The apartment is always cold. In the winter months, it gets especially difficult to keep warm – although they always just about manage to pay their bills on time, the heating is still temperamental, and often shuts off without any forewarning. Bucky manages a job down at the docks, which brings in most of their income, although Steve is making as much effort as he can despite never being able to hold a job for more than a few months before he inevitably gets sick.
At the moment, he is just recovering from a pretty bad fever that has been plaguing him for weeks, and Bucky insists that Steve stays at home until he is back at the peak of physical fitness.
(“I’m not even sure I have a peak of physical fitness,” Steve had grumbled, as he lay curled up on the couch, a blanket wrapped around his shoulders.
“Of course you do,” Bucky had reassured him, walking into the room with yet another blanket, and laying it across Steve’s form. “Now you just focus on gettin’ better, okay? Don’t need you catchin’ anything else just ‘cause you’re too damn stubborn to stay indoors.”
“Buck, seriously, I’ll be fine. You worry too much.”
“Yeah well, maybe if you stopped givin’ me a reason to worry, I wouldn’t have to.”)
Steve has spent the best part of the last week doing the same thing he always does when Bucky deems him too ill to leave the house – he draws. He tries to help with the rent at least a little, even when he’s sick, and he does so by selling whatever sketches he’s created. The Brooklyn skyline at sunrise; a detailed still life drawing of a selection of empty beer bottles; the silhouette of a cat stalking along the rusty fire escape of the apartment complex during the night. He never sells them for very much – somewhere between a dime or a quarter apiece – but every cent counts towards keeping them warm.
On this particular occasion, Steve is up late (although he’s barely even tired) waiting for Bucky to get home, sketching out a detailed drawing of the Disney princess, Snow White, surrounded by her seven dwarves. (The movie came out only a couple of years earlier, and Steve figures that its popularity will definitely get him a little interest from potential customers.) He’s smothered in blankets on the couch, with his sketchpad propped up on his knees, and one arm emerging from under the covers to scratch the charcoal against the page.
Finally, sometime around ten, Bucky finally stumbles in through the front door, shrugging his jacket from his shoulders. Steve looks up briefly, and finds himself staring a little longer than he should do. Bucky’s hair is all mussed up, his lips are swollen from whichever girl he’s been kissing, and his shirt collar is open by about three buttons. Steve swears he can see a reddish purple bruise blooming on the side of Bucky’s neck, dangerously close to his throat.
“Nice night out?” he asks, averting his eyes back down to his paper, and going over one of the lines on Grumpy’s hat that he’s already darkened to death.
“Pretty good, yeah,” Bucky replies with a lazy, lopsided smile. He takes a few steps in to the room, and from the unsteadiness of his feet, Steve can tell he’s had a little to drink. “You still cold?”
Steve shrugs and puts his drawing aside. He won’t get much else done now that Bucky’s home. “Heating’s still not on. I’m fine though. Got plenty of blankets.”
“I can see. Y’look like you could get lost in there, pal,” he laughs, running a hand through his hair. “I’m going to bed.”
“Already?” Steve asks with a furrowed brow, checking the watch that is too big for his skinny wrist. “It’s not late, even for you. And it’s a Sunday tomorrow.”
Bucky just shrugs, already pulling his shirt off as he disappears into the bedroom. Steve watches him go, eyes fixed to his back. He picks up his sketchbook again and rests it against his knees, flipping over the page to start a new drawing.
He genuinely means to sketch Prince Charming and Snow White holding hands, walking into the sunset together, but all that seems to appear on the page is Prince Charming’s bare back; strong, toned muscles that slink down towards a slim waist. Steve stops sketching when he realises that it isn’t Prince Charming who he’s drawing at all.
Steve is hard to lead astray. He has a strong will, and a golden heart, but Bucky’s been a bad influence on Steve since they were young, and everyone at the orphanage knew it. Of the money they do own, the majority of it goes towards heating, so there’s very little to ensure they eat well. Bucky has never been one to play by the rules, and although Steve was at first shocked to discover his habits of just taking things from the corner store, he soon learned that sometimes it was a necessity in order to get by.
One afternoon – once Bucky’s released Steve from house arrest – they go to the grocery store. They always do their shopping together, because Bucky needs a partner in crime. He’ll distract the clerk with a question and a sly smile, while Steve slides a couple of candy bars into his pockets. His clothes are too big for him anyway, so there’s plenty of room to flesh out with stolen goods. He could easily steal a lot more than he does, but Steve never manages to get more than three or four items before he begins to feels the weight of his own crippling guilt, and ends up putting at least one thing back where he picked it up from.
