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Tim stretched out on the mats, preparing for acrobatics practice with Dick. They were alone in the Cave, and Tim had been looking forward to this since they’d planned it a week ago - it was so tricky to schedule time with Dick sometimes. Tim pulled into a backbend, his shirt riding up to his ribs.
Dick glanced over from where he was warming up on some rings and his eyes widened ever so slightly. “Tim,” he said carefully, “when did you get injured?”
Tim’s stomach sank abruptly. He dropped out of the backbend, his shirt falling back down over his side.
“Hm? Oh, that’s just from - “ Tim paused and furrowed his eyebrows. He looked down at the floor and took a deep breath. “I was going to lie, but that wouldn’t do anyone any good,” he said. “It’s, um. I did it. It’s fine, I - the cuts aren’t bad.”
“Oh, Tim,” Dick sighed. He dropped down to the ground. “Can I see?”
Tim looked at the ground in stomach-twisting embarrassment. He desperately did not, in fact, want Dick to see, but he recognized that hiding would just make Dick more concerned. “Yeah,” he muttered finally, and pulled his shirt back up.
Dick hissed sympathetically. Tim looked down at his side, where he looked like he had road rash, an area of dozens of shallow cuts turning his skin a flushed red. Dick knelt down to look more closely and Tim turned away, unable to look as shame pulled inside him. “You’re right, it doesn’t look like you’re really injured, but it does look pretty ouchy. Did you sterilise?”
Tim screwed up his face in anticipation of the reaction to his answer. “No.”
“Tim,” Dick said disapprovingly.
“Sorry.”
Dick headed over to the side of the training area, where there was a simple wound kit, and grabbed some pain-killing antibiotic wound wash and a towel. Tim sat down by the wall and pulled up his shirt further. Dick silently rested the towel over Tim’s pants and applied the wound wash, letting it drip painlessly across the injured area. The residual sting of the cuts faded almost immediately in response to the lidocaine and Tim sighed, not sure if that was a good thing or a bad one.
“You know you need to clean up when this happens, Tim,” Dick said, his tone as gentle as his hands.
“Yeah. I was just… I was so tired.”
Dick bit his lip and nodded. “This is worth working through the tiredness, though, bud. If you get an infection it’ll be a much bigger situation to deal with.” He finished rinsing the area and checked it over quickly to make sure nothing had resumed bleeding, then moved to sit against the wall next to Tim.
“Sorry,” Tim said again.
Dick shook his head. “You don’t need to be sorry,” he said. “Just try not to do it again next time.”
“I thought there wasn’t going to be a next time,” Tim said, blinking wetness away from his eyelashes. “I thought that I was getting better.” He jerked his leg in frustration. “It’s been over a year.”
“That’s just the way it works, Tim.” Dick’s voice was heavy. “It is improving. But this was a primary means of coping for you, and it acts like an addiction. It’s fully understandable that you’d relapse every once in a while. I - ” Dick took a deep breath. “God knows I have.”
Tim’s mouth tightened. As much as it helped knowing someone understood, it always hurt to be reminded that Dick had the same problems. “It just works so much better than anything else,” Tim burst out, his tone holding a bit of anger. “I tried other things, I tried a punching bag, I tried a scented candle, I tried eating ice cream, but it just - nothing works as well as a damn bloody knife.” Tim winced at his own bluntness.
“Yeah.” Dick leaned back against the wall and looked vaguely towards the ceiling. “It’s not fair, frankly. Whether you want to be empty or to stop being empty, self-harm does…” his voice trailed off. “I can’t deny it does work in the short term.”
“Yeah,” Tim said back, his voice exhausted, and they sat in silence for a minute, both consumed in their own thoughts.
“Why did it happen this time?” Dick asked at last.
“No specific reason.” Tim resisted the urge to press his hand against his side to feel the sting again. “I’ve just been, you know, really depressed the last few weeks, for no good reason but just because my brain hates me, and everything was burning inside, and I had to get it to stop, and nothing else worked.”
Dick nodded. “Why didn’t you call me?”
“Because I didn’t have any good reason. There wasn’t anything to talk about.”
“You don’t have to have a good reason to call me up, Tim. We can talk about anything. We can talk about movies, or cases, or why we’re pissed at Bruce most recently.” Tim chuckled a little too loudly. Dick flashed a grin at him. “And we can always get ice cream, or play a video game, even if we don’t talk at all.”
Tim considered this. “Yeah,” he said. “But - “ he paused again. “But the fact is that sometimes I’m all twisted up at 5AM or you’re off-world or undercover and I know you wish you could be there all the time but you can’t, and I don’t want you to feel guilty about that, but. It’s just the way the world works.”
“Which is why we call before we’re in crisis mode,” Dick answered. “You said you’d been depressed for weeks. Maybe getting ice cream a week ago wouldn’t have stopped this from happening, but even if it hadn’t, it still would’ve made you feel better, wouldn’t it?”
Tim half-wanted to deny it, because he didn’t want Dick feeling like he had to spend time on him, he didn’t want to be dependent and clingy, but also telling Dick ‘no, I don’t want to spend time with you’ was definitely not the way to go. So he nodded.
“And that’s all that matters. So, next time, what are we going to do?”
“Call you before it’s a crisis.”
“And?”
“And sterilise, if it does get to that.”
“Good.” Dick smiled at Tim and pulled him into a one-armed hug, careful of where he was still holding up his shirt to let the wound wash dry. Tim leaned into Dick’s side, and let Dick’s arm rest around him, and thought about ice cream and video games. And he didn’t feel any desire for the sting at all.