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Fic: Bearing Gifts (Kings Among Runaways, Jason/Tim)
Series Title: Kings Among Runaways
Story Title: Bearing Gifts
Summary: The AU where Tim ran away from home at the tender age of mumbledyteen, and Jason got let off with a warning, the night he met Batman.
Warnings: Sexual content including minors, both disturbing and hopefully not.
Note: The series is indexed here. Huge thanks to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
kirax2 for beta and other collaborative type help, as usual! This goes between In Our Hovel and Mouths to Feed.
It's Christmas day in Gotham City and the snow is thin and gray upon the ground. Rosa's chair cuts thin tracks through the slush. Its footrests were lost long ago, so she's got her feet tucked up Indian-style under a blanket, hidden from the chill morning air. She's been coughing and even more tired than usual, all week, but she insisted that she's never missed a Christmas Mass, yet, and won't until they bury her.
Manny has the rather strenuous task of pushing the rickety chair across the cracked pavement. Jason figures she's at least the third owner. It's pretty much held together by duct tape and necessity at this point, but Rosa makes do. She doesn't need the chair all the time, but it helps her save her strength when she's not feeling well, and it gets her to St. Sebastian's twice a week.
Jason and Tim are leading their little parade, Tulio between them. They'd slept over - Rosa and the boys live in a studio apartment on lower McKean, paid for partly by the day labor Manny can pick up when the weather is warmer but mostly by the somewhat less legal activities that had landed Manny in lockup last fall. Rosa had thrown a little party yesterday for Christmas Eve - a little potluck kind of thing with a few families in her building - and she hadn't let them leave once it started snowing.
Tim hadn't protested very hard for once, and Jason - well, Jason had drunk a lot of very excellent eggnog and fallen asleep on the floor with Tulio under one arm. When he'd woken up, Tim had been tucked under the other. Despite the lack of heat in the run-down block of flats, Jason had been very warm.
It's a good morning, even if Jason's left sock is soaked through from the hole in his shoe. It's quiet, with just a few cars on the road and hardly any shops open. Instead of the usual chorus of car-horns, there's only churchbells and the sound of slush under tires - and Tulio's thin and cheerful voice. He's singing 'Deck the Halls' with as much force as his breathless little lungs can muster. With the final 'la' of every line, he leaps and tugs and swings between them, dangling from Tim's and Jason's hands, to land with a thump just in front of them. Tulio's hand is candy-cane-sticky and Jason's arm is getting tired, but he doesn't mind. Tulio's cheerfulness is contagious.
Something cold and wet hits the side of Jason's face, and he jerks around with a cry to see Tim looking blandly ahead like butter wouldn't melt in his mouth. Tulio's doing his best to copy his expression, but the effect is quickly ruined by a fit of giggles.
Jason drops Tulio's hand and lunges for Tim, who manages to dodge twice before Jason slams him face first to the hood of a Shevi Impaler with a suspiciously snow-free windshield. The car's alarm goes off, shattering the morning calm, and Tim starts laughing. With Jason's weight on his back, he isn't getting the air he needs to make proper noise, but his whole body is shaking with it, and it makes Jason grin viciously. He presses Tim's face into the snow on the car's hood and then scoops up some more to shove down Tim's collar.
That makes Tim start struggling in earnest, and within a few seconds, he's wiggled his way free and knocked Jason to the cold, hard ground. Jason tries to sweep Tim's feet, but Tim dodges and ducks behind Tulio, giving the younger boy a nudge. That's all the prompting the squirt needs to launch himself onto Jason, all sharp elbows and knees. Jason bundles him up and is about to roll him into an icy puddle when Rosa's sharp voice brings him up short.
"Hey, hey!" she scolds, "Jason, su ropa bonita!"
Jason grumbles, but he helps Tulio to his feet. Apparently it's okay if Jason's ass is soaked... Tim leans down then and offers him a hand. Jason thinks about yanking him down into the slush, but he sighs and gets to his feet instead. "I'm gonna get you later," he mutters into Tim's ear so Rosa can't hear.
Tim shivers suddenly and yanks his hand back. When Jason smirks at him, he rolls his eyes. "Snow," he says, and brushes off his collar. He pulls away from Jason and untucks his shirt to shake out what snow hasn't melted. "I'm sure I don't know why you assumed it was me."
Manny laughs and pushes Rosa forward between them, Tulio trailing behind. "Because you're a sneaky little fuck, that's why."
Tim just smiles, so Jason grabs a handful of snow off the roof of the car and flings it toward his face. Tim ducks, and the loose snowball splatters on Manny's shoulder.
"Bastard," Manny mutters, and then he stumbles against the back of Rosa's chair as it lurches and tips suddenly to the right.
Tim's closest, so he's the one who catches Rosa's arm and keeps her from tumbling to the ground. Rosa shouts, and there's a lot of cursing as Jason and Tim get her to her feet and Manny turns the chair on its side and crouches to examine the damage.
"Aw, fuck, it's not the wheel, it's the axle. Jason - I don't think we can fix it."
"Sure we can," Jason says, and moves Rosa's hand from his arm to his shoulder as he crouches beside him. His optimism lasts right up until he sees the break - the axle isn't just broken, it's sheered off, a piece of it still attached to the wheel. "Crap."
"I can walk," Rosa insists. "To San Sebastián, I can walk."
"Yeah," Manny snaps, sitting back on his heels, "and how are we going to get you back? We should take her home now."
"No," Jason says, "take her to church. I can fix this."
Tim leans over the chair to have a look. "Are you sure?"
Jason turns his face away from Rosa and looks up at him. Tim seems to catch that there's something he isn't saying, because he searches Jason's face for a few seconds before looking away. "Need some help?"
"You just want to get out of Mass," Jason says, but he grins. "Sure. I might need a hand."
Manny puts an arm around his mother's back, and Tulio catches her other hand. "We'll see you after? There's gonna be food."
"Then we'll be there," Jason says. "Don't worry," he pats Tulio on the head. "We got this."
