warnings: swearing, mentions of underage alc0hol consumption (MDNI!)
pt. 1 pt. 2 pt. 3 pt. 4
The first time Bucky kisses you, it is not romantic or slow or- or gentlemanly like he had wanted it to be.
He honestly has barely even thought that far ahead, ever since that night in your narrow bed with Steve coughing in the next room and that stupid fucking shirt-
He can’t let himself think of that. Not now, not ever again. It’s not right, not proper, as his ma would fuss while she wipes down the kitchen table. Those are the kind of thoughts that are reserved for people who are older. Who are married. The kind of thoughts that he’s pretty sure would make the statue of the Father over the altar strike him down with lightning bolts. Or something more painful.
Besides that, it’s you. You, a slip of twilight with eyes that are too big and hands that are too small, bony wrists and knuckles, floating in and out of Steve’s house and down to the docks with sharp eyes and a sharper tongue. You, who used to skip rocks in the river after school with him, your breath puffing out over your scarf. You, who would never admit she was scared of the dark till she turned nearly thirteen, so he’d leave the lamp on in the kitchen before he left for the night. For you.
It feels like a betrayal of the cruelest kind.
But he can’t stop noticing you. It’s as if a floodgate has opened and all the tiny things he took for granted before are piling up and rolling into a massive snowball that’s going to steamroll him into a pancake of horniness and longing.
He notices how when you bend over to lace your boots, your hips are wider. Rounder, not the corners-and-edges limbs from a couple years ago.
He notices that you have one dimple in your right cheek and two in your left when you turn around to laugh at Steve on the way to school.
He notices that your laugh somehow makes him want to smile and scream and spontaneously combust.
Poor Bucky. It’s no wonder that he’s as wound up as he is the night of the dance.
You hadn’t wanted to go. It wasn’t your thing; you’d never been the overly social type, and being up that late in a brightly lit room with that many people (and cigarette smoke, knowing the older boys in your class) sounded the opposite of appealing.
But beautiful, blonde-haired Marlie Robinson had turned Steve down with a flounce of her skirts and a giggle and her friends had all snickered behind their hands at his kicked-puppy expression. And that had made you really fucking mad, so you marched over with your arms full of books and asked Steve to go with you instead.
His thin face had brightened and you’d grinned at him, grabbing his arm and throwing a trace of a sneer in Marlie’s direction before heading home.
Bucky had been uncharacteristically quiet the whole way back, you weren’t sure why. You and Steve usually made up for it with the usual babble about books and the news and the radio bulletin for that day, but it was enough to be noticeable.
You skip back to brush his arm- one of them, the one that’s not carrying your books, which he’d taken right out of your arms with nothing but a grunt for your chirp of “thanks!”
“Got a date for tonight, Barnes?” You try to recall the face of the latest girl who was always hanging ‘round the docks at the time he got off work- a cloud of light brown hair and baby-blue eyes. “What’s ‘er name, Rosalie?”
“Not gonna go.”
The words are clipped and tight.
You stop in your tracks and stare at him. So does Steve, who wheezes with laughter. “Ain’t no way. You coulda gotten any girl on the block- all of ‘em melt to the floor when ya walk by”-
“Did you forget to ask?” you inquire gleefully as a muscle ticks in Bucky’s cheek. “Or, wait, did they turn you down?”
“I bet they found out somethin’ really awful about ‘im,” surmises Steve with a wicked grin. “Maybe that he stinks like fish from the job”-
“Or that he stomps on their feet when they’re tryna dance!”
“I bet all that hair gel is turning ‘im gray under the cap”-
“I bet it’s fallin’ out!”
Both you and Steve hoot gleefully while Bucky’s face gets darker and darker.
He can’t tell you that he wanted it to be you. He wanted to take you to the dance, wanted to take your hand and spin you around and dip you like the gentlemen in the flicks he watches alone so Steve can’t make fun of him. He wanted to buy you a drink, or a milkshake, or something. Anything that would make you look at him and smile the way you were now, bone-meltingly soft and sweet-
He shoves your books into your chest as you approach the house and turns on his heel. Surprised, you and Steve turn after him. “Where ya headed, Buck?” calls Steve.
Bucky doesn’t turn around, shoulders stiff. “Docks. Picked up 'n extra shift.”
Steve turns worried blue eyes to you. “D’ya think we made ‘im actually mad?”
You shrug, ignoring the tiny, possessive curl of jealousy that preens, satisfied, at the knowledge that he’s not going to the dance with Rosalie or Nancy or Emma or whatever the hell her name had been. “Who knows. We gotta leave soon, though”-
You realize as you clasp the chain around your neck, the final touch on your appearance, that you have no idea what you’re doing.
The dress is a new one. Well, newer, you suppose; it’s your good dress, the one Mrs. Rogers bought you at Christmas. It’s white, frilly underneath with a second layer of skirt, and its straps are narrow. The sweetheart neckline is just low enough for the locket to rest on your skin.
The locket was Bucky’s gift to you on your last birthday. You have no idea how long he’d saved up to buy it, a silver heart on a delicate chain that you’d glanced at a grand total of once on one of your shopping trips and mentioned offhandedly that it “looked pretty.”
Then you’d realized the heart had a “B” engraved on one side. Probably from the jeweler’s- Benson something- but Bucky had sworn up and down that he’d had no idea till after he’d bought it.
You’d thrown your arms around him, nearly knocking him off his feet, and he’d laughed and reeled backwards and you were friends, right? Friends did those things for each other. Friends walked each other home and bought gifts and remembered the stupid stuff you said even when you hadn’t even known they were listening.
Shaking the thoughts of Bucky out of your mind, you adjust the neckline in the mirror. Your hair is pulled back at the top with a white ribbon (which had been a bitch to tie; you’re pretty sure you pulled out more hair than the damn hairstyle was worth), as per the magazine you were copying. You step into your kitten heels. They’re older; you’ve had them for a few years, and the age is apparent in the dullness of the red exterior.
You look at yourself in the mirror. You’re not sure if you look more or less grown-up. Maybe unfamiliar is a better word- is your hair right? Does the dress gape in the back? You should’ve put some lipstick on-
Your stomach sinks. You don’t know how to do these things, fuck, you didn’t even know what a cup size was till one the salesgirls at the department store had taken you into a changing stall, face burning, on your thirteenth birthday. Your mother hasn’t told you this stuff. You’re never going to know this stuff-
Steve hammers on your bedroom door. “Are we going or what?”
