[email log] to pierce the heart
Valentine’s Day… A day for lovers. For frivolous excess in romantic red, shimmering diamonds, gold and black silk.
St. Valentine’s probably rolling in the old grave at the excuse for fornication and unchastity the saint’s day has become.
At home, Valentine’s Days a day for aphrodisiacs gone wild, demonic lust spells, lonely hearts murder sprees, and the Cupid of Crime. Here...it looks like something out of one of our worst nightmares, like we got plunged into the Queen of Hearts’ realm in Wonderland…
Sad isn’t it, that romantic decorations make me think of some of our worst adventures? But Harley and Ivy get pushed out of my mind along with Vala’s news and my conversation with Polly. Nothing’s going to go wrong today.
Today is for me and Tim…
Hefting his not-so-ill-gotten gains, Dick hikes the rest of the way to the abandoned hut where Tim will meet him in an hour. The work of lighting candles in small clay cups to line the steps, porch railing and shelves inside, plumping pillows, filling bowls with fruit and candy and glasses with wine and water, hiding the chocolates from Zozie and his gift for Tim and displaying the flowers from Karo, clears his head, leaving him peaceful again, content. With ten minutes to spare, he settles amidst the cushions, sprawled comfortably to Batnap and wait for Tim.
Tim had showered and changed into fresh clothes. It was a little nicer than he'd normally indulge in. It just seemed to make sense, treating this like a proper date and that meant black slacks, a blue silk button down that he already knew Dick was going to like the feeling of even if it hadn't been the same blue as Nightwing's uniform. His hair was still too long but it was even at least and Dick liked it long--everyone did, for some reason--so that wasn't a problem. No cologne on the island so soap would have to do. The candles made him smile. It was a foolish gesture, of no particular use but feeding Dick's romantic side. Tim reached back to finger the small book of poetry he'd coaxed from the bookshelf and tucked into his pocket. It was a poor gift by comparison to all that Dick had set up. And no kind of gift at all compared to the sight of Dick's body splayed invitingly, boneless and beautiful. Tim stopped in the doorway and for a moment just...looked.
His lashes flutter against his cheeks, breathing still slow and even. The presence in the doorway registers as non-threatening before he is fully awake. Dick opens his eyes, but doesn't move except to sweep his gaze along Tim's body and curve his lips in a slow, warm half-smile of approval for the blue that brings out his eyes. "You look hot. Nice date?" he teases, deliberate inversion, in a soft, smoky drawl.
"Been looking forward to it," Tim replied with a tilt of his head, characteristically serious though his eyes betrayed a softness not often found on the younger man. He didn't move, letting Dick look his fill while he did the same. They had plenty of time for everything else and it was kind of nice letting the tension pull between them. "How about you? Worn out or resting up?"
"Catching a little rest I'm not expecting to get later." Rolling to his stomach, Dick folds his arms under his chin. He blinks to adjust to the light after sleep, but the effect is uncharacteristically quiet for him, an unnecessary but pleasant seduction specifically for Tim who is stillness and shadow to Dick's movement and light. Tonight, Tim has matched himself to Dick, though. Nightwing blue and soft sweep of hair along his jaw, romance in his eyes and smile and in the way he stands and looks.
There was no reason to be nervous here. No reason to be reticent or shy. They've been intimate for months now and in a metaphorical as well as a very literal way, Dick was his first. Theoretically that should have made this simple. Not that anything Tim did was ever simple. He didn't actually think of himself as a complicated person but he would acknowledge that he tended to put more thought into things than was strictly necessary. It's not the intimacy that they've shared, he decided finally, it's the new level that they're at, formalized by the fact that this is Valentine's Day, a day for couples, for relationships. Last year, he'd had curry on the balcony with Bart. This year... "I can see why you have a reputation for strategy."
The Tim-style compliment both pleases and amuses him, and he repays it with an old chestnut of Bat-wisdom, something shared to set Tim more at ease. "Failing to prepare is preparing to fail," he replies, then stretches up to sit with his arms around his knees. "You can come in, if you want."
Before he entered, Tim toed off his shoes, leaving them in the doorway. He crossed the space between on sock-clad feet and knelt before Dick, like a student preparing for a lesson. "Should I ask what you've prepared? Or let myself be surprised?" He rarely was, overthinking things the way he did meant that he usually at least touched on the outcome of a situation as a possibility. But that was the point, that he was offering his trust in Dick, enough not to second guess.
The air heats between them, paired gazes pulling them toward each other. For a minute, Dick lets it, a full minute, watching and loving and not saying anything - in words. He releases one shin to rub his index finger against Tim's arm, distracting and soothing, then with the quickness he's known for, parts his feet, shoots out his legs, wraps them around Tim and yanks him in, playful. "Why don't you just enjoy it?"
