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Today was one of the few days where Jack tried to fly under the radar. Where normally he would’ve hurried over to attend to any traumas, he was glad that today hadn’t been filled with as much action. He didn’t dare voice this aloud, almost cursing himself for having the thought lest the universe decide to mess it all up. Nonetheless, he was content to just triage and handle the cases as they flowed from the waiting room into the ER.
Even if he was starting to lose his patience.
It was fine when he’d arrived for his usual night shift. Sure, he didn’t sleep as well as he would’ve hoped, tossing and turning ultimately leaving him feeling worse than when he’d laid down, but he did sleep. So that couldn’t be the whole reason that he felt something gnawing behind his sternum and the itch spreading through his hands. What mattered most was that he was handling patients with the standard of care to the tee. He made sure that his face wasn’t betraying his tiredness, or the fact that he really didn’t want to deal with small talk— or people for that matter. If anything, he was counting the hours until he could go back to his bed and crawl under the covers in a cocoon he so desperately craved.
This wasn’t the first time that Jack had felt this way. He’d experienced the same gnawing and itch since he was young, but the only thing he was clinging to was that it wouldn’t end up the same. No, he was grown. He could handle himself in a respectable manner. At least until he got home.
Truly, he was fine.
Until he wasn’t.
Barely an hour left in his shift, he could get through that hour, get through handoffs, and fall into his bed. But clearly, he’d cursed them earlier and a priority trauma case had to come in.
Now, Jack would’ve handled it, if it wasn’t for the fact that he was so stretched thin. The itch in his hands had him desperately wringing them, popping his fingers, digging his nails into his palms— anything to get the restlessness to go away. It didn’t help that his mind had long since abandoned filtering out background noise. Tonight was one of those nights where he could hear every little noise.
The various conversations. Patients breathing. His own breathing. The incessant beeps of machinery. The clink of rolling wheels. The buzzing of the bright overhead lights.
Every sound layered one on top of the other. Everything bypassed the growing static in his ears. By now, Jack had far worse than a headache and whatever was gnawing behind his sternum had spread its tendrils throughout his body. Every part of him felt taut.
It all came to a head with the shouting.
He couldn’t tell who, but it was the typical shouting orders to treat the patient lest they risk losing them. The shouting wasn’t even directed at him. But it was more than enough for his mind to zero in on.
Jack really hadn’t wanted this. Maybe that’s what made it hit so much worse.
He couldn’t stay here. Not when he could feel the tightness in his throat and in his chest. Not when he could feel tears threatening to make their way out. He couldn’t crumble like this. Not in front of his coworkers, not in the ER where patients need him. So, he fled to the only place he knew he could breathe.
Lena asked him something when he passed her, leaving the tablet on the counter, but he couldn’t hear what she said, not when he was trying so hard to keep himself contained. Even if he had heard her, he wouldn’t have been able to answer. His mind had snatched his capacity for words, tucking them away in his throat, threatening to suffocate him with the inability to speak. It would’ve been much worse if he stayed and didn’t respond.
When he walked into the stairwell, he let out a shaky breath. His resolve was crumbling around the edges. Jack hugged himself as tight as he could as he made his way up to the stairs. His hands gripping his shoulders, digging into the flesh. His breathing was too unsteady, too shallow.
He paused for a moment when he was met with the shock of the wind out on the roof.
But it wasn’t enough.
Jack squeezed his eyes shut as he gripped his shoulders as hard as he could, pinching the flesh. He swapped his makeshift hug for beating the heel of his hand against the center of his chest, his other hand making its way into his hair only to grip it as hard as he could.
He hated this.
He belatedly realized that he was sobbing, desperately heaving in breaths. Now he could feel the tears streaming down his face. He couldn’t breathe properly. His hands weren’t doing enough, none of it was working. He couldn’t claw his way back to the surface of the water. He rubbed the heel of both hands against his temples hard, threading his fingers through his hair. He started rocking slightly from the balls of his feet to his heels and back.
He hated the gentle feeling of his hands in his hair. He didn’t need gentle. Somehow it hurt more. He let out a shout through gritted teeth, beating his hands against his temples.
Jack gnawed on his bottom lip. He wanted to go home. He wanted to go back to his blankets and his dark, quiet home. Part of him wanted to go back to Robby, but another part recoiled at the thought of being near people.
Mid-rocking, mid-beating his hand on his temple, he felt someone pull his hands down.
That wasn’t right. That’s not how this goes.
It made anger bubble up in his chest. He shouted again, tugging his hands back from the person he couldn’t see because he couldn’t open his eyes. His nails dug into unrelenting hands. If he wasn’t sobbing before, he definitely was now. Even Jack couldn’t figure out any of what it was feeling. It was all too much. Nothing was slotting into place how it should be. And now someone was holding him.
He wanted to crawl out of his skin. Maybe then he could be free from the incessant itching that crawled through his entire body.
