#diky

“Warm,” you answer, “and needy and- would you just do something?”

Jason’s hand skips your arm entirely to hold at the back of your neck. You feel like you're shocked by the touch, but his lips are soon on yours. Your body burns at the contact, and you press forward, hands on his chest, seeking more. Jason moves back, a surprised noise leaving him as you press him to the kitchen counter, kissing him harder. He shifts, thigh pressing between yours, and you moan against his lips.

The hand on the back of your neck curls tighter, pulling you from his lips. You pout, trying to follow his lips, but it only gets you a tighter grip on your neck. 

“Jay baby, please,” you whine. Jason stares at you, his other hand coming up to stroke your jaw as he laughs softly. Your face pinches at the laugh, “What?”

“We’ve been here before,” he murmurs, “a little different, but we’ve been here before. I think I have more self-control than you.”

“What are you talking about?” You lean forward against him, arms curling around his waist like he might try to run away.

“You don’t remember? It was the first time we kissed.” his voice is in a lilted tease as he kisses the corner of your mouth.

Your lips part. Of course, how could you forget? It was the first time he’d done anything explicit leaning toward you. Not that he got far with a knee to the crotch. You shake your head, “This isn’t the same thing.”

He nods in agreement, “‘Course not, baby. Now we can do something about it.”

“I’m feeling terrible,” you complain softly, thighs pressing against his between yours, “Don’t tease me”

His thigh presses up more, his hand leaving your jaw to grip your hip, pressing you down, “You feel terrible? We should do something about that.”

Your forehead falls to his shoulder. “I don’t like you.”

“Yeah, yeah,” he pats your butt before nudging you off him, “Bedroom?”

“Living room,” you pull him, “Now, please.”

“Ya always so polite about it,” He hums, only to brush your hand off and pick you up. Your legs wrap around his waist, face burying into his shoulder. The position isn’t strange or new to you both, but you had already been squirmy, thighs pressing in need, but now you had something better to press against. You grind against him, quietly whining as he carries you to the living.

“Jason, please,” you whimper. He sits down on the couch, helping you straddle him properly despite the way you fight him a little to hump against him.

His hands pull your shirt up and off in one motion, “Take it easy, sugar.”

You tug your bra off, stretching out the band rather than waiting to unclip. His hands find the bare skin of your ribs, ghosting up to your breast. You pay his soft demand to take it easy no mind, diving to kiss him roughly, hips grinding down as he hardens under you. 

“Need you, Jay,” you pant, hands dipping to his jeans, fighting with the buckle.

“Sweetheart,” he mumbles, pinching your tight nipple. Your hips jerk, another whine leaving you, but you don't let up on your goal. Stand from his lap and push your own pants, underwear and all. 

You stand there naked a moment, skin overheated, thighs already damp. You stare down Jason while he simply admires you. You huff, “Take your pants off.”

The jerk laughs again, “Sugar-”

“Jason, I am so serious right now,” you glare, and he finally moves, lifting his hips to pull his pants and boxers. He only gets them to his knees before you're climbing back in his lap.

“Wait,” he laughs again, only for it to die in his throat as your hand curls around the base of him. You give his cock one tight stroke before you press the head to your entrance. His hands grab at your hips, stopping you before you can sink. 

You whine, “Would you-”

One of his hands smacks at your hip, and you shut right up, hazy eyes focusing on his dark, warning ones, “That’s enough of that. You need to calm down right now before you hurt yourself.”

“I can take you,” you argue, too horny to care at this point, “You know I can. Can you take me?”

“That’s cruel,” he bites out, but his half-hard cock twitches. “Are you sure? You're kind of drugged right now.” 

You roll your eyes, “Like we wouldn’t be fucking in bed tonight anyway?”

“You're really worked up,” he hums, and you wiggle your hips in his hold, trying to sink. 

His grip tightens nearly bruising, and you whimper, “Please.”

He finally breaks, hands easing, and you drop the moment you're free. A tight-gasping moan leaves your chest. You swear your vision goes black for a second from the sensation of him stretching you out alone, your senses in overdrive. Jason hisses as you envelop him, warm and slick like usual but much tighter. 

Your chest heaves as you take a moment. You think, maybe, your body would calm down. It doesn’t; your thighs tremble already. Your hands curl around Jason's neck as you lean forward, sensitive breast pressing to his T-shirt.

“Tight, sugar,” Jason groans, his head falling against the couch, “sure you didn’t hurt yourself?”

Your lips aim for his, but you miss, with his head lying back, mouth just below his chin. Your hips shift in a test grind. Your eyes flutter shut at the sensation, so full of him, your clit grinding against his pubic bone.

One of his hands traces up your spine as the other squeezes your waist, “Baby?”

“I’m fine,” you whimper, “can I go crazy a moment?”

Your request as his head tipped back up for him to meet your eye, “Go crazy? What do you- oh fuck!” 

Your hips rise and drop, not a test, not a slow build-up. Something desperate makes for your shaking thighs to repeat it as fast as possible the second you start. You gasp and moan as you ride him with all you have, a wet pap filling the room with the slick dripping from you.

“Jay, Jason,” you gasp. His hands flutter across sensitive skin, and it only makes you wish you could bounce faster as he repeatedly nudges that gummy spot inside. 

He lets out a groan, hips jerking every few thrusts but mostly letting you ride him. Your body jolts as his lips wrap around your nipple as it bounces in front of his face. You cry out at the sensation. Abrupt and overwhelmed everything as you cunt suqeezes him, “Ah, fuckin-”

Jason moans around your breast as you falter with harsh gasps, his blunt nails digging into your hips. He pulls off your boob to meet your eye, “Did you-”

“Yeah,” you pant, and then your hips are moving again even as you whimper, “but I need more.”

Jason presses his forehead to your sternum, “Fuck, okay. Let me-”

He shifts back on the couch more, planting his feet on the ground only to fuck up into you.

“Oh Jesus, fuck” you gasp at the sensation. Your mouth stuck open, noises leaving you unfiltered. Your eyes flutter shut, face pinched.

“I know,” Jason grunts as he finds your pace from before, “I know, let me take care of you.”

Your nails dig into his shoulders, T-shirt still on despite everything, the flush of his cheeks. He keeps you up, keeps fucking you. You drop a little, his grip on your waist slippery with sweat. You let out a gasp as your back suddenly hits the couch. Your eyes go wide before slamming shut as he fucks right back into you. The top of your head presses into the couch armrest with each thrust. Your eyes prickle with tears as your body bends to the heat again.

