#editing now i'm posting this fucker TONIGHT

[billy-royalton]

7k words man i missed the feral feeling i get when a brain worm takes over and i just fucking WRITE A BUNCH OF SHIT

[folliesandfolderols]

Writing prompts days 123-126

From this prompt list. If you’ve read this far, I’m not sure you need any explanation, but the short version is I hadn’t written any fiction since 2019, I set a goal to write at least 150 words/day in 2024, and this list was my way to restart. Also I abruptly decided on day 2 I would write an entire Tim/Damian story connecting all the prompts, because I am Good at Judging My Limits. /sarcasm Anyway, I finished the rough draft a while ago and am now unlocking the old entries as I edit.

Read from the beginning here, or on ao3 here.

Days 119-122 here

***

105. “I want to be the one fucking you this time.”

***

He wandered over once Damian had Mr. Camera restrained, then bent over to examine the helmet. “Oh, this is new,” he commented, after swinging open a panel to examine its electronic guts. “Before he just really enjoyed film.”

Damian stooped to look too, shining a light onto the internal workings of the helmet. "There's no film in here."

Tim gnawed on his lower lip as a new worry occurred to him. "Yeah, so that means he's uploading his footage to a cloud, probably, since I don't see much storage."

"Everyone's watching—you're the stars of the episode!" Mr. Camera announced, voice muffled but undaunted.

"Or he's live-streaming," Damian said, and shattered the circuit boards with a quick blow from his tonfa.

"Well, shit." Tim sat back on his haunches. "Can we leave him? Is GCPD on their way?"

"Let's drop him down on the curb." Damian hauled Mr. Camera up to his feet and secured him, then shot his grapple. Tim watched from the roof as he put the would-be thief on the pavement. Damian's touch wasn't gentle, but he also didn't make the process unnecessarily rough for the criminal. Tim couldn't restrain a small, proud smile at the sight.

Within a couple of minutes, Damian swung back up on the roof with him. "What do you want to do? Oracle didn't catch the stream in time, so it's out there."

"Can she scrub it?" Tim asked, heart thudding in dread. This was it. This was when Damian decided to tell him they should take a break because the risk of people assuming they were each other’s weakness was unacceptable.

"Difficult, but not impossible," Oracle's voice cut into his communicator.

Tim searched for a nearby camera and found one on a neighboring roof. Facing it, he grumbled, "It's creepy when you do that. But thank you."

"No worries. But stop making out on rooftops, there are too many vigilante-fuckers who love playing voyeur."

Tim, newly inspired by her words, considered some alternative reasons for Mr. Camera having recorded them, and gagged a little. "Will do."

He took his communicator out just in case and turned to Damian. "Sorry. That was stupid of me."

Damian shook his head, face unreadable beneath his hood. "I'm not sorry you met me tonight." Gunfire rattled in the distance, and they both turned to the sound out of habit. "But I should move on. Shall I come over tonight after patrol?"

Tim frowned. That would make five nights in a row. Bruce would get weirder than usual if he were too isolated too often. "I'll just stay at the Manor tonight." Damian's breath caught, and he added hastily, "Unless you wanted time without your dad around."

Damian shot out his hand to grip Tim's. "No, that's all right."

Tim couldn't hide his smile. He leaned into Damian's shoulder, just for a moment. "Okay, then. See you soon."

When Tim returned to the Cave, Bruce was sitting at the Batcomputer, still in his costume except for the cowl.

"Hey," Tim greeted him, wandering over. "Got a hot lead on an open case?"

Bruce glanced up at him. The circles beneath his eyes were starting to look more like bruises. "Just typing up my post-patrol notes. Why are you here?"

I live here, Tim almost answered. It would've been fun to watch Bruce try to figure out if Tim had actually moved back in without him noticing.

He decided to take unmerited pity on him instead. "I'm staying here tonight. When's the last time you ate?"

Bruce's brows furrowed as he visibly struggled to recall. "I . . . hm."

Honestly. It was like dealing with a graying baby. "Yeah, that's terrible. I'm going to go scramble some eggs for all three of us after I change, so you should probably shower."

A corner of Bruce's mouth gave a tiny upward twitch. "Understood."

Tim got thoroughly clean in as little time as possible. He heard Damian's motorcycle revving in the entrance by the time he was in the elevator heading up.

