#❪ ⠀ * ⠀ james ⠀﹕ ⠀interactions * bouqueue's david. ⠀ ❫

[lostsouldierbye]

@bouqueue   :   It's summer. It's hot and humid. The kind of weather that makes you feel sticky immediately. It's not great weather to be working in, especially when your primary form of hydration is beer and coffee. David makes it work though. And by 'makes it work' I mean, he's shirtless, covered in grease and sweat, and - I mean, he's working. But he's also shirtless, again. Have fun James.

      Bucky’s at the shop. Where else would he be ? Occasionally, he makes himself useful. He’s good for heavy lifting. He’s not bad with the machines either, if David talks him through it. He knows how moving parts work and he’s had to be resourceful over the years. Today, he’s got his custom Škorpion with him, in need of a clean and lubrication. He keeps to the back of the shop because he knows David doesn’t deal anymore and probably doesn’t need the kind of attention a guy messing around with restricted use guns in broad daylight would bring. 

      When he wanders out front to grab himself a bottle of water from the fridge is the first time he notices David. Sun looks good on him. Dirt and sweat and hard work looks good on him. Bucky pushes the fridge door closed slowly, then leans against it, still taking in the scene of David working steadily beneath the hood of an 80s Ford. Attraction wasn’t the first thing that happened between them, but it sure as hell had crept up on him over the months, starting pretty early on without rhyme or reason. Before the first time they’d fallen asleep next to each other, before the first time they’d made it to a bed. Not like that. He sighs. It’s never like that, is it ?    

      For the most part, Bucky keeps his hands to himself. He’s been punched in the face for showing an incremental ounce of affection, so he plays it more carefully now. It’s not really a problem either --- he has a well controlled dick, or just a lazy one. But even he’s not lazy or immune enough to turn away from a sight like this. So he downs the entire bottle of cold water to quench his thirst, crunches up the bottle and pits it into the trash, then heads into the back to find something that needed to be torn apart or banged back together because finessing the innards of his gun was not going to keep his mind off of wanting to lick the sweat clean off of David’s neck. 

[lostsouldierbye]

@bouqueue   :   ❛ if i could be a different person, i promise you, i would be. ❜  from sad boy david. uwu.

       ‘ You’re better off promising yourself that than me. ’

      He’s not stupid enough to ask why but the sentiment sits there for a moment, on the tip of his tongue. Just because he happens to be a fan of David, doesn’t mean he’s a fan of everything he’s been through to get to where he is now, and he’s more than aware that he and David don’t see eye to eye on most things --- thoughts on David himself included. 

      He’s curious --- who would David choose to be if given the chance ? But he doesn’t ask that either, because he knows what a dangerous road those what-ifs could take you down. Play the hand your dealt. That’s the way life is. He’d accepted that --- or at least learned the meaning of the saying --- when he was young, and the trajectory of his life had given him no option but to accept it. He’s cheated along the way, the way he cheats with most hands. But that, too, is a part of life. His life, anyway. 

      He decides now, for the time being, to accept what David has already accepted. That David is someone that he doesn’t currently want to be. What then ? Bucky shares a brain with something so full of hatred at himself, something that drowns him in constant guilt. He’s been a different person. Mourned what he used to be. Wished for it back. Despised what he’d become. Now . . . ? He was living with it, with who he was. Playing the hand. Doing what he had to do to have some sort of standing against the thing that was constantly tearing him down. Here. Proof that I’m not bad. Not all bad. Proof that one day the scales may be --- no, not balanced --- but at least, tipped out of the bloody red. 

      As such, who is he to be having this conversation with David ? What’s poignant, perhaps, is that David was having it with him. 

      ‘ Before I moved out here --- ’ Before his bike broke down in between his last mistake and somewhere he was escaping to and then the place he was escaping to turned out to be David’s apartment, ‘ --- I was helping people start over. With new lives, new names and IDs. Protection if or when they needed it . . . ’ He pauses, thinking of why he’d decided now of all times to reveal this part of him, rubbing at a spot on his pants. Probably a grease stain from David’s garage. 

      ‘ There are some of them out there, living their new lives. I’d like to think they got the second chance they wouldn’t have gotten otherwise, but . . . truth is --- I don’t know if it’s really possible. The last guy --- the last person I tried to set up . . . he ended up worse off because someone thought he could be something he wasn’t. ’ And maybe he’s been pretending to be someone he isn’t this whole time, embarking on some self appointed quest to change what he’d become. Maybe David’s got the right idea, accepting the hand instead of cheating it. 

