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James doesn’t remember much of the first twenty-something years of his life, and by that, he means he remembers nothing at all.
He doesn’t know what happened before he woke up alone in the hospital, squinting against blinding white lights. He doesn’t know if he has family or friends or people who love him. Considering no one had visited him in the hospital and no one tried to find him, he supposes the answer to that is no. He must have been one hell of a miserable guy.
That was a year ago. He’s slowly piecing his life together again, trying to carve out a home for himself in the town of Red Hook. He goes to free community yoga once a week and learns to breathe out his anger. He smiles at people who bag his groceries. He no longer feels like jumping out of his skin when someone sits beside him on the park bench. He even attempts to flirt with his barista, even though he clams up when she flirts back. His boss at the repair shop likes him.
For some reason, he has nightmares. A lot of them. Ones that have him shooting out of bed and pressing himself into a corner, shaking, eyes frantic and searching the shadows of his room. Ones that wake him with a scream and have him bolting out of the house because a part of him is certain he’s not safe there. Or crying softly after, because the phantom sensation of being pulled into strong arms, a gentle touch to his cheek from his dreams still lingers. They leave him feeling lost, scared, and frustrated; things he doesn’t know how to put into words. He ends up baring his teeth at his notebook, lead tip pushed against the page, leaving behind harsh streaks of grey.
But, hey. You win some, you lose some. James loses more than others, but he tries to be graceful about it.
-
James tucks his nose further into his scarf trying to shield himself from the snowstorm. He curses himself for losing track of time while fixing up a 1966 Norton Atlas. It’s an old, banged up thing, with a stuck motor and in need of a full restoration. A customer with too much money left it behind and never came back for it. James has shared life experiences with this motorcycle. He knows a thing or two about being left behind, about looking and feeling battered up.
The pedestrian light comes on. He hurries across the street and dreams of a hot shower, even though the hot water doesn’t often work in his two room (one being the bathroom, and two being everything else) apartment. Maybe he’ll make some hot chocolate tonight. It’s a hot chocolate kind of night. He should be able to shake out enough cocoa powder for one last cup. There’s a broken up candy cane in his pocket, given to him by one of Santa’s elves. He’ll add that, too.
A loud, continuous honk startles him into looking up. He finds himself staring straight into piercing headlights, and a ball of red light between the twin flares. The tires have lost their grip and a car skates across the road, sliding toward him at an alarming speed.
Time slows to a crawl. By James’ calculations, seasons have passed. He could run a mile in this time, except he doesn’t.
Instead, he stands there frozen and gets a good look at the car he’s about to be flattened by. Reindeer antlers are attached to the roof. On the windshield is a pair of friendly black and white cartoon eyes drawn in window markers; they’re cross-eyed, focussed on the big red nose attached to the grille. Colourful Christmas lights loop around the outside of the car, blinking festively.
Over Mariah Carey’s muted voice singing, All I want for Christmas is: yoouuuuuuuu , James sees more than he hears the driver, a blond man, yelling at him to get out of the way.
All in all, it’s not a bad car to be hit by.
-
James sits on the hospital bed, broken ankle propped up on two pillows and his hands folded neatly on his lap. He presses the button his nurse told him about, and the top part of the bed angles up with a whir, allowing him to sit upright. Cool, he thinks. But not as cool as his left arm.
They’re going to keep him here for four days, and James wonders how he’s supposed to pay for that when he can’t even find two five dollar bills to rub together. Can they make you pay if you have no money? He knows how expensive hospitals get. He’s been lucky enough that he’s never gotten to the point where he had to set foot in one. He thought he might have had to last year, when he slept curled up in a threadbare blanket under an overpass in -15 C weather, wearing just a hoodie, jeans, and a toque to cover his cold ears. He was cold and sad and it took three hours of standing by the radiator in the public library for his metal arm to thaw out and function again, but he had no problems otherwise.
Maybe he’ll sneak out the window. He’s not sure how he’ll do it when they haven’t even given him crutches yet, but he can probably figure things out as he goes. James glances out the window. It doesn’t look like he’s on the first floor. What if he breaks his other leg jumping out? That would make things even worse.
Or maybe, he thinks, sitting up a taller as the idea comes to mind, he’ll sue the rich punk in his fancy suit and even fancier car and live comfortably for the rest of his life. He doesn’t know how a person goes about suing someone, but he’s sure one of the nurses will know.
Someone at the door clears their throat. There, leaning against the doorframe with his hands jammed into his pockets, is the man who ran over him.
“Hi,” the man says, wearing a sheepish expression. “I hope you don’t mind that I’m here. I just wanted to see how you were doing. I’m Steve, by the way.”