“Jason!” you cry out.

His arm slides under your waist, arching your back, “I got you, sugar, I got you.”

His thumb slips to your clit  and your body seizes right up as you cum again. Your tight heat pushes Jason right over the edge with you. He buries his face into your neck as he comes with a groan. He gives a few weak thrusts before he settles. 

You lay there sliding a hand in his hair as your chest heaves for air, skin hot. You take a beat, two. You rock your hips up with a needy whine. Jason whimpers, pressing your hip back down on the couch.

“You gotta be fuckin’ kidding me,” he pants as he lifts his head to look at you. 

You pant, hips squirming against his hold, “Your fault. I can't help it.”

“Yeah, I know.” He pulls out of you, leaving you clenching and whining. He kisses your swollen lips, then your jaw, your throat, down to your sternum and belly, “I’ll take care of it”

And take care of it, he did. Again and again until you were finally worn down. He may or may not have ended up hiding the chocolate on a high shelf for a rainy day off.

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You stop to listen but don’t hear anything else, so you go back to scrolling when you hear it again. You brush it off as some of the cats getting into a fight, but then you hear a squeak. You tense up, hand curling around your emergency alert locket on instinct. You turn and watch as Red Hood practically falls through your window. Red Hood, who you hadn’t seen since you blew up at him. Your chest squeezes.

“Red?” you ask, rounding the island but pausing at the edge of it, a mountain of emotional turmoil interjecting itself into your veins. His head snaps up to look at you, and you instantly feel like something is wrong, aside from the fact that you have no idea why he’s here. His helmet is missing, nowhere in sight. His chest heaves like he can't quite catch his breath. Even though you can't see his eyes, you can feel him staring a hole through your skin.

He doesn’t answer you. So, you take a few more cautious steps closer. His fists clench at his side as he leans against the wall next to the window. Closer, you can see his face is flushed, and you wonder if he’s sick, and if he’s sick, why would he come here? You don’t have time to ponder the question because he takes a step forward, and the rest of him follows quickly. Startled by his speed, you trip backward on your own feet and squeak as you fall, body tensing, waiting for the pain. It never comes because he’s on you as you fall, hand curling on the back of your scalp to stop you from hitting your head as you land on the ground with a shocked huff.

You stare at him hovering above you, but you don’t have time to whisper out a thank you or say anything because his lips are pressed against you, hard. Your eyes widen and remain unmoved in shock. He moves only slightly as he kisses you, head tipping this way and that. You break out of your stupor when he shifts to nip at your lip, and your hands press at his shoulders to push him off of you, unsuccessfully. Instead of pulling back, he just moves to your neck to press closed-mouth kisses there, more nuzzling your neck than anything else. You’d think it ticklish if you weren’t so confused.

“Red Hood, what are you doing?” you ask the question calmer than you expected. You should be more worried about the current events, but you genuinely think something is wrong. You don’t believe he would ever try to do something to you otherwise, despite the two months it’s been since you’ve seen him. He just hums against your skin as his free hand curls at your hip and grips hard enough to hurt.

“Red Hood, you need to stop. Something's wrong.” You can feel the warmth of his forehead against the side of your jaw. He’s burning up, feverish and sweaty. He pays you no mind, just continues his strange kisses to your skin, moving lower to the junction of your neck and shoulder. He clearly wasn’t himself. You understand now that he won't listen to you, that you'll have to stop him yourself.

Your mind goes back to two weeks ago. Jason, on a spiel about you walking home alone, said you needed to learn self-defense. He had taught you a few moves, but if there was one thing he drilled into your head, it was to always go for the balls. The idea had made you laugh at the time, in spite of how serious he looked about it, but now it made sense.

Even though Red had his face practically smashed to your neck, the rest of him hovered over you, his thick thighs straddling you. You could move your legs easily. You weren’t sure if this would do anything, especially if Red wore protection down under, but it was worth a shot. You flatten your knee, then bring it up quick and hard against his backside. He groans against your skin, but it must have been enough to knock him out of his reverie because he rolls off of you and huddles in on himself.

You scramble backwards quickly, standing, and curl your hand around the lamp on the table next to the couch. You point it at him threateningly.

“Stay,” you tell him while you try to fumble with the locket he had given you. It’s supposed to alert all the bats, so maybe somebody can pick him up and help him. He shifts, and your grip on the lamp tightens, but he doesn’t move more than to just stare at you. He’s still flushed, and his hands dig into his legs.

“I’m sorry, sweetheart, I’m so sorry…” he starts, and then he’s on a roll, muttering about how he never wanted anything bad to happen to you and that he should be better. You think he gets distracted because then he talks about how pretty you look and how good you smell. You don’t notice how much he’s moved towards you until your bum is pressed to the back of the couch and his hand is curling around your calf. Both of your hands tighten on the lamp, but you don’t have the heart to use it. He just looks so distraught.

His hands climb as he talks, up the side of your thighs and hips until he wraps his arms around your waist and buries his face in your stomach. He’s back to mumbling apologies again, but you are far too distracted (more than you’d like to admit) with the man on his knees hugging you. You're stuck staring at him, unsure of what to do, until a voice you’ve never heard before breaks you out of it.

“Am I interrupting something?” the voice is deep but gleeful. Your eyes snap to a fit man in a black and blue get-up. Red Hood’s hold tightens on your waist at the sound of him.

“Something's wrong with him.” You say it quickly, like you're trying to explain the scene he’s witnessing. You're sure it's an odd sight. The big bad Red Hood hugging your waist like his life depends on it and you, holding your lamp in a vice grip above him. The man's lip quirks briefly into a frown.

“This is so not how I wanted to meet you.” He says as he takes a step forward. Red Hood all but growls, his arms tightening enough to make you wince slightly, distracting you from asking what he meant. The man stops moving.

“Take it easy, Little Wing. You know I’m here to help.” He offers you an apologetic smile. “He had a run-in with Ivy. She’s been on a more aphrodisiac spin recently.” It takes you a minute to understand what he’s saying (mostly because you're trying to figure out who Ivy is).

“Why would he come here?” The man’s smile changes into a teasing smirk that you don’t love.

