If you’re still taking writing prompts, may I request Halsin comforting the reader who gets bad anxiety about going to sleep?
ahhh this is so sweet and definitely something I think about constantly, imagine curling up in Halsin’s lap and him holding you and comforting you im going to scream!!!!!!!!
ty for this prompt, I needed it 😭
Halsin x gn!reader/tav 🩷
rating: sfw (very soft and fluffy and sweet)
Sleep has never come very easily to you. And the few times it did, it was restless - filled from start to finish with nightmares that always inevitably woke you up in the middle of the night, clutching onto your bedroll, chest heaving and eyes streaked with tears.
You’d been able to hide it from the others for the most part, but Halsin noticed a few nights ago while on night watch, when you lurched out of your bedroll, silently sobbing. He watched you as you tried to calm yourself, burying your head in your hands and curling your knees to your chest. He wanted so badly to comfort you then, but he didn’t wish to make you uncomfortable in his efforts. So he silently watched you until you finally settled back into your bedroll, and your eyes closed once again for the night.
The next night, you noticed he’d been lingering close to you all evening, periodically asking you if you needed any help with anything, even offering you a cup of the tea that he’d brewed, bringing it to you with a warm smile that made your heart skip a beat.
He towers over you as you sit on a log next to the campfire, watching the flames lick at the night air and the smoke swirl and try to find shapes in it. You almost gawk at his size and stature, despite having already spent a considerable amount of time with him - you’d think you’d be used to it by now.
You smiled and took the cup gratefully, your fingers brushing against his as you took it from him.
“Thank you.”
His smile softens, and he brings a hand up to brush a lock of hair behind your ear.
“No need. It should help you sleep, we must take all the rest we can before morning.” He says, resting his hand on your cheek - his warm palms feel like a beam of sunlight.
Your face falls.
“Y-yeah. Right.” You reply, your voice meek and small as your eyes fall to the cup in your hands, staring at your reflection in the tea.
Halsin notices your demeanor shift, his brows softening as he kneels in front of you.
He holds your chin between his thumb and his index finger, guiding your face up so your eyes meet.
“What is troubling you? Is there anything I can do to help you?” He asks, his expression outwardly calm but his light eyes flicker with concern.
Your body tenses, and you feel your eyes start to sting with tears that you can’t shed. You shake your head, and force another weak smile.
“I’m okay, really. Nothing dire or important. Thank you.”
You feel a tightness in your chest - you wanted so badly to talk to someone about this, you knew that you likely needed to, but for some reason the words just wouldn’t come out, the taste of them bitter on your tongue. It wasn’t out of fear of Halsin judging you, as you knew he was the last person in the realm that would judge you for such a thing or probably most things. He had a true heart of gold.
Part of you just wanted to preserve the image of you that he had in his mind - strong and fearless and unbreakable. It was unbecoming of a leader to be wrecked over something as simple as nightmares.
“It is important to me, if it is important enough for you to lose sleep over. But, if you are not ready to talk about it, I shall be here when you are ready.” He says simply, pressing a gentle kiss to your forehead. You close your eyes and savor his touch, still feeling his lips burning on your skin even after he pulls away.
He turns to walk away, and you grab his arm to stop him.
“Halsin?”
He turns, his scarred face glowing in the orange light of the fire, his eyes reflecting the flames. “Yes, my heart?”
“I’m so happy you joined us. Thank you.”
His eyes soften more than you’ve ever seen, almost resembling those of a puppy whose just been adopted.
“As am I.”
You give his arm a gentle squeeze before letting go, and watch him lumber back to his own tent, sitting just outside of it and fixing his gaze back on you. He watched you as if he were ready to leap in front of an arrow for you, as if he were ready to fight to the death for you. Your cheeks heat under his stare, and you look back down at your tea.
Just drink it. You need to sleep. He made it for you, just drink it.
You take a big sip, the warm liquid heating you as it goes down your throat and it tastes of chamomile and honey. You smile, as you remember Halsin telling you of his sweet tooth, and how you teased him about being a bear that loves honey.
The tea helps you ease your nerves just enough to finally let yourself feel tired enough to seek your bedroll and lay down, slowly drifting off to sleep.
You only sleep for a few hours, every second of it plagued by your usual nightmares - flashes of bloody battles and mind flayers and everyone you care for either hurt or dying. Just as an arrow hits you in your dream, you wake with a start, lurching out of your bedroll, gasping and clawing at your blanket.
Your eyes burn with previously unshed tears, now falling in a full torrential downpour. You bring your knees to your chest and just sob, unable to control or care about your volume as every sob racks through your body like a tidal wave.
You don’t notice Halsin approaching you before you feel his arms wrapping around you and pulling you into his lap, cradling you and shushing you until your breathing calms.
“S-sorry…” you sob into his chest, gripping the fabric of his nightclothes for dear life.
He shakes his head, then rests his chin on the top of your head.
“Do not apologize. You are not made of steel. You are made of flesh and blood, and a beating heart. You are made to feel.”
You sigh, your shoulders still shaking and your hands and voice trembling as you speak. “I’m just so exhausted… and I can’t even find respite in sleeping.”
He tightens his arms around you, tilting his head so that his cheek presses to your scalp. “Would it help to have someone to keep you company? I can stay here beside you, if you desire.”
You nod, your breathing finally slows and your body starts to settle. “Please.”
He scoots aside into your bedroll with you as you cling to him, refusing to let him go and let go of the bliss that is being enveloped in his embrace. He grabs your blanket, pulling it so that it covers you, tucking it in between the two of you so it’ll stay.
“Are you comfortable?” He asks, his large hands gently rubbing your arm and leg.
You nod, and snuggle into his chest.
“Could you talk to me? Like… tell me a story, or something,”
You don’t see it but you can feel the smile radiating off of him as he lets out a contented breath, then places a kiss to the top of your head.
“Of course.”
