A/N: This is based off a dream - several dreams - I had after watching the 2016 movie (which I love!) But yeah the dreams were strange to say the least! I changed them up so that they'd fit the story, and I'm honestly not sure where to go with it...Warning, you all probably won't like it at all because it implies an adult Sophie x Fleshlumpeater (told you the dream was strange!) Nothing family-unfriendly, but I mean...still weird...
Man Of My Nightmares
A twenty-two year old Sophie opened her eyes to a dark ceiling.
It took a moment for her to collect her thoughts, but she saw instantly that she was in her own bedroom. Letting out a breath of air, she ran her hands through her hair and let her arms flop on the bed. Silence reigned and she lay still for some time, trying to sort out the strange images she'd seen.
She'd had the strangest dream...So strange, in fact, that she knew it couldn't possibly have come from her dear friend, the BFG. He would never have given her a vision like that, certainly not...
Though she was a grown woman, she still maintained occasional contact with her otherworldly friend. Sometimes - not often - he would come and visit her in the dead of night. Not just to deliver sweet and pleasant dreams, but once in a while to see her with his own eyes because he knew that while he could hear all the secret murmurings of the world, poor Sophie couldn't, and would have grown to miss him terribly if he hadn't graced her with the occasional visit.
The BFG no longer kept up his business of dream-blowing, except sometimes for her. One reason was that the threat of his menacing brethren, the Giants, had been eliminated, and so there was no real need to give back to the poor children. But really, the truth is that it was simply too risky for him to venture about after he'd revealed himself to more of humanity than he'd been comfortable with. He would have enjoyed keeping up his business of dream-blowing if he felt comfortable doing it. Though the humans wouldn't be able to find Giant Country even if they tried, he figured that the less he was out and about in their world, the better.
But that didn't stop him from paying his little friend a visit every once in a while. That's why, when Sophie had woken up from her dream, she had the fleeting thought that the BFG had been at her window. But the thought disappeared as soon as it entered her mind.
'He wouldn't do that,' she thought with a sleepy, uncomfortable frown. It was just too strange.
She had dreamed that she was outside the gates of the castle. It was night, and she was lost. There was a strange sense of some vague, subtle danger, but she remained calm and sought only to look for someone or something that might help her get back home, or at least to safety so that she wouldn't be wandering the streets at night.
It was then that a gentleman came up to her and offered her something hot to eat. He handed her a bowl of soup and said that there were shelters nearby which housed anyone needing a roof over their heads.
Sophie accepted the invitation and followed the man to these shelters. They were a short distance away.
When they got there, she saw that these shelters were in fact nothing more than tents strung up in a row, much like an army on a battlefield. There were already a small number of people crawling into these tents and falling straight to sleep on the white cots.
As she stood there, the man suddenly turned to her and gently gathered her in his embrace. His arms were strong and his skin was warm. She suddenly felt very safe and secure so close to him. She returned the embrace, gratefully, inhaling his scent as he drew her close. Her heart began to beat faster and she felt as though she were about to melt in this new and intriguing sensation.
Then she drew back to look at his face and saw that it was none other than Fleshlumpeater, her dreaded enemy.
That's when she'd woken with a start.
Sophie, being the brave soul that she was, wasn't one to cower every time a bad dream struck her. True some were more disturbing than others, but she tended to shake them off with relative ease.
This one, needless to say, was disturbing on an entirely new level.
'Why…' she thought, 'why why why would I dream something like that? ...Fleshlumpeater…!' She suppressed a shudder and turned on her side. The fact that the leader of the Giants had been human-sized in her dream did little to alleviate the strangeness.
Though she closed her eyes and tried to reclaim peace, it was some time before she drifted off again. The BFG had once told her that nightmares sometimes find their way to "human beans" of their own accord. He traps what renegades he can, but he can't catch all of them. Apparently, this particular nightmare had found its way to her, and yet...there was something off about it. Something she couldn't quite place her finger on.
'I must talk to BFG about this…' Was her last thought before sleep reclaimed her at long last.
It had been two weeks since her dream-turned-nightmare.
