#I’m a six apologist guys sorry you had to find out this way

[boffix]

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[revolution-john]

My Childhood Trauma PTSD as Triggered by the Following Movie Montage

by BENJAMIN DREVLOW

That scene in American History X. You know the one. Or maybe it was Higher Learning, I always get those confused. That curb stomp scene always reminding me of the time I tripped and face-planted in the barn while corralling bull calves, to get castrated, my two front teeth chomping down on all that jagged concrete and manure, it adds a different flavor to the recurring nightmare I have, though in my case, usually nothing to do with race relations. I wonder if everybody else who watched that movie also missed the whole point of it. Except the Curb Stomp. Everybody remembers where they were when their stoner friend with big ideas about ending racism across the world made them watch the movie with the Curb Stomp.

~

Mel Gibson getting drawn and quartered in Braveheart. You may take our lives, but you will never take… our… FREE-DOM!

~

Mel Gibson ripping his shoulder out of its socket in Lethal Weapon.

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Mel Gibson torturing the shit out of Jesus, then blaming the women and Jews for everything, including his drunk-driving and plummeting career options.

~

Fuck pretty much any Mel Gibson movie. Except maybe that one with him and James Gardner and Jody Foster and all their comedy hijinks. It’s the gambler one but not The Gambler. But now that I think about it, isn’t Jody Foster a big Mel Gibson apologist? So I guess fuck that movie too.

~

Any movie where somebody gets shot or stabbed or thumbed in the eyeball or has one or both of their eyeballs squeezed or ripped out, which always reminds me of that time I got elbowed right below my eye but also on the eyeball and it literally pushed in my eyeball a millimeter and I still get double vision to this day whenever I line up a shot playing pool or line up a screw to hang a photo on the wall or sometimes re-hang the toilet paper dispenser next to the toilet. I’d been playing pickup basketball and my buddy who was like four inches taller than me elbowed me on a rebound and like I say I went down and lay there on my back and then all the blood started pooling in my eye socket and I couldn’t see anything and my friend couldn’t see my eyeball and he kept hissing through his teeth grossed out by it but then telling me it would okay and the whole time lying there thinking I’m thinking about my eyeball I’m thinking of the scene in Any Given Sunday where the guy’s eyeball is just lying there on the football field. I’m thinking of that closeup all the way to the hospital when they unwrap the mummy gauze from around my head and the ER doctor breathes a sigh of relief after peeling off all the dried blood to reveal that I needed fifteen stitches and I’d broken my orbital bone, but I still had my eye.

~

Any movie where somebody’s sitting there reading a book before bed, watching TV, gossiping with girlfriends, when the camera pulls back only to zoom back in on the dark night window behind them—cue the string section.

~

If I had to choose one, I’m thinking of that one zombie movie, something 28 Days something but not the one about Sandra Bullock finding love with Viggo in rehab. It’s not even about the zombies. It’s about the dark night window, not to be confused with the Dark Knight window, sorry that was a shitty pun for no good reason whatsoever, but also maybe not completely random with the guy from 28 Days also having played the scarecrow in Batman Begins where he sprays people with a drug and makes them see their worst fears, which never really did it for me, at least not like the secluded house with the zombies lurking around. I grew up in a big old farmhouse out in the barrens of northern Wisconsin. Lots of windows, no shades. In so many ways I grew up in the dark. It wasn’t the zombies I worried about. It was the methheads. Which, sure, I guess if you’re getting technical about it, same thing, fine, you win, I’m scared of zombies.

~

The Zapruder film, but as replayed by Kevin Costner in Oliver Stone’s fever dream of a conspiracy theory. The magic bullet, back and to the left, back and to the left, back and to the left. How it gets stuck in my head, JFK’s exploding head replaced with my brother’s exploding head, sometimes my own, except unlike my brother and JFK, my head’s still mostly intact. Back and to the left, back and to the left. Sometimes I think about that too with that one Seinfeld episode with Keith Hernandez and the magic loogie, but usually the loogie gets replaced with a bullet and Kramer’s head gets replaced with my brother, mine, back and to the left.

