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All are born to live and die. It is the duration between those two points that vary.
Ra's follows the path to immortality and finds himself at the end of the line beneath Wayne Manor, in a pulsing pool of living green drawing him under.
"You're not sick."
He is a man marching towards his inevitable end, looking for any other way out.
Faced with the living descendant of the Wayne name, Ra's al Ghul takes a very good long look at the man introduced as Master Bruce. Bruce is a man that commands attention, broad in the shoulders and tall even when he takes a seat in the chair across from Ra's. Passing for maybe what could be a good fifteen or even twenty years younger than Ra's himself, Bruce isn’t trying for intimidation.
Maybe this is why Ra’s settles for telling the truth, having come all this way, armed with nothing but. "I'm dying."
Hair swept back from his face, glinting a dark brown with the sunlight streaming through the windows, his suit three piece all sharp crisp lines, Bruce Wayne gives him a small thin smile. "Aren't we all?"
"You know as well as I do that isn't entirely true." Ra's plays one hand after another but Bruce does not give an inch. His smile remains the same, thin and near stern, almost cold in its politeness.
"I’m not quite sure I understand what you’re implying, Mr. al Ghul."
"Do not play me for a fool."
"Then perhaps you should stop too."
There is amusement thinly veiling a threat, one that Ra's stares down because there is nothing left for him to lose. Sora is gone, has been for long painful years now, and with her, the thought that maybe he can live without this all consuming search.
Ra's waits those thundering beats of silence for a rejection that doesn't come.
“You want immortality.” Bruce says finally.
Ra’s nods, once, saying with just as much solemnity: "I do."
Ra's al Ghul is one man on a journey deemed laughable by many. Searching for an end that is prolonged, hoping for a life that is endless if the decades of research he has sunk into this cause means a thing at all. It comes to fruition, amount to this and just this: In Gotham, in an ancient house by the name of Wayne.
In all the paths that he could take, Ra’s looks up at the gate, at the creak of metal and the lack of rust. For all its years, the old manor is very well kept.
"What’re you willing to give up?"
"If it's money—"
Bruce's laugh is sharp, cutting as he stops Ra's before he can even get the whole sentence out. "Don't be insulting, Ra's."
The way his name forms around his mouth makes Ra's sit straighter in his seat, makes him want to promise this man before him everything he has and more. Ra’s presses his mouth into a line, thinking of an acceptable truth. "Whatever you want that I can provide then."
Bruce looks amused, like this is hardly the first time he has heard that particular line.
He keeps Ra's on the precipice with his silence, his eyes looking over him with a gaze that drags as he plays at considering the offer at all. Time seems to pass slower, warped in this room where it is just the two of them. It is a long moment before Bruce starts again, his voice that same tone, warm and inviting even as it is lined in steel.
"Stay for a while, let’s see if you're worthy."
"Us?"
"Yes, Ra's." Bruce says, looking over to the door where the shadows seem to shift uneasily across the marble floors. "Come, let me introduce you to my sons."
The Wayne name is one steeped in the history of Gotham.
Decades upon decades upon decades of documented tragedy and all the mystery before that tying the family almost intrinsically to the city itself. Marked by the draw of ley lines crossing, of bleeding veins of what lies beneath the groundwater, of happenings occurring in some kind of inescapable repeat, Ra's has an inkling that he could spend the rest of his living days digging through the Wayne bloodline and still never find an actual answer.
At least not one that satisfies.
"Ra's here will be staying with us for a while."
If Ra's al Ghul is being shrewd with his compliments, Richard Grayson would still be every single definition of gorgeous and then some. Careful is the word that comes to mind as Richard's mouth curves with a kindness Ra's knows is not meant for him. The way his eyes are the colour of the ocean, vast and deep and unfathomable, his interest lost the moment he catches Ra's' gaze washing over him.
Ra's tracks Bruce as he walks across the room, sitting down at the other end of where Jason Todd lies, stretched out by the expansive window. It feels like a slower moment even now, to watch Richard's fingers carding through Jason's hair as his head rests in Richard's lap. A book propped against his chest, his hands laced over top, the sun kissing one side of his face as he blinks open an eye at the touch of Bruce's hand to his ankles.
Mindful. Ra's thinks, pausing his stare over Jason as he stretches out further until his back is arched at a near impossible angle. Lifting his feet up just to nestle them into Bruce's lap as the man settles, his gaze casual, more content in looking to Bruce than the guest he brings with him.
