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The week before his heat, Steve was all snarl.
Not so much to Bucky. Even when Steve was all salt and vinegar to the rest of the world, Bucky could keep Steve sweet on him.
("No, hey pal. I get it." Bucky would say, while Steve was all-but growling at the window. At the potentials sniffing around the sidewalk. Bucky would come home to Steve with his shoulders up and a punch ready to go.
Bucky would keep his hands in plain sight and eye contact minimal. He didn’t have any kind of instinct, but a fella could learn.
"A little attention is nice now and again, sure. But hanging around outside ain't right. Lacks class."
Steve would drop his shoulders, if not the mulishness.)
A week before his heat, any fight Steve picked would be one he won. Wasn't like anyone was gonna smell him luring and do anything but pant. Steve could rob a bank when he was on the lure and no one would say a word against him.
Bucky'd brought up the bank thing now and again, just so Steve’d hit him in the arm. So the two of them could play-wrestle a bit and Steve could bank some of that fire in him. From what he’d been able to tell, lurking here and there. Sitting in a diner with a paper and a pen. Folks wouldn’t look at that for a second, but he could look back plenty. See folks feeding each other, snuggling up, kissing at each other.
Steve wouldn’t take none of that outta Bucky’s open palm. Bucky could trick him into it, sometimes. But boy. If fellas thinking Steve was nuts got Steve’s back up, then those same fellas drunkenly swaying with their noses up got Steve… well. Boiled him down past the burnt out syrup at the bottom of the pan.
Steve, he didn't like winning fights based off how he smelled. It just made a bad situation worse, was all. Far as Bucky could tell Steve just plain didn't like winning fights.
Steve was, objectively speaking, a little guy. He was short. Wasn’t one for physical labor, and sometimes all his insides just put up a picket line. Wasn’t like he’d set up shop in the Grim Reaper’s front yard or anything, but if you put Steve in a circle with literally any other person, the odds on Steve would make a fella cry.
But he'd snap his teeth at the throat of the most alpha'd up lunkhead in the area. Then some sideliner would nod towards the alley and ask:
"Hey, ain't omegas supposed to be peaceful?"
"Oh sure.” Bucky'd say, finishing his drink and getting up. “Peaceful as lambs. Never caused a single war.”
And they’d look at Bucky like he should have a handle on Steve. Him. Steve's own ma (rest her soul), made of spit and determination, never got Steve to stop scraping on the playground. Bucky? Bucky was just along for the ride.
Steve, little omega Steve, had a whole damn world telling him how to be. The thing with Steve was that the more he got told no, the bigger the Screw You, Pal, grew in him. Somebody might say: Pal, ain't you supposed to being the one who keeps folks civil? and Steve, god bless Steve. Steve's say something like: You ain't my pal, and my job is to put a stop to this sort of thing.
At this point in his life, Steve was about 45% Screw You, Pal. That moved into the majority when he was on the lure and had every potential in the city was sniffing at their door.
The week before his heat Steve spent too much time staring out the window, pressing his face to the cold glass. When Bucky went to join him all he saw were the folks stopping their Brooklyn hustle to sniff up the sidewalk. To look at the door of the building.
("I gotta get to work," Steve’d said, beginning of this one. He’d gotten dressed in street clothes: hat, to coat, to shoes. Three sweaters and back again.
"Buddy, you miss the riots? They got laws about that now." Bucky went back to their mirror to check on his hair. There was such thing as a token argument and they were having one.
“It’s not bad yet,” Steve’d said, half stubborn, sure. But half like he was so used to ignoring himself that he wouldn’t even noticed he was going if people didn’t make such a fuss about it. He sure didn’t spend time sniffing up any anybody else. He’d woken Bucky up with all his fidgeting last night.
Made up for it by burying a hand in Bucky’s hair and scratching. Half the reason Bucky wore Brylcreem was that it kept his hair soft enough that Steve’s had no problems running his nails over Bucky’s scalp whenever he got the mood for it.
Not like Bucky’s gotten themselves anybody else to impress, seeing as Steve’s put about as much work into looking for a breeding partner as a dirty politician did “missing’ taxes.
"Bad enough that your boss rang. Said he’d send somebody with you supplies. Whatever you finish I’ll bring around after work, if they don’t send nobody.”
(They wouldn’t send anybody, seeing how Bucky’d treated the little tick of could-be that’d sniffed around the doorstep last time. Bucky could have sworn there were never so many potentials in the world when they were kids. Now they come rubbing up to their stoop and all but yowling intent.
“You wouldn’t mind letting me have a better sniff, yeah? I got me a good job.” The greasy, grubby little thing had said. Bucky had blocked the doorway. “Steady paycheck for going on a year now. I’ll be a real company man-” Covered in pimples and no kinda sense of how clean his own damn face.
Bucky’d taken the supplies and kicked the door closed behind him.)
