#flashback ptsd tw

[pittresilience]

continued from here {x}

Jack doesn’t hear the door at first. The light barely registers, just a thin slice cutting through the dark, but it doesn’t reach him. He’s still curled in on himself, hand clamped hard over his leg, breath coming in sharp, broken pulls that don’t quite make it all the way in. The pain is still there, still real, still tearing through him like it never stopped.

But the voice gets through. Not all at once, not clean, just fragments cutting through the noise in his head. His head jerks slightly, like he’s trying to track it, but his eyes don’t quite focus yet. Safe doesn’t mean anything when his body is still convinced it’s happening again. “—no—” Jack chokes out, voice rough, barely there. His grip tightens reflexively. “Not—” The rest breaks off into a strained breath, chest heaving, shoulders shaking with it.

The voice comes again, closer now, steady. Jack blinks hard, once, then again, vision stuttering as it tries to catch up. The edges of the room start to push back in, faint and distorted, the shape of the door, the outline of someone just inside it. The Pitt. The words echo back slower this time, dragging him with them.

He sucks in a sharper breath, one that actually reaches his lungs, even if it stutters on the way out. His head drops forward slightly, forehead pressing back against the wall as he fights to follow it, to hold onto something real. “…hospital,” he manages, voice scraped raw, like he’s testing it. His hand doesn’t leave his leg, but it loosens just a fraction, fingers trembling instead of crushing. Another breath, still uneven, still too fast. “…yeah,” Jack forces out after a second, not looking up yet, but more present than he was a moment ago. Not steady. But not gone either.

@equallibrium

[pittresilience]

continued from here {x}

Dana's voice never reaches him. The supply closet disappears beneath a cloud of dust and smoke, replaced by blistering heat and the deafening ring that follows the explosion. Every breath tastes of dirt and burnt metal. Somewhere nearby, people are shouting, but the words blur together into noise. All he can see is the corporal lying motionless several yards away.

"No..." The word breaks from him before growing louder, more desperate. "No, no... he's over there."

His hands scrabble uselessly against the concrete as he tries to drag himself forward. The effort lasts only a second before his body gives out beneath him, but he doesn't stop trying. Every failed attempt only feeds the panic. His eyes never leave the space in front of him, fixed on someone only he can see.

"Help him!" His voice cracks, raw with urgency. "He's still alive—go!" He shakes his head frantically, tears burning at the corners of his eyes. "I'm fine! Leave me alone!" Another frantic breath. "Please... somebody help him."

The plea dissolves into ragged breathing as he reaches blindly into empty space, as though he can somehow close the distance between them if he just tries hard enough. Nothing around him resembles the supply closet anymore. There are no shelves. No cardboard boxes. No Dana kneeling nearby.

"There isn't time," he chokes out, his voice breaking completely. "Please... he's bleeding... help him." His entire body is rigid with terror, trapped in the moment before someone finally tells him the truth—a moment his mind refuses to let end.

@broughtpeace

[pittresilience]

OPEN STARTER

It hits fast. One second Jack’s in the trauma bay, hands steady, voice cutting clean through the noise, and the next, it’s the smell that does it. Burnt flesh, thick and unmistakable, curling into the back of his throat before he can shut it out. Then—crash—a tray hits the floor behind him, metal clattering loud and sharp, too close, too sudden. Everything inside him fractures. His hands stall just long enough to feel it break through. “—Henderson, keep going,” he forces out, voice too even, too controlled. “Continue the workup.” He’s already moving, already leaving, because if he doesn’t, he knows he won’t be able to.

The hallway distorts around him. Everything goes muffled, drowned out beneath the thunder of his own heartbeat and the ragged pull of his breathing, loud and overwhelming in his ears. The hospital blurs into something unrecognizable, footsteps and voices dissolving into nothing while his body locks tight, every muscle bracing for something that isn’t there anymore. A cold sweat slides down the back of his neck, and he can’t tell if he’s too hot or freezing.

He turns into the first supply closet he can find, shoving the door closed behind him and killing the light. Darkness swallows the space, but it doesn’t help. It never does. His back hits the wall hard as he drops, breath breaking, the memory already there, already taking over. The blast. The force. The moment everything vanished in white and then—

Pain.

It rips through him, vicious and immediate, straight through his stump like his leg is still there—like it’s still being torn apart. It’s not phantom. It’s real. It’s happening again. “—no—no—” The words tear out of him, broken, panicked, as his hands fumble at the prosthetic, fingers shaking too hard to work. He fights with it, desperate, like if he can just get it off he can stop it. The clasps finally give and he yanks it free, letting it hit the floor as his hand clamps down hard over what’s left of his leg, gripping like he can hold it together.

His breathing shatters, chest heaving as he curls in on himself, pressing back into the wall like he can force himself into something solid, something real, but he’s not there anymore. And for a moment, he doesn’t know how to get back.