For the LJ Tim/Kon meme: "Kon reacts when he finds out the vile threats the inmates threw at Robin."

Set in the future, post-Arkham city, though I have not played it myself, so there might be some inconsistencies.

You can't escape Arkham

Kon wakes up to a raw hacking sound, his sleep-muddled brain grasping at straws until it recognizes it as vomiting. Immediately, his fingers reach out beside him to find nothing more than still-warm cotton sheets and the dampness of sweat. His stomach tightens, fully rousing him, and he looks up to see a dim glow coming from underneath the bathroom door.

"Tim…?" he calls out, throwing off the covers and padding across the room as the hairs on his arm tingle in protest to the cold. He feels a prickle of guilt at the fact that he didn't even feel Tim get up, but the closed bathroom door tells him Tim was purposely avoiding waking him, and no one knows how to sneak around better than Tim.

"…'m fine," he hears through the door, recognizing the chagrin and damn, I got caught undercurrent to Tim's croak. As if Kon doesn't have a right to know when his boyfriend is sick. He pushes the door open to see Tim turning his head away quickly and wiping his mouth with toilet paper. His pale hand shakes as he pushes the wadded-up ball into the trashcan, and his back, turned towards Kon, rises and falls with no beat.

"You okay?" Kon asks gently. The cold tile floor makes Kon's toes curl as he grabs a cup and begins to fill it with water, glancing at Tim over his shoulder. "Did you eat something bad?"

"No."

Kon tilts his head and holds out the cup, a Nightwing-themed mug Dick got Tim as a joke some months ago. Tim hesitates before taking it, turning his face away again so that Kon can only see the tip of his nose and eyelashes past his washed-out cheekbones.

Kon glances at the mostly clear contents in the toilet and frowns. "Did you eat anything?"

Tim grimaces and rubs his forehead, voice raspy. "Seriously, Kon—" There should have been a 'shut up' or 'drop it' at the end of that sentence, but it's as if Tim is too tired to even finish it.

"C'mon, Tim, you know I hate it when you do that," Kon says, kneeling down to rub the tip of his fingers in circles across Tim's back, skittering along the damp cloth to get at the skin underneath. The incandescent light catches on the fine sheen of sweat on his neck, where dark strands of limp hair cling wetly. Kon runs his thumb around Tim's neck to sweep them back.

Tim is always worrying him—too engrossed in his work to remember basic human needs like sleep or food or water. The problem is that he's got it refined to an art – Kon has seen him go eight days without any real sleep, because Tim knows that a one-hour nap and two protein bars for every sixteen hours he's awake is just enough to keep him from hitting empty. He's become a master at avoiding the crash, skirting the limits in a dance that chills Kon with its ruthless efficiency. Usually Kon is there to remind him that it will catch up with him, but sometimes, like tonight, duty calls and keeps him away. "I wish you'd take better care of yourself."

Tim's shoulders hunch up, and Kon thinks it's another wave of nausea until Tim leans away from Kon. "Not now, Kon."

Kon glares at Tim. "I can't be mad when my boyfriend starves himself or stays up for days in a row? Really, Tim?"

"You can yell at me tomorrow if you so want," Tim snaps, dropping his hand away from his face to narrow his eyes at Kon. Then he comes back into himself with a little shudder and sighs, voice dropping back down heavily to drag through the air. "Right now I just want to go back to bed, okay?"

Kon winces and feels guilty for having gotten off track. He places a hand on the nap of Tim's damp neck, rubbing his thumb carefully back and forth. "Right, sorry. You sure you're good now? What made you get sick?"

"Dunno," Tim mutters, but doesn't offer any theories as he normally does. Kon tries to shove down the hurt that wells up when Tim brushes Kon's hand off and pushes himself to a standing position. He sways there, looking so wan and insubstantial in the impersonal wash of the toxic-yellow bathroom light, his body chiseled and firm under the thin T-shirt but in the haggard way of tough, worn-down muscle instead of the full healthy bulges of Kon's body. His gaze is unfocused, staring at nothing for a moment, and though that's not an uncommon occurrence with Tim, Kon has been seeing it more often since the whole Arkham City ordeal. Tim hasn't talked much about it or even acted particularly different, but Kon has known him long enough to suspect that it wasn't as uneventful as Tim would like him to believe. Upon confirming Batman's safe return, Tim spent the entire day after in a haze, though Kon didn't notice until he realized Tim had spent the past two hours at the computer without hitting a single key on his keyboard. Kon has had enough of his own dealings with missions gone wrong to recognize the symptoms.

