#((all you ever gave me was shame || aka kilgrave))

[akajustjessicajones]

Bitch I'm a monster, no good blood sucker

@jeremiahvalska @queenofgothams @kevinthompsons

[akagoddammit]

🍃 A dream when they’re on drugs

dream meme | accepting 

Jessica found the pills by accident, shoved in the back of her medicine cabinet. (She’d been looking for more booze – the search was more desperate than the state of her bank account honestly.) She vaguely remembered the shrink prescribing them, but she’d never taken anything that quack had tried to force down her throat. Going from being a mind-controlled zombie to a pill-controlled one hadn’t exactly appealed to her.

But she was so goddamn tired. 

She didn’t even read the warning label, she just popped two in her mouth, washed it down with the last of her whiskey, and collapsed onto her bed. For thirty minutes, she stared up at her ceiling, but when the heaviness hit her, she didn’t fight it.  She let herself fall into the blackness.

She knew something was wrong immediately. She didn’t know where she was – hotel room? Her eyes gazed around slowly, it was a fight to make them move at all. Like she was underwater. Fancy, stark-white furniture. A bed. And a minifridge, which confirmed it. Hotel room. Something high-end. Just his style. 

And she knew he was there, because she immediately wanted to run to the minifridge and down every drop of liquor inside, but she couldn’t move. 

“You miss me.” There it was. His lips at her ear, his fingers trailing along her arm. But they weren’t human, didn’t feel human. They felt like spiderlegs, leaving sticky strings of web wherever he touched. Webs that solidified and turned into ropes, twisting around her.

“Stay still, Jessie,” he breathed, but he was in front of her now. When had he moved? Everything was happening to her in slow motion, but he moved like lightning. Flashed across the room no matter where he looked, spiderleg-fingers touching every surface. 

Run, run, run, her mind screamed through the fog. But the ropes around her turned to chains, and she wasn’t strong enough to stay standing under their weight. Only his words kept her upright. “That’s it,” he whispered, so close to her now. “That’s a good girl.

His fingers weren’t spiderlegs anymore. They were snakes, individually slithering over her skin, while the chains and webs and ropes tightened around her. His voice hissed in her ear, and even when she closed her eyes, she saw his face.

But then there was a sharp crunch. And when she opened her eyes, they were on the docks. The chains were still wrapped around her, they had reached her throat now. But he was sprawled at her feet, his twisted body and empty eyes slowly turning to face her. His hands reaching for her, even now.

She could move again. The chains were so heavy, and every step was like walking through molasses, but she stepped back away from him. She glanced behind her – Trish was there, but she was so far away, a distant light in the distance. She turned around slowly, so slowly, and kept forcing her feet forward. Away, away, away. 

“Come back here, Jessica,” he yelled to her, his voice twisted and distorted, turning to a snake’s hiss halfway through. 

It was a dream, she knew that now. Because the dead didn’t talk, didn’t give commands. And if they did, she was sure she’d have to follow them. She kept moving, but it was so hard. 

She tripped, slipped on a goddamn bottle of all things. She tried to scramble for the whiskey, but her hands were still weighted down by the chains. They morphed back into webs, encasing her in a cocoon. Enveloping her entirely. Blocking Trish from her sight. But his face was still there, his voice still whispering. “Come back here. Smile. Stay still.You miss me. Smile.”

She didn’t wake up with a jolt. She woke up slowly, groggily, forcing street names from her lips, struggling to sit up. 

When she finally could breathe again, when she could move without shaking, she stood up. (Move so easily, the chains were just in her mind, she had to remind herself of that.) She strode into the bathroom and flushed the rest of the pills. She may have felt rested, sure, and her reflection in the mirror didn’t have such dark circles under her eyes, but it wasn’t goddamn worth it. Not even fucking close. She preferred the nightmares to end quickly. 

[akajustjessicajones]

if you had to choose between kilgrave having trish kill herself and kilgrave taking daisy what would you choose?

Honesty Hour! Nothing will be ignored or deleted.

