Author's Note: Sorry for the gap yesterday, I was down with a head cold. It seems to have gone now, so we should be back on schedule. Happy reading!
Tim watched his brother's eyes flutter shut, waited a moment to make sure he was truly out, and then stood up with a sigh. He wanted nothing more than to lay down beside him and pass out, but there was a lot to do before that could happen and he was the only one fit to do it. Resigned, he shrugged off his pack and got to work.
The last tendrils of daylight turned the clouds a magnificent pink as he popped the tent up. Not wanting to be caught in the dark, he dug out a headlamp before he laid out their bedding. Just before he put down the second ground pad, he paused. He still had to deal with prying the rock out of Dick's leg, and he intended to perform that task in as sanitary a manner as possible. Grimacing at the prospect of performing surgery, he set the cushion aside to serve as a barrier between the injured man and the ground when the time came.
Next was dinner. Once the stove was set up – luckily it hadn't been damaged by the tossing and tumbling it had been subjected to since that morning – he opened the first bear canister. Not particularly caring what they ate so long as it filled his hollow stomach, he pulled out the top meal. "Vegetable beef stew," he read aloud. "That'll work. Thanks, Alfred."
The neat instructions on the package told him it would take fifteen or twenty minutes to cook once he'd poured in the boiling water. Knowing full well that he would fall asleep if he didn't keep working on something, he retrieved the first-aid kit, checked on his sleeping partner, and limped back to the stove. Dropping to the ground, he cut his pants off above his still-seeping knees and tried to assess the damage.
"...Shit," he cursed as the light reflected off of the tiny slivers of stone bristling out of his skin. There was no way he could stand to yank all of them himself, but he didn't dare leave them in place where they might work their way inwards and cause real issues. Dick would be happy to help him when he woke up, but he hated to ask for his assistance. Normally he wouldn't have hesitated, but the difference between their wounds had him feeling like heneeded to be the caretaker for once.
Pathetic, Drake, Damian's sneering voice filled his head suddenly. He walked miles with a chunk of the planet sticking out of his leg, and you can't deal with a scraped knee? There are toddlers more resilient than that. It shouldn't have mattered what the demon-child would think of him, but for some reason it did this time. Maybe, he frowned, it was because for once the little shit would be correct in his assessment.
Taking the tweezers out of their plastic sleeve, he dunked them into what little was left of the boiling water. He flinched at the first tug, and had to bite his tongue at the second. A low groan escaped him as the third shard, the longest one yet, ripped free from his flesh. He'd never been one for medicine despite his penchants for orderly systems and problem-solving, but he had to keep going. He might not be able to get through them all, but every sliver he pulled was one less for Dick to search for later. Thin rivulets of crimson trickled towards his socks, threatening to make them the same color as the rough edges of his now-cutoffs, but he pushed on. Just...just a few more...
He'd nearly cleared one knee when the earth shook beneath him. The anguished moan that had been sitting at the top of his throat since he'd started his procedure slipped out, and he dropped the tweezers. Not again! He glanced about in fear, his light picking up nothing but swaying grass. Not another one. Please, please, no more of this!
It stopped almost as soon as it had started, leaving him to slump with relief. A second later he straightened at the sound of a panicked cry.
"Timmy!"
"I'm okay!" he called back. As he spoke the words, he realized that they were true, and his terror eased further. "Just stay there, I'll come to you!" Picking up the pouch of stew and the tweezers, he stumbled towards the tent. "Hey. Lay back down, would you? I'm okay."
Dick, who had pushed himself up into a sitting position, refused. "You're bleeding more," he pointed to his legs. "Did you fall again, in that last one?"
"No, I was working on them. See?" Tim fingered the raw cuts he'd made in his pants. "I was sitting down when it came. Here," he held out their dinner. "Can you hold this while I get the cups?"
"Yeah, I'll take it."
Unwilling to try bending after the plucking he'd put himself through, he simply thumped to the ground when he returned. "...Ow," he winced.
"That sounded bone-jarring."
"It was. Here..." Taking the bag back, he quickly spooned out a cupful and passed it to his brother. "It smells good."
"It does. Thanks for cooking while I was being lazy."
