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Steve caught Bucky doing … that … one otherwise regular afternoon on a warm fall day.
He wasn’t supposed to be at home. He’d told Bucky he was going to be helping out at the church’s soup kitchen through the dinner hour, but Sister Mary Sebastian had enough helping hands, as it turned out, and a desire to send Steve off so he could get his own self “fed up, young man.”
He also could have made more noise when he got home, but he had a habit of opening the door quietly and missing all the creaky floorboards when the Schultes’ baby was probably asleep downstairs. So he’d given Bucky a right scare when he’d stepped into their tiny, shared bedroom unannounced, and there had been no time to hide what Bucky was doing. Just a shout, a curse, a frantic ruffle of bedding, and by then Steve had croaked “sorry” and backtracked, stepping on every creaky floorboard on his way.
Steve was in the kitchen when Bucky came out five minutes later, clothes messy and face red even as he tried to bluster through it.
“Give a guy some warning next time, would ya?” Yeah, it was hard to pretend when the baby was still crying. He didn’t come too close to Steve, and Steve tried not to wonder if Bucky had worked his way to the end after all. He was breathing awfully hard, and …
He didn’t actually know why he said it, while he chopped the potatoes for dinner, but that “next time” hung between them, as hard to ignore as the baby’s wails, and it led to, “I dunno. Cheaper entertainment than going to the pictures.”
He expected to hear back some mock outrage about Bucky being too rich for Steve’s blood, but after a pause, he got, “You ever want a show, you just say the word,” and Steve looked fast at Bucky’s face in time to see it screw up at what he'd just said.
It was a funny look, a kind of confused disbelief, and Steve snorted. Turned back to finish the potatoes, and said, almost under his breath, “Then what’s the word?”
Bucky went still next to him, and Steve pretended he wasn’t watching out of the corner of his eye.
That was how it started. Sure, there were some jokes in between that day and the first time Steve watched, some teasing, each pretending it was all a gag, but Bucky kept muttering about “better than the movies” and Steve kept mentioning “the word, Buck?”
And so.
The first time, when Bucky asked, “How do you want me?” Steve had said, “Like before, only … ,“ and waved a hand from head to toe, and Bucky grinned and shucked his clothes like they’d done it a thousand times.
Said, “Always knew you were a pervert, Steve,” chuckling, but under that stretched smile there was a little wobble in his voice.
They decided it was okay--only okay--if Steve sketched Bucky like it was one of the fancy art school classes, Steve perched on the very end of his own bed, body turned back in Bucky’s direction. If Steve was just using this for his drawing, studying the sharp lines of Bucky’s joints and limbs and softer ones of his belly and ass, how he moved when he ...
And that’s how they found themselves, the first time, the third, as Steve’s pencil scratched over the paper, and Bucky …
Posed. That's what it was.
It was ...
It was the fifth time in two weeks. Bucky’s twin bed was pressed into the corner, framed by the room’s two cataract-bleary windows, and the light that made it through this time of year fell golden on his skin whether he was lying on his stomach reading, scribbling out a letter, or posing for Steve.
“Turn toward me a little, and bend your left leg down toward the mattress, toward me.” Steve considered. “Arm over your head.” And Bucky was stretched out, practically glowing in the streaky sunlight, half on his side with the knee closest to Steve now pressed flat on the sheet, the other propped up at an angle nearer the wall. Resting his left arm over his head elongated his torso, showed all that muscle stretched tight over the bumping lines of his ribs.
He was already hard. Just stripping had gotten him halfway there, and the nerves and excitement of being seen finished the job. Hadn’t touched himself yet--since Bucky was only doing this to help Steve, he was waiting for the word.
On a fresh piece of paper, torn from his tablet, Steve had already outlined Buck’s basic form. So he encouraged: “Go ahead.” Watched the clench of Bucky’s stomach at the simple command.
Bucky always kept his eyes closed when he started--leftover embarrassment or sending out his thoughts for inspiration, Steve didn’t know. Now his right hand, closest to the wall, slid over the rise of his thigh, over his groin, and wrapped around his stiff dick. Slowly began working himself up and down in small, hesitant movements, eyes still closed tight and squirming on the bed a little to get more comfortable.
That it was his right hand ensured Steve could see every detail for his sketch. The way the hairs around the base of his shaft caught and pulled straight, then sprung back into a curl. The glimpses of reddened, turgid flesh that peeked from between his fingers, chafed from the friction--but that was Bucky’s choice. Liked it dry and rough, he said. Liked to hurt himself a little, and Steve had frowned at that but didn't want to give it too much thought.
Didn't want to consider his own opinion on the matter.
