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The moon glows bright up in the sky.
There are moments when Duke likes to step out and tells himself the moon is calling out his name: it’s nothing much, not really. The only reason why he still feels so connected to it is the fact it keeps the streets at least dimly lightened. Always when he needs the slightest bit of light, too.
Like when he stayed up reading a book even though he was supposed to be sleeping and he couldn’t use his flashlight below his blanket like usual: because there was no battery left and his chapter kept ending on cliffhangers every time they were over.
“Could you shine a little brighter?”, he asked the moon. “Please?” He knew she wouldn’t do it, but he still added the politeness anyway, because his mama told him to always do it.
Duke likes to say the moon did anyway. Listen to him. If the clouds stop hiding her, it’s because she asked them to, and also because he asked her. And if she glows enough for him to read the words, it’s because he asked too.
He also does it, asking, when he’s outside wanting the sun to glow more, to scare away the rain. And sometimes the sun does!
Sometimes not, but that’s fine too. The moon also sometimes doesn’t listen to him. It’s fine, though, because the times she does, he gets to whisper-scream ‘Magic!’ and bows really really gracefully to show her he’s grateful, and it’s nice.
Duke knows the moon isn’t really listening to him. She doesn’t do things just because he’d like her to. There’s reasons and logic to the intensity of the moon’s light. Science-related stuff and reasons, not just the moon doing things because he asked. It’s just fun to pretend it’s the case, when she does.
It’s a fun thought, the idea that they’re connected. And that the moon likes him like he likes the moon. From time to time and sweetly and with a sort of endeared disbelief.
But today the moon still goes and blind him away up until the only thing he can see of the world is darkness, darkness, darkness and nothingness. And the silvers of colors in his vision that are ever moving, ever present unless he stops paying attention to them.
He still likes her.
To her, he cries only when his consciousness deems it really, really necessary. Today he won’t. Today he’s fine. His tears very rarely are highlighted by the caress or beating of the sun, too: it’s not that he thinks he’s too old to cry, it’s just that he doesn’t like to. And today he doesn’t need to. So. He doesn’t cry.
He’s fine, yeah? He’s great, and he’s fine, and he’s alright. Peachy. Great.
It’s a bit dumb, how focused he is on whether he wants to cry or not. He didn’t come her to cry. He didn’t go there to think about the moon either. He came here to… Well. It’s a good question. He was just tired of lying around and he wanted to go there, and that’s probably it.
So. In the silence of the night, he goes and walk through his living room. Avoids rug and table and anything else that’s laying on the floor. His toys and cars and books aren’t there, and that makes it easier. It’s really not difficult to hop around something when it’s not there.
He walks through the corridor. It passes quickly. It passes quickly but in a way that’s not only because that’s a small corridor.
Duke can’t be bothered to figure out why, though. Old wood greets him, on the panel in front of him.
He opens the door to his parent’s bedroom carefully. Slowly. Very, very slowly. It doesn’t creak like it’s always creaked. But it still opens, in the end, and that’s what matter.
It’s dark in there. Obviously, because it’s night-time and there’s shadows inside the room and no lights, but it’s still really dark. He choses not to switch them on, the lights.
For a little while there’s nothing that happens.
The mattress sags under his weight.
He stares at his feet as he lets them swing around a little.
He didn’t take off his shoes. It’d take a bit too long untying all his laces, though. Doing them already took too much of his time.
He didn’t take his jacket off either. He can’t find himself getting too guilty over it, though. Just. A bit, yeah. But there’s other worries and thoughts to the front of his mind.
Once, he got in with his sneakers dripping mud everywhere. He didn’t mean to, really : usually he was always very careful to take them off and to put them neatly in the outside-shoes corner.
But it was later than the usual time he got back from school and the ninja turtles episode of the day was already starting and if he missed more it would be awful and sad and very very terrible for him. He’d be confused. Yes, he would figure out the story quickly, but he’d still be missing the brothers cool quips! And missing some fighting scenes. So he half-ran there and dropped his bag very un-neatly near the table , and he switched on the television-
And was stopped by a very stern and very simple two-words sentence.
