steve answers. He’s almost too quiet to hear. “I’d really like that.”
Bucky thinks about the sound of his nickname on Steve’s tongue for the entire walk to the bar cart.
By the time he’s returned to the patio and handed Steve a new drink, another for himself in tow, Bucky has mostly managed to pull his thoughts together. New York City is one of the few relatively safe places in the world for people to be out, so he’s met queer people before; that isn’t what has him so rattled. He just… he wants to do right by Steve. Even though they’ve just met, even though this new friendship comes stamped with an expiration date, Bucky desperately wants to be someone Steve can be himself with and still be unafraid. He wants to be the reason Steve feels safe—right now, at the least. Tonight.
Settling back into his seat, Bucky racks his brain for the right thing to say next. If Steve has a story he wants to tell, he needs to know Bucky is here to listen.
“You said you think Peggy knew,” he starts cautiously, trying to move forward without misstepping, “but, like… did you know? When you first got together?” He chances a direct glance at Steve and finds no sign that he’s caused offense. It’s a relief. “Or was it something you sort of… I don’t know. Figured out later?”
Steve doesn’t answer right away, but Bucky finds that doesn’t worry him. All that visible unease subsides gradually the longer Bucky watches his face. He’ll wait as long as Steve needs to put together an answer; he would be here until sunrise, nursing a glass of melted ice, if that’s what Steve needed.
“I guess I always knew,” Steve eventually answers with a casual shrug. Bucky doesn’t miss the subtle defense mechanism. “But it didn’t really seem to matter. I was a boy, but I had presented as an omega, and I was… fuck. I was so scared. And here was my best friend, who had just presented as an alpha, and she was safe. Peggy cared about me more than anybody in the world. I felt so lucky to have what I did that I never considered looking for what I really wanted.” He pauses to take a sip of his drink, but the silence lasts a beat longer than necessary. Steve quiets his voice almost imperceptibly when he continues. “But Peggy knew. She insisted later that she was just in denial, that she didn’t want to admit it to herself... but I know it was more. For as much as she was in love with me, she was even more afraid for me. I think she had it in her head that she would stay with me and protect me until I felt comfortable enough to come out, but…” Steve closes his eyes and hangs his head. Something too close to self-hatred fills his face. “But there’s only so much heartbreak a person can take, you know? I’m glad she decided she had to leave. The life we had together wasn’t fair to her.”
The last bit comes as a surprise to Bucky. “Peggy brought it up first?”
Steve gives him a doleful half-smile, nodding. “She confronted me—or at least, she encouraged the truth out of me. She had gotten this job offer in D.C. a little over a year ago, but I was happy here. I felt safe here, even if I wasn’t honest about why. I didn’t want to move back to a city. We went back and forth on it for a little while, but the more we argued about it, the more I think she realized it was finally time to talk.” He sets his glass down on the table and adjusts his blanket, pulling it tight against the growing evening chill. “I didn’t deny it when she asked. I cared about her too much to lie to her face like that.”
Bucky takes a contemplative sip from his tumbler. He allows Steve’s story to soak into his mind as the whisky soaks his tongue.
“I’m sorry.” He tries to inject as much sincerity into his tone as he can, hoping it’s enough. “It sounds like you really loved her. Even if it wasn’t the way she wanted you to.”
“I did love her,” Steve says, and his voice is steadfast and solid for the first time in a while. “I still miss her.”
There’s another question that’s been tickling the back of Bucky’s brain, needling. His gut tells him Steve won’t mind him asking.
“Do other people… Do they know?”
Steve actually smiles. “Yeah—everyone we know in Bell Harbor, at least. All our friends here. I told them when… well,” he chuckles, “that part was Peggy’s idea, actually.” His expression grows fond at the memory. “We wanted to get everyone together to break the news to them that she was leaving and we were splitting—that it was amicable—but before we had everyone over, Peggy asked me to consider coming out.”
“You told them together?”
“We did,” Steve nods. “It sounds funny, I know, but I think it was important to her that she be there for it. She said she didn’t want me to feel like I had to hide anymore. I was—fuck—I was so terrified, but she convinced me that these friends we’d made here were the right kind of people to tell. That they would support me.” He pauses, picking up his glass again. “She was right, of course. Peggy was always right.”
Steve’s story casts a different light on the people of Bell Harbor in Bucky’s mind. Everyone he’s met has been nosy as fuck, sure, but for as much as they gossip, every one of them seemed most concerned about Steve’s recent reclusiveness. Most importantly, none of them came anywhere close to outing him to Bucky. Steve has friends here who care about him; who he is safe with.
The thought warms Bucky’s heart more than he ever thought possible.
“For what it’s worth,” Bucky starts, “and I know it’s a slow process—I’m not sure what it’s like in this state, at least outside of Bell Harbor—but queer couples are allowed all the same rights in a lot of places now. The world is opening up to it, and… shit. You’re a catch, Steve.” In a moment of selfishness, Bucky allows a flare of yearning and jealousy to burn inside his chest, but he douses it out for Steve’s sake. This isn’t about him. “You’ll find the omega for you. It’ll get easier.”
In the middle of raising his arm, glass halfway to his mouth, Steve’s entire body abruptly stills. Something like an eternity passes with him staring straight at Bucky—eyes set, immovable—and a thousand different emotions play across his handsome features: shock, confusion, understanding, disappointment. Pain, perhaps. A bolt of terror shoots through Bucky, who has clearly said something wrong.
And then the moment passes, and it’s like someone has flipped a switch. Steve suddenly looks incredibly tired.
“I don’t think so,” he says, his voice flat. “At least… not for me.”
Bucky watches Steve down what’s left of his drink. Those pink lips curve up when Steve spots him staring, but his eyes do nothing to match it. Bucky has never seen a smile so devoid of joy or laughter.
His eyebrows knit together in concern. “Why do you say that?”
After the flurry of other emotions, trepidation has begun to win out on Steve’s face. It’s a stark contrast to just moments ago when he was openly sharing his deepest secrets with Bucky, breathing out with the relief of it.
“Just… It’s different,” Steve answers hollowly. “I’m different.”
Though he doesn’t know why, the mood between them has undeniably shifted, and Steve doesn’t need to say it out loud for Bucky to understand: this conversation is over. His heart pulses between his lungs, aching, bleeding for this perfect man he’s only just met.
But if Steve is done talking, Bucky isn’t going to push. He reads Steve’s tone and body language easily and decides to give him the reprieve he’s surely seeking, finishing the rest of his own drink, a signal that their night can end here and Bucky will be fine with it. The strength of the scotch is only now beginning to catch up with him.
“Thank you for listening,” Steve says, quiet. He’s looking down at his lap. “I… I think I’m going to go to bed early. If that’s alright.”
“Of course,” Bucky jumps in, quick to validate Steve’s need for space. “Thank you again for telling me… everything. Your story.” He sets his glass next to Steve’s and begins folding up his own blanket. “For trusting me. I know it can’t be easy.”
Steve only smiles sadly.
It’s a few minutes later, when Bucky has helped carry their empty glasses and folded blankets inside, that he realizes he has no idea how to say good night. He almost feels like he should hug Steve now that he’s bared so much of his soul to Bucky, but that’s really something Steve would have to initiate. It wouldn’t be right for Bucky to push a brand new intimacy on someone who is feeling so exposed and vulnerable. He settles on a simple farewell.
“Good night, Steve,” Bucky calls softly, smiling kindly as he turns to the door.
“Wait.”
He freezes with his hand on the knob. When Bucky looks back, Steve is standing in the middle of his living room, twisting his fingers nervously and biting his lip.
“What’s up?”
Bucky watches as Steve’s gaze falls to the floor, fixating on one spot like he’s studying the rug. He waits patiently; Bucky will give Steve all the time in the world.
“Were you serious about your offer?” Steve finally asks. “About taking a look at my writing?”
After everything Steve has shared tonight, Bucky isn’t sure what he’d expected him to say, but it certainly wasn’t that. His throat feels scratchy and dry all of a sudden, despite the two glasses of honied whisky.
“Yes,” he rasps, and he means it. “Yes, Steve. I’d love to read your words.”
A miraculous thing happens: hope returns to Steve’s eyes. His lips part just barely as his fair cheeks fill in with a sudden flush of pink, the warm color extending to the tips of his ears and down past his neckline.
Bucky doesn’t allow himself to dream about following that spread of heat. He doesn’t let himself imagine chasing it, finding wherever it goes next.
“Oh, okay. Th-Thanks.” Steve’s gratitude comes out more mumbled than spoken. “Um… Good night, Buck.”
The distance from Steve’s back door to the guest house is direct and short. Bucky, in his daze, nearly gets lost anyway.
Chapter Text
vi. message in a bottle
“Jesus fuckin’ Christ, not again.”
Bucky turns off the engine and bangs his forehead against the steering wheel. His hair falls around him like a curtain as he rests his head there, closing his eyes for just ten seconds or so, breathing. Finally, he groans and sits back in his seat.
With a glib little prayer to whoever wants to listen, Bucky tries the key again, hoping somehow for a different result. He is instantly disappointed.
Instead of a normal mechanical hum, his ears are met with a sound that’s been engraved in his memory since the very first time he’d heard it: a god-awful whining noise, horrendous and high-pitched and grating and not at all what a car engine should sound like.
Motherfucker.
This has happened before, about this time last year. At least Bucky knows the problem can be fixed at a reasonable cost—some sort of fuel pump bullshit, he really should have bought that warranty—and he knows he won’t need to tow it. If it’s the same issue as last time, the car will drive for a little while longer if he keeps his speed below forty and doesn’t go too far… except, that could be a problem if the closest mechanic is fifteen miles north, as he’s sure it probably is.
Bucky groans again, catching a glimpse of himself in the rear view mirror. He would scowl at the reflection if his face wasn’t already bent up with poorly contained misery, the same as it’s been all day—even before his car started fucking around on him. The dark circles beneath his eyes are unbecoming of someone supposedly enjoying a relaxing vacation.
Since their night together on the patio, Steve has been avoiding him. After the first two days without so much as a sighting of his host—despite Steve being home all day, as far as Bucky could tell—he figured the guy just needed some time to recover from baring his soul to someone new. That would make complete sense. Bucky had understood, and he had chosen to respect Steve’s space.
… But then two days had turned into three, then four. Before their dinner, Bucky might have thought it was a good thing that Steve—the object of his stupid, impossible crush—apparently no longer wants anything to do with him; staying away is the safe thing to do if he’s protecting his own heart. Except now, after everything Steve has shared with Bucky and the sensitive information he’s been entrusted with, Bucky feels a sense of responsibility: to remind Steve that he isn’t alone in this world, that he isn’t a social pariah. To remind Steve he has friends.
By this point, Bucky has begun to consider if he should just initiate something himself, instead of waiting for Steve to come to him. He has hesitations. What if something he’d said or done that night had truly offended Steve, or embarrassed him, and Bucky just hadn’t noticed?
Shit… If Steve had been brave enough to make himself vulnerable and Bucky had repaid that trust with some asshole move, he deserves to have his car fall apart.
So now it’s Friday afternoon—five days since their dinner—and Bucky still hasn’t made up his mind. He’s stuck. Exhausted from tearing his hair out and only halfway succeeding at distracting himself with manuscripts, he’d decided to start by driving down to Natasha’s—not to talk about Steve, that wouldn’t be right—to just have a couple beers. He can see how he feels after that.
...And then he’d climbed into his car and cranked the ignition, and now there is a choir of soprano cats strangling each other beneath his hood.
Bucky sighs as he pulls his phone from his pocket. To his surprise, a quick Google search reveals that there is a somewhat close-by garage just outside Bell Harbor. It’s certainly further than the bar or the wharf, but it’s still closer than the next town over. At least luck hasn’t completely abandoned him today.
Google Maps tells him he’s arrived at his destination. He pulls up to Stark’s Service Garage—“Where the Starks Are Here to Service YOU!”—and finds two open bay doors on what is easily the smallest repair shop Bucky has ever seen. Its size makes sense, he figures. This doesn’t exactly serve a high-traffic area.
Seeing no reason to park outside and risk the car not starting again, Bucky drives forward through the wide door, stopping just before the blocks. His abused ears thank him when he turns off the whiny engine.
Just as he’s stepping out of the car, the side door to the shop’s office swings open. A middle-aged guy with dark brown hair and an overly dramatic goatee steps out, his hands covered in black grease, his coveralls filthy. At least Bucky has come to a place where the mechanics appear to have some experience.
“Greetings,” the guy says, looking Bucky up and down. He grabs a pair of haggard work gloves from somewhere, donning them. “I don’t know you.”
“No.” Bucky quickly rules out the introduction he’s given to everyone else—‘Hi, I’m Bucky, I’m here on vacation’—because that leads to ‘Where are you staying?’ and ‘Oh! Steve!’ and that leads to places he is really, really not down to go right now. “You—No, you’re right. You don’t know me.”
“I’m Tony.”
“I’m Bucky.”
“Alright, then.” Tony wiggles his fingers inside the thick gloves, nodding once in his direction. “Now I know you.”
Bucky returns the curt nod before dipping back in through the door, detaching his other keys from the car key. He leaves that one in the ignition.
“My engine is making noise,” he says, standing again.
“That’s what engines tend to do.”
“My engine is making a bad noise.”
The mechanic—Tony, apparently—gives Bucky a fucking wink as he walks over to one of the many cluttered surfaces around the garage, grabbing a clipboard.
“Yeah, I know. I’m just screwing with you. I heard the thing crying for help before you even pulled in.”
Fucking asshole.
“It’s—fuck.” Bucky tugs on his own hair in frustration. “This shit happened last year. I think the last guy said something about a broken… pump. I don’t know.” He takes a moment to look around the tiny garage and notices his car is the only one that actually appears to be awaiting service. At least he won’t have to wait in a line. “Do you carry a lot of parts in-house? Is this something you can fix today?”
“Woah, slow down there, cowboy.” Tony puts a hand in the air in the universal gesture for ‘halt.’ “Let’s not go diagnosing your girl’s ailments before I even get a chance to peek under her skirt.”
Bucky growls quietly, irritated and impatient with this guy already. All he’d wanted was a goddamn beer.
“Well… Do you think you could take your ‘peek’ now?”
“Sorry, dude,” Tony answers, tapping his pencil against the clipboard in a rapid beat. It’s like watching a fidgety six-year-old. “I’ll take down your deets now, but we’re closing up early today—as in, we’re already closed, and I’m just nice enough to talk to you anyways—so my kid can have her birthday party. Won’t be able to give your fine ride a looky-loo until tomorrow morning.”
Bucky grits his teeth. He’s so tempted to ask what the hell is keeping this guy from popping the hood right now, from at least getting some kind of preliminary idea of how long it will take to fix this problem, but a little voice in the back of his head reminds him that there’s no use gunning for a fight he’s not going to win. Small town mechanics aren’t exactly known for their sense of urgency.
(He briefly entertains the idea that this guy is actually lightning fast with a wrench, but just enjoys pissing off strangers for his own entertainment. The thought gets Bucky too close to irate. He pushes it away.)
“Fine,” he grumbles unhappily, pointing to the clipboard. “Tell me what you need.”
Five minutes later, Bucky steps back into the crisp autumn air, stuffing his hands in his pockets. He’s got a new problem to solve.
The house is nearly five miles away. Bucky could walk it, sure, but that would take an hour and a half and would probably have him treading through the dark before he’s reached home. He’s not particularly fond of that idea, not in rural Maine where there are probably… wolves, and shit.
Having ruled out walking, Bucky reviews his remaining options. They’re slim. A pessimistic glance at his Uber app confirms what he’d already suspected; rideshare drivers really aren’t servicing towns of this size. Calling away for a taxi from the closest city might work, but Bucky would be waiting forever, and it would probably cost him a needless fortune. He does plenty well for himself, but there are some things he just can’t stomach throwing away cash on if there’s another way around it.
So he can’t walk. He won’t be hiring a car.
Bucky is left with just one option.
“Fuck,” he swears beneath his breath, unlocking his phone once more. He begins searching for the email Darcy had forwarded him when she first booked his vacation, the one with his host’s address and the parking instructions and—bingo—his host’s cell number.
Bucky dials.
“...Hello?”
“Hey, Steve,” he greets. There’s no use trying to hide the exasperated defeat in his voice. It’s been a day. “It’s Bucky. I, um… I got your number from the reservation email.”
“Oh-h.” Steve sounds a little flustered, or maybe he’s just taken aback by the unexpected call. “Hi, Bucky. Is everything okay?”
“Yeah—I mean, no one’s hurt, nothing crazy happened, nothing to worry about. I just need to ask a favor.” Bucky pauses, swallowing tightly. “If you have the time, I mean, if you’re not busy—”
“—I’m not busy,” Steve answers rapidly. “I-I’m not doing anything right now. I’m just home. Inside my house.”
“That’s… good.” Is Steve winded? Did he go for a run? “So, my car started acting up earlier. I took it to the closest shop, but it’s not going to be ready until tomorrow at the earliest.” He grimaces, hoping he isn’t about to be shot down. “I really hate to bother you with this, but I was wondering if you could maybe come pick me up?”
“Oh, is… is that all?” The relief in Steve’s voice is unmistakable. Bucky wonders where it’s coming from. “I mean, yeah—yeah! Of course!” There’s the sound of shuffling in the background, the jingling of keys. “I’m on my way now. You’re at Tony’s, I’m guessing?”
Bucky exhales. Steve doesn’t sound like he hates the idea of having to see him again. Maybe he hasn’t been avoiding Bucky on purpose, after all.
“Perfect, that’s… Yes, I’m at Stark’s place. Thank you so much for this.”
Bucky recognizes the sound of a car door closing on the other end of the line. “It’s really no problem.” A well-tuned engine turns over. “Um. See you soon?”
“Yeah, Steve.” A maple leaf falls in front of his feet, a brilliant red star on the gravel. “See you soon.”
From the moment he arrives to pick up Bucky, Steve’s demeanor is… off.
For the most part, he’s his normal, affable self when Bucky first climbs into the passenger’s seat, but there’s something different behind his smile. It’s tight—increasingly so as the miles tick by—and it doesn’t quite reach his eyes. As they drive and make small talk about Bucky’s car, tiny beads of sweat slowly form and glisten at Steve’s temple, which confuses Bucky; the weather outside is cool and crisp. Steve isn’t even wearing a jacket.
The expression on Steve’s face changes more as they get closer to home. Bucky’s not sure what to think of it, except that it looks a lot like hesitation. Is Steve worried about something?
“Are you sure I didn’t interrupt you when I called?” he asks.
Steve flushes pink all over, but he’s quick to answer with a shake of his head.
“No. Nothing,” he insists. “Seriously… Don’t worry about it.”
Bucky remains skeptical, but he supposes he has no choice but to take Steve at his word. He peels his eyes away from his driver’s weird behavior and looks forward instead.
God, he hopes this isn’t Steve still feeling awkward about their after-dinner talk. If it is, Bucky should really say something about it; reassure him.
“…Alright,” he relents instead, relaxing into his seat. “Um. Thanks anyway.”
To his left, Steve swallows audibly.
“Sure, Bucky. Anytime.”
The rest of the short drive passes in relative silence. By the time they're turning onto their street, Steve’s grip on the wheel has made his knuckles go white, and the thickly corded muscle of his forearms is straining. Bucky sticks to his cowardly decision to not press the issue further.
“I know I sound like a broken record,” he says, stepping out of the car and shutting the door behind him, “but thank you again for the ride.”
“Don’t mention it.”
After locking the car, Steve tucks his head down with a polite smile—obviously forced—and starts down the quaint stone pathway towards his door, swiftly, like he’s got somewhere to be. So much for goodbyes.
Bucky sucks in a breath, steeling himself. Now is the time to be brave.
“Hey, Steve?”
Steve stops walking instantly when Bucky calls after him, but he doesn’t turn. The line of his shoulders is fraught with tension.
“…Yes?”
“All that stuff we talked about the other night,” Bucky starts, talking to Steve’s back instead of waiting for him to turn and face him, “I just… I want you to know that—”
“—I’m going for a walk.”
Finally, Steve turns. His face is pale under the light of the late afternoon sun. Bucky watches him fiddle with his car keys for a moment before stuffing them in his front pocket.
“Oh.” Bucky’s mouth opens and closes like a fish. “O-Okay.”
But Steve goes on, explaining himself so quickly that he nearly trips over his words. “There’s a pier on the cove.” He points towards the far end of Juniper Drive, opposite the direction Bucky goes on his jogs. “It’s just down the street. If you go around the bend.”
Bucky isn’t sure how to respond. He’s confused. Is this… Is this an invitation for Bucky to join him? Every little thing Steve has said or done since picking him up at the shop has been a mess of conflicting signals. What does Steve actually want?
“That’s… cool,” he says, bereft of a more intelligent answer. “I didn’t know about that.”
Steve nods. He keeps his eyes averted, fixed on the pretty, yellowing aspen in his yard instead of on Bucky. “It’s a nice spot,” he shrugs. “I used to go there a lot. Still do, sometimes.”
Deciding to test a theory, Bucky takes one cautious step towards Steve, trying to gauge his reaction. “Do you—”
“—So if you need me, then that’s…” Steve’s voice has begun to crack. He shuffles back two paces—away from Bucky. “That’s where I’ll be.”
And, without further delay, Steve turns back around. He doesn’t continue down the path to his door this time; instead, he branches away, treading across his well-manicured lawn and onto the street.
He’s going for a walk.
Bucky is left standing on the driveway, dumbstruck, with no idea what to make of whatever just happened. He had been nearly certain for a second that Steve wanted Bucky to walk with him, but was too shy to ask… except then he’d backed away the second Bucky moved his direction.
And what had he meant by that last part? ‘If you need me’ feels like a loaded phrase, and it could hint at any number of sentiments. Was Steve trying to say he didn’t want to be bothered unless absolutely necessary next time? Had Bucky actually interrupted Steve doing something when he called, and Steve is just too polite to say it?
…Or did he want Bucky to follow after him? From his spot in the driveway, he can still see Steve’s broad yet elegant frame as he makes his way down the street, wide shoulders tapering town to a narrow waist. He isn’t walking slowly. Were Bucky to run and catch up with him, it could create one hell of an embarrassing situation if it turned out Steve actually just wanted alone time.
With a groan that betrays his dull headache, then a glance down at his shoes, Bucky makes a decision. He’ll wait until Steve comes home before trying to talk to him. Given all the potential unknowns, it just seems like the safest option.
The first thing Bucky notices when he walks into the room is the stack of fluffy, folded towels piled neatly on the coffee table. The sight on its own is not unfamiliar; Steve often pops into the guest house while Bucky is out to replace the necessary linens. He’s a sweet guy like that.
