lucky girl syndrome

"God, how many compartments do you need?" you grit, fingers scrabbling for the right seam in his suit. You aren't a stranger to wrestling his cowl off, but it's hard in complete darkness, and you've almost cut yourself on a hidden blade more than once. 

But that's how it always is with Batman. Darkness, danger, a knife's edge between will he, won't he. Schrodinger's Bat, if you will. 

The alley you're crammed in isn't really one. It's a side-street, tucked between a condo and a rowhouse. Clean and quiet, in a way that would be surprising if you weren't in the nicer part of the city that lines the financial district. 

You suppose the night is why he even lets you touch him at all. The myth turned man, right at your fingertips. He sows a line of kisses from the right corner of your mouth to your ear, squirming out of your grip on purpose because last time, he admitted to finding you cute when you were frustrated. 

You had half the mind to gag, and the other half you buried deep into the meat of your brain, where it will rot and follow you forever. The thought comes back now, that maybe he's not that bad of a bad guy. 

(It’s not like you hate him. It’s just…you wish he’d leave some of the fun for you—after all, there’s nothing exhilarating in simple reporting. You want excitement, the thrill of the chase.) 

At least he knows how to push your buttons. 

"Not that hard," he mumbles, lips mouthing at the space behind your earlobe. He's somewhere between chapped and baby-soft, like he sometimes peels the skin off his mouth with his teeth as a nervous habit. 

"It is," you respond, swallowing a sound when he bites. Just lightly, not hard enough to bloom, but enough to remind you. 

It's this cat-and-mouse game you play. The PD gets the whole story before the press can jump because of Batman. Therefore, you're justified in your duty as a journalist—a pillar of democracy—to try unmasking him, no? 

The mission may have run awry, but you're here, and you're close. 

Finally, you find the small flap where his mask detaches from his cape. He helps you with it, considerate for once, fingers joining yours in sliding under the cowl and wrestling it off. 

You still can't see him, but you can feel him. The day-old stubble clinging to his jaw. How his nose has that slightly crooked angle, one you couldn't feel if he had his mask on. The way his jaw works, the way his hair is shorter at the nape and soft at the crown. 

You wonder what color his eyes are, if they sparkle in the light. 

He's never taken his suit all the way off with you. How many scars does he have? Does the suit bulk him up? Is he really that tall without boots? 

And then, quieter in your head...does he have cold feet? You know someone who does, and he always presses them to your warmer thighs. 

You grimace. It's one thing to have a covert, inappropriate relationship with the most wanted man in Gotham, but it's another thing entirely to think about your best friend while participating in said relationship. 

"What are you doing." Not a question, but not a demand either. His voice echoes in the narrow side-street. 

"Feeling your face?" 

"That defeats the purpose of being a mystery," he says, low. Then you hear the rasp of his glove sliding off, and the palm of his hand meets your hip, burning as he nudges the hem of your cardigan. 

(You're again reminded of him. Probably dead in that stupidly large bed in his mansion, snuggling silk sheets and the whole works, completely unaware of what you're doing. He'd chastise you if he found out.) 

Humming, your fingers tangle in his hair. "I have a mystery for you: where's Karate Kid?" 

"Taking a break." 

"Can you respond in more than ten words?" 

"Depends on if we're off the record." 

You hate him. Still, you don't stop him from kissing you again, eyelashes fluttering on the apple of your cheek as he moves back down to your jaw. 

A soft sigh burns through you when Batman's bare fingers find the sliver of skin beneath the hem of your rucked-up shirt, then dip into your waistband—myth and man, all at once. 

Face numb with heat, you just hope no one can hear the night’s silence shattering with your quiet whine of want. 

— 

"Thanks, Alfred." 

You know the tight grin you flash looks more like a grimace, but you have to make do with your thighs that scream with every sore step. 

“He’ll be in his room,” Alfred says, and every muscle in his face stays perfectly still as he folds your jacket over his forearm, giving no indication that he’s picked up on your stiffness. 

But knowing the butler, he probably has—he just doesn’t feel the need to comment. 

The halls, however grand and spacious as they are, have never made you feel small. Though your steps echo as you drag yourself up the darkly lacquered stairs, and the grim paintings on the walls regard you with intimidating glares, the Wayne residence has always felt like a second home. 

It’s awfully drafty, though. You know Bruce runs hot (save for his freakishly frigid feet), but the breeze drifting along the ornate walls is making concern for that poor kid itch at your nape. 

You turn right, go straight until the floorboards make a particularly loud creak, then take a left. It’s a path you could follow by feeling alone, by counting the precise seconds until you can see your best friend again.  

You knock on the bedroom door with firm knuckles and resolve. 

“What.” The word comes out as a low, gravelly rasp, devoid of inflection. 

You scoff, wry. “Did Alfred not bring you coffee?” 

The latch twists with a snick, and the heavy, darkly lacquered door parts from the frame to reveal a scruffy jaw and broad ink-strokes of messy hair falling over an angled brow. 

Bruce glares at you, but there’s no trace of annoyance in those clear blue eyes. Only tiredness; slight relief softens the heavy bags beneath his enviously thick bottom lashes.  

“Woah,” you blurt, instinctively taking a step toward him. “Sheepless night?” 

He just makes this…little rough, careless sound in the back of his throat, letting you in as he sneaks one hand beneath his black silk shirt to scratch his stomach. “Not punny.” 

Ignoring the insult, you pad into his room. It hasn’t changed since the last time you’ve been here—which was last week, as always.  

His absurdly massive bed sits in the middle, more rumpled than usual. It’s a shame that he rarely sleeps here anymore, and you almost feel bad that he prefers to spend his nights in his office (or wherever he wants you to believe). 

Like second nature, you choose the silky cushions of the chaise lounge beside the bed to unceremoniously stretch out across. You won’t disturb that sacred mattress with your outside clothes.  

The curtains are drawn tight, forming a thick armor of velvet over the windows, but Gotham’s pale sunlight still wriggles into the room from above the curtain bar.  

The thousand-threaded sheets seem to shimmer in the dim light, rippling as Bruce collapses onto the bed with a sleepy groan. 

“I take it we’re having brunch at home then,” you say, arranging your limbs so that you’re starfished on the lounge. “Shame…Dick seemed like he was looking forward to soufflé pancakes.” 

“Mhm,” he rumbles, dragging a pillow into his chest. Nuzzles into it, and something in your chest loosens like the first bloom of spring. 

Lately, you've noticed that his typically rigid composure has been loosening. Though the ghosts of his parents' deaths still hang over his exhausted head, he's warmed up in small increments—like now, choosing to lean into his sleepiness rather than pushing past the need to maintain his image. 

But perhaps that's because you've known him for too long. You can see through most of his farces, especially the one he insists on displaying to the wider public. 

You almost scoff to yourself. Playboy billionaire. Who's going to tell the paparazzi that he broke into a cold sweat when you joked about setting him up on a blind date? 

He sighs, all rough edges, tinged with the sweet relief of abandoning pretense. “You can blame Dick for keeping me up last night.” 

“Oh, I couldn’t do that to him.” 

Gazing at you with sleep-softened eyes, Bruce says with a tinge of earnest affection, "I was helping Alfred tend to him. Wouldn't have happened if he dressed warmer like I told him to.” 

“What should we do instead?” you muse, absently running your fingers over the smooth, nearly invisible stitches in the chaise’s upholstery. You’ve probably worn a path along the seam with that habit. 

“Tell me about your week,” Bruce murmurs, voice dipping into gravel. His languid words pour over you, soothing.  “Any scoops? See the Batman again?” 

At the reminder, irritation and something akin to embarrassment (though you won’t assign an official name to it) flares in your stomach. The ache in your thighs and a few tender points along your collarbone decide to flare up, which only serves to fuel your annoyance. 

You exhale hard—not so much a scoff than a careless grunt—and choke back the burning urge to roll your eyes. “Alright, that's just provoking, Bruce.” 

A lazy, almost blasé, hum is your answer. “I thought you liked complaining about him. Beating the dead horse much?” 

"Oh, that horse is rotting," you grit, sitting up so quickly that your vision spins with the elaborate detailing on his dark ceiling. Now that it's come to your attention, you're slowly noticing how the Gothic-reminiscent ornamentation resembles the skeletal wings of a bat, stretching above you in desperate flight. Huh. 

"Do tell."  

You cross your arms and glare at him, but he just lets an amused smirk play at the corner of his chapped lips (though still partially concealed by his stupidly fluffy pillow, which you are suddenly thankful for, as you'd probably just suffocate him remorselessly if you'd been exposed to the full power of his smugness). 

"Remember the gang war lead?" 

"Tied above Main Street with Bat-rope," is the confirmation, followed by a couple of nods that are too solemn to not be teasing.  

"And the whole Joker thing—which, by the way, I think he should investigate why the clown keeps escaping—" 

"—it's ninety percent Arkham Asylum's fault—" 

"—plus when I was actively investigating the Riddler's latest puzzle, but he must've stolen my notes because I swear I was this," you pinch your index and thumb together, muscles tensed for emphasis, "this close to solving it." 

To your ire, Bruce chuckles wryly, and if you didn't know better, you'd say he's dangerously toeing the line of self-satisfied. But that would be crazy...unless... 

No, that's just crazy. 

Right? 

"Well, Batman is the world's greatest detective," he says, following the statement with a smooth card of fingers through his inky mess of hair. 

The motion shifts the collar of his expensive pajamas, making the silk dip to reveal a small circular bruise on his collarbone. It's still reddish and stark against his pale skin, so it must be fresh. Weirdly, you distinctly remember the hard press of the Batman's clavicle against your teeth last night. 

Your own bites pulse faintly again beneath your clothing. 

"There's a reason why Commissioner Gordon—" 

"Is that a hickey?" you interject, your pointer finger flicking out to zero onto it. You scoot to the edge of the chaise, frowning; secretly, you're elated at the chance to pivot away from the subject of Batman.  

Your voice takes a teasing tone as you chuckle. "C'mon, you didn't have to lie about Dick's antics keeping you up. Bruce Thomas Wayne, are you finally becoming the playboy they say you are?" 

You bite back the bitter tang of regret the moment those words escape your mouth. Your best friend can have anyone he wants—he's rich, handsome, generous, caring, and despite what the tabloids spew about him, all of Gotham knows that his intellect is damn near genius. 

And yet the discovery stings. Deep down, you chide yourself for being a hypocrite, for feeling the slight betrayal that Bruce had someone in his bed while you were fucking Gotham's protector (you'll use the word loosely) practically every week. 

But still. Maybe he isn't loosening up. Maybe he's still the same guarded boy he's been for over two decades. 

He huffs softly, the white of his canines flashing at you for a moment. "It's nothing." 

"Nothing," you repeat, incredulous. "You don't think—maybe—that this is a significant milestone?" 

"Pssh, you're acting like I'm some fair maiden." 

Doubling down, you slide off the chaise and kneel by his bedside, folding your arms along the edge of the mattress with a pleading look in your eyes and a sharp grin on your face. "Come on, I'm just curious. I tell you everything, down to my leads and sources." 

Eyeing you from behind the soft armor of his pillow, he responds, "Alright. Why were you limping?" 

Shit. The gleeful journalist in you drops dead on the floor, replaced by the anxious secret-bearer, whose knees are knocking together like the erratic tick of your heart. 

"Almost everything," you correct, grin beginning to wilt into a grimace. 

Bruce just regards you with a stare that is almost cold while exasperation weighs heavily on the thick lines of his angular eyebrows. That damn disapproval lances straight through your heart. Jaw tight, you concede and rest your cheek against your arm, frowning slightly. 

"Fine. Sorry. I shouldn't push," you say with a softer voice. "I'm limping because I hooked up with a guy." 

