Can't Go On Without You

In the fall of 2010, while the leaves slowly succumbed to the cold which leeched the color from their papery veins, and the warm golden evenings gave way to the bitter chill of winter’s soft fingertips, and long before everything came to an abrupt screaming end on the harsh locker room floor, James Barnes applied for college. He painstakingly filled in and sent out applications to the usual suspects—Harvard, Princeton and, of course, Yale, where he would no doubt be attending, and he looked over all of his essays and recommendations with a self-righteous pride.

He was already planning to major in political science—his upbringing and familial path had all but guaranteed his success on that particular course—but even more importantly, he took a genuine interest in the field. He knew, with all the fervor and arrogant awareness of youth, that he was destined for great things—he was meant to change the world.

He became particularly close to his history professor at the school, a man who encouraged him in all of his endeavors and expected him to think further than just the radical conservatism that ran rampant through the Barnes family. Professor Howard Stark was the first truly like-minded being that Bucky had ever met—the first teacher to undoubtedly take an interest in him and reach out. He was also the first openly gay man Bucky had ever associated with. He looked up to him with almost a religious idolatry and so desperately yearned to be as open and free and casual with his own beliefs, social and political. It was Professor Stark who suggested offhandedly that he consider the University of Michigan as an alternate option—‘the Harvard of the Midwest’ he frequently joked.

“But I have to go to Yale!” Bucky protested.

“Why?”

“It’s just Barnes tradition—all the men go to Yale, it has the best political science program, it’s where my Dad went, my brother just finished there this year, it’s the only school for me.”

“Is it?”

And so he found himself scrambling at the last minute to finish the application to Michigan, the night before it was due, because truth be told, the words of Howard Stark held far more sway over his life decisions than was really proprietary.

He continued to meet with Professor Stark throughout the year after his classes each day. They followed most congressional hearings extremely closely together and Stark encouraged Bucky to formulate his own opinion on each particular matter—whether or not it toed the family line. It was in this way that Bucky slowly began to think for himself; to stop parroting back his bigoted father’s party propaganda, and to realize his own prowess. Even after the locker room incident—especially after the locker room incident—these meetings to discuss the state of the U.S. government were all that were holding him together. It gave him something solid to focus all of his intellect on—something solid to distract him from his life falling to shit around him.

2010 was also a year of considerable stress for Senator George Barnes. A bill had made its way to the White House steps fighting for a repeal of the controversial ‘Don’t Ask Don’t Tell’ policy. It was gaining considerably traction among the liberals, and Senator Barnes was doing everything in his power to stamp it down. Barnes had worked closely with Clinton in the initial compromise over the bill and had also worked solidly to push George Bush into withdrawing the DADT directives. At a congressional hearing on February 2^nd regarding the repeal, Senator George Barnes read from a letter signed by over one thousand former general and flag officers. It stated:

"We firmly believe that this law, which Congress passed to protect good order, discipline and morale in the unique environment of the armed forces, deserves continued support.”

Bucky had tried many times to draw his father into a conversation about the importance of a repeal. He was disgusted by his father’s back handed tactics, disgusted by his own association with the Senator, but had no idea how to express his opinion on the matter without being personally attacked.

It all came to a head one evening over his spring break, at a typical Barnes family dinner. His father was once more lecturing them on the morality of his own stance, when Bucky suddenly broke in.

“Dad, your entire argument is insane. Unit cohesion and military readiness my ass.”

His mother turned to glare at him while Rebecca snorted into her plate, then tried to play it off as nothing. George Barnes on the other hand—he drew himself up to his full sitting height and scoffed.

“So you want to play this game James? You really think you are ready to take on the big boys? You already proved you can’t defend yourself against a couple of stupid kids,” he glanced pointedly at the sling Bucky was still wearing. “I can’t wait to hear what you think you have to say about something of actual import.”

Bucky felt his cheeks coloring but evened his breathing and refused to rise to the bait.