Tim...laughed. He could outthink nearly anyone but there was no outthinking Dick who didn't think at all, just moved, felt, reacted, with instincts more dead on than even careful thought could anticipate. It startled Tim out of his solemnity and nerves. He wound his arms around Dick's neck, smiling still, dimples making their rare appearance. "I can do that."
There. Better. Grinning, he wraps his arms low around Tim's waist and pulls him even closer. "I hope so. If not, all of my very careful strategizing will spoiled," he teases, letting that treasured smile and even more cherished dimples fuel easy, comfortable laughter. Still laughing, he nips a quick kiss off Tim's mouth. Being with Tim like this should be fun, sweet, filled with smiles. Unwinding one arm and reaching behind himself, he snags the red-paper sack of dark chocolates and offers it to Tim. "Got you something."
"Something other than a whole house to ourselves, set up with every possible comfort." Tim opened the bag and dipped his hand into the bag, drawing out one of the chocolates. "Did anyone tell you about what happened with the chocolate three years ago?"
"Did anyone tell you it's rude to look a gift horse in the mouth?" He's teasing, and the kiss to Tim's jaw offers proof. "Yes, Tim. I've sampled Zozie's chocolates on three separate occasions, not including this morning when I picked these up and asked to test them again." There was never any chance that he'd give Tim something to hurt him. Not ever.
"It wasn't that kind of poison." Tim smiled and bit the chocolate in half, fed the rest to Dick. "Chocolate's traditionally an aphrodisiac. The island took that to the extreme." Tim leaned in and kissed him, slow, nibbling kisses that tasted bitter and dark, rich and creamy. "I don't think that you need any help."
"I don't need any help," he agreed licking the bitter-sweet chocolate from a mouth nothing could sweeten for him. The kisses went on, until he'd fallen back against the cushions, drawing Tim with him. When he breaks away to feed Tim another chocolate, he adds, "I don't ever want us to have sex for any reason that isn't because we both want to." If he's a little adamant, he knows Tim will understand.
Tim nipped at his fingers. "I know," he said quietly and settled in next to him, curving his arms around him. He kissed his jaw softly and tried to quiet the unease that always twisted his stomach when Dick referenced Catalina, even obliquely. Not because he was uncomfortable with Dick but because he didn't know how he could justify keeping secrets from Dick after that display of trust. It just kept getting bigger, twisting up inside of him. For as many years as Tim had lied to all the people he'd loved, he had no fondness for it. "We're too good together to put anything between us."
It warms him through to hear Tim say it, to hear him admit and accept it. "Yeah, we are," he agrees, smoothing the blue shirt down Tim's back and nudging his chin up to kiss him sweetly. But even that quiet confidence and burst of affection can't hide Tim's mood-shift from Dick who knows him so well. He snakes out an arm to grab the wine glasses and then again for the bottle - red, of course, bartered from Helen - that he opened to let breathe. "Nothing should get between us, not even whatever's on your mind. Tell me?"
Tim glanced at the wine and shook his head, "None for me, thank you," he said politely instead of answering Dick's request. He didn't know that he wanted to explain it at all and was fairly sure that even if he did, right now, during a romantic moment meant for just the two of them and not for unpleasantness and doubt....now was not the time.
That makes the second time since he's been here that Tim has turned down alcohol from him in an intimate moment. It wouldn't be surprising if Tim either had decided not to drink at all or he disliked the island liquor so much that he saw no point. But Tim knows him well enough to know that if he offers wine, it's worth drinking. That leaves the former, but it would require a catalyst, and intuition tells Dick that there's more to it than simple fitness. Tim had been too adamant about it on New Year's and too resistant to the holiday.
He sets both glasses and bottle aside, not needing them if Tim doesn't want it, and curls his hand behind Tim's neck. For a long minute, he simply watches Tim, fingertips playing in the soft short hairs at his nape. "You know, the best part about being alone with you like this is being able to talk about anything we want and knowing we won't be interrupted."
Tim smiled, his worries pushed into the background where they didn't reach his eyes, "What do you want to talk about? Not work. Not even I'm enough of a workaholic for that." Well, he was trying not to be anyway. Small steps, little by little and with any luck at all someday Tim would be the kind of person who didn't sit with his significant other and think about the job.
Nice try, Tim. Dick leans in, takes a small, sipping kiss off Tim's mouth, nips along his jaw, down his throat and back up to his ear. Lull him into a false sense of security. It doesn't hurt the project that the taste of Tim's skin sets up a deep hum of arousal in his chest and heats his breath. "Maybe you want to tell me why you don't drink at all anymore." But there's no real maybe about it.
