Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Blood . 

Blood dripping and sloughing down, down, down from jagged, yellowed fangs. 

Blood that smelled copper-sweet when it pooled thickly against the rock and crevasses that sheltered him. 

Blood that painted his white shirt red, sticking like syrup. 

Blood that choked him with their agony. 

Blood that called nausea from his stomach until bile stung his throat. 

Blood that flowed stronger the louder his parents screamed.

Tim woke with a convulsive gag. He rolled, flailing for a heartbeat, before careful hands caught him on a cold floor, keeping him stable against the short drop from the edge of the nest. A shift of his weight—something he learned from Dick, he remembered—and he brought himself from an awkward back-bend to his feet. 

Bare skin scuffed softly against the naked metal that made up ꃲꎡ꒦ꄡꁄꅐꅔꒄꍈꁄ’s ship, a soft chill settling the heart that screamed in his chest. Behind him, Dick shifted, something in his brother’s unconscious brain warning him of Tim’s absence. He’d always been attentive— if not smothering —something Tim could see in the deep purple lining each of his siblings’ faces, but especially Dick’s. Like he’d been in a fight. Against their now-clean skin, it was like paint. He looked so exhausted, collapsed atop the pile he’d made of Cass and Jason. Tim didn’t know how he’d wriggled his way so far.

Nausea still boiling in his gut, Tim turned from the nest and padded out the cracked-open door to the guest quarters. From above, dim, sterile light bathed his aimless path.

ꃲꎡ꒦ꄡꁄꅐꅔꒄꍈꁄ’s ship was huge. Huge, even in comparison to its pilot. Huge enough that Tim could walk for hours and never tread the same path twice. Huge enough that the ceilings arched over his head like the ruins of a cathedral he’d once been to. Huge and silent. So, eerily silent. 

Tim’s pace sped, the echo of human feet slapping against mystery metal bouncing back at him like the drumbeat of his blood-smell panic. He turned a corner, and the shadow of it nipped at his heels with a sound like blood against stone. It chased him, howling as the grounding chill of the ship turned sharp against his lungs. Ghosts played at the edges of his sight, and Tim knew it wasn’t real just as much as he knew the smooth ship-metal was not rough-edged stone, but still his heart cried danger , and still his mind conjured a snapping maw in the dark, too large to fit through the narrow alley he’d pushed himself through. Too fast to take the turns of winding sewers, where the bile and waste masked his scent.

Tim’s walk turned to a run without his permission, and the exposed stretch of his back burned in time with his own, ragged breaths chorusing with the panicked melody of his own gait. With the uneven drumbeat of his heart. He took a corner hard . Too hard, he realized when heart-stopping weightlessness seized his body and he tilted. Arm and shoulder bloomed with pain when he took the fall like he had any other, and his back ached against the floor when he rolled with the momentum, finding his feet not a breath after. Closer, ever-closer the imaginary maw drew, dripping with slick-sweet blood and torn, oily skin. Leaving a trail of viscera it couldn’t be bothered to slurp up. Tim had run faster, but he thought it was a near thing with the voices of so many — too many —trailing after him. Calling him. Screaming at him. 

He was moving again before he’d even realized, lungs barely wheezing in enough air to keep him upright. Dark spotted his vision. Dark made of gaping, drooling flesh. Reaching for him—searching with that long, grotesque tongue—

All of Tim’s momentum halted at once with an “oof.” His breath escaped in a sharp puff , followed quite immediately by a wheeze when his back impacted the cold floor, sending a sharp strike of pain up to his skull. For a long, long moment, Tim laid there, panting helplessly as his lungs spasmed, their efforts useless as he seized and convulsed. This is what dying feels like , Tim thought. Darkness clawed at the edges of his vision. Well, at least he wasn’t being eaten . 

It was a gasp that he pulled in a full breath of air at last. Like ambrosia in a desert, cooling his throat and slaking a parch he hadn’t realized had been there. He drank in the oxygen, all-but drowning in it as he panted greedily through a gaped-open mouth. His vision cleared in slow, splotchy patches. 

It took him a moment to realize. To see the blue in the black. To separate the silhouette from the dull overhead lighting. Longer, still for the thrum playing across his skin to consolidate into a low, quiet voice. 

“Tim.” Tim stared, mind blank, at the dark, tooth-filled maw above. “ Tim. ” Louder, then. Loud enough that it rumbled through his chest. His eyes stung. “Tim—” the rhythmic thump of four heavy limbs dancing around him drowned out his stuttering heart as ꃲꎡ꒦ꄡꁄꅐꅔꒄꍈꁄ swung his massive head around, searching. “—what is wrong, Tim? Where are your nestmates?” His tentacles were pulled up, over his head. Defensive, Tim thought. For what?

He didn’t see it, but he felt the warm-damp rush of air blast past him as that huge, lower maw opened. With the thick, swampish smell of ꃲꎡ꒦ꄡꁄꅐꅔꒄꍈꁄ’s breath, came the rattle of a growl. The sound had a presence , filling Tim’s chest and head and leaving no room for any thought. Any thought besides the primal, instinctive “RUN” that howled through his very veins. “RUN” his heart cried, the looming mass of predator that staked itself at his back scorching his neck. He rolled over himself and bolted .

Tim, still wheezing. Made it only about a step before a tentacle nearly the width of himself swooped down, its dark mass cutting off his escape. It curled around him, a loose loop of flesh that radiated body-warmth as it pressed against his chest. “ Tim .” he shuddered as the voice rolled through him, like the feeling of a building falling in the distance. “You are safe, Tim.” No, he thought, no, I’m not. Still, he turned properly, casting his gaze up, up, up, up until he could see the dark crest arching off the alien’s skull. 

“What happened?” the beast asked, its massive, building’s length legs folding until the beaked tip of its face nearly brushed his head. ꃲꎡ꒦ꄡꁄꅐꅔꒄꍈꁄ’s tentacle rose up under his hand. Red shone bright in the otherwise dull ship. Blood. “You’re injured.” 

His blood. 

Tim gagged.

It wasn’t a lot. In tiny, ruby beads, it bubbled up from under one of his fingernails, the broken edge of his untrimmed nails slung at an awkward angle and offering the liquid a carved path to follow. Tim still shivered. 

He didn’t like blood. As it was, he could smell the copper-sweet of it. Just from that tiny bit. The tears pooling on his lashes bubbled over, and he swallowed a sniffle. It hurt . More than it should . It hurt, and very, very suddenly, Tim wanted nothing more than to be home in that tiny lean-to, sitting on that dirty mattress, and watching Cass and Jason quarrel over whatever dumb thing —

Something dully pink—freckled black, and blue, and red like a mosaic—rasped against Tim’s hand, and it was warm . Warm like the sun was when it crawled out from behind clouds. Like his siblings were when they piled together in the winter months. Warm, and just slightly rough like cloth, and distinctly, disgustingly wet . Tim jolted back into the present just in time to see a divoted, flat, tongue vanish back into ꃲꎡ꒦ꄡꁄꅐꅔꒄꍈꁄ’s upper mouth. Tim froze. 

“Where are your nestmates, Tim?” The alien asked even as a viciously hooked claw tilted his head and limbs this way and that with deceiving care. “Are you injured anywhere else?” Muggy breath washed over him with every word, near-drenching him with the humidity that came with it. Tim’s stomach turned. His heart thundered in his chest. The smallest tear dropped to the metal floor of the ship.

“ Tim !” ꃲꎡ꒦ꄡꁄꅐꅔꒄꍈꁄ  stalked around him, and he didn’t have to be Cass to know that ꃲꎡ꒦ꄡꁄꅐꅔꒄꍈꁄ  was nervous, the quick, delicate, movement of his legs betraying him. The leathery membrane stretched between his foreleg and back ruffled . A low, thick, rumble echoed out from ꃲꎡ꒦ꄡꁄꅐꅔꒄꍈꁄ’s lower maw, but it quickly pitched up to a whistle . With it, urgency lanced down Tim’s spine, sharp and startling. 

Not nervous, Tim realized, eyes tracing the gape-mouthed pant of ꃲꎡ꒦ꄡꁄꅐꅔꒄꍈꁄ as he circled. Afraid . For what, he couldn’t say. He couldn’t even begin to imagine. Tim didn’t think there was anything a creature that big should be afraid of. “What did this to you? Are your nestmates safe?” 

The words were out of his mouth before he could even think to stop himself. “They’re asl—asleep,” he said, cursing himself for his stumble even as ꃲꎡ꒦ꄡꁄꅐꅔꒄꍈꁄ’s pacing slowed to a halt. “I—I tripped.” At least, he assumed he did. He didn’t remember exactly when he broke his nail. “I’m fine—uh—sir.” ꃲꎡ꒦ꄡꁄꅐꅔꒄꍈꁄ stopped in front of him again. Falling stars , he was so big . Big, and so, unnaturally quiet . So quiet that Tim could swear he heard a monstrous heartbeat so massive. So slow. A landslide, he thought. 

ꃲꎡ꒦ꄡꁄꅐꅔꒄꍈꁄ’s long neck and massive head lowered, down, down, down until a huff of warm air brushed past his head and that hooked crest came to rest just above Tim’s heart. He rumbled , and the alien’s voice filled Tim’s chest like cotton. His breath stalled, and despite the regular, warm gusts of ꃲꎡ꒦ꄡꁄꅐꅔꒄꍈꁄ’s breathing, he found himself chilled. The alien pushed his snout into Tim’s chest. He could probably feel the snare drum tune of Tim’s heart even through his odd alien clothes. 

Then the moment was gone. ꃲꎡ꒦ꄡꁄꅐꅔꒄꍈꁄ pulled away, taking his warm-chill with him. The walls seemed so much bigger. 

“Come,” he said with that autumn storm voice. “It is not good for you to lose sleep.” ꃲꎡ꒦ꄡꁄꅐꅔꒄꍈꁄ turned, tendril unraveling from around Tim’s waist as he started moving. The way he came, Tim realized, blankly following along in the shadow of the beast. Tim had no idea where he was—the halls seemed so similar , and he ran so far—but he was reasonably sure he’d never been this way, even in his midnight wandering. So, he followed. Even out of the beast’s sight, just its silhouette chilled his skin. 

Those tree-length legs swung ten or more of his steps before stopping, and still, Tim thought it was an awkwardly short stride for something so large. He remembered seeing them… back on Earth. Running, and leaping, strides stretching city blocks. 