He...doesn't seem fazed, which throws you off. You've always known him to be protective, even possessive at times; even before his parents were murdered, he kept watchful tabs on his belongings, and he'd know if you shifted one of his toys by an inch.  

Naturally, you'd expect him to show some sliver of alarm between his brows—because if you were limping after sex, that would imply that your partner may have been rough enough to affect your gait—but those faint 11 lines haven't budged. 

In fact, he almost looks smug. Or maybe he’s just gotten better at caring more than he lets on. 

"Your turn," you mumble as an afterthought, cheeks burning hot. If this room were colder, you'd be radiating white coils of steam. 

"I also…was intimate. With a girl," he admits, though he works through his choice of words with a faint wrinkle by the corner of his mouth, like they taste bitter. "She’s nosy for a living." 

Sounds like someone you know very well. 

“You could’ve just told the truth,” you mumble, feeling redundant in your disappointment. 

Flashes of your clandestine meetups with Gotham’s favorite vigilante unwittingly resurface, from the softness of his maybe-black hair to the way you’d know the elegant structure of his cheekbones by touch alone.  

You’ve always wondered what he looked like, yes, but you suppose that imagining it with all the parts you have already memorized is different. But if you could hold up a man to the myth… 

…you might raise Bruce.  

Which is—fucking insane! It’s crazy, and stupid, and a terrible thing for him to do. 

Yet. 

Yet the small, needling voice of journalism rises from the dead. Whispers echo in the caverns of your chest: just follow the hunch, wouldn’t it explain a lot? 

A beat of silence follows as Bruce determines his next words.  

“I didn’t want you to see me differently,” he says, low and earnest. “I thought I had a good thing going. For the first time, I don’t want things to change.” 

Somehow, you get the feeling that he isn’t just talking about his hookup. 

“Plus,” he tacks on, like some afterthought he finds vaguely humorous, “you get all flustered when you need the truth. It’s cute.” 

He admits that in the same tone the Bat admitted it, kissing the side of your neck. 

The world shifts just a few degrees. Like the Earth has been spinning on its axis a little wrong, and you sitting up has made the planet right again.  

It fits so fucking neatly that it’s infuriating. The intricate gadgets. The sleek car, with all its sharp edges and plush Italian leather cushions. The way he always seems to be two steps ahead of you.  

They’re both six-two, ridiculously smart, and muscular. You know Bruce had trained in martial arts overseas; you’re realizing with horror that Dick is about the same age as Robin, and the cold would explain the sidekick's absence last night. 

You deal in facts. In hard, concrete truths and testimonies sworn against perjury. Yet, if you wanted to stick with only the cold facts, you would’ve become a lawyer. 

And there’s the subject of his hickey. The thought of it being you twists something around your ribs, ugly and vindictive and satisfied all at once.  

You should be pissed—no, you should be furious.  

Bruce lied, hid, copied off half of your investigations like a bad high school cheater, and fucked you so good that you’d forget about it. 

Yet the truth just settles deep inside the pit of your stomach, like you’ve known all along but never wanted to believe it.  

Because maybe you’re just as possessive. Maybe you do feel ugly and messy and proud that you’re the one that keeps him coming back.  

“Yeah,” you say after a swallow, gluing your gaze onto him to gauge any reaction. “My guy’s pretty nosy too. A lot more annoying than your girl, probably. Tends to hide important information.” 

“It seems like they’ve got their bad habits in common,” Bruce responds. To any other person, he’d seem unfazed, but you know. 

You know that slight downward twitch of his sharp eyebrows. You know the understated purse of his lips by touch in the dark and visual study in the light. He doesn't quite blink, but his long, dark eyelashes flutter like he's making a conscious effort to keep his mask up. 

“That changes a lot, doesn’t it?” It leaves your mouth less like a question and more like a statement. “Does she mean anything?” 

You lean closer to him, eyes flicking all over the planes of his face until he twitches, one hand curling gingerly around your nape, as if deciding between holding fast or not at all.  

“Everything.” He lets it tumble out, just like that, lets the weighty admission bounce off the mattress like a hand grenade. Too easy, too loaded. “She means everything. I think you know that too.” 

The last syllables are breathed softly against your lips, and his lashes tremble as he searches your gaze with a deceptive calm brewing in his glassy eyes. Like the stillness before a storm, except there's a sort of acceptance thrown haphazardly into the blue swirling around his pupils. 

Understanding. 

“I can forgive the lying,” you murmur, tilting your head just so, nose brushing against his. “And the hiding. But out-scooping me? That’s fucked up.” 

“You’re not even mentioning last night, and all the other ones?” A faint laugh colors the question, blooming in the infinitesimal space between your lips. 

It’s then that you realize you can never be mad at him for too long. He’ll just pull some puppy-eyed shit like this, irresistible charm woven into his forever lingering smirk, and you’ll turn the world just because he’d do the same. 

“Those have been forgiven for a long time.” 

Bantering like this, impossibly close yet too far, comes as second nature. You fall into place like the pieces of his two identities, all neat and simple. 

“Can I make it up to you?” 

You flick your eyes to his Gothic ceiling, where the spiny wings of the bats seem to flutter in excitement. “Since you asked so nicely…” 

Bruce presses his gentle, apologetic lips to the corner of your mouth, then traces your bottom lip with a callused thumb. “Can I kiss you here?” 

“Will that stop making you ask questions like a journalist?” 

A soft puff of air leaves him, half incredulous and all endeared. The thought of that being so enamoring, so magnetic flashes through your mind before he softly places his lips over yours—slightly chapped, warm, and completely familiar. 

You've figured the Batman out and solved the mystery of the century. The victory doesn't taste as sweet as Bruce Wayne. 

Without breaking, he draws you up to him as he shifts onto his back, a rough yet cautious hand on your waist guiding you to shuffle across the mattress on your knees and sit over his hips. 

Your head spins, eyes refusing to open out of fear that this is a dream. You feel the gradual slide of his tongue in your mouth, so unlike the feverish way he kisses you in alleyways.  

A quiet moan of satisfaction rumbles in his throat, and it strikes you in the chest, how he seems to be just the same, yet so different. Or maybe it's because he knows this is tentative, precarious, that it's not as certain as you and his alter-ego. 

You shiver—pliant and wanting in a way you didn't expect from yourself—when he diverts his attention, kissing reverently across your cheek, then expertly down your neck.  

Palms and fingers on your waist, surer this time and dragging your weight against...is he serious? 

You sigh against his hair, putting a little firmness behind the occasional rock of your hips against the growing heat tenting his pajama pants. "Really?"  

He groans at the stimulation, cheeks flushing as he ducks his head down. 

"Ignore it. Just want to stay like this," he mumbles, voice rough. 

You slide a hand into his hair, which is prickly at the nape and soft at the crown (yes, yes, yes), and run the other down from the scruff still clinging on his jaw, to his softly heaving chest, to the hem of his shirt. 

You sneak your touch beneath the warm silk, splaying your hand over the burning skin above his hip. This feels like a blessing, to feel the subtle ripple of muscle instead of a toolbelt and a suit. 

Bruce’s sharp canines nip at your fresh hickeys from last night, to which you wince at the twinge of tenderness and slip your fingers higher to fit into the dips between his ribs—he's a little ticklish there, though you know he lies badly about it. 

Paying you back in double, his hands travel beneath the hem of your own shirt, rucking the fabric up to expose your spine to his exploring touch. Another soft sigh burns through you, though the latter half is swallowed by his lips, all lazy and savoring. 

And this might be better than what you've been doing. There's no more dancing, no more cat-and-mouse.  

There's just you and him, sharing breaths in a sliver of air you're hesitant to widen, learning to orbit each other again with the weight of Batman altering your gravities.  

He rolls both of you onto your sides, wasting little time tangling your legs. He traces shapes into your back, weaving around your spine.  

The world smudges around you. Time swims by languidly as he just…caresses your skin, humming against your lips, bent on appreciation rather than stress relief.  

You’ve never wanted something to stretch on forever so badly. 

Unfortunately, impermanence calls when Alfred—and you know it’s him before he speaks—primly raps his knuckles three times against the door. “Master Dick is stirring. His temperature has dropped.” 

“Finally,” Bruce grumbles. He attempts to pull away but can’t resist another two (or five) quick pecks. “Breakfast for lunch?” 

You smooth your fingers over his head, pressing down the strands that stick out at odd angles from your grip. “Weird, but okay.” 

He calls out, “Alfred, order from that French toast place Dick likes.” 

“Will do, sir.” 

You can practically see the way the butler bows slightly and marches down the hall. Never change, Alfred. 

Bruce glances back at you with glimmering eyes, and his faint smile is too tender to be anything but hopeful, "Stay for dinner, too?" 

You twist your lips, faking pensiveness. “Only if you promise to leave something for me to write about.” 

Wrinkling his nose, he scoffs but makes a point of avoiding your gaze. “When have I ever done that…” 

“Don’t even start.” 

“I'm not,” he chuckles against your lips. It’s signed and sealed with a sweet, chaste kiss.

Oh, your heart sighs in wistful recognition. It’s always been him.

“…Well?” Your grin tilts into something knowingly sweet, all coy challenge and quiet hope. You watch the way his eyes betray him—how they brighten despite himself, how his fingers pause mid-air against the wrapper like they’ve been caught in the act. It’s a small thing, that hesitation, but you see it. You always do.

Red Hood exhales through his nose, a rough little huff meant to pass for indifference. His helmet is half on, and he and you both know you won't tilt your head down to look at the face below it. 

It wasn't ever anything you needed to do.

Your smile only widens, cheeks aching with the effort of holding it back. “Admit it,” you sing softly, sing-song enough to be annoying, gentle enough to be affectionate.

He chews in stubborn silence, jaw working like he’s negotiating terms with his pride. Then, finally—reluctantly—he swallows.

“…It’s,” he starts, pauses, scowls at the burger like it’s betrayed him. “Better than the Bat Burger,” he mutters, the words dragged out like a confession extracted under duress.

Before you can react, he takes another bite, quick and deliberate, eyes suddenly very focused on anything but you. It’s meant to hide the smile threatening at the corner of his mouth.

It doesn’t work.

You light up anyway—bright and unguarded and devastatingly pleased—and Red Hood, for all his practiced resistance, eats faster just to avoid looking at you like that.

“I told you,” you say, already moving, fingers curling around his glass to top it off beneath the soft hiss of the soda machine. Ice clinks gently as the cola rises. “That place is all grease.”

“Hey—well,” Red Hood counters around a mouthful, words muffled but indignant, “your burger doesn’t come with a mini Nightwing figure, does it?”

You snort, setting the glass down beside his plate with a soft thud. “Yeah, and our Coca-Cola doesn’t come with diabetes.”

He shoots you a look over the rim of the glass, something halfway between offense and amusement, before taking another long sip.

It’s late—late enough that the street outside has gone quiet, Gotham settling into that uneasy hush it only ever pretends is sleep. And somehow, impossibly, your diner is still open. The neon sign hums softly in the window, tired but persistent, like it knows better than to give up just because the hour suggests it should.

You only bought the place a few months ago. The few old staff stayed. The old regulars too. You never touched the menu names—just the recipes themselves, quietly fixing what had always been almost good. Making it better. Making it worth something. Worth staying open for.

Three months was all it took to sand down the sharp edges of the place. The tacky ’80s diner aesthetic softened into something warmer, more classic—vinyl booths polished instead of cracked, chrome wiped clean, lights dimmed just enough to feel intentional. People noticed. Families started coming. 

Kids, especially. Which was notable, considering this stretch of Gotham used to belong to grouchy old men who treated your parking lot like their personal smoking lounge. 

You’d heard the whispers, eventually. The way kids talked about the place. Cheap food. Good food. Safe food. And if kids were plotting something on this side of Gotham—really plotting—Red Hood would’ve heard about it long before you did.

