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Jason was having a fantastic time minding his goddamn business when the yelling started.
It was a surprisingly decent day and Jason was taking advantage of the rare peace to enjoy his lunch at home, Golden Girls reruns playing on the TV and window open to let in the breeze.
His plate was full. His couch was comfy. Everything was good.
“ UGH!”
A sudden frustrated shout drew Jason’s attention to the alley outside his window. From the ground below, a chorus of snappish voices disrupted his quiet afternoon.
Of course, he could have just shut the window. He could have ignored whatever situation was causing such a commotion. But, Park Row wouldn’t really be his territory if he wasn’t getting involved in everyone else’s problems all the time. It was the pack animal in him that prompted Jason to his feet. That and his insatiable curiosity.
The yelling had only grown louder by the time he slipped out the window onto the fire escape.
The alley was cool, shadowed by the old theater almost close enough to jump to. Somewhere beyond its brick walls, Tim was probably puttering around, performing experiments or doing business or getting into trouble that he would dramatically relay to Jason the next time they saw each other, which happened fairly often.
Jason looked down from his second story apartment to see a group of young women clustered by the dumpster, waving their arms about in aggressive gestures while they argued with each other. Several ropes, nets, and various tools scattered the asphalt at their feet.
“ Hey!” Jason hollered, bringing the girls to blessed silence. “What’s all the ruckus about?”
Immediately, all of them began yelling over each other again, much to Jason’s consternation. Several were pointing up at the side of the theater and Jason followed the line of their fingers to see a black cat curled leisurely on the ledge of one of the windows, almost directly across from the fire escape. It met Jason’s gaze, tail flicking back and forth, apparently unconcerned with the small mob fixated on it.
A low chuckle carrying over the noise drew his attention to the mouth of the alley where Mr. Florez had his fruteria set up on the sidewalk. “They’ve been at it half the morning,” the old man called up to him. “Your friend has brought lots of business my way with his little challenge.”
Jason didn’t have to ask what friend Mr. Florez was referring to, but he did have to clarify, “What challenge? What’s the deal?”
“You haven’t seen the news?” the old man asked, leaning back against his stand. “Maya-” he turned to the little girl drawing with chalk on the sidewalk next to him, handing her a folded up newspaper from the depths of his cart and pointing up at Jason, “-take the paper up to Mr. Jay.”
The little girl complied, her iridescent little wings shimmering in the sunlight as she fluttered up to his fire escape.
“Thank you, Maya,” he said, accepting the paper she held out to him.
“Okay,” she replied, scampering back to her chalk art.
Page 3 of the Gotham Gazette held all the answers that had eluded him thus far.
THE WAY TO A MAN’S HEART IS THROUGH….HIS CAT?
By Deb Donovan
Timothy Drake has been a long coveted heartthrob among the city’s elite. Voted Gotham’s Most Eligible Bachelor the past two years in a row - narrowly beating out both Bruce Wayne and his ward Dick Grayson - Drake is a prize few would be uninterested in winning. Perhaps one of the single most talented witches of his generation, Drake is also known for his community engagement among Gotham’s underprivileged communities, especially his Neon Knights program targeted at preventing at-risk youths from turning to crime. If that weren’t enough, he’s also made the list of Gotham’s Top Ten Sexiest Men, in addition to being the sole heir of the sizable Drake Industries and subsequent fortune.
But despite the number of suitors knocking down his door, none have had any success winning Drake’s heart. The young man has shown no interest in accepting the multitude of proposals made to him. Until now.
During an interview, Drake issued a challenge: “Anyone who can get ahold of the house key hanging on my cat’s collar - without harming my cat in any way - is free to use it and is welcome into my home.”
Though he did not guarantee his affections or hand in marriage to the victor of this task, it is reasonable to assume that accomplishing it is a significant first step to locking down such an enviable trophy. And all you have to do? Catch that cat.
Jason huffed something between a laugh and groan. The past several years of lamenting his desirable status had made it quite clear to Jason that Tim had no interest in any of his ‘suitors,’ and was annoyed by the constant barrage of strangers trying to woo him. He had no doubt this whole debacle was nothing more than a way to deflect all the unwanted attention.
He looked up to find the creature in question still staring at him, pale blue eyes tracking the potential threat across the way.
“If you guys are gonna keep harassing that poor animal,” he yelled down at the group below, “At least try to keep it down. People live here, ya know.”
A chorus of apologies followed, though Jason was sure they’d get worked up again in no time.
He ducked back into his apartment to enjoy his lunch in peace. He left the window open, confident that things would stay calm long enough for him to finish his sandwich.
The couch welcomed him back into its loving embrace. He settled in, feet on the coffee table and overflowing plate of food in his lap, and just when he was perfectly comfortable again, the hairs on the back of his neck stood on end with the distinct feeling of being watched.
With the sandwich halfway to his mouth, Jason froze and looked towards his window to find the cat from before standing there on the ledge. Just…looking at him.
“Umm…hi?” he offered.
After a moment of deliberation, the cat hopped down from the window ledge.
Into his living room.
Jason would have been more frustrated by that than he was if the cat had belonged to anyone other than Tim. Tim who he’d known half his life. Tim who broke into his apartment whenever he felt like it. Tim who had a standing invitation to family dinners despite not actually being a member of the Wayne household. The same Tim that Jason was a little bit madly in love with.
Knowing Tim, the cat probably had about a dozen incantations placed on it to prevent it from getting lost or hit by a car or decimating local wildlife. That cat probably came into Jason’s apartment because Tim explicitly told it it could. That would be a very Tim thing to do. A complete lack of boundaries was a hallmark of his personality.
The cat slunk closer, its footsteps inaudible even to Jason’s oversensitive ears. It leapt onto the arm of the couch, perching there to continue staring at him.
At that distance, he could see the coveted key hanging from a black, leather collar, glimmering silver and shorter than his index finger.
For a brief, selfish moment, Jason considered lunging for it. One quick move and he could be the champion, the singular suitor given the chance to court Timothy Drake.
But the second that thought entered his head, he banished it. For one, he could go over to Tim’s any time he liked, no key necessary. For another, if anyone deserved the chance to court Tim, it wasn’t him. Not after the things he’d done. Not after-
Not after everything.
The cat’s dark tail swished slowly from side to side. The cat’s fur was short, but fluffy and silky looking. It reminded him a bit of Tim’s hair and the way he always wanted to run his fingers through it. Its eyes were a similar icy-grayish color. That was such a Tim thing to do, to get a cat that matched him.
The most noticeable difference to him was the obvious caution the cat carried itself with. Tim wasn’t reckless per say, but he was too curious for his own good, and always went sniffing around in places of obvious danger. He’d set up shop in Crime Alley for Christ’s sake.
“Don’t worry, bud,” he told the cat. “I’m not gonna try to snatch ya.”
The cat stared at him.
He stared back.