He begins to tell you of his time with Thaniel all those centuries ago, of their adventures in the forest and describing the serenity of being wrapped in nature’s embrace. He tells you of the times he was in wild shape and got mistaken by other bears as a true bear, and how he acquired the large scar on his face. You listen to the steady beat of his heart and the gentle rumbling in his chest as he speaks and it’s infinitely more effective than even a lullaby is to lull a baby to sleep.
Your eyes slowly close and you drift back to sleep, this time, rather than horrific nightmares, you dream of a calm and peaceful clearing, the wet grass tickling your bare feet as you walk - and you see him, waiting near the water, hand outstretched and beckoning you. You smile in your sleep.
He looks down at you, watching you as you slumber, his heart pounding as he runs his thumb along your cheek. He would cherish this moment of seeing you in pure bliss, and cherish the thought of him having given it to you. He’d give you the moon and the stars if he could, he thinks.
god I am unwell I love him so much halsin snuggles would fix me I think
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((you don’t have to do both if you don’t want to, you can consider this one a back up / alt))
“If you don’t know where to go, you can always come here.” 💞
From this writing prompt list i reblogged in...november lmao fljdsjfa
anyway this grew legs and sprinted away the second I picked it up yesterday - clearly it just needed some time to proof lmao. Thank you for the ask, tauria!! From *checks watch* almost 5 months ago fjdslafjsa I will be cross-posting it to Ao3 in my new oneshot collection fic :)
Warnings for: Vague allusions that Ra's Al Ghul is a creep (what else is new), threats of gun violence, canon-typical violence
15. “If you don’t know where to go, you can always come here.”
When Tim arrived in Gotham this morning, he had no way of knowing that his day would end in Jason Todd’s bed.
Frankly, he wasn’t really sure what bed he’d end up in— because his own certainly wasn’t an option right now. But If he had to pick, Jason Todd’s was somewhere near the bottom of whatever list he’d make.
He didn’t exactly plan on this, okay?
But, uh. Let’s back up a little.
—
Tim knew his day was going to go to shit when he got back from the airport at 7 AM.
He had his driver drop him off two blocks away from his townhouse for the sake of caffeine at the hole in the wall place he likes. Wealthy CEO he may be, but a sixteen hour flight is still a sixteen hour flight and Tim is cursed with an inability to sleep in the air.
Don’t ask. He’s tried. It doesn’t work.
So he wants coffee, and he wants a shower, and he wants his own bed. In that order.
With the first thing on his list acquired and blessedly burning his tongue, he managed to tug his brain cells together enough to realize that the building they’d passed that had been shrouded in tents and canvas was his building.
"What's going on here?"
The worker outside his building looks up from her clipboard, her face wrinkling into apprehensive confusion.
"Hello, sir. Can I help you?”
He hasn’t slept in roughly seventy two hours. He is not awake or patient enough for this.
“My name is Tim Drake. I own this building. What’s going on here?” He repeats.
The woman raises her eyebrows and looks down at her clipboard again. “Mr. Drake?” She questions, clearly expecting him to look like a grown-ass man and not a sleep-deprived college student coming home from spring break or whatever.
“Yes. Timothy Drake-Wayne. Why are you—” he tries to gesture with the hand still holding his suitcase handle, walking towards the tarps and tents erected around his townhouse with increasing trepidation, “—here?”
“I’m sorry sir, but you can’t go in there. Not for at least forty-eight hours.”
Tim stops in his tracks.
“Forty-eight—?”
“We've been scheduled to fumigate the property today.” She says it like she’s reading it out of a handbook. “It won't be safe to enter the building for at least forty-eight hours. You should have received prior notice. Uh. Sir.”
Tim's jet-lagged brain kicks into overdrive.
Bruce hasn't made any disappointed noises about Tim’s perfectly normal work ethic lately so it probably wasn't a misguided attempt at benching him. And besides, rendering Tim’s apartment inaccessible is counterproductive on that front.
Dick wouldn’t. They haven’t been exactly— great, lately but he wouldn’t. Besides, if he wanted to get Tim out of the house more, he’d show up to drag Tim out into the daylight himself. This is a little too roundabout for him.
It’s too much work to be Steph. She would think it’s funny, but there’s no way she’d follow through.
Damian might, but this doesn’t quite fit his preferred methods for making Tim’s life hell. It could be some cloak and dagger maneuver to leave him vulnerable, faking a complaint to the city so he’ll—
And then Tim thinks about the call.
The call he’d brushed off at fuck o’clock in the morning somewhere over Europe, too busy with another project. The call his secretary took for him instead. He thinks about the distracted confirmation he’d given to whatever it was she’d asked him about five minutes later.
He also thinks about the form he signed about two weeks ago, before this last minute trip to Hong Kong had consumed his entire attention. The one with “Two Weeks Notice” stamped across the top. His stomach sinks.
“Today,” he repeats.
She looks apologetic. “Today,” she confirms. “And we just started about an hour ago. I’m very sorry, Mr. Drake-Wayne but—”
"No it's—" he says through gritted teeth, "fine. I'll just. Make other arrangements."
—
He does not make other arrangements. Though not for lack of trying.
Tim has a handful of safehouses scattered throughout the city. He has options. He gets a taxi to the closest neighborhood, and nearly falls asleep in the backseat. The cabby has to knock on the glass divider to get his attention when they come to a stop. He grumbles and hauls his suitcase out of the backseat, and tips the man excessively.
Shower. Bed. Sleep. He’s so close he could cry.
Except when he finally rolls around the block, coffee half gone and trying to remember if this safehouse is the one with in-unit laundry or if he’ll have to haul his shit down to the laundry room, his building is a blackened husk with police tape all around it.
He stops on the sidewalk. He peers up at the window of his unit, squinting at the peeling black wood and shattered glass. He ponders whether two is enough data points to be considered a pattern. And whether he could get away with napping in the alley on this street or if that’ll end with him stabbed and robbed.
As he’s pondering, he catches sight of a passerby and stops him.