Despite this, their little plan always works. Steve always leaves with a pocket full of goodies, and Bucky always leaves with the cashier’s number scrawled onto the receipt for the single pack of bubblegum that he actually bothers to buy. The fact remains that Bucky’s the kind of guy that girls just love. He’s all charm and cocky smirks; he’s handsome, but knows exactly what to say and when to say it, and he wields his charisma with the same efficiency that Steve can wield a pencil. They’re both artists, just in different fields.
Bucky comes home early on a Friday night, while Steve’s in bed reading George Orwell’s ‘The Road to Wigan Pier’, barges into the bedroom, and frantically starts unclipping the suspenders from his pants. “Come on, pal,” he says. “I’ve landed us a date.”
“Us?” Steve asks, as Bucky starts to take his pants off.
“Yeah, us. Susie was walkin’ by the docks earlier. I gave her the eye and asked her if she wanted to go dancin’ sometime. She said she’s leavin’ town at the weekend, and she promised she’d go out with her friend Jessica tonight. Told her we should go anyways, and she should bring Jessica along, ‘cause I’ve got a hell of a friend who’d love to meet her,” he grins, laying his clothes over the back of a chair that sits in the bedroom. Steve shakes his head and looks away, and Bucky catches the expression on his face. “Oh, come on, Stevie,” he murmurs, putting his hands on his hips and frowning at him. He probably thinks he looks ridiculous, standing there in just his shirt and his underwear, but Steve knows that ridiculous isn’t the word he would use.
“Buck, you know there’s really no point in me goin’. This Jessica won’t want me.”
“Hey,” he says, sternly, pointing a finger at him. “Don’t you talk like that. Jessica would be lucky to have you. Now go put a nice shirt on, huh?”
Steve sighs loudly, but dog-ears his page and pushes himself from the bed, moving to go put some appropriate clothes on.
Jessica isn’t impressed at all. She keeps ordering strong drinks, and looking at Steve with disdain, like she’s hoping he’ll turn into something more like Bucky. With the amount she’s drinking, he probably will start to look like Bucky, through the beer goggles. They’re sitting on opposite ends of a small table at the back of the dance hall, looking out across the dancers. Steve isn’t particularly good at small talk, but it’s kinda hard to be when he keeps his eyes firmly on Bucky, who is doing the foxtrot with Susie, a pretty blonde girl with chocolate brown eyes.
The dance hall is crowded, and smells of cigar smoke, perfume, and sweat. Steve’s been careful to choose a table away from all the smoke, but it also happens to be away from all other life forms, so he and Jessica are stuck together.
He turns to her, and opens her mouth to say something, but she’s not even looking at him. He follows her gaze and sees that she’s also busy watching Bucky dancing in the middle of the floor, and she swirls her glass and drains it.
“It’s okay, y’know,” Steve says, timidly. “For you to like him. All the gals do.”
“Who? Your cocky little friend?” Jessica grunts, raising an eyebrow as Steve. She shakes her head, her dark curls bouncing. “He ain’t worth shit to me.” Steve is a little taken aback. He’s never heard a dame curse like that before, and Jessica clearly sees the look on his face. “Before you say a word, lemme just tell you that I really don’t care whether I come across as ladylike or not.”
“Wasn’t gonna say nothing,” he murmurs, and looks away from Jessica and back towards the crowd. A waiter passes by, and she flags him down for another drink. Before he turns away, Steve orders one too, and Jessica snorts at him, like she knows he can’t hold his liquor.
The music begins to slow down, and soon enough, the band is playing Glenn Miller’s Moonlight Serenade. Steve watches as the couples on the floor wrap their arms around one another and begin to spin in a dreamy circle. He sees Bucky give Susie an easy smirk, before he loops his arms around her waist, and they too begin to dance.
The waiter arrives, and places two glasses of scotch on the table between them – Steve utters out a thank you, but Jessica says nothing, her eyes still fixed on Bucky. She reaches blindly for her glass, and Steve pushes it in her direction a little.
She takes the biggest gulp that he has ever seen.
“It’s not that you ain’t pretty,” he says. “It’s just that I can’t.”
“What?” she asks, snapping her head around to look at him.
He shrugs. “Dance. I can’t dance. Is that why you’re mad? Because you got no one to dance with?”
Jessica snorts again, and takes another sip of her drink as she looks back to the dancers again. “God, no.”
“You don’t gotta be so rude,” he says into his glass, and she turns to him with a frown.
“What’d’ya mean?”
