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After a couple days of nobody hearing from the Replacement, Jason decides to take matters into his own hands.
“When Tim starts working on something, he’ll bury himself in it for like forty-eight hours without noticing,” Dick says with a shrug. “Then he crashes for a full day. Rinse and repeat.”
“And you just… let him?”
“I mean, sure.”
“You know that’s fucked up, right?” Jason says irritably. “Considering how much you mother-hen the rest of us?”
“I don’t —”
“Oh, shove it. He was supposed to get back to me about this case we’re working on, it’s not like him to stop answering when it’s a work thing.”
“I’m telling you, Jay, this is totally normal for him,” Dick says breezily.
“You wouldn’t know normal if it bit you on the ass.”
“Tim’s been taking care of himself for most of his life, I don’t worry about him.”
“Has it occurred to you that Tim shouldn’t have been taking care of himself for most of his life? Fuck it, I need answers, I’m going over there.”
“Suit yourself,” Dick says, and does a flip as he leaps off the side of the building.
“Nobody in this family is goddamn normal,” Jason mutters darkly.
Jason goes in through the window. He’s only visited Tim’s place once before, but he knows how to disarm the booby traps. They use basically the same ones.
“Replacement?” he calls cautiously, as he pushes aside the heavy blackout curtains and steps into the dark apartment. He turns on a lamp and glances around with some trepidation. The place is a pigsty — although now that he thinks about it, that’s probably standard.
“Who’zat?” comes a slurred voice from across the room.
Jason does a double take at the pile of blankets on the couch, which moves and shifts until Tim’s face is visible. “Jesus, you look like a steaming pile of refried shit.”
“Thanks for that,” Tim says, grimacing. “I don’t feel so good either.” He’s got deep, bruised hollows under his eyes, and a sheen of sweat all over his pasty face.
“No, seriously. You look like a raccoon. Or, like, Frodo when Shelob had him all… spiderwebbed,” Jason says. “When was the last time you slept?”
Tim frowns and thinks about it. “I got like fourteen hours on Saturday night.”
“Well that’s something,” Jason says, and then he does the mental math. “Wait, it’s Monday. No, Tuesday now. What the fuck?”
“Coffee,” Tim says, and the lump of blankets moves like he just shrugged under there. The table next to his nest is in fact covered in mugs, as well as the goddamn carafe from Tim’s Mister Coffee, like he started drinking right from the pot when he ran out of clean dishes.
“When was the last time you ate ? Or drank something that wasn’t coffee?”
Tim squints at him, rubbing the side of his neck. “Might’ve been a couple days. My stomach’s not happy with me.”
“Uh-huh. I’m taking away your coffee machine. You need to sleep.”
“It’s not that bad,” Tim says halfheartedly. “I can usually make it a solid seventy-two hours before my cognition is impaired.”
“Replacement,” Jason says sternly. “I need you to understand that when I say this, it’s not out of concern for your well-being, or whatever, it’s just… as a fucking human being. One self-destructive idiot to another. You seriously need to take better care of yourself. Fucking… drink water! Touch grass! It’s good for you!”
“That’s what they tell me,” Tim says wryly. “Can you take off the helmet if you’re going to lecture me? It’s fucking weird getting mother-henned by the scourge of the underworld. I went out on Saturday night, okay?”
“You mean you haven’t even left this apartment since Saturday? Jesus.”
“Yeah, I… might’ve caught something,” Tim admits.
“Y’think?” Jason goes over and takes off a glove to feel his forehead, scowling at Tim’s temperature. “When you say you went out —”
“I went to a bar, okay?” Tim says irritably, squinting up at him.
“Timothy Jackson Drake, if you picked up some weird flu eating wings in some sketchy dive bar, I swear to god —”
“Did you just middle-name me?” Tim says, rubbing his neck distractedly.
“Wait, why did you go to a bar? You don’t drink. What case was it for?”
