Hi, if that prompt list helps to distract you from your WIPs, might I humbly request "we'll get through this" kisses + SamBucky?
43. “we’ll get through this” kisses
here's a little jaunt into an AU for your troubles
Sam tips his head back against the wall, letting out a slow, quiet breath as he listens out for any noise coming down the hallway. Beside him, Bucky listens, too, head cocked and a wariness on his face that Sam has almost never seen in the field.
They've barely spoken all day, both braced to spring into action at the first sign of trouble. Twenty-four hours ago, Sam was sipping coffee on the porch and watching the sun come up, and now he's so on edge that he managed to forget where his phone was while it was literally in his hand. There's an ache in his elbow that won't let up, and his neck is killing him, and he stepped in something earlier that he's actively choosing not to think about because it ranks thirty-fourth at best on their list of imminent concerns.
"You okay, sweetheart?" whispers Bucky, and even that makes Sam flinch a little bit.
He steadies a little as Bucky's hand lands on his forearm and covers it with his own. "Fine," he murmurs. "Don't worry about me."
Bucky huffs. "You look like you're gonna pass out, Sammy. You should have taken the out when Nat gave it to you."
"And left you here to deal with this alone?" hisses Sam. "You really think I would do that to you?"
"No, but you should have," Bucky says, his voice barely above a whisper. "You deserve a break."
"We both do, and we'll take it together once this is done," says Sam. "For now, we can just...appreciate the quiet together."
A snort. "And the scenic view?"
"What do you need a scenic view for when you've got these perfect cheekbones to admire, huh?"
"Good point." Bucky leans over and brushes a kiss to one of the aforementioned cheekbones. It shouldn't make Sam's face heat up the way it does.
Sam turns to kiss Bucky properly, but they both freeze in place as the wind picks up outside, rattling the windows and making the roof creak ominously. Inside, it stays quiet for half a second, and then thunder booms so loudly across the sky that Sam feels it in his teeth.
Beside him, Bucky mumbles a string of curses, pushing to his feet as the sound of crying carries down the hallway. "Well," he says, as he helps Sam up, "it was nice while it lasted."
"At least we managed to eat something," says Sam, setting the half-finished sandwich on the coffee table. He nods towards the kitchen. "You go get the teething rings, and I'll--"
"You'll go get the teething rings," Bucky says, cutting him off. "You've been carrying him around all day, and you're starting to favor your left elbow. Let me take over. He can gnaw on the vibranium for a while; he likes that."
Sam sighs and drops his head to rest on Bucky's shoulder for a second. "Am I a bad dad if I can't wait for teething to be over?"
"Sure," Bucky says flatly. "Everyone knows the first sign of a bad dad is someone who can't bear to see his kid hurting."
"I still kind of feel like one," mumbles Sam.
Bucky tips his chin up, presses a reassuring kiss to his lips. "You're not," he says, his voice firm. "You're just sleep deprived and hungry."
"I'm just sleep deprived and hungry," repeats Sam, pinching the bridge of his nose. "And Sarah said it gets easier."
"And she's not in the habit of being wrong," Bucky says, fast enough that Sam knows Bucky has been repeating it to himself. "We're going to survive this, and so is Jack, and we're not gonna traumatize him in the process."
"Well, as long as one of us is sure," says Sam, then leans in for one more bolstering kiss before they separate at the sound of a particularly sharp cry. "Now come on. If you won't let me hold Jack, I'm just gonna stand there and smell his head until I feel better."
a headcanon you weren't sure about at first but have come to like!
It’s hard to believe now, but I wasn’t really big on pet names before getting into sambucky. I was won over after one (1) fic though. That’s all it took, me reading Bucky calling Sam sweetheart once. I was immediately convinced. Of course Bucky calls Sam sweetheart and darling and doll, and Sam calls Bucky baby and honey and sweet face. It’s literally true, I saw it with my own two eyes, thank you very much.
thanks for the ask <3
#6: things you said under the stars and in the grass (from this list)
There's a firefly within reaching distance, so it shouldn't be any surprise to Bucky that Sam automatically reaches up towards it.
He doesn't catch it like Bucky expects him to, like Bucky'd seen him do with Cass and AJ on warm summer nights down in Delacroix, but just lets his hands hover a few inches away until it blinks off outward into the night. Sam's arms fall back down to his stomach.
"You know how a lot of people get seasick when they're lying out on a boat?" Sam asks, a tinge of melancholy in his voice that doesn't match the lazy haze of the night. He doesn't look over to see if Bucky nods, but he does anyway. "Sometimes I think I've got the opposite of that. Watching the stars from solid ground feels wrong in a way I can't really explain."
They'd been in upstate New York for entirely too long, training some of the new kids at the compound to teach them how to work as a team, along with Sam training Joaquín on some of the more advanced techniques with the wings. Bucky's even starting to feel a little homesick for Delacroix, for the allure of Sarah's living room couch, so he can't imagine how much Sam must miss it.
"I heard Cass won his little league game last night," Bucky says, knowing both that talking about his nephews tends to take Sam's mind off of things and that the reminder that Bucky texts Sarah on occasion now might be enough to playful irritate the melancholy away for a while.
