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There was a warmth in Tim’s pyjamas that could have only been caused by a run through the dryer.
He tried to thank Alfred, but in truth he could barely keep his eyes open, let alone nod his head or verbally acknowledge the small kindness.
Even before the last button was done up, Alfred was supporting more of Tim’s weight than Tim himself was. Trying to straighten only made the fatigue dig deeper into his soul and he distantly felt Alfred’s familiar hands coaxing him fully back onto the bed.
Getting his legs up were even harder, the joints and muscles protesting every small movement until he finally managed to lay down outright.
Tim’s breath hitched, his back quaking from the change of position but just as quickly there were fingers carding through his hair, giving his brain something else to focus on that wasn’t just pain or exhaustion.
While it was frustrating knowing that he was making a man as old as Alfred tending to him like this, there was a relief too to know that Alfred was right there, that his Grandfather not by blood but by love was looking after him.
He didn’t want to sleep, he’d done nothing for days but sleep, and yet his eyes had slipped closed without his command, the world slipping away into that fuzzy half awareness.
The hand was still in his hair, though each run through the strands went just a little slower.
And slower.
And slower.
Tim too was slower, the last of the pain dimming to an ache.
It had only been a bath, one that Tim had barely even done anything for except sit in the warm water, yet it was like he’d taken on every single criminal that had ever plagued the streets of Gotham.
No, worse than that, it was as though he was back in Mr. Smith’s English class.
A shiver ran through his very soul but Alfred was right there to thumb beneath his eye, wiping away the tear Tim hadn’t fully registered.
“Alfie…”
There was a hum, one just as familiar and as warm as the blanket being laid onto him was.
“You don’t have to do all this.”
“Nonsense, my boy.” Alfred said.
Tim liked those words. My boy, as though he really was Alfred’s. Tim wanted to be Alfred’s, to be Bruce’s too, but he knew better than to trust these perfect moments.
They were fleeting, just like everything else was. One day, Alfred will leave him. Bruce will too, because everyone always leaves eventually. At least for now Alfred was right there by his side, fingers carding through Tim’s hair.
At least for now, everything was warm and gentle and right.
He was drifting further, sinking deeper into the nothingness even though he wanted to linger. Wanted to appreciate. Sure, being sick fucking sucked, being on bedrest for going on a week sucked even more, but without having gotten sick he would have never had this time with Alfred.
Tim wanted to stay.
Tim wanted Alfred to stay, but the hand was no longer in his hair, his Grandfather was no longer by his side.
The room was darker now, with only the light of his charger making everything glow. He was still just as he had been, laying on his back even though he’d never really been able to sleep comfortably like that before.
He was alone.
And that was okay.
Tim was okay with being alone, it’s not like he wasn’t used to it.
At least, he should be used to it.
Timothy Jackson Drake had learned many things when he was young; how to ride a bike, what the first four hundred decimals of pi were, and that everyone, no matter what they promise you, will always leave eventually.
So maybe it was time for him to leave instead, to return to the quiet nothingness that had started to feel like home.
Sure, it felt nice to have freshly laundered pyjamas, to have fingers card through his hair, but those things will only make everything hurt far worse when Alfred realises that Tim isn’t actually worth the effort.
Tim was good at being alone, but he was even better at standing up on his own two feet without needing to stagger. Hell, he was even better better at catching himself on the nightstand when gravity decided that he should go fuck himself.
His chest heaved with desperate breaths as he steadied himself fully, though he only really managed to stand to his full height for a moment or two before he was already slouching again, his head still fuzzy.
It would be easy enough to slip through the bedroom window out into the open air, it wasn’t like there was anything daunting about coming down from a second storey room when he was so used to flying through the air.
Tim didn’t go through the window; that would be too obvious.
He walked instead, walked and not stumbled, towards the door.
Reaching for the handle, not to steady himself but simply to twist it open, Tim stilled.
There was a noise through the wood, a soft steady noise that was as unmistakable as it was irritating.
Fucking Damian, because of course the annoying brat had taken it upon himself to stand guard at Tim’s door even though Tim is fully capable of protecting himself even with a fever that by now surely wasn’t even that fever-y.
Window it was then, not because Tim wasn’t confident that he couldn’t make it passed the annoying sentinel without attracting Damian’s attention but simply because Tim wanted to use the window.