Steve closed his eyes, hands all fisted up. Bucky couldn’t exactly scent it, not the way those fella on the streets could. Like it was out of his range or something. But he knew the whole messy range of Steve’s moods, and there was swampy sort of… The top and heart notes sang the same, but there was something different with the dry down.
He’d be great, if Steve ever hooked a catch he wanted to keep them. A dame, in Bucky’d dreams. Soft skirts he could iron, and hair he could watch get washed once a week, put into rollers. And yeah, one way or another Bucky get himself a coulpa kids to peck over. Sort of day-dreams about it, of Steve finding someone and them all finding some little bit of space to scratch their living in.
And yeah, he wanted Steve to reel himself in a lady so he could see the most cussed, stubborn, grumpiest babies God ever flung down onto creation. But, Hell. If it were a man, then they could find themselves some half feral things needing some hen pecking. Then the thought of it, crawling into bed with the pack and getting fingers scritching across his head whenever the lights were out.
When Steve wanted to be real sweet on him he’d rub at Bucky’s ears. If Bucky were doing three am changing and baby-pampering, then Steve and his alpha’d have plenty of reasons to want to be real sweet on Bucky.
Daydreams like that could get a fellow through a lot of bad spots.
The week before Steve’s heat, all cooped up like a nun in a convent, got Steve climbing up the walls.
He'd break pencil tips and tear butcher paper. He'd go out on the fire escape to cool off and then retreat right back inside. People sniffing around, Bucky'd figured. That or the shivers’d lock up his fingers.
Bucky still had to work. Steve wasn’t gonna lose his job, but he sure wasn't getting paid in the meantime. They’d do alright, provided Bucky could just make it to payday.
“Hey, you need anything?” Bucky asked, hanging just inside the door, “I’ll be back around six with dinner.”
Steve started taking off his street clothes, angrily tugging at his tie knot, “it ain’t bad yet. I can still go out.”
“Yeah, but if you know you need something then I’m saying I could get it for you.” Bucky almost started picked at his cuticles, but he curled his fingers back.
Steve shrugged, sitting down to unlace his shoes. “Blankets, if you find any, I guess.”
“Sure.” Bucky’d pushed off. “Try and leave me more than a pair of socks and one undershirt yeah?”
The week before his heat Steve would nest like the devil was prodding at him. He'd shove their mattress in a corner. He'd toss every blanket and pillow they had on top. He'd raid Bucky's wardrobe for spare clothes.
Now, in the confines of Bucky’s own head, there was a big old king bed. With more damn pillows than Steve could stand, and thick quilts and… well, the main thing about that daydream was that Steve was in the middle of that, happy for once. At least not so damn angry at himself. Take a feast of comfort over the little scraps he’d steal like a half burned cat.
Instead, now, Steve’d flop on top of it like a goddamn laundry pile, with his sketchpad and look happy as them rhinos caged up in the zoo. Drew a lot of yowling cats, backs all arched up and faces like the devil.
Bucky went to work. Bucky came home again with food. Steve picked at it. There was pack-sweat coming from somewhere in the building, which didn’t make anything better. Bucky would fix up Steve’s stupid nest because omegas had the instinct, sure, but Steve couldn’t have made two peas feel at home in their pod.
Bucky turned on radio, but mostly listened to the soft scratch of Steve’s pencil on paper or the tapping of his own foot.
And there’d be a week of that.
Bucky watched breeding pairs fattening each other up. Snuggling, pressing wet mouths on faces, all spit, slop and nonsense. Getting them pretty things, nice things. Half the town was out buying, canoodling. The other half was cleaning, scrubbing down every inch of a house for a proper den down.
(And it weren’t like Bucky couldn’t keep himself a clean house. That cold water bachelor was scrubbed . But it was either spit shine the house or squeeze the last few red cents out of the world. Which, well. A fella who could do odd jobs around the season, was a fella who could pad his rates.)
The night before his heat was when Steve went from bad sleep straight to no sleep. He got down to his undershirt and skivvies: sweat-wet and all the snarl finally burned out of him. He crawled into the nest and right back out again. In a perfect world Bucky coulda given him a nice bath or something. Open up his pores and gotten all the dirt out. But they had themselves a cold water in the chill, so if the pipes weren’t frozen they could count themselves on the side of the angels.
So, Bucky just kept still in the dark and listened to Steve. “I’ll go out early. Get the last bit of supplies.”
He’d packed up plenty while he could. Woulda fed it all to Steve, but no bets on that horse. Steve footsteps shuffled from one end of the room to the other, and if Bucky touched him, his skin would be sun-scorched. And now, in the thick of it, if Bucky put his nose to Steve’s neck he’d smell sweet. And if Bucky licked then-
Steve crawled back in, pulled Bucky’s head into his lap and trailed his nails down Bucky’s neck, scratched along his stubble, pressed a thumb between his eyebrows where his headaches always started. Could play Bucky like the keys, until Bucky was loose and halfway back asleep.
“Not fair,” Bucky mumbled.
