[Dream, week 27, day 2]
Your body is broken, ribs shattered, shards of bones puncturing organs, making a mess of your insides, torn up, destroyed. Blood would have been bubbling over your lips, spilling out of mouth if you had been breathing. Instead, there is just an old residue of it smeared over your split open mouth, past violence layered over violence.
You’re dead, and you know this, but you know that he’s coming, he’s coming for you soon, you can hear his racing footsteps, crunching through the rubble, and then he’s going to find you, and cradle you against his chest, his arms trembling, head bowed over your broken body.
You see his boots first, your glazed eyes having trouble focusing, tracking. But it’s coming now, he’s going to pick you up, going to hold you against his chest, and for a moment, you can pretend that it’s okay. Because that’s how this dream goes, and that’s why you crave it.
His hands are big and you can feel them trembling, hesitant to touch you, but they do, they always do, and finally, there it is, just that gentle brush of his searing hot, calloused fingertips against your cheek, his gauntlets pulled away, and the contact sends a thrill through you, so close, like every other touch he’s ever bestowed upon, every single one treasured. They slide underneath you, and pick you up like a child, and cradle you, holding you close enough to hear the panicked beating of his heart, throbbing in a frantic pace, filling your head,
But its okay now. Because now you’re safe, because you’re dead, and there’s nothing else that can happen to you.
[Jason wakes slowly from this dream, he always does. His hands drift over his face, stroking lightly over his cheeks, before pressing lightly over his eyes. He knows that he shouldn’t dwell on it, that it’s weak, that it’s not that fucking simple. It never was that simple, ever. He lets out a harsh laugh, the lingering softness on his face suddenly banished as he sits up.]
Of course, the only fucking time it’d be simple with him was when I was dead. [Hunches over, pulling his knees in close, forehead resting on them. Voice lowers, and he’s just murmuring to himself.] And now you’re dead.
I wonder if someone held you.
[He’s hadn’t had that dream since Bruce had died, and he hunches in closer, grasping tighter at his legs, fingers digging into his shins.
He doesn’t realize he’s crying until the tears are streaming down his cheeks.]