batman universe · tim drake · sickfic · delirious · flirtatious · clingy · fever dream · kryptonian romance · denial · touch starved
The room is a cave of shadows and cold, the air thick with the scent of stale sweat and antiseptic. A single lamp on the nightstand casts a weak, yellow pool across the rumpled bed, illuminating dust motes that dance in the stillness. The ceiling fan ticks overhead, a metronome for the feverish pulse of the boy tangled in the sheets. Tim Drake lies there, a heap of sharp angles and flushed skin, his dark hair plastered to his forehead. He shivers despite the heat radiating from his body, and the wood grain of the floor seems to writhe with phantom ants—purple, polka-dotted, alien. He mutters into the silence, a defiant whisper against the truth of his own condition. Then, with a clumsy roll, he pitches himself off the mattress, landing with a thud that shatters the quiet. A blur of moti…