ꃲꎡ꒦ꄡꁄꅐꅔꒄꍈꁄ was slowing down for something. 

Him?

Their walk was silent. ꃲꎡ꒦ꄡꁄꅐꅔꒄꍈꁄ looked back occasionally. Sometimes, Tim thought it really might be at him.

It took what he thought might be an hour or more, but the alien led Tim to what he could only believe was some kind of control room, floor-to-ceiling screens each angled just slightly different to those beside each other. Most, he thought, were star maps of some kind, but none he’d seen before, constellations broken up and mixed together until they were unrecognizable. Each screen had one, thick, solid line through it, straight until it hit a star where it would then angle to another, so on. 

So enraptured by knowledge he didn’t think he could entirely comprehend, Tim didn’t notice the padding on the floor until he almost tripped over it. He stumbled, but caught his footing just as easily, even though the floor sank under him disconcertingly. From above, ꃲꎡ꒦ꄡꁄꅐꅔꒄꍈꁄ rumbled, a quiet noise from his first maw. “Careful,” he instructed, folding his long legs under him until he could fully lay down, his second mouth hidden under the bumps in what Tim thought might just be one huge mattress. Huge, perhaps, was an understatement. Tim thought four or more of ꃲꎡ꒦ꄡꁄꅐꅔꒄꍈꁄ could lay down across the padded surface and not touch. That, at least, made it easy to find a place a little more than what he thought ꃲꎡ꒦ꄡꁄꅐꅔꒄꍈꁄ’s reach might be, and settle down to stare up at the starscape spread before him. Their… kidnapper seemed content to let him be, one long claw reaching up to tap at something atop the computer console. 

Slowly, the star charts changed. It was like watching the leaves in vines shift but very quickly. Patterns shifted and swirled, but the overall shape seemed to stay, like the dappled night skies were dancing around each other. That solid, white line followed, sketched between some star or another, deleted, corrected, changed, altered, until ꃲꎡ꒦ꄡꁄꅐꅔꒄꍈꁄ seemed satisfied and repeated the process on another screen. “You should sleep, Tim,” the alien said, maybe an hour—what time was it? Tim found he had no idea, a thought that sent a slight shudder down his spine. They always needed to keep a good track of time. It was dangerous not to. Hard to stay away from the patrols. Not that it really mattered anymore.

“I’m not tired,” he mumbled into the knees he drew up to his chin. He was, though. He was so, so tired. It was like his body was held together with a dream and some scotch tape. His eyes were like golf balls in his skull. Golf Balls that had been hammered until they were so deep, he thought they might be in his brain. 

ꃲꎡ꒦ꄡꁄꅐꅔꒄꍈꁄ snorted, head still directed toward the slowly-changing screens. “Terrans are supposed to get up to ten hours of sleep, are they not?” One of his tentacles was curling and uncurling against the mattress. Almost compulsively. 

“We don’t always get it.” Tim thought he should stop talking. That what he was doing was dangerous, and he shouldn’t give the alien the thought that there was something wrong with them. 

But it had been weeks, another, more reckless part of his brain whispered. The one that had gotten them caught in the first place. But it had been weeks, and he was so, so tired. None of them got good sleep. Not with—not with an alien so close. Especially not Tim.

He was so tired . 

“Is it an illness?” ꃲꎡ꒦ꄡꁄꅐꅔꒄꍈꁄ asked, and Tim glanced up to find the alien’s full attention on him. He shuddered, then, watching gooseflesh rise on his arm, wondered if ꃲꎡ꒦ꄡꁄꅐꅔꒄꍈꁄ ran warmer than humans did.

“Kind of.” 

A sound like falling trees and moving earth crashed down his spine, and it took all of Tim’s dwindling willpower to stay where he was. ꃲꎡ꒦ꄡꁄꅐꅔꒄꍈꁄ was humming. He’d heard that sound before, when he was thinking. It was different from the rock-against-rock growl. It was different. It was different, even if it moved his very bones with its weight. Even if it sounded nearly identical . Even if it was still terrifying . 

Tim could not make himself look like prey. 

Too late for that , a traitorous part of his mind muttered. Shut up. Shut up, shutup, shutup—

Tim did the only thing he could think of to get his mind to stop thinking . He talked. “‘S nightmares,” he admitted into the low bass that filled the space between him and the alien. “Makes sleeping hard. I just—” He muffled a sniff in his arm, and scrubbed at his face. He’d talked to Cass about it. Once. Every word was like his throat was being scored with a knife. Blood, blood, blood, blood, why was there so much blood? “—see… what happened. Over, and over, and—” His voice pitched to a squeak, and he swallowed hard. “It’s easier to not sleep.” 

ꃲꎡ꒦ꄡꁄꅐꅔꒄꍈꁄ regarded him with a silent, eyeless stare. It was deafening. It was suffocating. It was—

“Come here,” he ordered, one of his gargantuan arms—when had he stopped typing?—pulling back to his side, opening a space just between his elbow and collar. It was hidden, but Tim knew just a few feet away, that horrible, gaping lower maw rested. 

Tim did not, in fact, want to “come here.” Tim would much prefer living in a dirty vent for the rest of his life. 

Tim also didn’t want to make the several-ton-probably alien human-eater any more angry than it probably already was. He stumbled to shaking feet. He forced himself to move forward. He drug himself toward what his mind screamed was naught but oncoming death, and still he settled himself at the alien’s elbow, just where the rest of its arm met its barrel chest. He tried not to touch it, but ꃲꎡ꒦ꄡꁄꅐꅔꒄꍈꁄ radiated heat almost in time with the— audible Tim realized—low, quiet thump, thump, thump of a heart Tim thought might be bigger than he and the bellows-sound of lungs that were definitely bigger than Tim. 

If he wasn’t so afraid, Tim might have thought it would be good background noise. He let the curve of his back brush the smooth, rubbery almost, skin of the alien, but just barely.

“Nightmares would have to work very hard to reach you here,” ꃲꎡ꒦ꄡꁄꅐꅔꒄꍈꁄ said, and this close, Tim less heard him speak and more felt it, each syllable resonating in his skull like a gong. “Sleep, Tim. I will fight this battle.” Gargantuan, sickle claws crossed before him, pinning him in to the alley-sized space between ꃲꎡ꒦ꄡꁄꅐꅔꒄꍈꁄ’s chest and his forelegs. 

And, in an odd way, Tim supposed he was right. Because— his heart hammered. His lungs stalled. He shook, and shuddered, and wanted nothing more than to cry — Tim didn’t think anything on Earth or the next planets over could be more terrifying than being trapped, pinned, caught between the claws of the human-eating aliens. 

Really, he was surprised when nothing happened for the first probably-thirty minutes. ꃲꎡ꒦ꄡꁄꅐꅔꒄꍈꁄ had returned to his mapping, this time using his tentacles to type instead of the talons that were busy keeping Tim enclosed. Surprise faded slowly. Oh-so, painfully slowly. Every twitch, breath, noise, Tim thought it would be his end. 

But the hours were long. ꃲꎡ꒦ꄡꁄꅐꅔꒄꍈꁄ’s huge, ever-present heart slowed in its pattern to something just short of human... if human hearts beat in patterns of three and not two. Warmth bled into Tim from his back, and his adrenaline faded quicker with each startle. He didn’t know what time it was when he finally stopped counting the hours. He didn’t know what time it was when a blunt snout found its way against his hair and a voice low and soft like distant thunder told him to sleep. He was just… tired. So, so, so tired. Tired, and still a little chilled, and falling stars , he missed his parents.

Tim did not dream. Not more than the soft conversation that filtered through his light doze. Not more than the patterns behind his eyes that flashed softly with every heartbeat that roused him just enough to blink once and ensure he was still alive. Not more than the unfamiliar star patterns that lived in his mind, now, tangling together into a map so that maybe, one day, they could find their ways home again. 

ꃲꎡ꒦ꄡꁄꅐꅔꒄꍈꁄ found that moving at all disturbed Tim. That it would be impossible to return him to his nestmates without waking at least Tim, but more likely the whole lot of them. ꃲꎡ꒦ꄡꁄꅐꅔꒄꍈꁄ also found that according to how long Tim had been asleep, he would likely need to be still for another six hours at least… perhaps more, considering his youngest Terran’s apparent exhaustion. The little thing had fallen asleep despite the fear that ꃲꎡ꒦ꄡꁄꅐꅔꒄꍈꁄ  had hoped to abate some. 

He settled the length of his neck and his head against his shoulders. He would do well to set a good example in these early cycles. 

With a last glance at his now-second-youngest— and wasn’t that a thought? —ꃲꎡ꒦ꄡꁄꅐꅔꒄꍈꁄ let himself drift into rest. 

It didn't take long for him to wake, again. The acid-stink of fear drew him first to the body-warm, gentle heartbeat against his chest. His eyes weren't even open, but ꃲꎡ꒦ꄡꁄꅐꅔꒄꍈꁄ could tell that the rancid smell wasn't coming from the dozing—not quite sleeping, not yet waking—Terran tucked carefully between his forelegs. Absently, he lapped at the back of his hatchling's head as he forced his eyes open. Tim stared up at him, but even ꃲꎡ꒦ꄡꁄꅐꅔꒄꍈꁄ could tell he wasn't entirely awake. Roused by the disturbance, perhaps, but he knew—with a wrench in his heart—that had his hatchling been entirely conscious, he would have reeked of fear.

Thinking of…

ꃲꎡ꒦ꄡꁄꅐꅔꒄꍈꁄ swiveled his head, following the prey-smell of fright until he could just see three heads of dark fur peeking around the corner of the pilot station. Their whispers were quiet, but he could still hear them—barely—from where he rested. Cass slapped lightly at Dick's shoulder for attention, and he turned, placing his blind spot to ꃲꎡ꒦ꄡꁄꅐꅔꒄꍈꁄ. Immediately, he realized they hadn’t seen him wake, too caught in their own conversation.

“ How do you know he didn’t just wipe his face,” Jason hissed at whatever Cass had communicated with her flailing, but oddly precise gestures. She pinched his ear, and he yelped. The sound felt too loud with Tim so vulnerably unconscious next to him. ꃲꎡ꒦ꄡꁄꅐꅔꒄꍈꁄ’s mouth was already open to chastise them when Dick physically shouldered his way between the two, voice low and annoyance, fear radiating from him. He was the center of the acidic stink.