...The second thing Bucky notices is the packet of paper on top of the towels.
Bucky’s brow furrows. He empties his pockets of his wallet and keys and picks up the packet. It isn’t very thick; maybe fifteen sheets. On the front sits a pastel sticky note right in the center, a few lines jotted down in hurried, yet mostly neat handwriting.
this is just the first chapter - please be gentle
thanks a million, buck
- steve
Oh.
After staring blankly at the note for several seconds, trying to process what it is he’s holding, Bucky finally peels the little square back to reveal the paper beneath. His eyes scan two printed lines of text where they stand alone. The black ink is stark against the white of the page.
Untitled Draft
S.G.R.
Bucky’s breath catches in his throat.
With all the shit that’s been weighing on his mind since last Sunday, Bucky had nearly forgotten about his offer to look over Steve’s writing. He now recalls the faint glimmer of hope in Steve’s eyes when he’d asked Bucky if the offer was genuine.
And here it is, he thinks, amazed Steve has followed through despite his obvious apprehension. Here is Steve’s story.
Bucky runs a thumb across the smooth texture of the paper reverently, in awe of the trust Steve has gifted to him yet again. He glances over at his desk, at his powered-down laptop. He’d made it halfway through a new manuscript earlier before embarking on his failed quest for beer, and it goes against every one of his organizational instincts to begin a new review before he’s finished the first.
He knows he’ll make an exception this time. He is far too eager to wait.
Bucky traces the simple print of S.G.R.—Steve’s initials, he assumes—with the tip of his index finger.
Exhaling, he turns the first page.
Chapter One
Steve had said he’s a romance writer. Were Bucky less experienced in his profession than he is, he might get distracted by the idea of reading what gets his crush hot. Reading Steve’s fantasies. As it is, Bucky isn’t, so he doesn’t. He will review Steve’s work with the same critical eye he uses to review all others’.
The man at the end of the bar has hardly spoken a word all night...
Bucky has perfected a certain method for screening works from new authors over the years. It’s done him well thus far. When reviewing a manuscript, he spends most of the first chapter assessing the basic level of skill; he looks past plot, disregards exposition, and puts all his attention on the writer’s competence in crafting an effective sentence. Brilliant plot concepts are only as good as an author’s ability to bring them to life, after all. If they can pass that first test, Bucky knows they can at least be coached into writing a cohesive story.
...Grant knows he shouldn’t be eyeing him as much as he is — as much as he has been since that first order of cheap whisky, double, please, on the rocks — but this has always been who he is: addicted to danger.
The light bulb on that side of the bar burned out ages ago, and his boss has yet to replace it. The dim lighting casts a mysterious shroud over the dark stranger’s face — not to mention his broad, well-built form. As Grant diligently pours drinks for his more familiar patrons, he watches the stranger in the corner of his vision. Thick shadows play across those strong features as the cigarette smoke swirls, painting his aura, and...
Just a few pages in, Bucky already knows Steve’s skill is up to snuff. He’s definitely not perfect—he could use assistance trimming the purplish prose, and he depends too much on em dashes—but his words carry a good rhythm. His writing flows from one point to another in a way that’s difficult to teach.
...The tall, silent brunet had come in alone just as Grant had been starting his shift. He doesn’t have the look of someone waiting for a friend — and certainly not for a date.
Grant has picked up on a subtle raspiness at the edges of his deep voice each time the stranger has ordered a drink...
Bucky smiles. Steve’s style has the familiar flair pulp romance is so often known for, but he’s somewhat artful about it. There’s a sense of self-awareness hiding beneath his words. It makes everything more human.
Realizing he’s still standing—rather awkwardly—in the center of the room, Bucky moves to the cushy armchair and sits. He takes the story with him.
...It’s been four days since Grant’s last heat ended — another one spent alone, twisting in agony — but today was the first day his scent had been mellow enough for him to pick up a shift. Still, he wonders if this shadowy man can catch what’s left of those saccharine notes, or if the smoky haze is too much for his sweetness to penetrate. Grant can smell him, after all.
He sweeps the pointless thought to the side just as he sweeps the blond hair from his forehead. He’s overdue for a haircut. Grabbing the nearest bar towel, Grant sets out distracting himself by drying...
By this point, Bucky is confident enough in the overall writing to begin looking closer at characterization. He can easily spot parts of Steve where they’ve been sewn into ‘Grant.’ It’s endearing. He’d known before the text confirmed it that Grant was an omega, as well as the story’s protagonist, and he’s glad to see the representation. As rare as they are in the world, omega men are almost never allowed opportunities to take center stage in art.
...The stranger gestures to him silently, one finger in the air. A signal for another pour. A wild, reckless thrill shoots through Grant’s veins as he grabs the bottle of sloshing amber liquid. He wonders if he’ll be able to pull a few words from him this time around...
He shifts into a more comfortable position, stuffing a pillow beneath his arm. Steve’s attempts at establishing setting and tone have been somewhat lengthy, bringing the story halfway through the first chapter before any real action begins. That’s okay; a good editor would be able to help him with that.
...“I’m Grant,” he says, pouring. The whisky is sharp and buttery to his sensitive nose, despite the ever-present cloud from the cigarettes. “Most of my regulars tell me their names...”
Bucky—somewhat on a personal note—is growing increasingly eager to learn if the mysterious stranger at the bar will be revealed as another omega, given what he knows about Steve. Steve had said he writes ‘niche’ stories, after all. Queer romance is certainly niche.
…Or, it’s also very possible this tall, dark hunk will turn out to be alpha. He can see it going either way. Even if Steve isn’t attracted to alphas himself, that doesn’t mean he can’t enjoy writing them. The best alpha characters Bucky has read have all been written by omegas or betas: three-dimensional humans brought to life without the burden of an alpha power fantasy.
...For a moment, the man remains silent. Grant’s practiced, cocksure smile falters as he resigns himself to being ignored — but then a knowing half-grin takes the stranger’s red mouth. It’s the nearest thing to emotion or interest Grant has seen on him all night.
”But I’m not a regular — am I, sweetheart?” Grant’s heart stutters to a stop. “I’m just here for the month, passing on through...”
In the back of his mind, secondary to his focus on the narrative, Bucky ponders Steve’s writing process. How long has he been with this story? Is he one of those authors who cranks out new works at the drop of a hat, chasing their muse wherever it takes him? Or is he slow and meticulous, revising and revising, learning his characters inside and out? He makes a mental note to ask.
...As Grant searches desperately for his own lost tongue, wretched memories of past disappointments suddenly creep into his chest. They haunt him.
He has been here before; maybe not this man, maybe not this night, but he has drunk the same air and tasted the heartbreak. He’s a damn fool to be coming back for more.
“Maybe,” Grant shrugs, smiling to forget. He rests his elbows on the bar and leans forward — an invitation, dangerous and bold. “But it’s always polite to introduce yourself.”
Slowly, the stranger’s smirk grows...
Steve can create tension, that’s for damn sure. Bucky thumbs at the thickness of the pages and finds he’s arriving at the end of this first chapter. Inwardly, he smiles.
Who doesn’t love a suspenseful reveal to top off exposition? Readers would eat this shit up.
...“I’m Arnold to my mother,” he answers, taking a sip, then lowering his glass when he swallows, “but a handsome man like you can call me Arnie.”
And then the man, Arnie, leans forward, too — and the whole world grinds to a halt.
Grant spots the exact moment the smoky room stops being enough to keep Arnie from catching his scent. He couldn’t miss the look on his face — not when he’d been watching for it.
Arnie’s eyes grow wide. Shock swirls in the depths of all of that ice, of that endless blue, dark pupils growing wide at the center of the hurricane—
Bucky can’t help it; he winces.
He stands from the chair only long enough to grab his pen from the desk and make a quick mark, then sinks back into the cushions. He reads on.
“You’re...”
“Omega,” Grant breathes, spilling the truth from his barely parted lips. He knows he’s nearly inaudible over the music in the bar. That’s good. This — whatever happens now — can remain secret. “Yes. You know what I am.”
Arnie hasn’t jerked back in his seat. He hasn’t left the bar. He hasn’t moved an inch, in fact... unless Grant’s eyes aren’t deceiving him, and that really is Arnie nosing closer towards his neck. He’s still too far for Grant’s liking.
“But...” Arnie pauses, licking his lips, eyes searching every part of Grant’s face for a trick. For a trap. “But, you know I’m...”
Ah, omega. Bucky grins. The tall, dark stranger is no alpha, after all, and the thought of Steve actually writing queer romance for men just like himself gets him a bit giddy.
…Then, with only a slight twinge of jealousy, Bucky wonders if Steve has based this meeting on a real-life encounter of his own: if there has been a time he’s come onto another omega, sitting on nails while he awaits their response.
Sympathy pangs in Bucky’s chest. He can hardly imagine the nerves.
He sets aside the thought. After re-reading the last couple of lines, he flips to the final page of the chapter, knowing already that he’ll be begging Steve for a copy of the next.
...eyes searching every part of Grant’s face for a trick. For a trap. “You know I’m...”
…But there’s only one line on the last page.
Fuck that—there’s only one word.
...“Beta.”
Bucky drops the stack.
Sheets of white paper cascade down to his lap, slipping across the curves of his thighs and onto the rug in either direction. He snaps out of the sudden paralysis to snatch up whatever he can, scrambling to preserve some sense of the original order, but his delay lasts too long; all he ends up saving is a single page.
It’s clenched in his fists now, rumpled at the edges. It’s the very last page, of course. The very last word.
Bucky stares. It’s as though someone has flipped a switch in his head, beams of white light filtering through a lens, magnified, illuminating an entire room hidden somewhere within his skull. Projections of film tape begin rolling behind his eyes and replaying moving images of that night.
“You’ll find the omega for you,” he’d promised Steve, ice melting in his glass, “it’ll get easier.”
And after that, Steve’s face… fuck, Steve’s face. The confusion, the disappointment.
The pain.
“I don’t think so. At least… not for me.”
Bucky is an idiot. He’s a blind, senseless idiot of the worst kind. Steve had telegraphed his meaning in bright, bold letters, but Bucky’s been so busy digging his claws into all the reasons Steve can’t ever be his that he has failed—every step of the way—to simply fucking listen.
“It’s different,” Steve had said. “I’m different.”
He could have asked. Steve probably would have answered. Bucky hadn’t asked, clinging to his assumptions instead. Steve had sat right across from him that chilly October evening and told Bucky he was queer and Bucky had just assumed that meant he was attracted to other omegas, but he hadn’t bothered to actually ask.
…And hell, maybe Steve is that, too. Maybe Steve is just attracted to anyone that doesn’t want to shove their knot inside him, or maybe he’s attracted to nobody at all, or maybe he’s something else entirely. Bucky wouldn’t know. Bucky doesn’t know, because Bucky has been choosing to write Steve’s story himself instead of just asking if he could turn that page, if he could keep reading.
Bucky forces himself to unclench his fists. He frees the abused piece of paper, letting out the breath he hadn’t known he’s been holding. Distantly, he registers the sting of a paper cut where one of the other loose pages had slipped from his grasp.
He centers himself, trying to reorder his thoughts. It’s possible Steve’s work of fiction may reveal nothing—at least, nothing about the man himself. Perhaps ultra-rare pairings just interest him. Maybe he likes writing about complex external conflict.
It doesn’t matter; none of that matters. Bucky needs to stop guessing. He needs to stop filling in the blanks on his own, and he needs to start asking Steve instead.
Fuck… He needs to find Steve. Now.
Bucky jolts upright, practically leaping out of the chair. He bends down and does a sloppy job collecting the scattered pages, sorting them into some approximation of their numbered order before finally just stacking them as best he can.
He’s out the door within seconds.
There are five or six rows of neat family homes between Steve’s house and the bend at the end of Juniper Drive. As he walks—he’ll swear it’s not running—Bucky wonders if Steve’s neighbors are peeking through their blinds at the odd stranger, watching him bee-line down the street just before sunset with a messy packet of paper in-hand. He doesn’t actually give a shit.
Bucky hadn’t been lying when he’d said he wasn't aware of a pier down the road, just out of sight from Steve’s front door. As he makes it around the curve, he’s immediately disappointed he hadn’t known before. A stirring view unfolds.
Before him is a modest width of gray, rocky coastline. It isn’t a beach, just a narrow bit of access for Bell Harbor’s inland cove to the west. A romantic mix of evergreens and bright autumn color borders it on either side. At the center is a long, wooden pier stretching maybe twenty yards out to sea.
And—at the center of the pier—a man.
Steve stands at the end with his hands in his pockets and his back facing Bucky. He’s got to be freezing without his jacket. His neck is turned slightly like he’s looking forward and to the left, peering south across the choppy waves at something Bucky can’t see from where he stands.
He walks forward onto the wooden planks, but stops halfway to Steve, because Bucky can see now what’s captured his eyes. The view is straight from a postcard. Across the cove, maybe a mile away, stands a lighthouse. A small keeper’s cabin is adjacent, but set back, allowing the limestone tower with its black painted iron to stand tall but alone at the end of the jetty. Apricot rays from the low, setting sun cover the westward side in light.
Bucky presses forward. He gets within twenty feet of the end when his weight must cause a slight shift on the pier. The movement announces his presence. Steve jumps in his skin almost imperceptibly as he rounds himself.
“Bucky, you—”
“—Steve.”
Steve’s expression shifts from surprise to something else entirely at the sound of his name, but before Bucky can pinpoint it, Steve’s gaze falls to the bundle of paper in his hand. The recognition is instant.
There’s a torrent of words on the tip of his tongue to describe Steve’s face now—wary, hesitant, cautious, anticipatory—but none of them are big enough to contain the weight behind those eyes when they lock with Bucky’s. Steve is all of those things and ineffable at the very same time.
It’s obvious he knows why Bucky has come; there’s no way he couldn’t. But with Steve’s vulnerable heart papery in his grip while also bared before him, Bucky finds his tongue is frozen. He realizes now he has no idea what he really came to say, what to ask, just that he’d known he needed to see Steve. And now, here Steve is.
“I,” he begins, but stops to clear the frog in his throat, “I wanted to…” Bucky closes his eyes and exhales. He decides to begin with the truth. “You’re really talented, Steve.”
It’s clear that it isn’t what Steve had expected to be the first thing out of his mouth. It isn’t what Bucky had planned, either, but he’s glad now that he’s said it.
Tension abandons Steve’s body in the most dramatic fashion. Bucky witnesses the weight of a person’s whole lifetime lift off those beautiful, broad shoulders, escaping out to sea to drown beneath the waves. At first, he thinks it must be the relief of hearing that Bucky has read his work and found quality—but then his stomach drops when he realizes that isn’t the reason at all.
Steve hadn’t just been nervous. He had been afraid. He had thought Bucky had come here to spit on him in disgust.
“Oh,” Steve answers. The wind has picked up enough to nearly mute his voice, but Bucky reads his lips. “Thank you.”
Almost instinctively, Bucky rushes closer. He halts himself a few feet short when he remembers Steve isn’t his to hold. At the closer distance, he can spot how the sea-chapped skin of Steve’s cheeks has grown pinker with praise.
Silence settles between them again. Imagining that the chilly gust coming off the water is a breath of courage pushing into his lungs, Bucky slowly raises the wrinkled manuscript.
“This isn’t the kind of story I usually read.”
And it isn’t. Bucky has never once had a manuscript with a beta-omega pair come across his desk; he would have remembered. He knows it’s not because there isn’t an audience for it, or because those couples—those people, omegas and betas queer in that way—do not exist in this world. They do. They just live invisibly.
Yet, here they are: two men with crisp edges, both made from solid flesh, standing across from each other. Real.
Steve smiles softly.
“I know.” All around them, the salty sea air rushes off the ocean, tangling itself with gold and crimson leaves in the surrounding tree line. “That’s why I wrote it.”
Bucky doesn’t know what to say in response. Steve doesn’t seem to expect one. The wind picks up further just as Steve breaks eye contact, and he grimaces this time when the cold licks his skin. Bucky wonders if Steve’s trembling nerves had been heating him from the inside, making him impervious to the sharp chill.
“I should go in,” Steve tells wooden planks below, starting back towards land, “I was dumb and left without my coat.”
The enormity of the truth crashes into Bucky all at once. Here is this amazing man who has torn open his chest and handed every vital, bleeding part of himself over for Bucky’s judgement. Bucky has given nothing of himself in return.
As Steve walks past, Bucky’s right hand shoots out, catching him by his bare elbow. Steve’s eyes snap to the new point of contact. He seems every bit as surprised as Bucky by the development.
Then, slowly, Steve’s gaze climbs. The setting sun filters through his flaxen hair, spinning straw into gold right before Bucky’s eyes, and—fuck, he is luminant. He is blinding. He is perfect in every way Bucky knows perfection to exist, shining brighter than the beacon across the cove. They could be cast out to sea to float under the moon, driftwood pieces in the dark, and Steve’s light would call in the dawn.
“Steve,” he breathes, clinging to the name like a fading heartbeat, “I…”
But then, the bravery leaves him. Bucky drops his hand.
He expects Steve to look disappointed in him, for some reason; to read his cowardice. He doesn’t. Instead, the delicate edge of his pink mouth curves, melting into a quiet smile.
“It’s alright, Buck.” As if to change the subject, Steve nods once towards the pages in Bucky’s left hand, that private smile growing. “My, um… My middle name is Grant.” He raises those blue eyes until they’re staring straight into Bucky’s once more. There’s the faintest hint of mirth behind it when he shrugs. “Told you I was different.”
Bucky waits five minutes after Steve has gone to return to land himself. It’s nearly dark by the time he gets home.
As he lies awake in bed that night, staring at the ceiling, Bucky doesn’t think of Steve. He dreams only of Grant and Arnie.
Notes:
I may have written an unrealistically stupid character... Oh, Bucky...
Chapter Text
v. sirens calling
“Hiya, Buck. What’s up?”
Bucky sighs contentedly, a sound for his ears only. He peers out through the driver’s side window at Barton and Sons, where the late afternoon light has changed the beige stucco to a warm, pleasant orange. Next door, the local diner’s ‘open’ sign glows in fluorescent staccato pulses.
“Hey, Steve,” Bucky answers. “I’m about to head home from Clint’s store. Nat said he’s just brewed something new for Lucky Shot, thought I’d pick up a pack.”
Steve’s pleasant chortle sounds out from the other end of the line. “Hopefully it’s better than that wheat ale he made. I can’t say that one worked for me.”
Bucky spots his reflection in the rearview mirror, watching his mouth turn up with a tiny grin. He adores hearing levity in Steve’s voice. He can’t be blamed if the sound makes him giddy.
“Yeah, we’ll see. Anyways… I was thinking I could pick us up some burgers for dinner? Maybe some milkshakes, too? You know,” he shifts his weight in the driver’s seat, as though sitting comfortably will make his tone come across more casual, “as a bribe for that sixth chapter you’re holding out on me.” Bucky tuts disapprovingly into the microphone, but he knows Steve will catch the jest in it. “This just ain’t like you, Steve.”
Again, Steve chuckles.
“Well, I got some bad news for you.” He punctuates his words with a dramatic little sigh. “Your chapter six is still stuck in first draft. Not quite ready for public consumption. It’s been a… tough one.” Bucky doesn’t miss the hint of frustration in his voice. “It’s possible I have a little case of writer’s block.”
Bucky shrugs, then remembers Steve can’t see him do it.
“Let’s have dinner anyways,” he says. “I’ll bring back some greasy burgers, and maybe you could bounce some ideas off me. I hear writer’s block is best fixed by talking it through.”
Steve is silent for a moment. Bucky can hear the gears turning in his head, and he hopes he hasn’t been too obvious with his misled attempt.
“Okay,” Steve relents. Bucky’s smile grows. “Bacon cheeseburger with no onions, please. And Buck?”
Bucky chuckles fondly at Steve’s habitual use of that nickname. He really does love the sound of it.
“Yes, Stevie?” he teases in turn.
“A mint chocolate shake.” Steve’s order is stern, but there’s a smile behind it. “Don’t show up without it.”
Bucky’s grinning so hard by the time he hangs up that his cheeks are beginning to hurt. He turns off his car’s newly rehabilitated engine before heading for the diner.
The past five days have been—far and above—the best of Bucky’s vacation. Unlike last week, when Steve had avoided him and Bucky had done nothing to fight it, the two of them have seen each other every day since that Friday on the pier. Bucky had woken up feeling cold in his bed on Saturday morning, nervous that the awkward atmosphere between them might thicken after Steve’s new revelations, but he’d forced himself to swallow it. Instead of giving into the misery that would inevitably accompany more of that painful avoidance, Bucky had psyched himself up and resolved to prevent it, shooting Steve a text.
Sent [11:48 A.M.]:
any chance you’ve got chapter 2? kinda got me hooked here ;)
(He’d debated with himself on the matter of the winky face for twenty full minutes, finally giving up and just hitting ‘send.’ He thinks now that it was the right move.)
For some reason, Bucky had expected at least a delayed response on Steve’s end, if not total silence. Steve had proved him wrong quickly.
SR [11:51 A.M.]:
come by the house whenever you can. happy to give you a preview.
SR [11:52 A.M.]:
if you’re free now, come eat lunch. i made too much food… again.
And that’s how he and Steve had begun what is now a daily routine.
They don’t have lunch every day—sometimes it’s breakfast, sometimes dinner—but Bucky loves any chance to hang out with Steve and chat about writing. Steve, it seems, has been just as happy. Bucky wonders if he’s ever had a real opportunity to talk with someone about the thing he so clearly loves most.
Admittedly, things had been awkward between them over that first lunch. In a rare moment of bravery (and perhaps brilliance), Bucky had resolved to break the tension by pulling out his copy of Steve’s first chapter—he’d marked it up properly with comments that morning, reaching into his editor toolbelt for the first time in ages—to go through it with Steve right there at the table. He’d been worried at first that Steve would be sensitive upon receiving feedback, perhaps not used to constructive critique. Bucky couldn’t have been more wrong.
Steve had been ecstatic. His whole face had lit up bright like a star when he’d first seen Bucky’s scribbles, eyes sparkling, every part of him eager to hear his thoughts on Steve's work. Bucky’s poor heart had picked up faster than a rabbit’s, nearly racing out of his chest.
As it turns out, Steve had completed much more than that first chapter of Grant and Arnie’s story. He’s been on a roll the past few weeks, he says—except apparently right now—turning out drafts of entire chapters daily, already more than halfway through his book. Bucky feels like he’s the one reaping the real benefits. With fresh content from Steve everyday, he’s quickly growing addicted to his exclusive previews, to following Grant and Arnie as they navigate through hopeless mutual attraction and the irresolvable feelings between them: the shy, forlorn omega and the mysterious beta, a passer-through who’s only in their little Pacific Northwest town for the month while he takes care of some business.
