002 | Jet Link (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
fallenstar) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
makinglies2014-06-30 11:46 pm
fallenstar) wrote in makinglies2014-06-30 11:46 pm
Entry tags:
Monsters don't sleep under the bed, they sleep inside your head.
They'd been really bad when he first woke up in that sterile cell masquerading as a room. They'd always been bad enough, bad enough to keep him sleeping away from the others in his gang so he wouldn't wake them with his sounds and movement, but now they were worse.
There would often be times when he would wake up in a cold sweat, eyes wide and breathing ragged. Sometimes he'd feel so sick he'd wonder if he was about to try and hurl an empty stomach. Sometimes he woke himself up with his own yelling.
When he lost the classification '001' and became '002' he quickly found out the reason that first night he had a nightmare. A voice had spoken to him and tried to calm him and eventually tried to help him have them less often or not as bad and it worked. Until all nine of them had escaped.
He had his own room again and still Ivan tried to help him best he could, but there would often be times when the baby would be in one of his comas and then Jet would be alone. Those nights were hard.
But as time went on, they became less and less frequent. He thought, maybe, he'd started controlling it better. Somehow. The nightmares that came seemed to only leave him jolting awake, sometimes in a cold sweat but less often and he was able to sleep again afterwards. It probably had a large part to do with them defeating Black Ghost.
He got comfortable enough to share a bed with Albert. If he had a nightmare, he'd wake up and find the German snoring contentedly beside him. If he couldn't sleep, he'd get up and walk around a bit until he calmed down, otherwise he'd just curl up against the German's side and doze the rest of the night away.
It was alright.
And then it wasn't.
He couldn't pinpoint the cause only that those 'night-terrors' started up again and every time he'd jolt awake it would feel like his heart was trying to climb out of his throat. When he was alone, it was fine, he dealt with it the same way he always had, but then they started happening while Jet wasn't alone and then he had to come up with some excuse as to why he'd moved so that Albert would just go back to sleep.
It wasn't that Jet thought Albert would think any less of him for having nightmares, the older man had plenty of his own that Jet would need to chase away with soft words and a tight embrace, it was that Jet knew where Albert's nightmares came from and Albert knew Jet knew, but if his partner found out about Jet's, the teen wouldn't know how to explain. Or if he even could.
How could he explain how sometimes Jet just wanted to curl up closer with the German and sometimes he had to get up for hours at a time before coming back to bed. How sometimes he needed that contact to keep breathing and sometimes he was so scared of it he ran.
He couldn't.
Then there was the night it got as bad as those days decades past.
It started out as a normal nightmare, really about nothing, falling or something. But then he landed and it turned to scientists. Scientists endlessly poking and prodding him and saying things he couldn't understand except 'defective' and 'failure' and 'destroy' he'd failed one of their tests and they were going to scrap him. But then the head scientist arrived and offered an alternative: a chip to plant in his brain to erase his emotions and his initiative. They would make him a weapon.
Just as he was approaching with the chip in hand towards a struggling Jet, the scene melted and it was Jet on his bed, unable to move or struggle as he heard his father's approach. His voice followed soon after, slinging every bad thing his brain could muster like arrows through a prone chest. The beating was coming, he knew it was, it always came after the verbal storm started. If only he could move and hide under the bed, maybe he'd be spared at least for a few more minutes. But he couldn't move, no matter how much he yelled at his body, it wouldn't respond and he watched in horror as the door opened with a bang-!
Jet jolted and sat straight up in bed, almost falling off for how near to the edge he'd been. Unbeknownst to him, he had been moving and the state of the blankets were proof. His eyes were wide and staring out into the dark room, cold drops slipped down his pale and clammy skin and his breathing raced to catch up with the beat his heart kept as the organ seemed to try and choke him at the same time.
The only thing missing was the screaming and who knew if he'd been mumbling, right now he was as silent and pale as the dead.
The only thing that made the return of his night-terror worse was the fact that Jet wasn't the only one in the bed that night.
There would often be times when he would wake up in a cold sweat, eyes wide and breathing ragged. Sometimes he'd feel so sick he'd wonder if he was about to try and hurl an empty stomach. Sometimes he woke himself up with his own yelling.
When he lost the classification '001' and became '002' he quickly found out the reason that first night he had a nightmare. A voice had spoken to him and tried to calm him and eventually tried to help him have them less often or not as bad and it worked. Until all nine of them had escaped.
He had his own room again and still Ivan tried to help him best he could, but there would often be times when the baby would be in one of his comas and then Jet would be alone. Those nights were hard.
But as time went on, they became less and less frequent. He thought, maybe, he'd started controlling it better. Somehow. The nightmares that came seemed to only leave him jolting awake, sometimes in a cold sweat but less often and he was able to sleep again afterwards. It probably had a large part to do with them defeating Black Ghost.
He got comfortable enough to share a bed with Albert. If he had a nightmare, he'd wake up and find the German snoring contentedly beside him. If he couldn't sleep, he'd get up and walk around a bit until he calmed down, otherwise he'd just curl up against the German's side and doze the rest of the night away.
It was alright.
And then it wasn't.
He couldn't pinpoint the cause only that those 'night-terrors' started up again and every time he'd jolt awake it would feel like his heart was trying to climb out of his throat. When he was alone, it was fine, he dealt with it the same way he always had, but then they started happening while Jet wasn't alone and then he had to come up with some excuse as to why he'd moved so that Albert would just go back to sleep.