 “Dad. Don’t Ask Don’t Tell has never had anything to do with unit cohesion and military readiness. The only reason you consistently go back to referencing that tired old theme is because you know that you can’t argue that the law should be based on personal morality. There is plenty of research out there already which proves that countries currently do allow gays and lesbians to serve openly and that the practice doesn’t impede any military readiness. And the majority of the House of Representatives has already voted to nix the damn policy.  So why can’t you just admit that the reason you are fighting this so damn hard is that you are a hate-mongering bigot who is afraid of looking bad in front of all your other hate-mongering cronies.”

Well. So much for not rising to the bait. He was breathing hard, and couldn’t believe how good it felt to finally say what he was feeling, to finally stand up to his father,

“Well, well, well. The boy finally grew a pair. Look at that Winifred—your son finally grew some balls.” He looked nastily back over at Bucky. “I assume this is mostly coming from that faggot teacher you’ve been hanging around with at school?”

Bucky suddenly felt like he had been doused in cold water. He couldn’t believe the prejudice and hatred in his own family. He couldn’t believe that people like his father were consistently elected to office, were the ones over-seeing the fate of the country. The unjustness, the unfairness of it all made him want to scream.

George continued. “I certainly hope this ‘professor’ isn’t filling your head with this trash behind closed doors anyways. Certainly don’t want him turning you queer. I sure as hell won’t have a little fairy son in this house.”

Bucky flinched and looked down at his plate. He could feel his mother and Rebecca staring at him, he could feel the tension in the room spiking to an all time high and George started speaking again,

“For your information, James Buchanan Barnes,” he annunciated each syllable of his full name for effect, “allowing gays to serve in the military will be an absolutely deadly distraction, and yes,” he held up his hand as Bucky opened his mouth to interject, “this has been proven beyond a reasonable doubt. Homosexuals are notoriously promiscuous. They will distract and promote chaos and it is an unacceptable risk and disgrace to the American military.”

Bucky snapped his head back up. It was unreal how useless it was to try to argue with this man. His very basis for any sort of justification for his action hinged entirely on myth and made up statistics. And no one ever held him accountable for it. Ever. George was still talking when Bucky stood up from the table, dishes clattering around him.

“I’m done here. I’m going out. Good luck at your hearing tomorrow. Hope it works out for you.”

And he turned his back on George and walked out of the dining room.

The tall brick building stretched up above them, lights from the street below bouncing off of the sheer faces of the seemingly endless levels of windows.

“Jesus…” Bucky mouthed quietly and Rebecca looked sharply over to him, one eyebrow raised.

“Oh,” he stumbled, “this place is huge! This is like…the real deal huh?”

“No shit Sherlock,” she responded.

He glanced over at her and laughed. “No, no, I don’t mean it like that. I just…when you said ‘art show’ I was picturing some tiny little gallery with a couple of forlorn and desperate looking art students standing around.”

“Ha! Well, pro tip—don’t go in there and tell that to Steve. He pulls off forlorn and desperate looking easily enough without any help from the peanut gallery.”

Bucky chuckled as they walked up the front steps of the building. “Meh, I’ll save it for a moment when I want to get under his skin. But seriously—this building is enormous. He must be doing pretty well to have a show here?”

Bex was nodding along. “Yeah—well, you know, this isn’t just his show. It’s the annual student something or other, uh…sorry I kind of tend to tune this stuff out. But you do have to be specially invited; it is a bunch of senior art students from the top programs around the country. So yeah, Steve is doing really well. His stuff is really wonderful—even though I don’t understand most of it. He has been working on this installment for the last couple of years—some social commentary on global issues or some such. At least, that’s what he is always blabbing on about.” She paused for a moment. “Hey—hold up for just a sec.”

Bucky turned and cocked his head at her as she reached out and grabbed his sleeve.

“Just…be nice? Or gracious…or something. I don’t know. He was really weird about the fact that I invited you earlier…”

“What? Why didn’t you tell me that? I didn’t have to come—”

“No, no—stop that! He was fine with you coming. He just feels some sort of super personal attachment to this stuff and you guys haven’t seen each other in a long time and, I don’t know, he just got a little weird about it for a minute. Just be nice.”