He reaches out and grabs Tim's hand, slipping his fingers in between Tim's. His thick knuckles dwarf Tim's slim fingers until only the ivory tips peek out from the mesh of tan and pale skin.

"It's… was it a nightmare?"

Tim's pinkie twitches but he says nothing, just tugs insistently on Kon's hand until Kon relents, knowing this a battle lost, and follows him back into bed.

Tim says nothing of it the next day.

~0~

They go through the next two nights without incidence, and Kon is willing to put it aside as a one-time thing. It's only through one of those dumb strokes of luck that Kon finally finds out otherwise.

"You're such a dumb mutt, Krypto, who's a dumb mutt?" Kon coos at the dog wagging his tail with so much force that it slams into the kitchen cabinets like a whip, rattling the wood. Kon laughs at the adoring look Krypto regales him with, mouth agape and tongue lapping at the air. He reaches out with his TTK to grab a piece of bacon from the set he's frying for breakfast and holds it up in the air. "Jump for it boy, jump!"

Tim looks up blearily from his laptop and rubs the side of his temples, yawning. "Just give him the bacon, Kon, before his tail snaps through the cabinets. It's not the same inside since you're not able to throw it five hundred feet into the air anyway."

"Killjoy," Kon mutters good-naturedly, and tosses the bacon at Krypto, who barks happily and crouches on the floor to paw and chew at his treat. He reaches out to turn off the stove and takes the opportunity to slip his fingers through Tim's scalp and kiss the crown of his head.

"Kon, you were touching bacon!" Tim's eyes go comically wide as he twists his head away from Kon's hand. "I just took a shower!"

Kon grins and flicks his ear. "Other hand, birdboy."

Tim looks at the other hand, notices the bacon grease on it, and groans. "You have an awful sense of humor, Kon."

"What about my puns? You've always liked my puns."

"Reflex; I was indoctrinated to think they were funny at a young age because of Dick," Tim mutters darkly.

Kon laughs, a throaty chuckle that brings out the briefest flicker of a smile from Tim's lips, and squeezes Tim's shoulder, draping himself over his slim back just because he can. Tim sighs warmly and leans his head back against Kon, eyes fluttering shut so his lashes almost brush the top of his cheeks.

"You look tired still," Kon murmurs as he nuzzles the side of Tim's face, pressing his nose into the still-damp roots and smelling peach shampoo and the 'unscented' deodorant Tim uses. The scent disappears as soon as Kon draws back, crushed under smell of bacon coating the very air. The pan is still sizzling and crackling, making Kon's stomach rumble in anticipation. Tim grunts a noncommittal response and lets all his weight fall back onto Kon, who doesn't even budge. Tim's earlobe looks tantalizing enough that Kon succumbs and begins to nibble it, earning himself a breathy chuckle from Tim.

This is one of the few times they're able to have breakfast together – their schedules tend to clash horribly, though Kon has become more nocturnal to accommodate Tim, and Tim tries to go to sleep at a reasonable time when Kon has to get up early. But breakfast—this domestic bliss of ready-made biscuits in the oven, sunlight streaming through the windows and coating his skin with warmth while Tim rattles away on his laptop in the kitchen instead of his office and an hour of peace before Tim has to head to Wayne Enterprises and Kon goes off to the Watchtower— this is rare and precious and the sort of thing Kon holds on to during the bleaker moments of their job.

"Oh, Tim," he murmurs, dragging the 'm' out, low and inviting, and wrapped around Tim as he is, he can feel the way Tim's body straightens infinitesimally, and his pulse begins drumming. He slips a finger under the hem of Tim's pants, searching automatically for the rough patch of scar tissue on Tim's hip that he likes to rub. "Mmmm… I want you…"

Tim swallows, fingers stilling over his laptop.

"I want you…" He mouths the side of Tim's neck, ghosting his breath damply over the thin skin, feeling the thick, steady pulse of the artery underneath, "…to finish that fruitbowl."

