Chapter Text
Tim had left yesterday, with an apologetic expression and vague explanation about an “Urgent P.R trip” out of country that would make it so Tim can’t call, text, or otherwise reach Bernard in any way.
That’s alright, Bernard reminds himself for what feels like the seventh time this day, it’s not like he needs to talk to his boyfriend everyday. Tim has other priorities. He ignores the shout in his mind about Tim having put his work above Bernard before. Besides, it’s not like he’s alone either! He has Dia. The little siamese cat had appeared in his apartment one day and then never left. He would die for her.
He sighs and buries his feelings about Tim leaving under all his other buried emotions and heads to the checkout desk.
The bell at the top of the door jingles at his leave and he hefts his grocery bags onto his arms in order to check his phone. No new news, no Arkham breakouts, huh, Gotham is pretty calm today.
As he heads down an alleyway he looks up to see a dead end in front of him and something snarls from behind him.
His breath hitches and as he turns around his stomach drops at the sight of a large dog with glowing yellow eyes. The poor thing looks more bone than flesh at this point and but Bernard gets the stark feeling that it’s not going to be begging for food anytime soon based on the way the animal is eyeing him.
“H-Hey buddy,” he says shakily as the animal takes a step forward and growls at him, a droplet of foamy drool splattering against the ground. A discarded beer can creaks underneath his foot and his gaze darts to a broken piece of wood to the right of him.
Would Robin be mad at him if he tried to defend himself? From what he has seen online the kid seems to really like animals and has attacked people for hurting them before…but his back is fully against the wall at this point and it looks like it’s about to pounce.
He reaches for the stick and the moment his fingers graze the side of the splintered wood, the dog launches itself towards his neck, jaw open wide. Instinctively, he raises his arms and tries to push it away, but it’s too late.
Blinding pain scorches through his body and vaguely he recognizes the sound of crunching bone beneath tearing flesh as he screams. Possible consequences be damned Bernard kicks and punches at the animal on top of him, and his hands find their way to the beast’s jaw in an attempt to unhinge them from his collarbone.
It’s a struggle, the dog wants a meal, but Bernard has had enough of things trying to eat him, and a burst of adrenaline allows him to snap it’s jaw apart and slam it’s body against the wall he had been pinned against. Before the thing has a chance to lunge again, he’s already scrambling off the ground and hitting it in the head with his stick as hard as possible.
Then without looking back to see if it follows, he escapes out of the alleyway. Crushed grocery bags laying forgotten in his wake.
After about a solid minute of sprinting, Bernard’s panicked mind finally catches up to him. All he can hear is the sound of his pounding heart and raspy breathing. He’s alone. It didn’t follow him.
He squints through the dark to glance down at his shivering body. Tim’s borrowed hoodie is almost unrecognizable from how torn and stained with blood it is and the sleeve hangs off of his body limply.
He looks back up, clutching his shoulder tightly as if that’s enough to keep his blood inside his body and stumbles through the street. So much for restocking on eggs.
He can see his apartment from here…it’s not a clinic but… his first aid kit should be stocked.
The guy at the front desk who’s supposed to make sure that no one’s trying to break in is slumped over his desk fast asleep. Bernard’s not sure if he would have even batted an eye at his injury anyways. Possibly the horror movie esque trail of blood that Bernard is carving through the carpet, but that’s just because, even Bernard, through his blurry mind can recognize what a pain that will be to clean up later.
He hobbles his way over to his building’s only elevator and slaps a bloody hand against it’s yellowed button. No one ever uses it, and for good reason, he thinks silently as it’s doors screech open and lets him into it’s shaky box.
He adjusts his grip on the bite in an attempt to lessen the pain and leans against the elevator’s handlebars. He then pretends not to not to notice the “last maintained 1984” sticker on it’s button pad as he presses number four.
Bernard’s apartment happens to be on the very top floor, great because he has a lot of space and a better view of the city than most people in Gotham get, terrible for his current situation because he really needs to get his injury taken care of and the very slow ride up is not helping.
Finally, the elevator doors open and he uses his last few bits of energy to dash to his door and slam it open.
Dia jumps from the spot she usually greets him from and goes to hide under the couch, he only has half a mind to feel guilty about scaring her, the other half is currently trying to wrangle his thoughts together enough to not die. He grits his teeth as a wave of red hot pain passes through his body and he falls to his knees.
Bernard’s breath hitches and he tightens his hold on the bite to stop himself from fainting in the door way before stumbling towards his bathroom desperately.
He barely even remembers to lock his front door behind him.
“Okay, worry about cleaning it later, just focus on stopping the bleeding…” He repeats to himself under his breath to keep his panic from setting in. His vision goes white for a moment but he ignores it and pulls his first aid kit out of his cupboard, inside lies several pristine rolls of heavy duty bandages.
His breath shudders and he bites down a scream as he shakily wraps the first roll of bandages onto the wound as tight as possible— just focus on stopping the bleeding— it’ already seeping through, but he keeps wrapping it until he can’t see the blood anymore.
The room continues spinning and as he collapses onto the cold tile below him the last thing he sees is a little white and brown blob trying to rub up against his hand.
When Bernard wakes again, it’s to a splitting headache and the bathroom floor. When standing only causes his head to swirl with white spots he settles for leaning against his counter and looking into the mirror.
