Steve says nothing to Bucky the night that he's finally accepted. He takes his form, cleanly stamped with a 1A in the bottom right corner, clutches it tight to his chest, and scurries home. He doesn't want to see the rest of the expo. Doesn't care what else it might have to offer.

The paper burns into his skin like a shameful secret as the adrenaline of what's just happened begins to wear off.
He's done it. He's done it. He's-
He's got no idea what he's going to tell his best friend.

Bucky has never wanted him to enlist. His friend gets that quietly pained look in his eyes whenever Steve stubbornly tries to bluster his way into the 107th on sheer pig-headedness alone, time after time.
Bucky worries about him. He has the decency not to say it, but he doesn't think Steve would make it as a soldier. Over the long, long time the two of them have been friends, they've perfected the art of dancing around each other. Of saying one thing and meaning another. They read each other loud and clear regardless.
Bucky is keenly aware of, but politely doesn't mention any of Steve's laundry-list of conditions. The weak heart, the treacherous lungs, the twisted spine, the bad eye-sight, the partial deafness. The asthma, the bad knees, the migraines, constant fevers... Bucky knows about and helps him through each and every ailment - is painfully careful never to talk down to him when he does. Bucky is probably the only person Steve's ever known that doesn't make him feel like a weakling.
Bucky acknowledges Steve's bad health primarily by simply working around it. By standing on Steve's right when he talks, never on the left. By tossing a friendly arm around his friend's shoulders and all but carrying him when Steve's flat feet are aching and sore. By describing the world around them in positions, in dark or light, never in the colors that they both know are mysteries to Steve. He teases and cajoles Steve through life-threatening flu at least once a year. Always has a smile and a 'wake up jackass' ready to push Steve's stubborn buttons and propel him through the worst of it.

And now Steve has a choice. He can tell Bucky everything, whenever his best-friend/roommate happens to stagger in from yet another lopsided, failed attempt at a double-date. He can try to explain to his exhausted, half-drunk friend that he's signed his life away the night before Bucky leaves New York... not only to become a soldier, but for the chance at becoming a glorified lab-animal. He can just see Bucky's reaction to that…
He can deal with the inevitable argument that will eat precious hours of what little time they have left. Go to bed pissed off at each other and wake up awkwardly not speaking. He can send his best friend off to report, on no sleep, with a hang-over and guilt complex, knowing it'll be less than a week before Bucky's out dodging Nazi bullets.
Steve doesn't want that. Can't live with doing that to his best friend.

Or… he can do the unthinkable. He can lie through his teeth to Bucky instead.

Steve has lied before. He lied on the enlistment forms countless times. It's not that he doesn't know how, or that he won't do it when it's for a good cause. Nothing like that. Contrary to what people might claim, he's certainly not a saint... It's just… this is Bucky. He's never lied to Bucky about anything more serious than 'I'm fine' or 'I didn't want to go anyways'. This… this is something else entirely. He doesn't think he can do it.

In the end, he takes the coward's way out, hiding the form in the back of an old sketch-pad that's wedged under his cracked old bed-frame. He glances guilty at Bucky's bed across the room, still empty. Hating himself, he turns out the light, crawls under his sheets, and squeezes his eyes closed, willing himself to sleep.
He's curled up on his side, too excited and nauseous with nerves to do more than press his eyes shut and hold as still as he can, when Bucky stumbles in a few hours later. There's a fair bit of crashing around as Bucky fuzzily meanders out of his clothes and stumbles to bed, tripping over several things as he crosses the room.

"Should'a stayed out wi' us, Rogers…" He mutters, though Steve can't quite tell if it's aimed at him or the wall. "Girls were dy-dyn'mite dancers." There's a long labored pause, like he's waiting for a reply. Steve tries to breathe in and out, slow and even - more to stave off an anxiety-induced asthma attack than anything else- and waits it out.
After a few moments, there's the faint rustling of Sergeant James Barnes clumsily piling himself into bed, swiftly followed by a quiet thunk and muffled swearing when he bumps his skull into the wall. The soft sigh that follows sounds much too sober for Steve's liking, and he bunches himself up a little smaller, as if that will help keep the unwanted questions out.

"Goddamn... I'm gonna miss you, kid." Bucky says quietly into the dark. There's another sigh that breaks into a mirthless laugh, as he hears Bucky wriggling down the mattress and rolling onto his side with a heavy creak. "Hate this stupid goddamn war already, and I ain't even in it yet…"
Bucky is snoring within a few minutes.

Steve barely sleeps all night.

A/N: Stay tuned. There's much, much more on the way.