Tim's eyes had slipped closed for the kiss, his body relaxed under Dick's loving caress. It made the resulting tension that hummed through him at the question impossible to hide. Since he couldn't, he sighed instead and opened his eyes, drawing back from the closeness. "Would you believe I discovered I'm allergic to alcohol?"
With Tim relaxing into him, Dick almost regrets pushing it. Almost. But something's upsetting Tim, needling him. Riding under the surface. Something that isn't as huge and horrible as his dad and Stephanie, which makes it something that maybe he can help by going at directly. If he can just take care of more of these little hurts, Tim will get more flexible (and he's gotten so much better) less fragile. More able to deal with the bigger issues. Curling his arm to keep him too close to get away, Dick catches his gaze and answers, "If it was the truth."
Tim sighed again and shook his head, "It isn't but it would be a simpler explanation." He looked away, sorting out his thoughts. He'd have liked more time to come up with a proper explanation for this. A way to frame it that wouldn't make it sound like more than it had been. "At the last New Year's party, I had too much to drink. I did something stupid and decided that I'd rather not risk being that incapable of making good decisions in the future. Stopping drinking entirely was the most efficient solution."
With someone who knew him less well, Dick would've taken the time to assure them he would never advocate impairing their judgment and it wasn't that he wanted them to drink. It's Tim, so he flattens his hand against Tim's spine. "Define stupid." Dick has a pretty damned good idea it has to do with Bart and sex, and he'd be seeing red that isn't roses, except he's a lot more concerned about Tim right now than what Bart might or might not have done.
Tim sat up, cursing internally at his need for distance when that was just going to be further damning evidence to Dick. He raked his hands through his hair and stared straight ahead, thinking rapidly, "Kissed Dairine. Kissed Bart and went home with him. Felt like an idiot the next morning."
They've walked this path already, when he finally broke about Catalina. The resistance, the vagueness, the disconnect. Dick hears date-rape in every word doesn't speak and he's surprised, so surprised, that the fury he knows is there, the desire to take Bart and throw him off the treehouse roof, subsides and submerges beneath the wounded ache, the knowing, that even if the details aren't the same, Bart took something from Tim that night. Soft, thumb finding and rubbing the edge of Tim's knee, he completes it for him. "Because you had sex without meaning to. Because he wanted it and you might not have, except the alcohol impaired your judgment. Timmy, come here." Quiet command that holds nothing of anger for Bart. Now's not the time or place for that. "Please."
Tim turned slightly, giving Dick his profile but nothing more, "I don't want you to put more onto it than it is, Dick. It's awkward but that's all." If he'd chosen to talk about this--his time, his place, his explanation instead of the questions, Tim might have admitted more. Talked more about how he'd felt. But now he kept it to the essentials. Soothed Dick's fears instead of confessing his own long covered over hurts. He rolled his shoulders, "Anyway, that's why I don't drink anymore."
"You don't want me to put more onto your first time being beyond your control than there is, when you're the ultimate control freak," Dick answers, tone a little flat, but more to keep his own emotions as far out of this as possible than out of any anger. "I think I can manage that." Because there's so much more than Tim's saying, more than he knows how to talk about it. Even if it wasn't rape straight up, Tim's not like him, and it wouldn't need to be to carve a hole in Tim's psyche. This time when he says it, Dick sits up and smooths his hand over Tim's hair, urging him into his arms. "Tim, please come here." He can't undo it, but he's even gladder than ever that they took their time while Tim was a girl, that at least that first time was good and right. He can't undo it, but he can love Tim and let him find his way to words and clear emotions.
Dick was equating this to Catalina. Tim could hear it in his voice and for that reason, he moved back to Dick's arms, let him give comfort in order to gain it. "It was a mistake. I hate making mistakes but I'm not going to beat myself up over it forever."
Denial, repression - he knows it, recognizes it, remembers how much it hurt to have it stripped away, to have to face the truth of how little control he'd actually had and how much his mind had been disordered. Tim's so much more fragile than he is, and hurting him by being wrong here...his stomach clenches tight, arms closing around him. "It wasn't your mistake," he says softly, simply against the warm curve of Tim's neck and drawing his own comfort from the closeness. He's all right, but no sense denying this effects him, too.
Tim turned further into the embrace, wrapped his arms around Dick. He didn't want to talk about this and regretted that he hadn't been able to control his own reactions well enough to keep it from interrupting their night. But he could bring this back around now, fix it. "It doesn't matter what it was. It's over now. I'm fine." His mouth brushed Dick's, soft and comforting. "And I have you. I know that you know exactly how important this is to me."
