It’s a small town, abandoned as far as he can tell. Far enough away from the nearest city that there aren’t likely to be any herds nearby. Bucky hasn’t seen one for days. What few residents the town did have are gone; either dead or walking. Bucky doesn’t see a single living soul. He pulls to a stop on the main drag. This’ll do.
Keebler’s Drug, the store sign reads, faded and cheerful. It’s the kind of thing that elicits nostalgia. Mom and Pop. Bucky grabs the pump action off the passenger seat and does one last scan through the truck’s narrow windshield. Nothing but late summer bugs, so he hops out and shuts the truck’s heavy door with his good arm, pushes the nostalgia down with the nausea, and trudges for the storefront.
The little bell above the door tinkles as he goes in. He hisses at the noise, rips it down so that it won’t tinkle on the way out. His eyes scan the aisles. It’s messy inside, already picked over. Bucky grunts in annoyance and heads back towards the pharmacy counter.
The narcotics cage has been broken through and is completely empty. Bucky passes it and searches out the names of the drugs. His fingers skim bottles of pills until he finds the broad-spectrum antibiotics he’s looking for. He unshoulders his duffle and starts loading up.
He grabs some basic first aid items. There’s no food left, but he glimpses a half-crushed pack of cigarettes on the floor underneath the checkout counter. His mouth ticks up. He scoops up a bunch of batteries and a handful of lipstick tubes from the cosmetics counter and shoves them in the duffle. It’s as he’s bending down to fish out the crushed cigarettes that he hears it.
‘Click’
He freezes. “I don’t want any trouble,” he says.
“Drop the gun.”
A man’s voice, deep. Bucky grits his teeth, but he has no choice but to listen. He sets the shotgun down. His eyes flick to the side, pissed. The man is… little. Doesn’t match the voice at all. He’s pointing a weathered Luger P.38 straight at Bucky’s head. Bucky eyes the gun like he had the drugstore sign. “I dropped it,” he says. “Now let me go.”
“No,” the little guy says. He steps closer.
“Kid…”
“Shut up.” The guy uses his foot to slide the gun away. He keeps the pistol trained on Bucky as he stoops to grab the shotgun. “Okay. Get up.”
Bucky sighs heavily. Fuck. He just wanted a clean run. Now he’s got to deal with this kid. “Kay.” He stands up from his crouch, angling his bad arm away from the kid in the hopes that he won’t notice. “What’re we doing?” he grunts.
The guy twists his lips, eyes flicking around. He’s trying to look tough, but he’s not tough at all. Bucky can see the stress on his skinny body as clearly as he can the rumpled pants, the too-big button down that hangs open overtop an undershirt. Bucky could take him down in a second, snap his neck in three. He tightens his fist around the duffle’s straps to make the thought go away. “What now?” he asks again.
“Walk,” Little man decides, waggling the gun inexpertly. “Outside. We’re taking your truck.”
Bucky acquired the truck on the third day. The Brinks Armored Transport decal on the side has blood splattered over it. It hasn’t rained in the few days since Bucky smashed a walker’s brains out against the metal.
It’s hot outside and the near-distant scream of cicadas only seems to emphasize that. It’s a heavy, humid heat.
It’ll rain soon.
“You have the keys on you?” Little guy asks.
“Yeah.”
“Drop ‘em.”
Again, Bucky grits his teeth. Everything he’s got is in the truck. He’s spent weeks building up enough to feel relatively safe. Food, ammo, meds. “You’re just going to leave me here?” he asks, side-eyeing him. He’ll jump the kid now, risk a gunshot wound or a graze. He doesn’t want to hurt him, but he can’t let the kid take the truck.
“No. Drop the keys, then I’ll let you in the truck.”
Bucky doesn’t believe him. He assesses whether he still has time to recoup, if he plays along. He does. So he drops the keys to the pavement and waits while the kid scrapes them up and runs around to the passenger side door. He gets in, cursing when he realizes that the truck is already unlocked. Bucky’s in the driver’s seat in a flash but not in time. The kid has his gun trained on him. “You rob your grandpa’s safe for that piece?” Bucky snarls. He can’t rush him point blank, not when this idiot kid has his finger on what Bucky knows is a hair-trigger. Fucking antique Lugers.