Tim burrows down into his cocoon again, mumbling something incomprehensible.
“One more time,” Jason says.
“I picked up a guy!” Tim growls. Jason blinks a few times, startled into silence, and Tim rolls his eyes before continuing: “I couldn’t sleep for a couple days. Insomnia’s a bitch. And orgasms are like nature’s Ativan, or whatever. Getting railed out of my mind tends to work better than anything I can synthesize myself.”
Jason is so fucking glad he didn’t take off the helmet yet. At least Tim can’t see the way his mouth gapes open.
He does his best impression of a goldfish while his brain glitches and record-scratches over the idea of Tim getting “railed.” He’s just… not going to think about it. He is not going to think about it.
Goddammit.
Tim’s rubbing his neck again, and Jason squints.
“What’s that?” He grabs Tim’s wrist and tugs his hand away from his throat. “What the fuck is that?”
“It’s a hickey, oh my god, you’re worse than Dick.”
Jason can’t actually decide which part of that sentence he hates more. He scoffs indignantly before looking closer. “Um, what the fuck, there are literal tooth marks in your skin, Timmy.”
“He was… bitey,” Tim mumbles.
“Who was this asshole?” Jason demands, hackles rising. “I swear to god, I will track him down and—”
“Down, boy,” Tim says bitchily. “I asked him to be rough, okay?”
Aw, hell, Jason’s brain is glitching again.
“I’m cleaning that,” he growls, after an entirely too-long pause. “Where’s your first aid shit?”
“I’ll get it,” Tim sighs, and heaves himself upright.
“I will get it,” Jason retorts. “You will drink water and sit the fuck down.”
“It’s in my room,” Tim says. “Along with some things I don’t want you to see. Asshole.”
Jason blinks a few more times. “Oh.”
Tim shuffles off to dig it up, and Jason takes off the helmet, shaking out his hair and glaring around at the mess again. He’s overheating in here; he takes off the jacket, too, tugging at the high neck of his body armor.
There’s a weird, choked sound from the hallway, and then Tim crosses the room so fast Jason can barely process it — and he intends to say something like ‘What the fucking fuck has Bruce been putting in your cornflakes?’ except then Tim is sniffing his neck.
“Um,” Jason says.
“I can hear your heartbeat,” Tim says, strained and oddly dreamy.
“Um,” Jason says again.
“It’s… fast.” Tim leans closer, his lips brushing Jason’s bare skin.
“Jesus fucking Christ, Tim,” Jason blurts out, all in a rush. “Not that I haven’t thought about this, but no offense, kinda think it should wait until you’re not dying of some flu. Tim, are you hearing me right now?”
Tim pulls back, stands up straight, and Jason jumps backward with a yelp. Tim’s face has gone all weird, brow heavy and fucking… lumpy, or something, and —
“Oh, fuck,” Jason breathes. Tim’s yellow eyes don’t flicker away from his throat. “So, uh. Don’t suppose you’ve gone out in the sun for a couple days?”
“Well, no, but that’s pretty —”
“Swear to god, if you tell me that’s normal — okay. Look. Don’t freak out, but you’ve got fangs.”
“What? Bullshit.” He scowls at Jason (holy shit is that unsettling) and goes over to the mirror that hangs on the wall next to the door. “I don’t — oh. Oh, shit.”
No reflection.
“The guy you hooked up with,” Jason says slowly.
“British,” Tim says distractedly, tilting his head in and out of the frame of the mirror, like that’ll make a difference. “Bad boy kinda vibe. Bleach blond, which — not really my type, but —”
Jason reminds himself that now is not the time to ask what Tim’s type is, and also really not the time to ask whether he can be the one to rail Tim into unconsciousness next time the insomnia kicks in.
One thing at a time. He does have his priorities straight.
Priority number one: calling Dick and getting in his “I told you so.”
Then he’ll track down Mr. Bitey and have a word.