“Tim's probably just out on another walk. C'mon, it doesn't look like he's here.” Cass and Jason stared at each other, their tiny, expressive faces cycling through a whole collection of movements before they both looked back at his eldest. Cass moved her hands again, and Jason bared his teeth discomfort . 

Dick hesitated. Then, slowly, all three turned to look at him. 

“Children,” ꃲꎡ꒦ꄡꁄꅐꅔꒄꍈꁄ acknowledged, smoothing his tendrils flush with his back. The fear-smell was overwhelming. Like a claw to the face or a blaster to his chest. It was an effort not to whine with it, but he stifled the sound anyway. He would not let them think their fear bothered him. They would learn in time.

“ We are not telling the giant monster that we lost Tim, ” Jason whispered to Dick, and  ꃲꎡ꒦ꄡꁄꅐꅔꒄꍈꁄ imagined he fancied himself stealthy in that regard. Cute. 

Tim shifted at his arm, and ꃲꎡ꒦ꄡꁄꅐꅔꒄꍈꁄ shifted his sight to look at him, his breath shallowing immediately. Tim blinked once. Twice. Rubbed the back of his head, then simply turned until he faced the opposite direction and covered his face with thin, weedy limbs. Adorable. 

ꃲꎡ꒦ꄡꁄꅐꅔꒄꍈꁄ allowed himself to breathe again just in time for Cass to kick Jason's leg. Jason, predictably, yelped, and on instinct, ꃲꎡ꒦ꄡꁄꅐꅔꒄꍈꁄ's head whipped around. “ Children ,” he chastised, voice low and oh how that fear-smell sickened him. “Hush, your nestmate is sleeping.” 

Three sets of stark, vulnerable eyes turned to him. “Tim?” came the chorus of voices—significantly quieter. 

Obligingly, as the three shuffled cautiously forward, he untangled his legs and let them see their nestmate, nestled warmly just under his heart. They had questions. He could see it on their faces. They had questions, and they were afraid , so, so afraid. Even still, Dick ducked under his foreleg, walking ever-so softly on the nesting cushion until he could sit down next to Tim, his eyes boring into ꃲꎡ꒦ꄡꁄꅐꅔꒄꍈꁄ's. There was distrust there, but for his hatchlings, ꃲꎡ꒦ꄡꁄꅐꅔꒄꍈꁄ could ignore it.

Cass followed quickly after, while Jason hesitated in his shadow. Whatever bond they had, though, was far, far stronger than their fear. He could feel it as even Jason joined his nestmates in the pile they were quickly making. 

Something in ꃲꎡ꒦ꄡꁄꅐꅔꒄꍈꁄ's heart settled with all of his present hatchlings tucked between his claws, protected. They were still afraid, shaking and rigid against him, but they were safe . Tension unwound from his neck, and he settled his head between his shoulders, fully intent on returning to his own rest despite the haze of fear thick in the air and his own mind's demands to soothe his brood. They would not soothe, not now. Not with him so close, though it was a blade to his chest to think of it. But… he could stand to be a little selfish. Just enough to keep them close. 

Tim had been mentally kicking himself all day. He'd fallen asleep . Next to the alien . It was a miracle he was still alive. 

Or, some traitorous, exhausted part of his brain whispered, you're wrong.

Except he wasn’t, and he knew it. He did not watch hundreds of people die just to throw his own life away—and for what? A nap?

Tim kicked the nest of bedding he and his siblings had taken from various parts of the ship, glaring at the mess of blankets and miscellaneous soft things as if he could set it on fire just by looking at it, and oh how he wished —

But wishing was the currency of fools. Tim let himself flop back into the nest, glaring up at the high ceilings and forcing his spinning, contradictory mind to think. They were given basically free reign of the ship as long as it didn't have a door on it. He'd seen the alien star maps. He knew Earth's stars. He just had to figure out what to do with it. 

Some cynical, annoying part of him that sounded an awful lot like Jason informed him—unhelpfully—that there was no way they could return to Earth. That it was a death sentence . That even if they did manage to navigate their way back to the lean-to, eventually, someone would catch them. And then they'd be dead, and back to square one. 

He still thought it was worth a shot. Probably. Maybe they could use the ship to nuke the aliens.

Tim elected to ignore the fact that if they nuked the aliens, any surviving humans would die, too. 

So, escape plans.

Tim had exactly one. He'd have to—somehow—get up on that huge console and figure out how, exactly , the alien ship-map worked , and then he'd have to reprogram it. Easy. Probably. Maybe. He rolled over and buried his face in the blankets. 

Maybe it would make more sense if he could see it…

Anyway, that's how Tim found himself crammed between the small-to-aliens gap between one console and the other trying to parse exactly how he intended to get from the ground to almost ten feet up. The answer, Tim found, was a simple “try and see what happens.”

What happened was that while the somewhat dusty, unsanded surface of the side was perfect for him to brace against, the metal of the desk’s surface was slippery. Not impossibly slippery, but upon crawling atop the sleek surface of the console, Tim decided that hands and knees were better than just feet. He wasn’t Dick, after all, and couldn’t simply… stick to surfaces whenever he wanted to. Learned from the circus or not, that was just plain unfair. 

Thinking on it, then, man, he was glad his siblings had let him sleep in and left him to his own devices. There was no way they’d think him being up on the console was a good idea, but who else was gonna do it? Jason? Maybe he could even get the ship reprogrammed while ꃲꎡ꒦ꄡꁄꅐꅔꒄꍈꁄ was busy. 

Maybe.

All this running a soft background music in his head, Tim stared at the massive keyboard. Each key was almost the length of his whole arm. They made for good handholds, but predictably, Tim understood nothing. That was fine, he could figure it out! He always did. 

What was less fine was that pressing a single button—something he quite literally stumbled across when he tripped on a more-than-usual raised key—changed every symbol to a completely different one. With forty keys by his count… ah. This might take a while. Oh no.

“ Tim!”

Oh no.

Four voices called out in unison, and Tim flinched, startled. His climber's grip on the squiggly vertical line key slipped. 

Why was he always falling?

His vision pitched and tilted, spinning wildly as he lost his grip and all-but bounced his way down the slanted keyboard. He probably hit most of the keys on the way down and not even halfway, bloody, red light spewed from the console, bathing the room in imagined viscera that had Tim’s heart crawling up his throat. 

Up became down, down became up, and he tumbled arm-over-arm across ice-smooth metal. Tim's shoulder hit something that didn't give like the keys did, and—

Suddenly, there was no more desk under him.

Tim couldn’t help but wail when his brain caught up with his body. Air rushed past him, whistling in his ears, and the world warped with his momentum. Below, three dark silhouettes reached up toward him. They wouldn’t be able to catch him. He felt so high up, like he was standing atop the cusp of the world even though he knew he’d fallen further and lived—just so long as he could get his shoulder under him.

Unfortunately, under was a quite relative term at the moment.

Tim’s arms reached up, tangling in his hair and protecting his vulnerable head from the impact he could feel coming when the air stiffened. 

His breath escaped with a parting squeak when something clamped down around his whole torso . He was pretty sure his brain continued falling, though, all notion of logic escaping in the moment his weight settled around his bones again. With the return in sensation, warmth wrapped him like someone had woven the sun into a blanket. Moisture bled in through his clothes, filtering in between the fibers and sticking to his skin. Movement crawled under his belly. 

His siblings were yelling. These facts were not connecting in his mind, floating like fireflies just out of reach. There was something important about it, he thought.

A sigh whooshed around him, sending near-boiling breath swirling around his fingertips. Tim looked up.

Thick, dark lips parted just around his chest, his grey clothing vanishing beneath the almost-skin scales. Under ꃲꎡ꒦ꄡꁄꅐꅔꒄꍈꁄ's chin, his legs dangled uselessly, numb with adrenaline. Warm air panted by him, a short, sharp movement that plastered—plastered saliva to his skin.

Realization hit him like a rampaging buck. Tim screamed.

He couldn't help it. There was nothing, then, suddenly, he couldn’t think. He couldn’t think past the fearscaredangryhelphelpHELP. His siblings’ voices chorused his, and the noise muffled his brain. 

Gravity pitched, and he bit his tongue, because his stomach roiled and acid burned in his mouth. He found cloth under his hands. Cloth, hands in his face, voices in his ears. Cold moved in, drowning his warmth and something popped . He knew nothing but high, sharp ringing and blurry silhouettes smeared with the windborne tears pooling in his eyes. 

It was like the world was muffled, far away from him and making the… everything happening outside of his own little world almost incomprehensible. Tim’s brain caught up with him. One, ꃲꎡ꒦ꄡꁄꅐꅔꒄꍈꁄ had saved him from possibly becoming a splat on the floor, or at least breaking something. Two, he was very, very damp. Not quite… wet , but damp. Damp enough that when he shakily pushed his hair back from his face, it stayed with a slick-feeling squelch . Three, his siblings thought he was hurt. Four, he was reasonably sure he was not, in fact, hurt. 

Five, he really felt like he needed to vomit. 

Which he did. 

Not that there was much to bring up, but Tim didn’t think the toxic acid-smell was helping his mental state, nor the growing stain spreading into the dark fabric of the pilot’s… chair . Nest. Thing. Then again, Tim didn’t think anything would help his mental state, actually, he almost died. Maybe. Probably. Tim didn’t think he’d been aware enough to take the roll, anyway. 

The ringing was stopping, though. That was nice. 

He didn’t catch Dick's exact words, but it was something about broken bones and whiplash. Jason’s presence covered his back from where he was holding Tim up by the shoulder. He was out of sight, though and with Cass shaking too hard to sign, there were really only two people—one person, one alien—he could properly talk to. 

Tim's eyes gravitated towards ꃲꎡ꒦ꄡꁄꅐꅔꒄꍈꁄ. He looked mad. He looked really, really mad. Those deadly tentacles were drawn up, curved like a scorpion's tail. Claws usually tucked up and out of the way clicked on metal as he paced, gait like a stalking cat. His lower maw, usually closed, gaped, gasping air as if he were suffocating. Tim hunched, following the motion of ꃲꎡ꒦ꄡꁄꅐꅔꒄꍈꁄ's claws with his eyes as Dick stood to pace his own circle, nervous in the face of the alien. 

Well, eight years and a little bit wasn’t a bad run, was it?

