Sangwooooh - Achilles The Sad Burrito

In response to this text post by @flippyspoon (which I can’t seem to reblog properly, for some reason, so I’m doing this instead).

i love tragic characters who get their whole world ripped out from underneath them and then completely fuck themselves and everyone around them over in the most violent unnecessary ways imaginable

bro I cannot 🫢😫

Why do I want to write Tokyo Vice fanfiction so bad right now???

Sato and Jake have got some awesome chemistry and my man Sato is literally baby girl 😤

Am I whipped? Maybe…

can u do another bruce x male reader angst

Definitely 😌 I’ve got a lot of angst in me.

Since you didn’t specify, I took it and ran with it. Anywayss Enjoy 😉😮‍💨

Soo, this is longer than I planned 🧝🏻🥹 And there’s gonna be a part 2, probably 🫣😮‍💨

Warnings of sorts: major injury, character death, diverging from canon.

Small summary: After an attack by the Joker, the bat family is thrown into an unlikable situation, unfortunate even. M/n is stuck in the hospital, barely living. And who knows what happened to the rest? Alfred won’t really talk about it.

“This is your legacy. Watch careful, love, as it all falls and burns. To the ground with your house of stone.”

They were tied together by the moon, under the stars of a clear sky, on the rooftop of the manor. A lapse in time, a glimpse of the universe. They were happy in that moment. Only them and the quiet world.

M/n recalls it being a clear sky. Yes, it had to be in order to light up Bruce’s face just so. Or maybe it was the man’s eyes, those who lit up the whole sky. Often times, M/n thinks about this and that, and everything is muddy, but the brightest memories still shine through.

That’s what makes him sure they’re real. They are too strong to be stomped down by the heaviness, too alive to dissipate.

There are days in which he feels he forgets everything, but then Alfred visits, and the memories are alive again. Painfully so.

“Master M/n,” Alfred would say, “How is your morning?” And M/n would understand it was indeed morning.

“Hello, Alfred.” Momentum, he remembers both of their names. “I see you better today.” He tries for a smile, uncertain of the success.

“That is great news, sir.” M/n can’t make out the details of Alfred’s face, but he hears the extension of a smile in his voice.

Later, they are drinking tea, the tension in M/n’s shoulders not soothed by the liquid, “Alfred, when can I come home?” Silence follows.

M/n sees the movement of Alfred placing down his cup, “Soon, sir. Probably next week, if things go well.”

“Yes, but you’ve been saying this for a while now.” He recalls in the haziness. “I reckon, if I stay here more, I’ll go crazy, Alfred. I wanna come home. I wanna see Bruce and the kids.” His voice is overwhelmed with tremors. He can’t feel his face half the time, but now he feels the stinging in his eyes.

M/n is almost startled by Alfred’s hand over his own. “Master M/n… I’ll see what I can do. I’ve been trying, remember?”

Right. He… remembers. “Thank you, Alfred.”

Later that week M/n is allowed to go home. Happiness fills him. Like fireworks on the night sky, his chest is filled with emotion.

Home.

Yes, he is finally going home.

Alfred comes to pick him up around 1 p.m. He is moved in a wheeling chair through the hospital. He can’t see all the faces around him, but the doctor and the few nurses he does see and recognize, he says goodbye to. He is happy, so he leaves them all with a smile.

In the car, Alfred tells him all about the changes around the house and the land around it. Like how the rose garden is gone —there is a momentary pang in M/n’s chest, but he doesn’t let himself be deterred by it—, or how the paintings from the hallways had been moved to a guest room now turned storage room, or how Jason moved all of his stuff back into the mansion, but he didn’t actually come around to inhabit his old room, or how Damian is now taking care of most of the affairs of the mansion and company.

“Since you’ve been gone, young master Damian has been given a lot of new responsibilities.” Alfred adds, not as an after thought, but carefully building up to it. “He should be home, at the moment, but there is always the possibility of him being away. He is leaving two weeks from now, for a conference in Vienna.”

“That’s wonderful. Such a nice place. I… Bruce took me there. Yes. A few years ago. Very nice.” M/n is sure his smile persists. How could it not? He is finally going home. To his Bruce. To his sons. To his life, after the endless time in that horrid hospital room with white walls and shadows and the buzzing of the fluorescent light above, barely perceptible.