“James,” he says. “I’m as good as a guy with a broken ankle can be.”
Steve winces. “Yeah, sorry about that.”
James shrugs. “S’all right.”
He expects Steve to leave after his apology since it’s not like they are friends, or anything. Except Steve doesn’t leave. He shuffles nervously at the door, sneaking glances at James like he wants to be invited in.
“Do you want to come in?” James asks finally.
He studies Steve’s profile when as the blond moves to stand by the window. There’s a strange tugging in his chest as he follows the slope of Steve’s nose, the angle of his jaw. He feels like he should know this man.
Or maybe Steve is just handsome enough to have that sort of effect on people.
“Do I know you?” James asks. “You seem familiar.”
Steve looks up at him with round eyes. Then a slow smile breaks across his face until he’s wearing the biggest and happiest grin anyone has ever directed at James. James feels warm all the way down to his toes just looking at it, but also confused.
“Yeah—yeah. You know me.”
Recognition flickers in his head. “You’re Captain America!”
The smile on Steve’s face slides off. The man turns away, jaw working as he swallows. “That’s me.”
James wonders if he said something wrong. Maybe Steve doesn’t like being recognised as Captain America. Maybe he just likes being Steve. “I won’t tell anyone,” he promises. “But can I have your autograph?”
The corners of Steve’s lips twitch up. “Are you a fan?”
“I think I can sell it to pay off my hospital bill.” James adds, “But I am also a fan. Thank you for your service, Captain.”
“Just Steve is fine,” Steve says with a laugh. “And don’t worry about the bill. I’ve got it covered. It’s the least I could do.”
Captain America is always busy fighting crime and kissing babies in children’s hospitals. Even if he weren’t doing either of those, James thinks there are more exciting things to do than hang out with him. For example, clipping toenails. But Steve stays long enough that word of Captain America being in the hospital spreads.
James gets more visitors than he knows what to do with. Nurses he’s certain aren’t in charge of him drop by to fluff his pillows. They ask if he wants some water or juice, though they smile shyly at Steve the entire time. There are teenagers and adults that screech in excitement or gasp in wonder.
James hates it, curling up into a tight ball at the edge of his bed and pulling the blanket over his head. The lights are too bright and everything is too loud. Words mingle and weave together into senseless things that crowd into him from all around. He tries to make himself small so the noises can’t touch him.
Then he feels a hand on his shoulder, warm and big and grounding. He notices it’s quiet again. The tightness in his chest eases.
“I’m sorry, James,” Steve says earnestly. “That was totally inconsiderate of me.”
James agrees, but he doesn’t say it out loud. All the attention must be a part of the Captain America package.
“I know it’s not much of an apology, but I brought a book for you. It might keep you entertained while you’re here.”
James takes the book and thanks him. He doesn’t read the title. The world still feels unsteady.
-
To his surprise, Steve shows up the next day as well. The blond comes in with a bag of ornaments and a Christmas tree that’s small enough to set up on his bedside table.
“I thought you might like decorating the place a little, since you’ll be here for a while,” Steve says.
“I’d like that,” James replies, holding a glass sphere in the palm of his metal hand. There’s a snowman inside, and it’s filled with fluffy fake snow.
Steve plays some Christmas music on his phone, and together, they decorate the tree. Mostly James does the decorating and Steve just hands him the ornaments. He likes it this way; he doesn’t remember ever putting up a tree.
“You missed a spot,” Steve says, and turns the tree so James can fix that problem.
He puts the star on last, and then peers over it to find Steve smiling at him. For the first time in a year, or ever, butterflies take flight in his stomach, beating their wings against his ribs. His mouth feels a little dry.
Steve is beautiful, even under harsh fluorescent lights that deepen every tired wrinkle and worsen every blemish. There are lines etched into the corner of his eyes and around his mouth, maybe from laughter, maybe from grief. Even though Steve smiles big, there’s something sad and longing in his eyes. James wonders if the man had lost someone, perhaps in a car accident, and that’s why he tries so hard to make things right.
He doesn’t know why Steve sticks around, but he likes it and he won’t ask in case it scares the man off. Steve gets called away by Iron Man, but he promises to visit tomorrow, like he considers James to be a friend.
James spends the next two hours reading the book Steve gave him so they have something to talk about tomorrow. It’s called The Humans and it makes James laugh and hope, because the alien protagonist says all the wrong things, but he tries and his host’s family members love him for it. James says a lot of wrong things too, but he is less appreciated.
