Archive of Our Own ^beta

The first time he tore himself out of his own shallow grave, he’d been too scared and confused and hungry to realize that he was dead.

His chest had been cold and heavy, his mouth had burned, too full and too empty all at once. The moon had seared his eyes, a round, white beacon— was it supposed to be so bright? He’d stumbled like a blind man out of the park and into the shadowed city streets, trying vainly to escape its ghostly light.

The first person he killed after he woke up had been trying to hurt someone. So he hurt them first. And then he wasn’t hungry anymore.

Staring in a daze at the drying gash on the would-be rapist’s neck, he had not felt hungry. The tacky crust clinging to the skin around his own mouth and neck and hands had only made him feel sick. The stuttering beat of his heart resuming was violent. Feeling it thunder to life, kicking against his cold ribcage and burning him from the inside out as heat returned to his icy veins— it had made him want to die. Again, apparently.

He’d flinched away from the shaking hand that touched his shoulder, couldn’t look the woman in the eye after what he’d done to save her. She had said something he doesn’t remember anymore, something low and soothing, almost crooning. Maybe she’d thanked him. Maybe she’d asked if anyone would be looking for him. If he had somewhere to go. Like he’d been the victim. Like he was the one who needed saving.

He couldn’t remember his own name. He couldn’t remember much of anything, only vague impressions that slipped away when he reached for them, like sinking his hand into a gauzy veil. Whatever life he’d had before didn’t matter. It was gone, reduced to a silhouetted puppet show, flimsy as paper. It didn’t feel real to him. 

Not like the hunger. The hunger was real, and it was never sated for long.

Her name was Catherine Todd. She took him home, cleaned him up. Said he reminded her of a pup she once knew. Gave him a name, and a home. After that night, she might as well have been Jason’s mother. For all the good it did her.

He wishes she’d never invited him in.

-●☽◯☾●-

Batman catches Jason stealing the tires off his car. 

He doesn’t need the money for himself. Catherine had been kind to him, had made him promise not to walk into the sun over something as small as this. If Jason is stuck being a parasite for the rest of his unnatural days, then boosting tires is the least he can do to pay for her fucking funeral.

Jason hadn’t died small, so he isn’t expecting it when Batman calls him ‘kid’. He doesn’t really appreciate being treated like a baby, but Batman starts talking like he knows what the fuck Jason is, knows exactly why the apartment’s got tarps over all the windows and blood-filled ziplocs in the leaky fridge. (Why they kept poison stocked in the otherwise bare kitchen cabinet. Why they never hocked the silver in the bedroom closet.) 

Jason couldn’t tell if Batman would have needed the invitation, since Catherine was too dead to give him one, but he waits for Jason to offer it anyway. Whatever manner of thing Batman is, he’s much older, much stronger, and much scarier than Jason, and he carries himself like he knows that and is trying not to be. Scarier, that is. Not a lot to be done about the older and stronger part.

He looks at Jason with grave pity, and makes him an offer he can’t refuse. (Worse: Jason doesn’t even want to.)

Batman teaches Jason what a vampire is, how not to be one, and calls him ‘son’. In return, Jason fights monsters for him, tries to pretend that he isn’t one, and calls him ‘Bruce’. Jason spends about three years feeling like he got the better end of the bargain. 

And then he doesn’t feel much of anything at all.

-●☽◯☾●-

(WARNING: Wrathful Nephilim Punching the Universe may have unforeseeable side-effects. Please consult your nearest heavenly authority before use. Do not administer if you would like your biggest regret and worst mistake to stay dead and buried where he’s belonged for the past seventeen years.

Symptoms may include, but are not limited to: hunger pangs, severe thirst, hypohemia, memory loss, confusion, weakness, anxiety, brain fog, concussion, hunger pangs, severe panic, phantom pains, shock, hysterical strength, intense hunger pangs, dry mouth, coughing, dry eyes, dry nose, dry skin, severe hunger pangs, memory loss, torn nails, torn suit, hypoxia, asystole, he buried me, he buried me, he buried me— )

-●☽◯☾●-

The second time Jason tears his way out of his grave, the first thing he does is laugh until he cries.