"So," Tim says, as they watch the little family walk away. "What are you really going to do?"
Jason looks down at the broken chair and feels a twinge of...something. He'd bought it for his mother around the time his dad had stopped coming home. After she died - well, Manny had been in lockup, then, but he'd asked Jason to look out for his mama and his little brother for him. Jason hadn't had any other use for the chair, and it had done Rosa a lot of good.
He frowns hard and kicks it to the curb. It's nothing but a useless hunk of metal, now. "I'm gonna get her a new chair, is what I'm going to do."
Tim doesn't look skeptical at all, even though neither one of them has more than a few bucks to their names. "Okay," he says, and slides the wheel over to lie against the broken chair. "What's the plan?"
Jason thinks for a moment. "You ever been in Gotham General?" The look Tim gives him is tense and wary, but he nods. "There's a spot off the main atrium, like an alcove, behind the elevators? There's always chairs there. I guess when they wheel folks out, they stick the empties there to take back wherever they go-"
"Jason," Tim says, and he sounds completely scandalized, "you can't steal from a hospital!"
Jason flinches, and turns away. He can't look at Tim, can't see the expression on his face. "Well what am I supposed to do?! We're gonna carry her home? She can't walk two blocks, let alone ten!"
Behind him, Tim is quiet.
Jason makes a noise of frustration and throws his hands up. "Stop it!"
"Stop what?" Tim asks.
"Looking at me like that!" Jason snaps. "I'm not - I'm not a complete sleaze, okay? But what the fuck am I supposed to do, Tim? You want to tell me?" He turns, finally, and Tim's still looking at him, but he looks speculative, not disgusted. "What?"
"I'm thinking," Tim says. After a moment he seems to reach a decision. "We're not going to get one legally."
Jason growls. "I just said that."
Tim shakes his head. "Hospitals aren't the only places to find wheelchairs."
Jason wracks his brain, but for the life of him he can't figure out where else to get one. He's not even sure where they sell wheelchairs - he'd bought his mother's cheap at a second hand shop.
"I've got an idea," Tim says. He catches Jason's arm. "C'mon."
*
He drags Jason south across the Sprang, to Monolith Square. They're both huffing and tired by the time they get there, and Tim makes them wait around until they've caught their breath. He spends a minute or two fixing his hair in the reflection of a deli window and dusts the dried mud off Jason's ass from where he'd landed in the slush. "Play along," he says, and then he leads Jason toward the Regent Hotel.
"They won't even let us in," Jason hisses, because like a lot of the nicer hotels in town, you need a key card to get up into the real lobby. Jason knows, because he's tried to sneak into a few of them.
"Shh," Tim hisses back, cutting off Jason's protests. Jason sighs and rolls his eyes, but he goes along with it. He isn't sure what Tim is up to, but he follows him past the security desk to the elevators just the same.
Tim stops and digs in his pockets, and for a moment, Jason thinks he actually does have a key, but then Tim turns to him with a look of frustration. "Did I give you the key?"
"Uh," Jason says, looking at him like the idiot he is. "No."
"I must have." Tim goes back to digging in his pockets. When he comes up empty, he takes off his coat and starts searching it in earnest. "Will you at least check?"
Jason huffs and rolls his eyes. "You didn't give me anything," he mutters, but he checks his coat pockets anyway, because he's been teaching Tim to pick, and he wouldn't put it past the twerp to plant something on him. The security guard is watching them from behind his magazine, and it makes Jason feel twitchy, but it's not like he can do worse than toss them out. They haven't done anything they could get in trouble for.
"I didn't even bring my phone," Tim mutters, and Jason blinks for a second before things click into place. It's a con. He wants to laugh. "Dad's gonna to kill us."
"Dad's going to kill you," Jason shoots back. He makes a show of checking his back pockets. "I'm not the one who lost the key."
"Shut up!" Tim protests, and hits Jason once in the chest - not nearly as hard as he really can. "Maybe you left it at the cafe-"
"I told you, I never had it!" Jason snaps, and shoves Tim back a step.
"Hey, now," the guard says. He's smiling as he puts his magazine down but trying to sound stern. "Just try to be more careful." He reaches down and does something behind the desk that makes the elevator doors open.
"Hey, thanks, man," Jason says. He cuffs Tim on the head and half-shoves him into the elevator. "C'mon, squirt."
Tim hits him again as the doors close, and the guard laughs.
Once they're alone, Jason leans against the back wall and starts to snicker. "You could have said."
"I wasn't sure how good of an actor you'd be," Tim says, blithely. "It was easier to plan for you being confused."
"Oh, whatever," Jason says. He tags Tim in the shoulder as the other boy chooses their floor. "Will you tell me the plan, now?"
"The plan is," Tim says, leaning back beside him and turning his head with a slight smile, "we're going to get a wheelchair."
When the door opens on the tenth floor, Tim sets off confidently down the hall. Jason has to hurry to keep up, glancing around the opulent hall in mute awe until the bitterness starts to set in. A weekend in this place probably costs more money than Jason's ever seen at one time. The floors are made out of three colors of marble fit together into a geometric pattern. There's gold veining in the white columns by the elevators and along the baseboards. The doors they pass are so far apart that Jason knows the rooms or suites or whatever behind them have to be huge. Jason glares up at the decorated plaster ceiling as they pass under the sixth crystal chandelier, so he almost walks right past Tim when he stops and darts through a door.
"What-" Jason starts, catching the door before it shuts and slipping through after him. They wind up in a stairwell, and Tim heads down the stairs. "Where are we going?"
"To find an employee who didn't see us come up the elevator," Tim says, like that made any sense.
If they're gonna steal a chair from somewhere, shouldn't they be headed to wherever the chair is? Jason considers himself something of an expert at sneaking into places, and he's pretty sure they shouldn't call attention to themselves if they can help it, especially since they're planning on stealing something.
