two ghosts . [stucky]

tongue tied like we've never known

Bucky can feel all of his muscles moving simultaneously. Breathing feels like mist rising from wheat fields in the early morning.

His tongue just feels fuckin' weird.

He asks Steve if he feels it, too. "Do you feel how weird my tongue feels? I mean - does your tongue feel like it doesn't belong to you?"

Steve smiles and slings his arm around Bucky's shoulders. He smells like the sour lemon drops they used to steal from corner drug stores, and his forearm rests in puzzle-piece perfection against Bucky's neck. It could almost be an extension of his own body - quite honestly, Bucky wouldn't have minded, as long as it was Steve's arm.

After five hours of driving, they had arrived in Georgia and decided, after much bitching and moaning about their old age, to take a break. The rest stops in Georgia are bordered by golden pine forests and needle-padded walking trails. The allure of stretching their legs and a little delinquency is too much for them to pass up. So they smoked a bowl and set off deeper into the woods.

Steve looks like he could melt into the beams of light coming in through the boughs far above them. His hair sets off sparks against the surrounding dark wood. A Baroque painting comes to Bucky's mind, all dramatic shadows and avoided eye contact, mixed with the subtle religious detail of the halo around his big stupid head. Time is a multi-faceted entity that Bucky can't seem to grasp with certainty. They've only been walking for ten minutes, but it could've been hours for Bucky. Everything is underwater but it's good and smells fresh and heavy, a breath of ozone before a storm.

"-Natasha's blintzes are just outrageous, Buck - I've never been much for slavic food but boy I could eat those for weeks and never get tired of 'em. Of course, my favorite food is my Ma's apple pie. I gotta teach you to bake, Buck, you've always been shit at it but I think now that you're a little more focused you might be able to produce something not burnt to high heaven-"

Steve continues to talk, voice sounding more and more like the bells that used to ring for Sunday mass. Not the electronic kind that make your teeth clench but the real ones that clang off beat for several minutes before leaving the air in a euphoric afterglow.

Steve has stopped talking. Bucky realizes he's just said all of this out loud. He smiles sheepishly. That's something he's re-learned how to do pretty well. Steve's ears are red and Bucky strokes over them lightly with his metal hand and watches them turn almost purple.

"You're just full of watercolor paint, aren't ya?" Bucky asks. "Like the horse from 'The Wizard of Oz'."

Steve rolls his eyes. "Of all the damn stupid things to remember, you go for our first date."

Bucky's eyebrows raise in surprise, if a little belated. "How was it?"

"Terrible. I spilled popcorn every where I was so fuckin' nervous - we'd already been roommates for a year and a half. Felt twenty one goin' on twelve. My hands were sweating and I ended up using my inhaler during the scene with the trees; scared me half to death."

Bucky feels a memory swimming to the surface, coated in a powdered, bittersweet nostalgia. He almost doesn't ask, but he needs to know why Steve's ears are red and why his gut is quite suddenly a turbulent ocean.

"That was our first kiss, right?"

Steve bites his lip and nods. His eyes are a heart monitor in his face, picking up every minute shift in his pulse and mood. Bucky sees everything. He may not understand it all, but he sees it. And that's what's important here, Bucky realizes. Not that he remembers everything right away, or even ever, but that he sees.

He sees Steve, he always has - even as a 90 pound, too-proud punk that couldn't back down from a challenge if it killed him. Steve would probably outlive God having the last word; or the last punch.