He's not the one in need. He's fine, really, but Tim's kisses pull on him, offering comfort along with Tim's awareness that it's not just Tim's sexual will he's defending. The protectiveness of it, as ass backwards as it is pulls on him. Dick fights it long enough to protest, "it matters to me," before sliding into the slow heat of Tim's mouth still flavored with sweet, rich chocolate. Then again when the kiss ends to say, "You don't have to protect Bart from me. I just want to be here for you."
Tim's mouth slid up Dick's jaw, his tongue tracing the shell of his ear. "That's what I want. Just you," he murmured, "Let the rest of it go. This is the only thing that matters right now. You and me." His hand pressed down Dick's back, moving him closer. It was a little manipulative but it was the right thing to do, anything to make Dick happy instead of worried and distressed.
He exhales on a soft puff of a laugh. "I shouldn't let you get away with that," Dick says, mock-stern, but he's already tilting his head for Tim's mouth. Already offering his neck for Tim's thorough, relentless attentions. His fingers twine tight in Tim's hair, though, lifting his head to look him in the eyes. "It shouldn't have been that way. It should've been like this." This, being sweet, welcome heat and shared desire.
"It should have been you," Tim said quietly, the last bit of vulnerability he was going to allow himself in relation to that time. He met Dick's gaze straight on, mouth soft. He gave him another kiss, then caught Dick's hand and brought it to the buttons of his shirt, "It is now. We both have scars that won't ever go away. You love me in spite of them, that helps."
It should've been Stephanie, comes the immediate rejoinder, but it fades again under the power of Tim saying that. That it should've been him, and for thirty seconds, almost an eternity in Boy Wonder time, he doesn't know what to say. And then he does, raising his other hand to join the first to carefully work the buttons of Tim's shirt - Nightwing blue and worn for him. He lifts his gaze to collect Tim's. "It was me. When you were a girl. Remember that instead."
Tim's smile said that it already was the only thing he remembered. As long as Dick was here with his hands on him, it would be. His hands swept up Dick's shirt, taking advantage of the loose fabric to touch and feel. It's never going to get old, having that access. "I love you," he told Dick seriously, "I wouldn't have slept with you otherwise."
Dick could say a lot of things to that, among them that Tim had slept with him long before he'd been willing to admit to loving him, but they don't seem as important as dipping his head between the tangle of their arms to take Tim's mouth again. They kiss a lot, it occurs to him, more than he ever has with Roy and with a lot of different flavors and shades of meaning. Smiling, he stretches long, slipping out of Tim's hands to dig in the bowl of candy confection hearts (carefully sorted to leave only those that say what Dick wants to) and offer up the one carefully balanced on his palm. It reads 'Be mine' and he reinforces it with a quiet "I love you."
He could almost see Dick forming the protest and was glad when he let it pass. Maybe someday they can talk about when Tim fell in love with Dick but not right now. His hand skimmed down Dick's arm, fingertips light on his wrist, then dipped into his palm to stroke the skin gently when he lifted the little heart. His mouth moved silently as he read the words, looking from the pink lettering up to Dick's perfectly formed features. "I am yours," he said quietly, wondering if that was too dramatic but not really caring all that much.
Tim. God. Dick takes lifts his hand to Tim's and strokes over his fingers, heart flipping, fluttering, leaping while he does. Gaze locked to Tim's, he leans in to take the candy from Tim's fingers on his tongue, then slides his hand into the thick weight of Tim's hair. And I'm yours, he thinks, then presses their mouths together. If Tim doesn't want to talk about Bart and what happened in words, if he won't accept comfort in words, Dick will give it the way he does best - in actions. Mine now., he says with a soft, insistent kiss and the weight of his body pressing him against the cushions.
The kiss was peppermint-sweet and cool, sharp contrast to the heat and press of Dick's body. Tim pulled in a breath just so he could feel the weight, the pressure. He understood what Dick was trying to communicate, he really did. And he treasured every moment that he was allowed to be with Dick, never taking for granted the miracle that had brought Dick into his life, or the one that had returned Dick to him again. And never never the one that was the astonishing, unbelievable fact that Dick loved him. Tim didn't know how to tell Dick that he didn't care what had happened before. This was what mattered now.
Mine now, he says again, the kiss deeper, slower, inescapable. He skims his hand down his side to Tim's hip, then hooked it under his knee to haul it up to slide up against him. It's good and sweet, making out with Tim and having all the time in the world to love him. Having an entire weekend to themselves for him to be for Tim, just his, with no one else pulling on him or calling for him. "You feel good," he murmurs, lips caressing along Tim's jaw, choosing it out of all the many thing he might've said instead, more serious, deeper. But all the words he knows together can't take away what Bart did. All he can do is take Tim's lead and love him better.
