3222 words
They drove for a few more hours through the night and eventually decided on stopping at around 2:30 am, and parking behind an abandoned warehouse in another small, Podunk town.
“The glories of dry camping,” Bucky said with a stretch after he turned the engine off and stood up.
“Dry camping?” Steve questioned, trying in vain to infuse some sense of inner peace into Punk, who, up until that moment, had been blissfully asleep and therefore unaware of being on Steve’s lap.
“Yeah, it’s when you park in a parking lot at a Walmart, rest stop or truck stop somewhere,” Bucky explained. “Wally docking is risky, since they want a heads up.”
“Oh. Cool.” Steve inwardly cringed at himself. He’d never been particularly good at making conversation the way Bucky had; even now, after being traumatized for seventy years, he was still a better conversationalist than Steve had ever been, even while being brusque and a bit bossy. (But when hadn’t he been?) That natural charm was something even hydra couldn’t beat out of him.
To recover from his vocal blunder, Steve stood up and lifted the still snarling dog. “I’ll go take him out. Should be interesting.”
Bucky snorted and handed Steve his leash that he clipped to the harness, narrowly avoiding getting snapped at. Punk whipped his head back and forth, trying to bite Steve’s hand out of reach on his back. Steve actually felt sorry for him and sighed at the tiny, quivering animal.
Getting Punk to use the bathroom was another challenge altogether, since he was so filled with loathing for Steve that he lunged for his ankles and grabbed the bottom of his jeans and shook, growling and snarling all the while. Steve just watched him in mild disappointment.
“Buddy, I'm not gonna hurt ya.” He tried really hard not to smile when Punk only barked at him.
He led him over to another spot on the grass and watched as Punk only sniffed the air disinterestedly once or twice before yapping at him again.
“You really are a punk.”
The dog barked again and suddenly lunged for his ankles again, making Steve laugh and scramble out of the way with a curse. He imagined that Punk was saying something along the lines of, “it takes one to know one.”
Eventually, before Steve had exhausted his patience and given up trying to get the dog to piss or shit, Bucky stepped outside and relieved Steve from Punk duty. Steve smiled at Bucky gratefully and tried not to seem too eager to get away from him. His high-pitched barking was almost excruciating to his sensitive hearing.
He’d rather take the growling and snarling, in all honesty.
He began shuffling through his duffle bag, and noticed from the light scent that wafted up that Bucky had been through it too. He didn’t mind, since it meant that Bucky was probably just checking whether or not Steve was hiding anything that could hurt him. On second thought, Steve did mind, not wanting Bucky to believe that he wasn’t entirely safe with Steve.
He took the opportunity to change out of his clothes that he’d been wearing for a little too long without washing, even with daily applications of deodorant. Living on the road was tough and meant forgoing showers more than he liked to. Compared to the war, though, it was living squeaky clean. Before Steve could put on fresh boxers, he heard the door open and whirled around.
Bucky stood there, frozen and staring at Steve, still standing outside, which meant his eyes were approximately dick height. Steve scrambled to cover up, pulling out half the contents of his duffle bag in his haste to find a clean pair of boxers.
“Sorry, god, I – I was just cleaning – I mean changing my clothes. Because they were dirty. Sorry. I didn’t mean to…” Steve trailed off awkwardly, refusing to make eye contact as he finally pulled on his underwear. He watched Bucky out of the corner of his eye as he hesitated and then picked up Punk and climbed into the RV, shutting the door behind him. The silence was deafening and Steve was suddenly very aware of being almost naked and how close Bucky was standing to him.
“It’s okay,” he finally said, soft and quiet.
Steve swallowed around the lump in his throat.
“I was going to change too. Into something more comfortable. For bed.” Bucky’s voice sounded more clipped than usual, and Steve thought it was due to nerves, perhaps. He didn’t know what else it could be.
Then he realized why, and steeled himself for any number of things. Did Bucky sleep in something even more… he couldn’t even summon up an adequate adjective. Whatever it was, Steve would be supportive. Very, very supportive.