The few feet between the door and the window had somehow been stretched into miles but Tim managed the distance easily, it wasn’t like the whole world was pulsing around him with every beat of his heart.
With Damian so close, and so Damian, Tim waited for a creaking in the old house’s bones before he slid the window open. He’d already deactivated the silent alarms of course, he wasn’t an amateur after all, though for some reason he spent an eternal moment holding himself up against the open frame.
It really did feel a little higher tonight, the ground stretching out for eternity below him.
There was a tiredness sinking back into him, one that he doubted even sleep would be able to fix, but Tim couldn’t stop now. He’d made a decision and he will keep with it. No one else will ever leave him, not if he leaves first.
And he will leave first.
He will.
He must.
Alfred hadn’t been tending to him like some Victorian child out of the goodness of his heart, the old man had simply been tending to the asset that was Timothy Drake. Soon his usefulness will fade and then Alfred will discard him, just like anyone that was useless deserved to be.
But Tim was done with being discarded, done with being left.
Besides, Alfred had already left.
Alfred had left him and Bruce had left him and Dick had left him but no more, Tim refused to take any more hurt.
His arms scraped against brick and he was falling.
Down, down, down, he was falling and he was reaching out, to Batman, to Nightwing, to anyone, but Tim was alone, he was alone and he was colliding with something hard and he was on his back, chest spasming as the air was forced from his lungs.
Tim gasped, and again, but he couldn’t breathe, couldn’t move, couldn’t do anything except lie there on thorns and tanbark and brick.
A sound was dragged from him, a sound that no Drake should ever deign themselves to make, an all too familiar burning prickling his eyes.
The tremble grew into an outright shudder as pain melted into him. A tear really did slip down then, his hands shaking so badly that they didn’t even feel like his own.
Tim was still on his back, blurred vision filled partly with building and partly with a sky that was more cloud than stars.
An arm shifted, just a little, just enough so that he got an elbow under himself. Pushing himself upright only made him whimper again, his head thundering as the world shifted around him.
There was a chill in the air, a chill that was already soaking into his bones.
Tim was cold.
An eternity ago, these pyjamas had been warmed not simply from a dryer but from love itself but now the cotton was cold against his skin, colder even then the brick he somehow managed to stand himself up on.
The world was pulsing again, Tim leaning hard against the side of the Manor as he waited for his legs to support his weight without complaint.
Tim blinked, wondering when he’d braced his forehead up against his elbow, still holding himself up on the side of the building.
He’d crushed some of Alfred’s plants, he realised dully. Tim leaned down, ignoring the resulting headrush, doing his best to neaten up the stems.
At some point, Tim must have turned around, the garden shifting around him until he finally reached a stone fence.
He deactivated the security mechanisms on the fence line too, or at least he was sure he had done that back when he’d been holding his phone. Tim flexed his hand, wondering when he had stopped holding that very same phone. Had he been holding it?
Yes.
No.
Well, he’d made it passed the wall regardless so that must mean he had deactivated the measures.
Something sharp dug into the heel or his foot but just as quickly the sensation faded because Tim was already stepping off the stick, he was already walking, he was already gone.
Everyone always leaves.
Everyone will always at some point be gone, this was simply Tim’s turn.
It was for Tim’s own protection too, if he spent any longer in that house he might start to think that he belonged there.
Trees shifted all around him, shifted and shifted and shifted until they were all blending into one single blur of darkness.
When Tim had been younger, much younger, he’d been scared of the dark. Terrified, even, at least until he saw Batman step out from the shadows for the first time. Maybe then it had been a little scary too, but then Batman had crouched down in front of him, had set a large hand on his shoulder and had asked him if he was okay.
Tim hadn’t been okay of course, so he had cried. He had been only five, maybe six, and there’d been loud gunshots and while he hadn’t seen a single drop of blood that night, there was a part of him that knew even then that Batman had been the one to keep it that way.
It hadn’t been long before Tim had all at once been ushered away, his Mom and Dad talking over his head about ridiculous dangerous criminals who only pretended to be heroes trying to protect people.
No, it hadn’t been long at all and yet Tim still felt that warm hand on his shoulder even now.
Tim’s knees protested even though Tim didn’t actually remember collapsing onto them. He blinked, then again, because he was meant to be doing something.
