Diabolical | T. Drake ✔

[40] Cooking For Distraction

Jonathan was in the kitchen when he felt as if the doorbell had rung once. But then there was silence and whoever was outside didn't ring the bell again.

He had gone grocery shopping early that morning and was now sorting out what to do with all the stuff he had bought. It had been long since he had cooked anything so he decided to use a cookbook rather than relying on muscle memory.

He waited but if anyone had been outside, the bell should have rung again by then. Thinking it would just be the kids in the neighborhood messing around with people by ringing bells and running away, he paid no heed and continued to work.

But for some reason, he felt the need to go out and check, just to be sure. When he opened the door though, he was met by a surprising sight.

"Timothy, what are you doing here?"

He asked the curly-haired boy sitting on the floor with his head buried on top of his knees. He noticed that his hand was bruised and it must have been Tim who had rung the bell but then decided not to disturb him.

"Hey, get up. Come inside," he didn't know how to deal with Tim in such a state but thought he could do the bare minimum by bringing him in and offering him to talk.

Tim shakily stood up, taking the offered hand, and followed Jonathan in. His eyes were red as if he had broken down to tears not long ago and there was a slight tremor to his body even then.

"How long have you been waiting out there? You should have rung the bell again."

Tim didn't reply so Jonathan made him sit down on the couch, stepping into the kitchen to bring something to drink for him. He didn't know what had happened to him but could see that it had been something that shook him badly.

"I'm sorry... I shouldn't have come here," he mumbled at last as he looked up at Jonathan who had returned with a glass of apple juice.

"Why not?"

"You must be busy... I disturbed you."

"Doesn't matter," he replied, leaning against the wall as he observed him closely, "you're welcome here anytime you want to."

"Thanks... I appreciate it."

Tim's hand was hurt but he ignored it until Jonathan offered to look after it. It was clear that he had punched something or someone rather hard as his knuckles were a mix of red with faint blue settling around the edges.

"I don't take you for the boy who gets into punching people," he remarked, applying a thin layer of ointment over his bruised knuckles, "injecting them with toxins, that I can assume, but fist-fighting...? Not so likely."

Tim sighed softly, shaking his head, "you're right... I punched a dumpster."

"A dumpster? By accident, I suppose?"

"No, I meant it. It had the audacity to talk back, would you believe?" He remarked wearily, causing an amused look to flicker in Jonathan's blue eyes.

"Must have been an interesting conversation."

"Don't even..." His eyes darkened but he didn't complete the sentence and looked away, "sorry."

"Tim, you're upset and I understand. You don't have to apologize." He waited for a while but as Tim didn't say anything in response, he added, "so what made you decide to come here after punching that dumpster?"

"I didn't want to go back home," he mumbled, "and I didn't have a lot of other options."

He understood that Tim wasn't very social and didn't have a lot of friends his own age. The fact that he had ditched high school too didn't help with that. So there he was at his apartment because he thought of Jonathan as similar to a friend.

"Have you eaten anything since morning?"

He shook his head, "no, I kinda left in a hurry so I only grabbed a sandwich on my way out. I'm not hungry though, I never am."

"Right... I was trying to get back into cooking edible food," Jonathan remarked, noticing Tim had looked up and seemed curious to know what he was going to make, "you want to help with that?"

"Sure," he readily agreed, standing up to go with him to the kitchen.

"Forgot to turn that off," he mumbled, turning off the stove and examining the vegetables he had been sauteeing earlier that had turned black. He emptied the contents into a bowl and put it aside, handing Tim the cookbook, "I may have to start over again so you decide what you want to eat."

"But I am not hungry..."

"I insist," he thrust the cookbook into his hands nevertheless and took the now burnt pan to the sink so that he could wash it and start over.

It took them a while to decide and Tim settled on a tomato pasta so Jonathan gave him the task of making the tomato puree while he worked on preparing the rest.

As they were working together, Jonathan kept a light conversation up, knowing that Tim wanted to be distracted from whatever he had been thinking about earlier. He had never seen him that on edge before and he wanted to do something to bring him back to his normal cheerful self.

"I got a job," he told him and the boy's head snapped up in surprise.

"Really? Congratulations," he tried to smile, "when did that happen and what job is it exactly?"

"I decided not to apply for my license renewal because I don't trust myself to help other people with their problems when I am so fucked up in the head myself," Jonathan resumed, making sure not to tear his eyes away from the stove lest he forgot to do something and the pasta got ruined too, "but I have an academic background of chemistry and pharmacology so that helped me apply for a job in research."

Tim paused, just then realizing that there was only one place in Gotham currently working on similar lines, "research? In chemistry and pharmacology...? Don't tell me, are you joining my team at Wayne Labs?"

A slight smile creased his features to see his abrupt reaction, "I was getting to that."

"That's awesome!" His eyes lit up as he temporarily forgot about his very sour conversation with Dean, "I was so worried that when I finally apply for higher studies, we won't have anyone to take up my space. But now you're joining and you have the experience as well as the academic qualifications that I have yet to procure. You solved the issue altogether."

"That's good to know," Jonathan remarked but then asked another question to keep him occupied as he didn't want him to go back to sulking, "as for your higher studies, did you decide what field you're going to take?"

"Absolutely," he replied, "I thought of studying Psychopharmacology like you did but then I figured you said you're a walking textbook yourself so I will eventually get to learn it from you later. So I changed course and now I am applying for Toxicology."

"You are very confident that you will squeeze years of information out of me whenever you want to?"

"Of course. Why would I not?" He remarked playfully, "it's not like you're going anywhere."

"I'm not going anywhere," Jonathan mumbled as if reminding himself of that fact too, a slightly distant look shadowing his eyes. But then he straightened, dishing out the pasta and took out the plates, "the pasta is ready. I hope it is edible although I can't make any promises."

"Don't worry, it will be delicious. We followed every step in the cookbook," Tim reassured him.

He hummed in reply as the two of them went out to the living room. He thought he had succeeded in temporarily distracting Tim from whatever the boy had been upset about.

But his instincts were warning him something was still wrong. However, he didn't push Tim to talk about it, instead, he focused on asking him about Wayne Labs and his coworkers so that he would be prepared on what to expect from the job he had taken up.

***