fossilised | For Steve

For Steve

[This is a bad idea.

Bucky knows it as soon as he stops outside the little community centre where these classes run and he sees the other students milling about, chatting to each other in their own little cliques. The thing has been running for a while, it's an art group for anyone with any sort of mental health issue - depression, anxiety, psychosis. He's here for PTSD, practically bullied into it by his therapist at the VA, under the instructions that he needs to get out and start socialising more.

There are only six other people, four women and two men, and it already feels like too large a crowd. He makes sure his prosthetic is properly covered by a glove and long sleeve, stuffed into his pocket so nobody can tell it hangs strangely, and slouches in at the back. From the conversations he can overhear, blonde woman and redhead woman have anxiety issues, brunette #1 and the two men all have depression, and brunette #2 has psychosis. They're all so open with each other, chatting about medications and coping techniques and the work they've been doing in class already.

One of them approaches him and asks his name, and what he's there for, but he just glowers at her until she retreats again. He doesn't want anyone to know why he's here, and he's only here so Wilson will stop goddamn riding him about it.

He slumps into the seat nearest the back and waits for the teacher to arrive, already sure this is going to be a waste of time...]

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Four, five months, with no therapy to back you up and this is the first time something happened.

[He's not trying to make Bucky feel better here, just restating facts to make sure he's not getting anything wrong.]

He wants you to stay? Stay. But call me if anything comes up at all, and check in again by eight tonight. Do you have any free time tomorrow to come see me?

[Stay.

It feels like a priest absolving his sins, even though it's not, but he knows Sam wouldn't tell him that it was okay to stay if it really wasn't. He'd come round himself if he thought he needed to extract Bucky.]

...I thought I could do this without therapy. I'm fucking sick of being broken.

[But he'll call, he'll come and see him.]

I don't know if I can come tomorrow, Steve is fucked up on painkillers and he needs someone around.

[There is no hesitation before Sam offers, even though Bucky has never let Sam into his apartment before. He can guess, through context clues, how Bucky lives. So they're at Steve's place, in the same building so familiar territory, but knowing the kind of guy Steve is probably a clean but homey place. Much better for Bucky's psyche.]

I can drop by, too. Bring any groceries you two might need.

[Even though the offer is kindly given, Bucky isn't stupid enough to think that it's an actual choice he has. Sam is coming around whether he's invited or not, so he might as well just go with it.]

Yeah-- yeah, thanks. Some food, nutritious crap, for Steve.

[Bucky is perfectly allowed to say no, but Sam would find a way to check in anyway and it would not be anywhere near as nice. There's a sound of affirmation from Sam's end of the phone.]

Text me the apartment number, I'll be there at nine in the morning.

[Sam has other ways of obtaining Steve's address, he volunteers at the place where Sam works so there are records Sam can access easily enough, but as much as possible it's important for Bucky to be a participant here.]

Also, congrats on the relationship, Bucky.

[Sam must be confident in thinking there was a relationship to save to say something like that and it makes him feel better-- but almost like he's about to cry, so he settles on just hanging up without another word. He knows Sam can get the apartment number from someone else.

Setting his phone on the table, Bucky pads through to the bedroom with Sasha at his heels to see if Steve is asleep. He's not going to cry, damn it, he's not.]

[Steve has been drifting in and out of sleep. On the one hand, painkillers like whoa (never having a history of painkiller abuse means they give you the really good ones), on the other hand he did get a full eight hours of sleep before going in.

So he's in the sort of drowsy half awake stage, having pulled on a loose t-shirt and clearly decided that and boxer-briefs were all that were required for sleep. Seeing Bucky at the door with Sasha though has him trying to wake up a little more, dopey smile and utter adoration returning.]

You're so handsome.

[Fuck him, Steve is just-- look at him, he's so gorgeous even while doped up to the eyeballs and he's just so perfect with it. Bucky's steps over to the bed are a little stilted, but eventually he's sat next to Steve, voice low.]

My therapist from the vet centre is coming over tomorrow morning, he said-- he said it was okay to stay with you.

[Don't cry, Barnes, get it together. Hopefully Steve is too out of it to notice the thick wobble to Bucky's voice.]

[Steve rolls onto his back so he can look up at Bucky from the comfort of the bed, his cheek pressed against Bucky's thigh. Bucky is here. Bucky is going to stay. Everything is going to be okay.]

Do you want to stay forever?