They leave the stairwell at the ninth floor and Jason follows Tim down a hall tiled in the same ridiculously shiny marble as the one above it. They make a few turns and pass another stairwell before they come upon a middle-aged black woman pushing a cart piled with towels and toilet paper. Tim rolls his eyes and huffs out an audible sigh before striding over to her. "Excuse me."
The woman stops and looks quickly between them. "Yes, sir?" she asks, and Jason has to blink, because she sounds... Well, like Tim had every right to be rude to her.
"We called for a wheelchair ten minutes ago." Tim says impatiently. He puts one hand on his hip and leans into her personal space. "We have lunch reservations at Chez Bernardine, and we are going to be late."
The woman's mouth twitches as she clenches her jaw, but she gives a tiny bow. "I'll call down."
"You do that," Tim says imperiously. He crosses his arms over his chest and turns away as if she's already gone. "Honestly," he mutters to Jason, "I told Mother we'd be better served at Wayne International, but Grandmother had to get all sentimental about the damned chocolates."
Jason just stares at him, his eyes wide, as the woman walks away. Once she's turned the corner, Tim relaxes back into his more usual stance with a satisfied air.
"Wow," Jason says, starting to smile a little. "You're really a jerk"
Tim straightens up immediately, "I am not!"
Jason chuckles. "You totally are. That woman hates you. If you were really a guest, she'd do something horrible to your toothbrush or something."
Tim snickers.
"Really horrible," Jason continues as he helps himself from a bag of gold-wrapped chocolates from the cart,shoving them in his pockets. "My mom used to work in a place like this. Well, not like this he said, waving his arm around at the decor. He digs around in the cart until he finds the little soaps and shampoos and starts piling those into his pockets, too. Tim takes the ones that don't fit without a word. "But, you know, a hotel. She told me stories, man."
Tim's eyes go somehow soft and sharp at the same time. He searches Jason's face for a moment, then looks away. "You've never mentioned your family, before."
Jason's throat seizes up for a second. "You've never mentioned yours," he snaps when he can speak again.
Tim starts and looks down at his feet, guiltily. Before either of them can say anything else, though, Jason hears the click of hard-soled shoes on the marble floor and pokes Tim in the arm. "Showtime."
Tim makes an elaborate show of looking at a watch he isn't actually wearing as the housekeeper returns with a man in a dark suit pushing a gleaming black and metal wheelchair with the Regent Hotel logo in gold. "Finally," Jason mutters and takes it from him. He starts pushing the chair away down the hall. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Tim shove a dollar into the man's hand before turning on his heel to follow him.
"Why'd you give him money?" Jason hisses once they're out of earshot.
They turn a corner before Tim responds. "It was a tip."
Jason rolls his eyes. " I know it was a tip. But we haven't got a lot to go giving away."
Tim makes a face. "It fit the character. I just figured a bad tipper's not as memorable as I someone who doesn't tip at all." When Jason frowns, he continues. "Think of it as buying the chair for a buck."
Jason snorts and ruffles Tim's hair. Tim swats at him, half heartedly and leads him into the stairwell they had passed before. They wait there for a few minutes, idly wrestling, and then Tim pokes his head out the door. "I think we're clear."
"The guy in the lobby is going to recognize us," Jason protests.
"Not if we go down to the parking garage and leave that way," Tim says easily. He leads the way back to the elevators. While they're waiting for the car to return, Jason gets an idea.
"Hey," he says. He bumps the chair against he back of Tim's knees. "Sit down." Tim just makes a face at him like he's being childish. "No, really." He shoves forward hard, and Tim tumbles into the chair in an awkward sprawl. "We look a lot less suspicious if the chair isn't empty, dipshit."
Tim looks very put-upon, but he bends to flip the footrests out and tuck his feet under the straps on them. He sits back up and wiggles his way into a comfortable position just as the doors open and they are faced with an older couple in tacky Christmas sweaters. They can't seem to decide whether they ought to speak to the poor crippled boy or not, but they smile at Jason a little.
They ride down with the couple, trying very hard to look like they're brothers going for a stroll or something. The couple gets off at the third floor, which smells like flowers and mint when the doors open, so Jason thinks maybe there's a spa or something. He's never actually seen a spa - just on TV, anyway - and he kind of wants to go check it out and see if people really do pay good money to lay around in mud, but Tim hits the door-close button before Jason can start forward.
When they get to the underground garage, Jason pushes Tim out through the parking gate, waving at the guard in the booth, and down the sidewalk toward one of the department stores.
When they're out of sight of the hotel, he lets out a whoop and breaks into a run. Tim shouts in surprise before he throws his head back and starts laughing, holding on for dear life.
*
Jason's never had much use for religion or most of the trappings that go with it. The buildings themselves are a decent enough place to wait out the rain and they're one of the few places a guy won't get thrown out for being scruffy and disreputable and not a paying customer. Jason can sit through a mass or a sermon just fine if it's cold enough outside, though he tends to earn dirty looks by dozing or by laughing at inappropriate moments. It's no different from any other bullshit he's ever put up with, so Jason doesn't really care.
He's learned to steer clear of churches that don't have a denomination in their name, because they tend to be full of...really enthusiastic people. They always want to shake his hand or pat him on the back after the service - make themselves feel all friendly and charitable. It's the hypocrisy that bugs Jason even more than the touching, because he knows these are the same people who cross the street when he passes, who don't look at him when he asks for change, who wouldn't fucking piss if he were on fire. He hasn't actually hit anybody yet, though he did get thrown out of one place when he recognized one upstanding family man as the shithead john who'd broken his friend Lucy's nose. Jason hopes to hell he ruined the fuck's marriage, at least.
St. Sebastian's is something altogether different. Catholic churches in general tend to go a lot lighter on the handshaking and hellfire, and they're easier to get in and out of unnoticed. Nobody ever tries to hug you. St. Sebastian's isn't the oldest or the biggest or the nicest Catholic church in the city - it's a little run down around the edges, with flaking brick and stained-glass dark with age - but it does have something else going for it, and that something is Sister Claire.
