sleep, pt. i [dick/damian]
The reception on my last story was so great! ;A; You guys are all awesome, and I couldn’t resist coming back for you guys, even though three of my fingers are bandaged. I started writing this one before bed again, so I hope it lives up to the standards of the last one! :3 This one is ridiculously long, so hope it holds your interest! :3
Title: Sleep [Part I]
Warnings: Cursing, Implied Sex
Rating: 16+
Word Count: 12,355
Characters/Pairings: Dick Grayson, Damian Wayne, Jason Todd, Ra's Al Ghul, Talia, Bruce Wayne, etc. Dick/Damian, mostly, Dick/Jason, for like, a second.
Summary: Sleeping is something that most in Gotham City take for granted. However, Dick and Damian relate a lot to the sacred act of sleeping, as it isn't something they get much of. It helps to sleep with someone next to you, someone special, and when they're gone, it's almost impossible to remember what it's like to sleep without them again.
★
He’d forgotten how difficult it was to sleep.
Tossing, turning, he felt age and the weariness heavy on his bones in the awkward dusk of two in the morning. In his grasp, only the body-heated sheets comforted him, and things were simply unpleasant as far as sleep went. Exhausted electric blues brushed open like the fragile wings of a butterfly, and he wished he could have remembered dreams, and the happy relief that came with them.
Six months. A long time in theory, but a short time in retrospect. Just as much as he’d felt as though it had been years since summer had been there in Gotham, he’d felt like he’d blinked and already it was winter. It was a hell of his own making, this silence, and in the darkness, his cracked lips only let one name fall from them.
“Damian,” He practically wept to the empty room, his eyes glossy with the promise of tears. Where did it all go wrong?
. . .
The rooftops of Gotham were rancid and filthy at the best of times, so considering their surroundings, it was a lovely evening in the city of slime.
“Can’t you just…feel it?” The man reaches his hands out, letting the billowing, familiar cape flap dimly in the stale air, an odd sort of smile on his face. “Tonight is going to be…different.”
The youth rolls his eyes a bit, almost embarrassed to be seen with him. “Grayson, you’re acting like a child.”
As if to further his point, the man stuck out his tongue at the boy, who merely crossed his arms defiantly on his chest, retreating into his hood with a dark mutter, one that the man only rolled his eyes at. “You could stand to act a bit more like one, you know.”
“It’s a futile endeavor, and the pursuit of idle tendencies is beneath the honor of the Al Ghuls and the Waynes. Better luck next time.” Damian is all snoot and snark, but despite all the odds, he had taken a liking to some of his mentor’s brand of quirky humor, albeit with a darker, more sarcastic twist than the man. His smirk is a shadowy sort of look, but Dick doesn’t seem to mind, judging by the typical amount of theatrics he produces that evening, and the smiles beneath the shadow of the cowl to match. “Besides, why allow you the pleasure? You seem to be enjoying yourself enough for the both of us.”
He shrugs. “Sometimes, it’s just better to let loose.” Broad shoulders and that model’s smile confuse the boy, as shown by his furrowed brow. How can he be so much like his own father, and yet so little? The man is a mystery, one he refuses to admit that he wants to uncover, but this night, so horrible, so terribly different from any other, brings a moment of reverie that will not soon be forgotten for the both of them. The fog in Gotham is particularly thick in the fall, thanks to the humidity, and both Dick and Damian could’ve choked in its presence as it began to float in, but it was like an old friend to them. Its tendrils reached out tenderly, sucking in whomever was brave enough to set foot in her world, and it was an evening both of them would have preferred to hang their capes and stay inside, but the city was restless, and it was a full moon. A time when crime, as well as passionate acts of other sorts, were engaged.
This night, however, brought an onslaught no one had been prepared for-not Dick, or Damian, or Stephanie, or Tim, or anyone else, really. Ra’s had never really given up on his pursuit of his grandson’s body, and the century of ninjas and man-bats coming their way at high speed with little to no warning (the few moments they’d had were courtesy of Babs) put both of them especially on edge, and it was a time they’d never felt more thankful for Bruce, who had swept in and handled his old foe like he was putty in his hands. His sons, adopted or otherwise, were left in shambles, and Damian was left shaken, his grandfather’s relentless mind control leaving a shock in his body and soul. They’d gone back to the cave even before midnight, a record by normal standards, and in its damp clutches, they were safe from predators, but equally subject to illness thanks to the surrounding facilities. Luckily, their butler had been close at hand, there to ease the boy’s, and the man’s, pains. His eldest master had decided to ensure that Ra’s was removed from the country for some time, and wouldn’t be joining them, and the hurt look in Dick’s eyes almost made him stay, but he couldn’t. Bruce had a job to do.
The boy had spent nearly three hours in agonizing pain, all of the time spent with the blue-eyed man in the room next to him, pacing, flipping, doing anything to ease his anxiety. He clutched Damian’s hand like a precious object, or a stress ball, and ran his fingers across the youth’s hairline more than three times, assuring himself that the healthy sheen in his hair meant he was alright.
Finally, just as the man had been ready to reach for that familiar hand once more, those icy blue-gray eyes flew upon, and he came to life as though he’d been a recharging computer. His eyes roamed around wildly, sucking in the surroundings.
“Cave?” Dick nodded with an inward sigh of relief. No brain damage, thank god. He didn’t know what he would have done without his partner, or his backsass. “I feel like I got slammed in the head with a shit-ton of bricks.”
“You did, actually,” Because he was hurt, the man didn’t bother nagging him about his language, and he murmured the words with a little half-smile. “Somebody tried to knock you out that way at first, before Ra’s got there and finished the job himself.”
He frowned, a deeply troubled sort of thing. Typically, the boy had nothing against his maternal grandfather, although he and his mother had been key factors in separating him from his birth father and going so far as to cause his demise. But then, his grandfather and his mother pulled stunts like this, and he couldn’t forgive them quite as easily as he’d wanted to. Dick understood his turbulent emotions, and he almost immediately tried to swallow his words, cursing the fact that his mouth worked faster than his mind. Seeing his concerns, the youth only shook his head. “It’s fine.” His gray-blue eyes are glassy and stubborn, with their definitively royal glean a bit dulled by his thoughts. “I knew they’d come back to try something again. Don’t kill yourself over trite issues, Grayson.” Although they’re supposed to be words of forgiveness, they are deliberately as sharp as everything else the boy says, and his mentor chuckles a bit at his efforts to be nice.
“Alright, little D,” The name makes his nose crinkle, and Damian looks positively livid at this nickname, a natural disgust written all over his face this time. The aerialist’s hands almost reach for the boy’s, but instead they fall to his sides and he smiles sheepishly. “Well,” He murmurs, blue eyes connecting with the youth’s icy, indifferent look. “Good night.”
His steps are feather light as he slips away, and Damian continues to search his retreating form with his heavy eyes. When he’s only centimeters from stepping into the elevator’s doors, he calls out, voice raspy from dryness and the day’s activities. “Wait,” Dick swirls around like he’s been slapped in the face, and all of the sudden, he’s blinking sleep from his eyes, feeling as though he’s in a haze. “No one said you were finished.”
“I…” He begins to say that there was nothing left to do but wait for the boy to heal, but even from this distance, he can see the heavily guarded plea in the boy’s eyes, so he smiles softly and comes back. “Okay.”
Dick patters back with a thinly veiled limp, and as he reaches Damian, he sees that familiar scowl and glare, and he just can’t stop smiling. “Don’t look so damn happy about it. Tt, damn weirdo.”