“Great grandpa.”
Fucking Millennials.
“Fine,” Bucky hisses. “So what’s your plan?”
This is where the kid stumbles. His eyes flick about, taking in the truck, the truck’s contents, Bucky. “…I—”
“Don’t have to do this,” Bucky interrupts. “I’ll get the draw on you, kid. You should take what you want and leave.”
The kid scowls. “I’m not a kid.” His eyes trail up and down Bucky, noticing his bloody shirt for the first time. Bucky mentally curses. “Name’s Steve.”
“Bucky.”
“You’re hurt?”
“I’m fine.”
Steve doesn’t look satisfied. “You bit?”
“No.” Bucky puts emphasis behind it, because he knows he’s dead if he doesn’t. “Here.” He nods at his left arm, where the blood stain is coming through at the shoulder. “I’ll show you. Don’t fucking shoot me.”
Steve nods but keeps the gun trained on him. Bucky wishes he’d take his finger off the trigger. Slowly, he shrugs the duffle off and reaches to pull his tee shirt up. It hurts like a motherfucker to get it off and he glares at Steve for making it necessary. “See?”
Steve’s lips are parted. “What…”
“It’s a prosthesis,” Bucky growls. “What? You never seen a cripple before?”
Steve winces. “Not like that, I haven’t.” His eyes flick to Bucky’s face, reproachful. “And don’t say ‘cripple’.”
Bucky’s eyes widen, and then he scoffs. “Sure, fucking whatever. So I’m not bit. What are we doing?”
“Start driving,” Steve says. “Head West.”
“What’s West?”
“Head West.”
Bucky drives for almost an hour before either of them speaks. He’s gotten on the freeway and it’s mostly clear. Dodging abandoned cars only keeps them down to about a forty mile an hour pace. “Can’t hold that on me all day and night,” he mutters. “Guy’s gotta sleep, gotta piss.”
Steve grunts. “Yeah.” He looks at Bucky long and hard, considering him.
Bucky can feel his stare without glancing over. Little guy’s a fighter. “Why didn’t you just leave me?”
“…I’m not gonna do something like that.”
Bucky laughs at him, wants to punch him. “Sure,” he says. “So I’m here.”
“Yeah.”
“I’ll get the drop on you,” Bucky says again; simple, a fact. He’s half-hoping the kid’ll just shoot him.
Steve doesn’t shoot him. They drive for another forty minutes before Bucky spots a herd in the distance. He slows to a stop and puts the car in park. “What do you want me to do?” he asks.
Steve considers it, looking stressed. “Um, have you ever driven through ‘em?”
Bucky’s eyes slide over, suspicious. “What rock have you been under? You never seen a herd out here in Bum-Fuck America?”
Steve glares. “I’ve stayed put.”
Bucky doesn’t like that. Staying put either means getting killed, or else killing a whole bunch of other people. He hadn’t pegged Steve as a killer but… “Let’s talk,” Bucky says. “We can’t keep this up. Maybe we can work something out.”
Steve nods. He seems relieved, his shoulders sagging a bit. “Okay,” he says cautiously. “Sit back against the door. I’ll put the gun down.”
Fair enough. Bucky listens, shifting to sit with his back up against the driver’s side door, his legs folded on the seat. It’s not exactly comfortable, but at least Steve puts the gun down. “So,” Bucky says. “Let’s make this fast. I gotta piss. Do I go first, or you?”
Steve chews his lip in a way that kind of gets to Bucky. It makes him seem more human, least ways. It makes him seem young. “I will,” he says. “I uh, I’ve been hiding out at the college.” When Bucky raises his eyebrow, Steve clarifies, “Art department. I killed the power and holed up in the kiln.”
“Kiln? Like, giant pottery oven, kiln?”
“Yep.”
Bucky grunts. He isn’t going to congratulate the kid on his quick thinking. “Competition?” he asks.
Steve shakes his head. “No. Most people left campus before it got bad.”
“You didn’t.”
