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To survive, I had to stay unfamiliar to myself, neutralized, at arm's length. Sometimes, I think, all these years later, I'm still hunting the part of myself I exiled.
— Places I've Taken My Body; 'The Broken Country: On Disability and Desire', Molly McCully Brown
You are allowed to be alive. You are allowed to be somebody different. You are allowed to not say goodbye to anybody or explain a single thing to anyone, ever.
— This is How, Augusten Burroughs
“Hey,” says the kid. He’s painted in green, yellow, red, and he’s wiggling back and forth in his seat. His lips are quirked up into a half-smile, like they always are, and when he peels off the domino his eyes are bright with excitement.
“Hey,” Jason says without turning around. They’re in his apartment - not a safehouse, the real deal, the one he settled into when he resigned himself to settling at all. He figured, somewhere around five days into this round of shit, that they’d both do better with a real house. More comfortable, at least, and he’s got all the good cookware here. “I made french toast. You like french toast?”
The half-smile turns into a wide grin. “Fuckin’ duh.”
Because of course he does. Because Jason has always liked french toast.
“Careful,” Jason says. The toast is sitting on a plate, steaming, while he mixes together some strawberries into a sauce for the top. “Alfie’s gonna be on your ass about the swear jar if you let that slip around him, ya hear me?”
The kid rolls his eyes. “Whatever. Bitch.”
“Hey,” Jason says again, this time swatting lightly at the kid with his dishtowel. “Don’t give me that shit. Food’s ready.”
He doesn’t joke about taking the food away. He only did that once, because he was so far removed from the kid at the table - and it served Jason fucking right, because he spent the next hour desperately trying to console the kid, convince him that no, he would never lose privileges to food, not for talking back, fucking ever so help him God.
“Went on patrol with B last night,” the kid says. Robin says. Jason passes him a plate - golden brown french toast, covered in pure maple syrup and butter and whipped cream, a small ramekin on the side containing strawberry compote. It fucking rocks.
Jason’s kind of, maybe, a little glad to have an excuse to keep making it. Damian claims he’s too mature for things like candy and desserts and fun. Tim’s allergic to strawberries, because of fucking course he is. Fuckin’ Tim (affectionate).
“Oh?” Jason says. He sits down at the little table, with its silver and red leather chairs that the ladies at the diner on the corner of Fifth and Walford gave him when they put together the money for a few new ones. They’re a bit rusted, and neither one sits completely level, but they’re good enough for Jason.
And, apparently, good enough for Robin. The kid looks up at him, wide and adoring, as he shovels food into his mouth without bothering with petty things like silverware or, like, oxygen. Jason feels something deep in his gut twist.
He takes a bite of the toast instead of addressing it. Yeah, he was right. It’s fucking incredible. Jason makes a mental note to shoot Alfred this week’s alterations to the recipe along with an assessment of their value (the added cinnamon is too much, sadly, but the extra butter is kind of the shit).
“Yeah,” Robin says. Jesus. Jason can’t believe he was ever this small, ever this peppy; it’s like there are honest to god stars in his fucking eyes. “We stopped, um, we stopped this one mugging, and we got some new leads on the drug ring that we’re fighting, and then afterward B and me - sorry, B and I - went out and got ice cream.”
“Mint chocolate chip?” Jason asks. There’s still another piece of toast; he watches Robin instead of taking it, waits to see if he still seems hungry once he clears his plate. The kid’s only eleven or so, tiny in the suit and even tinier as he kicks his dangling legs against the chair, feet not reaching the floor.
“Cookies and cream,” Robin informs him. “Never tried mint chip.”
Jason makes a disbelieving noise. “Woof. Dude. You’re missing out. ”
Robin nods, considering. “Kay. I’ll try it next time and get back to you.”
Privately, Jason hopes Robin will not get back to him. Aloud, Jason says, “Can’t wait for your mind to be blown.”
There’s a silence, comfortable and calm. Jason thinks about offering to read, if Robin wants to hear Pride and Prejudice again. (He fucking does, of course. He’s Jason.) When he looks up, though, to offer that or maybe a movie, the kid’s thumb is in between his teeth, and there’s - something in the way his face twists that lets Jason know he’s worried.
“Quit it,” Jason says at the continued finger gnawing, which is fucking rich because he never did - not until the League beat any sign of weakness out of him. “You’re going to make it bleed.”
