Jason stepped into the manor kitchen and almost gagged.
Blood and dirt and worms filled his mouth, agony and despair clouded his perception, a tide of desperation threatened to choke him and he sagged back against the wall, stomach heaving, vision cloudy.
He heard a voice, sounding alarmed, but he couldn't process it. Strong but gentle hands guided him back out of the room, back into the fresh air, away from the choking smell, the clawing desperation.
When he finally came back to himself he was sitting, curled up like the child he hadn't been in too long. He was on the back steps of the manor that led out into the gardens. Dick was behind him wrapped around him like a blanket, murmuring soothing nothings into his hair.
He was shaking. Uncontrollable tremors shaking him as his mind swirled with the memories. He reached out and grabbed Dick, pulling him even closer, hating himself for the display of vulnerability. Dick kept up the soothing rumble, petting the parts of him he could reach.
"What-" Jason's voice cracked. He coughed and tried again. "What was that?"
Dick's short laugh had a tinge of hysteria in it.
"I was really hoping you could tell *me* that, Little Wing. You almost collapsed in the kitchen. You scared Alfred. You scared me! Hell even Bruce has been sticking his head out every ten minutes or so! You freaked out, and only getting you outside seemed to help at all. You've been entirely out of it for almost two hours!"
Two-!
"It was," mud and filth, the squirming of worms in his mouth and against his flesh, trapped, trapped, can't get out. White sterility and bitter antiseptic, pain, pain, confusion and despair. "It smelled awful in there, Dick! What was that?"
Dick pulled back and away from him just a bit, just enough to look him in the face, worry twisting his expressive features. The removal of his warmth started up again the shivers that had been wracking Jason's frame.
"Jason?" Dick asked tentatively enough that Jason started to get really scared. What was going on? The older man continued with the kind of stilted uncertainty that made Jason wonder how he ever managed to lie to anyone. "What did it smell like to you?"
Jason shook his head, not in negation of the question, but to try to clear away the sinister flutterings of memory at the edge of his mind, screeching for attention. "It smelled like…death." Jason could say that with considerable authority. He had become very familiar with the scent, after all. "Death and dirt and decay." Why would the manor kitchens have any reason to smell like that?
Dick sucked in a sharp breath, and held him tighter.
"Dick, what?" Jason demanded when the thought occurred, trying to stand to go check on the man. "Did something happen to Alfred?" It didn't make sense, but it was the only reason he could imagine for the older man's domain to be so tainted.
"Alfred's fine, Jay. He was making one of your favourites, to welcome you back." It was the first day Jason was officially back in the Manor. Tensions were still a bit high, but Dick was tired of letting his brother, his lover, feel alienated from the family that was his as well. He'd kinda been hoping this day would go *well.*
"I'm pretty sure none of my favorites smell like that," Jason tried to joke weakly, mind spinning.
"It smelled just like what it was, Jason." Dick said quietly. "That crusty sourdough you liked so much when you were small."
…oh. Well. That explained it.
Jason tucked his face back against Dick. He'd managed to avoid sharing that particular bit of trauma with the other man, but it didn't look like he was going to get away with it for very much longer.
Dick was slowly but surely dragging every bit of Jason's past out of him; wading through the horror with him, helping to lance the festering wounds, and binding the ones that still bled. Shouting back at him, fighting him when Jason started to slip back into the mindset that had him pulling away from his family, spiralling back into the mindless violence, the blinding rage.
Pinning Jason down and *proving* to him with lips and teeth, tongue and hard cock, strong hands and fervent demands that he was loved, wanted, desired. Even when the Pit screamed in his head, screamed for blood and vengeance. Even when the child within him denied that anyone could love him; if the did, why weren't they there when he needed them most? When the Joker was beating him bloody. While he was wondering the streets of their city, mindless. When he came drowning back to life into the insidious grip of the League of Shadows.
But Dick was here now, and proved it every day, helping him fight the memories.
Compared to all that, this was stupid. Hardly worth mentioning. It hadn't come up, because, well, it wasn't like either of them baked very much, and it was surprisingly easy to avoid toast or sandwiches in a house with a man who lived on cereal and pizza, and take out.
Dick wasn't going to let it go now, though.
Jason let himself sink deeper into his brother's arms, let himself shelter in his lover's embrace, and began his tale, voice flat and haunted.
Of shattered memories, and blurred thoughts. Of burning hunger, and desperation, the antiseptic smells burning his nose and throat, memories of dirt in his mouth and eyes, worms crawling in his flesh mixing with the shattering of glass, and the smell of heat and yeast. Hunger clawing at him, the crunch of the crust feeling like crawling bugs in his teeth.
Dick held him through it, while he shuddered and cried in reaction of half-remembered trauma, tears of his own wetting Jason's hair.
Neither of them saw Alfred standing just inside the door, tears glimmering in sad eyes for the anguish of his grandchildren, brushing nearly frantically at the small dusting of flour on his apron.