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Chapter 9

Poison

"Why don't you just change him?" Damian stood, arms crossed, just inside the door. Dick didn't lift his eyes from the boy on the bed. He shook his head, but Damian continued undeterred. "Surely, you've thought about it."

"Tim wouldn't want it forced on him like that."

"So enthrall him. He'd be willing enough then." Oh yes. He'd be willing. Even stoic Tim wouldn't be able to fight that. Dick could see it, every bit: those heated blue eyes turned up rapturously, fingers fisted in Dick's shirt, begging him not to stop, even as the last of his breath eked out and his heart petered into silence. Even as he died. He'd enjoy every minute of it. He wouldn't be able not to.

Dick could almost taste his death.

"And he'd never look at me twice again." The scowl on Damian's face said he didn't understand how that was a problem.

"If it comes down to it. If you think you'll lose him… will you give him a choice?" Dick looked down at the boy on the bed, black hair splayed against the pillow, and avoided meeting Damian's eyes. He couldn't lose another brother, and he couldn't stand the thought of Tim hating him forever.

"I'd do anything to keep from losing him." That, at least, was the truth. Thoughtfully, he reached out and flicked a stray strand of hair from Tim's face. He was grateful at least for the deep, even breaths that still lifted the chest of the boy on the bed—grateful that Timothy was still sleeping soundly, untroubled by nightmares or the weight of the conversation going on beside him.

"If you just took him, you'd be happier." He could feel the weight of those ice-blue eyes—so like Bruce's—watching him, unblinking.

"No." How to explain it to the boy. How to make him understand. "Even if he forgave me, there'd still be that betrayal. Even if he suddenly remembered everything, how could we ever go back to how things were before?"

"But you want to."

Dick's hand crushed a fistful of the thick comforter covering Tim. Everything had been so complicated since they'd found him.

It was wonderful, because Timothy was back. After years of his memory haunting the manor, years of wanting back what they'd thought gone forever, he'd been returned to them. Wearing human skin, memories buried, but alive.

It was frustrating, because things had changed. Tim didn't remember them, had initially shied away from their touch. That's what hurt more than anything—that lack of recognition in blue eyes, that absence of familiarity in a face he knew better than his own. The face of a friend, a brother. After everything they'd been through together, all the memories they shared, he meant nothing to the boy. They were strangers all over again.

More than that, he couldn't even hold Tim the same, couldn't just pick him up and crush him into a hug like he once could. At least, not without breaking the boy's ribs.

He wanted… to take Timothy back, to make him part of their family again. It was almost a physical ache.

"Yeeesssss." He bit down on the end of the word, hissing the truth between his teeth.

"Tt." Damian huffed, pausing in the doorway as he turned to leave. "I don't understand you."

When Dick left, it was no more than a sigh and the lifting of a weight from the bed. Just the tiniest of differences. Tim didn't hear him walk across the floor. Didn't hear the door close. But he knew when the older boy had gone. It was a lessening of the shadows on the other side of his eyelids. A return of warmth in the room.

When he was sure they were gone, absolutely sure, he opened his eyes, turning to stare at the closed door. Now that the room was empty, his heart was hammering.

He hadn't realized how attached he'd become, how much he'd come to think of them as friends, as family. But it wasn't Tim they wanted. Hearing Dick was a sharp, stinging reminder. It wasn't Tim they wanted at all. Still, they wouldn't change him to get Timothy back, would they? Dick had said so. But Dick could change his mind.

That thought sent spirals of fear twisting inside.

He'd stopped caring when they got his name wrong. He'd stopped fighting the voices of different memories when they whispered to him. More and more, he was becoming the Timothy they wanted him to be, losing what made him Tim, Jack's son. How long until they decided they didn't need his permission and just took him? The thought repeated worriedly, over and over.

They wouldn't. They wouldn't.