“...can I help you?” He felt silly all of a sudden talking to a cat.
The cat’s pale blue eyes flicked down to the sandwich in his hands before settling back on his face.
“Oh, you’re hungry, huh? Should’ve known you came over here just to eat my food.” It was the same thing Tim did whenever he ran low on groceries.
His sandwich was stuffed with a truly obscene amount of roast beef and ham - enough protein to satisfy his canine appetite - and topped with lettuce and mayo. As long as he avoided the sauce, nothing there would be bad for the cat. He tore a little chunk from the corner and held it out for inspection.
The cat leaned forward, one paw balancing on the couch cushion. Big blue eyes kept flicking to his face and body, watching for any sign of malicious intent. When it couldn’t find any, the cat got close enough to sniff at the chunk of sandwich.
Before Jason knew what had happened, the cat had snatched the chunk from his fingers and darted back to the window to enjoy its prize.
“Yeah, alright, you little leech,” he murmured, fondness coloring his voice.
He turned back to the TV, only half paying attention to the show as he finally began to eat, glancing now and again at the critter hovering nearby. Every few minutes, it would slink back over to the couch and stare at Jason until he offered another tiny bit of meat or sliced apple from his plate. And every time, the cat would stay far out of grabbing range, getting just close enough to snatch the food before retreating to safety.
At one point, Jason got up to grab a napkin and came back to find the thing sneaking a potato chip directly off his plate. “ Hey!” he’d shouted, scaring the cat back to the fire escape, but not before it caught its salty treat.
Whatever. If Tim got pissed about his cat getting into human food, he could put a leash on the thing.
Once the plate was clean, the cat disappeared back out the window, presumably to return home and beg for more food from its owner.
And if Jason got out his phone and googled what human foods were safe for cats once he was alone? Well, that was his business.
After that, Jason started seeing Tim’s cat around a lot. He’d leave his window open on nicer days so that it could come and go as it pleased, mostly to hide from the predators casing the block in search of Timothy Drake’s pet. Every now and again, someone would come knocking on his door, and they’d always start, “Hey, I saw a cat go through your window, and I was wondering-”
“No,” Jason would always cut them off. “Fuck off.” Then he’d slam the door.
He wasn’t going to fight for the key, but that didn’t mean he thought anyone else should get it either. They were all just gold diggers and groupie types chasing after someone they didn’t know anything about for all the wrong reasons.
It was entertaining sometimes, though, like when some idiot would try to climb up onto his fire escape and get zapped or blown across the street or temporarily turned purple by the wards Tim had put up for him.
Mostly, it just felt like Jason was coparenting Tim’s cat. Once it had come to trust that Jason would never make a grab for the key, it treated his apartment as a second home. It would beg for treats and nest in his blankets and demand scratches by repeatedly bumping its little head into his hands until he gave up on whatever else he was doing. Occasionally, Jason would lock up all his windows and doors before going out, only to come back and find the cat had somehow gotten in anyway.
When Jason curled up in his armchair to read, a soft, warm weight would take up residence in his lap and stare at the pages as he turned them as though it were reading too. When he did laundry, he’d find the cat napping on top of the still-warm pile of clean clothes.
When he was out, he would catch glimpses of the cat around the neighborhood, letting little kids chase it around, bounding across rooftops, luring suitors into traps of their own making. Their small community unanimously adored Tim’s cat - as they did Tim himself - and it simultaneously made him feel comforted and bitter that other people were granted the gift of the cat’s trust.
Maybe the cat was just an attention whore. Unlike Tim, the cat was not shy at all about its craving for attention and affection.
It was kind of like getting to cuddle Tim by proxy.
“You have no idea how lucky you are,” Jason had said once, lying flat on his back on the living room floor in a patch of sunlight with the cat purring up a storm on his stomach. “You probably get to cuddle Tim whenever you want. Sit on his lap. Sleep in his bed. Get petted by him all the time.” He absentmindedly stroked his fingers through the cat’s luscious fur as he rambled. “I wish I was a cat. I’d bother Tim all the time the way you bother me. I bet he gives really good scratches. He’s got nice hands. Long fingers. Very…multipurpose.” Jason decided not to follow that train of thought with the cat in the room. “I don’t suppose you could put in a good word for me?”
The cat lifted its head with a sleepy, “ Mrrp?”
“Nah, nevermind. Tim deserves better. Forget I asked.”
Next door neighbors and childhood friends for years, and what did Tim get? Mauled half to death during the first full moon after Jason had been infected. There was no forgetting the way Tim had looked in a hospital bed, covered in bandages and pale from blood loss, all for the great crime of trying to help Jason during one of the hardest times in his life.
And if that wasn’t bad enough, Jason had been a royal asshole for a significant amount of time after that too; angry at Bruce, angry at the world, angry at the psychopath who turned him into something less than human, all while struggling to adapt to a whole new physiology.
And Tim - sweet, kind, nosy Tim - kept reaching out, even when Jason made it abundantly clear that he had no interest in being anything other than ill-tempered.
Even after several years, making amends, and a truckload of self-reflection, there was still a white scar sitting high on Tim’s throat where Jason’s claw had nearly severed his carotid. There was no coming back from that, no matter how much he wanted to get pet by Tim.
You can literally shapeshift into a dog, a voice in the back of his head reminded him. He ignored it. Massive half-feral wolves didn’t get petted. Never again would Jason risk putting anyone in danger like that. Not of his own free will.
Like always, the full moon snuck up on him. He woke up one morning to an alert on his phone and thought, Ah, fuck. Not again.
Somehow, despite the relentless regularity of the phases of the moon, his affliction always seemed to pop up when he least expected it. Just enough time would pass with things being normal that he would forget what lurked in his DNA. Everything was fine until it wasn’t. He’d get cranky and snappish, and his whole body would ache, and he’d eat everything in sight. He wouldn’t think anything of it until he got his automated message.
FULL MOON TOMORROW NIGHT
There was a checklist he’d curated over the past several years to handle this situation precisely.
⃞ Stock up on snacks (unpackage and set out)
⃞ Fill bathtub
⃞ Board up windows and doors
⃞ Rearrange furniture
⃞ Purchase chew toys
⃞ Perimeter check
⃞ Emergency sedative
He just hoped he wouldn’t destroy any of the furniture this time. Four couches was too many.
The two days he had passed entirely too quickly. When he stopped at the Halal market down the street, he saw Tim’s cat getting fawned over by the couple who owned the shop. He worried that the tiny creature would sneak into his apartment during the night and get caught in the crosshairs of his shift, so, the next day, he dragged his bookshelves in front of the windows in his living room and bedroom, blocking out what little natural light he got.
The waiting was the worst part. The hours that would drag on, the endless afternoon before the night, wanting it to just happen already so it could be done with.
