Author's Note: Here's a little Halloween piece featuring Dick and Damian. This is set about six months after Bruce's 'death,' and after Dick and Tim's falling out about the Robin mantle as well. Happy reading!

Grayson was losing his mind, and Damian didn't like it.

It had started back on the first of the month, when Dick had looked across the breakfast table at him and asked what he wanted to be for Halloween. Dressing up in a ridiculous costume and parading from house to house in an attempt to collect a free sugar rush sounded like a waste of time to Damian, and he said as much. He knew that not even his most scathing reply would be enough to put an end to the topic, but it was always wise to start arguments with his extremely persuasive brother from the strongest position possible. True to form, Dick had put on a grin, winked at him, and turned back to his eggs. Thus had the third annual battle to get Damian to trick-or-treat begun.

Things progressed from there in the same way that they always did. "How's the costume coming?" Dick would ask each time they sat down to eat.

"About as well as your attempt to make me care about having one at all."

"Great! I can't wait to see it."

Despite the fact that Damian had no intentions of giving in this year, he had to admire Dick's cheerful perseverance. Five, ten, then fifteen days passed, and every morning the same conversation took place in the same tone as it had the day before. The annoyance that used to creep into Father's voice as early as the second morning of the Halloween debate never colored Dick's question. No matter how snappish Damian made his answer, he got a grin and a wink back. This strange imperturbability was what had secretly endeared the man to the boy to begin with, and seeing the trait continue as usual despite the trials of the last several months only increased Damian's respect for his brother.

That was why he found the sudden shift that had taken place on the night of the sixteenth so disturbing. Dick had headed out to the monthly JLA meeting with a barely-restrained smile showing under the black cowl that had only recently become his, but he had come home wearing an expression more suited to his predecessor. Lurking at the edges of his uncharacteristic frown had been traces of hurt that he didn't offer an explanation for. Under normal circumstances Damian wouldn't have allowed whoever had put that pain into place to get away with it, but this time he hadn't pushed for details. Dick's dismay made his own life a bit easier, and that being the case he let things ride.

The truth of the matter was that Damian really didn't want to trick or treat this Halloween. In the first year of his residence at Wayne Manor he had allowed himself to be cajoled into the activity for the sake of proving to himself what a useless tradition it was. In the second he had given in because he saw that it would make his father and brother happy. But too much had changed since last October, and he simply couldn't do it again.

It wasn't just Bruce's death that was affecting him; his own age and position were also in play. His classmates' talk was usually insipid, but he'd listened when he heard them saying that they were getting too old to go out for candy anymore. Some had bragged that the previous year had been their last foray, and he had been tempted to add his vote to theirs. After all, he had more reason than any of them to feel as if he was beyond such infantile activities. In the last twelve months he had buried a parent, which none of them could claim, and his status in the masked world that he alone among his peers inhabited had subsequently changed from protégé to partner. He had never truly thought of himself as a child before, but the label now seemed more inappropriate than ever.

His decision was final, but he still felt guilty about taking that small Halloween pleasure away from his brother. The feeling only grew as he noted a hint of desperation in Dick's costume question on the morning after the JLA meeting. Damian didn't ask what had caused that faint whine to rise, but as Halloween drew near and Dick's general mood remained low he allowed himself to make an educated guess.

It was tradition for Nightwing, now Batman, to spend the weeks before every major holiday coordinating efforts for a JL party at the Watchtower. His enthusiasm for the task never failed to bubble over into his home life. No mention had been made of a Halloween fete, though, and Damian concluded that the rest of the League had vetoed it this year. The disappointment must have been huge for Dick, who so enjoyed that particular tradition.

As much as it bothered Damian to see his brother dragging himself through his routines with little more than a half-hearted smile, there was nothing he could do about it. He thought hard on the subject, but the only solution he managed to come up with was a plan to show extra interest in Thanksgiving once the month had turned. Dick's mien would surely brighten once Halloween was behind them and the rest of the winter's celebrations could be looked forward to.

Damian kept his own counsel as October wound down. Dick did, too, withdrawing further into himself than the boy had ever seen him do before. It worried him, but every time he got the urge to bring the problem up he soothed himself with the prospect of November. Everything would be fine then. The world would return to its new normal as soon as Grayson had a reason to smile again. Dragging everything out into the open would do no good; it was best to let things rest.

So things went until the night of the thirtieth. Damian had been carefully checking on Dick all day – he hadn't even asked about the costume at breakfast, and that was too much for the boy to ignore – and now he was performing one final pass through the hall from which both of their bedrooms led off. In another hour it would be time to patrol, which would make monitoring his partner's mood much easier, but he wanted to be sure that all was well once more before then.