He was meant to be resting. It was okay to be sick, and it was okay to rest, only it wasn’t okay at all because Drake’s aren’t supposed to get sick.
They’re supposed to keep decorum, supposed to prove once and for all that their name means something other than new money.
Tim managed to stand again, because Tim can manage anything that was demanded of him, though he only made it a few more feet before he was leaning hard against a tree again.
It was cold.
He was cold.
Being alone was nothing but an unending coldness sinking deep into your soul but Tim was used to it.
Tim needed to be used to it.
He was walking again, walking, not stumbling, Drake’s do not stumble.
The Drake Estate should just be a little further along, he just needed to keep heading in this direction and then-
And then…
That tree, that larger one that stood out from the rest, was too far east for the route he usually takes between the houses.
But then, that large rock was too far west.
The world shifted, and again, trees blending into rocks blending into trees blending into buildings.
Tim twisted, looking for the lights of Gotham proper in the distance. He twisted again. And again. There were no lights, there was no anything except the cold and the dark and the nothing.
Taking a step forward, Tim stilled. Twisted, took another step in a different direction.
He knew these woods, of course he did. He knew each and every tree and rock and hiding place, just as he knew that he was walking again. Walking, walking, walking. Tim was walking. Tim was walking, each step drifting just a little further to his right until his should was brushing up against a tree.
Tim stilled.
He twisted, looking for the first hint of Drake Estate.
He twisted again, looking instead for the borders that surrounded Wayne Manor.
Tim twisted, stepped forward, twisted, stepped forward, but it was all blending. Everything was blurring into everything else and maybe Tim too was blurring.
Everyone always leaves, and now even Tim had left Tim behind.
That was okay.
He was used to it, anyway.
A voice, a memory, calling out his name.
A hand, more distant than a memory, coming to rest on his elbow.
The world shifted again, Tim’s knees screaming out in pain as he slammed once more into the hard ground.
The voice was closer now, more annoyed too, though Tim didn’t know what he had done this time to deserve the annoyance.
Another hand came up onto his cheek and it was warm, it was so warm that he couldn’t help but lean into it.
“Oh my sweet, foolish boy, what on Earth are you doing out here?”
“I’m still on Earth.”
It was a mumble, maybe, or maybe Tim had managed to make it a confident statement because Drake’s are always meant to be confident about everything.
Tim should probably keep going, surely the Drake Estate was nearby.
And it was nearby.
It was nearby, even if Tim himself wasn’t.
“You’ll catch your death out here, Master Tim, and here I thought you knew better than to walk around after you’ve been so unwell.”
“I’m not unwell.” Tim said. “I’m Tim.”
The tut that Alfred gave was as unimpressed as his expression was, or at least as unimpressed as the blurred face seemed to be.
Alfred was in a dressing gown for some reason, a thick one that looked very soft to the touch.
“Come along now,” Alfred said. “You’ve have quite enough of an adventure.”
“No.”
“Master Tim,”
“No,” Tim said again, blinking slowly. “I won’t let you do it. It’s my turn.”
Alfred opened his mouth to reply but Tim got there first.
“No one else is going to leave.” He said. “Not if I leave first. And I left first. I left, Alfred, so you don’t have to pretend anymore. None of you have to pretend anymore.”
Tim didn’t have to pretend anymore either. He was tired. He was cold. He was done with pretending.
The hand was still on his cheek, Tim realised distantly. He should probably push it away and yet for some reason his own hand refused to raise at all.
Alfred’s hand shifted, thumbing just beneath Tim’s eye. Then it shifted further still, towards Tim’s ear and even passed it. A flash of pain stole a gasp from him as Alfred’s hand grazed against the back of Tim’s head but then it was replaced with the distant fuzziness again.
“Good god.”
The words were rushed, higher pitched than Tim had ever heard Alfred become.
Tim had probably messed up again, though it didn’t matter because this time he was leaving first.
Alfred’s hand had at some point come away from Tim’s head, though in the moonlight that had managed to break through the clouds the normally pale skin looked oddly dark.
That darkness meant something, Tim thought distantly, just like the spark of pain had meant something.
Alfred’s phone was now pressed to his ear. Tim should probably tease him over it, there was a running joke that while every single one of them knew Alfred had a phone on him at all times they rarely saw him actually use it.
