The Post-Apocalyptic Family Captain

A Series of Drabbles

Dark Lady Devinity

A/n: When I asked for suggestions, smergrl3495 send me a two page response. I know this because I printed it. So I took it upon myself to write her very detailed idea and this is the first part. But almost everything is 100% hers. I just turned the review into a thing with structure and transition scenes.

By the way, I really love this idea. I haven't written the second half yet but I just know it's going to be beautiful. I hope everyone else enjoys this as much as I did.

Trigger warning: if you have issues with bullying or detailed descriptions of reactions to nightmares about bullying, this might not be your cup of tea.

Nightmares Part One

"If you're so smart why can't you figure out how to get out of this situation, huh Gromov?"

"Did that nerd just ask me out? Eew!"

"I'm going to help you make friends with this toilet bowl, nerd."

"Just run home to your mommy, crybaby!"

"What are you doing?"

Engie's head snapped up when he realised that last comment was loud and clear and came from an adult. The Russian, blinking the sleep from his eyes, looked up to find Snippy standing over him. Engie sighed, realising he had passed out on the kitchen table after another long night of little sleep and vivid nightmares. Usually it was Snippy that was passed out on the kitchen table after long nightmare-filled nights and the sniper was obviously wondering why Engie was doing his thing.

"What does it look like? I'm sleeping. Or I was." Engie said.

"In the middle of the day on the table?" Snippy asked.

"I was up all night working on a project." Engie snapped. "Some of us do have things to be doing you know."

From the way that Snippy recoiled, Engie knew that he had been unnecessarily harsh. The sniper frowned and waved his hand at Engie as if to brush away his words. Then the marksman left the room. Engie sighed. He was used to being left on his own by human beings. He had never had friends as a child. He had, unfortunately, been too smart for the other children and thus had not known how to relate to them. The other children, however, knew exactly how to relate to Gromov. They teased him, called him a plethora of names, stole his lunch money and gave him swirlies. He had gone into robotics because of his childhood. Robots had never abandoned or betrayed him… well, until ANNET. But the thing about ANNET was simple: she had been everything in his life. He had never had nightmares about being bullied or abandoned when he was working on ANNET because he was so focused on her and making her perfect. Then, when she betrayed him and humanity, he had spent so much time fearing her and feeling guilty. Then he had joined zee Captain and invested a lot of his energy into not pissing off Snippy. But now his life had quieted down: Snippy knew who he was and hadn't killed him, they hadn't been attacked by anything lately and Pilot and Captain were more interested in torturing Snippy than him. This meant that Engie had finally started to unwind and his mind had the energy and resources to betray him. Last night had been the third night Engie had experienced nightmares. The first two nights had been vivid reminders of the physical pains he had been put through. Last night's dreams and his kitchen table dreams had been auditory tortures. Engie had convinced himself that the nightmares would fade away once he got used to his slower lifestyle.

He couldn't have been more wrong.

XxX

Four days had passed since Snippy had found Engie slumped over the kitchen table and things hadn't improved any. Engie had been irritable, rude and he had almost made Pilot cry once. He also was acting like it was his personal mission to remind Snippy why the sniper had hated the engineer so much in the past. The only reason why Snippy hadn't punched him in the face yet was the fact that Engie seemed like he was going to faint at any time. Still, he was convinced that Engie was only behaving in such an odd manner because he was a bitch and missed being the boss of everyone.

Of course, Snippy couldn't read minds so he had no idea what was really going on inside Engie's head. Engie knew from experience that you couldn't rely on human beings and he didn't want to have anything to do with his comrades while his nightmares were still haunting him. He just knew that if he expressed any amount of emotional distress he would find himself being laughed at. The others simply couldn't care about him and why would they? He had used Captain for his experiments on luck and lorded his superiority over Snippy before the world as they knew it ended. And somehow Engie knew Pilot was all his fault. So it was better to push everyone away before they could hurt him.

XxX

"You're really not anything at all are you? What's the point of acting so smart if you're so pathetic?"

"If only he wasn't able to write his exams. If the world wasn't being awed by his test scores then they'd know how worthless he really was."

"Well then, why don't we break his fingers?"

"Look guys, the big baby's already screaming! How loud do you think he'd scream if we actually broke his fingers?"

"Let's find out."

Engie shot up in bed, screeching as he clutched his dominant right hand, not noticing that the fingers were strong and whole despite the fact that two fingers had been broken all those years ago. He didn't even notice that he was awake and thus was still trapped in the nightmare when Snippy burst into his room. The sniper was panting hard, like he had run to Engie's aid in a marathon sprint, and was searching for an assailant. There wasn't one to be found though. Snippy sighed and rubbed his face, wondering if he had dreamed the attack and if the reason for Engie's distress had been the fact that Snippy had burst into his room like a crazed person.

