#also the title…there are like 1000 1/lizzie fics i want to use it for so it may not be permanent LOL i listen to this song and think ab them

[eltube]

dream a little dream of me (oneshot)

Remember how I said the fics were reaching critical mass…I finally finished one…incredible

I refuse to host my KND fics on ao3, because it is frankly a triggering experience to look for content there and I’m not going to put anyone through that. In the future I’d like to make a neocities homepage where I can put everything but it will probably be a while—in the meantime i give u all this.

This fic is: 1/Lizzie, adult timeline, GKND-adjacent. It is tangled up in my web of headcanons and theories so here is some background info/canon reminders:

Nigel and Lizzie are married and in their 30s here; in my adult timeline, Nigel went to prison at 19 for blowing up one of Father’s factories and meets/gets together with Lizzie again when he’s released

The GKND used chester’s happy headband in operation WHITEHOUSE to control Nigel’s dreams, but it isn’t clear how the technology works; I expand on this with a headcanon that the GKND enters Nigel’s dreams regularly and remotely; Nigel’s PTSD means that he is in general just used to having very intense dreams

Lizzie went AWOL from the GKND around the time of operation GIRLFRIEND and, in my adult/non-GKND timeline, successfully got the GKND to leave Earth and abandon their plans to recruit Nigel. She did this all behind the scenes; she lives as a human woman and has disavowed her former life, telling no one and wanting to keep it this way.

The rest I hope I have left up to you to read between the lines! There is discussion of PTSD but no other content warnings. 

I love these two so much xoxo love is real etc. please enjoy

——————————

The chapters of Nigel’s life were, in a way, defined by his nightmares. They were familiar, closer to companions than adversaries, like black dogs that followed him but bit his hand. Though he grew and changed, they barely did—at least the themes were always the same.

It seemed ironic to him that, now that he was free and married and bewilderingly at peace, Nigel talked more about his dreams then than he ever had in the chaos of the past. He felt each time less guilty about the gruesome details, finding he could pick and choose which parts of his life he shared. Nigel supposed he must have gotten too used to it all, though, become really desensitized, because sometimes when he told Lizzie he had a dream, the look on her face was so disturbed. It was almost like the dreams scared her.

Some, more than others, she almost wouldn’t let go of.

“How long have you had that one?” She asked, her hand on his. He had his glasses and the bedside lamp on, and her eyes bore into him with some kind of urgency. He couldn’t understand the source of it; he had barely stirred at all on waking. If she hadn’t asked, he might have gone back to sleep.

“That dream specifically?” He felt his brow knot together, thinking. “It’s a common one, I guess. Not always exactly the same. Honestly, I feel okay.”

Sometimes he called it the trial, almost affectionately, like it was a fond but stubborn friend. The dream always went the same: he would be shown to a series of tasks by some figure he had looked up to—his dad, Numbuh 274, some bizarre facsimile of James Bond—and before something bad caught up with him, he had to complete them. They usually demanded a moderate amount of physical skill, almost like his field test when he was a cadet, but harder and decidedly more urgent. Obstacles and people from his life blended into it all the time, updating it, making it more challenging.

It was also often done in zero-gravity, which was kind of weird, and a lot of the time there was this big spaceship that showed up at the end, but he had spent enough time on Moonbase that these were probably familiar images to him. Truly, compared to all his dreams, he felt it meant him little if any harm. Why would he even bring it up?

“This one isn’t even exactly a nightmare, to be honest,” he assured her further. “I’m usually more stressed than scared. Sometimes it’s even kind of fun, like I’m on a game show or something.”

His wife looked unmoved, continuing to study his face. “But answer the question,” she urged. “How long have you had variations of that dream?”

He blinked. “Does it matter?” When she kept staring, he searched his memory. “Well…I guess as long as I can remember? Maybe not as far back as…kindergarten. But I remember telling Abby about it. Maybe in second grade?”

“Before the Kids Next Door?” Lizzie interjected, squeezing his hand and bringing him out of his thoughts. She was still staring. “Did you have it at all before then?”

He paused, then slowly shook his head. “No, not before then. Well.” He tilted his head, seeing the obvious. “Before then I didn’t have nightmares at all. Lizzie, the Kids Next Door isn’t always related to—“

“But you say this isn’t a nightmare.”