Bucky hates everything.
He hates the mud from the spring thaw that’s seeping over the tips of his boots. He hates the cool breeze that’s wafting the scent of moisture over his face. He hates the innocent pile of lumber that’s sitting in front of him on the street corner.
He kicks it a couple times. Just for good measure.
Once. Twice.
The thunk of his boot does not distract him from the fact that you’re right around the corner, in the brightly lit community hall, and you’re not with him.
He stalks up to the window like he’s some goddamned creep. Backs away. Shoves his hands in his pockets. Mutters a curse. Scratches the back of his neck.
He peers through the window.
His spit catches in his throat and he doubles over, feeling hot and dizzy and cold all at once, but never removing those eyes from the window.
From you.
You, next to the refreshments table with a glass of something pink and fizzy in your hand. You, standing with your legs crossed all pretty, eyes big and bright in the crowded room.
You, in that white dress that fluffed like pure sin around your shins and calves.
Bucky’s seen his fair share of raunchy magazines and posters, but the sight of your fucking ankles is nearly enough to make him swoon like some Victorian maiden.
The neckline is innocently modest, not revealing any cleavage, all lace and demure smiles. But he can see, oh God he can see, the unrestrained swell of your breast beneath that, the way it narrows down to your waist and the outline of your legs under the white fabric-
He’s gonna die. He’s gonna pass out and die right there in that alleyway and his ma is gonna wail fit to wake the dead when her son is hauled off to the morgue, corpse to be filed under P for pervert.
However, when he finally opens his eyes and peers through the glass again, you’re on the floor and Steve is next to you.
You’re fucking humiliated. More than you ever have in your life. This is a mortal- no, a cosmic- kind of humiliation, the kind that should make the stars gasp in offense and flee from the sight of you.
It was the heels. The fucking kitten heels that you should’ve known were old and worn out.
One of them had given way when you shifted your weight, and the next thing you knew you’d been on your ass on the ground while someone hooted above you.
Everyone was staring. Someone snickered (probably fucking Marlie, you thought murderously). Steve drops to his knees beside you- “you okay?”- and grabs your arm, trying to tug you up. You wobble. Fall again.
The whole class laughed. A couple people pointed. You can already sense the whispering start- clumsy girl, weird girl, can’t even wear a dress properly-
Which was when Bucky appeared in the doorway.
Bucky’s biceps are burning from the awkward position. He’s never gonna admit that, though. He’s also not gonna lower you an inch, because if you do you’re most definitely going to feel the prominent problem that’s making itself known through the fabric of his pants.
You sigh, lazy, maybe a bit tipsy even, leaning back on his arm. “Do you think the stars ever look at us and think about how stupid we are?”
He lets himself grunt a reply. Can’t let himself say more, because right now he is very, very close to pushing you up against the wall of the nearest building and-
And fucking what Barnes? spits the unhelpful, gleeful corner of his mind that deals with Big Emotions™. Or other…big things.
“I bet they do,” chimes in Steve. Apparently nothing daunted at their rapid exit from the dance, he’s trotting alongside you and Bucky. “I mean, they see everything on earth. I’d get tired of seeing people mess up over an’ over again.”
Bucky breathes through his nose. Closes his eyes for a moment. Reminds himself that Steve is his friend.
“D’you ever wonder what it’d feel like to touch a star? Cold or hot? Probably hot, right?”
You shift in Bucky’s arms, where you’ve been ever since he scooped you right off the dusty dance floor, your legs over one arm and your back supported by the other, ruined heels dangling carelessly off one finger.
Bucky can see down your dress front, past the crinkle of the neckline. The curve of skin, that swell into round and soft and warm. His skin feels like it’s on fucking fire.
“Mm. Hot, probably. Buzzy too. All that energy.” You rest your head on Bucky’s shoulder and he has to physically control himself from exploding, a function he hadn’t known the human body had.
He sets his teeth. He wants to hold you like this forever. He wants to keep looking at your legs draped so innocently over one elbow, at that pretty little white satin bow that brushes his jaw whenever you move. He wants to bury his face in your hair and inhale that perfume till he suffocates.
But all too soon, you’re back at Steve’s house.
He sets you down on the front stoop. If his hands linger, a tiny fraction of a second, on the backs of your legs, he doesn’t let on.
You turn to face him at the doorstep, that sweet, slightly loopy smile on your face. “Thanks for the ride, Barnes.”
His whole mouth goes fucking dry at the phrase and he swallows hard.
Steve pushes past you, yawning loudly. “‘M gonna head to bed. I’m beat.”
Which is when you turn to Bucky and ask him “if he wants somethin’ to eat, that extra shift musta worn you out” and Bucky agrees before the words even process in his unwired brain.
Which is how it begins.
It starts with a question.
“You ever drank anything?”
You glance back at Bucky, who’s sniffing the interior of a silver flask. You don’t know where he got it, it doesn’t look familiar-
Oh. Oh.
He’d grabbed it from Mike Peterson’s hands just seconds before shoving him into the wall. Mike, who’d barked something obscene about seeing up your dress as you blinked tears from your eyes.
That had been just before he’d turned to you, that so-blue-they-look-black expression in his eyes, seconds before his arms looped under your legs and elbows and scooped you up like you weighed nothing. You could still remember the feel of how those muscles rippled underneath you, how warm and solid his chest had felt.
He hadn’t said a word. Just picked you up and carried you out the door, all the way home, so your feet never once touched the dirty sidewalk.
The gesture had nearly brought tears to your eyes, but you’d never tell him that.
“Uh. No. Don’t like the taste.”
He grins. Opens the cupboard and pulls out two small glasses. Sets them on the counter.
“We shouldn’t”- you protest, the role of the levelheaded one settling over you.
Bucky splashes an inch of amber-colored liquid into each glass. Those blue eyes- when had they ever been so blue? Maybe it was the time, nearly one in the morning, that was making you hallucinate- gleamed as they fixed on your face. “Have some?”
You hesitate. Think of Mrs. Rogers, who’s once again staying the night at her cousin’s, fretting over the now- teething baby. Think of Steve, asleep in his room.
