And Still We Sleep

by couldyoublameme

Summary:

He turned to his mama—always behind him in these dreams, ready to sweep him into her arms and kiss his face and tell him what a great job he did—and saw a scrappy, terrified child standing in her place.

“Woah,” Dick said, his arms flattering. The kid looked horrified, body shaking and hands gripping the center pole hard enough to make his knuckles white. “How’d you get up here?”

“I—I dunno,” the kid forced out, fingers twitching around the pole. He had an accent Dick didn’t recognize, something loose and heavy. “I went ta' bed. Swear I did.” He paused, eyebrows furrowing down low. “M'bed on the ground.”

--

Dick Grayson and Jason Todd are soulmates in every sense of the word. Too bad they both think the other is just a dream.

Notes:

title is from Dead Poets Society! And Still We Sleep by Todd Anderson

Chapter 1: dreaming of a tomorrow (that isn't coming)

Dick was dreaming of flying when he met Jason for the first time.   

 

He dreamt of twisting and turning in the air, of flipping and spinning and soaring. He dreamt of the wind in his hair and the feeling of his stomach somewhere far below him as he caught the bar.  

 

He’s had this dream often. Ever since he performed for the first time. Ever since he turned nine, and his parent’s surprised him with an acrobat outfit that matched theirs. Only a month ago, but it had changed everything.  

 

He knew this dream. He listened to the crowds' senseless cheers as he swung through the air. His tati was with him, holding onto the opposite bar. Beaming at him, eyes so proud and so loving Dick can’t help but beam back.   

 

He swung, gaining momentum, and when he let go, it's a smooth back tuck onto the opposite platform. He landed with his arms outstretched, taking his bow as smoothly as he performed the trick. The crowd roared again, as it always did, and his tati started pulling himself up to start his own trick.  

 

He turned to his mama—always behind him in these dreams, ready to sweep him into her arms and kiss his face and tell him what a great job he did—and saw a scrappy, terrified child standing in her place.  

 

“Woah,” Dick said, his arms flattering. The kid looked horrified, body shaking and hands gripping the center pole hard enough to make his knuckles white. “How’d you get up here?”  

 

As soon as he focused on the boy, his conscious seemed to shift.    

 

Everything narrowed and faded. The loud cheering faded, the bright circus lights dimmed, the soft whistle of the beams swinging disappeared until it was just Dick and a scared, little boy on an empty platform.  

 

“I—I dunno,” the kid forced out, fingers twitching around the pole. He had an accent Dick didn’t recognize, something loose and heavy. “I went ta' bed. Swear I did.” He paused, eyebrows furrowing down low. “M'bed on the ground.”  

 

Dick had never seen this boy before. He was short and small, thin with bony arms and a purple-and-blue bruise spreading over his right cheekbone, the edge of his eye slightly swelled. His hair was curly but unkempt, frizzy and knotted and framing bright blue eyes.   

 

There’s something about him that pulled Dick closer, that tugged some deep part of his heart forward towards the shaking boy. Something that brightened and preened at the sight of this strange boy in Dick’s dream.  

 

“Okay, you’re okay,” Dick said, the English words feeling clumsy on his tongue. He had the sudden, strange regret of not paying better attention to Haly when he started teaching Dick English four months ago. He crouched low, smiling like how he’d seen his mama do when they’ve found lost children running lose at the circus. Warm and a little lopsided. Comforting. “ My name is Dick. What’s yours?”  

 

The kid wasn’t real, Dick knew that. This was a dream, and it wasn’t real, and Dick had never been so acutely aware he is dreaming, but he was now, and he knew the boy wasn't real. But there was still that urge to comfort and calm. A tug in his heart that sees a scared child, only a bit younger than him, and needs to make sure he isn’t scared anymore.  

 

“’M Jason.” The boy’s face scrunches, nose wrinkling in a way that would look cute if the bruise on his cheek didn’t shift with the movement, making it look even more ugly. “Wha' kind of asshole named ya Dick?”  