Timothy Drake draws Ra's into focus when he holds Ra's' stare.
If it feels like he could be pulled under the currents of Jason's passing glance, his eyes more green than blue, then Tim's gaze brings Ra's into full focus, like a hand at his ankles dragging him under. It's caution, Ra's knows in his gut that this comes as close to any flight or fight reactions he could have.
Tim blinks, his long dark lashes sweeping, all bright and wide and blue as his mouth goes upturned. It is subtle, the way he makes his calculations, all of it sliding away as he stands up to meet Ra's at his full height. Like he could be any degrees of unassuming.
"It's nice to meet you, Mr. al Ghul." Tim says, holding out his hand.
It is a simple gesture as Ra's takes it, shakes it, feels the skin thin and soft, the bones brittle and delicate, but the grip firm, and deliberately does not think about how much they already know of him.
"The sentiment is mutual, Timothy."
Arriving on the doorstep of Wayne Manor to be led wordlessly through the long winding corridors. Taking a step inside to be brought into a sitting room by a graying elderly man nearly several hours ago, Ra’s only has the faintest idea of what he would find.
In a room in the guest wing, they let him settle in.
In the dark of a house made of one singular maze, Ra's comes to learn its secrets as it spills like a glass tipped over.
It's a door left ajar.
The soft sounds of their conversation spliced through by the softer sounds of their ragged breathing. A grunt, then a murmur against a bruising path made against bare skin.
"I just don't understand what Bruce sees in him."
Ra's recognizes that as Richard.
"You aren't—oh, f-fuck—" A particularly loud groan and a hitch to start of his next answering words. "So, what's it really, jealous that B wants to take a second look at someone that isn't you?"
Ra's recognizes that as Jason.
"It's not that at all and you know it." Richard replies, there is a moan tapering down to just panting now, and there is no mistaking what the two of them could be doing inside of the library when there is the tell-tale rhythmic noises, wet and soaked on every impact of skin to skin, their words muffled with the swap of spit as they kiss and kiss. Drawing back with a keen made of reluctance and loss, Richard makes a soft sound like he is giving this a consideration. "He's just a man, wanting what everyone else wants—fuck Jay, you feel so good just like that—" Another moan to punctuate that before Richard's voice filters through breathlessly. "He's just clever enough to find us to and ask for it."
"Isn't that where the appeal is?"
"Hardly."
"You're just hard to please, Dickie."
Dick chuckles at that but the sound is stifled, like it is pressed to skin. "We both know that's not entirely true."
Another loud kiss, another sigh of pleasure on the draw back, and Ra's thinks he can imagine the sight the two of them make, tangled in one another in a backdrop of rare first editions.
"You don't have to, Dickie." Jason tells him, a few more words uttered in the tone of what must be profanity in a foreign language Ra's can only begin to guess at. "D-do that again, come on—" A hard swallow. "It's not like he's here for you."
Ra's takes a step back at a choked back noise of what could almost be a whimper, the door creaks long and loud, and it all goes silent.
Ra's doesn't stay within the vicinity to hear the muted laughter Dick presses to Jason's collarbones, "Guess you're right, Jay."
There is a snark ready at the top of Jason's tongue but it all falls away when Dick's fingers find their purchase over the bare stretch of skin at Jason's hips, holding him flushed and holding him still as he finally comes inside of him, knowing full well the audience they just had. It is part of the appeal, a change in pace, a wrench thrown into what they've always known.
At a loss of words, Jason just groans his assent.
Cryptic conversations one after one at a time, each one drawn out over the course of days, Bruce carries on like they have all the time in the world.
(They do, but he doesn't.)
It is obvious, and Ra's isn't a stupid man. He is a man of a certain caliber of knowledge in a world so far out of touch from this one.
He knows he is being tested at every turn. With Richard's thousand yard stares, and the smiles he smiles at him that never really reaches his eyes. With Jason's flash of teeth in every grin, a touch bit feral in the way he forces Ra's to take a physical step back each time he walks by too close. With Tim finding him in every new alcove of the manor in the present and pressing for his past, asking him to give up each detail to every last step he's made on his warpath to bring him to their doorstep.
(They are covering their tracks, but he doesn't need to know that.)
It's a window up on the third floor.
There are no running commentaries this time narrated all out of breath but he sees everything. And there has to be some kind of merit that he is allowed to see any of this at all when he has been made to prove his worth in undefined trials.
There is just the shape of their unmistakable shadows back lit by the lights of the room, moving in unison as one.
