Chapter Text
Tim was officially starving. He hadn’t feed in a week and five days now. Two days since the ‘Willowson’s Blood Bank Incident’ as Tim has since dubbed it. He was irradiated, his fangs were itching and starting to come out at the sweet smell of blood pulsing underneath skin, not to mention his memory was kinda fogging up a little.
But that’s what he’s doing out here tonight! Well, was doing going to do out here tonight, it’s not his fault that he ended up doing a little bat-watching! He was just- Monitoring the area. Figuring out where all the bat’s were. Duh. So what if he was perched on a building across the way from another one where Jason and Dick just so happened to be sitting and chatting on the ledge, it was just too perfect to not take photos!
Besides, due to the hungry he was, the symptoms of starvation were helping! All his senses were ten folded, and he could hear them well enough to follow along with the conversation, and he felt so apart of it. Like he belonged. Even if he was a distance away taking photos. He felt there. With them.
Hiding just in the shadow of a stair well entry, where the edge of its roof hung enough to hide him from view and a fire escape right next to him on the other side of the roof, it was honestly a perfect spot for Bat-watching, he couldn’t say no to it.
“I’m just sayin’, you should let me speak to the people, Dick! They need to hear this!” Jason was breathily saying, trying to hold himself back from laughter.
“No-one’s stopping you!” Dick chuckled, leaning back on his arms, staring down at his younger brother in amusement.
“I’m not a big fan of the government!” Jason finally stated, staring off the building’s edge with a shrug. “I’m not a big fan of the government.” This finally got Jason to crack, doubling over his knees, back heaving up and down, as he finally looked at Dick. “Fuck the government.”
“Profanity! Alfie’ll have you in the swear jar for that one.” Both of them pause, clearly hearing someone Tim couldn’t, most likely someone on comms before Jason was groaning.
“Alfie please! I didn’t mean it, I swear- Wait! Can’t I-” A moment was given before Jason was continuing. "Can't I make it up to you?” Followed by another extended pause with Jason deflating more, nearly earning a giggle from Tim as he watched him. “Fine, fine. I’ll add the money into the jar when I get home.”
“Thanks for the discipline, Alfie! See ya after patrol.” Dick all but sung, finally looking at Jason and bursting into laughter again.
“Oh come on! A little empathy would be nice!”
“No! You did that to yourself, Little Wing!”
The silence after that was prolonged, but Tim was able to get a good few pictures of the two staring at each other, and more of each of them sitting without moving so much. Tonight seemed to be going quiet well.
“So, B, says you're working a blood bank case?” Tim would like to retract all previous statements about tonight going well. Dick just had to ruin it. Well going, Dick, he couldn’t take the kind of mental strain for this long, it was killing him, do you hear? Killing him! This is too much confusion, why couldn’t they just ignore his robbery/not robbery thing!
“Oh. Yeah, some person’s been robbin’ blood banks, leaving money and dippin’... Oddly enough someone ran out the alley while me and B talked... They were fast too.”
“Oh? Fast? That’s a compliment from you Mr. Could-be-track-runner.”
“Ew! track running? Do you hate me? I live for theatre.”
“Wow, I almost didn’t notice.” Dick deadpanned, staring down at Jason before poking his forehead. “Could be the same person.” He finally offered. Tim’s heart, was just about to give him a heart attack as is, but learning they knew or moreover thought he was in the alley, that he was the one stealing from blood banks... He was needs to think positivly about this- Nope, not working. he was screwed. Officially! At least they didn’t know it was him specifically.
“Could be. We’ll see though.” Jason shrugged again, uncommit to the topic, oddly.
“Considering this is one of the few cases, B’s letting you work alone, you seem quite unattached to it.” Tilting his head to the side like a puppy, Dick leant back from Jason to rest on his arm. Despite how much Tim hated this conversation, he took the opportunity to snap a photo. Also, it was peculiar that this particular case was just Robin’s, but Tim will take the small mercy of not having Batman practically hunt him.
“I just don’t have much to go on. Besides, all the other old targets swear up and down it’s an actual vampire.” Ah crackers. “Because they stopped once they placed some rip-off warding charms up. I think people are actually losing their minds! the perp clearly wants us to think they're a bloodsucka.” Cheese and crackers. Tim was quite literally five seconds away from running.
“Vampire are real, Jay.” Dick frowned, making Tim’s starving stomach twist uncomfortably. “I knew some at the circus, they weren’t pretending, dad let one feed off’a him once, I was watching-” Dick was still talking, but Tim couldn’t, he just couldn’t stay around much longer and watch this happen. It was too much. Time to make good on running away from this.
