My little Fox!Tim au thing. You can find it on AO3, alongside the other- barely edited- works in the series, but you can read the first thing here too. I’m looking to post all of them here eventually, so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the
Organization for Transformative Works
If asked about him, the few people who have interacted with him will say, “Timothy Drake? Why, he’s such a polite little child! Timothy’s a darling, his father’s a Hunter, hear? Jack’s one of the world’s finest, and don’t forget about Janet either. She’s the best tracker money will find you. I’m sure the kid will grow up just like them. Timothy is a Drake through and through.”
His father would place his hands on Tim’s shoulders, nudging him forward with a broad, charming grin. His mother would smile too, sharp and cold and cunning.
If asked about him, people would not doubt that he’s a human. Timothy acts like a human, smells like a human, and has a Hunter for a father! Why would Timothy Jackson Drake be anything other than human?
Well, there are two reasons why.
His too-sharp senses, his pointy teeth, and his eyes, weren’t they glowing just a second ago?
As a child, Tim remembers his mother whispering in his ears just before she leaves with Jack on another Hunters’ trip, “Remember, my Moon, I love you. I know you’ll miss me, and I’ll miss you too, but this is for your own good. I will return soon, I promise. And when you’re old enough, I’ll tell you everything. I Promise.”
She would kiss his forehead and a blanket of warmth would settle over his shoulders, and he would feel safe and content.
One day, while Tim was perusing the Drake Manor Library, he stumbled across a book written by an author whose name was scratched out long ago. He was leafing through the pages, something guiding his hands and quietly telling him where to go. His hands stopped at a page written in another language- images drawn in dark ink, punctuated by splashes of bright cinnabar. The pages, no doubt once a beautiful white, were now a washed-out bige.
Tim ran his small fingers down the image of an elegant fox, whose body seemed to twirl and writhe despite being confined to the smooth, aged bamboo paper. Wide blue eyes were filled with indescribable awe as he drank in the picture of the creature. The words describing the creature, although foreign, were clear and legible.
After feasting his mind on the knowledge of the Huli Jing, not-quite-human and not-quite-fox creatures who could shift between both forms, Tim darted back into the main body of the manor. The housemaid would be here soon, and Tim doesn’t want her reporting back to his parents.
Throughout the rest of the day, Tim couldn’t get the thought of the Huli Jing out of his mind. Every time Tim tried to do something else, the memory persisted.
Honestly, it was growing annoying.
Even as he settled down to try and sleep for the night, he dreamed of scarlet foxes dancing around him. Some had two tails, others had seven, but foxes had nine. Despite this strange and confusing scene, Tim couldn’t help but feel drawn to them. The foxes herded Tim in front of a mirror, where he peered in to see a pair of pale blue eyes staring back.
Tim yelped, jerking back on paws that replaced his hands and feet. His fur bristled as his ears pinned back against his skull. Distressed cries spilled from his lips as he turned and streaked away, his heart pounding jack-rabbit-fast in his chest.
The world around him rippled and twisted from a milky white to an inky black in mere seconds. He cried out as something caught on his paws, tripping him and sending him tumbling. He let out a wordless scream as he began to fall, a feeling akin to thousands of ants biting into his skin drove the child on.
“MOM!” Tim cried as he fell off a cliff, his body hurtled towards the bottom of a thousand-meter deep ravine.
Inches away from meeting a pancake’s end, Tim jolted awake with wide eyes, sweaty palms, and a heart that was beating far too fast and far too loud for his liking. His bedroom seemed so much brighter than before he went to sleep, almost as if someone had turned on his nightlight.
Tim’s blood roared in his ears, pounding in time with his heartbeat as he forced himself to take deep and measured breaths. But when he tried to clench his hands into fists, the sheets under his fingers came apart with a riiip, and Tim jerked back to see the fabric torn to shreds. He whimpered softly, hissing in pain as he accidentally pricked his lip with his tooth.
What in the world was going on?
He carefully unhooked his hands from the sheets and examined his new, sharpened, elongated, claw-like nails. Each one of his fingers seemed tipped with ivory talons that gleamed under the bare moonlight. With only a second’s thought, Tim brought the claw to the back of his forearm and pressed down. He could only watch in a weird sense of fascination as his skin parted with the pressure, but the scratch almost instantly healed with a rush of chill.
Tim needed to head to the library now.
He tried to hop off the bed like he usually would, but his blankets wrapped around Tim’s legs like a snare and sent him crashing to the floor with a startled yelp.
As soon as the impact registered, a harsh wave of cold tore through his body and forced a pained cry from Tim’s lips. He gasped softly, screwing his eyes shut and sobbing as his entire body shuddered. Tim could feel his bones crack, break, and soften before hardening into new positions.
“M-Mom,” Tim sobbed, screaming as he was suddenly hyper-aware of each and every bone in his bone painstakingly snap and reheal themselves in different positions, “M-mom! It- It hurts! PLEA-SE.”
Tim’s eyes snapped open, his cries stuttering to a brief halt as he felt his face change and elongate, the process stalling in response to his sudden wave of panic.
Ivory laws scrambled against the wooden floor in his desperation to find a mirror- anything to confirm this was real. Tim hissed as his still-soft bones wailed in protest, whimpering every time he placed weight on even one of his limbs.
After a painstaking four minutes of searching, the young child found what he was looking desperately for.
He came to an abrupt stop, shock and confusion flooding his brain.
Tim’s pupils were different from their usual round shapes, and his pupils were now vertical slits surrounded by his familiar pale-blue irises. They were almost… Cat-like. No- fox-like.
Tim felt exhausted and collapsed into a heap, allowing his muzzle to finally finish taking form.
It took some getting used to, but Tim eventually figured out what had happened.
After his initial shock and terror had faded, Tim spent the entire night and most of the next day struggling to turn back into a human. Each attempt yielded massive amounts of pain, and he was tempted to give up more than a few times, but he pulled through.
But now, there was another problem. A big, intimidating, and potentially life-threatening problem.
Tim huffed anxiously, pacing back and forth in his room. His parents were due back in a few days- What was he supposed to do?
His father is a Hunter, a person who traps and kills creatures like werewolves, creatures like Tim.
Was his mother a fox as well? Is that why Tim’s a fox? If so, then why would Janet marry Jack, an infamous Hunter? Why would his mother continuously choose to put her life in danger?
He took a deep breath, absentmindedly noting how his sense of smell increased dramatically since last night, before realization smacked him square in the face.
Specifically, the manor smelled like a human Hunter.
That was why his mother married Jack Drake!
Tim’s father was a Hunter, and Hunters always smelled strongly of residual magic, blood, and something else, so there would be no wonder that a Hunter’s partner and a Hunter’s son would smell so strongly of magic. Being so close to a human would also make Tim and Janet smell human by proxy!
Tim’s mother was so clever.
He grinned, a burst of pride soaring in his chest as he twisted around to stare into the mirror. Tim’s eyes were still their usual pale, nearly white, blue, but his pupils were finally back to their rounded shape.
With an exhale, Tim tightened his resolve and steeled himself.
This… Is fine! Tim can handle it! He’s four, a big boy, and so all he needed to do was lay low and keep calm.
As long as Tim lays low and keeps his discovery to himself, Jack will never find out.
Yes, that’s exactly what he’ll do.
Yall are the ones who explicitly stated that you wanted it, so here yall go!
@icereader12 @summermermaidfariy @mushroom-wife