The onset of symptoms was so gradual, Jason never realized it was actually happening until the pain got so bad he couldn’t breathe. It started as a stiffness, an ache in his bones that only made itself known when he made the mistake of moving. But then, at some point, he would shuffle around and his body would start aching and it wouldn’t stop. And once the ache had enveloped his entire skeletal system, his muscles would begin to burn, a kind of burning where the centers of his muscles felt molten and gooey while the outsides felt charred over and crackly.
At that point, he entered what he referred to as the laffy taffy stage, where his skin felt like it was being stretched to the limit, threatening to tear open and leave his insides on display. At the same time, all the cartilage in his body seemed to slide out of place, leaving his joints to grind in their sockets raw.
And then the shift would actually start.
He would lie there on his living room floor, all the furniture shoved up against the walls to leave room for his gargantuan form, and grit his teeth so hard his jaw popped trying to keep in the noises until he was so delirious from the agony that he forgot to care. He screamed. He writhed. Everything went white.
Then everything went dark.
Jason woke up lying on his side. Soft whimpers escaped his sore throat unbidden. He wobbled to his feet and padded around the corner to where the bathroom door had been left ajar. The tub had been filled with water and he lapped it up, the sound of his drinking filling the otherwise dark, empty space.
There was no one else home. A perimeter check wasn’t needed to figure that out.
Once his thirst had been sated, Jason did a perimeter check anyway, for lack of anything else to occupy his time. The dusty corners and beige walls held nothing of interest. An array of snacks had been prepared and left on the kitchen floor, but Jason wasn’t hungry. Or was he? No, he was just bored.
He hopped up onto the couch, but it wasn’t big enough to contain his heft and parts of him hung uncomfortably over the edges.
He went back to the floor.
His tail hung limp between his legs as he puttered around sniffing at the shiny new toys that were piled nearby. One made a pleasant squeaky noise, but it folded in on itself too easily under his teeth. He wanted to gnaw at something. Something sturdy. And heavy.
Something like…the couch.
His mouth was stretched wide around the corner of the sofa when all his hairs stood on end.
An instinctive growl tore out of his chest as he whirled around searching for the source of his inexplicable paranoia. It wasn’t any one thing that had tipped him off, just all his senses dialed up to 11 and honed in on any living thing that might come near.
The room was dark, but his eyes were designed to cut through it. He found what didn’t belong - a tiny shadow slinking along the wall.
Jason didn’t know how it’d gotten in. His territory was locked up tight and well protected. Nothing and no one should have been able to get in. And anything that did dare to trespass was going to get shredded.
The growling rose to a fever pitch, rumbling through the whole room in implicit warning. He bared his teeth and flicked his tail, prowling ever closer to the stranger in his nest. Jason wanted it to run, or attack, or whatever else gave him an excuse to unleash the restless energy that coiled in his gut. He needed to let loose, he needed to burn off the adrenaline, he needed-
“ Mrrow?”
Jason paused. His growl came to an abrupt stop at the unexpected noise.
The tiny shadow stepped just close enough that Jason could see what it actually was.
“Mrrow?” the cat repeated.
Cat! Jason’s ears and tail perked up in sheer delight. The suspicion and rage that had filled him morphed into excitement and glee. Cat! Friend! He wasn’t alone anymore!
Jason could hardly stop himself from pouncing on the thing in play. His tail was wagging so hard, his back half swayed with the force of it. His friend had come! They could run and wrestle and cuddle and Jason wasn’t alone anymore.
He leapt forward to greet his friend and it skittered back like it was scared, jumping out of reach onto the bookshelf high above. Jason barked to encourage it to come back down, but the cat just retreated further away. And he didn’t want it to go! He needed to sniff! He needed to lick! He needed to show that he was a friend too!
Perhaps that nice toy that squeaked would tempt his cat down. He zipped over to where it lay abandoned on the carpet and snatched it up, bringing it to the foot of the bookshelf as a gift. He gave it a good couple squeaks so the cat would hear how cool it was. Then he gave it a couple more, just because he wanted to. On second thought, maybe he should have kept the toy for himself.
The toy was forgotten instantly when the cat peaked its head over the top of the bookshelf, peering down at him.
He sat back on his haunches. His tongue hung out with quiet pants. He could be patient. He could. He could. He could wait. He would be calm so the cat would come down. All he had to do was be still.
After a moment of deliberation, the cat jumped onto the ground in one swift, smooth, soundless move.
Jason couldn’t contain his, “ BOOF!” of excitement, or the overwhelming urge to greet his friend. But the moment he lunged forward to give it a good sniff, it darted away, disappearing into the narrow space under the couch. He almost slid across the carpet in his haste to follow, flattening onto his stomach so he could look under the couch.
Only a pair of pale blue eyes was visible. Jason shoved his snout as far forward as it would fit, trying desperately to just say hi.
When he was met with nothing but sad silence, a pitiful whine built in his throat. Where was his friend? Why did his friend not want to greet him?
Then there was a rustle, the barest shift of mass underneath the couch. The displacement of air was the only warning he got before an itty bitty paw bapped his nose. He jerked back a bit, then shoved his face even harder under the couch to make up the difference.
The couch slid back an inch.
That got him just close enough to feel the itty bitty breaths the cat took, itty bitty whiskers tickling his nose. A paw found his nose again, but instead of just smacking it, it sat on his snout and exerted the barest pressure - not nearly enough to actually move him, but enough to get the point across.
Obligingly, he shuffled back, creating enough space for the cat to exit the couch. Having learned his lesson, Jason approached slower that time, staying on his stomach and leaning forward just enough to get a good whiff and-
Oh!
The immediate familiarity of that smell hit Jason like a punch to the gut. An eclectic mix of chemicals and herbs and sweet skin that belonged to exactly one person.
Tim! Tim smell! Tim-cat-friend!
All of Jason’s hard won calm went right out the barricaded window. He couldn’t not lick his friend-Tim-cat. The flat of his tongue dragged from the cat’s boney shoulder right up to its forehead, marking him as pack. Jason wasn’t sure why the cat hadn’t carried his scent already. It was Tim! And cat! And friend! He would need to scent more often.
The cat leaned away from his slobbery affections, but allowed them to continue. Once his face was thoroughly groomed, Jason ran a lap around the living room to burn off some of his energy, not that it did much.
With a bit (a lot) of coaxing, he managed to engage his little friend in a game of tag, bounding off of furniture and playfully nipping at each other's tails in a hurricane of canine/feline comradery. Jason was fast, probably faster in a flat sprint, but his cat friend was slippery and agile, somehow always managing to avoid getting caught no matter how close Jason got.
It was perhaps the most fun Jason had ever had. He never wanted it to end.
He went back to the bathroom to gulp up more water from the tub, and when he came back the living room window had been unbarricaded and opened to let in the cool breeze. The cat stood on the ledge beckoning him to follow.
Jason got so excited, he damn near levitated out the window.
