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Jason comes home smelling like smoke.
Not cigarette smoke, not smoke like a-truck-caught-on-fire smoke. He smells like a campfire and meat that had been burnt to a char.
There’s a thunk as Jason drops his helmet on the table, and then a series of clatters as his guns and thigh holsters join it.
“You been barbecuing, Jay?” Roy calls over to him.
“Something like that.” Jason mutters.
Roy glances up from the stove, briefly abandoning his pancakes to get eyes on Jason, who is stripping off his clothes.
“Something happen?”
“Nothing I didn’t plan.”
Jason doesn’t have any burns on him. He’s a little pale, but he’s been pale ever since he came back, the whiteness of his skin offset by the seemingly permanent purple bags under his eyes.
So maybe it’s the hunch of his shoulders that tells Roy that something’s wrong. Maybe it’s the way Jason won’t look at him, only at the floor. Maybe it’s that in Jason’s frenzy to get his smoky clothes off, he keeps fumbling with the buttons and zippers, missing with shaking hands.
Roy turns off the stove.
“Hey, you need a hand with that?”
“I’m fine.” Jason scowls.
“I know.” Roy says, “but I think you could use a hand here.”
“I can do it myself.”
“Okay, let me at least help with the pants.”
“I’m not in the mood for that.” Jason takes a step back.
Christ. Okay, not what he was going for. “Jay, I’m not trying anything.” Roy says. “It seems like the buttons aren’t easy right now. I can help with that, and then I’ll leave you alone. You can do it yourself if you need to. But I’m here.”
Jason stares at the floor for longer than should be necessary to consider something like this. It’s not like Roy hasn’t undressed Jason before, after missions when he’s too tired to do it himself, or too injured to take care of it.
But something is wrong.
“Okay.” Jason relents.
“Chest armor first?”
“Yeah.”
Jason had already gotten his jacket off, so Roy focuses on the series of straps that keep his body armor on. He places it on the floor, unwilling to be careless with Jason’s things right now. Jason starts pulling off the tight black shirt that was underneath the armor. Roy kneels down to start unlacing Jason’s boots. There’s grey dots of ash all over them. So something really was burning tonight.
Was there a bomb?
Across the room Roy’s phone buzzes once. A text.
He ignores it. Jason first.
“Boots.” Roy says quietly. Jason balances himself against Roy, allows him to pull off one boot and set it aside, and then switches feet so Roy can pull off the other one.
“Pants?” Roy asks.
“Okay.”
The buttonholes are a little frayed from Jason’s tugging at them earlier, but Roy is able to undo the buttons without any further damage. They’ll need to fix the pants later to prevent anymore tearing.
Roy slowly eases the pants down Jason’s legs, pauses to let him step out of them. He folds them, if only to give himself something to do. They’re going in the wash anyways.
Roy wants to help more, wants to fix this in some way, but Jason is clearly feeling cagey. Maybe on another day Roy would help him out of his boxers too, would help him wash his hair and shower, get him into bed, but every inch of Jason is screaming do not touch me.
So he doesn’t.
“I’m gonna shower.” Jason says.
“Alright.” Roy says easily. Keep it easy, keep it light, no concerned faces or prodding until he’s ready. Jason when he’s upset is a familiar animal.
Jason just nods, turns and heads down the hallway towards the bathroom.
Roy busies himself with loading up Jason’s soft clothes in the laundry. The leather jacket will need to hang outside to get rid of the smell, the helmet and body armor will need to be scrubbed. Another day, though. For now, he just lays it all out on the balcony.
The shower is still going when he’s done, so he checks his phone. One text from Dick.
Is Jason with you?
Something definitely happened.
Yeah, something wrong?
The reply comes back almost instantaneously.
He killed someone tonight. B is pissed.
Jason periodically kills, Bruce is always pissed. There’s nothing new about that, and Roy isn’t sure why he’s on the receiving end of texts about it.
Another text from Dick rolls in.
He burned someone alive.
Ah.
Well, that explains the smell.
Roy wracks his brains, tries to remember if Jason’s ever done something like this before. Jason doesn’t exactly shy away from violence, but if he needs to kill someone he’ll usually stick to the quick efficiency of a handgun.
The shower turns off.
Roy puts his phone down and waits.
It doesn’t take long for Jason to come slumping out of the bathroom. He’s wrapped in a towel, his hair sticking up from being roughly dried.
“Jaybird, you good?”
Jason shrugs.
Not good, then. Bad enough that he doesn’t want to fake it either. Which means he needs something.
“C’mere.” Roy says, and Jason, who can be so sweet, and trusting, and gentle, comes to him. Roy opens his arms and Jason leans heavily against him, melts into him. Roy gently rubs at Jason’s shoulder, at his bare back.
“You wanna talk about what happened?” Roy asks.
Jason sighs. “Kids.” He says simply.
Roy sighs too. Always kids. “I’m sorry, Jaybird.” He murmurs. Nothing gets Jason twisted up quite like seeing kids get hurt. Not even Bruce can get him that black-out angry, leave him with a comedown that can take him out for days.
Jason doesn’t talk too much about what happened to him as a kid, but Roy knows the broad strokes, and a few small, gut-wrenching details from the times when Jason would get too upset to have a filter, and sob the worst of his nightmares against Roy’s chest.
“Dick texted.” Roy says quietly. “Wanted to check in. He told me about… what happened.”
Jason stiffens, but doesn’t pull back. “He doesn’t get it. They would do it again. You can’t— there’s only one way to stop—“
“I know, baby.” Roy says. “God, I know.”
