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On the first day of December, Bucky carefully picks his way around the piles of books currently waiting for a free spot on the right shelf in the bookshop. Getting the box he is looking for involves playing an advanced version of Tower of Hanoi, but he finally manages to leave the storage room with the box under his prosthetic arm and no book towers falling over. As every year in the five years since he took over the bookshop from his grandmother, Bucky makes a plan to tidy up the room over the course of the next year. As every year, he forgets about it the second the door falls closed behind him and he puts the box down on the counter.
When he opens it, he scent of cinnamon and cloves greets him. Or maybe that is just his brain associating the Christmas decorations with the distinct smell of these spices that suddenly appear everywhere in the weeks leading up to Christmas. In chocolate, cake, cookies, in hot chocolate and – even worse – in his coffee. Bucky glares at the brightly lit coffee shop across the street. The name, Wilson’s, is barely readable under the Santa hanging out on a ladder while holding one of the shop’s reusable to-go cups. Santa has been trying to reach the reindeer sleigh parked on the roof for about a month now (since the group of skeletons left) with as much success as Bucky has had in trying to explain to Sam that November is too fucking early for Christmas-anything, especially for cinnamon in his coffee.
A coffee (without cinnamon) would be great now, though.
Bucky briefly considers crossing the street to buy one, then remembers that Sam recently added delivery to the coffee shop’s services. He pulls up the Wilson’s page on his phone and dutifully fills out the form to order a cappuccino. Then he puts the phone back into his pocket, grabs the box from the counter and starts tastefully decorating his windows. If he chooses to start with the window that has the best view into the coffee shop, then that is purely coincidental.
Sure enough, only a few minutes after Bucky sent his order, he can see Sam coming out of his office in the back, phone in hand.
Stop abusing our delivery option , comes the text only seconds later.
Bucky grins at Sam through the windows and the rain pouring down between them .
I’m serious, it’s not even a minute to walk for you. Sam stares back at him, clearly annoyed.
Bucky shrugs and places his phone on a pile of books in front of him to have his hand free for the fairy-lights he is trying to untangle. Admittedly, that would be easier if most of his attention weren’t directed at the coffee shop. Or his phone, which is receiving a string of further messages.
I’ll send Steve.
Do you want Steve to get wet?
God, no, please don’t answer that
You know I meant the rain
I do NOT need to know more about your fantasies involving my employee
It is not appropriate
I need to be able to look at him
Do you want Steve to walk through the rain?
Catch a cold?
Die?
All because of your coffee?
Bucky barely manages to keep up. He puts the semi-detangled lights down and grabs his phone. He knows this shouldn’t be his take-away from Sam’s rant, but his insides begin to flutter happily at the prospect of getting to see Steve today, even if it’s just to drop off some coffee.
For your coffee? Worth it , Bucky texts back, adding a string of hearts in all available colours for good measure.
He can’t hear Sam’s groan, nor actually see his eye-roll, but he knows both are there. Then, Sam disappears out of his view and Bucky refocuses on decorating his own shop.
Bucky has moved on to the other window, when the door opens. He turns at the sound of the bells, half expecting a customer, half expecting his annoyed best friend dropping off his coffee order. Instead he is faced with Steve dripping on the welcome mat, ginning awkwardly.
“I misjudged the weather a bit,” Steve says, while his shirt and the apron with the coffee shop’s logo cling to every extremely well defined muscle in a breathtaking kind of way. He holds out a cup of coffee. Bucky can see his muscles move.
“Here is your order.”
Bucky blinks and automatically reaches for the cup. His fingers touch Steve’s and he almost drops the coffee at the contact.
“Thanks,” he manages. “I didn’t think Sam would actually send you over.”
“Disappointed?” Steve asks.
Bucky shakes his head no. “I could never be disappointed with you visiting me, Steve. Sam however would be very disappointed if his employee caught a cold and died.” He puts the coffee cup down on the counter and waves for Steve to follow him into the back of the bookshop, glad to have found his footing again.
He can hear Steve snicker as he obediently follows behind him. “His employee? Is that how he refers to me now? You share an apartment with one guy for two years and help out in his shop once in a while…”
“Well, look at the bright side,” Bucky says, blindly handing Steve the first towel within reach from the stack he keeps in the shop’s private bathroom. “That means he must want to pay you in more than free coffee.”
“He has been very generous with the free cupcakes lately.” Steve’s head disappears under the towel. It’s sporting a pink unicorn pattern interrupted by a few brown stains that won’t come out. Bucky feels the tiniest amount of embarrassment for giving such a towel to the man he has had a crush on since forever.
“It’s my niece’s,” he mumbles. At least it was until someone dried walnuts on it.
Steve’s smile is bright when the lower half of his face becomes visible again. “How is Julie? Still into unicorns?”
“I think she moved on to aliens now.”
“The natural next step,” Steve agrees, pulling at his soaked clothing and distracting Bucky thoroughly from the interests of a seven-year-old.
