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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That gentle tease made the corner of Jack's mouth tick up just for a second. He didn't have the mental energy to go toe to toe with Robby verbally, or honestly the physical energy either. Robby had started running his fingers over the back of Jack's hands to ground him, though, and Jack appreciated it. It felt good. It felt safe. Robby was safe. Robby was safe here, and Robby was safe in general. Robby was not bleeding out in the desert. Diane was not bleeding out in the desert. Jack almost had, though.

"If I try to tell you what I saw, it won't make any sense and I'll probably go tachycardic again and then you'll make me fucking box breathe," he pointed out.

"Damn right I will," says Robby, grinning. He keeps up the slow touch of his fingers against the back of Jack's hand, tracing metacarpals and phalanges in turn. "I think I can probably imagine the gist of it. I meant it when I said we can talk about anything you like. Or we can just lie here. Offer's still there for water or a washcloth, too." He turns his head to look at Jack again. "Whatever keeps your heart rate down."

Sometimes people said they thought they could imagine what Jack had seen, and most of those people were absolutely full of shit. Robby actually could, though, which was something that Jack and Sam had talked about. There was no one in this universe who knew Jack as well as Robby did, good and bad. He knew Jack was a grumpy, nocturnal asshole. He knew Jack had only five toes. And now he unfortunately knew that Jack's PTSD sometimes manifested as nightmares, although realistically he'd probably already assumed that. Robby knew the stats for PTSD and nightmare co-occurrence just like every other ED physician did, or at least should.

"You have a shift tomorrow," he reminded Robby, as if Robby didn't know that. "You should go back to your bed and sleep, not listen to me try not to have another panic attack."

He had no expectation that Robby would do that, and honestly most of him didn't want Robby to do that, but the little embarrassed part of him was still fighting not to be seen. For that reason, he had still not made eye contact with Robby.

If Jack wanted to make him leave, he could definitely be nastier about it, and they both know it. Robby's got no real inclination to leave. Two things aren't lost on him: Jack hasn't looked at him once, and Jack also hasn't tried to take his hand away.

"I know I've got a shift," he says. "And I'd rather listen to that from in here, rather than on the other side of a door, if it comes to it."

"Mother hen," Jack told Robby, but his voice was warm and fond rather than angry or accusative. It was probably more warm and fond than he would have been if he wasn't still feeling the traces of adrenaline floating around his body.

He knew what he needed. He knew what he wanted. He just didn't know if he was going to ask for it. No, he was. And then he was going to tell Sam that he'd asked for it even if it went badly, which it might. He deliberately turned his head to look at Robby.

"I don't fucking know how to ask this other than straight out. Can I borrow your shoulder for a little while? I know you're dealing with some feelings about me right now and I don't want to make that worse or more confusing for you, but I could really fucking use a hug."

Jack asks and, for a moment, Robby doesn't say anything. There's no question of him not doing it, honestly -- no matter what's going on in his own head, Jack's a friend before he's anything else and, if he's asked for something, especially something as vulnerable as that, it's because he really needs it.

"Jesus Christ," says Robby, shifting on the mattress so that he can lift his arm. "Come here."

The relief he felt at Robby reacting like that was substantial. He could have said no, said he didn't want to be that close to Jack right now. He didn't, though, because Robby was a lot of things, but one of the best things about him was his capacity to care about people.

"You want me to put on a shirt?" Jack asked, since he was still only wearing his sleep shorts. He and Robby had seen each other naked, sure, but it had been thirty years ago. It seemed at least polite to offer to be more clothed.

Honestly, it had barely occurred to him, up until that moment, that Jack didn't have a shirt on. When Jack draws his attention to it, his cheeks heat, a little, but, thankfully, the light in the bedroom is dim. "Don't be an idiot. Just come here?" He tugs at Jack's hand, still resting on his chest.

"Copy that," Jack agreed, because if Robby didn't care, Jack sure as fuck didn't care. He rolled towards Robby and settled on Robby's shoulder, then took his hand back from Robby and put it between his body and Robby's. They were touching only where his head rested on Robby's shoulder for now. He wanted to relax into Robby's body a little more, but Robby got to decide how much contact he wanted Jack to have here.

Something catches in his chest when Jack's head settles against his shoulder. He shifts, and then wraps his arm around Jack's bare shoulders. Jack's arm between them isn't exactly comfortable, but if Jack feels the need for a barrier, Robby's not going to make him move it. After a moment, he squeezes Jack a little closer.

Robby squeezed Jack in a little, which was enough permission that Jack moved his arm up and onto Robby's shoulder next to his own cheek, then relaxed in against Robby's side.

"Thank you," he said, mostly into Robby's shirt. "I promise not to fall asleep on you. Just needed a hug."

He could hear the little sounds of Robby's body under his ear, steady and alive. The dream had been just a dream. Robby wasn't dead. Diane still was, but Robby wasn't. Jack wasn't.

"You can sleep if you want to," says Robby, and means it. He feels the moment that Jack relaxes, and his breath hitches before he can stop it. The hug is for Jack's benefit, definitely, but it settles something in Robby's chest, too.

After a moment, he lifts his other hand, brushing his fingers over the back of the hand Jack has reading on his chest.

Robby's breath sounds changed, just for a second, but then they went back to normal, so whatever that had been, it wasn't an issue for more than just that moment. When Robby put his fingers over the back of his hand like he had before, Jack sighed.

"I ought to be used to the nightmares by now," he said, a little bit to himself but also to Robby. "It's not like they're new. And it's not like they're every night anymore. But I just fucking hate it when someone sees me having one. I know it doesn't make any sense. Sam's given me very professional shit about it. But I hate it. I'm sorry if I was an ass."

