What the Water Gave Me

Chapter Eleven

In the morning, Bucky was homesick. Steve called him a drama queen at least six times, but Bucky still covered his face with pillows or the crook of his arm and wailed whenever the ocean was mentioned even obscurely.

“You’ll be back soon enough!” Steve cried. “You don’t have to stand it here much longer, just until you’re better!”

He did, however, notice something familiar on the top of Steve’s dresser, and upon further examination and whining inquiry, he was told that it was in fact a display of Bucky’s presents. In a glass frame, Steve had mounted the gems and jewelry nicely and underneath it was another, smaller picture frame. Steve brought this one to him, handed it to him, and Bucky stared at the face behind the glass.

“That was you,” Steve said. “When you were, uh, human.”

Bucky stared at the square-toothed grin and the short, cropped hair and the human-esque features and something in him felt a little sad. It did look like him, minus the siren features and tail.

“You still don’t remember it?” Steve asked and Bucky shook his head. He set the photo down and picked up his notebook.

“What if you found out I wasn’t him?” Bucky asked. “What would you do?” He showed Steve the paper and Steve frowned. He didn’t answer. Bucky felt a wave of fear roll through him. “Would you leave me?” He asked. “If I wasn’t really Bucky?”

Steve read his words and looked up at his face mournfully.

“It’s okay if you say yes,” Bucky wrote, even though it wasn’t okay, and Steve sighed.

“I wouldn’t leave you,” he said.

“Really?” Bucky said.

“Yeah,” Steve said. “I’d keep taking care of you. I’d keep loving you.” Bucky froze.

“You love me?” He wrote and pushed the notebook over to Steve and Steve took it up. Bucky waited a long time for a reply and when Steve finally moved again, it wasn’t to talk. He stood up from where he was sitting next to Bucky and set his notebook down and gave him a kiss on the head and left the room and Bucky leaned over his tail and buried his face in the wet sheets and squeezed his eyes shut.

I love you, he thought weakly.