Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Gorgeous art by  Chubby-P1nk, go visit her on tumblr to see more amazing art!

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              Tim swung his trusty axe hard, landing it on the zombie’s neck with practiced precision, severing the head in a single stroke.  It takes a lot of force to decapitate something with a single axe swing, but Tim has had months of practice, plus years of being a vigilante behind him, building his muscles, honing his body.

              It’s why he's alive.

              He believed, in his heart of hearts, that the rest of his family was also alive, out there, somewhere.  They’d gotten separated very early during the spread of the disease, the entire Bat team running to the ends of the earth, trying to stop the spread, or collect information to try to find a cure.  Tim’s last trip had been to Wisconsin, where he’d been attempting to reach a supposed enclave of non-infected humans to try to evacuate them.  But when he’d gotten there, the enclave had fallen.  Everyone was zombies.  The resulting mob had destroyed his motorcycle, leaving him with no transportation, no way back, and no way to communicate.

              By the time he’d set up a stronghold for himself and gotten a radio working, there was no one left in Gotham to respond.

              He knew they weren’t dead.  If he was alive, so were the other Bats.  They had just gone to ground, as he had, in an effort to stay alive and regroup.

              In the meantime, he fought for his life every day.  He heard the familiar moan behind him and turned lightening-quick, his axe plunging into the neck of the next zombie.  This one was a lot juicier.  Blood and bodily fluids squirted across his face and chest.  He took two seconds to wipe his eyes, ignored the rest, and went back to swinging.

              Half an hour later, and he finally killed the last of this mob.  He panted, bending over, resting his hands on his knees.  He was dripping with viscera.  He didn’t care.  He was used to it.  The grossness didn’t matter.  What mattered were vegetables.

              He’d found the dilapidated grocery store months ago, and had already cleaned out every single piece of canned or preserved food available.  Sometimes he went back looking for things he could use as tools (old shopping carts were EXTREMELY useful for that).  Last time he’d checked, all the produce had either been ransacked by animals or rotten.

              But now, months later, the seeds of what had been rotting were starting to grow.  He found apple tree saplings, cucumber vines, green bean sprouts, corn stalks.  Not all of it was useful (it would take too long to try to grow a fucking apple tree), but a lot of these would grow well in his indoor garden, where he could grow vegetables off-season to try to have food year-round.

              He needed it.  He was providing food for two mouths, now.

              As he pushed the shopping cart full of young vegetable plants down the deserted road, he thought about his new pet.  Well, he was more than a pet, now.  A zombie, but not, there was something different about him that made him almost seem to have a mind, on some days.  And then not on other days.  Tim hadn’t figured the mystery out yet, but he would.

              Danny was indeed a mystery.  The way Tim figured it, he had been a meta of some kind, and then had gotten bitten.  His meta genes were somehow partially fighting off the infection, but every day was a battle.  On some days, Danny seemed almost human.  He never spoke, but he’d seem to understand Tim, following his verbal commands, even going so far as to look him in the eyes and gesture.  On those days, his body looked fresher.  His skin less grey, almost with a hint of color to it.  Thicker hair.  His body parts would stay attached.

              On other days, he was much, much more rotted and decomposed.  Sometimes, it was really bad.  Sometimes an arm or a leg would rot right off, just fall onto the floor, and Danny wouldn’t even notice.  He seemed to not understand a word Tim said, or even be able to comprehend language at all.  But even then, even on those days, he wasn’t fully a zombie.

              He ate food, for one thing, not human flesh.  That part never changed, no matter how zombie-like he became.  Which was an incredible blessing, because if he ever started craving flesh, he’d be a danger to Tim.  But it never happened.  In fact, Danny never got violent with Tim.  Not once.  Sometimes he’d get very upset and would thrash in general, screaming and moaning, but it wasn’t at Tim. It was just rage and frustration, directed at whatever object was nearest, and honestly, Tim completely understood.  The situation was shit.  Sometimes you just needed to scream and throw things.

              He also slept.  He didn’t sleep every day- he definitely needed less sleep than Tim did- but he did sleep.  It was how Tim had caught him in the first place, actually.  During a mob fight, Tim was swinging his axe with deadly precision like usual, when one of the zombies ducked.

              Zombies did not duck.  They had no sense of self-preservation.  They had no thought.  Ducking was a reaction to the environment- it showed thought.  And then when Tim had tried to approach him, he ran.

              Tim had tracked him for days.  Watching.  Observing.  Seeing him rummage through old dumpsters and trash cans and pull out rotten food and eat it.  Watched him lean down to a puddle and drink water.  The water did nothing for him, as it just leaked out of the holes in his throat, but the fact that he was doing it at all told Tim this zombie wasn’t fully lost.

              And so Tim had captured him and taken him home.

              It had taken months to build up trust between the two of them.  At first, Danny kept running away.  Tim tried to explain to him that he could help him.  Provide food for him.  Give him somewhere safe to sleep.  But he didn’t seem to understand, at first. 

              But now?

              Now he understood.

              Now, they knew each other.  Danny trusted Tim.  Stayed in Tim’s bunker voluntarily.  Never wandered far.  Always came back at night.  Ate the food Tim provided for him.  And Tim trusted Danny in return.  Trusted Danny not to hurt him.  Not to try to eat him, or bite him, or attack him.

              Tim pushed the shopping cart up to the front door of the bunker and typed in the six-digit code.  It beeped an acknowledgement and the door slid open.  He dragged the cart inside and set it in the corner at the top of the stairs, too tired to deal with that right now.  He’d plant it all in the morning.

              His feet ached as he walked down the stairs into the subterranean lab that he’d found to use as a stronghold.

              “Nnnnnnuhhh,” a familiar voice said from the dark shadows in the corner.

              “Glad to see you too, Danny,” Tim said, removing his makeshift axe holster and letting it plonk down beside the stairwell.  He stood up straight and cracked his back, relieved to not have to be carrying it anymore.  He walked over to the light switch and turned it on, bathing the bunker in light.

              It revealed the abandoned lab that Tim had turned into his stronghold.  Subterranean, steel-lined walls and an array of odd but useful equipment had made it the perfect place to set up shop.  While he didn’t have what he needed here to work on a cure, there was plenty of equipment to create weapons and other survival tools with.  He’d even managed to create a functioning radio- but as of yet, hadn’t picked up any other signals.

              The other bonus of this place was the weird, glowing green power source.  It wasn’t a generator.  It seemed to be some kind of radiation, but it didn’t register on a Geiger counter.  It was contained within a steel tank with incredibly thick glass walls, and Tim had only realized it was a power source because some old equipment had still been hooked up to it.  It wasn’t normal, not in the least, and so it had taken him quite a lot of tinkering to figure out how to use it.  But now, at least, he had powered lights, a powered door with a magnetic seal lock, and a few kitchen gadgets he’d scrounged up so that he could actually cook without having to go outside and build a fire.

              He was starving, and also parched.  He’d been out a lot longer than he’d intended (running into two zombie mobs tended to slow you down).  He was also itching from all the dried blood and flesh bits sticking to his skin.  He didn’t know what physical need to take care of first.

              In the end, exhaustion won out, and he collapsed into a lab chair.

              “Uuuuuunnngh?”

              “Tired, buddy,” Tim said, lifting his hand to his forehead.  “So fucking thirsty,” he added, tilting his head to rest on the back of the chair.

              He heard Danny shuffling, and out of the corner of his eye, watch him shamble towards the water distiller.  Tim had it hooked up to a basin he’d set up outside, then drilled a pipe through the ceiling where the rainwater collected and purified.  He cocked his head as he watched Danny’s rotting hand pick up a cup and hold it beneath where he knew the water came out.  He grunted in frustration as he couldn’t figure out how to turn the valve.

              “Hey, hey, it’s okay,” Tim said, forcing himself to his feet despite the exhaustion.  “That’s really sweet, that you wanted to get water for me.”

              Tim stood beside Danny and gently wrapped his hand around the cup in his hand, his fingers careful not to scrape the delicate gray skin on Danny’s rotting flesh.  He didn’t yank the cup out of Danny’s hand, either, but instead just helped him steady it.  He reached over with his other one, and took his other hand, which today was just bones.  He gently lifted it towards the valve and guided Danny through how to turn it, probably for the thirtieth time.  Danny’s smile when water came out was priceless, and worth the effort.  He triumphantly held the cup up, forgetting to turn off the stream, making water pour all over the floor.  Tim quickly shut the valve off.  He didn’t make a fuss.  Danny was the brightest thing in his life right now, and he would never, ever yell at him for trying.  Even if it meant Tim’s shoes were wet.  Well, wetter.  They were already soaked in blood.

              Danny looked up at him and held out the cup, smiling.  Tim looked into his eyes and couldn’t help being absolutely endeared by them.  He had two of them today; one milky white, and the other crystal clear and blue.

              Tim’s heart gave a thump when he looked into Danny’s one healthy eye.  In it, he could see the intelligence buried in there, constantly trying to claw its way to the surface, fighting against the zombie infection.  It was because of good days like this that Tim knew Danny’s eyes were blue.  Some days, they were white.  Some days, they were missing.  Exactly once, they had both been blue.  That had been the best day of their lives, so far.  Danny had been so healthy.  His skin had actually had some color to it, rather than the usual ashen grey.  His black hair had grown in so much Tim couldn’t even see his scalp.  And it was the only time his mind had ever been there enough to talk.

              “Tim,” he’d said.  Just that.

              Tim’s heart had leapt into his throat.  He dropped his project immediately, losing hours of work, and ran to Danny’s side.

              “Tim.”

              “Yes! Yes, I’m here.  I’m listening.  What is it?”

              Danny had looked at him with both of his blue eyes and smiled.

              “I’m Danny,” he’d said.

              And that was all.

              Oh, but it had been the most precious two words Tim had ever heard in his life.  For one, he confirmed that Danny spoke English, or used to, back when he could speak.

              And two, Tim now knew his name.

              That was the moment, Tim realized.  That was the moment he’d stopped considering Danny to be his pet, and began thinking of him as his companion.  Even though the next day he’d rotted so badly two of his limbs fell off, it didn’t matter- Tim saw him as a person, now.  A person with a name.

              Tim still didn’t know what caused Danny’s state to fluctuate like that.  It seemed to go in some sort of cycle, though Tim had yet to figure out a pattern.  He kept a detailed log of Danny’s daily condition, as well as a list of all the activities he’d done that day, trying to figure it out.  Trying to see a pattern.  But so far, it seemed random.  One day, he’d be sporting real eyes and fingers so healthy Tim could see his fingerprints on the tips of them, and the next, he’d be half skeleton.  It was infuriating.

              His mind’s condition echoed his body’s.  On days like this, Danny was there enough to hear Tim say “I’m thirsty”, make the connection to the thought “he needs water”, then even remember how to get water (mostly).  On other days, Danny was little more than a moaning corpse in the corner, and Tim had to coax him just to eat.

              Tim drank the water Danny handed him, and his heart lurched as he watched how happy his face was that Tim had taken his gift.

              He looked at that innocent smile and couldn’t deny him.  He held out the cup, giving it back to him.

              “Another one?” he said.

              Danny beamed.  He turned towards the spigot and lifted his bony hand, remembering how to operate the valve for the moment, since Tim had just shown him.  He’d even remembered to turn it off, and with a triumphant grin, handed the cup to Tim.

              Tim had to force himself not to get teary-eyed as he drank the second cup.

              “Thanks, buddy,” he said, handing the cup back to Danny.  Danny went to pour more water.

              “I don’t need another one.”

              Danny poured the cup anyway, and Tim sighed.  Well, it wouldn’t hurt him to drink a third…

              Danny lifted the cup to his own mouth and tried to drink it.  But he didn’t really have lips today.  The water sloshed out between his exposed teeth and fell out of his cheek, dribbling down his neck.

              “Nnnnnuuh!” Danny grunted in exasperation, slamming the cup down on the counter.

              “Hey, hey, it’s okay,” Tim said, taking both of Danny’s hands into his.  Months ago, he would have called that action insane, to take the hands of an infected zombie into his own bare hands, unprotected by gloves or armor.  But he trusted Danny not to scratch him or bite him.  Ever.  No matter how lost his mind sometimes became, he knew not to do that.

              “Hey, are you thirsty?  I can get the tube,” Tim said.  Danny nodded.

              Tim’s exhaustion was fading now.  It always did, whenever he focused on taking care of Danny instead of himself.  He reached behind to a hook on the wall and pulled out a plastic tube that they used for feeding Danny on days when his throat was too rotten to swallow.

              “Sit,” Tim said, pointing at the chair.  Danny plopped down, and without needed to be told, tilted his head back and opened his mouth.

              Tim came over and slid the plastic tube down into his throat.  No matter how many times they did this, Tim always felt…weird about it.  Something about shoving something deep in another guy’s throat was, well.  He didn’t want to think about it.  He filled the cup and held the tube up, pouring the water into the funnel at the top.  He watched it slide down the tube, past the rotting hole in Danny’s cheek, and saw him swallow.

              “Nguuuuh,” Danny said, making the sign for more.  So he was with it enough today to remember signs.  Wow, he was really there, then.

              Tim nodded, and did it again.  Then a third time.  He thought he saw a bit of color come back to Danny’s cheeks.  Just a tiny hint of red blush.  It was encouraging.  He smiled, and gently pulled the tube out.

              Danny looked up at him with eyes made of stars.  Like Tim was his whole universe.  Like he was in love.

              Tim swallowed thickly and quickly turned away.

              It wasn’t the first time Danny had looked at him like that.

              It made perfect sense, considering that he relied on him for his entire existence, and in addition to that, they had no one else.

              But thoughts like that weren’t helpful, and Tim shoved them aside.

              After that, he started to cook some dinner (he really was starving), and then went to work.  His whole body itched from dried zombie juices, but he would deal with that later.  Right now, he had to work on the irrigation system for the indoor greenhouse, so he could plant the seedlings before they dried up and died.

              Later that night, his head was buried in his work when he heard rustling behind him.

              “Mmmmaaaa.”

              It had been awhile since Danny had said anything, so Tim paused in his work and turned around.  He saw him curled up in his “bed”, which was little more than a nest of blankets on the floor, all covered in blood and ooze and decomposition liquid.  Tim’s own “bed” was a few feet away from it, a pile of couch cushions with a slightly cleaner blanket on top.  He desperately wished he could wash Danny’s bedding for him, but they didn’t have nearly enough water for that.

              Danny twitched in his sleep and let out a yelp.  Tim immediately dropped what he was working on and ran over to him.  He knelt at his side and looked down.  His face was twisted in an expression of distress, his brow furrowed and his jaw clenched tight.  His three fingers (which were all he had on his left hand now) clutched at the blanket, while his skeleton hand was curled tight in a fist.

              “Nnnnnnn!” he cried in his sleep.

              Tim reached out his hand and gently brushed it through Danny’s hair.  Strands fell out between his fingers, but he didn’t care.  They would grow back on another good day.

              “Shhhhh,” Tim said, “Hey, hey.  Danny.  Danny, it’s okay.”

              Danny’s eyes flew open, but they couldn’t see.  They darted left and right, but his good eye was rotten now, and his bad one looked like it was about to fall out.  He was devolving at the moment.  Tim couldn’t even begin to imagine what that must have felt like; to constantly, repeatedly be rotting, then healing, then rotting again.  It had to be hell.

              “Shhh, I’m here.  It’s Tim.  It’s Tim.  You’re safe.”

              Danny calmed, his heaving breaths slowing as Tim pet his hair, and he reached out with his hands to clasp at Tim.  Tim knelt to the ground so he could reach him, and Danny pulled him roughly into his arms, wrapping them all the way around Tim’s back.

              Tim let him.  He had no other way of comforting him, so if his presence could make this transition easier, he would.  He lay down in the nest of blankets and felt Danny curl into him, pressing his face against Tim’s chest, while both of them wrapped their arms tightly around each other.

              “Shhhh, I got you,” he said, holding onto him as tightly as he could, not caring about the stench, not caring that a piece of Danny’s face came off when his fingers brushed it.  “I got you,” he said even softer.  “You’re safe.”

              “Mmmmm,” Danny said, his moan content now, and he closed his eyes.  A moment later he was asleep, his fingers still desperately clinging to Tim’s shirt, and there was nothing in the universe that would make him move.

Chapter Text

              Tim woke up with a rotting corpse in his arms.

              At least, that’s what Danny looked, felt, and smelled like.

              But then he did something a corpse doesn’t do.

              He stirred.

              He probably tried to open his eyes.  Tim didn’t know.  He didn’t have eyelids, or eyes.  He was just staring into two empty sockets, on a face that was mostly a blob of grey, rotten flesh, with a few spots of white bone showing.  He was almost bald, with nothing more than a few strands of black hair coming out the top.

              “Nnnnn!” he cried, somehow retaining enough vocal flesh and lung capacity to make sounds.

              “Shhhh,” Tim said, gently stroking his squishy forehead.  “I’m here.”

              Even without ears, Tim knew Danny could still hear him.  Still feel him.  Nothing about zombies made scientific sense- dead corpses shouldn’t be able to move, but they did.  Somehow.

              When Tim stroked his face, he calmed.

              “Are you hungry?”

              Danny didn’t reply, or react.  He probably couldn’t understand English today.

              Tim gently- very very gently- reached down to Danny’s fingers and tried to uncurl them from his shirt.  It didn’t matter.  They all cracked off anyway.  Danny’s entire right arm detached from his shoulder.  Danny didn’t notice, and Tim sighed with irritation.  Some part of him, in the back of his mind, realized this was horrifying.  But he was so used to it that in the moment, it was just annoying.

              As slowly as he could, he disentangled himself from Danny and stood up.  Danny weakly reached for where he’d been with his other arm, but other than that, didn’t react.

              “Sorry, buddy.  Got work to do.  You’re having a bad day anyway.  Just rest, okay?”

              Danny didn’t respond.

              Tim picked up the rotten arm and bits of fingers, then walked up the stairs to the door.  He opened it and walked a good distance away, before tossing the rotten bits of flesh on the ground and headed back.  The way Danny existed was so weird.  Pieces of him would fall off, and then they were just…gone.  Not part of him anymore.  And then a few days later, those piece would grow back.

              It was like he succumbed to the virus, but then some secondary force was healing him at the same time.  The healing force didn’t stop the virus.  It ran its course.  But then he would heal afterwards.  It used to terrify Tim, watching Danny fall apart, never sure if he’d come back around again before it was too late.  But now he was used to it.  Danny always healed.  He trusted that it would happen.  And so he focused instead on trying to figure out the pattern, though he couldn’t focus on that today.  Today, he had seedlings to plant.

              * * *

              It rained, and rained, and rained.  Tim sighed with absolute relief, over and over, the more the rain continued.  All his catch basins were full.  All his 5-gallon water bottles were full (he’d stumbled upon an entire overturned Poland Spring truck which had been an incredible find, despite all of the containers being empty).  They would have water for months.  He happily tested out his irrigation system, which had its own catch basin and a pipe leading down to the garden.  It was satisfying to watch the sprinklers he’d built ooze out water from the gravitational pressure.  All he had to do to water the plants was have water in the basin and turn a valve.  Awesome.  Next, he’d have to work on growing lights.

              But for now, it was raining, and he was going to take advantage of it.  He took their bedding and laid it all out in the rain, setting it on top of the blacktop of the road where it wouldn’t get muddy.  He left those to soak in the water and then started working on carrying the full 5-gallon bottles down the stairs, one at a time, though he had to be careful when he opened the magnetic door, because there was some flooding going on.

              Danny watched him work, looking up the stairs at the rain.  Tim went back outside, picked up a full bottle, and headed back in, careful not to slip on the wet stairs.  It wasn’t until he was halfway down that he’d noticed Danny had followed him, and was carrying a 5-gallon bottle right behind him.

              Tim set it down and Danny set his right next to it.

              “Dude, you’re strong today!” Tim said.  Danny gave him a bright smile.  “Oh man, this is awesome!  It’ll be half the work!”

              Danny gave him a thumbs-up.  A fucking thumbs-up.  Tim’s heart alighted with joy.  He looked into his eyes, one shining blue, the other pale but with the hint of an iris.  They both smiled at each other, and then got back to work, each taking a turn carrying the full bottles down, until they had them all.  Tim looked at their glorious bounty of water and grinned.

              Danny grinned right back.

              Tim’s heart leapt into his throat.

              It was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen.

              He shoved that thought aside and went back out into the rain.  He checked on the blankets, and was satisfied to see them getting cleaner.  He lifted each of them and then flipped them over, watching the grimy water slosh away.

              Then he took a moment to feel the water on himself.  To really feel it.  It was freezing cold, but it was nice to feel clean.  He started scrubbing at his skin with his hands, rubbing the caked blood and zombie bits off of his skin.  Oh, he could get clean clean! 

              He could wash his clothes, too!

              He reached down to the hem of his shirt and pulled it off over his head.  With a huge sigh of relief he spread his arms out and looked up into the water pouring down from the sky.  Oh, it was a thing of beauty.  He walked over to one of his smaller catch basins, one he could dump out when he was done, and dropped his shirt into it.

              He was shivering, but he didn’t fucking care.  He yanked off his shoes and threw them in, too.  Then his socks, pants, and underwear.  He pushed his hands down into the water and watched the red and brown rise up off his clothes, tainting the water pink.  But the rain flushed it out even as it got sullied, and he washed his clothes as best he could, then let them soak for a bit.

              He then scrubbed himself, dunking his whole head into the water, trying to get the chunks of dead zombie out of his hair.  Thank God he didn’t have a beard to worry about; the grocery store had had years’ worth of razors and shaving cream, and dammit he was going to attempt to look civilized.  He sighed as he tossed his head back up, water flinging everywhere, and it felt so good.

              Now he was getting greedy.  Now he wanted to wash the whole rest of himself.  He wanted a goddamn bath.  He glanced around at his other basins, deciding which one to sacrifice, and settled on one that he thought he could tip over afterwards if Danny helped him.  If it kept raining like this, it’d re-fill with fresh water afterwards.

              He climbed into the plastic container, unsure of what it had once been used for, but whatever, it was big enough to fit him.  He was actually shivering less now, as his body acclimated to the cold, and he reminded himself he couldn’t take too long, or he’d risk hypothermia.  But he knew he had an electric heater down in the bunker and goddamn it, he wanted to wash.

              He sighed as he lay down in the water.  It actually provided a reprieve from the raindrops hammering his skin.  He sucked in air and dunked his head under, and listened to the sound of the drops hitting the surface, letting it soothe him.  It was really comforting.

              He came back up and began to scrub every inch of himself, relieved to finally get the crusty, cracked grime off of his skin.  It felt so good.  Like luxury.  The rain started to let up, but he didn’t care.  He was going to get fucking clean, no matter how long it took.

              When he was done scrubbing, the rain had stopped, and he still didn’t want to get out.  So he laid back and closed his eyes, and pretended the water was warm.  Pretended he was home, in Wayne Manor, soaking in the tub next to his room.  Pretended Alfred had laid out a warm towel for him, fresh from the dryer.  That Jason was downstairs cooking in the kitchen, and whatever it was, it smelled delicious.  Damian and Bruce were fencing, the clink-clink sounds of their epees wafting up the hallway…

              “Nnnngh?”

              Tim’s eyes flew open to see Danny standing over him, staring down into the basin.

              “It’s okay.  I just wanted a bath,” Tim explained.  “I’m fine.”

              Danny didn’t move.  Instead, his eyes dragged down Tim’s body slowly, probably looking for injuries, trying to make sure he was okay.  When his gaze got to his dick it lingered, and Tim became self-conscious, sitting up and closing his legs.  Danny’s eyes flew back to his face and…did Tim see a blush on his cheeks?

              Did Danny have enough blood in him to blush?

              Heat rose to Tim’s own cheeks, despite the cold, and he sat up further, folding his knees under himself.

              “I.  Uh.  Wanted to wash my clothes, too,” he mumbled.

              Danny nodded, and then reached down with his arms to grab the hem of his shirt.  He pulled it over his head, and Tim was greeted with the sight of a nearly whole abdomen.  Danny was muscular, a well-defined six pack staring back at Tim with a hint of pink to it under the rotting grey.  Tim’s blush deepened as he found his eyes wandering, staring at two completely whole, dark nipples, which were hard in the cold.  Then up to an almost fully formed throat, just a little bit of sinew showing underneath a few inches of missing skin. 

              “You look…really good today,” Tim managed.

              Danny gave him a smile that Tim swore looked almost… flirtatious.

              “Mmmm,” Danny said, his eyes raking over Tim’s body again, and Tim blushed really hard this time.

              They’d been naked around each other before.  Lots of times.  Tim had come back with injuries that’d needed stitching, or he’d torn his clothes and needed to put on new ones, or he really really needed to give himself a sponge bath.  And Danny’s clothes kept rotting, so every now and then Tim had to go out and find him new ones and help him change.

              But Danny had never been this healthy before, during any of those times.  Each of those times, Tim had felt more like being around a pet, rather than a…a…

              Danny reached up his hands to his waistband, and all on his own, figured out how to unbutton the fly.  Tim’s eyes grew wide as he let his pants fall to his ankles.  His gaze went straight to between Danny’s legs, because he was a weak human being with no self-control, and not only did Danny have a dick today, it was half-hard.

              Tim’s eyes flew up to Danny’s face and their gazes locked.  Danny licked his lips- he had lips- and gave him a suggestive smile.

              “Danny,” Tim breathed. 

              “…iiiiiim,” he said, and Tim’s heart was going a thousand miles an hour, that was his name, that was Danny’s attempt at his name.

              Oh god oh god oh god oh god…

              Tim’s heart was pounding wildly.  He shouldn’t be feeling this.  Danny didn’t know what he was doing, his mind wasn’t all there, he was sick, he had an illness and Tim was his fucking caretaker for fuck’s sake.

              Danny stepped out of his shoes with the coordination of a person who’d done it a thousand times.  Like a person who had almost all of his wits about him.  He bent down and picked up his pants, socks, and shoes, and held them out towards Tim.

              “Uuugh?”

              “Over there,” Tim said, pointing to the barrel where he’d dunked his own clothes.  “Just throw them in with mine.  I’ll wash everything.”

              Danny gave a nod, and then turned.  Tim couldn’t help it- he stared at his bare ass as he walked, even if chunks of his skin were missing, it was still gorgeous to look at.  Tim pressed his mouth into a thin line and he cursed his bisexual self.  This shouldn’t happen.  This wasn’t supposed to happen.

              Danny shoved his clothes into the water, and then blinked several times.  He seemed to forget where he was, and what he was doing.  He stared at the water, unmoving, for over a minute straight.

              Tim started to shiver again.  He had to get warmed up.  But he didn’t want to climb out of the basin, completely naked, when Danny was right there.

              “Danny,” he said.

              Danny’s head snapped up and he looked over at Tim, confused.  Then he smiled brightly, almost as if he’d forgotten Tim was there, and was seeing him for the first time.

              It broke Tim’s heart.  It reminded him that Danny wasn’t all there.  There was no way they could have a romantic type of relationship.  Not even if, when Danny saw Tim, he smiled at him like that.

              “Go inside,” Tim said.  “It’s too cold out here.”

              Danny nodded.  Oh, it was a good day when he could communicate with nods and gestures.  Tim’s heart broke even further as he turned and went back inside, following Tim’s directions without question, without understanding, because he trusted him.

              And Tim was not an asshole and he would not take advantage of that.

              * * *

              Tim swung his axe at what it was meant for, for once, splinters of wood flying in every direction as he chopped up the fallen log into pieces small enough to carry.  He tossed them onto his heavy-duty cart and swung again.

              Autumn was coming, and the little electric heater they had was not going to be enough for winter in Wisconsin.  So he was building a fireplace.  The house he was chopping wood next to already had one, and he was slowly dismantling it over the course of a week, cannibalizing the flue and fireproof bricks.  In addition to that, he was also going to need to stock up on huge amounts of wood to burn, and this dried log was perfect.

              “Rrrrrngghgh?” Danny said, holding out a large stick with leaves all over it.

              “That’s a good one, just take the leaves off,” Tim told him.  It was another really good day for Danny.  After the rain, he’d fallen into a horrible decomposed state where Tim had had to tube feed him for three straight days.  And then he’d bounced back, and was now smart enough to find firewood, and understand directions like “take the leaves off”.  Tim watched in fascination as he worked, sticking out his tongue between his cracked lips in concentration.

              Tim went back to chopping wood.  It felt good to work together as a team.  Even if he felt like he never accomplished anything, because every single day was just surviving, surviving, surviving.  It still felt good to work on something together.

              “Ugnnng?” Danny said, lifting his head to stare out into the trees.  Tim rested his axe and wiped the sweat off his forehead with the back of his arm.

              “What do you see, buddy?” Tim asked, peering into the trees as well.  If they were very lucky, it might be a raccoon or a deer.  Something they could eat.  Tim glanced over at his bow and wondered if he could get to it without scaring…

              They both heard the sound at the same time.  Every muscle in Tim’s body tensed.  Danny flew to his feet and dropped the stick he was working on.

              Moans.  Rustling.  Shuffling.

              It sounded like at least a dozen of them.

              “Shit,” Tim said.  He quickly surveyed all his tools and all his work, deciding within seconds whether it was worth it to stay and fight, or if he was okay with this stuff potentially getting destroyed as zombies mindlessly walked all over it as they beelined for him.  The heavy-duty cart was the only means he had of carrying heavier things like logs and bricks, and he needed that in order to build anything.  Not to mention the bow, a saw, and several other extremely useful tools that he wasn’t sure he’d be able to replace.

              He was going to have to defend his stuff.  Again.

              He grabbed the axe, stepped forward so that he was between the mob and his tools, and stood ready.  At least he didn’t have to worry about Danny.  Other zombies were no danger to him; they just ignored him as one of their own.

              He waited until the first one cleared the trees.  With a cry he swung his axe directly at its neck, and in a single blow, it was decapitated.  Blood squirted out from its jugular veins, straight up, then at an angle as the useless body fell.  The spray left two lines of red across Tim’s body, and he sighed.  So much for clean clothes.

              The next zombie appeared about twenty feet to the left.  Tim ignored it for now; that meant he had about twenty seconds before it reached him.  Another one stumbled through the brush in front of him, its long blond hair tangled full of leaves, half of its scalp missing.  He had it down in seconds, and then a third one was coming, and then a fourth.  He handled them both, carefully watching his breathing, making sure to keep his body as calm as possible to keep up his endurance.

              By the eighth or ninth zombie, he was breathing hard.  Three of them were practically on top of each other, and he couldn’t get close enough to kill one without another being able to reach out and scratch him.  He grabbed his bow and lined up an arrow, aiming it for the middle one’s forehead.  If he could just slow it down a little, get them to separate…

              He heard the sound of shifting bricks two seconds before he saw the shadow move.  He turned to see the brick chimney of the house wobbling as a brainless zombie insistently kept walking into it, pushing with all its zombie strength.  As the bricks crumbled and fell, Tim weighed his options.  If he leapt to the right, he’d be right in the arms of the three zombies.  If he leapt to the left, he’d be landing in a pile of stone rubble, highly likely to break an ankle.  If he leapt forward, he might be able to clear the chimney, or the top of it might land on him.

              Three terrible options, and his brain had .2 seconds to decide.

              He decided the chance that he might clear the chimney was his best shot and leapt forward.  He rolled, watching the shadow of the bricks as they came tumbling down grow longer as they grew closer.  He kept going, running at top speed, almost there…

              He felt a sharp pain in the back of his skull as a loose brick flew off and hit him.  His vision swam.  He stumbled, and landed face-down on the rocks.  Concussion, was his first thought.  Stay awake.  Stay awake.  Stay awake.

              He heard the moan of a zombie inches from his head.  It opened its mouth.  This was it.  It was about to bite him.  What a way to die.

              “Aaaaaarrrrghhhh!” Danny screamed.  He leapt out of nowhere, plowing his whole body into the zombie nearest Tim, knocking it back several feet.  He shoved it over, forcing it to land on its back.

              “Raaaaargh!” Danny screamed again, viciously attacking the three zombies that had nearly gotten Tim, swinging his arms wildly, scratching at them with his fingernails.

              He picked up a rock and smashed it into one of their heads.  Its skull caved in, and he smashed again, then again, until it was a bloody, soupy mess, blood and brain matter splashing back to land on Danny’s face.  He didn’t seem to notice.  The zombie fell to the ground in a useless moan.

              The other two were nearly at Tim.  Danny reached out and grabbed each of their arms, trying to yank them back.  With one of them, it worked, and it fell backwards, falling to the ground.  With the other, its arm came off, which didn’t slow its approach towards Tim whatsoever.

              Tim tried to roll over despite the fact that he was seeing triple, but found his leg pinned under something.  He tried to look, but all he saw was a swimming pile of bricks that he couldn’t make sense of.

              Danny went feral.  He leapt from behind onto the zombie that was nearly at Tim’s head, wrapping his arms around it’s neck and his feet around its waist.  The zombie snarled and clawed at him, it’s nails scratching down his arms, scraping his dull grey flesh away.  Blood oozed down his skin from the injuries, but he didn’t seem to feel it, and it had no other effect.  He was already infected, after all.  Instead he yanked the zombie back, forcing it to fall to the ground, both of them thrashing.

              Danny opened his mouth and sank his teeth into the top of the zombie’s skull.  Designed for exactly that purpose, his teeth easily bit through the decaying bone and plunged into the zombie’s brain.  He gnawed at it like a wild animal, his face getting drenched in blood and brain matter.

              “Muuuuuuhn,” another zombie said, inches from Tim.  Danny’s eyes snapped up and he threw himself at it.  He yanked it back violently, throwing it so hard it went airborne, landing over four feet away.  Danny put himself between Tim and the rest of the mob, his back to Tim, his hands curled in menace and his teeth bared.

              Tim was amazed at Danny’s ability to fight.  Tim knew how much training it took to be able to fight off multiple opponents, and Danny was doing it, keeping his mind on his protective target and prioritizing his attacks based on that.  It was more than just instinct or desire to protect Tim.  Danny had practice at fighting multiple enemies.  A lot of it.  With wide eyes, Tim realized that Danny was trained.  In hand-to-hand combat.  Trained so well that he could do it on reflex, even without his mind fully present.

              Combining that with the theory that Danny was a meta, Tim wondered for a brief moment if Danny was a vigilante.  Or had been.  He supposed titles like that no longer mattered, when neither good nor evil existed anymore.  There was only life and death now.  Only survival.

              The zombies that he’d knocked down were getting up now, slowly and wobbling.  Danny snarled at them, and at the others creeping towards Tim, his face full of rage, spit flying from his mouth.  As they approached his breathing came harder and his face became more and more angry.  He bared his teeth.  When the next one approached, Danny picked up it’s entire body and threw it at the others with a scream.

              “Miiiiiine!” he cried, leaping at them, clawing at their faces.  Tim could barely see, his vision swimming as hard as it was, but he thought he saw a green flash of light illuminate the zombies wherever Danny looked at them.  It must have been the concussion, because Danny turned around for a second to look at him, and he swore he saw the green power source from the bunker glowing in Danny’s eyes, which didn’t make any sense.  His brain must have been misfiring.  And that was the last thing he saw before he passed out.

              * * *

              Tim woke up still lying on the ground.

              Wait, no.  That wasn’t accurate.  He was now lying on his back, not on his face; this ground was flat dirt, not bumpy rubble, and there was nothing pinning him down anymore.

              “Rrrrrragh!” Danny screamed in rage, and then he heard the sound of a fist pounding on metal.  Tim tried to turn his head, but the action made him dizzy and violently nauseous.

              He heard Danny pounding on something again, and he had to see.  Much more slowly, he rolled his head to the side and looked.

              Danny was punching their front door in desperation, trying to get it open.  Tim’s heart swelled.  Danny had carried him home.

              “Danny!  Danny, hey buddy,” he said.

              Danny’s face turned towards him instantly.  He fell to his knees and pet Tim’s face with his hands.

              “…iiiim!  Ragnghuuuuhn.”

              “Yeah, yeah, I’m okay,” Tim said.  “Just…help me get to the keypad and I’ll type in the code…” he said, attempting to sit up.  His vision went black.

              “Oh shit,” he said, lying down again.  “Fuck.”

              His vision came back the moment he rested, and he saw the worry on Danny’s face.  The fear.  Danny looked up and down the road, and Tim knew he hadn’t managed to kill all the zombies.  They were coming.  They had to get inside.

              Tim reached up and grabbed Danny’s hand.

              “Pick me up, Danny,” he said.  “I gotta keep my head level with my heart or I’ll black out again.  Pick me up and carry me to the…”

              Danny nodded, already slipping his arms gently, so gently, one beneath Tim’s knees, the other under his shoulders.  Tim groaned in pain as Danny lifted him, his head was pounding, his vision throbbing in and out along with his pulse.  But Danny was really good today.  He knew what to do.  He stood up with Tim in his arms and walked him over to the keypad.  With a shaking hand, Tim punched in the code, and the door opened.

              “Aaaaannnn,” Danny said with relief.  Tim couldn’t agree more.

              Danny stepped inside, and Tim slapped the close button with his palm.  The sound of the magnetic seal hissed as it closed, sealing them in the darkness.

              And then they were safe.

              Danny cradled Tim to his chest as he walked down the stairs.  He held Tim so gently, as if he was terrified of breaking him, and Tim was incredibly grateful.  Tim slapped the light switch as they passed by it, and while he was grateful to be able to see, the light seared into his brain, making his entire head hurt.

              Danny carried him to his bed and gently lay him down on it.  Tim sank into the cushions with absolute gratefulness and a little bit of awe.

              He’d never seen Danny behave this way before.  They’d run into other zombie mobs in the past, and Danny had always just ignored them.  Acted like they were part of the scenery.  Watched while Tim slaughtered them all, almost as if he was bored.

              But this time…

              Tim felt Danny’s palm on his face.  Tim looked up into his eyes, one blue, one milky, and saw something there.  Who he really was was in there, somewhere…

              “Uuuungh,” Danny said, his voice soft.  “Mmmmeh.”

              “Me too,” Tim said.

              Danny brought his other hand up and stroked it through Tim’s hair, his fingers getting caught on the knots and leaves stuck in it.  That didn’t stop him, though, and Tim found himself closing his eyes, the touch of Danny’s fingers in his hair feeling really nice.  He sighed as Danny pet him, one hand in his hair, the other on his cheek, his fingers gently, gently stroking Tim’s skin, being ever so careful not to scratch him.

              And Tim utterly, completely trusted him not to.

              Danny had just saved his life.

              Tim felt Danny’s rancid breath wash over him, and opened his eyes again, to find his face much, much closer.  Danny’s good eye was gazing into him with depth, and then the hand on his cheek moved, his fingers caressing Tim’s face.  He traced his thumb along Tim’s lips, making his breath hitch in his throat.  Danny’s eyes dropped down to stare at them, and Tim’s heart raced faster.  He watched Danny lick his own lips, dark grey and cracked to hell, but present.

              He lowered his face slowly, his eyes questioning and hopeful.  Tim’s breathing came faster and he lay there, utterly helpless to move, while Danny made his intentions extremely clear.

              He felt the press of Danny’s lips against his own, his touch soft, even as his lips were cracked and dry.  Tim gasped at the sensation, his heart hammering wildly as he felt Danny kiss him, his lips sweet and gentle even as they were rough and rotted.  He tasted awful, and yet Tim hardly noticed as Danny was so careful with him.  Tim was vaguely aware that behind those lips were deadly, deadly teeth, dripping with zombie venom, ready to take away his humanity in a heartbeat.

              Instead, his heart was beating with love and affection.  Danny kissed him again, then again, his lips so tender, almost reverent.  Tim found himself lifting his hand to stroke Danny’s cheek with his palm, also as gently as he possibly could, not wanting to accidentally scrape any skin off.

              Danny pulled back from the kiss and gazed down at Tim with his one blue eye, a soft smile on his lips.

              “Danny,” Tim whispered, his heart glowing with warmth.  Oh, he was falling in love, but he should not fall in love, this was wrong, Danny was with it right now but he wouldn’t always be and…

              Danny kissed him again.  Tim didn’t stop it.  He melted under a touch that was so loving, so devoted.  Tim was only human.  He was desperate for companionship.  Danny probably was, too.  All they had was each other.

              A wave of dizziness hit him, and Tim groaned, wincing in pain.

              Danny pulled back from the kiss, face worried.

              “I’m okay.  I just need to rest.  Just need to sleep,” Tim said.  “Just…need to…”

              His eyes closed.

              The last thing he was aware of were Danny’s arms curling around him as he crawled into his bed, his body pressed against his as he held him tight.

Chapter Text

* * *

              Tim faded in an out of consciousness so many times he lost count.  He was aware of being hungry, but had no ability to do anything about it.  His thirst was becoming unbearable, but he had no motivation to move.  Each time he opened his eyes, Danny was more rotten than before.  He was nearly a skeleton now, some of his internal organs showing through his ribs.  His flesh sloughed off of him and fell to the bed, and Tim couldn’t do a damn thing about it, so they both lay there as it rotted under them.  He hoped it wouldn’t get maggots.

              They both clung to each other, neither able to move.  A few times, Tim became worried that Danny wouldn’t recover.  He’d force his eyes to stay open long enough to see him take a breath, and then with relief, would pass out again.

              And then Tim opened his eyes to see Danny reversing.  Saw more skin on him than before.  Some strands of hair growing.  He sighed with huge relief.  If Danny could bounce back, they could make it.  Tim would make it.  If Danny was still alive, then he had to make it.  Danny needed him, and he had to survive for his sake.

              The next time he awoke, he forced himself to stay conscious.  He stared up into the overhead lights to keep his mind awake, despite the raging headache pain.  He had to get water.  Danny was counting on him.  He had to get water.

              He rolled out of the bed, slipping out of Danny’s weakened arms easily, thankfully not tearing either of them off.  Danny didn’t stir.  His white eyes stared blankly in front of him, unmoving.

              Tim decided standing up would be stupid, so he crawled towards the nearest jug of water and tipped it until he could drink.  The second the water hit his tongue he became an animal, swallowing it in huge gulps, spilling half of it down his shirt and not caring.  He drank until his stomach was full and then lay there, waiting for his stomach to empty so he could drink more.  He did that several times, until he actually started to feel less dizzy.

              He sat up.

              He glanced over at Danny, still lying in Tim’s bed, in the same position he’d been in for the last several days.

              Tim’s stomach growled.

              He crawled over to a workbench and used it to help himself stand up.  He was still dizzy, unsteady on his feet, but at least he wasn’t blacking out.  So this was an improvement.  He leaned on the countertop as he walked, heading towards the food stores, which he kept behind the “kitchen” in crates several feet off the ground, to keep them dry.

              He was starving, but knew better than to try to eat too fast or too much.  He went for a cup of instant noodles, and managed to put on the tea kettle for some hot water.

              After he ate, he sat in the kitchen chair and just stared at the wall.

              Eventually, thoughts started to come to him.

              His bow.  His heavy-duty cart.  His axe.

              “Shit.”

              They were in a lot of fucking trouble.  How the hell was he supposed to defend against zombie mobs now?

              Well, an axe could get trampled and still be okay.  Honestly, if they went back for it, it would probably still be there.  The bow was likely a lost cause, but he could make another one.  Even the cart could probably be repaired, given enough time.  It was okay.  It would be okay.

              And now, they had a second defense against zombies, at least sometimes.

              He glanced over at Danny.  He was healing, despite everything, but Tim was sure he needed food and water.  He gathered his strength and stood up.  He poured some water into a cup and walked over to him, sitting in front of his face.

              His skin was almost back.  Danny opened his eyes, and one of them looked healthy enough to see.  The other fell out, dangling from the pink sinew of the retina.  Danny didn’t seem to notice.  Instead he gave Tim the sweetest smile he’d ever seen.

              “Eeeeehn,” Danny cooed.

              “Yeah,” Tim said, reaching out to stroke his hair.  When he did, Danny closed his eye and gave a soft inhale.  He looked up at Tim again, and his face said everything.

              “Yeah.  We made it,” Tim said, smiling down at him despite himself, unable to keep a frown when he saw a face that sweet looking up at him.

              “Here, let me help you,” Tim said.  Slowly, very gently, he held the dangling eye in his fingers and pushed it back in.  Danny held still, not moving or squirming, while he let Tim put him back together.

              “Uuuungh,” Danny said.

              “You’re welcome,” Tim said.  He almost added ‘buddy’, like he had a thousand times before, but that pet name suddenly felt…inaccurate.

              Oh my God.

              Danny had kissed him.  He had let Danny kiss him.  God, how stupid was he?  To have zombie teeth, dripping with venom, millimeters from his lips, it was the kind of decision you only made when you’d just gotten hit on the head.

              He was so fucking lucky to still be human.  So goddamn lucky.

              He hoped Danny had forgotten.  Hoped that memory had rotted away along with his skin.  That would be easiest.  Then all Tim had to do was make sure it never happened again.

              “Here, you need to drink,” Tim said, putting his arm behind Danny’s shoulders to lift him up a little.  He held the cup to Danny’s lipless mouth and he drank, some of the water spilling from his exposed teeth, but most of it made it down his throat.

              “Let that sit for a minute, then we’ll get more.”

              Danny turned and rolled onto his side, reaching out to cling to Tim.  Tim let him pull him near, and then lay down beside him so he could hold him tighter, their foreheads pressed together.  Danny wrapped his arms around Tim, his free hand sliding up to the back of Tim’s head, where he felt the blood caked in his hair.  Danny looked at him with a deeply worried expression.

              “Unngh nyeeh?” he said, his mouth pulling down into a deep frown.

              “I’m okay,” Tim said, which was a lie, but he was more concerned with comforting Danny than with the truth. 

              Danny gently pressed down on the wound, and Tim hissed and winced.

              “Nnneh,” Danny said, cradling Tim’s head with his palm, pulling his face in close.  “Nnnuuuh.”

              It sounded almost like “no”.  Danny’s frown deepened, and he pulled Tim closer to him, moving his hand so as not to press directly on Tim’s wound.  Tim found himself curling into Danny’s embrace, suddenly wanting to be held, probably because his head was throbbing again. 

              Tim felt wetness on his face, and he pulled back a little.  Danny’s good eye was watering, and tears were slipping down his cheek.  Tim’s heart shattered into a thousand pieces.

              He hadn’t known Danny could cry.

              “Hey, hey, it’s alright,” he said, pulling Danny in tighter.  Danny came to him, nestling his face against his neck.  “I’m okay.  Alright, you’re right, I’m hurt, but I’m getting better, okay?”

              Danny responded by squeezing Tim even tighter to him, and then he sobbed.  He didn’t make a sound, but his whole chest shook, and Tim cradled his head and held him as close as he could.  If he’d had any doubts before about how Danny felt about him, this dispelled them completely.

              Tim fought against his own urge to cry.  He couldn’t.  He couldn’t let those emotions come, or it would break him and he’d never get himself back together.  And Danny needed him together.  He spent his days never thinking about it.  Never thinking about his family, or wondering if they were okay.  Never thinking about his desperate longing for human contact.  The sound of people just…talking.  Laughing.  Enjoying life.  Or complaining about it.  Having one.  Never thinking about a soft bed, clean sheets, a nice meal in a restaurant, a warm shower, podcasts, chocolate, coffee.  Even crime, rogues, Batman, trying to get along with Damian, Dick yelling at him because he’d modified his bike without asking, Steph’s stupid, smug expression when she caught him in a lie, Tam overloading his schedule in the afternoon to force him to take lunch, hotdog vendors, oh, what he wouldn’t give for a street hotdog right now.

              He let the thoughts flit through his mind at top speed, not dwelling on a single one of them, and then he shoved them all away.  He buried his nose in Danny’s thin hair and breathed in the rotting scent of him.  It snapped him out of his pointless, harmful wishful thinking.  He was here now.  Those other things were gone and they were not coming back.  There was no point in thinking about them.

              He held Danny until he stopped shaking.  Then he stopped moving entirely, and Tim thought he might have fallen asleep again.  Which he would have to wake him up from, because he really needed to get him to drink some…

              Tim gasped as he felt another kind of wetness on his neck, this time much, much warmer.  He pulled back in confusion, only to see Danny’s half-lidded expression, his tongue sticking out from between his exposed teeth.

              “Danny?”

              Danny licked at the air, in the direction of Tim’s neck.

              Tim’s heart leapt into his throat and got stuck there.  A hot blush spread across his cheeks.  Danny couldn’t possibly want…

              Danny scooted closer and pressed his tongue to Tim’s neck again, making a shiver run up his spine.  He should pull away.  Danny was in no condition for this and his teeth were right there, and Tim didn’t even know if his saliva was deadly and could infect him…

              “Danny,” he whispered, as Danny continued to lick at the spot between his neck and his shoulder.  Heat rushed through Tim’s blood and he closed his eyes.  The last three days had been hell, where everything he’d felt had been misery, and he did not have the willpower to push away something that felt pleasant.

              Danny started licking across his neck, and then up it, towards his jaw.  He moved his face in a way that said he wanted to kiss Tim, and that’s what he’d be doing if he had lips.  Instead, he licked his tongue up across Tim’s cheek, towards his mouth.  He exhaled, and Tim smelled his rotten breath, which finally kicked some sense into Tim’s brain.  He pulled back.

              “Danny, stop.”

              Danny either didn’t understand him, or didn’t care.  Tim had no way of knowing which it was.  So he pulled away.

              “Uuuugh!” Danny cried in protest.  His face was pained, and it put a crack in Tim’s heart.

              “Shhhh,” Tim said, stroking his hair, letting him know he wasn’t pulling away from him.  “I just don’t know if it’s safe.  I don’t know…if that will infect me,” he said.  “I’m not afraid of you.  Just…what might happen.”

              He saw Danny not understand any of that.  His heart ached further.  How could he explain this?

              He couldn’t.  Not in the state Danny was in.  So instead he got up and lay down behind Danny’s back, not caring about the disgusting mess of rotten flesh soaking the bed beneath him.  Tim pulled Danny into his arms, spooning him from behind.  Danny curled into him instantly, his voice giving a soft, satisfied moan.

              “Mmmmmmgh.”

              Tim nuzzled his face into the back of Danny’s neck.  His rotten skin was far too malleable, shifting against his muscles like it wasn’t attached.  Tim was never sure what Danny could feel and what he couldn’t.  It seemed to change on a minute-to-minute basis.  And it didn’t matter, he told himself, because he was not going to let things get romantic on days when Danny didn’t understand language.

              That was where he was at now with this, wasn’t it?

              He’d gone from ‘won’t take advantage of a guy who’s mind isn’t all there’ to ‘we can be together on good days’ so fast his head spun.  Tim really had no self-control whatsoever.

              No, no, he had some, because he really, really wanted to kiss Danny’s neck right now, and he wasn’t.

              What?

              What the hell kind of thought was that?

              Danny couldn’t even get up right now!  He was bedridden!  Tim mostly was, too!  He had to get them strong again.  He had to feed them, clean the bed, get rid of the old rot, water the garden, get his tools back, build a fireplace, he had work to do for their survival and romance was not…was not…

              Danny was stroking the back of Tim’s hand with his palm as it rested on Danny’s stomach.  And Tim was melting under his touch, the fear of his fingernails a thought so distant it was barely there.  Danny curled his fingers in between Tim’s, intertwining them, holding his hand, and Tim nuzzled his whole body closer.

              Danny needed to know he wasn’t rejecting him. 

              He couldn’t reject him.  It would break him.  It would make Tim think he didn’t want him.  When he very, very much did.

              That was why he should stay.

              That was why he should pull away.

              Tim warred with himself for so long that eventually, Danny fell asleep in his arms.  He learned over and saw his eyes closed, his face serene.  While he wasn’t present, and wouldn’t remember it, Tim gave in to his own desires and pressed a soft kiss to Danny’s temple, ignoring the horrific taste of him.  They could afford one more sleep together.  Then in the morning, he would get to work trying to recover their losses.

              * * *

              Slowly, over the next two days, Tim nursed them both back to health.  He hurried to water the plants in the garden, relieved as the wilted ones seemed to bounce back.  He decided they couldn’t risk the plants nearly dying again, and added “create timed watering system” to his to-do list.

              He also had to update the door lock so that Danny could operate it, at least on good days.  He’d originally been afraid of looters, but…they hadn’t seen another human being in months.  So really, the only thing they had to keep out were mindless zombies and wild animals.  So maybe something as simple as 1-2-3-4 would be safe enough.  Just complex enough so that random mashing wouldn’t get it to open.

              He interspersed that work with checking on Danny, who could move a little now.  At least he could eat, so Tim set him up with a bowl of raccoon stew while he took his couch cushions and blankets outside and attempted to wash as much of the rotten flesh off as he could.  Nothing would ever get the stench out, but he was probably very desensitized to that, now.  Something about his bed permanently smelling like Danny made him warm on the inside, despite the fact that that smell was decomposed skin.

              When he reassembled his bed, Danny crawled right back into it, leaving his bowl of stew unfinished.

              “Hey, hey, no, you have to eat,” Tim said, picking up the bowl and handing it to him.  Danny set it down, and opened his arms towards Tim, gesturing for him to come to bed with him.

              “I can’t right now.  I have repairs to do.”

              Danny looked up at him blankly.  He was still not processing any language.  Tim tried not to be frustrated.  His mind would come back.  Probably tomorrow, definitely by the day after that.

              For now, he just had to get him to eat what he could.

              He picked up the bowl and held it out to him.  Danny gently pushed it aside, reaching out his hand to curl his fingers in Tim’s shirt, and tried to tug him closer.

              “Maaaaaah,” he said.

              “Danny, you have to eat,” Tim said, gently pushing the bowl back in front of his face, right under his nose, hoping the smell would trigger his hunger reflex.

              Instead, Danny huffed, annoyed.

              Tim sighed, grabbed the spoon, and picked up a chunk of meat with it.  He held it towards Danny’s exposed teeth.

              “Open,” he said, opening his own mouth to demonstrate.

              Danny copied him, and he stuck the spoon in.  Thankfully, some sort of instinct took over then, and Danny closed his exposed teeth so that Tim could pull the spoon out, leaving the bite of food behind.

              Then Danny started chewing, and Tim sighed with relief.

              “Gonna make me sit here and feed you, aren’t you?” Tim said. 

              Danny opened his mouth, waiting for the next bite.

              “You’re doing this on purpose.  To get my attention,” Tim said, putting the next spoonful in his mouth.  Danny chewed, and Tim sat there, crouched in front of him, enjoying the moment far, far more than he should be.  Danny’s good eye traced up and down Tim’s body, his gaze sliding from his feet, to his knees, to his torso, to his face.

              When Danny saw his face, he smiled and opened his mouth.

              “You’re impossible,” Tim said, sticking another spoonful in.

              Danny closed his teeth slowly, tugging harder on the spoon than he needed to, almost not letting Tim have it back.  His smile was so wide he almost couldn’t chew the food.  Tim waited while he swallowed, gazing back into his eyes, and even without any language at all, it was clear that neither of them wanted this to end.

              They both savored every bite, Danny taking as long as he could to chew, Tim scooping up each spoonful more slowly than he needed to.  On the last one, Tim found himself almost disappointed as he set the empty bowl down.  Danny swallowed, and then he leaned forward, his tongue emerging to lick towards Tim’s lips, since Danny had no lips of his own.

              Tim’s reflexive fear of his teeth forced him to put an arm out and gently push Danny back, just enough.  His brows furrowed and his face shifted into disappointment and confusion.  Tim’s heart cracked.  He couldn’t keep doing this.  Couldn’t keep rejecting Danny like this.  He was sending him mixed signals, which would be confusing for anyone, nevermind someone who’s brain was half rotting.

              “Nuuuuh?” Danny asked, his voice so soft, so vulnerable that it make Tim’s heart ache.  Even without all his mind there, even with most of his mind not there, Danny still wanted to be with him.  Wanted to romantically be with him.  Tim’s heart ached even as it beat with hope and affection.  Even as his mind was trying to remind him of all the reasons this was a terrible idea, he was ignoring it. 

              He looked into Danny’s questioning, confused face, and cupped it in both his hands.  He gently stroked his thumbs over his cheeks, and Danny closed his eyes, sighing into his touch.

              “I’ll figure it out,” Tim said softly.  He leaned forward and pressed a kiss to Danny’s forehead.  He watched all the tension melt out of him just from that, and then he lay down and curled up in Tim’s bed.  Not his own bed, but Tim’s bed.  Tim picked up his blanket and covered Danny with it, and went back to work.

              * * *

              Two days later, Danny was healed fully and back in peak form, just as Tim had predicted.  With just a few spots of his skin missing and his brain at almost peak capacity (for him), Tim chose to take him outside and show him how the numerical pad worked.  He knew Danny would remember how to use it at least until he next devolved, after which Tim would have to teach him again.

              They walked back to the site of the last attack, and spent an entire day trying to salvage and repair the heavy-duty cart.  Some of the tools were destroyed, like the bow, but Tim felt hugely relieved to get his axe back.

              Then they set out to find an new chimney to cannibalize, since the one that had fallen was now full of bent parts and cracked bricks.  They spent the next several days doing that, until Danny reverted and started to rot again, and then Tim turned his attention to working on indoor projects while he recovered.

              “Spit,” Tim said, holding out the petri dish in a gloved hand.  Danny stared at him with one barely-seeing eye and one empty socket.  Tim sighed.  He walked over to the workbench, grabbed a second petri dish, and walked back.  He demonstrated what he wanted Danny to do, letting a glob of his spit land on the flat, shallow glass.

              Danny’s face lit up with happiness, and then he did the same, letting his drool pour over his exposed teeth and drip down his chin, where Tim caught it in the clean dish.  He was glad he’d decided to use the gloves.  There were a few boxes of them, but he had no way to replace them once they were gone, so he reused them as much as he could and wore them only when absolutely necessary.

              Studying zombie bodily fluids was a time when it was necessary.

              Tim walked back over to the workbench and set the petri dish down, spreading some of the saliva onto a glass slide with a q-tip.  He then took another q-tip and rubbed it on the inside of his cheek, coating it in healthy human skin cells, which he then rubbed into the zombie saliva on the slide.

              He quickly shoved it under the microscope and watched.

              Nothing.

              No changes.

              The human cells remained perfectly fine.  They were just…wet.

              He bit his lower lip.  This was the same result he’d gotten from the spit from a full zombie, too.  And from zombie blood, as well.  Which he supposed he should have expected.  He got zombie blood on himself all the time.  If it was contagious, he’d have turned by now.

              Which was why he was also experimenting on things besides himself.

              Tim glanced down at the rats he’d caught, each one in it’s own makeshift cage.  He had five.  The first, he’d fed Danny’s blood with an eyedropper.  The second, he’d fed Danny’s saliva.  The third and fourth he’d fed regular zombie blood and saliva.  The fifth was the control.

              That was two days ago.

              The rats all still looked fine.  Not a change in sight.

              He sat up and frowned, not allowing his heart to hope.

              Hope?  Hope for what?

              Hope that Danny’s bodily fluids weren’t contagious?  So he could what, make out with him?

              He was supposed to be working on finding a cure, not…this.

              No, no…any gain of knowledge regarding zombies, or whatever Danny was, was valuable.  Any discovery could lead him to the path of a cure.  This was valuable research.  This was…important.

              Tim sighed and buried his head in his hands.

              “This is stupid.”

              Danny heard him, and shambled over, standing a few inches behind Tim’s shoulder.

              “Ugnnnnn?”

              “It seems like zombie saliva and blood aren’t infectious,” Tim said.  “But…in order to prove that, I’ve got to get these rats to zombifiy.  Could I have your hand for a second?”

              Before Tim could think about his words, Danny smiled brightly at him and cracked his own hand off and held it out to him.  Tim winced at the disgusting, wet noise his soft wrist bones made when he broke them, and then tried not to freak out at the blood pouring from his wrist and onto the floor.  One, he knew Danny’s body would replenish it, and two, the floor was already disgusting.  There was no saving it.

              “…thanks,” Tim said, giving Danny the best smile he could.

              He beamed.

              Tim’s heart melted.

              He clasped the detached hand in his gloved fingers, and opened the top of the first rat cage.  Ideally, he should get another rat, but that could take days, and this was still a good preliminary test.

              He grabbed the rat tightly in his left hand, and scratched hard across it with Danny’s nails, making sure to get down to the skin.  When he saw red blood ooze up from the scratch he was satisfied, and set it back down, shutting the top of the cage quickly, before it could bite him.

              He then peeled one of the nails off the hand, trying not to wince, reminding himself Danny didn’t feel this.  He glanced over at him and saw him sitting on the floor, happily flipping through a picture book Tim had found in one of the houses he’d raided.  He’d gotten several, actually, but Danny always flipped through the same one, almost as if he didn’t remember reading it.  He was just as happy every single time, looking at photographs of the planets like he’d never seen them before.

              Tim turned back around and focused on his task.  He put the fingernail under the microscope and studied it for awhile, then sighed.  He’d never looked at a normal fingernail under a microscope before, so then other than the decaying color, he wasn’t sure what he should be seeing.  And he wasn’t about to rip his own nail off for comparison.

              Instead, he took a swab from the grossest, wettest part of it, and rubbed it onto the slide with his cheek cells.  He magnified and peered at them.

              He watched them necrofy in seconds.

              “Holy shit,” he said, pulling back to rub his eyes.  He peered again.

              It was almost instant.

              The healthy cells turned black and shriveled up in a wave moving away from the edge of the venom glob.

              He needed to see the zombie virus itself, but viruses are impossibly tiny.  He needed higher magnification.

              He glanced over at the electron microscope.

              He was still amazed at the incredible equipment this lab had.  He tried to imagine what kind of circumstances led to such an incredibly high-tech, subterranean lab in the middle of a random suburb in Wisconsin.  He eyed the defunct cloning equipment and guessed it was probably not legal, whatever it had been. 

              Well, whatever it’s original purposes had been, having it now was a gold mine, and possibly one of the greater hopes for humanity.  The chances of other high-tech, well-stocked labs like this surviving, and then having a thinking human within them that knew how to use all of the equipment in them was…very low.

              Tim tried his best not to think about it.  He couldn’t be humanity’s only hope.  He was just one more chance they had at finding a cure.  And his luck with Danny…he tried not to think about that either, but he often failed.  Whatever was going on in Danny’s meta genes that led him to partially fight the virus off…maybe, if Tim could figure it out, he could use it to create a cure.

              His heart couldn’t take the thought and he shoved it aside.  One thing at a time.

              First, he just had to get a look at the damned zombie virus.  He had to get the electron microscope working.  Figuring out how to power things from the glowing green power source wasn’t the easiest, and he was wary about overloading such a delicate piece of equipment.  He couldn’t fry it.  There was never going to be another one.

              He worked on it for hours.  Ignored his hunger.  Ignored his thirst.  Ignored the fireplace he was supposed to be building.  Driven by a need to know, to understand, he focused on getting the delicate electrical output just right before finally hooking it up.

              He held his breath as he powered the electron microscope on.

              And watched the indicator lights turn green.  Watched the screen illuminate.

              Did he actually do it?

              He rubbed his eyes with exhaustion.  He’d have to wait until tomorrow to start preparing samples to put under it.  That was a complex process, he had very limited fixing materials to work with and once he ran out, that was it.  He couldn’t fuck it up.

              In the meantime, he went over and checked on the rat that he’d scratched with Danny’s fingernails.  It was lethargic, laying on the bottom of the cage, looking sickly.  It’s fur was falling out in clumps. 

              When Tim put his hand near the cage, it snarled and leapt directly at him, biting the metal bars furiously, trying to get at his healthy flesh.

              He backed away.

              Well, that answered that.

              Danny’s nails were deathly infectious.  His teeth most likely were, too.  In the early days of the infection, Tim had observed so many people turn into zombies within hours of getting bitten.  So many Gothamites, hundreds, that they had tried to save…

              He shook the memory way.  That wasn’t going to help him.  He needed cold, hard scientific evidence.  He needed zombie teeth.

              * * *

              Tim’s nose was buried in research now and he hardly cared about anything else.  Other than doing basic daily chores, he was ignoring all his other responsibilities, but it was going to be worth it.  He was actually making headway.

              He’d gone back to the site of the last mob attack, where the quickly decomposing bodies of zombies were currently supplying him with material for his latest research.  He’d brought home two arms and two heads onto his cart, trying to select ones that had fewer maggots.  Even with wearing gloves, it was disgusting, but he needed these samples.

              He kept them outside the bunker, only bringing in the parts he needed when he needed them.  Right now, he was studying teeth.

              He’d pulled several from each head, and then using the precision laser, he cut them into cross-sections to study the inside.

              And now things started making sense.

              Zombie teeth were similar to snake fangs.  There was a hollow tube in the center of each one, through which the venom flowed to infect the prey.  He swabbed the inside of several and put them onto slides with healthy cells, only to watch the cells necrofy and turn before his eyes.

              Zombie saliva was perfectly safe.  Zombie venom, which was injected through the teeth, was deadly.

              He wondered next if there was a gland that created the venom, also like a snake.  So he sat outside and dissected one of the zombie heads, searching for it.  He didn’t find anything that didn’t belong in a human head.  A brief flash of a thought went through his mind that this was a human head, that it was a person once- but he shoved it away.

              He’d done plenty of autopsies in the Batcave, this was no different.  He was just solving a case.

              So he went back to the teeth.  They must have been the source.  They produced the venom, just like the nails did, and then delivered it to the prey via the tiny tubes.

              Now that he knew how the virus delivery method worked, he started studying the virus itself.

              The first thing he learned was that the virus inside Danny was exactly the same as the virus in other zombies.  So that tossed out an idea he’d been brewing that maybe Danny had a weaker version of the virus that could be used for vaccination.  But no.  That wasn’t the case.  Danny had the same disease all the other zombies had.

              Second, it had two forms.  Active and dormant.

              The active form lived in the venom of the teeth and nails.  It was deathly efficient.  It infected living cells over a matter of minutes.  Tim’s experiments revealed that if he got bitten or scratched on the arm, he’d have to amputate it within two minutes to have any hope of avoiding infection.  He’d managed to save one rat that way, by infecting its tail and then chopping it off within 30 seconds. 

              Basically, if he got infected, he’d be fucked.  Even if he would still have a brain for several hours afterwards, it wouldn’t matter.  There would be no stopping it.

              But now that he knew, with absolute certainty, that only the teeth and nails could infect him, it actually gave him some comfort.  Zombie fluids and brain matter getting all over his face while he slaughtered them was no danger to him.  Not even if he had an open wound.  He’d done that experiment on the rats a dozen times, and each time, they were fine.

              “Hear that?” Tim said, stroking Danny’s hair as he sat on the floor and lay his head in Tim’s lap while Tim sat at the workbench.  “Only your teeth and nails can hurt me.  The rest of you is safe.”

              Danny turned his head to bury his face against Tim’s stomach, and a heavy blush rushed to Tim’s cheeks.  For the past two weeks, Danny had been trying to get Tim to let him kiss him again, and Tim had been pushing him away.  To make up for it, he gave up trying to make Danny sleep in his own bed.  He just slept in Tim’s now, the two of them together, every night.  Even when Danny didn’t need to sleep, he happily lay in Tim’s arms beside him, content to just be near him through the night.  Tim had had Danny’s saliva on him, plenty of times; he couldn’t stop Danny from licking him or kissing his skin on days when he had lips, and he already suspected it was safe, otherwise he’d have turned long ago.

              The research under the electron microscope backed that up.  The second form of the virus was the dormant form.  It was what resided in the rest of the zombie, outside of the teeth and nails.  It spread slowly, infecting the host one cell at a time, but each time it did so, the virus died.  It continued to exist inside the cells, making them decay, preventing them from living, but it didn’t actively spread to other cells.

              It explained why Tim was fine, even after having spent days on end covered in zombie juices.

              It also explained why he was fine after having stupidly kissed Danny.  Even his saliva was safe.  Only the venom directly inside his teeth and nails was dangerous.

              The next thing he studied was Danny’s DNA, specifically his meta gene.

              Yes, the lab had a full suite of DNA equipment, probably used for the cloning.  He didn’t even want to know what the lab’s original owner’s purposes were for owning so much cloning equipment, and he didn’t care.  It didn’t matter.  What mattered was that he actually had the tools available to study Danny’s meta gene…and learn that it was completely normal.

              “You’re not a meta?” Tim asked, utterly confused, looking Danny up and down as if staring at him could provide him with the answer.  “Danny, what are you?”

              Danny turned his head to look up at him from his lap, and Tim ran his fingers through his hair.  He wished, for the thousandth time, that Danny would heal enough to be able to speak, for even just one day.  Even for just an hour.  He knew, he knew that Danny could provide him with enough information in that short amount of time for him to be able to understand what Danny was, and find a way to cure him.

              Danny not being a meta dashed another hope.  If he had been a meta, then it might have been possible to use his mutated DNA to create some sore of cure or vaccine or defense.  But he wasn’t.  Whatever he was, it wasn’t based in anything Tim had been able to measure so far.

              Tim sighed and stared at the floor, a little despondent.  All his science had given him a lot of information- none of it useful.  He’d just spent over two weeks, sacrificing real work that needed doing, and with nothing to show for it.

              All he’d really learned was that zombies were only contagious through scratches or bites, and that he had no idea what Danny was, or why he was different.

              Great.

              “It’s another dead-end for now,” Tim said, looking down into Danny’s pale blue eyes, both healed just enough for him to be able to see.  He continued brushing his fingers through his hair, desperately needing the contact as he tried to handle the loss of learning that Danny wasn’t a meta.

              “Is it magical?” Tim asked.  “Are you cursed?  Blessed?  Been in a Lazarus pit?  Immortal?  What are you?” Tim asked, but his voice was affectionate as he said it.  He knew Danny couldn’t answer, and so he set aside his frustration to instead appreciate the warmth of his company. 

              Danny closed his eyes as Tim pet his hair, and sighed into his touch, burying his face in Tim’s lap.  Tim let his own sigh follow, his frustrations at the situation melting away as he stroked his fingers through Danny’s black locks.  Right now, he had nearly a full head of it, and barely any strands were falling out as he ran his fingers through them.

              Danny opened his eyes again, and they were…bluer.

              There was no mistaking it.

              They were bluer.

              Tim had never seen him change so quickly before.

              “Danny, what causes this?” Tim said softly.  “I know it’s partially physical exertion.  I’ve seen it happen enough times.  You stress your body out, and then the next day it’s falling apart.  But the correlation…”

              Tim reached with his free hand towards the workbench, rummaging for his notebook where he kept the log of Danny’s condition, as well as a list of all the physical activity he’d done that day.

              He rated Danny’s conditions on a fifteen-point scale, including things like eye health, hair health, skin health, muscle strength, mental ability, etc.  Then he tracked Danny’s level of physical activity, and there was some correlation to “more activity equals worse physical health the following day”, but it wasn’t quite the same.  For example, on the day that it had rained, Danny had exerted himself quite a lot, helping Tim carry over a dozen 5-gallon water bottles, and yet the next day, he’d been even healthier.

              What else had been different that day, besides the bathtub incident?

              Wait a minute.

              Or was it because of the bathtub incident?

              And then the worst he’d ever been had been those three days after they’d fought the zombie mob- when Danny had almost lost Tim.  Yes, they’d kissed afterward, but that had only been ten pleasant minutes in an otherwise horrific day.  Maybe the physical exertion of fighting an entire mob of zombies couldn’t be cancelled out by such a small moment of affection.

              Or maybe it had mattered.  Maybe without that affection, Danny’s state would have been even worse.

              Tim looked down at Danny’s face as he rested it in his lap, his eyes half-closed as Tim pet his hair, and his heart gave a throb.

              “Danny…is your health tied to your emotional state?”

              Danny stood up so fast it almost knocked Tim off balance.  He grabbed Tim’s hands in his and pulled him to his feet, his eyes excited, nodding vigorously.  He lifted a palm and put it on Tim’s cheek.

              “Gaaaaahgn,” he said, moving their faces closer until their noses touched.  “Aaanhgggn.”

              His absolute delight that Tim had figured it out, that Tim understood, shot a bolt of lighting through his heart. 

              Danny had been waiting for him to understand.  Had been waiting for how long?

              That meant Danny knew.  He knew more about how his own condition worked than Tim had realized.  And he’d probably been trying to tell Tim, probably been trying to show him, but without language or a basis to start from, Tim had been slow in getting it.

              And now Tim got it, and Danny’s blue eyes were shining.

              He tried again to lean in for a kiss.  Tim very gently put his hands on his shoulders and pushed him away.

              “Danny, I…I can’t.  It’s not safe.  Your teeth are full of venom.  If I became a zombie, there’d be no one to take care of you.  Please, please understand,” Tim said, lifting a palm to rest it on Danny’s cheek.  His skin was dry and cracked, and some of it flaked off under his fingers.

              Danny’s eyes watered as he gazed into Tim’s face, and Tim could see him thinking.  Watched him run his tongue over his teeth inside his mouth.  Watched his face light up.

              Danny let go of Tim’s hands and stuck two fingers into his own mouth.  He grabbed ahold of a tooth and Tim watched in horror as he yanked it out, and then held it in his palm.  He turned around and dumped it on the workbench, and then went back to start pulling out another one.

              Tim’s heart beat faster as he realized what Danny was doing.

              He was making it safe for them to kiss.

              Tim should have stopped him.  But as the third tooth clanked down onto the workbench, he realized he wasn’t going to.  Instead, a hot blush was rising to his cheeks and his skin grew warm.  Danny didn’t just want to kiss him.  He wanted to keep Tim safe while doing it.  He wanted…he was in there, a mind that was thinking, a heart that was…putting Tim’s safety above everything else. 

              Tim stared as Danny yanked the twelfth tooth out of his mouth.  Then the thirteenth.  He was going for them all.  Tim’s eyes watered at one of the most powerful declarations of love he’d ever witnessed, without a single word being uttered, without…

              Danny turned around, triumphant.  He stuck his entire hand into his mouth, easily possible now, and felt around to make absolutely certain there were no teeth left in there.  He opened his mouth wide and showed it to Tim.

              “Uh.  Um.  You, er, got them all,” Tim whispered, trying to swallow the lump in his throat.

              Danny beamed.

              And then he reached down towards his own finger, and ripped his nail off.

              Tim had to turn away from that.  He could stomach a lot, and he knew it didn’t hurt Danny.  He seemed to be totally unable to feel pain, while still being able to feel other sensations, such as hunger, thirst, cold.  Tim’s fingers.

              But this was a little much, even for him.

              He felt a soft palm on the back of his hand, and looked down.  Danny was sliding their fingers together, intertwining them.  His hands were completely free of fingernails.

              Tim’s eyes snapped up to his face in awe.

              He’d made himself completely safe for Tim.

              With a suggestive expression, Danny moved his face closer, and this time, Tim didn’t back away.  He hardly even noticed the stench of his breath; instead, what he noticed was how warm it was.  How alive Danny was.  Tim’s heart throbbed again as Danny moved their lips closer, moving ever so slowly, clearly expecting Tim to push him away again.

              Tim wanted to show him that he was absolutely not going to do that.

              He leaned forward, bringing their lips together.  The first kiss was soft, tentative.  Both of them were nervous.  Shy.  A hot blush rose to Tim’s cheeks as he tasted Danny’s rotten, cracked lips, feeling the life behind the decay.  Feeling his tenderness.  Feeling his yearning.

              Danny wrapped his arms around Tim’s back and drew them close, crushing their chests together.  Tim held him in return, his arms pressing against Danny’s decaying back as he pulled him near.  Their kiss turned needy.  Desperate.  They both pressed as tightly to each other as they could, each pair of lips seeking the other hungrily.  Both of them were losing their control, finally, finally able to express how they felt, and it was beautiful.

              It didn’t matter that kissing Danny felt exceedingly weird.  It didn’t matter that not having teeth made his lips even more malleable and squishy than they already were, in addition to them sort of falling apart.  It didn’t matter that a chunk or two of Danny’s lips came off in Tim’s mouth.  It didn’t matter that he tasted like a rotting corpse.

              It didn’t matter.

              What mattered was that he was here, present, alive, real.  Real, and he wanted Tim.

              Danny moved his arms to wrap them even tighter around Tim’s back.  Tim felt Danny’s whole body press against him then, and groaned when he felt the bulge of his erection push up against his own.  Heat rushed to Tim’s balls and bloomed across his face and up to his ears, making them turn brilliant red.

              Tim pulled back from the kiss and looked into Danny’s shining blue eyes.

              “Danny, are you in there?  Are you…uuuhhmmm,” Tim groaned, as Danny moved his lips to suck on his neck.  His erection grew harder, and Danny moved his hands down to Tim’s waist to rock his hips against him.  Tim moaned as he felt his erection press against his own.

              “Danny,” he whispered.

              Danny lifted his face to gaze into Tim’s eyes, and Tim saw them both blue for only the second time.  With a suggestive expression, Danny started to walk towards Tim’s bed, gently tugging on his hand to follow.

              Tim went.

              He was losing his self-control and he didn’t care.  He didn’t care.  Danny had made his feelings plain.  He showed complete understanding of the situation and was going through some extreme measures to make sure it happened. Tim’s pulse raced faster as Danny sank down to sit on the couch cushions they called their bed, and Tim sank with him.

              Danny’s eyes were bright blue now.  They shone with joy and excitement.  He lifted his flaky palm to Tim’s cheek, and moved their faces closer.

              Tim let him.

              He smelled his awful breath as he moved his cracked, dry lips closer, and Tim’s blush only grew deeper.  He hardly registered the repulsive flavor of Danny’s decaying flesh.  Instead, he felt his lips, sweet, tender, and desperate.  Danny moaned into his mouth, and Tim answered him, his tongue coming out to lick at the bottom of Danny’s cracked lips.  They bled when he did so, and the flavor was revolting.

              Tim lapped it up harder, swallowing Danny’s rancid blood.  Danny’s arms wrapped tighter around his back, and then he was shoving his rotten tongue into Tim’s mouth.

              Tim’s heart throbbed so hard it almost hurt.  He sighed and let Danny in, his breaths coming faster as heat flushed his skin.  Danny’s tongue was buried in his mouth now, and they were both moaning together, each just as eager at finally being able to express their affection for one another.

              Tim parted from their kiss, and with a racing pulse he lay down in his bed.  He reached for Danny’s hand and gave a tug, and then Danny gently lay beside him , his decaying body still warm enough to bring heat to Tim’s skin.  Danny started to lick down his neck, then across his throat, his toothless kisses dragging over his Adam’s apple and down to the collar of his shirt.  He licked at it several times, grunting, trying to kiss lower on Tim’s chest, but his shirt was in the way.

              “Unnngh,” Danny moaned, fisting Tim’s shirt in both hands.  He pulled on it roughly, yanking it over Tim’s head, tossing it to the ground.  Tim blushed as Danny undressed him.  His tongue was back, licking across Tim’s neck, and then his hands were everywhere.  No longer needing to be careful, he was curling his fingers as if he was scratching Tim, but the dull flesh caused him no harm whatsoever.  His flaky palms caressed down Tim’s chest and over his stomach, making it flutter as Danny tickled him.  Tim let his head fall back as Danny kissed his neck, lying down beside Tim, nestling their bodies side-by-side.

              Tim felt Danny’s erection press up against his thigh, and it made heat rush down to his own cock.  Danny was hard for him.  Danny wanted him.  Oh god, Danny wanted him and he was taking what he wanted and Tim was letting him have it.  Danny moaned and ground his hips, pressing his bulge up against Tim’s leg, making Tim shiver with desire.  His fingers tightened in the back of Danny’s shirt, and then he was pulling it up over his head.  It fell to the floor, discarded, as Tim looked at Danny’s naked chest and lowered his eyelids with desire.

              He lifted his hands and stroked them up Danny’s stomach, his dry skin flaking off beneath his fingers.

              “What…what does this feel like Danny?” Tim asked, rubbing his palms over his skin, avoiding the places where it was entirely missing and sinew and muscles were exposed.  Danny pulled back from kissing Tim’s neck and closed his eyes while he concentrated on feeling Tim’s hands.  Tim sat up, ignoring the cold air against his own bare chest as he gently stroked his palms across Danny’s skin.

              He was as gentle as he could be, but some of it still sloughed off under his fingers.  Danny didn’t react, instead laying back and focusing while Tim stroked him.  He let his fingers ghost over Danny’s nipple and he gave a soft inhale.

              “Does it feel good?” Tim asked, stroking it some more, feeling it harden under his fingertips.

              Danny opened his eyes dreamily, and Tim took that to mean that it did, in fact, feel good.  So he kept stroking it, bringing his other hand up to tease the other one, and beneath his palms, he felt Danny’s heart.

              He knew Danny had a heartbeat.  He’d listened to it with a stethoscope several times during experiments, making note of the fact that it seemed to beat too slowly sometimes, too quickly others, and would change based on Danny’s decomposed state.

              But this was the first time he’d really felt it, beating against his palm, racing because of him.  Tim’s cheeks blushed harder and his cock swelled as he watched how affected Danny was from his fingers teasing his nipples.

              Tim looked down at Danny’s pants and saw an unmistakable bulge there.  He knew Danny didn’t always have a dick.  Today, it was there, and they shouldn’t waste the opportunity.

              With shanking fingers, Tim dragged his palms down Danny’s stomach towards his fly.  He was trying to be careful, trying to avoid scraping any more of Danny’s skin off, but it was just so fragile.  Part of it was thinner than Tim had anticipated, and his fingers came a little too close to an open wound.  The skin tore, revealing oozing red muscle beneath.

              Danny arched his back and Tim pulled his hands away, eyes wide.

              “I’m sorry!  Danny, I’m sorry, that must have hurt, I…”

              Danny’s eyes flew to Tim’s face and with a growl, he grabbed his wrist.

              And pulled it towards him, drawing Tim’s hand back to the wound he’d just created.

              “Danny, what…”

              Danny placed Tim’s fingers right back where they’d been, hovering just a hair above the freshly exposed flesh.

              Danny looked up at him with dark eyes, and Tim gave a thick swallow.

              “You…want me to touch it?”

              Danny pulled Tim’s fingers closer, and Tim’s heart raced faster.  He still had so much to learn about how Danny’s body worked, there was so much they didn’t know…

              His fingers gently brushed the edge of the wound and Danny gave a sharp gasp.  Trembling, Tim ghosted his fingertips around the edge of it as gently as he could, and watched Danny’s eyes flutter closed.

              "Uuuuhhhhmmm,” Danny said, his moan reverberating in his chest.  Tim’s cheeks flushed hotter and he swallowed.  How could this possibly feel good?

              He circled his fingers around the edge of the wound again, and Danny’s breath hitched, and then he let out a deep, rumbling groan.  Tim’s wide eyes closed halfway and he started to relax, as he realized this really was…turning Danny on.  Throwing convention and common sense out the window, Tim slid his fingers out from the edge of the wound and into the center, where he was touching exposed muscle and wet, oozing blood.

              “Ohhhhh,” Danny said, his chest heaving, his eyes rolling back in his head.  Tim’s heart pounded hard and his cheeks burned with heat as he saw that reaction.  He continued to stroke the living muscle, red and pulsing and alive, and he wondered if that was why it felt so good to Danny- because this flesh was more alive than his flaking, grey skin.

              Danny panted under Tim’s touch, and seeing him that turned on went straight to Tim’s cock.  The heat between his legs became thicker as he teased Danny, and his eyes fell to the bulge straining against Danny’s pants.

              With his other hand, he reached for Danny’s fly.  He rubbed his hand over his erection, which made Danny gasp and arch his hips up into Tim’s palm.  Tim’s pulse beat faster and he licked his lips, working Danny’s fly down while he continued to tease his new wound with his fingers.

              Danny’s hand came down to help him, and together they pushed his pants off.  Tim looked down at his dick and a hot blush rose to his cheeks.  It wasn’t all there.  Part of the underside had rotted away and was oozing some kind of fluid, Tim wasn’t sure what.  But now that he knew what he did about Danny’s sensitivity to being touched on wounds, he wondered if maybe…

              Gently, Tim ghosted his fingers across the top of Danny’s swollen dick, the part that was solid and looked almost normal, except for the grey flesh.

              “Nnnya!” Danny cried, thrusting his hips up, his breaths coming faster.  “Mmmm!”

              Tim’s own cock hardened at that reaction.  It was beautiful.

              Emboldened, Tim wrapped his hand all the way around, his fingers sinking into the missing portion with a wet squelch.

              “Eeeyaaaaahhhhhn!” Danny cried, and Tim felt Danny’s cock swell in his fingers.  Oh, this was the right thing to do.

              Tim gave it a stroke, and Danny arched his back in pleasure.  But his skin was loose.  Tim was afraid of taking it all off.  He realized he couldn’t pleasure Danny in the normal way, not without risking dismembering him.  He desperately wished he could just ask Danny what to do, but it looked like Danny was figuring out how his zombie body worked at the same time Tim was.

              And so he brushed his fingertips lightly around Danny’s cock to the underside, and stroked his fingers along the rotted part, sinking them into the oozing flesh.  Danny’s eyes flew wide open and his fingers clasped at the blanket beneath him, while his lungs heaved thick, heavy breaths.  Danny’s dick swelled against his fingers and Tim gave him a flirtatious smile.

              “Wow,” he breathed, continuing to stroke the wound he’d made on Danny’s chest at the same time.  “Zombie erogenous zones.”

              He knew Danny didn’t understand that, but it didn’t matter.  His eyes were rolling back in his head as he bucked his hips up, and Tim’s heart swelled with warmth as he made his zombie feel good.

              So much of their lives were pain.  Misery.  Suffering.  Gritting your teeth to get through it because you had to.  Self-applied stitches, walking around on a twisted ankle, or in Danny’s case, having to eat through a fucking tube because you couldn’t swallow water that day.  To find something that felt pleasant, something that felt good…was more precious than anything.

              “Mm…mm…mm…mm…” Danny said, and Tim saw a bodily fluid that he did recognize start to drip from the tip of his cock.  Tim’s cheeks were burning hot now, his pulse throbbing as he sank his fingers into the wound on Danny’s cock and gently stroked it.  Danny was all animal now, his eyes fluttering open and closed so wildly he probably couldn’t see.  His hips were bucking up hard, his fingers clasping the blanket so tightly his grey knuckles were taut.  Tim felt Danny’s cock grow rock hard, and then with a final cry, he started to cum.

              “Eeennnggghaaaaaa!”

              Tim’s eyes were half-lidded as he watched Danny cum, his whole body convulsing from pleasure, rather than suffering.  Tim’s heart swelled with warmth as he watched a person he loved so deeply experience something so wonderful.

              “Uh uh uh uh…” Danny’s voice was low and deep, almost a growl, and he bared his teeth at the ceiling and shut his eyes.  He rocked his hips up into Tim’s hand, and then suddenly, he stopped.

              His eyes flew open and he gazed down at Tim, lungs breathing hard.  He sat up and pulled Tim roughly into his arms, pressing kiss after kiss after kiss to his face, his cheeks, his lips.  He showered Tim in kisses, so enthusiastic and genuine that Tim completely understood their meaning.

              “You’re welco…”

              Danny growled and shoved Tim down into the cushions onto his back.  He rolled on top of him and began to fervently kiss down his neck, down his chest, his fingers flying to his belt to try to unbuckle it.  He couldn’t quite get it, so Tim helped him, and then Danny was yanking his pants off past his ankles.  His lips continued down Tim’s chest, across his stomach, and then his lips were kissing the tip of his cock.

              “Oh…oh,” Tim said, pleasure springing up through his nerves as he felt the wet heat of Danny’s mouth.  Danny sucked him down hard, making his cock swell in seconds, and before Tim knew it, he was bending his knees to let Danny in more easily.

              “Mmmmmm,” Danny groaned, his fingers wrapping around Tim’s bent thighs as he eagerly sucked him, his mouth and tongue pressuring him so good that he was arching his back on the third suck.  He wasn’t going to last, this was going to last seconds…

              “Danny, Danny, slow down baby,” he breathed, the pet name falling from his lips as if it had always been there.  Oh, Danny, Danny, do you know how long I’ve wanted this?  If Tim was honest with himself, it was a long, long time.  And he didn’t want it to end the instant it began.

              Danny heard him, and Tim sighed as he slowed, and loosened his lips, becoming more of a tease than a desperate machine to suck him off.  Danny’s mind still wasn’t all there; he seemed to forget that he had a tongue, or wasn’t sure what to do with it, but Tim didn’t care.  Danny’s mouth on him felt so incredible he could have done anything and it would have felt good.  Tim glanced down to see his zombie’s face in rapture, his eyes closed as he eagerly took his cock into himself, groaning as he did so.

              “Mmmmmmmm,” Danny said, opening his eyes to look up at Tim, and the sight of that sent a wave of hot desire through his whole body.  Tim reached his hands down and tangled his fingers in Danny’s hair, careful not to pull too tightly so that he didn’t detach his scalp.  They stayed like that, Danny’s head between Tim’s legs, bobbing up and down on just this side of too slow, teasing him, caressing him, and desire started to spread through Tim hot and thick.

              “Oh, yeeeeaaaahhhh,” he groaned, the tension in his body leaving him as he tilted his head back and raised his hips up into Danny’s mouth.

              “Mmmmm,” Danny said, closing his eyes, a pink blush rising to his gray cheeks as he sucked Tim down.  Tim felt warmer and warmer, the pleasant haze of arousal bubbling up in his balls and spreading up his spine.  Every part of him was glowing, he could feel every cell in his body and they were all screaming yes.  He stroked Danny’s hair over and over, feeling him, touching him, in awe and disbelief that he had gotten so lucky to find him.

              “Ohhhh….oh Danny,” he groaned, bucking his hips up, chasing the pleasure now, feeling the heat of his mouth suck him in as he rocked himself up into it.  God, this was happening; they were having sex in his bed; Danny’s mouth was on his cock and it felt far more incredible than he ever imagined it would.  Because he’d never imagined that Danny would be this aware, would want him to this degree, would being doing it because Tim had just made him feel as incredible and oh….oh….

              “Danny Danny Danny, fuck fuck fuck!” Tim cried, pounding his hips up into Danny’s mouth now, fucking into his wet, rotten heat, curling his fingers tightly in his hair.  Danny moaned, his fingers wrapping harder around Tim’s thighs, his lips sealing tighter.  Tim’s orgasm ripped out of him with more power than he’d expected, his first one in months, first one since before the zombie plague started, and it felt so good he thought he was going to pass out.  His entire body convulsed, wave after wave of heat pouring out of him and into Danny’s mouth, where it dripped back out and slid down his cock, covering him in his own cum.  Still it pulsed through him, making him twitch until it finally stopped, leaving him panting.

              He grew soft and Danny let his cock fall from his mouth.  He looked up at Tim with shining blue eyes and gave him a questioning smile.

              “Yeah,” Tim said.  “Yeah, you made me feel incredible.”

              Danny’s smile widened, and he crawled up to lay beside Tim.  Tim pulled him into his arms, pressing their naked bodies together, and Danny curled into him, nuzzling his face against his neck.  Tim tangled his fingers in his hair as he felt him breathe against his skin, the rancid stench of rotting flesh a comfort now, because it was Danny.

              Tim pressed his cheek to Danny’s forehead and stroked his hair.

              “I love you,” he said, his heart shining at the truth of the words.  Danny tightened his arms around Tim and pulled him closer, pulling back to look into Tim’s eyes.

              “Uhhghhh numna,” Danny moaned, his eyebrows furrowed in frustration.

              “I know you love me too,” Tim whispered.  “I know, Danny.”

              Danny leaned forward and pressed a slow, sweet kiss to Tim’s lips.  Tim savored it, breathing in his stench, tasting his decomposing flavor, enjoying every second of it.  They really didn’t have much in this world.  A single haven against all the horrors, both natural and supernatural, a world that was bent on trying to kill them.  And yet they survived.  They survived because of each other, with each other, for each other.

              Tim wasn’t sure anymore whether or not he’d find a cure, or if anyone would.  This…might be his life now.  This might be how it was going to be.

              And it would be worth it, because he had Danny.

              * * *

              Danny love Tim.  But Tim say no.  But Danny love Tim.  But Tim say no.  Why Tim say no? Why why why why?

              Afraid.  Tim afraid.  Tim afraid of scratch, Tim afraid of bite.

              Danny fix.

              Danny love Tim.

              Danny show Tim.

              “Uh.  Um.  You, er, got them all,” Tim say.

              Tim say yes.

              Tim let Danny kiss.

              Tim touch Danny.

              Tim make Danny feel good.  Very very good, Danny feel good.  Danny love Tim Danny love Tim Danny love Tim love Tim love Tim love love love love, Tim Tim Tim Tim yes Tim yes yes yes.

              Danny love Tim.

              Danny show Danny love Tim.  Tim like.  Tim like, Tim feel good.  Danny make Tim feel good, yes yes yes.

              “Danny, Danny, slow down baby.”

              Baby.  Danny Tim’s baby.  Tim want slow.  Danny move slow.  Tim like.  Tim feel good, good good good so good, Tim Tim Tim Tim yes yes yes yes.

              “Ohhhh….oh Danny.”

              Yes Tim yes Tim Danny love Tim Danny love Tim Danny love Tim.

              “Danny Danny Danny, fuck fuck fuck!”

              Ohhhhh, Tim love Danny.

              Tim love Danny, and Danny love Tim.

              “I love you,” Tim say.  Tim say.

              “Uhhghhh numna,” Danny try say.

              “I know you love me too,” Tim say.  “I know, Danny.”

              Danny smile.

              Danny happy.

Chapter Text

             * * *

              Tim woke up with Danny in his arms.  He didn’t remember pulling the blanket on top of them, so Danny must have done it at some point.  Tim curled his arm around Danny’s waist and pulled him against his chest, pressing his lips into his thick, full hair.  Tim had never seen his hair this good.  It still reeked like rotting corpse, but Tim didn’t care.  He kissed it anyway.

              Danny gave a soft moan and snuggled his naked body against Tim’s bare chest.  He turned his head around to look at Tim, and Tim saw two gorgeous blue eyes shining back at him.

              “Good morning, beautiful,” he said, his heart still glowing from last night, from the first time they shared intimacy.

              God, it had felt amazing.

              Danny gave him the brightest smile in the universe.  His heart melted.

              “Rrruuhhh,” Danny said softly, turning around some more to face Tim.  Danny lifted his hand and opened his mouth, feeling around inside for his teeth. 

              “Nnnf,” he grunted in frustration, and Tim saw why.

              His teeth had grown back overnight.

              Tim brought a hand up to Danny’s hair and brushed it out of his eyes.

              “Just keep your lips closed,” he said softly,  “And I can kiss you, baby.”

              He saw Danny blush when he called him that.