But it’s just Bucky. Just Bucky. Safe, polite, sweet-talking Bucky whom you’ve known for years. Who would never do anything to hurt you.
As it turns out, it was indeed too cold to be outside without a coat.
The next few weeks find Steve curled into the confines of his bed, coughing so hard it sounds as though his narrow chest would split in half.
A cold snap has hit Brooklyn, later than usual in the February air. Your breath puffs in the air as you run to school, to your house (you don’t call it home anymore) and to Steve’s. His house smells of camphor, of steaming water, of the weak broth you and Mrs. Rogers try vainly to force between his lips. You dip rags in cool water and place them on his forehead. You read to him in the evenings, till your voice goes cracked and numb and you’re not even sure if he’s awake enough to hear you. Bucky fetches more tea, water, soup stock.
He’s still sick.
Then Mrs. Rogers has to cross town.
“I really wouldn’t want to, except there’s not much choice in it,” she says, wringing her hands as Bucky brings her luggage downstairs. “My poor cousin, no midwife to be heard of- ill stroke of luck indeed with this flu around”-
“We’ll be fine,” you assure her as she wraps her scarf around her neck. “I’ll keep the stove on and give him water. It should be warm enough.” You sidestep Bucky. He drops an armful of wood next to the stove and grabs his cap from the door. “Off to work.”
He works at the docks now, doing something with loading and unloading the ships. Something requiring manual labor, at least. You don’t want to say that you’ve noticed the new muscle on his shoulders, his arms, stretching out his sleeves and making your cheeks flame at the slightest glimpse.
She sighs. “You be careful, now. You’re a good nurse, but if anything goes wrong”-
The train bleats down the block and she gives you a hurried kiss on the cheek, picking up her valise in one hand and her bag in the other. “Take care of my Stevie.”
For the first few hours, things are fine.
You stoke the fire. You boil tea and feed it to Steve, arranging his pillows so he can sit upright. There’s a light sheen of sweat on his forehead that you dab off with a cloth. His blue eyes flutter a few times as they fix on you.
“Thanks.” His voice is a croak.
“Of course, Stevie.” You press a hand to his forehead. “You feel a little cooler. Try to sleep, okay?”
You retreat to the window and pull out your science textbook, trying to focus on the blurred, poorly printed diagrams as Steve tosses and turns in his bed. It feels cold outside, the kind of cold that bleeds through wood and glass alike, and you draw your feet up under your skirts with a shiver.
Which is when it starts to snow.
It’s just a whisper at first, a brush against the glass, a few pretty flakes that make you smile as they hit the ground and vanish. Then it’s a hundred, then a thousand, and then the air is totally white and you’re staring, openmouthed.
No. No. It can’t blizzard right now. You can’t be trapped in the house- what if something happens to Steve?
He moans from his bed. His face is red now. Feverish. You drip water on his skin and his unfocused eyes stare right past you. A lump of fear rises up in your throat. He’s delirious.
“Where’s Bucky,” he pants, trying to swing his legs over the side of the bed. You practically have to sit on him to keep him still. “Hafta- hafta tell him somethin’. Important.”
“Bucky’s not here right now,” you manage over the pounding in your head, a new fear blooming- what if Bucky can’t make it home from the docks? It’s so cold and icy now that he probably can’t even see in front of him-
Steve’s fevered eyes rake over your face without recognition. “Gotta give him somethin’.”
“Give it to him later, okay? For now why don’t you just lie down”-
He tries to push you off him and you gasp, forcing him back down to the bed. “Steve. You need to rest.”
He’s still trying to claw past you, trying to grab something off the floor, breath whistling in his chest. You back up and look down, picking up what his red eyes are fixed on. “Is it this? Your sketchbook?”
“Yeah,” he wheezes, reaching for it as you sit back down next to him. “I- I drew somethin’. For Buck. Thought he’d like it.”
“That’s nice of you,” you respond reflexively, pulse humming with fear as you try to see how much snow has fallen outside- shit, is the back stoop covered?
Steve tugs at your sleeve.
You glance down at his sketchbook and your jaw drops.
It’s…you.
But not you.
The girl in the sketch is laughing. She’s sitting somewhere, on a stone wall maybe, with her hands resting at her sides and her face turned slightly towards you. Sunlight is slatting through her hair and over her skin, lips parted and eyes crinkled at the corners.
She looks more alive than you’ve felt in years.
Tears prickle at your eyelids. “This is for…Bucky?”
Steve coughs out a yes, reaching for his mug of tea on the crate serving as a bedside table. “Thought he’d like it.” Those blue eyes fix on you again, a little less fevered this time. “He likes you.”
You open your mouth to say something, you have no clue what, but the next second someone is pounding on the door and Steve is fucking choking on his tea, thin body spasming off the mattress.
“AGH- Buck!” you scream, flying off the bed and grabbing Steve from behind, trying to push your small fists into his sternum. “Get the door, it’s not locked”-
Steve gags, chest fluttering for air-
You clasp your hands together and ram them into his chest just as Bucky plows shoulder-first into the kitchen. “Door was frozen shut”- His eyes widen as he sees you. “STEVE”-
The blond is convulsing, face going purple as he fights desperately to breathe. Sobbing, you brace him against your middle and push again. His bones are poking your arms-
Buck pushes you aside, snow spraying off his coat and boots as he grabs Steve around the midsection. His arms shove into his chest once- twice-
Steve coughs up a wad of phlegm and slumps to the floor in Bucky’s arms.
Bucky stares at the narrow bed in your room. You’re barely visible under the three blankets he’d scrounged from around the house, one still reeking of mothballs.
Then he stares at Steve, who’s lolled out with his chest bare. The pillow is damp around his head, but his breathing is deep and even. His fever has broken.
He swivels and stares at the even-narrower sofa. The living room is pitch-black and so cold he can swear his nose freezes from the inside out. You’ve been conserving fuel, saving wood so you can burn it for Steve’s bedroom, in the little stove there. The rest of the house is currently a secondary consideration.
Bucky ponders his options.
Then he shuffles into your room.
His senses are hyperalert. He doesn’t know why. He’s been in your room lots of times before, right? When you’d shown Steve how to make shadow puppets against the windowsill, devolving into increasingly obscene gestures till you’d laughed yourself sick and fallen off the bed. When he had hidden behind the door to scare you on Christmas Eve and you’d cracked his middle tooth. When Steve had needed help with homework and you’d filled out an entire three pages of fractions at three in the morning, scuttling back under your covers every time you heard footsteps.
