Chapter Text
“So when exactly were you going to tell me you’re a vampire?”
Tim jumps stuttering out his answer , “Whu- what?! What do you mean? Vampires aren’t re-”
“Dude I’m looking straight in the mirror and you’re not in it!”
Oh shit. Tim forgot that the old mirrors in Wayne manor were backed with silver, relics from the days before aluminium mirrors were a thing. Out of his large family, Tim had never thought Jason would be the one to find him out. He always thought it would be Bruce or Damian, or even Dick when his hugs realized just how cold Tim really is.
He never thought it would be the brother that would rather see him dead (well technically now he has) that would realize he’s no longer among the living.
Tim remains silent. He’s waiting for Jason to run off and tell Bruce that Tim is one of the bad guys, then he’ll knock him out and convince him this was all a fever induced dream. He’s done it before.
Instead of running to tell on him like Tim thought, Jason stays, an eyebrow raised and his foot starting to tap the floor in an impatient staccato, like he’s the one currently being bothered.
“Well? I’m waiting.”
Tim can only gape, out of all the scenarios and contingencies he had thought up, this was not one of them.
Jason looks away, eyes somewhat wide. Finding out your estranged copy cat sucks blood for a living (hah) does that to you.
“It makes so much sense, the bags under your eyes, your sleep schedule, how your never outside, hell I don’t think I’ve ever seen you eat in front me, just how long have you been undead?’
“About a year.”
“Are you sure it’s only been a year?”
“Yeah I’m pretty sure, having my throat ripped out then bleeding out only to wake up craving blood tends to be something memorable.”
Jason just shrugs like he can’t come up with an argument.
Tim’s always been good at avoiding elephants in the room, but this time it’s his life.
“What are you going to do?”
“Me? Nothing I guess. Make sure I wear turtlenecks around you. Maybe not though, that seems a bit too Bruce to me. Scarves though, I think I could fuck with some scarves.”
“You’re, not going to tell Bruce?”
Again Jason shrugs. “Why would I? It’s not like daddy dearest and I get along. His paranoia would convince him more than me telling him, besides it doesn’t do shit for me. Though I’ll admit, I’m a little pissed off that you’re copying the whole undead zombie thing too. Is nothing in this world sacred?”
“Zombies and vampires aren’t the same thing,” Tim can’t help but reply.
“You’re undead and you crave something a human being can’t live without, they’re basically the same.”
Tim snorts, “I can’t believe I’m going to argue with you about the differences between zombies and vampires.” Jason rolls his eyes.
“There is something I have to ask though. The blood, have you just been chomping down on criminals? Your girlfriend know and decide she wants to live out her twilight dreams?”
Tim looks horrified.
“I’m taking that as a no then. The question still remains. And I don’t know jack shit about vamps, but I’m gonna take a wild guess and say you’d be dead for real if you went the entire year without some red juice.”
“I’ve been skimming some of the expired stuff from blood banks.”
Jason raises an eyebrow, “With as much as the people here get hurt there can’t be much leftover.”
Tim can’t tell if it’s a trick question. He can hear Jason’s heart, an aside from the first jolt at realizing Tim wasn’t in the mirror, it’s been steady since.
The floor creaks, a sound that only someone with hearing like his (or probably Supermans, Tim hasn’t exactly been able to compare note whilst keeping his state a secret) could hear.
“Shhhh,” Tim shushes Jason then leaves his bathroom.
One member of his family already knows his secret. He doesn’t need it to be two.
The heartbeat in the hall is Dick’s, a few seconds later his head pops through the doorway of Tim’s room.
“Hey Jayce, hey Tim, Alfred said to wash up for dinner. I think he wants us to bond or something.”
“I’ll be down in a minute.”
“Yeah me too Dickie-bird,” Jason nods, “I need to finish asking Tim about a case.”
“Sure thing, just don’t keep Alfred waiting,” Dick nods before leaving. Tim waits five breaths before Dick’s heartbeat is off their floor.
Jason waits until Tim nods that Dick is gone.
“Like I was saying before, there can’t be much blood to expire with how many people get hurt here.”
Tim starts sinking into himself. He feels bad about taking any leftover blood, there already isn’t enough left in regular cities, let alone ones like Gotham, but if he didn’t he would die, and there was too much work to do for him to die.
