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Steve hops off stage, sweat keeping his hair and the fabric of his tank top clinging to his skin. He feels gross and sticky, but the adrenaline of performing overcomes the swelling desire to just run to the nearest shower. He bounds across the bar among the audience - the small, but excitable audience - doling out high fives to the few people who held their hand out to him as he passed on his way to the back of the bar. They didn't have any handlers or helpers of any sort to run the merchandise table for them. And honestly? It sort of makes it more fun. The laughter he gets when he launches himself over the table and trips over his own feet before he picks himself up and waves to the crowd, that's what makes it fun. He's got a big, cheeky grin despite being completely out of breath and feeling like he could pass out at any moment. That's how their shows usually went. It wasn't truly a hit unless he had an asthma attack at the end of the show instead of giving an encore."Our singer and manager, everybody." Bucky's got the mic now, making a big sweeping motion with it. "The biggest dork."Like he's got any room to talk. They've been best friends since second grade, he's witnessed just about every dumbass thing he's done. Which happened to be most things he did. He wouldn't trade him for the world, though. Bucky was the reason they were here, he was why Steve even made the leap to drop everything back in Brooklyn and dedicate every cell in his body to the band and making sure they made it, in whatever form that took. Whether that was barely getting by and having fun, or getting picked up by a record label.He's always been in love with music. Steve's been singing since he was five, took piano lessons when he was ten and started his first band when he was thirteen. Bucky'd been behind him through every step of it, whether he was in any of the many bands that fell in succession to the first or not. He supported him even when Steve refused to go head first into any of his projects, always keeping one foot in the door of law school or accounting. The 'real', steadier jobs that his mom would prefer for him. Bucky was always there, encouraging him to take the leap. Buck, who was raised on the Ramones and The Clash. Buck, who shared his dream of being in a band since they were little and needed for his friend to make that move for his own sanity just as much as Steve's.It took Bucky not being there for him to take that leap, though. When Buck was active duty and he was left to his own devices in figuring out what to do, on where he wanted to go. In that time he'd met Natasha, their drummer, at a Pansy Division concert. She'd helped him up after someone had shoved passed him. He was pretty sure he was in love for a while, with this tall Russian chick who danced with him and sang along with all the lyrics perfectly. That romance was short-lived, considering Nat was a lesbian. But hey, that's just how life went sometimes. Now she was the closest thing to a sister he's ever had.After finding out she was a musician too, they stayed in touch for future jam sessions and possible band opportunities. He didn't know he'd met a member of his future band that night, but fate tied everything together as soon as Bucky got discharged."Anyway, he's a dork but Stevie makes rockin' merch. We've got shirts and buttons, CDs, all that normal band stuff. We've also got a bunch of zines and stickers and- Y'know what? Just go look for yourself. It's all drawn by him, so it's cool." Bucky waves the microphone around dismissively and recoils when he gets some unpleasant feedback from it in return. They make a few sales. They usually did after free concerts, a lot of people who enjoyed the show felt obligated to buy a t-shirt or a few buttons. Others just come up to talk to him, making small talk or just saying farewell before heading out. They had pretty tight crowds, most of the time. It was nice. and probably because most of their songs were about being a minority or being mad about oppression, the occasional toss in of songs about Steve's exes."Are you guys gonna be playing here again soon?" One girl with gauges and a neon pink undercut asks. She looks young, and he's not incredibly sure she's legally allowed to be here. But, hey, it's not his place to call her out. It's not like he's never used a fake ID to get into concerts before. "It's rare to find good queercore bands these days.""Actually... We're going on tour for a few months starting first thing tomorrow morning. Technically this was our first show for it, first of twenty-four." Steve beams, grinning ear to ear with pride. He feels like he's bragging a bit, but he can't bring himself to care. He's proud of how far they've come in the past few years, from not being able to get gigs in any bar they tried to traveling around the country to share their music. When Bucky came back from Iraq with his arm blown off, the reality of life and mortality really sunk in. Bucky was twenty fucking years old and he almost died, had his whole life flipped upside down in half a second. Life was short, Steve realized, and he needed to get the ball rolling on his dreams before he sat around for too long and missed his chance. And fuck, fate really wanted it to happen.While Bucky was in rehabilitation at the VA hospital he met their guitarist, Sam. Steve called up Nat, and everything just... came together. They all met up to hang out together a few times, started up a weekly bar meet-up and finally put together a schedule for practices and to have more casual sessions to play together. Here they were, nine years later with a shitty old school bus turned tour bus, about to go cross country in a Partridge Family-turned-punk style journey. "Our next show is in Jersey, it'd be great if you could make it." Steve grabs one of the flyers with tour dates from the table to hand it over. He's frankly a little worried about turn out, so he feels the need to promote as much as he can. Since all of their shows were local, there was little to no chance of anyone on the other side of the country hearing about them. if they had, it was probably from a horribly low-quality youtube video of one of their performances and wouldn't care enough to come see them in person. He was dropping everything for this tour. He quit his day job for this, he put most of his money from savings into buying their bus and arranging ways for their equipment to be hauled along with them, making sure they had enough money for food and gas along the way. Everything... Everything was riding on this tour, and he wasn't sure what would happen if it turned out to be a bust.They'd all be fucked, is what would happen.