Awake (Batman : Jason [PG] - Robin Month)
Fandom: Batman
Title: Awake
Characters: Jason Todd
Rating: PG
Word Count: 496
Summary: Jason wakes up.
Notes: prompt #87 - Life for fanfic100 Table | Day four of the Week of Jason Todd, which is part of Robin Month!
His eyes shoot open.
It’s dark.
Awake.
He takes a shuddering deep breath, the air so stale it gags him.
Breathe.
His body jerks, but he’s enclosed. The space is confining. Dark. Stale. Terrifying.
Move.
He jerks as hard as he can at every piece of wood near him. His body works. He can breathe, but the air is so bad and he’s trapped. He kicks at the end of the box he’s in and it creaks. He feels the soft velvet supporting him and has a horrifying, sudden realization that is the only thing that fits in the blank space that’s his mind.
He’s in his coffin. Like a horrible Poe story, he’s under the ground, trapped in a box. But he’s breathing.
And the air is so bad.
He makes himself breathe through his mouth and kicks the edge of the box, cracking through the wood. It’s all dirt, but it’s an opening and the dirt is soft and he’s-he’s older. He can’t figure out why or how he knows that, just that the little stale air he has is running out so he has to move. He has to pull himself down towards the hole he made, ignoring the tiny red flashing light above his head that’s only showing a body and place he doesn’t recognize.
His body is completely compressed in the dirt and he tries to twist when he’s shoulder deep in the box taking as much of the stale air as he can before pushing himself all the way out.
The climb is unending. Like being in soft, heavy water and having no leverage up. He won’t float to the top here. He needs to climb, to grab at any root, weed, any leverage he can gain until-his hand erupts from the dirt, grabbing onto the harder ground. Soft grass, wet underneath his fingers, blissfully able to hold his weight as he pulls the rest of his body up and out of the ground.
He collapses on the ground, breathing in the fresh sweet air and letting it fill his burning lungs. His eyes are stinging from the dirt and his muscles feel new, fresher than they should, but he’s so tired from the climb so all he can do is lift himself up to sitting and stare at the stone in front of him.
It doesn’t come back right away. It doesn’t come back until much later.
But reading Jason Todd on the gravestone feels all at once right and so very wrong.
When he… when Jason finally gets the strength to stand on limbs that feel so unfamiliar, he lumbers towards whatever he can find. Somehow home doesn’t come to mind. The word is clear in his head, perfect and crystalline, but the concept… escapes him.
Jason moves, dirty, different, and all alone. Finally used to being awake, breathing, moving, being alive - that he can feel bad about being so alone and not knowing why.
Alive.
Title: Awake
Characters: Jason Todd
Rating: PG
Word Count: 496
Summary: Jason wakes up.
Notes: prompt #87 - Life for fanfic100 Table | Day four of the Week of Jason Todd, which is part of Robin Month!
His eyes shoot open.
It’s dark.
Awake.
He takes a shuddering deep breath, the air so stale it gags him.
Breathe.
His body jerks, but he’s enclosed. The space is confining. Dark. Stale. Terrifying.
Move.
He jerks as hard as he can at every piece of wood near him. His body works. He can breathe, but the air is so bad and he’s trapped. He kicks at the end of the box he’s in and it creaks. He feels the soft velvet supporting him and has a horrifying, sudden realization that is the only thing that fits in the blank space that’s his mind.
He’s in his coffin. Like a horrible Poe story, he’s under the ground, trapped in a box. But he’s breathing.
And the air is so bad.
He makes himself breathe through his mouth and kicks the edge of the box, cracking through the wood. It’s all dirt, but it’s an opening and the dirt is soft and he’s-he’s older. He can’t figure out why or how he knows that, just that the little stale air he has is running out so he has to move. He has to pull himself down towards the hole he made, ignoring the tiny red flashing light above his head that’s only showing a body and place he doesn’t recognize.
His body is completely compressed in the dirt and he tries to twist when he’s shoulder deep in the box taking as much of the stale air as he can before pushing himself all the way out.
The climb is unending. Like being in soft, heavy water and having no leverage up. He won’t float to the top here. He needs to climb, to grab at any root, weed, any leverage he can gain until-his hand erupts from the dirt, grabbing onto the harder ground. Soft grass, wet underneath his fingers, blissfully able to hold his weight as he pulls the rest of his body up and out of the ground.
He collapses on the ground, breathing in the fresh sweet air and letting it fill his burning lungs. His eyes are stinging from the dirt and his muscles feel new, fresher than they should, but he’s so tired from the climb so all he can do is lift himself up to sitting and stare at the stone in front of him.
It doesn’t come back right away. It doesn’t come back until much later.
But reading Jason Todd on the gravestone feels all at once right and so very wrong.
When he… when Jason finally gets the strength to stand on limbs that feel so unfamiliar, he lumbers towards whatever he can find. Somehow home doesn’t come to mind. The word is clear in his head, perfect and crystalline, but the concept… escapes him.
Jason moves, dirty, different, and all alone. Finally used to being awake, breathing, moving, being alive - that he can feel bad about being so alone and not knowing why.
Alive.