in ur fic, I don not get why Damian easily forgave Tim for being incredibly racist to him… ignorant or not hes 17 and he was racist? 17 year olds know when theyre being racist.
it just sucks a lot to see no sort of actual punishment came to Tim. its realistic though in the way irl too bullies get brushed off because of sad past.
1. He's 15
2. He was not actively being racist. he made like two ignorant comments that come off racist. he acknowledged he was wrong, apologised, and corrected his behaviour. He also risked his life to protect Damian at a time where they were still hostile to eo.
I specify in the fic itself that outside of the three(?) interactions we see before the staircase incident TIM DID NOT SPEAK TO DAMIAN.
Tim was being ignorant bc he was overly emotional. He said stuff he shouldn't have twice. Once he stopped being irrationally mad and actually thought about his actions he acknowledged his mistakes and apologised and, again, RISKED HIS LIFE TO PROTECT DAMIAN WHILE HIMSELF BEING A 15 YEAR OLD CIVILIAN CHILD WHO HAS NEVER SEEN A GUN BEFORE
3. Tim was lectured plenty (off-screen but mentioned) and grounded for a couple weeks (mentioned in text many times) he is also constantly reminded of his fuck up by all of the siblings. The reason he doesn't get a harsher punishment is bc he was genuinely not trying to be racist. He WAS picking a fight. He wasn't actively hating on people based on their race. That was very much not what he was aiming for. I don't think it makes sense to punish a kid for something they were very much not intending to do. He does get lectured about his ignorance and he gets grounded for antagonising and hurting Damian. What more should Bruce have done? Flogged him in the ballroom for the audience?? I thought we were against hitting kids???
4. Damian forgives him bc Tim proves beyond doubt that he is a good person who can be trusted to have his back in a life or death situation. Unlike a lot of people Damian understands that people's conscious choices out in the real world say more about their character than some stupid or offensive thing they may have said out of ignorance at one point in their life. Tim. Chose. To. Stay. With. Damian. Knowing. He. Would. Get. SHOT DEAD. That says a lot more about Tim's character than Tim asking Damian why he talks posh.
5. Now this experience im about to tell you might just be a me thing but we should also acknowledge that Damian does not talk the way people normally do. And I'm saying this as an Indian woman who once lived in a white country, Damian does not talk like people from Pakistan (where he grew up in the fic) or Asia in general do. His speech patterns are overly formal and he uses more complex vocab than necessary. This is very much a plot point. The Tim and Damian argument about it was also a bit of a nod to my own experiences growing up. Bc i talked a lot like Damian does as a kid and the Indian people in India also thought it was weird. And they pointed it out all the time. Sometimes people can think someone's speech pattern is odd bc it just isn't how anyone around them talks irrespective of race or ethnic background. Most of the time people will say that bc of racism, yes, but sometimes you're just a child talking in a way no one around you is used to.
If Damian was a white american kid someone would still have pointed out that the way he talks is unusual. It's supposed to be.
When Tim said it he was thinking why is this nine year old using SAT vocab at the breakfast table. Yes he should have been more apologetic and more introspective when Bruce instantly pointed out that his question can sound racist and told him off. He didn't and he gets punished for that. He doesn't get punished for Actually Being Racist because he Isn't Actually Racist. Just occasionally stupid.
6. Now if you've even bothered to read all this (unlikely since you seem to be skimming the fic too) I'll just say one last thing, if you don't agree with my storylines you don't have to read them. If you don't like Tim don't read a Tim-centric fic. If you don't like Tim being portrayed as a kid who makes mistakes and does shit he shouldn't out of emotional turmoil don't read my fic. If you don't want to see Damian and Tim have a good relationship as siblings definitely don't read my fic bc they are my favourite batfam duo to write. If you think everyone should be judged solely on their mistakes and nothing else then pls don't read my fic.
(for other people who may agree with me or may just want to see wtf we're talking about you could check out my no capes au)
as much as i get the sentiment behind "make more bad art" there's gotta be a better way of communicating "you don't have to be technically proficient or hold yourself to a specific standard of practice" that doesn't sound as backhanded lol
Friendly reminder that these only happen slowly, carefully, with lots of reader encouragement, engagement, reflection, and support, and an ending is never a guarantee.