The top of Tim's head is seen just over the window ledge, bobbing up then down and in repeat while Jason's body is curled over him. His back arching in that same impossible curve the first time they met, skin slicked in sweat and glistening with the warm yellow tones of the lamps within the room while Richard stands behind Jason, plastered in close, fucking into him on a brutal pace.
Their mouths are parted but Ra's does not hear a thing from where he stands in the garden of the manor looking up.
He imagines sweet indulgent noises to fall, filling a room he has not been invited into.
Ra's stands still, watching as he sees one final shadow stepping into the window frame. Bruce Wayne bending down to capture his boys' mouths with his own, one at a time, pulling Tim to stand up and leaning in to kiss what is probably the salty bitter taste of Jason's release from his tongue. One hand at Jason's chin, tipping his head up to share his own taste, lingering in their kiss until their mouths are buzzing in that slow damning ache.
Bruce's hand is at the nape of Richard's neck, tilting him back to meet his opened mouth, and there is something special to the way Richard smiles into it. All warm and sincere, and there is that word encompassing all of the loss he's felt since Sora. It is sincerity, and Ra's isn't sure he's had a single interaction laced with a thread of that with them.
His eyes never once leave until the lights in the room finally go out.
Leaving them all in the dark, and it is maddening.
If described in words his head can still comprehend, it feels like sinking under the turbulence of crashing waves.
Ice cold veins, and a white hot rage that burns and burns as it works its way through all of him. He gets pulled under, again.
"So, Mr. al Ghul." Timothy steps into the sitting room Ra's has been occupying, lingering at the threshold just long enough for him to hold all of Ra's' attention. Again, like he's never had all of it since the start. "What do you think?"
"Of what, Timothy?"
There is a love bite settling just above the collar of his shirt, bright red and not meant to be missed. It is as deliberate as any sign they have placed right into his hands as he walks further inside of the room.
"You really need me to clarify?" Tim asks, coming right up to him. "I thought you'd be smarter than that."
"You all know what I'm here for. But I don't have a single idea what any of you can want from me?" Ra's closes the book in his lap, places it on to the low table in front of him, making room for Tim to take that final step inside of Ra's' personal space to close in on him.
"Maybe it's nothing." Tim laughs lightly, easily, and it's a very lovely sound, made lovelier when he climbs into Ra's' lap.
"You don't truly think I would believe that?"
Tim places his hands on Ra's' shoulders, sweeping down on a lingering touch before sliding them back up, holding still for a moment like he could be pondering for an answer he's known for a long time now. Ra's doesn't hold his breath. Tim's fingers are slender, his fingernails are bitten down to an uneven edge, and they bite down faintly as he braces his hands against the column of Ra's' neck to finally say: "I don't know what you believe, Ra's al Ghul. You're looking for immortality in a world where death exists in every corner."
Ra's has to laugh at that, a soft chuckle falling into the narrow space between them. "So, you think I'm crazy?"
Tim shrugs, and Ra's knows it is no fault of his own when Tim answers. "I think you're human."
It is why he does what he does.
It is a chase of a kiss when Ra's swallows down that last breath's distance between them, pressing his mouth to Timothy's like he's wanted for quite some time now. Ra's keeps it chaste and Tim lets him, there is no delusion that he only gets what Tim gives him. When he draws back, Tim waits until he is looking again before he is dragging his tongue across his bottom lip, leaving it wet and shiny.
"So, Timothy," Ra's echoes back at him, "what does that make you?"
Tim smiles a vicious little thing, and Ra's only recognizes admiration is what inspires in him at the sight of a smile like that.
Built over what lies beneath, brick and mortar and stone by stone, this house is a home filled with terrible things.
Even if known as the Lazarus Pit, there is no God here to help men like them.
"Have you experienced it?" Jason asks him.
"It being what?" Ra's grits out.
They are in the guest bedroom and in Ra's' bed, and Ra's is being led through the motions as Jason discards all of his clothes one by one for him.
Jason comes to him like a force of nature, taking wide strides into Ra's' room without an invitation, takes the open bedroom door to be saying enough.
He takes charge, and Ra's lets him. He starts talking, and Ra's doesn't stop him.
