Fic: Dreams
Fandom: no_mans_land_
Summary: Lord Alden doesn't have dreams. Not the way most people do.
Rating: um, PG? Mostly. Otherwise rated Alden for some swearing.
Dreams
Lord Alden doesn’t have dreams. Not the way most people do.
Not that he actually knows how most people have dreams. But even operatives in T.H.E.Y. have some downtime, and Meligot has always been in the habit of lending him her latest discovery into the world of second-rate literature. Alden rather suspects she knows quite well that her trashy paperback novels really are trashy, but he has never said. He has always been very polite to Meligot; exceedingly polite, in a way that makes people know he’s mocking them, though Meligot has never seemed to mind. Most people do mind. He can see it in their eyes. He does know that, the way he doesn’t really know how people have dreams.
But in the trashy paperback novels Meligot lends him-and Alden always reads the damn things, because they are, if nothing else, highly entertaining-dreams are always aspirations. Goals. Desires. And Lord Alden… he does not wish like that. There’s no need to go around wishing like that.
Wishing did not stop his mother from dying, and it was never really a goal to have a recruiting agent from T.H.E.Y. turn up on his father’s doorstep when he was sixteen. It just happened that way, and his goals from then on were practical things. He didn’t like to think that perhaps he helped people because he couldn’t have helped his mother. Alden despises psychoanalysis and the like. He does what he does because he does, and if anyone wants to probe any deeper they can go straight to hell for all he cares. He doesn’t have wish-goal-dreams. Silly ideological things.
And he doesn’t have night-dreams either. Not the way most people do.
He does know this, because operatives in T.H.E.Y. tend to let loose at Headquarters. They’re all sick and tired of acting diplomatic and saving worlds, and so they sprawl in their seats at breakfast, and recount dreams ranging from the absurd to the outright lewd. Lord Alden has never really understood the need to do this, to expose yourself to the laughing good-natured scrutiny of others. That’s another opportunity for psychoanalysis and such things. Besides, his mind doesn’t have time to think up big pink bunnies atop paisley clouds, and neither does he allow something like the need for a good fuck to become so deep-seated he starts thinking about it asleep. Silly things, night-dreams.
He calls them that, though.
Dreams, he says, if anyone ever asks. Dreams, damn it.
Because that’s a very inaccurate word, but accuracy is only important when it’s utterly vital. Otherwise accuracy can go to hell along with psychoanalysts, and he can keep calling them dreams. Dreams, when he wakes up half-choked by his own ragged breathing, tight all over and shaking and blood humming for a fight. All the pain and shock and horror that sometimes comes with this job has to bottle up somewhere, and his mind is the only place he can think of. So back round it comes, in the middle of the night, and he panics then, when his control is down and his body is resting. Sometimes Alden feels it’s a sort of betrayal, himself against himself, but there’s nothing he can do.
There have been a few times people have seen him. Sent out as backup on a mission and sleeping in the same quarters as another agent. Or perhaps in a society in which sleeping in one communal room is the norm and to refuse would be a great insult. Generally this second doesn’t cause any commotion, but operatives in T.H.E.Y. are habitually light sleepers, and so, once and again in his life, Alden has been confronted with a worried face, and the murmured sympathy, “Nightmare?”
No, Alden will snap, and roll over, and ignore any further enquiries. Just a dream.
Summary: Lord Alden doesn't have dreams. Not the way most people do.
Rating: um, PG? Mostly. Otherwise rated Alden for some swearing.
Dreams
Lord Alden doesn’t have dreams. Not the way most people do.
Not that he actually knows how most people have dreams. But even operatives in T.H.E.Y. have some downtime, and Meligot has always been in the habit of lending him her latest discovery into the world of second-rate literature. Alden rather suspects she knows quite well that her trashy paperback novels really are trashy, but he has never said. He has always been very polite to Meligot; exceedingly polite, in a way that makes people know he’s mocking them, though Meligot has never seemed to mind. Most people do mind. He can see it in their eyes. He does know that, the way he doesn’t really know how people have dreams.
But in the trashy paperback novels Meligot lends him-and Alden always reads the damn things, because they are, if nothing else, highly entertaining-dreams are always aspirations. Goals. Desires. And Lord Alden… he does not wish like that. There’s no need to go around wishing like that.
Wishing did not stop his mother from dying, and it was never really a goal to have a recruiting agent from T.H.E.Y. turn up on his father’s doorstep when he was sixteen. It just happened that way, and his goals from then on were practical things. He didn’t like to think that perhaps he helped people because he couldn’t have helped his mother. Alden despises psychoanalysis and the like. He does what he does because he does, and if anyone wants to probe any deeper they can go straight to hell for all he cares. He doesn’t have wish-goal-dreams. Silly ideological things.
And he doesn’t have night-dreams either. Not the way most people do.
He does know this, because operatives in T.H.E.Y. tend to let loose at Headquarters. They’re all sick and tired of acting diplomatic and saving worlds, and so they sprawl in their seats at breakfast, and recount dreams ranging from the absurd to the outright lewd. Lord Alden has never really understood the need to do this, to expose yourself to the laughing good-natured scrutiny of others. That’s another opportunity for psychoanalysis and such things. Besides, his mind doesn’t have time to think up big pink bunnies atop paisley clouds, and neither does he allow something like the need for a good fuck to become so deep-seated he starts thinking about it asleep. Silly things, night-dreams.
He calls them that, though.
Dreams, he says, if anyone ever asks. Dreams, damn it.
Because that’s a very inaccurate word, but accuracy is only important when it’s utterly vital. Otherwise accuracy can go to hell along with psychoanalysts, and he can keep calling them dreams. Dreams, when he wakes up half-choked by his own ragged breathing, tight all over and shaking and blood humming for a fight. All the pain and shock and horror that sometimes comes with this job has to bottle up somewhere, and his mind is the only place he can think of. So back round it comes, in the middle of the night, and he panics then, when his control is down and his body is resting. Sometimes Alden feels it’s a sort of betrayal, himself against himself, but there’s nothing he can do.
There have been a few times people have seen him. Sent out as backup on a mission and sleeping in the same quarters as another agent. Or perhaps in a society in which sleeping in one communal room is the norm and to refuse would be a great insult. Generally this second doesn’t cause any commotion, but operatives in T.H.E.Y. are habitually light sleepers, and so, once and again in his life, Alden has been confronted with a worried face, and the murmured sympathy, “Nightmare?”
No, Alden will snap, and roll over, and ignore any further enquiries. Just a dream.