jackabbot | Polar Nightmares

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robby

Polar Nightmares

His therapist in Pittsburgh had told him once that he thought Jack preferred nights because the darkness was a source of comfort for him, and Jack didn't think he was wrong. He usually wasn't, which was the annoying part about therapy. A lot of people were scared of or disliked the dark, which he understood, but he’d never found it scary, even before he'd started working nights all the time. Jack thought it was a lot worse to see all the shit that was coming his way in the light, in a lot of ways, whether that was mortars or MVAs. All of that meant that this polar night thing Darrow suddenly had going on was just fine with Jack in terms of what he was doing and how he was doing it, but he knew that wasn’t true for most people.

Robby, in particular, had been getting incredibly fucking grumpy. He’d come over to Jack’s apartment after he finished another shift of caring for people who had been injured “running into shit because no one remembers to carry a goddamn flashlight or even just use the flashlight function on their fucking phone”. Jack had fed him huevos rancheros, given him a beer, and let him complain, then sent him off to shower and go to bed. Jack’s own body clock wouldn’t let him sleep for a few hours yet, so he read a book on the couch until he thought he could sleep.

When he went to his bed, he fell asleep easily in the new sheets Robby had given him, but he was also almost immediately dropped into a nightmare. He was back in Afghanistan but it was Sarajevo but it was Iraq. There were IEDs but there were missiles but there was friendly fire from tanks. He smelled burning cloth and hot metal and gasoline. He tasted sand and blood and sweat as he tried to tourniquet everyone and everything. He didn’t have enough supplies, enough time, enough skill. Soldiers were dying and Robby was dying and Diane was dying and neither of them should have been there. No one should ever have been there. He called out for suppressing fire, for more supplies, for anything that would slow the blood and death.

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One of the shitty things about rapidly approaching his mid-fifties is that he can't get through a full night's sleep without getting up to pee, anymore. He's also got heartburn because, as his Baba used to say, it never rains unless it goddamn pours. When he's at Jack's, he sleeps in boxers and a t-shirt, and he hauls himself out of bed and shuffles to the bathroom, stretching his arms over his head and stifling a yawn against his bicep. In the bathroom, he pees by the glow of the light over the basin and then opens the bathroom cabinet, looking for antacids. Jack stores all his actual medication in a cupboard in the kitchen, so the bathroom is mostly hygiene and first aid.

It's while he's chewing that that he hears it -- Jack calls out something that sounds very like his wife's name, followed a beat later by something that sounds very like Robby's own. There's a door from the bathroom into Jack's bedroom, and Robby pauses, with his hand on the handle, just listening.

There was an air raid siren going off and there was no cover to get to. There was nowhere to go, nowhere to be that was safe. Nothing was safe. No one was safe. He crouched down to get as low as he could, but it wasn't enough. It was never enough and he felt pain in his foot and his leg and his head and his heart. He saw Robby fall and he wasn't fast enough to get to him, he couldn't move, so all he could do was call for him.

If anything, it gets worse and Robby hesitates for another moment longer and then he pushes open the door that leads into Jack's bedroom. The light from the bathroom is dim, but it's enough to make out Jack twisted hopelessly in his sheets, his hands fisted in his pillowcase. He can see how much Jack is sweating, the sheen on his bare back. Academically, he knew that Jack probably had to have nightmares -- it's part and parcel of the PTSD diagnosis -- but this is the first time he's seeing it happen.

There's an alarm chiming in the dark. It takes Robby a moment to realise that it's Jack's smart watch.

"Jack?" he says, voice soft as he pads towards the bed. "Hey. Jack."

The siren was still sounding, but the explosions hadn't started yet. The worst part was waiting for the bombs to start to drop, the mortars to start to fire, the blood to start to flow. The time stretched forever, just before it compressed into not being able to move fast enough, work hard enough, stabilize quickly enough

He heard Robby's voice and heard a heart monitor sounding to indicate tachycardia, but where was he? Where was he injured? Jack would need to get him stabilized, make sure it wasn't hypovolemic shock. Why wasn't there a tourniquet nearby? Where was the fucking tourniquet?

Saying Jack's name, apparently, wasn't going to cut it. Robby pauses for a moment, and then he leans over the bed, checking Jack's pulse. Definitely tachycardia. Possibly, it would pass, but he also can't stand the sight of Jack so vulnerable, so visibly scared. He hasn't seen him like this since Diane died. He can't just walk away and leave him.

"Jack," he says again but, this time, he drops down into a crouch next to the bed, reaching out with one hand to.shake Jack's shoulder. "Brother. C'mon."

The ground was shaking. The explosions were starting and the ground was shaking as the sirens continued to sound. Robby was calling his name again. Robby needed him. Why couldn't Jack get to him?

Between one second and the next, he woke up and saw Robby's worried face crouching next to him in the dark. There was no blood on it.

"No blood," he said in relief, and put a hand out to touch Robby's cheek without even really thinking about it or whether he should do that without asking. He had to know for himself that Robby was alright. "You're okay. No blood."

Jack touches his face and it's so unexpected that Robby just blinks and then, after a moment, leans his cheek into the touch without really thinking about it. He doesn't try to pull away, anyway, because Jack obviously needs the reassurance.

"No blood. I'm okay. Just a nightmare, man." He can imagine the kind of things Jack was dreaming about.

He woke up just a little more and realized that he was caressing Robby's cheek. He immediately pulled his hand back like Robby's cheek was on fire because that was definitely crossing a line of personal boundaries.

"Fuck, sorry," he said immediately, since he'd apparently woken Robby up with his fucking nightmares and then made it worse by touching his face without asking. His smartwatch was still making noise and he looked at it before silencing the high heart rate alarm.