“Bex, seriously? Be nice? That is—”

“No! Ugghh, that is not what I mean. Just don’t push him on anything. I don’t know why he is self conscious about it, but he is, so just don’t say anything, just smile, and tell him it’s great, and I don’t know—”

“Oh my God, this is ridiculous.” Bucky turned and dragged her with him towards the elevators. “I am not going to insult any of his artwork, or be an asshole, or do any number of things that you apparently think I am secretly planning. I don’t know if you recall, but I was there when he started taking art lessons in the first place. I watched him study. I watched him draw. I know how talented he is.” He shot her a pointed glare as the elevator doors closed around them and she stuck out her tongue.

“Uh huh.” he nodded. “And I’m the one who needs a lecture on acting nice…”

The doors opened onto a single floor gallery where there were dozens of people milling about. The room itself was large and open—clean white walls accented the dark wood paneling that lined the floor.  There were rows of self-standing walls throughout the space that served as small cubicles for artists to display their work. It was to one of these small areas that Rebecca suddenly led Bucky, stopping momentarily to grab a glass of champagne from one of the many serving staff wandering the space. Bucky only had a brief moment of indecision before grabbing one as well. He was nervous. He could play it off well—especially around Rebecca who was frequently far too involved indulging her own doubts and personal drama to notice anyone else’s— but seeing any of Steve’s art at this point had him sweating. Truth be told, the last artwork he had seen of Steve’s was stuffed into a small storage container he kept hidden under his bed and those drawings—he shuddered—dredged up particularly horrible memories of his own inadequacies that he would prefer to keep tightly sealed at all times.

Steve was chatting amicably with a young student-looking type who gesticulated wildly around him. Steve looked…flawlessly in his element. Bucky was hit by the sudden realization that at some point in the last five years, Steve had truly come in to his own. He was no longer the buff jock athlete and no longer the quiet, brooding artist. No longer the friendly, bear-hugging picture of popularity, no longer the studious and compulsive perfectionist who lived by each hour on his charted schedule. No, instead he had melded in to some wonderful combination of everything—and still managed to exude ‘Steven Grant Rogers—the Cap’ from his very being. He was tall and muscular and grinning that Cheshire-cat smile that could light up a room and Bucky had a moment of deepest envy and fear that he would never feel this complete, he would never trust himself so perfectly, he would never ever be able to express himself as wholly and effortlessly as Steve Rogers did in each and every moment of his life.

He hovered in the background and watched Rebecca run up and give Steve a big hug and kiss. She leaned up to whisper something in his ear and Steve glanced up and caught his eye. He quirked a small smile that looked almost apologetic, then turned back to the student and re-engaged in conversation. Rebecca walked back over to Bucky.

“So, I’m going to just wander for a while.” She nodded back towards Steve, “he seems a little involved in explaining some minutia about the permanence of pen and ink and why the medium has so much import to his canvas.” She rolled her eyes in what Bucky was now recognizing as her signature style. “You can check out his stuff though. I’ll be around.” Then she was off, darting through the crowd and disappearing into the throngs of students, and journalists and teachers.

Bucky sighed then moved in a little further into the cubicle around him. Steve was getting really animated now, and he could hear bits and pieces of the conversation.

 “…right, right! So even the art having the ability to survive for centuries plays in to the concept of economic desolation and the bleak unending despair…”

Right. Thoroughly enthralling. Bucky glanced around and finally looked up to the pieces of work framed on the walls. He felt a small shiver of agitation move through him and he quickly looked around to make sure no one else was near him.

He knew the drawings.

Not the drawings themselves per say…but he knew these instances in their lives, knew them personally like he knew the back of his own hand, or amount of breath he could hold in a given minute. They were abstract portraits of small moments in time, moments of time that he was present for.

He knew these drawings.

He looked over at Steve who was still standing slightly outside the space and preoccupied, then moved back in and looked over the titles quickly.

They're sitting, backs to each other in the train car—Steve sketching and Bucky reading aloud from Proust.

“Jeez, Buck, could you find anything a little less mind numbingly boring to be reading? I’m actually trying to work here and at the moment you’re putting me to sleep!”