Writing communities are gardens, not subscription services
Shane who has trusted this guy with his life, body, heart, soul, insecurities, dick, dreams, desires, sexuality, career, hole, front door code, etc. for the last 8 years: haha.
Ilya getting cute aggression for Shane and pretending to die.
Like Shane will come back from having a shower and curl up on the couch beside Ilya and his cheeks are pink from the warm and his hair is wet and in his one of Ilya’s hoodies and he smells like soap and his conditioner and he yawns so big it makes his eyes water and as he curls into the the back of the couch he asks Ilya if they can watch this documentary about penguins that his dad said was good and Ilya just clutches and his chest and crawls forward and keens over and mushes his face into Shane’s chest.
Shane is like “what are you doing?” In a monotone voice and Ilya reaches out to blindly fit his hand to Shane’s cheek and is like “you have killed me” groans and rubs his face into Shane’s chest. And Shane is “from my boring?” Because Ilya does like to die from that every now and again, the last time was when he tried to explain to Ilya how the pans should be stacked in the draw so they don’t scuff. “No” Ilya sighs “even worse, you are so cute I’ve died” and Shane laughs and just smacks Ilya on the side of the head and then pulls at his curls. Ilya drags his face up and pouts and says “you need to give me mouth to mouth” and Shane frowns and mumbles “uh oh” and leans in and kisses Ilya. Because he’ll always play Ilya silly little games with him.
Ilya keeps doing it- dying of Shane’s cuteness- and Shane always needs to revive him with mouth to mouth (many many kisses).
Ilya so immediately clocked Shane's little autistic flirting in that Saskatchewan parking lot but I honestly don't think Shane clocked it himself so, years later, when Ilya talks about it as "Shane coming onto him" and Shane goes "hello??? I just wanted to introduce myself??" Ilya just says, "Shane, the apple of my eye, the light of my life, my breeze in a stuffy room, my sunshine in the dead of winter, when have you ever willingly initiated small talk with another person?" and Shane is forced to concede that, yes, looking back, he was flirting.
wait i neeeed to talk to another lesbian abt shane hollander and his sleep paralysis demon friendship with hayden. bc omfg. imagine being deeply closeted and dealing with deep seated comphet and internalised homophobia and here comes your best friend mr heternormativity 3000. married at like 20 with 2.5 kids and a house with a white picket fence. and it all comes so easily to him. it feels natural. do you think shane ever resented him for that a little bit deep down pre gay admission at rose dinner. like why does it all come so easily to hayden. why can't he have it that easy. why can't he feel content and settle down with a nice girl and be normal. and on top of all of that hayden keeps trying to set him up with jackie's friends like literally dangling it in front of him like he has so many opportunities. it's not that there's no nice girls out there. he's the problem. something is wrong with him. the dichotomy of the heteronormative vision for life that he longs for because it feels safe and easy and normal and like what he should do while at the same time being a nightmare scenario because it's not something he actually wants or can want. every day he struggles with himself as he smiles and pretends he's fine and normal while the literal personification of heternormativity is constantly next to him.
shane hollander VS his stubborn strep throat husband
after being around each other for so long, shane and ilya have seen each other sick with paltry ailments a few times. (colds. light food poisoning. non-debilitating hockey injuries.) but it’s not until they get married that shane first experiences ilya sick sick. and to say he doesn’t know what to do about it is an understatement.
when ilya’s courting a mild illness he’s all ham. he’s draping himself across shane’s lap. he’s groaning and demanding attention and to be serviced.
this is not that.
shane can tell, because one day ilya is fine, and then the next he just…disappears. like a dog crawling under the porch to die alone. in this case, the porch is the three heavy blankets in the guest room bed. and judging by the several failed attempts to connect, he really wants shane to leave him alone.
shane of course will not fucking do that.
he doesn’t accept that his husband has burrowed himself like some sort of unreachable stoat because he’s “tired” and “wants a nap”. it’s not napping hours. and anyway this man is a furnace - even if he was napping, there’s no scenario where shane’s ever seen him willingly subject himself to three blankets. not even those times when he’s very very sad.
it has to be sickness.
even if ilya leans heavy on denial.
