I'll Keep This Secret For You

Chapter 112

Your POV:

"Bucky!" You exclaim for about the tenth time after trying to wake him up, shaking his arm and slapping his cheek.

Sometimes it's hard to tell if he's having a flashback or a nightmare but either way you need to wake him up from whatever is going on inside his head. You think the difference is that often when it's a flashback he goes tense like he's trying to concentrate on not freaking out, whereas a nightmare he seems to actually lash out.

He lays there on the couch still, now on his side, brow creased into a stern line, mumbling away to himself under his breath. knuckles white from gripping the pillow he holds so hard.

"Buck, come on, it's just a dream. Wake up." You insist.

He's murmuring all kinds of things incoherently, stiff as a board and clutching a pillow to his chest. But then he says something that although you have no idea what it is because it sounds like jibberish, it sounds like distinct, clear words.

"*Longing, Rusted, Seventeen, Daybreak, Furnace, Nine, Benign, Homecoming, One, Freightcar.*" He grunts quietly.

You frown to yourself. What? It's like a list. But is it in a different language or something?

"*Longing, Rusted, Seventeen, Daybreak, Furnace, Nine, Benign, Homecoming, One, Freightcar.*"

There it is again.

And then it hits you, a conversation not too long ago after he was last triggered.

"Steve said the guys was saying something in Russian to trigger me."

You gasp. What if this is his trigger? You've never heard him talk about Russian besides this.

"*Longing, Rusted, Seventeen, Daybreak, Furnace, Nine, Benign, Homecoming, One, Freightcar.*"

He keeps repeating it!

Immediately you scramble over to the coffee table to try and find a pen and paper so that you can write it down. Not that you have a clue what the words are but maybe if you can write what they sound like then it could be a start?

You go back to him and as he repeats the sentence once more you try to scribble down what you hear as accurately as possible. Thankfully he's saying it slowly, a pause after each word so you have time to write everything down. Then, once you're sure you have everything as good you set the notepad aside and immediately start trying to wake him up. Completely... and stupidly... disregarding the possibility that he may have triggered himself in his sleep by saying those words.

But when you do wake him up, it's not that that you're worried about.

"Bucky! Come on baby. Wake up for me please, I have to show you something." You grunt as you start shaking him more and more violently, standing over him at this point.

He wakes suddenly with a jolt, but instantly he's not paying attention to you. He looks around the room to see where he is but from his next reaction you get the feeling that he thinks he's somewhere else, perhaps still where he was in his flashback?

"No! No! No! No! No! Please! Not again! Don't let me go back there again!" He cries out and buries his face in his hands, curling up defensively in the fetal position.

"Buck?" You ask him unsurely as you gently try to pry his hands away from his face. "What's wrong? Baby it's okay, you're at home. See? You're in the living room."

But he won't budge, just whimpers and cries, his sobs muffled by his hands. Until his breathing rate starts to increase quickly and become ragged until he is practically at the point of hyperventilation.