This is my secret santa gift for @aguilillacolaroja for @jaytimsecretsanta!!! Happy holidays!!!
Read on AO3
“Tim!” Jason’s voice hollered, from the hallway leading to their room. “Timbo! Timbers! Where are you?”
“Kitchen!” Tim yelled back, and contemplated getting down -- but there wasn’t time before Jason appeared.
“Off the counter, it’s for food, not butts,” Jason said absently as he came in the room. “I found my taser, Tim. Do you want to guess where I found it?”
“Not really,” said Tim, sliding off the counter, but guessed anyway. “Was it in your jacket pocket?”
“No, I looked there four times. You looked there twice. It was at the bottom of a pile of clothes! Hiding in a hat.”
“Ah.”
“Your clothes, Timbo,” Jason added.
“Hmmm.” Tim smiled guiltily and shrugged. “At least you found it?”
Jason looked to the ceiling like he was asking for relief. “At least,” he echoed. “You know, we have these handy things called laundry baskets which are, funnily enough, for laundry. Didn’t Alfie ever teach you how to use one?”
Tim shrugged again. By the time he’d met Alfred, he’d been old enough to have his habits firmly instilled already. And Tim hadn’t lived in the Manor full-time like Jason had.
Jason sighed. “Is it that you don’t want yours mixed in with mine? We can get another basket, if that’s it.”
“It would be stupid to stick all the clothes together when you’re only going to wash them at different places,” Tim mused. “I hadn’t thought of that.”
Jason rolled his eyes. “Of course you didn’t. Timothy, you’re a slob.”
“Maybe so,” Tim replied, shrugging. “But I’m your slob.”
“I’m starting to regret that,” Jason said dryly.
Tim stuck his tongue out, and then nearly tripped over his own feet when Jason pinched the air in front of his face suddenly, as if he were trying to grab Tim’s tongue.
“No! Stop it!” Tim giggled as Jason advanced on him with fingers pinching in blatant threat.
“The best way to fend me off is to clean up your laundry,” said Jason.
Tim groaned, letting his head fall back. “You do weird laundry things too! There’s no reason for you to use the laundromat when we have machines we can use for free!” he pointed out.
“Freaking out the old ladies who judge me for my lifestyle choices is one of my sole pleasures in life,” Jason said.
Tim gave him a skeptical look. He’d gone with Jason once, out of curiosity, and he didn’t remember there being any old ladies there. There had been a kid who’d gotten really excited at the sight of Jason, who’d come up and starting talking about what books she was reading in school that week (and how her brother would be so sorry he hadn’t come).
“You forget, I was there when you chatted with that little girl about Robert Frost for half an hour,” Tim reminded him.
“Those kids started it, the first time,” protested Jason. “Came up to me and asked what my book was about. I couldn’t just not answer.”
“What were you reading?”
“Frankenstein. Well, a different version, I wanted to see what it was like without Percy’s editing,” Jason said. “It was pretty interesting, actually.”
“What are you?” Tim marveled, trying not to let the fondness seep into his voice. It didn’t work.
“Someone who uses a laundry basket,” said Jason, apparently determined not to be distracted.
Tim squinted at Jason for a long moment, thinking carefully. “If I promise to try to start using it, will you make muffins?”
Jason tilted his head to the side and frowned for a second. “Sure,” he said, “as long as we have ingredients for it.”
“We do!” Tim assured him cheerfully, and ran off to their room. He’d bought them yesterday; he’d gotten a craving after a quiet patrol and a crummy (and crumby) convenience store muffin.
Well, Tim thought, time to find where his laundry basket was hiding.
This is my secret santa gift for @etroveria for @jaytimsecretsanta!!! I hope you like it!!!
Read on AO3
Tim came in the room, and Jason couldn’t speak for a second.
They’d been dealing with some sort of lesser imp who’d gotten a look at Christmas decorations and decided that it was time for its latest artistic venture. Tim and Jason had disagreed, especially after its first few tricks landed its victims in the hospital with broken legs and candy cane splinters in their hands. Jason and Tim had caught the imp, and even gotten off easy -- but they hadn’t been unaffected, either.
They’d both been caught in the imp’s last hurrah, but so far, Jason had been far more amused by it than Tim was, and for good reason.
The silence was broken by the jingle of the bells on Tim’s shoes and hat. Jason snorted; Tim closed his eyes for a long moment.
Jason unfroze and started to cackle.
“If you tell anyone about this,” Tim enunciated carefully, “I will arrange your murder.”
“Uh huh,” Jason hummed absently, sparing half a millisecond to give Tim’s statement all the weight it deserved. Which was none. He had a camera in his mask, of course, but he took out a better one from one of his many pockets just to capture all the little details of the expression on Tim’s face. There was no way Jason wasn’t immortalizing Tim’s current outfit: the guy was just so cute, from the tips of his ears to his curly, curly shoes.
