Cassidy sighed in frustration. She had hoped to get in Jason's apartment, throw a few of his clothes in a bag and then get out. It would take five minutes at most.
But of course things never go the way they're supposed to. She couldn't find any piece of clothing that wasn't dirty. She supposed that was what she should expect, considering the dude's life just crumbled in the past week. She sighed again, but this time she went to gather his clothes that were thrown around the room and threw them at the washing machine (which she was surprised he had one, judging from what she knew of his lifestyle). She took out her phone and called Dr. Geller
"Hey John, it's Cassidy. Have you got any information on Jason?"
"Yes, they've ran a CT scan on him, he's got internal bleeding on his abdomen." He wondered if it was okay to continue when she didn't say anything "Are you okay?"
"Yes. Yes, I am. I considered internal bleeding when I saw the bruises on him, but it's still hard to listen to it. Have they decided how to continue the treatment?"
"They're giving him anticoagulant reversal agents and leaving him on strict observation, any minimal changes on his condition and they'll revise the treatment."
"Good. I'm going to take longer than I thought, he didn't have any clean clothes, I need to wait for his clothes to finish washing."
"Why don't you just buy him new ones?" He chuckled when she didn't say anything back "You didn't think of that, did you?"
"Shut up, I'll be there in thirty minutes." She cut of the call before she got any more annoyed at him laughing at her.
She walked into Jason's room to find her purse. She was getting out of the room when she heard someone was on the living room
"Honestly Jason, you can't complain we sneak into your apartment if you're going to leave the front door unlocked." She heard a man say. She ran to the bed and grabbed the gun Jason had pointed at her that morning "Jason? Are you here?" She heard the man getting closer to the bedroom, and pointed the gun to the door
"Stay right where you are!" She shouted at him. The man took a while to realize what was happening, and once he did he put both hands in the air. He looked around and nodded at himself
"JASON!" He shouted but once he didn't hear any response his eyes flicked madly around the room, like he was analyzing it "Where's my brother?!" He glared at Cassidy and moved closer to her. Her hands trembled, but she didn't shoot. The man got closer to her and took the gun out of her hands then folded his arms, waiting for an answer. Just then his words registered in her brain
"Wait, you're Jason's brother?!" The man's dark hair and blue eyes didn't leave out much doubt, and she was sure she had seen him before on the TV
"Yeah, and who the hell are you? I'm gonna call the cops!" He took out his phone, but Cassidy put her hand over the device
"Wait, wait, wait! I'm no one suspicious!" The man just lifted his eyebrow at her "Sure, I mean, it's suspicious that I'm here and Jason's not, and now you're here, and you don't know me… I mean, why would you, right? People usually don't talk about their doctors…" She was going to continue her mindless rambling when the man put a hand on her shoulder
"Doctor? What do you mean?" She tilted her head to the side, there was no other specialty that came to mind when it was about someone with cancer
"I'm Jason's oncologist. I came to check on him since yesterday was his first session of chemotherapy, found him having a seizure." She panicked when the man's eyes widened and he stumbled a bit, but she guided him to sit on the bed "B-But I called an ambulance and they are treating him right now." The man rested his face on his hands, and she left to fetch him a glass of water "Here. Try to calm down. " He took a deep breath and sipped on the water before putting it away on the nightstand
"What does he have?"
"The doctors that are taking care of him have diagnosed an internal bleeding on his abdomen. Internal bleeding is more dangerous on patients like him that have difficulty with coagulation, but he's being given the right medication, his condition will stabilize." She realized what she implied and was going to mend what she said when the man sighed
"Leukemia, huh." He shook his head as he let out a dry laugh "I would find it easier to accept if that idiot had a brain tumor, would explain a lot of things." He shook his head again as he stood up "Which hospital is he?"
"Gotham Hospital." Cassidy felt like crap for taking Jason's chance to tell his brother. He probably wanted to tell him in a softer way "If you wait for me to buy him a change of clothes I can go with you." Cassidy took her purse and turned to the door "You can wait here, I'll be back soon."