              “You are my baby,” Tim said, moving his lips closer.  He pressed their lips together and Danny pursed his, but kept them closed.  Tim didn’t, parting his lips enough to taste his rancid flavor, leaving soft wetness on Danny’s lips.

              Tim pulled back and stroked his hair some more.

              “I’d stay in bed with you all day, but we have a thousand things to do,” he said.  Danny nodded in agreement, and together they got up.  Tim raked his eyes over Danny’s body, amazed at how whole it was right now.  His skin almost had a pink glow to it, and there were hardly any rotting places.  His muscles were well-defined and strong.  He looked so healthy, for a zombie, anyway.

              And now Tim knew why.

              Yesterday, they hadn’t taxed Danny’s body physically, at least not much.  It obviously had spent some energy re-growing his teeth and nails.  But other than that, Danny had basically rested all day.

              Add to that an extremely positive emotional state, and he was almost as healthy as he’d ever been.

              Tim’s heart raced as he stood up, thinking about the last time Danny had looked this good.

              The one time he’d spoken.

              He tried really hard to think back to that day, or rather the day before that day, to remember what it was they had done.  What could possibly have caused Danny to become that healthy, back then?

              “Danny,” Tim said, after pulling on his pants.  He watched as Danny dressed himself, figuring out things as complicated as his zipper and belt buckle, and his heart swelled.

              Could he…possibly talk?  Could that happen again?

              Danny looked up at Tim when he said his name and smiled at him.

              “Danny, do you remember the one time you were able to speak?  The day you told me your name?”

              Danny smiled brightly at Tim and nodded.

              “Why did that happen?  What made you so healthy that day?”

              Danny’s smile widened even further, and his blue eyes shone.  He licked his lips several times, and Tim’s heart beat faster, wondering if he would actually manage words.

              Danny’s lips parted.

              “Dannnnny loooove Tiiiiiimmmmmm,” he said.  His face lit up like a full moon when he heard words, actual words come from his lips.

              Tim’s smile was so bright it hurt his cheeks.  His eyes watered.

              Of all the things in the entire universe to say, he chose to say that.

              It didn’t matter that Tim didn’t get an answer.  This was far, far more precious, anyway.

              Tim took the three steps towards him and pulled him into his arms, pressing their foreheads together.

              “I love you too,” he whispered, pressing kisses to Danny’s lips, then his cheeks, then his forehead.  “So much.”

              * * *

              Tim kept trying to get Danny healthy enough to speak more than a few words.

              It was impossible.

              In order to do it, Danny would have to not physically exert himself for days (weeks?) on end, while also being in a state of constant extreme happiness.  Even just the first part was unrealistic.  Their to-do list was ten miles long.  It included building the fireplace, replacing the bow, creating an irrigation system timer, hunting, then if he caught something, cleaning, cooking, and drying the meat, and that reminded him he was on the lookout for a functional freezer, or at least one he could repair.

              It would be nice to have meat that wasn’t salted to fuck.

              On top of all that, there was Tim’s scientific research into zombies, Danny’s condition, the virus, and the faintest glimmer of hope that he might figure out a cure from whatever it was that was keeping Danny semi-human.  He wanted that to be his top priority, but it just wasn’t.  Food was.  Clothes were.  Supplies were.

              The weather was turning colder.  Mornings were chilly now.  Last night, there had been a frost. Tim wasn’t really getting by in a t-shirt anymore.  The bunker had been warm enough, being underground and having little ventilation.  But it wouldn’t stay that way.  Tim stood outside the magnetic door rubbing his arms as his breath fogged in the air.  Danny stood beside him, exhaling, his breath also causing a puff of white to blow from his mouth, and Tim’s heart warmed.

              Zombies didn’t do that.  They didn’t have a body temperature.  They were the same temperature as their ambient surroundings.

              Danny was warm enough to create breath in the cold.

              Because he was alive.  Enough, anyway.

              “Lets get our day started,” Tim said.

              Tim led the way towards the next street in his methodical exploration of the former suburb they lived in.  Few houses remained standing, as zombie mobs did not change their course because of an obstacle.  So they would push against the house until it fell, then shamble over it, and continue on towards whatever human flesh they smelled.

              Thankfully, this killed a lot of them as they got stuck in debris, couldn’t find their way out, and starved.

              Tim picked through the rubble of the third house on this block.  It looked promising.  The living room, hall, and a bedroom were still standing.  The roof was gone, so almost everything was moldy, but he found a sealed bottle of rubbing alcohol in the medicine cabinet.  That would be useful.

              He tossed it in the shopping cart out on the street, and walked towards the next house.  He had high hopes for this one.  It was fully standing, with roof intact, and even still had some unbroken windows.  Maybe it had protected the items inside from the elements enough that he could find them some good winter clothes.

              “Score,” he said to himself, when he opened a cedar closet and found a whole bunch of warm coats.  They looked like they’d remained dry all this time.  There wasn’t a hint of mold or insect activity.

              He started carrying everything he could to the shopping cart, glancing around for Danny as he worked, wondering where he’d wandered off to.  Tim was pretty sure he liked video games, because often he’d find him staring at blank TVs holding a controller in his hands.  He glanced in the living room, but he wasn’t there.

              He made several more trips with the clothes, until the shopping cart was as full as he could get it, and then went to look for him.

              “Danny?  Where are you?”

              He heard a shuffle from upstairs, and so he took the staircase.  He rounded the corner and started peering into rooms.  He found Danny in the upstairs bathroom, staring into the mirror.

              He wasn’t moving.

              “Danny?” he asked, walking slowly towards him.  Tim glanced at Danny’s reflection in the mirror, and saw tears pouring down his face.  His hand was pressed to his cheek, rubbing along the side where the skin over his teeth was missing, leaving them exposed.  Behind that was another gaping hole in his skin.  It was already not a great day for him, and Tim had a feeling it was about to get worse.

              “Nnnngh,” Danny said, sobbing, his eyes darting to look at Tim’s in the mirror.

              Tim’s heart broke.  Danny’s expression looked like he was just now realizing what he was, for the first time.

              He gave another sob, and more tears fell.

              “Hey, hey,” Tim said, as gently as he could, walking closer until he was right behind him.

              “Nnunnnng,” Danny said, looking down at his hands, one of which had exposed bones for fingertips.  He clasped the edge of the sink with it, his bones clinking on the porcelain.  Danny looked down at his boney hand, and jerked back.  His face was rage.

              “Ggggggrrrr!” he shouted, slamming it against the sink, bones shattering as his fingers flew off in several directions.

              Tim darted out and grabbed his arm with all his strength.

              “Stop that!  Stop!  Danny, no!” he said, looking up into his tear-stained face.  “Stop.  Please.  Please don’t hurt yourself, it’ll only make tomorrow worse.”

              Danny looked at him, his mouth somehow managing to pull down into a frown despite not having lips, and cried again.

              “Hey.  Hey.  I know it sucks.  This sucks.  But hurting yourself isn’t going to help,” Tim said.  “I love you.  I don’t want you to be hurt.”

              Danny’s eyes darted to Tim’s, and he tried to ignore that one was milky white, and looked into the good one. 

              “I love you.  I don’t care what you look like or smell like or what your body is doing, okay?  I love you.”

              Danny’s tears fell even harder, and another sob pulled from his chest.  Tim reached out with his arms to wrap them around him, and Danny turned to bury his face in Tim’s chest.  Tim brought his hand up to stroke through his hair, wincing as a lot of strands fell out.  He ignored it.  They would grow back.

              Instead, he cradled his lover while he sobbed into his chest, curling his arms in front of himself. 

              “Shhh, it’s okay.  I got you, okay?  You’re not facing this alone.  I’m here.  I completely understand.  I know you want to tell me.  But I get it.  And I know you probably can’t understand this part, but I’m trying to find a cure, Danny.  Every time I’m working in the lab, that’s what I’m doing.  The answer is there, I know it.  I’m gonna figure it out.  I’m gonna figure out the zombie virus, I’m gonna figure out you, and I’m gonna get us out of this.”

              Tim didn’t know if his words were true.  He didn’t know if Danny could understand them, either.  If he did, he didn’t react.  But the words comforted himself, providing him with a new determination to get back to his scientific research.  Tomorrow.  Tomorrow, Danny was going to need to rest anyway, considering the state he was in right now, and was also on a downward slope.

              He held Danny tightly, until his sobbing slowed, then stopped.  He sniffled, and when he pulled back, Tim saw that his nose was gone.  Snot poured from the gaping hole in his skull, and Tim ignored it, and ignored the plop of gross flesh as what had been his nose fell to the floor.

              Danny turned towards the mirror again, and Tim grabbed his face, turning him away.  He did not need to see himself with no nose.  It made him look like a skeleton.

              “Hey, we don’t need that.  There’s nothing helpful about you looking in a mirror.  We’re not going to a gala.  We’re just…rummaging for coats on a Tuesday.”

              God, he wished he knew whether it was Tuesday.

              Tim looked into Danny’s eyes, and desperately wanted to comfort him.  He put a hand on each side of his face, ignoring that on the right side, his fingers were directly touching the sides of his teeth.  Showing Danny that he trusted him, trusted him with his life, and that he wasn’t afraid of him, despite the danger he posed.

              Tim leaned forward and pressed a soft kiss to Danny’s cheek, on the side where he had one.  Then another, then a third.  He had no lips, so they could not kiss, so Tim would have to do all the kissing for them.

              He kissed up his face, and Danny closed his eyes in a sigh.  Tim moved up to kiss his forehead, and then took a small step back, leaving his hands on Danny’s face.

              Danny opened his good eye to look at him.

              “Mmmreh,” he said.

              Tim gave him the most comforting smile he could.

              “Let’s go home,” he said.  “I got the most important thing I needed.  Let’s just chill the rest of the day.”

              Danny didn’t respond.  Tim wondered if he was losing his ability to understand words. This morning, it had looked like Danny was going to have a below-par day, but still good enough. Now, after the sadness he was facing, it was looking like he was going to rot a lot worse.  Tim wanted to get him home before that.

              He took his hand and intertwined their fingers, and Danny let him.  It didn’t seem to bother him that his fingertips were missing, and Tim felt safer knowing that he had no nails on that side.  He gently led him out of the bathroom and back down the stairs, guiding him back to the road.

              When they got home, Tim set Danny up with his book and got to work unloading the supplies.  He made lunch, which was salted raccoon meat sauteed with canned vegetables, served over rice.  It wasn’t half bad, considering he at least had access to piles and piles of spices.  And in a month or so, their indoor garden would start providing them with fresh vegetables, which would make meals so much better.

              He set Danny’s bowl up on the counter, and went to get his feeding tube.  With his lips missing, and now a gaping hole in his cheek that went all the way through to the inside of his mouth, there was no way he’d be able to eat without it today.  Tim called him over and he came obediently, definitely in more of a mental fog now.  Tim was disappointed to see that his right eye had gone completely milky.  He ignored it; it would grow back.  He just needed to improve his mood. All Tim had to do was get him there.

              Danny saw his feeding tube and lifted his mouth up automatically.  Tim slid the plastic down his throat and started spooning the food into it.  He tried not to think about it.  Before today, he’d never really seen Danny have any reaction to his own condition.  He was sure he’d seen mirrors before, but had never reacted to them like that.  It never seemed to bother him when parts of him rotted off.  Sometimes he’d get frustrated that he couldn’t do something he was able to do the day before, but it was just that, frustration.  Not…sadness.

              So what was different now?

              The one big thing that changed recently was their relationship.  Did that…affect how Danny saw himself?  Did being a zombie not bother him until they became lovers?

              Was it because his body was dangerous to Tim?  Because he had no lips today to kiss him with?  Because he thought Tim might reject him on days when he was worse for wear?

              He put another spoonful of lunch into Danny’s feeding tube and found himself getting frustrated now.  Danny was clearly, clearly upset, and Tim couldn’t even talk to him about it.  He couldn’t ask him precisely what was the matter.  Yes, it was obvious he was upset at being a zombie, but there was nothing they could do about that.  So how did Tim comfort him?

              “All done,” Tim said, gently pulling the tube out.  He took it over to the water valve and put a slop bucket underneath, then started to clean it.  He hung it back up to dry, and then sat down to have his own lunch.

              The moment he sat, Danny knelt on the floor beside him and rested his head in his lap.  He looked up at Tim with his one good eye and a pained expression.

              Tim was starving, so he ate with one hand, but with the other he gently brushed the top of Danny’s head, which was nearly bald now.

              “What’s the matter, baby?” he said softly, looking down into his one good eye.  He knew Danny couldn’t answer his question, but if he asked it, at least Danny would know that he cared about whatever was wrong.

              “Mmphhhhggg?” Danny said, his eyebrows furrowing as he looked up at Tim.

              “I know something’s wrong.  I know you got upset at the mirror earlier.  You know it’s okay, right?  I know you can’t help decaying.  It doesn’t upset me, it doesn’t need to upset you.  Whatever happens, you’ll heal from it.  You always do.  I’ll get you through it.”

              He didn’t know how much, if any of that, Danny understood.  Tim stopped speaking for a few minutes so he could eat, and Danny lay his head in his lap contentedly while Tim absently stroked his balding head.  Some of the hairs came loose and fell in front of Danny’s face.  Danny reached up with his hand and grabbed at them to pull them away.  But when they came loose in his hand, he sat up with a jerk, his face distraught.

              “Nnnunnm!” he cried, holding out the loose strands to Tim, clearly upset.

              Tim put his spoon down and leaned down to gently cup Danny’s hand with both of his.

              “Shhhh, it’s okay.  It’ll grow back.”

              Danny’s face didn’t seem comforted.  Tim maneuvered Danny’s fingers to uncurl, and then gently pulled the strands out from his grip.  He set the hairs on the counter, out of Danny’s sight.

              Tim slid off the stool and knelt on the floor in front of him, so they were at eye-level.  He reached out his palm to stroke Danny’s chin, when chunks of it came off under his thumb.

              “Nnnyeh!” Danny cried.

              Tim wrapped his arms around his whole body then, pulling him close.

              “Hey.  Hey, it’s alright.  Yeah, it’s scary.  But it’s going to grow back.  It always does.  And I’ll be here with you through it, the whole time, okay?”

              Danny trembled in his arms, and Tim didn’t know what else to do besides hold him, so he just held him a little tighter, and kissed the top of his nearly bald head.

              “Shhh, I’ll be right here with you the whole time, okay baby?”

              He felt Danny relax, almost instantly.

              “Eeebbbyyy?”

              It sounded almost like… baby.

              “Does that comfort you?” Tim said, his heart swelling in his chest with hope.  “When I call you baby?”

              He felt Danny relax further in his arms, and Tim gave a sigh of relief.  Okay.  Okay, there was something he could still say right now that Danny would understand, and that would make him feel better.

              Tim pulled back from the hug so he could look into Danny’s eye.  Thankfully, it was still healthy enough to see.

              “You know I love you, right, baby?  You know nothing can change that?  You know your body decaying doesn’t bother me, right?”

              To demonstrate, Tim leaned forward and pressed a kiss to Danny’s forehead.  The rancid flavor was familiar now, so familiar he almost didn’t register it.  Danny closed his eyes and sighed, a bunch of tension leaving him.  Tim did it again, then again, then gently trailed kisses down the side of Danny’s face that still had skin on it.

              “See?” Tim said softly, his heart swelling at how Danny relaxed in his arms.  “See how I love you?”

              Danny was becoming butter under his touch.  He rested his head on Tim’s shoulder and made a noise that sounded almost like a coo.  Tim continued to stroke the top of his head, and Danny lifted his arms to wrap them around Tim’s back, pulling him close.

              The wet feeling of Danny’s tongue on his neck drew a soft gasp from Tim.  He hadn’t expected Danny to want that when his body was in such a state of decay.

              Or maybe, that was exactly what he needed.  Maybe…Tim showing him how much he was wanted, no matter what he looked like, would be enough to slow the rotting.

              So when Danny’s tongue licked across the spot between his neck and his shoulder, Tim let the warm feeling radiate through him.  He let out a soft moan, and buried his face in Danny’s neck in response.  The stench was horrific, almost overpowering, but if this could make Danny feel better, nothing in the universe could make him pull away.

              Danny groaned and wrapped his arms harder around Tim’s back.  Tim pressed soft kisses to his neck as Danny licked up to his ear.  He gasped, electric sparks singing across his skin.  Danny hummed, pleased, and dragged his palms down Tim’s chest, clutching at his shirt.  He tried to pull it off, but in his state, didn’t seem to be able to quite remember how.  Tim helped him, and then went to remove Danny’s, leaving both of them shirtless as they knelt together on the floor.

              Danny licked his way up Tim’s jaw and then across his lips.  Tim opened for him, slipping his tongue out to meet him, as they were both careful to keep Danny’s teeth away from Tim’s face.  Danny pulled back and lifted his hand to his own mouth, and before Tim realized what he was doing, he yanked one of his molars out.  It clattered to the floor, and then he reached up to yank another one, and then he had both hands in his mouth, yanking out his molars. Tim grabbed his wrists to stop him.

              “No, baby.  You’re already in bad shape right now,” he said softly.  Danny looked at him from behind his single eye, the right one apparently having fallen out while Tim was eating.  His face was now as much skeleton as it was flesh, and yet Tim could still see his sadness. 

              He couldn’t reject him like this.  Danny wouldn’t survive it.

              “There’s lots of ways to be together.  We’ll figure it out, okay?  But leave your teeth in.”

              Danny blinked and stared at him, not seeming to understand.

              Tim took Danny’s hand in his and stood up.

              “Let’s go to our bed,” he said softly, leading Danny by the hand towards the pile of couch cushions that they both slept on together.  Danny eagerly followed him, his eye half-lidded, his tongue licking at his exposed teeth.

              Tim had barely stopped moving when Danny came up behind him, licking along the back of his neck.  The hairs on Tim’s skin stood up as heat bloomed up to his ears.  He felt Danny press his naked chest to his back, each of his hard ribs well-defined through his thin skin as they pushed into him.  Danny exhaled, his repugnant, warm breath washing past Tim’s face as he exhaled and started to lick down his spine.  Shivers of pleasure rushed through Tim’s nerves as he felt Danny lavish his tongue on him.  Tim forgot words as Danny dragged his tongue lower and fell to his knees, licking against the small of Tim’s back.  Danny’s fingers slipped into the waistband of Tim’s pants and he pulled down, hard, getting frustrated when his belt kept them from slipping off.

              Still on his knees, he scooted in front of Tim and tried to undo the buckle.  But with his fingertips missing, all he could do was fumble and grunt in frustration.

              “Hang on…” Tim whispered, getting lost in the pleasant haze of lust.  He got his buckle open and  Danny hummed his approval, yanking Tim’s pants to his ankles.  His tongue came out and licked along Tim’s growing shaft, making him suck in air sharply.  Danny rose up onto his knees and licked over the slit, and Tim moaned, his palms coming to rest on the top of Danny’s head, only to find his hair was…thicker.

              He glanced down with a gasp as Danny continued to lick his cock, and saw that his hair seemed to be coming back in.  His heart swelled.  He couldn’t believe it. 

              “Danny,” he whispered, his eyes watering even as Danny licked his slit, making him feel more and more turned on.  His dick grew harder, and he groaned, his head falling back as Danny lavished attention on his slit, until the head was red and swollen and leaking.  He clasped his fingers harder in Danny’s hair, heat throbbing through his body as Danny licked him, spreading through his veins and straight into his brain.  He moaned softly, eyes closed, all of his attention focused on what Danny’s tongue was doing to him.

[1START XXX]

              Then he felt Danny pull his tongue away, and a second later, the warm, wet heat of his mouth.  A spike of fear shot through Tim even as pleasure sang up his cock.  He slowly lowered his head and opened his eyes, intending to be as gentle as possible when he told Danny to st…

              He blinked as he struggled to understand what he was seeing.

              His cock was in Danny’s mouth, but from the side.

              From the side of his face.

              Danny was sliding Tim’s cock into the gaping hole on the side of his face, into the back of his mouth, where he’d ripped out his teeth earlier.  Where it was safe.

              Confusion and a little bit of revulsion swam through Tim’s mind and had he been anyone else, he would have jerked back with a fright.  But he was Tim Drake-Wayne, trained to react or not react with lightning fast reflexes.  And the person who’s face was swallowing his dick was utterly precious to him, and he wasn’t going to do anything to hurt him.  Ever.

              The only outward reaction Tim showed to discovering this situation was that he tensed.  Danny felt it, and looked up at him with his single eye in the most smitten expression Tim had ever seen.  He lifted his tongue and licked it along the underside of Tim’s cock, making heat and pleasure spring up through his nerves despite himself.

              He took in the situation again, looking closer this time.  Danny had slid Tim’s dick through the hole in his cheek, where he could guide Tim’s cock into the wet heat of the back of his mouth and lick him with his tongue, without the danger of any teeth coming near him.  Danny was looking up at Tim expectantly, and then he slid his face closer, swallowing the tip of Tim’s cock down into his throat.

              “Uuuuuhnn,” Tim said despite himself, the warm tightness of Danny’s throat swallowing around his head, squeezing it, making it throb with desire.  Tim reflexively tightened his fingers in Danny’s hair, holding him closer, and Danny closed his eye in bliss.

              When Tim saw the absolute rapture on Danny’s face, he knew he couldn’t pull away.  He had just told Danny that they would find a way to be together despite his deadly teeth, and then Danny had gone and found that way.  Losing his inhibitions, Tim started to rock gently into Danny’s heat, and he heard Danny give a long, low moan.

              “Mmmmmm,” he said, his voice vibrating through Tim’s dick as he groaned, sending waves of desire up through his shaft.  Tim started to thrust a little faster, holding Danny’s head in place by his hair.  Danny closed his eye as he let Tim fuck the side of his face, and he looked absolutely enamored.  Lust spread through Tim’s body like hot coals, slowly smoldering to spread their heat, making every inch of him tingle as it went.  His eyelids closed halfway and his breathing rushed heavily through his nose, until he had to open his mouth to pant.  He felt the heat building up and he could have cum right there, right into Danny’s mouth through the side of his face.

              But he wanted to make Danny feel good.  That was the whole point of this; for him to lift Danny’s mood so that he was no longer rotting, but healing.  Tim put his hands on the sides of Danny’s face and slowed his thrusts.  He pulled out, his cock head getting stuck for a moment on the sinews of Danny’s skin before popping free.

              Danny turned to look up at him, worried for just a moment before he saw Tim’s lust-addled face.

              “Lay down for me, baby,” he breathed, and Danny eagerly went, lying on his back in their makeshift bed.

              Tim knelt beside him, unzipping Danny’s fly.

              “Gonna take these off you,” he said, his voice low and thick, his cock still rock-hard and dripping.  Danny lifted his hips to help him.  He slid his pants down to his ankles, yanked off his shoes, and then they were both naked.

              Tim glanced down between Danny’s legs, and was disappointed to see most of his dick was missing.  There was little more than a stub about an inch long, ending in a weeping, oozing mess.  Behind it, his sack was there but looked…empty.  Tim forced himself not to stare at it, as he knew Danny was already sensitive about how rotten he was right now.  Instead he crawled on top of Danny’s body, face throbbing with heat as his cock gave a swell.  He lowered his lips to Danny’s neck and began to kiss him, ignoring the bits of flesh that flaked off under his lips.  Danny moaned softly under his kisses and he tilted his head to let Tim in more easily.  Tim’s own blush grew warmer at that response, and he kissed harder, sealing his lips to suck.  Danny’s loose skin came easily into his mouth, and then Tim tightened his teeth against it.  Danny inhaled sharply and Tim felt the nub of his cock swell against his thigh.  His heart racing from what he was about to do, Tim clamped his teeth down harder and bit.

              Danny gave a soft gasp, and Tim’s pulse rushed faster.  He bit harder, his teeth sinking into the loose, rotten flesh, until he was biting it completely off.  Danny’s panting only grew faster, the nub of his cock growing harder as it pressed against Tim’s thigh.  Tim spit the skin out and let it fall to the cushions, and then came back with his tongue to lick over the red, oozing wound he’d made.

              “Eeeeeeyyaaah!” Danny cried with desire, his arms flying around Tim’s back to clasp him hard as his back arched up, pushing his boney ribs into Tim’s stomach.  Tim moved his lips up to brush Danny’s ear and he whispered into it.

              “You like that, baby?” he asked.

              Danny nodded vigorously, and then Tim went back and licked at the wound again, dragging his tongue slowly over it.  The flavor of rot and death was nothing compared to Danny’s beautiful reaction, of getting to hear his voice cry out in pleasure instead of suffering.  Tim licked it again and again, feeling Danny writhe beneath him, his fingers shuddering against Tim’s back as he struggled not to curl them, not to scratch Tim.

              “Hang on,” Tim said, finally coming somewhat to his senses.  “I’ll be right back.”

              He rose up, and Danny gave a soft, pathetic whine, sitting up to come after him.

              “Stay there, baby,” he said, and Danny obeyed, looking like a lost puppy who had just learned the command to stay and didn’t understand why he had to do it.

              Tim walked over to the supplies he’d gotten earlier and yanked out a pair of garden gloves.  He came back and held them out to Danny with a smirk.  Danny’s smile widened as he understood immediately, lifting his hands up eagerly.  Tim realized only the left one even needed it.  The right one was missing the fingers from the second joint up, and so Tim tossed the other glove to the side.

              Then Tim was back, crawling on top of Danny’s body, dragging his tongue up the skin of his chest.  He glanced up at Danny’s face and gave him a smirk.

              “Want another one?”

              “Mmmmmmm…” Danny groaned, lifting his hips up to buck up against Tim’s, despite barely having a cock.  Heat flushed through Tim’s cheeks and up to his ears, making his entire face red now.  He was so lost to lust he didn’t even hesitate.  He dragged his teeth slowly down Danny’s chest, teasing him, until he was just below his nipple, and bit again.  He sank his teeth into Danny’s rotten flesh and savored it, the flavor of him familiar and exhilarating as he heard Danny keen.

              His heart was hammering wildly in his chest as he spit the flesh out to the side, and then dragged his tongue slowly over the wound he’d made.

              “Nnnnnuuuuuughhhfhfffffffff!” Danny cried, his voice loud and pleading as he arched his back into Tim’s touch.  His arms flew around Tim’s back, his gloved fingertips curling into his skin along with the stubs on his bare hand.  Tim felt Danny clutch him, as hard as he could, his body trembling beneath the tease of Tim’s tongue.  Danny’s breaths were coming fast and hard, his head tossed back and his eyes squeezed tightly shut.

              As Tim licked, he felt Danny’s skin growing stronger.  Thicker.  More taut.  Healthier.  He watched in lustful fascination as his own tongue caused Danny’s strength to return.  He already felt so good nothing in the universe was going to stop him, but with that as an encouragement, he let all his sense fall away and gave in thickly to the lust.

              “God, you’re so sexy,” Tim whispered, meaning it more than he ever thought he could as he dragged his teeth teasingly over Danny’s skin, down towards his pelvis, down towards the stub of his cock.  He felt Danny’s breathing grow faster with anticipation, and Tim was drunk on lust as he pressed his tongue to the oozing wound that protruded from between Danny’s legs.

              “Hnnnnng!” Danny cried, his fingers flying down to clasp at Tim’s hair, one hand in a glove, the other bony stubs.  Tim’s heart was pounding as the taste of decay flowed down his throat.  Something was changing in his brain because he didn’t just ignore it, he found he didn’t even mind it, because it was making Danny feel incredible and there was nothing he wanted more in the entire universe.

              Tim licked his tongue around the base of Danny’s cock and then brought it back to lick against the wound where the rest of it should have been.  Danny’s knees trembled and his whole body shook, his fingers so tight in Tim’s hair it hurt.  Tim gave a gentle suck and Danny’s moan was so deep and low Tim could almost feel the air vibrate from his voice.

              “Mmmmmeeeemmmnnn…” Danny said, starting to thrust his hips up into Tim’s mouth.  Tim’s eyes fluttered closed as his heart swelled with desire and affection.  Oh, he was making Danny feel good, this was bliss, this was heaven.  Their lives were absolute shit, but right now, in this moment, they were in paradise.  Together.  Tim never, ever wanted to leave.  He dragged his tongue languidly over Danny’s cock wound, savoring his flavor, drowning in the ecstasy of his moans, and it made it all worth it.  Every second of suffering, every minute of pain, every hour they struggled was all worth it to have this moment.

              Danny gave a sharp intake of breath and then his entire body tensed.  He thrust his hips up hard and came, his cum squirting into Tim’s mouth hot and thick and sour.  Tim’s entire body glowed with delight and joy as he made his love get lost in sweet release, forgetting all their troubles for a brief moment and feeling nothing but rapture.

              Danny’s hips collapsed back to the bed and Tim gently pulled his lips away, letting Danny’s cum drip down over his cock stub, leaving him a mess.  He lifted his head as much as he could with Danny’s fingers still clasped tightly in his hair, and saw Danny glance down at him.  Some of the skin was back on his face, and with it he gave Tim the sweetest dazed smile he’d ever seen.  Tim smiled back, his heart shining with love and affection.

              “Mmmeh,” Danny said softly from behind his half-lidded eye.  He slid his ungloved hand out of Tim’s hair and held his open hand out, palm up.  Tim wasn’t quite sure what he wanted, but he reached for his hand anyway, absolutely unable to resist anything Danny wanted right now.  Instead of taking his hand, Danny grabbed his wrist and turned Tim’s hand down forcefully, pressing Tim’s fingernails against his skin, right between where his leg met his pelvis.  With conviction, Danny forced Tim’s nails to scratch open his fragile skin, blood slowly oozing from the wound as he sliced it open following the V of his hip.  Once Tim realized what Danny wanted he pressed down himself, until together they created a wound several inches long.

              Then Danny yanked on Tim’s wrist to pull him up towards his face.  Tim crawled up over his body, eager to do whatever Danny wanted.  Right now he would do anything in the universe for him, without even questioning why; if it could make Danny happy, then Tim would do it.

              Danny pulled him up until their faces were inches from each other, and then slid his stubbed fingers down Tim’s body, tickling his skin as he went.  Tim’s breath hitched as Danny grabbed his cock, and then shifted himself so that the tip of it was resting right on the wound they’d just made.

              Tim still didn’t understand, but he moved however Danny’s hands told him to move, wanting to give him whatever it was he was after, no matter what it…

              Tim gasped as Danny pushed the tip of his cock inside the wound.  Hot, wet, tight heat surrounded his tip and Danny lifted his hips up, forcing Tim’s cock in deeper.  Tim’s eyes flew wide open as he realized what Danny wanted.  He met Danny’s eye and he was looking up at Tim expectantly, waiting, hopeful.

              “You…you want…”

              Danny shifted his body so Tim’s cock slid in deeper, and they both gave a soft moan. A throb of desire shot up Tim’s cock, and Danny’s eyes closed in pleasure.  It was that- the look on Danny’s face- that made Tim fall over the edge of logic and want to do this.

              “This feels good to you, baby?” he whispered, pushing his cock into the wound a little deeper, the shape of his shaft showing from beneath his loose skin.  Danny’s following moan was unmistakable.  Tim glanced up and saw Danny’s expression of desire, and so he pushed in further, feeling Danny’s skin tear as his shaft stretched the wound open further.  Danny shuddered, his breath shaking as he closed his eye, and Tim couldn’t ignore how good it felt. 

              It was hot, tight, and wet, and he was hard as fuck.  When Danny shifted again to drive Tim deeper under his skin again, he let the lust take him.  He started to rock up into Danny’s body, right beside his cock, feeling the short stub of it swell as it pressed against his thigh.  Oh, so it felt that kind of good.  Tim rocked in deeper, staring with drunk lust at the shape of his cock pushing up under Danny’s skin, watching as he stretched it further.  He brought his fingers up to trace over the outline, and Danny moaned.

              “You like this, baby?” he said as he rocked, watching his cock slide in and out from under Danny’s skin.  His voice was more breath than sound, the squeeze of Danny’s hot flesh around his shaft making him barely able to think.  Danny moaned and nodded, lifting his arms to hold Tim close.  Tim wanted to be near him, as near to him as he could, and so he lay on top of Danny with his whole body, their chests pressed together as he rocked his hips harder up into him.

              His cock was feeling incredible; hot, wet tightness sealing around him on every side while Danny rocked his hips in tandem with him.  They clung to each other, not an inch of space between them, as Tim buried his face in Danny’s neck and Danny did the same.  The lust and pressure in Tim’s balls grew hotter and he bent his knees sharper to thrust faster and deeper.  Danny moaned, his mouth right by Tim’s ear, the sounds of his pleasure sending waves of arousal through Tim’s body and straight to his balls.  His cock was pleading with him to go faster, harder, but he couldn’t bring himself to let go of Danny’s tight embrace for anything.  So instead he let it build up slowly, rocking into Danny’s heat at a pace that made him throb with desperate want but didn’t quite deliver.  Danny’s tongue licked up his neck, his breath panting against Tim’s skin, hot and rank and thick.

              And then Tim felt a kiss to his neck.

              A kiss.

              Soft, pliant lips on his skin.

              He pulled back with wide eyes and saw Danny’s face had healed, enough for him to grow lips back, even as his nose and eye were still missing and there were still gaping holes in his cheeks.

              Tim didn’t give a flying fuck about the danger and pressed his lips hard to Danny’s, his eyes watering as he watched his love heal in front of him, for him, because of him.  Danny kissed him back sweetly, gently, careful to keep his lips closed as the only protection between Tim and both of their deaths.  They continued to rock together, both giving soft moans and gentle gasps, until the heat in Tim’s balls finally built up enough to spill over.

              In a crash, it drowned him.  He cried out and trembled as he came, his fingers clasping hard at Danny’s back, scraping red lines into it as he scratched him.  His release poured into the wound under Danny’s skin and then spilled out, white and red mixing into a slurry of pink that gushed around his cock and dripped down between Danny’s legs.  Danny moaned softly in his ear, his gloved hand petting along his back, his other one resting on the floor as Tim noticed his fingers were growing back.  With tears in his eyes Tim let his release overwhelm him, physical euphoria mixing with emotional joy as he watched Danny become more whole.

              Tim collapsed onto him as they both panted and curled into each other.  Tim’s cock softened and slipped out of Danny’s pelvic wound, making him wince for a moment.  The mess between their legs was sticky but not really worse than any of the other blood and fluids on them, so he saw no reason to get up and do anything about it.

[1END XXX]

              Danny brought his arm up now to hug around Tim’s back and they both held each other as tightly as they could.  Tim pressed kiss after kiss after kiss to Danny’s lips, unable to hold back his tears, his relief, at seeing him bounce back and become so healthy.

              Because of him.  Because he uplifted Danny’s spirits that much.

              “I love you, I love you so much,” Tim said, pressing kisses to the rest of Danny’s face, to his forehead, around the hole for his nose, where skin had grown over.  The whole thing would probably return soon, perhaps overnight.

              Danny pressed his face into Tim’s neck and breathed him in.  They lay together for a long time, gently holding each other, stroking their fingers slowly across each other’s skin.  Tim lifted his head to look at Danny again, his heart overjoyed to see how much better he was.  He seemed to have more skin every time Tim checked.  His hair was growing back and was thicker.  Underneath his closed eyelid, it looked like his eye was forming again.

              Tim pressed another kiss to his newly-formed lips.

              “Danny, can you understand me, baby?” he said, wondering how much of Danny’s mind had returned.

              He gave a dreamy nod.

              “I need you to listen,” Tim said, and Danny nodded again.

              “I will love you all the time, okay?  Always.  Good days, bad days, horrible days.  I don’t care what your body looks like, it’s your heart that I love, okay?  You don’t need to be afraid.  On bad days, I will be here.  I will take care of you.  Help you bounce back.  Just like today,” he said, taking the ungloved hand by the wrist, and showing it to Danny, so he could see how much healing he’d done.

              “Do you understand?”

              Danny gave him a sated, happy nod, and Tim smiled at him, pressing their foreheads together.

              “Good.”

Chapter Text

Hey guys! I got some AMAZING fanart from FaiKazahaya! I've been drooling over this for DAYS, it's so good!

IT IS GRAPHIC ZOMBIE PORN, so if you skipped the graphic scene in the previous chapter, then this is probably not for you, so just don't scroll down.

However, if you are a freak like me and think gore is a turn-on, you will love this.

Please let them know if you loved it by leaving comments!

Chapter Text

Amazing art by 1n0sss ! This art wasn't directly drawn for this fic, but was inspired by the same brainstorming session we had on the Dead Tired server. I asked Inos if I could share it here and he said yes, so you all get to see it. If you love it, please go to the tumblr post and reblog it!

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              Tim squinted at yet another result of his DNA sequencing, taking more notes of the impossible thing he was seeing.  If the anomaly was in just one location, or even just a handful, then he’d have attributed it to sample degradation, or him making a preparation error.

              But no.  It was consistent.  It had a pattern.  He could even predict the pattern, and the answer was eerily the same every time.

              Danny had pieces of his DNA missing.

              Not as in, an entire chromosome was missing, but instead, within every piece of his DNA, there were nucleotides that were not there at all.

              Tim took his gloves off and tried to rub the exhaustion from his eyes.  God he wished he had the internet.  The vastness of all human knowledge, compiled from every culture and every corner of the Earth together in one place, at his fingertips.  He’d taken it for granted.  What he wouldn’t give for that now; hell, even a library of books would help.  He knew a lot about scientific equipment and research, but he was also used to looking things up when he wasn’t sure.  He’d sequenced DNA a thousand times in the Batcave and could do it blind.

              Or he thought he could.  But now, he wasn’t certain.  Were these weird results because he’d forgotten an important step?  Faulty equipment?  Were these insane results real?

              He turned to look at Danny, who was happily munching away on a bag of pretzels, in what Tim considered to be his “normal” decomposed state.  He had one good hand, one bony, two eyes with one milky, hair but it was thin.  That seemed to be his default state, the one he went to when he wasn’t in deep stress or overly happy.

              “What are you, baby?” he asked himself for the thousandth time.  “Why are there missing gaps in your DNA?”

              The worst part was that he had the feeling Danny knew.  That if they could just get his mind back to its healthy state, or even close to that, that he’d be able to answer these questions.

              He wasn’t a standard meta; his meta gene was normal.  But he was something.  There were all kinds of other ways for a being to have healing powers besides a meta mutation.  He could be an alien.  He could be inter-dimensional.  He could be the result of a lab accident.  He could be from the future.  He could be something supernatural; a blessed demon or a cursed angel.  The list was long, and then there were of course things Tim wouldn’t even know about.

              He slammed his fist on the table in frustration.  Danny looked up at the noise, and Tim gave him a tired smile.

              “It’s okay.  I’m still working.”

              Danny gave a nod, then went back to his pretzels.

              There weren’t a whole lot of them left.  Tim had raided every grocery store within a days’ walk of their bunker.  He knew soon he’d have to expand his radius, and start searching areas further away.  Places that he’d have to spend the night outdoors in order to reach.  Sleeping outside of the bunker wasn’t an option; zombies were slow, but if you stopped moving, they were faster than you.  So he’d have to travel in the dark.  And winter was coming.

              He tried not to think about that.  Today was a research day.  He put Danny’s DNA aside and started getting to work on studying the DNA in the zombie virus.  He refocused his mind on his task and started to sequence it.  He fell into a routine; sequencing DNA really was a familiar task.  While the machine was running he walked over to the kitchen and stared at the instant coffee.  He had so little left. But yeah, this was an appropriate time to use it.  He put the teakettle on the hotplate and waited for the water to boil.

              He wasn’t about to waste a can of condensed milk, but he put a packet of sugar in it and took a sip.  He closed his eyes, holding the cup between his palms and letting the warmth seep into his hands.  He glanced over at the fireplace, which was half finished.  He’d been able to cut a hole in the roof of the bunker and secure the metal chimney and flue.  Now it was time to build the firebox.  His back ached when he thought about hauling more bricks.  That was part of the reason he was taking a break from that today.  The other reason was that he was trying to find some more mortar.  The little bit he’d located in a shed wasn’t going to finish the job, though he still had a little left.

              The DNA sequencer finished.  He walked over, setting his coffee down as he looked at the results.

              His eyes grew wide.  It couldn’t be.

              Excited and confused at the same time, he hurried to grab Danny’s DNA results and held them up, side-by-side.

              “No way,” he said softly.

              The virus DNA was missing pieces.  Entire nucleotides.  Throughout its full genome.

              In the exact same pattern Danny’s were missing.

              “That can’t be a coincidence,” he said, his heart racing with hope.  Was this it?  Was this finally the connection he was looking for?

              Wait.  Wait, no.  It could be the result of faulty equipment.  This DNA sequencer might just always spit out gaps in the same place, no matter what sample he put in it.

              Well that was easy to test.  He knew his own DNA was normal.  He even knew what it should look like, for the most part, after all the times he’d tested himself as a precaution during various cases.  It was difficult to keep his excitement in check as he prepared his own sample.  But he had to focus; he couldn’t make a mistake.  He forced himself to slow down and follow the procedure diligently.  While it ran, he started making notes on his findings while sipping the rest of his coffee.

              When the sequencer finished he took a second to center himself.  He took several breaths to calm himself down before looking at the results.

              They were normal.

              Completely normal.

              He was staring at his own DNA, exactly as it should look, exactly as it had always looked.

              “Oh my God, it’s real,” he said, shoving his results aside to pull Danny’s and the virus’ in front of him again, staring at them side-by-side.

              The pattern of missing nucleotides was exactly the same.  He checked it four times.

              “Does the zombie virus….delete DNA?” he said aloud.

              He needed to test the DNA of other zombies.  He knew where he could probably get it- at the site where Danny had fought the mob off for him.  The chimney had fallen on top of the zombie that had knocked it over.  The bricks would have kept wild animals from carrying all the pieces off.

              He glanced up at the clock.  Sunset was in two hours, and it only took 30 minutes to get to the site.  They should make it there and back with time to spare.

              Tim walked over to the bottom of the stairs and starting loading up his leather harness, sliding in his axe, a saw in case he had to cut bone, the garden gloves, and a shovel.  Danny saw him getting ready to go out and came over.

              “I need a sample of dead zombie,” he said.  “And maybe we’ll check the traps.  I could use a few more rats, chipmunks, squirrels, whatever.  Anything will do, really.”

              Danny stared at him, and as usual, Tim wasn’t sure exactly what he’d understood.  But he knew they were going out, and when Tim went up the stairs, Danny was right behind him.

              Checking the traps took longer than he’d anticipated, because so many of them were full.  Which was good; anything he didn’t need for his experiments would become dinner.  But it also delayed him.  By the time he’d gotten the animals secured in cages in the bunker, they’d lost an hour.  He glanced up at the sun and debated waiting until tomorrow- but waiting another day lowered the chances of finding any remains.

              He decided it was worth the risk, and headed out towards the site, Danny in tow.  The sky was turning orange as they arrived.  Tim headed straight for the pile of bricks and started to dig.  There would probably only be bones left now; it had been several weeks.  But that was all he needed.

              Danny helped him dig, lifting up bricks in the same area Tim was, throwing them off to the side.  Tim grit his teeth.  Letting Danny help him with things was always a double-edged sword.  Wearing out his body always made him rot a little worse.  But on the other hand, Tim needed fucking help.  He wouldn’t have the fireplace more than halfway done if it wasn’t for Danny carrying pounds and pounds of bricks down the stairs.

              And the other thing was, Danny wanted to help.  Trying to stop him generally made him upset.  Tim knew if their places were reversed, and his mind wasn’t all there, he would still be determined to help however he could, and he knew Danny had a similar personality.

              So they dug as a team, each of them moving the bricks one by one, until finally, Tim saw a bone.

              “That’s it,” he said.  Together they dug it out, the sky fading to pink.  Tim yanked it out triumphantly.  He jammed it into his harness and wiped the sweat from his forehead.

              “Gggeeeh?”

              “Yeah, it’s good,” Tim said.  “Thank you, baby.”  He leaned over to give Danny a peck on his cheek, and then turned to head back home.  They had ten minutes of light left for a half-hour walk.  But they should be okay.  It wasn’t like zombies were more active at night.  Their behavior was no different during the day or night.  It was just that it was harder to see.  He also knew it was a new moon right now, which would mean very little light.

              They walked in silence for the next fifteen minutes, as the sunlight faded to nothing and the stars started to come out.

              “Eeeee!” Danny said, his voice excited.  Tim turned around to see what he was looking at, and saw him standing still, his head pointed straight up at the sky.

              “Ahhh!” he said, pointing.  Tim followed his finger, but he wasn’t pointing at anything in particular.  Just up at the sky.

              “Danny, we have to get ho…” but he stopped himself when he saw his face.

              He looked delighted.  His eyes were wide and bright, the widest smile Tim had ever seen on his face.  He thought about how the only book he ever looked through was about planets.

              “You like the stars, baby?”

              Danny looked at him with absolute joy on his face.  Tim’s heart swelled as he saw how happy he was.  Was this the first time he’d ever had Danny out at night?

              The only other time he could think of was the night it had been pouring rain, but the clouds would have blocked the stars then.

              Tim walked up to stand beside him, and tilted his head back to look up at the sky.

              It was strikingly beautiful.

              Tim couldn’t remember the last time he’d actually looked at the stars.  He knew them, by heart; all Bats could navigate by the stars if necessary.  But that was from memorizing a map.  But no map could capture the beauty.

              “Eeeehnn,” Danny said, pointing his finger at the band of the Milky Way, tracing it in a very deliberate line across the sky.

              “Milky way, love,” Tim said.  Danny nodded with excitement. 

              “Uuunn,” he said, pointing at the Big Dipper.

              “Ursa Major,” Tim said, the names rolling off his lips like he was in school, but his eyes were seeing something much more wonderful.

              “Danny, you know the stars, don’t you?”

              Danny nodded, keeping his neck craned up, his eyes as wide as they could go.

              “You can find the north star?” Tim asked, his heart shining with love and hope.  If Danny knew that, if he could remember something like that…

              He pointed directly at it.

              Tears sprang to Tim’s eyes.  Oh my God.  Oh my God, he was in there.  Despite all the rotting, despite some days when he didn’t have enough brain to even move, he somehow was retaining who he was.

              He struggled to learn new things, like how to operate the bunker door, but things he knew before he was a zombie seemed to remain.  If Tim could just find a cure, if he could just find a partial treatment, he could rescue Danny from the hellish limbo he existed in, and let his personality out again.

              “Cassiopeia?” Tim said, and Danny’s fingers swept across the sky to point directly at it.  He didn’t even hesitate.

              “Gemini?”

              Danny’s face was enthralled, his fingers again pointing exactly to the correct spot in the sky, even tracing the outline of the constellation as he went.  Tim moved closer to him and wrapped his arms around Danny’s waist, holding him close as they both gazed at the sky in awe, but for different reasons.

              “Eyein,” Danny said, moving his fingers down to Orion, and then an actual tear fell from Tim’s eye.  He’d almost said it.  He’d almost said it’s name.  Tim leaned over and pressed a kiss to his cheek, and felt his skin healthy and warm.

              “Oh my God, this is healing you,” Tim said softly.  “You don’t just know the stars.  You love the stars.”

              Danny nodded, not tearing his eyes away from the beauty of lights above them.

              “Wwwiiiiinnnnnn,” he said, pointing at Orion again.  “Mmmm, winnnnnerrrrrr.”

              “Winter?” Tim said, lifting his head.

              Danny nodded vigorously.

              “Yes, baby.  Orion rising means winter is close.”

              Oh my God he knew everything.  Tim couldn’t stop kissing his cheek now.  He pressed kiss after kiss to the side of his face, his heart glowing with love and hope.  Danny turned from his stars and kissed Tim back, careful to keep his lips closed, but they were full and warm and not flaky at all.  Tim couldn’t believe it; they’d found a second thing that could bring Danny joy in this shitthole of a life.  Which was exactly what they needed.

              Tim pulled back from the kiss and put his palms on the sides of Danny’s face.

              “Oh, Danny, I didn’t know.  I didn’t know you loved the stars this much.  Oh, we’ll go out every clear night from now on, okay?  Every night.”

              Danny kissed him harder, moving to wrap his arms around Tim’s waist and pulling him close.

              “But right now,” Tim said, “We have to get home.  I don’t like being this far from home at night.”

              Danny nodded, understanding completely.  He slid his palm down Tim’s arm and clasped his hand, careful to keep his fingernails away from Tim’s skin.  Together they walked home, hand-in-hand, Danny getting distracted by the stars over and over, Tim gently leading him on until they were safely back.

              * * *

              The next morning Tim woke up shivering.  He pulled the blankets higher over himself, but it didn’t help much.  He opened his eyes to see his breath fogging in the air as he exhaled.

              Oh.

              Shit.

              He shivered, and he felt Danny wrap his arms tighter around his stomach.  He felt him nuzzle his face against the back of his neck, and press a soft kiss to it.

              “Coooooollllllllddddd,” Danny said.

              Tim’s eyes watered.  God, he was so happy after having looked at the stars last night that made him healthy enough to speak.

              Tim turned around and faced him.

              “Yeah, it’s cold,” Tim said.  “We have to work on the fireplace.”

              Danny gave him a nod.

              Tim didn’t want to get up from under the blankets.  As cold as he was, it would be worse out there.

              But the only way to get warm was to build a fire.

              “Tim stay,” Danny said, rising up from under their blankets.  Tim was frozen, so the idea of staying under the warmish blankets a little longer seemed very appealing.  He wasn’t going to argue.

              He turned and watched Danny go towards the electric heater and turn it on.  He was in such good shape he could figure it out.  Then he went over to the kitchen and put the tea kettle on.  Tim’s heart swelled with affection.  Danny was trying to warm him up.

              While he waited for the tea kettle to boil, Danny walked over to the pile of winter clothes Tim had folded neatly in the corner, and pulled out a coat.  He walked over to Tim with it and held it out.

              “Thanks, baby,” Tim said softly.  Danny gave him a smile to rival the sun.  Tim returned it as best he could, his fingers shaking as he sat up and threw the coat on.

              The tea kettle whistled and Tim got up.  The electric heater was warming the bunker up a little, and the coat was helping.  His fingers were still frozen as he poured the hot water, and then glanced over at his instant coffee stores.  There wasn’t much.  It was all that was left from the grocery stores he’d raided, and the only way to get more would be to travel more than a days’ walk and hope he found something that somehow had protection from the elements after all this time.

              It was unlikely.

              The zombie hoards had leveled more buildings than they hadn’t at this point.  The more time went by, the fewer intact structures remained.  He had to get them completely sufficient on the land before their food stores ran out.  He glanced over at the garden, which had flowers now.  Later he’d have to take some cotton balls and pollinate them.

              He sipped the hot water.  It was plain, but it would warm him.  The feeling was coming back to his fingers.

              “Briiickssssss?” Danny said, pointing at the fireplace.

              “Yeah, we need more.”

              Danny nodded, and headed towards the stairs.

              Tim inwardly winced.  Making Danny stress himself out physically always resulted him in degrading.  But he needed his help.  He had to work on finishing the inner wall of the firebox.  Once he built it up high enough to reach the metal chimney, they would be set.

              He got to work mixing the little bit of mortar he had left. 

              They worked through the entire day.  Thankfully things warmed up as the afternoon came, and working as hard as he was, Tim took off his jacket.  Danny plonked down another armful of bricks beside him, and Tim turned to look up at his face.  His skin was already degrading.  Tim desperately wanted to tell him to stop.  But they couldn’t.  They had to finish this.  He needed to at least get close enough to finishing that he could estimate how much more mortar he’d have to find.  Because getting that was going to be rough.

              He’d found a few home improvement stores in the nearby area, but they all had collapsed roofs and had been exposed to the elements.  He wasn’t going to find things like mortar, which were ruined once they got wet.  He’d found one store a few weeks ago that was still mostly standing, but it was over a day’s walk away.  If they left in the morning, they’d get there by late afternoon.  Then on the trip back, they’d be much, much slower, having to push a cart along the roads rather than a direct route.  They would have to travel in the night (no fucking way was Tim going to stop to sleep).

              He didn’t want to take Danny on a trip like that- and yet he had no choice.  If he went by himself, he’d have to stop too often to rest.  It would take him twice as long, increasing the chances of a zombie mob scenting him.

              He used up the last bit of mortar, layed the last brick, and sat for a moment, exhausted.  Danny stood beside him, absently brushing his fingers through Tim’s hair.

              “Let’s eat, then pack.  We have a lot of walking to do,” Tim said.  Since they would be walking through the night no matter what, there was no point in waiting until morning.    But maybe it would be a clear night, and Danny would get to see the stars again.

              Sitting on the floor, resting his back against the wall, Tim glanced up at the animals in cages on the lab bench.  All he wanted to do was finish his DNA testing.  He was so close to a breakthrough, he could feel it.  But survival was taking precedence, as it always did.  Frustration clawed it’s way up his throat, making him want to scream.

              He felt Danny’s fingers continue to brush through his hair and he took a deep breath.  For Danny.  He was doing this for Danny.  Tim wasn’t going to find a cure if he froze to death.  They had to solve the cold problem first, and then he could get back to work.  He only had to build the fireplace once, after all.

              They ate, fed the animals, packed, and left.  Tim wore his leather harness with his weapons, and he gave a backpack full of food and water bottles to Danny.  He had degraded back to his “default” state, with bones showing here or there, but his skin still mostly intact.  Tim hoped that seeing the stars tonight would help keep his spirits up enough to counteract the stress of hiking for an entire day.

              The sun was low in the sky as they set out.  He took the direct route there, across what used to be yards and baseball fields.  It was still warm enough that he didn’t need the coat, so he kept it tied around his waist, along with one tied around Danny’s.  He wasn’t sure what Danny’s temperature tolerance was.  This morning had made it clear that he didn’t need warmth the same way Tim did- but Tim had a feeling there was still a temperature that would be too cold for him.

              They walked through the night.  The stars did indeed come out, and though they couldn’t stop to admire them, Tim could still see the joy on Danny’s face as he glanced up at them as they walked. Fewer could be seen, as the crescent moon was now waxing, but Tim was grateful for the extra light.

              When he started to shiver, he put on his coat.  He kept glancing at Danny, eyeing him, monitoring his condition.  It seemed stable, so at least he wasn’t getting worse from the exertion of hiking dozens of miles.  He also wasn’t shivering, so Tim didn’t make him wear the coat.

              They stopped twice to eat, and both times Tim listened carefully for the distant moans of zombies.  So far, so good. 

              When the sun rose, Tim took the opportunity to glance at landmarks, to make sure he was going the right way.  He glanced across a football field where he saw about a dozen figures in the distance, slowly walking towards them.

              He grabbed Danny and yanked him behind the bleachers.

              “Mmmaaaah?”

              “Shhhh.  Zombies.”

              Danny bared his teeth but otherwise obeyed his order to remain quiet.  Both of them fell absolutely still, and Tim quieted his breaths to listen for the telltale moans.

              “Hey there!” he heard instead.

              What?

              Tim’s brow furrowed as his brain tried to understand what he was hearing.

              “Hey there!  It’s alright!  We’re human!”

              Holy. Shit?

              Tim’s heart was pounding hard.  He couldn’t even name all the emotions that suddenly rampaged through him.  Terror.  Hope.  Suspicion.  Relief.  Mistrust.  He couldn’t make sense of any of it.

              Humans?

              “Maybe they don’t speak English,” a man’s voice said, as the dozen or so figures grew closer.

              Their mannerisms were…normal.  It had been so long since Tim had seen someone just… walking.  Not shambling or dragging a broken leg or half falling over or blindly walking into objects.

              He peered out from between the bleacher slats and stared.  Humans.

              “Even if they don’t speak English, they’d still hear us talking like normal people,” a woman said.  As they came into view, Tim could see they were in a state just like him.  Wearing tattered, dirty clothes, with backpacks stuffed full of weapons and supplies.  He saw a bat, some hammers, and several knives.  None of them were drawn.  The people themselves were empty-handed.

              Survivors.

              He swallowed thickly.  If he couldn’t talk to other humans, then what was the point of all this?  What was the point of anything?

              Besides, they had already seen him.  They were heading straight for them.  The only way to keep them from seeing Danny would be to talk to them himself.

              “Stay here,” Tim said, putting his palm on Danny’s chest to emphasize his point.  Danny nodded, and Tim slowly, carefully stepped out from under the bleachers and into the football field.

              “Hey!” the lead woman said again, waving her arm.  She was tall and muscular, with tan skin and short, dark hair.  Behind her walked another woman, much skinnier but just as muscular, and a bald man with a full brown beard who looked like he could snap the handle of Tim’s axe with his bare hands.  The ten people behind them were just as fit-looking.

              “Hi!” Tim shouted, cautiously walking towards them so they would meet as far away from Danny as possible.  His eyes darted from one human to another to another, taking in the group, analyzing them as best he could, trying to keep his apprehension at bay as they approached.  There were thirteen in total.

              The sound of their walking was strange.  Measured, regular footsteps with purpose, unlike wandering zombies that simply… went.  They were talking, their voices melding together so that Tim could only pick out bits of real words, but they were words.  They were all wondering about him.

              When they met, the entire group stopped, which was also strange.  He was so used to zombies, who just plowed into everything in their way, never turning, never stopping.

              A thousand eyes stared at him, and for the first time in eight or ten months, he was being seen.

              It was beyond strange.  It was surreal.

              “Hello!  My name is Margaret.  I know we seem intimidating, but that’s only to fight the zombies off!  You look like you know very well how to do that yourself,” she said.

              Tim had to lick his lips several times, to remind himself how to have a conversation.

              “You’re the first people I’ve seen since the spring,” he managed.  Was that the right thing to say?  He could no longer remember.

              “Oh, you poor things!  You both must be so incredibly lonely.”

              Tim saw them all look over at Danny and he grit his teeth with apprehension.  His entire body tensed.

              “It’s okay.  We understand you’re being cautious,” the lead woman said.  Because she’d seen his body language and had already interpreted it as him being protective of Danny.

              He wasn’t used to his body language being interpreted anymore.  Dammit.  He used to be a master of manipulating his body and expressions to get someone else to feel whatever he wanted them to feel.  Now?  Margaret was reading him like an open book.

              “Like I said, I’m Margaret.  This is Dave, and Jules,” she said, gesturing at the man and woman who flanked her.  “What’s your name?”

              “I’m Tim,” he said, and it felt strange to say his name.

              “Nice to meet you, Tim!” she said, giving him a warm smile.  He didn’t trust it.  Why didn’t he trust it?  He couldn’t tell.  But his defenses were up.

              “Tell me, where are we?” Margaret asked.  “We’ve seen signs for town names, but we’re not really familiar with this area, so knowing a small town name doesn’t really help us get our bearings.”

              “We’re in Wisconsin,” he said.  “About an hour drive from Illinois.  If…driving was still a thing.”

              “Wisconsin!  We’ve made it to the States!” Dave said.

              Did they somehow miss the entire state of Minnesota?  How far had they gone without seeing anyone alive?

              “Does that matter?” Tim said.

              Margaret nodded.

              “We’re from Winnipeg.  We’re trying to get to Chicago.”

              “Why?” he asked, not understanding.  Why would you go towards a city?  It would only have a larger population of zombies.

              “My daughter is there.  Or, I’m hoping she is,” Jules explained.  “And when our enclave fell a few weeks ago…there was nothing left for us there.”

              Her eyes looked haunted.  He could tell the loss was far greater than she was describing.  He could understand hanging on to a tiny, impossible thread of hope like a daughter who, far away, might still be alive.

              He held the same hope for his own family.

              “We were the only ones to escape,” Dave said.  “Only the strongest of us survived.  The children…”

              Tim saw the sadness in all of their eyes.  He felt bad for them.  He really did.  But all he wanted was for them to be on their way.  They had nothing to offer him.

              “You are both travelling too, yeah?” she said.  “Where are you headed?”

              Oh, just shopping at Home Depot.

              “Just looking for supplies wherever I can find them,” he said.

              Margaret frowned and furrowed her eyebrows.

              “‘You keep saying ‘I’, not ‘we’” she said, squinting over at Danny.  Tim turned and watched him shrink further into the shadows.

              Tim’s blood turned cold.  Margaret had to have been an intelligent fighter to have survived this long.  He kicked himself as he realized his mistake.

              Months and months of not having normal verbal communication had ruined his ability to master a conversation.

              “How long ago were they bitten?” she said, her voice suddenly icy cold.

              Tim’s heart started to race again.

              “It’s not like that.”

              “Of course it isn’t, sweetheart,” Margaret said, taking a step towards Danny.  Tim moved in front of her instantly.

              “Honey, once they’re bitten, they’re gone,” she said, her voice steely.  “I understand you love them.  I understand you think you can save them.  But they only have a few hours.  It’s better for them, and you, if we put them out of their misery now, before they can bite you.”

              She took another step towards Danny, and Tim met her eyes with the harshest stare he had.  He moved his hand up to his axe handle in warning.

              “Just be on your way,” he said.  “He won’t bother you.”

              “It has to be dealt with,” Margaret said, balling her fists.  So did the others.  Suddenly, he was facing thirteen adversaries with minds.  They would be far more difficult to fight than brainless zombies.

              But he had faced worse odds as Red Robin and come out on top.

              “I will hurt you,” he said.  “And if I’ve survived this long, you know I’m formidable.  Leave.”

              “It’s for your own protection, Tim,” she said, taking another step towards him.  He grit his teeth.  Her mouth had no business saying his name.  He didn’t budge.

              “Jules, pull him to the side,” Margaret ordered.

              Jules reached out her hand to grab his arm.  Tim was faster.  He grabbed her bicep and twisted, yanking her off her center of balance and into a throw.  She yelped and landed on her face in the dirt.

              Dave tried to attack his right flank while Margaret went to put him in a headlock.  He ducked under her grasp and elbowed Dave in the solar plexus, knocking the wind out of him.  He fell to the ground, clutching his abdomen, gasping for breath.

              Tim heard the sound of weapons being drawn and clasped the handle of his own axe.  He swung it dull-end first, aiming for Margaret’s middle.  She was fast, nearly dodging his swing, as he bludgeoned just the edge of her rib.  Two more people came up to try to grab him.  He elbowed one in the teeth and kicked the legs out from under the other.  As he was distracted with that, Margaret swung her elbow down into the top of his spine.  Pain radiated up his brainstem, reminding him of the exact spot where the brick had fallen on him.

              His vision was covered in black spots.  He felt air rush to his right and swung his fist, connecting with someone’s jaw.

              His vision cleared and he noticed Margaret moving towards Danny, drawing her knife.  Tim spun and kicked her in the small of her back, forcing her to stumble forward.  She growled and got up, undeterred from her goal.

              Tim saw Danny starting to panic.  He came out from under the bleachers and tried to step further away.

              Margaret’s eyes grew wide with terror as she fully saw Danny’s half-rotted form and entirely gray skin.

              “Oh my God, it’s not a newly-bitten, that’s a completely turned zombie!” she cried.  Tim’s heart sank as icy terror clawed up through his veins.  Her face turned to rage.  “Kill it, now!”

              The crowd roared and charged towards Danny.

              Black fear rushed through Tim’s body, threatening to freeze him in place.  But Red Robin knew how to act anyway.  He shoved it aside and fell into combat mode, ready to fight, whatever it took.

              “Get away from him!” he cried, chasing after her.  He was faster and caught up to her.  He swung his axe and hit her in the knee, feeling bone crunch as she went down, face-first into the dirt.  He put himself between her and Danny and raised his axe high.

              The next person to reach him got bludgeoned in the face with his axe handle.  The one after that he kneed in the chest as hard as he could, breaking their ribs.  The next one, he swung his axe with full force, landing it directly in their chest.  Warm, human blood squirted out from the wound and across his face, and he didn’t even blink.  He yanked his axe back out without hesitation and swung it towards the next person, who backed away.

              “That’s right!  Fuck off!” he said.  “I’ll kill you!  I’ll kill every one of you!  Is that the price you want to pay?!”

              He stood in a raged stance, muscles flexing, gritted teeth.  Some of the people inched towards Margaret to help her up.  Others knelt by the person he’d killed, trying to stop the bleeding on the chest wound, but he knew it was already too late.  He’d sliced open their heart.  Blood was gushing out of the chest wound like a pulsing fountain.

              A knife flew at him, thrown with deadly precision straight for his face.  Tim released a hand from his axe handle and caught it.  He bared his teeth, raising his arm as if to throw it back.  The crowd inched away from him in terror.

              “Go ahead.  Throw another.  Give me more weapons,” he snarled.  “You have all survived as a group.  I have survived alone.  Imagine which of us is more skilled in a fight,” he spat.  “I don’t want to kill any of you.  But if you even attempt to hurt him, I will.”

              They got Margaret to her feet and all glared at him, knuckles white as they clutched their weapons, but none seemed brave enough to make a move towards Tim.

              “You are insane!” Margaret spat, her eyes fire.  “Do you realize you’ve just killed a human being to protect a zombie?  You’ve doomed our race just a little bit more!  We should kill you!”

              Tim let his rage show on his face.

              “Go ahead a fucking TRY!” he cried, clasping the handle of his axe and taking a step towards the people holding Margaret up.  They all backed away in fear.  “You wanna get to Chicago? Or you wanna die here, trying to kill my zombie?!”

              “Absolute, idiot fool!” Margaret cried, but her people were backing her away from him, letting her lean on their shoulders as she hopped on one foot.

              “No…” a soft voice said, as a man knelt in front of the corpse he’d created.  “Ruthie…”  He started to sob.  That was when Tim saw the person he’d killed for the first time.  She wasn’t any older than he was.  The man who knelt over her was clearly her father, with how similar their features were.

              His heart would have broken, except that he was in battle mode.  All that mattered in this moment was survival.  Protecting Danny.  He turned around quickly to check on him, relieved to see that he was physically fine, though he was staring in horror at the scene.  Tim turned back around.

              “If you let us leave, you can tend to her,” Tim said, gesturing at the dead girl with his axe, still dripping with her blood. “If you fight me again, you will have more to bury.”

              Margaret glared at him and screamed in rage.  He decided to just leave, and watch, to see if any of them followed him.  He backed away slowly, keeping an eye on every one of them.  All their eyes were on him as he stepped further away, but none of them came nearer.  He was five feet away, then ten, then fifteen.  He reached Danny, holstered the knife, and clasped his hand with the one that wasn’t holding the axe.  The dead girl’s wet blood smeared onto Danny’s palm.

              “Come on, baby,” Tim said, stepping further away, tugging on his hand.

              Danny didn’t move.  His eyes were glued to the dead girl, and when Tim glanced up he saw that one of them was milkier than before.

              “Oh no, Danny don’t do this right now.  Come on.  We have to leave.”

              “Mmreeehnnn,” he moaned, his face sorrowful.  Tim saw his good eye water.  Danny reached out a hand towards the dead girl.

              “What the hell is it doing?” Margaret snapped.  “Get it away from us!”

              The tear fell from Danny’s eye and Tim leaned his face up to kiss Danny’s cheek softly.  He heard Margaret make a wretching noise.

              “Baby, come with me.  Come with Tim.”

              “Oh my God you are a fucking monster!” Margaret screamed.  Tim ignored her.  He lifted his hand up to Danny’s chin and turned his face towards him.  Danny looked into his eyes and met his gaze.

              “Meeh?”

              “Come with me, Danny,” he said softly.  Danny nodded, and Tim sighed with relief.  He slid his hand back down to clasp Danny’s again, and this time he was able to get him to turn around and start walking away.  Tim walked half-turned, keeping one eye on his enemies and the other on the ground in front of them.  They were so close to their goal, nearly at the hardware store, and so he led Danny in that direction.  They could spend the day there; it was a defensible position with its walls still standing, and it would also hide them.

              As they moved further and further away, Tim started to hope that the humans really weren’t going to follow them. Awhile later, when he heard a loud wail of sorrow echo across the distance, he knew they were instead attending to their dead and wounded. Finally, once they were over a mile away, he felt safe enough to holster his axe, desperately ignoring how his hand tried to stick to the handle from drying blood.

              * * *

              The trip back had been harrowing.  By some wild miracle, the home improvement store was still standing.  It had dry bags of mortar, more than he could ever need, as well as bricklaying tools and a hundred other supplies he could use.  He had to weigh each item’s usefulness against the cost of trying to push it on a cart all the way home.  In the end, he opted to load another electric heater, as many matches as he could fit on the cart and a few small bricklaying tools, in addition to the mortar.  It would take him several weeks to modify the electric heater to be able to use the green power source, but once he got it going, the three heating sources they had should be enough to stave off the coldest nights of winter.

              Then they had to push it.  They were stuck to a route on the roads because of the cart, and Tim kept glancing up in every direction, waiting for their enemies to appear and ambush them.  The cart made a horrific racket, so if those humans wanted to find them, they easily could.  But the biting wind nipping through his coat reminded him of why they were doing this, and that this mortar was actually a life-or-death necessity.

              As they walked, Danny decayed further and further.  Tim did what he could to try to comfort him, but nothing he said seemed to help.  So instead he just focused on getting them home as fast as he could.

              He’d never felt so relieved to hear the hiss of the bunker door shut.  It sealed out zombies, it sealed out humans, it sealed out all the horrific world and left him and Danny alone in safety.  He dropped his gear to the floor with a thud and glanced at the fireplace with exhaustion.  A full two days of giving everything he had, and now he could start working.

              His face itched and he reached up to scratch it, dried blood flaking off of it.

              Human blood.

              He hadn’t slept in two days.  Before this trip, he’d been laying brick.  His fingers still had dried mortar stuck to them, beneath the human girl’s blood.  He was exhausted beyond exhausted.   He glanced over at the unfinished fireplace, at the dried mortar, at the thought of starting to mix it and laying more brick… He couldn’t do it.  He couldn’t…

              He saw Danny shivering, his exposed teeth chattering.  Was it that cold?  Tim glanced over at their water stores, and saw a thin layer of ice forming on the top of some of the jugs.  Oh.

              Tim helped Danny put his coat on, and guided him towards the bed.  Danny was in no condition to help him anyway, so he helped him lay down, and threw every blanket they had on top of him.

              “Rest, baby,” he said, pressing a kiss to his forehead.  His skin squished under his lips and threatened to fall off. 

              Tim turned on the electric heater, rolled up his sleeves, and started to work on the fireplace.

              * * *

              Lighting a fire in their freezing cold bunker was the most satisfying experience in Tim’s entire life.  Hands shaking from exhaustion, covered in dried blood and mortar and dirt, he watched with absolute relief as the smoke indeed went up the chimney as it was supposed to, and not out into the bunker.  He tended the fire for a few minutes, holding his frozen hands out to it as it slowly grew, until he was sure it was going well.  He put the fattest log he had on it, and then stumbled towards their bed.

              Danny was still in it.  He wasn’t moving.  He wasn’t breathing.  When Tim lifted the covers to lay beside him, he was met with what was almost a complete skeleton.  His arms and legs were nothing but bone. Half his face was missing, and the part that was still there was so dry and papery it looked like it was about to fall off.  He had no eyes.  No ears.  Only his abdomen seemed to have any flesh on it, peeking out from beneath his shirt.  Terrified, Tim slowly, carefully lifted the back of his shirt.  With a sigh of relief, he saw Danny still had at least some organs, still in their respective places, attached by sinew and bits of muscle within his ribcage.  He had lungs, but they were not breathing.  He had a heart, but it was as still as the rest of him.

              And then he saw it give a single thump.  Tim sighed with relief, unable to keep awake a second longer, and collapsed with exhaustion into the bed.

              * * *

              Tim’s sleep was fitful.  As exhausted as he was, he kept waking.  He woke up entirely only a few hours later.  The fire was a low smolder, and the room was still warm.

              He tugged at the arm he had around Danny’s waist out of habit, and winced as he felt his bones press up against him.  He opened his eyes to see him in the same state he’d been when Tim had fallen asleep.  All that resting, and he hadn’t recovered at all.

              Tim knew the reason.

              It was the same reason he couldn’t sleep.

              They had taken a life.  A human life. 

              Do you realize you’ve just killed a human being to protect a zombie?

              Margaret’s words hung over Tim’s head like death.  Of course, it wasn’t quite that.  Danny was a zombie but he was also a human being- but trading one human life for another was still hell.  Of course, he’d done that before.  This wasn’t the first time he’d killed someone in defense of someone else.  But there was an extra price to be paid for it now.  Every human life had always been precious, but now?  Now that there were barely any left at all?  To kill one was to usher in doom faster for their entire race.  Not to mention the injuries he’d caused them, especially Margaret’s broken knee.

              Tim hadn’t wanted to fight them.  He hadn’t wanted to even speak to them!  He wanted nothing to do with them. As long as he had Danny, he would never be able to fit in with other humans.  No one would ever understand.  They were right to call him insane.  He was currently curled up in bed with an animated corpse which could zombify him with a single wrong twitch.  And nothing in the universe could make him move.

              He pulled that corpse closer to himself and pressed a kiss to his bony shoulder.

              Tim would kill a hundred living, breathing, humans to keep Danny safe.  He wasn’t sure he gave a rat’s ass about the human race anymore.

              He only cared about Danny.

              Danny, who was such a good person that the death Tim had caused on his behalf was eating at him.  Literally. 

              Tim had to pull him out of it.  There wasn’t much of him left to rot.  Tim had never seen him this bad, and he was afraid of what would happen if he didn’t come back.

              So he would have to pull him back.

              He pressed several more kisses to Danny’s shoulder, and decided to talk to him, even though he knew he couldn’t hear without ears.  He would feel Tim’s voice vibrating in his chest and know that Tim was talking.

              “Are you in there, Danny?” he asked softly, bringing his hand up to gently, gently stroke what was left of his cheek.  He had no eyes.  There would be no stargazing like this.  All he could do was feel.  All there was to comfort him with was Tim’s touch.

              So Tim kissed him again, and again, kissing up his shoulder and to the bones of his spine that connected his head to the rest of him.  The stench was actually less than it usually was, as barely any of him was even there to create it.  Tim didn’t care.  He pressed his lips softly to the side of his jawbone.

              And it fell off.

              Tim’s heart was clutched by terror.  That had never happened before.  Danny had lost hair, skin, teeth, limbs, but never his jaw.  His face looked absolutely alien now; not even like a skull, and his face looked, for all the world, like a dead skeleton.  He was just as silent and lifeless as one.  He didn’t take a single breath.  His heart didn’t give a single beat.  He was as still as death.

              Black fear crept around the edges of Tim’s heart and threatened to smother him. 

              “Danny.  Please don’t leave me,” he whispered, clutching Danny to himself.  “I need you.”

               The only reply was silence.  Tim squeezed his eyes shut.  Was this it?  Was this the final straw that was too powerful for whatever healed Danny to overcome?  Watching Tim commit murder on his behalf?

              And then he felt Danny stir.  He shifted, just a little, to push himself closer to Tim.

              Hope made Tim’s heart beat so hard it hurt.  His eyes stung with tears.  He continued pressing kisses to the part of his skull that remained attached, gently stroking his fingers across his chest, which was just a ribcage with some organs inside, covered by a shirt.  Whatever it was that held him together, whatever it was that continually healed him, was somehow still working.  It was still there.  He’d never seen a regular zombie in the condition he was in move.  Something else gave him life, something more than the virus that animated corpses.  And Tim was going to figure it out.

              But not right now.  Right now, what Danny needed was to feel how Tim loved him.

              Tim continued to kiss him and pet him as gently as he could, whispering to him the deepest confessions of his heart, knowing that somehow, Danny could hear him, even without ears.

              “Danny, come back to me,” he said softly.  “I need you.  You’re the brightest thing in my life.  You’re what makes me get up every morning.  What drives me to survive.  To eat, to drink water, to build the fireplace.  To find us clothes, to find us food, to find us tools.  It’s you.  You’re the reason I do everything, okay?  The reason I’m searching for a cure.  The reason I notice the beauty in the stars.  That’s how important you are.”

              Tim pressed more soft kisses to Danny’s bones, and he swore they felt…warmer.

              “You’re my reason for living,” Tim whispered softly.  “I don’t care about anything else.  I don’t care about any one else.  I do feel sad about killing that girl.  I didn’t want to do that.  I know you feel sad about it too.  But it wasn’t your fault.  It was not your fault, do you hear me?”

              Danny stirred again, his head shifting to rise up to meet Tim’s kisses, just a little.  Tim’s heart beat with hope a Danny’s arm moved, and his bony fingers slid over the top of Tim’s hand to hold it.

              “Yes, baby,” Tim said, pulling Danny closer to him.  “Yes, I love you.  I love you more than anything.  More than myself.  I’ll do whatever it takes to protect you.  I didn’t want to hurt her.  But if I didn’t, they were going to hurt you.  And I couldn’t allow that.”

              Danny’s fingers curled to entwine with Tim’s, until he was holding the hand of a living, moving, warm, rotten corpse.

              And then he felt Danny take a breath.

              “Oh, yes, baby.  Breathe,” Tim said, his eyes watering as he moved his lips down to press against the side of Danny’s chest.  He felt his rib cage expand, and then contract, and heard the air rushing from the top of his exposed windpipe.  It wasn’t attached to anything; he had no jaw, no mouth, but it was breathing.

              And then Tim felt his heart start to beat, in a regular rhythm,  beneath the bare bones underneath his shirt.

              “Yes, Danny,” Tim said, his own heart racing with excitement and hope.  “Come back to me.”

              Danny moved.  He turned, rolling over until he was lying on his other side, facing Tim with his jawless skull.  Tim smiled through his tears as he saw Danny move all his limbs in coordination in order to complete the task.  He stared into the empty eye sockets, and saw the skin starting to grow back on some of his face.  Right before his eyes, it was growing back, fragile and thin but healing.

              “That’s it.  That’s it,” Tim said, his tears falling as he blinked.  “I love you.  I love you.”

              Danny moved his bony body closer, pressing his forehead to Tim’s.  He curled his fingers in Tim’s hand between them, and then lifted his other one, pulling Tim closer to him by his shoulder.  Tim shut his eyes, concentrating on hearing the wind of Danny’s breath rush in and out of the top of his severed trachea.  He felt his ribs expanding and contracting as he breathed, along with the beat of his heart, growing steadily stronger.

              Tim shivered, despite the blankets on them, and he looked at the fireplace to see just some smoldering cinders.

              “Hey.  I have to tend to the fire,” he said.  “I’ll be right back, okay?”

              He tried to get up, but Danny would not let go of him.  He had no voice with which to grunt or plead, but Tim could hear it anyway in the rush of air as he exhaled.

              “I promise I’ll come right back.  I promise.  Trust me,” Tim said, gently pulling away, carefully uncurling Danny’s bony fingers from his own.  He shivered as he slipped out from under the blankets and was slammed by cold air.  He hurried to the fireplace and piled on some smaller sticks until they caught, the flames blazing up once again.  He put down another huge log and then rushed back, not caring that it was warm by the fire and cold by Danny, he didn’t want to leave him.

              When he slid back under the blankets, he felt warmth press against him.  He felt a thin layer of skin on Danny’s palm as he stroked it over Tim’s face.  Tim clasped his hand and Danny held him right back, his grip strong now.  He pulled Tim into his arms hard, and Tim curled against his chest, sighing with relief that he was on the mend now, that he was bouncing back.  That he was going to be alright.

              The warmth from the fire started to reach them, and Tim found himself exhausted to the bone.  He tried to fight against the sleep and then lost, his eyes closing as he curled into the embrace of his zombie, Danny’s steady breathing chasing away his nightmares and finally letting him rest.

              * * *

              When Tim next awoke, it was to warm fingers stroking along his cheek.  He opened his eyes to see a beautiful blue eye gazing at him from beside an empty socket, and all his fears melted as if they had never been.  Danny’s jaw was still missing, but the skin on his face was growing back.  He had a nose again.  He had an ear.  He had hair.  It was thin and stringy, but it was something, and Tim couldn’t help it.

              He sobbed.

              “Uuuuuuhhh,” Danny said.  The only sound he could make with no mouth, but the fact that he could make sound at all meant his larynx had grown back.

              Danny pulled Tim close to him, his palms pressing against the back of his t-shirt, one flesh, one bone.  Tim reached his arms around him and held him just as tightly.  He felt Danny’s fingers come up to stroke through his hair, and Tim let it soothe him.  Let all the fear he’d had melt away under Danny’s touch.

              “I was so worried you wouldn’t come back.”

              Danny moved his finger under Tim’s chin and lifted his face to look at him.  The gesture alone had Tim’s heart glowing with affection.  Danny gazed at him with his single beautiful eye, and he didn’t need any words.  Tim already understood.

              I will always come back for you.

              Danny had no lips to kiss him with.  No tongue with which to lick him.  But he had his fingers, and he very carefully, very slowly, ran the pad of his thumb across Tim’s lips.  Then he splayed his fingers, brushing them all up the side of Tim’s face to trace around the back of his neck.  Heat spread up Tim’s ear, making it blush, and Danny’s meaning was clear.

              Danny sat up, and the cold air in the room blasted Tim under the blanket.  He involuntarily shivered.  Danny glanced over at the fireplace and saw it was low.

              He pressed a palm to Tim’s chest, firmly pushing him to stay on his back, then got up and walked over to the fire.  Tim rolled over and watched with gratefulness while Danny stoked it, getting it back up to roaring within a few minutes.

              As he walked back, Tim took in all of him.  He was definitely fleshier now, though his whole left side still seemed to be bones.  His walk was unsteady, he was limping on that side, and yet he still seemed to saunter more than walk.  Danny’s gaze was heavy on him as he grew closer, his eyelid lowering as he got closer and dragged it along Tim’s body, even where he disappeared under the blanket.

              When Danny was almost back, he reached down and pulled his shirt off over his head.  Tim’s heart raced faster as he watched him toss it to the floor, and then his eyes were tracing up Danny’s torso, half flesh on one side, protruding ribs on the other.  Tim couldn’t tear his eyes away as he watched Danny’s hands slide down to the waist of his pants and undo the fly without a hint of difficulty.  It was almost as though his mind had recovered twice as fast as the rest of him, and Tim couldn’t keep the blush from rising to his cheeks as he watched Danny let his pants fall to the floor.

              Tim drank in the sight of him, his right leg covered in healthy gray flesh, almost with a pink glow to it.  His left leg was still nearly all bone, a few sinews and bits of muscle clinging to it.  And between them hung a full dick, pale grey but not a bit of it was missing.  Tim couldn’t help but stare; it was the first time he’d seen Danny’s dick whole, softly curving as it fell over an almost normal-looking set of balls, except for the dark grey color.

              Danny stood there, letting Tim drink him in, his eye rising to meet his gaze in a very clear expression of like what you see?

              Tim licked his lips and then nodded, lifting a hand to reach for Danny, and he came to him.

              When Danny got to the bed, he slipped back in under the blankets, lying on his bony side.  His naked body pressed up against Tim’s clothed one, making heat rush up to Tim’s face and down between his legs.  Danny reached up with his bony hand and grabbed his own heathy finger tightly to yank his fingernail off.

              “No, please don’t, you’re still heal…”

              Danny pressed his finger firmly over Tim’s lips in a “shhh” gesture, and waited for him to stop talking.  Once Tim was quiet, he removed it and went back to pulling his own nails off of his good hand, and Tim let him, watching with fascination as Danny mutilated himself just to keep him safe.

              Once he’d done that, he lifted his warm, neutralized fingertips to Tim’s neck and slowly stroked them over his skin, causing heat to bloom up to Tim’s ears.  Danny’s eye traced over Tim’s face as his hand slid below the blankets, tickling along Tim’s stomach, making his breath hitch.  Danny’s fingers teased in the space between his shirt and his pants, just above his waist, making sparks fly across Tim’s skin.

              Tim gazed into his eye and knew Danny would be kissing him if he had a jaw.  So instead Tim did it for him, leaning forward to press kisses to his cheeks, both skinned and unskinned.  He slid his arm under Danny’s shoulders and pulled him close, as Danny’s fingers drifted lower, his hand palming his ass and pulling Tim closer to him.  He lifted his knee up to press it between Tim’s legs, and Tim groaned, rocking his growing erection against it, eyes fluttering closed.

              Danny moved both hands down and grabbed the bottom of Tim’s shirt to pull it off of him.  Tim eagerly helped him, his pulse racing faster as they both forgot everything that wasn’t each other.  Danny rolled on top of Tim to straddle him with his naked legs, the blanket falling away as he sat on his bulge and ground his hips down.  Tim moaned, heat blooming through him so thick he no longer cared that the air was cold.  Danny slid his palms up Tim’s naked chest, one warm flesh, the other icy bone.  Tim shivered, and he saw Danny grin in the shape of his good eye, even though he had no mouth to smile with.

              “Feels so… you,” Tim said, voice full of breath.  Danny’s eyelid lowered even further, and he tickled Tim with all ten of his fingers, brushing them over his nipples, making his breath hitch.  Tim’s cock swelled, and Danny felt it, grinding his hips down again.  Tim groaned in pleasure, and lifted his own hands to grab Danny’s hips.  It was strange, one being covered in flesh and the other being little more than a pelvic bone, but Danny didn’t seem to mind at all as he closed his eye and ground down again.  Tim started to rock his hips up into Danny’s grinding, curling his fingers tighter around Danny’s waist, losing himself in the pleasant sensations they were both drawing from each other.  Heat rushed through Tim’s blood and he watched Danny’s cock grow as it rested on Tim’s bare skin, just above his pants.

              Lust burned through Tim’s body as he dragged his hand across Danny’s thigh to wrap around his cock.  Danny moaned, the only sound he could make, but it still said plenty, especially when his eye fluttered closed and his head fell forward.  Tim’s pulse beat harder as he felt his cock warm and solid in his hand, with the skin on it definitely strong enough for him to stroke it now.

              “Never got to see this before,” Tim teased, pulling down gently, testing the strength of Danny’s lose skin, pulling it taut around the head.  “It’s very sexy.”

              “Uuuuunnnnn,” Danny replied, the sound coming out from his severed windpipe.  Tim stroked a little harder, a little faster, feeling Danny’s dick twitch in his palm.  The head started to shine in the firelight, even a bit of pink showing through the grey as Danny’s blood rushed to it.  Danny was lost in feeling good now, and Tim was lost with him, his lust-drunk eyes fixated on Danny’s half-face, watching his eyebrows melt into pleasure and bliss.

              “Do you feel good, baby?” Tim said as he stroked him, and Danny gave a lazy nod, his cock throbbing as Tim pulled down, precum starting to drip from the tip.  Danny’s hands moved to stroke up and down Tim’s bare chest, his voice giving soft, low moans.  He started to rock his hips, grinding down on Tim’s cock, and Tim couldn’t help but buck his hips up into Danny’s touch.

              Danny opened his eye and gazed down at Tim drowning in arousal.  He lifted his hips and then moved his hand to Tim’s, gently pulling him away.

              He rose up and then slipped his fingers down to the top of Tim’s pants, opening his fly without trouble.  Tim’s heart pounded hard as Danny slipped his pants down, pushing the blanket away as he did so, making Tim’s skin prick with goosebumps as it touched the chilly air.  Danny was down by his ankles now and crawled his way up Tim’s naked body slowly, one flesh hand, one skeletal, the bits of muscle and sinew between his bones leaving wet lines of red along Tim’s skin as he moved.  Danny got to Tim’s cock and wrapped his fingers around it, making Tim give a sharp inhale.

              He pulled down, and pleasure spiked through Tim’s cock head as he pulled it taut.  He groaned, and Danny pulled down again, sitting on Tim’s thighs just below it.  He scooted forward until both their cocks were touching, and wrapped his fingers around them together.

              “Ohhhhh…” Tim said, lust making his cock grow harder as Danny slowly stroked them together.  Danny’s eye closed and Tim’s heart burned with love and passion as he saw pleasure take over the features that he had.  Tim lifted his hand and rested his palm on top of Danny’s hand, gently stilling it.  Danny opened his eye to look at Tim with a questioning gaze.

              “Baby, it’s so rare for you to have this,” Tim said.  “Let me… let me…”

              [1START XXX]

              Tim sat up, wrapped his arms around Danny’s back, and flipped them over.  Danny made a hissing sound that Tim swore was a giggle, and then he began to kiss his way down Danny’s chest, alternating between kissing bone and flesh, listening carefully to Danny’s hisses to see which one he liked more.  He seemed to have no preference, enjoying Tim’s lips wherever they went, and so Tim criss-crossed his way down Danny’s chest with kisses everywhere he could reach.

              He kissed across Danny’s third rib towards his side, then ran his tongue across the fourth one as he worked his way back towards his middle.  Danny shuddered, his fingers curling in Tim’s hair as he teased him with his tongue.  Tim moaned, and shoved his tongue in between Danny’s exposed ribs, licking the outside of his lung. Danny gasped, causing it to expand, which motivated Tim to press his tongue harder to it.  Danny moaned and stroked his fingers in Tim’s hair, encouraging him to keep going.  He then licked his way across red sinew and exposed flesh, Danny arching his back as his eye fluttered closed in pleasure.  Then Tim was licking his other side, his lips sucking in his skin, enjoying how firm it felt.  It wasn’t about to flake off this time.  Instead he sucked, and Danny groaned, and before he knew it he was leaving a dark hickey on Danny’s grey skin.

              Tim ran his fingers down Danny’s right side, his fingers flicking between his ribs, stroking along the white surface like he was caressing skin and not bone.  He licked to the left side again, diving his tongue against Danny’s unprotected organs, licking the tip of his liver and then running his tongue over his kidney.  Danny’s moan was thick and full of desire, short gasps coming from his windpipe.  Tim felt his cock swell under his thigh.  With incentive like that, he did it again, lingering there over his kidney, the rotten flavor of Danny’s internal juices turning him on way more than it should.  With a helpless moan, he sucked the top of Danny’s kidney into his mouth and Danny bucked his hips, his full cock pressing hard against his thigh, and now Tim really, really wanted another body part in his mouth.

              He dragged his lips down the center of Danny’s torso, tasting skin and blood, making Danny moan beneath him, his fingers tightening in Tim’s hair as he moved lower. 

              When he felt Danny’s warm cockhead brush against his chin, Tim practically started to drool.  He rubbed his face along the side of it, lifting his hand to press on the other side, feeling it complete for the first time.  It was warm and sweet and whole, and Tim didn’t care that it was grey and rotten and probably would have tasted awful to someone else.  To him, it was heavenly.  He felt Danny tense with desire beneath him, and then opened his mouth to lick his tongue all the way from the base up to the head.

              The flavor of Danny flowed into his mouth and he hummed at how good it tasted.  Danny’s groan was long and low, and Tim’s own dick twitched as he heard that sound.  He licked over the head, tasting his sour precum, drooling as the delicious flavor of death flowed down his throat.  Eagerly, he opened his mouth all the way and sucked the tip in, gleeful as Danny tensed and lifted his thighs in response.

              “Mmmmm,” Tim said, feeling Danny’s whole thigh tense, and seeing the exposed muscles flex on the thigh that was just bone.  Only it wasn’t, anymore.  Rather than just a few sparse muscles, Tim saw several more now, making his leg red and wet and juicy between the bones.  Tim knew how much Danny loved to be touched like that, and so he reached out his palm to stroke along it.

              “Uuuuuunn!” Danny cried, his cock throbbing in Tim’s mouth.  Tim stroked his bare muscles again as he tightened his lips around Danny’s head, sucking on it hard.  Danny’s moan was heaven in his ears as his fingers gripped his hair roughly.  Tim’s blood burned hotter and made his own dick pulse with want.  He licked his tongue flat across Danny’s tip once more, then opened his mouth as wide as it could go and sucked him down.

              “Hhhhuuuuhhhhh,” Danny moaned.  Tim’s heart was glowing with affection and love as he heard his zombie enjoy himself.  He spread his palms across Danny’s thighs, one stroking along his exposed muscles, his hand wet with viscera, which only made Danny twitch more with pleasure.  Tim rose his head up and then sucked Danny down again, pressing his tongue along his underside and sealing his lips as tightly as he could.  He took him all the way into his throat, savoring the rancid taste of him, the feel of him whole and warm and healthy in his mouth.

              Danny started to buck his hips.  Tim curled his fingers against his thighs to encourage him.  Danny’s fingers tightened in his hair so hard he was pulling it, and heat spread through Tim’s body as he made his lover feel good.  He opened his jaw as far as he could, sealing his lips tight, encouraging Danny to fuck his mouth as hard as he wanted.  Who knew when the next time would come that they would get to do this?  Tim wanted to make it as incredible for him as he could.

              And then he felt Danny start to pull up on his hair.  When Tim didn’t seem to get the message, he pulled up harder, until Tim finally raised his head just enough to look into Danny’s eye, keeping his lips around the head of his cock.

              Danny wasn’t having it.  He put his finger under Tim’s chin and lifted it until he was completely off of him.  Tim glanced down at Danny’s hard, glistening cock, slick with Tim’s spit and dripping with precum, and tried to fathom what he wanted.

              Danny slid his hands under Tim’s armpits and pulled him up, towards his face.  Through lust-addled eyes Tim saw that Danny was still healing.  His organs were regrowing inside his exposed torso.  He had a pancreas again.  A stomach.  Intestines.  Tim should have been grossed out, but all he felt was love and joy.  His face was healing too; more and more flesh spreading across the bone, creeping towards his empty eye socket.

              “Tell me whatever you need, baby,” he said through half-lidded eyes.  “Anything at all.”

              Danny had no words, and so Tim had to let him guide his body with his hands.  Danny sat up and grabbed Tim’s ankle, pulling it towards his head.  Tim let him, and then figured out quickly he wanted him to turn around so Tim’s cock was near his face, almost like he wanted to sixty-nine.  Tim didn’t really understand, since Danny had no mouth, but he was still happy to oblige him with whatever he wanted.

              Danny pushed Tim’s head back down towards his cock and he eagerly went, opening his mouth to suck on his tip again.  Danny moaned, the vibrations of his voice moving up Tim’s thigh as Danny pressed the side of his head to him.  Tim sucked Danny down harder, eager to have his dick in his mouth again, his heart pounding hard with lust and need.

              And then he felt Danny’s hand around his dick, moving it down into…some kind of round hole, and it felt so good to have his cock get attention he moaned.  Danny curled his fingers around Tim’s hips and pulled him down, closer, and he went, feeling the hole take him a little deeper before he hit the back of it.

              Danny moaned, and desire and want took over Tim’s brain.  Danny bucked up into his mouth with a deep groan, and Tim thrust down, feeling the hole take him, hard and round and warm.  By the time he realized what he was fucking he was halfway gone and too drunk on arousal to freak out.

              It was Danny’s eye socket.