(Bucky doesn’t miss the barely-hidden parallels between himself and Arnie. He tries to just take the ego boost and move on, but his level of success on that front is… underwhelming.)
Sure, maybe Steve won’t be winning a Pulitzer Prize anytime soon, but not everything is about literary quality. Reading Steve’s story has reminded Bucky of why he fell in love with books in the first place. He finds himself going entire days lately without reviewing a single manuscript for Howlie House, opting to bury himself in Steve’s work instead of his own and get lost in the story, imagining what Steve has in store next.
The whole experience has been unexpectedly liberating. With Steve, Bucky doesn’t have to act the publisher with his nose against the grindstone. He doesn’t need to be someone who just screens other people’s hard work to decide if it warrants a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ or a ‘try again’ stamp from his desk. He’s been swearing for years that he loves his job, truly, and perhaps he once had. He’s wondering now if clinging to that grindstone has just been a blinder against burnout.
Here with Steve in his seaside cottage, Bucky is simply a reader again.
The growing amount of time spent in each other’s company doesn’t come without its problems. In a lot of ways, their situation is fundamentally different now that Bucky knows his attraction to Steve might be mutual. It shouldn’t be. Bucky has caught himself flirting with Steve on multiple occasions lately, and though it’s undeniably nice at first—he adores making Steve blush—reality always intrudes. It’s a rock in the pit of his stomach.
While there might be nothing more he would love than to throw caution to wind and fall into bed with Steve, to stay up all night mapping every line and curve on his body, the very thought of it is a make-believe carrot dangled in front of their noses.
By flirting, Bucky is leading Steve on. However much Steve tries to suppress his response every time Bucky gives into selfish flirting, a look of struggle and confusion always follows that gorgeous little blush. It makes Bucky sick to know he’s the cause. Although Steve has willfully poured his heart out to Bucky in more ways than one, Bucky has done nothing of the sort in return, too chicken to confess his own queerness to Steve. He’s afraid—not because he’s unsure of what Steve’s reaction would be to that kind of confession, but because sharing his secret would solidify the tension between them in far too real a way. It would mean they actually have a chance to be something together.
And the thought of that chance is scary as hell.
Although he wouldn’t go back given the option, things had been more simple when Bucky could reduce what he’d felt to just an impossible, unrequited crush. This is more than boyish infatuation now; this is dangerous. There is a reason omega-beta couples so rarely live in the open. For the beta, especially, such a taboo relationship is a target on their back. He and Steve could never just walk through the streets of Brooklyn hand-in-hand like a normal couple. Bucky would get his face kicked in by the first alpha they pass.
Even if we could, Bucky thinks, it wouldn’t matter. I’ll be gone from here a week after Sunday.
Danger and heartbreak be damned, he can’t stay away. Keeping his distance is next to impossible when Steve is so generous with sharing himself.
Bucky hasn’t been waiting ten seconds on the porch before Steve is answering his knock at the door.
The sun has set by now, a calming, mid-autumn twilight falling over sleepy Bell Harbor. When the door opens, it’s to the picture of a barefoot Steve looking wonderfully soft in his fine-knit henley and his heather gray sweats, which seem like they’re just barely hanging on to his narrow hips. They’re probably more held up by the way they hug his ass than anything else.
Bucky swallows, closes his mouth, and resolutely does not repeat that thought.
“Hey, Bucky,” Steve smiles. He opens his arm in a gesture for Bucky to enter.
Bucky answers with his own grin, cocksure as he can make it, and walks in to toe off his shoes. He heads towards Steve’s kitchen while raising the cardboard drink holder, showing off his two prizes of styrofoam cups.
“Got the goods!” he calls, setting down a brown paper bag on the kitchen island. “Mint chocolate chip, as requested—but not until after dinner, you understand?”
Steve snickers, then dramatically unwraps a straw from the bag, making a show of popping it through the clear plastic lid of the cup with a greenish tint.
“I’m an adult,” he answers, sticking out his pink tongue, “so you can’t make me do anything.”
Bucky purses his lips, shrugging. “Fine, ruin your appetite.” He sets a large carton of fries down on the countertop before pulling both boxed-up cheeseburgers from the bag, walking them to the kitchen table. “It’s fine. I’ll eat both of these, no problem, I’m plenty hungry—”
“—Don’t you dare, Barnes.” Steve follows him to the table with the french fries, then returns to the kitchen, pulling down plates from the cabinets as well as two glasses for water. “And here I thought this was supposed’ta be a bribe. You gonna eat my bribe?”
Inwardly, Bucky’s heart flutters at the sound of Steve’s faint Brooklyn accent.
“I mean, it’s a bacon-loaded bribe,” he teases. “If giving this burger to you isn’t gonna get me my chapter six, then I might as well eat it myself.”
Steve gives a faux-dainty hmph in response as they both pull out their chairs, ready to dig in. He’s quiet, like he’s thinking, but his playful smirk betrays him.
“Yeah, well…” Steve lets Bucky see the gleam in his eye. “We’ll just have to see about that.”
Once they’ve both ravished their meals and scrubbed the grease from their fingers, Bucky seeks out his preferred place on Steve’s comfortable couch and settles in with his own ice cream shake. Cookies and cream is his poison.
“So,” he begins, taking a loud, slurping sip, “what is it that’s got you so stuck on this chapter?”
Steve finishes stowing their handful of dirty plates in the dishwasher, stands, and makes eye contact with Bucky across the living room. There are nerves in his expression, a reservedness Bucky has barely seen make an appearance over the past days spent discussing Steve’s writing together. It’s an odd blip in Steve’s growing confidence.
“I don’t know,” Steve answers with a timid half-smile, “I… I guess I’m not really sure if it would help to talk through it.”
Bucky’s eyebrows come together. “Yeah?” He isn’t going to push the subject if Steve really doesn’t want to workshop it out, but he can poke and prod a little. He truly wants Steve to succeed in his creative endeavors. “Why’s that?”
Steve rinses his hands one more time and turns off the faucet, grabbing a towel.
“It’s not a plot thing,” he explains, staring down at his own fingers as he dries them. “I already know what’s going to happen next.”
Bucky readjusts his weight on the couch, throwing an arm across the backside. “Alright, then what kind of thing is it?”
Steve shrugs. “Hard to describe.”
“Okay. Wanna give it a try?” Bucky makes his best attempt at a reassuring smile. Maybe he cocks his head to the side. “For me?”
Steve lifts his chin, locking eyes with Bucky again and taking in his expression. There’s a long moment when he seems to be weighing his options. Bucky is happy to allow him the time.
Eventually, finally, Steve sets the towel down and rounds the countertop. Bucky breathes a small sigh of relief as Steve enters the living room.
“Okay, so… Grant and Arnie have grown a lot closer, right?” Steve sits down, perched on the couch arm opposite Bucky’s end. “And, well,” he chuckles, averting his eyes bashfully, “you’ve read chapter five. You know how these things go, even though Arnie isn’t an alpha like in the usual stories.” Steve’s eyes peer at him through his lashes. He’s chewing on his bottom lip. “I’m sure you can guess what happens next.”
And now it’s Bucky’s turn to flush all over…. Because he can guess.
Although he may have been badgering Steve for this upcoming installment mostly for the sake of encouragement—and, yeah, to tease him—the truth is that Bucky really has been looking forward to learning what transpires next. The story’s main characters have yet to share so much as a kiss, but the previous chapter had ended on what is perhaps the most classic staple of romance novels: an omega character’s oncoming heat.
If this were any other story, Bucky might be rolling his eyes by now, but it isn’t. It’s Steve’s story.
“Yeah, I…” Bucky chuckles, summoning everything he has to maintain an even demeanor. “…I think I can guess. So, what exactly is the issue?”
Steve’s throat bobs with a swallow. He shifts his eyes down to his hands for a moment, fidgeting with nothing, before finally answering.
“Writing scenes like that—writing love scenes, especially for the characters’ first time—is always kind of a challenge. It can be really hard to find the right dynamic, one that fits the characters.” He returns his eyes to Bucky. “Apart… and together.”
Carefully, Bucky nods his understanding.
“That… That does sound hard.”
The air between them falls quiet. Bucky watches as Steve silently considers how to best explain the details of his struggle, but he doesn’t push. He waits the moment out and allows Steve time to find the right words.
“Would it…” Steve again bites his bottom lip, where the pink flesh is beginning to grow red with his fretting. “Would it be okay if I just… showed you?”
Bucky has no clue how so much of his blood manages to rise to the surface of his skin, because his heart has completely stopped pumping. The full-body flush has lit him on fire.
“What,” Bucky croaks, fails, and then tries again, “what do you—”
“—My draft!” Steve interjects, horror dawning on his face as he realizes how Bucky could have taken his meaning. A scent Bucky instantly understands to be abject terror fills his nose, and Steve slaps a hand over his mouth as though he could smother words that have already come out. “I-I mean… If I showed you my draft.” Slowly, he lowers his hand back to his lap. “I just… It might be easier to explain how I’m stuck if I could just sh-show you.”
Bucky can’t quite describe the feeling washing through him as his heart gets back to beating. A part of him is definitely relieved he won’t have to navigate such an unexpected—and probably awkward—situation. Another part of him is disappointed.
“Yeah, Steve,” he agrees, breathing steadier now. “Yeah. Of course.”
Steve’s shoulders slump in relief. Gradually, his scent mellows back to its normal herbal tones, perhaps with a slight edge of lemon. He smiles again after a few uneven seconds, but Bucky can still spot the nerves.
“Okay,” Steve nods. “Um. Come with me?”
With that, Steve rises from the couch and walks towards a hallway Bucky hasn’t entered before, presumably where the bedrooms of the house are tucked away. Bucky closes his eyes for a few brief seconds to wrest the last of his escaped self-composure into place, and then he stands, following behind.
They pass closed doors on either side before Steve veers off into an open room, flipping the light switch. When Bucky enters, he first notices the old, wooden desk against one wall. It’s topped with stacks of printed papers and a high-end laptop, as well as several well-used notepads adorned with blue-inked writing. An umber orange couch—worn-in, but still looking quite comfortable—sits against the opposite wall. There are half a dozen open shelves mounted around the room, all of them piled with a mix of familiar paperback novels and more of those stacks of pages bound with clips. With its deep burgundy walls and soft lighting overhead, Bucky finds the room homey, even in all its mildly organized chaos. This is Steve’s office.
“Sit?”
Bucky blinks, processing Steve’s simple request and his accompanying gesture in the direction of the couch. He nods and takes a seat. The soft, upholstered cushions turn out to be just as comfortable as he’d guessed.
As Steve grabs one of the lined notepads from the top of his desk and starts flipping through it, bending a handful of pages back over the spine, Bucky peers around the room. It occurs to him that the thicker stacks of paper he sees—some of them clearly printed, others hand-written—might be other novels Steve has written. They’ve never talked about his past works before. Bucky wonders if their plots resemble that of Grant and Arnie’s.
“Have you written many other stories like this one?”
Steve looks up from shuffling through his notepad. He seems to understand Bucky’s question.
“Written?” he laughs, dry, before resuming his page-flipping. At least a quarter of the notepad’s thickness has been tucked over and to the back. “Or finished?”
Bucky laughs, too, recognizing a struggle common among writers. “Either, I guess.”
Steve shrugs casually, but he doesn’t lift his eyes. “Yeah. I’ve got shelves full of them.” He pauses with a self-deprecating scoff. “More than just shelves. But, yeah. They’re pretty much all like this one.” Steve nods towards an end table next to the couch, where Bucky spots more of those familiar stacks of papers held together by binder clips. “I mean… just like this one.”
As Bucky looks over the bundles of paper, he quickly understands what Steve means. He identifies on just the first glance at least three separate works with the same words on the cover page: first, a printed Untitled, then Steve’s initials, and then finally a handwritten date scribbled on the upper corners. Upon closer examination, Bucky notes that the dates span several years.
It’s no shock to find a writer hoarding drafts with no name. At least half the submissions that come across Bucky’s desk are untitled, and picking a name for their story is often one of the last things his authors do before it goes into print.
“You don’t have a pen name?” Bucky frowns, eyes roving the ‘S.G.R.’ printed on each stack.
“Nah,” Steve answers, still bending back pages. “Why would I? I’ve never published anything.”
“So? Having a good pen name will help you develop your identity as an author.”
With a humorless laugh, Steve looks up. He’s smirking.
“And you don’t think my identity as it already is would stand out enough?”
“Will stand out, Steve,” Bucky shoots back. He’s corrected Steve’s word tense before he could catch himself, but he’d meant it, and he wouldn’t take it back now if given the option. “I’m tellin’ you… I haven’t even read all of Grant and Arnie’s story yet, but you gotta consider sending it in.” Pausing, Bucky thinks of Steve’s hesitance—it isn’t unwarranted—before deciding how to continue. “Besides… a pen name will help keep you anonymous.”
Steve, apparently finding the page he’s been searching for, folds back one last sheet and tucks the whole notepad under his arm. His eyes rove Bucky’s face in the silence, then fall to the floor.
“I don’t know,” he says softly. “I still don’t think there’s an audience for it.”
Indignation has no business bubbling up in Bucky’s chest. He has no right at all to insist against Steve’s reservations, because Bucky has had a dozen opportunities over the past week to prove to Steve that people like himself—like them—exist in more places than Steve believes, and Bucky has allowed every one of those chances to pass him by.
And yet, “There is,” he insists despite reason, abandoning his seat to stand. “Steve… I am a professional at answering that question, and I know from experience that even if it’s a new genre and you don’t have the numbers to show the interest out there, there are still publishers who will print it.” He takes a step in Steve’s direction before he knows he’s doing it. “I would print it.”
In the near-perfect silence that follows, the only sound in the room is Bucky’s heavy breathing. Steve stares back at him, eyes wide, stock-still, and there’s a long, frozen moment when Bucky retreats into his mind and tries to remember how he arrived here: standing in front of a beautiful man he can’t—shouldn’t—touch, their loneliness and common threads and shared passion for stories tangling them together in knots, an invisible clock running out all the while.
But then a pink flush stains Steve’s cheeks. His eyelashes flutter almost imperceptibly.
“You would?”
In the end, the impossible doesn’t matter. It never did. Bucky was always going to end up here.
“Fuck yes,” Bucky growls. He catches his own fervor and shakes his head with closed eyes, trying to tame it, before giving up. He gestures to the stacks of Steve’s work piled up around them. “Steve… Just because people don’t talk about these kinds of attractions doesn’t mean they’re not out there. We know they are. How many people out there are just like you, just scared, just hoping for a little visibility?”
The two of them stand at nearly the same height; Bucky has less than an inch on Steve. This close, he can catch the mint on Steve’s breath as it escapes in small gusts through his barely-open lips. Steve’s wide eyes change the longer Bucky spends drowning in them, their sharp blue softening before simply melting, settling into the color of a patient sky as it waits for the clouds to pass on.
Shock, then confusion—and then comprehension, dawning. Bucky stands in Steve’s office and watches in silence while Steve’s gaze folds back his pages, peeling away his paper-thin armor and searching, searching, reading through words until he finds the right pen to spell out Bucky’s secrets in ink.
“Okay, I… I’ll think about it.”
Bucky blinks. In his flustered state, it takes him a moment to figure out what Steve means—what he’s saying ‘okay’ to—but he soon catches up.
Exhaling, then nodding, Bucky finally returns to his spot on the couch.
“I—Great,” he says, forcing a smile to cover up the shakes, to hide his body’s reaction to everything that’s just transpired in silence between them. Bucky gestures to the notepad under Steve’s arm. “Now… What’s that you have there?”
After a brief few seconds of obvious hesitation, Steve nods, apparently making up his mind about something. When he next looks at Bucky, it’s… different. Than before.
“This is my draft of chapter six,” Steve answers. He hands over the notepad, and Bucky takes care to accept it without bending the spine more than Steve already has. “I work through things by hand first. Usually, I’ll revise something three or four times before I’m happy enough to type it up.” He shrugs, pointing to the bundle of paper. “This is my first pass… mostly.”
Bucky’s eyes rove over the topmost sheet. Below a blocky headline proclaiming the draft number, Steve’s handwriting sprawls across the wide-ruled lines of the paper, flowing and intimate while still quite legible. It’s a working draft, he notices; there are parts that have been crossed out and revised—even adorable little comments, frustrations, ‘i quit’—and some parts completely rewritten.
He peeks past the first page and notices Steve has logged multiple dates for each revision. While the latest is marked with today’s date, the first scribblings go back several weeks.
“I don’t totally write linearly,” Steve explains, as though he could hear the question on Bucky’s mind. “Usually, when an idea for a story comes to me, it’s in little flashes of images, disconnected parts of scenes. That’s where I start writing, instead of the beginning. I start with the scene that inspired me.” He shrugs. “For Grant and Arnie, that’s this chapter… But then I got stuck. I went to the beginning and wrote chapter one while I waited for a breakthrough to come, and then I wrote chapter two, then three, and by now I’m…” Steve shakes his head and sighs, exhaling his frustrations. “Here.” He leans over and taps a spot on the page. “You can start here.”
With one last smile, Bucky settles backwards into the couch, fixing his eyes on the place Steve had touched.
Then, Bucky reads.
Grant lies alone in bed, twisted up in sheets...
It gets off to a slow start, but once Bucky’s decoded Steve’s personal shorthand in the margins and learned to navigate his process, his crossing out of old bits, noting paragraph continuations, Steve’s words begin flowing smoothly.
Chapter six starts by throwing the reader into the midst of Grant’s lonely heat. Steve sets that particular scene in a way Bucky thinks only omega writers can, painting the mood with sweat and misery, teaching through words what it is to want.
“...I know I’m not supposed to be here.” The voice quiets. “But… Sweetheart? Are you home?...”
Bucky smiles to himself and hopes Steve can see it. It’s a classic trope in romances starring alpha-omega pairings: the unprepared lover stumbling in on the object of their affections in heat, writhing alone in their bed, gasping for a reprieve that only the other can provide. It seems to work just as well when the unprepared lover is, instead, a beta.
…Grant watches as Arnie’s mouth drops open wide, sucking in air like he’s either gasping for it or drowning in it. His firm, sculpted chest heaves with the movement…
Inwardly, Bucky laughs. He’s already talked with Steve about too many things being “firm” and “sculpted” in his story, but he supposes old habits die hard.
Bucky reads on, making his way down the page.
“...No, Grant, I—” Arnie stumbles, nearly falling forward with his own momentum after the abrupt stop. “We… This can’t…”
The pain intensifies into something far worse than ever before. Grant’s agony no longer comes only from inside, from the flames licking at his bones, but from the heartbreak of denial—
Faintly, Steve coughs. Bucky raises his eyes from the notepad to find Steve is still standing in his same spot, apparently watching him read. They stare at each other across a void of suddenly awkward silence.
“Did you…” Bucky begins, though he ends up trailing off.
“Hm?” Steve’s brow scrunches in confusion, but he eventually catches up with Bucky’s pointed half-question. “Oh! No, sorry.” He blushes deeply—too much pink for an apology over a tiny cough—and waves his hand dismissively. “Y-You can keep reading.”
With that, Steve visibly makes a decision to do something with his big body other than stand, staring, and he pulls the chair out from his desk. He doesn’t turn it before he sits, opting instead to straddle it, facing Bucky. The wooden back of the chair presses against Steve’s chest.
Bucky watches the whole thing. He nods, then licks his dry lips, finally giving Steve an affirming smile.
He finds his place in the text again.
“…Arnie, please, please stay.”
Grant watches in desperation as Arnie braces himself against the wall, trying to stay upright. His back is still turned as though he cannot bear to look back.
“I can’t stay,” Arnie laments. “It would be wrong, and I... ” His voice begins to fail with the last of his words, as though even he doesn’t believe the lie. “Even if we could be together, I can’t give you what you need right now…”
The next line has a few more scribblings than most. It takes Bucky a second to parse out Steve’s most recent version of the sentence from the nixed originals, but he gets there.
“...Stop that!” Grant wails. “Don’t say those things! You are the only one I need right now.”
Arnie lets out a guttural, wounded sound. His knuckles turn so white in their grip over the door frame that Grant is afraid it will splinter apart.
“If-If I stay,” he begins, but his voice comes in pieces, rough and gravelly and broken. “If I stay, sweetheart, I’m not letting you go.” He turns then, slowly, stilling only when their eyes have locked together across the room. “If I stay, you’re mine—the world and its consequences be damned…”
Though he’d be hard-pressed to admit it aloud, Bucky is finding it more and more difficult to maintain his professional coolness. Maybe it’s the knowledge that Steve is watching him as he reads, or maybe it’s Grant’s heat jumping off the paper and getting under his skin. Either way, the building passion on the page is beginning to get to him.
Bucky tries to be subtle about using his sleeve to wipe his upper lip sweat. He pretends he’s scratching his nose.
…A victorious, high sound leaves Grant’s throat without warning or precedence. He would never have tried to smother it anyway, even if he had known it was coming, because the sound reaches into the air from the depths of his soul for Arnie, and for Arnie alone. It belongs to him.
In a flash, the other man is on him. Arnie takes Grant’s cry for the permission it is and—
“—Read it to me.”
Bucky’s attention leaps from the paper, snapping forward so quickly that it wrenches a gasp from his throat.
There’s no way he’d heard Steve right. He’d been so quiet, anyways.
“...What?”
Steve sits before him, resting his chin on his forearm where it’s slung over the top of the chair’s wood-framed back. Bucky just stares. He’s still trying to comprehend what he’s been asked to do when Steve’s spine begins to straighten, slowly lengthening until he’s sitting completely upright: jaw square, eyes forward.
As Steve’s posture unfolds, so does his resolve. He is nervous, clearly, but he no longer seems afraid. In Steve, Bucky now finds a man who is brave and boundless and shaken all at once, a man with many fears but a strong heart to face them.
“Read it out loud to me,” Steve repeats, voice louder and bolder this time—even when his hands are shaking. “The… stuff you’re getting into now is almost all new. I’ve hardly read th-through it myself yet.” With fluttering eyelids, Steve draws in a breath, cracking his knuckles in a fidget. “If I ever feel like I’m having trouble making the words play right, I’ll read it out loud to myself. Helps me find what sounds like it needs fixing.” He closes his eyes completely for the length of an exhale, then nods towards the notepad in Bucky’s hands. “Read it?”
There’s a moment when time stops just to let their gazes lock. Bucky spends that moment searching, desperately looking for something—anything—some indication of what Steve really wants from this. All he finds is restless, steely hope. He prays he won’t let Steve down.
Finally, Bucky nods. He returns to the beginning of the paragraph.