“what are your symptoms,” shane asks on round four of Not Being Able To Stay Away. ilya grumbles, “nagging pest husband.” and even under the blankets shane can hear his irritation. it’s contagious. like whatever he’s caught. and speaking of, “if it’s bacterial we should get you antibiotics.” “you’re bacterial.” and finally shane is just like, whatever. because fuck him, you know? if ilya wants to be a mean, sick asshole then he can be a mean, sick asshole. he’s not gonna bend over backwards to help him.
which is obviously not true. this lasts for twelve and a half minutes before he’s returning to the edge of the guest bed.
“i’m just back to feel your forehead-” “(pathetic rumbly bear noise)” “stop it. let me feel and i’ll leave you alone.” this processes slowly, but finally, the weak strangle-hold around the blankets that shane’s been doing a very good job respecting loosens in quiet defeat. he carefully pulls down the puffy cocoon that ilya’s made for himself to see that he’s caught him somewhere in the slimy midway point between caterpillar and butterfly. his skin is pale and clammy and sweaty and shane taps into those muscle memories from when he was in ilya’s position as a kid, sweating through his hockey puck sheets as his mom sits at the edge of his bed, needling him with affection-driven action points.
ilya’s sweaty curls have fallen and pressed over his head in the process, so he brushes them out of the way. lays his palm over his forehead. and wow. “ilya, you’re sick.” “...no.” “you’re boiling lava hot.” out of habit, he waits for the joke that’s supposed to follow, something like ‘you always think i am hot, hollander’ and the fact that it doesn’t come only seals the deal. ilya is dying, probably. “i’m gonna bring you some ibupr-” the groaning returns, blankets rising back up over his head in a not so subtle display that shows shane has overstayed his welcome. again. “you’re cooking yourself alive!”
but he is starting to feel extra bad now. naggy. maybe he should just let him rest for a little bit like he’s been whining for. ilya shrimps up underneath the blankets and shane sighs. “fine. you win.” not that he’s fucking happy about it. neither of them are happy about anything right now, to be clear. but. “i’ll be in the living room if you need anything.” he leans forward and plants a kiss somewhere at the top of the blanket shrimp, hoping he’s in the general range of his head. and then he begrudgingly gives ilya what he wants.
dude sleeps for three hours and shane is fighting tooth and nail all three not to make a google doc about it. there’s nothing to plan if he doesn’t know what ilya’s sick with. but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t sit and ruminate, book open in his lap but eyes hazing out somewhere above and to the left of it. when ilya does finally emerge, he’s wet. less in the sweating-to-death way and more in the just-showered way, and shane holds perfect control of every muscle group he can manage to not immediately spring forward and get all up on him with questions and assessments and love.
he simply watches from the couch. doesn’t say a damn word, as his husband clears his throat in the kitchen and then does it again. swallows weird. gets some water from the fridge and gets one drink down with a subtle wince, before going at it again. ‘throat thing…’ shane jots down in his mental google doc. and then, when he can’t possibly stand it any longer, “how do you feel?” ilya shrugs him off not unkindly, but nonchalantly. “fine,” he says, “needed nap.” shane hums in a way that he hopes is just as nonchalant, and then says, “sit with me?” because maybe ilya will interpret it as shane just being needy, which is not entirely incorrect anyway.
he doesn’t get a lot more out of him the rest of the day, but just seeing him out of bed and acting “normal”, no matter how feigned, works shane down from his tizzy. he’s definitely taking notes though. they sit and ilya’s got another blanket draped over his chest and shane rests his arm over the back of the couch, softly playing with ilya’s curls while he reads - feeling them transition from shower-damp to sweat-damp again - the heat radiating off ilya despite the slight shiver in him. shane drops his hand to the back of his neck and he is so fucking hot. shane’s pretty sure his skin should be sizzling right now. but he does note how ilya seems to subconsciously press back into it a little, like shane’s cold hand comes as a beautiful relief. so he keeps it there.
