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Chapter 12

Source

Dick sat in Tim's chosen room, pouring over old video clips of Ra's on the red laptop. He still had the note he'd found stuck to the screen clenched in one hand. It was written in Tim's neat handwriting with a question mark underneath. Tim hadn't known what he was looking for, hadn't had enough time to finish the search. But Dick knew what those few words must mean, and he had time. It was better than waiting uselessly for news of his missing brother.

On screen, Ra's chose to block a blow rather than take advantage of his adversary's obvious opening, a seemingly haphazard decision, but Dick's eyes zeroed in on that choice. He'd been watching the man fight for hours, looking for that single moment that would give him away.

They were going to find Tim. Alive. Dick wouldn't allow for any other possibility. And when they did, he was going to give Tim everything he needed to succeed. Whatever he needed.

The note crushed tighter in his hand.

If this was what Tim needed, Dick was going to find it.

In the end, he didn't have to find an excuse to escape Ra's for a few minutes—the man excused himself to take a private call, and as curious as Tim was about that, it was the opportunity he needed to look for the dagger. Timothy was certain the man had it, and despite his lingering wariness of the voice, Tim didn't have much choice but to trust it. Whatever was necessary to survive this, to make sure Jason and Damian survived. It was his fault they'd gotten dragged in.

So once Ra's was out of sight, he excused himself to his own investigation, sparing only the most fleeting frown for the burning ache in his side. Only an annoyance in comparison to stopping the curse. He passed the library and living room, with their semi-precious stone surfaces and vaulted ceilings, unhindered for the most part by the shadowy sentinels—sometimes the incorporeal darkness of demons and more rarely, masked men garbed in black, watching him impassively.

By simple reasoning, he tried the master bedroom first. If Ra's thought the dagger was important, he'd keep it with him or near at hand in an area where he spent a lot of time—Timothy's whispery voice noted that on average, nearly eight hours a day were spent in the bedroom. Even if Ra's didn't think it very important, he might have put it away with the rest of his things in a closet or dresser when he arrived, also likely to be in the bedroom.

Several shadows kept pace with him, following him in though not actively hindering him.

The curtain had been pulled back around the Thai canopy bed, allowing the light from the bay windows to gleam off the threaded gold. The room was as lavish and pristine as he'd last seen it. Wasting no time, he hurried to check the cabinets first and then the nightstands. The uncluttered nature of the suite helped minimize possible hiding places. It didn't once occur to him that the dagger might not be there at all. Timothy was certain the man would have it, and so he would.

In the end, it didn't take him long at all. In the end, it was right where he'd speculated.

He found what he was looking for wrapped in a square of silk stashed easily in one nightstand. It almost worried him how little bother Ra's had put into hiding it.

But there, at last, was the dagger. Tim picked it up almost reverently. This was what had caused him so much trouble. It really was a work of art. The handle gleamed with inlaid gold, wrapped around the guard and thinning into a fine line down the spine of the blade.

He was so close to being free, it almost hurt. Once he destroyed the dagger and broke the curse, his problems would be over. He could… what? Go back to work? Visit Dana? Why did his old, simple life suddenly seem mundane and uninviting? Now with the prospect of returning to that life in hand, it didn't hold the promise it used to. Had he grown so fond of sneaking around at night with the Waynes?

Later. He could make those decisions later. His grip tightened on the dagger, but before he could do anything, a flash of black startled him, right through the middle of his vision, accompanied by a searing heat in his hands. A demon. A demon, he realized belatedly, when the darkness had gone and he could see his empty hands, had taken the dagger. He immediately looked down, eyes raking the shadows under the bed and nightstand, hoping the demon was still close at hand, because he could not afford to lose that dagger.

"Skulking, Timothy?" All around the room, the shadows shifted ominously, hulking shapes that didn't quite fit in the darkness under chairs and dressers.

