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olivia-anderson-fanfic · 10 months

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Extended fae-mily

“The people will not care. We are beings of Rules, Talia, and those won’t change until there is no other option. Even then…” He shook his head.

(Or: Talia needs an heir)

Talia’s real name was not actually Talia, just like her father’s name was not actually Ra’s (what kind of person would seriously name their child Head?), but it would be improper for a faerie of her status to release her True Name to just anyone. Much less to an author intent on telling her story to anyone who will take the time to read it. So, for the time being, we shall all pretend that everything up to this point and hereafter has not been recontextualized in any way, and that these thoughts are as historically accurate as possible.

After all, faerie cannot lie.

They do, however, twist the truth in any way they see fit.

And, regardless, is any one person’s perception of reality ever completely true?

Still, this story is not about any of that. It’s not even, entirely, about her.

It’s about her duty. As the heir to the In-Between.

She needed to bear a child. To carry on her family's legacy and ensure that they could continue to serve their people through future generations.

This did not mean she was exactly ecstatic about that particular responsibility, though.

The air behind her held more weight than it usually did. She craned her head back to look, and sighed when her eyes landed on her father, floating in the doorway to her room. She was pretty sure she had never seen the man touch the ground, not in all of the years she had lived. Now, he appeared to be sitting in an invisible chair, though leaning forward quite a bit, on the edge of his nonexistent seat.

“Father…” she groaned.

“I haven’t even said anything!” he defended himself, smiling.

She fixed him with a flat look.

He dropped pretenses. And his chin into his hands. He slumped back in his ‘chair’, but his smile never wavered. “I’m not getting any younger.”

“Nor is anyone else,” she pointed out. “And you are hardly frail.”

He gave a long, drawn-out sigh.

“I still do not see why my son could not —.”

“He is not a True Fae, you know this,” he cut her off. It was impolite to do so, technically, but the rules were never quite as strict when with loved ones. “Therefore, he cannot rule. The people would not allow it.”

“There simply aren’t enough True Fae for it to be sustainable anymore.”

“The people will not care. We are beings of Rules, Talia, and those won’t change until there is no other option. Even then…” He shook his head.

“None of us have ‘proper’ heirs. Superman’s oldest son is a Changeling. His wife was human, meaning their youngest child is not a True Fae, either. As for Batman, all of his children were once human, outside of his own Changeling.” She ran a hand through her hair, trying to soothe herself. “If we are to alter this, now is the time, when all three realms can agree.”

Ra’s looked at her for a long moment, something inscrutable in his eyes. “Changing tradition is not that simple.” Slowly, he made his way over, until he could rest his hand upon her shoulder. He didn’t apologize, for an apology would imply a debt, and what she would ask of him would not be something he believed he could give her, but he was still apologetic. “We are given power and, in return, our people ask us to prove we are worthy of it. How could we be worthy, if we cannot do one of the few things they ask of us?”

She looked at the ground.

“I understand.”

Talia made her way through the halls of her family home. A ball of light wound and weaved itself around her feet with every step she took, allowing her to see despite the darkness that loved to find a home there just as much as she did.

Like everyone else in the In-Between, her house was made up of a series of carved-out tunnels deep underground. The winds were simply too harsh for any structures to be built above ground, and it wasn’t as if the magically inclined couldn’t make the world beneath the surface a beautiful paradise, anyway.

She ran her fingers along the wall as she made her way down, further into their home. The walls were a deep, emerald green… at first. The light refracted off of the Alexandrite as she passed, making the gem look pink instead, leaving the area around her to feel far less cold, far more inviting.

It wasn’t long before she reached a door, her fingers coming to rest upon the dark wood for just a moment.

If she told Jason, it would be official.

That was… a lot of commitment.

She wasn’t sure if she was ready for a child.

To be clear, she was not against children. If she was then she would not have taken in Jason in the first place.

She was not even against having a child. She was a fae, she would not have to carry a child to term or anything of that nature. The hardest part of creating a child would probably be making the trip to the Water of Life, and the paperwork that would be boring and tedious, but otherwise painless.

But it was different, asking her to raise a child from birth. She had found Jason when he was in his teenage years, more than capable of taking care of himself so long as he was provided with adequate resources and affection, and additionally resourceful due to his less-than-stellar original parents (the thought made her want to tear into the man a second time, even if she knew he was long dead).

A baby, however, would be completely reliant on her, and she was a busy woman.

She would have help, though, she supposed, in the form of the baby’s other parent.

She already knew who that would be.

For Talia had made a Deal with Batman, many years ago, when they had been arguing over who got to lay claim to Jason — for Batman’s oldest children, as much as she loathed to admit it, had found Jason first, making her claim over the boy somewhat hazy, even if, ultimately, she had been the one with the claim. If it had gone to Court, she probably would have won… but, in the end, neither she nor Batman had wanted to steal their son away from someone who made him happy.

On the other hand, there was the matter of fairness...

A decision had been made: they could co-parent Jason, but only if they could also co-parent another child one day in the future.

A child of her choosing.

She doubted Batman had caught on to what she was really aiming for, but it hadn’t mattered regardless. Again, the actual act of having a child for a fae was basically effortless, so, for all intents and purposes, he was simply getting another child — one that looked more like him, perhaps, but simply another child regardless.

And, really, was Batman one to say no to another child? If she hadn’t known better, she would say they were collecting them simply for the sake of having as many as possible. Even while knowing better, she couldn’t help but wonder.

Either way, he had experience with children, more than even she did. Beyond that, his butler-dad (or was it dad-butler?), A, had experience helping raise children, as did her own father…

It shouldn’t be that bad.

With that in mind, she finally let her fingers rap against the wood.

“Jason, it’s me,” she called.

The door swung open without even a second’s hesitation, and she couldn’t help but smile a little, stepping further into the room, letting the ball of light disperse itself behind her.