“I’m sure it's nothing to think too hard about.” You feel seriously out of the loop, and you don’t think you want to know. With someone else present, you put the lamp on the couch. Your hands settle on Red’s biceps, trying to gently pry him off of you.

“Come on. It's time for you to go with…” you pause glancing at the other man.

“Nightwing,” he offers, albeit with a scrunched brow, like you should have known that. You squint at the weird name before looking back down at Red.

“It’s time to go with Nightwing. Get you the help you need.” His arms tighten again, and it makes you squirm slightly. “You're hurting me, Red.” His arms loosen, and his face pulls away from your stomach just to prop his chin there so he can pout at you. You can’t believe you’re thankful for his stupid mask. If you could see his eyes, you’re sure it would be game over.

“I can’t help you,” you explain to him, unthinkingly running your fingers through the top of his hair. He shudders and sighs. You decide you're not helping your case, so you pull your hand away.

“Nightwing and whoever else can help you to feel better, right?” You glance over at Nightwing, who is awkwardly looking to the side.  After a moment of silence, he finally looks back at you, realizing you were talking to him.

“Oh, yea. Red Robin and Oracle already have an antidote ready. Just need to get him back to the cave,” he says. You decide you really need to look into the vigilantes of Gotham because you have no idea who these people are. You turn your attention back to Red Hood.

“See. They can help, I can’t,” He grumbles and buries his face back into your stomach. You sigh, already feeling like you're arguing with a toddler, but then he lets go, slow and lethargic. He stands and nearly collapses. Nightwing is quick to catch him, and you feel incredibly useless.

“Sorry about this,” Nightwing tells you, giving a blinding apologetic smile before he’s cramming Red Hood out your window with less finesse than you anticipated, although you think Red Hood fought him the entire time.

****

It’s only after you have locked your window and sat on your couch that it comes to your attention that you were not as freaked out about what just happened as you should be. Red Hood had forced himself on you (respectfully, somehow) but he hadn’t groped you, hadn’t humped against you like a mad dog. The worst he did was kiss you, held your hip a little too firm, and hugged you.

You bring a hand to your lips, tracing them. You hadn’t been kissed in years. If you had been prepared, you think it might’ve been nice. You snap yourself out of your thoughts. You liked Jason. You and him… weren’t dating, per se. You think about kissing him far more than you should. You think about The JarTM in your mind and blame it for why you’re thinking about how nice it was when Red kissed you. This is stupid, you decide, you missed Red Hood but not for kissing reasons.

Seeing him and then him being gone again, your emotions come back. You sag on your couch, preparing to nitpick your mind. You were mad at him again, not that it ever stopped. It had been covered up by the sadness of missing him. First, He got you kidnapped, and you still haven’t forgiven him for that. Second, he never tried to talk to you again (you ignore the fact that you told him to never come back because that clearly did not stop him). And thirdly, he kissed you, unconsented, and, if you hadn’t pressed that button, probably would have done something else (yes, he was drugged. You understand that, but he could at least have said something, or better yet gone somewhere else. Why did he come to you?).

You settle on just being peeved with him and keeping a mental list of complaints to tell him all about the next time you see him. The next time you're kidnapped, or he’s drugged probably, you think. A pointlessly petty thought but whatever. You did not get any more sleep that night.

****

A day later, Jason showed up at your door without warning. He would usually send you a text that he was coming over, but you got nothing. You wouldn’t have even checked who was knocking at your door if you didn’t recognize the way he knocked. You think he may have been sick because when you open the door, he’s sagged against the frame of it. He looks pale, exhausted, and guilty for some reason, weary eyes watching you.

“Are you okay?” is the first thing that leaves your lips. His own quirks, like he finds the question funny.

“Are you?” he asks in return with hint of earnest in knowing the answer. You shrug.

“I’m not the one who looks like the walking dead.” You mean it as a joke, but his lips press into frown and wonder how that could upset him.

You don’t have an opportunity to ask him because the door across the hall creeps open just an inch or so. You spot the brown eyes of your new neighbor. She was an older Italian woman who spoke just enough English to get by. She was sweet, in that old lady sense. A little nosy though, she reminded you of Darla just a bit in that sense.

“Ciao,” you say, the extent of your Italian knowledge, waving at her as you gently tug Jason into your apartment and close the door. He sags against the kitchen counter.

“You know Italian?” he asks.

“Not at all,” you answer as you nudge into his space as he so often does with you and press your hand to his forehead. His eyes close for a moment before he’s blinking at you.

“What’re you doing?” the question almost sounds accusatory, and you start to pull your hand away but his wraps around your wrist, pressing your palm to his cheek (Jason nearly started kissing up on your hand and wrist, leftover side effects of ivy’s new treat, but he managed to control himself).

He sighs into your palm, and you think it’s a new sound that you’ve heard before just not from Jason. The JarTM rattled louder than it had in months. It stuns you enough that your hand twitches, fingers curling slightly against his face. Damn Red Hood, you think, he just had to show up and mess up the way you think. Jason was not Red Hood; it’s a stupid connection that makes no sense. You mentally shove the stupid jar back into its corner (you may have been dissecting yourself in the past month but that would not be a part of that process) because Jason is staring at you, and you find his eyes are greener than usual, nearly sickly.

He still looked exhausted, still looked pale, but he hadn’t felt warmer than he usually did. He did have that stupid look in his eye (stupid because you can’t figure out what it is) as he stares at you. You suddenly remember that he asked you a question.

“You don’t look good,” you say quietly as your thumb rubs against his cheek where he holds your hand. He sags even more and your worry he might collapse in the kitchen if it weren’t for the little smirk that shows itself.

“You always sound so sweet when you insult me, sweetheart.” The heat of his breath skims across the inside of your wrist. You can feel the movement of his lips at the joint there. It throws you off enough to have you tugging your hand out of his hold.

 It’s not that you felt uncomfortable; you know that you and Jason thrive off of physical touch, but you were usually the one that initiated the more… intimate moments. Jason was prone to just tucking your hair, giving you hugs, and pressing a kiss to your temple. You were the one that would drag him into bed or on the couch to cuddle. He liked to stand close to you, but you were the one that would curl your fingers together, not him. Things that bordered the line of platonic and less so.

This moment in the kitchen with his eyes staring into your soul and his lips nearly pressed to the sensitive skin of your wrist has your heart in your throat because, for some bizarre reason, it felt like the least platonic thing that has ever happened to you (despite him having literally bathed you in your underwear).