Tim straightened with a jerk, whirling to find Ra's standing by the window, sunlight gleaming off the gold and silver dagger he held. Something in Tim clenched at the sight. He couldn't keep from staring at it, eyes fastened to the sharp edge of the blade. Everything depended on it. If Ra's re-hid it, he might not be able to find it again. He tensed, ready to make a grab for it.

"You were right, Ra's. This is the end." He'd been caught; there was no use pretending now. Before he could move a step though, Ra's abruptly slammed the dagger brutally into the gleaming onyx of the window frame. The blade broke in two, the tip clattering to the floor.

Tim rocked back, blinking in the ringing silence that followed.

There was something wrong. He knew almost immediately. It was a discordant note following the too-simple crack of the blade. It took him a minute to make sure, to see the damage, but he already knew, before looking down at his hands, that the marks were still there. They were darker than ever, lining his fingers and palms, twining up his arms. The mirror above the dresser showed the extent of the curse's claim, feathering across his face, curling possessively in the shells of his ears, marching intricately over eyelids before disappearing into his hairline. Tim stared, wide-eyed.

The curse hadn't broken.

"I don't understand." Had he been wrong? Had the dagger not been the source of the curse? He forced his eyes away from the incriminating marks, only to land on the broken pieces of the blade instead. It was definitely broken. There had to be an explanation. Tim searched desperately. Could Ra's have created a fake dagger? No. Timothy was silent on the subject—an ominous silence—but Tim was somehow certain it was the real thing.

In his search for an explanation, his gaze shifted slowly to Ra's, still standing there holding the broken hilt.

"When the curse touched you, when it sheathed in your flesh, you became its vessel—a container, if you will."

"Lies!" Timothy shouted suddenly, as close to panicked as Tim had ever heard him. "It has to be lies!" Usually Timothy was the calm, collected voice of reason. Tim started at the unexpected outburst, but it seemed a good indication of the import of the information if it had managed to rattle Timothy.

"You're not just under a curse, Timothy. You are the curse."

"It's Tim," he replied emptily, swallowing around the bleakness that had drained all meaning and purpose from the world—a numbing bleakness deadening his resolve and dampening the burning ache in his side. The protest was no more than the echo of a habit. Even Ra's dismissed it.

"Regardless. Unless the curse is transferred to another vessel, it will continue to grow stronger, until soon not even dying will save you. You will become a slave to this curse. But I must say…" Ra's stepped forward, robes gliding over the carpet, and slid two fingers under Tim's curse-marked chin. "You'll look beautiful in black, Timothy."

The demons circled hungrily in the darkness.

Tim didn't feel any of it: not the watching eyes, not the cold press of fingers against his heated skin, assessing and possessive. He swallowed emptily, still grasping at solutions.

"Can it be transferred back to…?"

"No." Ra's shook his head, slowly, back and forth. "It's transferred by blood. Only another living vessel will suffice now."

But… He'd be damning some person to the same fate. He couldn't free himself if someone else would suffer for it. He couldn't do it. Neither could he let the curse consume him and become a creature of chaos and calamity, destroying indiscriminately, perhaps destroying the people he cared about most. He couldn't even die. The curse would simply recreate the physical half of his soul until it was strong enough to consume anyone who tried to touch him and… Unless he could destroy his soul completely. Was it even possible? How did he even go about asking…?

He closed his eyes, desperate and frustrated.

"Then how–" He cut off with a gasp. The burning ache he'd been ignoring burst to life, sharp pain suddenly flaring up his spine. He doubled over, clutching at the nightstand, staring at Ra's' feet on the carpet with wide eyes as he sucked in breaths. "What…?"

"So it's begun." Ra's' voice was cold, appraising, somewhere above him. "The next twenty-four hours will become increasingly more uncomfortable as the curse consumes your flesh." Uncomfortable didn't even begin to cover it. He felt like he was being eaten alive.

"Are you going to let the curse devour me then?" Tim asked, gritting his teeth and forcing his legs straight to look up at the man defiantly. He wouldn't give in to this.

