(A/N: They are teenagers in this one)

(Warnings: Mentions of death)

This night was terrible and increasingly getting worse.

First, his insomnia was rearing its ugly head, and now his friend was having a PTSD dream. Lovely.

It wasn't terribly uncommon and in fact, Penguin had wished that it was much more uncommon than it actually was.

This was actually partially the reason that Penguin and Shachi shared a room in the first place. Within the Polar Tang submarine, down each hall laid several rooms meant for crew members. Whenever someone new joined the Heart pirates, they were to select a room of their choosing. They were required to sleep inside and keep their belongings stored securely.

Didn't seem to stop people from bunking with one another relatively often.

Penguin and Shachi naturally chose rooms right next to each other's, ecstatic with the idea of nightly sleepovers and performing secret messages in morse code through the wall. Though after a while, they always slept in the same room and ended up just moving in together without discussion.

He never usually regretted the decision to merge but it was times like these when he had to watch his closest friend sweat and cry over something he know well too much about. If only Law had the ability to go into their heads and surgically take those nightmares away but such a question would just result in a lecture on the impossibility of that.

Speaking of Law, he instinctively chose a room down the hall from the others, not wanting his work or focus to be interrupted by any chaos the others may cause. He knew how noisy his Nakama could be but in the end, they always somehow found a way to break his concentration anyways.

Bepo was probably the quietest and if asked, he'd stay completely silent; hence how he was allowed to bunk a room over from Law. Any empty rooms that weren't yet occupied were mainly used as storage or even lounge areas to play poker or smoke where Law wouldn't find them.

Despite these supposed "assigned rooms," that didn't stop the other two members of the Heart pirates: Law and Bepo, from occasionally indulging in bunking with others as well.

Shachi and Penguin of course shared a room but it wasn't uncommon for Bepo to join, especially when he'd get lonely at night without anyone else around. Law was the least typical to wander from his isolated room, particularly so late at night. He has admitted to finding the notion 'embarrassing' and 'unprofessional' for a normal crew of pirates. Perhaps he'd be correct about that if they were a so-called normal group of pirates. They had closer and stronger bonds than others had but Law says that was the whole problem.

Despite Law being against the whole premise, he found himself knocking on their door in the middle of the night more often than he'd care to admit. Usually, he'd seek comfort in Shachi and Penguin but if he lost his nerve to ask for help, he'd sneak into Bepo's room and bunk with him instead. (Unless Bepo was already with the other two, then he'd HAVE to bunk with them.)

/

Shachi's bed lay on the left side of the room while Penguin's bed lays on the opposite side, giving the boys distance, but the availability of comfort if need be. Each room had two beds in them originally, supplying ease for people to bunk together.

Nightmares and insomnia were the most common perpetrators of interrupting the two's sleep schedule. Everyone got nightmares once in a while but their types of nightmares were based more around a much more sensitive topic, so they occurred more often.

"M…mo..." Shachi choked out, gripping his sheets in a death grip, eyes clenching closed in despair by an unseen danger. His hair was all sweaty, which was a telltale sign the ginger was not doing alright.

Penguin glanced over from his spot across the room, eyes flickering in the pitch blackness for any sign of movement. He knew that voice belonged to Shachi but he was unsure if what he said was conscious or unconscious. The empty darkness made it hard to tell.

Albeit nightmares were common enough for both of them, insomnia was solely Penguin's problem, which is why he was awake to hear Shachi's crying at 3 in the morning. He had been laying atop his covers, hands folded on his chest as he stared at the ceiling, tracing faint shapes with his eyes to pass the time.

"Mo…mom, mom, no..." His heart sank coldly in his chest, a wave of nausea rising in his throat. He abandoned what he was doing, instead moving to stare wide-eyed over to where his disturbed friend lay.

Oh. It was one of those nights.

Dipping out of bed, his bare feet padded across the floor as he made his way to Shachi; he looked even worse than he sounded up close. It was made obvious due to his sweaty, red-faced appearance, that the teen was having a nightmare.

"Shachi...oi...Shachi." Penguin went to grab his friend's shoulder but quickly changed his mind.