The car parked, Alfred helps M/n up the ramp and into the foyer.

The door opens before Alfred goes for the handle. Beyond the opening door, the tired face of one Damian Wayne comes as the most welcoming sight. As soon as the boy’s —he is still the small boy M/n used to read to sleep, or sing to— eyes landed on his parent, he visibly relaxes. His stance falls into something more fitted for his age. M/n can’t see a smile on his face, but that isn’t saying much. He can’t really see much anyway, in the light. Nonetheless, even through the sting caused by daylight, M/n can’t help the unabashed happiness slipping onto his every feature. He extends his arms, wide and welcoming. And Damian falls to his knees, into his parents arms.

“Hi, dad.” The boy whispers softly.

“Hello, baby.” M/n feels tears soak his shirt. “Oh, baby. What happened, love?” The man gives Damian’s head comforting caresses.

“I just missed you.” Damian gets out through a shudder. Oh, why is his baby crying? No, he shouldn’t be crying. M/n is here now, it’s okay.

“I missed you too, honey.” Damian lowers himself until his head rests in his father’s lap. M/n’s hand still moves through Damian’s raven locks.

Damian squeezes M/n’s waist, “I’m sorry, dad. I’m sorry.” His son is trembling. He must be so tired. Did he sleep well? His poor baby. M/n should’ve been here for him.

“Why are you sorry? You have nothing to be sorry for, love.” M/n feels his own eyes sting harder, but not from light.

“I’m sorry I didn’t come see you. I’m so sorry.” Damian’s voice is muffled by him being pressed against M/n.

“Hey. Hey. Honey, it’s okay. Alfred told me you’ve been working so hard. My baby isn’t a baby anymore. You’re taking care of the family. I’m so proud of you, Dami.” M/n feels a tear falling. Alfred places his warm hand on M/n’s shoulder, but he can only look at Damian’s blurry form falling apart at his feet.

“No, dad. I… I didn’t come because… I was afraid. Of what I’d see. So I used everything as an excuse to stay away. I’m sorry, dad.”

M/n’s lower lip is filled with tremors, tears glistening in his eyes, “It’s okay, it’s okay, Dami. I’m home now.”

M/n holds his son for a while, caressing him, trying to reassure him with all the love he has.

“Where are the others?” M/n asks as Damian raises to shaky feet.

Damian visibly freezes, but forcibly relaxes himself, “Well… I’m not really sure what Todd is up to, but he literally moved his stuff here, then proceeded to up and go.” The boy pauses as he moves behind M/n, wheeling him to the stairs, where there is already a built in type of elevator just for him, one you see in movies. Damian attaches the back of his wheelchair to the machine. “And father… Father doesn’t leave his room during the day, only at night, but as Batman.”

“What?” M/n stares at his son incredulously, as he is raised by the machine, Damian following closely by, walking up the stairs.

“I know Batman is doing a great job, as always. But I don’t know how father is doing. He wouldn’t talk to us.” Damian looks into his parent’s eyes pleadingly. The boy can guess that his dad doesn’t see this detail. But, still, he can’t help but want to beg for M/n to make things better, like he always did.

“I’m sorry, baby, that you had to go through this. I’ll talk to Bruce myself. Only with a bit of help.” M/n chuckles as the machine gets to the top of the stairs.

Damian’s lungs and heart finally seem to realize that M/n is home, that he isn’t alone, that maybe they can do this. Call it false hope, but it’s everything the boy can cling to.

Once at the door leading into the master bedroom, M/n looks at Damian with the intent to reassure. As if telling him ‘it’s okay, you can rest, I’ll take care of things now’. And so, he is left alone by his son, followed closely by Alfred, who also seems different all of a sudden, lighter even. He is gonna make them a nice dinner, for four, and not for one.

M/n would be lying if he says he doesn’t hesitate. Because he does hesitate. And he hates himself for that. His Bruce needs him. This is no place or time for backing away.

“Bruce?” The silence is deafening. “Are you there, honey?” He wheels himself —his arms are weak, so he finds it a tiny bit more difficult than he originally thought it would be— closer to the door. Where he places his open palm on the hard oaken door. There is no answer from the other side, but M/n isn’t known for giving up easily. It’s how him and Bruce got together, then married. He knows when to push and he knows when Bruce is keeping himself from his own happiness.

