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James 'Bucky' Buchanan carries on.He doesn't like the word 'live',because he doesn't think he does that.
He remembers hearing his teacher in high school,Mrs.Hudson,she was a good one,always used to say 'Remember Barnes,you haven't lived until you've felt like it.Until you've felt like it doesn't get better than that.'
Bucky feels like it couldn't get worse.
But he's used to it.He doesn't think his life is sad,nor that he lives in misery because he has a roof over his head and food on his table almost regularly,so that's more than enough,but his life is just it.
Bucky doesn't know if he's allowed to say his life is boring,not because he'd feel guilty right after,but because he doesn't really know what or if he's feeling most of the time. He has stopped living a while ago,doesn't even remember when or how it happened.
He'd want to visit Mrs.Hudson sometimes,grab her by the shoulders and ask her what he needs to do in order to live again,yell at her that it's been so long since he was able to do it.
Sure he laughs,he's not like a trained sort of machine,he doesn't go around with a constant frown planted on his face moping around or something,no,it's the opposite.Bucky Barnes is just your average trouble maker,chasing skirts and dancing at the bar,Lord knows he's so tired of always dancing to the same song,with the same beat and the same steps.
One of his reasons to go on used to be Steve,tiny punk Steve with his blond hair and his sense of righteousness mixed with bad temperament.It still is. Bucky wakes up each morning at five in the morning for him,he makes himself breakfast for him,he goes placing heavy boxes around at the docks for him,he does everything for him.He used to feel happier and more satisfied about it,but he guesses his incapacity to feel has ruined that too for him.
He knows what he's supposed to feel,he's able to recognize it because he has been feeling it for too long.He remembers what being happy or sad is like.He's just not sure he'd be able to let out a real laugh or a cry of pain.
He knows he's envious,envious of the way his bestfriend and roommate can walk in every room and light up the scene,envious of his laugh,which defienetly doesn't sound strained and absolutely tired,envious of his genuine interest in girls.
He also knows he loves him,always had ever since he learned what loving was,the first time he understood the word he was like 'Yeah,I love Steve',and he hasn't stopped ever since.
He loves his gorgeous lively blue eyes,his soft looking lips,his broken nose (he couldn't back away from a fight if it were God himself descending and telling him to stop the recklessness) his capacity of not letting Bucky give up,even though the brunet isn't sure he's aware of it. But it's just it.
Bucky doesn't know whether Steve'd ever love him back,he doesn't ask because he doesn't care.He's sure Steve wouldn't,but he's not even interested into finding out.
Why?Because it doesn't make sense to Bucky.
It used to,before,back when renting a house with his best pal (and love of his life) sounded exciting,even if it was just a hell of a shoe box.Back when the idea of work sounded like going back to school to make new friends and all that nonsense that kids look up to.
But now?The current Bucky thinks it's all pointless;friendship,love,family,all things that will fade in life,just like he'll do,so why even bother trying?
He can go on without knowing what people think of him,or without knowing how kissing someone you're in love with would be like. He has pictured it many times,he's guilty of kissing other men in the dark whilst hoping it were Steve instead,but he's not sure it's something that would benefit him in any way other than giving him pleasure.
Just like he has pictured how it would just be like to let go of everything;not go to work,not eat,not care after Steve,not breath anymore,and the thought doesn't scare him.
But then he feels like screaming,knowing that Steve'd feel bad,that he'd blame himself,and he can't have that. Because he remembers his last moment spent at Sarah Rogers' side,next her deathbed and how he promised that he'd never leave Steve alone.But he's not staying because of a promise,he's staying because if there's one thing that makes him pull a frown is the thought of Steven Rogers living by himself,being alone.
And Bucky tries to remember how being happy feels like,how sharing a laugh,tries to remember so he can pretend enough for Steve.
Sometimes Bucky leaves.He goes on endless trips,wanders through the city right after leaving a certain amount of money on the drawer for Steve to make it through the days (or week) and when he comes back Steve doesn't question it,not after the last time where Bucky had yelled at him to mind his own and shut the fuck up.
Because Bucky's brain gets noisy sometimes,and if he lets it be like that for too long then it'd get too busy in there,and he wouldn't want to let it out on Steve so he does his best getting drunk and fucked.
Most nights Bucky lies awake imagining how it would feel to sit Steve down and tell him,yell at him that he's so fucking mad at the fact that he's not leaving because of him,that he's so tired of pretending and of Steve letting him do it,but then he calms down,his breath coming at the right pace again as he realizes for the billionth time that it's not Steve's fault if he's broken.
Bucky wishes he'd know how to cry,that way he'd just let it out and go on,but he only knows frowning and forced smiles so it's his loss.
But when he hears about Pearl Harbor,about what's going to happen he secretely crosses his fingers 'please let them choose me,please let them choose me' not because of his own sense of patriotism but because it'd be so easy to go during action,a bullet at his chest and he's just a 'soldier who died because he believed in what was right',he almost laughs at that.
At the same time he doesn't want to enlist,because even though he has stopped believing in heaven or hell long ago,he still feels Sarah Rogers'eyes watching over him and letting him keep that promise.
And he gets drafted,and all he can think when he leaves is 'please keep him out of all this,please.' and at this point he doesn't even know who he's pleading.
He just knows he has lost his comrades in the blink of an eye,killed many,many innocents and is being praised about it when all he feels is just the weight on his shoulders getting heavier and heavier.
'Seargent James Barnes' is what they call him,it's what he repeats in a state of shock on a table where he's been experimented on,followed by a series of numbers that he'll never forget.
And then he sees him,Steve,his tiny punk Steve in a body that finally matches his sould but he could never thank the Lord when he sees he's being rescued because he didn't want anything from life,just to let Steve be safe,safe and away from that goddamn war that turned him into an amplified version of what he was before,that and a murderer.
Steve can't see the horror,he can't know the pain of losing a comrade because he didn't give out the right order,he can't know what it's like to hold a weapon at someone's body.
So now he has to carry on again,still for him And when he sees her,Peggy Carter,a hell of a woman with fire in her eyes he feels smoke through his lungs,a voice in his head repeating him that 'he doesn't need me anymore' and he's reminded of what pain should have felt like,especially when he sees him looking at her like she hangs the stars in the sky and remembers that he's supposed to feel relieved.Steve is finding happiness into someone who knows who they are,who knows how to laugh,who knows how to live.
And when he's offered that hand on that train he decides not to grab it,knowing he's leaving Steve with guilt and grief but feeling like they're close to winning and he can't go back,not to an apartment that holds too many memories and the promise that has made him carry on through all this time.
He wouldn't need to be truthful to it anymore,so it's either on a train with the only person he has ever loved and cared for than alone with his noisy thoughts.
James 'Bucky' Buchanan Barnes stops carrying on.He'd say he has died but he wouldn't know the difference between that and what he has been doing ever since he was sixteen.
The Winter Soldier takes over.