![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kat_lair***
Title: in your head (they are lying)
Author:kat_lair
Fandom: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Character: Elim Garak
Tags: Spooktober, Ficlet, Introspection, Character Study, Dreams
Rating: T
Word count: 330
Summary: Garak never sleeps alone anymore.
Author notes: Spooktober 2024, Day 13/31. Prompt/theme: Zombie. Title is a twist on the lyrics by the Cranberries' Zombie. I trust you see what I've done here with this prompt.
in your head (they are lying) on AO3
Garak never sleeps alone anymore. Or maybe it’s more accurate to say that he never sleeps at all. Instead, he dreams.
At night, they visit him, the people from his past and present, the people who he once thought were in his future only for them to be ripped away as easy as air. Garak would understand it better if it was only people he’s killed, or those who were otherwise dead. That is surely something to be expected, to be visited by those whose blood stains your soul and breaks your heart even when it was spilt by you.
But there is no logic, Garak never knows who to expect; friends, relations, lovers, comrades, enemies, victims. They all come, individually, in pairs, in groups and combinations that have no reflection in the real world, people who’ve never met, who never even knew each other existed come to him together, slipping into his unconscious mind hand in hand. Sometimes they draw Garak into their arms, sometimes they drive a dagger into his throat. Sometimes there are armies of people he fought with trampling him down, and those who he fought picking him back up.
Each night they greet him; children and adults, Cardassian, Bajoran, Human, Klingon, Ferengi, Jem’Hadar, Founders, Trill, races he’s never even met in person but who in his dreams are suddenly an old friend, his mother, the child he killed because he was ordered to, the one he saved because he could.
Garak thinks he should be afraid, or angry, exhausted at the very least. Somehow, he is none of those things. Everyone else would fear they were losing their grip on sanity. Garak knows that went long ago, the first casualty in the service of the Empire.
Garak is not scared to close his eyes. He does not avoid going to bed or resort to chemicals to stay awake. Why would he? Unlike every other hour of his life, in his dreams he is never alone.
***
Title: in your head (they are lying)
Author:
kat_lair Fandom: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Character: Elim Garak
Tags: Spooktober, Ficlet, Introspection, Character Study, Dreams
Rating: T
Word count: 330
Summary: Garak never sleeps alone anymore.
Author notes: Spooktober 2024, Day 13/31. Prompt/theme: Zombie. Title is a twist on the lyrics by the Cranberries' Zombie. I trust you see what I've done here with this prompt.
in your head (they are lying) on AO3
Garak never sleeps alone anymore. Or maybe it’s more accurate to say that he never sleeps at all. Instead, he dreams.
At night, they visit him, the people from his past and present, the people who he once thought were in his future only for them to be ripped away as easy as air. Garak would understand it better if it was only people he’s killed, or those who were otherwise dead. That is surely something to be expected, to be visited by those whose blood stains your soul and breaks your heart even when it was spilt by you.
But there is no logic, Garak never knows who to expect; friends, relations, lovers, comrades, enemies, victims. They all come, individually, in pairs, in groups and combinations that have no reflection in the real world, people who’ve never met, who never even knew each other existed come to him together, slipping into his unconscious mind hand in hand. Sometimes they draw Garak into their arms, sometimes they drive a dagger into his throat. Sometimes there are armies of people he fought with trampling him down, and those who he fought picking him back up.
Each night they greet him; children and adults, Cardassian, Bajoran, Human, Klingon, Ferengi, Jem’Hadar, Founders, Trill, races he’s never even met in person but who in his dreams are suddenly an old friend, his mother, the child he killed because he was ordered to, the one he saved because he could.
Garak thinks he should be afraid, or angry, exhausted at the very least. Somehow, he is none of those things. Everyone else would fear they were losing their grip on sanity. Garak knows that went long ago, the first casualty in the service of the Empire.
Garak is not scared to close his eyes. He does not avoid going to bed or resort to chemicals to stay awake. Why would he? Unlike every other hour of his life, in his dreams he is never alone.
***