Rough hands hold those clammy, small, and almost shaking hands, their comfort and warmth soothing and welcome, although he would never say thank you. The man begins to croon a soft, almost heartbreaking song that his mother had whispered to him long ago, her voice a soft dulcet in his childish ears. Singing it reminded him of the circus, of happier times with Bruce, but it also brought a flush of dark moments, memories of injuries, and aches, and sweating, thrashing terribly in the older man’s stronghold. “There was a boy,” The notes hung long and soft, and he let his chin fall until his lips were only a whisper away from Damian’s arm, close enough for his eyelashes to ghost across bony wrists, and to see the gooseflesh rise on the boy’s arm as he sang, low tones rumbling through his own chest and the boy’s body. “A very strange, enchanted boy,” In his mind, he’d remembered this tune, slow, fast, echoed by bangs of circus drums and droll clips of funerals past. Many of his memories before and after Bruce rang with this song. “They say he wondered verrrry faaaar…verrrry faaaar…over land and seeeeea,” Damian hung on every syllable, entranced. He’d a beautiful voice. One of his many talents, it seemed, and although both of them were exhausted, neither of them could look away from each other, rather it was Dick from his position just moments from Damian, or Damian, who almost let his arm press up so that his fingers would touch his mentor’s lips. “A little shy…and sad of eye. But very wise was he…” The boy let his eyes fall shut once, and he almost saw a young Grayson flash before him, upon the trapeze, and as the words took a turn for something darker, the fall he’d read and researched so much about, but had never been able to imagine. “And then one day…one magic day, he passed my waaaaaaay. While we spoke of many things…fools and kings…this he said to me.” Dick looked up, his voice trailing into a rasp that threatened tears, lost in his thoughts and almost forgetting whom he was crooning to. “The greatest thing…you’ll ever learn…is just to love…” His blue eyes went back and forth, back and forth, distraught. “And be loved…in return,” He whispered and wiped away a tear with a short sniffle, smiling tiredly up at Damian, who felt estranged from him.
Finally, his small hand and Grayson’s face met, those fluttering, moist eyelashes flicked against his tanned skin, and after many minutes of silence, he spoke. “Grayson…”
He only shook his head and held that arm like a lifeline. “I just…it happens every so often. I’ll be fine.”
It was a lie, but Damian didn’t mind. He’d known for some time that the man had a problem, and he’d suspected this, but it was still strange to see him look so…so broken. To think that the great Dick Grayson’s fatal flaw was his inability to sleep. He would not let the shared secret go free, and he grasped back when those rough fingers ran over his cold hands. “I’m not going anywhere,” The boy said strongly, sounding more like himself than he had in hours.
Dick only whispered a thank you and let his eyes close.
. . .
The summer of his thirteenth birthday was filled with lots of noises, and odd occurrences. The joyous occasion was supposed to have been fun, with guests near his own age, like Kara, and Colin, and the Titans, and his own “family” gathered. They raised a toast near the end of the evening, after the youth had opened his presents and cut his cake, to their oldest, fallen comrade, Alfred Pennyworth. The unspoken anguish washed over all of them, but most heavily over Dick and Damian, who had nearly fallen to pieces without him, but they were starting to rediscover the place without him, and learning how to cook and clean were among the other dozens of things he handled before his death. But for the most part, Damian had behaved, acted civil, and hadn’t killed anyone.
There had, of course, been a brief stint of him versus Drake, as per usual, but it ended up in a row rather than a brawl, thank goodness, because neither Bruce nor Dick were in the mood to break it up. Unexpectedly, they’d had a certain vigilante drop off a present somewhere during the time when they’d gone from the cave to the mansion, and although Damian was thankful, the fact that he’d gotten so close worried the two oldest in the room more than anything else, but today was a celebration.
After the festivities, Dick and Damian were left in the manor to clean the mess, and they’d separated to get to sleep, the youth with the bags and boxes from his evening in tow, eager to use some of the weapons he’d gotten (it was a gun from Jason, of course), new outfits (from Drake, Ugh, and his father, which pleased him, although he’d acted snooty about them), and the party and food, courtesy of his favorite of the group, his caretaker. Both Kara and Stephanie remarked on his closeness with the man he’d sworn up and down he hated, and even Colin had sheepishly chipped in with them, but now they were gone, and he breathed easier, without all their questions breathing down his neck.
Once he’s put everything away, he plays his part. He puts on his pajamas after a shower and bids Grayson adieu once more. But secretly, under the moon’s light, he slips out of the room in the manor and goes into the shadows, like he was taught long ago. His short-sword is in its hilt on his belt, a comfortable distance away, and he runs posthaste to where he instinctively knows that they are, on the edges of the city he has come to call home. It’s been some time, and although some part of him will always be with his father and Grayson, it is equally true that some part of him will always be an assassin-an Al Ghul.
His cape billows around him silently, and he greets them almost stiffly. “Grandfather,” He bows his head a little, his masked blue eyes both curious and hateful, still holding a grudge on the man for the many times he has attempted to steal his body and possess it for himself. “Ma-” He starts to say ‘Mama’, as was his custom before he’d been disowned, removed, even, from their family. “Mother,” He swallows the affection and stands sharply.
“Are you willing to return to us?” His grandfather’s clipped tones are sharp and crisp, and had he been younger, he might have even shivered, but he holds no fear now. He sees his mother almost smirking nearby, as though she knows the answer, and is merely waiting to prove her father wrong.
“No,” His voice is natural, and there isn’t a hint of pleasantries in it this time. It’s natural, and it’s Damian, and Grayson’s the only one who might’ve understood that right now, but he didn’t care. Chest out, head high, he looked both of them right in the face. “I will not return to the Al Ghuls.” Now, his hands burn with the strict doling of justice, a learned thing, and his mother laughs a little, a bitter, deep thing, but she had been right, it seemed.
“Father, stop this foolishness,” Talia holds up a hand and tosses a dirty rucksack at her son. “Today is a day of celebration. Is it not our culture that boys become men at this age?” She nods at him, giving him permission to heave it from the dirt and inspect its contents. He does so, and wretchedly tosses the thing back to the ground, a disgusted snarl on his lips. Her lips turn up in a mad sort of smile. “Two heads, Damian, love. One of a snake, and one of a man. Had you decided to stay with me, you would have first killed both that man and that snake, and then drunk the blood from both of their necks, to show that you are more powerful than a man, and more poisonous than a snake. But since you’ve decided to stay with your circus boy, I figured I’d at least make it easy for you. A ritual is a ritual, distanced from me, or not.”
His blue gaze is piercing and she almost shudders in joy at how very much he is like his father. “You shut the hell up about him. And take your damn heads. I’m not yours, and you don’t give me orders.”
“But the foolish boy does?” Talia snarls, and her father places a hand on her shoulder to hold her back, as though they had both promised to make no moves on him today. She turns away and looks infuriated. “You need to come home. I have to fix your organs, and make sure you’re in prime condition. If you’d stayed with me, you wouldn’t have even needed to worry about injuries. I could have kept you flawless.” The words are like acid, but Damian doesn’t buckle under their intimidation. “But instead you’ve grown soft with your circus boy.”
“You shut your mouth,” He says in a dangerously low voice, and his mother and grandfather are impressed.
“I-” She starts to speak ill of him again with that same mad smile, but her father intercepts.
“Talia,” Ra’s Al Ghul gives his grandson a strange sort of approving, and yet determined look. “You do not come into the matters of men. Your son is a man now, you’ve said so yourself, and he has made up his mind.” Damian doesn’t like his approval, and shows such with his scowl, but he is thankful for his grandfather’s words. “Leave us. I only have one thing to say to the boy, and I shall take my leave.”
Her gaze lingers, almost as if she’s worried that her father will strike, but neither Ra’s nor Damian look fazed by each other, so she slips back into the shadows, taking her band of men with her.
Dark eyes roam hidden blues, and finally he speaks again. “Do not let yourself go fully into their charms, as did my daughter for a time.” Ra’s words are powerful, but Damian says nothing in return, only continues to look as surly as always. “You are an Al Ghul, in blood if nothing else, and one day, you too will see things our way.” With that, he disappears and leaves the youth.
Staring at the rucksack which still lie there, Damian contemplated for only moments before running back towards the city and eventually towards the manor.
Once he’s inside its familiar parameters, he lets his shoulders stop clenching, and he prowls into the kitchen unabashedly, almost unsurprised to see his figure nearby on the couch. “Worried?”
“No,” His voice comes back quietly, a smile almost in his words. “I knew you’d be back.”
Damian scrunches up his nose in slight annoyance that he’d been detected in the first place, but shortly got over that. He plops on the couch near his mentor’s blanketed behind and sits quietly until his breaths are even again, and lets out a long sigh.
“How’s the family?” Dick ventures at the dark subject the same way he does everything else, with humor.
The youth rolls his eyes and picks up the remote, turning the television on and flipping through channels. “Same as always, which is to say, fucking insane.”