Or he would, but he’s too dried up for tears. Who buries their dead vampire son in a coffin? At least when Sheila unwittingly sired him, she’d left him under a pile of loose sod in Robinson Park. She hadn’t wanted him. Had no clue that he was going to get back up, a dumb, baby vampire needing to be reared— she had admitted as much when Jason found her working with the Joker. But no matter how shitty a vampire she was, no matter how incidental his ‘birth’, at least she hadn’t stuck him under six feet of fucking dirt. Bruce could never help his own humanity.

Dry-heaving and choking on his own grave-dust, Jason stumbles to his feet and goes looking for Bruce. Maybe Jason can get a straight answer out of the old man before the sun rises and he shrivels up and dies. Again.

Third time’s the charm.

God, his head hurts.

-●☽◯☾●-

There’s a new Robin.

Bruce doesn’t watch him as closely as he used to watch Jason. Robin patrols alone more often than not, and he grins in the moonlight like he’s in on a secret. Like he’s having fun.

He looks good in his photos. There’s this one close-up of him in his fancy suit and tie, the light catching on his skin, chiaroscuro, illuminating his icy blue eyes. Lens flare hides one of his pupils, but the other iris refracts like stained glass. The late summer sun transmutes his pale skin into gold.

Jason will stare at it sometimes, and feel his leaden heart twist with something he doesn’t really care for.

Envy and anger, mostly. That this kid gets to walk in both worlds, that he’s blisteringly, irritatingly alive— and yet, Bruce is letting him anywhere near the cave. 

Something bitter, like regret. If Jason hadn’t died, then Drake wouldn’t be here, replacing him. Or maybe not. Bruce had been looking for any excuse to bench him for good after what he nearly did to Garzonas. A metal stake to the heart had simply expedited the process.

Hunger, too. (Always hunger.) 

He stares at Drake’s picture, and can’t help but imagine two black holes sucked into the side of his throat.

-●☽◯☾●-

Jason steals into Titan’s Tower on a night without a moon.

“You don’t belong to this,” Jason hisses at him as red lines streak down the side of Drake’s sneering mouth, tantalizing. The kid just won’t stay down. “This city killed me twice. You wanna end up like me? You wanna wake up dead in the ground? Keep fighting monsters, and you might just become one.”

Drake only scoffs, scattering rubies on the concrete as he barks a laugh.

“B sure gets a lot of mileage out of Nietzsche, huh?”

Jason punches the smirk off his face, and very carefully does not lick his own knuckles clean.

Tim Drake is going to get himself killed one of these days. With any luck, Jason won’t be the one responsible.

-●☽◯☾●-

Tim keeps sniffing around the edges of Jason’s territory.

Always pushing, and pushing, and never taking the fucking hint. Jason will be minding his own business only to catch a flash of the cape out of the corner of his eye, a head of dark hair over a domino mask as it ducks out of sight. He’ll hear the low-grade crackle of a quiet comm in someone else’s ear. A heart beating fast but steady, about fifty feet higher than it should be. No matter how many warning shots Jason fires off, he keeps coming back. Jason is sick of it.

What does he even want? He won, didn’t he? He gets his fast-track to a ruined life, gets to be Bruce’s sun-walking protege, and there’s nothing Jason can say or do to change that short of killing him outright.

(In his most vicious fantasies, he’s idly considered turning Tim. To see what the empty shell of him thinks of eternity, to see what Bruce thinks of losing another boy who trusted him. To be forced to admit that Jason is and always was a lost cause.)

Tempting. However, contrary to popular belief, Jason doesn’t much care for prematurely destroying lives, and he doesn’t actually hate Tim. Anymore. Besides, he hasn’t pulled anything deserving of this level of surveillance in months. 

Tim is always quick to make his escape the moment he realizes he’s been caught. He never sticks around long enough to explain just what he thinks he’s doing on Jason’s side of town. Most annoying of all, he seems so surprised, every time. Grimacing the moment Jason snaps his head around to catch sight of him, in the split second before he darts for the shadows. Jason’s even given chase a few times, tracking the hard pump of Tim’s heartbeat, his breath— but Tim is resourceful. Jason hasn’t caught him yet.

It feels purposeful. Taunting. Jason might not hate Tim, but he does hate being toyed with.

So it’s a good thing that, the next time it happens, Jason sees Tim first.

