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Bucky was standing in the kitchen as Sam prepared to leave for his week-long trip to D.C. for a bunch of stuffy meetings with suits. Bucky didn’t envy him, but he did wish he could go along, if only so he didn’t have to try and sleep in their bed alone. The memories of nightmares ghosted across his skin and made him shiver. A warm hand on his shoulder brought him back.
“It’ll only be a week, I’ll call every night. I’ll be home before you know it alright?” Sam was looking at Bucky with concern, rubbing gentle circles into his arm, the flesh one, because he knew Bucky had more feeling there.
Bucky knew that it was just his brain playing tricks on him, but it was hard to have Sam leave. It was hard to be alone. He nodded anyway, trying to convince his boyfriend that he would be perfectly fine in his absence.
Sam didn’t buy it, because of course he didn’t. “Buck, call me if you need me okay? I already meal prepped for you, it’s all in the fridge if your brain gets to you and you can’t prepare it yourself. I also set alarms on your phone to remind you of meal times and when it’s way too late for you to stay up. You’ve got an appointment with Jonny on Wednesday, talk to him please.”
Bucky felt warmth pool in his chest with the way that Sam was taking care of him, covering all the bases, even the ones that were usually forgotten. He couldn’t help but wrap his arms tightly around his boyfriend, cuddling him close and really, really wishing he didn’t have to let go.
“I’ll be alright Sammy, you just try not to die of boredom up there in D.C. alright? Come home quick.” Sam ram his comforting hand through Bucky’s hair, who melted softly into the loving touch.
“I’ll be back before you can even miss me.” With a quick kiss to both Bucky and James, Sam was gone.
His absence was suddenly very very obvious to Bucky as he sat down on the couch and the only warm was coming from a quietly clicking James. “We’re in this together James, you and me.”
To say that James was handling Sam’s absence better than Bucky was, was an understatement. Bucky wasn’t sleeping, eating was hard, his paranoia had ramped back up to ten, and to top it all off, his abandonment issues had reared their ugly heads again. For the first time since he started working with Sam, he started to wonder if the other was really coming back.
His appointment with his new therapist, Jonny, came just in time to keep him from spiraling too hard. However, Jonny immediately knew something was wrong, and Bucky had promised to talk to him, so as much as it was nice to talk, he also, dreaded it immensely. When he sat down in the office he took a deep breath and explained to Jonny what was going on. Jonny listened intently, and didn’t take any notes. Just nodded and smiled at him understandingly.
“It sounds like your BPD, PTSD, and related symptoms are making it really hard for you to exist in your day to day life without some kind of help. Or am I way off base?”
Bucky thought for a moment and then nodded, things had been really difficult since Sam left, and always were, when he was on his own he realized. “No, it is pretty difficult, I hate how dependent I am, but I just, am. I can’t help it.”
Jonny nodded. “Well I‘ve actually been thinking about bringing up this option to you for a while, but I was thinking maybe you should get a service dog.”
“A service dog?” Bucky cocked his head, thinking. “I mean, do you think it will help?”
Jonny nodded. “I’ll send you to a friend of mine that trains service dogs, she has a few right now. Especially an older black labrador that might interest you.” Jonny winked and Bucky felt a little laugh leave him.
“When can I go see her?”
“How’s tomorrow for you? You’ll have to train him in some more specifics, but he’ll be trained in the basics. With hand signals instead of words so people are less likely to distract him while he’s working.”
“Tomorrow is great. Thank you Jonny. You’re the best.”
Bucky made it to the lady’s house and was immediately draw to the black lab that Jonny said he would be drawn to. The lady, her name was Miranne, told him that the lab was the hardest working of the bunch, took his job very seriously, but was a sweetheart off the job, always attempting to sleep at the foot of her bed and cuddling up to her on the couch.
Bucky brought him home the next day. He named him Hawk and set about teaching him to associate his hand signals to verbal commands in Russian, Arabic, French, Spanish, and Yoruba, because he wanted Hawk to be able to understand him when his hands refused to work from the pain in his head.
Hawk, true to Miranne’s words, was a sweetheart on and off duty, pushing Bucky to bed when it was time for him to sleep, hitting the fridge when it was time for Bucky to eat, and curling up around Bucky’s feet when he went to sleep. Hawk and James got along as long as they were in completely different rooms. They fought like he and Sam used to. It was weirdly comforting.
Bucky didn’t expect himself to be helped as much as he was by Hawk, but even after two days, when Sam was supposed to be coming home, he couldn’t imagine not having Hawk around.
Bucky was sitting on the couch, James curled up on his shoulder, Hawk’s head resting in his lap, about to fall asleep when the doorknob turned, he was moving both pets in an instant, running to meat Sam at the door. Sam was definitely not expecting to be jumped on by Bucky as he opened the door, but he caught his boyfriend with a huff anyway.
“Hey, hey Buck, I missed you too. Hey.” Bucky was kissing all over his boyfriend’s face, feeling himself relax in Sam’s comforting presence. “Buck you gotta let me put my stuff down, you gotta let me go.” Bucky shook his head against Sam’s neck, kissing him again and again.
“You were gone for too long, I missed you.”
“I missed you too. C’mon, we can cuddle on the couch. Where’s your dog version of me?”
“If I can’t call James my replacement, you can’t call Hawk the dog version of you.”
“You called me the night you got him and said that he reminded you of me and that’s the only reason you were sleeping that night.”
“Shhhhhhh.” It was Bucky’s turn to try and distract Sam by pulling him towards the couch for cuddling. When they got to the couch, James and Hawk were curled up together sleeping, Hawk’s paw around James’ small body protectively, James’ tail wrapped around the middle of Hawk’s body, keeping him close.
Sam looked over at Bucky with a small smile. “So you wanna mimic them? I could really go for holding you. I missed it like hell in D.C.”
Bucky wrapped himself back around Sam, smiling himself. “You have no idea how much I want that.”