Since he usually slept in the nude, there wasn’t much else for Steve to put on, aside from a t-shirt that covered his chest and made him feel less exposed in Bucky’s presence. He busied himself with refolding his clothes and reorganizing his duffle bag to keep from peeking at Bucky as he changed.
He nearly jumped out of his skin when Bucky spoke from behind him.
“Tomorrow is laundry day, so I'm going to find a laundromat somewhere and wash my clothes. You can join me.”
Steve’s jaw dropped when he turned around. Bucky was wearing a light pink chemise that shone faintly in the dark, meaning it was likely silk or satin or some other glossy fabric that Steve didn’t know the name of. It was practically underwear. It actually was underwear, back in the forties. Steve had never gotten used to the idea that dames nowadays could just wear something like that out in public, much like he’d never gotten used to the fact that t-shirts were acceptable to wear by themselves.
The chemise Bucky was currently wearing had a thin lace border along the neck and hem lines and the shoulder straps. His nipples were erect, creating little points in the dark. The thin fabric clung to him, and Steve was pretty sure Bucky wasn’t wearing underwear. He looked coquettish, as alluring as anything Steve had ever seen or imagined.
His face went up in flames and he knew it was visible even in the dark, and cursed his Irish coloring.
“Thanks,” Steve managed to choke out, looking down at his hands that fiddled with the folds of his underwear. “You, uh… you look real nice, Buck.” He shot him a reassuring smile, meaning it. Even if he did feel like he was on the cusp of passing out.
Bucky blinked and carefully returned it, not quite as bright. “Thanks.” Then he turned around and withdrew a small bag of dog food from the cupboard and a small bowl, and filled it up and set it on the floor by the water bowl where Punk was waiting patiently, not having barked once. “You can take the bed in the back if you want. Doesn’t matter to me.” He shrugged his shoulder uncaringly, not quite meeting Steve’s gaze.
He hesitated a moment before replying, “sounds good to me, Buck.” He gave Bucky a sunny grin, perhaps overcompensating. Bucky ducked his head and climbed up to the bed above the driver’s cabin, bracing his foot on the back of the booth.
Steve almost choked when he glimpsed a sight of Bucky’s bare ass, the image searing itself into his mind.
“Goodnight, Steve,” Bucky called out, and the sound of his name on Bucky’s lips made Steve even more choked up, this time in a good way.
“Goodnight, Bucky,” Steve breathed out reverently, before going to the bed in the back, giving Punk a wide berth, especially since he was eating.
The bed had a thick layer of memory foam on top of the mattress, so it was pretty comfortable, if a bit small for Steve, who liked a lot of room to sprawl out. Two seconds after he laid his head on the pillow, he realized that it was a trap and felt irrationally betrayed, shaking silently with laughter for second. Bucky’s scent was saturated here, taunting Steve with his glorious smell. His shampoo that he used was fruity and citrusy and vanilla, which were all coincidentally Steve’s favorite scents.
Well, among them. He also liked brilliantine hair cream, the musky smell of sweat, and brewing coffee. The reasoning was woefully apparent, but Steve couldn’t bring himself to feel ashamed. Not now that he had Bucky again, like a miracle.
He was wide awake, digesting the happenings of the wonderful, amazing day he had. He felt like sprinting a marathon, which he’d done once on accident not long after he was defrosted.
He sighed loudly, and then cursed himself when Punk started barking.
He heard Bucky curse too, and felt even guiltier.
“Punk, settle down,” Bucky ordered, much closer than Steve expected him to, making Punk quiet down. He rolled over and saw Bucky standing a few feet away, looking at him. “Do you mind?” he wondered, gesturing to the bed. Steve’s eyes went wide and he shook his head, scooting over more. “I don’t think he’ll bark if I'm where I usually am.”
“No, yeah, go ahead.”
Bucky cautiously settled down beside him, squished in like a sardine.
Steve felt even more keyed up now, and felt like he was going to burst through his skin any second, with any movement at all from Bucky.
“Thank you for letting me come with you,” Steve said when the silence got to be too much for him. Bucky made a little noise and shifted beside him.
