Work Text:
Almost Doesn’t Count
Kon had almost died. And that ‘almost’ had been way too close to ‘definitely’ for Tim’s peace of mind.
He hadn’t gotten one undisturbed night’s sleep since Kon had wound up convalescing at STAR Labs, and later the Fortress of Solitude, after taking down Alex Luthor’s tower and all the Earths in the multiverse had stopped burning in the sky. The nightmares where it hadn’t been an ‘almost’, where the balance had swung the other way and Kon had died…they came every night. Not that Tim said anything to anyone. He just got himself a prescription for a sleeping pill that would knock out an elephant and held back about how much it bothered him to almost lose his best friend on top of everyone else.
His best friend…the best part of him.
Tim had held back on everything. It hadn’t been the time, or the place; and of course, there had been Cassie to consider. But it had taken almost half a year for Kon to recover, after a month spent in a coma. Tim had never stopped loving anyone once he’d started. Cassie, however, not having such constraints on her heart, had moved on.
Just that very afternoon Cassie had finally admitted to her relationship with Rose; a relationship that had surprised everyone given her initial distrust of Deathstroke’s daughter. Kon had taken it rather well, all things considered; ‘things’ being the fact that Cassie had ‘broken up’ with him only a few weeks after he regained consciousness. He and Kon were alone together, and Kon was finally well enough that he didn’t end up dropping off to sleep after five minutes of conversation, so the place was just fine. And Tim had spent so long waiting for the right time that he knew waiting was a fool’s errand. He couldn’t hold back any longer.
Tim just didn’t know how to start. He dithered around Kon’s room in the Fortress, mentally calculating how the walls could refract sunlight ten-fold to speed up Kon’s recovery while not being so blindingly bright that he needed sunglasses.
Kon, of course, knew that something was wrong. “You…Tim, what’s up with you?” he asked, rising from the bed to stand mere feet away from him. “Why are you acting so…weird?”
As if Kon couldn’t tell; it had been over six months since they’d just been able to talk to each other. But then again, he didn’t know why. Tim let out a soft snarl of frustration and lashed out with everything he was feeling, pinning Kon to one shiny wall, one hand pressed against Kon’s chest, feeling the solid heartbeat through the thin cotton of his S-shirt, the other wrapped around Kon’s throat, the pulse there strong and steady. The kiss that followed the pin was just as fierce, if more gentle once he recognized the taste of blood; his, not Kon’s, most likely, but still. There’d been too much bleeding, both physical and metaphorical, of late.
The kiss deepened, tongues twining, mouths almost biting at each other as they tried to get closer and closer, fusing their skin together. Tim’s right hand fisted in Kon’s shirt; the left relaxed and curved along Kon’s jaw. Kon’s arms wrapped around Tim, one hand clenching in his shirt, half-pulling it out of his waistband, the other cupping his ass and hiking him up so their mouths were level.
When they finally broke apart they were both breathing heavily. Kon had regained most of his powers, if not all of his stamina, so Tim wasn’t sure whether the kiss was just that good or if Kon was winded.
Then Kon pressed an infinitely tender kiss to his lips, and Tim stopped caring. “This is why?” he asked, hands moving up Tim’s back to rest on his shoulders.
Tim swallowed and nodded, moving into the embrace, his own hands settling on Kon’s hips. “I…couldn’t figure out how to tell you.”
“How long?” Kon asked, shifting closer so that there was only a breath of space between them.
“Since…near the beginning of the Titans, I think,” Tim replied. In actuality, looking back, he’d felt something more than friendship for Kon back in Young Justice. Not in the beginning, but not too long after Cissie left. It was just that with everything else going on in his life, breaking up with Arianna, ending up with Steph, his Dad moving them to Keystone and then getting married to Dana, and him ending up in Brentwood…well, he hadn’t had any time to devote to dissecting his own feelings and realizing that he was bisexual.
“Back when I started dating Cassie again,” Kon said, eyes flickering with the memories. His right hand started massaging Tim’s shoulder, and Tim couldn’t help arching into the touch.
“That…factored in to my difficulties, yes.” Tim tried to school himself to not give so much away, but despite his efforts his voice came out breathy and low, and his face was still lightly flushed.
“And then I was…” Kon licked his lips, head lowering slightly, just enough that Tim was no longer looking him in the eye.
Tim clutched tighter at Kon, moving so that the breath of space between them was no more. “Yes. When you came back...” He swallowed down the memories, the grief. “I’d promised myself that I’d tell you, but I didn’t know how.”
One side of Kon’s mouth lifted in a bit of a grin. “Show worked pretty good.” The joke was weak and fell flat, but it broke the tense air that had surrounded them.
Finding himself grinning back as if his lips had their own volition, Tim said, “It did, didn’t it?” It was more of a question than he would have liked, but Kon hadn’t actually said anything to let him know whether his feelings were returned or not.
“Yeah,” Kon agreed, and leaned down to kiss him again.
The flood of relief that washed through Tim almost caused him to lose his balance. It would have, in fact, if Kon hadn’t been holding him so tight.
Tim held Kon back, clutching his best friend and more tight enough for his knuckles to start to hurt, as if his very grip could keep Kon there with him, safe and warm and whole and happy, forever. He returned the kiss with interest, bruising his lips on Kon’s as he pressed hard, tongue tangling with Kon’s in an almost lewd dance.
Tim had almost lost his chance…but he hadn’t. And he planned to make the most of it for the rest of his life.