The hospital sheets were rough and the walls were white. Too white, blindingly white—the kind of white that got under his skin and itched him raw.
Bucky watched him silently. Mild human curiosity encroaching on his cowardice, desire burning his fingers black until he took a step forward. And then another.
"Tell me about myself." His voice was small – a shadow of its former itself. He clung to the corner wall of the hospital. His heart was beating somewhere in the distance. Shrouded by the trauma show the staff put on in the halls. As if the world would stop spinning if they slowed down. He could hear the rubber of their sneakers squeaking on the tiles.
Who the hell is Bucky? He still didn't know the answer to that question. But he knew him. That man on the bridge. That man he had almost let drown. That man he had put in the hospital. "That man you saved." Steve would have said if he knew the thoughts lurking in the cobwebbed corners of his mind. He was always trying to find the good in people even when there was none to be found. He was trying to save him because that's what friends did even when that friend was caught up in the dusty interiors of his mind and had a gun pressed to the back of his head..
Steve said he was his "friend." The word was meaningless to him.
Bucky didn't want to know about himself. About the "man" he had been. He knew himself as a demon and he could accept that in this world.
He never asked what he wanted. Tell me about us.
That was something words couldn't touch.
Were we?
Friends… you were my best friend. Only friend was more accurate. But that sounded desperate and he was too old to do desperate. Needful and sullen like a boy. His fingers curled in the sheets instead of around his.
And did we? Fuck.
No. It wasn't that he hadn't wanted to. He had wanted to so much that it kept him up at night. But there was never a right time for those kinds of things.
Is that what friends do?
Steve didn't know what was worse. That Bucky didn't know what a friend was or that he didn't want him to remember. Because if he couldn't remember there were no lines he couldn't cross.
"Friends, that's what we are." He whispered like some jumping off point to a sentence he wasn't committed to. They were more than that and less than that and every inch of distance between.
"I don't want to hurt you." Steve could feel the cold steel of his fingers.
"You're not." Steve reassured.
The bruises told him otherwise. They would fade, but for once the memory wouldn't.
His eyes said what he couldn't. Come here.
Steve had pushed everyone else away, but he could never push Bucky away.
Steve breathed in the silence of the name he wanted to speak. Bucky. Because the stranger that sat on the edge of his bed was not his childhood friend. The Bucky he knew would have never kissed him like that.
Bucky kissed him hungrily. He bit at his lower lip. The sensation of pain only made him harder. Bucky licked at his swallowed lip. His forehead knocked against his. His weight pushed him into the thin mattress. He thought he was going to disappear in it.
"Is this what friends do?" His eyes asked. His hand trailed down the front of his hospital gown. He paused at the hem of it. He could feel the outline of his erection.
Rough hands caressed soft skin. He teased his mouth open with his tongue.
Cold fingers pressed at his entrance and his lips traced the stiches. He felt Steve inhale.
"Does it hurt?" His eyes narrowed at the damage he'd done. He wasn't his friend this Bucky person, but he was sure as hell wasn't the winter soldier either.
"No." Steve lied.
"I'm sorry." The words got stuck in his throat.
"Make it up to me."
Every inch of him ached for him. The absence of his hands on his skin had hollowed out a place inside of him. Bone and ashes and soot where his fingers trailed – places like that didn't need to be dredged up. Or rest in a lover's arms.
Bucky tried not to look in mirrors. Unless it was as cracked and painted in blood as he was. Then he could look. Only then was his reflection something he recognized.
It wasn't that he couldn't remember when he had last been touched like that. It was if he had been touched like that. He only knew another's touch if it was to hold him down. Force a needle under his skin, knuckles cracking against his bones.
Steve had been a part of that violence, but he couldn't let people get hurt. Not even for Bucky. But when it came to them, only them, Steve would have given his life rather than hurt him again.
It was that surrender that made him stop.
"Did anyone see you?" Steve asked.
"I'm a ghost, remember?" A smirk tugged at his lips.
"They'll hear you." Bucky whispered.
"Let them." Steve said like they were just two teenagers fucking on a hospital bed.
"Are you going to be quiet?" Bucky didn't want him to be quiet. He wanted to hear him. Every breath, every moan he drew out of him. He wanted to hear his name on his tongue. If he had to hide he wanted to hide in his skin.
He covered his mouth with his hand. Steve bit at it gently. He ran his tongue over the teeth marks. Bucky smiled against the curve of his collarbone. He trailed kisses up his neck slowly enough to make him itch until he reached his mouth. Steve moaned into the kiss.
His hands gripped his hips. He pulled him into every thrust of his hips.
The TV was on. Some brain cell killing reality show. At least it was one show that wasn't on his checklist. Steve had turned up the volume. Bucky didn't want to hear jersey accents with every second word bleeped out he wanted to hear him.
Steve wanted to tear at his armor. It was a shell that wouldn't break for anyone. He wouldn't let him in. They had never been closer. Steve had never been physically closer to someone and yet still so far away.
Bucky was fire, but he was cold to the touch. His forehead rested against his. His breathing had stilled. His heartbeat was a low hum.
The sheets were damp with their sweat.
He hadn't forgotten his smell, the feel of skin against his, the war in his too fucking blue eyes. The pale of his skin covered in bloodied trenches he made with his teeth brought out their brilliance. He knew him before he knew himself. Nothing could erase him.