#ohh my god i have no idea what possessed me to draw such a rendered piece it just kind of happened

[dreampearls]

sprout of rebirth!

[bruciewayne]

tell me about the stars [7/20]

masterpost

[ao3]

Friday, 21st December

“Come on Stevie-boy, up and at ‘em,” Bucky declared, throwing open Steve’s curtains and tearing back his covers, revealing an annoyed Steve Rogers clad in sweats and a pirated-from-Bucky hoodie. He threw his arm over his eyes, tattoos peeking out from under the sleeve. Stop thinking about kissing every single tattoo he has, god, Barnes.

“No.” Steve pouted, with pink-pink lips, voice rough and hoarse from disuse over the night. Bucky rolled his eyes, fondly, he knew exactly how to get him out of bed (his problems were getting Steve into bed. With him.).

“Stevie, I got you a caramel frap-” his reaction was almost comical: he shot up like a man possessed and made grabby-hands in the general vicinity of Bucky’s voice, god knows how bad his, eyesight was. Bucky, in what was not a good move for his crush admiration, picked up Steve’s glasses from next to a day-old glass of water and slid them onto his face, an incredibly bad move because somehow, it had slipped his mind just how good Steve looked in glasses. Because damn Steve looked good in his glasses.

He hadn’t noticed that they’d gotten closer until Steve blinked up at him, “Hi.”

Bucky swallowed but didn’t move back, “Hey, Stevie,”

“Where’s my coffee?”

Bucky laughed, ducking his head and grinning at him, “Kitchen, your highness,” and Steve pouted again, adorably, “Too far,” he said, decidedly and made to flop back onto his mattress but Bucky, in one swift move, grabbed his arms and pulled him forwards and off the bed. Steve stumbled forwards, into Bucky’s chest. He was muscly and he smelled nice.

Steve, not being a morning person, at all, and it being fucking six am, the sun barely above the horizon and because he hadn’t had any coffee, wasn’t thinking especially straight. As if he could be straight anywhere near Bucky.

And also not fully aware of what he was doing. Or what he was saying.

Meaning he’d said that Bucky was muscly and smelled nice out loud. FUCK.

But Bucky just laughed, it was early, Steve had no idea what he was saying, and tried to tamp down the hope that maybe he actually believed it. He told him to thank his gym membership and Axe. He also told Steve to get dressed and because he needed to go and get the rental, while Bucky took their bags and the presents down twenty million five flights of stairs to ground level because he refused to give Steve an asthma attack.

Even if it meant that the roads of New York were going to be slightly more dangerous because a one Steve Rogers drove like an absolute fucking maniac. Maybe the road trip wasn’t the best idea in that sense, but Steve absolutely refused to step on a plane.

Twenty minutes later, Steve was dressed, his coffee had been drunk, and he’d headed out in the pale, early morning, barely-there winter light to go to the warehouse. Meaning Bucky had about half an hour to go to the art shop, King, on the edge of Brooklyn run by an old Jewish guy, Jack Kirby, that Steve loved.

When he got there, he went in search for the set markers he’d seen Steve linger over the last time they were there, eventually picking brushes and some other things that he’d desperately needed to replace over the markers.

He found them and took them over to the counter, Jack, the owner, greeted him with a friendly smile, they came there pretty often, “Ah, Bucky, it’s good to see you, how’s your boy?” and at Bucky’s confused look, “Steve, skinny little blonde guy,”

“Ohh, uh, we’re not, we’re not together, I mean, we’re still friends, but we’re not together-together, y’know?”

Jack cut off his rambling with a look , the very specific look relatively elderly people give to younger people when they're being particularly oblivious and/or stupid. “Ok, it’s ok, you two always were slow. Anyway, this is for him, yes?”

“Yeah, Christmas present,” a million things flowing through his head, the guy was probably just saying vague, broad, non-applicable to Bucky’s life, statements, the way relatively old people did sometimes. But, could it mean something? Probably not.

“You want it wrapped?” Bucky nodded, pulling out his wallet to pay.

