Chapter Text
Jason took a deep breath and pressed the call button. His bed sagged beneath him as he sat down to listen to the ringback tone, waiting, trying not to hang up. The man—Robert as he had written on the slip of paper with his number—had seemed nice, but that wasn’t the first time he’d thought that and been proven wrong. This would probably end up being another addition to the list, but if life had taught him anything it was that he was stupidly stubborn. Maybe things would be different this time.
The ringing cut off. “Hello?”
Jason straightened and pressed his phone tight to his ear. “Hey, it’s Jason. From the massage parlor.”
“Nice to meet you, Jason from the massage parlor.” There was the suggestion of a smile in Robert’s voice.
Jason blushed. “I’m sorry if this is a bad time.”
“No, I’m free as long as the sun is up.”
So far so good. “I wanted to know if you would be available for dinner anytime soon?”
“I’m sorry, Jason.”
Jason’s heart sank. Of course, the inevitable crash.
“You sound like a nice guy, but I’m getting the feeling that you called the wrong person.”
“What?” No, it couldn’t be. He had painstakingly pressed in every number and then stared at his cell phone for a few minutes afterwards while he’d debated if he wanted to call. If he should call. Jason double-checked again anyway and confirmed that he had called the right number. “You’re Robert, right?”
“No, sorry. I’m not.”
Jason hunched forward in defeat. He had briefly thought that Robert sounded younger, but he’d chalked that up to people’s voices sometimes coming across differently on the phone. Tears stung at his eyes. This is what he got for deciding to take a chance on a man who was old enough to be his dad. Work was rife with men like that, but this was the first time he had been charmed enough by one to give him a chance. Jason was going back to his “no follow-ups with customers” rule from now on.
He spoke past the lump in his throat. “Sorry about that.” He hung up the phone before he wasted any more of the man who wasn’t Robert’s time.
For a long while afterwards, Jason lay in bed, nothing but shadows for company.
Later on, he finds out from overhearing at work that the group of businessmen that Robert was a part of had been from Chicago. It doesn’t make being played with sting any less, but he doesn’t have time to dwell on it for long. During his following session, one of his coworkers, Sylvia, shows up at his side to take over and tells him that her client is willing to tip him for a happy ending.
It’s as he’s kneeling with his hand between the legs of a woman that Jason thinks that maybe things will always be this way, happening behind closed doors, only like this, but then again, it isn’t the first time he’s thought that to himself.
Jason was in the middle of chopping onions for dinner when his phone rang. The number wasn’t one that he recognized. Usually he would’ve ignored it on the likelihood that it was a scam, but he put down his knife and reached for his phone. There was no particular reason for it.
“Hello?”
“Good evening, Jason from the massage parlor.”
For a second, Jason felt nothing but confusion. Then, the familiarity kicked in. He blushed. “Why are you calling?”
“I wanted to check in on how you’re doing,” said the man who had never been Robert. “Any luck with the guy from last time?”
Jason’s grip tightened on the edge of the kitchen counter. “It’s none of your business.”
There was a slight pause. Not-Robert had probably taken offense. “You’re right. It’s not.”
Jason blinked in surprise.
“How have you been?”
“Fine.” What was going on? “I’m making dinner.”
“Wow, you actually make your own dinner?”
“Yeah, like most people,” Jason said.
“I thought most people relied on takeout like me.”
“That too, but I like cooking my own food.”
Not-Robert laughed. “Okay, sorry for interrupting, chef. I just wanted to check in on you real quick.”
Jason didn’t know what to think. “Thanks.”
“No problem. See ya.”
“Bye.”
Jason ended the call and stared at his phone.
It’s often cloudy in Gotham, but there are days where the gray feels more prominent, doesn’t allow him to look away, and seeps into the marrows of his bones. Jason scoots over as a woman sits down next to him, but she doesn’t talk to him and he doesn’t talk to her. They’re only here temporarily after all, taking the bus to get from point A to point B. Jason wishes that the process could hurry up before he starts crying again.
Andrei was his name. Jason met him at a bar—or had been able to summon up the courage to talk to him more like. They’d been seeing each other for a month. Things were going well. Jason thought Andrei was interested in more, but he’d been more than fine with less.
Jason stumbles off the bus at his stop and runs for his apartment. The tears are already prying their way out onto his cheeks. He wipes them away as he waits for the elevator.
The way Andrei’s face had twisted when Jason had asked if he’d want to go out with him cuts deep into his chest. The image is on a gigantic sign that’s flashing away in his head, rubs salt into wounds that have never been able to heal. He’s always aching.