“Shut up and sleep,” Steve mumbled back.
There were bars for this sort of thing. Public houses, like in the James Joyce novel. Places auxiliaries could go to hear soft-spoken folks whisper into microphones, to hear the tapping of fingernails on wood and the crinkle of soft shirts. Maybe they were half-feral and unattached, roving in tight little knots of other support. Maybe they were lower on the rung in their pack. If you asked Bucky, he didn’t know a thing about them. Didn’t mean he didn’t, just meant he wouldn’t say nothing.
Bucky got up early, with Steve sweating out the last of his snarl, put himself together like a factory line, and got out of the apartment. Steve didn’t want a thing touching him when he got like this. He had a bite scar from where he hadn’t learn that lesson fast enough.
Bucky got some cheese. Some fruit. Crackers. A lot of bread. Couple sandwiches, some soup. Some apple pie even, because Bucky was supportive like that and they were at the bitter edge of apple season.
Every shop and stall he went to had five or six auxiliaries doing the same, but they looked happier about it. They’d got themselves a breeding pair to shop for and Bucky’s bags look like he’s gunning to starve his.
Precious few breeding partners in New York these days, according to old folks on stoops.
Overpopulation, newspapers were saying, and they'd blame the immigrant problem for the most part. Bucky’d trashed more than a few yellow rags for blaming Irish packs roaming in and taking up “ real American space” like there weren’t ads promising to pay the way for breeding pairs to come out West. Which, hell. One of these days Bucky was gonna plop Steve on a train and take ‘em up on the offer. Folks need illustrations out West. They had papers.
He made sure they've got some clean water available in heavy jugs and lugged them inside.
Now, in Bucky’s daydream, they had an attached bathroom to their apartment and a big old claw foot bathtub with hot water. Big enough for three, at least, if Steve found himself a somebody as small as he was. A fella could dream. Maybe once he;d tricked Steve out West. Get a cow or something. But the way it was, better to have plenty of water inside so not to deal with the rest of the tenement. Since, well. By all accounts Steve should be on the lure, but not..
Well.
By the time Bucky had their water situation sorted out, Steve was just openly staring at him, head tilted up to get a better scent. Tasting the air a little. Bucky stopped. Steve didn’t...he didn’t much try and smell out people to suss them out. Probably why he got into so many damn arguments, since he couldn’t get the feel of a room. But when most folks were supposed to be tapering off the lure (from what Bucky’d seen, and read, which weren’t exactly a medical license, but hey. The public library kept letting him in.) Steve would have gone away with the tide.
“Yeah, alright, hold your horses,” Bucky said, but tilted his neck up, so Steve could get at him a little. Not sure what he was finding there, but Bucky put down the water. Kissed Steve on the temple and Steve clenched his jaw and looked at his feet.
Bucky went to the bathroom and cleaned up. Rinsed his hair out. Couldn’t do two full washes and rinses. Scrubbed his face and behind his ears.
Chin was still smooth, so no need for a shave. Came back and tossed his clothes in the nest and Steve tucked them away. While Bucky got himself sorted, Steve locked and covered up all the windows, pulled the chain lock into place, tucked a towel under the crack of the door.
Bucky moved their lamp into the bedroom and everything else got to shut up and shut down.
"Alright, here I am," Bucky gestured to himself. "We've got food, we've got water, I've got my books-"
Steve dragged him down, nosed him all over like Bucky’d been away for weeks, buried a hand in Bucky’s hair and just breathed.
Breathed.
See, and Steve had to know somewhere in there that Bucky was just his auxiliary. He couldn't do anything when Steve got this bad. Papers had advertisements in them for.... Aids. For the physical part of it. Sure. A few “hormonal tonics” for Increased Potency of the Alpha Musk to the Great Effect of your partner’s Perfect Happiness and Well-Being. But those worked for nothing. Waste of a dollar, that's what that was. And hell, not like it made any damn difference. Steve wouldn’t.
Well. None of that mattered for nothing now.
So all Bucky’s got is what’s got. Safe-scent. Pack-smell. That sorta hat trick.
Now, his working theory was that If Steve didn’t smell all that “nice safe everything-is-okay-now,” then he wouldn’t get so bad. But, there weren't anybody to talk about it with. No way to experiment and find out.
Priests were close-as and they were all auxiliaries and walked the party line. Bucky had his parents, sure, he came out of pack like anybody. But they'd had a clean wedding night and all his siblings came out strong auxiliaries just like him.
Nobody’d gone full breed before they had a chance to hook somebody, far as the pamphlets and books of the world were concerned. You had the lure, and then it died off when you didn’t land anybody and everything was supposed to pack up and try again next time.
Except for Steve. Steve just had to be a show-off.
"Hey, easy," Bucky flopped back against the pillows, while Steve’s was all over him, "I'm right here."