She teaches the ESL bible study classes, among other things, and she's something like an aunt or a grandmother to Tulio, and even Manny sometimes. She's the one who opens the door for them when they get to the church - not the big double doors of the sanctuary, but the single, metal-reinforced door around back that leads toward the classrooms and the kitchen. She takes one look at their faces - Jason's grinning, but he knows he probably looks guilty too. Tim, on the other hand, looks perfectly bland and pleasant, which makes Jason want to shove snow down his shirt again.
They snagged some garland off a mailbox on the way over, with a bow and everything attached, and it's draped over the chair to hide the Regent logo. It's a nicer chair than she had before, the metal parts gleaming and the cloth dark and clean, the footrests still intact. Jason knows a guy who can do amazing things with spray paint and cardboard, so they won't have to worry about the logo in a few days.
For now, Sister Claire lets them pass, though she manages to look disapproving and fond all at once. She mostly likes Jason, even though he never comes to church unless there's going to be food. "Jason," she says as she locks the door behind them - St. Sebastian's is not in the best neighborhood in the city - "introduce me to your friend."
"Oh," Jason says, startled. He's gotten so used to Tim being a part of his life that he forgets he's only known him since October. Normally he goes with Rosa to church on All Saints' Day, but this year he and Tim were still sleeping off their candy binge by the time the bells stopped ringing. "Tim, this is Sister Claire."
"It's very nice to meet you, Sister," Tim says in an oddly formal voice. He takes her work-worn hand in his when she offers it and bows over it a little as he shakes it.
"Hm," Sister Claire says, and Jason recognizes her meaning as clearly as if she'd actually said, 'I'm on to you, young man.' It makes him wrap his arm around Tim's shoulder and ruffle his hair a little, because usually that tone is reserved for Jason. Hearing it turned on Tim, with the accompanying look, makes them two-of-a-kind in a way that Jason's discovering he rather likes.
"So," Jason says, when she lets them pass, "where's the grub?"
"I'm afraid we didn't save you any," Sister Claire says. She shakes her head sadly. "There really wasn't enough to go around this year."
Jason's stomach falls a little - less for the prospect of a missed meal, he's surprised to find, and more because of the idea of it. If St. Sebastian's is short of food at Christmas - well, that's kind of a bad omen for the new year, isn't it? If people can't be assed to drop canned food in the donation barrels or pass the damned plate... He's about to say something harsh and bitter about humanity when they turn the corner into the crowded rec room and he sees the spread - foil pans of sliced turkey and ham, casserole dishes full of corn and beans and dressing, pans piled high with rolls and buttered french bread, and a whole separate table full of homemade desserts and day-olds from the local bakeries. Everyone's helped themselves and found a table, except for a few milling around looking for seconds, but there's still plenty to go around. "I'm pretty sure nuns aren't supposed to lie," Jason says.
"I'm pretty sure you didn't pay for that wheelchair," she says blithely. "Rosa and the boys are near the back. Manuel helped carve up the hams after the service."
Which might mean Rosa would be taking home some soup bones. All right. Jason grins and bumps Sister Claire with his shoulder as he pushes the chair past her and into the room, Tim following behind.
"Hey, Jason!" someone calls from a group of girls by the punchbowl. "Merry Christmas!"
"Ho ho ho," he calls back, and one of the girls - Sherry - flips him off with a smile. He gets patted on the back twice and punched in the arm once, and several people stop him to say hello. Tim sticks close to his side, though, just following mutely. Jason looks around. "Don't you know anybody?" he asks him.
"I know your friends' names." Tim says, shrugging like it's nothing.
"Dude, how can you not know anybody," Jason asks, incredulous. "Everybody's, here."
Tim cuts him a sideways look. "I don't really make friend easily," he says, and breaks away to push off into the crowd.
Jason feels like he's put his foot in it, somehow, even though he didn't mean to be insulting. It just caught him off guard. Tim's smart and confident and quick on the draw with snappy comebacks. He's nice to old people and good with little kids. It's kind of a shock to realize maybe he isn't as open around other people as he is when he's just hanging out with Jason.
He seems to be all right, though, when Jason catches up to him. Not brooding or anything, like Jason knows he tends to, sometimes. He's found Rosa's table and taken an empty folding chair - or maybe it was Tulio's chair, because Tulio is perched on Tim's knee, telling him something with great excitement. Jason just stands there for a moment and watches, smiling, until Rosa turns around.
Her eyes get wide when she sees him standing there, so he cocks one eyebrow, flashes his most charming, lopsided grin, and gives the chair a push that sends it toward her. The wheels roll smoothly across the linoleum with hardly a whisper of sound, and it bumps against the table and comes to a stop.
"Padre Todopoderoso," she whispers, gripping the edge of the table. There's more Spanish after that, so fast that Jason only catches every tenth word or so, but he gets the general idea. She's praying, fast and fervently, thanking God, and for a moment Jason feels a flash of annoyance, because God didn't exhaust himself running around town, didn't sneak into the poshest hotel in Gotham and walk right out with a brand-spanking-new wheelchair. Then he realizes what she's really saying. 'Gracias a Dios por darme a mis hijos.'
Jason swallows.
She starts to get up, and Jason hurries over to catch her arm, because she looks kind of shaky. She turns and throws her arms around his neck, putting nearly all her weight on his shoulders, but Jason doesn't mind. He holds her up. She keeps praying against his shoulder, crying a little.
Thank you, God, for giving me my sons.
Jason meets Tim's eyes over her head, and sees him smile.
END
Story Title: Bearing Gifts
Summary: The AU where Tim ran away from home at the tender age of mumbledyteen, and Jason got let off with a warning, the night he met Batman.
Warnings: Sexual content including minors, both disturbing and hopefully not.