You still remember the night you met him.

The crash of shouting. The sound of something metal hitting pavement. You’d stormed out back gripping a frying pan like a weapon, heart in your throat, only to find Red Hood in the middle of it—hauling three wheezing old men toward your trash cans with the casual efficiency of someone cleaning up a mess he didn’t make.

He’d looked at you then, startled, a little wild, like he hadn’t expected backup.

That had been the beginning.

Not quite a partnership.

Definitely not trouble.

Something messier. Something quieter. Something that looked a lot like friendship, even if neither of you ever said that outloud.

If you need to throw out a thug, he made sure you knew who to call.

If he needed somewhere to get actual food and a safe place to rest that asked no questions, he knew where to go.

“Do you think it needs anything?” you ask, already drifting toward the small, dog-eared journal tucked beneath the counter. You flip it open on instinct, pen poised, brows knitting as you scan notes written in different inks, different moods. “Maybe the meat needs more spice,” you murmur. “Or the bread—maybe more salt?”

Red Hood hums thoughtfully, dragging his thumb across his mouth to wipe away a smear of sauce before he answers. “I think it’s perfect,” he says simply. Then, after a beat, softer but no less certain, “Really.”

You still. Just for a moment. Pen hovering mid-air. Considering. Then you sigh—long and put-upon—and Jason has to clamp down hard on the laugh that nearly bursts out of him when you speak again.

“You’d eat slop if I served it to you,” you say flatly. “I don’t even know why I ask.”

He grins, unrepentant. “You’d make good slop.”

You huff, shaking your head as you reach down to adjust your apron, the fabric worn thin and soft with age. It’s part of the uniform—old, faded, clearly meant for someone else entirely. You’ve always assumed the woman it was bought for is long gone now, her shifts and habits stitched into the seams like a quiet ghost.

Still, it fits you well enough.

And Jason watches you tug it straight with an expression that suggests he means every word he said.

“Those guys still bothering you?” he asks after a moment, gaze flicking past you to the clock mounted high on the far wall. Midnight clicks into place with a dull, final little sound. You should be home by now. Instead, you’re here—hovering, unsettled in a way that doesn’t quite match your usual calm.

Your hair has come loose in places, soft strands escaping whatever effort you made to tame it earlier. Your makeup is still neat, but your hands give you away—picking at your nails, worrying at the edges of yourself. Every so often, your eyes dart toward the door like you half-expect the worst of Gotham to stroll in wearing a grin.

His voice pulls you back.

You huff softly, reaching for the rag and giving the counter a swipe that doesn’t really need it. Then another. Anything to keep your hands busy. “Am I not allowed to ask for company?” you say, tone light, almost teasing—carefully casual in the way people are when they’re hoping not to be questioned further.

Jason watches the motion of your hands, the repetitive back-and-forth, before answering. “Didn’t think I’d be the one you’d call for that,” he says. There’s a beat, and then he adds it—quieter, rough around the edges, like he’s bracing for rejection. “Not… that I’m complaining.”

“Better not be.” You chuckle softly.

Red Hood takes another bite of his food, waiting for you to get the courage to answer.

“…Do you think you could walk me home?” you ask after a moment, the words coming a little softer than you mean them to. “Some—some thug came into the parking lot and started cursing and stuff. He was drunk, but, uh—”

“Yeah. I got you.” Red Hood cuts in easily, like the answer was never in doubt. He reaches for the little sauce container, adds more with reckless confidence, and takes another bite. “Is that why you’re bribing me with food?”

You smile, tilting your head as a loose strand of hair slips free and brushes your cheek. “Yeah. Fattening you up so if we get chased, I can run away faster.”

Red Hood snorts around a mouthful. “I could be four hundred pounds and still run faster than you.”

“Well, if I die, you’d probably lose a hundred,” you shoot back, faux-serious. “Who else would let you eat for free?”

Alfred, Jason thinks automatically—but he keeps that to himself. Instead, he swallows, takes a long sip of soda, and says, “Well, we won’t have to worry about that. As long as I’m here, you don’t need to worry about Gotham.” He pauses, glancing down at the burger with sudden scrutiny. “Just worry about the fact that this bread’s a little salty.”

You freeze.

Then you slam your fist into your open palm, eyes lighting up like you’ve struck gold. “I knew it, you liar!”

Red Hood laughs, full and unguarded, and for a moment the night outside the diner feels a little less dangerous.

It’s a few moments later when you hum thoughtfully, gathering his empty plate and glass before he can protest. “Would you like dessert?”

Red Hood huffs, leaning back in the booth. “You really are trying to fatten me up.”

You lift a brow over your shoulder as you push through the door to the back, flicking on the lights and setting the dishes into the sink. Water runs, warm and familiar. “Is that a no?”

“No—ah—” Red Hood pauses, glancing at the clock on the wall. Twenty past one. Too late by any reasonable standard. He raises his voice so it carries. “We should probably get going, no? It’s Saturday tomorrow, and you open early, right?”

“Red,” you call back easily, “do you want vanilla ice cream or chocolate?”

There it is. Complete disregard. Utter dismissal.

It does something to him he doesn't want to admit.

“Cookies and cream,” he answers anyway, resigned, a little breathless. “I know you have some.”

“For me,” you say as you step back out front, drying your hands on your apron.

“For two?” he asks hopefully, batting his lashes with exaggerated flair under the helmet even if you can't see it, clearly joking—until he isn’t. He stops halfway through the bit, like he’s caught himself lowering his guard into a joke without meaning to.

You don’t comment. Even though your stomach flips. Even though you notice. Instead, you keep your tone soft and familiar. “Always,” you murmur. “Even though your portion alone should be for three.”

He laughs, relieved, grateful. Still a bit stiff from the newness of it.

You shake your head fondly, the soft scrape of the scoop against the frozen ice cream loud in the quiet diner, the chill spilling out like a ghost of winter into the dim, yellow glow of the overhead lights. The smell of sugar and cocoa drifts up, a small warmth against the damp bite of Gotham outside.

A bowl of ice cream is made for the both of you, simple, but enough. You hesitate, fingers hovering over the spoons, a hint of nervousness creeping into your chest—would he scoff if you shared one bowl? The thought of having to wash an extra dish wins out, and you set the spoons on either side of one bowl.

Red Hood watches, silent and still, his presence folding the rest of the diner away. All that exists is him, leaning just enough over the counter, eyes catching the lamplight in a way that makes every detail sharper: the worn edges of his gloves, the oil smudges on his jacket, the way his jaw tenses like it’s holding back half the city’s weight.

He waits, quiet, letting you take your seat first. Then he finally reaches for a spoon, the motion deliberate, slow, a ritual that keeps the moment suspended.

You take a small bite, letting the cold sweet coat your tongue before speaking. “I gotta ask…how do you get around? That motorcycle…really yours?”

Jason pauses mid-chew, eyes narrowing like he’s calculating how much to reveal. “Yeah…? What? You don’t like my girl?”

“Nah,” you answer lightly, letting the corners of your lips lift in a small smile, “just thought you were a broke ass like me. God, she doesn’t deserve to be ridden in Gotham.”

He smirks, leaning closer just enough for the overhead light to catch the sharp line of his cheekbone. “Hey. I’m a very high-class man,” he says, letting the words hang, watching the way your gaze runs over the dirt and oil-streaked leather, the fraying edges of his gloves, the faint scar on the sliver of skin that is his wrist. Mhm. Very high class. “And she loves it over here.”

You sigh, another bite of ice cream melting slowly in your mouth. The fluorescent lights flicker slightly overhead, casting long shadows across the linoleum floor and bouncing off the chrome edges of the counter. “She’d be the first. You should get locks. Some kid might try to snatch off the tires.”

Jason’s hand freezes mid-spoon, eyes flicking to yours. For a second, disbelief and something sharper—shock, maybe, or a hint of incredulity—crosses his form, quickly masked by that careful, practiced smirk. “…They still do that here?”

“Mhm…” You lift your spoon, letting a bit of cookie crumble fall into the bowl with a soft plop. “…Caught a kid last week trying to get the wheels off my car.” Your voice softens, fondness creeping into it without meaning to.

Jason is quiet for a beat, and you can almost feel the weight of the pause in the space between you. “…What…what did you do?”

You look up at him, eyes a little surprised, but then soften into a small smile, warm and patient. “Come on, Red. It’s me,” you murmur, brushing a stray lock of hair behind your ear. “I gave him ice cream and some money from the tip jar. Told him if he started taking out the trash for me every day, I’d give him five bucks each time.”

A low noise escapes Jason, something between disbelief and amusement, and you can’t tell if it’s admiration or something else. “I think…you’re overpaying him. The trash can is like twenty feet away from the back of the building.”

“He bought a new jacket last week,” you say, soft, savoring the memory like a small victory. “A new jacket and a set of pencils for school. He did his homework in the employees’ changing room. I think I’m paying him just fine.”

Jason leans back slightly, chair legs scraping faintly against the diner’s linoleum floor, his spoon hovering mid-air. “If I ever caught a kid flicking my tires, I’d just teach them how to do it faster and give him a lollipop if they finished in under two minutes. If your not quick enough the bats come bite your toes you know? Tell the bedtime store to every little thief I find."

You groan, rolling your eyes so hard you almost see the reflection in the laminated counter, before scooping another bite of ice cream. “This is why you’re single.”

Red Hood freezes, the spoon halfway to his mouth, his posture stiffening like he’s just been called out in front of the entire city. “What does that—where did that—how did you get to that conclusion?”

It’s times like these you remember just how much he’s able to calm you down, how he’s able to soak the tiredness of the day off your skin like a sponge.

How much you crave him for it.

You stare at him blankly, deliberately slow, watching the fluorescent light catch the edges of the helmet and throw shadows over his sharp angles. “Did you hear anything you just said?”

He exhales, a small puff of frustration escaping, voice low and clipped. “Whatever…I’m married to work. People there think my stories are funny.”

“Oh?” You tilt your head, the soft diner light reflecting in your eyes, batting your lashes in that way you know makes him shift uncomfortably, “And pray tell, Red…what work do you exactly do?”

Jason hesitates, hand still frozen over the ice cream spoon. “…Gotham Child Services?”

You nod solemnly, taking the last bite, the cool sweetness lingering on your tongue. “That explains the guns.”

Red Hood sighs, the sound muffled and rough through the helmet as he tucks it back down over his chin. “Never win with you, do I? Fine. Drug lord. Nice one though. I got lollipops.”

You hum, the quiet warmth of the diner lights catching your hair as you coo, “Hmm…let’s see how much you tip me for my service and I’ll think about letting your ego win the ride home.” You rise, swiftly walking to the kitchen to let the bowl soak in the sink.

“Ride home? Thought we were walking,” Jason chuckles, the sound low, careful, as he watches you move back toward him. He stays still, gloved hands resting on his knees, tracking the sway of your hips, the way your fingers brush the countertop.

He’s quiet as you slip past him to grab your coat from the wall, the soft rustle of fabric punctuating the silence between you. The faint click of the buttons makes his chest tighten, and he doesn’t even try to hide the way his helmet tilts just slightly, betraying how intently he’s watching.

You tug your coat over your shoulders, the fur brushing your neck and falling across your arms.

You walk back to him, never leaving him for too long.

When your hands press to each pocket of his jacket, your fingers pressing into the leather over his chest. He lets out a small, embarrassed noise, more instinct than intention. Red Hood freezes for just a moment, the weight of your touch lingering longer than it should. “What pocket has the lollipops?” you hum softly, watching his helmet tilt with the subtlest of hesitations. You can’t see his eyes, but you feel them on you anyway, the tension pulling tight across the space between you.

“…Took five from home and gave five out. You’re a few hours late…” Red Hood mumbles, voice raspy as always, but now just slightly warmer, more human under the helmet.

