bakerstreet | Alternate Universe

"A second one?" He asked, looking up from where he'd been re-folding a shirt so it would fit in the suitcase instead of the drawer, not that there was much of a size difference, but enough of one to bother him, and as much as he liked to think the stories about vampires and their obsessive-compulsive counting tendencies weren't true, there was clearly some kind of truth to them or the difference wouldn't bother him like it did.

The question was almost amused, but also just curious, because he knew if Bucky was suggesting the shackles, it meant the coming shift wasn't likely to be an easy one, and while he didn't fully know the reason that his clothes -or just him being close- helped level Bucky out again, he knew it did and had packed the sweater first, since it was bulky it went on the bottom, but he could also pack another one no problem.

“If you already got the good one, nah. Sorry if I shed on it.” It’s a little levity, though Bucky isn’t entirely kidding. He recrosses his arms over his chest, bare muscles flexing. It feels too hot in here. Could be that he’s right next to the stove. Could be the change. Could be Steve, already guessing his needs and being—

Not fair. Bucky won’t go there and he nips that thought right on off. He’ll stick with the twins if he needs that sort of comfort. They owe him for the interruption the night before anyway.

Inadvertently giving himself away, Bucky finds himself staring at the blond. He has to rub his forehead to try to hide it but he doubt he caught himself in time. Steve notices everything.

Steve— Guy doesn’t even have a pulse and he’s all Bucky can think about sometimes!

Maybe that’s why he fills the silence asking questions he doesn’t want the answers to? “So what you were saying about— Are there little Steves out in the world, running around Germany or France?”

"It'll wash." He replied, offhand even as he finished folding the shirt and settled it into place. Chances were good he'd add the second sweater anyway, on top of everything, just in case.

He caught it, but he also just chalked it up to unease with everything that was going on, including their half-baked plan to flee into the night at the first real sign of trouble. Which was something that was still nagging at Steve a little, reminding himself -not for the first time- that their friends and neighbors would actually be safer with them out of the picture for a few days.

He was still chewing that over when Bucky's question came and he blinked up, brow creased, gears turning but not connecting right away before realization dawned and he shook his head, "No, absolutely not. I'm not doing that to anyone."

There’s a relief in that. Bucky feels his breathing easing and he rests his head against the window sill. The air against his back isn’t all that helpful to cool him down, and he wonders if letting the beans fully heat up is a good idea. Laying on the floor and staring at the ceiling all night because he’s running extra warm doesn’t seem ideal when he’ll be the one driving them into the mountains the following evening.

“Why do you say that? I happen to know a pretty swell vampire.” One he has little intention to share. He’s got a good twenty more years worth of use in him before Steve will have to find another person to guard him during the day. Bucky intends not to move out of the other’s life until he absolutely must.

It’s funny how little he knows about Steve. The bits and pieces he’s gleaned over the years have been little more than incomplete scraps.

"You know one relatively abnormal vampire is what you know." He replied, returning to his packing, but continuing talking all the same, it wasn't like it was a secret, not really, it was just that they were both happy enough not to talk about it before -or Steve had been at any rate and Bucky hadn't pushed- though maybe he shouldn't have been quite so close-lipped about it if this was the result.

"How many other vampires have you met?" He shook his head, clarifying, "I'm not poking fun, I swear, I just need to know where to start explaining."

“You’re my first and only.” It sounds too sweet to say it that way, but Bucky isn’t known to pull his punches. Besides, Steve won’t read into it. The vampire never seems to and Bucky lets it be his own little confession from time to time.

The can starts to rattle in the pot and Bucky grabs the handle and a spoon off of the rack. Back to Steve, if only to stop his cursed staring, the werewolf shrugs.

“You don’t gotta explain a thing to me, pal. I have your six til the end of the line.”

He was glad that Bucky had turned away after that particular turn of phrase, because if he was still capable of blushing he definitely would have been, and had to remind himself that wasn't what Bucky had meant by it, and he shook himself to get back on track with: "Okay, so everything. Because I know I don't have to, but you asked," and besides that it seemed like Bucky knowing might save both their skins if things got worse, "The program was a success, but the product, me, was a failure."

He huffed a sigh, not because he needed to breathe, but because it was a punctuation, "I was always a sickly kid, ma was always looking for anything that would help, even after she passed I did the same, honestly figured Erskine was just another snake oil salesman, worst case it wouldn't work and I wouldn't be any worse off." He shook his head, adding the second sweater to the suitcase before snapping it closed and setting it aside, moving to lean against the doorjamb "Except his cure was vampire venom."

