To Bucky's way of thinking, 'pal' was a perfectly reasonable way to address someone, since to him, it just meant a friend or, in this case, someone who was being friendly. He didn't know that to some it had become almost derogatory, through sarcastic over-use. He figured it was polite, and he certainly did need help, although he wasn't gonna come right out and ask for it.

Bucky was pretty familiar with that look on the stranger's--Eliot's--face, too, although not usually directed at him from another guy. (Okay, maybe once. Or twice. Well-- Look, he'd grown up in the poorest, queerest part of Brooklyn, he'd had to walk past a handful of gay bars on his way home from work every night, so yes, he'd been flirted with, leered at, even propositioned more times than he could count. He still wasn't real comfortable with it though, just 'cause he never knew how to politely decline said propositions.)

"I'm-- James," he said, hesitating a little over the name. In his head, his father was still James; but he was a grown man now, and being called Bucky by anyone but those who'd known him his whole life seemed a little juvenile. "An' yeah, lost is a good way to put it. I kinda just... wound up here. I was--" dying, but that might scare Eliot off, and Bucky still needed information. "Well, I was kinda in the middle of something, and just wound up here. I don't even know where 'here' is. Just figured I'd... wander around 'til I figured it out."