“What, y’think I got gals lining up around the block to dance with me?” he says, shaking his head. After a moment, he runs a hand through his hair and sighs softly. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to be impolite to you. I wouldn’t blame you if I got set up with someone like me neither.”
He looks back towards the dance floor, but he can still feel Jessica’s eyes on him. It only takes him a moment to locate Bucky in the crowd, Susie’s head now resting against his broad chest, and he watches them carefully. Bucky looks up, just for a second, and catches Steve’s eye, offering him a small, genuine smile, before he looks back down at the girl in his arms.
“I’m sorry, too,” Jessica finally says. “I’ve been treatin’ ya like you’re an idiot, who wouldn’t understand. But it looks like we got the same problem.”
Steve takes another sip of the scotch and sets the glass down. “Huh?”
“Look, champ, can you keep a secret?”
“Of course.”
Jessica looks from side to side to make sure nobody’s paying them any attention. She catches Steve’s puzzled stare and rolls her eyes. “I don’t want anybody listenin’, in case they start beatin’ on me,” she says.
“Why would anyone beat ya?”
“Because that’s what they do to queers,” Jessica whispers, and suddenly it all makes sense. She hasn’t been watching Bucky dance, she’s been watching Susie. She isn’t angry because Steve’s too short and scrawny, she’s angry because she has to watch the girl she loves in the arms of a fella.
Steve swallows thickly, and drains his glass, all in one go. “You’re in love with her?”
She shushes him. “Tell the whole damn hall, why don’t ya?” she grunts, scowling at him. “Of course I am. Look at her,” Jessica says, turning back to watch them dancing, “she’s perfect. Tall, blonde, gorgeous. Beautiful eyes,” she says, her voice going all soft. “Absolutely beautiful.”
Steve watches Jessica watching Susie. He feels almost happy – the way she talks about Susie makes his heart swell, just genuinely glad that Jessica has found someone to love. Part of him just wishes someone would talk about him like that, look at him like that.
“You got the same issue, huh?” she finally says as she looks back at Steve.
“What? I’m not in love with Susie.”
She laughs, her head tipped back, her red-stained lips curling into a grin. “No, idiot. Not Susie. Your know-it-all friend who thinks he’s worth his damn weight in gold.”
“He doesn’t think that,” Steve says, something that feels like anger bubbling in his chest. But Jessica just smiles.
“Look how defensive you just got.”
“Because he’s my friend.”
“Or because you’re in love with him.” Steve shakes his head and looks down into the empty glass that he’s holding in his lap. He could really use a drink right now. His silence is the only answer Jessica needs though, it seems. She reaches across the table and puts a finger under his chin, lifting his head up and forcing him to look at her. “You got a real shot, y’know,” she says, softly.
Steve bats her hand away and looks over at her. “You’re talkin’ crazy,” he tells her.
“Nuh uh,” she says, with a smile. “See, Susie has a way of pickin’ the guys who don’t actually want anythin’ to do with her. I don’t know how she does it. It’s not intentional, obviously,” she shrugs, finishing her glass of scotch and setting it back down on the table. “It annoys me to no end, but they usually use her to rock their socks, and then walk away. Your friend’s the same. Takes gals out all the time, has his wicked way with ‘em, then never calls, right?”
“You think Bucky unintentionally sleeps with dames who don’t really want him?”
“Maybe not unintentionally. The thing is, they do it for different reasons,” Jessica explains, propping one hand up on the table and leaning her head on it. “Susie does it because she just can’t pick the right guys. She’s fuckin’ useless, I swear to God. But ‘Bucky’, or whatever his name is. He’s doin’ it on purpose. Because his heart belongs somewhere else.”
Steve shakes his head. “This is baloney. How the hell would you know all’a’that, just from watching him dance?”
Jessica sighs softly and looks back towards Susie, where she’s got her arms wrapped around Bucky’s shoulders, looking fondly up at him with a smile on her face. “I’ve seen her with enough guys to learn to read their body language. I know when they’re into her.”
“And he isn’t?”
“Oh, he is. He’s definitely gonna take her home tonight,” she says, sounding just as put out about it as Steve feels. “But he keeps stealin’ glances over at the table.” Steve frowns at her, and swallows again. “Trust me, champ. I’ve been watchin’ ‘em all night. He keeps lookin’ over atcha.”
“How d’ya know he ain’t lookin’ at you?”
Jessica turns to Steve again, a grin spreading across her face. “A gal knows these things, okay? Just trust me.” She reaches across the table and takes his hand. Her hands are warm and soft, and bigger than his. “Susie’s leavin’ this weekend. Moving to Richmond with her folks. I ain’t never gonna get to tell her how I feel.” Steve feels her hand tighten around his, and she presses her lips into a thin line. “But you got a chance with this guy. I promise ya.”