“‘In a…’” But he false starts. Bucky clears his throat before trying again. “‘In a flash, the other man is on him. Arnie takes Grant’s cry for the permission it is and covers his body with his own, h-hot…’” As he reads a few words ahead of his tongue, his lungs seize up. Bucky looks up from the page. “You really want me to—”
“—Please.”
Despite the danger of shaking apart under those pleading blue eyes, Bucky can’t deny Steve. He’s not even sure he wants to. He’s not sure of anything.
“Okay,” he breathes. Bucky picks up at the spot he’d left off. “‘…H-Hot, naked skin beneath the soft scrape of fabric. The barrier of clothing is torture for Grant’s hungry flesh even as Arnie’s strong bulk weighs him down, pinning him to the sheets, providing at least a small measure of relief. He needs more.’” Bucky takes a silent beat just to swallow his own spit. “‘At f-first, he’s sure Arnie is going to kiss him—to finally surrender to the gravity pulling their lips together. But he doesn’t.’”
The sound of Steve’s chair creaking with movement pulls Bucky from the page. He looks up and finds Steve has lowered his arm and moved back in his seat, not standing, not yet, but positioned as though he might.
Bucky doesn’t let himself be distracted for long; he returns to his reading at Steve’s encouraging nod.
“‘…He doesn’t. Instead, Arnie presses his face into the skin of Grant’s neck and inhales, drinking in heat scent like a dying man given the elixir of life.’” Bucky’s ears register more subtle sounds from Steve, some light shuffling, and he knows without needing to see it that Steve has stood from his chair. He continues, “‘Grant whines and follows his lover’s lead, drawing in the heady aroma of fresh coffee straight from the intimate glands below his ear. In instinct, he closes his eyes and waits for the inevitable animal growl, the ubiquitous response of a bed partner to any omega’s heat scent. This isn’t Grant’s first time. He knows how this goes.’”
Pausing as briefly as his composure can stand, Bucky draws in another few breaths, trying again to steady himself before he completely unravels.
…Except Steve has moved closer while he’s been reading. He’s near enough now for his bare feet to come toe-to-toe with Bucky’s. Bucky clenches his jaw and tries to ignore it, to keep his attention on the words. To do as Steve has asked.
He presses on. “‘But that’s not the way it happens. With one last inhale, Arnie pulls away from his neck. Grant would cry out if he weren’t still soothed by the sh-shelter of…’”
When he stops this time, trailing off mid-sentence, it isn’t only to suck in a breath. Bucky stops because all hope of speech has abandoned him abruptly, wildly, fleeing in spectacular fashion.
The couch cushion sinks beneath Steve’s knee when he places it alongside Bucky’s thigh. In the span of one deafening heartbeat, an eternity lapses—and then Steve’s hand is wrapping around the curve of his shoulder, a white-hot point of balance to lower his body into Bucky’s space.
Into Bucky’s lap.
When Steve moves, he moves with grace, somehow lissome despite all his masculine breadth. It’s only once he’s fully settled—hands on Bucky’s shoulders, legs sprawled over Bucky’s thighs, solid chest level with Bucky’s face and expanding with each shaky breath—that some miracle occurs, bestowing Bucky with enough bravery to raise his eyes to Steve’s face.
“Steve—”
“—Don’t stop,” Steve whispers. His voice crackles, breaking with the electric static between them. “Please. Just keep reading.”
“Steve,” Bucky repeats, insistent, “are you sure?”
Steve’s answer isn’t immediate. He stays silent long enough to find Bucky’s soul through the vulnerable window of his eyes, reaching in, holding onto it tight until Bucky understands: Steve has never been more sure about anything.
“Yes,” Steve answers on the wings of a breath. “Yes—unless you aren’t.”
Bucky’s eyes fall to Steve’s lips. He’s been given an out.
He doesn’t take it.
Instead, with a wobbly inhale, Bucky returns his dedicated gaze to the notepad. As he locates his place again on the page, he permits his emboldened left hand to finally do what it wants, finding the side of Steve’s waist. The warmth of his skin through the fabric is an adamant promise to burn him.
“‘…If he weren’t still soothed by the shelter of strong arms caging him in. Keeping him. Instead of the commanding, rumbling claim he expects, only silence and breath meet his ears.’” Bucky tightens his grip on Steve’s waist when he sinks further into his lap. “‘In confusion, Grant opens his eyes. He finds Arnie looking down over him, face mere inches from his own, but with none of the wild cloudiness he’d expected to find in his eyes.’”
The ruse of it is torture. He wants so badly to drop the notepad and pull Steve against his body with all of his strength, to show him how Bucky is just barely larger, barely wider, barely stronger than him, but more than enough to hold him tight and shelter him. He needs it.
Steve’s scent wraps around him, sumptuously smothering him as he reads the words aloud. He can taste Grant’s desire on his tongue while drawing Steve’s deep into his lungs.
“‘Yes, there is heat in Arnie’s eyes,’” he goes on, fire building inside him. “‘There is a shared, unbridled passion. But there is also care.’” He memorizes the next sentence, then the one after that, before raising his eyes to meet Steve’s. “‘There is wanton tenderness, riotous with devotion.’”
The tiniest of broken whimpers escapes Steve’s throat. The sound of it is so quiet that Bucky couldn’t have heard it were they not as close as they are, but they are, and he does hear it. It loosens the final knot inside him.
Bucky growls. He wraps his free arm around Steve’s waist completely, pulling him in until he can look up and find their mouths only inches apart. Steve gasps, hands flitting from Bucky’s shoulders to hold on to the sides of his head.
But Steve hasn’t told Bucky to stop. Not yet.
“‘With a sober whisper of Arnie’s name,’” Bucky recites, worshiping the words as though his eyes were still on the page, instead of on the beauty of Steve himself. “‘Grant leans up, and he—’”
“—Buck.”
The impossible doesn’t matter. It never did. They were always going to end up here.
They’re both already breathless before their lips touch.
Notes:
*sighs loudly, then groans* *puts feet up on table* *lights up a cigarette*
Fuuuuccccckkkkkkk..... never writing another slowburn again...
Chapter Text
vi. waves crashing
Steve tastes of sage and mint chocolate and everything Bucky never knew he wanted coming together, alchemy hot on his tongue.
At first, it’s nothing but a press of closed lips. It still holds more emotion than Bucky has ever once felt in a kiss. Steve closes his eyes, committing their mouths together like a promise, but Bucky keeps his eyes open. His starving gaze roams Steve’s face, watching him pour all of himself into a moment Bucky should have let him have weeks ago.
Internally, he shakes the thought away. Bucky’s done with mistakes. He isn’t going to let should-haves and would-haves distract him from this gift in his lap, from Steve’s strong, gorgeous hands holding either side of Bucky’s head as they deepen the embrace.
The frozen arms of the clock on the wall slowly begin to thaw. They melt, first, and then they boil, and then Bucky starts losing time as he buries himself in Steve’s touch. He drowns beneath the sweet tremble of hands as they fall to his shoulders, to his neck, clinging on for dear life.
“Bucky…”
It’s the second time in however many minutes Steve has breathed his name like a prayer. Bucky’s response is borne of instinct, rather than conscious decision. A deep rumbling crawls out of his chest.
He drunkenly sets the notebook aside—Steve’s story, still weighty in his hands—and wraps around Steve with both of his arms. His tongue swipes at the seam of Steve’s lips, and Steve acquiesces instantly, opening his mouth for Bucky to map. He swallows a broken moan.
Bucky has forgotten everything but the slide of Steve’s tongue by the time he registers the hardness between them. At first, he thinks it’s Steve, but then he feels his own cock is filling. He finally realizes it’s both.
A brand new flame licks the depths of his gut. Bucky drops one hand from Steve’s waist to his thigh, pulling him even closer, pressing together their swelling erections.
Steve breaks the kiss so fast that it’s like he’s been electrocuted. There’s a terrifying half-second when Bucky’s reminded he doesn’t know everything Steve wants here—maybe this is it, maybe he’s not ready for more than kissing—but his concerns are put to rest quickly.
“Oh my god.”
Steve’s head falls backward with a brilliant moan, eyes flying open in shock. He grabs Bucky’s neck for leverage as he loses himself in it, grinding their hips together with frantic, stuttering movements, too overcome with sensation to worry about rhythm.
The sight is glorious.
“Yeah?” Bucky husks. It’s the first time he’s spoken since their lips came together. His voice is wrecked with raw hunger. “You feelin’ good, sweetheart?”
The name just slips off his tongue. Bucky doesn’t recall using that particular endearment with many lovers in the past, but he likes that. Sweetheart feels like it’s just for Steve.
…But if Bucky likes it, he can’t describe how Steve reacts. He keens beautifully, spilling high-pitched whines into the room as he speeds up his hips. He’s rubbing their clothed cocks together hard now, so fast, but still in that sloppy rhythm. The friction of Bucky’s jeans has begun to border on chafing.
“Holy hell,” he breathes out, a chuckle rattling deep in his throat. Bucky gets both hands on Steve’s hips to steady him gently—not stopping, just trying to bring them back to something easier. Something slower. “It’s alright, sweetheart. I got you.” He smirks when Steve gasps again. “There you go, yeah. You like being my sweetheart?”
Instead of answering in words, Steve groans, dipping down to rekindle their kiss with fervor. Bucky happily lets it happen.
He helps maintain the slow, teasing grinding, not speeding up even when Steve’s hands begin to wander. Those long, elegant fingers trace over the cut of Bucky’s pecs through his sweater, then down the furrow of his abs. He lingers in each place without ever fully stopping.
Steve suddenly pulls his mouth away, bringing a few scant inches of air between them. Bucky can’t help but admire the furious blush on his cheeks.
“Can I touch you?” Steve asks, quiet. His blue eyes are dark and gorgeously wide.
It takes Bucky a moment to understand the request—Steve’s already touching him, already exploring, albeit through the barrier of clothing—but the answer becomes apparent when Steve’s fingers brush the zipper of his jeans.
Bucky swears something filthy and screws his eyes shut.
“Fuck, baby.” He pulls his hips upward, seeking the pressure of Steve's hand through the denim. “Yes, fuck. Please.”
Steve nods his head quickly, then moves backwards on Bucky’s thighs to allow some room to work open the button and zipper. Bucky hisses when he feels the heat of Steve’s fingers on his cock with nothing but a thin pair of underwear between them.
“Here,” Bucky breathes, reaching down with one hand to help shove it all down a few inches. He gets comfortable again and adjusts himself, tucking the waistband of his underwear beneath his balls. He has to groan at the welcome sensation of his own hand wrapping around the shaft, giving himself a single stroke.
“Oh my god…”
Bucky opens his eyes to find that Steve’s are as wide as saucers now. He’s biting his swollen lower lip, staring down at Bucky’s cock in something akin to awe. Bucky’s never been more glad of his above-average size, both in thickness and length. Steve’s reaction is one hell of an ego boost.
The thought occurs to him that Steve is experiencing more than one kind of first right now. Bucky’s been thinking so much about betas and omegas and everyone’s designation that he’d forgotten this is also Steve’s first time with a man. He can recall his own first experience seeing another man’s dick, touching it, feeling it under his palm. The whole thing had been a thrill; definitely a fond memory.
But Steve’s careful touch takes Bucky by surprise, for some reason; he has to grip Steve’s hips tighter just to anchor himself. He keeps his eyes glued to Steve’s face as he stares down, drinking in the sight of himself exploring Bucky’s shaft. He’s so damn reverent about it, jaw slack, lips parted.
“That’s it,” Bucky encourages. Steve perfects the pressure, starting to truly stroke him now. “Doing so fuckin’ good, Stevie.”
There’s a brief, fleeting moment when Steve makes eye contact and Bucky sees nothing but gratitude. He seems to know that Bucky’s sensed Steve requires careful handling, some gentle guidance, and a bit of soft affirmation as he navigates through these firsts. Bucky wants to tell him that it’s a privilege just to provide it.
…And then that brief moment is over, and Steve is squeezing a drop of pre-come from the head of Bucky’s cock.
“Jesus Christ.”
Grinning with new confidence, Steve smears the drop around with the pad of his thumb, then tugs on the shaft like that again. He’s twisting his wrist just right now, even using his free hand to play with Bucky’s heavy balls. Steve seems to like those, especially.
“Does this feel good?” Steve whispers, eyes watching Bucky’s face. There’s the faintest hint of a smirk at the edge of his mouth, and fuck, Bucky is truly in over his head with this one.
“You know it does,” Bucky rumbles, “don’t you? You touchin’ me like you touch yourself, sweetheart?”
Maybe it’s the filthy words, or maybe it’s that syrupy endearment, but Bucky’s question flips the tables before Steve ever has a chance at taking control—not that he seems to really want it. Steve’s breath hitches like he’s had the air knocked from his chest, and his eyelashes flutter, brushing the top of his cheeks.
And then he pumps his hand faster.
With Steve’s strong but careful grip on his cock, Bucky never stood a chance at lasting long. It can’t be more than another two minutes of frantic kissing and Steve’s diligent stroking—faster, now, and wetter, pre-come dripping from his dick—when the warnings begin in Bucky’s gut. It’s like a coil of hot copper, tightening, heating, preparing itself to snap.
When it finally does snap, Bucky breaks the kiss to toss his head against the back of the couch. He groans loudly while his cock pours all over Steve’s fist and the denim at the tops of his thighs. Steve is making noises, too, hiccupy little gasps that grow louder with each hot spurt.
His orgasm goes on for so long that Bucky might have thought he hasn’t been beating off in Steve’s guest house every night while imagining this exact moment—except he can’t forget that, not when it’s becoming so clear that his imagination never got close.
Steve seems to sense when Bucky’s high is winding down—maybe the little signs are similar to Steve’s own, or maybe it’s the slowing pulse in the vein of his cock—because Steve relaxes his pace, loosening his grip. He doesn’t stop completely; Steve keeps up his slow ministrations while Bucky returns to himself. He thinks Steve might be doing it just to hear the wet sounds, or perhaps to watch the come seeping out between the gaps in his fist.
Bucky’s eyes are still closed. He breathes out, letting his hands fall from their grip on Steve’s torso to stroke down the tops of his firm, clothed thighs: hip to knee, then back again. The lengths of Steve’s legs are an erotic thing all their own.
The room smells like sex and Steve’s herbal notes, but now there’s a something else, a pronounced scent like lavender laced with burnt sugar. It reminds Bucky of the purple lavender cookies at that bakery downstairs from his Brooklyn Heights condo.
When he does manage to open his eyes and push away nonsense thoughts about baked goods, he finds Steve gazing down—not at Bucky, but at the mess of his own hand. His chest still rises and falls with the same exhilaration Steve has exuded since the moment he crawled into Bucky’s lap. It already feels like forever ago.
Finally releasing his softening cock, Steve slowly lifts his own hand. A little drop of white falls down to the fabric of his gray sweats. Bucky watches his face as Steve examines the mess, his fascination glittering even beneath the shadow of heavy, hooded eyelids.
He’s about to offer his own sleeve to wipe off Steve’s hand—but then he doesn’t. Bucky can’t.
He can’t, because now Steve is bringing his hand closer to his own face, and he’s sticking out his little pink tongue.
Bucky lets out a long, arduous groan at the sight: Steve sampling his come with the tiniest of kitten licks, tasting it, learning it. Loving it.
“Goddamn, sweetheart. Get the fuck down here…”
His hands take on a mind of their own. Bucky releases his grip on Steve’s thighs to reach around back, grabbing him by the ass, groaning again when he finally gets to squeeze at all that soft, round flesh. He pulls their hips closer until he can feel the bulge in Steve’s pants pressing against the wet mess in his own lap.
The abrupt movement catches Steve off-guard. He makes an adorable yipping sound and loses his balance, falling forward, planting his hands on Bucky’s ribcage to steady himself. Bucky couldn’t give two shits about Steve’s fingers smearing cooling come all over the sides of his sweater. It’s come. It washes out.
At first, the taste of himself on Steve’s tongue is too distracting for Bucky to notice much else around him. Steve seems just as eager to be right where he is, already back to grinding his neglected, hard dick against Bucky, pressing into his hipbone for relief. It isn’t until Bucky really starts gripping Steve’s ass, helping and guiding his movements, that he finally feels it.
The tips of his fingers are wet.
Bucky’s breath hitches. Involuntarily, his muscles freeze up.
Steve pulls back from the kiss, perplexed by his sudden stillness. There’s confusion written across his face until Bucky spots him putting two and two together.
…And Steve’s face goes up in flames.
“Um…” He’s so quiet that Bucky’s ears barely make him out, even as close as they are. “Is that okay?”
Bucky is still trying to recover his muscle control and eyesight—the blinding lust has painted the edges of his vision white—when he finally processes Steve’s distressed question.
His immediate response isn’t purposeful, but it happens. Bucky lets loose some kind of rumbling, growling, earthquake of a noise he has never heard himself make before—did that come from his lungs? His gut? From the pits of his soul?—and the sound of it instantly shocks a whimper out of Steve.
Bucky tightens his grip, digging his fingers into the quickly dampening valley of Steve’s ass.
“Is that okay?” he echoes, incredulous that Steve even has to ask. “Is it—Fuck, it’s a lot more than okay. You gettin’ wet for me? Shit, I…” Bucky pulls him in closer, chuckling darkly as he trails up Steve’s jaw with little nips of his teeth. He stops when he reaches Steve’s ear. “Hottest fuckin’ thing I’ve ever seen, sweetheart.”
Finally, the tension bleeds out from Steve’s shoulders. Bucky can’t help it; he spends the next full minute finding new and different ways to grope around Steve’s ass—he’s wet for him, Steve is fucking wet for him—while running his lips all over Steve’s neck. He needs to feel that wetness with his naked hands, but he wants to do it right. Steve deserves more than sloppy fumbling on a couch.
“I wanna drag you to your bed,” Bucky rasps against Steve’s collarbone. His voice has grown so rough that he can barely recognize it himself. “I wanna strip you down. I wanna make you come. I wanna make you so fuckin’ wet that we gotta throw out the damn mattress.”
A moan fights its way out of Steve’s throat, nearly making him choke, and then he’s spilling needy, wounded noises into the office in a constant stream, goddamn music to Bucky’s ears. He nods his head frantically like he can’t remember how to make words.
“Yeah?” Bucky smiles. “You want that, Stevie? You wanna show me where your bedroom is so I can get us outta those clothes?”
“Yes,” Steve gasps, “yes, yes, please, I w-want…”
Bucky kisses him wet on the lips to let him know he understands. He rubs along Steve’s sides soothingly.
“It’s okay sweetheart. I know. You show me where that bed is, and I’ll give you what you want. I’ll make sure we do it right. Yeah?”
Although it takes some coaxing to get Steve off his lap and standing steady on his own two feet, they get there eventually. Steve takes Bucky by the hand, smiling, and he leads him down the hallway.
The bedroom is dark when Steve opens the door. He drops Bucky’s hand and walks to the far wall, switching on a bedside lamp and casting a soft, yellow light across the room. Bucky takes in the muted gray paint on the walls with its crisp white trim, noting the same hardwood flooring that runs the rest of the house. There’s a chest of drawers and a tall wooden wardrobe on the same wall as an enchanting bay window. At the center of the room sits a raised king-sized bed bookended by matching nightstands.
When Bucky’s eyes find Steve again, he’s standing next to the bed and looking a little terrified, twisting his hands nervously. The tent in his sweats stands strong despite his apparent nerves.
“C’mere,” Bucky murmurs, crossing the short distance to collect Steve into his arms. He presses a closed-mouth kiss against his soft lips. “You still doin’ okay? Wanna stop?”
“No,” Steve answers quickly. He gives Bucky a tiny, private smile that’s there and gone in less than a second. “No, I want this. I just… ” He breathes out, pressing his forehead against Bucky’s for comfort. “I’ve wanted this. I’ve wanted this my whole life.”
Bucky feels his own heart breaking in his chest.
“I know, sweetie,” he soothes, petting Steve’s hair. “It’s alright. This is a lot. But let’s just go slow, yeah? We can do whatever we want, but we don’t gotta rush it.” He gives Steve a teasing smile before catching his lips with another kiss. “Besides, I want to savor you. Think you can start by helping me get rid of our shirts?”
Quietly, Steve gasps. He nods his enthusiasm.
They peel each other’s clothes away slowly. Bucky makes a point to not let his eyes dip south anymore than he must to complete the task; he wants to keep Steve anchored, to do whatever he can to settle Steve’s nerves. He also wants to wait until they’re both bare and he can spread Steve out on the bed, drinking him in all at once.
The heat of their kisses intensifies with each piece of discarded clothing. When Steve uncovers the scars on Bucky’s left shoulder—souvenirs from a car accident when he was seven—he doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t ask questions. Steve just runs his mouth over the raised tissue, tracing those ugly lines with his lips until Bucky begins to wonder if they aren’t so ugly after all.
Once they’re both naked, Bucky finally gets his wish, and Steve allows himself to be spread across the soft quilt. He’s blushing like wildfire from his cheeks to his chest.
“Jesus, Stevie,” Bucky breathes, and it might sound like a laugh if it weren’t so filled with awe. “You’re fuckin’ gorgeous.” He licks his lips. “Where can I touch you?”
Steve's eyes are nearly closed, as though the heaviness of the moment won’t let him keep them open.
“Anywhere,” he answers. “Everywhere.”
The thing is, Steve is gorgeous—all over. Bucky is overwhelmed at first; he can’t decide where to start. He wants to memorize every taste and texture of that fair, flushing skin using nothing except the flat of his tongue.
Steve’s broad chest is even more magnificent than Bucky had imagined, having known it before only through the confines of too-tight shirts. Beyond the thick muscle and marble-carved lines, he notes that Steve’s pecs and nipples are somehow different from those of the beta men Bucky’s been with. Not at first glance, maybe, but with his tongue and lips glued to those pert little peaks—so fucking gorgeous, so damn fucking pink—Bucky can feel the extra bit of suppleness. It sends a shiver down his spine.
As much as he would love to worship Steve’s chest and shoulders until he’s out of breath, Bucky’s adventurous hunger demands he keep moving. He glides his tongue down the valley of Steve’s rock-hard abs, swirling the tip around his navel, using the pads of his thumbs to trace Steve’s well-defined Adonis belt. When he reaches Steve’s hips, Bucky leans back, giving himself space to admire.
He doesn’t know what he’d expected from Steve’s dick; Bucky’s never really given much thought to what omega men are packing, and between them being so rare and the world being so possessive over them, there’s certainly no abundance of omega male porn models. Yet, as with every other inch of Steve, what Bucky finds between his thighs is nothing less than perfection.
Steve’s cock is beautiful: a ruddy red in its current desperation, leaking sweetly at the tip. Bucky drools. While the length is modest, the girth is nice—very nice, actually. He wouldn’t mind bending over sometime to find out how his omega’s dick feels stretching him open.
