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This is neither the time nor the place.
The fact that he can even get it up in forty-degree weather is an indicator that he’s either becoming sex-crazed, or generally losing his mind.
For pity’s sake, Bucky almost died today. They’d been in a fight, and some Hydra bastards had attempted to make a spectacular get-away in the only vehicle that had escaped the explosives Gabe had laid down. On their way out, they’d managed to clip Bucky with the vehicle, and he’d ended up gasping with pain on the ground until the fight was over.
He seems to be okay now, or at least okay enough to fake it. He’s right next to Steve, eyes shut, breathing steadily but otherwise unusually still. Bucky’s the sort that moves in his sleep, nightmares or not.
And his best friend, apparently, is the sort that jerks off after people he cares about almost die.
If there was any place to masturbate, Steve has arguably picked one of the worst. The Commandos are all within twenty feet of him; Jim’s on look-out, the only person who’s definitely awake apart from Steve, but all are within earshot of him as he starts doing this activity that tends to not be terribly quiet.
For him, anyway.
He slips his hand into his pants and bites his lip, flinching at every sound that sounded far too loud in such close quarters with his comrades. He spent the first moment or two staring at Bucky before shutting his eyes.
He’s having trouble shaking the image of Bucky on the ground, gasping, shaking, eyes bright with pain, and that horrible, horrible feeling that he was about to lose one of the people he cared about the most. It does something terrible in his chest, and Steve wonders if maybe that’s what it feels like when your heart’s about to break.
Of course, how any of this is translating into ‘jerk off in a tent in France in winter’, that was still a mystery.
Maybe it was adrenaline? Maybe his body didn’t give two damns what kind of arousal is was, it was good enough to get it up?
Or maybe it was because, even with his eyes closed, he was still seeing Bucky’s face in his head- his face, and the odd memory of his exposed chest from times they’d gone swimming, or shared a room, or when he had to change out of bloody clothes following whatever beat-down he’d dealt some bully.
And absolutely none of these images are doing anything to hinder his current activity. In fact, they seem to be making him harder.
Oh, I am in deep.
At some point during his cramped and awkward fumbling, Steve cracks his eyes open mostly because keeping them squeezed shut for so long is uncomfortable, and maybe just a little bit of him wants to see Bucky’s face when he comes.
But when his eyes adjust to the darkness, he sees that Bucky is awake.
And looking right at him.
It’s the weirdest orgasm he’s ever experienced; he’s smacked with an overwhelming sense of horror at being caught, but it was not enough to stop him from coming altogether. So if Bucky had any doubts about what he was doing, those have probably gone out the window. Steve has never been caught at something like this before, and it is mortifying.
But Bucky doesn’t seem shocked or disgusted; indeed, he doesn’t look fazed at all. His face is almost entirely unreadable, blank as a slate, and he doesn’t have any trouble making eye-contact with Steve. Is he even lucid? Is the pain clouding his mind? Does he even realize what Steve is doing?
Steve swallows hard, frozen in place.
Bucky stares for a moment longer, and then quietly brings his left hand over to cover Steve’s free one. It can’t be comfortable- Steve can see a large bruise on the back of his hand from when he was hit- but he squeezes Steve’s hand all the same, body relaxing, but never looking away.
“Bucky?” Steve whispers.
And in response, Bucky gives him a small smile that says considerably more than words could.
Oh, we are in deep.
-End