Author: DM/Ladelle <-- click for Ao3
Pairing: JayTim
Summary: Raised in the Golden Temple, Tim knows three truths to be absolute: he has a great power inside of him, is fated to save the Great Empire, and is meant for one person and one person alone - the heir to the Gray Throne. Lines begin to blur when his caravan is raided; he certainly doesn't expect to be saved by Jason Todd, a man who claims no allegiances and whose very presence seems to bring Tim's magic to life. It's impossible, Tim thinks, to be drawn anywhere but where the oracle prophesied. The magnetism, however, is even more impossible to ignore.
Author’s Notes: I've has this idea for forever and even though I came up with it for JayTim I have often thought it would make an amazing original which is why I've never really posted anything I've written for it. Coming out of a year of writer's block, though, I thought to write what I felt like and as I came across a prompt labelled, "And so our heroes did what anyone would do, they stopped to get a bite to eat at a local tavern. However, this is where everything took a turn for the worse." It felt like the perfect time to write about the boys attempting their first night together having come across a town, shortly after Jason and Roy happened to rescue Tim. /D
*~*
“Looks like brown-eyes over there’s takin’ a liking to you,” Roy said, sliding onto the bench next to Tim. He’d been tasked with retrieving ale and when he clapped two mugs onto the wood-laden tabletop, thick foam spilled over their rims and onto his fingers.
Tim stared in both fascination and disgust as Roy licked them clean. After, he watched those same fingers slide one of the ales his direction. The sour smell of the liquor tickled Tim’s nose.
“This was a terrible idea,” he stated, though his voice was swallowed by the clamor surrounding him. The tavern was packed – crowded with travelers and townsfolk, the space hot and humid with body heat. Voices bellowed and dishes clanked and men and women alike disappeared upstairs, lured with come-hither fingers and whispers of promised debauchery.
As Roy drank, ale escaped from the corner of his mouth. His eyes were on fire – lit by the excitement around them. He was a man who came alive around people, and when his eyes danced sideways, catching Tim’s, he tipped his tankard back and said, “You gotta learn to lighten up, your highness.”
Tim didn’t hide his frown. At the same time, someone bumped him from behind. His stomach leapt to his throat when his hood threatened to lift; he’d never moved so fast, tugging the fabric tight to both sides of his face, quick to hide the slender gold chains that dangled from his ears, bubbling with raindrop-gems. He was nervous his sleeves would slip low enough to show the jewel encrusted cuffs he wore on his forearms. In Roy’s too-big boots, he could feel the golden bracelets he’d been gifted shifting awkwardly, pressing bruises to the skin of his ankles.
His heart pounded with the fear of discovery. He asked, “Where’s Jason?”
He’d been gone for a while. Too long, Tim thought, if he was simply securing a room for the night. Though it wasn’t as if Tim had travelled before, much less learned the customs of inns that lined the seedier parts of town. Out here, he had no concept of normal. The only thing he could trust - the only seemingly tangible thing – was Jason’s greed.
There was a reward, of course, for Tim’s safe delivery to the Royal Summit. A big reward. And Jason, having stumbled upon Tim doused in golds, jewels, and mineral-spun fabric, knew that he’d happened across an opportunity too good to pass up.
Tim was worth a lot and Jason, from what Tim could tell, favored money over anything else.
“Well?” Tim tried again, after Roy ignored him the first time – his eyes’d been darting across the room, lingering on the tables taking bets and wagers.
With a sigh, Roy shifted, dragging his gaze back to Tim. In a limber, fluid motion, he threw a leg over the bench they were seated on, coming forward to straddle it. His arms stretched like long strokes of a fine-tipped brush and Roy’s hair, unkempt in an unravelling braid, was the color of the firestone agate.
“Look,” Roy said, leaning into Tim’s space. “No’ne here gives a shit ‘bout anythin’. They’re ‘ere to get drunk. Or laid. Or both. So stop worryin’ and have some fun before you get shipp’d back to yer hoity-toity little castle, and—”
“Stop saying things like that,” Tim interrupted curtly. He didn’t want it to draw attention. Also, it wasn’t true. He wasn’t a prince like Roy had assumed.
He was a gift for one.
A belligerent sigh droned from Roy’s lips and he simply pushed the untouched tankard of ale closer to Tim. “Of course, yer majesty,” he said and with that, he tipped his head back and made to gallantly finish off his own mug.
Tim took the dismissal in stride. The elders had warned him about commonfolk; their priorities were themselves. To them, there was no bigger picture, an concept that grated on Tim, since he knew how important his union to the Gray Heir was.
It meant the end of the war.
Deciding to leave Roy to his own devices in favor of locating Jason, Tim stood – only to feel eyes follow him. He ached to lift his gaze and find the source, but he didn’t want anyone to actually see him. To notice him. His elders had warned him about that, as well: those with darker magic were drawn to Guides – and he could feel it now, simmering in the cacophony – the low pulse of a hell-dealer.
Tim moved with haste. He was agile, ducking between patrons, weaving around servers. He skimmed the room for Jason, heart pounding now that he knew the source of his fear. Someone bad had picked him out of the crowd. And, Tim – well, he didn’t have permission to protect himself.
There was a reason he’d been raised in seclusion – he was meant for one person, and one person alone. He’d been taught that his powers weren’t his – they belonged to the Gray Heir. He couldn’t use them for himself – he couldn’t let others know what he was capable of. It was bad enough two vagabonds like Jason and Roy had seen his presentation attire and the broken sigils inked on the underside of his wrists – thank the gods they weren’t learned or more astute – that they didn’t know what he really was.
It put them all in grave danger.
“Gods’ sky,” Tim muttered, feeling panic set in. “Where…” He trailed off with a turn, hoping he’d look back to see Jason with Roy, having somehow slipped past. His sight didn’t make it that far. A figure blocked his path.