St. Valentine’s probably rolling in the old grave at the excuse for fornication and unchastity the saint’s day has become.
At home, Valentine’s Days a day for aphrodisiacs gone wild, demonic lust spells, lonely hearts murder sprees, and the Cupid of Crime. Here...it looks like something out of one of our worst nightmares, like we got plunged into the Queen of Hearts’ realm in Wonderland…
Sad isn’t it, that romantic decorations make me think of some of our worst adventures? But Harley and Ivy get pushed out of my mind along with Vala’s news and my conversation with Polly. Nothing’s going to go wrong today.
Today is for me and Tim…
Hefting his not-so-ill-gotten gains, Dick hikes the rest of the way to the abandoned hut where Tim will meet him in an hour. The work of lighting candles in small clay cups to line the steps, porch railing and shelves inside, plumping pillows, filling bowls with fruit and candy and glasses with wine and water, hiding the chocolates from Zozie and his gift for Tim and displaying the flowers from Karo, clears his head, leaving him peaceful again, content. With ten minutes to spare, he settles amidst the cushions, sprawled comfortably to Batnap and wait for Tim.
Tim had showered and changed into fresh clothes. It was a little nicer than he'd normally indulge in. It just seemed to make sense, treating this like a proper date and that meant black slacks, a blue silk button down that he already knew Dick was going to like the feeling of even if it hadn't been the same blue as Nightwing's uniform. His hair was still too long but it was even at least and Dick liked it long--everyone did, for some reason--so that wasn't a problem. No cologne on the island so soap would have to do. The candles made him smile. It was a foolish gesture, of no particular use but feeding Dick's romantic side. Tim reached back to finger the small book of poetry he'd coaxed from the bookshelf and tucked into his pocket. It was a poor gift by comparison to all that Dick had set up. And no kind of gift at all compared to the sight of Dick's body splayed invitingly, boneless and beautiful. Tim stopped in the doorway and for a moment just...looked.
His lashes flutter against his cheeks, breathing still slow and even. The presence in the doorway registers as non-threatening before he is fully awake. Dick opens his eyes, but doesn't move except to sweep his gaze along Tim's body and curve his lips in a slow, warm half-smile of approval for the blue that brings out his eyes. "You look hot. Nice date?" he teases, deliberate inversion, in a soft, smoky drawl.
"Been looking forward to it," Tim replied with a tilt of his head, characteristically serious though his eyes betrayed a softness not often found on the younger man. He didn't move, letting Dick look his fill while he did the same. They had plenty of time for everything else and it was kind of nice letting the tension pull between them. "How about you? Worn out or resting up?"
"Catching a little rest I'm not expecting to get later." Rolling to his stomach, Dick folds his arms under his chin. He blinks to adjust to the light after sleep, but the effect is uncharacteristically quiet for him, an unnecessary but pleasant seduction specifically for Tim who is stillness and shadow to Dick's movement and light. Tonight, Tim has matched himself to Dick, though. Nightwing blue and soft sweep of hair along his jaw, romance in his eyes and smile and in the way he stands and looks.
There was no reason to be nervous here. No reason to be reticent or shy. They've been intimate for months now and in a metaphorical as well as a very literal way, Dick was his first. Theoretically that should have made this simple. Not that anything Tim did was ever simple. He didn't actually think of himself as a complicated person but he would acknowledge that he tended to put more thought into things than was strictly necessary. It's not the intimacy that they've shared, he decided finally, it's the new level that they're at, formalized by the fact that this is Valentine's Day, a day for couples, for relationships. Last year, he'd had curry on the balcony with Bart. This year... "I can see why you have a reputation for strategy."
The Tim-style compliment both pleases and amuses him, and he repays it with an old chestnut of Bat-wisdom, something shared to set Tim more at ease. "Failing to prepare is preparing to fail," he replies, then stretches up to sit with his arms around his knees. "You can come in, if you want."
Before he entered, Tim toed off his shoes, leaving them in the doorway. He crossed the space between on sock-clad feet and knelt before Dick, like a student preparing for a lesson. "Should I ask what you've prepared? Or let myself be surprised?" He rarely was, overthinking things the way he did meant that he usually at least touched on the outcome of a situation as a possibility. But that was the point, that he was offering his trust in Dick, enough not to second guess.
The air heats between them, paired gazes pulling them toward each other. For a minute, Dick lets it, a full minute, watching and loving and not saying anything - in words. He releases one shin to rub his index finger against Tim's arm, distracting and soothing, then with the quickness he's known for, parts his feet, shoots out his legs, wraps them around Tim and yanks him in, playful. "Why don't you just enjoy it?"
