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It starts as a normal family bonding night.
The cave is louder than usual, with most of the kids gathered by the training area, arguing who’s better at balancing on one arm. It’s Dick, obviously, ever the athlete, but Jason doesn’t say it out loud. He’s busy with something else, being forced by Tim and Bruce to work, as it’s seemingly all they are capable to do.
Jason’s fingers fly over the control panel of the latest piece of tech the family’s been tinkering with. The machine in front of him is something out of a crappy sci-fi movie – a giant tube, sleek and almost alien in its design, pushed to the far corner of the cave to sit with other forgotten trophies.
Jason’s brow furrows as he pries open the casing, skepticism clouding his thoughts. A time machine, they’d said. But it looks cheap, flimsy even, like something cobbled together with spare parts and half-finished ideas. He doesn’t believe it. It feels too absurd to be real, too fragile to hold the weight of what it claims to be. The dim, flickering lights above cast long shadows over the machine, making it look even more out of place, like a bad joke that no one has the heart to laugh at.
Strangely, Bruce isn’t the one who brought it home this time. It wasn’t even Tim. The thought would have been almost comforting in its craziness. No, this time it was Dick – who dragged it back from one of his runs with the Justice League. He had found it, he’d said, half-buried beneath rubble, and no one batted an eye when he casually claimed it as his.
He doesn’t care, though. He’s here for Alfred’s cookies, not to worry about a machine that’s more of a distraction than anything else. The warmth of the tea should be welcoming, but it’s a hollow comfort tonight, just like the rest of this place. The cave, the house, the family – it still feels like a façade. Bruce and Tim are arguing over the calibration, their voices rising and falling in a familiar, tired rhythm. But Jason doesn’t pay attention to the words. He’s focused on the wiring, his hands moving mechanically, ensuring that every cable finds its place behind the cold, metallic plates of the machine. It's all just to pass the time, to avoid thinking about what the machine represents.
Time. Time they don’t have. Time they can’t afford to lose.
He knows Bruce. He knows that no matter how much Jason plays with the thing, no matter how much they fix the broken parts, Bruce will never let anyone use it. And that’s probably for the best. Time isn’t something they should be playing with. Time has never been kind to any of them.
The machine stands there, mocking him with its quiet hum, its empty promise. Jason closes the panel with a soft click, the sound reverberating in the room like a closing door. It’s not real, none of it is. And yet, for a moment, as the machine flickers to life with an eerie glow, Jason almost believes it could be. Almost. But the illusion is fleeting, and just as quickly, the glow dies out, leaving only the echo of his doubt in the air.
He pushes the thought aside, but it lingers, gnawing at the edges of his mind like the cold emptiness that surrounds them all.
Time machines aren’t real.
Maybe, they’ll never be. But the thing that really stings – the thing that makes his stomach twist – is that even if they could go back in time, even if they could change things for the better – it won’t erase the pain they’ve already been through.
“Jason, focus.” Tim's voice slices through the noise of the cave, sharp with frustration. “You’re supposed to be helping me get this thing calibrated.”
Jason doesn’t look up, his fingers continuing their aimless dance across the machine’s controls. He grins, the action feeling forced, like an old habit he can’t quite shake.
“You’re asking me to do what? Pretend I care about your boring technical mumbo jumbo?”
It’s routine. The back-and-forth, the banter, the half-jokes. Bruce’s eyes flick toward them, a fleeting glance, but it’s enough to know the moment passes as registered. Jason knows that look. The subtle shift, the unspoken acknowledgment of his presence that feels more like an afterthought.
Bruce doesn't need to say anything. He never does.
They all pretend it’s normal.
“I want to see dinosaurs,” Tim whines, and for a second, Jason considers it a valid reason to help. “So hurry up and fix it.”
“Of course you do,” Jason laughs. “Freaking nerd.”
Jason can’t remember the last time they were all here together, working side by side like this, without someone standing in the background. Without someone being too hurt, too angry, or too distant to pretend they’re family. It feels… almost normal, and the ache in his chest is almost forgettable. Almost. The warm buzz of it, the lightness that comes with being around them, doesn’t last long.
Something doesn’t fit. It’s probably still him.
A nagging sensation crawls under his skin, like the subtle shift of air before a storm breaks, or standing on the edge of a cliff without knowing how far the fall is. He shakes it off, his hands moving without thinking, tightening the final screw in the machine’s casing.
