Work Text:
“Here,” Jason says. He’s holding the cigarette between his thumb and index finger, his arm extended toward Dick. He’s leaning against the headboard, one knee up. They’re both dressed in loose sweatpants and t-shirts, and it all feels so very domestic, perhaps out of place.
Dick thinks of asking “are you sure?” but a part of him doesn’t want Jason to rethink this. Sure, it’s something his brother asked, but it’s a shameful thing just how much Dick wants it too.
Jason needs this, and Dick wants this. He can’t tell exactly what that difference means, but he thinks it’s relevant.
Dick takes one drag and slowly lets it out, blows some of it on Jason’s face, and it paints such a beautiful picture; his brother’s face amidst a halo of smoke, his curls falling over his forehead, and the white of the moonlight gives his lips a stark red, almost as if he’s bleeding. He looks ethereal, but his body is solid beneath Dick’s; it’s perfect.
Jason raises an eyebrow and smiles like he does before attacking. “Quit stalling,” he says.
It’s all playful with a side of challenging, but Dick burns with something more. God, he wants to wipe that smug, sharp smile off of Jason’s face, and he also wants to see him smile all the time—the real smiles, the ones that are rare, so rare, that Dick isn’t sure he’s actually seen them ever since Jason came back.
If Jason were like him, he might fake smiles so well they’d look real, but Dick loves the fact that he doesn’t, that he can drink all the genuine emotion that bleeds, always bleeds from his brother. It’s not something Dick wants for himself, and sometimes it infuriates him to see in Jason, too, but he can’t deny the allure it has.
He presses Jason against the headboard with one of his hands splayed against Jason’s collarbone, and with the other, he brings the cigarette to his lips and inhales.
Then Dick kisses Jason. Well, it’s not much of a kiss, it’s more like breathing—breathing life—into him, except, of course, there’s too much smoke to be life, but this is the point of it all. He kind of hates the taste, but he also got used to the bitter notes—Jason usually tastes like that, after all.
Then he puts the cigarette against Jason’s lips and waits for him to take a long, deep, drag, one hand cupping Jason’s jaw delicately, thumbs stroking his jaw and lips. It’s noisy—Jason’s inhale, Jason’s breath—and Dick savors it, and his thoughts, as they are wont to do, go to the fact that one day his brother’s chest was still, that his skin was cold, that his eyes—
Dick doesn’t think about Jason’s dead eyes. Ever. And right now, he doesn’t think of a death certificate or the words cause of death or Bruce’s meticulous reports either.
Jason moves against the headboard, slides down a bit and moves his legs so they’re flat on the mattress. Dick straddles Jason’s legs, taking the time to run his hands over toned thighs. Jason doesn’t breathe out, just holds in the smoke and looks at Dick with those green-blue eyes of his, as if daring Dick to follow through.
And Jason is daring Dick to go on. It’s like Jason can read every wrong thought that goes inside his head, and, like a siren, he says “you can have it”.
Dick puts the cigarette in the ashtray on the bedside table and then covers Jason’s mouth with one hand, palm going over his mouth, while index and thumb pinch his nose, making it impossible for his brother to breathe. With his other hand, Dick strokes his brother’s chest, not with any particular intent other than to feel him.
Jason relaxes, the weight of his body sinking into the bed, and that in itself gives Dick a rush of power. He doesn’t know what it is about him that Jason trusts with this—this thing; choking on smoke, or laying against his own headstone, pliant and limp as Dick fucks him—but he’s glad and he thankful all the same that he gets to have this.
Dick stares at his hand now over Jason’s heart. He can faintly feel the pulse of his brother’s blood on his fingertips—it’s regular, strong, and it shows how calm Jason is about this, and Dick envies that; he can feel his heart up his throat and sweat running down his temples…
How can Jason be so calm?
Was he calm when he died, too?
Dick keeps watching Jason’s chest and only looks at his face once he hears the first noise: a low groan muffled against his hand. It’s timed with a contraction of his chest as he tries to breathe.
Jason’s eyes are wide, their color that lovely green-blue-green-blue in which Dick gets lost. Jason bucks, tries to move, and Dick throws his weight forward so that it’s all focused on holding Jason against the headboard and stopping him from emptying his lungs of the smoke and taking in air. He’d never thought he’d feel as good as he does doing this. He loves the feel of Jason bucking beneath him, the small sounds that escape from—through—the hands covering his mouth. They could be the only two people in the entire world—and wouldn’t that make everything easier?
There are tears, and they make Jason’s eyes shine more, and Dick wonders how much of the desperation he sees in them now is like the desperation that shadowed them when he died. He wants—needs—to undo it. And he loves the tears and how they make Jason look what he isn’t—vulnerable.
Dick doesn’t know how much time passes with him suffocating Jason like that. It’s too long, and it’s not enough. It’s addicting, and Jason has to know what he’s doing, how he’s dragging Dick down with him…
When Jason’s eyes are just thin slits, Dick lets go, his hands leaving his brother’s mouth and nose as though the contact burns, and Dick’s also breathing hard. Then he kisses Jason, who’s breathing noisily, gasping for air, except he’s forced to take the kisses instead, and this, Dick thinks, is life. He’s the one giving Jason air, giving him life. It’s perfect, it’s how it should be.
Beneath him, Jason writhes and breathes, and he’s not all there, but he’s smiling.
Dick can’t tell if it’s one of the real smiles.