13. Our muses are only destined to fall in love as a fleeting holiday romance.
It started out simple. Just two soldiers that happened to take their Christmas breaks in Boston. Two soldiers that happened to book the same motel in a town just outside the city, close to a T stop for easy access into Beantown.
They ran into each other at an art gallery. Steve, being the amateur artist he was, greatly enjoyed it. Bucky, however, looked confused as hell at some of the more modern art and sculptures.
"Whatever happened to just sculpting plain, naked people?" Bucky muttered to himself as he looked at some shape that looked like a beehive, all made out of old newspapers. Steve couldn’t help but grin, stepping up next to the man.
"I guess it wasn’t edgy enough," was his reply. The brunet turned to him with a smile, and Steve was gone.
From that moment on, they were hooked on each other. Breathless, sweaty, gasping nights in motel rooms, with touring and visiting filled days. Christmas, spring vacation, a month in the summer, they would always meet at this motel. And they would always return to that beehive, both determined to understand why exactly it was made.
That was the only time they ever saw each other. Some months, one would be in Afghanistan, other months, one would be across the country in California. They never talked much outside of their meetings, only as time neared to seeing each other, confirming that the other would be there.
For two hardened soldiers, their arrangement was enough. And when Steve found himself wanting to make this more, he always stamped down the feelings.
When one Christmas Eve he found himself at that fated motel, in the room that they always ended up sharing, Steve, the army captain, found himself quite alone. Clutched in his hand was a newspaper clipping, an obituary for Sergeant James Barnes, killed in action by a roadside bomb in Iraq.
And it was then that Steve knew.
He should’ve made this more.