“There’s enough,” Tim finally replies.
“Suuuuuuure,” Jason says, the word long and drawn out, “Just let me know if you start getting snackish, I’ll make sure to leave the state.”
With that Jason leaves. Tim just stands in shock, this had not gone even remotely similar to the thousands of possible scenarios he had imagined.
“Timmy, you coming or what?” Jason called from the stairs.
With a jolt Tim started walking.
Jason is waiting for him at the top of the stairs. “Took you long enough, you’d think I’d be the one shocked.”
Tim begins going down the stairs instead of answering.
“There are you guys are, were playing twister, Alfred has declared it family game night.”
True to his word, Dick is setting up the game. Bruce is sitting in his favorite chair clutching the spinner board, Damian is glaring but helping Dick set up, and Cass is bringing out snacks with Alfred.
A small part of Tim is thrilled at the idea of contact, his childhood had been touch starved and in Steph’s word he was ‘always a slut for hugs’, but since turning he had avoided any and all contact, afraid his family would realize he felt like ice. Twister was the worst game possible at the moment.
“C’mon Dickie, you know you’re gonna win,”Jason snatches a piece of fruit off of Cass’s tray.
“That’s why I chose it,” Dick says grinning.
It’s an extra large mat, probably custom made to fit their huge family. Tim chooses a side away from everyone else.
Damian tuts, “Afraid of losing that bad Drake?”
Tim shrugs, “Can’t lose if you don’t play.”
Bruce spins the wheel, “Right hand green.”
Alright easy enough, Tim just has to avoid touching anyone, and if he does he’ll just say it’s poor circulation, his mother had that, it’s plausible.
“Left hand red.”
The family gets to work trying to outmaneuver each other, and if you thought Monopoly sucks when you’re playing against business majors, try playing against vigilantes, one of whom is a gymnast.
Somehow Tim ends up wedged against Jason and Dick. Damians at his feet, and he can’t even see Cass. Somehow she’s managed to maintain a neutral position.
“Left hand blue.”
Damian hisses when his hand brushes against Tim’s ankle where his pants have pulled up. “Jesus Drake, do you not know what warmth is?”
“Poor circulation, it’s from my mother’s side.”
Damian rolls his eyes, “Of course your ice queen of a mother had poor circulation.”
“It’s common in women, you can’t tell me that your mother doesn’t get cold fingers and toes,” Tim argues. Even if his mother was icy, she was his mother, and he had inherited a lot of her so called ice queen traits.
“We are demons Drake, we run hot with fire.”
Jason scoffs, “Damian I saw you huddled beneath five blankets like not even an hour ago.”
“Right hand red.”
Everyone moves, now Tim is still trapped between Jason and Dick, but Jason is somewhere under him and Dick’s midsection is hovering above him.
Dick looks down at Tim, an evil smile on his face.
“You know what this position is good for?”
“NO.”
Dick brings his face closer and blows a raspberry on Tim’s stomach. In his haste to get away Tim knocks into Jason, which in turn sets of a chain reaction and topples everyone. Except for Cass.
“Thanks Replacement, I actually stood a chance of winning.”
“Sorry?” Tim rubs his head where it knocked into someone’s elbow.
“You know Tim, you did feel kind of cold. Are you feeling alright?” Dick asks concerned.
“Oh yeah I’m fine, like I said it’s poor circulation.”
“Hmmph.” Damian is busy untangling himself from the legs of his brothers.
“If you ever cause me to lose a game again Drake,”
“That’s enough Damian. I think it would be best if we played something else,” Bruce interrupted. “What about a nice game of Uno?”
Tim wasn’t sure if there was such a thing as a ‘nice game of Uno’, but it beat Twister.
To his satisfaction he won a fair majority of the games.
ahahhahhahahahahhahhaaaaaaa***
There was no patrol that night, the other vigilantes of the city had said they could handle it. Tim sent Steph a quick text about having brunch tomorrow.
Jeez, Jason thought Steph was girlfriend. She had been, but then things happened and she faked her death and realized that maybe she’s actually a lesbian the same time that Tim realized maybe he’s gay.