The Manor got weekly grocery deliveries, but when Tim swung the refrigerator door open, a wave of rotted-vegetation smell hit his nose. Clearly neither Bruce nor Damian was up for the task of cleaning out food that had gone bad. Grumbling under his breath, he threw a head of lettuce, three zucchini, and an eggplant into the compost bin, then grabbed half a block of cheddar and some eggs, as well as a stick of butter.

The first two burners he tried clicked over and over again without lighting. Bruce and Damian weren't using the stove often enough to notice or call a repair person. Tim wasn't going to mess around with natural gas, so he found a service online and filled out their form before he moved on to the third burner. This one lit without any issue.

He was whisking eggs in a mixing bowl when Damian slipped an arm around his waist from behind, kissing the crown of Tim's head. Tim hadn't heard him enter the room, but Damian's presence no longer set off any alarms.

"You could have ordered in if you're hungry," he said, pulling Tim closer.

"Delivery to Bristol takes forever at this time of night, and half the time the driver eats some of the order." Tim allowed himself the luxury of relaxing into Damian's front for as long as it took to finish mixing the eggs, then freed himself to walk to the frying pan, where butter sizzled. "Plus it looks like you and Bruce haven't been cooking much. You need to use more of your food."

Damian stayed silent while Tim pushed the butter across the pan with a spatula and poured the eggs in, then said, "I am not proficient in the kitchen. And Father seems to forget food is anything other than fuel. Yesterday I came home from work and found him eating a whole English cucumber as if it were one of those turkey legs at the fair."

"In that case, you need to learn to cook. For your own sake." Tim sprinkled grated cheese into the congealing mass of eggs and stirred. "We could—we could take a class together. If you want."

He restrained the urge to hunch in on himself and waited for the inevitable rejection. He and Damian didn't date, after all. They worked together at both their jobs, and they fucked exclusively, but that was all. His own idiot heart was just wildly out of step with reality.

"I would enjoy that, I think," Damian said, casual. Like Tim should've expected an affirmative answer instead of trying not to hyperventilate as soon as he heard it. 

“Oh! Okay, then,” he replied, completely failing at being normal yet again. “I’ll sign us up as soon as we’re done here.”

Damian nodded, but his brow furrowed in sudden concern. "I meant to ask you about something. Earlier tonight, you made a comment, when we were on the roof, before we were interrupted—"

Bruce's footfall sounded just outside the door, in the way that meant he was trying to make sure they heard him coming. Probably he wanted to avoid walking in on any PDA, but Tim was grateful for an entirely different reason.

"Bruce, here's yours." He scooted four eggs' worth from the pan onto a waiting plate as Bruce pushed the swinging door open.

Bruce accepted the plate with a murmured, “Thank you,” and began eating, first perfunctorily then with more gusto after a few mouthfuls. 

Damian did the same, which made Tim hide a smile behind his fork—sometimes they were so alike—and Tim launched the daring conversational gambit of the night’s weather. That filled the silence enough that neither father nor son would be tempted to find his own topics for discussion. 

When Bruce finished eating, he washed his plate and fork and put them in the drain board, which was actually better than Tim had expected of him. After he left the room, Tim dismissed him as a concern. He’d been fed and watered. Anything more was his own responsibility.

He started running the hot water to scrub the frying pan and mixing bowl. "Only real disadvantage of cooking for yourself is the cleanup," he said over his shoulder.

Damian walked to stand next to him, arms brushing. "Let me do that part, then."

Tim allowed him to take the sponge and pan from his hands, but frowned. "That wasn't a hint. I'm okay to do it, especially since eating was my idea."

"You can't expect me to believe that when I know you've made caring for Father your modus operandi since you were a young teenager. My supposition?" Damian scrubbed at a stubborn bit of dried cheese with a not-very-mirthful huff of laughter. "You took one look at him and diagnosed him with sleep deprivation and insufficient caloric intake. This was to take care of him, not yourself. I should have done the same."

"That's bullshit." Damian's gaze flicked up to meet Tim's, derisive, and Tim pressed the point. "It is. We're supposed to take care of each other. You've got a lot on your plate. I could do this, so I did." He dropped his head to focus on his hands, clenching the edge of the sink, and said quietly, "It wasn't just for Bruce. I like taking care of you, sometimes."

