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Tim's parents didn't always bring something back from their digs. Not always. But it wasn't uncommon.
So when Janet Drake deposits a very old scroll, bound with string and cracking around the edges, behind glass in their voyer, Tim doesn't think much of it.
But there's something, odd about the scroll.
Maybe it's the star-like chart visible on the outside, faded but visible. Maybe it's the fact that it sometimes glows a bright red in the dark.
There's just something odd about it.
Tim's young. He can't exactly call Zatanna or anyone to come take a look at a potentially-cursed artifact.
But he's also smart.
Smart enough not to want to sleep in the same house as whatever this is.
So he picks up a pair of tongs from one of his parents' spare kits. Opens the glass door of the display case and starts to make his way through the halls out of the house.
Maybe he'll bury it in the garden.
Maybe he'll throw it into the stream to disintegrate.
Tim doesn't have any set plan. But he does have several flexible ones.
Unfortunately, or fortunately, depending on when you ask him he never makes it that far.
He's so focused on the scroll that when one of the star-signs on the paper moves, he startles and drops the tongs.
He notices immediately what a mistake he's made and reaches out to grab the artifact before it can scatter to dust on his living-room floor.
In the process, one of the edges of the tongs digs into his hand and leaves a small, jagged gash across the meat of it.
It only takes one corner of the scroll pressing into the blood welling up for the whole room to flash a bright, vibrant red, the shadows dark and the light spilling across his face.
It takes less than that for Timothy Drake to dissappear from his living room.
-
Tim isn't sure where he ends up. The sky is dark. The city is definitively not Gotham but it is a city. With alleys and trash cans. And...people.
If Tim broadens the definition of person a little bit.
He sees a figure that looks like a lamb walk across the street with a set of bags.
He watches a pink, fuzzy person-like figure stalk them from the shadows, noticed by several people but not stopped.
It's familiar enough to Gotham for Tim to immediately know that wherever he is, he isn't safe.
None of the people on the street look like people.
He stands out here about as much as he would in Crime Alley with a Tuxedo.
And one thing that Tim has learned living in Gotham, stalking Batman, is that standing out is a death sentence.
So he glances around. Sees no-one else in the alley with him. No fire escapes either, but that's nothing that'll stop Tim.
He starts climbing the uncovered brick surface of the building to his left before he can start doubting himself. Before a figure on the street can look a bit deeper into the shadows and see him.
Tim knows rooftops. Knows parkour.
But this city isn't Gotham.
The buildings are further apart in certain sections. Not clustered together in certain areas like Crime Alley and the Bowery are. No. This is more like a normal city, with businesses and dwellings and other places all scattered about.
A building with one floor here.
A building with 10 floors there.
He drops down into alleys that look empty to his eyes. He climbs walls. He jumps distances that he thinks he can.
It's like Gotham, but different.
Especially since no-one looks up even once.
They must not have any airborne heroes, Tim thinks as he leans against a corner of another Alley, catching his breath.
"Voxtech, trust us with your safety!"
Tim glances up immediately at the voice, eyes immediately falling upon a TV screen behind glass across from the alley.
Tim squints. Surely he isn't seeing right.
Is there a person with a TV for a head on the TV?
He shakes his head, trying to clear it.
He opens his eyes.
Yeah, it's still there, but now, the person with the TV screen for a head is front and centre, eyes focused on Tim.
Tim flinched backwards.
"Now what do we have here?" The Same voice as before asks. Voice filled with malice and interest.
The same voice Tim's heard from Scarecrow when he cornered Robin alone once.
Tim doesn't think. He turns into the alley and bolts.
Straight into the shadows, out of whatever little bits of streetlight were once visible.
He doesn't pay attention to where he's going, just keeps running.
And running. And running.
And running.
It's dark. Pitch black all around him. Not even the sky above him is visible.
Tim slows. Pants as he leans his hands onto his knees.
There's something up ahead, a red haze.
Not something that Tim has ever thought he'd move towards on purpose. But it's better than the empty blackness he's in so he starts walking.
He gets to the edge of where black meets red and pauses.
There's...a radio station.
Derelict, yes.
In pieces, yes.
But present.
He looks around but the radio station is the only piece of architecture he sees.
A red building of brick and wood, in pieces as it is.
He moves toward it.
There's no door at the front, only an empty door-frame and what looks like claw marks.
But he knocks as well as he can anyway.
"Hello?"
His voice rings out in echo, deadened once it reaches the inky black but it echoes off of the walls that are supposedly deadened. After all, this is a radio station.
For a moment, he thinks he's alone.
