Steve... actually laughs in response to the question. Not mockingly, and not embarrassed, but because Sam is actually one of two or three people who know him well enough to think to ask.
And that's a strange kind of relief.
"I've had some sex in the past five years, but not a lot and it was all with a woman." He will elaborate if he has to, but he's not exactly sounding light and airy in spite of that laugh.
Fill in those gaps, Sam.
Or don't.
Steve moves away, eyes a little more shadowed than before, but not as much as they might be, so he can get busy unlacing his boots. He doesn't like the distance, but it's necessary.
A lingering glance, the weight of which makes it clear that Sam does, indeed, fill the gaps. What clenches in his chest isn't jealousy - Sam doesn't roll like that. He just... painfully, desperately wishes things had shaken out differently. Would it have been kinder of the world to leave Sam and everyone else dead and gone, to allow Natasha to live, to allow Steve to maybe, one day, forget what he felt for Sam and move forwards? Can Sam be glad to be back when it cost one of his dearest friends, who Steve held so much closer yet?
For a moment, Sam watches Steve, then averts his eyes. Stands by the window, fingertips lingering on the blinds, peering out through the small gaps between.
Waits for Steve to join him again. Sam's mind wanders, for a bit. When Riley got shot out of the sky, ending a relationship that existed in secret due to circumstance, that to this day Sam has not told anybody about, he left the Air Force. Went home to Delacroix, laid down in his bed and didn't leave it for a month.
Sam doesn't do casual. It takes him a long time to fall for people, so long that apparently the line from friendship into love blurs so deeply he cannot tell the difference himself until he's confronted with it. He loves his friends so deeply that it cuts him down to the bone to see them hurt, to lose them. To love someone enough for his body to become interested in intimacy... takes a lot. Takes time few people have. Takes patience Sam has seen run out so often he learned not to bother. His interest now is the result of four years of deepening feelings, and even then he wouldn't have noticed had Steve not taken a leap.
Sam remembers the brittle bite of that kiss. Wonders, for a moment, if this should happen. If Steve is just hurting himself, or punishing himself, or drowning himself. If so, does that mean Sam will also be hurt and punished and drowned?
Will it stop them?
When he hears Steve moving towards him, Sam looks back to him again.
"There was Riley." It's like I was up there just to watch. After that, I had a really hard time finding a reason for being over there, y'know? "There's you." Words said to Steve a long time ago. To a man who threw himself into the ice to end a threat. A man who'd lost a love and a loved one and threw himself into that abyss. And maybe Steve didn't understand what Sam said then, but... well.
Fill in those gaps, Steve.
Sam's hand comes up to cup that much too serious, shadowed face.
Steve's not hurting himself, Steve's just hurting.
You can do the math on how many lives are saved by the loss of others. You can tell someone you need them to go, very likely, die so you can prevent greater losses. You can watch your best friend plunge to their (supposed) death off the side of a moving train, feel your world stop and your heartbreak and still hold on with everything you've got, because there are other people who need you and the war isn't over. You can even give up your own life, and everyone you've known and loved and every hope of the future, to take a terrible weapon down with you.
Steve's done all of it, and in the case of the first two, he's done a lot of them.
What he knows, down to his bones is what you can't do is value one life more than another, or trade one for another.
In his mind, Nat and Tony are gone. Sam and Bucky are alive again. They didn't die to bring those two specific people back. They died for an entire world of people.
He's hurting, but he's not... replacing Nat with Sam, or causing himself more pain. He's shifting gears, trying to adapt and trying to find a way to just keep breathing in a man he loves, and has loved as surely as he has mourned his loss. Relief and gratitude, loss and pain can and do co-exist in this.
He finishes taking off his boots, leaving them neatly by the door and moves over to Sam. He settles behind him, wraps one arm around Sam's waist and kisses him, but this time on the temple.
"I know. We're both here." For however long. Neither one of them is the fuck okay, because he reads between lines and can fill in the gaps, too. "And the whales are going to be mad about it."
Sam's not a frail or delicate man. He's tall, though Steve's taller, and he's muscular. Still, there's something about having Steve hold him like this that makes him feel so precious. It's so tender it makes Sam want to shatter apart. He's gone so long without being something precious to someone else that for a second, he doesn't quite know what to do with it. So for a moment, he just breathes. Just enjoys being held for a moment, enjoys the novelty of that before he turns his head, brings their lips together sweetly.