“I mean you look sick,” your words come out in choked stutter that has an embarrassed warmth spreading up your neck, “and you should lay down.”

You step out of his space because you need air. His body leans forward, following you, enough that you worry he’s going to fall. You steel yourself and get rid of whatever swirl of butterflies Jason always gives you. He had spent nearly two months taking care of you in his own ways. It was your turn to take care of him.

“Couch or bed?”  you ask and his face makes a weird crinkle before he’s full-on smirking at you.

“If you wanted to seduce, babe, you could’ve just said something,” he says.

You sputter, skin growing warmer by the second, “I’m not- that isn’t- shut up and answer the question.”

“That doesn’t work, sweetheart. Either you want me to shut up or you want me to answer the question. I can’t do both.” He teases and you don’t know what to do with yourself.

****

Okay, so, maybe the family was right. Maybe he should have waited another day before coming to see you. Barbara, Tim, and Bruce told him at separate times that Ivy’s newest pollen would still have lasting effects and that, because he had already gone to you before, if he saw you again those side effects might get stronger before they went away. He felt fine when he left (snuck out of) the manor. He didn’t have a fever anymore, didn’t feel like he was going to claw out of his own skin. He was fine and he wanted to see you (less desperate than the night before but still a little desperate).

Then he saw you and you touched him, and he nearly felt like he was on fire. His hands and mouth moving of their own accord. He could tell how surprised you were by it but watching you sputter was doing something to him. Part of him, the more sensible part, was worried, of course, that he was making you uncomfortable (part of the reason he had wanted to see you was because he wanted to make sure you wouldn’t revert back to hermit mode after what he tried to do the night before as Red Hood). However, you hadn’t stepped very far away from him. If Jason wanted to, he could easily wrap his hand around your arm and pull you back into his space.

He didn’t. Instead, he stared at you. You really were pretty, even in your embarrassed state. You hadn’t gone to work today. He could tell because it was 2 in the afternoon, and you were still in pajamas. It made him want to kiss you again. Last night, he had been out of control, most of his urges taking over before he could stop them. Today it would be different, he could stop himself from acting out. He still wanted to kiss you.

You seem so unsure of yourself that he decides to reign it in. You were offering your bed and hopefully that included you in it. He felt exhausted suddenly. The ride to your apartment he had so alert with the fact that he was going to see you but now with you in front of him, close enough that he could smell your shampoo, his energy was gone.

“I’m sorry, sweetheart,” he pushes every ounce of remorse into those two words, especially after he had forced himself on you last night, “I am sick, and I’d like to lay in bed with you if I haven’t scared you off.” Your flustered features relax, and you smile at him sweetly. It nearly killed him how much he wanted to drag you close to his body.

“You don’t scare me, Jay,” you say oh so sugary. Oh my god, he’s going to die, “If anything you make me feel safe.” You point a finger and poke at his stomach. His hand curls around your wrist again, more light, more delicate. Despite all of Jason urges to kiss you (and do a bunch of other things that he’s tucked away in a deep dark hole), they all pause to appreciate what you’ve just said.

He made you feel safe. It surprised him honestly. Jason had been playing hero since he was 12 years old. He had done nothing but try to save people or make life better for people as Robin (which backfired in his face, literally) and then as Red Hood. But here you were, giving him a shy look after your admittance, saying that Jason made you feel safe. Not Robin. Not Red Hood. Jason.

Jason Todd was a ghost in all sense of the word. Technically, Bruce had made him legally alive again and kept it quiet. There was no media story about the second son of Bruce Wayne no longer being dead and he was okay with that. He never liked the flashy life Bruce lived outside of the Bat and it’s not like they were always on good terms. Even both actually and legally alive Jason Todd was still a ghost. He haunted the streets of Gotham City, haunted the halls of Wayne Manor. He wasn’t a real person.

 He was Red Hood. Didn’t have a life outside of it. Focused on saving people, helping people in Gotham and all across the world. until you. You with your queries about his books at the coffee shop (the only guilty pleasure he had). You with your nervous habits. You with your sweet smiles. You changed everything. He hadn’t gone out and around Gotham as Jason Todd since he came back from the dead. He didn’t realize how much of a tourist he was in his own city until he was taking you out. It didn’t matter though, because he wasn’t haunting these places. He was with you. He was alive.

He tuned out his thoughts to focus back on you. You looked worried doing that odd shift on your feet you do. He lets one urge go through and wraps his arms around your shoulder to pull you into a hug, nosing at your hair. A squeak escapes you, but you settle against him, hands moving up and down his back in a soothing manner.

“I lo-” Jason stops himself choking on his own words. His hands tighten slightly as he tries to regain control of his mouth.

“You mean the world to me, sweetheart.”

“You mean the world to me too, Jay.” Your voice is muffled against his shoulder but it’s the clearest thing he’s ever heard.

Jason keeps you there for much longer than necessary, just holding you, until that exhaustion from early creeps into his knees and he’s not sure he can stand much longer. He finally speaks up.

“I’d like to lay in bed. With you if that’s okay?” You pull back to look at him. Your hand comes up to hold his cheek, thumb caressing the scar there. It used to bother him, and it still does when other people stare, but you’re always so soft and sweet about it.

“Course it is, handsome. Whatever you need.” You say softly and a dumb smug feeling erupts in his chest. You only ever call him Jason, Jay, or, within the last week or so, bubs. He’s got a plethora of pet names for you but for you to reach out for something so pleasant… oh, you’ve ruined him.

****

You try to quickly usher Jason to your room because when you had pulled away, you thought he looked even paler than before. You shuffle into your bed and drag him with you settling against the pillows. You think he would be content with how you usually sleep, your cheek pressed to his shoulder, but he tosses and turns for what feels like thirty minutes. You finally sit up with a huff.

“Jason, what do you need?” he gives you a kicked puppy look, and you instantly feel guilty for how irritated you sounded.

“Sorry. You keep moving. How can I help?” He sits up next to you and gestures vaguely at you.

“Can I?” The gesturing and the question tell you nothing, but you trust Jason, so you nod. He gently pushes you down on your back and manhandles you to the middle of the bed. Then he’s hovering over you, legs tangled. You stare up at him, and you hate how your mind thinks of Red Hood. But Jason isn’t even staring at your lips. He’s concentrated on moving around some more. He pauses and meets your eye.