“‘Scuse me,” he says apologetically. “What the hell happened here?”
The guy looks up from his phone and takes in his rumpled clothes, his suitcase, and the scorched remains of his apartment.
“Oh, uh. Yeah, there was a big fire about a week back? Bad fire. Took out, like, half the block. Cops are saying it’s arson.”
“A week ago,” Tim repeats. The guy’s eyes widen.
“Oh shit, bro, did you live here?”
“I’ve been out of town,” he explains numbly.
“Dude, that sucks. And right in the middle of con’ season. Good luck finding a hotel!”
“Yeah,” Tim sighs as the guy walks away. “Thanks.”
—
The next safehouse he tries isn’t in much better shape.
He remembers hearing about Freeze going on a rampage a few days into his trip, but he hadn’t realized another one of his places had been caught in the cross-fire. The cold burst the pipes, and now the whole place is undergoing renovation.
He hears all this from the crotchety old lady who lives in the next building over (her building needs renovation too, but will the city pay for it? Of course not, they weren’t ‘directly impacted by disaster’ so they won’t see a penny of relief funds even though their pipes are on the same line. Typical) and when he finally extricates himself from the conversation, it’s almost noon, his second cup of coffee is long-since empty and he’s at the end of his goddamn rope.
By the time he sees his next safehouse, he isn’t even surprised anymore.
“Does God hate me?” He asks the boarded up building. “Is this a punishment? What did I do? What the fuck did I do?”
He is 99% sure at this point that someone is burning his bolt holes. There’s a short list of people with the resources and the intel to do it, and while he’s not above ruling out the likes of Damian just yet, he seriously doubts anyone wearing a bat is behind this.
Besides, Dick would have noticed by now if Damian were sinking this many resources into convoluted covert ops designed to make Tim suffer. Definitely. Probably.
Fuck it.
He goes around the back and hops on top of his suitcase to reach the clunky camera watching the back entrance. This building is on the shittier side, closer to Crime Alley than his other haunts; cameras break all the time around here. He’ll have it replaced after he’s a functional human again.
Reportedly, this building was tagged for ‘high toxicity levels’— which is pretty typical for any building where fear toxin or Joker gas are found in any amount. They must have found a lot to condemn the whole building, but Tim is confident he’ll be fine. The airborne shit dissipates to safe levels within hours depending on the ventilation. If it was in the air, it’s long gone. Anything else needs to be injected to be effective.
Once the camera’s busted, he kicks out the boards and heads inside.
He drags his suitcase in after him, and mourns the shower he probably won’t be getting. The hall lights are out, and chances are the water’s been shut off along with the electricity. But at this point, he simply does not give a shit. All he wants are four walls and a mattress.
Leaning on the door to his floor to make it open, he stumbles out into the hallway—
And catches sight of the glistening curved dagger stabbed into the wall next to his door, the hilt gleaming green in the sinking sun.
“Nope,” Tim says, spinning on his heel and going back down the stairwell double time. “Nope, nope, nope.”
He is now 100% certain that the League of Assassins has been burning his bolt holes. Ra’s al fucking Ghul can eat his whole ass.
—
Seven blocks away, Tim sits on the sidewalk in front of a bodega and contemplates a third cup of coffee. The shittiest one yet.
See, here’s the thing.
The thing is, he has options.
He could go to the Manor. Or the penthouse. Or to Steph’s place. He’d have to answer some unnecessary questions like ‘Master Timothy, you know you can’t sleep on aircraft, why didn’t you sleep before your flight’ or ‘Tim, why didn’t you come here first, you know you can still come to me if you’re in trouble, right’ or ‘why did you agree to fumigate your fucking house, you loser, lmao’. (Stephanie is not going to let him live this down).
He is absolutely certain that he would be welcomed in any of these places and after a completely undeserved amount of fussing, he could take a fucking nap and someone else would deal with the League bullshit for him.
And that’s the thing. There’s the rub.
No one should have to deal with the League bullshit for him. This is his problem. He’s not in a hurry to bring them down on anyone. Not even Damian.
With grim resignation, he reaches for his phone to try and find a hotel room (during a con’ weekend apparently, RIP) and maybe get a fucking handle on this whole stupid thing, when he hears:
“Hand over your wallet!”
He lifts his head slowly and finds himself looking down the barrel of a gun. A gun held by some guy wearing a ski mask in broad fucking daylight. There’s another guy next to him who’s watching the street. There’s a third guy somewhere behind him who he can’t see, but he can hear the scuff of his boots.
Sure. Why not. With the day he’s had, this might as well happen. He holds up his hands placatingly.
Tim contemplates his muggers. The guy with the gun is jittery, probably new to this, or hopped up on something. He keeps glancing between Tim and the bodega behind him, so they were probably planning a run on the till. Might have chickened out, or thought Tim was an easier target, an unexpected meal ticket plopped right in their path. Or they were already inside when Tim sat down, which wouldn’t bode well for his situational awareness seeing as he just came out of there himself.
The grinding gears of his tired brain keep getting caught on the fact that this is happening in the middle of the fucking day. Tim glances at the street corner and bites his cheek in frustration. Yeah, he’s smack dab in the middle of the Alley. Figures.
“Are you deaf or somethin’ man?” The guy with the gun is saying. “Hand over your fucking wallet!”
The other guy doesn’t seem as crazy-eyed. He’s nervous, though. He keeps looking around like he’s expecting Batman to materialize, to come whistling down the street like a beat cop.
“Dude, come on, it’s not fucking worth it,” he says, grabbing at the gunman’s shoulder. “We got the money, let’s fucking go.”
The third guy kicks over Tim’s suitcase. “Yeah, come on, Don, let’s just grab this shit and bounce.”
Tim can’t do anything. He’s not Red Robin right now. He’s Timothy Drake-Wayne, CEO of Wayne Enterprises, and he’s getting mugged in front of a bodega at two in the afternoon in a rumpled suit and tie and still toting his suitcase from his early morning flight.
