paradisalogs | Troubled Times

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Troubled Times

Who: Alan Bradley and YOU
What: Alan's Nightmare
When: Nightmare Plot
Where: Alan's headspace
Rating: T for Teen? Death, injury, and psychological damage without vivid description.

It's night - exactly when, you're not sure, but the moon is up, half-obscured by cloud cover. It's chilly out, the cold cutting through your clothes, making everything seem just that much harsher, the world just a little bit bleaker.

It's almost like everything's not only dark, but desaturated.

Welcome to Alan's nightmare. You might not enjoy your visit.

[Part A] | [Part B]

((Prose or actiontags welcome!))

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You find yourself just outside a dark warehouse at a city's edge. The air is dank. You hear voices ahead, coming from inside, the metal walls of the warehouse distorting them beyond recognition.

Should you decide to investigate, you make it inside the warehouse without issue - though something doesn't seem quite right. Only after the door closes behind you do they start to make sense.

Alan and Sam stand at the warehouse's open back wall, talking with each other. Their tones are normal, conversational - when suddenly Sam's words start to become more terse and aggressive, while Alan's simultaneously grow softer and sadder.

"You're not my father, Alan. You couldn't replace him. You're not good enough. It should've been you who disappeared instead."

Alan can't do anything but stand there, stunned by Sam's words.

Perhaps you merely witness the exchange that only seems to be growing worse as Sam becomes angrier. Or perhaps one of your own loved ones appears...

Hmm... sneaking into a remote, dingy warehouse. Where could this go wrong?

Dairine goes inside regardless, following her intuition. Surprisingly, nothing jumps out or tries to attack her. Instead, she finds herself intruding what seems to be a private argument between Alan and another guy. (Sam goes unrecognized because, well, a lot has changed in 20 years.)

She’s about to excuse herself when the conversation suddenly takes a hurtful turn. Dairine pauses. She shouldn't be here, it's not her business, but she can't just leave Alan sad. Quietly she calls out to him, "Alan..."

Dairine's voice seems to get through to Alan enough for him to turn. He's caught by surprise - how did she get here? "Dairine..." He doesn't have the words to say that she should get out while she still can.

Sam sneers at Alan's back as he speaks again, this time a warning to Dairine. "I'd stay away if I were you. All he does is raise your hopes so they can come crashing down."

Alan's tense and his dread for Sam's next words is almost visible in the air. "You're a walking disappointment, Alan. Failed ENCOM, failed my dad, failed me."

"That's not true," Dairine says abruptly, walking between Alan and this stranger like a shield. As if her presence could protect him from these hateful words.

"Alan's not a disappointment at all. Ever since he got here, Alan has been nothing but supportive. He took command of the Code Blair Project after the previous leader left. And he's taken care of me ever since we met. Alan is a kind and responsible adult, but not so overbearing that he'd interfere with my business. I’m lucky to have him around."

Sam looks back to Dairine as she moves. He leans back on his heels, crossing his arms. When he speaks his tone is noncommittal. "Doesn't try hard enough if you ask me. Twenty years, Dairine, and he doesn't find what I did in the span of ten minutes."

The younger Flynn locks his eyes with Alan again over Dairine's head. "Just repeats the same old thing over and over. 'Wouldn't that be somethin', if we found your dad.' But he doesn't even look." He pauses, mouth pressing into a straight line.

"Then he decides to send me in to watch him die."

"I didn't know," Alan says. But Sam's not taking it as an answer.

Dairine flinches at the mention of death. Yeah, that… that explains why this guy’s so hostile towards Alan. She can sympathize with the pain and anger. But that doesn’t mean he’s right.

“Trying hard doesn’t always guarantee results. You can try and try, but sometimes the cards are stacked against you. Has it ever occurred to you that he might have looked? Might have been working really hard to find your father for those twenty years?” She looks back at Alan with a question in her eyes, 'Is she right?,' but still determinedly convinced that he hadn’t stood idly by. “Yet for one reason or another, you were the one who needed to do it. So you were given the right cards, the key in."

Dairine turns back to Sam, scowling. "There’s no way he could have known what would happen. You know that. You’re just pushing the blame on him because that's easier than admitting life just isn't fair!"

“And how the hell do you know my name?”

"The only thing he did was make Tron - and what good was that when the guy turned on us. Then he just sat back as Mackey took over more and more of ENCOM." Sam's still sneering.

The fingers of Alan's left hand rub together, his usual nervous tic. "I looked everywhere. All his hangouts. He'd disappear for days to -- well, we know where now. But we didn't then. And you were so young-" He's grateful that Dairine's speaking up for him, but the mountain of guilt still weighs on him. He couldn't replace Flynn. Couldn't replace the real father of a hopeful young boy.

Sam's mouth hardens as Dairine turns back to him. It's not that Sam's pushing the blame on Alan - it's that Sam's a manifestation of Alan's guilt in this nightmare. Of all people to be disappointed in him, his foster son would be the worst.

Sam shrugs noncommittally when Dairine asks her angry question. A smirk tugs at his mouth, eyes lighting up like they're amused.

"We've met, don't you remember? Name's Sam."

"Look -- I don't know who this Mackey is," she doesn't even know about ENCOM, "..but if he's higher up than Alan there's only so much he can do. The curse of top-down policies. And you can't blame Alan for Tron's actions either. Just look at what CLU did! Would you blame Flynn for all that?"