Tim...laughed. He could outthink nearly anyone but there was no outthinking Dick who didn't think at all, just moved, felt, reacted, with instincts more dead on than even careful thought could anticipate. It startled Tim out of his solemnity and nerves. He wound his arms around Dick's neck, smiling still, dimples making their rare appearance. "I can do that."
There. Better. Grinning, he wraps his arms low around Tim's waist and pulls him even closer. "I hope so. If not, all of my very careful strategizing will spoiled," he teases, letting that treasured smile and even more cherished dimples fuel easy, comfortable laughter. Still laughing, he nips a quick kiss off Tim's mouth. Being with Tim like this should be fun, sweet, filled with smiles. Unwinding one arm and reaching behind himself, he snags the red-paper sack of dark chocolates and offers it to Tim. "Got you something."
"Something other than a whole house to ourselves, set up with every possible comfort." Tim opened the bag and dipped his hand into the bag, drawing out one of the chocolates. "Did anyone tell you about what happened with the chocolate three years ago?"
"Did anyone tell you it's rude to look a gift horse in the mouth?" He's teasing, and the kiss to Tim's jaw offers proof. "Yes, Tim. I've sampled Zozie's chocolates on three separate occasions, not including this morning when I picked these up and asked to test them again." There was never any chance that he'd give Tim something to hurt him. Not ever.
"It wasn't that kind of poison." Tim smiled and bit the chocolate in half, fed the rest to Dick. "Chocolate's traditionally an aphrodisiac. The island took that to the extreme." Tim leaned in and kissed him, slow, nibbling kisses that tasted bitter and dark, rich and creamy. "I don't think that you need any help."
"I don't need any help," he agreed licking the bitter-sweet chocolate from a mouth nothing could sweeten for him. The kisses went on, until he'd fallen back against the cushions, drawing Tim with him. When he breaks away to feed Tim another chocolate, he adds, "I don't ever want us to have sex for any reason that isn't because we both want to." If he's a little adamant, he knows Tim will understand.
Tim nipped at his fingers. "I know," he said quietly and settled in next to him, curving his arms around him. He kissed his jaw softly and tried to quiet the unease that always twisted his stomach when Dick referenced Catalina, even obliquely. Not because he was uncomfortable with Dick but because he didn't know how he could justify keeping secrets from Dick after that display of trust. It just kept getting bigger, twisting up inside of him. For as many years as Tim had lied to all the people he'd loved, he had no fondness for it. "We're too good together to put anything between us."
It warms him through to hear Tim say it, to hear him admit and accept it. "Yeah, we are," he agrees, smoothing the blue shirt down Tim's back and nudging his chin up to kiss him sweetly. But even that quiet confidence and burst of affection can't hide Tim's mood-shift from Dick who knows him so well. He snakes out an arm to grab the wine glasses and then again for the bottle - red, of course, bartered from Helen - that he opened to let breathe. "Nothing should get between us, not even whatever's on your mind. Tell me?"
Tim glanced at the wine and shook his head, "None for me, thank you," he said politely instead of answering Dick's request. He didn't know that he wanted to explain it at all and was fairly sure that even if he did, right now, during a romantic moment meant for just the two of them and not for unpleasantness and doubt....now was not the time.
That makes the second time since he's been here that Tim has turned down alcohol from him in an intimate moment. It wouldn't be surprising if Tim either had decided not to drink at all or he disliked the island liquor so much that he saw no point. But Tim knows him well enough to know that if he offers wine, it's worth drinking. That leaves the former, but it would require a catalyst, and intuition tells Dick that there's more to it than simple fitness. Tim had been too adamant about it on New Year's and too resistant to the holiday.
He sets both glasses and bottle aside, not needing them if Tim doesn't want it, and curls his hand behind Tim's neck. For a long minute, he simply watches Tim, fingertips playing in the soft short hairs at his nape. "You know, the best part about being alone with you like this is being able to talk about anything we want and knowing we won't be interrupted."
Tim smiled, his worries pushed into the background where they didn't reach his eyes, "What do you want to talk about? Not work. Not even I'm enough of a workaholic for that." Well, he was trying not to be anyway. Small steps, little by little and with any luck at all someday Tim would be the kind of person who didn't sit with his significant other and think about the job.
Nice try, Tim. Dick leans in, takes a small, sipping kiss off Tim's mouth, nips along his jaw, down his throat and back up to his ear. Lull him into a false sense of security. It doesn't hurt the project that the taste of Tim's skin sets up a deep hum of arousal in his chest and heats his breath. "Maybe you want to tell me why you don't drink at all anymore." But there's no real maybe about it.