If it was possible, the outside held even more fun. His cat friend led him on a romp across the rooftops, a dancing figure turned silver by the moonlight. If a more magnificent creature had ever existed, Jason hadn’t seen it.
The night was invigorating in a way Jason hadn’t realized he’d been craving. Jumping over alleys and streets felt like flying, the wind ruffling his fur and carrying his happy yips along with it. The pair of them ventured in a spiral outward around the neighborhood, but never straying too far from base.
When Jason tipped his head back and howled up at the moon, it sounded like music.
Eventually, the cat led him back down to street level and around the back of a large building. He didn’t see any doors or windows or anything in the expanse of brick wall they faced, but one second his cat was there, and the next it was gone.
He spun in a circle. No cat. He sniffed all around the wall where it had vanished. No cat. He barked his confusion into the alley. No cat.
He was just about to start whining pitifully again when the most wonderful thing happened.
“Jay?”
There, where he was pretty sure nothing had been before, was a doorway. And standing in that doorway was-
“ BOOF!”
Restraining himself really wasn’t an option. The second Jason saw Tim standing there, all rational thought exited his brain in a not-so-orderly fashion. He lunged without a moment’s hesitation, barrelling straight into the man and knocking him to the ground. With both shoulders pinned down by his massive paws, Tim was helpless against the barrage of licks Jason smothered him with.
“Alright, alright- ack! Gross! That’s my mouth!” Tim’s protests were undercut by the laughter he couldn’t quite hold back. Jason hopped off so Tim could get up and shut the strange doorway they’d gone to.
“C’mon,” Tim said, gesturing for Jason to follow. “We’ve got four more hours before the moon sets. Let’s have some fun.”
The worst part of being a werewolf? The shift, without question.
The second worst part of being a werewolf? The hangover after the shift.
Jason’s slow climb to consciousness was accompanied by a severe frustration at all the construction work that was going on at ass o’clock in the morning, until he realized that there wasn’t any construction going on and the jackhammering was just in his head.
“ Ugghhhhh.”
The groan that spilled from his throat wasn’t any more under his control than the rest of his body was. Sure, his limbs were probably attached to him, but it wasn’t like he could feel them. The only thing he was certain of was that it was entirely too goddamn bright in there.
Wherever ‘there’ was.
“Morning, princess.”
Jason pried open one dry eye to find the source of the greeting. His vision was a field of blinding white light with a dark blob floating in the middle. He gave another garbled groan in response. Trying to blink was like rubbing two strips of velcro together, so instead he rolled over enough to bury his face in the blissfully dark ground.
It was then that he realized he was lying in a patch of grass. And that he was naked. And that there were blades of grass tickling places that should never be touched by grass.
A cool, callused hand rested on his bicep; an anchor in skin-on-skin contact. “C’mon, Jay, the sooner you get up, the sooner you can take some ibuprofen.”
“‘Bu’po’fen?” Jason mumbled, eyebrows scrunching together against the ground. The hand on his arm moved to comb the hair back from his face and the shadow it provided made it tolerable to open his eyes again.
The dark shape crouched over him slowly solidified into Tim’s familiar form. He looked soft and warm in the late morning light. He was dressed in a too-big shirt and a pair of pajama pants that made him look especially cuddleable.
Once Jason had gotten his fill of fawning over Tim - for the time being - he was able to take stalk of his surroundings. Most of which were green. The sun was coming in through a skylight several stories above the indoor courtyard they were in. Unnaturally healthy trees and bushes and rows of planting boxes ran a perimeter around the space, further framed by ivory columns - one of the original remaining features of the theater.
He didn’t make a habit of going next door often - he didn’t want to impose - but the handful of times he’d been in Tim’s abode were memorable.
It was a hodge-podge of rooms, halfway between the original stage house and the living/work space Tim had turned it into. The layout didn’t seem to match what you thought it would be from the outside, and Jason knew better than to ask about that. The old administrative offices had been transformed into a kind of apartment with all the necessary faculties and a couple guest bedrooms to boot. Everywhere behind and underneath the stage was where the magic happened. Literally. Old dressing rooms and storage areas held dozens of half finished projects and experiments. The house and stage itself remained largely unchanged, except magically cleared of all the rot, mold, and grime that came from decades of disuse.
The courtyard was where Tim grew a lot of his ingredients. It was also where Jason was lying naked and hungover in the grass.
“Up you get, big guy,” Tim said, hauling him to his feet. The trip to the living quarters was more of a controlled stumble, and Jason was sure he wouldn’t have made it without Tim’s arm around his waist. The walk brought him back to himself though, worked the stiffness from his joints a bit until it felt like he was actually inhabiting his own body again.
Tim left him to scrub the grass stains off his ass by himself, slipping out the door with instructions to meet him in the kitchen when he was done. It didn’t occur to him until he was already in the shower that he didn’t actually know how to get to the kitchen.
After the shower, Jason felt distinctly more human. A bottle of ibuprofen had been left on the counter next to a stack of clothes and Jason popped those suckers like candy. The sweats and t-shirt left for him fit perfectly, and he wasn’t sure whether that was because they were magically enchanted to or if Tim just happened to have spare clothes in his exact size. Both possibilities were equally likely.
Out in the hallway, the carpet was plush under his bare feet. He followed the lingering impressions of Tim’s footsteps out into a balcony that overlooked the old lobby. Windows high on the walls let in more than enough light to fill the space. It was all olive wood and red velvet and gold filigree made to glow under the late morning sun.
It made Jason feel like an old stagehand come to the theater early in the day to prepare for the shows that would be put on for the masses. All that elegance and grandeur wrapped in a peace and quiet that the public would never get to see.
The kitchen was easier to find than he’d anticipated. It was located where Jason suspected an old concessions stand had taken up residence before the renovations, though the gray marble countertops and dark cabinetry didn’t look like they’d ever seen a hot dog. Tim stood by the stove, back to him as he sliced up something leafy and green.
Jason took a seat at the breakfast bar and could almost imagine an old fashioned cash register sat on top, a bartender asking if he wanted his scotch neat or on the rocks before finding his seat again after intermission. The illusion was broken by the faded lettering of tour dates on the back of Tim’s t-shirt.
Tim made for a more enticing image anyway.
“How are you feeling?” Tim asked without turning around.
“Oh, you know. Other than the fact that my entire body hurts, not bad.”
His tone was joking, but the look Tim threw over his shoulder was less than amused. He finished up with his greens and wiped his hands on a towel hung from the oven door that read If You Can’t Handle the Heat, Get Out of the Kitchen . He stepped towards the corner and procured a steaming mug of liquid from out of fucking nowhere.
Jason would never get used to that.
“Drink this,” Tim said, setting the mug down in front of him. “It’ll help.”
“What’s in it?” he asked, watching little translucent bits float around in a bluish liquid.
“You know better than to ask me that.” A small smile tugged at Tim’s mouth and Jason couldn’t help but mirror it.