Tim thought that maybe he did try to make a joke, but Alfred did not so much as meet his gaze let alone chuckle.
No, Alfred was distracted by something. He was talking again, not to Tim but to someone on the other line. The words such a jumbling mess of sound that Tim eventually gave up on trying to follow along with them.
It was cold.
He was cold.
Tim should probably be shivering, but he wasn’t.
Phone still to his ear, Alfred was suddenly wrapping the dressing gown he’d been wearing around Tim’s shoulders. It really was fluffy. Fluffy and warm and not simply because of Alfred’s body heat, but because Alfred had given it to him so freely.
The warmth faded quickly, which was okay. It needed to be okay. Tim could handle being cold. He could handle being alone, too.
Alfred’s tone had shifted again, though it took a moment longer for Tim to realise that he had asked a question. Before Tim could even fully register what Alfred had said, his own voice was rattling off his name and his date of birth and some other things that might have at one time been important.
And it was important, these answers were meant to be important because they demonstrated that Tim was not only fine but he was still intelligent. He needed to remain intelligent, remain useful. Then again, since he was supposed to be leaving first this time he didn’t know if he really did need to stay useful.
The back of Tim’s head felt weird, almost like the strands of hair were all sticking together. His own hand reached up to see why it was so wet but Alfred caught it instead, drawing little circles into the cold skin.
Another question, one that Tim thought he might have answered.
Tim could answer questions; it was one of the few things he’d ever really been good at. At least, Tim thought that he might be good at answering questions, though for some reason Alfred’s brows were knitting tightly together.
Alfred was reporting something so Tim just let his gaze wander to the trees beyond.
There were so many.
They swirled.
He swirled.
Everything swirled.
Alfred’s hand was on his cheek again and it felt nice, though the warmth was quickly sapped away from it.
Tim blinked, watching a small white blur fall slowly to the ground. And another. With his free hand, he reached out, tried and failed to catch the next one.
He should probably keep going. The Drake Estate was just over that way. Or maybe that other way. Maybe it was above him instead so Tim raised his head and looked out for the house he had grown up in but all he saw were stars.
No, not stars, the stars were hidden by thickening clouds. It was snow that twinkled above him, snow that was drifting down down down.
If it was snowing, it was probably cold out here.
It didn’t really feel cold anymore.
It didn’t really feel like anything at all.
Tim didn’t really feel like anything at all.
Everyone always leaves, and this time Tim had been the one to do it first, even to himself.
He barely remembered the echoing sirens, and he’d rarely heard Alfred’s voice rise in volume like that. There were more questions, different hands holding his own and asking him to squeeze them.
Trying to stand, to return to the cold house he should still belong to, only made his legs buckle beneath his weight.
Maybe he walked.
Maybe he was carried.
Maybe Tim did nothing at all, nothing except float in the growing snow until bright lights slammed into his head. Tim recoiled, trying to protect his vision from the flash bang but when he tried to look again there was another and another and another and Tim was on the ground again, burying his pounding head in his hands.
Voices, echoing all around him.
A hand on his shoulder, a hand that should be familiar but it felt far too distant to actually be Alfred’s.
So many voices, so many lights, so much everything and yet there was nothing at all that could touch him because Tim was leaving first this time.
Boots crunched quickly against sticks, going away from him.
Away from him.
Everyone always goes away.
The flash bangs finally stopped, whatever villain that had been setting them off having at last run out but still Tim could not uncurl from his little ball, the once soft fabric of Alfred’s dressing gown no longer feeling like anything at all.
Alfred’s hand, what he thought might be Alfred’s hand, shifted up from his shoulder. Cupped his cheek, so gently it was as though Alfred might actually care and not simply see him as another mouth to feed, another mess to clean up after.
“Alfie…”
It was a whine, one he should have never made but everything was fuzzy and he didn’t want Alfred to walk away. Everyone always walks away but he didn’t want Alfred to go this time, he didn’t want to be alone this time.
He didn’t remember being pulled up to his feet once more, all Tim knew was that he was leaning against a tree. No, not a tree, a person. Not Alfred, a stranger. Tim should tell them that they could leave too, that he himself will leave too this time, he needed to leave too this time but he just couldn’t really get his mouth to work.