Steve drew on, filling in the peaks of Bucky’s nipples, the swooshes of his collarbones, the indent of his waist. The tendons in Bucky’s forearm that popped out, stark, as his bicep worked. The way his other arm curved under and cradled the base of his skull.
His eyes were open now, and he didn’t exactly look at Steve, but Steve still felt himself being watched, somehow, in return. Being seen.
It never took long for him to get close--the result of growing up with hardly any privacy and a pressing need to get it over with quick, and so Steve had to guide him, or he wouldn’t have enough time to finish the picture. “Hang on,” Steve said, clear and firm, and he bit down a smile at the emphatic whine that followed. “Just hang on, Buck.
“Slow it down.” He knew what his voice sounded like, could see the reaction it earned.
Wouldn’t admit that controlling Bucky’s movements like this--controlling that oncoming pleasure, something like stepping in front of a train, hearing the screeching of the brakes, and knowing it would stop--got Steve stiffer as well. He was throbbing in his underwear now, and if Bucky had really been looking ...
Well, couldn’t do anything about it anyway, that wasn’t why they were doing this, but he shifted on the bed as he caught the details of Bucky’s balls where they rested between his legs, that hair that dusted the puckered skin that held them close against his body, the shadows beneath that trailed down into the split of his ass.
Bucky’s raised leg was quivering as his palm teased up and down his shaft again, slow, just like Steve wanted, and he caught his bottom lip between his teeth with a frustrated grunt. His way of asking for it. While he was struggling--and he made it clear he was struggling--Steve always wanted to fill in the details of his expression. The swollen mouth, yes, and the sheen of sweat on his brow and cheeks, the way his lashes fell when he squeezed his eyes shut, like he was doing right now.
Beautiful.
He hated to relent, but Bucky made it clear he was suffering, too. So, after a few more details (that pulled-together brow, fighting to hang on another moment): “Okay, go ahead.” And with a groan, Bucky did. Three more times, Steve told him to stop or asked him to slow it down--”real slow, Buck, just keep a couple fingertips on you, okay? So I can draw you there?”--and if the noises of protest Bucky made were more like whimpers, and if they brought a flutter to Steve’s stomach and made him pulse sympathetically between his legs ...
Well, Bucky didn’t need to know it.
He wasn’t going to be able to stop again, wouldn’t listen to Steve even if he was asked nicely this time. His back had arched, head pushing into the pillow, and his hand pumped his cock like a piston. That powerful leg that had been tipped up on the mattress kicked out a little, his heel catching in the blankets around his feet and shoving them further down the bed. He was groaning out little sounds with every breath now, faster and louder, little ah-ah-ah’s that almost hurt Steve to hear, and Steve held his pencil too tight in his white-knuckled fist as he forced himself to complete the picture.
He would complete the picture. That was why he was here.
He barely had time to capture the first pearly drops that dappled the head before Bucky moaned, giving fast, short jerks on his dick that had to hurt bad, that finally forced the come into the air, onto his own hand and wrist and sweep of his belly.
He groaned Steve’s name, and Steve’s heart pounded.
The picture was finished.
Bucky cleaned himself up with a rag next to the bed, like he always did. He would give Steve privacy in a moment, again, like he always did. But first he grabbed his overshirt and tugged it on as he came over to hunker down next to Steve on Steve's own mattress.
He always did this, too. Steve tried to ignore the drag of Bucky’s breath, the tiny beads of sweat that hung over his breastbone and decorated the rosy flush from his orgasm. He had no good reason to study them now.
Bucky peered over Steve’s shoulder. In the image, Steve had caught Bucky in the moments before his climax, legs forced out from each other and locked into place, back in a bow, mouth slack and eyes staring up at the ceiling, staring into nothing. The hand nearest Steve dug vicious fingers into the crumpled sheets beneath him, and the one on his dick was almost a blur.
The beginnings of his spill glimmered on the exposed head of his cock, the crest of ecstasy within reach.
“Jesus,” Bucky sighed. “Best one yet.”
“Yeah,” was all Steve could say, and it sounded steady enough. He didn’t visibly react when Bucky’s attention drew away from the picture and obviously toward Steve’s face. He was quiet for a moment longer, but Steve knew what he’d hear.
“Stevie--”
“I know.” But he didn't move.
“You can’t.” And this time, Bucky was the one who sounded firm.
And Steve was the one who would do as he was told. “I know.” So, after one last look, with Bucky silently watching his profile, Steve folded the paper into quarters and tore it into shreds, just like the ones before. It was the only way to make this okay.
After all, it was just a picture.
And, God knew, neither of them wanted to get caught.