-
Later in the day, James learns how to use crutches. His favourite nurse tells him to take it easy, that he might get nauseous and that they can take a break whenever he needs to. James feels just fine, and proves it by swinging on his crutches around his room, through the halls, and up and down stairs.
“That boy loves you, you know,” his nurse tells him on the way back to his room. “I can tell by the way he looks at you.”
“I’ve only known him for two days.”
“Well. I suppose love at first sight isn’t dead then.”
James considers this for a while and then asks if she can bring him some mistletoe.
-
Getting hit by a car was worth it, James decides. He gets to be warm this winter, and the hospital feeds him three meals a day plus a snack. For breakfast, he gets waffles, two eggs, two sausage links, and orange juice. Lunch—a chicken sandwich and a bag of baked chips—is not as fun. He likes dinner though, because he gets a Salisbury steak with gravy and mashed potatoes and boiled vegetables with a knob of butter on top. There are also little ice cream cups in the fridge, and he’s allowed to eat as many as he wants as long as his nurse doesn’t find out.
But what’s even better than all of that is that he got to meet Steve.
He tells Steve this, and Steve looks like he might cry.
That night, Steve stays with him for a long time. He lets Steve sketch him while he reads, even though he doesn’t like it when people look at him too closely. They sit on the bed together, sides pressed together, and watch It’s a Wonderful Life . He’s more focussed on the hot line of Steve’s arm against his, and he’s pretty sure Steve spends more time watching him than the TV screen. But whenever he tries to meet Steve’s eyes, Steve turns away so fast James fears the blond is going to give himself whiplash.
It grows late, and nurse after nurse come in to tell Steve that visiting hours are over, and that he needs to leave. They use a firm tone, but leave defeated when Steve gives them his saddest, most disappointed look.
At 10 PM, they tell Steve that this time, he really has to leave to let patients rest. With great reluctance, Steve stands to slip on his coat.
“I have to eat Christmas dinner with the Avengers tomorrow. It’s tradition,” Steve says, not sounding very excited. James isn’t excited either. He was sort of hoping that they’d be able to spend Christmas together, even though he knows it’s a lot to ask for. Steve probably has a lot of other friends—not family, though; James remembers that Steve doesn’t have any family members, just like him—he wants to be with.
“Ok,” James says, trying not to sound too disappointed.
“I’ll try not to take too long,” Steve says. “I’ll just pop in to show my face and then I’ll come back here and we can do something together.”
“Really? You’d rather spend Christmas with me than the Avengers?”
“Yeah.” Steve nods. “You’re way cooler.”
James flops back onto bed and draws his blanket up to cover his mouth, though he doesn’t think it’s enough to hide the huge grin on his face. Gosh, Steve is just so—gosh. He really knows how to make a guy feel wanted. “It’s the arm, isn’t it?”
Something that looks a lot like sadness flits across Steve’s eyes. It’s gone when James blinks, so he figures he imagined it.
Steve says with a chuckle, “Definitely the arm.” He adds in a soft, quiet voice, “Though the guy it’s attached to might have something to do with it too.”
-
On Christmas day, James eats a hospital dinner alone, and peers hopefully at the door the entire time. He starts to get nervous as it nears 8 PM, wondering if Steve had forgotten about him in the middle of all the Christmas festivities. It shouldn’t bother him as much as it does; Steve is practically a stranger, but his stomach feels hollowed out even though just an hour earlier, he had carved ham with mash and peas, and a slice of pumpkin pie too. He stares at his lap and fiddles with the mistletoe in his fingers. With a sigh, he puts the mistletoe back into his pillowcase and picks up The Humans .
The door slams open then and James jumps. He’s already smiling before he swings his head up to see Steve, whose blond hair sticks up in tufts and whose cheeks have a pinkness to them. Steve kicks the door closed and hurries over.
“Hey, sorry I’m late. I tried to get here as fast as I could,” Steve sets a fabric bag onto a table and begins unpacking container after container of food. “But you know Tony, never shuts up and hates it when I don’t give him attention. And Clint—do you know Clint? He’s Hawkeye. He wouldn’t let me leave until we all exchanged gifts. He said that only one person at a time gets to open their gifts, and everyone else has to watch…”
James curls his shoulders in. He took Steve away from all that? Steve could’ve spent his evening in Avengers Tower with people who cared for him (not that James doesn’t care for him; he does). Instead, Steve’s here in a cramped hospital room because of some misplaced sense of duty, with some guy he ran over.
“... I love them, but I think they were trying to waste my time because they knew I had somewhere else to be.” Steve opens up a thermos and the sweet smell of peppermint hot chocolate fills the room. He pours a cup and turns around. His smile falters. “Hey, what’s with the look?”
