Fic: Suffocate, Fandom: DCU, Characters: Tim, Tim/Cassie, Tim/Ariana, Rating: PG
Title: Suffocate
Author: in_excelsis_dea
Fandom: DCU
Characters: Tim, some Tim/Cassie, some Tim/Ariana
Summary: He doesn't fit in anymore.
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: The characters are not mine and I do not intend to make any profit.
Prompt: 31_days Sept. 10 grow up and blow away; 64damn_prompts prompt 39. half-life.
AN: Takes place between Good-bye and Cracked. Comments and constructive criticism are always appreciated.
He doesn't know where it went wrong. Or perhaps wrong is the incorrect word. It was more that he realized, one day, that things were always the same. He went to College. He came home. He fought crime in the evenings and nights. He spent weekends with Cassie or at the Manor. Bruce was still…different, and Dick had taken over Wayne Industries with an astonishing skill. Dick had a wife and son. Jason was traveling the Middle East. Damien was a wise-cracking teenager with too many issues to count.
He doesn't fit in with his family anymore.
Cassie - oh, Cassie. He loves her and then sometimes he doesn't. She is his best friend. She was his first lover. He knows her and then sometimes he looks over at her and realizes that he can't even come close to knowing her, when he doesn't even know himself.
The first time, he left without notice. It wasn't planned, it just happened. He didn't know what to do, except get out. Leave. Take a break. Hacking into the university computers was easy and he gave himself a leave of absence and had his course materials emailed to him. He spent the month in the Amazon rainforest, ironically enough.
Six months later, he leaves again. This time he goes to China and Tibet. Four months later, he leaves again - for three months. Every time he comes back, he is welcomed abck back with open arms. Cassie understands. Bruce doesn't yet does at the same time. Damien is full of sass. Dick just shakes his head and claps him on the back.
It's annoying.
It's wrong.
He wants them to be angry with him. He deserves their anger. He's tired of - of everything.
The trips, vacations - Cassie calls them journeys - they help some. For once, he's free. He can breathe again, without worrying about being a superhero or a brother or a son. Or a lover - though that's not the problem. He does love Cassie, enjoys spending time with her. But her acceptance, the way she knows him, it somehow gets on his nerves. He has changed - can't she realize that? Can't she see how much this vigilante thing is wearing on him?
He quit the Titans years ago. He doesn't really run in groups anymore. He rarely hangs out with other heroes, except Cassie and even now he is realizing how her powers, how her status is wearing between them. The endless hiding and fear that the secret will get out. The restrictions - you can never show your true abilities for fear of being found out.
It is exhausting.
He has no real non-superhero friends.
It had to be fate, he decides, when the woman he runs into at Sun Dollar turns out to be Ariana - the Ariana, back in Gotham, attending Gotham U as a Communications major. It - well, it's funny. It takes all his skills to prevent from breaking out in laughter as she stands in front of him with coffee dripping down her shirt.
They start to talk. They start to spend time together. Soon he is making excuses to his family, to Cassie, to see her. She was always so simple - working-class, nice if strict parents, very down to earth. It is exactly what he needs now, as disillusioned as he is with the superhero and wealthy life.
For once, he doesn't have to pretend that everything is okay.
Except he does, because every time he returns to Cassie, it is as if a little piece of him - the part of him that is the original Timothy Drake - dies.
He doesn't like dying, even if it's only a little bit at a time. After all, when all the Timothy Drake is chipped away - who is he left with? Who is he left as?
It isn't easy. He knows that Cassie is catching on slowly and that eventually - soon - he would have to make his choice. And finally, it comes. Seeing her on the roof - it is time. Now or never. Speak now or forever hold your peace.
Ari doesn't know.
She knows he was seeing someone, but in a lie of omission, he never stated that he still was. He did stop sleeping with Cassie, at least. A small consolation, but one nonetheless. It makes the guilt less overbearing.
He never told her that he was Robin. He never told her that he was still a superhero. He keeps his family hidden from her, even though he would answer if she asked. She never does - something that soothes him.
No explanations.
No questions.
Just acceptance of Tim.
For the first time in years, he is free to be just Tim again.
"You look sad." He turns to her voice. Ariana holds out a steaming mug of coffee and perches next to him on her couch. "Is there something I can do?"
"No," he assures her. "I - I just need to think." Mourn. Contemplate. Wonder. Dream.
"Okay," she says simply, her hand resting on his leg.
He looks over at her. Her eyes are dark and thoughtful; she is lost in her own thoughts. There is a slight smile on her lips. He knows, without a doubt, that she accepts his silence, that she understands it. He knows that she loves him for who he is, without any of the other, messy layers. He knows that he loves her.