“You should take off your clothes,” Bucky hears himself say to his horror.
They stare at each other for a few moments in silence. Bucky is just about to dig himself deeper into his freshly created hole, hopefully deep enough so it’ll swallow him whole, when Steve, intelligent, sweet, Steve, who obviously is not out of his mind due to standing in front of the man he has been pining after for years, shrugs and says, “That’s not a half-bad idea, do you have something dry you could lend me?”
Bucky nods with a deep sigh of relief (and if he is honest a bit of regret that Steve didn’t choose to reply something more along the lines of ‘only if you take off your clothes, too’ before kissing him senseless, and… he really should save this train of thought for tonight, when he is alone.)
“Wait here,” he says, then remembers where they are. “If customers come in, just tell them I’ll be back in a minute.”
Running upstairs into his apartment and digging through his closet for clothes that might fit Steve ends up taking more than a minute, mostly because while they are almost the same height, Steve’s shoulders won’t fit into most of the tops Bucky owns and he’d rather not give one of his sleep shirts to Steve. He is not sure if his heart would be able to cope with that view, imagining it alone already makes him feel like it is melting into a puddle of warm goo in his chest. Having Steve actually wearing it would probably render him unable to interact at least halfway normally with him. Plus, Steve has to go back to Sam’s coffee shop and work there in whatever Bucky hands him. Admittedly, it would be funny to have Steve selling coffee wearing sleepwear for the rest of the day, but Sam is trying hard to keep the coffee shop open with chains opening up their shops in every corner around the Wilson’s and some of his customers probably would be taken aback by a barista in an XXL Little Mermaid t-shirt.
So when Bucky returns to his shop, he is holding a pair of black jeans and the biggest sweater he owns, coincidentally a Christmas present from Sam last year.
Steve is chatting with a young woman, who must be a customer, but immediately interrupts himself when he notices Bucky. There is an odd expression on his face. Not bad, just nothing Bucky has ever noticed before.
“Are you okay?” Bucky asks, putting the clothes into Steve’s outstretched arms.
Steve beams. “Yeah. Very. Thanks, Buck.”
He turns to say goodbye to the customer and disappears in the bathroom.
Bucky suppresses a sigh as he shifts his attention to the woman in his shop, who looks after Steve as if she just met Prince Charming in the flesh. He knows the feeling.
“So, you’re looking for a book about art history?” he assumes based on what he overheard of her conversation with Steve.
She nods and slowly turns her gaze away from the door in the back. “Yes, art history. Something about French impressionism, about Camille Pissarro, if you have something like that here?”
No wonder Steve looked so happy. He loves Pissarro’s art, especially his enthusiasm for trying out new styles and techniques. Meeting someone who he can talk about it, who is not as ignorant when it comes to art as Sam and Bucky are, always makes his day. Although, Bucky would absolutely let Steve drag him into an art museum again, if only he’d ask him. The chances he would ask the woman currently browsing the non-fiction section are unfortunately infinitely higher. At least she is showing an interest in art and would not find a bench to reread the Hobbit on an hour into the visit.
Bucky shakes his head at himself and takes the first sip from his now lukewarm coffee, which still tastes okay enough that he continues drinking it. He knows he is being ridiculous. Prolonged exposure to Steve does have that effect on him and adding a wet shirt into the mix just left him utterly defenseless. Nonetheless, he lets out a relieved breath when the woman leaves the shop after a few minutes with a book about Mary Cassatt’s work tucked safely into a plastic bag. Steve would probably approve of her choice, thankfully wrestling with the clothes seems to take him longer than Bucky anticipated and he doesn’t come out of the bathroom before she is gone.
The bell over the door rings as the door falls shut behind her. As if Steve had waited to hear that sound, the bathroom door unlocks and he steps out. Bucky can’t help but stare at him. The Christmas sweater with the almost three dimensional reindeer, that hangs on Bucky like a potato bag, actually fits him, which goes a long way to make it look less stupid than it is. At least until Steve visibly takes a deep breath and steps closer, accidentally triggering the light switch hidden under the reindeer nose. Bucky had no idea the batteries were still good, but obviously they are, because the reindeer nose starts glowing bright red and the stars surrounding it start blinking rhythmically.
Bucky can’t stop himself from laughing at the sight.
When he has somewhat recovered, Steve is still blinking gold, his face almost matching the reindeer’s nose.
“How do you turn it off?” he asks, pawing helplessly at his chest.
Bucky feels another laughing fit coming on. “You can’t turn it off,” he finally gets out. “It only stops once it is done.”
“Ah.” Steve looks down at the lights dancing across his chest, dejected. “Any idea when that might be?”
Bucky shrugs. “I’ve only worn it once. It’s a bit big for me.”
Steve hums and looks away from the lights, at Bucky, then at the rain soaked clothes balled up in his hand, seemingly reluctant to leave just yet.