He reaches over to gently tug Jason’s hands back into his lap. (Not quiet, though. He never has to have quiet hands, not if Jason has any fucking say in it.)
He doesn’t ask what’s got the kid so upset. It never worked when people asked him, either. Instead, he watches the kid scrape together the last few bits of toast and cream off his plate before shoving them into his mouth with finality.
“Okay,” Robin says, in between making popping noises with his mouth of varying intensity and pitch. “I gotta go now. Thanks for the food, Jay.”
“‘Course,” Jay says, because what the fuck else is he going to say to the shadow of his past self that’s been haunting him since he returned home from a slipshod resurrection and a dip in magic cave goo. “Anytime.”
He doesn’t know where the food goes. Maybe it was never real to begin with. Honestly, it’s better for both he and Robin that he doesn’t poke and prod at the whole thing too much.
The first time Jason went out on patrol only to find himself trailed by familiar colors and even more familiar laughter, young and excited and chirping questions and banter at him the whole night -
Jason had stormed into the Cave and asked for a psych exam. And then - when it came back clear, aside from the usual - asked Alfred to run it again, and again, before he finally caved and went upstairs.
“Damian,” Jason says. The kid is on the couch, Titus on one side and Catfred on the other, face set with determination as he tries to figure out the finer points of oil pastels. “I’m. I have a question.”
“I would imagine you contain a multitude of them,” Damian says without looking up.
“Kid,” he snaps, before - taking a deep breath. Jesus. Fuck. He can’t see him, but he just knows Dick is somewhere nearby, hovering. “In the League.”
At that, the kid does look up - eyes sharp, calculating.
Jason swallows. “Did anyone ever mention, uh - post-Lazarus hallucinations?”
“Oh,” Damian says, in his glib and infuriating way. Every day, Jason reminds himself that there is no honor in beefing with an eleven-year-old. “That.”
“What,” Jason replies, “the fuck. Do you mean. That.”
Damian pauses, thinking. He shifts his work out of his lap, scratches Titus between the ears. Looks pointedly at the other end of the couch.
Jason sits.
“There were,” Damian purses his lips, “stories. About the costs of the Pit. It…” A pause. “Entangles the soul, so to speak. Gives you access to other selves you’ve been.” He stares into Jason’s fucking soul with his beady little eyes. “Gives them access to you.”
Jason stares at him, agape. Well, question number one here: “How the fuck did Ra’s deal with this?” Jason hesitates to imagine that creep as a child, but. There’s no fucking way Ra’s was putting up with this and going back in for another dive.
Damian - takes a deep breath, his hands still moving against Titus’ fur.
“I was told,” he says, “that he slaughtered each and every one.”
Jason doesn’t get, like, the most sleep as is.
He’s no Tim Drake-Wayne. Sure, his hard limit is 12 days, but he found that out in a torture cell in Norway and he’s pretty sure the Pit in his veins was the only thing keeping the sleep deprivation from killing him, so he’s not eager to repeat that one.
His soft limit is 24 hours, and he tries not to cross that when it isn’t absolutely, positively necessary.
He’s still a cape, though (colloquially speaking). Late nights are part of the gig, weird hours and afternoon naps and realizing twenty minutes into a gunfight that huh, have I slept more than six hours total since Tuesday?
Sleep is precious. Between the busy nights and the bad ones, it’s very fucking precious.
Which is why Jason wishes the kid could shut the fuck up and deal, for once.
Jason’s always had the fucking weak spot, though. Even though he knows the drill, this time, knows exactly who’s in his apartment trying and failing to cry silently, he still can’t stop himself from -
Well. Jason doesn’t poke at that one too closely, either.
He already knows Robin will be in the closet - even has a pretty educated guess as to which one the kid’ll choose, since he’s got the kind of fancy place these days with two whole closets. It’s a time-honored place to cry, the closet, and Jason feels a sense of solidarity with anyone who does.
Not because they’re his younger version, soft and scared and begging for help. That’s just… also something that’s happening, separately.
He opens the door slow, the briefest sliver of light illuminating the huddled figure behind his gear and Christmas decorations and vacuum cleaner. When the kid looks up - probably thirteen or so, today - his face is raw and puffy, tears streaming down his red cheeks.
