Alain Johns (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
atouchofka) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
thecapitol2015-05-06 04:39 am
atouchofka) wrote in thecapitol2015-05-06 04:39 am
Entry tags:
restless and loud [CLOSED]
Who| Alain and Roland
What| Nightmares
Where| Training Center (D7 suites, then D4)
When| Now (couple of weeks after the Binding/Alain's arrival)
Warnings/Notes| Discussion of gore, etc.
The first few nights Alain had arrived, he had slept like the dead. Even with all the confusion of the place, even with his distress over how he'd been brought here, he was simply exhausted. If he'd dreamed then, he hadn't remembered it on waking. But as the worst of his exhaustion wore off, so did his ability to sleep. The bed was too soft, after years on the road; the dead silence of his Touch nagged at him like a loose tooth; the sounds of the place were all wrong and the lights never quite seemed to go all the way out. Worst of all, though, were the dreams.
It wasn't that surprising, really, that his dreams were troubling him. He'd always had a tendency to vivid dreaming, and there was so much to try and think his way through during the day that it was no wonder it spilled into his nights. Most of the dreams, he could manage. He was no strangers to nightmares. Nobody could be, when they lived a gunslinger's life, especially not when they lived it with the Touch. You dealt with them by lying still when you woke up, and reminding yourself that they hadn't happened - or, if they had, that they were in the past. You put them away, and you moved on.
But that was harder to do here. He couldn't tell himself the dreams weren't real, and he couldn't tell himself they were over. Waking up from them was almost worse than the nightmares themselves, because for every dream of Farson's men slaughtering his brothers like cattle or of the myriad trials Roland might have faced, there were hours spent lying awake and wondering just how much of that dream had been real. How much of it had been because of him.
For a little under two weeks, he dealt with the nightmares the same way he would have dealt with any other dreams. He turned over in the too-soft bed, wished for the soft sound of his comrades' breathing to lull him back into a sense of safety, and tried to go back to sleep. But it was starting to tell. His headaches were getting more and more frequent, his sleep increasingly disturbed. He was starting to dread evenings, dread sleeping. He hated being there, lying and listening to the unearthly sounds of a city he didn't know, knowing his place was at home but not knowing what that place was. He hated, more than anything, not knowing.
And it was that which, eventually, made him give up on lying in the not-quite-dark and waiting for sleep to come back. He finally did what he knew he should have done days ago; he rolled out of bed, bare feet silent on the carpeted floor, and went to seek out his dinh.
It was around three o'clock in the morning when he headed into the District 4 suites, still barefoot and in his pyjamas, and knocked softly on Roland's door. "Roland? Ro'?" he called, low and soft, and fidgeted, waiting for an answer. If Roland was too deeply asleep to hear, he decided, he wouldn't wake him. It could wait until morning. He could wait.
But he waited on the fourth floor, outside Roland's room, with his hands tucked into his armpits and his weight shifting uncomfortably from foot to foot. And, after a little while, he knocked again.
What| Nightmares
Where| Training Center (D7 suites, then D4)
When| Now (couple of weeks after the Binding/Alain's arrival)
Warnings/Notes| Discussion of gore, etc.
The first few nights Alain had arrived, he had slept like the dead. Even with all the confusion of the place, even with his distress over how he'd been brought here, he was simply exhausted. If he'd dreamed then, he hadn't remembered it on waking. But as the worst of his exhaustion wore off, so did his ability to sleep. The bed was too soft, after years on the road; the dead silence of his Touch nagged at him like a loose tooth; the sounds of the place were all wrong and the lights never quite seemed to go all the way out. Worst of all, though, were the dreams.
It wasn't that surprising, really, that his dreams were troubling him. He'd always had a tendency to vivid dreaming, and there was so much to try and think his way through during the day that it was no wonder it spilled into his nights. Most of the dreams, he could manage. He was no strangers to nightmares. Nobody could be, when they lived a gunslinger's life, especially not when they lived it with the Touch. You dealt with them by lying still when you woke up, and reminding yourself that they hadn't happened - or, if they had, that they were in the past. You put them away, and you moved on.