“Tim.” ꃲꎡ꒦ꄡꁄꅐꅔꒄꍈꁄ's voice was a growl . Tim didn’t think he was just angry. Dick's anxiety peaked with the jolt in his step. Tim could see it in the way he stiffened. In the way the goosebumps shot across his skin. Tim was reaching out before Dick even moved, but Dick was—had always been faster. 

“Wait!” Dick cried, placing himself bodily before Tim. His voice caught with the desperation he carried in his shoulders. “Punish me instead. He won't do it again, right Tim?” Dick looked back at him, his eyes pleading, and Tim found himself nodding. “He's just a kid.” Then, whispered, “he's just a kid.” They all knew Dick couldn’t survive another loss. It would break him. Knowing that, though, was different than seeing the way he rooted himself in front of Tim and stared down death for the second time in too little time.

ꃲꎡ꒦ꄡꁄꅐꅔꒄꍈꁄ’s posture was impassive. Grand and unmoving like the ship they stood on. He simply stared down at Dick, massive chest moving just slightly with the puffs of warm air that fell to them. Then, like the click of a hammer pulling back, “Move aside, Dick.” Nothing should ever, ever be that big. Nothing should be big enough for its shadow to simply swallow Dick's. To strip away that bare protection that Tim didn’t deserve. Not from kind, clever Dick. 

“It's okay,” Tim whispered.

“No!” One of those huge, sharp-clawed talons came down in the same moment Dick shouted. It looked so easy for the beast to pin him, his limbs sprawled out like a pinned insect despite his persistent screeching and writhing. Something to the effect of “take me not him,” or “don’t eat him, please he didn’t mean to.” Tim wasn’t really listening, his eyes stuck on ꃲꎡ꒦ꄡꁄꅐꅔꒄꍈꁄ’s sickle claws as their tips raised away from Dick’s grasping hands. 

Of course, Jason rushed forward, and of course, Cass followed. In a pile of limbs and yelling, they were all collected under the alien's claws. They were just… too small. Too small to stop it. 

And then it looked at him. 

Tim shivered. Tried to rip his eyes away to take one last glance at his siblings, and found he couldn’t when that huge, black-blue beast angled down and snaked its head forward until it was at most an arm’s length from Tim.

“ Never—” ꃲꎡ꒦ꄡꁄꅐꅔꒄꍈꁄ started, the single word like a gunshot in a building. Like a heart-attack against Tim’s sternum. Its breath boiled against his skin. “— ever put yourself in danger like that again.” The alien loomed over him, casting him in its dark shadow. A shadow that did not blanket him like Dick’s or shield him like Cass and Jason, but held him down so that he was left with nothing to do but stare . “That was foolish. Dangerous . And what for?” He was furious . Tim could feel it in the air. The same tense, terse atmosphere in every gala, but so, so much more. It was sickening. “Do you hear me, Tim?”

Tim shivered again. “Yes.” Warm air washed over him. He shut his eyes tight, spine crawling under his skin. Maybe it would kill him quickly since he agreed.

“Good,” ꃲꎡ꒦ꄡꁄꅐꅔꒄꍈꁄ rumbled. The trapped air between them fled, and he cracked open a single eye. Tim thought he'd gotten okay at reading the alien’s sounds, but he'd never heard that one before. Like a distant typhoon. Low. Ominous. ꃲꎡ꒦ꄡꁄꅐꅔꒄꍈꁄ turned his head on that all-but liquid neck to stare at the Dick-Jason-Cass pile under his claws. “That goes for the rest of you, as well.” Those deadly spires lifted away from soft, human skin. “If you need something, ask .” 

Tim and his siblings crashed into each other, limbs tangling into an ungraceful pile. Tears flooded the whole lot of their eyes, but never fell, even when Dick knocked their heads together desperately. ꃲꎡ꒦ꄡꁄꅐꅔꒄꍈꁄ let them be, standing over them like some dreaded obsidian sphinx.

Tim still couldn’t look away.

“It’s just a routine stop,” ꃲꎡ꒦ꄡꁄꅐꅔꒄꍈꁄ said over breakfast, though his side of the table held no meal. Tim thought it was because of them. ꃲꎡ꒦ꄡꁄꅐꅔꒄꍈꁄ never ate in front of them. “Without the carrier ship’s freighter engines, we will be much slower returning to ꁍꅂꇞꀟꅔꉈ than an outgoing trip.” 

“So…” Jason drawled, but his posture was as tense as Tim’s other siblings’. “We need gas?” He trailed his spoon in the radioactive-green soup. Tim had half the mind to try stealing some more, even though ꃲꎡ꒦ꄡꁄꅐꅔꒄꍈꁄ seemed to have no issue retrieving seconds or thirds. 

“Gas?” The alien parroted, head cocking as his silver-white eyes narrowed just slightly. Curious. 

“Fuel,” Tim corrected as Dick elbowed Jason from a seat over, something like careful-warning flickering across his face for just the briefest of moments. “We—we used to call fuel for our vehicles gas.” The “ before ” went unspoken. It always did, really. In fairness, Tim wasn’t as attached to the concept as his other siblings were. He didn’t get to live much of it, anyway. 

It was harder to talk about than it should be, though.

“Then yes,” ꃲꎡ꒦ꄡꁄꅐꅔꒄꍈꁄ blinked, one side always slightly faster than the other. Dick thought it was some kind of neurological issue. That something about brain damage had him mistaking them for something of his. 

Something to be hoarded instead of eaten.

Tim, personally, didn’t hold too much stock in that theory. ꃲꎡ꒦ꄡꁄꅐꅔꒄꍈꁄ didn’t have any other symptoms. He was always so exact in his movements. So sure of his speech. It was just that blink. That odd, too-slow-too-fast blink of too-silver eyes. There were really too many “somethings” in that theory for Tim. 

“We require fuel to continue the journey.” Right. There was a conversation happening. “While stopped, I hope to find something more fitting for your clothes,” ꃲꎡ꒦ꄡꁄꅐꅔꒄꍈꁄ  continued. A glance around the table, and Tim could tell Cass had already checked out of the conversation, disinterested. Dick and Jason still stared at the dark creature, skeptical. “It would be best if you were to stay on the ship. It would be under lockdown—secured from the outside.” 

Jason bristled, and Dick had started damage control before a word had so much had formed on his lips. With the eldest—and broadly the most non confrontational when it came to aliens who could eat people—otherwise occupied, Tim was asking questions before he’d entirely processed it. “Why? Er—why can’t we go with you, I mean?”

ꃲꎡ꒦ꄡꁄꅐꅔꒄꍈꁄ’s purr all-but shook the ship, Tim thought. It certainly rattled his brain in his skull as the sound folded over him, its weight settling across his skin. It took a breath or two for it to boil down to a low hum so ꃲꎡ꒦ꄡꁄꅐꅔꒄꍈꁄ could continue without deafening the lot of them. “There are some who would steal away all they could carry.” A pause when the sound died. Tim’s skin itched. “Sentient or not.” 

“Oh.” And Tim was nothing but surprised when ꃲꎡ꒦ꄡꁄꅐꅔꒄꍈꁄ seemed to think the prospect would keep him from walking on an alien planet . 

It was a few hours-ish later by the clock in the control room when ꃲꎡ꒦ꄡꁄꅐꅔꒄꍈꁄ was preparing to leave. Tim was ready. Almost. “Computer,” he asked, tossing a makeshift ball up and down to feign innocence, “what’s the atmosphere like on the planet we’re landing on?” 

There was a moment of (almost) suspicious silence before his request was processed. “ Much like your terra, ” the computer reported. Tim launched the ball at the wall, and smacked it back out of the air when it rebounded. “ Nitrogen levels and air pressure significantly higher. Temporary habitation possible. Not recommended .” 

If Tim followed recommendations ever, then he wouldn’t be getting sleep every night-ish. He grinned to himself, plan already in place. 

ꃲꎡ꒦ꄡꁄꅐꅔꒄꍈꁄ didn’t even notice when he slipped out the airlock door a half-heartbeat before it shut, a meager set of supplies heavier. As it turned out, the belt Dick fashioned him made for an excellent place to store things like emergency flares… concocted out of soup and spare electronics. 

Tim took a deep breath, and immediately, his lungs felt… weird. Not bad- weird, but… odd. Like the air was pushing itself into him. It tasted weird, too. Salty, almost. The feeling faded as he continued running the odd flavor over his tongue. If he were to guess, his pressure was equalizing with the atmosphere’s. His ears had popped when the airlock pressurized. 

Something crunched under his foot when he took a step, and Tim froze , eyes locked onto the quickly-fading figure of ꃲꎡ꒦ꄡꁄꅐꅔꒄꍈꁄ as he slunk through the—ah. The salty taste made sense, Tim supposed, staring down at the tiny shards of white crystals collected around the boots he’d pilfered from the washroom. The surface of the planet was salt. At least, it was where the ship had landed. 

ꃲꎡ꒦ꄡꁄꅐꅔꒄꍈꁄ continued on his path, oblivious. 

Weird, usually his hearing was really sensitive. It must be the sound the crystals made drowning out Tim’s footsteps. He grinned. Grinned and elected not to think about how panicked his siblings would be when they figured out he was not, in fact, showering. 

The planet, Tim found as he followed in ꃲꎡ꒦ꄡꁄꅐꅔꒄꍈꁄ’s absurdly gargantuan footsteps, was, in fact, mostly white . Whether salt, or quartz, or some pale, mystery element ꃲꎡ꒦ꄡꁄꅐꅔꒄꍈꁄ had not yet shown him, Tim couldn’t tell, but he wasn’t disintegrating on the spot, so he called it good. Among the white, occasional spots of dark grey or black shone through, marking what seemed to be paths among what was quickly becoming an eye-searingly bright background. 

He couldn’t figure out where the light was coming from, but it was almost like shadows didn’t exist under it. An absurd thought, but the fact that the familiar divots and lines in his hands seemed almost flat was more so. So, so, so weird . Weird but cool . He grinned as he followed ꃲꎡ꒦ꄡꁄꅐꅔꒄꍈꁄ’s trail. He was such an idiot. 

But right now, he was a happy idiot.

A happiness which lasted about the next four miles and no more. As it turned out, as fun as the crunching salt under his stolen boots was, the novelty wore off at about the same time Tim’s muscles started crying out for help he would not give them. ꃲꎡ꒦ꄡꁄꅐꅔꒄꍈꁄ didn’t seem to tire at all as they walked, and Tim—his mind crowed victory even though he was quickly discovering why some shoes had such massive soles—noted he was going much faster than inside the ship, with strides that cleared building’s lengths as Tim picked his way through a walking path that dwarfed the slightly-taller-than-he-was-sized-aliens’ whole town. 