              And Danny was moaning, his cock swollen as hard as it could go as Tim took him down all the way to the back of his throat.  Tim ignored all common sense and instead let the desire take him, fucking Danny’s eye as Danny started to pound his hips up into Tim’s mouth.  Tim slid his hands across Danny’s hips, letting his fingers sink into the dripping, exposed muscles on his left side.  He vaguely realized through the haze of passion that Danny’s muscles were almost all back.  He flicked his eyes open for just a second and saw his entire leg was now covered in muscle, the bone completely hidden.  Tim moaned with delight at watching him heal; at watching their love for each other make him whole again.

              He felt wetness inside Danny’s eyesocket and Danny must have known he would wonder if he should stop, so before he even could, Danny’s fingers curled hard against his hips, pulling him back down, practically begging him to fuck his eye.  Pleasure teased at the end of his cock and the heat started to build heavy in his balls.  He groaned and started to chase it, fucking Danny’s face hard now, driving his head down into the cushions as he pounded into his eye.  It swallowed just enough of him to tease, Tim’s blood rushing fast as he breathed hard through his nose.

              Then Danny wrapped his warm palm around the rest of his shaft, and Tim was fucking his hand and eye at the same time.  The desire spilled over the edge almost instantly in thick, heavy waves.  Tim groaned into Danny’s cock, his whole body shuddering as he came.  His release poured into Danny’s eye socket and immediately dripped out of it as pleasure wracked through Tim’s body with throbbing heat.  His abs and thighs tightened together as he drove himself down hard, crushing Danny’s head into the cushions.

              “Uuun, uuun, uuun, uuuh!” Danny cried, his cock pulsing in Tim’s mouth as his cum poured out of him and down into Tim’s throat.  Tim was surrounded by a blissful haze, both from his own afterglow and the beauty of making Danny share it with him.  He eagerly swallowed every drop Danny gave him, coaxing more out with his lips and tongue, curling his fingers into Danny’s muscles until he screamed with pleasure.

              Danny’s fingers clasped his hair and pulled him up.  He sucked his way off, taking in the delicious flavor of decay and love as it slid down his throat.  He carefully pulled himself out of Danny’s eye socket and turned around to gaze down at his lover’s face.  Incredibly, he saw knobs of bone starting to grow from where his jaw should attach, and knew it would be back in just a few hours.  He smiled down at Danny in a blissful daze, and saw the same expression in Danny’s single eye.

              Tim lay beside him and Danny curled his arms around his back, pulling him close.  They tangled their legs together and Tim brushed his fingers through Danny’s thickening hair.  He pressed kisses across his whole face, putting several on his nose, so, so happy to have it back.  He reached the drips of cum under his eye and licked them off, cleaning his boney cheek.  He teased his tongue around the edge of Danny’s eye socket, and had the satisfaction of feeling him shudder in his arms.  He thought about dipping his tongue inside to lick the rest out of him, but he saw a tiny, white round bud growing in there, and decided to leave his eye alone so it could grow back.

              [1END XXX]

              Tim lay down to stare into Danny’s good eye again, while Danny affectionately stroked his hair. 

              “I will do anything for you,” Tim whispered.  Danny closed his eye, and even without words, he could hear him say the same thing.  They tightened their arms around each other, and Danny reached behind them to pull the blanket back over them.  There was more meaning in the unspoken silence than any words could manage to convey.

              Today, Tim had paid a heavy price.  The entire human race had, in fact, paid it.   He’d taken the life of a perfectly healthy, uninfected human being, in exchange for a sickly, half-dead zombie.  He thought, for half a moment, what Batman would say.  Would he accept this as a life-for-a-life situation?  Protecting one life at the expense of another?  Killing the aggressor in order to protect an innocent?

              And then he shoved those thoughts away.  Batman wasn’t here.  No one was here.  Questions of morality and rightness no longer applied.  There was no more right and wrong.  There was only survival or death.

              Except- that wasn’t true anymore, was it?  Now there was also love.

              There was love, and there wasn’t anything more precious, not even life itself.  He pulled Danny nearer to himself, and felt Danny hug him back just as tightly.

              Tim had chosen Danny over the entire rest of the human race, and he regretted nothing.  Danny’s love was worth the price he’d paid.  And if the time came, he would pay it again.

Chapter Text

              * * *

              Tim was finally able to get back to his laboratory work.  The fire was roaring, they were warm despite the ice outside, and there was nothing else they immediately needed.  Danny was in an average state, half-rotted but still able to function, and he was looking at his new books.

              Now that Tim knew he loved the stars, he grabbed every space-related picture book or object he could find.  Danny had a little collection now on a bookshelf of rocket toys, astronaut figurines, and a glow-in-the-dark moon lamp.  He didn’t exactly play with them, but he would stare at them for hours on end sometimes, and his expression of serene joy made Tim’s heart melt every time.

              He was currently engrossed in his books, and so Tim was finally able to concentrate on sequencing more DNA controls to compare to what he already collected.

              He was sequencing healthy rat, squirrel, chipmunk, and healthy human.  He’d scraped some of the dead girl’s blood off of his skin and into a test tube.  He knew it was contaminated with his own DNA, but it was the closest he was going to get to a non-zombified human sample besides himself, so he had to work with what he had.

              He wasn’t about to go back to the site where he’d killed her and look for a purer sample.  Not unless he absolutely had to.

              He then had Danny scratch a rat, squirrel, and chipmunk, and finally got to run a sample of the zombie arm they’d collected the other day. 

              And the results had his heart racing.

              Normal.

              They were all.  Normal.

              None of the samples had the missing DNA.

              Regular zombies had regular human DNA.  Same for zombified animals.  There were no gaps at all.

              Finally, Tim ran the DNA of the zombie virus itself.  The sample he’d taken from the zombie arm.

              He compared it to the results of Danny’s virus.

              And it was blowing his mind.

              The zombie virus was the same in Danny as it was in regular zombies.

              And it had the missing nucleotides.  The same ones.

              It looked, for all the world, that Danny was genetically related to the zombie virus.

              “What the hell?” Tim said, his eyes wide as they could possibly go.

              All the other zombies, both human and animal, were just…sick.  Their DNA was totally normal.  The zombie virus didn’t affect their DNA at all.  They just got sick, their behavior changed, and then they died.  Like any virus.

              But Danny’s DNA showed the same missing proteins as the zombie virus itself.

              Tim stared at Danny, his mind racing.  All this time, he’d been wondering if Danny was somehow the cure to the virus.

              But maybe instead… he was the source.

              Tim’s heart immediately rejected the idea, but his mind forced himself to ignore that.  The fact that Danny was a good person had no bearing on whether he was the source of the virus or not.  This didn’t mean it was his fault, either.  He could have gotten sick with God knows what, and then when it interacted with his unusual biology, he mutated the virus into something horrifically deadly.

              It would explain why it only partially affected him.  He was partially immune.  And that could still mean he was also the key to a cure.  In fact, it raised the chances of it.

              Tim just had to fucking figure it out.

              He stared at all of his work and chewed on his lower lip.  He didn’t know where to go from here.  He had pretty strong knowledge of genetics, due to all his experimentation with cloning.  But he wasn’t a virologist.  He had a basic education in it, enough to get as far as he had, but now he was at the end of his knowledge.   Not to mention the lab equipment here. There were all kinds of settings on the electron microscope he didn’t know how to use.  There were several machines he didn’t even know what they did, including a ring-shaped thing about two feet across.

              He needed fucking resource materials.  He needed scientific books.  Specialized ones.  Even if the small town he was in had a library, he doubted it would contain what he needed.  He needed something like a university.

              Until now, he hadn’t really sought one.  He’d had little reason to leave the small area they lived in.  It was more useful to grow his own vegetables than to try to travel for two days to raid a grocery store in another town.  This was the first time he’d even considered traveling to somewhere possibly weeks away- and winter was practically here.

              Frustrated, he buried his face in his hands.  Was he going to have to wait until fucking spring to continue his research?

              Would they survive that long?

              Even if they did, would the library he needed still be standing?  Would the books inside be readable?  Or would he spend weeks dragging Danny across a hundred miles, fighting zombies the entire way, only to come upon a pile of mold and rotted paper?

              He rested his face on the table and covered his head with his arms.  Was this the end, then?  Everything he’d fought for, everything he’d given, was all just to come this close and be stymied because he didn’t know every single thing there was to know about viruses?

              Beep.

              Tim frowned.  That was not a familiar noise.

              He lifted his head and looked over at Danny.  He was staring over at the other workbench, the one that contained Tim’s regular, non-genetic projects.

              Beep.

              Danny tilted his head as he heard it too.  Okay, so there was a sound coming from the other workbench.

              Tim got up and walked towards it, frowning.  Maybe something was wrong with the microwa…

              Beep.

              He stared at the LED light on the radio in disbelief.

              He’d set up the tower almost half a year ago, right after he’d barely escaped the zombie mob and had found the bunker.  It was the first thing he’d built.  At the time, he’d been trying to reach the Batcave, trying to call home.  But after months and months of nothing, he’d given up on that.  Instead he’d set it to automatically modulate across all frequencies, both sending out a signal and listening for one, and then had forgotten about it.

              In all this time, no one had answered.

              Beep.

              His mouth went dry.  His heart froze in his chest.  He tried not to feel anything.  It was probably a stray signal from space.  Or from a rogue satellite that was somehow still functional.  Or something automatic.  It wasn’t going to be a person.

              With a shaking hand, he flicked the switch to turn the speaker on.

              “ayson, from ….haven.  Anyone listening?”

              He was dreaming.  He was hallucinating.  This wasn’t real.

              There was no way there was a person transmitting a radio signal after all this time.

              And there was no way it was that person.  Out of all the people on the Earth…

              “Repeat… this is ….ayson, from Blud…. Is anyone….”

              Tim flicked the switch from receive to transmit, his heart beating so hard he was shaking.

              “This is Tim Drake broadcasting from Wisconsin, receiving on 146.520 megahertz, over.”

              He toggled back from transmit to receive and waited.  He listening to the white noise static coming across the speaker, staring at it for so long it the afterimage of it started to burn into his retinas.  He wrung his hands so hard his fingers were starting to hurt.

              And then, much clearer, the message came through again.

              “This is Dick Grayson, from Bludhaven, switching to 146.520 megahertz.  If anyone is listening, please respond. Over.”

              Tim dove towards the transmission switch and flicked it.

              “Dick?  Is that you?  Are you there, Dick?  It’s Tim.  Tim Drake.”

              He flicked the switch back to receive.  Dick’s voice sounded like he didn’t believe what he was hearing, either.

              “Tim?  Tim Drake-Wayne?  From Gotham?”

              Oh my God.

              Oh my God.

              “Yes!  Yes Dick it’s me, oh my God, Dick, you’re alive?!?”

              “Tim, Tim is that really you? Hahah, I don’t believe it!  I really really don’t believe it!”

              And he sounded like he really didn’t.  Dick’s tone was wild, almost manic.  Tim was sure his sounded similar.  His heart was pounding so hard it hurt.

              “Tim, where are you?”

              “I’m in Wisconsin!  I never made it out.  I got to the location of my last mission and it was already compromised.  I barely escaped with my life.  I found a bunker.  I’ve fortified my position.  I’m safe.”

              “Oh my God!” Dick exclaimed, and Tim could almost see his face, that thing he did when he pushed his hair back from his forehead when he didn’t believe what he was seeing.  “I’ve been trying to repair my radio tower for months, but more pressing matters always seemed to come up.  I finally got to it and the first person I contact is you!”

              Tears fell from Tim’s eyes.  He hadn’t even noticed them building up.  The coldness against his cheeks surprised him, actually.

              “How are you?  How are you surviving?  We have enclaves all over the city, a few hundred strong.  Who’s with you?” Dick asked.

              Enclaves.  Plural.  Survivors.  Human survivors.

              Tim’s heart felt like it was going to thump itself all the way to Bludhaven.

              Tim turned to look over at Danny.  He was watching Tim, but hadn’t moved from his reading spot.

              “I uh…that’s actually not the easiest question to answer?  I’m mostly alone,” Tim said.  “I’ve got this weird power source in a really strange lab, so it powers the bunker doors that keep the zombies out, so I’m safe to sleep.  I’ve got food stores, plenty of water, I just finished building a fireplace.”

              He wasn’t even sure what to say.  There was so much to say he didn’t even know where to start.  He’d forgotten entirely how to have a conversation, how to zero in on the points that matter first.  What did Dick care about his fireplace?  That wasn’t important, in the grand scheme of things!

              At the same time he was berating himself for that, Tim’s brain was also catching up on the other things Dick had told him.  Enclaves.  Hundreds strong.

              “You have a power source?” Dick asked.  “All I have are generators!  Wait… you have a lab?”

              Tim was crying now.  Practically sobbing.  Humans.  Hundreds of humans were still alive!

              “Yeah,” Tim said.  “Very well equipped.  I’ve been trying to work on a cure.  I’m a little stuck right now but I’ve definitely made progress on that.”

              Dick’s voice was so excited Tim could barely understand him.

              “You have a functional lab with power and you’re working on a fucking cure!?!?” Dick’s voice was choked.  Tim knew he was crying too.  Tim could barely process it.  His mind was still stuck on hundreds of surviving humans.

              The radio was still on receive, and so Dick didn’t hear Tim when he spoke.  But at the exact same time they both said,

              “You mean there’s hope?”

              Dick’s sobs matched his own as they tore from his chest.  It was too much.  Everything was too much.  Hearing his brother again, hearing his voice, any voice would have broken him but to hear one so familiar, was hardly bearable.

              And then to find out he wasn’t alone?  That Margaret and her band weren’t the last; that he hadn’t doomed them all, that if he did find a cure, or at least a vaccine, there were people to use it on?  People to save?

              Dick was faring no better.  He was babbling, talking a mile a minute, so fast Tim couldn’t even really understand him.  Tim knew he was trying to ask questions about the lab, the virus, the cure, and Tim would tell him all of that, everything, just as soon as they’d both had a minute to calm down.

              He waited for Dick to finally finish, and flicked to transmit.

              “I got…I got a lot to tell you,” Tim said.  “But…the first thing is…about my companion.”

              Dick was silent for a second.  And then,

              “’Companion’ is both a vague and loaded term, Tim.  I’m not gonna like what I’m about to hear, am I?”

              Tim’s chest grew tight.

              “No it’s…it’s…maybe not.  I don’t care.  He’s different.  He looks like a zombie and he’s infected like a zombie but he has a mind in there, Dick.  Something in him is resisting the virus.  I’ve lived with him for months.  He’s aware enough not to scratch me.  He eats food, he sleeps, and sometimes, on really really good days, he can talk.”

              Tim finished his transmission, and there was not immediately another one.  Tim wasn’t sure what that meant.  Maybe Dick had just gotten distracted.  Maybe he’d had to attend to something else.  Maybe the signal had gotten interrupted by a storm, somewhere between Wisconsin and New Jersey. 

              Or maybe Tim had freaked him out so much he didn’t know how to answer.

              Danny got up and came over.  He put his hand on Tim’s shoulder.  Tim wasn’t sure he understood the conversation, but he definitely understood Tim’s distressed expression, and his immediate reaction was to try to make him feel better.

              Then finally, Dick spoke.

              “That’s incredible,” Dick said, and Tim sighed with relief.  He lifted his hand to rest it on top of Danny’s, and gave it a squeeze.  “You found a zombie that’s partially fighting the virus off?”

              Tim nodded, forgetting that Dick couldn’t see.

              “Yeah.  His name is Danny,” he said, and then waited.  Wondering for Dick’s reaction.  Expecting him to call him insane, the way Margaret had.  Expecting him to freak out.

              “Danny, huh?  Is that how you’re studying a potential cure?” Dick asked.  “With the partial zombie?”

              Tim kicked himself for ever worrying.  Of course Dick would focus on the mission.  Of course he’d only care about a potential cure.  If Dick had been in Tim’s position, he’d have zeroed in on studying Danny, too.

              He just wouldn’t have fallen in love with him.

              But Tim ignored that, for now.  There were more important things to discuss.  The radio signal wouldn’t keep its integrity forever; they were using the ionosphere to bounce the signal, and that wouldn’t work anymore once the sun rose.  Granted, they would be able to connect again, provided another night had just as perfect atmospheric conditions- but other problems could arise between now and then.  One of their antennas could break.  Dick could run out of gasoline for his generators.  Neither of them said it, but they both knew this could be their one and only conversation.

              So he immediately dove into technical explanations.  There was SO much to talk about, SO much to tell, oh, he wanted to tell Dick everything, while at the same time, being terrified of doing so.  But they couldn’t waste their connection on personal stuff.  So he told him everything he’d discovered so far about the zombie virus; how Danny had the same virus as all the other zombies, but his behavior was different; how something was healing him, though Tim couldn’t pinpoint what; how both Danny’s DNA and the virus DNA were both missing nucleotides.  The same nucleotides.

              “So that’s where I’m at,” Tim said.  “And there are other settings on the electron microscope, but I can’t remember what they’re for, or how to use them.  I was hoping to find a textbook, or if we’re extremely lucky, an instruction manual.”

              “What’s the make and model of the microscope?” Dick asked.

              Tim read it off to him.

              “Okay, so here’s the situation,” Dick said.  “As you can imagine, the city is infested with zombies.  There are millions.”

              Tim swallowed.  He didn’t want to imagine it.

              “But I have to keep the enclaves supported.  They count on me for supplies.  I make rounds every day, bringing food, gasoline, whatever medicine we can scrape up.  One of those routes goes very near the Bludhaven public library.”

              Tim’s heart started to race with hope and terror.  A library as big as that would have the books he needed.

              But Dick would be risking his life to get them.

              “I don’t want you risking your life…”

              “I risk my life every day,” Dick said.  “Trying to keep the survivors surviving.  And why am I doing it?  The only reason to bother is if we find a cure, or a vaccine, Tim.  I’ll be honest.  I was losing hope.  I was starting to doubt why I even bother doing this.  Why we don’t just all succumb to the zombies and get it over with, okay?  This radio was my last hope.  My last hope to reach anyone else who might be out there.  For a reason to bother to survive.  This is it, Tim.  This is all we have.”

              Tim stared at the radio speaker, unblinking.  He hadn’t realized it, but until this moment, he’d given up on humanity, too.  The only reason he’d been working on a cure was for Danny’s sake.  He hadn’t even been thinking about anyone else.

              He hadn’t realized there was anyone else.  He was pretty sure he’d resigned Margaret and her band to death when he’d injured them.

              “So I’m going,” Dick said.  “Nothing in the universe is going to stop me from going to that library.”

              “I get it,” Tim said.  “I get how important this is.  I really do.  It’s just that…”

              He couldn’t keep his voice from breaking.

              “I just found you again.  I just got you back.  I can’t…I can’t lose you, Dick.”

              There was a longer pause, and Tim stared at the silent speaker, feeling Danny’s hand squeeze his shoulder.

              And then,

              “Nightwing can do it.”

              Tim knew Dick said it with as much confidence as he could possibly muster, in order to comfort Tim’s nerves.  It sorta worked.

              Tim nodded, his eyes watering again, and he blinked the tears away.

              “Right.  I know he can.  I know we can.  We got this,” Tim said.

              “We got this.”

              * * *

              That night, Tim could not sleep.  He lay in their bed in Danny’s arms, his back pressed against Danny’s chest with his hands wrapped around his waist, and stared at the wall.  Every emotion was raging through him at once.  Things he hadn’t felt in a long time.  Things he hadn’t dare feel ever.

              Hope.

              It seemed too precarious.  Too fragile.  If he even dared to feel it, he would break.

              He felt Danny’s soft kisses press to the back of his neck, and it sent tingles up his spine.  They were pleasantly distracting.

              “That feels good, baby,” he said softly.

              Danny hummed, and then gave him more, then more, sweet, gentle kisses with his lips closed, always careful never to let his deadly teeth too near to Tim’s skin.

              What would Dick think, if he knew?  If he saw this?  Sure, Tim could live with a partial zombie if it might lead to a cure, but what if he made love to that zombie?  What if he loved that zombie more than all the rest of humanity?

              What if saving the world was just a side quest that Tim happened to be working on, while trying to reach his main goal of healing Danny?

              Tim slid his palm down to rub over the back of Danny’s hand as it rested on his stomach.  Danny continued giving him soft kisses to his neck, and Tim sighed into his touch.

              “What if Dick doesn’t make it back?  What if this was the last time I’ll ever speak to him?”

              “Shhhhh,” Danny said, moving his lips to press against Tim’s ear.  The tip turned red at his touch, and Tim turned to face him.  The moment Danny could reach, he pressed his lips to Tim’s, and Tim melted under him.  Danny’s hand slid down from his stomach towards his dick, and he rubbed his palm over the outside of Tim’s pants, making his cock twitch and start to grow.

              “You’re very distracting,” Tim whispered.  Danny smiled against his lips, his black hair falling in his eyes, one milky, one blue.  “Distract me some more, baby.”

              Danny’s grin grew, and then his fingers were fumbling at Tim’s fly, trying to get it open.  Tim helped him, getting the button open so Danny could pull down the zipper, and then Danny’s hand was there, wrapped around his cock.  Tim groaned and turned into Danny’s touch, making it easier for him.  Was it reckless, to have his nails so close to Tim’s soft flesh?  Sure.  Did either of them care?  Not as much as they should.

              Here, in the darkness, underground, in the winter, nothing else mattered.  Only sweet lips and rotting skin and soft breaths across his face had any importance.  Only a warm hand, loving and passionate, carried any meaning at all.  As the heat built up in his balls and throbbed through his spine, Tim buried his face in Danny’s neck and curled his arms against his chest in a desperate need to feel this, and only this.  Danny’s other arm wrapped strong and sure against his back, holding him close while he brought Tim to pleasure, Tim’s breaths coming faster and more shallow as his heart hammered in his chest.

              With a soft cry he came, the sound muffled by Danny’s fragile skin, waves of relief crashing through his body in hot pulses.  His release poured between them, a mess hardly noticeable among all the red and rotten stains already all over their bedding, and neither of them cared.  Tim breathed hard, his desire pulsing through him until it was done, and he collapsed in Danny’s arms with a heavy sigh.

              Together they put his cock away and fastened his pants, and then Tim let sleep take him, not allowing another thought into his mind, hearing only Danny’s breathing, feeling only Danny’s arms.

              * * *

              Two days later, when Dick’s voice came back through the radio, Tim immediately dropped his repairs on the growing lights and jumped in front of it.

              “….in.  Tim Drake, come in.  This is Dick Grayson.  Are you there, Tim?”

              Tim flicked the toggle hurriedly.

              “I’m here!  Dick, Dick, you’re okay!”

              Dick gave a short laugh.

              “I’m okay.  God, it’s good to hear your voice, Tim.”

              Tim rubbed his eyes to keep them from tearing.  They had work to do, and precious little time to do it before atmospheric conditions interrupted their frequency.

              “Same Dick, same.”

              “How are you holding up?”

              “Dick, let’s just get to work, okay?”

              “…right.”  Dick paused for a moment, and Tim wondered if he was about to talk about something personal anyway.  But then he dove right in.  “I have a heap of books here.  I’ll read you the titles, you tell me which one to start with.  Physical Principles of Electron Microcopy, Instruction Manual for Model H-7650 Transmission Electron Microscope,  Scanning Electron Microscopy and X-Ray Microanalysis: Third Edition.  Any of those?  I have five more.”

              “The second one.  The instruction manual.  It’s not my model but it should still help me understand these extra dials.”

              “Okay.  I’ll read you off the table of contents, you tell me what chapter to flip to.”

              Together, they started to work.  It was grueling.  The radio was nowhere near the microscope; Tim had to walk across the entire bunker between them, and it was hard to be patient.  The next time they lost the signal he would move the radio closer to his lab work, but for now, he had to deal with it.

              “Okay, so that covers all the settings I’ve remembered, so far,” Tim said, glancing down at his notes and the hasty sketch he’d drawn of the different settings so he could look at it beside the radio.

              God, what he wouldn’t give for a phone and the ability to take pictures of anything and everything whenever he wanted, and to just be able to text it to Dick.  Things like that felt almost like magic, now.  He missed civilization.

              He missed burgers.

              He missed movies.

              He missed showers.

              “So what about the next setting?” Tim asked, shoving all those thoughts away.  None of them were important right now.

              “That’s it,” Dick said.

              “What do you mean ‘that’s it’?” Tim replied, furrowing his forehead.  “I have like, six more options on this thing.”

              “I’ve read you all the options,” Dick said.  “Here, I’ll read them again.  ‘AMF Condition, API Condition, PDS Condition…”

              Tim followed along as Dick read through them all, nodding with exhaustion as they all matched what his microscope had, until the end, when Dick stopped reading but Tim still had more options on his microscope.

              “Ugh, we must need the manual for my model for these,” Tim grunted.

              “What do the extra settings say?”

              Tim read them off.

              “Ecto-AMF, Ecto-API, Ecto-PDS…”

              “Let me look through the other books and see if I can find anything.”

              Tim nodded, which was pointless because Dick couldn’t see him.  He flipped the radio to transmit.

              “Okay,” Tim said.

              While Dick was doing that, Tim got up to make himself a cup of hot coffee.  That was his new rule- he could only have coffee while doing lab work.  It was the time he needed to focus mentally the most, after all.

              He had maybe half a can left.  Damn.

              He sipped on his cup and glanced over at Danny.  He was staring at Tim unflinchingly, wanting to be near him, but Tim wasn’t still enough for Danny to rest his head on his lap.

              “I’m sorry, baby,” Tim said.  “But I have to work right now.”

              Dick took a long, long time to come back, and it wasn’t until he’d finished his coffee that Tim realized he'd left the radio on ‘transmit’.  He facepalmed himself and spoke into it.

              “Sorry Dick, I’ve been on transmit this whole time like a moron.  Switching now, over.”

              He flicked to ‘receive’.

              Dick’s voice was immediate.

              “So, who’s ‘baby’?”

              Tim’s blood turned cold.  He stared at the radio in horror.  Dick had heard.

              “Come on, Tim.  I know we’re focusing on working but let’s talk about our lives a little?” Dick said.  “Who’s with you?”

              Tim stared down at the radio receiver, winced, and decided the hell with it.  It wasn’t like Dick was going to stop talking to him.  The fate of humanity rested on their shoulders and blah blah blah.  Even without that, he knew Dick was really glad to hear his voice.  And Tim was glad to hear Dick’s, even if it was about to yell at him a lot.

              He flicked the switch to transmit.

              “Just Danny,” he said.  “It’s just the two of us.”

              He flicked the switch back to receive and waited.  He took the last swig of his coffee to calm his nerves.

              “You call him baby?”

              “Yeah.”

              “Exactly how much mental capacity does he have?”

              “Varies from day-to-day.  I’ve been studying him as much as I’ve been studying the virus.  His condition changes based upon two factors: physical exertion, and emotional state.  If he does a lot of manual labor, like helping me carry bricks to build the fireplace, or getting into a fight with a zombie mob, he’ll degrade.  Or if he gets upset like when…”

              Tim stopped himself.

              He didn’t feel like confessing to murder right now.  Even if it was in defense of another.

              “Anyway, then if he physically rests, he’ll heal back to baseline.  And if he gets happy?  Like when we see the stars, or when we, er.  Um.  It heals him.  Sometimes really well.  Sometimes…sometimes he’ll even get healthy enough to speak a few words.”

              Tim stopped, and waited.  He knew that was a hell of a lot to process, and while he hadn’t exactly said it, Dick was extremely smart and knew him.  He would read between the lines.

              “You’re sleeping with a zombie.”

              There it was.

              “It’s lonely.  I’ve lost my mind.  I don’t care,” Tim said.  “We’re in love.”

              He was sorta glad he couldn’t see Dick’s face.

              “Tim, can he even consent?  Zombie’s don’t really have cognitive function.”

              “Oh, he consents,” Tim said, giving Danny a flirty grin from across the room, which he returned.  “Most of the time, he starts it.”

              More silence.  It went on for awhile.  Tim checked to make sure he was on ‘receive’, noted that he was, and continued waiting.  He poked through his notes some more, trying to understand the extra functions on his electron microscope, while he waited for Dick to process his confession.

              “How long as this been going on?” he finally said.

              “Couple months.”

              “And you’re still human.  You’re not infected.”

              “Nope.  I trust him.”

              “That’s.  A statement.”

              Tim shrugged, even though Dick couldn’t see it.

              “It’s the truth.  He’s risked his life for me.  I’ve risked mine for him.  Neither of us would have survived without each other.”

              Tim walked over to the water valve and rinsed out his mug, placing it back on the drying rack.  He desperately wanted another cup of coffee, but that only meant one less for the future.

              He went back to the radio.

              “You know what, Tim?  I’m not there.  I don’t know what you’re facing.  I’m not gonna judge you.  All I know is that I can’t lose you.  So please, please be careful.  Do not get infected.  I need you.”

              Tim bit his bottom lip.  Maybe he’d gotten a little reckless lately.  Maybe he’d gotten tired of always being careful.

              He had to try harder.

              “Okay,” he said.

              And that was it.

              They went back to work.  There was nothing in any of Dick’s books with the prefix “ecto” in it, anywhere.  Tim was ripping his hair, out, at his wits’ end, when Dick said,

              “Maybe it’s custom.”

              “Huh?”

              “You said the whole lab is obviously some kind of illegal cloning facility?”

              “Yeah, that’s what it looks like.”

              “Well if it was illegal, then I’ll bet whoever built it was trying to do some pretty far-out stuff.  They probably modified the electron microscope.  Possibly all of their equipment.  What happens when you try to use one of the other settings?”

               “I don’t know.  They draw too much power and fry my wires.  I’d need a larger gauge than I have to get enough power to it, and I was afraid that sending that much juice would fry the whole thing.”

              “Tim, you should do it.”

              Tim stared at his diagram of the extra settings and bit his lower lip.

              “Think about it,” Dick said.  “We’ve gone through eight books on electron microscopes.  None of them even mention these extra settings.  That means whomever created this lab, created those.  You found Danny right in the vicinity of this bunker.  He’s obviously involved somehow.  He’s able to partially heal, and his DNA shares attributes with the virus itself.  He’s probably an experiment.”

              Tim saw red and his knuckles grew white as he clenched his fists in rage.  The thought had been in the back of his mind.  But the idea made him so fucking angry that he couldn’t even face it.  He didn’t want to face it.

              “I’ll kill whoever did this to him.  I’ll destroy them.  I’ll tear their heart out and smash it with a hammer.”

              “Tim focus.  They are probably long dead.  They were probably the first victim of the virus.  Hating them isn’t going to get us anywhere.  But if that is true- if you aren’t just in any lab but in the lab that created this thing, the tools to find a cure are in there.  You have to look.  You have to get those weird settings to work.”

              He knew Dick was right.  He’d just been so afraid.  He didn’t fully understand the green power source.  Getting it to modulate into a steady current was tricky, and he’d blown up several kitchen appliances trying.  It was only after finally hooking up the microwave and hotplate and electric heater successfully that he’d even dared touch the electron microscope- and that had been difficult.

              Giving it more power than it was supposed to have in order to feed settings that weren’t supposed to exist?

              “Dick, if I blow it up, we’re fucked,” he said.  “We’ll have nothing.”

              “Tim, if you don’t hook up those extra settings, then we’re at a dead-end.”

              Dammit.

              “I know you can do it.  You’ve already proven you can do it, by hooking up all the other lab equipment.  Who the hell can take an unknown power source and modulate it to get a DNA sequencer to work?  Tim fucking Drake, that’s who.”

              Tim gave a little laugh.  God, it felt good to talk to Dick again.  It was restoring his confidence.  And learning that there were not just a handful, but hundreds of humans still alive, was giving him more hope than he’d realized he needed.

              “I’ll do it, once we lose the radio signal, and I can get some sleep,” he said.

              “Sounds like a good plan.  You wanna catch some sleep now?”

              “No.  I wanna talk to you.  I miss you.  I miss human conversation.”

              “Sure.”

              Tim wanted to hug the radio so badly.

              “Wanna tell me more about Danny?”

              “No, no I wanna hear more about humans.  I haven’t seen any since… the spring.  Since…hell, do you know the date?” Tim asked.

              “It’s November 27^th,” Dick said.  “Happy Thanksgiving.”

              Tim laughed.  Oh God, it was Thanksgiving.  It had been March when he’d left.  He’d been alone for almost eight months.

              “Tell me about Bludhaven.  Tell me about people.”

              “Sure.  I got enclaves all over the city, that Nightwing is protecting and supplying.  Forty-three separate ones, at the moment.  We had more, but had to consolidate when some generators stopped working.  People needed heat for the winter.”

              “Yeah, me too.  God, what I went through to build that damned fireplace.”

              “So each enclave has anywhere between twelve to a hundred people.  I have a list, of the names of every person within them.  The population of Bludhaven as of today is 1,371.  That I know about.  I’m always hoping there are more, hoping there are some enclaves I haven’t found.”

              Tim sobbed.  Thirteen hundred people.  Oh my God.  Oh my God, humanity was still alive.

              “And…I don’t know if this will comfort you or not, but until about a month ago, I was still in contact with Damian in Gotham.”

              Tim’s sobs got worse.  His heart cracked, healed, and then cracked again.  He didn’t know what to say, or what to ask.  So he stayed on ‘receive’ and just let Dick talk.

              “I couldn’t get my radio tower to work, and his was damaged beyond repair.  So we were sending messengers back-and-forth.  But on the last run, my messenger didn’t return, and so I stopped sending people.  It’s too risky.  But I believe he’s alive.  He’s operating out of the Cave.  He’s got even more enclaves in Gotham than I have.  Robin has been visiting them all as best he can, trying to help them survive.  Last I heard, Signal was still helping him.  Though…we haven’t heard from Spoiler.  I…well, we don’t know about her.  But even without any word from Gotham for a month, I really believe Damian is okay.  Gothamites are a tough bunch, you know.”

              Tim couldn’t stop crying now.  It was all crashing down on him.  Everything, all of it, all at once.  The loss.  The grief.  The pain.  And then hope.  Hearing Dick’s voice, a familiar, safe voice.  Hearing how Damian and Duke were probably alive, then worrying if they weren’t.  Hearing that Steph was probably gone.  Hearing about Gotham, his home, and how it wasn’t destroyed but was doing its damndest to survive.  That there were people like him, determined to get through this.

              He felt a hand on his shoulder and jumped.  He turned around and pulled Danny hard into his arms, sobbing into his neck while he listened to Dick talk.  Danny moved his palm up to the back of Tim’s head and held him close, Tim’s face rubbing snot and tears into Danny’s neck, and Danny just held him tighter.

              After a few minutes, he was able to calm down.  He took a several deep breaths, and then finally switched to transmit.

              “Any word on anyone else?” Tim asked quietly.  “Batman? Cass?”

              Dick’s silence was torture.  Danny squeezed Tim tighter.

              “No.  We don’t know where either of them are.  I haven’t heard from Hong Kong.  And Batman… he last left on a mission to help Metropolis, and we never heard back from him.”

              Metropolis.

              “I’m guessing Superman is…”

              “He was already bitten when Batman left.”

              “How?  How could zombie teeth penetrate his skin?”

              He could feel Dick’s frustration through the radio.

              “We don’t know.  That’s why Batman went.  To try to figure that out.  And that’s when we lost contact with him.  And if Superman was fine… we would have heard from him.”

              Tim closed his red-rimmed eyes and sighed.  He’d already known that.  If Superman, or any Kryptonian, had survived, Tim would have been rescued a long, long time ago.

              “Then the entire Justice League is out of commission,” Tim said.  “They have to be, or we wouldn’t be in this position.”

              “The entire Justice League is not out of commission,” Dick said.  “Nightwing, Robin, and Red Robin are still operational.”

              Tim glanced over at a crate in the far, far back corner where he’d stored his Red Robin suit.  He hadn’t worn it since the day he’d found the bunker.  At the time, he’d taken it off because it was soaked in zombie blood, and he’d wanted cleaner clothes.

              And since then…he hadn’t wanted to think about who he used to be, or where he’d come from.

              And then Dick’s voice came over the radio:

              “We are the Justice League right now.  And we are going to do this.”

              Tim nodded, suddenly feeling a resolve and determination he hadn’t in a long time. 

              He could already guess what had happened to the rest of the Justice League.  Superheroes with powers were not used to having to avoid getting hurt in battle.  They fought without any attempt to not get hit back.  So they’d probably answered calls for help from zombie mobs and had gotten scratched almost immediately, not thinking anything of it.  Meanwhile, the Bats were only human beings.  They fought with a different mindset- attempting to not get hurt whenever possible.  Dodge if you can.  Block if you must.  Don’t get hit, because that meant a broken rib.

              In the end, it seemed like that was what had saved them.  Back then, no one had known how zombification happened.  They didn’t know it was a virus.  They didn’t know it was transmitted through scratching and biting.  They had, in fact, just figured that part out when Tim had left the Batcave to head to his last mission.

              “Tim, are you there?”

              “I didn’t think there was any point,” he finally said.

              “To what?”

              “Living.”

              Dead silence.  And then,

              “Me either.  But I’ve had thirteen hundred people depending on me.  I wasn’t doing it for myself.  I was doing it for them.”

              “And I’m doing it for Danny,” Tim said, reaching up his palm to squeeze Danny’s hand where it rested on his shoulder.  “All my research.  All my work to find a cure has been for him.  He deserves better.”

              “You love him.”  There wasn’t even a hint of doubt in the statement.

              “Yeah.”

              “Tim, whatever the fuck you’ve had to do to survive... good.”

              “I’ve done something awful…”

              “So have I.  Several things.”

              Tim swallowed thickly then.  Of course he would have.  Tim couldn’t imagine what it was like to try to keep thirteen hundred people alive, all of them forced to remain in barricaded locations that they could never leave.  What did you do with someone who was out of line in a situation like that?  There wasn’t a justice system.  There wasn’t a prison.  There was only cooperation or death.

              “We’re doing the best we can,” Tim said finally.  “We’re still alive.”

              “We’re still alive,” Dick said.  “And we’re going to do this.”

              Tim felt, for the first time in a long time, resolve and determination.  Purpose.

              “I’m gonna do it, Dick.  I’m gonna figure out this damned virus.  With you helping me, I can get it done.  I’m gonna start rewiring the electron microscope tomorrow.  I just need to sleep for now.”

              “Get your sleep, Red Robin.  I’ll talk to you next time the atmosphere cooperates with us.”

              “Goodnight, Dick.”

              “Goodnight, Tim.”

              * * *

              It took Tim two days to get more power to the electron microscope.  First, he had to go find some lower gauge wire to carry a larger current.  Thankfully that hadn’t been too difficult; the local hardware store had collapsed months ago, but copper wire didn’t rust.  He dug through the rubble until he found enough, and then started working on rewiring the microscope.

              He was exceedingly careful.  He knew much better now how to regulate the flow from the weird green power source.  He stared at it for awhile, trying to fathom what in hell it was.  He’d examined the tank that it sat in a thousand times, trying to understand it.  It seemed to be some sort of liquid, pumped in from a source that was no longer present, as the intake tube was hooked up to nothing.  There was also an output tube, which had a valve on the end of it, but without knowing what the hell it was, Tim hadn’t dared open it.  It could be radioactive, or poisonous and kill him instantly.

              On the top of the tank was a removable lid.  It was sealed tight with hydraulics, and that was how Tim had figured out how to get power from it.  The hydraulic lid seals were powered by the green glowing substance, fed by wires that dipped down into the tank, fed through a converter in the lid, and then fed the hydraulic seals.

              Tim had, very carefully, modified the converter to output more power, a little at a time.  He’d started small, just lighting a lightbulb at first, and then gradually raised the power output until he’d gotten it to power the bunker doors and everything else.

              Now he’d modified it again, and he finally had what he thought was enough power to the electron microscope to get the extra settings to work.  Exhausted, but hopeful, he loaded up one of Danny’s DNA samples and put it in the chamber.

              He looked at it through the regular settings and saw the missing nucleotides.  He went through all the normal settings to make sure they still worked, his heart pounding  with nervousness and anticipation.  And then he tried the first of the “ecto” settings.

              It worked- but didn’t show him anything different than he’d seen before.  Still the same image of the DNA, still with the same gaps missing.  Disappointed, he went through all the other ecto settings, to the same result.  He had the microscope working, the screen was lit, he was seeing an image- but it wasn’t showing him anything more.

              “Dammit,” he said, frustrated.

              Well, maybe these settings would reveal something if he looked at the virus, instead.  He started to load up the virus sample when he coughed.

              He noticed his eyes were watering, and he glanced up at the fire.  Maybe Danny had accidentally put a wet log…

              Oh shit.

              Black smoke was backing up into the bunker.

              Billowing into it, actually.

              Tim coughed some more, harder, his throat burning.  He tried to go towards the fire, intending to put it out, but the smoke only grew thicker.  He went into a coughing fit and couldn’t stop.  He turned around to leave, but couldn’t see anything.  He was disoriented.  He was dizzy.

              And then a powerful arm was around his waist, pulling him.  Tim could do nothing but cough and take steps in the direction Danny was pulling him, and the smoke thinned a bit as they approached the stairs.  Danny practically dragged Tim up them, elbowing the release button to get the bunker doors open.  Together they stumbled out into the fresh air, Tim coughing his brains out.  Danny was coughing too, though not nearly as badly.

              And then Tim heard the moans.

              His eyes flew wide open in terror.  His axe was down in the bunker.

              He was weaponless. 

              He stood up and frantically glanced around, desperately tried to get his coughing under control.  The zombies sounded very close.  He lifted is eyes and there they were- piling on top of the chimney, trying to claw their way down into the bunker.  They would never get in, the entire thing was made of titanium, but their bodies were blocking the smoke and causing it to back up inside the bunker.

              “They must have smelled me,” Tim said.  “They’re going to notice me any minute.  Without my axe, I’m fucked.  I can’t fight them hand-to-hand, I’ll get scratched…”

              As he spoke, Danny went back down into the bunker, even as smoke was pouring out the door.  Tim already knew it was less dangerous to him- whatever his healing powers were, they would heal him from smoke inhalation as much as anything else.  His vision flicked between the zombies piling on the chimney and the bunker door, black smoke billowing out into the night.  So far, the zombies were still interested in his scent coming up the chimney, but it wasn’t going to be long before his real self overwhelmed that and they turned to come for him.

              Danny appeared out of the smoke, his face and hair covered in soot, and held up both Tim’s axe and his new knife.  He solemnly handed them to Tim, and with a nod at each other, they both turned to attack their enemies.

              Tim aimed for the one furthest from the others, its foot caught on a piece of rubble that had made it trip and fall farther from the chimney.  It was dark, but the half-moon was out, and his eyes had already started to adjust to the low light.  In absolute silence he swung his axe down onto the back of the zombie’s neck, the satisfying sound of a breaking spine snapping in his ears.

              “Rrrraaaaagh!” Danny cried, leaping at the pile of zombies, adding one more to it.  He grabbed the one on top by the throat and yanked back, driving his teeth into its skull.  None of the other zombies reacted- they never did- but then the wind shifted, and the scent of Tim reached them.

              They all started struggling to get up to head towards Tim, and some of them managed.  Tim was ready.  When the first one reached him, he swung his axe hard at its head, decapitating it instantly.  The next one was right behind it and he had to spin to get away, which meant his axe’s momentum was reversed and he caught a zombie to his left on the back swing.  Because of that his swing wasn’t as powerful, and his axe got caught in it’s half-split neck.

              Tim yanked his axe back, a third zombie nearly scratching him as he retrieved his weapon.  He sliced at its arm with his knife, chopping it at the wrist.  The rotten, soft bone snapped easily, the zombie’s hand falling to the ground, rendering it harmless as it reached for Tim with its stub.

              Danny screamed in triumph as his teeth found brains and he tore them out, his mouth full of grey viscera.  The zombie under him started to twitch, and then fall, too much of its brain matter removed for it to be able to stand.  Danny then turned to attack the zombie Tim had partially decapitated, twisting its head off with his hands.

              Together they fought, side-by-side, each having the other’s back.  Tim attacked the ones closest to him, constantly darting away, attempting to make it so that he fought only one at a time.  Danny attacked the ones just behind them, trying to keep the mob from hitting Tim all at once.  As they fought, Tim noticed the smoke from the fire starting to rise up from the chimney again, no longer blocked by zombie bodies, and he sighed with relief.  Once they won this battle, and aired the bunker out, they would be able to go back inside for safety.

              “Yyyyeeeeeeah!” Tim cried, crushing the back of a zombie skull with the dull side of the axe.  He heard the crunch of bone and saw red blood fly.  It fell to the ground, where he swung down with the axe’s heavy blade, cleanly removing its head.  He heard another deadly moan behind him, and turned to see Danny attempting to hold a zombie from getting to him with his arm around its throat.  The zombie’s hands were clawing at his arms, scratching off his papery skin, but of course it had no effect.  Danny reached up and twisted the zombie’s neck, snapping its head clean off.

              The last zombie fell to the ground, and they both stood, panting in the moonlight, dripping in zombie juices.  Their eyes locked on each other, and Danny rushed to Tim as Tim dropped his weapons on the ground.  They were in each other’s arms instantly, Tim pressing kiss after kiss to Danny’s closed lips, Danny moaning with desire in return.

              Tim’s entire body was already throbbing, his pulse racing, and so it didn’t take much at all for the flush in his cheeks to bloom up to his ears and turn them red.  Danny opened his mouth and stuck out his tongue, licking it across Tim’s jaw and down the side of his throat.  Tim tilted his head back and moaned, his fingers clasping at the back of Danny’s shirt.

              His eyes slitted open as he felt Danny’s tongue lick across his skin, and he was met with the view of the whole night sky, shining down on him in silver beauty.  He smiled, and pushed Danny down to the ground, lying him down on his back in a sea of dead zombie corpses.  Tim pulled his neck away from Danny’s tongue, and Danny protested with a whine, until Tim tilted Danny’s head to look up.

              “Look at your stars, baby,” he whispered, moving his lips to kiss Danny’s neck, his blood growing warm as he heard him moan.  “Look at your stars, and let me make you feel good.”

              [1START XXX]

              Tim sucked the loose, decayed skin of Danny’s neck into his mouth, and heard him gasp.  With a smile, Tim slowly started to kiss his way down his body, teasing his fingers over his chest, feeling his bony ribs beneath his blood-soaked shirt and fragile skin.  Tim lay beside him, slotting his thigh between Danny’s legs, his heart pounding now for a much, much better reason.

              Tim pulled Danny’s shirt off of him and rolled on top of him, looking down to see Danny’s eyes full of starlight.

              “God, you’re beautiful,” Tim said, running his tongue down Danny’s chest, his dry, desiccated skin slipping with him as he went, threatening to fall right off.  Danny gave a soft moan as Tim kissed him, gently tangling his fingers in Tim’s hair, and Tim smirked.

              “Want a bite, baby?”

              “Hhhhgn!” Danny cried, a sound that was obviously a yes to Tim.  Danny’s plea to be bitten warmed his blood and excited his cock, making him drool as he teased Danny’s skin with his teeth.  He dragged his lips across his skin until he was at the side of his stomach, and felt Danny suck in a breath.

              “Ah, there,” Tim said, closing his teeth hard, feeling them sink through Danny’s flesh and tear into it.  Danny keened, lifting his hips up as his fingers scrabbled in Tim’s hair, and then his hands flew away from him as he flattened his palms on the ground.  Tim didn’t stop, letting the piece of flesh he’d bitten off fall to the ground as he mercilessly dragged his tongue over the bleeding wound.  Danny’s scream of pleasure made Tim’s cock swell, and he licked the wound over and over, the delicious taste of Danny’s blood turning him on even more.

              Tim dragged his teeth lower, teasing Danny as he scraped them across his stomach.  Danny’s fingers curled into the dirt like claws, and when Tim nipped at his skin just above his waistband, Danny lifted his hands in a hurry and started yanking his fingernails off.

              Tim was too turned on to stop him.  He dragged his tongue flat across Danny’s stomach and then nipped at him again, while he slid his palms up the inside of Danny’s thigh, moving them towards his fly.

              “Let me know when you’re ready, baby,” Tim whispered, his eyes half-lidded, his tone drunk.  Then Danny’s fingers were back, tangling in Tim’s hair, and Tim bit.

              “Mmmmaah…ah!” Danny cried, bucking his hips up as Tim licked across the new wound, his cock throbbing with desire.  He sucked on it, blood and juices running down his throat while he made Danny feel incredible.  He slid his fingers to Danny’s fly while he licked over the wound.

              “Let’s see what you’ve got under there today,” Tim teased, mentally preparing himself to like anything he saw; making sure he would make Danny feel sexy no matter what parts he had.

              Or in this case, didn’t have.

              There was nothing.  No cock, no balls, just a gaping hole where those things should be.  That was a first.  But Tim wasn’t going to let anything at all ruin this moment, least of all himself.  He continued to pull Danny’s pants down without even a pause, taking off his shoes once he got to his ankles, leaving him completely naked.  Tim then stood up, lifting his own shirt off despite the chill in the air.  It was a warm night for November, and probably their one and only chance to do this outside before winter truly set in.

              Their one chance to make love under the stars.

              Tim stripped completely and looked down at his naked lover, gray skin glinting in the moonlight, two fresh bite wounds dripping blood down his side.  Tim’s eyes dragged up to Danny’s beautiful face, and he saw him gazing up with two gorgeous, love-drunk eyes, both blue and shining.

              “I love you so much,” Tim said, crouching down by Danny’s feet, pressing a kiss to his ankle.  Slowly, he began to kiss his way up the inside of Danny’s leg, making him twitch and curl his nail-less fingers into the dirt.

              “Loooooove,” Danny moaned, and Tim smiled warmly against the side of his knee as he kissed it.

              “Wow,” Tim whispered, licking his way up the inside of Danny’s thigh.  His heart raced faster as he approached the gaping hole between Danny’s legs, teasing his fingers up the inside of Danny’s other thigh, making him gasp and twitch.

              “God, you’re so sexy, Danny,” Tim whispered, dragging his tongue up between Danny’s legs, knowing that teasing the wound where his cock should be would feel good to him.  Danny’s gasp proved Tim right as he pressed his tongue to the edge, and then his hands were in Tim’s hair, clutching at it hard.  Tim licked around the outside of the hole, sliding closer with his hand on his other thigh.  The hole was way too huge for Tim to lick inside, and so he slid his hand over to it, teasing the rim of it with his fingers.

              Danny’s gasp was exquisite.  A pulse of heat rushed between Tim’s legs as he very, very much wanted to put his dick in it.  He knew Danny would want it too; he seemed to want Tim’s cock in any and every hole he had.  That thought turned Tim on even more, and before he knew it, he was moving his fingers from tracing around the outside of the wound to plunge into it.

              “Mmmmmmaaah!” Danny cried, arching his back, making Tim’s heart race with excitement.  The space inside Danny’s pelvis was big, and soft, and wet.  He shoved his whole hand in, and Danny’s fingers tried to claw at his scalp, pulling Tim closer to him as he licked around the edges.  Tim’s eyes fell half closed as Danny writhed, spreading his legs wider while also tensing all his muscles as Tim teased him from inside with his hand, and from outside with his tongue.  It wasn’t like fisting someone- he wasn’t thrusting, but was instead running his fingers along the flesh inside Danny’s torso, stroking up the inside of his pelvis, watching the bumps of his fingers raise up through his skin.

              “Uuuuh!” Danny cried, his hands flying down to hook under Tim’s armpits and pull him up, hard.  Tim let Danny maneuver him however he wanted, as he always would, because it was the only way Danny really had of communicating what he needed.

              Tim let himself get pulled up until their eyes met, and Danny reached down to slowly pull Tim’s hand out of himself, Tim’s hand dripping with blood and fluids.  Danny spread his legs further, and guided Tim’s hips to fall between them, until his cock fell right over the opening of the wound, and Tim knew what Danny wanted.  Tim leaned down to kiss him, pressing closed kiss after closed kiss to his lips, over and over and over.  Danny lifted his hands to rub them down Tim’s back, tickling his spine, making it sing.

              Somehow, this felt special.  It felt different.  This wound represented Tim going inside Danny in a completely new way, and they both gazed into each other’s eyes for a long time, before Tim glanced down with a question on his face.

              Danny nodded, his heart thrumming against Tim’s chest.  Tim shifted his hips so that his cock fell into the hole, and then pushed in.

              It didn’t feel like a cunt.  It was way, way too loose, and way way too wet.  He could feel the sinew and connective tissue as it stroked along his erection, teasing it, brushing it, but not squeezing it.  Danny closed his eyes and moaned, and that reaction alone made Tim’s desire throb.  The inside of Danny was warm, and Tim started to slowly push in and pull out, feeling the soft brush of Danny’s innards gently glide against his cock.

              “Uuuuuuuuuuughn,” Danny groaned, his head tossed back in ecstasy.  Tim didn’t even care that what he felt was only a tease; he would do anything in the universe, everything in the universe to make Danny’s face forever look like that.  Tim thrust his hips forward and Danny keened, his eyes slitting open only to see the stars above him.

              Tim slowly rocked into Danny over and over, caressing his fingers across his chest and over the bite wounds he’d made.  Danny’s stomach tensed and his whole body curled in pleasure, his mouth hanging open in silent euphoria.  His expression made Tim’s heart throb with affection and desire, and there was nothing in the universe that was ever going to make him stop.  Danny’s eyes closed every time he pushed in, and then opened slightly every time he pulled out, and all Tim wanted, in his whole life, was to watch him feel this forever.

              But Danny seemed to notice that Tim needed more.  He blinked his eyes open and stared at where Tim’s cock was buried deep between his legs.  He lifted a hand and opened it, then closed it again in a circle, like he was jerking off an invisible cock.

              “I don’t care, baby,” Tim said, his voice full of breath as his cheeks glowed with warmth, despite the chilly air.  “I just want to make you feel good.  You’re beautiful.  You’re my everything.”

              Danny lifted his eyes to meet his, and Tim got to see two gorgeous blue irises gazing back at him with absolute love and devotion.  They gazed at each other for a long time, Tim making Danny’s body rock softly every time he pushed up into him, his beautiful eyes reflecting the speckled sky above them.  

              Then Danny turned his face to the side and glanced around, his fingers fumbling until he found Tim’s knife, wrapping his palm around the handle.  Tim’s heart started to race faster.  He had no idea what Danny was going to do, but with the way he reacted to fresh wounds being touched, Tim knew it was going to be something that felt good to him.

              He was not prepared for Danny to plunge the knife all the way into his own pelvis, and it shocked Tim into stillness, his erection shrinking from something so unexpected.

              “Baby that can’t be good for y…”

              Danny lifted his other hand, pressed his finger up to Tim’s lips, and said “Shhhhh.”

              Tim shut up.

              He watched in fascinated, horrified arousal as Danny dragged the knife across his entire pelvis, plunged to the hilt, creating a deep, long wound from left to right.  Tim felt things shifting with his dick, flesh moving inside Danny as the blade sliced through, rearranging the fluids and flesh inside of him.  Blood oozed out of the slice, dripping around Danny’s hips, and Tim couldn’t tear his eyes away despite not having a clue why Danny was doing this.

              Danny finished, and dropped the knife to the ground.  He looked up at Tim with a lustful, hazy expression that said trust me.

              “I am,” Tim said.  “I’m trusting you so much right now.”

              Then Danny slid his own palm down his abdomen, across his own stomach, and pushed his fingers into the slice he’d made.  He’d made it so deep his entire hand vanished inside, and Tim could only stare with wide eyes, his cheeks still hot from passion, his brain running wild with confusion.

              And then he felt Danny’s fingers touch his dick.  From inside himself.  Felt him tease it, running his fingers gently up and down the shaft, working to coax it back to full hardness.  Tim gasped, his elbows wobbling as they almost failed to hold him up.  His brain was still trying to come back online, but his cock was happily with the program.  It was growing harder under Danny’s touches, surrounded by wet heat, and now a soft, patient palm that caressed it from beneath.  Tim let the gentle stimulation get to him.  Pricks of heat and want rushed up his cock, throbbing in his balls and tingling up his spine.  He moaned, pushing his hips forward to get himself closer to Danny’s hand, his fingers curling tighter around his shaft as he thrust.

              “Mmmmm,” Danny said, and Tim agreed, snapping his hips forward harder now that his dick was getting the friction that it wanted.  Danny closed his eyes and let his head fall back, his whole body rocking as Tim thrust into it, harder and faster.  His balls were pressing up into the hole every time he pushed in, deeper and deeper, and Tim groaned as Danny gasped, his hips trying to meet Tim’s with his own gentle thrusts.

              Tim was burning hot now, his cheeks red and his body pulsing with arousal.  He was in a haze of lust and desire, wanting this to last forever.  He couldn’t tear his eyes away from Danny’s euphoric face, his head tossed back as his eyes blinked open now and then to look up at the stars.

              And then he lowered his gaze to look up into Tim’s eyes, and Tim fell madly, madly in love.  They were both so, so blue, shining in the starlight, beautiful and vibrant and aware.  Danny was seeing him; his mind behind his eyes was there, in a deeper way than it usually was.  They were lost in each other, neither needing to say a single word as their expressions of passion said it all.

              Tim’s heart was shining so brightly it was going to burst.  He had to say the words anyway.

              “I love you,” he said.

              Danny smiled, eyes half-lidded with desire, cheeks flush with affection.  He lifted his free hand up to cup Tim’s face, running his thumb along his cheek, even as his body shook when Tim thrust into him.

              “Looove Tim,” Danny said, oh, and how badly Tim wanted to kiss his lips, to shove his tongue in deep and swallow it whole, to show Danny that yes, yes yes yes.

              He closed his eyes and thrust a little harder, a little faster, and a lot deeper.  He felt something brush against his cock, and then heard Danny give a sharp gasp.

              Tim opened his eyes and saw Danny’s eyelids fluttering shut with pleasure.

              “Mmmm, what did I just find?” Tim teased, shifting to thrust against that thing again.

              “Aaaah!” Danny cried.

              “Oh,” Tim said, as he realized.  “Found your prostate.”

              “Mmmmm!” Danny moaned, arching his hips up, trying to get Tim to push against that spot, stymied by his own hand buried in his pelvis.  Tim stilled his thrusts and lifted his fingers, tracing them along the slice, around Danny’s arm where it vanished inside of him, and then further over.  He licked his lips and lifted his lust-addled eyes to gaze into Danny’s.

              “Think there’s room enough for two?” he cooed, pushing his fingertips into the wound.  Danny twitched, all his muscles tensing at once as his eyes rolled back into his head.

              “Oh you really like this,” Tim said, his heart beating hard and fast, his cock growing rock-hard in Danny’s grasp.  “Hah, so do I.”

              With a squelch, he pushed his fingers in deeper, watching his knuckles disappear in a pool of blood as it oozed out from the slice, adding to the drips on Danny’s skin.  Red flowed down as Tim pushed into Danny’s wound further, feeling his insides squish around him.  He traced his fingers down Danny’s hand, using it is a guide, following it under his bladder.  Tim stroked that too, making Danny twitch, his whole body clenching as he tightened his fingers around Tim’s cock.

              And then he found it.  Danny gasped so hard he choked on it, his back arching so far his body was halfway off the ground.  Tim curled his fingers around the small round organ, gently caressing it, and Danny’s whole body convulsed with throbbing pleasure.

              “Wow,” Tim whispered, his blood pulsing with heat and want.  He looked down at the sight they made; Danny’s pelvis gashed open, two hands plunged inside so deep their wrists were buried, the wound where Danny’s dick should have been full of Tim’s cock and balls.  It was disgusting, it was obscene, it was delicious, and Tim’s erection grew back to full hardness just from thinking about it.

              He gently stroked his thumb across Danny’s prostate again, and his entire body convulsed and twitched.  Completely lost to lust now, Tim started to thrust again, and Danny tightened his fingers around his shaft.  Tim moaned, increasing his pace, stroking Danny’s prostate in time with his thrusts, working to bring both of them to orgasm together.  Tim closed his eyes and started to pound, his muscles burning now as he pushed up into Danny as hard as he could, and then harder.

              His eyes flicked open to catch glimpses of Danny’s face in absolute euphoria.  Tim was sweating despite the chill, his whole body giving everything it had to drive himself deep into Danny’s body, fucking him as hard as he could.  His free palm was pressed hard to the ground, splayed wide, trying to keep him up.  His thrusts shook Danny’s body beautifully, all of him rocking as Tim plowed into him.

              “Oh God,” Tim whispered, suddenly overwhelmed by sensation.  “You feel so good, baby.”

              Tim’s breaths were coming hard and fast now, his lungs heaving as he worked every muscle he had in order to join them together.  His eyes could barely see as he could hardly keep them open, flashes of Danny’s gorgeous body flickering through his vision when he blinked.

              “Mmmmoooreee,” Danny managed, his hand tightening around Tim’s shaft, coaxing him to do just that.  Tim slammed his cock up into him, over and over, shoving his hips forward as fast and hard as he could. 

              “Fuck, baby, yes,” Tim whispered, barely having enough breath to speak as he panted. 

              Danny moaned, his voice interrupted by Tim’s pounding, and then neither of them tried to speak after that.  Tim closed his eyes, the warmth and heat building up in his whole body, drowning every inch of him.  He gazed down at Danny’s body again and wanted, wanted with all he had, barely able to see through the haze.

              Then Danny cried out, his eyes flying wide open as he arched his back.  Tim felt it, felt his orgasm as his prostate swelled in his hand and his cum leaked from the hole between his legs, dripping out along Tim’s cock along with the blood and viscera.

              “Fuck Danny yes yes yes yes!” Tim cried, his balls drawing up as his cum poured out of him, filling Danny’s internal cavity, spilling onto his buried fingers.  Tim’s lungs heaved as his body convulsed, every inch of him throbbing with passion.  His cock pulsed over and over, desire and heat and need all blurring together as he forgot everything and everyone.  Nothing existed except for this moment; no one was real except for his lover; nothing in the universe mattered except for Danny.

              Tim’s orgasm finished, and he wanted to collapse onto Danny so badly, but their arms were still buried in his pelvis.  Very, very gently, Tim let go of Danny’s prostate, causing him to gasp and give a hiss.  Together, they pulled their arms out of his wound with a gooey, squelching sound, blood and bits of sinew dripping everywhere.  Tim’s single elbow that held him up collapsed, and he fell onto Danny’s naked, drenched chest, feeling the stickiness between them.

              Danny wrapped his arms around Tim’s naked back, his wet hand smearing his own viscera across his skin, and all Tim felt was the sweet, sweet afterglow.  His soft dick slipped out from between Danny’s legs, and he scooted up a little so that their faces were together.  He pressed kiss after kiss after kiss to Danny’s closed lips, his whole body sighing with contentment.

              [1END XXX]

              He pulled back and gazed into Danny’s blissful face.  He was beautiful.  His blue eyes shone up at Tim with dazed satisfaction and sweet affection.  His skin looked almost alive, a pale pink glow with only a hint of pasty greyness to it.  His hair was thick and black and fell past his ears, and he had so much of it Tim could see a style to it.  Tim was guessing that was the haircut he’d had when he’d first gotten infected, and whatever was healing him was constantly trying to get him back to that state.

              Tim felt like this was the first time he’d ever really seen Danny’s face, his actual face, the way he really looked.  The way he’d looked before the virus.

              He was gorgeous.  He was hot.

              Tim moved his eyes down to stare at his lips, which were almost pink, and saw him lick them to speak.

              “I love you,” Danny said, brushing Tim’s hair out of his eyes with his clean hand.  “I love you, Tim.”

              Tim’s heart throbbed with deep, deep joy and love.  Danny’s voice.  Not just moans and grunts, but his actual speaking voice.  It was the most precious thing in the universe.

              “I love you too, Danny,” he said with awe.  “And I’ve always known that you love me.  But it’s very, very special to get to hear you say it.”

              “Yeah,” Danny said, wrapping his arms tighter around Tim’s back.

              “Did the stars help you?” Tim asked, tracing a finger along Danny’s bare chest, leaving red lines in the drying blood.

              “Yes.  Sweet, sweet Tim,” Danny said, and Tim’s heart glowed as he heard that.  These were more words than Danny had ever said before, and while Tim wanted to lay in the afterglow forever, he didn’t want to waste them.

              “Danny, do you know what is happening?  Do you know why you fight off the zombie virus?”

              “Yes,” Danny said, his voice deadly certain.  Tim lifted his head and looked into his eyes with hope.

              “Can you explain it to me?  Can you tell me what’s going on?  Can you at least give me a rough…”

              Danny pressed his finger across Tim’s lips to shush him.  Tim shut up.

              Danny gazed into his face with two perfect eyes, and slid his palm to cup Tim’s cheek.

              “Keep loving me,” he said.

              “Yes, yes, always,” Tim said, frowning.  “Of course I will, I…”

              Danny pressed his finger over Tim’s lips again.

              “Keep loving me, Tim.  Heal me.”

              “Is that what will do it?” Tim asked, tears springing to his eyes.  “Will loving you enough cure you?”

              “No,” Danny said, and Tim’s heart froze for a moment.  “But it will save me.”

              Tim’s brain couldn’t understand.  He didn’t get it.  There was some enormous piece of the puzzle he was missing.  Some very important information that he didn’t have.  And he had a feeling the explanation for that was too complex for Danny to explain.

              But he had told Tim what to do, and he didn’t need to understand in order to do it.

              He grabbed Danny’s face with both hands and pressed their foreheads together.

              “I will keep loving you until it saves you, no matter how long that takes, no matter how hard it gets.  I will be here, I will love you, and I will figure it out,” he said.  “I promise.”

              Danny’s reply was a loving smile and a sweet, soft peck to his lips.  The wind blew, and Tim started to shiver.  Danny sat them both up and reached for Tim’s clothes, and Tim noticed that he didn’t shiver at all.  He seemed perfectly content in the cold, at least this minor cold, and it wasn’t until Tim was fully dressed and heading inside that Danny started to put his own clothes on.

              The bunker was aired out of smoke now.  It still reeked of soot, but at least Tim could breathe without coughing.  They shut the door, lit a fire, and then curled up together in their bed.  Exhausted from a fight and then mind-blowing sex, Tim could hardly keep his eyes open.  But his heart was throbbing with hope even as dreams took him.  They’d healed Danny enough for him to speak.  Their love had healed Danny enough to speak.  And then Danny had confirmed what Tim had wanted so desperately to be true- that their love would heal him, enough to get them out of this hell, enough to get them free.

Chapter Text

GUESS WHAT!  WE GOT MORE GLORIOUS FANART!

This time it's by incredible artist angels-changeling. I still can't stop staring at it.  If you love it, please go to the post and let them know!

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Notes:  A reminder that the tags to skip the gore are [1START XXX] and [1END XXX].  Also a reminder that these tags are to skip GORE, not smut.  The smut in this chapter is incredibly plot-important, but the gore section is actually pretty minimal this time, so if you skip the gore you'll still know what's going on.  

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              Tim woke up in a blissful, contented daze.  His clothed back was pressed against Danny’s naked chest, and his soft, steady breathing was comforting and safe.  Danny’s breath didn’t smell nearly as awful as it usually did, and Tim slowly turned his head to look at him.

              He looked healthy.  For a zombie, anyway.  His skin looked more of a light tan than a pasty grey, and it was taut and supple as opposed to loose and dry.  Hardly any of it was even missing, with a few patches on his chest and arms revealing red, oozing flesh beneath.  One patch of his cheek was missing, but other than that, he had a face.

              Tim turned fully around so he could gaze at that face.  He didn’t just have eyes now; he had eyelids and even eyelashes, dark ebony that matched his eyebrows and his hair.  They were closed in peaceful sleep, and Tim never, ever wanted to disturb him.

              But he had to.  The fire was nearly out.  He was hungry.  He was sure Danny was hungry.  And all of his lab equipment was covered in soot.  It was going to take weeks to clean it all.

              And before he could even start to do that, he was going to have to build something to keep zombies from piling up on the chimney again.

              The work just never ended.  He almost missed the days when he was busy running Wayne Enterprises by day and running as Red Robin by night- at least then, he’d had some help.  If a fire had gone off in one of the labs in WE, he’d have a whole cleaning crew come in and handle it, and the lab would have been up and running in a matter of hours.  And he wouldn’t have even had to find a cleaning specialist- Tam would have done it.  God, she was so good at handling disasters.  He suddenly missed her.

              He was starting to think about people again, ever since he’d begun talking to Dick over the radio.  Until now, he hadn’t dared.  He hadn’t even tried to face it.  He just shoved those thoughts away.  He was never going to know, and so why crush his own heart thinking about it?

              But now?  Now he could know.  Sort of.  For some of them.  Dick hadn’t even mentioned Jason, or Alfred, which gave Tim a sour feeling in his stomach.  Batman was missing…

              Danny opened his eyes, and Tim’s brain dropped that entire train of thought.

              His eyes were blue.

              He smiled, and it was the most precious thing in the universe.

              “Good morning, beautiful,” Tim said.

              Somehow, Danny’s smile grew wider.  He lifted his hand up to stroke Tim’s hair, and then stopped.  He looked at his nails.  He put his hand down and closed his eyes.

              “Hey, I got it,” Tim said, lifting his own hand to stroke through Danny’s hair.  Danny responded by pulling Tim into his arms and drawing him in close, pressing his nose against Tim’s neck and breathing him in.

              “Good morning,” Danny said, into his neck.

              “Wow.  You’re in really good shape today,” Tim said.

              Danny pulled back from the hug and gave him a grin.  He wrapped his fingers around Tim’s wrist and dragged his hand down his chest, pushing back the blankets as he went, making the chill in the air prick goosebumps across Tim’s skin.  Then Danny moved Tim’s palm over his pelvis where last night, they had gashed him open.

              It was completely healed.

              “Incredible,” Tim said softly.  “Like it was never there.”

              Then Danny gave him an eyebrow waggle, and dragged Tim’s hand lower.  A pink blush settled across Tim’s cheeks as he felt Danny’s soft, warm cock, and a perfect set of balls behind them.

              “Well that wasn’t there last night,” he breathed, carefully curling his fingers around Danny’s balls and giving them a gentle squeeze.  Danny’s eyes fell half-closed and he gave a quiet moan.  Tim teased him just a little more, rubbing his palm over his soft cock, feeling it twitch just a little beneath his fingers.  But then he slowly pulled his hand away.

              “As enjoyable as it would be to lay in bed with you all day, we can’t,” Tim said, sliding his hand back up Danny’s torso, until he stroked his fingers along his face.  “I have to build something to keep zombies away from the chimney, and it can’t wait.  There’s no telling how far away the next mob could be.”

              “Yeah,” Danny said with a sigh.  Tim’s heart leapt at the word.  Oh, he was still talking.  It looked like he’d done nothing but heal last night.  Tim had never seen him in such good condition.

              Tim shivered from the chilly air, now that the blanket was pulled down.  His clothes did little to keep him warm.  He heard the wind whistle as it blew across the top of the chimney, making the cinders in the fireplace glow brighter for a moment.  From the sound of it, the weather was probably horrific out there.

              “Why don’t you stoke the fire, and I’ll make breakfast?  I’ll make something special, since you can eat normally today.  I’ve been saving pancake mix.”

              Danny’s eyes flew wide open and he grinned.

              “Yum,” he said, and Tim’s heart soared.  Oh God, what a single word from Danny’s lips did to him.  He dreamed about what it would be like to hear him speak, really speak.  To hear his real thoughts, to learn who he was and get his opinion on things.  To hear him talk so much Tim got sick of it.  For them to be able to disagree.  For them to be able to argue!

              But that was just a dream, and they had work to do.

              It was still nice enough that Danny could help today.  Tim rolled out of bed, shivering despite having gone to sleep dressed.  He headed towards the kitchen area while Danny put his clothes on and went over to the fire.

              Breakfast really did feel special.  Tim set down two plates on the counter, and Danny ate with his own fork, chewing and swallowing on his own.  The patch of skin missing from his face didn’t impede his ability to eat, and so for once, they got to eat together, side-by-side, like normal human beings.

              After that, it was time to go outside and take stock of the situation.  Tim put on the coat that fit the best and walked up the stairs to see what the weather was like.  When the bunker door slid open, Tim was blasted in the face by cold wind and frozen white fluff flying at his face.

              “Great,” he mumbled, taking a look around. Not that there was much to see.  It was snowing, hard, and the wind was biting cold.  He glanced out at it for about five seconds before deciding it was impossible to build anything in those conditions, and shut the bunker door again.

              “Fuck,” he said, rubbing his face.  “Okay, okay, there’s plenty to do inside.  Hundreds of things to clean soot off of,” he said, and headed back down the stairs to get started.

              He took the coat off and walked over to the electron microscope, which was his highest priority.  It was covered in a thin layer of black dust, and he cursed.  He was going to need Dick’s help- the cleaning processes for these things were complex and he didn’t want to make any mistakes.  But, in the meantime, he could start wiping down the outer casing and clean the touchscreens and buttons and stuff.  He went over to the cart of clothes and found a t-shirt, then tore it into strips to create rags.  He poured water into a bucket and dragged it over to the microscope, where he carefully started wiping down the soot off the outside.

              Then he heard splashing, and saw Danny dunking a rag in the bucket, too.  He started working on less delicate things, like test tube racks and empty beakers, and Tim inwardly sighed with relief.  Danny was barely oozing, he only had a small wound on his left hand, and all of that stuff would have to be cleaned too.  Having help made the dreaded work seem not so awful after all.

              “Thank you, baby,” Tim said.

              “Danny help,” he said, giving a sweet, loving smile that went all the way up to his blue eyes.

              Tim’s heart glowed with affection at how cute he was.

              They worked together in silence for awhile, the water in the bucket slowly turning black while the tools on the workbench slowly became cleaner.  Tim had cleaned the front of the microscope as much as he could, and so he climbed up onto the workbench to get at the back.  He ran his rag down under the bottom and his fingers bumped against something that felt like a connector port.  He frowned, confused why a connector port would be there, of all places.  He had to lean all they way down, resting his head on the table to peer underneath.

              There was a connector port, circular, about an inch in diameter.  There was a rubber seal around it, and the center had a weird shape to it, almost like the reverse of a spout.  It was odd, and yet it somehow looked familiar.  He stared at it for so long he heard Danny stop cleaning.

              “Okay?” Danny asked, leaning his head over.

              “Just… noticed something weird about the microscope,” Tim said, frowning.  “Where else have I seen… wait a minute.”

              Tim turned his face around and looked up at the tank that held the green liquid, from which he drew all his electricity.  He looked down at the two glass pipes- one input at the top, and one output at the bottom.  The output pipe had several flexible joints, as if it could be moved around to connect to different things.  And on the end of it was a spout, in exactly the reverse shape as the port on the electron microscope.

              “No way,” he said quietly.  Danny was eyeing him intently now, his gaze fixated on the glass pipe as Tim carefully maneuvered it towards the port.  Once he got it there, he found that it lined up with the port exactly, sliding into the rubber seal with little more than a firm push.

              Excited, Tim eyed the length of the pipe, trying to figure out how to release the green substance into it.  He was looking for a valve or a switch, something, anything…but there was nothing.  Nothing at all.

              “How do you get it to flow?” he mumbled, hopping down onto the floor.  He started examining the outside of the glass tank again, which he’d done a thousand times, but this time he was looking with new intent.  As he inspected it, Danny put his rag down and slowly walked over, his eyes fixated on the green liquid.  He walked right up to it until his nose was almost touching the tank, his eyes wide and unblinking.  He lifted a palm and rested it on the glass, his expression unreadable.  Transfixed.

              Tim stopped his search for a valve and stood next to him.

              “Danny?” he asked, the look on his face unsettling Tim.

              “Need,” Danny said, his eyes growing wider as he stared even longer, leaning forward so close that his nose bumped the side of the tank.

              “Yeah, we need it,” Tim said.  “We use it for power.  It’s what powers the heaters and microwave and bunker doors.”

              Danny didn’t move.  He stared, mesmerized, his attention wholly on the tank and nothing else at all.  It was strange, because it had been in the bunker all this time, Danny had lived side-by-side with it for over half a year, and yet it seemed like this was the first time he’d ever noticed it.

              Maybe because his mind was finally with it enough to see it.

              “Danny, you know what that is, don’t you?” Tim whispered.  Danny nodded slowly, his palm pressed hard to the glass, his fingers splayed wide. 

              “Need it, Tim,” he said, curling his fingers against the glass, sounding almost desperate. Tim swallowed thickly, trying to ignore the nerves clawing at the back of his mind.

              “What…what is it?” Tim asked.  He watched Danny’s eyebrows furrow in concentration, and then his mouth turn down in a frown.  Tim understood immediately that Danny couldn’t remember the words.  Couldn’t communicate an explanation.

              Tim tried to help him.

              “Can we open the top?”

              Danny’s eyes darted up to the top, and his frown deepened.  He stared at the top for a long time, his eyes tracing along the edge of the lid, almost as if he was trying to figure it out.  Then he looked at Tim and his frown deepened.

              “No open,” he said.  “Lose it.”

              He gestured up into the air, and from that Tim took it to mean the liquid would evaporate away if he opened the top.

              Fear prickled across Tim’s skin.  So he’d been right about not opening the tank.  It was a good thing Danny told him this now.  His frustration with the dead-end in his research might have driven him to try analyzing the green liquid, and since he couldn’t figure out the glass output pipe, he might have opened the top and lost everything.

              “Need to….uh, um,” Danny said, his eyes moving down to the output pipe, sliding his hand over to touch it.  His fingers stroked along the entire length of it, and Tim understood almost immediately.

              “I can’t find a valve.  I don’t know how to get it out that way.  Do…do you know?”

              Danny shook his head.  He traced his fingers along the pipe one more time, all the way back up to the tank.  He ran his fingers around where the pipe attached to the tank, concentrating.  Tim tried to look at what he was seeing, but he saw nothing there.  Nothing at all, which was odd.  What was preventing the green fluid from flowing into the glass pipe, then?  There had to be a barrier of some kind, and it had to be removable, or else the pipe was just a useless attachment.

              But there was nothing.

              It was as weird as the missing DNA.

              Tim frowned.

              Danny frowned harder.

              Tim listened to the wind as it blew down the chimney, and it seemed to have died down quite a bit.

              “Hey, we’ll figure it out,” Tim reassured him.  There would be no reason to create this pipe, and the connector port on the microscope, and extra settings, if they weren’t supposed to be used for something.  The custom work on the microscope was too well done to have been built by a crackpot idiot.  Whomever had created this equipment had been very smart, immoral or not, and Tim had every confidence that the modifications did work.  They just had to figure them out.

              But if the weather was cooperating, he had a zombie protection wall to build, and precious little daylight hours with which to do it.

              Tim gently reached out and took Danny’s hand.

              “We’ll figure it out, baby.  If you need that green stuff in there, then I’ll figure out a way to get it.  But right now, we have to protect the chimney.  All this work cleaning up soot isn’t going to matter if it backs up again.”

              Danny looked like he was having an impossible time tearing his eyes away from the tank.  His gaze was longing, almost…hungry.  Tim didn’t doubt that he needed what was in there, and that would be the first thing he worked on, just as soon as he got the chimney protected.

              Tim gently pulled Danny’s hand away from the pipe.  He gently tugged on his arm, guiding him away from the tank.  After a few steps, he turned his head, his eyes seeming to focus again.  His gaze landed on Tim and he smiled.

              “Danny trust Tim,” he said.  Tim’s heart lurched in his chest.  Oh God, how hard he hoped he was doing the right thing.

              “Okay.  Let’s get the chimney protected,” he said.

              He walked back over to the pile of coats and put one on.  He tugged on a hat and gloves, and then started to look for a coat for Danny.

              “Which one do you think will fit you?” Tim asked, rummaging through the pile.

              Danny put his hand on Tim’s shoulder and stopped him.

              “It’s going to be freezing out there, you’re going to need…”

              Danny curled a finger under Tim’s chin and lifted it to look at him.  Tim’s heart gave a heavy throb as he looked into those gorgeous blue eyes, and saw thought behind them.

              “Tim trust Danny,” Danny said, and Tim let the tension in his shoulders go.

              “Always,” he said.

              Danny gave him a bright smile, and then in nothing more than a t-shirt, followed Tim up the stairs.

               Thankfully, the wind had died down.  It was still snowing, but luckily looked like it hadn’t snowed much.  Or the wind had blown most of it away. There was barely any accumulation, perhaps an inch or two.  This was still going to make his work really difficult, though.

              “This had better fucking stop,” he said, stepping out into it with nothing but his sneakers on.  “Dammit, I need winter boots,” he said, kicking his past self.  He thought of coats, gloves, and hats, but hadn’t thought of boots?

              He shut the bunker door and walked around to where the chimney poked out of the ground.  Danny followed behind him, seemingly completely unbothered by the cold.  Was that a zombie thing?  Or did it have something to do with his healing powers?

              On a day like today, when he was this healthy, could Tim…ask him?

              “The cold really doesn’t bother you, huh?” Tim said, walking around the chimney, taking in the problem.  The metal chimney he’d cannibalized from a house was only so tall- it wasn’t like he could raise it up higher.  It came up to his knees, and that was it.  Dammit, why couldn’t he have stolen a taller one?  He’d picked a shorter one because it was easier to carry, but he should have forseen…

              “Nope,” Danny said.  To demonstrate, he threw himself down into the snow, and started to make an angel.  Tim laughed at the unexpected playfulness, which threw him out of his self-loathing and immediately lifted his spirits.

              Tim knelt down and scooped up a big handful, turning to make a snowball.  Danny sat up, waggled his eyebrows at him, and it was on.

              Danny had incredible aim.  His first throw actually took Tim off guard and slammed smack into his chest.  After that, Tim gave him a run for his money, because he was an expert in dodging.  But Danny was too, surprisingly.  At first Tim had been trying to take it easy on him, but his first shot towards his head missed by half a foot as Danny dodged the other way.  His second throw was closer, but Danny really wasn’t bothered by the cold.  He was in just a t-shirt and was as quick as if it was a sunny sixty degrees out, and Tim was hampered by bulky clothing.  He lobbed another snowball directly at Tim’s shoulder and he barely got out of the way in time.  Tim felt excitement growing as he got to use his skills in a non-life threatening situation for once.  Danny was so good it felt like training used to, back in the cave, when he’d turn the automated laser settings up to maximum and still be able to dodge them all.

              Danny almost landed a snowball to his ass, but then Tim rolled, and tossed his next shot before coming fully out of it, taking Danny by surprise.  He’s aimed for his chest but hit him square in the face and Danny laughed, spitting bits of ice out of his mouth as the snowflakes settled on his hair, melting and then freezing and then melting again, coating it in ice.

              Tim stepped towards him and planted a kiss to his lips.  Danny smiled into it, keeping his lips closed, but pressing hard anyway.  When they pulled back, Tim was greeted with two brilliant blue irises.  Now that he was getting used to them, he never, ever wanted to see one of them fade again.

              “Is it because you’re a zombie?” Tim said.  “The reason the cold doesn’t bother you?”

              Danny’s smile was bright and mischievous.

              “Nope.”

              Tim could tell how badly he wanted to say more.  How he knew the reason for why he was the way he was, and that it was killing him not to have the words.

              “So…before you were a zombie, did you have powers?” Tim said.

              “Yes!” Danny exclaimed, his face joyful that Tim had guessed correctly, and Tim could see how he desperately wanted him to guess more things.

              “I keep trying to figure out where your powers came from,” Tim said.  “Your genetics say you’re not a meta.”

              “Right!” Danny said, excited now, clasping Tim’s arms with his hands.  “More!”

              Tim grinned.  Danny’s delight made this conversation feel like a game.

              “Alien?”

              “No!” Danny stuck his tongue out at him.  Tim rolled his eyes.

              “Time travel?”

              “Nope!”

              “Magic?”

              “Nope!”

              “Lab accident?”

              “Yes!”

              Tim’s grin grew as wide as Danny’s then. 

              “I got it?  Your powers are from a lab accident?”

              Danny nodded vigorously, his grin as wide as it could go.  He pressed his forehead against Tim’s, his eyes shining with excitement, and Tim couldn’t help it, it was catching.  His smile grew as wide as it could go, and his heart shined with it.  He finally understood part of what Danny was, and getting to know about that piece of him was more precious than he’d even realized.

              “Do you have more powers than just healing abilities?”

              “Yes!” Danny cried, plastering Tim’s face with shallow kisses, making him giggle.

              Tim Drake, in the middle of an apocalypse, in the dead of winter in a snowstorm, was giggling.

              God, Danny was everything to him.

              “Okay, okay, we’ll play guess-the-powers game, but on the way to the hardware store,” Tim said, glancing at the chimney one more time.  “I need to pick up stuff to build a buffer.  If I make something square, zombies will just flatten it.  But if I make it in a pyramid shape angled upwards… it should be able to withstand them piling on top while also still letting the smoke out…” he started walking towards the near hardware store while he thought out loud, the one with the roof that was caved in.  For these purposes, it would be fine.  He just needed some plywood to make something temporary while he thought of a more long-term solution.

              During the walk, Danny practically frolicked.  He was happily jumping over potholes and trying to catch snowflakes on his tongue, and Tim marveled at his coordination.  He seemed even more coordinated than a normal human should be, which was a complete mindfuck to Tim, as he was used to seeing him barely able to tie his own shoes.

              “Do your powers give you heightened coordination and balance?” Tim asked.

              “Yup!” Danny said, climbing up a pile of rubble and then leaping off the top, just to prove his point.

              “And I’m guessing you have a resistance to the cold?”

              “Haha!” Danny said, flopping face-down in the snow-covered grass and then rolling around in it.  Tim couldn’t help his laughter.

              “Can you fly?”

              “Yup!” he said, bouncing up to his feet, putting one fist in the air as if to take off, and then falling back down onto his face.  Tim laughed harder.

              “Okay, but not right now.”

              “Nope.”

              “Super strength?”

              “Yup!”

              Danny then pretended to not be able to pick up a tiny pebble.  His miming was actually really good, and he had Tim laughing with tears in his eyes.

              “I’m guessing…” Tim had to take a breath because he was laughing so hard, “… I’m guessing you don’t have super strength right now…”

              “Nope.”

              Tim paused and thought about it.

              “Do you have any other powers right now, besides the healing?”

              Danny stopped for a moment and looked around, searching for something.  He picked up a larger rock, one that could fit in the palm of his hand, held it out, and stared at it.

              Tim stared too.

              Nothing happened.  Danny sighed, sounding defeated.

              “Nope,” he said, and tossed the rock back into the yard he’d picked it up from in frustration.

              “But your healing still works.”

              “Yes.”

              Tim missed his delighted mood from a minute ago.  He hated seeing Danny upset.  He realized, though, that that was actually a precious thing- the fact that he had enough mind to get upset.

              When he was more rotted, he became unable to understand the world enough to even be sad.  The fact that he could feel the full gamut of emotions right now was beautiful and incredible, even if some of those emotions were disappointment and sadness.

              “Hey, the healing is the important one, right?” Tim said.  “And we’ll use it to fix you, and get back all the others.”

              Danny turned around, grabbed Tim by the arms, and smashed a heavy, closed-mouth kiss to his lips.  His mood lifted immediately, and he pulled back to gaze into Tim’s face with a wide smile and cheeks that were so healthy they were rosy.

              “I love you, Tim,” he said, and Tim’s heart was shining so bright it was going to shatter.  This was the best day of his life.  This, right now, here, was the best moment he’d ever lived since the zombie infection had started.  And it was worth every grueling, painful, exhausting slog it had taken to get here.  And he would do it all again, if it led to another moment like this one.

              * * *

              Thankfully, the snow stopped.  If it hadn’t, they would have had an impossible time pushing the hardware store cart back home laden with plywood, two-by-fours, and nails.  But the weather cooperated, and with the excellent condition Danny was in, they got it home with daylight to spare.

              It took all day and partway into the evening, even with Danny’s help.  Tim was surprised to learn he was excellent with a hammer, like the kind of person who built things all the time.  The work went twice as fast as he’d expected because of that, and by the time the sun was setting, they had a pretty strong wooden cap built above the top of the chimney in a pyramid shape.

              Tim’s hope was that even with a pile of zombies on it clambering to get in, the top of the protective wood would still remain above the pile, still allowing the smoke to escape without backing up into the bunker.

              Famished and frozen, Tim stumbled down into the bunker, exhausted and dripping wet.  They’d skipped lunch and he was incredibly hungry, only to remember they’d eaten the last of the roasted squirrel yesterday.

              “Dammit,” Tim said, glancing at the stacks of canned soup.  He didn’t like wasting those, but he was so tired and so cold and soup sounded so good.  He glanced over at his vegetable garden and thought about how he could stretch a can of soup if he supplemented it with fresh vegetables.  There were lots of green beans ready.  They had to eat them before they went bad.

              “We’ll go hunting tomorrow,” he muttered to himself, trying to pull the tab on the can, only to have his frozen fingers not cooperate.

              “Dammit!” he cried, slamming the can down on the countertop.  “You’re supposed to be the easy meal!”

              Danny came over and slipped his hands around Tim’s.  He gently pulled the can away and set it down on the counter.  He grabbed dry items from the stack of new clothes Tim had yet to put away, and guided Tim towards the fire.  Tim went, too tired and frozen to protest.  It was probably smarter to warm up first.  

              When they reached the fire, Danny pulled the zipper down on Tim’s frozen coat, gently guiding it off of him and spreading it out on the floor by the fire.  Tim handed him is sopping wet shirt next, and he spread that out on the floor beside the coat.  Tim had his soaked pants peeled halfway to his thighs when he tried to step out of his shoes, only to fail because the laces were caked in ice.  He wobbled, and Danny caught him, steadying him.

              “Stay,” Danny said, and he walked over to the kitchen area to grab a chair.  He put it down close to the fire and guided Tim to sit in it, bare-assed.  Danny then knelt to the ground and worked to take Tim’s frozen shoes off, bits of ice falling to the floor, his fingers unbothered by the cold.  He placed the shoes close to the fire and then helped Tim stand, letting him rest his hand on Danny’s shoulder while they worked together to get him into dry pants.  Tim flopped down into the chair again, and Danny pulled a dry t-shirt down over his head.

              “Tim rest,” Danny said, leaning down to press a kiss to Tim’s forehead.  Danny draped a dry jacket over Tim’s shoulders like a blanket, and then headed back over to the kitchen to make the soup.

              Tim held back a sob.

              He’d cried enough in the last two days, with talking to Dick and starting to think about home again and starting to miss everyone and everything.  He wasn’t about to cry from Danny taking care of him.

              God it felt good to be taken care of.

              To have Danny be healthy enough to take care of him.

              He sighed and leaned back in the chair, letting the heat from the fire seep into his frozen bones.   He listened to Danny open two cans of soup and pour them into the pot, then set it on the hotplate. 

              He heard Danny’s footsteps, and ruminated on how normal they sounded.  He didn’t hobble, or drag one foot, or limp.  He just…walked.  He walked straight towards Tim and stood behind him, draping his arms around Tim’s shoulders and resting his chin on the top of his head.  Tim closed his eyes and sighed, letting his exhausted body melt into Danny’s touch.

              “Thank you, baby,” he said.

              Danny pressed a kiss to the top of his hair and rested there while they waited for the soup to heat up.  When it was ready, Danny poured two bowls and handed one to Tim.  They ate in front of the fire, Tim’s body slowly warming up until he was hot enough to take the jacket off.  After they finished they both just stared into the fire for awhile.  Tim let the exhaustion of the day float away from him, closing his eyes as he felt himself grow sleepy.  The bowl in his hand became heavy and started to slip from his grip.

              He felt Danny’s warm hand clasp his fingers, and he gently eased the bowl out of his grasp.  He set it on the floor and wrapped his hand in Tim’s palm.  Tim opened his eyes to see Danny on one knee in front of him, gazing up at him with deep affection.  Tim’s heartrate picked up as he saw two perfect blue eyes reflecting the firelight.  God, he was so beautiful.

              Danny reached up his other hand and cupped Tim’s face.  Tim happily leaned into his touch, feeling the warmth of his nearly healthy palm.  Tim turned his face, completely uncaring that Danny’s deadly nails were right there, less than an inch from his skin.  His heart only felt love and affection.  He turned his face to kiss Danny’s palm, kiss after kiss, a hand that he trusted with his life every day, every moment.  A hand that he knew would never betray him.

              Danny stood up and gently tugged on Tim to coax him to his feet.  The expression on his face was unmistakable, and a blush rose to Tim’s cheeks.

              It seemed like the perfect way to end this day.

              He let Danny lead him towards their bed, the chill in the air growing the further they got from the fire.  But Tim knew in a few minutes that wouldn’t matter, anyway. 

              They stood beside their bed, and Danny pulled Tim into his arms, pressing chaste kisses to his forehead, his cheeks, his nose.  He ran his fingers through Tim’s hair, and even as Tim’s heart beat faster, his eyes refused to open.

              “Oh, baby, I want you, but I’m so tired,” Tim said.  Through his sleepy daze, he saw Danny smile.

              “Tim lay.  Danny kiss.”

              Danny slipped his fingers up under Tim’s shirt, and Tim gave him a playful, sleepy smile as he lifted his arms and helped Danny undress him.  Danny’s fingers were warm as they stroked down his abdomen, his skin hardly grey at all.  There was so much life to him Tim could hardly believe it.  Danny sank to his knees, dragging his hands down to grab at Tim’s ass and press his mouth to Tim’s fly.  That immediately made Tim’s dick start to grow, as he dreamed of Danny’s mouth on him so badly.  But Danny was so healthy right now there was no way in hell he was going to let him rip his teeth out.

              Danny slid his hands around to Tim’s fly and unbuttoned it without any trouble at all.  He pulled Tim’s pants to his ankles and licked over Tim’s growing erection, making him gasp.  His fingers clasped Danny’s hair, which was full and thick and so dark it looked almost black. 

              “Tim lay,” Danny said, licking his way across Tim’s pelvis and across his thigh.

              “I’m going, I’m going…” Tim said, sinking down onto the couch cushions that made up their bed.  Danny stayed on his feet, pulling his own shirt up over his head.  Tim gazed at him with half-lidded eyes, letting them rake up Danny’s chest, which was almost entirely whole.  Only a few small spots had some skin rotting off, revealing red oozing blood underneath.  He hardly looked like a zombie at all.

              Tim’s eyes fell to Danny’s waist as he unbuttoned his fly.  As his pants fell they revealed a nearly perfect cock, with taut, healthy skin and just a single small wound on the side.  His balls were flush and almost pink, with just a hint of grey skin.  Tim continued checking him out, letting his eyes trace over his thighs, supple and strong, and knees that didn’t crack to bleeding when he bent down.  His shins even had hair on them, dark and black to match his head.  Tim could almost picture him in a swimsuit at the beach- pale but able to tan, muscles that flexed perfectly as he ran along the shore.

              “You’re so healthy,” Tim said.  “I can’t stop staring.”