“Is this okay?” you nod because you can't find your voice, because you don’t actually know what he’s doing, because you're pretty sure you would let Jason do just about anything to you and wouldn’t mind. His arm sides under you, making your back arch. You wonder if Jason is putting you in an inherently sexual position on purpose or if you’re just aroused for some reason.

You get your answer (your just horny) when Jason finally lies done on top of you, you huff quietly, not prepared for it. He tucks his head under your chin, wiggles there a moment before finally settling down. You bring your hands up to settle on his back, one curling into the hair at the nape of his neck and he melts against you. It nearly makes giggle if not for the way he instantly becomes a dead weight on top of you, breathe evening. Thirty minutes of him rolling around and he’s out the moment he’s on top of you. Unbelievable.

You weren’t tired but his warmth and weight makes you drowsy. You try to fight, running your fingers through his hair. You give in eventually. Your sleep schedule was already shot. What’s an afternoon nap going to do?

Additional note: There was so much happening in this chapter, its crazy. also shout out to MagandaJinx on Ao3 for giving me the idea of the little old woman neighbor, she will be showing back up later. Anyways, I feel like I went off the rails with this chapter, so please give me some critics if you would like.

nothing and no one can touch you when you’re like this, sunk deep inside yourself. your throat is still hoarse from shouting last night, but that’s incidental, not important. nothing is important.

you don’t want to be here, so you’re not. 

you’re standing on the corner with half a pack in your jacket pocket, and he’s not there—you can’t see him right now, not even in your head—but he’s on his way. the winter sinks cold so deep into you that your forehead starts to hurt. if you stand here much longer, you’re going to get a runny nose. you’re itching for a cigarette. you don’t want to smoke without him. 

a lot of people want your attention.

julie, you’ve got mail. who’s this, your man? is he trying to get you back? put a price on it, maybe you can finally get us something from commissary. 

julie, the feds are not playing around. it looks like there’s charges related to human trafficking coming down the pipeline, and they’re trying to tie you to it. i’m doing my best with your defense, but if you don’t want to cooperate, i can’t guarantee—do you hear me? 

julie, when she comes through, we’re gonna take her back here. if you see a guard coming, just keep your mouth shut and kick the dryer, okay?

a lot of people want your attention, but nobody gets it. you can survive this, put one foot in front of the other, only as long as you can stand partly sheltered by the angle of your apartment building, and listen to the wind rushing past. waiting and safe, as long as he never arrives.

the snitch gets carried out on a stretcher.

the lawyer leaves unsatisfied.

you don’t open the letter.

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.

it’s much worse at night. but still, sometimes, you can sleep.

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lunch here has a queasy familiarity. it feels like barracks or school. you sit at a long table and corresponding bench with the italians, wondering if all this sodium is gonna worsen your perpetual low-grade headache, squeezing peanut butter from its plastic packet directly into your mouth, not bothering with the bread. 

behind you, you pick out the word doctor in somebody else’s conversation. thinking that it might have something to do with you, you turn and glance over your shoulder, just in time to catch a woman saying, too loudly, no i’m fine. you think her words sound a bit slurred. you’re fifty percent sure her name is aja. 

you’re sweating, says her friend, a woman with box braids whose name you’ve never learned.  she sounds exasperated. did you take something? when she gets no answer, her voice gains a note of urgency. hey. did you take something?

aja, leaning hunched forward on the table, mumbles no.

relieved, her friend says, then just eat your lunch.

i don’t...aja blinks. goes to lift one baby carrot to her mouth, looks at it, then stops. is car warning, she explains.

in the back of your brain, something stirs.

by now, you’ve been noticed by the other women at that table, and they’re staring daggers back. they’re almost all black women, just like all the women at yours are almost all white—and your stare is violating rules more important than the law. 

beside you, your cellmate janine has caught on too. she smacks your arm a little harder than she needs to, annoyed that she has to reiterate a fundamental lesson. mind your business. but you can still hear aja muttering out a slow explanation of increasingly jumbled words, and that’s all you care to hear.

it’s like there was a heavy weighted blanket keeping you down and separate from life, and that’s suddenly lifted. you can see and hear. there are words floating to the surface, and next steps, and you’re on the move, standing up. 

every woman sitting at aja’s table is up on their feet in five seconds flat, except for aja and her friend, though the friend gives you a look that could cut glass. you can hear everyone from your table getting up behind you, too. 

what’s your problem? says one of the women standing opposite.

i’m a doctor. you’re not even looking at her, but when she says, sure you are, there’s enough menace in it to stop you in your tracks. then janine has an iron grip on your arm, trying to drag you away. it’s too late. when you said you’re a doctor, you believed it, and with that the world has come into focus with perfect clarity. the rest doesn’t matter.

is she diabetic? you say.

janine hisses in your ear stupid fucking bitch fast and low and you can see a flicker of movement to your right, another woman from your side coming for you, so you wrestle free from janine and dart a few steps forward. as quick and smooth as if you’d planned it, a woman from aja’s side steps behind you, between you and your own table. she’s taller than you by about six inches. she says, yeah, she’s diabetic. 

permission enough. you sit down on the other side of aja. up close, she’s sweating and wearing a concerned expression, like she’s forgotten where she left her phone. you can hear the guards shouting, getting closer. you ignore them.

don’t touch her, the friend snaps.

who’s gonna take her pulse, then? keeping a careful eye on the friend, you reach for aja’s arm. nobody stops you. aja herself looks at you with vague suspicion in her golden brown eyes, but she’s not all there enough to resist. once you get your fingers on her wrist and find her pulse, you don’t bother counting it for a full thirty seconds, that’s how fast her heartbeat is going. 

at this point, the outside world has gotten too loud, too insistent, and you can feel the moment about to break. 

she needs sugar now, you say to the friend. or she’ll end up in a coma.

got it, she says, and then the guards are on you. with shouts and shoves, they break up the gathering, end lunch ten minutes early. with a yank of your shirt, you’re returned to your group. 

what the fuck is wrong with you, janine hisses, but you barely hear her. you’re still thinking on your patient, trying to get a look. you think you see the friend reaching for somebody else’s tray—to get a packet of strawberry jam, maybe—but you can’t be sure.

