#redvivd

TARGET   :   TODD - AL GHUL   ,   JASON. LOCATION   :   @redvivd​​​​​​​​​​ ​​​​​​​​​​ ASSIGNMENT   :   INBOX SHENANIGANS. ENCRYPTED   :   ❛ nothing kills me. ❜

        an exercise in intimacy and violence and whether or not they are quite the same in nature. she finds her comfort in the expanse of his chest, ear pressed to the heart that should not be beating and yet is determined to do so anyway. oh, how she cherishes it. how she longs to wrap her manicured fingers around it, feel it pulsate against her own skin. for now, she settles for a hand upon his pecs, nails scratching delicately at his skin   ---   while they both know she could sink her claws in at any point.

        he speaks and she suspects, vaguely, it may be in response to a confession, only made only to him    :   that there is a fear in her, deep seeded and immeasurable in its’ impact that she is terrified of another loss. she knows how strongly she grieves. she knows how her selfish ways would tear this world asunder if it took one more thing from her. especially jason, in all his devoted glory, her lone worshipper at the shrine of her divinity. the only person who understands, who knows, who sees. he exists beyond the veil of humanity and she adores him for it.

        ❝  i do.   ❞  she counters in a soft breath and yes, they both know it to be true. if jezebel asked, he’d serve her his intestines on a platter, flinching with revelry all the while, overjoyed to watch her mouth stained with his own red and to know he nourished her in a way no other could. to know he’d be eternally with her, their blood becoming one another’s, to live life through her touch, to breathe through her lungs. always, always, always.

         her fingers come to comb through his hair and for a moment, she kisses his chest, leaving behind a red stain just above where those four chambers pump blood through his system, longing to feel the sinew between her teeth. 

it’s a twist of fate.    (oh,  how the mighty fall.)    he held the world in the palm of his hand for days  &  now,  he’s sat across from the enemy,  eating a pasta that costs half the amount people pay for  rent  in gotham  &  new york.    his shoulders are heavy  &  right now,  all he can think about is downing the bottle of wine directly in front of his eyes—  but  he  doesn’t.    (get it together,  ken.)    instead,  he takes a sip from the glass of water to his right;  it doesn’t calm the nerves,  but it swallows whatever upchuck is dangling in the back of his throat.    he knows jason recognizes it too;  the anxiety,  the pressure,  the  betrayal—  the knife plunged into your back when you aren’t even looking.    but sometimes,  the enemy of your enemy is a friend:  &  that friend for kendall just happens to be  jason  fucking  todd.   (he can hear his dad’s voice in the back of his head:  have you lost your absolutely fucking mind?    the answer is:  yes,  he has.)

❛  my investors—   our investors  want...  uh—  ❜     he pauses;  there’s a pang of aching guilt with every word he speaks as if this isn’t the road he should walk down.    (but when did sitting quietly get anyone anywhere?    his father didn’t build the empire he’d built by staying quiet,  &  neither did  bruce  fucking  wayne.)    the golden boy’s fall from grace,  kendall takes a deep breath,  head nodding as he finds his voice once more.

this is how her old life culminates;  a  shallow  grave,  ire sought by the residents of rosewood who used the cover of night to protect themselves.    the pyrrhous burning of a witch at the stake,  clawing out the cancer of their tainted town  &  relieving themselves of the curse a  teenage  girl  had rooted inside the town.    in her dying moments,  it’s easy to say she felt the most alive she’d ever felt in her life.    every ounce of control being ripped from her body,  even through the panic of paralysis  &  being disembodied by the ether,  her flesh being swathed in the dirt:  she could see clearly.    she watched her  mother  bury her alive;  she rose from the dirt  &  the grave was left empty,  only for her mother to reside in it herself.    [isn’t that ironic?]    perhaps it’s part of the reason returning to rosewood is the hardest thing she’s done in years—  not forming her life in gotham,  not even necessarily  abandoning  said life either,  but returning to the scene of the crime.    she feels dead inside,  more than she’s ever felt before.   

alison died in rosewood,  resurrected herself in gotham,  &  finalized her death in rosewood:  THE  DOUBLE-CROSS  TO  HER  OWN  DEMISE.

❛  i’ll put it this way:  i’d rather be in gotham than here.  ❜    every ounce of this town is a reminder that a girl  died  here.    in the supermarkets,  she still sees missing posters hung on bulletin boards,  a picture of fourteen-year-old her smiling directly back at the viewer;  it’s haunting.    everyone still tip-toes around her like fragile glass  &  on the verge of breaking at any given moment.    the truth was:  she broke on august 31st,  2009.    there were no more pieces of her left to break,  only sharp edges to steer clear of.    she can hear her brother’s words echoing through her head:  things will be different this time,  ali.    nothing ever changes in rosewood,  though.    ❛  i’m rosewood’s  living  dead  girl  &  now with my mom...   it’s even worse.    there are all these flowers  &  cards in the living from people who  hated  her,  it’s ridiculous.  ❜    she huffs,  her left-hand running itself down her face.    her right-hand keeps the telephone up to her ear,  teeth clutching on the flesh of her inner-right cheek.