“Sorry,” Robin squeaks. “Sorry, I’m - sorry, you don’t have to - don’t - I can handle, uh, s-sorry - “
Jason squats down, makes himself small and slots himself into the empty space. And then he - he opens his arms, and just like he knew the kid would, Robin fucking launches himself against Jason’s chest, clinging to his shoulders and entwining them together as much as he physically can.
Jason squeezes him tight tight tight. He doesn’t think he can get away with going to grab the weighted blankets just yet, but he knows the pressure will help.
“I d-didn’t kill him. You know that, you - “ He breaks off into another shuddery sob.
Ah. He wondered when they would get around to this one. A balcony, two dead bodies, and only Jason left behind in their wake.
He squeezes Robin tighter. “No one should have made you deal with that alone,” Jason says, firm. “You’re a kid. Shit like that - it’s not yours to deal with. And it doesn’t matter, you hear me, if you killed him or not. I know that you tried, either way. You did your fucking best, kid.”
Robin sobs and does not respond.
They sit there like that for a while, Jason cradling Robin against his chest, one hand against the back of his head and the other rubbing up and down his shoulders.
“I miss Mom,” Robin says miserably.
A long pause.
“I know,” Jason says. “I do too.”
“Tried the ice cream,” Robin says.
Jason raises an eyebrow. “Oh?”
“You were right.” The kid takes a sharp, stuttery breath. “It’s my favorite.”
Jason looks down at him, frowning. “You don’t sound impressed.”
Robin presses his lips into thin little slivers. “I thought. Um.” His clenched fists start to shake in Jason’s t-shirt, stolen from Bruce. “Thought maybe if you were wrong, there was a chance for me to turn out different.”
Jason - freezes, his hand stilling against the kid’s back. Something in his chest twists.
“‘M’sorry. I just d-don’t want to end up like you,” the kid says - muffled against his shirt, so soft Jason almost doesn’t catch it.
And it isn’t fair. It isn’t fair, isn’t fucking fair at all that no one in the whole entire world wants the version of Jason that Jason is. Not even himself.
But it’s not the kid’s fault. He’s just a kid. He’s scared, he’s hurt, he doesn’t know what else to do.
“I know,” Jason says into Robin’s hair, hand continuing its soothing motion. “I know, kid.”
It all comes to a head at the Manor - because of course it does, because it always comes back to him and the Manor and Bruce and a fight.
They’re in the Cave, just the two of them, everyone else already headed home or to bed or to the sweet embrace of the Nintendo Switch.
“Jason,” Bruce says, and his voice is too neutral, too pointedly blase to truly be anything of the sort. “Damian told me you asked him some questions.”
Jason makes a noncommital sort of sound.
“Is it true?” Bruce asks. “That you’ve been seeing your younger self through the Pit’s influence?”
“Yes,” Jason says, wary. He doesn’t need Bruce up his ass about this, he’s still fit for patrol, he’s fine except for the time management he’s had to move around to deal with having a fucking kid around at all hours of the night. Just - not that the kid’s real, but still. But still.
“Could I…” Bruce pauses. Clears his throat. “Could I, maybe, speak to him sometime?”
Jason stares at him for a moment, open-mouthed with shock. “What?”
Bruce stares at the floor, awkward, uncomfortable, but still persistent. “I was just - wondering. If maybe I would be able to communicate, through you, to the - “ His voice catches. “To the kid we lost. Just one last time.”
And - something in Jason -
breaks.
“Wow,” Jason says with an incredulous laugh. “Good work, B. For a moment there, I almost thought you were actually worried about me.”
“Jaylad,” Bruce says. “I am worried about you.” Which isn’t fucking fair, because he isn’t. He’s worried about the little kid that died five years ago, because Bruce doesn’t have the emotional competency to process the fact that Robin Two? He’s fucking dead and gone, and the thing that’s taking up the space that kid was supposed to occupy looks a hell of a lot like Jason.
“What the fuck am I supposed to say to that?” he demands, turning to face Bruce. “Huh?”
Bruce opens his mouth. Shuts it again. Jason rolls his eyes.
“Am I supposed to say sorry? Should - would you rather I have just stayed dead, and not tarnished the reputation of Robin? Because - god, I’m sorry, I guess, that every time you have to look at me and see how fucked up your kid is now!”