“Death isn’t exactly reversible. But I’d offer myself first, for whatever that’s worth.” 

@akatrishtalks @kevinthompsons @daisycjohnson

[akajustjessicajones]

Compartmentalization is a joke. Fires rip through buildings all the time no matter how closed off parts of them are. Life is the same way. It cannot be contained.

Dexter, 5x06

[akajustjessicajones]

Getting you out of my head was like prying fungus from a window. I couldn't think.

[akajustjessicajones]

♪ (u knew i would)

Send me a ♪ for a song that reminds me of our muses and my favorite lyrics from it.

Come Back For Me by Jaymes Young

Oh, whatever you doDon't come back for meAfter all I've bled for youI can hardly breatheAnd one more kissCould take my life

[akajustjessicajones]

7.) Is there one event or happening your character would like to erase from their past? Why?

Only one? Try her entire life from fifteen on.

Finding out she actually died, that IGH dragged her back -- that’s stuck with her. Cemented that feeling that she doesn’t really belong here, that she shouldn’t be here. All the people Kilgrave hurt while they were together, all the people he hurt trying to ‘get her back’ -- all of them would be safe. Hope Shlottman would be alive. Reva would be alive. And maybe her mother would be too, living somewhere with Karl, mourning her family but never becoming a mass murderer. Countless lives would be different. 

It’s what she thinks about, when she’s standing on a rooftop ledge. When she wonders whether it’s tall enough. Or when she’s on the curb and a bus is coming up the street. The thought never really goes away, just waxes and wanes, a wave in her head whispering you should be dead, you should be dead, you should be dead. 

If she had died at fifteen, she would’ve never known what his hands felt like. Or the feeling of being truly helpless. Waking up with someone else’s voice in your head, and that strange, sickening sensation of your own body betraying you. She wouldn’t know what it looked like, to watch the life leave someone’s eyes. She wouldn’t know how terrible it was to see that, whether it was your worst enemy or your own mother. She would’ve just died, died with her family, been kept in a box in someone else’s closet. An ash pile gathering dust. 

Sometimes, even if Daisy is laying right beside her, or sitting across the room, Jessica still thinks about that. Still hears that whisper in her head. And she wonders just how different everything would be, if she had just died when she was supposed to. Kilgrave, for all his talk of fate and destiny and inevitability, had it all wrong. She had no fate, no destiny -- she doesn’t picture the future because she knows she’s living on borrowed time. Time she hasn’t earned. Time she doesn’t deserve.

[akajustjessicajones]

If you had the choice of kilgrave having you or daisy, who would you choose for him to have?

“Me. Obviously me. This isn’t even a goddamn question.” Main Street. Birch Street. His hands would touch you. You’d have to stay with him. “I’m immune to him, it’s not... It’s not even a decision.” What if she wasn’t? What if he had her, just like before? When his words became puppet strings, when he could violate every cell in her body, every thought in her goddamn head? When he could make her go there, sit still, stay quiet, wear that, take that off, tell me you love me. 

It’s the kind of thing she thinks about, on Bad Nights. When there isn’t enough liquor in the world, when she wants to pour herself into a bottle, because maybe if she drowned she could at least stop playing this terrible game of What If. What if he could control her again? Which is enough to induce nightmares for a week, but there’s even worse. What if he made her choose between herself and Daisy someday? Choose which of them would have to suffer him, bear him like a goddamn cross, and she’s self-loathing enough to choose martyrdom -- but there’s no beauty in this kind of suffering. There’s no blessing in sacrificing herself. It doesn’t teach anything, it doesn’t make you ‘grow as a person,’ as the shrink tried putting it to her. 

He offered her that ‘choice,’ in the hospital. She isn’t sure it was even real, because Daisy wasn’t there, and she sure as hell isn’t going to ask Trish to untangle the truth from the morphine and the skull fracture and the nightmares. She said no, because it wasn’t really a choice. It doesn’t have to be like this, you know. I’ll forget Daisy. We’ll leave the city, Jessica. Just let me get someone to get you out of here. You’ll heal. And we can try again. Say yes, Jessica. Every single goddamn word was a command, just him trying to control her again. Twisting it, the way he always did, the way he would hide his worst orders, cover them in a smokescreen that left just enough for doubt, just enough distance. Like it was never his fault. 

