#nightmare trope

[mockerycrow]

Love your works! May I please get a "don't worry, i'm not going anywhere." with Ghost? Take your time, I love what you write!

400 Follower Celebration

—“Don’t worry, I’m not going anywhere.”— With Ghost

Summary: You’re apart of the 141 and Ghost recently had a near-death experience. You’ve been plagued with nightmares about the situation, but you try to hide it from him, feeling selfish about your night terrors. One night, you’re thoroughly convinced Ghost had actually died.

A/N: THANK YOUUU I KEEP BLUSHING ILY AND TYSM FOR 500 FOLLOWERS

[WARNINGS: vomit, detailed nightmares, panic attack, gore, fake-death, angst, hurt/comfort.]

It was always the same nightmare. It was a repeat of that one mission months ago—nearly a year ago by now, where you and your team went to grab some important intel about a new uprising cartel that was showing some dangerous potential. It was a large compound, four floors including the basement, wide rooms with many blind-spots. Using your rifle equipped with a heat signature sensor, you swept room to room, leading your team through the building, putting anyone down who dared fired a bullet at you or your team.

You turn that familiar corner and your heart sinks. You’ve tried many times to change the course of this dream, but no matter how frantically you try to scream about what is waiting on the other side of that door, your mouth refuses to work until Ghost rumbles out, “I’ll take point.” You try to fight every muscle in your body to stop this, but it’s like the dream freezes until you continue down the.. “right path”. Quite literally is a living fucking hell for you, and there’s absolutely nothing you can do to stop it except do what it wants you to do.

“Roger.” You mutter, backing up behind Ghost instead of staying in front of him and leading him the others. The others are always blank faced soldiers in this nightmare, but you know who is who. You pat his shoulder, aimming over him as you walk down the hall close together, hugging the wall. You’ve been through this so many times, you know to eye the floor and you watch the moment happen—Ghost steps on a pressure plate and—BOOM.

You’re always forced to watch it in slow motion; the wall being blown open right next to Ghost, watching the debris scatter everywhere, scraping yourself up as well as Ghost. He raises his arm to shield his face from whatever is happening, unable to process in time that a man wielding a sharp combat knife is pulling his arm back and comes down with it.

You watch the way the knife so easily slides into his rib cage, and it’s almost like you could hear it penetrating his lung like it did—but this time, the man rips the knife out and does it again and again and again—this has never happened before—Ghost’s falling to the ground, his blood splattering everywhere, fuck, it’s like the guy is trying to gut him—but you can’t move. You have to sit there and watch this man. plunge a knife in and out of Ghost’s chest until he finally decides to stab him deep and yank downwards, spilling his intestines and stomach—yet, his lifeless eyes keep eye contact the entire time.

Your eyes fly open, dizzy from your heart pounding and unable to focus, you throw the blanket off of you and you make your way out of whatever room you’re in—you’re too freaked out to know. Your chest aches and feels like there’s a hundred tons sitting on your rib cage, restricting your breathing. You keep walking until you bump into something and you manage to focus enough to notice it’s the bathroom door. Your hand shakily grabs the doorknob and opens it, and you already feel the vomit traveling up your throat.

You end up bent over the open toilet, body heaving with every exile of the contents of your stomach, which by this time of night is mostly just bile. Your head is spinning and your hands keep shaking and by this point, you really don’t care how clean this bathroom is. You lean your elbows on the toilet rim and hold your head in your hands, trying your best to stifle a sob, even though all you can smell and feel is his blood on your fingertips. Your tears drip down your cheeks and collect at your chin before dripping off.

You keep one arm on the toilet seat to keep your head propped up and the other goes around your stomach, which is twisting painfully inside of your gut, ripping another sob from you. You gag into the toilet, but you’ve already thrown everything you had inside. Your throat and nose burns from the stomach acid, but it doesn’t compare to the emotional pain of losing Ghost. You just stood there and watched him get gutted—why do you deserve to grieve when you could have prevented it in the first place? Someone killed the Ghost, and you let it fucking happen.

A large hand sprawls across the flat of your back which is accompanied by a low, gritty voice. Whoever it is says something, but you don’t quite hear them. It’s probably Price, trying to comfort you, trying to say there’s one thing you could’ve done to stop it, but you know there was something you could do, anything you could’ve done.

Price calls your name and you go to shove him away, but his hands wrap around your wrists, and the voice is more insistent. You choke on a sob and shake your head, struggling against him until you hear it—his voice. “Fuck, [Name], can you hear me?” Ghost’s voice. It’s his voice.