“Yeah, well, I’ve got a thing for strays, apparently,” he replied dryly, even though they both knew Punk wasn’t a stray, making Steve chuckle a little.
He felt the dog climb up on the bed via the little carpeted stairs stationed on the floor, and tensed, readying himself for an attack. “Speak of the devil,” he whispered to Bucky, who jerked like he was suppressing laughter.
He felt Punk move towards them and held his breath. Bucky made a little noise and shifted closer to Steve. “You're in his spot,” he explained as he pressed himself right against the left side of Steve’s body. Gently, he rested his head on Steve’s shoulder like he was testing the waters. Steve’s soul rejoiced and soared and plummeted all at the same time. He felt positively nauseous with nerves.
The dog, having detected Steve in the bed, gave a deep warning bark that nearly made Steve jump out of his skin.
“Hey, none of that,” Bucky growled, sounding more like a dog than a human. Punk immediately fell silent again. “Sorry,” he murmured apologetically.
Steve recovered quickly, his heartbeat ratcheting up even more as Bucky put his arm on his chest. “It’s no problem. I don’t like strangers either, and especially if I had been treated so horribly.”
Bucky didn’t reply, and Steve tried not to read too much into it, because that way lay madness. He’d only succeed in making a blundering fool of himself trying to correct himself.
Eventually, by some miracle, Steve succumbed to slumber.
His dreams were wild, nonsensical things that imbued him with panic and dread.
Bucky was his wife, and she had one arm and was bleeding out.
Bucky was on the train and wore the mask.
The winter soldier was fighting him in a long black dress.
She sat down on his cock and pulled a gun on him, aiming it at his vulnerable heart.
Bucky tore his mask off, revealing a mandible rotting away. “I’ve been dead all this time, Stevie. You're seeing ghosts.”
Her breasts were secretly grenades in a bra and she threw one at him, sending him back in time to the train, the mission gone wrong. “Save me,” the winter soldier cried out, his dress fluttering in the breeze as he began to fall, fall, fall.
Steve heard the loud barks of a hellhound coming to drag him away to Hell for letting Bucky fall, for failing to catch him, for not jumping after him, for everything Steve had ever done Bucky wrong. He deserved to burn, and the hound was getting closer, louder, why was he running? Shouldn’t he stop?
“Steve!” Bucky cried out, slapping him awake.
Steve blinked up at a worried Bucky, chest heaving like he really had run that marathon. Punk was barking loudly, more worked up than Steve had ever seen him, reacting to both of their distress. Steve shivered at the sound, the remnants of his dream still lingering.
Bucky snarled abruptly, and Punk fell mercifully silent. “You okay?” he wondered, looking Steve over. “You were whimpering and screaming.”
Steve winced. “Yeah. Sorry.”
At his apology, Bucky leveled a distinctly unimpressed stare at him. Steve winced again.
“Now go the fuck back to sleep, we have a long day ahead of us,” Bucky said, leaving no room for argument.
Steve inhaled deeply, dragging the now only semi-familiar smell of Bucky deep into his lungs, where he held it for a few seconds and breathed out slowly.
He closed his eyes and concentrated on counting his breaths, and somewhere in the high eighties, dozed off.
When he woke again, it was several hours later, and slow and gradual. The sun was in his eyes, peeking in through the slit in the curtain and unluckily landing right on his face.
Bucky was laying halfway on his chest, his metal hand wedged uncomfortably under Steve’s right shoulder, and his left leg swung over Steve’s hips, and oh my god, that was his erection pressing into Steve’s left hip, and Steve glanced down and almost swallowed his tongue.
Due to the leg thrown over Steve’s hips, Bucky’s chemise had twisted around and ridden up. And so had Steve’s t-shirt. Which meant that Bucky’s cock was making direct skin to skin contact with Steve’s body.
At the knowledge, Steve tried not to spontaneously combust or explode in his boxers. He desperately prayed that he wouldn’t, and either by coincidence or divine intervention, the perfect cockblock arrived in the form of Punk, who suddenly walked back up onto the bed and stared at Steve for two whole seconds before lunging at him, frothing at the mouth.
