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cheriekos · 4 months ago

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“my self-sufficiency will be the death of me” [timkon ficlet]

goooooood afternoon timkonners. Really wanted to get into the habit of writing a little bit everyday again, so I’m filling out some whumptober-adjacent prompts (courtesy of scealaiscoite). This may be eventually cross-posted to my ao3, who knows, this is mostly just to keep my writing skills in check after a really rough few months of work + to get me out of my writing slump on my larger fic projects. This has been very lightly edited, and is extremely unbeta’d. Anyways, enjoy! Prompt: blood swirling down a shower drain. Content warnings for light descriptions of a knife injury & medical treatment related to that.

The ceiling is that awful popcorn texture. It's yellowed over time. There's a spreading stain over corner, likely some water damage from the unit above. There's some rust at the corner of the shower curtain rod and some odd looking spots at the bottom of the flimsy plastic curtain that has him groaning because he's going to have to look into this, he lives here, other people live here, and clearly the landlord spruced up his apartment but not the others and this needs to be taken care of but it's another thing to take care of -

His breath catches in his throat, a barely held gasp just eeking out past his lips. Every time he tries to breathe low into his belly, his chest spasms. Bruised ribs, he catalogues. Another thing to take care of.

Tim's fingers shake over the left side of his chest, right above the torn parts of his uniform, right where his emergency beacon was slashed through. He lost the one on his wrist sometime between Falcone's latest hidden warehouse and the apartment building. If he reaches down to his boot, he can press the one still intact. He can press it, and someone will come and get him.

He can't move his hand.

Well - It's not that he can't. He's still got some feeling left, which is good. But he can't stop staring at the ceiling. The thought of even moving his head makes him feel so - so tired. It feels as if someone has scooped out his bones and filled him with dense liquid. He tries to will himself to move, to slam down on the emergency beacon and suffer through the indignity of having to be saved by Robin and sit through a thorough dissection of everything he did wrong tonight. He doesn't mind it so much anymore, really - but he's just - he's too tired. He's too tired.

When he closes his eyes, it feels good - the rest that calls to him feels like the kind after a particularly long day of running around as a kid. When you've probably spent too much time in the sun and your chest hurts, the phantom pain of deep laughter following you to your bed. He believes it, for a moment. That he's really just closing his eyes after playing too much and too long and his mom will be there in just a moment to brush his hair out of his eyes and tell him don't let the bed bugs -

He presses down on the knife wound along his abdomen to keep himself awake.

Only an inch deep, but three inches long - they got messy trying to pull it out, he thinks. Another wound. Another thing to take care of. Which he won't be able to take care of if he passes out in this dingy bathroom that's probably going to give him an infection.

His fingers feel cold. He can't tell if he's going into shock or if he's been sitting under the spray of the shower so long that the hot waters run out.

He can't die like this. Not like this. Lying in a mold covered bathroom, shredded to pieces. Not like this.

It's painful, it makes him flush with a deeply buried shame that he tried hard not to face - but he chokes out his name anyway.

"Superboy," he says. "Kon."

There's a moment - one painful, awful moment - where there is nothing but the sound of the shower and his own, ragged breathing. Then, somewhere further inside there's the sound of a window opening, the stumbling of leather boots against hardwood floor - and then Kon's there, right there next to him, and Tim has never felt so relieved and so ashamed at the same time.

"Shit," Kon says, holding Tim's face. He looks down at Tim's hands, shaking against the wound in his side, and follows the blood going down the shower drain. "Shit."

"Good t'see y'too." Tim mumbles.

Kon's staring - or at least, Tim thinks he is. He thinks time is slowing down, maybe. Between one blink and the next, Kon's face morphs from wide-eyed worry to a grim sort of determination. The grip on Tim's face tightens - not unkindly.

"Not funny, Tim," Kon says, lowly.

Tim just swallows, barely wincing at the acrid taste of copper on his tongue. He tilts his chin with what little energy he has, indicating his stomach.

"Knife wound," he says. "Bruised ribs. Gotta check for - for concussion -"

"Stop talking -"

"Need - stitches -"

"Stop talking."

Tim's mouth clicks shut. He feels something burn at his chest - not pain, but something more akin to anger flaring beneath his skin. The urge to crawl out of the tub, to rip away from Kon and get his own goddamn medical kit was making his stomach roll. But God, his bones were like lead and his head was so heavy - the overwhelming relief of being gathered up into Kon's arms was almost enough to distract him. Almost.

"I'm taking you back to your house -"

"Can't."

"Why?"

"Got - my own - my own place -"

Kon freezes as he leaves the old bathroom, pausing briefly to scrunch his eyes tight and mutter a small Jesus Christ before readjusting Tim in his hold, gently.

"You need help, Tim, and you've lost a lot of blood -"

"Not too much -"

"Tim -"

"Kon," Tim says, strained. "The longer we stand here arguing, the more blood I lose. Take me - take me back to my apartment."

Time really slows down then. Kon's bright, bright eyes bore into his, a completely open book. Tim can see the way he swallows down his words, the way his jaw twitches as he grinds his teeth - the way his eyes shine with worry. Tim holds his gaze, focusing on the pain blooming across his ribs in order to avoid thinking about just how much Kin's gaze unsettled something within him.

"You're gonna be the death of me," Kon mutters.

"Not if I die first," Tim says, softly. Kon doesn't laugh - doesn't so much as smirk. Then, he's bounding out the door faster than Tim could blink.