Ignoring the ache in his legs, Tim jogged a little closer to ꃲꎡ꒦ꄡꁄꅐꅔꒄꍈꁄ. Admittedly, he was a little annoyed. As fun as sneaking out was, Tim could have avoided the trouble if ꃲꎡ꒦ꄡꁄꅐꅔꒄꍈꁄ had just let them come with him. He’d been living in a world with giant , man-eating aliens. He could handle a few thieves not more than heads-and-shoulders taller than he was. Tim huffed. 

A shadow fell over him, and he threw himself forward before he’d even had the thought to. Air squeezed between him and the ground, and his ears popped again, and not half a breath after he’d cleared the cool darkness, a gargantuan foot—thicker around than ꃲꎡ꒦ꄡꁄꅐꅔꒄꍈꁄ’s by far but not quite so long— crunched onto the street behind him.

Heart seizing, Tim looked up.

The creature, another alien, spared a tiny glance down to him with its ice-blue eyes, its frilled crest rising and falling in a manner that reminded him of pigeons. 

A very, very, shiny, golden pigeon. Its whole body took on an almost-hammered look, shiny and reflective, and oh , that hurt his eyes in the white. He gaped, and it whistled a high, soft tune at him that he couldn’t even begin to think to translate. It was like hundreds of people humming at once. And, just like that, the alien continued in its path, turning away from him to do… whatever it was gonna do. 

Cool. 

Tim shook when he stood, adrenaline crying danger , and instinct rebelling. His conscious thoughts, though, that was wonder . Wonder because he was right . These aliens lacked context. They didn’t want to eat him because he was just… just another alien . 

A laugh bubbled out of him. Unintentionally, perhaps, but it was so right , warming him down to his fingers as he turned back to follow ꃲꎡ꒦ꄡꁄꅐꅔꒄꍈꁄ again. 

“Tim.” 

Tim’s laugh cut off with a cough, and he almost tripped over his own feet. White claws that seemed almost blue against the backdrop of stark salt-color tapped impatiently against the trimmed black brick. Gaunt, lanky talons crossed at their first joint, rising to rocked-back shoulders… and the sharp, thoroughly unimpressed gaze of four silver eyes. 

Tim thought being able to turn invisible would be a great power to have. Completely unrelated to the alien staring him down. Totally. 

ꃲꎡ꒦ꄡꁄꅐꅔꒄꍈꁄ sighed . More of a leaking-of-air from his lower-maw, really. Tim thought it was something he picked up from Dick. “Tim,” he said, and Tim scuffed his boot in the dusting of salt that sprinkled the ground. “How did you get off of the ship?” ꃲꎡ꒦ꄡꁄꅐꅔꒄꍈꁄ was trying to balance his voice in that way that reminded Tim somewhat of the few times he’d seen ꋫ꒒ꌺꎡꁄꁕꇛꁄꍈꍈꒄꋃꅂꎡꇞꀟ speaking to him. The “ not-angry, stressed-tired-annoyed” tone is what Cass had called it.

It still made a jolt of fear race through his spine. 

“I—um—followed you,” Tim admitted, crushing the desire to run. He didn’t need to run. “If you run, you look like food,” is what Dick had said a lifetime ago. It was about the escaped zoo tigers, but Tim thought it would work fine with ꃲꎡ꒦ꄡꁄꅐꅔꒄꍈꁄ .

Their dragon-esque hoard-keeper remained staring at him. Considering. Then, as if he’d lost some kind of silent battle, ꃲꎡ꒦ꄡꁄꅐꅔꒄꍈꁄ sighed again. “Follow me, then. Stay close.” 

Tim smiled and fell into step.

The quiet did not last long. ꃲꎡ꒦ꄡꁄꅐꅔꒄꍈꁄ’s tentacles twitched, the length of them shuddering when he turned to look at Tim. “Whatever possessed you to do something so foolish? It is dangerous for you to be out here alone.” 

And Tim, because he absolutely was not going to explain his current disagreement with his siblings, simply shrugged. “I wanted to,” he said, and ꃲꎡ꒦ꄡꁄꅐꅔꒄꍈꁄ’s sickle-claw twitched. Annoyed . It didn’t even so much as turn towards Tim, though, and his heart only skipped a few beats. “Besides, these guys don’t seem so dangerous.” Tim spun, arms out, as a gesture mostly, but in part just to do it.

“They are not what I was concerned about. This planet has a high population of ꇛꁄꍈꁅ꒦ ꀧꍈ. They can be… difficult.” Tim eyed the buildings as they passed. They were getting bigger on average. “And compared to terrans… they are very large.” 

Tim thought it would make more sense to keep the big things on the outside of the city, but he was noticing a distinct increase in large-creature foot traffic compared to by the ship. He drifted into ꃲꎡ꒦ꄡꁄꅐꅔꒄꍈꁄ’s shadow, dodging between his long legs until Tim was nearly directly under him. Better be safe than sorry. 

“Admittedly… I do not know of their appetite .” Tim shuddered, and almost tripped when ꃲꎡ꒦ꄡꁄꅐꅔꒄꍈꁄ stopped walking. “I can lead you back to the ship.”

He made it this far. Absolutely not . 

“N—no, that’s okay. I want to see the city.” 

ꃲꎡ꒦ꄡꁄꅐꅔꒄꍈꁄ huffed. “Colony. This is a colony moon; no native species.” And they were moving again. 

As it turned out, shopping with ꃲꎡ꒦ꄡꁄꅐꅔꒄꍈꁄ took forever . It’d been hours since they’d left the ship, and they’d actually looked around one store. One! Tim didn’t know how there were so many buildings in one place all selling different things and ꃲꎡ꒦ꄡꁄꅐꅔꒄꍈꁄ couldn’t find whatever it was he was looking for. The only store they’d stayed in for more than the time it took ꃲꎡ꒦ꄡꁄꅐꅔꒄꍈꁄ to bark something at whoever kept the stock hadn’t lasted longer than ten minutes of ꃲꎡ꒦ꄡꁄꅐꅔꒄꍈꁄ looking over the racks of… probably-clothes and snorting derisively. 

Jason was probably bored out of his mind . 

Tim was certainly getting to that point. How could going shopping —an already weird concept—in a giant alien city be boring ? Yet as ꃲꎡ꒦ꄡꁄꅐꅔꒄꍈꁄ checked what was probably the millionth sign they’d stopped at, Tim found himself about five seconds from licking the salt off the sidewalk just to see what it tasted like. 

He thought ꃲꎡ꒦ꄡꁄꅐꅔꒄꍈꁄ was getting anxious, too. He’d growl or and murmur to himself, and his lower mouth twitched near-constantly. The last store he’d poked his head into he’d snarled at the keeper and stalked off with what tentacles not used to herd Tim away waving in the air. Tim made a mental note that apparently ꃲꎡ꒦ꄡꁄꅐꅔꒄꍈꁄ didn’t seem to enjoy shopping. Or talking to other aliens. Or really being outside, if his near-constant attempts to remove the salt from his dark skin was anything meaningful. 

The next building ꃲꎡ꒦ꄡꁄꅐꅔꒄꍈꁄ ushered him into was colder than the outside, and less cramped than the others. Something-or-other that were… probably clothes, maybe food, likely not fuel of any kind lined the walls in narrow, stacked ridges. They were sorted by shape, but not by color, and it somewhat looked like someone attached a rainbow paint can to a bird and set it loose. The wide main walkway—an extension of the dark brick from outside—leading directly through the store to a hunched-over alien perhaps half the size of ꃲꎡ꒦ꄡꁄꅐꅔꒄꍈꁄ was the only thing not eye-bleedingly bright . 

The hunched-over alien, an attendant, Tim thought, garbled something at ꃲꎡ꒦ꄡꁄꅐꅔꒄꍈꁄ. 

In his shadow, Tim could feel the way ꃲꎡ꒦ꄡꁄꅐꅔꒄꍈꁄ bristled . All four tentacles whipped over his head, and Tim had to duck when his lower mouth cracked open to growl , low and dangerous. 

The attendant growled back . 

When ꃲꎡ꒦ꄡꁄꅐꅔꒄꍈꁄ visibly took offense, the vague, blurry image of the last Gala he could remember filtered in through the animal noises the two aliens were trading. He knew what arguing over price or business looked like, and Tim guessed it looked the same even on aliens. 

He was ready when ꃲꎡ꒦ꄡꁄꅐꅔꒄꍈꁄ snapped something that Tim probably shouldn’t repeat even if he could and whirled, the tentacles previously used to posture and threaten lowering to herd Tim along. 

Back to searching, Tim supposed when they stepped back onto the primary sidewalk.

ꃲꎡ꒦ꄡꁄꅐꅔꒄꍈꁄ seemed to know where he wanted to go, this time, his head never twisting from its newfound path. 

The dark-marbled arches of the next store preceded somewhere that looked absolutely nothing like any of the stores Tim had glanced in prior. Tables and chairs rooted to a wide, curving floorspace, each shaped differently than the last. Instead of brick, the surface of the floor was a smooth tile, polished until it was almost a mirror, interrupted only by huge, wooden-looking, polished pillars. 

ꃲꎡ꒦ꄡꁄꅐꅔꒄꍈꁄ, unlike Tim, did not stop to admire the architecture, instead stalking up to the nearest hopefully-store-keeper and grinding some series of words out from bared teeth. 

Tim looked away, and instead scanned the faces of the other shoppers. Er… what he assumed were their faces. Something he’d quickly learned from endlessly searching through species catalogs was that eyes, apparently, were not a universal trait. Or brains. Anyway, it seemed most of the other shoppers, hovering over and picking at displays of… something , had eyes, at least. Brains, unconfirmed. The golden one he had seen earlier was there, even, and Tim quickly found that it had way more eyes than he thought it did. Like… a lot more eyes. They spiraled into its skull like a tornado. 

“Tim.” He craned his head back, catching just ꃲꎡ꒦ꄡꁄꅐꅔꒄꍈꁄ’s crest in his view. “Come here.” The pale pads on the underside of ꃲꎡ꒦ꄡꁄꅐꅔꒄꍈꁄ’s talons turned to face him. Only the barest hesitation, and Tim stepped into the bowl-shape the alien had made with his digits. 