“I wanted it to hurt him.” Jason says. “I wanted him to hurt so badly for what he’d done. I wanted to torture him.” Jason’s hands turn into fists against Roy’s shirt. He’s shaking. “But Dick was there, so I— it had to be fast.”
“You thought he would stop you.”
“I knew he would stop me.” Jason said. “I wanted to take my time. I wanted to—“ Jason buries his face against Roy’s throat. It feels hot against the skin. “God, Roy, the things I wanted to do to him. Burning him was just supposed to be the grand finale.”
Roy just hums quietly. He can’t pretend Jason’s darker tendencies don’t disturb him. He’s seen the way Jason can take joy in inflicting pain, smiling as blood spatters against his face. It doesn’t happen often these days, but when it does — it’s frightening. That Jason is perhaps closer to the deep-end than anyone in his family wants to acknowledge. That maybe it’s one of the worst traits he and Bruce share.
He knows it scares Jason too, sometimes. How brutal he can be. He’s seen Dick pull Jason off of a criminal while Jason gapes at the damage he’d done, the way he gets broody and quiet afterwards. Killing is something that Jason made peace with a long time ago. It’s a means to an end, a way to ensure the safety of himself and the people around him. The ease with which he slips unnecessary into violence and torture — that’s a different thing. That’s something he wants, something he gives himself. Something he gives into.
God. Burning someone. Roy feels bad that Dick had to be there to see that. He can’t imagine that it was pleasant to watch or hear.
Or smell.
Jason pulls back from the hug, takes a step back, and Roy watches him carefully. He won’t make eye contact — fairly normal if he’s upset or anxious. That’s fine. He’s stopped shaking, which means he probably isn’t heading towards a panic attack.
“I’m gonna go to bed.” Jason says. He lifts his hand to his mouth to chew at the skin around his thumbnail. His fingertips all look pretty raw. Roy’s heart sinks. That kind of damage usually takes Jason a few days, which means that he’s probably been a little manic about this case. About his plans to torture a guy, culminating in burning him alive.
Knowing Jason, the plans are written down somewhere. The thought of finding a methodical list of that nature makes Roy’s stomach turn.
“I’m going to clean this up.” Roy says, gesturing to the mess of pancake ingredients still by the stove. “I’ll be there in a bit.”
Jason nods distractedly. He pads off to the bedroom, still gnawing at his thumb. It doesn’t seem like he’s all there right now, but it’s not completely out of the ordinary for Jason to check out for a bit. Sometimes it even seems to do him some good, Roy thinks, even as it makes him feel sick.
Roy takes a breath and refocuses on putting away the ingredients, scrubbing down the counter, washing out the pan.
When he’s finished cleaning up, he putters around the kitchen a bit, putting off the inevitable. It’s not that he’s avoiding Jason, or that he doesn’t want to see him. It’s not that hearing that he burned someone makes him love him any less.
Seeing Jason angry is upsetting. Seeing Jason cry is heart-wrenching. But seeing Jason completely checked out, divorcing himself from reality out of necessity? It’s scary. It’s scary that he’s done this to himself because he needs to, because everything that happened to him and was done to him left him unable to deal with everything the world throws at him, day after day. People are not supposed to be the way that Jason is.
Roy wants him out of vigilanteism, at least for a while. He wants him in therapy more than anything. But Jason is angry and sensitive, and there’s only so much pushing from Roy that he’ll take before he gets frightened and runs.
Roy re-folds a dishtowel for the fifth time, and then drops it on the counter in a heap. He pauses outside their bedroom door, listening for… anything. Crying. Maybe even snoring, if he’s lucky. Jason always feels better after resting, although he doubts Jason’s going to get much rest tonight. He knows they’re both in for a full night of Jason’s nightmares, with all the screaming and panic that comes with them.
It’s quiet. He pushes the door open, and Jason’s laying in bed, curled on his side and gazing distantly at the wall. The bed-side lamp is on.
Jason’s eyes move briefly over to Roy, and then back to the wall.
“Hey.” Roy says. "How are you feeling?”
“M’fine.”
“Did you take anything?”
Jason shakes his head.
“Do you want some Ativan?”
Another shake of his head.
Roy goes to their shared dresser to change, and can feel Jason’s eyes tracking him across the room. He glances over at him as he steps out of his boxers. Jason’s watching shamelessly, but there’s no hunger in his eyes. There’s just… nothing.
Roy pulls on sweatpants and one of Jason’s ratty old t-shirts. He drops his dirty clothes in the hamper.
And then there’s nothing left to do. There’s just the bed, and Jason in it.
Roy climbs into his side of the bed. “Do you mind if I leave the light on?” He asks. “I want to read for a bit.”
Jason shakes his head.
Roy reaches for his book on the nightstand. Jason’s the reader in the household, not Roy. Jason devours books, will happily spend his free time re-reading his favorites. Roy took a while to come around to them— these days, he mostly reads them to try to wind down. His brain usually operates in overdrive, and sitting down and forcing himself to focus on the words helps take things down a notch.
It’s not as easy tonight. Roy lays back in the bed and holds the book, and stares at the same words over and over again.
He almost flinches when Jason shifts, moving in the bed so he can rest his head on Roy’s shoulder. When Roy glances over, Jason’s reading his book over his shoulder.
Something in him relaxes at that. It’s still his Jason. Sweet Jason, who likes to read and feed the stray cats, who teases his brothers.
Jason, who gets so angry that he burns people alive.
Roy pushes the thought away and presses a kiss against Jason’s head.
He turns the page. He doesn’t think about the faint smell of smoke, still clinging to Jason’s hair.