Title: Between Your Desire and Mine
Pairing: Steve/Bucky
Rating: M
Warnings: none
Spoilers: none
Wordcount: 1425
Summary: Steve just wants to give Bucky a blowjob.
A/N: Love to Sara for looking this over.
It's just turned evening, and Steve's walking home with his collar up against the breeze and his bag banging into his knee with every other step. He's passing by an alleyway when he hears it, the shuffle of gravel and something deep and throaty.
He looks sideways reflexively and catches sight of someone he doesn't know, back pressed to the crumbling brick wall and head tilted back to reveal a glimpse of tanned skin; and Steve would look away and walk on with heated ears, except that in front of the man is Bucky.
Bucky's got his favorite jacket on, the one that he's lent to Steve countless times on colder days, and Steve's drawn his profile so many times it's almost automatic, the itch in his fingers; but this time, Bucky's not sprawled in his living room but on his knees in a shadowed alley and he's looking up, his hands at the other man's hips and his mouth—christ, his mouth is on a stranger's dick.
Steve swallows, hard. He needs to stop looking; he needs to leave, this isn't a moment meant for him. But then the man says something low and puts a hand around Bucky's head, and Bucky lets him — lets him thrust quick and hard into his mouth, his throat.
There's something mesmerizing about it: the coil of Bucky's body as he crouches on the ground, the small jerks of his head, the noises spilling from his lips. Steve's suddenly very aware of himself, the way his breaths are coming shallow from his lungs and how he's half-hard in his trousers.
The man tugs at Bucky's hair suddenly, a groan from between his teeth; and Bucky finally pulls back, brings up a hand to wipe at his mouth. There's a murmur from the stranger and then Bucky's letting out a laugh.
That soft sound's what gets Steve to finally move, because he's heard it so many times before: Bucky laughing as he throws an arm around Steve's shoulders, or reaches out to ruffle his hair. It's a sound he'd thought was saved for him, stupidly.
Steve walks fast, shivering a little; the bag's going to leave a bruise on his thigh but he doesn't care. He bites his bottom lip and clenches his hand inside his pocket and tries very hard not to think about Bucky.
—
Bucky comes home soon after Steve, though, and when he says, "Hey, how was class," there are rough edges to his vowels that make Steve drop his sketchbook.
"Good," he says, scrambling for the floor. "What'd you do today?"
"Oh, you know," Bucky shrugs, "nothing important," but when Steve finally clutches at his notebook and looks up, his mouth is red and twitching into a faint, lopsided grin. Steve glances away because his face is going hot and has to clear his throat before he can say anything.
—
Steve can't stop thinking about it. He keeps drawing it without meaning to: the way Bucky's elbows had pressed into his torso, the creases in the fabric where his knees met the ground. He never gets past the slant of Bucky's shoulders before he's desperately rubbing out all the lines, until eraser crumbs are spilling into his lap.
He doesn't want to think about it. He shouldn't be thinking about it.
But sometimes at night Bucky comes home smelling faintly of alcohol and more strongly of sex, his mouth darkened and a little bit wet, and Steve's back at the alley entrance, looking at Bucky's hands tightening around someone's thigh. He pretends to sleep and listens to the sounds of Bucky stumbling into bed. He listens until Bucky's breaths even out, and then he presses a hand down into his pants and strokes himself with his tongue between his teeth and eyes closed, remembering the soft huff of Bucky's laugh.
—
He wonders what it'd be like, for him to be the one in front of Bucky, with Bucky in his mouth. If Bucky would take Steve's head in his hands, or if he'd curl his fingers at his side and let Steve move slow instead. If Bucky would stay quiet and swallow down all his noises, or if they'd spill out of him anyway, rough and bitten-off.
He wonders what Bucky's face would look like when he's between Bucky's knees looking up, but here's where his imagination fails him: he's seen Bucky's eyes go dark and heard the husk of his voice thick with want, but despite all of Steve's frustrated tries, he can't put the pieces together.
—
Steve doesn't know how to unsee it. He'll stare at the curve of Bucky's mouth, remembering the way it looked faintly bruised, and the flicker of Bucky's tongue coming out to lick along his lips. When Bucky throws his arm around his shoulders, Steve looks at the lines of his hands and the neat play of tendons across his knuckles and wonders how many men Bucky's touched.
He looks and looks, and it's getting harder not to want, when Bucky's voice is sleep-soft in his ear at night and his touch raises fire along Steve's skin.
But Steve's known Bucky for a lifetime, and if — if Bucky had wanted him back, wouldn't Steve have already known?
—
They're coming home from a night out, both a bit drunk, and that's probably what does it. They're just stumbling into the apartment and Bucky keeps touching him, light and fleeting in his hair and firmer across his back and shoulders.
"You know, I saw you," it slips out of Steve's traitorous mouth. "With — with a guy."
Bucky lets Steve go completely and looks at him. "I don't know what you're talking about," he says, flat.
"I did." He looks up with his jaw set tight, because now that it's out he might as well be thorough. "In the alley past the docks, and you were—"
"Listen," Bucky says hurriedly, "it ain't like that, all right? It's not real, it's just—"
And if Steve listens any longer, he's going to lose his courage, so he licks his dry lips and takes a step, which brings him solidly into Bucky's space. Bucky stops talking and looks down at him, brow wrinkling in confusion, before Steve takes a breath and reaches up to touch the curve of Bucky's jaw, stands on his toes and kisses him before he can talk himself out of it.
Bucky tastes warm. His mouth is stiff against Steve's until Bucky lets out a small sigh and puts his hands on Steve's shoulders to pull him closer. Then Bucky's mouth opens a little and he's licking at Steve's bottom lip, with a hint of teeth.
Steve pulls back, panting a bit. "Was that—was that real?" He says, and he doesn't mean to but it comes out wavering. "Because if that's not, Bucky, then I don't know what is."
Bucky looks at him, and he says, "Steve," breathless, with hot eyes and his mouth going soft.
And Steve puts a hand on Bucky's chest, pushes him until he's stumbling onto the bed.
"Hey," Bucky says, "what—" and then he stops because Steve's getting to his knees and fumbling at Bucky's waistband.
"Let me do this, Buck," Steve says through the pounding of his heart, and when he's finally got Bucky's dick free he takes it into his mouth carefully like he's been wanting to for weeks.
Bucky's warm in his mouth and above Steve's head he makes a broken sound. Steve breathes through his nose and looks up, and the look on Bucky's face is—
He's looking at Steve with his eyes half-closed like Steve's too bright to look at, and he says, "Steve," a bit desperately, like he's not sure what's happening at all. So Steve grins a little and keeps going, while Bucky makes soft sounds and his hand is in Steve's hair, his thumb stroking Steve's forehead.
When Bucky comes his head's thrown back and his mouth is round and open, and Steve thinks he's never seen Bucky as beautiful as at that exact moment.
Bucky pulls Steve up to the bed next to him, looking at Steve like he's something very important. "Yeah, Steve, it's real," he says, and he lets out a laugh that isn't, really, at all. "You're real."
He presses his fingers to Steve's mouth and looks at him, and then he's rolling them over, so Steve's lying beneath him. He dips his head to press Steve into another kiss, and Steve rasps out, "Bucky," lets himself fall apart under Bucky's touch.