Steve kept sniffing under his jaw, wet and noisy. His wet tongue pressed up against Bucky’s jugular, quick and gone again. Steve left off with a stuttery growl. Bucky cupped the back of Steve’s head with one hand, reached for one of his serials with the other.
The head petting didn’t calm Steve down the same way it made Bucky’s head go quiet, but Steve went pliant against Bucky’s chest.
"Hey, how we doing?" Bucky asked, kept his voice low. it was best to pretend they were keeping themselves real secret in their matchbox flat.
“Good," Steve rubbed at Bucky chest, tucked his lower lip under his teeth. “You smell good, under the soap. Can never smell you.”
“Sorry I gotta live in the world, buddy.” Bucky said, fingers scratching down the back of Steve’s neck. Steve nuzzled up against Bucky, leg slotting over Bucky’s hips. “You want me to carve a den out the side of a mountain somewhere?”
Steve grunted. Bucky twisted a lock of hair between his fingers.
“What would you even do in a mountain? Get winded when we climbed up too many stairs,” Bucky muttered.
Steve bit him, not as hard as the scar-mark, but not play-fighting. Bucky jerked under his teeth.
“Last time a fella needed their cigarette lit you couldn’t get your matchbook out without a fumble. Don’t think you could manage a campfire,”
Steve bit down harder, sharp teeth and stubborn jaw and Bucky grabbed him by the back of the head.
“Alright, alright, uncle. Jesus. Be a mountain man. Raise some goats.”
Steve released him, kissed the sharp red marks left on Bucky’s skin, all wet and cold. Bucky tugged on his hair.
Steve fidgeted with the blankets and tucked himself back in all in fits and starts.
He pressed his nose into Bucky's armpit and inhaled. “I can smell you now.”
Bucky kept himself relaxed, reading his serial and keeping in close contact. First off was just Steve’s skin hunger. Walk in the park. Wouldn’t be so bad if Steve’d let him get close earlier on, but Steve was Steve. Love him or bet any other blind fool on this planet.
Steve was quiet for all of sixteen pages before he dragged his nose up and scented under Bucky's jaw. If he had 'em, that's where Bucky’s scent glands would be. And if he had them, they'd be pelting out all kinds of shit to get Steve really going. ANd if he had ‘em Bucky’d know what to do.
Bucky didn't know what got Steve’s signals crossed. Somewhere in his blitzed out brain, he must’ve been the thought that Bucky’s gonna mate him. He got half on top of Bucky and pressed in closer. All Bucky’s got for him is warm hands and some soft words.
And the thing is Bucky’s gotta keep close contact, here, or Steve's completely gone-to-shit head would think he was getting rejected. And that doesn't affect their day-to-day lives much, but the Steve who he's got right now hasn't historically taken it with so much as a grain of salt.
"Sorry pal, still just me," Bucky said, hand back in Steve’s hair. “Don’t got anything for ya.”
Steve’d notched his head under Bucky's, fisted his hands. Steve’s whole life could be subtitled by Steven Grant Rogers: A Body Who Wouldn't But Did Anyhow. Fella couldn’t catch a break. Bucky’d body wasn’t skilled, but it did what he told it to.
(If a fella with Tangee lipstick in Natural and a cool, powdery scent came up he could swing her and her soft skirts all across the musical score.
He’d come back to Steve with a drink and nuzzle up to his neck.
“Hey, when you get yourself pair mate, make sure one of their’s knows how to dance.” Bucky’d say.
“Don’t know why everyone makes a fuss about heat.” Steve’d mumble. “Happens once a year and it’s over. You types are out pounding the dancefloor every night.”
“Hey now.” Bucky’d throw his arm over the back of Steve’s chair. “Just making connections.”
Steve’d eye him over, but never stayed too sore about it.)
Bucky’d found a few pack-potentials, unattached auxiliaries with hungry skin and bright eyes. World was making fewer and fewer breeding pairs, and even fewer than could catch pups, but an auxiliary still wanted to throw themselves in with one of them sleek and coiffed omegas like in the pictures. No hard feelings, but a fella tried, right?
"You my fella, right Buck? My best fella?" Steve said somewhere between the slurred speech of the drunk and the rough rumble of somebody not awake yet.
"Yeah," Bucky agreed. Bucky always agreed. He had all the instincts of a street lamp, sure, but he wasn’t gonna let his best pal down. "All yours. They’ll toss us in a grave together. One tombstone, and they don’t even gotta put my name on it.”
Steve hand shook when he reached up to massage at Bucky’s throat, like he was some greyback in need of coaxing. Bucky grabbed Steve’s hand.
“Come on.” Steve rasp-mumbled, body all soft lines and hard bone and their room as sweet as one of Arden’s Treatment Salons over in Manhattan.
Could buy a skin cream up there for 10 dollars a pop that was a REJUVENATING salve which restores the fresh, youthful, elasticity and smooth unwrinkled tension of the skin, and when applied to the glandular region of the finer anatomy has a remarkable effect on the natural perfume of the body and apparently had some such part of turtles in there, since they lived for centuries.