Bucky grinned and kept reading, louder this time and punctuating every second word with a small jerk backwards and interrupting the flow of Steve’s pen on paper—“The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new lands but seeing with new eyes,”

“Oh you are such an ass!” The notebook came down hard on Bucky’s head and just like that they were wrestling for control, shoving each other backwards, rolling in the dirt,

They were scrambling over the train tracks, pulling at locked doors, the smell of imminent rain heavily pressing down all around them,

“Found one!” Steve called out and Bucky darted toward him just as the big heavy drops began to fall. He hauled the giant door open, clasped his fingers together and gave Steve a boost up, then scrambled up beside him as the thunder started to boom around them.

“No way…this is beyond cool Buck!”

Bucky  hauled the door back closed and shook out his flashlight from the pack on his back and shined it up at the old train car rafters, looking at the cobwebs around them, smelling the intense musty rotting wood smell,

“We could totally clean this place up, and use it as our super secret official superhero hideout!”

Steve was grinning like a fool as he spoke, his eyes wide with excitement and Bucky found himself nodding along, a small smile creeping forward.

“Yeah Steve. Beyond cool.”

They were running down the tracks as fast as they could go,

“Keep up Steve! They’re after us!” Bucky was shrieking in glee and Steve was falling further and further behind, “Come on!!”

“You have to go on without me!”

Bucky stopped with a jolt and turned back around. “Leave no man behind! ‘till the end of the line!” He raced towards Steve…

He can smell almost nothing but the sterile hospital building, the bleached sheets, the smell of sickness and hurt and death but there is a faint tang in the air of elsewhere—of metal tracks and laughter and he knows it is Steve but he doesn’t want to see Steve, he can’t see Steve…

He is staring at the closed door and can’t breathe right, can’t feel anything, can’t understand why everything has finally shattered to pieces around him,

his best friend is gone.

he is gone.

he is gone…

The memories that were all flooding back came to an abrupt halt as Bucky came to the final installment in the series—the self portrait. He reached up to brush hair out of his eyes that was no longer there out of old nervous habit, then finished his glass of champagne in one long swallow.

It was Steve Rogers, but it was Steve as Bucky knew him. As Bucky remembered him. There was the slightest roundness to his face, a chubby youthful look that Bucky remembered as being full of hope and laughter; but the eyes were violently scratched out, obscured with dark pen stroke that almost looked as though it had ripped up the paper underneath.

He wondered for a moment. Each of the drawings had elicited a very specific memory, drawn out a moment of his life from his repressed subconcious. He couldn’t make that up, could he? Was it the same for Steve? He moved closer and read the inscription on the placard again,

‘self portrait with covered eyes, indicating the artists own blindness’

“Shit…” he murmured.

“Sorry about that."

The voice piped up right behind him and Bucky spun around. Steve was standing there, eyes cast down and his hands in his pockets. There was a certain level of stress to his stance—a barely buzzing tension that Bucky was certain no one else in the room would ever even notice.

“Uh…” Bucky had no idea what to say.

“I wanted to catch you earlier. Before you saw everything. But I got caught up in…well, I just had to finish that conversation.” He made a small gesture to the wall where the drawings were mounted. “So. You get it all I guess.”

He was still looking at the ground, speaking so quietly Bucky had to strain to catch each word.

“Um. It’s us. It’s all us.” He thought for a moment. “Why is it all us?”

Steve shuffled his feet and glanced up for a second, catching Bucky eyes, looking deep into them as if trying desperately to find some sort of approval or judgment of any kind. Then he looked back down again.

“It, uh. It didn’t start that way. I didn’t mean for it to become this.” He looked up for the wall for a second and pointed to one of the placards. “It really was supposed to be this sort of commentary on global economics. But every time I tried to get it right…” he sighed painfully. “I guess I just can’t stop drawing you. Us. But mainly you.” He suddenly chuckled—a raw, wounded sound—and ran one hand through his blonde hair, partially obscuring his face. “Shoot. I don’t know, I don’t know why I can’t get it all out of my head. Everything is just always there fighting to get free…”

Bucky was fighting hard to keep breathing, he felt like he was frozen in time, Steve was still drawing him after all these years apart and he wanted so badly to feel elation, to feel the simple joy of being remembered in such a beautiful way, but all he could feel was a profound sadness that was seeping into his bones. 