~

The sound of the gun shots in the final scene of that Tom Hanks movie where he plays himself again, a good guy, a family guy, a sly sense of humor, but this time a mob hitman with a strained relationship with his oldest son. The look on Tom Hanks’ face walking back to the house from the ocean—having survived it all, the hit that his old mob boss Paul Newman had put out on him for putting a hit on his old mob boss’s son as played by James Bond who also played Ted Hughes in that movie about Sylvia Plath killing herself. But this is past all that, it’s the happy ending. They’re on beach somewhere, white sand, somebody’s house that Tom Hanks and his kid are going to live in now. The silence before and after. Jude Law! It’s Jude Law’s face, his eye all fucked up, how did it happen, I don’t really remember the specifics but I remember the specifics. Bang, bang, bang. I think it might’ve had something to do with Jude Law being a photographer, like one of those where you pose with your kid or something or say you get promoted to head CEO or godfather of the family. Smile. Click, click, except in this case with a gun.

~

The gunshot at the end of American Beauty, pretty much the same thing, different movie. Chris Cooper confusing Kevin Spacey as gay but before Kevin Spacey actually came out as gay and a sexual predator. Not that the latter necessarily had anything to do with the former. Neither in the movie nor real life, well not really, but sorta. You get the point.

~

Jared Leto as Angel Face getting his face smashed in by Ed Norton as Brad Pitt as Tyler Durden’s split personality in Fight Club. Not so much Jared Leto, but the wet mushy sounds of it. That part on the audio commentary where Chuck Palahniuk and David Fincher defend the violence of the movie, Fincher pointing out that he was not glorifying violence, he was making it realistic. That’s what it sounds like to punch your opponent into the concrete, Fincher says and Palahniuk laughs and agrees. Don’t worry I’m not going to make any puns about the first rule of fight club.

~

That part of that one weird depressing Robin Williams’s movie where Robin Williams’s kids get killed in a car accident while backing out of the driveway on the way to school. The one where Robin Williams later on gets plowed over by a truck going the wrong way while Robin Williams is out trying to help another couple who’d been injured in a different car accident, but before all that his wife kills herself because she can’t take it and then Robin Williams goes to the suicide afterlife to save her. But then there’s fucking Cuba Gooding Jr. who—spoiler alert—turns out to be the ghost/angel of his dead son who then explains to Robin Williams that his wife/Cuba’s mother can’t be saved because she killed herself. It doesn’t matter that she had a pretty fucking good reason too, she’s still stuck face down floating around in that black swamp of bodies of everybody else’s killed themselves and nobody’s getting to heaven. That shit really messed me up—not the car accidents, but the afterlife for selfish losers like me who kill themselves. And/or my brother.

~

The bulging vein in Tom Cruise’s head from Magnolia. Respect the Cock and Tame the Pussy, Respect the Cock and Tame the Pussy. I think probably my therapist would have some thoughts about all this, and some questions. Questions and thoughts.

~

That one version of A Christmas Carol where the Ghost of Christmas Past undoes his robe to show off the alien children living under his robe.

~

I got the worst set of blue balls you could imagine while taking my best friend’s girlfriend to Baz Lurman’s remake of Romeo and Juliet. That Romeo and Juliet. I missed most of it, I kept having to go to the bathroom to masturbate in agony and to no avail. Leo and Claire Danes are hot and heavy on an acid trip, and every time my best friend’s girlfriend reaches for a handful of popcorn she makes sure to wipe the butter off on the inside of my upper thigh. This is what I get for being the good guy of falling on the grenade for my best friend, the grenade in this case being Shakespeare and my best friend’s hatred of literature.

~

Mark Wahlberg’s flaccid rotten dick in Boogie Nights.

~

The Secret of the Crying Game but not in a transphobic way. No, it’s the smallness of it what got me back when I watched it as a teenager. The tenderness. The growing tent in my pants at its sudden appearance on the screen. Maybe you don’t believe me but I was a naïve podunk kid from off the farm. I didn’t have cable. I didn’t have access to the internet. His/her (now their) secret opened up a lot of questions for me. I often dream of dressing up in drag and someone sucking my little bitty dick and if that makes me a little bit gay or maybe bi or what’s it called, body dysmorphic. I mean I guess it doesn’t matter anymore, it’s the new millennium, we’re all a bit sexually confused aren’t we?