              Danny gave him a wide grin that said “I know.”  Tim smiled back, and then Danny sank to his knees, sitting on top of Tim’s thighs, straddling him. 

              He pinched his own finger and started to pull.

              “Oh, no,” Tim said.  “Baby don’t, you’re in such good condition, don’t.”

              “Danny love Tim,” Danny said, and yanked anyway.  Tim knew there was no stopping him, and so he didn’t argue.  He lifted his palms up to rub them along Danny’s thighs while he de-clawed himself, their gazes locking, neither looking away.  Danny’s eyes shone in the firelight, and Tim watched his cock slowly growing as he teased closer and closer to it with his hands.

              Once Danny’s nails were gone he immediately spread his palms across Tim’s chest.  He ran his hands up to his nipples and rubbed circles over them, making Tim gasp.  Then he slid them up to stroke his neck, and tickled along his collar bone.  He dragged them back down, tracing his fingertips between the lines of Tim’s abs, touching every part of him, appreciating him.  He teased his fingers down the V of Tim’s pelvis, tickling past his growing dick, and then back up his chest again, taking him in, touching him, making him feel wanted.

              “Mmmmm… sexy,” Danny said, and the blush in Tim’s ears went from warm to hot.

              “Speak for yourself,” Tim said, his voice unsteady as Danny continued to slide his hands over his body, drinking him in.  Danny leaned forward, pushing their growing erections together, and pressed his closed lips over Tim’s.  Tim kissed him back, letting his tongue run along Danny’s tight lips in the way that they were very, very used to by now.  Danny moaned into their strange kiss, and then slid his lips down over Tim’s jaw, where he felt safe to open his mouth and let his tongue out.

              He licked down Tim’s neck, making him groan.  Tim lifted his hands and rubbed them over Danny’s back, amazed at how smooth his skin felt, with only one or two small wounds interrupting it’s near-perfection.  Danny’s breath still hitched when he found one, and he teased over it, rubbing the wet spot with the pads of his fingers.  He felt Danny’s cock swell against his, and he lifted his hips to press harder into it.  Danny moaned deep in his chest and licked his way down Tim’s throat, over his Adam’s apple, and down to his clavicle.

              Danny shifted his body lower, making Tim complain at the loss of feeling his dick pressing against his own.  He licked his way down Tim’s chest, teasing over his nipples, then down his abs, then across to lick his side.  Tim sucked in air as a hot tickle spread across his nerves.  He had no idea what Danny was doing, but he wasn’t about to stop him to ask.  Instead he basked in his attention, which was far more aware and purposeful than it had ever been before.

              Danny slid his whole body down until he was sitting between Tim’s legs.  He pushed Tim’s thighs wide apart, and Tim let him, still unsure of what he was after.  With his teeth in, he couldn’t…

              Danny slid his hands up the underside of Tim’s thighs, spreading his fingers wide, feeling every inch of him as he slowly dragged them closer to Tim’s ass.  Tim’s heart beat faster as Danny unabashedly stroked over his hole, and his head fell back to the bed in a rush as he realized what he wanted.  Tim had no idea how that was going to work, but even just the suggestion had his blood burning hot.  Danny dragged his fingers up over Tim’s balls, making him gasp, and then he slid them up his swollen shaft.  Tim’s heart was hammering now as Danny wrapped his fingers around his cock and pulled down.

              “Oh…” Tim said, Danny giving him a seductive smile.  With his other hand he gently stroked over Tim’s hole again, making his heart race.  His cock was fully erect now, enjoying the attention Danny was giving it, and his brain was quickly going offline.

              Danny slid the hand stroking his hole up his body, rising up on his knees so it could reach Tim’s mouth.  He ran his thumb along Tim’s bottom lip, and Tim pressed a kiss to it.

              “Open,” Danny said.  Heart hammering at Danny having enough mind to give him direction, Tim eagerly did what he was told.  Danny shoved his first two fingers in his mouth, hard and deep, his other hand still stroking his cock.

              “Wet,” Danny said, and oh.  Tim moaned, arousal spreading through his body as he realized what Danny wanted. He licked his tongue eagerly around his fingers, sliding it between them, coating them with as much drool as he could.  He ran the pad of his tongue up Danny’s fingers from base to tip, his cheeks burning hot as he saw Danny’s face flush and heard him give a soft moan.

              “More.”

              [1START XXX]

              Tim groaned as Danny shoved his fingers in deeper, pressing them towards the back of his throat.  He opened his mouth wide, dick swelling in Danny’s hand as he licked over his knuckles and then back up to his tips, making him as sopping wet as he could.  Danny pulled his fingers out just a little, then looked up at Tim with lust-drunk eyes.

              “Bite.”

              Tim’s blood burned hot.  He knew how much Danny liked to be bitten…what would it feel like to him to have wounds on his fingers as he pushed them up inside Tim?

              Tim didn’t even hesitate.  He clamped his teeth down, Danny spreading his fingers open so they would both get crushed under his molars.

              For the first time, Tim felt resistance.  He was used to Danny’s skin tearing almost by accident, and so when he felt this skin, as tough and healthy as his own, it surprised him.  He also felt bones, solid and dense, so strong that he didn’t think he could bite through them.

              “Harder.  Bleed,” Danny said, his voice husky.

              Tim bit, crushing his jaw down.  Danny’s whole body shuddered with pleasure as Tim’s teeth sliced into his flesh, and then Danny slid his fingers back, making the skin tear.  Tim tasted blood gushing into his mouth and watched Danny’s erection swell so hard the tip started to shine.

              Tim released his teeth, and Danny shoved his bleeding fingers back in.  His eyes were dark and his voice was thick with heat when he spoke.

              “Bite.”

              Tim bit him again, then again, slicing the skin on his fingers over and over, watching Danny’s eyes flutter closed with want.  More blood gushed into his mouth and Tim groaned, eagerly swallowing it.  It tasted different than he was used to.  Far less rancid, it was full of iron and tasted like life.  Tim’s heart was hammering as hard as it could go while Danny slowly dragged his fingers out of his mouth, coated with blood and saliva, smearing on Tim’s lips.  Drops of it fell on Tim’s neck as he pulled away, leaving a dripping trail of red down his chest as Danny moved back between Tim’s legs.

              Tim spread them wide, his whole body singing from Danny stroking his cock.  He didn’t stop doing that as he pressed his blood-soaked fingers against Tim’s hole and pushed in with both of them.

              Tim tossed his head back as his heart raced with excitement.  He felt the burn and the stretch of being spread open so quickly, but he didn’t care; everything he felt in this life was pain to the point that it didn’t matter anymore.  What mattered was the burning passion in Danny’s eyes as he gazed down at Tim’s face, pushing his red, oozing fingers into Tim’s body.

              Danny started moving his fingers in and out at a steady pace, and Tim’s body craved it.  Danny, Danny inside him.  Oh, it was heaven, it was everything, it was perfect, and his mouth might have been mumbling such things but he couldn’t even be sure.  All he felt was fire and lust, all he knew were Danny’s hands, one stroking his cock, one stroking inside his ass.  The whole rest of the world melted away.  His fingers clasped at the blanket beneath him and he lifted his hips, eager, wanting.

              “Danny Danny take me, please baby, oh I want to be with you.”

              “Yes,” Danny said, his voice thick with arousal.  He took his hand away from Tim’s cock and moved it to clasp Tim’s wrist.  He pulled on it, coaxing Tim to sit up.  It was something else, doing that with fingers in his ass, stroking his insides, and he gasped as he felt Danny’s fingers slide deep into him.  Tim’s hand was guided to clasp around Danny’s dick, which was rock-hard and leaking precum.  Tim moaned as he wrapped his fingers around it and started to stroke, while Danny’s hand went back to Tim’s shaft. 

              Oh, how he had dreamed of doing this; how every time Danny had a cock he thought about what it would be like for it to be healthy enough to jerk him off.  Now he was doing it; their foreheads pressed together, eyes closed in desire as they both stroked each other.  Now and then Danny would curl his fingers in Tim’s ass, making him shudder.

              Their breaths were coming hard and fast now.  Their cocks were strained and leaking.  They were both reduced to nothing but moans.  Danny took his hand off of Tim’s cock and rested it on top of Tim’s wrist, stilling his strokes.  Danny took Tim’s hand and guided him to curl his fingers, pressing his nails hard against the skin of his erection.  With breath as thick as honey, Danny whispered.

              “Tim scratch,” he said.  “Make bleed.”

              Tim’s heart leapt up into his throat.  His cock swelled with desire and his nostrils flared.  Had Danny asked for this a few months ago Tim would have balked at the idea.  But now?  After all the times he’d seen Danny come undone from wounds to his zombie body?  Tim didn’t even hesitate.

              With one hand he held Danny’s cock, and with the other he curled his fingers into the skin at the base.  He pressed down hard, sinking his nails in deep.  Danny’s breath hitched, and Tim felt his dick throb.  He slowly pulled up, dragging his nails deep into Danny’s cock, feeling the skin pile under his nails as he gouged him.  Danny tossed his head back in ecstasy, thick, heavy moans panting up his throat in a guttural sound of pleasure.  Tim watched the blood seep to the surface up through the gashes with heavy-lidded eyes.  Danny’s fingers in his ass twitched as all of him shuddered.

              “Hnng… hnng… hnng… hnng!” Danny cried, his free hand flying to clasp Tim’s neck in an attempt to hold himself up.  Precum poured out from his head, dripping down his shaft to mix with the blood “More!”

              Deep lust throbbed through Tim’s blood.  He pulled his fingers away, looking down at what he’d done.  He curled his nails at the base again, like claws, and shifted them slightly over.  He pressed them down and heard Danny’s whine, his fingers clasping at Tim’s neck and curling up inside his ass.  Tim closed his eyes as Danny’s fingers brought him pleasure, and pulled up again, scratching long, deep gashes into Danny’s cock.  Blood welled up from all of them, coating the entire thing in dripping red.  Danny’s eyes were rolled back in his head and he was panting.

              “More,” he begged, his voice broken by breath.  There were already ten gashes in Danny’s skin, all of them welling up with blood as it coated Danny’s cock and started to drip.  Tim was unsure if there was anywhere else left to scratch.

              Then he glanced at the head of Danny’s cock, his cheeks burning with fire.  He gently slid his thumb over it, spreading the precum in a wet, sopping mess.  He lifted his heavily flushed face and pressed his forehead to Danny’s

              “Here?” he whispered.

              “Yes!” Danny cried, tossing his head back.  With his blood burning as hot as fire, Tim wrapped his fingers tight around the head and pressed his thumbnail to it.  He pressed hard, deep, watching it break the skin, and then slowly dragged it across the tip, just under the hole.

              Danny screamed, his back arching as he tossed his head to the ceiling.  More precum gushed from the tip, mixing with the blood, flowing over Tim’s thumb and dripping down the shaft.  Danny’s cock was now soaked with cum and blood, his breaths coming so hard and fast he was gasping, his pupils dilated as wide as they could go.

              “Did you like…”

              Danny lowered his eyes and met Tim’s with a growl.  He put his free hand on his chest and pushed him down onto his back, hard.  Tim eagerly went, his pulse hammering as hard as it ever had in his life as Danny gazed down at him with dark, needy eyes.  Danny slid up between his legs, pulled out his fingers, and pushed his dripping, bloody cock in.

              “Ohhh,” Tim cried, as Danny slipped in, slick and wet and deep.

              “Yes!” Danny shouted, his fingers trembling as he clasped at Tim’s bent thighs.  He didn’t wait.  He started to thrust hard, each one making pleasure shoot up through Tim’s body.  He lifted his hips to meet Danny’s wild, frantic thrusts, feeling his cock spread him open more with each one, slicking his insides with blood until Danny was gliding in easily, over and over.  Tim moaned with every spear of Danny’s cock, pleasure radiating up his spine to infect his brain.

              [1END XXX]

              “Yes Danny yes yes yes yes!”

              Tim begged for more and got it, Danny’s eyes fluttering open and closed as he pounded Tim hard into the bed.  His breaths were thick and heavy, sweat dripping from his skin, and Tim gazed up at him lust-drunk and madly in love.

              He'd never seen Danny sweat before.  His skin was so healthy now he had sweat glands.  His eyes were closed in ecstasy, his face nearly perfect, with full eyebrows and pink, lush lips.  The few wounds Tim had noticed earlier on his chest and arms were gone.  All the grey was gone from his skin.  He looked healthy.  He looked alive.

              He slowed his frantic pace, and found a more steady rhythm.  Danny opened his eyes, and they shined in the firelight, blue with red flames reflecting in them.  Tim met his gaze, his heart blooming wide, wide open as he realized that Danny saw him.

              “You’re so beautiful, Tim,” Danny said, rolling his hips to shove his cock in hard and deep, still sopping wet with blood.  Tim groaned, his breath interrupted as he felt heat spread through him as Danny pushed in, his hole dripping wet with blood, smearing down his thighs.

              “Me?” Tim said.  “I’m the same I’ve always been.  Look at you.  You look alive.  I can see you.  I can see what you look like…hear your voice, feel your pulse… oh Danny.”

              Danny closed his eyes and rolled his hips, rocking into Tim deep and full of love.  When he opened them again he gazed directly into Tim’s face, and Tim saw the stars in his eyes.  Saw the intelligence behind them.  Saw thought and purpose return to him by the minute.

              “What’s your last name?” Tim asked, his heart as open as it had ever been, knowing now that Danny could answer.

              “Fenton,” he said, picking one of Tim’s hands up and bringing it to his lips, kissing the back of it.  “Danny Fenton, from Amity Park, Illinois.”

              Tears sprang to Tim’s eyes.

              “It’s nice to meet you, Danny Fenton.  I’m Tim Drake-Wayne, from Gotham, New Jersey.”

              Danny’s smile was real and deep.

              “It’s very nice to meet you, Tim Drake-Wayne.  You didn’t tell me you were famous,” Danny teased, and Tim laughed.  Laughed, in the middle of Danny pushing his dick into him, his body bathed in a pleasant glow as they rocked together.

              “I didn’t think it mattered,” Tim breathed.  Danny chuckled.

              “It doesn’t.”

              Danny leaned forward so that their foreheads pressed together, gently moving his hips, making Tim close his eyes with a blissful sigh.  When he opened them again, he became lost in brilliant blue irises that not only saw him, but saw through him.  He’d never felt so seen, so appreciated in his life.

              “Tim…Tim I’m so close,” Danny said, pushing his cock up into him.  “My mind is right there.  There’s something I need to do.  It’s really, really important,” he said.  “And if I can remember it, we can all be saved.”

              Tim’s eyes grew misty and he reached up a hand to stroke the back of Danny’s head.  He looked up into the face of his lover with absolute adoration.

              “Take as long as you need,” Tim said.  “I’m here for you forever.”

              Danny closed his eyes and Tim saw them tearing.  Every roll of his hips brought them both incredible pleasure, and Tim really could lay there all night, letting Danny make love to him for as long as he wanted.  Danny gazed down into his eyes, his fingers gently stroking over his cheek.

              “You’re so brilliant,” Danny said.  “You solve problems without any hint as to how to get there.  You’re so determined.  Nothing stops you.  When Tim decides he will win, he will fucking win.  And you’re so loving,” Danny said, gazing down at him again, his face full of deep affection.  “I’m the luckiest person in the world to get to be the focus of that love.”

              Tim’s heart was shining so brightly he almost couldn’t stand it.  Being able to hear Danny speak, truly speak, was everything he’d ever dreamed of.  As they rolled their bodies together, the physical pleasure piling on top of his emotional joy, he thought this was nirvana.  There could be nothing, in any universe, more precious than this moment.  No one, who had ever lived or would ever live, would get to experience anything as incredible as they did, right now.

              “I can’t help but love you,” Tim said.  “The pieces of you that I’ve seen are nothing but beautiful. And I can’t wait to get to know the rest of you.  As for the parts of you that I do know?  I know you are kind.  I know you are giving.  I know you are selfless.  I know you fight for others.  I’ve seen you do all those things.  I’ve seen you fight.  You don’t just have powers, you use them, for the greater good.  You care, Danny Fenton.  The kind of person who gives his all to help someone else.  That kind of personality with powers besides?  You’re a superhero, Danny.  I know you are.”

              Tim saw something shift behind Danny’s eyes.  Saw a piece click into place.  Danny’s eyes went wide and he clasped both of Tim’s thighs hard.  He tossed his head back and started to pound into Tim, making his body rock against the cushions.  Tim saw stars.  His fingers wrapped tight in the blankets as he tried to keep from drowning in pleasure.  Danny’s thrusts grew more frantic, their flesh slapping together as he drove himself as deep into Tim as he could.  He closed his eyes, his panting grew louder, thicker, and his fingers curled so tight around Tim’s thighs they would have drawn blood if he had nails.

              “Tim Tim Tim Tim,” Danny said, his voice gravelly and thick.  Tim’s whole body shook as Danny slammed his cock up into him, clasping at his thighs like they were a lifeline.  His thrusts grew more frantic and Tim felt his cock grow rock-hard as he plowed it as deep into Tim as he could.

              “Tim, Tim, Tim!” Danny cried.  His eyes flew open and they were glowing.  Bright, shining green, the exact same color as the liquid in the tank.  Tim’s heart raced as his eyes grew wide with wonder.  This was it.  It was happening, whatever it was.

              “Come on Danny,” he whispered.  “Come on.  You can do it,” he said.  “I love you.  I love you.  I love you.”

              With a scream that rattled Tim’s bones and didn’t stop, Danny came.  Tim felt his cum gushing out of him as he pulled almost all the way out before slamming back in, making everything a dripping, bloody wet mess.  A blinding white light appeared at Danny’s center, and spread out into the shape of a ring.  Tim watched in fascinated wonder as the ring split in two, one moving up over Danny’s torso, the other sweeping down over his legs.

              His body changed.  At first it looked like his skin had turned midnight black.  But as Tim’s mind started to process what he saw, he realized it was a jumpsuit- a hero’s jumpsuit, with a white D emblazoned on the chest.  Danny’s hands were now covered with white gloves, and his feet in white boots.  Tim felt the loss of Danny’s dick in him as it was suddenly covered by his new clothes.  And the most striking change of all was that his hair turned from jet-black to blinding white, so bright it almost appeared to be glowing.

              The pink in his cheeks became glowing green.  His teeth changed from rotten to pure white.  Every wound on him was instantly healed.

              And he was floating.

              Danny stopped screaming.

              He lowered his head, his blinding green eyes seeming to see nothing as he hovered between Tim’s legs.  He looked like he was in a daze.  He wasn’t moving, but green sparks crackled across his skin in arcs.  His white hair floated around his head as if gravity didn’t exist, the rest of him hovering a few inches in the air.

              Tim couldn’t tear his eyes away.  The exact match of his eyes to the liquid in the tank was unsettling and under any other circumstances, Tim’s mind would have started to race with a thousand theories and questions.  But right now what he felt was madly in love, wildly turned on, confused, hopeful, and worried, and that was enough.

              Tim’s eyes took in as much of Danny’s new form as they could, sweeping over every part of him, learning what he looked like.  He was a dichotomy of black and white, though even the black parts of him still seemed to glow, somehow.  There was a light that seemed to come from him, though Tim’s eyes couldn’t quite make out whether it was white or green, or both.  It was very obvious that Danny was not human, though Tim couldn’t begin to guess what he actually was.  He seemed solid, and yet somehow not, parts of the bunker behind him seeming to shine through him.  Yet Tim could feel his legs pressing against his thighs, solid and real and strong.  Something about him made the hairs on the back of Tim’s neck stand straight up.  Like he was seeing something he wasn’t supposed to.  He was otherworldly and strange.  He was haunting. 

              He was beautiful.

              Danny slowly dropped himself down to the cushions, still on his knees.  He lowered his head to look down at Tim, eyes blazing green, and Tim gave a thick swallow.

              “Danny?”

              His smile was his smile, bright and earnest and Danny.

              “Yeah,” he said, his voice echoing somehow when he spoke.  And then the brightness in his eyes dimmed, and they looked more like normal eyes, with whites and irises, though they still glowed green.  He looked into Tim’s eyes and smiled again.  “Hi, Tim.”

              Tim was overwhelmed.  He had no idea how to respond.  His body was still in the middle of sex, his ass throbbing from the pounding it had just received, his cock still pulsing and hard.  His heart was going wild, drowning in joy and hope and excitement and arousal.

              “Did you… are you… what…”

              “Shhh, it’s okay.  Hey, I can talk now,” Danny said.  “It’s not gonna go away, or anything.  We’re good.  We made it.”

              Tim was speechless.  He could barely think.  His naked chest rose and fell as his lungs heaved, while he tried understand the moment.

              “Hey,” Danny said, crawling on top of him, bringing a white-gloved hand up to stroke Tim’s face.  Danny looked down at it, rolled his green eyes, and rippled.  His entire body fluctuated like it was made of water, and then the jumpsuit was gone.  Tim traced his eyes over his naked form, amazed at how perfect he was.  There wasn’t a blemish or a scar on him.  His fingers were completely healed.  His dick was completely healed.  Every part of him looked impossibly healthy- supernaturally healthy, in fact.  A soft, white glow emanated from his skin, or from within him, it was hard to tell.  Whatever it was, Tim couldn’t tear his eyes away.

              And then he moved, laying his naked body down on top of Tim’s, making Tim’s blush deepen. Instead of warmth, Tim felt a strange coolness rolling off of him, but his touch… his touch was exactly the same.  The way he stroked Tim’s jaw, the way his fingers traced along his cheek, the way his eyes gazed into his face, it was him.  It was Danny.

              “Oh, Danny, I….I see you.  I feel you, I…I….”

              “Yeah,” Danny said.  “I’m still me.  More me than you’ve ever known, actually.  I can talk, I can think, I can…I can kiss you,” he said, his green eyes glowing brighter.  “Oh God, Tim, I can kiss you.”

              Danny pressed a heavy kiss to his lips, and Tim immediately let his tongue out to lick along Danny’s closed lips, like he’d done a thousand times before.

              But this time, Danny parted them.  Tim’s tongue slipped between his teeth.  Tim jerked back out of habit, but then Danny pressed his tongue deep into Tim’s mouth with a groan.  Realizing that it was safe, Tim wrapped his arms tightly around Danny’s neck and pulled him close, shoving his tongue deep into Danny’s mouth.  He ran it all along his teeth just because he could, exploring it, learning it, feeling Danny in a way they never could have done before.  Danny moaned while Tim kissed him longer and harder, more and more, tasting him, feeling him, learning him.

              He no longer tasted like rot and decay.  But he didn’t taste like life, either.  He tasted electric, like ozone and something metallic.  There was a slight buzz to Danny’s skin, and Tim couldn’t get enough of it.  He ran his hands across every inch of it that he could reach, feeling his back, his shoulders, his neck, his hair.  His white hair was so so soft, and once Tim touched it he wasn’t sure he’d ever be able to let go.

              Eventually they pulled back and Tim gasped for air, his head tossed back as he tried to catch is breath.  When he lifted his head, he pressed his lips back to Danny’s and kissed him again, making up for months and months of unfulfilled wishes.  Danny pulled his tongue back and sucked Tim’s lower lip into his mouth, rolling it through his teeth, making Tim moan in a whole new way.

              “Tim, oh Tim,” he mumbled, pressing open-mouthed kisses down Tim’s neck and across his throat.  Tim tilted his head back, letting him in, his fingers clasping at Danny’s hair.  Danny opened his lips and sucked on Tim’s neck, making him gasp.

              “Ohhhh…” Tim moaned, his erection growing again as he felt Danny nip at his neck and pull this flesh into his mouth.  He felt Danny smirk against his skin, even as he continued to work on the hickey.  He pulled back, leaving a trail of drool as he moved slightly over and then sucked again.

              “You like kisses, baby?” Danny teased.  Tim laughed even as he moaned, his fingers unable to stop stroking Danny’s hair and down his neck and across his back.

              “Been wanting them for so long,” Tim breathed.

              “Gonna give you a thousand,” Danny said softly, moving his lips slightly lower to suck on the spot between Tim’s neck and his shoulder.  He moaned, lifting his hips, where his erection pressed up against Danny’s hip.  Danny slid his hand down to wrap his fingers around his shaft, making Tim’s breath hitch.

              “Oh, I know what to kiss,” Danny said, his green eyes half-closed as he ran his thumb over Tim’s swollen tip.  “Just gonna take my time.  So many places to appreciate.”

              Danny slowly dragged his lips across Tim’s collar bone, planting kisses as he went, his tongue leaving a wet trail of drool behind him.  Tim was in heaven.  There was nothing in the universe that could make him move.  Danny’s lips moved over his nipple and he sucked, making Tim arch his back and his cock swell in Danny’s palm.  He felt his nipple grow more and more sensitive under Danny’s attention, the nub hardening with arousal.  And then Danny nipped him.  Tim’s gasp was so hard he almost squeaked.

              “Figured you’d like that,” Danny breathed, sucking more.  Tim’s face was flushing deep red again, his fingers clasping at Danny’s feather-soft hair like it was a lifeline.  Danny dragged his teeth lower, making Tim’s stomach suck in as he was able to feel him for the first time without any danger.  He slid his hands up Tim’s sides, making him tickle, and then curled his fingers.  Tim felt his nails, and out of instinct, a rush of fear spiked through him.

              “Shhhhh,” Danny said, sucking a hickey onto his stomach.  “It’s safe now, baby.”

              Tim sighed, his head falling back to the cushions with more relief than he’d expected.

              Safe.

              That wasn’t a feeling he had often.  Possibly ever.  Hadn’t felt since…God, he couldn’t remember.  But in Danny’s hands, he knew he finally was safe.  Not just from Danny’s nails, not even just from zombies, but from anything.  From everything.  Safe from fear.  Safe from heartbreak.  Safe from death.

              Danny’s kisses reached his pelvis.  He pressed his lips to the head of Tim’s cock with a sweet, gentle peck.  Tim sighed as teasing pleasure radiated down his dick.  Danny kissed it again, then again, then held it in his palm and began kissing his way slowly down his shaft, drinking it in, practically worshipping it.  His mouth reached his balls and then he kissed those, opening his mouth to suck one in, making Tim yelp with sensation.

              “Oh, Tim, how badly I’ve wanted to do this,” Danny mumbled, licking across his balls and then back up his shaft.  His green eyes glowed brighter as he reached the head.  He licked his tongue across the top, lapping up Tim’s precum like he couldn’t get enough of it.  Tim moaned, the heat in his sensitive tip spreading down to the rest of him, drowning him in desire.  His heart raced faster and his breaths turned shallow and sharp.

              With a groan, Danny sucked the head into his mouth, sealing his lips tight to create pressure.  Tim arched his hips and clasped his fingers roughly in Danny’s white hair.  He hadn’t intended to thrust, but he was so turned on it just happened.  Danny moaned, opening his mouth to let Tim in.  He couldn’t control it now, he was fucking up into the tight wetness of Danny’s mouth, hard and fast and relentless.  It felt amazing, to feel his lips, his teeth, his tongue, all the parts of him that had been forbidden before.

              “Da…Dan…ny!” Tim cried, and Danny sucked harder, swallowing Tim down all the way into the back of his throat.  Even as lust drowned his mind, Tim was vaguely realizing that Danny could either hold his breath for a really long time, or didn’t need to breathe at all.  Tim’s mind tried to wonder about his powers, but in the moment, he didn’t care.  All he wanted to do was feel him, be with him, experience having his lover fully with him for the first time.

               Danny was hungrily sucking down his cock, rough and tight, making the pressure rise in his balls until he couldn’t contain it anymore.  Tim’s every muscle tensed as his orgasm began to pulse.

              “Danny…baby,” Tim whispered, his body convulsing as his cock throbbed up into Danny’s mouth.  Danny hummed and happily swallowed everything Tim gave him, his hot release gushing out of him over and over.  His stomach clenched so tight he sat up, cradling Danny’s head in his lap, knotting his fingers tightly in his hair.  Waves of euphoria crashed over him, drowning out everything that wasn’t Danny.  For just a moment, Tim’s whole universe became nothing but his lover, and he clutched at him, desperate to keep him close.

              When it was over he collapsed onto his back again, heaving.  Danny pulled off his dick with one last suck, and then pressed a sweet kiss to his softening head.  Tim whimpered, and reached his arms towards him.

              Danny came to him eagerly, lying beside Tim and pulling him into his embrace.  Tim buried his face in his neck, finding it both comforting and familiar, new and strange.  He let himself bask in the afterglow for a few seconds at least, knowing that once they started to talk, the magic would be broken.  For now, he just wanted to be held.

              The arms that held him were made of something he’d never touched before, and yet held him in the same way Danny always had.  Danny’s kiss to the top of his hair felt like static, almost electric, and yet the tenderness was the same it had always been.  Tim’s mind clung to those consistencies, to the actions and the way Danny moved like he always had, proving to itself that this really was him, despite the newness.  Despite the strangeness.

              Questions started to flood Tim’s mind, and he sighed.  His brain would never, ever leave him alone, not even now, at the end of the world, after one of the most incredible experiences of his life.

              He pulled his head back to gaze into Danny’s face, and his heart shined even as his mind went wild.

              “Did we do it?” he asked meekly.  Danny gazed down at him with absolute devotion.  His expression was whole in a way it hadn’t been before.  He smiled, and it went right up to his eyes.

              He lifted his fingers to Tim’s face and brushed his hair aside.

              “Yes, baby,” Danny said.  “We did it.”

              Tim’s heart swelled with hope and love and light.

              They did it.

              They did it.

              He still had no idea what ‘it’ even was, but it was clear that Danny had his full mind now, whole and complete and healthy.  It was everything.   

              “Can you explain it to me now?”, his heart throbbing with joy that he knew Danny could understand him.  That he could speak in return.  That they could talk.  Finally.

              “God, you’re so precious,” Danny said.  “I asked you to trust me and you just…did.  Without knowing a damn thing, you took the wildest leap of faith imaginable.”

              Tim gave a wry laugh.

              “Hah, I do that all the time,” he said.  “I was raised that way.  My family…we’re heroes, too,” he said, sitting up.  It was time for heavy conversation, and while he didn’t feel like putting on any clothes yet, he no longer felt like laying down.  “But I’ll tell you about us later.  Please, Danny, I need to know.  What are you?”

              Danny sat up too.  He closed his eyes, and then his entire form rippled again, like he was made of air, or water, or smoke.  The black jumpsuit was back, covering his body completely, up to his neck, where it turned white at the collar.

              Danny opened his green eyes.

              “I’m a ghost,” he said simply.  “In this form, what I am is dead.”

              Tim tried not to let the word dead get to him.  Danny didn’t seem phased or upset by it at all, and so he shoved his anxious thoughts away and instead tried to understand.

              “In this form?”

              Danny gave a nod.

              “I have two forms.  One human, one ghost.  In this form, I’m Danny Phantom,” he said.  “My ghost name.”

              “Ghost?” Tim asked.  His brows furrowed as he reached out a palm to press it to Danny’s chest.  He was solid, not at all like the ghosts Tim had known in his life.  He was cool to the touch, and Tim noticed after a moment that he had no heartbeat.  Not a slow one, not a weak one, but nothing.

              “Then why can I touch you?”

              Danny gave a laugh.

              “Because I want you to.”

              And then he became nothing but a wisp of air.  Tim’s hand fell right through him as if he wasn’t there at all.  Tim gasped and pulled his hand back.  Danny became solid again.

              “Intangibility, one of my most basic powers,” he said.  “I can even do it in human form.  Um…normally.  Right now though my human form is kinda fucked up.”

              Tim’s brows furrowed together.

              “You’re still a zombie?”

              Danny nodded, his face strained.

              “My human form is suffering so badly.  Oh God, Tim, it was hell, constantly falling ill, then healing, then falling ill, then healing…” Danny turned to Tim and grabbed the sides of his arms, pulling their foreheads close.  “Until you, Tim,” he said softly.  “Your love fed my core.  Every moment, every day, you were so so loving, so kind…”

              Danny pressed a sweet, soft kiss to Tim’s lips.  Tim sighed into it, enjoying again that Danny no longer had to keep his lips closed.  That they could be together.

              But there were so many things he had to know.

              “What do you mean by ‘your core’?”

              Danny kept his forehead pressed against Tim’s and gave a wistful smile.

              “A ghost’s soul,” he said softly.  “A ghost doesn’t have a body.  We manifest ectoplasm into physical shapes using our cores.  It’s the essence of me.”  Tim stared into Danny’s glowing eyes and tried to understand.  It was difficult, when the hands that held his arms felt so solid.  So real.

              Danny closed his eyes, still with his forehead pressed to Tim’s. 

              “A core is powered by emotion.  Every ghost is different- some ghosts, like Spectra, thrive off of negative emotions, like misery.  Some ghosts, like Ember, thrive off of positive emotions, like admiration.  The stronger the emotions, the stronger the core.  My core thrives off of positive emotions.  Things like caring.  Joy.  Love.”

              Danny opened his eyes, and Tim was staring into brilliant green.  His heart bloomed with affection.

              “You fed me, Tim.  Fed me every single day, helping me gather strength until my core became powerful enough to heal my mind.  Heal it enough so that I could remember myself.  God it was torture.  I knew I had a way out.  I knew there was something I was supposed to do.  And not being able to remember how to do it was eating me, truly, literally killing me.  The frustration, the despair, negative emotions destroying any progress I made.  That’s why whenever we had a day where nothing really happened…”

              “You’d fall back into decay,” Tim said.  “Because you couldn’t stop thinking about the fact that you had a way out, but couldn’t find it.  Oh, baby, I could see that.  I could tell.  I knew something was eating at you, I wanted to help so badly…”

              “You did help.  Two days ago, when I asked you to love me and you said that you would.  For as long as it took.  For as long as it took.  And I knew that you meant it.  I knew you would do it.  And I knew with love I could count on like that…”

              Danny pulled his face back and hovered off the ground.  Tim watched as his legs melded together, disappearing and becoming a tail that wisped behind him, slowly becoming more translucent until it vanished.  Tim couldn’t help but stare, his mind still reeling as he tried to take in Danny’s new form.

              “I knew that with love I could count on like that, I would eventually find my way back to my ghost self,” he said, his eyes misting, the liquid gathering at the corners glowing as bright green as the eyes themselves.

              Tim leaned forward to press a kiss to Danny’s lips, and he sighed with joy when Danny was able to kiss him back.

              “So are you out of danger, then?” Tim asked.  “You said loving you would save you, but not cure you.”

              Danny frowned.

              “As long as I stay in ghost form, I’ll keep my mind.  I’ll have my powers.  Tim, I have a lot of powers.  I can get us anything and everything we need.  I can find us every resource.  But I’m not cured.  My human half is still a zombie.  I can’t revert to human form right now, or we’ll be back where we started.  Me rotting with only half a brain, not able to remember how to go ghost.”

              Tim felt fear try to claw its way up his throat.  He shoved it back down.

              “How long can you stay in ghost form?”

              “Oh, for as long as I want, as long as my ghost half stays strong enough,” Danny said.  “I don’t have to spend time as a human.  I just…usually do.”

              Tim’s mind was whirling.  Dead.  Danny was dead.  All this time Tim had been fighting to keep him alive, when the answer to saving them was to get him to die.

              “Wait…one more time… your human half is still alive?”

              Danny’s brows furrowed.

              “Barely,” he said.  “It’s struggling.  This virus is a bastard.  It infects me just as fast as my healing factor can fight it off.  With any other disease, I fight it off like it’s nothing.  We thought I couldn’t get sick.  Then this happened.”

              “It’s gotten everyone,” Tim said.  “People who never, ever should have fallen ill.  It’s infected Superman,” he said.

              Danny’s frown deepened.

              “Okay I’m powerful but not as powerful as him,” Danny said.  “That doesn’t make any sense.”

              Tim nodded.

              “No, no it does,” Tim said.  “Danny, this virus is related to you in some way.  My research has revealed that.  Either it was created from you, or specifically to attack you, or something, because it’s DNA…it doesn’t make any sense.  It’s missing pieces, it’s…it’s…”

              “Ectoplasm,” Danny said.  Tim tilted his head, trying to understand.  Danny’s eyes flew to stare at the tank, and suddenly glowed bright, bright green.  “Tim, I’ll tell you everything.  I’ll explain it all.  But right now, I really really need to feed.”

              Tim followed Danny’s gaze to the green tank, and he swallowed, nervous.

              “You did say you needed it.  How much will you take?  It’s our only source of power…”
              “Oh, baby I can get so much more,” Danny said.  “All we have to do is get Vlad’s portal working.”

              Tim frowned.  “Vlad’s…portal.  You know about this lab,” he said, his voice soft, his eyes growing wide as his heart throbbed with hope.  “Oh my God, you know about this lab.  You know who…”

              “Tim, I know a lot.  But I’m really, really weak after all of this.  I have to feed.  We really really don’t need me reverting back to human form.  It’ll happen if I get too weak.”

              Tim nodded, biting his lower lip.  His heart was going wild, jumping back and forth between hope and fear, joy and apprehension.

              “I just…it’s all I’ve been counting on, all these months.  The one steady thing that I can rely on.  It’s our safety, it powers all our systems it…”
              Danny floated down in front of Tim’s face and put a white-gloved palm on his cheek.  Tim stopped talking, and turned to gaze into those unearthly green eyes that were strange, and yet so familiar.

              “Help me get the portal working.  On the other side of it is all the ectoplasm we could ever want, and possibly some help.  I have a lot of ghost friends.  I don’t know if they can help, but they’ll certainly try.”

              Tim glanced over at the glowing tank that had been their salvation, his eyebrows furrowing so hard his forehead hurt.  It was so so hard to do anything that would risk the one thing that had kept them alive all this time.

              “Tim, please trust me,” Danny said, stroking his fingers across Tim’s face.  Tim turned to look up at him, and gazed into eyes that were so, so familiar, despite their strange outward appearance.  Eyes that he had trusted with his life a thousand times.  Eyes that would never betray him.  Eyes that loved him.

              He took a deep breath and nodded.

              “I trust you.”

Chapter Text

Hi folks! So the AO3 curse got me, and I am struggling to recover from surgery right now. I can't think well enough to see straight, nevermind write anything. It's driving me INSANE because I love this fic TO DEATH and I can't stop thinking about it, but I'm just in no condition to write at the moment. I'm hoping SO HARD to be able to star writing again in a week or so. BUT IN THE MEANTIME, have this INCREDIBLE art by FaiKazahaya! It's even better than her other incredible piece that I posted in Chapter 5, if you can believe that!

Warning that this is GRAPHIC ZOMBIE PORN, inspired by the gore scene from chapter 6, so if you skipped the graphic scene, then this isn't for you, so don't scroll down.

However, if you are a freak like me and think gore is a turn-on, THIS IS SO FUCKING GOOD HOLY SHIT!

Please let her know if you loved it by leaving comments!

Chapter Text

* * *

              Danny sat up in bed, eyes groggily blinking in the darkness.  He rolled over and picked up his phone.  Four am.  Great.  So why the fuck was he awak…

              He exhaled again, and saw the blue glow of his breath, and sat up straight.  Okay, so he had company.  But these days it was just as likely to be a friend than a foe.  He went ghost and sank down through the floor, through the living room, and into the basement.

              A familiar form was hovering in the center of the lab, flying back and forth anxiously.

              “Ember?” he said.

              “Phantom!” she cried, flying over to him without any of her usual liveliness.  Her face looked…worried.

              “What is it?”

              “It’s Plasmius.  He’s gone off the deep end.  He’s captured your clone and a bunch of other ghosts, doing these insane experiments on them.  He has Youngblood, he has Johnny…I managed to escape, and I thought you would help…”

              “Dani?” Danny said, his eyes flashing green with anger.  That was his family.  How fucking dare Vlad!

              Danny turned to Ember with rage.

              “Let’s go kick his ass right now.”

              “I…I can’t.”

              His eyes returned to normal in surprise.  That didn’t make any sense.  Ember loved to fight.

              “Why the fuck not?”

              “He he…he did something to me,” she said.  “He…he made me sick.”

              She held out her arm, and it looked weird.  Parts of it were intangible while other parts weren’t, parts of it were invisible while other parts weren’t.

              “Well that’s not normal,” Danny said.

              “No shit, Sherlock,” Ember spat back.  But her face showed none of her bravado.  He could tell she was scared.

              “Let’s get you to Frostbite,” he said.

              “Oh my God, I did not come here for you to take me to the fucking doctor.  I came here to get a warrior to help me!”

              “I am helping you!  This is helping you!  Whatever the fuck he’s done, we need to undo it, right?  Better if we know what we’re up against before I just go flying in there blasting away!”

              She rolled her eyes.

              “You used to be a lot more fun back when you were newly dead.”

              He sighed.

              “And got my ass kicked all the time?”

              She laughed.

              “Yeah, those were the good old days.”

              He rolled his eyes.

              “Come on.  To the doctor.  Then I’ll go fight, I promise.”

              She sighed and made an annoyed face, but she followed him into the portal and then made a left to head to the Far Frozen.

              “Mmmhmm,” Frostbite said, staring at the sample he’d scraped off Ember’s arm under his microscope.

              “What?  What is it?” she asked, poking at her sick arm with her healthy finger, wincing whenever she phased through herself and didn’t want to.

              “It’s a ghost virus,” Frostbite said.

              “The hell is a ghost virus?” Danny asked, floating over to look down into the microscope himself.  He didn’t actually know what he was looking at.  He hadn’t exactly gotten good grades in high school biology, and his college astronomy major didn’t have any classes on virology, either.

              “It’s what it sounds like.  It’s an ectoplasmic infection that affects ghosts.  Luckily, this one seems to be pretty mild.”

              “This looks mild to you, yeti-man?” Ember snapped, holding up her partially phasing arm.  As she said it, a new section turned invisible, while another section reappeared.

              “Based on my preliminary tests, it appears you will fight it off naturally within a few hours.”

              “…oh.  That sounds mild,” she said.  “Why the hell would Plasmius be intentionally infecting ghosts with a weird mild virus?”

              “I could not begin to explain the logic behind that madman’s decisions,” Frostbite said.

              “Well, whatever he’s doing, I’m gonna stop him,” Danny said. 

              “I encourage you to, because someone should,” Frostbite said.  “However, in your case, Great One, you need to use extra caution.”

              Danny was already halfway out the door, and he almost didn’t stop to turn, but had learned years ago that ignoring Frostbite’s advice was always a bad move.

              “Why?”

              Frostbite gestured with his finger for Danny to come back, and while he sighed and rolled his eyes about it, he listened.  He landed right back next to him, and Frostbite stuck out a q-tip.

              “I greatly suspect that this disease, which is mild to ghosts, will be deadly to humans.”

              “Oh.”

              Danny furrowed his brows as he went human and opened his mouth.  Frostbite took a sample of his skin cells, and then he went ghost again.

              He waited a few minutes while Frostbite infected his human cells with the disease from Ember’s arm, and then studied it under the microscope.

              “Hmm,” he said, which made Danny’s eyebrows furrow further.

              “What?  What’s ‘hmmm’?”

              Frostbite pulled away from the microscope and frowned.

              “I can’t be certain, because you are not fully human.  There is ectoplasm even in your human half.  But this truly looks to be deadly to humans.  I believe it will kill them.”

              Danny frowned harder.

              “So….what are you saying, exactly?”

              Frostbite stood up from his lab stool and gave Danny a deep frown.

              “You need to stop Plasmius before he infects any humans.  And you need to take care not to get infected yourself.  While your ghost half should fight it off easily, I do not know what will happen to your human half, should you contract this.”

              Danny’s nerves shot up and he gave a thick swallow.

              “Right.  Don’t get infected.  How…how do I manage that?  Is it airborne?”

              Frostbite shook his head.

              “If it were, you and I would be infected from Ember already.”

              She snorted and rolled her eyes.

              “I believe it is transmitted through physical contact,” Frostbite continued.  “Be careful not to touch anyone infected, and you should be alright.”

              Danny nodded, and then hovered up off the floor again, forming his tail. 

              “Anything else I should know?”

              Frostbite shook his head.

              “Just be careful, Great One.  We all know how unhinged Plasmius can get.  Do not expect him to make rational moves.”

              Danny snorted.

              “When do I ever?”

              * * *

              Danny flew slowly over the roof of Vlad’s mansion, invisible.  Vlad had just as much anti-ghost protection technology as Danny’s parents did, possibly more.  But he’d be expecting Danny to come through the ghost portal, so there was no way he could use that.  So instead he was creeping around above the roof, using a Fenton Detector to try to find a weak spot in Vlad’s anti-ghost defenses.

              Of course there were none.  But that wasn’t going to stop him.  Maybe the best plan wasn’t to sneak in.  Maybe the best plan was to get Vlad to come out.

              Setting himself down on the edge of Vlad’s property, beyond the range of his cameras, Danny created a duplicate.  He then turned them both human and made one invisible, walking beside himself as he approached Vlad’s house.

              He walked right up to the doorbell and rang it.

              He waited all of three seconds before Vlad’s voice barked over the intercom.

              “What do you want, you ungrateful brat?”

              What the hell did Vlad think Danny needed to be ‘grateful’ to him for?

              Fucking fruitloop

              “So some ghosts have been telling me you’ve been doing weird experiments in your lab again, Vladdy boy.  You know you’re not supposed to do that.  Do I have to tell on you?”

              He heard Vlad’s scream of rage get cut off as he let go of the intercom and most likely started stalking his way up from his lab and towards the front door.

              Danny really didn’t have to wait long.

              Vlad might have been an absolute nutcase, but he was a predictable nutcase.

              The door flung open to reveal Vlad Masters, glaring down at Danny and grinding his teeth so hard he could hear it.

              “Get off my porch!”

              “Make me.”

              Danny went ghost and flew back about twenty feet, baiting Vlad to step out of his house.  He fell for it instantly, going ghost and flying straight at Danny, leaving his front door wide, wide open.

              Of course, his ghost shield was still up, and so no ghosts could enter his house whether the door was open or not.

              But an invisible human duplicate could just walk right in.

              While his ghost duplicate fought Vlad out in his front yard, invisible human Danny stepped into the front hall and sighed with disgust.  How was it that he was always coming back here?  When would Vlad like, calm down and stop doing things that forced him to kick his ass?

       Danny knew the way down to Vlad’s “secret” lab like the back of his hand, he’d been there so many times.  He didn’t even bother using the stairs; he just went ghost right there in the foyer and sank through the floor, appearing through the ceiling.  He stayed invisible and just hovered there for awhile, taking in the situation.

       Three of the four cloning tanks were full.  He saw Youngblood, Johnny 13, an empty one where Ember must have been held, and Dani.  His heart cracked a little and he grit his teeth when he saw her there, hovering in some sort of stasis.  She was so fragile.  Why couldn’t he leave her the fuck alone!

       He flew down and hovered in front of her, placing his invisible hand on the glass with a deep frown.  She was in ghost form, and she looked like she had the same illness Ember did, only for her it was much, much worse.  It covered almost her entire body, with some parts of her intangible while others were solid, some parts of her invisible while others remained seen. 

              She looked absolutely miserable.

              Heart filling with rage, his duplicate outside started blasting ecto-energy towards Vlad with double the force.  He was pissed; this time he had gone too far, and Danny wasn’t going to let him get away with it.  Once he figured out how to get his friends out of there, he was going to blow this whole fucking place up.

              He followed the powerlines from the stasis tanks to a giant green ecto-tank.  He created a bunch of ectoplasm on the ends of his fists and then formed it into a long, sharp blade, which he swung through the air and brought down on the power conduits.  Green sparks flew from the severed ends, and then the power started to flicker on the lights above the stasis tanks.

              Johnny and Youngblood stirred.  They both had signs of the illness, but it was mild, like it was for Ember.  Johnny had a little on his face, and Youngblood only had it on his right leg.

              “Little dude,” Johnny said, rubbing his eyes with the heels of his hands.  “Figures it’d be you getting us out.”

              Danny rolled his eyes.

              “You’re welcome,” he spat.

              “What did that fiend do to us?” Youngblood demanded, glancing down at his leg.

              “Ghost infection,” Danny said.  “It’s mild.  You’ll get better.  Just don’t touch anyone until you do, so you don’t spread it.”

              Danny didn’t wait for their acknowledgement.  He flew over to the portal, trying to figure out how to turn it on.  It wasn’t as simple as the push-button his dad had built on the newer model at home. It required several connections, and had to be plugged into an ectoplasmic power source.

              He rearranged the wires that had been going to the cloning tanks, and heard the satisfying hum of the Ghost Zone as the green energy swirled to life.

              “Awww, sweet!  Home!” Youngblood said, flying into the portal without so much as a thanks.

              “You too, Johnny.  I’m getting kinda tired outside, distracting Vlad…”

              A thunderous boom rumbled through the house, and Danny’s eyes grew wide as he realized his duplicate had blasted a hole in the side of Vlad’s mansion.

              He glanced down at the power cables he’d severed.

              “Oh.  Those must have powered his ghost shields, too.  Which means now he knows they’re down…Johnny, hurry up and get out of here!’

              “I’m looking for my bike!  Where’s Shadow?”

              “I don’t know, they’re not here!  They’re probably in the Ghost Zone somewhere!  Get in!”

              Johnny grumbled, but another blast from above that shook the ceiling lights sent him flying towards it.

              “Later, dude!”

              Danny gave him a thumbs-up and then rushed over to Dani.  She wasn’t waking.  Why wasn’t she waking?

              A third ground-shaking blast rumbled the lab as Danny’s own duplicate missed, hitting Vlad’s mansion with powerful ecto-energy.  The violence of it shook Dani loose, and she fell forward into Danny’s arms.

              On instinct, he caught her.

              He hardly noticed the tiny scratch her fingernail gave his arm as she came to and clasped him.

              She blinked her eyes open groggily.  God, she looked so, so sick.

              “D…Danny?” she asked.

              He gave her a soft smile.

              “Yeah, I’m here.”

              “He…he’s experimenting on us.  He’s gone completely off the deep end this time.  He’s created a virus that’s trying to…to alter my DNA to be more like yours.  To turn me into his perfect son.  It’s awful, it affects me in both my human and ghost forms.  No matter what I do, I just keep getting sicker…”

              “You’re gonna be alright,” Danny said, having no idea whether or not that was the case.  Frostbite had told him he wasn’t sure how the virus would react to a halfa.  “Just stay in ghost form and head to Frostbite.  He’s already started analyzing it.  He’s saying it’s really mild to ghosts and you’ll probably heal all on your own, as long as you stay in ghost form.”

              She nodded, sniffling.  She reached up to wipe her runny nose on her sleeve.  He backed away a little, still holding her from the side, and started guiding her towards the portal.

              A spike of adrenaline from his other self gave him two seconds of warning.  He hurried her towards the portal.

              “You little SHIT!” Vlad screamed, intangibly flying through the ceiling and then aiming a blast directly at Danny.  Danny shoved Danielle hard, getting her through the portal seconds before Vlad’s blast slammed into it, knocking it offline.  “GET OUT OF MY LAB!”

              Danny wanted to stay in his lab and blow the whole fucking thing up, but Vlad’s eyes flashed flaming red and he charged directly at him.  He had no choice but to run, so he flew up through the ceiling and out into the sky, Vlad right behind him.

              Keeping up the duplicate was wearing on him, so he re-joined with it and took in the carnage below.  Vlad’s mansion was almost entirely destroyed, leaving nothing but rubble and a front porch. Danny laughed.

              “You get what you deserve, you absolute lunatic!  What the fuck is wrong with you, creating a ghost virus?  Just to alter Danielle into being what you want?  Do you have any idea how fucked up that is?”

              Instead of replying, Vlad raged at him and charged directly at him while shooting powerful ectoblasts that he barely dodged.  Danny turned around to fire back, but as he did so, his vision suddenly unfocused, and he missed by a wide margin.

              “Hah!  You’re out of practice, you lazy high school dropout,” Vlad taunted, shooting several balls of green energy which Danny barely dodged. 

              “Hey, that’s ‘lazy college student’ to you!” Danny snapped back,  Vlad screamed and shot more blasts in his direction, one of which singed his hair it flew so close.  Danny blinked.  His vision was swimming.  His head hurt.  He realized they were over two hundred feet up, and that was a bad place to be if he suddenly dropped out of ghost form.

              He ran from Vlad’s blasts by going down, though there were a bunch of houses below him and he didn’t want to put them at risk.  There was a stand of trees and so he headed for that, trying to use them for cover.

              He landed, and went invisible, his head pounding now.  He sat down with his back against a tree and groaned.

              Plasmius landed a dozen feet away from him and glanced around.  He looked right at him.

              “Ha!  Thought you were invisible, didn’t you?” he spat, coming towards him.  “It doesn’t work when I can still see your arm!”

              Danny looked down at his arm in horror, to find that it was still visible, despite what he told it.  He held his white glove up in front of his face in fascinated horror.

              He must have caught the virus.

              Great.

              That was going to make fighting Vlad much harder.  He had to win this thing now, so he could fly home, get into the Ghost Zone, and hopefully let the virus run it’s course without going human.

              He tried to get up, but he was dizzy.  He nearly fell over.  He managed to hover, but his legs wouldn’t form a tail.  He felt…odd.

              He managed to plant his feet on the ground, and started to run.

              “Gotchya,”, Vlad said, grabbing him by the throat.  He yanked Danny towards himself, slamming Danny’s back against his chest.  His hideous arm snaked around Danny’s throat and started to choke him.  Which normally, as a ghost, was just annoying, not life-threatening.  But right now, for some reason, Danny’s vision was starting to go black.

              “Let go,” he wheezed, barely able to get the words out.

              “Not likely,” Plasmius smirked.  “You just let all my test subjects go.  Thankfully, you have supplied me with a new one.”

              Plasmius lifted up his free hand and started forming an ecto-ball right beside Danny’s face.  Danny could feel the power and the heat radiating off of it, and he had seconds to try to get away.  An itch in his teeth gave him an idea that he normally would never have thought of.

              He opened his mouth wide and sank his ghost fangs as deep as he could into Plasmius’s arm.

              “Ouch!” he cried, his grip loosening enough for Danny to scramble away.  “You little rat!”

              Danny stuck his tongue out at him, which was a mistake, because then Vlad’s eyes flashed angry red and he began shooting blasts so fast he leveled the trees around them.  Danny flew away as fast as he could, darting around the trees, unusually afraid that one might fall on him because he couldn’t control his intangibility.

              He rushed through the town, flying as fast as he could, but Plasmius was faster.  Danny’s head was swimming, pounding, his vision blurry like he had something in his eyes.  He couldn’t see.  He crashed into a parked car and hit his face.

              He landed on his back on the sidewalk, groaning in pain.  The force knocked him out of ghost form.  He curled up on the pavement, clutching his head.

              His head, his head.  His head.  It hurt.  He couldn’t think.  He wasn’t supposed to…he wasn’t supposed to be this way.  He forced himself to sit up and glanced down at his hands.  They were…wrong, somehow.  Wrong.  Supposed to be white.  Supposed to…supposed to be white hands.  There was a way…there was a way he could change his hands.  Make them become white.  If he did that, he would be okay.  He could get better.  Because he was sick.  Sick.  Sick, not supposed to…

              “Uuuugh,” he moaned, wobbling to his feet.  There was somewhere…there was somewhere he could go, that would help him.  Somewhere…

              “Hon, are you alright?”

              A woman was talking to him.  No, no she should not talk to him.  It was bad, for her to be near him.

              “Sick,” he said, trying to warn her.

              “Oh, you poor dear!  Do you want a ride to the hospital?  Or I could call an ambulance?”

              He wasn’t sure what she was saying, but he knew it wouldn’t help.  He didn’t need that.  He needed to get back…back to…the place, with the green…green…

              He stumbled forward, and she reached her arm out towards him.  The urge to scratch at her was powerful.  He resisted it with everything he had.  He stumbled away from her, hurrying down the street.  She tried to grab at him, but her arm went right through him.  That was right!  That was right, he could do that, he could…

              Her screaming barely registered in his ears.  He had to get there.  To get.  To the place.  With the green…

              More people tried to stop him.  They couldn’t touch him.  Their hands went right through him.  This was good!  This was good, because he wanted to scratch them.  Wanted to scratch, wanted to bite.  His teeth drooled, drooled with desire to bite.  Bite, bite, eat, eat scratch.  Hungry.  So hungry.

              He smelled food.  Walked towards it.  Walked through fence.  People standing around, walked through them, people screaming.  Food on the fire.  Food in mouth.  Food hot, food good.  Danny less hungry.

              Danny need to get.  To place.  Need to find.

              More screaming.

              Danny look.

              Enemy.

              Danny hide.

              “Get off me, you ungrateful idiots!” enemy yell.  Bad enemy.  Enemy scratch, enemy bite.  People hurt, bleeding.  People run.  People scared.

              Danny scared.

              Danny hide.

              Enemy run away.

              Danny hide.

              Danny wait until night.

              Danny sleep.

              Danny wake up.

              Sunrise.

              Hungry.

              So hungry.

              Danny look food.

              People running, people screaming.  People hit other people.  Blood.  Noise, many noise.  People try hit Danny.  Thing go through Danny.  Nothing touch Danny. 

              Hungry.

              Walk into house.  People scream.  Danny eat.  Danny leave.

              More sleep.

              More wake.

              More eat.

              Less screaming.

              People quiet now.

              People only make soft noises.  People walk with Danny in street.  People not think anymore, not think.

              Hungry.

              Eat.  Food yucky.  Old. 

              Danny walk with other people.  Other people walk with Danny.  Walk walk walk walk, more walk.

              “Get away from me, you fuckers!”

              Talking man.  Long time since talking.  Long, long time.

              Talking man kill other people.

              Danger.

              Run.

              “The hell?” talking man say.  “Since when do zombies run?”

              Run run run hide hide hide.

              Talking man find!

              “Nnnnngh!”  Talking man grab.  Kick.  Run.  No scratch.

              No scratch.  Important no scratch!

              Hide.

              Sleep.

              Wake up…in soft.  In…soft, blankets?

              Open eyes.  See man.

              “Hey, I’m not gonna hurt you,” man say.  “Will you stop running away?  I’ve seen you eating regular food.  I know you’re different.  Let me help you.”

              Man give food.

              Hungry.

              Take food.

              Food not old.  Food good.

              “Mmmaah.”

              “You’re welcome.  My name is Tim.”

              Tim.

              Tim.

              Name Tim name Tim name Tim name…Danny.

              Am Danny.

              Danny like Tim.

              * * *

              Watching Danny feed had been fascinating.  Tim had expected him to open the top, or to need to figure out a way to use the output pipe, but he did neither.

              Instead he flew up beside the tank, lifted his hand, and just phased it through the glass.  Like it wasn’t there.

              The second he touched it, his eyes became full green, whites and all, and glowed so brightly Tim had to look away.  His whole body glowed, from head to tail, and Tim could see him getting stronger.  Earlier Tim had been able to sort of see through Danny, noticing the shapes of objects that were behind him.  After he fed, that effect went away.  Now, he was solid as anything.

              When Danny had pulled his hand away from the tank, he gave a long, deep sigh, the kind of sound someone makes after a heavy, satisfying meal.  He opened his eyes and they were “normal” again, still glowing green, but just the irises.

              “See? I barely took any,” Danny said, gesturing at the level.  “We’ll need the rest of this to get Vlad’s portal working again.”

              “Vlad?  Portal?” Tim had asked.

              And so Danny had started to explain.

              Tim sat, completely engrossed in everything Danny was telling him.  About being a halfa.  Lab accident.  Dying.  Ghost portals.  Ghost zone, protecting his hometown (and the world!) from escaped ghosts.  Hiding from his parents for most of high school.  Gingerly coming out to them, and developing a new relationship with them as they accepted him.

              And then about his arch enemy.  Another halfa, named Vlad Masters/Plasmius.  His insane (and creepy) obsession with having Danny for his son.  Which led to him attempting, and failing, to clone him.  Which created Danielle.  Whom he tried to alter again, with a virus.

              A virus that affected both ghosts and humans.

              A virus either made of, or made with, ectoplasm.

              Ectoplasm, the substance of all things ghost, including ghosts themselves.

              Which was the green glowing liquid in the tank.

              Tim rested his head in his hands, his mind swirling with all the new information it had just been given, while he fought the urge to let his eyes close.

              He was exhausted.  He’d been exhausted after building the chimney-guard.  Then he and Danny had made love.  Then Danny had transformed, and he’d gotten a rush of energy from that- but now it was fading.

              Now, he was barely able to stay awake, his eyes closing as he fell asleep in the chair.

              He was…in Danny’s arms.  Being floated over to their bed.  Danny went to set him down on it, and stopped.

              “What’s wrong?” Tim mumbled.

              “This bed is gross,” Danny said.  “It looks like a dead corpse has been sleeping in it.”

              Tim snorted a laugh.

              “Well it’s the dead of night in a winter snowstorm, so it’s not like there’s anything we can do about it now,” Tim said.

              Danny set Tim down gently on the floor beside it, and pressed a kiss to his forehead.

              Kisses, Tim thought, sighing into his faintly electric lips.  All the kisses we want, now.

              “Tim, my powers are gonna blow your mind,” Danny said.  “We’re gonna have to get used to a whole new way of thinking.  None of the problems you just listed are issues for me.  I’m gonna go find a mattress store and be back in a couple minutes.”

              He pressed a soft, sweet kiss to Tim’s lips, and then… flew up through the ceiling. 

              In a blink, he was gone.

              Suddenly, Tim felt very, very cold.

              Gone.  Alone.

              Tim hadn’t been alone since…well, since before he’d found Danny.  And now in a blink, he was.

              He stared out into their bunker and it was far too quiet.  He was grateful for the crackling fire at least, and he stared into the soothing flames from across the room, trying to process all the things Danny had told him.

              He had powers now.

              A slew of them.

              They could use those to supply the bunker for months.  Get food from…anywhere! Raid grocery stores across the world…

              And then he realized he was thinking way way way too small.  A consequence of being stuck here for months and months on end.

              They didn’t even need to sleep here.

              They could go anywhere. 

              They could go see Dick.  Help him in Bludhaven.  Get him the supplies he needed.  He could go check on Damian.  He could see the state of the cave, help him fortify it, strengthen Gotham.

              He could go home.

              It was too much.

              It was way way way too much, and he didn’t want any of that right now.

              Right now all he wanted was to go to bed, with Danny, in their bed.

              He glanced over at the squished couch cushions they’d been sleeping on and frowned.  It really was disgusting.  It was stained beyond hope.  He still thought of it as blue in his mind, but really, every inch of it was brown.  Some if it was black.  He probably couldn’t even tell what it really smelled like.  To him, it smelled like home.

              Danny came back through the ceiling, and Tim’s heart sighed with relief.  Above his head, hovering in a ball of glowing green, Danny had a brand-new mattress, and a package of unopened sheets and a comforter set.  Literally all brand-new.  It would have taken Tim days to find something like that, find a cart, haul it through the snow, and even covered in plastic it would still have been half wet and covered in mud by the time he’d gotten it home.

              Danny grinned, setting it down on the floor beside their old bed.  Tim could see the happiness on his face, as he took his turn to take care of them.  To provide for them.

              Tim leapt up from the floor and threw his arms around Danny as hard as he could.  Danny held him in return, and then Tim sobbed into his chest, all of it so incredibly overwhelming he could barely keep himself standing.

              “Hey, hey, it’s okay,” Danny said softly.  His whole form rippled again, and Tim watched his gloves vanish.  He reached up with his bare hand to pet the back of Tim’s head, like he always did.

              “I missed you,” Tim said.  “I’ve never been without you before, I…I…and then you were just gone…”

              He pulled back and saw the guilt on Danny’s face.

              “I…I didn’t think,” Danny said, quietly, biting his lower lip.  “I… should have taken you with me,” he added, his eyebrows knitting together in apology.  “I didn’t think.  I’m sorry.  I’m…I’m so used to being a ghost, but… you’re not.”

              “Don’t leave me…”

              Danny put a finger under Tim’s chin, in that same way he always did, and gazed at him with his green eyes.

              “I will never leave without talking it over with you first, ever again.”

              Tim sobbed into his chest again, but he nodded, clutching at the black fabric of Danny’s jumpsuit.

              Tim pulled back and wiped his eyes.

              “I’m beyond exhausted,” he said.  “Lets…lets…”

              He stared at the new bed and frowned.  He stared at the old bed, and oh, how badly he just wanted to sink back into it, in Danny’s arms, the way they always did.

              “I’m not ready for that,” he said, pointing at the new mattress.

              He felt Danny’s bare hand brush along his cheek, and he looked up into his eyes.

              “Can we…can you…God, that bed is so gross, I can see why you don’t want to touch it,” Tim said.

              Danny gave him a lopsided smile.

              “It doesn’t bother me,” he said.  “I’m dead.”

              Tim’s heart still lurched at hearing Danny say that phrase so casually.  God, this was going to take some getting used to.

              “I can’t get sick, physical objects can’t hurt me, they don’t even affect me unless I want them to.  My senses are different, too.  Like if I were in my human form?  That bed would probably smell nasty.  But to my ghost nose?  It just smells like non-ectoplasm.”

              Tim’s head was spinning.  He felt…dizzy.  He couldn’t absorb all of this.

              He needed to sleep.

              He realized his eyes had drooped closed again when Danny was carrying him, to their bed, the same one that they’d always shared.  Then Danny was gently laying Tim down in it, crawling in beside him.  He curled his body into Tim in the same way he always did, with their foreheads pressed together and his arms draped across Tim’s waist, holding him close.

              A green light surrounded their stained, rotting blanket, and pulled it up over them both, while Tim snuggled against Danny’s body, and he sighed.

              “It’s hard enough that you are different, I couldn’t…deal with….”

              He felt Danny’s bare fingers comb through his hair, and he sighed with comfort. Finally.  Finally, Danny could touch him without fear of infecting him, and he was doing it as much as possible, touching Tim without his white gloves on, stroking his face, combing his hair, kissing him.

              He kissed him now; his soft, electric lips pressing to his forehead, his cheeks, his nose.  Tim’s body had had enough and his mind was exhausted besides.  He was a tumult of mixed emotions, trying to make sense of it all.  He was overjoyed that Danny was whole.  That he could talk and think and have a personality again.  That he could kiss Tim and touch him without fear of infecting him.  But he was also new and strange and different, not to mention all the information Tim had just learned regarding the origin of the virus.  With his head and heart both swirling with too much, it wasn’t long at all before he was asleep, curled against the chest of his zombie.

              Or rather, his ghost.

              * * *

              Tim opened his eyes in his normal bed, in his normal bunker, to the normal chilly air as the fire was down to cinders.  And for just a moment, everything felt the same.  He squeezed his arms tight around Danny’s waist, and felt him squeeze back.  There was a chill to his skin, so it was going to be a mediocre day.  Tim would have to make sure he had light activities so he wouldn’t deteriorate too badly...

              And then he remembered.

              His heart raced as he opened his eyes, hoping it wasn’t all just a dream.  Hoping that Danny really was free.

              He saw brilliant green irises staring back at him. 

              And Danny’s precious face as he smiled.

              “Good morning, beautiful,” Danny said.

              Tim couldn’t help but smile in return, despite the tumult of emotions roiling through him.  Danny lifted an ungloved hand and brushed it through Tim’s hair.  He closed his eyes and sighed at the feeling, at Danny finally being able to touch him with his hands. 

              He felt a kiss press to his forehead.

              “Why don’t you stay under the covers while I get the fire going and make some breakfast?”

              Tim nodded, in a daze as Danny floated up through the blankets, keeping all the warmth sealed in with Tim as he left and tended the fire.

              Tim rolled over to watch him, learning how his new body moved, memorizing his new motions and habits.  A ghost fighter.  A vigilante.  Tim had been right, and it was incredible and beautiful to finally see the full personality that had been hidden by the zombie decay.

              Danny hummed to himself as he floated over to the kitchen and started breakfast.  He put on the kettle and set out two mugs.  He glanced through their stores and frowned.

              “Baby, do you mind if I go and get us some more instant coffee?  There’s barely any.”

              Tim couldn’t help it, he laughed.

              The way Danny said it made it sound so normal- like society was back and he was running to the corner store.

              “I’ve been…I’ve been saving the last of it.  For something really special.  I didn’t…I didn’t want to actually run out.”

              He saw the pain on Danny’s face.

              “Well, there’s plenty to be had now,” Danny said, as if resupplying their coffee stores would solve everything and save the whole world.

              It honestly felt like it would.

              “If you don’t want me leaving, that’s fi…”

              “You can go,” Tim said.  “I’m not…ready to go with you, just yet?  But yeah, I’d love having coffee every day.”

              Danny flew over to Tim so fast he almost missed it, and planted a sweet kiss to his forehead.

              “I’ll pick up a bunch of other stuff too.  But I won’t be long.  You just…lay there and look sexy.”

              Tim blushed and looked down at his hands, and then in a blink, Danny was gone.

              He stared at the nasty, disgusting bed he was in, and then turned to look at the new one Danny had gotten.  Of course they should sleep in that!  What had he been thinking last night?

              He got up, the fire warming the bunker air now, and started carrying the old, rotten cushions towards the stairs.  The things were a hotbed for disease, and frankly it was a miracle he hadn’t gotten sick sleeping on them.  He opened the bunker doors only to get blasted in the face with cold air.  Thankfully, it wasn’t actively snowing.  He didn’t carry the cushions far; they really only needed them out.  He could take care of moving the pile further in the spring.

              After he dropped off the last one, he glanced out into the snow-covered world, and saw a green light in the gray sky, speeding towards him as it grew larger.  He realized that was Danny, racing towards him from incredibly far away; much farther than Tim had ever walked in that direction.  As he grew closer, Tim saw a green ball of energy floating above him, filled with a dozen different items, some of which were instant coffee.

              Tim laughed as he saw how easy it was for Danny to get supplies for them.  He wasn’t going to have to drag himself on three-hour walks to grocery stores anymore, hoping to raid what he hadn’t already.  He was never going to have to drag groceries again!  They could have all the supplies they needed, anytime they wanted, easily.

              “Why are you standing out here?” Danny said, “It’s freezing out here!”

              “I wanted to get rid of the old bed,” Tim said, pointing.  Danny turned to him with a grin.

              “Does this mean you accept my offer to sleep on a new mattress?”

              Tim laughed.  He’d always known Danny had a sense of humor, but he hadn’t guessed he was this much of a ham.

              “Yes, you dork,” he said.  “Now get inside, the kettle is whistling.”

              It turned out that Danny really liked pancakes, because he’d gotten three whole boxes of mix.  Tim happily made them while Danny mixed up the coffee, and Tim almost stopped him when he went to put dehydrated milk in the mugs- before he remembered that they could get more.

              “How far did you have to go to find a new grocery store?” Tim asked, taking a sip of his coffee with milk and sugar.

              Oh, today was a beautiful day.

              “Not too far.  Twenty miles?”

              Tim’s eyebrows shot up.

              “That’s ‘not too far’?”

              Danny shrugged.

              “I can fly around the world in five minutes flat.”

              Tim put his mug down slowly.  He stared into the coffee for a moment, and frowned.

              “Everything’s going to change,” Tim said, an unsettling feeling rising in his stomach.  “Everything…already has changed, hasn’t it?  When I was taking out the bed cushions, I was thinking about moving them further in the spring…but that’s old thinking, isn’t it?  We’re not gonna still be living here in the spring.”

              Danny put down his coffee and reached out his hand to clasp Tim’s, his white gloves vanishing as he did so.  Tim took it, closing his eyes at the comfort of his touch.  While his skin was cool and buzzed slightly, his grasp was the same, the same Danny’s grasp had always been.

              “Things are really, really different now,” Danny said.  “I’m not…I’m not ready for them to change yet, either.”

              Tim looked up at him with furrowed eyebrows.

              “I…I kinda…just found out that the whole world is destroyed,” Danny said.  “What I saw, on my flight…it’s gone.  It’s all gone, Tim.”

              Tim bit his lower lip and gave Danny’s hand a tight squeeze.

              “I…I sort of knew that, as a zombie.  I mean I saw the world destroyed, or at least, our little part of it.  I saw all the other zombies.  I witnessed the destruction around me.  But I didn’t really grasp it.  But now, now…I’m worried about my family.  I…I could go there, right now.  Fly home, right now, and find out.  But I’m…I’m afraid to.”

              Tim got up and pulled Danny into his arms.  Danny squeezed him back, really, really tightly, and for a long moment, neither of them spoke.  Neither of them moved.

              Then they pulled back and rested their foreheads together.  Just like they’d done a thousand times.

              “Right now, being here, with you?  It’s home,” Danny said.  “It’s home, and I’m afraid to leave it.”

              “I am too,” Tim said softly, closing his eyes.  It was terrifying to think about what they would find when they left.  Yes, he knew Dick was okay.  And he had a feeling Damian was alright.  He was a Bat, after all, with the full resources of the Cave behind him.

              But then…there was everyone else.  Everyone who he didn’t know about.  Alfred, Jason, Cass, Duke, Babs, Steph.  Bruce.

              He wasn’t ready to face it.  He wasn’t ready to find out.

              “We literally could go anywhere,” Danny said.  “Do anything.  Fly to every city in the world looking for survivors.  Fly to your home.  Go find your brother Dick.  And if you want to do that, I will take you there.  I’ll take you anywhere you want.  I just…I just…”

              “I get it,” Tim said, bringing his palm up to cup Danny’s cheek, running his thumb across his lower lip.  “I get it.  We can wait.  Maybe just one more day, maybe a couple, but…we can wait.  Last night I couldn’t even handle a new mattress.”

              Danny gave a soft laugh.

              “Yeah.”

              Tim pressed a soft kiss to Danny’s lips, and gasped in shock when he opened them to kiss back.

              “Oh, right,” Tim said with a nervous laugh. “That’s fine now.”

              Danny snorted.

              “Yeah, we need time to adjust to this new situation.”

              “Definitely.”

              Danny looked into Tim’s eyes with his blazing green irises, and slowly, cautiously, leaned back in for another kiss.  Tim’s heart sped up, as if this was somehow their first kiss, and the touch of Danny’s open lips against his left him gasping.  Danny closed his lips around his then, sliding them together, making a blush rise to Tim’s cheek as they had a normal kiss.  It was soft, it was tender, it was special.

              When Danny pulled away, Tim was swooning.

              “Wow,” Danny said.

              “Yeah,” Tim replied, a deep pink blush in his cheeks.  Danny actually looked shy for a moment, his eyes daring around the room.  But then his vision landed on the portal.

              “One thing we do need to work on though, and I mean like, top priority, is to get Vlad’s portal working,” Danny said.  “To stay in ghost form, I’m gonna need ectoplasm.  There’s enough ambient ectoplasm in the world to sustain me when I’m in human form, but in ghost form, I need more than that.  And like you said, we need what’s in that tank to power the equipment.  And we need that equipment, Tim.  Like yeah, we can leave this lab to go anywhere we want, we can even sleep somewhere else, but we’re gonna have to keep coming back here, because it’s our only hope of creating a cure.”

              A cure.

              A cure.

              With everything going on, Tim had completely forgotten about that.  He looked up into Danny’s green eyes, and realized that he missed his blue ones.

              He wanted to see them again.

              He wanted to see them healthy.

              “Let’s get that portal fixed,” Tim agreed.

              * * *

              They worked on the portal all day.  First, all its circuits were fried.  Tim knew now how that had happened- from the ecto-blast Plasmius had shot at it, trying to prevent Danny from flying through.  So the first thing they had to do was remove all the burnt and melted parts.  Wires were easy enough to replace but…

              “Uuuuugh,” Tim said, groaning.  “We need to find an electronics store.  I don’t know where we’re going to get…”

              “Just make a list,” Danny said, his tongue sticking out as he carefully loosened a tiny screw.  It was something else seeing him manipulate a tiny screwdriver and pliers with white-gloved hands, when only a few days ago, he’d struggled with things like belt buckles and zippers.  Tim’s heart melted with affection; it was incredible seeing Danny healthy.  It was everything they’d dreamed of.

              But there was also a sadness that he couldn’t shake.

              Danny didn’t need him anymore.  Not to feed him, not to clothe him or protect him or help him with anything.

              So once they repaired the portal, there was no more reason for him to stay.

              What the hell did he need Tim for, once this was done?

              Tim’s heart was roiling with conflicted emotions.  He looked over at Danny and felt it tug with delight at seeing him.  Oh, how madly in love he was with that face, even if it glowed strangely now, even if his hair was white and his skin was whole.

              But he had no reason for Tim anymore.  As soon as they finished this portal, he would fly inside, find that Frostbite ghost, get cured, and never need Tim again.  Sure, Danny was a good person, so he would share that cure with the world.  And then he’d go back home.  To his own family.

              He certainly wasn’t going to continue living in an underground bunker with Tim Drake.

              “What’s on your mind, baby?” Danny said, his eyebrows furrowing together.  Tim opened his mouth to answer, then frowned, then closed it.

              Baby.

              Danny kept calling him that.  Had called him that all last night, all this morning.

              But how could Danny possibly love him?  How much of his mind had he even had, for most of their relationship?  Did they even have a relationship?   Did he even remember…

              When Tim didn’t reply, Danny’s face grew even more worried, and he put his tools down.  He leaned forward, reaching out with his gloved hand to cup Tim’s cheek.  Tim jerked away.

              Danny gave a small smile and a little laugh.

              “My nails are fine now, remember?” Danny said, floating closer.  “What has gotten you so worked up, all of a sudden?”

              Tim worked his lips to try to loosen them.  He had to explain.  He had to try to explain.  But all of his thoughts swirled in his head and blocked off any hope of eloquent speech.  Instead, he blurted out,

              “I’m still your baby?”

              “What?” Danny asked, his voice incredibly soft.  He turned to look at Tim straight on and lowered his green eyes to gaze at him. “Of course you are.  What on Earth made you ask that?”

              Tim stared back, back into green eyes that were strange and yet not.  He missed his blue eyes; hell, he missed his milky ones.  He missed knowing who he was looking at.  He missed knowing where he stood.  Everything was changing so much so quickly!

              “Baby please talk to me,” Danny said, his face becoming even more worried.  It was the worry in his voice that got to Tim.  His voice sounded exactly the same.

              “You keep calling me ‘baby’, but how can you?  Do you…do you even remember most of our time together?” Tim asked.  “Your brain was always…rotting, and re-forming, and rotting again.  I watched you delete knowledge; you’d understand how to work the water valve one day, and then not know it the next.  You’d learn the code to the door and then forget it again hours later.  Or remember it for a week!  And then act like you’d never seen a keypad in your life.  All those moments we spent together…”

              Danny took both of Tim’s hands between his, and Tim felt the white material of his gloves.  It was strange.  He was used to rotten flesh.  He stared down at them and blurted that out, too.

              “You feel different.  You look different.  You…”

              Danny flickered, like the shadows under a dying light bulb, and then the gloves were gone.  Tim felt his bare hands holding him, but they were cool to the touch, and buzzed slightly, and were not the hands of his zombie.

              “I know I look different.  I know I feel different,” Danny said, his voice gentle.  “But I’m still me, Tim.  I’m still your Danny, with whom you have spent months and months falling in love with.  Living with, protecting, taking care of.  And I remember.  Every.  Minute.”

              Tim raised his eyes to gaze into violent green, and he couldn’t believe it.

              “Didn’t I just tell you yesterday about how we met?” Danny said softly, and Tim’s heart lurched as he realized that he had.

              “Do you think I don’t remember constantly running away?  I didn’t understand why you were killing the people around me.  I didn’t know what zombies were.  I didn’t understand they were dangerous to you.  So I was scared.  But you noticed that I was different.  You noticed that I was still in there.  And then you did something wild.  You cared.”

              Tim’s breath stopped as a lump formed in his throat.

              “And then you took me home.  Fed me good food, better than the rotten shit I was eating.  Kept me safe.  Found me blankets.  Found me books to read.  Gave me space things,” Danny said, turning to look at his corner, which Tim supposed looked horrifically childish now.  Full of astronaut toys and glow-in-the-dark stickers, it was hardly…

              “It’s beyond precious to me,” Danny whispered.  “How deeply you care about me, Tim.”

              Care, not cared.  As if nothing had changed between them at all.

              “You…you don’t find it…infantilizing?  I took care of you like a child…”

              Danny laughed so loud it echoed.

              “Oh yeah, taking me on romantic walks under the stars and fucking my organs raw in your bed was ‘infantilizing’,” he said.  “Tim, I remember every minute we spent together, do you?”

              “But how?” Tim asked, his cheeks flushed red now after Danny mentioned the insane things they had done together while making love.  “Your brain literally rotted away!  The cells that held the memories you made are gone!  Even if your brain grew back later, the new cells wouldn’t…”

              Danny put his bare finger under Tim’s chin, in exactly the same way he always did.

              “My core remembers,” Danny said, his green eyes piercing into Tim’s soul.  “My core is about emotion, Tim.  I didn’t have any emotions about the damned water valve.  It wasn’t going to remember that.  I had emotions about you.”

              Tim trembled as Danny’s finger held up his chin, just like it always had.

              “Yes, some days my mind was as stupid as a toddler.  Some days it was even worse.  And when it was worse, on days when I was blind, and could hear nothing, and see nothing, you were still there.  You held me and touched me and told me I was safe, and my core heard you.  Believed you.  Came back from the edge of oblivion for you,” Danny said, his voice soft, his face so close.  Tim’s heart was cracking with every breath he took, not believing that the Danny he’d taken care of for all those months, his Danny, was still here, inside this new Danny, and that he somehow, incredibly, still loved him.

              “But you don’t need me anymore…”

              Danny lifted his finger and pressed it across Tim’s lips to shush him.

              Just like he always did.

              Tears pricked at the corners of Tim’s eyes.  It was him.

              “I don’t need help with food or getting dressed or survival anymore, true.  Frankly, now, neither do you.  I can handle all of that shit for us now.”

              Tim’s mind couldn’t even try to process that, so it didn’t.

              “But I need you more than ever,” Danny said, his voice growing softer.  “I’m just now starting to realize the gravity of what’s happened.  In my zombie form, my mind didn’t really process it.  So I’m just starting to think about the world, and the state it’s in, and humanity in general, and worrying about my family…”

              Tim saw the pain on Danny’s face, and he hated it.  Danny shouldn’t feel pain, he should never feel pain…

              And then it got worse.  Danny’s frown deepened so far it looked like it hurt.

              “Did you only love me because I needed you?” he asked, his voice barely more than a whisper.

              Tim’s heart cracked into a thousand pieces.  His eyes grew wide as he realized how what he’d been saying could leave that impression.

              “No!” he said, immediately.  “No, no, I’m so happy you’re healed!  I’m over the moon that you’re you again!  That your mind is all there.  That you can think and talk and be human again.”

              Tim reached out a hand and placed it on Danny’s chest, tracing his fingers over the outline of the white “D”.  Learning it.  Feeling it.  Trying to take in his new form.

              “You being free from zombie hell is everything.  It’s everything.  I just…I just…didn’t know if…what we had before, you know, counted.”

              Then he felt Danny’s palm on his face, and lifted his eyes to look at him.

              “I remember every minute, baby,” Danny whispered.  “And I treasure all of them.  I remember…I remember wanting to kiss you.  So, so badly, and you being afraid of my teeth.  So I pulled them out.  Just so I could do this,” he said, leaning down to press his lips to Tim’s.  His heart lurched in his chest as he felt warmth spread through his very soul.

              “I remember when that chimney fell on you, and I ate zombie brains to keep them away from you.  Gross, by the way,”

              Tim gave a little giggle.  His brow furrowed a little less.

              “I remember hauling all those goddamn bricks.  Carrying that fucking chimney.  All the hours and hours of work you put in to make this bunker safe for us.  I remember wanting to help, dying to help, and being so frustrated that I couldn’t.  I remember feeling absolutely gleeful on the days when I could.  I remember you planting the vegetable garden.  I remember you giving me the last of the pretzels, not getting any yourself.  I remember the day it rained.”

              Danny looked down at Tim with half-lidded eyes now, and Tim gave a deep blush.

              “Saw you naked lots of times before that,” Danny said.  “But on that day, I noticed.”

              Tim’s blush deepened, and Danny brought his face closer, pressing another sweet, wet, open-mouthed kiss to Tim’s lips.  Tim’s heart beat faster, and he leaned into Danny’s touch.  Danny didn’t pull his lips away when he spoke next.

              “I remember our first kiss,” Danny said, his voice low and thick.  “After the chimney fell.  And I carried you home.  And laid you in your bed.  I’d been so terrified, thinking that you were going to die, thinking that you wouldn’t recover from your head injury.  Thinking that I couldn’t speak, I couldn’t tell you how much you meant to me, that the only way I had to show you…”

              Danny kissed Tim again.  His lips were slow and sensual, gliding over Tim’s in no hurry, taking his time.  Tim sighed up into it, his heart racing faster.  Even Danny’s kiss was different; all open lips and warm tongue with the barest brush of teeth.  But his intent was the same.  His desire for Tim went just as deep as it always had.

              Tim’s heart was starting to fall for him all over again.

              Danny took the screw driver out of Tim’s hand and set it down on the workbench.

              “We need to work on the portal…” Tim said.

              “You need to understand how much I love you,” Danny said, and Tim’s heart ached at hearing those words.  Danny led them towards their bed- which was gone, thanks to him.  Danny paused and reached out his hand that wasn’t clasping Tim’s.  Bright green light flowed from his fingertips and wrapped around the new mattress, moving it down to lay on the floor on top of where their old bed had been. Then Danny pulled Tim towards it, crawling on top of it, gently tugging Tim’s hand to lay beside him.

              “Shouldn’t we like, put sheets on it, or something…”

              “Who cares,” Danny said, his eyes half-lidded as he brushed his fingers in Tim’s hair.  “Wreck it all we want.  I’ll just get another one.”

              Tim gave a short laugh, and looked into those green eyes, that were becoming a little more familiar now.

              “You really don’t need anything, do you?” Tim said, as Danny lay on his back and pulled Tim on top of him, making Tim’s pulse quicken.

              “I don’t need to worry about food or water or clothes or mattresses, no.  And neither do you.  I can handle all that stuff for us now,” Danny said, tracing his fingers along Tim’s cheek, just like he’d always done before.

              “I don’t need things,” Danny said.  “I need you.”

              His next kiss was even slower and sweeter than the others.  He let their mouths slide together, and then gently licked his tongue across Tim’s bottom lip, making Tim suck in air.  Danny kissed him again, then again, Tim’s blood warming as it spread to his cheeks in a deep blush.

              “Let me show you that I’m still me,” Danny said softly.  “Let me show you that we are still us.  Tim, Tim, I love you so much…”

              Tim melted from his next kiss as he pulled Tim’s head down so their lips could meet.  Tim groaned, and pushed their lips together harder, pressing Danny’s head into the new mattress as Danny tangled his bare fingers in Tim’s hair.

              “Why.  Why would you love me?” Tim interrupted.  “I have nothing to offer you now.  You’re incredible.  Immortal.  Practically invincible.”

              Danny grabbed the sides of Tim’s face and forced him to look at him.

              “Because you loved me when I wasn’t,” he said, his eyes so intense Tim felt like he was going to drown in them.  “You loved me when I was sick.  When I was rotten.  When I couldn’t even speak.  When I was a danger to you.  No one else would have done that.  Your love saved me, Tim.  I was in the worst state imaginable, and you loved me out of it.  Your love is the most precious thing on the planet.”  Danny’s eyes pierced into Tim’s soul, and Tim could see how deeply he meant that.  Danny brushed his thumb gently across Tim’s cheeks, and spoke in a soft voice, barely above a whisper.

              “Danny love Tim.”

              The tears at the corners of Tim’s eyes spilled over, and his heart bloomed with such powerful affection that it hurt.  Tim pressed kiss after kiss after kiss to Danny’s lips, his heart shining with love so much it ached.  He kissed him and kissed him and kissed him, now and then a sob escaping his chest, and when that happened Danny would only hold him tighter.  He saw Danny’s eyes grow misty, and he lifted a thumb up to brush the tears away before they could fall.

              “Tim love Danny,” Tim whispered. 

              Danny’s tears fell anyway, and Tim kissed them, softly, gently, surprised that they didn’t taste like salt.  They tasted electric, just like the rest of him- because all of him would taste exactly the same.

              If Tim could grow to love the taste of rotten flesh, then he would grow to love the taste of this.

              “I loved you in a zombie body, and I’ll love you in a ghost body, and I hope, one day, to get to love you in a human body,” Tim whispered, pressing kisses down Danny’s neck, and then over the fabric of his jumpsuit, and down his chest.  “I already promised you that it is your heart that I love.  That I would love you no matter how much mind you had, or didn’t have, and I meant it.  Tim Drake doesn’t say things he doesn’t mean.”

              “I know,” Danny whispered, his voice breathy as Tim ran his tongue across his clothed chest and back up to his neck.  “Why do you think I fell for you?”

              Tim’s heart lurched again as he nipped at Danny’s jumpsuit where it covered his neck.  And then Danny rippled, his whole form fluctuating like waves, and then his jumpsuit was gone. 

              Tim’s blood grew warm as he pressed kisses down Danny’s newly bared neck, hearing his soft, gentle moans as Tim sucked on his skin.  It was whole and it was strong and his heart sang at seeing Danny so healthy.  He pulled it into his mouth, tasting the electric ozone flavor, feeling his skin roll between his teeth.  He sucked hard, wanting to see if he could leave a hicky, and Danny gave a sharp gasp.

              “You like that?” Tim teased, doing it again, his heart racing faster as arousal started to creep in, overriding his tears.  He nipped at Danny’s skin and felt his naked cock beneath him twitch and start to grow.

              “Oh, you do like that,” Tim said, moving his mouth slightly to the side, and then doing it again, running teasing little nips down Danny’s neck.  Danny’s fingers tightened roughly in Tim’s shirt, and Tim grinned into Danny’s skin as he sucked again, hard.

              “Mmmmph,” Danny said, and then Tim felt his shirt disappear.

              His eyes grew wide and he pushed himself up on his arms, looking down at his bare chest, and at the shirt in Danny’s hands, re-phasing back into reality as he dropped it to the floor.  Danny gave him a wide, impish grin, and then slowly slid his hands down Tim’s sides, tickling him as he dragged his fingers closer to the top of his pants.

              “Ghost powers aren’t just useful for fighting, you know,” he said, hooking his fingers in Tim’s waistband, and then phasing Tim’s pants away.

              He felt the chilly air on his ass and the back of his legs, and the strange coolness of Danny’s skin against his cock, already half-hard as it pressed against his pelvis.  One second he was dressed, and now his legs were naked and lying against Danny’s bare thighs.

              Tim’s eyes flew up to Danny’s face as he dropped his pants on top of his shirt and waggled his eyebrows.

              “You’re a dork, do you know that?” Tim teased.

              “So you’ve said.”

              “Gonna wipe that smile right off your face,” Tim said, laying their naked bodies together as he rested his chest on top of Danny’s, and went right back to giving him hickies.

              The way Danny gasped when Tim sucked his flesh into his mouth was exquisite.  The way his fingers tightened against Tim’s bare back was delicious.  A spike of fear rushed through Tim as Danny pressed his nails against his skin, and then he relaxed, remembering that that was okay now.

              Tim pulled back and saw three beautiful, dark green hickies forming on Danny’s neck, and then dove in for a fourth one.  He sucked hard, and Danny inhaled sharply, his fingers curling against Tim’s back, his nails nearly scraping the skin.  Danny’s dick twitched against his leg, and Tim sucked harder, rolling Danny’s skin through his teeth, nipping at it.

              [1START XXX]

              If this had been yesterday, Tim would have sank his teeth into Danny’s rotten flesh and torn it away to lap at his exposed wound beneath.  But Danny wasn’t a zombie anymore.  He would no longer want that… and Tim was surprised at how disappointed he felt.  Apparently, he’d grown to like biting Danny’s flesh off.  Well, of course he had.  That was the way they’d expressed their love, before now…

              “Tim please,” Danny begged, his voice trembling with desperation.

              Tim lifted his head to look into Danny’s face.  It was flushed bright green, going all the way up to his ears, his eyes half-lidded, his lips parted as he panted.

              “What do you need, baby?” Tim whispered.

              “Stop taunting and bite me!” Danny said.

              Tim’s heart raced faster.  He felt it pounding as it pressed directly against Danny’s bare chest.

              “What?” Tim said softly.

              “You’re driving me crazy and I can’t take it anymore.  Usually by now you’ve bitten me at least twice…”

              “You still…want that?”

              Danny’s fingers curled against his back again, his nails digging into his skin.

              “Why wouldn’t I?”

              Tim tilted his head to the side, trying to understand.

              “You’re…you’re not a zombie anymore?”

              “So?”

              “So…isn’t that why you…liked it?” Tim said.

              Danny let out a strained laugh, his fingers shaking as he pressed them into Tim’s back.

              “Is that what you thought?” he said, bringing a hand up to brush Tim’s hair out of his eyes.  “Baby, I don’t like being bitten because I’m a zombie,” he said.  “I like being bitten because I’m a ghost.”

              Tim’s eyes grew wide as understanding slowly dawned on him.  His pulse throbbed harder and he gave a thick swallow.

              “You…you still want…”

              “Desperately.”

              Tim licked his lips as arousal crept up through his blood, making his blush darken.  He thought back to all the different ways he’d been inside Danny’s body, none of them normal, all of them extremely intimate, and how he wanted to do those things again.

              “What about…all the other stuff…that I’ve done…to you…”

              Danny’s eyes flashed bright green for a second, before fading back to their usual glow.

              “Yes,” he said, his voice a low, desperate growl.

              Tim’s blood grew hot.  He licked his lips as he actually started to drool. 

              “Oh god I want that,” he said.

              “Yes, yes, yes,” Danny said, curling his fingers against Tim’s back again, his nails pressing hard into Tim’s skin as Danny desperately tried not to scratch him.

              Tim’s eyes slid up to Danny’s as he understood.

              “You want to do it back to me.”

              The blush on Danny’s cheeks grew so bright Tim felt his eyes dilate.

              “So badly,” Danny whispered.  “Do you know how hard it’s been, my teeth, my nails, being a danger to you, when those are how ghosts express desire…”

              “Go for it,” Tim said.  Danny’s eyes snapped up to his.

              “What?” he whispered, his voice so soft Tim almost didn’t hear it.  He sounded like Tim was offering him the universe, and he didn’t quite believe it.

              “Scratch me.  Bite me.  Show me ghost love.”

              Danny’s kiss was fierce.  His hand moved to the back of Tim’s head and pulled it down roughly, crushing their lips together.  Danny’s tongue ran hard across his lips, and then he opened his mouth and Tim felt a prick on his lower lip.

              Fangs.

              Danny had grown fangs.

              Those were not there before.  He was sure of it.  Tim’s nostrils flared as he tried to take in a breath, his heart racing even harder.  He felt another prick, and he knew Danny was testing the waters.  Seeing if Tim meant it.