He took a sip. It tasted like the way a department store smelled. There was no other way to describe it.
“So,” Jason started as Tim moved to pull a box of eggs from the fridge. “How did I get out of my apartment last night?”
Tim gave him a curious look. “You don’t remember?”
“I never remember.”
“Anything?”
Jason stared down into his beverage adjacent substance. “Nothing after the shift starts.”
Tim sighed as he began cracking eggs into a bowl, and Jason knew what he was going to say before the words came out.
“You know, there’s a very simple way to make the full moon easier to deal with.”
“You of all people should understand why I can’t do that.”
“I of all people know exactly why you should do that.”
Jason sighed. “Tim-”
Tim pointed half a broken eggshell at him. “Don’t Tim me. You’re making yourself suffer for no reason-”
“I have-”
“-and if you’d just ease up on your Bruce-level emotional repression then-”
“I don’t deserve to put everyone else-”
Tim grabbed a whisk, and the way he wielded it was more threatening than if he’d been holding a knife. “No self-flagellation in my kitchen.”
Jason raised his hands in surrender. “Okay, okay.” He bit back all of his arguments about how practicing shifting outside of a full moon would just put everyone around him at unnecessary risk, and for what? So he’d feel a little less hungover afterwards?
He knew when to hold back, though. Tim would have a rebuttal for every bullet on his list. It wasn’t the first time they’d had this argument.
Knowing when he should hold back didn’t give him the will power to actually do it, however.
“I’m just saying I can handle it fine on my own.”
“Oh, yeah? Then how come you ended up passed out in my garden last night?”
Jason opened his mouth, then shut it again. “I’ll figure out where my defenses failed and make sure it doesn’t happened again. I’m sorry you had to deal with that. It couldn’t have been easy.”
“It was very easy to deal with actually,” Tim shot back without missing a beat.
Jason chewed on his lip. Tim’s definition of ‘easy’ was a bit skewed. He did things like unraveling complex curses without batting an eye then called putting a fitted sheet on the bed ‘an absurd and impossible test of human strength.’ He didn’t trust Tim to appropriately rate the difficulty of surviving attempted murder.
“Did I-” try to hurt you? He bit back the question before it could earn a too-intense look from Tim. “Did I break anything?”
“You tried to eat one of my nasturtium vines, but other than that, no.”
That lessened the tangle of guilt and anxiety rolling around in his stomach. “I didn’t run into anyone else, did I?”
Tim rolled his eyes. “I wouldn’t be worried if you had.”
“I’m dangerous during a shift.”
“Oh, please, you’re nothing more than a giant puppy during a shift.”
And. Well. Jason wasn’t really sure how to respond to that. As much as he hated to admit it, Tim would know more about that than he would.
He drank down half his mystery liquid so he wouldn’t have to reply right away. He watched Tim separate a number of egg white into a smaller bowl.
“Can we talk about something else?” he said, voice weaker than he wanted it to be.
For a long moment, Tim looked at him with something he couldn’t quite identify, but that made his cheeks warm all the same.
When Jason was sure he wouldn’t be able to hold his breath for a second longer, Tim finally said, “What do you want to talk about?”
He searched about for a suitable alternative and noted the conspicuous absence of a certain feline begging for scraps. “Where’s your cat?”
Tim’s pause was so miniscule Jason almost didn’t notice it. “Oh, you know,” he waved his yolk-covered whisk through the air in casual dismissal. “He’s around here somewhere.” Tim grabbed the bowls of egg and returned to the stove where Jason couldn’t examine his face.
He, Jason turned over in his mind. He hadn’t known the cat was male. It felt weird to check. “What’s his name?”
“What?”
“His name,” Jason repeated. “You did give your cat a name, right?”
It wouldn’t be surprising if Tim had forgotten about that. Give the thing a collar, talk about it in an interview, but not remember to actually name his own pet until someone else brought it up - that would be a very Tim thing to do. He’d once spent months planning a massive charity event, then got lost on his way to it because he couldn’t remember the address.
Hell, Jason hadn’t even known Tim had gotten a cat until it turned up in the paper.
“It’s, umm…” Tim poured one of the egg mixtures into a pan and fussed with the chopped bits on the cutting board next to him. “...Alvin.”
Jason wished Tim was facing him so he could see the face he was making. “Alvin? You named your cat Alvin?”
“Yeah, like…Alvin Ailey.”
“Who the hell is Alvin Ailey?”
“He’s like a…” Tim sprinkled a bunch of bits into the pan. “He’s big in the dance world. Really advocates for, umm…African-American inclusion. In…Dance.”
Jason debated whether or not to call Tim out on his painfully obvious bullshitting. “...I didn’t know you were into dance.”
“...yeah.”
He let Tim stew in his poorly fabricated web of lies, nothing but a soft sizzling and the scrape of a spatula on metal filling the air. Tim was adorable when he got all awkward and stuttery. It was so different from his usual self-assured competence - which was also extremely attractive - but there was just something about Tim like that, all domestic and dorky and unsure, that made Jason want to smother him.
“Well,” he said, finally taking mercy on Tim, “It’s not the cruelest thing you’ve ever done to that poor thing.”
Tim turned around to glance at him, a furrow between his brows. “What do you mean?”
“You’re whole-” he waved a hand through the air, “-key dating challenge thing.”
“Oh. That. Don’t worry, my cat can handle himself.”
“You say that now, but one of these days some rando is gonna waltz through your front door with Alvin in a burlap sack or something and you’re gonna have to go on a bunch of dates with a freak.”
Tim huffed a laugh. “My cat is a good judge of character. It wouldn’t let someone get close enough for that if they weren’t a solid bet.”
A scoff jumped from Jason’s throat before he could stop it.
“What?” Tim asked in response to the sound.
“That cat hangs around me half the time. You might not want to trust its ability to pick a proper suitor for you.”
Jason met Tim’s gaze to find one of those you’re-a-fucking-idiot looks plastered across his face, like Jason was the one depending on a cat’s matchmaking skills. “What?” he said, a little defensive.
Tim just shook his head and went back to his eggs.
As time passed, the love-related disturbances in the neighborhood took a decline. The hoards of wannabe Tim Drake spouses seemed to grow tired of the constant public humiliation. One by one, every admirer gave up when they realized marrying rich would take a lot more work than they’d initially anticipated.
Good riddance.
The cat - and Jason really couldn’t think of it as an Alvin, what kind of name was that for a cat? - came by as often as ever to demand his attention. And everytime it would stretch out, neck bared and key dangling, Jason felt a pang in his chest.
What would it be like, he wondered, to fish that key out of his pocket every day? To wander through the labyrinthine halls of the theater in search of his partner. To eat dinner every night listening to Tim ramble on about some contraption that ended up doing something completely different from its intended purpose.
And every night they’d settle into bed, warm against each other, waiting for a fuzzy little bundle to curl up at their feet.