“Duke Thomas.”
He froze. The tv remote suddenly got a little sweaty in his hand.
“May I know what you think you’re doing?”, his mom said when he was done turning his head to her.
“… Watching Turtle Ninja?”
“Yes, sure. And why would that include your shoes and bringing at least half the city’s mud inside?”
His eyes widened. He felt them expand on his face. “Sorry!”, he said, and stood up quickly, almost as quick as the, uh, The Flash, and scrambled to take his shoes that were, not supposed to be brown under there. “Can I still watch? After? Please?”
“Only if you promise you’ll be cleaning your mess, huh?”
“I will! Swear!”
“You better”, she had said, firm but not unkind. He doesn’t remember exactly what she said next, but…
Duke looks back up to see his mom sitting next to him on the bed. The momentum of his feet comes to a sudden stop.
His mom’s smile is softer than it seems it’s ever been. Duke doesn’t really know how to smile back at her the way he would normally.
“Hi”, he offers. His voice is too small and he doesn’t like that: he’s no kid anymore. He’s not small too. He’s old, now.
But his mom smiles at it and maybe for that smile he doesn’t mind being small.
…
He wants her arms around him. Her usual quick but warm embrace and the nudging she’ll do at his hair and his coils or braids.
Every time he protests and he complains and he whines but then she lets him go and she clamps his cheeks in between her palms. And she’s laughing at him, then he’s laughing too. And then if it’s “early enough”, she offers to have them watch a cartoon together. It’s been long since they last got to do that.
Duke wants that. He also wants to just talk, or to draw while she reads, or to read along with her, or to show her his poems, or to gossip about his dad behind his back while he’s not back home yet.
Maybe she’ll tell him about that time he left his toothpaste opened up and it fell to the ground just the following day. Even if she had warned him that would happen and he’d have to buy them toothpaste.
Or maybe she’ll tell him about some of her day and what happened during it. He likes that, too. Sometimes, he thinks he’d like to be a social worker like she is, because when she speaks, what she does always sounds very important. He’d like to help people like she does, too.
But his mom stays silent. And she doesn’t move closer, either.
There’s something in Duke’s chest that twists onto itself at that. Ouch. It hurts, the silence. It’s been too long since his dad and his mom and him all stayed up to fill the night with the sound of music or a movie: Duke misses that.
Maybe, if he would still be awake when his dad ‘d get back from the construction site, they could do that. It’s a nice thought. It’s a nice idea. He looks back at his mom, maybe to ask her, but she’s not here anymore. Oh.
The twinge his head makes him feel, when he turns it toward her- it has him bringing his hand up. Head and hand’re both up, and his gaze’s too. So he looks, and.
The door to the bedroom is still exactly as he left it when he came in, he thinks. He can see it very clearly. Oh. Yeah.
It’s the sky falling down onto his shoulders, the realization. It’s rain and storm and fatality, because the signs were there all along. And he startles bad like he hadn’t been noticing the shade the sky was turning.
He would have preferred denial, and staying in its embrace, even if it was a cold one. But realization strikes and the burst of illumination can’t be helped.
He’s alone there. In between his cornrows there’s an unwelcome warmth and in between one second and the other he’s having to fully come to term with what he’s lost. All over again.
Oh. Right.
His dad’s not here, but his mom isn’t either. The empty air’s not her.
And earlier he was fighting like his mama didn’t want him to, ever.
And his brain is gushing poetical rhymes and dumb metaphors like it’s even something that matter- and it’s not. It’s not. He hasn’t touched his old notebook in years now. It’s ironic his head has to be splitting apart from him to start that again.
The headache-maybe-migraine, he wasn’t used to it when he was younger. He doesn’t get how he got so far into his memories like that, to forgive that that sensation wasn’t normal.
Ow. His fingers come down from the back of his head wet and the liquid keeps catching the light when he moves them. Something else that’s changed. The more he starts at it, the more the liquid seems like it’s not just red but also iridescent, luminous on its own. Not just of reflections. Hah. That’s not normal. Right.