              Tim put both his palms on Danny’s face and pulled him closer.  He pushed his lower lip into Danny’s mouth, encouraging him.  He felt more pricks, and then a nip.  He tasted his own blood as it flowed over the edge into Danny’s mouth, and heard Danny groan.

              Danny ran his tongue along Tim’s lower lip, lapping up the drops.

              “More,” Tim breathed.

              He felt Danny’s cock grow as it pressed against his pelvis, and Tim moaned.  Yes.  This was right.

              Danny bit him again.  Still very gently, nothing more than little pricks, just enough to make him bleed.  Danny groaned helplessly as Tim’s blood flowed into his mouth, and Tim eagerly kissed him back, letting Danny taste him, drink him, have him.

              Tim dragged his bloody lip across Danny’s mouth, and then down his chin and across his jaw, leaving a trail of red.  He pressed his tongue to Danny’s neck as he licked his way down, tickling over the hickies he’d already left, and then started to make another one.

              He sucked on Danny’s skin and coaxed it into his mouth with his teeth.  Danny’s breath hitched and his fingers curled as they caressed down Tim’s back.  Tim slowly closed his teeth, teasing the threat of a bite.

              “Please…” Danny whispered, trembling.

              His heart racing, Tim closed his eyes and closed his teeth tighter, then tighter, until he felt the skin start to slice.

              “Oh,” Danny gasped, his back arching off the new mattress.  Tim tasted the electric, metallic flavor of ectoplasm as it flowed into his mouth, and he continued to bite. 

              “Oh!”, Danny said, his back arching hard¸ his nails digging down into Tim’s back.  Tim bit the skin all the way off, and was about to spit it out when it disappeared in his mouth, vanishing like it never was.

              He pressed his tongue flat to the wound and licked over it, just like he’d always done.

              “Mmmmgggh!” Danny cried.  His fingernails dug into Tim until they drew blood, and he raked them down Tim’s back.  The sting was delicious. 

              “Danny,” he breathed.  Tim was used to pain now; after months and months of living this harsh life, and to have a good reason to feel it was amazing.

              Tim sucked on Danny’s wound, glowing green flowing into his mouth in a river.  He swallowed some while some spilled back out and poured down over Danny’s neck, dripping down his shoulder.  Danny was shaking beneath him, his every muscle tensing as Tim licked over the bite wound he’d created.  Danny lifted his head to press his lips to Tim’s shoulder , his tongue licking over his bare skin, the sharp points of his fangs resting just on the surface.

              “You can,” Tim said, his voice barely audible as his tongue was occupied licking across Danny’s bite wound.  With Danny trembling beneath him, Tim felt the points of Danny’s fangs pierce his skin; teeth finally allowed to be intimate after having been denied for so long.  Sharp pain radiated down Tim’s nerves and he gasped.  Danny’s low, aroused groan drove Tim to close his lips around the bite wound and suck.  Every muscle in Danny’s body tensed, his fingers clasping at the scratches on his back, his erection growing harder against Tim’s thigh.

              Tim’s whole body was warm with lust now.  He couldn’t believe he’d ever thought things had changed; the idea that he’d lose Danny seemed preposterous now.  The person he’d known, and grown to love, was still right here with him.  Tim knew him like he always had.

              Which also meant he knew what he liked.

              He dragged his lips, dripping with blood and ectoplasm, up Danny’s neck to brush them against his ear.

              “Where should I bite you next, baby?” he whispered.

              “Ffffuck,” Danny replied, his fangs disengaging from Tim’s neck as his head fell back to the mattress.  Tim’s dick pulsed from the sound of Danny’s arousal, and from the feeling of blood dripping down his shoulder where Danny had bitten him.  He slid his lips down Danny’s skin, and then let his teeth scrape against it, earning him a hitch in Danny’s breath.  Danny’s nails trailed along Tim’s back as he moved, making the scratches he’d put there sting with pleasure.  He dragged his teeth across Danny’s chest, over his pecs, to just above his nipple.

              “Here?” Tim taunted, pressing his teeth hard enough into Danny’s pec to leave an indent, then pulling up.  Danny whimpered, and Tim’s blood grew searing hot.  He slid his lips down to Danny’s nipple and teased over it with his teeth, nibbling on it as he sucked it into his mouth.  Danny squirmed, his fingernails drawing blood as they scrabbled against Tim’s back.

              “Oh yeah,” Tim mumbled, and then sank his top teeth in, directly across the nub. 

              “Holy fuck!” Danny cried, and Tim’s entire body flushed deep red.  He didn’t want to bite his nipple off, because then it wouldn’t be as sensitive, so instead he let his top teeth puncture it and lapped over the wounds he made, sucking on them, tasting the little bit of ectoplasm as it oozed up into his mouth.

              Danny was panting hard, his nails scraping down Tim’s back as he rutted his cock up against Tim’s thigh.  Tim’s eyes were barely open as desire completely drowned him.  All his misgivings were long forgotten.  All his fears vanished like they never were.  The whole rest of the world, and all its problems, ceased to even matter.

              He was with Danny.

              “Mmmm…where else can I bite,” Tim said, letting his lips brush over Danny’s bleeding nipple as he spoke.  Danny squeaked with desperation.  Tim scraped his teeth lower, over Danny’s stomach, sliding his hands down Danny’s body as he went, feeling him with his fingers and his tongue.  His stomach sucked in in exactly the same way it always had; Danny’s fingers tangling roughly in Tim’s hair just as they always did.  Tim nosed over to the place on Danny’s side that he knew drove him wild, and sucked it into his mouth.

              “Mmmmmgrh!” Danny cried.

              “There it is,” Tim said, before diving in and biting without hesitation.

              He felt the piece of ectoplasmic flesh come off in his mouth and then dissipate into nothing.  Danny writhed under him, his feet kicking roughly against the mattress as his back arched and his fingernails scraped hard against Tim’s back.  Tim licked him mercilessly, lapping up the glowing green blood, breathing in the new smell, learning the new taste.

              Danny’s panting was thick and his cock was rock-hard.  Tim slid his hand up the inside of his thigh, causing him to squeak and jump.  He dragged his fingers over his balls, feeling how healthy they were.  He massaged them, making Danny groan, his writhing legs stilling as he grew more aroused.

              Tim slid his lips across Danny’s skin and up the side of his shaft, his tongue and lips leaving a wet trail of drool and ectoplasmic blood as he went.  He glanced up at Danny’s face and saw him gazing down from under eyelids that were barely open.  Tim locked his eyes on his before sucking on the tip of his dick, and then Danny’s eyes closed completely.

              Tim groaned as he took Danny’s cock in the way he knew he loved.  He felt the flushed head fill his mouth as he sealed his lips, and eagerly pressed his tongue against it.  He felt Danny’s precum slip down his throat, though it tasted exactly the same as his blood and his tears.  Danny’s cock swelled and he opened his jaw further, sinking his lips lower, taking Danny in deeper.

              Danny moaned, his fingers tightening in Tim’s hair as he lifted his hips up.  Tim’s pulse raced faster and his own dick grew harder as he thought about how good it was to feel Danny whole and strong beneath him.  Which meant he had all his parts, working and healthy.  Which meant Tim could fuck him.

              Tim closed his eyes as a wave of desire threatened to drown him at the thought.  He’d had his dick inside Danny in all kind of places, but never there.  His mouth was full, so to show his intent, Tim put his hands under Danny’s knees and pushed them up.

              Danny spread his legs like he’d been waiting for this for years.

              “Oh, Tim, yes,” he said, and Tim’s heart throbbed, even as he sank his mouth down to take Danny’s cock in deep.  He thought for a second about how they could make this work.  He let his drool slip down Danny’s shaft, leaving more and more of it, and hummed.

              He pulled off, though kept his lips pressed to Danny’s tip when he spoke.

              “Does ectoplasm work as well as blood?” he teased, nipping at the head of Danny’s cock, making it clear what he wanted.

              “Fuck fuck fuck fuck,” Danny said, and Tim smiled against his shaft as he licked his way down the underside.

              “I think you were more coherent as a zombie,” Tim taunted, and Danny gave a short laugh in between his panting.

              “Jerk,” he said.

              “You’re not answering my question.”

              “Don’t really need anything,” Danny said.  “I can shift my body however we…however we want unnnn!” he said, as Tim sucked his tip into his mouth again and licked across the head.  “But it would probably feel nicer to have something and yes ectoplasm would work perfectly for that…” Danny gave up trying to speak as Tim teased his crown with his lips.  He mouthed at it, lapping the precum off the tip, before popping it back out to speak.

              “So what if I got the ectoplasm from the same place we got the blood…”

              Danny’s cock pulsed in Tim’s hand, precum gushing out to drip down the side.

              “Oh, yes,” Tim said, before he opened his jaw and took Danny’s whole cock into his mouth, all the way to the root.  He moaned as he felt Danny tense beneath him, his fingers tightening in his hair with anticipation.

              Tim closed his teeth around the base, just a little, then a little more.  The tighter he made them, the harder Danny grabbed his hair.  He closed them further, until he felt Danny’s ghost skin start to shift beneath his teeth, and then he felt it slice.

              “Mmmmmmmmph!” Danny cried, his cock swelling beneath Tim’s teeth. Tim’s heart was hammering so hard it deafened him.  He slowly pulled his head up, his teeth slicing Danny’s skin as he went, the electric tang of ectoplasm flowing into his mouth as he gashed him open.  He let it all drip down, coating Danny’s shaft in bright green, the gouges shining bright as they emerged from his lips.

              Danny was panting so hard he couldn’t speak.  Tim slowly drew his teeth up further, slicing them up the underside and over the top of Danny’s shaft, until he reached the sensitive head.  It was already coated in green from copious amounts of precum, and Tim thought if he bit Danny there, he’d probably lose it.  And they didn’t want that.  So instead he teased it with his lips, leaving behind plenty of drool.  Then he sank down again, turning his head to bite at another angle.

              Danny trembled, his entire body tensing as Tim bit his cock and sliced it open with his teeth a second time.  Tim bit harder this time, and the ectoplasm gushed out of the wounds, dripping out of Tim’s mouth and running down his length.  Danny started to thrust his hips, dragging his own cock across Tim’s teeth, making the wounds deeper.  Tim moaned, heat flushing through his body as his lover became lost in pleasure.  It was hard, really really hard, not to suck him off right then.  But that was not what they wanted, and so Tim pulled his lips away with a final kiss to the head of his cock, leaving behind a glowing green lip print right across the tip.

              He kept his hand at Danny’s base to make sure the ectoplasm flowed down, pooling over his balls, and then started to drip between his legs.  Tim looked up at his face and saw him panting hard and fast, his cheeks flushed deep green, his white hair a mess splayed around his head.

              With deep arousal, Tim rose up on his knees and pressed his cock up against Danny’s, holding their erections together with both hands.  He slowly rubbed himself against it, while spreading the ectoplasm all over his shaft and head.  There was glowing green everywhere, slicking his dick, smeared on Danny’s pelvis, dripping over his balls and down between his legs.

              Keeping their cocks pressed together, Tim slid one hand down through the flowing mess of goo, collecting as much of it on his fingers as he could.  He teased around Danny’s balls, making his breath hitch, and then rubbed over his perineum, causing Danny to give a low sigh.  When his fingers reached his sphincter he gently rubbed them across it, spreading the ecto-blood in slow, gentle circles while he gazed up at Danny’s flushed, lust-drunk face.

              He was speechless now, his eyes fluttering open now and then to focus on Tim for just a second before closing again, completely lost in sensation.  Tim continued to slowly rock his hips, rubbing his cock against Danny’s, slicking it as much as he could.  He brought his other hand up to gather more on his fingers and then went back to teasing Danny’s hole, feeling him melt underneath him like butter.  His muscles relaxed and his thighs fell open, welcoming Tim into him.

              With burning desire, Tim pressed his finger inside Danny.  Just like the rest of him, it was cooler to the touch than Tim expected.  But he forgot all about that in half a second as Danny tossed his head back and gave a delicious moan, and suddenly the only thing Tim cared about in all the world was what he could make Danny feel.

              He slowly moved his green-coated finger in and out of his hole, still stroking their cocks together with his other hand, his hips and thighs starting to burn from the workout.  He felt Danny spread open for him easily, much easier than a human would, and Tim’s cheeks flushed hot as he remembered what Danny had said- I can shift my body however we want.  He would have to remember that for another time.  Right now?  He wanted to penetrate Danny the normal way, like they had never gotten to do before.

              He coated his fingers some more, and then pushed them back in, using two this time.  Danny’s quiet moans and soft pants were enticing, making Tim’s whole body swim with desire.  He spread his fingers and Danny opened to him easily, his legs falling wide open.  Tim’s heart bloomed with heat and passion.

              “Tim, Tim, please,” Danny pleaded.

              “Yes,” Tim breathed, pulling himself away from Danny’s shaft, his own dick now completely covered in ectoplasm.  He moved himself between Danny’s legs and slid his knees under his thighs.  He pulled his fingers out and came back with his dick, pressing the head against his hole.  Danny’s fingers curled into the mattress as he pushed in, and Tim groaned as he felt his sphincter close tightly around him, swallowing his head up into his strange coolness.

              He was tight, despite the work Tim had done stretching him open, almost as if he was squeezing himself to make it as good for Tim as possible.  Pleasure sprang up Tim’s cock in a rush and he forgot himself, pushing in harder and faster than he’d intended.

              “Ohhhh, yes,” Danny said, his eyes slitting open for just a moment to catch Tim’s gaze.  “Tim,” he said.

              Tim crawled up over Danny’s body, putting his hands on either side of his chest, lowering his face so it was right above Danny’s.  He leaned down and pressed a kiss to Danny’s lips, and Danny answered him, pursing his lips so sweetly it sent a wave of arousal through Tim.  Danny lifted a hand and put it on Tim’s cheek, forcing his green eyes open to look at him.

              “Fuck me, baby,” Danny said.

              Tim gave him a wry smile.  He pulled his dick back and then slid in again, his eyes fluttering closed as it felt so good.  He moved slowly, rocking himself up into Dannys tight tight hole, hearing Danny’s soft gasps each time he pushed in.  He kept a slow pace, rocking, not thrusting, feeling deep affection and burning desire as he melded their bodies together with every push.  He couldn’t tear his gaze away from Danny’s perfect face, his skin glowing slightly brighter every time Tim pushed in.  The green light that illuminated all of him from within pulsed along with their rocking, Danny’s pleasure on full display, and Tim had never seen anything more beautiful in his life.  Tim leaned down and pressed kisses to Danny’s face; to his cheeks, to his chin, to his nose, to his forehead.

              Now and then Danny’s eyes would flicker open, and then close again as Tim slid into him.

              “Baby,” Danny whispered, trying to keep his eyes open and failing.

              “Mmmm?” Tim said, not really able to form words at all, thick desire throbbing through him, making every inch of him burn.

              “I love you,” Danny said, and Tim leaned down to kiss him again, then again, then again.  Oh, they could finally kiss each other, and he didn’t think he’d ever get tired of it.  He felt Danny lift his hands and wrap them around his back, his fingers ghosting over the scratches he’d put there earlier.

              Tim pulled back from their kisses just long enough to speak.

              “I love you so, so much,” he managed, before his next rock in left them both speechless.  Danny’s fingers curled against his back, his nails digging into the scratches, making them sting.

              “Mmmm,” Tim said.

              “You like that?” Danny whispered.

              “Yeah,” Tim said, his whole face burning with blush.

              “You don’t heal the way I do,” Danny managed, his eyes closing again as Tim pushed up into him.  “We have to be careful.”

              “Only if you want to,” Tim said, pressing more kisses to Danny’s lips, preventing any reply from him.  In response, Tim felt his fangs come out, almost on reflex from what Tim had just said.  Danny nipped his lower lip, re-opening the bite that had clotted from earlier.  Tim’s blood flowed into Danny’s mouth, and his ass tightened hard around Tim’s cock.

              “Oh fuck,” Tim said, his elbows growing weak as pleasure shot up his cock and through the rest of him.

              “Yeah,” Danny said, his tongue lapping up Tim’s blood, his eyes glowing brighter as he drank. Desire and lust rushed through Tim and with sudden need, Tim bit his lip back.

              “Hhhhhnggg!” Danny cried, and Tim snapped his hips forward, hard.

              “Yes!” Danny cried.

              Tim raised himself up with his arms for leverage and started to thrust.  He pounded into Danny, feeling pleasure spike through his whole body with each shove in.  Danny’s eyes flew wide open, and went from pulsing to bright.  His hands moved to Tim’s shoulders and clawed at them, drawing blood from a new patch of skin he hadn’t yet touched.  Tim groaned and drove himself in harder, his breath rushing so fast through his mouth his throat grew dry.

              “More more more!” Danny cried, and Tim gave him more, slamming into him as hard as he could.  Danny’s body was shaking beneath him from Tim’s thrusts, his white hair flowing back and forth.  His eyes continued to grow brighter, his nails sinking deeper into Tim’s shoulders, clawing at him to get closer, nearer, harder.

              Burning heat spread through Tim’s body as he chased their pleasure.  It felt so good he lost all ability to think.  All he could see was Danny below him, all he could feel was Danny around him.  Danny’s eyes were so bright now he almost couldn’t look at them.  Every one of his muscles were on fire as he pounded into his lover with everything he had, his pleasure rising with desperate heat.

              Tim pressed one last sloppy kiss to Danny’s lips, and then put all his weight on one arm to free his other hand.  He reached down between them and wrapped it around Danny’s dripping, bleeding cock.  Danny tilted his head back and screamed.  He lifted his hips high as Tim pounded into him.  Tim felt Danny’s nails- no, his claws, sinking deep into his shoulders, rivers of blood pouring down his biceps.  Danny’s dick swelled to full hardness in his hands, and his eyes turned entirely green, whites and all.

              “Nnnnnah!” Danny cried, his orgasm pulsing out of him in a bright, green mess.  His whole body writhed and he clenched around Tim’s cock.

              “Fuck!” Tim cried, his own orgasm exploding through him so hard he couldn’t see.  His release throbbed through his cock and spilled out into Danny, his whole body contracting with pleasure.  He slammed up into him as hard as he could, helpless to it as his whole world became nothing but passion and love and green, green light.  He tossed his head back, mouth wide open in a silent scream, and let the green drown him from the inside out, giving his whole self over to it in full, complete surrender.

              Tim collapsed onto Danny, pressing his whole body down onto him as they both gasped for breath.  Danny wrapped his arms tightly around Tim’s back, his cock still leaking both blood and cum, making even more of a mess between them.  Neither of them cared.  For a long moment they just lay together, Tim still buried inside Danny’s ass, Danny’s arms wrapped so hard around his back Tim thought he might bruise.

              It would be a nice touch to add to the myriad of scratches he had.

              [1END XXX]

              Tim tiredly lifted his head and gazed into Danny’s eyes, which were now their normal glow.

              He liked that he knew now what was Danny’s normal glow.

              “You were right,” Tim said, pressing a soft kiss to Danny’s cheek.

              “While I enjoy hearing that, please do explain,” Danny mumbled, still barely able to keep his eyes open.

              “Just…just a second,” Tim said, wincing as he pulled his softening cock out of Danny’s ass.  Danny gave a quiet squeak, ectoplasm and cum pouring out between his legs, soaking the mattress.

              They were both too sated to care.

              Instead Tim rested his head on Danny’s shoulder, and traced his finger along his chest.

              “You were right that all I needed was for us to be together.  To realize that you being in ghost form hasn’t changed…us.”

              Danny gently trailed his fingers across Tim’s back, making a delightful sting shoot through his nerves whenever he brushed over a gouge he’d made.

              “I knew I could explain it to you through kisses,” Danny said, and Tim gave a short laugh, lifting his head to look into Danny’s eyes.

              “Oh is that what you call this,” he said, pulling at his bicep to show the drying rivers of blood that had dripped down it from Danny’s bite.

              “Sure.  Ghost kisses,” Danny said.  Then his face grew uncertain for a moment.  “You really liked it?”

              “Yes,” Tim said, leaning down to press another sweet kiss to Danny’s lips, noticing that his fangs were gone, replaced by normal teeth.  “It was hot.  Next time?  You need to put those fangs more places.”

              Danny blushed, hard.

              “Noticed the fangs, did you…”

              Tim leaned down and pressed another soft kiss to his lips.

              “Believe me, you had my full attention,” Tim said.

               Danny returned his kiss, and ran his palm gently over Tim’s back.

              “I can…I can probably accelerate your healing a little,” he said.  “Once we get the portal open and I don’t have to conserve ectoplasm anymore.”

              “Then it sounds like we should get back to that,” Tim said, rising to his feet.  He looked down at the mattress, and at himself,  and noticed that the glowing green mess seemed…fainter.

              “It doesn’t glow forever?” Tim asked, and Danny laughed.

              “No.  It evaporates, becoming part of the ambient ectoplasm in the world,” Danny said.  “Where ghost cores can feed off of it again.  The ectoplasmic circle of death, lol.”

              “Dork.  You are a dork,” Tim said, grinning from ear to ear as he walked over to his clothes to put them back on.

              Danny stood, and he felt him wrap his arm roughly around Tim’s waist and pull him tight against his stomach.  Tim melted into him, the scratches on his back stinging pleasantly as he leaned back.  Neither of them were ready yet to let go, despite the priorities they had.

              Danny leaned forward and nibbled on his ear.

              “I’m your dork,” he said, and Tim sighed against him, letting them cuddle for just a moment longer, before they had to get back to work.  Yes, the fate of the whole world was depending upon them to figure out that damned virus and hopefully find a cure- but surely there was time for one more kiss.

Chapter Text

              * * *

              Tim stared at the swirling green vortex in the center of the portal with wide eyes.  He’d seen his share of interdimensional nonsense in his life, but that didn’t make it any less awe-inspiring.  Or intimidating.

              “This is…safe?” he asked, reaching out a hand towards it, feeling the hairs on his arm rise with an electrical crackle.

              “The portal itself is perfectly safe,” Danny said.  “The Ghost Zone is not.”

              Danny reached out his hands to hold both of Tim’s, turning Tim to face him, pulling his gaze away from the green for a moment.  Tim looked into Danny’s eyes and saw the portal reflecting in his irises as they resonated with the same glow.  It was eerie as much as it was beautiful.

              “I really wish you’d reconsider staying here…”

              Tim’s squeeze on Danny’s hands was so tight he saw Danny wince, even though he was sure it didn’t hurt him.  He saw Danny understand immediately.

              Neither of them wanted to be separated right now.

              “I will keep you as safe as I can, Tim, but it’s not without risk for a helpless human to enter the Ghost Zone.  You can’t fly, you can’t fight…”

              “The hell I can’t,” Tim spat back.

              “Okay you can kick zombie ass, but an axe isn’t doing to do anything against ectoplasmic beings…”

              “Ectoplasm is affected by electricity, right?”

              “How did you kno…”

              “I’ve been using ectoplasm as a power source for months.  In your story, you said Vlad kept electrical anti-ghost barriers around his mansion.  He kept ghosts prisoner in his cloning tanks with electrical force-fields.  The portal itself is being powered by electr…”

              Danny put his finger across Tim’s lips to shush him, and Tim blushed.

              “I forget how incredibly smart you are,” Danny said.

              “So then let’s take a day to build some anti-ghost weapons, so I can fight.”

              Tim saw a look in Danny’s eyes that he recognized instantly.  It was the look he’d given himself a thousand times to civilians who thought they knew how to fight, but who he knew could never match his level, or the circumstances they found themselves in.  A street fighter was no match for Poison Ivy’s toxins or Mr. Freeze’s ice weapons.

              That was when Tim realized Danny didn’t know.

              “Oh shit.  I’ve never told you,” Tim said.

              Danny raised an eyebrow.

              “I need to tell you something,” Tim said.  “Should we shut the portal off?  I don’t want to waste the ectoplasm we have.”

              “No, actually.  It should stay on.  The biggest drain is in creating it.  Once it’s up, the amount of energy needed to keep it open is minimal.”

              “Okay,” Tim said, letting his hands slide out of Danny’s.  “I’ll uh…be just a minute,” he said, as he turned to walk towards the farthest corner of their supplies, behind every box and crate.

              Danny stayed by the portal and waited, while Tim dug through boxes he hadn’t touched in months, and came upon his Red Robin costume.

              He stared at it for a few seconds, and then decided there wasn’t time to have feelings about it right now.  So instead he pulled his shirt off over his head, steeled himself, and pulled the top on.  Then the pants, then the boots.  He clicked his bandoliers around his chest and then lastly, stared at the domino.

              Was there a point to wearing it anymore?  Were there even enough people left alive for the identity of Red Robin to matter?

              But it would throw him off his game to have a bare face, and he didn’t need that right now.  So he pulled some extra adhesive from one of his compartments and slathered it on, feeling the familiar, comforting presence of the mask he’d grown up in snug against his face.

              Lastly, he shoved his bo staff into its holster and secured his cape around his neck.

              It felt like he’d never taken it off.

              It fit like old leather, perfectly worn to his shape, molded to him, like it had always belonged there.

              Because it always had.

              He stepped out from behind the crates and walked towards Danny with the confidence of Red Robin.  All of Tim Drake’s fears and insecurities were packed away; shoved as deep down as he could get them to go, which was a lot closer to the surface than he’d prefer.

              He was really in a vulnerable state right now.  He supposed the end of the world could do that to you.

              He saw Danny’s mouth fall open as he drew closer, and his heart beat faster, wondering what he would think, wondering how he’d react…

              “Holy shit, you’re a cape,” Danny said, his voice quiet with awe.  Tim blushed.  He tried to give a curt nod, but knew it probably came off more flirty than anything.

              “Red Robin, at your service,” he said.

              “R…Robin?” Danny said, his mouth falling open a little more.  “The Robin?  As in Batman and?”

              Tim gave a little laugh.

              “Well, I used to be.  But then…ah, well.  The role passed to…”

              He decided to hell with secrets.  He wasn’t going to keep a damn thing from Danny.  He wouldn’t even be alive if it weren’t for Danny.  Several times over.  And he was about to put his life in Danny’s hands again, as they went into his realm, his dimension.

              They were nothing if they couldn’t trust each other.

              “My little brother took it,” he said.  “Damian.  So I became Red Robin.”

              He watched Danny’s face concentrate as he contemplated all of that.

              “Wait…wait wait.  You’re Tim Drake-Wayne.  CEO of Wayne Enterprises.  Your little brother is Damian Wayne, and he’s Robin now?  Does that mean your father…your father, Bruce Wayne, is Batman?!”

              Tim couldn’t help the little smile that pricked at the corner of his mouth as Danny basically squeaked when he said it.

              “You’re cute when you’re making realizations,” Tim said, and he got to watch Danny’s cheeks blush green.

              “Wait wait wait…so then Dick, the Dick we talk to on the radio…he’s your older brother…does he know?”

              Tim laughed so hard it brought tears to his eyes.  It took him probably fifteen seconds to calm down before he was able to catch his breath to answer the question.

              “Dick invented Robin,” Tim said.  “Yes, he knows.”

              So then he started to explain about the whole family.  Fuck the rules, fuck secrets.  This was Danny.  Tim trusted him with his life.  With his heart.  So he told him everything.  About all the Bat family, and how most of them were adopted by Bruce but not all.  About how they’d gotten word of a new virus spreading like crazy in the Midwest.  About how they’d just learned that it spread through biting and scratching from the infected, and that was all the information Tim had had when he’d been sent to investigate a supposed enclave of human survivors in the thick of the infection.

              And how they’d all been gone when he’d gotten there.  And how he’d lost his bike, and all his communications equipment shortly after.  How he’d survived the first week by sleeping on rooftops, because zombies couldn’t climb.  But they made buildings unstable as more and more mobs of them pressed against the sides, trying to reach the scent of human meat.

              About how he’d found the bunker, and how it’d had juuust enough power for him to shut the door behind him.  How he’d almost starved down there, because he couldn’t figure out a way to get it back open.  Until, in desperation, he’d figured out how to use the green glowing stuff as a power source.

              “And then when I was out trying to gather supplies, I ran across this one zombie who didn’t behave anything like the others,” Tim said, lifting his hand to brush his black gauntlet across Danny’s cheek.  Danny’s cheeks blushed green, and he turned to face Tim with a cute smile.  Tim leaned forward and pressed a soft kiss to his lips, enjoying how Danny could part them just a little, to let their lips slot together.

              He pulled back and gazed into brilliant green eyes.

              “I was rescued by a superhero,” Danny said, sounding absolutely smitten.

              Tim snorted.

              “Not super.  Just a human,” he said.  “But I can hold my own against any kind of enemy.  If you help me build some sort of anti-ghost weapon, I will know how to use it.  I won’t be as defenseless as you think.”

              He saw Danny’s eyes flash brighter, and his face grow more smitten.

              “I knew I liked you.”

              * * *

              It turned out that the lab had everything they needed to create an anti-ghost weapon.  Now that they had Danny’s knowledge about how ectoplasm worked, and Tim’s ability to improvise, it was easy to cannibalize some of Vlad’s equipment to create what they needed.  First, they removed an anti-ghost forcefield generator from one of the cloning tanks Danny had destroyed.  It required ectoplasm to work, and Danny showed Tim how to attach an ectoplasmic battery to power it.  Danny explained that once they were in the Ghost Zone, there would be so much ectoplasm in the atmosphere itself that it would basically always be recharging.  Soldering a handle onto the back of it made it into a perfect, circular ghost shield about two feet across.  Tim wired a button to cut it off from the battery, so he could turn it on and off at will.

              Then they took another one, and concentrated the force field from broad to narrow, essentially making it into a short beam that went out about three feet.  Tim added a handle and another button, and Danny laughed.

              “It’s a fucking light saber,” he said.  “To cut ectoplasm.”

              “You a Star Wars nerd?” Tim joked, his tongue sticking out as he worked on soldering the button into place.

              “I’m a space-everything nerd,” Danny replied, filing the sharp edges off of the shield handle, so it wouldn’t cut Tim when he put it away.  “Which you figured out when I couldn’t even speak, or remember who I was,” Danny said softly, lowering his work to gaze at Tim with a sweet expression on his face.  “God, I love you.”

              Tim blushed and lifted his eyes to meet Danny’s, staring at their beautiful green glow for a moment before leaning in to plant a soft kiss to his lips.

              “We’re not gonna get anywhere with this project if you keep flirting with me,” Tim said.

              “Your fault, for being so flirtable.”

              Tim’s blush got worse, but he was able to focus back on his task.

              It only took them half a day to finish the shield and ecto-sword.  Then Tim went outside in the snow to train with them, in his Red Robin costume, to get a feel for how each of them worked, to commit the location of the buttons to muscle-memory, and to practice holstering them and removing them quickly.  Danny participated, hovering around him from above, throwing snowballs and rocks in his direction from every angle, including up from through the ground.

              “The Ghost Zone is an anti-gravity, three-dimensional environment,” Danny said.  “Attacks can come from any direction.  You won’t have any footing.  You won’t be able to maneuver…” Danny argued, the worry in his voice evident as he disappeared, leaving Tim with only his hearing to block the next projectile thrown at him.

              It came up through the ground at a 210-degree angle.  He was able to dodge with a roll and then slice the snowball in half with the sword.

              “I can handle it,” he said.  “Am I relying on you for locomotion?  Yes.  Is it better if you can ward off any potential attackers?  Definitely,” Tim said.  “But I’m not gonna be helpless.”

              Danny suddenly threw a barrage of snowballs and rocks in Tim’s direction, all from different angles, some of them coming incredibly fast.  Tim still couldn’t see Danny, or hear him, either.  But he could see and hear the projectiles, and he was able to dodge most, block some with his shield, and disintegrate a couple with his sword.

              Then, out of nowhere, a green energy blast flew directly at his head.  He raised the shield up just in time to block it, having not expected an attack like that.

              More immediately followed.  These were far faster than the rocks had been- these were bolts of energy after all.  Tim was sweating as he rolled and dodged, his eyes darting in all directions, his ears on high alert.  He’d fought plenty of enemies with energy weapons before, but in those cases, he could predict his enemies movements.  Even if an enemy was invisible, it still had to follow the laws of physics.  If an attack came from his left, then the next attack would have to come from somewhere in that direction (unless there was a long delay).

              But Danny could fly through him.  He could fly through the ground, through the air, all silently, all invisibly, all intangibly.  He could seem to come from almost two directions at once, with how fast he was.  And that cut down on Tim’s warning time.  Several times Tim almost got singed, especially from attacks that came up through the ground, because he wasn’t used to that.  He was still training his brain to not consider the ground a safe direction.

              The attacks stopped, and Tim steadied his breaths, panting softly, keeping his ears wide open.

              He only relaxed when Danny appeared in front of him, hovering above the ground with his tail waving behind him.  His face looked actually impressed.

              “How am I doing, coach?” Tim asked, holstering the shield and sword and resting his hands on his knees.

              “It took Sam and Tucker years to get reflexes like that,” Danny said.  “How are you so fast?”

              “Oh, believe me, this training did take years,” he said, still hunched over.  He was out of shape.  Despite the fact that he worked himself nearly to the bone every day, keeping their bunker operational, he didn’t work out, anymore.  He didn’t do strength training, resistance training, target practice, dodging practice, sparring, none of it.  He hadn’t had the ability or time for those things.

              It felt really, really good to do it again.

              It felt really good to be Red Robin again.

              It felt like he was becoming himself again.

              Having someone to talk to, to have actual conversations with; plus being able to reach Dick on the radio every few days, was bringing him back from being a hermit to being Tim Drake.  It turned out that saving Danny from his zombie curse was also saving Tim.  Together, they were re-finding their footing on what it meant to be human.

              He came back from his thoughts and found his eyes meeting Danny’s as he hovered a few feet in front of him.

              “Baby?” Danny asked, raising an eyebrow.

              “Oh, just thinking about how you’ve saved me as much as I’ve saved you, and all that,” Tim said, giving a nervous laugh to try to shake himself loose from all the thoughts swimming in his head.  It wasn’t working.

              Danny lowered himself down while he formed legs, landing on the ground, clearly wanting to comfort Tim but not knowing what to say.  It was impossible to say who even initiated the kiss; they both wrapped their arms around each other and pressed their lips together at the same time, with the same intensity.  Tim’s scalp ignited with pleasant tickles as Danny brushed his fingers through his hair.  For a moment, talking and training and the state of the world were all distant dreams that hardly mattered.  The only thing with any meaning at all was here, in Tim’s arms.

              They pulled back with a soft smack, and Tim gave Danny a wry grin.

              “So, am I ready, coach?”

              “As ready as any human can be,” Danny said with a grin.  “Let’s go kick some ghost ass.”

              This time, when they stood before the portal, they were both ready.  Danny reached out and clasped Tim’s hand, white glove in black gauntlet, and with one last glance at each other, Danny floated them off the floor and flew them into the Ghost Zone.

              Tim’s entire world became green.

              He kept waiting for the greenness of the portal to fade, and for them to come out the other side, entering into another dimension.  But as they continued to travel and the green swirls continued all around them, he started to realize that the green was the dimension.  There were purple doors seemingly hovering all around, interspersed with purple boulders, and…not much else. 

              This place was strange, even considering all the different planets and dimensions Tim had seen in his lifetime.

              “Oh yes,” Danny said, taking in a deep, deep breath, closing his eyes as if he were standing in warm sunlight after a long winter.  His cheeks started to glow a brighter green, and all his skin took on a greenish tint.  He opened his eyes, and his irises shone as brightly as they had when he’d transformed.  He turned to look at Tim with elation on his face.

              “Ectoplasm,” he said, taking in another deep breath, and closing his eyes again.  “I can finally feed.  Oh, it feels so good.  Damn, I was starving,” he said.  He didn’t speak after that, and Tim didn’t ask him to.  He just floated there, in the middle of a green, gravity-free dimension, and watched Danny’s aura grow brighter and stronger.  Tim took the moment to study every inch of him, taking in his floating white hair, his glowing green skin, and the wispy black tail that he seemed to form subconsciously whenever he wasn’t directly standing on something.

              “Danny!” a voice cried.  Tim turned to see a young woman, who looked uncannily similar to Danny, flying straight towards them.  She had a matching black jumpsuit, with the same “D” emblazoned on her chest.  Her white hair was longer and back in a ponytail, but other than that, there was almost no difference in her appearance from Danny at all.

              “Dani!” he cried, holding out his free arm towards her, though he didn’t loosen his grip on Tim’s hand at all.

              She flew into his embrace with a huge smile on her face, her eyebrows furrowing in relief. 

              “Oh my God I’m so glad you’re okay!  I’ve been waiting for you, wondering, hoping you would get the portal open and that you would be okay!”

              “I’m okay?  How about you’re okay!” he said excitedly, floating back from the hug, looking her up and down.  “I didn’t know if you’d be able to fight the virus off on your own.”

              “I didn’t, actually,” she said, with a frown.  “My human half is still infected.  Frostbite had me revert once, and I completely lost my mind.  I was like, a total zombie,” she said.  “He had to give me a shot of concentrated ectoplasm just to bring me back to my ghost self.”

              Danny bit his lower lip and gave a curt nod.

              “Same thing happened to me,” he said.  “I was stuck in human form.  I couldn’t get out of it. I couldn’t think.  Couldn’t remember how to go ghost,” he said.  “For eight months.”

              She nodded, seeming to understand.

              “Ohhh, until you found some ectoplasm and were able to change back.”

              Tim felt Danny’s fingers tighten and saw his cheeks blush a pale green.  He forced himself to fight back a smile.

              “Uhhh…sure,” Danny said.

              Dani then hovered over in front of Tim and narrowed her eyes.

              “Who’re you?”

              Tim found himself completely lost for words.  His brain was struggling to catch up with the situation.  This was the first time he’d heard speaking, a conversation, between two people that weren’t himself in…in… he couldn’t remember.  He almost couldn’t follow it.  The girl’s voice…what was her name?  He’d somehow not caught it.  He hadn’t had to remember a new name in… his brain had forgotten to store her name.  Which was very unlike him.  Tim Drake never forgot a name and Red Robin never forgot a face. 

              But now?  He was lost.  He couldn’t even remember how to introduce himself.

              Danny squeezed his hand, and he squeezed back. 

              “This is Tim,” Danny said, pulling Tim closer to him and wrapping his arm around his waist.  “My boyfriend.”

              Tim’s cheeks flushed when he heard Danny say it.  They’d never actually said, out loud, what they were to each other, before.  Because there had been no one to say it to.  They knew what they were to each other- and ‘boyfriend’ almost didn’t seem to cut it.  Lover.  Partner.  Reason for living.  They depended on each other.  Survived because of each other.

              Boyfriend?

              Despite it falling incredibly short of describing what they had, Tim still liked the word.

              Liked hearing it.

              Liked… what they had being known.

              He tried to give the girl a smile.  Dani, that was it.  Her name was Danny’s name.  That was probably why he was struggling to remember it.  In his mind, the word ‘Danny’ was already reserved and meant only one person.

              Dani squinted and looked Tim up and down with a scrutinizing gaze.

              “He looks very…alive,” she said.

              Danny laughed.

              “He is.  He’s completely human.  He helped me remember who I was.  Helped me come back to myself.  Helped me survive when I was a zombie.”

              “Why him?  Why weren’t you in a hospital, or something?”

              Tim saw pain come over Danny’s face as he winced.  Gently, slowly, Danny began to explain to her that it wasn’t just himself who was infected.  That Vlad had spread the disease.  That it had come to encompass the entire world.  That there were very few humans remaining at all.

              Tim watched both of their faces as Danny explained these things to her, and she listened, but she didn’t seem nearly as upset about it as Danny was.  Tim squeezed Danny’s hand several times, trying to comfort him, especially when he got to the part about not knowing whether his family was alive.  Dani listened, but she didn’t seem nearly as affected as Danny was about it.

              “So that’s why it’s been so crowded in here lately,” Dani said finally, after Danny finished.  “Tons of humans really are dying.”

              Danny’s eyebrows drew together in an expression of pain, but Dani again didn’t seem very bothered by her statement.

              “Wait…what’s that?” she asked, shooting above their heads to look around for a moment.  Tim and Danny looked too, but they didn’t see anything.

              “Why doesn’t she seem to care that… all of humanity is suffering?” Tim asked.

              “Huh? She cares,” Danny said.  “We just sat talking about it for like, half an hour, she cares so much.”

              “I mean, she doesn’t seem….upset about it.  Not…not the way you are.”

              “Oh, well.  That’s because she doesn’t have any connections to living humans, the way I do,” Danny said.  “She… doesn’t have anyone in particular to worry about.  She is human, or half of one, so she cares about them, but like…in a ghost kind of way.”

              Tim frowned, trying to understand.  He’d only known Danny was a ghost for two days- he was going to have to give himself time to adjust to this new…

              “Danny, run!” Dani cried from above them, her green eyes growing wide.  “Vlad is here!”

              Danny whipped his head around to look in the direction Dani was pointing and his eyes flashed brightly.  Tim squinted out into the green, but he couldn’t see anything.  Just swirls, glowing in various brightnesses, interspersed here and there with weird purple objects.

              But Danny seemed to see something because he yanked Tim behind him with a deep growl.  He rose both palms up, forming green balls of ecto-energy in his hands, which grew larger and brighter by the second.  Tim reached behind him and drew his sword and shield.  He had to remind himself that ghosts could be invisible.  Not seeing them didn’t mean they weren’t there.  He tensed every muscle, and peered out into the green swirls, wondering if a ghost would disturb them, even if invisible.

              Danny exhaled, and a blue mist swirled into the air from between his lips.  Tim wanted to know, but he would have to ask about that later.  Danny snapped his head around, glaring at something, something unseen but closer now, based on how tense he was.  He raised his palm and shot a beam of energy straight at nothing.

              The nothing shot a beam straight back.  Tim went to raise his shield out of reflex, but Danny did so too, creating a bright green aura around them both that deflected the blast like it was nothing.  Dani did the same, hovering above Danny about twenty feet away, her eyes fixated on the same spot Danny’s were.  It was clear to Tim that they could sense something, because they both reacted to the same locations as if they could see something there.

              Danny’s head whipped around almost directly behind him, to the direction Tim was in.  Another ecto-blast flew from the ether and Danny deflected it easily, shooting a volley of beams back at it.  Dani joined in, and together, they pincered and struck their target.

              “Ow, you little brats!” a low voice cried, and then the ghost attacking them became visible.  His eyes flashed bright red, from behind a face of blue skin that had a scowl on it Tim recognized instantly.  It had the same bitter resentment behind it as a hundred other rogues- that same hatred of the world, and desire to do nothing but cause suffering and pain for his own amusement.

              Tim was utterly familiar with his kind, and because of that, had no fear at all.  He knew how to handle assholes like this.

              Plasmius turned to face both his adversaries and Danny moved to keep Tim behind him.

              “Ho ho ho, what’s this?” Vlad said, narrowing his eyes in Tim’s direction even as he built up blasts of energy in his palms.  “You brought a human here?  I always knew you were stupid, Daniel, but this takes the cake.  Honestly, I thought you were dead.  Do you know how long I’ve been waiting here, hovering just outside the place my portal connects to, wondering if you were finally going to starve and become full ghost, the way I did?  Why, I had actually given up.  I truly thought you were stuck in that sickly form.  I couldn’t understand why you didn’t just die.  How many humans must you have consumed, in order to survive out there, once your ability to find regular food ran out?"

              Tim’s brain tried to process that for a moment- Vlad’s confession that, while in zombie form, he’d eaten people once he’d been unable to find food.  And that still hadn’t been enough to sustain him.  That the virus had still consumed his living body until it was unable to function.

              Before anyone could answer him, Plasmius started shooting a volley of beams at them.  Danny blocked, while Dani flew around to try to attack Vlad from behind.  She shot several beams at him, but he was able to deflect them with one hand.  It was obvious even to Tim that she was much, much weaker, whereas Danny and Vlad appeared to be evenly matched.

              Vlad flew around Danny in a circle, and Danny moved, keeping Tim behind him at all times.  Vlad laughed, the sound of it evil and grating on Tim’s soul.  He glared at Vlad and grit his teeth, making sure to keep his shield pointed in his direction, his grasp on his sword ready.

              “Look at you, protecting that thing.  He’s obviously important to you.  I’ll bet he’s helped you survive all this time.  So now you have this unhealthy attachment to him.  Do you know it’s unhealthy for a ghost to be obsessed with the living?  My eyes have been so widely opened since I let my human half die.  It’s unhealthy, Daniel.  Ghosts are meant to associate with other ghosts.  How many years did I waste, pining over your mother?  And now I’m free of her.  Unless of course, she were to die too, and then I could pursue her for all eternity…”

              Tim wanted to tell Danny not to take the bait, but there was no time and he saw the pain in Danny’s face.  His eyes flashed with anger and he raged, charging at Vlad with blast after blast of energy.  Vlad seemed to need to use all of his concentration to dodge, but then…there became two of him.

              Tim remembered about duplication from Danny’s story and he was ready.  The duplicate flew directly at Tim, laughing as he shot beams of ghost-energy at his face.  Vlad probably thought he’d vaporize Tim within seconds.  He thought wrong.

              Tim raised his shield to block each blast in succession.  Vlad growled in rage and then shot multiple beams at him, forcing him to use his sword to deflect.  The beams were a hundred times as powerful as anything Danny had thrown at him, but Tim’s equipment was strong and withstood it, no problem.  Vlad flew beneath Tim and tried to get him from below, but while Tim couldn’t exactly go anywhere, he could easily change his orientation.  He shifted to move his shield below him, causing Vlad to scream in rage when he couldn’t land a single hit on Tim.

              “Three little brats in my life?  I don’t think so!” the original Vlad shouted.  He turned and shot a powerful blast directly at Dani’s face.  She threw up a shield, and it disintegrated, a beam of energy slamming directly into her.  She screamed.

              “Dani!” Danny cried, flying after her, throwing up more shields to protect her from more of Vlad’s blasts.

               Tim was sick of this.  He decided it was time to go on the offensive.  He saw Vlad duplicate again, then again, until Tim was surrounded by four of them.

              But that meant they were four times as weak.  Each of their blasts deflected off of Tim’s sword easily now, almost without any resistance.  He was able to re-direct their energy based on the angle he used, and so he started sending the beams back towards his assailants, aiming directly at them.  The duplicates were taken by surprise, and he was able to vaporize two of them before they even caught on.

              “You’re no little pushover,” Vlad snarled, moving each of the remaining two duplicates to surround Tim from each side.  They both aimed directly at him simultaneously, their blasts coming towards him with rage, and therefore a lot of speed.  But Tim was ready.  He couldn’t really move anywhere, but he still tucked himself into a roll, shifting his center of mass towards where his feet were, and away from where Vlad had been aiming.  He swung his sword up just as the blasts would have met, and instead deflected them both back at their own attackers.  Each of them got slammed in the face by their own beam, and they disintegrated.

              “Fuck off!” Danny cried, sending a huge blast with both hands towards the remaining Plasmius.  It slammed into him hard, incinerating his face.  When the light faded, he looked injured, burned, half his hair singed off.  He glared at Danny, who was flying protectively in front of Dani, arms spread wide.  He looked down at Tim and then flew with her to be beside him, both of them glaring at Vlad while Dani hid behind her progenitor.

              “You are a brat,” Vlad accused, pointing at Tim.  “It’s your fault he’s not dead.  Some kind of cape, taking on a charity case, trying to save the world.  Well I have news for you, brat.  I destroyed the world.  It’s gone.  There’s nothing left for people like you to save.  Danny can’t live forever like that.  In fact it already seems like he can’t go human at all.  Eventually, his human half will die, and then he will be mine.”

              Danny screamed in anger and shot another blast directly at Vlad’s face.  He dodged, just in time, and then Danny shot another one, then another.

              “I said fuck off!” he cried, and this time, Vlad did.  Clasping an arm as if it was hurt, he raced away from Danny’s raging blasts, until he was so far away Tim could no longer see him.

              Danny turned around immediately, grabbed both of their hands, and started to race as fast as he could.

              “Where are we going?” Dani asked.

              “Far Frozen.  Our original goal.  He wouldn’t dare attack us there, with Frostbite’s hundreds of subjects to defend us, and you need medical attention.”

              Dani huffed, but she allowed Danny to pull her along, clutching her side with her free hand.

              Danny then turned to look over at Tim with absolute mirth on his face.

              “And you were incredible,” he said, his lips quirking up in a flirty grin.  “Hottest thing I’ve ever seen, watching you utterly destroy Vlad without even being able to move.”

              Tim grinned back at him, finding it easy to get lost in Danny’s face.  It was familiar.  He knew it.  The love there for him was deep, and real, and forged over months and months of surviving together.  They were still surviving together, despite the scene changing and the rules being different, they had still needed and depended on each other.

              Tim squeezed Danny’s hand in return, and had to force himself to tear his gaze away from his face, because that was all he wanted to look at.  But his training would not allow him to miss out on taking in his new surroundings. He had to know where he was, despite his inability to move anywhere, and so he did, memorizing this strange, nebulous place as much as possible as they flew.

              Up ahead of them, Tim saw something white, rather than purple.  As they came closer, it grew larger, and then larger, and then even larger.  Tim realized, once he could see it clearly, that it was a mountain- or rather several mountains, all covered completely in snow.

              “The Far Frozen?” he asked, and Danny nodded.

              “How…how cold is it?” Tim asked, aware that the laws of physics didn’t apply here, and there was no limit to how cold a place like that could be.  “I don’t have a coat.”

              Danny pulled Tim to him until they were facing each other, his hands around Tim’s waist, his green eyes gazing into Tim’s face with so much affection it made Tim blush.

              “I would never let anything hurt you,” Danny said softly.  “Least of all a little cold.”

              His kiss was sweet and gentle, and Tim found himself melting into his arms.  He allowed himself to close his eyes and enjoy it, even if it meant missing taking in some of his surroundings.  Maybe it wasn’t the best Bat decision.  Maybe he trusted Danny, instead.

              When Danny pulled back, Tim saw a flash of green light, and then he was surrounded by a ghost shield.  He knew when they hit the barrier of Frostbite’s world, because he felt the biting wind jostle his bubble- and shake Danny as he clutched his hand.  But he felt none of the cold himself.  Dani struggled a bit, slowing down when the wind blasted her in the face, and so Danny took her hand too, flying all three of them down towards a village, built in the snow.

              They flew through it quickly, though Tim was able to catch a few glimpses of the Yeti people Danny had briefly told him about.  This Ghost Zone was such a fascinating and wildly new experience, and Tim desperately wanted to learn about and study it all.  It was going to take him years and years and years to get to learn everything there was to know about Danny, and his kind, and ectoplasm, and the ghost dimension, and…

              And they didn’t have time for any of that right now.  They had a deadly virus to combat.

              He had to focus.

              They landed at the mouth of a cave, the inside of which reminded him a lot of home.  Danny flew them through excavated and repurposed caverns and halls, some decorated with framed paintings, others with comfortable furniture, others with scientific and medical equipment.  It was so similar to the Batcave it put some of Tim’s apprehension at ease immediately. 

              They came to a large cavern, this one with a large chair with several furs draped over it, with a table made of ice in front of it.  No one was sitting at it, though beside it stood two Yeti guards.  They were as large as Tim had expected, with white fur and horns of ice protruding from atop their heads.  They wore blue and gold capes, and each held a golden spear.

              Danny stopped flying and set them all down a few feet in front of them.

              “Hey guys.  Is Frostbite around?”

              The guards both stiffened and straightened their posture.

              “Great one!” they said, saluting Danny.

              He rolled his eyes.

              Tim had to struggle not to laugh.  Dani made no such effort, and burst into giggles.

              “It’s hilarious when they call you that.”

              “No it’s not.  It’s just annoying,” Danny said.  “Can one of you guys please go and get…”

              “Great One!” a loud, booming voice echoed across the cavern, coming from an archway to the left.  Tim turned to see a Yeti person, even larger than the others, with one of his arms made of nothing but bones, encased in ice.  The Yeti thundered towards Danny, absolute, unbridled joy on his face.

              “We did not know what became of you!  Eight months, and no one had received any word!  It is so good to see you!”

              “Frostbite!” Danny called, waving with his free hand, but not letting go of Tim.

              Danny hovered above the ground, his tail flowing behind him as he waited for Frostbite to approach.  Frostbite’s grin was wide and so was his embrace, pulling Danny into a tight bear-hug that automatically swept Tim up with it.  The ghost shield Danny had around him held firm, keeping Tim from getting crushed by the enormous hug, though Danny’s body was squeezed out of shape, his eyes bulging and his waist getting squeezed to almost nothing.  Dani laughed, flying in a circle above all their heads.

              Frostbite put them back down, and Danny regained his shape instantly, as if nothing had happened.

              Tim still had a lot to wrap his head around regarding ghosts.

              “And who is this?” Frostbite said, taking a step back to gesture at Tim.  “This is not one of your usual human servants.”

              Tim raised an eyebrow, and Danny rolled his eyes and shook his head.

              “No, you’ve never met him before,” Danny said.  “This is Tim.  My boyfriend.”

              “Ah-ha!” Frostbite cried, his face growing even more delighted, if that were possible.  “The Great One has chosen a consort!”

              “Consort,” Dani snorted.

              Tim blushed, but it was nothing compared to the bright, thick green that bloomed from Danny’s cheeks all the way up to his ears. 

              “N…n…no, we’re just…we…well we live together, but, there’s not really anywhere else to go, er.  Um,” Danny faltered, but Frostbite wasn’t listening.  He threw his enormous furry arm around both of them and started guiding them towards the archway he’d come from.

              “Come, come!  We must celebrate your return with a feast!  And celebrate your finding a consort!  Today is a glorious day!”

              Danny formed legs, planted his feet on the ground, and halted himself and Tim, thus forcing Frostbite to stop.  The large Yeti ghost frowned, and turned to look at them.

              “No.  No, Frostbite, please listen,” Danny started.  “I know you’re glad to see me.  And…that’s wonderful.  But we have really, really pressing concerns right now.  Remember that ghost virus?  The one Ember had?  That you can’t cure Dani of?”

              Frostbite nodded, his face losing some of it’s mirth.

              “Well it’s utterly destroyed humanity.  It’s completely infected the entire Earth.  Everyone is either sick, dying, or hiding in shelters.  I’m still sick, too.  The reason you didn’t hear from me for eight months is because I was stuck in human form.  Stuck as a zombie.  With a broken mind that could barely form thoughts.  Tim…Tim, he took care of me, while I was like that.  He rescued me.  Strengthened my core so that it could heal my mind enough for me to remember how to transform.  But listen, I came here because we need your help,” Danny said, his brows deeply furrowed.

              Frostbite’s face melted into concern.

              “I did not realize,” he said.  “I’ve heard rumors from other ghosts that the population has been increasing rapidly, such as happens during times of famine or war…or sickness,” he said.  “And that was why I was so concerned about you.  Because if the death of your human kind has been so widespread, but you weren’t here… I couldn’t imagine what could possibly have been going on.  Now it’s starting to make sense.”

              Frostbite gestured with his ice-bone arm for them to follow him, and he turned down another corridor, heading back the way they’d come earlier, towards the medical labs.  Dani floated behind them silently, doing loops and circles almost like a nervous tick.  Her face looked stressed.

              “Frostbite’s been trying for months to help me,” she said.  “We haven’t had any luck.”

              “Now that’s not entirely true,” Frostbite said, turning into a cavern that was lined with all kinds of medical and scientific equipment.  Tim marveled at how advanced some of it was- he even had his own electron microscope, a DNA sequencer, and what looked like an immersion healing tank.  There were also several instruments and machines that Tim didn’t recognize, which meant he had to assume they were not of Earth origin.

              “So I have been able to isolate the virus when it is infecting a ghostly host, and have come up with a cure that works on ghost cells,” Frostbite said, turning on all the lights in the lab as he walked through it.  Tim’s heart started to beat a little faster.  A cure.  For ghosts, but still…that could give them a clue, a hint, lead them down a pathway towards a cure for living cells.  For human cells.  He glanced over at Danny and gave his hand a squeeze.  Danny squeezed back.

              “Oh, here you go,” Frostbite said, unhooking a warm, fur-lined coat with a hood, and handing it to Tim.  “So the Great One doesn’t have to keep generating a ghost shield to keep you from freezing.”

              Tim looked over at Danny, and he gave a nod.  He released Tim’s hand, and the ghost shield surrounding him vanished.  Tim was blasted by cold air instantly, feeling it peel at his eyelids and ears and nose.  He took the warm fur coat and threw it on as quickly as he could, not having a chance to read the name embroidered on it until he zipped it up and shoved his hands into the pockets.

              It read Sam.

              Tim looked up and saw the pain on Danny’s face.  He knew, whomever this Sam was, that they meant a lot to him.  They must have, if they had a coat embroidered with their name sitting in a place like Frostbite’s lab.

              He would have to ask about it later.

              “Alright, let’s get to work,” Frostbite said.  “Great One, I know you don’t have the same knowledge as Tucker when it comes to viewing microscopic virology, but if you take a look…”

              “Tim does,” Danny said.  Both Frostbite and Dani turned to stare at him, and Tim gave them a sheepish smile.  “He’s been studying the virus.  He’s been working on a cure,” Danny said.  “And if anyone’s smart enough to figure it out, it’s him.”

              Frostbite’s face lit up with joy and excitement.

              “Ah-ha!” he said, his eyes shining brightly.  “A fellow scientist!”

              Tim gave him a shy smile, and then found himself enveloped by a wide, furry arm that dragged him towards the microscope to take a look.

              What he saw made him forget all the awkwardness of the situation as his mind focused on the information in front of him. 

              He was viewing the exact same pattern with gaps in the DNA that he was used to seeing on the zombie virus- but in reverse.

              He was certain of it.

              He knew the shape of that damned virus now like the back of his hand.  He could draw it from fucking memory, if he had to.  And it was plainly obvious to him.

              All the missing pieces were suddenly there.  And all the parts he was used to seeing were now missing.

              It was the exact reverse image of the virus he’d been studying.

              “…what is this a sample of?” he asked, suddenly forgetting that he was in another dimension, in a ghost yeti’s lab, talking to said ghost-yeti with a ghost-clone of Danny hovering over their heads, pacing in circles.  None of that mattered. 

              What mattered was the science.

              And the science was fascinating.

              “It’s a sample of the ghost virus,” Frostbite said simply.  “Taken from Dani, when she was in human form.”

              Tim reached for the magnification and turned it up, then down, then adjusted the knobs to follow the curve of the virus along it’s full length.

              “Then why am I seeing it…it’s negative?” he said, frowning.  “Do you know about photography?” Tim asked, not able to pull his eyes away from the microscope.

              “He asks a King Yeti who has a cutting edge molecular lab whether he is aware of photography,” Frostbite said, and Tim winced, kicking himself.

              His social skills were shit right now.  He really should have had better tact…

              “Bah!  Ha ha ha ha!” Frostbite said, his laughter genuine and amused.  Dani giggled.  Tim sighed with relief, and looked up from the microscope to see Danny grinning at him like he was the funniest thing on Earth.

              “Great one, I can see why you like this human!  He is as funny as he is brilliant!”

              Frostbite clapped Tim on his back so hard it jostled him forward.  He hissed as the scratches Danny had made on his back stung, and then blushed crimson as he was reminded that they were there.

              “Now, all joking aside, Great One’s Consort…”

              “Tim,” Danny corrected.  “Please.  Please, Frostbite, for once, just call me Danny, and call him Tim…”

              Frostbite snorted with annoyance, frozen air puffing from his nostrils.  But then he gave a singular nod.

              “Tim,” he said.  “Please continue with explaining your discovery.”

              Tim gestured for Frostbite to take a look in the microscope.  As he leaned down, he began to explain.

              “I’ve been studying this virus for weeks.  Months?  Awhile.  So I haven’t just noticed the missing sections.  I’ve memorized them.”

              Frostbite nodded.

              “Yes.  The missing nucleotides indeed show a pattern.  It is not random; it’s exactly the same on every single sample I’ve taken," Frostbite agreed.  "Furthermore, the pattern is exactly the same whenever I study Danielle’s human DNA,” he said, gesturing at her.  She was sitting on a stool by a workbench, fiddling with some empty test tubes, looking bored out of her mind.

              Tim nodded, getting excited.  It felt so good to talk to someone else with a scientific background.  To have another pair of eyes see what he’d been seeing, and verify his findings.

              “Yes, yes, the same for me.  The virus’s missing DNA pattern is an exact match to the missing pattern in Danny’s human DNA.”

              “And that makes complete sense, as they are near-perfect clones of each other, except for the chromosome difference that makes Danielle female.”

              “So what I didn’t realize, and couldn’t have realized without coming here, is that when I look through your microscope, I’m seeing the pieces of DNA that are missing when I look at the sample at home.  Somehow, the virus that you have is the exact reverse of the virus that I have.  The opposite pieces are missing.  Like a photo negative.”

              “That is fascinating!” Frostbite exclaimed, slapping his knee with gleeful joviality.  He threw his arm around Tim’s shoulders and pulled him into a tight, almost choking, hug.  Danny laughed as he was crushed and then practically buried inside piles of white fur.

              “You are brilliant, Tim!  A mind like yours is incredible to come by!  You have memorized the complex patterns of missingness in DNA viral strands, and this knowledge is proving to be incredibly useful!  I must see this for myself!  Danny, we must have a sample of your DNA!”

              Frostbite turned to Danny with an excited expression, and Danny rolled his eyes, flying down to hover in front of Frostbite with his mouth open.

              “No, no.  Of your human DNA.”

              Danny shut his mouth quickly, turned pale, and backed away.  Tim automatically moved to stand in front of him, not even realizing that he’d taken on a protective stance until Frostbite took a step back, as well.

              “What’s the matter?” Frostbite asked.

              “You can’t ask him to go through that again,” Tim said.  “Do you know how hellish it was?  Do you know what it took, to get him to be able to finally go ghost, after eight months?  I don’t know if we could even do it again.  If he went human, he’ll lose his mind, it will rot, his body will rot, he’ll lose the ability to think, to remember how to go ghost.”

              Frostbite frowned, glancing up at Danny’s face as he hovered behind Tim, just over his shoulder.

              “Is that what happened?” he asked, his booming voice soft and gentle, now.  Clearly, this was a very caring and compassionate person, and Tim could see why out of all the beings in two universes, Danny had chosen to go to Frostbite first for help.

              Danny nodded slowly.

              “I was dying,” he said, his voice softer than Tim was used to hearing it.  “My human body was rotting out from under me.  Regular humans, once they become zombies, have to eat human flesh to regenerate.  To survive.  But I…retained a tiny bit of my humanity, because of my core.  It kept me half-alive.  But I was mindless, Frostbite.  I couldn’t think.  I couldn’t remember.  My core was using up all of its energy to keep my human body alive.  I was helpless.

              “Until Tim found me.  And then he fed me.  And took care of me.  And his love strengthened my core.  Slowly, Frostbite.  It took months.  Months and months of his unending, relentless caring and love, until my core became strong enough to heal my mind enough that I could remember how to go ghost.  I can’t go through that again.  I won’t go through that again.”

              Tim reached behind him and grabbed Danny’s hand, squeezing it tight.  He floated down to the floor and landed on it, forming legs to stand beside Tim as they clasped each other’s fingers together.  Frostbite fell silent, the compassion on his face unmistakable.

              “I cannot imagine what you must have gone through,” he said.  “To have nothing for your core to feed on but the pittance of ambient ectoplasm that occurs on Earth?  It must have been horrific.  You must have been emaciated.  How could you possibly have revived your strength under those conditions, with the portal closed, and only a single human soul to sustain you?”

              “He did a lot more than just sustain me, Frostbite,” Danny said softly, moving his other hand to clasp Tim’s, holding Tim’s palm between all ten of his fingers.  He lifted Tim’s hand and pressed it against the center of his chest, not quite where his heart was, but a little lower down.  Tim gasped as a bright green light emanated from within him, pulsing brighter and dimmer, in time with the beating of Tim's heart.  Tim’s eyes flew up to meet Danny’s and locked to his gaze.

              “Tim’s love fed my core with more than just nourishment,” Danny said, his eyes never leaving Tim’s.  “He didn’t just sustain me.  He healed me.  Gave me more than I needed, until my core was so strengthened it was able to heal my body faster than the zombie virus could destroy it.”

              As Danny spoke, the light in his chest grew brighter and pulsed harder.  Tim could feel it, almost like a heart beat.  It was somehow cool and warm and the same time, electric, but icily calm, but a raging fire all at once.  It throbbed, and Tim felt it with his fingers, thrumming up his arm, singing through his skin and deep into his bones.  It was reaching for Tim, aching for him, asking him to be near.  Tim answered it easily, his heart shining with love and desire to be as close to Danny as he could.  Tim no longer cared about anyone or anything else.  It didn’t matter that Frostbite and Dani were there, or that they were in a frozen cave in another dimension or that a zombie virus was destroying the Earth.  All that mattered was Danny, and Tim drew as close to him as he could, until their lips were pressing together with as much tenderness as there was power throbbing through their flesh.

              “Never got to feel your core before,” Tim whispered into Danny’s lips.

              “I didn’t think humans could feel it at all,” Danny replied, his words swallowed by Tim’s mouth as he pressed his tongue deep into it, making Tim blush and give a soft moan.

              “They can’t,” Frostbite said, though Tim barely heard him, Danny’s tongue lost inside him as he licked over it, drowning in his sweet electric flavor.  Dani made a disgusted face at them, though Frostbite didn’t seem phased.  Instead he was more interested in studying Tim.  He picked up some kind of instrument and point it at him, and then heard some beeping and saw a few lights flash.  Tim didn’t care about any of it.  Instead, he pressed his tongue into Danny’s mouth, licking him, tasting him, overwhelmed by the electric green that throbbed into his chest through his hand.

              “Are you sure there was no source of ectoplasm in your environment?” Frostbite asked, looking down at his instrument.  Tim and Danny making out beside him didn’t seem to bother him in the slightest, and so they continued to do it, though Tim could see Danny had one ear on what Frostbite was saying.

              “Yes,” Danny replied, the word muffled as he tried to speak around Tim’s tongue.  “The only source of concentrated ectoplasm was locked inside an anti-ghost container.  Not a single drop has ever leaked.  There was nothing else.  Tim revived me all on his own,” Danny said, lifting a hand to brush his fingers across Tim’s cheek, his white gloves vanishing so he could touch Tim with his bare skin.  Tim gave him a dreamy smile and dove in for more kisses, licking his tongue across Danny’s bottom lip.  Danny gave a soft moan, his core flickering brighter when Tim did that.

              “Because Tim has an aura,” Frostbite said.  “An extremely faint one, mind you- but it is almost as if his cells have been bathed in ectoplasm for months and months.  As if he’s been ingesting it.”

              Danny and Tim both laughed at the same time. 

              “Ingesting zombie juices, maybe…” Danny said, and Tim gave a deep, deep blush. 

              “I mean, there was last night…” Tim countered, lowering his eyes to trace them down Danny’s body, to where his dick was, remembering how he’d dragged his teeth across the skin of Danny’s cock, making ectoplasm gush from the wounds, swallowing the taste of it…

              “Wait.  He has been ingesting you?” Frostbite said, his mouth open in shock.  Danny gently pulled his lips away from Tim, to turn his face to look at Frostbite.  Tim lay his head on Danny’s shoulder half in a daze, where Danny ran his fingers through his hair, pushing the fur hood away to reveal Tim’s face, the delicious feeling of his nails scraping along Tim’s scalp sending sparks down his spine.

              “Kinda,” Danny said.  “Though I’ve been ingesting him right back.”

              “Gross,” Dani said, putting down the petri dish she’d been playing with.  “You guys are gross,” she repeated, flying up from her stool.  “I’m outta here.”

              Danny completely ignored her, and so Tim didn’t pay her any mind, either, as she flew over their heads and out the door.  Danny’s fingers trailed down Tim’s neck, tucking inside the fur coat until he felt over the spot where Danny had bitten him.  Tim gasped in delight when he felt the sting.  He blushed heavily and moaned, closing his eyes.

              “Great One…Danny… you do realize that your human body still contains traces of ectoplasm.  I have explained this to you.”

              Danny nodded, a dazed look on his face, though he was trying to give Frostbite more of his attention.

              “Then if he has been swallowing your bodily fluids…which, judging from both of your behavior right now, it seems he has, then I believe his own cells have become flooded with ectoplasm.  This explains why he can sense your core.  And most likely has other effects.”

              Tim gave a little giggle, and bent down to rest his head on Danny’s chest, right over his core.  He could feel it, throbbing there, though the feeling was fading.  He frowned and lifted his head to look up at Danny.

              “Come back,” he said.

              Danny looked down at him with a sweet smile, and stroked his fingers along Tim’s cheek.

              “I can’t just walk around with my core exposed like that,” Danny said.  Then he leaned forward and pressed his lips against Tim’s ear to whisper.

              “You’ll have to wait till later to expose me some more.”

              Tim’s blush went deep, and he responded by kissing Danny’s lips roughly.  Frostbite seemed to be losing his patience a bit, because he cleared his throat, which with his Yeti voice, sounded a little more like a growl.

              “I think it is important to run some tests, and discover the implications of this,” Frostbite said.  “Because if we can figure out precisely how Tim was able to strengthen your core this much, I believe we can reproduce that with some ectoplasmic medications.  Meaning, I can give you something that will boost your core’s strength enough to ensure you can go ghost, even while you’re still sick with the zombie illness.  Which would mean we can get your human DNA sample, compare it to my virus sample, and hopefully start to work on a cure to this horrific disease.”

              As hopelessly flirty as Tim felt right now, he knew there was nothing more important than what Frostbite was saying.  So he tore his gaze away from Danny’s doting face, and they both managed to look at the Yeti with focus, though Tim was still curled in Danny’s arms.

              “Alright, Frostbite.  You have our attention,” Danny said.

              Frostbite ran tests for several hours, requiring samples of Tim’s skin cells, hair, and nails.  He scanned both his whole body and small parts of him, including his hands, head, and torso.  He also took readings from Danny, measuring his ectoplasmic signature, and comparing it with Tim’s cells.  Tim asked Frostbite questions about every single thing he was doing, attempting to learn as much as he could about ghost science from an expert.

              “So explain it to me one more time,” Frostbite said to Tim.  “You were sleeping with, biting, and swallowing bodily fluids from Danny while he was literal rotting flesh, and never got sick?”

              Tim nodded, trying to force the blush from his cheeks, and failing.  Danny made no such effort, his cheeks glowing bright green any time Frostbite asked them these kinds of personal questions.

              “I believe I can explain why,” Frostbite said, pointing to the readout on a screen of one of the instruments Tim didn’t recognize.  “It seems that your cells have gained some of Danny’s regenerative attributes, from the amount of ectoplasm you have ingested from him.”

              Tim stared at the readout, though he wasn’t trained on this instrument and didn’t really know how to read it.

              “Here, it shows the measure of ectoplasmic concentration within your cells.  For a completely living being, it should be zero,” Frostbite said, pointing.  It showed 2%.  “Now two percent may not seem like much, but keep in mind that for Danny, when he is in human form, his ectoplasmic concentration is around ten percent.  So you have a fifth of the ectoplasm Danny does, as a human.  That is a lot,” Frostbite explained.  Tim turned to look up at Danny with a deep blush in his cheeks, and Danny waggled his eyebrows suggestively at him.

              “So it seems that this level of ectoplasmic concentration in your cells has protected you from pathogens, and probably led to some accelerated healing,” Frostbite finished.

              Tim had to take a moment to let that sink in.  Protected him from pathogens.  Danny was protecting him, from sickness and disease.  Actually keeping his cells healthy, despite the fact he’d been sleeping with, and having sex with, and swallowing a literal rotting corpse all of this time.  Despite the fact that he had no spleen.  No access to medical care.  No access to medications.  He was still healthy.

              It turned out that all the wild things they’d been doing when they made love had actually…been saving Tim’s life.

              “You okay in there?” Danny asked, brushing his fingers through Tim’s hair and pressing a kiss to his forehead.  Tim’s eyes snapped up to meet Danny’s brilliant green gaze, and he smashed a kiss to his lips, over and over and over.  Danny answered him, humming happily as his tongue gave little licks to Tim’s mouth as he kissed and kissed and kissed.

              “You’re the reason I never got sick,” Tim said softly, pulling back just enough to look into Danny’s eyes.  “All this time.  All this time, you’ve been saving me.”

              Danny took both of Tim’s hands in his and lifted them up to his lips, where he pressed a soft kiss to the back of his knuckles

              “We were saving each other,” he said softly.  “You think I’d be here without you?”

              “No, no, Danny, you don’t understand.  I don’t have a spleen.  That increases my chances for infection.  If I hadn’t been with you, if I hadn’t been protected by your ectoplasm… I probably would have gotten sick.  I probably would have died.  I probably would have…”

              Danny pressed his finger over Tim’s lips, in that way he did to lovingly tell him to shut up.

              “You’re at a higher risk of infection, and you slept with me anyway?” Danny asked, his voice quiet.

              “I…I love you,” Tim said softly, looking up to lock their gazes together.  “I…I didn’t care.  You…you kissed me and it was heaven and I couldn’t bring myself to push you away…”

              Danny’s kiss now was heavy and thick.  He grabbed both sides of Tim’s face and devoured him, making Tim swoon and lean as hard as he could into his arms.

              Frostbite gave them both a moment; let them be lost in each other for a few minutes, but then he cleared his throat.

              “Yes, well.  I do need to hear more details on how Tim came to ingest so much of your ectoplasm, in order to figure out exactly what happened, so I can create an ectoplasmic booster that will…”

              “We made love a lot,” Danny cut him off, not taking his gaze away from Tim’s eyes.  Tim blushed, heavily, not nearly as familiar with Frostbite as Danny was.  “Not just human love, either,” Danny said, his own cheeks turning bright green with his own blush.  “Ghost love.”

              Frostbite, finally, seemed a little flustered.

              “Oh.  Um.  Well.  That…that would probably do it,” he said, clearing his throat a bit.  “That would explain the level of ectoplasm in Tim’s cells, if he’s been, um.  Well, that would explain why he’s been ingesting so much of you.  Though the living don’t typically, er, um, aren’t usually interested in ghost copulation, due to the fact that they don’t really heal properly afterwards.  Unless the ectoplasm has also been healing Tim’s love wounds.”

              Love wounds.

              Tim’s blush deepened as he heard the term.  He rolled his shoulders, feeling the sting of Danny’s scratches on his back.  Knowing now that they were protected from infection?  That they might heal more quickly than they should?

              He wanted more of them.

              “Let’s find out,” Danny said, his voice low and deep, making Tim’s heart beat a little faster.

              “Here? In front of Frostbite?”

              Danny gave a little laugh, and his blush grew even deeper.

              “I mean, let’s just look at your love wounds,” he said.  “To see how fast they’re healing.  But wow Tim.”

              Tim turned absolutely crimson.

              “I will, ah.  Turn around.  While you do that,” Frostbite said, his voice stammering a little.  “I’ll start mixing up some dosages, in fact, based on this information.  I’ll be in the adjoining lab.”

              They both watched as Frostbite left, heading towards an archway and then disappearing through it.  Danny’s eyes snapped back to Tim’s face, his brilliant green irises burning as they gazed at him.  He closed his eyes for a moment, and then the green ghost shield was back, though this time, he had it around both of them.  He gave Tim a seductive smile as he reached to pull down the zipper on Tim’s fur coat, and Tim let him, the heat in his cheeks somehow growing even hotter as Danny slipped the coat off of him and set it down on a chair.

              Tim then reached up to his own neck, and unclasped his cape.  Danny gathered it in his fingers, and Tim closed his eyes as he felt the cloth being pulled away, sliding over his arms and shoulders until it was gone.  His bandoliers were next, which he unclasped himself, though Danny was watching as he did it, no doubt learning how to undress him for future reference.  The thought made his cheeks burn hot.

              Tim reached down to the bottom of his kevlar shirt, yanking it up until the bare skin of his stomach was exposed.  Then Danny took over, his bare fingers brushing against Tim’s stomach, making it tickle.  Tim felt cool air, but not cold, flow across his skin as Danny lifted the shirt above his head, slowly, sensually.

              “Couldn’t you have just phased all of this off of me?” Tim said softly, as the shirt was pulled over his head.  When his vision was back, he was staring into burning green eyes that looked at him with hunger.

              “Now where’s the fun in that?” Danny said, dumping Tim’s shirt on top of all his other clothes without taking his gaze off of him.  He pressed another kiss to Tim’s lips, and then ran his fingers up his bare chest, making Tim suck in air as the blush in his cheeks spread down to the rest of him, making heat pool in his balls.

              “Danny…” he whispered, closing his eyes as he felt Danny’s teasing, and maybe he didn’t care about science right now.  Maybe this was all he wanted to do.  All he wanted to think about.  He felt Danny’s fingers brush across the bite mark he’d left on his shoulder, and he sucked in air sharply, expecting it to hurt.  And it did…but not as much as it should have.

              “It really does look better,” Danny said, leaning his face down to press a kiss to it.  Tim gasped, and Danny pressed more kisses, sweet, soft, gentle, over and over, making heat spread through Tim’s body and throb along his dick.  He started to grow hard, just a little, and was grateful for his cup, because they were not going to be alone in a short while.

              “Danny…” Tim moaned, tilting his head to let Danny in more, encouraging him to continue to kiss the bite mark he’d made.  He dragged his lips up Tim’s neck, making him shudder as he went, and then whispered in his ear.

              “I’ll make it worse again later.”

              Tim’s cheeks flushed as dark as they could go, and his dick grew even harder. 

              “You’re trying to kill me,” Tim whispered.

              “Nonsense.  I like you perfectly alive,” Danny teased, brushing his palms lightly down Tim’s back, making the claw marks sting.  Tim gave a shudder.

              “Those hurt a lot more,” he said.  Danny hummed, and then let go of Tim enough to walk behind him and take a look.

              “Oh, but they’re definitely better than they were,” Danny said, tracing his fingers lightly across the worst of them, making Tim suck in air, and then let out a quiet moan.

              “You really like them?” Danny asked, his voice soft and vulnerable.

              Tim gave a decisive nod.

              “Yes, baby,” he breathed, turning his head to look at him over his shoulder.  “They’re from you.”

              Danny’s blush grew so deep that all of his skin began to glow.  He floated in front of Tim and crushed their lips together, kissing him over and over, until they heard the low rumble of Frostbite clearing his throat in the doorway.

              Danny pulled away, and they both turned to look at him.

              In his hands, he was holding several small glass bottles, each with glowing ectoplasm swishing inside of them.  He walked up to them and set them down on the nearest workbench.

              “These are different concentrations of ectoplasm,” he said.  “Made to mimic the levels ghosts would get from feeding off of each other during copulation.”

              Tim struggled to hide his blush, realized it was pointless when he had no shirt on, and comforted himself that he could at least see a bit of embarrassment in Frostbite’s eyes as he explained it to them.

              “Since the level of intensity is shared between you, the one that works best to heal Tim will also be the one that will work best to help Danny convert out of his human form, and back into ghost form.”

              Frostbite held out the first bottle towards Tim, stopping just outside the ghost shield that Danny was sustaining around them both.  Tim reached for it, and Danny created a small hole in the shield, just large enough for Tim to reach for the bottle.  The blast of cold air through the hole made his nipples harden and sent a shiver through his whole body.  Danny shut it again the moment Tim’s hand was back inside.

              Tim stared at the small glass bottle of glowing green liquid, corked at the top.  It looked exactly like the ectoplasm inside the tank in their bunker.  Except now, Tim was supposed to drink it.

              “That is the lowest concentration,” Frostbite exclaimed.  “Barely more than ambient ectoplasm.  If that is enough to heal you, I will be surprised.  But then again, you’ve been feeding off of Danny’s ectoplasm in human form, which is not a very strong concentration at all.  So let’s start with this.”

              Tim stared at it, then stared at it some more.  He’d spent months and months wondering what this stuff was, and then finding ways to use it to draw electric energy from it to power everything that sustained them.  It was mysterious and weird and still very much an unknown to him, despite now knowing its name, and some of what it could do.

              He raised his eyes and looked up into Danny’s face.

              “This won’t hurt me?” Tim asked.  Danny gave him a soft smile and stepped closer to him, putting his bare palm on Tim’s cheek. 

              “No, baby.  You’ve already been drinking it out of me.  Every time you’ve swallowed my blood, or my sweat, or my… any other part of me,” Danny said softly.  “Your body is already acclimated to it, through slow absorption.  It’s going to heal you, not hurt you.”

              Tim glanced up into Danny’s face, and saw love and caring and tenderness.  Saw the face he’d relied on in much more dire circumstances.  Saw the person he’d given his whole life to.

              “Tim trust Danny,” Tim said, and then uncorked the bottle, quickly downing the glowing green liquid before it could evaporate.

              It tasted electric, like staticky fire.  Like lightning and burnt ozone.  It tasted like Danny.

              He felt it tingle a bit as it poured down his throat and settled in his stomach.  And then…nothing.  Danny flew to hover behind him and stare at the gouges in his back.

              “Anything?” Tim asked.

              “Nope.  Try the next one,” Danny said.

              They tried the next two, which also gave no reaction.  But on the fourth one, Tim started to feel…different.

              He knew it would be different the moment it slipped down his throat.  The staticky fire tingled across his skin out from his esophagus, even before it hit his stomach.  It gave him a buzz, that felt sort of like the pleasant haze he got from biting into Danny during sex, though not nearly as intense.  The warm vibrations spread out through his skin, and then he could feel it concentrating in his back, along the gouges Danny’s claws had made.  His cheeks blushed green, not red, as he felt Danny and Frostbite staring at his back, and he tried to turn around to look.

              He was able to catch a glimpse of some of it out of the corner of his eye.  He watched green sparks swirl across the edges of his injuries, and then felt them tingle.  A cool, soothing feeling brushed over each of them, and he watched their appearance change from looking like they were a day old to looking like they were a week old.

              “That’s the one,” Frostbite said.  “That was noticeable.”

              “That was amazing,” Danny said softly, moving in front of Tim so he could see his face.  “Did you feel that?”

              Tim nodded with a sly grin.

              “I guess this means you can give me those a lot more often than we thought,” he said.  Danny’s eyes flashed brighter for a moment, and then his gaze darted down to the bite mark on Tim’s neck.  It was faded now, the puncture wounds completely scabbed over, with yellowing bruises around the edges.  Danny visibly licked his lips as he thought about that.

              “I don’t know that Frostbite’s going to give us that much…” Danny started.

              “The concentration gives the same effect I’d get from drinking your ectoplasm, doesn’t it?” Tim said, lowering his eyelids, completely ignoring the fact that Frostbite was in the room with them.  “Like I bet, if I drank some of it right now, I’d heal even further…”

              “Ah-hem,” Frostbite said, making both of them snap their eyes towards him.  “Yes, that is, er.  Accurate.  Tim.  Though, now that we have the concentration we need to help Danny convert back to his ghost form, I would request that you er.  Um.  Redress yourself.  I need to create a mixture that contains the amount of ectoplasm of the four samples you just drank.  I will be back momentarily,” he said, probably hoping that saying so would keep them from making out while he was gone.

              They both gave each other a flirtatious smile, and Danny reached for Tim’s Red Robin shirt, handing it to him with a seductive grin.

              Oh, they were going to play with this later.

              But for now, they had work to do.

              Tim slipped his Red Robin shirt back on, clasping his bandoliers on over it.  He left his cape on the chair and just grabbed the fur coat, zipping it all the way up to keep himself warm.

              Once he was dressed, Danny let the ghost shield drop, and Tim felt the cold air blast against his face.

              Then Frostbite returned.

              “Alright, this contains the concentration to get you back to your ghost self,” Frostbite said to Danny, handing the bottle to Tim.  “We only need you in your human form for a few minutes, long enough for me to take samples.  Then you can go right back to ghost form.”

              Danny nodded, but it was obvious from his expression that he was terrified.  Tim was trying to think of a way, any way, that he didn’t have to do this.  Didn’t he already have some samples of Danny’s DNA back in the bunker?  But as he thought about it, he realized that he didn’t.  What he had were results from those samples- samples that he’d taken, and used up to run tests with.  He didn’t have any actual samples left.

              And an extremely important part of the scientific process was repeatability.  Tim’s results should be validated by Frostbite.  It was foolish for them to rely on nothing more than Tim’s recollection of results that he ran on equipment which he hadn’t been able to calibrate or do comparative testing on.

              He looked up at Danny’s terrified face and wanted to tell him he didn’t have to do this.  That they didn’t need a cure.  Fuck the rest of the world- they were perfectly comfortable in their bunker and could live there together for the rest of their lives, in peace and safety, alone.

              But he knew that wouldn’t happen.  The threat of keeping Danny in ghost form would always be looming over their heads.  The fear of him becoming a zombie again would never leave them.  In fact, doing it here, now, in the Ghost Zone, in Frostbite’s lab, where they had the best chance of turning him back into a ghost was the safest option they had.

              Tim reached out his free hand and cupped Danny’s cheek, turning his face away from the bottle of ectoplasm that he held, making him look up at him.

              “This is the safest place to do this,” Tim said.  “I’m right here with you.  I’ll keep you safe.  You will come back to me.  I will make sure of it.  I don’t care what it takes.”

              Danny clasped Tim’s hand to his cheek and leaned forward, resting his forehead against Tim’s and closing his eyes.  He took a long, deep breath, and on the exhale, opened them again.

              His green irises were piercing.

              “Danny trust Tim,” he said, curling his fingers around the back of Tim’s hand as he cupped his face.

              Then a white ring of light appeared at the top of his head and slowly moved its way down. Tim held Danny’s face firmly as he watched it transform him, his white hair becoming black, and ceasing to hover in the air, but instead falling with gravity.  His green eyes became blue, and to Tim’s delight, they were both there, full and whole, despite the rotten flesh being revealed on the face around them.  Then the ring moved further down, erasing the black jumpsuit, replacing it with the bare, rotten flesh of a zombie.  For a moment, all Tim could feel was joy at how healthy Danny looked; only a few decaying wounds here or there, a little bit of bone showing on one arm, but for the most part, he looked whole.

              It was when the ring passed below his waist that it struck Tim that Danny was naked, and Frostbite adverted his eyes as he seemed to realize that at the same moment Tim did.  The ring continued down to Danny’s feet, leaving him barefoot on the stone cold floor, and then he stood there, motionless.

              Tim quickly reached for his cape that was lying across the chair, and went to drape it across Danny’s shoulders.  Danny’s eyebrows furrowed and he took a step back.

              “Danny?” Tim said, worry creasing his forehead as he held his cape in his hands.  “Baby, what’s wrong?”

              Danny paused, and narrowed his eyes, looking at Tim with suspicion.

              “Danny?  It’s just my cape,” Tim said, wondering how much of this situation Danny understood.  Normally Tim could tell by the way he moved and interacted with the bunker what level of cognitive function he had, but right now they were in an unfamiliar place, and maybe that was confusing him.

              Tim very, very slowly took a step towards Danny, his blue eyes darting all over Tim’s face, looking lost.

              “Baby, it’s me,” Tim said, putting his own palm to his chest to indicate who he was.  “Tim.”

              “Tim?” Danny said, his gaze darting up to Tim’s eyes and then tracing around them, almost as if he was seeing something…

              “Oh shit,” Tim said, suddenly remembering his domino mask.  He reached up with his free hand and peeled it off, tossing it on the chair with his bandoliers.  “See?  It’s me.  It’s Tim.”

              Danny’s face lit up with joy.  He rushed forward and pulled Tim into his arms, and this time made no protest as Tim draped the cape over his bare shoulders and secured it around his neck.  Then Tim was holding him in return, his arms wrapping around Danny’s naked back under the cape, as Danny rested his cheek on Tim’s shoulder.  Tim turned his face to press into Danny’s neck, and it was warm.  He was alive.  He had a heartbeat, throbbing against his pulse point, and Tim found his own heart aching.  When he breathed in and smelled Danny’s decaying, rotting scent, Tim clutched him tighter and almost sobbed into his skin with relief.

              He had missed him.  It was like coming home.  It was so strange, because he’d been with Danny all this time- and Danny had proven to him many times over that he was the same person, no matter what form he was in.  But Tim’s more instinctual brain associated this body, this human, zombie body, with the person who he loved.  Tim clutched him, pulling him close, trying to fight back his tears.

              Danny’s arms wrapped just as tightly around Tim’s back, and Danny turned to whisper in his ear.

              “Shhhh,” Danny said, in that way he always said.  “It’s okay, baby.”

              Tim’s heart was running wild.  He couldn’t handle all the emotions he was feeling.  Relief.  Trepidation.  Worry.  Comfort.  Hope.  Guilt.  Love.  And now Danny was comforting him, when Danny was the one risking his very existence to give them the samples they needed to continue studying this damned virus.

              “I just missed you,” Tim mumbled into Danny’s neck, covered by his cape.  “Even though I’ve been with you all this time, I’ve missed you.  I didn’t realize how much until you were back, in my arms…”

              Danny ran the palm of his hand down the back of Tim’s head, comforting him while also being very, very careful not to let his fingernails anywhere near Tim’s skin.

              Right.

              Tim had forgotten.  Had actually, entirely forgotten that Danny was a literal danger to him right now.

              Because he was sick.

              And the whole reason they were doing this was so that he could get better.

              Tim pulled back from the embrace, and looked into Danny’s beautiful blue eyes.

              “Let’s get those samples we need, so we can get you back into ghost form,” he said.  “So you can be your whole self again.”

              Danny smiled, wide and bright, and Tim’s heart nearly cracked in half and how much Danny trusted him.

              Tim reached towards his bandoliers and pulled out some safety pins.  He used them to close the front of the cape, so Danny’s nakedness was mostly covered.  He then turned around to see Frostbite still politely staring at his equipment, pretending to set it up, even though he’d been ready for quite awhile.

              “Okay,” Tim said.  “We’re ready.”

              Frostbite turned around with a nod, holding a glass test tube with several qtips in it.  He looked Danny up and down with a deep, concerned expression, his eyes focusing on a missing patch of skin on his cheek.

              “This won’t take long,” he said, moving the first qtip towards Danny’s mouth to swab the inside of his cheek.

              Danny shook his head and backed away.

              “No bite,” he said.

              Frostbite’s smile was gentle and reassuring.

              “It’s alright, Danny.  I’m dead.  If I caught the virus, I’d be well again within a few hours.”

              He tried again, but Danny backed away further, pressing his lips together tighter.

              “Hang on,” Tim said.  “We can get you a much bigger sample than that.”

              Frostbite stopped his advances, and Tim’s respect grew for the Yeti as he allowed Tim to approach Danny instead.  Tim reached through the crack of the cape and clasped Danny’s wrists, pulling his hands out into the open air.

              [1START XXX]

              “Danny, can you take off a few nails for me?”

              Danny smiled brightly and immediately began pulling off his fingernails.  Tim took a glass petri dish and held it out while Danny dropped them in, clinking against the glass.

              “And a few teeth, baby?”

              Danny nodded, squeezing his eyes shut as he yanked on his teeth a few times.  He was struggling to get them out, which made Tim’s heart grow warm with hope.  He was so healthy, which meant that his core was still strong.  Which meant transforming him back would hopefully not be very difficult.

              The teeth clinked into the petri dish, and Tim handed it to Frostbite.  Then Tim took Danny’s arm in his hand, running his fingers gently up the side, until he found the deep wound that had exposed bone.

              “Can I take some of your flesh, baby?” Tim asked.

              An immediate blush rose to Danny’s cheeks, and he lowered his eyelids with a seductive smile.  His expression made Tim’s heart beat harder, and warmth spread through his own blood.  Frostbite cleared his throat and looked away again.  Tim knew that biting and scratching each other was part of ghost sex, but what was literal flesh removal?

              He had a feeling it was pretty raunchy, especially because of how turned on he was himself at seeing Danny’s expression.  Still, this was the safest way for all of them to ensure they got a sample of Danny’s skin cells without risking going anywhere near his mouth, and so what if they were a little inappropriate?

              One look at Danny’s face told him everything.  His flush was deep, deep pink, his eyes nearly closed, as Tim traced his thumb around the edge of the wound.  He decided not to be a tease, this wasn’t the time, and so he sunk his nails into the hole and began to drag them back. 

              His nails caught on the skin and fat layer beneath and he began to pull.  As Danny’s rotten flesh started to tear away, he moaned, soft and low in his throat.  His head fell forward, his eyes closed in desire.  Tim watched his tongue emerge to lick along his own lips.

              “Tiiimmmm…” he said, and Tim pulled faster, peeling the skin off of Danny’s arm until he had a chunk several inches long in his hand.  Blood dripped from the open wound on Danny’s arm, and it took everything Tim had not to plunge his fingers into it and kiss Danny stupid at the same time.

              But he managed to remain civil, and turned to hold out the sample of flesh to Frostbite.

              “I got it,” he managed to say, trying to keep his voice steady, and not really succeeding.  Frostbite turned around, his eyes shifting with embarrassment as he held out the petri dish and let Tim place the sample in it.

              [1END XXX]

              “This will be enough for many, many tests,” Frostbite said, clearing his throat.  “And now to get Danny back into his ghost form.”

              “Yeah,” Tim said, turning to face his lover, their hands still clasping each other.  Tim picked up the bottle of ectoplasm off the chair and turned to Danny.  He waited until Danny’s eyes could refocus, and then he showed it to him.

              “You gotta drink this now, so you can go ghost again, baby,” Tim said softly.  Danny looked over at the ectoplasm and his face lit up.

              “Yum!” he said, and Tim laughed.  He laughed so hard.  Oh god, he was feeling fifty thousand things but none of that mattered, none of that mattered at all because Danny was a ham and ridiculous and sweet and his.

              Danny held out his hand and took the bottle.

              “Gotta drink it fast, okay?  The second I uncork it.”

              Danny nodded, and Tim pulled the cork out.  Danny lifted it to his lips and guzzled the whole bottle down in an instant.

              Tim watched as his whole body fluctuated, the way it did when he was in ghost form, as if his entire being was made of water.  His eyes flashed bright green, then went back to blue, and then he tilted his head back with a sigh.

              Tim watched with a fretful expression, waiting, hoping…

              And then Danny lifted his head and opened his eyes, staring straight into Tim’s soul with piercing green.  Danny grinned.

              “Hi Tim,” he said, and then the white rings appeared at his waist.  Tim sighed with relief as he watched him transform back, the hand that Tim held becoming covered in a white glove, the bare feet clad in white boots.  His skin lost all the rotting and gained a soft glow instead, and his hair returned to it’s hovering, ethereal white.

              Danny looked down at the cape draped over him and gave a laugh.