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it makes no sense. your head throbs. if janine’s threats are even half true, you’re in for more trouble than you know how to handle, and you didn’t know how to handle your troubles before. but somehow, once you’re in the laundry room, it happens. 

you realize that you like it all. the strong smell of detergent, the sun coming in golden through the high windows built too thin for jumpers, the way you have to lean forward and really push against the weight of hundreds of t-shirts in the hamper trolley. even the finicky machine quitting mid-cycle only amuses you, because you know the trick to starting it up again: thump it in the right spot a couple times, hear it rumble back to work. it’s not until one of the guards passes by you that you hear, the fuck are you smiling about? and you realize you were smiling at all. you stop at once.

the thing is: you fucking did it. at dinner, you’ll see aja sitting at that same table, eating and talking clearly. she’ll be fine. you did that. you never thought you’d get this again, but it seems not everything is over. there is still a little life in you, enough to save hers.

not everything is over, and for once you can think about the letter tucked into your bra without it burning you. 

you don’t imagine it contains forgiveness—hope isn’t the same as delusion—but there could still be something in it that you would want to keep. richie could never respect your decision to leave. loyalty is what he’s cared about most, the one value he’s managed to cling onto by the skin of his teeth. but he might at least understand. 

times past, he has understood you far better than you expected, and strangely enough, you’ve understood him too. he might understand you now. stranger things have happened.

you won’t read the letter, of course. but you’ll keep that possibility with you, the one thing you have left to hold.

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hey doc, come here. look at this. 

janine is calling to you from across the laundry room, beckoning you towards the back corner where the security cameras don’t quite reach. you hesitate. you’re not stupid. that’s exactly the spot they once made you stand guard, and given how publicly you ignored all orders today, you wouldn’t be surprised if it was janine’s turn to stand watch and your turn to take the beating. it’s been a while since you’ve done that. you’re probably rusty. ah, fuck it.

you leave the bin of stained shirts where it is and walk over, rounding the corner to find two women waiting for you. one you recognize immediately as an enforcer, blonde and tall and glaring ferociously at you. the other, slight and silver-haired, is the leader. 

do you know why you’re here? she says. calm, even pleasant, like a schoolteacher. 

i have a guess, you say.

so the leader explains. she takes her time with it, uses so many words, but the long and short of it is: you have been living an easy life. they have been taking care of you, and you’ve repaid them with nothing but trouble. angie—the massive woman leaning on the far wall, the enforcer—burned herself today in the kitchen, on purpose, badly enough that she got sent to the infirmary. sure enough, there’s a bandage around the enforcer’s left forearm. aja was supposed to also be in the infirmary, unconscious.

why angie and aja would need to be in the infirmary together, with aja unconscious, is obvious. the leader doesn’t need to explain that part. 

interfering is a crime. interfering in someone else’s murder is a crime whose punishment you can’t afford.

i didn’t know, you say. on hearing your thin voice, you realize your mistake. times like these, you’re supposed to keep your mouth shut. matter of fact, almost always, you’re supposed to keep your mouth shut. 

i’ve been told you have a letter on you, the leader says. let me see it.

you say nothing. she motions to the enforcer.

in your second tremendously stupid choice of the day, you fight back. you duck one punch only to get your ears rung by another, square in the left eye. after that, she deals with you easily, with the advantages of height, weight, reach, and the knowledge that this might be her one chance to get you back. she hates you and she fights like it, like she might just kill you and call it an accident. it’s all you can do to keep quiet, not yell for help. 

in under a minute, she’s back to the leader with your letter in her hand, snatched from your bra. the sound of your own heavy breathing is so unsteady, it’s almost as bad as crying. your eye has already begun to swell up. 

we have a problem, the leader says. if you can’t follow the most basic instructions, how can we trust you? and if we can’t trust you, what can we do? 

in the silence, you realize: they have everything now.

you need to prove that we can trust you. you have no idea how you could possibly do that, and then she adds, tell me about what you did for linda.

this time, you think it through before you open your mouth. 

you know what she’s asking about, of course. it’s the only thing you’ve ever done for your boss’s wife directly, and you were told to keep it secret, too. an iud for her daughter-in-law, along with a fake fertility treatment. what a woman would do to convince the people closest to her that she wants children, when she doesn’t. you know what those men are like.

i don’t know what you’re talking about, you finally say. if you have a problem with linda, go settle it with her. 

the enforcer starts forward, but the leader stops her. i’ll give you the night to think about it, she says, as undisturbed as ever. but first, i want you to tell me the list of things we could do if you turn out to not be trustworthy. i need to make sure that you know.

you need to get these women away from you so badly now that it’s almost easy to talk. 

you could kill me. you say that first because you doubt they’d bother with that much effort. or make my life miserable. you could keep that letter. you could talk to your boss and work it so i get stuck in here for a ten-year stretch. 

and other than that?

i don’t know.

we could make it so you never work as a doctor again.

does she know?

her pale green eyes give nothing away, and the longer you stare at her, desperately trying to pierce her pitiless calm, the more you feel you’re only exposing yourself. eventually, you give up. it doesn’t matter if she knows. the carusos know. if they expose you, the best years of your life, spent in hard work and little else, they’ll be gone. the worst years of your life, spent in restless loneliness and little else, they’ll be gone too. if that bomb drops, there’s no point to any of it. a decade of your life, best and worst, all for nothing. every second of every day. everyone you pushed away. 

i’m in jail, you manage to say. i don’t think i’ll get work as a doctor ever again.

i’m just the messenger, the leader says. see you tomorrow.

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that night, you wait for janine to snore, then you bury your face in the pillow and discover that you’re wound too tight to even cry. the pillow smells like old socks. you turn over and stare up at the bunk bed above you instead. 

it’s not a choice, it’s just pure dread. in this place, you have nobody else. if the italians drop you, you’ll be as easily extinguished as the slugs that little boys like to sprinkle with salt, but it’ll take much longer, however long they make your sentence. your lawyer said the feds were trying to pin human trafficking on you. maybe they’ll succeed. it’s life or hell, that’s the point. life or hell isn’t a choice.

you will tell them what they want to know. they will pass it back up the chain to old caruso, who in turn will figure out that alessandra has been fooling him all along with that combination of iud and fake fertility treatment. wronged the family, in his eyes. maybe, given the raid that came not long after, it will be considered a sign that she knew the end was coming and helped it along.

maybe she did snitch. you don’t know. does the truth matter? this man looked at his own wounded son and said, he should be dead. not helping death along was his idea of fatherhood. but he had considered it, you know. this is the man you’re going to deliver your patient to, the man who has you by the throat.