"You weren't being lazy, Dick. You need to rest. You're hurt."
"Yeah? So are you."
"Not nearly to the same level, and you know it."
"Blah, blah, blah." Tim didn't have to see the older man's eyes to know that they were rolling. "...Eat your dinner, little brother."
"You go first."
A contentious beat passed before Dick chuckled. "Heh. Okay, okay." He took a bite, chewed, and swallowed. "There, I'm eating. Now, you're not reallygoing to make us do this turn-based, are you?"
"...No," he smiled. "Let's just eat."
"Deal."
They were too exhausted for more talk than that, and ate by the glow of the headlamp in silence. When Tim had scraped his cup clean, he looked over. ...Are you sleeping again? "Dick?"
"Huh?! Oh...sorry. Guess I sort of dozed off. Good thing we're not at home, Alfred would have my head for sleeping at the table."
"I think he'd forgive you, considering things. Are you done?"
"Yeah."
He made to stand, but fingers closed on his arm. "What is it?"
"Let me see your finger. If we wait any longer to put it back it might not heal right."
He gulped, nervous. "...After I clean up, okay? I left the stove out in the grass, and our stuff needs washed. The last thing we want to do is to draw a bear into camp."
"You make a excellent point there. It's so good, in fact, that I have to add to it."
His brow creased. "What do you mean?"
"You want to take this rock out of my leg, right?"
"Yes."
"Well, if we're going to bleed all over the place, don't you think we should do thataway from camp, too?"
"...Oh. Well...yeah, but...you shouldn't-"
"Would you quit worrying about me and just help me up, then?"
"I-!" For a second he thought he was being called out for his fretting. The question had been asked playfully, though, and a light squeeze to his wrist told him that his brother wasn't upset with him. "...Okay," he agreed. "Ready? One, two-"
"Three! Whooooa..."
"Too fast?" he asked as the man beside him wavered. "You can sit back down if-"
"No." A warm weight materialized on his shoulder as Dick searched for stability. "I'm good. I'm...I'm good now. Let's hobble, shall we?"
They hobbled. Between them they must have made one hell of a sight, Tim mused as they inched their way across the mercifully flat plain towards the stove. As much as he wanted to be home, he couldn't help but be glad that they would have an opportunity to tend to their wounds before their mentor saw them. He's probably half out of his mind right now, he sighed. ...Sorry, Bruce.
"You know something, Timmy?" a curious inquiry broke into his thoughts.
"What?"
"I'm surprised Batman hasn't come yet."
He started. "Yeah, but...he'll come." He's got to come. He wouldn't leave us out here.
"Oh, I know he will. I'm amazed that nine hours have passed without him showing up, that's all. Oof," he winced, a flash of agony bolting across his expression as he was lowered to the ground. "...I'm just saying that that implies that there was something else that he and everyone else in the JLA had to deal with first. And that doesn't bode well, you know?"
"...No. No, it doesn't." The elder vigilante would go so far as to put chasing the Joker aside if one of his birds needed help; what, he wondered with a grain of fear, would outrank the clown far enough to make a rescue mission for not one but two of them a secondary priority? "...It would have to be a global threat, wouldn't it?"
"I think so, yeah. And here we are," Dick waved his hands, "completely unable to help." He heaved a sigh. "...I'm sorry. I'm glad we came, don't get me wrong, but...why did something major have to happen right now, you know?"
"Yeah...but to be fair, we're just postulating. We don't knowthat anything has happened in the rest of the world. Everything might be fine." A worm of doubt in the pit of his stomach suggested otherwise, but he forged ahead anyway, trying to convince himself as much as his brother. "He might not even know we're in any trouble. I mean, it was a big quake and all, but maybe it didn't cause that much damage in the populated areas. It might have been nothing more than a footnote on the news, you know? Especially in Gotham; there's always enough going on there to fill an hour's broadcast without ever leaving the city limits. If we didn't call for help, why would he think..." He trailed off, his eyes going wide as he realized they had forgotten something exceedingly important. "Oh, shit."
Dick seemed to have read his mind. "We didn't turn on the emergency locators, did we?" he asked from his seat on the ground.
