Chapter Text
Tim doesn’t remember how he got here.
There’s a dull ache throbbing over his temples and behind his eyes in the darkness, and something firm and warm beneath his head, and he doesn’t remember where he is, or how he got here. He barely remembers who he is, honestly, and if not for the sticky, tight adhesive of his domino mask around his eyes, he may have forgotten entirely.
Tim flexes his fingers, gropes blindly at the ground or whatever it is he’s laid over, feeling blindly because he’s unwilling to open his eyes just yet. There’s the feeling of leather and Kevlar weave, and the firm, but soft squish of muscle underneath it, and then there’s cold roughness and grit, probably the ground, and Tim realizes he must have thrown himself over someone, or in front of someone, or some combination of the two. It does little to help him remember. He inhales deep, and it catches sharp in his ribs, sinks its claws down into the bone and drags on the exhale, and it makes him groan. Bruised ribs, possibly fractured—it’s starting to feel more and more likely that he had thrown himself in front of something rather than someone.
Tim doesn’t remember where he is, or how he got here, or who he was trying to save.
One problem at a time, he decides.
He forces his eyes open, expecting to squint into light, but all he finds is more darkness, a shade above pitch black, the kind of inky dark that feels like it has depth , feels like it might just swallow him whole, carnivorous in its shadows.
Maybe it already had.
Maybe that’s why he can’t remember.
Maybe this is hell. Or purgatory. Or some other liminal space for the dead. Had he died? Tim’s not sure, but the searing ache in his ribs every time he breathes suggests he’s still alive, and if he’s still alive, that means he has to try to get out of this.
One problem at a time, he repeats to himself, mumbles it under his breath and presses his palms flat against the firm body underneath him, pushing himself up to a leaning sit. It hurts, lightning over his nerves, popping in his joints and burning in his muscle, but he manages, supporting himself lamely on the person laid under him. He gropes up their body in the darkness until his hands find their face, and then he brings himself in closer, squinting through the darkness to make out their features, and then he’s gasping, quiet, pained.
Jason.
It comes back to him in waves.
They had been deep in some underground, long forgotten temple in some remote part of the world looking for some long forgotten artifact. It was supposed to be simple, he remembers Jason saying it was supposed to be simple. It wasn’t quite their usual business, more save the world than save Gotham, but Tim had volunteered for it, because he needed the change in pace, needed to step away from the murders and the cults and the roguish, comical, campy nonsense of Gotham for a moment, and because it had been a long time since he had done any saving of the world, because it had been even longer since he had done any saving of anything with Jason, and because it was supposed to be simple . A walk in the park, a smoke break in monotony, easy as one-two-three, as summer pie.
They had been running from something.
It hadn’t been simple or easy or quick, and they had been running from something.
What were they running from?
There’s a rush of urgency up his spine, and then Tim is scrambling in the darkness, movement labored and jerky as he fumbles in his utility belt for an emergency flare. He lights it, desperate, and the whole place goes up in sickly reds, casting wavering, wobbling shadows over the floor in jagged points like teeth in a maw, whatever walls that should be there still swallowed by the darkness. Tim ignores the nagging feeling that he should still be running, placing the flare by Jason’s head, lighting his face up in flickering red.
He can see his expression better now, and he looks like he’s in pain, teeth grit and brows furrowed, and it's worrying, gnawing anxiety on already frayed nerves, and he hates it. Tim immediately dips his head down to his chest, pressing his ear to the armor in an attempt to listen for something wrong , but everything sounds fine, breathing regular, albeit shallow, panting, heartbeat strong and steady, no wheezing, no fluid, no audible kinks or breaks. That’s good, at least, good that one of them is mostly okay in the aftermath.
“Jason,” he whisper yells, coming back to his face, so close they brush noses. He can’t fight the feeling that the shadows are closing in on him every time he looks away, fights the shiver preparing to run up his spine. He shakes at Jason’s shoulders lightly, desperate to rouse him, to have someone else to share the raised hairs and the gooseflesh and the panic with. “Jay, please .”
Nothing, not even a twitch of muscle to show that Jason is hearing him through his dreams or his nightmares or the haze of unconsciousness, whatever it is. Tim settles back to Jason’s left, drawing his knees tight to his chest.
Then, everything, all at once.
Jason’s eyes snap open with a gasp, like he had been drowning, like the water only just left his lungs, sitting up before Tim can stop him, and for a moment, Tim feels safe. And then he feels nothing at all, mind numb with terror because Jason’s eyes are pitch black and inky, because there’s an unnatural, shadowed sharpness to his face all of a sudden, because he’s not Jason, not anymore, because he's that thing now, whatever they were running from in the darkness, he knows, instinctually and in pit of his stomach, that this is it.
Tim should move.
He should move, and he should do it now. H e knows he should be running, knows he needs to move, but he can’t, joins locked and frozen in place, blood thrumming heavy in his ears, slack jawed and screaming except no noise is coming out, trapped somewhere in the cage of his chest.
He clamps a gloved hand around his mouth anyway, muffles the nothingness just in case, as not-Jason rolls his neck and then his shoulders, the sickly cracking of bones echoing in the emptiness. Its eyes aren’t on him, Tim realizes. Its looking far off into the darkness to their right, gaze unfocused, and it hasn’t noticed him.
It hasn’t noticed him .
Tim shifts quietly in his spot on the floor, twists his body around until he’s on all fours, until he can crawl and creep away into the darkness. He can do this. He knows how to be quiet, learned it from many nights spent sneaking away from home, from Bruce, from Ra's and the league. He can do this, he knows he can do it because he has to.
He takes one small step forward, and then another, and another, progress slow, but steady, crawling away further into the darkness, further and further from the warm light of the emergency flare. For a moment he almost feels safe, breathing beginning to steady, and then, suddenly, without warning, something icy is gripping at his ankle, fingers lacking in warmth, cold like a corpse. Tim's yanked back with an inhuman quickness, teeth clicking painfully as his jaw hits the ground, scraping his cheeks and chin over the gritty ground. He claws into the stone instinctually, nails pulling up with the force as he fights it, kicks back at the hand as he's dragged back into the light.
It's useless. His lungs feel like fire in his chest as he screams.
“Where do you think you’re going?” Not-Jason asks, but it sounds like Jason, just like Jason, and the smirk on his face looks like Jason, too.
The desire to fight back, to kick and thrash and scream dies in the hollow ache of his ribs, and Tim goes limp as not-Jason manhandles him, roughly bringing him over his lap, bringing them face-to-face.
“Don’t do that,” It coos, and it’s almost gentle when it brings a finger down the side of his face, cupping sweetly like he’s an injured bird, something small and delicate in the palm of its hand, “It's no fun if you give in. I like it when they fight back.”
Tim exhales defiant, jerks his head back despite himself because the touch feels wrong, like slime on his skin, immediately regrets it when the grip tightens, crushing at the bones of his cheeks and jaw.
“There you go,” not-Jason says, breath sickly sweet over his face, unnatural, “maybe I should let you go, let you run off in the darkness. That would be fun, wouldn’t it? Watching you grope and feel around on your knees for nothing while I track you. How long do you think you'll last, boy?”
Tim swallows, closes his eyes shut as tight as he can. He thinks he can do this, he thinks he can lie down and die with grace, like an injured dog. He thinks he can do it, he just needs to find the crack in his subconscious to slip through, just needs to break his brain open and crawl inside and escape the pain.