"As amusing as it might be to watch you destroy everything you once cared for, I haven't followed you through half a dozen lives to lose this opportunity now." The man smiled slyly. "We had an agreement, after all." Ra's motioned and the acrid black form of a demon detached from his shadow. "Please escort Timothy to the library." The demon turned on him, watery shadow quickly solidifying into a hulking beast as it strode forward, clawed hands reaching out for him. Alarmed, Tim stepped stiffly back, cornered against the wall and bed, half crippled by the incapacitating pain flaring at his side. He struck out at the demon, hoping to throw it off even the littlest bit. He was definitely not expecting the solid thunk of arrested momentum as the demon caught his swing much quicker than it looked able to. It felt like hitting solid rock too—if rocks were made of ash and cinders and fire. Tim immediately tried to twist free, but its grip was just as unbreakable as Dick or Jason's grip. It pulled him closer until it had him pressed right up against that shadowy flesh, the heat palpable, and then he was sinking into it, the demon pulling him into itself. Tim panicked fully then, struggling fiercely as the shadows swallowed him inch by inch. But he couldn't break the grip of sooty black claws, couldn't keep from being dragged into the stifling, all-consuming darkness inside the demon, incarcerated there. Tim choked on cinders, in his mouth, his nose, even as he heaved against the infernal heat searing his skin, burning away rational thought.

It was only Timothy that kept him sane then: Timothy, who knew what was going on, who'd dealt with it all before, whose calm, calculating voice steadied him when he lost track of up and down, whether he was inside the demon or the demon inside him.

When he came to, he was sprawled out supine, low to the ground, on cold glass—colder after the sticky hell-like heat. The cobwebs cleared quickly as Ra's' face swam into view. Tim tried to move, to roll off the glass and bronze coffee table despite the pain still eating him away, only to find his hands and feet held tight. Craning his neck around, he could see the way his arms disappeared into shadows on the glass, as abruptly as if they'd just been cut off. Even knowing it was the demons holding him down, not having fully released him, he almost panicked, heart rate spiking with alarm.

It was only Timothy's cold, analytical voice and the fact that he could feel his fingers through the searing heat of the shadows that kept him together, kept him still instead of struggling against the vulnerability of his position: laid out like an offering on a sacrificial altar. The sacrifice in some dark ritual.

It was no use fighting the demons. He couldn't hope to match their raw strength as he was now. He let his head sink back onto the glass, though his legs and arms remained tensed.

"What are you doing, Ra's?" he asked, turning his attention to the man now kneeling beside him. He wasn't sure there was anything the man could do to him worse than what the curse was already doing, now a constant biting pain in his abdomen, slowly consuming him.

"I intend to free this world of the plague of humanity," the man replied, and Tim would have laughed if the man hadn't looked so serious about it. He tensed instead as one calloused hand swept his shirt up, baring the smooth expanse of his midriff. "The curse you carry will suit my needs nicely." It was swift. Ra's brought the broken dagger down. Amid the flourishes and strokes painting his skin, there was a thin line at the heart of the fire in his side free of markings, and the blade slid perfectly into place there, like a key to a lock. Tim gasped, arching up under the cold chill of metal invading his body, biting through skin and muscle.

He panted, fighting for clarity, to pull together the thoughts that had briefly scattered when the broken shaft of the blade penetrated his side. It was important to think. Ra's wanted to use the curse? But why? How? He should have been able to put it together by now. Timothy would have been able to. But he was Timothy, or almost Timothy, the two of them closer than they'd ever been.

He could still only see bits of it all.

"You're going to…" he gasped for air around the burning, eyes focused past Ra's on the ceiling so far away, "transfer the source of the curse." Suddenly it made sense why Ra's wanted him away from the Waynes. If they'd changed him, if the curse had consumed their blood—Dick, or Jason, or Damian… if Damian had finished what he'd started… they would have become the source. That's how close he'd come. Tim shivered at the miss.

