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Language:
English
Series:
Part 85 of Tim Drake AU's , Part 12 of Five, just five
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Published:
2022-03-03
Words:
1,341
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1/1
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26
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892
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Smeared in Red

Summary:

A worn Foxy mask.
A golden Fredbear plush.

“It was supposed to be a joke” Tim tries, but they both know it’s a lie.

Work Text:

“Tim. When I said I would help you figure out storage space, I was expecting a closet. Maybe a garage. What the fuck do you need 2 storage containers for?”

 

Tim tilts his head backwards to meet Jason’s eyes, lifting a box that he presumes holds all the china from Drake manor. At least, that’s what the marker on the top of the box says.

But both Jason and Tim have realized that sometimes, the marker lies.

 

“I need to move some of this stuff out of the container so that I have place to put more stuff. Either that, or rent out another container, but I am trying to avoid that” Tim explains for what feels like the third or fourth time in a row now.

Jason just huffs again, glaring at the back of Tim’s head. He knows he is. He can feel it.

“So you’re just stuffing this stuff backwards so that you can stuff more junk in here? What even is all this? Why do you have these things?” Jason demands, lifting what looks to be an old VHS tape in his hand, a box of the same kind of tapes on Jason’s left.

“Yup” Tim answers, completely unrepentant. He knows he could possibly get rid of most of this. After all, the likelihood of needing an entire manor’s worth of bedding? Incredibly low.

 

Unfortunately, the chance is never 0.

 

And that’s why he and Jason are here today.

Clearing out stacks and stacks of boxes to get at more boxes so that hopefully, by the end of this endeavor, Tim has space to put the stuff from his nest.

Hopefully, that space will last Tim the next few years before he has to buy a third container.

Hopefully.

Tim makes no promises.

 

“You could just auction it off. Or sell it. Hell, hold a garage sale” Jason grumbles as Tim moves to the adjacent storage container, taking a breath as he sees the mass of stuff haphazardly thrown into it, without a care for packing or space conservation.

That’s what he gets for hiring a bunch of movers in Gotham of all places. You'd think they’d know to be more careful about other people’s things.

 

“I like some of the stuff here. And I may need some of it eventually. There’s even stuff from when I was a kid” Tim explains, leaning over to open a box of something that smells like dust and stale air.

“Which I get, baby bird. I really do. But like. What even?” Jason asks, his voice drawing nearer.

Then, a shadow falls across Tim’s face, Tim glancing back to see Jason standing there with 2 objects in his hands.

 

Objects that Tim hadn’t even known were there.

Objects that he’d honestly hoped weren’t there.

 

A worn Foxy mask.

A golden Fredbear plush.

 

Tim feels his heart stop, in that moment, his hands going still, eyes going wide, blood turning to ice in his veins.

His breathing speeds up as the white pupils of the Fredbear plush seem to lock onto him.

Tim, no, Michael, No, No it’s Tim’s now.

He can hear a scream at the back of his head.

Screams of pain and fear and anguish.

 

And then deafening silence.

The Foxy mask in Jason’s hand stained with blood, dripping to the floor in rivulets.

Red staining Tim’s hands, residue never leaving no matter how hard Tim scrubs.

 

“Tim?”

“Hey, Tim, buddy, you there?”

“Calm down. I’m gonna need you to breathe”

 

The pupils of the plush, shining bright and white, just like they did back then, they follow him, boring into his soul. Judging him.

Tim can almost hear it say the words “It’s me”

“Murderer”

 

Tim’s fingers twitch, flinching backwards as the memories overwhelm him.

 

“What the fuck, dude?”

“Do. Do I have to call Dick?”

“Do I put it away?”

 

The pleading.

The yelling.

The hiding.

The way his younger brother had struggled when Tim, no Michael, had lifted him up, to his death.

The way Michael had been laughing, taunting.

The deafening snap of the springlocks failing around his brother’s head.

 

White pupils in black eyes.

Tim can’t look away, drowning in his own memories.

 

“Yo. Baby bro!”

 

Tim gasps, throat heavy and stuffed as he suddenly feels Jason land a hard slap to his back.

Tim scampers backwards, pressing his back against the container wall as he tries to reorient himself.

“I’m sorry” Tim says, looking in Jason’s general direction, yes, but they all know he’s not talking to him.

 

The plushie’s eyes shine brighter.

 

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I’m sorry I’m sorry. SorrySorrySorry” Tim repeats, his eyes filling with tears to the point where he can’t even see the bear anymore.

He gasps for breath, his chest constricting and leaving him breathless.

“It was supposed to be a joke” Tim tries, but they both know it’s a lie.

 

Yes, it had been a joke. But no joke ends with a hospital and a flatline. With blood on his hands and a mask that only means one thing.

Murderer.

 

“Tim. Oh shit. Ok. Bear’s going bye bye” someone says, voice piercing through the fog in Tim’s head like a lighthouse before the fog swirls again, shaking his hands and shortening his breath.

The bear is gone.

So is the mask.

But the red on Tim’s hands stay.

 

His shoulders flinch at the sight of it, drawing back as his one hand scrubs at the other, trying desperately to get it off. Please get it off.

 

It doesn’t work.

 

“Tim. Tim. I need you to breathe. I need you to stop rubbing your hands. Can you hear me? Can you do that for me?”

 

Hands envelop his own and Tim swallows down a scream. His eyes closed and unseeing.

They’re small. Like his. Like his brother’s and his sister’s. Because they never got to grow up. Not like he did.

They’re cold and skinny.

Tim doesn’t want to look. He already knows what he’ll see.

 

“Goddamnit, Tim. I need you to look at me. Breathe with me, OK?”

 

He gasps out a weak sentence that might have been another apology or another excuse.

I’m sorry.

I didn’t mean to.

It was supposed to be a joke.

I wasn’t there.

I’m not her caretaker.

 

I’m sorry.

 

Cold rushes over him and Tim jolts back into his body, gasping for breath, eyes shooting open to see a very concerned Jason leaning over him, a now empty water bottle tipped down in his hand.

 

Tim gasps another breath, noticing now that the hand around his wrist isn’t small, it’s Jason sized. It’s cold likely because of the water.

The bear is gone.

The mask is gone.

Tim gasps.

 

“Breathe”

“Again”

“Breathe in. Breathe out”

 

Jason coaches Tim through the last of the panic attack, the visions of his brother and sister falling from his vision.

Tim’s hands gradually stop shaking.

He breathes.

 

Jason stares at him like he’s concerned Tim will drop dead and Tim almost laughs.

He’s not the victim here.

He’s the one survivor.

He’s the killer.

 

“I’m gonna ignore that little freak out of yours. Dick can deal with it later. For now, we’re getting out of here. You can pay some idiot to come and organize these things. You’re a literal millionaire” Jason grumbles, hooking an arm under Tim’s shoulder and lifting him from the floor with a heave.

Tim’s vision swims and for a moment, he swears he sees a little golden bear following him.

His breath shortens.

 

Jason tightens his grip, slamming both container doors shut, the auto-lock engaging as he mutters “Not again”.

 

They walk away from the containers. From the plushie and the mask.

But it doesn’t resolve the dread, the guilt, the anguish swirling in Tim’s gut.

“I’ll ask you about everything later. When we’re not out in the open and when you don’t look quite as much like a corpse”

 

Tim actually does laugh that time, a bitter bark.

“I’m not the dead one”