“Bruce, I’m home now. You can open the door.” M/n says a bit louder. And this time he is startled by the sound of hurried steps and crashing from beyond the door.

The door opens before he can say anything.

And his Bruce is there. He looks tired, and his features are clearer because in the manor there is darkness. And M/n sees how much Damian is becoming more and more like his father, for Bruce falls to his knees in front of him, hands grabbing at his face and hair, cupping his cheeks in hurried strokes. M/n believes the tears that fall from Bruce’s eyes and onto his blotchy cheeks. He doesn’t know how many times he’s seen Bruce cry before. It hasn’t been much, but there were plenty times to know that M/n’s husband doesn’t trust people with his tears and his pain. And most of the time, he doesn’t even trust himself with it. It pains M/n to see the man he loves in pain, so he ends up placing his hands over his darling’s hands, keeping them on his cheeks.

“… M/n” His husband’s voice is coarse, unused.

“Bruce.” M/n says his name, to ground Bruce with his own voice. “What happened to you, my Bruce?”

Bruce doesn’t say anything at first, but after long seconds, there are those same two words that came out of his son’s mouth, “I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay, love.” He has never seen Bruce like this. This broken. Falling apart. What happened? Where are Dick and Tim? Nobody said anything about them yet. What were his memories trying to keep away from him? M/n really needs to know. “I can’t remember what happened that well. Please, tell me what happened, my Bruce.” M/n squeezes Bruce’s hands into his own and brings them to his lap.

M/n is afraid of the unknown. What is he missing? Why is everyone so down? Why was he in the hospital for weeks on end?

“What did you do, love? Why are you upset?” Bruce raises to his feet, slowly and weak, and M/n has never seen him like this. Bruce goes behind him and wheels him into their bedroom.

Bruce lifts him up with care. Closer to his face, M/n can see his expression better and it hurts him to see his husband in this pain. Bruce places him on the bed, with soft movements and soft touches.

“Talk to me, Bruce.” M/n cups Bruce’s cheeks in his palms when the man sits next to him on the bed.

“No, no, I can’t, M/n, I can’t, no.” Bruce shakes his head. M/n can’t help but feel out of balance, out of place, out of touch. He has never seen his husband this startled. They’ve had moments in which they’ve shared their fears and problems and what not. But M/n has never seen his Bruce this shaken up.

“Come on. Talk to me, Bruce.” He presses on.

“I.. Oh god…” Bruce whispers through a clenched jaw.

“Love, please…” There is desperation in M/n’s voice.

“God… God, how, how can I tell you? How can I possibly tell you?” Bruce puts a distance between them as he rises from the bed. Covering his face, he blocks away M/n’s view of his expression.

“Bruce? Bruce… Bruce!” M/n raises his voice, feeling his tongue become numb and surplus in his mouth.

“Ah, I, I…” Bruce takes a deep breath looking at the ceiling, “Di…” His voice fades. “Dick and Tim,” M/n fees the air become stale around him, and the constant pressure in his chest that never seems to go away increases. Breathing suddenly becomes harder and there is the faint feeling of suffocation. “They are gone. Because of me. I …killed them.”

And that suffocating feeling is back tenfold.

The world is swimming around them and he can feel it all flowing beyond the ground, and he is falling too, into his own hell. He doesn’t know where he is anymore, but his body is too small for him and his heart is so big and so loud it breaks at his thoracic cavity. His lungs aren’t big enough, however, cowering before his beating, pumping heart, smaller and smaller by the second. There isn’t enough air. There will never be enough air. This is how he is dying. He wants to die. He wants to die now, to disappear.

He hears screaming. After long seconds it becomes obvious it is him who is screaming, clawing at his throat, eyes hurting with tears that burn him to the core. He scratches his throat like he wants to get out of his own skin. And if he were any more conscious, he would now exactly how to kill himself in that moment. The words keep repeating in his head, however, in an endless loop that wants to keep him there, caged in his disbelief.

He must’ve passed out.

Because, when he wakes up, he is in the rose garden, somehow.

el matador, toro rosso.

I want Goncharov 1973 back.

Can we like 😳🫣 get a revival, please?

I know it has passed for like a WHILE and that maybe it’s better to let a good thing ‘die’ because more is less, but I had a moment in which I wanted to read and write about it and wish it into existence. And I kind of hope there’s somebody else out there who would like to write more about it as well.

