Title: Open
Fandom: Alan Wake
Rating: T for swearing
Length: 323 words
Content notes: None
Author notes: every time I'm playing AW2 and popping into saferooms to see Tim, I'm like... why can't Alan also get a coffee rip
Summary: Tim Breaker is nothing like Alan Wake.



Tim Breaker is nothing like Alan Wake.

Alan hates it, sometimes. Hates how open the Sheriff is, how easily he talks about what he's been through, his questions about Door, about how he got here. Alan can't imagine it.

The thought crosses his mind, once or twice, of sitting down in one of those saferooms and talking. Not passing through on his way to somewhere else, not rushing towards the end of the story, but stopping. Telling Tim about - about what? About thirteen years trapped here, thirteen years with no escape, nothing. About Thomas Zane - the filmmaker, not the poet, and Alan still doesn't know what the fuck is going on there - and the things Alan doesn't remember but suspects he probably should. About Scratch - and that's always where his thoughts come to a screeching halt.

He's warned Tim about Scratch, obviously. Scratch is out there, somewhere, and he looks like Alan - can probably act like Alan long enough to fool Tim, at least. Alan still isn't sure if Scratch did what he'd promised and tricked Alice, or if she would know something was wrong. He hopes Scratch was lying, that he was as trapped here as Alan was. But either way, he had to warn Tim, just in case.

But actually talking about Scratch, about the thing that pretends to be him, that he sometimes thinks might *actually* be him... No. No, Alan can't do that. Every time he thinks about it, he finds himself veering away from the sound of Tim's humming, from whatever saferoom he's come across this time.

He couldn't even open up to Alice like that. And that was before, when the worst he had to worry about was writer's block and alcohol and fights with paparazzi.

Still, on the worst days, he thinks about it.

And then he stuffs the thoughts away, greets Tim with a smile, and doesn't talk about it.