 

Dick couldn’t control the laugh that burst from his lips, shocked and strangely amused. “I like it. My full name is Richard, but everyone calls me Dick.”  

 

The kid, Jason, squinted. “And you let them?”  

 

“I like it,” he defended, puffing out his chest. “It’s my name.”  

 

“Your funeral,” is the response.  

 

Wow. The fake-boy was sassy.  

 

Dick tilted his head, slipping into a cross-legged position on the platform. Jason, after a moment of hesitation, mirrored his movement, keeping one hand tight on the middle pole. “Where are we?”  

 

“The circus,” Dick said, eyebrows furrowing. This was his dream. He knew it was. How did his own subconscious not know where he was? “Where else?”  

 

“The circus?! I ain’t ever—is there lions? ‘N elephants? ‘N those seals that balance those beach balls on their noses?  

 

Dick laughed, couldn’t help it in the face of the boy’s excitement. “We don’t have seals, but we have an elephant. Her name is Zitka. I take care of her.”  

 

Jason stared at him, eyes wide. “You’re lying.”  

 

Dick pouted. “Am not.”  

 

“Are too! No way ya seen an elephant before! Bullshit!”  

 

“I have! Zitka is my best friend! I teach her tricks!”  

 

“You do not. Elephants don’t learn tricks!” 
 

“Yes, they do,” Dick huffed, crossing his arms. “Elephants are super smart. And Zitka is the smartest.”  

 

Jason scrunched his nose up again, the bruise wrinkling with the movement. He crossed his arms to mirror Dick, but all it looked like was a pouting puppy. Dick tried not to coo.  

 

“I don’t believe you.”  

 

“Well, then,” Dick narrowed his eyes, determined to prove this boy wrong. “Guess I’ll just have to show you when my circus comes through your town.”  

 

Dick knew that this boy didn’t have a town, that he wasn’t real, but he couldn’t resist the banter, the light way they seemed to bounce off each other.   

 

Jason snorted, a sharp, amused thing that sounded like he knew more than Dick did. “Ain’t no goody-two circus gonna wanna step foot into my area.”  

 

Dick frowned at that, eyes tracing back to the bruise on the little boy’s cheek. Dick wondered why it was there, wondered how Jason got it and who would hurt a boy that had such big eyes and such an innocent face. He wanted to ask about it, to poke and prod until he got an answer, but he knew it wouldn’t go very well. Jason had a way of sitting that reminded him of a beaten dog ready to bite any hand that came close.  

 

“My circus comes to a bunch of areas all over,” Dick said instead, putting a smile back on his face. “Where are you? I bet we’ll go there. And if we don’t plan to, I’d ask Haly and then we would.”  

 

Jason’s eyes darted up, scanning over his face like he was searching for the lie. “Gotham. I’m in Gotham. You’d be stupid to come ‘ere.”  

 

Dick didn’t know where Gotham was, which was strange because it was his dream, but maybe it was a made-up place he had invented. It had a silly name, but Dick had never been the best at naming things, apparently even subconsciously.  

 

“Well, then we’ll come to Gotham,” he said confidently, even though he knew they never would. “And you’ll see Zitka and watch her do all the tricks and I’ll make sure to do an extra flip just for you.”  

 

There was the barest hint of a smile on Jason’s face when he blinked. “Really?”  

 

Dick beamed at him, even when he felt darkness crowding the edges of his vision. “Of course, Jay. Anything for you.”  

 

There was a tugging sensation, and then the blackness surged like a wave, pushing him back and making his stomach drop like how it always did when his fingers slipped on the swing bar and started freefall. There was the rush of air against his ears as he fell into a abyss, a startled scream ripped from his throat—  

 

And he opened his eyes, and he was in his bed. The sun was just barely risen through the small window, casting The Flying Grayson’s trailer in an orange and yellow hue as he slowly sat up and scrubbed at his eyes.   