Goncharov never dies, I guess, not in my heart. It was a great time.

must a villain be redeemed? isn't it enough that they're bitter, evil, and most importantly, hot?

Why won’t you speak?

“Even dead they ignore you, huh?”

This is the second part. If you want to read the first part, the link is at the end. Sorry, it took me a while :,)

Warnings: character death, mental issues, grief, child neglect (?), disability (m/n is using crutches because of the injury he got from an accident in his younger years). Canon divergence … ? Regardless, I’ve changed things. also, the addition of Roy Harper ;)

“Close your eyes for a second, won’t you?”

M/n chuckles, “What do you want, Roy? Don’t we have anything better to do?” He closes his eyes nonetheless. Wouldn’t hear him say it out loud, but M/n will probably do anything if it was Roy who asked. That’s how the two of them are.

“Just…,” there is some shuffling. What is that man doing? “Just bear with me for a sec.”

“Fine, I’ll indulge you. But it better be worth it.” M/n added as more of a joke at the end. It wouldn’t even matter if it was worth it or not, if Roy considered it so.

Roy sighs and touches M/n’s shoulder, slides his fingers down to his hand and holds it, squeezing it softly. Then the touch is no more and M/n is left feeling cold.

“You can open your eyes now.”

“I’m married now, by the way.”

“What?!” Jason stands up in shock. He clears his throat because some heads turn his way. They are in a public place, after all. A dingy bar, but still public.

“Yeah. Who would’ve thought, huh?” Roy plays with a small lock of his hair as Jason sits back down. 

“It’s… something.” Jason coughs.

Roy pushes his friend slightly, no ill intention there. Jason laughs that laugh of his that leaves Roy stunned. An almost fragile smile graces the redhead’s lips and he can’t help the sigh that escapes him.

Jason swirls his drink, a low quality beer that doesn’t even get the job done, but it’s cheap and it’s alcohol so whatever, “She’s one lucky girl.” He looks straight at the queasy liquid and feels a lump forming in his throat. A tiny one, the one he gets from time to time, at the thought of what his life could have been. He can’t even comfort himself with the idea of another Jason in another world living happily in his stead. He doesn’t believe he is that lucky. Entertaining the thought only brings something close to nostalgia for what has never happened and… well, how would he even begin to explain?

He gets another push from Roy, one that pulls him out of his thoughts. “Hey!” Jason exclaims.

“Look at you assuming!” Roy ruffles Jason’s hair.

Jason pushes Roy’s hands away from his freshly washed hair.

“Who ever said they were a girl? I’ll let you know that I’m the lucky one to have my hubby.” Roy is presenting the most disgustingly precious heart eyes, almost making Jason visibly shudder.

Once Jason gets Roy off him he fixes his hair (not really doing much, but whatever) and downs the rest of his drink. He leaves some money on the table, nodding to the bartender (poor guy was trying to wipe away some stain that was probably never gonna leave that sorry excuse of a bar), who nods back.

“Let’s get out of this shithole.”

“Uh-Uh, okay.” Roy quickly downs his apple juice, cringes, then leaves his own payment on the greasy table.

As they walk down the dark streets of Gotham, Jason looks at the smogged up sky, can almost see the clear moon if he squints.

“How’s he like?”

Roy sighs dreamily, “My life’s been pretty shitty after you ‘died’, but he helped me get better. He is… I wouldn’t know how to explain it, but there is no need for you to worry, Jason. I’m finally at peace, I would say.” Jason’s friend ends on a sadder note and Jason thinks that, perhaps, he thinks of it too, what could have been.

Jason clasps a hand on Roy’s strong arm, “You’re good. That’s what I need to know.” He smiles at the redhead who looks close to genuinely crying. Tears gather in the no longer child’s eyes too, but Jason doesn’t let them fall. Memories are blurred, but some spring up now that he looks Roy in the eyes. If they hug it out and some tears slip, it’s for only them to know.

M/n cooks breakfast for Bruce, Tim and Alfred, as he does every now and again, whenever he stops by the manor. Roy doesn’t complain and, of course, he joins, aiding his hubby with the help he needs. When Bruce tries to keep him at the door, Roy can always use the I’m part of the family now argument.

