Living on a razor's edge, danced with demons, tasted death

“I know,” he hums a soft, noncommittal sound in his throat. He continues in the same soft, careful tone, “but it’d be good to see you.”

He misses Steve in a way he cannot put into words, so much as it is simply a feeling, burrowed deep beneath his skin, filling in the hollow spaces between his bones.

“You don’t have to stay…” he says it like an offer, an easy way out if he wants to take it. “just come by for a little while…?” He could. Bucky knows it would be relatively easy, borderline effortless, for Steve to change course and come for him.

He adds, even quieter than before, “if you’re not too busy.” because he knows that Steve has other things to focus on. Bigger issues than catering to the chaotic whims of an old friend. “I understand if it’s… not feasible right now.”