She almost didn’t see Jason, at first. The boy had taken to her tigers from the day he’d met them and, accordingly, he never left their side when he was home. Now, he was buried beneath three piles of fur. The only evidence he was there at all was the set of wings, stretched over the top of one of the tigers to make sure they didn’t get crushed under all of their weight.

“Jason,” she said.

He didn’t look at her, really, but he waved a wing in acknowledgment.

“I have been thinking. It has been a while since you’ve gotten a new sibling, yes?”

Jason snorted. “Did you find another kid on the brink of death to steal away?”

“No, no, nothing like that… but… about that…”

Jason sat up, frowning just slightly as he tried to reason out exactly what she was getting at.

She gave him a slightly nervous smile. “If I were to create a new child, would you be okay with that?”

He raised his eyebrows in mild surprise.

But then he smiled.

“It’s not like the Old Man is going to be getting another kid anytime soon, since we got run out of town ‘n all, so…” Jason shrugged. “I have an opening.”

Talia hesitated. “I’m glad you’re open to the idea of another sibling… however… again… about that…”

Talia didn’t need to make nearly as long of a trip as the other two rulers would need to. After all, the Water of Life lay within the borders of the In-Between.

It was easy to think of those about to die as being within their realm, but was birth not just that in reverse? Neither alive nor dead?

Whether or not people agree, it is simply the way of their world. Meaning that, while the waters weren’t exactly close, they weren’t far, either.

She stepped out of her home, the winds immediately picking up in response to her presence, buffeting at her hair and clothes. The skies swirled overhead, the clouds smudged with pinks, oranges, and pale yellows. Beautiful, until you catch the crackle of lightning dancing among the otherwise pleasant sight, and realize that the clouds were not simply swirling, but instead churning with enough force to kill a fae even without iron. The pale, fine sand making up the ground reflected the light perfectly, and yet it was unsteady beneath her feet, threatening to sweep her up and away, never to be seen again – or, at least, to never be seen whole again, her body ripped into unidentifiable shreds.

She planted her feet beneath the sand, shouldered her bag, sighed…

And then, she walked.

She did not pout at the cliff face in front of her, doing so would be undignified, but she did send it a particularly nasty scowl. The cliff, being a cliff, and therefore inanimate, did not seem all that offended by her blatant disdain. It still made her feel better, though.

Hopefully, they will get Batman’s wings, she thought dully, making sure her backpack was as secure as it could be before she started climbing.

Jagged rocks dug into the skin of her palms, painting the otherwise white limestone a deep red (the splotches of color would surely be swept away soon enough, weathered away by the elements), but it was all worth it when she finally pulled herself up and over that last ledge. It was as if she had stepped into a new world entirely, the wind dying down in an instant, the roaring in her ears dying down in favor of the quiet trickle of water. The limestone falling away in favor of crystalline walls and floors.

The waters glimmered shades of blue and green. It was endless, constantly replenishing itself from an unknown source even when logic dictated that it should have long since run out. Especially because the pool before her was not stationary. No, it would roll over rocks and crystals, away from her, towards the opening on the opposite end of the cave. It spilled over the edge, and then plummeted towards the ground so far below.

It would never truly reach it, swept away by the winds long before it hit the sand, but that didn’t make the waterfall any less enchanting.

Talia smiled faintly despite her exhaustion, picking her way along the edge of the waters in want of something to do while she waited for the other two rulers to arrive…

And, for better or for worse, she found that 'something'.

Her eyes caught on the edge of a flower petal. Part of a dandelion. Minuscule in size, but she would bring shame upon the Ghul family name if she were to miss even the smallest of details. She picked it up, her head tilting to the side as she ran her fingers over the soft petal. The yellow of the flower shimmered just slightly, dancing with magic.

Someone had failed to clean up after themselves properly.

The sound of someone touching down behind her – quiet, but echoing strangely against the walls of the otherwise quiet cave – drew her gaze, and she raised an eyebrow at Superman. He looked windswept, for lack of a better word. His usually perfectly coiffed hair hung limp, having been shaken loose of its gel by the harsh winds of the In-Between.

It didn’t help that he was only just tall enough to reach her waist. He might have literally been windswept.

He didn’t seem as amused by this as she was.

He was only there for the sake of tradition. Bringing a peer along as an official witness was necessary when bringing a True Fae into the world, and he was the only person of similar status to the two future parents. However, she was suddenly glad to have him here:

“Someone under your jurisdiction used the waters without doing the appropriate paperwork,” she said, tossing the petal his way. It fluttered to the ground between them.

“Never one for hellos, are you?” Superman sighed.

“Hello,” she said. “Someone under your jurisdiction used the waters without doing the appropriate paperwork.”

He gave her a long, tired look, before picking up the petal and running his thumb over it. It looked much larger when held in his tiny hands, though he only did so for a short moment before tucking it into his chest pocket.

“I’ll look into it,” he promised.

“Look into what, exactly?” A new voice said.

Superman flinched and whirled around to send the Batman an exasperated look. “You and Talia are practically made for each other. Neither of you know how to greet someone.”

“Hello,” said Batman, his lips quirking upwards at the corners in amusement. “Pleasure seeing you today, Superman.”

Superman, always so impossible to please, simply shook his head, apparently deciding that it was best to simply move on:

“Should I worry about you two’s alliance?” he joked lightly. “I mean, you’re already painfully alike, this might become a problem.”

“If you were going to worry about any of that, you should have worried when we adopted our human son,” Talia said. “We are hardly any more bonded now.”

Batman, of course, had other plans. He leaned over Superman, smiling. “I could always have a kid with you as well. It might even things out for you.”

“You only want me for my potential to have kids,” Superman gasped.

“True.”

Superman pretended to wipe away a tear, but his twinkling laughter could never be mistaken for crying.