Note: The series is indexed here. Huge thanks to
kirax2 for beta and other collaborative type help, as usual! This goes between In Our Hovel and Mouths to Feed. It's Christmas day in Gotham City and the snow is thin and gray upon the ground. Rosa's chair cuts thin tracks through the slush. Its footrests were lost long ago, so she's got her feet tucked up Indian-style under a blanket, hidden from the chill morning air. She's been coughing and even more tired than usual, all week, but she insisted that she's never missed a Christmas Mass, yet, and won't until they bury her.
Manny has the rather strenuous task of pushing the rickety chair across the cracked pavement. Jason figures she's at least the third owner. It's pretty much held together by duct tape and necessity at this point, but Rosa makes do. She doesn't need the chair all the time, but it helps her save her strength when she's not feeling well, and it gets her to St. Sebastian's twice a week.
Jason and Tim are leading their little parade, Tulio between them. They'd slept over - Rosa and the boys live in a studio apartment on lower McKean, paid for partly by the day labor Manny can pick up when the weather is warmer but mostly by the somewhat less legal activities that had landed Manny in lockup last fall. Rosa had thrown a little party yesterday for Christmas Eve - a little potluck kind of thing with a few families in her building - and she hadn't let them leave once it started snowing.
Tim hadn't protested very hard for once, and Jason - well, Jason had drunk a lot of very excellent eggnog and fallen asleep on the floor with Tulio under one arm. When he'd woken up, Tim had been tucked under the other. Despite the lack of heat in the run-down block of flats, Jason had been very warm.
It's a good morning, even if Jason's left sock is soaked through from the hole in his shoe. It's quiet, with just a few cars on the road and hardly any shops open. Instead of the usual chorus of car-horns, there's only churchbells and the sound of slush under tires - and Tulio's thin and cheerful voice. He's singing 'Deck the Halls' with as much force as his breathless little lungs can muster. With the final 'la' of every line, he leaps and tugs and swings between them, dangling from Tim's and Jason's hands, to land with a thump just in front of them. Tulio's hand is candy-cane-sticky and Jason's arm is getting tired, but he doesn't mind. Tulio's cheerfulness is contagious.
Something cold and wet hits the side of Jason's face, and he jerks around with a cry to see Tim looking blandly ahead like butter wouldn't melt in his mouth. Tulio's doing his best to copy his expression, but the effect is quickly ruined by a fit of giggles.
Jason drops Tulio's hand and lunges for Tim, who manages to dodge twice before Jason slams him face first to the hood of a Shevi Impaler with a suspiciously snow-free windshield. The car's alarm goes off, shattering the morning calm, and Tim starts laughing. With Jason's weight on his back, he isn't getting the air he needs to make proper noise, but his whole body is shaking with it, and it makes Jason grin viciously. He presses Tim's face into the snow on the car's hood and then scoops up some more to shove down Tim's collar.
That makes Tim start struggling in earnest, and within a few seconds, he's wiggled his way free and knocked Jason to the cold, hard ground. Jason tries to sweep Tim's feet, but Tim dodges and ducks behind Tulio, giving the younger boy a nudge. That's all the prompting the squirt needs to launch himself onto Jason, all sharp elbows and knees. Jason bundles him up and is about to roll him into an icy puddle when Rosa's sharp voice brings him up short.
"Hey, hey!" she scolds, "Jason, su ropa bonita!"
Jason grumbles, but he helps Tulio to his feet. Apparently it's okay if Jason's ass is soaked... Tim leans down then and offers him a hand. Jason thinks about yanking him down into the slush, but he sighs and gets to his feet instead. "I'm gonna get you later," he mutters into Tim's ear so Rosa can't hear.
Tim shivers suddenly and yanks his hand back. When Jason smirks at him, he rolls his eyes. "Snow," he says, and brushes off his collar. He pulls away from Jason and untucks his shirt to shake out what snow hasn't melted. "I'm sure I don't know why you assumed it was me."
Manny laughs and pushes Rosa forward between them, Tulio trailing behind. "Because you're a sneaky little fuck, that's why."
Tim just smiles, so Jason grabs a handful of snow off the roof of the car and flings it toward his face. Tim ducks, and the loose snowball splatters on Manny's shoulder.
"Bastard," Manny mutters, and then he stumbles against the back of Rosa's chair as it lurches and tips suddenly to the right.
Tim's closest, so he's the one who catches Rosa's arm and keeps her from tumbling to the ground. Rosa shouts, and there's a lot of cursing as Jason and Tim get her to her feet and Manny turns the chair on its side and crouches to examine the damage.
"Aw, fuck, it's not the wheel, it's the axle. Jason - I don't think we can fix it."
"Sure we can," Jason says, and moves Rosa's hand from his arm to his shoulder as he crouches beside him. His optimism lasts right up until he sees the break - the axle isn't just broken, it's sheered off, a piece of it still attached to the wheel. "Crap."
"I can walk," Rosa insists. "To San Sebastián, I can walk."
"Yeah," Manny snaps, sitting back on his heels, "and how are we going to get you back? We should take her home now."
"No," Jason says, "take her to church. I can fix this."
Tim leans over the chair to have a look. "Are you sure?"
Jason turns his face away from Rosa and looks up at him. Tim seems to catch that there's something he isn't saying, because he searches Jason's face for a few seconds before looking away. "Need some help?"
"You just want to get out of Mass," Jason says, but he grins. "Sure. I might need a hand."
Manny puts an arm around his mother's back, and Tulio catches her other hand. "We'll see you after? There's gonna be food."
"Then we'll be there," Jason says. "Don't worry," he pats Tulio on the head. "We got this."
"So," Tim says, as they watch the little family walk away. "What are you really going to do?"
Jason looks down at the broken chair and feels a twinge of...something. He'd bought it for his mother around the time his dad had stopped coming home. After she died - well, Manny had been in lockup, then, but he'd asked Jason to look out for his mama and his little brother for him. Jason hadn't had any other use for the chair, and it had done Rosa a lot of good.
He frowns hard and kicks it to the curb. It's nothing but a useless hunk of metal, now. "I'm gonna get her a new chair, is what I'm going to do."