Bucky moved, asleep and then awake between one millisecond and the next, intercepting Punk with his metal hand around his throat. He let go after a moment, then reached for him with his flesh hand. Punk paid no attention to this and continued to try to rip Steve’s throat out. The endeavor was made even more difficult when Bucky brought him to his chest to hold close, murmuring into his ear.
Slowly but surely, Punk calmed down and only growled every now and then, presumably to show his displeasure with his homicidal tendencies being thwarted yet again.
“Too early for this bullshit,” Bucky muttered as he got up, blearily hunting around for something before he found them, cigarettes and a lighter. He opened the door to the RV and sat on the steps. Steve warily followed, since he knew that Bucky had never been a morning person, and was liable to get yelled at for breathing too loudly, as he once had. Punk was sniffing the grass a few feet away, under the watchful eye of Bucky.
Bucky just squinted up at him and wordlessly offered the smoldering cigarette to him. Steve took it, too surprised not to. During the war, Bucky had hoarded them like a dragon hoarded gold or like Gollum from Lord of the Rings, one of the few books Steve had read after he was dethawed. Bucky had regularly swindled all the guys in their unit out of theirs in poker games, and would smoke them until Steve was worried he’d evaporate into smoke, since he had enough of it in him.
The cigarette burned his lungs like the asthma ones did, but this time the sensation went away after a second, but he couldn’t say the same for the terrible taste that lingered in the back of his mouth. Bucky lit another one before Steve could hand it back to him and he sighed, resigning himself to finishing off the first cigarette alone, kind of flattered that Bucky shared.
They sat and stood there in the silence, smoking their cigarettes. It was painfully familiar to Steve, who never thought he’d have this again.
“We should get ready,” Bucky said as he stood up, pinching out the tip of his cigarette with his metal fingers, doing the same to Steve’s when he passed him after he picked the dog up, which snarled warningly at Steve, who tried not to smile.
They took turns in the bathroom, and Steve was less than thrilled with his now bruised elbow that had repeatedly hit the wall as he brushed his teeth, cramped as the space was.
When he came out, Bucky was in his underwear, red this time, shaving his legs with a disposable razor, braced up on the booth seat. Bucky spared him a glance and went back to concentrating, apparently unconcerned with Steve’s ungentlemanly gawking.
The booth just so happened to be where his duffle bag was that he was going to return his toiletries to, and he executed a weird abortive movement towards Bucky before thinking better of it. Bucky glanced at him again, longer this time, like he was reevaluating his level of concern.
“Um… sorry, I didn’t mean to stare,” Steve explained quietly, looking away.
“’S okay, I don’t mind. Better you than some fuckin’ pervert.”
Shame welled up in him because Steve was definitely a pervert when it came to Bucky. He fantasized and dreamed and did just about everything but act on his dirty, filthy desires. He wanted to wrap those legs around his waist, drape them over his shoulders as he fucked Bucky hoarse.
Bucky swished his blade in the small plastic bowl of water and started on his right thigh.
Where was Punk’s anger when Steve needed it?
Steve was braver than he was smart, so he bolstered his courage and approached the booth, grabbing his duffle and stowing his stuff away neatly. Then he just got sort of… distracted.
Bucky flexed his leg and Steve let out a strangled noise. A glance to his face revealed nothing, his famous poker face that had liberated all the cigarettes in their unit in place.
Eventually, Bucky was done and wiped his leg off with a baby wipe that he poured water on.
“Wanna feel?” he asked Steve, who blinked in shock, watching in horror and betrayal as his own hand reached up to stroke Bucky’s proffered leg with absolutely no input from his brain. His skin was soft and silky smooth, and Steve couldn’t help rubbing at the skin more.
After too long of a moment, Steve managed to drag his hand away, giving Bucky a smile that felt a little too crazed around his eyes. “Nice job, Buck. Real smooth.”
‘Real smooth yourself, Rogers,’ Steve thought, wanting to hit himself over the head with something.
Punk chose that moment to start barking at Steve again, too late. He sighed heavily and looked skyward.
Bucky snickered, so Steve was glad some good came from his mental strife and persecution by Punk.