“…So you have more at home?” You tilt your head, letting a strand of hair fall over your shoulder as your fingers press lightly into the leather of his chest again.

“Uh…” His gloved hand moves, brushing yours for just a moment, the frayed edge of leather tickling your wrist. The contact is electric, and he doesn’t pull away, just holds it, letting the tension thrum in the small space between you.

“Red.” You mumble, voice soft, low, something more intimate than teasing.

“Yeah?” He rasps back, shifting slightly as if the small movement might let him breathe without panic.

“You suck at flirting.”

“…Cute girl wants a lollipop from me.” His voice cracks slightly, awkward under the helmet, and the way he says it makes the space feel smaller, warmer, more charged.

You chuckle softly, the sound small but deliberate, filling the quiet air around you. “Red. I don’t want a lollipop.”

“Nah?” He mumbles gently, and you catch the faint tilt of his head, the shift of weight in his shoulders. “But they are the expensive kind Ma’am, I didn’t cheap out.”

“Oh?” You hum, letting your gaze soften, your fingers brushing just over the patch of exposed neck under his helmet. “So you do like sweets.”

Jason grins, faint and almost imperceptible, hoping you can sense it even under the mask. “Hey, you are what you eat.”

Your hand slides up from his chest to that sliver of exposed skin on his neck, the warmth so close you can feel it through the thin fabric. Your fingers trace carefully, teasingly, across the soft curve there.

He shifts slightly, leaning toward your touch even as his mind protests.

“Bet you’d taste sweet, then.”

“Wouldn’t you like to know.” He whispers back, voice low, soft, close enough that you can feel it in your chest.

His hand twitches, almost involuntarily, brushing against your wrist.

jason peter todd tag-list (check pinned post for info on how to be added .ᐟ ) : @justamarsbar, @peridotnature854, @nayy-a, @that-willowtree, @kekeanna266, @i-gotta-go-so-much-bigger, @theonlysakura, @givemefinganame, @theonlyshowgirl, @melllzz, @strawbrysapphic, @nightlights-and-twiklingstars, @tasia13, @foivetimesacharm, @noble-17, @celestialend,@superuddertrash-blog, @revesephemeres, @redhooduwu, @themessedupsonata

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His face is a map of healed disasters—thin white lines cutting through his brows, the faint pucker near his jaw, the uneven texture along his cheekbone where skin never quite settled back into what it was meant to be. There was a time when even the thought of hair growing there felt impossible. He remembers the chemical sting, remembers laughter echoing too loud in a warehouse that smelled like rust and rot and something sweetly corrosive.

The Joker had called it “light acid.”

As if acid could ever be light.

As if anything about it had been.

After that, hair just… didn’t grow. Not where it should have. Not where other boys his age complained about patchy beards and uneven sideburns and the awkward in-between stage of becoming something older.

Jason never got that stage.

He went from boy to broken and skipped the mundane humiliations in between.

Until now.

At twenty-two, standing barefoot in front of the narrow bathroom mirror in his apartment in Gotham City, Jason Todd squints at his reflection and feels something dangerously close to disbelief.

There is hair there.

Not much. Not thick. But there. Real.

Dark stubble shadows his jaw, uneven and stubborn, catching the early gray light filtering in through the frosted window. He drags his thumb over it once, slow, like he expects it to come away empty.

It doesn’t.

The memory surfaces uninvited—your voice last night, half-breathless and laughing when you pulled him back just enough to complain that it was itchy, that it scratched when he was feasting on you like he hadn’t eaten in days. You’d swatted at his shoulder and told him to shave.

It hadn’t been an attempt to redirect your mouth onto him for once like he thought.

Not that time.

“Oh, god,” he mutters now, staring harder at the mirror.

He looks dreadful.

That’s the numb, dawning realization settling into him as he takes in the rest. The hollows beneath his eyes are darker than usual, bruised crescents that no amount of sleep seems to erase. His nose looks a little more crooked than he swears it did yesterday. His hair—thick, black, unruly—is sticking up at impossible angles like he lost a fight with his pillow and didn’t bother winning.

He leans closer.

At least his skin looks better.

That part softens something in him.

You had noticed it two nights ago when he complained, voice rough and embarrassed, about it feeling irritated again—too tight, too sensitive along the old scar tissue. You hadn’t teased him. You  just disappeared into the bathroom and came back with that stupidly expensive face cream you insist on buying, the one that smells faintly of lavender and something warm.

He grumbled the whole time.

You ignored him the whole time.

In the dark, your fingers had worked carefully over his face—gentle where the scars pull, slower along the places that still ache when the weather shifts. You’d murmured nonsense into the quiet, soft praise and softer affection, lips brushing his temple between instructions to stop fidgeting. He remembers the weight of you leaning over him, the warmth of your thighs against his hips, the way your thumbs smoothed over his brow like you were trying to iron out something deeper than irritated skin.

Jason had fallen asleep like that.

Just like that.

He doesn’t remember the moment it happened. Just remembers waking up tangled in you and the faint trace of lavender still clinging to him.

“I knew it was hair!”

Your voice slices cleanly through his thoughts.

He flinches slightly before catching himself, then groans under his breath as you pad into the bathroom behind him, bare feet silent against the hardwood.

You look like you crawled straight out of a dream.

Your hair is down and messy, falling around your shoulders in soft disarray, catching the light in uneven strands. You’re wearing one of his old shirts—swallowed by it—and a pair of his pajama pants that you bought him, the drawstring pulled tight and the hems cuffed four times so they don’t drag. The fabric hangs off you like you belong in it.

Like you belong here.

You slide your arms around his waist from behind without hesitation, pressing your front to his back, warmth seeping into him instantly. You get on your tip toes as your chin settles on his shoulder, cheek brushing the rough edge of his newly grown stubble as you peer at his reflection with open curiosity.

“Jason, baby…” you murmur, studying him in the mirror like he’s something precious and slightly ridiculous.

He snorts softly, but his hands come up automatically to rest over yours where they’re clasped against his stomach. His thumbs trace absent circles over your knuckles.

“You loooove it,” he says, stretching the word with heavy sarcasm, though there’s something almost hopeful beneath it.

You hum, pretending to consider it.

One of your hands slips free and moves up to his face, fingers squishing his cheek gently, testing the scratch of the stubble. Your nose wrinkles.

“Hmm,” you decide, lips twitching. “It's itchy. And the last thing I need is irritation down there.”

Jason exhales through his nose, long and slow, the sound vibrating faintly in his chest before it escapes him.

Mock-offended. Almost dignified about it.

“I don’t have a razor,” he says after another indulgent second of you squishing his cheeks like he’s something soft and manageable instead of what he usually is. His words come out slightly warped beneath your fingers. “And it’s a holiday… stores won’t be open.”

The apartment is quiet in that sacred, late-morning way—sunlight slipping through the blinds in thin golden blades that cut across tile and skin alike, dust motes suspended lazily in their glow as if even they have decided to rest. 

Somewhere outside, a car door slams. Distant chatter echoes up from the street. Gotham City hums in the background like a beast half-asleep, never fully docile, but quieter than usual.

“I use a men’s razor,” you mumble thoughtfully, as if you’re offering him a piece of gum instead of a shared blade. “Wanna use that? I can disinfect it.”

He stills.

It’s subtle—the way his shoulders lift and hold, the way his fingers pause against your wrist—but you feel it. You always feel it. There are certain silences in him that aren’t empty; they’re crowded. This is one of them.

“I…” he starts, and the word drags.

Jason Todd does not drag words. He fires them. He sharpens them. He uses them like tools or weapons, depending on the need. But now it comes out slower, almost shy, like something young and unsure has briefly surfaced beneath the hardened edges.

“I don’t know how to shave,” he admits finally, gaze dropping to the sink like it’s suddenly fascinating. “Even… before… uh. It didn’t really grow.”

He doesn’t elaborate.

He doesn’t have to.

The space after before is heavy, but you don’t reach for it. You don’t pry it open with sympathy or soften it with apology. You simply hum, soft and thoughtful, and unwind your arms from around him to open the mirror cabinet above the sink.

“Why now?” you murmur, mostly to yourself.

The hinge creaks faintly as it swings open, bottles clinking together like small glass wind chimes. You reach for the razor with easy certainty, as if you’ve already decided the answer to that question doesn’t matter nearly as much as what you’re going to do next.

Jason watches you through the mirror.

Why now?

It’s the same reason he’s gained weight—real weight, not the kind born of muscle and vigilance, but something warmer, something earned in kitchens and late-night takeout and meals he didn’t force himself to finish out of obligation. There’s a softness now at his lower belly, subtle but undeniable, a gentle curve where there used to be only rigid lines and constant tension. His shoulders still carry power, his arms still know violence, but his body no longer looks like it’s bracing for impact every second.

He thinks his body is learning how to be happy again.

Like an animal stepping cautiously out of a trap long after the jaws have opened.

Like soil finally allowed to grow something instead of just endure.

He doesn’t say that.

“Maybe it’s because you’re always slathering me in your fancy stuff,” he deflects instead, a quiet chuckle warming the edges of his voice as he flicks the toilet seat closed with his foot and lowers himself onto it. “It probably shocked my face back to life.”

You glance at him over your shoulder, amused, sunlight catching in the loose fall of your hair.

Jason sits there completely naked, utterly unguarded in a way that still feels new enough to be fragile.

The light doesn’t hide anything. It travels openly across him—over the scars that ladder his torso, the uneven patches of skin that never healed quite right, the pale lines and darker ones, the geography of damage that used to make him want to flinch away from mirrors entirely. There was a time he would have layered himself in clothing even alone, as if fabric could soften history.

But you didn’t run.

The first time you saw him like this, you hadn’t looked horrified or pitying. You’d looked curious. Careful. Your fingers had traced each scar like you were reading braille, mapping him not as something broken, but as something survived. You kissed him afterward the same way you always did—no hesitation, no recalibration.

If you didn’t run from that, he doubts you’ll run from stubble.

You step back toward him now, razor in hand, a small towel draped over your arm like you’re about to perform something sacred and slightly ridiculous. The scent of your soap lingers faintly, mixed with steam from the sink you’ve just run warm water into.

“C’mere,” you murmur. 

You nudge his knees apart gently and step between them, the casual intimacy of it making something low in his stomach tighten. Your warmth bleeds into him. He instinctively rests his hands at your hips, thumbs pressing lightly into the soft fabric pooled there.

“This feels like a trap,” Jason mutters, but his voice lacks conviction.

You smile down at him—slow, fond, almost reverent—and press your thumb to his jaw, tilting his face slightly so the light catches the uneven stubble.

“Relax,” you say softly. “I’ll take care of you.”

The words aren’t dramatic, and aren't grand. But they land in him like something holy.

He tilts his chin up, obedient in a way he never is with anyone else, trusting you with the vulnerable line of his throat. Your touch is deliberate but tender, as if you’re handling something both fragile and fierce.

You rinse the razor under warm water first, testing the temperature against your wrist the way you always do with anything that’s going to touch him. Steam curls faintly into the air, softening the sharp morning light and turning the bathroom into something gentler, almost hazy. When you open the shaving cream, the scent—clean, subtle, faintly medicinal—mixes with the lavender still clinging to his skin from the night before and fills his senses.

Jason smells like you. He thinks numbly.

“Hold still,” you murmur.

He huffs softly. “I am holding still.”

“You’re flexing.”

“I am not—”

“You are,” you insist, smiling a little as your fingers press into his jaw, encouraging him to unclench.

He forces his shoulders to drop.

Jason isn’t used to being handled like this. In training, contact is correction—forceful, precise, meant to overpower. In fights, it’s impact—bruising, brutal, survival measured in split seconds. Even affection, in most corners of his life, is clapped onto backs or ruffled through hair, rough-edged and fleeting.