It was nice, when he was letting himself believe his childhood home was still more than just the house it’s become. Guess some things can’t last, though. Everything has to change. And it can’t always be for the best. This is probably an unwritten law, somewhere out there.
It’s dumb, really, but he stays sitting there on a mattress sporting way more springs than he’d like to count for a bit longer.
Maybe because none’s digging into him. It’s weird, that there’s that mattress left. Weird as fuck. He’s pretty sure, once he’ll get up, the rest of the house will be empty. Maybe the previous owners left it there because it was damaged and the landlord hasn’t gotten to get his home ready to be rented again. The prices increase each year. That’s probably why it hasn’t been rented yet, since it still isn’t. Duke checked recently, maybe last month.
The listing isn’t always there on the website. It comes and go. Last month, he’s not sure which day, it was there again though.
Trying to infer which day he checked has a pang twisting his lips and features down. Ow. Ow, ow, ow, fuck. Duke might be no medical genius, but he’s looked into first-aid emergency-care enough to know this is no simple migraine situation.
So. He needs to get back.
Leaving the comfort of the fucked up bed takes more time than the logical part of his brain was telling him to take. He still ends up standing up anyway, though. Gotta do what you gotta do. And right now, he has to go back. He’s not going to just be spending more time there when he shouldn’t. That’d be dumb. And Duke definitely only takes the more logical decisions he could be taking, that’s a well-known fact.
Lingering’s a decision he doesn’t end up taking. He just ends up walking more slowly than he should in the corridor because he doesn’t want weathered floor from bursting below his feet. Injuries are, technically, stackable, head injuries might be too, he doesn’t want to be testing it out today, no thanks you. And he doesn’t want to be bumping into anything, either. Best he doesn’t make too much noise, really. There’s nobody around, and he would still be able to brawl if needs come to it, but best be careful.
The walls are more dirty than the floor, somehow. There’s lighter squares and darker stains on it. It hasn’t been cleaned in a while. Long one, too. Duke doesn’t remember his parents ever cleaning it, though, so that’s probably not something most normal adults do.
“Why don’t we ever do ‘spring cleanings’?”, he asked. Had asked his mom because that’s what the newspaper’s ads were all talking about.
“Baby, we clean often enough not to need that. This is mainly a way to sell products that’ll really never be used again.” She said. Had said. And she kept putting the groceries on the counter belt, so he helped her doing it, obviously. Even if it meant stopped reading through the newspaper.
“Oh, okay. Why do some people act like it’s fun then?”
“Some people are just like that”, his mom had shrugged. “Some even have more than just yearly spring cleanings sessions.”
And some clean ceilings and walls just as meticulously as they clean floors. Some are just crazy like that. Alfred’s just crazy like that.
Duke finds himself blinking at the thought, as he keeps walking. There’s something about that thought he should be remembering, but whatever thought process he’s supposed to be unfolding and developing is farrrr out of his current reach.
It’s… not about cleaning or housework, he’s pretty sure, what he’s supposed to be aware of.
Well. Maybe the thought will be snapping to the front of his mind at some point. But there’s no helping it right now, so. Duke lets it go. Like how he lets himself go and dropping out of the window earlier. The door is… Using the door to get out would be too some type of meaningful. He’s not doing that. He slipped out, and he only barely stumbled the slightest bit. Aced that landing. He doesn’t even have to dust himself off.
The moon and its reflection is too much of a blur when he walks. It’s annoying, a bit. Duke would have liked admiring it, like back then when he would sometimes peek through his shutters and-
He forces himself to lock in on the neon sign of a random corner store. If he’s going to start thinking about that, he’s going to be idling for way too long again. And, it’s already been long enough, since he’s been walking, he thinks.
Duke could step withing the shadows to travel more quickly. That’d makes getting back quicker. Not easier, but at least quicker, but, well, nah. He’d rather keep walking, for some reason.
There’s something nice about walking through the streets he used to and taking the shortcuts he’s discovered. He probably shouldn’t taking them while his brain feels like it’s actively escaping him, but it’s quicker than just walking. Even if it isn’t his shadow-travelling.