The man laughs a little bit, and the sound reverberates through the furniture. “What happened this time?”
“A head,” He rolls his eyes at the audacity of it all, disgusted all over again. “She gave me a fucking head, Grayson,” He’s retelling the story, all cold fury and none of the hand motions which the acrobat would have used. As he peels off the mask, his blue eyes are icy and Dick can only laugh again. “She said, Drink the blood, Damian! It’s an al Ghul rite of passage, or some other bullshit.”
A burst of laughter from the cheerier of the two makes Damian almost smile, his little smirk thing he did when he was amused. “Same old Talia. And how’s tall, dark, and undead?”
“Still after my body, and still trying to convince me to come to the dark side, full of immortality, and fucking man-bats,” He snarls, rousing his partner into giggles again. “I fucking hate bats. You know, for a bunch of people who want me back, they’re sure not doing a whole lot to win my favor.”
Dick almost rolls his eyes out loud, however that would have been possible. “Damian, you live with Batman. We have a cave of them under our home.”
The moody boy puts his chin on his fist and flips channels with the other and. “It’s not the same.” The acrobat looks over at him and says nothing, only smiles a bit, feeling comfortable.
Soon enough, the television’s lights fall on them, and they try to sleep, the elder of the two actually tired enough for it now, but the youth was restless.
“Grayson,” He murmurs like it is the first time, and the man understands their unspoken communication. “I can’t sleep.”
A smile, and he reaches for the youth’s cold hands. His lips part despite his exhaustion, and he sings.
“There was a boy…”
. . .
Somewhere along the lines of the boy’s seventeenth summer, things had gotten dodgy and dangerous. A line had been crossed, and back-crossed, and they were playing with how far this could go, but certainly, this night had been the beginning of many firsts.
“Grayson,” His figure wasn’t tall, or even imposing. He almost looked lost, as though he’d wandered in, half-asleep, and on the brink of tears, a strange sort of expression for him. Dick is unsure of what to do, so he rolls over, and he lifts up the covers, and he holds him close. “I can’t sleep.”
It doesn’t sound like an excuse-not at all. Then, with a start, Dick’s heart almost stops. The boy had nearly killed Colin, trying to get him to calm down and not kill anyone else. That feeling, being only hairs away from killing someone you cared about must not have been pleasant, and Dick’s warm, encompassing grasp was a familiarity, and it came with his voice, the low murmur of Nature Boy lulling him to sleep.
But even after days had passed, Dick had stopped minding the other body. In fact, it was starting to help him get to sleep. Damian is something he can count on, someone who isn’t going anywhere. A lifeline. A security blanket. He crawls in nearly every evening now, as a matter of habit, and the man doesn’t mind. It’s nice having someone to sleep with in the lonely, bitter hours.
And then, this night, something just…changes. As always, Damian comes in his pajamas, or black boxer-briefs and a body-molding gray shirt that had black triangles on its sleeves. His tan skin was striking in this evening’s moonlight, and Dick felt his throat go dry. He could see the muscles in his arms and legs, and those glinting blue-gray eyes peering at him, and he knew too that he was nothing too shabby to look at either, clad in dark blue speedos and an electric blue tank-top that only glanced his midriff. “Grayson,” Damian breathes lowly, and it isn’t a slightly eerie tone, like usual, like he’s unsure, like he’s terrified of himself. It’s all sultry, and there’s no other way to take it. “I can’t sleep.”
Dick tosses the blanket off and Damian falls nearly on top of him, a flurry of kisses and tongues and grabbing at each other, tearing off what little garments they were wearing caught on like a match had been lit beneath them.
Somewhere in the flush of the moment, Dick breathes against the teenager’s skin, dark black lashes fluttering against his marred skin. “Why?”
Damian shrugs as best as he can through a pleased shudder. “I don’t know.”
The answer is enough for now, and the man is fast upon him as though the moment had never happened.
. . .
It isn’t every night that such things take place. Oftentimes, Damian simply does come to his room to press his warmth against the man and breath in his light, airy smell, listening to the hum of his voice until he falls asleep. Dick is happy with this, for a time, but there comes a point when he starts to grow concerned.
One morning, it all just hits him. He relies on Damian. Of course, he’s always known this, as they are crime-fighting partners, and one must rely on their partner in order to get anything done. But he has tried times to sleep when the boy leaves, perhaps for a day, or maybe for a week, and he cannot. He worries when he isn’t there, and cooks breakfast for two as though it is nothing more than protocol. Damian comes down and huffs at his amateur cooking technique, but digs in as though it is a four-star meal, eating with dignity and refinement, that same old scowl in place. He looks for his face in the darkness, knowing that he will be there, and when he isn’t, his heart races.
Almost dropping his coffee, he’s realized. With a dark, sick look, he swallows hard.
No. His hands are shaking, and he wills it to stop with his heart in his throat. I’m not like Bruce. It won’t be like that. But in the back of his mind, that voice that he cannot label as anyone else’s plagues him like a virus.
Day after day following his realization, the sick dread in his stomach keeps nagging at him to end such a beautiful thing. He’s never felt so at peace, so warm, so…complete with anyone, other than with Bruce, as a boy, or with Kory, as a youth, and Barbara, in his young adulthood. It’s been a reasonably long time, and he yearns, burns, for such a relationship to happen again. But, also understandably, he’s donned the cowl, and with it comes a whole new level of responsibilities he hadn’t had before, one of which includes Damian.
Then, one morning, he’s stayed up, despite Damian’s sleeping beside him the whole time. Sensing that something is amiss, the youth’s scowl is harder than usual.
“Grayson?” He almost wonders if this has anything to do with his claims to become Batman yesterday evening in the gist of a joke, or at least, what he’d considered to be humorous, and had brought a half-chuckle from his mentor. “What?”
The words hurt him, and the pain is reflected in his almost physically injured blue eyes. “We have to stop this.” Damian is taken aback, and that scowl is a full-blown frown, complete with angry, furrowed brows. “Someone will have to donn the cowl for a while, and for that, I am genuinely apologetic. You’re too young, but I…” He swallows hard and sad, and he thinks he’s going to throw up for half a second. “I have to go.”
“What?!” He snarls, grabbing Dick by the shoulders and almost terrifying him in his fragile state. “The fuck are you on about, Grayson? You in one of your nancy moods where you like to play games? You can’t just leave your post! You can’t just leave…” He trails off, wanting to say me, but balling his fists next to him instead and he picks back up. “You give me one good reason why, and it’d better be fucking good.”
“I don’t know,” He echoes, and Damian looks like he’d been punched in the face by that sorrowful face and the shake of his head, which jumbled the thick, dark tresses. “I just…don’t know.” Dick kisses him one last time, and then takes for the window with a spare grappling hook he’d grabbed from the nightstand, leaping away into the night.
Almost lost, Damian kicks that same nightstand in a fury and stares out of the window, glaring as though it would bring him back.
. . .
He tries to breathe in her scent, and it feels like both a dream and a nightmare. It’s been so long-almost too long, she breathes, half-infuriated and half-amused. He’s trying to sleep within her tangled webs of ginger tresses, and no amount of tossing amongst its familiar scent tempts him to the world of dreams. Dick is restless, and he grabs for her like a child, which she accepts, but she feels both good and sorry for him.
“Dick,” She whispers tenderly, sorry that she has fallen to his whims yet again, and yet not sorry at all that she has given in to her feelings. “You’re falling apart.” Sobs wrack his body audibly and she can see the tears he’s holding back. She lets his face fall within her warm, unclothed chest and simply breathes, as if to assure him that she’s there. “Now then,” Kory starts slowly, her green eyes patient. “What’s happened to you?”
He opens his mouth and closes, his lips cracked and broken, much like the expression in those lost blue eyes. “I don’t know,” He breathes, exhausted. “I can’t explain it. I don’t know.”
Kory runs her hands through his wavy curls and tries to hum the tune he’d sung to her so many times so long ago, but that seemed to only bring more tears, so she merely rubbed circles across his back and ran her hands through his hair.
This wasn’t her Dick.
. . .