But this?

This is his hot girlfriend taking care of him. 

You spread the shaving cream slowly, fingertips gliding over his jaw, working it into the uneven terrain of scar tissue and smoother skin alike. You’re meticulous about it, smoothing the foam into the curve beneath his cheekbone, along the sharp line of his jaw, over the stubborn patch just beneath his lower lip.

Your touch changes when you reach the scars.

Not hesitant. Not afraid.

Just attentive.

You adjust the pressure instinctively, tracing the raised line near his chin with your thumb before coating it gently. Jason watches your face instead of the mirror now. The focus there. The way your brows knit in concentration. The small crease that forms between them when you’re trying to get something exactly right.

“You don’t have to look at me like I’m hurt and you need to patch me up,” he mutters.

You glance up at him through your lashes. "I'm not. I'd prefer that right now. At least you sit still when I patch you up.”

He snorts quietly despite himself.

The razor touches his skin for the first time.

It’s a soft, almost inaudible scrape. A delicate drag that removes the shadow in a clean stripe, revealing pale skin beneath. You move slowly, rinsing the blade after each careful stroke, watching for any sign of discomfort.

Jason feels it more than he expected to.

Not pain—just awareness. The sensation of something being removed. Of change happening in real time. 

That sounds dramatic. He scolds himself in his own head. It's just hair. Hair he would have died to grow when he was seven and desperate to be tall enough to steal from the top shelf.

The warm water trickles down his neck in thin lines when you wipe away excess foam, your fingers following to catch it before it drips too far.

He swallows once when you tilt his head slightly to the side, exposing more of his throat.

“You trust me?” you ask lightly, but there’s something real beneath it.

He doesn’t hesitate this time.

“Yeah.”

The answer is simple. Immediate.

Your thumb rests just below his ear as you guide the razor along the sensitive stretch of skin near his jawline. The intimacy of it hums between you, quiet but undeniable. He can feel your breath ghosting across his cheek. 

His hands, which had been resting loosely at your waist, slide upward without thinking. One settles at your lower back, palm spreading there. The other drifts higher, fingers grazing the fabric at your ribs, tracing the outline of you through cotton.

You pause when you reach the faintly discolored patch near the corner of his jaw—the place where the skin never quite grew back the same.

“Does this one still feel tight?” you ask softly.

“Sometimes,” he admits.

You don’t comment on it. You just adjust the angle of the razor and move even slower, barely any pressure at all, your other hand steadying his face with gentle firmness.

Jason’s eyes close for a second.

He lets them.

There’s something almost reverent about the way you do this. Like you’re not just shaving him, but tending to him. Like this small, ordinary act is a way of saying: I see all of it. I’m not afraid of any of it.

When you finally finish one side, you lean back slightly to inspect your work, head tilting.

“Look at that,” you murmur. “Sexy jawline coming back.”

“Never left,” Jason says automatically with a shit eating grin.

You grin. “Sure, baby.”

You rinse the razor again, then shift to the other side, fingers brushing through the faint shadow still there. The bathroom is quiet except for the sound of running water and the soft rhythm of your breathing mingling with his.

He watches you again.

The way your hair falls forward over your shoulder and nearly brushes his chest before you tuck it back absentmindedly. The way you don’t seem to notice how intimate this is—how your hands cradle his face like something precious.

When you’re done, you wipe the last traces of foam away with the warm towel, pressing it gently along his jaw, then down his throat.

“There,” you whisper.

You smooth your palm over his cheek, testing it. Your thumb lingers at the corner of his mouth.

“Much better.”

Jason turns his face slightly into your hand.

The movement is instinctive. Almost feline.

He looks at himself in the mirror again.

The stubble is gone. The scars remain. The crooked nose. The tired eyes.

But there’s something different in the way he’s sitting. Less guarded. Less braced. Like he isn’t waiting for the mirror to betray him.

He slides both arms fully around your waist now and pulls you closer until your hips press flush against his chest. He rests his forehead against your sternum, exhaling slowly, breathing you in.

“You’re gonna make me soft,” he mutters against your skin.

Your fingers comb gently through his messy hair, nails scratching lightly at his scalp.

“Thats the goal,” you say.

And for once, the idea doesn’t sound like a threat.

jason peter todd tag-list : @justamarsbar, @peridotnature854, @nayy-a, @that-willowtree, @kekeanna266, @i-gotta-go-so-much-bigger, @theonlysakura, @givemefinganame, @theonlyshowgirl, @melllzz, @strawbrysapphic, @nightlights-and-twiklingstars, @tasia13, @foivetimesacharm, @noble-17, @celestialend,@superuddertrash-blog, @revesephemeres, @redhooduwu, @themessedupsonata

Im gonna be honest I had a shit day and this felt like the only was I could talk to someone lmao don't got any other method, don't take this as me coming back frfr cus people are mean here too

(｡ᵕ ◞ _◟)

Defeat crumpled the frustration that was keeping Craig wound-up and tense. It unravelled from his rigid spine first, slumping him forward until his shoulders went with it. He looked deflated and at a loss. Like a dog at Deran’s doorstep, his spoils of the hunt rejected.

“She could at least give him a call, man,” he sighed dolefully, scratching at the tufts on the nape of his neck. “I know he’s not her responsibility or whatever, but they were in love, weren’t they? That’s gotta count for something.”

It counted for everything.

Deran knew that. Knew you. Knew you still had parts of Pope etched into you so deeply that it reached bone. That you most likely would drop whatever you were doing if he were to pick up the phone and tell you about just how bad things had gotten since you and his biggest brother called it quits—since he twisted that knife in you for the last time that you could stomach and sent you packing from Baz’s place.

That’s the kind of woman you were. The kind of soft-hearted, tender person that he probably should’ve severed himself from years ago but Deran was almost as selfish with you as Pope had been. You’d loved Pope like your skin was uncalloused for the sake of his rough fingers to press dents into. Like your blood’s sweet for him to lap at with his doglike, wounded tongue. Like you were made for him.

You’d loved Deran first—not in the same way, not with your mouth breathing pretty things into his like you did with Pope to calm him down. But you were the first person outside of that nightmarish house of horrors and chlorine-burn and swollen bruises that treated him like a kid and not some burly knucklehead like the rest of his brothers. The two of you bonded over a shared love for surfing and Marlboro Golds. Yours was the first shoulder he’d cried onto after he realised that he loved you—God, he loved the bones of you—but there was something missed that he only really felt when he was with Adrian.

You made his childhood bearable. Deran owed you.

He should’ve kept Pope far away from you as soon as he saw those blown pupils of his, that tell-tale sign that his big brother found another thing to obsess over. But by the time he realised that it was more than some depraved fixation he had, you were already in deep right with him. Submerged in it, in fact. In him. Nursing his wounds like it was goddamn second-nature and kissing the cuts on his knuckles like an anchorite. Until Pope’s eyes were all pupil—not a glimpse of hickory or sun-bleached gold to comb out. He was a goner, and so were you, and it was too late for Deran then to save you.

It wasn’t too late now.

So he shook his head at Craig, feeling all kinds of guilty—like a Cain-figure almost, knowing Pope was at home pummelling his fists against a punching bag and yearning for the one thing he couldn’t have. Then he lifted his shoulders, truly sorry for their oldest brother, but thinking only of the salty sea air and the pigtailed girl who first called him friend.

“Sorry, Craig. But I ain’t asking her to do shit for him.”

Pope would never expect it of you anyway.

Deran knew that. Hell, Craig knew that. If Deran's made some angel out of you from the bloodied cloth of his fonder childhood memories, then whatever Pope has done to you in his head could only be described as idolatry.

Ever since he was a kid, he'd had a complicated relationship with religion. But Pope would've lived on his knees at your feet for the rest of your life if you'd only asked. He thinks of you every time he finds himself on them—in the ring, straddling the brawny waist of some bull-headed asshole, beating the shit out of his face until there's only meat left. It's not quite the on-the-knees worship he was used to when he thought of you. Absent of the draping of your legs over his shoulders as he lapped you up like holy water. These pieces of shit never had their hands in his curls the way your pretty fingers did, pulling and tugging, their grunts nowhere near as sweet as your airy sighs of Andrew Andrew Andrew as he calls you honey, 'cause he swears you taste like it.

Fuck, he'd live with his knees permanently bruised. Hiding the grimace whenever they clicked so he could take you apart, again and again, until it's his mouth doing the unravelling and only his mouth that can put you back together.

It's not just the sex he misses, though. Pope's relationship with intimacy was almost as twisted and depraved as the one he had with God.

(You're the cure in both equations—the doe-eyed salvation to the chronic soft dick he suffered with after prison and the tremble he got in his hands when praying).

He misses everything. Coming home from a job to you and Lena cuddled up under a scratchy blanket, Powerpuff Girls still on the television as her head lolled sleepily on your shoulder and your fingers absently carded through her thick curls. Misses the smell of your skin, all sun-soaked and coconut-drenched from the cream he'd lather generously over you just to get a touch. You'd play with his hair most nights. He'd curl up almost embryonic on your lap and murmur nonsense into the flimsiness of your sleep-shorts, playing with a loose thread as you play with his curls. The two of you comforted with the knowledge that, just down the hall, Lena was fast asleep. In the morning, it would be more of this sickly domesticity—sweet Lena wincing at the saccharine orange juice through the spearmint of her toothpaste, giggling as Pope made a similar face after making the same mistake. You'd plate them both fruit and pancakes, kissing Lena's temple, Pope's mouth (you'd join in on the gag, grimacing at the sourness of the OJ), and sit down at the little table to eat with them.

For a brief, anguishing, gorgeous time, Pope had a life. Had a family. Had a little girl who needed him and a good woman that wanted him.

Now, he was back to nothing. Back to Smurf. May was well crawl back into her barren womb to rot there with the rest of her bile and hate. After all, he and Julia were just the sorry afterbirths of all Smurf's worst parts. He should just return to that nasty, darkened matter—be where he belonged.

Since that was biologically impossible, Pope settled for the next best punishment. The house.

He'd made love to you for the first time in this place. Not in this room where he rots now. In his room. In his bed. Arms bracketing your delicate head as you whimpered at the size of him. He'd been shaky and as nervous as a virgin. Damn near blew his load as soon as you hooked your legs around his waist, ankles digging into the dimples at the small of his spine and hands groping at the freckled meat of his shoulders to coax him deeper. To bring him in home to you.

That room's not his anymore. Neither are you, so it felt fitting. It also felt fitting to serve his time in this room—the one Smurf had decorated for Lena. Walls smeared in lilac and other posters for a little girl that was living on a nicer side of town now. Wardrobe still pink with tagged clothes. His limbs ached from being cramped up on the tiny, twin-sized mattress. He deserved it though. Same as how he deserved the contusions on his ribs and the split-lip. The purplish shiner over his left eye is just as needed as the taunting lettering of his niece's name on the untouched wardrobe. All of this—the room, the house, Smurf's meatloaf, his haunted old room down the hall—serves as a reminder to what he's lost. What he let get away.

Pope sat on the edge of the bed. Spine rigid. Palms flat against his thighs. Light imbuing through gauzy curtains. The lavender paint shines like bluebells in springtime.

"Pope."

Smurf. He had his back to her but he could already picture her hip against the doorframe and that viper-like sharpness in her eyes. Like she wants to cut him open and eat him alive.

"You can't sit in here forever, baby..."

Yeah? Fucking watch him.

Pope merely let his chin graze his shoulder in a halfhearted attempt at acknowledging her, and said, "M'fine."

"When you let those people take Lena, I didn't think that meant I wouldn't be seeing your girl around here anymore either?" Prison must've took it out of Smurf, because the faux-concern was just rubbing salt into his many wounds. Or maybe Pope could just see right through her now. "Where is Honey, Andrew? I didn't realise her and Lena were a package deal."