Damian reached past him to put the pan into the drainboard. "Do you? Am I one of your responsibilities, then?"

Tim thought about it, squeezing some dish detergent into the mixing bowl as he did so. "I guess? But not like you mean, I think. You're my responsibility because I care about you, not because you're an obligation. I think I'm one of your responsibilities, too, right? Otherwise you wouldn't bully me into going to bed before I want to sometimes, or taking better care of my injuries." He laughed, trying not to let it sound as hollow as he felt as a comparison occurred to him. "For you it's probably like your cats. You chose to care about them so you chose to care for them, too."

Damian finished rinsing the bowl and set it to dry as well. "That's the second time tonight you've implied you care more for me than I do for you."

Tim jolted, a surge of fear lighting up his backbone. "That's not something I meant to do," he said, careful to meet Damian's gaze straightforwardly. "You care a lot about the cats." See, nothing to hide. Nothing to see here.

Damian looked at him just as steadily, but of course in his case he wasn't faking it. "Do you feel I have neglected you? Are we not commensurate in our expressions of affection?"

Tim swallowed. "You haven't neglected me at all, and I think we're pretty equal in how we show what we feel."

Damian's eyes narrowed. "That has the air of jesuitical hair-splitting."

Tim had to change the subject, but it was five in the morning and his brain wanted nothing more than to escape.

"Why did you ask me to sleep with you in the first place?" was the way it decided to handle that particular issue. Tim clamped his lips together, but it was too late.

Damian's head lifted back the slightest bit, but he leaned on the countertop like Bruce at his most carefree Brucie. "I believe at the time I told you it was because I wanted to."

"Yeah, but, why?" Tim clasped his hands in front of him, wringing his fingers into knots. He was giving himself away but he couldn't make himself care, because if he just had this bit of information he could understand so much more. "It's just . . . it kinda seems like Jon would've been the more logical choice. Right? Since you two have been close since you were kids and you trust him. Or, at least, you definitely trust him more than you trust me. It's just sort of weird, that you decided to ask me first. Not that I'm complaining!" he added hastily. "I'm not. I'm still really flattered and happy about it. But I've been wondering, lately."

Damian kept looking at him, expressionless, and didn't reply.

"Unless . . ." Tim said, feeling sick. "Unless, you did ask him, and he turned you down. I can't really picture him doing that, but stranger things have happened."

Damian finally said, "I fail to see why this should matter to you at all. I chose you. We are now each other's sole romantic and sexual partners. Why investigate the past?"

The words sent a frisson of hope shimmering through Tim's chest. "Romantic?" he asked, and winced internally at how breathless the word sounded.

Damian widened his stance. Readying for a blow. "Do you not agree our relationship is more than friends with sexual benefits?"

"Of course!" Tim stepped into his space enough to press his face to Damian's chest. After a second, Damian's arms wrapped around him and pulled him close, maybe a little more tightly than usual, but Tim wasn't complaining. The pressure made his muscles go lax with comfort.

Tim nosed into Damian's sternum and sighed. "I'm sorry. I know you like me. It was a bad comparison."

Damian's voice rumbled against his forehead. "I certainly prefer you to the cats."

Tim hugged his waist and tried again. "Sometimes I just feel like you might like me more if I hadn't gone to space.” No, that still wasn't right. “I mean, I think you maybe did like me more before I left, and then I messed up and now you don't like me as much as you used to." Ant euyuni still haunted his dreams at night. 

Damian gripped the hair at the nape of his neck in one gentle hand and pulled, until Tim's head angled back enough for Damian to kiss his forehead. "Do you like me more now than you did back then?" Tim nodded, careful not to dislodge his hand with the motion. "Likewise." Damian kissed his way down one side of Tim's face to nibble on his neck.

"Damian." Tim's mind was going fuzzy. In a second he would be thinking with his dick, which usually was pretty great but right now he needed to use his brain just a bit longer. Maybe he could lessen the compulsion to confess by telling part of the truth. "I . . ." He sighed and tilted his head to give Damian more room. "I like you so much. I like you better than anyone. You're my favorite. You know that?"

Damian pulled back to look at him, framing Tim's face with both hands. "I don't believe I did know that, no," he responded, red spots blooming high on his cheekbones. He bent to kiss Tim's mouth, a sweet pressure with no demands behind it, and said in Arabic, "Your feelings are completely returned."

