♩ + Kevin/Tim?
Musical Headcanons || @halcyonterror
Warrior - Beth Crowley
You fascinated me Cloaked in shadows and secrecy The beauty of a broken angel
I ventured carefully Afraid of what you thought I'd be But pretty soon I was entangled
You take me by the hand I question who I am [...] My memory refused To separate the lies from truth And search the past My mind created
I kept on pushing through Standing resolute which you In equal measure Loved and hated
You take me by the hand I'm seeing who I am
Kevin has never been brave, not int he ways he needed to be. he saw the good in people, wanted to believe in his city, and it was, in the end, his downfall, and that of Desert Bluffs. He get’s to be broken for the Greater Good, and filled with such a brilliant, blazing holy light. It is never allowed to be enough.
And then, there’s that same light filling a doorway, and he’s falling through it. Time falls like sand in the Desert Otherworld, and he ends up spending too much, and too little there. Carlos leaves a note, and Kevin leaves one in exchange in the desk of his office and walks out of the Desert Otherworld, and then out of the Desert entirely. (The people in Night Vale don’t stop him. he keeps his head down, and they let him pass under the guise of Cecil Palmer).
He walks and walks, and ends up in a city he’s never heard the name of, looking out over more water than he’s ever seen at once. He’s distracted by it- by everything really. There’s night time here, and water, and no one’s ever even heard of the Smiling God. He comes back to the docks night, after night, until he hears a sown swoosh beside him,and looks over to see someone in a mask, and cape.
The hero asks him about what he’s doing, and there’s no properly good answer to explain the everything that is the novelty of night, and people, and a life so separate from any one he’s lived.
Eventually, he meets Red Robin as Tim Drake. He comes into the convenience store Kevin is working at (it pays, and late enough at night and people just think the eyes, and the scars are some normal Gotham strange). He recognizes the hero, without the mask, especially because he’s seen it on the small, somewhat pixelated tv in the store corner.
He ends up as a pet-project of sorts. Tim is intrigued by him: he’s curious about the scars, and the history, and the town he’s never heard of on any map. Kevin’s been the Voice for something before, poked and prodded at until he fit the mould they wanted. Having someone do the same now, but to try and reverse that? It’s an odd experience, and on more than a few occasions, he’s pushed Tim away until he could see clearly again, and it wasn’t overlaid with memories.
Slowly though, the work he had started in the Desert Otherworld got easier. memories that were fabricated unravelled, and ones that were simply changed became easier to identify where those changes were. If he were to describe it, it almost felt like scrap-booking his brain in reverse. he took the things that had been glued in place over the original’s and tore them away. For the things that had been cut to fit, some of them he found how they were supposed to go, and others were simply gone.
And then one day, he looks into the mirror and sees that his eyes are still black, and when he looks back, they’re not anymore. They’re goldgoldgold. (He get’s a job at a local radio station, and it’s not right, but it’s... better. It’s healing).