Freak
A.N.: And now, some (sort of) Daddy!Bats. Enjoy!
Dick trudged back to his room, eyes half closed and face nearly gone slack.
He pulled off the headphones, shades, and mask as the door to his room closed behind him, and flopped onto his bed, wishing he could just lie there and sleep some more.
Yet, questions nagged at his brain, forbidding slumber. Questions that made his hands shake and his stomach churn. One in particular kept popping up.
'If just being outside can make me change, how safe am I, really?'
Every time the thought reared its head, he tried to squash it down, mostly unsuccessfully.
He eyed the clock on his nightstand, noting that he'd already been brooding for four hours straight.
'Just this once,' he told himself, slipping out of his shirt and pants. 'I'll sleep all day, just this once. It won't kill me.'
His eyes slipped shut.
BREAKLINE
Dick coughed as he woke up, again. The smell of cologne was choking him.
"Have you been sleeping all day?" Bruce murmured. Dick sluggishly sat up and pulled on the mask and headphones, next to him.
"Not all day." Bruce didn't reply to this.
"Alfred tells me you went out, today." Dick nodded.
"I did. Inner city."
"And how'd it go?"
"About as well as you could assume it would. And worse."
"What happened?"
Dick looked over and raised his eyebrow at the Dark Knight. He'd figured his little…episode – had been in the news, by now.
Bruce dropped his head under Dick's scrutiny. "You changed. I saw it on the news."
Dick nodded, redirecting his eyes to study the windowsill.
"Luckily no confirmed casualties," the elder man added. Dick nodded again.
"Wally led me off with some steaks," he explained. "Don't think I had the time." The cologne smell burned at the back of his throat, and he coughed again. Bruce's eyes widened a fraction.
"You'll be in here the rest of the day?" The boy nodded, so Bruce got up and left, gently pulling the door closed, behind him.
He unloaded his briefcase in his own room, tossing the junk mail into the trash can, where it joined the empty, Versace-branded bottle.
BREAKLINE
Dick hummed lowly as his eyes slowly opened. He realized with a wry sense of humor that, for the first time in at least a month, he actually felt well rested.
He then looked at the clock and hung his head in shame.
He'd promised himself he wouldn't do it, and he freaking did. He went nocturnal like some stupid animal. Like a wolf.
He shook his head and buried himself underneath the covers again, determined not to dwell on the late hour and instead get some more sleep. Maybe he wouldn't be so tired the next day.
At least half an hour passed, and sleep never came. His own body was against him; his body clock demanding that he get up RIGHT. NOW!
With a groan, he complied with the rest of him and rolled out of bed, pulling on a loose, white t shirt and a pair of bottle green pajama pants. He was already reaching for his headphones when he finally took notice of something.
He didn't need them.
The only loud sounds he could hear were three heartbeats: his own, Alfred's, and Tim's, who had just come back from a summer science camp. The rest of the noises of the mansion – the hissing of Alfred preparing meals, the washing and drying machines, and the grating whir of the vacuum – were all silenced.
Slowly, he stepped towards the door, footsteps and crunching carpet falling on his ears, well-oiled door swinging open without a sound.
He remembered back when he was a kid, and felt the mansion was different at night. It didn't take long to get over it, but to a nine-year-old kid who had just lost his parents, the whole atmosphere shifted when the moon came out, and he was alone. The floorboards creaked, not with age, but with the earsplitting sound that always seemed wrong in those still, silent moments. The darkness around him had seemed profound, like it was not only devoid of light, but of life and welcome. The very silence resonated with noiseless whispers (which, if he were honest, had probably come from The Amityville Horror, which he'd seen a part of, when he'd peaked into the home theater).
That was then.
Now, the silence caressed his ears, a perfect haven from the assault of sound that the manor normally was, without his headphones. The darkness no longer bothered him, as it seemed to be just the right light. And the scentlessness that had once been almost eerie was now comfortable enough that even being in the parlor with the charred remains of a fire didn't make his chest constrict like a python of smoke and ash.
A small smile played his lips, as he lounged on the couch and picked a book from the small pile on the end table.
It was only an hour before he had to put it down, though. He could barely focus, he was so hungry.
He padded to the kitchen, and pulled open the fridge, eyeing the cold cuts and bacon, neither particularly pleasing.
A thought crossed his mind, but he shook it off. Things were already bad enough, him being up this late. He didn't need to more damage than he'd done so far. He settled for a sandwich piled with turkey. Maybe it'd even put him to sleep.
BREAKLINE
Dick snapped his eyes open, after they'd threatened to slip shut. He could do this. Just a few more minutes, and then it was back up to bed for a quick nap.
Mmmm, sleep…
A pair of fingers appeared in front of his face, and he blinked furiously, looking at Bruce to show he was listening.
"You know, for the amount of time you were sleeping yesterday, you'd think you'd be more awake," he remarked. In the kitchen, Alfred exasperated over being short two slices of bread and eight slices of turkey.
"Haven't slept for a few hours," he explained, punctuating with a yawn and a stretch. Bruce's brows furrowed, but he didn't say anything else. Tim glanced between the two of them, and studied Dick for a minute, face set in thought.
"What are you sick with?" he asked, breaking the tense, blessed silence and staring Dick in the face.
"Sorry?" he replied, hoping the deer-in-the-headlights look on his face was enough to make him reconsider his question.
"Bruce told me you were sick and needed rest; Barbara told me the same thing. But you look fine. So, what's wrong?" Apparently not, then. Dick sighed.
"Look, Tim. It's something I'd rather keep to my-"
Bruce's cough interrupted him. The acrobat could practically hear the disapproval in the older man's glare. Dick sighed again and hung his head in defeat.
"Um, a month ago, I woke up in the custody…of New York Animal Control." Tim's expression shifted to "what did you do?" to "JUST HOW DRUNK WERE YOU?" Instead he merely asked "What does this have with anything?"
"Well, we ran some tests and found out that, instead of being kidnapped, I had chosen to go there. As a wolf; I'm a werewolf."
"So?" Tim asked, five seconds. The look on his face further betrayed the lack of lines he was drawing between 'werewolf' and 'sick.'
"So, I can't fight like this. Just leaving my room is a challenge. That's why I've been avoiding people; that's why I was sleeping all day, yesterday."
"So, you're not sick, then?" He supposed this had been a bigger shock than he expected, even if he'd been expecting to hear his brother had cancer or something equally terrible.
Dick shook his head. "Not sick."
"How did this start, anyway? When did you actually become a… uh?"
"We're not sure. Actually, we're not sure about a lot of things, regarding this," he said with a glance to Bruce.
"Since you mention it," the elder interrupted. "We should start running tests. Try to better understand what's going on."
Dick opened his mouth, more to ask why they didn't do this earlier than to protest, but Bruce shut it again with a wave of his hand.
"I didn't want to bring this up earlier, but since you said we don't know that much about what you can do, I suggest we start figuring that out. If you'd allow it."
That, of course, translated directly to "technically, you can say no, but I'm going to hound you until you agree."
"Uh, sure. Okay, fine," he replied, nodding his head. "Just let me get some sleep, okay?"
"We'll start in two hours."
With the dismissal in the man's voice ringing in his ears, Dick walked back to his room and flopped into his bed, sleep embracing him near instantly.
A.N.: Yeah, yeah, I know; Bruce doesn't exactly ooze fatherly love. What do you think of the scene with Tim? Too awkward? Too casual? What kinds of tests do you think they're going to do? And, like last chapter, how do you think Dick caught lycanthropy? I think I'll be revealing it next chapter, so I really want to know what you think. Thank you for your time, and GOD BLESS!