For just a moment, Talia thought that Superman was so… light, like the realm that he ruled over. So unbelievably bright that it felt like he would have been able to float even if he hadn’t been a fae. He was so pleasant. Much more so than the people of her own realm, not hardened by the elements in the way that the people of the In-Between were.

She quickly dismissed that thought. It was a common misconception, but a misconception nonetheless. Because, for all that Superman was seemingly endlessly happy, small enough to throw, and prone to literally glowing when he was happy enough… he was also a Sprite. And that was their entire method of garnering victims. They would lure humans in, and only once they were so hopelessly lost that they could never get back home and their legs were stuck in a terrible bog they couldn’t escape from, would the Sprite get close enough for the person to realize that their teeth were razor-sharp.

Perhaps it was a good thing that she was going to be gaining a proper heir, while Superman wasn’t. She hadn’t been paying enough attention to his movements as of late, too easily disarmed by his charming smiles and pleasant demeanor and insistence on seemingly useless things like whether someone had greeted him properly or not… and now the idea of him gaining even that little piece of power made her skin crawl. At least it seemed as if that would not be happening anytime soon, since he had fallen in love with that human and started bearing children with her instead of having True Fae children. That, plus the uprising in the land of the Day that she had heard whispers of, led by a faerie who called himself Kryptonite, should keep the man in front of her sufficiently distracted. He shouldn’t become a problem, much less a threat.

She smiled faintly at the thought, clapping her hands together once. “Let’s get this underway.”

Batman seemed relieved, though she doubted it was for the same reason as her. He started pulling a few jars from the satchel on his hip. They were all filled with tiny balls of light – of pure magic. They bounced around within their tiny walls, beating against their confines, the glass already starting to crack.

They wanted out.

Batman was happy to grant their wish, though perhaps not in the way they were hoping for. He dropped the jar in the water and, before it had even been allowed to shatter against the bottom, it collapsed in on itself. The water enveloped the magic, and even a few shards of glass, picking it up and starting to compress it.

Batman breathed a short sigh of relief.

She was grateful that the traditional offering of her people was far less complicated to obtain. Expensive, yes, and sometimes requiring a trip deeper underground in search of rarer gemstones, but this was hardly as exhausting as dealing with live magic.

Carefully, one by one, she set each and every gem in the water.

Pyrite for protection.

Moonstone for perceptiveness.

Carnelian for compassion.

Amber for balancing emotions and logic.

She hesitated here. The last gem in her bag wasn’t like the other four, which were either customary (what kind of parent would neglect to protect their child?) or traits that were necessary for the title and power he would one day possess, but what she considered next was not necessary.

Still, she wanted her child to have something beyond all of that.

So, quickly, as if she thought she would be stopped if she allowed people time to process it, she added aventurine for creativity.

The gems, too, were swept away to join the magic at the bottom of the pool. They began to press against each other, congealing into one mass, forced to combine under the water's strength, and then combine even more. As if the mingling gemstones and magic wasn’t enough, the water seemed determined to make them one on an atomic level. The magic and the minerals reacted, lighting up a too-bright red.

She hadn’t wanted to look away, she had wanted to see the exact moment her child was brought into the world, but it became too much to bear.

Regrettably, she turned her head.

Until she felt something brushed against her leg.

A small faerie came to wash up on the shore, bumping against her knee. They were curled up in a tight ball, tiny bat wings wrapped around themself tightly. Despite the fact that they had just come from the water, their dark locks were not the slightest bit wet.

She leaned in to tell Batman the names she had come up with, but he simply held up his hands, palms facing out.

“The deal was that the child is of your choosing.”

Talia mouthed a thanks before ducking down to whisper.

“Welcome to the world, Damian.”

When they opened their eyes, they were a vibrant green.

#talia al ghul #batman #dc comics #dc #damian wayne #bruce wayne #damian al ghul #ras al ghul #jason todd #clark kent #fae #faeries #fae folk #faerie #fanfic #fantasy #all fae-n and games #extended fae-mily

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olivia-anderson-fanfic · 1 year

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Run Faerie Far Away, Pt 2

Summary: Jason gets adopted by the fae (officially)

Pt1

Choosing to live didn’t make it much easier.

His dad was thrown into jail. It turned out that working all those long hours just meant more chances to get caught. When put that way, it really was just tempting fate to keep working in the way that Jason’s dad was, it was inevitable that it would all catch up to him at some point.

Which left Jason alone, in an empty house.

They had tried to throw him into a children’s home, but Jason left. Again and again, sneaking out every day until, eventually, they tired of trying to bring him back.

He was allowed to stay in his old home, at least until winter passed and it became less of a death sentence to force someone to stay outside. A child on their own was still a death sentence, of course, but one you could chalk up to being the kid’s fault if you were deep enough in denial. One that was less direct than throwing a kid into the snow.

Instead, Jason was left to starve.

He was a resourceful kid.

But he was still, above all, a kid.

There wasn’t much a kid could do to help out around town for free meals, especially not during winter. Especially not anything that wouldn’t burn more energy than he would manage to get from the meager meals he earned. Especially not when the cold seeped into his thin jacket and pants and forced him to shiver away any and all of the life he had within the hour.

He considered, briefly, going back to the children’s home… he could suck it up and let his pride go and show up on their doorstep, begging for food and a place to live that wasn’t quite so drafty, quite so empty.

But there was a reason he had left. It was the same reason why he had watched on wordlessly as his father got arrested. He was done with that life, would always avoid it to the best of his abilities, and if he had to run away every day, until the people around him finally got the point, then so be it. He would rather starve to death than have an adult stand over him with a raised hand again. At least this way he would be able to have some kind of control over whether or not he lived to see the next day. At least he didn’t have to walk on eggshells. At least he didn’t have to wonder whether or not this would be the day they snapped and finally went too far.

No, he would know, and there was something relieving about that. About getting to choose, even if the choice was terrible.