Jack tried to push out of the person’s hold. Tried beating his hands against their chest. Growling and shouting through clenched teeth. His mind desperately pleading for him to open his mouth.
‘Get off me! Stop touching me. Leave me alone-’ Each plea caught in his throat and pushed away. None ever getting farther than being a thought. No matter how much he opened his mouth, nothing ever came. It made him feel worse, so so much worse.
__________
Jack didn’t usually experience this tidal wave of overstimulation this hard. It was much more prevalent when he was an angry little girl, upset with everyone. Having to bare his teeth to prove that he could exist. He thought it had mellowed out in the military; in reality, he just got better at hiding it. Better at making sure he didn’t reach that point. It wasn’t until he got out of the military, when he lost his leg, that he’d lost count of how often it happened.
The violence of it never went away. It wasn’t something that he liked showing anyone. Every time it happened in front of people, it always, always ended in this way. Someone held his hands back and away from him. When he wasn’t caught in the tidal wave, he knew that it was out of care, but it didn’t change how much he wanted to bite.
_____________
Eventually, the drowning sensation ebbed and Jack could finally breathe— albeit unsteady, still hitching with tears. His hands had been released and he’d been rubbing them repeatedly against his eyes. Him digging his hands into his eyes wasn’t done with the intention of hurting himself, he just thought that maybe he could wipe away the remnants of the tidal wave.
It didn’t all go away. It made sure to sink its claws in and stay for as long as it could. It’s why Jack still felt that barbed-wire sensation constricting his throat, locking his words away.
When he finally opened his eyes, Jack didn’t expect to see Michael. It always made him feel worse when people were there to witness him crash. It hurt when Isabel had to deal with the brunt of it, having been there for him throughout and after the military until she died. It didn’t hurt any less when he subjected Michael to the same thing, never able to hold it together when they were in their home.
Though, now, the rumbling of his blood in his ears had subsided enough that he could hear that Robby had been speaking.
How long had he been talking?
_____________
Robby had been rubbing his hand soothingly across Jack’s shoulders, whispering sweet nothings into the air, waiting for Jack to come back to him.
When he first arrived, Lena had directed him up to the roof because Jack had gone up without a word and looked rough. He hadn’t been expecting to find Jack mid-meltdown, hitting his hands against his head. It hurt his heart to see Jack desperately rocking back and forth on his feet, lost in his head and in the sensations.
He’d seen them before, but It wasn’t often that Robby was able to help Jack out of it. Really, he still can’t ‘help him out of it’. All he could do was wait until everything calmed back down. It hurt more to see Jack fight him so viscerally, but the two still hadn’t perfected a way to regulate Jack’s self-harming behaviors in a way that didn’t set him off further.
For a long while, Robby had pressed his forehead to Jack’s, whispering variations of “I’ve got you.” and “You’re okay, sweetheart.”
“You doing any better, Jack?” He asked gently when Jack had seemingly calmed from the worst of it all.
He could tell from the way Jack chewed on the inside of his lip and his mouth pulled to a frown, that it wasn’t all gone yet.
“I figured as much.”
Robby still had a twelve hour shift. He really didn’t want to leave Jack alone, but keeping him holed up in the staff lounge— or anywhere in the Pitt for that matter— just felt like cruel and unusual punishment.
Robby bit his lip before asking, “You think you’ll be okay going home alone?”
Jack frowned, as if it just dawned on him that Robby couldn’t be there with him. Jack dug his thumbnail into the palm of his other hand and shrugged. Although earlier he would’ve just hated the thought of Robby’s presence, now he desperately wished that he could just go home and sleep in their bed together. He huffed and slightly tilted his head in a nod. If the only thing he felt was that he would be missing was Robby’s warmth in bed, then he was fine in the way that mattered.
_____________
That’s how Jack ended up back at their home after Robby called him an Uber to really make sure he got home safe.
His leg was more than annoying him now. He made sure to shuck it off and lay it within reach of the bed, in the same spot just as he always did.
The thought of a shower crossed his mind, but then all the steps and movement and effort reminded him of exactly why he didn’t want to do that right now. The least he did was change out of his uncomfortable scrubs and into the softest shirt and sleep shorts he owned, the same ones he always went for because they knew how to behave compared to the rest of his wardrobe.
As he laid down, he belatedly realized that he should’ve eaten something, should’ve brushed his teeth— truly that he should’ve followed his usual routine— but he really couldn’t be bothered. The thought of all the energy that it would take outweighed the itch of doing what he always did.
He could still feel the tightness of his throat. Knew his capacity for speech wouldn’t return for a good while. He huffed as he pulled Robby’s pillow towards his chest and buried his face in it. Inhaling the scent of Robby was a balm that nothing could replicate. He soon relaxed into the bed, holding the pillow tight against him until he fell into the soft blanket of sleep.
This time, he slept soundly.