[lostsouldierbye]

‘  when  i’m  sober  i  feel  pain .  ’ / david uwu

Bucky nods. He'd come home with groceries, David had come home with bottles. It was surprise, not disappointment that crossed his face, but perhaps they read the same. He doesn't need the explanation from David, but it feels like a step forward that he gets one. Bucky hasn't pried --- too much. A question or two here and there if the opportunity presents itself in an innocuous way. Sometimes his patience is rewarded, sometimes it's not. Rewarded enough to put together a patchwork of the picture, a few pieces handed over by Fi.

He walks over to the counter and picks up one of the half empty bottles, watches the golden liquid slosh around.

' It's gonna be this forever, if that's what you choose, ' he says with a small frown, looking up at David. He's the Bucky that David knows, but he's also the Bucky that talks to people who come seeking him out, their last ditch effort at starting over after a life of bad choices or unlucky circumstances. He'd stopped doing that, just a few weeks before he's run into David. Sometimes he tries to help and it turns out much, much worse. But he's seen what can happen if people want to switch directions, how life can pivot with just the right push.

' But if you choose the pain . . . there's a chance it'll go away one day. Or . . . a chance you'll feel something else on top of it. Something good. Sometime worthwhile. ' He holds up the bottle, wonders if it was the pills this time, too. David's eyes say it all.

The last time he'd told someone that things change, that things get better, that you feel better, he'd had it thrown back in his face --- how could he say something that he doesn't believe in himself ? That's not true . . . Bucky believes it, it just hasn't happened for him yet.

Bucky puts the bottle down, on his side of the counter, if David wants to come and get it. ' I'm gonna make stir fry. Amy on the second floor gave me her recipe, ' he says, placing his bags up, starting to rifle through them. ' Join me for dinner later ? '

[lostsouldierbye]

[BRACE] - sender braces receiver under the elbow. / david? owo, sent by @bouqueue​. 

Bucky doesn’t tense, but he does pause. He tends to be acutely aware of his environment at all times. Even when his guard is down, which is the case in David’s apartment, he’s still aware of noises and movements that would fly under the normal person’s radar. He knows exactly where David is in the kitchen, leaning against the little island with the peeling laminate, and he knows the exact moment David moves away and wanders closer, probably tired of watching Bucky search high and low for a mug that isn’t chipped that’s going to cut his lip the moment he tries to drink his coffee. He pauses because the touch to his elbow comes as a surprise, despite feeling David in his space. There’s no rough shove to get Bucky out of the way, or name-calling to point out that the mug was right there on the shelf next to Bucky’s head --- just a palm against Bucky’s elbow guiding him to the left, so David could step forward and grab the mug for himself. 

Bucky sniffs, taking the mug without a word, and refrains from placing his own hand over his elbow where David’s had been because that was a little too much, even for him. ‘ Thanks. Want a refill ? ’

[lostsouldierbye]

@bouqueue​ being a menace   :   Bites Bucky. (whoever uwu your choice. just some fun harassment)

      Bucky remains silent through the sharp pinch of pain as David’s teeth clamp onto the webbing of his palm, and simply shifts his hand so he’s got a better hold over the lower half of David’s face. He knows David’s tendency to talk, and he needs absolutely not that right now, ears trained on the barely audible scrape of tools against the metal lock in their front door. Ahem. David’s front door. Why bother --- they could probably just knock the thing down with a well aimed kick at the hinges, it was that worn down. Something to do with water damage Bucky’s been whining about for weeks. ‘ Shut up and stay here, ’ Bucky murmurs, finally letting go David’s mouth, trusting the man has the sense not to yell about it.

[lostsouldierbye]

@bouqueue​ : hellow its david. doing sleepy faces and grumbles with his face mashed into bucky's shoulder. youre welcome. uwu

Bucky’s hands are busy, placing pieces of the ceramic breakfast bowl Bastard had broken that morning into a home made mosaic using stuff he’d stolen from David’s shop. Bucky is by no means an artist. But he is a bored, bored man. So now David was down one breakfast bowl, and up one tile mosaic to hang in his bathroom. If Bucky did well enough, maybe he’d even get it hung up in the living room. 

He’s vaguely aware that David is starting to doze off next to him, but is too focused on his arts and crafts to stop what he was doing and offer himself up solely as a pillow. 

His shoulder can’t be that comfortable, even if it is the non-metal-hybrid one, and there are small shifts, as he continues to work on his mosaic that must stop David from completely drifting off. Probably why he’s grumbling so much. Bucky doesn’t stop because he’s secretly smiling at those grumbles, and thoroughly amused. 

He shrugs his shoulder a little, jostling David’s head. ‘ Go to bed, old man. ’