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Infrequent they might be but-
Sam has nightmares of his own.
There's benefit of time for being able to deal with them but they never really go away and they never really would. He should have expected it with them chasing after Barnes like they were, tearing into abandoned or not-so-abandoned HYDRA hideouts and digging up a mess of shit that makes his gut turn while he's waking.
He has nightmares of his own and they always seem to center around not being able to save someone. The breathless moment in which he looked back over his shoulder, with the deafening roar of wind and air and freedom around him falling to blank static is ingrained in his very being. Sam carries it over his shoulders in a pack like the one for his wings. There was a time that he couldn't and it weighed him down so bad he could barely crawl. He's not spouting off anything he hasn't had to pull on himself to the vets at the VA. Wouldn't dare.
He lost Riley in broad-fucking-daylight. 0900 – a few hours into their AM shift. The call to mobilize still beating in his head as much as the sun. One solider down and a path needed to cleared for the chopper because hostilities were raging out of control on the outskirts of this skit.
In that moment he didn't understand what he was seeing. They were good. Too good for that sort of rookie mistake, with over two dozen successful missions flown without major damage to either of them when others they tried to train with wingsets barely could pull out of a practice drop.
EXO-7 FALCON.
EXO-7 REDWING.
Him. Riley. Brown (EAGLE). Patterson (RAVEN). Rodriguez (HAWK). Sullivan ('What the fuck is a-'URAL).
Five of them came home. After Riley they all got more careful and then the whole program was decommissioned. Sam found that he was glad for all the training on intense sleep-deprivation because unconsciousness was a fleeting and cruel thing. If it wasn't Riley he was seeing blown up over and over in screeching static it was one of the others. It was the soldiers that grabbed his arm when he touched down, scared, fucking scared because their leg is gone, their arm is gone. You know you can die but when you face it so acutely it's a completely different game.
He sees the ones he hasn't saved.
He's ripped open jeeps and seen his mother in the driver's seat.
When he turns that night with stomach dropping and a familiar voice in his ear over the comm with an aborted noise before the roar-
The uniform he catches isn't the dusty tan of desert fatigues cut for the harness of their wingsets but blue and white. There's a shield dropping and suddenly water everywhere below them and-
Steve's hand on his shoulder shaking him firmly when his eyes snap open and he's gasping, panting hard with sweat on his brow, between his shoulders and Steve's voice repeating his name. Those eyes are so blue that even in the filtered pitch of light through the motel's curtains he's picked out the color. It helps. Riley's were green.
“Sam? Sam. It's a dream. You were dreaming.”
He knows. He knows but his hands still shoot out and grab Steve by the arms before he can stop himself, searching for something physical to make sure that he's not dreaming because those nightmares where Riley or his father are still alive even worse. He hates that Inception bullshit where he rolls into one dream from another. This needs to be real.
Steve takes that as a cue to climb into the bed with him, pulling him into his arms and Sam goes without protest, shaking his head. He didn't expect that one to hit as hard as it did. He didn't need to hear Steve's voice repeating the same flirty banter that made up Riley's last words. Sam buries his face in Steve's shoulder, breathing harsh but working to get it under control and makes a wordless sound of appreciation when Steve gives him a little more, rubbing his back pretty much the same way he did when their positions were reversed.
It's been a while since the last time a dream took him this hard but he calms himself down and after a few minutes his breathing events out. He stays where he is though. There's really no rush to get out of Steve's arms when he feels like everything's about to pitch over, start tumbling out of control like he did after getting grazed. Too busy frozen out of disbelief.
Who knows how long passes before he gets it together to find words. A while. Sam doesn't
“Damn...” And sounds rough even to his own ears.
Sam feels the wind up in Steve's next intake of air making that great chest rise underneath his chin.“You haven't been sleeping the past couple of nights.”
There's no rush to reply. Not a hard thing to notice when Steve had been up just as much or more. “It's...-” His start is abandoned. It's been harder than he expected in some ways, okay in others. A lot of things he put down felt like they were all shaken up again.
Another wind-up. “If this is too much...”
He almost rolls all the way over on that.“Steve...man, if there is any question you need to stop asking me – it's that.”
Steve falls silent, the smoothing rhythm of his hand over Sam's back stops and Sam desperately wishes to have it start again. He's glad Steve doesn't remark further on actually having these sort of dreams. He told him that he had them occasionally when Rogers tried apologizing for the third night in a row of fitful, shitty sleep early into their trip and apparently he remembered? Understood. He continues to be grateful for the easy understanding that flows between them and that crawling in bed with a fellow solider is still a natural reaction for Steve as much as for him. Whatever weird longing tension that's stretching between them almost every other hour isn't consulted.“You're right. I'm sorry.”
“Apology accepted.” Like he could stay mad. “...but if you want proper penance you can do the coffee run in the morning.”
He can feel Steve's short huff. “Is that all that it takes?” He starts rubbing again and Sam thinks to himself No, this is but keeps it to himself.
“Hell no, but it's always a good place to start.”