No. Your mind is playing tricks on you and you won’t fall for it, you won’t let yourself go through this horrendous grief for a second time. You try to curl up into a ball, wanting to grab at your hair or your clothes, just anything but be here. “Look at me.” His hands grab your face and force your face to look at him and..

It’s him. It’s Ghost.

All of your noises stop for a moment as you stare with wide eyes that are full of unfallen tears, eyes full of grief, all for him. Ghost stares back at you with uncharacteristically wide eyes, and you can see the way his hands are slightly trembling—he’s worried about you. Ghost’s eyebrows furrow when he sees your expression of anguish. “Hey—hey, what happened?” Ghost’s voice is so quiet, like he’s afraid you’ll break if he speaks any louder. Your hands come up to his mask and touch it and you burst into a harsh sob again, throwing your arms around him.

Usually, Ghost would hesitate. He would be reluctant to reciprocate such personal touch, such desperation, but he pulls you close into his arms without a second thought. Your hands grab his shirt and you breakdown into his chest, wetting the fabric with your tears. His heart slipped a beat because he’s never seen you like this—has never seen you break down this horribly.

He’d be here when you were ready to talk about it, but for now he’ll stay to hold you until your shoulders stop shaking. Ghost moves to sit on his bottom and you whimper in fear, like he’ll leave. “Don’t worry, I’m not going anywhere.”

[epiclamer]

Hero shot up, the first thing they knew was that they couldn’t breathe, the second was that it was because they were vomiting. Or, at least, their body was trying to.

They keeled over the side of their bed, clutching their spasming abdomen with one hand while the other held desperately onto the mattress. Their blanket swamped their legs, their shirt was glued to their back with sweat, and their hair was plastered to their burning forehead.

Again, they couldn’t breathe, every muscle in their body squeezed relentlessly as it tried to rid itself of the contents of their stomach. They gagged, shook, and breathed, then the cycle repeated itself. Over and over again, Hero hadn’t even realized it, but they were begging.

Please, please, please, please—

Begging someone or something to save them, to stop this. They convulsed again, eyes rolling back, mouth open, but nothing came of it.

Eventually—after another thirty seconds or so—it stopped. Hero wheezed, their whole body was sickly cold and yet somehow also sweaty, their head was reeling and they couldn’t hold themselves up anymore, they just collapsed.

They had expected to hit the ground head first with a thud, their grip on the mattress was loose and they knew what was in store for them, instead, two arms swooped them up before they could collide, pulling them in close to the stranger’s chest. Hero’s first instinct was to pull away, fight, claw themselves out, but then they recognized this feeling, those arms, and that chest.

“Villain?”

The light on their nightstand flicked to life with a dim yellow glow and with a good twist of their neck Hero could see their nemesis as clear as day.

“Hey, Hero.”

Unwillingly, the hero’s body relaxed, practically melting into the criminal’s arms as they were hauled back up to their bed. Once they could see the villain again, Hero noted the sad smile they were sporting. They looked tired, definitely not as tired as the hero did, but there were bags under their eyes nonetheless.

What time was it anyways? Hero turned to check their alarm clock, it was four in the morning. What the hell was Villain doing in their house?

“Do you know what… that was?”

Hero startled out of their thoughts, eyes meeting the villain’s once more. They nodded, slowly but surely and with some weird ever-growing shame gnawing at their gut. “Nightmare.”

The villain let out a small chuckle, “That is what your nightmares look like?” Their expression however was one of fear.

They nodded, their nightmares had just been getting worse and worse lately there was no use trying to hide it. For whatever reason Hero hoped that being honest would get them some comfort from their lifelong enemy.

A silly thought at best and utterly ridiculous at worst.

Villain pulled the blanket up to Hero’s shoulders, tucking them in carefully. “Are they all like that? Or are some just worse than others?”

“It depends, yeah. This one was one of the more… difficult ones.”

“Do you want to talk about it?” It came out faster than the Hero had expected, almost like the villain had been keeping it on the tip of their tongue this whole time.

The villain’s eyes met the hero’s once more, they locked and finally Hero could see that their nemesis was actually worried. Not scared, or sad, or tired, it was worry. Hero had to fight to keep down whatever emotion bubbled up at the thought of someone actually caring enough to worry about them.

“It’s just violence. Senseless killing, or running from being killed, or chasing after someone to kill.” Their cheeks burnt up in shame, they were a hero, they weren’t supposed to have dreams like these.

They must’ve been deranged, it was the only plausible answer. Heroes were peace-keepers, not killers, clearly, their subconscious hadn’t gotten the memo.

“I’m sorry.”

Hero’s thoughts skidded to a halt. What.

“I’m sorry.” The villain repeated, placing both of their hands against the blanket as if they could read the hero’s mind. “That sounds terrible. I-I can’t imagine what it feels like…” They trailed off, somewhat lost in thought.