Just as he was about to leave, Jack called out, “Don’t give up on him,” and under his breath, that Bucky just about caught, but maybe misheard, “They’re happy in this one, no alien shit, but still not together, morons”

Yeah, he probably misheard.

He managed to get home in time to take everything down, the subway ride and walk clearing his head, and greet Steve, who pulled up by their apartment block. They put everything in the boot and slammed it shut, the resounding bang barely making a dent in the soundscape of the city.

Steve held out a hand, loosely curled into a fist, “Rock, paper, scissors who drives first.”

Steve won. He grinned and made his way to the passenger side of the car and slid in. Bucky just chuckled under his breath and got into the driver's seat.

Steve had already gotten comfortable, feet up on the dash and fiddling with his phone, connected to the car’s Bluetooth, on Spotify. Bucky set up google maps, and just as they were about to drive off, Steve stopped him, “Wait,” he tapped a couple more things on his phone, “ok...GO!”

He drove off to ‘Fairytale of New York’, and at his confused look, Steve waved his phone, “Shuffle.” Sure why not. Just chance.

They drove in silence, the car filled with Christmas songs from Steve’s playlist, he spent most of the drive sleeping or messing around on his phone.

He was napping when Bucky woke him up, this time by tapping incessantly on his face. “Wakey-wakey Stevie, we’re at a service station,” Steve, without opening his eyes mumbled, “Get me coffee, surprise me,” and slid further down in his seat. “‘Kay, but you’re driving now, so stay awake,” Bucky said, getting out of the car and going into the Starbucks.

Steve stayed as he was for another minute before getting out, stretching, taking a deep breath and getting into the driver’s side. He leaned over the console to get his smaller, A5 sketchbook and a mechanical pencil. He doodled out some ideas, most of them vague concepts, a couple of things that could go in his portfolio.

Exhausted out of ideas, he dated the page and flipped to another one. drawing out ridiculously familiar shapes, tracing out long, curved lines, and short flicks, eventually forming Bucky’s grinning face, his hair up in a man bun, some of it falling out, framing his face. God, he was so whipped.

He saw Bucky walking back, holding two coffees and a bag of cookies, out of the corner of his eye, quickly flipping the page back and pretending to shade and render some of the ideas.

Bucky slid into the passenger seat, handed him his coffee and settled into the same position Steve was in, legs bent at the knee, a was significantly taller than Steve, after all. To the average straight and/or tall person, it might seem uncomfortable, but, as literally, everyone else knows; it was very comfortable.

As soon as Steve finished his coffee (peppermint mocha, he was pleasantly surprised), they were off, driving for another three hours, this time with Bucky napping.

He woke up just before Steve pulled into a Denny’s, “You couldn’t find anything better?” Steve pouted adorably, “I want Denny’s,”

“No one in the history of ever has ever wanted Denny’s. Ever.” Bucky said, incredulously, “next place, c’mon.” Steve looked over at him and then the Denny’s in front of him. He put the car into reverse and pulled out to Bucky’s cheers, god he was adorable.

It took them a couple of minutes until they found a diner, that looked like it was straight out of the 50s. Steve gave Bucky a look, “Good enough?” He grinned and nodded, “Yup,” he paused for a moment, thinking, “hey, Stevie, do you think we should do some more dating practice, I mean, according to Riverdale, diners are meant to be romantic.” Dating practice? wtf Barnes!

“I can’t believe you’re going off Riverdale for romantic ideas, but yes, honey, let’s go have lunch,” Steve said, slipping easily into the role, the pet name falling naturally from his lips, not that he’d been thinking about this since way too long.

They walked into the diner, hands linked, swinging slightly between them. The bell rang out clearly in the pretty quiet diner, there were three pretty big guys, maybe mid-thirties in one corner booth and what looked like a college-aged couple on a date, the way the guy looked at his girl, like she held up his world, and the way the girl looked at him, like he’d saved her from hell, they both looked like they would go to hell and back for each other and although Bucky was pretty sure they were about pre-grad aged, they both looked like they’d been through shit. He hoped that they were happy.