He can do this.
“It was so fun before, wasn’t it? You really thought you were going to escape this, like I wouldn't notice you crawling off into the darkness.” Its hands slide up, knotting in Tim’s hair, firm on either side of his head, squeezing pressure like a balloon about to burst.
He can do this. He stills his body, breathes in and out with intention, brings his hummingbird heart back down and waits for the first of the cracks to show itself, waits for something to dig his fingers into and rip apart. His entire body hurts, he shouldn't have to wait long at all, just needs to endure it all for a little while longer.
“ Oh ,” Not-Jason says then, breathy and hot, “you’re something to this one, aren’t you? I think I’ll take my time, then, break you nice and slow. Kill two little birds with one stone, as it were.”
He can’t do this.
Whatever this means, he can’t do it, not if Jason's still in there, not if he's kicking and screaming to be let out. Tim’s hands come up on instinct, pure self-preservation where they grab and claw at Jason’s wrists, legs kicking up wherever they can reach, a wounded animal's thrashing in the jaws of its predator.
“Oh, he doesn’t like that,” Not-Jason says, and it’s almost a pant as Tim plants his feet on his chest and starts to push back, “no, he doesn’t like that at all.”
“I do, though,” It continues, locks its arms, and Tim finds he can’t push back anymore, stuck close, too close.
It only makes Tim frenzy more, jerking his head in its grasp and twisting his body uncomfortably at awkward angles. He reaches out, blind, over Jason’s face, or not Jason’s face, hooks a thumb into his eye socket and pushes, pushes because maybe if he can hurt it, he can break whatever hold its got over Jason, break the hold it has on the both of them.
“You’re not hurting me,” Not-Jason says, simple, voice even and bored, “you’re only hurting him.”
Tim stills immediately, defeated, body going limp like the effort was the only thing keeping him up straight. Exhaustion creeps its way into every nook and cranny, into screaming muscle and bone as he rests, and he doesn't think he'll be able to summon the strength to fight again.
“Please,” his voice doesn’t sound like his own when it breaks, high-pitched and desperate. There are tears in his eyes, an anguish he didn’t realize was gripping at his heart until now. “Let him go,” Tim goes on, a beg without the theatrics, too tired to muster the effort. He hopes the tears and the cracks in his voice are enough. “Please, I’ll do anything, give anything.”
Not-Jason considers him for a moment, and his hand feels impossibly large when he brings Tim’s face back up to look at him. “It’s fun that you think you can barter with me.”
“T-take me instead,” Tim rushes on, tries his best to haggle his soul away, equivalent exchange in the eyes of demons and men, “do whatever you want with me, or to me, just let my brother go.”
“ Brother , that’s interesting. This one has so many ideas,” he says, thumbs over his cheek, ignoring his pleas. Tim looks up at him, confused, brow furrowing, and the thing wearing Jason’s face smiles, thumb dragging down over his mouth and pushing inside. “So many thoughts , none of them very brotherly .”
His breath catches and stops in his throat, lungs forgetting to work as Jason, but not Jason, hooks into his teeth, parting his mouth against his will and dragging him forward. He peers down his throat, other hand coming up to poke around his mouth, tilting his head left and right, up and down, every angle examined, every nook and cranny prodded, fingers pushing and slipping on the chewed insides of his cheeks. Spit is pooling in his mouth, collecting under his tongue, and Tim closes his eyes, wills himself not to drool all over himself.
Not-Jason pulls his tongue out next, pinched between his thumb and forefinger, stretches it out painful until it can go no further, and then he presses two fingers over the top, testing feel and weight.
“He’s right,” It comments, thoughtful like its poring over an abstract art piece and not the inside of Tim’s mouth, “so soft, and so wet. Has he been inside it before?”
He pushes two fingers into the back of his throat as Tim's cheeks burn red, pushing saliva out the sides of his mouth and dribbling down his chin. Tim gags.
“Or has he only ever thought about it? Must’ve, right?" His eyes water as the thing inside Jason pulls its fingers from his mouth and wipes them over his cheek. "Can you imagine the shame, touching himself and thinking about using little brother’s pretty, pink mouth?”
Tim ignores its words, ignores the way they coil and burn hotly in his stomach. He had never really ever considered Jason a brother because he had never really ever considered himself a member of the complicated Wayne family, always the outsider, always the replaceable one, the expendable one, the one no one wanted then, and the one no one wants now. Jason, though, he tried—not at first, but he tried. He closed the distance, and he made the effort. Jason understood him in a way no one else did, and what else was there to call him but brother?
Was there something else he had been missing, something gone unnoticed over the course of their complicated time together?
He tries to swallow around the thought, tries to keep the drool from pouring out of his mouth, tries to preserve what little dignity he has left, muscles of his esophagus contracting uselessly with his mouth held open.
“Do you know how long I’ve been trapped here?” The thing inside Jason asks, and Tim has enough sense left to answer because he’s sure nothing good can come if he doesn’t, the no a gurgled sound in the back of his throat. “Hundreds of years, hundreds and hundreds of years alone, hungry, starving .”
“I was going to crack open your bones and suck the marrow," It goes on, releasing its grip on Tim's jaw. He exhales forcefully, doesn't struggle because struggling would be stupid. "I was going to drain your bile and blood and lick the gray matter from your stupid little brain, but this one has so many thoughts rattling inside his head, and the more I look at you, the more convincing they are.”
“I much prefer the fairer sex,” not-Jason goes on, its hands dragging down his neck to his shoulders, around to his back and up to the collar of Tim’s Robin suit. “But you’ll do.”
There’s the sound of fabric tearing, back of his suit torn and ripped right open, and the realization that he’s completely and totally at this thing’s mercy burns heavy on his brain. The air is cold over his exposed skin, and Jason’s hands are rough at the small of his back, running up to the blades of his shoulders, feeling him out. Tim represses a shudder, forcing himself to look up at Jason’s face as the thing inside him begins to peel the torn suit over his front, ragged Kevlar weave and reinforced leather piling at his waist.
It's looking at him like it might just devour him whole, Jason's eyes lidded, dark and hungry, wanting with such a familiar intensity that the cold air goes hot.
“You’re not so far removed from the fairer sex anyway,” not-Jason comments, hands groping up his chest, squeezing the soft muscles of his pecs together, and Tim moans.
Despite himself, he moans, a broken, jagged thing, his body betraying him as he presses his chest forward and into Jason's hands. The thing smiles wickedly, digging its nails into Tim’s chest and dragging down in long, ragged red streaks until its hands find the pile of tattered mesh and weave, and then it’s ripping that, too, leaving Tim almost completely exposed, what little modesty he has left protected with tattered rags and a Robin red jockstrap. He does shiver this time, goose flesh rising over his bare skin, and he’s thankful when not-Jason grabs his hips and pulls him up to a kneel, forcefully pressing his nose into the crook of Jason's neck as he rips the jockstrap, too, stripping him completely.
It’s warm here.
It’s warm, and it smells like Jason, or mostly Jason, cordite and gun polish and worn leather and spice, a comforting note bleeding into the haze of his senses, and if he tries hard enough, he can almost ignore the underlying scent of something wrong, of fire and brimstone, of sweat and sin. It’s almost enough to forget where he is and who he’s with and what’s happening, is enough to pretend if he just closes his eyes and presses in closer and breathes just a little bit deeper.