His hands are trembling from unspent adrenaline, too much caffeine, and not enough sleep. His eyelids are the heaviest they’ve ever been in his godforsaken life. His ears are ringing. He could knock all three of them down in less time than it takes to tie his shoelaces. But he can’t.
“Shut up, Johnny, look at him shaking! What’s he gonna do? If he doesn’t wanna get shot, rich boy’s gonna hand over all his fucking shit!”
“Hey, let’s just—” Tim tries to say.
Stars explode across his vision as Tim takes a punch he genuinely wasn’t expecting. He stares up at the blue sky for about half a second, more confused than anything else, before the gunman grabs him by the front of his shirt and hauls him up to shout in his face.
“What’s it gonna be, pretty boy?!”
Caught on the exhausted edge between vigilante training and the preservation of his identity, Tim is frozen. He doesn’t know what to do. He kind of wants to cry.
“Gee, Donny, what is it gonna be?” A fourth voice says, full of false cheer.
Tim blinks. So do the muggers.
He knows that voice.
“Who the fuck—?” The gunman drops Tim, spinning around and into a fist. He tumbles down to the ground, out cold.
Everything happens pretty quickly after that.
Jason Todd is in civvies. He’s sporting a worn out looking hoodie and a pair of jeans that have seen better days. But his heavy boots are the same ones he wears for his uniform, and the kick he delivers to Johnny’s face is all Red Hood.
Almost in a daze, Tim watches him fight with the usual mix of seething envy and raw desire that rears its ugly head any time he gets to see Jason in action. He’s fast, decisive. Efficient. Beautiful. Tim wishes he had Jason’s skill. And he wishes—
Well. He wishes a lot of things about Jason Todd.
Tim is pretty sure he and Jason are friends. Maybe. Probably. They’ve pretty much moved past the whole “replacement”, “zombie-dickhead” part of their relationship and have graduated to occasionally providing backup on ops that overlap in each other’s sectors, ganging up on Dick when they’re all in the same room, and maintaining a surprisingly steady stream of vigilante gossip to keep each other in the loop.
So, ok, yes, due to the aforementioned, he’s pretty sure they’re friends. And also because Jason wouldn’t have stuck his neck out for him otherwise. He would have just let him get mugged.
Watching Jason fight is one of Tim’s favorite pastimes. But right now, Tim’s usual appreciation is soured by the gut-roiling embarrassment of being caught in this position by Jason of all people. His eyes itch. His cheek throbs. He’s so fucking tired.
“Hey, little stalker,” Jason says suddenly, holding out an expectant hand in Tim’s face. The muggers are groaning on the ground around them. Tim isn’t sure when that happened. He might have zoned out. “Did you know that you had a stalker for a change?”
Tim flushes. “I resent that. I haven’t stalked anyone in years.” He takes the hand. It’s warm, and calloused, and big around his.
Jason laughs at him and yanks him to his feet. “Liar.”
Tim’s mouth twists into a scowl. He tries to glare at Jason, but he can feel himself swaying and Jason still hasn’t let go of him, and it’s ruining everything.
Also, lowkey, Jason is right. But in his defense, it is literally their job to stalk people, so.
“I haven’t stalked you in years then. Just other guys. Bad guys. Not non-bad guys. Fuck. You know what I mean. Whatever.” He pauses; recalibrates. “Had?” He asks.
Jason’s eyebrows inched higher and higher the longer Tim talked. Tim doesn’t blame him.
“Yeah. Had.”
So much for the League, Tim muses.
Jason gives him a once over before tugging decisively on Tim’s wrist, easily grabbing the handle of his suitcase and starting to walk with both in tow, to Tim’s rising horror.
“You’re coming with me, shortstack. What’s wrong with you? Are you drunk? You look like shit.”
Tim tries to yank his wrist out of Jason’s grip, but the asshole doesn’t budge. “I’m not drunk,” Tim snaps. “I’m fine. I’m just. I’m just… really tired.”
Jason stops abruptly, and Tim stumbles into his shoulder.
“I can see that,” he says, steadying Tim with an amused but ultimately sympathetic look. He loads Tim’s suitcase onto the back of a motorcycle that Tim literally just now noticed.
God, he’s fucked. And not even in a fun way.
“C’mon,” Jason says. “Don’t fall asleep on the way over— road rash sucks ass.”
—
They don’t talk on the way to— wherever Jason is taking them, but once they’re parked in a random garage and walking towards the elevators, the game of twenty questions begins.
“So why’ve you got League assassins after you, anyway? Piss in a lazarus pit? Push over the baby brat on the playground?”
“Ra’s al Ghul wants my body,” Tim says, dejected but resigned to this bizarre fact of his life. “Since I was seventeen, I’m pretty sure.”
Jason wrinkles his nose. “Ew.”
“I don’t think it’s a sex thing? But it could also be a sex thing.”
“Again. Fucking ew.”
“Yeah. Also I blew up a bunch of his shit and I think he’s still salty I got away with it.”
“Is that why you weren’t at the Manor?” Jason asks, herding Tim out of the elevator and down a long hallway. “Or anywhere but a random street in Crime Alley?”
Tim nods. “Yeah. They found all my safehouses, but— my mess. My problem.”
Jason thwacks him upside the head.
“Ow! What the fuck?”
“You’re the dumbest person on the planet.”
“Am not. B is on-planet right now.”
“Then you’re pretty fucking close,” Jason snarks, fishing out some keys and opening one of the apartment doors.
Tim scoffs at him as he’s pushed inside. “Oh, please. Don’t try to tell me you would let Dick swoop in and solve all your problems for you.”
Jason rolls his eyes, stepping into the side kitchen and popping open the freezer door of the fridge.
