fossilised | werewolves

werewolves

Pumpkin Spice.

It hits the shelves the moment the temperature dips below eighty, before the summer officially ends and the leaves give hint at changing color. It's become an American way of life. Lattes might claim it to be proof of their success and staying power but it's expanded into hand soap and e-cigarettes now. You can't find anything, really, that hasn't been pumpkin spiced these days. Pumpkin pie is too humble to try and reclaim it anyway, and has quietly retreated to Thanksgiving where it waits to mark the end of the most beloved season in New York among straight white girls.

Steve Rogers, while neither straight nor a girl, has whole heartedly embraced the trend and the moment Starbucks announced that it had come back out for a Limited Time Only, Steve had rummaged in his sock drawer for a gift card he was sure had money left on it and stood in line with the masses to claim his holy grail.

It's a comfort. It's a promise that there's going to be something else to look forward to in the coming months when holidays rear their ugly and beautiful heads to remind you that your family is dead and most of the kids you lived with in foster care and group homes have disappeared out of your life. It makes Steve's day and he's already day dreaming about boots and puffy vests the moment he takes his first, iced sip. Steve isn't really a day dreamer, but his head can get stuck in the clouds on the best days and distraction comes easily in a city where you're never and always alone at the same time.

There's charcoal under his nails and a moment of joy in his heart from the iced latte he grasps so fiercely the day he sees Bucky across the street. He'd know him anywhere, even with that long fringe of hair he hasn't seen since before he went off to basic training. The light to cross the street between them is red but Steve ignores the risks. There are two lanes each direction, and all four are packed with yellow cabs and black Uber cars. No one can go fast enough to do him any damage.

The latte gets dropped along the way and Steve doesn't care. It's been over a year and a half since he's seen Bucky. It's been six months since he last heard anything from him actually. He hadn't even gotten a birthday card this year.

"Buck!" Steve is just a skinny guy, five foot four, maybe 100 pounds if he's got art supplies and an easel on him. He has fallen arches and a heart arrhythmia, but they aren't keeping him from shimmying between cars and nearly getting run over. He's out of breath when he makes it across the street and though he's lost his drink, he needs to bend over and cup his hands on his knees to steady himself anyway so it all works out. "Hey." It's smooth and followed by a smile. Something bright and cheery and all too Steve Rogers hopped up on artificial sugar and flavorings.

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There haven't been many times when Bucky has felt sorry for Steve. Even when he's been wheezing and in hospital with yet another bout of pneumonia, the fire inside him resists being pitied with such ferocity that Bucky rarely has. He never worried much when the doctors said he might die, because he knew better. Steve could keep himself functioning on sheer stubbornness alone.

But he feels for him now. He feels an aching pang deep in his chest that's a mingle of sympathy and affection. To know Steve was willing to risk jail to follow him made him cling a little tighter into that hug. He must have been so frustrated to get turned away time and time again. He'd never thought about how Steve must have felt being left behind, unable to help, and that feeling must be worse now that Bucky had come back in pieces as feared.

"You helped, Steve." It's low and soothing. Not an admission he could see himself making to just anyone, but he has a feeling Steve needs to hear it. "I used to imagine conversations with you at night when I was-- there. Knowing you were here, and you'd look out for the girls for me even if I didn't come back, it kept me going. But if you'd shown up, I'd have hit you so hard you'd have been shipped back home on medical immediately."

It’s probably stupid to feel comfortable enough to want to sleep right now, but Steve feels like he really could just drop off comfortably and drool on Bucky’s shoulder if the conversation hadn’t been so heavy. But it is heavy and Steve is feeling sick to his stomach despite the delicious smell of food from his half eaten burger calling him back for more.

“Why do you keep insisting you could win in a fight against me? Unless the army gave you a titanium skeleton and laser vision, there’s no way you’d be able to kick his ass.” And this is coming from the guy that used to sit on Bucky’s back as he did push ups for added resistance.