Steve shrugs. “I didn’t have family to go home to.” He doesn’t look like he’s waiting for Bucky to commiserate, which earns him points. He continues, “There weren’t many, um…”
“…walkers,” Bucky supplies.
“There weren’t many around. I raided the cafeteria and that lasted me till last week.”
Bucky nods, understanding that that’s the end of Steve’s story. “I made it out of the city. Found this truck and had to keep on the move from the herds for a while.” He nods ahead at the distant mass of walkers. “That’s the first I’ve come across in a week.”
Steve swallows nervously. “You know how to get around them?”
He looks so hopeful and trusting. It pulls at Bucky’s last heartstrings. The fact that he isn’t pointing the gun at him anymore helps, too. “Yeah,” he says. “We should sit tight. Keep quiet. If they aren’t moving in this direction we’re safe. We can leave once they move on.”
Steve listens to that. He nods. “Okay.” His eyes flick up warily at Bucky. “Two’s better than one,” he says. “Want to call a truce?”
Bucky wonders if the kid just has to pee too. If not, he’s a damn fool to trust Bucky. “Sure,” he says. “Ground rules?”
“Um…” Steve glances around again. The back of the truck is full of stuff. “What all have you got?” he asks.
“As long as we don’t run into trouble?” By trouble he means people. “Enough for a few weeks, probably. Canned goods, weapons, ammo, meds, basic toiletries. Some fuel. Clothes.” He eyes Steve up and down critically. “Don’t have anything that’d fit you.” Steve blushes, which is… Bucky averts his eyes. He’s got no time to think of that. Nobody does anymore. “What were you in the drugstore for?” he asks. “You didn’t have a pack.”
Steve blanches. “I uh… nothing in particular. I’d run across a few of ‘em, on the way out of the college. I was just trying to hide.”
Bucky doesn’t know what to make of Steve’s nervous reaction. “Okay,” he says. “I think I should turn off the engine. The windows don’t roll down. We’ll have to open the doors or get out.”
“Okay.” Steve eyes the back of the truck again where Bucky’s got his bedroll set out. “You sleep with the doors open?”
“No.”
“What?!” Steve astounds. “It’s been ninety-degree nights. In a metal box?”
Bucky shrugs. “I’m resilient.”
Steve isn’t able to let himself relax until they’ve both pulled their pants down and taken a piss. Something about that makes the truce more official. Bucky does a perimeter check, then they climb up the bank on the side of the highway and sit under the shade of an overpass. They’ve both got handguns, heavier munitions left in the truck to keep it fair. Bucky has a machete, saying that he prefers it for “tight situations.”
“You don’t want to shoot unless you have to. It draws attention.”
Steve isn’t sure if Bucky means people, or walkers. Maybe both, but he’s too afraid to ask. Bucky has said there are other survivors; caravans. He hasn’t said much else. “How far do you think they are?” Steve asks. “A mile?”
“Three.”
The herd is visible in the distance, but Bucky has assured Steve that they won’t be noticed from so far away. Steve doesn’t know why he trusts that, but he does.
He’d been wary of Bucky at first. In the store he’d downright panicked. Even once he’d realized Bucky wasn’t a walker, Steve had been shocked. After what’d happened at the college, and then in the town weeks later, he hadn’t counted on running into any living people. All there was were bodies that stank and bodies that walked and …and Steve. He’d thought he was the only aberration. But Bucky’s hulking form in the drug store proved him wrong.
The guy was hurt, and large and armed. And he moved like he knew how to make do in a world like the one they were living in now. Steve knows he should have left him behind, maybe even killed him, but he just couldn’t bring himself to do that. It wasn’t right.
Now, sitting a few yards away from Bucky on the grass, he asks, “Where are you headed?”
Bucky shrugs evasively. “Where are you?”
Good point, Steve thinks, letting the matter go. “We should head West,” he says. “Towards the coast.”
Bucky snorts, which is immediately insulting and hurts Steve’s feelings. “What’s so useful about the coast, kid?”
“I’m not a kid,” Steve snaps. “And what, you’ve got a better idea? There are boats at the coast, that’s what. We could—”
“Could what? Get on one? Live on the ocean? Sail to China?”