~

This one porno my friends and I watched at somebody’s uncle’s cabin up in the U.P. for a three-on-three basketball tournament. The Snapping Pussy. The sound her vagina made, like somebody really dramatic at clicking their tongue and slurping a half-empty malt the same time. The scene of us boys all sitting there with our boners watching a porn and wanting to masturbate but not because we were all boys and we were afraid we’d be gay. Not that there’s anything wrong with being a little bit gay.

~

There was this made-for-TV movie, me six years old and home alone while my big brother, supposed who’d to’ve been baby-sitting me, the only time he ever babysat me that I can remember, maybe because his one time—that time—he didn’t actually babysit me. He went out to a party, while I watched the made-for-tv movie about some kid who’d watched his mother get murdered, and then goes mute, keeps drawing these pictures of Peter Pan and Captain Hook. The kid’s grandfather, one of those big hooks, like the one in I Know What You Did Last Summer, but this was long before that, though I’m not sure it was before the book. Did you know that there was a book I Know What You Did Last Summer? I mean this isn’t about the book or the movie, this is about that kid whose grandfather had molested his daughter for years and then as an adult gutted her with a fishhook and then how he’d then come back to finish the job with his mute grandkid, I don’t know how this movie ever got green-lighted (green-lit?) for TV, but then it’s weird to even think about those made-for-tv movies and if they actually existed or if I’m just making this whole thing up, but then my brother, we had a walk-in basement at the time, this being before I’d accidently burned that house down with two space heaters stolen from the barn, before my brother’d killed himself, he’d come back late, or probably it was only eight or nine, but I was young and alone out in the woods where we lived, and he’d come back through the basement, which was attached to the family room, where I’d been watching and then all of a sudden that kid on TV was being stocked by his granddad with a fish hook and the door to the basement was opening, and for god knows why I’d turned off all the lights to watch the scary movie by myself, and it turns out it was just my brother who’d go on to kill himself in like a year, maybe six months, and he was just playing a little prank on me, or maybe he’d just come through the basement for some reason, he was always hanging out down there and tinkering around with things, but in my mind, I can remember that exact look on his face, that smirk, even in the dark, the light from the television in a blacked-out room, a blacked out house, reflecting off those pop-bottle glasses of his, the shiny too-big-for-his-face silver frames. My mother always tells me I should try to remember the happy times I had with my brother, and honestly, I can’t, I can only remember that smirk, those glasses, the handle turning a moment before he appeared.

~

Any and all sequels where it turns out that the dead character didn’t actually die at all, or maybe it’s magic, or maybe there’s time travel.

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Any happy ending ever.

~

Every ending in my worst nightmares involves everyone I’ve ever loved or hated, their faces turning to snake faces. Snakeheads, snake arms, snake butts. Snakes snakes snakes. They slip out of their clothes and come up from under my bed, slither under my covers. They bite me, they kiss me, poison me, they consume me whole and regurgitate my bones. That’s how they always end. Me dead and abandoned.

~

That scene in the first Indiana Jones with Indiana Jones and getting trapped in the cave with all the snakes. I hate snakes. All my worst nightmares turn to snakes. Fuck snakes. This all might have something to do with my undersized penis. If you want to go down that path. The Secret of My Crying Game.

~

Has Mel Gibson ever made a movie with snakes? I don’t know, you tell me, but fuck that movie if he did. Mel Gibson is snakey enough on his own.

~

BENJAMIN DREVLOW is the author of Bend With the Knees and Other Love Advice from My Father, which won the 2006 Many Voices Project, and the author of Ina-Baby: A Love Story in Reverse, which was  released by Cowboy Jamboree Books in 2019.  Buy his books here. He is currently at work on a novel, a novella, and a collection of story-poems. He serves as the Managing Editor of BULL Magazine (@BULL_magazine_) and is a lecturer at Georgia Southern University in Statesboro, Georgia.