The door swung silently open on its hinges when Damian pushed—not a single creak to announce his presence, only the slide of the shadow on the floor. Darkness soaked the room beyond, silent but for the beat of a single heart, the nearly imperceptible sigh of breath against cotton sheets. There wasn't any moonlight in Gotham tonight, but the city lights below were enough to outline the curve of a body on the bed.

This was the one everyone was fussing over, the one who'd taken all of Dick's attention. This awkward creature nearly drowning in blankets and pillows on the huge mattress, dwarfed by his own bed. This human.

There really wasn't anything special about him. He didn't stir when Damian stalked silently to the side of the bed, staring down at him. Not even when he crawled up on the covers, knees sliding into place on either side of slim hips.

His weight barely indented the mattress, his presence no more than some mercurial phantom crouched over the boy on the bed, only half-felt, only half-seen. He was shadow and mirage. The human didn't stand a chance.

Tim was lying there so perfectly too—lashes shuttered in shallow crescents of black lace, head tilted at just the right angle to expose the long, pale arc of his throat. Stupidly vulnerable. Did he think he was safe here, tucked away under so many watchful eyes and ears? Did he have so much faith in them? Hadn't Damian just proven how useless that faith was?

Pathetic.

"Tt. What's so special about you?" Damian scowled down at the physically older boy lying obliviously beneath him, but he couldn't see it—couldn't see what it was that had the others doting on him. This weak, pitiful human was nothing like the brilliant, resourceful Timothy the others practically deified—Timothy, whom Damian had come to hate and grudgingly admire, because his death still permeated the stifling silences and often apathetic pall in the manor, because it always came back to that, because no matter how hard Damian tried he could never replace the memory of a dead boy.

If he changed Tim, they could all stop their obsessive worrying over him. Dick wouldn't have to spend nights watching him, making sure he was safe. Dick would smile again, no longer weighed down by old troubles.

Changing him would solve everything.

He'd have to be careful, changing someone wasn't necessarily quick, but if he could keep Tim silent long enough, it'd be too late for the others to do anything.

"I'm not going to let you hurt this family anymore." Unlike Dick, unlike the rest of them, crippled by fond memories, he didn't care if Tim hated him forever. Tim could hate him and Dick could be happy. That's what mattered. After all, someone had to put a stop to this idiocy.

Resolved, he moved, one hand clamping down over Tim's mouth, the other pinning one shoulder to prevent unnecessary thrashing. Not that Tim had a chance of dislodging Damian. He expected the shock of blue eyes then, thrown open all at once—he didn't expect the knowing stare, disconcertingly direct, meeting his own. He definitely didn't expect the knife Tim pulled from under the covers, coated with black blood in the watery, pink-tinted light. Bad blood.

Damian tensed, eyes riveting to that poisonous crust glinting warningly off the cold metal.

Tim raised an eyebrow, knife held steady, and suddenly Damian felt like laughing—laughing at this pitiful attempt.

If Tim thought that was going to stop him, he was mistaken. It was almost funny that this human thought to match him, thought to make him back down—funny, the calm, collected stare still directed unwaveringly up at him. It wasn't a façade. The heart caged in that chest hadn't sped up a beat. Did he seriously think he stood a chance?

His mistake was showing Damian, giving him the opportunity to react. If he had a weapon, he should have used it while he had the chance.

Damian knocked the knife away, off the bed, where it landed with a soft thump. He turned back to Tim, smug little quirk in place at the corners of his mouth.

Don't take me for a child just because I look like one. I'm not twelve.

Then he leaned close and bit down.

Sharp teeth sank into that pale expanse of throat the boy was baring so beautifully, lips sealing over soft skin. Tim did make a noise then, an "mmph" smothered by Damian's hand, jerking faintly, hips nearly twisting free between the tight grip of Damian's knees. Useless. Damian swallowed against the curve of his neck, unperturbed. He still had a hand on Tim's shoulder, the other capped over his mouth, holding his head steady, pinned just perfectly. It didn't matter that he was smaller, that his body was little more than that of a child—he could break the bones in the body beneath him with the flick of a finger.

