Chapter Text
Bright Falls, the epitome of Small-Town America. The sweet waitress at the diner knowing exactly how you take your coffee, the cashier at the family-run shop asking how the wife's doing - everyone's all smiles. It's the wet dream of many picture-perfect families and Casey's finding himself right in the middle of it. Everything's tooth rotting sweet. And so incredibly fake. Casey hates it with every fiber of his being and he can’t wait to leave.
He misses New York City, even though it’s a shithole all the same. Skyscrapers creating deep, dark canyons, every breath tasting of exhaust fumes, people scurrying through the busy streets like ants - it’s nothing to fantasize about really, but it’s damn familiar. Better than being surrounded by trees big enough they seem to reach the sky and nothing besides that, miles and miles of wilderness.
He should’ve considered that before taking the job offer from the FBC. Whatever, it wouldn’t have changed a thing anyway.
After all that’s happened, he knows he wouldn’t have been able to go back to the way things were before. His job at the FBI, a thing of the past. When Estevez first came to him with the offer, he cracked up at the absurdity, the fucking audacity. Told her to not take it personal, but fuck off. Anderson got a similar offer and he couldn’t believe her when she told him she’d be taking it. He didn’t get a chance to lecture her about it - she beat him to it, incidentally beating some sense into his thick skull as well. He hates her occasional scoldings and he dreads that she was right when she told him that he can’t continue to crawl into bottle after bottle, drowning his demons won’t work, he’ll only succeed in losing her and Logan. So he followed suit. Anderson got to leave, off to New York City, to the Oldest House - these fuckers just keep getting weirder with their names, Oldest House, OOP, Parautali- whatever - while he gets a different assignment.
They are at Elderwood Palace Lodge, drinking coffee in the entrance hall, when Estevez is breaking the news. Well, no wonder she’d brought him a cup from Oh Deer Diner. At first he assumed she was just being nice. Seems like it has been an attempt to placate him. Nah, he’s not that easy.
“You’ve gotta be kidding me.”
“Order’s coming from all the way up. Sorry, Casey.”
He looks grimly over towards Wake, sitting next to Estevez on the couch, shrunk into himself, clasping his styrofoam cup a little too tightly. He’s not meeting Casey’s eyes. Good. Why did Kiran even bring him? Did she expect Casey would act less like an asshole when the guy they’re talking about sits right next to him? Well, tough luck.
“I’m a federal agent. Not a fucking babysitter.”
“You are, yes, but you are now employed by the Federal Bureau of Control. You've been given an assignment and that entails keeping an eye on Wake.”
“That sounds goddamn like a babysitter. Isn’t he a grown man? Why the hell does he need someone to look after him?”, he questions bewildered.
“Casey, the Director personally issued the order and we are not the ones to question it. Wake is a really powerful parautalitarian. One with powers which extent we are only just beginning to grasp.”
“And why does he need to stay here? Right next to that pond of darkness, that can’t be safe! Why not just take him to the Ancient House?”
“Oldest House.”
“Whatever.”
“Because the director has a strict policy against locking up subjects against their will. And because Wake wants to stay here and we want to surveil the effect the lake has on his powers and vice versa. We’ve assessed that it’s safe, as long as someone monitors the situation.”
“And why does that someone have to be me?!”
“Because the director ordered that. You won’t be the only one on this assignment. Occasionally one of our scientists will pop in and run some tests on Wake, see how things develop. So are you able to do your job or not, Agent Casey?”
Protesting won’t lead them anywhere, so he grumbles a yes under his breath, throws Wake another dirty look. The writer doesn’t notice. He has sunken even further into the cushions, as if trying to disappear into the floor, or at least into the couch. He looks like a stray dog that’s been kicked way too many times.
Goddamnit.
That’s how Room 102 becomes his temporary home, Wake sleeping in the opposite room. The FBC tried to rent out a house for them, but he wouldn’t budge on his decision on staying at the lodge. Moving to another place with the writer would feel permanent and he still clings to the hope that this little case study would end in just a few weeks time.