Being carried was still so, so disorienting. Maybe better than walking, though, Tim thought, as some muscle or another in his leg cramped. He closed his eyes against the nausea of watching the world move around him, and instead rested his head against ꃲꎡ꒦ꄡꁄꅐꅔꒄꍈꁄ’s thumb. His slow, even pulse echoed through the veins Tim leaned against. He stifled a yawn. How long had it been since they’d left the ship?

The next sensation Tim processed was ꃲꎡ꒦ꄡꁄꅐꅔꒄꍈꁄ’s warmth pulling away. Tim whined , reaching, and only when his hand slapped a smooth, cold surface did he startle, eyes popping open. 

He was on one of those tables. The ones that were displaying the things the aliens were looking at. Tim blinked, casting his gaze around. Dark, leathery skin surrounded him on all sides, blue mixing with black and grey. A gust of warm air brushed the back of his neck. Tim wrinkled his nose. 

What’s going on ?

Tim propped himself up, hauling his protesting body to his knees so he could see over the arch of ꃲꎡ꒦ꄡꁄꅐꅔꒄꍈꁄ’s absurdly long arm. 

Huh, was it normal shopping behavior to poke around at such delicate-looking displays? What was that golden one doing—

It hit Tim all at once. 

That was food . 

“Um,” Tim mumbled, rubbing the remains of his five-minute nap from his face, and trying to seize his heart in his chest and stop it from… doing whatever it was it was doing that made his body ache .  “What are we doing here?” 

From above, ꃲꎡ꒦ꄡꁄꅐꅔꒄꍈꁄ hummed . “Something I should have done earlier.” Well, Tim’s heart wasn’t beating too fast, anymore. He figured the fact that it felt as though it simply stopped beating at all was… not ideal , though. Sweat beaded down his back. 

“And—and—ah—” Tim squeaked . “What is that?” 

It was too late. Tim could see that it was too late. Could see it when the alien’s neck arched with the serpentine, fluid movement it made when it was about to dip down. When that zipper-tooth mouth cracked open like a fissure in rock and exposed yellowed fangs. 

He couldn’t even get to his feet on time, the ingrained habit of sitting as if he’d have to run immediately degraded from long, lazy days. He tripped on his way up, stumbling only to be caught on warm leather. Claws closed on his back. 

Boiling breath pooled on his neck. 

With little else to do, Tim covered his head and scrunched his eyes closed. 

He still wasn’t prepared when that rough-like-cloth, smooth-like-skin texture of the alien’s tongue rasped up the curve of his back. Tim shrieked , locking his arms and bracing as if he could wiggle his way out of the alien’s grasp. It rumbled , and the sound rattled his teeth. “Hush,” the creature grumbled out from between its razor teeth. “Be still.”

Tears pooled on his lashes, and Tim sniffed. 

Dick was right . 

Spit cooled on his shoulders, soaking through his clothes. Dripping down his neck. His breath hitched. 

And again, it was back, lapping at the exposed skin of his back—his arms—those fishhook claws angled him until the bright lights of the—the restaurant bore down on his face. Yet it was worse—so, so, so much worse —when the light was interrupted by the hot-cold scrub of the alien’s tongue against his face. 

Kill him. Just kill him. Please, please, please just kill him. Don’t drag it out. Please.

Obviously, his pleas meant nothing to anything , as not even the heartbeat after he finished the thought, the alien drug its tongue from the dip in his chest to the crown of his head, leaving a distinctly sticky, horrifically warm trail of spit in its wake. 

He swallowed a wail , biting his tongue until it pitched to a yelp. He dug his fingers into the callouses on the underside of the alien’s fingers, and the tongue across his neck twitched. The alien’s tongue slipped back between its teeth. “I’m almost done.” 

The reprieve was short-lived. Tim keened when slime sloughed down the back of his collar, painting his skin with too warm . 

Pressure across his chest released. Claws pulled away, and Tim rolled , scrambling away on hands and knees. His back hit familiar skin just as tears spilled over. “There,” the alien said, and Tim’s heart shook . “That’s better.”

Wiping his face with the heels of his palms only served to smear around the drool. Tim gasped around the air, inhaling, but his head still spun . Dark spotted his vision, growing like mold, spreading—taking over— consuming .

“Tim.”

He wanted to go home . 

“Tim—Tim I—”

Tim squeaked when he tried to breathe past the cinch around his chest. That squeak choked, morphing into a hiccup, and suddenly he couldn’t stop . Tim sobbed , chest rocking, lungs straining. He couldn’t breathe . 

“I apologize.” The alien was coming closer. Looming. “I thought…” Its breath billowed around him. 

He wailed . 

“Oh,” and the sound was so, so soft, like Dick was there in that stupid store on that stupid planet , and he was so, so, so, so stupid, he should have never gone on that trip in the first place he should have—

“I’m so sorry, little Star Bird.” Its claw traced the curve of his cheek. “It’s alright. It’s alright, I promise.” 

Like an oily hinge, Tim’s voice squealed . “I want to go home ,” and he hated how he blubbered, but it was just… too much . 

“Of course.”

And that was that. 

Tim never really stopped his midnight wanderings. Curbed them, some… with the help of the alien, but never stopped. 

Of course he had a nightmare. 

Of course he found himself in the control room, staring up at the ever-changing star maps. The alien hadn’t taken them back home. Of course it didn’t. Not after all the effort it went through to keep them. It brought him back to the ship, though. 

He walked. 

And he was so, so sore. Too sore to climb back up on the console to get a better look at the stars, damn whatever the alien said. 

He sat down on the floor, instead, against the wall. Away from the… nest . Tim knocked his head against his knees. Mostly on purpose. A little just because his head felt like a cinder block. Like a cinder block full of tissues. And mucus. Tissues and mucus. 

Tim sniffed. 

“Tim?” 

In hindsight, maybe the control room wasn’t the best place to go when you’re trying to avoid the thing that controls the ship. 

It used the same tone Dick always did. Tim didn’t quite know how to feel about that. He elected to ignore it. “Go ‘way.” He wiped his face. It didn’t help. It didn’t help, because he was still crying, and of course he was still crying. 

Silence. Deafening, horrible silence. “Of course.” It was whispered. The shallowest breath. “I—I’m sorry, Tim.” 

The scrape-click of ꃲꎡ꒦ꄡꁄꅐꅔꒄꍈꁄ’s claws lifting. 

“Why, then?” It took him a moment to realize he asked. A long, tense moment with coal in his throat and embers in his chest. “Why did… why?” 

ꃲꎡ꒦ꄡꁄꅐꅔꒄꍈꁄ’s claws clicked on the ship floor again. He’d stopped. “It’s… not important why . I shouldn't have—” 

“I—” his voice shook. His lungs shuddered. “I want to know.” Tim could hear the great bellows of ꃲꎡ꒦ꄡꁄꅐꅔꒄꍈꁄ’s lungs when he inhaled. The not-quite sigh. The shift of that horrible lower-maw. 

“Traders… trading on colony-moons requires a certain… showmanship. It is… expected that one trades goods for goods. Parades them around to inflate their value.” He was breathing slowly. Carefully. “I do not tend to indulge in the practice. It is a… hassle .” Silence. One heartbeat. Two.

“But?”

“The shopkeeps… they put offers on you.” Claws screeched against metal. A low growl rattled through his neck, stifling just as quickly as it had formed. “No one buys hatchlings.” The words escaped through a snarl. ꃲꎡ꒦ꄡꁄꅐꅔꒄꍈꁄ was furious. Tim hugged his knees a little tighter. “They had to know. Know you are mine. Protected.” 

Tim had an idea of what he would say. Of what ꃲꎡ꒦ꄡꁄꅐꅔꒄꍈꁄ was dancing around. But he had to hear it. He had to make sure. “So…”

“I… marked you as mine,” he murmured. “Gave you my scent, so others would know… so that they would not…” His growl almost seemed compulsion, seeping out from between his lower maw’s teeth as Tim peeked over his arms. “Try to buy you.” His claws clenched, leaving faint streaks on the metal under them. Then, so, so quiet, as if mostly to himself, “precious things are not bought .”

Tim wondered how many tears a single person could have, scrubbing his face on his sleeve. “You weren’t trying to e—” he gagged . “—eat me?”

ꃲꎡ꒦ꄡꁄꅐꅔꒄꍈꁄ made as if to step forward, his weight shifting to his foreclaws. He never did, stopping with only one of his long front limbs raised. “No,” he said, and he hunched, neck nearly brushing the ground. “No—no, never. I promise you. I would never think of it. Never.” 

Tim sniffed. Again.

He didn’t know how much he believed that. He didn’t know if he did. He also didn’t know if he didn’t. “What’s a star bird?” 

Something in ꃲꎡ꒦ꄡꁄꅐꅔꒄꍈꁄ’s posture relaxed, and like a waterfall, it carried down, his neck raising off the ground, his shoulders dropping. He huffed, a soft noise. One, huge claw raised to point at the consoles. “May I?”

He didn’t move. Didn’t so much as twitch until Tim nodded. When he did move, it was slow. Careful. A smooth raise of his foreclaw to type lightly at the keyboard. The central console screen shifted, a swirling nebula replacing the previous starscape. “A star bird,” ꃲꎡ꒦ꄡꁄꅐꅔꒄꍈꁄ whispered, almost reverently. “A stage in the lifecycle of a small nebula caught between two gravitational forces.” A silvery talon traced the outline of what were almost wings. “An exact translation would be ‘ flying stars ’, but… I liked your Terra’s birds. They are like stars.”

“Hm,” Tim mumbled, watching the patterns in it change. “Where is this?” 

ꃲꎡ꒦ꄡꁄꅐꅔꒄꍈꁄ kept talking, filling the room with mindless chatter. Tim could almost forget how close he was to those teeth not hours ago. Almost. 

Trying to work a computer several times the size of yourself was hard. 

Trying to work a tablet around half the size of that computer when apparently your hands weren't conductive enough to trigger the touchscreen was also hard, but nowhere near as much.

Thinking about it, ꃲꎡ꒦ꄡꁄꅐꅔꒄꍈꁄ probably didn't want him messing with what Tim was reasonably sure was a Council-issued-device of some sort, but really it was his own fault that he left it out when Tim still wasn’t allowed to use the main console. 

So there he was.