Focus.
“Let’s see if it works!” Dick suddenly exclaims, appearing out of nowhere, pushing Tim aside with his hip. His voice too bright, too full of that reckless hope that Jason knows means nothing but trouble.
“Dick, don’t!–” Jason doesn’t know who says it, but the warning goes unheard. “Jason, get out–”
Then– something happens.
The hum comes first. A deep, guttural thrum that shakes the very foundations of the cave. It’s a pulse of energy, alive and violent, pushing through the ground beneath Jason’s feet. Before he can even react, it surges upwards, and his breath catches in his throat.
The cave vibrates.
It’s like the world itself is breaking apart, bending, twisting. The machine before him buckles under the weight of something too big to understand. The walls warp, stretching like a distorted painting, unreal and suffocating, and the lights flicker once, twice, before they go out completely.
The darkness is sudden, all-encompassing. It’s like drowning, but not in water – something worse. Something heavier. Or maybe it's falling. No, it’s not falling. It’s being dragged. It’s being ripped from everything he’s ever known, like a thread pulled loose from the seams of the world, unraveling.
A jolt of static electricity rips through him, searing through his chest, down to his limbs. Every nerve in his body screams, crackling like fire, alive with a pain that’s not entirely his. His body jerks, his muscles seizing, his vision blurring as a flood of color and noise explodes in his mind. The world spins in every direction, twisting, warping, until he can no longer tell up from down. He gasps for breath, but the void fills his lungs instead – cold and empty.
He can’t move. He can’t think. His body betrays him, his mind slipping into a haze, every thought scattering like leaves in the wind.
And then, the cave is gone.
The voices – Bruce’s, Tim’s, Dick’s, all of them – fade into nothingness, swallowed by an oppressive, suffocating silence. The warmth of the cave, the hum of the machines, even the faint glow of the lights, all of it vanishes. Jason’s body goes rigid, his head spinning like he's been thrown into some kind of cosmic void.
He doesn’t know if he’s alive or dead, if it even matters.
His feet slam into the ground with a sickening thud, his knees buckling beneath him. He collapses into the dirt, gasping, his palms scraping across the rough earth as though he's trying to hold onto something solid, something real. The air feels wrong – too thin, too foreign – and his chest heaves, his breath ragged and uneven. His heart beats loudly in his ears, a pounding reminder that he’s still here, still breathing, even if everything else has fallen away.
He’s lost. Not just in the place, but in everything. The familiar warmth of the cave, the noise of their bickering, the sound of someone calling his name, it’s all a distant memory now, slipping through his fingers like sand.
The first thing Jason notices when his eyes crack open is the heat.
It’s violent, warping everything around him like a mirage. The ground beneath his feet feels wrong – too solid, too heavy. His body, disoriented, takes a moment to process the change. He looks down, expecting to see the cave’s stone beneath him, the familiar coldness of it. But instead, there's only dust. Endless, suffocating dust, stretching out in every direction.
The dry particles cling to him, like a thousand tiny hands trying to pull him into the ground. It settles in his lungs, heavy and choking, a weight he can’t shake, as if the air itself is trying to strangle him. It smells of dust and gasoline, the scent too familiar, too wrong. It clings to his skin, a haunting memory that refuses to let him breathe freely. He grits his teeth, boots scraping against the cracked dirt beneath him, and for a split second, he doesn't move, doesn't breathe. Because for all the surrounding desolation, there’s something else he knows – he’s been here before.
This place.
His heart stutters.
No.
His eyes shift toward the horizon, drawn to the hulking silhouette rising in the distance. The warehouse. The warehouse. Its rusted walls are streaked with grime, but it’s the faint memory of the Joker’s painted grin that twists the world around him. Faded, yet unmistakable. The flashback slams into him like a physical blow.
Ethiopia.
The word drops into his mind like a stone, sinking deeper and deeper, each ripple of dread spreading outward, suffocating everything in its wake.
Jason’s chest tightens painfully. His head spins. This isn’t possible. He shouldn’t be here. He can’t be here. Can he?
But when he turns, he sees only more of the same – the arid wasteland stretching on and on, the air shimmering faintly under the dying light of the sun. No road. No way out. The sense of being trapped in time, like some insect caught in amber, settles in his chest. The feeling of helplessness sinks into him, deep and hollow, just like it did the first time.
He knows what’s waiting for him.