He’d get Alvin a little pink collar to replace the key. He’d get one for Tim too so they could still match. Tim looked so lovely in pink.
That was the kind of thing Jason thought about to fall asleep at night: pleasant fantasies. If he could hold onto them long enough, they’d steep into his dreams. If he was lucky, they were all he dreamt about.
Jason wasn’t often lucky.
He thought it was a nightmare that had him jolting awake in his bed. The room was dark and the darkness seemed to make the pounding of his heart even louder. He fought the weight of unconsciousness, trying to remember what had plagued his sleep, but found nothing. His skin wasn’t damp with sweat. He wasn’t shivering under the thin sheets. All was quiet. Calm.
Then he heard the yowling.
It was a god awful sound, shrill and distressed from outside. It echoed up the brick walls of the alley past his bedroom windows, yanking him further from sleep. For a moment, he thought it might be one of his neighbor’s fire alarms going off. But then it rang out again, warbling and angry and scared, and Jason realized it was a cat.
He was on his feet and running to the fire escape before he even realized he’d left bed. He threw up the window and didn’t even feel the cold air that came gusting in. Another piercing yowl shot up out of the dark.
It was the middle of the night, any light from the moon or stars smothered by smog. Flickering street lamps fought to illuminate the alley and only succeeded in sharpening the edges of the shapes below. Any further detail was obscured by the fog that clung to the asphalt.
No. Not fog. Gas.
There was an unnatural body to the substance, dense and cloud-like. It populated a space maybe 50 feet across, the edges slowly creeping out and dissipating. Any Gothamite worth their salt could identify the stuff as abnormal, though what kind it was remained uncertain.
A blurry shape moved through the gas. The cat, hidden in the vapor, hissed with pure wrath.
Jason found his gas mask and flew down to street level in record time. Dread curdled in his gut. Even if the cat wasn’t who he thought it was, the whole situation stank of a malicious intent that Jason wouldn’t tolerate in his territory.
The animal in him drove Jason’s movements, and for once, he was grateful for it. His bare feet managed to avoid any jagged rocks or shards of glass without having to think about it. Every minute shift of air tickled the hairs on his arms. He crept into the fog with all the silent grace of a predator.
Jason was on the hunt.
Further into the gloom, a shape materialized. Humanoid, smaller than him, edges bulky with what was probably protective gear. It was faced away from him - all the better to approach unseen.
He was just close enough to see the elastic strap of a gas mask across the back of a balaklava - someone who had come prepared, it seemed - when another person became visible a few feet in front of the first. The one in back had a box clutched in their grip.
A pet crate.
Red tinged the edges of his vision. His teeth felt too big for his mouth all of a sudden and he wanted to bare them.
It was possible, of course, that these people were trained professionals. Average civilians who were employed to take in abandoned or dangerous creatures.
But in the middle of the night? With some mystery gas? For a cat? A gut feeling told him they didn’t have altruistic motives.
“Just grab the damn thing already!” the one with the crate hissed.
“It keeps moving!” the one in front shot back. They were holding some kind of stick - no, one of those silly grabber arms, except the metallic sound it made when clicked betrayed a forcefulness in the tool.
“We don’t need the whole damn cat, just the key.”
That was all the confirmation Jason needed to go right on hating them. He was knocking the second one unconscious before the first one had even hit the ground. The wolf in him howled with glee, with vicious satisfaction at protecting his pack. He wanted to rip into them, he wanted to tear their throats out with his teeth and claws, because that was his pack, his his his-
An ache twinged in his bones. Jason had to stop and breathe. He had to quench the beast that thrashed against his restraint.
A tiny mewl caught his attention and his anger was forgotten. Well, not forgotten, but put on the backburner. He abandoned the bodies at his feet to creep towards the source of the sound. A foot past the body still clutching the grabber arm, he was greeted with a meow that could only be described as outraged. Jason had never heard an outraged meow before.
The cat was an agitated blob, pacing back and forth, plastering itself against the brick wall, searching desperately for escape. It let out a miserable little noise that broke Jason’s heart.
“It’s okay, little buddy, it’s just me,” he murmured, hoping the gas mask didn’t distort his voice beyond recognition. He knelt to the ground to make himself look smaller, less threatening. It probably would have helped to show his face, but he couldn’t risk inhaling the gas himself. There was no telling what it was - sedative, paralytic, hallucinogen - and how it could react with varying physiologies or magic.
The cat paused, all its hairs stood on end.
“Just me, buddy,” he said again. With a slowness that was painful, he extended a hand out, palm up in offering.
The cat hissed a warning at him. He froze but didn’t retreat.
It took several long minutes of soft coaxing just to calm Alvin down a bit, though Jason suspected that might have had more to do with exhaustion. The fog subsided but not by much. Not by enough. At one point, the catnappers started to stir, and Jason rifled through their tools to find injectable sedatives which were quickly put to good use. When he returned, the cat had flattened itself against the ground, tail puffed up to full volume.
“Oh, sweetheart,” Jason sighed. He lowered himself to lie on the asphalt as well, willing his muscles to relax so Alvin could see he meant no harm. He stretched out an arm again and simply let it rest against the ground.
He didn’t know if the cat grew curious or if the wind just shifted in the right direction to carry his scent, but eventually Jason felt a cold little nose brush up against his fingertips.
That little sniff seemed to be all the little cat needed to confirm that Jason was an ally, because one second it was just him and the cold, hard ground, and the next a mass of warm fluff was hurling itself into the crook of his neck, trying to bury itself under him. He lifted onto his knees and Alvin didn’t hesitate to latch onto his shirt front with all the strength his tiny little body could muster.
He cradled the bundle in his arms. Flesh made a poor shield against the cruelty of the world, but he tried to protect the cat anyway in nothing but his ratty boxers, t-shirt, and alleyway grime. He buried his face in its fur, feeling tremors that rattled every tiny bone.
Alvin kept letting out sad, pathetic little noises that made Jason want to cry. He was so small.
“It’s alright,” he whispered. “You’re gonna be alright.”
Leaving the pair of bodies behind, Jason strode out of the alley and around to the front of the theater. He banged on the front door for a long moment and waited.
There was no response.
He banged some more, the force of his blows causing the door to rattle in its frame. Still there was no response. No shadow in the windows, no telltale patter of feet.
He searched for a doorbell that didn’t exist. He peered through windows and checked the loading dock at the back and considered throwing a rock through the glass to get in.
Where the hell was Tim? What was wrong with him that his pet was nearly abducted and traumatized and he was nowhere to be found?
The cat just kept shivering and mewling, claws puncturing through cotton to prick at his chest.
After a solid 5 minutes of what could be qualified as Disturbance of the Peace, Jason gave up and returned to his apartment, determined to rip Tim a new asshole the next opportunity that presented itself.
