
Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/
works/234917.
  Rating:
      Explicit
  Archive Warning:
      Underage
  Category:
      M/M
  Fandom:
      Batman_(Comics)
  Relationship:
      Tim_Drake/Dick_Grayson
  Character:
      Tim_Drake, Dick_Grayson
  Stats:
      Published: 2011-08-05 Words: 1628
****** All the Skin You're Missing ******
by Jane_St_Clair_(3jane)
Summary
     Tim won't answer the phone. Dick didn't really expect him to.
Notes
     Takes place immediately post-Identity Crisis.
     Te made me do it. Or possibly I did it because she is the boss of me
     and doesn't *have* to make me do things anymore.
 
Dick comes over, eventually. Tim hasn't answered the phone since . . .
 
Since.
 
Bruce let him go back there alone. In Bruce's universe, when you lose your
parents, it's time to drive all the agony down into a little hard, dark ball
and start the process of serious dissociation.
 
Dick's working under a slightly different theory. Dick might have the vigilante
tendencies, but Nightwing? Is an extension of *him*. Whereas Batman is
something else. And it would be really, really easy for Tim to turn into that
other thing. Either the perfect caped vigilante or a very serious crazed
villain. Crazed villains are colourful. Clever. Traumatized in interesting
ways.
 
That isn't fair. He knows Tim wouldn't. Still.
 
Tim has to know Dick's in the house, but if he cares it isn't evident. Comes
out of the bathroom with a bed comforter wrapped around him and just his bare
feet and the top of his head showing. Walks straight past Dick without looking
at him, into his bedroom and shuts the door. Doesn't lock it.
 
Soft bed-creak as he lies down again.
 
There isn't any evidence of food, here. He doesn't know how long it's been
since Tim ate anything.
 
The need that pops up in him to seize Tim and *feed him* is pure Alfred. It's
possible this is what the man feels every single time he sees one of them. Or
possibly to slap them until they stop behaving like emotionally damaged
children with access to too many dangerous toys.
 
Tim's room is. Boyish. Disturbingly tidy. Gravitating almost entirely towards
the black hole of Tim at the centre of it. Pale bare feet stick out from the
blanket heap, but other than that Dick can't see him. The lights are all off,
and the street light is miserable.
 
When it was Dick's turn to do this (god, years ago now and it still hurts so
*much* -- he goes to say something to his father sometimes and then realizes
the man's been dead for most of a decade and wants to throw up), Bruce had the
decency to provide him with a room where no light could get in at all. Alfred
used to leave him soup and cookies and sandwiches on a plate inside the door.
He turned all the lights in the hall out first so that Dick wouldn't have to
look at the light.
 
*Tim*
 
Who doesn't even flinch, really, when Dick pads in and sits on the edge of the
bed. Doesn't anything. Just lies there in a tight crumpled-blanket pile and
doesn't do anything but breathe.
 
One bare foot that Dick has to rub. Chafe a bit.
 
Tim doesn't want to be comforted. Dick *knows* that. More or less expects it
when Tim, who's never been ticklish, whips his foot away. Curls in on himself
farther and buries his feet under the blanket. Except Dick didn't let go, so
now he's under there too. Just his hand, holding Tim's ankle.
 
It's not reasonable for Tim to be this *little*. He's supposed to grow at some
point. When Dick pictures Tim, right now, he looks far too much like Dick at
eleven. So very, very wrong.
 
Holding onto Tim's ankle. Squeezing.
 
"No."
 
Squeeze.
 
"No."
 
Squeeze.
 
. . .
 
Rolls himself down against Tim on the bed and lies there for a while, very
still, while Tim doesn't move. Then wraps himself around the blanket-lump and
hangs on.
 
Breathing, both of them. Dick's been talking for a while before he realizes he
is. This tangle of apologies. *I love you*, over and over again. *Please*
 
*oh god I'm sorry
 
I'm so sorry*
 
"No."
 
"I'm so sorry."
 
"*No.*"
 
Tim's there, under the blanket. T-shirt that he must have spent days in. Jeans.
There must be marks all over his body by now, from the clothes.
 
"C'mere."
 
Ridiculous, really, given that he's already breath-close. But he needs Tim to
sit up. Dick pulls him when he doesn't come right away. Pushes the blanket back
and pulls the t-shirt over Tim's head. White-scarred skin under there. Clammy.
Tim shakes a little when Dick circles nails over his back. Still sitting up on
his own, but Dick keeps scratching Tim's back, and eventually he sags. Leans
into Dick's body and stays there.
 
"Yeah."
 
Car lights outside. Little house-creaks. Tim's wound so tight his shoulders can
barely move at all. Cried himself into a tension headache earlier, maybe, and
he's trying not to do it again.
 
Scratch his back. Slow loops up to the base of his skull and down to his waist.
 
