driftfleet | Naviadna Mingle

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Naviadna Mingle

Who: Everyone
Broadcast: If you want!
Action: Anywhere on the fleet or in the system
When: The month of June

Welcome to Naviadna! Enjoy the beautiful sights, amazing technology, and all the other wonderful things this system has to offer! Where will you go? What sort of shenanigans will you get up to? How are you dealing with the planet's insistent singing at you?

Have fun!

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Steve doesn't know what to say so he ends up saying nothing at all. He just leans in and kisses Bucky hard, desperate to feel the soaring happiness he once had. And it's there. Just muted underneath the pain of knowing they were now on borrowed time. Or, even if they weren't, there was enough aired out between the two of them that they probably should break up just to try and get a more functional relationship formed out of the ashes. They don't have time for that, though. There's no time to learn this Bucky in his own right and to have Bucky learn him. No time for them to figure out all the similarities and all the differences and use them both to embrace the future instead of the past. All they could do now was soak in the other and make the best of each hour. Pray that some small molecule of it will stick with them on the trip home.

Or pray that something happens and the trip home gets cancelled all together. But that too would just be temporary. Steve knows that he needs to get home. Sooner or later, he will have a job to do there. Bucky can't go with him no matter how long they put it off.

Steve pulls back from the kiss only to lean back in for a second. Desperate and grateful and furious all at the same time. When he breaks off this time he stays back, one hand finding Bucky's to hold it loosely.

"I don't want to break up," he answers honestly. "We might have...possibly the most messed up, unhealthy relationship in the 'Fleet but it's ours and I want it up until the very last second. As long as I'm not hurting you somehow by asking for that, then. Yeah. I want you with me, Buck."

He pushes their foreheads together and Steve can feel the warm skin alive and soft against his own. Real. Real and here. At least for now.

"I love you, jerk."

If nothing else... they're used to not having time. They're both used to war, to world-ending situations, and to luxuries you just don't get. Maybe, honestly, Bucky's just glad Steve is grabbing for this at all, even when he's planning to let it go. Maybe Bucky feels a little better, wanting what he wants, knowing Steve at least wants the same, even if he's going to have to turn and walk away from it. It feels like some little victory - or maybe that's just the way Steve kisses him; it's hard to tell, because that kiss is so desperate and sincere and screams Steve all over, that Bucky both hates himself for giving in, knowing he's going to lose it, and also doesn't give a single solitary fuck about what might happen tomorrow, even knowing the pain it's going to bring.

He laughs a little, when Steve pulls back, because, "Yeah... yeah, I think that's what we've got." It's messed up, and probably unhealthy - and yeah. Story of his fuckin' life. That's how things go with Steve. Maybe Bucky really isn't sorry about it, after all. "But I guess we're keeping it."

He breathes out, slowly, not quite a sigh but definitely a measured breath that gives him time to try to pull himself together. "I think I'm still staying," he says, squeezing Steve's hand a little. "I don't... really think they need me back home, and if my Steve - if Grant - is gonna stay, I'm staying with him. Or if he goes... maybe I'll go."

One more breath, for good measure, before he glances at Steve, their gaze a little too close, with their foreheads pressed together, but he doesn't really care. "I still love you, though, you idiot. You're weirdly lovable."

Steve laughs and settles his head against Bucky's shoulder. He's tired and miserable with too much going on in his head. So much of him wants to lock himself and Bucky in their cabin and never let them out again. Steve wants to just curl up in their too-small mattress and forget the fact that time is ticking away and he'll never have another moment like this ever again. He just wants this. Wants to be happy. But that never seems to be his lot in life.

"I didn't plan on telling you like this," he admits. "I've known for awhile but... I don't know. I wasn't sure how to just spill it out."

He nudges his head back to press a kiss to Bucky's chin and jaw. Each inch he can reach is one he wants to give attention to. Steve wants to memorize every single bump and pore and scar on this body. He might still forget but it won't be from lack of effort to remember.

"I'm gonna talk to people," he promises. "I wanna stay. More than anything I wanna stay with you. If there's a way I'm gonna take it. Understand?"

He pulls back to stare into Bucky's eyes.

"You're weirdly loveable yourself, dumbass. And I don't want to lose you."

Bucky just lets out a soft, fond sound that's definitely a laugh, but, "I get it," he says. He does. Telling someone something like this isn't easy. "D'you think I told you the instant I was drafted?" Well - maybe that'll finally be the difference between their worlds, but without the other Bucky here, they'll probably never know.

Still, "I understand. If you gotta go - Steve. I get it. I do." Bucky sighs, looking back at Steve and thinking the universe has been so fucking unfair to this one man, this one good man, and he deserves a break. He deserves a break more than anybody, and it eats Bucky up to think that he can't give him one. That he can't help him, and he can't help Grant, either. Not the way he wants. Not the way either of them deserve.

"I never wanted to lose you," he says, quietly, reaching up to run fingers through Steve's short, blonde hair. "But I've been tryin' to tell myself I was ready for when it was gonna happen since I was about ten, you know? Never made it any easier, though."

Steve's face is pure agony as he listens to this. All of it hurts. The reminder of the draft opens a wound Steve had cauterized shut so long ago that he nearly forgot how badly he'd been hurt. He'd been devastated, quietly and privately, of course. Spent nights staring at Bucky and wondering if he was ever gonna see him again. And if that wasn't bad enough, Bucky is going ahead and giving him permission to leave. Telling him how he'd planned on it since they were kids and Steve's life expectancy ranged in months.