“Well I don’t see you offering up anything better!” Steve snaps. “What’s your bright idea, then?”
Bucky just shrugs, looking like he doesn’t care. “I don’t know.”
Steve scoffs. He’d hoped for more from this guy. He’d thought for sure that somebody with an armored truck full of gear would have a plan. “What do you mean, you don’t know? You’ve got all this stuff. You’re obviously prepared.”
Bucky stares at him for a long minute, looking jaded. “Just a habit,” he grunts, not offering anything more in way of an explanation.
Steve frowns. “What? Were you in the army or something?”
“Or something.”
Steve huffs. “Fine, don’t talk. I thought we were calling a truce.”
“We are,” Bucky growls. “Doesn’t mean we’re friends.”
Steve keeps his jaw firm, but inside he deflates. He’d kind of wanted to be, was the thing. “Sure,” he says, moving his gaze to glare at the dead grass. “Have fun bandaging your arm by yourself, then.”
The ground rules they agree on are:
1. Discuss before you do; don’t go moving around or poking around or using up the resources without talking it out first.
2. Report anyone—living or walking—that you see.
3. No drinking or drugging.
4. Alternate watches at night, six hours sleep each.
5. Any cans of Spaghetti o’s that may or may not turn up are Bucky’s. Steve gets all Frito-Lay products.
Bucky knows that by any normal human’s standards, the sleeping arrangements are shit. So he volunteers to take four and give Steve eight, but the stubborn little fucker says no, he’ll take his fair share and lookout for six. Bucky thinks that it seems like Steve’s trying to prove something. He thinks they need to figure out a secure way to sleep more than six fucking hours at a time. A ninety-degree metal box works just fine for someone like Bucky, but if he’s got to drag Steve around with him, well.
“We should find a stopping point,” Bucky says on the second day, when they’ve stopped driving to get some shut eye in an old barn. They’re about to head out again and Bucky’s pulled out one of the tubes of lipstick. He scrawls on the barn’s tin door. 9.02.19. He caps the tube and tosses it. “Somewhere we can set up.”
“Thought we agreed on the coast?” Steve says, though he’s got less optimism today.
Bucky’s figured out that this is the kid’s first big foray into the world as it is now. He’s getting a more realistic grasp of the situation. “There’s no point.”
“You don’t know that,” Steve says. “There could be people. Could be whole cities.”
Bucky scoffs. “I told you—”
“I know what you told me,” Steve snaps. “But have you been everywhere? Have you seen?” Bucky stays tight-lipped, unwilling to encourage the kid’s fantasies. Steve nods stubbornly. “You said there were others. Caravans.”
“Trust me, Steve. You don’t want to meet up with any of them.”
“Why not!?” Steve is glaring at him, not understanding. “Just because you’re antisocial as fuck.”
“That’s not it,” Bucky grits. Shut up, shut up, shut up.
“Then what? Huh? I thought you were Mr. Come Prepared, Mr. Army? Other people could help us. We could pool our resources, we could defend better, sleep better.”
“I was never in the Army,” Bucky snarls. “And you’re not. hearing. me.”
“What?” Steve snaps.
Bucky shakes his head, feeling tired. It just figures he’d have to wind up with the scrawniest, most pig-headed ignorant kid on the planet. “The people who have managed to stay alive this long aren’t the sort you want to make friends with,” he tells him. “They’ve survived this long for a reason. They operate well in a world with no rules, they thrive on chaos.” He surveys Steve’s eyes, waiting for the information to sink in. “Do you get it?” he asks.
Steve nods, looking taken-aback. “Yeah. I… yeah.”
“Good.”
They head out in the truck and drive a day, then make camp again. Time goes by, the scrape of their spoons in their chosen canned goods of the evening the only thing to listen to. Eventually Steve says, “What about you, then?”
Bucky’s eyes flick up. “What?”
“If everyone out there’s so bad, then what about you? What makes you such a survivor?” Steve eyes him up and down assessingly. “Are you a killer?”
“Everyone’s a killer, these days,” Bucky mumbles. But he shakes his head at the same time. “I’ve gone out of my way to keep a wide berth. Anybody I killed who wasn’t a walker had it coming.” Bucky expects Steve to flinch at that or cower away or something. He doesn’t.