Later, he needs to get Tim into the shower. Hot water and steam for as long as
they can stand it -- 'they' because he's pretty sure if he doesn't hold Tim up,
he'll drown -- until Tim melts enough for Dick to be able to rub his muscles
loose.
 
Tim's hands are twisted up in Dick's shirt. He's not sure when that happened.
 
Both hands in Tim's lower back, rubbing along the spine and wincing whenever it
cracks. Tight flesh there makes Tim whimper whenever Dick rubs down into the
waist of his jeans.
 
He remembers this. How much it hurt. Bruce wasn't quite prepared to deal with
that, maybe because he'd been lying in bone-still agony for so long he'd
forgotten how to make it stop. Alfred comforts people with chicken noodle soup
and grilled sandwiches made of exotic cheese and not with touch. When Dick hurt
this much, he had to physically come and find Bruce, and hold him down.
 
It was a lot like this, actually.
 
Tim's sort of chewing on him. Mouth and teeth at his collar. Little gasps like
he's trying not to cry. Dick whispers again *I'm sorry. I love you* and Tim
bites him *hard*. Sinks his teeth in and wails softly.
 
"Yeah, I know."
 
He's not surprised when Tim kisses him. He was waiting for it. It's a sad
commentary that sex is the best comfort any of them know, but it works.
Somewhere in Batman's computers, there's even a study of the biological factors
that keep driving to this. Endorphins and brain chemistry and survival
instincts. Notes in all their psychological profiles regarding the reasons they
keep doing this.
 
Tim hasn't eaten anything in days, but when he was in the bathroom he brushed
his *teeth*.
 
Tim knew he was coming. Maybe.
 
Probably.
 
Tim's read those same files. And he's smart, a lot smarter than Dick is, and
he's had a lot of time to think about things. Dick wants to believe this isn't
completely calculated, but that would be deluded. Somewhere in Tim's head,
there's a list: *things that will make me feel better*
 
- reset-button universe
- getting my dad back
- beating faceless people into bloody pulp
- sex
 
And. Just because it's planned doesn't mean he doesn't mean it. Tim shivers
whenever Dick scratches him, pushes back when Dick kisses him. Crawls in so
close they have to twist weirdly to keep kissing. Tongue in his mouth, his
tongue in Tim's. The breath-stealing isn't so much sexy as deeply possessive.
 
Tim grinds down in his lap.
 
Jeans and teenage-boy boxers come off in a tangle of clothes and Tim-limbs.
They're not going to lose their balance, but as long as Tim's up on his knees .
. . on his back is better. Naked and hard and staring at Dick. Knees up.
 
He came over here to make Tim feel better any way he could.
 
Pushes the knees apart and leans in between them. Tim jerks a little when Dick
mouths his thigh. More when Dick mouths the skin just right of his cock. No
teasing, right. Wraps his mouth around Tim's cock head and sucks gently.
 
There.
 
Tim's breath comes out like the air at the end of crying. Fingers crawl down
into his hair and grip. *suck me*
 
Tongue. Lips, throat, roof of his mouth. Pull Tim's cock in as far as he can
and work his whole mouth around it. Tim's balls are softwarmboyskinsoft in his
hand, and Tim thrusts whenever he massages them a little. Pull off and suck on
just the head while he jacks Tim absently. This doesn't have to be over anytime
soon. The longer it lasts, the longer he has to crawl inside Tim's head and
drag him back out.
 
Licks down. Mouths the sac and rubs Tim's cock against his cheek.
 
"Dick . . ."
 
"Mmm?"
 
"Please."
 
Okay, then. Suck him down as far as he can, as hard as he can while Tim snakes
a leg over Dick's shoulder and holds him there. Little hip twists and Tim's
hissing *please please please* and whining and then
 
whimper arch
 
body-twist
 
"oh god"
 
there. Dick pulls off and kisses him, lays his head on Tim's hip and strokes
his belly.
 
Gotham's probably descending into new levels of hell, but neither of them is
going out there anytime soon. Batman's out there. Cass is out there. Huntress
is out there.
 
Tim's shaking.
 
Dick says, "Come on." Gathers Tim in against him and marches both of them to
the shower.
 
Winds up sitting on the floor with Tim wrapped around him while Tim cries.
Howling, miserable crying that's nothing like sexy. Keeps him from thinking
much about naked Tim mostly in his lap. Just rocks him and pets his soaking-wet
hair and breathes the steam. And it does work. The heat and the crying leech
the worst tension out of Tim's body, and yeah, he's going to need something for
the headache afterwards, but Dick can deal with that later.
 
Tim won't stop crying. Dick leans against the frosted-glass wall. Thinks about
dead fathers and dead Robins. White skin turning red in the heat and Tim's face
pressed into his body. They're going to be in here for a long time.
 
 
 
[5 February 2005]
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