#88keysofsadism

Jason bit back a groan of pain as he slammed into the alley wall. His helmet cushioned the back of his skull as his head bounced off the brick, giving a sick crack, but it didn't stop his head from feeling like it had split open. The pain from that, coupled with the white hot burning from the stab wound in his shoulder made his vision go blurry. He wondered, as his knees began to give out under him forcing him to start sliding down the wall, what god he had pissed off to give him such horrible luck that night.

Jason had literally stumbled upon the Scarecrow and his lackeys cooking up something that would surely be trouble and it had turned into a large brawl in no time. He hadn't been prepared for such an intense fight and had been thrown off when a child had started screaming from somewhere in the building, enough so that someone was able to get a knife into him. Fighting had quickly aggravated the wound, and Jason quickly put down Scarecrow's men before getting himself and the little boy who had been squatting in the building Crane had set up in safely out of the situation. He had already began to feel weak after finding a safe place for the boy and knew he needed to stitch himself up before he did anything else.

He had been on his way to his closest safehouse when he had heard another scream; this time an elderly woman's. Jason knew he couldn't ignore it and he had followed the sounds, hoping he could deal without whatever was happening quickly. A young teen with sharp features and glowing eyes had been tearing through the  living room of the old woman's apartment, searching for something, and  she had started screaming at him in Spanish, calling him a Demon.

Jason had thought the kid was just high on something until he grabbed Jason by the collar of his jacket and tossed him straight through the kitchen wall into the alley behind the apartment building like he was a rag doll.

And now he felt like he couldn't get back up; his head was pounding and the world was spinning and Jason was sure he was about to either get his ass handed to him by a kid wearing a Bon Jovi t-shirt or have to shoot the little diablo between the eyes. He wasn't keen on either option.

His eyes began to focus in time to see the glowing eyed teen crawling out through the hole Jason had created, snapping his teeth and snarling like he wasn't human. And, maybe, Jason thought, he wasn't.

His hand itched towards his holster, hesitating even as the kid moved towards him, because Jason couldn't just shoot a kid; even a demonic super human one. He knew he couldn't go one on one with him either, not when he was already bleeding out and more than likely had a concussion.

Jason debated aiming for the knee, quickly deciding against it when the little old lady whose kitchen had been destroyed looked out the hole into the alley. In his experience, beings that had super strength also had a higher pain tolerance and shooting to hurt would more than likely piss the kid off. There was too much of a risk of him turning on the old woman instead of charging for Jason.

Time felt like it was inching by as the not-demon stalked towards Jason and the man could feel his throat tightening as he got a better look at the kid. Because he was a kid; no older than Jason had been when he had died and it made Jason feel sick. He couldn't shoot to kill on someone who hadn't even hit puberty, no matter what they were.

But his head was still pounding, the world still spinning, starting to get hazy on the edges of his vision and Jason couldn't focus. He had used his stunning agents and smoke bombs during his fight with Crane, when he had been trying not to kill people like the good little solider he was pretending to be, and his mind felt like sludge trying to create a scenario where no one got seriously maimed.

The old woman screamed from inside her apartment and Jason's head snapped up and the demon-boy whirled around to see what the source of the noise was.

Someone had dropped down into the alley from the rooftops. The figure was thin and small, shrouded in shadow, but distinctly in a fighting stance between the glowing-eyed teenager and the hole in the wall. Jason wanted to warn whoever had decided to play hero that the kid had super strength, but his mouth felt like cotton. All he could do was watch with blurry eyes as the teenager launched himself at the figure.

The figure easily dodged and began attacking, throwing out kicks and spins with a speed that Jason couldn't keep up with. Trying to watch the fight just made him want to throw up into his helmet, but Jason could tell the shadow-figure was not doing as much damage as his attacks should have been.

Jason fought to stay conscious; he could feel blood dripping down the back of his neck and seeping from the wound in his shoulder.  He wanted to use the distraction of the new figure, to get himself away to safety and not risk the embarrassment of being rescued, but trying to push into standing just brought back the waves of nausea.

He had become so caught up in trying to deal with trying to move, Jason had missed the shadow-figure bring out a weapon; a long staff that stirred <i>something </i> in Jason's mind. It gave the figure an advantage over the demonic kid, allowing him to keep his distance while over powering his opponent.

Jason watched, forcing his eyes to stay open, as the figure ducked a wild punch from the demon child, then used his staff to swipe the kid's feet. The teenager was not an experienced fighter, having been relying on his strength alone, and did not dodge the attack. The staff knocked the kid off his feet and he fell back, swinging his arms uselessly to try to regain his balance. Time slowed down again as the kid smacked into the pavement head first, a disgusting cracking noise filling the alley. The glow that had been in his eyes disappeared, revealing glassy brown eyes as the teen's body hit the ground limply.

Everything rushed back to real time as the old woman let out another blood curdling scream, which faded as she ran deeper into her house, but Jason couldn't tear his gaze away from the lifeless face staring at him. Bile began to push up his throat.

His thoughts of a <i> kid </i> being dead in front of him were caught off as the shadow-figure stepped between Jason and the teenager, breaking Jason's gaze. Jason forced his head to tilt up, to look the figure in the face and felt his breath catch and everything began to spin again at the sight of blood shot blue eyes staring down at him.