Speaking of Roy, he’s been behaving strange as of lately. He comes in late and he leaves at the first sign of daylight. If he were anybody else, M/n would suspect cheating or growing back into old habits, but that simply isn’t his Roy. M/n is pretty sure his husband will say something pretty soon. He always slips up. Can’t keep a secret from M/n to save his life.

M/n picks up the plates, balancing them on one hand, the other holding onto his crutch for dear life, and takes six instead of five. He stares for the longest time at the extra plate, then places it back. With the five plates in hand, he heads towards the enormous table (it always seemed bigger than the world when he was younger, just like Bruce), stumbling here and there on the carpet (it’s not that the carpet isn’t neatly placed every time, courtesy of Alfred, but handling everything with one hand is harder than you’d think), and sets it nicely. He has developed a sense of dexterity around the house, even with the setbacks. Alfred smiles proudly at him as the older man brings the pancakes from the kitchen.

“I’ll go get the honey.” Dick and Alfred used to look at M/n with concern when he first started eating honey with his pancakes. After all, Jason expressly used to talk about how it was ‘ultimately the only way he likes pancakes’.

“It’s alright, I got it.” Bruce appears from the kitchen as well, making M/n jump.

“Don’t just sneak up on people, dad!”

Bruce scratches the back of his head, “Sorry, can’t really turn the stealth mode off.” Tim snorts from his spot at the table. The brooding bat is trying to be better, M/n knows this. He can’t help, however, the lingering loneliness he feels whenever he looks at his father too long. It’s not something he can control, really. But dark thoughts must be kept at bay.

Roy makes his way into the room, hands wet from washing them. He walks to M/n and places a kiss on his husband’s cheek, using the diversion as a chance to wipe his wet hands on M/n’s hoodie (that, actually, belongs to Roy). M/n gasps in faux shock, but Roy only laughs and pecks him on the lips.

“Love you.” Roy says cheerily, loud enough for the whole room to hear. Bruce clears his throat, eyes narrowed, hand squeezing on the honey jar.

“Careful not to break that, Master Bruce.” Alfred speaks with an amused glint in his eyes. “How about we all get to the table? Master M/n has made us quite the nice breakfast.” Alfred ushers all of them in their respective places. All on one side of the big table. Bruce at the head, to his right Tim, to his left M/n. Roy is to the left of M/n, and Alfred to the right of Tim. M/n doesn’t escape the images flashing before his mind’s eye: a boy in front of him, not Tim, and he talks like he has the whole world to fill with words and not nearly enough time. Right after, M/n couldn’t bare to see the spot empty and when, two years later, Tim came and filled it himself, M/n couldn’t bear to see it filled by somebody else. M/n swallows hard, yet the lump is still there, pressure in his chest growing steadily. It happens from time to time, the feeling of the world falling around him, the feeling of helplessness from within in regards to the falling. Tears sting his eyes, yet he doesn’t let them fall. He tries to take a bite of his pancakes, oozed in honey, but they get stuck in his throat, choking him. He bends forward for the water glass in front of him. The cold liquid clears his throat and eases the constricted passage.

“Do you ever think of going back?”

Jason stares at the resting figure belonging to a life so far away. The sun is too bright and the flowers pale in comparison to the now man laying in the grass. The manor is as imposing as Jason remembers it — as if through a dream. It’s unreal. And so is the sight of his brother. He looks almost… peaceful. It makes Jason’s stomach churn and twist with he doesn’t know what. Maybe it’s pain or some itch he can’t scratch that goes as deep as his soul. Or maybe it’s longing? His hands shake (they always do, like what the fuck? can’t he just do something without thinking he’s going to fucking burst? get destroyed more than he already is? what even is his fucking life. it’s not even a question anymore. there is no life left. there is nothing. he is nothing. just a pile of bones covered in flesh that should’ve long rotten to dust) and he feels too little on the outside, too much on the inside. He wants to fucking scream! He wants to yell to RAGE AT THE WORLD AND AT THE NEANT and he wants to whisper about everything (about nothing at all) and he wants to have a vanishing act, finally catch up with his end. That is his brother! His brother? Ever since he was able to remember anything at all about his old life, M/n has been there, nagging and pocking and there always there (GOD IF YOU ARE REAL make his un-life make some sort of sense), being the brother he had never been seen as. Conversations that could have been. Conversations that never will be. Jason’s mind is a scrambled mess of scorched and festered brain. He can’t make up half the things he thinks. But, somehow, M/n shines through and it hurts.