“I still have all of your drawings.” He blurted it out. He didn’t mean to—why did he say that? He could feel the tops of his ears getting red, feel it spreading out to his face.

Steve gave the smallest hint of a smile. “Really? You do? I would have figured… well...”

“They were amazing. I keep them. Well…I keep them...” Shit, he was babbling incoherently now, he really shouldn’t have had that glass of champagne—

“I really kind of figured you would have thrown them all out by now.” The sadness was clear in Steve’s voice now, and he looked up at Bucky as though he were pleading for him to say something. What was he supposed to say, what was the right thing to say, he felt heat spreading all over and thought for a terrifying moment he was going to pass out—

“Rogers! There you are! I was just mentioning to Parker here that he really needs to do a write up on your work. Simply astonishing observations on the socio-political repercussions of global environment.”

“Hello Professor Denner, so good to see you! Just one moment,”

Bucky turned around and walked out from the cubicle as quickly as he could. He had to get some air, he could hear Steve calling out pleadingly from behind him in some far off place,

“Buck?”

But he had to get some air, had to get a drink, needed desperately to clear his head.

He was in his room watching C-Span and shaking in a nauseous horrible excitement, waves of anticipation breaching the surface and threatening to overwhelm him, tremors of terror rising slowly to impale him, he rewound and watched it again.

the gavel came down.

“By a vote of 234-194, the U.S. House of Representative approves the Murphy amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act for the fiscal year 2011. This will provide for the repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell and create a process for lifting the policy. The court would like to thank the members of the ServiceMembers United for their testimony regarding the mental competency of the veterans included in the letter presented by George Barnes. The court is adjourned."

He was going to choke on the emotions rising to the surface. His father was going to kill him. Senator George Barnes was going to murder his second son, and Bucky wouldn’t even care because the bill was repealed and he helped, he did that, he helped,

A door slammed from somewhere below him and he jumped. Footsteps echoed up and down the wooden floors, and his cell phone began to buzz; caller ID: Dad.

He closed his eyes and took a steadying breath, then picked up the phone.

"Hey Dad.”

“Bucky. A word downstairs in my office. Now.”

He hung up the phone and impulsively grabbed the loose file folder sitting on his bed, then walked down the steps with all the enthusiasm of someone being led to the gallows. He pushed open the office door and peered around the framework. George Barnes was standing behind his desk, pacing erratically. He looked up and saw Bucky and nodded.

“Come in. Close the door behind you. And sit."

Bucky quietly edged the heavy door closed, then moved over to the large plush chair. There was sweat starting to bead on his forehead now, and he tried to maintain eye contact with his father. He was right. He knew he was right, but he went against the family, he went against his dad and he was going to pay for it,

“Repealed.”

“Sir?”

“Don’t play the idiot boy. I know you know what happened this afternoon. How that delightful mockery of a veterans group, ServiceMembers United got their hands on the confidential lists of over a thousand names that signed the letter. Lists of a thousand names that were only accessible by myself and my secretary.  Lists of a thousand names that were saved directly on this harddrive.”

He motioned towards his computer.

"Now tell me James,” he was racheting up, his face turning a twisted shade of red as the anger threatened to explode. “Tell me, exactly how that damn queer organization got their dirty little paws on those names.”

Bucky took a deep breath and tried to stay calm. “Well, you obviously have a pretty good idea or you wouldn’t have called me in here. Sir.”

“Listen to me, and listen closely because I will NOT repeat myself again. Whatever little faggot agenda you have going on with that damn professor at that school, you can forget about.  You are a Barnes. Like it or not, you are a member of this family. I could have you arrested for this. I could disown you for this. But you are my son. My stupid, idiot, failure of a son, but still my son.”

“Dad.” Bucky spoke quietly. “Those veterans didn’t give consent to be represented on that document. You stole their signatures. Some of them were dead. You committed fraud.”

"I played the game James.” He was fuming, practically spitting out words now. “This is my career. My entire life. I have a constituency to represent, I have a moral obligation to keep the military safe. This is not some stunt. This is not some joke. You single handedly destroyed twenty years of work in one incredibly brainless act of defiance.”