"A hundred and twenty. Shit, no wonder I feel like ran a fucking marathon."

"Don't apologise," says Robby and he doesn't pull back, even when Jack takes his hand away. He stays crouched at the side of the bed. "What do you need? Water? A washcloth?"

Mostly, he just wants Jack to be calm.

"A less broken body and brain would be nice," Jack said faintly. He needed to get his heart rate down if only so Robby didn't try to put a 12-lead on him, but he couldn't quite get his breathing under control yet, which meant his heart rate wasn't going to go down.

The images of Robby were still behind his eyes and he closed them, hoping that would make them float away.

Even though he's awake, Jack still sounds on the verge of hyperventilating and Robby needs that to not happen. He shifts, sitting back on his heels so that he's a bit more stable.

"You need me to breathe with you?" he asks, voice pitched low and calm in the dim light.

"No, man, go back to bed. Sorry I woke you up," Jack said without opening his eyes. He'd accepted so much about how his life had changed and how much he couldn't change about it, but he still felt embarrassed by being caught in a nightmare. He always had, right back to the first ones he'd had with Diane in the bed. It was worse that he woke Robby up, though. Robby had a shift tomorrow morning. He didn't need to be dealing with Jack's mental trauma.

Robby doesn't even justify that with a response. He just straightens up, his hands coming to rest on his hips for a moment.

"Shift your ass over, man," he says. "And then we can do some box breathing."

Jack wanted to argue with that. He wanted to tell Robby again that he didn't need to be here, didn't need to see this, but even in his half-awake, still breathing too fast and moderately tachycardic state, he could tell that Robby had decided to be stubborn about this. If he were more awake, he'd be grateful for his friend. Right now he was just embarrassed.

He rolled with effort away from the edge of the bed, or at least tried to. He'd somehow gotten all twisted up in his own sheets.

"God fucking dammit," he snarled, low and angry at himself and the universe.

"For Christ's sake, that's not going to help your heart rate, is it?" Robby usually steadfastly refuses to do anything for Jack when he's not wearing his prosthetic unless explicitly asked to, but this is different. Jack hasn't entirely gotten back to himself yet. Gently, patiently, Robby helps to disentangle the sheets a little.

"Better?"

"My heart rate is not your fucking problem. I'm not your patient," he tried to argue, but he also let Robby gently free him from the knot of sheets he'd gotten himself into. He did feel much less trapped once his remaining foot was free and a sheet end wasn't wound tightly around the end of his residual limb.

He flopped back onto the pillow away from the edge of the bed and tried to breathe normally as he stared at the texture on the ceiling of the bedroom. Robby was probably going to sit on the edge of the bed and there was room for him to do that.

"No," says Robby pretty shortly. "You're not."

Jack's much more than that, and they both know it even, of lately, it has felt more complicated. Jack thumps back against his pillow and leaves room for Robby to sit down, so that's what he does, back against the headboard, one leg stretched out on the mattress.

"C'mon, asshole," he says. "Box breathing."

That actually startled half a laugh out of Jack, which was probably Robby's goal. Either that or he'd gotten frustrated with Jack's grumpiness. Maybe both. Two things could be true.

He put a hand up to half-heartedly flip Robby off, but he also closed his eyes and started doing some goddamn box breathing. He could feel the warmth of Robby's body near but not touching him, and that helped him feel a little more calm too.

He wants to touch Jack -- squeeze his shoulder, maybe, or comb his fingers through his hair -- but he settles for taking Jack's arm and pressing two fingers to Jack's wrist to take his radial pulse as he breathes. He knows that Jack's wearing a smart watch, but he'll always trust himself more.

"Keep going," he prompts.

The first few breaths were not a box. Jack wasn't sure what shape they were, but they were not a box. Gradually, though, he was able to breathe more easily and they were more of a box. Robby's fingers on his wrist helped, too, even though Jack knew Robby was only touching him so he could make sure Jack's heart rate was coming down.

The smartwatch chimed to indicate that Jack's heart rate had fallen below 100 bpm again. Robby would take his hand away from Jack's wrist any second now.

Jack's breathing evens out and his heart rate starts to settle, and Robby stays right where he is, two fingers pressed against Jack's pulse. They get to the point where he could have let Jack take his arm back, but Jack doesn't give any indication of pulling away so Robby keeps his wrist where it is.

"That's it," he says, voice still pitched low. Unconsciously, his breathing starts to mirror Jack's.

Robby hadn't let go of his wrist yet and his warm, strong fingers were still firmly pressed to Jack's pulse. Jack's awareness of the world was narrowing again. He was focusing on Robby breathing next to him. Robby was breathing. Robby wasn't injured. He wasn't bleeding out into the sand and dust and dirt, staining the ground a color that never could be mistaken for oil or any other substance.

Jack's pulse picked back up again and his breathing got rougher as the images started playing through his head again.

He hears Jack's breathing slip irregular again, feels the skip in his heartbeat. It's not all that surprising, though. Panic attacks tended to linger, and Jack's definitely on the verge of one.

"Hey," he says, fingers curling around Jack's wrist, giving him some sensory input. "Three things you can hear. Go."

Robby's hand slid around his wrist, but he still had two fingers on Jack's radial pulse. Jack tried to think about the warmth of Robby's hand, not how quickly a person could become cold after circulation ceased. He tried to focus on whatever Robby needed him to focus on right now, even though he wasn't sure why. He did know why. But he didn't know why.

"Furnace," he said faintly. "Faucet dripping. Your voice."

"Right. Good." He keeps up the steady pressure around Jack's wrist, monitoring his pulse and holding on at the same time. "Now give me three things you can feel. Physically." He wants to wrap his free arm around Jack, but he also doesn't want to overwhelm him.

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