He'd deliberately used fus'ha instead of League dialect, to make sure Tim could understand him. Tim's heart gave a gigantic thump at the realization, clumsy with too much love to hold. He stood on his tiptoes to kiss him back properly, and hoped the fervor of his touch spoke better than his words.

***

Tim awoke to a host of screencaps of the livestream from his friends and family, along with reactions that ranged from 🤣🤣🤣 (Kon) to ✋🙄 (Jason) to 😱🤯☠️ (Duke) to 🤟 (Cass). Dick’s didn't include any images but simply read, Told u not to be so noisy. 

Damian, looking at his own phone, commented, “At least all our clothes remained in place.” Tim decided he was going to be happy with that much.

But Damian apparently had been paying closer attention to his neuroses than Tim assumed. A week later, Tim returned home from patrol to find Damian sitting on his bed in sweats, hair still damp from his shower.

"Hey." Tim gave him a tired smile, rubbing solvent under his domino to loosen the adhesive. "You should've waited. We could have showered together."

"I wanted to see Father before I came over." Damian stood to help Tim with the fastenings of his cloak and draped it over his arm. "Your visit last week reminded me that I have certain duties I have been neglecting in favor of pleasing myself."

Tim shook his head. "He's more than capable of taking care of himself. It's a choice on our part whether or not we share that responsibility with him."

"Ah." Damian stepped behind Tim and began to disarm some of the traps on his costume that were harder to reach. "Perhaps I'm not American enough to feel comfortable with the idea of leaving a parent permanently alone in the family home. And whether you admit it or not, you also feel some discomfort with the idea or you wouldn't make sure we spend at least two nights a week at the Manor." Tim paused his motions, arrested, and Damian breathed out on a laugh. "You'd thought I hadn't noticed?"

"I wasn't certain." Tim pulled his shirt over his head and started in on the lower half of his clothes.

Damian layered the shirt over his arm as well. "I'm more of a detective than you give me credit for."

"I think you're a great investigator." Tim handed him his pants but kept hold of his underwear and socks for the laundry hamper.

Together, they walked to the bathroom. Damian put the costume in the special container Tim used to disinfect it and lock it away from any intruders' prying eyes, then sat on the counter. Tim waited a few seconds for the water to run warm, and stepped inside the shower.

Damian raised his voice slightly to be heard over the water. "I've recently turned my investigative skills in a different direction, thinking of what you said before. About why I asked you to be the one to engage in sexual relations with me first. And I've come to the conclusion that you are right to be suspicious."

Tim sputtered into the spray and nearly got shampoo in his mouth. "Damian, I-I'm not suspicious, I just want to know because I'm curious. It seemed out of left field then and it still does now." And no matter how he tried, Tim was never able to let sleeping dogs lie. If there were questions, he had to ask them.

He could barely see Damian’s nod. "Nevertheless, I want to explain, as much as I'm able. I believe a part of me considered you a safe choice."

Tim sighed, mechanically going through the motions of scrubbing his scalp. Probably he should've felt flattered to be the one who gave such a paranoid person the security they needed to try sex for the first time, but it wasn't a very exciting way to view him. "Yeah. I'm dependable, all right. Loyal. A real sheepdog." He couldn't make the words sound anything other than dully resigned.

"That's true, but . . ." Damian fidgeted, clearly enough that Tim caught the motion even through the Monet effect of the steam. “Some time ago, I decided to look into your efficacy as a team leader. As I matured, I noticed you were quite proficient in that regard, and it seemed perhaps I could learn something by watching you--the first time I had ever considered doing so. It proved to be an error.”

Tim tilted his head back to rinse, but all his attention was on Damian. “How so?”

“Once I began surveillance, I found more, increasingly spurious, reasons to continue. In fact, I found your skills and expertise compelling in unexpected ways. Your friends and teammates relied on you to make life or death decisions, and you earned that loyalty. 

“A month or so before I made my request, I overheard a conversation between you and Brown. You both complained about how pent-up you were, and you told her you'd considered a one-time liaison with a stranger from a club. And I had an unexpectedly negative response to the notion. I thought, I want to be the one fucking you this time. Although I didn't realize it, I made up my mind to ask you for the favor at that moment." Through the fogged-over shower glass, Tim could make out Damian hugging himself, hands rubbing his own biceps as if to comfort. 

