#but when I’m feeling uncomfortable or irritated it’s an almost instant whammy if I hear more than 3 people talking at once

[lilybug-02]

Dang. Maybe I should give noise cancelling headphones a try sometime.

[why-this-kolaveri-machi]

Fic: after the in-between

a spur-of-the-moment, thoroughly indulgent titans fic!

Summary: Trigon is defeated, and our heroes are on their way to start a new era of the Titans. However, Trigon isn’t quite done with them yet.

Warnings: set after 2.01: Trigon, so spoilers for the same. plentiful swearing. vomiting. a thoroughly indulgent sick!fic ft. dick, jason, rachel and gar.

-

About half a day into their ambitious cross-country road trip from Gotham to San Francisco, Dick starts looking at Jason in that weird, scrunched-up way of his, like he’s sucking on a lemon and hates it but is just masochistic enough to finish it off. It goes on for long enough that Jason starts to get irritated; they’ve barely started what’s bound to be a long-ass journey, his head is already pounding from listening to the kids chattering away in the backseat, and now Dick’s definitely going to wrap the car around a tree if he keeps taking his eyes off the road to look at Jason like—like—

“You’re sick,” Dick says.

Rachel and Gar stop whispering so fast that Jason’s brain adds a cartoony tyre-screeching noise to the silence that follows. “What?! I’m—” he swallows around an inexplicably dry throat, “I’m not.”

Dick nods, looks straight ahead and says, like he hasn’t even heard Jason, “We’ll stop at the next motel we find, get on top of this before it gets worse.”

He sounds very matter-of-fact about it, like he’s just stated some bald, obvious truth and is just waiting for the rest of the world to catch up. For all the stories that Jason’s heard of Bruce and Dick’s epic dust-up, Dick sounds exactly like Bruce, right down to talking about feeling unwell like it’s a goddamn mission. “For fuck’s sake, I’m fine,” he says, which would’ve sounded very convincing had his voice not cracked around fine.

“I could use a bit of healing time, anyway,” Gar says before Dick can reply. “So a stop right about now sounds good.” He works his bruised jaw a bit, winces.

“Yeah, a break sounds good,” Rachel says, and Jason’s used to being talked around instead of talked to, sure, but it still stings that these two… children want to treat him like he’s the unreasonable one.

“Yeah, okay, whatever,” Jason says, sullenly. “We’ll stop.”

“I wasn’t really asking for a vote, but sure,” Dick says, amused.

By the time they check in at a motel, Jason’s definitely feeling more than a little light-headed, and he’s sweating under his layers even as the chill wind cuts at his face like knives. He doesn’t know when he started leaning on Dick, but he’s definitely grateful when the guy guides him in front of the toilet when the nausea hits like a battering ram. The first, convulsive wave of vomit burns his throat and nose, and he thinks he whimpers a little bit—which, hello, mortifying. He feels a large hand squeeze the back of his neck and Dick says, “you’re all right,” with the same, annoying, Batman-esque matter-of-factness, but this time it reminds Jason of the first time Batman stood between him and evil, and it’s more reassuring than anything.

That’s the last thing Jason is properly aware of for a while. He hears disjointed voices, feels flashes of intense heat and cold, coarse motel sheets against his legs and the press of fingers against his lips, trying to get him to open his mouth. His heart thunders against his ribs as he watches horned shadows creep across the ceiling, his body numb and paralysed and utterly helpless. He’s Jason Todd—he’s motherfucking Robin—but right now all he wants is to burrow into some place cool and dark and safe until the storm passes.

The storm passes. Eventually.

At some point he opens his eyes to a very tired-looking Dick Grayson peering into his face and says, “Dude, personal space.”

Dick leans back in his chair and lets out a long breath. “Well,” he says, “I’m glad I don’t have to go back to Bruce to tell him that I lost his Robin in less than a day.”

Jason bites his tongue on a sharp retort; he thinks Dick might be joking, but he’s been a sour-faced whiner for so goddamn long that it’s kind of hard to tell. Instead he settles for asking, “how long?” and coughs.

Rachel hands him a glass of blessedly cool water as Dick says, “About half a day. It kind of came on real quick and left just as quickly. Rach, uh—she thinks that this might be some kind of side-effect of Trigon possessing you.”

Jason almost chokes on a mouthful of water. “—the fuck?!”