It had all worked, but Tim thought it was obvious to everyone how not together he and Steph were. Not to mention, he’s pretty sure her and Cass are dating.
With a sigh he tossed his phone on his bed, getting ready for the night. Despite contrary opinion, apparently vampires do sleep. Or maybe Tim is just so tired he breaks the rules. Either way, even with the whole being undead thing this had been some of the best sleep he’s ever had.
Only a couple hours a night, sometimes four to five, of undisturbed rest. And it was all he needed. It was the same as what he had been getting before, but now he actually felt somewhat rested, whereas before it had only succeeded in keeping him from falling asleep on the job.
He pulled on a night shirt, shedding his pants and crawling in between the silky sheets. On his side of the bed was a heating pad. Tim had bought it the week after he turned and used it religiously. Even though he was the cold, he still felt it.
Turning it on, he curled around it, enjoying the warmth it gave off. Tomorrow he would need to stop at the blood bank before going to brunch with Steph.
Three and a half hours later found Tim getting dressed into a simple outfit of pants, a graphic tee Cass had gotten him for Christmas, and a flannel.
It’s only four in the morning, Alfred was probably up in the kitchen getting to work, the bloodbank isn’t even open yet, which is perfect for Tim.
His footsteps were quiet, far more quiet than they had been before he was turned. A small part of him felt guilty at how easy it was to sneak past Alfred and into the bat cave. Tim did what he always did when he has emotions he doesn’t want. He grabbed that shit and shoved it way down.
Soon he was out and on the way to the city in an indistinguishable minivan. The drive to town was maybe ten minutes, eight minutes longer than the Batmobile would have been, but the minivan can’t do zero to a hundred in less than a second.
Tim parked it in the lot of a convenience store four blocks from the blood bank. With his new abilities he didn’t need a grappling hook to get to the top of a building, he just jumped and climbed (he should probably find out the extent of his probabilities, but that’s hard to do when your sort of sister has her hand on all the cameras in the city).
The only reason Tim knew Oracle wouldn’t pick up on him was because he had snuck into her system and coded in a patch that made her systems replay footage when needed. The next time she cleaned her servers she’d probably notice. Tim’s good, but not Barbara good. Which is why he added a self destruct program to the code. Any access to it and it would be gone for good.
Not too bad, he thought. Though the coding had taken him a while to perfect, and he wasn’t looking forward to having to do it all over again.
The blood bank was on the fourth floor, but Tim kept climbing till he reached the sixth. There’s a vent system big enough for Tim to fit into that he uses whenever he comes. It takes him all the way to the bloodbank, where he unscrews the hatch and swings himself down quietly. The cameras were deactivated with a flick of his watch.
He scans the giant fridges looking for the oldest blood. There isn’t as much as Tim had hoped. It looks like the blood drive they had hosted wasn’t that successful. Finally Tim reaches into the third fridge, withdrawing a bag that has two weeks left. It’s the closet to expiration. He feels a twinge of guilt at using blood that hasn’t expired, but it’s the oldest one.
He puts it gently into the bag that he brought and crawls back into the vent, making sure he’s left no evidence of his breakin.
When the blood bank opens, the technicians will be confused at the missing bag of blood. But Tim’s careful. He never takes more than one bag from a bank at a time, and he makes sure no one ever files a report. After all, would you rather admit that you messed up at your job and are missing a bag of blood, or just write it off as a mistake and sweep it under the rug?
Once out of the vent and on the roof of the neighboring building Tim takes a breath. The sunrise is beginning, the starts of it is beautiful. For a second, Tim takes it in before the stinging starts. The sun doesn’t make him turn to ash (he almost had a heart attack the first time he stepped into the light), but it does sting, like when it’s windy and little particles of sand fly at you.
He could stand it, but when he hadn’t eaten in awhile it hurt worse. Tim figured that the only way the sun would kill him was if he hadn’t eaten in months.
Thankfully, he hadn’t reached that point yet. Though it got close in the beginning.
The others will be waking by now, Tim had better get back. Just in case anyone asked questions, he stopped at a corner deli, buying some of his favorite snacks. He kept the receipts and a bag or two, but the rest he passed to the homeless.
Even though he could eat the food and taste it just fine, he’d only throw it up in an hour. The ride home took a little longer, the morning rush was starting, although it wasn’t too bad.