It wasn't that Jet thought Albert would think any less of him for having nightmares, the older man had plenty of his own that Jet would need to chase away with soft words and a tight embrace, it was that Jet knew where Albert's nightmares came from and Albert knew Jet knew, but if his partner found out about Jet's, the teen wouldn't know how to explain. Or if he even could.
How could he explain how sometimes Jet just wanted to curl up closer with the German and sometimes he had to get up for hours at a time before coming back to bed. How sometimes he needed that contact to keep breathing and sometimes he was so scared of it he ran.
He couldn't.
Then there was the night it got as bad as those days decades past.
It started out as a normal nightmare, really about nothing, falling or something. But then he landed and it turned to scientists. Scientists endlessly poking and prodding him and saying things he couldn't understand except 'defective' and 'failure' and 'destroy' he'd failed one of their tests and they were going to scrap him. But then the head scientist arrived and offered an alternative: a chip to plant in his brain to erase his emotions and his initiative. They would make him a weapon.
Just as he was approaching with the chip in hand towards a struggling Jet, the scene melted and it was Jet on his bed, unable to move or struggle as he heard his father's approach. His voice followed soon after, slinging every bad thing his brain could muster like arrows through a prone chest. The beating was coming, he knew it was, it always came after the verbal storm started. If only he could move and hide under the bed, maybe he'd be spared at least for a few more minutes. But he couldn't move, no matter how much he yelled at his body, it wouldn't respond and he watched in horror as the door opened with a bang-!
Jet jolted and sat straight up in bed, almost falling off for how near to the edge he'd been. Unbeknownst to him, he had been moving and the state of the blankets were proof. His eyes were wide and staring out into the dark room, cold drops slipped down his pale and clammy skin and his breathing raced to catch up with the beat his heart kept as the organ seemed to try and choke him at the same time.
The only thing missing was the screaming and who knew if he'd been mumbling, right now he was as silent and pale as the dead.
The only thing that made the return of his night-terror worse was the fact that Jet wasn't the only one in the bed that night.
no subject
It was a normal thing that Albert noticed when they'd started sharing a bed. At first he thought it was rather endearing as the redhead would end up in the most ludicrous positions by the time the sun rose. Sometimes he'd even curl himself into Albert's back or chest and that was alright too even if Albert couldn't fathom how it could be comfortable for his partner to use solid metal as a pillow. He was glad for it other night too, nights when his mind provided the worst and he'd wake up with a start and shaking breath. But those nights had all but ceased with Jet's warmth beside him.
Sometimes it was annoying, with the American's foot in his face somehow or how he stole the entire blanket or would get up and not come back to bed for hours, leaving Albert in a grumpy doze wondering if he'd done something to wake him.
Tonight is neither of those.
Albert watched Jet writhe in the sheets for a bleary moment before he shot straight up and the German grabbed his arm to keep him from tumbling from the bed. The thrashing had been wild and panicked and Albert could only guess what brought it on. With their lives, it could be any number of things.
"Jet?" Albert doesn't let go, though his grip loosens when he's sure his partner won't fall, his hand still lightly encircling the flier's bicep.
no subject
"Sorry, Al. It's nothing, go back to sleep."
No excuses, no lies, just avoidance. What else was he supposed to do? There wasn't exactly a good lie or excuse for writhing on the bed.
He felt bad for waking his partner this badly. Usually -if he woke him- it was barely even a state that could be called conscious, but the German was definitely awake right now and the concern Jet could feel in his partner's eyes just made him feel better and worse at the same time. It was nice to have someone openly care about him after a dream like that, but that didn't mean he enjoyed making Albert worried.
Maybe he should sleep on the couch or something. Or just not sleep at all.
no subject
"You don't have to talk about it, though I hear it helps." Their nightmares are their own. They each have them, of Black Ghost and before and even after. For Albert it's always one of three things; Hilda dead or dying, a specter come for him, asking why he couldn't save her, telling him to meet her; Black Ghost's scientists ripping into his flesh and replacing him piece by piece, all without anesthetic; or that feeling of helplessness as Jet was shot down over the Pacific, his own stupidity at calling for the Dolphin to rise even though Pyunma could have very well retrieved the redhead more quickly and not put them all in danger. It was his fault they'd been caught and that's irks him, but mostly the thought of losing Jet kills him by degrees in his nightmares.
But he doesn't talk about them either.
Maybe that needs to change.
no subject
It's not said meanly, just passively before Jet finally took a sip from the glass that had been put into his hands. Once his mouth had been re-wet he gulped down most of the cup in one go.
"It was just...dumb crap. I was falling and then I was back in Black Ghost's lab. They were gonna take me apart or something, but then they decided they'd just take my emotions and junk away. Stupid, huh? Then...it turned to shit from before Black Ghost took me." He shook his head and shrugged, his signal he'd said what he wanted to.
He didn't really feel much better, at least not yet.
no subject
"I dream of Black Ghost too. I think we all do, that's not stupid." Even Ivan has nightmares sometimes, his nursery a mess of psychically strewn toys in the aftermath. "And we all had our demons before that ever happened. You're not the only one, Jet."
Not that he knows just what went before. He suspects something from the street. Fighting or going hungry. Albert still knows very little about Jet's background; he'd never wanted to share it and the German never pried. There was no point. If Jet didn't want to tell you something, then there was no way you were going to know it. Albert had yet to learn how to sneak past that defense.
no subject
'In a gang, on the streets' was about as much context as he was comfortable offering.
His lips twisted into a wry smile. "You know, I don't know that talking about it's all that it's cracked up to be."