He shook his head, scrubbing a hand up over his face, "Most vampires they see humans as... livestock at best, and just a self-renewing food source at worst, and I don't know for sure which traits he was trying to improve upon with his transformation-via-science model, but preserving the subject's humanity apparently wasn't one of them."

Bucky literally wolfs down his food. Three spoonfuls is all it takes to finish the can, which leaves him scraping tin by the time Steve is finished talking, even with his mouth still full. It’s listening, though, astutely. His ears might not flick or swivel to capture Steve’s voice, but he is fully aligned with the vampire.

“Makes sense,” he says after he swallows. “Retta used to tell me I was just your emergency food supply. She said vampires don’t even like other vampires and anyone that can age are like cattle. Or rats. I just thought she was speaking off of folklore.”

Bucky gives up on any remaining food from the can and sets it, and the spoon inside of it, down.

“Carnelian says you’re special. The rare breed. I guess I didn’t realize he wasn’t just speaking like an old man magician. You really are something else.” His smile is genuine before it falters. “You think what he did to you he’s been trying to do to other people? Molly in trouble now…?”

Shit. He’d really wanted to get away for awhile. Lay low. Run in the grass. Eat some fresh rabbits. This sucks.

"I dunno." He replied, shaking his head, "I really don't. I wish I did, but whatever she and Slim got dosed with isn't venom, even if it was fresh it wouldn't alter my perceptions like that, vampires aren't, you know, toxic to each other." Except verbally and emotionally, but that was an entirely different problem.

Another heavy sigh, scrubbing a hand up over his face and through his hair, "I know I keep saying it, but he's supposed to be dead. I don't even know if he's trying to make better vampires anymore, maybe he moved on to something else and that's fucking terrifying." Partly because Steve didn't know how many other subjects there had been besides him, he only knew that he hadn't been the only one, and there was no telling if any of the others had sired anyone else, and how those fledges might differ from fledges of a traditionally sired vampire. There were too many variables and he didn't like it.

Scrunching up his face, Bucky closes the distance and kicks over a kitchen stool to sit in front of Steve. He’s always perching on something, always touching something. It’s more instinct than personality. This is his territory. He is spreading his scent. It also makes Steve taller when they talk like this, another instinctual nod of a former pack animal showing deference to a leader. Bucky leans forward, his hands on his knees.

“Can we back up like a dozen paces?” he asks, resisting the urge to bite at the inside of his lip in thought. “How did— So from my understanding, there’s a blood exchange that makes humans into vampires. The rest of us would just die from the same exchange. Is that guy a vampire? Because he smelled more like a corpse.”

The math isn’t mathing, but Bucky isn’t sure if it’s rude to just ask Steve how he came to be the way he was. All Bucky knows is he was an experiment. That there had been others like him. He’d just assumed the guy doing the experimenting was a vampire too.

“And there is no such thing in the human or fae world that has walking corpses, Steve.”

"He's not a vampire." He shook his head again, frustration rising again because he couldn't actually be sure of that, "At least not like any vampire I've ever heard of. But the transformation is... yeah, usually it's blood. That's the best way to make sure it actually takes, but it's the venom that actually causes the change."

He curled his lip just briefly, thumbing at the point of the fang that dropped down into place, just holding out the droplet there for Bucky to see, it was clear, barely pink like watered down blood, and while it was thicker than water, it wasn't quite as viscous as blood would be and he licked it away again a moment later, "So I wasn't bitten, I was just injected." Another head-shake, "I don't know if it was pure venom, but I doubt it, for one thing we don't actually produce a lot of it, and for another, undiluted it would probably kill a human instead of transforming them."

Or, more horrifyingly, would induce an immediate transformation, allowing them to be milked for maybe half again as much venom as had been used before they died, which was something he'd considered once or twice but tried not to think about, "So whatever he used was some kind of serum."

He worked his jaw for a moment, just turning over an equally horrifying possibility over in his mind, "If he was sick, cancer or something chronic, the experiment I was part of? It might have been finding out how to keep himself alive without actually transforming." He shook his head, "But that's... it's not how humans are supposed to work, you know? He'd still be dying just... forever."

This whole thing is fascinating. Old Cornelian had filled him in on a lot of lore. The mage really liked Bucky and had made it part of his personality to keep Bucky in the know about vampires once he had discovered who his part time employee hung around with. Bucky had never made much of a big deal about it. He had read the books the man recommended but they seemed more propaganda pieces. None of the pictures even looked like Steve.

