"Sorry about last night, man," Steve said when he arrived to pick Bucky up for work the next morning.

"It's no problem," Bucky said.

"Geez, I can't believe I fell asleep. You have magic fingers."

Bucky flushed a little at the compliment, but at least it didn't make him pop a boner. There was good reason for that. He'd taken care of himself in the shower this morning, when he woke up from a dream – he didn't exactly remember what had been going on, he remembered Steve's bare skin in the firelight and a strong hand around his cock. He'd been hard as a rock and leaking and he'd bolted to the bathroom, at first thinking he'd take a cold shower.

Then he had taken a decidedly different approach.

Gay sex. This was a topic that had come up repeatedly in his mind over the past twenty-four hours. If he really had a crush on Steve, then he shouldn't be grossed out by gay sex. But he had never watched any gay porn, so he just tried to imagine it. And in the shower he had experimented a little, exploring his asshole with his finger. He couldn't imagine anything as big as a dick fitting in there. But the thought didn't turn him off.

In fact, it had turned him on. He wasn't sure exactly why, because it didn't feel like the sex he'd had with women. Well, that one girl in high school when he was drunk. He and Steve had both gotten drunk and decided to lose their virginity before graduation. Funny how they'd never really talked much about that. Sex with a girl had felt good, but somehow, imagining a dick up his ass was a wholly different sensation. One that really turned him on instead of feeling like something he should do.

Rather quickly, he had concluded that he would be on the receiving end of any sex. He had worked his finger in and out and gripped himself as tight as he remembered from his dream and his vision blacked out for a few seconds while he came. While he washed himself off, he thought about how good it would be when Steve was the one doing these things to him.

The release made him feel a lot less jangled, looking over at his best friend. "Coffee?" he asked.

"Coffee," Steve agreed, and pulled into the Starbucks.

Before they had inched up to the speaker, Bucky said, "I think today I'll try one of your fancy drinks."

"You want a Hazelnut Macchiato? With whipped cream?"

"Yeah."

"Yeah, right. Come on. Say it."

"I don't need to say it. Just tell them you want two of them."

"Say it!"

"Vampire!" Bucky said, earning a laugh from Steve. Then very slowly, enunciating each word, "Hazel-nut Macch-ia-to."

"Maybe I should try your Americano thing."

"You wouldn't like it."

"How do you know? It's not like you ever had a macchiato."

"It's not macchiAto, it's macchiat-O."

Steve laughed again. "Sure."

"So you really think I have magic fingers, huh?" Bucky asked after Steve had ordered.

As soon as the words left his mouth he wanted to pull them back. Why had he brought that up again? So what if Steve said he had magic fingers, Steve had fucking fallen asleep. Clearly, Steve hadn't been feeling the same level of arousal as Bucky had. Last night Bucky had gone to bed thinking about that, wondering if it meant there was no chance Steve felt the same Bucky was feeling now, and then he'd had that dream and woken up ready to go and he'd forgotten. He'd forgotten that he had insisted on giving Steve a massage last night precisely for the reason of determining whether Steve could conceivably be interested in Bucky sexually. So many ifs. And Steve falling asleep seemed to be a solid no.

"All I know is, I have zero back pain today," Steve said. "Maybe your talents are going to waste as a construction worker. Maybe you should have gone to school for massage therapy."

"Yeah, right," said Bucky. "I'm pretty sure it wasn't that good."

Steve laughed. "It was pretty fucking good. Think about how much money you could make if you offered massages to the guys on the site."

Now Bucky had to laugh. "None of those guys want a dude massaging them. A hot girl, yes, but definitely not me."

Steve smiled and shrugged a little in response, and that was all Bucky had to work with for the rest of the day. What exactly did Steve's knowing little smile mean? Was Steve saying he'd rather have Bucky massage him than some hot girl? Was he saying some other guy on the crew liked him?

Bucky had to know.