Avoiding Wake as much as possible is not easy, given that Bright Falls is tiny, but it’s manageable, even more so because Wake barely leaves the lodge. Sometimes the writer emerges from his room to eat lunch at the Oh Deer Diner, quietly listening to Rose giddily chewing his ear off. Other times he lingers in the entrance hall of the lodge, drinking coffee, now and then solving a crossword puzzle, glancing timidly into Casey’s direction when he notices the agent nearby, before fidgeting with his cup or his pen, acting busy. Sometimes there are two cups of coffee. A silent invitation. Casey’s not interested.
At first glance Wake seems pretty healthy. Stable, considering everything that’s happened to him. Because of him. But Casey picks up on the signs that he’s not. He knows about Wake’s insomnia, can see the dim light peak underneath the closed door to his room at all hours of the night, can hear him pace restlessly. Mostly because Casey's barely able to get any sleep himself, with all that bullshit his unconsciousness is spewing up, but that's not the point here.
One time the door to Wake’s room is slightly ajar and he catches a glimpse of the writer; sitting before his typewriter, staring fixedly, one of his hands slowly creeping towards it before pulling back abruptly, as if burned. After that he stares into space, his mind a thousand miles away. Maybe back in New York, with his wife. Maybe back in the Dark Place.
Even though Casey keeps contact with Wake to a bare minimum, he intends to do his job properly, so he makes it a habit to track Wake’s whereabouts, his routines. Slowly Casey adapts to them, goes out to eat when Wake does, wakes up shortly before the writer does, goes to sleep soon after him. A fucked up kind of domesticity.
The night terrors start only a few days into their stay. The first time he’s awoken by the screaming, he is out of bed in seconds, gun drawn. It doesn’t take long to locate where it’s coming from and he rips open Wake’s door, rushing blindly inside. He expects unspeakable horror, another appearance of that monster cloud of wrath or one of those “Taken”. Instead he sees Wake, writhing in his bed, eyes closed, shouting in terror. Casey pauses, unsure on how to proceed.
Damn it, he’s the last one fit to comfort the writer, really. After some contemplation he settles for knocking firmly against the man’s door until the screaming stops, Wake slowly starts to come back to himself. He’s mumbling something, confused, but Casey is already closing the door behind himself, walking back into his room. Ignoring the shaky, wet breaths coming from the other room, instead slipping back into bed.
They don’t stop after that. At first he tries to ignore the whole issue, hoping it would eventually solve itself. It doesn’t, Wake keeps shouting, screeching like a banshee, and Casey can’t put it off any longer, not when he wants to prevent the owner from throwing them out indefinitely. So the next time it happens, Casey doesn’t hesitate. He steps swiftly into Wake’s room, makes his way over to the bed, decidedly doesn’t sit down, settles for shaking the writer’s shoulder carefully to wake him up. It takes a while until he does, but even though his eyes are open, he doesn’t seem to be awake, still caught up in his dream. He thrashes wildly, tries to spring out of bed, crashes into Casey and falls back onto the mattress.
“Please don’t, don’t, leave me alone, don’t touch me!”, Alan shrieks, holding up his hands to protect himself.
“Hey, hey, calm down!”
It sounds awfully like an order and Wake winces notably, shaking even worse. Damn it.
Casey tries to soften his voice, putting his hand back on the writer’s shoulder, careful to keep his touch light, nonthreatening.
“It’s alright. Just a nightmare.”
Wake looks at him, really looks at him for the first time, and finally recognition seems to dawn on him.
“Casey? Where- where am I?”
His voice sounds so small, vulnerability bleeding into every syllable.
“We’re in Elderwood Palace Lodge, in your room. In Bright Falls”, he explains slowly. That doesn’t seem to be the right answer. Alan twitches, tries to shoot up again, his flight instinct kicking in. Casey presses down onto his shoulder, keeps him there and Alan clutches at his wrist desperately.
“Casey, we need to leave, please, he’s here, Scratch, I feel it, he’ll get us, please-”
Now Casey does sit down at the edge of the bed, trying his best to radiate a calm authority that he doesn’t feel, not when Wake’s talking about that monster , bringing up memories he’d rather keep locked away for the rest of his life.
“Wake, calm down. Nobody’s coming. We’ve been here for days, nothing happened.”
