The night terrors haven't abated, apparently. They've just gone stealth.

He wakes up near dawn, not sure what woke him, listening for a moment before he hears it again. The soft whistling noise, like air escaping a balloon, coming from across the tent. It's not a snore… he's not sure what it is.

Suddenly uneasy, he turns to look at Bucky, who's now lying on his back. Bucky's eyes are closed, but the lids are fluttering like restless wings, and upon closer examination, the fingers tangled in the edges of the blanket are white-knuckled and shaking. His chest is going up and down a little faster than it probably should be, and his ratty shirt is damp and clinging. The strangled sound is coming from somewhere low in the back of Bucky's throat.
He can't tell if Bucky's even aware he's making it.

"Buck…?" He sits up on his elbows. The sound stutters for an instant, but Bucky doesn't stir.
Steve slowly pushes his blanket away and swings his feet down to the ground.
"Bucky, are you ok, pal?" Now that he's standing he can see his friend is twitching -just the tiniest bit- every so often.

He knows he shouldn't wake Bucky abruptly. He knows that. ...But he's not sure if Bucky's actually breathing at this point. It doesn't seem like he's getting enough air, and Steve knows intimately how terrifying that is.
...And instinct is screaming in his ear that everything about this is very, very wrong.

He reaches out, tentative and careful.
"Buck?"
Steve's fingers have barely brushed his wrist when Bucky shoots straight up like someone has yanked him by the sternum, wheezing out a strangled cry, his eyes wide and darting. He's clearly disoriented; sucking in an enormous gasping breath, then coughing when he starts to choke on it. He doubles over until Steve's afraid he'll topple right off of the cot; coughing and gasping like he's drowning, like he can't possibly get enough air into his lungs.

Steve is scared. Petrified. This isn't supposed to happen. Bucky's supposed to be ok now. He's supposed to be ok.

"Buck, what's wrong?" Steve can't help the way his voice catches. He hasn't seen Bucky this bad since right after the factory went up; right after he'd found his best friend and dragged him out of HYDRA's prison by the skin of their teeth. Steve had attributed Bucky's bad state to shock and the rawness of his ordeal at the time. Now he's not so sure.

The pale blue eyes that finally turn to him are nakedly frightened. He can see any remaining resolve in them crumbling. Bucky just shakes his head, white-faced and trembling, and collapses heavily into Steve's sturdy shoulder. He leans there bonelessly for a long time, shuddering and heaving short, shallow breaths that alternate with jagged coughing now and again.
Steve clutches helplessly at the back of his friend's head; one thick arm winding around Bucky's shoulders, trying to hold him together against whatever is still lurking inside his head and tearing him apart. He can feel Bucky's heart rabbiting against his ribs over the full-body tremor that's shimmying up and down his friend's frame.

It's several minutes before Bucky finally calms down enough to catch his breath, and he won't talk about it.

"S'nothin' " he says quietly, when he can find his voice; pulling back, though he's still white as a sheet. "Just … just happens sometimes… S'nothin'..."

"Bucky, that wasn't 'nothin'!" Steve is verging on panic himself. He doesn't know what to do and that scares him more than anything he's faced yet. He can't fight this thing. He doesn't know how.

Steve knows sickness intimately. He knows the wet hacking cough of pneumonia. He knows the merciless vice-like squeeze of asthma, crushing the breath out of your lungs. He knows what it feels like to have your body betray you.
He knows all too well what it is to be injured. Has had his teeth pounded in, his ribs busted half a dozen times. His nose still has a permanent hook from the time he got it smashed in grade-school. He knows from hard-won experience how to treat most any scrape or bruise a guy could acquire in a street-fight. He's familiar with broken bones and bloody knuckles. But this… This is new to him. That any ailment could be alien to his experience, after the childhood he endured... is frightening.
There aren't any protocols for this internal hurt. No precedent. This isn't nursing a fever or soothing a cold. This isn't setting a bone or icing a bruise. Steve's got no idea how to protect his friend from whatever it is that's hurting him, and that is terrifying.

"For god's sake... what-" he starts, but Bucky interrupts like he hasn't heard a word.

"Forget it, Steve… Sorry I woke y'up…" Bucky shivers, arms wrapped tightly around his own ribs. His voice is flat and clearly shaken. He still sounds a little breathless. "Don't worry about it."

"Bucky! This-" Steve looks at his friend and hesitates. Bucky's barely keeping what little composure he's regained wrapped around himself like a ragged cloak. He's a millimeter from losing it again and he doesn't want an audience for that. Steve's been on the other side of that feeling more than once... When you're just this side of coming apart at the seams but you're not going to let anyone see. … Not even your best friend.

He should pursue this. He knows he should…
He just… can't.
He can't rub salt in Bucky's wounds, not even if it might help Buck in the long run. He won't be that guy. He's never been able to stand to see Bucky suffer, and that hasn't changed. Call it a weakness, but he just can't do it.

Now's really not the time, he tells himself firmly… not with his friend held together by scraps. They'll discuss it later, he promises himself. In depth.
But later.

So he lets it drop - but he worries about it, all right.
He spends the rest of the day thinking of little else.