He hasn’t seen his home in what feels like an eternity. He has been, in fact, putting it off. It doesn’t even feel like home, just a memory slowly melting into a void in his mind. It’s no lie that Jason half expect his brain to drip out of his ears in his sleep at some point.

“It’s useless, pathetic even, to think of something I can never have. So, yes. I do. I am, in fact, quite useless and pathetic.”

M/n doesn’t notice anything wrong at first, nothing out of common or eye catching. In fact, he would say he doesn’t feel as much of the pressure as he usually does. The world is so big and, really, today it feels like he might be in it too. And it doesn’t occur to him in this moment (perhaps it is that M/n stops it from occurring) that he hasn’t been in it for far too long for that to be true.

Tears don’t—tears don’t exist. They are not real as they fall down his cheeks and he moves his arm to try and stop them. He tries to keep the raptures of his soul from reaping further, he really tries. You have to believe him. M/n really tries to see the world as it is. He just can’t stop himself from seeing it as it should be.

Because he should be here too, seeing the flowers bloom and the sun shining just right, happy and God without those lifeless eyes he sees in his dreams every night (yet in some of his dreams they are so full of life it’s overwhelming; in those dreams Jason is back and he is laughing again and M/n apologizes for everything and things are good; reality often disappoints).

He doesn’t notice the figure creeping up on him, not with his trembling fingers rubbing at his eyes as he slowly and rustily sits up on the grass.

“Get it together, M/n. It’s been over for too long, there is no going back.” M/n sighs his tears away, eventually wiping them with his shirt.

It’s too quite in the garden, even with the occasional chirping of the birds or the buzzing of the busy bees, thus he hears the voice well enough to know it’s not the wind.

“What’s been over?”

M/n’ head snaps up so fast he gets a bit dizzy. The sun casts the man in front of his eyes in a gentle light, and he is so tall as he approaches that he casts M/n in a slight shadow. M/n stares at the man, confused. How did he get here?

“E-Excuse me…?” M/n squints up at the man and can barely distinguish some of his features. Dark hair with a white streak that softens his face. “You’re not supposed to be here.”

The man… smiles?

“Yeah… I’m not.” There is a certain nuance to his voice, a note of… sadness.

M/n doesn’t no why, but he feels warm in the presence of this person, and it’s not just the sun, “Do I know you?” M/n asks before he can stop himself.

M/n have the chance to say anything more as the man slowly crouches to his eye level, a cace illuminated in the sun, blue eyes with specs of green.

It’s immediate, instant and shattering— the recognition. It doesn’t take anything more than looking into those eyes, the eyes he sees in his sleep, the eyes that haunt the corners of his mind and hide in the shadow of every memory.

M/n makes a sharp intake of breath, involuntary and too sudden. He doesn’t what he is doing, his actions uncontrolled. He raises his hands to the cheeks of the man in front of him, the man who seems as stuck in place as M/n. M/n rubs softly at the skin, not sure if it belongs to the physical world.

“…Jason?” His voice barely reaches a whisper, quite to his own ears. He smiles through the stinging in his eyes, then shakes his head, “No… this is my dream… always my dream.”

There is conflict in his Jason’s eyes, something M/n can’t figure out, something he’ll never know.

It is a dream because reality is never this kind. He spends moments staring at his Jason’s features, taking them in, admiring the handsome face that could have been if the little boy from back then had been give a chance. When M/n speaks again, he’s already lived a thousand realities in his mind.

“Why do I wake up every time? It’s always better here, with you, than back there where everybody expects me to be real…” A lone tear drips down M/n’s cheek. “You are always quiet in my dreams. So strange…”

“What’s been over?” His Jason repeats, slightly startling him, and he looks at M/n with the same lack of resolve M/n feels. His Jason looks as close to the end as M/n feels. His Jason looks like a requiem to M/n’s final dream of life.

“I always try to tell you, but I never quite get the chance… How,” He looks deep into the apparition’s eyes, the windows to his Jason’s soul, “How much I regret not listening to you.”