Unlike Penguin, waking Shachi was no easy task. He slept like a corpse and carried dead weight like one too. Touching the sleeping teen apparently only made things worse; rocking his body in a panic until he was hyperventilating. However, whisper-shouting no longer seemed like it was working and he didn't want to wake the others on the ship. Then they'd have one smaller, captain-sized problem on their hands. He forced one of his friend's eyes open, shaking him with his other free arm.

"DUDE!" He called desperately, pulling him up from his lying position with all his might. Curse his weak, nerd arms (as Shachi calls them).

Thankfully, his tactics worked well enough for Shachi to be sucked out of that horrible dream Penguin knew all about. By the time he was surely conscious, tears crowded his eyes and dripped down his reddened cheeks. It took longer than it normally did to wake his friend so by now Penguin's hands were shaking; they were riddled with anxiety.

Penguin watched Shachi slowly process the fact that he was no longer reliving that day and was instead right there with his friend.

"Pen..guin..." Shachi started, his voice crumpling pathetically as his brain finally caught up.

"I know." He sighed, grabbing the overwhelmed redhead to pull him close to his chest. Accepting the offer, he buried his head in his chest and sobbed, clenching his nightshirt with the same strength he had used on his bed sheets.

"Penguin, I…Mom-" His voice cracked. "I know."

He didn't even bother asking because he knew was his nightmare had been about. He's had the same nightmare before and has been in the exact position Shachi was in now, crying his eyes out and clinging onto the other for dear life.

The dream was about their time on Swallow island. The day a tsunami decimated their previously peaceful island. There had no sign of such a natural disaster until it was too late and by then, there was nothing anyone could do. Penguin and Shachi barely escaped with their lives, having gotten shoved into a wardrobe to stay safe by their mothers.

Of course, water leaked inside the rickety wardrobe as it got pounded by waves and high winds. They were forced to open the doors and hang helplessly to stay grounded. The two waded the waters for hours until the seemingly endless disaster subsided.

No one else made it with Shachi and Penguin being the exceptions. As they got dragged away from their destroyed island by the roaring current, they spotted their mother's waterlogged corpses and never saw the island again.

Those images burned themselves into their young and fragile minds so even now years later, that day haunts them. There were times, nightmare or not that they wished they had gotten washed away with everyone else. Thankfully, they have Law and Bepo to comfort them when they start to think like that.

"I'm sorry." Shachi whimpered dejectedly, wetting Penguin's shirt with his tears and leaving the other not much to do but pet his hair and pat his back comfortingly.

"It's okay. You're okay...we're okay.." he sighed, laying down next to him. It was the same things they always said; maybe if they said these things enough, they'd eventually come true. Pulling the covers over both of them, he forced the weeping other to lay down as well. Seeing his friend so upset over something he couldn't control made him want to cry along with him; that wouldn't solve anything and they have the experience to prove that.

"It just.. it felt so real." His attempt to talk was filled with hiccups and shaky breaths but Penguin always understood, humming in acknowledgment.

"It-it's like I was back there when it happened. I was helpless. Helpl-less like I am now to do anything about it." Penguin closed his eyes, his throat clenching closed because the despair he could feel was heartbreaking. Talking about it never seemed to get any easier.

"We can't change what happened, Shachi. You know that." A tear dripped down his cheek, falling onto the pillow. Somehow, Shachi knew that Penguin was now also upset so he grabbed his hand and wrapped his shaky fingers around his.

"I know. I just hate it." The corners of his mouth lifted briefly.

"Well, I'll be here to hate it along with you. Okay?" Shachi wiped his eyes, trying to calm his breathing. There's no way he'll be able to sleep with his mind and heart racing like they were.

"Okay."

And like so many times before, the two boys fell asleep together, this time in Shachi's bed. Sleeping so close to one another made these tragic nights more bearable and less like a war that they had to face all on their own. This way at least they could share their pain with someone who understood undoubtedly.

Situations like these made it very clear as to why the boys sharing a room wasn't a preference but rather a necessity.