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“Hold still, Steve.”
Bucky smooths his hand up the nape of Steve’s neck again, inspecting his hairline, eyeing the vulnerable divot at the base of his skull. Even the bolts of Steve's jaw look gentle by lamplight, shells of his ears protecting the soft shadows behind them. Steve gives a gusty sigh. Bucky gently bends his ears back, checking each carefully before moving on down Steve’s spine.
“I feel like I would feel it if I had one,” Steve complains.
“The last thing we need is a super-tick drinking your blood and getting delusions of grandeur,” Bucky shoots back distractedly. Steve’s spine lies straight as railroad tracks now, but Bucky’s hand still catches on the spot in the middle where it used to curve. Back at home, he would lay cool cloths over the two most stubborn vertebrae when they bothered Steve bad enough, or even just rest the weight of his hand there while Steve dozed in the summer, soothing the ache. He guesses neither of them is much built for soothing these days.
“...You find something?” Steve asks. “You were kidding about the super-tick, right?”
“Relax, pal.” Bucky lifts Steve’s elbow and directs his attention to his underarm. “Unless you hear a real unmanly squeak, go ahead and assume I haven’t found anything.”
Steve just sighs again and lets Bucky rearrange his limbs how he wants. Outside the tent, the war goes on. Or if not the war, the rain — it pit-patters softly where it hits the canvas, smoothing out the silence that falls between them. Bucky puts his fingertips to Steve’s ribs, drags them down the ticklish path to his waist. Steve’s stomach goes taut.
“You’re gonna have to take off your pants,” Bucky murmurs. “C’mon, Cap. Up and at ‘em.”
He draws back far enough for Steve to kick off his boots and shuck his pants down his legs, watching Steve’s shoulders begin to hunch as he peels off his socks and tosses them toward his boots. His trousers get draped over his bedroll to avoid the dirty floor, and then Steve is naked except for his briefs, looking at Bucky with his eyebrows raised.
“Should I sit back down?” he asks. He has to bend his head a little to meet Bucky’s eye, giving Bucky a seasick twinge in his gut at the height difference. There are some things about this he’s never gonna get used to.
“Turn around, I gotta check your knees,” Bucky snaps.
Steve rolls his eyes and turns around, hands on his hips. “Yes, Sarge.”
Bucky slowly kneels down behind him, hands coming up to cradle the swell of Steve’s calf. Fine blond hairs glint gold in the flickering lamplight as they dust up his bare legs. Bucky checks the delicate dips in the backs of his knees, then the creases of his thighs, fingers tucked briefly into the warm space between them. If he swayed forward, Bucky could put his cheek to the sweet base of Steve’s spine. He could linger there, supplicant, until Steve turned around and held his jaw in the cup of his palm; Bucky would gaze up at him with eyes all dark and slow like syrupy molasses, mouth as open as a parenthesis waiting for its mate.
Steve shifts his weight from foot to foot, uncomfortable. Bucky’s thumb skims over a healing scar at his hip that will, if holding true to pattern, disappear within the month. The pearlescent shine of new pink skin winks up at him apologetically as Bucky just barely presses in, feeling the give of the flesh. What a blessing this body is, beautiful and terrifying as the Red Sea parting, or Lazarus’s first ragged breath, or any other act of God. Bucky would swear fealty to this man right now. He would make any vows Steve asked.
“You can check your own Johnson,” Bucky mutters, standing up. “Otherwise, you’re all clear.”
“Thanks,” Steve says with real gratitude, tugging his shirt back on and making his dog tags jingle. “You should get some sleep, yeah? We’re heading out bright and early.”
Bucky is already eyeing the tent flap, twitchy under Steve’s gaze. “Bright and early,” he echoes.
The rain has slowed to a drizzle. Bucky steps out and retrieves his cigarettes from his coat pocket, shielding them from the misty droplets with a hand while he tries to get his lighter to spit up a flame. The other Commandos’ tents cluster in a circle around the now-dead fire, huddled together as if for warmth. One of them opens a crack, just enough to let muted lamplight spill through as Bucky’s lighter finally sparks.