The smell of artificial cherries fills the air, invades his safe space as Jason’s hands run over his ass and spread him with a surprising gentleness, and Tim is the happiest he’s been all night, sighing content into the crook of his neck. The cold, hard of the ground bites into his knees like this, and so he squirms, pushes his knees apart further, sinks down lower in his lap and makes himself comfortable as the thing inside Jason coats its fingers in lube with a wet squelch.
“So willing, so obedient,” Jason, or, not-Jason, hums into the shell of his ear, two fingers circling wet and sticky around his rim, “he’s surprised. I'm not though.”
He pushes in, all at once, plunges both fingers in past the tight ring of his entrance. Tim gasps, presses his forehead into Jason's shoulder, the intrusion sitting strangely in his muscles.
“I knew you were a whore the second I saw you,” not-Jason goes on, and Tim whines, pushes back onto his fingers, tries to get used to the feeling, and proves the point, “You didn’t even fight it. You gave in so easily.”
Tim nods, “I said a-anything.”
“You did,” it agrees, slipping its fingers out from him, the sound of too many buckles and straps being undone underneath him, “just remember you asked for this.”
It presses Jason's cock blunt at his entrance, and then it's pushing inside of him, slow, two fingers scissored in his ass to keep him open. Tim isn't ready, nowhere near ready to take something so big, and it hurts, hurts in the best possible way, rim in a burning stretch to accommodate how thick Jason is. He buries his face into the crook of Jason's neck, into the comfort of his scent, clawing uselessly at his wrists with a pathetic, sniveling whimper as it bottoms out.
“S’too much,” he pants wet against its skin, “s’so big.”
“Yes, we are rather well endowed, aren’t we?” The monster says, fisting a hand in Tim’s hair and pulling him back to face him, other hand coming to wipe at the tears welling in his eyes. “You take it so well, though, so tight on our cock.”
Tim gives a pleased noise, letting his eyes fall closed to focus in on the feeling, willing his body to accept it. He feels so impossibly full, stretched out and stuffed, and he swears he can feel Jason all the way in his stomach, pressing deeper still, deep into the empty space of his gut, a bottomless pit of pleasure opening up just below his ribcage. His hands are shaking when he brings them to press at his stomach because there’s no way, there’s no way , a soft, strangled groaning as he feels Jason’s cock bulging under his hands.
“S’so big,” he repeats, dumb, wonderstruck, “how’s it so big?”
Not-Jason doesn’t dignify that with a response. Instead, it holds Tim’s hips in place and fucks up into him. Tim goes slack jawed, mouth falling open stupidly as his eyes screw shut tighter still, face twisting with a sensation that toes the line between pain and pleasure. It hurts , still adjusting to the stretch, and he wasn’t ready for more, but it's also good, hurts so good , so unlike any other pain he’s ever felt, large cock pressing into all the right places inside of him and making it melt into something more .
Jason, who isn’t Jason, readjusts him in his lap, and it’s too much, too soon, the crack in Tim’s brain splitting wide and threatening to swallow him whole as he's rearranged in its lap, and he’s reminded that he wanted to crawl into it before, to escape whatever cruel and unusual punishments this thing had planned for him, but now he finds he doesn’t want to escape at all. He wants to lean into it.
He wants more.
Tim leans forward, steadying himself on its chest, and it feels like he’s being split open from the inside out, face twisting something awful as the crack in his brain opens wider.
“Oh, don’t make that face,” its saying, thumb coming up to smooth at the knit of his brow, “he doesn’t like it. He thinks you don’t like it. He wants us to stop.”
Tim huffs out a breath, rise and fall of his chest heavy and labored with the stretch, “hn.”
“Do you want us to stop, Tim?”
“No!” He says, immediately, eyes snapping open to look at them, at this thing and at Jason, panicked and frenzied. “No, please,” he rushes, planting his hands firmly on Jason’s shoulders, sitting the full of his weight back into his lap, exploding stars behind his eyes as he settles, hole in his brain finally opening up under him, swallowing him whole, dropping him somewhere floaty and nice. “w-want it so bad.”
“I don’t think he believes you,” it says, and Tim whines in protest, “I do, I do, I do.”
“You do?”
He nods enthusiastically, flexing his fingers on Jason’s chest, digging his nails into the soft muscle there. He feels suddenly far away and full, feels like maybe they’ve been on Mars or Venus this whole time, weightless, disembodied and warm. “I’ll prove it.”
“Oh,” It says, wicked, “please do.”
Tim inhales deep, slowly lifting his hips up, up, up , unsheathes his cock from his insides until he feels empty all over again, and then he pushes back down, little oh, oh, oh s babbling from his mouth as he sinks back down on him, nails indenting crescent moons into Jason’s chest. He’s never ridden a cock before, never had more inside him than an exploratory finger in the safety of his bed, and it’s unlike anything he’s ever done before. He doesn’t know how to approach it, doesn’t know if he should bounce or scoot or swivel or grind, but he knows that this , the slow rise and fall, feels good .
He tries again, pulls up a little faster, almost too fast, rim catching awkward at the tip, and then sinks back down with a broken moan and a satisfying smack of skin as his ass meets Jason’s thighs with a little more force than he meant. He repeats the motion, slowly picking up an awkward speed, pulling up less and less, until he’s doing small, erratic bounces on Jason’s cock, face tipped back and little pleased noises jumping in his throat.
Not-Jason looks bored . Not quite displeased, but not pleased either, watching Tim with a half-interest that burns hot at the back of his neck. He readjusts, desperate to please, planting his hands on either side of his head and leaning forward, hair hanging down in Jason’s face as he tests a new angle. His cock slips in deeper, if that’s even possible, brushing up over his prostate with each shaky bounce and making Tim's vision go hazy. His thighs are starting to burn, deep on the inside, and it’s getting hard to breathe through the stitch opening in his side, through the bruising of his ribs, thrusts shaky and uneven. Tim whines, pathetically, gripping Jason’s shoulders to push through it, like the leverage can help, like the leverage is doing something other than throwing him off rhythm.
“S’good?” He asks, desperate, needs the encouragement to keep going, to push the screaming of his nerves back.
It’s a mistake.
“I didn’t realize you were a virgin,” It says, simply, “so sloppy.”
Tim’s cheeks burn red, and he ducks his head to hide the blush, hips stuttering and slowing.
“Unremarkable,” not-Jason continues, his hands falling to Tim’s hips, gripping strong enough to Bruise as he lifts him up on his cock, lifts him like he weighs nothing at all, like he isn’t 180 pounds of lean muscle, “useless,” It finishes, fucking Tim back down hard, so hard that his neck jerks with impact, disjointed and jarring.
The thing inside of Jason sets an inhuman pace, then, lifting him off and fucking him back down hard, and it’s too much , constant assault on all of the places that make Tim feel like he’s on fire, fucked so hard his moans reach pitch and break off in his throat. He claws at his wrists, desperate to slow down, but all it accomplishes is an annoyed grunt from Jason, and so he gives up, goes limp, fingers curled weakly at his hands, and accepts the fucking for what it is, brutal and bruising and perfect .
“There you go,” not-Jason coos, “good toy.”
“Good,” he echoes, swallowing something watery in his throat, “I’m good?”
“Hm,” It hums, fucks Tim down on his cock particularly hard. “A good hole, at least.”