This whole thing is turning a little too much into a snuggle fest and so Steve extracts himself from under Bucky’s arm and turns so that his back is supported against the poorly padded arm of the couch. He stretches his legs across the cushions to press his socked feet against Bucky’s leg. Hopefully that’s not too much of an intrusion. He just needs to touch him, as right or wrong as that might be.

Bucky can tell him otherwise if it’s too much.

"It's just bravado, because I'm so scared of you."

He's not sure how Steve has managed to do it, but right here and now he feels more human than he has done in a long time. Not perfect, not by any means, but he can let Steve's feet rest against him and he can joke and it's okay... it's not the abysmal failure that he thought it might have been.

"But if you're not too busy lifting weights and showing off how tough you are tomorrow, maybe we could have lunch? I don't know what your class schedule is at the moment, but I have-- uh, I have to do something on campus, a kind of class, so I'll be round there."

He'll try, he really will. Even if the idea of the slog back to normality is enough to make his brain feel like it'll ooze out of his ears.

If Bucky is worried about an oozing brain then Steve will just pack his ears with cotton to keep that from happening. “Class at ten and free from one to three. I have pottery from three to four and then something at the book store.” He’s not willing to commit to the fact that he’s working two jobs and then going to school on top of it because there is still a fight lingering in the air and any spark might cause a reaction that neither are prepared for.

Steve reaches over for his burger and rests it on one knee, picking at the solidifying cheese that had melted onto the wrapper. It looks kind of gross but that just makes it taste better.

“So lunch will work. I can show you around life drawing. I’ve been working on this massive piece. I’ll bring the lunch.” He doesn’t want to share Bucky yet. He’ll have the eyes of everyone on him in the quad.

"Isn't life drawing painting nude people? Are you gonna show me some giant penis that you've been working on, because most people don't think that's appropriate for lunch conversation."

He has the tiny making of a smile at his lips, even knowing that he won't be in a good mood tomorrow after his stupid appointment. He hates the stuff he does as Cumberland House, the little unit that's attached to the university campus where they do some specialist classes for people with specific problems.

But then again, having lunch with just Steve in the art room sounds like a way better plan than outside with a bunch of other people, much more relaxing.

"My thing finishes at one thirty so I can be there by one forty-five, okay?"

“If it’s going to make you feel inadequate, I’ll only show you the little penises I’ve been working on,” Steve promises, a brightness to his voice. They can’t pretend everything is all right again but they can both feel good about what this might be.

With the tine set and the place decided on, Steve finishes his burger, takes another for the walk home, and leaves Bucky to his thoughts. It’s a long night for Steve. He can’t sleep, he’s too wound up and too grateful to have Bucky back, and after the nightmares come (mostly where he’s unable to catch Bucky from falling off of a cliff or a train or a building), sleep is out of the question.

He paints instead. He has a damaged canvas half his size set up in the living room behind the sofa and though he’d been doing a still life of Natasha’s ruined, marked up toe shoes she always leaves on the floor, he spreads gesso over the half finished work and sketches something else. It’s more abstract, a moonscape really, a splotch of dark colors and stark white that overlap his feelings.

He might be tired in the morning, but by the time one thirty rolls around, the classroom is empty and Steve has set up two placemats on the back table so that they can share cheese fries and a few slices of pizza among the penises and breasts.

Bucky is in a really bad mood by the time he lets out of his stupid class. He yelled at the teacher for just doing her job, and now he feels a horrible mixture of guilty for being such a shit and frustrated that he has to do anything like this at all. He wishes he hadn't even come to this stupid session today.

He very nearly forgets that he's meant to meet Steve at all, and only catching sight of a flyer on one of the university boards advertising for people to come and model for life drawing sessions reminds him. A couple of students start to approach him when he enters the building, perhaps to ask him if he's there to volunteer or maybe if he's a new student, but something about his expression means that they give him a wide berth.

