Work Text:
Time was a funny thing in the dark place.
Moments stretched on forever and interweaved with each other until you could no longer tell where something started or ended. It was like an ouroboros made of darkness, trapping everything inside and making escape futile.
Tim sometimes theorized how much time had passed in the real world since Door dragged him into this place.
Was it only a second? Would he be back in the morgue if he managed to make it out?
Or had it been days? Hell, humanity might have even figured out time travel in the time he was trapped here.
Days, months, years - these words didn't hold meaning here.
Writing his thoughts and theories out helped Tim stay sane, or at least more so than the other people trapped in this dimension.
Thinking about the other unfortunate souls stuck here made him look over at the figure currently sleeping on the mattress that Tim had claimed as his bed - the infamous writer and the dark place's favourite resident, Alan Wake.
Tim knew about Alan. He was a fan of Night Springs and it was hard to escape all the advertising for the Alex Casey books and movies, not to mention Rose's declarations of love for the writer.
His cousin Sahra had even met Alan in 2010, though she never talked about it in detail. Even then, Tim could sense that something greater had happened in Bright Falls than what she and the authorities told the public.
And now he knew.
He felt bad for Alan - he seemed like a nice guy, very different from how the media portrayed him. The writer was surprisingly funny at times, the infamous bad temper was nowhere to be seen. The best way Tim could describe him was mild-mannered.
Despite his unassuming appearance, the sheriff could see how everything was weighing on him - the memory loss, his evil doppelganger, his missing wife.
Although it appeared that the dark place didn't let Wake age since his disappearance, the haunted look in his eyes made up for that.
So when Alan showed up at his hideout, covered in what looked like blood and a desperate look in his eyes, how could Tim do anything but help?
He managed to peel the writer out of his sticky shirt and jacket before sitting him down on the mattress to inspect him for injuries. Miraculously, Wake was uninjured, so Tim told him to lie down before tucking the moth-eaten blanket over him. The sheriff busied himself by cleaning the man's clothes while the writer slept.
Alan's sleep was not peaceful.
He kept tossing and turning, muttering and letting out small whimpers.
It broke Tim's heart to see the other man like this.
Tim had finished scrubbing the last bits of blood from Alan's shirt when he heard a strange noise. He looked behind himself and noticed that the sleeping form of the other was shaking.
He put the shirt back down and approached the writer carefully, so as not to wake him. As he stepped closer, he realized what was going on - Alan was crying in his sleep.
Quietly, he was sobbing with a never-ending stream of tears falling from his closed eyes. The sheriff stood over the writer without a clue on what to do.
It wasn't like he didn't know how to comfort people - it was something he prided himself on being rather good at, especially since it was a not exactly small part of his job. But this was different.
This wasn't someone whose cat ran away or whose favourite garden tool got stolen. This was a man who had been imprisoned for 13 years and whose life had been dismantled by the whims of a supernatural entity.
Something like this was way above his pay grade.
He could still try.
So he sat down beside the man and watched him for a moment. Tim's gaze ran over Alan's body, up to his face, analyzing the details. He could admit that he understood why Rose was so infatuated with Alan. He was an objectively attractive man, with his long wavy hair, delicate eyelashes, small moles scattered across his face, and broad shoulders.
The sheriff had to shake himself out of these thoughts.
It had been too long since he had been with someone, and the isolation since entering the dark place didn't help his loneliness.
But this wasn't about him.
Tim crawled onto the mattress, carefully moving Alan so that the man's head was resting in his lap. He started to gently and soothingly rub the other's back and arms with one hand while the other combed the writer's long locks.
They were surprisingly soft.
Slowly but surely, Alan seemed to calm down. The tears had dried up, and his breathing had returned to normal. The face that wore a constant expression of unease relaxed.
Alan was in a state of calm that Tim knew he hadn't been in for a long time.
Looking down at Wake, he pressed a small kiss to his forehead.
The other was his only companion in this place, the only one that he could trust no matter how many times the writer forgot him. Alan would leave as soon as he woke up, to find his wife and a way out, undoubtedly facing many more horrors and struggling to keep his head above water.
There was not a lot that Tim could do to help against the darkness toying with him.
But this he could provide.
He would be the writer's safe haven in this dark abyss. Giving Alan a little comfort so that he may rest peacefully.
Tim could feel himself relaxing, still running his fingers through Alan’s hair, humming a gentle tune under his breath.
There were still so many unanswered questions floating in the back of his mind but for once he pushed them aside.
Right here and right now he has earned himself a moment of peace as well.