Chapter 2: Into the Deep
"Can I say something weird?" Bucky asked out of the blue.
Steve glanced up from his sketchbook to meet his gaze. "That's an unusual request." He returned his focus to his drawing and erased Bucky's left eye for the third time. Josiah had gone home to Baltimore for the weekend, so Bucky invited Steve to come down and visit him at UVA. They hadn't done anything crazy…yet. He sat at the foot of Bucky's bed sketching, Bucky at the head working on a paper for his neuroscience of exercise class. Steve had one foot tucked in so he could balance his sketchbook on his knee, and the other rested in the middle of the bed between Bucky's feet. Every so often, Bucky would poke him with a toe just to remind him he was there.
He poked him particularly hard and urged, "Just answer the question."
"Yes, you can say something weird. I'm just surprised because you usually don't ask first."
"Shut up."
Steve smirked. "What was it you wanted to say?"
"We've been a couple for over two months now, right?"
"I think so. If that's not the case, then I hopelessly misunderstood you in Paris and we need to have a very awkward conversation."
Bucky rolled his eyes at the lame joke. "We've been a couple for two months, but it doesn't feel like it."
"I know. I can't believe it's been that long already."
"That's not what I meant."
"Oh?"
"It feels like it's been way longer than that, because honestly I can't really tell the difference between our relationship as best friends and our relationship now."
Steve knew what he meant, though he didn't realize he'd been thinking the same thing until Bucky said it. Though they openly identified as a couple now, they didn't often venture into anything physical beyond what they were doing right this moment, and they'd been doing that sort of thing freely since they were children. So really, not much had changed. "I guess emotionally, there's not much difference between being best friends and boyfriends."
"But should there be?"
"I don't know. Do you want there to be?"
Bucky shrugged and closed his computer. Steve wondered how much of his paper he'd actually got done if he'd been focused on broaching this topic the entire time. "I dunno. Maybe. But I'm not sure how much farther we can go in that direction. We've told each other everything since we met."
"Really? I know we were always close, but I wouldn't say I told you everything." Some thoughts Steve had kept from Bucky for his own sake, and he was fairly confident that Bucky must've done the same.
Bucky kicked his foot more forcefully than any of the previous times. "Oh yeah? What're you hiding, Steve?"
"You don't want to know."
"That's the only thing you could say that would make me want to know more," Bucky stated. He leaned over and snatched the sketchbook out of Steve's hands and tossed it across the room to Josiah's bed. "Spill."
"I don't know what you want me to say, Buck."
"Tell me something about you that you've never told me before. To deepen our emotional connection or whatever."
He knew there would be no getting out of this. If he didn't talk now, Bucky would hound him about it until he cracked. "Okay, let me think." What could he say? Most of the things that came to mind were depressing as hell, but he didn't want to darken the mood. However, he didn't have much choice unless he wanted to sit here for hours to think of something happy he'd kept to himself. Steve took a deep breath and hugged his knee even closer to his chest. "When you finished treatment, part of me was…sad," he admitted. Even all these years later, he still got a bad taste in his mouth just thinking about it.
The excited expression melted off Bucky's face, replaced by concern and—exactly what Steve had feared—hurt. "What do you mean? Why?"
"Don't get me wrong, I was happy for you…God, so happy. But when you were sick, I didn't feel like the only one left out all the time, and when you started to get better, I went back to being alone, and it was really hard. But I got over it."
"Steve, I'm so sorry. I was so caught up in my excitement that I never stopped to think how that would make you feel."
"It's fine, you had every right to focus on yourself and to be excited. You went through hell, and you got out, and you deserved to celebrate it without worrying about me."
Bucky remained silent. Then, in a near whisper, he said, "I always worry about you."
"I know you do. And I can't stop you from worrying altogether, but can I stop you from worrying unnecessarily? Hell yes. Now it's your turn."
"My turn for what?"
"Tell me something about you you've never told me before."
"I don't have anything."
"Bullshit."
"I'm serious. You know everything."
"There is no possible way I could know everything."
"You're awesome like that."
"This has nothing to do with me. Now talk."
"Okay, uh…the only one I can think of is really depressing."
"More depressing than my pity party?"
"Yeah."
"If you really don't want to say it, I won't make you. But nothing you say will make me wish we hadn't done this."
"You say that now…"
"Bucky…"
"Okay, okay." He took a deep breath with his hand pressed to his chest, where Steve knew his ribbon tattoo sat. When he finally broached the topic, Steve realized why he'd been so reluctant. It was a time neither of them liked to recall. "Senior year, when you almost died…I…said some things."
