Chapter Text
Bucky is asleep on his stomach and it was hot enough last night he took his shirt off. Pushing himself up, Steve glances around quick-like to make sure no one sees what he’s gonna do. It’s rare enough, he knows, to have Words. Rarer to meet another person who's got them too.
And he knows he’s not supposed to look--he knows it’s classless and invasive and just a terrible thing to do. You don’t look at a person’s Words, because then you’re waiting to hear them said to you or somebody else. Or worse, you could use ‘em to hurt or trick the other. A real slick guy could make a conversation go just the right way so they get said to him, and then sometime later could say them back all casual. (Just because the books and stories say you ‘know’ when it’s the right person doesn’t mean anybody knows what that feels like until it happen to them.)
It’s the worst violation of privacy. It’s so disrespectful to even think about looking at Bucky’s Words, but he’s laying there in the morning light with his arms crossed under his head and his lashes making crescents on his cheeks. An errant curl, there, looping over his smooth brow, and little black letters just above his shoulder blade.
Steve wants to draw him. But more than that, he wants to read those words. He wants to know them, so he can keep his ears and eyes peeled for them. To help his friend find the right guy, or gal, or whoever. Taking a breath, one big enough to make his whole chest swell, he holds it--
And leans over to see.
The letters are written the same as his. Stark black, straight as if written over a ruler and so easy to read. He doesn’t let himself though, snapping his eyes closed and pulling back till his spine touches the couch behind him.
Drawing up his knees, Steve tucks his face against them and wraps his spindly arms around himself, rocking just a little. Astonished, ashamed-- appalled with himself for nearly breaking Bucky’s trust like that. He’s got his own Words covered, right hand wrapped around his forearm, thumb digging into the neat print and covering everything but I h .
“You can, you know,” Bucky says, real quiet. Steve stiffens for a minute, then looks over at him. Buck’s still laying down, got his eyes only half open and focused on Steve. He shrugs, and his muscles move and flex and make his skin ripple. Waiting and watching Steve’s startled quiet long enough to say, like there was any doubt what he’s talking about to begin with, “You can read my Words. I don’t mind. I know what yours are anyway.”
Steve’s breath catches, because he’s not like some people who have their Words in an odd place like he does, a place people can see sometimes. He’s careful . Never wears short sleeves, never goes out without a coat or a sweater or a bandage over them. Most folks he knows don’t even know he’s got any, so Bucky can’t have seen them.
A smile tugs at his best friend’s mouth, sheepish and a little meek. “I saw ‘em last winter. When you were sick and your ma had to work, and I stuck around to take care of ya? I was the one feedin’ and washin’ you up, and I saw ‘em.” His gaze drops to the wood grain of the floor, tracing a whorl with a finger and tracking it with his blue eyes. “Sorry I never said so.”
It takes a while to get his jaw working again because--if Bucky’s seen Steve’s Words, he knows how often he says them. How often he says them to Bucky , because no one else is around to listen usually. And sure he’s tried them out talking to a dame or two, but they never fall so easy from his lips as when he’s walking away from a fight with Buck’s arms over his shoulders or--in one or two cases when Steve’s been real riled up-- himself slung over Bucky’s back.
“That’s... alright,” he says, forgiving because he has to be, when it’s Buck doing the apologizing. There’s never any alternative between them. “I mean, you’re my best pal, so...”
Pushing up onto his elbows, Bucky smiles at him, slick and bright and easy. “Right! So, uh. If you really wanna see ‘em...” Reaching back, he rubs his neck and ducks his head just a bit, thumb sweeping unconsciously over the little black letters.
What he’s said, though, it puts Steve in a tight spot. He shouldn’t be curious about Bucky’s Words, they’re not his business. It’s not his right to know, not really. Even if Buck knows his-- has known his for months and months now--that’s not the point. “I... shouldn’t,” he says real quiet.
Bucky’s eyes flicker down to Steve’s hand on his own arm, then back up. He’s got that look now, that stubborn, tight-jawed, eyes-blazing look. The guy is determined to share this with Steve, for whatever reason, and Steve knows he won’t be able to say no, not to that look. “Oh, c’mon,” he goads and wiggles closer, going sideways like snakes sometimes do. “It’s only fair. And I trust you.”
“Okay,” he whispers, breathes, and shifts over himself, one hand on the floor between them. Leaning in a little, eyes tracking up the expanse of Bucky’s back, he rolls in his bottom lip. It feels like they’re doing something they shouldn’t. More than sneaking back into movies, more than finding a dollar and not looking for who dropped it or looking at pin-ups Bucky talks the older boys into sharing.
This is bigger than all of that cuz it’s their souls they’re sharing this time. You’re not supposed to do this, not with anybody.
“You sure?” he asks really quietly, staring hard at Bucky’s spine instead of his shoulder. Only because he’s looking there does he see how quick his friend’s back is hitching up and down, how fast he’s breathing, and how shallow. Steve’s hand trembles on the floor, fingers curling in towards his palm.
And Bucky’s voice is low and rough, and he shifts where he rests, wiggling down until he has to lift up his feet and his shins are resting on the couch. He’s got his arms folded around a pillow now, head resting in the cradle there. “Yeah.”
Steve just says it again, says okay again, and then he moves his gaze over the quivering skin right to those letters.
Like Steve, Bucky has a statement on his back. Like Steve, it’s just one sentence. Like Steve, it starts with I . Unlike Steve, Bucky’s got something real, something important there. He’s got a pledge as opposed to Steve’s declaration .
I’m with you he reads, fingers of his left hand unconsciously landing on his friend’s back, forefinger sliding along as he reads on: till the end of the line .
Bucky shivers at the touch.
“I’m with you till the end of the line,” Bucky whisper-breathes into his arms. Steve can barely hear it, muffled as his voice is. But his shoulders rise and his chest expands, and then he breathes out slow and even, relaxing all the way to his toes like he’s glad he’s shared this with Steve.
Steve is really glad. He can’t seem to help himself from touching the words themselves, just a brush of his fingertips on Bucky’s most sensitive skin. People say it’s because the Words are the only tangible part of the soul--when you touch someone’s Words, you’re touching their immortal soul , or at least the part they carry with them. It’s this thought that makes him pull back his touch. He doesn’t have any right to Bucky’s soul.
“Gosh,” he murmurs. “That’s real nice, Buck. Better’n mine.”
“Not exactly romantic,” Bucky answers, setting his chin on his arms instead of pushing up to sit like Steve expected.
Steve’s had this same problem with his own Words, so he tells Bucky what his Ma always told him. “Doesn’t need to be. If the Words are good ones, like yours, that just means you’ll know your soul mate real well first. They’ll already mean something to you when they say it. I think that’s better than some sweet nothing like they’ve got in the storybooks.”
“You think?”
Steve smiles. “Yeah.”