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If asked, point blank, Jason isn’t sure he can tell you what it is about this particular fetish.
(He is lying.)
It's vomiting.
(The memory might be buried deep but it is a cornerstone. He doesn't think he would be able to forget it even if he gets blown to smithereens, ashes left to be spread out in the sea.)
Not vomit itself, but the act and the thereafter.
(He is three years old, maybe four. He gets so ill that he wakes up in the middle of the night and vomits all over himself. It isn’t his mother who finds him but his father who scoops him up from the mess. Cool palm against Jason's clammy skin, pushing back the sweat-soaked locks from his face. His father cleans him off in the bath, the water not too hot to exacerbate his fever, just warm enough to give him relief. Willis never once chides him. It might be his one good memory of the man to still remain.)
This is how Bruce finds him: Huddled over the toilet, hand limply clinging to the edge of the toilet seat as he retches into it. The sound is godawful, guttural as it is amplified against all the fancy marble and pristine porcelain of the bathroom.
Jason is cold one second.
Hot the next.
All of his ribs physically hurt from puking when he can't recall how long he's been on his knees and doubled over the toilet like this. His gut has tied itself into a series of tight knots and all the butterflies feel like they've died just to rot at the pit of his stomach. The back of his throat burns from what is probably stomach acid. Each time he retches, his whole chest heaves, leaves him feeling all achy and bruised from the inside out. He has sweat beading against his skin, leaving his hair to plaster against his forehead and trickling down the line of his spine.
It is all so gross but Bruce never flinches away.
Jason deliberately doesn't think about why that makes him feel all warm inside.
(He already knows. Of course, he knows.)
He hiccups, halfway through his apology, mumbling out something that might or might not explain why he got pissed drunk at the most boring house party anyone could ever attend. Even as the new Wayne kid at Gotham Academy, Jason knew any party that a rich preppy brat could throw would hardly be any good. At least he was more than welcomed to pour his own drinks. So, that's just what he did. Jason might have gotten carried away in the process. But he still got home in one piece even if he stumbled the whole way back. Having to go as far as to climb inside through the third floor balcony just to get back in his bedroom, relying on his Robin training while still absolutely trashed.
All that just to end up on the floor of his bathroom, upchucking loud enough to get Bruce coming to check on him.
He is still in a shirt that's been cropped too short and a pair of shorts even shorter than that. He knows exactly what he is dressed like but Bruce gives him free reign, never saying a thing about that.
(He wishes he would.)
"We can talk consequences later, let's just make sure you feel better first." Bruce murmurs, kneeling down next to Jason with a clean towel and a glass of water. He sets the medication on the bathroom counter but doesn't push Jason to swallow the pills when there is no guaranteed that Jason can keep anything down.
Bruce should probably be upset at him, but he has also never parented anyone. Jason can't fault him for that.
Dick came to him pre-parented.
Jason came to him without parents.
Jason is also retching again when a new wave of nausea comes, hitting him low in his gut to claw up and up and up until he is emptying out what still remains inside. There's nothing left in him when he hasn't eaten all night, so it just makes his whole body seize. Another terrible gut-churning noise comes out of him. One hand pressing down on his erection where it tents his tight shorts. The seam on them digs into his skin unlike his Robin shorts. His face all scrunching together in one horrible mess, gasping into the toilet bowl while his saliva feels too thick where it gathers and his tongue sits too heavy where it touches the roof of his mouth.
Bruce soothes a hand down the line of Jason's spine, fingers feeling out every bumpy protrusion.
It should be comforting, but it just makes Jason shiver from a different kind of heat.
He is hot one second.
Cold the next.
It is an awkward thing to admit to, let alone indulge in, harder still is to see an opening like this and not be tempted by the potential of asking point blank for what he wants.
Jason squeezes his eyes shut, just panting into the toilet. He extends a hand and Bruce passes him the glass of water. He keeps his head down but Bruce holds his hair out of his face tenderly, fingertips cool where they touch his temple.
"I'm sorry, B." Jason gets out between rinsing the bitter sour taste from the back of his mouth.
(He is not, not enough to stop at least.
But they can both pretend he is. They are really good at that.)
Jason gargles loudly before he is spitting into the toilet bowl where it joins what remains of his shame. He sits back as Bruce closes the lid on it to flush.
Bruce gets him another glass without saying another word, just guides him to take slow sips where he holds the rim of the glass tipped to Jason's mouth. One hand gently cradling Jason's jaw, and Bruce allows him five small sips before he is drawing it back, watching him like he's counting down the seconds to see if Jason will throw up again. When he finally looks satisfied at the trickle of colour back in Jason's cheeks, Bruce touches the back of his palm to Jason's forehead. He checks his temperature even when his skin is clammy and tacky from drying sweat.
Bruce never pulls back even as Jason leans into it.
It is only then that he peers over at Bruce, lashes still wet with tears from the force of his vomiting. He reeks of alcohol, cigarettes, and a pungent mixture of vape smoke. He eyes Bruce, sees the way he is hard in his sweatpants too.
It isn't a difficult choice at all.
(After all, isn't fetish just a fun word to describe the thing that is deeply wrong with you?)
Jason reaches over, he palms Bruce inside his pants. He isn't above using this to monopolize all of Bruce's attention. Jason leans in closer, buries his nose into the crook of Bruce's neck, cheek resting against Bruce's shoulder and he whispers on a rasp. "Please dad, touch me properly already."
Is this a call for help?
Or, is this a mutually assured destruction of the most pleasurable kind?
He knows that's Bruce and not Willis Todd. Even at his worst, Willis never wanted Jason like Bruce does. It's a strange line to mark in the sand. Stranger still when Jason genuinely couldn't tell you which he'd rather have. Maybe he just doesn't want to be psychoanalyzed while he gets off.
For Jason, his vomiting opens a wide door to unconditional love and care.
For all Jason knows, it might not even be the vomiting that does it for Bruce. It might be the ugly crying or it might be being called dad. Jason doesn't know and he doesn't care to dig into Bruce's psychology to figure out why watching him throw up does anything for him. Just that it does. Jason isn't about to look a gift horse in the mouth only to ask stupid questions.
Bruce gets harder in his pants, hands frozen where they clutch at the towel wiping down the dewy skin at the sweat-matted hairline of Jason's bangs.
Jason doesn't let the man push him away.
He doesn't bother with stripping off the flimsy cropped top, not with the way the neck of it is wide enough to see all of him if he leans over just right. He drags Bruce in for a kiss, and it's probably disgusting even if he has rinsed out his mouth. But Bruce is acting like that doesn't matter one bit when he kisses him back. Hard. Ravaging every corner of his mouth until Jason's lips are kiss-bruised and achingly tender from the brute force alone.
When Jason is released, he is left panting for more.
"Let's talk consequences later."
He isn't sure who says what. But Jason is already taking Bruce's hand, and pushing it down the front of his shorts.