His legs begin to move of their own accord. No, he tells himself, not again. But his feet carry him forward anyway, each step a reluctant echo of the past. He doesn’t want to go. He doesn’t want to see it again. But there’s something pulling him, invisible strings tugging at him, dragging him back to this nightmare as though it’s a part of him that can never be escaped.
The warehouse door looms closer, rust streaking the surface like blood. His fingers twitch, desperate to not turn the handle, but when he reaches out, his hand passes through it, like the door isn't even there.
Jason freezes, his heart hammering in his chest as if the pulse is trying to break free. His hand lingers in the air, fingers splayed wide, trembling. He flexes them, trying to convince himself that they're still real, that he’s still real, but the panic is crawling beneath his skin, seeping into his bones.
They’re real. And they’re not.
His throat tightens, and he swallows hard, the sensation of being torn between this world and the next rattling through him. He steps forward, moving through the door like it isn’t there, as if it doesn’t matter. The world around him shifts and warps, hazy and sharp all at once, like he’s walking through a memory carved into broken glass. Each step is a jagged echo, each breath a fractured reminder of what’s waiting inside.
The inside is exactly as he remembers it. The dimness presses against him, suffocating, the shadows stretching long and thick. The faint light from the cracks in the walls falls in thin streaks across the floor, illuminating the twisted shape of the room he thought he’d buried deep. It’s all there – so painfully familiar, down to the cold, stale air that clings to the walls like a ghost.
And then, he sees it.
His younger self. Heavy ropes around his limbs, a hollow shell of the person he used to be. The boy in front of him is broken, a reflection of everything Jason never wanted to remember. His heart stutters in his chest, the pain so sharp it feels like a blade scraping against bone. Jason doesn’t want to look. He doesn’t want to be here. He tries to turn away, but his body doesn’t listen. It’s as though the very scene itself has anchored him to the ground, binding him in place with invisible chains.
He watches, because he has no choice.
He watches himself – bruised, bleeding, eyes wide with fear, but empty at the same time. The way his hands tremble, the desperate, broken look on his face, the quiet sobs he can’t control. It’s him. But it isn’t. It’s everything he’s tried to bury, tried to forget. The pain, the helplessness, the cold fear of being abandoned, left to rot in a place like this.
Jason’s breath catches in his throat. The scene unfolds in slow motion, each second stretching out in agonizing detail. The boy – he – doesn’t even know what’s coming.
The thing Jason knows too well.
The thing that broke him.
And no matter how much he wants to look away, no matter how much he begs himself to leave, his body refuses. Because this is the past, and the past doesn’t let you go. Not even when you’re desperate to escape.
He has to watch.
Jason knows, he can’t save himself. Not this time.
The bomb is ticking. Jason can feel it – the steady, insistent thrum deep in his chest. It’s like a second heartbeat, one that’s cold and mechanical, indifferent to everything around it. The seconds stretch out, and with each one, the weight of what’s coming presses harder on him. He can’t do anything. It’s already set in motion. The explosion, the fire, the blood. It’s all waiting.
He knows how this ends. He’s lived it. Over and over, in his mind, in his nightmares. But now, it’s different. Now, he’s trapped on the other side, watching, helpless. He’s not the one charging in to save the day. He’s the one standing here, broken, powerless.
Jason can’t stop this in any way. He can either close his eyes or watch, the outcome will never change.
And the boy doesn’t know. God, the boy doesn’t know.
He fucking hates it.
The explosion is sudden. Violent.
Jason doesn’t feel it, not really. He hears it – the rupture tears through the air, swallowing every sound, every heartbeat. The ground shakes beneath him. The walls of the warehouse buckle outward, and the air is thick with the scent of gasoline, of fire, of destruction. The light flares, blinding, a wave of orange and red, all-consuming, too hot to touch.
But Jason doesn’t flinch. He doesn’t feel.
He stands there, watching, as the flames bloom and the wreckage falls. The world crumbles in slow motion, as the sound of metal and wood tearing apart fills the space, and the heat presses against his skin like molten iron. The fire devours everything – everything he used to know, everything he used to be. But he doesn't move. Doesn’t run.
And the pain? It’s not new. It’s not sharp anymore. It’s old. Muted. Like the ache of a wound that’s never quite healed, but neither has it closed. It's the kind of pain that sinks into you, twists into the marrow of your bones, until it’s part of who you are.
It should hurt. So much.