But the writer is barely listening, his breathing going faster and faster, straight into hyperventilating. No sense in reasoning. He takes Wake’s wrists, presses down on his pulse point in an attempt to ground him. He leans forward, so Wake has no other option than looking him straight in the eye.
“Take a deep breath. Here, just repeat what I’m doing.”
He mentally counts to four, inhaling deeply. To seven, holding his breath. And then he exhales, counting to eight. It’s obvious how it takes a lot out of Wake to follow suit, but after a few minutes his breathing slows down and the terror seeps out of his eyes, leaving behind absolute exhaustion. Casey leaves shortly after.
It evolves into some sort of ritual. They don’t talk about it, come morning.
Wake sleeps a little better after they've started this whole comfort shit and at first Casey believes they have the worst behind. But then he wakes up and Wake is just gone.
The first time it happens he is downright livid. Expecting Wake has used this rare opportunity, Casey beginning to let his guard down, to fuck off to God knows where. When he finally finds Wake on the highway that's leading out of town, he’s sure the writer is intentionally pissing him off, playing a fucked up game of cat and mouse. But then his flashlight falls upon Wake's face, illuminating eyes that look haunted , the small light that's been slowly bleeding back into them snuffed out. He's in a daze, not able to string a few words together. Only clad in boxers and the light blue shirt he usually sleeps in. He's not even wearing shoes. It's… worrying.
And it doesn't stop. Casey keeps finding him in the weirdest places, wherever Wake's feet would carry him.
They try to work out different tragedies, together. Wake acts not too worried about it, pretending nothing too dangerous would happen to him. More anxious the whole thing would put a burden on Casey.
Their first attempt includes bolting the door. It doesn't work. They lock the windows as well. Still pointless. It makes no damn sense, Wake disappearing like he's some kind of low budget Houdini. They set little traps to wake him up if he starts walking around. Casey suggests putting a bell on him. That gets the first real laugh out of Wake, his whole face lightening up, revealing small laughter lines around his eyes. The sight is blinding and Casey stares. Wonders. He shakes himself out of it quickly. He's been holed up with Wake for too long, he's going crazy. He needs a drink.
After weeks of barely sleeping, he ends up so tired he can hardly stand on his own two feet. Countless coffee cups pile up in his room, later in Wake's as well, but even the caffeine eventually gives up on him. He is at a loss. Wake looks even worse for wear. All that talk about nothing happening to him, “it's alright” - worth nothing, after he managed to wander deep into the woods at his latest nightly excursion, stumbling over some root or rock, crashing down a small slope. They are incredibly lucky he avoided a concussion, only heavily scratching his face and arms. Still, they can't go on like this.
Desperate situations call for desperate measures. The solution is ridiculous, just short of humiliating for them both. Wake tried to protest, but Casey's patience had run out days ago. He puts the dumbass in his bed.
Now Casey keeps waking up almost suffocating, a full grown man clinging to him like a child. There is no escaping. When he turns away, Wake latches on to his back. When he sleeps on his back, Wake wraps around him, laying his head on Casey's chest or pushing his face against Casey's neck. It's a damn nuisance. But after finally sleeping more than just a handful of hours every few days, with his own nightmares miraculously lessening… It's not too bad after all.
Their new sleeping arrangements work for them but they don't solve every issue. That would be a damn miracle and Casey's not that wide-eyed. The sleepwalking and the night terrors continue, just less frequent and that's a huge relief as well. Wake calms down much quicker with Casey holding him, talking him down softly.
And Wake begins to actively seek comfort in him, opens up tentatively about the things that keep haunting his mind. One night he clings to Casey, still shaken up from the latest episode. His eyes are blood-short, teary. He sounds so weak, when he whispers how much he misses his wife. He misses the way her lips curled when she smiled, the bright sound of her laughter, how her beautiful golden hair tickled his face when she leaned over him to breathe a kiss against his lips.
Once the dam breaks, he can't stop himself. His voice drowning in sorrow.
“We'll find her eventually. Don't worry”, Casey promises.
Wake shake his head, croaking: “You don't understand-”
“I do. You miss her, I understand. But we'll save her. The FBC knows how to go about this paranormal shit, they'll find a way.”
