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Steve comes into the latest nondescript room and slides the lock in place before crouching to remove his boots. When he stands, he spares a thought for the cursory once-over he’d given himself on the way back, hoping he doesn’t look any more disheveled than normal. He sets the money he's earned for them on the table as he crosses to the bathroom (it's folded in half, in a makeshift clip. Steve's got some class, he's not gonna toss it down in crumpled up bills). Based on the eyebrow cocked in his direction, he maybe didn't do such a great job trying to brush the dirt off the knees of his jeans.
He picks up the pace. If he can just reach the bathroom–
He knew he'd been pushing his luck.
"You really think that's a good idea, Steve?" Sam says quietly. Steve freezes at the bathroom door, back to the room. He’d wondered when Sam would finally try to talk some sense into him. Honestly, he let Steve go on longer than he expected. "Listen, I ain't about to – you're a grown man. A super-man at that. I ain't too worried about you being taken advantage of. And I'm not stupid enough to think this is just about the money. But we're not touchin’ that right now."
That bit catches Steve by surprise. He didn’t think anyone would ever look too closely at what he was doing beyond the obvious.
Anyone except Bucky, that is. No matter what bullshit Steve spun, Bucky had his number.
The thought makes him drag in a bracing lungful of air, and he tilts his head just enough so that he can see Sam out of the corner of his eye. He's leaning forward in his chair, talking at his clasped hands, his head shaking. "The moment they clock you…"
"They won't."
"You don't know that. You can't know that."
Steve finally turns, leans against the door jamb. "No, you don't get it.” He’d actually given this a lot of thought. Been through all the pros and cons and alternatives, weighed their options. It really did turn out the simplest, most absurd reasoning won out in the end, though. “Sam...who on earth would believe it? I could wear the damn stars and stripes while blowing a guy in broad daylight, but who is going to believe him when he goes and tells them he paid Captain America a hundred bucks for a back alley?" Steve raises both eyebrows for emphasis when Sam finally meets his eyes.
Sam’s laugh seems startled out of him. "Shit. Yeah, okay. You got me there. Just. Be careful man."
Steve shoots him a lousy mock salute before turning back towards his shower.
"Wait–" Sam calls out just as he’s shutting the door. "You charge $100 for a goddamn blow job ?!"
Sam is just glad Steve isn't treating him like a moron and trying to be "sneaky". The man wouldn't know stealth if it bit him on the ass.
When Sam had mentioned running low on their resources from home, including cash, Steve had given it exactly seven seconds thought before standing up and announcing "I'll be back" and just...walking out the fucking door.
He came back two hours later with 70 euros, an insistent "I can get us more," and a weird look in his eye Sam couldn't pinpoint at the time.
Now he knows it's because he'd never seen Steve Rogers look like trouble. Like he was excited.
Like he was alive.
Sam's not sure if willfully ignoring the fact someone is a prostitute makes him a good friend or not these days. But they aren’t hurting for money anymore and it has the added bonus of getting them out of each other’s pockets for a few hours, which Sam didn’t even realize how much he needed. Being holed up with the one and only Captain means being holed up with the most righteous and guilt-ridden war hero of all time. It’s a lot. Sam is sure he isn’t all sunshine and rainbows either. The breaks from each other are good for the both of them. Steve also tends to look a little less…haunted…after nights spent doing the rounds. For that alone, well. Sam doesn't have the heart to even try to stop him. Besides, he has it on good authority that that usually had the opposite effect anyway.
So, now his life consisted of not only aiding the fugitive Captain America in tracking down the world's most dangerous assassin so they could just talk to him, but also enabling Steve Rogers' insane thirst for both risk and reward (in what has got to be the shadiest way possible).
Sam has no idea where he fucked up so hysterically.
He remembers he was pretty lonely for a few years as a kid. He was over eager and a bit sensitive and a whole lotta nerdy – didn’t fit in much. His mama told him one time, as she wiped tears and snot from his face, "You try too hard when you're out there tryin'a make friends, baby."
Looking through the dark of their room to Steve – who at some point stole Sam’s only pillow and is currently hugging it against his chest, sound asleep in their musty-ass bed, in this questionable motel in the middle of Who-The-Fuck-Knows, Russia – Sam thinks his mama mighta been right.
Minutes later, Steve gasps, so quietly it’s barely heard. Sam feels the wall of muscle tense next to him on the mattress. Then Steve’s low, sleep-worn voice calling out, timid like it never is. “Sam?”
“I’m right here. Wherever here is this week, man.”
Steve snorts and replies, “Sorry if I woke you.”
“Nah, you’re good. Was already awake. You wanna talk about it?”
Steve grunts a “no thanks” while clumsily patting at Sam’s chest, followed by quite the production of getting comfortable: flipping pillows, tossing and turning in place, everything winding up exactly how it was in the first place, before Steve curls tighter around the pillow in his arms, his face almost smashed into a kneecap, and promptly falls back asleep.
On second thought, Sam reckons he never did like staying in one place all that long. And pillows are just too damn soft anyway.