"Ah...no. No, we didn't. Ugh..." He facepalmed. "I can't believe this..."
"Pfffft!" Dissolving into laughter, Dick fell backwards. "Ow! But god, that's hilarious! We didn't...we didn't turn on the locators. Aren't we brilliant, Timmy? Jeeeesus..."
He stared down at him. "Okay, now I know you have serious head trauma. How are you laughing about this?!"
"Because...because I've been sitting here thinking that the wh-whole world was in danger, and it turns out that Bruce probably doesn't even know we need him!" His giggles slowed. "Oh, man...I'm sorry. I'm glad, that's all. That's why I'm laughing; I'm glad. Are we going to get the most ridiculous looks ever when people hear this story? Yes, yes we are. But I'll take that over humanity being in jeopardy any day."
Viewed from that perspective Dick's amusement was understandable, if still not how Tim would have reacted in his place. "I guess I can see that," he nodded. "I also guess I should go turn them on now."
"Yeah...you do that, little brother. I'll wait here, if you don't mind."
I'd prefer it that way. You need to rest, he insisted for the hundredth time. "I don't. Be right back."
He returned with the ground pad he'd left out earlier. "They're on now. I did both of them so he doesn't think we got separated. Here, scoot onto this, would you?"
"...You know this isn't going to make what you have to do to me any more enjoyable, right?" Dick asked as he complied.
"I know. But it might keep you from getting an infection later, and that's worth it."
"We're going to have to share the pad that's left, then, because I'm pretty sure I'm about to bleed all over this one."
He winced at the idea of being the one to cause such blood loss. "You can have it. I'll be fine."
"Nope. We're sharing."
"We won't both fit."
"We will if we cuddle up."
There was no point in arguing, not when the topic was Dick and cuddles, so he didn't waste his breath. Besides, after the day they'd had he kind of wanted to snuggle up against his big brother and let himself be held. It would certainly ease fears for both of them in the event that they were woken by another aftershock. "Fine. We'll share."
"Good." He rolled over with a hiss to expose the stone protruding from his calf. "Okay, Doctor Tim," a pained joke sounded. "Patient is prepped."
"Haha," Tim's mouth tightened as he crouched down. It was difficult to find a position in which one or both of his knees didn't scream that also allowed him to get a good angle on the injury, but after a bit of trial and error he ended up in an odd-but-serviceable hunch. Cutting through fabric that had been made stiff with dried blood, he shuddered. "Oh...god, Dick, this is worse than I thought." How were you even walking? he marveled as he uncovered the wound. It must have gotten close to the bone, if not all the way to it...jesus, I don't have the right tools to deal with this. His brother needed a real doctor, not his shaky, uncertain pretenses; that was all they had, though, so it would have to be enough. I can do this, he calmed his stomach. I have to do this. I have to do this for Dick.
"What's it look like?"
"Um...you know how dogs have those funky backwards claws above their feet?"
"Yeeeah?"
"It looks like that, only...worse."
Dick twisted around to see. "...Eeeeww."
"Yeah."
"Get that thing out of there for me, would you?"
"...Yeah. It's...it's going to hurt though." I don't want to hurt you, he thought miserably as he pulled on the lone pair of latex gloves that had come in the first-aid kit and wrapped his hands around the protuberance. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad if he didn't warn him when he was going to yank. Please, please don't scream...
"I know, but it has to-" His sentence cut off, his voice rising from its usual pitch into an ululating shriek as Tim placed a foot on his ankle and wrenched the rock free. The agonized wail lasted only a few seconds, but it echoed in the younger man's ears, leaving his cheeks wet.
"...Dick?" he whispered after a moment of quiet. Realizing that he still held the dripping stone, he made a sound of disgust and chucked it away. "Dick? Are...are you okay?" There was fresh wetness leaking out atop the dried trails on the older man's torn skin, but he ignored it. Dragging himself to his brother's head, he tilted his chin up. "Dick...oh." Unconscious. I can't really blame you. That had to hurt, especially with nothing but ibuprofen in your system.
"I'm sorry," he breathed, a few tears slipping down his cheeks as he leaned down to bury his face against an insensate shoulder. "I'm sorry...I know I had to, but...I'm so sorry..."