He knows that this is right.
It is time to move on.
Author: in_excelsis_dea
Fandom: DCU
Characters: Tim, some Tim/Cassie, some Tim/Ariana
Summary: He doesn't fit in anymore.
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: The characters are not mine and I do not intend to make any profit.
Prompt: 31_days Sept. 10 grow up and blow away; 64damn_prompts prompt 39. half-life.
AN: Takes place between Good-bye and Cracked. Comments and constructive criticism are always appreciated.
He doesn't know where it went wrong. Or perhaps wrong is the incorrect word. It was more that he realized, one day, that things were always the same. He went to College. He came home. He fought crime in the evenings and nights. He spent weekends with Cassie or at the Manor. Bruce was still…different, and Dick had taken over Wayne Industries with an astonishing skill. Dick had a wife and son. Jason was traveling the Middle East. Damien was a wise-cracking teenager with too many issues to count.
He doesn't fit in with his family anymore.
Cassie - oh, Cassie. He loves her and then sometimes he doesn't. She is his best friend. She was his first lover. He knows her and then sometimes he looks over at her and realizes that he can't even come close to knowing her, when he doesn't even know himself.
The first time, he left without notice. It wasn't planned, it just happened. He didn't know what to do, except get out. Leave. Take a break. Hacking into the university computers was easy and he gave himself a leave of absence and had his course materials emailed to him. He spent the month in the Amazon rainforest, ironically enough.
Six months later, he leaves again. This time he goes to China and Tibet. Four months later, he leaves again - for three months. Every time he comes back, he is welcomed abck back with open arms. Cassie understands. Bruce doesn't yet does at the same time. Damien is full of sass. Dick just shakes his head and claps him on the back.
It's annoying.
It's wrong.
He wants them to be angry with him. He deserves their anger. He's tired of - of everything.
The trips, vacations - Cassie calls them journeys - they help some. For once, he's free. He can breathe again, without worrying about being a superhero or a brother or a son. Or a lover - though that's not the problem. He does love Cassie, enjoys spending time with her. But her acceptance, the way she knows him, it somehow gets on his nerves. He has changed - can't she realize that? Can't she see how much this vigilante thing is wearing on him?
He quit the Titans years ago. He doesn't really run in groups anymore. He rarely hangs out with other heroes, except Cassie and even now he is realizing how her powers, how her status is wearing between them. The endless hiding and fear that the secret will get out. The restrictions - you can never show your true abilities for fear of being found out.
It is exhausting.
He has no real non-superhero friends.
It had to be fate, he decides, when the woman he runs into at Sun Dollar turns out to be Ariana - the Ariana, back in Gotham, attending Gotham U as a Communications major. It - well, it's funny. It takes all his skills to prevent from breaking out in laughter as she stands in front of him with coffee dripping down her shirt.
They start to talk. They start to spend time together. Soon he is making excuses to his family, to Cassie, to see her. She was always so simple - working-class, nice if strict parents, very down to earth. It is exactly what he needs now, as disillusioned as he is with the superhero and wealthy life.
For once, he doesn't have to pretend that everything is okay.
Except he does, because every time he returns to Cassie, it is as if a little piece of him - the part of him that is the original Timothy Drake - dies.
He doesn't like dying, even if it's only a little bit at a time. After all, when all the Timothy Drake is chipped away - who is he left with? Who is he left as?
It isn't easy. He knows that Cassie is catching on slowly and that eventually - soon - he would have to make his choice. And finally, it comes. Seeing her on the roof - it is time. Now or never. Speak now or forever hold your peace.
Ari doesn't know.
She knows he was seeing someone, but in a lie of omission, he never stated that he still was. He did stop sleeping with Cassie, at least. A small consolation, but one nonetheless. It makes the guilt less overbearing.
He never told her that he was Robin. He never told her that he was still a superhero. He keeps his family hidden from her, even though he would answer if she asked. She never does - something that soothes him.
No explanations.
No questions.
Just acceptance of Tim.
For the first time in years, he is free to be just Tim again.
"You look sad." He turns to her voice. Ariana holds out a steaming mug of coffee and perches next to him on her couch. "Is there something I can do?"
"No," he assures her. "I - I just need to think." Mourn. Contemplate. Wonder. Dream.
"Okay," she says simply, her hand resting on his leg.
He looks over at her. Her eyes are dark and thoughtful; she is lost in her own thoughts. There is a slight smile on her lips. He knows, without a doubt, that she accepts his silence, that she understands it. He knows that she loves him for who he is, without any of the other, messy layers. He knows that he loves her.
He knows that this is right.
It is time to move on.