Reassure (Jay Halstead x OC.)

17

TW- mention of ptsd. Extreme nightmare and trauma response. Please be safe and don't read this chapter if you will be upset by the theme. Also, please don't think this is to be in any way a mockery or a scientific interpretation of PTSD as a serious medical condition as it is. Look after yourself and love yourself xx

Enjoy.

The first scream was the worst.

Harrowing and Visceral. Every scrape off of every tooth as it was exulted was heard in one breath.

It shot through her like a bullet. She sprang up from her mattress in a cold sweat, as if she had been drenched in cold water. Shaking and stunned she snapped her head around her darkened room looking for any source of the offending noise but all was still and where it had been left.

She felt her body vibrate with the sudden rock of adrenaline they pumped through her like a train rattling the L tracks.

The first scream woke her up.

But the second 'scream' made her move.

It was halfway between a cry of pain and a splutter of fear. Her body took on a strange autopilot as she sped up and out of her bed, stumbling to regain her footing after having just woken so suddenly.

Her jelly legs carried her out of her room and down the hallway, past the bathroom in the middle and towards Jay's room. Jay's favourite signed baseball bat in her hands. Clench white between her fists.

Jay was an expert marksman and specially trained police officer. Not to mention just his basically perfect health. So if he was being attacked that badly- to make that blood curdling of a noise, what was she gonna do with a bat.

She was six foot of spindly limbs, bushy hair and pale skin.

What was she gonna do to protect her friend.

What had already been done to him as she slept for him to have made that noise.

As she crept towards the door she heard the third scream.

A shout, a whimper dying in Jay's throat. "Fall back....we're all gonna die."

Fuck it. No fucker was killing her bestfriend tonight.

She gave up being stealthy.

Shoulder barging the door like a woman on a mission. So hard it came off of it's hinge and her shoulder came out of it's socket.

She yelped in pain but powered on. Her good arm swinging the back menacingly into the room.

"Hey you fucker-."

But there was no one there.

And Jay's piece was on his bedside table and not in it's safe, so he would have been fine from an intruder.

Jay was alone, in his bed, writhing.

His body was coated in a layer of glistening sweat that forced his basket ball shorts to cling to his legs. His bare chest was heaving as he thrashed and squirmed under imaginary fire.

He was having a nightmare.

That was when she spotted his dog tags, and the third scream made sense, "fall back" an armed forces order. The metal beaded chain and small metal tags a limp reminder of of the damage done to him. She kept them in her sight at all times.

"Oh Jay." She mumbled. A heartbroken crack coming to her voice as he dropped the bat to the carpeted floor and launched herself towards the bed.

Not wanting to suddenly scare him more  or wake him too quickly; she gently, ever so gently, slid her hand around his left wrist as she braced her knee on his side of the bed. Climbing up to sit beside his shuddering figure.