The Idiot Wonder is distracted, hanging off the slick side of a fire escape that’s really seen better days, head tilted up towards the downpour and breathing in deep. Rain has steadily saturated the city all day and into the night. Gotham glistens under the streetlights; the full moon has been reduced to a glowing nimbus beyond the thick, dark rain clouds. This drizzle is the lightest it’s been, but it shows no sign of stopping anytime soon.

He picked a bad night to crash Jason’s party. Jason hasn’t fed in a few days, so he’s ravenously hungry on top of cranky from the storm. Running water doesn’t banish him from jack shit, but that doesn’t mean it’s comfortable to run around in. Jason’s no bloodhound, but it dampens his senses. He should be able to smell Tim from here.

Jason has been following him for the past hour. Tim’s path hasn’t been aimless, and he’s on patrol first and foremost— but he’s clearly looking for Jason and growing frustrated that he can’t find him. He’s restless. Meanwhile, his quarry has been shadowing his steps, keeping just out of sight. 

More than once, Jason thought he’d been made. Every now and then, passing through an alley or under an overhang, Tim will jerk his nose to the air, head cocked like he heard something; but every time he’ll shake it off and continue on. 

Now, Jason watches him from four stories up and a block over, enjoying this little turnabout. Stalking the stalker for once is…satisfying.

The sharp sound of a dumpster lid slamming open seems to startle Tim back into action. He shakes himself with quick flicks of his head, scattering rain off his wet hair. Then he vaults up to the next story with an absolutely unnecessary twist and flex of his abs and thighs; a very Dick move that sets Jason’s eyes rolling. Who is he showing off for, exactly?

Whatever. Jason eyes Tim’s approach once he hits the rooftop, timing his trajectory. Then he strolls over to the jutting ledge of his perch, and drops.

Tim’s head jerks up— there’s that grimace— and he lunges into a roll about half a second before Jason’s boots crash into the gravel where he would have been.

Point to Robin: his reflexes aren’t half bad.

“You know, I’m getting real sick of these cat and mouse games, birdie,” Jason says conversationally as he stands out of his crouch, dusting himself off and closing the distance between them in three long strides. 

Tim gets his feet back under him just in time for Jason’s boot to connect with his face. The scent of his blood bursts briefly through the air as his head snaps to the side, and Tim rolls with the blow. Jason knows a feint is coming, that he’s going to—

Tim’s bo staff springs open, and Jason jumps the sweep. Tim rises into a wary fighting stance and works his jaw as they circle each other. There’s a scrape of mud on his chin, and half of his domino has been torn away. One pale blue eye watches him, wide with anticipation.

“Really?” Tim asks, only a touch strained as he matches Jason’s tone. He grins with all of his teeth. “I thought vampires were hunters. Not having fun?”

“The fuck is your problem?” Jason snaps, throwing a punch. “I can’t go a week without catching you up my ass.” Tim ducks and spins into a kick, and Jason grabs for his ankle. “Has B been sending you to keep an eye on me? Is that it?”

“B doesn’t—” Tim cuts himself off, blocking Jason’s grab with a nasty swipe of his bo, but his face briefly jerks aside in— embarrassment.

Catching Tim’s staff in his palms, Jason takes pause. Blood thuds furtively, rising dark in Tim’s cheeks. Suddenly he has to laugh.

“Oh, birdie,” he sighs, dodging back as Tim angrily lashes out at him. “B doesn’t know you’re here, does he? This is personal.”

“He— what are you doing?”

Jason finishes tapping out the disarm sequence and unlatches his helmet. 

“This what you wanted?” Jason asks, letting Tim see his mean smile and his bright red eyes as he tosses it aside. “You want your rematch with a real monster, hero? ” 

Tim scoffs, rolling his eyes.

“Is that what we are?” He asks skeptically, but his breathing has picked up, his nostrils are flaring. Jason sees right through him.

The rain is louder now without the helmet to muffle it, shattering against the concrete and soaking misty fingers into Jason’s hair, washing clean over the cold iron scars on his face. He licks at his teeth thoughtfully as he stares Tim down, letting the water hit his tongue.

“Or maybe a fight isn’t what you came for. Is that what you want, babybird? Me to be your dirty little secret? ”

“My— what? ” Tim rears back indignantly; but his dilating gaze is still fixed on Jason’s mouth. His own lips are red against his rain-soaked skin, hanging open in surprise.

Jason grins. “Thought so.”

