Tim laid awake long after his brother's breathing had evened out into sleep. The compliment he'd been paid ran through his head on repeat, both pleasing and troubling him at the same time. To be compared to Bruce in a skill and come out on top was flattering; for such a judgment to come from Dick, who knew them both better than they knew themselves, was flooring. The problem was that he didn't know how to respond to the accolade. If he failed to do what he'd been applauded for and take what had been said about Damian's past into account in his dealings with him, he might prove unworthy of the honor he'd been given. On the other hand, it was going to be remarkably difficult to forgive the boy who had spent so much time sowing destruction and mayhem in his life, let alone to then take special pains to form some sort of positive relationship with him.
He had always envied the emotional intelligence of the man passed out beside him, but never more than he did tonight. Somehow Dick could put himself into almost anyone's shoes within seconds of meeting them, whereas he couldn't even begin to ask people about themselves without making things awkward or turning it into an interrogation. Tim knew that his own greatest trait was the Holmesian ability he shared with Bruce, the knack of glancing at a person once, maybe twice, and noting everything from the dandruff in their hair to the telltale specks of mud on their Jimmy Choos. The downside to such a skill was that he was so busy cataloging people's outsides that he often forgot about their insides. Dick didn't have that problem, and while part of Tim whispered that the grass was always greener on the other side of the fence most of him was just jealous.
He could hardly hold the other man's natural talent against him, though. It was simply who he was. As he thought as much, he let out an involuntary groan. Dick's a lover, I'm a thinker, and Damian's...Damian's an attacker, he used the classification that had been assigned to the youth. It's just...who we are. Shit. That didn't mean that they couldn't change – after all, years of Batman's tutelage had given Dick a good eye for detail, he himself had picked up a few tricks in people-reading from his elder brother, and even the demon-child had proven he could improve his behavior – but it did mean that there were certain aspects of their characters that were set in stone. Barring major brain trauma, Damian was always going to be a prickly little son of a bitch. The key, it seemed, was to fit oneself in between his spines until he couldn't poke you without hurting himself.
How exactly he was supposed to do such a thing was a question that he didn't have the energy for just then, so he shelved it. Oddly satisfied with the progress he felt he'd made, he let his eyelids fall shut. It wouldn't have surprised him if he'd had difficulty getting to sleep, since he often did when he went to bed with a weighty issue on his mind. The next time he opened his eyes, however, it was to find delicate morning light suffusing the tent.
Dick had rolled close and thrown one arm across his stomach during the night, so he moved it carefully out of the way before trying to slip from his sleeping bag. His skin produced goosebumps instantly in the cool dawn air, but he didn't want to wake the other man by dressing in such close proximity. Snatching up his pants from where he'd left them, he unzipped the door and stepped out onto the dewy grass.
"Brr, brrbrrbrr, brrrrr..." he moaned quietly. Hopping from one bare foot to the other, he covered his legs and then shoved his boots on. A minute later he had extracted his pack from its sheltered spot under the rain fly and procured a sweatshirt and fresh socks. Sniffing himself, he decided he could go another day without changing his t-shirt and quickly finished dressing.
The best way to shake off his chills would be to move around, he knew, so he cast about for some chore to perform. His water bottle was near empty, and a brief exploration of his brother's luggage revealed a similar situation there. They had enough to make breakfast – maybe – but there was no doubt in his mind that they would need refills before they headed out on the day's hike. He glanced towards the dark line of alders that marked what he was privately calling Mosquito Creek and winced. Starting the morning with buzzing companions wasn't his idea of a good time, but if it saved them a few minutes getting started and put a smile on Dick's face besides then it would be worth it.
Bearing both of their bottles and his UV light water purifier, he set his jaw and started back towards the road. He'd doused himself in fresh bug repellant, but he prepared himself for the worst as he made his way down to the stream. Once there, he gave a sigh of relief. Whether due to the cooler-than-optimal temperatures of early morning or some other miraculous phenomenon, the insect hordes that had chased them out of the thicket the day before were nowhere to be found. A few sluggish flies hovered above the water, but that was the only wildlife around. Grateful for the reprieve, he straddled the fastest section of the course and filled their canteens as fully as he could.
Dick was up, dressed, and yawning outside the tent when he returned. "Hey," Tim greeted, then narrowed his eyes as he noted his lack of sleeves. "...How are you not freezing?" His walk hadn't gone as far as he'd hoped towards warming him, although he supposed that dunking his hands in the icy flow had had something to do with that. Still, he couldn't understand how the other man wasn't shivering the way he had been when he'd first risen.
"Old circus trick," an almost-sad smile answered. "If you're cold when you get up, you put on your shoes and go climb a tree."
"...Oh. Well, I'm glad you decided to put pants on, too," he joked, hoping to lighten the mood. "You might have regretted it otherwise."
"Heh. No kidding." Dick gestured towards the bottles. "Did you already exorcise the demons from that stuff?"
