Ficlet: "Motion Sickness" | Jason Todd/Tim Drake | pg-13
Prompt: Jason/Tim - “Lolita” for leftrighthereinthedark
Title: Motion Sickness
A/N: Would you believe me if I said this was supposed to be light-hearted? Also, tense? What is this you speak of?
---
Jason could be very precisely methodical when doing very specific things. The way he cleaned each of his guns, for example. Removed the magazine and took each piece apart slowly and carefully. Examined each of them under a detectives’ eye. Looking for cracks, imperfections and debris. The slide and the spring; the barrel and the frame all neatly lined up on the kitchen table. The table where Tim eats his breakfast most mornings, now.
The smell of the solvent goes hand in hand with the taste of low-fat Greek yogurt.
Or the way Jason reads a map. He’s interactive with it; thoughtful with narrow blue eyes. He paces in front of it - steps back and circles in front of it. Or he rocks back and forth on the toes and the heels of his boots. A pensive, graceful hand on his chin or over his mouth with one slender-looking finger tapping absently. Tim’s favorite is when he runs the pads of those fingers over the surface, whether it be an atlas or a computer screen. As if the man was learning the surface with his skin and mind and heart. Leaving fingerprints all over.
Tim will clean them off later, just like he’ll clean the scuffs that Jason’s tread marks into the wood floor.
Tim’s pretty sure that he’s considered to be the methodical son. The one with plans and habits and OCDs that keep him up for days on end; keep him running and running and pushing and pulling. He’s the one that makes lists upon lists and washes his hands for exactly three minutes. He’s pretty sure Bruce is more paranoid, but he’s not the only one standing in that line. Like; at all.
But to watch Jason be… methodical in those rare instances. Tim never has that sort of innocence or grace, he doesn’t think. Just stress and nerves and inner panic attacks. There’s something awe-inspiring that Jason’s focus does to… not just him. He think Dick feels it, knows that Bruce has.
But he wonders if they let Jason do something like this to them. He wonders if they’ve seen him just like this.
It started out with markers and ink, they were there on the table where Jason cleaned his guns and Tim ate his yogurt, which incidentally, is the same table where they each devise plans on how to fuck over the people that get the closest to them, under their skin.
The markers were there from when Jason had been color-coding some sort of pattern that he might have noticed in his area. Jason was 98% right about most of his “hunches”, but he liked the visualization all the same. Tim could appreciate that for all he didn’t ask. That was a rule or an agreement. They weren’t allowed to ask.
And it was one of those days or weeks or months where just… *life* had been giving Tim motion sickness.
So he popped two Dramamine then took off his under shirt and fallen face first into their bed. It smelled like bleach and cigarettes and he inhaled deeply even while thinking about how he’ll need to change the sheets again, it’s been almost a week.
The felt tip of the marker was cool on the skin of his back, felt his skin shiver and twitch without his permission at the contact. His mind couldn’t recognize the lines the Jason was putting on the canvas of his back; up and down his spine. And the world was spinning, so he didn’t say anything, just felt the heavier man straddle his thighs.
“Are you drawing a target there?” Tim finally slurred out. Half-joking, because all the truces he’s ever made have been tenuous at best.
“People don’t need a target to take you out,” was the only reply he got, but the hand that settled firmly on the base of his neck was heavy and grounding, all the same.
He fell asleep that night wishing he could see Jason’s face.
The world has started to spin again that night. He’d lost his late dinner in the alley behind their building about half way through his shift. His problems just twirled around him, doubled and tripled. Tripped him up.
Tripped him until he was nothing more than a heap of skin and weary bones on their navy-blue couch that had not one stain on it, because Tim pre-treated the *water* spills with a mild detergent.
And now his boots were on it, was his last thought before the drugs he had take kicked in.
The first thing he noticed when he stirred an hour later was that Jason was at his feet. His feet that had been boots were now bare and methodical, work-enthralled Jason was there lightly rubbing the arches with his thumbs while he painted Tim’s big toe nail a red so dark it looked almost black with a beat-up bottle of nail polish that looked to be from the early 90’s.
Tim wanted to ask where he got it from, but that would be breaking the truce; wanted to pull his foot away from the touch and brush.