Tim nods, weakly, teeth clicking as his chin bumps his chest from the force of his fucking, first tears finally escaping, rolling down his cheeks and dropping thick and wet onto Jason’s suit beneath him. The slide of his cock’s quick and wet and good , so good he hardly feels the fucking over the overwhelming pressure against his prostate, entire body alight with the feeling. He brings his hands up, buries his face in them, muffling the constant string of uh, unh, uhngh from his mouth, fingers long and delicate pressed haphazard over the corner of his mouth and up his cheeks, peeking through fingers and sweat slicked hair at Jason.
He looks stoic , statuesque, jaw set with the effort and brows knit with the pleasure, and if Tim didn’t know any better, he might’ve thought this thing was in pain. He does know better, though, its gaze fixated on the place where their bodies meet, where his cock disappears into his ass, fucking up into the wet heat with a filthy squelch, sounds of skin on skin catching and reverberating in the dark, red lit chasm of the room. Something in his chest aches, and Tim reaches out and touches his face, fingers caressing over the scar on his cheek. The thing looks up at him, almost startled, or maybe puzzled, and then Jason’s entire face is softening, the black draining from his eyes, leaving Tim looking into Jason’s eyes, his eyes, deep and blue, into an expression more tender, more fond, and more desperate than anything he’s ever seen on Jason’s face before, arms stilling, wrapping around Tim’s waist and pulling him closer on his cock.
And then it’s gone, black creeping back into his eyes and expression hardening into something cold and mean before Tim can even fully process the change in the fog of his mind, fingers curling painfully at his wrist and yanking it away at an awkward angle. He thinks he hears something pop.
“Hurts,” Tim gasps, other hand flying to his shoulder, pressing uselessly, “please, please, it hurts.”
“Did I say you could touch?” It asks, does nothing to alleviate the tension burning in his shoulder.
“I’m sorry,” Tim sobs, “I-I didn’t know, please .”
He’s released all at once, and then he’s being picked up off of Jason entirely and slammed onto his back, little pebbles and jagged points pressing pinprick painful into his skin. The bite wakes him up, and then drops him further into the hole he’s sunken into, entire body buzzing pleasantly with it as Jason, or Not-Jason, presses over him, pressing his knees past his shoulders, dangling his cock over his face and presenting his hole upwards to the sex-warmed air. The bend is uncomfortable with his ribs, and Tim screws his eyes shut, panting uselessly, chest jumping with effort and emotion as his own precum drips thick over his chin and chest.
“Stupid slut,” the thing growls, and Tim can feel fingers spreading his rim, stretching it out, and then he feels something wet and warm dripping into his hole and realizes he’s spit inside of him and he groans, tossing his head back against the hard ground. Its fingers fuck into him then, three deep, hooking them aggressively, and it feels different , feels hotter, so much pressure it makes Tim feel dizzy, forces an excited jump out of his drooling cock, but it’s also nowhere near enough. “You get off on it, don’t you? Making him want you, making him jealous, pathetic . Acting so innocent like you don’t know how to take cock, like you weren’t made for it. Whore.”
The last word is spit with so much venom that Tim sobs, fingers flexing over the rocks and dirt, desperate to hold something, desperate to ground himself as the world slips away from him, but too afraid to touch him again. “Please,” he tries, weakly, sniffling, “please.”
“Do you even know what you’re begging for, or are you just that desperate to be used like the cockslut you are.”
“I-“ Tim sobs, “p-please use me,” he can’t help it anymore, gone delirious with the pleasure when he reaches out and presses his hands to Jason’s chest, groping uselessly, “I’m nothing, I-I’m just a hole,” he hiccups, “ your hole, please, please, please.”
“Just a hole,” it echoes, softening, pleased, pushing a fourth finger past his rim as Tim keens, lifts onto his shoulders and arches his back, squirming at the intrusion.
“N-no,” Tim gasps, “want your cock, please .”
“I don’t care what you want,” It snarls, and Tim opens his eyes just in time to watch him lean over and spit into his hole again, fingers fucking the thick, black, tar-like saliva into him. “I didn’t ask.”
Tim whimpers, quiets down because he knows there’s nothing to argue and cranes his neck up to watch his wrist pump instead, tries to enjoy what little attention he’s being given before he’s fucked brutal again. He watches it dip its head, watches it’s tongue dart out, forked down the middle like a snake’s, and Tim thinks, deep through the delirium, that it’s not possible, that it can’t be real, as it dips Jason’s head lower, tongue splitting and licking down over both sides of his rim and pushing in next to its fingers. It feels like lightning, feels wet and hot and electric right up his spine, and he moans, a broken rumble deep in his chest just like thunder as his head drops back down and his eyes screw shut.
Rock and debris scrape into his shoulders as he pushes up into Jason’s mouth, rocks his hips the best he can in this position, and Jason, or, Not-Jason hums over him, tongue flicking between his fingers. It feels thick, the muscle of it firm but pliant all at once, dripping wet inside of him, and it’s long, too, licking past his fingers and pushing in undulating waves. It’s rhythmic and constant, and it heats up in his veins, white hot like the sun as his pelvic floor tightens. It feels like a giant knot in the pit of his stomach, and It feels like a black hole, bottomless pit in the pit of his stomach. It feels like everything all at once, crescendos towards some grand unraveling.
And then it’s nothing at all as Jason pulls back, the loss of his tongue and his fingers leaving his hole gaping, flexing around the emptiness. Tim whines, eyes snapping open to look at him, to plead and to beg.
“Please,” he says, voice coming out cracked, “‘m’s’close, please.”
“You don’t deserve it,” it says, simple, and it's pumping Jason’s cock—Tim can’t see it, but it is, he can tell by the steady jerk of its shoulder.
“I don’t deserve it,” Tim repeats, dumbly.
“That’s right,” The thing croons, “holes don’t get to cum. That’s what you are, right? Just a hole.”
“J-just a hole,” Tim moans, “I don’t deserve it.”
“Such a stupid skank,” he says, lines himself up with Tim’s entrance, “brainless,” he fucks in, with no resistance, “pathetic. Panting like a bitch in heat.”
The angle is deeper like this, and he can feel it all the way in his chest, pushing apart his insides and splitting at his ribcage, head thick and bulbous where it stretches at the skin. Tim’s face falls into his shoulder, and he babbles incoherent there, drooling words stitched and slurred together until they lose all meaning, broken syllables on his tongue as he presses his palms into the bulging cock in the space between his ribs, s’stupidmm’s’stupid, unh, ough.
“Stupid,” not-Jason agrees, “he’s been wanting to fuck you like this for months,” it tells him, reaching around to grab Tim’s face, mean when he forces his eyes open. It leans forward, pushing Jason’s cock in even deeper, leans until they’re nose-to-nose and Tim feels himself going cross-eyed trying to hold the eye contact. “He wants to cum inside you, over and over, fill you up until it’s ballooning in your stomach. I bet you’d like that, wouldn’t you? Cumslut.”
Tim’s lashes flutter prettily, and he struggles to keep his eyes open, each rough, grinding fuck in of its hips an assault on his sanity. “ Yes ,” he whines the answer low and long, trailing off into another series of broken, stuttering moans.
“But it’s not going to be him filling you up, is it?” It pushes Jason’s thumb back into his mouth, and Tim’s sucks obediently, taste of sweat and dirt flat on his tongue. “It’s going to be me . He’s going to sit locked away in his mind and watch as I make you my bitch.”
