A Single Saturday Night {Bucky Barnes } 18+

Dreams

{ Song inspiration Dreams by Fleetwood Mac}

Hey guys!

So I have no idea where this came from; I couldn't get it out of my head. So ta-da! 🤗

Enjoy this little mini-fic, which will be 5-6 chapters.

Don't forget to like and comment!

Happy Reading!

-Sif

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It had been almost ten years since Bucky Barnes had stepped foot in this Podunk town in bum fuck nowhere Indiana; it had nearly been a year since his honorable discharge from the United States military. Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes, U.S. Army Special Forces Green Berets (Retired). Bucky won't deny that the small was a welcome change of environment from the Middle East's heat, sand, and insurgents trying to kill him every chance they got.

Bucky had been back in town two months now; his sister Rebecca had been on his case about getting out of his house. "It's not healthy to stay cooped up inside all the time, Bucky; you need sunlight and to be around people," she said, dropping by with her weekly arm full of leftovers. He appreciated what she was doing, truly he did, but Bucky wasn't sure he was ready to be around people.

Every time he closed his eyes, he saw the faces of all those he had killed in the name of the United States, all the innocents that had gotten in the way, wrong place, wrong time. Becca didn't understand; coming home from deployment was hard; he spent half his early adult life serving his country. Only to come home and be riddled with survivor's guilt and PTSD set in; he looked at everyone and everything as a potential threat. He felt jumpy and on edge all the time, desperately wanting to go back to the desert covered in blood, the screams, and the bullets flying; at least over there, you knew who the bad guys were. He'd made the mistake of saying so once; Becca looked at him like he was a crazy person. He doesn't blame her; he'd look at him like that, too; Bucky knows she doesn't understand and prefers it that way.

His therapist had recommended he get out of the house after their last session, trips to the store, go for a walk in the park, and head to the bar with his buddies for a drink. Go anywhere; just be out for thirty minutes.

He had been seeing Doctor Raynor for about five years now; she was good, damn good. She always told him how it was, whether he wanted to hear it. He'd declined another invitation to go out with friends on a blind date; he wasn't going to say anything. But then the good doctor had to fuckin ask, and because he's incapable of getting anything passed this woman, he comes clean.

"I know men like you," she says, clicking her pen and looking at him over her glasses.

Bucky huffed, crossing his arms, "Men like me?" he said, raising an inquiring brow at her comment.

She nodded, "Men who have seen too much, experienced too much, won't allow themselves to enjoy life again because they know what it's like to have everything ripped away." She says, taking her glasses off; she carefully folds them up and then points them at him. "You think you're protecting yourself."

Bucky scowled; god damnit, he hated it when she was right. He knew she was right because it had taken him years and countless hours of therapy even to realize what the fuck he was doing.

Doctor Raynor closed her little notepad with a sigh, "Let me give you some advice, James." She said, sitting up on the edge of her over-stuffed armchair. "You're not allowing yourself to be happy now, in the moment. That won't make future pain hurt any less; you're keeping yourself from being happy, which is a damn shame." She says, her warm brown eyes digging into his very being. He absolutely detests when she does this to him; it's the mother guilt trip effect, as he so brilliantly calls it. "Life is too damn short; you and I both know this. You don't owe anybody a goddamn thing for being happy; you did what you had to do to survive." She said firmly.