Jason lunges for him. Tim dances in and out of range as they trade blows, and Jason can admit that he’s good; improved, even. He takes a fist to the face, but it doesn’t send him sprawling— instead he takes advantage of Jason’s momentum to twist underneath his guard, to land a solid hit that has Jason stumbling, however briefly.

He’s better than he was at the Tower. Clearly, Tim knows Jason could do serious damage if he gets hold of him, so he doesn’t let Jason get hold of him. He’s slippery, and Jason is forced to shut down more than one bid for escape.

Not this time.

One fuck-up is all it takes. Tim goes to plant his foot and it skids over the wet gravel instead, and that’s all the opening Jason needs to hook around his ankle and shove. Jason follows him down the ground, landing heavily on Tim’s soft stomach, and Jason goes to scruff him by the neck. Tim twists and bucks before Jason makes contact, dislodging Jason and sending the two of them rolling.

“Enough,” Jason grits out as they wrestle for control. Tim’s put up a good fight, but Jason has him now.

Catching Tim’s left arm and then his right, Jason forces him belly-down to the ground with a grunt and a sharp twist. Wrenching his shoulders, he pins Tim in place with a knee to his back. It would be so easy to tear his arms from their sockets, ludicrously simple to snap his spine. Tim thrashes and kicks, but— human meet vampire; prey meet predator. Jason will always be stronger than him.

“What’s the matter? Not gonna beg me to let you go? Not gonna ask me what I want?” Jason mocks harshly. “If I’ll bite? ”

Tim narrows his eyes up at Jason, breathing hard against the coarse gravel rooftop and smearing tacky mud against his pale cheek.

“I don’t need to ask,” he spits through gritted teeth. “You still want me to give up. You still think you can scare me.”

How intuitive. Give the stubborn brat a gold fuckin’ star.

Jason bares his fangs.

“You’ll have to try harder than that,” Tim dismisses, unfazed. Oh, tough guy.

Jason yanks Tim’s arms harder up his back to transfer both of his wrists into one grip, then takes Tim by the hair and jerks his head to the side. Tim hisses, his pulse now visible in his throat, fast and full of adrenaline, and Jason watches it jump with a grim sort of greed.

“Careful what you wish for, pretender.”

Tim only grins like Jason said something funny, a private joke he isn’t keen on sharing. His perfect, white teeth have been stained red.

“Really, try it,” he invites lightly. “I don’t think you’ll like how I taste.”

Jason leans closer, nose brushing the fine, damp hairs standing up on the back of Tim’s neck. Eyes closing, he breathes in deep, taking in the hot, metallic rush of Tim’s blood so close to the surface. This close, not even the rain can wash it away. 

What’s not to like? Sweat and skin and musk— and that sweet, rich iron that Jason hasn’t had fresh in a long, long time.

He doesn’t like entertaining this side of himself. It was always Bruce’s greatest shame, that he could never break Jason of the craving. Jason had bent himself frontwards and backwards denying himself, trying to be human. It never worked for long. The monster always shone through. Too animal and hungry, too desperate to be trusted. Even now, Jason still can’t bring himself to feed directly.

Though he might make an exception for Tim.

“I’ve always had terrible taste in men,” he muses before scraping the sharp points of his fangs across the back of Tim’s neck.

Tim flinches. Full-bodied, with a sharp, startled gasp, and Jason jerks his head up before the idiot pierces his own carotid artery.

“What, didn’t think I’d do it? ” Jason laughs, hard and bitter.

“Jason— ” Tim breathes with sudden urgency, and Jason gives in to heady impulse.

He drags his tongue in one long, cool stripe across Tim’s nape, and Tim goes abruptly still. Jason teases at the thin skin over the knobs of Tim’s spine, carefully worrying at it with his blunt front teeth, bursting capillaries and threatening worse with every pass. 

He nearly loses himself in the taste of skin-salt and rainwater, in the loud drum of Tim’s heartbeat between his lips. He’s so warm. Jason wants to steal that warmth for himself.

“Get off of me,” Tim growls, finally taking this seriously. Jason reluctantly pulls his mouth away, but he doesn’t go far. He flexes his fists, digs his knee into Tim’s trembling back, reminding him how thoroughly he’s been pinned. 

Touching the tip of his nose to the smooth curve of Tim’s ear, Jason growls. 

