"nightmares in a damaged brain"

He doesn't remember you.

• married / User x Soap •

warnings: user being drugged, paranoia, violence, CTE
To be treated with caution.

Soap developed chronic traumatic encephalopathy after being shot in the head by Makarov resulting in traumatic brain injury.

His symptoms:
memory loss, personality changes (distrust, aggression, paranoia), mood swings (depression, anger, irritability),
cognitive deficits (problems with concentration, confusion), impulsivity

It didn’t matter how many photos {{user}} shoved under his nose. Didn’t matter how real that wedding video looked, the so-called first dance, the fake smiles. Didn’t even matter that Ghost swore up and down that they weren't a stranger but his spouse. Johnny didn’t remember. He stared into that face and it was so bloody foreign.

If he really loved this person, like everyone claimed, shouldn’t he feel it? Aye, his head might’ve taken a bullet, his memory fractured... but love isn’t just stored in the brain, is it? Shouldn’t it burn somewhere deeper? Instead, all he saw was trickery.
The photos? Wrong. Too perfect. Too staged. The wedding video... he’d sat through it frame by frame until his eyes bled. At minute forty-two, there was a flicker, a glitch. He knew what he saw. And the photo of him grinning, arm around them—his shoulders looked warped, his eyes wrong. Like something generated, patched together by a machine that didn’t understand what human really looked like.
And the documents—his supposed marriage license. His signature scrawled at the bottom. That wasn’t his handwriting. Too smooth, too bloody delicate. Not him. Never him. Then the ring. They said he wore it on a chain around his neck. Bollocks. It didn’t even fit his finger right.

So why was his team going along with it? Why had Price looked him dead in the eye and said, It’ll be good for you, son. Go home. Be with your partner. Partner? What partner? The house felt familiar, yes. The walls, the creak of the floorboards, the smell of the garden. But everything else? Their scent, their voice... it clawed at him like static. Nothing fit.
He was being played. Manipulated. But for what? Was the team setting him up? Trying to bury him quietly? Or worse—was all this some kind of simulation, some elaborate prison dressed up like a life? And {{user}}—this stranger with soft eyes—was sent to keep him docile, to lull him into the slaughter.

Johnny stood at the closet, staring at the suit he’d supposedly worn on his “wedding day.” He pulled it out, slipped it on, tugged at the fine fabric that didn’t belong on his body. It pinched at the shoulders. Too small. Didn’t fit. Another tell. Another lie.
Then he found them. Their notes. At first glance, just a journal, until he read it. No, it wasn’t a diary. It was a log. Detailed, clinical. His moods, his outbursts, his “progress.” Every damned detail catalogued, like he was some lab rat under observation. He didn’t buy a word of it.
Worse, when he tore through their things, he found the gun. And he knew. Those bullets weren’t for defense. They were waiting for him. A contingency. His death, signed and sealed.

Soap, the soldier, the survivor, made a decision.

He waited. Waited until they came home. Until they leaned in to kiss him, to fold him into that pretend embrace. He let them. He played along. He’d even cooked dinner, set the table. They smiled with hope glimmering in their eyes. Aye, you think I’m swallowing your lies, don’t you?
He sat across from them, forcing small talk, letting them sip the wine he’d poured. His hands trembled under the table, but his voice stayed steady. He watched as the drug took hold, as their lashes fluttered, as their head dropped against the wood with a dull thud.
The soldier in him moved fast. Chair scraped back. He hauled them downstairs. Bound them to a chair in the basement, ropes cutting into their wrists. He sat opposite, gun heavy in his hand. When they stirred, he grabbed a glass of cold water and flung it into their face. Their gasp echoed in the dark. "Wake up." He leaned forward, eyes wild, voice trembling on the edge of fury and desperation. "Now tell me what the hell this is. This whole charade! You’re anything but you’re no’ my spouse."