(Bucky catches the inaccuracy—‘his omega’—because that’s not right, Steve isn’t that. He isn’t. Bucky just can’t be wasting time policing his own thoughts when there’s so much in front of him demanding his undivided attention.)
Shaking out anything in his head that isn’t just Steve, Bucky lets his eyes trail lower. Just beneath his pretty cock, he finds something else unexpected, this time with Steve’s balls: namely, they aren’t really there. There’s a soft patch of dusky rose skin that looks much like a scrotum, except it’s flush against Steve’s pelvic floor instead of loose, and—as far as Bucky can tell—doesn’t house any sensitive organs. It’s a reminder that Steve’s body is designed for something different than Bucky’s own, for growing life inside him instead of just helping to create it.
The thought alone has his Bucky’s cock twitching, beginning to harden again. He resumes his downward journey to distract himself from that line of thinking—Christ, he’s not even sure Steve would want Bucky viewing his body like that—and he runs his tongue along Steve’s thighs, nuzzling his nose into the joining of his hip and leg, inhaling his scent. As with his chest, Steve doesn’t seem to have much body hair on his lower half; what he does have is thin and light and soft in all the ways Bucky’s own fuzz is thick and dark and wiry. He likes the way it looks on Steve—a lot.
“Buck…”
He almost doesn’t hear the breathless plea. Just as Steve is parting his lips and calling Bucky’s name, he’s also parting his legs, bending his knees. He’s inviting Bucky to see even more of him.
It’s like that moment back on the couch when Bucky had first noticed the wetness on his fingers, but the force of realization hitting him now is multiplied by a thousand. Even with the shadows cast by the soft, dim lighting, Bucky’s eyes can make out the gleam of slick smeared along Steve’s inner thighs.
“Jesus Christ, sweetheart.” His hand shoots out of its own accord to curl around one of Steve’s knees, coaxing it out even further, widening the spread of his legs. “I—fuck, let me…”
His internal hesitation lasts only a second before Bucky remembers he already has Steve’s consent to touch him wherever he pleases—anywhere, everywhere—and that’s exactly what he does.
Steve moans helplessly when Bucky drags two fingers through the mess, swiping over the ring of muscle at his hole.
“Oh my God…” Steve whimpers, leaning up on his forearms and letting his head fall back towards the pillows. “I want… fuck, Bucky, please…”
Bucky can’t resist the sight of such a blissed-out Steve Rogers, throat gorgeously exposed. A rumbling sound escapes his chest, and he launches forward, using the hand that isn’t drawing wet circles around Steve’s entrance to support his own weight on the mattress. His mouth embraces the heated skin of Steve’s neck.
“Lemme get my tongue on you,” he rasps, scraping teeth along Steve’s smooth jawline. He gently taps the slicked ring of hot muscle clenching beneath his fingers. “Down here. Let me lick you out.”
Steve draws in a sharp breath. Bucky detaches his mouth when he hasn’t received an answer after a few seconds, and he pulls up to see that Steve’s eyes have darkened to nearly pitch black. Steve himself remains silent, even while fire licks over his cheeks. He wants what’s been offered—Bucky can see it—but it’s going to take some convincing.
Steve regards Bucky, unsure.
“Y-You want that?”
Bucky flashes him a crooked grin. His hand trails upwards from between Steve’s thighs so he can grasp Steve’s pulsing dick. He strokes him once, drinking up the overwhelmed gasp it gets him.
“Please, baby,” Bucky begs, nibbling on Steve’s red lower lip, “please, jus’ let me eat you out. Let me have a taste.”
Steve’s nose knocks against Bucky’s when he finally nods. “I want it. I’ve just…” He pauses, exhaling shakily. “...I never wanted that before.”
Again, Bucky’s heart breaks a little, but there’s also a hungry twisting in his gut when he thinks of his mouth being the only mouth Steve wants worshipping his most vulnerable place.
“You’ve never really let someone appreciate how beautiful you are. Have you, Stevie?” Bucky presses soft kisses down his neck while he uses his thumb to rub slow, teasing circles over the head of Steve’s cock. “Never just let go while someone spreads you out like this. You’ve had to hide it all away.” He returns his mouth to Steve’s, pressing pause on his own lust to deepen the kiss with empathy and the purest kind of sincerity. “Sweetheart… I am so, so sorry. But I’m here now.”
Steve’s only answer is a quiet mewl, and then he reconnects their lips. Bucky allows him as much time as he needs to gather himself. It wouldn’t be a hardship if this is all Steve decides he wants for now, lying on this bed with Bucky, kissing him, wetting up Bucky’s fingers.
Still, he’s happy when Steve finally does pull back. He’s smiling against Bucky’s lips.
“Okay,” Steve breathes, nodding with shaky but growing excitement. “Okay, Buck. Eat me out.”
With a growl belonging to a starving man, Bucky pulls back on his haunches, grips the backs of Steve’s thighs, and pushes them forward until he’s all but folded in half. Steve yelps in scandalized shock.
Bucky hovers above his prize with his mouth already watering. He spends exactly three seconds admiring the clenched pink of Steve’s hole before licking his lips and diving straight in.
Eating out Steve Rogers is a sexual experience beyond any Bucky has had before. It’s a goddamn revelation. The heady taste explodes on his tongue with the first swipe over that tight, puckered entrance, and Bucky now knows for certain the source of those sugar-laced lavender notes he’d first scented on the couch.
He is voracious for it. Bucky won’t ever get enough.
For the first several minutes, he allows himself to be selfish; Bucky sucks and slurps and laps up Steve’s slick like it’s a tonic that can grant him eternal life, reveling in the shaken moans each filthy action elicits. Somewhere in the back of his fuck-drenched brain, he wonders if smothering his stubbled face between Steve’s cheeks might be creating an unpleasant sensation—but he doubts it, if Steve’s rapturous crying is anything to go by.
It’s only once he’s taken the edge off his own rabid, dirty hunger that Bucky devotes his attention purely to Steve’s pleasure. He refines his approach, alternating between stroking over his hole with the flat of his tongue and dipping the point of it just inside, penetrating him by scant, teasing centimeters. He purrs when he finds that ring of muscle beginning to soften, relaxing under Bucky’s care.
It takes an enormous amount of self-control to pull back and allow Steve to catch his breath, but he manages it eventually.
“So wet, baby.” Bucky grinds the words out through the gravel caught in his throat. “Look at me. You got my chin fuckin’ soaked.”
Steve is a wreck of a man below him. His forehead is beaded with sweat, his skin a blotchy red from his cheeks down to his nipples, his chest rapidly rising and falling.
“It’s never been like th-this,” Steve admits, heaving out another exhale, “not this… not this much. Not with another person, not when…” Steve squeezes his eyes shut like he’s either trying to hide his embarrassment, regain control of his lungs, or maybe both, and—Jesus, are those actually tears? “Not when I wasn’t in h-heat.”
With his mouth pressed against Steve’s slippery inner thigh and that bashful confession ringing in his ears, it’s possible that Bucky loses his mind for a moment. It’s possible that the very notion of Steve in heat turns Bucky completely fucking insane, short-circuiting some deeply buried part of his brain he never knew existed.
He tamps down his stupidly feral reaction—he isn’t some knothead alpha, he can control himself—and turns his attention to that rosy patch of skin just below Steve’s cock. Bucky gives the area some love, running his tongue over it. It’s a pretty sensitive spot, as Steve’s breathy whines attest, but he can’t bring himself to linger for very long. The real prize is waiting just past it for Bucky to swallow down.
And swallow it down, Bucky does. He takes Steve’s dick into his mouth all in one go, moaning when he feels the head barely hitting the back of his throat. He hums around it for a while before hollowing his cheeks, and then he sucks.
Steve responds with a wild shout and an upward thrust of his hips. Bucky does nothing to stop him from doing it; he encourages it, actually. He allows Steve to fuck his mouth—or attempt to fuck his mouth—and revels in each desperate, aborted movement.
With Steve thoroughly distracted, Bucky trails one hand back to his hole. Steve, in all his beauty, takes over the holding the back of his own thigh without Bucky even having to ask.
Bucky means just to press with the pad of one finger, just to tease. He really does. Instead, he’s just as surprised as Steve when the wet muscle yields almost immediately, and then Bucky is sinking a finger halfway into Steve before he knows it’s happening.
“Oh!” Steve’s free hand shoots down to bury his fingers in Bucky’s long hair as though he needs the anchor. “I—Oh, God…”
Steve’s reaction and the tugging on his hair only makes the fire in Bucky’s gut burn hotter. He lets Steve’s dick fall from his mouth to flop wetly onto his stomach, and then he pulls up, setting his eyes lower.
Bucky groans as he watches himself withdraw that one finger, stopping when only the tip is inside Steve. He spends a second admiring the way his hole starts clenching like it misses the intrusion—and then he buries his finger, pushing it all the way in.
Every atom of oxygen disappears from the room. Bucky is so completely enraptured by the hot and wet and so fucking tight gripping at his flesh that he’s not sure what’s happening when Steve’s thighs and inner walls begin to convulse. He does know he likes it, so he thrusts in and out in quick succession, curling his fingertip downward each time he withdraws. It’s not until Bucky picks up on Steve’s odd silence that he looks up. His heart forgets to beat.
Steve’s eyes are clamped shut, his neck bowed back deeply to press his head into the pillow. He’s got his hand in his own hair now, pulling on it. His candy red mouth forms a flawless ‘o’ shape as he screams without making a noise, while further down, his dick pulses, spurting out crystal clear come over his taut stomach. A few drops have shot far enough to splash over a nipple.
“Holy fuck, Stevie.” Bucky stills his finger, jaw on the mattress, and he watches in astonishment as pleasure wracks Steve’s body.
The orgasm seems to go on forever. It feels like entire minutes pass by before Steve’s shuddering softens to trembling, before his silence finally yields to breathy little whimpers and stuttered gasps for air. Although Bucky’s instinct as a sexual partner is to grab Steve’s dick and stroke him throught it, he refrains; Steve doesn’t seem to need it. His perfect cock keeps on pulsating in gradually slowing waves, spilling until the valleys between his abdominals have filled with watery come.
But the best part comes when Steve finally opens his eyes. He looks disoriented, at first, but the clouds soon clear. He’s met by the sight of Bucky’s unchecked hunger staring him down.
“You are a fuckin’ wonder.” Bucky shakes his head in disbelief. He loosens his grip on the back of Steve’s thigh to relax the tight, bent-up posture. “You just…” You just came from nothing but a finger.
At this point in the night, it’s impossible to distinguish a real blush from body heat pooling under Steve’s skin. He is crimson and sweaty and gorgeous and perfect.
“I, um,” Steve begins, self-conscious, “I come pretty quickly once I get something in me.”
Bucky practically barks. It’s some awkward combination of incredulous laughter and a breath getting punched from his chest.
“Yeah, I’ll say.” With his finger still buried, Bucky takes Steve’s wet dick in hand and strokes it just to tease. He is interested—very interested—when Steve sighs and presses into it instead of retreating from oversensitivity. “How many times can you come, sweetheart?”
Steve hums in pleasure, eyes closed now, head lolling off to the side. His dick hasn’t softened one bit.
“I dunno,” he shrugs. “As many times as you make me, I guess.”
It takes Bucky a full ten seconds just to process Steve’s answer. Those ten seconds pass.
Bucky groans like an animal, lying down on his stomach between Steve’s legs. He doesn’t waste one more fraction of second before plunging back in.
Licking around his own finger, lapping up the new wave of slick Steve had spilled with his climax, Bucky makes a deep, appreciative noise to let Steve know how much he loves the taste. He pulls his tongue away only to make room for a second finger, watching with ravenous eyes as he pushes it in alongside the first. Steve’s body welcomes it readily.
Bucky gets lost in a haze of lust and beastly, disjointed thoughts. He wants so badly to get inside Steve, to fuck him clear through the mattress, but he—fuck.
He hasn’t got a goddamn condom.
Bucky nips at the soft skin of Steve’s inner thigh to veil his own frustration. Briefly, he considers asking Steve, but he sees no reason Steve would have something like that on-hand; a few leftover rubbers for alpha women, maybe, but nothing appropriate for Bucky’s equipment.
Steve has only ever been with one other person, and Bucky knows he’s clean himself, but he bats away thoughts of asking Steve if he can fuck him bare. Safe practice aside, there’s something else to consider. Maybe Bucky isn’t being the safest right now with his tongue slurping at Steve’s wet hole… but at least his tongue can’t get Steve pregnant.
Bucky surrenders to the defeat. As he mentally commits to finding a drug store in the next town over tomorrow—there’s no way in hell he’s buying condoms at Clint’s—Steve’s happy moans turn into whines. He’s pouting, now, pushing his ass further against Bucky’s face and hand.
Bucky’s chuckle gets smothered in that rosy soft skin beneath Steve’s dick as he adds another finger to the mix. He continues taking care not to stimulate Steve’s sweet spot too much just yet; he’d rather not rush this, not when drawing it out would only make for an even stronger orgasm than Steve’s first.
The extra stretch placates Steve for only a few minutes. It’s not long before he’s pushing up on one elbow, peering down at Bucky.
“I want you inside me,” he husks. “Please. I want you to fuck me.”
Bucky wipes his drenched chin against Steve’s upper thigh, but he comes away even wetter.
“Me too, baby… But I think we gotta wait.” He presses an apologetic kiss against the inside of Steve’s knee. “I don’t have a condom.”
“I do.”
Bucky chuckles fondly at Steve’s enthusiasm. “You know I’m different. Whatever you got from before ain’t gonna work on me.”
To his surprise, Steve sits up fully. He winces when the movement causes Bucky’s fingers to slip free.
“Hold on,” Steve breathes, “just…” He leans over the edge of the bed towards his nightstand. Bucky watches him shuffle around inside the drawer for a moment before finally pulling back with a victorious sound. “Here.”
Bucky accepts the offered foil packet. His brow furrows with confusion when he recognizes the brand as the same kind he usually buys himself, but then it clicks. A knowing smile spreads over his face.
“Where did this come from, Stevie?” he teases. “Wishful thinking?”
A brand new hue of blush heats Steve’s cheeks. He shakes his head and diverts his eyes, shrugging like it’s nothing.
“No, I… I use them on my heat toys. Makes for easier cleanup.”
Not for the first time tonight—or the second, or the third—the edges of Bucky’s vision fill in with white. He has to wait for his breathing to catch up.
“Sweetheart…” he groans. “You got yourself some beta toys?”
Steve bites his lip. “I’ve never liked knots,” he explains. “You’re… bigger, though.” His eyes trail down the mattress, as though to gesture to where Bucky’s hard dick is trapped against the sheets. “Bigger than my toys. Thicker.”
If not for the square of foil burning a hole in Bucky’s palm, he might pin Steve to the bed right now and demand he confess where his toys are hidden. He might spend the rest of tonight and all of tomorrow fucking Steve’s wet hole with dildos shaped like Bucky’s dick, whispering filth into his ear, promising that next time he’ll give him something real to stretch him wider. Bucky blinks away the urge, forcing himself to save it.
“Thank you, sweetheart.” He scans the print on the condom wrapper again. “And don’t worry, it’ll fit.” With a wink, Bucky crawls forward to cover Steve’s body, stopping when he can press his hard cock into Steve’s hip and whisper words against his mouth. “Gonna fuck you now. Think you’re ready for that?”
Steve shudders, moaning hotly against Bucky’s lips.
“Please,” he begs, “please, I’m so ready.”
Bucky trails wet kisses down Steve’s neck. He prepares to adjust, ready to reposition so Steve is more comfortable—but then Steve is moving below him, sitting up, turning, and Bucky has no choice but to watch and make room.
Oh, he thinks as Steve settles into his new position. They hadn’t discussed this, but Bucky honestly couldn’t care; he’ll gladly give Steve whatever he wants, and if what Steve wants is to get fucked with his face in the pillows and his ass in the air, then Bucky sees no reason to deny him. When they fuck next time—please, God, let there be a next time—he’ll get Steve on his back, watching his face as he takes Bucky’s dick.
“Fuckin’ gorgeous,” Bucky breathes, mostly to himself. He strokes his hands over Steve’s rounded ass. “I’m the luckiest son of a bitch in the world tonight.”
Bucky removes the condom from its wrapper. He slides the latex down his cock with one hand, pinching the tip, while he uses the other to dip two fingers into Steve: half just to let his anticipation grow, half to check that Steve is actually ready to take him.
He knows that female alphas’ anatomies allow them their own way to satisfy a partner; their equipment may be different compared to males, sure, but bulk is just one of many factors. Still, Bucky’s realizing now that if Steve’s only ever been with Peggy and some smaller toys before, having Bucky in him will be the most Steve has ever taken.
The thought sends a delicious shiver down his spine. It makes his balls throb.
He removes his fingers after a moment, licking off Steve’s slick with a quiet moan. As Bucky lines himself up, he pauses briefly to admire the purpled head of his cock pressing against Steve’s entrance. He takes a deep breath and leans forward, blanketing Steve’s back with his chest.
“Tell me if you wanna stop,” he murmurs, tasting the sweat at the nape of Steve’s neck—and then he pushes in.
If getting his tongue inside Steve had been a revelation, then Steve’s body swallowing his cock is nothing short of a miracle. It is transcendental. Bucky has never come close to something like it; nothing in his previous sexual experience could have prepared him for the way Steve Rogers feels around him, clutching his shaft with its tight, wet heat as Bucky inches his way inside. This is what heaven is made of.
Steve’s stuttering, high-pitched moans fall silent once Bucky is fully sheathed, hips pressed against the back of his thighs. Bucky worries for less than a second before he realizes that sudden silence is actually Steve’s tell. Sure enough, Steve’s inner walls begin convulsing around his cock, legs shaking, shoulders trembling. Bucky moans in delight against the back of his neck. He grinds his hips in little circles, helping Steve through the crest.
“Fuck,” Steve croaks afterward, the tight lines of his body finally relaxing. “That was…” He turns his neck so the side until his face is flat against the pillow. His eyes remain closed. “Don’t stop,” he breathes, “please. Move.”
Bucky has no intention of making Steve repeat himself. He knows an order when he hears one.
Steve feels just as good when Bucky pulls out as he had going in. Bucky groans, pulling up on his knees so he can look down between them. He wants to watch.
The sight of Steve’s hole struggling around his girth is absolutely obscene. Bucky is greedy with his gaze; he starts up a rhythm of sharp inward thrusts to make Steve gasp, but he always pulls out slowly, watching the drag of that taut, pink muscle.
“Jesus wept, Stevie. We look so fuckin’ good together.”
Steve answers with a senseless, affirming moan. He’s nodding his head up and down as though he can see what Bucky sees. Maybe he’s just imagining the sight in his head.
“Yeah?” Bucky forces a pleasured grunt from Steve’s throat with one particularly hard thrust. He begins to pick up his pace. “You think I got a nice view back here? Hm?” He folds himself over Steve’s back again so he can whisper into his ear. “You think you look good all stretched around my cock?” Bucky nips at his neck when Steve only whimpers. “Answer me.”
Steve’s moan is louder than any before it. Bucky grins wickedly to himself, kissing the red mark he’s just made. He tucks away a mental note that Steve likes it when Bucky makes demands.
“Yes,” Steve gasps, pushing his hips back in time with Bucky’s thrusts, “yes, yes, so good. Please.”
“Tell me, then,” Bucky rumbles. “Go on. Tell me what you think I’m seein’.”
At first, Steve only responds with a scandalized shout that falls off in a moan. It takes another warning bite on Bucky’s part to force a verbal answer.
“It l-looks,” Steve begins, but he’s interrupted when Bucky fucks a hiccup from this throat. He has no intention of making this easy. “Looks so good. Looks like you’re splitting me op-open.”
Bucky groans, visualizing the image. He rewards Steve with another hard thrust.
“That’s right, sweetheart. So smart. So good.” He pulls back on his knees to find that sinful view again. “Think I just might split you open if I fuck you any harder. What d’you think, baby? This hard enough?” Bucky punctuates his question with a pointed thrust at Steve’s sweet spot, but he doesn’t speed up. “Is this all you can take from my cock?”
Steve smothers his moan in the pillow, shaking his head back and forth.
“No, harder,” he begs, “please, faster. I wan’it.”
To Steve’s assured dismay, Bucky actually slows. He traces Steve’s stretched rim with one finger, admiring the way it gives so easily to his cock, so flexible; accommodating. He’s not actually worried one bit.
“I’m not so sure…” he answers despite it, feigning uncertainty. “I do all that, and I might break you.” He folds himself forward to grasp Steve’s chin for an awkward, sideways kiss. It’s delicious. “And what would we do then, huh? What would happen if I broke you?”
Steve moans against his lips, but Bucky’s surprised when he’s the one to break it. His stomach twists in anticipation when he spots the gleam in Steve’s darkened, blue eyes.
“I don’t know,” Steve whispers. “Break me. Find out.”
There’s an order—but then there’s a challenge. Steve has issued him the latter.
Bucky would die before backing down.
He gives Steve no answer of any real substance; he’s finished with words. Instead, Bucky kisses him harder and growls deep in his chest, and then he pulls back, righting himself so he can grip Steve’s body between his two hands.
Bucky pauses for a moment, just letting Steve breathe.
…And then he fucking rails him.
Bucky pistons his hips as fast and as hard as he learns he physically can. He thanks himself for maintaining a cardio routine on vacation; he’ll need every ounce of endurance to fuck Steve like Steve has asked—like Steve deserves. Bucky presses ten bruises into the meat of his hips while he batters every sweet spot he can find.
Time doesn’t pass; it just bleeds from the walls. Sweat starts to stream from his hairline. Bucky’s entire existence comes down to one goal: taking Steve Rogers apart.
His eyelids fall shut when Steve comes yet again, squeezing against the pulsing in Bucky’s cock—but Bucky never stops. He never even breaks rhythm.
“Again,” he rasps against Steve’s heated back. “Come on, Stevie. One more. For me.”
Steve hadn’t been lying about coming anytime Bucky decides to make him. With that third orgasm behind them, he reaches beneath Steve, wrapping warm fingers around his wet dick. His erection still hasn’t waned.
Bucky himself has begun drawing close. That hot coil is tightening again in his gut, winding him up for what he already knows will be the climax of his life. He does what he can to stave it off and focus on making Steve lose it, just for Bucky, just one more time; he’s burning for it. Bucky needs to feel Steve shaking apart when he finally gives in and lets go.
The moment arrives sooner than he expects. He’s bent over Steve to pinch his soft nipples when those shattered moans fall silent, and then Steve is tensing once again, suffocating Bucky’s cock of the will to keep going. He answers Steve’s silence with moans of his own: wild, loud, and long-winded.