The explosion lingers, the smoke and debris choking the air. The flames crackle and hiss, gnawing at what’s left. Jason just stands there. He doesn’t scream. He doesn’t cry. Because what’s the point?
His younger self is gone. He knows that. He’s already dead. Already a piece of the past.
And all Jason can do is watch. Silent. Helpless. Torn between the ghost of the boy he used to be and the man he wishes he could have been.
And when the fire finally burns itself out, when the dust settles, there’s nothing left but ash. And Jason – broken, alone, a phantom in the wreckage – stands there, waiting for a salvation that will never come.
He knows he should feel something. Panic. Pain. Anger. Anything. But his chest is hollow, empty, like the explosion stole more than the air, it stole him. Smoke coils around him like a cold embrace, thick and oppressive, suffocating in its silence. It doesn’t choke him. He’s not sure if it even touches him.
Nothing feels real.
His boots move, mechanical, like they belong to someone else, stepping through the charred remnants of the warehouse without hesitation. His feet don’t falter on the uneven ground, don’t flinch at the heat from the embers that still smolder beneath him. Everything around him has been reduced to ash, a skeletal ruin of what once stood. Yet all he can hear is the steady, rhythmic thudding of his own pulse, too loud in the silence.
And then, in the center of it all, is the boy. Him.
He doesn’t want to see, but the sight of the boy, of him , his younger self, pierces through him like a blade. His body is slumped on the ground, lifeless. His arms hang limply by his sides, his head tilted in a sickening angle. Blood paints his face, staining his skin, but it’s his eyes that Jason can’t look away from. Those wide, unseeing eyes, still staring at the sky, as if waiting for someone to come.
But no one is coming.
“That’s not me,” Jason whispers, his voice barely above a breath. His words fall flat, empty, like a lie he can’t convince himself to believe. “That’s not me anymore.” But the words don’t make it stop.
The boy looks so small. Smaller than he ever was. Jason hadn’t remembered him being so small – he hadn’t remembered himself being so small. So fragile. So broken.
And then, from the distance, a faint hum cuts through the silence. Jason doesn’t even need to look up to know what it is. A car. He hears it long before it reaches him. The roar of it grows louder, building to a thunderous crescendo. His heart lurches in his chest, the rhythm erratic, painful.
The figure that dismounts from it is a blur, swift, urgent. Jason doesn’t need to see the shape of the cowl, the cut of the cape. He already knows. He knows that man better than he knows himself. Knows the weight of his footsteps, the tone of his voice when he speaks, the way his presence fills up a room, or in this case, a broken space like a shadow hanging too heavy in the air.
“Bruce,” Jason breathes, the word slipping from his lips unbidden, soft, like a prayer.
Then.
“Dad.” The word burns, like acid, on his tongue. He didn’t mean to say it, but it spills out before he can stop it. Dad. In the smoke, in the ruins of everything, it hangs there, a fragile thing, lost and useless.
Bruce is already moving, pressing, all frantic, his steps cutting through the haze. Jason steps back into the shadows, retreating, though he knows Bruce can’t see him. He’s just a ghost, fading into the cinders, a phantom that doesn’t belong here. He watches helplessly, the pain almost unbearable, as Bruce draws near the boy’s body.
“Jason!” Bruce calls, so loud it makes him flinch. “Where are you?!”
He wants to reach out, to grab Bruce and scream, No. Don’t come here. Don’t see this. Don’t see me like this. But there’s nothing he can do. He’s not alive. He’s not even here, really.
Bruce’s breath hitches before he even reaches the boy, and Jason feels his heart crack. The sound Bruce makes is raw, jagged, a guttural noise that rips through the air. It’s not a scream, not exactly, but it’s more – it’s the sound of a man breaking in half. Jason doesn’t know if he’s ever heard a sound more awful, more ugly, than that.
“No,” Bruce whispers, his voice choked with grief. His knees hit the ground, the cape pooling around him like the ashes of everything he’s ever loved. “No, no, no. Jason. Jason–”
Jason can’t breathe. He can’t think. He doesn’t want to watch, but he can’t look away.
Bruce gathers the boy into his arms, cradling him, holding him like something fragile, something he never thought he would lose. He touches the boy’s forehead with his cowl, as if, somehow, this might bring him back. As if the touch of a father might undo everything. But there’s nothing. There’s simply nothing.