“You don’t write the dates on walls for bad guys. I know why you do it.” Steve looks at him knowingly, which is… disconcerting. “You’re just hoping there are good people left. People who’ll see we were here and not feel so alone.”
“You don’t know shit,” Bucky mumbles.
More scraping of cans. They’d found Spaghetti-O’s the other day. Bucky is sharing.
“How’s your arm?” Steve asks.
“Is what it is. I took some meds. Should kill the infection.”
“Yeah you know what else helps? Actually keeping it clean and bandaged.”
“Leave it alone.”
“Let me help you, huh?” Steve says, refusing to let the matter go. He’s staring at Bucky with those goddamned earnest eyes, blue like the sky, like something pure and good that doesn’t exist anymore. “C’mon, Bucky.”
Bucky grunts and shoves up. “Gotta take a piss,” he says, and stomps from the camp.
He lets Steve help him the next morning, when the wound is seeping an ugly color and isn’t healing fast like it should be. He sits stoically as Steve finishes sewing up his skin. “Thanks,” he says quietly. “For this.”
Steve’s eyes flick up and meet his. The space between them seems to shrink, even when they were close together to begin with. “…You’re welcome,” Steve says. He finishes with what he’s doing, forces Bucky to wrap his shoulder, then puts space back between them. Bucky feels…
He doesn’t know what he feels.
It’s later that night that he presents Steve with a bag of Cool Ranch Doritos, like a damn courting gift. “You fixed me up,” is all he says, voice gruff and posture tight. “So there.” Steve takes them with a smile and color in his cheeks.
Things with Bucky get better. By the third night, Steve stops worrying that Bucky’s planning to kill him in his sleep. The other man is big and silent, but he’s said things and done things that’ve made Steve start to suspect that he’s really just a big softie.
Big softie with a metal arm, lots of guns and a sour disposition.
By the tenth day, Steve is glad he’s found him.
By day twenty-seven they’re in a pretty barren part of the country, so when they happen across a Costco in the middle of the dessert, they really have to weigh the pros and cons of going in.
“It’s too risky,” Bucky says from where they’ve stopped on the highway and are surveying the parking lot. “I’m amazed there isn’t a whole damned herd out here.”
Steve hums. “I think it’s worth it.” The parking lot is chock full of cars and abandoned shopping carts. There are more than a few dead bodies, though most of them are well-baked from the sun by now. There are only a few walkers in sight near the building, but that doesn’t mean there couldn’t be more inside. “Come on,” Steve says, arguing his point again. “It’s too good an opportunity to pass up. We can get everything we need.”
“And if we get in there and get swamped?” Bucky says.
Steve, the overconfident little devil, just grins. “We’ll hightail it back to the truck.”
Bucky insists that it’s a bad idea, but he follows Steve into the warehouse anyway. That says something.
Bucky has to admit that Costco might just be the place. Endless, minimally-raided supplies, high ceilings with air-flow, and reasonably defendable points of entry. He drags out the bodies of a couple cashiers as he ticks off the boxes in his mind.
There are only a few walkers inside, and they’re easily taken care of with the first sweep. Bucky machetes their heads off while Steve stands behind, poised to… do something useful with a baseball bat, should the machete fail. “Come on,” Bucky says, once he’s shaking the last of the zombie guts off the blade and Steve has pulled down the warehouse gates (Even the truck fits inside). “Employee showers, then the food court.”
“I’m starving!”
“We stink.”
It’s in the bathroom that Bucky sees Steve’s body.
“Hey!” Steve manages to shield his private parts with one of the fifty pack of ShamWows they found, but that does nothing much to hide the rest of him. Bucky stares.
“Jesus fucking Christ, Steve.”
The smaller man stands there, naked and pale and defiant. “I thought we were taking turns!”
“I forgot we hadn’t checked the bathrooms for—” Bucky shakes his head. “You know what? Not even the fucking issue right now.” Bucky points at Steve’s scrawny body. “What happened to you?!”
Steve glowers at him. “The bathroom's clear. Let me get cleaned, get dressed, and I’ll come out and tell you.”