“Hey, Tim,” he said on the 4th voicemail he left, still holding the cat. “It's still Jason. I just wanted to let you know that you’ve officially moved up on my Shit List. You are now above Damian. Call me back, asshole.”
“Hey, Tim,” he said on the 5th. “In case you’re actually lying half-dead in a ditch somewhere, I want to formally apologize for harassing you. If not, you’re ass is fucking grass. Toodles!”
On the 8th, he launched directly into an angry tirade. “You want me to take care of your goddamn cat all the time? Fine! I’m suing for custody. You’ll be lucky if you get visitation by the time Bruce’s lawyers are done with you. Me an’ Alvin are going to live a happy, healthy life indoors without the constant threat of your fucking fan club. And I want fucking alimony payments.”
After several paragraph long text messages, emails to 3 separate accounts, and a failed attempt to track Tim via CCTV, Jason decided to call it a night.
Alvin could not be detached from Jason on pain of death, and if he was being honest, he didn’t want to let him out of his sight either. He crawled into bed on his side and pulled the sheets up to cover Alvin completely, keeping him safe in a little cocoon.
Jason wanted to scrounge up every spare blanket, pillow, and friggin’ dish rag in the building to craft a proper nest, but he was shaky from the adrenaline come down and wary of dragging Alvin all about unnecessarily. The normal bedding would have to make do.
Despite all the thoughts racing through his head, he managed to relax - for Alvin’s sake. The trembling subsided with the gentle scritches Jason provided.
He wasn’t sure which of them fell asleep first. It didn’t matter. They were safe.
An itch at his chin prodded Jason from unconsciousness. He brought a hand up to scratch at it and his hand bonked into a ball of fuzz on his chest.
He huffed and threaded his fingers through the soft locks tickling his chin, combing them away from his face. Sometime in the night, he’d rolled onto his back and his little feline friend had stuck close. He lazily stroked through the cat’s fur, enjoying the warm haze of his morning sleepiness, feeling the soft pressure of a chest expanding with breath on his side, a nice-
Jason’s fingers stilled.
The soft pressure of a chest expanding with breath on his side? The cat was sleeping on his chest.
His confusion brought with it a growing awareness that Jason did not appreciate at all. He’d been so cozy. He was still cozy. Soothed by the press of a body against his; a hand on his ribs, a leg hooked between his own. The body was smaller than his, but not by too much.
He pried his eyes open and blinked away the fuzz of sleep in them to take in a mass of dark locks ruffling under his breath. But instead of the silky fur of a cat, it was a head of hair. A human head of hair. Still inky black and luxurious under his palm, but definitely not belonging to the creature he’d gone to bed with.
The head was, in fact, attached to the rest of a human as well, dressed in a shirt and pants made of a soft, thin, black material that Jason couldn’t quite place. There was an arm wrapped around his middle. Blankets bunched at their feet where they’d become obsolete from their shared body heat.
There was someone in his bed.
There was someone in his bed.
It’d been a long time since Jason had had someone in his bed. Longer than he cared to admit. But there were more pressing matters at hand than his love life. Like the apparent disappearance of the cat. And the apparent appearance of the…human.
“Umm…hello?” he tried, voice rough with sleep.
No response.
He patted the person’s shoulder and got an unhappy noise before the hand on his ribs caught hold of his wrist and redirected it to the head on his chest. Unsure how to proceed, Jason resumed hair petting.
“You wanna explain what you’re doing in my bed?”
“Shhh, ‘m sleeping,” they murmured and that- that was Tim. The sound of Tim complaining was something he was intimately familiar with. Jason had to try to wrap his head around the fact that Tim was in his bed , they were cuddling, and Tim was in his bed.
“Tim? What’re you doing here? Where did Alvin go? Why-”
Tim interrupted with a loud, frustrated groan at his sleep being disturbed. “‘S too early.”
The mention of the time reminded Jason of what exactly had happened the night before and sent him into a panic. “Tim, c’mon-” he shook Tim’s shoulder with more vigor. “-we need to find Alvin. Some people tried to kidnap him last night and I think he got dosed with something, he needs a vet-”
“He’s fine,” Tim grumbled.
“Are you sure? When did you last see him? Was he-”
“Oh my god.” Tim buried his face in Jason’s chest and groaned again. “Y’know, it’d be very sweet how worried you are if it wasn’t ass o’clock in the morning right now.”
“Tim, this is serious,” Jason said, starting to get genuinely upset. “You can’t just send your cat over here all the time and expect me not to get attached, then get annoyed because I’m too worried and-”
“Jason-”
“-you put a target on that poor thing’s back, and, Tim, he’s gonna get hurt-”
“ Jason.”
Jason stopped his tirade to acknowledge the fact that Tim had shifted around and was properly on top of him, propped up by his hands on either side of his head. Instinct had him grabbing Tim's waist to steady him. He opened his mouth to protest some more, but the words caught in his throat when a glimmer of silver caught his eye.
Dangling on a thin leather cord from Tim’s neck was a tiny key shorter than his index finger. A key that looked identical to the one that hung from Alvin’s collar.
“You know,” Tim said conversationally, like they weren’t pressed together from toe to sternum. “This whole thing would have been over with a lot sooner if you’d just taken the damn key when I offered it to you.”
Jason blinked. “What?”
“What, did you think I really needed to stretch my neck out that much? Was forcibly pushing the key into your hand too subtle for you?”
“You- what?” Nothing was making sense. Jason’s brain was undercaffeinated and overworked. He looked into Tim’s pale blue eyes, his beautiful face framed by dark, silky locks. The swaying of the key between them was hypnotic.
Come on, a voice in his head that sounded suspiciously like Bruce said. Put the pieces together.
“Honestly,” Tim went on, “I genuinely don’t know what else I could have done. Was it the cat thing that threw you off? Should I have transformed into a robin?”
Jason swore he could smell burning from the speed at which the cogs in his brain turned. He looked helplessly up into Tim’s eye, his pale blue eyes-
My cat is a good judge of character. It wouldn’t let someone get close enough for that if they weren’t a solid bet.
His skin looked creamy against the halo of his hair, his silky, luxurious locks-
That cat probably came into Jason’s apartment because Tim explicitly told it it could. That would be a very Tim thing to do. A complete lack of boundaries was a hallmark of his personality.
He looked down at Jason with that unerring intensity, that supernatural magnetism, that look on his face like-
Jason met Tim’s gaze to find one of those you’re-a-fucking-idiot looks plastered across his face, like Jason was the one depending on a cat’s matchmaking skills.
-blue-
-glimmering.
Want-
Why?
challenge;
Tim,
Tim-
Oh.
Oh.
“Oh.”
The corner of Tim’s mouth tipped up. “ Oh,” he parroted back.
“Oh. So… you’re- you-”
“Me.”
“And this whole time-?”
“Yeah.”
Jason was quiet for a long moment. It really was too early in the morning.