Bucky was breathing hard now. He was trying hard not to get worked up, not to act like George Barnes, but dammit it was genetics,

“You think this was all a brainless act of defiance? You think I am just shitting you with this? This is my life Dad. This is what I am passionate about, I want to—no I have to change things, and that policy was horribly wrong. Morally, ethically, politically wrong. You can’t just do that to an entire class of people Dad. You can’t, they are human beings,”

“And what, are you some queer now too?”

His chest was heaving and he wasn’t thinking and he spoke blindly “So what if I were? Would it really matter that much to you?”

His father stood and slapped him across the face and suddenly there was silence and George was looking at him with the absolute worse mixture of hatred and disgust and Bucky raised his hand to his throbbing cheek and was blinking away shameful tears of pain from his eyes,

 "Get out. Get out of here.”

“Dad,”

“I mean it. Finish out the year at Episcopal and then you are out of my house.”

Bucky scrubbed at his eyes in humiliation then tossed the file folder he was gripping on to the desk.

“I got into Yale.” He spoke quietly, pleadingly, willing his father to stop looking at him with that awful revulsion,

“I could care less where you go to school. Go somewhere where you can fix up your pathetic life and screw your damn head on straight. Now Get. Out.”

 Bucky fled the office.

Steve watched Bucky walk away from him and tried to relax his hands that were balling into nervous fists, fingernails cutting deep in to flesh

“Steven?”

 He turned and consciously made the effort to paste a smile back on his face.

“So sorry Professor. It’s really good to see you again. Thank you so much for coming out here tonight!”

“Of course, of course Steven. It’s always such a privilege to see your work. I brought over a friend from the press. I was just telling him how magnificent your current installment is. He would love to take a look and pick your brain?”

“Always!” Steve smiled over to the smaller man with a notebook and pen perched precariously on his fingertips.

He spent the next hour answering questions, discussing his work with anyone who showed interest, and trying urgently to not bite his fingernails into bloody shreds. He stepped out from his cubicle every few minutes, desperate for a glimpse of Bucky. It was during one of these moments of weakness that Rebecca finally caught back up to him, springing up behind him with her hands over his eyes and making him jump guiltily.

 “Jeez—jumpy much babe?”

 “Sorry,” he spoke prying her hands from his face and turning to face her, “it’s just been a long night. Uh, have you seen your brother around?”

 She frowned and turned her head, quickly scanning the crowd.

 “Nope. Haven’t run in to him. It’s a big place though, I’m sure he’s just wandering aimlessly.” She reached up and laced the back of her hands behind his head, pulling him down for a kiss. “How much longer do you have to stay? Have I mentioned that I have a thing for morbidly depressed artists who dress all in black?” She shot him a coy look. “We could head back to your apartment…find you some black…”

 He pushed her away gently and tried not to make a show of his own crowd-scanning.

 “I’m really sorry Rebecca, but, uh, I need to be here a little longer, and then with the announcement and everything tomorrow night, don’t you think we should probably get some rest?” He was nervous, why was he nervous? He kept looking back at the corridor, praying for some flash of Bucky, wishing fervently that Bucky would appear, give him a clap on the shoulder, crack some joke about poor aspiring artists and grin maniacally up at him and they would laugh and everything would be ok again, and he wouldn’t be off somewhere hiding in a corner, horrified that some guy who he hadn’t talked to in years was drawing him over and over and over and over,

 “Dude. Earth to Steve. Come back!”

 He realized Rebecca had still been talking at him, he was starting to feel this spiraling panic and he needed to calm down and he was just the worst, so he managed a small smile down at her.

 “Shoot, I’m really sorry. I’m just exhausted, it’s been a really long day.”

 She nodded. “Yeah. It’s no problem. We’ll just go out tomorrow night to party hard and celebrate both the announcement and your art.” She gave him one last peck on the cheek. “Ok, well I am going to try to track down Bucky then and head out for now. See you at the office tomorrow?”

 “Of course.” He watched her turn, then on a wild spur called out, “Rebecca?”

 She glanced back over her shoulder, looking inquisitively at him.