Tim's eyes had slipped closed for the kiss, his body relaxed under Dick's loving caress. It made the resulting tension that hummed through him at the question impossible to hide. Since he couldn't, he sighed instead and opened his eyes, drawing back from the closeness. "Would you believe I discovered I'm allergic to alcohol?"
With Tim relaxing into him, Dick almost regrets pushing it. Almost. But something's upsetting Tim, needling him. Riding under the surface. Something that isn't as huge and horrible as his dad and Stephanie, which makes it something that maybe he can help by going at directly. If he can just take care of more of these little hurts, Tim will get more flexible (and he's gotten so much better) less fragile. More able to deal with the bigger issues. Curling his arm to keep him too close to get away, Dick catches his gaze and answers, "If it was the truth."
Tim sighed again and shook his head, "It isn't but it would be a simpler explanation." He looked away, sorting out his thoughts. He'd have liked more time to come up with a proper explanation for this. A way to frame it that wouldn't make it sound like more than it had been. "At the last New Year's party, I had too much to drink. I did something stupid and decided that I'd rather not risk being that incapable of making good decisions in the future. Stopping drinking entirely was the most efficient solution."
With someone who knew him less well, Dick would've taken the time to assure them he would never advocate impairing their judgment and it wasn't that he wanted them to drink. It's Tim, so he flattens his hand against Tim's spine. "Define stupid." Dick has a pretty damned good idea it has to do with Bart and sex, and he'd be seeing red that isn't roses, except he's a lot more concerned about Tim right now than what Bart might or might not have done.
Tim sat up, cursing internally at his need for distance when that was just going to be further damning evidence to Dick. He raked his hands through his hair and stared straight ahead, thinking rapidly, "Kissed Dairine. Kissed Bart and went home with him. Felt like an idiot the next morning."
They've walked this path already, when he finally broke about Catalina. The resistance, the vagueness, the disconnect. Dick hears date-rape in every word doesn't speak and he's surprised, so surprised, that the fury he knows is there, the desire to take Bart and throw him off the treehouse roof, subsides and submerges beneath the wounded ache, the knowing, that even if the details aren't the same, Bart took something from Tim that night. Soft, thumb finding and rubbing the edge of Tim's knee, he completes it for him. "Because you had sex without meaning to. Because he wanted it and you might not have, except the alcohol impaired your judgment. Timmy, come here." Quiet command that holds nothing of anger for Bart. Now's not the time or place for that. "Please."
Tim turned slightly, giving Dick his profile but nothing more, "I don't want you to put more onto it than it is, Dick. It's awkward but that's all." If he'd chosen to talk about this--his time, his place, his explanation instead of the questions, Tim might have admitted more. Talked more about how he'd felt. But now he kept it to the essentials. Soothed Dick's fears instead of confessing his own long covered over hurts. He rolled his shoulders, "Anyway, that's why I don't drink anymore."
"You don't want me to put more onto your first time being beyond your control than there is, when you're the ultimate control freak," Dick answers, tone a little flat, but more to keep his own emotions as far out of this as possible than out of any anger. "I think I can manage that." Because there's so much more than Tim's saying, more than he knows how to talk about it. Even if it wasn't rape straight up, Tim's not like him, and it wouldn't need to be to carve a hole in Tim's psyche. This time when he says it, Dick sits up and smooths his hand over Tim's hair, urging him into his arms. "Tim, please come here." He can't undo it, but he's even gladder than ever that they took their time while Tim was a girl, that at least that first time was good and right. He can't undo it, but he can love Tim and let him find his way to words and clear emotions.
Dick was equating this to Catalina. Tim could hear it in his voice and for that reason, he moved back to Dick's arms, let him give comfort in order to gain it. "It was a mistake. I hate making mistakes but I'm not going to beat myself up over it forever."
Denial, repression - he knows it, recognizes it, remembers how much it hurt to have it stripped away, to have to face the truth of how little control he'd actually had and how much his mind had been disordered. Tim's so much more fragile than he is, and hurting him by being wrong here...his stomach clenches tight, arms closing around him. "It wasn't your mistake," he says softly, simply against the warm curve of Tim's neck and drawing his own comfort from the closeness. He's all right, but no sense denying this effects him, too.
Tim turned further into the embrace, wrapped his arms around Dick. He didn't want to talk about this and regretted that he hadn't been able to control his own reactions well enough to keep it from interrupting their night. But he could bring this back around now, fix it. "It doesn't matter what it was. It's over now. I'm fine." His mouth brushed Dick's, soft and comforting. "And I have you. I know that you know exactly how important this is to me."