It’s all his fault. 

Daisy’s voice rings as clear in her head as his ever did, and that’s why she knows. Knows that if she had to make that choice for, whether he could control her or not, she would always say the same answer. Because Daisy has given her so goddamn much, and maybe this is the only way to repay her for that. “I’d always choose me. I’d go with him before he even got within ten feet of her.” 

[akajustjessicajones]

3.) Name one scar your character has, and tell us where it came from. If they don’t have any, is there a reason?

If you can’t listen to me, you don’t need ears. Cut them off. 

It’s a weird place to have a scar. Virtually impossible to find, unless Jessica shows it to you. Behind her left ear, a raised, slightly pink, crescent shaped scar. From where he handed her the knife and told her to cut. 

He didn’t tell her to want to cut her ears off. Because it was a punishment, and whether he was fully aware of it or not, letting her feel that bone-deep horror as she watched her own hand bring the knife to her head, screaming inside while her body acted out the latest betrayal -- that was the worst part of it. Not the searing pain when the knife bit in, or the way her stomach churned when her own warm, sticky blood dripped onto her fingers. Not the weird, shameful knowledge that she was doing this to herself. No, the worst was not wanting it, being allowed to not want it -- and not being able to stop.

The utter helplessness of it all. 

But that was probably the point. 

@kevinthompsons

[akajustjessicajones]

6.) Describe your character’s happiest memory.

“Tell me,” he whispers, hand trailing down her spine. “Where was Jessica Jones happiest?” 

“Home.” Her voice is tight, small. Frightened, even though the worst of it is already over. For tonight at least. But there’s always another night. Another hotel, another silk dress, another fancy restaurant. Another temper tantrum. Another moment when his eyes pass over her like she’s a piece of meat, and then his hands follow the path his eyes blazed. It never ends. 

“Tell me more,” he croons, his lips pressing kisses along her back that feel more like knives. Like bombs, exploding against her skin. If she could, she would shiver, but he’s told her to hold still. If she could, she would do a lot of things. 

But there’s only one thing she can do. Because he’s commanded it.

So she tells him. 

She tells him about a white house with blue shutters. Two stories, three bedrooms and one-and-a-half bathrooms. A living room, where she and Phil would laugh at bad horror movies. (Even if Phil did sometimes sneak into her room later that night, woken up by a nightmare. She was always so annoyed, but she let him sleep on the floor at least.) Breakfasts on the patio, her mom reading the paper, and her dad bugging her for the sports section. The lilies planted out front -- her dad’s doing. He had the green thumb, and the cooking skills. Because, for her, happiness isn’t a single day. It’s fifteen years of the most mundane things you could ever imagine. Typical Thanksgivings. Christmases. Family dinners, Phil’s soccer games, the art show where her charcoal drawings were featured, even though everyone else was a high schooler and she was only in middle school. 

Even all that doesn’t feel like enough. Doesn’t feel like more -- the need is still burning inside her. So she tells him about Playland. Riding the Ferris Wheel with her mom, while her dad took Phil to get cotton candy. She tells him about the lake, where they used to camp in the summers. She doesn’t mean to, but she tells him that she used to think about going back there. Because no one would ever find a body all the way out on that lonely little beach. 

He stops her then, shushes her gently. “Don’t talk like that, Jessie,” he says, smiling at her. Like that’s supposed to make her want to stay in her skin. “I’ll always be here. And I’ll always want you.” 

[akajustjessicajones]

🙈

SEND ME EMOJIS 👀

🙈 - What makes you shy?

read more bc dawn and ami told me to angst it up to 11 ok

“What’s the matter, Jessie?” His hands slide slowly over her shoulders, reach around to tilt her chin towards him. “Feeling shy? Are you embarrassed?” Jessica doesn’t even try to move from his hand. Somehow, her eyes are dead as she stares back at him, even as a tear slips down her cheek. He brushes it away with his thumb. “Answer me, Jessie,” he says, his soft grip becoming just a little tighter. A little meaner.