Bruce’s face does that weird, pinched thing it does after he gets that he’s said something fucked up but he doesn’t get it, doesn’t understand why that wasn’t a fucking normal human thing to say, and now he’s going to make Jason justify being upset about it like he’s the one being unreasonable here. “Jay, it’s not - “ he tries. “I didn’t mean - “
“Like fuck you didn’t mean to!” Jason says, letting out a bark of scathing laughter. “You’ve got a fucking memorial, B, don’t think I don’t notice every time I come in here - and in the end, when it turns out I’m a bad fucking soldier, when it turns out I can’t be the kid I was before I got buried six feet under, it’s like you look at me and I’m. Still. Dead!”
Bruce just stands there, looks at him frozen with wide eyes like Jason is a case he needs to solve, a situation he needs to handle. Jason presses down another bout of hysterical laughter, chest heaving.
And that’s the thing about Bats, isn’t it, the dramatic fucking irony that follows them around like a lost duckling. Bruce just wants to see him, the old him, the one that Jason wishes he could stop seeing. And Jason’s the only person who fucking can.
“God, Bruce, it’s like he isn’t even me.” To his horror, Jason can feel tears prickle behind his eyes. “It’s - it’s like Robin is this other person, and I can never, ever be him again, no matter how hard I try.”
“Jason - “
“He’s not real, B! And the parts of him that were? They’re fucking me! And - and I don’t - I don’t know how to get you to see that.”
They stand there for a moment in silence. Jason doesn’t look at Bruce. Doesn’t want to see the expression on his face, whether it’s anger or disappointment or - worse - pity. Because it’s not pity for Jason now. It’s leftover, the hangover of emotion that Bruce never got to feel towards the Robin that died in Ethiopia screaming his name.
“Fuck,” Jason says with great feeling. “Fuck.”
And then he slams on his helmet, gets onto his bike, and goes home.
When Jason bursts into his apartment, fists clenched and breathing hard through his nose, there’s already a little fucking bird perched on his counter.
“Jay!” Robin smiles. He’s filling out the suit now, a little better than before, but he’s still all long limbs and knobby joints. “You’re back early!”
“Get out,” Jason growls, pressing his back against the door and burying his hands in his hair.
Robin hesitates. “Jason?”
“I said,” Jason says through grit teeth, “get out.”
“Jason,” Robin says, the floor creaking as he takes a step towards Jason. “What’s wrong? I can - you can tell me. I can help, okay?”
Jason looks up, vision hazy, and he -
He hates the kid in front of him.
“Get the fuck away from me,” Jason says, voice like ice. “It’s your fucking fault.”
Robin hesitates, one hand frozen in midair. “What?” He kind of sounds like he’s going to burst into tears.
Good.
“It’s your fucking fault!” Jason yells. “You should have - have known better, what the hell were you thinking?”
“Jason,” the kid says again, choked up, and yeah, there are the tears. Jason sneers at Robin. The kid is so fucking weak. Useless. Pathetic. Can’t even take getting yelled at like a man, he has to go and cry about it like a baby.
Jason’s hands go to his sides, close around the hilt of a knife. “B gave us - everything, and you fucked it up.”
“I didn’t know,” Robin says around his tears. “I didn’t - I didn’t know, I just - I missed Mom, Jay, I only ever wanted - “
“Don’t fucking call me that.” Jason stalks forward, into the kid’s space. It’s like when he attacked Tim - the kid in front of him takes a step back, wide-eyed and terrified, and all Jason can think is good. “You’re weak. There’s this fucked-up, awful, evil little part of me,” he slams a gloved hand against his chest, “deep fucking inside, and it’s never going to get better. And that? It’s you.” He jabs an accusing finger at Robin. “You knew better. And you were - you were so selfish, and stupid, and fucking pathetic, that you threw it all away because, because what?”
The kid’s shoulders are shaking, his words coming out between sobs that wrack his whole chest. “I d-don’t k-know. Jay, please, I don’t - “
“You thought your mother really wanted you? Because she didn’t. We both know she didn’t.” Jason scoffs. “Fuckin’ unbelievable.”
And the -
The kid sniffles, wipes his nose against his sleeve. He’s not wearing his uniform, Jason notes distantly - he’s in a pair of sweats and a hoodie he faintly recognizes as Dick’s.
But he’s - he’s still Robin. The kid takes a breath, sets his jaw, looks at Jason with steel in his eyes. Jason recognizes the breathing pattern. It’s the same one he still uses.