“I’m going to fuck you full,” it continues, and its rhythm changes, a slow, persistent grind into his prostate, and colors burst in Tim’s vision, eyes going in and out of focus with each well-timed thrust. “I’m going to spill my seed inside you, and you’re going to carry my hell spawn like the good whore that you are because you’re mine now.”
A shudder runs up his spine and over his skin, and Tim closes his eyes, imagining his stomach swollen with cum, fucked full just like he was promised, and he chokes on a moan, wrestling his arms free from where they’ve been pinched under Jason’s chest to grip under his knees and pull his knees open wider. “ Please .”
“Good girl,” it praises, and it sits hot and heavy in Tim’s chest, glows red in the dark of the cavern, “beg for my seed like the good slut you are.”
“Please,” Tim pants, begs, dumbly, no words left in his brain, nothing left but unfocused feeling, brains scooped out with Jason’s cock and filled back in with a floating nothingness that burns hot like the sun. “I-I-I’m-“
“ I-I-I’m-“ The thing mocks, Jason’s mouth curled into a cruel snarl, “You sound like an idiot.”
Tim whines, insult hot like a slap to the face. “I’m-“he stops himself, closes his eyes and concentrates, tries to string the emotion into a word, and it takes so much, so much effort just to find the word, “ grateful,” he sighs, finally, blinking Jason back into focus. “So grateful. your bitch. Please. Please let me carry your spawn, want- wanna be useful .”
It’s quiet then, hips a steady push on his, and it panics Tim, worries that he chose the wrong word, said the wrong thing, “it-it’s all I’m good for,” he rushes out, quick, vision watery and hot, “ please, please, I need to be filled, it’s all I’m good for, I’m n-nothing without your c-cum,” he hiccups.
“Absolutely nothing,” It says, fondly, and then it resumes it’s brutal pace, jack hammering into Tim and folding him neatly in half with the weight of his thrusts.
Tim’s hands slip from behind his knees, pushing uselessly at the ground in a desperate attempt to keep himself in place, little rocks embedding themselves into his back with every quick, forceful thrust. It hurts , and it’s wet, and then the hurt twists into something hot in his gut, feels like a dam waiting to burst, an enormous pressure building back up behind his eyes.
Tim cums with a cry, all of a sudden and without warning.
It’s a mangled sort of cry, comes out in steps— unh-hu-u-uegh— as he climaxes, white hot Jackson Pollock splatters over his lips and cheeks and eyes with a whole body shake and spasm, all the muscles in his body contracting long and hard to milk Jason’s cock for all it’s got. It’s humiliating, opening his eyes to his own cum in his lashes, and it’s terrifying because he isn't supposed to, isn't allowed to, doesn't deserve to cum.
“M’sorry,” he sobs, immediately, whole body racking with the sound “m’so sorry, I-I didn’t mean to, I didn’t deserve to, I’m sorry.”
The thing inside of Jason slows, but doesn’t quite still, and its fingers are almost gentle when they come to caress his face, dragging sticky through the release there. Tim lets himself relax, sighing as he leans into the touch, nuzzling his nose into Jason’s palm and mouthing softly at his wrist, and it’s nice, it’s so nice, it’s so nice to be touched tenderly, affectionately .
The sharp smack of an open-palm to bare skin rings out through the room, and Tim hardly registers the sting of Jason’s palm on his cheek over the humiliation. “You’re right, you didn’t deserve it.”
“Sorry, m’s-s-sorry,” he sniffles, tries to rub the tears in his eyes away with the palms of his hands, only smears cum and dirt up and over his brows and nose, “p-please hit me again, m’not good.”
“What’s done is done,” Not-Jason says, “no need for that, hm?”
Tim blinks up at him, blinks back the tears because it’s the only thing he can think to do, “b-but, bad. I’m bad .”
“No,” he says, simple, “you’re nothing. Remember? You’re nothing without my cum.”
“N-nothing,” Tim hiccups, the word comforting, a warm embrace in the haze of his arousal. “Nothing without you.”
The thing smiles, then, and it’s unnatural, doesn’t sit on Jason’s mouth right, twisting his face into something wrong, “that’s right, nothing,” he forces two fingers into Tim alongside his cock, hooks them harshly and presses upward, and Tim yelps, surprised, “your fertile little pussy is just begging to be filled, that’s all.”
“M-my pussy?” Tim asks, dreamy and distant, something about that word warming in his chest, skin flushing prettier and pinker.
“Your wet virgin cunt,” it says, reiterates the point with venom in its voice, “is begging to be fucked pregnant with my spawn.”
“Oh,” Tim breathes out, in awe, hands dropping from his face to splay out over the cold ground.
It starts to move again, gentle rock of his hips slowly picking up pace, building a slow rhythm as one of its hands comes to Tim’s cock, taking the whole thing easily and pumping it lazy before coming up to rub at the glans on the sides, slow and steady circles with its thumb and forefinger. Tim sucks the air in through his teeth and whines low, pushing weakly at Jason’s wrist, “n-no, h-urts, please .”
“You want my seed to take, don’t you?”
Tim swallows, hard, nodding in quick up-and-downs, “y-yes, wan’it, wanna be f-full.”
“Then we’re going to play with your small, pink cock until we’re satisfied,” It tells him, and Tim feels his face flush hot, the red from his chest creeping up into his cheeks and over his ears. He whimpers. “And your tight cunt is going to cum on our cock again and again and again until you’ve milked us of every last drop of cum in our balls. Understand?”
Tim nods, and then he thinks better of it, “y-yes.”
“Good,” It praises, digs a finger into the swollen pink slit of his cock. It feels so good it hurts, and Tim bites down on his lip and grabs at nothing as It works him over, fingers focused just at the head and cock grinding an even rhythm inside of him.
Precum leaks from the tip, pools watery in the hollow of Tim’s neck, and he’s already close again, the heat in his belly almost unbearable, teetering on the edge of momentary nothingness, so close to tipping it almost feels more like floating than like balance. The more the thing inside Jason strokes his cock, the more it hurts, the more it weeps over his face and neck, and the more Tim feels dirty .
“Please,” he whispers, broken, pushing at Jason’s wrist harder, “p-please.”
“Don’t fight it,” not-Jason says, but it sounds mean, sounds like it's just waiting for Tim to fuck up again, and the only thing Tim can feel is the red hot imprint of Jason’s hand on his face as it shifts inside him.
It drops the attention from the head of his cock, strokes down the length of with only two fingers and his thumb and then back up again, matching speed with the pump of Jason’s cock.
“Such a pretty cock,” it coos, “so delicate. You couldn’t fuck anything with it,” not-Jason brings his free hand up, laces his fingers with Tim’s and guides them to his own cock, wrapping their fingers over its length and stroking, “See? It doesn’t even fill your hand. Useless. You might as well be a woman. ”
Tim sobs, broken, humiliation burning hot on his skin as he cums for a second time, cock sputtering and dripping over his lips. The thing rides him through it, leaving his hand on his cock to grip at his hips and fuck into him hard. The pace is brutal, and eventually its hands slip from his hips up to his ankles, pulling his legs out and holding them over its shoulders. His knees complain as they stretch, and Tim whines, wriggling his hips, pushing back into the feeling and grinding against Jason's stomach.
