(a belated @mandatoryfunday fic, as I was moving house last week)
The first time Bucky saw him, the sun was barely over the horizon and the desert chill was taking its time easing out of the day. Steve was sleeping like a baby in the hotel room they'd barely managed to pay for, and Bucky's feet were kinda sore from a night walking around empty streets.
"Been chasing sleep again?" Steve always asked him, and that was what it felt like, sometimes. Like a fairytale, the soldier who trapped death, spent the rest of his life chasing it 'cos it was too scared of him to come back. Maybe that was what it'd been, when they'd returned his empty body from the front, through Germany, back to the US - maybe he'd trapped sleep in a room with him for the weeks it took him to wake, and now he stalked it through the streets at night, always a little too slow.
Bucky tapped his key card at the side entrance, made his way around by the pool as the quickest way to the dining room and the coffee. He felt a little like, any second, someone was gonna take him on and throw him out, out of place with his scruffy stubble and unwashed hair, the hooded sweater with the sleeves that fell down to his knuckles. He looked up, making sure there was no one watching suspiciously, and stopped on a dime.
The first time Bucky saw him, he looked like some kinda dream. He was sitting on the concrete side of the hotel pool, his feet dangling down into the clear blue water. He was squinting in the barest sun, drinking from a steaming mug, a photo shoot in the classy kinds of magazines that Bucky couldn't ever afford. It was such a surreal sight, so far out of his usual reach that he didn't even register he was staring until he clocked the guy looking back at him.
"Sorry," he said, hunching his shoulders and clenching his fists, and the guy shrugged easily, all of his muscles moving in ways that made Bucky's mouth kinda dry.
"I'm off the clock right now," the guy said, "but try me tonight."
Bucky ducked his head and didn't answer.
If it hadn't been for the craps table, Bucky wouldn't've thought of the guy again. If the dice hadn't been hot, if Luck hadn't been on Bucky's arm all night long, he woulda just headed back to the hotel with Steve after taking advantage of a couple of the casino's free drinks. Instead he cashed out more money than his wallet could comfortably hold, and he found himself - after a couple guys tried their luck with the cripple, and got their asses soundly kicked - sliding back through the side gate and sitting on the side of a sun lounger in the almost-dark there. There was a crowd of people over by the pool bar, an old lady swimming laps like meditation, and Bucky waited in silent stillness until a fairytale came and sat down next to him, slid a warm hand up his thigh.
"How much?" he croaked, and even in the darkness the guy's grin was dazzling, like he knew it didn't much matter, like he knew Bucky would pay.
His room wasn't even so nice as Steve and Bucky's, a double bed with a nylon top sheet that hissed under Bucky when he was backed up onto the bed. Pretty Woman was bullshit, 'cos Clint apparently delighted in kissing him, panting hot breath into his mouth - it was flattering how eager he was, 'cos no one had seen Bucky naked for a good few years but he knew well enough that it wasn't a pretty sight. Clint didn't even flinch, though, when he pulled off Bucky's shirt, just grinned down at the definition of his chest and started sucking marks onto the skin there.
It was fun. Most of all, most fuckin' unexpected of all, it was fun being with Clint, and if Bucky hadn't had sex in a while it was a hell of a lot longer since he'd laughed so freely and deep. It pulled on muscles that his workouts didn't touch, and somehow the aching soothed a wound there. Like something was healing.
The run of luck didn't last out the trip, but Bucky tapped his savings a little, because there was no way he was gonna live without the smile Clint put on his face. Steve thought he was having some kinda summer fling, which Bucky figured was close enough, even if Steve didn't know he was paying for it.
He wasn't, though. Not all of it. The sex, sure - hours of Clint's hot mouth and callused hands, the tight heaven of his ass - but he spent more time than that with Clint. Spent time talking by the poolside, spent time losing at darts in the hotel bar. Even took a walk along to a restaurant, one night, dim lights and wipe clean table cloths, and Clint held his hand and shared his dessert.
His last morning at the hotel, Bucky was up before the sun had quite pulled itself away from the desert floor. He made his way out to the poolside and sat where he had first seen Clint, kicking his feet in the water and wondering how the hell this could hurt quite so bad. He didn't look around when someone came to sit next to him, but he shifted his balance into a lean against warm skin.
"I'm off the clock right now," Clint said, "but I could make an exception."
"Not sure I can take the cost," Bucky said, which he wished were a little less true.
"I have this friend," Clint told him, "one of those platonic soulmate deals. She - I guess the term is contract killer?"
"Okay," Bucky swallowed, shot for a grin, "I'm a little concerned about where this analogy is going, but go ahead."
"She'd take someone out for me, no question. Wouldn't charge me a dime."
"Wow. That is a hell of a shovel talk."
"No, that's - " Clint ran a hand through his hair, chlorine and sun bleached, leaving it tousled and touchable. "I mean, yeah, but that's not what I meant." He reached out and took Bucky's hand, pulled it over with no resistance to rest on the hair-rough skin of his thigh. "It's different, when it's a friend. Someone you care about." Bucky saw in his periphery as Clint turned his head, sky blue eyes focused on him; Bucky didn't look up, brushing his thumb back and forth against Clint's skin. "I don't want your money," Clint said, soft and complicated. "Not for this."