He knows what everything looks like. There’s the drawing of the solar system Steve made for you on your last birthday. There’s the solid block of the dresser and the upturned milk crate you use as a bench. There are the stacks of your books, cinderblocks and boards forming shelves.
Maybe it’s from the warmth in Steve’s room leaking through the thin separating wall, maybe it’s from his own highly overactive imagination, but Bucky swears he can smell you. That faint, sweet scent that clings to your clothes. Like lavender or something else, something delicate and light and so-
“Buck?”
Your squinty eyes peer over the edge of the blanket in confusion and he swallows hard, fighting the heat rising to his face. “Uh. Where’m I gonna sleep?”
You curl back down under the covers. “I dunno. Couch?”
“Freezing.”
“Steve’s bed?”
“You know he kicks.”
You sigh, wriggling towards the wall. “You steal the blankets, I’m kicking you into the snow.”
It shouldn’t be difficult. You’ve done this before, haven’t you? Brooklyn gets really fucking cold in the winter, forcing you to huddle together for warmth more than once. Mrs. Rogers used to joke that you were like a litter of puppies, sleeping curled together in a pile. It doesn’t mean anything. Shouldn’t mean anything.
He takes a paralyzed step towards the bed.
“Bucky. I can hear your balls freezing off from here. Get in the bed or get out.”
Bucky mumbles a clumsy apology and tugs the covers back, slipping stiff legs underneath and staying as close to the edge as he can. His whole face is on fire and he doesn’t know why- it’s not like you’ve even touched, with the way you’re up nearly against the windowsill-
“Switch with me.”
His voice comes out with more gravel in it than he intends, courtesy of his developing vocal cords (or maybe something else, screams a cheerful and highly oblivious corner of his mind). You blink at him confusedly. Your hair is a nest around your face. “Why?”
“Colder next to the window,” he grunts, trying to avoid looking directly at you. “Can’t have you gettin’ sick.”
“‘M fine here”-
“Switch.”
You roll your eyes and climb over him as he scoots beneath you.
For a brief, agonizing moment your thighs rest across his and Bucky feels his entire body tense at the contact. You feel soft, warm even.
And that damn perfume or whatever the hell it was-
“What’s botherin’ you?”
Fuck. Now you’re lying on your side, staring up at him with those big eyes that look luminous in every light.
He tries not to let his eyes trace downwards. He really, really does. He calls up all the prayers and verses he’s been drilled in since kindergarten.
AND LEAD US NOT INTO TEMPTATION, screams that corner of his mind again.
Temptation wins out and his eyes glance downwards-
Oh fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck.
A year ago it would have been nothing. Something glossed over, normal, just a part of life.
You’re wearing his shirt.
The cream, collared one with the missing button that Mrs. Rogers keeps fussing over and forgetting to repair. The one good shirt his ma had gotten him for church.
And that fucking missing button-
It had to be the second from the top. Oh yes, it just had to be. Plainly the force that had pushed him into a bed with his best friend was the same that was making your- your tits nearly visible through the V of the unbuttoned collar.
The thought makes him fist the blanket.
He tries not to look again. He tries so, so fucking hard to look away. Maybe to close his mouth.
That would be ideal, agrees his brain. Unhelpfully.
He looks again.
The streetlight behind you is glowing faintly through the window. You’re half-sitting up, propped on one elbow. Add that to the thin shirt you’re wearing-
His mouth has gone utterly dry.
This isn’t anything like the Playboys the older boys covertly pass around at recess, all bright and overexaggerated expressions and false lust.
This is fucking obscene.
He can see the outline of your breasts under the shirt. He can see the gentle shadow at the cleave of your neck, the roundness sloping down beneath your collarbone that wasn’t there before. He can see the tight, rounded, rosebud shape of-
“Bucky,” you growl. “The hell is goin’ on?”
“Steve,” is all his poor short-circuited brain manages to spit out. He’s shocked smoke isn’t pouring out of his ears.
Your expression softens. “I think he’s gonna be okay. He’s not as hot anymore. We just gotta keep feeding him an’ stuff. Warm, too.”
Bucky nods. It’s all his horrified nervous system will let him do, given the maelstrom that had just nearly torn it apart.
Nodding is good, apparently. Because you tap his shoulder lightly, mumble “G’night, Buck” and curl up into a ball with your back to him.
And with that goddamn fucking shirt slid halfway down your shoulder.
Bucky presses his fists to his eyes and decides that he is so utterly fucked, and in so many positions, that he may as well lie down in the blizzard outside and wait for his dick to freeze off.
When he wakes up, he can feel it already.
Shitshitshitshitshit-
He’s hard. Hard as a rock, probably from his unrestrained imagination the night before.
And he can’t even fucking move to hide it because you’re in his arms.
Your face is buried in his shoulder and your legs are tangled with his. Your body is slotted against his torso, warmth emanating off your skin to radiate along the length of the blanket. And you’re clutching him like he’s the pillow you always sleep with, clinging on like a koala or something.
His brain goes a dreamy shade of mush and decides to stop functioning as you shift, yawning in his arms. “Morning, Buck.”
Your voice is thick and unsteady with sleep. Somehow that sends another little jolt south, where his blood is already inconveniently pooling-
“Mornin’.”
His voice is a little choked, which is perhaps due to the fact that it’s really fucking cold in the bedroom.
Or maybe because your hand is currently shoved up against his bulging trousers.
“Was Steve okay last night?”
“Uh- yeah. Fine. Totally fine.” Bucky sees stars as your wrist slides a little to the left, scratching your leg.
You blink at him. “Gonna go check on him.”
You pause for a second. Normally this is where Bucky, ever the gentleman (at least you think) will insist that he do it. Or insult you as he makes you sit back down.
The throbbing problem at the front of Bucky’s pants is far too obvious for him to stand up in front of you, and equal parts guilt and horniness trickle down his spine as he stays where he is.
There’s a blast of cold air as you push out from under the blankets, shivering as your bare feet hit the freezing floorboards. Bucky hears you grab your jacket off the foot of the bed.