Tim doesn’t realize It’s cumming until Jason’s mouth is on his, one hand greedy over his face as his hips stutter and still, painting his insides white and sticky, the other keeping his hips tipped back, legs straight in the air to keep all the cum inside, to keep him bred. He kisses back just as greedy, panting into Jason’s mouth and sucking at his tongue, hint of artificial cherry lube and musk as they press together. There’s a tender, loving touch at his cheeks, thumbing away tears, and another hand in his, fingers lacing together, and Tim realizes he’s not kissing the thing inside of Jason, he’s kissing Jason.
Tim moans again, deeper, slides a hand up his face and wraps his arm around his neck, trying desperately to press Jason in closer, lips parting wider to let him lick hungry into his mouth.
It’s nice until it’s not. Jason presses his hand into the cold, hard ground, putting all of his weight onto Tim and pinning him as a forked tongue pushes into his mouth, unnaturally thick and heavy as it licks over his molars and down his throat. He claws at Jason’s back as it makes its way down his esophagus, gagging around the way it undulates like a snake in motion. He struggles as the thing fucks into him, tongue down his throat and cock in his ass, tries to push back against the weight on top of him and fails, and then Tim goes still, goes limp, exhaling through his nose and accepting it, panic melting hot again, comforting warmth wrapping itself over his body.
The world falls out of focus, sounds and looks a little bit like being underwater as its tongue slithers further down into his stomach and its cock presses further up into his ribs. There’s a building pressure deep in his groin, but it feels so far away from him now, and Tim moans useless around it, the sound muffled and choked, lashes fluttering shut prettily and fingers flexing idly over its hand.
He cums again, dry this time, abdominal muscles contracting weakly as he floats on the edges of nothingness, anchored only by the dull pinch of a rock under his wrist and the steady pumping of cock and tongue inside of him.
Eventually, it pulls its tongue out long and dripping from Tim’s mouth and its cock long and hard from his hole. Saliva runs thick and black down its chin as it thumbs over his eyes and down his cheeks, gently bringing him back to himself as Tim blinks his eyes open, the rise and fall of his chest labored but even.
“I’m sorry,” he croaks, voice gone rough and raw from the fucking, and not-Jason shushes him, untangling their bodies from each other.
It manhandles him, forces him over onto all fours roughly, hand down his back as he leans Tim forward and presses, forcing an arch that’s dull and painful in the small of his back. “you’re doing well, pet. You’ll be pregnant in no time.”
Tim moans, weakly. His arms are shaking under his weight and he gives in, collapses and tucks them under his cheek. He can feel something thick and syrupy leaking out of his hole.
“‘M leaking,” he whines, presses over onto his shoulder and reaches back, long fingers scooping cum up from his taint and pushing it back into himself. “N-need it a-all.”
“That’s okay,” not-Jason says, taking him by the wrist, fingers pulling out with a wet squelch. “We can spare some. You’re already so full. Can’t you feel it?”
“F-feel?” Tim repeats the word, dumbly, brows furrowing as he tries to think. His brain feels like soup, like mush, like nothingness.
Not-Jason loops their fingers together, bringing his palm to his abdomen, rubs it gently over the curve of his usually flat stomach, swelling slightly at the bottom, heavy and round. “Fucked full of my seed, carrying it so well.”
Tim’s breath hitches as he presses his palm into his stomach, firm and distended. It’s a lot , feels like so much inside of him. “S’mine?”
“All yours,” it pets over his hair, pushes it back from his face, “such a good girl.”
“Good girl,” he echoes, sighing happily as he tucks his hand back under his face, “I'm good.
“So good,” it coos, pressing Jason’s cock against his leaking hole, “I think you deserve more.”
“P-please,” Tim whines, pushing back onto his cock with ease, “m-more.”
The thing thrusts into him smoothly, forcing cum down Tim’s thighs as he fucks into him deep and quick, cock pushing into his prostate with every thrust. Tim can feel it in his stomach, can feel it bulging, pushing its seed deeper and deeper inside of him to take root in his bowels. He moans broken, lost in the feeling of being full , thighs trembling from the weight of it, Jason’s skin sweaty and sticky on his back, bodies pressed together in a slow, locking grind.
“You’re mine,” Jason’s voice says, growls low in his ear, shivers down his back and tingles over his scalp, but Tim knows it isn’t Jason, “ mine .”
“Yours,” he sighs in return, happy just to be owned, to be claimed, to be made into something.
“My mate,” it goes on, hand snaking around Tim’s waist, gripping his cock at the base, “my wife, my good wife.”
“Your w-wife,” Tim moans, nodding, “I’m—good, wife. ”
“Can’t wait to taste your pregnant little pussy,” it says, and it strokes once up Tim’s small cock, and it feels like lightning in a bad way.
“N-no,” Tim moans, weakly, “can’t, I c-can’t.”
“You haven’t even tried,” it reasons, strokes him again, featherlight and it’s still enough to send a shudder racking through Tim’s body. “My seed won’t take if you don’t cum, darling. I need your cunt to be wet and fertile. You want to carry my spawn, don’t you?”
Tim sniffles, buries his face in the crook of his elbow and nods because yes, yes, yes, he wants it, he wants it so bad, to be full , to be useful . He doesn’t want to be nothing again.
“I want to hear you say it.”
“I-I-wan’it,” he says, “want your s-seed, your sp-spawn. Please fill me up, b-big brother.”
“Oh,” the thing wearing Jason’s face exhales, grin splitting across his face, “big brother’s going to do more than that, pet.”
It fucks into him hard, fingers stroking over his cock, pinching at the tip and palming over the glans wet and rough, and Tim can’t take it, can’t help the way his throat opens and all sorts of broken little noises spill out, voice so ragged and high it hardly sounds like him at all, sounds like someone else entirely has crawled into his vocal chords, making all the noises for him.
It’s nothing at all to build him up now, sensitive and tired, and the warmth of his body drains, pools in his groin instead. Tim pushes at Jason’s hands again, a sense of urgency in the way he paws at his fingers around his cock, desperate, “i-i-i, mmunh, ‘m gonna pee, s-stop.”
Not-Jason doesn’t stop, doesn’t even dignify him with a response, only fucks into him harder and strokes at his cock faster, groan soft into the crook of his neck . Tim whines pathetically, gropes at himself blindly, pressing over its fingers to palm at the head of his cock, desperate to get away, “p-please, I-I- oh .”
He cums with a tremble, muscles of his pelvic floor contracting weakly, trying to expel something that isn’t there, thin liquid spilling through his fingers and dribbling noisily over the stone ground instead. Tim sobs, buries his face into his elbow as he loses control of his bladder and urine trickles down his arm, dripping from his elbow and puddling between his knees. Heat pools in his cheeks as he cries, palm pressing into his leaking cock.
“Ssh,” it says, gentle, cupping its palm over his cock, letting piss puddle in its hand as it brings the other down to his stomach, pressing open-palmed over his bladder. Tim moans, low and desperate, as it forces more from him, splashing into its hand and over the ground.
“Don’t cry, pet, you’re doing so good,” it praises against his ear, rutting into him, “such a good wife, hm? So wet for me.”
“Mm’good?” Tim asks, rubs his nose over his arm, smearing tears and snot and dirt and cum.
“So good,” it repeats, raising its piss-filled palm to its lips and drinking deeply, holding it there on its tongue. Tim watches it unlatch Jason’s body from his, tipping its head back, gargling his piss and swishing it around in its mouth, and he whines a protest, face crumpling with distaste. Finally, it swallows, eyes fluttering shut, moaning like it’s the best thing it's ever tasted, ambrosia on its lips and tongue.