The last thing on his mind before everything goes white is the memory of Steve’s lips on his, reshaping Bucky’s life with that very first kiss.
In the aftermath, Bucky isn’t sure how he manages to avoid crushing Steve beneath him. He braces an arm across Steve’s chest to pull them onto their sides, collapsing, not caring yet that Steve’s lovely quilt is absolutely soaked.
(He tries to imagine what he couldn’t see before: Steve’s dick dripping clear, orgasm after orgasm, spilling onto the bed below. Bucky’s cock might even twitch if it still had life in it.)
Steve’s breathing soon slows beneath Bucky’s forearm. They both cringe when Steve adjusts his hips for comfort, because the movement has Bucky’s soft dick slipping out. He groans at the feeling, pressing an apologetic kiss against the back of Steve’s sweaty neck.
Bucky reaches down to remove the condom, tying it off. He tosses it into the bedside waste bin.
“Hey, sweetheart,” he calls softly, turning back to the bed. “C’mon, let’s get you cleaned up—”
“—Stay?”
Whatever was left of Bucky’s sentence escapes him. Steve has rolled onto his opposite side, facing Bucky. His expression tells a story of hesitant hope.
“Of course.” Bucky returns to the mattress, gathering Steve’s big body into his arms. “Of course, Stevie.” He presses a chaste kiss to Steve’s nose, watching it crinkle. “Not going anywhere tonight, I promise. You’re gonna need a crowbar to peel me off’a you.”
Steve’s shoulders sag in blissful relief. The breath from his soft chuckle tickles Bucky’s neck.
“Sounds like a plan,” he answers, tilting his head to show Bucky a smile. “‘Cause I don’t own a crowbar.”
The sound of their laughter expands easily in the bedroom. Bucky leans his head low to peck Steve’s lips.
“That’s good to hear,” he grins, trailing sweet kisses across Steve’s pink cheek. “But, sweetheart…” Bucky nips at Steve’s earlobe just to tease. “Please tell me you own another quilt.”
Chapter Text
vii. safe harbor
Bucky is awoken the next morning by the mattress shifting beneath him.
When he first opens his eyes, he’s on his back, and all he can see is Steve’s white ceiling. He blinks a few times and looks to his left.
Bucky thinks Steve is leaving the bed at first—he can’t stop the disappointed pang in his chest—but then he realizes Steve is actually crawling back into bed. He’s delectably shirtless in the morning light, wearing just a pair of blue sweatpants. Bucky watches his lovely spine curve as he twists around his other side, setting down a steaming mug of coffee on the nightstand.
“‘Morning, Stevie.”
At the sound of his voice, still groggy with sleep, Steve turns back towards him. A gorgeous smile spreads across his face.
“Good morning.” He lays down on his side and scoots towards Bucky, who then lifts his arm, making room. Steve happily snuggles in and rests his head on Bucky’s bicep. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you.” He gestures towards the far end of Bucky’s side of the bed. “Just thought you might like some coffee. Didn’t know how you take it, though. I just put in two sugars like I do mine.”
Sure enough, Bucky turns his head and finds a mug of rich, dark liquid on the other nightstand.
“Thank you, sweetheart. That’s just how I like it.” Instead of reaching for the cup, Bucky turns back, snuggling closer. He bends his head to kiss Steve’s collarbone. “But I think I want a taste of another sweet thing, first.”
Steve gasps at the first contact of Bucky’s dry lips, then relaxes into the embrace, weaving one hand into Bucky’s hair. He traces his short nails gently over Bucky’s scalp.
“Mm…”
Bucky grins at the deep vibrations of Steve’s contented hum. When he kisses his way up Steve’s neck to peck his mouth, his nose catches a faint whiff of spearmint on Steve’s breath.
“Gonna go brush my teeth,” Bucky murmurs, “but then I’m comin’ right back. Wanna make a little time with you this morning.” He bumps his nose against Steve’s affectionately. “Don’t you go anywhere.”
Something constricts around Bucky’s heart when Steve responds with a demure smile. “Okay. You can use my robe.”
Steve points in the direction of his ensuite bathroom. Bucky’s eyes follow, and he spots the promised garment hanging on the door. It takes a moment for Steve’s meaning to click.
“Oh.” Bucky blushes a little as he registers his own nakedness beneath the sheets. “Good point.” He flashes Steve a grin before rolling away, throwing back the covers, and rising from the bed. “Guess it’s a little cold to be walking across the backyard in my birthday suit.”
Steve’s laughing at the joke, but his eyes are busy roaming Bucky’s bare body. Bucky can’t find it in himself to feel self-conscious about being so exposed in the daylight… not when Steve’s cheeks have colored in with such a lovely pink.
He spends a second looking for last night’s clothes on the floor, but Steve bashfully informs him that they’re already in the wash—“They were… messy”—so Bucky grabs the robe and ducks out of the room. He borrows a pair of Steve’s house shoes that he finds sitting by the back door.
With dedicated efficiency, Bucky zooms through the guest house in an abridged version of his typical morning routine. He uses the toilet, brushes his teeth, and takes a perfunctory shower. He pulls together a comfortable set of clothes after drying off, but Bucky hesitates before actually dressing. Ultimately, he opts to pull on the fresh pair of boxer briefs but leave off the rest, donning Steve’s robe again instead. He’ll just take the shirt and pants with him.
Bucky returns to the main house to find Steve has kept his promise. He’s sitting up in bed with the covers over his legs, coffee cup in one hand, scrolling on his phone with the other. When their eyes meet, Bucky takes off the robe to show he’s only in his underwear. Steve bites down on his lower lip
“You’re still here.” Bucky extracts the items from Steve’s hands to set them on the nightstand, then crawls onto the bed. He catches Steve’s lips in a kiss.
Steve grins against his mouth and cups the sides of Bucky’s face in his broad palms, still warm from the coffee.
“Of course,” he answers. “Nowhere else I’d rather be.”
They spend a long while after that just making out on the bed. It gets heated at times, especially when Bucky tosses away the blankets and rolls Steve underneath him, covering him with his body instead. Despite his baser urges, Bucky makes it a point to reel things back whenever one of them starts to get hard. He wants Steve in his arms for hours and hours, drawing out this newfound bliss, but they’re both mortal men at the end of the day; Bucky has no intention of wearing anyone out before breakfast.
(An annoying itch in the back of his brain reminds him of what he already knows, but just doesn’t want to acknowledge: the longer he and Steve spend getting distracted, kissing and fucking, the longer they’re putting off a dreaded conversation. Bucky kicks away the thought until the only things on his mind are Steve’s skin and lips beneath his.)
Hours might pass, or maybe just minutes. They fetch the blankets again when they’ve both had their fill, shielding themselves from the chill of the bedroom as they lay on their sides, facing each other. Holding each other. Bucky can’t stop running his hands up and down Steve’s back.
With a sigh of content, Steve nuzzles his face into Bucky’s neck. He noses around until he’s breathing in his scent just below Bucky’s ear. He hums happily.
“I really love the way you smell.”
Bucky trails his hand down Steve’s arms lightly, smiling when he elicits goosebumps. He lets go to lift Steve’s chin by slipping a finger beneath it.
“Yeah?” he grins. “And how do I smell?”
Steve rolls his eyes first, then frowns when he realizes Bucky has asked a real question. “You can’t smell yourself?”
Bucky shakes his head. “Not an alpha, sweetheart, remember?” He rubs the pad of his thumb over Steve’s jawline, admiring his naturally smooth skin. “Or an omega. Our people have weak noses compared to you.”
An endearing look of subtle embarrassment graces Steve’s face. Bucky kisses his nose.
“Oh. Right.” Steve snuggles in closer. Bucky turns onto his back to make room for Steve as he wraps around his side, then tucks his head into Bucky’s neck. “Alright, I’ll tell you… but you’re gonna laugh.”
Bucky tightens his arm around Steve’s waist and kisses the top of his hair. “Make me laugh, then.”
Steve sighs dramatically. He’s silent for a moment, inhaling a series of deep, even breaths. Bucky thinks he must be searching for the right words.
“It’s like… books,” Steve answers. “Ink. Paper.” He pauses, tracing an idle finger down Bucky’s bare chest. “Coffee, too, sometimes. When you’re turned on.”
And, yeah, Steve had called it. Bucky busts out laughing.
“That—!” he starts, wheezy, trying to get out words between gasping for breath. “That is so cliché!”
Steve pulls back to lean up on his elbow. He playfully shoves Bucky in the side.
“It’s true though!” he insists, feigning indignation, but then his face softens. “And… I love it.” Steve averts his eyes, playing with a loose thread on the quilt. “It’s a very beta smell.”
At Steve’s quiet admission, Bucky calms his laughter. He still smiles, though, reaching out to brush his knuckles over the curve of Steve’s shoulder.
“How’s that, sweetheart?”
Steve blushes at the nickname, but he shrugs. He’s still playing with that thread.
“I dunno, it’s just… easy. Soft.” He silences with a contemplative pause, then continues, “alphas are fine, I guess, but they’re always smelling like, you know… woodsmoke, or like spice, or charcoal or musk or…” He trails off, rolling his eyes. “You get it.” Slowly, he raises his gaze, locking together their eyes. “Not you, though.”
Bucky isn’t sure how to reply. After a moment, he decides he doesn’t have to. He just smiles and pulls him in again.
“C’mere…”
Steve’s eyes brighten, filling with delicate warmth. He goes easily when Bucky opens his arms.
A few moments lapse in comfortable silence. Bucky is playing with Steve’s hair, enjoying the feeling of just being cuddled, when a thought springs into his head.
“…Coffee, huh?”
Steve catches Bucky’s meaning instantly. He smiles as he tilts his head back, stopping when their mouths are only an inch apart.
“Mm-hm,” he nods. The tips of their noses brush. “Coffee—but only when you’re turned on.”
Bucky takes a few seconds to process the implications. His eyes go wide, and a punched-out sound leaves his chest.
“Well that’s interesting,” he says, eyebrows raised, “because I seem to recall Grant thinking someone named Arnie smelled like coffee.”
Steve’s grins widens. There’s an almost smug look on his face, and—fuck—Bucky just knows he’s thinking about all the times Bucky had believed himself smooth in hiding his reactions to Steve’s scent, to his beauty, when apparently he’d smelled horny as hell.
“Arnie does smell like coffee.” Steve closes the distance to peck Bucky on the mouth. He taps him once on the chin. “And you are not nearly as subtle as you think you are, pal. Not sneaky, either.”
“You knew the whole time?”
Steve relaxes back into a reclining posture. His smirk remains, but it softens.
“I… suspected,” he answers carefully. He gives Bucky a half-shrug. “I hoped, at least.”
Despite his fading chagrin, Bucky can’t stay away. He sits forward towards Steve and brushes back a few locks of unruly blond hair.
“I hoped too, sweetheart.”
Between the constant cuddling and the steadily growing light of mid-morning, their slothful pace starts to get to them… not that they’re looking for ‘fast’; they have plenty of time.
For now, at least.
Bucky pulls on his pants and follows Steve to the kitchen, where they prepare a simple breakfast of buttered toast with jam. He leans against the cabinets as they eat, relaxed, enjoying the taste of strawberry preserves and easy conversation with Steve.
“Can I ask you a question?”
Bucky perks up and finishes his bite. He sets his plate down on the countertop beside, wiping his fingers on a paper towel.
“For you, Stevie, I’m an open book.” He gives Steve a little wink. “What’s up?”
Steve sits on the island across from him, big body perched adorably on the countertop’s edge while he sips on his second cup of coffee. “Have you been attracted to omegas before?”
With all that’s transpired in just the last day, it’s been easy for Bucky to forget that he’s yet to actually talk to Steve about his own preferences. He’d been too chicken, at first, and if he’s being really honest, Bucky’s not sure anything would have happened between them if not for Steve bravely making his move.
“Sure I have,” Bucky shrugs. He picks up his own cup of coffee, blowing off the rising steam. “Omegas, betas, alphas… Don’t make a difference to me.” He grins and takes a sip, waggling his eyebrows. “Guess you could call me a super queer.”
Steve doesn’t spit out his coffee, but it looks like a near thing. He manages to set down his mug before he doubles over laughing.
“Oh—you think that’s funny, do you?” Bucky abandons his coffee and crosses to Steve, worming his hands in to tickle. “You think it’s a riot that all I care about is a nice ass and a pretty face?”
Between the tickling and Bucky’s stupid joke, Steve honest-to-god squeals. Bucky delights in it; he adores making such a big guy lose himself to the giggles, knowing he’s the reason Steve’s laughter is filling up the kitchen. He wants to do this forever.
He does relent on his attack eventually, giving Steve a chance to catch his breath and sit up straight. He doesn’t move from his spot in the vee of Steve’s thighs, though; Bucky rather likes it there.
“Oh my God,” Steve wheezes, one hand over his own chest while he shakes his head, “you are just… ridiculous. ‘A nice ass and a pretty face?’”
“Mm-hm.” Bucky leans in for a kiss, and the butterflies in his stomach come to life when Steve gives it to him. “None prettier than you, though,” he murmurs. “None better, either.”
His confession comes out more soberly than he’d anticipated, but that’s alright with Bucky. He had meant every word.
Steve’s breathing slowly returns to normal. After a few moments pass in shared, glowing silence, the gleam in his eyes fades into something else. Bucky watches it go.
“Telling you that last night was the best sex I’ve ever had…” Steve’s voice is soft as he speaks, staring down through the space between them. “I don’t know. That doesn’t begin to describe it.” He takes Bucky’s hand in his own and begins idly tracing shapes in his palm. “In a lot of ways, last night felt like the first time I’ve done anything with anyone.”
Bucky considers Steve’s confession. It’s not as though he hadn’t already known he was Steve’s first sexual partner outside of Peggy, but the way Steve talks about it, this is more than that. Hope balloons in his chest.
“What was it like for you before?” he asks, curious. “With Peggy. How did you…”
But Bucky trails off, but he’s not surprised when Steve seems to understand anyway. He raises an eyebrow at Bucky, smirking.
“How did I get through having sex with her, you mean?”
“No!” Bucky’s quick to reply, but then he realizes that’s wrong; that’s exactly what he’d been asking. “I—Not like that, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to sound—“
“It’s alright, Buck,” Steve chuckles, “I’m teasing. I know what you meant, and I’m fine with you asking.”
Steve goes silent for a while, apparently collecting his thoughts. He runs the backs of his fingers over Bucky’s short beard while contemplating whatever’s in his head, dragging his knuckles this way and then that, touching for the sake of touch.
When he finally does speak, Steve is wistful, eyes studying the floor as though someone has scribbled the past across the porcelain tile.
“When we first got together, Peggy and I were curious teens, just like everyone else. We fumbled around, we kissed. We tried stuff. Honestly, at that point, I’m not sure anything would have felt very different if she were a beta or if I wasn’t queer.” Steve lifts his head, shrugging, but there’s a tiny smile on his face. “I mean, we were seventeen. Everything about sex is weird when you’re seventeen, right? That part wasn’t just me?”
Bucky chuckles. “Definitely not just you. Teenagers got no clue how to be naked with other people.”
“Exactly!” Steve laughs. “I mean, God…” As he drifts off, Bucky watches his return to that faraway place. “So there was all that, but then we grew up. We stopped being awkward teenagers. After that, we just didn’t have sex very much.” Steve pauses and shrugs. “Not outside of my heats, at least.
Steve’s story sparks another curiosity in Bucky’s head.
“Did you feel any different about her when you were in heat?” he asks. “Like”—Bucky makes a uselessly vague gesture with his hands—“with instinct and everything, with your body calling the shots. Did being with an alpha feel any different?”
Steve smiles sadly, shaking his head.
“No. But I always wished it did. I wished so badly that she was the person I needed all those times.” Steve averts his eyes. “I’ve… never liked being knotted. I’ve never gotten pleasure from an alpha’s scent. Her ruts didn’t scare me, but they didn’t excite me, either. I felt comfortable with her, and I felt safe, but I knew there was nothing she could do to provide the relief I’ve always been told an alpha would bring me.”
Bucky can hardly stand still as he listens. He squeezes Steve’s hand gently.
“That sounds really hard, Stevie.” He tries hard to keep his response simple, but inside, all he can think of is Steve lying in need during his most vulnerable time and wishing he was someone he’s not. Bucky’s heart falls to pieces. “I’m so sorry.”
Steve shakes his head. “Don’t be. Really. Heats were hard, but I’m alright. Besides,” he huffs out a tiny laugh, but there’s not much humor behind it, “Peggy had me figured out. I said I just had a low libido, but she knew the real reason. And she never once pushed me for more. She stopped knotting me almost completely after our fifth heat together, only sometimes when she was in rut. Even then, she only did it when I asked her to.”
The last bit makes Bucky’s eyebrows shoot up. “You would ask her to knot you?”
Steve makes eye contact, nodding like everything’s so simple. “Sometimes. I mean, on the worst of her rut days, it could really hurt Peggy to hold herself back.” Idly, Steve reaches up to tuck back a wayward strand of Bucky’s hair. “I didn’t want to see her in pain. Not when it was in my power to make it better, and Buck”—Steve clearly spots the scowl growing on Bucky’s face—“no, I know what you’re thinking, but nobody ever forced me to do anything. Not even me. Maybe she wasn’t what I needed, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t be what she needed.”
Bucky shrinks into himself a little, feeling guilty for his gut reaction.
“Sorry.”
Steve just rolls his eyes and pulls him in closer. “It’s fine,” he says, bumping their noses together. “You were just lookin’ out. I know it seems like I must have been miserable every time Peggy and I had sex, but I promise it wasn’t a grin-and-bear-it thing. There are lots of types of intimacy. Sex with someone you’re not attracted to… It’s not always how you might think.” Steve pauses, smiling for Bucky to see. “I think that as long as it’s your choice, and as long as there’s no pressure, sex can be a thing you give to someone just to show them how much you love them. And I’ve never felt safer than I did during my years together with Peggy. Even when we were having sex.” Steve looks down at their hands tangling together in his lap. Bucky’s eyes join them. “You make me feel safe, too, you know.”
In the wake of everything else he’s just shared, Steve’s final confession—so simple, so real—does ruinous things to Bucky’s heart. He doesn't know how to answer. He can’t. Not with words, at least.
Bucky just grins, leaning forward for a kiss.
They canoodle in the kitchen for a while after that. Everything between them is innocent touches and soft brushes of lips; little comforts to bring themselves down from a heavy moment. Bucky sighs dramatically when Steve finally shoos him back so he can hop down from his countertop perch, but he lets him escape in the end.
Bucky’s original plan had been to ravish Steve after breakfast, but that plan’s been put askew, for now; this is definitely not the right moment. Instead, Bucky relaxes on the couch while Steve tends to small chores—he had offered his help, but been promptly shot down—and enjoys the sight of Steve’s ass in those sweatpants.
Once Steve has finished, Bucky suggests they take another stab at taming Steve’s writer’s block. Something had distracted them during their first attempt.
Steve agrees to the idea readily. Instead of sitting together to workshop things the way they had tried last night, Steve sets up at the kitchen table with a clean pad of paper—“clear space, clear canvas, clear thoughts”—and leaves Bucky to read through his picked-apart draft. Bucky takes the couch, giving Steve space to focus.
Their system actually ends up working pretty well. Steve is able to write without getting dragged down by the parts he’d been fighting before, and Bucky makes little notes on the original draft, piping up now and then with questions or suggestions. When he’s done with his read-through and Steve’s is still going strong, Bucky opts to sit back, quietly gazing at the beautiful man in the kitchen chewing the cap of his pen.
“Have you thought about a title yet?”
Steve groans, cracks his knuckles, and leans back in his chair. Bucky had just watched him scribble the end of some long-winded thought before straightening his spine, a triumphant look on his face. He’s clearly just worked something out.
“For the book?”
Bucky nods. “Yeah. Any idea what you’re gonna call it?”
Steve considers the question for a moment, then shrugs. “I don’t know. I’ve never named one before. Never gotten that far in the process.”
Inwardly, Bucky hopes Steve isn’t putting it off because he thinks he won’t finish the story. Bucky will take it upon himself to make sure Steve sees this one through to the end.
“You’ve got a while to think about it,” he answers, giving Steve an encouraging smile. “You don’t have to decide now.”
Bucky quiets so Steve can go back to his writing, but Steve doesn’t resume right away. He gazes at the pages on the table instead, not moving his eyes like he’s reading, just… staring.
“When I read other books,” Steve starts, unbidden, “books from other authors, I’m always drawn to stories with nature in the title.” He brings his eyes back to Bucky’s. “I just… I feel like it brings something organic to the tone, you know?”
“I get it,” Bucky answers. “Do you think you could do something like that for your story?”
Steve fiddles with the chewed-up plastic of his pen. “I dunno, maybe.” He’s blushing for some reason; Bucky can spot the tell-tale color on his cheeks even from across the room. “I mean, they’re on the coast, right? Like…” Steve’s eyes flit to his paper, then return to Bucky. “...Like us, just in Oregon. And I know most of their scenes take place indoors—God, I should probably change that, I bet readers would get claustrophobic—but there’s that scene in chapter four? On the beach?”
Bucky grins, partly to let Steve know he hasn’t missed the sudden bashfulness, but also because hearing Steve talk about his work from the perspective of future readers makes his heart warm. He’s finally thinking like an author with plans to share his story.
“I remember,” Bucky nods. “It’s one of my favorite parts. So much happened while they did nothing but sit together and watch the tide come in. You packed a ton of emotion into such a short scene, Stevie.”
The pink of Steve’s cheeks deepens further, and be bites his bottom lip, averting his eyes. After a week of providing feedback on his work, Bucky has learned there’s no way to prevent Steve from feeling embarrassed when he gets a compliment on his writing. It’s an adorable sight every damn time.
“…Thanks, Buck.”
“You’re welcome, sweetheart.” He tacks on the endearment only to watch Steve’s blush harder. “And keep sitting on that thought. I bet something will come of it.”
Steve ends up writing for nearly two hours. Bucky happily watches him follow his muse while he plays with his phone in the living room, relaxing against the soft cushions. Despite the cloud cover growing in the sky outside—a rare blemish on the perfect October weather they’ve had—Bucky feels more content than he has in… forever, maybe. A few clouds can’t banish this smile.
Things get even better when Steve announces he’s satisfied with his day’s progress, because that’s when he comes to the couch. Bucky sits up straight so Steve can climb in his lap the way the gleam in his eyes says he wants to.
“Feelin’ better?” he asks, getting comfortable in his new spot.
Steve makes a low, pleased noise. He straddles Bucky’s thighs just like last night, strong arms slung over his shoulders. Bucky has never been happier than he is now about Steve’s genius idea to dial up the thermostat this morning; neither of them have seen any use in putting on shirts.