Tortoises always looked plenty wrinkly to Bucky, but then, he wasn’t one of them decorative auxiliaries that got bathed in milk and draped themselves over Tiffany & Co. ads.
“Steve, come on. Don’t do this again.”
Steve dribbled sweat, and his body didn’t much care about how it was gonna get bred, and it was getting real hard to ignore it. Like their flat was haunted by something that coulda fixed this.
Steve's body would wait for Bucky's for awhile. A day, maybe two. But eventually it'd try and drag Bucky into it whether he's ready or not, and then Steve wouldn’t be able to get it in his head that Bucky could feed him up and pack him up safe, but couldn’t breed him any more than a pig could fly out of the muck.
Steve’d hummed, rolled his hips and Bucky’d learned from trial and error that he could get Steve sleepier if he just...grabbed his dick and started sort of pulling on it? Seen Steve worked at the sheets until he got sorer and figured his hand was better than their work shirts.
Squeezing a little? Harder than taking a piss, but not like the grip on a handcart. Bucky could milk Steve out and leave him soft and quiet for awhile. It didn’t do a thing for the whole process to go faster, except maybe get Steve to sleep more.
He could also reach down and sort of stick his fingers in? After a stretch, sure. Had to wait spell, but he could get them wet and if he got enough in there Steve’d whine and shudder and suck harder at Bucky’s neck. Leave these rich, thick bruises all over, but he’d stop asking to get bred out loud, anyways.
(“How’s that feel?” Bucky’d ask, as Steve sweated and shuddered and looked too much like St. Sebastian getting pierced by arrows for Bucky’s comfort.
“Good.” Steve’s legs would kick and he’d grip onto Bucky with everything he had. “I just...more. I need.”)
Bucky put down his serial and wrestled a little, got Steve's body underneath his and left small little marks all along his shoulders.
Just kid-stuff, really. Innocent as kittens, them two. He smiled and Steve stretched out underneath him, bracketed him with hot legs and a smile.
If there were a soul on this earth to ask about it, Bucky would. But there weren’t. There weren’t one single solitary body that Bucky can go up to an ask: “How about this weather? Never know which way the winds going this time of year. What’s with my omega buddy thinking I’ve got breeding potential? You catch that last game? I know, I know .”
That part, that playful part, always ended too quick. No matter how many shots Bucky plied Steve with, or how he worked his hands to get Steve to stay all loose and warm and sweet. Never lasted for too long.
It was almost nice, that part, really. He could get Steve to eat easy as anything. Steve was... simple. He bit when he didn’t like something and preened like the devil when he was happy.
God, the guy was almost biddable . If he could get an injured Steve to be half as sweet as early-heat Steve, Bucky’s whole life would be a cloudless bright sky of a thing. Boring, though.
Steve’d eat food right out of his fingers. Steve'd pet through his hair and Bucky’d shiver down his spine and up through his scalp. Just the sound of Steve’s wet mouth on the lip of the water jug made his scalp tingle down to his neck. The first day was an almost-vacation, with a side of a spit-wet neck and Steve’s mark on every place you’d think of seeing them on a post-heat alpha. But, well. Small price.
(One time Bucky’d tried leaving for a day. To see if that’d cut it down. It’d been Steve’d idea.
Came back to claw marks in the wall. Steve’s bloody fingers. Rancid as a chained dog.)
So first part’s alright. Second part happened whether they liked it or not. Bucky got himself fed up and some sleep while Steve was still satisfied with them flopping over each other like tuckered out dogs.
“Hey, we gotta sleep before it hits you.” Bucky said, getting up and rolling over on top of Steve.
“Not tired.” Steve said, body one big tremble and his dick standing up against his stomach, thick with blood like a swollen ankle. He’d just keep rubbing at Bucky’s stomach with it until he got chapped. Bucky spit in his hands and fumble for the right grip on it.
“Harder?” He checked and Steve dropped his legs over Bucky’s hips, clung on.
“Gotta. Gotta feel tight.” Steve pushed the sweat-stiff hair out of his face. “Hot and warm and wet. Like I’m getting mounted, yeah? You could. You could if you wanted.”
Steve dragged his hands over his face and pushed up into Bucky’s hand. “Hell, don’t even know what I’m saying.”
“Yeah, well. At least you finally admit it,” Bucky muttered and bent down to leave bite-marks all across Steve’s chest, because it wound him up faster. And it was just sort of...satisfying in a way. To get Steve to lose all his words and get flushed in splotchy red patches down to his navel. A well cooked meal of it’s sort.
“I’d be so good to you.” Steve said behind his own arms. “Breed so good, Buck.”
Bucky’s teeth hit Steve’s nipple and he arched up under him. Bucky pulled away and Steve grabbed his head, pulled him back down. “No, no good. Please.”
“‘You ain’t nursing what is-”
“Good, feels…” Steve’s fingers skittered over his scalp and Bucky could suck on this as much as anything else. Got his tongue under it and nursed a little. “Jesus.”
