[#207] Envy (Alan Wake)

[seasoliloquy]

Theme Prompt: #207 Jealousy
Title: Envy
Fandom: Alan Wake
Rating/Warnings: T for language
Bonus: No
Word Count: 936
Summary: From time to time, Alan envies Sheriff Tim Breaker.

From time to time, Alan envies Sheriff Tim Breaker.

It's not a pleasant feeling, and he usually pushes it away as soon as he becomes aware of it. They're both trapped here, after all. What's there to envy?

Sometimes, though, when Alan's mood is particularly low - what Alice might have called one of his 'black moods', the kind that meant he was best left alone, the kind that had him doing stupid shit like punching paparazzi - he lets himself wallow. Dwells on it, on everything Tim fucking Breaker has that Alan has never been allowed, not in thirteen years here.

Is it because Door brought him here? Is it Door keeping an eye out for Tim, making sure his time in the Dark Place isn't too miserable? Or is it something Alan's done wrong? Or maybe it's just the Dark Place hating Alan in particular.

Tim gets food. Every time Alan enters one of his saferooms, it seems that Tim's got something new he's picked up from one of the bodegas and shops scattered around this false version of New York - nothing special, mostly canned food and nonperishables. But it's still food.

Alan doesn't even remember what hunger feels like any more.

He's not sure if he physically needs to eat. He's pretty sure he doesn't - the Dark Place took that from him, along with everything else. But he thinks sometimes that he remembers what it feels like to need it.

When he searches the bodegas, though, there's nothing there. No cans, not even a packet of crackers abandoned on a shelf somewhere. And that's if he can even get into them in the first place - more often than not they're swathed in darkness that not even his flashlight can penetrate.

Tim gets to drink, too. Coffee, mostly - something actually drinkable, in comparison to whatever's in those thermoses in the break rooms Alan sometimes stumbles across. He doesn't know what that shit is, but it's not coffee - it's something dark, alive. Tim has real coffee - or instant, but that's close enough here - and bottled water, and sometimes tea. Alan's never been one for tea, but Alice always was. She'd line up her teas on the kitchen counter, by type and taste and whatever other criteria. Sometimes Alan would find her something unusual, for Christmas or a birthday, and she'd always be so excited to try it, share it with him. He'd drink it for her, though he never saw much difference between the types.

God, Alan misses her.

Does Tim have anyone back in the real world that he misses? If he does, he hasn't mentioned it.

Tim seems... not content, exactly. That's not the right word for anyone in the Dark Place. But sanguine, relaxed. Secure in his saferooms, humming away, trying to figure out who Door is. Tim's not afraid.

Alan's not sure if he's ever not afraid, now. He hides it, most of the time. Buries it under the need to push the story forward, masks it with anger from time to time. But it's always there - that underlying fear. Of Scratch, of the darkness, of the story. Of himself.

Maybe when Tim's been here as long as Alan, he'll feel the same. But somehow Alan doesn't think so. No, he can easily picture Tim here in another decade, still wheeling around his whiteboard, still focused on the mystery. He'd be lonely, by then. Of course he would. Anyone would. But he'd still be safe.

Maybe that's what Alan envies the most. That safety.

No, that's not true.

Because what Alan's really the most jealous of is that Tim gets to sleep.

Alan assumes so, anyway. Tim always seems to have a bed or a mattress tucked away in a corner, and he wouldn't do that unless he used it, presumably.

Alan doesn't sleep. Or if he does, he doesn't remember it. There's nothing in the Writer's Room for him to sleep on, only the desk, the side table, the plot board. Sometimes, if he thinks about it too hard, there's a memory - his own voice, begging to be allowed to sleep, pleading - and then it's gone. Something from another loop, maybe. Or something from one of the many times he's lost his mind. Forgetting those is probably best, for the sake of whatever remaining sanity he has.

The worst thing about it all is that Tim is kind.

He offers, every single time Alan walks in when he's cooking or making himself a drink. Offers to share, sometimes asks him outright if he needs a coffee - usually that's when it's pouring with rain outside, and Alan's stumbled into a saferoom probably looking like nothing so much as a drowned rat. He hasn't offered to let Alan sleep in a saferoom yet, but Alan suspects that's only because he's convinced himself Alan has somewhere else to sleep. Judging by the increasingly worried looks Tim gives him when he thinks Alan isn't looking, it's only a matter of time until Tim breaks and asks him about that, too.

Alan doesn't know what he'll say when it happens. He'll accept food, coffee - he treasures those. A tiny piece of normality, even as Tim says they don't taste quite like they should and Alan nods and doesn't say he doesn't remember how they should taste.

But he can eat. He can drink. Even if he doesn't seem to need to any more.

He can't sleep.

And when it comes down to it, that's the one thing Alan envies most about Tim Breaker.