He's my life, my love, my soul, my home

Chapter 4

Art was something that Steve used to enjoy. He drew everything under the sun. When they were kids, Steve used to draw scenes from Bucky's books. He'd draw dragons, robots, mermaids, pirates, anything that came to either of their minds. When they grew up, he'd draw landscapes, cities, stars, people, or more specifically, Bucky. He enjoyed drawing Bucky. He occasionally drew Beth, Bailey, Mrs. and Mr. Barnes, and once his ma though, she didn't like being a model, but Bucky was his main model. He knew Bucky like he knew the planes of hand. He could draw him perfectly, without even looking at him anymore.

When the Smithsonian gave him back some of his things as a thank you for saving them, he'd rushed home to open his sketchbooks and cried. All of the sketches, doodles, and attempted paintings were still there like they never been moved. He got his trunk back, that held all his belongs from his time in the military. Obviously, they never opened it, and lucky for him his secret sketchbook. That book was for his and Bucky eyes only, filled with drawings of them in various and compromising positions. Drawing them like that was risky enough and he was glad that it wasn't the reason that their deepest, darkest secret wasn't spilled.

During the war, if he couldn't spend his nights with Bucky than he used art as a distractor. His sketches weren't as light and cheerful anymore but at least he still drew. Everything on his pages were dark and brooding, his normal pictures of Bucky even lost it's mischievous aura and was replaced with a deadlier edge. Bucky had said that it was because war changes perspective and perspective changes art but Steve didn't want to believe him. He drew the European forest every chance he got, but slowly the enchanting forest looked like death warmed over, the light in his sketches slowly but surely dying.

He brought a sketchbook on a whim, hoping to get his hobby back, but every time he closed his eyes instead of ideas of things he could sketch, he saw Bucky falling.

He never touched the book again.

He missed it. God, he missed it, but he didn't want to taint something as good, beautiful, and expressive as art with his own failures. He didn't want to draw death, he most definitely didn't want to draw Bucky's death. Drawing it meant admitting it, admitting it meant a new layer of guilt that he didn't think he could handle alone. It also leads to questions that he didn't want answers to. Did he die slowly? Was it painful, or was he unconscious? The fewer details, the better.

His new sketchbook was now sitting on his bedside table taunting him. It bored a hole in the back of his skull every time he looked away, couldn't imagine himself drawing again. Today was no different. The book was still there when he woke, it was still there when he came back from his run, and it was still there when got out the shower.

"Just draw," he could hear Bucky's voice say in his head. "Just draw Steve, it can't hurt you. It can only hurt if you make it hurt."

Even in his head Bucky was encouraging. It's not like he didn't want to because he did, he wanted to draw. He really, really did, but he was scared.

"Maybe you could look at your old books for inspiration, ya dumb punk." If imaginary voices could smile, Steve imagined this one doing it.

After rummaging around in his truck that he still kept in the corner of his room, he retrieved two of his old sketchbook and slowly opened it. It was one of his books from before, one of the ones that still had light. Walking to the living room, he flipped pages until he reached a seat. He stopped when he came across a picture of him and Bucky when they just got their apartment. He'd drew it that night with the memory was still fresh in his mind. Bucky was grinning, he had his right arm over Steve's shoulders, encasing him in a sideways hug and his forehead rested in his hair, his left arm lightly punching Steve's right arm. Steve himself was smiling widely at all the excited attention that Bucky was giving him, and the new prospect of living together alone. He was generally happy in this picture, they both were, they were young, carefree and full of hope of what the future could bring. He didn't know how much time had past and wasn't aware that he was staring until he heard Natasha's voice behind him.