“Or what? ”

Tim doesn’t answer at first, a wordless sound of frustration skipping out of his throat, muffled into the gravel as he suddenly tugs at Jason’s grip. When he does speak he tries for stern, but something fearful turns it brittle.

“You need to get off me, right now.”

“This is what happens when the monster gets you, Robin. You think you’re in any position to make demands?”

“It’s not me I’m worried about!”

How ominous. Jason’s so scared, really.

Tim thrashes with a strength Jason didn’t think he’d had in him, like an animal finally realizing it’s been cornered. He even gets a knee under himself and breaks one arm free, shoulders twisting, and nearly throws Jason off; but Jason rolls with him, locking his legs around Tim’s thighs and snatching up his wrist again, caging him back to front in a bear hug.

“Okay, hey, knock it off—”

 He does it to minimize the damage. He’s more concerned that Tim will break himself on Jason, all things considered—

Until Tim smashes the back of his head into Jason’s nose with an almighty CRACK , flooding Jason’s senses with pain as bone and cartilage buckle and break.

“Fucking—!”

His world narrows horrifically fast. He never should have played with him. 

Jason can practically taste Tim’s heartbeat now, close and rapid as a rabbit’s as he writhes against Jason’s chest, his hips, grinding against him. The layers between them are rendered meaningless as hunger rears, stealing his thoughts. 

The instinct to bite, to fuck, to feed, wars against his rational mind as his gums itch, saliva pooling in his mouth. His body wants to heal, and the cure is hot and plentiful and only bare inches away; a treatment he can’t refuse. (That Jason doesn’t want to refuse.) Jason growls in helpless frustration against the wet skin of Tim’s neck, low and rumbling.

“Tim…”

“Fuck,” Tim groans, breathing hard and shivering. “Oh, fuck.”

He can’t bring himself to let go. But he absolutely cannot bite Tim. He can’t.

Then Tim says, “Jason, bite me.”

“What? ” Jason pants thickly, shocked into a moment of clarity. “Don’t say that to me, I can’t—”

“You have to—!”

Tim arches violently with a strangled shout, every muscle locking up tight. Jason forces his grip to loosen, to keep from hurting him. 

It happens quickly after that.

Tim briefly collapses as pale moonlight filters through the parting clouds, then just as suddenly twists in Jason’s arms. 

A flash of lengthening teeth, sharp and slavering. One black pin-prick pupil suspended in an amber-yellow iris. That’s all Jason sees before Tim lunges down, and bites him.

“Ah—!”

Fuck, it hurts. He hisses, grabbing at Tim’s waist, his shoulder, his neck, but—

Snarling into the meat of Jason’s throat, a bass rumble echoes from deep within Tim’s chest. It’s feral. Primal. Something more animal than Jason has ever been. It vibrates, rattling and hungry in Jason’s flesh, and as Tim rocks down into him, close and desperate, something savage in him thrills. 

Oh , it purrs. You’re like me.

Jason tears Tim away with a fist in his hair, and he’s treated to the sight of blood dripping from Tim’s glistening jaws. His face now caught halfway between human and animal, Tim doesn’t look angry or annoyed by the interruption. He claws at the collar of Jason’s armor, whining pathetically, straining to touch, and Jason’s mind all-but collapses under the weight of want and feed and mine.

Instinct drives him to seek out Tim’s pulse. Tim doesn’t give it up easily; when Jason digs into the collar of his uniform, tearing it open to the chest, Tim snatches his wrist and slams it down to the ground by Jason’s head. Claws burst through his gauntlets, piercing the exposed skin between Jason’s glove and his sleeve, tight and stinging. He’s strong, as strong as Jason, and it makes Jason throb.

Jason is still bigger than Tim, has about two remaining brain cells compared to Tim’s zero, and he uses both to his advantage as they roll through the mud and the gravel. They snarl and bite at each other, their groins seeming to hold the only agreement between them.

Arousal has been pooling in Jason’s gut since the fight began, but now it burns in him, second only to the bloodlust that rides him. 

They tug at each other’s arms and shoulders, they tear at each other’s clothes. Jason finds the silver chain that Tim has been wearing under his uniform, to stave off his transformation; Tim rakes deep gouges into the chestplate then gives up on it entirely to rip the front off of Jason’s tac-pants. When Jason returns the favor, tugging the hard length of Tim’s cock out of his cup and squeezing both of them together, Tim practically howls.