“Jason, baby, look at me.” Bruce shakes the boy gently, cupping his cheeks, checking his pulse. “Say something, chum. Please.”
Bruce’s hands tremble, his body shaking as he holds Jason’s lifeless form, as he cradles the son he couldn’t save. And it hurts. It hurts like nothing else.
Because Jason knows. He knows that the only thing Bruce can’t fix – the one thing he can never save – is him.
And it’s that knowledge, that final realization, that shatters Jason completely. His heart, if it were still beating, would be a mangled mess in his chest. But it’s not. There’s nothing left of him anymore.
Nothing but the smoke. And the silence. And the weight of a grief that will never end.
Jason watches, his chest hollow and aching, every beat of his heart sounding too loud, too harsh. He doesn’t know what he expected. Anger, maybe. Or a cold detachment. Something he could understand, something that wouldn’t rip him open like this. But not this. Not this.
Not Bruce, breaking apart in front of him, his face streaked with tears and soot, his lips whispering denial like a prayer to a god who will never answer. Jason’s fingers lift, trembling, wanting to reach out – to touch Bruce’s shoulder, to pull him from the abyss, to tell him that he’s still here, that he’s still alive. But–
His fingers pass straight through Bruce’s form, insubstantial, because he’s not there. The world is too quiet now, too still.
Jason’s knees threaten to buckle, but he doesn’t fall. He can’t. He won’t.
Bruce doesn’t let go. Of the boy. Of him. His grip is tight, desperate, Jason can feel it, phantom fingers curling around his own broken body, searing with their intensity. Bruce is trying to hold him together, trying to fix what can never be fixed. He can feel that effort, like it’s part of him, part of this torment that pulls at him, refusing to let go.
“I tried,” Bruce whispers, his voice barely more than a rasp, like he's choking on the weight of the words. “I tried to get here in time. I–” His words break off in a choked sob, swallowed by the void between them.
Jason’s breath catches in his throat. The ache inside him deepens, sharper than it’s ever been before. He’s seen Bruce hurt. He’s seen him bloodied, bruised, bent under the weight of failure. But never like this. Never so broken. So human.
Jason wants to scream, wants to tear this world apart and make it stop. But he’s not here. He’s nothing but a shadow, a ghost, a memory of an equally tragic future that follows.
“You’re going to be okay,” Bruce murmurs, his voice thick with tears as he rocks the boy’s body gently, almost tenderly, as though he could still fix him, still bring him back. “You’re going to be okay. I promise.”
Jason’s chest tightens, and he can feel the words deep in his soul, sharp and bitter.
You liar.
The thought comes unbidden, a knife in his ribs, but he doesn’t speak it. He doesn’t need to. Bruce wouldn’t hear him anyway. He wouldn’t ever hear him.
Jason knows it, knows exactly what Bruce is searching for in the stillness of that broken body. He’s searching for an answer that will never come. A miracle that’s long past.
He thought he had buried it all. Under years of rage, of vengeance, of pain. He thought he’d buried it under the blood and bullets, under the fire he walked through. But seeing this, watching Bruce fall apart over him, it cuts deeper than anything. It’s a wound he thought had healed, but it’s still there, festering, raw.
It wasn’t supposed to hurt like this.
“You didn’t move on,” Jason whispers, the words barely a breath. They shatter in the air between them. “You didn’t just leave me here.”
Jason stumbles back, his legs trembling, his hands shaking as he reaches for something solid to hold onto. But there’s nothing. There’s nothing here. Not anymore. Not for him.
He doesn’t want to be here. He doesn’t want to watch this, doesn’t want to feel this. He thought he knew what this moment would be. Thought he understood it. But now – now, it’s not what he thought at all. It’s worse. It’s deeper. It’s a bullet he won’t escape, no matter how far he runs.
He turns away, his vision blurring, a wave of dizziness crashing over him. The smoke thickens, curling around him, a suffocating embrace. He moves through it, stepping over charred wood and twisted metal, through walls that no longer exist, through a space that’s both too small and too vast to be real. It stretches on endlessly. Disjointed, like the remnants of a dream he can’t wake up from.
Jason stops. His boots scrape against the cracked dirt, the sound too loud in the emptiness. He doesn’t want to look. He doesn’t want to know. But he can’t help it. He glances over his shoulder, back toward Bruce and the boy. The scene is already fading, blurred in the ash and smoke.