 

What a weird dream.   

Chapter 2: dreaming of a glory (that we don't really want)

Summary:

“What the fuck are you doin’ ‘ere?”

 

Dick spun, a defense on his tongue, and saw—blue eyes. Unkempt curly hair. A purple-blue bruised faded into yellows and greens.

 

“Jason?” He croaked, disoriented.

Dick couldn’t stop thinking about the dream.  

 

It felt strange, after waking up. Most dreams Dick had slipped away the farther he went into the day, even if they had felt super real during the night.   

 

This one—this one did not.  

 

He glanced at Zitka, and had an almost crystal-clear memory of a little boy telling him he did not have an elephant. He did an extra little flip during his rehearsal with his parents, and thought of big blue eyes, wide and awed, asking if he’d really do that for him. He watched the muscle man punch through wood and wondered if someone as big as him would hurt someone as small as Jason.  

 

He found himself in front of his trailers mirror, shirt lifted and back half twisted to peer at the loopy, half-squished words written on his ribcage. His parents' soulmark, branded into his skin in black ink.   

 

‘Our little Robin’ written in overlapping lines.  

 

He loved it. He loved soulmarks. He loved his own more than he loved anything else— maybe a little, tiniest bit less than he loved doing acrobatics. He loved making his parents sit down and show him each and every one of their own marks. Let them explain the story and the person and the meaning. The romantic and familial and emotional bonds so deeply woven with their soul that they had to have something outwardly to express it.   

 

Sometimes, he would sit in front of the mirror when everyone else was asleep, and stare at his smooth, unwritten skin. He would imagine all different kinds of scrawny and loopy letters sprawled over his shoulders and arms and chest and legs. He would dream about all the different soulmates he had, waiting to meet them one day.   

 

Today, he thought about Jason.   

 

He thought about if Jason had any soulmarks of his own yet. He was so young, so little. He thought about how many soulmates Jason would have. If he had his father’s words etched across his back and his mother's writing stained his arm. He wondered if his parents even deserved to leave their mark on him, and then thought about the purple-blue bruise that made half his face swell up. He thought about Jason’s words written into his own skin, trailing down his shoulder blade or climbing up his spine.  

 

He then thought about if Jason was even real, or if he was just another dream Dick created of finding a soulmate.   

 

Dick went to sleep that night, and didn’t see Jason. He tried not to be disappointed. He was a big kid now. He knew when things weren’t really real.  

 

Jason wasn’t real.  

 

--  

 

Dick was dreaming of the circus when he fell.  

 

He had been in the middle of a flip, arms just starting to stretch out to catch the swining bar, when a strange sensation wrapped around his body and pulled.  

 

He went tumbling towards the sands of the circus floor fast. High, too high, too high to survive the collision—  

 

And then his vision went dark, and he kept falling, arms flailing and hair whipping far past where he knew the ground to be, and—  

 

And suddenly he was on the ground.  

 

Cold, wooden ground.  

 

Dick jerked into a sitting position with a gasp, hands immediately raising to check his face. All in one piece. All of him. Somehow. What the hell—  

 

He was in an apartment. A small one, by how the molding walls seemed to crowd in together. The windows were cracked—one with a piece of cardboard duck taped over it—and the ceiling was stained yellow. A small, crappy television sat on top of a cardboard box before an equally crappy loveseat, and a small fridge on the other side of the room made a loud humming sound that anyone could tell meant it wasn’t going to last much longer. The kitchen looked worn down and broken, with missing cupboard doors and a fist-shaped hole above a wobbly looking dining table.   

 

Dick—Dick had never been here before. He knew he had never seen this place before. This place looked terrible. It reeked of misery and fear and Dick wanted out because he would never dream of this, never—  

 

“What the fuck are you doin’ ‘ere?”  