Approaching Grayson's room, he stopped and listened. After a moment a frown arched his lips. Words were faintly audible, but they weren't coming from behind the door he was hovering around. They seemed instead to be leaking through the carved oak slab that marked the wall across from him. Eyes narrowed, Damian snuck closer. Dick was carrying on a full-blown conversation in Bruce's old room, he realized once a few sentences had passed. That would have been a relief of sorts were it not for the fact that Damian knew Alfred was downstairs and that there was no one else in the house. As things were, Dick appeared to be having a passionate discussion with himself.

No, Damian gulped after another minute. That wasn't right. Grayson wasn't talking to himself; he was talking to Father. Bruce Wayne had been dead for six months, yet here was Dick chattering away at him. He went so far as to address him by name, and Damian shuddered. All of the uncharacteristic behavior of the last two weeks was nothing compared to this. This was full-blown crazy, and it was scary as hell.

Grayson was losing his mind, and Damian, frozen in place by a mixture of upset and uncertainty, didn't like it.

"It's all falling apart, Bruce," Dick's disembodied voice reported. "I don't mean being Batman, that's gotten better, but everything else…it's just so different now." He paused, then went on as if he was answering a question. "I guess it was the League meeting and the Halloween party that really pushed me over the edge. I thought everyone would be glad to have a break after everything that's happened lately, but…nobody seemed very enthusiastic about it this year. They probably would have gone along with it if I'd forced the issue, but that's no fun. So I let it go."

A sniffle sounded. "I know, it's a stupid thing to be upset over. I thought people liked my parties, though. No one said they didn't like them, don't get me wrong, but…I don't know. And Damian…I don't think he's going trick-or-treating this year. He's never left his costume this late before. Twelve's kind of the upper end of trick-or-treating for most kids, sure, but I thought…I mean, I hoped…well. One more year would have been nice. Especially this year.

"I want to believe that everyone's just worn out. It's been a long year across the board, so that would make sense. It's hard, though. Everything's hard now." He sighed. "I thought Halloween would be like old times. I needed Halloween to be like old times. Even without you here, I knew it could be good. Halloween is the one thing that didn't really change when I came here, so I figured it wouldn't hurt as much as every other milestone has since you've been gone. But I was wrong." Another sniffle came, half a sob sounding at its end. "I just wanted to have one day where I could pretend like everything was the way it used to be, Bruce. Just one day…"

Dick dissolved into quiet crying. Out in the hall, Damian waffled. He didn't want to barge in on what was clearly an emotional moment, but he also couldn't stand the misery he'd heard in his brother's voice. For a moment he played with the idea of fetching Alfred. The butler would know how to commiserate with Grayson, and would no doubt have some sort of advice to offer him, but somehow that didn't feel right. If Dick really was going off the deep end, Damian knew that it partially his own fault. The least he could do was try to fix it.

Grimacing, he grasped the knob and pushed the door open. A single bedside lamp provided the only light in the bedroom beyond, but it was enough. There was Dick, curled up on the bed with a pillow clutched in his arms and tears shining under his closed eyes. It was a sign of how far gone he was that he didn't look up as Damian drew closer. "Grayson?"

"…Hi, Dami." The greeting came out in a hoarse whisper, and Damian flinched. He couldn't recall ever hearing Dick sound so lost before. Even at Bruce's funeral there had been a hint of control underlining the tremble in his words. That control was missing now, and Damian realized that he was seeing Dick without any walls for the first time. "Guess you heard some of that, huh?"

"Yes." A beat passed. It was funny, Damian thought, how the world had taken on a surreal edge in the last few minutes. Dick had a reputation for wearing his heart on his sleeve, and when he had seemed to recover his old brightness in the weeks after Bruce's death Damian had accepted it without question. He would never have imagined that his extroverted and open elder brother could hide the sort of grief that he was obviously still grappling with. It didn't seem possible, but there was no denying the evidence in front of him. "Please don't go crazy," Damian burst out suddenly. "…Please, Dick. Don't."

Now Dick opened his eyes, and to Damian's relief there was still a bit of spark in them. He had been afraid that they would be dull or deranged, clouded over with madness like so many of the gazes he had seen during trips to Arkham. "I'm not crazy, Dami," Dick said gently. "I'm just sad."

Damian pursed his lips. "But you were talking," he countered. "I heard you. You were talking to…to Father. Directly to Father. That's not sane."