That sucker-punched him. Didn't realise? Lena would've clung to your hip until she went off to college if she could. And you would've let her. Even when her limbs got too gangly and your knees as creaky as his. You loved that kid. And Lena loved you.

She was fawn-eyed and doleful the day they first took her away. You'd cried yourself sick. Pope had to hold back your hair. (He promised he'd get her back. Promised he'd do anything to bring her home. Even said, mouth heavy and wanting against yours—all apologetic and grieving—that he'd give you a baby of your own, too. Give Lena a little sister...In a way, he had. Just not with your eyes).

"Andrew," Smurf said sternly, "I'm talking to you, baby."

Pope sucked in a trembly breath. "She's gone, Smurf. We're done. She left."

There was a beloved beat of silence when she didn't say anything at all. Pope relished in it. Thanked God for it. Thought of you and the comfortable silences you'd give him.

Until, "Because of Lena?"

"Because of me. I ruined it. I lost Lena. I got angry and stupid. So she left," he said scathingly; not angry at you, but needing to spit the words out else he'd lose them in his throat.

"Well, that ain't on you, baby. I don't think it's very fair of her to leave you over something that wasn't in your hands," mused Smurf. "Why don't you ask Deran where she is? I'm sure your brother wouldn't mind—"

"She left me," he interjected, voice cracking down the middle like a wishbone. "She don't want nothing to do with me. I ain't gonna—" Pope wrenched his eyes shut, balling his hands into his fists on his knees and trying to think of your sweet perfume to calm him down. It just made his chest throb. "I don't wanna chase her 'round town, begging her to take me back. She deserves better, same as Lena."

The two of you should be together still, he thought miserably. Maybe not in Baz's—too many ghosts, too much hurt. Pope ruined that place, same as he ruins everything.

But somewhere else where Lena could hear the sea, with not a glimpse of pink. She didn't like pink. But she liked you, and she liked the sea, and the two of you would've been happy together. Orange juice in the mornings and Powerpuff Girls at night. Seashells on Lena's nightstand and her drawings on yours. You'd braid her hair before school; maybe she'd even start to enjoy it with you taking care of her—maybe she'd have friends 'round for sleepovers, and you'd cook for them. Lovely and motherly in a frilly apron. The two of you wouldn't have to wait up for him. You'd have a whole bed to yourself, no tortured man attaching himself to you like a sad appendage, mumbling into the hollow of your neck.

Instead, Lena lived with strangers. Kind enough ones. She had a swing-set. A sister. She couldn't hear the waves from her room anymore, but the beach wasn't too far.

Did she think of you? Did she dream of you, like Pope did?

Did you dream of him?

The tequila left your throat raw and cheeks warm. Salt lingered on your tongue, the acidity of the lime wedge neutralising the burn.

You were in your nicest dress. God knows why, or for whom. You'd told yourself in the mirror that it was for you, but you so detached from your sense of self lately that it felt hollow and wrong to say that. The hem had ridden up to your upper-thigh, exposing the bare lengths of your legs and a tinkering anklet Pope used to kiss when he fucked you in a mating press.

Deran's bar looked almost garish through the lenses of your drunken, droopy eyes. Your chin was lolled in your palm, elbow perched on the sticky bar, about to slip and knock over your empty shot glass.

"If you don't start to look alive real soon, I'm cutting you off," your best friend drawled as he used a dishcloth to dry out a pint glass.

"You wouldn't," you said childishly, challenging him with the sloppy jilt of your chin and a scowl.

Deran arched a single brow at you. "Yeah. Yeah, I would."

"Well, look—" you perked up, folding both arms out in front of you on the bar surface and giving him your most dazzling smile, "I'm alive. And ready for another!"

"Jesus. Look at 'ya, Honey. You're ready for bed, not tequila."

You hiccupped in offence. "Bed? Bed? You promised me a distraction—a night out! You can't—hik!—" you cringed, "can't expect me to just go home and sleep! C'mon, Der, you're meant to be cheering me up not bumming me out."

"He does that, Honey," a sympathetic voice said from behind you, all cocksure but familiar enough to warm your tender, drunk heart.

Delighted, you spun around to smile up at Craig. He towered over you, his hair loose and dishevelled around his rugged face. He grinned crookedly at your dazed, beaming expression and the askew nature of your flimsy dress.

"Hey, Craig," you said sweetly.

"Hey, Honey." He lowered himself into the barstool next to you, still towering, and tauntingly hooked a finger through your fallen strap to slide it back up to your shoulder. He settled it down with a patronising pat before signalling Deran to grab him a beer. "How long you been here, huh? You look wasted."

"Am—hik!—not!" you protested, indignant.

"Yeah," he laughed, "sure." He took the beer from Deran, feeling it sweat into his hand. "Thanks, bro. Put it on my tab, yeah?"

Deran didn't look too pleased to see him. "Your tab."

"Yeah. My tab."

"What are you doing here, Craig?" he sighed.

"I'm here to see my favourite girl, duh," he replied affably, bumping his shoulder with yours. You blushed, a bit girlish in your drunken state. "Where you been, Honey? We don't see you 'round the house no more."

Deran's jaw tightened. "Craig."

"What? I'm only asking," his brother said innocently, blinking back at you and the fresh, forlorn frown that downturned your lips into a shiny pout. "I miss you, s'all. And your bikinis..."

"I just... Andrew and I, we're..." Your brain felt like mush. As liquid and sour as the tequila still burning in your throat. You felt yourself sway a little, slumping into the hard ledge of the bar. "I don't think it's fair of me be there, y'know? Not when he's living there again."

It killed you when Deran told you that Pope had moved back into the family home. You'd thought you'd saved him from all of that. At the very least, if he wanted nothing to do with you anymore, you figured he'd still keep his independence from that place. That woman.

You'd had a home together, the two of you. Lena, three. Well, it was Baz and Cath's place first. You didn't intend on staying forever, just until you found someplace else where Lena could hear the sea. But it had been a home, for all intents and purposes. The place you'd spent the better part of a year with two of your favourite people—eating breakfast, teaching Lena fractions, nursing Pope's wounds (the kind that bled and the kind that only you could reach).

Naively, you'd thought you'd shown him a world that existed without Smurf, violence, and all that generational hurt. But as soon as the two of you called it quits, he went right back to it. To butchering himself for her. To bleeding for her. He probably smells of chlorine again these days. That had faded when he was with you. The artificial tang of the pool had been exchanged for saline and the faint, sweet warmth of sun-cream. That was no doubt gone now. He presumably didn't give a second thought to protecting his skin, nor any other part of himself.

Your beautiful boy, all covered in scars and butterfly-stitches and yellowing bruises.

"Hey," said Deran gently, crouching a little so he was at eye-level with you, "we don't gotta talk about him, Honey. You don't even need to think about him. C'mon, I'll pour you another drink."

And so he did. Then another. And another. Then a mai tai, complete with a gaudy umbrella and a maraschino cherry.

You were sipping it through a red straw, barely keeping upright. The rest of the bar had cleared and you had no idea what time it was. Your dress was even more higher on your thighs now, and you were pretty sure that the wrong turn on the barstool would have you flashing your underwear. Luckily, it was just you, Deran, and Craig—the two of them taking it turns swigging from the bottle of rum that Deran used to make your cocktail.

“—hey,” you blurted, almost sputtering on your drink as you swivelled round to slap a hand down on Craig’s shoulder, “how’s J? I haven’t seen him since, like, well—you know…but how is he? Is he—with Smurf being home—I worry—“

“J’s fine,” Craig swept in, sounding a bit disgruntled. “Kind of thinks he rules the roost now, but whatever.”

You shrugged, indifferent and half-pleased. “He’s a smart kid. I think if you give him the chance—hik!—he could make you legit.”

Craig and Deran exchanged a thoughtful, collusive look over your droopy head until the latter reached over for your tumbler glass and gave the melting ice-cubes a shake.

“Refill?” he mumbled, already going for the bottle of orange curaçao.

You smiled at him blissfully, the muscles in your face stretching out. “Sure.”

So you had another mai tai. Then, a Long Island. You were halfway down it by the time your vision started to go starry and muted-white. Everything went off-kilter. Craig became a burly blur of shoulder-length locks and a concerned frown, then the both of them were ushering you to the bathroom, saying your name and putting brotherly arms around your shoulders. Deran’s hand gathered your hair back but it wasn’t anything like Pops’s, neither was Craig’s as it rubbed halfhearted circles between your shoulders as you hacked up your guts.

Acid, bile, and self-resentment stared back at you, splattered across ceramic along with the remnants of that candied cherry. Soon you were heaving again—half-sobbing into the bowl, mumbling nonsense, mumbling for Pope. It’s like prayers.

“Shit…” cursed Deran, after about your third bout of throwing-up and no sign of reprieve. He kept one hand bunching your hair into a makeshift ponytail as he used the other to miserably rub down his stubbly jawbone. “Fuck it. Craig, call him.”

“Bro, call who? She’s—dude, she’s like, wasted. She’s probably gonna need her stomach pumped or some shit—“

“Pope, man,” Deran snarled through his teeth, smacking Craig on the chest with the backs of his knuckles. “Calling fucking Pope!”

Craig was out of the bathroom like a bullet. Deran, however, stayed with you. He always would. Promised it as kids when the both of you were still missing teeth. He even crouched down next to you, smearing his thumb over your dewy cheekbone to collect a sorrowful tear that had fell from your welling waterline.

It killed his heart to see your bottom lip wobble at the tenderness. How long was it since you last felt a scrap of affection? When you were both young, you’d each yearned for soft touches equally like dogs for a bone. Sniffing around at each other’s frail ankles like hungry sparrow-hawks around carrion.

Deran loved you. Loved the bones of you. He’d said it before and he’ll keep it saying. He needs you like you’re a rib inside of him. An iron lung. To see you like this—all slumped and sad against the graffitied wall of a bathroom stall in his bar; lost eyes, pouty mouth, emptied from the stomach and the heart—he felt sick himself.

You’d saved him all those years ago. Why couldn’t he save you?

“Honey,” he said, trying to be gentle but not knowing how—cursing his mother’s blood, “hey, look at me…” you tried, blinking forlornly through tears and daze. “Shit. M’sorry. I should’ve stopped filling up your glass. Should’ve stuck with my gut.”

“We’re s’posed to be having fun. Was having s’much fun. And then…” you stared, crestfallen, at the evidence of your empty stomach. “Deran, I’m s’sorry. Didn’t—hik!—mean to. Please don’t hate me.”

Deran felt almost as sick as you looked. “I could never hate you. You’re my favourite person.”

After everything, you found it hard to believe that you were anyone’s favourite anything.

Pope was lost to his mother’s clutches again—her nails back in him, right where she’d claimed the pinkish knots for herself decades ago. And Lena was someone else’s daughter now, telling some other patient woman about her nightmares. Even Deran felt distant these days. Face pinched with pity as he looked at you—keeping your glass full and mind fogged so you didn’t spend too much time longing after his brother, nor the ephemeral life you’d had together.

Were you truly so stupid to think that it might last? That Pope was yours, and that the pair of you could raise Lena together?

“Where is she?” a voice viciously banged from outside of the bathroom, muffled and contemptuous and yours.

“Pope, listen, bro—you gotta just—“

“Where is she, Craig?”

You hiccuped again, choking on it and your own air as you stared up at Deran in horror. “Andrew? Did you call…”

“Shit.”

Your best friend straightened up, massaging the throbbing pulse over the bridge of his nose. Your hair fell back down against the nape of your neck, tickling your collarbone. Deran looked distressed and overwhelmed with sudden regret. Had he even meant to ask Craig to call their big brother? What had he been thinking?