              “Ha, thanks baby,” he said, looking at Tim with a sparkle in his eyes.  “I’d forgotten what I was wearing when I transformed."

              Tim snorted, he couldn’t help it, Danny made him fucking laugh, in either of his forms, and maybe right now he really, really needed to.

              Tim looked over at Frostbite and saw him very busy preparing the samples, and so Tim stepped closer, reaching down to take the safety pins off, letting the cape fall open.

              “How do I look?” Danny asked, putting his hands on his hips, making the cape billow as he stuck out his elbows.  Tim snorted again.

              “Like a dork in a cape.”

              “Hey, don’t talk about capes that way.  I happen to be in love with one.”

              Danny put his hand on the small of Tim’s back and pulled him in close.  Before Tim knew it their mouths were sliding together, and he was melting into Danny, the pads of his fingers rubbing along the black jumpsuit as he touched his chest.  The flush in his cheeks from earlier was still there, and Danny’s kisses brought it right back to the surface, making his whole body glow.

              He pulled back just a little, and ran his fingers down Danny’s arm, down to where he’d taken the flesh sample.  Danny never took his eyes off Tim, so Tim got to watch them dilate when he brushed his fingertips over that spot.

              “What did that feel like?” Tim whispered.

              “So fucking hot,” Danny breathed.  “Excites both my human body and my ghost core.  Brings back all the memories of other times that you’ve done that…”

              Tim’s blush deepened, and he looked down as his dick gave a throb.

              “I…I really liked seeing your human side again.  I… I know it’s fucked up, but I’m just so used to you as a zombie, I…”

              He felt Danny’s finger under his chin.

              In the same way Danny always did, zombie or ghost.

              Tim let him lift his face.

              “Of course you’re used to me as a zombie,” Danny said.  “That’s what I’ve been, until now.”

              “I’m not saying I wish you were a zombie, I just…wish… I miss…”

              Danny stopped him from talking with another press of his lips.

              “I’m trying to explain…” Tim mumbled, but Danny only kissed him again.

              “Danny I swear…”

              Danny shoved his tongue into his mouth, and Tim groaned.  He let him pull him close, and melted into the kiss, his cock growing harder as his flush grew even deeper.

              Danny pulled back from the kiss and rested their foreheads together.

              “You can love me as a zombie, Tim.  It’s kinda why I fell in love with you.  For loving me like that.”

              “Yeah, but I also want to cure you, I don’t want you sick.  And I know I’ll love you as a human, too, in fact I can’t wait to see it.  See your gorgeous blue eyes the way they were meant to be seen…”

              Another kiss cut him off and Tim was truly losing his train of thought.  Which he knew was Danny’s point.  He’d gotten turned on when Danny was in his zombie form, and now that was continuing in his ghost form, entirely uninterrupted, because he was the same person.

              Danny pulled back again and let him breathe.

              “I’m just…afraid of losing…what we just had,” Tim said softly, finally, stroking his fingers over Danny’s arm where he’d torn the flesh away.

              “What, you think I won’t like that after I’m cured?” Danny teased, kissing his lips down Tim’s neck, pushing the fur hood aside to get his lips lower.  It felt so good Tim could only moan for a moment, before he processed what Danny had just said.

              “You can’t possibly…”

“I told you.  It’s not the zombie that likes your fingers under my skin,” Danny whispered, his lips right against Tim’s ear.  “It’s the ghost.  It might have been my zombie form that led us to figure that out,” Danny cooed, nipping at Tim’s ear with his teeth, making his point again about the things they could have when he was no longer a zombie, “but now that we know about it?  Hell no I’m not giving that up.”

              He nipped hard, his teeth leaving indents in Tim’s skin, and Tim moaned.  He curved his whole body against Danny’s, bemoaning his cup that kept him from feeling Danny’s bulge pressing against his own.

              “But…but the things we’ve done,” Tim whispered, thinking about plunging his hands into Danny’s abdomen, which made him close his eyes and cheeks flush hot.  “I…wouldn’t you die?”

              Danny pulled his face back to lock their eyes together, and Tim was drowning in green.

              “Already dead, baby,” he whispered.  “As long as my core is healthy?  Nothing can kill me.  We’ve already proven that.  Sometimes I was a literal skeleton.  No organs at all.  Shouldn’t be alive.  But you fed my core.  Brought me back.  Once I’m rid of this infection?  We can do whatever we want.”

              Tim moaned and pressed a hard, deep kiss to Danny’s lips, enjoying that he could let his tongue slip past his teeth and dive into his mouth.  Their hands clasped harder at each other, pulling each other nearer, their breaths growing thicker.  Tim was so lost in Danny’s lips and arms and voice that he almost didn’t hear Frostbite at all when he spoke.

              “Okay, I have the samples set up.  They will take several hours to run.  And the two of you seem like you would prefer to be otherwise occupied right now.”

              “You telling us to get a room, Frostbite?” Danny said, his eyes never leaving Tim’s.

              “I am insisting on it.”

              Danny laughed, a bright, good-natured, happy sound that shot through Tim like the sun.  Danny wrapped his arms around Tim’s waist and turned them both intangible.  His legs merged into a tail, and he flew them up through the ceiling, through several other caverns and halls, until Tim was thrown down onto a soft bed covered in pelts and furs.

              “Know your way around here pretty well, huh?” Tim asked from under half-lidded eyes.  Danny formed legs again and landed on the floor.  He walked towards the bed, the cape billowing behind him as he did so, making Tim blush more than he should.

              “Been coming here for years,” Danny said.  “Frostbite’s a good egg.”

              “He sure put up a lot from us today,” Tim said softly, as Danny crawled on top of him, crushing Tim’s whole body with his own.  Tim moaned and became butter under him, melting even further when Danny’s lips went right back to kissing that spot on his neck.  Then he sucked, and Tim’s hands were fumbling at the zipper of the fur coat, desperate to get it off.

              “Hang on,” Danny said softly, and Tim watched as a green ghost shield emanated from him, expanding to surround them both, then encompass the bed, and then the entire room.  “Don’t want you to get cold, once I get you naked.”

              Tim grinned, his cheeks flushing hot, and then he yanked the coat off, tossing it away.  He hurried to unclasp his bandoliers and let them fall to the floor with a thud, and then Danny was back, the cape covering them both.  He slid one knee up between Tim’s legs and grabbed the bottom of his shirt, tugging it over Tim’s head.  Tim gave a soft moan as Danny lowered his mouth to suck in the skin of his neck, over and over.  He then kissed his way across Tim’s throat to the other side, where his bite mark from last time was still there, though barely.

              “So,” Danny said, sucking on the lingering bruise, making Tim give a soft moan from the tenderness, “Wanna try out our new trick?  Drink enough of my ectoplasm, and see how much you heal?”

              Tim shuddered beneath him, barely able to speak, but he gave an enthusiastic nod.

              “Oh, yes,” he said, tilting his head back to let Danny in.  “Danny, bite me.”

              [2START XXX]

              He felt Danny’s fangs prick at his skin and gave a sharp inhale.  His heart was racing with anticipation, and then he felt the pressure and sting of pain as Danny bit down.

              “Fuck baby,” Tim whispered as he arched his whole body up into Danny’s, feeling their chests press together.  Danny moaned, grinding his hips down against Tim’s, and Tim was suddenly very frustrated at his cup.  His fingers scrabbled to get his pants down, struggling without dislodging himself from Danny’s teeth.

              “Get it off,” Tim demanded, and Danny smirked, even with his teeth plunged into Tim’s neck.  He curled his fingers into Tim’s waistband and phased his pants through him, tossing them somewhere onto the floor.  His fingers teased up Tim’s bare thigh, tracing over the elastic of the jock strap, making Tim shudder under him.  When Tim reacted that way he sank his fangs in deeper, and Tim bucked his hips upwards as he felt Danny take him, just like a ghost.

              Danny stopped teasing and phased the jockstrap and cup away, leaving Tim naked while he still had his jumpsuit (and cape) on.  But now when he ground down onto his cock Tim could feel it, and he moaned loudly, wrapping his arms around Danny’s back beneath the cape as Tim spread his legs.

              Danny slowly, gently, unclasped his teeth, bringing out his tongue to lap at the blood that welled up from the puncture wounds.  Tim groaned, becoming butter under his licks, feeling the soft wetness of his drool alongside the dripping of his own blood.

              Danny gave a long, low growl that was so soft it was almost a purr.  Tim’s hands flew up to clasp his white hair, wanting to hold his mouth there forever, gently sucking and lapping at his blood.  At the same time Danny rocked his bulge down onto Tim’s, making heat throb up through his cock and down into his balls.

              “Danny,” he whispered, breathless.

              Danny turned his lips to brush against Tim’s ear.

              “What is it you always say to me?” he taunted.  “Want more, baby?”

              Tim gave a strangled cry as he shuddered with want.

              “Yes.”

              He felt Danny’s smirk against his skin and it sent his desire wild.  His fingers stayed clasped in Danny’s hair as he slowly dragged his lips across Tim’s throat and down his chest, exciting every inch of skin that was scraped by his fangs, his clothed stomach teasing the tip of Tim’s bare cock as he slid down.  He reached the top of Tim’s pectoral muscle and paused there, pressing his tongue flat against the skin, wetting it with several licks before sucking it into his mouth.  Tim shuddered at the tease, his nipples growing hard just from the promise of stimulation.  Danny gave him a light prick, making Tim give a high-pitched, desperate gasp.

              “God, Tim, you’re so delicious,” Danny breathed, his voice more air than sound, his resolve cracking as he dragged his cool tongue across Tim’s nipple, hard and wet.  Tim gave a long, deep moan, his fingers curling and uncurling from Danny’s hair.  He looked down but all he saw was Danny’s form under his cape, and he didn’t want that.

              “Want to see you,” Tim said, his fingers sliding down to the clasp and undoing it in a single practiced motion.  He pulled it to the side, the black cloth fluttering to the floor as Danny continued to lick over his nipple, teasing it with promises to come.

              Then he sucked it into his mouth, and Tim keened.  His heart was hammering so hard he could barely hear.  He felt Danny’s fangs prick at his skin while his tongue lapped at the nub, making him shudder.  When Danny bit, he cried out, his voice loud and echoing off the stone walls.  His cock swelled to full hardness, and he bucked his hips, rubbing it against Danny’s bulge relentlessly, trying his best to coax him out of his jumpsuit.

              Danny released his fangs, and he stared at the punctures in Tim’s skin as he watched the blood well up.  His eyes flashed bright green before he bent down to lick at it, smearing Tim’s blood across his nipple as he drank.  Tim was shaking under him, his hands clasping roughly at the back of his jumpsuit, his nails trying to dig into the cloth.  Danny licked some more, and Tim moaned, tossing his head back as pleasure radiated across his chest.  He dug his nails in deeper, trying to scratch at Danny’s skin, frustrated.

              “Why are you still dressed?” Tim pleaded.  Danny lifted his face and blinked his eyes several times, pulling himself out of a daze so deep he had to think for a minute.

              “Oh.  Whoops.”

              His whole body fluctuated, and then the jumpsuit was gone.  Danny dove back down immediately, licking the blood up from across Tim’s nipple, and Tim gave a high-pitched gasp as he felt Danny’s naked body press against him, finally.  He curled his fingers against Danny’s bare back and dragged his nails up, leaving soft, green lines in their wake.

              “Tim,” Danny cooed, his whole body shuddering.  His hands tightened around Tim’s waist as he panted, his drool dripping from his fangs and onto Tim’s chest.

              “You like that baby?”

              “More!”

              Tim eagerly gave him more.  He pressed his nails hard against Danny’s back and dragged them up, causing green scratches to appear beneath them.

              Danny shuddered, his back arching as his eyes flashed so brightly they reflected off of Tim’s stomach.  His entire form wavered, and Tim watched in fascination as his legs melded into a tail.  It flowed out from below his waist, the same pale color as his glowing skin, his dick swelling hard as it pressed against Tim’s pelvis.

              “Wow,” Tim cooed, moving his fingertips down to the small of Danny’s back, and then slowly dragging them up, pressing as hard as he could, slicing Danny’s skin open as much as was possible with dull human fingernails.

              Danny melted into Tim, his moan long and low and haunting.  He trembled as he tried to lift himself with his arms, and when he did that, Tim caught a glimpse of that bright, green light glowing in the middle of his chest.

              “Baby,” Tim whispered with utter awe.  “Is that your core?”

              “Bite me bite me bite me please,” Danny pleaded.  Heat and fire prickled up through Tim’s body, making every inch of him burn.  He grabbed Danny around his back and rolled them over, pressing him down into the mattress.  He straddled him, his tail flowing out between Tim’s legs, their swollen cocks brushing against each other as Tim looked down in wonder.

              Danny’s chest was glowing.  Diffuse, green light was slowly pulsing from the center, and when Tim touched Danny’s skin, it grew brighter.  Tim wanted to stare forever, but Danny was begging to be bitten and Tim was eager to oblige him.  He leaned down, pressing their chests together, as he ran his tongue across Danny’s neck, listening to his gasps, waiting until he found the spot that excited him most.

              He felt Danny tense under him right as he licked over his pulse point.  Tim stopped and sucked, feeling Danny arch his back and listening to him keen.  And then he felt it.  Felt his core buzzing beneath his chest, growing more excited as Tim sucked Danny’s skin into his mouth and teased it with his teeth.

              “Tim Tim Tim Tim,” Danny moaned, his cock swelling between them, Tim’s echoing it a second later.  Tim couldn’t hold back anymore.  He closed his teeth and felt them slice into Danny’s skin.

              “Yes!” Danny cried, his hands flying to Tim’s back, his claws scraping down in sharp, clean lines.  Tim’s whole body flushed with heat, and then below him, he felt Danny’s core grow warm.  He could feel it, burning beneath him, throbbing and pulsing in time with Tim’s sucks.  All of that encouraged Tim to bite harder, as he tasted ectoplasm flow into his mouth and drank.

              Electric sparks rushed down his throat as he swallowed, then raced across his skin.  He felt it then- felt the power rushing to the scratches on his back, to the bite marks in his neck and chest.  Knew it was healing him.  Not nearly to the degree Danny healed; Tim was sure he’d be bruised for days, and he kinda liked that idea.  But then he took another swallow, and Danny cried out with pleasure beneath him, his core throbbing hard against Tim’s chest.  The ectoplasm shot straight to Tim’s wounds, making them tingle and feel cool and warm at the same time.

              Tim released his teeth and Danny panted hard under him, his breaths coming fast and shallow.

              “Don’t stop why’d you st…”

              “Shhhh,” Tim said, his lips dripping with electric green.  “Danny trust Tim.”

              Danny arched his back as Tim dragged his lips down his chest, scraping his dull human teeth across it, teasing as he went.  The closer he got to his core the harder Danny’s breaths came, until he was practically hyperventilating as his claws clutched desperately at Tim’s back.  Tim licked over the surface of his skin, right above the glow, which was ten times brighter than it had been a minute ago.  Tim licked it again, then again, until Danny’s back was arching up so hard it reminded Tim that he didn’t really have a spine.

              “Bite you here, baby?” Tim asked.

              “Please!”

              Tim sank his teeth down into Danny’s skin, pressing as hard as he could.  He felt it break.

              Danny screamed.

              The core beneath his mouth throbbed hard, pulsing right up against the surface, begging to be released.  There was a bulge in Danny’s skin now, where it was pressing desperately to get out.  Tim ran his tongue over it, coaxing it, encouraging it to come closer.  Ectoplasm flowed into his mouth and down his throat, making the scratches Danny was giving him glow with pleasure.  His mind was completely drowning in all the sensation; he could barely think, he was all instinct and no thought.

              He sucked the bulging skin into his mouth, bit his teeth down hard, and ripped the skin away.

              “Tim Tim Tim Tim,” Danny said, bucking his hips up, his cock so hard it was leaking down onto his abdomen.  Danny’s core was now free; completely exposed, and it dove into Tim’s mouth without hesitation.  Tim’s entire body changed in a way he didn’t have words to describe.  He was surrounded by Danny, in every corner, in every organ, in every cell.  He was glowing bright green, his eyes as blinding as Danny’s were.  He licked the core in his mouth with reverence and love, showing it just how precious it was, how beautiful it was that they could share it together.  Danny’s hands were limp now, his whole body falling slack as he could no longer move.

              Tim brought his hands up to his mouth and gently, carefully, pulled the core out and held it in his palms.  He kissed it, over and over, his eyes lust-drunk and his brain drowned in passion.  He was vaguely aware that Danny had a gaping hole in his chest, that he’d bitten open, but that hardly seemed to matter.  He had Danny’s soul in his hands, the most precious thing in all the universe, and there was nothing, anywhere, that mattered besides this.

              Each time Tim pressed his lips against the throbbing green power, it grew brighter.  Every time he ran his tongue along it, it pulsed harder.  When Tim caressed it with his fingers, it cooed, and when he held it in his palms, it sighed.  Tim was absolutely mesmerized.  All he could do was kiss and stroke and show Danny how much he loved him.  He forgot about Danny’s body, he forgot about his own body, he forgot about himself.  There was no Tim.  There was only Danny, the epitome of beauty and joy.

              “Baby,” Danny said, his voice coming from the core, not from the lips of the body beneath him.

              “Mmmm?” Tim said, unable to stop kissing and licking the core in his hands.

              “Baby, I’d be in your hands forever if I could.  But you need to put me back.”

              “Kay,” Tim said, his mind so lost he could barely remember words.  But his hands obeyed him, doing exactly what Danny needed, because that’s what he would always do.  Whatever Danny needed.

              He placed the green light back against the hole, and with both palms crossed over the top, pressed it back in as gently as he could.

              The moment it was inside him, Danny gasped for air.  A green light sealed over the hole while Danny’s skin grew back before Tim’s eyes.  The light returned to Danny’s irises and he blinked, staring up at Tim with absolute reverence.

              “Need you in me now, now,” he pleaded and Tim nodded, completely agreeing.  He was lost, and drunk, and not thinking at all, and so he was only following instinct as he moved down to try to find between Danny’s legs.  But there was no between his legs.  He didn’t have legs.

              Danny’s cock was at full attention, hard and leaking, protruding above his balls, which were covered in soft, white hair.  But below them there was just solid flesh, gradually narrowing as it slipped between Tim’s thighs, wisping behind him until it became so thin and so transparent that it disappeared.  In Tim’s lust-addled haze, he rubbed his hand over the flesh just below Danny’s balls, pushing on it with the heel of his palm, and Danny groaned.

              “Tim Tim please please,” he cried, his cock swelling with want as green precum dripped from his slit. 

              “Where, baby?” Tim said, half drunk.

              “Anywhere you want,” Danny said, looking down at Tim with slitted eyes, the green behind them so bright it made Tim’s eyes dilate.  “Like we always do.”

              Tim ran his palms up and down Danny’s sides, then over his hips and across his pelvic bones, then back up his stomach.

              “But you don’t have any holes, baby,” he said.  “Your skin is perfect.  There’s nowhere for me to…”

              “Make one,” Danny cooed.

              “Cut you open?” Tim said, his heart beating faster with excitement, because fuck if that wasn’t his favorite way to do this.  As he started to think about that, Tim felt Danny shift, and then felt softness on the side of his neck.  He turned, and found the tip of Danny’s tail caressing his face, and on instinct, without even thinking about it, he opened his mouth to kiss it.  Danny moaned and pushed it into Tim’s mouth, deep and insistent.  Danny groaned when Tim licked it, his cock growing between Tim’s legs, heat spreading down Tim’s spine as he heard the noises he was making.

              Tim dragged his fingers down Danny’s pelvis, curling them to dig his nails into his skin.  Danny bucked up into his touch, begging for more with his every motion.  His tail slipped from Tim’s mouth and began to caress his face, his neck, the back of his spine.  Tim shuddered, wanting it there, wanting to find a way inside Danny without him having to lose his tail.  His dull, human nails scraped down Danny’s healthy skin and he grunted with frustration.  He didn’t have ghost claws.  He couldn’t just slash his way in.

              He slit his eyes open and glanced down at his bandoliers.  Without removing his thighs from around Danny, he reached down and grabbed one, expertly flicking open the correct pouch to flip open his pocket knife.  He sat up and held it up, letting Danny’s eyes focus on it for just a moment.  Danny growled, his cock flushing to it’s fullest as precum dripped down the side.  Tim reached out with his free hand and caressed the underside of his shaft gently, causing Danny to give a soft gasp.  Then he wrapped his fingers around him and started to stroke, pulling long, low moans from him as his tip flared and more precum shone from the slit.  Tim looked up at Danny’s face, his eyes closed in pleasure, and licked his own lips.  He leaned forward and lowered his mouth to lick over the tip, causing Danny to jump and give a soft whine.

              Tim slid his hand lower down Danny’s shaft and opened his mouth to suck the head in.  Danny groaned again, his hands moving to the back of Tim’s head, while his tail gently caressed the back of Tim’s neck, sending sparks down his spine.  Tim sucked Danny down, feeling the soft coolness of his cock as it pressed against the roof of his mouth and slid towards his throat.  He groaned as he tasted Danny’s ectoplasm, his heart beating harder as his body craved it now, wanting it inside of him.

              As he sucked Danny’s cock, he brought the point of the knife down to rest against Danny’s pelvis.  His dick throbbed in Tim’s mouth, his fingers tightening roughly in Tim’s hair.  His tail wrapped around Tim’s neck, the tip of it caressing his cheek.

              “Mmmm,” Tim said, his mouth full as he slowly dragged the tip of the knife down across Danny’s skin, leaving a clean, sharp line of green as he went.  He pulled his mouth off Danny’s cock just enough to speak, his lips brushing across the slit with every word.

              “Tell me where you want it, baby,” he purred.

              Danny keened, his tail tightening around Tim’s neck as his fingers pulled on his hair.  Tim’s own erection was achingly hard, his mind remembering what it felt like to plunge it into Danny’s wet, bloody flesh, wondering how different it would feel when he was a ghost.

              “Uuunnnnahhhh!” Danny cried as Tim dragged the knife tip right below Danny’s balls, lifting his head just enough to be able to press the blade there.

              “Yeah, thought so,” Tim cooed, and then he slowly started to push the knife in.

              “Ahhh…ahhh….unnnnn!” Danny cried, his voice full of desire as he threw his head back, his green eyes wide open.  His tail flicked across Tim’s shoulders, his claws digging into the furs of the bed as he arched his back.  Tim plunged the knife in deeper, watching in lustful fascination as brilliant ectoplasm welled up from the wound and began to pour down over Danny’s hips.  Rivers of green ran along Tim’s thighs as he straddled him, covering everything below Danny’s balls in bright, oozing liquid.  It was cool to the touch, and Tim desperately wanted to drink it, but that was not his purpose this time.

              Instead he slowly pushed the blade in deeper, Danny’s wanton moans only encouraging him, the caresses of his tail along the back of his neck spiking pleasure across his skin.  When he had the blade shoved in up to the handle, Tim dragged it to the side, slicing Danny open just wide enough that Tim could fit his dick inside.  His cheeks burned with heat and his blood boiled as he thought about it, dreamed about it, knowing that feeling was only seconds away.

              He pulled the knife out and Danny gasped, his eyes flying wide open as Tim lifted the knife towards his lips.  With half-lidded eyes he met Danny’s gaze and brought his tongue to the blade, licking the ectoplasm from it, feeling it tingle as it slipped down his throat.  Danny moaned and bucked upward, and Tim let the knife fall to the floor as glowing ectoplasm poured from Danny’s wound and out over his sides, making an impossible mess. 

              Danny’s hands flew up to Tim’s hips and he grabbed them as Tim rose up onto his knees, straddling the top of Danny’s tail, while the end of it curled up into his hair and caressed his scalp.  Tim lifted his gaze to look into Danny’s eyes and saw him barely able to keep them open.  His cheeks were flushed as bright green as the ectoplasm that dripped down his flesh.

              “Tim, please,” he whispered, and Tim needed no more encouragement.  He plunged his cock into the hole he’d carved in Danny’s flesh, and both of them moaned together as he sank in.  Wet, buzzing electric coolness surrounded him; a sweet, juicy pressure on all sides that grew tighter as he pushed in.  It dawned on him immediately that Danny was shape shifting, just enough, to make himself feel as good to Tim as possible.  The realization set Tim’s blood on fire.  Arousal burned through him as he pushed into his lover, Danny’s hands caressing his hips, his tail tracing down his spine, all of Danny with him and surrounding him and touching him.  His balls pressed up against Danny’s skin and Tim shuddered, his whole cock buried inside of him, being gently squeezed, just right, in every place.  His chin fell forward to hit his own chest as he took a moment to just feel it all, but then Danny clenched around him tight.

              “Fuuuuuck,” Tim said, losing all sense.  He pulled back and slid back in again, heat radiating up his cock as it was surrounded by pressure that was just right.  It drove him in faster and faster, each push in making desire rush up through his nerves to alight across his whole body.  Danny’s tail teased down his spine, making him arch his back, as his hips drove himself downward, chasing the impossible pleasure that Danny was giving him.  Tim’s eyes slit open now and then to look into Danny’s face, and all he saw there was the same rapture that he felt.

              “Tim Tim Tim yes yes yes,” Danny repeated, exhaling on every thrust, his fingers clutching Tim’s hips as he pounded into him.  He drove his hips down harder, both of them moaning whorishly as their bodies came together in wet, rhythmic slaps.  Tim was on all fours now, his hands beside Danny’s chest, as he started to drive into him as hard as he could.  With every push in, Danny was somehow tighter, almost feeling like he was sucking Tim in, beckoning him to be near, desperate to be close.  Danny lifted his arms and wrapped them around Tim’s back, his tail tickling down his spine, lower and lower, until it was caressing across his ass cheeks, and then slipping between them to tease across his hole.

              “Fuck fuck fuck fuck,” Tim whispered, slamming his cock hard into Danny, feeling Danny’s erection rubbing between their stomachs, green ectoplasm slicking everywhere as they made love.  He could barely keep his eyes open, but when he managed to he saw Danny in the same state; utterly surrendered to their joining.  His head was tossed back in ecstasy, his claws teasing scrapes against Tim’s back, his tail prodding at his hole.  Tim was surrounded by burning stimulation on all sides; his back, his cock, his ass, his vision.  The sounds Danny was making were obscene and made his ears flame with want.

              Danny’s eyes managed to open at the same time as Tim’s and their gazes locked.  Tim crushed a kiss to his lips as hard as he could, both of them moaning into each other’s mouths, long and deep and low.  Tim pounded into Danny, his every muscle burning as he used them to drive themselves together, desperate, aching, needing.  He felt Danny’s tail press harder against his hole and he shuddered, every cell he had molten with passion.

              “Yes Danny yes Danny yes yes yes,” he breathed, and then Danny’s tail was pushing into him, spreading him open, thin and gentle at first but growing wider as he pressed. 

              “Ohhhhh,” Tim managed, fucking down into Danny’s wet, oozing hole as Danny eased himself softly inside Tim’s dry one.  Their kisses became more frantic, sporadic, as Tim’s thrusts grew rougher and needier.  Every hair on his body was electric with need and want; every cell of him was drowning in heat.  He became blind to all the world except for Danny, his claws teasing along his back as they joined their bodies in multiple ways, over and over and over.

              [2END XXX]

              And then Tim felt a pull, magnetic against his chest.  A tug, against his ribs, demanding that he come closer, and he went, moving his body to lay down flush on top of Danny, bringing their skin together.

              And then he felt the heat.

              Danny’s core was burning.  Unlike the rest of him that had a soothing coolness, his core was hot, almost searing.  Tim groaned as he felt it tug at him, beckoning him with a desperation that he couldn’t satisfy.

              “Tim Tim Tim, need you,” Danny breathed through heavy pants.

              “I’m here, I’m here,” Tim said, pressing his lips against Danny’s neck as he drove his hips hard, thrusting his cock in and out of him, feeling his tail curling inside his ass.

              Closer, Danny’s core cried.

              “I’m right here, I’m so close to you,” Tim reassured, wrapping his arms around Danny’s shoulders as Danny clutched at his back, his claws desperate to scratch.  His tail curled inside Tim’s ass and pressed against his prostate.

              “Fuck!” Tim cried, shuddering on top of Danny, his thrusts slowing as sensation rushed through his body, alighting his every cell.  Then Danny’s wound squeezed him, making Tim groan with helplessness, his dick throbbing with desperate want as he was surrounded by pleasure on every side.  Need drove him to bury his cock into Danny as far as he could, his hips rocking again, even as the stimulation to his prostate made him weak in the knees.  His cock was rock hard, straining as it penetrated Danny, begging for release.  Danny’s was no better, as erect as it could get, dripping green ectoplasm down onto his stomach, mixing with the mess that flowed out of his wound.  He was trembling, on the verge of tipping over.

              But he was waiting for something.

              Waiting for his core.

              Tim could feel it, hot against his chest, pushing up, pushing against his skin.  Prodding at him.  Seeking a way in.  Being joined with lips and cock and tail wasn’t enough.  There was still a barrier there and it was Tim.  Danny’s core couldn’t get through, it couldn’t get in.

              “I’m here baby,” Tim whispered.  “Try harder, I’ll let you in.  I want you in me.”

              Danny moaned, his voice long and low.  He arched his back, pressing up into Tim, his core aching to cross between them.  Tim kissed his neck, over and over, dragging his teeth over his previous bite mark with the promise of making it again, just as soon as he was breached.

              Together they rolled their bodies as one, rocking into each other, fingers curling with promise, tongues licking with anticipation.  Tim kept his teeth resting on the skin of Danny’s neck, his drool dripping down between them as he drove his cock deep into his wound, ectoplasm squelching with every thrust.  Danny’s tail curled its way gently inside his ass, massaging his prostate, making heat pool in his balls, threatening to spill over.  Tim held it back, fighting his orgasm, knowing it would be worth it beyond a thousand experiences if he could just wait.

              “Tim Tim Tim Tim,” Danny cooed.

              “I’m here.”

              “Tim, need, need, need need…”

              “Take it.”

              “Tim, want, want, want, want…”

              “Have me.”

              Danny’s eyes rolled back in his head, and his whole body arched so hard he lifted them both off the bed, until they were floating several feet above it.  Tim felt his burning core push so hard against his chest he knew it was about to burst through.  Danny convulsed, several times, and then Tim felt the heat breach him, punching into his chest like searing fire.

              “Tiiiimmmm!” Danny screamed.

              Tim’s reply back was a wordless scream, their voices joining together in pain and ecstasy.  Tim’s vision went green.  His whole body was shot through with electric ectoplasm, pulsing out of Danny’s core that was now inside of him, throbbing in his chest, drawing them together in a way their bodies could never accomplish.  He felt Danny’s cum gushing out between them, smearing between their stomachs as his dick throbbed with release.  Danny’s claws sank into Tim’s back, his teeth clamped deep into his shoulder, his tail shoved hard into his ass, and his wound sealed tight around his dick.

              To say Tim saw stars was an understatement.  Whole galaxies exploded in his vision as he orgasmed, violent wracks of pleasure tearing through his body in unbearable throbs of passion.  His nails curled roughly into Danny’s skin and his teeth bit down on Danny’s neck hard, delicious ectoplasm rushing into his mouth in a surging waterfall.  He pushed his cock deep into Danny, blinding desire pulsing out of it to pour his release into his lover, joining them in every possible way, with every method they had.  Teeth, nails, core, tail, cock, everything, all of it culminating in a desperate joining that left them both breathless.  Tim’s chest burned, Danny’s core licking at every inch of him from the inside, until Tim glowed as bright as Danny did, his eyes casting green light down onto Danny’s neck.

              Danny slowly, gently, lowered them back down to the bed.  They both kept their teeth clamped hard to each other, both kept their claws curled tightly into their backs.  The orgasm faded but their desire to be close didn’t, and so they clutched together as tightly as they could, neither wanting to move away by even a hair.  Tim was basking in the light of Danny’s core inside him, the searing burn slowly fading, leaving him with a warm, affectionate glow that spread through his entire body.

              Tim’s blood was throbbing.  A gentle, sweet pulse in addition to his own.  His whole world was green and heat.  He felt like he was surrounded by warmth and light, but was aware that the light and heat came from within him, and that the glow was actually his own skin.  He tightened his teeth against Danny’s neck, causing Danny to bite down harder against him in return.  Ectoplasm gushed from Danny’s neck and into Tim’s mouth, and he felt the heat as it rushed through him, eagerly seeking the core that resided within him, joyous upon returning to it.  Then the core lit up, with love and affection, making Tim gasp.  Pulses of energy flowed out from it to surround him, healing the wounds in his back even as Danny’s claws made them again.

              Tim’s soft cock shrank, no longer plugging the wound below Danny’s balls, letting ectoplasm ooze out of it to worsen the mess between them.  Tim realized, through his haze, that it wasn’t healing.  It just continued to bleed, Danny’s essence spilling all over the bed- because his core was inside Tim.  Neither of them wanted to change that.  Tim lay in a loving, glowing haze, surrounded by light and green, Danny’s soul gently thrumming inside his chest as it worked to heal Tim, even as Danny kept his claws and teeth latched onto him, while Tim did the same.

              They lay like that for a long, long time.  Caught in a cycle of violence and healing, Danny’s claws and teeth sliced Tim open, while his core warmed and healed him, much faster than simply drinking ectoplasm would.  Danny gently slid his tail out of Tim’s ass, making him gasp at the change.  To compensate, he dislodged one of his claws from Tim’s back, and started to stroke him with his fingers in gentle, bloody circles. Tim melted into the sensations, feeling absolutely, completely sated and safe.  He never, ever wanted to let go.  He knew Danny didn’t either.

              But eventually, he felt the core beginning to ache.  As much as it wanted to stay, it didn’t belong inside Tim.  Tim wanted to look into Danny’s eyes, but that meant detaching his teeth, which he didn’t want to do.  They didn’t want to separate.

              The core ached further.

              With a wince, Tim opened his teeth and let go of Danny’s neck.  Danny gave a soft whimper, and did the same, removing his teeth from Tim’s neck to let his head fall back to the bed.  Tim felt the loss throb through the core in his chest.  He lifted his head just enough to look into Danny’s eyes, and saw they were dull.  In them, he saw his reflection, his own irises shining bright green and vibrant.

              “You have to take your core back, baby,” Tim whispered softly, leaning down to press a dripping green kiss to Danny’s cheek.  “I love having you inside me.  But you belong inside yourself.”

              Danny turned his face and pressed a wet, bloody kiss to Tim’s lips.  He felt the core within him throb, and a wave of light and warmth rushed through his body.  The wound on his shoulder started to close.  The gouges on his back began to heal.  Danny removed his claws on his other hand from Tim’s skin, disengaging the last connection they had together, except for his core.

              Tim continued to kiss Danny as he felt his core heal him.  It wasn’t perfect; he would still have scabs, he would still have bruises.  But the blood stopped oozing from his back.  Stopped dripping down his neck.  The wounds dried and began to close.

              Tim saw the ectoplasm gushing from Danny’s bite wound, and he leaned down to lick it.

              “I’m okay,” Tim said softly.  “You’ve healed me enough.  Take your core back now.”

              He felt Danny tighten his arms around his back.

              “Shhhh,” Tim said, in the way Danny usually said to him.  “I’m not going anywhere.  I’ll be right here.  I love you so much.”

              He pressed soft kisses to the side of Danny’s face, and watched him close his eyes.

              “Come on, baby.  Take your core back.”

              Danny nodded.  He held Tim even tighter, grit his teeth, and then Tim felt the core leaving him.

              It hurt.  The loss was more than he’d expected.  In the half hour or so they’d spent joined, he’d become more dependent upon it than he’d realized.  As it moved out of him, he felt cold.  Empty.  When it left completely, he cried out in pain, and then gave a sob as all the light within him was gone.

              But then he saw it return to Danny.  Saw his eyes light up green, and his aura return, making his skin glow.  With relief and joy, Tim kissed him.  His breath was healthy again, his chest rising and falling with strength.  Tim crashed their mouths together and kissed him, over and over, glancing down at the bite mark on his neck, watching it heal.

              “Wow,” Tim said, sitting up enough to see Danny’s whole face.  Danny gave a sated, dreamy smile, his fingers running down Tim’s bare back, gently tracing over his scabs.

              “Never done that before,” Danny whispered softly.  “You are full of surprises, Tim Drake.”

              “Apparently, what I am full of, is you,” Tim said, tracing his fingers gently down Danny’s chest, watching the wound heal where Tim had bitten him open.  He stroked his fingers down to the hole he’d made below Danny’s cock, and was relieved to find that had stopped bleeding now.  “Turns out months of drinking zombie ectoplasm is good for you.”

              Danny laughed, running his fingers through Tim’s hair. 

              “Your daily recommended dose of Danny juices,” he said, and Tim rolled his eyes, giving him another sweet kiss.

              “All this time,” Tim said, picking Danny’s hand up and brushing his fingers across the back of his knuckles,  “All this time, while I thought I was saving you…you were saving me.”

              He felt Danny’s fingers on his cheek and turned his face to look at him.  His eyes were full of deep affection and love.

              “You were saving me,” Danny said.  “I have my mind again.  My powers again.  We’re here, in the Ghost Zone, safe and able to try to work on a cure, because of your love, Tim.”

              Tim blushed and closed his eyes, pressing kisses to the back of Danny’s knuckles.

              “Love I wouldn’t have had to give, if you hadn’t reciprocated it,” Tim said softly.

              They kissed one more time, sweet and slow, and then both knew it was time to return to the world.

              “Ready to get back to working on that cure?” Tim said.

              “Lead the way, science boy.”

              * * *

              When they returned to the lab, Frostbite was waiting for them.  His brows were furrowed and he was worrying his lips with his teeth.  He didn’t say anything, but only grabbed Tim’s arm and led him towards the DNA sequencer to look at the results on Danny's sample.  Tim glanced over at Danny, but he only shrugged with concerned eyes.  Tim looked down at the results and frowned.

              “Can’t be,” he said, concentrating.

              The missing parts of the DNA were still reversed.

              The parts Tim had seen in their bunker were now what was missing.  The parts that Tim had seen as missing were now present.

              He shook his head.

              “I know what I saw.  I know what I saw.  If we go back to the bunker, it’ll still be there.  My results…”

              “You need to re-run your tests,” Frostbite said, his face full of concern.  “Because none of this makes any sense.  When I test pure human DNA, such as yours, I get full human results.  When I test pure ghost DNA, such as mine, I get full ectoplasmic results.  And when I used to test Danny, before he was sick, I would get halfa results.”

              Tim frowned.

              “What are ‘halfa results’?”

              “Half human DNA, half ectoplasmic DNA,” Frostbite said, matter-of-factly.

              “And now?”

              “Now it’s showing only the ectoplasmic DNA component,” Frostbite said.  Tim narrowed his eyes.

              “And when I looked at it, it showed only the human DNA component.”

              Frostbite chewed his lip again.

              “So you say.”

              Tim narrowed his eyes.

              “I know what I saw, and I remember the results very clearly.  No…something’s going on here.  This isn’t a problem.  This is the key,” Tim said.  “Human results, ectoplasmic results….Frostbite, what powers your equipment?”

              “Pure ectoplasm, of course.”

              Tim bit his lower lip.

              “Electricity powers mine.”

              Danny frowned, his face contorting with confusion.

              “No, you’ve been using the ectoplasm tank to power everything.”

              Tim shook his head and pointed to the connection Frostbite was using.  A neon green glass tube was connected to the back of his DNA sequencer, and nothing else.

              “No, I’ve been converting it, into electricity,” he said.  “I’ve been running our equipment on regular electricity.  No ectoplasm.  Frostbite’s running on pure ectoplasm, no electricity.  But Danny, Vlad’s microscope is built to run on both.  He must have been using it that way.”

              Danny frowned.

              “Until now, you didn’t know how to hook up the ectoplasm pipe.  It’s…” Danny squinted, his eyes darting back and forth as he thought.  “It doesn’t have a valve.  It’s set up to require phasing to turn it on and off.  Which would have been simple for Vlad, but impossible for you.  But I can do it.”

              Tim’s eyes lit up with excitement.

              “Phasing?  That’s what it is?”

              Danny nodded.

              “Yeah, I’ve seen him do it a hundred times.”

              “And you can repeat that?”

              Danny snorted.

              “It’s literally the simplest ghost power, after invisibility.”

              Tim’s heart started to race with hope and exhilaration.

              “Invisi… is the simplest…” Tim mumbled.

              His mind was racing.  Putting the pieces together.  Using all the new pieces of information he’d gotten in just the last two days.  The last time he’d looked at the DNA he hadn’t even known about ghost powers.  It couldn’t have crossed his mind.

              But now?

              “I’d bet my life on it,” he said, turning to Frostbite with excitement.  “Frostbite, the pieces of the DNA aren’t missing.  They’re there.  They’re just invisible.”

              Frostbite frowned.

              “Then why would you see one half visible and I the other half…”

              “Because when you run normal electricity through it, it turns the ghost half invisible,” Tim said.  “Almost like a reflex reaction.  Ghosts would rather be invisible on Earth.  But when you run ectoplasm through the virus…”

              “The living half becomes invisible,” Frostbite said.  “Yes, yes, this makes sense!  The virus is viable.  Therefore, it must have a complete and functional set of DNA!  Nothing is missing at all, it’s just that due to the virus being based on halfa DNA, it reacts to living technology like a ghost, and reacts to ghost technology like something living.  The only way to see the entire DNA sequence would be with…”

              “Modified equipment that runs on both electricity and ectoplasm,” Tim said.

              Frostbite’s smile was bright and wide.

              “Ha-hah!” the Yeti laughed, his voice booming off the walls of the lab.  “Tim Drake, you have thought of the key!  I will bet you that the ghost cure I’ve been working on is exactly half of what we need.  Without being able to see the other half of the DNA, I didn’t know what I was missing.  But with this,” Frostbite said, holding up a vial of blue liquid, “I bet you will be able to come up with the other half, and modify it to cure humans.”

              Tim’s heart raced as Frostbite handed the vial to him.

              “I…you’re trusting me with this?”

              “Who else?” Frostbite said, his smile wide and bright.  “You have proven you are brilliant enough to solve this puzzle, and your love for Danny makes you motivated enough.  If you get stuck, or need help, come back and find me,” he said. “But I do not have the equipment necessary to complete this task.  You do.  Use it.”

              Tim held the vial up in front of his face, his palms sweating inside his gauntlets.  He turned to Danny, who gave him the most encouraging smile he could, though it was clear he was as nervous as Tim was.

              “Okay,” Tim said, tucking the vial safely into one of his bandolier pouches.  “Okay.  We’ll take it back and start working on it.”

              “Haha, wonderful!” Frostbite said.  “And don’t forget these,” he added, holding out a black case about a foot across.  Tim took it and opened it, seeing a dozen glass bottles full of ectoplasm.  “They’re calibrated to the exact concentration of the bond between you and Danny.  They will sustain him for several weeks before you’ll have to come back here to get more.  It’ll also heal you, or it’ll help Danny convert back to ghost form if he is a zombie,” Frostbite said.

              “Right,” Tim said, clasping it shut and tucking it under his arm.  Danny flew over to them and stuck his hand out to shake Frostbite’s.

              “Frostbite, as usual, thank y-”

              Frostbite threw out his enormous arms, one furry, one made of ice and bone, and violently wrapped them around Danny in a crushing bear hug.

              “Anything for you Great One,” Frostbite said.  Danny gave a little laugh, then wriggled his way out of Frostbite’s grip.  He turned to Tim and held out his hand.

              “Ready to go back?”

              Tim took his hand, feeling strength and assuredness from Danny’s touch.  They could do this.  They were so close.  They were going to find a cure.

              “Ready.”

Chapter Text

Some more gorgeous art by chubby-p1nk She made it in the style of old zombie B-movie posters!

If you love it, please let her know in the comments!

* * *             

              Tim tucked the six bottles of concentrated ectoplasm safely into his bandoliers, next to the bottle of the ghost cure Frostbite had given him.

              “I only wish there was a way I could help further,” Frostbite said, his face concerned as he entered the lab for the last time, ready to lead them towards the exit of the cave.  “But my ability to survive outside of the Ghost Zone is minimal, even with an active portal.  I have been dead for far too long.”

              Danny shook his head.

              “We’ll be alright, Frostbite.  You’ve already helped so much.”

              Danny gave him a hug, his body vanishing inside piles of white fur as the Yeti wrapped his icy arm around him.  Then he let go and led them through the caverns, Danny clasping Tim’s hand as he hovered beside him, black tail flowing behind him.

              They reached the entrance, the green light of the Ghost Zone radiating down on them from the “sky”.  Danny hugged Frostbite one more time, and then the Yeti stuck his enormous paw out towards Tim for a shake.  Tim took it, his whole body being shook, even though it appeared Frostbite was trying to be gentle.

              “Thank you,” Tim said.  “For everything.”

              “Good luck, Great One’s consort.”

              Danny glared.

              “…Tim Drake,” Frostbite said.  “The battle you are fighting is exceedingly important.  But if anyone can do it, it is you.”

              They said goodbye one more time, and then Danny took Tim’s hand and lifted them off the ground.  He flew so fast the Far Frozen became little more than a white dot within a few seconds, vanishing from their sight in less than half a minute.

              “Well that was an experience,” Tim said, turning his head this way and that as they flew, trying to see if it was possible to keep his orientation in this dimension.  He thought he recognized a few landmarks from their flight in.

              “Why does he call you ‘Great One’?” Tim teased, knowing it annoyed Danny.  “And calling me consort implies you’re some sort of royalty…”
              Danny rolled his eyes and gave a heavy sigh.

              “He thinks I should be some sort of ruler because I kicked some powerful ghost’s ass one time.  It’s not anything.”

              Tim laughed.

              “Dani thinks it’s hilarious,” Tim ribbed.

              Danny rolled his eyes.

              Tim gave a suggestive shrug and squeezed Danny’s hand harder.

              “I dunno.  Wouldn’t mind being your consort.”

              Danny’s cheeks turned that bright green they did whenever he blushed, in that way that Tim found incredibly cute.  He opened his mouth to tease him some more, but then he felt Danny give a shiver.

              A wisp of faint blue smoke came out from between Danny’s lips.  Danny stopped flying immediately, his eyebrows furrowing in concentration.

              “What is it?” Tim whispered.

              “Ghost nearby,” he said.  “Hiding.  So, up to no good.”

              The hairs on the back of Tim’s neck prickled and he let go of Danny’s hand, tensing every one of his muscles, ready to fight.  Then he…felt something.  He couldn’t explain how.  He didn’t have the words to describe it.  But he knew the danger was down and to the right and in a split second he had his shield out.

              He blocked the red bolt of energy before he saw it.  It zinged as it reflected off his shield and bounced in another direction.

              Danny immediately growled and threw up a ghost shield around both himself and Tim.  Out of the green, he heard a roar of rage, and then Plasmius appeared, charging towards both of them, fists ablaze.

              Danny grabbed Tim’s hand and raced towards the portal. 

              “I don’t want to deal with him,” he snarled, making a beeline towards home.  “If we can get enough lead time…”

              But then powerful red beams shot at them, several bouncing off Danny’s ghost shield before breaking through it.  The next beam aimed straight for Tim’s head, and he barely deflected it with his shield in time.

              Danny turned around and flew backwards, shooting green beams back at Plasmius, but he was just as quick, and dodged them all.

              “What kind of loser are you?!” Danny screamed, and Tim wanted to tell him to conserve his breath for fighting and flying, before he remembered Danny didn’t need to breathe.

              “Daniel I am trying to make you see the truth! Your obsession with the living is literally destroying you!  Look at how long you were sick!  Clinging to that human body is weighing you down, boy!” Plasmius shouted, shooting several blasts at them both as he chased them.  Danny threw up his shield again, pulling Tim as fast as he could with his hand wrapped around Tim’s waist, leaving Tim with his hands free.  Tim took advantage of that to draw his sword, giving himself every advantage he could.

              “Fucking idiot as always!” Danny cried.  “My humanity isn’t destroying me, it’s saving me!  I am alive, you dead fucking moron!  You died.  And for what?  Crazed fruitloop principals?”

              Plasmius’s eyes flashed bright red, and he roared.  He drew his hands together and built up an enormously powerful red blast.  Danny yanked Tim up, dodging it just in time.  Tim felt the electrical fire crackle past his feet as it passed them by inches. 

              Then Plasmius shot another one, then a third.  Danny was quick, dodging them just in time, but Tim could see the worry on his face.  Keeping up the ghost shield to protect Tim sapped his concentration, which only allowed him to shoot back paltry beams of energy in return.  If they were going to shake Plasmius, they needed to attack.

              “Look at you!  Not even able to fight me because you’re so busy protecting that pathetic living thing!  Why did you even bring it here?  You’ve only put it in danger.  It’s not like it does anything for you.”

              Tim could see the rage building on Danny’s face.  Could see him taking the bait.

              “Don’t let him get to you, baby.  He doesn’t get to judge what we have.  I know what I am to you.  And you know that I can defend myself.”

              Danny’s eyes flashed blinding green as he gazed at Tim, and gave a nod.  He halted, let go of Tim’s waist, and dropped the shield.  In half a second, Danny had a blazing ball of energy focusing in his own palms, floating between Vlad and Tim, ready to attack.  Plasmius stopped, not daring to come closer.

              Plasmius tried to shoot smaller beams at Danny, but he was easily able to deflect those without distracting from the large blast he was building up.  Then Plasmius vanished… but Tim could still feel him, somehow.  He didn’t have the words to describe how he knew where the enemy was, but he knew.  The next blast came from his left and he swung his sword, knocking it out of the way, while Danny continued to build up an enormous blast of power.  Tim deflected the next several attacks, using modified rolls to shift his position even without any footing.

              Plasmius was trying to hit Danny, even with a small blast, just to break his concentration.  But wherever he moved, Tim could still feel him.  No matter what angle he tried, Tim was able to deflect them, protecting Danny as he built up his counter-attack.

              Danny could sense Plasmius just as easily as Tim could, his face snapping to follow his direction, even though he was invisible.  Tim saw Danny’s cheek twitch and that was his only warning.

              “Yyyyyyaaaaahhhhh!” Danny screamed, letting the blast loose in Vlad’s direction.  It landed head-on, forcing him visible and knocking him back over fifty feet.  His ghostly blue skin lacerated, green ectoplasm leaking from it as he floated, gasping.

              “Leave us alone you fucking freak!” Danny cried.  He grabbed Tim around the waist again and flew them as fast as he could towards the portal.  Tim glanced behind them as they raced, and saw Plasmius bent over, clutching his stomach.  Then he disappeared from their sight, and the portal came into view just ahead.

              They shot through it at top speed, and Danny halted their flight so fast Tim felt his blood rush to his face.  Tim’s brain struggled to orient itself to gravity and he collapsed to his knees, his head spinning.  Danny turned around and slammed his hand into the “off” switch on the side of the portal, the green swirling mist winking out of existence a second later.

              He then flew over to Tim, gently helping him to his feet, flying around him in a circle, checking him over.

              “I’m fine,” Tim said, though he was doing the same thing, twisting and stretching to ensure he hadn’t actually pulled or strained anything.

              His body seemed to be in order.

              Danny wrapped around him, his tail entwining through his legs as he bent his torso around so they faced each other.  He pulled Tim into his arms and Tim melted into it, finally letting out the breath he’d been holding.  Danny stroked his hair, pressing gentle kisses to the top of it, before pulling back again.

              “Are you really okay?”

              “Yes, baby,” Tim said, stroking his cheek with his fingers.  “He didn’t hurt me at all.  I was able to block all his attacks.”

              “That’s wild,” Danny said.  “He’s a terrifying fighter.  I’m only able to block his moves because of my ghost sense…”

              “Yeah…I think I might have…a little of that?” Tim said.  Danny pulled his face back to look at Tim incredulously.

              “What?”

              Tim shrugged.

              “I was…sorta able to sense…where he was, kinda?  Like.  Even when he was invisible, I just sorta knew…”

              The rest of Tim’s sentence was cut off as Danny pressed a thick, heavy kiss to his lips.  Then he kissed him again, then again, and Tim sighed into it, allowing all the tension from the battle fade away.  When Danny pulled back he cupped Tim’s cheeks in his hands and gazed at him with shining green eyes.

              “You’re so perfect,” Danny said sweetly.  “You can sense ghost cores and the first thing you do with it is use it to kick ass in battle.”

              “That’s not the first thing I did with it,” Tim said, his eyes closing halfway and reaching up a palm to rest it on Danny’s chest, right over where he knew his core was.  Danny gave a shaky exhale, and a smirk pricked at the corner of his mouth.

              “You’re right.  It wasn’t.”

              They enjoyed another long, soft kiss, before Tim’s mind started to race with all the things he’d learned in Frostbite’s lab.

              He pulled back and turned his gaze towards the microscope.

              “You really know how to get it to work with the ectoplasm?” Tim asked him.

              “I mean.  I think all it needs is to have some ectoplasm.  You already found the extra settings.”

              Danny flew over to the microscope and looked at the output tube for a moment.

              “Pretty sure all I gotta do is phase this little glass thingy out of the way, and it’ll flow.  I guess…you power it up, get it all ready, and just let me know when?”

              Tim nodded, and got to work.  As the microscope was powering up, he opened his bandolier pouch and pulled out the vial of blue liquid- the cure for ghosts that Frostbite had come up with.  He started preparing samples, and opening all his notebooks, finding all the pages that he needed.  He flicked to the instructions he’d painstakingly written down over the radio with Dick, and then lined up all the DNA results he’d already collected: regular rat, zombified rat, regular human, zombified human, Danny’s zombie form, and the DNA of the virus itself.

              The microscope gave a beep, and Tim glanced at the touchscreen.

              It was ready.

              Steeling his nerves to make sure his hands remained steady, he slid the sample of the zombie virus into the chamber and clicked it closed.

              Just to make sure he hadn’t been losing his mind in Frostbite’s lab, he took a look at the virus again.

              It was back to the way he expected to see it.  With the half he was used to being visible, right in front of him.  And the half he could see in Frostbite’s lab was now invisible.

              “Okay,” he said, his voice shaking a little, with both excitement and nerves.  “It’s ready.”

              Danny flew over and put his hand right by the ectoplasm tank, at the exit for the output tube.

              “Now?” he asked.

              Tim nodded with as much confidence as he could muster.

              “Now.”

              Danny gently phased his hand through the glass.  When he pulled it away, a little glass marble was in his palm, no longer blocking the ectoplasm from flowing.  They both watched as the brilliant green slowly flowed through the glass tube, and down into the bottom of the electron microscope.  The indicator lights on the side of the touch screen all changed to ectoplasm green, and the touchscreen glowed twice as brightly as before.  The whole thing took on a low, vibrating hum, and Tim held his breath as he waited to see if anything else would change.

              When it didn’t, he reached up to the touch screen and moved through the options.  He selected the first Ecto option, and leaned in to take a look.

              There it was.  Half of it looking like a regular virus, and the other half glowing brilliant, ectoplasm green.

              The ghost half, which until now had been invisible to him, was now right in front of his eyes.

              For the first time, he could see the whole thing.

              “What do you see?” Danny whispered, as if speaking could damage the sample.

              “We did it,” Tim said softly, almost not believing his own words. “I don’t believe it.  We did it.”

              “You can see the whole thing?” Danny said just as quietly.  “For real?”

              “It’s there,” Tim said, taking a shaking step back.  “It’s all there.”

              He pointed at the screen for Danny to take a look, and he peered down at it, his eyes growing wide.

              “Half of it’s glowing,” he said.

              “Half of it’s ghost,” Tim replied.  “Made from your clone.  Made from you.”

              Danny looked down at his white-gloved hands in fascination.  Then his expression turned angry and he balled his hands into fists.

              “Vlad, you fucking moron,” he growled, gritting his teeth.  “Do you even care how much fucking suffering you’ve caused, all to try and create another clone of me?”

              Tim frowned and furrowed his eyebrows.

              “Why…why is he so obsessed with you?”

              “He has some crazy fruit loop idea that I was supposed to be his son, just because he had a crush on my mom in college, and then later down the line, I became a halfa like him,” Danny said, throwing his hands in the air in exasperation.  “And he’s always been a pain in my ass and he’s always been a danger to people, but I was always able to stop him before.  But after this?  He needs to die.  I mean die.  I mean cease to fucking exist, in any form, ghost or human.  He’s nearly wiped out all of humanity!  He’s nearly caused…caused…”

              Danny’s eyes flashed blinding green with rage as he balled his fists, his entire body glowing with a searing green aura.

              “And now, he’s on the other fucking side of the portal, waiting!” Danny screamed, gesturing at the deactivated ring.  “And we need to open it again, because the ectoplasm in the tank isn’t going to last!  Every minute that we’re using the microscope it’s draining it, and I also need it to feed off of, because I can’t go human…”

              “Shhhhh,” Tim said, reaching up to take Danny’s hands into his, enveloping his fingers around his fists.  “I know it’s horrible,” Tim said.  “I’ve lived the horror every day.  But we’re going to fix it.  We’re going to make it right,” he soothed.  “We’re already one step closer.  Just look how far we’ve come.  We can do this, Danny.  Vlad being in the way is another obstacle, but one we can overcome.  We’ve fought him twice before and won.  We can do this.”

              Danny looked down at him and the rage in his eyes faded.  They became their normal green, and he relaxed, floating down to Tim’s height and clasping his hands.

              “We can do this,” Danny agreed.  “I shouldn’t be distracting you while you have the microscope on and it’s draining the tank.  You should focus.”

              Danny kissed his forehead, and then let go of his hands, drifting a few feet away.

              “I’m gonna fly around and get us supplies while you work, okay?  We need something better for dinner.  I’m sick of canned meat.  I’m gonna go…catch a chicken, or something.”

              Tim laughed.

              “A fresh chicken sounds delicious.”

              Danny gave him a bright smile and then he disappeared up through the ceiling without warning.

              Tim turned around and went back to work.

              Several hours went by.  Danny flitted in and out of the bunker, appearing and then disappearing again, dropping off supplies and then leaving.  Tim tuned him out, knowing that he was doing his best to not distract him, but also wanting to stay close by.  Tim didn’t want him too far, either.

              Tim set up a new sample with fresh, healthy rat cells, and put them in the microscope.  He then added a drop of the zombie virus, and watched again, for the hundredth time, as it infected the healthy cells.  He saw everything you’d expect to see from a regular viral infection: the virus attaching to the healthy cells, injecting its own DNA into them, the cells producing more viruses, and then dying.  Tim sighed and rubbed his eyes.  He knew he was missing something.

              He gave up on that and decided to try a new tactic.  He pulled out the vial of the cure Frostbite had created.  He put a drop onto the slide of infected rat cells, and then waited.

              He watched as the chemical compounds in the cure slowly latched on to the virus, cutting off its enzymes from being able to attach to new rat cells.  That was expected behavior from an anti-viral compound, but his heart beat a little faster as he saw how well it worked.

              But then it started to attach itself to the rat cells, too.  Surrounding them with the same compounds.  Cutting off the same enzymes.  Killing the rat cells.

              “Oh,” he said, greatly disappointed.

              Turned out the ghost cure killed living rat cells.

              He tried it again on the human sample, and got the same result.

              Frostbite’s cure killed the virus- and all living cells with it.

              It was useless to anything non-ghost.

              Tim sighed heavily and rubbed his eyes.

              He pulled away from the microscope, his neck killing him from having leaned down for… he had no idea how long it had been.  He glanced around for Danny, but didn’t see him.  He glanced at the clock he kept in the kitchen area, and sighed.  It was eleven at night.  He’d been working for over twelve hours.

              “Fuck,” he said, suddenly aware of how starving he was.  He looked around the kitchen, trying to find something easy and fast to make.

              Then he felt…something behind him.  Like the whisper of a prick.  Or the tingle you felt when something electric was almost touching your skin, but not quite.  He turned to his left to look straight at it.

              “Danny?”

              “Ha!” Danny said, turning visible exactly where Tim had been looking.  “You can sense me!”

              Tim’s heart gave a little leap at the realization.

              “I can, can’t I?”

              Danny’s grin was wide and adorable.  Tim couldn’t help but give a laugh.

              “I can feel your core,” Tim said softly.  Danny flew up close to him, his green eyes bright with joy.

              “Makes sense,” he said, his voice low and flirty.  “Since it’s been inside you.”

              Tim’s heart gave a leap, and he pressed a soft kiss to Danny’s lips.

              Then his stomach grumbled, really, really loudly.

              Tim winced.

              “I’m…kinda hungry.”

              “I’ll bet,” Danny said, his tail flicking behind him.  “You skipped lunch and dinner.  Was it worth it?  Did you get anywhere?”

              “I made a little progress,” Tim said.  “I watched Frostbite’s cure work… and then kill all living cells.”

              Danny winced.

              “No, no, it’s a good start,” Tim explained.  “I just need to be able to modify the enzymes, try out different chemical bindings…see if I can find one that kills the virus but leaves the living cells alive.  That won’t make a cure, but it’ll stop a zombie infection from getting worse.  So like, if it was administered within a few hours of someone being infected, it would save them.”

              “That sounds amazing,” Danny said.

              “It wouldn’t help you.”

              “No, but it’ll still help!” Danny said.

              “I can’t even make it right now.  There’s no equipment here for modifying enzymes like that.  But…I know where there is.”

              Danny’s expectant face was too precious for him to hold out further.  So he grit his teeth and spit it out.

              “We have it in the Batcave.”  Tim took a deep breath, steeling his nerves with everything he had before finishing his thought.  He lifted his eyes to meet Danny’s, the gravity of what he was about to say weighing on him.

              “I have to go home.”

              The sentence hung in the air as if the weight of all the world hung on it.  It felt like it did.  He felt Danny’s arms envelope him in a tight, strong hug, and he folded into it faster than he’d expected to.  His eyes stung at the corners and he squeezed them shut tight, forcing them to cut it out.

              “I’m feeling it too,” Danny said softly, his voice rumbling in his chest as Tim pressed his head against it.  “I’m terrified to fly home and find out what it looks like.  How much destruction there is.  But…I’ll be with you,” he said, squeezing his arms even tighter around Tim’s back.  “We’ll be together.  No matter what we find, you won’t be alone.  And you won’t be trapped there.  You wanna go, grab a thing, and leave in twenty seconds?  We can do that.”

              Tim only clutched Danny harder, and felt him hold back just as tightly.  Neither of them was able to say what they were both truly afraid of- finding out which of their loved ones had died.  Or possibly all of them.

              “Hey, I have an idea,” Danny said.  “Why don’t we go visit Dick first?  I know he doesn’t have the equipment we need, but we know he’s fine, right?  I think…I think it would be really good for you to see him, before we go…”
              Tim pressed a kiss to Danny’s lips so hard he knocked their teeth together.  The tears threatening to spring at the corner of his eyes spilled over.  Danny kissed him back, just as fiercely, their fingers curled tightly into each other’s clothes as they clutched each other.

              When he pulled back, he saw green liquid forming at the corners of Danny’s eyes, too.

              “I love you so much,” Tim said softly.

              Danny reached up a white-gloved thumb, his hand flickering for a second before it was bare, and brushed it gently across Tim’s cheek, wiping his tear away.

              “Danny love Tim.  With all my heart.  With all my core.”

              Their next kiss was softer, and then a third, and then Tim’s tears stopped falling.

              His stomach grumbled again, loudly, providing both of them with a reprieve from the topic.  He gave a little laugh, and turned to look at the kitchen.

              “I was kinda really hoping for that chicken…” he said.

              Danny’s grin was wide and bright.

              “Then I have excellent news for you,” he said.  He wrapped his arms around Tim’s waist and before Tim knew it, he was intangible and flying through the ceiling.

              The winter weather was brutal… and Tim felt none of it, as Danny flew them through the storm like it didn’t exist.  He heard the wind, and saw the snowflakes racing through it, but felt nothing at all, not even the cold.  Intangible, unreal, it was the same as not existing, except for the fact that Danny was as real as anything, his arms solid and strong and close.

              Tim had no idea where they were.  He couldn’t see any landmarks in this weather.  He didn’t know what direction they were going in or what speed they were traveling at, and he found he…didn’t care.  Wherever Danny was taking him, he knew it would be wonderful.  He trusted Danny with his entire soul.  His very existence.  Trusting him to take him to dinner was small potatoes compared to that.

              Danny flew them down towards the ground, and then into the side of a huge building.  Tim barely got a glimpse of it, but from the outside it looked like a…

              “A shopping mall?” he said, and Danny gave him a huge grin.

              “Yep.”

              “Danny what…”

              “I made you a surprise.”

              His face was so excited Tim shut his mouth and didn’t bother him with further questions.  Instead he let Danny fly him across the darkened mall, lit only by the glow of Danny’s aura, until off in the distance, he saw a soft orange glow.

              It grew brighter as they approached, and Tim realized it was from candles.  Dozens and dozens of candles, all lit around the food court, one table in the center set with a table cloth, two plates, and a beautiful, whole, roasted chicken.

              “How did you…?”

              “It really wasn’t that hard to find a chicken.  There were plenty of farms around…”

              “How did you cook it?”

              “Oh, this mall has tons of propane tanks.  I just went back into the kitchen of the Chinese food place and turned on their ovens.  I also found a huge thing of dehydrated mashed potatoes and then there were lots of cans of vegeta…”

              Tim kissed him and kissed him and kissed him.  As Danny set him down in the chair he laughed as Tim wouldn’t let his mouth go.  He made them tangible, and Tim felt the hard metal of the chair against his body as he was set down into it.

              And then he smelled the food.

              Real food.  A fucking fresh chicken.  His mouth watered like it never had before.  It was impossible to sit there and watch Danny carve it, but he forced himself to, not wanting to ruin this beautiful thing he’d made for them.

              Then Danny put the chicken on both of their plates and sat down himself.

              “Okay, okay, I see you drooling, dig in.”

              Tim ate so fast.  It was so good.  He finished his plate and then ate the potatoes and then dove in for more.  His mouth watered and watered, food, real food, oh it was so fucking good he didn’t care if he looked like an animal eating it.  Danny wasn’t much better; Tim realized he didn’t actually know if he needed to eat as a ghost, and he also probably couldn't taste it, but he was certainly enjoying it as much as Tim was, anyway.  Both of them just kept saying “mmmm” a whole lot, closing their eyes to savor it.

              Slowly, their frantic eating calmed.  Tim’s attention started to drift from the food to Danny’s face, then back to the food, then back to Danny’s face.  He was very cute, with the way he kept looking at Tim’s plate, overjoyed to see it picked clean, his grin proud as he looked at the bones of the chicken he’d made.  Tim’s heart swelled with affection.

              He was definitely in love.

              “Thank you,” he said.  “I mean, ‘thank you’ doesn’t even cut it, for what you just did, I don’t even have words for how special this is, ‘thoughtful’ and ‘sweet’ don’t even come close…”

              Danny looked so excited he could hardly keep himself in the chair.

              “Just wait till you see the second part,” he said.

              Tim sat up straighter and wondered about that.

              “Second…part?  I already ate so much I don’t think I could…”

              “No, no, it’s not food,” Danny said, his eyes shining with excitement as he floated out of his chair and held out a hand to Tim.  “Just you wait and see.”

              Tim reached his hand out and allowed Danny to float him up off of his chair.  He led him through the mall, above its eerie emptiness, Danny’s cool hand warm in comparison the chill of the empty air.  Up ahead of them he spotted another flickering glow of orange warmth, the unmistakable light of dozens and dozens of candles pouring through the windows of a shop.

              No…hundreds of candles.  Danny must have raided an entire candle shop, the mixed scents from the glass jars wafting to his nose in a pleasant sugary, floral mix.  As Danny set him down, Tim looked up and saw the sign for a spa.

              He turned to Danny with a questioning look, but all he got back was an excited grin.  Danny gestured for him to enter, and Tim stepped into a world of warmth and light.

              “Did you know candles actually make heat?” Danny said, flying around excitedly.  “They’re keeping the air warm.  And I wasn’t sure how I was going to get the water hot enough- I do have fire powers, but they take a lot out of me for just a few seconds of blast and that wouldn’t be enough, but then I found the propane by the kitchen and so I lit the stove, and filled a bunch of pots with snow and heated them until they boiled, and filled all the tubs…”

              “Tubs?” Tim said, his eyes finally leaving all the candles to take in the rest of the shop.

              There were three bathtubs.  All full to the brim with fresh, clear, steaming hot water.

              Surrounding them were bottles of every hygiene product imaginable: bodywash, shampoo, conditioner, exfoliation products, oil, lotion, shaving cream, razors, deodorant, and dozens of others.  It was like a dream.

              Tim turned to Danny with his mouth half open, speechless.

              “I…I get to be clean?” he said, looking down at himself with scrutiny for the first time in a long time.  He was covered in grime.  He pulled off his gauntlets to look down at his hands with a frown. His skin was various different shades of stained, from green to brown to purple.  Some of it might have been bruises, but most of it was zombie blood, mortar, soil, sweat, grease, and a thousand other things.  His nails were basically black underneath.  His knuckles were caked so badly they cracked when he moved them.

              He didn’t even want to think about what the rest of him looked like.  Or smelled like.

              He probably smelled like death.

              “I don’t…I don’t even know if that’s possible, at this point,” he said.  “I’ll touch the water and it’ll just swirl the grime around…”

              “That’s why I made two baths,” Danny said.  “The first one’s just for soaking.  Getting all the layers of grime off.  That water’s gonna be black when we’re done.  Then we’ll switch you to the clean water and really wash you.  If we’re going to be seeing Dick, you can’t smell like you’ve been sleeping with a corpse.”

              A blush rose to Tim’s cheeks as he thought about Danny bathing him.

              “I…uh…this looks…”

              His eyes darted around the room again, taking in everything Danny had done, and tears pricked at the corners.  Again.

              “Danny, I don’t know what to say.  You’re…you…”

              Danny flew in front of him and hovered just in front of his face, locking their eyes together.

              “You’re in this nasty state from taking care of us.  Of me,” Danny said, his face gentle but deadly serious.  “You held me, fed me, slept with me even though I was a rotting corpse.  You weren’t disgusted by me; instead you loved me, and held me close, and took care of me anyway.  Tim, let me….let me give that back to you.  Let me wash you.  Let me take care of you.”

              Tim’s tears spilled over, and Danny lifted his thumbs to wipe them away, even as they left muddy streaks on his face.  Tim gave him a nod, and he pressed a soft kiss to his lips, before reaching up to unclasp his cape.

              Danny took it from his hands and flew it over to the third tub and dropped it in, before flying back and starting to unclasp his bandoliers.

              “Oh,” Tim said, giving a little laugh.  “The third one is for laundry.”

              Danny gave him a sweet, gentle smile as he reached up and undid the clasps on his hardware.  He gently set them down on the front desk, and then flew back, his hands taking Tim’s gauntlets from him and dropping them to the floor.

              He then slid his palms down to the bottom of Tim’s shirt, and curled his fingers under the stiff kevlar fabric.  He pulled up, making Tim suck in his stomach as it was suddenly exposed.  He felt Danny’s fingers brush across his skin as he lifted up his shirt, and Tim raised his arms, allowing Danny to undress him the slow way.

              When it was off, Danny dropped it to the floor on top of Tim’s gauntlets, and then leaned down to start unlacing Tim’s boots.  He watched with dazed affection, Danny’s bare fingers manipulating the laces until his feet were free.  He lifted one foot and felt Danny slowly pull it off of him, setting it down out of the way, before pulling off the other one.

              Danny went to peel his sock off, and Tim winced.

              “It…it’s gross.  Maybe I should…”

              Danny just grabbed his calf harder with his hand and pulled it down anyway, while Tim grimaced.

              “I really am so disgusting, you don’t have to…”

              “I’m a ghost.  It doesn’t bother me,” he said.  “All I want is to just…just dote on you, okay?  Just.  Let me.”

              Tim stopped complaining, and he let Danny pull off his other sock.  His bare feet touched carpet. Even if it was mall carpet, it was still the softest, cleanest thing he’d experienced in a very long time.

              Then Danny formed legs, and rose up onto his knees.  He slid his hands up Tim’s clothed shins, tracing over his costume, tickling his way up his thighs.  When his fingers reached Tim’s waistband Tim sucked in air, Danny’s cool, bare fingertips brushing along his bare skin.  Danny lifted his eyes to meet Tim’s as he slipped his fingers into his pants and slowly started to pull down, turning the whole thing inside-out as he went.  His eyes traced over the elastic of Tim’s jock strap, lingering over his cup, before lowering so Danny could see what he was doing as he pulled his pants off.

              Tim lifted each of his feet to let him, and he dumped the pants into a pile along with the rest of his clothes.  Then he was back, rubbing his hands up Tim’s bare thighs, his eyes raking over his cup as his fingers teased along the elastic of his jock strap.  Tim blushed heavily, his breath picking up as Danny slipped his fingers into the bands and tugged.  He leaned forward, pressing a soft kiss to Tim’s hip, eliciting a gasp from him.  Then he pressed another, closer to Tim’s crotch, slowly kissing his way towards his dick as he pulled the last bit of clothing down, his growing dick springing free.

              Danny’s lips kissed against the side of his dick as the strap fell to the floor.  Tim gave a soft gasp, his hands moving to tangle in Danny’s white hair as he licked up the side of his erection, his eyes half-lidded, his mouth open and eager.

              “Baby I’m so gross…”

              “Don’t care.  Dead,” Danny whispered, licking his tongue across the tip as he slid a hand around Tim’s base, holding his cock erect as he teased the head with his lips.  Tim had no answer, the glowing heat of pleasure spreading across his tip as Danny licked it in long, flat swipes, teasing it until it started to leak.  When Danny had him as hard as he could get he opened his mouth and sucked Tim down, long and low and deep.

              “Ohhhh…” Tim groaned, his fingers tightening hard in Danny’s hair as he felt the wet, tight coolness of the back of his throat.  His cock throbbed with desire and his knees grew weak.  Danny wrapped his hands around to grab his ass, holding him up firmly as he took him down into his mouth, over and over.

              “Baby I’m…” Tim said, breathless, his head lolling forward as his joints turned to jelly, his legs struggling to keep him upright.  “You trying to make me cum?”

              “Mmm hmmm,” Danny mumbled, his cheeks giving a soft green glow, his eyes completely closed now.  He pulled his lips up just high enough to speak, his tongue still brushing against Tim’s shaft as he spoke.  “I want you to relax.  I want you to unwind.  If you’re horny the whole time you’ll be tense and that is not the point…”

              “If you think you can wash me while I’m naked and have me not get turned on, then your memory is a lot worse than you claim.”

              “Oh I know you’ll get turned on again.  I’m counting on it.  But to start,” Danny said, running his tongue across Tim’s tip, making him give a sharp inhale,” “…you’re going to be relaxed.”

              Danny sucked him down again, and Tim felt the heat spread up through his cock and down to his balls.  His fingers tangled hard in Danny’s hair and he chased the feeling, thrusting forward into Danny’s mouth, a lot harder than he’d intended to.

              Danny moaned.  Lust sprang through Tim like fire, and before he could even think, he was fucking Danny’s mouth.  Hard, needy thrusts, chasing his pleasure, encouraged by Danny’s moaning and the curling of his fingers against his ass, pulling Tim nearer.  Danny’s balance didn’t waiver, in fact he was as solid as anything, showing off his strength as he let Tim pound into him over and over and over.  He didn’t need to breathe, either, never pulling back, never even hinting that he wanted to.  Burning heat crept across Tim’s skin all the way up to his ears and down to his toes, his fingers clutching Danny’s head to him as hard as he could while his hips drove him forward harder and faster.

              “Baby you feel so good, you feel so…”

              Then he felt Danny’s throat tighten around the head of his cock, sucking on it.  The pleasure was so intense Tim couldn’t fight it.  In seconds, spikes of desire were rushing through him as thick pulses of cum poured down Danny’s throat, where he eagerly sucked on Tim for more, coaxing it out of him, making Tim feel weak in the knees.  Danny tightened his hands against Tim’s ass, pinning him inside his mouth, making him surrender to the pleasure as he eagerly drank from him.

              Tim slumped forward, his knees finally giving out, and Danny caught him.  He lovingly licked Tim’s softening dick clean, and then stood up, scooping one arm behind Tim’s knees and literally sweeping him off his feet.

              Normally Tim’s instincts would have been to right himself.  But in the post-coital haze he was in, he’d let Danny do anything to him.  He trusted him like he’d never trusted anyone in his life, and yet it seemed to grow exponentially every single day they spent together.  Tim curled into Danny’s chest as he walked towards the tub, and found himself feeling that warmth again.  He couldn’t see it, but he could feel it, pulsating inside Danny’s chest, and his heart swelled with affection.

              “Your core sure does like this,” Tim cooed.  He felt Danny’s muscles tense, just a little.

              “You…you can’t just tell where it is, but you can tell what it’s feeling?” he asked, voice soft.

              “Yeah.  It’s right there,” Tim said, tracing his finger across the D emblem on Danny’s chest.  “Throbbing.  Humming.  Very much enjoying having sucked me off.”

              “I mean yes,” Danny said, unable to keep the smirk from his face.

              “Ever since I had it inside me, I’ve become more and more aware of it,” Tim said.  “I know what it feels like.  I know what it tastes like.  It’s like it’s still part of me…”
              Danny turned to look into Tim’s eyes, and he gazed up at him, dazed and madly in love.

              “You’re still part of it,” Danny whispered, his lips caught in a smile that he didn’t seem to be able to help.  “Somehow.  Without having any core of your own, I still feel the echoes of you, inside me.”

              Tim’s cheeks couldn’t blush any redder than they already were, but they sure did try.  Danny leaned down and pressed a soft, sweet kiss to his lips, lingering before slowly pulling away, making Tim’s heart throb, despite how relaxed his body already was.

              “Now enough distracting me.  It’s time for you to take a bath.”

              Danny leaned down and placed Tim into the steaming water like he weighed nothing at all.  The warm surface of the water felt good on the soles of his feet and ass, followed by the pleasant sting of the slashes on his back.  Tim sighed as he felt the wet heat surround him, every one of his muscles instantly starting to relax.  He leaned his head back against the angled side and closed his eyes.

              It felt good.  He took several long, deep breaths, allowing the tension in his muscles to slowly fade away, drained from him by the heat in the water.  His eyes slit open and all he saw was the dancing light of a thousand candles, and for just this moment, he felt safe.

              Again, Danny had him feeling safe, when nothing about their situation was at all.  But he didn’t care.  He wasn’t going to think about anything.  His brain was already jelly from working on the cure for twelve hours.  Instead, he focused on letting the kinks out of his neck, one by one.

              He listened to Danny rustling around for a moment, and then heard the sloshing as he dropped all of Tim’s clothes into the third tub, and swished it around for awhile.

              Then he felt a gentle movement in the water, and saw Danny dipping a loofah.  He reached behind Tim for some kind of bottle and squeezed it.  Tim smelled a rush of cucumber and mint.

              “You just lay there,” Danny said, squishing the loofah until it was full of suds.  He reached into the water and slid his hand under Tim’s forearm, lifting it out of the water.  Gently, but firmly, he started to scrub.

              The suds on the loofah turned brown almost instantly.  Tim watched with fascination at the grime starting to come off of his skin.  Even after having soaked for a few minutes, it was still clinging to the hairs on his arm and in the cracks of his knuckles.  Danny left the worst parts, knowing he’d have to get them on a second round later, and instead focused on getting the topmost layers off.

              When he finished Tim’s hand he moved up to his bicep.  Tim watched him out of slitted eyes, feeling the gentle but firm pressure as Danny washed his shoulder, and then under his arm, making him tickle just a little.  It was strange having someone else touch him there.  That wasn’t a place anyone usually bothered with.  Nobody tried to punch him there or attack him there or make out with him there.  If anything his armpits were used to rough treatment- getting hauled to his feet or caught while falling.  Not…gentle, loving scrubs.

              It made him twitch.

              “What?” Danny said.

              “Ticklish,” Tim replied.

              “Oh really.”

              “Don’t you dare.”

              “Wasn’t going to.  Not this time,” Danny said, and Tim couldn’t help his smirk as he watched Danny file that information away for another time.

              But tonight, Tim didn’t have to be on guard.  He didn’t have to have any defenses up.  And slowly, as Danny washed the back of his neck, he started to let them down.

              It became almost hypnotic, as Danny steadily scrubbed over his other shoulder, then down his other arm, then along the back and palm of his hand.  Then up the other side, then his other armpit, and then slowly across his throat and chest.  Tim closed his eyes, and felt Danny slowly washing down his chest, the loofah dipping under the water, brown suds rising to the surface.

              Then Danny leaned forward further, his chest pressing gently against Tim’s face as he reached down to wash his stomach.  Tim’s heartrate picked up again, just from having Danny so close, from breathing in his electric scent, from feeling the warmth of his core pressed right against Tim’s face.  He teased the loofah lower, to the top of his pelvis, and Tim felt a rush of desire, even as relaxed as he was.

              Then Danny pulled back, and Tim let out a heavy sigh.

              “Don’t worry,” Danny said, dragging his wet fingers across Tim’s clavicle.  “We’ll make love after.”

              Tim’s pulse quickened and he swallowed giving a nod.  Then he felt Danny press a kiss to the top of his hair.  His grimy, greasy, frayed hair…

              “What’s with that face?” Danny said.

              “My hair is gross and you have your lips all over it.”

              “I’ve had my lips all over your ass…”
              “Okay but now I’m thinking about it.”

              Danny stroked his fingers through Tim’s disgusting hair and whispered into it.

              “I’m gonna fix that too.  I’ve got it all planned out.  You just keep laying there, looking sexy.”

              Tim sighed.

              “Okay.”

              “Gonna wash your back now,” Danny said, squeezing more soap onto the loofah.
              “Do you want me to sit up…”

              “Nope.”
              Tim frowned, and then felt Danny go intangible.  He watched as he floated down through him, sinking into the water without making it move at all.  And then he felt the press of the loofah, soapy and wet, on his back.  Somehow, Danny was phasing it through the tub, but not through Tim, and he felt the warm swirl of water on his back even as it pressed against the slanted side of the tub.  He gave a delighted laugh, amazed at how good it felt when it should have been impossible.  He heard Danny giggle too, and then saw his hand come up from inside his own stomach to wave at him.

              “You are a dork,” Tim said.

              “Oh am I?” Danny replied, gently moving the loofah to caress over the slashes on his back.  Tim gave a deep inhale at the sting, and then a gasp as he remembered how they’d gotten there.

              “Fine.  You’re a sexy dork,” Tim said.  He felt Danny’s arm snake around his neck, and his head press against the side of his face as he whispered in his ear.

              “So are you,” he said, kissing Tim’s disgusting ear as if it tasted as delicious as the chicken had.  Then he felt Danny’s whole body now somehow under him, even though he was also laying in the tub.  He felt Danny’s chest press against his back, and his pelvis curl against his ass. He felt his tail wrap around his legs, and then they just lay there for a moment, Danny spooning Tim from behind while he also lay in the tub, letting the heat of the water soak more and more of the grime and dirt loose from him.

              The water was a disgusting brown now, but Danny wasn’t nearly done, and Tim wasn’t about to stop him when he was halfway to heaven.  His hands slid down Tim’s back, one holding the loofah, the other bare, and Tim relaxed back into him as his hands slipped around his waist and he started to scrub between his legs.  He was as gentle as possible when he washed his balls, moving them from one side to the other, and Tim was glad they’d let them soak for as long as they had first.  His pubic hair was tangled and matted anyway, and Danny didn’t fight it, just gently scrubbing as best he could.

              Tim was still very much sated from before, and so he lay in a pleasant haze when Danny slid his bare hand gently up to wash his soft dick.  His palm was somehow slicked with soap, even under the water, and Tim stopped questioning how Danny was managing to phase some things but not others, bending reality to however he wanted. Danny was even more gentle than Tim would have been himself, softly rubbing between all his creases, clearly with intent to wash, and not to tease.  It still turned Tim on anyway, his heart beating harder, and he knew Danny could feel it as his chest was pressed up against his back.  But it felt more loving than sexual, and affected his heart more than his body.  When Danny finished he pressed a soft kiss to Tim’s cheek, and then flew away, becoming tangible again as he stood behind Tim’s head and squeezed more soap onto the loofah.

              Danny became solid again and walked to the bottom of the tub, lifting Tim’s ankle out of the water.  Neither of them said anything now, as he gently but methodically started to scrub Tim’s foot, then between his toes, then across his heel.  He relaxed again as Danny started to scrub up his shin, watching the brown water drip into the dark sludge that he was now laying in.  He hadn’t even noticed the scrape on his knee, and couldn’t remember when it had gotten there.  Danny avoided it with the loofah and gently rubbed his fingers over it, removing the dirt while leaving the scab.

              He washed up Tim’s thigh, his hands gliding over Tim’s skin, bringing the loofah to scrub whenever he found caked dirt.  He slid slowly up to his hip, making Tim’s ears grow warm again as his fingers ghosted across his ass, but then left it as a tease and flew back down to wash his other foot.  Tim could barely keep his eyes open, the methodical scrubbing of Danny’s hands across every inch of his skin making all his tension melt away.

              “You awake in there, baby?” Danny said, his voice syrupy and thick as his fingers tickled under the back of Tim’s knee.

              “Everything feels so dreamy,” Tim said, his voice sluggish as every muscle in his body was completely relaxed now.  He felt Danny’s palms slide up the inside of his thigh, and while his pulse increased, he was so relaxed he didn’t even move to try to encourage him to come closer.  He knew he would, in his time, and so he let him move at whatever pace he wanted.  As his fingers approached Tim’s ass Danny phased through the tub again, through the water, moving his body wherever he needed in order to touch Tim however he wanted.

              And what he wanted right now was to rub his palms across Tim’s ass, squeezing it affectionately.  Tim heard the sound of the bodywash bottle being squeezed again, and this time opened his eyes to see Danny grabbing it with his tail, pouring more soap into his palms before putting it back on the shelf.  Tim opened his mouth to say something, but then Danny’s fingers were massaging his ass cheeks, slathered in soap, phasing through the tub, through the water.

              Then his fingers started to slide in between his crack.  Tim blushed heavily, closing his eyes as Danny touched him in the most intimate of places.  His hesitance from before was gone, and he relaxed, opening his legs to let Danny in.  He felt a soft kiss to his knee, then another, then several as Danny coaxed him open, allowing his fingers to rub the soap up to and over his hole.  Then down to his perineum, and around his balls again, washing everything very thoroughly.  Tim couldn’t help it, his dick became interested, fattening up and growing just a little.  Danny only kissed his knee some more, until he was satisfied that Tim was clean, and then he slowly pulled his hands away.

              “Beautiful,” Danny said, and Tim snorted.

              “The water is almost black.”

              “Exactly.  All of that is no longer on you,” Danny said.  “And I’m not nearly done.  We’re just getting started.”

              Tim was too sated and too relaxed to even reply.  All he could manage was a soft sigh as he felt Danny’s arms slip under his back and under his knees, and then lift him slowly out of the water.  It dripped off of him in brown rivers, pouring back into the tub.  He could hardly care.  He leaned his head against Danny’s shoulder as he carried him and set him down on a leather armchair that had a white, fluffy bathrobe laid open on it.

              Danny set him down on top of the robe and pulled a soft towel off of a stack, and began to dry him from the neck down (because he was still gross from the neck up).  His hands were firm and sure as he rubbed the towel over Tim’s skin, moving it everywhere; up his arms, under them, across his chest, down his back.  Between his legs, just as gently as before, softly nudging them open with his legs to dry his balls and dick.  Down his thighs, over his shins, and then between his toes.

              The towel came away with brown streaks on it, Tim’s skin still grimy even after all of that, and he sighed with exhaustion.

              “Just lean back,” Danny said, and he did, relaxing into the soft leather as Danny moved his arms through the sleeves of the robe and wrapped it around him, tightening it in front.  Then he walked behind the chair and pulled a lever, and Tim sighed as the chair reclined.  He felt his head fall past the back of the chair, and realized his head was hovering above a porcelain sink.  He was in a salon chair.  He gave a little laugh.

              “Don’t tell me you got the plumbing to work,” he said.  Danny gave him a pleased smile.

              “No, but this’ll be just as good,” he said.  “I got all this water by melting the snow outside, and then like I said, made it hot with the propane stoves in the food court.  We have as much as we want.  Give me two seconds,” he said, and then vanished through the floor.

              He came back with a five-gallon bucket full of clear, steaming water, which he lifted with one hand like it weighed no more than a feather.  He set it on the counter beside the sink, and then messed with the levers in the sink a little.

              “The drains still work,” he said.  He placed one palm on the side of Tim’s face, and stroked his cheek.

              “Close your eyes.”

              Tim obeyed, and then felt the warm water as it poured over his hair.  As it fell, Danny’s fingers came to brush gently through his knotted, matted hair, first from one hand, and then the other.  Tim laughed, trying to crack an eye open to see how in hell he was still pouring the water if both of his hands were in Tim’s hair, but it splashed in his eyes and he shut them again.

              “That tail of yours is very useful,” Tim muttered, and Danny gave a soft laugh.

              “More than just for fucking.”

              Tim blushed heavily, his dick stirring as Danny teased him, the sensation of his fingers rubbing his scalp sending sparks across his skin.

              Then Danny stopped pouring the water, and Tim heard another bottle open.

              When Danny started to rub the shampoo into his hair, Tim sighed much deeper than he expected to.  It smelled nice.  It smelled normal.  It smelled like civilization.  He gave a single soft sob, not enough for any tears, but his eyes grew hot and his vision swam.

              He’d never thought the scent of perfumed soap could make him so emotional.

              Danny’s fingers were gentle but firm, his nails scrubbing against his scalp, rubbing months and months of grime away.  Tim felt himself let go.  Let himself fall into the moment.  Let there be nothing at all but Danny, and this moment of him washing his hair.

              Danny poured more warm water, rinsing the soap away, and then was back with a second lather.  Tim’s shoulders relaxed and he focused on his breathing, letting it come steady and slow.  His heartrate dropped again, a warm, soft glow spreading through his soul as he felt loved and cared for.

              Danny rinsed the second lather away, and then added some third product, probably conditioner.  Tim didn’t think that was going to get rid of all the matted knots, but he didn’t feel like speaking just now.  He’d let Danny do whatever he wanted to his hair, for as long as he wanted to do it.

              Danny left the conditioner in to soak, and then felt the gentle brush of fingers across his cheek.  He cracked his eyes open, seeing the warm glow of a hundred candles flickering in the distance, and Danny’s soft green aura right in front of him.

              He held up a soft washcloth, covered in a citrus-scented lather, and gently brushed it against Tim’s cheek.

              “Close your eyes, baby,” he said, his voice silky and smooth.  Tim did so and let himself drift.  Let himself float away on a cloud of gentle scrubbing as Danny rubbed the cloth over his face, making tender circles on his cheeks, scrubbing hard to get the oil and grease out of his stubble.  Then he scrubbed his chin, his forehead, his nose, and above his mouth.  He was especially gentle as he rubbed the cloth over Tim’s closed eyes, and not long after that, he was back with another cloth, sopping with just plain water, wiping all the soap away.

              He dried Tim’s face, and then was back with the soap, washing his ears, and under his chin, and down his neck.  He rubbed Tim everywhere from his shoulders up to his forehead, then warmly rinsed it, followed by a soft, clean towel to dry.

              Tim nearly fell asleep.  Or maybe he did.  Maybe the soft shapes he saw before his eyes were dreams; delicate orange light flickering between ectoplasmic green; doting, hovering eyes that gazed at him from under white locks, and tender hands that caressed his skin like he was the most precious thing in the world.

              He woke up when he felt Danny pouring more warm water over his hair, rinsing out the conditioner.  His fingers tugged at the larger knots, untangling some of them, but a lot of them were a lost cause, even after that.  He didn’t say anything, and so neither did Tim.  He was still a thousand times cleaner than he’d been before, and it didn’t matter that…

              He felt a cloth circle his neck, and for a second was confused why Danny was putting his cape on.  But then he felt the chair move back into the sitting position, and realized it wasn’t his cape.  It was black cloth like they put on you in a barber shop.

              “Can you keep your head up straight for me, sleepyhead?” Danny cooed, a glimpse of scissors flashing across Tim’s vision in the candlelight.

              “I’ll try,” Tim said, his heart swelling now at the realization that Danny was going to give him a haircut.

              He’d given himself hurried cuts a few times over the past eight months, just to keep it short enough that it didn’t fall into his eyes or get in his way.  So it left him with a horrible mess that was longer in the back and shorter in the front and uneven all around.  But he hadn’t had a mirror, or taken the time to find one, because zombies didn’t care what he looked like and so it hadn’t mattered.

              But now…if they were going to visit Dick, and possibly start interacting with humanity again…

              He felt the gentle tug of Danny’s fingers as he carded them through Tim’s hair, trying to pull out some of the knots.  He felt the press of a brush against his scalp, and more tugging, and then heard the sound of sharp scissors as they closed around some strands.  He felt bits of wet hair cling to his neck as they fell from his head, some of them matted and hopeless.

              Danny’s fingers were steady and sure as he worked, slowly moving from one side of his head to the other, snipping as he went.  He felt a comb press against his scalp and slide down without trouble on the left side now, all the knots gone, all the grease and grime removed.

              “You know how to cut hair?” Tim asked.

              “Not really,” Danny said.  “But anything is better than what you had.”

              Tim snorted.

              “Not that you aren’t beautiful with any hair,” Danny said, leaning down to press a kiss to his cheek.  Tim couldn’t help the blush that rose there.  His whole face was glowing with affection as he felt Danny take care of him, in careful, deliberate detail.  He’d never had someone pay such close attention to him in his life.  It was something else, experiencing pleasures that he’d never appreciated before, not even back when he’d had the chance to have them all the time.  He’d never relished a haircut before.  Prior to the world ending, it had just been an annoying chore that he went through once a month.

              Now it was heaven.  Danny’s fingers brushing through his hair unimpeded made him sigh and close his eyes.  The knots were gone.  The strands were soft.  Everything felt even and healthy.  And then Danny was just…stroking it, running his fingers through it, gently scraping his scalp with his nails, making pleasant zaps run across his skin and down his neck.

              “God you’re gorgeous,” Danny said, and Tim’s cheeks flushed deeper.  Danny reached around and unclasped the cloth from around his neck, tossing it to the floor, not caring about whatever mess he made.  Tim supposed it didn’t matter. 

              Then Danny reclined the chair again and rinsed his hair, his fingers loving and soft as they ran through his locks, his face smitten.  He glanced down at Tim and their eyes met.  He lowered his face and pressed his lips to Tim’s slow and soft, then several more along his bottom lip and to the corner of his mouth, across his stubble.

              Danny pulled back and raised an eyebrow.