“Yes,” she whispers. It’s easier that way. To just answer him, fast as she can. It makes the need go away faster, but it leaves her trapped in this strange limbo. Where nothing feels quite real, because she can’t really see through the fog in her mind. 

Kilgrave tuts under his breath. “Isn’t that sweet,” he croons. He chuckles lightly, steps away from her, around her. Looking at her up and down. Everyone’s looking at her, every single person in this entire restaurant – but she doesn’t blame them. She’d stare too if someone was naked in the middle of a five star restaurant, dress pooled at her feet. Every gaze stings, but it’s his eyes that burn. Like he’s peeling her skin off as he admires her. 

She still has the jewelry on. The bracelet he saw in the shop window. The necklace from Paris. And a pair of earrings that he already stole from the woman at the next table over. It doesn’t do much to make her feel less exposed. She eyes the upturned glass of wine on the table, still dripping onto the floor. It was stupid, reaching it for that fast – but these days she takes whatever she can get, anything to make it easier to stomach his eyes on her, his hands. Anything but the obvious. 

You want to do it. You know you do. Now smile. 

“Jessica…” Kilgrave sings, snapping his fingers until she looks at him again. “Pay attention, now. Answer my questions. Why are you embarrassed?” 

She’s focused so suddenly on his words, because she needs to. She has to. She doesn’t have a choice. “Because everyone’s looking at me,” she whispers. It’s the truth, but not the whole truth. She doesn’t even understand the whole truth, the root of this cold, twisting shame in her stomach. That, and the air conditioning in the restaurant has given her goosebumps. She shivers as the cool air passes over her skin. 

Kilgrave nods at her answer. “That’s easily fixed,” he says, and her eyes go wide. No, please, don’t – But she can only think these words. She can’t say them. “Everyone,” Kilgrave announces to the room at large. “The next person who looks at anything but their plate will have to carve their eye out with a soup spoon.” A hundred heads drop instantly, all at once, not one of them moving. He grins at her, winks. “Maybe I should have them eat, too. Teach them a lesson about minding their manners, what do you think?”

She has to answer – he doesn’t even realize. “No,” she says, and something flutters in her chest. The voice, the one that never shuts up in the back of her head even when she wishes it would – it can speak freely. For this one word. She can say what she would choose to say. It’s a gift. 

A gift she’ll pay for. 

Kilgrave’s grin fades. He drops his arms, and frowns at her. “You never appreciate anything I do for you. Not ever,” he says, sounding so much like a petulant toddler. It’d be funny, if not for the horror. She stays as still as she can, can’t move her eyes, she has to pay attention, and she has to answer, and she has to stand here, naked like he ordered. Kilgrave sits back down at the table, picks up his fork. He stabs the pasta without even looking at her. But she has to watch him. She can’t look away. 

“You can stand there, just like that, until you learn some manners yourself,” he says, through a mouthful of food. “And some gratitude. Do you understand?”

“Yes,” Jessica says, voice flat. No one’s looking at her now, but she still wishes she could melt into the floor. That she could crawl under the table, or into oncoming traffic – just anything to make this stop. 

“And you can quit with the crying,” he mutters. “It’s your fault – if you were so shy, you shouldn’t have spilled that wine on your new dress.”  

[akajustjessicajones]

MEMORIES HURT

Send Memories Hurt for my muse to share a painful memory.

tw: rape implications, menstruation (??? idk might make folks uncomfortable)

She’s digging in her bathroom cupboard for a tampon, just manages to close her fingers around a solitary tube, when the flashback hits. 

She’s not in her apartment. She’s in a hotel. A nice one, three different high-end restaurants downstairs, a pool, and a jacuzzi tub that he’s promised to put to ‘good use.’ But for now, he tells her to clean herself up. “How do you get so filthy, Jessie?” he asks, nudging her towards the bathroom.