So, when his stomach grumbled and his pantry was empty of things to satiate it, he took his fate into his own hands for the second time in his life. He shrugged on his jacket and snatched up the basket and snuck out under the cover of night, as he had so many months prior.

The hole in the fence was larger this time. Jason didn’t even have to try all that hard to slip through. Silently, he thanked whatever animal for sneaking in, because his life was made much easier.

The path through the woods was different, this time. Less crowded, in that the trees and large stumps that had once made for a tricky trek were gone, making it easy to walk. The plants, however, continued their efforts to spill out into the path, their leaves just barely brushing against Jason’s pantlegs as he made his way through the brush. He hadn’t noticed it the first time around, for the outside world hadn’t been quite as different, but now that it was the middle of winter he realized just how much warmer the woods were. His eyes caught on berry bushes that shouldn’t have been bearing fruit at this time of year.

It was all unnatural, but it was inviting.

Perhaps that was just how the fae were.

Jason hugged his basket close to himself, doing his best to ignore the food that grew oh-so-innocently from every tree and bush. It looked amazing, and he knew that all it would take to grab something was a simple flex of his fingers (for everything was well within reach), but he wasn’t going to risk it. It was possible that things simply grew better while around the faerie because they were more in tune with nature, but that was mere speculation. He wasn’t going to eat possible fae food on a guess.

He stilled his stomach by reminding himself that, no matter what, the problem would be solved soon.

He pressed onward, his breathing carefully even. He wasn’t sure whether the fae were watching him – perhaps they had noticed him the moment he had entered the forest, perhaps it was more complicated than that – but he didn’t want to let on just how desperate he was. Being desperate meant you could be taken advantage of, and Jason wasn’t intent on losing.

His knuckles were white on the handles of his basket regardless.

The clearing, unlike last time, didn’t hesitate to appear for him. He saw it coming from a metaphorical mile away, and he breathed a tiny sigh of relief. At least, this time, he (probably) wouldn’t be jumpscared.

As if to agree with that fact, a faerie stood in plain view. It leaned against something that didn’t exist from its spot in the middle of the mushroom circle, as if waiting for him. They weren’t any of the ones that he had seen already, but they seemed to be of a similar species. Large bat wings were wrapped around itself like a cloak, warding off a chill that wasn’t there. He carefully ran his fingers through his hair, tugging out tiny flowers knotted in the black locks, and setting them carefully in bulging pants pockets.

Jason smiled nervously as he approached the faerie.

It gave a smile in return – a small one, lips still pressed into a thin line.

“What brings you here, little one?” They asked, pausing in their attempts to get an almost impossible number of flowers out of their hair.

Jason hesitated. “Not going to say hello?”

The faerie blinked a few times before smiling. A little wider this time, in a way that showed off sharp teeth. “I could if you wish. I find that humans don’t typically do that, though. Especially not the children.”

He frowned a little. He had kind of been hoping to make it apologize for being impolite. He had wanted to see if he could form that weird debt bond that he had accidentally made with Robin before, if in the opposite direction. Of course, it probably should have been expected that he didn’t faze it. Unlike the two he had met before, which were both visibly young, this one felt old. There was something in the way he looked at him that made Jason wonder just how much he had seen.

But he wasn’t going to admit that to its face. Instead, he shrugged his shoulders. “I guess it’s fine.”

The faerie sighed lightly. “Well, now that that’s out of the way, you never did say why you came here…”

Jason nodded slowly. “I…” His stomach growled, and his face burned red as he hugged his stomach. The word ‘sorry’ hung on the tip of his tongue, and he snapped his mouth closed with a quiet click to keep it from escaping.

“I suppose that answers that question,” the faerie said, bringing a hand up to its mouth in an attempt to stifle the quiet snickers threatening to escape it. Their shoulders visibly shook with laughter, though.

Jason smiled sheepishly. “Yeah. I was hoping that I could get one of you guys to feed me.”

“I could make sure you’re never hungry again,” the fae said easily.

And Jason was sure that it could, but he wasn’t all that fond of the idea of immediately giving himself up to the fae. Or dying. Both were viable interpretations of the sentence.

“How about a game, instead?” Jason asked, thinking fast, remembering the first time he had gotten food from a faerie. “One of my choosing?”

The fae’s eyes seemed to twinkle with little stars. “Oh? A game? What are the terms?”

“If I win, I get to go home with one week’s worth of food – safe, normal, human food – and, if you win, you get to take me away like you like to do.”

The fae beamed. “Sounds fun. What game would you like to play?”

Jason grinned widely. “Pretend!”

“... pretend?”

“Mhmm! First one to get fake killed loses! Starting now!” Jason made fake guns with his fingers and ‘shot’ the man before he could react. “Pew pew. I win!”

The faerie looked at him with the most visibly shocked expression Jason had ever seen. Raised eyebrows, lips parted just slightly, eyes unblinking. But it was this way to an unnatural degree. It was such a perfect expression of surprise that it felt fake. And there were no minute muscle movements, no slight wrinkle of his nose or fluttering lashes. It was genuine, of that Jason was almost entirely sure, but it was still inhuman in a way that was difficult to describe.

Not that that was what was making sweat bead itself on his forehead.

Jason tried to keep his confident grin in place despite the nerves creeping up the back of his throat like bile. This entire plan hinged on the hope that the faerie wouldn’t interpret this as an insult and kill him.

The faerie finally snapped out of it enough to splutter. “Well, that wasn’t fair!”

“I told you the rules,” Jason said, careful not to sound too relieved that he hadn’t been smited on the spot. Maybe he came off as cocky instead, but what was done was done. “Technically, you also had a chance.”

He got a blank stare for another few, painfully long moments.

And then the faerie chuckled, shaking his head. “Alright, fine, you got me.”