“Dickiebird can’t even solve his own problems,” he says as he rummages. “But maybe when I’m fucked up enough to let three nobodies robbing a fucking bodega get the jump on me, that’s a sign that, maybe, it might be time to call in the cavalry. Dick isn’t the only person who’s got your back.” He presses an ice pack to Tim’s face until he takes it himself, and keeps steering him through the apartment. “Just saying.”
Tim would protest with all of his very good reasons why Jason is definitely wrong here, but he’s too busy processing the fact that Jason has led him into a bedroom. With a bed. There’s a bed, with a mattress and pillows and blankets. Right there. Tim stares at it with lustful eyes.
Jason catches him staring. He rolls his eyes, but he’s sporting a small smile that Tim has the presence of mind to memorize. He walks over to a dresser and pulls out a big shirt and a pair of shorts that he hands to Tim.
“Look. If you don’t know where to go, you can always come here. No guarantees I’ll be always around, but, yeah. Mi casa es su casa, or whatever.”
Tim eyes him up, clutching the bundle of Jason-smelling fabric in his hands. “And you’d do that for me because…why, exactly?”
Jason flicks his forehead, a stinging reprimand. Tim hisses.
“Because, dumbass, you need help and I feel like it. And you don’t actually suck to be around, so shut up and be grateful.”
“Oh, yes,” Tim deadpans, rubbing at his forehead. “So grateful to be allowed the privilege of squatting with you.”
The thing of it is, Tim is grateful. But Jason doesn’t need to know that.
Jason squawks, and before Tim can duck, he’s snatched Tim around the neck in a headlock. His arm is thick and doesn’t budge no matter how Tim shoves and kicks. The ice pack and the clothes go flying, and Tim just about dies. Jason is warm.
“Jason—!”
“Brat!” Jason crows, not giving an inch. “I paid for this place fair and square— you’re the only squatter here!”
“Blood money doesn’t count as square!”
“Tell that to half of Gotham, kid.”
“I’m trying to, thanks for noticing,” Tim says, finally wrenching himself free of Jason’s grip, stumbling into the bed and giving into its siren song. He sits down heavily on the edge, toppling over sideways and reaching pathetically for the fallen ice pack that’s just out of his reach.
“And don’t call me kid—” he complains, muffled by the pillow. It also smells like Jason. “You’re barely two years older than me.”
The cold ice pack is pressed into his fingers. He cracks an eye open to look, but Jason is just smirking at him, like he’s giving Tim the win. Ass.
“Coulda fooled me, shortstack.”
Tim rolls his eyes, and onto his back, toeing off his shoes and letting them clatter to the floor. He can’t tell if Jason’s bed is the best bed in the world, or if he’s just deliriously inventing things.
Frankly, Jason Todd’s bed is the last place he ever thought he’d end up, this morning or otherwise, so he’s never bothered to speculate. He does not have a contingency plan for this.
“Is there a reason you keep calling me short,” he complains, “Or will I just need to fill in the blanks myself?”
“Can’t help it. You’re just so small,” Jason coos. Tim props himself up on an elbow at that, raising a disgusted eyebrow.
“You don’t hear me constantly talking about how big you are.”
Jason grins like he just won the lottery; Tim shuts his eyes the second it’s out of his mouth.
“Baby, you don’t know how big I am.”
He does, actually. Not in a creepy stalker way, just— there was this one time. A big rogue breakout at Arkham, all-hands on deck type of situation; Tim, Cass, and Jason were covering Poison Ivy in the park. Acid-spitting pitcher plants were involved.
And look, Jason’s tactical gear is fine in the day to day, but it’s not like any of them had time to prep a neutralizing agent, so when Jason needed his pants off, stat…uh. Well. Tim was right there.
He knows, okay?
“Alright,” he rallies, trying desperately not to replay the memory of Jason adjusting himself through his boxers. All of himself. “I walked right into that one.”
“Oh, trust me. You’ll know if you’ve walked into it.”
Tim scoffs, but he can feel how red his face is.
And the thing is. He says it without really meaning to.
But he still means it.
“You gonna put your money where your mouth is, big guy?”
The change is immediate. Jason had been halfway out the door, but now he turns to Tim, giving him his full, undivided attention. He looks at Tim, laid out in Jason's bed, giving him a very slow once over. The scrutiny is at once nerve-wracking and thrilling.
“Thought you didn’t want my money,” Jason murmurs.
The temperature in the room spikes. If it weren’t for the slow throb of his bruised cheek, Tim would think that he’s already asleep and dreaming.
But he isn’t. He’s very much aware that he’s wide awake.
Tim swallows. “Well. It’s not your money I want.”
Jason’s grin is electric.
He stalks over to the bed, and Tim is frozen like a rabbit, waiting to see what he’ll do next. Jason settles a knee on the sheets between Tim’s legs, looming over Tim and boxing him in against the mattress. Tim’s free hand reaches up of its own accord to tangle in the collar of Jason’s hoodie, and the cotton is softer than he expected.
Jason’s eyes rove over his face, dark and heavy. He catches Tim’s face in his hand, swiping his thumb lightly across the bruising hot ache of his cheekbone. He leans in deliberate and slow and—
—and stops about an inch away from Tim’s mouth.
“Get some sleep, babybird,” Jason teases, his breath puffing gently over the skin of Tim’s lips. “You can proposition me again tomorrow.”
“It’s, like, 3:30 in the afternoon,” Tim argues, breathless.
“Yeah, and your body thinks it’s 3:30 in the morning. You’re dead on your feet. Don’t make promises you can’t keep, and go the fuck to sleep.”
Jason moves to rise. But Tim hooks a stubborn arm around his neck and pulls him down that last remaining inch.
The kiss is— bad. At first.
Tim basically smashed their mouths together to prove a point, and Jason muffles a surprised sound against Tim’s teeth. He lands heavily on top of Tim at an awkward angle, and he’s kind of crushing him. Tim refuses to let go, but— Jason doesn’t pull away.