 

Dick spun, a defense on his tongue, and saw—blue eyes. Unkempt curly hair. A purple-blue bruised faded into yellows and greens.  

 

“Jason?” He croaked, disoriented.  

 

He was half hidden behind the doorframe into another room—the bedroom, if Dick had to guess—but he looked the exact same as the last time Dick had seen him. Short and small. Bony arms and a determined set to his mouth. Shirt a little too big and pants a little too small.   

 

The boy’s expression flickered, and he opened his mouth to say something—  

 

The front door slammed open, and a man stumbled through.  

 

He was tall, dark haired, and ragged. His eyes were sunken and cruel, a dangerous glint as he stormed forward with a thick belt folded in his hand. There was something about the blue in his eyes and the shape of his jaw that held a bit of Jason in them, in the way his mouth twitched and the slope of his nose, and Dick knew this was the boy’s father.  

 

Jason paled, colour draining from his face as Dick turned to look towards the man, head tilted and eyes curious. He darted forward before Dick could react, snatching his wrist and pulling.  

 

“Ow, Jay, what—" he tried to protest, but Jason squeaked and pulled harder, movements frantic as he dragged Dick to the bedroom.  

 
“No, no, no,” Jason muttered, successfully herding Dick through the door and immediately dragging a dresser with three legs in front of the door to cage them in. “You’re not ‘posed to be here. It’s just a dream.” 

 

“Jason?” Dick repeated, worried now. He glanced around the bedroom, nearly the size of his family’s trailer, if not a little smaller. “Jason, what’s going on?” 
 

“It’s just a dream.”  

 

There was a mattress on the floor, covered in fraying blankets and torn scraps of fabric. There was—there was a woman on the bed, blonde hair splayed across a thin pillow, skin clammy and pale. A single arm was extended, small bruises dotting lines down the inside of her forearm, body too limp and too still to be alive. A needle laid beside the bed.  

 

“Jason,” Dick felt like throwing up. “Is she—” 
 

“It’s just a dream.”  

 

Jason grabbed him again, pushing him towards a small closet in the corner. He shoved him in, and then followed, shutting the door and sliding down to lean against it. “It’s not real. It’s just a dream.”  

 

The boy’s breathing was picking up as he pulled his legs to his chest, wrapping his arms around them, and Dick had the sudden realization that he looks so young. He couldn’t be any more than six, so small and so delicate he probably couldn’t even reach the training bars Dick used to use to practice his flips.  

 

“Hey, hey, Jay,” he said carefully as he crouched down in the dark closet, trying to give the boy as much room as he can in the very cramped space. “I need you to breathe with me, okay? Breathe, c’mon. You got it, just breathe.”  

 

He started exaggerating his breathing, just like he’s seen Haly do for an audience member that got too close to the entertainment. Slow and steady, deep breathes, nice and even. “C’mon, Jason. Slowly. You got it. Deep breathes, c’mon.”    

 

Slowly, Jason started to follow his pattern.  

 

His gasps for air melted into silence, but there’s still the faint tremors running through his small body. Dick wanted to bundle him up and never let go. To protect him from that man that made him so scared.  

 

But Jason wasn’t real, and this was some weird dream he must’ve gotten from eating dessert too close to bedtime. Surely.  

 

…It doesn’t stop Dick from wanting to help him. 
 

“Jay,” he said slowly, as he slid down the wall beside him, carefully grabbing the little boy’s hand. It was so small in his grip, even if Dick is barely three years older. “What’s going on?”  

 

“It’s just a dream,” Jason said quietly, forced and tense. “It’s not real, but I keep havin’ it. I’ve never... been so aware. That it’s a dream before. I don’t know why you’re here again.”  

 

There was a crash as the bedroom door gets thrown open, and Dick flinches at the awful sound of wood screeching against flooring. Jason’s body jerked, but he doesn’t move.  