He had the sort of sun-sick red you got from staying out too long and Bucky pulled up, breathed hot. If alphas got this sort of response just from putting their mouth somewhere, Bucky sort of got why they always acted like the world should shudder under their feet. Bucky got a hand around Steve’s neck to get an idea of his breathing and pulse.
"Come on." Steve said voice hoarse and body flushed down to his toes. "Buck, come on. Don't make me beg."
"I ain't got what you need, Steve. You know that." He squeezed his hand and Steve writhed underneath him.
Bucky’d seen a man having a seizing fit and right then he couldn’t swear an honest difference between the two. It had to hurt, right? Steve’s face was telling him it hurt, but his scent was sharp with happiness.
Steve kept his hands in Bucky’s hair. Bucky kept nursing at one nipple, then the other. Oh God, the noises. All choked off and high-pitched and fear-keyed. Steve body must've needed it because it pushed up against Bucky’s hand and his mouth.
If Bucky were an omega then Steve wouldn’t have ever hooked him into a pack. And if were an alpha than this would have been solved ages ago. But he's just… this. This thing in the middle that doesn't solve a damn thing when Steve needs him. He’s a kerosene man drenching a world on fire. He does his best to be useful anyhow.
He kissed up Steve's neck when Steve let his head free. He could feel the swollen little lumps right under Steve’s jaw, how tight and hot they were. The scent makes Bucky want to pull in tight and keep Steve safe. "Steve, hey. See, smell. I got nothing for you. I would if I could, you know I would."
Steve rocked under his hands, dick pulsing in his hand and spitting up liquid that smelt good but felt tacky. He tried licking it once, and Steve’d laughed at his face, breathless., It was a weird thing, a fella’s johnson, the spongy-top and the hard middle and the skin so soft around it all. Steve’s hips shook as Bucky pulled.
“Need to. Can you,” Steve mumbled. He shoved Bucky around, fitting Bucky’s back against the wall and collapsed against Bucky’s chest. “No, bring your legs up like, yeah.”
Steve fit his head against the curve of Bucky’s shoulder, tilting so he could suck under Bucky’s chin.
“Wouldn’t mind doing this when you do find a partner.” Bucky titled his head back, wrapped his hand back around Steve and he was so wet he didn’t need to spit again. “Hold you up and open. It’d be good teamwork, because if you’re like this with no alpha…” Bucky clucked his tongue.
Steve gripped Bucky’s arm.
“I mean, I’m just saying. I wouldn’t mind lending a hand there either," Bucky insisted, because this was some kind of use, right? He'd be being helpful.
Steve was all teeth for a minute.
“Hey, alright, I won’t get in the love nest. I was just saying," Bucky figured a proper alpha'd have this thing nipped in real quick. Didn't much matter. Bucky'd find something to do with himself, be a real big time something.
“Why you gotta ruin this, Buck?” Steves said, half growling, but he never got a proper growl going before his diaphragm gave up the ghost.
Bucky nipped at Steve’s shoulder. “Sorry for saying anything."
Steve dragged his nails over Bucky’s knees and knocked his head back, a burned edge coming from all that sweat. “Not what I meant-Jesus you’re so dumb just so-”
Steve grabbed Bucky’s hand and squeezed it around his dick again. It had to hurt, right? It was hot like a bruise.
Bucky tried to memorize the way of it. The speed and pressure because maybe he could milk whatever mean streak gone through Steve. He talked about his mating prospects with both eyebrows up and tapped those Go West Young Man ads with two fingers and said that was the only way anyone’d hitch their wagon to his star.
Or, well. He didn’t call himself a star. Just shrug about it, though, because Bucky was fine when they joshed each other, but when Steve talked about himself like a thing with a close expiration date it got a cold creep of a feeling in Bucky’s gut. Nobody else did. Steve wasn't the healthiest body, sure, but he had a skilled position.
They had themselves their own coldwater flat and some money tucked in a coffee can besides. They’d be fine. They’d go West if the money was there. Some sun? Some clean air? It’d be good for them both.
Bucky squeezed Steve’s thigh with his free hand and tried to nuzzle an apology into his neck.
Steve goes off with a mess and there’s plenty of rag-level cloth about so Bucky cleans up. Steve goes limp against him and breathed.
“I don’t like it when you talk about…” Steve waved his hand, words falling down a staircase all in a tangle. Letting them die in the air, lost in himself for a while. Bucky can’t imagine what Steve daydreams about any more than Steve, probably, knows what Bucky drifts off to. They’re close, but not a step inside each other’s skins.
Bucky cleaned his hand off. “You’re going to go bugged-out crazy in about eight hours, buddy.”
“Yeah.” Steve agreed, sleepy and cuddling into Bucky’s lap again. “S'alright. You get me through.”
