I'm writing a Batfamily Next to Normal AU. But I fear I may have flown too close to the sun, and what was supposed to be a Jason&Bruce one shot about grief ended up becoming a multiple chapter fic about Family.
But don't think it makes sense to Bruce's character for him to be the one hallucinating Jason after his death -- this is more of a Dick thing, specially with his track record.
So I'm posting here what I had written until now of Bruce hallucinating Jason.
"And where have you been?" Bruce said as he turned on the bedside lamp, the room was lit with a soft yellow glow, bright just enough to see Jason climbing back through the window of his bedroom.
Bruce was waiting for him sitting on the armchair on the corner of the room, now with the light glow the lamp casting over him it was possible to see the dark circles under his eyes.
“Hey B,” Jason said, elongating the words and getting his voice in a higher tone, like he always did when he was trying to get out of trouble “what are you doing home?” Bruce could see Jason’s brain going miles per hour trying to come up with an exit plan to avoid another lecture.
He turns his head to look at the clock at the bedside table, 4 AM was displayed in the monitor, “Every night I came back from patrol this week you weren’t home” He leans forward resting his elbows on his thighs, “Do you have any idea how worried I get when you disappear like that?” sitting on this armchair in Jason’s bedroom after patrol became a routine and Bruce finds that he is only able to breathe again when he can see his son climbing the window back to his bedroom where he was supposed to be.
Jason took off his backpack and his jacket dropping both on the chair of his desk — that was already full of other clothes — than took a couple steps towards Bruce “Dad, I’m almost 18, by this age Dick was already living by himself” he wraps his arms around Bruce’s shoulders and kisses the top of his head “you’ve gotta let me go”.
Never was the first thought that flashed across Bruce’s mind, so strongly he almost lost his breath for a couple seconds, just the possibility of his son going out on his own and something happening to him was enough to make his heart start pounding on his chest, he put his shaking hands on Jason’s arm that was around his shoulder, holding onto him just to feel closer.
“Are you on drugs?” Bruce blurts out. While he waits for Jason to come back home every time he finds his bedroom empty, his mind tends to go to a dark place, and he frequently catches himself imagining all the ways something terrible may happen to him, tonight it was overdose, he imagined Jason’s cold lifeless body in an alleyway somewhere in Gotham, his skin pale, his lips purple, his eyes now competently white, choked on his own vomit with a needle in his arm.
“Which one?” Bruce could feel the smile on Jason’s words even if he couldn’t see it in his face.
“I’m serious Jay, we had an agreement. You said you would come home early tonight” he heard a deep sigh, and Jason’s arms were letting go of the hug so he could sit in the bed in front of Bruce.
With his face now visible, he could see the exasperated expression on his son’s face, “Dad, I’m…” he stops himself, struggling find another way to explain his feeling “I want to enjoy my days here as much as I can before going to Uni” Jason is looking down as he speaks — he looked much younger than he was, specially right now under the soft glow of the lamp at his side — looking at his shoes like a kid that was caught with his hand in the cookie jar.
This time is Bruce that gives a sigh, he could never punish his son for acting like the teenager he was — God knows he was worse at that age — or for trying to be normal in the middle of the chaos that happened inside and outside of this manor, specially because this was all he ever wanted for him, so he gets up from the armchair “Just be careful, and please warn me next time you are going to stay late, I’m tired of imagining all the ways you might have died when I come home and don’t find you”
“And what was the winner tonight?”
“What matters is that it didn’t happen” Bruce walks towards Jason and ruffles his hair like he used to do when he first took him in “Good night Jay”
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