When Bucky just continues to stand there and stare at Steve’s body—pale and slim and wet, making him think of—
“If I haven’t turned by now, I think you’re safe,” Steve snaps, loud and to get Bucky to leave. “Don’t you?!”
Bucky leaves the way he came and tries to go figure out how to start up the generator.
The joy of being able to power up the warehouse should be more of a momentous occasion, but Bucky can only sit at a table and ruminate until Steve emerges from the showers like a grumpy, wet kitten. “There’s a kid’s clothes section…” Bucky says.
“Shut up.” Steve shuffles over in the too-big men’s Kirkland brand clothing and sits down across from Bucky. “So you want to ask about it. Ask.”
Bucky stares. “They’re walker bites, aren’t they?”
“I’m fine.”
“Obviously.” Bucky watches Steve, allowing his countenance to soften. “Stevie, what happened?”
Steve just shakes his head and stares at the tabletop. “I got bit.”
“A hundred times?
“S’not a hundred,” Steve defends, voice sharp. “Just… I dunno. A few dozen.”
“How is that even possible?” Bucky asks. “How are you alive?”
Steve looks very, very self-conscious. “I… I don’t know. I just got cornered. A bunch of ‘em got at me through a wire fence. I was able to get away, but not before they bit me.” Steve looks up at Bucky guiltily. “That’s why I was hiding in the drug store, when I found you. And it’s why I had the gun. First aid supplies if I needed ‘em, a bullet to the head if I needed that.” He shrugs. “But then nothing happened, I was okay.”
“Yeah I don’t understand that.”
“I couldn’t tell you. You would have thought I was infected. Would’ve killed me straight off.”
Bucky shakes his head no, even though he knows it’s true. “You were the one with the gun trained on me,” he points out.
Steve’s lips quirk and he levels Bucky with a look that goes right to the core of him. “Come on, Buck. You and I both know I never had a shot at taking you out. You just keep me around now because you like me.”
“That’s not true,” Bucky says. “You’re real useful.” He doesn’t take his eyes off Steve as he says it, maybe hoping against hope that if there’s something more there, Steve will be the first one to speak up about it.
But he just blushes and stands and says he’ll go see if there’s anything still useable in the kitchen area or if they’ll need to “go shopping.”
Costco works out, until it doesn’t. The generator takes fuel, so every few days Bucky goes out to the gas pumps and fills containers. It’s been several weeks of blissful safety and peace, so he should have known trouble was overdue. He sees the first few walkers round the corner of the huge warehouse. It's only a few. He pulls out his walkie talkie. “Steve. There’re two coming in the South entrance.”
“…Roger that.”
He’s tucking the talkie back over his pants and going back to the gas when the rest of them start rounding the corner. Bucky’s guts lurch. “Fuck!”
He races to the entrance cattycorner to where the herd is entering, missing the front of the bunch by a few meters. “Steve!” he yells out. “Where are you!”
Steve pops out of the home goods aisle with a relaxed expression and the machete. His face bleeds into horror. “Shit!”
“Gimme that!” Bucky holds out his hand. Steve is quick and slings the machete across the floor at him. Bucky grabs it up and hacks the closest four walkers, then runs after Steve. “Get our packs and get to the truck!”
Thank God they have an exit plan.
They get out.
“Never have I ever gone looking for a fight,” Bucky says, fully expecting Steve to drink. He grins when Steve rolls his eyes and does. “Figures,” Bucky chuckles.
“Oh and you haven’t?”
Bucky stops chuckling. “Naw,” he says. “The fights always come to me.”
“Are you ever going to tell me?” Steve asks. “About your not being in the Army?”
Bucky shrugs. “S’not important.”
“It is to me.” Steve is looking at him tenderly as he says it, eyes soft and blue blue blue.
Well Fuck. Bucky takes a swig straight from the bottle. “I fought for the wrong people. The bad ones.”
“…Did you want to?”
Bucky shakes his head. “No.”
Steve has had it with waiting. This thing with Bucky is real. He knows it is, and he knows that Bucky knows it is. They haven’t said one single word about it, though. Being in the middle of the apocalypse is enough to push feelings off anyone’s plate.