“Shit!” Deran yelled then, banging his fist against the steel door of the bathroom stall, making it rattle and you shudder.

All of that was enough to have Pope bursting in.

And you’re there—for the first time in weeks—knelt and weak; wan, hurt, and all apart. You must look wretched. Pope’s eyes go from murderous to aching in moments, and all that tension in him left in a few ragged breaths. He was all yours again. He was all apart, too.

“Honey,” he breathed.

Your lower lip started to waver again. “Andrew.”

“What the hell did you two do?” Pope sneered, glaring furiously at Deran. “You know she’s a lightweight!”

“Hey,” you mumbled disgruntledly, your regurgitated breakfast in your periphery.

“She wanted to drink, Pope. Wanted a distraction. This is on you, not me,” Deran retorted sharply. “I was only trying to clean up the mess that you made.”

“That right? My little brother, cleaning up my mess, huh?” snarled Pope.

Teeth-gnashing and hound-like. All Smurf’s, really. Maybe he wasn’t ever yours.

Then his eyes were on you, and the softness seemed suddenly gone from him—this cold, nearly catatonic, look to them that made you shrink closer towards the dirty wall.

“What're you playin’ at, huh? Sitting here, touching all kinds of germs—throwing up your guts and sitting with these two idiots, letting ‘em get you wasted. This ain’t you,” he ranted, chest heaving. “I know it ain’t, so what the hell?”

“It’s not like I’ve got a kid to come home to,” you shakily manage to spew back, feeling surprisingly defensive considering the state you were in. “Lena’s not exactly waiting for me back at home, is she? I figured I could have a night for myself. Instead of being by myself. Is that—hik!—alright with you, Pope?”

Calling him that was a low-blow, you both knew it. There was an agonised twitch to his left eye that gave his wounded pride away, but you couldn’t find it in yourself to care. He’d wounded you enough, surely his ego could take a blow or two.

Pope just clenched his jaw at you. “Just get up. Look at you. You’re on the floor. Do you know how filthy it is in here? Get up, Honey. I’m taking you home.”

“You’re not taking me anywhere!” you shrilled, doing everything but stomping your foot like a stropping toddler in protest.

“Yeah?”

“M’staying. ‘Feel better now, anyways. Could drink more. ‘Cause Deran cares about me. Deran wants to see me happy. You, however, are just a big, ol’—“

You were halfway home in fifteen minutes.

Buckled into the passenger side of Pope’s truck, temple cool against the condensation of the window. He didn’t like to drive with the radio on so it was just the two of you, the indigo-blue sky, and the occasional bloodbath of a red-light up ahead. You felt like a chastised child. A mutt locked outside the back door to stand out in the rain and think about what it had done—your upset belly akin to muddy paw-prints over cream carpet. You hated yourself.

Apart from the chirping of grasshoppers in rich people’s well-kept lawns and the low rumble of the engine, it was eerily quiet. Pope didn’t even spare you a single glance, hadn’t even looked at you as he got you into the seat and fastened you in, just muttered to himself about how you must be getting all the germs from the bathroom floor into his car.

The silence and the fresh air from the small crack in your window were enough to sober you up a little, so much so that after a few familiar turns and short-cut gullies, you eventually realised where he was taking you.

“No,” you stammered, scrambling to sit upright in the chair and white-knuckling the side of the door. “Pope, I’m not going there. ‘Don’t wanna see her.”

Pope finally glimpsed at you—brief and concerned through the rearview, where a beaded rosary dangled just out of reach.

“I don’t…” he drummed his fingers against his wheel, anxious, “I was gonna take you home, but I don’t…”

He didn’t know where you lived now. Not since you recklessly gave up the lease of your first ever place to move in with him and Lena at Baz’s. There was entire pieces of you that he had no idea about. New furniture and items of clothing—days gone by where he wasn’t there in the evenings to kiss your hairline and ask you what you’d done. He didn’t know about the uneven floorboard in the living room, nor how a few of the shower nozzles sprayed water up the pearlescent tiles in your bathroom. Pope hadn’t seen the new lamp that you’d gotten for your bedroom, because sleeping in the dark felt so much more frightening now without him next to you. He’d probably forgotten the smell of your sheets and shampoo—how it felt to hold you at night.

(He hadn’t. Never would, really).

“Oh,” you said solemnly, realising. “Erm, well. It’s not too far from Deran’s place. ‘Got it on the front. Y’know, in case…”

In case Lena ever came home.

Pope swallowed threadily, ligaments going taut in his thick, freckled neck. He looked so much broader now, you were slowly realising the more brave you got to look sideways to him. Even more filled out than before, with a half-healed welt over his eye and the scarred flesh of a scabbed over cut on the opposing cheekbone. He’d shucked on a jacket before being called over to play white-knight, and his shoulders and biceps pressed against the dark denim in a way that made you even dizzier.

God, you loved him. You missed him. You wanted him back: Lena too. There was even a spare bedroom in this place you’d gotten. The rent was obscene and your landlord useless, but it was some kept-dream for you. That wraparound porch and the spare room. The entire place smelt of the sea and lavender incense.

Pope would be happy there, you think morosely. You kept the place clean. He’d take over that if he was to move in—would do it religiously. And you’d cook, because Pope’s definition of a healthy meal was a slab of barely-cooked meat and raw asparagus. You’d serve him hearty dinners and bloat him up with it (and love). Sure, you loved how muscular he looked now, but you’d be lying if you said that you weren’t fond of a bit of pudge on him. The cutthroat look he had now was just further proof of Smurf’s talons in him. In some depraved way, you wanted to fatten him just the slightest bit—make him homely, make him comfortable: make him yours.

You gave the directions to where you were living now. He followed them diligently and without a word, exhibiting every last nervous tick you’d ever seen him do, from the drumming of his fingertips to the incessant twitch in his jaw.

He pulled into the communal driveway at the back of the row of houses that yours was on, right between your neighbour’s obnoxious minivan and a Wildcat Ultra Minarelli. He knocked off his headlights and left the both of you bathed in shadows. It was suffocating.

Why was he even here? Why did Deran tell Craig to call him? Why did he pick up? The questions swarmed around your mind like small, primal animals.

Chest tightening, you turned to him, feeling infinitely pathetic and two-inches tall. “Thanks for the lift, I—.”

“I’m not letting you walk in by yourself,” he quickly interrupted you, looking rather insulted that you’d even assume he would. “You were stumbling like a baby deer outside Deran’s bar.”

Insulted, you felt your eyebrows pinch inwards and your mouth open to retort. Pope didn't give you the chance. Scoffing to himself, he popped open the driver's side door and left the car. Feeling quite petulant, you slumped down in your chair and crossly folded your arms over your chest as you glared after the vague outline of him walking around the front of the car to your side.

The air hit you unforgivingly, shivering and scowling at Pope for the offence of exposing you to it. He just gave you this droll, half-apologetic look before extending out his arm. You took it, ignoring the yearning for more of him, to touch skin instead of denim—telling yourself that this wasn't intimate nor domestic, this was Pope being Pope. His brothers called him, and he heeded it. Doglike.

He cared about you still, you knew that—you weren't so butt-hurt to deny that Pope had a beautiful capacity for love, even if it was strange and mangled, and not at all like how you felt it. But he couldn't just switch it off any more than you could. Craig no doubt told him that you were a drunken mess, that you could barely stand and were hurling into a dingy toilet surrounded by coke debris and a used condom. There wasn't a possible scenario where Pope wouldn't show up for you. You supposed this was what hurt the most. The lingering concern, the persisting love, the way his touch still rendered you.

"C'mom," he mumbled, almost to himself, as his hand ghosted along the bare length of your arm and into the dip at the small of your spine, coaxing you out of his truck, "I've got you."

You don't, though, you thought viciously as he lead you over the pebbles to the scrap of a front-garden you had. You don't have me at all.

He walked you up the two small steps onto the wraparound decking, stubbornly ignoring the porch-swing that was swaying softly in the sea breeze. His hands left you then. Suddenly, you were stood in a freezing tundra rather than your doorstep. It made you feel lonelier.

You went for your bag that was already slipping down your shoulder, looking for your keys. Rummaging through a sample perfume bottle, lip glosses, loose sticks of bubblegum, you just kept retrieving random items without even hearing the dainty jangle of your keys. The fading warmth of the booze already had you on edge, but the panic of not being able to find them was making your fingers shake and breaths come out in panicked bursts of air that Pope didn't take long to catch onto.

"Here," he said gravelly, taking the handbag from you and carding through all of your things to quickly take out your house-keys. He didn't gloat. He wouldn't. Not with you. He just gave you this brief, sheepish smile that looked more like a wince and put them into your hands, before returning to staring at his shoes.

"Thanks," you breathed, and moved to unlock your door.

The lungs of your house inhale strangely upon welcoming Pope into them. He followed you slowly inside, half-predator, half-prey; quite unassuming considering his stature. He still had that swagger about him that was never cocky, yet still annoyingly attractive. A heavy, uneven gait. You felt it behind you as you moved deeper into the small entry hallway, flicking on a light-switch and bringing life back into this bizarre night.

He kicked off his shoes without second thought, toeing them off, one-by-one, because that was Pope. He didn't want to trek any outside dirt into this sacred place of yours. Didn't want to ruin it any more than he inevitably would by just being here.

In your living room, as the two of you pass through it like ghosts to seemingly get to your kitchen, he smelt lavender and saw the crochet blanket draped over the back of the sofa that used to be Lena's favourite. It was all so dizzyingly nostalgic. As were the books stacked up in rogue piles by the French-doors leading out to the back porch, and the waxen candles on the coffee table, the cardigan slung over the arm of a thrifted rocking-chair, and a kitsch dreamcatcher looped through your curtain-pole.

Your kitchen wasn't any easier to stomach. So uniquely you, quaint too. Your favourite mug was left on the countertop with a terracotta coffee-ring just underneath it, dried tacky to the cheap wood. There was even a photo-frame on the windowsill just above the sink—it didn't hold a glossy photograph, rather a slightly crinkled drawing of a family of three. It didn't take much for Pope to recognise Lena's crayons. To recognise his unruly curls and your doe-eyes, the sweet girl in-between you.

"D'you want anything?" you asked him, already on your tiptoes trying to reach a glass from a slender cabinet.

Pope blinked, having almost forgotten why he was here.

"I'll get that. You—" he cleared his throat, looking at your still dilated pupils and the fallen straps of your little dress, "go and change, brush your teeth. I'll get you some water. Tylenol, too."

"Oh, you don't..." Then, he levelled you with this look that said, yes, I do have do this, and you went quiet again.

Acquiesced, as you usually do for those puppy-dog, hickory eyes of his, and ducked out of the room to freshen yourself up.

Your absence from the room didn't make it any less suffocating, Pope realised rather quickly. It wasn't just you that did this time, he was coming around to seeing, it was everything that came with you—that fierce love you had for Lena, the earthy, sweet smell of you, and how you hadn't changed one bit.

He poured you a glass of water and found your medicine cabinet with ease, popping two Tylenol out of a sleeve that was almost gone—wondering, unhappily, how many of these you've had to take recently under similar circumstances. He stayed at your kitchen island, thumb working over a chip in the oak surface, staring at the settled water in the glass and the twin pills next to it. Just down the hall, he could hear faucet being turned off in the bathroom, followed shortly by the rustle of fabric and some endearing, disgruntled sounds as you fought with the zipper of your dress. He'd considered going in there to help you, but decided against it—Pope couldn't see you like that; all that soft skin and the dewy, vulnerable look in your eye as he helped you out of the satiny slip. Leaving you in whatever panties you'd put on, because he knew for a fact that you hadn't worn a bra with that dress.