"Dami…" Dick sat up, tossed his pillow to one side, and held out a hand. "Sit with me for a minute, okay?"

When they were seated beside one another, Dick went on. "You're right. I was talking to Bruce. I do that a lot."

"But he's-"

"I know he's dead." The words came out sharp, and Damian hung his head. Maybe it was too late already; maybe the Grayson he knew was gone. Then Dick's voice softened, and his hand landed on Damian's shoulder. "…I know. And I know it seems insane that I still talk to him despite that fact. But I'm not crazy. In fact, talking to him like that is part of what's helped me keep from going out of my mind."

"That doesn't make sense."

"No, I'm sure it doesn't. But that's because you've never had the sort of relationship with anyone that Bruce and I do. Did. It's just…I could talk to him about anything. Absolutely anything. Even when the subject was something awful, even if we couldn't come to any sort of a solution for a problem I was having, I always felt better just for having told Bruce what was going through my head.

"And Bruce is the only person it's ever worked like that with. I can talk to other people about things and get some relief, of course, but there's just something special about telling him. There's this little extra comfort that comes with it. I don't know why that is; maybe it's something you can only get from a parent. The point is that even now, even when I know he can't answer back, it still makes me feel better to talk to him than to talk to anyone else.

"It took me a while to get used to just talking to the air, I'll admit." His free hand swept around to indicate the room in which they sat. "Since so many of our talks took place in here, this is where I found it easiest to get over my self-consciousness. I was coming in a lot anyway, when I couldn't sleep or…well. There's a reason I haven't said anything to Alfred about changing things, let's just leave it at that.

"But I'm not crazy. I'm not losing my mind. I just needed to get some things off my chest, and you caught me. I'm sorry if I scared you, but I'm fine. Honest."

Damian still didn't fully grasp why talking to the empty room once inhabited by a dead man gave Dick more relief than talking to another living person, but he was glad that the explanation he'd been given was otherwise rational. The only part of his brother's speech that he didn't believe was the last sentence. "You're not, though," he shook his head. "You're not fine."

Dick stared at him for a long, silent second, his eyes wide and glistening. Then he turned his head away, and his fingers tightened on Damian's shoulder. "It's just a tough time of year for me," he explained. His voice sounded strained, as if he was trying to make it light and unworried but was failing. "It's not your fault. It's not anyone's fault. It's just the way it is. Things change," he shrugged, "and sometimes it's difficult to accept that."

"It is my fault, though."

"No-"

"I heard what you said about trick-or-treating."

"…Oh. But…that's not really your fault. I mean, I don't blame you. You're at the age when lots of kids stop going out on Halloween. It's okay."

"Yeah? When did you stop going out?" Somehow Damian didn't think the answer would be twelve, or even thirteen.

"Me?" A hint of amusement lifted the corners of Dick's mouth. "I was short enough to get away with it until I was sixteen. Then I grew like eight inches in a year and Bruce said I'd get funny looks if I tried again. That was the same year that the JLA parties started." A line appeared between his eyes, and his faint smile faded away. "Come to think of it, that's a heck of a coincidence, isn't it?"

"You don't think he started the JLA Halloween parties just to make up for the fact that you couldn't trick-or-treat anymore, do you?"

"It is the sort of thing Bruce would have done." A beat passed. "Somehow that both does and doesn't make the fact that we're not having one this year better."

There it was again, that pathetic note that gave Damian the unnatural urge to lean over and hug the man beside him. "…Grayson?"

"Hmm?"

"Would…I mean, if I did want to go trick-or-treating…it wouldn't be too late, would it?" He would feel awkward and out of place the entire time, he knew, but it would be worth it if it snapped Dick out of this awful depression.

"No. It wouldn't be. But you don't want to go trick-or-treating, Dami. And that's okay." The hand on Damian's shoulder slid across his back and pulled him into a one-armed embrace. "I appreciate your willingness to do it for my sake, though."

"Who says it would be for your sake?"

Dick chuckled briefly. "Nice try, little brother. I know you too well for that. If you had the slightest interest in going out this year, you wouldn't have waited until you found me crying in Bruce's bed to show it."

He was defeated, and he knew it. "Well what, then? What…I mean, you can't sit in here talking to yourself for the rest of the night."

"I suppose not, although that kind of was my plan to fill the time until patrol. But you're here now, and we're talking, aren't we? That's pretty good, if you ask me."

"I'm not Father, though," Damian whispered. "I can't make it okay the way he used to do for you."