Jason gentles the kiss instead, and Tim thrills. He levers himself up onto his elbow, wrapping an anchoring arm around Tim’s back. He finds a home between Tim’s legs, and he lets Tim kiss him until Tim's lips are tingling and his fingers go slack; until he can’t keep his eyes open anymore.
Somewhere between fifteen minutes and a small eternity later, Jason presses one more kiss to the corner of his mouth. He curls around Tim on his side, and Tim turns his face into Jason’s neck with a soft wondering sigh.
“I’ll keep it. Promise. Wait n’ see,” Tim mumbles. Jason snorts, but doesn’t budge, and Tim can hear his smile in his voice, lilted and lulling.
“Sure, babybird. I’ll wait. I got nowhere else to be.”
Tim is already asleep.
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2023 september - rock sound #300 (fall out boy cover) scans
transcript below cut!
WHAT A TIME TO BE ALIVE
With the triumphant ‘So Much (For) Stardust’ capturing a whole new generation of fans, Fall Out Boy are riding high, celebrating their past while looking towards a bright future. Pete Wentz and Patrick Stump reflect on recent successes and the lessons learned from two decades of writing and performing together.
WORDS: James Wilson-Taylor
PHOTOS: Elliot Ingham
You have just completed a US summer tour that included stadium shows and some of your most ambitious production to date. What were your aims going into this particular show?
PETE: Playing stadiums is a funny thing. I pushed pretty hard to do a couple this time because I think that the record Patrick came up with musically lends itself to that feeling of being part of something larger than yourself. When we were designing the cover to the album, it was meant to be all tangible, which was a reaction to tokens and skins that you can buy and avatars. The title is made out of clay, and the painting is an actual painting. We wanted to approach the show in that way as well. We’ve been playing in front of a gigantic video wall for the past eight years. Now, we wanted a stage show where you could actually walk inside it.
Did adding the new songs from ‘So Much (For) Stardust’ into the setlist change the way you felt about them?
PATRICK: One of the things that was interesting about the record was that we took a lot of time figuring out what it was going to be, what it was going to sound like. We experimented with so many different things. I was instantly really proud. I felt really good about this record but it wasn’t until we got on stage and you’re playing the songs in between our catalogue that I really felt that. It was really noticeable from the first day on this tour - we felt like a different band. There’s a new energy to it. There was something that I could hear live that I couldn’t hear before.
You also revisited a lot of older tracks and b-sides on this tour, including many from the ‘Folie à Deux’-era. What prompted those choices?
PETE: There were some lean years where there weren’t a lot of rock bands being played on pop radio or playing award shows so we tried to play the biggest songs, the biggest versions of them. We tried to make our thing really airtight, bulletproof so that when we played next to whoever the top artist was, people were like, ‘oh yeah, they should be here.’ The culture shift in the world is so interesting because now, maybe rather than going wider, it makes more sense to go deeper with people. We thought about that in the way that we listen to music and the way we watch films. Playing a song that is a b-side or barely made a record but is someone’s favourite song makes a lot of sense in this era.
PATRICK: I think there also was a period there where, to Pete’s point, it was a weird time to be a rock band. We had this very strange thing that happened to us, and not a lot of our friends for some reason, where we had a bunch of hits, right? And it didn’t make any sense to me. It still doesn’t make sense to me. But there was a kind of novelty, where we could play a whole set of songs that a lot of people know. It was fun and rewarding for us to do that. But then you run the risk of playing the same set forever. I want to love the songs that we play. I want to care about it and put passion into what we do. And there’s no sustainable way to just do the same thing every night and not get jaded. We weren’t getting there but I really wanted to make sure that we don’t ever get there.
PETE: In the origin of Fall Out Boy, what happened at our concerts was we knew how to play five songs really fast and jumped off walls and the fire marshal would shut it down. It was what made the show memorable, but we wanted to be able to last and so we tried to perfect our show and the songs and the stage show and make it flawless. Then you don’t really know how much spontaneity you want to include, because something could go wrong. When we started this tour, and we did a couple of spontaneous things, it opened us up to more. Because things did go wrong and that’s what made the show special. We’re doing what is the most punk rock version of what we could be doing right now.
You seem generally a lot more comfortable celebrating your past success at this point in your career.
PETE: I think it’s actually not a change from our past. I love those records, but I never want to treat them in a cynical way. I never want there to be a wink and a smile where we’re just doing this because it’s the anniversary. This was us celebrating these random songs and we hope people celebrate them with us. There was a purity to it that felt in line with how we’ve always felt about it. I love ‘Folie à Deux’ - out of any Fall Out Boy record that’s probably the one I would listen to. But I just never want it to be done in a cynical way, where we feel like we have to. But celebrating it in a way where there’s the purity of how we felt when we wrote the song originally, I think that’s fucking awesome.
PATRICK: Music is a weird art form. Because when you’re an actor and you play a character, that is a specific thing. James Bond always wears a suit and has a gun and is a secret agent. If you change one thing, that’s fine, but you can’t really change all of it. But bands are just people. You are yourself. People get attached to it like it’s a story but it’s not. That was always something that I found difficult. For the story, it’s always good to say, ‘it’s the 20th anniversary, let’s go do the 20th anniversary tour’, that’s a good story thing. But it’s not always honest. We never stopped playing a lot of the songs from ‘Take This To Your Grave’, right? So why would I need to do a 20-year anniversary and perform all the songs back to back? The only reason would be because it would probably sell a lot of tickets and I don’t really ever want to be motivated by that, frankly.
One of the things that’s been amazing is that now as the band has been around for a while, we have different layers of audience. I love ‘Folie à Deux’, I do. I love that record. But I had a really personally negative experience of touring on it. So that’s what I think of when I think of that record initially. It had to be brought back to me for me to appreciate it, for me to go, ‘oh, this record is really great. I should be happy with this. I should want to play this.’ So that’s why we got into a lot of the b-sides because we realised that our perspectives on a lot of these songs were based in our feelings and experiences from when we were making them. But you can find new experiences if you play those songs. You can make new memories with them.
