Finding The 4077th

Nightmare

It happened the day after the cave retreat. In the middle of the night Christopher woke up screaming. The whole tent erupted in confusion. It's been awhile since he had such a bad dream, almost a month and a half was his highest record at the moment without any big nightmare but this one was definitely one of the very bad ones.

Hawkeye jumped up at the terror filled scream of his son, and immediately moved to the cot next to his and put his arms around the boy. Chris grabbed a hold of him and Hawkeye pulled him next to him on his cot. The boy looked completely terrified and burst into tears the moment he understood it was a nightmare and not something he was reliving. It amazed Hawkeye sometimes that even with so much terror, Chris's voice wasn't very loud. It still woke everyone up, but it still sounded a bit oppressive.

The trembling child was completely drenched in sweat and looked white as a ghost. He looked so scared and heartbroken that even Charles couldn't get angry with him for waking them up. The man wanted to comment but thankfully decided against it after he saw the miserable sobbing boy.

Chris grabbed his dad tight like his life depended on it, it all felt so real. The scent of moldy wet stone and the darkness. In his dream he tried calling out but he was afraid of people getting angry at him. He didn't know why or who would be angry but he knew they would if he made a sound.

His dad hugged him tight and mumbled that everything was fine and Chris slowly started to believe it again. He sobbed as he had his face buried against his dad's chest.

"It's okay, Kiddo. I'm here, you're safe." Hawkeye soothed tiredly. He hated to see Chris like this, it must have something to do with that cave. He knew Chris must've had some kind of experience with them and he wished he could do something about it but Chris never wanted to talk about the details.

"It was just a bad dream." Hawkeye added even though he knew it was much more than that. "Was it that cave? You know you can tell me anything, if you want to talk about it. You want to talk about it?" Hawkeye asked, he wished Chris would open up more about the stuff that happened. He could help so much more if he knew what exactly happened but Chris didn't want to or couldn't talk about it.

Chris sighed tiredly before he let out a heartbreaking sob and shook his head.

"It's okay, you don't have to. I'm always here for you if you change your mind." Hawkeye added softly. Chris was calming down already. He knew he wasn't a bad parent but he felt a sort of responsibility for these recent nightmares, maybe he could have prevented this somehow.

Chris's breathing slowly became deeper meaning the boy was almost asleep again. Hawkeye yawned and brushed through the blond hair affectionately.

"Chris, you need to get back into your own bed okay." He said as he gently moved the child back into the cot next to his. Chris made a sad and disappointed humming sound but he wasn't fighting it. He did however grab his arm and didn't want to let go.

Hawkeye sighed deeply and tried to gently pull his arm free but Chris refused to let go. He looked at his sleeping son and shrugged, at least the boy wasn't clinging to him like a monkey. He could sleep without his arm.

Soon Chris started snoring softly and Hawkeye was very close to falling asleep as well when a small fluttering chicken jumped on the cot next to Chris.

His eyes shot open, did that chicken seriously just jump on that bed. The small bird ruffled her feathers proudly, wiping her paws on the duvet as she found herself a nice place to sleep. Hawkeye wanted to remove the livestock immediately but Chris let go of his arm to hug the little bird and Hawkeye didn't have the heart to take the bird away. Cinderella made a soft happy cackling sound as Hawkeye fell asleep.