Chapter Text
Tim probably should have been scared, but he’d seen a lot in his life. Tim felt almost indifferent about his little follower, finding an apathy when he should be wary, but what was he supposed to do about it? Tim wasn’t equipped to handle being haunted, let alone an eldritch stalker, and Cassie had told him the creature was relatively harmless overall.
That's why Tim decided he’d just ignore the little thing.
That didn’t last very long.
No, it certainly didn’t, Tim inwardly huffed as he thoughtlessly patted his companion’s back. Five months ago, he wouldn’t have envisioned this. He wouldn’t have entertained any thought of letting a shadow-face, sharp-fanged, eldritch humanoid sprawl atop his body like a snoozing babe. His past self probably would have been bewildered at the prospect, but now he’d accepted every bit of it.
It was a lazy evening—the kind Tim rarely participated in. He’d usually be changing into gear by now, or somewhere private with his laptop open. He still had a lot of studying to do for their most recent case, but he didn’t have the heart to interrupt this moment with Damian. It’d be a sin to do so. A great cruelty, considering how rare it was for Damian to sleep. He didn’t require much of it to begin with, but that didn’t mean Tim was going to wake him up for his own convenience. Damian still needed this time to recover, and Tim wasn’t going to interrupt that.
“He’s incredibly devoted to you.”
Kori walked in to settle on the far end of the couch, running a towel through her hair. She gave Tim one of those serene smiles of hers—the kind that used to make Dick act all goofy. Now he’s the epitome of seriousness and stoicism. A shame—Tim would’ve liked to see his older brother make a fool out of himself.
Tim didn’t say anything to acknowledge Kori’s statement, but he knew there was truth to it. She was right. Damian was devoted to him, and he had no idea as to why. All he knew was that Damian had taken a liking to him, and that he hitched a ride in Tim’s shadow for the last five months. He popped out when things appeared threatening. The first time he’d swarmed out of Tim’s shadow, it had given him a good shock. He’d consumed Tim’s assailant whole, and then he’d showed Tim his shiny white teeth. Bright, even when the rest of him was dark and wispy. (How is this harmless, Cassie!? He’d thought that in the moment)
Tim had yelled at him after that—told him to never do it again—to which Damian had acted like a rebuked, hissy, cat. Yet he obeyed. That’s when Tim realized that Damian listened to most of his requests, if not all of them. A shaky relationship was built at that moment, somehow turning into an inseparable attachment. Tim gradually warmed up to Damian, especially after having the kid save his butt several times on patrol. Eventually, he even began to depend on his assistance. Damian had become an extension of himself. Tim felt as if he were another limb, surging out of the shadows to aid him in his times of trouble.
Kind of hard to believe we’re at this point.
“He hates me.” Kori stated. “He doesn’t bother to hide that he has a favorite.”
“What can I say? I’m charming. An eldritch magnet, one might even think.”
“That’s what he is, then? An ‘eldritch’ creature, or ‘abomination’ as Cassie put it?”
“He’s not really an abomination, but yeah. Eldritch; It’s just a way of saying unearthly or uncanny. Odd and unusual, for people like us. Which is saying something, considering what we do in our spare time.”
Tim paused when Damian made a soft noise in his sleep.
Man.
How could someone think he was an abomination?
Tim frowned but then recalled his own feelings upon the matter just five months ago. He also thought about what one might think if they were unaware of Damian’s personality. On appearances alone, one might think him a creature of horror. He was a humanoid mass of shadow, with sharp white fangs and white glowing slits for eyes. There was the general outline of hair on the top of his head, but one’s initial glance might misjudge it as spines. Tim only understood otherwise because he’d run his hand through the strands of Damian’s hair, realizing there was a person underneath all that shadow.
“Do you think we should make a membership card for him?”
Kori’s question snapped Tim out of his thoughts. He realized that Damian had accompanied enough missions to be considered a member of the Teen Titans. Almost every member was aware of his continued support, and they even relied on it at times. He was a good scout, and he was excellent at tracking down classified information. He could slip into cracks that Tim couldn’t, and he had a penchant for eating important evidence for later usage. He threw it back up for Tim’s benefit, which was always a ‘delight’ for everyone to witness.
“That might be a good idea,” Tim agreed after considering it carefully. “We haven’t separated recently but—” Actually, they’ve never separated even once. Unless Tim wanted privacy in the bathroom, but that didn’t count. “You never know. He might need it.”
He had a gut feeling that it might come in handy someday.
