Nyctophobia

A song that represents their childhood

A song that represents their general outlook on life

A song that would play over a montage of them getting ready in the morning

A song that represents their happiest moment

A song they would listen to to cheer themselves up

A song that represents a struggle in their life

A song they would dedicate to a loved one

A song that represents a current relationship/love interest

A song that represents a past relationship/love interest

A song they would request a DJ at a party to play

A song that represents their saddest moment

A song that would play over a training montage

A song they would sing in the shower

Alan and Alice Wake. I don’t really show my love for them much, so here’s some art, inspired by this gif I saw on my dash and fell in love with and watched a gazillion times while drawing this.

Alan’s hair hates me :\

@lightschampion

The sun hasn’t yet risen, and the small lamp in the room is still on, still pushing the shadows from their room (something she will always be grateful to Alan for adjusting to, her need for a light), yet she knows why she woke up without prompt from an alarm or the sun filtering in through the blinds: Alan hasn’t yet come to bed. The sheets are still cold and the dip in the mattress has risen in his absence, and she knows he hasn’t even made it to the room yet.

The words must be flowing.

Feet pad lightly across the floor as she makes their way down the hallway towards the living room, and she can hear the clicking of the keys on his typewriter as she draws closer. His posture is a wreck, but it’s - she glances at the clock on the wall - 3:42am and with how his fingers fly across the keys, only stopping to take a drink, she can’t fault him the way he’s sitting. She makes her presence known to him, not wanting to startle him while he works; a soft clearing of her throat before she rests her hands on his shoulders.

“Are you working out your hand muscles for my sake, honey?” she asks in an attempt to tease, but she’s cut off by a yawn. 

The sleepy woman makes herself known, and the smile that spreads across his lips is wide and instantaneous. Though for another moment he keeps his sights dutifully trained on the piece of paper threaded around the platen, just long enough to finish the sentence that he had been in the middle of.

That done he stops, not for the coffee that’s long since gone cold, but to reach up and place one of his hands atop one of hers. Back arching in a much-needed stretch. After countless hours spent hunched over the keys a deep breath escapes– hampered only a little by the chuckle that soon follows.

“Well, maybe we both have incentive for me to continue this thing.”

Alan could try to blame his bad posture on not sitting at a proper desk. The old Remington manual wasn’t all that loud as far as typewriters went, but with Alice trying to sleep just in the other room, Alan had vacated the small home office (with his quarters being closer to the bedroom than hers) to the living room. But the truth was that while the man was focused on writing, poise came second to prose.

But she knows being in the throes of several hours, days even, of being 'in the zone' can take its toll, and he's starting to show it in how he arches his back, the soft grunts that accompany the motion. Hands massage his shoulders, finding the knots beneath tired fingers, and she smiles down at him from where he's turned to look up at her. "Send my regards to Alex Casey," she laughs sleepily, tiredness lacing her voice and the lines of her smile as she leans down to kiss him softly.

There was longing; wanting to turn and be the perfect Alan as he heard her voice.  A sensation in his gut that he’d never felt before.  ᴹᴿ. ˢᶜᴿᴬᵀᶜᴴ Alan smiled a the sound of her call again as she rushed to him and wrapped her arms around his form.  Eyes close, basking in the sensation of success.  But this was just the first step.

“I–” he began, that subtle sadness in his voice, soft, like if he spoke too loudly he may shatter the frailness of her human heart.  “I’m so sorry, Alice..”  He manages, tearing down that smile just before she could catch sight of it; before he turns to face her with a flower pinched between his index finger, and thumb.

“I’ve missed you too.” he returns, arms closing in around her smaller form as he drinks in her scent and every detail about her body and how it pressed so tight to his own.  So this is what Alan had?  This would be fun no doubt.  He would enjoy carrying her up, and pulling all the supports out from underneath her once she was high enough to break should she fall; tumbling, and tearing apart.

Someday.. He’ll slip.  Someday she’ll piss him off.. And she’ll learn the truth about her beloved Alan.. Then realize.. She’s been nuzzling up to the doppleganger; the monster that helped to trap him in a maze of hell leaving him to take her for himself, and do whatever he wanted.

It felt good to know he had won.

His head lowers to rest it against her forehead, “Can you forgive me?” he questions in that same soft, sweet tone.  Forgive me..  For not doing this sooner.

He’ll have to play his cards right to not get trapped in a situation that could complicate things.  He’ll have to cautiously dispose of those that would try to take her away from him.  She was his and he was territorial.

ᴹᴿ. ˢᶜᴿᴬᵀᶜᴴ waits for that perfect moment to gently kiss her forehead with fingers trailing up her back to feel the finest details of her body before slowly, with great care, his hands cup her cheeks spreading out to caress above and below her ears, along her jawline and against her neck.  A single thumb would slowly glide down her cheek with his hold eager to guide her chin up so his lips —

—could finally meet her’s.