Tim feels a wave of vertigo and he does everything he can to stop the bile rising in his throat. He digs his nails into the worn leather of Kon's sleeve, groaning with his lips shut tight. Kon's thumb rubs a soft circle where he holds him - a gesture so gentle that it takes Tim by surprise. He doesn't get to relish in it for long before Kon's laying him against his new dining table; Tim mourns the clean wood. He'll be scraping out blood from the grooves for the next few months.

"My medkit -" Tim's hand reaches out, weakly. "Get me - needle -"

"Are you out of your mind?" Kon damn near shouts. "You're not sewing yourself up."

"I can and - I will -"

"No," Kon says firmly, hand wrapped around Tim's wrist. "Can you - can you just let someone help you for once?"

No - it's the reply right on the tip of his tongue. Help. There was a time when people surrounded Tim, when he could reach out a hand and find another reaching out to him. But the longer he does this, the more he loses, the more people start to disappear - the more that he finds that the only hands he has are his own. The hands that will stitch him up and prop him up straight, the ones that get things done.

But another, tiny part of him sighs. A little part of him sags with relief, maybe with exhaustion- because yes, he would like some help. His fingers are cold and cannot stop shaking and Kon is steady.

"Fine," Tim finally says. "Help me."

Kon smiles. That irritating, crooked grin lights up his face and Tim chest constricts at the familiarity of it.

“Was that so hard?” Kon says, a teasing lilt to his voice.

“Yes,” Tim groans.

Kon moves swiftly - more assured, more practiced than he had been months ago when he first had to deal with some bad scrapes while out on a mission with the team. His hands don’t flit about wildly, searching for something to make it better. He takes off his own gloves and washes his hands before cutting through the tightly woven Kevlar of Tim’s suit, gently washing the cut, and letting Tim dig crescent shaped divets into his bicep while he threaded Tim’s skin back together.

“You’ve gotta breathe, Tim - “

“I’m trying, asshole - “

“Don’t call the guy with the needle and thread an asshole, asshole - “

Tim barely notices that Kon has already snipped the medical thread and has started placing bandages across his side. Tim watches as he moves, quick, tearing medical tape and snipping bandages with determination, and then carefully placing them where Tim still bleeds. Tim’s mouth goes dry - he looks up at the ceiling instead.

“How’s your hearing? Seeing double?” Kon asks, flashing the little emergency flashlight in Tim’s eyes. Tim resists the urge to bat him away.

“Just fine,” Tim blinks. “God help me if I - if I ever have to deal with - two of you.”

“Twice the fun,” Kon remarks.

“Twice the headache,” Tim says, with little heat. “Kon - painkillers - “

Kon rattles a small bottle, labeled meticulously in Alfred’s familiar handwriting. “These ones?”

“Yes,” Tim says, breathlessly. He tries to put one hand under him, arm shaking with the effort to try and pull his own body weight up.

“Hold on - “

“I can - get up by myself - “

“Tim,” Kon says, warm hands curling around Tim’s arm. “Let me help you. Please.”

There’s an earnestness to Kon that is so disarming that it peels away the remaining resistance in Tim. He uses his last bits of energy to wrap an arm around Kon’s neck, a flush traveling across his cheeks as he mutters okay and lets himself be held again. This time, he lets himself melt a little further into Kon, pointedly ignoring the unfurling, winding feelings in his gut - he neatly packs that feeling away for later in the corner of his brain. He focuses on breathing, on the steady rhythm of Kon’s heartbeat, and the soothing hands that hold him.

He blinks rapidly, realizing that he’s been placed on his couch and that Kon has managed to rummage up the eye-sore of a blanket that Dick had given him as house-warming gift a while back. Kon’s in the kitchen, then suddenly by his side, waving a small glass of water and the painkillers in front of Tim.

“Drink up, Timmy,”

“Don’t call me Timmy,” Tim grumbles, and downs the pills and water in one swift movement.

When he sits back, it’s like every bit of adrenaline keeping him awake has left him. The last dredges of it disappear and all he can do is curl against the headrest, the scratchy, awful blanket giving him an odd sense of comfort. He blinks, slow, trying to get a good word out before sleep could take him. To tell Kon he’s got it handled, that he needs to report back to Dick about the stake-out going wrong - but he can’t. He just looks up at Kon, illuminated by the bright lights of Gotham from the window behind, and he feels a deep, deep ache in his sternum. A sudden urgency fills him - a worry. That when he wakes up, Kon will be gone and something about that makes Tim feel sick.

He moves his fingers slightly, flushing with embarrassment as he croaks out “Stay?”

Kon doesn’t hesitate. There’s barely enough time for a thought before Kon’s hand tangles with Tim’s, the rough pads of his thumbs, slowly becoming calloused from farm work, begins to rub against Tim’s knuckles. Tim’s breath catches in his throat.

“Of course,” Kon whispers. “You don’t even have to ask.”

Tim breathes out. “Oh.”

There’s a smile on Kon’s face - a little knowing, a little sad. Something childish blooms in Tim; he wants to reach out and hold his face, wants to pull at the edges of his cheeks until the sadness went away. But rest tugs at him, the exhaustion in his bones pulling him down, down, down until the feeling of Kon’s hand in his was a distant sensation, his last words something like out of a dream.

“I’ve got you, Tim. I’ve got you.”

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