Whenever Bucky noticed Steve's head turned in his direction throughout the work day, he gave Steve something to look at. He spent a lot of time stretching his arms and sticking his ass out. He combed his fingers through his hair and adjusted his tool belt and lifted his foot up onto a sawhorse to untie and retie his boot.

Despite all this, every time he checked to see if Steve was still looking, he found Steve looking the other way.

That's it, then, he thought glumly as they clocked out. Steve's not interested.

But when they got into the truck, Bucky found himself asking, "You wanna come over my place for a bit? We could get pizza or salads or whatever."

"Sure," said Steve.

And that was how Bucky ended up on the couch with Steve asking him if he had ever thought about gay sex.

To be fair, they had decided to watch a few episodes of "Orange Is the New Black." Natasha and Maria both had been talking up the show after they had binge watched two seasons the month before. "Do you think Nat and Maria are lesbians?" Steve asked after the first episode, during which he had cringed through a lesbian sex scene.

"So what if they are?" Bucky said. "You can't tell me that if you were in prison for a long, long time you wouldn't consider some same sex action."

"I would never be in prison. I am a law-abiding citizen."

"Okay, so you were falsely accused and convicted of murder. You're in prison for life. You wouldn't at least consider it?"

"I don't think men's prisons are like this prison. Women's prisons are different. I'd end up some guy's bitch."

Bucky told himself he should shut his mouth. He didn't want to be that pathetic person who kept chasing after someone who was clearly not into him. But then, Steve's answers weren't exactly definitive.

"Okay, what if this was like some super minimal security prison and you were the big tough guy everyone was afraid of. Would you consider it then?"

"Why would anyone be afraid of me?"

"Steve, we've been in bar fights together."

"But I'm a friendly guy!"

"Until someone says something racist. Or sexist. Or mean."

Steve sighed. "Okay."

"Okay what? You'd consider sex with another guy?"

"Would you?" Steve asked. He looked directly at Bucky, something he hadn't been doing through this entire conversation. "Would you have sex with a dude in prison?"

Bucky wasn't quite sure how to answer that. If he said yes, then Steve would think he was gay. Which wasn't exactly wrong… but he wanted Steve to know that he didn't want to have sex with just any guy. He wanted to have sex with Steve.

He swallowed. "Maybe…"

"Maybe?"

"Okay, what if it was me and you? What if we were cellmates? Yeah. We're cellmates, we've been in prison for like ten years, and you're feeling lonely. Would you have sex with me?"

A little wrinkle appeared in Steve's forehead, but otherwise his facial expression didn't change. He just stared at Bucky with his mouth slightly open.

"I mean, okay, maybe this isn't coming out the way I mean," Bucky said quickly, backpedaling. "Like, if you had a guy, like me, as your cellmate, and you had become good friends with him and cared about him," Bucky heard himself talking faster and faster, but he couldn't stop now, "you know, and also he was super muscular with awesome hair, you know, really good-looking like I am—"

There it was. Steve guffawed and clutched at his chest. Through gales of laughter he said, "Okay, okay, fine, yes. Yes. I would have prison sex with you."

"Or this other guy who is equally or maybe a little less hot than me."

Steve bent over, laughing so hard he could barely breathe. "You're jealous of a prison inmate you just made up!"

"I am not!" Bucky said. "I just… don't want you to have prison sex with someone hotter than me."

His face was red, but he was sure Steve couldn't tell through the tears of laughter in his eyes. "You're jealous!"

"Well, if you're gonna have gay sex you could at least ask me first," Bucky huffed. "I'm sure they would allow a conjugal visit."

"Bucky!" Steve gasped, finally calming down a bit. "Is there any scenario where you and I wouldn't end up in prison together?"

He had a point. "No."

"Okay, then." Wiping his eyes, Steve picked up the remote. "Next episode, then?"

"Of course. It's only eight o'clock. We can watch, like, three more episodes."

And that was how they ended up falling asleep on the couch, each with their head on one end and their feet tangled up somewhere in the middle.