"Yes," he laughed. "Here."
A deep draw dropped the level in the first bottle by half an inch. "...Mmm. It doesn't get any colder or fresher than that."
He took a swig of his own and had to agree. The frigid liquid threatened to give his tongue frostbite, but he held it in his mouth anyway. Previous experience had taught him that wild-running water varied from source to source as much as wines did from vineyard to vineyard, and deserved to be tasted and savored the same way. Being too young to drink alcohol except on the rare occasions when Dick managed to convince Alfred to let him in on a preparatory tasting for a party, he had tried to whet his palate on tamer beverages. Of all the free-flowing water he'd sampled since he'd begun keeping track, this, he decided, was the best. "Good minerals," he said once he'd swallowed.
"But without tasting like pennies. I hate it when it tastes like pennies."
"Yeah, that's gross." The drink he'd taken traced a frosty line down his throat, and he shivered. "Damn. It's good, but it's cold."
Dick frowned. "...You want to climb a tree?"
"Not particularly. My fingers are so numb I'd probably fall out of it."
"Well, let's get some breakfast, then. Oatmeal and hot cider should thaw you out."
"I'm a fan of that idea."
An hour later he had peeled off his sweatshirt and had a pleasantly full stomach. They repeated the same clean-up they'd done the night before, each taking a peanut butter bar for their pockets so they wouldn't have to stop down the trail just to dig out a snack. Once they'd forced the air out of their ground pads and sleeping bags and bundled the tent into its compact carrying case, they stood together on the narrow path and looked around. "Well," Dick observed, "goodbye, camp one."
"Goodbye, Mosquito Creek." Your water might be delicious, he allowed as he sipped the now lukewarm fluid, but I'll never forgive you for your namesake.
"Is that what it's called?"
"Who knows? I didn't check the map or anything, but if it's not called that then someone misnamed it."
"...Okay. I can buy that. Goodbye, Mosquito Creek. Here's hoping you don't have any twins between here and the falls."
"No kidding."
They turned away and started off. "Goodbye, cooking rock!" Dick waved at the boulder as they passed it. "Thanks for being an all-in-one kitchen."
"You know," Tim remarked, "if we'd brought the car's roof with us we could have just thrown it up there and used it as a griddle."
"Aw, we could have brought pancake mix and everything!"
"Campcakes."
"I like that. Campcakes."
"Me, too. Next trip, let's lug the top of an SUV with us."
"Hehe. I'm going to let you carry that, I think. Although we could always use it as a sled."
"I'll tell you right now that I have no interest in hiking through the snow. This morning was enough cold for me, thanks. Besides, the metal wouldn't get hot enough to cook on in those temperatures."
"We could start a fire under it."
"We'd scorch our sled!"
"But we'd have campcakes to show for it."
"...That's a tough decision," he mused. "I don't think I'd be able to pick."
"Good thing you don't want to hike in the snow. Now you'll never have to choose." Dick reached out with one hand and mussed his hair. "Clever Timmy, figuring a way around a question that hadn't even been asked yet."
The morning went on like that, with the rises in the trail and the ribbing in their conversation staying equally gentle. The forest faded back until they found themselves crossing a wide, grassy plateau ringed by steep hills that bled into white-capped peaks. A soft breeze bearing a wintry crispness prevented the sun from becoming intolerable as it climbed higher into the sky. Keeping their eyes on the neat notch in the rocky escarpment ahead that marked the next stage of the journey, they strode on, both wearing goofily happy smiles that neither could quite manage to wipe off.
They lunched at the base of the short canyon they would be traversing that afternoon, spreading salmon and cream cheese on tortillas and watching the plain they had crossed undulate in the wind. Dick spotted a lone bull elk laying a few hundred yards from the trail in the shade of the cliff, and by using his camera's maximum zoom Tim managed to get a couple of shots he thought would prove decent with a little editing. They waited an extra minute to see if he would do anything more exciting, but he didn't oblige them. Agreeing that the animal had the right idea in staying where it was cool until the sun started to go down, they gave one final stretch, hoisted their packs, and headed into the shade between the worn stone walls carved out by a long-dead river.
Another expanse of grass lay at the top, this one broken up by a few stands of conifers. The mountains seemed closer here, but Tim couldn't be sure that it wasn't a trick of the eye brought on by the impossibly clear air and the mild high he was getting from his exertions and the grandeur sprawling in all directions. It didn't matter, he decided as a herd of pronghorn leaped away at their approach and Dick giggled at them like a delighted toddler. For all he knew this might have been a dream; it was far too perfect to be real, surely. Under normal circumstances the idea would have disturbed him, but in this place he just shrugged and joined in his brother's laughter. There would be time later, when the world was a cruel place again, for him to analyze everything. Now was about soaking it in, and nothing more.