The basket was jerked out of Jason’s hands and his eyes widened as he watched the grass carry it over to the faerie.

He watched as it stepped out of the circle like it wasn’t there at all. Jason frowned confusedly. “Aren’t you guys supposed to be trapped in those?” He asked, pointing down at the ring. And then he remembered that pointing was impolite, and quickly changed to a vague gesture. He wasn’t sure if the mushroom ring would get mad at him, but damn if he wasn’t going to make sure that it had no reason to.

The faerie glanced over and smiled. “No. It’s best to stay in them, as that’s where our magic is strongest and we can get back to our realm easiest from there… it’s the safest place for faerie to be, but there’s nothing actually forcing us to stay there.”

Jason frowned. “The ‘safest place for a faerie to be’? Aren’t you guys immortal?”

“Do you think that the fence around your village is made of iron for fun? That the knife hidden in your waistband is of the same material by coincidence?”

He pressed his lips together thinly. He had, in all honesty. But he wasn’t all that fond of the idea of admitting as such to the faerie, who was speaking in a tone that made it clear they thought it was all obvious. And maybe it was. After all, faerie were said to be far more powerful than humans, and if Jason had been able to climb the fence then so could they. There had to be some reason why the people that had built it had thought it would at least give the faerie pause.

… wait…

“How did you know that I had a knife –?”

Jason turned around and found the fae was already gone.

He sighed and shook his head. Right. Faerie are weird. And they, apparently, have a thing for appearing and disappearing randomly. How could he have ever forgotten?

He sat down in the grass with a deep groan. If this was going to become a consistent thing (which he was pretty sure it would, seeing as he had only bartered for food for one week, and it was going to be just as difficult to get food next week) then he was definitely going to start bringing a book to events like this.

Though, as he watched the stars above him wink through the branches, he wondered, absently, whether it really was taking as long as he thought. He could swear that he could see the moon sliding its way across the sky. Did time move faster here?

He supposed it wasn’t the kind of thing that he would be able to ever confirm. Perhaps he could take a watch into the forest and see if it was affected, but he wasn’t sure about it. What if the watch simply broke? That seemed like the kind of thing that would happen.

Jason turned over in the grass. His eyebrows furrowed just slightly. If it didn’t break, then would it follow the strange time of the forest or would it continue to move at the snail’s pace that the human world always went? How would that feel? Watching the seconds tick by ever-so-slowly, letting time slip by without him being there to enjoy the life he was supposed to live? How long could he stay here without eating? Would he get hungry and tired at the rate of someone living in the normal world, or could he go theoretical days without eating?

Before he knew it, his eyes were drifting shut. This really was taking a while…

He would just sleep for a few minutes…

A featherlight touch on his arm jolted him awake. His head jerked up to find the faerie looming over him. It looked at him with wide eyes, the hand it had been using to drape a coat over him still hanging in midair.

He scrambled backward, uncaring of the grass stains that were certainly going to be on the back of his pants tomorrow, nerves eating at him. Jason pressed a hand to his chest, trying to remind it to beat at its normal pace. The coat gave him all of the context he needed, the faerie was just trying to be kind, but that didn’t stop his breath from coming out in frantic little wheezes.

The faerie carefully set the basket overflowing with food in the grass and held up a hand in a way that was clearly supposed to be placating, but Jason eyed the hand like it had personally killed his mother, and the fae backed off.

Jason curled up in the grass, his eyes squeezed together tightly. His heart pounded in his chest, but thinking about it only made it speed up even more, and he was sure that he would pass out soon if he couldn’t relax.

He gritted his teeth. He hated adrenaline sometimes. Sure, it was supposed to help you accomplish amazing feats you wouldn’t otherwise be able, but it wasn’t helping him right now. In fact, he was pretty sure that it was trying to kill him.

“Did you know that fae don’t have genitalia?”

Jason’s head jerked up to look at the faerie. “What the fuck?” He rasped.

“I read somewhere that shocking people can sometimes snap them out of a panic,” the faerie said, smiling weakly. “Are you feeling any better?”

The air was unnaturally still as he waited for the panic to subside. As if the very world around him was scared that he might break under the pressure of a single breeze.

Slowly, his shoulders untensed.

He took a deep breath. It hurt a little, but at least he didn’t feel like there were invisible hands pressing against his windpipe anymore. An improvement.

“I guess.”

He blinked a few times to clear the tears that had pricked at the corners of his eyes. The world was duller in color than he remembered it being, and exhaustion threatened to pull him right back to sleep.

“So… how do you have kids, then?” Jason asked, deciding that he might as well ask. Maybe, if the answer horrified him enough, he would calm down for real.

“Steal them, usually,” it said, shrugging.

Jason sputtered.

“Or making them,” the faerie added quickly, clearly trying to brush past that can of worms.

Jason was not willing to do so. He was going to open that can of worms and unpack it to the best of his abilities. “You’re telling me all those stories about kids getting stolen are actually you guys just trying to repopulate?!”

Their mouth dropped open in offense. “I have no concerns about repopulating. I adopted those kids entirely because I was fond of them!”

“Didn’t you use the death of one of their parents as a way to lure them in?”

The faerie hesitated. “Well, technically, he came to me.”

“Oh my god,” Jason said, shaking his head. “That’s so fucked.”

And yet a tiny, amused grin was making its way across his face. The faerie’s halfhearted attempts of defending itself were amusing in a ‘what the fuck’ kind of way. And he couldn’t really bring himself to be mad when even the faerie seemed to understand that it was a strange habit – after all, it was what they had chosen to throw him off.

Besides, he felt a little wave of warmth run through him as he realized just how hard the faerie had tried to calm him down.

It was quickly replaced by a wave of horror.

“Do I owe you for helping me?” He asked.

The faerie looked mildly surprised. But then it shook its head. “No. I did that for myself, too. Seeing you freak out was… not fun.”