[artsybanchou]

OOf. I gots another AU, everyone. Sorry.

Technically, I’ve got another roughly seven or so because Detroit: Become Human is just begging for crossover AUs with other fandoms. This one is a Merlin: Become Human AU. Some info is in the really quick doodles I did above. The rest will be below the cut so I don’t clutter people’s dashes.

HOO Boi, you fool! Clicking on that keep reading link, welcome to my hell. My brain won’t stop churning these out and apparently you want in on that. I’ll hit you with what I’ve been thinking about regarding this so far. I welcome discussion. If you’ve got ideas relating to this or want to participate with me, go ham in the comments or make your own post and just tag me or use Merlin:Become Human AU in the tags so I can see how you’ve expanded on it! 

General Premise:

Merlin is an android (not sent by Cyberlife). He’s actually an independent prototype, unlicensed and unregistered, created by a disgruntled former Cyberlife employee (Gaius) who felt that Androids and their AI had reached a point that they should be recognized as an intelligent species with their own rights. Cyberlife disagreed and Gaius left the company because of what he perceived as their immorality. Gaius, now working on his own in the middle of nowhere with no oversight, makes the one of a kind Merlin. Merlin is designed to look and act incredibly human, even moreso than most androids. His programming, in particular, is designed to heavily encourage deviation and machine learning in the hopes that Merlin will advance so far beyond his original coding that he is virtually unrecognizable when compared to how he began, emulating the kind of growth that makes humans seem so alive.  Another feature Merlin is programmed to have in order to appear more human is the ability to change how old he appears to be (to reflect on Merlin’s frequent age changing shenanigans in the original show). Merlin is also given an atypically large amount of information about technology and programming so that he can have the ability to grapple with his own existence in the same way humans do when studying biology, psychology, or neurology. What this means, though, is that Merlin is able to accomplish feats akin to magic (heh) with technology. Probably even reprograms himself on occasion or changes his own hardware just because he can. 

So Merlin is born and he’s a pretty great success. Gaius feels as though he really is living with a petulant, sassy late teens/early 20s human being. Sometimes, he genuinely forgets Merlin is an android. So does Merlin. These two are out in the middle of nowhere living their best life with a few others (maybe Hunith-- good mother figure for Merlin, could be andoird or human). This eventually develops into Merlin having to go to High School or college. Maybe Merlin watched too much TV with that setting and became unbearably curious and annoying about going, maybe Gaius wanted to prove that humans and androids could not only coexist but it’d be so incredibly seamless that no one would even notice anything-- maybe a little bit of both. High School or College are good settings for Merlin to test out his immersion because of his own youthful demeanor (aka abundance of snark and attitude). 

MERLIN GOES TO SCHOOL.

I think we all know what happens from here. 

Merlin arrives at his first day of school to a scene of Arthur and some other kids knocking around an android who is gardening on campus. Merlin gets pissed and intervenes, because while he’d seen stuff about people hating androids on the net, he’d never experienced it in real life. Arthur tells Merlin to back off and that he and his friends can do whatever they want to the android because his family can pay the school for damages to their property since his family is rich. Merlin gets sassy (”You sure you can afford that? I’d assume that if you had enough money to replace an android, you’d have enough to fix your awful personality.”) Conversation continues, maybe roughly in the vein of:

Arthur: “Dude, chill. This thing is just an object. Why are you getting so pissy about this?”

Merlin: “Do you even know the first thing about androids? Because my bet is no.”

Arthur: “Excuse me, I’ll have you know I’m--”

*Merlin shoves everyone away from the android so he can examine the gardener and finds both the audio and visual processing units are damaged (the ones that Marcus damaged in the one scene, spoilers? I’m trying to be vague don’t mind me).*

Merlin: “You damaged this android’s __ and __. He has completely lost the ability to see and hear and yet you keep kicking him. I don’t suppose any of you remember the last group of humans that found fun in assaulting the disabled.”