He wants to look, wants to lift his head so badly, wants to get even a glimpse of your soft legs and arms and calves-
His unattended hard-on is aching, however, and he has a sinking suspicion that if he looks at you one more time he will be ruining a perfectly good wool blanket. Hell, maybe even all three of them.
So he forces himself to lie there with his eyes half-closed as you open the door. He hears you call to Steve, hears you tiptoe into his room, your breathing as you stoop to adjust his blankets, the clinking as you adjust the fire.
You reappear in the door. “He’s doing better.”
Relief colors your tone and Bucky exhales, sitting up and making sure the blankets keep his lower half covered. “That’s- that’s great.”
You nod, bunching the jacket tighter around you. “I’m gonna go start some food. You want anything?”
“‘M good.”
Your footsteps pad out and into silence, and Bucky runs a shaking hand over his face and jaw as he contemplates his utter ruin.
“Oh, by the way, Bucky,” you call from the kitchen.
“Mm?”
“Y’know you don’t gotta sleep with your knife in your pocket, right? Door was locked all night.” There’s a trace of innocent humor in your voice.
Things feel colder now. Tighter, tenser, even as summer fades into autumn and then the chill of winter and Christmas.
You hear it everywhere, about how the world is on the brink of war. Of planes flying over the ocean, of bullets and bombs and guns and limbs splashing into pink and red and agony. It’s on the news, in the papers, even in the classroom, the way your teachers try to speak softly behind closed doors. The worry leaks out of their eyes and makes your throat hurt.
It has now been over a year since you have slept in your own bed. You become a gray ghost in the evenings, finishing school and walking back to your neighbourhood with Steve and Bucky. You creep into the house just long enough to swallow dinner, to do the dishes and endure whatever verbal abuse your mother cares to hurl at you that day.
She had the baby not long after that Fourth of July. Too soon, too early, too small- the midwife’s words still echo in your head as you crouched against the top of the ladder, heart pounding at the screams and moans and smells from the kitchen. You don’t know how it’s survived this long, but somehow it has, red and wrinkled and so small. It lolls against her chest with its tiny, puckered face reddened in sleep.
But it distracts Mum from you, and right now that’s all you care about.
You sleep at Steve’s house, in the spare bedroom. His mother is kind to you. She touches your forehead once, and you want to melt into her cool skin and warm smile. You have no idea what Steve has told her about you, but you try to make up for your room. You become her errand girl, picking up flour and oats and milk from the grocer’s down the street. You are an expert at bargaining by the time you are thirteen, bony fingers haggling expertly over a side of meat.
She always sends Steve with you. Or Bucky, if he’s around, as he often is; hands in his pockets and that charming, lightning-fast grin that’s there one moment, gone the next. Because “it’s not safe for girls just to walk down the street anymore, God only knows what this world is coming to.”
You can’t say you mind the arrangement. You balance on the curb while either boy trails behind you in the street, carrying the heavy burlap bag that will soon be heavier still with food. You argue over meaningless things. The shapes of the clouds, if Erica Maloney’s blonde hair is really blonde or came out a bottle, who’s taller…
That last one becomes too real too soon.
Bucky isn’t sure when it started.
You’ve always been friends. Friends, with a capital F- much like the phrase he’d spit in your classmates’ faces when they cracked crude jokes about your (admittedly shapeless) frame and the way Steve seemed to orbit you like a firefly.
“Friends” was a nice word. An easy word. It meant clearly delineated lines without any room for shadow. It meant sharing your lunches at recess, swapping halves of thin sandwiches around, and sneaking each other into the back entrance of the library since none of you had cards. It meant chasing pigeons past Brooklyn Bridge till Steve’s lungs started to crackle and wheeze; it meant hauling him home while he hacked and coughed all over your dress.
Bucky doesn’t like half-defined things. His life is already blurring, shifting, changing more than he prefers. There’s Steve, for one thing; sickly Steve with his too-bright eyes and scrawny arms, getting all excited over the latest broadcast, so determined to go out there and prove himself when he could barely survive a goddamn blizzard. There’s the murmurs of a draft, of the men being siphoned out like lifeblood to meet their fates somewhere far away. There’s the way his voice has started squeaking and shifting and cracking like some broken gramophone (you had laughed at him once, but only once after seeing the hurt poorly concealed in his eyes).
And there’s you.
Lately, the word “friends” has not been seeming as nice and easy as Bucky would like.
You’ve gotten taller, but so has he; his shoulders suddenly fill out his jacket, and his arms buzz with a new strength. You used to be taller than him, tall enough to pin him down and threaten to drop spiders on his face while he howled with laughter. You used to be skinnier, too. All bones and skin and tangly hair that was probably in need of a wash.
Now you’re- he steals a furtive glance at your hunched frame making its way, carefully, one shoe in front of the next on the curb- not…skinny.
Steve’s jacket that you steal at every opportunity (“it has pockets bigger than mine!”) doesn’t fit you the same way it used to, hanging off your shoulders like they were a hanger. No, it’s…tighter around the top. And your hair looks like it’s changed too- is that a thing? It looks almost shiny, glossy in the evening sun- for just a second, he wonders if it would be soft if he touched it.
“Buck!”
His ears go bright fucking red as he realizes where his mind is, but not where his feet are going- he steps into a deep puddle as Steve hoots at him from his doorstep. “Better not drop dinner.”
You snort, grabbing the bag from his hand and marching up the stairs. “At least you didn’t get mud in the flour, moron.”
The door slams behind you and Bucky stumbles out of the puddle, shaking mud out of his shoes and cursing under his breath.
Steve coughs a few times, shoulders drawing together, and Bucky’s eyebrows tighten in concern. Momentarily forgetting…whatever he’d been thinking about before, he slaps the blond on the shoulder. “You alright, Stevie?”
“Yeah. Good. Just…tired,” wheezes Steve. He sweeps a hand over his sketchbook, obscuring Bucky’s view of whatever is inside. It’s resting on his bony knees, like it always does, propped up as his smudged fingers work delicate lines and shadows into being.
Bucky pulls him to his feet. “Go warm up inside. Too cold for you to be out here without a coat.”
He goes without another word and Bucky sighs, loud and drawn-out. This isn’t what he’s good at. This isn’t what he should be doing, because he’s not doing it right, or good enough.
Nothing is good enough, as a matter of fact. Especially the bordering-on-unholy thoughts he was beginning to have about you.