The next thing Jason’s worthless lump of brain did was replay a Greatest Hits montage of every lovesick rambling tangent he’d gone off on in front of the cat, spilling his guts out to a creature that, by any means, should not have been able to share them.
He’d once told that cat that he wanted to use Tim’s thigh like a chew toy.
Oh, Christ, that cat was Tim.
“But- why?” Why everything? Why the public challenge? Why keep the truth a secret from Jason? Why keep seeking out his company as a cat instead of a human?
“Well, at first, it was just a convenience,” Tim explained. “I figured if I told everyone they could only get to me through my cat, they’d finally leave me alone for a bit. I’d make an appearance as a cat every once in a while, but not let anyone get close, and the rest of the time no one would bother me since they hadn’t gotten to my cat first.
“But it was…nice. I liked being like that. It was…easier. Fun. I didn’t mean for things to go on as long as they did, I just-”
Tim made a frustrated noise, struggling to find the right words. Jason kept quiet, giving him the room to sort his thoughts out.
Tim pushed himself up and away from his body, which was great for his rational thinking and not so great for his urge to clutch Tim as close as humanly possible. Or inhumanly possible. Whichever applied more.
He sat back on his heels, settled between Jason’s legs on his knees, hands in his lap. His fingers twisted together so tightly that they went white from the blood cutting off.
“I really like you, okay?” Tim blurted out. “I’ve liked you for, like, ever, and I just wasn’t sure- I didn’t know- I mean, I think you like me too, but I was worried you wouldn’t want me around if you knew it was me, or you’d be weird about it, and you’re so warm and you give really good scratches and I didn’t want to push too hard because I always push too hard and then-”
Tim cut himself off when Jason sat upright, stopping 3 inches from his face, brow furrowed. He reached up to press the back of his hand to Tim’s forehead, and finding it a normal temperature, grabbed his face and maneuvered it back and forth to thoroughly examine every single one of his lovely features.
Surely, something would be amiss.
Surely, this was all too good to be true.
“Wha’re you doin’?” Tim asked, voice garbled from the way Jason had his cheeks squished.
“Is this the gas?”
“What?”
“Whatever you were dosed with last night as a cat, could it still be in your system?”
Tim grabbed his wrists and forcibly removed Jason’s hands from his face, but didn’t let go. “Jason, what are you talking about.”
“Last night,” he repeated. “I found you being attacked by a couple assholes who gassed the whole alley. If I’m going to kiss you-”
Tim’s breath caught in his throat.
“-I’m going to make damn sure it doesn’t happen because you confessed under the influence of some unidentified drug.”
A brilliant pink color filled Tim’s cheeks. “No drugs,” he almost shouted. “Not the gas stuff anyway. They didn’t- I’m fine. Their stuff couldn’t affect me. I’m good. Promise.”
Jason gave him a disbelieving look. “You were half feral last night.”
“Yeah, but that wasn’t from the gas. I was testing a recipe yesterday, and. Well. I kind of had a bad trip. But I’m fine now! All of its out of my system, I swear.”
“Are you sure?”
Tim nodded his head vigorously. “Definitely. You can kiss me now.”
And Jason did.
***
“After you.”
Tim was a solid wall of warmth at his back, arms wrapped around his waist and smile pressing into the back of his shoulder. Jason grinned and lifted the thin leather cord from around his neck. It slipped into the front door keyhole like butter. The door swung open without making a sound, beckoning him forward.
“Welcome home,” Tim whispered in his ear.
Jason elbowed him in the side before stepping across the threshold. “Sap. Don’t think this means I’m giving up my apartment.”
“Of course not,” Tim responded in a way that Jason didn’t believe even a little bit. He didn’t mind so much.
The nest was the same as it ever was, in that it always looked a little different. Light was scarce so early in the morning, and the soft-edged shadows made Jason feel the need to keep his voice low. The whole world was quiet, a secret that only the two of them could indulge in. He wanted to be back in bed, swaddled in blankets and wrapped around Tim.
He slipped the key back around his throat and tucked it under his shirt collar. “Alright, do what you need to do so we can go back to sleep.”
A hand settled in the crook of his elbow and guided him through the building to the living quarters, stopping by the kitchen he’d had breakfast in not too long ago. Tim left his side to open up a cabinet and pull out a large white bag that crinkled loudly as Tim held it in the air and shook it.
“Is that…cat food?” Jason really hoped he was wrong.
“Yup.”
“Please don’t tell me you actually eat cat food.”
Tim winked at him.
“Okay, morning breath is one thing, but I am not kissing you with-”
The rest of the words died in Jason’s throat as a fuzzy little creature darted into the kitchen, climbing halfway up Tim’s leg and meowing loudly - presumably for breakfast.
“Hello, darling,” Tim greeted the cat clinging to him, nothing but affection and fondness in his voice as he gently shooed the animal off his leg so he could fill a bowl on the ground.
“Oh my god.” The cat whipped around, finally registering the presence of a new person. It was an outrageously fluffy calico with big, dark eyes and an obvious trepidation towards him. “You actually have a cat? Like, a real one? Or is that another person in disguise?”
Tim snorted. “No, she’s a normal cat, I promise.”
The cat stared unblinking at Jason.
Jason stared back.
“Turn around,” Tim ordered suddenly.
“What?”
Tim drew a circle in the air with his finger. After surmising that there was really no point in disobeying Tim Drake about anything, Jason spun 180° and faced the opposite wall.
“Sorry,” Tim said, not sounding all that sorry. “Duckie’s not really used to other people yet. You looking at her was making her nervous.”
There were a lot of questions Jason had at that moment, but the one that came out was, “You named your cat Duckie?”
“Yeah?”
“You seriously suck at naming things.”
“You should see how I label my potions.”
Jason shuddered at the thought.
A crunching sound reached his ears - the cat starting to eat, he assumed. “So let me get this straight: you gave a public challenge for people to catch your cat, then didn’t use your actual cat for the challenge?”
“Of course not!” Tim said, sounding mildly offended. “I wouldn’t do that to Duckie, or any other animal for that matter. No, she’s kept strictly indoors where it’s safe. Isn’t that right, baby?” His voice lilted sugary-sweet at the end, obviously directed at the cat. “She’s where I got the idea from, actually. She was so skittish and afraid of people when I found her, so I figured I’d have a better chance of getting close as another cat. That was when I started looking into short-term shapeshifting.”
The cat paused in its snacking to meow at Tim some more.
“Alright, you spoiled baby,” he crooned. Jason heard the fridge door pop open, another crinkle, and the crunching resumed. He listened to Tim fuss over his cat some more, then cross the kitchen to wash his hands before a soft touch settled between his shoulder blades.
“Okay,” Tim said. “We can go back to bed now.”
Jason got one more glance at the cat as he was ushered from the kitchen, a patchwork quilt of black and gray and rust-colored fur.
It would look good in pink too, he thought.