Chapter Two
Sergeant!
Gunshots shaking the air around him
- Pal? -
Ghostly screams in his ears
- Bucky? -
A warzone of fire and explosions in front of him, behind him, under his eyelids
- Bucky! -
the ugly taste of blood and explosions
- "Bucky, pal, you're home. You're home. You're safe. Wake up - wake up! It's a nightmare, dammit!" Steve swore. Eyes not even open, Bucky twisted to attack, but there was nothing there. He came awake, wheezing, the phantom pain in his absent arm flaring white and sharp like a thousand pieces of hot shrapnel.
The demon stood a few feet from the bed, wearing a button up blue shirt today and nice jeans. Great. He wasn't a dream. Bucky felt like growling. The meddling sassbot was keeping him from his own life for a year.
"The hell - the hell you doing in my room, Steve?" Bucky managed to get out, finally. He was vaguely ashamed of the mess of garbage and clothes and miscellaneous shit lying around in the dark room he'd spent so much of his time in since he'd moved into the apartment.
"Coming to assess the sleeping bear in his habitat - and an unhappy one it is at that. Have the zookeepers been neglecting you?" The demon asked sweetly.
"What zookeepers? I'm alone." Bucky muttered. Why was this matchstick here? Bucky had agreed to the deal - highly reluctantly - last night. While he had been coaxed and argued and threatened into it, he had given his word. And that still meant something to him. Steve had three hundred and sixty four days before he needed to worry about Bucky trying to off himself.
"You have family." Steve said flatly. "I checked your email."
"Of course you did. Stalker." Bucky muttered, rolling over, away from Steve. He couldn't deal with this before noon. It was only eleven on the morning.
"Stupid." Steve materialized on the other side of the bed, crunching atop a chip bag and a pair of sunglasses from the sound of it. "I was curious who you've been ignoring, and you were snoring, and your passwords are pathetic."
"Just like me." Bucky smiled insincerely at the matchstick. Steve smiled just as insincerely back.
"I don't waste time and energy on pathetic people. C'mon, get up."
"What? No." Bucky grumbled.
"Time is ticking, and I only have a year to get to know you, so we're starting now." Steve yanked the blankets off. "Get dressed or I'll take you in your boxers, pal."
Bucky got dressed only because he knew the demon was stubborn enough to actually take him god-knew-where in his underwear. He threw on his least dirty pair of jeans and an old red Henley that was comfortable, even if he didn't for it right anymore. It stretched over his chest and hung depressingly loose over his left arm.
"Do you like breakfast cafes?" Steve inquired, breaking his train of thought.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Bucky slouched in the metal chair, glaring at Steve. "Could you not?" he snapped.
"What? Teleportation is much more reliable and environment-friendly than cars." Steve smirked. "Croissant?" He offered a plate of buttered deliciousness. Bucky glared harder. Steve shrugged. "More for me. And my host doesn't mind at all." He grinned, looking like a kid with a pillow case full of Halloween candy
Against his better judgement - which he had been ignoring frequently lately - Bucky asked. "Your host?"
"This body isn't exactly mine." Steve explained after eating his first croissant with great gusto. "Did you know the taste of butter used to be associated with Satan?"
"Not - exactly - yours?" Bucky repeated, ignoring the glaringly red herring of butter and Satan.
"Well." Steve set down the plate of croissants. "I'm a demon, pal. I don't exist quite right on the mortal plane. So I had to take a host body. It's much easier than attempting to create one. You have no idea if how tricky the human body is. Seriously. All those stupid little cells and -"
"You stole someone else's body?" Bucky hissed. "There's a real person in there?" He wondered how exactly to free the person. Could he? What if they had been driven insane by having a demon living in them?
Hurt flickered across Steve's face, quickly disguised by a raised eyebrow and snark. "No. The previous soul vacated due to an unfortunate litany of illnesses and is currently in Heaven or Hell, one of the two."
"So you're in a dead body?" Bucky queried. Gross.
"No, I'm in my body, thickskull. It was empty, I took it, I've kept it alive. You finished with the stupid questions?" Steve sassed.
"So you're in a dead body." Bucky said, relieved and surprised at the energy he was spending in this conversation. It was exhausting, but there was a faint pleasure edging his annoyance with the demon. No one had bothered in so long.
"I've been in many things, trouble and yo momma being two of them, but a dead body is not one." Steve shot back, his smirk returning.
"You're too sassy for a matchstick." Bucky mumbled. "Gonna get yourself snapped in two by someone who has the arms to do it."
"A - a matchstick?!" Steve spluttered. "A. Matchstick?"
"Yeah, Your Shortness." Bucky replied. Steve's eyes flared ruby.
"Try snapping me." He challenged. "Just fucking try, dammit."
"Only got one fucking arm, genius." Bucky shot back bitterly. "Or didn't you notice?"
"Hmm, now that you mention it ..." Steve faked a look of surprise. "Touchy McGrumpypants is missing something!" He took a deep breath, giving Bucky the chance to gain control of the stab of pain that went through him. "That brings me to the second step for today. We're going to Stark Labs."
Bucky snorted. "Yeah-huh. And then the moon." On second thought, Steve could probably teleport them there. Bucky frowned.
"We're not going to the ball of cheese in the sky. What would we do there? Wine tasting?" Steve propped his chin on his hand. "Nope. We're going to get you a new arm."