Steve meets her eyes again, and looks at her for a long while. She offers him a smile, and he returns it.
“I never said that I even liked him,” he says, after a while.
She laughs and pulls her hand away. “Oh, sugar,” she chuckles, watching as Susie retreats from the dance floor towards the restrooms, and Bucky begins to head back over, “you never even had to.”
Jessica looks back at him then, and the two of them keep eye contact until Bucky finally gets to the table. He winks at Jessica, and smirks lazily at her. Steve sees her roll her eyes, and she grabs her purse. It’s almost funny that Bucky has no effect on her. “Excuse me, fellas,” she grunts, standing from the chair and straightening her skirt at the back, “but I’d better go make sure Susie’s alright.” She gives Steve another long, hard look before she leaves, turning on her heel and strutting through the crowd towards the bathroom.
“Gee,” Bucky huffs as he sits in Jessica’s place, “what’s eatin’ her?” Steve finds it fascinating that Bucky’s so unused to rejection.
“Beats me,” he murmurs, looking down into his empty glass again.
“Y’okay, pal?” Bucky asks. Steve looks up at him, and sees concern in Bucky’s eyes. “You didn’t look to be havin’ much fun.”
Steve shrugs. “I’ve had a good time, actually. But... I think I just wanna go home.”
Bucky smiles, a full smile that makes his eyes crinkle in the corners. “Alright, Stevie.”
They wait until Susie and Jessica emerge from the restroom, lipstick reapplied. Susie’s got her arm through Jessica’s, supporting each other as they walk. They’re smiling as they walk back towards the table, and Susie lets go of Jessica to stand in front of Bucky, one hand on her hip, an eyebrow raised. “Ready for round two?”
“Nah,” Bucky says, licking his lips. “You’ve been real great, Suz, but I gotta get my friend here home.”
“Oh,” Susie murmurs, clearly disappointed. Her smile fades rapidly, and her position moves from confident to something a little meeker as she moves to fold her arms across her body. Steve watches her shrink in on herself, fascinated by the effect Bucky seems to have on people, and he doesn’t even realise. He finds it unbelievable that this one man can turn women into nervous wrecks with nothing but a sly grin – but then he thinks about it, and realises that he feels the exact same.
“Sorry, darlin’,” he drawls, standing from his chair and taking Susie’s hand, “but if you’re ever in town again, be sure to call me.” He kisses the back of her hand and the smile returns to her face. “Come on, Stevie,” Bucky calls, as he bows his head to the girls and starts to walk out of the dance hall.
Steve puts his jacket back on over his shoulders, and offers a soft smile to the girls. “Have a good night,” he says as he passes them.
“You too,” says Jessica, and he can hear the grin in her voice.
It’s early on Sunday morning, somewhere around seven, and Steve’s sitting at the tiny table in the kitchen of their apartment, sunlight streaming through the window. The page of his sketchbook is littered with tiny drawings; a single deft hand, skin pulled tight across tendons, slender fingers grasping a pack of bubblegum; a pair of plump lips, curling up into a smirk in one corner, a couple of teeth showing; the outline of a muscular shoulder curving up towards a bare throat, with emphasis on a protruding collarbone, and a bruise on the neck.
The cup of coffee beside him has near enough gone cold, and there are charcoal smudges all down the side of his right hand. Steve takes a moment to admire his handiwork, and realises that this has got to stop.
He’s working on a sketch of the tin-man from The Wizard of Oz when Bucky finally rises, pajama pants low on his hips as he moves into the kitchen to make himself a coffee, hair sticking up at all angles. Bucky won’t speak until he’s got at least a couple of sips of caffeine in his system, so he settles for standing behind Steve and leaning down to look at the drawings, resting his chin on top of Steve’s head.
“Mornin’,” Steve murmurs, moving his hand away from the page so Bucky can get a better look at what he’s doing. Bucky just grunts and squeezes Steve’s shoulders in response as he straightens himself up, letting his hands linger for a moment before he slowly slides away to pour himself a cup.
Steve watches as Bucky leans against the kitchen counter, sipping at the fresh mug of coffee, and he takes the opportunity to flick to a fresh page in his sketchbook and begin a quick drawing of his friend.
(Bucky always lets Steve draw him, but Steve feels less guilty about it when Bucky can actually see it happening.)
He manages to get a basic outline of Bucky’s position before he finally makes some kind of sound, a low hum in the back of his throat as the coffee goes down. It shouldn’t be as hot as it is. “This is good coffee. Did we get the expensive stuff?”
