theruinous·:
Instant coffee isn’t Daniel’s preference, but it’s better than none at all. And it’s become habit to have it waiting in the morning for both himself and Ezra. Some small, normal comfort that serves as one of the few things that feels familiar anymore. He doesn’t expect anyone else to be in the kitchen this early, certainly not a boy he’s never seen before and it has him stalling in the doorway for a long moment.
“Morning.” The response is automatic, he barely registers the word even as he says it. Instead there’s some mixture of confusion, an ache in his chest he can’t place yet, a familiar, stunted reaction that Lowell seems to summon in him too. There’s only the repetitious thought that whoever the kid is, he seems so small.
It gets swallowed down as swiftly as he can. “Sorry, who are you?”
A man’s voice had him turning his head to look, adult men were something of a threat in Jason’s mind, while they were mostly something his mother was weary of when she was still alive, he understood why. And when she was dead it was something he had to adopt too. All over again. His family had him convinced that the bad part of his life was just some terrible distant dream he had to live through for a while and the perks of his bright new shiny life included adults you could trust and rely on to have the best interest of kids in mind.
But that was just some calm before the true terror began. A collection of warm memories he would never get to make more of.
He realized he had stilled and was staring, but, so was the other man, and he wasn’t sure what to do now. Obviously staring awkwardly at someone was rude, and awkward, but just because the vast majority of people he had interacted with had all been women he sort of trusted for a long time didn’t mean he needed to go and freak out or something. He knew how to deal with adult men. Be respectful, don’t make them your enemy, and stay out of their way. Ideally they’ll just ignore you, more than once he’s attracted attention as ‘a drain on resources’ despite how useful he attempts to seem. It was those situations that lead to him staying away from groups until he found the Monastery. He got tired of sleeping with one eye open.
The man didn’t introduce himself, but asked who he was.
“Uh...Jay. Jason. Jason Peter Todd.” Stupid, his private joke of introducing himself as Batman’s second Robin who died on the job but then got better had become a habit instead of an ironic joke. No one ever got the reference, he wondered why he even bothered with it. “I’m just.” He pointed to his bag, “Putting stuff from the last run away. I... didn’t know there’d be so many people. So I didn’t bring much food.” He didn’t know why he needed to explain himself or make an excuse, but he did feel the compulsion.