Jason squinted suspiciously, trying to find the trick in their words. But it had directly said that he didn’t owe it, so…

He breathed a tiny sigh of relief.

His eyes drifted to the sky, and he found that it was starting to lighten.

Right. The very thing that had started this.

At least he had an answer now: his body still reacted at about the rate it would in the human world, he was exhausted despite the fact that he couldn’t have been out for more than an hour or two.

He made himself stand despite his exhaustion. His legs trembled beneath his weight, but he ignored them. He would deal with all of that when he got home.

“I appreciate all of this,” he croaked, grabbing the basket with shaking hands.

“Would you like some water, as well…?” The faerie said, still a good few feet away, eyeing him like he was an animal that was preparing to bolt.

To be fair, Jason just might have if he wasn’t so scared of coming off as rude.

He shook his head. “Don’t have a Deal for that.”

It hesitated for just a moment, looking like it very much wanted to say something, before it decided against it. “Then you’re free to go.”

“See you in a week,” Jason muttered under his breath. He headed out, trying to ignore the sharp eyes boreing into the back of his head.

And, indeed, it became a weekly thing.

Once a week, he would leave the village in the middle of the night to see the faerie. They said that he should call him ‘B’ or ‘Batman’, but Jason would much rather call him ‘Old Man’. The faerie in question had laughed a little at the moniker, stated that it wasn’t all that incorrect, and then had motioned for them to start their weekly game.

It wasn’t a fair game, not really.

You can’t beat a kid at a game of pretend.

Not that Old Man often found himself reacting in time to ‘shoot’ Jason first. He couldn’t say anything that was distinctly untrue, which meant that Jason could tell ahead of time when he was about to do something. After all, he would have to shove in the word “pretend” or “mime” or any other synonym before he said that he was shooting him.

That doesn’t mean that Jason never got ‘shot’, he was very much capable of being taken by surprise, he just never lost.

“I was actually wearing armor,” he had told Old Man one time, before shooting him point-blank in the face.

And he could have used that excuse for all of the other times he was shot, but where was the fun in that? Jason delighted in coming up with new, completely bullshit ways to ‘survive’ Old Man’s attacks. Maybe it was just a rush of satisfaction, winning was always good, but it might have also been the tiny, indescribable sense of warmness he got when Old Man gave him this specific, proud little smile he sometimes wore.

So, every time he came up with something new:

“I used a mirror to deflect your rays.”

The faerie raised his eyebrows skeptically. “I didn’t see you make a motion to block it.”

“It’s a big mirror,” Jason said, giving a mock pitying look. As he shot him.

Old Man was getting wise, though, so he said: “I have pretend-armor.”

Unluckily for him, Jason was far better at this than he could ever hope to be. He would have never survived this long if he hadn’t had the ability to improvise.

“Actually, I used a gun that is specifically made to pierce through armor.”

Old Man seemed perturbed by the very thought, but they had allowed Jason to have the win.

That time.

Another time, Jason had gotten shot, and was quick to tell them some unfortunate news:

“I had a totem of undying.”

It paused. “I don’t know what that is.”

“It means I can’t die.”

“HOW?!”

Jason grinned and ‘shot’ the fae. “Because I win!”

And so, that was how it went. For months on end, Jason would stop by for food once a week. He knew that the townsfolk were suspicious – it wasn’t particularly an easy thing to hide, that he was surviving far longer than he should have been without any people at home to sustain him – but he couldn’t bring himself to care. They certainly didn’t care, if they were willing to allow him to starve just because his biological father was a terrible person. As long as they weren’t trying to stop him from going, it was none of his concern.

So, a routine developed.

And then a routine was broken.

Jason was just about to take his basket and leave, as he usually did, when he noticed a hesitant look on Old Man’s face.

“What’s up?” He asked, pausing in his futile attempts to zip up his windbreaker with one hand.

Old Man smiled nervously. “I’d like to do another Game.”

Jason raised his eyebrows. “What do you mean?”

“Our usual rules, but instead of food I want to change your end to give you a coat.”

He started to point a finger gun at him, already prepared to win this thing, but the fae held up his hands quickly. “Different Game.”

Jason backed up a wary half-step, his eyebrows shooting into his hair. He wasn’t really scared of the faerie anymore, couldn’t bring himself to be when the man had gushed about his kids to him for hours on end on multiple occasions, but he was still a little wary. Understandably. Even the faerie admitted to his ‘adoption habit’. Jason wasn’t all that interested in having a dad at the moment, considering the last one had been awful.

“What kind of game?”

“If you win the approval of my kids, you get a coat. If not, you come home with me.”

Jason’s eyebrows shot up into his hairline. “That sounds… counterintuitive.”

.The faerie shrugged.

And Jason… Jason gave himself a minute to think it over.

He had some money saved up. Despite his late-night escapades, he hadn’t abandoned his daytime life entirely. He had been doing odd jobs around town, saving up for a good coat, for quite a while now. He would be very happy to use that money on things he actually cared about instead. Like books. Or some kind of variety in his diet.

And… from what he had heard, Old Man’s kids were lovely. If anything, this was all very much skewed in his favor.

Even more so than Old Man seemed to know. Jason was pretty sure that the two kids he talked about so highly were those two faeries he had met the first time he had gone into the forest.

So, he gave a careful nod.

Instantly, two people appeared out of thin air within the ring. The pair were half behind their father, their heads poking out on either side.

“So, this is the new kid,” said Oracle, smiling pleasantly.

“Still can’t believe you managed to find a new kid to imprint on, B.”

Old Man pouted. Which is a sentence that should have never been strung together.

“We were gone for a month,” Robin said.

“Speak for yourself, I was only gone for a week,” said Oracle, shaking her head.

“I’m just that lovable,” Jason deadpanned. And then he waved. “Hi Oracle. Hi Robin.”