The true taste of a kiss that even he had longed to experience.  In all his time away, plotting and planning, he wondered if it would be the same.  Would she know it wasn’t Alan, or would  ᴹᴿ. ˢᶜᴿᴬᵀᶜᴴ prove to be a true clone of her husband?  So close that the taste of his lips, his musk, the way he kisses… were all the same.

Even as she feels him in her arms, can smell the familiar scent embedded in his jacket, hears his voice, she still almost can’t believe that he’s real. Tears blur her vision, but she quickly blinks them away, terrified that if she loses sight of him now, if the image of him stays distorted through her tears, that he’ll vanish and she’ll realize that he isn’t really here. Another dream she’ll wake up from feeling like her world had been ripped away once again.

She can barely comprehend what he’s saying, doesn’t know why he’s apologizing, but in this moment of relief and happiness and an almost crushing sense of elation, she doesn’t question it. He’s home, Alan is home, and she knew he wasn’t dead! His body had never been found, they only claimed him dead because he was missing for so long, and she was right. He isn’t dead. He’s in her arms again. The flower in his hand is ignored in favor of holding his face between her palms and leaning in to the kiss he gives her.

And he’s as familiar as her mind allows him to be. (Doesn’t allow room for the small nagging feeling that something is different, because of course he’s different, it’s been so long.) The hint of stubble beneath her hands, the light scratch against her lips, the solid feel of having him against her again - it’s almost overwhelming. Hesitantly, she pulls back, just a fraction, enough to still feel his breath against her lips, and she looks into eyes that are so intimately familiar (and looking at her as if he’s never truly seen her before, but it’s been so long, so very long).

@capturedindarkness

It first began with flowers at the office.  Publisher’s place.  Whoever handled Alice’s creative works.  Then, it moved to the porch of her home, delivered if she were in an apartment, but left in plain view against the door if not.

She had been granted a fleeting moment of believing she was seeing him.  Alan.  Standing, staring longingly for his beloved.  But when she blinked, he was gone; vanished like a ghost skirting the light and fleeing back into the unknown.

It usually happened before the sun got too high, or after it had lowered and the city was given a chance to breathe away from it’s warm rays.  Until finally, one morning she woke –

And a bouquet of flowers was resting on the pillow beside her.  Her favorite flowers mixed with a series of smaller, highlighting foliage to create an extraordinary piece of art.

The smelled fresh, too, likely picked from a bouquet shop first thing that morning.

If Alice investigated, she would find a flower set in the hall, and another at the entrance of the living room.  Should she look, a man would be seen standing there, hair slicked back with a clean suit clearly tailored to fit him perfectly.  His back would be turned to her, with his hands lifted in front of him, holding on to something.

Being the wife of Alan Wake, Alice had long since gotten used to her privacy not being entirely hers. People knew things about their life, about Alice’s life, that she couldn’t figure out how they knew (but knew Barry wouldn’t say; he didn’t love Alice, but he respected her and Alan’s relationship). So when she received the flowers at first, she assumed they were more flowers of condolence. Many had come her way in the aftermath of losing her husband, and the fact that they were her favorites didn’t faze her. This wasn’t the first bouquet of its kind.

The home delivery was a little stranger, but not entirely out of the ordinary. It had been some time since she’d received anything from people, but it still wasn’t strange enough to set off any alarms. The second bouquet joined the dying blossoms of the first on the counter of the apartment she still hadn’t moved out of. 

The sight of them makes her heart ache. She can still remember Alan buying them for her on her birthday, how they’d decorate that very counter, the petals falling slowly off until they were left with stems in tall glasses surrounded by dried flower petals. She presses her lips together and looks out the window-

And she swears she sees him. On the street, down below. She would recognize the slope of those shoulders anywhere, that casual stance, the way his weight shifts, and it isn’t until she’s pulling the window open, ready to yell for him, that she realizes he isn’t there. Another figment of her imagination. She’d convinced herself he wasn’t dead, just missing, and now her mind is playing tricks on her. A fresh wave of utter heartache washes over her, and she doesn’t bother closing the window before she makes her way to bed, clicking the light on and curling up under the blankets.

Days pass, bleed into weeks, and a morning is just a morning - until it isn’t. The same flowers are on the pillow beside her, where Alan used to sleep, and at first she panics. Wonders who could have broken in, what sort of depraved person would break into her home to leave flowers-

And then the image of Alan on the street hits her, and she doesn’t care to do more than pull a shirt on before she’s rushing out of the room. “Alan?” she calls, and the part of her that isn’t desperate for this to be true tells her that she’s being stupid. Alan isn’t here, he’s gone, he’s been gone - except he isn’t, he’s right there, more familiar to her than anything in the world, and she feels her eyes burn with tears she’d long since thought were gone.