when you first learned about the hippocratic oath, you found it romantic in the only way you could bear: do no harm. not be kind or even do good, not change the world or save the day, and certainly nothing as lushly irrational as love. something possible and real. a solid foundation. first, do no harm. 

alessandra might never know that you’re the one who gave her up.

that’s your patient, you remember a veteran surgeon saying to another resident. you can’t exactly remember what made him say it, some disrespect, but the viciousness of his voice left an impression on you. the unspoken seemed obvious. they’re the patient, you’re the doctor. they let you cut them wide open and put your hands inside them, so you better be prepared to show some fucking respect. surgeons always have a reputation for ego, so maybe it had nothing to do with treating the patient well, maybe it was a pure ego thing. but it felt, and still feels, like a personal claim. you violate your own patient and you might as well be a leafless tree, an unloving father.

you think over the leader’s words, trying to find yourself some loophole. relive each word as best you can while sniffing back snot because you have no tissues. but all you find is that the letter is gone now too, and with that, you tighten your jaw and refuse to let yourself start crying, because this time if you lose it, you’ll be lost.

the laundry room sunlight feels like it fell on your face years ago. that hope is gone. richie would not understand you abandoning your patient, and you wouldn’t want him to. you don’t even want him living in the same country as this fucking place. 

why didn’t you open that letter when you had the chance? if it’s not understanding, it’s probably rage, and you want that.  you would willingly read in excruciating detail just how fucked up it is that you caused his best friend’s death and then wormed your way so deep into his life that you could see him up close fighting the grief like a fish against the hook. you’d take that. if he tells you to go fuck yourself, fair enough. as long as it’s his words. that letter is the last of him, and you want it. 

that letter is the last of him because once you give up alessandra, there’s no coming back. once you give up alessandra, you’re not just a legal liability, not just a burden, but a genuine honest to god piece of shit twice over. you were a piece of shit already, but this?

you only realize you had hope now that you’re losing it. you only know you want to be a doctor once your license is on the line; you only know you were going to go back to him now that the door is receding many more years into the distance. there’s some life left in you, yeah. that’s not a good thing.

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when you get up out of bed the next morning to meet your fate, your left eye has swollen up so badly you can barely see out of it. you face the morning, the sudden harsh overheads turning on, with half vision and a desperate, helpless longing to be numb. the numbness doesn’t return, though the leader does. 

she sits next to you at breakfast. there’s no enforcer this time. apparently you’re not enough of a threat.

well? she says.

you should’ve cried last night; maybe then you wouldn’t feel such an intense urge to cry now. stupid. you say nothing. you want to pick at the lumps of rubbery scrambled egg on your tray, but you only stare at them.

this is your chance. she doesn’t say it like a threat. she says it like a friend. you sure you have nothing to tell me?

it’s happening, you can feel it happening, but you can barely process. she thinks your silence is a no. she thinks she’s being denied. and you know you need to tell her what she wants to hear, but the guilt of it is so heavy that your mouth stays closed. you’re terrified of her. of yourself. you know what will happen once you crack and open your mouth and let your patient down: your life will be over. and you have no idea of exactly what will happen if you don’t open your mouth, but your imagination can fill in those blanks a thousand different ways. 

you’re just fucking scared in all directions, and what it amounts to is this: you keep your mouth shut.

after what feels like hours, the leader speaks.

okay, she says. i’ll pass it on. 

she gets up from the table. around you, women are eating and joking and squabbling as usual. it doesn’t feel like you made a decision. it doesn’t feel like the end of anything. it just feels like you’re waiting for the next punch to land.

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days go by and you’re still tensed, waiting for that punch. nothing seems to change, but it’s cold comfort. and there’s no comfort in the moral victory, either—discovering that you have a single principle left doesn’t make you feel any better when all your energy goes into keeping your guard up. every dull hour, every dull meal could be taken away from you at any moment. the afternoon light in the laundry room is still beautiful. somebody should try to hurt you, and soon. if they don’t, you’re just going to lose it.

and then there she is. the enforcer, sitting on your bed, when you come back from the laundry room smelling of bleach from the white shirts. the burn on her arm is still bandaged. in full light, she looks even bigger. dirty blonde hair swept back in a ponytail, grey eyes hateful. 

when she takes out that blue envelope, your chest tightens. you can tell that she enjoys the look on her face, but it doesn’t last long. it’s strange. she tosses the letter with a dismissive gesture, and it lands on the floor between you.

congratulations. she still hates you, that much is clear—but she’s no longer enjoying herself, and that’s vital. that’s a good sign.

yeah? you say.

jack says you pass. 

she shoves past you hard on her way out. it’s all you can do not to snatch up the letter from the ground, to try and look as though you have some kind of control. 

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> dear julie, 

> i don’t know if you remember me, but you dated my best friend mikey a while ago. when i found out you got arrested, i talked to tina about it. she said you helped him till the day he died, and you’re the one who got us narcan.

> that sounds about right to me. i heard negative things about you once, but i never believed them. some things only come around once in a while, like a leap year. (which doesn’t have 365 days, it has 366.) one of those rare things is a friend who’s there when you need them. you have to recognize them when you see them. i think i recognize you now.

> this is just me saying that we haven’t forgotten you. tina says hi, and i’ll come visit, if you’ve got the time to spare. i’m guessing you’re pretty bored in there, and i can honk my horn and take a pie to the face as well as the next guy. 

> yours,

> richie

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yeah, that’s him. 

you know it’s him on the first reread, because you can see all the tightness falling away as he writes, from the cramped propriety and false casualness in the first sentences to the dear clown stupidity of the last. you know it’s him on the second reread, because he’s lying in his own way, trying to fit in with what you wanted, pretending he’s just the friend of your ex, not admitting to knowing you. you’re crying. you’ve waited a long time to cry. that’s incidental. 

it’s only on the fifth reread that you snag on the part about the leap year. it’s the weirdest part, the parentheses. long after you have the letter half-memorized and tucked away in your bra, after dinner and lights out, you’re thinking on it. you fall asleep to the question and wake up the next morning with the answer. 

i’d bet my life that there was a sig p365 in his hand when they found him.

some things only come around once in a while, like a leap year. (which doesn’t have 365 days, it has 366.)

what if it wasn’t you?

no, you’ve been inside for less than two months and you’re already detaching from reality. that’s probably what’s happening here. but you can practically feel the warmth coming off the page, and that’s all that matters. 

your nose is practically fountaining snot, and without kleenex, you just wipe it on your sleeve and read the letter again.

it’s only hours later that you stop obsessing over the letter for long enough to truly realize what has happened. you’re going to be okay. 