The comment about the whales earns Steve a chuckle. Sam has no context on that line, but he has no context on much right now. It's amusing regardless, and he thinks he can understand the sentiment anyway.
"We tend to have that effect."
And they do. Defying authority, getting shot at, punching bad guys, maybe getting arresteda little bit... that's just a hobby at this point.
Maybe it's been foreplay all along.
"I'm sorry I didn't realize where we were heading." In regards to their hearts and their desires. "Proves me right, of course. I do what you do, just slower." It's a mild tease, not fully a joke. "Tell me what you want tonight. Tell me what you need."
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
And that's a strange kind of relief.
"I've had some sex in the past five years, but not a lot and it was all with a woman." He will elaborate if he has to, but he's not exactly sounding light and airy in spite of that laugh.
Fill in those gaps, Sam.
Or don't.
Steve moves away, eyes a little more shadowed than before, but not as much as they might be, so he can get busy unlacing his boots. He doesn't like the distance, but it's necessary.
no subject
For a moment, Sam watches Steve, then averts his eyes. Stands by the window, fingertips lingering on the blinds, peering out through the small gaps between.
Waits for Steve to join him again. Sam's mind wanders, for a bit. When Riley got shot out of the sky, ending a relationship that existed in secret due to circumstance, that to this day Sam has not told anybody about, he left the Air Force. Went home to Delacroix, laid down in his bed and didn't leave it for a month.
Sam doesn't do casual. It takes him a long time to fall for people, so long that apparently the line from friendship into love blurs so deeply he cannot tell the difference himself until he's confronted with it. He loves his friends so deeply that it cuts him down to the bone to see them hurt, to lose them. To love someone enough for his body to become interested in intimacy... takes a lot. Takes time few people have. Takes patience Sam has seen run out so often he learned not to bother. His interest now is the result of four years of deepening feelings, and even then he wouldn't have noticed had Steve not taken a leap.
Sam remembers the brittle bite of that kiss. Wonders, for a moment, if this should happen. If Steve is just hurting himself, or punishing himself, or drowning himself. If so, does that mean Sam will also be hurt and punished and drowned?
Will it stop them?
When he hears Steve moving towards him, Sam looks back to him again.
"There was Riley." It's like I was up there just to watch. After that, I had a really hard time finding a reason for being over there, y'know? "There's you." Words said to Steve a long time ago. To a man who threw himself into the ice to end a threat. A man who'd lost a love and a loved one and threw himself into that abyss. And maybe Steve didn't understand what Sam said then, but... well.
Fill in those gaps, Steve.
Sam's hand comes up to cup that much too serious, shadowed face.
"I'm here, Steve."
I don't want you to hurt yourself.
no subject
You can do the math on how many lives are saved by the loss of others. You can tell someone you need them to go, very likely, die so you can prevent greater losses. You can watch your best friend plunge to their (supposed) death off the side of a moving train, feel your world stop and your heartbreak and still hold on with everything you've got, because there are other people who need you and the war isn't over. You can even give up your own life, and everyone you've known and loved and every hope of the future, to take a terrible weapon down with you.
Steve's done all of it, and in the case of the first two, he's done a lot of them.
What he knows, down to his bones is what you can't do is value one life more than another, or trade one for another.
In his mind, Nat and Tony are gone. Sam and Bucky are alive again. They didn't die to bring those two specific people back. They died for an entire world of people.
He's hurting, but he's not... replacing Nat with Sam, or causing himself more pain. He's shifting gears, trying to adapt and trying to find a way to just keep breathing in a man he loves, and has loved as surely as he has mourned his loss. Relief and gratitude, loss and pain can and do co-exist in this.
He finishes taking off his boots, leaving them neatly by the door and moves over to Sam. He settles behind him, wraps one arm around Sam's waist and kisses him, but this time on the temple.
"I know. We're both here." For however long. Neither one of them is the fuck okay, because he reads between lines and can fill in the gaps, too. "And the whales are going to be mad about it."
no subject
The comment about the whales earns Steve a chuckle. Sam has no context on that line, but he has no context on much right now. It's amusing regardless, and he thinks he can understand the sentiment anyway.
"We tend to have that effect."
And they do. Defying authority, getting shot at, punching bad guys, maybe getting arresteda little bit... that's just a hobby at this point.
Maybe it's been foreplay all along.
"I'm sorry I didn't realize where we were heading." In regards to their hearts and their desires. "Proves me right, of course. I do what you do, just slower." It's a mild tease, not fully a joke. "Tell me what you want tonight. Tell me what you need."