Chapter 13
Bucky comes back from the restroom and Sam has let it go. He introduces him to other people there even though Bucky's eyes still go back to Steve. He has nice small talk with more people than he figured he would as the night goes on. He can see how happy Sam is that he got out here and it makes him feel less awkward about being here in the first place.
The crowd thins out a little bit and Bucky can more easily spot Steve now. It's been a few hours since they were "first" introduced with Bucky silently promising he'd get back to Steve. Now as he sees him he's alone in the corner of the living room and not as happy go lucky as he saw him earlier, everyone else is spread out away from him. Bucky watches as Steve sits there twirling his glass in his hand. Now instead of a beer it looked like a cranberry drink, possibly spiked with some vodka. Bucky watches as Steve takes a sip and winces, yeah definitely some vodka.
Sam comes back over to him and claps him on the shoulder. "Hey lost you a little bit back there."
"Yeah umm Clint decided to take me around to people on his own." Bucky nudges to the man who he's now more friendly with and who also kindly took Buckys correction about his bar. Clint of course apologized but it's not like it was his fault. He only read what was reported.
"Well that's good."
Bucky nods. He stands there biting his lip not sure how to ask the next question. "So uhh...what's going on with...?" He nudges his drink in Steve's direction. Sam turns around.
"Ah...Him and Peggy must've had a spat. She left about a half hour ago."
Steve had talked about a significant other but he talked about them breaking up more in Steve's time, 2012 or 2011 not in Bucky's
"Does that happen a lot?"
Sam shrugs. "Depends. They're more off and on. It's hard with our work schedules sometimes to fit others in. Maybe that'll change soon, " Sam says.
Bucky nods. Maybe they were off and on until Steve went into his Private Practice, had a more traditional schedule.
"Hmm. Guessing no one's tried to go over there."
"Guessing correctly."
"Well," Bucky turns around. He pours himself more soda and puts a tiny shot of rum in it. "No hurt in trying."
Sam looks surprised as Bucky makes his way over to the sofa.
He sits down next to Steve, the blonde turns towards him as if he was seeing him for the first time. Bucky looks into his eyes, there's a bit of green in the blue of them and he could stare into them forever to see if there was even more.
Steve's brows are furrowed, Bucky figures he probably knew people avoided him when he wasn't in his friendly frat boy mood.
"Sorry uhh...we met earlier," Bucky says realizing how awkward this was now.
"Oh..." Steve squints maybe thinking that'd help him recognize Bucky or maybe it his way of getting his brain to focus to remember him. "Sam's friend?"
"Yeah." Although Bucky supposes that's pretty much everyone here.
"I know... Doesn't narrow it down really," Steve reads Bucky's mind.
"Yeah..."
"Well Sam's friend, I'm gonna be honest, I'm not going to remember much of this night," Steve's words slur a bit as he lifts his glass to his lips and takes another sip of his drink.
"I know," Bucky says with a tint of sadness. "It's Bucky by the way."
"Hmm?"
"My name."
"But you go by James right? Or something like that?" Steve struggles to remember.
Bucky smiles, "No my name is James. I go by Bucky."
"Odd..."
"What?"
"No. I've heard of Jimmy, Jim, hell Jack even, but Bucky?"
Bucky laughs. This again. "My middle name is Buchanan. Bucky goes off of that."
"Ahhh okay. Still a weird middle name but I won't judge." Steve shrugs.
"Yeah I don't care for it hence Bucky."
"Fair enough." Steve nods. He points to Bucky. "Would be weird to go by Buchanan."
Bucky snorts "A little bit yeah."
Then Bucky sits there as Steve tries to remember his high school history and what exactly Buchanan did besides fail to stop the Civil War and have rumors of being a closeted homosexual.
"Guess I can't really talk..." Steve starts. "My middle name is Grant. As in Ulysses S... Though I can at least excuse it for being a more common name."
Bucky is taken aback. It's something he hadn't found out about Steve yet. He laughs "What's with our parents and presidents?"
"Right? Couldn't be normal and give middle names after a Saint? Or relatives?" Steve laughs and Bucky does with him.
Steve asks him "what do you do again?" but he actually didn't ask that tonight. Bucky tells him he runs a business and Steve lets it go with a comment that he was being "mysterious." Bucky asks him what he's up to now since he really actually didn't know. The Steve he knew was working in the ER, he knew this Steve wasn't.
"Me and Sam are working on opening a Private Practice. Lots of preparing, paperwork, blah blah blah. Should be good once we get it started though."
Wait. The Private Practice. Of course! That's what Sam was alluding to! A small part of him wants to warn Steve about it, warn him that it won't work out but he's not sure if he does what that will change in the future. If it didn't change Steve's it might change Sam's. He couldn't risk that. He just nods and lets Steve tell him all about it.
They talk more about various things. First just more small talk then to more complex things. Steve even managed to stop slurring his words so much.
Bucky asks about Peggy, tries to be subtle about it but it fails. Steve doesn't seem to mind. He opens up how they were technically on a break but she agreed to come before that happened so she decided to show and fake it for a bit with him. She had to leave because of work in the morning. She was also his ride.
They move on from that, Bucky not really wanting to hear more. They talk about everything else. The stars outside, the moon, the sound of the crickets, sun melting ice cream on a hot day, parts of their childhood. They talk about everything that comes to mind and Bucky says what he wants knowing Steve won't remember any of this in the morning or if he does it'll be a very unclear haze of memories.
A song comes on that they both know well and they can each tell by the way the other reacts to it. Steve starts humming along as Bucky taps his foot to it.