He should have brought Penny. He knows she's allowed most places because she's a registered service animal, but he feels like he has a target when she has her vest on. It's a big beacon for everyone that he's different. It's stupid, how is she meant to do her job if he doesn't take her out with him? But that's how it goes at the moment.

He's scowling and tense when he stalks into the hall and catches sight of Steve and his dumb little picnic, dumping his backpack next to the table and sliding into a chair before he even says hello.

"--sorry I'm late."

“You’re not.” But he is. Steve is just s gentleman. He’d almost given up on Bucky, cheese fries taking on a look very similar to the way the cheese on the wrapper had the night before. He’s got his pencils out and he’s working on nothing in particular, shading in a foot whose toes have all been purposefully over extended and spread out, mostly curled. The pose had been difficult for the subject to maintain but Steve likes a challenge and his memory is one of his best qualities. He doesn’t need her to be present to finish the work from earlier.

The smile on his face fades as Bucky’s gloom cloud looms. He tries to get it back again but it refuses to listen to him and so he props his chin in his hand and uses the top of his pencil to nudge over the triangle-shaped box where their pizza slices have been stacked.

“Sounds like you’re having as good a day as I am,” he says, which is hardly true. Bucky’s is likely so much worse. “Finally my turn to be the subject tomorrow. I can’t sit still for too long and my spine is going to be a nightmare for these guys to draw.”

He’s embarrassed by his body. It does the best it can for him but it’s still stunted. Thank God he doesn’t have a crush on anyone in class. He’d be mortified.

Bucky's impressive scowl is the answer to that question, but it fades a little when he takes in what Steve is saying and the meaning behind it. Maybe most people might think Steve doesn't care, he puts up such a good front about not being bothered by his health problems or not letting his looks define him, that people don't realise how much it hurts him when others laugh or mock.

"You have to take turns? You mean you have to sit naked tomorrow for everyone else?"

He can sort of see why it would be done, make the artists do it so they'll always respect any models who go through it after them. But it seems unusually cruel to enforce it. Any models, after all, will have volunteered and thus agreed to do it, it's a different situation.

"Jeez, Steve, if you don't want to do it, don't let them bully you into it. But if you do it, then remember that you're just as good as anyone. A damn sight prettier than me now."

“Now? Try always,” Steve says with his usual defiance. He’s never let Bucky be better than him, though of course Bucky is and always has been in many of the ways that count. “It’s fine. I knew it going in. One of the stipulations of taking this class. You can pose however you want. Like... see Sandy up there?” He makes a gesture with a pencil and then nabs one of the fries. The cluster of drawn figures are all of the same girl, chunky but with a pretty face. She’s seated with her back to the room so that all of her private areas are faced away from any of the artists. Not every figure is like that. One of the guys early on just spread out on his back and slept the entire time. Some just sat on chairs and crossed their legs and arms.

Steve hasn’t decided on what to do with himself. He’s not sure it matters.

“Imperfect people are the best to draw. Lack of symmetry makes it fun. But... I don’t know. I’m just not feeling it.” That said, he won’t back down. This is a fight. And like every fight, Steve is going to win.

He’s just never been naked with the lights on before.

Not for a few years.

“I’m gonna pop some pain killers and listen to some podcasts. It’s fine. No, really. Promise. Have some pizza.”

Steve might say it's fine, but it's obviously not, he has to be nervous as hell to have even mentioned it. But of course he's going to do it, because the idiot has never backed down from a fight in his life, metaphorical or literal. Bucky's life would have been a hell of a lot easier if he had run away sometimes, he'd have had to patch up his dumb best friend less often for one.

"Do you wanna borrow Penny for the day?"

It would be good for the dog to get out of the house, and it was kind of what she was trained for, helping people deal with stressful situations. Okay, maybe not exactly what she was trained for, and Steve wasn't her assigned person, but she might be able to help anyway.

He grabs one of the pizza boxes and fumbles a slice out, still focused on Steve and his problem, which at least has the beneficial side effect of making his own frustration leak away a bit.