His footsteps don’t bring him to the rehabilitation center, but he’s honestly not sure he would have let them. It’s late. The nurses on-shift probably are tired. He’s tired, too. So, no, he isn’t going to go, because of that, mainly. Really.
His blood’s still ever so slowly gushing past his fingers and his helmet is nowhere to be seen. He didn’t bring it with him, apparently. Well. That might have had his outside walk turn into more than just a stroll though, so it’s not that big a deal. He didn’t check the rest of the house. But he’s convinced he didn’t leave it hiding in any shadows. At least that way, chances he’ll get in trouble lowered by a good 15%. Chances people will pick a fight with The Signal are higher than people picking a fight with Duke Thomas. He… thinks so. He’s 80% sure about it. 70 percents.
Somewhere earlier, the shadows had been intimidating him, subtly enough. Like back when he was a kid and thought there were monsters in them. ‘cept here the other more logical part of his brain knew nothing was hiding in them.
Though, he can’t really be relying on his logical brain, there. Back at his home, he just spent, what… thirty minutes, maybe, reminiscing himself into the past? Yeah. He’s supposed to be at the Hatch, or the Manor, or... Yeah. Not wherever he is right now, really.
He didn’t bring his phone, either. The position of the moon hints at the time being close to three in the morning though. Late. He has no classes tomorrow morning which is nice, really. At least he’ll get to rest without having to use even more of his absences credits, or getting Bruce to get him more of those.
In the sky, the stars are hidden by the fog of pollution, but they’re still there. They twinkle a little in the puddles Duke passes by. He didn’t go inside his room. He could have, technically and also definitely factually, but he didn’t.
The glow-in-the-dark stars he put everywhere on his ceiling and walls probably weren’t decorating them anymore.
There probably would have been none of his old belongings left, too. It‘s better he left, probably. Getting back was urgent, too, it’s the reason he left.
(It’s also a shit load of bullshit. He didn’t go because he was scared every ones of his old toys would have disappeared, even though he knows they would have already. It’s egoistical, but he can’t find himself entirely happy there’s a kid out there that’s getting to play with them. He’s glad about hit, really, but he’s also feeling a prick to his chest. Jealousy. Or something.)
His mind’s really scattering all over the place today. Or, well, tonight. More than usual. He can focus well enough, but it’s getting a bit annoying how he keeps spacing out to find himself having slowed down in his marching.
Backstreets turn into streets that turn into alley that turn into main streets . So on, and on. And on again. He gets closer to Bristol, ever so slowly. It makes him raises a more cautious eyes to his surroundings.
Blue and red’s scarier than the wailing that’s too constant in the city. But luckily, that part of Gotham’s quiet today.
The roads as a whole are being calm, actually. “That’s weird”, he lets slip out of his mouth. And out loud, too. It’s an accident. Not like it matters: he’s alone out in the city right now. It is really weird. Maybe a little suspicious too. Usually traffic and drivers will always be hectic and crazy and wrecking chaos onto the roads. The fact they’re quiet is weird. It fits the sort of odd emptiness of his mind, though.
Like. He’s thinking, and seeing and noticing, but it’s quiet, the way he does it. He wouldn’t know how to explain it. Doesn’t really mind enough to.
The pavement keeps unwinding below his feet as he walk.
If it’s around 3AM, Batman would be bringing Damian back home right now. He could hitchhike a ride from the Batmobile if so. That’d be fun. Practical, too. Hopefully, his estimation’s wrong then.
Something cold’s streaming down his face. It's not exactly comfortable, but, hey, at least it's not rain, he tells himself.
There’s still the pang in his head, and it’s annoying. More annoying than the one in his chest, there’s also the fact that he keeps almost stumbling. That’s mad annoying. Earlier, when he was still in the Narrows, he didn’t have to look down at his feet and the dirt below it.
He pushes the door open absent-mindedly, when it gets in front of him. There’s way too many doors, in there. Nobody should need that many door. Honestly, it’s a wonder he didn’t get lost crossing them all. He’s a bit proud of it, really. Even if he knows most of the different rooms and paths now.