The climb down the ladder to the alley was the longest it’s ever been. It was so slow, he could feel every rusted spot on the old rungs of the ladder as his mind ran over everything, they said, how Dick knew vampires existed, which meant he was so screwed, and- and everything was going to fall apart, and they’d find him and turn him in! If he were to be turned in, he’d have to go Arkham, because they’d realise, he’s a vampire, then they’d experiment on him.
He wouldn’t let that happen. He’d just- Avoid the bats for a while and play it safe, stretch himself to his last limp before going for blood. Yes, that’s the plan. That’s what he’d do. All he needed to do was get some blood to make good on that promise.
-~-~-~-~-
Walking to the blood bank was always easier than running, because more often than not, he was stretching himself thin for food, so, walking depleted his limited energy slower than running. Not that he was complaining. He thinks he wasn’t complaining, because as he walks, his face was faintly illuminated by the glow of his camera, flicking though the most recent photos his taken on it. Including the ones he took tonight. Passing alley’s, sounds, people, ignoring them all just to stare at the photos that made him belong. Made him feel alive.
He could always smell them. Which was weird, but he could, they smelt different to normal people. They smelt homily, the blood pushing though their vein's smelt like family. They smelt like something Tim would never admit to himself, something like family. He always wonders what they tasted like when he stares at the pictures. What they’d do if he was in their family. Would he break his ‘no drinking from people’ code just to know if they tasted like how they smelt? Not old or plasticity or even fake. Would they taste like home, family? Like smoked wood, just like how they smelt?
Would they let him feed off of them, would they do something about blood, like order it, or donate it just to store some for him? Would they love him just as much as they loved each other? Without fear, without judgement? Every time he thinks about these fantasies, they always love him, they always want him. He knows, if they ever found out, they wouldn’t. But imagining? Pretending? It felt good. It always made him feel good. It felt more like home than Drake Manor ever would. It felt real, in his heart when he thought about what could be.
Even as the Gotham air chilled his already frigid skin, he powered though the feeling of the cold making his muscle stiffen up and legs ache, well, it was either the cold or the hunger making him feel so icky in the Gotham weather. But alas, he pushes on, he needs to eat, he’s so hungry and it’s making him grab his stomach and he just wants food.
The trip to the blood bank, is, slower than it’s normally meant to be. He can’t decide if it’s his mind slowing down time or he was just walking that slow that everything felt like it was moving like it was underwater. At this rate, he wasn’t quite up to figuring it out.
The trip took longer then he wanted. It was almost an hour later, normally he’d be able to make it in 30 minutes. Maybe he was just hungry. Yes, that was it. Hunger was making him feel loopy, but he had to eat, no matter what at the moment. It felt like it was carving out his insides. He’d always made sure to never go this long without feeding, but it seemed this week had other plans.
Pushing his worry aside, he took a breath looking at the blood bank on Willowson’s street. Ok, take two, this wouldn’t be that hard, it couldn’t possible be that hard, right? Pulling the black hood of his hoodie up and tightening the strings, hiding his hair, shadowing his eyes and tucking away his little pointed ears, Tim stepped up to the doors, watching them slide open as the sensors picked up his presence.
Too late to turn back he slowly entered. Now it was planning, he could speed into the back, take a bag, then speed out. But he didn’t know if he had the strength to pull though on that. So maybe, what if he just ran back into this room, the reception, hell, the receptionist hadn’t even looked up from her phone to look at him, so he doubted she’d notice. He’d just put the blood in his backpack. Yes! Perfect! That was what he’d do, run into the back, take a bag, put it into his backpack then run back out into the reception and walk off. Easy peasy. He just hoped his stamina would last if he used his vampire speed.
No time to question it now, he didn’t know when the bats would pull up and he didn’t want to end up in a situation where they actually caught him. He’d honestly rather be grabbing an iron bar and burn his hand then get caught by his heroes for stealing. Even if it was to survive and they’d realise he was a vampire because he can’t eat ‘normal’ food.
Taking a pre-emptive breath as he steadies himself. He’s moving forward before he realises, but that’s nothing he’s ever worried about, being this fast, it will never not awe him, it’s been three years, and yet sometimes, being a vampire still sparks his wonder.
The wind blows his fringe out his face, but his hoodie thankfully stayed in place, due to his pre-string-tightening. Within seconds, his standing in a room filled to the brim with blood bags, each a different bag of blood type. Tim never truly had a preference for it, because to be honest, all the bags tasted like plastic, he drunk from them to stay alive, rather than because they tasted good.