❛  there are these news vans parked down the street—  jason nearly nailed one of them last night.    he was pulling out of the driveway  &  since it was dark,  he couldn’t see them;  nearly rammed into it.   they never leave.    i thought by now it’d calm down,  but...  ❜    she’s explaining it mildly—  her return to rosewood had been like a sucker punch to the gut.    the presence of her previous self stands like a ghost in every corner of this town,  lurking in the shadows  &  trying to grab onto the collar of her every shirt.    there’s a seedling of fear beginning to blossom in the pit of her stomach;  she’s  no  longer  open  to  suggestions  for  her  life.

what wouldn’t she do for love?  love is large  &  monstrous,  in its own right  &  capacity.  it can tear  &  destroy as easily as it can build—  how does a child learn to understand that?  nature vs. nurture,  the age-old debate,  one talia partook in years prior with him  &  now most recently damian.  [the question remains:  what wouldn’t she do for them?  her love lies inside her children,  planted like a garden;  an all-consuming monster full of guilt  &  grief,  constantly growing  &  blooming.]  the answer is easy:  she would unpack her organs  &  allow the slaughterhouse of this world to slice them into a million pieces so her children could walk through the inferno for a second chance.  if only she could gather them into her arms,  shut off the universe’s ledger  &  destroy every account of grief.  but that’s not possible.  the only possibility to turn the page—  remove the anathemas of the al-ghul family.  

love will seal her fate one day—  she knows this.  (her children will get her killed  /  a mother’s duty to put them first,  &  pick up a sword second.  women are death’s natural companion,  after all.)  

throughout her life,  there have been many obstacles she must overcome;  a plentiful of boulders she’s had to punch out of her way.  there are poems about women like her—  those with ghosts they carry  &  how they expand to accommodate.  her ghosts require peace  &  quiet,  but noise echoes throughout her;  shouting  &  screaming  /  anger  &  rage,  counterparts of their own making.  if she were to peer through a mirror,  what would she see?  the winking reflection of an otherworldly being;  a god in the making.  the last daughter of krypton,  it’s only a matter of time before her hero heart shatters into a million pieces.  (the edges are beginning to crack  &  have been for a while.  she lost everything  &  for what?  invulnerability?)  every morning she wakes up,  kara feels like she’s drowning  —  water-logged as she bites down on her tongue,  halting herself from the screams threatening to burrow themselves out between her lips.

❝  warning signs?  ❞    her lips twitch,  parting as she stares dumbfoundedly.  perhaps it’s the fact his words sound identical to alex’s.  there’s so much alex knows nothing about—  she knows nothing about the thirteen years kara lived in the shadows.  &  now it’s becoming clearer to her that neither does jason.  he knows nothing about her planet,  about her previous life;  words don’t amount to the memories that torture her brain every waking moment of every day.  no matter how hard it rains,  nothing can wash away the agony that’s been taking up residence inside her ribcage for over a decade.  (get a fucking grip,  kara.)

❝  you think i care about warning signs?  ❞    mockery teeters on the tip of her tongue,  a scoff following after.    ❝  if you actually believe that,  you clearly don’t know anything about me.  i’m supergirl because i want to be her,  regardless of whatever warning signs you’re talking about.  everything i do— i do it so no one has to go through what happened to me.  ❞    there’s an irritating fucking headache beginning to slit itself behind her eyes;  kara brings her fingers up to her procerus,  kneading it gently.

what happened to the girl you used to be?    what happened to the hbic—  the girl with undying rage,  the girl who walked with a purpose,  the girl who was hell in high heels?    her ghost haunts rosewood;  her corpse resides in gotham now,  sleeping on a couch in an apartment she’s growing more familiar with,  eating cereal she told herself years ago she’d never indulge in.    (have to watch the calories,  right?)    she’s beginning to memorize the cracks in the ceiling,  the stains on the carpet—  alison begged for a lifeline that night;  the night she died;  the night her mother buried her alive.    the lifeline has been granted to her,  even while vulnerose  &  still picking the dirt from under her fingernails.    she should be happy while petal lips unfurl into a smile,  but how can you smile when you’re caught in an equilibrium of destruction  &  sorrow?    she aches for familiarity  /  a sense of belonging  &  of her home,  but she’s beginning to learn by now  —  there’s no place for her anymore.    her home has been stolen,  her fleeting life out of her reach.    there’s no coming back from this  &  it’s a taunt in her face.

agony has taken residence inside her ribcage  —  the rubble of her previous life still crushing her.    ❛  i don’t care about whatever promise you can see,  i care about going the fuck home.  ❜    she doesn’t want to hide,  but she can see the reality of her situation through the mist:  she has no home.    gotham is her home now,  whether she wants to accept it or not.    (alison can’t accept it;  there has to be a way she can return to rosewood.    alison dilaurentis isn’t dead,  not yet—  she’s still here,  she has to be.)    scoffing,  she shakes her head,  turning her head away from jason;  he should be her hero.    a hand reaching out from a grave  &  he grabbed it—  she should be grateful.    but she’s not;  how can you be grateful when you’re better off dead?