Still. Way too many door. Rich people are baffling in all the possible ways there are, really.
He pushes what’s probably his sixteenth door of the night, and a diffuse light greets him. That’s all the greeting he gets, though. Silence from both the door and the person inside the room.
“Hey. Missed me?”, he wants to tells Damian, who’s sitting near the un-lightened fireplace. It’s too late for him to be up, but Duke was also sometimes staying up at this hour when he was his age, so who is he to judge, really.
Damian has his head springing around so quickly it has him reeling.
He’s standing up now and he’s rushed head first into him and. Oh. Alright. Okay.
Duke says his ‘hey, missed me’ anyway.
Arms are constricting him and… Well. Duke wraps back his around Damian’s back and sides.
“That was supposed to be rhetorical but, hey, ’m not gonna complain you did”, he says, looking down at the boy to figure him out. To try to. Try to figure out what’s the hug for, mainly.
The expression on his face is hidden but the firm flex of his arm is tight and Duke is pretty sure it’s not just frustration that has Damian snapping at him.
“Where were you? We’ve been looking for your foolish ass everywhere!” He raises his head up to hold Duke’s gaze and, yeah: it’s definitely not just frustration on his face, even in the vastness of the emotion.
“I’ve been… walking? Around? Why, a dude can’t go out on his own?” He laughs a clear sound then. It’s not the first time he went on walks after his patrols. This shouldn’t be more different than any of the other times he’s done that, really.
“Not when said “dude” obviously and visibly is concussed to high-hells, no”, Damian says, letting go of him just to tugs sharply at his arm. Duke lets him: he lets himself being man-handled to the couch, too.
“Oh. Yeah, no, still am allowed to go out as a civilian post-injuries. As long as I treated them. It’s in Bruce’s non-official contract. Unless they changed?”
“They haven’t. But you’re going to be exempted from them if this is your way of ‘handling injuries’. We’ve called you, and you assured Oracle you were ‘just fine. And there you are, having definitely lied.” There’s something very serious about Damian’s tone. Or, well, more serious than his usual seriousness, at least. Duke holds the fire of his gaze while he stops embracing him to start mishandling him, but. It’s a bit harder for him than his usual, too. “You’re bleeding, and you haven’t mentioned that fact even once.”
“Huh. Fair. …Sorry?”, he tries. He means it, but it’s also a bit hard to be apologetic for a situation you don’t remember being aware during. And that concussion must be a high-leveled one, if Damian’s that frazzledly manhandling his head from side to side to check on him or for… something.
“You’re lucky you don’t seem to need sutures”, he hisses. “Your head’s still definitely looking a mess, however.”
Hah. He didn’t realizes sutures could have been an option, but that does make sense. He pretty much can only wonder: how out of it did that concussion gets him? How strongly was he knocked into a wall, this time?
His memories aren’t a blur, not really: he still remembers very well that just… yesterday, -yesterday, because it’s been a day now that midnight passed-, he had been fighting Man-Bat. And he remembers very well that he managed to buy himself enough time to retrieve the antidote by tricking him into a random garage.
He remembers slamming down into the man to inject the serum, too.
The impact, and the momentary pain, but then the chaos of having to finish the fight, adrenaline or something similar rushing through his blood and nerves and mind, seeing and being both disgusted and slightly fascinated at the stretches of muscles and cracking of bones of the Man-bat finally reverting back into his man form, and after that driving back to the Hatch to patch up the countless bruises on his poor skin, and then… Well. And then. The blur, mostly.
Leaving the Hatch, like usual, through his usual entrance, and taking another path than his usual ones —even if he changed his route often for safety purpose, he still ended up taking too similar ones, to Batman’s and others displeasure—, but… After that, and before earlier…
“Ouchhh”, he groans. Interrupts his reflection. Too much thinking, maybe. Or, rather- Maybe too much of the prodding Damian’s doing, he infers at the retreating fingers. His gaze locks in to a definitely unapologetic expression.
“You didn’t come back. And disappeared off our radars after our call. And Barbara couldn’t see you appearing on any cameras, either, after some point.”