 

He looked... resigned. Expectant. It’s not real, but I keep havin’ it.  

 

“I wake up when he comes into the closet,” Jason murmured, as his dad started banging on the closet door, screaming profanities and curses. “it’s okay. It’s just a dream.”  

 

“Jason! Open the door now, you little brat! Don’t be a pussy, face your punishment!”  

 

Dick winced at the volume of the father’s voice, of the horrible things he’s yelling at such a young child. Jason flinched, pressing himself against Dick like it was some sort of instinctual thing, and Dick couldn’t resist the urge to bundle the little boy into his arms and keep him safe from whatever was going on.  

 

“You’ll get ten more if you don’t—”   

 

He snagged Jason’s wrist and tugged.  

 

Away from the door that's shaking from the force of the man’s fist, away from the insults and the hissed venom. Dick pulled Jason into his lap, guiding his face to rest on his shoulder, and gently brought up his hands to cover his ears.  

 

“You little bitch! As weak as your mom, fuck, I knew it was a mistake to keep you—should’ve drowned you in the harbour before you even figured out how to—”  

 

Jason froze for a moment, rigid enough for Dick to worry he’s overstepped something with an imaginary person somehow before small hands twisted into Dick’s shirt tightly, and a little face pressed into the space between Dick’s shoulder and neck. He burrowed as close as he could, like he could crawl inside Dick and get away forever.   

 

Dick wished he could.  

 

With nothing else to do, and a hatred of feeling useless, Dick started singing.  

 

“Hai Luluțu, dormi un picu’,” He started softly, barely sure of himself. “Dragul mamii, puiuț micu'”  

 

It was a lullaby his mama used to sing when she’d soothe him into sleep, that she still sung when he was cradled in her arms and yawning. When the bad dreams got to be too much, and he needed something to drown out the bad thoughts. Like this dream. Like Jason.  

 

“Don’t you fuckin’ ignore me, you waste—!”  

 

“Oare când oi fii voinicu’,” Dick whispered into Jason’s hair, rocking him back and forth gently as he continued, trying to drown out that awful voice. The words are slightly unpracticed and clumsy, but Jason doesn't seem to mind. He tilted his face further into Dick’s body, still as he listened to the language. “ Să n-am grijă, de nimicu'”  

 

There was an awful creak as the door bent slightly under the pounding of a grown men’s fists, and Dick’s voice rose higher when Jason’s little body tensed. “Haida nani nani, puișorul mamii. Domi in leganuț, Puișor draguț.”  

 

Dick got halfway through the lullaby before the door gave out, swinging open to reveal a man with Jason’s eyes and nose and jaw brimming with anger and hatred with a belt in his hand.  

 

Jason looked up at Dick, eyes wide and wet, and whispered a very quiet: “Thank you.”  

 

And then the floor was melting underneath him, and Dick was falling into a black void with no beginning or end. He tumbled and spun and flailed his arms, wind rushing in his ears, until he jerked upright in his own bed, soaked with sweat. The familiar walls of his trailer greeted his wide eyes.  

 

He crawled into his parent’s bed, and made his mom sing that lullaby until he fell into a dreamless sleep.  

Notes:

The song is an old romanian lullaby, called Haidi Nani. i really wanted to find a romani lulluby, but I either couldn't translate them, or they meant the exact opposite of what I was aiming for 🥀 I'm just adding romanian to his list of languages he knows half of

the translation is a bit spotty because my romanian isn't the best and google translate isnt exact, nor were the subtitles I pulled this from, but from what I've strung together:

Come on, Luluțu, sleep a little,
Mommy’s dear, little chick.
I wonder when you’ll be strong,
So I won’t have to worry about anything.
Come on, night night, mommy’s little baby. Sleep in the little cradle, cute little chick.

i love bird metaphors sorry guys it just fits them

hope you enjoyed!!

Notes:

this is going to be the longest fic ive ever written so i need yall to bare with me here