Tim doesn't look skeptical at all, even though neither one of them has more than a few bucks to their names. "Okay," he says, and slides the wheel over to lie against the broken chair. "What's the plan?"
Jason thinks for a moment. "You ever been in Gotham General?" The look Tim gives him is tense and wary, but he nods. "There's a spot off the main atrium, like an alcove, behind the elevators? There's always chairs there. I guess when they wheel folks out, they stick the empties there to take back wherever they go-"
"Jason," Tim says, and he sounds completely scandalized, "you can't steal from a hospital!"
Jason flinches, and turns away. He can't look at Tim, can't see the expression on his face. "Well what am I supposed to do?! We're gonna carry her home? She can't walk two blocks, let alone ten!"
Behind him, Tim is quiet.
Jason makes a noise of frustration and throws his hands up. "Stop it!"
"Stop what?" Tim asks.
"Looking at me like that!" Jason snaps. "I'm not - I'm not a complete sleaze, okay? But what the fuck am I supposed to do, Tim? You want to tell me?" He turns, finally, and Tim's still looking at him, but he looks speculative, not disgusted. "What?"
"I'm thinking," Tim says. After a moment he seems to reach a decision. "We're not going to get one legally."
Jason growls. "I just said that."
Tim shakes his head. "Hospitals aren't the only places to find wheelchairs."
Jason wracks his brain, but for the life of him he can't figure out where else to get one. He's not even sure where they sell wheelchairs - he'd bought his mother's cheap at a second hand shop.
"I've got an idea," Tim says. He catches Jason's arm. "C'mon."
*
He drags Jason south across the Sprang, to Monolith Square. They're both huffing and tired by the time they get there, and Tim makes them wait around until they've caught their breath. He spends a minute or two fixing his hair in the reflection of a deli window and dusts the dried mud off Jason's ass from where he'd landed in the slush. "Play along," he says, and then he leads Jason toward the Regent Hotel.
"They won't even let us in," Jason hisses, because like a lot of the nicer hotels in town, you need a key card to get up into the real lobby. Jason knows, because he's tried to sneak into a few of them.
"Shh," Tim hisses back, cutting off Jason's protests. Jason sighs and rolls his eyes, but he goes along with it. He isn't sure what Tim is up to, but he follows him past the security desk to the elevators just the same.
Tim stops and digs in his pockets, and for a moment, Jason thinks he actually does have a key, but then Tim turns to him with a look of frustration. "Did I give you the key?"
"Uh," Jason says, looking at him like the idiot he is. "No."
"I must have." Tim goes back to digging in his pockets. When he comes up empty, he takes off his coat and starts searching it in earnest. "Will you at least check?"
Jason huffs and rolls his eyes. "You didn't give me anything," he mutters, but he checks his coat pockets anyway, because he's been teaching Tim to pick, and he wouldn't put it past the twerp to plant something on him. The security guard is watching them from behind his magazine, and it makes Jason feel twitchy, but it's not like he can do worse than toss them out. They haven't done anything they could get in trouble for.
"I didn't even bring my phone," Tim mutters, and Jason blinks for a second before things click into place. It's a con. He wants to laugh. "Dad's gonna to kill us."
"Dad's going to kill you," Jason shoots back. He makes a show of checking his back pockets. "I'm not the one who lost the key."
"Shut up!" Tim protests, and hits Jason once in the chest - not nearly as hard as he really can. "Maybe you left it at the cafe-"
"I told you, I never had it!" Jason snaps, and shoves Tim back a step.
"Hey, now," the guard says. He's smiling as he puts his magazine down but trying to sound stern. "Just try to be more careful." He reaches down and does something behind the desk that makes the elevator doors open.
"Hey, thanks, man," Jason says. He cuffs Tim on the head and half-shoves him into the elevator. "C'mon, squirt."
Tim hits him again as the doors close, and the guard laughs.
Once they're alone, Jason leans against the back wall and starts to snicker. "You could have said."
"I wasn't sure how good of an actor you'd be," Tim says, blithely. "It was easier to plan for you being confused."
"Oh, whatever," Jason says. He tags Tim in the shoulder as the other boy chooses their floor. "Will you tell me the plan, now?"
"The plan is," Tim says, leaning back beside him and turning his head with a slight smile, "we're going to get a wheelchair."
When the door opens on the tenth floor, Tim sets off confidently down the hall. Jason has to hurry to keep up, glancing around the opulent hall in mute awe until the bitterness starts to set in. A weekend in this place probably costs more money than Jason's ever seen at one time. The floors are made out of three colors of marble fit together into a geometric pattern. There's gold veining in the white columns by the elevators and along the baseboards. The doors they pass are so far apart that Jason knows the rooms or suites or whatever behind them have to be huge. Jason glares up at the decorated plaster ceiling as they pass under the sixth crystal chandelier, so he almost walks right past Tim when he stops and darts through a door.
"What-" Jason starts, catching the door before it shuts and slipping through after him. They wind up in a stairwell, and Tim heads down the stairs. "Where are we going?"
"To find an employee who didn't see us come up the elevator," Tim says, like that made any sense.
If they're gonna steal a chair from somewhere, shouldn't they be headed to wherever the chair is? Jason considers himself something of an expert at sneaking into places, and he's pretty sure they shouldn't call attention to themselves if they can help it, especially since they're planning on stealing something.
They leave the stairwell at the ninth floor and Jason follows Tim down a hall tiled in the same ridiculously shiny marble as the one above it. They make a few turns and pass another stairwell before they come upon a middle-aged black woman pushing a cart piled with towels and toilet paper. Tim rolls his eyes and huffs out an audible sigh before striding over to her. "Excuse me."
The woman stops and looks quickly between them. "Yes, sir?" she asks, and Jason has to blink, because she sounds... Well, like Tim had every right to be rude to her.
"We called for a wheelchair ten minutes ago." Tim says impatiently. He puts one hand on his hip and leans into her personal space. "We have lunch reservations at Chez Bernardine, and we are going to be late."