“I didn’t mean to take you away from your friends,” James says. “You can go back if you want. I don’t mind.”
Steve places a hand over top James’ hand and squeezes. “You’re my friend, too. I’m here because I want to be here.” He keeps his hand there for a moment longer, and James lets him. Steve is so warm. When Steve pulls away, James misses him immediately.
“Here, have some hot chocolate.” Steve hands him the mug. “I hope you’re hungry because I brought turkey and shepherd’s pie and stuffing and vegetables… I think I have a Yule log somewhere in there, too.”
James eats even though he’s not hungry because it seems to make Steve happy. Steve connects his phone to speakers and plays some slow Christmas songs on the lowest volume. He asks Steve to tell him about his favourite things to do in the future, and Steve does.
All the while, James thinks about the mistletoe in his pillowcase and tries to gather up some courage. He promises himself that once he finishes this slice of cake, he’ll do it, but then he asks for another slice… and then another, until there’s no more cake left.
Ok, James, he tells himself sternly, you promised you would.
James is and has been a lot of things: an amnesiac, a part-time mechanic and once homeless, a rescuer of cats stuck in trees. But he’s no promise-breaker.
Steve watches him curiously as he reaches into his pillowcase. He smiles his most charming smile and holds the mistletoe over his and Steve’s head.
“You have to kiss the person you’re under the mistletoe with,” he says. “It’s the rule.”
For a moment, Steve just stares at him. James keeps the smile on his face and tries to look confident, but he ends up shifting in bed, wondering if he had read this all wrong. He’s never been good with people.
Just as James is about to put his arm down and tell Steve not to worry about some stupid rule, Steve reaches out to cup his jaw. He runs a thumb along the angle of James’ cheekbone, frost blue eyes a little awed, like someone seeing snow for the first time. Then Steve leans in and tilts his head to press their lips together, so achingly tender that James’s heart flops over in his chest and his toes clench.
-
The next morning, James hobbles out on crutches, Steve at his side. His crutches crunch into freshly fallen snow.
“Can we still hang out even though I’m not in the hospital anymore?”
“Yeah, James. I’d like that a lot.”
“How about me?” James asks. “Do you like me too?”
Steve makes a tiny peeping noise and flushes red all the way up to his hairline. He gives James a quick, shy glance and then turns back to the front. He’s so red. James loves it.
“Yeah, I like you, too.”
James nods. “Ok. So that means you won’t be mad when I do this. ” With that, he stuffs a fistful of snow down the front of Steve’s sweater.
Steve sputters with laughter and pushes him away. “What! When did you even—James!” The blond bends down for some snow and then makes a grab for James’ collar.
“Steve, no! You can’t attack an injured person.” James shrieks as the first biting coldness of snow meets the skin of his neck. He wheels to get away and trips over his own cast. They both go tumbling, limbs, crutches, and miniature Christmas tree alike.
They laugh and squirm, rolling over top each other like a pair of puppies experiencing their first snow. Steve manages to pin James’ wrists atop his head. James tries to buck him off, but Steve’s knees dig into his thighs. There is a triumphant smile on Steve’s face. “Say ‘uncle’ and I’ll let you go,” he demands, his exhales leaving him in wispy clouds.
Steve really is beautiful, with snowflakes caught in his lashes and the colour high on his cheeks. His grin is huge and as brilliant as the sun, like there’s nowhere in the world he’d rather be than wrestling in the snow with James, even though it’s freezing and Steve never does well in the cold…
Something about this moment strikes familiar and James’ chest twinges, sharp, painful, and desperate. He stops struggling and screws up his face in concentration, trying to reel the memory back in before he loses it completely. This one is important, he knows. Trying to catch memories is a lot like catching fish. You wait a long time staring out at the stillness of your mind. It’s patient work that can’t be forced. But then there’s a flicker of a memory making itself known, and if you don’t move, if you stare and hope hard enough, it snags and you can pull it in.
Steve places a gentle hand behind his head and draws him for a kiss. “Hey. You ok?” he asks, searching James’ eyes.
James sighs and lets his face and body go slack. Steve interrupted him, and he lost it. This time, though, there’s no biting sense of failure and disappointment to follow it. He can make new memories to fill the empty spaces in his brain. Hopefully Steve will be in a lot of them. When he gets home, he’s going to write down what happened the past four days into his notebook, just in case.
“James?”
“It’s nothing,” James says. He frowns, a silly thought niggling in the back of his mind. “Is it weird if I say I feel like I’ve done this before? With you?”