“I’ll have it commissioned then. I imagine Victor won’t be opposed.”
“Speaking of Victor,” Tim began, pausing only briefly when Damian’s fingers twitched in his sleep, “has he finished tying up loose ends on that rogue program—” He would have finished if Gar didn’t zeta beam into the common room and loudly announce his arrival.
“I’m home!”
Starfire floated off the couch to greet him, smiling wide, “You’re an hour earlier than you said you would be! How unusual!”
“Well, you’d be amazed at how fast I can be when it comes to food-eating contests,” Gar replied with a pat to his tummy. “I won like I said I would. Now we have a life-time supply of Digiorno!”
Tim wanted to tell him that winning a life-time supply of Digiorno wasn’t anything to be excited about, since it was just a frozen pizza (the worst kind in his opinion), and that there was no way Gar could live off it as he intended to. He probably would have voiced his thoughts if he didn’t feel Damian rouse on his chest, and he tensed up when an unmistakable atmosphere of kill-die-murder burst out of his person.
Gar, he had to say, did your big loud voice have to wake up the little murder machine?
Damian propped himself up to leap for Gar, perhaps to throw himself over the couch in the process, but then Tim acted before Damian could pick a fight. Tim threw his arms around him, pulled him back down, and auditioned for the acting role of annoying captor.
“Come back here,” he growled playfully, “who said you could get up?”
Damian struggled against his embrace and huffed and puffed. He didn’t put up much of a fight. The longer Tim held him, the faster his fuse faded. The atmosphere of dark-stab-hurt turned into something mildly irritated—grumpy submission.
“That’s right, all bark, no bite,” Tim teased.
Damian smudged his cheek against his chest. Tim couldn’t read his face, but he imagined he would have looked annoyed. His mouth was invisible when it wasn’t open. His eyes also didn’t give much away either.
Gar was completely oblivious to what had nearly happened and leapt over the couch to claim a seat. He grabbed the remote and flicked the holoprojector screen on. “Feels like a good day to stream some movies! What do you say, Tim?”
Star retrieved her towel and wrapped it around her shoulders. “A movie? It’s been a long time since we’ve watched one of those together. Maybe I should invite the others?”
“I wouldn’t,” Gar sniffed. “They’re all doing their own thing. Tried to get them to join my pizza-eating contest, but did they want to witness my glory? Noooo. They’d rather play MMORPGs and catch up with the latest Warrior Realms update.”
“What? Even Raven?” Tim found himself asking with skepticism.
“Uh, well, I didn’t even try to approach Raven,” Gar admitted with the sheepish scratch of his neck. “She’s busy. You know—meditating.”
“Uh-huh.” Tim responded skeptically as Damian nuzzled the place over his heart with his cheek. He propped them both up so that he could rest his back against the arm rest. He kept one hand rooted to Damian’s back. His back was so small that Tim really wondered sometimes if Damian really was some ancient, elderly, eldritch creature that Cassie claimed him to be. It just didn’t fit right.
Tim gave Gar a flat look and Gar pretended to ignore him. “Hey, look at this? Thought this wouldn’t be out until December!” He flicked the remote and landed on a newly released movie. “Man, I’ve been wanting to watch it too! Let’s give it a go!”
“Gar, you can’t avoid Raven forever,” Tim said. “Don’t you think it’s about time you both made up?”
They rarely fought, but they got into disagreements sometimes. Tim didn’t know what this one in particular was about, but he knew it embarrassed Gar enough to have him skirt around his girlfriend.
“Bro, I’m trying to watch a movie here. I’m not going to talk about relationships right now.”
“I’m just saying.”
Gar huffed and ignored him. Star gave Tim a sympathetic look over Gar’s head, only opting to look away when Gar’s remote flicking was distractive enough.
Tim sunk back against the arm rest. Damian latched onto him like a cat. He even seemed to purr, vibrating silently and happily.
Well.
At least someone was free from all the drama involved in the tower. Damian didn’t care about any of it. Tim wondered if he even understood half of what was being said at times. He either ignored it, or genuinely lacked a knowledge of their language. Tim doubted the latter was the case, having observed Damian’s quickness to act upon Tim’s verbal requests.
Tim, on the other hand, couldn’t understand much of what Damian tried to say, which mostly involved strange, inhuman, noises. There was a communication gap between them. One that hadn’t stopped their relationship from developing into what it was now.
Tim plopped his chin atop Damian’s head.
“You really are a mystery. Aren’t you?”
Damian’s vibrating intensified.