Absently, he shifted a knee to press down against Tim's abdomen to help keep him still. It didn't matter if he pressed too hard, if he broke anything. It would heal afterward.

Tim was going to die.

The thought brought an electric thrill beyond the pleasurable lap of blood. It was intoxicating—the thrumming of that heart beneath the skin and brittle bones, the little unhappy sounds trapped under his hand, reverberating in the boy's throat. It was the wisps of black hair tickling his nose. It was the useless struggling of his prey caught beneath him. He was going to ride this to the end, to feel it, that shuddering last breath. He was going to twist it and pull it out, feel every second of this death. The bitter edge of it already coated his tongue. And if Tim didn't want to come back, that was too bad, because he wasn't going to have a choice.

Tim had gone still beneath him, only tensing the tiniest bit when Damian bit deeper, not bothering to be gentle with this pathetic human they expected him to call brother. He couldn't understand the stillness at first—was it resignation, so soon? Because it wasn't the languor of death, not yet.

Then something stabbed sharply into his side and he was pulled out of his pleasant haze, teeth retracting from pale flesh with a gasp.

Damian looked down at the knife embedded there, dazed, disbelieving. Tim had had a second weapon? The blue eyes staring up at him were solemn, serious. I warned you.

And then the burning started.

Damian howled, jerking the blade free, but it wasn't enough. He was unable to escape the fire spreading wildly under his skin. Tim used the opportunity to push away, hurriedly sliding out from beneath the blankets and grasping at the wall for support, eyes never leaving Damian's. Damian watched him pick up the fallen, second knife in shivering fingers and slip out the window—watched and did nothing from his paralysis on the bed, hands buried in layers of cotton, teeth clenched against the agony clawing its way up his throat. He thrashed, howling, nails shredding the blankets, while the bad blood spread scalding trails through his veins. The idiot had poisoned him.

He didn't hear the shadow-sigh of footsteps rushing closer, drawn by the racket, but he heard the voices when they hit the room, taking in the mess.

"What happened? Damian?"

"Where's Tim?"

He definitely noticed the hands that caught him up—large hands, rolling him over to expose the still-bleeding gash along his side. Someone hissed.

Then Bruce was growling orders.

"Jason, get Tim!" The older boy nodded, disappearing through the open window into the darkness. Damian had just enough rationality to hope they never found him, slim as that chance was. "Dick, help me hold him down." His brother's hands fell on him then, pinning him to his nest of shredded sheets even as he kicked and jerked and hissed. They were followed by the cold press of Bruce's mouth against his burning side. He shuddered under the conflicting sensations—the poison burrowed deep in his veins and the steady draw of Bruce's mouth pulling it out, spitting it on the floor. Vile blood.

Dick was the one he could see, the focal point of his vision, hovering above him, blue eyes concerned. Dick was the one mouthing reassuring things. Stupid Dick.

At some point the burning abated, his tired body relaxing into the numbness that had replaced it, the numbness that had claimed his side and splayed like fingers across his chest. Everything felt heavy. Even the darkness. It was a welcome relief after the scalding heat, after everything.

He didn't fight it at all.

Tim stumbled in the darkness. It wasn't even over a protruding root or tuft of grass, just flat ground. He was dizzy from blood loss—not impaired yet, but when he turned his head there was the sensation that the world turned a little bit farther. It was a slur at the edge of his vision, a sluggishness tripping his feet up.

But it had been necessary to let Damian bite him. He couldn't have taken the boy without the distraction: Damian's attention on the pleasurable lap of blood. Maybe he'd let it go on just a minute too long though. Maybe some part of him hadn't really been ready to throw it all away, the sense of family and belonging he'd found. Some part of him still wanted to stay. Just not like this, betrayed by a boy he'd never done anything to offend. Now he was going to pay for that moment of indecision.

