Chapter Text
Jason had to be possessed by a demon. That was the solution here, right?
Dick didn’t really have any other ideas. But, then again, maybe that was the fever talking.
Then again, the more he read, the more sound that theory became.
In Algonquian folklore, there existed a demon called a wendigo, that turned innocent humans into immoral monsters, with an inescapable hunger. Just like what Jason had described the night he’d come home.
In Byzantine Christianity, there was a low rank of demons, sensitive to sunlight, that would display animalistic tendencies within the host it possessed. Such as, fighting off a pack of coyotes over a rotting deer.
In Hinduism, demonic possession could lead to a human gaining supernatural strength and a thirst for blood- two things that Dick had borne witness to.
There was the possibility that Jason had been replaced altogether, slim as it was. Maybe the demon had assumed Jason’s form, to get closer to his family. In Japanese mythology, there were fox spirits that did something similar. Then, in Appalachian folklore, there were skinwalkers, which could explain the ‘off’ ness about the boy.
But, that wouldn’t explain the bouts of time in which Jason felt like… well, himself. Even if that was only when he had a bullet lodged in his shoulder. Almost like his strange new personality couldn’t keep a hold of him when his body was at risk of death.
Demonic possession it was.
Now, he just had to find out what type of demon it…
“Dick, you’re supposed to be resting.”
Of course Bruce would show up to his room now, and with a bandaged arm, no less. Dick looked him up and down, then returned to his demonology book, amidst the stack of folklore, illnesses, and almanacs. “How’s Jason?”
He could hear the hesitation in his father’s voice. “He’s… fine. Asleep. Alfred’s watching him,” Bruce answered, before a poorly timed sigh betrayed him. Dick didn’t spare him a glance. “You knocked him out after he tried to bite you,” he corrected.
Once upon a time, Bruce Wayne refused to even scold his youngest son, even as his patience was tested, time after time. Perhaps it was simply time that had hardened his father, but it was more likely that he’d at last seen the direness of Jason’s affliction. “I was protecting you,” Bruce explained, filling the gaps in Dick’s hypothesis. “He’s getting a lot worse. Way more violent.”
For Bruce to admit that really was a rarity. Dick didn’t quite know what to make of it, but the way the man said it hinted at something just below the surface.
Bruce wasn’t telling Dick everything.
He knew what was wrong with Jason.
Dick stared at his father for a long while. Bruce wasn't usually the type to keep secrets, but he would only do so with good reason. He hoped, at least. That didn’t mean Dick couldn’t coax the truth out of him, eventually. It just meant he had to be careful about it.
“There’s a priest in Mumford,” Dick eventually said. “I’ll take Jason. Have him looked at. Exorcised, if needed.”
Bruce’s expression remained still in a way that greatly worried Dick. “That’ll be good,” he said. Some worry hazed around his words, but there still was none of the ‘Last time you went off alone with him, he dragged you into the woods’ that Dick was expecting. No warning, no advice, just… ‘Ok.’.
Dick really hoped he wasn’t dealing with two demons.
—
The door to Jason’s room was wide open, with Alfred standing just along the doorframe, sawed-off shotgun at rest in his hands in such a way that Dick was instantly reminded of the gentleman’s military history.
If there was anybody to keep Jason safe, for both the family’s sake and his own, it would be Alfred Pennyworth. Dick didn’t think for a single second that Jason posed much risk of escaping his room again with the butler there.
The man guessed his question before he spoke. “Master Jason remains docile,” he stated, to Dick’s relief. “He should be beside the window.”
And beside the window Jason was, huddled, curled into a stump with his arms cradling his knees. The pane was wedged open, just like the door, but the kid seemed disinterested, even as the afternoon light seemed to burn his skin a terrible red color, and the brisk autumn winds disarrayed his forgotten homeworks.
Dick took a seat on the floor next to his little brother, whose face remained buried in his elbow. When he spoke, it wasn’t Jason’s voice, but that of a little kid, meager and wavering. “I’m sorry,” he quaked, unmoving, his breath remaining steady, almost as if he were asleep. Regulating himself, just like Dick taught him. “I’m so, so, sorry.”
It wasn’t like Jason to apologize, which gave Dick half an idea that maybe his brother wasn’t really the one talking now. The last time Jason acted… well, vulnerable, at all, was just before he attacked Dick. This could very well be another ruse, but Dick didn’t have it in his heart to believe that.
“It’s alright,” he reassured, though he still kept a few feet between him and his cowering brother. Dick leaned his head back against the bed’s side, and tried relaxing his body language, gazing out at the woods beyond the manor. Maybe if he didn’t seem as agitated as he really was, Jason would open up a bit. If Dick had any hope of taking him into a holy building, he needed the kid to be more comfortable.
From the corner of his eye, he could see Jason adjust his posture, just slightly, not holding himself so tightly knit anymore. His eyes peeked above his arm, his pupils blown far too large, staring longingly at the afternoon sun. “I wanted to hurt you,” Jason whispered weakly. “I really did, I’m sorry.”