"You sing, Steve?" Bucky asks.
Steve lets out a silent laugh as he pulls his head back. "Noo..." He gets up from his spot and for a split second Bucky is worried Steve is leaving. Steve holds out his hand next to Bucky's arm. "But I do dance."
Bucky lets his small, worried face turn into a soft smile as he grabs Steve's hand and lets the man pull him up. He takes Bucky in an embrace, moves his arms to wrap around him. Bucky rests his chin on Steve's shoulder and he's so happy but he also wants to cry from something other than that. He's sad that he'll never be able to be this close to Steve again; to touch him, to feel him, to smell the sweet natural smell of him masked by cologne and alcohol but his now favorite smell nonetheless. He wants to cry that his Steve will never get to feel him like this. He soon shakes the sadness away and lets himself just enjoy the present for once.
They dance to the song full way through and then the next, and even the one after that. Bucky wants to dance the whole night until they fall in on each other but Steve pulls away when the 3rd song finishes.
"Gettin late," Steve says, his voice a little hoarse and a little more slurred. That vodka cranberry he refilled mid conversation and finished off might be catching up to him now.
"Yeah," Bucky says as he let's Steve's arms slip away from him.
Steve pulls out his phone from his back pocket. It must've vibrated 10 times while they were dancing. Bucky looks away as Steve unlocks it and looks through the messages.
"Shit... my ride is here," He says as he puts the phone back in his pocket.
Bucky swallows hard and nods, he doesn't want this night to end but here it was ending right in front of him.
"I'll see you around, Buck?" Steve asks as he starts to walk away.
"Yeah sure," Bucky gives Steve one last smile knowing he wont see Steve around. Steve gives a wave goodbye to the others left at the party (it really faded out as they danced). Steve looks at Bucky one last time as he stumbles out of the front door. Bucky watches him leave knowing he won't remember him by the next day. Bucky will remember for the both of them.
"What was that about?" Bucky hears Sam behind him.
"Huh?" Bucky shakes out of his sad thoughts.
"Last I left you you guys were talking. Went outside to talk to others for a bit, came back in and you guys were dancing."
"Oh well he...just really liked the song that was on," Bucky clears his throat and turns to Sam. "Happy, drunk guy asks me to dance it's hard to resist."
"Especially a good looking one huh?" Sam smirks.
"Right. Well that does help."
Sam laughs. "Well thank you for getting him out of his funk. Not many brave it."
"You haven't?"
"Ever since I know him he always prefers to be alone when he's like that. I've tried a few times but it was best to leave him. But you!"
Bucky shrugs. They smile at each other for a moment and Bucky's falls. "Don't umm remind him about tonight." Bucky says.
"Oh I don't think he'll be remembering much."
Bucky hides that knowledge with a breathless laugh to let Sam believe he was still in a light mood.
"Probably not," Bucky says lightly but goes serious again. "But if he happens to or inquires at all about tonight don't tell him- at least not about me."
"What? Why? Seems like you guys were getting along."
"We were. It's just...it's complicated."
"What because of Peggy? Three of us can still hang out?"
"Oh I think you two will be very busy in the future," Bucky says knowingly.
"What do you mean?"
"I know about the Private Practice, Sam," He playfully hits his friend's arm. "Why didn't you tell me?"
Sam smiles proudly. "Didn't want to jinx it."
"Well congratulations," Bucky says holding up the remaining of his drink. The ice melted in it long ago. Sam holds his up to and they bump glasses as a toast.
"Thanks, man."
"Proud of you," Bucky says attempting a genuine smile.
"Thank you," Sam says grinning back but it drops when he sees past Bucky's. "You okay?"
"Yeah, I'm fine," Bucky brushes Sam's concern away. "It's just getting late."
"Yeah..."
"I should get going," Bucky moves his wrist to look at his watch. Last calls for his bar would've ended almost 2 hours ago, definitely late even for Bucky's standards.
"You wanna stay the night?" Sam offers.
"No, no. I'll be fine."
"You sure? I could make the spare bed real quick?" He points behind him to where the guest room must be.
"No, really it's okay." Bucky grabs his glass and starts to go for the kitchen.
"Here I got it." Sam grabs it from him.
Bucky nods to Sam's gesture. "Thanks for inviting me by," He says. "It was..."
"Wasn't the torture you thought it was going to be," Sam finishes his sentence.
"Yeah, yeah," Bucky rolls his eyes jokingly. He walks towards the door as Sam follows.
"You sure you don't want to spend the night?" Sam asks one last time.
"Yeah I'm sure," Bucky's hand touches the handle to the door. "I'll text you when I get home."
Bucky takes off in his car. He barely had a drink tonight so hes safe to drive. He could stop by his apartment in the city instead of going all the way to the Lake House, Jack was fed before he left and he'd be good for a while, but he knew come the morning Bucky would be upset he wasn't at the lake house and be able to deliver a letter about this crazy night. So he makes the longer drive to the lake., thinking about the night again in detail as does so. He realizes he never got confirmation if Sam would tell Steve or not but a part of him knows Sam won't tell Steve even though he didn't get the reason out of Bucky, that is if Sam will even remember the night as well.
Bucky makes it home safely and texts Sam to let him know. He gets back a "Aweum. Thanx hor comeng" and a thumbs up paired with a winky face. He texts Sam back making sure he has water by his bed, Advill ready, and lets him know how good a greasy burger with french fries will sound in the morning. He gets a middle finger back.
He resists penning the letter to Steve until he could get a night's rest and really think it through.
Mid slumber, and after tossing and turning through most of it, he wakes up and writes it.