ch.7 pt 1: again &. again (platonic! yandere batfam x neglected! gn reader)
directory: read under the end for an author's note.
"hi big bro—"
unsent.
"hi dick!!! i just got your number from alfie :DD he said it might be easier for me to contact you through your phone since it's not often that you're here in gotham :( which sucks but i understand! at least i've got something else to talk to you with!"
"so that brings me to my plans!!!—
"but first, do you have the time to hang out, please! it's my treat! :))) it can be in a restaurant or just here, over at home. together!!! i rmr you promised me the manor tour, i really really hope you didn't forget it!"
"also, my bday's coming soon! you don't have to buy me a gift or anything, your presence is enough of one already! i'm planning on cupcakes since a cake is too much for me. so if you're free around the afternoon next month, you can choose whatever flavor of frosting you want! alfie's helping me bake it, and i really hope you can come to my celebration!"
"but anyways, i'll be waiting for your reply, dick! if you can't hang out within this week then... oh well! i'm not available next week since classes start, but i hope it's this week since i really really miss you, hahaha :)))"
"p.s., don't forget about my birthday!"
...
"hey dick! any updates so far??? :(( my bday's just passed, but it's alright! i wasn't expecting too much from you since i know you've got responsibilities and such hehe."
"... so you might be busy—"
"but i understand!!! :)) just text me once you're online and if you read this! you don't have to accept my invites, i just gotta know so i wouldn't waste any reservations. so please, please, please answer me!"
"... please."
...
"dick!!! i heard it's your birthday through alfred! so happy birthday, dick! may many blessings come your way because you're the bestest ever! i've got a gift all wrapped up for you, though i know you're in bludhaven right now, alfred helped me arrange it to be delivered to you soon! just text me when you want me to send it over. love you!!!"
...
"am i blocked? :( sorry to assume, but i think my messages aren't coming through your phone. oh, and i still have your gift, by the way! even though it's been a few weeks, there's nothing wrong with a belated happy birthday gift, right?!"
...
"hello???"
...
"i miss you."
...
"please just answer me for once..."
...
"... i'm starting to think you hate me, dick."
unsent.
...
"alfred told me about what happened. i didn't know you had a fight with bruce back when it was your birthday. i'm sorry that happened, dick."
...
"hey... if you need anyone to talk to, you do know i'm here, right? you don't have to run off to another city at all and ignore everybody in the house when things get bad. we could talk it out, spend some time together, talk nasty things about bruce behind his back, do anything, just anything. it doesn't even have to be dinner dates— we're siblings, you told me we are."
unsent.
...
"... we're still siblings, aren't we? do you consider me as your sibling, dick?"
unsent.
...
"i miss you. even if it's been quite some time — some years — since we even had an actual conversation. you're still an older brother to me. i hope you know that. even if you and tim and all the others act like i'm not here. i still love you all. it hurts to admit it, but i do."
unsent.
...
"is it because i'm not one of you guys? is that why everyone pretends i don't exist? because i'm not some hero like you? or is it a secret third thing? do i even exist in your minds? just tell me—"
"please just fucking tell me. so i stop hoping for something, dick."
unsent.
...
"that was insensitive of me, i'm sorry, dick."
"i wish you could just reply to me. just once."
"... i'll see you after a few months again, i guess."
...
"i saw how you were with tim and damian and the others."
"i saw you all at the theatre, with them. with your friends, the titans, and all your siblings. even bruce had the gall, he found the fucking time to visit you guys over there."
"wow, just wow."
"i saw the posts, the selfies, everything. you were having so much fun weren't you? i wish that was me. i wish i had that kind of bond. i wish i was part of something. i wish i could afford to take my friends to the theatre, have some fun, take great selfies, laugh and pretend like nothing in the world bothers us. but they've been taken away from me, they all started to avoid me because they saw the way you and the others ignore me too in public. they think there's something wrong with me because of the way you treat me out in public— they think that if they copied your actions, it'd be enough to warrant your attention in public too."
"haha. that hurts a lot, being ignored by even the people you call your friends. can't you see just how much you're also indirectly hurting me?"
"i wish you had the decency to at least invite me. you could've just placed me on the sidelines, i could stay quiet if you wanted me to. i don't mind being the fucking wallflower."