Without a word of explanation to the red-haired boy, the raven stalked in, his shoulders tensed. Colin had only moved to see him slam the door open, and was almost unfazed as his friend walked right up and punched him square in the chin, making him stumble back a bit, at least in shock. Glaring up at the other youth furiously, his green eyes are wounded and he leaps into a grapple with the slighter, but equally as strong teenager.
In a situation like this, their fighting is closer than any form of sexual relationship, and they bond like only friends could have, communicating with every connection to the other’s flesh, with every pearl of sweat that gleaned on their chests. After about five minutes of experienced brawling, Damian had gotten frustrated with trying to hold back, so he pulled out all the stops, knives, gadgets, and all, so the orphan had been forced to call forth some of his prowess, his increasing strength, grip, and bulk parrying against the slight of Damian’s lithe body and his sharp daggers.
Almost twenty minutes had passed between them, the two of them saying nothing at all, save for their staggered breaths, the slap of fist against skin, or the squelching noise it made when they either dislocated something or drew blood. Finally, after Colin had accidentally punched Damian square on the nose, he’d felt distraught, trying to figure out whether he should have apologized or not, but he saw the wide smile on his friend’s face, and he grew concerned.
“Seriously, Damian,” Colin breathed out tiredly, taking a sip of water from a water bottle he’d kept nearby in his apartment, which the two of them had thoroughly ruined. “What’s going on? You usually don’t let me get away with stuff like that without breaking my kneecaps?”
In the pale moonlight, his smile turns into a grimace, and he merely shakes his head. “It’s nothing.” Clearly, the other teenager can see through the lie, but he doesn’t mind. He merely sighs, offers the raven a sweat-soaking towel and a bottle of water. Damian nods his thanks and lets his mind wander, feeling good with that rush of adrenaline. But Colin can see in his friend’s eyes the lingering sadness, and the madness as well. He’s longing to kill someone, an urge he hasn’t seen in him for years, and it’s probably thanks to a missing link, someone he knows is Grayson. He knows how important the man is to his friend’s life, and the fact that he isn’t nearby to swoop the youth up worries the strawberry-blonde-haired teen.
Colin had told the raven he’d just go take a shower and be right back, clapping the damaged youth on the shoulder, but by the time he’d started running the water for a shower, he was gone, and he shook his head, the droplets of water falling in his face and onto the floor around him.
He’s losing it.
. . .
A familiar face stalks out the territory, planning, mapping, learning. He’s run circles around the two of them for so long, almost both keeping tabs and trying to repay a favor simultaneously. His steps are dangerous, and closely followed by the cracking of guns, his version of crime and punishment, where he doles out harsh endings for those he deems unworthy of his ex-mentor’s time, or rather, his ex-mentor’s successor, now, the one who had once been his biggest supporter, and was now quite exasperated with his actions.
Then again, Dick cannot say anything scathing to him, really, because he is in a relationship with someone two-thirds his age. The thoughts of him and the kid always make him laugh, although it isn’t really all that funny.
On this evening, as he takes the prowl, footsteps light despite his drastically heavy boots, he decides to pay his old friend and current antithesis a visit. Although it’s mostly out of amusement, he honestly does have something to say to him, and it’s made all the more amusing by the fact that the dynamic duo is currently split up.
It’s his old apartment, the one he’d lived in before his Batman days. It still smelled of him, vaguely, and it was a strange sort of lingering smell. He crawled in and expected the witty snark Dick typically provided, and upon hearing nothing, he scowled. He took off his helmet as a matter of courtesy, to show that he meant no harm, but he, as always, refused to take off his mask, leaving his auburn waves with that white streak peering out at the other man in the moonlight. “How the mighty have fallen, eh, pretty boy?”
Dick looks almost listless, as if he’s trying to force himself to be infuriated with Jason, but right now he’s almost falling to pieces, and the redhead almost feels bad for his comment. “I can’t do this right now, Jason,” He murmurs softly, like a dream and a broken record, his blue eyes haunted by shadows from a lack of sleep. “I just can’t.”
Jason smirks and shirks the extra weight he’d been planning to place on his shoulders. Instead, he sheds his jacket and simmers closer. Although he sees fear and something else in the older man’s eyes, it doesn’t stop him from digging his claws into his sides. “I’m not him,” Jason says, and it’s unknown to either of them whether they mean Bruce or Damian, because either one is an unresolved issue, but it’s better not to think about these things, not when Jason’s hot, almost alcoholic breath is fast upon him, and Dick’s eyes are fluttering shut, in a rare moment of self-abandonment when he’d given in, so tired, and so lonely. It felt good to have him here.
Already, it had been two months. Only two months and he’d come crawling to someone again, but instead of someone like Kory, or even Barbara, he found himself in the arms of a one Jason Todd. In a way, they had more in common than anyone in the world, and a series of fucked up issues they didn’t talk about. Instead, they’d agreed to one night, and nothing more, of fleeting touches, soft and destroyed, and long-gone from the bounds of innocence.
Somewhere in the midst of their activities, they’re more than half-undressed, and Jason whispers some surprisingly kind and helpful words. “You know, Grayson, I hated you. Everything you were, what you stood for, your personality. But most of all, I hated trying to live up to you. You were too…too…”
“Perfect,” He whispers tiredly, blinking a tear that isn’t really thanks to pain or pleasure, or anything other than pent up emotions and physical exhaustion. “So I’ve been told.”
Jason rolls his light-colored eyes. “Yeah, something like that. But then, in the past eight, maybe ten, years, I’ve come to realize something. No matter how ‘perfect’ you are, you still make fucked up, absolutely human mistakes, just like him.” It is clear that this him pertains to Bruce, and the flashes of memories in their similarly toned eyes are full of pain and lost feelings they had helplessly tried to bury. “And I could’ve kissed you, Grayson. We’re the same, you and I, if a bit different in the way we handle kicking crime’s ass.” He murmurs the words against Grayson’s lips, and they are connected in a breathless helplessness for a moment, eyes searching each other’s.
There’s silence and kisses and moans for a while, but then Dick finally says something back. “I’m sorry, Jason. You know, that things ended up like this.”
He sighs as he comes down on him. “Don’t be.” And that’s the end of the discussion.
. . .
“So, how do you feel about him?” It’s rather odd for her, at least, to be talking to him, but considering that this is the third month they’ve been separated, she supposes it isn’t all that odd. “I mean, you’re obviously upset. I’ve seen the way that you and Tim have been going at people around here. Even Bruce came back, right?”
Damian reclines in her chair, and she stares at the youth, remembering how he’d always seemed like such a brat to her. But now, in this state, much like one she’d been in with Tim many ages ago, she couldn’t help but sympathize with him. “…I don’t know.”
Stephanie rolls her eyes and looks him straight in the eye. “Of course you know. You both know, and the fact that neither of you want to acknowledge it just means you doubt each other’s abilities to stay true. But it sounds to me like you two have a case of in love and too stupid to do anything about it.”
“I’m not in love with Grayson,” Damian snarls at her acidly, folding his arms across his chest, and she is reminded all over again that talking to him is like talking to a child of royalty, or better yet, a wall. “And he’s most certainly not in love with me.”
“So you’re saying it was all a lie?” The young woman that is currently Batgirl gives the youth a stare down that takes all of her muster. She’s almost shocked at how dense the two of them are. “You think this was all an elaborate plan on Dick’s behalf to deceive you, and now you’re both probably sleepless drones yearning to get back together?” It’s obvious that her words startle him, by the way that he grimaces and actually thinks about them. “If that’s the case, then I’d almost say you shouldn’t get back together. Even I know more about the guy, and we’ve never lived together.”
“Shut up,” Damian mutters furiously to her, his gray-blue eyes sharp. “He never talked about himself. What I do know about him, I’ve pieced together thanks to other people.”
Stephanie takes a hearty laugh at that, and he moves from scowling to outright pouting. “If you two idiots ever actually sit down and talk through your issues, you’d be back together in no time.” What she doesn’t say is that it isn’t funny. She’s seen Dick and Damian through this long ordeal, and they’re absolutely falling to pieces, although they’re keeping at their separate jobs. She yearns to hug the boy, to tell him it’s alright, but she knows that it is not her words or her presence he needs. Still, she clasps him tightly and whispers into the crown of his head. “It’s all going to be fine, okay?” The blonde young woman murmurs softly. “Maybe not now, but soon.”