"It being cold to the touch and out of breath." Jason says, reaching back with a hand dripping in an oil that smells like floral. He is of a one-track mind that Ra's has no intention drawing him away from. "It being absent of any of your vital signs and being cut into." His hand is warm, his grip is tight, he coaxes Ra's into full hardness and guides him to where he is hot and soft past that first ring of pressure. Ra's watches as Jason lowers himself down, a sigh escaping from between his teeth. "It being dead and wanting nothing but to stay that way."
Ra's is thinking of all the implications, he is also thinking of the way Jason moves, thighs quivering as he rises up on his knees until he is dropping back down. His cock pushing in all the way until he fills him to the hilt. Jason is peering down at him from where he straddles him, eyes half-lidded, blink and Ra's almost imagines the wet sheen to those lashes would come away a molten green too.
Ra's follows through as Jason reaches out for a hand, drags him by the fingers until he is touching skin.
Just below the hem of his shirt going up, pushing the fabric higher and higher even as Ra's feels that first raised edge of a scar.
Ra's is a physician. But he hardly needs to be one to recognize an autopsy scar when he sees one.
"It being me." Jason murmurs.
Ra's thinks of Sora in her grave. Long gone now. Hair brittle. Eyes hollow and sunken. Skin in decay with time past. Rot to replace what he once loved with all his heart.
He looks up at Jason to see none of those things but still feels the cold press of soil all around him, the gripping fear that chokes the breath from his lungs.
Jason lets go of Ra's' hand, not minding whether the man keeps it there or moves away all together. He leans back on a groan when that gets Ra's just that much deeper inside of him, both hands settling against the bed, bracing himself as he uses Ra's to bring himself to full completion.
And the noises that falls from his parted mouth is so much sweeter than anything Ra's could imagine.
It is a living feeding thing that opens up beneath the manor.
All warped out of shape, it craves for something old (that familiar taste) and something new (to sink its teeth into), it wants to be filled to the brim once more until the depths of its living green can bubble over.
"What am I giving up?"
Flat on his back in the center of Bruce Wayne's bed, Ra's asks, not for the lack of conversation.
"I'd hope you'll be able to tell me by now, Ra's. You're a brilliant man." Bruce answers, resting one palm against Ra's' chest, fingertips just grazing at the sternum.
"But just a man, which brings me to the question, what does that make you?"
It is the same question Timothy had posed. It was a hint, and it is about time he gets an answer.
Bruce slides his hands down, pushing apart the dark green silk of the bathrobe Ra's still has on to reveal more and more skin. He works the simple knot easily, splays the thin fabric out around them. His hands warm and his mouth a burning heat as he leans down to trail kisses from Ra's' sternum up to the hollow of his throat.
"A detective with a mystery that I can't solve."
Ra's spreads his thighs further apart, accommodating Bruce where he is on his knees and settled between them. Ra's watches as Bruce pours out the slick on to his hands, smiling something encouraging as Ra's bites out a quiet noise of discomfort at the initial intrusion. His head is still thinking on that very deliberate choice of words as he feels the full burn of that stretch as Bruce pushes the first digit in.
It gets Ra's exhaling a heavy breath through his mouth in between the answering question that comes rushing out. "Wouldn't that make you not much of a detective then?"
"I've been called many things, Ra's." Bruce's smile is soft, softer still is each motion of his wrist when it gets Ra's rocking his hips to the same slow pace. His smile lingering further still when he presses his mouth to Ra's' brow to murmur. "Identities haven't held much meaning to me for a long time now."
"And how long would that be?" Ra's presses on, eager to know all of it.
"You don't want to guess?" Bruce adds a second finger, and Ra's is so tight and hot for him.
"...is that your way of telling me you can't recall?"
"I've been Bruce Wayne now for three separate lifetimes. And I've been Thomas for four. I'm thinking of going by Damian next." Bruce tells him, and this is exactly the confirmation Ra's has been looking for. It's not a complicated equation to come to, it is showing the work that leads to it, and Bruce has just effectively shown him his. He adds. "It gets a bit confusing past your third."
A third finger and the spread is wider, every push deeper inside of him on every pump of Bruce's fingers. Bruce doesn't pause, keeps him going until he is just shy of giving in and asking breathlessly for the release that he knows Bruce will not give him. Not yet, not until he has opened up the rest of the way on his cock alone and it's gratification just on that perfect edge of pain.
"Is this really truly what you want, Ra's al Ghul?" Bruce murmurs, just shy of breaching him, and Ra's almost wishes it was anything but.
He still answers without pause. "Yes," he says, and he goes completely breathless for that short second to follow when Bruce pushes inside of him, his fingertips making a place against the jutting curve of Ra's' pelvic bone to hold him still as he bottoms out.