"Yes," Ra's purred, pleased, even as the man watched him sweat and shiver, watched him realize. "With my league of demons bound to my soul, each a conduit for the curse, each capable of transmitting it with a touch, it will spread like a plague through humanity, wiping this world clean."

No, there was still a flaw.

"Even if you become the curse's source, it will only consume you." Transferring it would only condemn Ra's.

"You forget. I am no longer wholly of mortal material."

"Human material, you mean," Tim interrupted, gasped around the pain. Ra's only looked more amused.

"Be that as it may. The curse's source cannot corrupt me the way it does you." As if for emphasis, the man splayed fingers over his side, around the thin metal blade sheathed in his flesh, directly over the burning heat of the curse consuming him from the inside out. His green eyes lit with triumph—the culmination of his plans so near at hand, or rather, under it, in the trembling flesh pulled taut on the coffee table. "When the curse is free of the mortal trappings in which it now resides, I shall very much be in control of it."

"He's been waiting for the curse to grow stronger…" Timothy petered off, but Tim didn't need him to complete the thought to know what damage the curse could do in this man's hands.

"I won't help you."

"It's true that transferring the source won't save you or your friends. Nothing short of destroying the source completely could release you now. You've been carrying it too long in this lifetime, but this doesn't have to be your last." He fingered the hilt of the dagger—a thoughtful slide from guard to pommel and back again. "You could be free in your next incarnation. Or I could keep you alive long enough for the curse to consume you now."

"Better than letting you use it," Tim hissed between sharp breaths and sharper heat.

"You always were stubbornly idealistic." Ra's sighed disappointedly, drawing back, arms crossed much the way Damian favored, if more authoritatively. "Fortunately, I am not wholly dependent on your cooperation." With a wave of his hand, the shadows at his side slid over to the couch, coalescing on the cushions, solidifying into a woman slumped in unconsciousness, her blond hair plastered to her sweaty forehead. The last time he'd seen her, she'd been lying in a hospital bed. He sucked in a cooling breath against the alarm.

"Dana!"

"I trust I have your attention?"

Tim closed his eyes, letting his head fall back against the glass. He'd promised to keep Dana safe. He'd promised. "What do you want me to do?"

With old-world grace, Ra's lifted a silver goblet from the floor by his side and set it before him. Tim could just see it, the glass rim held aloft by intricately wrought silver elephants on silver grass, all of it curving up from a thin silver stem. Ra's' nails dug into his own wrist until crimson blood snaked along his bronzed skin, dripping steadily into the glass. All the while, that green gaze regarded the goblet stoically.

"Just as the dagger steeped in your blood, so you must take mine." He held the goblet aloft. "Drink it and I'll keep Mrs. Winters-Drake unharmed." Anyone else Tim wouldn't have believed for a second. But Timothy's memories were telling him this was Ra's, who believed in honor and actually kept his promises. It was one reason he'd trusted Ra's to kill him.

"Fine." So when the glass rim pressed to his lips with its little marching elephants, he let Ra's' blood slide across his tongue, swallowing thickly. Somewhere in the darkness, his fingers closed into a fist, teeth gritted. Not against the pain, but against the shame.

Afterward, the taste clung, bitter with betrayal.

Ra's set the goblet aside, and on the couch, Dana started to sink back into the shadows, still unconscious.

"Hey!" Tim twisted, alarmed, but Ra's only tutted at him.

"They'll protect her. You have my word." Even as he spoke, Dana disappeared completely, taken away from a world that would soon be consumed in chaos. Kept safe, Tim hoped. "Don't worry, my dear Timothy, this only feels like the end." Ra's' words were cold, a chill to dampen the fire in Tim's side. "You'll bleed out before the curse can completely consume you. When your spirit is reborn into the new world you're helping make, perhaps you'll be more receptive to me."

