I have an ask brewing in my brain but I have a question first!!!!
Do you think soap would ever intentionally or unintentionally hurt Simon in the psych ward au?
those first few days when soap’s moved into ghost’s room, he’s incredibly irritated by ghost’s non-reactions thinking he’s being condescending; he’s all threats and posturing, raised fists and lunging at his bed- just to pull back and walk away with a sneer when ghost still doesn’t so much as blink
(ghost’s flinch response had been burned out of him when he was just a child. it’ll take more than a raised fist from someone who’s never followed through on their threats to get him to tremble)
once soap finally internalises that ghost isn’t judging or making fun of him, that he truly is just that unbothered by his violence, he calms down, redirecting all that violence on the walls and the orderlies. he doesn’t want to fight, not really, it’s just the only outlet he has, the only way he knows how to process the toxic miasma of emotions that threaten to swallow him every morning when be wakes up just to spit him back out again in the cold dark of night
the few times he has hurt ghost have all been accidents, and more than that, have all been from ghost interfering when soap’s gone too far in one of his episodes and ended up hurting himself; when he’s broken furniture down to splinters and his bloodsoaked knuckles are more bone than flesh, or when he unknowingly broke a glass in the middle of threatening an orderly and ghost took his hand before he could form a fist and force the shards deeper into his skin
every time, it’s been a flinch response, his surroundings forced so deep under the haze of rage red that he forgot ghost was even with him (despite him never leaving his side if he can help it) that his only reaction is that of panic. being grabbed has only ever meant pain; from his mam walking him home by the ear as a child when he caused another scene in church or when the other boys in school would jump him bc he was small for his age and had a bigger mouth than he did sense. the older he got, the bigger his enemies became. the only problem was, soap scaled up alongside his anger until the day came he could back up his shit talking
wild punches, a few kicks, once he even whirled around and sunk his teeth in ghost’s arm before the haze clears and he realises just who he has between his teeth. he always stumbles back, horrified with himself in a way he rarely is, and since they almost always occur when soap’s accidentally hurting himself, he takes the opportunity to drive whatever that pain is deeper in punishment for hurting the only person who’s ever stuck by him despite his crazy
and ghost never holds those incidents against him, just as quick to stop soap’s pain as he was before the most important person in his life drew his blood. a small price to pay
