I think I was wrecked all along
He fell to his death, like a raindrop Steve thinks. Jumped off an overpass, and, didn't quite die on impact but died a few minutes later.
Steve wonders if he felt it, those last minutes, if he felt his bones shattered, if it felt like splintered glass underneath his skin.
But- a big part of Steve hopes that he was just dead to the world, brain already dead or something, just waiting for blood loss to take him.
Another part of Steve wishes he could have held him, even with the bones jabbing out of his flesh Steve would have loved him, would have thought he was beautiful. Bucky's always been an angel in Steve's eyes.
Steve's just now realizing that the hard part about loving angels is that they're never really alive, no matter how bad you want them to be.
—
There's actually a letter on his bed, Bucky's mom found it. There's something oddly nice about it to Steve though, because, it's what he wanted, and really that's all Steve has ever cared about.
Steve drops a flower on the pavement where he fell, a rose that he buys for a dollar at a grocery store. It's red and it kind of matches the stains on the concrete.
It kind of matches the color of Bucky's lips.
—
Steve lies in bed at night thinking about it, not about it, but about maybe how Bucky felt.
Like- the free fall, did he feel like a bird? Maybe like a feather falling, a slow drift downward. Did he close his eyes? Or keep them open to get one last look of the city?
Sometimes Steve's chest feels hollow, sometimes it feels like his ribcage is packed tight with bricks.
He either feels too little or too much anymore.
—
It takes a year for Steve to dream. But when he does Bucky's in it.
It feels a little like that sensation you get when you relax and startle awake, like falling. A bit like holding Bucky's hand so he isn't alone.
But he doesn't startle awake. He falls and falls and suddenly Bucky's falling faster, falling lower. Yet Steve isnt falling at all.
Steve feels the emptiness in his hand as he watches Bucky hit the pavement and crack. It sounds like a plane hitting the ground. Like shattered glass and spilt milk and- he startles awake. His stomach churns around nothing in it and he covers his floor in bile, wiping his mouth on the skin of his wrist.
His ceiling fan keeps on spinning and rain comes down in a soft patter against his window and the world keeps going whether he likes it or not.
He drinks down water from his kitchen tap and thuds his head against the wall a few times to maybe shake it back in place.
Then he falls asleep and goes back to not dreaming.
—