He could already feel the bruises from small fingers forming along his jaw, at his shoulder. His neck stung with the bloody marks of sharp fangs. He'd really done it. Damian had really tried to kill him.

He swallowed and swallowed again, throat dry.

By the time his feet stumbled onto concrete and the smooth surface of a sidewalk, the thought had become a rough whisper: "Water. Water."

Streetlights dissolved bits of the darkness ahead—a bright trail leading him away from the manor, away from the family of which he wasn't really a part. It still hurt somewhere, a faint ache across his chest, to leave it behind. Because it was a family, even if it wasn't really his, and it was a chance to belong, even if he didn't. When had he started caring?

Something moved out of the corner of his eye, a familiar stirring in the darkness, and his heart leapt in alarm. He didn't turn to look, but plunged forward, into the sickly glow of the first streetlight.

"Tim!"

Tim whirled around at the sound of his name and the world swung wildly before settling. Jason stood between streetlights where the darkness pooled—he was the darkness between streetlights. Tim had expected them to come after him. He wasn't sure if it made things better or worse that it was Jason. At least it wasn't Damian.

"I'm not going back!" Not that he could stop Jason from hauling him back by the scruff of his neck if that was what the older boy intended. "I won't let you change me!"

But Jason didn't just catch him up like he had at the beginning, only stood there scowling in the otherwise tilting world. Angry and dangerous.

"Is that what that brat was doing?" And becoming angrier by the second.

"I'm not going back," Tim repeated obstinately, clinging to the thought all the harder because it was so very much out of his control. He could still feel the warmth of blood running down his throat, soaking his shirt. He couldn't go back… "I stabbed Damian."

"Yeah. Got that. The demon spawn's had it coming for awhile." Jason took a step forward, slow and deliberate, eyes fixed on the wet flow of blood. "Let me look at that. I can fix it."

Tim put a hand to the still-bleeding gash, bleeding him out, and backed away. "You'll take me back."

"Only if you want me to." Tim wanted to believe it, but… "Come on, kid, you know I could have had you halfway back by now if I'd wanted to. I may have my own issues with the old man, but he honestly wants to keep you safe."

"Not me." He swayed on his feet. "Timothy. They don't care about me, they just want Timothy back!" That's what everyone wanted in that house. In that mansion where time held still. There was no place for Tim.

"That's not… Wait. Is that why you wanted to come with me the other day?" Jason blinked in the moment of revelation. "Because I don't treat you like you're freaking Timothy?" He reached out a hand, entreating, like an olive branch. "I won't let them touch you. I swear."

Tim felt like laughing, but the attempt drowned out in a fit of coughing. Dang, his throat was so dry. Jason didn't see the humor in it.

"You don't believe me?"

Tim shook his head and immediately wished he hadn't when the edges of his vision fuzzed black. This, from the one who hated him more than any other for not being Timothy. "Don't you see? You're the same. All this time…" He swallowed. "You're so desperate, you see him everywhere: in any stranger with blue eyes or black hair or a red shirt. Don't think I haven't noticed the similarities I share with your victims. All those people you've killed, it's because they're not him!" He gulped in air, voice rising hysterically. "You won't let them touch me? You're the worst of them all!"

If he'd been thinking clearly, he would have realized how stupid it was to antagonize the other boy.

Jason was suddenly right there in front of him, hand fisted in his shirt, dragging him close.

"Don't!" Tim struggled to tear free of that grip, jerking hard enough to cause black spots to erupt across his vision. Of course, there was no escaping that firm grasp. He still had the knife he'd picked up off the floor back in the manor, but he didn't want to hurt Jason. Not Jason.

"You idiot!" Jason growled, shaking Tim's captured shoulders roughly. "If you knew how much I…" He stopped when he realized Tim couldn't brace against the shaking, head snapping back and forth like a ragdoll, and swore softly. "I don't care if you're Timothy or his clone or some cursed boy Dick dragged home. Not anymore. What do I have to do to convince you?"