The woman's mouth twitches as she clenches her jaw, but she gives a tiny bow. "I'll call down."
"You do that," Tim says imperiously. He crosses his arms over his chest and turns away as if she's already gone. "Honestly," he mutters to Jason, "I told Mother we'd be better served at Wayne International, but Grandmother had to get all sentimental about the damned chocolates."
Jason just stares at him, his eyes wide, as the woman walks away. Once she's turned the corner, Tim relaxes back into his more usual stance with a satisfied air.
"Wow," Jason says, starting to smile a little. "You're really a jerk"
Tim straightens up immediately, "I am not!"
Jason chuckles. "You totally are. That woman hates you. If you were really a guest, she'd do something horrible to your toothbrush or something."
Tim snickers.
"Really horrible," Jason continues as he helps himself from a bag of gold-wrapped chocolates from the cart,shoving them in his pockets. "My mom used to work in a place like this. Well, not like this he said, waving his arm around at the decor. He digs around in the cart until he finds the little soaps and shampoos and starts piling those into his pockets, too. Tim takes the ones that don't fit without a word. "But, you know, a hotel. She told me stories, man."
Tim's eyes go somehow soft and sharp at the same time. He searches Jason's face for a moment, then looks away. "You've never mentioned your family, before."
Jason's throat seizes up for a second. "You've never mentioned yours," he snaps when he can speak again.
Tim starts and looks down at his feet, guiltily. Before either of them can say anything else, though, Jason hears the click of hard-soled shoes on the marble floor and pokes Tim in the arm. "Showtime."
Tim makes an elaborate show of looking at a watch he isn't actually wearing as the housekeeper returns with a man in a dark suit pushing a gleaming black and metal wheelchair with the Regent Hotel logo in gold. "Finally," Jason mutters and takes it from him. He starts pushing the chair away down the hall. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Tim shove a dollar into the man's hand before turning on his heel to follow him.
"Why'd you give him money?" Jason hisses once they're out of earshot.
They turn a corner before Tim responds. "It was a tip."
Jason rolls his eyes. " I know it was a tip. But we haven't got a lot to go giving away."
Tim makes a face. "It fit the character. I just figured a bad tipper's not as memorable as I someone who doesn't tip at all." When Jason frowns, he continues. "Think of it as buying the chair for a buck."
Jason snorts and ruffles Tim's hair. Tim swats at him, half heartedly and leads him into the stairwell they had passed before. They wait there for a few minutes, idly wrestling, and then Tim pokes his head out the door. "I think we're clear."
"The guy in the lobby is going to recognize us," Jason protests.
"Not if we go down to the parking garage and leave that way," Tim says easily. He leads the way back to the elevators. While they're waiting for the car to return, Jason gets an idea.
"Hey," he says. He bumps the chair against he back of Tim's knees. "Sit down." Tim just makes a face at him like he's being childish. "No, really." He shoves forward hard, and Tim tumbles into the chair in an awkward sprawl. "We look a lot less suspicious if the chair isn't empty, dipshit."
Tim looks very put-upon, but he bends to flip the footrests out and tuck his feet under the straps on them. He sits back up and wiggles his way into a comfortable position just as the doors open and they are faced with an older couple in tacky Christmas sweaters. They can't seem to decide whether they ought to speak to the poor crippled boy or not, but they smile at Jason a little.
They ride down with the couple, trying very hard to look like they're brothers going for a stroll or something. The couple gets off at the third floor, which smells like flowers and mint when the doors open, so Jason thinks maybe there's a spa or something. He's never actually seen a spa - just on TV, anyway - and he kind of wants to go check it out and see if people really do pay good money to lay around in mud, but Tim hits the door-close button before Jason can start forward.
When they get to the underground garage, Jason pushes Tim out through the parking gate, waving at the guard in the booth, and down the sidewalk toward one of the department stores.
When they're out of sight of the hotel, he lets out a whoop and breaks into a run. Tim shouts in surprise before he throws his head back and starts laughing, holding on for dear life.
*
Jason's never had much use for religion or most of the trappings that go with it. The buildings themselves are a decent enough place to wait out the rain and they're one of the few places a guy won't get thrown out for being scruffy and disreputable and not a paying customer. Jason can sit through a mass or a sermon just fine if it's cold enough outside, though he tends to earn dirty looks by dozing or by laughing at inappropriate moments. It's no different from any other bullshit he's ever put up with, so Jason doesn't really care.
He's learned to steer clear of churches that don't have a denomination in their name, because they tend to be full of...really enthusiastic people. They always want to shake his hand or pat him on the back after the service - make themselves feel all friendly and charitable. It's the hypocrisy that bugs Jason even more than the touching, because he knows these are the same people who cross the street when he passes, who don't look at him when he asks for change, who wouldn't fucking piss if he were on fire. He hasn't actually hit anybody yet, though he did get thrown out of one place when he recognized one upstanding family man as the shithead john who'd broken his friend Lucy's nose. Jason hopes to hell he ruined the fuck's marriage, at least.
St. Sebastian's is something altogether different. Catholic churches in general tend to go a lot lighter on the handshaking and hellfire, and they're easier to get in and out of unnoticed. Nobody ever tries to hug you. St. Sebastian's isn't the oldest or the biggest or the nicest Catholic church in the city - it's a little run down around the edges, with flaking brick and stained-glass dark with age - but it does have something else going for it, and that something is Sister Claire.
She teaches the ESL bible study classes, among other things, and she's something like an aunt or a grandmother to Tulio, and even Manny sometimes. She's the one who opens the door for them when they get to the church - not the big double doors of the sanctuary, but the single, metal-reinforced door around back that leads toward the classrooms and the kitchen. She takes one look at their faces - Jason's grinning, but he knows he probably looks guilty too. Tim, on the other hand, looks perfectly bland and pleasant, which makes Jason want to shove snow down his shirt again.
