#sashaverse

he hates being alone in the quiet, hates it with a burning passion that seeps into his bones, lighting him up from the inside out. it reminds him of too many nights past, when he’d wake up to find his parents gone, left for an early-morning flight to god knows where for god knows how long. they never really would tell him when they were going, probably too worried about tears and the drama of goodbyes, so they’d just… leave. he’d wake up in the morning and climb into their empty bed, burrowing deep in the covers like they’d just come back if he stayed so still. 

that was the nightmare tonight. he remembers now. it’s amazing that after years of this, years of horrors he shouldn’t have ever seen, on world and off, it’s the loneliness that keeps leaving him breathless in the dark. it’s the ever-present feat that nobody has stayed that makes him want to scream, makes him want to crawl under his bed and tuck himself away in a corner, shutting his eyes against everything else. but screaming never got him anything before, so he doesn’t. 

what if everyone’s gone? 

what if everyone-- bruce and dick and alfred and cass and duke and even damian-- are all gone? what if they decided that they’ve had enough of him and skulked off somewhere, like his parents did? what if he’s all alone in this great big mansion of a house, flat on his back in his gaping maw of a room, ready to be eaten up by the darkness?

there’s nothing logical in that but he can’t quite care, can’t quite pull himself together to thread back up the logic that it’s just night, everyone is just sleeping. he can’t deal with logic when his heart is racing like a hummingbird’s and his thoughts can barely settle on anything. he just stares at the ceiling and pictures everyone’s empty beds on a continuous loop.

“enough,” he manages when his breath is coming in short pants, and wrenches himself out of his covers. he stumbles when he hits the ground but catches himself, moving down the corridor on quiet feet. 

there are seven other people who live in the manor most days. nine if you count steph and jason, which he does sometimes. he bypasses them all and makes for the solid oak door in the east wing, a corridor and a half away from anyone else’s. 

he knows he’s not alone in nightmares. he heard dick yelling once, when he was still working fear toxin out of his system, and had clamped a pillow over his ears to stop hearing it anymore. damian and duke come down to breakfast a few mornings a month with red-rimmed, bleary eyes and cass can be scarcer than usual. he also knows bruce used to let them sleep with him when they got scared-- dick and cass, at least. probably damian. maybe duke. definitely jason, before. it’s an implied kind of thing that no one talks about. 

tim’s never taken bruce up on the offer. he’s thought about it a lot of nights like tonight, when he can’t ever get warm because of the fear that’s sticking around in his fingers and toes. but even as he creeps along to bruce’s room, he’s never gotten past the threshold. tim isn’t one of bruce’s kids, not really. that type of comfort’s not meant for him.

instead, he opens the door by inches, pushing it open on oiled hinges, just enough for him to hear. bruce is dead asleep, dead to the world, even though tim knows he’d snap awake as soon as tim put a foot inside the room. he can hear the rumble of bruce’s breathing, the occasional snore that comes from two decades of broken noses. he can hear the proof that bruce is still there, even if everyone else is gone, drifting out through the corridor. 

it’s a warm feeling, a warm sound. it sinks through tim’s body like he’s just dunked himself in hot water, every breath of bruce’s loosening the knot in his chest and chasing the nightmare away. he slides down the wall until he’s sitting, pulling his legs in close and resting his chin on his knees, closing his eyes and listening hard. 

--

“tim,” someone says, their voice pitched low, and tim blinks himself awake. “tim, sweetheart.”

“hmm?” 

bruce’s face comes into bleary focus, his expression carefully blank. “you’re asleep on the floor.” 

“not on the floor,” he mumbles. “still sitting.” he pats the carpet for good measure and a corner of bruce’s mouth twitches. 

“you’re almost on the floor,” corrects bruce and he bends, helping tim stagger to his feet. 

“better.” 

“why aren’t you in your bed?” 

tim’s legs feel weird, all tingly and cold, and his knees buckle when he straightens up. bruce catches him with a hand to an elbow.

“can you walk?” 

“yeah,” tim says and he tries, he really does, but his body doesn’t want to pay attention. he sways, tipping to the floor and saved by bruce again. “no.” 

“no,” agrees bruce. he lets go of tim for a second-- just long enough for tim to mourn the feeling-- and wraps an arm around his shoulders. the other arm goes under his knees and tim is floating, his face pressed to the warm fabric of bruce’s sleep shirt. “you never said why you were sitting out in the hall.” 

“nightmare,” he answers around a sigh, some part of his brain warning him from talking too much. he doesn’t pay it any mind. “everyone was gone.” 

there’s a falter in bruce’s long stride, a catch where he stops for a bare second. “gone?” 

tim turns his face into the shirt more, looking for the warmth. “you left me. was all alone. nightmare.” 

“oh, tim.” 

“s’okay. used to it.” 

“not okay,” bruce grumbles, and it’s almost too low for tim to hear, like he’s not meant to hear it. bruce pushes open a door and they’re back in tim’s room, so different now that the sun is rising. it feels less like it’s going to swallow him whole, more like a normal room. “do you have nightmares often?” 

“yeah.” 

“you never said.” 

tim tips out of bruce’s arms and into his unmade bed, somehow landing the right way. bruce helps him with the covers. 

“don’t want to be a bother. i just want to know you haven’t left,” he admits and squints at the way the light comes through bruce’s hair, making it look lighter than it should be. 

“you’re not bothering me,” bruce says quietly, his eyes intense in the backlight. tim blinks sleepily. “you don’t have to sleep outside the door.” 

“okay.” 

“i mean it, tim.” 

“okay,” tim slurs again, so incredibly drowsy in the sunshine. it’s warm and he can sleep again; the light keeps the nightmares from coming back. everyone knows that. “bruce?” 

“yeah?” 

“don’t leave,” he says and his voice sounds young even to his own ears, thin and needy. bruce’s face is an inscrutable mask. “please. don’t?”