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Logically speaking, Jäger knew that he was safe. He knew that he was healed. He knew that no further signs of infection were found in him. It was over, and so it should’ve been put behind him like all other near death experiences. Buck joked with him over some money Jäger owed him. Smoke tried to pry and make jokes about the weird, infected roaches. Bandit made comments about his scars. Everything was as normal as it was before the outbreak.
But he wasn’t. Normal, that is. Jäger knew it every morning when he got up, or when he worked on his gadgets, or when he was just randomly eating a meal and all of a sudden, the scrape of a chair against the ground, or a tray being slammed a little too hard, and he was back in that broken down building, listening as the skittering got closer, and the blood pooled wider and wider. So, no. Things were not normal. His panic was often at the ceiling these days, and yet he found that he was just as often lying face down on the floor.
That was what he told Doc when he was finally pulled out of training for a health check up. Health check-up. Haha. Scheiße. Jäger was no idiot, no matter how awkward he could be. This was a way for Rainbow to figure out if his brain was still intact, or if it was sapped from him as he bled out alone and in the dark.
Doc was the one to recommend writing in a dream journal. It could help with the nightmares, first and foremost, but Jäger couldn’t help but wonder if Doc also wanted to look into his subconscious. After all, it only took one search to see that dream journals were also used to track patterns and potential connections.
“I’m dead.”
Well, he wanted it, so here it was. Doc opened up the journal, and he was now reading. That one line showed up so often in his dreams that Jäger couldn’t tell which night he was reading from. Most of his nightmares ended in death. If not his death, then his rescuers’ deaths. Among the various words describing the creatures he saw in his nightmares, he knew he had sketches. Nights where he was simply watching himself fall from outside the helicopter often just gave him a visual on what his bird looked like as it went down in flames, with him still trapped in it. And in those cases, he could still see how the blades were bent and broken and even guess what he had hit on his way down.
Doc raised a brow on one particular page, and Jäger stretched his neck to see what it was. Ah. Eyes stared back at him before Doc straightened out the book so Jäger couldn’t sneak another look. But that was the gaze of the roach that stabbed him in the leg right before someone else shot it and its ooze splattered on the pieces of Jäger’s helmet that still remained intact. If he flipped forward a little more, he would get to what Jäger deemed to be a good representation of that feeling of going down, spinning out of control.
There it was. Doc did seem to get to that page, and again, his brows rose as he looked over the page. After taking in all that was on the page, he simply set it down and shook his head.
“If you feel this way every time you close your eyes, we can try and see if sleeping pills will help. We can also arrange for time off. In fact, these should have already been implemented.” Doc took a moment to just study Jäger. Then he stood up to cross the little space between them and just gave him a hug.
Whatever Jäger was expecting, this was not it. He thought Doc would get angry or say some nonsense line about how things like this would pass on their own, or make him continue this stupid journal that only shone a spotlight on how messed up he really was. However, as awkward as Jäger often was about actions like this, he found that this time, it was easy. He leaned up into the embrace and placed his head on Doc’s shoulder.
“Is this supposed to help?” Jäger asked, perhaps a little too hopefully.
Doc scoffed. “In the short term perhaps. But we must find something else for you.”
Jäger let out a sigh and nodded his head. Ok. It wasn’t the efficient line of progress he liked, but things might be different now.