Steve & Bucky

Steve & Bucky at 3am

He woke up screaming, like he does most nights. Bucky sat upright in his bed drenched in sweat. He took off his shirt, but left his dog tags on as they stuck to his chest. He clenched his tags in one hand and held his head in the other.

"Buck?" called out Steve from right beside him. "Buck are you okay?" Steve sat up next to Bucky and put his hand on his shoulder. He planted a quick kiss on his cheeck and asked, "Another nightmare?"

"Yeah," Bucky said slowly as he put his hand on top of Steve's while the other was still gripping the tags. Bucky never described the dreams, but then again Steve never asked. Steve knew that whatever it was, it was bad enough to crawl into Bucky's head every night and scare him. Bucky was not easily scared, but Steve already knew that.

"It was just.. It was so awful..." Bucky started to say, and then his words were no longer understandable. He started breathing rapidly; faster and faster every second. His eyes darted around the room as it started spinning. Tears started to form in his eyes as he replayed the dream in his head.

Steve quickly wrapped both of his arms around Buckys shoulders and squeezed. One of the many things he'd learned from Bucky's episodes was that applied pressure can calm a person down from a panic attack. So, Steve held Bucky tight in his arms as Bucky sobbed. He just kept repeating "It was just so awful", but Steve didn't mind. He had no idea what was going through Bucky's mind, but he tried everything he could to make it stop.

Steve had one arm around Bucky, and Bucky had one hand still wrapped around the tags. Their other hands were intertwined as they slowly drifted back to sleep, together.