He only sits there and allows her to stay, quiet. Even he must admit that something in him burns to see the man and hear his voice.
Part II. I didn't even know posts could be too big on your journal. DERP.
Title: Sleep [Part I]
Warnings: Cursing, Implied Sex
Rating: 16+
Word Count: 12,355
Characters/Pairings: Dick Grayson, Damian Wayne, Jason Todd, Ra's Al Ghul, Talia, Bruce Wayne, etc. Dick/Damian, mostly, Dick/Jason, for like, a second.
Summary: Sleeping is something that most in Gotham City take for granted. However, Dick and Damian relate a lot to the sacred act of sleeping, as it isn't something they get much of. It helps to sleep with someone next to you, someone special, and when they're gone, it's almost impossible to remember what it's like to sleep without them again.
★
He’d forgotten how difficult it was to sleep.
Tossing, turning, he felt age and the weariness heavy on his bones in the awkward dusk of two in the morning. In his grasp, only the body-heated sheets comforted him, and things were simply unpleasant as far as sleep went. Exhausted electric blues brushed open like the fragile wings of a butterfly, and he wished he could have remembered dreams, and the happy relief that came with them.
Six months. A long time in theory, but a short time in retrospect. Just as much as he’d felt as though it had been years since summer had been there in Gotham, he’d felt like he’d blinked and already it was winter. It was a hell of his own making, this silence, and in the darkness, his cracked lips only let one name fall from them.
“Damian,” He practically wept to the empty room, his eyes glossy with the promise of tears. Where did it all go wrong?
. . .
The rooftops of Gotham were rancid and filthy at the best of times, so considering their surroundings, it was a lovely evening in the city of slime.
“Can’t you just…feel it?” The man reaches his hands out, letting the billowing, familiar cape flap dimly in the stale air, an odd sort of smile on his face. “Tonight is going to be…different.”
The youth rolls his eyes a bit, almost embarrassed to be seen with him. “Grayson, you’re acting like a child.”
As if to further his point, the man stuck out his tongue at the boy, who merely crossed his arms defiantly on his chest, retreating into his hood with a dark mutter, one that the man only rolled his eyes at. “You could stand to act a bit more like one, you know.”
“It’s a futile endeavor, and the pursuit of idle tendencies is beneath the honor of the Al Ghuls and the Waynes. Better luck next time.” Damian is all snoot and snark, but despite all the odds, he had taken a liking to some of his mentor’s brand of quirky humor, albeit with a darker, more sarcastic twist than the man. His smirk is a shadowy sort of look, but Dick doesn’t seem to mind, judging by the typical amount of theatrics he produces that evening, and the smiles beneath the shadow of the cowl to match. “Besides, why allow you the pleasure? You seem to be enjoying yourself enough for the both of us.”
He shrugs. “Sometimes, it’s just better to let loose.” Broad shoulders and that model’s smile confuse the boy, as shown by his furrowed brow. How can he be so much like his own father, and yet so little? The man is a mystery, one he refuses to admit that he wants to uncover, but this night, so horrible, so terribly different from any other, brings a moment of reverie that will not soon be forgotten for the both of them. The fog in Gotham is particularly thick in the fall, thanks to the humidity, and both Dick and Damian could’ve choked in its presence as it began to float in, but it was like an old friend to them. Its tendrils reached out tenderly, sucking in whomever was brave enough to set foot in her world, and it was an evening both of them would have preferred to hang their capes and stay inside, but the city was restless, and it was a full moon. A time when crime, as well as passionate acts of other sorts, were engaged.
This night, however, brought an onslaught no one had been prepared for-not Dick, or Damian, or Stephanie, or Tim, or anyone else, really. Ra’s had never really given up on his pursuit of his grandson’s body, and the century of ninjas and man-bats coming their way at high speed with little to no warning (the few moments they’d had were courtesy of Babs) put both of them especially on edge, and it was a time they’d never felt more thankful for Bruce, who had swept in and handled his old foe like he was putty in his hands. His sons, adopted or otherwise, were left in shambles, and Damian was left shaken, his grandfather’s relentless mind control leaving a shock in his body and soul. They’d gone back to the cave even before midnight, a record by normal standards, and in its damp clutches, they were safe from predators, but equally subject to illness thanks to the surrounding facilities. Luckily, their butler had been close at hand, there to ease the boy’s, and the man’s, pains. His eldest master had decided to ensure that Ra’s was removed from the country for some time, and wouldn’t be joining them, and the hurt look in Dick’s eyes almost made him stay, but he couldn’t. Bruce had a job to do.
The boy had spent nearly three hours in agonizing pain, all of the time spent with the blue-eyed man in the room next to him, pacing, flipping, doing anything to ease his anxiety. He clutched Damian’s hand like a precious object, or a stress ball, and ran his fingers across the youth’s hairline more than three times, assuring himself that the healthy sheen in his hair meant he was alright.
Finally, just as the man had been ready to reach for that familiar hand once more, those icy blue-gray eyes flew upon, and he came to life as though he’d been a recharging computer. His eyes roamed around wildly, sucking in the surroundings.
“Cave?” Dick nodded with an inward sigh of relief. No brain damage, thank god. He didn’t know what he would have done without his partner, or his backsass. “I feel like I got slammed in the head with a shit-ton of bricks.”
“You did, actually,” Because he was hurt, the man didn’t bother nagging him about his language, and he murmured the words with a little half-smile. “Somebody tried to knock you out that way at first, before Ra’s got there and finished the job himself.”
He frowned, a deeply troubled sort of thing. Typically, the boy had nothing against his maternal grandfather, although he and his mother had been key factors in separating him from his birth father and going so far as to cause his demise. But then, his grandfather and his mother pulled stunts like this, and he couldn’t forgive them quite as easily as he’d wanted to. Dick understood his turbulent emotions, and he almost immediately tried to swallow his words, cursing the fact that his mouth worked faster than his mind. Seeing his concerns, the youth only shook his head. “It’s fine.” His gray-blue eyes are glassy and stubborn, with their definitively royal glean a bit dulled by his thoughts. “I knew they’d come back to try something again. Don’t kill yourself over trite issues, Grayson.” Although they’re supposed to be words of forgiveness, they are deliberately as sharp as everything else the boy says, and his mentor chuckles a bit at his efforts to be nice.
“Alright, little D,” The name makes his nose crinkle, and Damian looks positively livid at this nickname, a natural disgust written all over his face this time. The aerialist’s hands almost reach for the boy’s, but instead they fall to his sides and he smiles sheepishly. “Well,” He murmurs, blue eyes connecting with the youth’s icy, indifferent look. “Good night.”
His steps are feather light as he slips away, and Damian continues to search his retreating form with his heavy eyes. When he’s only centimeters from stepping into the elevator’s doors, he calls out, voice raspy from dryness and the day’s activities. “Wait,” Dick swirls around like he’s been slapped in the face, and all of the sudden, he’s blinking sleep from his eyes, feeling as though he’s in a haze. “No one said you were finished.”
“I…” He begins to say that there was nothing left to do but wait for the boy to heal, but even from this distance, he can see the heavily guarded plea in the boy’s eyes, so he smiles softly and comes back. “Okay.”
Dick patters back with a thinly veiled limp, and as he reaches Damian, he sees that familiar scowl and glare, and he just can’t stop smiling. “Don’t look so damn happy about it. Tt, damn weirdo.”