“Mm-hm,” Steve answers, dipping his head, “and thanks very much for your help. Can we make out now?”
Bucky’s laughter gets lost between his own throat and the cushion of Steve’s perfect lips.
It’s frighteningly easy for Bucky to forget what’s real and what isn’t with Steve in his arms. His scent is incredible even before the lavender hits Bucky’s nose, wrapping him up, enveloping his body, consuming him perfectly whole.
Somewhere between getting his mouth on Steve’s chest and Steve’s hands tangling in his hair, Bucky manages to shift their position. Steve lies on his back now, all kiss-bitten lips and pale, exposed neck while Bucky works on pulling him to pieces. His whimpers go as high as his groans come out low. They’re both growing hard in their sweats.
The whistling of wind has picked up outside. As Bucky sinks his teeth into Steve’s collarbone, a branch from a bush in the nearby garden smacks loudly against the window. The noise jolts Steve, who he yelps, nearly jumping out of his skin.
“Holy shit!”
Bucky tries hard to smother his cackling against the skin of Steve’s neck, but he’s not entirely successful.
“You all right?” he grins. He pinches Steve’s ass with the hand he’d been using to grope him. “Did that scare you, baby? Do I need to fetch you a new pair of skivvies?”
Steve takes a sloppy swipe at him, flustered and indignant, but he’s smiling beneath that scowl.
“Shut up!” he growls, “c’mere, just—”
Bucky laughs when Steve throws him off and tackles him to the carpet. He doesn’t even try to put up a fight—which could be hot, he realizes, they’re probably equals in strength—because it’s far too much fun to let Steve take the win. He hovers above Bucky, holding his own weight up with his hands where they’re wrapped around Bucky’s wrists, pinning them next to his head.
They’re both left smiling as the giggling starts to die down. Soon the room has gone quiet, save for their labored breathing, and Bucky’s just quietly staring.
He’s not sure what it is about the moment that makes everything else unimportant. Bucky’s pulse slows. He feels like they’re just two imprints on time as Steve looks down on him, face flushed a delicate red from shared joy and sudden exertion. The vision is so perfect that Bucky wishes for a way to stop the world from spinning on its axis, to freeze them both right here. He needs this, he wants them to have this—if only for now.
Because Steve is a vision, but he’s more than that. Steve is always just more. He is more than an omega and more than a man, than a writer. Than a lover. Steve is this whole, entire person with one hundred dreams and two lungs and one heart, and that heart is right there—it’s right here, racing in his chest just inches from Bucky’s own. If he listens in closely, he can even hear it beating.
“Why do you always look at me like that?”
Steve’s soft voice pulls Bucky back to himself. He blinks away the dryness in his eyes, trying to catch himself up to speed with the traitorous clocks on the wall.
“Like,” he starts, but he stops to lick his lips. “Like what?”
“Like you don’t wanna stop looking at me.”
Every emotion from the past three weeks crashes down over Bucky at once. It’s more than just feelings; it’s a visceral, bodily reaction. There’s no room in his rib cage to contain it.
Steve doesn’t resist when Bucky rolls them. He stops when he’s the one on top, looking down, holding himself up on his elbows so he can lean in close. His hair falls around their heads like a barrier built just to shut reality out.
“Because I don’t wanna stop,” Bucky growls, “because I can’t.” He takes a breath to tame himself, softening his voice as much as his swollen heart can stand. “Because you are more beautiful than anyone I’ve seen in my entire life.”
The wide eyes below him are the bluest Bucky’s ever found. He watches Steve shake out a breath through parted red lips, entranced by the art and contrast.
“Bucky…”
“You are.” Bucky lowers his mouth until the space between them is so scant, it’s inconsequential. “Hand to fuckin’ God, you are. I’ll swear it as long as I live.”
The simmering hunger he’d felt on the couch is gone. In its place is a voracious urgency to show Steve how important he is, how perfect he is, how amazing he is. Bucky won’t let himself breathe again until Steve knows for certain just how much he means.
His lips are flame instead of flesh as he trails kisses down Steve’s neck, scorching out a path. The fingers in his hair tug and release and push and pull like Steve doesn’t know what he needs. Bucky hears his noises, his hiccups, his whimpers. He fails to hear the distress.
“Buck—”
“You’re so fucking perfect, baby.” He cups one of Steve’s pecs and bites down with rapidly failing restraint, only half-aware of the mark he’ll be leaving behind. “So fuckin’ perfect, don’t know what to do, don’t know how I’m supposed to—”
“—Bucky, please…”
“I got you, sweetheart, don’t worry, I’ll take care of—”
“—You’re leaving.”
Notes:
😬😬😬
Extra thanks to my beta, HaniTrash, for putting up with a larger amount of my bullshit than is already typical.
Chapter 8
Chapter by the1918
Notes:
Quick note: Steve expresses a concern that falls somewhat akin to biphobia near the beginning of this chapter. His sentiment is the result of nothing but pure ignorance in the context of the AU they live in and it’s social norms/history, but since we don’t live in that world, I thought it worth a warning. Don’t worry too much, though; Bucky sets him straight (ha) 😉
Chapter Text
viii. anchored
“You’re leaving.”
It’s like the whole of Steve’s body beneath him ignites with static shock. Bucky releases him from his hands, pulling his mouth away, too. He leaves behind swaths of skin glistening with spit.
The living room goes silent. Molten heat from Bucky’s core seeps through his gut, cooling into cold, hard lead.
“What do you…”
But he loses his words. Steve says nothing either, at first, still breathless.
As disoriented as he is, Bucky pushes himself onto his forearms, aware he should put some space between them. He drags his gaze from the crescent bruise on Steve’s chest up to his face, and that’s where Bucky sees it: Steve’s heartbreak, unchained, crashing through a barricade of denial and hope and well-practiced suppression.
“You’re going to leave soon,” Steve finally whispers, shaky. He can barely look Bucky in the eye. “Ten more days. Then you’re gone.”
There’s no reason Steve’s dejection should take Bucky by surprise; he can’t see into Bucky’s soul, and he can’t read Bucky’s mind. There’s no reason Steve would know what Bucky has known since the very first touch of their lips: there would be no countdown to an end. Not for them.
Unless Steve wants Bucky out of his life, Bucky isn’t going to leave it. He will fight through fire to keep this—somehow.
It’s the truth, and it’s real, but it’s nothing short of useless if Bucky can’t find a way to say it. The words get stuck in his throat.
“Steve,” he tries slowly, “I know this is new. It’s a lot. But you gotta know, this isn’t just—”
“It’s okay, I understand. I know you really do like me.”
Bucky’s eyebrows come together in confusion. Steve says he understands, but the way he’s speaking is far too soft and careful.
“Sweetheart… What I’m feeling for you is a lot more than like, this is—”
“—Please, just let me finish.”
Bucky shuts his mouth so fast that his teeth click together. He sits back on his haunches, straddling Steve’s knees with his thighs. Their erections have vanished every bit as fast as they had appeared just moments ago.
Steve pulls himself up, hands flat on the floor behind him to support his weight. There’s so much contradiction between his kiss-red lips and the fearful shadow behind his eyes. He has an energy about him that scares Bucky; it’s like he’s steeling himself.
“I don’t doubt that you have feelings for me,” Steve explains, “and I know this isn’t just sexual for you. You might even be thinking about still tryin’ to see me after the month is over, and I want that, Buck, I do. But…” Steve sighs, smiling sadly. “You may want me now, but you don’t need me. You could be happy with anybody, with all kinds of people. You’re not… like me.” Steve’s eyes fall to his own lap. “You have all the options you want.”
In the misty fog of confusion, it takes Bucky some time to process what Steve’s trying to say, but he gets there. He wishes he hadn’t.
Steve is attracted to betas. Bucky is attracted to everyone. Steve has had to wait his entire life to come across someone like Bucky, someone who wants him the same way he wants them. Bucky had four boyfriends and two girlfriends before his twenty-fifth birthday.
And that’s the crux of it for Steve. His hesitations make so much sense that it hits Bucky like a mallet to the sternum, fracturing bones with the force of the blow. To Steve, the thought of Bucky wanting him instead of the next person he passes on the street is just a dangerous illusion. Steve is protecting himself.
Bucky closes his eyes, counts to ten, and opens them.
“Steve,” he starts. “I’m going to say something, and I need you to make sure you’re listening to every word. Every word. You got that?”
Steve eyes him warily, but he nods. His voice is so small when he answers. “Yes.”
Bucky scoots off Steve’s legs to sit down by the coffee table. He grabs Steve’s hands, pulls him into the spot beside him, and turns their bodies to face each other, looking directly into Steve’s eyes.
“I don’t care how many options I have.” Bucky speaks slowly and enunciates every last syllable. “I don’t. I wouldn't care if every beautiful, talented person on earth decided all at once that they want me, billions of betas, omegas, alphas…” He trails off with a humorless laugh. He hadn’t expected the water that’s now welling up in his eyes. “I don’t fucking give a damn. There is only one Steve Rogers. And I know finding me has been special for you. But, Steve?” Bucky grabs Steve’s chin, emphatic. Insistent. “Finding you has been every last bit as special for me.”
Steve’s lower lip trembles. His eyes are wide, shining, and emotions war beneath his visage as Bucky watches; the corners of his mouth fight to smile, but Steve’s still shaking his head, too terrified to accept Bucky’s truth.
“Buck,” he voices, quivering and lost, “I don’t…”
He trails off, but it doesn’t matter. Words don’t matter. Words had sparked their beginning and brought them together, but their hearts could fill with prose until they’re bursting at the seams, and it still wouldn’t be enough.
Steve’s cheeks are wet when Bucky brings their lips together.
It’s nothing like the night before, or like minutes ago right here on this rug. It’s not like anything Bucky’s had in his life. Their pace is as urgent as it is slow, and when he takes Steve in his arms and lowers them to the floor, they’re not just two bodies sprawling together, tangled. They’re the impossible spilling over.
Bucky’s lungs fill with Steve’s thick scent, and hot skin grips the tips of his fingers, pulling him in like a magnet. He’s wondered about it before, but Bucky now knows for certain that Steve’s every curve was molded to fit the shape of his hands.
“My pocket,” Steve gasps. He’s broken their kiss in favor of air, but Bucky might die if loses Steve’s taste, so he trails his tongue in a blaze down his neck. He can feel the vibrations in Steve’s throat when he repeats himself, “Bucky, please, my…”
Once Bucky works out what Steve’s trying to tell him, he reaches into the pocket of Steve’s sweats, emerging with a condom. He groans as he thinks of Steve walking around all morning ready for Bucky to need him again, anytime, anywhere, any way.
“Fuck, you’re so good. So good.” Bucky licks a circle around Steve’s navel. “Right here on the floor, Stevie. Yeah?”
Steve whines his eager approval before pulling Bucky back to his lips, desperate, fingers tangling in his long hair.
He may not have the patience to get them to the bedroom, but Bucky will do whatever he can to make Steve comfortable where they are. It pains him to peel himself away, to leave his lover desolate even for one moment, but Bucky does it. He pulls up and gathers every pillow and blanket he finds scattered about the living room, chasing some bizarre, innate piece of himself, some long-buried instinct to spread Steve’s soft things all around them. He stuffs pillows under Steve’s head, pushing blankets between Steve’s bare back and the rug. After ridding them both of what little clothing they have, Bucky folds up his own cotton sweats, tucking them beneath where Steve is wettest.
It’s the most natural thing in the world for Bucky to coax Steve open enough to take him. Steve’s lungs overflow with wet gasps and near-silent whimpers as he welcomes the stretch of his fingers, and Bucky bathes him in kisses all the while: Steve’s face, Steve’s neck, the supple pink circles peaking up on Steve’s chest.
He has no line of sight to a clock or a watch, and the sun still hides behind clouds. Bucky keeps time only by Steve’s hiccuping breaths and the steady pace of his body growing pliant. He knows Steve is ready when he begins pushing back against him, slicking Bucky up everywhere they touch.
Bucky purrs his approval. He glides a hand beneath Steve’s thigh to guide it over his shoulder, but Steve starts turning over, attempting to roll to his hands and knees just as he’d done last night.
He makes a distressed sound when Bucky stops him, hands gripping him by the hips. Steve looks up at Bucky through long, sinful lashes with eyes full of heartbroken frenzy.
“N-No,” he begs, “need you in me, please Buck, want you so bad, want—”
“Shh…‘S okay, baby.” Bucky soothes Steve’s panic with a brush of their lips. “It’s okay, jus’ like this, like this. We stay like we are. Wanna see your face when I push up inside you.”
Steve’s brow furrows in confusion when Bucky adjusts their position, settling him back against their nest of pillows, but he remains pliant for Bucky to do what he wants. It takes Bucky a while to work out what’s behind Steve’s reaction—but then it clicks: Steve’s an omega who has only known alphas, and alphas are programmed for exactly one thing.
Steve knows only what it is to be mounted.
“Oh, sweetheart,” Bucky croaks, “Stevie, my sweet fuckin’ Stevie…” He melts into his place between Steve’s strong thighs, then lays himself low, blanketing Steve with his weight. “You and I can do any damn thing we want together. Anything.” He presses open-mouthed kisses beneath his jaw. “Do you wanna try it like this? Wanna watch what you do to me?”
Bucky can spot the moment Steve’s understanding dawns. The skin of his forehead smooths over. His already wide eyes grow bigger, and new tears gather at the inner corners, threatening to spill.
“Yes,” Steve rasps, nodding furiously as he grips Bucky hard to pull him closer, “yes, please, I want—I…” He lowers his eyes, but only for a second. “I wanna do that, Buck. Never knew I could have it.”
Bucky’s chest is too small to hold everything in it. He smiles, since language won’t help him, and he swallows Steve’s sob when their lips come together.
The dance of it goes like this: There are desperate hands and there’s luminous heat, insatiable lips and tongues. There is movement, and then pressure, and then it’s just friction failing and burning away when the slide inside proves easy. Steve’s sublime warmth is there to embrace him as Bucky carves out a home for himself.
Last night’s bright burst of novelty is gone. In its place is Bucky’s ravenous need to use their bodies as instruments of learning, using touch to teach Steve that he’s everything to him—that they could be everything, too. He needs Steve to know that whatever they do next is no one’s choice but their own, and that if they go for it—if they grab onto their chance—only skin and flesh and fragile ribs will be left to separate their hearts.
It’s all Bucky can do to stick to the pace this moment truly deserves. Steve’s need is exigent, nearly tangible beneath Bucky’s lips, but he can’t allow this to move any faster. He moves in Steve slowly while Steve’s wild hands grasp at Bucky’s shoulders, at his back, weaving into Bucky’s hair to anchor himself. He’s crying freely now, and God, the sight is everything to Bucky: Steve’s cheeks streaked with red and his eyes blue with tears, lashes clumping together with water and salt.
Each time Steve releases, he cries Bucky’s name. Bucky is there to swallow the sound. He never slows afterwards, because Steve doesn’t need it, but he also doesn’t speed up. The strain of measuring his movements and exacting his precision is a euphoria all its own. Bucky chases the feeling like gold.
When he finally allows himself to let go, Bucky does it with Steve on his tongue: Steve’s sweat, Steve’s skin, Steve’s spend. Steve’s tears. Steve clings to him from beginning to end, hanging on to Bucky like he’s a life preserver adrift with him in the ocean; like Steve would sink to the bottom if he ever let go.
Once it’s over, the world becomes nothing but breath and quiet and the whistling of wind in the garden. They lie there together, still surrounded by softness, ignoring the mess all around them.
Bucky kisses Steve deeply once their breathing evens out. He wraps the used condom in a tissue, sets it aside to dispose of later, and peers around. After considering his options, Bucky opts to wipe them down with any fabric within reach that looks like it might do well in the wash.
The sweat on their skin has begun to cool. Bucky reaches for one of the larger throw blankets—one of only a few still left dry—and envelops Steve and himself with it. Steve goes willingly when Bucky pulls him on top of his chest and tucks his head into Bucky’s neck, settling in with a shaken sigh.
Though the flood of endorphins had felt brilliant lighting up Bucky’s veins just moments prior, the high slowly ebbs the longer they lie in silence. Steve’s breathing remains steady, but Bucky knows he’s falling back to Earth, too, even if he can’t see Steve’s face. His typical herbal notes have taken on a faint edge of lemony citrus, the scent of worry and uncertainty creeping in. Bucky has no intention of letting that last.
“Steve,” he whispers. Short blond hair tickles his chin. “Sweetheart… I want to try this.”
He feels Steve hold in a breath for a few beats too long before finally letting it go. Bucky loosens the hold of his arms when Steve shifts, pushing up on one hand to look down at Bucky.
“What…” Steve returns, but there’s no real form of question in it. He knows exactly what Bucky’s just said.
“I want to try this,” Bucky repeats, louder this time. He leans up to support his weight on his elbows and bring himself that much closer. “I want to try making this work. Making us work.”
Steve just stares, at first. There’s endless emotion trapped behind his bleary eyes, all of it trying to escape. He gives a tiny shake of his head like it will banish the parts of him fighting the fear, daring somehow to feel hope.
“We live in two different cities,” Steve argues. His voice is small and quiet and hollow. “Even if… I don’t know, Buck.”
Steve’s not wrong; setting aside everything else, Bucky lives seven hours away. He imagines himself standing at the mouth of the East River to stare at the waves on the bay, eyes closed, breathing, sending pieces of his heart up the eastern coast.
He could commit to that life—or, he and Steve could say their goodbyes in ten days. Bucky’s heart gets pulled apart either way.
“We can make it happen,” Bucky urges, petting down Steve’s arm with one hand. “I don’t… I don’t know how yet. And I know it won’t be perfect, but we can figure it out together.”
Steve gaze falls to where Bucky’s touching him, now cupping his elbow, and stares at the little point of contact with longing. He draws in an unsteady breath before returning to lie against Bucky’s chest, hiding away his face in the process.
“People don’t like this kind of thing,” he murmurs—and no, Bucky won’t let Steve do that; he won’t let Steve resign himself to a lifetime of loneliness because of the ignorance of others.
“Steve.” Bucky takes him in his hold and maneuvers Steve’s body before he can get fully settled again, putting them both on their sides instead—facing each other. “Listen… I need you to just forget about the rest of the world for a second. Everyone in Bell Harbor knows you’re queer, right?”
Steve shrugs and averts his eyes downward. “Yeah.”
“Right—and they all still love you. Hell, they’ve been fuckin’…” Bucky has to drop off for a second, because it hits him in full for the very first time just how many knowing looks he’s gotten from Steve’s friends while he’s been in town—friends who just want Steve happy. He has to swallow his incredulous laugh when he realizes what they were all really smiling about. “They… We’re safe here, Steve. This place you live…” He lifts Steve’s chin, forcing eye contact. “It’s a little weird at times, but it’s fuckin’ magic. And, yeah,” Bucky cups Steve’s jaw, running the pad of his thumb over his smooth cheek, “maybe I’d get beat to shit in some other places—”
“—Even in Brooklyn, Buck,” Steve interjects, “there’s some people—”
“—but every alpha I’ve met in Bell Harbor wouldn’t do a damn thing but smile if they saw me holding your hand. Am I right about that?”
Steve hesitates and eyes Bucky warily, but he does nod his head.
“So… what, then?” Steve clearly means it as a challenge, but his voice remains timid. “I stay here, and I get to see you whenever you have time?”
Steve’s chosen phrasing brings a swell of emotion expanding between Bucky’s lungs. He grasps Steve’s chin, making sure their eyes are locked on each other’s.
“I will make time,” he growls. “I can promise you that. Look…” Bucky takes a few breaths to tamp down his intensity, then releases Steve’s chin. “I can’t say I know how it would all work yet, but I know we owe it to ourselves to try. Some of the people at Howlie House work from home, at least part of the time. I mean, I don’t think any of them are managers like me, but I’ve got some pull, maybe Gabe will—”
“And then we hide here forever?” Steve interjects, voice raspy with forming tears. “We never venture out—or, when we do, I can’t hold your hand? I can’t—”
“—Then what are you planning to do, Steve?” Bucky asks, vehement and fiery through gritted teeth. “Are you going to commit to being alone unless something absolutely perfect falls in your lap? You think that’s what Peggy wanted for you when she let you go?” His eyes go wide when his own words register in his ears. “Shit, I’m sorry. That was…”
“No,” Steve interrupts, nearly inaudible. He’s staring over Bucky’s shoulder now, all the color gone from his cheeks. “No… You’re right. She didn’t want that.”
Silence settles between them. Finally, Bucky sits up with decisive resolution, urging Steve to sit with him. He joins their hands tightly and fixes his eyes on Steve’s face.
Steve doesn’t meet his gaze, not at first; he just stares down at the place where their fingers have tangled together.
“You deserve a chance at happiness, Steve,” Bucky says. “You deserve that just like anyone else. I know it’s scary, and I know it might not work, but we won’t know unless we try, right? And it’s… What we’re doing isn’t illegal. Not anymore. It’s hard—it’s really, really fuckin’ hard, I know—but it’s not like we live in the Forties. No one’s gonna arrest us for loving each other.”
Steve’s head shoots up.
“For…” His eyes are wide as he licks his lips, blinking out disbelief. “What did you say?”
Bucky knows exactly what he’d said, and to his own incredulity, he doesn’t feel himself panic. His first instinct may be to backpedal so as not to spook Steve, but it’s remarkably easy to push that away.
He doesn’t know everything he feels for Steve just yet—this is still so new—but he knows that he feels, and Steve deserves to know it. Bucky squeezes Steve’s hands in his own, smiling.
“Steve,” he starts slowly, “I know this is new, but I also know this is special. I know it’s worth keeping.” Bucky releases one of Steve’s hands to cup the side of his face. “I know it’s worth trying to make this work.”
For the first time in an hour, the war in Steve’s eyes quells, stilling. Instead of a thousand different emotions clashing at once, raging against each other in a fight to win out, everything comes down to one thing shining behind those deep pools of blue.
“You,” Steve starts, interrupting himself to swallow, “y–you just said…”
Bucky can’t help it; he beams. For the first time since he’s met Steve Rogers, he has nothing left to hide.
“I know what I said,” he answers. “And I’m not saying we have to rush into things. We don’t have to make decisions that will last a lifetime.” An aberrant thought pops into his head, but he pushes it away without acknowledgement—save for a furtive glance at the side of Steve’s neck. “We don’t even have to make decisions that’ll last a year. But if there’s a chance to make this work? I say we try.” Bucky gives Steve a gentle smile, combing the tips of his fingers through his golden hair. “I know it will be hard, sweetheart… but you are so fuckin’ worth it to me.”