He looks…to frankly put it, a mess. His blonde hair is slicked flat to his face with sweat and grime, which ‘compliments’ the sickly pale skin and heavy eye bags into a somewhat cohesive image of a person who just got mauled. (Which Bernard supposes is to be expected, seeing as he actually did just get mauled.)
Something fuzzy brushes against him and he looks down at Dia, who buts her head against his leg before leaving towards the kitchen, well at least she’s not too shaken up about last night he thinks to himself mildly, and then he’s violently reminded of how…hungry he is.
“Yeah— I— we should eat…” He whispers to her, but he makes no effort to move, instead he just grips the edges of the sink and tries to get his breathing under control.
God, it felt like his veins were on fire. Bernard exhales and heads towards the kitchen where Dia is impatiently waiting for him.
He grabs her bag of food and slams it down on the counter with a whimper when his left side flares angrily. Okay, pouring it into her bowl is out. Instead he tips it over with his good hand so she can reach the food inside and leans against his fridge.
He wishes he could go to the hospital but.. he lost his phone when he ran from that dog, and without it he can’t call his insurance company (or his friends). Bernard’s already struggling financially because of student loans, shoving the cost of a possibly infected dog bite on top of that would ruin him.
The sound of his rumbling stomach reminds him of his hunger and he wrenches the fridge open for something that doesn’t look like it’ll make him puke.
His eyes land on the unopened package of deli meat and already his mouth is salivating.
Screw manners, Bernard snatches it and tears the package open with his teeth.
The feeling of his teeth sinking into the meat and tearing it apart eases a part of Bernard’s mind he hadn’t even known was there. But it doesn’t ease the ache in his stomach, and that makes him turn towards the two raw steaks he had been storing for a dinner he had had planned before Tim had dropped the news of his departure with a renewed hunger.
He snatches one and bites down, but an instinctive snarl that tears through his throat makes him stop in his tracks.
He only takes a moment to recover from his shock before his rumbling stomach forces him to continue eating at a much slower pace.
He only stops eating when the hunger ache in his stomach ends and the tired fatigue that comes from gorging oneself settles on his bones. By then he had eaten every single piece of meat in his fridge, raw, cooked, and cured, as well as about a third of all his fruits and veggies.
He takes the time to refill Dia’s water fountain and curls himself into his bed.
The time that follows is sporadic and barely remembered.
Filled with fever spawned headaches and hot flashes and mood swings.
His clearest memory is waking up for only a couple minutes, just long enough to recognize the weird ache in his gums and then fading back into consciousness right as the sun sets but this time in the kitchen. Somehow he’s not sure if that one is real or not.
Then thankfully, his fever breaks and he wakes up in his bed.
A glance at his alarm clock shows that it’s currently eight o’ clock at night and he’s been out for… holy shit! A week?!
His heart stutters out of his chest and he sits up quickly, expecting a jolt of pain from his shoulder that never comes.
…huh…maybe it wasn’t as bad as it looked? He shakes his head to clear his thoughts and carefully gets up from bed, glancing at Dia, who pretty much immediately steals the spot he had been sleeping and curls up in the warmth he left behind.
He goes to grab his phone, furrowing his brows in confusion and then sighing in realization when he sees that the spot he usually charges it at his nightstand is empty.
He shakes his head again and exits his room. It’s…pretty concerning that his fever had caused him to forget an actual week of his life, but he’s heard that that’s actually pretty common with fevers, so maybe once he explains it to his professors they’ll let him make up any assignments he missed? (He doubts it.)
He hears a gunshot go off from somewhere near his apartment and winces, the sound seems like it’s still ringing even from where he stands. Welp, guess he’s still sensitive to noise, it makes sense, probably a side effect of the fever he’s started to recover from.
He breathes out through his nose and munches on a bowl of stale cereal. “Bat-a-rangos”, a Gotham special. With overly sweet and artificial blackish-purple bat shaped puffs and bright neon yellow marshmallows that kind of resembled…blobs. (They’re supposed to be robins.)
He had originally bought a box of the stuff because Tim had pointed them out in the store and laughed at it. Now he had to finish it.
He drinks his milk and rinses off the bowl in his sink before moving to turn off his light, only to be promptly flashbanged by the sudden flooding of his senses.
He flips the light switch back off and frowns. Alright, light sensitivity too. Sure. That’s normal with headaches. He ignores the fact that his head doesn’t hurt right now.
He enters his room again and sniffs out the slowly fading scent of his boyfriend and the stronger scent of his cat and smothers down a forlorn whimper that the thought of Tim brings him. Because he’s fine. Tim has other priorities.
Bernard was about to go back to bed when the sight of the full moon stops him in his tracks. It’s bright, brighter than he thinks he’s ever seen it before. He feels drawn to it in a way that doesn’t make sense.
The moon…has it always been that pretty? He thinks momentarily as he tilts his head curiously. He doesn’t even realize he’s stepped closer until he’s already reaching for the balcony window.
It’s like he’s watching from outside his body as he undoes the hatch and steps outside, allowing the full light of the moon to bathe him, tickling his skin in an oddly familiar way.
He finds himself sniffing the gasoline and gun powder scented air one last time before he drops to the floor with a gasp.
Somehow the pain he had previously thought was excruciating and at the limits of capabilities has returned, and this time, its ten times worse.
Bloody drool drips onto the floor of his balcony as a guttural scream tears itself out of his throat, louder than when he had attacked, louder than anytime he’s screamed for help during a rouge attack, and then, as soon as it started it’s over.
He can’t really remember what happens next.