He's not the one in need. He's fine, really, but Tim's kisses pull on him, offering comfort along with Tim's awareness that it's not just Tim's sexual will he's defending. The protectiveness of it, as ass backwards as it is pulls on him. Dick fights it long enough to protest, "it matters to me," before sliding into the slow heat of Tim's mouth still flavored with sweet, rich chocolate. Then again when the kiss ends to say, "You don't have to protect Bart from me. I just want to be here for you."
Tim's mouth slid up Dick's jaw, his tongue tracing the shell of his ear. "That's what I want. Just you," he murmured, "Let the rest of it go. This is the only thing that matters right now. You and me." His hand pressed down Dick's back, moving him closer. It was a little manipulative but it was the right thing to do, anything to make Dick happy instead of worried and distressed.
He exhales on a soft puff of a laugh. "I shouldn't let you get away with that," Dick says, mock-stern, but he's already tilting his head for Tim's mouth. Already offering his neck for Tim's thorough, relentless attentions. His fingers twine tight in Tim's hair, though, lifting his head to look him in the eyes. "It shouldn't have been that way. It should've been like this." This, being sweet, welcome heat and shared desire.
"It should have been you," Tim said quietly, the last bit of vulnerability he was going to allow himself in relation to that time. He met Dick's gaze straight on, mouth soft. He gave him another kiss, then caught Dick's hand and brought it to the buttons of his shirt, "It is now. We both have scars that won't ever go away. You love me in spite of them, that helps."
It should've been Stephanie, comes the immediate rejoinder, but it fades again under the power of Tim saying that. That it should've been him, and for thirty seconds, almost an eternity in Boy Wonder time, he doesn't know what to say. And then he does, raising his other hand to join the first to carefully work the buttons of Tim's shirt - Nightwing blue and worn for him. He lifts his gaze to collect Tim's. "It was me. When you were a girl. Remember that instead."
Tim's smile said that it already was the only thing he remembered. As long as Dick was here with his hands on him, it would be. His hands swept up Dick's shirt, taking advantage of the loose fabric to touch and feel. It's never going to get old, having that access. "I love you," he told Dick seriously, "I wouldn't have slept with you otherwise."
Dick could say a lot of things to that, among them that Tim had slept with him long before he'd been willing to admit to loving him, but they don't seem as important as dipping his head between the tangle of their arms to take Tim's mouth again. They kiss a lot, it occurs to him, more than he ever has with Roy and with a lot of different flavors and shades of meaning. Smiling, he stretches long, slipping out of Tim's hands to dig in the bowl of candy confection hearts (carefully sorted to leave only those that say what Dick wants to) and offer up the one carefully balanced on his palm. It reads 'Be mine' and he reinforces it with a quiet "I love you."
He could almost see Dick forming the protest and was glad when he let it pass. Maybe someday they can talk about when Tim fell in love with Dick but not right now. His hand skimmed down Dick's arm, fingertips light on his wrist, then dipped into his palm to stroke the skin gently when he lifted the little heart. His mouth moved silently as he read the words, looking from the pink lettering up to Dick's perfectly formed features. "I am yours," he said quietly, wondering if that was too dramatic but not really caring all that much.
Tim. God. Dick takes lifts his hand to Tim's and strokes over his fingers, heart flipping, fluttering, leaping while he does. Gaze locked to Tim's, he leans in to take the candy from Tim's fingers on his tongue, then slides his hand into the thick weight of Tim's hair. And I'm yours, he thinks, then presses their mouths together. If Tim doesn't want to talk about Bart and what happened in words, if he won't accept comfort in words, Dick will give it the way he does best - in actions. Mine now., he says with a soft, insistent kiss and the weight of his body pressing him against the cushions.
The kiss was peppermint-sweet and cool, sharp contrast to the heat and press of Dick's body. Tim pulled in a breath just so he could feel the weight, the pressure. He understood what Dick was trying to communicate, he really did. And he treasured every moment that he was allowed to be with Dick, never taking for granted the miracle that had brought Dick into his life, or the one that had returned Dick to him again. And never never the one that was the astonishing, unbelievable fact that Dick loved him. Tim didn't know how to tell Dick that he didn't care what had happened before. This was what mattered now.
Mine now, he says again, the kiss deeper, slower, inescapable. He skims his hand down his side to Tim's hip, then hooked it under his knee to haul it up to slide up against him. It's good and sweet, making out with Tim and having all the time in the world to love him. Having an entire weekend to themselves for him to be for Tim, just his, with no one else pulling on him or calling for him. "You feel good," he murmurs, lips caressing along Tim's jaw, choosing it out of all the many thing he might've said instead, more serious, deeper. But all the words he knows together can't take away what Bart did. All he can do is take Tim's lead and love him better.