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[holyposition]

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t.laughlin

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[forzare]

God knows, Harry's been where Tim is. Nearly forty years old, with every year of his life harder than the last; the stakes higher, the danger greater, the violence escalating until it nearly devoured everyone he loved and cared for. He's been on the receiving end of hands around his throat, knives sunk down to his bones, kisses laced with venom, promises that required him to carve off pieces of his innocence and feed it to the hungry mouths of more powerful entities. He's been in the lake. He's been paralyzed in his own bed, reliving moments that haunt him still.

Laying on his back, he turns his head to face Tim. The hand pressed to the side of his face brushing along the hairs just behind his ear, the ends of his fingers cold but the palm warm. He curls his fingers downward, tucking them into his palm as he — well, pets Tim — carding his fingers along the edge of his ear and avoiding the bruised mark on his throat as he follows the line of muscle bunched there up and down.

"Not tonight," he murmurs, but it's not not ever. "I just wanted you to know we have that in common."

The others who had drowned, even if they were saved like Tim, could probably empathize with him as well. But, Harry remembers the bitter bite of Lake Michigan closing over his head, the delicious warmth that had finally been in reach soon after, how tired he'd been. How it hadn't hurt, not really. It just felt like being weightless. It was the coming back that had hurt the most.

"You should take a nap before tonight, you're gonna' need your strength. And I'll stay, unless someone throws me out and takes my place."

[holyposition]

“Okay. Thank you,” he agrees, with a soft nod. Tim doesn’t want to push, hates that he himself was victimized so publicly, in a situation where he has no choice but to talk about it over and over. There’s no time to process, no time to choose when and to whom to reveal his pain. Maybe they don’t need to reveal it at all, if they’ve both experienced it for themselves. They both know the moment of losing faith in their own lungs, when the body knows it’s out of fight. The fear and the helplessness that’s hard to articulate without breaking down, the final bargaining with God to hear his case and not cast him away for his sins. If Harry knows at least most of it, then it doesn’t need explaining. It’s more than most people will understand, without that.

Slowly, as if he’s afraid he might make himself flinch at his own movements, he shifts his head so his neck is stretched out, letting Harry’s cold fingertips touch the bruise. It makes him tense again, for a few breaths, but the cool sensation is soothing. A more intimate icepack.

“You can stay,” Tim offers, perhaps too quickly. “But, um. Hawk—he lives here, on the other side, but he’s been on this side a lot, cuz of everything. He won’t throw you out. He doesn’t have a right to, I don’t really know where we are right now, it’s-- complicated. If you don’t want to deal with that, I understand, but right now, I...”

Can’t be alone. He’s barely holding it together with Harry here, having no company but his thoughts would be...well, it would be bad. Tim can’t shut down now, not with so much to do. A nap he can accept to keep his brain working, but he doesn’t have time to sink fully into crisis mode.

“I want you here.”