“Your womb is so fertile, darling, ripe and perfect,” it tells him, ruts into his ass with an iron grip on his hip, “going to carry my seed so well in your perfect cunt.”
The words sink heavy into the mush of his brain, and Tim whines as the thing runs a hand down to his cum-filled belly, rubbing small circles there as it fucks into him hard , “already carrying it so well.”
“Here,” it says, then, brings its hand back down to his cock, pinches it hard and drags up from the base, draining the last little bit of piss left in him into its hand as Tim squirms, sensitive to the point of pain. “Taste.”
“N-no,” Tim says, breath catching in his chest, turning his face away from the offered hand.
“Be a good slut, and taste it,” it pushes its fingers closer, and Tim can smell it, urine and shame flooding his senses. “I want you to taste how fertile you are, how much your pretty cunt is begging to be bred.”
“No,” he repeats, pushes his face further into his elbow, cheeks red hot and blaring. “I don’t want to.”
“I didn’t ask what you wanted,” Tim flinches as it pulls his hand back, and then suddenly he’s up on his knees, pulled up by a hand on his throat as it fucks Jason’s cock into him roughly. “Open.”
Tim ignores the command, clamps his teeth down harder and tilts his chin back, indignant. Its grip moves up to his jaw, grabbing roughly and forcing it open. It hurts, nails digging into the already bruising skin, and Tim gives in, lets his mouth be propped open with a pathetic, unwanting whine.
“ Ungrateful whore ,” the thing spits, Jason’s voice a low rumble as it bites into his ear. “You’ll take what’s given to you when it’s given to you.”
It forces it’s fingers wet into his mouth, presses them down onto his tongue and fucks them there, bitter salted taste of urine filling his mouth. Tim gags, chokes on the taste as tears fill up in his eyes again.
“Thorry,” the apology comes out lisped and broken over the fingers in his mouth as Tim swats back at Jason’s thigh, “ pleathe .”
It’s fingers drag out of his mouth, down his chest as the grip at his throat tightens and it fucks Jason’s cock into him fast.
Jason’s hand tightens at his throat, clamping down at the sides and pressing down on his windpipe, and it’s suffocating, smothering in all the wrong ways, it’s angry . The world starts to slip back in, salt water emptying from his ear and filling back up with blinding panic. He squirms on its cock, struggles in its grip, fingers prying desperately at the ones around his throat.
“Please,” Tim tries again, but the word doesn’t quite make it out, crushed in his windpipe under the weight of its hand, and as quickly as the world seeped back in, it begins to slip out again, vision burning black at the edges. Tim thrashes uselessly against the thing wearing Jason’s body as it fucks into him.
Its grip loosens suddenly, and Tim forces his fingers under its, pries himself free and falls forward, coughing and gasping for air with his forehead pressed to the cold ground. He can feel the thing's cock still inside him, and he wants to crawl away, knows he should crawl away, but his entire body is screaming, bruised and bloodied and battered, and he just can’t , doesn’t fight back at all when an arm wraps around his waist and locks him there, rutting into him, defeated and possessive all at once. The whole room spins under his hands, and Tim hangs his head and shuts his eyes, lets all sorts of pleased noises fall out of his mouth, ah, oh, oh, mmeuh, and pushes his body up into Jason’s.
It cums, again, with a searing bite into Tim’s back, into the space between his shoulders, hard enough to break the skin, and a strangled moan, its hips stilling and seating Jason’s cock deep inside him. Tim feels his body tense, waiting for the next round, or for the next struggle, waiting for something more to come.
Nothing does.
It's breathing heavily behind him, forehead pressed hard into his back and panting, his fingers bruising on his hip.
Tim wets his lips, and his voice doesn’t sound like his own, it sounds broken and small, “Jason?”
Jason lets go of him immediately, pushing himself away off the stone floor in an awkward, rushed pivot, and Tim doesn’t have time to feel bad before an awful, wet retching fills the air.
“That bad, huh?” Tim says, mostly to himself.
He doesn’t allow himself the luxury of looking back, of checking on Jason. His cheeks are still burning hot with humiliation, and his entire body feels like a livewire, frayed nerves sparking with every sensation as he scoots himself back from the puddle of piss on the floor and wraps his arms tight around his knees. He rests his cheek on them, ignoring the way Jason chokes and gags around something thick and the subsequent wet splat of something on the stone.
He thinks of the black, tarry saliva and the syrupy semen on his fingers, and he shudders, revolted and aroused all at once.
He’s still hard.
The realization hits him like a train, makes him feel dirty and wrong. He presses his hands to his sensitive cock, tingling numb under his touch as Jason empties his stomach. There’s another awful gag behind him, the kind followed with a choking dry heave, and then another thick splatter over the stone. Jason is panting ragged, and there’s the wet sound of something moving, almost like a fish out of water, flopping around uselessly, and then Jason is screaming angry. It’s a rageful, raw thing, and it breaks at the end, and Tim can feel it in his throat, rough and hoarse. He rubs at the bite in his back, digs his fingers into the wound as a heavy stomp, full-bodied and forceful, reverberates off the walls, a wet, squelching splatter under Jason’s boot.
Tim presses his hands to his stomach, wincing at the way its distended, round and bloated, and he still isn’t sure what was real and what wasn’t, and he still isn’t sure if this is real. His head feels like it’s been screwed off and shoved back on all wrong, all stripped threads and jumbled brains, and he desperately needs someone to fix it. He doesn’t know if he can do it himself right now.
He chances a look back at Jason, finds him looking over at him open and vulnerable and so obviously in anguish, and Tim reaches out, on instinct, arms held open in a shaky invitation. Jason closes the distance quickly, but he stops short of taking Tim into his arms, hovering in stiff hesitation that stings like a back-handed slap to the face.
“Please,” Tim begs, quiet, “I need your help.”
“Sure,” Jason breathes out after a moment, settling down on the ground behind him, arms strong when they pull Tim to his chest.
Whatever hesitation was there before melts almost instantly, and Jason holds him like he’s never going to let go again, nuzzling his nose into the top of his head and inhaling deeply. They sit like that in silence, for a long time, Tim thinks, though he isn’t actually sure, everything still blurry and hazy at the edges.
“Am I-“ he starts, eventually, than stops because it makes him feel stupid to say out loud, “Do you think- is this real?”
His hands are splayed out over his stomach, rubbing like a mother with child, so round he can’t even see his cock beyond it, and it makes him feel sick. Jason peers over his head, rubbing soft at his sides.
“No,” he says, simple, “it’s not real.”
Tim exhales relief, letting his head fall back against Jason’s shoulder. “Feels real.”
“It’s not,” Jason’s hands move forward over his stomach, lacing their fingers together and pulling them away gently, “can you stand?”
“I think so,” Tim says, feeling Jason’s hands slip from him entirely.
The loss of warmth is immediate as he untangles himself from Tim, and Tim suppresses a shiver, pushing forward onto his knees. His whole body is screaming at him as he tries to stand, and he has to steady himself against the ground, knees wobbling as he plants a foot and tries to push up. The stitch in his side tears open further, splits all the way up to his armpit, and he grimaces, grabbing onto Jason to pull himself up the rest of the way.
“I would have helped you,” Jason says, wraps a supporting arm around his waist as he sways on his feet.
“I can do it,” Tim says, takes a shaky step forward. The effort it takes is absurd, and his knees threaten to give out, but he walks.