“You’re an elf,” Jason pointed out gleefully, lowering the camera again. “This is going on all my Christmas cards for about twelve and a half years.”
Tim’s face scrunched up. It was almost -- but not quite -- exactly the same as his ‘wasn’t this mug full of coffee three seconds ago?’ expression, only missing the adorable head-tilt probably meant to jog the memory of whether he’d drunk the coffee or not.
“You send out Christmas cards?” he asked finally, tone dubious. “And where does the half come from?”
“I would most fuckin’ certainly send out Christmas cards in a heartbeat if they have your grumpy face on the front,” Jason said, grinning so wide his cheeks were starting to hurt. “Especially right now. I love the bells.”
Tim groaned and sat on Jason’s sofa like he belonged there, tucking his belled feet under himself in a flurry of jingling. Normally, Jason might’ve raised a stink about taking his shoes off first, but they’d both already tried that, and their shoes had been stuck firmly. Jason didn’t know how he’d use boots shaped like hooves ever again; he’d probably end up selling them, and hoping never to see the things again.
“You’re the one dressed as a reindeer,” Tim sulked, avoiding his eyes.
“Yeah, but I can take the helmet off,” said Jason, and did. He tweaked one of the antlers which had been somehow attached to his helmet and grinned. It wasn’t like he didn’t have backup helmets; they got broken or exploded (usually by Jason himself, admittedly) a little too often not to plan ahead for this kind of thing.
Jason felt smug, until Tim lifted his eyes again and immediately started laughing.
“Your nose,” he managed, and pointed with a too-pointed glove finger at Jason’s face.
Jason’s hands flew to cover his nose. “What’s wrong with it?” he asked, in as casual a tone he could manage with his hands over half his face. (It was not casual at all. He tried.)
Tim waved a hand at Jason for a minute, gasping out his laughter, then pulled himself together enough to sit demurely with only his shoulders shaking and a bitten-back smirk on his lips to show his amusement. “It,” he pronounced, “is bright red.”
Jason stared for a second before it clicked. “The red-nosed...”
“Reindeer,” Tim finished. “Should’ve guessed it, with the red hood and all. You’re Rudolph.”
“Ugh,” groaned Jason, and sat himself on the sofa with more force than was strictly necessary. “I hate that song.”
“What’s wrong with it? Or do you just want to be included in all our reindeer games?” Tim’s voice turned singsong on the last few words. Jason refused to find it adorable.
“Overplayed,” Jason grunted. “I’d rather hear yet another song stolen from Pachelbel’s Canon in D than Rudolph for the five millionth time. Unfortunately, I get to have both.”
“Poor baby,” Tim gloated.
It was easy for him to be smug; Tim’s walls weren’t thin enough that he had to hear the neighbors playing Christmas songs on repeat every night since Halloween. Jason had taken to hanging around the Batcave just to avoid Christmas carols, which should tell even passing acquaintances how desperate he was. He almost wished Thanksgiving was the kind of holiday people had songs for, just so he could’ve heard something new, but he knew he’d have been assaulted by those songs, too.
“Shut up,” Jason suggested, instead of explaining all of that. He put his feet up on the sofa, narrowly missing the edge of Tim’s curly shoes. It made Tim’s bells ring anyway; Jason grinned again.
Tim spared him a dry look, then pulled one of Jason’s burner phones from behind the sofa cushion. Jason wasn’t sure if that displayed uncomfortable knowledge of this safehouse or just Jason’s habits, but either way Jason wasn’t on top of his game even before he realized that Tim was calling Bruce with it.
Jason thunked his head against the back of the sofa and tried not to listen in. Tim wasn’t saying anything new -- only what they’d already covered between themselves, except with fewer jokes and more mission report. Jason wasn’t sure why Tim bothered; they’d left the imp trapped in front of a place Jason knew Bruce kept an eye on -- Bruce probably already had it in his grasp and at least five different plans on how to return it to its dimension.
Tim put the phone down abruptly, without saying goodbye; Bruce had hung up on him, then. He did that a lot when he thought he had better things to do.
“So what’s the word?” Jason asked, trying to restrain the frustration that still haunted him with Bruce. “Are we assigned cleanup duty or something? ‘Cause I gotta say, I’m not feeling going out again tonight in this getup.”
“Do you think I am?” Tim said, rolling his eyes and twitching his bells pointedly. “No, he said he’d take care of it. We’re supposed to rest tonight, and the magic on us will probably be broken by morning.”