              “You need a shave,” he said.

              Tim rolled his eyes.

              “Like I’ve had time for…”

              “You’re getting one right now.”

              Danny raised the chair back up to the sitting position again, and then walked over to the shelf full of products he’d clearly collected from all across the shopping mall.  Tim’s heart beat faster as he realized Danny was going to shave him.  The blush in his cheeks darkened, and his dick twitched with attention at the idea.

              Danny came back with a can of shaving cream, a pack of disposable razors, and a warm, wet washcloth.  He gave Tim a shy grin, and then lifted his hand up to press the warm cloth to his face, gently rubbing it across his cheeks to wet them.

              “Here, you hold this,” Danny said, putting the cloth in his hands.  Tim curled his fingers around it, and then forgot all about it as Danny spread shaving cream onto his face.  His movements were very deliberate and careful, making sure not to get any in Tim’s eyes, even as he spread it up his sideburns.  He wet the razor in the sink behind him, and then walked around to stand with his legs straddling Tim’s.  The position was very intimate already, and then leaned forward, his face coming so close Tim could smell the electric zap of ectoplasm.

              The first press of the razor to his cheek was tender and sure.  Danny started with the left sideburn, slowly pulling the razor down in firm strokes.  After a few passes he leaned through Tim to rinse it in the sink, then came back, solidified again, and started the next few strokes.  His face was close, less than a foot away, and Tim couldn’t stop himself from studying it as he let Danny run a sharp razor over his skin.

              He felt Danny exhale, and he breathed it in, enjoying the electric scent.  He closed his eyes and thought about that for a moment.  He waited until Danny left to rinse the blade again before speaking.

              “You breathe as a ghost?” he asked.

              Danny returned, pressing the blade just under his nose, and Tim automatically moved his mouth to tighten his skin. 

              “Sometimes,” Danny said.  “I don’t need to, I guess, but…I’m alive, so I’m used to it, so sometimes I do it out of habit.”

              Tim couldn’t answer because there was a razor blade right above his lips, but he thought about that.  It wasn’t often Danny said the phrase ‘I’m alive’.  Usually, he referred to himself as dead.

              Danny reached through him again to rinse the razor, and Tim took the moment to speak.

              “We’ll get you back there,” Tim said softly.  “Back to being really alive.  I made a lot of progress today…”

              Danny put his finger under Tim’s chin and shut his mouth.

              “Shhhh, no thinking right now,” he said softly, pressing the razor just under his bottom lip and dragging it down his chin.  Then it was gliding over the sensitive flesh at the top of his throat, and Tim didn’t dare move.  “I know how hard you’re working.  I know you’re doing it for me.  You’re also doing it because the world needs a cure and it’s the right thing to do and you’re a hero, but you’re working so hard because you are trying to cure me,” Danny said, his beautiful green eyes meeting Tim’s in the candlelight.

              “And I don’t have the words to tell you how grateful I am.  How sweet that is.  How deeply loved it makes me feel.  So instead,” Danny said, moving the razor back up to start under his lip again, “I’m gonna pamper you all fucking night.  Give you everything you need.  Make you the focus of the moment, for once.  There is one rule for you tonight, Tim Drake, and that is no. Thinking.”

              Tim sighed with contentment and closed his eyes.  He felt Danny’s other hand tangle in his freshly cut hair as he started to glide the razor down the right side of his face.  Tim stopped talking and focused only on the feeling of Danny slowly, carefully shaving him, each pull of the razor leaving him feeling fresher and more civilized than before.

              When Danny was done, he took the washcloth from Tim’s hands and started to wipe the shaving cream away.  He rinsed it out several times, until Tim’s face was completely fresh and clean.

              Then he smelled aftershave balm, and Danny’s tender fingers as he pressed them to his face, softly rubbing it in circles across his skin.  Tim’s heart rate picked up again, and then got worse as Danny straddled his lap, sitting down on top of his thighs.  His dick gave a throb of attention as there was nothing between them but a bathrobe and Danny’s very thin jumpsuit.  Tim glanced down and saw Danny was tenting the black fabric, and Tim raised an eyebrow.

              “Thought we were supposed to be relaxing,” Tim accused.

              “No, you are supposed to be relaxing.  I’ve got a hot naked guy pliant under my fingertips, there’s no hope for me.”
              Danny finished rubbing in the last of the balm and leaned forward, his whole body pressing down on Tim’s chest.  The warmth in Tim’s cheeks bloomed hot, and then he tilted his head forward the last inch to close the kiss.  Danny crushed him with his lips and his whole body, pushing him down into the chair as Tim melted under him.  Danny reached down to pull the lever to lean the chair back into a partial reclining position, eliciting a moan from Tim as he felt Danny’s weight on him.  Danny moved his lips down Tim’s freshly shaved face, across his jaw, and down his neck.  His dick couldn’t help it now; it grew to proud attention, and Danny gave a soft groan as he felt it press against his stomach.

              “Mmmm,” Danny said, sucking on Tim’s shoulder.  “You make a very convincing argument.  But it’s going to have to wait.  I have more plans for you.”

              Tim gave a pathetic whine as Danny pulled off of him, but he obediently stayed in the chair as Danny walked behind him to the shelf covered in products he’d gathered.  He came back holding a bottle of sugar scrub and another clean, damp washcloth.

              Tim eyed him as he squeezed the scrub onto the cloth, and then watched as Danny knelt on the floor and lifted Tim’s foot.  He started rubbing the scrub in circles on the top of his foot, the granules rough against his skin, pulling the ingrained dirt away.  He tried not to giggle as Danny moved down to his toes, rubbing each one of them individually with his fingers, amazed at how much brown was still caked between them, despite all the soaking and washing they’d done already.

              Then Danny moved to the bottom of his foot, and the tickle made Tim try to jerk away.  But Danny’s grip was strong, showing off his superhuman strength in an instant, as Tim realized he had no hope of pulling his foot free.  When Danny pressed harder, the sensation changed from a tickle to a warm buzz.

              “Oh,” Tim said, his voice full of breath.

              “That so,” Danny replied, his eyes half-lidded as he worked, the green glow in his cheeks growing brighter.

              “You know, it’s really unfair that I’m naked and you’re not.”

              “You’re not naked,” Danny said, purposefully dragging his eyes up Tim’s bare leg, raking them over the bottom hem of the bathrobe as he fell across his thighs.  “Yet.”

              Tim gave a shaky exhale as that comment made his dick stir again.  All the while Danny’s fingers were steady and relentless, rubbing the washcloth along the bottom of his heel, working all the dirt out of his skin.

              He switched to the other foot, his hands just as steady and sure on this one, holding Tim gently but firmly so that he could not pull away.  Then Danny glided the washcloth up the back of his calf, stopping under his knee, and then back down again.  He worked in slow, patient strokes, pausing to rub in circles whenever he found dirt staining Tim’s skin.  Tim leaned back and closed his eyes, savoring the feeling of Danny’s hands on him, gently covering every inch of his body, slowly working his way up his legs.

              When he got past his knees and started to rub the inside of his thighs, Tim’s pulse quickened.  Danny knew he was being a tease, slowly rubbing the washcloth higher, then back down again, then a little higher, then back down again.  Tim was hard again, and Danny glanced at the tent in his bathrobe every chance he got.

              “Still need to clean your arms, and your back, and your chest, and your face…”

              “You enjoy torturing me.”

              “I’m also torturing myself, you know,” Danny said, standing up, the bulge in his jumpsuit very prominent now.  He leaned forward and tugged on the bathrobe tie, licking his lips as it fell open to reveal Tim’s naked body, half-reclined and prone on the salon chair.  Danny’s eyes raked up his body, pausing to linger on Tim’s erection, his green gaze piercing as he locked his eyes onto Tim’s.

              “You will not distract me from making you clean,” he said, and with a will of steel, walked behind Tim to rise the washcloth out and return with fresh scrub squeezed onto it.

              He lifted Tim’s hand and gently started to rub between his fingers, brown lifting out from between them immediately.  Tim sighed and closed his eyes as he let Danny work, starting to really revel in the feeling of getting clean.  It was such a deep, fundamental change from how his body had felt all this time that it felt almost otherworldly.  He started to float back into a dreamlike feeling as Danny worked on his hands, then up his arms, slowly rubbing the scrub in circles, exfoliating all the grime from his skin.  Danny moved up his neck, and then rubbed under his chin, the feeling of the soft washcloth contrasting with the rough sugar as it gently scraped the dirt away.

              Tim felt a soft kiss to his forehead, and then Danny was gone for a moment, rinsing the washcloth out again.  When it was back it was warm, with fresh scrub on it, and gently being pressed to his forehead.  Tim relaxed and closed his eyes, his heart growing full as he felt the tender way Danny cleaned his face.  He was so careful, so delicate in his movements that Tim felt no need to think at all.  He sighed, able to let go of all the tension again, because of their deep, unshakable trust.  He knew his face was safe in Danny’s hands.

              He felt a soft kiss to his lips, and didn’t even bother to open his eyes, content to remain in blissful darkness while Danny did whatever he wanted to him.  He felt the washcloth rubbing across his upper chest, massaging across his pecs, carefully avoiding his nipples.  He felt Danny’s fingers behind the cloth working to rub the sugar into him, scraping away months and months of grime and dirt and zombie blood.  His own blood.

              Danny’s fingers worked down across his abs, and then down to his pelvis.  Then he felt Danny shift.  Even with his eyes closed, Tim knew he’d lost his legs and had started to float.  Knew when he went intangible.  Felt him, somehow, as he moved through Tim to start rubbing the cloth against his back, without ever making Tim move at all.

              “Feels different,” Tim mumbled, his heart glowing with affection as he concentrated on feeling where Danny was, even without seeing him.

              “Mmmm?  It’s just your back, baby.”

              “No…feels different, when you have a tail,” he said, trying to explain, but his brain was so offline he was struggling to even think of the words.

              “Huh?” Danny said, seeming not to understand, as he rubbed the washcloth across Tim’s shoulder blades, carefully avoiding his love scratches.

              “You.  You feel…lighter.  Greener.  Ghostlier, I think.  I don’t…really know the words.  You feel more…more core, less body, if that makes sense?”

              Danny stopped scrubbing Tim’s back and Tim felt him float up in front of him, with his eyes still closed.  He hovered above him, and Tim could feel his inquisitiveness.  Then he moved to the left, and Tim subconsciously turned his head to follow, though he was too at peace to bother opening his eyes.  Then Danny flew to the right, and Tim followed him again.

              “You sense me that well,” Danny said, his voice soft with awe, as he flew to hover directly in front of Tim.

              “Told you,” Tim said, opening his eyes with a dreamlike gaze, to look into Danny’s beautiful face.  He hovered directly in front of him, his nose less than an inch away, and Tim tilted his head, trying to encourage a kiss.

              “You don’t just sense my core,” Danny said.  “Or what I’m feeling.  You can tell what form I’m in?”

              “Course I can.  You’re hovering with your tail,” Tim said, his eyes half-lidded as he felt…felt Danny’s core respond to him.  “You’re just an inch from my nose.”

              “Tim, I am invisible,” Danny said softly, flying around behind him.  Where he formed legs and planted them on the floor.

              “Now you’re behind me, with legs,” Tim said.  “See, I told you, you feel different…”

              The pulse of connection he felt flow out of Danny was strong.  It made Tim gasp.

              “What…”
              Danny walked in front of him again, still invisible, though Tim could still tell where he was perfectly.  He floated on top of Tim’s body and hovered there, his tail covering him like a blanket.  Tim gave him a seductive smile and gazed directly into where he knew his eyes were.

              “Little unfair, don’t you think?  Climbing onto me when I’m all naked, and you’re all dressed.”

              “Clothes have no meaning when I have no corporeal body to cover up.”

              “And yet I can still tell you’re wearing them,” Tim said, dragging his eyes down Danny’s invisible front, lifting a hand to rest it on Danny’s side, only to realize that he couldn’t.  There was nothing there.  “And I’m telling you how unfair it is, that you get to see me, all spread out and bare, and all I get is empty air…”

              He felt another pulse from Danny’s core, and it jolted him into silence.  He gasped, his head falling back against the chair.  Danny moved his intangible arms up to surround Tim’s head, hovering his face just above his, still invisible, still intangible, but Tim could feel him.  He could see him, somehow, though it wasn’t with his eyes.  He felt his tail flick against his bare legs, and felt his pelvis grind down against his half-hard cock.

              Tim gasped, and lifted his hips to try to meet it, finding only air.

              “Tease,” Tim whispered, to the air.  But then he felt another pulse from Danny’s core, and it was strong and real, and sang through him with a connection he had no words for.

              “You sensing my core like this is like me being naked,” Danny said, his voice dripping with arousal.  Tim felt the barest press of lips against his clean-shaven cheek.  It made him gasp.  “You’re sensing my form.  My emotions.  My desire.”

              Tim licked his lips and tried to kiss Danny back, only to find he wasn’t there.

              “This,” Danny said, his core pulsing again, all of it growing brighter, stronger, thicker.  “Is my desire for you.”

              Danny’s hand was suddenly real, and he clasped Tim’s wrist, lifting his hand up towards his core. Tim’s breath came faster as his hand drew nearer, and he could feel it.

              He heard Danny gasp.  He traced his fingers along the outside of the half-existing, half-phased green orb, remembering what it felt like to have it inside him.

              “It’s less tangible than last time,” Tim said.

              “It’s as tangible as I want it to be,” Danny replied, his voice thick and full of breath.  Another pulse of desire rushed from the core and into Tim’s hand, racing up his arm and making him gasp.  “Which right now, is not at all.  But even though you can’t hold it, you can still feel it, oh Tim…”

              Danny lost his resolve and phased his face back into reality.  His kiss was slow but forceful, pressing his lips deep against Tim’s, crushing his head into the chair.  Tim felt Danny’s core swell, even as Danny was right- his hand was inside of it, not holding it; his fingers were occupying the same space as Danny’s core and yet he could still feel its every twitch, its every need.  Danny moaned into Tim’s lips, his body flickering in and out of existence, brushing against Tim’s bare, sugar-covered skin before vanishing again.

              Danny pulled back from the kiss, leaving Tim breathless.  Their eyes met and they gazed into each other, Tim’s palm held out in front of him, his fingers stroking through a core that he couldn’t feel with his hand, but could still feel.

              “I want you inside me again,” Tim whispered, his eyes closed halfway, his cock swelling once more as he said it.

              “Inside you how,” Danny teased, pressing kisses down Tim’s neck, somehow not getting any of the scrub on his own face, while also sucking Tim’s skin into his mouth.

              “Your core, your body, your heart… all of you,” Tim whispered, running the fingers of his free hand down the back of where he knew Danny’s spine was, making his ghostly form arch up into his touch.

              “Oh really,” Danny said, his voice thick, his eyes dark.  “That can be arranged.”

              Tim didn’t know what he was planning, but he felt the deep desire in his core and it sent a wave of excitement through him.  Danny’s body turned completely intangible again, and he slowly sank down into Tim.  Tim expected him to phase through him and come out the other side like he’d always done before, but as he slowed down and his core approached Tim’s chest, he knew this would be different.

              He felt it, when Danny’s core breached him.  It wasn’t like the last time, where it had been solid and whole and merging with him.  No, this time it stayed intangible, it stayed ghostlike, but then Tim felt it overtake him.

              Felt Danny’s mind, invading him, pressing right up against his own.  Prodding him, asking for entry.  Tim already knew, without a doubt, that if Danny wanted to, he could just take Tim over.  He didn’t need to ask.  He easily had the ability to just overtake an entire human mind, if he so chose.

              But he was asking.  His core was thrumming with the desire for Tim to let him in, to give him permission.  And Tim eagerly acquiesced, sighing as he allowed Danny to not just soothe his mind into nothingness, but to actually take control over it.

              Tim’s eyes shone bright green as his body jerked upwards.  Then it fell back down, limp in the chair, before he felt his hand lift up.  On its own.

              He felt Danny smile.  More than that, he could tell it was a flirty smile, mischievous and playful.

              “Wow,” Danny said, with Tim’s mouth.  “You’re even sexier from the inside.”

              Danny moved Tim’s hand towards his stomach, and lightly dragged his fingertips across his skin, making it tickle, but also itch.  The scrub was starting to dry, and he kinda wanted it off.

              “Don’t you worry,” Danny said, with Tim’s mouth, as he sat Tim’s body up.  “I promised to get you good and clean, and I’m keeping that promise.”

              Tim’s body rose to his feet, without his input, without his say.  Just to see if he could, he tried to stop it from getting up.  Tried to resist stepping onto the carpeted floor in his bare feet.  Tried to slow it from taking steps towards the second bathtub.

              “I can feel you fighting me, but it’s like a tickle.  Like a whisper,” Danny said, with Tim’s mouth.  “I also know you’re just testing the waters.  Pushing boundaries to see what it’s like,” his own mouth said, as he reached down with Tim’s fingers and dipped them into the water.  It was still very warm, which meant it must have been nearly boiling when Danny had poured it earlier.

              He had planned for all of this to take this long.

              “I told you I was going to pamper you,” Danny said, lifting Tim’s leg and slowly lowering his foot into the steaming water, watching the swirls of sugar scrub dance across the surface as it floated off his skin.

              Tim knew, deep deep down, that if he truly wanted to kick Danny out of his mind, that he could.  He had trained all his life against various mind-control techniques, and had successfully employed them many times over.  He also knew that Danny would be a formidable opponent in that arena; that his ability to control human minds was very powerful.

              Tim felt a wave of awe, just like he did any time he learned something new about him.

              “Right back at you,” Danny said, stepping into the tub with his other foot, until he was standing in it halfway up his shins.  “Usually I can overshadow anyone I want without trouble.  With you?  I had to knock.”

              Tim internally gave a laugh, and in response, he felt Danny smile with his face.  Then Danny slowly sank down into the water, bending Tim’s knees until he was sitting on the bottom of the tub, and leaned his back against it with a sigh. 

              “Oh, it feels good to be human again,” Danny said.  For half a second, they both felt a pang of pain, and Tim wasn’t even sure which of them it came from.  Then they shoved it away.  They just wanted to enjoy this, and they weren’t going to let anything ruin this moment.

              Danny lay, relaxing in Tim’s body, for quite a long time.  And Tim let him.  He was happy to lend his body to his lover so that he could experience having one again, without the rot, without the decay, without the loss of his mind.  Danny closed Tim’s eyes and for a long moment just focused on the feeling of the hot water, of the air in his lungs, of the sweat forming on his face, of the sting of the scratches on his back.

              Then Danny slowly moved his palm up to his other arm, and gently started to scrub the sugar off of his skin.  It felt so good, to feel all the grime and itchiness and months of dirt come off.  He scrubbed his hands together, rubbing between his fingers, and then started scrubbing up his other arm, watching it all dissolve into the water, leaving Tim’s body as clean as it could possibly get.

              They sighed together, Danny’s hands tickling and sensual, even as they were practical.  When he got to Tim’s chest, he slowed down, dragging his fingers teasingly across it, sending tickles through his body.  Tim’s nerves responded, a wave of electric pleasure rushing through him.  Danny started to stroke around Tim’s nipple, and they both gave a sharp gasp.

              “Oh yeah,” Danny said, closing his eyes and leaning his head back.  “Mmmm.”

              He teased Tim’s nipple then, making arousal spike through his blood.  Tim felt his own cheeks flush, and his dick twitch.  Then Danny moved his other hand up to rub his other nipple, both at the same time, sending Tim’s heart racing.

              “Oh fuck,” Danny said, leaning his head back and closing his eyes.  “You feel so alive, baby.  Oh God.”

              Danny opened his palms and pressed them both to Tim’s chest, gliding them down over his stomach, then back up again, scrubbing off the sugar while also feeling as much sensation as he could.  Tim’s heart pounded helplessly, arousal rushing through his blood and straight to his dick.

              “You’re so fun to play with,” Danny said, and all Tim could do was agree.  “Yeah, I thought you’d like this.”

              Danny slid his palms down over his pelvis, teasing his fingers between his legs on the sides of his balls, brushing past them but not really touching them.  Tim’s skin twitched as he felt everything, every stroke of Danny’s fingers, every brush of his palms.  Of his own fingers.  His own palms.  It was infinitely strange, feeling his hands caressing his skin but having Danny be in control of them, moving them in ways that were different from how Tim would do it.

              Danny bent Tim’s knee and reached down to rub his palms over his leg, rinsing away the scrub and dirt and grime, leaving him clean.  Really, really clean.  That feeling alone was strange and unfamiliar, and having Danny control his body on top of that was almost otherworldly.  Tim’s mind fell into a pleasant hum, other thoughts leaving him as he let Danny move him however he pleased.  Danny slid his palms up the insides of his thighs, both of them sighing at how good it felt, both of them feeling the pull up in Tim’s balls as his palms stroked around them.

              And then Danny caressed them, making them tingle as Danny’s hands unabashedly massaged his sack.  The feeling was so good their head fell back against the tub, their eyes fluttering closed, leaving Tim in a world where all he could sense was Danny’s hands massaging his balls, and then slowly dragging up and down his swollen dick.

              “Oh yes,” Danny said, with Tim’s mouth, their heart pumping faster as he stroked his palm up and down his shaft.  Danny gave a tug in a way that was different than Tim was used to, and then Tim felt him frown.  He gave another tug, slightly different, and then started to experiment, gliding his hands up and down Tim’s shaft, shamelessly exploring his body, feeling the sensations that it made.

              Then he pressed his thumb just under the head and squeezed.  Both of them let out a cry of desire.

              “Oh is that how you like it,” Danny whispered, heat blooming through Tim as he realized Danny could feel everything, every tickle, every twitch, every jolt of arousal that he caused.  Danny was feeling Tim’s dick the way Tim felt it, and now he was stroking it the way Tim did, whenever he masturbated.  Suddenly he was no longer alone in his most private space; there was someone else who knew what his dick liked, and where, and how hard.  And Danny was not shy about it.  He felt the rush of arousal when he squeezed it just right, right there, and he did it again, and again, and again.

              Tim could feel the pressure rising in his balls and knew an orgasm was building.  Danny felt it too, at the exact same time, and gently pulled his hands away, making them both gasp.

              “Don’t want this to end too soon,” Danny said, his hands sloshing in the water as they moved away.

              Tim’s mind was happy to let him have control.  He’d let Danny do whatever he wanted to him.  He acquiesced even his own opinion, content to let Danny feel however he wanted to feel.

              “Feels so good to be human again,” Danny cooed, stroking Tim’s fingers up his sides, the warm water swirling behind them as they moved.  Then he dragged them down his back, enjoying the sting of Tim’s scratches, and then down further to his ass.  Danny rubbed his own ass cheeks, squeezing them like he was attracted to them, massaging them in a way Tim would never do.  Their heartrate picked up and Tim realized it was Danny this time, causing their pulse to race, his emotions from being enticed by Tim’s body making themselves known.

              Tim hadn’t realized that Danny considered him to be this sexy.

              “Oh you have no idea how hot I think you are,” Danny mumbled, dragging his fingers between his ass cheeks.  Danny lay back and spread Tim’s legs, as wide as the tub would allow, and unabashedly rubbed his hole, making them both groan.  The water made it feel different, both more and less sensitive at the same time, and Tim could feel his body getting excited while also not wanting him to breach him in the water, because of how it would burn.

              Danny pulled his hand away, and sat up.  He stood, the water pouring off of Tim’s body in rivers, dripping down into the bath, taking with it the last of the grime and dirt.  He was now spotlessly clean, and Danny carefully stepped out of the tub and grabbed a towel.

              Danny did not dry Tim’s body the way Tim did.  He took his time.  He slowly glided the towel around his arms, and his legs, sensually feeling it with every stroke of the cotton.  He was not shy about rubbing it between Tim’s legs, dragging the cloth up between his ass cheeks, and over his balls, and around his swollen dick.

              Then he turned around and walked towards a bed, that somehow Tim hadn’t noticed until now.  A real, actual bed, that Danny must have brought from one of the other shops in the mall, and found sheets and blankets for, and made.  Tim’s heart swelled with affection as he realized Danny had planned every minute of this.

              “Thought you would like it,” Danny said, with Tim’s voice, as he lay their naked body down.  “Let’s do this properly, for once.”

              Danny reached over to an end table and picked up a bottle of lube.  He slathered it all over Tim’s hand and shamelessly spread Tim’s legs wide.  With his left hand he started to lazily stroke Tim’s dick, and with his right, he started to tease over his hole in slow, gentle circles.  They moaned together, the body sending signals of desire up to its brain, making them both feel the sensations in tandem.  Danny pressed a finger into Tim while he stroked his palm over his cockhead, making their eyes flutter closed.  Tim was lost in the feeling, absolutely surrendering himself to the pleasure Danny was causing to his body, with his own hands.  Danny slowly pumped his finger in and out, making them both moan as the sphincter relaxed, enjoying how it was being made to feel, craving more.

              Danny pushed in a second finger and they arched their back, moaning as they felt the stretch and the promise of what that meant.  Tim didn’t even have enough mind to wonder how Danny was going to fuck him, but he knew he was going to, because he knew every thought in Danny’s head as well as Danny knew his.  Tim’s mind wandered back to the last time Danny had fucked him; to his gorgeous, beautiful blue eyes shining with more and more light behind them as his mind came to itself, and then his transformation, finally allowing Tim to meet his full mind for the first time.

              “Yeah,” Danny breathed, moving Tim’s fingers in and out of his hole at a steady rhythm, spreading them apart in order to ease Tim open wider.  “That’s my favorite memory, too.”

              Danny closed their eyes, and together they thought about that moment.  Tim saw it through Danny’s eyes as much as he saw it through his own.  Danny over him, his zombie body so healthy it was practically whole, his blue eyes gazing down at him with utter adoration.  Then seeing through Danny’s perspective- feeling his core throbbing, shining, almost ready to burst with how much it loved Tim beneath him.  Tim’s heart swelled as he felt it; felt the way Danny saw him in that moment- as something utterly precious, indescribably beautiful.

              Tim suddenly found himself wanting to kiss Danny.  Desperately.  While having him inside him was incredible, it meant he couldn’t see him.  Couldn’t touch him.  Couldn’t show his affection.  And it hurt that he was missing that.

              “I’m coming,” Danny said, with Tim’s voice, and Tim no longer wanted to hear his own voice.  He wanted to hear Danny’s.

              All of a sudden, he was aware of the core inside him again.  He felt it pulse, and then throb, and then split.  Felt it tear itself clean in half, which caused Tim to gasp so hard it actually made his mouth move.  And then half of the core started to leave.  Tim desperately clutched at it, not wanting that, not wanting any part of Danny to be away from him.

              “Shhh, yes you do,” Danny said softly, with Tim’s mouth.  And then he saw Danny rising up out of him.  While also still being inside of him.  While still controlling him.  Danny floated out of him and turned around, hovering over Tim’s body while he also was massaging Tim’s fingers inside his own ass, working him open while Tim’s mind was going wild trying to understand.

              “Hi, baby,” Danny said from where he hovered above him, naked.  He lowered his body down to cover Tim’s, and Tim groaned.  With his own voice.  That he could control now.

              He felt Danny’s fingers stroke through his hair, and he was able to move his own eyes again.  Able to trace them up and down Danny’s face.

              “I gave you control of your head back,” Danny said softly, his green eyes locking to Tim’s gaze.  “So I can kiss you.  Like you wanted.”

              Danny’s lips were soft and cool and hungry.  Tim moaned up into the kiss, affection blooming through his heart as he felt his lover’s lips on his own.  He kissed Danny over and over and over, trying to show his appreciation for everything he’d given him, even though a hundred kisses wouldn’t even come close.  He felt Danny’s fingers brushing through his hair, and felt Danny’s affection spread through his core, which was still inside Tim, even though it was also hovering above him.

              Tim’s own hand was still thrusting two fingers in and out of his ass, and he knew he was not doing that.

              “What…” Tim breathed, using his own voice again.  He looked down at his body and tried to move it, only to have Danny chuckle.

              “Duplicates,” he explained, his core full of flirtatious mirth.  “Half of me is still overshadowing you from the neck down.  Half of me is out here,” he said, moving his lips to kiss them down Tim’s neck.  “My core is still in you.  I still feel everything you feel,” he taunted, making his point by moving Tim’s hand around his cock, squeezing it in exactly the way that Tim loved, making him give a helpless moan.

              “Yeah, like that,” Danny whispered, dragging his tongue down Tim’s skin.  When he reached the most sensitive part of Tim’s neck, he stopped and started to suck, automatically knowing that Tim liked it best there.  Because he could still feel everything Tim felt.

              Tim’s cock swelled with desire and he tried to spread his legs further open.  Danny got the message and did it for him, slowly kissing his way down Tim’s chest, nosing his skin.  Tim gasped harder, his pulse quickening as Danny playfully nipped at his skin, finding all the places that made Tim twitch.  Tim was reveling in it, enjoying every second that Danny invaded his most personal of spaces, joining him in a way no one should be able to.

              Danny slid his lips down to the tip of Tim’s cock and sucked it into his mouth, moving Tim’s own hands away as he did so.  Tim groaned, his eyes fluttering closed and then open again, his cock so hard he knew he couldn’t take more than a minute or two of this.  Danny sucked him anyway, laving his tongue around the ridge of the head, sliding it just beneath in the place that made Tim twitch.  His whole body involuntarily convulsed, and Danny slipped his tongue away, moving his lips to suck on the head instead.

              “Fuck I wanna do this forever but I’m not gonna last,” Tim breathed.

              “I know.  I feel it,” Danny said.  The phrase made Tim’s balls grow hot and his dick swell.  Danny gently pulled away from it, and Tim gave a pathetic whine.

              Danny moved to settle between Tim’s legs.  He pulled Tim’s hand out of himself and pressed the head of his cock right to Tim’s hole.  Then Danny made Tim’s hips cant upwards, drawing his knees in close, giving himself the perfect angle to penetrate Tim’s body.  Danny moved both bodies together, Tim’s and his own, in perfect synchrony, lifting and pushing just right so that his cock slid into Tim with perfect ease.  He felt exactly when Tim needed him to stop and let him stretch, and exactly when he was ready for more, gently kissing Tim’s knee as he rocked in, a little at a time.

              Tim was lost to the sensations happening to him.  He couldn’t do anything but feel, and then express that feeling with wanton moans and soft pants.  His hands were not his, his ass was not his, and yet it was and he could feel everything.  Danny’s core was still inside him, feeling it with him, using that information to make it as good for both of them as possible.

              When Danny slid all the way in, he paused, his balls cool against Tim’s hot skin.  All their previous times making love had been desperate and rough and vicious, and Tim loved that- but now he was learning he really, really enjoyed Danny being gentle, too.  His heart throbbed with affection while his body burned with desire, his eyes lifting up to gaze into Danny’s piercing green.

              Danny didn’t have to ask if he was ready.  He didn’t have to communicate with words.  Instead, he just felt Tim’s need, felt his desire, and pulled back a little so he could push in again. 

              “Mmmph,” Tim said, pleasure rolling through his body as Danny’s dick rubbed against his prostate.

              “Oh, you like that,” Danny said, and he did it again.

              “Fuck,” Tim whispered, and so Danny did it again.  And again and again and again, not pulling out very far at all, but rubbing his cock exactly where Tim wanted it, making his bones turn to jelly even though he wasn’t the one even using them.  His own hand faltered on his dick as Danny started to rock into him, getting the angle perfect every single time.  The heat built up in Tim’s balls again and he gasped, trying to warn Danny to slow down or he was going to lose it, right then.

              “Fuck, Tim,” Danny whispered, pausing in his rocking.  “You’re so turned on baby it’s incredible.”

              “Your touch is too perfect,” Tim said.  “Everything you do is exactly…”

              Danny slowed his rocking and leaned down, covering Tim’s body with his own as he pressed a long, deep kiss to his lips.  He kissed him again, then again, his lips hungry, starving, his core craving Tim’s touch.  Tim felt Danny release control of his arms, and he immediately lifted them to wrap them around his back, pulling him as close as he could.

              Then Danny rolled his hips again and pushed back in.  Again, his cock pressed perfectly against Tim’s prostate, making both of them cry out in agonizing pleasure.  Danny rose up, shifting to give himself better leverage, and with a flash of his eyes, thrust in hard.

              “Danny!” Tim cried, the pleasure so intense he felt disconnected from his body, and even more so as he felt it reverberate through Danny’s core within him.  Still, Danny didn’t stop, even as his eyes flashed blindingly brightly, thrusting hard and fast while making Tim’s hips cant up to meet him.  Tim couldn’t fight it anymore; he didn’t want this to end, but he was teetering on the precipice and he was going to fall.

              “Baby, I’m gonna…”

              “I know,” Danny growled, his eyes dark, the half of his core inside Tim throbbing with lust and deep want.  “I can feel it.”  He leaned down again, the thrust from his hips not ceasing as he lowered his mouth to whisper into Tim’s ear.  “I feel it in your balls, I feel it in your cock, I’m gonna feel it when you cum.”

              Tim’s eyes rolled back in his head.  With Danny forcing his hips up to meet his thrusts, he had no hope holding out any longer. 

              “I know you don’t want this to end and so it won’t,” Danny said, his breath heavy and thick in Tim’s ear.  “You can cum, baby.  It won’t end this.  I’ll help you do it again.”

              Tim helplessly crashed over the edge, a tsunami of heat throbbing through him, taking over all his senses.  His mouth opened wide in a wordless scream, his body convulsing as his cock throbbed and shot his release all over his stomach.  Danny’s hands were firm and sure as they clasped his waist, his hips still driving his cock deep into Tim, taking him from both within his soul and within his flesh.

              Tim’s body continued to twitch, and Danny stilled, his cock still rock-hard as it was buried deep inside him.  Danny pressed soft kisses to his face, his lips on his cheeks, his nose, his chin.  Tim’s eyes were glassy as he stared at nothing, too overwhelmed to even remember how to see.

              He felt Danny’s fingers brush tenderly through his hair, still planting soft kisses to his face.  He gently pulled his cock out and lay down on top of him, and then very slowly, very gradually, called the rest of his core out of Tim and back into himself.  Tim gasped as he felt control of his body return to him, the loss of Danny leaving behind almost an ache, an emptiness from which he needed time to adjust, both in his body and his mind.  Once Danny’s core was fully rejoined with itself he remained still, letting Tim take his time to come back to himself. 

              Danny didn’t stir, other than to stroke Tim’s hair and press soft, gentle kisses to his face.  He didn’t speak, or ask Tim to speak, or move, or ask Tim to move.  He let him take as long as he needed to recover from having been overshadowed, and from the most mind-blowing orgasm of his life.

              When Tim finally moved, he turned his face to press a soft kiss to Danny’s lips, and said.

              “Holy fuck.”

              Danny gave him a mischievous grin and continued to stroke his hair.

              “Only the best for my love,” he said, his green eyes tracing over Tim’s face.

              “Did you…did you plan that?”

              “Ha, not even close.  I just wanted to make love to you on an actual bed.  You went and said ‘I want you inside me, your core, your body your heart,’” Danny teased, continuing to stroke Tim with his fingers.

              “I did not know you could ‘overshadow’, as you call it.  Just.  Take over a person’s body.  Like that…” Tim’s eyes glazed over again as he recalled the feeling of having Danny inside him, somehow in an entirely different way than having his core in his body had felt.

              “Yeah but once you gave me the idea, I couldn’t resist it,” Danny said.  “I knew you’d love it.  All night, I’ve just wanted to dote on you, pamper you…and you’ve let me.  It’s been incredible.  Washing you from head to toe, cutting your hair, shaving you…”

              Danny reached up and brushed the back of his knuckles across Tim’s baby-smooth cheek, and Tim sighed into his touch.  He felt Danny’s cock throb between them, and looked down to see it was still at full attention.  Tim sighed dreamily, and gazed at Danny with half-lidded eyes.

              “You said if I came that this wouldn’t end,” Tim accused.  “But now we’re just laying here, and you’re still all pent up…”

              Tim dragged his fingers up Danny’s thigh, tickling them across his balls and up to his swollen cock.  Without breaking their gaze, he wrapped his fingers around his shaft and started to slowly stroke him, making the green blush in Danny’s cheeks deepen.  Danny moved his face forward and pressed a thick, heavy kiss to Tim’s lips, his breath quickening as Tim stroked down his shaft.

              Tim squeezed him harder, and saw the want flick across Danny’s face.  He growled, and rolled Tim onto his back, his fangs pricking at Tim’s lips.  Tim gave a moan and spread his legs again, inviting Danny back in.  Danny eagerly moved between them, easily sliding his cock back up into Tim’s stretched hole.  Tim groaned, having control of his body back now, and with it he did exactly what Danny had done- lifted his hips to meet Danny’s steady, gentle thrusts.  He was moving slowly, rubbing his palms up and down Tim’s thighs.

              It felt good, pleasant, a glowing thrum that spread across Tim’s nerves, enhancing his afterglow and making him warm from head to toe.

              “So how many other powers are you holding back from me?” Tim said, his eyes half-lidded as he stroked his fingers up and down Danny’s arm.  “Cause overshadowing?  Incredible.  Never want to live without it again.”

              Danny’s eyes grew dark, his cock as hard as it could get as he rocked it in and out of Tim.

              “Well, there’s electric powers…” he said, lifting his hand to show a crackle between his fingers, which he then lowered to Tim’s chest and gently dragged across his skin.  Wild tingling flew across his nerves, making him gasp. 

              “Fire is a lot harder to do, and a lot harder to control,” he said.  “So I won’t demonstrate that on you.  But ice,” he said, lowering his lips down to Tim’s neck, and giving a slow, gentle exhale.  Tim felt a chill flow out of Danny’s mouth, followed by a wave of absolutely frozen cold wrap around his shoulder and down the back of his neck.  Tim inhaled sharply, arching his back as cold raced down his spine.  Danny wrapped his arms around him and lowered his lips to the frozen place, sucking it into his mouth to warm it.

              While Danny was normally cool to the touch, the inside of his mouth was still warmer than ice itself, and his tongue slowly thawed the spot he’d frozen.  As he licked him he continued to slide his cock into Tim with slow, patient rocking, pushing all the way into him before being languidly pulling out again.

              “Let’s see what else,” Danny said, pretending to be pensive even as he rocked back into Tim, making them both groan.  “There’s my Ghostly Wail, but that’s only destructive.  Not good for sex.  Mmmm, same with shooting energy beams… and I’ve already shown you my tail…”
              Tim groaned at the memory.

              “Oh, I know,” Danny said, his eye lids falling halfway as he gazed down at Tim with a mischievous expression.  When he didn’t elaborate, Tim looked up at him impatiently and raised an eyebrow.

              “You know my other favorite memory,” Danny said, lowering his lips back to Tim’s neck to suck on it.  “Was when we had sex under the stars.”

              Tim closed his eyes and remembered.  God, that somehow felt so long ago, when really, it hadn’t even been a week.  But their lives had changed so much since then.  Tim looked down at Danny’s white hair, floating without gravity as he kissed his way down Tim’s chest, pausing to lick his tongue across the top of his pecs.

              “Do you remember, Tim?”

              [1START XXX]

              Tim closed his eyes and dreamed about his zombie, splayed out beneath him on the ground while Tim fucked into the hole where his dick should have been.  Danny’s black hair, his gorgeous blue eyes shining with starlight as he slashed his own pelvis open with Tim’s knife.  Feeling Danny’s hand press its way into the gash, to stroke Tim’s dick from inside himself.  And then Tim’s hand joining his, buried up to his forearm in viscera as he found Danny’s prostate, and stroked him to pleasure.

              [1END XXX]

              “I remember,” Tim whispered, barely able to find his voice, his cock stirring at the memory and from Danny’s patient, steady thrusts.  “You were gorgeous, in the starlight…”

              “Mmmm, and you were delicious, with your hand inside me…oh Tim, how many times you’ve been inside my body, stroking me from the inside… I want to give that back to you.”

              Tim’s eyes grew wide as he tried to imagine that.  He knew Danny wouldn’t do it the same way, but he couldn’t…

              “You’ve already seen the control I have over intangibility,” Danny said, lifting his fingers up to wiggle them in front of Tim’s face.  “I can touch, or not touch, whatever I want.”

              And then slowly, while still rocking into him, Danny lowered his fingers down to Tim’s chest.  And through his skin.

              Tim expected to feel nothing, which was what he’d felt every other time Danny had phased through him.  But instead, he felt him.  Felt the ghost of his fingertips, stroking along his ribs.  Tim gasped, his fingers clutching at the sheets as he tried to process the new sensations he was feeling.  Danny traced his fingers along the front of Tim’s ribs, and then stroked from beneath them.  Inside of them.  Tim’s breath quickened as he felt Danny inside his body, in yet again a totally new way from all the other ways he’d been in him.

              He felt his fingertips graze across the outside of his lung.  Felt him caress it as he inhaled sharply, his touch moving along with it as it expanded.  Then he shifted his fingers through it.  Then up along his aorta.  Down his sternum.  His touch was teasing, loving, reverent.  Tim’s eyes were as wide as they could go, his panting thick and heavy.  None of it hurt.  He wanted Danny in him.

              “You’re not afraid at all, are you?” Danny whispered, rocking his hips to sink deep into Tim, which only made him moan.  Tim shook his head, and then he felt Danny’s core throb.  Felt the pulse of its affection grow, even across the inches between them.

              “You let me inside you in every way,” Danny whispered, his eyelids half closed, as he dragged his fingers down through Tim’s stomach, tickling the inside, which almost made him hiccup.  Then he caressed his liver.  Then stroked across his kidney.  All of it felt incredible, Danny leaving ghostly trails of electric sensation everywhere he touched, make Tim feel treasured, in a totally new way.

              “Love you in me,” he managed through his heavy pants, his chest heaving as Danny played with his organs while also impaling him with his cock, over and over.  “Love you near me, close to me, holding my very essence in your hands…”

              Danny’s eyes lifted up to meet Tim’s, their gaze long and intimate as he rocked into his body while stroking his fingers along the inside of his ribs.

              “Tim,” Danny whispered, his cheeks glowing brighter with desire, his cock swelling inside Tim as he thought about what he wanted to ask.  “Can I hold your heart?”

               His voice was so soft when he asked Tim barely heard it.  He didn’t even have to think.  He nodded without hesitation.  Danny’s core thrummed with affection and desire, and he stilled his thrusts, burying his cock deep inside Tim and then staying there.

              Slowly, deliberately, Danny slid his hand up through the bottom of Tim’s ribcage, phasing his fingers through his ribs now, through his lungs, and then making them tangible just on the surface of Tim’s beating heart.  He didn’t do anything to interrupt it whatsoever, but Tim could feel him as he turned his palm to cup Tim’s throbbing heart in his hand.  It raced faster from Tim’s excitement at feeling Danny hold his very essence.  Danny’s eyes were wide with wonder, his irises glowing so brightly they made Tim’s irises contract, but he wasn’t going to look away from those eyes for the world.

              “Tim,” Danny breathed, in absolute awe.

              “Yeah?”

              “This level of trust is breathtaking.”

              For a long moment, they just lay there, still and motionless. Their eyes remained locked together, both drinking each other in, Danny holding Tim’s heart in his hand while it beat for him.

              “Now you know how it felt to hold your core,” Tim said softly, lowering his eyelids to gaze at Danny with adoration.  Danny gave a thick swallow, and Tim’s heart throbbed even harder, feeling Danny’s fingers caress his very life.  Danny leaned down and pressed a soft kiss to Tim’s lips, tender and deep.  Tim kissed him back just as deeply, his heart throbbing in Danny’s fingers as he lifted his arms to wrap them around Danny’s back and pull him close.  He’d never felt so in love in his life.

              Tim pulled back from the kiss and moved his lips to Danny’s ear.

              “I’d really like you to fuck me now,” he said.  He felt Danny’s body tense, and felt a throb of arousal from his core.

              Danny slowly, carefully, slid his fingers down, away from Tim’s heart, and back towards his stomach.  He still kept it inside him as he rose up onto his knees.  Tim’s pulse picked up again as Danny gazed down at him with desire and pulled his hips back a little, then rocked them forward again.  Tim moaned as he felt Danny push into him, still at a measured, patient pace, not frantic or wild.

              The pleasure built up in Tim’s ass as a slow, steady thrum.  Danny’s fingers tantalized his insides, ghosting over his pancreas, then his intestines, tracing down them lower and lower, until they wrapped around the same place he was fucking into, squeezing Tim from the inside, making the sensation of his cock pushing in that much tighter.  Tim’s mouth fell open in a silent gasp as he arched his back and lifted his hips, trying to get Danny in deeper.  His cock was at full attention now, throbbing in response to every slide in, little groans escaping his lips in time with Danny’s thrusts.

              “There was one more lovely thing you did for me,” Danny said, his voice husky and thick.  He dragged his fingers up the outside of Tim’s intestine, and then brushed them right across his prostate.

              “Ahhhhhhh!” Tim cried, the sensitivity almost too much to handle, followed by throbbing, aching need.  “More!”

              Danny was gentle with his fingers even as his thrusts grew faster and more insistent.  Tim’s nerves were going wild as they tried to process everything he was feeling.  Danny’s fingers, stroking his prostate gently from the inside, while his cock pounded up into it from the outside.  It was already incredibly sensitive from two previous orgasms and all of Danny’s teasing, and Tim’s eyes flew open and fluttered closed over and over, his brain melted as he became lost to it all.

              All the sensations swam together, blending into a single consuming sensation of yes.  Tim clutched at Danny’s forearm as it disappeared inside of him, holding out as long as he could, trying not to let the orgasm take him without Danny again.

              Danny started to thrust fast and desperate now.  Tim’s heart shone with affection.

              “Yes, yes, baby,” Tim said, heat and lust swirling through him from every direction now.  “You’ve been so good to me, all night.  Given me every pleasure.  Now it’s your turn.”

              Danny’s fingers trembled as he clasped Tim’s prostate with one hand, and plunged the other into Tim’s pelvis to wrap around his intestine from the inside, squeezing his cock impossibly tight with his own fingers.  Tim felt the throb from his core, his own body blazing hot in response.  He saw it brighten, pulses of green light flowing out from it in time with Danny’s thrusts, growing faster and faster.

              “Mmm…mmm….mmmph!” Danny grunted, and in that moment, Tim let himself crash over the edge.

              “Dan…Dan…ny!” he cried, the pleasure throbbing out of him so hard his stomach clenched, forcing him to sit up.  He threw his arms around Danny’s neck and clutched at him, his release pouring out of his cock and all over his stomach as he felt Danny’s cum dripping out of him at the same time.  Danny continued to slam up into him, his eyes blindingly bright, so that they outshone all the candles around them and lit up the entire room in green.

              They collapsed together, Danny falling onto Tim with deep, heaving breaths.  He removed his hands from inside of Tim and instead wrapped them around his back, both of them clinging to each other with everything they had.  They took a long moment just to lay together, waiting for their breaths to calm down, waiting for Tim’s racing heart to slow.

              Eventually, Danny rose up off of Tim and looked down at the cum on his stomach, one splotch wet and sticky, the other drying and starting to flake.  Then he glanced between his legs and saw the green mess dripping there.

              “I messed up all my hard work of getting you clean,” he said with an adorable pout.  Tim gave a smile, unable to do anything but give a flirtatious wiggle of his eyebrows.

              “Wanna clean me again?”

              “Honestly? Yes,” Danny said, sliding his arms under Tim to pick him up and flying him over to the tub one last time.  The water was still warm enough that Tim was comfortable, and he sighed as Danny placed him in it, and then gently rubbed the washcloth over his stomach and between his legs.  He didn’t take long, going for practicality this time, and then he was drying Tim off again within a few minutes.

              Then he wrapped Tim back up in another fresh bath robe, and set him down on the bed.  He flew off somewhere, and then was back in seconds, piling fresh clean blankets and comforters all over him, making him giggle. 

              “You’re making me feel like royalty.”

              “Because you fucking are,” Danny replied, slipping in under the blankets beside Tim.  He pulled him into his arms, wrapping his tail around his legs, snuggling his body to him as closely as possible.  Tim cuddled up against him, feeling the cozy pleasantness of being clean, and being surrounded by warm, fluffy cleanliness on all sides.  It was a dream.

              “The candles aren’t going to keep you warm after they burn out,” Danny said.  “So I’m gonna fly us home.”

              Home.  That word never sounded so good.  In his sleepy mind, for half a second, Tim thought Danny meant Wayne Manor.  The thought was fleeting, and replaced with images of their bunker almost immediately, but it lurched at his heart just the same.

              “I want to see Dick tomorrow,” Tim said, his heart aching while also being full of Danny’s love and tenderness.  It was a strange feeling, having so much pain and affection at the same time.  The love made it bearable.  It made him strong enough to want to go see Dick, despite the further pain he knew doing so would cause.  It was time.

              “I’m ready now.”

              Danny pressed a soft kiss to the side of his cheek.

              “Whatever you need, my Tim,” Danny said, and then he turned the entire bed intangible and flew them up into the storm.

Chapter Text

             * * *

              Tim had wanted to tell Dick they were coming, but the weather didn’t cooperate.  The winter storms just wouldn’t stop to let them have a clear radio signal.  It could be weeks or even all the way until spring before they’d be able to get a night clear enough.  So they just left.

              Flying in Danny’s arms was surreal.  Tim had flown in the arms of plenty of other superheroes before, but there was always wind.  With Danny there was only wind if he wanted there to be.  And right now, in early January, it was too cold for Tim.  So he kept them intangible.  Tim felt nothing, except for Danny beside him, his arm wrapped snugly around his waist, and the force of the inertia from their speed.  That was it.

              Watching the ground beneath them was surreal, too.  He knew all the landmarks and all the major roads by heart.  He could guide them straight to Bludhaven by using the Earth below as a map.  And here, in the daylight, from this height, everything looked…normal.

              All the roads were still there.  All the cities appeared like grey, spidering webs and splotches surrounded by the brown winter forests and the cold blue rivers.  But Tim also knew that if it were night…it would be black.  There wouldn’t be a single glowing light beneath them.  And that thought was terrifying.

              So he didn’t think it.  Didn’t think at all about what was going on below them.  Just closed his eyes and felt Danny, pressed tightly against his side, his fingers wound lovingly around his waist.  He only opened his eyes now and then to guide him, and when his mind did wander, he thought about how good it would be to see Dick again, despite everything.

              When they approached Bludhaven, Danny flew them closer to the ground, until the details of the city were visible.

              It was creepy how normal it looked.  The skyscrapers still stood, proud and tall, their modern glass windows reflecting the chilly winter sun.  Within them were apartments and offices, beds and couches and desks and chairs and lamps.  The only sign that anything was wrong at all were the dead houseplants.  And the fact that all they were all vacant.

              And some of them had blood splattered across the inside of the windows.

              Some of the windows were broken.

              As they flew lower, the devastation became more apparent.  None of the cars moved.  The roads were still full of cars, but not one of them was running.  There were no motors, no honking, no bicycle bells or people talking or babies crying.

              But it was not silent.  It was not still.

              The streets moved.

              The bobbing heads of zombie hoards, or rather what seemed like an enormous, single hoard, flowing this way and that along the roads between the buildings, between the cars, over the cars, breaking them, crushing them.  Hundreds and hundreds of zombies pushing against the walls of buildings, some of them managing to break windows and climb their way inside, only to find nothing.  Vender carts were toppled, newspaper stands crushed, road signs bent and cracked, traffic lights fallen to the road.

              And the moaning.  The constant, asynchronous moaning, making a sound that crawled against Tim’s skin worse than howling wind, because it was alive but had no thought.

              When it became apparent what they were looking at, Danny’s entire body tensed, his grip on Tim’s waist tightened, and he pulled them up higher.

              “I’m starting to realize how lucky we were to have been in a small town,” Tim said quietly as he stared down at the river of rotten heads beneath them, flowing along the streets and sidewalks.  “Despite how lonely it was.”

              Danny didn’t reply.  Tim turned to look up at him and saw a deep, deep frown on his face.  He wanted to ask him what was the matter, but so many things were wrong that it seemed almost a pointless question.  So instead he reached back, holding Danny around his waist as hard as he could, letting him know that he wasn’t going anywhere.  That they had each other.

              “There’s the radio tower,” Tim said, pointing to the intact assembly of metal rising above the buildings around it, the only structure with a functional blinking red light on the top of it.  “We’re almost there.”

              Danny gave him a nod and followed his direction.

              “You okay?” Tim asked anyway.

              “No.”

              Tim squeezed Danny harder.  He didn’t know what to say to comfort him.

              The world was destroyed, and hope was fleeting.  What was there to say?

              “This is my fault.”

              Tim stared at Danny for a full five seconds, trying to process how in hell he thought that, before he was able to form words.

              “Um, no?” was all Tim could come up with.  “How do you figure that?”

              “Vlad is my problem, he is my responsibility and I let him go off the rails…”

              “Whoa whoa whoa, stop right there!” Tim said, turning to face Danny as much as he could in the position they were in.  “First of all, did you create him?  Did you make Vlad the way he is?”

              “I mean no, he was a halfa before I was even born…”
              “Okay, so then not your fault.  Did you make him evil?”

              “No, but I made him obsessed with me…”

              “And how did you manage that?  By being born?  Or by dying?  Neither of which you had a choice about?”

              Danny pinched his lips into a flat line.  “I see what you’re saying but once I became a halfa, he became my responsibility to stop.  And I just…let him live in his little mansion, doing experiments unsupervised, until he came up with this,” he said, gesturing down at the zombie hoards below them.  “If I didn’t exist, this would never have happened.”

              Tim twisted around until he could fully look into Danny’s eyes and put a hand on the side of his face.

              “Pull over.”

              Danny sighed, but he did just that.  He found a balcony twenty stories up and set them down on it, though he kept them intangible so that the biting wind wouldn’t affect Tim.  From this height, the moaning of the zombies below them was almost inaudible, sounding almost like it was part of the wind.

              Tim turned to face him, and put his hand on his cheek.

              “You really think that if you didn’t exist, Vlad would have been sane?  That he wouldn’t have been evil?  That he wouldn’t have cooked up some form of world-destroying scheme?  Please.  You know he would have.  If you weren’t there, then he would have just latched on to someone else to obsess over.  The difference is that you do exist.  Which gives the world the one hope it wouldn’t have if you weren’t here.  The only reason we’re here…the only reason I’m here, right now, alive and flying to see my brother with the hopes of finding a cure, is because of you.  The destruction isn’t your fault, Danny.  The hope is.”

              He saw Danny blinking back tears, and honestly he was in the same state himself.  They’d gone days without seeing any zombies at all, and had never seen this many at once.  The impact it was having on their psyches was heavy.

              “I know what they’re feeling,” Danny said, gesturing down at the street.  “I know what that’s like.  It is suffering,” he said.  “It is hell.  It is disease, with no release, and you wish for death.  The only reason I hung on was because I had you.  But they have nothing.”

              Tim clasped Danny’s hand as hard as he could, and looked into his shining green eyes.

              “We are going to do everything we can to help them,” Tim whispered.  “They don’t have nothing.  They have us,” he said.  “And we have each other.”

              Danny’s kiss was soft and tender.  Bright green tears spilled down one cheek, and Tim reached up to wipe it away.  He knew it would be his turn in just a few minutes.  He was barely keeping it together right now.  He pulled back and thought maybe a tiny bit of levity would help.

              “Or are you just stalling because you’re afraid to meet my brother?” he said.  “Dick’s always hard on all my partners, you know.  You might get a two-hour lecture about your intentions and preserving my purity.”

              Danny couldn’t help himself, he gave a little laugh.

              “So do I defile you right in front of him, or…”

              Tim gave a snort.

              “Come on.  It’s five buildings over.  We’re there.  Just don’t look down.  Phase us right into the building, and we’ll search inside for Dick.  If I know him, he’s made a base of operations with access to both the roof and the basement.”

              Danny nodded and rubbed his face with his palms, drying the last of the tears, then wrapped his arm around Tim’s waist and flew them towards the building.

              It wasn’t the building Dick used to live in.  Tim’s guess was that he’d moved here in order to have access to the radio tower.  The roof was covered in enormous water tanks, all with gutters and catch basins surrounding them, making it so that they were all overflowing with probably thousands of gallons of water.  Then, on the sunny side of the roof, were gardens.  It was winter, but even then Tim knew Dick probably had potatoes and other tubers growing.  Across several other rooftops in the buildings next to his were similar setups.  Enormous water tanks, across five, six buildings, and large rooftop gardens, even some with apple trees.  Tim reminded himself that Dick had said they had over thirteen hundred survivors he was protecting.

              It made his heart glow with hope.

              People.  Yes, in this huge city there were thousands of zombies, but there were also hundreds of living people.

              His mind almost couldn’t comprehend it.

              And then Danny lowered them down through the roof, and he lost sight of it all.

              The top floor was filled with piles and piles of harvested and stored food, and even more water tanks, with pipes flowing down from the roof to fill them, and then further pipes disappearing down through the floor.  Tim was sort of in awe at the complexity of it all- and then reminded himself that Dick had help.  This wasn’t the work of a single man; this was the work of hundreds of people, all working together to build what was necessary for them to survive.

              For a moment, Tim was jealous.  All this time, all these months, he had been alone.  Totally and utterly alone, the only person who held him and Danny’s survival together.  It had all fallen on his shoulders.  Their survival was his success, or his failure.  Instead, Dick had a team.  Surrounded by helpers.

              But then he glanced over at Danny and realized he wouldn’t trade any of it.  He was worth every minute of suffering.

              There was no one there, and so Danny flew them down to the next level below.  More food stores, and outside the hum of generators, all set up on balconies outside the windows.  Tim glanced out the windows and saw solar panels, supplementing the fuel the generators undoubtedly consumed.  Then Danny was dropping them through that floor, then another, then another, down, down through the building, searching for Dick.

              Every floor was converted for survival use.  Supplies, food, water, more generators, pigeon coops on balconies and stores of pigeon eggs.  Danny flew them down another floor, and then stopped, keeping them invisible.

              There were people on this floor.

              Not too many.  An older man in the corner was hunched over, struggling with a wrench and a leaky pipe.  A few feet from him a younger woman held a flashlight for him.  They were both dressed in worn clothes, patched to hell and back.  They were fed, if a little thin, and Tim winced as he realized food was probably scarce for them.  While Tim had had the entire wilderness to hunt in and no competition whatsoever, they had to feed hundreds with whatever could be found in the city.

              “Hey Fred, you got a five-eighths socket over there?”

              Tim snapped his head around to see a group of three other people, all huddled around some kind of makeshift power panel, trying to repair it.

              Tim stared at them like they were ghosts.  His brain almost didn’t know how to process what he was seeing.

              “Are any of these Dick?” Danny whispered so softly no one else heard him.

              Tim shook his head.

              Danny continued down.

              The floors were more and more occupied now.  The lower floors were living spaces, rather than storage.  They were crammed with beds, dressers, clotheslines, people.  A lot of the beds were occupied. There was a corner with several kids playing with a basketball.  A stove converted out of a backyard grill, powered by a propane tank out on the balcony, with several people working together as they cooked on it.  Tears sprang to Tim’s eyes as he saw humanity for the first time in almost nine months.  People.  Real people, alive and just… living.  Doing day-to-day normal activities.  Yes, they were crammed together in spaces too small, and doing outdoor activities indoors, but they were healthy.  They weren’t infected.  They had minds.

              “Mama, Josie said I can’t have the doll but it’s my turn with it…” Tim heard, before Danny dropped them down to the next floor.  He had to fight the tears in his eyes at hearing a sentence that was so normal.  So regular.  So innocent.

              Then they dropped through more floors full of only supplies.  These supplies were weapons.  Everything from rifles to handguns to semi-automatics, even some fully automatics (it was Bludhaven, after all) and piles and piles of ammunition for each.  Tim caught glimpses of grenades and other explosives, and then they were sinking through the floor and he lost sight of it all.

              They reached the ground floor.  The electrical hum was so powerful Tim heard it before he even realized what he was looking at.  He glanced out the windows towards the street, and saw a thrumming electric fence surrounding the footprint of the entire building.  The top was strung with razor wire, and several zombie body parts were stuck there, fried and rotting.  Zombie bodies pressed up against the fence, electrocuted and dead, pushed on from behind by more zombies, all of them smelling the human blood inside and trying with all their mindless might to get in.

              Walking the perimeter inside the building were dozens of people, all armed to the teeth, all with their attention directly on the zombie hoard, eyes monitoring for any breach.

              Danny looked to Tim, silently asking him if any of these people were Dick.  He shook his head.

              Danny sank them below the ground floor.

              The windows disappeared. 

              They were in the basement now.  More ammo stores.  More weapons.  Electronics.  No Dick.

              They sank in to the sub-basement.  Easily the most defensible position in the entire building.  Even if it all collapsed above and the zombies got in, the sub-basement was most likely to remain undamaged.  Defensible.  Functional.

              It was exactly where Dick would set up a base of operations.

              It was unoccupied.

              Danny flew them lower, and found only bedrock.  The sub-basement was the end of the line.

              “Go back up to the bottom floor,” Tim said, speaking into the bedrock itself, his mind trying not to think too hard about that.  “He’ll be there, even if he’s not home right now.”

              Danny nodded, though Tim had no idea how he knew that he nodded, because he couldn’t see him, or see anything while they were phased inside the bedrock.  And yet he could still tell exactly where Danny was, and what position he was in, and what he was feeling (stressed).

              He lifted them both back up and set them on the floor of the sub basement.  For a moment, neither of them moved.  They remained still, intangible and invisible in the center of the floor, and took in their surroundings.

              It was very clearly a command center.  Done old-school, with minimal use for electricity, there were desks and desks covered in meticulous paperwork, detailing supplies, populations, inventories, lists of food sources, lists of other defense bunkers.  Lists of names.  Of births.  Of deaths.

              One list was much longer than the other.

              Tim’s blood grew cold as he realized Dick wasn’t just helping people survive.  He was almost like a governor, or chief, keeping careful watch over… thirteen hundred and twenty-three people, as of yesterday.

              “Dick, you really have your hands full…” Tim whispered.

              And then they heard voices in the stairwell.

              “I need someone to check the pipes in the Greenhills enclave.  They’re running out of water faster than they should.”
              “Yes, sir.”

              “Also there’s a new baby in Channelville.  The mother died.  Get them a supply of formula, or find a wet nurse willing to relocate.”

              “Yes, sir.”

              Tim froze as he heard Dick’s voice.  It was gruff, and it was exhausted, but it was familiar.  It tugged at Tim’s heart harder than he’d expected it to.

              “Should I turn us visible?” Danny asked, but Tim was unable to think of a reply.  All he could do was stare at the doorway to the stairwell, waiting, hoping, his heart throbbing with a deep, deep ache.

              “I’m gonna, okay?” Danny said.  “We don’t want to scare the shit out of him later.”

              They flickered into existence three seconds before Dick rounded the corner.  He was in his full Nightwing costume, just like Tim was full Red Robin.  He stopped immediately when he saw them, his body tensing, his eyes darting from Danny to Tim to Danny, processing the situation in an instant.  Fast enough for him to turn around and speak to the person who was behind him before he came into view.

              “Carlos, I need to be alone for a little while.”

              “But you just gave me a list of ord…”
              “I know.  I’m going to have to ask you to wait on those.  Please trust me.”

              “Always, Nightwing.”

              Tim heard the footsteps retreat as Carlos turned and began walking back up the stairs.  Nightwing stepped forward through the doorway, and then shut the metal door behind him and locked it.  He turned back around and then faced Tim again, from about twenty feet away, and then in a voice much smaller and more vulnerable, said,

              “Tim?”

              Tim reached up to his face and pulled his domino off.

              Dick did the same, his fingers shaking as he peeled it away, revealing eyes that were exhausted beyond comprehension.

              And then molding into an expression of almost everything at once- concern, relief, fear, disbelief, love.

              And then they were running towards each other.  Tim slammed so hard into Dick’s chest it almost knocked the wind out of him.  He pressed his face hard into his shoulder, tears welling at the corners of his eyes.  Dick’s arms were around him so tightly he couldn’t breathe.  He didn’t care.  He felt Dick’s chest shuddering in silent sobs, his tears falling on Tim’s neck as he clutched at him, his fingers tangling in his newly washed hair.  Tim clutched back at him just as hard, his fingers wrapped in the fabric of his Nightwing suit, clinging with everything he had.

              Neither of them moved or spoke.  They just held each other and cried for a long, long time.  Eventually, Tim’s tears stopped, though barely.  Dick pulled back and looked at him, cupping his cheeks in his palms, stroking his hands along his face, blinking over and over to try to clear the tears from his eyes.

              “Oh my God, you’re here, you’re here, you’re real, you’re really you…”

              Dick crushed him again, in another hug, his arms wrapped so tightly around Tim no force in the universe could separate them.

              “Tim, Tim, say something, let me hear your voice,” Dick said, finally pulling back so they could look at each other.

              “It’s me,” Tim said, reaching up a hand to wipe his eyes.  It got him his first real look at Dick.  He was in terrible shape.  His greasy hair was tied up in a messy bun, much shorter than he used to keep it, probably because it was impractical now.  His suit was patched in a dozen places and stained in two dozen more.  His stubble was so old it was almost a beard, and his eyes were exhausted to the point it made Tim feel tired just looking at him.  He didn’t exactly smell like a zombie, but he wasn’t freshly washed, either.

              “Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God, look at you!” Dick exclaimed, taking another step back to take all of Tim in.  “You’re in incredible shape!  You’re healthy, you’re clean!  Not a scratch on you.  How have you survived like this?” he said, tears of relief falling from his eyes once more.

              “Danny,” Tim said, turning around to look at his lover, standing firm on the floor, white boots unmoving from where Tim had left him.

              “Dick,” Tim said, his voice shaking and clogged with tears.  He cleared his throat and started again.  “Dick, meet Danny.”

              Dick stepped around Tim and looked at Danny with wide eyes.

              “Danny?” he said, his eyes darting over Danny’s form from head to toe, taking him in. “The zombie you’re sleep… didn’t you say he was a zombie?”

              Tim gave a small laugh.

              “He is.  He is also a ghost.”

              Danny gave Dick an awkward smile.

              “Um.  Hi.”

              “Oh, he can talk?” Dick said, taking a step back and looking him over again, trying to process what he was seeing, trying to make sense of the information they were giving him.  Tim didn’t blame him.  It was a lot.

              Some part of Dick’s Wayne upbringing finally clicked, and he stuck out his hand with a smile.

              “Where are my manners?  Danny, it’s nice to meet you.  Welcome to Bludhaven.”

              Danny shook his hand awkwardly, but he made the attempt, and Tim felt a rush of affection.  The situation was weird, unfamiliar, and awful.  But they were both still trying to make a good impression on each other.  For Tim’s sake.

              “So Tim said you were a zombie, but you’re actually a ghost?” Dick said with a nervous laugh.

              Danny nodded.

              “In the ectoplasm,” he joked, morphing his legs into a tail to prove his point.  Dick’s eyes went wide for a moment as he hadn’t expected that, but he recovered quickly.  He’d seen far weirder, after all.  Tim walked up to Danny and elbowed him in the ribs.

              “Ow.”
              “He doesn’t know what that is, you jerk.”

              “Relax, we’ll tell him.  Then he can retroactively understand the joke.”

              “Can you not be a dork for ten seconds?”

              “Only if you can…”

              “Whoa whoa whoa, stop,” Dick said, holding up his hands.  “How is he a zombie, and a ghost, and most importantly, how are you here?”

              Tim opened his mouth to reply, but just at that moment, a loud knock came against the metal door.

              “Nightwing, the Edwards boy passed out again.  You told us to notify you the second his condition worsened…”

              Dick turned to look at Tim with a worried expression.

              “I have to take care of this,” he said, walking over to a locked cabinet, dialing the combination by heart.  Inside was a small stockpile of medications- which Tim was sure Dick rationed out only in the utmost of emergencies.  He grabbed a bottle and shut it again.

              Dick put his domino back on as he walked over to the stairwell door, and Tim did the same before he opened it up.  Behind it stood a man and a woman, both extremely muscular with guns strapped to their backs.

              “Carlos, Maggie, we have two guests,” he said.  “They are to stay here, in the command center, and you’re not to tell anyone they are here, until I’m able to break the news to people myself.  I don’t want anybody getting ideas about leaving again, not after last time.  I trust both of you, to keep your heads and keep this a secret for now.”
              “Yes Nightwing.”
              “Absolutely, Nightwing.”

              Dick put his hand on Maggie’s shoulder.  His voice softened quite a bit, and he said “It’s Red Robin.”

              Maggie’s face turned to look at Tim in shock.  He thought she looked somewhat familiar, but he couldn’t place her.

              “He’s alive?”

              Dick couldn’t keep the smile from his face.

              “He’s alive.  And…he won’t be staying long,” Dick said.  “So if you could set up two cots down here and make him and his guest comfortable, I would appreciate it.”

              He squeezed her shoulder, and then disappeared up the stairs.  Maggie and Carlos came in and did exactly that, eyeing Tim and Danny without speaking while they set up two cots, with pillows and blankets, in a far corner.

              “Water is there,” she said, pointing to a sink with a faucet.  “And food is here, though I would ask you not to take more than you need.  We really can’t afford to feed two more mouths…”
              “We won’t be staying long,” Tim said, and that’s when it hit him, who she was.  “…Commissioner Sawyer.”

              Her face froze, and she looked haunted.

              “Maggie,” she said.  “Just Maggie.  It is good to know you are alive, Red Robin,” she said.  Then her eyes met Tim’s, and her face softened, just a little.  “It will lift Nightwing’s spirits, and he really needs that. We all rely on him.”

              Tim gave a firm nod.

              “We will help any way we can.”

              * * *

              Dick didn’t come back until long after nightfall.  Tim could imagine all the things he was trying to handle- keeping zombies out, keeping the perimeter safe, keeping the electrical systems going.  Water.  Food.  Medicine, which was a worry Tim had never had to deal with, thanks to Danny’s healing ectoplasm.  Clothing, hygiene, entertainment.  Keeping the peace among hundreds of people.  Keeping the building in good repair.  The work never ended.  He knew it himself well.

              When he did finally come back, he was exhausted and starving.  He made spaghetti, no meatballs, but had tomato sauce.  Tim’s mouth watered and he couldn’t refuse.  Other than the chicken Danny had made for him last night, he hadn’t had anything to eat.

              Dick gestured at Danny and then to the food.

              “Thanks, but I don’t need to eat,” he said.  “And I don’t want to waste it.”

              Dick didn’t argue.  They ate in silence, both too hungry to speak.  But eventually, their bodies were sated.  Dick took the leftovers upstairs and then came back down, locking the door behind him.

              “You’ve got an incredible operation going here,” Tim said.  “It’s really impressive.”

              “Thanks,” Dick said, his face deadly serious.  “We’ve paid a high price.  A lot of people have died to build this.  But it’s been a true community effort.  We survive because of each other.”

              Tim tried once again not to be jealous.  Dick’s life wasn’t any better than his had been.  It just had different challenges.  Tim had never had to worry about caring for babies or fearing that the electricity would go out.

              “But how have you survived?” Dick asked, looking Tim over once more.  “And in such perfect health?”

              Tim decided to just start at the beginning.  To explain how when he’d arrived in Wisconsin, the enclave of survivors he was supposed to have helped was already gone.  About finding the bunker.  About noticing a zombie that had different behavior patterns from the others.  About feeding him.  Caring for him.

              Dick was paying full attention, stopping them at a thousand places to ask questions, clarify points, and get further details.

              “So you started to realize that it wasn’t just physical exertion that caused Danny to deteriorate, it was also his emotional state?”

              “Yeah.  It…took me an embarrassingly long time to put that together, actually,” Tim said, staring at the ground while Danny reached out and slipped their fingers together, almost without thinking.  Tim subconsciously squeezed his hand back.

              “Oh, because you were in love,” Dick said.  Tim snapped his head up.

              “No I wasn’t, not back then, not before…before…”
              “You totally were.  It’s the only thing that’s ever blinded you.  You’re one of the top detectives in the world.  You notice every detail of every situation.  Except when you’re in love.  Then you’re blind as fuck.”

              “Oh really,” Danny said, turning to face Tim with a smirk on his face.  “In that case, he’s been consistently blind for months.”

              “Don’t you start too,” Tim said, elbowing Danny in the ribs.  Danny took the opportunity to wrap his arm around Tim’s waist and hold him there, keeping him close.  Tim sighed into his touch and leaned his head on his shoulder.

              “I thought I fell in love with you that time you caught me in the bathtub.”

              Dick raised an eyebrow but didn’t interrupt.

              “No, that’s just when you started to admit it,” Danny said.  “You loved me way before that.  Don’t you realize how much you were feeding my core?  Don’t you remember the day I told you my name?”

              Tim closed his eyes and tried to think.  Things from that long ago felt like a hazy dream.  He’d been in survival mode.  Sleep, kill zombies, hunt, scavenge, food, water, feed Danny.  Over and over, priorities, staying alive, don’t get scratched, find supplies, feed Danny.  Danny rotting to the point of not being able to eat, because his flesh was so rotten the food fell out of the holes in the sides of his face rather than going down his throat.  Putting everything aside to find a hardware store with plastic tubing so he could slip soup down his throat.

              And the next day, Danny being so healthy he was able to speak.  And he’d chosen to say two things.

              Tim’s name, and then his own.

              Realization hit Tim so hard his lips parted in surprise.  He turned to face Danny with wide eyes and saw the tender love on his face.

              “You loved me so hard and so fast I healed basically overnight,” Danny said.  “You made my core able to heal me enough to tell you my name,” he whispered, his eyelids half-closed as Tim’s face was drawn closer to his.

              “I didn’t realize,” Tim whispered.  “God, I was so stupid, I didn’t realize…”

              Danny’s kiss was soft and gentle, and Tim was swallowed up by it immediately.  He’d intended for it to be just a peck but then Danny’s lips were devouring his, drawing him into his mouth, his tongue tracing along his bottom lip.  Tim’s cheeks flushed pink, and then he heard Dick clear his throat.

              It took everything Tim had to pull himself away.

              Danny’s core was throbbing with affection and it was calling to him.  Tim was finding it hard to think.  Hard to concentrate.

              “Can’t focus when you feel this way,” Tim whispered, his eyes half closed.

              “Like you make it any easier,” Danny replied softly.

              “Look, guys, I’m aware you’re used to being alone and all, but we are trying to have a conversation,” Dick said, a huge grin on his face.  He hadn’t stopped smiling since they started talking.  It was obvious he couldn’t help it.  Tim looked up at him sheepishly, the blush on his cheeks darkening.

              “It’s hard.  I’m not used to it yet,” Tim said.  “Feeling his core, like this.”

              Dick raised an eyebrow in that way that Tim knew meant “you’d better explain that one.”  Oh it felt so good to be talking to someone so familiar and so… like home.  Someone who knew him as well as he knew himself.  Someone who wouldn’t let him get away with anything, such as mentioning a core and not explaining what it was.

              “Time for a ghost biology lesson,” Tim said, and together he and Danny began to explain about ghost cores, and how they were the essence of a ghost’s existence.  And how they could feed off of emotion, and how Danny’s core was sustained by Tim’s love and caring, slowly growing stronger, and therefore, able to make his body heal more and more, the longer Tim loved him.  Then they explained about how Danny was actually a halfa, and could normally transform back and forth between his human and ghost forms, except because of the zombie brain rot, he couldn’t remember how.

              “And then we ah…er, made love enough times that um.  Danny’s mind healed so much he was able to talk, and then in the middle of sex his core was able to bring his mind back just enough that he could remember how to.  Um.  Transform into a ghost.”

              “Okay that falls under TMI,” Dick said, with a “didn’t need to know that” expression, though his eyes were full of joy.

              Tim blushed crimson and turned to bury his face in Danny’s shoulder.  He felt Danny’s teasing mirth and sighed.

              “Stop that, I’m not cute,” Tim said, and Danny only gave a chuckle.

              “You’re adorable,” Danny argued, stroking his fingers though Tim’s hair.

              “You’re certainly something,” Dick teased, “Because I have never seen you like this.  And there is more going on here because you two are communicating wordlessly somehow and it’s adorable but also kinda…creepy.”

              Tim snapped his head up to look at Dick and winced.

              “Um.  Sorry.  Like I said, not used to it.  It’s sorta…new.”

              Tim looked up at Danny with an expression that said “How do we explain this” and Danny just shrugged.

              “Explaining that is even more TMI than the other thing,” Danny said.

              “Okay just give me the abridged version, please,” Dick said, though every word out of his mouth was still happy and joyful, too glad to have Tim back, and alive, and here, to be truly upset about anything.

              "So like.  Um.  Er, I’ve sorta got some…minimal ghost powers now?” Tim said, sitting up straighter, trying to explain.  “Like I can sense ghost cores, and I can heal from ectoplasm, like whenever I drink Danny’s blood…”

              Dick’s eyebrow lifted up so high it disappeared into his hairline.

              “You’ve been drinking his blood?”

              Tim stopped, realizing for the first time how absolutely insane that sounded.

              “Um, yeah?”

              “Why?”
              Tim’s face turned so red it gave Dick his answer.

              “Jesus Christ,” he said.  Tim gave the most sheepish smile possible and stared down at their hands, their fingers intertwined.

              “Ghosts, kinda, are like, violent when they…” Tim started.
              “Stop.  I get the picture.  You drank his blood, you got ghost powers, and I’m guessing you two have some kind of emotional connection thing going on now.”

              Tim nodded.

              “That’s basically it.”

              “Alright then.  Moving on, once Danny was able to transform, that somehow led you to getting here?”

              “Oh, yeah I can fly, go invisible, turn intangible, you know, all the usual ghost powers,” Danny said.  “I can go anywhere we need, almost instantly, I mean it takes me about five minutes to fly around the world…”

              Dick sat up straight almost immediately.

              “How much can you carry, doing that?” he said.

              Danny shrugged.

              “If I turn something intangible, I can lift anything.  I flew a whole jet once with my friends inside…”

              Dick’s entire demeanor changed, and Tim immediately knew why.  Bludhaven’s whole world was opening up.  Danny was presenting solutions to problems Dick thought he would never be able to solve.  They were desperate for supplies and now Danny could get them.

              “Just tell me what you need,” Danny said, his core growing full of compassion.  “Tell us how to help.”

              * * *

              They spent the next two days helping the Bludhaven enclaves store up their resources. The highest priority was power.  They had six buildings throughout the city barricaded against zombies, of which the main defense was an electrified fence.  Generating enough power to run those required an enormous amount of fuel, which of course was a finite supply.  So Dick and his engineering team (Tim was so jealous that he had an engineering team) had been working hard to scour the city for solar panels, marking down their locations, and then painstakingly moving them by hand, one by one, through the zombie-hoarded streets.

              “It takes us fifty warriors to beat back the zombie mob while the panel is being moved down the street,” Dick explained.  “If you can just fly them, it would save us literal years of work, and dozens of lives..."

              When Danny told Dick that would be no problem, he almost broke down into tears again.  When he flew the first one into place, he was met with a cheering crowd on the rooftop, welders ready to go, grinning from ear to ear.  It was surreal, hearing so many voices at once, after months and months of hearing only himself speak, and Danny’s soft moans.

              It was, in fact, overwhelming, and so Tim left the roof, heading down the stairwell towards the basement, to see if he could help Dick with something else.  He was about two flights down when he felt Danny’s core growing closer, and then saw him float through the wall to hover just in front of him.

              “You okay, baby?” he asked, his green eyes soft and full of concern.  Tim gave a little laugh.

              “Did you…did you sense I was upset?”

              Danny tilted his head to the side and thought about that.

              “I guess I did,” he said, contemplative.  “I just… I dunno, you seemed like you needed to be checked up on, and then I somehow knew you were down here.”

              Tim’s heart swelled with affection.  Danny hovered closer to him, his face only a few inches away, and wrapped his hands around Tim’s waist.

              “Do you need to be checked up on?” he asked softly, resting his forehead against Tim’s.

              “I was feeling overwhelmed in the crowd,” Tim said.  “Not used to people.”

              “Yeah,” Danny said, closing his eyes.  “Me, either.  I’m used to just you.  I want to be with just you.  I mean I want to help them, of course I want that, but there’s this part of me that just wants…”

              “To go home,” Tim said.

              “Yeah,” Danny agreed, opening his eyes again.  “Which is so weird to be feeling, because we’ve only been here for a few days.  How can we be homesick already?”

              “Our brains are fucked up,” Tim said, lifting his hands up to wrap them around Danny’s shoulders.  “It’s gonna be an adjustment, getting used to people again.”

              Danny snorted.

              “Technically I don’t even have a brain.  But my core is greedy.  It doesn’t want to share you.”

              A warm blush rose to Tim’s cheeks, and then he couldn’t help himself.  He was kissing Danny in the stairwell, with him hovering in front of him so they were the same height, and then Danny was kissing him back.  They made out for a full two minutes before the door at the top of the stairwell opened, and they heard several people coming down, all loudly talking to each other.

              Danny pulled back with a huff.

              “I do have a whole lot more of those things to move,” he said.  “And they need it done in the daylight.”

              Tim put his palm on the side of Danny’s cheek, feeling his cool skin against his palm.

              “You get back to work,” he said.  “I’m gonna go help Dick with stuff.  I know he has a ton of logistics problems that... hey," Tim said, as Danny scooped him up in his arms and phased them down through the stairs, flying Tim down the full twenty-five stories of Dick’s building until they were in the sub-basement.

              Danny set Tim down solidly on the floor, and then made them visible.  Dick gave a start, his whole body tensing and his hands reaching for his Escrima sticks out of reflex, before he saw it was Tim and relaxed.

              “Don’t startle me like that,” he snapped.  “Use the goddamn door.”

              Tim made a little giggle, which got worse when Danny gave him a peck on the lips, and then he disappeared back up into the ceiling.

              “Sorry,” he said, his cheeks still flushed pink.

              “No you’re not,” Dick mumbled.  “Boyfriend with fucking ghost powers, of all things.”

              Tim gave him a sly grin.

              “Ghost powers you’re taking full advantage of.”

              Dick’s face became serious and he turned back to his desk, looking over a dozen schematics and two dozen lists.

              “We desperately need the help…”

              “We’re glad to give it,” Tim said.  “And we understand.  The very first thing we did when Danny got his powers back was to shore up our own supplies.  Well, actually, no, the first thing we did was talk a lot, because wow what a mindfuck that was, having my zombie boyfriend turn into a ghost right in my arms, with no warning, no understanding of what was happening…”

              “Not the weirdest thing to ever happen to us, but certainly up there,” Dick said, giving Tim a small smile, trying to lighten the mood.  Tim humored him and gave a short laugh.

              “I dunno Dick, this might qualify as weirdest.  Like, I knew he had powers of some kind, and I knew his mind was healing every time we… sorry, I know you don’t want to hear about that…. but anyway, I had no way of knowing he was going to fucking transform, and then suddenly be this whole other being, entirely different in a physical way, but still him in a personality way, and yeah I’ve been living with him for eight months, but I’m also just getting to know him?  Still learning who he is, and about his powers, and then the changes he’s causing in me…”

              Dick held up a hand, then gestured at a chair.

              “It seems like you have a lot you need to talk about,” Dick said.  “I have a lot going on too- anyone alive right now has been through hell, but I’ve had people to talk to.  Danny’s already helping me in a huge way- so let me be an ear to listen, Tim.”

              Tim sat down on the wooden chair opposite Dick, and rested his hands on his knees.

              “I’m ah…uh.  Going through a lot.  Just found out literally two minutes ago that not only can I sense Danny’s core, he can sense me, somehow?  Even though I don’t even have a core?  I dunno, something happened when we shared…er.”

              Tim blushed deep crimson and stared at the floor.

              “You said you don’t wanna hear about it.”

              “Fuck what I said.  We’re in survival hell.  You’re my brother.  You need to tell me about stuff you did in bed?  I’ll listen.”

              Tim looked up at Dick with a grateful expression.  He hadn’t realized until now just how badly he’d needed to talk about this with someone other than Danny.  He didn’t want Danny to feel guilt about anything; after all, it wasn’t as if the changes happening to Tim were something he’d done on purpose.  But part of Tim was…well, freaking out a little.

              “So uh, a couple days ago, we made love um.  The ghost way,” Tim started.  He glanced up at Dick’s face and saw his brow furrowed in confusion, but saw no judgement.  He was listening, as he promised.  So Tim pressed himself to continue.

              “So like, normally when two ghosts have sex they can join their cores together.  Which is like, super intimate.  Kind of thing you save for your soul mate stuff,” Tim said, eyeing Dick as he spoke, watching for any reaction.  “But I don’t have a core, because I’m not dead, but I have something going on, because I can sense Danny’s core.  And Frostbite said…”

              “Hold up, who is that?” Dick asked.

              So Tim had to take a moment to backtrack and explain to Dick very quickly about the ghost portal and the Ghost Zone and Frostbite, skipping over anything about Vlad Plasmius or the cure, there was so fucking much to talk about, and he would get to that in a minute, but he needed to talk about this.

              “So Frostbite said that because I’ve ah.  Mmmm.  Been ingesting Danny’s er.  Parts of him,” Tim said, trying not to elaborate too much on that, “That I’ve basically been soaking my cells in ectoplasm for months and months, and somehow that’s done something to me, where my cells respond to ectoplasm now.  Like.  I can sense it.  It heals me.  That’s why I look so healthy.  Because…because of Danny.  And then we made love in the Ghost Zone and he…he put his core in me…”

              Tim looked down at his chest and couldn’t help but lift his hand to splay it over the place where Danny had penetrated him, his core glowing and brilliant and real and whole and in love with him. 

              “It was really special,” Tim whispered.  Then he looked back up at Dick with furrowed eyebrows.  “And it changed me somehow.”

              Dick didn’t immediately say anything.  Tim was guessing it was because he was still processing all the weird shit Tim had just told him- and it was weird.  Tim hadn’t fully grasped just how weird his relationship with Danny was, until he’d tried to explain it to someone else.

              “Dick, say something.”
              “Tim, I’ve had my share of non-human lovers,” he started, and Tim breathed a sigh of relief.  He understood.  Of course he would understand.  “Each one is its own unique situation.  I can’t give you any advice on the specifics.  The most important thing I can ask you is… how do you feel about all this?”

              “That’s just it,” Tim said, raising his eyes to meet Dick’s.  “I feel incredible.  I feel amazing.  I mean, I am so helplessly in love that when Frostbite said I was gaining ghost powers, all I could feel was excited about it.  And I am.  I like being closer to Danny.  Becoming more like him, nearer to him, bonding with him…I just.  It’s happening really fast and I’m sorta.  Trying to find my footing.  He can sense me?  He can find me?  If I don’t have a core, then what is he sensing?  My my…my soul?”

              He looked at Dick with both a worried and hopeful expression, even though he knew Dick didn’t have any answers.  He still looked contemplative, and Tim stopped talking to let him formulate his thoughts.  He hadn’t realized how badly he’d needed someone’s advice until now.  Not just anyone, but Dick’s advice; his mentor, his big brother, the Robin who had gone before him and always knew what to do.

              Then Dick took a deep breath.

              “If we were in our normal lives, I’d tell you to slow down,” he said.  “Not stop- but I’d tell you to slow down.  Ease into it.  Give yourself time to adjust,” Dick said.  Then his face became harder.  “But we’re not in our normal lives.  We need to fucking survive, whatever the hell it takes, and if this bond thing is healing you?  Dive in head first, Tim.  Because relationship messiness isn’t going to matter unless you’re alive.  Is making love to a zombie-ghost weird?  Fuck yeah, it is.  Did it save your life?  Fuck yes, it did.  So keep doing it.  Maybe it’s selfish of me to say, but I need you alive.  The world needs you alive, as our only hope for a cure, and if Danny has powers that can help you do that, then do it.”

              Tim’s heart was swirling with emotions now; so many he couldn’t parse them all.  ‘Mixed feelings’ didn’t even begin to cover what he was going through.  First, he felt relief that Dick accepted Danny, and his weird ghost-bond relationship with him that was still forming, still figuring out what it was.  Second, he felt terrified of the reality Dick reminded him of- that they were in a fight for their lives, and he had to throw caution to the wind every minute of every day just to get to the next day.  Third, he felt both elated and terrified of what it meant now that Danny could apparently feel him with his core.  He desperately wanted to fly back into the Ghost Zone to ask Frostbite, but right now they could not open the portal because of Vlad stalking on the other side, waiting to destroy them.

              So all he could do was ask Dick for advice, then talk to Danny about it, do his best, and then hope that whatever was happening to him wouldn’t overwhelm him.

              He hardened his face with resolve.

              “I’ve fought every day of this zombie invasion to stay alive and I’m not about to back down now,” he said.  “Let me tell you what else we’ve been through.”

              Tim talked with Dick for hours, both of them sharing stories of how they had managed to fight off zombies, get supplies, create power, and keep themselves hopeful despite everything.

              “It’s been long, hard work to get here.  We paid with a lot of lives, to build this,” Dick said.

              “I can imagine,” Tim said softly.  “Honestly it’s incredible that you’ve managed to keep those zombies out all this time.  In my case I just kill them all, when they come by.  There are so few.”

              “We’ve made attempts to do that.  We’ve levelled a few buildings, luring as many hoards inside as we could and then bringing it down on top of them all.  But there are millions.  Our plan was to just keep them out, until eventually they run out of flesh to eat, and starve.  We’ve been studying them, I have a lab across town where we do that, and so far it seems they can last about four to six months without fresh flesh to eat.  The problem is that they can survive on animals.  They don’t seek out animals, but if they managed to find some rats, they’ll eat them, and live longer…and there doesn’t seem to be any depletion in the population of rats, so it might be a long time before they all finally starve and die out.  But that’s our hope.  To hold out until the last zombie starves and dies.  Even if that takes years.  We can make it, we can get…”

              Tim reached out his hand and put it on the back of Dick’s.

              “I am really, really trying to make it sooner than that,” he said softly.  “I’ve made progress on the cure, Dick.  I’m getting closer.”

              He could almost see Dick’s mind trying to process that.

              “You…progress…for real?” he asked, his voice shaking with disbelief.

              “Yes,” Tim said, putting as much confidence into his voice as he could muster.  “We got those extra settings on the microscope working.  It turned out that it runs on ectoplasm.  It revealed the virus’ DNA sequence in its entirety.  I also got the basis for a possible cure from Frostbite- right now it only cures ghosts, it kills living cells- but now that I can see the full virus, I can do some enzymatic reconfiguring.  I just need to use the equipment we have in the Batcave.  Provided it’s still intact…”

              Tim stopped when he saw Dick’s face glaze over.  He was staring at nothing, his mouth pressed into a thin line, his eyes unblinking as tears pricked at the corners.

              “Damian,” he said, and nothing else.

              Tim swallowed thickly, his heart starting to ache.  He’d been so focused on the cure, and on getting the equipment that he needed, that he’d been brushing aside any thoughts of Damian, or anyone else really.  He couldn’t face it.  He didn’t want to face it.

              “The last I heard from him was two months ago at this point,” Dick whispered.  His eyes snapped to Tim’s and the tears nearly spilled over again.  He blinked them back.  “And now we can get there.”

              Tim gave Dick a reassuring nod.

              “Yes.  Danny can get us there.  Right now, if you want.”

              Dick nodded almost immediately, but then he stopped himself, and shook his head.

              “We…we need those solar panels.  Thirteen hundred lives are depending on…”
              Tim reached out and put his hand on Dick’s shoulder.

              “We can do both,” he said.  “I know.  Wrapping your head around just how much Danny’s powers open up the world is mind-blowing.  I’ve been trying to process it myself for a week and I’m still reeling.  But we can do both, Dick.  We can get the solar panels set up and we can go check on Damian.  We can even do both at the same time.  You need the daylight to set up the panels, so once it’s dark, we can leave and spend the night in the B…”

              Tim stopped himself.  He could see that the word was just as painful for Dick to hear as it was for Tim to say.  They both looked into each other’s eyes and Tim gave Dick’s shoulder another tight squeeze.

              “We can go home,” Tim said.

              Dick reached up and squeezed Tim’s hand tightly.  It was reassuring.  It made him feel brave.

              “I haven’t allowed myself to think about Gotham,” Dick said.  “I haven’t even said its name, until just now.  I’m terrified of what we’ll find.”

              “So am I,” Tim said.  “Danny and I just had this same conversation the other day.  We’re both afraid to go home.  That’s kinda why…we came here first.  Because we knew you were okay.  Because we knew you’d be here.  Because I needed…”

              Dick pulled Tim into his arms in a crushing hug, and Tim buried his face in his shoulder.  They didn’t sob openly as they had when they’d first met, but tears slipped down their cheeks anyway.

              “We need to know,” Dick whispered, pulling back to look Tim in the eyes.  “And I’m grateful to Danny, for making it possible for us to go.  And grateful to have you with me when we find out.  To not be alone.”

              “Whatever we find, we’ll find it together,” Tim said.

              “Together,” Dick replied.

              * * *

              They stayed for another full two days, helping Dick shore up all the supplies he needed.  After the solar panels were installed on all six of Dick’s enclaves, Danny flew all around Bludhaven gathering supplies from places Dick suggested, building up the stores of food, clothing, medication, and weapons in all the protected buildings.  Dick then checked, re-checked, and re-re-checked all six buildings, making sure they had everything they needed replenished, before leaving instructions for his top lieutenants while he was gone.

              “We can come back anytime we want,” Tim said.  “We can fly you back every day to check in, if you need.”

              “I’m still going to be as prepared as possible,” Dick said, and Tim understood.  He felt a little antsy thinking about the bunker, wondering if the automatic sprinkler was working, the only source of vegetables in the dead of winter.  Which was silly, when Danny could just fly to any country in the world, find one that was currently in summer and had a wild crop growing, and take whatever they needed.

              Dick made one last run-through of all his lists, checked in one last time with all his lieutenants, and then walked up to Danny with a nod.

              “Let’s do this.”

              Danny wrapped his arms around each of their waists and turned them all invisible and intangible, then lifted them up off the floor.  He started flying them slowly up through the building, passing through all the floors, checking on Dick several times.  His attention was only on his building, making mental notes of each floor’s situation as they went, and Danny gave a little laugh.

              “What’s so funny?” Dick asked.

              “Neither one of you had any reaction to me flying you for the first time,” he said as they reached the roof, and then flew through it, out into the cold winter air.  It was a sunny day, but Tim was still grateful for the intangibility, because the wind was biting.
              “Very, very used to flying,” Dick said.  “Though not feeling the cold is a nice bonus.”

              “That way, Danny,” Tim said, pointing at the far distance.  “It’ll come into view shortly.  Gotham and Bludhaven are very close together.”