Tim's shoulders fall and he throws an incredulous look at Kon. Kon cackles.

"Got ya good, didn't I?" He ducks Tim's swat. "Had you all riled up only to tell you that you better finish your breakfast, Wonder Boy. How do you like them apples?"

"Crunchy and sour," Tim responds glibly, reaching out to pop a piece in his mouth.

"Good boy," he says to Tim, but Krypto lifts his head from where he sits licking at the ceramic floor for all and any traces of bacon grease. Kon pats him as he heads to the bathroom for a quick break.

It's one of those weird ways that things come together. Tim is all about intuitions based on logic and knowledge, piecing facts together. Kon is more about hunches, gut feelings that don't necessarily have any true basis. It's the combination of the strong smell of antiseptic that hits him when he closes the door behind him, the fact that the trash has been taken out, even though Kon just took it out two days ago and they clean the apartment on Saturday anyway. It's the way those two things click with Tim still seeming tired even though they went to be an hour earlier the night before, and the fact that Tim woke up with a different shirt this morning, though Kon didn't really realize that until now. It's all of those little observations, dispersed neurons firing rapidly all at once to form a picture that Kon doesn't like.

He wrings his hands as he washes them, squeezing every particle of air out from between his palms, twisting the faucet harshly as his mind seethes and goes through a million ways of bringing this up. Though he can't settle on one way and knows from experience that his mouth will just do whatever, at least he knows that keeping quiet is not an option. Tim sometimes takes his damn privacy too far and Kon is not going to remain silent about that any longer.

He opens the door again with far too much force, and Tim's head jerks upward, startled. Kon doesn't have the patience to be subtle: as soon as their eyes connect, all previous traces of humor bleed out from Tim's face to be replaced with unease.

"Have you kept throwing up, Tim?" Kon snarls, taking a step forward. As if flicking a switch, Tim's face turns white like a sheet of paper: cold, blank, and impersonal. He looks like he's expecting a war with his shoulders set back and his head held high and tense.

"Kon—" Tim begins, voice somewhere between cold and pacifying. It's his logic voice, and that gives Kon his answer immediately.

"Don't even start, Tim." Krypto whines low in his throat, slowly retreating, and Kon spares a glance to reassure him with a pat with his TTK before locking gazes with Tim and taking a breath. "I know you're… you and you hate worrying people, and saving the world is literally easier than getting you to open up, but fuck it, Tim!" Kon resists holding on to the counter or the chair, because he will undoubtedly break them, so he's left with nothing to do but clench his hands. A familiar heat begins building up behind his retinas and he closes his eyes before he inadvertently sets something on fire. The awareness that he's angry enough to set off his laser vision actually works to bring him down a notch so that he can start again without yelling. "You piss me off when you do that, you know that?"

Tim says nothing, just watches him patiently and warily, back ramrod straight. Kon wishes he'd say something, do something, just react, but he knows from experience that Tim shuts down all emotion at moments like this. He'll wait for the storm to pass, for Kon to vent, and then and only then is when he'll offer his side of the story. Alright. So if that's how he's going to do it this time too, then Kon will take advantage of it.

"We've been together for, what, four years now, Tim? And friends for God knows how long?" He stares at Tim, long and hard, lets his next words connect. "Are we really partners if I don't know when you're going through shit? If you don't tell me when you get sick? You don't get a choice – things like health, mental or physical, whatever, you tell me those."

The chair and table suddenly screech as his TTK pushes at them, and Tim's eyes fickler toward them in surprise. Kon considers reigning it in, but he wants Tim to see how angry he is. His voice drops dangerously low and the silverware on the table rattles with the flare of his TTK. "You will fucking allow me to care, you got it? Because I got it – you don't want to worry me and all that shit, but guess what, my feelings get hurt worse when you lie to me. Lying, Tim! I thought we'd gotten past that!"

The glass of orange juice topples over, and Tim jumps out of the way as it spreads across the granite, around the fruitbowl, and begins dripping over the side. He glances back and forth from Kon to the spreading puddle as if unsure of which to take care of first. Kon solves the problem for him by stalking over to the sink and snatching a rag, pushing up next to Tim to begin wiping the countertop. Tim pulls away from where their arms touch.

It takes until he kneels to the floor, a few angry swipes enough to clean the mess, before Tim speaks up.