And the venom? Well that’s new. He knew about it but he’d never seen it. On a human, that venom was supposed to induce pleasure, or at least acceptance. Eyebrows way up, Bucky had leaned in even that drop of venom was momentarily presented, oddly compelled to see if it really would kill him if he ingested it.

It’s like staring into the void. Or thinking about stepping in front of a train. Bucky doesn’t usually have those dark thoughts though. The wolf is going to be the death of him this cycle.

“Huh,” Bucky says, abruptly sitting back before he does anything else stupid. “It worked on you. It fixed you up. So it kind of makes sense that he would want to do it to himself. Jeez-us Steve. You’re not just forever dying are you?”

That minuscule amount definitely wouldn't kill him, probably wouldn't even make him sick, though it might numb his mouth for a while. Steve was also pretty sure the toxicity was exaggerated if only to keep vampires from trying to turn shapeshifters, or, more likely, to keep shapeshifters from trying to eat vampires, or to keep from being bitten themselves, but it wasn't like there was anyone he could really ask, so he kept those opinions to himself.

He shook his head at the question, "No, I transformed, I know that much. No heartbeat kind of gives that one away. He rubbed at his brow, "But if he's..." He shook his head again, "I don't know, on the cusp? In some kind of in-between? It shouldn't take much to either kill him or change him, but I don't like either option And I don't know for sure if that's what he's doing."

Talk about relief! The thought of poor Steve being incomplete, stuck in the middle, and in pain he never showed to him would have broken Bucky’s heart. Literally. He can deal with emotional turmoil, of wanting things he can never have, but knowing Steve lived (or unlived) each moment in agony would have been too much. The werewolf straightens out his right leg and knocks his foot against Steve’s ankle.

“Gotta confirm that you don’t smell rancid, but that might just be because you’re stuffing your socks with lavender or parsley or something.” Hey. He loves the smell of lavender and parsley. Very earthy. Very soapy. And both grow all around the cabin—

The werewolf groans.

“I know you don’t wanna leave, pal. And maybe the way I am this month, it might be better to stick around and pay your old friend a visit instead.” Killing isn’t something he likes to do.

But he’s done it. And he’ll do more of it. Whatever Steve needs.

He shook his head, "No, leaving's better. For both of us." He wasn't going to let Bucky be some kind of assassin for him, even if the doctor did deserve it. He was more concerned about the collateral damage that would result if they somehow managed to kill the man off without knowing what it was he was even doing.

A twitch of a smile, "And no, I'm not stuffing anything with lavender and parsley. For one thing you'd notice if that much lavender was missing." One of the few things that there was always an abundance of in the victory garden on the roof, if only because it attracted bees to help pollinate everything else.

He shifted his weight a little so that he could return that thump, "Besides that, fresh air will be good for the both of us, I think."

“You don’t have to breathe,” Bucky says with a grin, ignoring the tease about his nose. He takes his bloodhound attributes seriously anyway. One has to be good at many things to keep Steve safe, or so he tells himself, as if the vampire hadn’t been doing just fine on his own before they met up.

Bucky might have to ask a bit more about that in the future. Learning about Steve is his favorite pastime.

Back on his feet, Bucky washes up the spoon, sets it aside, and opens the wardrobe by the front door to yank out a rucksack. Steve is neat and clean. He folds his items like a gentleman. Bucky just crams.

“Want me to put any of your things in mine?” It’s a genuine question. It never quite occurs to him that Steve and wrinkles just don’t go together.

There was a small smile at that first comment, just shooting back: "Doesn't mean the fresh air won't be good for me, Buck." He pushed himself up from where he was leaning against the door frame as Bucky moved to wash up.

He shook his head at the question, "No, I got it." There was a moment's consideration before adding, "Should probably get the winter blanket out of the closet, though, in case the sun shades are fucked up again."

“It’s gonna smell like mothballs,” he warns, which is something Steve doesn’t need to worry himself over. Bucky is the only one that will suffer. “I’ll take it out tomorrow after I bring the truck around.” It will go in the back bed with their things.

Maybe he can lay it out on the grass once they get to the mountains? Bucky pauses in front of the wardrobe, lost in thought for a few moments.

Slowly, his head tilts to the left before he turns back around to Steve. “You going to be all right for a few days looking after me? Do you need me to pick anything else up tomorrow?”