Even through the pain, Tim could see it suddenly, just how far Ra's' plan went. It wasn't just about now, just about his death and the necessity of the sacrifice. It was about afterward, once the world had been wiped clean to Ra's' satisfaction. Dying was the least of Tim's worries, because Ra's had ensured his survival, brought back by the curse he still hadn't broken, all of his hard-won memories wiped away, a clean slate receptive to Ra's' manipulation. He'd live, brought up by Ra's' side, crafted to the man's purposes, unable to see the depths of his own internment, and the perfect ignorant bargaining chip to use against Bruce. The thought sent a chill through him colder than just his impending death, deeper than the blade embedded in his side.

His revelation came to a quick end when Ra's pulled the blood-soaked dagger free, drawing a hiss from clenched teeth.

"This is the seventh time a blade of mine has dipped into your tainted soul," Ra's mused as he rose gracefully to his feet. "It seems fitting that the first one be the last."

"Why not kill me?" Tim asked wearily. "You have what you want."

"It will take time for my blood to pervade your being. It wouldn't do for you to die before the curse's source has been completely transferred." Those green eyes appraised him one last time. "Until next time, Timothy." The man turned to go, and desperate, Tim called out.

"Wait. What about the others?"

"The Detective?" Ra's paused, looking back. "I have strong hopes he'll survive."

"He'll never stop fighting you."

"That remains to be seen. Allegiances can be changed."

"Not Bruce."

Ra's tilted his head, mouth curved in knowing amusement.

"The Detective was quite upset by your death. So much loyalty to a man you couldn't even trust with your plan, because he'd try to stop you." That stung of the truth.

"Bruce is twice the man you are."

"And yet you won't even remember him next time you wake up." Ra's smiled humorlessly. "We'll see how loyal you are then." With utmost dignity, he disappeared into the darkness. Tim waited until he couldn't see even the man's robe to let the cloying despair tighten his chest and swell his throat closed. In comparison, the pain was nothing.

What chance did he have when even Timothy had died trying to outwit this man?

Author Notes: One thing that's not very obvious: the reason the curse takes 16 years to consume Tim each incarnation is because he was 16 when he died. Each time it recreates the physical body, it restores it to the state before it was destroyed. I am aware that I'm splitting hairs pretty fine over the Passing-the-Source vs. Passing-the-Curse thing. Speaking of which, how many people had already guessed Tim was the source?

Double check me... I've only read two comics with Ra's, and as one was his resurrection, it didn't really go into his goals and motivations as a villain. Wikipedia claims it's "a world in perfect balance... [by] eliminat[ing] most of humanity." Can anyone confirm that? Because otherwise this fic is totally off its rocker. XD

This fic has spawned more plot bunnies than any other fic I have ever written. I had to wait until this chapter to say, but I've started an AU where Ra's' plan works and Tim grows up as his little disciple in a ruined world, helping him restore order and rebuild the pieces. Except there's one family who isn't very happy about having Ra's in charge, and they'll stop at nothing to pry Tim from the man he cares about most. Also Known As: the fic where Tim grows up with little demon pets. Jeez, there's at least one demonic possession scene that's wrong on so many levels it hurts. *twitch*

It should be noted that average time spent in the bedroom seems to vary from study to study.

A special thank you to the reviewers who stuck with me last chapter despite the divergence to characters some of you probably didn't care about. You are my only source of encouragement in the world.

obsessivebookdiva: Lol, I'm actually kind of worried about that. I feel that last chapter really defined suddenly the direction of this fic, and whereas before this point the fic had endless possibilities, now it only has one, and it might not be what readers thought/wanted. I had to go look for that song and listen to it. :D I tend to hum The Curse lyrics while plotting this story… "There is no curse or evil spell That's worse than one we give ourselves. …The story's old, we know it well, About a wretched evil spell. The power that will break this curse, Oh I know, all too well, Is locked within myself." Glad I could help! Oh, and thanks for reviewing. There were so few people who did last chapter. I was a little depressed.