Snippy was planning on making a quick retreat and had even made it back out the door before he realised that Engie was still shaking. The engineer should have been yelling at the sniper for disturbing him if this particular instant had resulted from one of Snippy's nightmares. But Engie just sat there, oddly clutching at his hand and sweating profusely. Snippy cringed and remembered all the years he had suffered from nightmares. Even when his dreams were at their worse and his hatred for Gromov was at its peak, he had never wished his pain on Gromov. He always settled for visualizing ANNET blowing up. So he knew just how much Engie was hurting. Sighing, Snippy quickly imagined ANNET blowing up in glittery pink sparks of death before he walked over to Engie. Snippy sat on the bed behind Engie and delicately patted his back.

"There, there." Snippy said awkwardly. He briefly wondered if anyone actually said that to people when they were seriously trying to calm them down or if it was only in cartoons. It certainly didn't seem to calm Engie down because the man just froze. Snippy frowned and then realised that Engie was still wearing his gear. The engineer had likely been too tired to remove his things and fell asleep with the heavy gear on. Snippy got up and moved so that he could crouch down in front of Engie and remove his goggles and mask. He was startled when he saw that Engie's dark eyes were wide with fear and unshed tears.

"Do you want to tell me what happened?" Snippy asked softly.

Engie just burst into one huge sob and then curled into himself, head resting on his knees and he hugged his legs. Then he simply started to bawl like an infant. Snippy froze like a deer in headlights and contemplated running for his life. Engie was obviously so far gone that he didn't even know Snippy was there. Snippy had never known what to do less than in that moment. He had a vague thought that Captain had totally oversold Snippy's mothering skills. But that thought made Snippy think of Mama Snippy. His mom was a tiny little slip of a woman with deep blue eyes and raven black hair. She lived by the motto that hugs and hot tea could cure anything. Snippy didn't have any tea but he had perfectly good arms. Snippy gingerly put his arms around Engie and sat there awkwardly. He thought about saying "there, there" again even though his mom never did (she used to prattle on about things that Charles found ridiculous until he was crying because he was laughing, not scared) when Engie finally relaxed a little.

Although he could sense how awkward the hug was, Engie marvelled at the warmth and safety provided. He slowly let himself relax as he realised that no one hugs a person before they break their fingers. He cuddled into the hugger's chest, wondering why his parents never hugged him after he had come home hurt or crying from a hard day surviving school. He hugged back on instinct. He had come to realise that he had been dreaming and that he was now safe and awake but the part of his brain that still clung to the dream was still twelve years old and so very lonely. Suddenly he realised that Captain and Pilot would never give awkward hugs because they threw themselves so intensely into everything that they did. This meant that the only person who had ever willingly hugged Engie was Charles Snippy.

Engie forcefully pushed himself back from Snippy and wiped at his eyes. He blushed and refused to face the former tour guide, even when the man sheepishly handed his gear back. Engie quickly put his things back on so that Snippy couldn't see how upset he was. But he could still see how uncertain of himself Snippy felt for the blue eyed man hadn't been wearing anything on his face. If anything, Snippy looked like he had thrown his coat on in a hurry and he was wearing the expression of someone who had suddenly been awakened due to a complicated situation. Engie groaned internally when he realised that he had woken Snippy and now he had to deal with a confused, uncertain sniper.

Snippy finally allowed himself to relax when he realised that Engie was as safe as he was ever going to be and shifted so that he was sitting with his back against the wall and his legs dangling over the bed.

"Care to tell me what all that was about?" Snippy asked.

Engie adopted his position. "It was nothing. Just a bad dream."

Snippy snorted but didn't look at him. "Gromov, I am the nightmare king. There's no such thing as 'just a bad dream.'"

Engie frowned. That was the thing, wasn't it? Charles Snippy had led a life filled with debilitating nightmares. Nothing Engie could say would shock him because Snippy knew what it meant to have a dream so bad you screamed yourself hoarse. So the engineer allowed himself to break down walls that he didn't know where there and he told Snippy about how bad his childhood was. Snippy nodded and even inspected Engie's fingers himself when the engineer started to explain the memories behind his most recent nightmare. Engie was concentrating so hard on telling his story that he didn't notice how he was gradually curling himself around Snippy's body. He fell asleep leaning against his former subordinate. Snippy just patted Gromov on the head and settled in for an awkward sleep and a crick in his back when he woke up.

XxX

There weren't any more nightmares that night. And in the morning, the only acknowledgement either man made to that night was when Engie asked Snippy how his back was.

TBC

A/n: Okay, honestly, I wrote this just to get the "Gromov, I am the nightmare king" line written. As soon as I got smergrl3495's suggestions that was the scene that popped into my head. Because, really, who would know nightmares better?

Also, I have a pair of replica Snippy goggles coming to me in the mail. So excited. I am going to have a major fangasm when they finally arrive.