“I dunno,” Steve shrugs. “I just took whichever one I grabbed first.” Bucky chuckles and takes another long sip, but he seems fairly content just leaning against the counter, so Steve continues to draw.
It must be a good ten minutes before Bucky actually says anything else. He’s been happy just watching Steve’s pencil go to work on the page, watching the way his half naked body seemingly appears out of nowhere.
“Am I your favourite model, Stevie?” he asks. Steve expects to hear a smirk in his voice, but when he looks up, Bucky’s brow is furrowed, and he quickly realises that it was a genuine question.
He nods. “Yeah, you are. But I suppose I don’t have much to compare it to, so don’t let that go to your head.”
Bucky just laughs, and takes another sip from his cup. “Well, you’re the best artist who’s ever drawn me.”
“Careful,” he warns, a smile forming on his face, “my ego’ll get as big as yours.”
Steve likes it when it’s like this. Just the two of them, teasing each other, neither of them really meaning it. These are the moments he knows he’ll come to cherish when he’s old and grey – if he lives that long – knowing that he once had a best friend who cared about him, even if it wasn’t quite to the same extent.
“Oh, well, then we’ll be in trouble,” Bucky says.
“Would we?”
He nods, a smirk curling up on his face. “You’re already the bravest guy I know. Kindest by far. We can’t have you actually knowing it. You’d lose all your modesty.”
Steve rolls his eyes and goes back to drawing, sketching in the details on Bucky’s torso (most of which, he’s drawn before from memory, but he’d never tell Bucky any of that). He doesn’t look up from the page for a little while, focusing on Bucky’s collarbones, and when he finally lifts his eyes back up to where Bucky was standing, he’s gone. Steve looks around for a moment, before he feels Bucky’s chin on the top of his head again, looking over at his handiwork.
“It looks better from this angle,” he says. “The right way up.”
Steve thinks Bucky looks good from every angle, so all of his sketches are the right way up to him. “I suppose you’re right,” he nods. Bucky takes another swig of his coffee from above Steve’s head, before placing the mug down on the table and sliding into the seat beside him.
Steve turns to look at him, a soft smile on his face. Bucky’s still looking at the page, but he must feels Steve’s eyes on him, because he turns to face him, his mouth curling up at the corners. “What?” he asks, wondering why Steve’s staring at him.
The fact remains that Bucky’s the kind of guy who’ll win you over with his words, and his smile. But out of the two of them, despite his initial shyness around the opposite sex, it’s indubitable that Steve has always been the brave one. He picks fights with guys triple his size, isn’t afraid to stand up for himself or anyone around him, and he’s given even the nastiest of people a second chance.
In the end, it kind of makes sense that it’s Steve who leans in to kiss Bucky for the first time, wrapping a hand around the back of Bucky’s neck that gradually cards into his hair as their lips meet, warm and wet. It lasts for a moment or two before Steve pulls back ever so slightly, breathing raggedly. It strikes him that he genuinely doesn’t even know if Bucky attempted to kiss back.
Bucky’s staring at him, mouth open, eyes wide. Steve begins to wonder if he’s made some kind of mistake, but Bucky licks his lips and swallows thickly, managing out a weak, “Whoa.”
“Sorry, I-“
“No, Stevie, I-... Just... whoa,” he stutters out, and Steve’s never seen him so flustered. He doesn’t see that side of Bucky for long though, before he’s grabbing a hold of the front of Steve’s pajama shirt, and pulling him in for another kiss.
When they break away, panting heavily, Bucky looks at Steve for the longest length of time, and Steve has an epiphany.
Bucky is the charming one, who knows how to get his way with everyone on the planet, but he’s never known what to say to Steve. This cocky, charismatic temptation of a man has been pining for Steve for almost as long as Steve has been pining for him because he’s been unable to seduce his best friend.
Steve laughs loudly at the thought, and when Bucky’s brow furrows, Steve tightens his grip in his hair and pulls him forward, letting Bucky kiss him so hard that he swallows his laughter down.
Epilogue
In the April of the following year, Steve receives a letter that has been stamped from Richmond, Virginia. He has no idea how she got his address, but somehow, Jessica has found him, and sent him a message. The letter reads that their conversation in the dance hall finally gave her the courage to tell Susie how she felt that night.
The fact that they moved to Richmond together is proof enough that Susie returned the sentiment.
Steve sketches a picture of the pair of them, from memory, with their arms linked. He sends it back to her.
A month later, she tells him that his picture is now framed, and hangs in their living room.
Steve’s heart swells with pride.