“Drake....?” He heard himself whisper before the darkness at the edge of his vision took over and Jason passed out.

~*~

The world was still spinning as slowly began to open his eyes. He groaned, feeling like his brain had been bashed against his skull a few dozen times and not being able to figure out why. Once the world stopped being a merry go round, Jason slowly pushed himself into sitting, biting back another groan as his shoulder greatly protested the movement. Jason craned his neck to try to look at his shoulder and squinted in confusion at the gauze taped to him there. He reached up and peeled it off carefully, then blinked, only more confused now.

The fresh stitches in his shoulder were sloppy; funky little X's that were not uniform in size and almost all of them were crooked. He knew they were not his own work; Jason, no matter how hurt or drunk, always did neat little single stitches, like his nurse neighbour had taught him when he was a child.

Which meant someone else had patched him up.

Jason tensed, clenching his jaw, and slowly turned his head to look around the dark room he was in, trying to figure out where he was. His breath hitched as he realized he was in the spare bedroom of his favourite safehouse.

Someone, the same someone who hadn't done a better stitch job than a five year old, had gotten past all of his security to bring him here, because the was no way in hell Jason would have ever brought anyone to this apartment. He had made sure no one had known about this place, so he didn't understand how...

The rush of memories felt like a blow to his chest and he lost the air in his lungs for a moment.

Drake, dirty and looking strung out, standing over him, staring down at Jason after killing the teen with glowing eyes.

But it was impossible.

Drake was dead.

Jason had seen the footage; Red Robin and Killer Croc going at each other on a bridge, beating each other down in an impressive manner. He had seen Croc rush Drake after slamming him into an SUV, had seen Croc raise his arm above his head and slash down. He had seen the splash of blood, the way Drake's hands had jumped to his own neck, the way his lips had parted as he realized what had happened. He had seen Drake's gloves become shiny as he stumbled away from Croc, the giant beast turning to flee with the prizes he had stolen. He had seen Drake's legs begin to give out, then had seen, with dread and horror filling his belly, as Drake tripped and fell against a car that was tettering on the edge of the bridge, threatening to fall forward. He had seen as the vehicle gave into gravity, and dragged Drake along with it into the dark waters below.

And Jason had seen the aftermath.

He had seen Drake's Family, his family, lose themselves in grief. He had wondered if Bruce and Dick had become so angry, so completely lost, when he had died. He had never believed it, had never believed they had truly cared about him, until he had watched Dick collapse in a fit of tears and rage at hearing that some of Red Robin's gear has washed up on the riverbed.  He had thought maybe it had been easier to not see the truth, to think his ways of coping were the only ones.

He had seen Bruce try to hold things together; to keep Damian from seeking revenge, to ban the Superclone and his friends from the city after they tried to do just that, to keep Barbara's successors from taking their feelings out on any poor soul who crossed their paths.

He had seen, from the edges, how they had all broken, then after months and months, slowly began to start to piece themselves back together.

With no hint of Drake ever coming back from the dead.

If he had been revived from the Lazurus Pit, Ra's al Ghul would not have been able to resist lording it over Bruce's head. Drake had looked crazy, but he hadn't looked Pit crazy, and he's eyes had been the blue Jason remembered them being; no tint of green to them. He also had looked somewhat aware, which possibly ruled out the mindless zombie; like being Jason had been after he had returned.

Drake couldn't have been wandering around Gotham all of the months he had been dead; not with how much surveillance the Batfamily had around the city. They would have been looking for him, would have seen him.

Which begged the question of if Drake had ever died in the first place, and if not, where the hell had he been?

And why had he helped Jason?

insanityrunsinthe-family said: I had the same thing last night. A close friend of mine was telling me about how she’s really sick of her friend (my former friend) being really awful and talking shit about me around her. And it got me really riled up last night.

We do! I mean, we’re worth better! We deserve better! But like...my brain works in such a stupid way. It has it’s logical/objective side, and it’s emotional/subjective side. And my logical side says ‘You don’t deserve that, even if you loved them, and they claimed to love you. But if that’s what they’re going to do to you, if that’s what they think is okay to do to you...then you deserve more than them. You deserve better. They were never your friend in the first place, if that’s what they thought was an okay way to treat another human being, even with all the nice things they did for you once upon a time. You’re worth more than being treated like that. You’re worth a whole HELL of a lot more than the trash they gave you. Don’t miss them, don’t cry over them, they don’t deserve your tears, your time or your emotions.’

But...then the emotional side takes over, and they override everything with nostalgia, sadness, guilt and wishes to do anything to fix it. :/

I mean, I don’t know if this former friend talks about me to anyone. I doubt it, it’s the internet, no one else is going to care. It was just me and them, we weren’t in a group. But it still hits me, sometimes. Just slams, right into my face. How callous and uncaring they were. How quickly everything went down. How I didn’t have any clue. 

But. Yeah. Now I’m kind of just slowly melting into that stage of...if they thought that was the best way to treat me, the best way to completely and utterly destroy the bridge that was our friendship, then I don’t need them. I don’t want them. I don’t deserve that. I deserve so much better than that, than them, and they can piss off for all I care.

I mean, “I think you have severe depression, but we could probably be friends again when you’re better.” ?? Who the fuck says that? Especially to someone they claim to care about? Someone they literally said ‘I love you’ to, multiple times??