But then, the shadows shift. And the only reason he sees it is because of Batman. A shadow in the shadows.
He shifts back out of reach.
And a figure resolves itself out of the darkness in the red light.
The first thing that Tim can think is 'Human-ish' before the smile draws his attention.
Wide smile with yellow teeth. The only reason he doesn't run screaming about Joker is because the teeth are sharp. The Joker's teeth are human, flat and more disturbing in their normality. Sharp teeth were Croc's thing.
Then, more of the figure comes into focus. The red coat. The black pants. The deer-ears and the old-timey mic he holds in one hand like Batman sometimes holds a pipe.
Tim stares at the figure.
The figure stares back.
"I didn't expect anyone to come visit"
The voice is cheerful. A crackly static to their voice that Tim's only heard in movies and TV shows.
A sound that he's always associated with old radio.
Tim's manners come back before his brain does and he speaks, voice cheerful and smile polite as he says "My apologies, did I come at a bad time?"
It's his parents' training that kick in. The words that he's been trained to say.
But the figure's smile widens "How polite! It's very rare to see that in Hell these days! Let alone a child. A human child nonetheless!"
Tim's smile doesn't falter, but he feels his eyes widen.
"Hell?"
His voice is breathless, almost shaking around the edges and the figure tilts their head at him.
"Indeed, small child. I am Alastor, the Radio Demon. May I ask your name?"
Tim thinks of stories his nannies told him when he was younger, of fae and names. But the phrasing is wrong. May I ask your name, not, may I have your name.
Tim blinks.
"Tim" he answers, automatically stretching out a hand to shake.
Alastor tilts his head further, neck at an impossible angle now as he stares down at Tim, but he also stretches out a hand to shake.
"It is a pleasure to meet you, Tim. It has been quite a while since I've seen anyone. Let alone a mortal, living soul"
Tim hears the inflection. Hears the question and he answers the unspoken like he would with his parents, with his teachers.
"My um. My parents brought home this old scroll and I thought it was odd so I tried to remove it from the house but...I slipped and cut myself on something and next thing I know there's this city and the TV person and I'm. I'm in Hell?
Am I dead?" Tim asks, trying to keep the tears from his eyes. It doesn't work very well.
Alastor looks him over for a moment more. Then shakes his head "Still a mortal soul. Still alive. Just...displaced. It is very interesting"
The look that Alastor gives him is evaluating. Like his mother when she returns home to inspect his posture at the door. Like his father when Tim tells him about photography and his dad always asks about football instead.
Tim doesn't like football.
"How about a deal, Tim, in exchange for getting you back home?"
Tim freezes, stories about Faustian bargains and costs at the forefront of his mind in an instant.
But then his mother's voice filters through.
"Never accept a deal without knowing the terms, Timothy. But never turn it down, either. You never know what someone may offer"
So Tim swallows his fear. Swallows his inner-voice that says "No" with the certainty of a child.
He straightens his back like his mother taught him. He lifts his chin like his father does when greeting business partners.
"And what do you get in exchange?" He asks and rejoices when his voice doesn't shake as badly as he'd thought.
Alastor's smile widens and for a moment, Tim swears he can see antlers on the shadow behind him.
"Hm. Quite an interesting mortal child you are. You mentioned a scroll? Did you see if it survived your tumble?" He asks.
Tim tries to remember back but he can't. He shakes his head.
"No matter. If the scroll survives, I take possession of it. Is that fair?" Alastor says it like a question.
Tim knows it isn't.
He bites his lip and immediately releases when he realizes what he'd done.
Never show weakness.
But Alastor doesn't look at him any differently when Tim looks at him.
So Tim swallows.
He needs to get home.
And he was planning on getting rid of the scroll anyway.
His voice raises before his hand, shaky as it is. And he speaks.
"Deal"
Alastor's smile doesn't falter. His eyes glint. There are definitely antlers on the shadow behind him and his arms seem longer than before.
There's a red cross on his forehead that Tim doesn't think was there before.
But his hand fits into Tim's, fingers curling around his own with a warmth that feels like a human's.
There's a flash of green, unknown sigils floating around his head and the room in dizzying spins and glowing aftertrails.
And a moment later, Tim's back where he started.
Alone.
In his living room.
There's no scroll on the floor by the tongs.
But there is still a cut on the meat of his palm, smeared where it came into contact with another person.
The warmth from Alastor's hand lingers on his palm for a moment, drowning out everything else even as his head grows cold and his knees give out.
There's no scroll.
But there is a cut on his hand.
And if Tim squints, he can see a human-ish face to the shadow of the deer-head on the wall.