Out of the corner of his eye, he sees both Rachel and Gar flinch, and feels sorry for all of about three seconds. “Trigon’s presence lingered in all of us for some time—I could see it,” Rachel says. “But you’re clean now.”

“That’s good to know,” Jason says, “but how about a heads-up next time, huh? A little hey, Jason, I think my shitty father just gave you a case of the demon-flu, so watch out for that or something.”

Gar glares at him while Dick heaves a sigh. “Jason.”

“I’m just saying.” Jason shrugs. “Besides—I’m not the only one who got whammied by that monster. How come you guys are not spewing your guts all over the place?”

Dick levers himself painfully out of his chair and starts to walk to the other end of the room. “Maybe you’re just that annoying,” he says with a wry smile, and oh yeah, Jason definitely prefers broody-asshole Dick to this.

“Maybe that stick up your ass gives you immunity,” Jason says, which earns a snicker from Gar.

Dick turns, opens his mouth like he’s going to say something—then his eyes roll up in his head, and he collapses.

Rachel is at his side in an instant, crying out his name. Jason jolts out of bed, his sore muscles protesting, and settles ungracefully at Dick’s side. It doesn’t take long to figure out that Dick is sick—and has probably been that way for a while. He’s burning up, there’s a sort of chesty whine at the end of every breath that’s getting more and more pronounced by the second, and they can’t really get him to wake up all the way. Jason’s first big adventure outside of Bruce’s bat-bubble has gotten off to a really shitty fuckin’ start.

Gar hovers near them, looking warily down at Dick. Jason hasn’t exactly missed the way Gar flinches every time Dick talks to him, or the way he can’t really bring himself to meet Dick’s eyes. He’s pretty sure that Dick’s noticed, too, and decided to push that uncomfortable conversation further down the road to deal with, which, you know, makes sense. “What’s wrong with him?” Gar asks.

“He’s an idiot,” Rachel says fiercely, making Jason jump. “He was possessed the longest—and he’s been driving practically non-stop since then. He’s been ill all this time, and he didn’t say a word.”

Gar relaxes a little. “Of course he didn’t—it’s Dick. He could be beaten half-to-death and in the middle of drug withdrawal and he’d still insist on having the wheel.”

“At least Kory set him right last time.”

“Yeah. God, I miss her.”

“Me too. You think we should call her, make sure that Hank and Dawn aren’t—”

Jason clears his throat loudly. He’s used to being out of place wherever he ends up—he’s made a skill out of making his presence known anyway—but maybe standing over a possibly dying ex-Robin is not the best place to make either of those points. “Help me lift him up,” he says. “We need to get him on the bed.”

Between the three of them, they manage to get him lying down on a bed. He hasn’t really woken up, and Jason’s worried that they’ve got a concussion to worry about on top of the brain-melting demon fever. He props Dick into a semi-reclining position with some pillows to ease his wheezy breathing, manages to force a couple of spoons of liquid fever-reducer into his mouth, and places a damp cloth on his forehead. Not that that cloth is going to do a thing to reduce the fever, but from Jason’s experience, it usually feels pretty damn good.

“You’re pretty good at this,” Gar says, staring at him.

Jason shrugs, thinking of Alfred and feeling a strange pang in his chest.

A few hours later, the fever reduces enough for Dick to wake up. Rachel’s sitting at his bedside, asleep, head pillowed in her arms next to his hand. Gar’s curled up on the couch behind her, snoring. Dick opens his eyes, blinks blearily at the room. He sees Rachel and Gar first, and smiles—so softly, so fondly, that Jason feels a rush of irrational anger.

Finally, Dick turns to him. “You okay?” he asks, in a hoarse whisper.

You don’t have to put on the martyr act for me, Jason thinks, nastily. Instead he says, “Doing better than you.”

“Mm.” Dick closes his eyes; his face spasms, pained. “Give me a day—we’ll be good to go.”

“Sure,” Jason says. “But we’re taking turns driving.”

Dick gives a lazy half-smile. “Not exactly the Bat-mobile.”

“You’d probably be better off driving the Bat-mobile sick and exhausted. It’s got auto-pilot and it’s virtually crash-proof.”

“Oh. Right.” Dick looks at him, his eyes glinting in the moonlight streaming through the window. “That’s why you get the Bat-mobile and not the Bugatti.”

“Shut up and sleep.”