"I…"

Kon stills and listens.

"It's not a big deal," Tim mutters.

Kon squeezes the rag so hard all the juice drips back onto the floor. If there's one thing living with Tim has taught him, is self-restraint—at least, as much as he's capable of. He grits his teeth and counts to ten, breathing in through his nose as he cleans it back up. "I don't care, Tim. Big or little, I want to you to tell me. I don't care what it is to you, to me it's a big deal. And I don't know what part of throwing up isn't a big deal to you."

Tim runs his hand through his hair as Kon stands up to dump the rag in the sink. "No, I mean…"

Kon leans against the sink, facing Tim, and waits, eyes hard, for Tim to come up with another excuse that will set Kon's blood boiling. Tim avoids looking at him, pulling at the sleeves of his sleeping shirt nervously. Despite his anger, Kon recognizes when Tim's struggling with how to open up conversation, and Kon finds it in himself to help him.

"I don't think it's a stomach virus or that you're sick."

Tim nods, still looking at the ground, and scratches his wrist. Even with all the anger, Kon still has the irrational compulsion to hug Tim.

"Is it whatever happened in Arkham?"

That startles Tim into glancing up, swallowing and opening his mouth. His tongue lies poised just behind his teeth, and Kon can see the gears turning: how much to tell, how to minimize the damage, how to explain—

"Just say it, Tim," Kon begs, pushing away from the sink to place his hands on Tim's shoulders and run his hands down his arms slowly, feeling wiry muscles under the soft cloth. Tim, ever so headstrong, glares at the floor, resisting when Kon tries to pull him closer.

"What if I don't want to say it?" he answers with pursed lips, turning his head away. "It's nothing you can help me with, Kon."

Kon growls, tightening his grip when Tim tries to wriggle away. Tim says nothing, but Kon can tell by the gritting of his teeth that it's painful. Kon forces himself to loosen his grip, just a fraction. "Dude, not fair that you just assume I can't help without even letting me know what the problem is in the first place! You're kinda hypocritical sometimes, you know that? You want to know everything that's going on around you, but you won't let other people know anything about you."

"That's because it's just a minor inconvenience until I can get their damn voices out of my head," Tim snaps, and before Kon can blink, Tim has pinched the nerves in both of his wrists, quick like snakebite, and used the involuntary slackening of Kon's grip to twist away.

"Ah, fuck, Tim," he says, trying to shake the numbness out of his hands. "No fucking Bat-tricks!"

"No super-strength, then," Tim counters just as smartly, crossing his arms, face impassive like a cement wall. Kon hasn't seen Tim be this closed off in a while now.

"…My bad," he agrees reluctantly. He crosses his own arms, fingertips still tingling, and raises an eyebrow at Tim, a habit he picked up from him. "So. Voices?"

Tim closes his eyes and Kon knows he's thinking, Shit, I shouldn't have let that slip.

"I don't want to talk about it," Tim says after a moment, jaw so tight Kon can see the vein jumping at the side of his neck. "It'll go away soon."

"Yeah? When—"

Kon is cut off by the shrill beep of Tim's communicator, a sound they're both conditioned to react to even in sleep. Tim swipes it off the table and plugs it in his ear, no doubt glad for the interruption.

"Red here."

Kon groans as Tim begins nodding and responding to whoever's on the other line. The fight goes out of him, leaving him drained, and he knows he won't be able to pick it up after Tim hangs up. So he grabs the rag again, wipes it half-heartedly along the table to get the last remnants of orange juice, catches Tim's eye just quick enough to point at his fruit-salad breakfast to remind him to eat, and grabs a plate to dump his own bacon and eggs on. He takes his breakfast to the living room and stares morosely at the blank TV screen while he eats, listening to the sharp cadence of Tim's business voice.

Tim has gotten a lot better over the years about letting people help him, but better is not perfect. It frustrates Kon, because even though he knows it's only due to some lofty aspirations of being completely self-sufficient and not worrying others, he still feels as if it's because Tim doesn't trust him. Kon doesn't know how to get past that cement wall —fortress—Tim has built around himself.

He's finishing his breakfast just as Tim's saying, "Yeah, N, I can be there in fifteen. Hold the fort down until then."

Mwahaha, evil cliffhangers of evil cliffhangers.