“Penny is for you— Why don’t you come? Penny can be here. You can be here. And if anyone says something dumb, you can both hold me back from kicking their mouths shut.” Ha. As if Steve could ever get his foot up that high! He just seems to have a penchant for desiring to kick people. Mostly Bucky, but he’s fine with spreading around the metaphorical wealth.

Bucky’s the only person who has seen him without his shirt on in the light. He’s fooled around with some people here or there but he’s mostly just given head and called it a day. Everyone gets something out of it and Steve gets to keep his clothing on. Win-win.

He’s got a feeling that, right now, Bucky’s pretty body conscious too. And maybe they can work through that together if he comes to class and sees Steve fighting through his anxiety?

Because yeah. Steve’s done a lot of research. He’s downloaded a lot of podcasts about PTSD suffers. He’s doing his homework, just as Bucky feared.

This could be one of a couple of things. Either Steve thinks that Bucky needs to get bullied into coming out and about and this is his way of making it happen, or he's genuinely terrified and this is his subtle way of asking for support. It could be either, it could be both together. Bucky can't risk that it's the second one and not do anything about it, he'll never not be there for Steve if he can help it.

But...

But a whole classroom full of people that he doesn't know, that's not exactly his idea of a good time, and he'll stick out because he's hardly one of the regular students is he? He feels way older than the average college student; which is dumb, because he's still only nineteen, the same as Steve, the same as most kids in college. He's just been through a lot in the last year and a half.

"Isn't class closed to students? Won't I get in trouble just being a random guy off the street in here?"

“Maybe.” That’s a good question and Steve doesn’t have a good answer for it. “Maybe you could sit outside then? Or wait down the hall.. nah. You’re right. It’s dumb, isn’t it? I can do this myself. How about we just get dinner tomorrow?” Steve is trying to be bright and to continue to make future plans with Bucky that aren’t obvious one way or another.

He doesn’t need his hand held. He’s gotten through some pretty tough situations alone, both purposefully and out of need. He’d all but shut Bucky out for the few days that followed his mother’s death until he had become a ward of the state and taken from the Barnes’ household.

And he hasn’t been honest with Bucky about his struggles since he went away. No one needs that. Bucky had had enough on his mind. And obviously, more in his life than Steve had known until last night.

He takes a slice of pizza for himself and tucks the drawing away for later. He doesn’t want to color it with tomato sauce after all.

Although he isn't always as smart as Steve when it comes to emotional stuff, Bucky is no slouch and he knows there's more here than meets the eye. He knows there's going to be more from the time he was away, nobody's life goes on hold, and just because he was going through stuff doesn't mean Steve wasn't too. It's just going to take some time for both of them to unpack what the other has gone through.

He hopes they have that time.

But this is something he can do now. It's stupid, but he's got it into his head that if he can still look out for Steve then maybe he's still got a chance of being okay, so his jaw firms and he shakes his head.

"Not a dumb idea, I'll be here. If they try and throw me out, I'll make Penny growl at 'em. What time does it start?"

If it lets him miss another of these stupid sessions, he'll love Steve forever.

Then they are both in luck. Bucky can miss his session and Steve gets to be loved forever, which is the only thing he really wants from Bucky to begin with.

Lunch goes well. They don’t talk about Bucky at all. Steve insists on coming over for dinner too, but he only stays for an hour after his shift at the campus bookstore. He’s got a lot on his plate but his research into Bucky’s possible state of mind keeps everything on the up and up. He can safely ignore his own insecurities and instead try to help Bucky alleviate his own.

Being a vet with a dog gets him some pretty big points for Steve’s class. Ten students and a teacher are present as Steve sits in the corner in a black robe. The students are curious about Bucky, sure, but it’s Penny that really gets their attention. There’s a big wolf looking dog around campus the last few days, they all tell Bucky as they come over to say hello to his dog. “Kinda creepy, glad this one is normal sized!”

“Haven’t seen it myself but my roommate did!”