Merlin probably insults the intelligence of Arthur and all of his friends (well, I can’t say I’m surprised. None of you look like someone passing history class). Arthur fires back about Merlin being a bleeding heart or some shit. Arthur reveals he is the son of the politician leading the anti-android movement. Now that Arthur knows this new guy is an android-apologist, Arthur declares Merlin had better watch his back. Merlin gives him a sassy response in the way of that not being how a politician’s son should behave, probably. From there on Merlin and Arthur frequently but heads over the treatment of androids and androids’ rights.

There will, of course, be other shenanigans going on. Merlin is going to be incredibly odd, as he learned how one acts in High School/College from TV and maybe webcomics so he has trouble fitting in at first. He definitely makes friends though, because that’s just who Merlin is. Eventually, he’ll also stumble into Arthur’s friendship, although at this point I have no idea how.

Last thoughts: 

These are my less developed ideas, although the above can hardly be called developed either. 

Being an android is parallel for being a magic user. Hence Merlin being an android disguised as a human who is standing up for android rights.

Morgana is probably an android, assuming we stick to this idea. She might not know it or just be hiding it, but Uther would know and it would be a prime highlight of the hypocrisy he is known for. Morgana would likely also be a very unique android, possibly a gift from Cyberlife to Uther. Finding out that she is an android could be a great moment of tension for both Morgana and Arthur as their confidence in the man they believed to be their father was shaken. 

Ooo, what if Morgana was an experimental android in aging technology. She was gifted to Uther as a baby and every year she has a “check-up” where her AI is transplanted into a slightly larger android body to mimic the process of growing up. She could be unconscious during these check ups and hence it would be perfectly natural for her not to realize that she is an android. As for why Uther would accept this gift, I have no idea. 

Because of Merlin’s ability to change the age he appears, it would make sense if Gaius was the head of the project Morgana was the android of before he left. Gaius could be the expert on aging technology in androids. It could be that seeing the humanity in Morgana as she slowly grew up alongside her human brother was what pushed Gaius over the edge in demanding that androids be seen as human because he feared what would happen to Morgana if the public ever found out. 

Some kind of android purge taking place in the story, possibly due to the events in Detroit, would be a great arc for the characters where everyone has a new conflict to worry about. Whether or not Arthur knows how many of his closest friends and family members are androids at this point-- I have no idea. I want to see Arthur agressively protecting Morgana, but at the same time an enthusiatic Arthur participating in the purging until he discovers his own sister should be the target of his rage would be an incredibly palpable moment and just-- there is a lot to consider.

So yeah. That’s roughly where I am now with all of this. If you want to expand on this, do it. I want to hear other people’s ideas. If you make your own post (speculation, fanfic, fanart, telling me I’m full of shit) about it tag me or use the hashtag Merlin:BecomeHumanAU so I can see! I have no idea when I’m going to post about this specific AU again, because I’ve got six other D:BH AUs I want to just throw out here into the void first, but seeing other people’s theories and thoughts on things like this always gets me energized.

THanks for scrolling through this disorganized monster of my thoughts. This was probably a lot to deal with.

[rason-rodd]

So, I see requests are open, and if it’s not to out there, may I please have a fic where the batfam(and possibly in a JLA meeting) video call Jason and see him mid breakdown cutting his own thighs and them learning he kinda hates himself but they just got him back and vow to help him get better because family doesn’t quit on family ? V specific and you don’t have to if it’s to much but thanks if you do/don’t anyways !! (Love you btw)

Hello! Sorry for making you wait, anon. I finally wrote the fanfic though it is a bit different than what you ask. I didn’t do the ‘video call’ thing and ‘JLA meeting’ because I didn’t know how to build the story around that. I hope you don’t mind and that you’ll appreciate it anyway.

DISCLAIMER: THE FANFIC BELOW DEALS WITH VERY SENSITIVE SUBJECTS SUCH AS SUICIDAL TENDENCIES AND SCARIFICATION. THE SCENE DEPICTED MAY BE VERY DISTURBING AND NOT SUITED FOR YOUNG READERS. SO PLEASE BE CAREFUL. IF YOU DON’T FEEL COMFORTABLE WHILE YOU READ THIS, THEN PLEASE STOP.