But that was harder to do here. He couldn't tell himself the dreams weren't real, and he couldn't tell himself they were over. Waking up from them was almost worse than the nightmares themselves, because for every dream of Farson's men slaughtering his brothers like cattle or of the myriad trials Roland might have faced, there were hours spent lying awake and wondering just how much of that dream had been real. How much of it had been because of him.
For a little under two weeks, he dealt with the nightmares the same way he would have dealt with any other dreams. He turned over in the too-soft bed, wished for the soft sound of his comrades' breathing to lull him back into a sense of safety, and tried to go back to sleep. But it was starting to tell. His headaches were getting more and more frequent, his sleep increasingly disturbed. He was starting to dread evenings, dread sleeping. He hated being there, lying and listening to the unearthly sounds of a city he didn't know, knowing his place was at home but not knowing what that place was. He hated, more than anything, not knowing.
And it was that which, eventually, made him give up on lying in the not-quite-dark and waiting for sleep to come back. He finally did what he knew he should have done days ago; he rolled out of bed, bare feet silent on the carpeted floor, and went to seek out his dinh.
It was around three o'clock in the morning when he headed into the District 4 suites, still barefoot and in his pyjamas, and knocked softly on Roland's door. "Roland? Ro'?" he called, low and soft, and fidgeted, waiting for an answer. If Roland was too deeply asleep to hear, he decided, he wouldn't wake him. It could wait until morning. He could wait.
But he waited on the fourth floor, outside Roland's room, with his hands tucked into his armpits and his weight shifting uncomfortably from foot to foot. And, after a little while, he knocked again.
no subject
That breath comes out all in a rush when Roland speaks, and Alain pulls away cautiously, as if he expects Roland to fall back into that state at any moment. He doesn't ask whether Roland's all right. That feels like a disingenuous question, one which would only waste both their time. Instead, he turns to pick his tea back up, biting his lip, and sits there quietly for a moment. "Were you alone long?" he asks at last. "After we died?"
no subject
"There were people. Here and there. None like you." Roland shakes his head, reaching the wall and turning around to pace in the other direction. "There was someone. Susannah." With the name his long face lights up in a smile, which he turns briefly toward his friend in the here and now. The smile's made almost as much of relief to have come across someone he can remember safely, summon back the time in his mind when she'd shared this tower with him, as it's made of love for the woman herself. "Reminded me of you sometimes. Don't worry for me Alain. Are you worried? I don't recall you worrying over my solitude before. But there was always the two of you, before."
no subject
That isn't really answering the question in hand, and he knows it. Truth is, he doesn't want to answer what's really being asked, because the answer is no. No, "worried" doesn't begin to cover it. The thought of Roland alone, without anyone to balance him out or see him through the dark pits his mind sometimes takes him to, is horrific. And it's clouded further by worry over the here and now, for the way Roland's acting is hardly reassuring.
no subject
"You ought to worry less, here in Panem." That last word Roland says with a bit of force, an emphasis all for his own benefit, rather than Alain's. "It'll wear you thin, just as my mishandling since you got in this city have worn you thin. Don't feed your worry, if you can, take joy where you can find it. Have you done that, Alain? Will you?"
no subject
no subject
He pauses to frown down at the table. Signless has little enough of that these days, doesn't he? "Or mayhap you can help each other. Full of horrors as this place can be, it isn't always so."
The hand on Alain's shoulder squeezes, and he tries to pull Alain a little more against him. "If nothing else, old friend, I-" He can't say he's happy of Alain's entrance into Panem. He can't. Looking into that round, familiar face is still too frightening.
"I'm glad to be with you," is what Roland decides on, because 'frightening' doesn't mean he has to lie. "I'm very glad of it."
no subject
"Aye," he says quietly, and smiles. "Aye. I'm glad of it, too." It makes this captivity a reprieve rather than a prison, even with all the horror it brings. It means that, for the time being at least, he can know all isn't lost.
Still the same Roland. And he got to live, even if nobody else did. That's worth some gladness.