"because at least that meant i was invited—"
"because at least that meant you thought of me for even one fucking second. that i mattered more than just your flimsy promises of "next time.""
"it would've stung less if you had just confronted me and told me you and all the others never cared all along."
"i mean it's obvious you never did. i just wish you said it to my face. i just wish you'd come to my room for once and tell me i never mattered. but even that's too much of a favor, huh? i'm just so irrelevant to you. i should've known how it'd all turn out for us— and yet..."
"i didn't know you were capable of giving so much love."
"i didn't know that the dick grayson i knew in my eyes, who used to be my light before, who used to give me so much hope right after mom left the world; who also ignored me, who always turned the other way around or shooed me off when i asked for his time— i didn't know he could smile so much with other people around him. i never knew there was that side of you that could make everybody feel better, safe, loved."
"whenever i think of you, i think of your stupid back and your wandering eyes. that's all i ever see: you turning away from me like the sight of me repulses you."
"at this point, that just makes me the problem, huh?"
"bruce acts that way too. between me and tim. you two welcomed him easier than you did me. i should've known from the start that i didn't even matter at all. i should've known that a child like me before wasn't pitiful enough to be even noticed. i don't even know why i expect so much when it comes to me. i shouldn't even act so entitled when i don't even exist in this hellhole."
"... i hate you dick, i hate you so much."
unsent.
...
"i wish you knew how much i fucking hate you. but you don't even read my messages."
unsent.
...
"it's always the same with you people. i don't even know why i even try in the first place."
unsent.
...
"i'm sick of pretending like i'm happy every time i greet you here and in person. you make me sick."
"but if i saw you that way, then you probably see me as something worse then. i'm a disgusting, selfish, attention-seeking leech to you, aren't i?"
"that's probably why you could never look me straight in the eyes."
"you hate me more than i claim to hate you."
unsent.
...
"i hope you remember how you were supposed to take me out for dinner. i hope you remember how you promised to take me around the manor. i hope you remember how much i think of you and the others everyday whilst i couldn't even be a passing glance to any one of you. i hope you remember at least even a semblance of me before i leave for college."
"but you won't."
"i know you won't. even if i paraded all over the halls of this stupid house and announced i'd be killing myself, none of you wouldn't even bat an eye."
"if you couldn't even fulfill a promise you made to me years ago, a promise you made to me months ago— then you sure as hell wouldn't care if i left this place. there's nothing worth staying here for anymore."
unsent.
...
"it's just so unfair, dick."
"everyone here is so unfair."
"what did i even do to deserve this?"
"did i do something wrong? did i say something wrong? did i hurt anybody? did i kill anybody? what did i do to make you ignore me so suddenly before?"
"i want to know the answer so bad, but it's too quiet when you're all not around for the night."
"it's just too quiet."
"like i'm not even deserving enough to be considered noise around you."
unsent.
...
"sorry for being too much."
"i didn't realize how annoying i sounded in every message of mine."
"i won't be long in this manor anyways... so for all it's worth—"
"i won't bother you anymore."
...
home sweet home.
a resounding click! echoed throughout your apartment as you kick your door closed. you brace yourself for the pain subsiding in your sides, kneeling down — and keeping your crutches as support for your weight — to place the cardboard box you held to your right, it was a flimsy thing punched with holes to allow air to enter and right atop of it was a container of your favorite meal jason had insisted you keep.
afterwards, you pulled yourself up as slowly as you could, wincing and taking in deep breaths in the middle of standing up.
finally, safe and sound.
a relieved sigh escaped your parched throat. leaning back, your eyes had shut closed, embracing the wriggling darkness. there, you remain standing, brain detangling every thought and notion you'd forcefully put aside to stay sane throughout your entire hours long journey to at least reach the safety of your apartment.
a moment. you just needed a moment to take it all in.
the air was crisp, a cold and unforgivable reminder that winter had started to take a toll on the temperature.
yet it wasn't enough to cool your torrid thoughts.
yesterday, or two days ago- you couldn't fathom the time you were spent drunk: the flirting, the buzzing noise, your lightheaded words, your night ending in near death. when you were unconscious from the bloodied hits of that awful, pungent man and his lackeys. jason, his worries, your confessions, your life.