Being a guest here, Dairine doesn't know what Sam really is. What she sees is a person from Alan's past giving him a hard time. When he speaks up for himself, she flashes Alan a little smile, squeezing his hand reassuringly. "See? He did look. He did everything he could to help. You just didn't notice."

Dairine doesn't appreciate that smirk. She's never liked it when someone looked like they were secretly laughing at her. She is about to give the young man a piece of her mind when he answers, and her world screeches to a halt.

"Sam?" Her voice reflects confusion. And hurt. Sam was someone Dairine could count as a friend, someone who was almost family. She had hoped he would return to them someday. This was not what she had in mind.

Dairine responds to the pain the same way she usually does: get angry.

"You're lying. Sam would never say such cruel things to Alan!"

"He's only higher up than Alan because Alan sat back and did nothing," Sam counters easily. "CLU is a whole separate issue. Wouldn't've turned if Alan's half-assed attempts at looking hadn't fallen to shambles. But then, you weren't there, so you wouldn't know."

Sam's mocking smirk only grows when she's so visibly angered by his words. "Oh, is that right? Tell her, Alan. The truth this time." The words come easily to this nightmare version of Sam. His words cut as he implies that what Alan'd said before had been a lie.

Alan's voice is soft when he speaks again. "No. That's Sam."

"Alan has nothing to do with CLU," Dairine replies hotly. "That crazy program turned long before Alan even had to start searching. At this point, you’re just grasping for straws.”

Dairine narrows her eyes at the smirk, adopting an expression she usually makes before a fight. If he's not careful, Sam is going to have a touching reunion with Dairine’s fists.

The implication that Alan had lied goes ignored. Dairine’s trust in Alan is strong enough that it won’t be shaken by a few biting words. ...Of course, that also means Dairine believes Alan now.

“What? No... no, it can't be," she whispers, but this time the denial is weak. Dairine looks back and forth between the two men, getting more obviously upset by the minute. "What happened to him?”

The room is dark at the edges in the way only a nightmare can be, but Alan doesn't notice anything's amiss.

Sam barks a harsh laugh from where he stands at Dairine's disbelief. "Why don't you tell her, Alan? That thanks to you I grew up too fast. That you kept me hanging on a thread of hope, only to crush me each and every time." He scowls. "Couldn't be bothered to stand up for himself, either. Just let Mackey and the Board sweep him right outta the way. Face it, Alan, all you were ever dedicated to was a pipe dream."

Alan doesn't launch into a counterattack, but by now Dairine must expect that. "He grew up. Old enough to realize that he didn't want to hang on anymore. That his dad wasn't coming back."

"Life makes you grow up fast, not people! Yes, people move on... or die, and there's not much you can do about it." Dairine gulps a little, her eyes turned to the floor. This subject was rather painful and very personal. However, the one benefit was that it gave her considerable insight in this debate.

"That would happen eventually no matter who it was! Entropy's running, and we can't stop it yet. Not without causing great damage to the universe." Her voice steadily becomes stronger, more determined and fierce. "But that doesn't mean we should let despair consume our lives. We can fight back! Sometimes the battle is direct, but more often victory comes in the strangest ways. Reducing energy usage, saying thank you to the cashier, reaching out to the new kid. A little hope at the right time can make all the difference."

She gives Alan a warm smile, before turning to Sam and glaring. "You wanna give up on Flynn? Fine. That's your choice to make. But don't drag Alan down with you!"

A little hope at the right time. Dairine might not know it, but that's exactly what she's giving him. The strength to move past the guilt that his nightmares have magnified tenfold. He sets a hand on her shoulder - he's grateful that she's doing all this for him.

The nightmare shifts and suddenly the Sam in front of them is visibly younger, - twenty, maybe, instead of twenty-seven. Alan looks a little less helpless.

"I'm not the one draggin' him down," Sam says stoically. He raises both eyebrows. "Just tellin' him what he already knows."

Alan's voice is firmer, this time, and he's able to respond. He doesn't rationalize his statement, but it's a sure one, not made weak by doubt. "No. It's not like that."

Something shifts again. The earlier differences hadn't been so apparent, but now Sam looks more like a petulant thirteen-year-old.

Dairine blinks at the shifts in Sam's appearance when it occurs to her. The shadowy edges. Sam's strange behavior.

She's in another nightmare.

But she is not alone, nor is Alan. They have each other, and together they can chase away the darkness. Placing her hand over Alan's, Dairine faces Sam with a confident stance.

"Just telling him what he fears is more like it. But fear does not equal truth."

"Fear? Maybe a little," this Sam admits darkly. While he certainly looks and sounds like the young Flynn, the words don't quite ring true as 'Sam' the way they did before, nightmare scrabbling for a hold in Alan's mind.

"Guilt's already there. All I'm doin' is making sure he realizes what he's done - or, more importantly, hasn't done."

Alan doesn't get angry, but his tone is firm, stubborn in the way he's always been. "I know you're in there, Sam. You always saw past this."

Even he doesn't realize what the nightmare's done. But something must be going in their favor, because finally Sam shifts smoothly again. Six. Young and helpless.

"Why didn't you find him, Alan?" Sam's voice is shaky and he looks up at Alan, eyes filled with unshed tears. "Why'd you let him get me?" Alan opens his mouth to speak hoarse words, to ask what Sam means, but he's too late. Instead of shifting, the nightmare flickers. Everything changes around them in a way that doesn't make sense yet doesn't invite Alan to question it.

Alan's alone again, frozen in place. Sam's scream dies off into a moan.

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Troubled Times

Part A

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Sorry this got neglected ;_;

That's fine :) <3

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