"…No. You're right. You can't. No one can."

"Ugh!" Annoyed at his own impotence, Damian slid off of the bed and stomped his way to the window. A full moon lit up the broad lawn below, reminding him of every seasonal cliché he'd seen over the past few weeks. "Why do you even like this holiday, Grayson? Don't you get enough horror the rest of the year? It can't be the candy, you only stole two pieces of mine last year." Turning back into the room, he leaned against the window frame and gazed at his brother. "What's the attraction? Why is this of all things what made you so upset?"

Dick bit his lip. "It's like I said before, when I was talking to Bruce. Halloween is the one thing that didn't really change when I came here. Everything else was so different; the house, going to school, not moving around constantly. Everything. But then Halloween came, and it was just like it had been before. My parents weren't there, obviously, but I still dressed up and carved a pumpkin and went trick-or-treating and gorged myself on way more sugar than I should have been allowed. Yes, even with Alfred watching," he added when Damian's eyebrows shot up.

"I thought it would be hard. That was my first holiday without them, you know, and I thought it would be impossible to get through. I'd always loved Halloween – you know me, how could I not love it? – and I was so afraid that it would be ruined from then on. But it wasn't. Other holidays, Christmas and Thanksgiving and things like that, they were never the same, but somehow Halloween still felt right.

"So this year, when everything's different all over again…I wanted Halloween to be what it always had been. Safe. Predictable. Fun. I've spent all month hoping, expecting, that since it had been okay after my parents died it would be okay after Bruce, too. But it's not." Dick swiped at the fresh tears that were trickling down his cheeks. "It's not, and I should have known it wouldn't be. I should have known because as bad as all of this losing a parent stuff was the first time around, it's a hundred times worse now."

Damian had hoped that probing into Dick's love of Halloween would give him some insight as to how to make this year's holiday better for him. There was nothing he could do to put things back the way Dick wanted them, though, let alone to ease the intense grief he was still dealing with. Helplessness was not an emotion Damian enjoyed, and he wasn't sure he'd ever felt so unable to do anything of use as he did now. Had he been in the presence of anyone other than his brother, he would have kept that fact to himself. Since it was Grayson who was once more crying on the bed, however, he let the truth out. "…I don't know what to do."

"There's nothing you can do. It's just a time thing."

"But Father made it better the first time, right? He made things go…I don't know, faster or whatever?"

"Well…yeah, but like you said before-"

"'Well, yeah, but' nothing. I'm not him, but I'm half him, aren't I? Shouldn't I be able to make it half better, or…or something?"

"That's not how it works."

"He did it somehow, though." Frustrated, he threw up his hands. "If we could figure out his method, then maybe-"

But Dick was shaking his head. "There's nothing to figure out. It wasn't a trick, or a special move, or anything like that. It was just…the way he loved me, I guess."

"But I-" Damian broke off. What had nearly come out of his mouth was something he had never said to anyone before, and a single glance at Grayson told him that the man knew as much. "I mean, I…"

Dick gave him a gentle smile and held out one hand. "C'mere for a second." Damian complied, and found himself pulled into a hug. After a moment he was pushed back a half step, but warm hands remained on his shoulders and held him in place. "I know you want to make me feel better," Dick said softly. "I know you love me, even if you're just enough like Bruce that you can't say it. But it's like I keep telling Alfred; there's nothing you can do that you aren't already doing. It's just going to take longer for me to heal this time."

Damian's mouth worked for a minute. "There's nothing?" he asked finally. "Because I'll trick-or-treat, Grayson. It will be the absolute last time, but…I'll do it."

"Aw, Dami…"

The boy was yanked into another embrace, and this time he returned it. "I just want it to be normal again too," he confessed against Dick's throat. "I want you to be normal. I thought you were, but you're not."

"No. I'm not. Not yet, at least. And unfortunately you forcing yourself through an old tradition wouldn't make it go any faster. But it means a lot to me that you'd be willing to try."

Damian lifted his head from his brother's shoulder as an idea struck him. Old traditions might not be enough, but he wondered… "What about a new tradition?"

Dick leaned back enough to look him in the eye. "What do you mean?"

"You said it wouldn't help if I forced myself through an old tradition. But what if we did a new tradition instead?"

"…You want to start a new Halloween tradition?" Dick was studying his face intently, and Damian knew that he was searching for any sign that he would be 'forcing' himself into whatever new tradition they came up with. He turned his attention to disguising his tells, but to his surprise none of them were active. Without realizing it he had hit upon something that he actually wanted to participate in. "You…you really do, don't you?"