Steve figured this was probably the case, considering just how close he'd come to never waking up. Once he recovered, his mom told him she'd even had a priest give him last rites, and Steve shuddered to imagine how his family must've suffered in the midst of such fear and grief. The way this conversation was going, in a few moments he would be doing more than just imagining.
"What did you say?" Steve asked meekly. He'd heard the myth that people in comas could hear what was said around them, but Steve had absolutely no recollection of those seven days.
"First I told you that you needed a shave," he said with an uncomfortably forced chuckle. "But…I said…" He closed his eyes and gulped. "I thought you might be tired of fighting, you know…ready to see Carol, Clint, Scott, that sort of thing. So I said…that it was okay if you were ready to go, even if it meant you were leaving me behind."
Steve's eyes filled with tears. "Oh, Bucky…I'm so sorry you had to go through that."
"'S not your fault." Bucky sniffled and wiped at a stray tear.
"I know, but I can still feel bad."
Bucky's expression turned to a thousand-yard stare and he added, "There's one more thing."
"Yeah?"
"I kissed you."
"What?!"
"Not like…romantically. Not on the lips, I mean. There were tubes in the way, and that would've been…really creepy. It was just a forehead kiss, but it was the first time I'd ever done anything like that."
"Wow."
"That was a really scary time."
"Yeah." Steve didn't know what else to say.
"What was it like for you?" Bucky asked suddenly. "What you remember, at least."
He cast his mind back to that terrifying and miserable time, and recalled the sights and sounds of the jungle dreamscape he'd narrowly escaped from. "I've never told anybody this," Steve said seriously. His tone turned joking for a moment, "You probably won't even believe me."
"Shoot."
"I had a dream," he explained. At the time it certainly hadn't felt like a dream, but that was always the case. However, unlike other dreams, even after he woke up, it still felt like it actually happened, if not in the most realistic sense.
"Yeah?"
"The most vivid dream of my entire life."
"What was it about?"
"Fighting Death."
Bucky's eyes widened and his mouth fell slightly open.
"He was purple," Steve continued.
"Death?"
"Yes. Death was purple."
"That's…weird. You fought him?"
"I did. It was the hardest thing I've ever done, even though it was only a dream."
"Somehow I doubt that's all it was," Bucky said. Then he asked, "Did you win?"
"Yes. And I think…that's why I woke up."
"Okay."
"But the weirdest part is that I think I had help."
"From who?"
"I'm not sure. In the dream it was this red and blue blur that glowed orangish gold. And it felt…familiar."
"Interesting."
"I've thought about that dream blur many times. It didn't want me to die."
"Then this blur and I agree on something," Bucky said with a forced smile. "That week was easily the worst week of my life."
"I'm sorry."
"It's not your fault. You're the reason for all the great weeks that came after."
Steve's heart swelled warmly in his chest. "That's so sweet."
Bucky blushed. "Yeah, it's…whatever. Stop being mushy."
"Me? You're the one who's being mushy."
"Yeah, okay. That's on me. Let's move on."
"Alright," Steve conceded. "You want to go back to shallow conversation or continue 'deepening our emotional connection?'"
"We're already here, we might as well keep diving."
"Okay." Steve grinned as he thought of a question he wanted to ask. "What did you write your essay about for Mrs. Dormer's class? The one about challenges and setbacks."
Bucky scoffed. "How long have you been sitting on that one?"
"Are you gonna tell me or not?"
"I wrote it about how challenging it was for me to keep you from fighting your way to the principal's office all through elementary and middle school."
"Seriously?"
"Yeah. You know I didn't want to write about cancer."
"I know that. I just didn't expect that would be the next topic you thought of."
Bucky shrugged. "It got me a ninety six."
"Wow. That's better than I scored."
"What did you write yours about?"
"I, uh…wrote it about survivor's guilt."
"Really?"
"Yeah. Mentally, that's a lot harder for me to cope with than illness."
"I can imagine."
"It's even worse now that I'm walking around with a dead person's lungs in my chest."
Bucky nodded silently. Steve, not wanting the mood to darken any further, suggested they try for some less emotionally devastating topics.
"Sure." Bucky paused to ruminate for a moment. "Okay, I got one. Do you remember that assembly we had to go to before prom?"
"The one about pregnancy prevention?"
"Yeah, that's the one."
"What about it?"
"Well, afterwards, when we were talking, all of us, you said that your… equipment… wasn't connected."