The sound of movement catches him – a deliberate, controlled pace, heavy footsteps cutting through the quiet. Jason feels it, that shift, that instinctual pull.
Jason’s chest tightens. He doesn’t want to see. Doesn’t want to know.
He doesn’t follow him. He can’t.
The silence after it ends feels like it’s trying to swallow him whole.
Jason feels the familiar pull again, the tug that drags him from the warehouse, from the past, and slings him back into the present. But this time, it’s different. There’s no rush of disorienting weightlessness, no blinding static that makes him feel like he's being torn apart. Instead, it’s a sudden, sharp return. Like he’s been pulled from the fire and thrown back into the cold.
The cave greets him. The hum of machinery, the distant echo of running whispers – so mundane, so normal. Far from the crackling inferno of his past death, far away from the boy he used to be.
His hands tremble, and he reaches out, grasping for something solid to steady himself. His breath comes in ragged gasps, the remnants of the horror he just lived through still clawing at his chest. But there’s no time to settle, no time to process.
“Jason!”
Tim’s voice cuts through the fog in his mind, dragging him from the spiral of his thoughts. He looks up, his gaze jerking toward Tim. The younger stands there, a little disoriented, but not rattled. Behind him, Bruce’s silhouette looms, just as expectant, just as unreadable.
Before he can say anything, Dick is already pulling him into a hug.
“You’re back!”
Jason feels like a ghost in his own body. Heavy. Detached. Like he’s wearing someone else’s skin. But he straightens, trying to mask the sickness swirling in his gut, trying to pull himself together before they can see the cracks in his facade.
“What happened?” Bruce asks, voice rough, tired. It’s a question full of expectation, like he’s been waiting for this answer forever. He doesn’t even blink. “Where did you go?”
Then, Tim’s “Did the machine work?”
Jason doesn't want to look at them. Doesn’t want to meet his eyes and see the faint flicker of hope, or the tightening of his jaw, the small signs of worry that tell Jason more than he ever wanted to know.
He just spent the last few minutes watching Bruce crumble – broken over a body that was his – and now Bruce is asking him what happened, as if everything is normal, as if nothing has changed.
But it has. It’s all changed.
Jason’s pulse thuds in his throat, every beat like a hammer driving a nail deeper into his chest. He opens his mouth to speak, but the words stick there, thick and bitter. The weight of the truth threatens to crush him. The truth. That he was pulled back to his own death, that he stood there. But he can’t say that. Not to them. Not now.
Instead, Jason swallows the ache, forces it to settle in his throat. He wraps his arms around Dick, hiding the tremor that betrays him.
“It threw me to a time,” he says, voice flat, controlled. “A time so unimportant, I won’t even bother answering.”
Tim and Dick exchange a glance. They don’t understand. They can’t. They weren’t there. They didn’t see what Jason saw.
There’s no way to make them understand. No way to explain that some things can never be fixed, no matter how hard you try. That the person they see now, the one standing here in front of them, isn’t the same one who was thrown into the fire.
He’s different. Broken. Lost.
Jason pushes Dick away, but his brother doesn’t let him escape, not easily. Instead, he pushes them towards Bruce and Tim, letting the other two share their embrace.
He has no choice, then. Jason lets the mask slip back into place, smooth and practiced, like it’s been there all along.
“You were right, Timbo,” Jason says, his voice light, easy. Too easy, like he’s just had a casual conversation. “Dinosaurs did have feathers.”
Tim blinks, his brow furrowing in confusion. Jason catches the look, the unspoken questions, and before Tim can say anything, Jason reaches out. He pulls Tim closer by the back of his head, ruffling his hair in that familiar, playful way. Casual, teasing, the kind of thing he’s done a thousand times before.
The touch is warm, familiar. A small attempt to smooth over the cracks that threaten to show. A reminder of what they used to have, before everything fell apart.
The moment passes. The worry fades, just a little.
Bruce doesn’t speak either, though Jason can feel the weight of his gaze. He’s studying Jason, trying to read the cracks behind the mask, trying to figure out what’s hidden beneath the jokes and sarcasm. But Jason doesn’t let him get too close. Not this time. Not when the truth is more than he can bear.
With a small, almost imperceptible sigh, Jason pulls back. He turns away from them, heading for the shadows, knowing they won’t follow.
The ache is still there, but it’s his to carry. Silently. Deep inside.
If they ever ask again, his answer won’t change.
He’s a good liar. He’s learned from the best.