“You ain’t seen you.” Bucky mumbled. He shoved them around until he got Steve back over to the bathroom. Middle of the night, nobody’s bother ‘em. The two of them in robes.
Steve got himself in order, peed like he hadn’t in days. They snuck down the hallway and locked the door again. Steve dropped the robe just so in the nest and Bucky didn't settle until he’d gotten Steve tucked away and under some blankets.
None of that was the bad part.
It weren't the bad part until Bucky woke up to Steve fucking keening out a mating call like he somebody from the other room was gonna help him. Steve hysterical with fever had nothing on the Steve that was so wrapped up in his heat he didn’t know a doorknob from a broomstick.
Steve kneaded at Bucky's arms and stroked down, hitched his hips against Bucky’s penis. It just lay there because he was useless. Give him a double shift loading newspapers, but don’t do this to him, God. What kind of monster-
"Steve, doll. Listen." Bucky mumbled, still half-asleep, but getting cold right through the middle because it wasn’t...well. World wasn't fair, anybody could tell you that. World weren’t right, either, but this was... It just was cruel for the sake of it, is what it was.
Steve eyes glittered in the dark and God but he smelled as good as anybody'd ever looked, and Bucky wasn’t getting the half of it. Bucky put a hand in his hair and Steve shook him off, kept sniffing. He’d gone stiff and he wouldn't lose it no matter what kind of trick Bucky tried. And Christ what Bucky could see by streetlamps looked painful, worse than before and touching it, milking it wouldn’t even get it down at this point. Sometimes stuff wouldn't even come out anymore and Steve'd just cry, thristy and exhausted and tired .
Bucky swallowed and put his hands over his head. "You find something you think'll help, you do whatever it is you want."
Steve scratched at Bucky’s stomach, face wet with sweat and their room so hot it was hard to breathe through it.
.
"I ain't got all that built in marathon breeding stamina, seeing as how I'm not a breeding partner, doll. You just get what I was born with." Bucky stayed down, because Steve’s got the instinct to punch when he was stressed and that ain’t changed yet.
And you know, Steve desperately trying to get Bucky to throw a knot and drip the right smells weren't even the absolute worst part? Not like it would have made a bit of difference if Steve’d been looking for a place to throw his own knot. The physical part wasn’t worth the air time.
Sure, it was degrading being in bed with somebody who kept saying they needed you and you not being able to do a thing for them. Bucky'd been trying to find Steve a viable breeding partner since just about that seventh day when God was busy resting and Bucky didn't have that kind of privilege.
"Buck, come on." Steve kneaded at Bucky's thighs. "Please, I'm ready. Please, please."
Steve turned his head and bit out his frustration on Bucky's leg. Steve'd been trying to get a breed mark out of him once a year since they started this little song and dance, and all he got for his hard work was mundane purpling bruises that hurt like the devil. That one scar, but that wasn’t the same.
Pain was a thing Bucky’s body could provide if that's what helped. And Steve’s dumb brain probably saw Bucky’s lack of smell as rejection. You know Steve. He just..threw himself at the problem.
Steve pulled back, body still smelling musky-sweet and shuddering in these little...waves. Bucky got a hand in Steve’s hair, got shook off a few times. Steve dropped his head onto Bucky's stomach.
"Please. I'll breed so good, Buck. Take me back. Come on. Please, don’t do this.”
Steve skin was so hot and his eyes were glazed and it was his own brain turning itself inside out. Which was...it was like something grabbed Steve out of his own head and replaced him with this… weren’t no good. Thoughts like that. Didn’t help a soul.
Bucky tugged Steve up by the armpits and held him down, because all Bucky’s got his proximity and bulk, but he’d use it.
"Sure you would. You'd be a terror to anybody who'd do those pups wrong."
“You’ll feel good. I know. I know how to-” Steve was so fucking hot and Bucky just wanted to dump him in an ice bath and feed him up. Get the fire burned out on good soup and cold sheets. SHove him outside and let the city soak into him.
Steve bracketed Bucky's waist with his legs and his dick was trying to burn a groove in Bucky's stomach. He got hips moving slowly, rubbing up against some gland Bucky doesn't have and never will. Bucky rubbed at the indent of Steve's hips and Steve moaned like Bucky was working on a stiff muscle.
"Don't hold out on me." Steve mumbled as Bucky did what he always did and just. Held tight. “Don’t...this time it’ll. It’ll take this time I know. I gotta.”
"Sweetheart." Bucky mimicked scent marking best he knew how and rolled them back over so he could just...throw all his weight over Steve. "You're killing me here. If I could I would breed you all week."
Bucky leaned down and sucked at Steve's neck, worked at that tight little knot under Steve's jaw. Steve just about howled, clawed at Bucky's back and by the end of this there weren’t gonna be much untouched skin left on Bucky's body. But that was alright. Fair was fair. Skin came back.
"You gotta know that I’d do right by you.” Bucky trailed his mouth down Steve's neck. If he were an alpha he could practically steal a whole produce truck for Steve during his lure and everybody would shrug and say alpha instincts and chip in and pay for it.