Oh. Duke also doesn’t remember that. Purposefully avoiding the working city-cameras and Barbara’s ones. He does know he’s mastered his light-bending abilities very well, though.
“Oh. My bad. I didn’t mean to, really”, he says, and this time he means it, his apology. He really is, sorry. Yes, being able to do as he wants and go where he wants ’s really important, to him, and if he was told to stop he’d be upset, but he can also get how stressful his errands could have been, to the other’s point of view.
“just… had to do something. Something important to me.”
He settles on that. It’s not an explanation, far from it, but he doesn’t want to say more than it.
Damian doesn’t press. He doesn’t ask question. There’s a furrow to his eyebrow, an odd… maybe contemplation, pensiveness. He looks observing for a while, but the looks turns determinate before the silence can turn insistent.
Duke doesn’t want to share what he knows he’s been doing, in the past few hours. He’s not entirely sure himself what his consciousness was striving for, with his wandering. But the little of his evening that’s not just blur muddle, he wants to keep to himself.
“Hm. You couldn’t patch yourself up appropriately, apparently”, Damian says, standing away from him. “Stay right here”, he says, pointing down in a way that should likely be menacing. If Duke was easily threatened, at least. Damian’s definitely a menace and an intimidating presence to most but Duke’s never gotten got by it all. “I’m bringing the aisle’s first aid kit. Do not move, you hear?”
“I’m concussed, not deaf”, he waves Damian off. It’s only after that that he finally realizes something that definitely should have been bugging him more. “Alfred’s not gonna be doing it?”, he asks: because usually, it’s the man who takes care of any injury that’s not hospitalization worthy but not self-treatable, and because he’ll normally the first to sternly be staring people into getting bandaged up properly.
… He wasn’t there earlier either, when Duke got in the manor and was going across it.
The main door was open, but he wasn’t here to open it up. Or to greet him after he went through it. Or, at all. But Alfred’s just as much a night owl as most of the inhabitants-slash-vigilantes living there, so now that Duke’s registering that, his absence’s weird.
“No. He was out of the city before your disappearance started being a worry”, Damian is saying. Duke almost miss the way he pauses before he adds “For his yearly vacation”.
Oh. Yeah. That.
“Makes sense, yeah”, he says. As if he didn’t only now remember that, yeah, yesterday was the date Bruce and him had “agreed” on for it to be the beginning of Alfred’s only true break of the year- agreed, because it had been a decision Bruce apparently had to fight tooth and nail before Alfred even considered considering the option of stepping away from the manor. Crazy.
“I’ll be back”, Damian says, turning on his feet almost immediately. Not without a last firm look though, one that Duke finds himself staring back at. At least he spared him the verbal reminder not to move.
Time moves more slowly than it was doing beforehand, when Duke was walking. It’s weird. And it’s definitely not supposed to be this way, when Duke’s not using any of his vision ability.
Maybe, it’s because the fog is recessing and the repeated stabbing in his skull is revealing itself. Being a meta-human has it’s perks, a lot of them, despite the cons, but what good is it if Duke can’t heal on his own quickly? Ouch. It probably kept him from immediately succumbing to the pain, and crumpling down into a corner of the Hatch or any of Gotham’s nook but it’s honestly not worth it, if it had him wandering and maybe making his injury —concussion— worse.
He could have fallen out of many windows and walls, during his expedition.
Times move slowly, like he’s trying to swim in slime at a pace that’d be quicker than anything else than advancing a few centimeters a minute.
Maybe it’s because his mind has been set on making him float through a sort of time-hopping daze.
And because there’s less things that could make memories re-emerge, there. It’s that, probably. Because Duke would never keep himself from thinking about his parents and him and them, even if every memory comes with its very own bittersweetness.
But the living room stays empty of any unreal presence. Which just… Yeah.
Yeah.
Damian appears back at his side with all the discretion he’s ever been able to showcase. Which means a lot. Which means Duke doesn’t notice his presence until it’s there right to his side. Damian’s glaring, again.
He has gauze in between his palms, and the first-aid-kit’s box on the couch next to Duke.