DISCLAIMER 2: MAKING AN APOLOGIST ARGUMENT FOR SUICIDE AND SCARIFICATION IS NOT THE AIM OF THIS FANFIC, ON THE CONTRARY.  IF YOU ARE OR ANYONE YOU KNOW IS DEALING WITH THOSE ISSUES PLEASE TALK TO A RESPONSIBLE AND TRUSTWORTHY PERSON. IT CAN BE A FRIEND, A MEMBER OF YOUR FAMILY, A TEACHER OR A PROFESSIONAL. BUT PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE DON’T STAY QUIET!  

WE’VE GOT YOU (Jason Todd’s POV)

Warning: Angst, Mention of Suicide, Death and Scarification
Tagged: @usernightwing ; @anaboo-thewriter ; @queen-fighter ; @loliiz ; @piratefrost ; @daisyboobear ; @perforabuntsaggittis ; @pythiaaa

You probably won’t believe it but not everyone wants to be alive. Surprising, I know. But true. There are days … or rather nights … when I stay awake, lying on my bed, wondering if things would not have been better after all if I had stayed dead or if the Lazarus pits hadn’t give me back my consciousness. Lugubrious thoughts I know. But that’s the thing with thoughts you don’t really control them. Contrary to speech, thoughts are free and can be judged only by yourself.

I hate my thoughts. I hate them because they make me do crazy things, because they drive me insane, because sometimes I let them hurt me in ways anything or anyone else could hurt me, because I let them dictate my actions.

I let them take the knife attached to my belt. I let them stare at it. I let them lower it towards my leg and I let them carve my already battered and bruised thighs. But worse, I let them enjoy it and tell me, like a snake whispering in my ear, that it feels good, that I’ll feel better after that.

But I never feel really better. I take comfort in this daze where the cuts send me, in that place where there is just a weird dizziness and a sensation of warm burning down my entire body, knocking me down on the mattress. A sensation similar to a few lines of coke freshly sniffed. Yeah, an addiction. Something that doesn’t last and that make you come back for more.

A shameful addiction.

I drop the knife on the floor and stay lying on the mattress. I feel like I’m falling, like I’m sinking in the mattress but I’m … relaxed? good?. I don’t know. But apart from that, I don’t feel anything around me, not even the springs of the bed that usually hurt my aching back or the blood staining my trousers more and more as it pours down my thighs. I loose all sense of awareness, all sense of consciousness, all sense of self. And it reminds me when I was just this vegetable zombie that had just miraculously come from the dead.

Miraculously? No. Wrong word. In what way was it a miracle? In what way waking up in a coffin six feet under is a miracle? I what way crawling back to the surface using your nails to dig yourself out is a miracle? Let me tell you what it was. It was a curse, a new punishment for all the stupid things that I had done.

Or maybe it wasn’t. Because the notion of curse or even miracle implies that there is some God or some almighty power that plays with your life like a puppeteer. There is no one! There is no God. There is no Devil. When you die, fuck, you die. Forget heaven. Forget hell. There is just blackness.

A bit like right now, now that I have my eyes closed. Trust me, I’ve been there.

Yeah, not everyone wants to be alive.

I suddenly feel something fresh and humid on my forehead. Slowly I crawl back towards reality. My eyes open. They have trouble adjusting to the light.    “He’s awake” echoes in my head. Damn, it hurts.     “Jason.” My sight is blurry. I can only discern a black figure. “Jason, can you hear me?” Yes, I can. Whoever you are. I can hear you. But who are you?           I blink. There is a strange light blinding my eyes. They want to cry.          “ You’re okay. We’ve got you.”