A new noise, rattling metal against asphalt.
They had reached the treeline before they’d stopped, Tim realised distantly.
Not flash bangs, then, the bright lights had been from a car. A truck, really, though a more accurate description would probably be an ambulance.
No.
No, absolutely not, no, he wasn’t, he refused, he wasn’t going to go into another damn ambulance, he wasn’t going to do anything except go back to the cold empty home that was the Drake Estate because he was going to leave, he wanted to leave, he needed to leave first this time.
The unfamiliar hands holding him upright readjusted, keeping him in place even as he tried to pull away.
It was an EMT, he realised, so not a complete stranger after all and yet Tim wanted nothing to do with them, he wanted nothing to do with anyone.
The gurney was brought all the way up to the treeline but Tim wouldn’t go on it, he wouldn’t, he couldn’t, yet the EMT tugged on his arm all the same and he was stumbling forward onto it anyway.
“Alfred.” He said before he could stop himself.
Tim didn’t need Alfred.
Tim didn’t need anyone.
“Alfred, please.”
“I’m right here, my boy.”
He never needed anyone, he should have long since accepted that he was never going to have anyone stay by his side.
Tim’s hand was rushing out, scrambling for purchase, but then it was in Alfred’s own and it was warm. It was warm and it was gentle and it was loving and it was underserved. Alfred did not need to do this, did not need to hold his hand. Tim was nearly a full adult now, he didn’t need anyone to hold his hand.
Even as a child, he had known better than to expect someone to hold his hand.
The world was shifting around him, shifting and shifting until the warm orange of the street lights was replaced by a cold whiteness and it was cold, it was so cold, everything that Tim had ever been was cold.
Alfred wasn’t holding his hand anymore.
Fuck, Alfred wasn’t holding his hand and that needed to be fine, he needed to be fine, he was fine and yet the moment that Alfred returned to his side once more Tim was sobbing in relief.
Alfred had not left yet.
Everyone always leaves but Alfred had not done so yet.
Tim should leave first.
He needed to leave first.
Alfred was tutting again, old hand smoothing against Tim’s face to wipe away the tears.
“Just go.” Tim said.
“Just go.” Tim begged.
“Just go.” Tim screamed.
Alfred didn’t.
Even as the world closed in around him, the slamming door rattling in his head, even as something was pressed against his scalp, even as something far worse was scratching at the inside of his elbow, Alfred did not leave.
There had been words exchanged, not between Alfred and Tim but Alfred and the half stranger. Something about seatbelts and policy but Alfred never once left Tim’s side, a hand touching him at all times even as the paramedic worked around him.
The hand might be on his knee, over a blanket that Tim didn’t remember being covered in, or twisted into his own, familiar fingers drawing familiar circles into the skin, or sometimes it was carding through his hair, never once coming close to the gauze that had been secured to the back of his head.
It moved, the hand moved from place to place, but it never left.
Alfred never left, not even when the ambulance stopped rocking, not even when the too bright lights were replaced with even brighter ones.
Even as he was demanded to back off, to give the doctors space to assess Tim even though Tim didn’t need to be assessed at all because he’d long since finished all his exams, Alfred stayed right by his side.
Questions, so many questions, about his name, his age, if he knew where he was, if he remembered how he’d gotten here, if he remembered most importantly of all what had happened.
Tim thought that he had answered them, though the words had all felt fuzzy on his tongue.
He thought too that he should probably get going now, he might be able to reach the Drake Estate by sunrise, but each time he tried to rise up from the bed a hand or a blanket kept him in place.
By some miracle, the world had eventually darkened, though there were a dozen more bright dots than there usually was in his bedroom.
Not his bedroom.
This bed was too hard, the hallways beyond the door too loud even for the Wayne’s.
He wasn’t in his pyjamas anymore, Tim realised distantly, even though Alfred had run them through the dryer just for him.
Alfred hadn’t needed to do that, and he didn’t need to be sitting by the side of the bed still holding his hand either.
And yet, there Alfred was.
There his Grandfather was, right by his side.
He tried to thank Alfred, but in truth he could no longer keep his eyes open. He didn’t nod his head, he didn’t verbally acknowledge the small kindness, he simply let the warmth sink into his soul, knowing that he was never going to be alone again.