              Danny didn’t reply and Dick didn’t say anything.  Their conversation fell off as the city came into view.  At first it was little more than a hazy grey blob, but soon, a very, very familiar skyline started to appear.

              “There’s Wayne Tower,” Dick said, his voice strained.  Tim knew.  His eyes had searched for it first, too.

              “I see it,” he said softly, the buildings coming further into focus.  Tim could pick them all out now.  Falcone Estates.  Killinger’s. The RH Kane building. The Clocktower.  Blackgate Penitentiary.

              From this distance, it looked fine.  Almost normal.  His heart interpreted what he saw and thought it was going home.  He had to remind himself that he wasn’t.  Home wasn’t there to find.  There was no Bruce.  There might be Damian.  And as for everyone else, he didn’t know.

              “What’s that over there, where Metropolis should be?” Dick said, glancing past Gotham, towards what should have been the modern, gleaming city.  Tim squinted, trying to make it out at this distance as it came just over the horizon, further out from Gotham.  The shape looked like a city, and was where Metropolis should be, but it looked…wrong.

              Half its buildings were missing.

              Tim’s blood grew cold as he remembered the reason why Batman had left Gotham in the first place.

              “I think.  I think that is Metropolis,” Tim said, his voice barely above a whisper.  “I think…half the buildings are gone.”

              Dick was stunned into silence.  Neither of them wanted to say any of the thoughts that flowed from that.  But it had to be said.

              “Do you think Batman stopped him?” Tim said softly.  “If half the buildings are still standing, then…then he must have, right?”

              “I…I don’t know,” Dick replied, his voice barely above a whisper.  “I don’t know what happens to someone with superpowers when they become a zombie.  Do they remember how to use their powers?”

              “No,” Danny said, with absolute certainty.  “They don’t.  I have powers that are so innate they’re almost like reflexes.  Ones that I used to do so subconsciously that I struggled to control them, actually.  Like going intangible used to just happen to me, I can do it so easily.  But when I was a zombie…nothing.”

              “That’s true,” Tim said, dragging his brain out of shock and back into thinking mode.  “Danny couldn’t use any powers as a zomb…wait.  There was one,” Tim said.  “Your healing.”

              “Oh, that’s true,” Danny said.  “I guess because it’s not a power that I use.  It doesn’t turn on or off.  It’s just…there.  Always working.”

              Dick and Tim both glanced out over at Metropolis with frowns on their faces, trying to puzzle out why it was that Metropolis was half destroyed.

              Or rather, how it was that it was still half-standing.

              “If a zombified Superman were just mindlessly walking, he would topple any building he ran into,” Dick said.  “But according to Danny, only his passive powers would continue to exist.  Superstrength, healing from the sun, and heightened senses, I suppose. Nothing else.  No flight, no super speed, no heat vision, no ice breath…”

              “Even if that were the case, what could hold him?” Tim asked, his eyebrows furrowing as he tried to think.  “Why is some of Metropolis still standing?  Even if he walks at a regular human pace, why is Gotham alright, being right next door?  Wouldn’t he smell the human flesh there, and come looking for it?”

              “Nothing should be standing,” Dick agreed.  “The only reason half of Metropolis is still there is because…”

              Dick stopped speaking as they both had the same thought at the same time.

              “He must have stopped him,” Tim said, his voice hushed, trying not to let tears prick his eyes again.  “He must have made it, Dick.  He must have succeeded.”

              Neither of them wanted to utter the thought that Superman…could be dead.

              So they didn’t.

              “Maybe Batman is still there,” Dick said, staring now at the mangled skyline of Metropolis, rather than at Gotham, even as it loomed tall and proud in front of them.  “Maybe he’s gone to ground…”

              “He would have made it home somehow.  He would never have left Damian to fend for himself.”

              Dick stopped speaking, and Tim didn’t say anything after that.  Neither of them wanted to finish that thought, either.

              They grew too close to Gotham and it drowned out their view of Metropolis.  Now all they saw were the familiar buildings of home.  The Iceberg Lounge, with the roof caved in.  City Hall, with the doors trampled in, with what looked like an attempt at a barricade that had failed.  Monarch Theater which, somehow, was still standing, though all the windows in Tim’s apartment above it were blown out.  It hurt to look and so he turned his face away.

              “That way,” he said to Danny. “Towards the coast.”

              Danny turned and flew where Tim directed him.  Tim didn’t look at the zombie hoards roaming the streets.  He’d seen enough of that in Bludhaven, and here it was no different.  Masses of grey and rotting flesh swarming together, their eerie, mindless moans floating above on the wind.  He glanced over at Dick, though he didn’t seem affected.  Probably because he saw hoards like this every day.

              Tim shut his eyes.  Dick must have noticed, because he took over giving Danny directions, guiding him towards Wayne Manor.  A few minutes later, he heard Danny say,

              “You mean that enormous mansion?”

              “That’s the one.”

              Now Tim had to look.  He opened his eyes, and there it was.  Sort of.

              The grounds were destroyed.  Trampled to dirt.  The gardens hadn’t been watered or tended to and so were overrun with weeds and struggling vines.  All the windows of the first floor were smashed in, and Tim could see mold covering the few curtains that still hung.  There were currently no zombies here- most likely because there was no longer any human smell to attract them.  If Damian was holed up in the Batcave, he would have sealed it off from any exhaust, probably venting for air out towards the ocean, where zombies could not get to.

              On the roof were the remnants of an absolutely destroyed radio tower that there was no hope of repairing.  It looked melted, like it had been struck by lightning.

              “Where do I go?” Danny said, his brow furrowed as he looked from Tim’s face, then to the manor, then back to Tim’s face again.  Tim felt a nudge of comfort from his core.  He clung to it like a life raft.

              “Down,” Tim said.  “Phase us right under the house.  The cave is about a hundred feet below.”

              “Okay.”

              Tim glanced over at Dick, but his face was stoic and he was silent.  Tim reached up his hand to clasp it around Danny’s.  Danny squeezed it back.

              They disappeared through the floor of the manor, and for about five seconds, existed below the manor but above the cave, within the bedrock itself.  Tim’s heart started pounding faster as the quiet dread in the back of his mind moved to the forefront and bloomed into full-blown anxiety.  He tried to quell his heart from racing, and failed.

              Then the cave appeared below them.  Danny flew them down from the ceiling, and Tim’s eyes darted left and right, taking in the familiar and yet changed surroundings.  First of all, it was packed with equipment, more than there seemed to be space for.  Generators, water desalinators, air purifiers, indoor greenhouses, some kind of infrared tracker, and things Tim couldn’t discern the purpose of at a glance.  He heard the sound of rushing water, as if there was a waterfall in the cave somewhere, and tried to glance over to see, but it was obscured from his vision.

              And then…the Batcomputer.  Up.  Running.  Functional.

              Tears sprang to his eyes immediately.  If the computer was operational, then Damian was alive to keep it that way.  He glanced over at Dick and saw the hope on his face.  He was thinking the same thing.

              Danny set them down on the stone floor and brought them back into reality.

              Immediately, alarms went off.

              “Unidentified life-forms detected in area Alpha-one.  Unidentified life-forms detected in area Alpha-one.  Unidentified…”

              An explosive Batarang flew towards them so quickly Tim barely had time to catch it, never mind catch it the right way.  It was aimed with precision at his throat, and he caught it directly against his palm, the sharpened edge slicing his skin open.  He disarmed it almost instantly, out of reflex, before folding it and holstering it in his utility belt, also out of habit.

              Then three more flew at them in quick succession.  Dick caught one, Tim caught one, and once Danny saw what was going on, he let the third one fly halfway into his chest, then he phased solid, trapping the Batarang inside himself.  Tim winced, waiting for the explosion.  It happened, but the explosion was phased out of reality, allowing Tim to see the faintest wisp of it as it affected nothing around them.

              “Okay, that was cool,” Dick said under his breath.

              “What the fuck?” he heard Damian’s voice spit from the other side of all the equipment.

              “Unidentified life-forms detected in area Alpha-one.  Unidentified…”

              “Damian,” Dick called out, as loud as he could over the alarm.  “It’s me.  It’s Dick.”

              There was no reply.  Neither Dick or Tim moved at all, and Danny hovered silently above the floor.  The computer alarm continued alerting for another five seconds…and then it stopped.

              “Dick?”

              Tears sprang at the corner of Tim’s eyes as he heard Damian’s unmistakable voice.

              He was alive.

              He was alive.

              “Yeah kiddo.  It’s me,” Dick said, taking off his mask, starting to walk through the maze of stacked equipment that hid them all from each other.

              “And me,” Tim replied, deciding it was better not to startle Damian, considering how on edge he clearly was.  Tim pulled a bandage out of his utility belt and wrapped it around his hand in three seconds flat while they walked.  He would deal with it properly later.

              “…who else is with you?” Damian asked.

              “There are three of us,” Dick said.  “Me, Tim, and a meta named Danny.  Don’t throw any more explosions at us, okay?”

              Then they rounded the corner and he came into view.  He was taller, was the first thing Tim noticed.  Just as muscular, just as well-honed and trained as he’d ever been.  He was in his Robin costume except for his domino, though it barely fit him now, and he was covered in new scars that Tim didn’t recognize.

              But he was Damian.

              “Timothy?” Damian said softly, his voice breaking with disbelief.

              “Hey, kid,” Tim said, giving him a small smile, and reaching up to take off his own domino.

              Damian didn’t move.  He remained in a fighting stance, Batarang in hand, poised to throw.  Every inch of him was tense.  His eyes darted from Dick to Tim to Danny and back to Dick, trying to process all three of them at the same time, finally landing to stare at Danny as he hovered above the floor.

              Tim elbowed him in the side.

              “Legs.”

              “Huh? Oh.”

              Danny formed legs and landed on the stone floor.

              Damian narrowed his eyes further, his entire face covered in suspicion, searching all three of them over and over.

              “We’re not infected, Dami,” Dick said gently, taking a tentative step forward.  Damian raised the Batarang higher, and Dick stopped.  “Come on now, do we look or sound like we are?”

              “Could be fresh,” Damian said, his fingers gripping the Batarang so tightly his fingers were trembling.

              “Do you really think we would come here if that was the case?  Would I do that?”

              Damian’s gaze fell on Danny and he squinted.

              “Normally, no.  You usually have a very good head on your shoulders.  However I do not know, and therefore do not trust, him,” he said, gesturing at Danny with the armed Batarang.

              “What about me?” Tim said, taking a tiny step forward.  Damian raised the Batarang back further, ready to strike.

              “You are less rational than Richard.  Had you come here with Richard alone, I might consider trusting you.  But when you bring a stranger…”

              “Damian, the stranger is how we got here,” Dick said.  “We could not have arrived without him.  His name is Danny.  He is a meta, not a zombie.”

              “Well technically I am…”

              Tim elbowed him in the ribs again.

              “Not helping,” he whispered.

              Damian’s eyes narrowed further.

              “Please.  Let him speak, Drake.  I need all the information I can possibly ascertain before I slaughter you all.”

              “It’s a long story, Damian,” Tim said.  “And I will tell it to you.  But not under threat.  Put the explosives away.”

              Damian didn’t budge.

              “Dami, don’t you trust me?” Dick said.  “We’ve stayed in contact all this time, helping each other survive.  You gave me advice on how to condense my enclaves to a more manageable number.  I helped you figure out how to get the desalinators working.  We have survived because of each other.  After all that hard work to keep you alive, do you really think I would put you in danger?  Besides the fact that you’re my brother, and I love you?”

              Tears pricked at the corners of Damian’s eyes and he blinked them back, turning to face Tim.

              “You are not supposed to be alive,” he said simply.  “I mourned you months ago, along with all the rest.  How can you be here?  How can you be real?  I am hallucinating.  Months and months of isolation have finally eaten away at my sanity.  Even if Tim Drake were somehow alive, he would not be in the pristine condition you are in.”

              Tim noticed then that Damian’s hair was as clean as Tim’s, cut in his usual spikey style.  He probably had the locker room showers working, and being next to the ocean with desalination equipment, had all the water he needed.  But even then, he looked far worse for wear than Tim did.  At least a dozen new scars that Tim could see, his costume torn and patched and torn again, stained and well-used.

              While Tim’s had been in a crate this entire time, leaving it in perfect condition.

              And because Danny’s ectoplasm had been helping him heal, he didn’t have a single new scar on him.

              He could see why Damian was suspicious.

               “You are a figment of my imagination…”

              Tim decided to hell with it, and started to slowly walk towards Damian despite the Batarang.  Damian’s eyes grew wider and he raised it higher, ready to snap it forward any second, but Tim kept walking.

              “If I am a hallucination, then I am no danger to you,” Tim said.  “However, throwing that explosive inside your bunker is a danger to you, and will destroy the equipment you need to survive.  So put it away.”

              He paused, no more than three feet from Damian now, and watched his eyes glance up at the Batarang in his hand.  He trembled, his eyes watering further, before he let it slip down into his palm and disarmed it.  He slipped it into his utility belt and turned back to face Tim, his green eyes uncertain and full of pain.

              Tim slowly, gently, reached out his hand towards Damian’s shoulder.  His eyes were glued to Tim’s hand as he softly placed his fingers there, just hard enough so Damian could feel that he was solid and real.  Damian’s eyes darted to Tim’s face, and the tears spilled over.

              “Timothy?” he said, his voice small and weak.

              “It’s me, Dami.”

              Damian’s arms wrapped so tightly around his back it almost knocked the breath out of him.  Tim returned the hug, pulling him in close as Damian pressed his face into Tim’s shoulder, barely a head shorter than Tim was now.  His tears were silent, but his iron grip told Tim everything, and now that he had him actually in his arms, Tim’s own eyes watered and spilled over.

              Then Dick was there, wrapping his arms around both of them, and together they held each other and said nothing.  Danny stood quietly off to the side, and though Tim’s own emotions were powerful and overwhelming, he could still feel his core, and its compassion for him, thrumming underneath all the pain and relief and sorrow and hope.

              They all pulled back from the hug, each of them wiping their eyes dry.

              “This is difficult to believe,” Damian said, sniffling, looking from Dick’s face to Tim’s and then back again.  “I’d had hope that Richard was still alive, given that I knew he’d built a stronghold.  But you, Timothy…when we’d had no word for months and months,” Damian said, “I added you to the memorial.”

              He turned his face towards a large pile of stones, leaning against the wall about fifteen feet from the Batcomputer.  Tim’s heart sank with sorrow as he realized what it was.  A memorial.  For those they had lost.

              Above the stones was a metal plaque, neatly cut into a perfect rectangle, as Damian would have had the equipment to be able to do.  Engraved on it were the words “In Dearest Memory Of”, and below it, a list of names.

              Tim couldn’t read them from this distance.  Without his input whatsoever, his feet started to move towards it.  His soul was full of dread as he approached it, and yet he couldn’t stop himself from drawing closer.  He had to know.

              The names came into focus.

              In Dearest Memory Of: Barbara Gordon.  Stephanie Brown.  Alfred Pennyworth.

              It was the last one that broke him.

              “Alfred?” he said, his voice small and high-pitched as he fell to his knees.  A sob such that he had no power to contain welled up in his chest, and came out of his mouth as a wail.  Broken, his heart was broken, everything was broken.  Nothing mattered.  None of it mattered.  All this time he’d fought and fought and fought, to survive, to stay alive, to get home, and now that he was here it was worth nothing.  Pain such that he had no ability to contain wracked through him, and he was drowning in an unfathomable ocean of it.

              And then there was a comfort.

              Deep in his heart, where it seemed like nothing could reach beneath the pain, there was gentleness.  There was compassion.  He clung to it like a life raft, desperate for anything to hold him up.  It clung back.  It wrapped around him like a blanket, covering him with warmth.  With love.  He was loved.  He was not alone.  The darkness was vast, but there was a light.

              Danny, his mind recognized.  Danny’s core was shining inside him, clinging to his soul and not allowing him to be lost to despair.  He gasped and clutched at his own chest, trying to hug the core that throbbed with love inside him.

              Then he felt a gentle hand on his waist.  He turned around and buried himself in Danny’s arms, sobbing on his knees against his chest, as Danny knelt on the floor and clutched him as hard as he could.  He sobbed and sobbed and sobbed, clinging to the light within him even through the pain.  He cried for Babs.  He cried for Steph.  He cried for Alfred.  And he cried for Damian, his being alive almost as painful as finding out about the deaths; the relief of knowing he was alright almost just as impossible to bear.

              Danny lifted up a hand to cradle Tim’s head to his chest.  Tim melted into it, feeling his core there, so close, reaching for him, loving him, comforting him.  Tim’s soul clutched at Danny’s core, pulling it to him, nearer, closer.  He felt it move, felt it come to him, pressing against the very edge of Danny’s chest, right up against Tim’s skin.  And something inside Tim reached for it, clawing at it, drawing it to himself.  He felt them connect.  He gasped, and suddenly the pain was halved as he was flooded with Danny’s love instead.  Tim opened his eyes and saw them cast a green light onto Danny’s white D, just for a second, before the intensity faded and left him with a soothing, reassuring warmth in its place.

              “I got you,” Danny said softly.  “I got you.”

              Tim wasn’t sure anyone else had seen that for a moment, his eyes had been green.

              “We got you,” Dick added, coming over to put his hand on the top of Tim’s head.  Damian was right behind him, firmly clasping Tim’s shoulder.

              “It is joyous to me that you are alive, Tim,” Damian said, and he heard the depth of emotion in his voice.  “And to be able to remove your name.”

              Tim was now whole enough to be able to hear Damian’s words.  He frowned, and pulled back from his hug with Danny.

              “But my name wasn’t on…”

              “You didn’t finish reading it,” Damian said, and Dick elbowed him.

              “Damian not now, he’s barely handling…”

              Tim immediately spun around to look at the plaque again.

              Below the list of those who had died, was a second list.

              “Fates Unknown,” it said.  And listed three names. Bruce Wayne.  Timothy Drake-Wayne.  Cassandra Cain.

              Tim wiped his eyes again, drying them enough to be able to see.  Of course.  They didn’t truly know what had happened to Bruce.  There would be no way to know about Cass, either, all the way on the other side of the world.

              And then Tim’s brain started to reboot.  He started to think.  There were still names that were missing.

              “Jason? Duke?” he asked, both hopeful and terrified of the answer.  But with Danny’s core so close to him, so near, he felt strong enough to bear it.

              He saw Dick’s worried face as he looked over at Damian expectantly, also just as desperate to know.

              “Duke is alive and well,” Damian said.  “Signal has been helping Robin to keep the remaining citizens of Gotham alive.  We are responsible for over three thousand lives,” he said, and in his voice, Tim could hear a little pride.  And honestly, he should be proud, with everything he must have built in order to keep so many people safe and alive.

              And then Damian fell silent.  Not answering Tim’s other question.

              He knew that meant the answer wasn’t simple.  So first he got himself to his feet, and Danny stood beside him, still keeping his arm around his waist, holding him close.  Tim turned to face Damian, and he knew from Dick’s expression that the same question was in his mind.

              “Jason?” he asked, his voice small.  Shaking.

              Damian’s lips pressed into a tight line.  Though he tried to hide it, Tim could see the anguish in his expression.  He wordlessly turned and started to walk, and the three of them followed him, Tim’s heart sinking with every step they took.

              The smell was unmistakable.  He knew it from that before he even saw him.  Rotting flesh.  Putrid stench.  His heart reacted oddly to it- almost with a sigh, as if he was coming home.  The smell was comforting to him, now.  Because he associated it with Danny.

              But this was not Danny.

              As they rounded the corner and entered an alcove, Tim saw the cage.  Large enough to hold a man.  With something the shape of a man lying on the floor inside, wearing tattered clothes.  It had dark hair with a shock of white locks in the front.

              “No!” Dick cried, his voice breaking with emotion as he ran towards the bars.  The zombie on the ground stirred and lifted its head, staring up at them with vacant eyes.  Its eyes were nothing like Danny’s.  They were empty.  There was no recognition.  There was no thought behind them.

              “Jason!” Dick sobbed, reaching an arm through the bars.

              Damian reacted viciously, grabbing Dick by the shoulders and throwing him back from the bars.

              “Are you stupid?” he snarled, curling his fingers in Dick’s suit and throwing him back against the wall.  “I need you alive, Grayson!”

              “Jason…” Dick sobbed, tears streaming down his face once more.
              “That is not Jason!” Damian snapped.  “That is a monster!  A shell!  He is not in there.  I keep it alive, and sedated, because I am weak.  I cannot bear to let it die, because it has his face.  So I let it suffer, and feed it the flesh of my dead.  Of my wards.  When a citizen of Gotham dies now, that is where they end up,” he spat, gesturing at Jason’s cage.  “In that beast’s stomach.”

              It was horrifying.  Tim knew it was horrifying.  Part of him was indeed horrified.

              But the bond with Danny’s core wouldn’t let him fall over the edge, the way Dick was falling.  Instead, it made him seek the light.  It reminded him that there was, in fact, hope.

              Tim turned to Damian and saw the tears pricking at the corner of his eyes in his hardened face, as he kept his fists curled in the fabric of Dick’s suit, forcing him to stay back from the cage.

              “Damian,” Tim said, hoping that Damian at least had enough mental clarity to hear him, “It might not… it might not be as horrible as you think,” he started.  He tried to choose his words carefully.  They were all on a knife’s edge, and he didn’t want to say anything that could cause Damian to break.  “You might…actually have been saving him.”

              Damian turned to glare at Tim, his eyes full of so much pain that it wrapped around to rage.

              “Don’t you start with me too.  There is no way to reverse it.  I have tried.  There is something wrong with the virus.  Pieces of its DNA are missing.  There is something interdimensional or supernatural to it, and without the proper tools to discover what that is, there is no hope of reversing its effects.”

              Tim licked his lips and drew upon his connection with Danny’s core for strength and stability.

              “Damian,” Tim said.  “Danny is made of the same supernatural stuff as the virus.  I’ve been studying it for months.  I have made a lot of progress.  I don’t know for certain if we will figure it out.  But there is hope for a cure.”

              He watched Damian’s eyes dart back and forth as he tried to process that.  Saw hope flash across his eyes and then immediately get chased away.  Saw him grit his teeth to try to bear his own broken heart.

              “You are delusional.”

              “No,” Tim said.  “We know what it’s made of.  We know how to see it.  We, in fact, have a way to kill it, but unfortunately living cells do not survive the process, currently.  We are here, in fact, to use the enzyme modifier and protein manipulation equipment, to try to make some progress on that.”

              “It’s true,” Dick said, gently reaching up to wrap his fingers around Damian’s fists, unlatching him from his costume.  “I’ve been in radio contact with him for a month.  We’ve been working on it.  I couldn’t tell you because the last messenger died and after that I stopped sending them.”

              Damian’s face went through a myriad of expressions, all of them ugly.

              “You’ve known that Timothy was alive for a month and you didn’t tell me?” he settled on, and Dick’s frown deepened.

              “Damian, I’m sorry.  I didn’t want to ask anyone else to risk their lives to travel…”
              “That is so typical of you, Grayson.  Utterly failing to communicate.”

              Dick actually sighed with relief at Damian’s accusation.  It was just a very him thing to say, and Tim found himself feeling comforted by it, as well.

              “Let us get away from the stench,” Damian said.  “And then you can explain all of this to me, from the beginning.”

              * * *

              Tim was exhausted.  He had spent the last six hours explaining to Dick and Damian everything he knew about the cure.  All the tests he had done, all the experiments he had run, all the data he had collected.  Painstakingly, he recreated every single piece of information from memory for them, while Damian entered it all into the Batcomputer for analysis, asking him ten thousand clarifying questions.  He’d demanded that Danny demonstrate his powers, measured and took scans of him in varying different wavelengths, and documented his every molecule.  Danny was incredibly patient, putting up with all of it, seeing how much it comforted Damian to be able to gather all the knowledge that he wanted.

              Damian had not taken the news that Danny was a zombie well.  Breaking that to him had resulted in a lot of yelling and insults about Tim’s intelligence flying around, followed by Dick attempting to calm him down.  When he figured out that they were together he lost it again, accusing Tim of thinking with his dick and risking the lives of the entire Earth just to get laid.

              Which Tim actually took as progress, because he wouldn’t have thrown that insult if he didn’t at least partially believe that Tim’s work could help the lives on the entire Earth.

              Tim’s stomach grumbled, and he found himself glancing up at the stairs that led to the manor absent-mindedly several times, expecting Alfred to come down any minute with dinner.  That was always how these impossible-to-stop case explorations always finally ended- with Alfred insisting that one couldn’t think properly exhausted and hungry, and that it was time for dinner and then bed.

              But Alfred hadn’t come, and so they worked on it until Damian literally fell asleep on the console from exhaustion.

              When they woke him, he finally agreed it was time to stop for the night, and showed them to his food stores.  He had freezers, actual, functioning freezers, powered by a waterwheel he’d built as a permanent electrical generator for the entire Batcave.  It ran off an underground river that he’d redirected to flow into the bottom of the chasm, which was also the source of some of his fresh water.  He had more electricity and water than he’d ever need, plus every tool available under the sun with which to find a cure.

              He just didn’t have Danny.

              “In the morning, we will begin continuing your research,” Damian demanded.  “Now that Richard and I are caught up on your findings.”

              Tim knew Damian wasn’t intending to be bossy.  He was like Dick- had been in charge of thousands of people for almost nine months, and was used to giving orders.  Tim didn’t care.  Damian was alive.  The Batcave was functional.  He was going to have help working on the cure now.  There was hope.

              Damian had offered for Dick and Tim to use the locker room showers.  Dick went first, much more desperate for one, and Tim could hear his sigh as he had hot water for the first time since everything went to shit.  Ten minutes after that he was dressed in sweats and snoring on one of the beds they used to use to catch a few minutes of sleep on long missions.

              Now those beds were their only beds.

              Damian went straight to sleep immediately after eating, which left Tim and Danny the only ones awake as he turned on the hot shower.  He sighed as he stepped into the water, letting the steam relax his muscles, remembering how lovely it had been a few nights ago when Danny had given him his bath.  Oh, that had been such a wonderful night.  Danny had been so romantic, so sweet and tender.  He really had an excellent boyfriend, and he couldn’t wait to tell Bruce and Alfred how loved he was.  They were going to love him, with how…

              Tim realized that his mind had forgotten the moment.  Being home, in his own shower, the hot Gotham water streaming on his face in exactly the right pressure, and echoing in exactly the right way, had made his subconscious forget.  Had made it feel like everything was alright, just for a moment.  And then he remembered that it was not.

              His wail of anguish was loud, and echoed across the tiles.  Danny was there in a second, wrapping his arms and tail around Tim, pressing his core tight to his back, holding him as close as he could as the water streamed down over them both.  Tim’s heart clung to the comfort of Danny’s core, pressing against him, right there up against his skin, and he turned to face his love.  With the water streaming down over his head he looked at Danny with desperate need to be close, and called Danny’s core to him again.

              He felt them connect.  Felt the link between them close.  This time, when his eyes flashed green, Danny saw it.

              Danny gave a surprised gasp, and Tim felt the awe in his core.

              “Baby,” Danny said, his voice soft and full of reverence.  “You’re beautiful.” 

              Tim felt his love shine through them both, soothing his pain, covering up his wounds.  He needed more.  He needed Danny closer, nearer, he needed to be in him.  He smashed their lips together and Danny pressed back, their kiss desperate and hungry and rough.  Tim sucked on Danny’s lip and then nipped at it, wanting, needing, his whole body suddenly vibrating with a desire to have.

              His eyes flashed green again, and he growled.  He felt Danny’s core answer his desire, and then his eyes grew brighter as he gave a growl of his own.  Tim pushed forward until he slammed Danny’s back against the shower wall, and crushed their lips so hard together it was all teeth.  He nipped at Danny’s lower lip and Danny gave an answering snarl, his tail flicking wildly as desire bubbled up out of him.

              Danny reached around Tim to shut off the water and then he let Tim ravage him.  Tim’s eyes flashed green again as he bit down on Danny’s lip and drops of ecto oozed out from between them.  He grabbed Danny’s shoulders and shoved him onto his back on the floor, neither of them caring that it was wet or cold or hard tile.  Tim’s body was flushing with need as he straddled Danny, heat feeding him from within that drove him to want violence.  He snarled at Danny’s jumpsuit as he tried to tear at it with his dull human nails, confused as to why they were not claws, why they did not slice.  Danny understood, and his body rippled as he melded the suit back into himself, leaving him as naked as Tim was.

              Tim curled his fingers and scratched them as hard as he could down Danny’s bare chest.  Danny moaned, arching up into his touch, his tail curling in pleasure as his core sang yes.  Tim could feel it, could feel his desire and want, and it went straight to his dick, making it start to grow.  His eyes flashed green again, and he drooled at the thought of tasting Danny’s ectoplasmic blood.  He leaned down and opened his mouth wide, sinking his teeth hard into Danny’s neck.

              “Mmmmph!” Danny groaned, his claws emerging to rake down Tim’s back.  Tim cooed, biting harder, tasting the delicious, appetizing flavor of Danny’s ecto-blood.  It flowed into his mouth and he drank, sucking on it to get more, his cock growing harder as he felt Danny’s swell in return, both of them pressing against each other as Tim lay on his chest.

              Tim snarled, his eyes completely green now, and unclasped his teeth only to sink them down again a few inches over.

              “Yes!” Danny cried, opening his mouth wide and sinking his fangs deep into Tim’s neck in answer, his core throbbing with arousal and need.  Tim shuddered as he felt Danny’s fangs pierce his skin, desire flooding through his body in a rush.  He curled his fingers again, trying to rake his non-existent claws across Danny’s biceps, his forearms, his flank.  Danny responded as if Tim had sliced him open, arching his back and clamping his teeth down harder, but it wasn’t enough.  Tim needed to open him up.

              [1START XXX]

              With a growl, Tim backflipped off of Danny and landed next to his equipment.  He reached into his utility belt and pulled out his folding knife.  Then in a second he was back, straddling Danny’s waist, feeling his tail writhing behind him as he gazed down at his perfect chest.

              “Need,” Tim said, his eyes searing green, and Danny’s core agreed.

              Tim pressed the tip of the knife to Danny’s chest, just above his heart, and started to drag it down across his skin, leaving behind a trail of green as if Tim had clawed him.  Danny keened, his core throbbing with affection as Tim sliced his skin.  Danny’s claws curled into Tim’s back, giving him the exact same pressure, creating ten red lines across his skin that sang.

              Tim lifted the knife and brought it back up to scratch again.  It still didn’t feel quite right, giving Danny his scratches one at a time, rather than all at once, but Danny reveled in it, baring his fangs in pleasure as Tim drew the knife across his skin, watching the bright green rise to the surface and swell, dripping just a little.  Tim’s eyes snapped to Danny’s as he made the third slice, the core that thrummed between them singing louder, more insistent, yes yes yes.

              Tim’s cock was rock-hard now, pressed against Danny’s equally excited shaft, and something inside him chomped with teeth.

              “Want to cut you open,” Tim snarled, his voice barely human.  Danny arched his back and sank his claws deeper into Tim’s skin, dragging them down Tim’s biceps, making Tim shudder.

              “Yes,” Danny cried.

              Tim plunged the knife into Danny’s chest up to the hilt, just below his clavicle.  Danny moaned up into it, rising to meet the knife.  He craved it, beckoning Tim, welcoming him in as green ectoplasm oozed down across Danny’s skin and dripped onto the shower floor.  Tim dragged the knife down, down, slicing him open, listening to Danny moan as he cut, turning his fingers bright green, and he wanted.

              He leaned forward and plunged his mouth into the cut, burying his whole face in it.  Danny’s claws raked down Tim’s back as Tim’s tongue sought what it was after; chasing it, hunting it.

              Danny’s core came to him, flowing up out of the green ooze and into his mouth, where he licked and laved his tongue across it.  Danny shuddered beneath him, his swollen erection pressing hard against Tim’s chest.  Tim lapped and lapped at Danny’s core, swallowing the ectoplasm that gushed up into his mouth, not caring that he couldn’t breathe.  Not needing to breathe.  Danny was his breath; Danny was his life, his soul, his everything.

              Tim sucked Danny’s core into his mouth again and bit.

              “Fuck!” Danny cried, his claws plunging into Tim’s back, the blood pouring down his sides and dripping onto Danny’s stomach.  Danny’s tail snapped violently, and then curled around Tim’s thigh to wrap around his cock.  Tim groaned as Danny stroked him, sinking his teeth into Danny’s core again, desperate, needy.  Tim fumbled with his hand until he found Danny’s shaft and wrapped his fingers around it, and then together they started to hump, wanton and aching.  Tim continued to put bites all over Danny’s core as they stroked each other, his face dripping with ghost blood, his back smeared with human blood, his cock leaking precum all over Danny’s hip.  It was animalistic, it was mindless, it was nothing but aching hunger.

              Tim needed.  He released Danny’s core from his mouth and rose back up with a snarl, his face dripping with Danny’s green blood, and bared his teeth.  His cock was so swollen it hurt.

              “Fuck you,” he growled, his eyes brilliant green as he dragged his fingernails down Danny’s chest, digging into the slices he’d made with the knife.  That felt right.  That felt delicious.  Danny’s core agreed.

              “Yes,” Danny pleaded, and then his tail was gone.  He had legs.  Tim fell between them and spent no time waiting.  He pressed his cock up between Danny’s ass cheeks, seeking his hole, hungry, desperate.  He rutted between his cheeks, snarling as he thrust, until Danny canted his hips up and guided him towards what they both wanted.

              Tim pushed in hard.  They both moaned as he sank in, the core they shared ringing with need and want and yes.  The pressure around his cock was delicious as Danny’s body squeezed around him, pulling his head taut and making him groan.  Tim wrapped his fingers around Danny’s thighs and mindlessly started to fuck.  He drove in hard, fast, rough, every thrust sending pulses of desire through them both.

              “More more more more,” Danny said, his eyes barely open, his claws raking across Tim’s ass as he tried to pull him in closer, nearer, harder.  Tim’s muscles gave everything they had and then some, their flesh slapping together loudly in the echoing shower, neither of them caring as they clawed at each other and worked as hard as they could to bring their bodies together.  Danny’s hole was perfect, wet and slick and tight, squeezing him each time he pushed in, making his eyes roll back in his head.  He arched his back and tipped his face to the ceiling, seeing nothing as he became lost in the aching need of the core that desperately wanted them to be closer.

              It pulled at them both, tugged at them both.  Tim drove his physical body into Danny as hard as he could, baring his teeth, the ghostliness in him desperate to show Danny just how much he meant to him.  He felt Danny’s answer, powerful and hungry, aching for Tim to be as deep inside him as he could get.

              As Tim slammed his cock hard into Danny over and over, they ravaged each other with claws and teeth.  Tim dragged his nails down Danny’s arms hard enough to scrape flesh away.  Danny raked his claws over Tim’s biceps and forearms and thighs, so much blood dripping from his skin that it left almost none of him unstained.  Danny took his arm and pulled his palm to his mouth, where he sank his sharp fangs into the heel of Tim’s hand, causing the core inside of them to pulse with affection as blood poured over his wrist to drip onto Danny’s chest.  Tim leaned forward and sank his teeth into his shoulder, then his bicep, then his chest, then his neck.  Danny’s fangs bit everywhere they could reach without interrupting Tim’s fucking.  Tim wore a necklace of puncture wounds, each of them throbbing with pleasure as Danny lapped at them with his tongue.

              Tim felt the pressure of an orgasm rising within Danny’s core and his own body at the exact same time.  He moaned as he fucked, words lost to him, not wanting to think, or to feel anything else except for Danny.  He let himself get completely lost to it, wanting to drown, ready to disappear, eager to sink into an ocean of ectoplasm and become nothing.

              When they came it was violent.  Tim fell forward with a snarl, plunging his face back into the gash to bite at their core.  He screamed into Danny’s chest, the sound muffled by his ectoplasm.  Danny wailed, not the sound of anguish Tim had made earlier but a ghostly cry of desire, of connection, of yes.  It echoed off the shower walls and across the Batcave, making the bat colony awaken and flap loudly as they were startled.  Tim’s whole body convulsed, pumping his seed into Danny while Danny’s cum smeared between their stomachs.  He felt Danny’s core throb, and then saw it grow brighter, its light flickering until it was almost blinding, calling for Tim, aching for him.

              They collapsed into a bloody, oozing green heap, both panting wildly as Tim’s back stung with a thousand deep lacerations.  The blood was warm as it dripped down his sides to pool on the watery shower floor, mixing with the glowing green flowing from Danny’s myriad of wounds.  Danny’s hands came up to tangle in his hair, and Tim lifted his face, dripping with ectoplasm.

              Tim licked his lips, and felt the glowing green flicker through him, rushing to slightly heal the wounds on his back.

              Danny put a finger under his chin and made him look at him.

              “Drink my blood, baby,” he said softly.  “You can’t keep love wounds as deep as this.”

              Tim growled softly, and lowered his face back to the slice on Danny’s chest.  He sucked at it lazily, the beast in him sated, but his human body still needing what Danny gave.  He swallowed and felt the electric flavor slide down his throat and tingle across his skin, healing the deep gashes on his back and arms and ass, the bites across his neck and throat, and the cut on his palm from the Batarang.

              Then Tim collapsed onto Danny’s chest.  They were a horrific mess.  Danny gently floated them into an upright position, and turned the shower back on.  Tim could barely stand.  Danny formed his tail again and firmly wrapped it around his waist to hold him up.  Danny gently washed the blood and ectoplasm away, leaving Tim with tender scabs down his back, looking like they were healed for several weeks.

              [1END XXX]

              Then Danny dried Tim with a towel and helped him put on a pair of sweats and a t-shirt, and floated him towards one of the cots.  Tim knew there was no possible way Dick and Damian were asleep after the noise they had made, but Damian pretended to be, and he was grateful.  Dick cracked an eye open and his gaze zeroed in on the healing bite wounds around Tim’s neck, which he knew in the morning would be splotchy and purple. 

              “You said to dive in head first,” Tim whispered, wobbling on his feet, half-drunk and half asleep.  Dick didn’t reply, but only closed his eyes again, and Tim sighed into Danny’s arms.  Danny settled them both down into the same bed, not caring that he didn’t really fit, allowing himself to hover over the edge as he curled around Tim with both his arms and his tail.  He pulled the blanket over them and Tim melted into his arms, exhausted, sated, and for at least this moment, at peace enough to sleep.

* * *

Hey guys, as an AMAZING bonus, we have TWO incredible fanarts this time around:

First by the lovely FaiKazahaya
Her Bluesky

And by the wonderful Tiff
And on AO3: Clockworkcrow

If you love their art, please give them a follow!

Chapter Text

Hey guys! Before we get to the chapter, please look at these incredible fanarts of last chapter, both by the amazing aether_mae.
If you love his art, please go to his tumblr or Bluesky and let him know!

Shower sex: 

Zombie Jason:

Chapter 14

              Tim woke up slowly.  The sounds around him were familiar and comforting.  Faint, echoey dripping.  The rustle of batwings.  The hum of the Batcomputer, and the clicking of the keys as someone typed away on it.

              What he felt was familiar, too.  Danny’s arms around him.  His body, curled against his back.  The faint smell of ectoplasm.

              Then his brain connected that those two things were not supposed to exist together.  Danny didn’t belong in the Batcave.  Those were two different lives.

              Then he woke up fully, and remembered.

              Everything came back to him in a rush.  Alfred and Babs were dead.  Steph was dead.  Oh Steph… I already mourned you once, and now I have to do it again?

              His heart lurched and a sob worked its way up his throat.

              And then he felt Danny’s core surround his heart with comfort and love.

              “Shhhh, I’ve got you,” Danny whispered, his fingers coming up to brush through Tim’s hair.  “I’ve got you.”

              The sob came out of his mouth as a soft whimper, and the rush of intense pain he’d expected behind it didn’t come.  He still felt sad.  He was still grieving.  But it was bearable.

              “How are you doing that?” Tim whispered, closing his eyes as he felt Danny’s fingers comb through his hair.  “What…what is happening to me? To us?”

              He felt Danny’s core thrum with affection.  It was so close now.  So strong.

              “We are, somehow, core-bonded,” Danny said softly.  “Despite you not having a core.  It’s not supposed to be possible,” he said.  “But part of my core lives in you now.  I feel you, all the time.  Like a bright light that I can’t look away from, and neither would I want to,” Danny purred, his core pulsing with endearment; madly, madly in love.  Tim felt it permeate through him and he inwardly swooned.  It felt incredible.

              “When…when did it happen?” Tim asked, looking down at his own chest.  Despite the intensity of what he felt, there was nothing to see.

              “Gradually, I think,” Danny said.  “Little bits at a time.  Started with the first time you drank my ectoplasm.  But we keep reinforcing it.  We keep doing things to make it stronger.”

              Danny’s breath shuddered on the last few words, and Tim felt a wave of desire from him as he remembered last night.

              “I still feel the marks of your teeth on my core,” Danny whispered, his mouth upturning into a smile as it pressed against the back of Tim’s neck.  “It’s really kinky.”

              “Oh I still feel your teeth, believe me,” Tim said, reaching up with his fingers to stroke them along his neck.  Dozens of scabs greeted him.  “I think I lost my mind, last night.”

              He had been feral.  Unthinking.  Only emotion.  Looking back on what they’d done he almost didn’t believe he could act that way, except- except the idea excited him.  It didn’t frighten him.  He felt like it should- he felt like he should be afraid of the beast he became last night.  But it made him closer to Danny.  It made him happy.

              And fuck if he didn’t need every drop of happiness he could get right now.  It mixed in with the mourning, with the grief and loss.  It swirled around his pain and gave him something to cling to that made him look forward to the day, rather than dreading it, despite how difficult he knew it would be.

              Tim picked up Danny’s hand from around his waist and held it, tracing his fingers over the back of his hand.

              “Am I turning into a ghost?”

              Danny snorted.

              “Hell no.  You are 100% alive.  I feel it in your every cell.”

              “Then what am I?”

              “Mine,” Danny said, curling his tail around Tim’s legs and wrapping his arm around his waist again, pressing his face into the back of his neck.

              Tim’s heart throbbed.  It felt right, to belong to Danny.  And Danny belonged to him.  Was that the ectoplasm inside him talking?  Or was that how he really felt?  He felt Danny’s kisses as he pressed his lips up the side of his face and sighed.

              “I just want to understand,” Tim said.

              “I know,” Danny replied.  “You are logical.  You process situations and problems with your mind.  Which is beautiful, and I love that about you.  It’s who you are.  But ghosts are emotion, Tim.  Not logic.  We are what we feel.  Ectoplasm responds to emotion.  My core loves you.  You love it back.  It wants to bond with you.  So it does.”

              Tim sighed, and turned around to face Danny, who promptly placed a dozen kisses to his lips.  Tim sighed and kissed him back.

              “I just want to know…if…if what I’m feeling is being influenced by the ectoplasm.”

              Danny pressed a kiss to Tim’s nose.

              “Ectoplasm is influenced by emotion, not the other way around,” Danny said.  “You feel what you feel, then the ectoplasm responds to that.”

              Tim thought about that, trying to piece together everything he’d experienced with that statement.

              “Then what was I feeling, last night?  Part of me thought I was a ghost, last night,” Tim said.  “I felt…I felt incomplete, because I didn’t have claws.”  He lifted his hand up in front of his face to look at it.

              “Yeah that was hot,” Danny whispered, leaning forward to press a kiss to the tip of each of Tim’s fingers.

              “But I don’t understand it,” Tim said.

              Danny shrugged.

              “I am a ghost.  I like to be scratched.  You like to make me feel good, so you wanted to scratch me.  The ectoplasm in you responded, and multiplied that feeling.  That’s all it is,” Danny said.  “Your desire to make me feel good made the ectoplasm want to scratch.  You control it, Tim.  Ectoplasm doesn’t have a mind, it’s just a force.”

              Tim snorted.

              “You make it sound so normal,” Tim said.  “Which… I guess for you, it is.”

              Danny shrugged.

              “It’s what I am.  I am a ghost.  I am ectoplasm.  But I am also alive, Tim.  Which probably explains why my core is in love with someone else who is alive.  Though…I kinda feel.  A little out of touch with my humanity right now…” Danny said, lifting up his own hand to stare at it.  As he looked, his white gloves appeared, covering his fingers.  Then they disappeared again, so he could stroke Tim’s arm.

              “Getting hard to remember what it feels like, to be human, honestly,” he said.  “I’ve never been in ghost form for this long, before.”

              Tim grit his teeth.

              “We’re going to figure out that cure,” he said.  “We have every resource now, and the help of two other Bats besides.  We now have two labs full of equipment to help us, all the knowledge Frostbite gave us…”

              “We could have a third,” Danny said.

              Tim wrinkled his brow.

              “A third what?”

              “Lab.”

              At the suggestion, Tim felt ugly emotions roll through Danny’s core.  Apprehension.  Fear.  Worry. Guilt.

              Tim sat up to look at Danny better, and Danny floated up to remain eye level with him.

              “Explain,” Tim said.

              “My parents,” Danny said, and then Tim felt his pain.  His terror.  “They had a lab as extensive for studying ghosts as Vlad.  If it’s intact…”

              “You don’t want to go there,” Tim said.

              Danny swallowed and shook his head.

              “Then we won’t go there.”

              Danny grit his teeth.

              “We have to.  If it contains information that can help us, we would be utterly selfish not to go there.  If there’s even one functional piece of equipment or one book of notes that can save the world…”

              The emotions running through Danny were horrifically ugly.  Tim wanted to help him, to comfort him, in the same way Danny had done for him.  He didn’t know if he could; he didn’t have a core, after all.

              But he felt the piece of Danny’s core inside him.  Tried to wrap his heart around it.  Tried to show it how much it was loved.  How safe it was, inside of Tim, where he would never let anything harm it.

              He saw Danny’s face relax a little, his eyebrows unfurrow just a bit.  Danny turned to him with fondness in his eyes and pressed a soft kiss to Tim’s lips.

              “You are the sweetest thing in the world,” Danny said softly.  “I love you so much.”

              Tim felt the wave of love in Danny’s core.  He answered it with his own.

              He lifted a hand and put it on Danny’s cheek.

              “Let’s try working on the cure with what we have here first,” Tim said.  “We might have what we need.  Let’s see how far we get.  But if we get stuck, or aren’t making progress, then we’ll go to your parents’ lab.  Is that a good plan?”

              He felt the relief inside Danny.  They both took a deep inhale at the same time, and let it out.

              “Let’s get to work,” Tim said.  Danny gave a nod.

              They got out of bed, and the moment they stirred, he felt Damian and Dick’s eyes on them.  Tim ignored them for a few minutes while he took care of essentials.  It felt incredible to be able to flush a toilet, and the sound almost made him fall apart again.  It was a hint of the old world.  Of prior to disaster.  He shoved it out of his mind.

              He walked over to the food stores and quickly ate a protein bar for breakfast.  Then he went back to the bathroom to brush his teeth, out of habit, and was frustrated for a moment when he couldn’t find his toothbrush.  Or rather, there were several, all in various states of use, and he was pretty sure Damian had just been using them all. 

              He licked his tongue around his mouth and frowned.  As disgusting as he’d been all these months, he’d always kept up with shaving and brushing his teeth, and while he didn’t need a shave yet, he really wanted to clean his mouth.

              “What do you need?” Danny asked, hovering in the mirror behind him.

              “Toothbrush,” he said.  “And toothpaste…”

              “I’ll be back in a few minutes,” Danny said, pressing a kiss to his temple and then disappearing into the ceiling.

                With nothing else to do, Tim took a deep breath and headed over to the Batcomputer, where both of his brothers were leaning in front of the console, pouring over the data they’d collected yesterday.

              When he approached, Dick’s eyes flicked down to his neck, though he didn’t say anything.  Damian eyed him but didn’t turn to look at him. Tim swallowed, hoping that…

              “You look as hideous as it sounded,” Damian snapped.

              “Damian, I’m sor…”
              “Like hell you are.”

              Tim winced.  He didn’t push it, because Damian was right.  He tried another tactic.

              “I was trying to cope.  I had a way to make the pain less, so I took it.”

              He saw Damian grit his teeth.  “Don’t even worry about it,” Tim continued.  “We’ll leave tonight and you won’t have to hear…”

              Damian’s hand flew out to grab Tim’s wrist so fast he didn’t have time to react.  His gaze lifted up to Tim’s with a pleading look, all the hardness gone.

              “Don’t leave me alone,” he said softly.  His green eyes watered and Tim could see the desperation on his face.  Tim’s heart broke for him in an instant.  “I don’t care if I have to listen to you copulate with a zombie every accursed night, anything is better than being alone.”

              Guilt and remorse crept up Tim’s throat and made him swallow.

              “Damian,” he said, trying to make his face show as much compassion as he could.  “You’re not going to be alone anymore.  Danny can fly.  We can go anywhere we want.  We can bring Dick here, bring you to him, we can come and go as we please, whenever we need to.  If you don’t want to be alone, then you won’t be alone.”

              He could see the relief on Damian’s face, and he let go of Tim’s wrist.  “But as far as last night,” Tim said, “I won’t do that here again.  I just…I was in so much pain.  I sort of…lost my mind.”

              “No shit,” Damian said, his eyes darting to Tim’s neck again.  “I do not want to know what the rest of you looks like.”  Tim winced.  “But it is imperative to know, because despite how ugly you look, it does not appear as if the injuries happened last night.  It appears as if they occurred a week ago.  When you stated that you have changed, and ectoplasm heals you now… I underestimated the effects.”

              Tim opened his palm to look at where the Batarang had sliced him yesterday, and was surprised to see little more than a pink line.  Dick gave a whistle.

              “Wow,” he said.  “That ectoplasm is powerful stuff.”

              Tim gave a swallow.

              “It’s uh.  Definitely affecting me more as time goes on.  I was talking to Danny about it this morning.  He swears I’m not going to become a ghost but…but I’m something,” he said.

              “Then we should collect data on you as well,” Damian said.

              And Tim couldn’t really argue with that.  It was important for them to know, and catalogue as best they could, the changes that were happening to him.  The Batcomputer didn’t have any sensors that could detect ectoplasm yet, though Tim was realizing that they could install them.  All they had to do was bring some of Vlad’s equipment over here, and they could start getting some ghost-sensing technology in the Batcave.

              “Where is Danny, anyway?” Dick asked, looking around for him.

              “He went to get me a toothbrush,” Tim said.  “He should be back any second.”

              Damian raised an eyebrow.

              “Where is he obtaining a toothbrush from?”

              Tim shrugged.

              “Anywhere, really.  I’m sure he’ll be back as soon as he finds an intact store…”

              Tim saw Damian’s eyes light up in the same way Dick’s had, a few days ago.

              “…how much can he carry?”

              And just like that, any animosity Damian had been feeling towards Danny vanished like smoke.  When Danny came back, Damian was practically pleading with him to bring supplies to his enclaves.  When he saw that Danny was happy to help, his demeanor changed again, and he actually became grateful.  He radioed Duke, and asked him what they needed at the moment, and then Damian, Duke, and Danny all spent the day focusing on that.

              Meanwhile, Tim and Dick returned to working on the cure.  It was difficult, only being able to see half of the virus on the Batcave equipment, but packing up samples to fly back to the bunker to view them under Vlad’s microscope was slow and painful work.  Tim dove into modifying protein enzymes anyway, using the cure from Frostbite as a base and going from there.  Over the next several days, whenever he came up with a batch of enzymes he thought would work, Danny flew him back to the bunker to look at them under Vlad’s microscope.

              The worst part of the entire process was getting zombie venom to test with.  They needed it; there was no other way to tell if an enzyme worked than to first bathe the test cells in the enzyme, then apply the zombie venom and see what it did.

              And the easiest and safest source of it was locked up in a cage not fifty feet from where they were working.

              Dick and Tim both stood outside the cage, faces twisted in guilt as Damian unlocked the door like he did this all the time.  Because he did.

              He walked over with the shot of sedative that he gave to Jason every single day and stuck it in his arm like it was a chore.  Because for him, it was.  He did this every single day.  The creature lying on the ground barely moved.  It didn’t lift its head, or try to pull away, or even grunt.  All that indicated it was alive was the subtle movement of its ribs as it breathed.  Its skin was grey and rotten, though Damian had been feeding it well.  Most of it was still intact.

              Tim felt a wave of sadness well up in him.  He glanced over at Dick, and that didn’t help since his face was contorted in pain.  Tim turned to look for Danny, and found that he didn’t need to search.  He was right there, slipping his arms around him, pulling him close to his chest.

              Tim felt his love throb through their core, not allowing him to fall over the precipice into a pit of sadness that he wouldn’t be able to climb out of.

              “You’re already doing everything you can,” Danny said.  “You’re already trying to help him.”

              Tim felt Dick’s hand on his shoulder, and turned to look into his tortured face.

              “It feels cruel,” Dick said.  “But this is the best we can do for him right now.  We’re giving him the best care we have.”

              Tim could see the words were to comfort Dick as much as they were to comfort him.  And that was fine.

              “Okay, he’s sedated,” Damian said, stepping back out and locking the door.  “Danny, you can collect the sample now.”

              Danny gave a nod.  Tim handed him a carrier with a sedated rat in it, and then floated through the bars. They had discussed extensively the best way to get the venom out of Jason, without hurting him.  They didn’t want to pull his nails out, because unlike Danny, he had no core and wouldn’t heal from that.  They decided that the best way was to have Jason infect an animal, which they could then use to infect as many other animals as they needed for testing.  Then they could extract the venom from the rats with needles, behind their teeth and claws.

              And of course, the person who should infect the initial rat should be Danny, because if he got scratched in his ghost form, he’d heal within a few hours.

              Danny floated over to the sleeping zombie, all three brothers with their eyes glued to the scene inside the cage.  Danny was still careful, slowly picking up the sleeping rat by phasing it through the carrier.  He then gently picked up Jason’s hand by the wrist, and pressed his fingers to the rat’s belly, where its fur was shaved.

              They all watched with rapt attention as he scratched the rat, red lines appearing on its stomach behind Jason’s nails.  Then it was over, and Danny phased the rat back into the carrier.

              Jason stirred.

              “Mmmmahhhh,” he said in his sleep.

              “It’s hungry,” Damian stated, his voice cold.

              Tim turned to him with a surprised expression.

              “How can you tell?”

              Damian’s face was stone when he spoke.

              “If it moves this recently after a sedation, that means the hunger is winning out over the sedative.  Also it’s been a few days.  It should be hungry at this point.  I’ll be right back,” he said, and started heading towards the freezers.  “You start working with the venom.”

              Tim’s eyebrows furrowed and he looked at Dick.  He could see Dick was as worried about Damian as he was.

              “Me and Danny can handle the rats,” Dick said.  “Tim, you help Damian.”

              Damian rolled his eyes in annoyance, but headed towards the freezers without verbal protest.  Tim followed him, trying to think of what to say.

              “Damian…let me do it.”

              Damian turned to him with a scowl.

              “Why?”

              “You deserve a break.”

              “I have done it a hundred times.  Once more will not provide any more noticeable damage to my psyche than the other ninety-nine.”

              He threw open the top of a freezer that Tim hadn’t used before, and when he looked inside, he saw why.

              It was not full of food.  It was full of human remains.

              They were already dismembered.  It was in fact, organized; arms neatly stacked on the right, legs on the left, torsos in the middle.  There were no heads.

              “I always feed it brains fresh,” Damian said.  “It gives it the most strength, and brains do not freeze well.  But it has been awhile since we’ve had a death, so it will have to subsist on limbs for now.”

              Tim’s heart broke with every word Damian uttered, especially with his matter-of-fact tone.  He knew Damian was doing everything he could to mentally separate himself from that fact that these were people he knew.  That he’d been protecting.  Who had died.

              Tim reached out a hand and put it over Damian’s.

              “You’re doing everything you can.”

              Damian snapped his hand away.

              “I am selfish.  All the other citizens of Gotham have had to watch their zombified loved ones die.  When one of them gets infected, we banish it immediately.  There are no goodbyes.  There is no mercy.  They are abandoned, still lucid and screaming for help, as we lock the gates and leave them to rot, or shoot them right then.” Damian snapped.

              “And there was no one to do that for me.  There was no one to be strong, and hold me back, and force me to abandon a zombie with the face of one I love.  Keeping it is my weakness, and will forever be a symbol of my weakness, even if you somehow manage to revert it back to the man it once was.”

              Damian slammed the freezer lid down, and now had an armful of frozen body parts.  That didn’t stop Tim from sweeping him into a tight, vicious hug, which caused him to spit annoyance for a moment, before he melted into it and rested his head on Tim’s shoulder.

              “You are so far from weak it’s a joke,” Tim said.  “I have never seen anyone be so strong.  What we are facing is impossible.”
              Tim pulled back and put his hands on Damian’s shoulders, looking into his watery green eyes.  “What you have done is incredible.  Keeping three thousand Gotham citizens safe?  Without word from any family except Duke?  Without knowing that Dick and I were alive, or that a cure might be possible?  To keep the Batcave up and running and functional, so that when we needed it it was there?  Everything you’re doing is giving hope to the world, Damian.  You didn’t just preserve Jason, you preserved Gotham.  You preserved Batman.  Everything he built is still working because of you!  You are the literally opposite of weak! He would be so fucking proud!”

              Damian’s tears spilled over, and for just a few seconds, his scowl melted away.

              “Really?” he asked, and for a moment, he wasn’t a superhero, or one of the last of the Justice League, or the head of an enclave of thousands, or Batman’s successor.  He was a fourteen-year-old kid who missed his dad.

              “Really,” Tim said, and the smile Damian gave him was real.

              “You’re a good brother, Tim,” Damian said, and Tim’s heart shone from his use of his familiar name.  “Even if you’re a ghost-loving freak.”

              Tim gave a laugh and mussed up his hair.

              “Now let me feed J… it, for once, okay?” Tim said.  “Let me help?”

              “I’ve got it.  I have experience doing this, and you do not.  But…you can watch, if you really want to.”

              Tim accepted that compromise.

              He followed Damian as he carried two naked, frozen human arms across the Batcave, his tattered cape flowing behind him as he walked.  When they approached the cage he struggled to shift them into one arm so he could grab the key off the hook.  Tim reached up and took it, and Damian actually let him open the cage door without protest.

              “This will cause it to stir,” Damian said.  “Be prepared to shut the door quickly.”

              Tim nodded.

              Damian didn’t dally.  He walked purposefully up to the zombie lying on the floor, and set the two frozen arms in front of its face.  Then he pulled out his knife from his utility belt, and quickly made a cut on one of the arms, the frozen blood slowly oozing to the surface to form a red line.

              Jason stirred immediately.  Damian hurried back out and Tim shut the door behind him, locking it.

              Then they both watched with undivided attention as the zombie on the floor moved.  First, it slid one of its arms across the stone floor.  Then, it lifted its head, greasy black and white strands plastered to its forehead.  It opened its eyes, staring vacant and empty in Tim’s direction, seeing nothing.  There was the pale suggestion of blue irises there, but for the most part, they were milky white.

              It didn’t matter.

              The minute he saw them, Tim was no longer looking at a zombie.  He was looking at Jason.

              He sniffed the air, nosing towards the frozen arms in front of him.  He flung an arm out, uncoordinated, both brainless and sedated.  His hand fumbled around until he managed to hook his fingers around the wrist and yank it towards his mouth.  He sank his teeth in viciously, with a low growl, the sound meaningless and empty.  He tore the flesh away, drops of blood flecking his chin and cheeks as he ate like a beast.

              Damian turned his head away in disgust and left.  Tim couldn’t tear his eyes away.  It was familiar, and yet it wasn’t.  It was like Danny, and yet it wasn’t.  Danny had never eaten human flesh.  But he had had eyes so milky and unseeing.  In fact he’d been worse off, many times.  Jason’s moans sounded the same, and yet they didn’t.  Danny’s moans had always had meaning.  Even when he was little more than a skeleton, his moans had always been directed to Tim.  Had been an attempt at communication.

              Jason’s were not.

              He had chewed his way down to the bone, and was now attempting to gnaw on the bone, rather than move his head slightly to the side to get more flesh to eat.  He was even more brainless than a rat, in that way; a rat could make decisions with its small brain to find food.  Jason was only instinct, almost like an insect.

              It became unbearable to watch.

              Tim turned his face away, and forced himself not to think about it.  The best way to help Jason was to work on the cure.  And so that was what he would do.

              * * *

              Working on the virus in two places was arduous, slow, and exhausting.  Tim would build a dozen potential cures, carefully pack them up for transport, and then wait for Danny to have a free minute to fly him back to the bunker.  Then Tim was left in the bunker alone, or sometimes with Dick, to examine the ectoplasmic side of things, carefully monitoring the ectoplasm levels in the tank, watching with gritted teeth as it slowly went down.

              He'd spend hours in the bunker only to discover that none of his formulations worked, and he would have to start all over again.  They’d briefly discussed if it was possible to move the tank of ectoplasm, or the portal, or the modified electron microscope to the Batcave.  But Danny had seemed incredibly nervous about it, worried that if he misplaced even a single molecule, then the sensitive equipment might stop working.  So Tim dealt with having to work in two places.

              The next several weeks were like that.  Danny was kept extremely busy, flying Dick back to Bludhaven, moving supplies there, moving supplies in Gotham, helping with repairs, helping with improving anti-zombie protection systems.  Tim was nose-down, buried in virology, grateful to have both Dick and the Batcomputer to bounce ideas off of.  Dick was spending a lot of time modifying the Batcomputer with ectoplasmic sensors taken from Vlad’s lab, and while that was also slow work, it was helping.  Tim’s analyses grew faster, helping him discard some enzymes that wouldn’t work prior to having to test them.

              “How’s it going, love?” Danny asked, finding five minutes to stop and check on him.  Tim stood up from hunching over a workbench in the Batcave and cracked his back with a wince.  He tiredly grabbed at his notepad where he had a list of “Things I need Danny for”, and handed it to him.

              “Three more ectoplasmic sensors, fifteen samples transported, at least three hours in the bunker, virology books… okay, we can get started on this,” Danny said, setting the list down on the workbench.  Tim stood up straighter and cracked his back some more, then rolled his neck to try to get the cricks out.  When he straightened his head, he found Danny three inches from his face, slipping his arms around his waist.

              “I think we should visit the library first,” Danny said, and Tim was so tired he didn’t even catch his tone.  Before he knew it he was flying through the sky above Gotham, Danny’s core throbbing with affection beside him.

              “How is it going?” Tim asked, but Danny didn’t answer.  All he did was press kiss after kiss after kiss to Tim’s lips, until Tim caught on to what he was after.  His core throbbed in his chest as he felt Danny’s attraction, and then Tim melted into it, making out with him in the air as they flew through deserted buildings and empty water towers and dead powerlines.  Tim moaned up into his kiss, feeling Danny’s core grow excited, and by the time they landed in the library, Danny was tearing Tim’s shirt off and pinning him to the floor.  Tim moaned and arched up into him, their core rippling with joy at being together again.

              “Missed you, too,” Tim said, shuddering as Danny licked his neck and rocked his hips to grind his erection between Tim’s legs.  That was all the conversation they had.  Then it was teeth and claws and tongues, Tim moaning as Danny spread his ass open with his tail, dripping ectoplasm down between his cheeks.  Then Danny was fucking him with his tail, his fangs nipping at Tim’s lips, drawing blood but not so much that Tim couldn’t heal from it.

              It was hard, being around people, which meant denying themselves.  Tim didn’t want to trade it; he’d been so incredibly lonely when it had been just the two of them in their bunker.  He loved his brothers.  It felt so good to be working with them again.  To be able to share the burden.  To be able to focus 100% of his time on the cure, rather than having to stop and worry about survival, because Damian was handling that.

              But he missed being able to be as affectionate with Danny as he wanted, whenever they wanted, everywhere they wanted.

              Though…there was also something kind of romantic about sneaking off to the library together to make love.  They were alone here, and so Tim groaned as loud as he wanted to as Danny pushed his tail deep into him, rocking their cocks together at the same time.  Tim reached up a hand and wrapped it around both their shafts, letting his eyes flutter closed as he brought them both pleasure with his hand. He lifted his face to press more kisses to Danny’s lips, and then bit down, sucking his ectoplasm into his mouth.

              “Fuck me with your dick, baby,” Tim said, and Danny smiled.  He pulled his tail back and formed legs, planting his knees on the floor.  He wrapped his arms around Tim’s waist and slid his cock in hard and fast, pounding into him on the tile floor just below the virology books, which Tim would get to in a minute.  For now he let it all fade away; all the danger, all the problems.  Survival and food and water and diseases and cures, all gone; there was nothing in the world but Danny inside him, his core ringing with joy at their coupling, Tim’s heart answering him back.  When they came, it was together; it usually was now, the way that their core bound them and echoed their feelings back to each other.  Tim loved it.  It was heaven.

              It was over too soon.  But it had to be.  There were lives depending on Danny in the short-term for water and food and medicine.  And there were lives depending on Tim for the long-term.  He was close to a breakthrough, he could feel it.

              When Danny dropped him back off in the cave, his arms full of books, he went right back to it.

              “Enjoy your little break?” Dick said, raising an eyebrow at the new hickies around his neck.

              “Helps me think,” Tim said.  “You should take breaks, too, you know.  You look exhausted.”

              Dick only grunted.

              Right now they were on attempt number forty-seven.  Tim peered into the microscope, observing the healthy rat cells that had been soaking in this cure attempt for at least thirty minutes.  They looked saturated, so it was time to add the virus and see what happened.

              “Please please please please…” Tim said, carefully adding a few drops of the virus.  He watched it, creeping its way across the slide in its familiar manner, half-invisible, all deadly.  He held his breath as the virus attached itself to the outside of the rat cells, and attempt to breach the proteins.

              And he waited.  And waited.  And waited.

              Twenty minutes in, and the cells still weren’t infected.  The virus lingered, outside of them, attempting to get in, and was still not succeeding.  Tim’s heart didn’t dare feel hope.  He couldn’t.

              And then he watched the virus start to die.

              His eyes grew wide and he clutched the edge of the workbench with white knuckles, holding his breath.

              If this worked, if this actually worked, he had a vaccine.

              It was still a far cry from healing infected cells.  But to be able to shield already healthy cells from getting infected was still incredible.  They could protect the people who still survived.  They could save the little bit of humanity that was left.

              “Tim?”

              Dick’s voice shattered his concentration and he leapt out of his skin.

              “What?”

              “You haven’t moved for over an hour.”
              “Dick, look,” he said, pointing at the microscope with a shaking finger.  “It’s working.”

              Tim watched with wide eyes as Dick crept over to the microscope and looked down.  Tim watched his face eagerly, hoping that he hadn’t made a mistake, that he hadn’t missed something, that he was seeing what he hoped he was seeing.

              “How long has it been like this?” Dick said.

              “Seventy-three minutes.”

              He saw Dick pull back with an expression of measured hope.

              “This is really promising,” he said, his voice quiet and strained.  Tim completely understood his reaction.  It was too much to hope for.  It felt too good to be true.

              “We need to test this on a larger scale,” Dick said.  “On various types of cells; several animals, humans, zombie cells…”
              “Ghost cells,” Tim said.

              “Right, that’s a thing,” Dick said, furrowing his brow.  “And we need to let them sit and incubate.  Maybe for a week, to be sure.  And then after that, we’ll start testing it on live animals…”

              “Dick let’s just jump to the live animal tests.   We’ll have our answer in hours.”

              “That’s bad science…”

              “I know it is in general, but we know how the zombie virus works.  It only takes hours to start to show signs.  Let’s try it on some rats.  We’ll know by tomorrow whether they’re still fine.  And if you want to observe them for an entire week, just to be sure… that I can agree with.”

              Dick nodded, and Tim felt a huge wave of relief.  He knew he wasn’t thinking clearly.  He knew Dick wasn’t, either.  But he hoped that together, they would be able to retain enough rationality to not make a mistake due to their desperation.

              And so Tim mixed up a larger batch of what was labelled Attempt 47, and then together they injected it into ten healthy rats, then put them in the same tank together.  That was the best way to be sure.  If any of them zombified, it would attack the others and they’d know.

              Then they waited a day to really give it a chance to work, and then injected the rats with zombie venom.

              The waiting was impossible.  Tim was supposed to check on the rats once every hour, but he was looking at them every ten minutes, if that.  In theory he should’ve been working on Attempt 48, in case 47 didn’t work out, but he couldn’t focus.  Several times he thought he saw some rot appearing on this rat’s leg or that rat’s tail, but it just turned out to be regular injuries that didn’t change or get worse.

              He woke up to a hand rubbing his back.

              “Mmmph,” he said, lifting his head off of the notebook he’d fallen asleep on top of.

              “Baby, let’s get you to bed,” Danny said, gently picking Tim up into his arms and drifting towards their bed, which was large enough for two now that Danny had flown and gotten them something bigger.  He tucked Tim under the covers and then slipped in behind him, his tail winding around his legs as he wrapped his arms around Tim’s chest.

              “You’re working too hard,” Danny said softly, pressing soft kisses to his neck.  Tim’s body bloomed with pleasant warmth.

              “It’s important,” Tim mumbled.

              “I know how important it is,” Danny said.  “But you can’t think if you don’t sleep.”

              Tim didn’t even argue with him.  He was asleep in seconds.

              * * *

              “It should be me,” Dick said.  They had been testing the vaccine on animals for over two weeks.  It worked on rats.  It worked on raccoons.  It worked on pigeons.  It worked on frogs.

              And every day that went by that they wasted not using it on humans was another day that went by when someone could be lost to a zombie.  It was insane to attempt to test it on a human after only two weeks of animal testing.  And yet everyone agreed it was the right move.  “None of us are a good choice,” Damian interrupted.  “Richard has an entire city depending solely upon him.  And while I have Duke as backup…”

              “Now hold on.  Maybe you are my backup,” Duke interrupted, trying to lighten the mood.  Damian’s scowl was so deep it made Tim snort.

              “Furthermore,” Damian continued, “It cannot be tested on you because of your activated meta gene.  You are not a neutral test.”

              Duke sighed and rolled his eyes.

              “That doesn’t mean it has to be you, Dick,” Duke argued.  “If we ask for volunteers from the enclaves you know we will get several.”

              “I’m not putting my citizens at risk,” Dick said with finality. 

              Damian frowned.  “Then who is left?  We cannot test it on Timothy, because of that weird…glowing thing that he does now.”

              “I do what?” Tim said, furrowing his eyebrows.

              “Your eyes glow in the fucking dark, Drake,” Damian spat.  “Did you not notice this, somehow?”

              Tim looked down at himself, wide-eyed, as if that could somehow give him answers.  He turned to Danny and raised an eyebrow at him.

              “Did you notice this?”

              Danny winced.

              “Maybe?  I.  Uh.  You always seem to glow, to me.  I mean, you emanate a faint glow of ectoplasm, but I didn’t know… didn’t realize human eyes could see that.”

              “We are off topic,” Damian spat.  “And we are out of time.  Despite Danny’s incredible help, which I am deeply grateful for, the fact remains that there is limited ammo and keeping the zombies out is a losing battle.  We need to test this.”

              Then they heard an electronic crackle, and all turned their heads simultaneously to look at the short-range radio that sat beside the Batcomputer.

              “MAYDAY MAYDAY MAYDAY!” a garbled voice came through.  Damian and Duke both reacted instantly, dropping the conversation and rushing over to it.

              “This is Mercy Enclave, Robin, Signal, we need immediate assistance.  Zombie breach on the ground level.  I repeat, zombie breach on the ground…”
              Damian and Duke’s eyes grew wide with terror at the same time.

              “The hospital,” Damian breathed.  “The fucking hospital.  We can’t.  We cannot let that fall, we need it…”

              Danny flew over to them immediately.

              “I’ll get you there in seconds,” he said.  “Are there any supplies here that can help?”

              Damian and Duke snapped into action.  Damian barked orders and Dick and Tim followed them without question.  They tore open storage crates and boxes, lifting out grenades, fully automatic weapons, rocket launchers, and ammo to refill them all.  They stockpiled them all in an empty storage container, Damian checking with Danny several times that it was no problem to carry all that.

              Duke manned the radio, getting as much information as he could about the situation.

              “Where is the breach?”

              “North side!  The power failed to the electric fence and that was our weakest point.  The bay doors have been rusted and they got in through the loading dock.”

              Tim took ten seconds to throw on his bandoliers and his mask.  Dick did the same, then they all followed.

              “Everybody just touch the crate,” Danny said.  Then he reached out with both hands and turned the whole thing intangible; the crate, everything in it, and everyone touching it.

              He rocketed them up into the sky.

              “Which way?” he cried, and Damian pointed, guiding Danny in a beeline for the hospital.

              The smoke rising up from the street and the sound of gunfire made it obvious where there target was.  Danny aimed straight for it.

              “Hang on! Danny, drop me off on the roof!  I need to look at the power supply,” Duke said.  “Our best chance is to get the power back as quickly as possible.”

              Danny darted towards the roof, made Duke tangible a few feet above it, and dropped him down.  Then he raced towards the ground floor, surveying the situation.  He kept them intangible and flew through the smoke, and though it still inhibited their ability to see, it threw Tim’s brain for a loop that it didn’t affect his breathing.

              “There’s my A-team!” Damian shouted, pointing at a group of about twenty fighters, all shooting and aiming at the zombie mob as it pushed its way towards the broken loading dock doors.  The fighters seemed to have the upper hand for the moment.  There were zombie corpses littering the room inside, piles and piles of dead, though Tim caught a glimpse of what looked like a dead non-zombie or two.

              It looked like they had successfully pushed the mob back, paving the way with zombie corpses, until none of them were actually inside the hospital building itself.  They were now trying to push the zombies further back, shooting bullets at a consistent, steady pace.  They were alternating turns- a handful shot while the others re-loaded, in a cycle of five, five and five.  It was coordinated.  It was organized.  It was practiced and well-planned.

              If Tim had had time to be impressed, he would have.  But there wasn’t time.

              “Land the weapons there, and me next to it!” Damian shouted, pointing.  “Dick, take the west corner!”

              “Roger,” Dick said.

              “Tim, take the East!”

              “On it.”

              “Danny, can you push back the mob…”

              “I got it,” Danny said, putting everyone down where Damian had directed him.  The second the weapons landed, Damian’s fighters ran to the crate and started to re-load.  Then Danny flew straight towards the main wave of the zombie mob, and thew up a brilliant, shining ghost shield, twenty feet wide.  He plowed forward, shoving the mob back as hard as he could, knocking the whole thing six feet, then ten feet away from the building like a plow.  The fighters cheered.

              He struggled after that, and Tim saw why.  Spreading out fifty, a hundred, two hundred feet back were more and more and more zombies.  The mob was crushing itself, the soft zombie moans drowned out by the explosions of grenades and gunfire.  Zombies trampled upon other zombies upon other zombies.  It was hundreds of them.  The mob was too much for Danny to move.  It was a force.

              Tim’s attention was taken away from that as he heard the sound of cracking to his left.  The pressure of the zombie mob pushing against a window was about to shatter it open.  He had seconds to think.  He looked around and saw an empty metal crate, and started to push it towards the window.  Another fighter caught his eye and grabbed the other side, helping him.  Together she helped him push the crate up, shoving it against the glass.

              “How are we going to get it to stay?” she cried.

              “I got this!” Tim said.  “Just hold it in place!”

              She nodded, turning to press her back against the crate, planting her feet against the floor.

              He reached into his utility belt and pulled out his ectoplasm sword.  He ignited it, conscious of the fact that he only had a limited amount of ectoplasm with him and that every second it was on, it was draining that.  But this was the fastest way.  He pushed the sword up against the metal and held it there as hard as he could, watching as the anti-ghost energy crackled across the steel, making it heat up and bend.  He waited until it was red-hot and melting to the frame of the window, then pulled the sword away, the stench of molten metal reaching his nose.

              Once he got that done he ran to the other side and did the same over there, the fighter pushing up against the crate as hard as she could, until he nodded.

              “Done,” he said.  “Try and let go.”

              She did so.  Just at that moment, the window shattered.

              “Shit!” she cried, dodging with impressively quick reflexes behind a stack of boxes.  Tim went with her, holding out his sword, ready to fight.

              But the crate held. 

              The zombies piled up against it, their incessant moaning growing louder, and the metal creaked, but it kept them out.

              “That was brilliant,” the fighter said.  “Thank you, Red Robin.”

              It was strange, hearing that name after all this time.  It surprised him actually- before he remembered he was in Gotham.  He was home.

              He turned to her and finally had a second to see her face.

              It was Tamara Fox.

              His brain froze for a moment.  She was no longer the slight-framed young girl he’d almost dated.  Now she was a muscular, battle-hardened grown woman, with scars on her arms and no hesitation.  He met her eyes, and through her concentration, she gave him a smile.

              “It’s good to see you alive, Tim,” she said, clapping him roughly on the shoulder.  She then rose up and ran towards her comrades, shouting about how the east corner window needed to be reinforced.

              Tim stood up and looked around.  He realized that he recognized several of the people here- though every one of them was dirty, scarred, lean and muscular, able and ready to mow down a row of zombies with bullets or anything else that was handy.  It was surreal.  His brain struggled to make sense of it.

              “Dick, I need to get the circuit closed!” Damian screamed, grappling up to the ledge above the bay doors.  “Get me some cable!  It’s on the fifth floor!”

              Dick grappled up the side of the building and disappeared, while Damian tried to tug on the fried cables above the doors.

              The piles of dead zombies from the bullets were now becoming a problem.  They stacked up upon each other, wedging the hospital doors open.

              Danny took another tactic, and started grabbing rambling zombies five and six at a time, then flying off several streets away and dumping them there, only to come back and take more.  He couldn’t make the whole mob intangible at once- it wasn’t solid enough- any gaps between zombies broke his intangibility.  So he was flying as many as he could at once away, just trying to keep the mob from getting any closer.

              “Signal to the ground floor!  Anyone down there, come in!” Tim heard from a radio in the far corner.  Tam was on her feet in seconds and running towards it.

              “Signal, this is Tam, go ahead!”

              “I’ve got the generator repaired!  But the circuit is broken somewhere.  I can’t get the power to flow.”

              “We see it,” she said back.  “It’s the circuit above the doors.  Robin and Nightwing are on it.  Don’t send the power through until we give you the all-clear, or you’ll electrocute them.”

              “Roger,” he said.  Tam turned to Red Robin with fear in her eyes.  “The circuit won’t be able to close unless we can get the bay doors shut.  We had them electrified.  But all those zombie bodies in the way…”

              “I’m on it,” he said, turning from her to head back towards the main doors.

              Bodies were strewn about the floor.  Mostly zombies.  Some human.  Hunched over some of the writhing ones was a doctor and several nurses.

              “It’s alright, it’s a wound from some steel.  You’re not infected,” he heard a very familiar and kindly voice say.  Even though getting those bodies away from the doors was of absolute importance, Tim couldn’t help but stop and look.

              “Doctor Thompkins?” he said, his voice cracking with more emotion than he intended.

              The doctor turned around, and Tim was met with the face of the person who was probably the closest thing to a grandmother that he had.  She was worse for wear- her face was dirty, her clothes were stained and torn, and she was covered in blood up to her elbows.  But her eyes were still kind- as kind as they had always been- and he grew emotional as she looked at him.

              “Red Robin?” she said, her voice shaking.  “You’re alive?”

              He desperately wanted to hug her.  But her hands were halfway through wrapping a bandage, and he heard another bout of gunfire as Gotham’s remaining citizens tried desperately to keep more zombies from getting in.

              He put his hand on her shoulder and gave it a squeeze.

              “We’re gonna survive this,” he said.  “There’s more hope than you know.”

              She blinked back tears.

              “It’s good to see you,” she said softly, and though she put no voice behind it, she mouthed the word “Tim”.

              Then he had to go.

              He turned and ran towards the bay doors, holstering his ectoplasmic sword and pulling out his shield instead.  He turned it on and ran up the hill of zombie bodies until he was at the top, plowing a living one forward, knocking it back and down.  It fell, tumbling backwards several feet, tripping other zombies climbing up the hill behind it.  He looked down at what he stood on- a pile of zombie corpses writhing under his feet, oozing blood from their bullet holes.  He realized that while he was up here, he was in danger of being shot as much as scratched or bitten, but there was no other way to clear the corpses out.

              He bent down and started turning corpses over, shoving them away.  He heard the faint click of guns reloading, and took one second to hold his shield out towards the hospital.  At the same speed the bullets flew, Danny raced towards him, slamming into him hard and fast before phasing him out of reality just in time.  He clutched his arm around Danny’s neck harder than he should have as bullets shot harmlessly through his intangible body.

              “Faster than a speeding bullet, huh?” Tim said, shaking.

              “When it’s you?  I can do anything,” Danny replied, his face bent in a hard frown.  “Please stop walking in front of bullets.”

              “We have to get the doors shut,” Tim said.  “That’s the only way to close the circuit.”

              “I know.  I’ve been trying.  I’m moving a dozen of the corpses at once, but more just pile on,” Danny said, looping around to hover above the fray, keeping them intangible.

              It gave Tim a perfect view of the chaos, and more importantly, gave him a second to think. 

              “Can you phase the doors shut?”

              “Yes, but with the zombie bodies in the way, when I re-phase the doors back into reality, they’ll be full of zombie…flesh.  Which as far as I’m aware, doesn’t conduct electricity.  The doors will be closed, but they won’t electrify.”

              Tim frowned.  “We don’t need to hold them back forever,” he said.  “Just long enough to get the doors clear so they can close and complete the circuit.  What about a temporary barrier…”

              He searched around, looking for something, anything.

              “Danny, that building over there.  Look at those huge steel panels.”

              “Okay.  What about them?”

              “Grab two and form a wedge.  You can weld them into a pyramid shape… you did say you had fire powers right?”

              “Yeah, but they’re not easy to control.”

              “Don’t need it to be refined.  Just hot,” Tim said.  “Melt three steel panels together into a triangle.  Well, we gotta make two of them, no three, God there are so many corpses…and then you can use that to shove the zombies back…”

              “Right in the path of all the bullets,” Danny said.  “I can’t phase through bullets and not phase through steel at the same time.  It’s one or the other.”

              “We’ll get them to stop shooting long enough for this to work.  Can you build what I’m talking about?”

              “Yes,” Danny said.

              “Drop me off on top of the doors.”

              Danny nodded.  He gave Tim a record-breaking quick peck and then flew off to the building down the block Tim had been talking about.

              Dick and Damian almost had the new cable connected to the old one.  They’d be able to close the circuit any minute, if only they could get the doors to close.

              Dick turned to Tim with a look in his eyes.

              “You have a plan.  I see it.”

              Tim nodded.  Damian and Dick were both busy stringing up the new cable, so neither of them took their eyes off their task, but they listened.  He described the wedges and how Danny was going to use them to shove back the pile of zombie bodies just long enough for the doors to be slammed shut and re-electrified.

              “And then we can weld them closed,” he said.  “Once the circuit closes, we’ll be able to reinforce the doors properly.”

              They both agreed.  They finished the cable repairs and the three of them jumped back down to the first floor to tell the plan to the fighters.

              “Listen up!” Damian said, his voice commanding even as it was young, and every single person stopped instantly to listen to him.  They all trusted him to keep them alive.  For the two seconds Tim had to think, he felt proud of his little brother.  “We have a plan!  I need everyone to hold their fire as soon as it’s ready to implement!”

              He explained it to his fighters- his Gotham citizens- and Tim watched as they all listened to him with unquestioning loyalty.

              “So on my signal, you stop firing, regardless of what you see happening- otherwise you’ll shoot Danny,” he said.

              Everyone nodded.  Everyone was one hundred percent ready.

              Damian and Tim turned to look out the doors and watched the sky, waiting for Danny to arrive.  Tim’s nerves were on a knife’s edge.  He saw the next several zombies cresting the corpse hill, shambling their way towards the hospital, and grit his teeth, hoping that Danny would come before they would have to be shot.

              And then he was there.  Three of him were there, each carrying one of the steel wedges he’d built, all coordinated as they flew into the hospital and slammed them together down onto the ground.  Together, with all of their might, the three Dannys started to push the steel out from the hospital like plows, shoving dead zombie flesh back outside. The pile of zombie corpses moved back two feet, then three.

              “Help him!” Robin cried, and the fighters all rushed forward, pushing on the metal.  Tim threw everything he had against the metal,  shoving it with his shoulder, his feet slipping on the blood that smeared the floor.  But it was working.  The corpse pile was sliding back.

              Then their movement slowed.  The farther they pushed, the more corpses were in the way, the harder it became.  They were now moving barely an inch or two, but they were so close.  The wedges and pile of corpses were now entirely outside of the hospital.  In fact it looked like the doors might be clear enough to be pulled shut- except there was no one left to pull them.

              There weren’t enough hands.  Every fighter was busy pushing, and they were barely doing it.  Tim glanced over at Nightwing and saw his body shaking with effort.  As was everyone else.  Not a single person could let go, or the whole thing would collapse.  Tam was stuck at the radio, unable to move because she had to alert Signal the second they were ready to throw the switch.  There was no one else to help.

              “There’s no one to shut the doors!” one of the fighters cried.  “We don’t have enough strength!”

              “Nurses, to the doors!” Leslie called.  “Now!”

              The three nurses and Dr. Thompkins left their patients on the floor and grabbed at the metal doors, two on each side.  They pulled, the metal scraping as the piles of zombie bodies were shoved back.  They tugged while everyone else held the corpses back, the squelching sound of rotten flesh echoing in their ears as zombie limbs were crushed beneath steel.  Rotten blood oozed out from beneath the metal.

              One of the zombie arms severed and fell down the mountain.  It rolled straight for the doctor’s face.

              “No!” Robin cried, reaching out on reflex to grab it with a bare hand.  Tim didn’t know where his gauntlet had ended up.  He hadn’t noticed when it had gone missing.  But Robin’s hand was bare as he clasped the zombie fingers, yanking the severed arm away from the doctor’s face seconds before it touched her.  Nobody else stopped their task.  They couldn’t, or they would all fail.

              With a horrific groan, the bay doors slammed shut, locking Danny and all the fighters outside with a moaning pile of zombies, and the doctors and nurses locked inside.

              “Hold it as long as you can!” the three Dannys cried, every muscle straining. 

              From inside the hospital, Tim faintly heard Leslie yell.  “Tamara, radio Signal now!”

              And then the powerful hum of electricity raced through the doors.  The hairs on Tim’s skin rose.  The three Dannys let go of their wedges and then raced to grab every fighter, phasing them all out of reality just as the pile of zombies started to tumble, crushing against the metal wedges Danny had made, jamming them all up against the doors.  The wedges electrified, the stench of searing flesh rising up in the air as the zombie pile pushed the wedges together and became its own barricade, holding the doors shut.

              Danny phased everyone back inside and fell to his knees. 

              “Did I get them all did I get them all did I get them all…” he panted, shaking.  He melded into one person again, and Tim ran to him.  “Robin…did I get…”

              But Robin wasn’t speaking.

              He was staring at his hand.

              Across his palm was a minuscule scratch.  A scratch that he shouldn’t even blink at, and yet couldn’t tear his eyes away from.

              Everyone in the room fell silent.

              The sound of electrifying zombie flesh outside filled Tim’s ears.  Horror crept into his mind from the edges as his eyes grew wide in terror.

              “No,” he whispered.

              Robin turned to him with a fierce expression.

              “You have to shoot me. Now.”

              Tim shook his head in horror.

              And then he heard guns cock.  Several.

              Damian’s own fighters were pointing guns at him.  At the ready.  As he had trained them to do.

              Tim’s eyes grew wide in terrified realization.  His eyes met Dick’s and saw the same horrified fear in them.  The core inside him ignited, communicating to Danny as clear as day a single desire: no.

              Danny leapt into action.  He reached Damian before any of the bullets did.  He phased him out of reality and out through the wall before anyone could blink.  Then he doubled back, grabbed Tim and Dick, shot up to the roof to grab Duke, and raced them all towards the Batcave.

              “Stop this at once!” Damian screamed as they flew.  “You have to kill me, you have to kill me now!  I will not allow myself to be a danger to you!”

              “Like hell we’re letting you die!” Dick screamed back, and then they were there, Danny landing them on the Batcave floor.  Damian tried to squirm out of their grasp, but Dick held his one arm and Duke held the other.

              “Let go of me!  I am doomed!  Do not make me suffer!”

              “Tim, get the vaccine,” Dick ordered.  He grabbed Damian’s wrists, pinning them behind his back as Duke held an arm around his throat.  Damian snarled, yanking at his wrists, trying to squirm free.

              “We don’t know for sure if it will…” Tim started.

              Dick’s glare left no room for argument.  Tim hurried over to his workbench, trying to ignore the sound of Damian’s scuffling.

              “Duke, hold him still,” Dick cried.  Out of the corner of his eye, Tim saw Duke grab Damian’s wrists as Dick kicked his feet out from under him, forcing him to faceplant onto the floor.

              Tim’s hands were shaking as he drew the syringe.  He had no idea how much to give.  He had no time to calculate the weight of a rat compared to the weight of Damian, and he figured in this case, more was better.  So he drained the entire vial.

              He walked over to Damian, who was now squirming on the ground, cursing as hard as he could.

              “Drake, what are you doing?”

              “Hopefully, saving your life,” Tim said.  “Hold fucking still.  We only have one dose made.”

              Damian snarled and bared his teeth.

              “I do not want to suffer do not let me suffer.  We don’t know what that will do to me.  Shoot me.  I’d rather die.”

              Tim leaned down over him, his frown so deep it was making his face twitch.

              He reached out and grabbed Damian’s hand.  He tried to pull it away, snarling.

              “I am infected you stupid idiot.  Get away from my fingernails!”

              “I’m holding your hand, you moron,” Tim snapped back.  “Because I am making you a promise.”

              Damian stopped his writhing.  He stared up at Tim, his chest heaving from exhaustion.  Tim squeezed Damian’s hand and looked into his terrified eyes.

              “If it doesn’t work,” Tim said.  “I will not let you suffer.  I’ll shoot you myself.”

              “Tim,” Dick breathed, his hands clasping Damian’s shoulders even harder.  “We are not promising that.”

              “I am,” Tim said, looking into Damian’s petrified green eyes.  “I’m promising it, because this is going to work,” he said.  “Will you hold still?  Or do we have to knock you out?”

              Damian grit his teeth, all his vigor gone, and nodded with nothing but fear in his eyes.  He shut them and turned his face away, allowing Tim to bring the needle up to his arm.  He didn’t want to waste time getting his shirt off, so he just injected the needle right through it.  A minor skin infection wasn’t their concern right now.

              He pulled the needle away.

              “Is it done?” Damian’s voice wavered.

              “Yes.”

              “Lock me up,” Damian said.  “Next to my brother.”

              Tim’s heart lurched with pain as Damian admitted that he did see the zombie as Jason after all.  He and Dick hauled him to his feet, and together they all walked towards the row of cages that had once been meant to hold criminals, and now held two of Batman’s sons.

              The click of the lock echoed across the cave.  Damian turned around to face his brothers, and tears fell.

              “Please don’t make me face this,” he said.  Tim’s heart lurched again.  He looked over at Dick and saw the same pain on his face.

              “What if we put you to sleep?” Dick said.  “Then…if it doesn’t work, we won’t wake you.”

              Damian’s tears spilled over again.

              “That is.  Agreeable,” he said.

              Tim couldn’t move.  He was exhausted.  Covered in zombie blood.  His heart was broken.  He was frozen in place.  Dick seemed to see that, and so he left to get the sedative.  Danny’s core wrapped around Tim’s heart and tried to comfort it, but right now there was no comfort to be had.  They only had one course of action, and that was to wait.

              * * *

              Waiting was impossible.

              First, they still had an absolute mess on their hands.

              “Danny, fly me back to the hospital,” Duke said.  “The danger isn’t over.  We have to reinforce the barriers.”

              “And the repairs we did to the cable were very temporary,” Dick said.  “Fly me back too.”

              Danny nodded and put an arm around each of their waists.  He got about three feet into the air before Tim’s piece of core lurched at him, yanking him back so hard he froze mid-flight.

              “Baby?” Danny said, turning around to face Tim.  “Did you want to come too?”

              Tim looked over at Damian, sleeping restlessly on the cot.

              “No, he shouldn’t be alone,” Tim said.  “I’ll stay with him.”

              Danny nodded, and then tried to take off again.

              Tim’s piece of core lurched at him harder, practically forcing him to stop in mid-air.

              Danny landed and put Duke and Dick down.  He walked over to Tim and wrapped his arms around Tim’s shoulders, pulling their foreheads close.

              “Do you realize you’re not letting me leave?”

              “I…I realize it,” Tim said.  “But I’m not intending to do it.  I…I mentally understand you’ll be back in a few minutes, I…”

              Danny’s kiss was soft.  Slow.  Gentle.  Tim melted into his arms, but the tension on his face didn’t melt with him.

              “Damian’s life is depending on me,” Tim said.  “On my work.  What if I made a mistake?  If he dies, it’ll be my fault.”

              Danny’s fingers brushed across his cheek.  He pulled his face back far enough so that Tim could look into his glowing eyes.

              “Did you cause the zombie virus?” Danny said, and Tim rolled his eyes.

              “No, and don’t you dare turn that conversation around on me.”

              Danny completely ignored him, and said it all anyway, throwing Tim’s own words back at him. “The only reason Damian has any hope at all right now is because of you.  The danger he is in isn’t your fault, Tim.  The hope is.”

              “What if it’s false hope?” Tim said, gritting his teeth.  “What if it doesn’t work, what if…”

              “If it doesn’t work,” Danny said softly,  “then you didn’t cause him any harm.  The harm already came.  Trying to stop it doesn’t make the danger itself your fault.  You did more than anyone else could.”

              “I…I can do more,” Tim said.  “I can keep working.  If I can create something better…”

              Tim felt Dick’s hand on his shoulder.  He turned to look up at him and had never been more grateful to see his confident face before in his life.

              “Tim.  It is going to work.  We’ve tested it on four different types of animals.  It’s worked on amphibians, birds, and mammals.  You don’t need to make something better.  What you’ve made is already enough.”

              Tim felt like his bones were going to rattle and fall apart.

              “How do you know?”

              “I don’t,” Dick confessed.  “But I have to press on as if I do.  It’s the only option open to us right now.  You’ve already done all you can.  If continuing to work on the vaccine will help you get through the next several hours, then I’m not gonna stop you.  But I really think…I think it would be better for Damian to have someone with him.  If you’d rather it be me, and you’d rather head back to the hospital to help them over there, that’s fine.  I get it.  You don’t want to be away from Danny.”

              “I can’t be away from Danny,” Tim said.  “Something in me won’t.  Won’t let him be far away.”

              Danny caressed his face again.

              “I’ll be back in three minutes,” he said.