They snagged some garland off a mailbox on the way over, with a bow and everything attached, and it's draped over the chair to hide the Regent logo. It's a nicer chair than she had before, the metal parts gleaming and the cloth dark and clean, the footrests still intact. Jason knows a guy who can do amazing things with spray paint and cardboard, so they won't have to worry about the logo in a few days.
For now, Sister Claire lets them pass, though she manages to look disapproving and fond all at once. She mostly likes Jason, even though he never comes to church unless there's going to be food. "Jason," she says as she locks the door behind them - St. Sebastian's is not in the best neighborhood in the city - "introduce me to your friend."
"Oh," Jason says, startled. He's gotten so used to Tim being a part of his life that he forgets he's only known him since October. Normally he goes with Rosa to church on All Saints' Day, but this year he and Tim were still sleeping off their candy binge by the time the bells stopped ringing. "Tim, this is Sister Claire."
"It's very nice to meet you, Sister," Tim says in an oddly formal voice. He takes her work-worn hand in his when she offers it and bows over it a little as he shakes it.
"Hm," Sister Claire says, and Jason recognizes her meaning as clearly as if she'd actually said, 'I'm on to you, young man.' It makes him wrap his arm around Tim's shoulder and ruffle his hair a little, because usually that tone is reserved for Jason. Hearing it turned on Tim, with the accompanying look, makes them two-of-a-kind in a way that Jason's discovering he rather likes.
"So," Jason says, when she lets them pass, "where's the grub?"
"I'm afraid we didn't save you any," Sister Claire says. She shakes her head sadly. "There really wasn't enough to go around this year."
Jason's stomach falls a little - less for the prospect of a missed meal, he's surprised to find, and more because of the idea of it. If St. Sebastian's is short of food at Christmas - well, that's kind of a bad omen for the new year, isn't it? If people can't be assed to drop canned food in the donation barrels or pass the damned plate... He's about to say something harsh and bitter about humanity when they turn the corner into the crowded rec room and he sees the spread - foil pans of sliced turkey and ham, casserole dishes full of corn and beans and dressing, pans piled high with rolls and buttered french bread, and a whole separate table full of homemade desserts and day-olds from the local bakeries. Everyone's helped themselves and found a table, except for a few milling around looking for seconds, but there's still plenty to go around. "I'm pretty sure nuns aren't supposed to lie," Jason says.
"I'm pretty sure you didn't pay for that wheelchair," she says blithely. "Rosa and the boys are near the back. Manuel helped carve up the hams after the service."
Which might mean Rosa would be taking home some soup bones. All right. Jason grins and bumps Sister Claire with his shoulder as he pushes the chair past her and into the room, Tim following behind.
"Hey, Jason!" someone calls from a group of girls by the punchbowl. "Merry Christmas!"
"Ho ho ho," he calls back, and one of the girls - Sherry - flips him off with a smile. He gets patted on the back twice and punched in the arm once, and several people stop him to say hello. Tim sticks close to his side, though, just following mutely. Jason looks around. "Don't you know anybody?" he asks him.
"I know your friends' names." Tim says, shrugging like it's nothing.
"Dude, how can you not know anybody," Jason asks, incredulous. "Everybody's, here."
Tim cuts him a sideways look. "I don't really make friend easily," he says, and breaks away to push off into the crowd.
Jason feels like he's put his foot in it, somehow, even though he didn't mean to be insulting. It just caught him off guard. Tim's smart and confident and quick on the draw with snappy comebacks. He's nice to old people and good with little kids. It's kind of a shock to realize maybe he isn't as open around other people as he is when he's just hanging out with Jason.
He seems to be all right, though, when Jason catches up to him. Not brooding or anything, like Jason knows he tends to, sometimes. He's found Rosa's table and taken an empty folding chair - or maybe it was Tulio's chair, because Tulio is perched on Tim's knee, telling him something with great excitement. Jason just stands there for a moment and watches, smiling, until Rosa turns around.
Her eyes get wide when she sees him standing there, so he cocks one eyebrow, flashes his most charming, lopsided grin, and gives the chair a push that sends it toward her. The wheels roll smoothly across the linoleum with hardly a whisper of sound, and it bumps against the table and comes to a stop.
"Padre Todopoderoso," she whispers, gripping the edge of the table. There's more Spanish after that, so fast that Jason only catches every tenth word or so, but he gets the general idea. She's praying, fast and fervently, thanking God, and for a moment Jason feels a flash of annoyance, because God didn't exhaust himself running around town, didn't sneak into the poshest hotel in Gotham and walk right out with a brand-spanking-new wheelchair. Then he realizes what she's really saying. 'Gracias a Dios por darme a mis hijos.'
Jason swallows.
She starts to get up, and Jason hurries over to catch her arm, because she looks kind of shaky. She turns and throws her arms around his neck, putting nearly all her weight on his shoulders, but Jason doesn't mind. He holds her up. She keeps praying against his shoulder, crying a little.
Thank you, God, for giving me my sons.
Jason meets Tim's eyes over her head, and sees him smile.
END
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I love how Tim managed to plan the whole thing out in the spur of the moment and how Jason trusts him enough to go with it. :D
Also, they are already great do gooders. :D
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We're still hammering out the backstory reveal a little at a time...
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I think that's about the nicest thing someone could say about my take on a character. ^___^ Thank you!
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Thank you for sharing this and Happy New Year Baby
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One small error caught my eye, though:
Well, not like this he said
I think you want closing quotes in there.
And, as always. I really like the sneakness and loyalty of your Tim. I'd love to see Tim and Jay doing something for Rosa and Manny and Tulio once Bruce adopts them
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Thanks for the error catch, too.
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Love the boys, this is just so them, and so deviously Tim *squeals*
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I love you for reading and reviewing. ^___^
i'm so hooked O_O can't wait to see more on this!
Did we satisfy you this week? lol. I think we put out four installments...
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N'aaawwwee! If I was an artist I'd kind have to sketch this. But, I'm not. But my imagination is great, and this scene makes my heart happy.
This is amazing... *happy sigh*
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