 “Um. Do you know…” he waved to the wall behind him, “do you get what these are all about?”

 She smiled and moved back into the space. “Well, ok, I am totally not an artist or anything, and I definitely don’t think about anything quite as deeply as you do, but you have talked about the viewer as an everyman and what not, so yeah, kind of? I mean, I get that the shadowy guy that is in all of these should be the viewer right? And the point is to bring the viewer in to the discussion—make them feel responsible for the growing economic crisis? I think it’s really great Steve, I truly do—you don’t have to worry about people ‘getting’ it. It’s super clear when you explain it all.”

 He heaved a massive sigh of relief and release and just a touch of sadness. She didn’t know. She couldn’t know. She didn’t know, and it somehow just compounded the fact that his entire life was a lie, and no one would ever know,

 “Right? That is what you meant, right?” She was staring at him now with concern, a slight confusion marring her perfect features as she struggled to work out what else the art could possibly mean.

 “Of course. That’s right. Right, umm well, thanks so much for coming out tonight. Tell Buck bye for me ok? Tell him…well…just tell him bye…”

 She kept eyeing him for a single moment. “Of course I will. I love you Steve—you know that right? I love you.”

 “I love you too.”

 He got mind numbingly wasted. It wasn’t hard for him to find alcohol or drugs in the suburbs, especially not when he had already made some decent contacts selling off some of his Percocet and Vicodin to pay for other indulgences. All he had to do was make a quick call and then he was sitting in the dingy old basement of a new ‘friend’ shooting up, and downing a liter of whiskey, then shooting up again. By midnight when he finally stumbled out of the weathered, beaten down apartment he could barely see straight and it was a fucking miracle he managed to make it back home. Well. Back to the front lawn of his home. Where he stumbled around aimlessly, trying desperately to get the damn sling off from around his neck because Christ that thing was irritating as hell, and he seriously could use his arm for balance at this point. He managed to get it off, pulling it sharply around his head, but he stumbled and threw out the bad arm for balance and shit if it didn’t hurt like balls, the worst thing he had ever felt, he was giggling as he started to puke up dinner and whiskey and whiskey burned like a bitch coming back up and great, now there was a massive pile of puke in his mother’s begonias and he just wanted to fall down and go to sleep, so he tried to but there was someone there shaking him back and forth.

 "Quit it,” he mumbled, “jus…le me sleep…”

 But she wouldn’t stop josteling him, he looked up and saw her there, crying and calling out his name over and over and for fucks sake it was Bex,

 “Hey Bex,” and he rolled over and puked again and must have blacked out momentarily because when he came to, she was on the phone with someone,

 “Please, please hurry,” she was sobbing into the phone, why the fuck was she sobbing, nothing was making sense right now, the ground felt like wet grass—must be funny to be wet like grass,

 "Oh God Steve, I don’t know what to do, he trusts you right?”

 “Steve?” he gurgled out and lurched sideways, “No…no…I don’ want to…”

 “Bucky!” She shrieked right in his ear, and he pushed her away, but shit it was with his bad arm and that hurt so bad, why did it hurt so bad,

 he blacked out again and when he came to, someone bigger was leaning over him. He could still hear Rebecca crying in the background,

 “We can’t wake up my parent’s Steve, they’ll kill him. They can’t know about this, you just, you just have to get him off the lawn,”

 Oh shit, he was barely more coherent now, but he could smell him he had already tasted him on the air, he stumbled forward and started kicking and swearing,

 "Get the fuck off of me, get off of me, get off, ge' off, g'off,”

“Bucky, Buck, stop! I am not trying to hurt you, Buck, you need to let me help, Bucky,”

 there were hands all over him now and he couldn’t be like this in front of Steve, Steve hated him when he was high, he couldn’t breathe anymore, he smelled like stale sick and awful, and he just wanted to sleep,

 “Get off of me,” he was crying now and trying to push him away,

 “Bucky, I’m not gonna fight you!”

 shit his arm hurt, everything hurt, the colors were swirling around more and he wanted to sleep and not feel the blue anymore because blue hurt more than the others, it hurt more than everything else,

 he blacked out again.