“Are you waiting to take the cup back with you?” Bucky asks, because that seems to him to be the logical conclusion. After all there is only a small amount of coffee left in it. He empties it quickly and holds out the cup to Steve, who takes it with his free hand, but still remains rooted in place. Which Bucky has nothing against, but Steve’s gaze flickering nervously around, never quite meeting his eyes, is slightly unsettling.
“Are you okay? Do you want an umbrella?” Bucky is grasping at straws. He isn’t even if he has an umbrella or where to start looking for one. Maybe in the lost and found box he keeps in the back?
“Ah, no, actually,” Steve takes a deep breath. Luckily he is still flickering in red and gold and not triggering the mechanism again. “I wanted to ask you something.”
His face has turned serious, as serious as you can look while blinking like a Christmas tree, which is surprisingly close to Alpine just escaped through the window and is now stuck on the roof -kind of serious.
“Yes?”
Steve bites his lip and quickly glances down at the merrily dancing lights. The longer Bucky watches them, the more convinced he grows that their rhythm matches that of Jingle Bells.
“Okay. So.” Steve takes another deep breath and focuses on Bucky’s face with an entirely new intesity.
“Yeah?” Bucky prompts carefully, not sure if he even wants to hear Steve’s question when it is so hard for him to pose it.
Steve sighs. “Just let me… stop interrupting me.”
Bucky raises his hands in defense. “I can’t interrupt you when you’re not really saying anything.”
In response, Steve rolls his eyes. “It’s not that easy!”
“Just ask already, the suspense is killing me!”
“But you might not want to talk to me anymore or it will be weird and I really like being friends with you and I might have to move out, because you’re almost like a third roommate, and I don’t think I can afford that at the moment. And Sam would need to find a new roommate and -”
“Steve,” Bucky interrupts, this time not just an internal thought process, “breathe. I promise you, whatever it is you’re going to ask me, you won’t have to move out.”
“Okay,” Steve whispers between breaths. “Okay.”
Bucky waits and watches the sweater lights go out.
“So,” Steve finally starts again, “I wanted to ask you if you wanted to go get some coffee.”
Bucky blinks and stares at Steve, waiting for more context. Steve remains silent, staring back at Bucky with his best puppy eyes.
“I just had coffee?” He points at the empty cup in Steve’s hand, confused.
“Oh,” Steve says and his face falls. “It’s fine. I’ve got to get back now, bye.”
He moves toward the door.
“Wait!” Bucky yells a bit too loud, considering they are barely five feet apart. He must have missed something and he needs to know. “What did you mean exactly?”
Steve turns back around, his face carefully blank. “We could go for a coffee sometime, maybe? Doesn’t have to be coffee.”
Bucky’s heart seems to come to a full stop before it picks up with double the usual (healthy) speed. “We?” he repeats quietly, unable to keep the hope out of his voice.
“We, you and I,” Steve confirms in just the same tone of voice.
“Like… a date?” Bucky can barely remember how to breath.
Steve nods.
“I’d love that.”
They beam at each other for a few moments, then Steve crosses the distance and pulls Bucky into a tight hug over the counter. Bucky barely notices the cool wet cloth and the cup pressing into his back with Steve in his arm and the promise of a date.
When Steve finally steps back and actually heads back to Sam, his sweater is blinking again.
Not even five minutes later, Bucky’s phone buzzes next to the Christmas decorations box with a new text from Sam showing on the lock screen. It contains only a single word.
Finally
Unlocking his phone and opening the chat reveals a string of earlier sent messages inquiring after Steve, proposing increasingly ridiculous scenarios (including but not limited to abduction by an alien) and threats to put every Christmas spice available into Bucky’s coffee in August, if he doesn’t tell Steve to get his ass back over here, the line is almost out the door quickly followed up by I swear to God, if you two have finally gotten your shit together and are fucking I don’t want to know, but I still need Steve over here.
Apparently, Steve had forgotten his phone again.
Still riding the high of Steve asking him out for a real date, Bucky just sends back a heart and a string of happy faces.
He is going to go on a date with Steve.
Not what I meant , Sam writes back.
I’m mostly glad the aliens let you go unharmed
But that too
Through the window Bucky can see Sam talking to Steve, whose whole body language screams happy. It’s reassuring, especially when he turns and waves at Bucky.
Bucky waves back, probably looking just as happy. He briefly wonders what a passerby observing this exchange must think of it, but discards the thought just as quickly as it came. He doesn’t care.
On the evening of the first day of December, Bucky finishes decorating his bookshop. It is a lot more subtle than the decorations of the coffee shop across the street, but he prefers it that way. A man in a blinking Christmas sweater under his coat waits for him with two cups of hot chocolate in his hand as Bucky locks his shop from the outside.
“Ready?” Steve asks and holds out one of the cups.
Bucky smiles and nods. The hot chocolate tastes like Christmas. Steve wraps his free arm around Bucky.
“Then let’s go.” He squeezes Bucky’s waist in excitement. “We have a date to go to with each other.”