you need to recall everything. you need time to think—
alone.
it was hypocritical of you to desire seclusion — when you had spent your entire life mourning for another human presence beside you — but you needed to be alone right now, no matter how suffocating and prickly the silence of your apartment was; something bigger was swallowing you whole.
you opted to have mary leave you be after a long day despite her insistence to at least accompany you all the way to your apartment, or just stay with you for the night up until morning where she'll get her roommate to pick her up by car. but you really couldn't handle the offer, even if tempting, since you couldn't deal with another human presence right in your space or else you'll break.
as much as she felt like a guiding light directing you away from the darkness that was jason's suffocating obsession to keep you safe — like you suddenly mattered in his life, like he didn't spew all that bullshit about being your older brother when he never acted that way with you before — you just couldn't afford hearing out her valid defenses, wanting to drown more in your emotions more than pretend like you're stronger than you are.
it didn't take much to convince her to go her way.
your sad, pleading eyes begging her for an ounce of space, to give you time to rest was enough to have her frown. despite her valid defenses about safety in the night, your mind was set on being left alone.
and she did after some back and forth, leaving the lobby with a grim sigh, calling her roommate to come pick her up. after you had watched her back slowly fade into the distance, you went your merry way up the elevators, down the winding halls, ignoring the aching in your sides, the sour mildew clinging in the air, the almost alive, pulsing and breathing of the walls; up until you reach the very room you stand in now— trying your best not to be reminded of the ghostly silence that had always followed you.
so now, it was only you, yourself, and a mass of anxiety and paranoia that had started to dig its way into your heart and had sat beside you in all your isolation.
you wanted nothing more than to rid these new sensations: the unbidden comfort you felt when you finally felt jason's embrace, the smoke and ash still clinging in the fabrics of your jacket bringing you nostalgia to when you first met him under the moonlit night in that kitchen, the gratitude you disallowed yourself to feel when jason had remembered your favorite dish and went as far as buy it for you, all warm and toasty on the bedside cabinet from when you woke up—
you wanted nothing more than to sit in the middle of your room and stare into nothingness, spend hours passing time if it meant leaving your thoughts and worries buried deep somewhere before it could ultimately devour you whole again.
you don't want to want anymore.
you need to make yourself not need anymore.
because if you fall into that madness named desire, you're afraid you'll only end up unfulfilled and alone once more.
"ngh!" it didn't take long before your crutches slipped away from your sore shoulders, legs sliding against the floor. when your bottom hit the ground, the striking pain of the collision crashed like violent waves in a storm, rolling all the way to the wounds on your hips, and—
"shit! fucking hell, it hurts." you cry out curses, the tears you try to desperately contain had started to roll down your sunken cheeks. your throat, parched and devoid of hydration, sounded like the young kid who'd cried out to the sight of their deceased mother.
stupid, stupid, just stupid.
your entire life is just one cruel, endless joke.
right beside you, your crutches thud against the hard floors, metal beating down like strikes of thunder. you wince at the volume, eyes shutting once more. and just like thunder, your bitten lips couldn't clamp down faster than the racing shrieks aching to be released.
"just...! when will everything just end?" your question hangs in the air as your head lulls against the hard doors, palms clenched around your waist to satiate the violent throbbing. you knew nobody would answer you, you knew that the alfred you'd always imagine comforting you couldn't always give you answers — because he's just a figment of your imagination, because he's who you always run to when the questions become too heavy and convoluted, when the silence was too loud and nagging — you knew that, even if you'd beg to the gods you cursed, even if you'd unblock dick and told him to give you answers, abided in your friends, found counseling—
you knew that there is no end to this curse you call life.
you knew that running away from problems meant you'd tire sooner, that it'll begin to catch up to you and lock you up once more.
you hated being alone, you wished you had someone to lie to you and tell you it'll all be better in the end; you wished your mom was right beside you like she was in the damned dream, you wish to still remember the sensation of her gentle fingers running across your matted hair, hear her voice consoling you until your tears had ceased to roll down your cheeks
like a child dreamed of reliving their happiest birthday everyday, you wish she was alive still.