"You don't have to sound so surprised." Damian's tone was grouchy, but his mouth was twitching as if it wanted to smile. To his joy, the dichotomy drew a laugh from Dick.

"You know, that's…that's not a bad idea. It's worth a try, at least." Dick tilted his head and considered him for a moment. "Maybe it's a good thing that trick-or-treating and the League party aren't happening tomorrow."

"Really?"

"Yeah. It hurts, but maybe in the long run it's better. Maybe this is what you need in order to really connect with the holidays. All of the things we do at this time of the year, for Halloween and Thanksgiving and Christmas and New Years…they're old traditions. They were things we did before you were part of our lives. We never made any new traditions with you, and that was kind of uncool of us. But whatever we come up with now will be ours. Yours and mine."

"…Just yours and mine?"

"Sure. And Alfred's, obviously, but…well, you know how he is. If we're happy, he's happy."

Damian gave Dick a sidelong glance as a tradition he thought he could truly get into entered his head. "Do you think he'd be happy if we sat around with bowls of candy and popcorn and watched gory horror movies all evening?"

"Is that what you want to do?"

"Well…it's not something we've ever done before for Halloween. And-"

"And it's a perfect way for you to get to see movies that Alfred would never let you watch on any other day of the year, plus have candy that you didn't have to go door-to-door for?"

"Yeah. Those things." Silence fell as Dick appeared to consider his suggestion. "Could we?" Damian almost pleaded when the quiet went on too long.

"Oh, we can. It's a good idea. I'm just wondering if we ought to start this tradition tonight and sleep in tomorrow. We'd have to skip patrol, but we could always just do an extra long one tomorrow…"

"Yes!" The yelp was out of Damian's mouth before he knew he was going to say anything. "We don't have any candy, though."

"Yes we do. Alfred always buys way too much for the Wayne Foundation trick-or-treat town, and I happen to know that he stashed some of this year's leftovers here in the house."

"Do you think he'll let us have it?"

"I think that when he sees that we're both excited about something that doesn't involve the risk of injury or death he'll let us have just about anything we ask for." Dick raised his eyebrows. "Should we go find out if I'm right?"

It took a great deal of control for Damian to keep himself from shouting 'yes!' again. "We might as well try, if you think there's a chance," he said instead.

"Awesome."

They were halfway down the stairs when Damian stopped. "…Grayson?"

Dick turned back to face him. "Yeah?"

"Um…" He hesitated. The question that had occurred to him might very well send his brother back into a depressed mood, but he asked it anyway. "You're not going to start thinking about how you wish Father was here for this new tradition and get upset again in the middle of a movie, are you?"

"Honestly? I probably will, because I do wish he was here for our new tradition. But then I'll look over at you," he went on, "and I'll remind myself that it's because he isn't here that we have a new tradition at all. And I'll remind myself too that that new tradition is something special that you and I made together, and that I'm so lucky to have that. I don't expect that to make everything instantly fine, but it will make it all a tiny bit better. And a little bit can make a lot of difference. Just enough of a difference, maybe," he smiled, "to keep me from starting to talk to Bruce when people other than you or Alfred can overhear. Okay?"

Damian mulled that over for a minute and decided that it was enough. So long as Grayson wasn't actually losing his mind and seemed to be happier than he had been half an hour before, he could live with it. The new tradition they were about to embark on was just a bonus, albeit one he was looking forward to more than he cared to admit. "Okay," he nodded. "Just don't cry in the popcorn. You'll make it all soggy."

Dick laughed again and reached up to clap a hand onto his shoulder. "It's a deal, little brother. Now…let's get this Halloween started."

Additional author's note: I just want to say a big thank you to all of my fans who have been so patient in waiting for new stories from me over the last six months. I've spent that time working hard on a ton of original fiction, which I am pleased to announce that I will soon be making available online for free for anyone who is interested in reading it. All of the infrastructure for that isn't quite ready yet, but I expect to start posting it on my website before the end of this year. In the meantime I hope you'll visit my temporary site, jleehazlett dot tumblr dot com, where I've started posting a bit of travel writing and photography as well as sharing some favorite quotes and other items.

I know many of you will be wondering when my next Batman piece will come out. I don't want to make any big guarantees due to the amount of time my original work is taking up, but my goal is to publish short pieces like this one at least every month or two. I will also be doing another 'Counting of Days' series during the month of December. If you're into any of the other fandoms I've posted in, I may also put out the occasional small piece in those categories.

As always, thank you for your support, and happy reading.