Hero’s stomach clenched again, this time out of pure nerves. The worst part of this was that the villain seemed so genuine; Hero was smart enough to know they didn’t deserve that.

“You should really be apologizing for breaking into my house—” They chuckled and even though it was a last-ditch attempt to lighten to mood it seemed to have worked.

Villain scrunched their nose in response, shooting a glance over their shoulder at the pile of notes they had been filing through just a moment ago. Suddenly coming back to the current situation and the realization of what they were doing—caressing their nemesis in bed.

They stepped back and Hero shot up, reaching for the villain before they could stop and think. Tears welled up in their eyes, their breath quickened, the horrible thought of being alone again to manage their own dreams struck them like a blow to the head.

“Wait, wait, wait, please— please stay, Villain please don’t leave me—” They were blubbering, they could feel it, but it didn’t matter; they were desperate. “Please, just stay for one night, please…”

Villain only thought about it for a second, they didn’t need any more time to decide to crawl under the duvet.

[whumped4whumplover]

Alternative Nightmare Trope

Okay so we all know the nightmare trope right? But. Imagine a conditioned pet Whumpee who gets forcefully taken away from Whumper (or rescued, if you'd like to see it from anyone's but Whumpee's eyes) and just wants to go back. Whumpee finds comfort in their nightmares because its the only time where they can relive their torture and be with Whumper. So when Caretaker wakes them up after finding them sobbing and screaming in their sleep, they don't understand why Whumpee always insists on leaving them alone and wanting to go back to sleep.

[purekwon]

reasons why episode 6 of the eclipse series should not have been shown to me: a very serious, very rational, write up

[THE ECLIPSE SERIES EP 6 SPOILERS!]

so far, we've seen many tension-filled akkayan moments - whenever they get a whiff of that locker room air, or a feel of each other on the crash mat - but EPSIODE 6??!!?!!! i'd like to say i have no words but i'm afraid i cant hold my thoughts in any longer or i'll literally exothermic-reaction combust. let us begin...

the all-revealing scene

even tho this scene is a lead on from ep 5, it still made me sit up with shock. the anticipation and the tense atmosphere when aye discovers the truth behind so many happenings and akk's visible panic to find out he's been uncovered is just the perfect combo in this scene. and even tho aye has just found out damaging information, instead of throwing akk under the bus, he helps him hide from teacher sani. it's the way he constantly protects akk, despite the circumstances, that never fails to make me giggle and kick my feet. and omg the tension?? through the roof. I WAS SO HAPPY AYE WAS THE ONE TO FIND AKK (but also anxious)

2. the firepit scene

"akk! look into my eyes. nothing is the best. you can't carry all the school problems on your shoulder. do you get it?" "but i must do it! if i can't, everyone will be disappointed in me." "screw those people!"

now this pushed me to my limit. we hoped for affection and we got emotional vulnerability, on both sides. akk with his hero complex, breaking down in tears before aye (aka the only person i've seen him be this unguarded around), and ayan crying after seeing akk so tormented by the good-boy persona he's trying to maintain. honestly, tears rimmed my eyes bc i FELT for both of them during the peak of this scene. aye holding akk's face to calm him and akk just allowing himself to be vulnerable in front of him.. it just UGH

3. their quiet yet LOUD moment

this scene bro. when i tell you i squealed when aye got all flirty n shit and the way akk was just LETTING him do this until they got caught (eyeroll). we see a clear change from the first episodes where akk would immediately push aye away or escape the situation where as now, he seems to accept and almost.. yearn for it? wtv it was, it made want to push their heads together and give us all what we've been ever so patiently waiting for. the way aye has the ability to be flirty while being accusing of akk is genuinely attractive. idc.

4. my final effing straw

THE NIGHTMARE TROPPEEE HELLL YEAAHHHH best trope going i swear. the way akk instantly comforted aye with a hug and was the first to lean in for a kiss for once??? the way they've become so fond of one another is just entirely tender and warm and i so thoroughly enjoyed this scene that i replayed it at least 3 times. he didn't hesitate to make sure ayan felt safe during the nightmare and neither did he pull away when aye leant in for the kiss.

the safe aura this scene encapsulates is just immaculate and first and khaotung couldn't have done a better job at executing it. akk finally caved and wasn't forced into doing so, he did it voluntarily, of his own free will. he wanted to kiss aye. he wanted to make him feel safe in his arms and protect him from his nightmare. i love them. i really do. i'm happy this was the way they shared their first proper kiss, with mutual pining after a long day and in the comforts of akk's dorm bed. so homely it gives me butterflies DKDJHDJKS

this scene reminds me of leith ross' - We'll Never Have Sex "Oh, you kissed me just to kiss me Not to take me home It was simple, it was sweetness It was good to know"

but anyways.. that concludes this vent for now. in short, this episode should've been kept from my view because idk how im gonna cope when the series ends! 😃

[lunastar92]

[vyxensworld]

Always and Forever, Deku

Ever since the war ended, Izuku has been having recurring nightmares. When he wakes up in a cold sweat from a nightmare about Katsuki’s almost death, he starts to panic.