“I forgive you,” Robin says. His voice is so, so small. “I’m not mad at you. It’s okay if you’re mad at me, but I still forgive you.”
“Shut up,” Jason says. The pressure on his chest is so much and he wants his brother there, wants his dad, wants something to take away his nightmares and soothe his fears. “Shut up.”
“You - you take such good care of them, Jason, Dick and B and the ones I never got to know, and I don’t - “ The kid sniffles. “I’m sorry I hurt you, and - and let you d-down. I’m sorry I wasn’t enough.”
He can’t breathe. He can’t think.
Robin takes a step forward, closing the distance.
Jason takes a step back.
“But I was - I forgive you,” Robin continues. “You’re good, Jason, and I’m - I’m so sorry that I said that about not wanting to be like you, I was just - I was scared to be sad. I was scared of - of being hurt, because you - you look like we hurt so much.”
He takes a deep breath, and Jason is so envious that even here, even in the most basic and fucking mundane of tasks, Robin succeeds where he fails.
“But I,” Robin tries. “I don’t - think it matters. ‘Cuz I can’t - I can’t change it, it’s all already, already set in stone for me. So if it’s going to - “ Robin squeezes his eyes shut, tight tight tight, takes a deep breath. “If it’s going to have to hurt anyway. I’m glad I at least get to be you.”
“I hate you,” Jason yells, “I hate you!”
The knife he throws lodges into the wall with a thunk.
When he stops sobbing, Robin is gone.
Robin is still gone the next morning. And the next. And the one after that.
Weeks of patrol and dinner and breakfast and more patrol - nothing. He stops waking up at night to the sound of a crying kid, but he still finds it hard to sleep.
Before he knows it, two months have passed, and his days remain completely Robin-free.
He wakes up all of a sudden to the sound of labored breathing, to a high and terrible sound, the final dying keen of a desperate animal. And part of him knows - even before he sits up, before he sees the pile of his fifteen-year-old self on the floor, limbs twisted the wrong way and torso a grotesque mess of bone and blood - he knows what he’s going to see. He knows what’s happening. It happens to him, all over again, on the bad nights.
“No,” Jason says, scrambling onto the floor next to the kid. “No no no. Fuck.”
“Jay,” the kid sobs. “Jason, please. Help.”
And Jason knows, a stone sinking in his gut - you don’t come back from wounds like those, even without a timer tick-tick-ticking down in the corner.
Forehand or backhand?
“It’s alright,” Jason says, hands hovering over the kid’s broken body, hesitant to touch and make things worse, provide pain where there should only be comfort. “It’s okay, kid. I’ve got you. I’m right here.”
Robin’s mostly incoherent, no surprise there, but he -
He grips onto Jason’s leather jacket with eight broken fingers, sobs around two swollen eyes and a busted lip and a cracked jaw and. And.
“Jay,” he begs. “I don’t want to die.”
A or B?
Jason can’t fix it. The story already has an ending, and it’s him, and there’s not a goddamn thing in the whole entire world he can do but sit and listen to the kid-that’s-him choke out terrified noises through two punctured lungs and a mouth full of blood.
“I’m sorry, kid,” he whispers, over and over and over. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”
He knows where the kid goes next. Knows about the funeral Dick won’t attend, the way it feels to wake up with nothing but satin and worms in your mouth and dirt dirt dirt all the way up, fingernails cracked and skin raw and choking, blinding terror. And -
And.
Abruptly, Jason finds himself so, so fucking proud of the kid.
“You’re good, too,” Jason says, voice shaking. “You told me that, yeah? And you need to know it, kid. You’re so, so good. People are - they’re going to miss you forever.”
Robin shakes his head, even though Jason knows it must be agony, he remembers. “My fault,” he grits out, and Jason feels his heart splinter.
“No,” he says. Suddenly, Jason feels exhausted, bone-deep and all-consuming. “No. It - none of it was your fault. It shouldn’t have happened. It’s the clown’s fault, not yours, and it shouldn’t have happened.”
“Please,” Robin begs. “Not ready. ‘m not ready, fuck, please. It’s not fair.”
“No,” Jason says, petting Robin’s hair away from his face even though it’s tacky with blood and sweat and dirt. “It isn’t fair, kid. It’s not fair that this is the future you got dealt. Nothing will ever make this right, and the - “ His voice catches. “The only fucking thing you can do is make it through this. Because you will, kid.”