“All right, everyone,” the teacher finally interiors. “Please find a seat and Mr. Rogers?” That gets a snicker. “Whenever you’re ready?”

Steve is never going to be ready so he just stands up defiantly and takes off his robe. Just like that. He figures he’ll just stand for awhile and face forward, staring at the wall.

Bucky deflects most of the personal conversation that Steve directs his way over dinner, keeping his answers generic and the tone of the evening more pleasant. He does, however, figure out that Steve has more than one job, though he doesn't confront him about it yet, he just starts to work out ways that he might be able to help.

Penny keeps herself between her human and the crowding students, all of who get glowering scowls and no responses to their inane chatter about giant dogs. Honestly, how ridiculous is that? It's just another one of those stupid urban legends, like the alligators in the sewer system.

He's proud of the way Steve just disrobes as if it's nothing, though he can see the nerves beneath the determination, and he's ready to punch anyone who thinks about making a smart alec remark about Steve and the way his body isn't exactly conventionally perfect.

One of the students sitting nearest Steve, a girl with bright purple hair called Amy, leans in closer so she can talk while drawing. She quite likes Steve most of the time, he told off some jerks in the quad who were mocking her once, so she's determined not to laugh at him even if he looks pretty pathetic without his clothes on.

"Who's the hired muscle, Steve? He looks pretty scary. In a hot kind of way."

“He is pretty scary in a hot sort of way,” Steve says, maybe a little too loudly. He’s not trying to cause too much of a scene as he drops into a provided chair with a back. He’ll just sit normally, knees apart and hands resting on his thighs. He’s not trying to hide himself, there’s really nothing to hide. He’s pale. He’s scrawny. There’s a scar on his chest from an open heart surgery and his back shows signs that it wasn’t always straight.

He looks like a naked mole rat or one of those hairless cats and he’s already on the verge of shivering. He grits his teeth against it, but the teacher is already kindly upping the temperature.

“He’s my best friend. More like a brother. We’ve known each other for thirteen years.” Steve isn’t looking at Amy. And he’s absolutely not looking at Bucky. There’s already pink splotches on his cheeks and that’s enough.

"He's no way our age, he look older."

She craned around to look at Bucky for a moment in an assessing sort of way, before the teacher cleared his throat and she hurriedly went back to sketching in the slender hollow of Steve's chest, dipping to where his ribs could be seen on every exhale. Jesus, this guy was a mess.

"So, uh, what do you think of the big dog rumours? Think we've got a werewolf on our hands?"

She giggled, though it was forced. She was just trying to make this easier for Steve if she could, since she could already hear some of the others starting to mutter to themselves non too friendly statements.

Steve’s eyes had flickered towards Bucky when his age had been called into question. He’d been about to say that age has no hotness level. He’d been about to say anything at all to try not to look so terribly uncomfortable but at least Amy’s topic of conversation has shifted to something he can relax into. Werewolves? That’s a ridiculous topic and though his ribs are visible when he laughs, that laughter frowns out someone’s comment about him having legs like a concentration camp victim. He doesn’t, his bone structure isn’t that pronounced, but he is awfully skinny.

And no one would say it’s in an attractive way.

“Think he has an eating disorder?” Someone by Bucky asks his seat mate, only to be met with a shrug as Steve says he doesn’t believe in werewolves. Not this day and age at least with social media and smart phones all over the place.

“He’s got such a pretty face. If it is an eating disorder someone should get him some help.”

This is what Bucky had been afraid of, and he's sure it's what Steve would have been afraid of as well before this day. People are such assholes, doesn't it ever occur to them not to talk about someone who can hear them as if he's a piece of meat? Like he doesn't deserve basic respect? People have been pulling this shit on Steve for as long as Bucky can remember, something about the scrawny body makes people think they can talk over him.

He moves over to where the jerks are that are muttering about an eating disorder and leans down between them. He doesn't make any threatening moves, because he doesn't want to be thrown out of the classroom, but his voice is a low and deadly murmur that leaves both of them looking ever so slightly pale and clamping their lips shut.