Bucky kicks the corner of the stairs and heads home in the darkening twilight, hands shoved deep in his pockets. Deep enough to clench his fists, as if trying to strangle his confusion.
warnings: swearing, mentions of childhood neglect/abuse, vomiting, cheating (not the reader)
Self-indulgent on my part!
Read pt. 1 here pt. 3 pt. 4 pt. 5
You are ten, and you are somehow not enough and too much at the same time.
Your mother is losing patience with you. You don’t know why. You are good, after all; you slip home from school in the twilight long enough to eat dinner with your head bowed and eyes down. You do your homework with hands red from scrubbing greasy pots and pans, and you are in bed early every night, shivering under the worn blanket.
She talks about you downstairs. You wonder if she knows you can hear her, that perpetually annoyed, ever-tired voice rising and falling in monotone. About how you’re never home, you don’t talk to her anymore, always running around with those boys.
That last word always comes out with a spit. As if she can barely stand to have it in her mouth. You don’t understand why it is somehow bad for you to have no friends (“do you ever leave this fucking room, all you ever do is sit inside and stare at a useless fucking book”) but also bad for you to have friends.
Your father never lifts his head. It’s not clear most of the time if he even hears her. He is a stranger to you, a rough-voiced, thick-handed shadow in the night that reeks of salt and smoke from his job at the docks. Sometimes he is gone for weeks, months even, and Mum sobs her eyes out over the sink about how he’s left you both, left you without any money and a useless excuse of a daught-
You normally try to leave the kitchen at that point. You are usually successful; she doesn’t notice much.
Like how your father hasn’t been home for a very, very long time now. The calendar says it’s been over a year.
Then the neighbour, Mr. Kimmel, waves his hat at her from the window. She’s suddenly laughing, pink-cheeked and bright-eyed, as she scurries to the door and invites him in for tea.
You can’t decide if you like it when he’s there or when he’s not. Mum is sweeter to you when he is. Or at least, she takes greater pains to disguise when she isn’t. She doesn’t pinch your arms or snap at you.
But you don’t like the way Mr. Kimmel looks at her. There’s something hungry in his gaze, something unnerving and hot and sharp.
You don’t know if you can pinpoint when you started staying out late. Maybe it’s on Fourth of July, when Bucky taps at your window and you rise, almost involuntarily, to follow him. Steve is waiting around the corner, a lookout, and you snicker as you slide down the short wall and land in the mud beneath.
The three of you tromp down to the river and root about at the edge for frogs. Fireflies are speckling the steamy, muddy surface of the water, and Steve’s skinny hands flash out again and again to trap them in a cracked Mason jar.
You squat at the river’s edge, tossing rocks further and further out, not caring that you’re frightening away the frogs Bucky is chasing in the scrubby grass. Tears are beginning to streak down your face.
Bucky storms over, indignant. The hems of his pants are soaked. “Cut it out. You’re scarin’ em away.”
You turn away from him.
Steve’s eyes widen and he sets the jar down in the mud. The fireflies buzz indignantly, wings tapping against the glass. “You okay?”
“I don’t wanna go home.”
The words come out blurred and lumpy and you can tell you’re about to progress to the next phase of crying, the clogged nose and red face and watery eyes.
He squats on the shore next to you, putting a sticky hand on your arm- he’s always been the softer of the two, a little more perceptive, a little slower to act and quicker to look. If Bucky is quicksilver with a charming smile that makes every female teacher melt at his feet, Steve is the kind of gold that inlays hardcover books. “Is it your ma again?”
Bucky kicks the rocks in front of you. “We can break the windows, if you want.”
You choke out a laugh. “She’d kill me. She hates me, I think.” The words are an odd relief and you breathe slower as they settle into your bones in a cold tinge of acceptance.
Bucky turns and stomps away through the muck, footsteps fading into splashing. He’s muttering something about frogs, or maybe tadpoles. You can’t tell. You’re tired now, the humid air weighing you down like choking pearls.
“You can stay with me,” offers Steve, grime bunching itself on his forehead in concern. “You could still go to school an’ everything. My ma wouldn’t care”-
You sniffle. “Doesn’t matter.”
The jar holding the fireflies rolls down the bank. Steve groans and gets up to chase after it, thin arms looking luminous in the growing dark.
Bucky’s footsteps sound at your side. You don’t turn your head.
“Sorry I scared the frogs away.”
Your voice is small.
He doesn’t answer.
You risk a glance up at him and realize that he’s holding out a flower. Queen-Anne’s-lace, frilly and soft and white.
His eyes aren’t their usual shade of bright blue. They look darker now. Softer.
Your fingers brush as you take the bloom. His hands are muddy. Some of it streaks your fingers. You don’t wipe it off, and he doesn’t leave.
Steve rejoins you, and the three of you sit there in silence as the fireworks begin to spray above you in fronds of gold and crimson and cerulean.
But when you got back to the house-
The window is still ajar, easy to climb in. You’re about to curl up on your bed, Bucky’s flower hidden underneath your winter socks, when you hear retching from the kitchen.
You peer downstairs, through the slats in the boards.
Your mother is bent over the sink, shoulders heaving. One hand rests on her belly. She’s not wearing her usual sweater over her dress, and you realize with growing shock that her stomach has rounded. A lot.
The math clicks through your head. Nine months have not happened yet. But it doesn’t matter.
Pa hasn’t been home for over a year.
Someone’s boots rattle in the kitchen. A laugh, a puff of cigarette that makes your eyes water.
Mr. Kimmel’s gray gaze meets yours through the slat in the floor.
He smiles, those thin lips curling up ever so slightly, and you realize with a jolt that your world is about to change, change, change…
summary: You, Steve, and Bucky have been best friends for years. Centuries, even. Since before the war. What will happen when both Steve and Bucky vanish- and you stumble into the middle of an ancient ritual?
pairing: bucky barnes x f!reader
warnings: blood, mild violence
a/n: This goes waaaaay back to pre-pandemic me and I actually resurrected it from one of my old journals before I had a laptop! Part 1 of hopefully many, I hope you enjoy :)
Credits to @thecutestgrotto for the beautiful forget-me-not dividers, used throughout this series!
pt.2 pt. 3 pt. 4 pt. 5
In another life, it might have happened. Maybe even in another universe, where things magically work out all the time and childhood friends go straight to lovers in an orderly fashion instead of hovering on the line between- what?