"I never considered anyone else but you when it came to ridding myself of my virginity. I didn't think about what that meant until fairly recently, but you've certainly proven you're trustworthy enough for honesty. I wanted you. I still want you. I've never not wanted you since."

That might have been the longest speech Damian had ever made in his presence. Tim busied himself washing his body to give an excuse for not answering right away, his mind racing.

"Even when you let Jon fuck you?" he finally asked, turning his back to the door so he wouldn't have to see Damian's reaction.

Damian's voice stayed steady. "Even then. I asked him to bruise me because I was angry with you. You had marked me up and down my body just before that, and then immediately afterward made it painfully clear that you detested the idea of my having feelings for you. When I looked in the mirror, I saw the signature of someone who had no interest in being held by my affection. I asked Jon to top just that once and leave his own mark because I wanted my body to tell the tale of at least one person who hid no reservations about the relationship he had with me, however different that was from ours. And I also wanted you to see I didn't need your endorsement as a partner, but I'm beginning to believe I miscalculated." His voice shifted, got closer. "I should have made certain you understood I wanted your approval, first."

Tim turned to find Damian standing at the shower door, watching him with unwavering green eyes. "Why are you telling me this now?" His heart pounded with mingled apprehension and excitement.

"Because our conversation the other night reminded me of others we've had where later it became clear you wanted to tell me something important. I once told you that I cannot know what you do not tell me. I want to make sure I tell you what you might need to know so you can say what you want to say."

Tim wrenched the faucets off, and stood naked and less afraid than he'd ever been before Damian.

days 127-129 here

[nochi-quinn]

campaign 3 episode 66: early edition

I didn't watch any of team issylra and then I missed last week bc I was traveling so let's see how fuckin lost I am this week

(tho I skipped most of Let's Be Pirates in c2 and a chunk of c1 when I went from watching the archives to livewatching so eh)

tbh someone in a chat I'm in said BH still feel like NPCs kinda and they're…not wrong? the plot is happening TO them vs BECAUSE of them kinda thing

okay I was late bc I was reading ella enchanted to my kid

stray gods ad in the corner! god I'm so hyped for stray gods

travis looks good tonight

kiki :(

matt. say. things. OUT. LOUD. FIRST.

"only hurt him"

ahh, a nice relaxing fetch quest where certainly nothing will go wrong

once upon a forest vibes

leave orym's people aloooone

"I should be the one making the trip" keyleth istg

liam trying to find out if she also saw The Boy

she saw The Boy

forever laying in the floor about vaxleth

(someone on one of my lovm text post memes said they "just want them to be happy" and I just. bless them.)

don't out her like that orym jeeze

wait the poison ate her spell slots?? that's cheating

god I love her

"twice a year"

when we watched lovm with my roommate she asked why keyleth was wearing a pelvis on her forehead. I explained that it was antlers and it belonged to her mom and she asked why she was wearing her mom's pelvis on her head. so the diadem is ruined for me now

heading off any further fantasy religion discourse with the fact that keyleth has always been like this

tbf "the ascension and the ceiling" also works

ascended until it didn't

always good to know your insane plans worked out

"did he get raptured"

lmao the note-taking arm stretch

"you hear want you wanna hear, travis willingham"

(I wasn't looking, did they subtitle it "urine")

orym mom ORYM MOM

"what if your stuff takes a while?" found liam's mom

hobbit hole but in the side of a mountain

I love liam's face when he's having Emotions about his boys

oh my best friend from when I was a kid is named Alma, I'm prepared to do a million double-takes

orym version of the time my kid climbed under the table and onto the weird recessed buffet thing in the wall; there was no way to get around or over the table so we just had to sit there and try to negotiate with a three-year-old

flashbacks to seeing teenage photos of my partner at his grandmother's house

sam

oh no he's planted the seed

WHISPERS

did you fuck my mom, santa claus?

"whitestone is for lovers, zephrah's for fuckers"

stray gods STRAY GODS

SAM

"sorry, Q"

"rocks fall, everyone dies" pay randy millholland 5 dollars

okay I have to tap out, we've got a storm system rolling in and it's playing hell with my sinuses. I know there's about to be a bunch of combat so nobody fuckin die okay