Jason uses Tim’s distraction to get him on his back. Bent over him with one hand braced on the low of Tim’s back, he groans as he grinds their exposed cocks together, slick between them with precum and rain and mud. With the other, he scruffs Tim by the back of his neck. 

Jason relishes both Tim’s eyes rolling up in the back of his head, senseless as he scrabbles at Jason’s back, his shoulders— and the throbbing tang of his real prize.

He finds Tim’s pulse with his lips. He traces it with his tongue. Tim struggles and keens, knowing he’s beaten— but he only wants to get closer, straining to hurry the pace of Jason’s hips. Jason doesn’t let him dictate. Bloodied mouth hanging open, panting and whining past his fangs, Tim tilts his head back in submissive surrender.

Jason scrapes the skin, savoring, teasing, then, finally—

He bites down.

Tim’s blood hits his tongue.

Ecstasy.

“Mmf—!”

“Hahn—!”

His world is soaked in brilliant crimson, cresting over him in radiant waves that he muffles into Tim. 

He tastes so good. Rich and filling, and immediately setting fire to Jason’s veins. He tastes like liquid sunlight, like what he imagines it to be: something red-hot and dazzling behind the lids of his eyes. He tastes like an old memory made new, aching like home. He tastes like Tim.

Distantly, Jason hears Tim call his name, wailing and moaning, muffled behind his too-big teeth. Jason pins Tim against him with the hand on his back, and a tight fist tugs at Jason’s hair, spasming as Tim weakens; sharp fingers twitch and scrape at the nape of his neck; thighs work and strain under Jason’s; but Jason isn’t— can’t be— pulled away. It’s all too much; Tim’s blood, Tim’s body. He swallows, and swallows, can’t make himself stop even as Tim collapses like Jason’s cut his strings, keening wetly.

As he rides out the peak and starts to come down, a small, scared part of himself is horrified. He needs to stop. He needs to let Tim go. Two red holes in the side of Tim’s neck—

But it feels unimportant. Tim’s cheek nuzzles sweetly against Jason’s, his hips twitch against Jason’s core, soaked with both their spend. Jason’s broken and bleeding nose straightens, snaps back into place; the mess of his throat closes up. Tim’s chest rises and falls in shallow whimpers, ah, ah, ah, soft like music in Jason’s ears, and through Jason’s blood-soaked haze, he doesn’t quite understand why Tim’s heart hasn’t failed yet. 

Why, if anything, it’s steadied. Thu-thump, thu-thump, thu-thump strong over Jason’s tongue, rhythmic and soothing as a metronome as Jason’s dead heart creaks back to life and slowly matches its beat.

-●☽◯☾●-

When Jason finally drinks his fill, he has about three seconds to enjoy the bone-deep satisfaction of good sex and a good meal before his brain finally turns back on and the stomach-curdling dread sets in.

“Shit. Shit.”

Tim is still too out of it to be any help. Jason wishes he could say that the sight of him— splayed out in the muck, utterly debauched with his ruined Robin uniform in shreds, softening cock still dripping cum against his thigh, Jason’s bite-marks quickly scabbing over, vanishing even as he dopily grins up at Jason with one flickering yellow-blue-yellow eye— Jason wishes it weren’t the hottest thing he’s ever seen. Jury’s still out on whether or not vampires have souls, but if he does, his is definitely damned to hell.

Robin is a werewolf. Imagine that.

Good thing, too. Otherwise, Robin would be dead.

Jason hoists Tim up and takes them to his nearest bolthole, his stolen heart beating loud and fast and unfamiliar in his throat the whole way there.

-●☽◯☾●- 

Tim lies pliant and boneless in Jason’s lap, dazed and blinking slowly. 

They’ve been sitting here for the past ten minutes, propped up against the wall on Jason’s mattress on the floor. Tim’s been out of it for longer than that. Awake, but largely unresponsive, even when Jason tugged him out of the mess of his tights and into the only spare pair of underwear he had lying around here.

Tim has only acted to keep Jason near. When Jason tried to walk away (for a washcloth, he wasn’t even going far), Tim growled at him and snatched his ankle. Jason figures the indignity of being tripped and used as a body pillow by a woozy werewolf is the least he deserves, all things considered.

He doesn’t know what happens next. He kind of thought Tim hated him. Even if he didn’t before, he should after tonight.