He enters his apartment and retreats to his bedroom, but crying on his bed is worse than the grayness that has taken up residence underneath his skin. Only less than half an hour ago he’d been lying in the arms of someone, unhappy but not alone.
“Jason?”
For a moment, Jason knew only surprise. “How did you know it was me?”
Not-Robert let out a little laugh. “I saved you as a contact on my phone. Figured it’d be useful in case I’m ever in Gotham and wanted someone to make a home-cooked meal for me.”
Jason blushed. “How do you know I live in Gotham?”
“From the area code of your phone number.”
“You know Gotham’s area code?”
“Yeah, I used to live in Gotham.”
The natural follow-up to this would’ve been to ask Not-Robert where he lived now, but Jason didn’t want to give the guy the wrong idea. He could look up the area code of his phone number if he was that curious, but getting to know Not-Robert wasn’t why he had called.
Jason didn’t know why he called.
He knew that he had wanted to talk to somebody, but there hadn’t been anyone he could talk to. He had no family and he barely had any friends. There were people he had gotten acquainted with over the years, but they rarely contacted each other to begin with. The closest thing he had to friendship was with the older ladies from the book club he went to once every month, but he didn’t want to fill up their group chat with the story of how fucking depressing his life was.
Apparently all he could resort to was a stranger he had briefly talked on the phone with two times. And now that Jason was here, he didn’t want to say anything at all.
“Jason?”
“Y-Yeah?” Fuck. Had his voice trembled a bit? Did Not-Robert pick up on it?
The pause on Not-Robert’s end that went on for too long told Jason that yes, he had picked up on it. “Are you doing alright?”
Jason’s grip tightened around his phone. He opened his mouth to answer, but nothing came out. He stopped and tried again for a second time. Still nothing.
“Jason?” Not-Robert’s voice was even softer now.
Fuck, fuck, fuck. Jason was crying again. It wasn’t the silent kind either where the tears did all the work. No, this was a repeat of what he’d done earlier. He thought he had gotten it all out of his system, but now here he was, sniffling and heaving. He clenched his teeth together in an attempt to keep back the worst of it: the stupid little noises that would show just how pathetic he was—although he was pathetic enough as it is. What person in their right mind would’ve reacted like him? Andrei had looked at him in disgust and Jason still let him fuck him afterwards. He should’ve learned his lesson by now that letting a guy fill him up would leave him all the more empty afterwards.
He realized that Not-Robert was talking, but he hadn’t registered anything that had been said.
Jason managed to choke out an “I’m sorry.”
“No, no, no, no. Don’t apologize. Sometimes you gotta let it all off your chest.”
Jason wiped away his snot with a tissue from the box on his nightstand and threw it into the trash on top of all the other used tissues. “Yeah, but usually people don’t call random strangers while they’re at it.”
Not-Robert scoffed. “Strangers? You wound me, Jason.”
“Yeah, well, I don’t even know your name.”
“It’s Dick,” Not-Robert said. “Dick Grayson.”
Jason winced. “You’ve never thought of getting a name change?”
“Would it make things better or worse if I told you that ‘Dick’ is a nickname that I prefer to be called?”
“Worse.” Jason tried to hold back a laugh but failed. “Definitely worse.”
A week later, Dick called. Jason had been expecting the follow-up call given how Dick had decided to check in on him after the first time, but he almost didn’t pick up. It hadn’t been a particularly great day. Nothing out of the ordinary, but an unordinary day would’ve been a great day, so he didn’t know why he was lying there, feeling worse than usual and trying to ignore it with an episode of Pushing Daisies.
It was the fact that he knew that he was going to feel worse if he didn’t answer the call that had Jason answering the call. “You do know that you aren’t obligated to make sure that I’m still functioning, right?”
“Hello to you, too,” Dick said. “How’s your week been?”
“Fine.” Jason thought about yesterday when he had given a man a blowjob in exchange for a larger tip. “I’ve made enough money to take care of my groceries for the next two weeks.”
“Congrats. I’m still impressed that you cook your own food.”
Jason snorted. “You never cook for yourself at all?”
“Sometimes I do, but I don’t really have the patience for it. Takeout is faster and easier and I can eat stuff made by people who are better cooks than I am.” Dick paused. “Maybe I got too spoiled growing up.”
“Too used to mommy cooking for you?” Jason asked.
“Ha, I wish.” There was another pause, but before Jason could break the silence, Dick was speaking again. “My mom and dad died when I was a kid.”
Jason held back a groan and sat up on his couch. Great, now he felt even crappier than before. “Shit. I’m sorry.”