You alluded there to the 20th anniversary of ‘Take This To Your Grave’. Obviously you have changed and developed as a band hugely since then. But is there anything you can point to about making that debut record that has remained a part of your process since then?
PETE: We have a language, the band, and it’s definitely a language of cinema and film. That’s maintained through time. We had very disparate music tastes and influences but I think film was a place we really aligned. You could have a deep discussion because none of us were filmmakers. You could say which part was good and which part sucked and not hurt anybody’s feelings, because you weren’t going out to make a film the next day. Whereas with music, I think if we’d only had that to talk about, we would have turned out a different band.
PATRICK: ‘Take This To Your Grave’, even though it’s absolutely our first record, there’s an element of it that’s still a work in progress. It is still a band figuring itself out. Andy wasn’t even officially in the band for half of the recording, right? I wasn’t even officially the guitar player for half of the recording. We were still bumbling through it. There was something that popped up a couple times throughout that record where you got these little inklings of who the band really was. We really explored that on ‘From Under The Cork Tree’. So when we talk about what has remained the same… I didn’t want to be a singer, I didn’t know anything about singing, I wasn’t planning on that. I didn’t even plan to really be in this band for that long because Pete had a real band that really toured so I thought this was gonna be a side project. So there’s always been this element within the band where I don’t put too many expectations on things and then Pete has this really big ambition, creatively. There’s this great interplay between the two of us where I’m kind of oblivious, and I don’t know when I’m putting out a big idea and Pete has this amazing vision to find what goes where. There’s something really magical about that because I never could have done a band like this without it. We needed everybody, we needed all four of us. And I think that’s the thing that hasn’t changed - the four of us just being ourselves and trying to figure things out. Listening back to ‘Folie’ or ‘Infinity On High’ or ‘American Beauty’, I’m always amazed at how much better they are than I remember. I listened to ‘MANIA’ the other day, and I have a lot of misgivings about that record, a lot of things I’m frustrated about. But then I’m listening to it and I’m like ‘this is pretty good.’ There’s a lot of good things in there. I don’t know why, it’s kind of like you can’t see those things. It’s kind of amazing to have Pete be able to see those things. And likewise, sometimes Pete has no idea when he writes something brilliant, as a lyricist, and I have to go, ‘No, I’m gonna keep that one, I’m gonna use that.’
On ‘So Much (For) Stardust’, you teamed up with producer Neal Avron again for the first time since 2008. Given how much time has passed, did it take a minute to reestablish that connection or did you pick up where you left off?
PATRICK: It really didn’t feel like any time had passed between us and Neal. It was pretty seamless in terms of working with him. But then there was also the weird aspect where the last time we worked with him was kind of contentious. Interpersonally, the four of us were kind of fighting with each other… as much as we do anyway. We say that and then that myth gets built bigger than it was. We were always pretty cool with each other. It’s just that the least cool was making ‘Folie’. So then getting into it again for this record, it was like no time has passed as people but the four of us got on better so we had more to bring to Neal.
PETE: It’s a little bit like when you return to your parents’ house for a holiday break when you’re in college. It’s the same house but now I can drink with my parents. We’d grown up and the first times we worked with Neal, he had to do so much more boy scout leadership, ‘you guys are all gonna be okay, we’re gonna do this activity to earn this badge so you guys don’t fucking murder each other.’ This time, we probably got a different version of Neal that was even more creative, because he had to do less psychotherapy.
He went deep too. Sometimes when you’re in a session with somebody, and they’re like, ‘what are we singing about?’, I’ll just be like, ‘stuff’. He was not cool with ‘stuff’. I would get up and go into the bathroom outside the studio and look in the mirror, and think ‘what is it about? How deep are we gonna go?’ That’s a little but scarier to ask yourself. If last time Neal was like a boy scout leader, this time, it was more like a Sherpa. He was helping us get to the summit.
The title track of the album also finds you in a very reflective mood, even bringing back lyrics from ‘Love From The Other Side’. How would you describe the meaning behind that title and the song itself?
PETE: The record title has a couple of different meanings, I guess. The biggest one to me is that we basically all are former stars. That’s what we’re made of, those pieces of carbon. It still feels like the world’s gonna blow and it’s all moving too fast and the wrong things are moving too slow. That track in particular looks back at where you sometimes wish things had gone differently. But this is more from the perspective of when you’re watching a space movie, and they’re too far away and they can’t quite make it back. It doesn’t matter what they do and at some point, the astronaut accepts that. But they’re close enough that you can see the look on their face. I feel like there’s moments like that in the title track. I wish some things were different. But, as an adult going through this, you are too far away from the tether, and you’re just floating into space. It is sad and lonely but in some ways, it’s kind of freeing, because there’s other aspects of our world and my life that I love and that I want to keep shaping and changing.
PATRICK: I’ll open up Pete’s lyrics and I just start hearing things. It almost feels effortless in a lot of ways. I just read his lyrics and something starts happening in my head. The first line, ‘I’m in a winter mood, dreaming of spring now’, instantly the piano started to form to me. That was a song that I came close to not sending to the band. When I make demos, I’ll usually wait until I have five or six to send to everybody. I didn’t know if anyone was gonna like this. It’s too moody or it’s not very us. But it was pretty unanimous. Everyone liked that one. I knew this had to end the record. It took on a different life in the context of the whole album. Then on the bridge section, I knew it was going to be the lyrics from ‘Love From The Other Side’. It’s got to come back here. It’s the bookends, but I also love lyrically what it does, you know, ‘in another life, you were my babe’, going back to that kind of regret, which feels different in ‘Love From The Other Side’ than it does here. When the whole song came together, it was the statement of the record.
Aside from the album, you have released a few more recent tracks that have opened you up to a whole new audience, most notably the collaboration with Taylor Swift on ‘Electric Touch’.