But they raid a liquor store one day when the both of them are in a particularly nihilistic mood, and they agree to hole up in the truck and break rule number three. The nights are cold enough in the dessert to do that, now.
“Never have I ever had a threesome,” Steve says, finally drunk enough to take the game there. His eyes meet Bucky’s bravely. Steve can see the exact moment that Bucky decides to rise to the challenge. He drinks.
“Never have I ever jerked it to internet porn."
Steve’s jaw drops. He glares at Bucky and how he’s not taking a drink, and takes a drink himself. “Seriously?” he grumps.
“Nope.”
“I’m sure,” Steve drawls. He takes a good few minutes to just watch Bucky after that. Bucky’s gotten two-thirds through a bottle without much more of a slur than Steve himself has after twenty sips. “It’s your turn,” he says, putting the impetus on Bucky to decide if he’ll continue down this route.
“…Never have I ever kissed a man.”
Steve’s breath catches in his chest. Slowly, eyes stuck dead on Bucky’s, he drinks. He brings the bottle down. “Never have I ever wanted to.”
Bucky drinks, but then again, so does Steve.
Three days later they have their second serious run-in with walkers. They’ve stopped off at a rural gas station and Bucky is filling up the tank when he hears a yelp and the blast of a gun going off. He abandons the pump and races into the gas-station store, where Steve has blown out a window—and a walker’s brains. There’s only one walker, as far as Bucky can see. He glares bloody murder at the scene. “What the fuck?!”
“I’m sorry!” Steve hisses. “It was right there!”
“They’re always right there!” Bucky stalks into the store and grabs the pistol out of Steve’s hand. “What the hell do you think I gave you the katana for?!” The thing is hung over Steve’s shoulder, unused. They’d taken it from a smashed-up hibachi restaurant where they’d crashed the night previous. “Christ. Everything in a mile radius is gonna come this way now. If you’re gonna be so useless, I’ll take the sword.” Bucky turns to go back out to the pump, but Steve stops him with a rough grab to the back of his shirt. “Hey, you don’t have to be such a—”
Bucky whips around and grabs Steve by the throat and shoves him up against the wall. Chips and beef jerky go flying off the shelves. Steve gasps, because he can probably see the dead assassin look in Bucky’s eyes. Bucky blinks it away and it’s replaced by all the feelings he’s been keeping off his plate. Steve up against a wall puts them back on it, and he surges in and kisses him.
Steve puts his hands on him and kisses back, and it’s hot and frantic and wonderful. Steve flips them around and shoves Bucky up against the wall, which is hot as fuck. But it’s interrupted when a walker comes up behind and bites straight into Steve’s neck.
Bucky shoves a knife in the thing’s eye socket and drags Steve to the truck. It’s a smallish herd—only twenty or so. They plow straight through them and drive for ten minutes at warp speed before Bucky pulls over to do triage.
Steve wakes up in the back of the truck, disoriented. He blinks up at the metal roof and tries to think. “Bucky?”
“Right here.” Bucky’s calm voice. The sound of safety. Steve relaxes. “It’s night. My watch.”
Steve grunts. His neck aches, and suddenly he remembers. “Aw, shit.” He struggles to sit up, ignoring Bucky’s noise of protest. “M’fine,” he says, propping himself up against a crate of food.
“You’ve been delirious. Had a fever.”
That explains the sweat and the shivers. Steve purses his lips and looks at Bucky in the way he’s found gets him honesty the easiest. “How long has it been?”
“Just a little over a day.”
Steve curses. “Fuck. You’ve been awake the whole time, haven’t you?”
Bucky shrugs. “Doesn’t matter. Your fever broke.” He stares at Steve’s neck, where Steve can already feel there’s a dressing. Most walkers start walking within an hour or two, and the way that Bucky lifts his gaze back to Steve’s face says exactly that. “Why don’t you just tell me?” he says.
Steve gulps. “I… okay.”
“Okay?”
