He still wears the cuffs. Bucky would take them off if he asked, he knows that now, but he leaves them. It's a gesture of trust, one of many he extends and hopes is enough to bring him back to who he was and who he used to be. He still wears them, and calls them a fashion sense in some ironic part of his mind, although he wears long-sleeved shirts so they don't show unless he's around Bucky, and rolls the edges of his sleeves up.
Supplies are the easy part. He stops at gas stations that double as mini-marts and buys everything in cash, spreading his purchases out over several different ones in a radius around their newest hotel. Recon.
Old habits, and all.
He tries to think about having his friend back, about the moments when Bucky looks at him like he remembers an old joke, and not about the way his lips felt once upon a time.
He tries.
He buys popsicles that he wraps and puts carefully in a flimsy styrofoam cooler under twenty pounds of ice that he plans on dumping in the bathtub later to cool the room down, and he drives back slowly in an effort to avoid undue attention. They've been off the grid so far, but that doesn't mean they'll stay that way. But eventually he's back at their room, and he hauls their supplies inside, locks the door behind him (swingbolt first, deadbolt second) and he stocks their small fridge, dumps out the ice as planned, and holds out one of the popsicles to Bucky. If seeing the arm in pieces on the table startles him, it doesn't show. "I remember when these things had flavour," he says with an amused shake of his head. "Now I think the only thing you can taste is the colour."
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Supplies are the easy part. He stops at gas stations that double as mini-marts and buys everything in cash, spreading his purchases out over several different ones in a radius around their newest hotel. Recon.
Old habits, and all.
He tries to think about having his friend back, about the moments when Bucky looks at him like he remembers an old joke, and not about the way his lips felt once upon a time.
He tries.
He buys popsicles that he wraps and puts carefully in a flimsy styrofoam cooler under twenty pounds of ice that he plans on dumping in the bathtub later to cool the room down, and he drives back slowly in an effort to avoid undue attention. They've been off the grid so far, but that doesn't mean they'll stay that way. But eventually he's back at their room, and he hauls their supplies inside, locks the door behind him (swingbolt first, deadbolt second) and he stocks their small fridge, dumps out the ice as planned, and holds out one of the popsicles to Bucky. If seeing the arm in pieces on the table startles him, it doesn't show. "I remember when these things had flavour," he says with an amused shake of his head. "Now I think the only thing you can taste is the colour."