- Or, a hurt/comfort fic where they both comfort each other in their own ways after a nightmare

[binary-bird]

i just think he’s neat

[poppy5991]

Just like your regular dreams and nightmares, PTSD nightmares are not going to be a straightforward recollection of events. It’s going to be fragments of what your brain is trying to process while you’re asleep.

[saffitaffi]

Cold villains. Elegant, refined, maybe, with disinterested eyes and icy composure. Their breath makes a shiver run down your spine, their freezing fingers following the curve of your neck. The coldness is almost, IS inhuman. A ghost of the past come to haunt you for eternity. A vampire, come to steal the life from your veins and the vigor from your step. A victim of scientific experiment gone horribly, horribly wrong.

Vs

Hot villains. Temperamental, wild, feral, full of barely contained desires and unquenchable rage. Their eyes spark and burn and blaze with all the things they want to do. Are they made of fire, or are they just full of energy? Sweaty and passionate and involved. They would never sit from the sidelines. Their very touch leaves blackened ash in the wake. They are so very angry, and will not back down, even if it might be wiser to.

Which do you prefer?

[echoingalaxies]

Whump drabbles, 12/100: kick.

It wasn’t the first time Whumpee had knocked the wind out of Caretaker when he went to console them during what appeared to be a vivid nightmare.

“It’s okay,” he grunted between shallow breaths, doubled over in pain, while Whumpee sobbed, apologizing profusely.

“I thought you were him…”

“I know.” Caretaker lay next to them, still holding his stomach. “Honestly, it was on me this time. Next time I’ll try not to startle you so badly.”

“I’m so sorry.”

“Hey, shush.” Caretaker opened his arms, letting Whumpee snuggle against his chest. “It’s just good to see you finally fighting back.”

[prokopetz]

Concept: animated workplace comedy about the servants of the Lord of Nightmares.

The servants are a mob of fancifully horrific nightmare creatures who go full out with their impossibly complicated backstories and their weird Jungian symbolism and their abstruse fourth-wall-bending skill-sets and their collective penchant for self-absorbed angst – but then the Lord of Nightmares is just a cackling cartoon villain with all the depth of a rain-puddle, who constantly gets their names wrong and thinks they're a bunch of bumbling buffoons because he doesn't realise that at least half the time his plans fail because his servants are deliberately sabotaging his pointless cruelty.

Just really play up the tonal incongruities which arise from the fact that the servants live in a 1990s Vertigo comic and their boss lives in a 1970s Saturday morning cartoon.

[redstainedsocks]

I gotta tell you... Being hooked up to a bunch of machinery and being gently strapped to a table (for safety) is low-key unsettling even when the people doing it are nice and explaining exactly what's going to happen, when, and why.

Without being spoken to? While being forced? With no information? In a strange place? Surrounded by enemies or hostile people?

That shit would be frightening as fuck. The lack of control. The lack of answers. Feeling less important, less human, than everyone else in the room.

So do that to your characters. If you're into medical/lab whump you're hitting all the right notes with this trope. So go HAM. Do it MORE. It's perfect.

[fern-writes-whump]

I already talked about nightmares, but what about caretaker's nightmares? :]

Not being able to sleep at all untill they know whumpee is safe

Seeing whumpee's terrefied expression every time they close their eyes

The dreams making their memories seem more and more gruesome every night

Waking up screaming whumpee's name and feeling terrible for waking them up

Leaving all the lights on because that pike of laundry looks a little roo much like whumpee's slumped body in the dark

Getting up multiple times to check that whumpee is in fact still in their bed untill they just give in and invite caretaker to sleep with them <3

[everlarksquell]

« Peeta, who spends much of the night roaming the train, hears me screaming as I struggle to break out of the haze of drugs that merely prolong the horrible dreams. He manages to wake me and calm me down. Then he climbs into bed to hold me until I fall back to sleep. »

will always be a sucker for a hurt/comfort post-nightmare moment.

[mariana-oconnor]

Another year of being grateful that AO3 unwrapped does not exist, so I cannot be faced with the statistical analysis of my reading crimes.

[hajihiko]

🚫do not disturb🚫