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Over many years and nearly just as many therapists, there always seems to be one thing Ghost’s shrinks like to ask him about: his nightmares.
He never fully understands why, however.
Sure, he has them, and at certain points they’ve been frequent. They’re not kind, either, nor are they not haunting, but for as long as Ghost has remembered, he has always had bad dreams. He’d been burdened young, and learned to live with them relatively quickly out of the fear of something worse when he woke up.
Because it was weakness. It was vulnerability. And God forbid he show either of those with the father he once had.
So by the time he’s so much as joined the military, nightmares haven’t bothered him for a long while. As they get worse with every horror witnessed or wreaked by his own hand, there are moments he does wake in a cold sweat or has to work to gather his bearings, but in the end he adapts. And after being put through hell for months, and even more after he’s been rescued, Ghost’s nightmares have gradually tapered off into things more than manageable.
He learns to sleep through them. Learns how to forget and shake them off. He copes, and that’s it. It’s why Ghost doesn’t get why every therapist he’s ever had is so adamant about asking about his nightmares.
Sure, he has them. But they aren’t an issue for Ghost at all, after so long.
What he fails to realize, though, is that others don’t have it so simple. Others haven’t been trained out of the fear nightmares are meant to inflict on the psyche, haven’t been conditioned to slip easily back into sleep after being violently jolted awake.
Others still have nightmares the way they’re meant to. Like Soap. Like Johnny.
It’s with Soap that Ghost discovers that he has no real concept of what nightmares are supposed to be anymore, and by extension he has no idea how to provide comfort following the nastiest of them. He finds out that maybe he doesn’t actually know how to cope with them, and that maybe he’s suppressed far more things in his life than is properly acceptable.
It’s a slow realization and a gradual learning process.
The first hint about his skewed perception happens in the wee hours, while Ghost sits in his office going over paperwork as he sometimes does. It isn’t that he can’t sleep—he just doesn’t quite want to yet.
Then there’s a knock on his door, which is odd considering it’s half past three in the morning and most of the base is asleep by now, but Ghost pulls his mask on and rises to see who it is anyway because it must be something important for someone to show up at this hour.
Soap is on the other side of the door, bleary-eyed and clutching two mugs—at least one of them is coffee, far as Ghost can tell. Ghost’s eyebrows pinch together as he stares at the sergeant swaying tiredly on his feet.
“Why are you up?” He asks.
Soap shrugs. “Had a nightmare. Figured you’d be awake.”
Ghost’s brows only furrow deeper. “Okay?”
“Okay,” Soap scoffs. He presses one of the mugs to Ghost’s chest for the lieutenant to grab before pushing past into the office. He drops himself into the seat across from Ghost’s with a huff. “Right, I forgot. The Ghost doesnae get nightmares, of course.”
Ghost shuts and locks the door before navigating slowly to his side of the desk. When he sits, he sees that Soap’s eyes are glazed over and hazy, like he’s in a trance or still half asleep.
“I do.”
Soap blinks back awake, frowning at Ghost. “Do what?”
“Have nightmares,” Ghost says.
Soap stares at him for several moments longer, and for a second Ghost thinks the sergeant may have fallen asleep again. Then he slowly brings his own mug to his lips and takes a considerable sip. “That right?”
Ghost nods.
“How do you manage?”
“Hm?”
“Your nightmares. How do you manage them?”
Unsurprisingly, Ghost has been asked this question before. It’s a therapist’s favourite even though Ghost has, honestly, no clear answer. He always brushes it off with some bullshit reply to appease whomever he’s speaking with, but for Soap, somehow it feels different. Somehow it feels disappointing that he doesn’t have anything to show for.
Ghost feels pathetic just shrugging, but it’s all he can do.
Soap regards him almost curiously before shaking his head. “What do you mean…” Soap mimics Ghost’s shrug.
“Means I don’t know,” Ghost grunts. This isn’t the conversation he would expect to be having at this time, or at all with Soap. “Nightmares don’t really bother me, sergeant.”
Soap snorts. He slumps back in his chair and tilts his head back, eyelids fluttering shut. “Obviously, no?”
“No,” Ghost says. “I’ve just dealt with them for so long.”
Soap hums. In the lull of quiet that settles between them, Ghost ventures to roll up the hem of his mask to test whatever Soap has made him.
Tea, adjusted exactly to how Ghost likes it.
