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Jason is contemplating calling Constantine.
He really doesn't know what to do. One moment, he's chewing on some Wheaties in the manor—unbeknownst to Bruce, but that's here nor there —and then the next there's an impish creature staring at him with eyes that were way too wide. Jason had so many questions, most along the line of what the actual fuck was happening. They were a family of science, not of occult, so a literal demon being in their house is strange in ways that feel too much like Constantine's version of a fucked up joke.
His head hurts too much for rational thinking. He spoons the last remaining pieces of cereal into his mouth, grabbing his cup of coffee and downing it. "So," Jason asks, "What the hell are you? And why the hell are you in my dad's house?"
He waits for a response that never comes. It dawns on Jason that there might be a bit of a language barrier—because of course there would be when Jason had to deal with situations like this. "You got a name?" No answer. Fuck, Jason thinks. This was going to be more complicated than Jason ever could have anticipated.
He doesn't know what to say that wouldn't be awkward or glossed over, still confused about what the hell is happening but far too curious—and potentially too burdened by the pursuit of knowledge ands emblance of control—to stop trying to get answers. "Okay, you know what?" Jason hums, "I don't know your name so I'm just going to call you Tim, okay?" The creature nods, still quiet. Jason notices Tim staring at his coffee cup and —in another crazy thought—he swears that he'd been pondering the existence of what Jason was consuming.
He pours another small cup of coffee, pushing It toward the creature who'd still been staring. "It's not gonna kill you," Jason says, "It's coffee."
Jason isn't sure what the creature in front of him was going to sound like, but he was sure it wasn't going to be the calm voice that came out. "Coffee?" Tim questions, the word foreign on his tongue.
Jason supposes they don't necessarily have coffee wherever Tim comes from, now that he thinks about it, so it shouldn't be surprising to him when he's asked.
"Yeah," Jason continues, "You take the cup like this and drink it." Jason brings his own up of coffee to his lips, tipping it back as he watches Tim—the demon he's all but adopted at this point, apparently—mirror his actions.
Jason isn't sure he knows what demonic delight looks like, but once Tim takes a sip of coffee he's so sure that he sees it that he decides to leave it be. "Good," Tim says, "Coffee?"
"Yep, coffee," Jason answers quietly.
"How do I make coffee?" And the demon's eyes look so doe like that Jason can't help but show him how. What that'll do in the grand scheme of things, Jason doesn't know, but the question was harmless enough if he were completely honest that he didn't mind answering it.
Who knows? Maybe teaching a demon how to make coffee would be good for him in the long run.
"Load the coffee grounds into the filter basket." Jason puts two scoops into the filter basket, Tim's eyes watching intently. "Fill the water in this part." "Press this button afterwards and it'll be done in like ten minutes tops." And, when Tim presses the button, the coffee machine sputters to life again.
It was endearing, in a weird way, to see someone—something? Jason isn't sure what the proper way to refer to an otherworldy visitor, if he's honest—look at something with wonder and amazement in their eyes at something that Jason takes for granted every single morning.
"Interesting drink," Tim says, "Interesting machine."
"You can sit here and drink more if you want," Jason says, "I don't know if you can get a caffiene crash or if that's something uniquely human, but if you want more you can have it."
And Tim blinks at the idea, sitting down on the stool with the mug Jason handed to them clutched in a hand with claws sharper than anything he'd ever seen before.
