procrastinator's dream home

"The fuck is wrong with you?" says Jason.

For a long couple of seconds, there's no answer. Tim stands frozen at the mouth of the alley, staring at the carnage inside it.

It's a mess of corpses: the scattered remnants of the gang fight Tim and Jason just put down. Jason's still playing nice with the Bats, so the ones he shot are tied up and waiting for the cops out on the street, even if they're banged up enough to think better of pulling this shit next time.

He wasn't the only one with a gun, though; plenty of people got shot with live rounds, and plenty of those didn't make it.

There's blood everywhere, which isn't the greatest, but it's nothing that should be getting a reaction like this out of Tim. The replacement's about as unflappable as anyone Jason's ever met, and it's not like the crime scene is particularly gruesome, next to some of the cases they work together. Hell, they had a serial killer just last week that makes this look like a cakewalk.

Still, the lenses of Red Robin's domino are wide and white and staring, and as Jason stalks closer, he can see that Tim's trembling a little.

"Hey. Earth to Red. What gives?"

Still nothing; then, almost in slow motion, Tim's head turns toward Jason, following the approach.

"Stay away from me," says Tim, and his voice is gravelly and strange.

Seriously, what the fuck is going on here? Did he get dosed with something?

The last time Tim got hit with one of Scarecrow's concoctions, he'd had nasty flashbacks to a time when Jason wanted to put him in the hospital. That's got to be it, or something like it. Nothing else makes sense.

These days, they're downright friendly. These days, they're working together on cases at least once a week. Jason crashed on Tim's sofa just last Thursday.

"They drug you?" says Jason, and he steps in closer, reaching out a hand to steady Tim.

If he needs to administer an antidote, he'll need to keep Tim still long enough to get the needle in; better to be holding on, if he breaks and tries to run.

"It was just a gang fight," Tim snaps, and he makes to pull away, but his voice wavers a little when he says it.

Jason doesn't let go. "So what gives?"

Tim yanks harder; he makes a quiet sound. That tremble grows to an outright shudder.

"Hood," he says, and it almost sounds like he's pleading.

Jason still doesn't let him go. "Not until you tell me what they dosed you with."

The sound is louder this time. It's almost a whine.

Tim shudders again, and before Jason can ask if he's hurt, the replacement moves lightning-quick, smooth as a striking snake. One second he's standing upright, trying to pull away; the next he's leaning forward over Jason's wrist, hitching up the black leather of his glove to sink entirely-too-sharp canines into Jason's wrist.

For a second, Jason doesn't know what to do with that.

The lenses on Tim's domino squeeze shut, mimicking the motion underneath; Tim's hands come up to hold onto Jason's forearm. A lot of things rearrange themselves in Jason's mind, extremely belatedly.

"Well, shit," he says, and stares down at Tim Drake, sort-of partner in uncrime and apparent actual fucking vampire.

Tim ignores him. There's a smear of blood at the corner of his mouth that Jason can't seem to look away from; the feel of his tongue working against the puncture wounds is entirely too distracting.

The replacement's gulping it down like he hasn't eaten in a week, like the kids Jason grew up with on the street used to get when they got a good score after a month or two of lean times.

He's suddenly sure he knows why Tim froze in that alleyway. He knows, too, that Timothy fucking Drake is exactly the kind of idiot to set himself on fire to keep the people around him warm.

In a minute, he'll ask Tim what kind of idiot goes into a fight hungry when there's almost certainly going to be blood spilled on the ground.