The sergeant eventually sits up again and takes another drink of his coffee. “Remind me never to come to you for comfort,” he mutters.
“I’m concerned you’d ever need a reminder, Johnny,” Ghost replies. He isn’t sure if he’s being serious, this time around. He isn’t sure if he’s hurt by Soap’s remark, either. But he doesn’t have time to dwell, really.
Soap just waves him off, for once opting to sit in silence. After a few minutes of twiddling thumbs and the occasional sip of coffee or tea, Ghost produces a pen and blank paper to wordlessly pass off to Soap, because it’s clear he wouldn’t be leaving any time soon. If he had paperwork tailored to Soap’s clearance he’d much rather hand that over, however, unfortunately, he does not.
They continue in silence until the sun comes up, they part ways, and the remainder of the day is spent as usual.
The second hint happens very far down the line. For a while between them, though, Ghost and Soap would find themselves in similar company some late nights—but rarely, and only if they ended up in the same common spaces. Otherwise, true to his word, Soap does not seek Ghost out for comfort after particularly bad terrors.
It isn’t until they’re sleeping in the same bed more often than not that Ghost is clued in yet again that he does not deal with things normally, perhaps as one should.
Most nights there’s hardly an issue. Most nights, neither of them suffer through nightmares. But some nights, those few and far between, Soap wakes up thrashing, panting, sometimes screaming. And Ghost never knows what to do.
For a while, Ghost pretends to remain asleep when Soap wakes up. He doesn’t react when Soap clings to him tighter or buries his face in whatever part of Ghost is closest. He’ll wait until Soap’s breathing sometimes evens out again and that’s the extent of his comfort.
But then the third and final hint—Soap stops using him for support or self-soothing, instead climbing out of bed to wander somewhere, or sit in some place he can sketch in his journal until the remnants of nightmares fade entirely, or until the sun has begun its ascent. And Ghost knows it isn’t meant as anything against him, yet he can’t help but feel terrible for not being able to be of help in any form.
So the next time Soap startles awake and begins to slide out of bed, Ghost catches his wrist before he’s out of reach.
“Wha—Simon?”
Ghost gently tugs Soap, urging him closer, back to bed.
“Where are you going?” Ghost murmurs, though he has a fairly good idea by now. He’ll let Soap set the pace as he tries to navigate comfort. He’ll start from square one of trying to understand.
Because Soap was right. He should be the last person anyone should come to for solace.
“Just… anywhere,” Soap whispers. Slowly, a gentle, teasing smile appears on his face. “I still get nightmares, remember?”
“Come back to bed,” Ghost says quietly, coaxing. “Tell me what I can do.”
Soap seems to brighten at Ghost’s words—and like the first time Soap had ever told him he loves Ghost, Ghost’s heart skips a beat. Soap easily rejoins him, easily tangles himself with Ghost as he’d been prior to waking.
Ghost pulls Soap close, cradles his head to his chest.
“I want to be better,” Ghost tells him. He scratches blunt nails against Soap’s scalp, drags fingers through Soap’s overgrown mohawk. “Want to help.”
Soap nestles closer. “You do help.”
“I don’t.”
“You’re right,” Soap laughs. “You don’t. But that’s alright.”
Ghost shakes his head. “It’s not,” he says. He doesn’t suppose Soap misses the waver in his voice. He doesn’t suppose Soap can’t tell he’s unsure if what he’s doing is right. “Tell me how to be better, Johnny.”
And Soap does. Ghost clings onto every word, every sentiment as a man savours every drop of water in the desert. They both recognize it’ll take time to adjust and for Ghost to learn, but he so desperately wants to. Because maybe he doesn’t have to deal with nightmares like most, but Soap does, and Ghost thinks he loves Soap too much to never be able to offer warmth. An anchor.
Although, eventually Ghost hardly needs to be of help, if only because Soap almost stops having nightmares entirely—or at the very least, they seem even fewer and farther between when he’s with Ghost, now knowing Soap could finally depend on his partner for support he’d always needed so desperately.
There’s a peace in it, somewhere, one Ghost may never understand in the same way as Soap. But whatever kind of peace it is, it’s more than enough knowing that it exists, and it’s more than enough knowing that it allows for Soap to finally want to go to Ghost for comfort when he needs it, even as much as he continues to tease the lieutenant for his own lack of fears and terrors.
If Ghost finally has something to say about nightmares to his current therapist now, then, well—it’s hardly anyone else’s business but his own.