Jason yawned pointedly just to see Tim’s eyes narrow. “Nothing we didn’t already know, then. I don’t know about you, but I’m really feeling a Christmas movie marathon tonight. It’s tradition, after all.”
“You’re putting on Die Hard, aren’t you,” said Tim, not even bothering to make his tone a question.
“Of course,” Jason lied. He’d been planning to play It’s A Wonderful Life, actually, but Tim’s question brought it to Jason’s attention that perhaps it was not a good idea to put on a movie during which he cried every single time he watched it, not when he had an audience. His nose was already red enough, and he didn’t want to get up to find wherever he’d put his box of tissues after he’d used a few tissues to wipe the blood from a knife slash on his leg. It’d have to wait.
“Fine,” Tim said, “but you're going to have to make the popcorn.”
“You forget how to work a microwave or something?”
Tim stared at him and wiggled one of his feet so the bells jingled noisily.
Jason sighed dramatically. “You’re so demanding,” he complained, and heaved himself to his feet to trudge into the kitchen. It was just as well, really, because he didn’t have Die Hard on DVD and his laptop was still on the kitchen counter from that morning -- he grabbed it and searched for the movie as the sound of popping kernels filled the air.
“Do you have coffee?” Tim called.
Jason rolled his eyes up to the ceiling. “Is that your way of asking for some, Timbo?”
“Please?”
“Uh huh,” said Jason, unimpressed. He did have coffee. He even had the good stuff -- but that wasn’t what Tim was getting. Instead, Jason reached for the container of ground decaf, a wicked smirk taking over his face. It was so much more satisfying this way.
Jason came back into the living room holding Tim’s mug and his own glass of water in one hand while balancing his laptop and the popcorn in the other. Tim was quick to reach for his coffee, but Jason handed the popcorn off to him as though that was what he’d been asking for. Everything else went on the beat-up old piece of junk that could kindly be called a coffee table if you squinted and ignored the books under two of its legs to keep it level.
Tim snatched up his coffee, faster than he’d moved tonight since punching the imp in the face earlier, and breathed in the steam coming off it. He looked like a very happy elf. Jason tried not to snort, but it escaped him anyway.
“Do you have something to say, Rudolph?” Tim said, his eyebrows raised in challenge.
Jason shook his head. “Not a thing, Buddy,” he replied, failing to keep the grin off his face.
Tim narrowed his eyes at Jason, but didn’t call him on the Elf reference. Which was probably a good thing.
They had to sit close, for them both to see the laptop screen, but that wasn’t a hardship. Tim was leaning on Jason anyway, since he was trying to hide his feet under himself. The laptop had to go on Jason’s lap because of the tilt to Tim’s lap, which meant that Tim monopolized the popcorn bowl, eating about a third before Jason even got his hands on it.
It was just easier to let Tim rest his head in the crook of Jason’s shoulder. There wasn’t any scheming about it or anything; Jason had to reach the popcorn somehow, and it wouldn’t have been comfortable for Tim to keep his head on the boniest part of Jason’s shoulder for that long. It made sense -- or that’s what Jason tried to convince himself, when he realized they’d ended up snuggled into each other like they’d planned it that way.
The decaf took its toll on Tim about halfway through the movie. Jason hadn’t really noticed when Tim’s eyes started closing, but he did feel when Tim’s head drooped lower onto Jason’s chest, in a position where Tim wouldn’t have been able to see were his eyes open.
Jason blinked down at Tim and then at the laptop screen.
He weighed whether it would be worth it to just let the movie play, but the lack of caffeine and the long night had caught up with him too; Jason felt his eyes growing heavier with each passing second. A volley of gunfire sounded on the screen, and Tim shifted slightly, a muffled whine slipping out. That decided Jason. He turned the movie off and shifted the laptop onto the table gently, using the arm positioned around Tim to grab the popcorn bowl and pass it to his free hand to set on the ground.
It didn’t take Jason long to fall asleep.
Jason woke in the morning with Tim gone from his chest and warmth where Tim’d been. He looked around to see Tim standing in the window, looking like himself again, framed by soft, gray light and wearing one of Jason’s sweatshirts.
“It’s raining,” Tim said quietly.
Jason stood to join him. It was true; the clouds were out, as usual, and the skies were pouring down water into the streets. No wind, just rain coming straight down into the streets, throwing up a thin sheet of mist right on the ground. It was almost beautiful.
“Yeah,” said Jason, then said, “Merry Christmas, Tim.”
Tim turned to face him, and smiled. “Merry Christmas, Jason.”
Psst: Are you pro-white streak? And do you prefer Jason with black or red hair? Your Secret Santa wants to know. <3
White streak is always fun ;D but I will also take no white streak if you prefer it that way? But I definitely prefer him with black hair. Thank you!!!!
