Not Quite the Same

A Word: Anon asked; "JayTim headcanon: Tim finds a kid that reminds him of Jason and brings him home but Jason can't help but feel anger around him and not want to be near. Tim confronts Jason about it but he just blows it off and goes out for a drink or something. He ends up talking to the kid later and sees the brightness that came with being a kid again and how even though he had it bad he had some bright moments."

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It's like looking into a mirror. The cracked and dirt encrusted mirror that Jason threw sheets over years ago when the urge to smash it with his fist got too big to ignore. Except it's not a mirror, it's a kid, and Jason's not- He isn't going to do that.

He's not that kinda scum. He's not. Even if he really feels like that kinda scum now.

Jason's drunk. He knows it as he stumbles up the fire escape to the roof of their building. Bypassing their floor entirely because he isn't fit to be in the company of dogs right now. Not with as much as he drank, and not with as much shitty emotion he's pouring out. Tim had made that pretty damn clear before Jason'd stormed off to the bar earlier. And fuck if that hadn't hurt like a bitch to hear. Tim could be downright vicious without even raising his voice.

Jason trips over a rock or a bottle or something and decides he likes the patch of roof he's on enough to camp out the whole night. The pollution choked black of the night was comforting to look at, spinning only half as much as the world had when he'd been upright. It's always dark in Gotham, and something smacks Jason's face making it even darker still. It takes Jason three extra seconds to work out his face is covered, and another ten to fumble the blanket off him.

"You're drunk," John says, voice thick with accusations. His skinny arms wrapped around his chest as the kid stands there in a shirt and shorts glaring down at Jason. Nothing else. Jason's caught for a moment on the kid's bare toes curling around the neck of a beer bottle and wondering how he'd skipped the shards of glass between Jason and the ladder. "Tim said you weren't coming back."

"Yeah," Jason wants to snarl at the kid. Push him back, get him away, but the beer and shots are laying it on pretty thick in his stomach. Jason knows himself enough to recognize he's a good shout away from purging his system of alcohol the old fashioned way. "Where the fuck else am I gonna go?"

"Good," the kid says, and all the tough punk bravado seems to deflate out of the kid. The eyes looking down at him are scared now and so lost that Jason feels close to losing his stomach contents for another reason. "Tim, Tim was crying kinda. After."

Ah, fuck. Jason closes his eyes and grips the blanket hard. Of course Tim would think that. Even after as long as they'd known each other, he still couldn't get it into his head that Jason said shit he didn't mean when he was angry. Things he'd call himself a dumbass for later once he'd gotten his temper to quit it. "Fuck."

There's a sniffle, and Jason reluctantly opens his eyes. John's crouched down next to him, huddling over his knees. A ball of bones and dirty toes as he glares at the roof under his feet. A scowl on his face almost big enough to make a person ignore the way his eyes shined way too wetly. "You're going to stay. You're a moron but you make Tim smile and he'd be sad without you. So, you're gonna stay, or, or- You're gonna stay!"

The kid's lips quiver with the words, and Jason knows he's not saying them just for Tim. Somehow, the little brat's gotten attached to Jason just as much as he's attached himself to Tim. It hurts even more than the argument with Tim earlier. Makes all the shitty feeling he's been bottling up curdle in him, because he's not looking at a mirror. He's looking at a child, he's looking at John.

Jason sits up and unfolds the blanket. Quickly wrapping the shivering kid up in it and dragging his stiff body into Jason's lap. It's not a hug when he wraps his arms around the boy. Just like the wet spots on Jason's shirt aren't tears as they sit there in —almost— silence. "Christ, brat. Where the fuck else would I go? Be lost without you two, right?"

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