PETE: Taylor is the only artist that I’ve met or interacted with in recent times who creates exactly the art of who she is, but does it on such a mass level. So that’s breathtaking to watch from the sidelines. The way fans traded friendship bracelets, I don’t know what the beginning of it was, but you felt that everywhere. We felt that, I saw that in the crowd on our tour. I don’t know Taylor well, but I think she’s doing exactly what she wants and creating exactly the art that she wants to create. And doing that, on such a level, is really awe-inspiring to watch. It makes you want to make the biggest, weirdest version of our thing and put that out there.
Then there was the cover of Billy Joel���s ‘We Didn’t Start The Fire’, which has had some big chart success for you. That must have taken you slightly by surprise.
PATRICK: It’s pretty unexpected. Pete and I were going back and forth about songs we should cover and that was an idea that I had. This is so silly but there was a song a bunch of years ago I had written called ‘Dark Horse’ and then there was a Katy Perry song called ‘Dark Horse’ and I was like, ‘damn it’, you know, I missed the boat on that one. So I thought if we don’t do this cover, somebody else is gonna do it. Let’s just get in the studio and just do it. We spent way more time on those lyrics than you would think because we really wanted to get a specific feel. It was really fun and kind of loose, we just came together in Neal’s house and recorded it in a day.
PETE: There’s irreverence to it. I thought the coolest thing was when Billy Joel got asked about it, and he was like, ‘I’m not updating it, that’s fine, go for it.’ I hope if somebody ever chose to update one of ours, we’d be like that. Let them do their thing, they’ll have that version. I thought that was so fucking cool.
It’s also no secret that the sound you became most known for in the mid-2000s is having something of a commercial revival right now. But what is interesting is seeing how bands are building on that sound and changing it.
PATRICK: I love when anybody does anything that feels honest to them. Touring with Bring Me The Horizon, it was really cool seeing what’s natural to them. It makes sense. We changed our sound over time but we were always going to do that. It wasn’t a premeditated thing but for the four of us, it would have been impossible to maintain making the same kind of music forever. Whereas you’ll play with some other bands and they live that one sound. You meet up with them for dinner or something and they’re wearing the shirt of the band that sounds just like their band. You go to their house and they’re playing other bands that sound like them because they live in that thing. Whereas with the four of us and bands like Bring Me The Horizon, we change our sounds over time. And there’s nothing wrong with either. The only thing that’s wrong is if it’s unnatural to you. If you’re AC/DC and all of a sudden power ballads are in and you’re like, ‘Okay, we’ve got to do a power ballad’, that’s when it sucks. But if you’re a thrash metal guy who likes Celine Dion then yeah, do a power ballad. Emo as a word doesn’t mean anything anymore. But if people want to call it that, if the emo thing is back or having another life again, if that’s what’s natural to an artist, I think the world needs more earnest art. If that’s who you are, then do it.
PETE: It would be super egotistical to think that the wave that started with us and My Chemical Romance and Panic! At The Disco has just been circling and cycling back. I remember seeing Nikki Sixx at the airport and he was like, ‘Oh, you’re doing a flaming bass? Mine came from a backpack.’ It keeps coming back but it looks different. Talking to Lil Uzi Vert and Juice WRLD when he was around, it’s so interesting, because it’s so much bigger than just emo or whatever. It’s this whole big pop music thing that’s spinning and churning, and then it moves on, and then it comes back with different aspects and some of the other stuff combined. When you’re a fan of music and art and film, you take different stuff, you add different ingredients, because that’s your taste. Seeing the bands that are up and coming to me, it’s so exciting, because the rules are just different, right? It’s really cool to see artists that lean into the weirdness and lean into a left turn when everyone’s telling you to make a right. That’s so refreshing.
PATRICK: It’s really important as an artist gets older to not put too much stock in your own influence. The moment right now that we’re in is bigger than emo and bigger than whatever was happening in 2005. There’s a great line in ‘Downton Abbey’ where someone was asking the Lord about owning this manor and he’s like, ‘well, you don’t really own it, there have been hundreds of owners and you are the custodian of it for a brief time.’ That’s what pop music is like. You just have the ball for a minute and you’re gonna pass it on to somebody else.
We will soon see you in the UK for your arena tour. How do you reflect on your relationship with the fans over here?
PETE: I remember the first time we went to the UK, I wasn’t prepared for how culturally different it was. When we played Reading & Leeds and the summer festivals, it was so different, and so much deeper within the culture. It was a little bit of a shock. The first couple of times we played, I was like, ‘Oh, my God, are we gonna die?’ because the crowd was so crazy, and there was bottles. Then when we came back, we thought maybe this is a beast to be tamed. Finally, you realise it’s a trading of energy. That made the last couple of festivals we played so fucking awesome. When you really realise that the fans over there are real fans of music. It’s really awesome and pretty beautiful.
PATRICK: We’ve played the UK now more than a lot of regions of the states. Pretty early on, I just clicked with it. There were differences, cultural things and things that you didn’t expect. But it never felt that different or foreign to me, just a different flavour…
PETE: This is why me and Patrick work so well together (laughs).
PATRICK: Well, listen; I’m a rainy weather guy. There is just things that I get there. I don’t really drink anymore all that much. But I totally will have a beer in the UK, there’s something different about every aspect of it, about the ordering of it, about the flavour of it, everything, it’s like a different vibe. The UK audience seemed to click with us too. There have been plenty of times where we felt almost more like a UK band than an American one. There have been years where you go there and almost get a more familial reaction than you would at home.
Rock Sound has always been a part of that for us. It was one of the first magazines to care about us and the first magazine to do real interviews. That’s the thing, you would do all these interviews and a lot of them would be like ‘so where did the band’s name come from?’ But Rock Sound took us seriously as artists, maybe before some of us did. That actually made us think about who we are and that was a really cool experience. I think in a lot of ways, we wouldn’t be the band we are without the UK, because I think it taught us a lot about what it is to be yourself.
Fall Out Boy’s ‘So Much (For) Stardust’ is out now via Fueled By Ramen.
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