He looked around before grabbing the first three he saw. If the bats were staking this place out, he needed to keep away from them as much as possible, and that meant taking more bags then normal... The self-control to not eat them all in one go would be harder than normal with how hungry he’s been for so long, just under two weeks since his last feeding... Three years since he was forced to starting eating blood... Three years of starving himself as far as he could handle it. Stealing to live. It ate away at him. But he could control himself. If he could fight every instinct to eat from people, from living beings, then he could fight the urge to drink some bags of blood and last him three, hopefully four weeks.
Shoving them in the backpack, moving his camera around in it to make more space, he executed the last the of his plan. Running out back into the reception area, leaving a wad of cash on the desk, slowing down, and walking out the door. Which would’ve gone flawlessly if not for the duo he was spying on earlier dropping down right in front of him.
It was fast, but the moment they landed, deep in discussion with one another, Tim froze.
“The receptionist called.” Jason was saying, looking up at Nightwing. “Said some short dude came in, face hidden, all in black-”
Damn seemingly inattentive receptionist who was now, clearly, in hindsight, very attentive. Tim was screwed; this was horrifying! And oh- Oh cheese and crackers, they're now looking at him.
“Holy shit it’s a kid-” Robin was mutter, before Nightwing was already moving, hand latching over Tim’s wrist. Angling his face down, to hide it between the hair sticking out and the hood, Tim jolted, hissing at Dick- Which, oh goodness, he was hissing at Dick Grayson, Nightwing, the first Robin! Oh this was horrible, but he was grabbing him, so it was justified.
“Shit- Robin! Back up, he’s a vampire!”
“Don’t be fucking stupid-” And oh- Tim's now looked up enough to bare his teeth at Robin. “Holy shit it’s a vampire!” Rude! He didn’t mean to bare his teeth.
In a state of, what was both, ‘they have blood, bite them’ and ‘oh no, I’ve been caught’, Tim moved his hand up, little claws appearing on his nail and dug them right though Nightwing’s suit, drawing blood (Which did make him have to fight down the strong urge to bite him).
“Ow fuck!” Dick shouted, pushing Tim off of him before swearing again as Tim moved sideways. “Robin! Grab him!”
Jason was fast, but Tim was now moving on adrenaline and moved back just quickly enough to avoid the hands of Robin grabbing him, he took his chance and booked it down the alley till he was sure he was far away, fast enough that they wouldn’t catch him again. Luckily, he knew his way around Gotham well enough to make his way to a bus stop to catch the next bus to Bristol.
-~-~-~-~-
The bus trip was a mixture of adrenaline wearing back off and anxiety and hungry reeling back into a stabbing pain in his gut. He hurt Nightwing, he nearly bit him! Oh, what's wrong with him!
The guilt was eating at his already starving gut, and all he could smell, feel and focus on was the bags of blood weighing his backpack down. It was like he was moving too fast and too slow, like every step was weighing him down, but every rise was like flouting.
The walk to Drake Manor up the driveway was more exhausting than usual, and he’s been doing this for years. But he’s never gone so long without food not to mention barely scraping by getting caught by his heroes and heaving three bags of blood up.
The sound of the door slamming behind him was enough to snap him out of his thoughts.
He was home. Well... In Drake manor, it’s never really felt like home. It was too pristine, too perfect, too untouched. Even Mrs Mac never came by anymore once he’d managed to convince his parents he can cook and feed himself, which included buying his own food to cover for himself. It honestly didn’t take a lot of convincing. It was almost laughable. But they loved him, they just wanted the best for him. It was learning independence, and his father had clapped him on the shoulder, and he felt so warm and fuzzy when he had.
All the thinking had zoned him out until he was staring at his backpack on the counter and hungry finally, finally took over him.
He took out a bag of blood, ignoring all labels, moving it around till he found the perfect place and sunk his teeth in as deep as he could till he heard the plastic break and felt the blood rush up the little holes in his teeth that act like straws, but he could just feel the blood fill him up, making him fuller.
Eating after so long always made him feel a bit sick, but he couldn’t help but rock back and forth on his seat, holding the blood bag close to him as he sucked the blood out of it, ignoring how it felt cold in his body, ignoring how it felt like some plastic was stuck in the back of his oesophagus as the blood travelled though his fangs and down his throat to fill him up.
It felt like he was gonna be sick, but he could hold it down, he always did, it felt good to finally feed, but it doesn’t stop the lonely feeling pulling at him. Well, once he finishes eating that is, he hasn’t quite drained the bag just yet.