"It's only me, man," he says, quietly, tracing his fingers over the back of Jack's hand, the other curled around his shoulder, squeezing gently. But he knows what Jack means -- he can't imagine how he'd have felt if Jack had walked in on him on the floor in paeds. "You went through hell. It'd be weirder if you weren't dreaming about it."

"Whoever said 'war is hell' knew what the fuck they were talking about," Jack agreed. Maybe it was from a movie. He didn't know. It was true, whoever'd said it.

He felt warm and safe and ... cared for ... and all the adrenaline that had been running through his body was finally gone and he was probably going to fall asleep right here, if he wasn't careful.

"My pulse is finally down," he said, teasingly, since Robby had been checking that almost compulsively the whole time.

This time, instead of going for Jack's radial pulse, Robby lifts his hand and presses two fingers to Jack's carotid instead, quiet for a moment. Jack is solid and warm against his side, and it's easy to sink into how comfortable it feels.

"You're right," he says, finally. "It has."

"The carotid is not a standard location to take a pulse if the radial is available," he noted, which wasn't to say he minded Robby's choice to check it there.

Robby really did seem content to let Jack just fall asleep on him, although they both knew Jack shouldn't let that happen, even if Robby planned to slip out from under Jack as soon as Jack was asleep. Robby's back was not going to forgive either of them for that choice.

"Sam was pushing me on who in this world knows me, good and bad. Freckles and scars, I guess. And that's you, brother. It was Diane, but now it's just you. And for my diligence in acknowledging that, I got to watch you bleed out into the dirt, at least in my mind."

His pulse ticked up a little bit, but not enough that he was worried. Not enough that Robby would be worried.

He takes his fingers away from Jack's pulse but curls his hand against the side of his neck instead, almost cradling him close for a moment. He'd suspected something like that and, if it's a surprise to hear himself named in the same context as Diane, it doesn't show on his face.

"Nothing happened to me, Jack," he says, quietly. "I'm right here."

He nodded against Robby's chest, because he knew that was true. He knew Robby was here, breathing, warm and alive. But the nightmare had felt true too. It had felt real.

"There is a color that sand turns when there's a lot of blood soaked into it. You can't mistake it for anything else," he said. Robby had seen that color himself. They'd once played a very dark game of Conflict Bingo to try to count how many different ones they'd been in, respectively. No one won that game of Bingo.

"I remember," he says, and he's not sure that this is the thing that Jack needs to be talking about, right now, but if the thing that he wants to talk about, then Robby's going to listen. The hand on Jack's neck shifts, moving to cup the back of his skull instead.

"You survived though. You're still here, man. You've survived every worst day of your life."

Jack exhaled when Robby's hand shifted to the back of his skull. He was most definitely being held and it felt good. It felt beyond good. Jack hadn't been in a bed with someone without very specific very rapid intent since Diane had died, and he hadn't done much of that either. Grumpy nocturnal disabled widowers were still not a catch, and honestly he hadn't wanted anyone other than in a purely physical sense. He'd barely wanted that, even, and his forays into dating and apps had been lackluster to say the least. He'd thought about getting a prescription for sildenafil in case that was his problem, but then realized it'd probably expire before he needed a refill. It was like his libido had been cremated with his wife.

As it turned out, his libido had not been cremated with his wife. He'd definitely felt a little zing of interest when he and Robby had gotten stuck under the mistletoe and now he felt another one when Robby cradled his head like that. Well, fuck.

"God, there have been some contenders for worst day," he agreed. "None of them have been here, at least."

The way that Jack exhales and melts a little closer is probably a good thing, and Robby leaves his hand where it is, Jack's hair soft against his palm. Jack's warm and solid against his side and Robby's a little surprised by how relaxed he is, too.

"Not yet," he says, but Jack's right. Mostly, life in Darrow has been pretty bearable. More so since Jack walked into Darrow General.

"You did get turned into a statue. And of course there was the mistletoe. And now someone apparently turned off the sun," Jack mused. "But I will take every single one of those things combined over the best day in Afghanistan."

Those things were annoying, certainly, and he'd been fucking worried about Robby when he'd been a statue, but no one was shooting at Jack every day. He wasn't riding in Humvees hoping no one blew an IED up under his wheels. He wasn't wearing so many pounds of body armor that he had lost weight from all the sweating and bent the St Michael pendant his grandmother had given him that he wore underneath it. He wasn't taking care of pimply teenagers and very carefully not assuring them that they'd see their moms again when he knew they weren't even going to see the next sunrise. He wouldn't lie to them even in that moment.

He wanted to stretch his arm across Robby's chest to his side. He wanted to put his knee up on Robby's leg, even though it was the bad leg. He was not going to do either of those things, but he was going to be glad he was not in his twenties and didn't have such a hair trigger.

"True on all fronts," says Robby. He's spent time in warzones, but never anywhere like Afghanistan. He doesn't particularly like to think about Jack there, or the state that he must have been in when he came home. "How often do you have the nightmares now?" he asks. The grip he has on Jack's bare shoulder loosens, and he idly trails his fingers up and down his bare arm instead.

Those light fingers on Jack's arm were not helping his sudden awareness of how close he was to Robby. He'd asked for the damn hug in the first place, so it was his own fault, if it was anyone's, but he hopefully covered the shiver with half a shrug to answer Robby's question. He didn't really want to answer it, but one of the things that made Robby such a good diagnostician was his attention to detail. Of course he'd caught that.

"Not that often anymore," he assured Robby. "Fuck, when I was at Landstuhl and once they shipped me to Brooke for rehab, they had me on the highest allowable clinical dose of promethazine for awhile."

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