Secondhand Grief

Tim, of course, has mastered his cell phone. He has one ringtone for Bernard, one for his dad, and another for the general public. Occasionally it rings with a fourth or fifth ringtone, which seem to belong to people who Bernard's never met. He usually wanders off when he gets a call with the fourth ringtone. The fifth usually precedes Tim disappearing for a day and returning with his eyes glowing. Bernard would be afraid of what those calls and disappearances mean, but Tim had told him it's just old friends. Tim may not tell him anything, but he would trust him with his life, with his secrets, with his love.

Tim's phone rings with the fifth ringtone. "Tim Drake," Tim answers it as he always does, even though he knows who the person on the other end is (and presumably they know who he is). There's silence for a few seconds as Tim listens. "Noted," Tim says, and his tone is just…flat. There's no emotion in it. Bernard looks over at him and Tim's face, never very expressive, is a mask, completely blank, not showing a single emotion. "When?" He writes something down, and Bernard sees how stiffly he's moving. "Signing off." Why did he say that? It makes no sense to Bernard; Tim's always been odd, especially on the phone with his old friends, but even he's always said "goodbye", not "signing off". Tim hangs up the phone, and the way that he doesn't relax, doesn't let any of the emotion he must be feeling slip through his mask of skin, tells Bernard not to ask questions.

Tim isn't very good company for the next week. It's like he's on autopilot, going through the motions. When they're in public he pretends to act normal, in the way that Bernard realizes he'd used to act normal back in high school, and he doesn't wonder how he'd ever been fooled. If it weren't for the times they are alone, when Tim drops his mask of cheerfulness to reveal his mask of no emotion, he would be fooled this time, too. It's flattering, to be trusted enough that he drops his outermost mask when they're alone. Both of the masks, now that he can see that they're there, worry Bernard to the core. Something is seriously wrong with Tim, and it began being wrong with that phone call.

Tim doesn't work on his book. At all. Tim had been working on it steadily, as quickly and as perfectly as Tim does everything, but when he got that phone call he stopped completely, as if he can't bear to even think about working on it after whatever news he got in that phone call.

They don't have sex any more. They don't even touch, except incidentally. Bernard wants nothing more than to hug Tim, to take him into his arms and tell him everything's going to be all right until he believes it, until he lets all that emotion out, but when Tim doesn't want to be touched it's like he's set up a sign warning everybody away, one that even Bernard can't help but obey. When they're in bed, they remain on opposite sides, Tim as stiff as a board. Bernard knows that Tim's awake when he goes to sleep and when he wakes up. He worries that Tim isn't getting enough sleep. He hopes something changes soon, because a relationship where you can't speak, where you can't touch, isn't healthy.

On Wednesday, Tim is gone when Bernard wakes up. Bernard trusts Tim, knows that he's the most responsible and capable person on the face of the planet (probably; one of the top 10 for certain), so he doesn't worry. Much more than usual, anyway. Since his usual amount of worry these days is close to panic, he sits at home all day and chews his fingernails to the quick. He can't do anything for more than 10 minutes of time before he becomes impatient and changes the channel or switches magazines. The day drags on, seeming to take forever, and he can't remember a thing he's seen or read, or the invitations to parties he's turned down. Eventually he just curls up on the couch and waits for Tim to return home.

He nods off, and dreams that Tim comes home and wakes him up and kisses him and says "What were you so worried about? I'm right here," and his panic drains away in the warmth of Tim's touch. Then he wakes up for real, and the house is cold and dark and empty and he's still alone. The knock on the door comes again and he goes to answer it, wondering who could be knocking. Tim has a key and nobody else comes by without calling first.

Bernard opens the door, and there's a man supporting a very drunk Tim in a suit which Bernard has never seen before (he doesn't think he'll see it again, either; it's covered in vomit). On the street, Bernard sees a taxi.

"You need to pay the fare," Tim's supporter says. Bernard can't think, can't remember where his wallet is, so he fumbles in Tim's back pocket and pulls a hundred out of his wallet.

"Is this enough?" he asks, and it's obvious that it's more than enough. "Keep the change." He'd pay anything to get Tim back, and he knows Tim won't mind. He gives obscenely large tips all the time, whenever they're treated respectfully on their dates. "Social grease," he says, a gleam in his eye. "We can afford it, and maybe the story of the tip will spread so some other gay couple will get good treatment too. Actions have relevance beyond the immediate."

Bernard leads Tim to the bedroom, supporting most of his weight. It's strange to see him like this; Tim is usually so in control. He barely drinks, and his balance is so good that he sometimes walks on the very edges of roofs without worrying at all, without even worrying Bernard. But tonight Tim is drunk and can't even keep his balance just standing up like a normal person. They reach the bedroom and Bernard undresses Tim, Tim's clumsy efforts to help only hindering him. As Bernard pulls of Tim's socks Tim flops backward onto the bed.

"Alfred was a rock," he says, startling Bernard, who hadn't expected him to talk. "He held us all together."

"Alfred?" Bernard says as unobtrusively as possible, stuffing the suit into a trash bag. Tim can buy a new suit; this one has seen its last.

"Bruce's butler," Tim says. "But he raised Bruce and Dick and Jason. He was the only one who could make everybody stop fighting, make us get together for Christmas no matter what, even if it always had to be offset by a few days once my dad came out of his coma. He was…" Tim blows out a breath. "He was with Bruce for Bruce's whole life, you know? He put up with that for decades. Everybody else went crazy after a few years. I mean, it's Bruce."

Bernard doesn't know who Bruce is, but he doesn't want Tim to stop talking. He needs this, and so does Bernard. He makes an encouraging noise and crawls onto the bed and puts his arms around Tim.

"He…we aren't close to Bruce any more," Tim explains. "Not since we quit. Bruce is hard enough to deal with when you have something to talk about, not that he talks much, but the Mission is his entire life. Hard to talk to somebody when you have nothing in common. Not that's strictly true, but I'm not going to gossip with Bruce. He already knows it all, and who knows what he'd do with any new information you accidentally gave him. But anyway, Alfred could always bring us together, even when Bruce was being himself. Everybody kept in contact with Alfred. I think that everybody who'd ever met him was at his funeral." Tim falls silent, and Bernard tightens his grip to let him know he's there. "I don't know what we're going to do without him," Tim whispers, and that's his breaking point because tears are rolling down his cheeks and he's sobbing, crying like Bernard had never thought he'd see Tim cry, with great racking sobs that come from somewhere deep inside him and move them both, and all Bernard can do is hold him.

"It's going to be all right," he murmurs over and over into Tim's hair, and holds Tim as tightly as Tim holds him after Tim's nightmares.