ilya doesn’t eat much dinner. “big lunch,” he explains, as if shane wasn’t right there analyzing the three chilled cucumber slices he ate and nothing else. before they go to sleep he does end up 4D chessing ilya into taking ibuprofen, under the guise of pain relief for his shoulder. he feels at least a little better that there’s something in his system to take his fever down.
sleep isn’t great for either of them if you can even believe it. so shane is more than happy to pull himself from the furnace-sheets and putter around downstairs while his husband sleeps well into late morning. he still doesn’t know what to do. which is driving him crazy. a thread he can finally pull comes via his very good friend hayden pike, who calls to bullshit but also casually drops the bomb that arthur is finally getting over being sick. the words “strep throat” vibrate louder and louder and grow in size in shane’s brain until they’re knocking off the sides of his head like some sort of cartoon because !!!! sorry to hayden but he does not hear a single word that man says after that.
cue detective-style montage of shane combing the web with his glasses and little things of espresso as an hour ticks by on the wall clock. his mental google doc is filling in. he remembers having strep as a kid, and that shit was NOT fun. honestly he had no idea you could get it as an adult? kind of fucked up? maybe that’s what ilya has. the timing of it lines up annoyingly well with their visit with the pikes last weekend. god, does ilya have strep? he stares at him through the crack in the bedroom door like some sort of michael myers situation, trying to visually assess as ilya scrolls on his phone with the blankets up to his chin.
that afternoon he watches his husband try and fail to act as if his throat isn’t killing him from the inside out. talking is not fun for him anymore. or moving. when he does, shane has to physically stop himself from asking why he keeps spitting in the sink. because he’s like, hyperaware of being a nag now, and how being a nag directly correlates to ilya not cooperating. so instead he tries to float some lowkey questions his way. real under the radar shit. like “doesn’t ice cream sound good right now?” and “do you wanna take a cold shower with me?” and “ilya do you have your tonsils still?”
smash cut to after dinner where ilya has made an excuse about eating later and will definitely not be doing that, and shane is just about fed up with it. ilya’s been dodging his extremely casual and lowkey suggestions all day and he’s done, he thinks! ilya is sick! with strep! he’s like 99% sure! and strep is bacterial which means this beautiful asshole needs medicine and holy fuck, he can’t ID the specific reason why he’s being such a stubborn prick, but shane is ready to drop the hammer!
maybe wrestling him into the couch and mounting him is not using his best bedside manners, but it gets ilya pinned on his back, his scowl raging as shane wrangles his hands down with one while brandishing his tiny emergency flashlight in the other. “open your mouth ilya.” three guesses if ilya opens his mouth. did you guess that he does? are you stupid? “ilya i’m serious. you’re sick.” and he’s pretty sure he knows with what, he just needs to check off the final box in his mental google doc. but that requires a cooperative husband.
fine. “i’m gonna make you a deal,” he says instead. “if you have white spots on your throat, you’re going to the doctor and getting antibiotics. if you don’t, i’ll leave you alone the rest of the night.” a high stakes gamble. but shane is so confident bitch oh god this motherfucker has strep throat - he just knows it.
the deal is too good to pass up. he can see ilya’s entire soul chomping onto the freedom shane dangles in front of him. too bad he’ll never get it. with an annoyed blink, ilya opens his mouth. shane clicks on the flashlight, shining it far back so it illuminates the red, swollen tonsils and that shit is not pretty but… but…
shane blinks. clicks the flashlight off. immediately plunges back into his mental google doc, trying to figure out where he went wrong. because… “well…?” ilya prompts. gruffly. and shane checks again. just to be sure. what the fuck.
it’s answer enough. ilya tips his whole body to the left, successfully depositing his failed nurse-husband off of him and onto the carpet (gently.) it’s a night to himself, for him.
