Of first and last times (or at least firsts)

The first time Jason sucked a cock, he was 12.

Now, don't make a face. He survived. It's all what mattered then, it's all what matters now, though it somehow tastes like irony to say that.

Anyway.

Two dudes found the place Jason had come to call home. It was a squat apparently closed by a big metallic door. It had taken Jason the best of a day to unbolt it.

Then one day, he got home, and here they were. Being 12 and all he made a stupid mistake and snapped. There were only two of them and Jason was tough, and quick, and most adults didn't expect a street rat to break an arm.

But one of them had a gun, and when he took it out and pointed it at Jason, the only sensible thing to do was to freeze. So Jason did. But he still had to open his big mouth and they decided to put it to good use.

Now that he thinks about it, the guy mustn't have been more than 16. He told him to get down on his knees, and made him lick the gun first.

Jason hated every second of it but he actually had been lucky. They didn't fuck anything else than his mouth, and they let him flee afterwards. Some gangs choose themselves a bitch and keep it until it breaks.

Jason didn't intend to be anybody's bitch.

He put a blade between the shoulders of that guy the very next day. One doesn't survive in Gotham's streets for long if one can't defend himself – and let people know about it.

Chapter closed.

The second time, it was winter. Jason was 13 and pretended to be 15 on a daily basis.

He'd manage to find another place for himself, a roof with a breach just big enough for his childish body to slip in. No adult could hurt him there.

But winter was much worse than any adult. Getting bitten by the cold had never seemed so literal. Jason wished he could bite back – to get something in his stomach if nothing else. He was cold, and hungry, and while usually he sneaked into empty flats to take quick showers and steal clothes and food, flats were less often empty with the cold keeping people inside.

He'd almost been arrested twice over the last week and had managed to get away the second time only because one of the girls had accidentally bounced on the cop. In return, he'd kicked the hell out of the next guy who was being too rough on her. She'd thank him with a smile on her broken lips.

Jason liked the girls, which often gave him some pieces of their own meal if he'd stand guard at the end of the street to warn them if a cop was coming. They called him "Jay" or "kitten" and didn't mind if he wanted to warm his hands.

But the cold was still too cold, the hunger too strong.

And hell, he wasn't anybody's bitch if he was the one choosing.

So he offered to some john and got on his knees for a few bucks. Not enough. Never enough. But, well, priorities.

He doesn't remember very well the third, or fourth, or fifth time. By the tenth, he stopped counting. It was that bad a winter.

Then, he found the Batmobile – and Batman found him.

He offered to Bruce.

Bruce never let him.