"I'll come with you." She frowned and looked him up and down
"Are you sure you're alright?" It was his turn to frown then. He had perfect control over his emotions, thanks to Bruce's training. He looked down and saw his hands were shaking. He hid them on his pants' pockets and gave her a fake smile
"Yeah, I'm fine."
The woman wanted to say something, but chose not to
Jason was trying to figure out who had saved him, but he couldn't even come up with theories. He had a feeling in his gut that he had seen whoever it was before he passed out, but his mind was too fuzzy for that. He cussed again at the IV that was dripping on the floor. He wanted to be out of there, but his body was too full with drugs for him to even move. His eyes flickered to the door when it opened, and he saw a man he sort of recognized, but couldn't say who he was. He imagined he was the doctor that he saw last week when he passed out, but he didn't remember his name. The doctor groaned in frustration
"You need to stop doing this every time we put you on IV!" He admonished Jason and pressed the button to call the nurse. A nurse appeared on the doorway after a few seconds, and the doctor turned to face her. "I need a new needle and a tube for the IV for him." She nodded and went to gather what the doctor asked
"I forgot your name." Jason said to the doctor. His voice was so raspy, he touched his throat, it hurt a little
"I'm Doctor John Geller. You're a little dehydrated from throwing up." Jason looked around, but there wasn't any jar of water for him
"Well, get me water, then."
"I'm sorry, Jason, but we can't give you anything to drink or eat as long as we don't know whether or not you'll undergo surgery."
"Surgery? Why? I'm feeling peachy."
The doctor pretended he didn't hear what Jason said "You had internal bleeding, which we believe was caused by the bruises on your torso. We are giving you anticoagulant reversal agents, but if there are any changes in your condition we will need to perform a surgery to manually seal the bleeding point." His face got a stern tone "Which is why we need you to keep the IV on your arm. Can I trust you, or will I have to restrain your arms to the bed?"
Jason smirked "I don't swing that way."
"I'm serious, Jason. This is a life-threatening situation."
"Everything's life-threatening now, doc." He sighed "Okay, okay. I won't take it out. I'm not that excited to drop dead yet." Doctor Geller was about to say something when the nurse came back with the new needle and IV tube. He took out the old tube and gave it to her to discard it
"Do you want her to hold your hand?" He smirked at Jason, who flipped him off. He quickly secured the needle, and checked to see if the IV was working properly
"Hey, do you know who saved me?" Jason asked the doctor as he worked
"Doctor Cassidy. Do you remember her?" Jason nodded. Geller chuckled a little "She was so freaked out. I haven't seen her showing as much emotions since…" He stopped himself from speaking
"What?" The doctor debated internally whether or not to tell him, but decided to at least entertain the man for a while
"There was this friend of ours, Matt. He was a professional at getting under Cassidy's skin, just like you." He chuckled once more as he got a little nostalgic
"He died?" The doctor looked at him surprised "You keep talking about him on the past. He was Cassidy's boyfriend or something?"
"I'm not going to go near that part." He checked his watch "She will be here soon, you can ask her these questions." He stopped to think "Actually, don't ask her anything, she'd kill me if she thought I'm going around telling people about her life." Jason watched the doctor's retreating form and turned to the window beside him as a new source of entertainment
Cassidy stared at the face of the man who claims to be her patient's brother. Besides the color of their eyes and hair, there was nothing about the two men that said they were related. The gentleman who held open the doors for her and insisted on holding all her bags couldn't possibly share the same DNA as the man who takes every chance he has to tick her off, the man who can't spend even five minutes without sexually harassing her with his sarcastic comments…
"Is there something on my face?" She came back to reality and blushed furiously when she saw she'd been completely staring him
"S-Sorry. I was just thinking how you and Jason only have your looks in common. You two don't act the same at all."
He chuckled "I don't think there's anyone else in this world that acts like Jason."
"That's true." She laughed
"How… how bad is it?"
