Stucky Soulmate AU -Cont.
Hey lovelies, sorry for the radio-silence these past few days. IRL drama has been... dramatic, to say the least. As recompense (and personal therapy): more Stucky Soulmate AU. For @abeautifullieaharshtruth, who got me back into this trope.
Steve had planned on confessing. On sitting Bucky down with the brunette’s name on Steve’s wrist, a resigned smile on his lips, and a handful of cash saved up from a couple of Tijuana bibles. A quick visit to Redcloud’s down by the navy yard, a thick black band on Bucky’s skin and a story of a soulmate dead before their time, and Bucky would be free of Steve.
Happy Birthday Steve! You’re dead.
It’s probably what Bucky had been expecting (hoping for?) anyways. And it’d only taken Steve a couple minutes (tears, gasps into his nebulizer) to get up the courage. If this (if he) wasn’t what Bucky wanted, Steve certainly wasn’t gonna stand in his way. And small and sickly as he was, no one could ever call Stephen Grant Rogers a coward.
Ten minutes later, staring at ‘Stephen Grant Rogers’ on Bucky’s skin in his own familiar scrawl, Steve felt every inch a coward.
“I...” Bucky sat next to him on their rickety sofa, stuttering and shamefaced and staring at his own name on Steve’s wrist. “I always knew it was gonna be you, Stevie. Ever since we were kids. Didn’t wanna say anything though, just... just in case-”
“Just in case I died?” Steve spat, the truth acrid on his tongue. His skin flushed, blotchy red on hollow skin (hollow heart). “Just in case the universe wised up and figured out that there’s no way you should be stuck with me for life?”
“No!” Bucky’s eyes met his for the first time since the brunette had come back from the docks that morning, bright blue and brazen. “No, damn you, don’t you say that! You’re too much of a stubborn punk to die, and hell if I’d let you give up on me.”
The blonde scoffed. “Give up on you? Buck, I gave up on us the second you came home telling me you had someone else’s name on your wrist!”
“I’m sorry!” Bucky rushed to grasp Steve’s hand in his, their marks brushing against each other and sending shivers up the younger man’s arm. “I’m so sorry Stevie, please, I didn’t mean... I always knew you were meant for me Stevie, but who’s saying I was meant for you?”
Bucky’s calloused fingers tightened around the bird-bones of Steve’s arm, and Steve clutched back with all of the desperate hope thrumming in his chest. “You jerk,” he huffed, faint and fond as a small smile stretched across his lips. “Who the hell else would put up with me?”
The dock worker positively beamed in return. “Do I, uh, get a reward for ‘putting up with you’?” He hinted, using his grip on Steve’s hand to tug the lighter man towards him on the couch. “Some sort of compensation, perhaps?”
“Buck!” Steve snorted at his match’s ridiculousness.
“What?” Bucky smirked, urging Steve insistently closer until he was tucked into his match’s side. “I gotta collect my payment somehow don’t I?” His payment, as it turned out, was one final yank on Steve’s arm to land the blonde’s body against his side and lips against his own.
“Aint gotta pay me for this.” Bucky murmured into his mouth who-knows-how-long later, never letting go of his hand. “You’re all the reward I need, Stevie.”
