Chaos Reigns

Posted on Sun Mar 25th, 2018 @ 11:51am by Colonel Jason "Jack" Frost
Edited on on Sun Mar 25th, 2018 @ 11:58am

811 words; about a 4 minute read

Mission: The Emerald Road
Location: Marine Commanders Quarters

Acacia stirred slightly, not knowing what had broken the peacefulness of her sleep. It wasn't even hot, for Jack was on the other side of the bed this morning instead of cradling her. Her sunrise/flame hair caught the dim light of the chronometer, and practically glowed in the darkness. 0449 it read, too early for her to be up by an hour and a half. Settling back down into the pillow, she tried to settle back into sleep.

Sleep was not something that came easily, demons of the past haunted his dreams, dark and dangerous ones that in a way forged the man before into the man he is today. Jack knew this dream, it wouldn't end well, sweat, panting for breath and the odd muscle ache from the sudden wake up would await. First came the mumbling as he reacted to his dream, the slight jerky movements as he played out the physical actions.

The slight shivering of the bedsheets and the sound of Jack's voice caused her to push herself up on one elbow. Sweat gleamed on his brow in the faint blue light from the chrono and she blinked a few times. Reaching over without thinking, she shook his shoulder gently "Jack? Wake up a bit, you're dreaming." her voice was slurred from sleep, but clear enough even in its softness to be heard in the room.

The dream was a fight, close quarters in a battle many many years ago. When things looked bad and doubt of seeing the days end loomed. A situation that the dice roll demanded all in or fail. His mumbling grew more angry as the nightmare took a stronger hold, the mental visions grew in intensity and emotion. His body playing out the actions, crudely replacing a power cell, hand to his thigh to check a wound.

When he didn't awaken, she bit her lip. She didn't know what to do, except to reach out to him. She'd forgotten how dangerous that was in this situation, because it hadn't ever come up for her before. Grasping his upper arm, she called his name again "Jack?"

Jack snapped awake eyes wide with a startle, out of sheer reflex and instinct having been caught asleep was to attack. Considering the nightmare he was having attack was all he was capable of thinking about. Rolling over quickly not seeing Acacia but a slave trader he rolled into her flinging himself into a straddle, hand pressed to the neck and next came the fist. It was not as hard as it could have been no doubt in part to his in shock sleepy state but it came none the less square to her the side of her face. "Your not going to get me, I'm not so easy to kill slaver."

She yelped in surprise, as pain flashed behind her eyes. The force of the impact making her vision grey out for a moment before it came back in sparkling motes of rainbow light. It took everything she had to not move in reaction, even though she was trembling with adrenaline. "Jack" she squeaked out through the grip he had on her throat.

The word was out of place in dream and moment, there were no women in his squad at the time and as reality crept in and his senses told him something was wrong it began to dawn on him what had just happened. He was not in a battle torn village hiding in a building, he was in his quarters. He was no fighting for his life, he'd just threatened hers though. Confusion was rife with him, what just happened? What was going on? What did he just do? "I...." The confusion was evident on his face as too the war of emotions as he tried to sort them. He let her go and slide off her, bumping into the storage door as he did. "Wha...." It was painfully obvious that he was so shocked at what he'd done that his brain simply couldn't process it quickly enough. "I..." He clutched his head trying to think as he walked out of the bedroom, clan in only shorts he followed muscle memory and out of the door to his office without care who saw him.

Acacia gasped in a very painful but needed breath, and pushed herself up to a semi sitting position so she could try to get breath in through a swelling throat. Coughing violently, she tried to slow her breathing by inhaling through her nose, which only worked a little bit. That could have gone much much worse, and she shivered as the adrenaline left her. Gingerly she touched her throat and then the side of her face and winced both times at the tenderness of the flesh. Sickbay was going to be her first stop.

(Continued in 'Healing the Visible')

RSS Feed