"Oh so you are working on that sugar daddy title, huh?"
It's a quip, a little bit of a callback to their griping at each other when Bucky had first taken Sam. Sam can't quite believe it's not even been 48 hours since then. He feels an ache in his body that's not unpleasant, but just... fully and entirely exhausted.
What Bucky puts on the table here sounds almost too good to be true, and Sam wishes he didn't feel so wary of that. Of just how good it sounds. How much he wants this life Bucky is offering so casually, like it's the bare minimum rather than a castle in the clouds. But Sam's still waiting for the other shoe to drop. Has perhaps been disappointed one too many times not to be overly cautious.
"And how's it gonna look for you - what do you want for yourself, really?"
A smile and a shrug. If the sugar daddy shoe fits...
But he sobers up a little at Sam's next question. "Someone to care about. Someone to create a routine around. Someone to tell me when I've... done too much, gone too far. Someone who will be honest with me but not afraid of me.
Someone who doesn't hate that my cure-all for insomnia is sex." Smirking. "I wanna make a home with someone who won't resent me for not giving them the means to have children. Someone who is familiar with the way a mind goes sideways sometimes. Someone who likes me."
Sam shifts in the tub a little, brows creasing in a frown. Something about that doesn't sit right with him. Those are good things to want, that's not the issue. They're very healthy. Except...
"That's the bare minimum, puppy," Sam says, quiet and soft. And he doesn't say it with reproach or with an incredulous tilt to it - because he's seeing it now, that for Bucky this isn't the bare minimum. It's a need that hasn't been met yet. And that... is a pill to swallow. What a far cry from the alpha taking and taking and taking.
Bucky's just looking for someone who can let him give and give and give.
"That happen a lot - people being afraid of the wolf? Of you?"
"Bare minimum can feel like a lot when it's never been on offer."
His smile is rueful. "People are scared of me all the time and for good reason. But that's usually all they are, unless they're hoping for pups with my strength and a better temperament. Either way it won't work."
"You don't scare me," Sam says after a while. After a pause to indicate he thought about it before he said it, and found it true. "You annoyed the crap out of me, you damn knothead."
Sam reaches up, runs a wet thumb along Bucky's cheek to take the sting out of those words.
"You're a lot," he simply concedes. Somehow, it doesn't sound like it's meant in a bad way at all. Taps his fingers against the rim of the tub for a while. Then: "Would you fuck me in an alley, too, where everyone can see, just to mark your territory?"
"Not just for that, nah." Bucky looks away to Sam's fingers. He knows that Sam didn't enjoy being in that position with Tony, and that Tony ignored that out of his own sense of pride or whatever, and honestly? He didn't enjoy seeing Sam in it, either. "You were pretty obviously not into it. I dunno if you noticed, but. I'd rather you were into whatever we get up to."
Being called a knothead, and a lot, by someone who doesn't seem to intend either of those statements as a negative report? Kind of nice. "I didn't intend to shift that first night. You took me by surprise. That's why I didn't warn you ahead of time."
no subject
It's a quip, a little bit of a callback to their griping at each other when Bucky had first taken Sam. Sam can't quite believe it's not even been 48 hours since then. He feels an ache in his body that's not unpleasant, but just... fully and entirely exhausted.
What Bucky puts on the table here sounds almost too good to be true, and Sam wishes he didn't feel so wary of that. Of just how good it sounds. How much he wants this life Bucky is offering so casually, like it's the bare minimum rather than a castle in the clouds. But Sam's still waiting for the other shoe to drop. Has perhaps been disappointed one too many times not to be overly cautious.
"And how's it gonna look for you - what do you want for yourself, really?"
no subject
But he sobers up a little at Sam's next question. "Someone to care about. Someone to create a routine around. Someone to tell me when I've... done too much, gone too far. Someone who will be honest with me but not afraid of me.
Someone who doesn't hate that my cure-all for insomnia is sex." Smirking. "I wanna make a home with someone who won't resent me for not giving them the means to have children. Someone who is familiar with the way a mind goes sideways sometimes. Someone who likes me."
no subject
"That's the bare minimum, puppy," Sam says, quiet and soft. And he doesn't say it with reproach or with an incredulous tilt to it - because he's seeing it now, that for Bucky this isn't the bare minimum. It's a need that hasn't been met yet. And that... is a pill to swallow. What a far cry from the alpha taking and taking and taking.
Bucky's just looking for someone who can let him give and give and give.
"That happen a lot - people being afraid of the wolf? Of you?"
no subject
His smile is rueful. "People are scared of me all the time and for good reason. But that's usually all they are, unless they're hoping for pups with my strength and a better temperament. Either way it won't work."
no subject
Sam reaches up, runs a wet thumb along Bucky's cheek to take the sting out of those words.
"You're a lot," he simply concedes. Somehow, it doesn't sound like it's meant in a bad way at all. Taps his fingers against the rim of the tub for a while. Then: "Would you fuck me in an alley, too, where everyone can see, just to mark your territory?"
no subject
Being called a knothead, and a lot, by someone who doesn't seem to intend either of those statements as a negative report? Kind of nice. "I didn't intend to shift that first night. You took me by surprise. That's why I didn't warn you ahead of time."