Swat - stris stories

Nightmare

It was still night, around 1 am, Chris and Street were asleep on the couch, Chris's head on Street's shoulder and his over hers. Street was sleeping lightly while Chris's sleep was more hectic. She wasn't moving much, so Street wasn't aware of her struggle, but you could see in her face that something was wrong. Her eyes were tightly shut, her eyebrows frowned and she was sweating a little.

Chris woke up suddenly which also woke up Street. Street was still sleepy but as soon as he realized Chris had trouble breathing, he suddenly was wide awake. He could see the panic in her eyes as tears were coming down, he got worried but he put that feeling aside so he could help her get control of herself again. He passed in action mode, stood up and kneel right in front of her so he could be at her level and look at her in the eyes.

"Chris, hey Chris, look at me, look at me Chris!" he said firmly, but calm enough to not worry her.

"Deep breath Chris. Just like me. *inhale* 3-2-1 and exhale... " he continued while mimicking what he was saying with his hands.

After a few minutes, she finally started to calm down so he took the opportunity to bring her in a tight hug. He told himself it was to comfort her, but the truth is, he was scared, so he needed to feel her close to him. She had been through enough already since yesterday, he needed the reassurance that she was ok. Chris didn't react to Street's hug because she was still processing what had just happened. He broke the embrace after a few minutes and wiped the remaining tears from her face.

"What happened?" He asked carefully, not knowing if she would want to talk about it.

Street knew she had opened up a lot, talking about Erika and how she missed her, thus he was unsure she'd want to since she hated talking about her feelings. He knew she was working on being more open, and she was getting better, but last evening had been a lot emotionally for her. He thought she would just brush it off by saying it was nothing, so to his surprise Chris said:

"I just had a nightmare."

Even though she tried to talk normally, to play down what had just happened, Street could hear a little hint of terror in her voice.

"Do you want to talk about it?" He said with the most reassuring voice he could manage.

"It was nothing... just a normal nightmare" she answered.

Chris had managed to level her voice, but Street could see right through her, he knew her too well.

"It didn't seem like nothing Chris" he pressed her.

"I used to have them all the time, it's nothing. I can handle it Street, I don't need saving." Chris said annoyed.

Street realized she wouldn't budge and pressing her at the moment would do more harm than good. He decided to let it go, not without giving her a saddened look filled with love.

The truth is, Chris was embarrassed to have had a nightmare in front of Street. She didn't want to talk about it. She had already been vulnerable last evening and it was unusual for her, so she didn't want Street to think of her as weak and less than. She preferred to say nothing and keep it to herself like she always did. She was working on being more open with him, but this was too much, too soon for her.

Street kept an eye on her while she got up from the couch, moved past him and went straight to her room. From there she asked him:

"You coming?"

Before joining her, Street took some time to absorb what had just happened. He sat on the couch, put his head between his hands, elbows on his knees and sighed. He was still pretty shaken up by the event that unfolded in front of him. The look of terror on Chris's face, he would never be able to forget it. In five years of knowing her, he hadn't seen her like that very often, only on rare occasions. Street tried to convince himself it was nothing, that she just had a bad dream and that she would be fine, she always was. However, he was still thinking about it when he finally joined Chris in bed and deep down, he knew it wasn't nothing.