It was then that the BFG had paid her a visit. She'd asked, of course, if he would be able to come see her sooner, even knowing that she wouldn't be able to hear his response. Evidently, he hadn't been able to come as soon as she'd liked.
Still, she was grateful when she heard a noise outside of her window one night, and the familiar, large shape of her friend very silently appeared at her window.
She jumped out of bed. "BFG!" she whispered loudly.
His kind eyes greeted her with a smile that slowly reached his mouth, but there was a trace of worry in them, too. "I's…" he started, "I's sorry I couldn't come sooner, but it were too dangerous to come creeping about 'afore now."
She nodded. "I understand." She was so happy to see him that she'd almost forgotten the whole reason she wanted him to come in the first place. It always felt like the gaps between their visits were so long. Remembering her manners, she asked, "First of all, how have you been?"
His smile gently widened. "I is doing my work, like usual, though times fer me been slower 'an they were, what with the boys gone 'an havin' to be more careful visitin' you, girl."
She secretly adored the fact that he referred to her as "girl," even though she was an adult.
His face once again took on a more serious note, and he asked with a tinge of concern in his voice, "And how be you, little Sophie? I 'eard your request not long ago and noted the iggly tone in your voice."
"It's, uh…" she faltered, realizing that now he was here, she wasn't at all sure how to broach the uncomfortable topic of the dream. "It was nothing serious, BFG...just...I had a strange dream, nightmare, two weeks ago, and it involved…" she took a deep breath, "the Giants."
His eyes widened ever so slightly. "The...Giants? You mean the boys?"
She nodded and took in a deep breath. "Well, one Giant in particular…" Feeling a sudden need to avoid the particulars of the dream, she went on, "I knew it wasn't you who'd sent it, that it must have been a stray nightmare that had found me, somehow...but…"
He stood outside her window, listening patiently but clearly not understanding where she was going with it.
The sound of a car suddenly made itself known, and while Sophie merely tuned it out, the BFG had disappeared from her window for a few short minutes. She sometimes forgot that he was not supposed to be seen by the general populace.
She let out yet another breath when he reappeared, and decided that she must tell him straight out about the dream, not least of all for his own sake. It wouldn't do to have him linger in potential danger just because of her.
Reminding herself that she was brave, she recited it to him in full.
When she'd finished, there was a mild look of astonishment on his face. But then it broke into a sheepish smile and he rubbed the back of his head.
"Well that be a despungeable trogglehumper to be sure." He let out a stifled laugh.
"I don't think it's very funny," she insisted. "It was frightful! Especially when I saw that it was...him!"
"Ringbellers, phizzwizzards, trogglehumpers...they all be rather mysterious things." He lifted a great finger and pointed it gently toward her. "Now you dont's need be worrying your head about them, Sophie."
"But it was so strange," she said, lowering her voice and taking her eyes off him. "It was so...real...and that's what made it disturbing. Not to mention…" She paused and brought her gaze back on him. "...Why would I have dreamed something so loathsome, BFG?"
He let his hand slide off the balcony. "Well now you's askin' me things I haven't the foggiest about. I's catch dreams, good an' bad, but I's not knowin' everything about them." He gazed at his little friend for a moment, noting the still-disturbed look on her face.
He regarded her with compassion, and then, taking several steps back from her balcony, whipped out his horn. "If it be your pleasure, missy…?"
She smiled, but before retreating to her bed, she walked to the edge of the balcony and reached out her small hand to his enormous one.
He lowered the horn and walked up to her, allowing her to grasp his finger as they had done many years ago when they'd devised a plan to get rid of the Giants.
"Thank you, BFG," she said, barely above a whisper.
His eyes held that same perpetual mixture of sorrow and tenderness. "Sleep well, little Sophie…"
She released his finger and headed to bed. He waited patiently out on the cobblestone streets for her to fall asleep, and when she finally did, he blew into her room a dream that he felt would make up for the trogglehumper.
He might have been confused, and not a little alarmed, to know that she had the same uncomfortable dream two more times, weeks after he left.