Thankfully, he hadn't needed to, because you came padding out of the bedroom not long after, approaching him and the kitchen as if he were a frightened, bathing animal in the woods. Your hair collected back by a claw-clip, most of your legs bare save for the tops of your thighs that were covered by a plaid pair of boy-shorts and the fraying hem of an oversized tee.

You looked painfully pretty. Eyes soft and still a bit unfocused, with smudges of glitter lingering even after you tried to smear it all off with a cotton-pad and some micellar water. You were wringing your hands together when you walked up beside him, reaching nervously for the tall glass of water and the first of the painkillers.

"Thanks, Pope," you said shyly.

"Andrew," he managed to choke out as you swallowed the first pill, staring at him thoughtfully over the rim. "You call me Andrew. 'Always have."

You settled the glass down carefully. "I didn't think I could anymore. 'Didn't think it was my place."

"S'always your place. I'm—"

Pope cut himself short before he could upset either of you any more. But the stricken look on his face as he dragged his eyes to look out to the sea through your window was enough to suggest that enough damage was done—if the matching hurt in your chest wasn't already.

I'm your place.

You took the moment to just look at him. He really was gorgeous. You'd nearly forgotten how many kisses long his throat was. Would he let you remind yourself? The neckline of the navy tee under his jacket was low enough to expose the strong sinews in his neck: sun-drenched, freckled, and untouched by your mouth for far too long.

"I'm sorry that Craig called you," you mumbled, resting the small of your back into the kitchen island. The two of you were side-by-side now, both looking out at to your little cut of the seaside—where Lena should be in the sunny afternoons, building sandcastles and collecting seashells. "Hell," you scoffed next, "I'm sorry I got this drunk at all. I just—it's been, well. I think you know."

Pope nodded shallowly. "I know."

Gutted, you gnawed down on your bottom lip and looked at him again. It was like you just couldn't help yourself. This time, he actually looked back. Chin tilting down to you, giving you all of his attention. Your knees felt weak.

"I miss her," you told him earnestly.

"Me too. I know. I know. I couldn't—" he looked physically pained as he shook his head, fists balling at his sides. "Smurf was saying all this shit about keeping her close. Saying she'll let us see her. Talking 'bout moving you in with me. I didn't want you there, Honey. Not Lena, not you. Not there. I knew Lena would be happier with that family than in that house. I kept thinking about," Pope choked, "about Julia—"

"Andrew," you interjected, moving in front of him now. He shook his head desperately, pushing himself against the island and away from you, murmuring prayers of please and your name. You listened, surrendering your palms to him, but still went on, "I get it. Lena deserves better than that place—than Smurf. But so do you. What I don't get is why you had to go back there? Why you left? I could've helped get Lena back. It's not always Smurf who has to fix things. I could've—we could've done something. Us. We were doing it together, weren't we? We were happy. Was it..." you wet your lips, apprehensive, "were you happy, too?"

"So happy. It was..."

Pope looked so distraught, hands tucked behind his back, shoulders trembling. He didn't have words for it. You'd give him a home and a family. Softened out the harsh edges of all the ugliness around him. Made Lena feel safe and happy, listened to.

“I lost her. For the both of us. You loved her too, and… They took her, because I wasn’t safe. Because I’m fucked up.” He tucked his wobbling bottom lip between his crooked teeth, a whimper lodging itself violently in his throat. “I couldn’t even—I couldn’t—“

“Andrew. Andrew, hey, hey,” you spoke as gently as you could, angling your head down to try and meet his torn-up gaze. “Can I touch you? Is it okay if I—“

“Please,” he wept, keeping his hands behind his back but baring himself to you. “Please, please, please.”

And you’re on him. Because he was begging so sweetly, because he looked so broken, because you loved him. You love him. You cradled one, steady palm to the nape of his neck, tucking his head into the crook of your own, and smoothed the other between his crumpled shoulders. He shook against you, crying like it hurt. His hands didn’t move. You wondered if he was making the inside of his palms bleed. You never wanted him to bleed again. Thought about tearing the limbs off whatever brutes had been beating him to a pulp in that ring as you ghosted your lips over his sweat-slick throat.

“It’s okay. It’s okay. I don’t blame you,” you promised him. “I understand why you did it. She looked happy, yeah? She has a sister. Swings. You wanted her to be happy.”

“You—you…” He couldn’t get his words out, they were ravaging their way from him as if they were being yanked by brutal force from his sternum, “you made her happy, too,” he sobbed.

You squeezed your eyes shut and pressed your nails bluntly into the denim of his jacket. “I just want her to be happy. And you, Andrew. You’re not happy right now.”

“Not happy unless m’with you.”

“I’m the same,” you admitted shamefully, eyes still closed. He was yet to return the embrace, but you didn’t begrudge him for it. “I think about you all the time. ‘S why I got drunk tonight. I didn’t wanna think about how lonely I am without you two.”

That made Pope sob harder. “I ruined it. I ruined everything. M’sorry, sweetheart. I’m so fucking sorry. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”

He kept saying it. Until his lungs started to rasp, his throat was raw, and he finally moved his arms around your waist, dragging you into his body. You held him impossibly tighter and Pope squeezed at the flesh of you. You wanted to climb into his ribs and stay there. He longed to have you in his blood.

“M’sorry,” he slurred shakily for the last, gut-wrenching time, sounding so exhausted.

His mouth brushed your jawbone, warm breath and devotion.

“I forgive you, Andrew.” You stroked your fingers through his curls. “We’ll figure it out. You and me, yeah?”

He didn’t repeat the words back to you. Couldn’t. It made you deflate a little, only now realising what this was. Knowing he wouldn’t wake up in your bed come the morning. Tomorrow, he’ll be back in that haunted house of his—he’ll be Smurf’s again. This ironic taunt of a home will be empty again and you’ll be alone. The spare bedroom will never know Lena’s laughter, the left half of your wardrobe won’t ever house his clothes, and you’ll make too much breakfast again. The dull throb of your hangover will feel like a punishment that you deserve for mourning this relationship that will never work out. Inevitably, this will all have been for nothing.

Pope was probably never even yours to begin with.

But neither of you wanted to confront that right now. Not with the moon and the sea behind you, and that empty child’s bedroom down the hall. This was the first time in weeks you’d been in each other’s arms, why destroy that with reality?

“You made me so happy,” he sniffled again, rueful and apologising in his own way. Thanking you, too.

You merely hummed, scratching your nails against his scalp now. “Yeah?”

“The happiest I've ever been.”

But that was all over now. That dream of yours—that the three of you could be a family—it was fallible and gone.

The sound of the waves lapping against the shore would never sound the same again.

He’s not even trying to be sarcastic. He’s grinning at you, wide and open with his glasses still on and his hand still in your hair. You reach up, and wipe some of the drool from your chin with the back of your hand. “You’re insane.”

He ignores the comment, shifting to lay a little more on top of you and smiling like he didn’t drink even more than you did last night.

“Do you wanna have sex? I think we probably have a little while before everyone else-“

“We were literally just having a conversation.” Leota says from the kitchen, and Adrian’s grin falls, open disappointment clouding his expression. “What was your plan if she said yes?”

“I don’t know! I didn’t think it through.” His voice is defensive and just a little too loud for this time of morning. You groan miserably, pushing your hand up to weakly cover his mouth. He nips at your palm, shifting you again so he can move your hand and press a kiss to your cheek.

“How do you never get hungover?” You ask, trying to hide your face in his neck in a sleepy attempt to chase the sweet relief of unconsciousness for just a few more minutes.

“I dunno. I’m just lucky, I guess. Hey, when you were sleeping I watched a spider make a web in the corner.”

“Mmph.” You reply eloquently. He’s already moving, rolling on top of you and pressing you between the recliner and his body. Apparently, despite the two other people in the room and your ripping hangover, you’re going to be waking up almost exactly the same way you wake up every morning - snuggled within an inch of your life while he talks about whatever might be on his mind at that moment.

You swat at his back with another miserable noise as the movement jostles your stomach and head, but he just moves the hair out of your face to look down at you as he starts rambling about bugs and birds. You close your eyes, losing yourself in the familiar cadence of his voice and the feeling of his hands on your skin. He’s always touching you, somehow, as absentminded and sometimes a little weird as it may be. His fingers brush through your hair again. His thumb swipes over your jawline. His finger even traces a line between your eyes down to the tip of your nose as he shares a fact about spiders that you’re pretty sure isn’t anywhere near correct. The touching isn’t even in a cheesy romantic ‘I want to memorize every inch of you’ sort of way - he’s already done that ten times over. No, it’s more like he’s just mesmerized by your existence. Like he’s magnetized to you. Like touching you is so second nature he doesn’t even notice he’s doing it at all.

“Can you hit his off switch?” Harcourt asks after a few minutes of spider facts, and you can’t help your affectionate smile as you crack your eyes open to look up at him again.

You reach up to rub at your crusty eyes, tapping your finger against his nose and pushing his glasses a little higher on his face. The contact makes him pause in his rambling, blinking down at you like you really did hit some kind of off-switch.

“Can I get up? I smell coffee.” You ask, voice hoarse and tired.

“Oh, yeah. I got it!” He presses a quick kiss to your cheek and nearly launches himself off of you. It’s only as he’s making his way into the kitchen that you notice he’s wearing Emilia’s robe.

“Where’s your shirt?” You ask as you sit up, only to look down at yourself and rephrase the question. You’re wearing his shirt. “Nevermind. Where’s my shirt?”

“Oh, I ripped it off of you last night.” He says, open and shameless, and you feel your face heat as he continues. “Remember? We came inside to wash the beer off me and everyone was still on the roof so we-“

“Adrian.” You stop him, memories flooding back and making you hide your face in your hands.

“You had sex in my shower?” Emilia sounds pissed, but not surprised.

“Twice.” Adrian says proudly, already looking through the fridge for what you assume is cream for your coffee. Maybe water. You’re not sure. Your hangover is still fogging your brain. “Well, technically once. The second time wasn’t in the shower. I bent her over the-“

“Dude. Stop. For the love of God, stop.” Leota covers her ears, dropping her head onto the table. You climb off of the recliner, wince at the ache in your head, smile gratefully as your boyfriend hands you a cup of coffee, and offer an apologetic look to Emilia.

“In my defense, you’re the one who brought out the tequila shots.”

“That’s the worst defense I’ve ever fucking heard.”

“I’m pretty sure Economos puked in there like, twenty minutes after we were done. So which one is really worse?”

“The sex. The sex in my shower is worse.”

You raise your coffee cup to your lips, knowing without needing to turn around that you’re the only one wearing a guilty expression. In fact, you can already feel Adrian wrapping his arms around you from behind, resting his chin on your shoulder as you lean back against him. The movement is so casual, so normal for the two of you, that it doesn’t even earn a comment from the others, despite the topic of conversation.

Speaking of which, maybe you should change said topic before he decides to start trying to go into detail again.

“What were you saying about crows a minute ago?” You ask, turning your head a little to face him. You feel him light up with excitement, even as Leota and Emilia glare daggers your way. “They stab other crows?”

“Yeah! Not just that, but they use tools.” He begins, releasing you to sit at the counter. Despite your friends’ apparent misery, you love it when he gets like this. You love his rambling. The way he absentmindedly bumps his knee against yours while he shares his fact with Leota like it’s the most interesting thing in the world. You think the sound of his familiar voice might be the only thing keeping this hangover from killing you right in the middle of Harcourt’s kitchen.

It’s not long before Emilia sends him off to ‘check on’ Economos. He jumps up, genuine panic on his face at the idea of the other man choking on his own vomit, and bolts off. You wince at the sound of gagging and arguing, and now it’s your turn to glare.

“If he comes back covered in puke, I’m gonna kill you.” You grouch, sinking back into your chair.

“Well, if he comes back covered in puke, he’s sure as shit not showering here.” She retorts, already beginning to make her way to the roof.