Dizzy, head swimming, Tim pushed at Jason's jacket ineffectually, trying to put space between them even while swaying unsteadily. Jason's grip tightened protectively, one hand slipping around Tim's waist to keep him up, and he was definitely too close. Tim had let him get too close.

"Hold still." With the other hand at the nape of Tim's neck bracingly, Jason leaned down to his throat, coated ghastly red. Tim's breath hitched, watching him.

Then Jason's mouth sealed over the gash at his neck, just where Damian's had. The thought of those sharp incisors tearing into flesh again sent a spike of alarm shooting up Tim's spine.

"No!" He jerked, but Jason had him fast, tongue rough against his throat. Panicked, his hand went to the handle of the knife he'd recovered and hidden under his shirt, jerking it up in a long arc. It nicked Jason, who was just a fraction of a hair late in avoiding the panicked swing, breath hissing out in a string of swear words. His hand flew to cover the cut. That was all Tim needed. He stumbled free of the loosened hold, turned and ran—ran as straight as he could with the world tilting.

"Tim!" He could hear Jason calling after him frantically. "Tim!" He expected the other boy to catch him up at any second, arms closing around him like steel bars, because this was definitely the point where Jason gave up on niceties and persuasion and just dragged him back against his will, or heck, stripped him of his will and made him walk himself back. He didn't really expect to get anywhere, because there was no way he could escape Jason. He could hardly think, vision swimming, blurring in and out. So when he was not immediately brought up short, it took a minute to register that he was still free. That the shadows were thicker than he remembered and gaining solidity fast. That Jason was, in fact, shouting at him to run.

Tim didn't need telling twice. Especially when the quickly solidifying shadows swiped at him with dead-ember-black claws. He ran.

It was like all his nightmares coming back for him, closing in ahead and behind, and he wasn't sure if the darkening edges of his vision were the demons converging in on him or his own world blacking out. But he could feel the heat at his back, licking his limbs. In the ever-growing shroud of darkness, the streetlights became guiding beacons—the one bright, sure trail he could make out when everything else started to fade.

He wasn't sure how far he made it—a couple streetlights? A dozen? He stumbled at the end, clawing at the darkness, but it wasn't the cold concrete that caught him. It was a set of arms. Green eyes swam through the fog, boring into his, taking in the blood streaking his throat, passing over the myriad of black symbols etched across half his face with only a cursory glance. Later, when he could focus, Tim would realize that should have been his first clue.

"Someone seems to have done you a disservice." The voice was old, authoritative, wry. If it surprised him, having a young boy stumble out of the darkness in the middle of the night, there was no indication.

Tim caught at the arms, even as he slid deeper into darkness. "Help," he coughed. "Help."

"I assure you, Timothy, I shall."

He was losing the last vestiges of consciousness, so the complaint was half-hearted, fading:

I'm not Timothy…

Author Notes: Mm, I feel that Tim could have had a better plan prepared for getting away here, but I give up on making him perfectly smart and whatnot. Looking back at it now, I also feel that the Ra's-kidnaps-Tim theme is very cliché. Ultimately it depends on you, the readers. Only you can tell me whether it was acceptable or not. When you read the ending, did you find yourself thinking, "This again? I thought she was a better writer than this." Or did you enjoy it without qualm? I would love to hear reader responses to this so I can learn from it. It should also be noted that I really appreciate everyone who responded to my questions the last couple chapters. Some of you are super helpful, and I love all your ideas and input.