“I don’t think that’s true, Jaybird,” Dick said, trying to ignore the numbness he still felt from the bite wound on his neck. “I think if you really wanted to hurt me, I would be way more dead by now.” An attempt at a joke, because at any moment, his little brother might lose control of himself again. Might finish what he started.
Jason was quiet for a moment- for the first time in his life, actually thinking before he spoke. “She told me to do it. I could have ignored her, but I didn’t.” She. Jason’s demon. Invoking any title of a demon, according to Dick’s readings, was dangerous. Even if it was just a pronoun, Jason was risking himself to give his brother a little bit more information. A way of asking for help, and desperately so.
He had to be very careful. “Why didn’t you ignore her?” he asked, choosing his words carefully. Jason was guiding the conversation, here, leading Dick to ask only the questions he could answer somewhat safely. Even still, the question came out more pointed than Dick would’ve liked.
Another silence, this time much longer than the last. Then, “I wanted us to be a family again.”
What?
“We are a family, Jay. You know that.”
Jason shook his head, and burrowed back into himself the second that tears prickled his face. “We’re not. I’m not. I’m a wolf, and you, and Dad, even Alfred, you’re all sheep. Defenseless, weak, sated sheep. And wolves are unholy, and wolves are hungry.”
Dick narrowed his eyes. Jason hated parables. He wouldn’t conjure one out of the blue like this. And he, in his stern Atheism, certainly wouldn’t call himself unholy.
Certain demons, as Dick would soon learn, needed to be invited before they could possess humans. They would do so by breaking down their future host, mentally, until the cracks were large enough to slip through.
The she-demon had told Jason that he was a monster. That’s how she’d gotten to him, and made him like this. But, some things still weren’t adding up.
“She told you that if you hurt us- if you hurt me, we could be a family?” It didn’t make sense to him, but, then again, it didn’t need to, because it seemed to make sense to Jason.
The boy nodded. “You wouldn’t be a sheep anymore. You’d be like me. Like Damian.”
“Damian?” Dick asked, though he knew he probably shouldn’t. “Is that the demon’s name?” He recalled the surname that Jason had said a few days earlier. Al Ghul.
Damian Al Ghul- like the she-demon had swapped a few letters from ‘Daimon’ and ‘Ghoul’, and found it suitable.
Jason froze once more, Dick noticed the boy’s body trembling, just slightly. Overstep. “You don’t have to say anything,” he tried to salvage. “I don’t want you-” “What demon?”
‘What demon?’
“What do you mean, ‘what demon’?”
Jason’s tone shifted. Dick’s heart dropped. “You think I’m possessed.”
Of course Jason was possessed. Why else would be acting so unlike himself? Everything about him lately- the violence, the sickness, the hunger, the flips between stone-cold and almost infantile personalities- all of it fit that diagnosis nearly perfectly.
“She warned me that you might say something like that. Because you think I’m weak, and I can’t handle myself,” Jason snarled, in such a way that made Dick’s hair stand on end.
“I didn’t say that-”
“I should’ve killed you. I should’ve beaten you into a pulp. Maybe then you would’ve made the right choice: either, you die, or you get to be my brother again.”
Dick’s muscles tensed in a spike of fear that he never should’ve held for his little brother. Jason was still hugging his knees, hiding his face, still trying to sooth himself.
“You don’t mean that.”
Maybe he did.
Maybe Dick had gotten this all wrong, and there really was no demon inhabiting his brother. Maybe Dick’s little brother was the demon. Turned into one, maybe even voluntarily.
“Am I really that terrible that you’d rather die than be like me?”
“No, that’s not-”
“Then why didn’t you drink the blood? Why did you resist? Do you hate me that much?”
Dick remembered the taste of something sweet on his tongue, and a pressure on his throat, and a burning in his neck, and being completely unable to move a single finger. It was blood. Jason was trying to get his brother to drink blood. His blood.
He wanted to throw up.
What would’ve happened if he wasn't paralysed like that? If he actually listened to his brother’s words?
You’d be just like Jason, a voice answered. A wolf, sheep no longer. Unholy. Hungry. Damned.
I wouldn’t be human anymore.
Jason had always wanted to be something ‘more’. That’s why he was so firm to join the military, despite Bruce’s strict demands otherwise. That’s why he learned so much about guns, and hunting, and fighting, so that he could serve more than just himself.
But, Dick never saw that the root of his brother’s ambition was that he felt ‘lesser’.
The monster that had turned Jason into this had seen that.
Exposed it.
Extorted it.
“You’re still my brother, Jason,” Dick said, reminding himself that if he were to turn on him again, Alfred was right by the door, hearing everything, and armed with a shotgun. “Whatever’s wrong, whatever that monster put in your head, whatever she turned you into, I am going to help you.”
Jason stared straight at him. Straight through him.
“I thought you couldn’t kill?”