They made camp that night on the far edge of the upper grassland, pitching their tent between two spindly pines. As he looked over their maps, Tim determined that they'd traveled roughly twelve miles that day, leaving them with only ten more to go to their destination. The last two-fifths of the route were supposed to be the most challenging sections, but then the people who had made that determination hadn't been Nightwing and Red Robin. Given that, he saw little reason why they couldn't fall asleep tomorrow with the roar of Asperity Falls in their ears.
"What's the plan in the morning, little brother?" Dick asked without looking up from the stove.
"I think we can do the rest in one day."
"Really?"
"Yeah. We knocked out almost half the trail today, and a fair portion of tomorrow is downhill. I don't know, what do you think?"
"Well I'm feeling fine and dandy, so I'm game."
"How's your foot?" The older man had pried his boot off almost as soon as they'd stopped, complaining of a blister on the underside of one toe. It was small, but it could easily slow them if it got worse.
"Eh, I've got a bandage and some moleskin both on it. Besides, if I can't power through a little thing like that then I don't deserve to wear a mask. It'll be fine."
"...Okay. But...you'll say something if you need to slow down, right?" As much as he wanted to reach their destination the following day, he didn't want to hurt his brother in order to do it. I know you, he arched an eyebrow. You'd hike with a shoe full of blood if you thought it would make me happy.
"I promise, Timmy. I'll say something if it gets worse."
"Good." An idea struck as he watched him stirring their food, and he picked up his camera. "...I'm going to go see if I can get a sunset shot with the mountains," he said, standing up and steadying the camera hanging from his neck. "Be right back."
"Okay. This should be ready in five."
"Thanks. I won't be long." He wouldn't need to be, not for what he had planned. Walking out into the grass, he did what he'd said he was going to do and snapped off several pictures full of alpenglow and backlit clouds. Then he turned around and focused on Dick. There was just enough day left to make the trees and mountains behind his oblivious sibling clear, and the rapt concentration with which he was tending to the noodles in their single pot lent a humanity to the scene that no mere landscape photo could ever match. He pushed the shutter button once, and that was enough.
It was, he decided as they roasted tiny marshmallows after dinner, the single best picture he had ever taken.
They pulled their beds out and lay down in front of the tent once they'd cleaned up. Overhead the night closed in, and one by one the stars emerged. "...You forget how beautiful it is up there," Dick breathed. "In the city, I mean."
"Yeah," he sighed back. How many of those points of light, he wondered, played host to friendly species? How many hostile? How many more than they would never even know about? The numbers were too big even for his mathematically brilliant brain to comprehend, so skipped the arithmetic and began to search for anomalies instead. "...Ugh," he muttered in disgust as a white speck moved across his field of vision at a steady pace.
"What is it?"
"Satellite."
"...I guess we're not as alone as we thought out here."
"Maybe it's the JLA's. I could live with that."
"That would be okay. Anyone else...I'd rather it wasn't anyone else's." Dick paused. "Wouldn't it be funny if Batman was sitting up there on guard and happened to zoom in and see us laying here watching the stars?"
"...It would be very Batman," he snorted. He didn't mind the idea in theory, especially since he knew that there was a good chance the vigilante had secreted tracking devices somewhere amongst their gear. He wanted them to be the only people in the universe who were sharing this moment, though, and that wasn't the case if their mentor was watching them. "He wouldn't be," he realized with satisfaction. "It's patrol time at home, and he's not going to let Robin go out alone."
"...No, you're right. He wouldn't. Well...oh, well."
Minutes passed, and Tim grew more and more certain that he'd burst a bubble with his statement of fact about Batman's schedule. As close as Bruce and Dick were, he could imagine his hiking partner wanting to share this evening with the billionaire as much as he desired to keep it private. "Dick?" he ventured, intending to apologize for any unintentional hurt he might have caused.
There was no answer.
Frowning, he looked over. "You dork," he chuckled when he found the other man wrapped in his sleeping bag and fast asleep, his face still pointed at the stars. "...Dick," he shook him, "we can't stay out here all night."
"Why not?" was murmured back at him. "'Snice out here. Warm...sky...smells good...g'night..."
"Diiick..." But he'd dropped into oblivion again. "Well, shit." He could drag him inside, he supposed, but...but then he looked around at the starlit field and the galaxies sprawling above it. It was nice, and warm, just like his brother had said. There were no clouds threatening rain, and between the heat of the day and the eternal movement of the air across the open area there was a good chance no dew would form. His mouth worked indecisively as he glanced towards the tent. The space that had looked comfortable and welcoming the night prior now came off as bleak and empty. A prison cell in the middle of a leisure park wasn't what he'd walked fifteen miles to find, so he gave in.
With a low hum, he rolled onto his side and pillowed his head on his bent arm. "...Okay, bro," he yawned as he closed his eyes. "You win."
Author's Note: I'll be posting a personal piece in regards to wild drinking water on my blog later today, for anyone who's interested. I'll include a little about Tim's UV water purifier, as well, because those things really are like magic. Happy reading!