Ra's comes with just that, overwhelmed as Bruce fills him up all the way inside of him, his body clenching down in the blank state his head goes to.
All the awe in him dissipates on a rush of pleasure and just that edge of exquisite pain.
The green illuminates their skin, sluicing off of the smooth line of their skin, sliding down the curve of their throats to pool at the hollow of their collarbones.
They look younger than their years when they drag themselves out from the depths, emptied of their humanity to start anew, it's a deep dark place that they crawl out of. And Ra's can only watch, transfixed as Bruce's sons emerge from the Lazarus pit beneath this home of theirs.
"I'm not sure you understand what immortality truly means."
Ra's finds Timothy enjoys starting conversations of this kind. A little bit aimless, and probably full of shit on its misdirect. There is probably an end goal here that Ra's is not seeing but he figures he wouldn't until they want him to.
"Your brother's way of convincing me that I'm making a terrible decision by staying here and wanting what I want was a lot sweeter." Ra's answers from where he is down on his knees between Tim's thighs. Tim has one hand in Ra's hair, the other under his chin, tipping his head up for him to trace at his mouth with a thumb before he tells Ra's.
"Jason's got a nice mouth but he's hardly clever with his words."
"Unlike you." Ra's parts his mouth to say, lets Tim dip his thumb in between, opens up just that bit further to allow Tim to drag it along the edge of teeth before Ra's is sucking the digit in on hollowed cheeks. His tongue lapping at the taste of salt from skin, his teeth sinking down to leave an imprint.
"I just think you have your use and telling you what a great big mistake you're making is beneath both of us."
"White lies on a silver tongue."
Tim replaces his thumb with his mouth, kisses Ra's with his tongue before pulling back on a soft whine to say. "I promise I can be just as sweet, Mr. al Ghul."
"Then maybe I can still be convinced."
"Don't be mean, now you're just lying right to my face." Tim laughs lightly, not at him but with him as he nudges at the seam of Ra's mouth with the head of his cock. "You made your choice a long time ago."
"And I intend to live with it." Ra's answers before he is swallowing him down.
"You should know," Tim lets out around a groan, Ra's' mouth a hot tight vice around him and keeping him from continuing as the man just sinks down further until his cock is hitting the back of Ra's' throat. Tim flexes the hand he has in Ra's' hair, lets the man stay right where he is on his own accord to murmur the rest, "it's only fair that you know that it isn't always in your control."
The answering question from Ra's that goes unsaid is exactly this: Isn't that why I'm here though?
"There are some things even the Demon's Head cannot provide." Tim keeps going, telling him a truth that he shouldn't be admitting to at all, a warning all on its own even when it is shrouded by all the promises the Wayne name has made.
Ra's' head bobs up then down, his mouth working at the length of Tim's cock, and it's all sloppy and wet when he laps at the underside before sinking down all the way again.
"But it's the same things that the pit will take and take from you, Ra's. Y-you need to know this, intense doesn't even begin to describe that very first time you go under." Tim runs his fingers through the short strands of Ra's' hair, all along the salt and pepper with the scratch of his nails against his scalp. Ra's is humming in pleasure and so is Tim when he finally gasps out. "If you come out of the pit at all, you don't come out the same. It changes you."
Tim finishes at the back of his throat, the taste of his release igniting across his tongue, most of it inside of his mouth for Ra's to swallow down but still some dripping from the corner of his parted lips as Tim draws his softening cock back.
It's a little raspy and a little raw but Ra's tells him his own truth. "Maybe I'm not looking to stay the same."
Tim lets out a chuckle but he is looking at him with what might be remorse in his eyes, but Ra's isn't sure, it's not an expression that looks natural on Timothy's face. "You get to choose, and you still came to our doorstep."
He swipes a thumb across Ra's' mouth, catches the smear of white across it before he sucks it into his own mouth to taste.
"Did you get a choice?" Ra's asks, knowing the answer but he still wants that confirmation. That he can still be correct even if he isn't right in any of this.
Tim just laughs, the abrupt noise is a horrible little thing when drawn out in the echo of the room in a house hiding a secret of this size, and Ra's is pretty sure that's confirmation all on its own.
Will you?
Is the question Tim doesn't pose.
Ra's al Ghul emerges from the depth of the Lazarus pit, screaming, eyes opening to see a vision dripping in green.
They smile at him, and their smiles twist out of form.