you wish your life had ceased at five years old. you wish you'd lay right beside her decaying corpse instead of laying on the floor of your dingy apartment; alone, and barely alive, but never living the life you dreamed of living from when you were that stupidly naive child.
but you're here, an unwilling victim to your misfortune, and you have no choice but to live through it all. killing yourself is a choice you never wanted to touch upon, a choice you never wish to entertain anymore.
if you did, what would your mother think of you in the afterlife?
if you did, what measures would someone like jason make just to bring you back alive?
shaking your head, a chuckle, sardonic and bitter and loud, cuts you off from your tears, remembering how nobody but alfred even knew you'd left the fucking manor. nobody but him checked up on you, nobody acknowledged you from when you were there, so what of it when you're not?
only your small circle of friends threw you a small welcome party to a new life, spoiled you to the pleasures of alcohol and sleazy bars. they'd announce a toast to independence, to freedom, to a life away from them.
but were you truly away if they were never that close to begin with?
if jason hadn't been coincidentally in the same area as you from behind that bar, then would you still be alive to tell the story? would you just be another news article buried under the countless masses of headlines?
no, you're good as dead. no world-altering event, no pit, no magician could save your soul from being shattered and ripped from within your body.
would they even care? would your so-called family even mourn someone they never truly knew?
"no, god, as if they cared about me at all."
as excruciating as it is to admit, the thought made your wobbling lips quirk upwards, head bury deep within your palms. then, your fingers trace across lingering scars and lumps across your scalp, a reminder of all the times you'd pick at skin until it bled.
it's absurd to think about the answers to the questions you'll never escape from. but the answers were as clear as the day you were born with no father by your mother's side:
you don't matter in their world:
you wish they didn't matter to yours too, but you've been too attached to the concept of someone else caring about you for even the slightest. feelings like those are hard to detach from, especially if the love you yearned for was a love once reciprocated by your mother—
but whatever, life and time, trials and tribulations, they never cease for just a single person.
no matter how pathetic and miserable you were, you had to keep going on. if not for your mother, then out of spite from jason's insistence that you couldn't survive alone when it had always been the opposite— when you've pretty much lived your life without his company anyways.
you're fine without him, without them.
no, no.
you're not fine. there was no world where you've been fine for more than a second, but you've been better off without them at the same time. that's what makes a difference, you convince yourself.
at least here, in your sullen, little apartment, there was nobody else allowed to consume your space and your thoughts.
at least here, the only danger you have against yourself is you.
and yet, the silence only grows bigger and hungrier.
reblogs and interactions are encouraged and appreciated.
PLEASE READ: 3.4K+ words. special post, it's supposed to be longer. but you know what happened? my phone restarted, i opened my notes app and huzzah! the first part i was editing got half of it deleted! the other parts are safe except for this one. this was supposed to be four scenes in total, amounting to 7k+ or more. i didn't even get a single grasp on its final word count. it fucking sucks, i despise the world for doing this to me. but as promised, here's the chapter, no matter how short it is. i apologize if it's not on par to your expectations, honestly, it gets better in the (supposed) second half of this part. but again, life happens. things happen no matter how much it sucks. i'll be rewriting the second half of this tomorrow and hopefully i can post it by the next night. if there are any delays, please spare me, i'm trying my best to not cry over my stuff getting deleted.
taglist: , @ghostdoodlen , @prince-nikko , @rockin-robyn , @strawberryglass , @h0neybun-was-here , @confused-they , @dvlboy , @mystyque234 , @marssthings , @favoritefucs , @lilyalone , @luffyadolover , @lazyemmy , @questionthegrapevine , @oh-nowo-i-got-uwu , @winter-world , @budijojo , @altruisticbeauty , @dopepursebasketballplaid , @the-holy-pigeon , @em-draws14 , @thypplover , @cens0r3d-blog , @yl90 , @sadeem575, @couldeatthatgirlforlunch , @mishkradetsa , @kiiyooo , @flyingpansaurus , @farmerboywakatoshikun-blog , @rogueofbullshit , @earlqurl , @dotomuses , @sheep-from-rad , @tsuniio , @thesm1l3yface , @nosochek-3o , @radiantharry , @kdjhubby , @ashstwin , @notwhoy0uthink , @thecloudsaremyhome