Ok but I’d die for 37 Bucky and Sam. Platonic or otherwise I’m die
#37 -- you know you're still holding hands, right?
this prompt is so old and this prompt fill is so unhinged i have to genuinely apologize. @firstelevens the worm paper is dedicated to you but more importantly @foolgobi65 the rest of the fic is dedicated to you. the KD featured in is hot cheetos flavoured just so everyone knows. inspired by life events. love yall
1.
They cross paths at like two a.m. when Sam has long since stopped being able to read the words on the university website in front of him. He's reading through legal jargon and policy that no one wants him or any other student to understand, so he can bring that exact fact up with devastating accuracy at the next interdepartmental mental health policy seminar. He's interrupted when the alarm goes off from bedroom number two and Bucky shuffles out of its depths with an awful wrenching noise. His door sticks, because their building is old and decrepit. Sam watches as his roommate walks wordlessly into the kitchen, digs out an ancient pack of kraft dinner and mangles the plastic covering the top before he sticks it in the microwave. Bucky's pulled the hood of his sweater up to cover his hair and has wrapped their rattiest grey bath towel around his shoulders like he's an ailing king in one of those sci fi fantasy novels he keeps on the shelf. It flaps lopsidedly on the side where he's not wearing his prosthetic, because it's two a-fucking-m.
He notices Sam while taking the KD out of the microwave, and stands there in silence to stare at him in faint but not quite concerned bafflement for a good minute in the half dark, like he forgot something important.
"Sup," says Sam.
Bucky blinks. A tuft of dark hair pokes out of his hoodie, flattened downwards to point towards his nose.
"Worm paper," Bucky says, sounding like he hasn't slept in twelve years.
"Ah," says Sam.
Bucky nods, and disappears whence he came.
"Take the garbage out tomorrow!" Sam calls after him.
He's rewarded by a loud knocking noise from upstairs, as if those fuckers aren't already wake too, trying to tell them to be quiet.
2.
The third year sitting with her arms crossed in front of him looks as overtly suspicious as it is possible for one person to look. Her eyes, which are narrowed, keep pinging between the people in the room. Sam sighs. He hates wrangling undergrads, sometimes.
"Kate, put your notebook away, you're weirding her out."
Kate does, looking sheepish. She volunteered with them so she could learn more about trauma-informed organizing, and Sam's not sure if he's doing much of a good job teaching her anything, but Clint recommended her and even baby steps are good. Parker, who is their other undergraduate member, the only one of them who's a real live actual science student, is at the end of the table working on the graphics for Sam's upcoming presentation to the faculty board, which Sam is not dreading at all. It didn't help that when he told Sharon about it last week, she laughed in his face. Then again, Sharon is getting a business degree; Sam's not sure what he should've expected.
"My aunt passed," says the third year. "Student services fucked me over for a final because they didn't process my accommodation. I had to have pictures proving she'd died."
Bastards, thinks Sam.
"I'm sorry to hear that," Sam says. "We're here to help. When did she die?"
Her eyes narrow another four degrees. It would be kind of intimidating if she wasn't like, eighteen, with the worlds biggest bush of red hair and freckles literally up to her ears. She's trying to hide it all under a ratty hoodie but it's mostly unsuccessful.
"Look, kid," says Sam. "This is a safe space. I wanna help you, but you gotta help me out first, okay? Everything you say stays in this room."
Beside Sam, Kate nods enthusiastically.
"What about him?" asks the girl.
They all look over at the lanky figure sitting on the couch. Bucky is deeply embedded; he's almost horizontal and his legs are extended all the way to the table, which wouldn't be so bad only it puts the giant hole in the toe of one of his socks on display. The Social Work department's cat is sitting on his head. Sam thinks she's fully betrayed them for Geological Sciences at this point. Or whateverthefuck department Bucky's with -- none of them quite know. Bucky's wearing the same hoodie from the other night, which is still in hood-up mode. He's been staring so intently at his laptop without writing anything for the last ten minutes that Sam is impressed the poor electronic hasn't combusted.
"That's just his process," Sam says.
Bucky reaches a hand out and types one single letter. Then very slowly he reaches out again and deletes it.
"You said I'd get to talk to you alone," the girl grumbles.
"Is this the worm paper?" asks Kate tentatively, from Sam's other side.
Sam thinks of the many paragraphs of his thesis he's been neglecting. He rubs at the bridge of his nose and sighs.
3.