“It’s alright. You didn’t know.”
Jason bit his lip. “I don’t have any parents either.” Technically, that wasn’t true, but given how his biological mom wanted nothing to do with him, Jason counted it. Catherine had been more of a mother to him anyway.
“It’s not every day that I meet another member of the orphan club.” Dick’s joke was undercut by the absence of any cheer in his voice.
“Pretty awful club to be a part of,” Jason said.
Dick let out a single laugh that wasn’t much of a laugh. “Yeah.”
The gears in Jason’s head were churning. He had opened this shitty can of worms, so it should be his responsibility to clean up this mess, but any joke that crossed his mind felt too in bad taste and his thoughts were coming up shrugging with sticky notes blank of any suggestions. The desperation was absolutely the reason why he let out the first thing that slipped from his mouth, unfiltered and foolishly.
“Do you want to know why I called you last time?”
“Why?”
Jason squeezed his eyes shut. He jumped into the mess he had made for himself, but avoided the Andrei-shaped hole as much as he could. “I didn’t have anyone else that I could call.”
“Jason…”
Now it was Jason’s turn to let out the single laugh that wasn’t much of a laugh. “Pretty depressing, huh?”
“You have me now.”
Jason went still at the unexpectedness of Dick’s words, at the intensity in which he had spoken them. He tried to swallow, but there was a lump in his throat that was making him choke up. Tears stung at his eyes, because of course they would. “Don’t say that because you feel sorry for me,” he said. “Or because you feel like you have to.”
“I’m not.” The intensity was still there in Dick’s voice. He sounded so sure of himself.
Jason shook his head—more for himself than for a man who couldn’t see him. “It’s not your responsibility to keep me company.”
“Members of the orphan club have to stick together, Jason.”
“Members of the orphan club shouldn’t be calling themselves Dick.”
Dick chuckled. “Let’s agree to disagree.”
Time continues its ongoing march and the weather turns colder. According to the forecast, there’ll soon be snow. Jason’s days are an uninterrupted flow of work, time off that’s usually spent at home with a book in his hand, and trips around Gotham for necessities that he needs for the week. His nightlife has slowed down to a stop and with that, it brings an end to his social life with the exception of a few things, which are the only occurrences in his life that are worth remarking on like sunlight peeking out from between the clouds: the afternoon that he spends teaching some kids in the neighborhood how to shoot a basketball, the book club meetup where he discusses twentieth-century fantasy British literature with a familiar group of faces, and—as much as he doesn’t want to admit it—the conversations that he has with Dick.
The calls happen once a week. Sometimes twice a week. If there’s anything that Jason has learned, it’s that Dick is a busy man. It was almost a deal breaker when he found out that Dick works as a cop in Bludhaven, but evidently he’s so starved for more human interactions in his life that he continues to talk to Dick—although he’s careful to withhold details now. Work keeps Dick as busy during the day as it does during the night, so there’s only certain margins of time in the evening where he’s available. Jason doesn’t ask about mornings. He doesn’t want to give the impression that he wants the couple of minutes where they talk to each other about the trivial details of their lives to happen more often.
No, he’s fine with things as they are.
It occurs to him a lot that he needs to go out more. Getting a boyfriend is impossible, but making some friends sounds just as impossible. He’s never been good at maintaining relationships in his life, so he doesn’t know what’s the point of trying to start them in the first place. And that’s the sort of thinking that has him losing sleep at night, his hands clasped around the phone on his chest.
The walk through the snow felt like he was walking on ice, but somehow Jason managed to make it all the way back to his apartment. He was able to shut the door before he collapsed in the entryway. He’d forgotten to put his gloves on, so his hands were numb as he fumbled to retrieve his phone from his pocket. The time read 4:32. He couldn’t believe that he had stayed out this fucking late.
He laid on the floor with his forehead pressed against the wall as he listened to the ringback tone.
Something told him it was a very bad idea to be calling Dick, but whatever the reason was was wiggling around and he couldn’t put his finger on it. He wiped the tears from his face with a stupid cold hand.
“Jason?”
A dam broke in Jason’s chest at the sound of Dick’s voice, gruff with sleep, but gentle and warm as always. He heaved a breath and curled up more into himself. “Do you think I’m easy?”
“What?”
“I think I’m easy,” Jason said, but what he should’ve been doing was shutting the hell up and ending the call. Except that he didn’t. Slowly, as if they were swimming through mud, memories came back to him of how much he’d drunk at the bar. The bar at the club where—
“Jason, are you alright?” Dick sounded more alert now. He almost sounded concerned.