Tim made the mistake of lifting his gaze.
Hell-dealers were a terrifying breed. To most, they looked normal. This man had a foot on Tim; his eyes were an earthen shade of brown and his hair folded in char-colored curls against his high-set rise of his cheeks. He had the build of a fighter, and presence.
Commoners would call it charisma. Tim knew it to be something else. He could feel it – cool tendrils of hellfire that curled out and around him, tracing his arms, legs, and neck like too-long fingers.
“What an unexpected surprise,” the man said, voice lilting. Tim lifted his chin as a wisp of hellfire forced it. “What’s a pretty little magi doing here, all alone?”
Tim had to concentrate on breathing. While his sigils swore an alliance to the elements, hell-dealers pulled their magic from beyond the veil. On the other side, there was only hunger, and so Tim could feel the hellfire sipping from his own wealth of power, tasting the energy he had coursing through his own veins.
“Unhand me,” Tim demanded, narrowing his eyes. He didn’t dare draw on his own power to fight – not with so many people around them. But he’d always struggled with controlling his emotions; even if he didn’t use his own abilities in a panic, the elements tended to react on their own.
When the man smiled and the hellfire pressed against Tim’s stomach, he snapped, “Stop,” in the language of the arcane, and around him, multiple tankards split and shattered, ale erupting everywhere.
The hellfire loosened, but only out of surprise. Tim took a step back, eyes wide, only to feel an arm wrap around his waist from behind.
“Can I help you?” came a drawling voice, and Tim, who’d frozen, immediately sagged in relief.
Jason.
The hell-dealer’s gaze left Tim, more interested in the newcomer. Around them, patrons of the inn danced around their tables, trying to towel up the mess and decipher just what had occurred.
“You should endeavor to be a better shepherd,” the man replied, tilting his head enough that his curls spilled over each other. “It would be a shame if you lost your sheep to the wolves.”
It was a threat, and one that Jason laughed at. For the second time, Tim felt something in him – a dark static, something he couldn’t place. It was as indescribable as a hum, lost the moment Tim tried to find it.
“You’re right, it would,” he said. “But also, I do love to hunt.”
The words sat for a moment; a thick tension building. Tim felt his heart begin to race again, wondering if this meant there’d be a fight – if he’d be forced to intervene. But the gravity broke the moment Roy sauntered long-limbed into the conversation, making a show of accidentally bumping into the hell-dealer as he drifted past.
“You say somethin’ ‘bout huntin’?” he questioned, and Tim felt a chill when he witnessed Roy’s eyes dance the stranger’s direction, narrowed and lethal.
Tim felt the hellfire withdraw. Aside from the obvious warning, eyes from surrounding tables were on them.
And then the man grinned. Tossing his hands up, he took a step back, laughing jovially. This time, his eyes did drift back to Tim – the hunger was still there.
“My apologies,” he said, but Tim felt the hellfire tug at him once more, just before dissipating.
“Told you brown-eyes had a thing for you,” Roy said.
Tim leveled a glare that never quite met its mark. Instead, Jason’s arm fell from his waist and linked around his arm, and before he knew it, he was being tugged out of the inn and into the night.
“What are you—” Tim said, stumbling to keep up. Jason was taking long, angry strides and since Tim was a good deal shorter, it was a struggle to keep pace.
“We’re not staying here,” Jason snapped, and it was as if all the calm he’d had before had faded, replaced by rage.
Roy, who pulled up the rear, said, “You spooked that bad? He was big, but all he had was this knife.” As he said it, he revealed the blade he’d pilfered from the cuff of his shirt and tossed it idly in the air, the moon catching the metal with a silver glint.
Jason rounded on him – Tim getting yanked in the process, which gave Tim incentive to shake himself free from Jason’s iron grip. He rubbed his arm, turning just in time to see Roy catch the weapon and dance backward, smiling nervously as Jason descended on him. And then Tim noticed the weapon – caught and held tight in Roy’s nimble fingers, held an inscription.
Tim’s stomach climbed to his throat. Panic filled him to such an extent that he thought the elements might come again and rip the blade clean from Roy’s hands.
Jason beat them to the chase. He smacked Roy’s wrist hard and unexpected and the weapon clattered sideways on crusted dirt.
“If you wanted it you could have—”
“It’s a Chaos Dagger,” Jason said, which caught Tim off guard. From what he knew, normal folks didn’t know about Chaos and its curses. He was right, though; Tim’s attention drifted to the weapon and he swallowed thickly.
He’d only ever seen one before. It wasn’t a pleasant memory.
Roy took a step backward, looking spiderlike in the shadows. “A what?”
Tim said, “A Chaos Dagger,” and then added, “It keeps the souls of the people whose lives it claims.”
This time, Jason’s eyes slid Tim’s direction. Tim ignored it. Instead, he asked, “Is there any place here that is safe for us to stay?”
Under the glow of the moon, the angles of Jason’s face found light. He had grown unshaven, which gave him a rugged quality – though his eyes had and aged look that once again brought back the hum of energy Tim couldn’t quite place.
Roy said, “I got an idea, but our princess here ain’t gonna like it.”
Next to Tim, Jason’s head lulled. “I think we’re thinking the same thing.”
Tim followed Jason’s eyes down the street, finding it focused on one particular sign, painted in bright pastels and doused with glow-flowers.
He went rigid.
“You are out of your mind.”
“Security and privacy,” Roy ticked off an imaginary list.
Tim stated, “It’s a brothel,” like it was a curse.
Jason said, “That it is.”
Tim felt the wind nudge him from the side; an elemental response to the dread that had filled him. The noise it made sounded a lot like laughter.