That gets one of those chest-chuckles again, though it lapses half a second later. Steve traces the span of his shoulderblade in a way that manages to ease some of the tension from underneath. “Do you want to talk about it?
No.
Yes? He's not sure...but he knows Steve isn't asking just to pay lip-service back. Sam gives him a non-committal noise, breathes in deep and let's it out. He doesn't want to add, that's the main thing. Steve carries a lot and Sam's here as his support – he doesn't want to add to that and he knows Steve will pick up his problems just as much. Already was since they were both monitoring each other's sleep or lack-of-thereof. Sam carries on with the insomnia as one lengthy prelude to the harder of dreams, has his spell then starts the cycle over over; Steve gets both as the old one-two all the time lately. He says he thinks it has to do with his memory – everything sticks and nothing fades for him like they used too.
This isn't the sort of night he wants to be alone.
He never told Riley and it wasn't even some 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' bullshit that kept his lips shut. He never told him and that left those words thick in his mouth, absolutely useless when all he got back were melted scraps of dogtags. Just the edge of his last name was visible, the 'gh' that once spelled out Riley Vaugh.
If he had a dime for every time Riley alphabetized their last names as an excuse to go first...
“Six years and the same thing keeps playing over and I can't do a damn thing to change it. I can't move, no matter who it is. I can't stop it and I just have to watch. I can't do...anything. He falls- they fall and I have to watch. Sometimes it lasts long enough I get clipped again.” That's always fun.
Sam feels Steve tense at that but they've already touched on the fact they've got that experience in common. Nothing's worse than watching. You end up fighting that one helpless moment for the rest of your life.
Steve's so careful about asking it's impossible for him to not get the message that he doesn't have to answer. “Who did you see?”
Sam tells him anyway.“You. The Potomac.”
“Sam...” There's hurt for him, that quiet sort of horror which is thankfully not as severe in Steve's voice as it is when they're pouring over files, pictures or Barnes' videos during his 'conditioning'. Sam's not sure what he would have done if it sounded the same.“Sam, I swear-”
No, no.. “Don't- Don't promise that.” For all Steve's strength and super-healing there's no guarantee they won't come into something that does take Captain America down. They already got too close to that with the helicarriers and Sam's heart can do without the repeat performance.
“No, I know- I can't- but Sam,” It should be criminal what Steve Rogers can invoke with just a person's name.
“Just..we both just need to be careful. Whatever comes next.”
“I swear, I'll be careful.”
Sam believes him. Believing in Steve is actually one of the easier things left in the world. It's still a dangerous promise because reckless has come to mind more than once in Sam's head while they're engaging hostile operatives and listening to a little bit of reason comes at the end of the list when Steve's got his mind set on something but he believes him. He wants to, needs to, knows it in his gut and feels a warmth that hopes for a little more.
“I'm gonna hold you to that.”
He needs to tell him.
“I expect you to.”
“Yeah?” Sam shifts enough so he can look up and there's a tenderness on Steve's face along with the gravitas.
“Yeah” Steve echoes, head bending down low enough for Steve to press his lips to Sam's forehead. The whole gesture carries the air of being thought about but not at that exact moment. Steve tenses though he refuses to pull away and commits with the sure click of a magazine. “I've got you.”
There's prickling, a wet salty burn behind the tight shut of his eyes; the breathless feeling in his chest. Yeah. He has him. He has him more than Steve knows.
Or maybe he does.
–
Morning comes with him alone in the bed and Steve out of the room, judging from his missing jacket and the keys from the desk-table. Sam can't find it in him to lounge around in bed so he drags himself up out, into the shower and is decently put together by the time the door opens again. Steve slips back in, balancing one of those drink trays that often end up more trouble than they're worth in one hand, a brown bag in the other.
And he somehow managed to find somewhere local- just judging from the cups. Miracle of miracles.
“Hey,” his smile is small, quick. Those blues set to looking him over, checking in.
“So you went for the penance.” Sam shrugs. He'll live.
“Took about as long as ten 'Our Fathers', so I figured it wasn't a big deal. The least I could do.”
“Well the 'least' smells great.” Steve hands him one of the coffees but Sam puts it down almost immediately after it's warm in his hand. It earns him a look, Steve squinting a bit in question.
“Thanks. For last night. I'll say it right here and right now so it's clear: I'm in for the long run. And if you wanna look over to your right even after we find Barnes, I'm all about being there then too. It's...good, Steve. We're good.”
Funny how easy it is to actually get that out once he puts his mind to it.
And even easier to step in and press their lips together, making it one-hundred percent clear this could be a full-package deal but Steve's already there open for the kiss. It's smooth, easy and he finds out that Steve's already drank from his coffee. Steve also fits into the hold of Sam's hands like he belongs there, definitely like he wants to be.
“You've been waiting, haven't you.” Sam barely breaks away. Forehead to forehead, nose to nose, voice dry as he asks.
He leaves himself open for it and of course Steve takes it.“I've just been wondering when you were going to catch up, that's all.”
Sass and all (Steve Rogers is a punk) he'll take it.
Gratefully.