There’s roses on the tiles. Not every one, but in a pattern, swirling and vibrant. Little specks of red among the white. It dazes her for a moment, her eyes just jumping from one flower to the next, thinking about how much she hates roses, how she hates flowers in general, except one…And then the need pulses in her mind.

She needs to get her clothes off. Now. She’s filthy, she needs to clean up, she has to get clean. She shimmies out of the ridiculous evening gown, leaving a silk, wine-colored puddle on the floor, and she avoids the tub. She never liked tubs before. The shower is nice, so nice, the steam clouding up the reflection in the mirror which means she doesn’t have to see that strange, glazed look in her own eyes. And the second she’s under the water, she feels better. The need wanes, just a little, still there, still pulsing, but quietly now. A distant throb she can almost ignore.

The water feels nice on her skin. Hot, scalding water, turning her skin bright red, but it feels purifying. She lets out a sigh of relief, and lets her head hang down. Her body almost feels like her own again. Almost. Enough for her to come back to it, to really notice her skin, her sore feet, the ache in her cheeks from smiling. Her stomach hurts, she realizes. She hadn’t noticed before, too caught up in the pantomime act of being normal over a thousand dollar meal they were eating for free. But her stomach hurts, has been for a while. Her back too, and there’s nausea that she’d assumed was just from the fish. She hates fish – or used to. He makes her love it. 

And then she looks down, and sees the blood. “Oh,” she whispers. It’s about all she can say, it’s hard to remember how to talk when he’s not asking a question. Demanding an answer. She blinks at the blood between her legs and remembers suddenly that this is thing. A thing that happens outside of him, of all this. She turns the water off in the shower, and she steps into one of the silk robs that are hanging on the back of the door. She’s new to this, but she knows that if he wants her dressed, he’ll dress her. 

She opens the door. He’s sprawled on the couch, watching some game on the television. Screaming at it, but good-naturedly. Not his terrifying, low rumble of anger. Not like the temper tantrum he threw last week when his favorite chef wasn’t at the restaurant. (He made them call him in. The man was at the airport, ready for his vacation, and they picked him up to bring him to the restaurant.) 

Right now, he’s calm. Annoyed a little, bored – but that’s pretty usual for him. He’ll get bored of her too, someday. She knows that, she just has to wait for it. She doesn’t know how long it’s been, couldn’t be more than a few weeks. But he must be close to it now. Close to leaving her alone. Jessica just stares at the back of his head, wondering when exactly, that time will come. 

He glances at her, just standing there, and rolls his eyes. “You’re dripping on the carpet, stop that,” he says. Instantly, she steps back onto the tile. “What’s the matter with you, Jessie?”

It’s not a command. She doesn’t need to answer, but she has to. There’s no other option.

“I need a tampon,” she says, voice flat, her eyes on the floor. But her eyes drift towards him, can’t help herself. Like a deer in the headlights, knowing the danger, feeling the fear, and unable to do a single goddamn thing about it. (It could be worse – she could feel like a moth drawn to a flame. She has enough of herself left to remember she hates him. For now.)

His face contorts, almost cartoonish, as he glances down at her legs. She can feel the blood between her thighs, does nothing about it. She lets it sit there, and she could almost relish in that, claim that it was to see that look on his face, but she knows the truth. She just can’t do anything about it, because he hasn’t told her to. He tells her when to sleep, what to wear, how much to eat – she doesn’t exist outside his needs anymore. 

He stands up, approaches her slowly. Like he’s scared, but it’s more likely disgust judging from the frown on his face. “I need a tampon,” she says again. “And – and a tylenol or something.” She inhales a shaky, trembling breath. “Please.” 

“Hush,” he says, raising a finger. He trails it along the side of her cheek, smiling that wolfish smile at her. Any words she had left get stuck in her throat, she chokes on them. He pulls the string on her robe, and she closes her eyes. She can’t stop him from looking at her, she’s used to this. But she can close her eyes. She can keep the image of this moment out of her head. “Can’t you just… hold it?” he asks.