The first time you laid eyes on Bucky Barnes, it was short-lived and highly painful for all parties involved.
You were seven, scrawny in your threadbare coat that did little to shield you from the Brooklyn chill. Two braids hung over your shoulders, which were currently shivering and shaking as you lined up in the chilly yard to head back into the stuffy, overly polished school. Your classmates are complaining next to you, nursing numb fingers and runny noses.
Which is when someone grabs your braid and pulls.
You wheel around, shocked- no one has ever touched you like that before, and it fills you with first pain and then rage.
A boy grins at you, eyes blue against the grime of his face. “Bet I can beat you to the other end of the lot and back”-
You punch him in the nose.
An overreaction, some would say. Even you would say a few seconds later, not realizing that your small fist could somehow produce such a massive amount of bright-red blood. The girl in front of you screams. A teacher shoves her way through the crowd of her charges as the boy claps both hands to his face, staring at you, shocked.
Someone grabs you by the shoulder. You’re shaking, terrified of what’s to come as everyone stares at you with a mix of fear and horror. You’re a good kid. A quiet, easy kid, as Mum likes to say. You don’t do things like this. Maybe Principal Collins will lock you in his closet like everyone says he does with the bad students.
Your voice is already cracking with tears. “What do you want?”
It’s an even scrawnier blond boy in a coat two sizes too big for him. He looks even more scared than you. “You hit my friend.”
“He pulled my hair.”
“You should say you’re sor”-
You push Steve into a snowbank and stomp into the school without looking back at James, who is still profusely bleeding from his nose and has soaked the front of the frantic teacher’s dress.
Somehow, in the strange code that children live by, that event made you inseparable. While the three of you languish in after-school detention, wool coats stinking on the radiator, you discover that Steve is also an only child. And that he likes to read.
You discover slightly less about Bucky, who glares at you from across the room with cotton balls shoved up his nostrils.
But that is how it begins. Just the three of you, a trio, against the world.
semester of uni is nearly over (hopefully perfect grades yay!) and i will be home for winter/christmas break and picking up WRITING as a hobby i finally have time for once more…
“TV” by Billie Eilish is a summer sort of song. It reminds me of slowly dying in an air-conditioned room while the person you love strides away into the heatwaves of a red desert without looking back. And you’re not enough but you can’t even cry about it, and you want to die but you can’t fall asleep. So you scroll through your phone to numb your mind and watch TV till your eyes burn till you slip into unconsciousness surrounded by greasy takeout boxes and gritty clothes
“Margaret” by Lana del Rey has a totally different atmosphere- Billie is numbness and black cement and sputtering neon signs, but Lana is old money, satin and perfume, the kind of tired that only the very rich can feel. Lana is ice clinking in expensive glassware, bows adorning dark hair, the smell of pines. And somehow both of their music makes me want to cry. I am not enough in either language.
pov: you're the groundskeeper's daughter at malfoy manor
warnings: making out, light smut, possible swearing (mdni)
pt. 1 pt. 2 pt. 3
probably the last part unless someone wants more...
How much later is it? He doesn’t know. He has lost all track of time, all track of who he is. His head feels like it is burning, spinning. He is drunk on your scent, on your eyes.
You are in his room. You stand in the center of the large carpet and spin, idly, a few times. Your skin looks paler here. As if the icy, austere surroundings are draining the life out of you. The dark furnishings and perfectly placed bed, desk, wardrobe seem to make your eyes brighter.
Draco sits on the bed. His eyes are fixed on you as you flit about the room, lightly touching items with your fingertips as though blessing them with some of that golden glow haunting your face.
The vase of asteria flowers on his desk, now dead and wilting. He swears they look brighter, fresher, as your small hands brush over them.
The stack of folded clothes at the foot of his bed. The edge of the massive family portrait glaring down on you from the wall. The- he stiffens- handle of his wand, for once lying out of reach besides his pillow.
His cheekbones. His lips.
Blood is pounding in Draco’s ears. The smell of lavender has increased in intensity, tenfold, a thousandfold.
It’s made worse by the feeling of your skin on his as you look down on him, haloed in the moonlight, lips parted and eyes wide.
He looks up at you with pure want in his eyes, something that goes far beyond this kind of touch. His pale hand touches your cheek and he gasps at the contact, as if he’s been burned.
You are kneeling in front of him now. The mattress sinks and dips beneath your knees as you place tentative hands on either side of his face.
His breath is coming fast and short. His hands are trembling. His skin feels like it is on fire.
You are the center of his universe, and he is the black hole combusting, collapsing, pulling you in-
Draco’s gray eyes meet yours for the fraction of a second before you are on your back and he is on top of you.
There is nothing gentle, nothing soft about this kiss. It is the kiss of a boy who has been deprived of touch, starved for love and warmth and passion for too long. His hands pin yours above your head as his lips slide, desperate and devouring, over yours.
You taste peppermint. Your tongue glides- gently, just a touch- over his bottom lip.
Draco moans, he fucking moans, at that tiny touch.
He is trying to control himself. Trying to cool the fire that erupts in his veins every time he touches you. Trying to temper this wanting that he cannot have, that no Malfoy can ever have-
And then he makes the mistake of looking down.
You are lying in a pool of moonlight. Your hair is splayed out around your head. Your lips are parted and wet and wanting-
You reach out. Straddle him- he is putty in your hands. Touch his face again, pulling him to look at you, barely any space between your lips. He pushes his cheek into your hand like a starving dog. His skin is burning, boiling hot, and he is gasping for breath beneath you, pupils so dilated you cannot tell where they stop and the gray of his irises begin.
He looks up at you, eyes half-closed, as if you are a goddess. Like he has never seen anything so beautiful. Like you are something that fell from the heavens, from the angels themselves, for him alone. Like you are the only thing that exists.
When you kiss him, he is reborn.
The black hole is remade. The void is filled, pulled apart and stitched together by silver starlight.
Draco is drowning, floating, flying-
And then he comes back to you. He looks into your eyes. The madness has worn off, but only slightly- he is still moondrunk and woodwild, all for you, coming apart in the summer night.
But the want is still there.
And now Draco snaps.