“You don’t need to do it,” Jason says, and Tim takes another step, indignant.
“I need to do it,” he argues back, “let me keep what little dignity I have left, Jason.”
It comes out meaner than he means it to, and he doesn’t enjoy the way Jason’s expression closes off. “Okay.”
They walk, a slow, limping hobble into the darkness.
Jason’s lit another flare, is guiding him careful, arm locked firm around his waist, so sure of where he’s going. Tim wants to ask how he knows, how he knows where anything is in the swallowing darkness, but he doesn’t.
“I’m sorry,” he says, instead. “I didn’t mean it like- like that.”
“Yes,” Jason says, plainly, trudging on, “you did.”
“I didn’t,” Tim stops, yanks Jason back with all the strength he has left, which isn’t much at all, wavering on his feet. “Jason. I didn’t.”
“It’s fine, Tim.”
“I don’t regret it,” he says, voice too small and words too quick, “I’d do it again, I’d do anything to keep you safe.”
Tim can feel himself get panicky when Jason doesn’t immediately respond, and he tugs weakly at his wrist, “Jason, please. Please don’t push me away right now, I-I don’t- I’m sorry.”
He feels pathetic, doesn’t know where all this emotion is coming from. Maybe it’s the cold, cavern air on his bloodied skin, maybe it’s the lingering humiliation of everything, all his deepest, dirtiest parts exposed fully to Jason, maybe it’s just the adrenaline, he doesn’t know. His heart feels like one big, tender bruise, swollen in his chest, and he needs Jason right now.
Jason bristles at his words, “I don’t know how to be around you right now.”
Tim winces, dropping Jason’s wrist. “I’m sorry.”
He sighs, exasperated, or maybe tired. Frustrated. “Don’t apologize, Tim. You don’t have anything to apologize for.”
“You’re upset with me,” he tries, puzzles it out. His brain still feels like mush in all the wrong places, like pushing into the dark, mushy spot on the side of a peach, and it’s hard to think “so, I’m sorry.”
“You don’t need to be sorry, it’s not you, Tim,” Jason sounds almost like he’s pleading, begging Tim to read between the lines, but he doesn’t even know where to look for the lines, and so he can’t, “it’s me.”
“That’s-“
“I can’t look at you right now,” he cuts Tim off, “because I feel… “ he trails off, searching for the right word, but Tim doesn’t think there’s a right word in all of the world’s languages that will make any of it hurt less. “ Guilty . You didn’t do anything wrong.”
“You don’t need to feel guilty over what that thing did to me,” Tim says, “you need to feel guilty about leaving me to deal with it alone.”
Jason looks like he’s been slapped across the face. He looks like he’s been shot in the gut, like Tim’s the one holding the gun. He looks like he doesn’t know what to say.
“That’s not-“ he starts, then stops, “you’re right. What do you need right now?”
“I need you to stop acting like you hate me,” Tim says, and he can’t keep the water out of his voice, “I need the man who acts like my big brother, not the one who acts like he wants me dead. I need him . Please.”
Jason has him pulled into his chest before he can register the movement, rough weave of the red bat on his chest pressed into his face. He strokes at Tim’s hair, through the sweat and dirt and God knows what else, nose pressed into the crown of his head. “I don’t want you dead, ducky.”
Tim gives an indignant whine at the nickname, something he had thought he left in the third grade where it belonged until someone inevitably brings it up again, always in moments like these, moments where they’re looking down at him with concern and pity and all sorts of things he hates. “Don’t call me that.”
“I’m so fucking happy you’re alive,” Jason says, whispers it into his hair, his arms going impossibly tight around him.
The inability to breathe is comforting, and Tim relaxes into it, wraps his arms around Jason’s waist the best he can through the smothering.
“I don’t hate you,” Jason tells him, “I don’t think I could ever hate you. I think I’d still…” he trails off, goes quiet, presses his nose deeper into Tim’s hair.
Tim digs his fingers into the leather of Jason’s jacket, flexing anxious, desperate for him to finish.
He doesn’t.
“Let’s get you home,” he says instead, “you smell like ass.”
“Fuck you,” Tim mumbles, hugs around him tighter. “I smell like I saved your ass.”
Jason exhales something between a scoff and a laugh, loosening his grip. “Are you going to stop being stubborn and let me carry you? We’ll make it topside faster.”
Tim thinks for a moment, assesses his body. It aches. It burns. It screams. “Fine,” he settles, “but I wanna koala it.”
“That’s like, the worst way to carry someone, Tim.”
“It’s what I want,” he reiterates, “bridal feels… it called me its wife.”
“Okay,” Jason gives in easily. “Okay.”
They disentangle, and Jason takes the opportunity to shrug off his jacket, the brown one he always wears over his suit, handing it over like he doesn’t actually care if Tim takes it. “For your dignity.”
“Thanks,” he exhales, pulls it on quickly. It smells like Jason, leather polish and gun powder and a hint of that cologne he likes, the one he wears off-duty, in his civilian life. It’s big on him, Jason dwarfing him easily, but he’s grateful for it, for the extra coverage it gives.
He’s lifted, easily and wordlessly, and Tim wraps his arms and legs around Jason as his hands come to rest in the space between his ass and his thighs, supporting his weight like he weighs nothing at all. They’re nose-to-nose like this, and his vision crosses trying to make eye contact.
“Happy?”
“Yes,” he answers, ignoring the overwhelming need to press his lips to Jason’s, readjusts in his grip and rests his head on his shoulder instead. “Thank you.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Jason?” He starts, after a little while, going sleepy in the dark.
“What?”
“When we get back, you can’t run off on me. You’re not leaving me alone with everyone to deal with this by myself. Jason, swear to me you’re not going to.”
“Tim-“
“Jason, swear.”
“I swear,” he says, “I won’t leave you alone. I’ll be there the whole time.”
They make it back to the world in what feels like no time at all, Tim bobbing over Jason’s lap with each step, curled into him safe and secure. They don’t talk; There’s nothing to talk about. Instead, Tim drifts off into a place somewhere between sleep and the waking world.
He groans when Jason tries to put him on his feet, clinging to him with everything in his body. Eventually, Jason gives up, sighs annoyed as a hand comes to his lower back, pressing him in closer. He’s talking to someone, calling for help, Tim realizes, and then he’s talking to him.
“Are you gonna make me stand the whole time we’re waiting for the Batwing?”
“You can sit,” Tim grumbles, “nothing’s stopping you.”
“Tim,” He sounds like he wants to protest. He doesn’t. He sits them down awkwardly, Tim cradled in his lap, rubbing soft over his back under the jacket.
“I’m sorry this happened to you,” he says, and Tim shrugs.
“I’m sorry it happened to you, too.”
Quiet settles between them. It’s warm outside, in the sun, and Tim basks in it, shrugs Jason’s jacket so that it bunches around his waist and leaves his shoulders exposed. Jason rubs over his back idly, fingers sometimes catching on little cuts and bruises that make Tim wince into his neck, but otherwise it’s peaceful, almost easy to forget where they are and why they’re there and what’s happened to them.
He likes it here.
Sleep comes easy, the exhaustion finally catching up to him now that he feels safe enough to rest, and he wakes up in the medbay of the Batwing. The next few days fly by, cold and medical. Tim is put on bed rest, and Jason is put through an absurd amount of physical exams, intrusive and repetitive. Neither of them say what really happened. Neither of them care to relive it.
Jason stays by his side the whole time.