Rough hands hold those clammy, small, and almost shaking hands, their comfort and warmth soothing and welcome, although he would never say thank you. The man begins to croon a soft, almost heartbreaking song that his mother had whispered to him long ago, her voice a soft dulcet in his childish ears. Singing it reminded him of the circus, of happier times with Bruce, but it also brought a flush of dark moments, memories of injuries, and aches, and sweating, thrashing terribly in the older man’s stronghold. “There was a boy,” The notes hung long and soft, and he let his chin fall until his lips were only a whisper away from Damian’s arm, close enough for his eyelashes to ghost across bony wrists, and to see the gooseflesh rise on the boy’s arm as he sang, low tones rumbling through his own chest and the boy’s body. “A very strange, enchanted boy,” In his mind, he’d remembered this tune, slow, fast, echoed by bangs of circus drums and droll clips of funerals past. Many of his memories before and after Bruce rang with this song. “They say he wondered verrrry faaaar…verrrry faaaar…over land and seeeeea,” Damian hung on every syllable, entranced. He’d a beautiful voice. One of his many talents, it seemed, and although both of them were exhausted, neither of them could look away from each other, rather it was Dick from his position just moments from Damian, or Damian, who almost let his arm press up so that his fingers would touch his mentor’s lips. “A little shy…and sad of eye. But very wise was he…” The boy let his eyes fall shut once, and he almost saw a young Grayson flash before him, upon the trapeze, and as the words took a turn for something darker, the fall he’d read and researched so much about, but had never been able to imagine. “And then one day…one magic day, he passed my waaaaaaay. While we spoke of many things…fools and kings…this he said to me.” Dick looked up, his voice trailing into a rasp that threatened tears, lost in his thoughts and almost forgetting whom he was crooning to. “The greatest thing…you’ll ever learn…is just to love…” His blue eyes went back and forth, back and forth, distraught. “And be loved…in return,” He whispered and wiped away a tear with a short sniffle, smiling tiredly up at Damian, who felt estranged from him.
Finally, his small hand and Grayson’s face met, those fluttering, moist eyelashes flicked against his tanned skin, and after many minutes of silence, he spoke. “Grayson…”
He only shook his head and held that arm like a lifeline. “I just…it happens every so often. I’ll be fine.”
It was a lie, but Damian didn’t mind. He’d known for some time that the man had a problem, and he’d suspected this, but it was still strange to see him look so…so broken. To think that the great Dick Grayson’s fatal flaw was his inability to sleep. He would not let the shared secret go free, and he grasped back when those rough fingers ran over his cold hands. “I’m not going anywhere,” The boy said strongly, sounding more like himself than he had in hours.
Dick only whispered a thank you and let his eyes close.
. . .
The summer of his thirteenth birthday was filled with lots of noises, and odd occurrences. The joyous occasion was supposed to have been fun, with guests near his own age, like Kara, and Colin, and the Titans, and his own “family” gathered. They raised a toast near the end of the evening, after the youth had opened his presents and cut his cake, to their oldest, fallen comrade, Alfred Pennyworth. The unspoken anguish washed over all of them, but most heavily over Dick and Damian, who had nearly fallen to pieces without him, but they were starting to rediscover the place without him, and learning how to cook and clean were among the other dozens of things he handled before his death. But for the most part, Damian had behaved, acted civil, and hadn’t killed anyone.
There had, of course, been a brief stint of him versus Drake, as per usual, but it ended up in a row rather than a brawl, thank goodness, because neither Bruce nor Dick were in the mood to break it up. Unexpectedly, they’d had a certain vigilante drop off a present somewhere during the time when they’d gone from the cave to the mansion, and although Damian was thankful, the fact that he’d gotten so close worried the two oldest in the room more than anything else, but today was a celebration.
After the festivities, Dick and Damian were left in the manor to clean the mess, and they’d separated to get to sleep, the youth with the bags and boxes from his evening in tow, eager to use some of the weapons he’d gotten (it was a gun from Jason, of course), new outfits (from Drake, Ugh, and his father, which pleased him, although he’d acted snooty about them), and the party and food, courtesy of his favorite of the group, his caretaker. Both Kara and Stephanie remarked on his closeness with the man he’d sworn up and down he hated, and even Colin had sheepishly chipped in with them, but now they were gone, and he breathed easier, without all their questions breathing down his neck.
Once he’s put everything away, he plays his part. He puts on his pajamas after a shower and bids Grayson adieu once more. But secretly, under the moon’s light, he slips out of the room in the manor and goes into the shadows, like he was taught long ago. His short-sword is in its hilt on his belt, a comfortable distance away, and he runs posthaste to where he instinctively knows that they are, on the edges of the city he has come to call home. It’s been some time, and although some part of him will always be with his father and Grayson, it is equally true that some part of him will always be an assassin-an Al Ghul.
His cape billows around him silently, and he greets them almost stiffly. “Grandfather,” He bows his head a little, his masked blue eyes both curious and hateful, still holding a grudge on the man for the many times he has attempted to steal his body and possess it for himself. “Ma-” He starts to say ‘Mama’, as was his custom before he’d been disowned, removed, even, from their family. “Mother,” He swallows the affection and stands sharply.
“Are you willing to return to us?” His grandfather’s clipped tones are sharp and crisp, and had he been younger, he might have even shivered, but he holds no fear now. He sees his mother almost smirking nearby, as though she knows the answer, and is merely waiting to prove her father wrong.
“No,” His voice is natural, and there isn’t a hint of pleasantries in it this time. It’s natural, and it’s Damian, and Grayson’s the only one who might’ve understood that right now, but he didn’t care. Chest out, head high, he looked both of them right in the face. “I will not return to the Al Ghuls.” Now, his hands burn with the strict doling of justice, a learned thing, and his mother laughs a little, a bitter, deep thing, but she had been right, it seemed.
“Father, stop this foolishness,” Talia holds up a hand and tosses a dirty rucksack at her son. “Today is a day of celebration. Is it not our culture that boys become men at this age?” She nods at him, giving him permission to heave it from the dirt and inspect its contents. He does so, and wretchedly tosses the thing back to the ground, a disgusted snarl on his lips. Her lips turn up in a mad sort of smile. “Two heads, Damian, love. One of a snake, and one of a man. Had you decided to stay with me, you would have first killed both that man and that snake, and then drunk the blood from both of their necks, to show that you are more powerful than a man, and more poisonous than a snake. But since you’ve decided to stay with your circus boy, I figured I’d at least make it easy for you. A ritual is a ritual, distanced from me, or not.”
His blue gaze is piercing and she almost shudders in joy at how very much he is like his father. “You shut the hell up about him. And take your damn heads. I’m not yours, and you don’t give me orders.”
“But the foolish boy does?” Talia snarls, and her father places a hand on her shoulder to hold her back, as though they had both promised to make no moves on him today. She turns away and looks infuriated. “You need to come home. I have to fix your organs, and make sure you’re in prime condition. If you’d stayed with me, you wouldn’t have even needed to worry about injuries. I could have kept you flawless.” The words are like acid, but Damian doesn’t buckle under their intimidation. “But instead you’ve grown soft with your circus boy.”
“You shut your mouth,” He says in a dangerously low voice, and his mother and grandfather are impressed.
“I-” She starts to speak ill of him again with that same mad smile, but her father intercepts.
“Talia,” Ra’s Al Ghul gives his grandson a strange sort of approving, and yet determined look. “You do not come into the matters of men. Your son is a man now, you’ve said so yourself, and he has made up his mind.” Damian doesn’t like his approval, and shows such with his scowl, but he is thankful for his grandfather’s words. “Leave us. I only have one thing to say to the boy, and I shall take my leave.”
Her gaze lingers, almost as if she’s worried that her father will strike, but neither Ra’s nor Damian look fazed by each other, so she slips back into the shadows, taking her band of men with her.
Dark eyes roam hidden blues, and finally he speaks again. “Do not let yourself go fully into their charms, as did my daughter for a time.” Ra’s words are powerful, but Damian says nothing in return, only continues to look as surly as always. “You are an Al Ghul, in blood if nothing else, and one day, you too will see things our way.” With that, he disappears and leaves the youth.
Staring at the rucksack which still lie there, Damian contemplated for only moments before running back towards the city and eventually towards the manor.
Once he’s inside its familiar parameters, he lets his shoulders stop clenching, and he prowls into the kitchen unabashedly, almost unsurprised to see his figure nearby on the couch. “Worried?”
“No,” His voice comes back quietly, a smile almost in his words. “I knew you’d be back.”
Damian scrunches up his nose in slight annoyance that he’d been detected in the first place, but shortly got over that. He plops on the couch near his mentor’s blanketed behind and sits quietly until his breaths are even again, and lets out a long sigh.
“How’s the family?” Dick ventures at the dark subject the same way he does everything else, with humor.
The youth rolls his eyes and picks up the remote, turning the television on and flipping through channels. “Same as always, which is to say, fucking insane.”
The man laughs a little bit, and the sound reverberates through the furniture. “What happened this time?”