Duke has… no recollection of if he saw it being put there or not. Which should be concerning, but he’s been accepting that his perception skills have been majorly fucked up with for a while now.
He’s offered a pill that he takes absentmindedly. He swallows it on what feels like the first try too.
The gauze- Damian doesn’t press it against his head. Duke should be glad. Duke is glad as hell that he’s not pressing it. He doesn’t have that many experiences blanking out, or fainting, or passing out, or- but those’ve never been really pleasant experiences. So he’s glad.
The gauze just, pats his head repeatedly, it looks like from the movement of Damian’s hand. Duke stops squinting at it when the pitch behind his eyes keeps steadily increasing. Ouch, he thinks.
“So. What’s the verdict?”, he says. Asks.
“Doesn’t look fractured. And the bleeding slowed down by a lot, it seems like. There is a pretty big bump, though. It’s almost impressive, really.”
“Thanks, I try my best to be.” That comes out of his lips easily, the joke. Huh. Guess he didn’t lose his quick-tongue, then. Neat.
“This isn’t the time for bad quips”, Damian tells him, unimpressed.
Duke can’t see his expression, because he closed his eyes to appease the tornado wreaking chaos into his head. But he can tell the boy’s eyebrows are lowered. He can also probably tell the expression’s judging.
“There ain’t ever a bad time for quips”, he shrugs. And, surprisingly enough, the action doesn’t have him wincing. It’s Damian bringing another roll of gauze to his dying skull that does, actually.
“Ow”, he lets out, then he note “I thought you said the bleeding was slowing.”, because he really thought he did.
“It did. You being an overachiever apparently applied not only to the size of your bump, though.”
“Oh. Neat?” It’s the only thing he can think of saying, apparently. Never mind about his mind and tongue still being quick then. Damian’s tongue makes it’s reprobative noise quicker than his brain can come up with a thing to start the conversation again. Duke’s not even sure he really wants to, anyway. He does, a little, but at the same time he thinks silence would be easier.
“I wouldn’t qualify your head injury as neat”, he says, and he brings up Duke’s hand as a wordless command. Duke holds on to the gauze set against his apparently still slowly bleeding head-wound without any question. “You’re telling me you really hadn’t noticed the bleeding?”
“Nope”, he says. The p doesn’t pop out his mouth in the exact playful way he wants it to. “I mean, I noticed the blood at some point, but not… all that.”
“Hmm.” Damian takes out another of gauze-pad-things. He’s precise when he wraps it into a more compact, folded version. Quick, too. Duke’s eyes almost can’t follow.
The silence settles back into the room after that. It’s not the same silence that was following him when he was out walking and back at his home- house- old place, but it’s still a packed one.
The moon’s light’s still almost the same though. Even through the glass of the (bayed, too grand) windows.
“Is this a recent development, or an old one?”
Damian’s head’s tilting down toward the couch. The space in between where he’s sitting and the arm of the couch, more specifically. There’s more bloody gauzes there than Duke excepted.
Duke blinks, two, three time.
“… Huh. Right”, he says. “Nah, it’s not. Old.”
He says. Keeps looking at the blood, and the soft glow it’s emitting. He thought it was… not old. Definitely not old. He’s never seen his blood do that, before. Or, he’s never realized his blood could do that. He had thought he was imagining it, earlier this night.
Thought he stared so long at the moon it imprinted itself onto his vision. And it was affecting how he saw the rest of the world, maybe. That didn’t sound too crazy, at the time.
Whimsical as hell, maybe, but sometimes Duke likes to indulge. Once, earlier in his life, he…
“Hmm.” Damian. It’s soft, but it’s still loud enough for Duke to be focusing on his voice and him again. “I wonder if it’ll only do that during the night.”
Duke just shrugs. Makes a noncommittal noise, too. There’s a joke to be made there, or theories to come up with, but he finds the silence easier. He doesn’t want to be thinking about the glow of stars or the moon or anything anymore, not entirely, suddenly.