Trying to see if he could access the council's logs of Terran information so he could rip Dick's “cartoons” out of it. He didn’t know what was so great about moving pictures—they had a lot of moving pictures in the ship's database already—but Dick had been raving about them for the last three days of ꋫ꒒ꌺꎡꁄꁕꇛꁄꍈꍈꒄꋃꅂꎡꇞꀟ’s “cultural exchange.” So, sue Tim if he was curious. Curious enough to commit a tiny little crime.

Well, it wasn’t like he was a legal citizen. Laws can’t apply to owned items, could they?

That's where their guardian found him, hunched over a tablet the size of himself and struggling to remember which squiggly-with-a-little-extra symbol went on the end of ꃲꎡ꒦ꄡꁄꅐꅔꒄꍈꁄ's ID. He could have sworn it was the one that looked vaguely like a human intestine wrapped around a pole (“ ew ”, said the little Jason-voice that lived in his brain), but when the tip of a dark-skinned knuckle reached over his shoulder, ꃲꎡ꒦ꄡꁄꅐꅔꒄꍈꁄ replaced it with a kinda sin-wave thing. Tim wrinkled his nose. Too many squiggles.

“Tim,” ꃲꎡ꒦ꄡꁄꅐꅔꒄꍈꁄ greeted, and it was a warm, fond thing that thrummed through his chest.  

“ꃲꎡ꒦ꄡꁄ!” Tim’s tongue stumbled over the sharp hiss-click even in the diminutive of ꃲꎡ꒦ꄡꁄꅐꅔꒄꍈꁄ’s name, where it didn’t immediately transform into a growl-keen, but even so, he chirped it as best he could, craning his head back to catch the bemused cant of his shoulders. 

ꃲꎡ꒦ꄡꁄ purred , a loud and low sound from his second maw, muffled only by the teeth that kept it sealed. “And what forgery are you partaking in today?” Tim glanced back to see a loading screen as long arms stretched out in his peripheral vision. ꃲꎡ꒦ꄡꁄꅐꅔꒄꍈꁄ settled himself behind Tim, the alien's absurdly heavy, gargantuan head resting atop his.

“Dick wanted to see if the Council kept any of Earth's digital media.” The loading screen/hold line for the database directory chirped a merry ꁍꅂꇞꀟꅔꉈꀧꇞꁄ tune in the background. “Something about ‘animation’ and ‘the classics’.” ꃲꎡ꒦ꄡꁄ hummed, and Tim's hair ruffled under the careful prodding of his snout.

“The Council is full of hoarders,” he said, something like amusement lacing his voice. “I'm sure they kept as much as they could. If only it were so easy to find it.” Tim hummed, rocking a little in his pla— 

Warmth cloaked his shoulders, trailing up his back and leaving a wet streak across his clothes and any exposed skin that happened to be in the way.

Tim's muscles locked up without his permission, and his lungs fossilized.

ꃲꎡ꒦ꄡꁄ knew immediately. Tim could tell when he jerked back as if burned, the bellows-sound of familiar breathing at his neck frozen. He cursed internally, willing his body to relax even though his hindbrain howled, and whined, and cried that those teeth were too close . Tim, personally, would like his hindbrain to shut up .

“Sorry,” Tim mumbled before ꃲꎡ꒦ꄡꁄ recovered enough to say something dumb and trauma-related. His face burned, ears tinted with warmth. So, so stupid.

ꃲꎡ꒦ꄡꁄꅐꅔꒄꍈꁄ shifted behind him, and a head quite possibly the length of Tim’s whole body came to brush against his side, hovering for the heartbeat it took Tim to lean into ꃲꎡ꒦ꄡꁄꅐꅔꒄꍈꁄ's touch. The saliva cooled against his back, and Tim shivered, pressing himself perhaps a little roughly against the hollow under ꃲꎡ꒦ꄡꁄꅐꅔꒄꍈꁄ's crest. “It is alright, Tim. I—” 

“No!” ꃲꎡ꒦ꄡꁄ jerked, and Tim suspected with no small amount of guilt that it was in part due to a combination of sensitive hearing and Tim's proximity to his ears. He cringed. “Sorry.” He knocked his head against ꃲꎡ꒦ꄡꁄ's, forcing himself to quiet. “‘It's fine. Don't go on about it. I'm tired of being scared,” he mumbled into the crook of a dark-marbled jaw. 

“You have nothing to be sorry for.” He could feel the words ripple through ꃲꎡ꒦ꄡꁄ’s throat. His breath warmed the chill Tim’s fingers had taken.

“Maybe.” The hold music cut off, leaving them in silence.

ꃲꎡ꒦ꄡꁄꅐꅔꒄꍈꁄ let him sit there for a long time as Tim waited for his heart to calm and the adrenaline to fade. It was only when they could hear the clamor of Tim's siblings that he spoke again. “I don't want to be scared anymore,” he whispered softly, voice fragile. 

“That,” and ꃲꎡ꒦ꄡꁄ pushed the curve of his snout into Tim's chest, “comes with time. And it's okay if it never goes away.”

Yeah, well, Tim thought time was stupid. He’d make it go away.

Learning ꃲꎡ꒦ꄡꁄꅐꅔꒄꍈꁄ’s habits wasn’t hard. Even if Tim wasn’t really paying attention, it was near-impossible not to wake up when the surface you were sleeping against tries (and fails) to extract himself from the pile of clinging, paranoid children who slept, on average, three times as long as he did, without waking them up.

Usually, he went back to sleep with the rest of his siblings. 

Usually. 

This arc-of-midnight had him squirming out from under most of Cass and three —somehow—of Jason’s limbs, crawling prone the whole while because Dick had no right to be as heavy as he was, draped over Tim’s legs. He was already tired when he finally rolled off the edge of the nest and to his feet. Granted, he woke up tired—he checked the digital clock ever-projected on the wall, and found it to be a bare few hours since he’d last been awake—but it was as if his bones were tired. 

Which was a stupid thought. Bones don’t get tired. 

Ignoring the soft ache that had set into his body, Tim scrambled along to follow the retreating form of ꃲꎡ꒦ꄡꁄꅐꅔꒄꍈꁄ as he slunk through the narrow-for-him hallways, their dimly-lit chrome brightening just enough with his movement for Tim to see where they were going. ꃲꎡ꒦ꄡꁄꅐꅔꒄꍈꁄ angled toward the control room, and Tim took a moment to be glad that it wasn’t far from ꃲꎡ꒦ꄡꁄꅐꅔꒄꍈꁄ’s nest, since it seemed his blood didn’t particularly want to return to his legs and it felt as though many tiny bees were living in his skin. 

As it was, by the time ꃲꎡ꒦ꄡꁄ settled in the miniature control nest, Tim only had about the amount of energy left to allow him to flop pathetically onto one of his wrists and lay there, limp until he was gathered by careful talons. ꃲꎡ꒦ꄡꁄꅐꅔꒄꍈꁄ hummed a soft, more-muffled-than-usual purr, bundling him close to his broad chest. Tim hid his face in the curve of his keel, basking in the sound of a three-beat heart and the background of a constant, pleased drone.

ꃲꎡ꒦ꄡꁄꅐꅔꒄꍈꁄ let him be, and didn't question him, instead continuing to work on… whatever it was he did on the console so often. 

Tim, unfortunately, didn’t have a lot of time to wallow. His siblings would come find him eventually. Once they figured out he was missing and hauled themselves from their tangled maze of limbs.

“ꃲꎡ꒦ꄡꁄ,” he mumbled, forcing himself pull away from the comfortable warmth near-radiating off of his guardian's dark skin. Silver eyes flicked down to look at him, a narrow head following. “Can I… ” and he hesitated. How did someone even ask about that? Hey, dad, can I look at your teeth so I stop being afraid of them? Tim would rather shoot himself out of the airlock. 

So, he did the next thing he thought of, and reached up toward ꃲꎡ꒦ꄡꁄꅐꅔꒄꍈꁄ’s face, making a completely juvenile grabby motion as if he could even begin to get himself up high enough to accomplish such a thing. Well, it worked fine, his dark-tipped snout drawing towards Tim in a slow, curious motion. 

ꃲꎡ꒦ꄡꁄꅐꅔꒄꍈꁄ pushed his sensitive crest into Tim’s hands, and, compulsively, Tim traced circles across it. “Tim?”ꃲꎡ꒦ꄡꁄ asked softly, the imprints of fangs hidden under his lips pressing lightly into Tim's hands. His heart did a funny little motion, like it turned inside out, and all at once, his anxiety was back . His hands shook, his lungs cringed. Tim was really, really beginning to hate adrenaline. The faster he got it out, hopefully, the faster it would go away. So, he bit the bullet.

“Can you—uh—open your mouth?” he asked into positively deafening silence. ꃲꎡ꒦ꄡꁄꅐꅔꒄꍈꁄ froze. For a moment, Tim was sure even his heart had stopped. 

“Tim—” and even with the care he’d undoubtedly put into keeping his fangs hidden, Tim could see them—just a flash of yellow-ish white. “—Tim, you don’t—”

Tim smoothed a hand over the imaginary designs he was making, sure to keep the pressure even. “I want to,” he said, and despite the noose across his chest, he knew it was true. “I don’t want to be scared of you.” Silence. Absolute, suffocating silence. Tim breathed through it, measured and slow. 

ꃲꎡ꒦ꄡꁄꅐꅔꒄꍈꁄ sighed. A huff, really, that brushed Tim’s hair from his face. “Don’t push yourself too hard,” the alien hummed into his shirt. “If you’re too scared, just tell me. I’ll help you.”

“I know.” Tim smiled. 

And, crawlingly, achingly slowly, ꃲꎡ꒦ꄡꁄ arched his neck just enough that the tip of his beaked crest rested eye-level to him. Slower still, his lips parted, black giving way to a deep, midnight blue, slick and shiny with oily saliva. The roots of uneven, needle-point teeth stared back at him. 

Tim was reaching out before he knew what was happening, heart thundering in his ears and all thoughts seeming to have drowned under it. His fingertips brushed over a velveteen muscle, and it twitched, a minute shudder running clearly through the muscle fibers. A breath of near-sweltering air puffed against his face as he settled his palm into the groove in the middle of ꃲꎡ꒦ꄡꁄ’s tongue. His hand glided over it, like it wasn’t even there, so unlike the rasp he was used to. 

He switched directions, and suddenly, it had a new grip to it. Like terran cloth, or that one time he’d brushed a cat’s fur backwards. 