“A head,” He rolls his eyes at the audacity of it all, disgusted all over again. “She gave me a fucking head, Grayson,” He’s retelling the story, all cold fury and none of the hand motions which the acrobat would have used. As he peels off the mask, his blue eyes are icy and Dick can only laugh again. “She said, Drink the blood, Damian! It’s an al Ghul rite of passage, or some other bullshit.”
A burst of laughter from the cheerier of the two makes Damian almost smile, his little smirk thing he did when he was amused. “Same old Talia. And how’s tall, dark, and undead?”
“Still after my body, and still trying to convince me to come to the dark side, full of immortality, and fucking man-bats,” He snarls, rousing his partner into giggles again. “I fucking hate bats. You know, for a bunch of people who want me back, they’re sure not doing a whole lot to win my favor.”
Dick almost rolls his eyes out loud, however that would have been possible. “Damian, you live with Batman. We have a cave of them under our home.”
The moody boy puts his chin on his fist and flips channels with the other and. “It’s not the same.” The acrobat looks over at him and says nothing, only smiles a bit, feeling comfortable.
Soon enough, the television’s lights fall on them, and they try to sleep, the elder of the two actually tired enough for it now, but the youth was restless.
“Grayson,” He murmurs like it is the first time, and the man understands their unspoken communication. “I can’t sleep.”
A smile, and he reaches for the youth’s cold hands. His lips part despite his exhaustion, and he sings.
“There was a boy…”
. . .
Somewhere along the lines of the boy’s seventeenth summer, things had gotten dodgy and dangerous. A line had been crossed, and back-crossed, and they were playing with how far this could go, but certainly, this night had been the beginning of many firsts.
“Grayson,” His figure wasn’t tall, or even imposing. He almost looked lost, as though he’d wandered in, half-asleep, and on the brink of tears, a strange sort of expression for him. Dick is unsure of what to do, so he rolls over, and he lifts up the covers, and he holds him close. “I can’t sleep.”
It doesn’t sound like an excuse-not at all. Then, with a start, Dick’s heart almost stops. The boy had nearly killed Colin, trying to get him to calm down and not kill anyone else. That feeling, being only hairs away from killing someone you cared about must not have been pleasant, and Dick’s warm, encompassing grasp was a familiarity, and it came with his voice, the low murmur of Nature Boy lulling him to sleep.
But even after days had passed, Dick had stopped minding the other body. In fact, it was starting to help him get to sleep. Damian is something he can count on, someone who isn’t going anywhere. A lifeline. A security blanket. He crawls in nearly every evening now, as a matter of habit, and the man doesn’t mind. It’s nice having someone to sleep with in the lonely, bitter hours.
And then, this night, something just…changes. As always, Damian comes in his pajamas, or black boxer-briefs and a body-molding gray shirt that had black triangles on its sleeves. His tan skin was striking in this evening’s moonlight, and Dick felt his throat go dry. He could see the muscles in his arms and legs, and those glinting blue-gray eyes peering at him, and he knew too that he was nothing too shabby to look at either, clad in dark blue speedos and an electric blue tank-top that only glanced his midriff. “Grayson,” Damian breathes lowly, and it isn’t a slightly eerie tone, like usual, like he’s unsure, like he’s terrified of himself. It’s all sultry, and there’s no other way to take it. “I can’t sleep.”
Dick tosses the blanket off and Damian falls nearly on top of him, a flurry of kisses and tongues and grabbing at each other, tearing off what little garments they were wearing caught on like a match had been lit beneath them.
Somewhere in the flush of the moment, Dick breathes against the teenager’s skin, dark black lashes fluttering against his marred skin. “Why?”
Damian shrugs as best as he can through a pleased shudder. “I don’t know.”
The answer is enough for now, and the man is fast upon him as though the moment had never happened.
. . .
It isn’t every night that such things take place. Oftentimes, Damian simply does come to his room to press his warmth against the man and breath in his light, airy smell, listening to the hum of his voice until he falls asleep. Dick is happy with this, for a time, but there comes a point when he starts to grow concerned.
One morning, it all just hits him. He relies on Damian. Of course, he’s always known this, as they are crime-fighting partners, and one must rely on their partner in order to get anything done. But he has tried times to sleep when the boy leaves, perhaps for a day, or maybe for a week, and he cannot. He worries when he isn’t there, and cooks breakfast for two as though it is nothing more than protocol. Damian comes down and huffs at his amateur cooking technique, but digs in as though it is a four-star meal, eating with dignity and refinement, that same old scowl in place. He looks for his face in the darkness, knowing that he will be there, and when he isn’t, his heart races.
Almost dropping his coffee, he’s realized. With a dark, sick look, he swallows hard.
No. His hands are shaking, and he wills it to stop with his heart in his throat. I’m not like Bruce. It won’t be like that. But in the back of his mind, that voice that he cannot label as anyone else’s plagues him like a virus.
Day after day following his realization, the sick dread in his stomach keeps nagging at him to end such a beautiful thing. He’s never felt so at peace, so warm, so…complete with anyone, other than with Bruce, as a boy, or with Kory, as a youth, and Barbara, in his young adulthood. It’s been a reasonably long time, and he yearns, burns, for such a relationship to happen again. But, also understandably, he’s donned the cowl, and with it comes a whole new level of responsibilities he hadn’t had before, one of which includes Damian.
Then, one morning, he’s stayed up, despite Damian’s sleeping beside him the whole time. Sensing that something is amiss, the youth’s scowl is harder than usual.
“Grayson?” He almost wonders if this has anything to do with his claims to become Batman yesterday evening in the gist of a joke, or at least, what he’d considered to be humorous, and had brought a half-chuckle from his mentor. “What?”
The words hurt him, and the pain is reflected in his almost physically injured blue eyes. “We have to stop this.” Damian is taken aback, and that scowl is a full-blown frown, complete with angry, furrowed brows. “Someone will have to donn the cowl for a while, and for that, I am genuinely apologetic. You’re too young, but I…” He swallows hard and sad, and he thinks he’s going to throw up for half a second. “I have to go.”
“What?!” He snarls, grabbing Dick by the shoulders and almost terrifying him in his fragile state. “The fuck are you on about, Grayson? You in one of your nancy moods where you like to play games? You can’t just leave your post! You can’t just leave…” He trails off, wanting to say me, but balling his fists next to him instead and he picks back up. “You give me one good reason why, and it’d better be fucking good.”
“I don’t know,” He echoes, and Damian looks like he’d been punched in the face by that sorrowful face and the shake of his head, which jumbled the thick, dark tresses. “I just…don’t know.” Dick kisses him one last time, and then takes for the window with a spare grappling hook he’d grabbed from the nightstand, leaping away into the night.
Almost lost, Damian kicks that same nightstand in a fury and stares out of the window, glaring as though it would bring him back.
. . .
He tries to breathe in her scent, and it feels like both a dream and a nightmare. It’s been so long-almost too long, she breathes, half-infuriated and half-amused. He’s trying to sleep within her tangled webs of ginger tresses, and no amount of tossing amongst its familiar scent tempts him to the world of dreams. Dick is restless, and he grabs for her like a child, which she accepts, but she feels both good and sorry for him.
“Dick,” She whispers tenderly, sorry that she has fallen to his whims yet again, and yet not sorry at all that she has given in to her feelings. “You’re falling apart.” Sobs wrack his body audibly and she can see the tears he’s holding back. She lets his face fall within her warm, unclothed chest and simply breathes, as if to assure him that she’s there. “Now then,” Kory starts slowly, her green eyes patient. “What’s happened to you?”
He opens his mouth and closes, his lips cracked and broken, much like the expression in those lost blue eyes. “I don’t know,” He breathes, exhausted. “I can’t explain it. I don’t know.”
Kory runs her hands through his wavy curls and tries to hum the tune he’d sung to her so many times so long ago, but that seemed to only bring more tears, so she merely rubbed circles across his back and ran her hands through his hair.
This wasn’t her Dick.
. . .
Without a word of explanation to the red-haired boy, the raven stalked in, his shoulders tensed. Colin had only moved to see him slam the door open, and was almost unfazed as his friend walked right up and punched him square in the chin, making him stumble back a bit, at least in shock. Glaring up at the other youth furiously, his green eyes are wounded and he leaps into a grapple with the slighter, but equally as strong teenager.