He leans in and kisses Bucky hard. If he can pour his love into this kiss he'll drain every single drop in his body. Anything to make this better. Anything to not have entire universes separating them from the man they love. Steve cups Bucky's face and holds it tenderly. When he pulls back Steve keeps his eyes closed and his head close.

"I love you so much, Buck. I don't want to hurt you again. We've said goodbye too many times..." He doesn't have an answer though. He doesn't have a way to stop the inevitable. It crushes his heart into powder inside his ribs.

"I'm gonna try. I'm gonna try everything. I...don't want to lose you.

"Just this once, I don't want to lose the person I love."

Bucky lets out a breath - he certainly feels breathless, after a kiss like that. And Steve's not wrong - hell, he's not, they have said goodbye too many fucking times. And it gets harder every single time. At least, it does for Bucky.

"I don't want that for you either," he says, and then laughs a little, because, "and I sure as hell ain't too proud to admit I don't want that for myself. I think you've paid enough, Stevie, and I don't think you owe anybody anything." He loops one arm up, pressing his palm to the back of Steve's neck, just touching, reassuring. "But I also know you wouldn't be you, if you were just... okay, leaving things back home as they were. And I love you because you're you - and all the stupid that comes with it, you know?"

This time, it's Bucky that leans forward for a long, slow, drawn-out kiss. When they'd started this conversation, he'd thought he'd have to walk out and never have this again. Now... he knows he still won't have it, when Steve leaves. But at least for now... at least for a little longer... he can be greedy, and he can kiss Steve as many times as he can manage.

"Maybe the other me's got it right," he finally says, a little hoarsely. "Maybe... if you don't remember this. Maybe it'll be better for you."

He hates saying that. He feels awful the second he does. And yet... he maybe means it, too.

The kisses feel like good-byes. Steve hates them even as he wants to drown inside them. He kisses back with every shred of love he can muster and chases Bucky as he pulls away. He's greedy too. He wants his memories full of Bucky until the very last moment. He doesn't want to let go of the happiness he finally found.

He just wants to stay.

"Don't say that," he almost hisses, stunned by what Bucky's said. "Don't you dare say that forgetting you is better. Are you...are you insane?"

Steve yanks Bucky close, holding him in a hug that might also be a wrestling move, somewhere. Only Bucky could ever withstand the force of it. Steve only does it because he knows it won't hurt him. Steve never wants to hurt Bucky.

"It would not be better, you idiot. Have you any idea what it's been like for me? I've wanted this. I've wanted you so bad. Some nights I wake up and think I hear the train or your breathing next to me.

"God, Buck. Knowing I had this, even if I lost it, would be better than all those years of mourning and wondering 'what if?' "

The grip Steve's got him in is - well. It's tight, and firm, and yeah, Bucky can handle it, but he can also read what it says pretty clearly. He knows it was a shitty thing to say.

He still can't help but wonder if it's not true. Shakespeare said all that shit about loving and losing, yeah. But Bucky never wanted to hurt Steve, either. And he knows this will, because it hurts Bucky, hard and deep, in a way he knows he's going to carry around for the rest of his life.

His arms come up around Steve as best they can, trying to touch him, to rub his back, to be reassuring in a situation where reassurances mean pretty much nothing. "I wanna give you what you want, Steve. God knows you deserve it, and then some. I wish I could go with you." Give Steve the best friend he needs, because... Soldat could be a friend for Steve, over time. But he's not Bucky, and everyone's accepted that by now. And it's - fine, sure. Maybe better for Soldat. But Bucky isn't sure it's better for Steve. "But I don't want you hanging everything on this."

He moves to grip Steve's arms, pulling back a little so he can look Steve in the face. "I don't want you to not move on, because - like I said. You fuckin' deserve it be happy. And I don't want to stand in the way of that, when you get back." He doesn't want Steve to spend the rest of his life mourning this.

Steve decides to shut Bucky up with a kiss. He's heard enough and just pulls back to press their lips together, hard. It's not loving and it's not lustful. It's desperate and grieved as he knows both of them are right in their own way. This is an impossible situation and both solution is both correct and incorrect at the same time. There's no winning this. Just surviving and moving forward.

Steve strokes his hand over Bucky's face all the same, thumb tracing along his hairline.

"I'd rather have this." He says it with finality, not expecting or welcoming debate. "I'd rather know that I had this. Forgetting...it just means you died. You died and all the things I never said died with you. But now?"

He pushes their foreheads together and closes his eyes. Steve's hand goes to Bucky's hip and holds onto it lightly. He barely breathes.

"Now you know I love you. I know you love me. No matter what else comes...there is value in that. I want it. It's mine and I want to keep it."

It's impossible, but what is being Captain America, but making impossible decisions. Losing to win. Winning to lose. Isn't it all the same, after awhile?

Bucky kisses back just as desperately. Because honestly, of all the things Steve could have said... saying he wants to be selfish, that he wants to keep this, means more because Bucky knows just how selfless Steve is. And if this is the thing he wants to keep -

Bucky's fingers ball into fists in the fabric of Steve's shirt, and he chases that kiss with one, two, three of his own. "It's yours," he confirms - promises - softly. "Whatever I can give you, before you go - it's yours, Stevie."

God, this is almost worse than losing him off the side of that cliff. Swift and sudden was easier than staring down the end, knowing it's going to happen. Bucky feels like such a coward, but there it is. Is this how Steve's Peggy felt? Was she the one there, to talk to him until he hit the ice?

"Besides," Bucky adds, with a dumb smile almost hinging on ridiculous. "I hear I'm really fuckin' hard to kill."

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