"No, you are absolutely not moving in with us next term," Sam says into his phone. He writes down another note for Chapter 1b, Theoretical Underpinnings and then writes himself a reminder to email Todd from the ombudsperson's office. And also that lady with the student mental health alliance. And -- fuck, Professor Bradley too, probably. Sam was supposed to answer that email like a week ago.
"Why the hell not?" says Sarah. "It's economical. It's close to campus. Undergrad dorms are disgusting, it's safe, Mr. Big Brother who was worried some chad white boy would get me last year, and I know for a fact y'all need a roommate."
Okay. So maybe Steve fucked off to finish his degree in Boston so he could be with his perfectly wonderful girlfriend, whom they all love, but that's not really the point and they still haven't found a third roommate who can. Like. Put up with them. Bucky glares at the empty room whenever he passes it. It's really not that dramatic. But also,
"And even with all of that, you ain't moving in here. There are -- principles."
"For the twelve hundredth time Sam, your sad roommate is not gonna secretly seduce me."
Sam wouldn't put money on that.
"You could definitely seduce him, though."
"Oh my God! Forreal, Sam --"
"We just got a lot going on!" His frustrated attempts at organizing the mental health policy council under the umbrella of the social work department, for example. Bucky's term paper on prehistoric worms.
"Is Bucky there?" Sarah demands.
"He's in the middle of something."
Bucky is talking at the voice to type software on his laptop in the next room and sounds like he is five minutes away from flinging said laptop out of the window. Still, Sam feels fondness in his chest; Bucky used to put towels under the door to stop the noise from travelling before. There's no embarrassment involved anymore. Not for disability accommodating paper writing practices or for playing Taylor Swift songs out loud on a fucking vintage record player, which was bequeathed to them by the great betrayer himself.
Steve left a really nice note with it and everything.
"Tell B to force feed you a granola bar," Sarah says. Then, "I could always get myself a sexy boyfriend and move in with him."
She hangs up to the sound of Sam spluttering loudly. To calm himself, he checks off talk to Sarah from his notes app to do list anyway, then sends Bucky a text.
We got any granola bars left?
The door to the second bedroom opens -- it sticks, because their building is old and decrepit -- and a box of granola bars is flung out with shockingly precise aim to land skidding on the kitchen table in front of Sam.
"Thanks, man!" Sam calls.
"FUCK!" Bucky yells at top volume, and slams the door shut again.
The phone rings a second time; Sam has to pick up, legally, because it's his mom. She wants to know if he talked to Sarah, and also how things are.
"You know how grad school is," Sam says. He opens a granola bar. It is extremely stale. "Yeah. Uh huh. No. Just my presentation next week. Well, we'll see if it'll actually make any difference ... No, mama, I have not been forgetting to shower. Whatever Sarah tells you, don't listen to her. I'm a grown assed man, okay?"
4.
Sam sits in the industrial flickering lights of the MHPC's reserved library room and lets a modicum of peace soak in while the undergrads chatter.
"Well, at least the board presentation went well. It was like, fruitful discussion, right?"
"It was pretty badass. I liked the bit where Sam lost his shit and yelled at the dean."
"He didn't yell at the dean ..."
"You know you guys are still holding hands, right? It's been like, an hour."
Sam doesn't respond right away, because he's trying to figure out why the hell the sentence in front of him doesn't read like a sentence.
"They're exchanging long protein strands," says Parker. "Like in the Simpsons."
"No one watches Simpsons anymore," says Kate's girlfriend, who seems to be eating a pack of lunchables with a pocket knife.
"Well --"
"I'm holding his elbow," Bucky mumbles, which might be the longest string of words he's spoken for two weeks. He's swapped his hoodie out for a clean one, at least.
"Emotional support," Sam agrees, still with his eyes narrowed at the screen. They are actually holding hands, but semantics become irrelevant after the month they've had. "Man, what the fuck is this supposed to say?"
"You're the editor," says Bucky.
"You're the writer! It's due in two minutes!"
"It's about the genealogy," Bucky says, levelling his free, prosthetic hand in front of him for emphasis.
"Of the worm?" Parker asks, in a whisper.
"Just let me submit the fucking paper, Sam!"
"No! This is degree defining!"
"Says the guy who's neglected his thesis for three weeks -- gimme the laptop --"
"No -- ow!"
"I don't think I ever wanna do grad school," Kate says solemnly, to the room at large, while somehow, despite the tangled heap they make on the couch, Sam and Bucky are still holding elbows. But then, who else would they hold elbows with, in such a moment?
Sam gently raises this topic with the next struggling undergrad who comes to them for accommodation help; in many ways, that's really all you need to make it through college.
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