It All Started With A Book

Jumbled

A/N: I made a thing. Took me forever to update but I hope you all like this. I'm just going to state that there is a brief mention of a child being sold to a trafficking ring, it's small but I feel I should warn just in case it possibly triggers someone.

Without further adieu, enjoy!

Love.

A four letter word one uses to describe or name the feeling in which they get when around someone they hold deep adoration and care for, whether it be platonic for friends and family or romantic for a partner or lover. It baffles him a bit when he thinks about this word being able to take such a complicated, twisted, confusing concept and sum it up in four letters. Fuckin' crazy. 

Jason feels a little foolish right now, sitting in in his favorite brown recliner with his worn copy of Pride and Prejudice resting unopened on his lap contemplating the word Love. When he could be more productive with his time and actually read like he had initially planned. A  breath leaves him and he continues to stare blankly at the wall, continues to let thoughts of love hold his mind captive. Ain't getting anything done this way, just running around in circles in his own head. Normally he wouldn't allow himself to dwell on such useless shit but today is one of those days, a day where his thoughts have somehow managed to high jack his control. Great.

It's all the replacements fault really, he's the culprit, that damned stupid beautiful annoyance and his need to take everything apart and put it back together. Always analyzing everything, putting it under a microscope and studying it to be able to create a plan and a shit ton of back up ones. 

He did this when they were discussing a case on a trafficking ring they'd both been investigating. Weird for the topic of love to come up but it had, in a twisted and fucked up way but still. A man, Thomas Grant, had sold his girlfriends son to one of the individuals in the trafficking circle, his way to become the most important person to his woman. It's fucked and Jason had been seething and ready to shoot the man for it. He'd claimed he'd done it for love but Jay calls bullshit. If he'd loved her he wouldn't have gotten jealous of her 9-year-old son. The man hadn't gotten off unscathed. Needless to say, they'd managed to track down the kid and thus the trafficking scum and saved the day. He's still mad, probably never get over it, he hated when cases involved children.

But still, Tim's to blame for his thoughts.

Another sigh and Jason sucks his bottom lip into his mouth, worries it between his teeth as he sinks further into the abyss know as his thoughts. Love, love, love, Tim...

Why Tim? What did love have to do with him? 

He admired Tim for his freakishly smart brain but did he love him for it?

He adored him for his bravery, perceptiveness, and skill but again, did he love him for it?

He was drawn to his replacement because they could relate in ways none of the others could, had that managed to progress deeper, morph and change into something else entirely?

Jason didn't know, or he couldn't come up with an answer. This was frustrating, grating on his last nerve and yet he couldn't get the thoughts to go away, couldn't suppress them behind his tough walls, walls made up off solid reasons as to why he couldn't love someone, why someone couldn't love him. 

Tim was a cunningly smart, observant, funny little ball of sass. He was beautiful and graceful, calm and collected and yet dorky. Did Jason love him?

Before he could ponder this anymore he heard his window slid open and feet landing on the floor. He didn't turn just picked up his book and opened it to a random page to pretend he was lost in the confines of the story.  

"Jay?"

Speak of the devil and he shall appear. It was the replacement or well Red Robin.

It was Tim. Just what his abused mind needed, more shit to torment him with. 

"Yeah?" He voiced from behind his book, eyes staring unfixed at the black words on the page, staring and yet not comprehending any of them. At this point, Tim had moved further into the apartment and now stood a few feet away from Jason's seated form. "Something you need?" Jason quirked a brow while continuing to pretend to read.

"Not really just wanted to hang out. You seem to be more MIA than usual and so I haven't seen you much lately." his hands are in the pockets of his oversized grey hoodie, his hair is windblown -you can't escape it in this city, Gotham was somehow always windy- and his eyes were glued to the floor, if Jason didn't know him better he'd think he was embarrassed. Impossible though he's Tim-I'm cool and collected and never get embarrassed-Drake. 

"Why do you care?" He's taken his eyes off his book to look straight at Tim, watch him lift his gaze to meet his and Jason can see the faint color of pink tinting his replacement's cheeks. What the fuck? And then it's gone just as fast as it appeared. 

Tim is silent and thus thrusts them both into a quietness charged with tension and Jay is starting to feel uncomfortable so he looks at his book again and tries to debate with himself if he should say something. But before he can voice anything Tim's speaking, explaining himself and telling Jason that he cares about him and that he enjoys being able to talk to him and just hang out, to be able to have someone understand. It's weird and Jason feels uncomfortable for an entirely different reason now. Fuck. Today is messed up he thinks, nothing normal about it.

"Huh." is all he can manage and Tim is staring at him blankly, unamused. 

"Were you listening to me, Jason? Did you hear a single word I said?" His hands are out of his hoodie and now resting firmly on his hips, perfectly manicured eyebrow raised in inquiry. For once Red Hood doesn't know what to do, he's lost. He had heard Tim but at the same time he was confused still, not quite understanding and so he shrugs and says, "I heard you but I was reading so.." It's a lame way to respond he's aware. 

Red Robin takes a few steps closer to him but Jay reigns himself in and doesn't react but his stomach is coiling up, twisting tighter than a spring and he waits with baited breath for the replacement to make another move. 

He does, moves as close as possible, knees pressing into Jason's and his hands take purchase on the arms of the chair and he leans down, close to Jays faces, "What part are you at?" His voice was calm. So Tim fashioned.

"I'm at the part where-

"You have no idea, you're not reading at all. Stop trying to hide that fact. Your elsewhere." He says it with such finality that Jason just looks up at him and his thoughts from earlier come back with a vengeance. Surge up so hard, so demanding that Jason has to go through them all over again but this time quicker than last time. Fucking Tim and his gorgeously annoying face. 

"Sorry, I've been off all day.' he says this sheepishly while feeling Tim's scrutinizing gaze. He just nods in affirmation, understanding dawning on him. And Jason's a little alarmed, he feels like he's been found out. But instead, Tim's stepping back and retracing his steps back toward the window, "Get some sleep Jay and we'll hang out some other time."

He's halfway out the window when Jason replies with an okay and stands up to start towards his bedroom. 

But before Tim disappears completely Jason hears him murmur, I wish you could see how much I love you...

And he's frozen in place, rooted to that spot and his breath catches in his throat and his heart clenches and his stomach twists and his mind just blanks, devoid of all thoughts besides those couple words. He's shocked and unable to process anything.

Fuck.