In a situation like this, their fighting is closer than any form of sexual relationship, and they bond like only friends could have, communicating with every connection to the other’s flesh, with every pearl of sweat that gleaned on their chests. After about five minutes of experienced brawling, Damian had gotten frustrated with trying to hold back, so he pulled out all the stops, knives, gadgets, and all, so the orphan had been forced to call forth some of his prowess, his increasing strength, grip, and bulk parrying against the slight of Damian’s lithe body and his sharp daggers.
Almost twenty minutes had passed between them, the two of them saying nothing at all, save for their staggered breaths, the slap of fist against skin, or the squelching noise it made when they either dislocated something or drew blood. Finally, after Colin had accidentally punched Damian square on the nose, he’d felt distraught, trying to figure out whether he should have apologized or not, but he saw the wide smile on his friend’s face, and he grew concerned.
“Seriously, Damian,” Colin breathed out tiredly, taking a sip of water from a water bottle he’d kept nearby in his apartment, which the two of them had thoroughly ruined. “What’s going on? You usually don’t let me get away with stuff like that without breaking my kneecaps?”
In the pale moonlight, his smile turns into a grimace, and he merely shakes his head. “It’s nothing.” Clearly, the other teenager can see through the lie, but he doesn’t mind. He merely sighs, offers the raven a sweat-soaking towel and a bottle of water. Damian nods his thanks and lets his mind wander, feeling good with that rush of adrenaline. But Colin can see in his friend’s eyes the lingering sadness, and the madness as well. He’s longing to kill someone, an urge he hasn’t seen in him for years, and it’s probably thanks to a missing link, someone he knows is Grayson. He knows how important the man is to his friend’s life, and the fact that he isn’t nearby to swoop the youth up worries the strawberry-blonde-haired teen.
Colin had told the raven he’d just go take a shower and be right back, clapping the damaged youth on the shoulder, but by the time he’d started running the water for a shower, he was gone, and he shook his head, the droplets of water falling in his face and onto the floor around him.
He’s losing it.
. . .
A familiar face stalks out the territory, planning, mapping, learning. He’s run circles around the two of them for so long, almost both keeping tabs and trying to repay a favor simultaneously. His steps are dangerous, and closely followed by the cracking of guns, his version of crime and punishment, where he doles out harsh endings for those he deems unworthy of his ex-mentor’s time, or rather, his ex-mentor’s successor, now, the one who had once been his biggest supporter, and was now quite exasperated with his actions.
Then again, Dick cannot say anything scathing to him, really, because he is in a relationship with someone two-thirds his age. The thoughts of him and the kid always make him laugh, although it isn’t really all that funny.
On this evening, as he takes the prowl, footsteps light despite his drastically heavy boots, he decides to pay his old friend and current antithesis a visit. Although it’s mostly out of amusement, he honestly does have something to say to him, and it’s made all the more amusing by the fact that the dynamic duo is currently split up.
It’s his old apartment, the one he’d lived in before his Batman days. It still smelled of him, vaguely, and it was a strange sort of lingering smell. He crawled in and expected the witty snark Dick typically provided, and upon hearing nothing, he scowled. He took off his helmet as a matter of courtesy, to show that he meant no harm, but he, as always, refused to take off his mask, leaving his auburn waves with that white streak peering out at the other man in the moonlight. “How the mighty have fallen, eh, pretty boy?”
Dick looks almost listless, as if he’s trying to force himself to be infuriated with Jason, but right now he’s almost falling to pieces, and the redhead almost feels bad for his comment. “I can’t do this right now, Jason,” He murmurs softly, like a dream and a broken record, his blue eyes haunted by shadows from a lack of sleep. “I just can’t.”
Jason smirks and shirks the extra weight he’d been planning to place on his shoulders. Instead, he sheds his jacket and simmers closer. Although he sees fear and something else in the older man’s eyes, it doesn’t stop him from digging his claws into his sides. “I’m not him,” Jason says, and it’s unknown to either of them whether they mean Bruce or Damian, because either one is an unresolved issue, but it’s better not to think about these things, not when Jason’s hot, almost alcoholic breath is fast upon him, and Dick’s eyes are fluttering shut, in a rare moment of self-abandonment when he’d given in, so tired, and so lonely. It felt good to have him here.
Already, it had been two months. Only two months and he’d come crawling to someone again, but instead of someone like Kory, or even Barbara, he found himself in the arms of a one Jason Todd. In a way, they had more in common than anyone in the world, and a series of fucked up issues they didn’t talk about. Instead, they’d agreed to one night, and nothing more, of fleeting touches, soft and destroyed, and long-gone from the bounds of innocence.
Somewhere in the midst of their activities, they’re more than half-undressed, and Jason whispers some surprisingly kind and helpful words. “You know, Grayson, I hated you. Everything you were, what you stood for, your personality. But most of all, I hated trying to live up to you. You were too…too…”
“Perfect,” He whispers tiredly, blinking a tear that isn’t really thanks to pain or pleasure, or anything other than pent up emotions and physical exhaustion. “So I’ve been told.”
Jason rolls his light-colored eyes. “Yeah, something like that. But then, in the past eight, maybe ten, years, I’ve come to realize something. No matter how ‘perfect’ you are, you still make fucked up, absolutely human mistakes, just like him.” It is clear that this him pertains to Bruce, and the flashes of memories in their similarly toned eyes are full of pain and lost feelings they had helplessly tried to bury. “And I could’ve kissed you, Grayson. We’re the same, you and I, if a bit different in the way we handle kicking crime’s ass.” He murmurs the words against Grayson’s lips, and they are connected in a breathless helplessness for a moment, eyes searching each other’s.
There’s silence and kisses and moans for a while, but then Dick finally says something back. “I’m sorry, Jason. You know, that things ended up like this.”
He sighs as he comes down on him. “Don’t be.” And that’s the end of the discussion.
. . .
“So, how do you feel about him?” It’s rather odd for her, at least, to be talking to him, but considering that this is the third month they’ve been separated, she supposes it isn’t all that odd. “I mean, you’re obviously upset. I’ve seen the way that you and Tim have been going at people around here. Even Bruce came back, right?”
Damian reclines in her chair, and she stares at the youth, remembering how he’d always seemed like such a brat to her. But now, in this state, much like one she’d been in with Tim many ages ago, she couldn’t help but sympathize with him. “…I don’t know.”
Stephanie rolls her eyes and looks him straight in the eye. “Of course you know. You both know, and the fact that neither of you want to acknowledge it just means you doubt each other’s abilities to stay true. But it sounds to me like you two have a case of in love and too stupid to do anything about it.”
“I’m not in love with Grayson,” Damian snarls at her acidly, folding his arms across his chest, and she is reminded all over again that talking to him is like talking to a child of royalty, or better yet, a wall. “And he’s most certainly not in love with me.”
“So you’re saying it was all a lie?” The young woman that is currently Batgirl gives the youth a stare down that takes all of her muster. She’s almost shocked at how dense the two of them are. “You think this was all an elaborate plan on Dick’s behalf to deceive you, and now you’re both probably sleepless drones yearning to get back together?” It’s obvious that her words startle him, by the way that he grimaces and actually thinks about them. “If that’s the case, then I’d almost say you shouldn’t get back together. Even I know more about the guy, and we’ve never lived together.”
“Shut up,” Damian mutters furiously to her, his gray-blue eyes sharp. “He never talked about himself. What I do know about him, I’ve pieced together thanks to other people.”
Stephanie takes a hearty laugh at that, and he moves from scowling to outright pouting. “If you two idiots ever actually sit down and talk through your issues, you’d be back together in no time.” What she doesn’t say is that it isn’t funny. She’s seen Dick and Damian through this long ordeal, and they’re absolutely falling to pieces, although they’re keeping at their separate jobs. She yearns to hug the boy, to tell him it’s alright, but she knows that it is not her words or her presence he needs. Still, she clasps him tightly and whispers into the crown of his head. “It’s all going to be fine, okay?” The blonde young woman murmurs softly. “Maybe not now, but soon.”
He only sits there and allows her to stay, quiet. Even he must admit that something in him burns to see the man and hear his voice.
Part II. I didn't even know posts could be too big on your journal. DERP.