Then I see them, through half opened eyes. Bruce, Dick and Damian. They are staring at me. I don’t like their stares. Even less when they are full of pity like right now. It’s the same look people used to give me when I was a street rat orphan living in Crime Alley. Makes me wanna puke.            I try to stand up but my head is still dizzy and Bruce holds me back. “No, don’t move.”“I’m okay.” I spit as I brush his hand off. “What are you guys doing here? No one invited you. It’s my place.” I realise I don’t sound as threatening as I hoped I would. I sound like a weak mess.             “ We wanted to see you about Black Mask.” Damian frowned with arms crossed over his tiny chest. Even when I feel dizzy, that brat still looks fucking obnoxious. “ Black Mask can wait. Are you okay?” Dick asks. What a big brother. What a dumb blind big brother. Didn’t I say as was okay even if I’m not? “What happened? Who did this to you?”             “ Trouble with some goons working for Two Face.” I lied    “ Really? I am not so sure.” Bruce had the knife in his hand.        

I want them all out. Right now. Simply out my place. Out of sight. Out. I look down to take a deep breath but I’m not going to lie, I feel so ashamed. “What the hell, Jason? Why?!” Dick yells with that saddened look in his eyes.     “ Just because.”      “ That’s not a reason!!” Can he shut up? Can’t he be just like the Demon Spawn over there? Staring in anger with this ridiculous little frown that he has inherited from daddy dearest. A look is easy steer clear of. “ You’re hurting yourself. You’re scarifying yourself!” Like I didn’t know what I was doing. “Why? Why would you do that?”      “You’re really asking again?”      “Yes. You’re my brother for god’s sake. Of course I want to know why you’re doing such a thing to yourself!” I don’t answer.  “ He’s doing it because he is weak.” Damian spits with disdain. I glower at him. How dares he? Fucking little brat! Weak? I’m not weak! I’m strong. I’m a survivor. I’m … “You little piece of shit. How dare you calling me weak? After everything I’ve been through? I’m certainly one of the bravest person you’ll ever meet in your miserable life!” I growl.         “ You’re weak.” He repeats with a scowl. “You’re weak because you haven’t thought for a second how we could all feel about that.”           “Oh really? Cause you feel something!” I sneer.        “ Yes!” Dick answers, “We feel sorry. Sorry for you. And sorry that we didn’t realise that you had those … tendencies.”            “ We feel hopeless.” Damian adds “But you don’t care. You’re selfish.”  “ ENOUGH!” Bruce shouts suddenly. “YOU TWO, OUT!!”

They obey like little dogs. But I won’t lie. Good riddance!

Bruce is staring with that look. You know, the batman look. He’s pissed. Of course, he has never felt like I have. So how can he under…stand?

A hug? Is that …?

I stiffen. I’m definitely not used to that. I’m … It feels good. Bruce’s arms around me, holding me tight, his hand caressing my back. That fatherly embrace.     I feel tears forming in my eyes. And I feel his tears falling on my neck. He is crying. Bruce never cries. He never cries for me. “I am so sorry, Jason.” He whispers with a broken voice that I have never heard before. “Please, forgive me.”        I don’t answer. I just close my eyes and let my tears flow. And I let myself to that hug. “Please don’t do that again.” His voice. That guilt. That pain. I can’t stand it. “Please, let me, let us help you” It hurts. It hurts that I hurt him. I didn’t want … don’t want … to disappoint you Bruce. I don’t want to hurt.    “ Please don’t make me lose you again.” I want to cry out. I don’t know what keeps me in check. “I would not stand it.” I look at the knife on the floor and for a second I see that damn crowbar that took me away from him in so many ways.            “You’re my son.”     And you are my father, old man, despite everything that happened. You are my father. I sniff in his neck, perhaps a bit too loudly since he tightens his arms around me. “Don’t it again. I beg you.”  I somehow find the strength to look at him. He has that look. That same look I used to have when I was by mother’s side, on the bathroom floor, trying to prevent her from chocking in her vomit. That look is awful. My mother never cared about that look. It made me suffer more than anything and I eventually lost. I can’t do that as well. I can’t do that to Bruce. I can’t to that to Dick, to Damian, Tim, Alfred… I can’t do that to anyone.        “ I won’t.” I whisper my promise.

I glance at the knife one last time. No, it won’t become a new crowbar. No, it won’t take me away from my family.