Jason’s extra shirt hangs off Tim’s shoulder, revealing the length of his collarbone; his throat. Jason can’t stop staring at the pale, unblemished skin. Not a trace remains of the violence he’d inflicted. The threat to Tim’s life.

He is full to the brim with Tim’s blood, even has the heartbeat to prove it, and yet: his mouth waters just looking at him.

(He tasted so good.)

Jason is simultaneously very annoyed and utterly relieved when Tim knocks his head against Jason’s chin, breathing in sharply as he finally resurfaces.

“Jason?” Tim asks, voice pitching in alarm when he doesn’t seem to notice him right away.

Jason still doesn’t know how he feels about hearing his name like that in Tim’s mouth. He probably shouldn’t be allowed to like it.

“I’m here.”

Tim slumps against him, relaxing into Jason’s arms. 

“Oh. Good.”

He doesn’t know how to feel about that either.

Tim sniffs. Sniffs again, deeper and longer. How did Jason never clock him? 

“Wh’ happened?”

Jason contemplates the far wall. If he shot a hole in it, the sun would kill him in about five hours, he thinks, which doesn’t really help him right now.

“You don’t remember?”

Tim shifts nervously.

“Most of it. Up until. Uh.”

“The part where you wolfed out and fucking bit me?”

“Oh, shit,” Tim says weakly. “Yeah. That. Then it gets… fuzzy. Uh. You good?”

Jason stares down at Tim, who winces up at Jason with a sheepish expression. Then Jason breaks into disbelieving laughter.

“You— you’re insane. ‘You good?’ ” He repeats.

“It’s a re-sa-ble,” Tim slurs over the word. Licks his lips, still flecked with traces of Jason’s blood, and tries again. “Rea-son. Reasonable question. Fuck.” 

That last part he mutters to himself. Jason laughs harder. Tim’s head bounces against his bare chest, and he slaps at Jason in annoyance. 

Jason barely feels it. He traps the offending hand between them, pinching Tim’s side when he starts to wriggle. Tim yelps, grabbing for the offending arm, and Jason tries to sober himself.

“What happened, Tim?” Jason finally asks. “Why’d you tell me to bite?”

Tim looks away. His fingers flex nervously around Jason’s wrist. Jason wants to hold them still.

“My control is very good,” he says at last. “But not around you.”

Jason’s face heats; he isn’t used to it doing that.

Silver is fallible, Jason knows, and wolves need more than that to stay stable. (Dried aconite scattered over the countertop. Broken chains in the bedroom closet.) Tim has been seeking him out. Wanting something he knew Jason could provide, even as he stripped it away. Jason made him lose control, but Jason could become the collar. Jason is the cause; but Jason is the cure. That’s something he can understand. 

More than understand. Shit.

“I could have killed you,” Jason starts, tongue sticking to the roof of his mouth. “Could have drained you dry.”

Tim only snorts. “Couldn’t if you tried,” he says distractedly. “You’d pop first. Like a balloon.”

“Would you stop,” Jason complains, but Tim suddenly sits up, interrupting.

“You have a heartbeat.”

He leans closer, his humid breath ghosting over Jason’s neck as he scents him, again and again. His fingers spread, still trapped beneath Jason’s palm, and curve into the meat of his pec; a five-pointed cage around his heart. Jason swallows.

“Yes, it’s—" yours, he doesn’t want to say.

“If I bit you, would you bleed my blood?” Tim breathes. “Would it be mine?”

Jason’s eyes widen.

“Sorry,” Tim moans. “Sorry, that’s—"

“Tim.”

“But Jason,” Tim sighs, pressing his nose to Jason’s skin. Silver glistens at his throat. His flickering eyes are greedy.

Hungry.

“You don’t get it,” he whines. “You smell so good.”

Fuck it. The rest can wait. Jason has to kiss him.

Jason tilts Tim’s chin up and catches his lips with his. A soft sound purrs out of Tim as he reaches for Jason’s hair, a kind of rasping, satisfied growl. A reminder that he isn’t the human Jason was afraid of ruining. That maybe Jason can’t ruin him. Couldn’t if he tried.

When Tim opens his mouth to him, biting at Jason’s lips and tongue like he’s just as starved for it, Jason takes the invitation for what it is.

-♡☽◯☾♡-