"Hang it out on the fire escape for the day, sunlight and outside air will help." A shrug, "Help it smell more like city air than mothballs, anyway." Which wasn't necessarily better, but was a more familiar kind of smell anyway.

He did consider the question and the offer that went with it, finally just nodding, "I'll be alright, especially once we get out there, I know it's not deer season, but there's always something I can catch." Not one of the last-call drunks he normally went for, but he'd lived off of animals before just fine, "We'll be okay, Buck."

As Steve might have guessed, Paulie was not too thrilled to have his favor called on. Though not as big of an ask as what Bucky had done for him, his business relied on his trucks. Even the junkers. Contraband and illicit magical goods don’t move themselves after all. A few reminders and pointed looks, however, did get Bucky a truck. One that looked about ready to fall apart, but still a truck.

On the plus side, it did fit in the alley too.

While Steve slept, Bucky packs up. The blanket stretched out on the clothesline between fire escapes still smells, but it’s better than it had been. He wraps up a few sprigs of lavender in it and then uses it to add a little more cushion to the bench front seat. With the windows down, Bucky should be fine.

He does a few errands after that. He comments to people he meets about work he’d heard about. That he’ll be leaving for a week, maybe, and Steve would come with to see if he could shake a chest cold. People bought it. It’s not like most people knew about Steve, either. Who would believe there could be a vampire with a soul?

When Steve wakes up, he’ll find Bucky curled up on the floor by his door, napping the late afternoon away. The wolf’s sleep schedule is erratic. He’s almost learned to sleep standing up sometimes.

When Steve woke, it was as the sun was going down, more than halfway below the horizon, but not fully gone just yet, even that was because he knew they had to get moving as soon as possible, and if he could get dressed before the last sliver was gone, and they could get outside just as soon as it did, that would be an extra ten or fifteen minutes they could be making their way out of the city rather than waiting until the sun was fully down before he even got up.

He knew his moving around getting dressed was likely enough to alert Bucky that he was awake, but even still he knocked twice at the door, since he knew Bucky was close and probably right in front of it as he usually was and didn't want to give him a rude awakening via door to the head.

It’s not like it would have been the first time. Bucky is more of less awake by the time the knocks come. Steve can be silent when he wants to be, but the faint noises had been meant to rouse him. It’s why Bucky cares for the other so much. Steve is kind. He is mindful. And he cares for him too.

At the first knock, Bucky had already pulled himself up. The second and he’s scratching his scalp with both hands, stretching, his back arched at the feeling.

He’s been dreaming of blood again. Rabbits, he tells himself, but rabbits don’t have fingers. The violence is a lot. The sensory misdirection is well needed.

“Hey, pal. Just let me grab some bread and we can get going.” They’ll be right in the thick of traffic but it can’t be helped.

"Get dressed, I'll butter you a couple slices." Steve replied, patting Bucky's shoulder on the way past. He'd also make sure the perishables were out of the icebox, not that they generally had many of them to start with, and not like Bucky wouldn't have done so already, but, apparently, looking after Bucky over the full moon was going to start early.

As he moved to the kitchen, setting to buttering the last four slices off the loaf he asked: "You got my suitcase and the first aid kit already?" Provided Bucky's wolf didn't actually manage to slip the shackles they weren't likely to need the kit, at least not for anything more than minor abrasions as usual, but if it was going to be as bad as Bucky thought, it was possible he would as he had done before.

Where is his brain at? Bucky frowns as he watches Steve empty the icebox. He hadn’t thought to do that and it’s such a simple task. There really isn’t too much in there. Bucky is the only one that eats and outside of the essentials, he rarely keeps anything in.

Even so, the thought of coming home to rancid cheese is an unpleasant one.

“Got the first aid kit,” Bucky says, tugging a shirt over his head after giving it a sniff to make sure it isn’t offensive. “And your suitcase. And Paulie’s shittiest truck.”

"As long as Paulie's shittiest truck will still get us to the cabin, that's really all that matters. It can fall apart once we're up there, we'll kludge it back together again with bailing wire to get back if we have to, it's fine."

He slid those four slices of bread over to Bucky's side of the counter, "Eat, I'll go drop the scraps off with Mrs. Lawrence. If she doesn't need them, she'll know who will." It wasn't much that he'd pulled from the icebox, but it would still be enough to make someone else happy, able to save a little bit on groceries that week.

He paused then, arranging the items in a milk crate, blinking up at Bucky, "Wait, what did you tell her? If I'm supposed to be sick I shouldn't be dropping things off."

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