Bucky straightens and gives Steve an exaggerated wink, that somehow terrifies everyone else in the class after seeing how pale the other two went, and everyone goes dead silent after that in a very uncomfortable way. Not even Amy feels like she can keep talking about werewolves, she doesn't want to draw Steve's friend's attention.

Steve doesn’t need anyone sticking up for him. He doesn’t need Bucky making threats. It makes Steve feel even more inadequate. His eyes lower from the fierce determined stare on the wall towards his hands. He even shifts them to let his fingers lace together in his lap. His shoulders droop and his knees tilt together. Steve isn’t feeling defeated, the guy wouldn’t know what that was like, but shame and guilt are some very Catholic ideologies instill in him by his mother that he hasn’t been able to let go of.

He can’t hide it. His emotions are as naked as he is and the silence in the room just puts him more on edge.

He can handle the murmurs. It’s the judging he can’t see that really does him in.

Break is called forty minutes later and Steve snatched up the robe before the instructor takes him aside to discuss, innocuously enough, a different pose and to really feel the way his body grows stiff and uncomfortable because that will tell him what muscles to really focus on in his own work. He appreciates her advice, accepts the water she gives him, and then sits down next to Penny.

The robe is huge on him, the smallest unisex robe they have. He’s not wearing those short women’s robes out here even if it would have fit.

His hand finds her fur and it’s soothing as he regards Bucky for a moment. “Maybe we could start training again?” Steve can’t pack on muscle. He’s tried. He eats like he doesn’t have a heart condition and tries to build muscle mass but it just doesn’t stick. That doesn’t make him any less determined though.

Idiot.

Steve has always been like this, acting as if someone helping him out makes him somehow lesser, or seen as weak. Bucky isn't fighting his battles for him, he's fighting with him, because Steve never has to face this stuff alone. It's only a moron that doesn't accept their friends sticking up for them.

But then... Steve is kind of a moron.

He huffs something creaky that's almost a laugh when Steve talks about training, giving a half shrug and settling on the dias next to Steve, away from the other students who are in a muttering huddle at the back of the room.

"Sure, but I think you'd kick my ass now, it's harder to box one handed." His phone goes off in his pocket and he silences it without answering, still focused on Steve. "You've got dumb again since I've been gone, forgotten what I told you. You're already fine the way you are, forget what anyone else says."

Fine the way he is? Steve tilts his head down and arches his eyebrow at Bucky as if that might be the dumbest thing he’s ever heard. He’s not fine. He’s anything but fine. He can make this work but he wants to be better. He can be better if he just works at it. “Firstly, I could have beaten you before too. No sweat. But you can stop sugar coating things for me.”

He sort of wants people to find him attractive when he’s naked, not some creepy-half skeleton. Maybe that’s too much to ask but a guy told him once that he feels weird to touch and now it’s all he can think about during times like these.

Bucky’s never had to go through anything like this. Steve talks a big talk but he’s hurting too. And there’s only so much he can toughen up. “And second, people that look the way you do can’t tell people that look the way I do to be body positive.”

He gives Bucky a little shove, which does exactly nothing to his solidly built friend.

Bucky thinks that Steve is attractive naked. Hell, he's had a bunch of wet dreams about that naked body and jerked himself off more than once growing up to the idea of being naked with that naked body. Not that he can ever tell Steve this, because then he'd have to hurl himself off a cliff for revealing embarrassing secrets to his best friend.

Penny pushes her nose against Steve's leg and gives a loud huff in warning that if Steve keeps pushing at her human and touching him when he hasn't given the okay, then she's going to have to take more drastic action.

"--Steve, I look like a horror show if we're talking about naked now. So shut the hell up, or I'll show you what people looking disgusted by a body look like."

Terrified as he is to show his body to doctors, he will strip naked right alongside Steve and show his scars off to everyone just to make a point to his best friend. It's the way he's always been, something about Steve effortlessly makes him able to push his boundaries.

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