Robin lets a soft, huffing sound - the first thing in minutes that’s been anything but raw agony. “I make it through,” he repeats, jagged and raspy. “I get to be you.”
“Yeah,” Jason says. Stops, wipes at his eyes, chews at his thumb for a moment.
Robin smacks it away with a clumsy hand. Jason cuts him some slack, because he knows most of the bones in it have been shattered beyond repair.
“Gonna… bleed,” Robin says, and his voice is so fucked but it still manages to be reproving, in a way that only a weird, beady-eyed little fifteen year old can manage, and Jason feels fondness swell up inside him loud and bright until he thinks he’s going to burst.
“Yeah,” Jason says. “Yeah, kid, you’re right. Bad habit.”
He wants to say a lot of other things. Wants to tell the kid how he doesn’t just get to be Jason, he fucking earns it - scrapes himself raw and grits his teeth and grips the needle in his own damn fingers, slippery with blood, to slowly stitch himself back together.
Wants to tell him that after he dies, B won’t ever be safe anymore, not infallible like he was to Robin. Bruce won’t ever be what either of them need from him - but it’s… okay, almost. Because Bruce will be a lot of things that Jason does need, even still. And Jason will be what he needs from himself.
Wants to tell him about texting Alfred his french toast recipe alterations, about the way Dick will crawl into his bed after a rough night. About Damian, and Tim, and Talia and Steph and Cass and Duke and Babs and everybody else.
But then he’s overcome by it, dizzy with everything he’s gained - and that doesn’t make it worth it, there’s no world where he needs to go through this suffering to get to where he is and fulfill some greater purpose, where the dying kid in his arms and everything that comes next is anything but unforgivable.
It just - makes him consider, for the first time in a while, how much he’s managed to build out of nothing. Out of worse than nothing.
So he doesn’t say any of it.
Instead, he presses his lips against the kid’s matted hair, whispering, over and over, it’s not your fault, it was never your fault.
and he lets Robin shake apart in his arms until finally, finally,
it all goes still.
A few weeks pass in silence.
He asks Damian out for ice cream. The kid looks at him like he’s something on a bathroom stall, but Damian’s never tried mint chocolate chip, so. Some things are more important than his pride.
It’s not him in those traffic-bright colors. Not anymore. It’s still a kid, though, still one of them. Jason owes it to himself to protect each and every Robin. He owes it to that little kid with stars in his eyes.
Things with Bruce are - weird. They’re going to have to talk about it, and it’ll have to be sooner rather than later because Jason really does not put it past Dick to lock them in a shipping container together until they hash things out. But they’ve fought before, and they’ll fight again, and for now it’s just - he came back.
He came back to the Manor, and for now, it’s enough.
Today, he’s in the kitchen around 5 in the morning, eating Dick’s shitty cereal after patrol, when he catches a flash of familiar red in the corner of his eye.
“Oh,” Jason says.
Red Hood looks ready for a fight, covered in dirt and blood, chest heaving. Jason… he doesn’t remember looking like that, full of anger and rage and despair.
“What the hell are you doing here,” Hood says.
Jason picks up another spoonful of Fuckin’ Honey Nut Charm Loops Crunch. “Eatin’ cereal.”
Hood’s eyes are covered, but Jason can tell his lip is curled. “You think they love you? You think they want you?”
“Yeah,” Jason says, because at his core he is a little shit. “Sorta.”
Hood snarls. “Bruce doesn’t want you, he wants the parts of you that came back wrong. And he must not love those parts that fucking much, or else the clown would be dead.”
“Okay,” Jason says. He takes a deep breath, twists until his spine cracks the way he likes. He can do this. He has done this.
It shouldn’t have hurt. But I’m glad I get to be me.
“Okay,” Jason says again, pointing. “You are going to take a damn seat.”
Hood sits. Jason remembers it - the urge to obey, to follow orders without asking why. A shell of the kid that Jason held just last week, that he fed and comforted and held until Robin was fucking murdered for the crime of being small.
But it’s the same. Jason knows, now - he can feel it - that it’s the same.
“And I,” Jason says, gesturing to himself as he cinches an apron around his waist, “am going to cook us the best fucking french toast you’ve ever had.”