so. ilya doesn’t have spots and shane is like, so fucking pissed dude. there’s no way it’s not strep. but now ilya’s even more emboldened by shane fumbling the bag so hard and like… fuck. he sits up, criss cross applesauce on the floor. crosses his arms. son of a bitch. something’s gotta give.
the Something is practice. shane hard-launches the return of nag mode but for very good reason, he thinks. there’s no way ilya should be going to practice the next day. he’s dying. and if he goes, they’ll have a team of strepped up centaurs. shane's already made peace with the fact that he’ll be getting it - it’s only a matter of time with the way he was all up in ilya’s tonsils like that. difference is, at the first sign of sickness, he’ll be hitting the amoxicillin hard, sniping it from his body before it can fully get him. unlike his husband, who is dead on his feet but still showing up to practice (shane went so far as to drive separately because 1) he refused to be an accomplice to the crime, and 2) he thought maybe the protest would register in ilya’s brain as significant. but he guesses not much registers in a brain that’s been cooking with a fever for three days.)
everyone is dressing in the locker room except for shane, who is leaving the team doc’s office feeling like the biggest narc on the planet, but also his blood is pumping with sour, horrified adrenaline. they breach the locker room and he’s power walking a few steps ahead of the doc toward ilya like his life depends on it, arriving to preface ilya’s confusion about his approach with a quick solemn “i’m sorry” before “rozanov. let’s go.”
ilya looks at the doc. then shane. the doc, realization connecting in his head very quickly so that when he fixes shane with his next look, it’s tired but undoubtedly betrayed. “snake,” he croaks at him. shane frowns. “i know.” “rat.” “i’m sorry.” ilya disappears into the hallway and shane doesn’t see or hear from him the entire rest of practice and he feels like he condemned him to the shadowlands or something. the worst fucking husband on the planet. he would be beyond pissed if someone snitched on him to the team doctor to keep him off the ice, so he can understand where ilya’s coming from. except for the fact that he’s saving ilya’s throat. and however else untreated strep can fuck up a person’s insides. but that doesn’t mean he isn’t skating around like a sad, guilty puppy the entire practice.
when it’s over, he showers and dresses quickly and makes several stops before coming home, returning with ice cream and throat drops and a large chocolate milkshake, hoping that perhaps he won’t find his husband hunched over divorce paperwork, fresh, beautiful amoxicillin now coursing through his system.
ilya is not filing for divorce. but he is giving him the silent treatment. which is new. it appears the man’s throat has to be literal millimeters away from closing for him to shut up. shane helps himself to the space next to him on the couch anyway, olive branch milkshake in hand. the bottle of meds is on the coffee table. next to it is a sticky note and pen - the time he took it jotted down pointedly. ilya probably knows shane’s gonna wanna know. and that alone kind of makes shane wanna cry in a not so bad way.
“is it strep…?” he quickly asks. ilya nods. shane nods too, deciding to leave it at that, instead of feeding into the immense sense of justification that floods him. it’s not about that now. it’s about fluffing and folding his ailing husband.
“i’m sorry i snitched on you,” he says. “i love you and i don’t want you to die.” perhaps a little dramatic, but true all the same. “and also you should probably not infect the entire team if you can help it.” ilya floats a look over to him, and it’s not exactly in disagreement. he holds it for a second, doing a little assessment of his own on shane. then he takes the chocolate shake from his hand and gives it a sip.
shane can’t help the little smile that tugs at his mouth as ilya’s eyes close in bliss, probably from the relief of the cold ice cream and the delight at the chocolate. “does this mean you’re done being a hardass now?” he has to ask. ilya shrugs, but tosses him a microscopic look of appreciation from the corner of his eye. which means… “yeah…?” oh no, shane’s just full on smiling now, “you get to be my baby…?” they could both definitely go for some affection right about now.
and that’s how shane finds himself trapped on the couch for the rest of the day, ilya resting back on him between his legs with his milkshake while they watch a movie. it's all cold foods and ice chips and love, ilya succesfully transitioning from dog crawling under the porch to dog very territorial about his spot in shane's lap, letting his eyes close as he hangs lightly onto shane's wrists, indulging in the cold hands that he casually holds his face with.
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