He's doing his best in sounding reassuring. Wake sobs, shaking his head more vehemently.
“You don’t understand. She's here. I just can't reach her.”
And again, Casey is baffled, absolutely fucking lost for words. Wake's right, he doesn’t understand.
Wake tries to explain, something about the bullet of light that managed to save him, being reunited with his wife, their souls intertwined forever. He says he can feel her, at the back of his skull, always there but just out of reach, a distance between them he simply can't grasp, can't overcome. Everything's different, nothing's like before they'd fallen into the lake, he'll never hold her in his arms again and it’s killing him. He never pictured the ending like this.
Casey holds him until Alan has cried himself to sleep.
After another few instances of Wake disappearing in the middle of the night, Casey finally begins to notice a pattern to the writer’s steps. All his nocturnal excursions inevitably try to lead him back to Cauldron Lake, to the shore where they’ve found Wake, what feels like years ago. So far Casey has always been able to stop him before Wake could reach his destination. He’s not sure if Wake knows. He doesn’t tell him. Just quietly dreads the thought of what might happen when he finally does reach it.
Slowly, without Casey actually noticing, they form a fragile bond. The realization kicks in one evening when they are lounging in Casey’s room, sharing one, two, too many drinks. He doesn’t hate Wake. He probably never did, the analytical part of his brain always knew that the man wasn’t fully responsible for everything that’s been happening to Casey - at least not for the shit that’s happened in Bright Falls. The books, sharing intimate details about his life and all, was another matter altogether, but he realizes that he may be able to cast that grudge aside. That he maybe already has.
They share small stories about their lives, still tentative about the gradual shift in their relationship. Wake’s more than a little tipsy, telling Casey about everything that comes to his mind. The very first story he’s ever written. The time he and his childhood friend Barry stole some freshly baked cookies from the old woman next door and how she scolded them relentlessly before sending them on their way with a brand new batch of brownies. His first crush on another boy. It’s a little much, really, but at the same time it’s endearing, especially the way Alan still manages to tell every story so vividly, only slurring slightly. Comes with the profession, Casey guesses.
The companionable mood tips so fast it gives him whiplash. Wake keeps throwing back drink after drink and at first Casey doesn’t think anything about it, just enjoys the lightness of the atmosphere, the way Wake keeps softening with every glass. But then Wake’s so drunk he’s spilling secrets he’d under normal circumstances never tell a living soul, probably wouldn’t ever admit to himself. Casey’s shifting in his seat, awkwardly struggling to direct the conversation back into safer waters, failing miserably. First, it's deeply uncomfortable. Then it’s downright horrifying.
Wake confesses how he sometimes lies awake at night, feeling like suffocating from this intense longing. How in the beginning he didn’t understand what he was missing. How horrified he was when he finally understood.
He misses the Dark Place. Scratch.
Alan cries, apologizes, swears he knows he is sick, that he just can’t help himself. He’s shaking, spilling his drink all over himself, apologizing even more for what a mess he’s making, for what a mess he is.
It’s… honestly so fucking much and Casey is so damn drunk himself, he doesn’t know how to unpack all of that, much less how to react to it. He struggles for the right words. Fuck, are there even words appropriate for a confession like that? If there are, his brain’s too soaked up in whiskey to find them. He settles on helping Wake clean up, putting him to bed. Can’t fuck it up too badly if he doesn’t say anything at all, right?
In the end he lies in bed, Wake’s head on his chest, listening to the sleeping man’s peaceful breathing. His words keep rotating in Casey’s head. He hopes Wake will forget about it in the morning, because Casey’s sure even then he won’t be able to put into words that he understands. Wake would probably not believe him anyway. But he does, really. Casey’s no stranger to depression, even though he prefers to downplay the signs in himself. Still, he knows how after weeks, months, years of swallowing that hurt, nursing it inside his chest, letting it grow, it develops into a sort of comfort. Wake has spent more than a decade living inside that hurt, being hunted and devoured by it in the form of his fucked up doppelganger. There is no way to come out of that unscathed.
Casey understands. And he realizes he wants to help Alan.
Well fuck.