Their smiles lessened just slightly and they gave him identically confused looks. The pair disappeared behind Old Man to whisper, and Jason’s face flushed. Did they not remember him? That was… well, he understood, they had only talked once and these people were over a hundred years old, according to the stories, it made sense that they might not remember. Still, it was embarrassing to remember someone that doesn’t remember you.

“I don’t think I remember you. Can I have your name?” Robin asked, eventually, his eyebrows drawn upwards in confusion.

And he’d sounded so genuinely sheepish and hopeful that Jason almost gave it to him.

Instead, he gave a quiet “Uh.” and clicked his mouth closed so he could glare with maximum effectiveness.

Robin gave a tiny laugh. “Right, sorry, it was worth a shot… but, seriously… I don’t think I remember you?”

Jason avoided his eyes, a blush beginning to creep up his neck. His gaze caught on the brilliant wings on Robin’s back. They were a strange ombre, going from red at the tips to yellow to green at the shoulderblades… which, he admitted, made the blue of his shirt work better with the brilliant reds and yellows he adorned himself in, but Jason would still put the whole ensemble in the pile labeled ‘Fashion DONTS’.

“Nice to see that you don’t have those socks on your back anymore, Robin,” he tried.

Robin jolted. He swung around Old Man to look at him again and gasped. “Oh shit. Oracle, it’s that kid from a while back. Remember, the one that I played chess with and had to give food?”

Oracle’s eyebrows knit together for just a moment before she, too, gave a quick intake of breath. “Right. The one that summoned me on complete accident.”

Old Man’s eyes widened just slightly in recognition. Jason didn’t know how to feel about the fact that, apparently, all three of them talked about him enough at home for him to be recognized that easily.

“You look so different now! How old are you? You’re all grown up!”

Jason frowned. “It’s… only been a year.”

Robin and Oracle exchanged another confused look.

Oracle looked back at him, her mouth opening to ask something. And then her eyes widened. She leaned closer to Jason, so much so that he was very tempted to back up.

“Oh… you were claimed by Talia,” she said.

Instantly, the other two started leaning forward as well. Jason was not sure why these faeries didn’t know about personal space, but he was curious, too, so they let him examine his face. Jason hadn’t noticed anything off himself, but something settled in their expressions and he realized that something was wrong.

“It’s your eyes that give you away,” Old Man said eventually, his lips pulled into a grim line. “They have a green sheen to them. That’s her trademark.”

Jason frowned.

A mirror appeared in Robin’s hand and Jason snatched it up instantly, leaning close to peer at himself. He had never much cared for his reflection, never bothered to look into it all that often, and now he found that he couldn’t fully recognize himself. His nose was more upturned, his skin more tan, and his hair was streaked with white. He looked great, honestly, he rather liked the look, but it wasn’t right. He had once looked exactly like a young version of his father, and yet now he could pass for little more than a distant relative of the man.

And, as he peered into his own eyes, he saw what the faeries had noticed: they glimmered with a thin green sheen that only just caught the light at certain angles. Impossible to notice if you hadn’t known to look for it, but definitely there.

And then he remembered those hypnotic green eyes he had seen so long ago.

“Oh,” he breathed.

Robin’s expression dimmed even more. “It’s true?”

Jason handed the mirror back over wordlessly, which was an answer in itself.

Oracle grimaced. “Uh… so… there’s really no nice way to ask this…” She got a few glares from her family, but she continued on nonetheless: “She helps her father rule the In-Between, and people on the verge of death are their domain… is there any chance that you found her in the same way you found us?”

Jason wanted to lie but, from the look on the three’s faces, they already knew. So, however hesitantly, he nodded.

The faeries flinched in unison.

Jason’s eyes found their way to the ground.

“At least you’re okay,” Oracle decided, her hand coming to rest on his shoulder. It was a comforting weight. He leaned into it a little.

Robin nodded. “Though, I guess, this means that we can’t take this one,” he said, sounding like he had been denied an ice cream cone and was going to throw a fit about it the moment Jason was out of sight. “Man, I really did want a little brother.”

“Uh, for the record, I wasn’t intending on becoming a part of the family.”

Oracle snorted. “Oh, so you just gambled your life over and over again for fun?” She said incredulously.

Jason… didn’t have much of a rebuttal for that.

“But,” Robin said, frowning a little. “I guess you’re Talia’s.”

He spat the name like it was a curse. Jason wasn’t sure this boded well for him.

“It… makes things more complicated,” Old Man admitted.

“B. You can’t cause an international incident over a kid,” Oracle said, sounding somewhere between exasperated and fond.

Old Man looked petulant. “Watch me.”

“A would kill you,” Oracle said.

Jason wasn’t sure who this ‘A’ was but, apparently, he was terrifying because he was pretty sure Old Man went a shade paler. Which wasn’t possible for a faerie, especially not one as pale as he already was.

“I mean… I could always do that thing mortals do. ‘Split custody’, or whatever?” He tried, sounding unsure.

Oracle tipped her head to the side consideringly.

“But then we have to see her,” complained Robin.

Old Man shook his head exasperatedly. “She’s not a bad person, Robin. You two have to stop fighting over nothing eventually.”

Robin looked like they were going to spend the rest of their very long life hating Talia, but sure.

Old Man gave a long-suffering sigh, before turning back to Jason. “We’ll figure it out. It’s unfortunate that our little get-together went this way, but it seems you’re already acquainted with these two anyways.”

“It was enlightening, at least,” Jason said. He had a complicated array of emotions and thoughts that he was going to start sorting through when he got home but, for now, he decided to let himself relax and say goodbye to the strange three faeries.

Oracle gave a little laugh and patted him on top of the head. “I’m sure it was.”

Jason smirked and waved as she disappeared.

Robin was next to go back to wherever their home was. They ruffled Jason’s hair roughly, and Jason yelped out a string of curses, but Robin was gone before he could do anything about it.