“Y’can pass me the gauze now.” He’d like to wrap it around his head and call it a night. Sleep away the headache and hopefully escape the nauseas that sometimes come with head-injuries as a whole. Sleeping sounds nice, real nice, right now.
“I’m not trusting your judgement for when you’ll call the wrapping you’ll be doing an efficient one”, Damian says, keeping the gauze resolutely in his hands. Duke squints at him.
There’s something that’s not skepticism in his expression and the way he immediately gets to unwrapping the gauze.
If he was less… all this, right now, Duke would be analyzing his expression and all the facts and things he’s been observing since he got back. He settles on just telling himself this is Damian’s way of doing things. That works, too.
“ ‘kay then. If you really want to.”
He lets him bring the fabric around his head and skull, even if he could be doing it himself just fine. Easier not to insist or else they’d have to argue. Duke doesn’t feel like it. He doesn’t feel like his usual version of himself, entirely. It has him frowning, a bit, but it’s a fuzzy realization and, honestly, Duke’s had enough bad feelings for the day and night. Sorrow’s overrated, and he’d rather keep himself focusing on Damian’s retelling of his school day than all the memories and impressions that’ve been appearing and doing their things in his head.
They’ll be coming back in his dreams, anyway, he knows. He knows it like he knows the streets of Gotham. He’s not abandoning them, the memories, the feelings, all his thoughts. He’s not giving up on anything. He’s just, waiting for them to be appearing back later, with all their gloomy comfort. He drags his gaze away from the moon, back onto Damian, who’s climbing up the couch now.
The boy sits next to him, putting his phone close to his immediate reach in between two pillows. Duke raises a questioning eyebrow at him.
“Father asked us to both stay up until he got back.” The explanation’s concise, as it’s often with Damian. A bit too straight to the point, though. Duke’s maybe missing some facts here, because Bruce’s an hypocrite that tells everyone to go to sleep early when he’s obsessed with pulling all-nighters and dying of exhaustion. He missed seeing Damian pulling out his phone to use it and send any texts at any points, too.
“Huh. Sure. Why?”
“He would like to check up on your injury and check whether or not you’ve lost more braincells than you already have, mainly.” Damian’s face is firm and serious, so much so Duke has to squint again. Deciphering it ’s hard as hell tonight. He has to rely on the intonation he used instead.
“And he said it exactly this way?”, Duke asks, raising one eyebrow back up again.
“Yes”, Damian unashamedly answers- and lies- to him. “We can watch one of your preferred documentaries, if you want.”
Duke’s back to blinking in Damian’s direction, again.
“Aren’t concussed people supposed to get as much rest as they can?”
“Yes. But you definitely haven't been doing that so far, and he wishes to check up on you as soon as possible. He added he’d rather be the one giving you any stronger medicine, too. You’re usually slow to wake. So. We’re both waiting.” Something’s final in Damian’s body language, on top of his words. Duke’s head still aches too much for him to be deciphering the hows and whys. He just watches as Damian grabs onto the remote, and speak up only when Damian go back to looking expectantly in his direction.
“Okay. Sure.” He settles on that. Settles on the warmth against his side, even if the pressure on his head’s not the one he wants. Settles on looking away from the opened windows. He turns toward the turned off black screen, for now.
“Switch the channel to Netflix then. There’s a show I want to watch.”
He says that simply, like it’s something casual, something careless. And it is, in a way. It is an everyday thing, it’s just today- tonight-, it’s something that holds more meaning than Duke is ready to share with the room.
Damian makes a questioning noise.
“t’s a cartoon. One I like. I dunno, maybe you will too,”
Damian makes another noise, one that conveys he’s not too convinced he will. Duke knows that he’s usually very strict on the cartoons he calls or can consider appreciable.
Damian switches on the TV without any reclamation, though, and Duke brings one of his arms to settle onto his shoulder. Damian lets him, and Duke lets him keep sneaking glances - some he tries to keep discreet- at him.
It’s nice. It’s a different sort of silence, one that’s interrupted by different noises of the past, but it’s nice. Nostalgic, still, but in an easier way, slightly. His headache’s still here, yes, but it’s been the least of his worry, anyway.