Who: Alan Tambling & Lydia Evans What: Lydia makes an offer that Alan can't refuse. Where: Alan's home in Aldington When: December 19, 2016; mid-morning Warnings: Alcohol abuse, language, anything else tbd.
It wasn't as much that Alan was already drunk as it was that he was still drunk. To be fair, it was usually that Alan was still drunk, anymore. It was what they did, drinking. Himself and Tyrion, both. The difference, of course, was that Tyrion drank and knew things. Alan just drank. Anything he'd thought he'd known, he'd realized fairly quickly after Jim had used and then discarded him that he knew nothing at all, really. Nothing of worth, when he hadn't even realized that his closest friend, the man he had trusted more than anyone else he'd known, had been using him, playing him, all along. Clever men didn't get played like that. Conveniently, he forgot all the rest of his accomplishments, in the wake of it. All that he could recall was how grandly he'd fucked up, when it came to Jim, Jakob, his oldest friend, his... not quite brother. That had never been the way that he'd thought of Jim. What it had been, that was just out of his grasp. Or maybe that was the vodka.
There'd been more of that, since that woman had managed to turn him up from the ashes where he'd buried himself. He'd almost drunk himself into forgetting Jim, into forgetting the things that his once-friend had done, with his assistance. Unwitting, but that made it worse, didn't it? If he'd meant it, at least he'd have been the villain, not the idiot. Until that bloody woman had brought it up, Jim had faded to almost a bad dream, a bogeyman that had come out at night to haunt him, sometimes. All the rest that was left was the drink, but even that, Alan had kept more under control. Now, he was thinking about him, about Jim and the things he'd done, again, and no good had ever come from thinking about Jim Moore.
Alan was on the couch, when he opened his eyes. Better than the floor; it wouldn't have been the first time, if he'd taken that tumble in the middle of the night. He rarely bothered with the bed. The bed was where you went when you meant to sleep, and Alan never quite meant to sleep, anymore. The couch, on the other hand, was the sort of place where you sat and drank with the television on until you passed out. The news was playing, when he opened his eyes, the volume low enough that Alan could barely hear it over the pounding in his head. Alan didn't need the news to tell him that the world was fucked. There was part of him that blamed himself. If he hadn't passed along those secrets to Jim, if he hadn't given him exactly what he wanted so long as Jim kept pretending that he was interested in more than the information... ridiculous. Or was it? There'd been... a lot of secrets. Too many secrets that got passed along, that weren't the secrets they ought to be, anymore.
There were three empty bottles, on the floor, just within his sight. No telling how many more, scattered around the house. Not all from the night before, of course. Alan had lost track of when he'd emptied them, where he'd left each of them, individually. He'd find them when he stumbled over them, kick them aside and find them again later. It was a cycle that Alan had. Gave some sort of meaning to his days, kicking aside the reminders of how far he'd fallen because of his own bloody mistakes.
His head was still pounding. Funny, he ought to have been far more drunk and far less hungover than that. He grabbed the bottle sitting on the table, took a drink of it still laying down. Only half what poured got into his mouth, of course. Waste of vodka, the splashes that soaked into the couch, but he wasn't quite desperate enough to try sucking it out of the fabric. He had a few more bottles left before he sank quite that low, and his next delivery of groceries should bring more before then. He didn't let himself run out. That would be utterly irresponsible, wouldn't it? He might have to ascend to the level of functioning alcoholic and get out and do his own shopping, if that happened. His intention of being a recluse would be absolutely ruined.
Why wouldn't the pounding in his head stop?
Ah. Because it was the door.
It wasn't the day for groceries, not unless Alan had blacked out and lost a day or two. He sat up and looked around, counted bottles again. He supposed that it was possible. Normally, they'd knock once and then leave the box, but it could be a new delivery person. Someone that didn't know Alan's requirements, hadn't bothered reading the instructions attached to his weekly order of alcohol and the sort of things that he could fix without managing to burn the house down in a drunken stupor. Well, he'd have to set them straight, then, wouldn't he? Alan dragged himself upright with a groan, smoothed down his hair, and staggered over toward the door. Pretending that he was far more sober than he was hadn't been in Alan's plans for the day.