Jason didn’t know why he would be concerned, just knew that he had to stop it with these calls to Dick during the times where he was better off sobbing by himself. Oh wait, he was already sobbing. That was what was making it hard to say anything in response, but somehow he pulled through. Pulling through was all he could manage to do nowadays. If only it weren’t so goddamn exhausting.
“I went out tonight to the Gaping Hole—”
“The what?”
“It’s this gay bar in Gotham,” Jason said. “Wednesday nights tend to be retro nights and they play disco songs or rock ‘n roll or eighties music, which I think is more fun to dance to than pop electronic whatever-the-fuck and I like to go every now and then. I haven’t been out much anyway. Do you think I’m a loser?”
“No,” Dick said and he answered too fast that Jason didn’t believe him. Dick just didn’t want to hurt his feelings. “Jason, what happened at the Gaping Hole?”
Jason wiped his snot on the sleeve of his coat and laughed. “Why do you sound so mad?”
There was a moment of silence. Jason almost laughed again, but then Dick said, “I’m not mad at you.”
“I’m not mad at me either.” Jason grinned, but then it faltered and inverted completely. “Maybe I am a little bit. I drank too much and had to go take a piss and there was this guy who entered the bathroom after me. He asked me if I wanted him to suck me off, so we went into one of the stalls and I also let him fuck me.”
Jason started crying again. The smile that greeted him when he turned his head after they finished had burned itself into his memory. “He said that the rumors had been right. That I did let anyone fuck me as long as they had a condom, which is probably why Andrei didn’t want to go out with me. He goes to the Gaping Hole, too. He probably heard about how much of a cockslut I am and saw me as nothing but an easy lay and I was too stupid to realize it. I thought he liked me, but he didn’t like me. He never considered me as more than someone to have sex with from the beginning. Just like the rest of them. I didn’t even know there were these rumors about me. I—” Jason’s voice broke with a dumb little whimper. “Do you know what the worst part about this is? I was a little happy to hear it. If these rumors exist, then that means these guys think I’m a good fuck and that there’s something about me that’s worth liking.”
Fear struck Jason with an intensity that had him tensing up, because that’s what it meant, right? “Am I unlovable?”
There was an exhale from Dick’s end of the line that had Jason sitting up in alarm. “Am I annoying you?”
“No, Jay, you’re not annoying me,” Dick said. “And you’re not unlovable. It’s just… This is a lot to take in.”
“Oh.”
Dick let out another breath, this one heavier and longer than the last. “Anyone who has ever made you feel like you’re unlovable is a piece of shit.”
Jason giggled. “I’ve never heard you cuss before.”
“It happens occasionally. Where are you now?”
“On the floor of my apartment.”
“Can you stand up?”
“Yeah.” Jason stood up.
“Okay. Could you please change into some warm pajamas? If it’s as cold in Gotham as it is over here in Bludhaven, then you should wear long sleeves. Can you do that for me?”
Jason stumbled to his bedroom and over to his dresser. “Mm-hmm. I could suck your dick if you wanted me to, Dick. Dickie. Dickinson.”
“That’s very kind of you to offer, but no, thank you,” Dick said. “What I want is for you to get ready for bed and to get some sleep. You probably have work in a couple of hours.”
“Ha, I forgot about that.”
It was a struggle to hold his phone and change out of his clothes at the same time, but somehow Jason managed—although he kept not hearing what Dick was saying to him whenever he had to hold his phone away from him to tug up his pajama pants or pull on his sweatshirt. When he put his phone back to his ear Dick was talking about Andrei for some reason, which surprised him.
“How do you know about Andrei?” He asked.
Dick paused. “Have you brushed your teeth?”
“Don’t feel like it.”
“Can you rinse your mouth with some mouthwash at least?” It was as if Dick knew that Jason hadn’t moved, because a moment later he added, “Please Jay?”
Jason groaned. “Okay Dickie.”
“Thank you.”
Jason went and rinsed his mouth with some mouthwash and Dick counted down the minute for him. Afterwards, he dragged himself back to bed and collapsed on top of it. “I’m so tired,” he said.
“Get some sleep, okay?”
Jason’s breath caught in his throat. “Don’t leave me, Dickie.”
“I won’t. I’ll call you later. I promise.”
Jason wakes up to find that he’s hours late to work and that Dick is calling him. He would answer immediately if he wasn’t so confused about why Dick is calling him this early in the day, but then he doesn’t answer the call at all when moments from earlier in the morning slowly come back to him. Not everything, but it’s enough.
His stomach sinks in horror. Holy fucking shit.