[He huffs a quiet little laugh that mingles with the sob caught in his throat, and all of a sudden he's crying. Thank god they're silent tears and with how doped up Steve is, he might not notice, especially once Bucky starts threading fingers through his hair soothingly.]

You always like this when you're high, Rogers?

[Steve nuzzles shamelessly against Bucky's leg. Well, not exactly nuzzles, he's got to be careful of the broken nose and all but rubbing his cheek will have to do. He makes a soft sound in his throat at the question, though what it's supposed to indicate is anyone's guess.

Glancing up, he does catch that glint of light off the wetness of Bucky's cheek.]

Did I make you sad?

What? No.

[Damn it.

He swallows hard and tries to choke it back, but now it's started he doesn't seem to be able to stop the tears. It's good, really, he'll feel better when it's out. But it's embarrassing.]

I'm sad 'cause I hurt you.

I'm okay though. Well, no, I'm sad 'cause you're sad.

[the angle is a bit awkward for a traditional embrace, but that doesn't stop Steve from putting his arms around Bucky as best he can just the same.]

[He snorts in a half laugh and rests his hand atop Steve's head to card fingers lightly through his hair.]

That's the problem, Steve. I'm messed up, and I don't want to drag you down to be sad when I'm sad, you deserve to be happy all the damn time.

Will it make you happy if I'm happy?

[He closes his eyes as Bucky strokes his hair, rubbing his cheek even more against Bucky's leg.]

Yeah.

[His tears are at least slowing, even if they haven't stopped yet.]

I don't know when it happened, but you being happy is pretty much the most important thing to me now... and I'm kinda glad you're high, so you probably won't remember what a sap I'm being tomorrow.

That's not fair.

[Steve pouted slightly, though the glare he tries to fix Bucky with manages to be about as intimidating as a growl from a kitten.]

I feel like... like I've been waiting for you to come along my whole life. I'm so happy when you're with me.

[He's not even slightly intimidated, but his heart does ache a bit. Little by little, Steve is wearing down his guilt, though Sam giving his permission to stay has taken a big chunk out of it too.]

What's not fair about wanting you to be happy, Steve?

It's not fair that you're being so sweet and I might not remember it because I'm high.

[His lips finally curl up a bit into an involuntary smile and he returns to stroking fingers through Steve's hair.]

You'll hear me be a sap again sometime, Steve. Remember? I'm gonna teach you to box so that this doesn't happen again, and-- and I'm gonna listen to what Sam says to me. We'll work it out.

[There's the smile back on Steve's face again as he resumes cuddling against Bucky.]

I think I'll like seeing you box. Bet it's sexy. Sam can have cold pizza if he wants some.

I'm not exactly good any more, you need two arms to be a boxer, but I can teach you the basics.

[Enough to hopefully take him down if necessary.]

...so, c'mon, I feel like I'm wasting this opportunity of you being high. Should I be asking about your embarrassing secrets?

I'd tell you them all even if I wasn't on painkillers.

[He would too. Maybe a little more evasively than this way, but he is an open book.]

What do you want to know?

Everything.

[It's said completely sincerely, maybe he isn't quite done being a sap for the night.]

I want to know everything about you, and then when I forget I want to know it all over again. So you better get talking.

[Bucky said everything, so everything he'll get. Steve is happy enough to talk, curled up against Bucky like this. He talks about when he was young - the father he only knew from stories because he'd died overseas when Steve was too young to truly remember him. How for so many years it was basically just him and his mother, moving from base to base where she was needed and where there were more doctors to keep an eye on Steve when he was mostly a collection of symptoms and no solid answers.

How she died when he was sixteen because of some idiot ignoring quarantine procedures, how Steve had to be in quarantine for a time after that just to make sure he wasn't a carrier as well. How he had no living family at that point so it was a colleague of his mother's who ended up taking him, the kindly doctor Erskine. He found out what was wrong and kept Steve from dying before he hit eighteen.

How Doctor Erskine had died when Steve was nineteen killed by a domestic terrorist attack on the clinic he was working at.

He doesn't try to focus on the sad things, he truly doesn't, he's got a lot of happy memories mixed in as well. Cooking with his mom, the stories she'd tell about his dad, briefly meeting his later college friend Tony when they were both young because Doctor Erskine worked on a few projects with Tony's father and they hated each other at first. It's not intentional, all the sad memories, but Steve's life seems to be a series of losses. A very small number of people he could call close made smaller and smaller by each passing year until college and a group project brought his current friends group together and they just kind of stuck around.

About how he always worries that he's going to lose them too.]

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