Bucky seems surprised, so Steve nods. It’s not like he hasn’t wanted to tell him. “If you tell me,” he says. When Bucky’s face does that shuttering thing that Steve hates, he adds, “Come on, Buck. Whatever it is, what do you think I’m gonna do about it?” He smiles. “What, you think I’m gonna kick you out?”
Bucky huffs. “Punk.”
“Jerk.” Steve gestures Bucky over, and Bucky comes back to sit on his bedroll next to Steve’s. “Neither one of us is leaving. I’m with you till the end of the world. So let’s just get honest, yeah?” Bucky goes tight-lipped. “Me first I guess,” Steve says. “These guys from NIH came to campus one day, picked me out. They said I could take these injections and stand under a ray machine or whatever, and if it didn’t kill me or give me cancer, I’d get strong.”
Bucky frowns heavily at that. “Jesus Christ Steve. You’re an idiot.”
“I know.” Steve shakes his head. “Anyway, it didn’t work. Or at least that’s how it seemed. The NIH guys sure were disappointed.”
“You think that’s why you’re immune?” Bucky asks, and Steve nods.
“Yeah. I do. I used to get sick all the time, and I had bad asthma and allergies and stuff, too. All that’s been gone, since.”
Bucky nods. He says, “I’m glad,” then goes tight-lipped again.
“Hell no, Buck. Your turn.” He has to wait a long time to get Bucky’s explanation. When it finally comes, it’s a real doozy.
Maybe it’s the fact that they’re living in the middle of a zombie apocalypse, but Steve believes him.
Bucky’s glad Steve asked. And he’s glad he told him. Steve doesn’t even make him talk about it anymore, which Bucky is endlessly grateful for. Steve believes Bucky. Bucky’s never told anyone. What sane person would? Hello, I’m a hundred year old ex-brainwashed super assassin. But Steve. believes. him. Bucky flushes and feels warm whenever he thinks of it. Steven Grant Rogers is…
Bucky hears him when it’s supposed to be Bucky’s turn for sleeping. He wakes up and hears the quiet sounds of Steve pleasuring himself from across the church. Gorge Valley Latter Day Saints. Bucky’s pretty sure the Mormons wouldn’t approve.
“Steve?”
The sounds stop immediately. Steve doesn’t say anything, so he’s definitely pretending to be asleep or dead or something. Bucky grins and gets up from his bedroll.
“What?” Steve snaps when Bucky comes over and sits down right next to him. “Go to bed, Buck.”
“Don’t think I will,” Bucky murmurs. Steve’s embarrassed anger is endearing. Bucky lets his metal hand slide over Steve’s thigh. He’s pulled his pants back up but the fly is still undone. Bucky touches the line of his erection. “Can I?”
Steve’s eyes are riveted on Bucky’s hand on his clothed cock. “I…”
“Stevie.” Bucky waits until Steve’s pretty, scared blue eyes flick up and hold on his. Bucky gives him a soft, barely-there smile. “Till the end of the world, right?”
Steve’s breathing through parted lips, breathless. He nods. “Right.”
Bucky grins and closes the distance, connecting their mouths in a kiss at the same time as he dips his hand into Steve’s briefs.
After that, it’s like they’re husbands or something. Steve jokes that since Bucky jerked him off right at the altar, it counts as a marriage ceremony. They fuck like newlyweds whenever they can be sure walkers aren’t around the corner. The truck sees the worst of it, of course, but they do it in the relative safety of abandoned houses and buildings, in defunct walk-in freezers of fast food joints, bank vaults, and one memorable time under the stars on top of a silo. Bucky tells Steve he loves him that night.
Steve says it back.
All good things come to an end. Bucky’s always known that, so he’s okay, but what hurts is to look over at Steve’s sorry face and see how crestfallen he is. The docks ahead are swarmed with a massive herd. The only boat to be seen has a few of them on it, too.
They’ve finally made it to the coast.
“Hey,” Bucky says, coming over and handing Steve his katana, delivering it with a kiss. “You never know.”
Steve smiles, though it’s a little scared too. “Yeah,” he says.
“I love you.”
“Save a bullet for me, jerk,” Steve says.
“You know it, punk.” Bucky winks. “Till the end of the world.”
They grab the AR-15s and take their chances.