Steve stifled an uncomfortable laugh. He didn't particularly enjoy thinking about this aspect of his CF; he found it more humiliating than any other part of the disease, but he was always willing to educate and Bucky seemed genuinely, if hesitantly, curious.
"What exactly does that mean?" he asked after an awkwardly long pause.
"I have no vas deferens," he explained. "I make sperm normally, but they have no way of getting where they're supposed to go."
"Oh, okay."
"Why do I feel like there's a follow-up question?"
"There doesn't have to be if you don't want to talk about it," Bucky assured.
"I'd rather you ask than continue imagining or believing something untrue."
"Okay. So, can you, um…you know…have sex?"
Steve smiled lewdly and used his big toe to tickle the bottom of Bucky's foot. "Are you offering?"
Bucky's face turned bright red. "What? Not, like, right now, that's not what I meant. I just meant, like…in general, you know, if the situation…ever arose."
No amount of self-control could have saved Steve from the raucous fit of laughter that overcame him as he watched Bucky fumble adorably through that sentence. He'd never seen his normally suave friend flounder like this. It was probably because he wanted to know the answer before he ended up in a situation where he might find out the hard way. Steve nearly choked thinking about what would happen if Bucky had waited until their first time to ask this question which had clearly been burning at the back of his mind for several years.
Bucky wrapped his arm protectively around his torso, a gesture which Steve recognized as his version of crossing his arms. "Don't laugh," he said meekly, though he was on the verge of chuckling also.
"Sorry," Steve said as he attempted to compose himself. "You're just being so cute about it."
"Just answer the fucking question so we can forget this ever happened."
"Oh no. I am not forgetting about this." Steve's laugh reached a point where it started to hurt, and he clutched at the left side of his chest. "Ever."
"Fine, whatever. I'll just google it." Bucky reached for his laptop, but Steve held out a hand to stop him.
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry. We're making this more awkward than it needs to be." He wiped a tear that had started to fall when his laughter reached its peak. "Yes, I can have sex, just like any other man."
Bucky nodded. Then, he followed up with another personal question: "Have you?"
"Have you?" Steve countered.
"I asked first."
"No," he said frankly. "My mom's Catholic."
"But you aren't. Wait, are you?"
"No. But I don't want her to disown me."
"So you won't do it until you're married?"
Steve shrugged. "I don't know. I haven't really thought about it. Having your lungs ripped out and replaced tends to throw a wrench in your sex drive."
Now it was Bucky's turn to laugh so hard he struggled for breath.
"But it's more than that," Steve continued. Now that he wasn't fighting for his life, he'd had more time to think about this sort of thing. He didn't recall having any crushes as a child, nor being attracted to any of his peers in high school. That date with Jennifer had been all sorts of awkward for a multitude of reasons even beyond his sexuality. Frankly, Bucky was the only person he'd ever considered in that light, and even then, not until after their time at Gravesen together. He'd looked into it and learned there existed a term to describe that very orientation. "I've been thinking about this since the Paralympics, and I'm fairly confident that I'm demisexual."
"What does that mean?" Bucky asked genuinely.
"That I don't really feel attracted to a person until I've forged an emotional bond with them."
"Oh, okay." He ran his tongue over his teeth thoughtfully. "And…I fall into that category?"
Steve shot him a playful glare. "Of course you do, jerk. Now you have to answer too."
"Would you kill me if I said I have?" he asked sheepishly.
"No, why would I do that? You're a twenty-year-old man, it's not unexpected that you've had sex before. Who was it?"
"I dated this girl from the soccer team last year."
"Do I know her?"
"No."
"Do I want to?"
"Definitely not. She's even more of a firecracker than you, if you can believe it."
"I guess you have a type."
"I guess I do. Last summer I took her to practice to meet the team—the US amputee team, that is—and Lemar said something…inappropriate, to John, about how he was going to show her that left hands are better than right."
"Gross."
"Yeah. Well, she overheard him and punched him right in the face."
Steve's eyes widened. "Wow. Good for her."
"I know. But she broke up with me about a week after that."
"Why? Was there another guy?"
Bucky chuckled and shook his head. "Another girl."
"Oh. Good for her," Steve repeated. "I guess you both did the same thing, then, huh?"
"I guess we did. But her new girlfriend isn't her best friend of fifteen years."
"Well, not every love story can be quite as many years in the making as ours."
Quick disclaimer: while I do talk about sex some, as you've seen here in this chapter, this story will not ever be explicit in that respect. I'm not comfortable writing it, and I know there are many people not comfortable reading it. I decided to focus more on the fluffy, emotionally intimate side of things, because who doesn't love fluff?