His Jason tenses under his hands. His eyes look conflicted again, shadowed by feelings M/n can hardly recognize as a reflection of his own soul. The man brings his hands up to M/n’s own and takes them away from his cheeks, envelops them in the soft skin that feels too real.

“You just wanted me to listen to you, to hear you, right?” M/n tries to keep his smile on his face, but his muscles are heavy with grief and it’s too hard, “I couldn’t see beyond the thought that you were there to replace me because I was defected.” He slips one of his hands from his Jason’s. M/n place it at the back of the man’s neck, running his fingers through the fluffy hair there. His Jason latches his now free hand to M/n’s forearm, holding it tight.

“I miss you.”

Tears gather in Jason’s eyes and his lower lip trembles. He hasn’t cried in so long and, so sudden, he cries twice in a week. He tries to keep it in by biting his lower lip, but the sob, however muffled, still escapes the confines of his soul.

He wants to scream ‘I’m real! I’m here, stop crying, please! You are my brother, even though I thought you’ve hated me when I was alive!’ But he can’t bring himself to talk, he can’t bring himself to say anything as more quiet sobs escape his bitten lips.

“You feels so real…” M/n looks up at him with bigger eyes than the world, with an inner peace one would only have in the happiest of dreams, pain seeping in at the edges. Is this a dream? It might be a dream. Jason always thinks he’ll wake up to stare at the inside of a coffin, six feet under. “But you always feel real. You always feel so real, and I always wish I weren’t. Maybe if I weren’t, you’d still be here.” A sob finally escapes his brother’s lips as well, pain winning over. “Maybe, then, everything would be alright again… You know, for the longest time dad couldn’t even look me in the eyes. You meant the world to him, you still do.”

Jason lets go of his lower lip and lets the sobs free, not able to hold back anymore. He feels like a child again. He didn’t get to be a child, didn’t get to cry and to be held and he feels rage because he wants it, he wants it so bad.

Jason wants to have the warmth of his childhood, not just some half assed memories of good for nothing parents who left him and closer memories—a big brother who has the biggest smile, another brother who looks at him like his world is smaller just for Jason’s existence (not knowing that, to Jason, M/n was the one who made the world bigger), a butler who always knows what to say and a father who gives him something his real parents could never.

All the rage he felt, all the rage he kept inside himself for years after being brought back to a world that he no longer belonged in was being brought forth and he felt like a child. His dad never avenged him, his killer is still out there, but how can he hate the man that loved him so much Jason felt like the whole world was his? How can he possibly understand what that man thought and felt? His brother, whom Jason always thought hated him with everything in his soul, is here in front of him, talking about Jason like Jason is M/n’s entire world, like he wishes he was dead instead.

Why did Jason die? Why did Jason have to die?

The little boy in him, the little boy that cries and cries and hasn’t stopped crying, needs Jason to let go of his rage. But how can he do that? How could he ever do that?

Jason looks down towards M/n’s hand that is still in his grasp and squeezes it to his cheek as Jason leans forward to M/n’s chest. He falls to the ground and, even with his body being larger than his brother’s, he feels so small and on the verge breaking.

“Why did I die?” M/n frees his arms and wraps them around Jason’s shivering form. “Why did I have to die?” Jason closes his eyes and feels the warmth of his brother’s body. His body is rotting around him and the world doesn’t feel real, but the brother who had never wanted him feels the realest anyone ever has.

Jason realizes M/n is shaking as well. “I don’t know. I’m sorry it had to be you,” M/n squeezes Jason tighter, leaning into him as if wanting to keep him away from the world. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry it was you.”

Why is M/n talking like Jason isn’t real? This is real life, right? If this is a dream and Jason has to wake up again after this, he doesn’t think he’ll live. He won’t make it.

“I’m real, M/n, please believe me, I’m real” Jason rubs his face into M/n’s shirt, staining it even more with his tears, “I’m real, I’m real, please I’m real” Jason repeats it like a prayer, he is praying to the God that has abandoned him, praying because he wants it so badly to be real. Because he doesn’t feel real. Not anymore.

“I’m scared that soon there might be nothing left for you to miss.”

@tkiesai

Part 1:

Tumblr

Why won’t you speak?

“As I am standing over your dead, rotting body, I wonder: are you cold?” Story: between Dick and Jason, Bruce adopts another hurt boy. M/n