Morita makes eye contact with him halfway through clambering out of Dum Dum’s tent. Bucky smirks and takes a drag at the same time, tongue curling around warm smoke.
Morita joins him while wrapping his jacket tighter around himself, rubbing his hands together and breathing on them. The rain will pick up again before the night wears out, and the moon will turn its face away behind cloud cover, but for now the moonlight silvers whatever skin is exposed.
“Gimme a drag,” Morita murmurs, taking Bucky’s cigarette and covetously sipping at the end of it. “Jesus fuck. Gonna be a cold night.”
Bucky doesn’t notice the cold like he used to, but he nods all the same. “Might be worth bunking down with somebody,” he points out.
Morita looks at him sideways. Bucky takes his cigarette back and keeps his face carefully bland. Dum Dum’s tent is bleeding yellow light just like Steve’s is, positioned directly across the circle and listing just a bit to the side. Morita’s face may be obscured by shadow and smoke, but Bucky can see his expression, the way his eyes go hollow and hazy.
“I don’t even like him,” Morita says.
Bucky thinks about the way Morita and Dum Dum pull each other’s pigtails like school girls. Then he thinks about all the things Steve does to piss him off on the daily. “Ain’t that the kicker,” he agrees glumly.
Morita makes no move toward his own tent. Bucky stays put too. He imagines stuffing himself into his own bedroll, alone in the dark with his eyes fixed on the canvas wall in front of him. He’d stay awake for hours, distracted by the rain, and there would be a good chance he’d still be up by the time Steve came to fetch him for the day’s mission. It’s a dismal picture.
“I’m gonna turn in,” Morita murmurs. “You gonna get some rest, Sarge?”
It chafes to have everyone worry. Bucky’s jaw tics with irritation, wondering how awful he must look to warrant this kind of fretting from all sides. Gratitude throbs behind the irritation, though. There’s nothing to be done about that. He feels sick from gratitude, bloated with it.
“Sure,” he says at last. Morita nods at him, accepting the cigarette one last time when Bucky offers it. “Stay warm, yeah?”
Bucky puts it out when Morita hands it back, sliding the damp and half-smoked stick back into its case. Waste not want not, and Bucky’s had difficulty finishing anything that isn’t a mission ever since Steve scooped him up off HYDRA’s experiment table. Cigarettes and meals and letters home each present their own unique challenge.
In his own tent, Bucky stares at his threadbare blankets for twenty seconds. Then he rolls them up briskly, making his movements decisive so he won’t second-guess them. He emerges scowling at the rain, closing his tent with a grimace, then starts for Steve’s —
— Only to nearly run into Morita again, who’s headed for Dum Dum’s with his own bedroll under his arm. They both freeze.
“...Night, Jim,” Bucky says.
Morita chokes on a slightly hysterical laugh. “G’night, Bucky.”
Bucky’s heart is still racing from the encounter when he slips back inside Steve’s tent, boots left undone by the entrance, Steve’s eyes wide and porcelain blue even in the darkness. “Buck?” he asks softly.
If Steve keeps saying his name like that, like he has to hold it fragile as glass in his mouth, Bucky is going to lose it. “Budge over,” he says, laying out his roll next to Steve’s with a solid thump. He doesn’t wait for an answer before he slips inside, nudging himself up next to Steve’s body and slinging an arm around his waist like old times. Steve’s bare skin is scalding hot to the touch in contrast with the rest of the room. Bucky shoves his face into Steve’s bicep.
Across camp, Morita and Dugan are probably working out a similar arrangement, although who gives in and allows himself to be spooned is an answer beyond Bucky’s reckoning. He can’t imagine Dum Dum Dugan is nearly as acquiescent as Steve, who relents and lets Bucky manhandle him onto his side to be held with minimal grumbling.
“Comfortable?” Steve huffs. One of his massive hands rests delicately over Bucky’s wrist.
“Go to sleep, Rogers,” Bucky says. The first miracle of the night is that Steve does, sinking into Bucky’s embrace like this is something they’ve done enough times to get used to it.
The second miracle is that Bucky follows him not ten minutes after. But then again, Bucky follows him most everywhere.