Vow - JayDickWeek2017 - Day 6: Knights/Royalty

Vow - JayDickWeek2017 - Day 6: Knights/Royalty AU

A/N I had a really long drawn out AU for the Knights/Royalty prompt, and it could have turned into a series or a full-length fic if I wanted it to, but, ultimately, I just didn't have time to write even a portion of it today. I had my SAT today and then my 4-year-old cousin came over and my day has just been absolutely crazy. So here it is, my shortest oneshot ever.

Jason was drinking.

He knew he should try to stop. He knew he really wasn't supposed to be doing it anyway. He also knew he didn't really care.

He'd left the Brotherhood, that life – that world – so he didn't really know why what he should or shouldn't do mattered anymore. He'd chosen his own path, his own life, and nothing and no one got to control him anymore.

He wasn't sure what he was doing anymore. He had left with these grand ideas about saving the world and doing what the Brotherhood couldn't do, or wouldn't do. Or just hadn't done, for whatever excuse they decided to give when asked. No more orders, no more missions, no more in-fighting and power-plays. No more bureaucracy or fake excuses for where the Brotherhood had fallen short. He could do what he needed to do, what he believed to be right.

But he had to do it himself.

He didn't think he'd ever stop drinking.

*****

Jason missed Dick.

He knew he should try to stop. He knew he wasn't really supposed to be missing Dick, didn't have the right to miss him. He also knew he didn't really care.

He left the Brotherhood, that life – that world – where Dick and he were together – always together – and where he always had Dick right where he wanted him: by his side. But he'd left, so he didn't really think that what he wanted mattered anymore.

Jason wondered how Dick had reacted when he found out he'd left. Dick had introduced him to the Brotherhood, stuck his neck out for him when everybody else that he was a liability, had defended him when the leader, Bruce, hurled insult and criticism at him like daggers, like he could never do anything right. Dick had seen him as a Brother, a partner, and a lover, and Jason had returned that with a broken vow.

Not that the vow had ever really meant anything anyways. When Dick had led him to the Brotherhood and Jason had taken that vow, he hadn't really cared about what he was agreeing to. All he'd cared about was Dick: the only person who could make him laugh, the only person who could make him care, and the only person he'd ever truly believed deserved his fierce, unconditional loyalty. The person who he'd loved with everything, and the person whose love he'd never deserved to receive in return.

Dick had always said they were like knights – under cover knights with chivalry and heroism and everything else a good guy like Dick and a martyr like Jason could ask for. Jason had smiled every time Dick made the analogy, and it had given him hope that maybe he could be happy as part of the Brotherhood, maybe he'd feel fulfilled – like he was doing what was good and right, what the world needed to be done. But really, he'd have left years ago if it hadn't been for Dick, the one light in the dark, cold shadow that had been the Brotherhood.

Jason didn't think he'd ever stop missing Dick.

*****

He was still drinking, and he was still missing Dick. He'd drunk far more than he should have and all he could think about was the only thing he'd left behind that had ever really mattered.

When someone knocked on the door, Jason was too drunk to think about who it might have been. He didn't know anybody who wasn't in the Brotherhood, and it really wouldn't be good if the Brotherhood had found him. There was a consequence for breaking your vows, and Jason really didn't want to have to pay it. But he was too drunk to think about all that.

So he stumbled over to the door and didn't even check to see who it was before swinging it open. And when he saw who it was, the shock froze him in place and the mostly-empty liquor bottle slipped from his fingers and shattered on the ground at his feet. His feet were bare, and the shards of glass cut into the skin, but he didn't notice and he wouldn't have cared if he had.

Because the one thing he'd left behind that had ever really mattered had found him again. Dick, his Dick, was standing on his porch, and Jason was too stuck on the fact that he was there at all to notice the worry in his eyes. "Hey, Brother," he heard Dick say with a wary smile, and Jason barely registered the words at all, so it made sense he didn't think to correct the man, to tell him they weren't brothers anymore. "Long time no see."

And Jason couldn't make his mouth move to respond, and he didn't know what he would have said if he could, so he just launched himself forward into Dick's chest, almost crying as Dick wrapped his ever-open arms around him and held him in place. And it had never felt more like home, and it had never felt like he deserved it less. Because Jason left the Brotherhood, which meant he left his brothers – all his Brothers – and that meant he had left Dick too.

And Jason didn't know what he was going to do beyond sinking into Dick's embrace and absorbing all his warmth. He didn't know what would come next, and he didn't care. He didn't care about anything anymore.

Except Dick.

Dick would always be the exception.

And when Dick picked him up and carried him into the disgusting, moldy bathroom of his apartment and set him down so he could clean his feet, and when Dick smiled at him and told him how much he'd missed him, and when Dick kissed his newly cleaned, freshly bandaged feet with a tender love that only Dick had ever been able to give him-

Jason made a vow. The last vow he'd ever make and the first vow he'd ever mean. A vow to make sure he never had to miss Dick Grayson ever again.