“Babe? Earth to Bucko, Bucky?” Steve waved his hand in front of his face, jerking him out of his thoughts, “what d’ya want?” Bucky, eloquent as always, “Uh,” he looked down at Steve, who was smiling softly at him, eyes filled with laughter, fuck, he was beautiful.

Bucky kept looking down at Steve, unable to tear his eyes away from him, he wasn’t even doing anything spectacular special? How… why...

“Oh. My. God. they’re useless, abso-fucking-lutely completely and utterly shit-stinkingly useless.” Bucky was snapped out of his thoughts for the second time in a minute, but this time by a guy in a red and black mask and a matching suit with... swords? strapped to his back.

“Hey, buddy, you got lost on the way to comic-con?” Oh no.

Steve had turned around and was glaring up at him, but the guy just laughed, “Aw, that’s just fucking adorable, small fry, good to see that’s still the sam-” he got interrupted by a middle-aged, kinda jacked guy with a metal arm, who also looked like he should be at comic-con, the middle-aged guy grumbled about needing to keep ‘Wade’ (he assumed that was the red guy’s name) on a dog leash and pulled him out of the diner, much to Wade’s dismay.

Steve was still angry, so he did what any good fake boyfriend would do, he slipped an arm around his shoulders and pressed a kiss to his forehead. Even though he knew it was for show, the way all of Steve’s anger dissipated and the way he leaned into Bucky, he couldn’t help but think that maybe, just possibly if any of it was just for show.

“I’ll just get you boys the same thing, go grab a booth, it’ll be there in five minutes.” They were broken out of their little bubble by the waitress, they nodded and made their way to a window booth, sliding in opposite each other.

“So, that was strange,” Steve said, leaning across the counter, resting on his elbows. Bucky mimicked him, so they ended up incredibly close, unintentionally, of course. “Yeah, but strange people are everywhere, there would’a been twenty strange people at the Denny’s,” “Yeah, I know but-”

“Here are your burgers, boys and a shake, on the house, to share, young love like yours is something to be celebrated.” They were interrupted by the waitress placing a tray on the table and a vanilla shake, topped with whipped cream and a flake, with two straws.

They both turned, grinned at her, and said “Thanks,” in a creepy sort of synchronisation. She just chuckled under her breath, well used to couples like them. “You’re welcome, enjoy now,” she said warmly, walking away back behind the counter.

They both turned back to each other, yeah, they could sell it.

The rest of their drive passed without any more strange people, although Steve’s perceptions of strange were wildly different to Bucky’s, Steve spent most of his time stabbing people with needles (and not in the life-saving way) on various body parts and Bucky spent most of his time astrophysics-ing at a university.

But even he would say that during the rest of their drive, they didn’t meet any strange, probably-got-lost-on-the-way-to-comic-con people.

It passed in a haze of Christmas songs, a blur of cities and fractions of conversations about Bucky’s family and before they knew it, the hours had flown by, and Bucky was pulling up to his parents’ house.

“You scared?” Bucky asked, turning to Steve, who shrugged, “Do I got any reason to be?” Bucky grinned at him, “Nope,”

“Let’s get this bread.”

The second they knocked on the door, it burst open, and Bucky was gathered into his mom’s arms, to her utterances of “It’s been too long,” and “You look tired,” and “You work too hard.”

She eventually let him go, after he said: “Mom, mom, this is Steve, my boyfriend, remember I told you about him.” She turned towards him “Ohh, it’s nice to meet you, Steve, I’ve heard a lot about you,” Steve shot a look to Bucky, who just shrugged in return.

“Uh, it’s, uh, good to meet you too Mrs. Barnes.” Steve said, suddenly nervous. Bucky’s mom just laughed and pulled him into a hug as well.

“Call me Winnie, dear, or mom,” she said, winking, laughing at them when they turned red, Bucky sputtering and trying to say something about ‘holding off the wedding bells’.

After they’d calmed down, Bucky slid an arm around Steve’s shoulders, kissing him softly on his temple when he leaned into him. Bucky’s mom smiled at them and told them to put their stuff in Bucky’s old room.

“And no funny business in there,” she called after them, laughing at them when they turned red and sputtered again.

Yeah, he’s gonna marry him, she knows her boy well.