"I know as much as you about his state right now, but if no one's called me yet that means he hasn't gotten worse." The yet was implied
"Not that. The… cancer." The bitter tasting word on his mouth made the man realize how real all of this was
"I can't tell you without the patient's permission." She thought he would get angry at her and demand an answer, but the man just gave her a sad half smile and sighed, tightening his grip on the steering wheel "I'm sorry." He raised a brow and glanced at her sideways
"Don't be. You're just doing your job." The GPS signaled they were about two miles from their destination "It isn't hard to understand why Jason wouldn't tell us, given our history."
"What do you mean?" The man mentally slapped himself in the head for letting it slip
"I mean, he did feel so trapped in the Manor he thought his only way out was to fake his death." He quickly handed out the story they fed to the media, hating every single word of it, and hating Bruce even more for making it up
"Oh." She didn't keep up with the news as much as she should, but the Wayne heir's fake death was the news of the year last year "I think you're wrong, actually. He didn't tell you because he didn't want you to worry about him." The man wanted to laugh at the doctor's naivety, but got himself wishing what she said was the truth
Fortunately for both occupants of the car, the hospital came into their sight, mercifully releasing them from the awkward conversation. They kept silent on their way to Jason's room.
The man hesitated once they reached the room, his hand frozen on the door handle. He was really hoping this was all a big bad tasted prank Jason thought was funny. He wished he would open this door and a camera crew would come out, saying it was a prank show. What if when he opened this door he really found his brother fighting a deadly disease? What would he tell the others? Bruce hadn't even finished healing from the first time Jason died, who knew how he would get if he knew about this? And what about Alfred? The poor old man has gone through so much with this family, are they really going to put him up to taking care of a sick Jason? He gathered all his courage and opened the door really quickly, just like ripping off a huge Band-Aid.
The first thing he saw was a bed. Jason was laying on top of it. The second thing he saw were the many tubes and wires coming from under the blanket placed on top of his brother. The third thing he saw was the horror etched on Jason's face. The succession from horror to confusion then anger was so quick anyone else would've missed it, but he didn't miss it. He saw it crystal clear
"WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING HERE?!" Was the raspy roar that greeted him. Jason then doubled up, coughing out the pain in his throat, clutching his abdomen where a white hot pain took all over him from the sudden stress he was putting his body up to
"Hey, hey, Jason, calm down, it's your brother. Aren't you recognizing him?" Cassidy rushed to Jason's aid, wishing she could do something to help, but the most she could do was rub his back, offering him some comfort
"I know who he is. What're you doing here?" He grunted, turning his face to see his brother
"I went to your place, met her, she brought me here." The man replied curtly, taking a seat beside the hospital bed
"Glad you didn't miss the show, then." Jason laid back down, his breath labored "Now you can go back and spread the word to all your family: "The freak's finally going away!". Just don't forget my invitation for the party you people will throw in celebration."
The man gripped his own hands so tightly he had to let go once his grip got to the point he would break them if he kept it. He wiped his sweaty palms on his pants and lifted his face to look at Jason
"I know you like to say hurtful things when you're in pain, but you're going too far, Jason."
"Well, go away, then." The man shook his head and straightened his back on the chair
"I won't."
"Suit yourself. I'll just call security and they'll take care of you." The man shook his head again
"You won't. That would bring you too much attention. If you wanted us to know about your situation, we would know of it by now."
"Just go away, dammit!" Jason was losing what little patience he had
"Make me." The man crossed his arms and glared at Jason, daring him to touch him
"Really?! How old are you? Four?!" The man kept glaring at Jason "Just do whatever the fuck you want. I'm too tired for this shit."
"Do the two of you not get along?" Cassidy asked as she finished checking the drugs they put Jason in
"It's complicated." The brothers answered with a synchrony worthy of identic twins
Let's see if you can find out who the brother is XD
Special thanks to rpglady76 and Robin0203 for the idea of how to introduce the other batboys to Jason's drama. I had other plans, but yours was better!