By the time he returned to the Batcave and wandered up to the kitchen Jason and Cass are up. Tim’s glad he left the blood in the small ice bag in his locker.
“Morning Timbo, what’re you doing up out and about so early?” Jason asks. There’s something in his eyes that suggests he already knows what Tim’s been doing, and considering yesterday he probably does.
Tim just holds up the bag of leftover snacks in reply, faking a yawn. He begins pouring himself a cup of coffee, thank god his system doesn’t react the same to coffee it does to food. He has a theory on why, but until he gets the cave to himself he can’t test it out.
Alfred passes him a plate of eggs and toast.
Tim smiles his thanks. The eggs are good. He just wishes they’d taste just as good going up as they go down.
Jason eyes him eating. His face betrays nothing but Tim just knows they’re going to end up talking later.
“Sorry Alfred, I don’t think I should eat too much. I’m going to brunch with Steph at nine.”
“If you think that best young master, though I must add that nine isn’t for another four hours,” Alfred replies eyebrow raised.
“I ate a lot of gummy bears.”
“Timmy, you need to eat your veggies if you want to grow up big and strong like Cass,” as if on cue Cass flexes. Jason gestures to her than scoops away Tim’s plate eating his eggs.
***
It doesn’t take long for Jason to find Tim. He’s in his room going through a file of old evidence looking for any connection to his current case when Jason opens the door, stepping in and locking it.
“So, Replacement. We’ve got some things to talk about.”
Tim shuts his laptop and places it on his desk.
“What do you want to talk about Jason?”
“Let's start with where you were this morning.”
“The blood bank on third street.”
“Doing what?”
“Isn’t it presumed?” Tim replies.
“Yeah, but I want to hear you say it.”
“I was getting my bimonthly bag of blood. Which is currently in the batcave hiding in my locker until I can get it.”
“Bimonthly?”
“Yup, twice a month. I tried doing only monthly, but the bags are kind of small. I ration it out over the course of a month. And before you ask, no I don’t keep it in the Batcave the entire time. I have a mini fridge in here for a reason.”
“Ok then. Onward to breakfast. I thought vampires couldn’t eat regular food.”
“So did I. I can apparently, though I end up just vomiting it back up.”
Jason takes a seat on his bed, tucking his socked feet under the blanket.
“But you eat it anyway?”
Tim shrugs. “It tastes good still, and besides, I miss it.”
“What about healing? Did Hollywood get that right? I’m going to presume the sun doesn’t turn you to ash consider how many Wayne Enterprise’s picnics you’ve been dragged to.”
“I heal incredibly fast when I do get injured. I have never had anything actually cut my skin except for an incredibly sharp cursed sword which went right through my stomach. It took me half an hour to finally have the hole go away, but I had to get an extra bag of blood after that so I’m operating under the assumption the blood is necessary in keeping my cells active. It’s fascinating actually, my own cells cannot survive because my heart doesn’t beat so it can’t spread oxygen.”
“But I don’t think it’s the oxygen in the blood I need, I once held my breath for six hours straight. I think that my body takes the cells of the blood and uses them as energy to rebuild my own vampire cells, which is why I would need more blood when seriously injured. But it’s still just a theory.”
“Sounds like a pretty good theory. You sleep?”
“Same as I did before, but it’s deeper. I slept through the entire thunderstorm we had two months ago, which is new.”
Jason nods, thinking up more questions. “Super strength? Super hearing I already know because o
f last night. Super speed?”
“I haven’t had a chance to see just how strong and fast I am, but it’s way more than before.”
“Does your girlfriend know? Or am I the only one?”
“Steph isn’t my girlfriend, and no she doesn’t know. Just you and me.”
“Alright, I’ll come back if I ever have more questions. I guess we'll find out about the whole immortal thing if you still look like a twelve year old when everyone else is old and gray, see you later Timmy Boy.”
With that Jason leaves the room. The sound of his footsteps is dull to Tim’s ears. Of course he had thought about being immortal, but now that someone else knows it felt more real somehow. The thought of outgrowing and watching everyone he loves die (again, but this time of old age) paralyzes Tim. Like he always does though, he grabs those emotions and pushes them down. He needs to shower and get ready for brunch.