His hands slide up your thighs. Hungry, possessive, greedy- as he pulls you down into another kiss, messy and wet, all teeth and gasp and tongue. His fingers skim up your sides, to your collarbones, tugging at your dress-
You don’t resist.
He is on top of you now, lying between your legs, one arm holding himself up while the other cups your jaw. You can feel him pressing into your stomach, and you arch your back. Just a tiny bit. And he moans again.
It is your turn to touch him now. Your hands stroke his arms, curl around his chest, feeling the muscles beneath his shirt. He nearly purrs at the touch, flattening himself even further into your body as he presses open-mouthed, wet kisses into the skin of your neck.
You don’t resist. Still.
You do not resist as he trails his hand between your legs, cursing under his breath. You do not resist as he grinds himself into you in quick, shallow movements, hair falling into his face and eyes closed. You do not resist as he pulls your legs around his waist, looking at you with that same reverent awe in his eyes, tempered with need.
No, you know exactly what you are doing.
From the open window, a faint scent of lavender floats into the room.
𓂃˖˳·˖ ִֶָ ⋆🌷͙⋆ ִֶָ˖·˳˖𓂃 ִֶָ
Draco wakes up.
It is not slow and gradual like usual. No, he sits up straight in bed, gasping for breath. His chest is bare, and he feels…
Warm. Secure. Is that the word? All he knows is that the nightmares that normally plague his sleep were strangely absent, leaving him with nothing but the faint sound of music in the distance, chasing it endlessly through fields of flowers.
Then he realizes that he is alone, and he jolts to his feet.
You are gone. The space beside him in the bed is empty. Nothing of yours remains, not even the little bits of grass that had fallen off your dress last night.
His head is clearing now. He staggers to the window, resting his hands on the sill and taking a few deep breaths.
Aching loss thrums in his stomach as he swings around to face the room again. He remembers now. Remembers heat, want, feeling like he was loved-
Something throbs at his arm and he looks down, fighting the reflex to cover the Dark Mark with his other hand.
Oh.
He remembers now. Remembers your eyes looking up at him, bare and flushed and gasping for you, as you press your lips and tongue to the outline of the Mark, pushing your hips against him in a sinfully slow rhythm-
But nothing is left of you.
Or is there?
Breath catching in his throat, Draco looks at his bedside table…the table he’d bent you over just hours ago, gasping at the sounds you made beneath him…
And there on that table is a tiny sprig of lavender.
remus lupin would be the type of boyfriend to sit on the edge of the bed and just stare you lovingly while you do your makeup/hair.
like you just got out of the shower and your hair is dripping down your back. you towel it off, humming lightly to yourself, as you tiptoe into the bedroom and step into your clothes. you don’t bother with the towel- don’t need to cover yourself. remus has already seen every scar and stretch and mark on your skin.
you don’t look at the bed, but you can tell he’s sitting there by the shift of energy when you enter the room. those soft eyes, fixed on you, containing nothing but adoration.
he watched you as you scrunch your hair dry. as you slide in your earrings, flipping your head to one side. as you massage lotion into your skin, as you rub creams and oils onto your face. he soaks in their smell. soaks in you.
finally you turn and face him.
but he’s already standing besides you, big hands curving around your waist as he kisses the top of your head.
“you’re so beautiful” he mumbles into your hair, and you smile and tug his face down to kiss him.
Warnings: Childhood neglect/parental suicide, violence, sadness, and some fluff
A/N: A bit self-indulgent here, if I’m being totally honest…part 2 will be out soon!
Thank you to @cafekitsune for the beautiful divider!
You weren’t easy to love.
Countless people had informed you of that fact- mostly your beloved parents, whose love language apparently entailed screaming at each other from across the house while you sat wide-eyed in your crib, chubby fists clenching the blankets. You’d grown up in a star-filled silence punctuated with therapy sessions (more shouting matches while the “family counselor” prayed for the forty-five minute timer to run faster). Your teenage years had been filled with more silence. And a whole lot of books, books that you dragged home from the library in a ripping shopping bag and piled on your bed like an uncomfortable nest.
Then you’d had to bury your father with his last words still on his lips.
“What makes you think we’d ever wanted to have you? You were a goddamn accident…the biggest mistake I ever made.”
The words had left you seriously contemplating skipping town, mom or no mom, with your father’s grave-dirt still drying under your nails. You didn’t have a car, but hell, that didn’t matter, right? People left. People always left or found a way to leave. Case in point- your dearly beloved mother, who staggered out of bed two weeks later, put a bottle of whiskey to her lips, and put her toes to the rail of the highest building in town.
Now you really were on your own.
For a while you considered going crazy. Or doing crazy things. Skipping off madly into the sunset, lying in the middle of the road at midnight, or boarding up your windows and doors and never emerging.
Crazy, however, did not stick.
This was mostly due to the fact that you had made it three and a half days into your lifestyle of hermitry before an angel was appearing in your kitchen (blowing out the windows and lights in the process) and two brothers with blood on their faces were breaking down the door (ripping out the hinges).
You did not appreciate the intrusion. The brothers also did not appreciate the intrusion, largely because your immediate response was to kick the shorter one in the crotch and go for the taller one’s eye with a frying pan.
If the angel had not very gently but very firmly pushed you against the wall (without touching you, which added to your confusion), you would have given Sam Winchester a concussion. Or, at the best, an impromptu lobotomy- Lord knows you were angry enough to.
The anger had not lasted much longer, because three seconds after the screaming (mostly Dean’s) had died down, your dearly departed father was hammering at the door, eyes pools of black and fingernails scraped down to the bone.
When morning came, you were stuffed in the back of their car with a shopping bag of clothes, your father’s shotgun over one shoulder, and drying blood behind your left ear. None of you looked back as Dean gunned it out of town, the ashes of your house settling into comfort behind you.
That was how you had met the Winchesters.
·˚ ༘₊·꒰➳: ̗̀➛·˚ ༘₊·꒰➳: ̗̀➛·˚ ༘₊·꒰➳: ̗̀➛
Now you are looking at Sam Winchester.
His big hazel eyes are still fixed on yours. You can read the outline of what he just said on his lips.
“I love you.”
But you are not easy to love, and that is why you scrabble your way up from your chair, claw at the door of the disgusting little smoky motel you are staying at (trapped in) and throw yourself towards the emptiness of the parking lot.