And then Old Man started to head back to his faerie circle.

“Wait, you forgot something,” Jason said.

It paused, his eyebrows raised.

“My coat. Pay up, Old Man.”

And, despite himself, Old Man gave a tiny smile.

A new routine developed. He continued to force Old Man to play a game he was always destined to lose, that didn’t change, but now the long waits that took place while Old Man scrounged the forest for human food were made more enjoyable by the two faerie children that hung out with him.

Even ‘Talia’ started showing up from time to time. Despite Robin’s insistence that she was ‘the devil incarnate’ or whatever, she was rather nice. And she had a couple of pet tigers, so Jason was very interested in everything she had to say.

It was nice.

Nice things never lasted.

His father got out of jail.

Which should have been a good thing. Jason no longer needed to gamble for his life once a week.

But his father was his father.

Jason was honestly surprised it took so long for the man to snap. Between the altered appearance making Jason look more and more like a child borne out of infidelity and the messy house his father had come home to (because Jason was, above all else, a boy)... really, it had been inevitable that something would happen.

Jason was running.

His breath came in labored wheezes that steamed in the cold, winter air as he sprinted toward the hole in the fence. His father was running after him at top speed but, thanks to the man’s time in jail, the man wasn’t nearly as used to the terrain as Jason was and kept slipping and tripping over things he couldn’t see in the hard-packed snow.

Jason slipped under the hole in the fence, once again thanking whatever was watching him that something had slipped through – Talia, not an animal, had broken the fence when she had met him the first time. The hole wasn’t large enough for his father to squeeze through, and Jason was allowed to disappear into the relative safety of the woods.

Footsteps thundered behind him as he darted between the trees, gaining on him far faster than he would like. Branches whipped at the man, but he barreled right through them, adrenaline carrying him. Jason would repeat his opinion that he hated adrenaline sometimes, but it was the only reason he was able to keep running so he rather liked it at the moment.

He couldn’t keep running forever, though.

Jason reached the clearing, and he almost cried out in joy.

“Dick! Barbara!” He screamed instead. It was a wild guess, an assumption based on the things he had been told over the short life that was about to be cut even shorter, but he was rewarded by two faerie children popping into existence.

They looked like they had been summoned right out of bed, clad in pajamas and rubbing sleepy eyes, but they snapped to attention when their eyes landed on Jason’s father, sprinting up the path and shouting curses.

The man stopped cold when he saw the two fae.

A hand wrapped around Jason’s wrist and he was dragged into Robin (into Dick Grayson). A wing was wrapped around him, pleasant and warm and safe, and Jason gave a hesitant smile.

“What’re you doing?” Oracle (Barbara Gordon) said, her tone pleasant and yet dripping with venom.

“Jason,” his father ignored him. The two faeries stiffened just slightly at the name, but the man either didn’t notice or didn’t care. “Let’s go home, okay?”

Jason slowly turned to wrap his arms around Dick. The faerie had his name, now, his choice in the matter didn’t matter. The jig was up. But he had their names, too, so maybe it canceled out.

“Maybe I’d rather be here,” Jason said. And maybe he did. Maybe, after all of these months, he had learned to rather like the fae that had become such a large part of his life. He didn’t completely trust them, but he didn’t trust his father, either.

At least they hadn’t hurt him yet.

“They’re fae,” his father said, as if he didn’t already know.

“They’re nice.”

“Of course they’re nice, they’re fae, that’s their thing,” his dad hissed.

Robin’s head came to rest on his shoulder, his eyes cold where they were trained on the man in front of him. He smiled – if you could call it that, it was more of a baring of teeth than anything. “You know, we let it slide when you people talk bad about us behind our backs, when you think we aren’t listening… but wow, I’m genuinely surprised you think that you can say this to our faces.”

His father sneered. “It’s a little hard to be scared of two random faerie kids. Especially not when I know your names.”

Wings crept higher, fluffing up in irritation.

Still, Oracle stayed calm. Her tail looped itself around Jason’s ankle, a comforting weight. “Don’t you know that you shouldn’t be rude to a fae?”

“What’re you going to do about it, Barbara?”

Oracle didn’t even flinch. She hummed lightly, her head tilting from side to side as if she were actually considering it. “Oh, nothing, I suppose.”

Old Man ‘hugged’ Jason’s father from behind, his arms coming to rest over his shoulders and his head resting atop the man’s own. He smiled, sharp teeth flashing in the moonlight. “You’re right that you shouldn’t be worried about them. But this forest has far more faerie than even you humans know about. And this is our territory.”

Talia leaned against a nearby tree, examining her nails with a kind of nonchalance that spoke of a battle that had been won before it had even started.

“Normally, I’d say that attacking you here in our domain was unfair… but I think it’s fitting. I mean, if you spend all of your time hurting what can’t fight back, maybe you deserve a taste of your own medicine.”

And Jason had thought he was the one that liked to play games that were already decided.

Perhaps he had only ever won because they allowed him to.

The thought was strangely comforting. They could have stolen him away whenever they’d wanted to, and yet they had refrained, because that wasn’t what Jason had wanted.

Now, Dick and Babs started to lead him to the faerie circle.

“Get him out of here, please,” Old Man said, his eyes never quite leaving his prey even as his smile softened, a pleasant thing made just for Jason. And then his eyes went cold again, clawed fingers beginning to curl in the flesh of his father’s side. “He doesn’t need to see this.”

“Jason,” his father breathed.

Jason glanced back at him.

And then he looked at the two faeries closing in on the man. Dangerous and angry for Jason.

His gaze drifted back to the two standing in the circle, their hands outstretched. Like two people helping someone board a boat, wanting to make sure that they didn’t slip and hurt themselves along the way.

He took their hands and allowed them to pull him over the boundary, to the other side.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

All Fae-n And Games Masterlist

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