Sam huffs a laugh out of his nose and turns his head to look at Bucky, his eyebrow raised. "Man, what did I tell you about talking to my sister?"
Bucky makes an exaggerated show of putting his hands behind his head and getting comfortable, keeping his gaze fixed on the sky above him. "No flirting involved, I swear," he says in a cheeky voice that implies the exact opposite. He's fully aware Sam knows any amount of flirting with Sarah is playful by now, a fun way for both of them to tease Sam considering how obvious it is to everyone around that Bucky's got it bad for Sam himself.
They haven't really crossed any lines on that front yet, even though Bucky's almost positive it's mutual, but they both know they're driving towards it at a pretty steady pace.
Sam reaches over and pushes him gently, and Bucky makes an even bigger show of lurching to the side. "Ignoring the fact that you were absolutely flirting with my sister, yeah, Cass did win his little league game last night. They're going to some kind of tournament in NOLA next week, and he spent like an hour on FaceTime with me last night telling me about all of the stuff he's planning to pack and all of the places he wants to go visit while they're already in town."
Sam smiles to himself with that soft, sweet smile that always makes Bucky's heart flutter in his chest before his grin drops just enough to notice if you're looking.
Bucky's always looking.
"He asked me if I could go watch him and I told him I'd try, but it feels like just about every day there's something new to teach the kids or some new urgent mission to fly out to. Sarah said she'd tape the whole thing for me, but it's still not the same, you know?"
Perhaps bringing up the baseball game wasn't Bucky's best move, he thinks.
Sam sighs and rolls back over on his back for just a moment before pushing himself upright and standing up, lightly brushing off his shorts. "We should probably head inside. Gettin' kinda late, and we have kids to teach tomorrow."
There's a grumpy retort about having to teach these new overpowered children on the tip of Bucky's tongue, but he holds it back and just shakes his head. "You go ahead. I'll catch up soon."
Sam's eyebrows knit together, but he doesn't press. "Night, Buck. Sleep tight."
"Night, Sammy," he replies softly, when Sam's a little too far away to hear.
He fishes his phone out of his pocket and notes the late hour, but he figures Sharon's probably still up, so he dials her number anyways.
"You know business hours don't extend till eleven PM, right, Bucky?" she asks in lieu of a hello.
He thinks about teasing her about her time running a nightclub in the midst of a stolen art selling operation that definitely stayed open past normal business hours, but he decides against it. "Hey, Sharon? Any way that Sam could get this weekend off? Cass has a baseball game."
She hums. "You willing to tag in if the world catches fire?"
Bucky looks off in the direction that Sam had walked off in. "For Sam? Always."
Hi! I am so sorry to bother you here, but I know last year I asked in the comments of the best thing I never knew was mine for permission to podfic that story. You didn't respond, but I'm once again asking if I can do it, hopefully for Valentine's this year?? If not, that's fine, but please let me know when you get a chance.
hi!!! i must've somehow missed your initial request? sorry about that! i'd be honored if you wanted to podfic that fic, so please be my guest and thank you for asking!
funsized-loser replied to your post “While I don’t ship either, really, I am WAY more down for Seth/Emily...”
Could you please explain why? I'm having a hard time liking them together because I don't see any romantic chemistry between them, but I want to understand why other people do...
I mean...you would probably get a better answer from someone who actually ships them. As I mentioned, I don’t actually ship them, I just definitely prefer them to Aaron/Emily but that’s a pretty low bar since I actively dislike Aaron/Emily. (I don’t have some big SJ/morality type reason. They just feel cliche and overrated to me. It’s just a person dislike and I have no grudge against people who do like that ship.) I’m a really hard sell on the Standard Compulsory Het Ship that’s based on sexual chemistry and a vaguely rivals-to-lovers arch in any case. Seth and Emily have more of a friends-to-lovers feel which I tend to like more in canon het ships. (It’s not a rule, but a strong tendency.) The lack of sexual charge is also a bonus for me.
What clothes/accessories do they steal from each other?
Well, they definitely ‘borrow’ sweaters and sweatshirts and henleys from each other, especially before they moved in together. Sam’s favorite cozy sweater disappeared one day and the next week when he went to Bucky’s place he found him wearing it with a sheepish smile. He couldn’t even be mad, not when he was wearing Bucky’s blue henley under his jacket.
Then, after they started living together and Bucky retired, he would wear Sam’s clothes while he’s away on missions. He found that it made him feel calmer and closer to Sam when he’s not home. Sam only found out about it when he was in a hospital bed, Bucky sitting on the uncomfortable chair next to the bed with a pale face and Sam’s old, fraying sweatshirt.
15. What WIP are you taking into next year with you?
Oh, SO MANY. The big one is the D&D AU, which eagle eyed re-readers might have noticed is now anticipated to have a total of ten chapters and not six.
There's also part three of the Mr. and Mrs. Smith AU, a fic that involves Sam sitting a bedside vigil for a badly injured Bucky, a prompt fill that's gotten wildly out of hand, and a fic from the Formula One AU written in the format of a long-form magazine article that is extremely specific but delights me every time I think of it. Also we've still got 3 weeks until the new year, which is PLENTY of time for me to conceive of brand new AUs and fic concepts that I am suddenly married to, so who knows what that will bring?