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the days pass quiet now. your swelled eye heals up slowly, until one morning you have full vision again. just as before, all you do is sleep, eat, work, and keep to yourself. nothing has changed. 

nothing has changed on the surface.

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you think about alessandra all the time, because of course you do. 

just because old caruso couldn’t get you to flip on her doesn’t mean she’s safe, and yet you think about her the way you think about aja, the way you think about a gap-toothed surgery patient from way back in your residency sometimes. the thing that made you text your bosses begging for news about the carbon monoxide poisoning patients. that’s still in you. 

you know you can’t actually save anyone in a way that lasts—any and all work can be undone in an car-crash instant, and sometimes is—but still. one of your patients has to make it, or else what’s the point?

eventually you stop seeing aja around, but you don’t hear any talk about her getting killed, so you figure: that’s the one. that’s the one you got to save. it makes no sense, you know, but you have this feeling that if you get to save anyone, you only get to save one. so you try to prepare for the news that alessandra is gone. 

but when the news comes of a death in that family, it’s not the one you expected.

you stare at your lawyer, shocked. wait, so old caruso is dead?

suicide, she says matter of factly. hung himself in his cell. 

the fuck? so do we think that… you trail off, mindful of the cameras, even if they’re technically supposed to be turned off for lawyer consultations. you believe he’s dead, but you don’t believe for a second that he actually killed himself. 

your lawyer shrugs. who knows. all that matters is that apparently there’s an informer of some sort that’s turned over a bunch of shit—cellphone records, emails—and they’re willing to give an affidavit that you were threatened. there’s a couple pretty graphic and specific examples. for example, allegedly, after the first surgery you performed in the easystop basement, the oldest of caruso’s sons put his hand in the semi-coagulated blood and—

he’s dead now, you feel obligated to say. it’s whatever. you remember it well, though you wish you didn’t.

she’s admirably noncommittal, your lawyer. it would be nice if it wasn’t so annoying. which one is dead now?

most of them, i guess. the father’s dead, the oldest son is dead, and the youngest son will probably never be the same despite your best efforts. considering those numbers, it’s nothing short of a miracle that jack, the middle son, has apparently decided to spare you. you kept your mouth shut on behalf of his wife, but right now there’s such a tangle of complications and so few actual facts available to you that you can’t begin to guess what’s truly happening behind the scenes. you can only be grateful that you haven’t been hurt worse. 

your lawyer is considering you with shrewd eyes. after a second, she says, if i can get you a plea deal, will you take it? 

i can’t testify, you say automatically.

i know. i think i can get a deal without testimony included.

wait, really? 

she gives you a look, as if to say, catch up, dummy.

how many years? you say.

months, possibly. we’ll see.

you hardly know what to say to that. cool, you say, feebly.

you’ve kept your mouth shut, so they’re taking it easy on you, that’s the bottom line. it feels like a copout to escape the worst punishments on the basis that you were coerced, even if that’s true, because you feel like you probably deserve worse. but fuck, you’ll take mercy from anywhere right now, right and wrong and dignity be damned.

i’ll let you know. your lawyer gets up to go, but just as you’re about to call for the guard, she stops short. oh, one last thing. your landlady finally agreed that you don’t need to pay her rent for the past two months.

lovely.

she threw out all of your belongings that the cops didn’t take.

can’t say i’m surprised. it still hurts, but it’s a hurt dwarfed by the immense relief of an imminent plea deal. i’d sue, but we both know my retainer’s gonna run out too soon for that.

she did forward your mail to me, though. 

my mail? what is it, a dollar fifty off a personal pan pizza?

one postcard from your mom and her boyfriend and his family. one interview request for a doctoral residency program in indiana. 

you don’t know which of those is weirder. the residency applications you mostly did in a period of loneliness and boredom. they were an exercise in desperation daydreaming, not meant to touch real life, and you never even imagined a person reading the papers you submitted. getting a response, a good response, is as strange as a character stepping off a page. and your mom having a boyfriend is no surprise, but a boyfriend with a family? the world’s ended, yeah, but is the world ending?

can you forward those to me? you say.

they’re already in the mail. you should get them within the next two weeks.

when your lawyer leaves, you’re still sitting there. the guard has to call your name twice before you get up.

what a fucking week.

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if you’re gonna get out in months, then…

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you earn seventy-two cents per day working in the laundry. the first time you go to the commissary, you buy a stamp, an envelope, and a blank card. then you smuggle detergent out of the laundry room so you can bribe janine into letting you borrow her pen.

you have richie’s letter memorized, but you read it again anyway. then you stare at the blank white space of the card. 

what is there to say? well, fucking everything, but there isn’t much you can say with the inevitable prison guard reading it all too. that cuts you off from saying most things, and then dignity wants you to shut up about the rest. sorry i thought my life was over and tore you to pieces about it. turns out my life isn’t over, can we be friends again?

thing is, if you write him a letter, he’ll write back, even if it’s to tell you to fuck off. and honestly at this point, you’d give up a lot more than dignity for that. so here fucking goes.

> dear richie,

> thank you for writing. i’m not good company right now and i can’t really write letters, but maybe we can get coffee sometime when i’m out?

> yours,

> julie

the yours gives you away, but you have so little else to offer. and besides, he started it.

it’s disciplined. that’s what you’re trying to tell yourself. it’s disciplined and concise and it gets across exactly as much as he needs to know and jesus fucking christ that short note looks absolutely pitiful in the comparatively vast white space of the card. 

so you make an addition.

> p.s. tear the bottom off for eva.

as best as you can, you draw the horses from memory. arched necks, white and dark patches on their coats, as close to the style of the girl who loved horses as you can. and then one girl with a superhero’s mask and a cape, holding up an apple so the tallest horse can eat it. you don’t draw well, but you don’t have the pen long enough to try a do-over. there’s a small chance you’ll make her smile, and that’s all you want. 

lick envelope, peel stamp, and send.

[ next chapter pending ] [ masterlist ]

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a huge thank you to all readers.