But Jason was concentrating and the touch felt good.
And the room had stopped spinning like he was on a carousel.
Title: Motion Sickness
A/N: Would you believe me if I said this was supposed to be light-hearted? Also, tense? What is this you speak of?
---
Jason could be very precisely methodical when doing very specific things. The way he cleaned each of his guns, for example. Removed the magazine and took each piece apart slowly and carefully. Examined each of them under a detectives’ eye. Looking for cracks, imperfections and debris. The slide and the spring; the barrel and the frame all neatly lined up on the kitchen table. The table where Tim eats his breakfast most mornings, now.
The smell of the solvent goes hand in hand with the taste of low-fat Greek yogurt.
Or the way Jason reads a map. He’s interactive with it; thoughtful with narrow blue eyes. He paces in front of it - steps back and circles in front of it. Or he rocks back and forth on the toes and the heels of his boots. A pensive, graceful hand on his chin or over his mouth with one slender-looking finger tapping absently. Tim’s favorite is when he runs the pads of those fingers over the surface, whether it be an atlas or a computer screen. As if the man was learning the surface with his skin and mind and heart. Leaving fingerprints all over.
Tim will clean them off later, just like he’ll clean the scuffs that Jason’s tread marks into the wood floor.
Tim’s pretty sure that he’s considered to be the methodical son. The one with plans and habits and OCDs that keep him up for days on end; keep him running and running and pushing and pulling. He’s the one that makes lists upon lists and washes his hands for exactly three minutes. He’s pretty sure Bruce is more paranoid, but he’s not the only one standing in that line. Like; at all.
But to watch Jason be… methodical in those rare instances. Tim never has that sort of innocence or grace, he doesn’t think. Just stress and nerves and inner panic attacks. There’s something awe-inspiring that Jason’s focus does to… not just him. He think Dick feels it, knows that Bruce has.
But he wonders if they let Jason do something like this to them. He wonders if they’ve seen him just like this.
It started out with markers and ink, they were there on the table where Jason cleaned his guns and Tim ate his yogurt, which incidentally, is the same table where they each devise plans on how to fuck over the people that get the closest to them, under their skin.
The markers were there from when Jason had been color-coding some sort of pattern that he might have noticed in his area. Jason was 98% right about most of his “hunches”, but he liked the visualization all the same. Tim could appreciate that for all he didn’t ask. That was a rule or an agreement. They weren’t allowed to ask.
And it was one of those days or weeks or months where just… *life* had been giving Tim motion sickness.
So he popped two Dramamine then took off his under shirt and fallen face first into their bed. It smelled like bleach and cigarettes and he inhaled deeply even while thinking about how he’ll need to change the sheets again, it’s been almost a week.
The felt tip of the marker was cool on the skin of his back, felt his skin shiver and twitch without his permission at the contact. His mind couldn’t recognize the lines the Jason was putting on the canvas of his back; up and down his spine. And the world was spinning, so he didn’t say anything, just felt the heavier man straddle his thighs.
“Are you drawing a target there?” Tim finally slurred out. Half-joking, because all the truces he’s ever made have been tenuous at best.
“People don’t need a target to take you out,” was the only reply he got, but the hand that settled firmly on the base of his neck was heavy and grounding, all the same.
He fell asleep that night wishing he could see Jason’s face.
The world has started to spin again that night. He’d lost his late dinner in the alley behind their building about half way through his shift. His problems just twirled around him, doubled and tripled. Tripped him up.
Tripped him until he was nothing more than a heap of skin and weary bones on their navy-blue couch that had not one stain on it, because Tim pre-treated the *water* spills with a mild detergent.
And now his boots were on it, was his last thought before the drugs he had take kicked in.
The first thing he noticed when he stirred an hour later was that Jason was at his feet. His feet that had been boots were now bare and methodical, work-enthralled Jason was there lightly rubbing the arches with his thumbs while he painted Tim’s big toe nail a red so dark it looked almost black with a beat-up bottle of nail polish that looked to be from the early 90’s.
Tim wanted to ask where he got it from, but that would be breaking the truce; wanted to pull his foot away from the touch and brush.
But Jason was concentrating and the touch felt good.
And the room had stopped spinning like he was on a carousel.