Oneirataxia: The inability to distinguish between fantasy and reality.
Steve doesn't think this is a good idea. This is far from a good idea, and he starts to tell Bucky so, but the words get stuck in his throat at the wrong time and he ends up swallowing his syllables as Bucky pushes him back down onto the bed, mouths and teeth and tongues tangled, and Steve wonders if the bitter taste in the corners of Bucky's mouth are just traces of alcohol, or if he can taste desperation in there, too. He wouldn't be surprised.
"Did you know him?" Bucky asks, his voice gritty and grainy as he presses in and oh, Steve remembers this, hot and velvet slick and wanting, and his heart wrenches as Bucky buries his face in the crook of his neck and tells him what a good man Steve Rogers was.
"You look like him," Bucky says quietly, and tears drop salty onto Steve's skin, and he brushes them away and tries to ignore the ones coating the insides of his eyes. "Maybe if he had lived long enough. The war took it out of him. So tiny, delicate, fragile, 4-F. Always 4-F."
Bucky grinds his teeth together, and Steve cries out as he strikes that place deep inside of him, and he isn't sure if the pleasure racing up and down his spine is enough to wipe away the sadness in his head.
"I left him, you know, it was me," Bucky mutters, driving into Steve with a ferocity that has the headboard slamming violently against the wall. He doesn't apologise. "Went to war, and left him."
Bucky bites through the skin of Steve's neck, sobbing the whole while, as he comes, and Steve stares up at the ceiling and tries to convince himself that the splash of warmth between them is okay.
"And I thought he might still be alive," Bucky says drowsily, his hand splayed lazily across Steve's chest. "Just, my God, the way you look, walk, talk, everything, exactly like darling Steve. But you're, you're him and not him, at the same time." Bucky leans on his elbow, gazing at him intently in the darkness, and Steve wants to squirm under his gaze. "It's weird. I feel like I've known you."
Bucky settles down into the pillows, and Steve releases a breath he doesn't realise he's been holding, and wonders when it won't hurt quite so much.