Please note that the demons I'm using here are extremely primitive. In fact, they may not be "real" demons at all—I have something of an unmentioned background story where Ra's has figured out how to create demons by binding the souls of his men to himself when they die. There really isn't an opportunity in this fic to examine possible hierarchies or give them any depth at all really. I feel it's safe to assume that any higher-class "real" demons are smart enough to evade capture by humans for the duration of this fic. In fact, the idea fascinated me so much I had to go and start a little Demon-Lord-Tim-is-furious-to-find-some-human-has-figured-out-how-to-summon-him one-shot fic that may or may not ever be finished. If anyone has any interest, I may put a little more effort into it.

Also, today is the 6th, the day Son of Batman is officially released. You should go watch it if you haven't already. Aaaand this is the last of me posting every week. I've had a fairly serious request to work on the sequel to House of Lies, and I'm debating between trying to finish this off or giving my brain a break to work on the other. Would the non-fantasy fic be more appreciated?

Finally, I have this deleted scene that I have decided I can't revamp and use later and won't fit anywhere, so I'm giving it to you as a deleted scene rather than excising it to the dark confines of lost data. Partly I just had too many sleeping-Tim scenes for a character who's known to stay up three days straight in an emergency situation like this, and partly I felt that I was pushing the relationship between Dick and Tim, and it wasn't even the relationship I would have wanted in this fic (Dick's been taking over a lot). There was an important concept in here I really wanted to keep, but that's the way it goes. So here you go, slash fans, it's creepy, stalker Dick at night in Tim's room.

Liar

Tim was fun to tease, so long as Dick was careful about it. Ridiculously careful he didn't accidentally injure the boy. His little brother, returned to them in fragile human flesh. It was so easy—too easy—to bruise him or break him, if Dick hugged him too tight or pushed too hard. Sitting now on the edge of the bed where Tim lay, curled in unconsciousness, Dick couldn't help but think of Timothy. When he was awake, Tim could claim he remembered nothing, that he wasn't Timothy. But when he was asleep…

Dick lay down on his side, barely ruffling the covers, and drew one of Tim's hands closer—slowly, lest he wake the boy—bringing the fingers to his lips so he could run a wet tongue over the sensitive tips. It amused him the way they curled up reflexively, like a sea urchin shying away from strange touch, the unhappy murmur it procured from the sleepy boy.

"Stop that, Richard." It was murmured into a pillow, face scrunching up against the cotton. Dick chuckled lightheartedly. He hadn't told Tim that name. No one had called him that in years.

Tim was such a liar.

"But Timothy," he pouted, not quite ready to release the hand he was holding hostage, "I haven't gotten to tease you in forever. And this is the only way I can talk to you anymore." During the day, Tim didn't remember the simplest things about the family he'd spent years beside, but at night… he couldn't keep the old memories from resurfacing, from taking control.

"Not my fault."

The grin slid from Dick's face. There were so many things he'd wanted to say to Timothy. To ask. What had happened that night nearly a century ago? What had been so bad Timothy hadn't been prepared for it? Why had he tried to handle it alone? There were so many questions. And apologies…

"Listen, I know it doesn't mean much now, but I… I should have been there. You shouldn't have had to die alone." The hand he held in his own was so pale, only washed white by the moon perhaps, but too similar… He pressed the fingertips closer to feel the warmth, the pulse of blood against his lips. "For what it's worth… I'm sorry."

"Dick, what are you doing?" The question startled him out of his reverie. Tim was looking at him, eyelids heavy, hair sleep-mussed. In particular, he was frowning at the hand Dick still had pressed to his lips. It was a rhetorical question. Dick answered anyway.

"Talking to you." He grinned.

"That must've been quite the one-sided conversation." So that's how they were going to play it? Tim raised an eyebrow, waiting patiently for Dick to release his hand before pulling it back. He looked sleepily toward the darkened window. "What time is it?"

"Around two in the morning."

"Ugh." Tim fell back against the pillows, dragging the blankets over his head, and proceeded to pretend Dick didn't exist. Dick watched, momentarily amused, but once the quiet breathing evened back out, he let the fake grin slide away.

"Timothy… you always were a liar."