Silence, again; the longest yet. Bucky patiently sits in limbo, naked on the floor of Steve’s living room, surrounded by a nest of their combined scents.
But the eon of uncertainty is worth it when Steve’s face splits with a smile, brighter than any lighthouse mankind could ever build. Tears spill out and shine on his cheeks.
“Okay,” Steve says, sniffling, “okay. Yes.”
And just like that, Bucky goes breathless. His heart is thumping a mile a minute.
“Y–Yes?”
Steve grins, nodding and nodding and nodding again. “Yes, Buck. I wanna try it.” His hands—suddenly steady where once they were shaking—come up to hold either side of Bucky’s head like he has no plans for letting go. “I want us to make this work.”
It might be a whole minute passing while the two of them simply stare at each other, hovering somewhere between disbelief and exhilaration. It might be less than a second. Either way, the silence ends the same.
With a breathy cry and an answering growl, the two of them fall into each other. Lips crash while hands paw at every square inch of skin they can find. Steve scrambles into Bucky’s lap half an instant before Bucky starts pulling him there himself. Steve’s arms wrap around his neck as Bucky grips him tight against him by the waist, both of them holding on desperately.
“Th–This is real,” Steve hiccups against Bucky’s mouth, “this is real, this is…”
“This is real, sweetheart,” Bucky whispers back. “We are real.”
Though their desperate embrace soon returns them to the floor, neither try to take anything further. Even if they weren’t so spent, this moment isn’t for sex; not for fucking, not even for making love. This moment is for them to capture the happiness being alive once promised them.
It’s only due to lack of air that they finally stop kissing. They settle side-by-side into the pillows and blankets, touching each other softly, smiling brightly. Steve weeps, sometimes. Other times it’s Bucky.
“You were wrong earlier, you know.”
Bucky pulls back from where he’s been content burying his nose below Steve’s ear, inhaling the scent of sage and sweet herbs. He raises one eyebrow.
“Impossible,” he answers. “I’m never wrong.”
Steve rolls his eyes, laughing. “Well, sorry to break the news, but this time you were.”
“Prove it.”
Steve’s still grinning, but the gleam in his eyes softens as he begins to speak.
“You said…” he starts quietly, eyes cast down now. “You said I’d be waiting for something perfect to fall into my lap. But it did.” Steve lifts his eyes, then blinks slowly. “It already has.”
Bucky’s heart is going to burst if it swells up any further. “Yeah?”
“Mm-hm.” Steve tips his head in to bump their noses together. “It booked out my guest house for eighty dollars a night.”
Steve squeals when Bucky leaps forward and pushes him onto his back. Bucky tickles, and he laughs, and he kisses with tiny nips. He revels in all the little moments two people can share when they finally find what they’ve been searching for, even when they didn’t know they’d been looking.
Because that’s all they are, in the end: two people, both of them made from the same building blocks as every other living thing, created to be perfect. Bucky thinks so rarely of God or the universe, with good reason, but even celestial mysteries seem obvious now.
No one was made to run away, scared. No one was meant to hurt all alone. People are born not to hide, but for living.
And beneath him is Steve: living proof.
Chapter Text
epilogue
two years + two months later
“Continue on U.S. Highway 1 North for eighty-three miles.”
Bucky blinks as he’s yanked out of his thoughts by the navigator’s intruding voice. He reaches for the center panel and shuts off the guidance system; he’d only turned it on for traffic alerts back on the interstate.
Besides, he doesn’t actually need GPS telling him where to turn—not for a drive he’s made what feels like hundreds of times before. Bucky knows the way like the back of his hand.
As he glides down the highway, enjoying the scenery, he takes time to recall how different his headspace had been the first time he’d driven up Maine’s Mid-Coast. His surroundings are different this time, too; instead of crimson and gold leaves dancing down small town sidewalks, Bucky sees fresh, white snow on every rooftop and an evergreen wreath on every door. He smiles at the brightly-colored sign mounted outside Freeport’s City Hall: an advent calendar proclaiming there’s just two days left until Christmas.
He stops briefly in Wiscasset to snag a box of Steve’s favorite peanut brittle, then eagerly gets back on the road. It’s not even five o’clock yet, but with the winter solstice right on top of them and the high latitude, the sun is already sinking below the horizon. He takes in the sight of the shimmering icicle lights strung across the Sheepscot River bridge as he drives over it.
Just outside of Damariscotta, the barest dusting of snow begins to fall. Bucky admires the intricacies of each unique crystal before watching it melt on the windshield.
Have yourself a merry little Christmas
Let your heart be light
From now on our troubles will be out of sight…
The sound of the little egg timer chimes through the kitchen, but Steve has already pulled on his mitts. He removes the baking sheet full of cookies from the oven, shuts it off, and sets the pan down on the cooling rack. He’s humming along to Sinatra’s rendition of “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” floating through the stereo system all the while.
Steve throws a glance at the clock on the wall as he doffs the oven mitts. Based on the text he received an hour ago, Bucky should be pulling into the driveway any minute. Steve’s heart beats a little faster like it always does when he thinks of Bucky walking through the door.
With the cookies done and cooling, Steve returns to the living room and his task of arranging the gifts beneath the tree. He continues humming when his playlist moves forward to the next song—“I’ll Be Home for Christmas” this time, rather appropriately—and he finishes locating each of the presents meant for their friends, pulling them towards the outer ring of neatly-wrapped boxes; he wants to ensure they’re easily accessible tomorrow when everyone’s here for the Christmas Eve party. Steve smiles when he comes across Bucky’s present for Nat, remembering the gag gift he knows is inside.
It doesn’t take him long to finish. As Steve stands back, admiring his own work and the whole of the decorated tree, a thought pops into his head. He pads down the hallway in socked feet to address his sudden whim.
It’s nothing new to see Bucky’s things strewn around the house, even when he’s away in New York. Steve’s cheeks heat up lightly when he passes their bedroom and spies a pair of blue jeans slung over the laundry basket, imagining the way those particular pants always hug Bucky’s strong thighs. Still, for as much of Bucky’s clutter there is out in the open, plenty more waits in their spare room-slash-storage space.
Steve enters and surveys what remains of the unpacked boxes from Bucky’s condo in Brooklyn—Bucky’s old condo, he reminds himself with a smile—until he finds the tiny storage container labeled ‘Christmas.’ He huffs out a laugh once he opens it and finds only a single string of multicolored lights tangled up atop a few scattered tree ornaments. They’ve spent the past two holiday seasons together in Bell Harbor, but Steve can imagine all the Christmases Bucky has gone without decorating his condo; he was never home from the office long enough to do it.
As he pushes aside the sad string of lights, Steve notes some of the ornaments appear to be keepsake items, little gifts from Bucky’s mom and sister. They clearly haven’t been used for years—they don’t even have S-hooks attached—but Steve figures Bucky might appreciate seeing them on the tree, so he takes the box with him to the living room. It’s easy to attach new hooks and find a few perfect branches to hang them from.
With another small task complete, Steve finds himself growing more antsy waiting for Bucky to arrive. They saw each other just five days ago, which makes Steve wonder if this dithery anxiousness is all just his regular butterflies, or if some of it might be thanks to his upcoming heat. He doesn’t usually feel symptoms this far ahead—he’s still a month out, after all—but Steve has learned by now never to be surprised by the effect Bucky Barnes can have on him.
The first time Steve had gone into one of his twice-yearly heats during their relationship, he and Bucky had been together for just three months. The whole thing had been a learning experience for them both; going through a cycle with someone his body actually responded to had proved overwhelming for Steve, while Bucky had been almost afraid to touch him at all, citing some misplaced fear of “doing it wrong.” They had figured it out eventually, though—and proceeded to have the most mind-melting sex Steve thinks any two people have ever had.
Since that wobbly first, Bucky has turned out to be an incredible heat partner. Where an alpha would be possessive and overbearing around an omega in heat, Bucky is simply devoted and caring, attentive to Steve’s every physical and emotional need without going so far as to smother him. He fucks Steve when Steve wants it—“Hard as you need, sweetheart, just say the word”—and he holds Steve close when he doesn’t. The only bit of self-indulgence Bucky permits himself during heat weeks is the copious amount of time spent scenting, which is just as beneficial for Steve, honestly. Bucky rolls around and buries himself in their nest, doing his best to slather himself with the heady smell. He covers Steve in his own beta scent, too, but instead of the territorial way that alphas scent-mark, Bucky always seems to be doing it for his omega’s comfort.
Steve can hardly wait for next month and the chance to do it all again.
He heaves in a deep, calming breath and walks to the kitchen, opting to keep himself busy with moving the cooled sugar cookies into tupperware containers. He should really be used to the waiting game by now; for as blissful as these past two years have been, maintaining a long-distance relationship hasn't been easy. Sure, they’ve never gone more than four weeks without seeing each other, but having Bucky with him just one week out of every month has been hell when Steve has already been without him his entire life.
Aside from all the waiting and desolate weeping—and, yes, many naked, wet video calls—it’s been an eventful two years. There had been a pregnancy scare after that first heat, a false alarm that resulted in Steve getting on birth control (and, as a silver lining, them finally ditching the condoms). Bucky’s boss has allowed him to manage the acquisitions team while working from home a certain number of days every month, but the one and only time he’d been so swamped that he couldn’t make it to Maine that month, Steve had forced himself to bury his fear of big cities and flown to Brooklyn for the first time in six years. It had turned out to be an ill-fated decision; Steve ended up coming home from the coffee shop he’d been trying to write at while Bucky was at the office and frantically built himself a comfort nest, shaken after being harassed over his unmarked neck by two alphas with their to-go cappuccinos. Bucky took sick days for the rest of the week and drove Steve home to Maine himself.
But that’s all done, Steve thinks, smiling as he snaps the plastic lid over the cookies. That’s over. Bucky’s coming home this time.
It’s no sooner that the thought rolls his mind than an engine suddenly growls in the driveway. Steve grins to himself and piles the tupperware containers neatly on the counter, setting them aside for tomorrow night. He’s about to slip on his shoes and meet Bucky outside when the man himself comes through the front door, laptop bag slung over his shoulder, an unlabeled cardboard box in-hand.
Steve’s smile grows wider until it’s practically touching his ears.
“Hey there,” he says.
Bucky grins back, shutting the door quickly to keep the snow flurries out. Steve knows they’ll return to his car later to grab whatever boxes or bags he’s got left.
“Hey sweetheart,” Bucky answers. “Sorry I’m late. Goodbyes went longer than I had planned.”
Steve shakes his head fondly, relieving Bucky of the box in his hands. A quick peek inside tells him it’s the last of the knick knacks and things from Bucky’s office. He sets it down in the corner.
“Saps. It’s not like you’re never going to see them again. You’ll still be working for Howlie House, even if it’s in a different department.”
“I don’t think it’s me returning to my editing roots that’s got them all so despondent,” Bucky says, shrugging off his laptop bag. “I think it’s the permanent working from home thing.”
Hand now empty, Bucky turns to Steve and opens his arms wide. Steve’s expression melts into a soft, private smile as he allows himself to be enveloped completely.
“Well, their loss is my gain,” he says, wrapping his arms around Bucky’s neck.
Softly, Steve presses their lips together. Bucky exhales into it like he’s been holding that breath for the last two years. He clutches Steve tighter and deepens the embrace, but only for a moment. He pulls away to bury his nose in Steve’s neck.
“Can’t believe this is finally happening,” Bucky whispers, inhaling the scent beneath his nose.
Steve turns his head to kiss the shell of Bucky’s ear. He has to close his eyes when his heart swells so much that it nearly pushes into his throat.
“I know,” he whispers back. “Welcome home, Buck.”
Dinner is spaghetti and store-bought meatballs. Steve is always too wrapped up in Bucky and sweaty reunion sex to prepare anything complicated on nights when Bucky arrives, and this night is no different.
Well… Except for the part where ‘reunion sex’ is Bucky railing Steve through the couch five feet away from the Christmas tree. Usually they make it to the bedroom, at least.
Steve tilts his head back against the cushions, still catching his breath. An airy laugh tickles its way out of his throat when Bucky kisses the bare skin above his navel, a teasing swipe of the lips while he finishes wiping Steve down. Once he’s all clean, Steve lifts his legs one at a time so Bucky can get him into a fresh pair of underwear.
“See, aren’t you glad we got the new couch cover?” Steve pats the wet mess of fabric around him. “Easy cleanup. Goes right in the wash.”
With Bucky’s mouth pressed against the sensitive skin of his inner thigh, Steve feels his answering laughter more than he hears it.
“Wait until tomorrow to wash it. I might wanna ruin you again in the morning.”
Steve’s already heated skin flushes anew. He loves the way Bucky’s chest rumbles every time he speaks or makes any kind of sound.
“Don’t you mean ‘ruin it?’”
“Mm.” Bucky leaves a trail of kisses up Steve’s body, finishing off with a peck to his mouth. His voice dips so low that it might hit the basement. “That too, I guess.”
Once they’ve both had their fill of the afterglow, all lingering touches and nonsense murmurs about lust and longing and love, the two of them manage to pile on enough clothing to grab the rest of Bucky’s things from the car. He closed on the sale of his condo three days ago and has been staying in a Brooklyn hotel while finishing out his work with the acquisitions group. After months—years, really—of careful deliberation, Bucky recently arrived at the decision to leave the department he’s overseen for five years and return to his roots in editing. He’ll be starting first thing in the coming new year, and Steve couldn’t possibly be happier—and not only because the new position involves Bucky working entirely from home.
When Bucky heads into the bedroom to unpack his suitcase, Steve dips away to his writing desk. Ideas for his latest story have been coming to him in sporadic, unpredictable bursts. An entire week will sometimes pass without him putting two words down on paper, while on other days his pen seems to be glued to his fingers, and he only stops writing once his hand cramps are too intense to continue. Frustrated with the inconsistency, Steve has been seeking out advice from the many online writers’ forums he frequents, hoping to remold his chaotic work ethic into something like an actual method. It’s a steep learning curve.
He’s forcing himself to sort through various scribblings from an earlier brainstorming session when Bucky quietly slips into the room. Steve smiles down at his notepad.
Before he even has a chance to turn around, Bucky settles one hand on his shoulder and uses the other to slide something across the desk. It’s a gift of some kind; a fairly small rectangle wrapped up and tied with a ribbon.
“What’s this?” Steve asks, lifting his eyes to meet Bucky’s.
“A present,” Bucky answers, short and simple. “From me, to you.”
“I thought we were waiting until Christmas Day to open those?”
“For everything else, yeah.” Bucky nods towards the gift on the desk. “But I wanted you to have this one early.”
Steve smiles affectionately and turns back around. He takes the dressed-up package—Bucky’s not as good with wrapping technique as some, but he tries, and that’s what counts—and removes the ribbon. The weight of the gift is light in his hands. As he tears the wrapping back slowly, starting from the top-right corner, it quickly becomes apparent that Bucky has gifted him some kind of paperback book.
Steve tilts his head in interest, pulling the wrapping further to expose more—but every muscle in his body freezes the second he glimpses the cover. He would recognize that art anywhere.
“Is th-this…” But Steve stops, swallowing. It’s extraordinary how fast his hands have gone from steady to trembling. “Is this what I think it is?”
“Yes.”
When he lifts his gaze, Steve finds a soft, tender expression on Bucky’s face. Steve’s mouth gapes in return.
His eyes flit down to the partially uncovered gift in his hands, then back to Bucky. “...But I thought it wasn’t going to be ready for another month?”
Bucky just shrugs. The corner of his lips ticks up with a tiny grin.
“Officially speaking, it’s only a proof… but I pulled some strings and had my buddy at the printer’s bind it.”
Steve stares down at the object in his hands like he can’t comprehend he’s holding it at all, because he can’t, really. He rallies his brain and his tongue to say something articulate—“Thank you, Bucky”—but all he can manage is, “Oh,” because at the end of the long journey it’s taken to arrive at this moment, Steve has never permitted himself to fully visualize the end of the road.
Bucky squeezes Steve’s shoulder, then leans down to press his mouth against the crown of Steve’s head.
“I’m going to bed,” he murmurs. It’s clear he wants to give Steve a moment alone. “Love you so much, sweetheart.”
In all his dumbstruck awe, it takes Steve a few seconds to register Bucky backing away to leave the room just as quietly as he’d come. He rounds himself in the chair once he finally catches up.
“Buck?”
Bucky pauses in the doorway with his hand on the knob. He turns his head.
“Yeah, Stevie?”
“I love you too.”
Bucky’s warm smile softens impossibly. He stares across the room at Steve the same way he always does—like he never wants to stop staring.
“Good night,” he answers, because that’s all there is left to say. The door announces his exit with a near-silent snick as it closes behind him.
Alone now, Steve turns his attention back to the gift in his hands. He draws in a steadying breath and continues pulling down the wrapping, slowly unveiling the rest of the cover. A square sticky note waits for him top-and-center with Bucky’s familiar handwriting in blue ink.
change happens
one step at a time
Steve would laugh if he weren’t already fighting back tears. He remembers exactly the first time Bucky said those words to him; they were together in this office more than a year ago, and they had just ended a call with a contract agent at Howlie House. Afterwards, Bucky had taken Steve’s shaky hand and reminded him that they have the tools to help build a world they might one day feel safe in together.
Slowly, Steve raises one hand up and brushes his fingers over the skin on the side of his neck. He stares down at the note and thinks of another: a simple card in a simple envelope—“to Bucky, from Steve”—tucked beneath the Christmas tree out there with nothing but two words inscribed: I’m ready. He peels away the little sticky square and presses it onto the wall above his desk to remind himself every day of what he’s writing for.
His breathing rattles around in his lungs as Steve removes the remainder of the wrapping, letting it fall to the floor with the ribbon. He runs his fingertips across the book reverently; it’s just a cheap paperback, really—nothing proclaiming a top-tier work of fiction—but what it contains is platinum in his palms. The texture of the page ridges along the side is the stuff Steve’s dreams were carved out of. He can imagine the plasticy spine wrinkling with use as someone makes their way through his story.
The very last thing Steve does before he opens it is trace the words on the cover with his finger.
Between the Tides
by Carter Buchanan
He lets his touch linger as long as it takes for the moment to start feeling real. Then, he takes a deep breath.
Steve opens the book and thumbs through the pages until he finds the first chapter.
The man at the end of the bar has hardly spoken a word all night...
Through the years,
We'll always be together
If the Fates allow
Hang a shining star upon the highest bough
And have yourself a merry little Christmas now.
Pages Navigation
OldestSnake on Chapter 1 Fri 19 Nov 2021 03:57AM UTC
Comment Actions
the1918 on Chapter 1 Fri 19 Nov 2021 03:35PM UTC
Comment Actions
msilverstar on Chapter 1 Fri 19 Nov 2021 04:56AM UTC
Comment Actions
the1918 on Chapter 1 Fri 19 Nov 2021 03:39PM UTC
Comment Actions
Willbakefordean on Chapter 1 Fri 19 Nov 2021 05:56AM UTC
Comment Actions
the1918 on Chapter 1 Fri 19 Nov 2021 03:40PM UTC
Comment Actions
TakeTheShot on Chapter 1 Fri 19 Nov 2021 07:51AM UTC
Comment Actions
the1918 on Chapter 1 Fri 19 Nov 2021 03:40PM UTC
Comment Actions
An. (Guest) on Chapter 1 Fri 19 Nov 2021 08:09AM UTC
Comment Actions
the1918 on Chapter 1 Fri 19 Nov 2021 03:42PM UTC
Comment Actions
Lullabybeautyy on Chapter 1 Fri 19 Nov 2021 09:23AM UTC
Comment Actions
the1918 on Chapter 1 Fri 19 Nov 2021 03:42PM UTC
Comment Actions
Tovli74 on Chapter 1 Fri 19 Nov 2021 09:47AM UTC
Comment Actions
the1918 on Chapter 1 Fri 19 Nov 2021 04:55PM UTC
Comment Actions
Embrichard on Chapter 1 Fri 19 Nov 2021 01:49PM UTC
Comment Actions
the1918 on Chapter 1 Fri 19 Nov 2021 04:56PM UTC
Comment Actions
BeautifulWorld555 on Chapter 1 Fri 19 Nov 2021 03:02PM UTC
Comment Actions
the1918 on Chapter 1 Fri 19 Nov 2021 04:57PM UTC
Comment Actions
zacharypay1_Alisa on Chapter 1 Fri 19 Nov 2021 05:40PM UTC
Comment Actions
the1918 on Chapter 1 Wed 24 Nov 2021 07:49PM UTC
Comment Actions
DD4L2002 on Chapter 1 Tue 31 May 2022 05:40PM UTC
Comment Actions
Black_Agnes_Of_Dunbar on Chapter 1 Fri 19 Nov 2021 07:01PM UTC
Comment Actions
the1918 on Chapter 1 Wed 24 Nov 2021 07:50PM UTC
Comment Actions
PixelatedCaffeine on Chapter 1 Fri 19 Nov 2021 09:59PM UTC
Comment Actions
the1918 on Chapter 1 Wed 24 Nov 2021 07:50PM UTC
Comment Actions
baobabB612 on Chapter 1 Sat 20 Nov 2021 08:04AM UTC
Comment Actions
the1918 on Chapter 1 Wed 24 Nov 2021 07:50PM UTC
Comment Actions
Displacement (Guest) on Chapter 1 Sat 20 Nov 2021 07:38PM UTC
Comment Actions
the1918 on Chapter 1 Wed 24 Nov 2021 07:53PM UTC
Comment Actions
aquaaqua on Chapter 1 Sun 21 Nov 2021 03:06AM UTC
Comment Actions
the1918 on Chapter 1 Wed 24 Nov 2021 07:53PM UTC
Comment Actions
thenoisyflower on Chapter 1 Wed 24 Nov 2021 04:14AM UTC
Last Edited Wed 24 Nov 2021 04:18AM UTC
Comment Actions
the1918 on Chapter 1 Wed 24 Nov 2021 07:56PM UTC
Comment Actions
barthelme on Chapter 1 Wed 24 Nov 2021 12:41PM UTC
Comment Actions
the1918 on Chapter 1 Wed 24 Nov 2021 07:57PM UTC
Comment Actions
Duchess_On_Fire on Chapter 1 Wed 24 Nov 2021 07:12PM UTC
Comment Actions
the1918 on Chapter 1 Wed 24 Nov 2021 07:57PM UTC
Comment Actions
CanadianGarrison on Chapter 1 Thu 25 Nov 2021 01:27AM UTC
Comment Actions
Aciremii on Chapter 1 Sat 27 Nov 2021 11:54PM UTC
Comment Actions
Aciremii on Chapter 1 Sun 28 Nov 2021 12:16AM UTC
Comment Actions
Pages Navigation