He raised his hands in a kind of shrug. “I guess it’s not! Who knows. It’s a dream of…undeclared affiliation.” He smiled, trying to change Lizzie’s expression, but not succeeding. Why does it matter? “Look, it’s fine. It wakes me up a lot, that’s all. Dreams are weird.”

She turned away, running a hand over her face. Nigel puzzled further—he tried to lean in but she evaded his gaze. “What’s…wrong?” He finally asked.

“Am I ever in it?” Her voice was tentative. “The person who…gives you the test. Is it ever me?”

He considers the question, trying to understand what’s behind it. Does she feel left out? He had thought that when they married, her jealousy of the Kids Next Door—sure, warranted in the past, but no longer relevant—would finally wane, but it came back like this sometimes, with a bizarre undertone of fear. It made no sense, but he worried for nothing sometimes, too. That was something he finally understood. He should reassure her.

“Yes, you are in it,” he says truthfully, remembering, and smiles as he does. “I forgot until you said so, but it’s definitely been you a few times.” See, nothing to worry about! “Actually, I think it’s been you more often, you know, since we got married. I guess that makes sense, we just can’t stay away from each—”

A stifled sound cut him off, and his mouth fell shut. He had said the wrong thing, somehow, still. He would have to unpack all this later. His insides withered further as she turned her whole body away, smothering another a small gasp in her hands. “Are you…crying?”

“I’m sorry,” she bursts out, hiding her face, spitting the words like a confession. “I’m sorry I can’t stop them. I don’t know how they’re still doing it. They should be gone already. I don’t know how they’re still using my face.”

Something twists inside him, deeply guilty, propelling him forward to put a hand on her back. He never thought she would be one to blame herself for this, but maybe he hadn’t said enough.

“Lizzie, it’s not…” He bit the inside of his cheek, trying to remember all he had learned in the last few years, the words all the pamphlets used. “That’s not something anyone can do. There’s no need for you to stop it yourself, it’s, you know.” He waves his hand dismissively. “PTSD business. I don’t expect it to go away. Who really knows how any of this stuff works, right?”

“You don’t understand,” she replied, her arms wrapped around her like she was cold. “You can’t.” It was enough that he wondered if he was meant to hear—he risked it anyway.

“Maybe I can’t,” he admitted, gently. Their bedroom in the dim light felt like the safest place on Earth. He only wanted her to know. “I mean, we can’t understand everything about each other. I like that you…know that. But I just don’t want you to worry about me when I really am okay,” he tried.

Lizzie never pushed him when things felt too painful to say. He wouldn’t do the same to her—but whatever her anxiety was, he was sure it was unfounded. How else would he be here, in one piece, at all?

She finally turned to look at him. She looked fearful, lIke how he imagined himself in bed as a child, not knowing what the night would bring. “Will you tell me?” She asked at last. “When you have that dream again, or something like it? If it changes? Will you promise not to keep it from me?”

He flashed a slight smile. “I couldn’t keep anything from you. But what’s so…special about these ones that worry you so much? I never really get it.” He shook his head. “There are so many worse dreams.”

She avoided his eyes. “Not for me.”

It’s such a strange thing to say, and he isn’t sure how to ask, so he doesn’t. He just nods, and pulls off his glasses, putting his hand on hers like she did before and lying back. Nigel learned to comfort others by watching—from Abby, from Kuki—it never came to him naturally. He wouldn’t minimize how he admired them still, but he admitted he was biased: Lizzie was the greatest model of love he ever had.

“Well.” he mused, settled back on the pillow, strands of Lizzie’s curls in his periphery as he stared upwards. “Honestly, I have that dream often enough that I could probably go through it lucid. Is there anything you want me to say to you while I’m in there, if I see you again?”

She lay down next—stress evident in the force of it, a flash of deep orange beside him as she fixed herself on the ceiling as well. “I have some things I’d like to say to me,” she muttered, Nigel meeting her with respectful silence before she continued.

“Tell me—tell them.” There was a rustle of covers as she crossed her arms, shoulders tight with something unreadable. “Tell them that you need to be getting home when you wake up.” She gripped his hand. “But don’t tell anyone there where we live.”

“Where we live? Like, physically? Why would that—never mind.” He learned things about Lizzie every day, it seemed. People told him he was paranoid; the least he could do is be polite. “Okay. Will do…well, what about you?” He reached out beside him, hand hovering over the lamp. “Do you ever dream about me? It seems like you never talk about yours.”

“Don’t need to.” There was a smile in her voice; she closed her eyes. “I live my dreams. You’re always here.”