Hell, there'd been a breeding pair that had met in the street and then gone and broke into somebody's house for the remainder and the homeowner had just shrugged and let them have his bedroom. If the world wasn’t cruel for the sake of it then Bucky couldn’t just do right, but he’d do good by Steve.
Bucky was just a guy helping out his pal, everyone looked at him like he should be work harder. Find Steve a partner. Do his goddamn job. He'd gotten the dance card of just about every alpha in this entire rotten city and Steve'd been receptive to exactly none of them. He'd kidnap a tourist if that'd help.
("Way he acts, you'd think he formed pack." One of 'em had said, cutting the double date down to a boys night out. "Got about as much time for me as a broken clock."
"He's..." Bucky'd tried to explain.
"Look, Barnes. I've seen you around town. Everyone I talked to says you're pretty on the level. You can go make him sit next to every alpha from here to Chattanooga, sure, but it's not gonna work so long as he's carrying a torch for somebody out there. You just have to figure out who."
He forgot how that conversation ended, but he couldn't stop noticing that Steve would go out with him, but he'd fumble his way out of a date just about as fast as he could once they were there.
And he’d gotten that cold feeling that maybe...maybe it wasn’t just heat-sick Steve that was out of his damn mind.)
Steve needed the right smell and Bucky would buy it by the jug if he could, but they don’t sell it and… and it was cruel, was what it was.
"Bucky, it hurts. Damnit, please. I'm beggin' you. You gotta." Steve was all sweat and heat and fever. He bit anywhere he could find and Bucky just...let him, nipped back because that's what Steve wanted. "It's all… You gotta know I’d be so good. Don’t leave me, come on.”
And hell, even Steve writhing there next to him wasn't the worst. It got pretty damn bad, but at least he was still letting Bucky touch him. Accepting some comfort for all the good it did anybody. The next-to-worst was Steve begging.
The worst was when he stopped. When he just...got so damn tired of Bucky being as good as a thing you sent off for in the mail.
"Didn’t work. Never works,” He’d mumble, out of his fucking head and curled up around a pillow because he wouldn’t let Bucky near him.
And Bucky’d sit on the edge of the nest, drinking water and hating himself.
And the worst part was Steve's exhausted crying, him all knotted up in his blankets and Bucky's workshirt and the pillows. When Bucky tried to touch him Steve threw him off.
“You wanna go, then leave. Don’t keep...keep being here.” Steve said. “Can’t...can’t do it...gotta.”
And he’d covered his own head and Bucky’d crawl around the nest and get kicked and scratched because he just. You didn’t...leave your fella like that.
("I dunno. I'm so messed up by the end of it I don't know up from down." Steve'd said before. "Probably a butterfly dying would make me cry at that point."
"I just. I wanna help." Bucky'd been making dinner, because you gotta feed the whole pack. Whole pack of two.
"Not much to help." Steve'd said, looking at the paper. "I don't get bred, I feel like it's my fault for not luring you right, and you being nice doesn't do a thing because then I feel worse for not getting your blood up. And if you're mean to me then I feel... it doesn't matter, alright? When I get my head back on it's fine."
"Yeah, well. Pal, you're the sorriest sight in all of New York when you're like that, and that's coming from somebody whose gotta look at your dumb mug day in and day out."
"You think that's something? Go find yourself a mirror, then you'll see what I'm going through."
"Rooming with the handsomest auxiliary in the city? I can see how that'd be rough on ya." Bucky'd said and they'd fallen into old patterns but the idea of Steve (heat drunk or not) dragging himself through the mud was somewhere around the area of unbearable.
He didn’t mention that Steve’s shouldn’t get going into heat in the first place. Steve didn’t either.)
"I'm gonna find you somebody." Bucky said, while Steve tried to keep the crying quiet. "Just you wait. This time next year it won't be like this."
"Stupid." Steve mumbled.
Bucky got down into the thick of it and tried for Steve's shoulder, and Steve flinched.
"How am I stupid, then?"
Steve didn't roll over, just pressed his face into Bucky's workshirt. "If you're with me till the end of the line, then no one else is getting on our car."
Bucky was about as perplexed as a naked guy stuck in his best friend's love nest could get, which is to say: pretty damn.
Steve rolled over and his eyelids were drooping and swollen, and he had one careful hand slowly wrapping itself around Bucky's ankle.
"Steve, you'll find a-"
Steve looked at him, all red-eyed and miserable. So Bucky shut up.
(“Don’t listen to me when I’m like that.” Steve’d said day after his heat, cleaned up and nowhere near respectable looking.
“Hard not to.”
“Look, you get on that many hormones and we’ll see what sense you talk.” Steve muttered, going red around the ears. “Seriously, I just get...the world gets weird, alright? Don’t worry about it.”
And Bucky let it go, like he always did. They always had the next thing to worry about, anyways.)