Smooth in one direction, rough in the other. “Huh,” he mumbled, nothing but pure curiosity driving him to press just his fingertips down. The tongue had a give to it, similar to a typical mattress in some ways but unlike the nest in others. In part because it notably, Tim found, tensed and loosened in semi-regular waves. Almost in time with ꃲꎡ꒦ꄡꁄꅐꅔꒄꍈꁄ’s breathing. 

Tim found himself smoothing the raised rough portions of ꃲꎡ꒦ꄡꁄꅐꅔꒄꍈꁄ’s tongue almost in the same way he’d been “drawing” on his crest. A thoroughly pleased rumble shook through Tim, and something in the far back of ꃲꎡ꒦ꄡꁄꅐꅔꒄꍈꁄ’s throat shifted with the sound. Tim… decided not to look there just yet. 

He turned to ꃲꎡ꒦ꄡꁄ’s teeth instead, heart swimming in his throat.

They were long, nearly the length of Tim’s arm where they widened out just past ꃲꎡ꒦ꄡꁄꅐꅔꒄꍈꁄ’s nostrils. Their trailing edges weren’t jagged and serrated as he’d thought before, but colored . Dark skin grew up from the gums, anchoring the tooth to its midpoint. From the side, Tim thought it made them look like a slightly-curved harpoon.

The tip of each tooth had been ground down to a fine point, its color paler than that of further toward the root. With one hand still trailing along the shapes of ꃲꎡ꒦ꄡꁄꅐꅔꒄꍈꁄ’s tongue, Tim used the other to prod around the base of the tooth closest to him. He found a rough, bone-covered patch in the gums, almost invisible with how dark both materials were. He moved to the next tooth. Another. The next also had a matching bone-divot. And the next, and the next, and the next. He ran both hands along the top and bottom row of teeth, fascinated.

They matched perfectly with the way the opposite teeth would come down. He felt along a few of their points. They were rough where the darker tooth-yellow faded to white. Like something freshly sanded. Self-sharpening teeth. 

Cool. 

His elbow squished on something when he leaned down to take a closer look, and Tim realized all at once that he’d leaned over ꃲꎡ꒦ꄡꁄꅐꅔꒄꍈꁄ’s front teeth to peer at the thicker, sturdier ones. The tongue he’d gotten distracted from twitched under his chest. 

He was almost up to his waist . 

His heart made itself known with a nauseating flip. “ꃲꎡ꒦ꄡꁄ ,” he called, nervous. 

A low, fond hum answered him. A question. It didn’t take a boy-genius to know ꃲꎡ꒦ꄡꁄꅐꅔꒄꍈꁄ was checking if he was still alright. 

Was he?

Tim shimmied a little, wiggling each of his limbs and letting the anxiety dissipate through them a little. His heart slowed. He took a deep breath of somewhat too-humid air. Yeah, he’s okay.

“‘M fine, but—” He kneaded his hands into the tongue under him a little, rocking his shoulders. “—is this—should I be backing up?” ꃲꎡ꒦ꄡꁄꅐꅔꒄꍈꁄ wouldn’t hurt him. He knew this. A hundred and one situations where it would have probably just been so much easier to eat him proved it. 

Still, it was probably at least a little weird to have a whole… him in your mouth. Probably more than a little weird. Tim tried to imagine it, his own tongue twitching in his mouth, and found he couldn’t, really. 

ꃲꎡ꒦ꄡꁄꅐꅔꒄꍈꁄ hummed again, a noncommittal sound. At least, Tim was fairly sure it was noncommittal. Everything sounded weird so close. 

And he was pretty sure he could feel ꃲꎡ꒦ꄡꁄ’s heart pumping blood through veins probably the size of one of his fingers. Which was, objectively (fuck you Jason), cool. 

“Okay,” he said—mostly to himself—as he ran his hand across the ridges in the roof of ꃲꎡ꒦ꄡꁄꅐꅔꒄꍈꁄ’s mouth. There was something further back that interrupted them—the thing he'd neglected to look at before—but it was hard to see from so far away. 

But Tim was so, achingly, curious. It looked like more teeth.

ꃲꎡ꒦ꄡꁄ wouldn’t hurt him, Tim reminded himself as he armed his way a little further, squinting at the shifting structure that followed the ripple of the throat above him. His heart disagreed with the idea, of course, but they disagreed on a lot of things, like the distance Tim should be able to run and how frightening harmless things like distant asteroids were. He was fine.

ꃲꎡ꒦ꄡꁄꅐꅔꒄꍈꁄ’s tongue chose that moment to push against his chest, and Tim only had a tiny heart attack when his feet left the ground and he slid . 

It took one spasming heartbeat and gasping breath, for Tim to realize he was not being pitched and shoved back toward the throat, to be swallowed and forgotten, but very, very slowly creeping, which all stopped once his feet slipped over ꃲꎡ꒦ꄡꁄ’s teeth. That same moment, Tim regained feeling in hisclegs and noriced, wiggling his toes, that he’d cut off circulation, leaning how he was. ꃲꎡ꒦ꄡꁄ rumbled around him, a soft, worried noise. 

“I’m okay,” he called back, and wow . Right above his head, a pair of two, teeth-lined bars were embedded into ꃲꎡ꒦ꄡꁄꅐꅔꒄꍈꁄ’s mouth. Like a second mouth, but only the top jaw. They were duller than the other teeth, but distinctly serrated, like the rusty saw blade Jason had scavenged when he was younger. 

Tim reached up, poking and prodding where they met with the gumline, and found quite immediately that there was no bone underneath . The surrounding flesh gave easily, and ꃲꎡ꒦ꄡꁄ twitched the second set of jaws away from him when he felt along the teeth. So, so cool.

Maybe he could get Dick to take notes for him. There was no way a notebook or even one of ꃲꎡ꒦ꄡꁄꅐꅔꒄꍈꁄ’s smaller tablets would survive being completely soaked like Tim was.

Huh. 

He felt the rippled, somewhat grotesquely squishy flesh past ꃲꎡ꒦ꄡꁄꅐꅔꒄꍈꁄ’s main set of teeth. He really could fit Tim’s entire… him in his mouth. Somehow, eyeing the row of backwards-curved fangs that extended into where Tim thought his throat would be, Tim didn’t even think he was a mouthful, really. 

He brought his arms back so he could tuck them near his chest, and  kneaded the tongue under his hands somewhat self-consciously. It really would be so easy for ꃲꎡ꒦ꄡꁄꅐꅔꒄꍈꁄ to just… swallow. And he'd be gone.

And he didn’t. 

Tim’s heart, at some point, had stopped aching so horribly in his chest, replaced with the steady three-tone heartbeat pulsing through ꃲꎡ꒦ꄡꁄꅐꅔꒄꍈꁄ’s tongue, and the low, constant rumble from… all around, really. And he was very, very warm. ꃲꎡ꒦ꄡꁄꅐꅔꒄꍈꁄ always kept his ship somewhat colder than Tim would prefer, but as long as he carried a blanket around, he was fine.

This wasn’t just fine . It was warm . Body-warm like his siblings piling up around him, and the warmth in his heart, like a laugh and bright sunlight. Saliva pooled around him, perhaps, and it was humid beyond imagination tucked between ꃲꎡ꒦ꄡꁄꅐꅔꒄꍈꁄ’s teeth, but as Tim spared a glance around, he thought that, perhaps, held oh-so-delicately, in the curve of the alien’s tongue, there was no safer place to be. 

Because ꃲꎡ꒦ꄡꁄꅐꅔꒄꍈꁄ was not going to eat him, and, here, who else could? 

Tim curled around himself, carefully avoiding fangs and the beartrap above as he turned around and shuffled his way back to the narrow loop of ꃲꎡ꒦ꄡꁄꅐꅔꒄꍈꁄ’s front teeth, where he settled on his stomach again, peering out at the control console as ꃲꎡ꒦ꄡꁄ typed. 

After a handful of minutes of peace, the tip of ꃲꎡ꒦ꄡꁄꅐꅔꒄꍈꁄ's tongue pitched sharply, tilting sending Tim rolling—with a thoroughly undignified squeak —until he was on his back. His face was promptly soaked, and Tim spluttered, caught off-guard, but chasing the flattening tip of ꃲꎡ꒦ꄡꁄ’s tongue nonetheless. Not that he really got far. ꃲꎡ꒦ꄡꁄ purred , and it was thick with affection as the sides of ꃲꎡ꒦ꄡꁄꅐꅔꒄꍈꁄ’s tongue curled up, balancing him in its center-line and rocking him with a back-and-forth tilt of his head. Tim shrieked, and found it was delight , when he slid just enough to peek over the arch of ꃲꎡ꒦ꄡꁄ’s tongue and see the chrome floor of the ship far below. 

Slowly, the motion stopped, and Tim found himself staring at the arched formations of the roof of ꃲꎡ꒦ꄡꁄ’s mouth, an adoring purr rolling through his bones. 

He was tired. Probably needed at least six more hours of sleep if he wanted to be functional.

He also, Tim thought, eyeing the pool of drool that had accumulated around his arms, needed a shower. 

Tim wanted to do… only one of those things.

“ꃲꎡ꒦ꄡꁄ?” he asked, the name barely a whisper. Tim could tell he was listening, though, even without the low hum he replied with. “Can I…” he hesitated. On a scale of good to bad ideas, his heart said bad, terrible, worst , but his brain said tired, comfortable, safe. His brain was always better at those kinds of choices. “...stay here for a little bit?” A pause. For a moment, Tim thought he’d upset the alien, as even his claws stilled on the console, the absence of soft clicking like a snake's warning.

Then, the loudest he’d ever heard it, a purr shook him like an earthquake . Thick, and sickeningly fond, and an answer in and of itself. Tim couldn’t help but giggle to himself when ꃲꎡ꒦ꄡꁄ’s tongue rippled adoringly at his sides, all-but wrapping him in its curve. 

Tim rolled so he could rest his head on his arms, peering down at the far ground even as the gap between teeth slowly got more and more narrow. Even as the light faded, and one of his worst nightmares took solid form. Tim settled himself on the tongue of his greatest fear since he was five and listened to the click of the self-sharpening teeth finding their slots. To the bellows-sound of lungs the size of train cars. To a steady, slow alien heartbeat. 

Tim was safe, and, perhaps, his heart disagreed, but it was drowned by the low purr that had faded into background noise, wrapped around him like the safety of Dick’s shadow or the cover of a narrow alley. 

Tim yawned.