She would laugh if she could, if she even remembered how. But she can’t even speak. She just shakes her head. “I admit, this is a problem,” he tuts. “You’ve made a complete mess of yourself. Look at me, Jessica,” he says, in that low, dark voice, and her eyes snap open. She inhales, holding her breath while she stares at him. His dark eyes so empty looking, as empty as she feels. Like a void. “Stop it,” he commands. No mistaking the meaning, no denying the power of it. It’s an order. She needs to obey.

“I can’t,” she breathes. It hurts to say, but it’s the truth. She can’t. And suddenly, the pressure is gone from her chest. She can take a deep breath, and there’s no need pulsing in her skull, and she feels so light. “I can’t. I can’t do it, I can–”

“I get the picture!” he snaps. She bites her lip, but not out of fear this time. For the first time in so long. He huffs, and takes one more look at her. “Just stay there,” he mutters, and then he stomps over to a phone. He’s asking someone to be sent up. And then he hangs up the phone, goes back to his game. The hotel worker arrives, and Jessica feels the sharp, biting guilt in her stomach when he orders them to go buy tampons and tylenol. They return fifteen minutes later, and he tells them to ‘bugger off.’ 

He tosses the tampons at her feet. She hasn’t moved, not a muscle. He’s left her standing there this whole time. “Go take care of it,” he says, settling back on the couch, and she breathes a sigh of relief. There’s so much freedom with that order, a luxury she isn’t used to. It makes her hesitate, just long enough to hear him say. “And you’re not sleeping in the bed tonight. I won’t wake up in that mess. You can stay in there, until this is over.” 

He’s sulking as he says it. It’s clearly meant to be a punishment, which becomes inherently clearer when he goes to bed and doesn’t even toss a blanket into the bathroom for her. But she doesn’t mind. She hugs a robe around herself, stuffs a towel into the bathtub, and she curls up in the corner. She doesn’t even bother with a tampon, she just lets herself bleed freely. It feels symbolic somehow. A badge of victory. 

[akajustjessicajones]

MEMORIES HURT

Send Memories Hurt for my muse to share a painful memory. 

This is her third session. They talked about happy memories last time, the shrink taught her that stupid goddamn thing about the street names that never works, and Jessica spent most of it counting ceiling tiles. Today, the shrink has told her, they’re going to talk about bad memories.

She says it like that. ”Bad memories.” Like they’re discussing a child’s nightmare, silly and unimportant. Easily resolved in an over-priced, forty-five minute session twice a week. 

Bad memories. She’s got plenty of goddamn bad memories, she’s got more bad memories than brain cells at this point. All she really wants to do now is drink until she can keep that ratio permanent. 

“Jessica?” the shrink prompts. Jessica ignores her, eyes sliding over the ceiling tiles. But she thinks about all the ways she could answer. She could tell the shrink about the first time he killed someone in front of her. The hotel manager who was called down after a number of guest complaints. Kilgrave was upset with her, he had her banging her head against the wall – she must’ve woken someone up. That’s what Kilgrave spat to her, after he had the man stab himself in the neck with a cheese knife. Then he made her drag the body inside and get the bags.

She could talk about the time he told her to jump out a window – he was angry, done with her, something happened. Maybe she was too honest with one of the answers he demanded. He told her to shut up, and then pointed to the window and said jump! So she did. But once she landed, she couldn’t move. He hadn’t told her to move. So she sat there, for hours, dress fanned out over the cracks in the sidewalk. And slowly, she started to become more hopeful than afraid. Maybe she could just wait it out. She smiled at the few people who walked by, didn’t want them dragged into it. And she stared up at the window, begging, hoping, praying not to see his face. Heart skipping a beat each time a shadow moved in that room. But then, there he was. Staring back at her, wide-eyed and gleeful, wolfish smile on his lips. Well done, Jessie! Aren’t you a marvel? Come on, come on, get back up here. You brilliant thing. 

Outside, over the shrink’s shoulder, is a view of the street below. Jessica stares out the window, tired of ceiling tiles. She sees the woman with her baby stroller. A bottle, or a rattle, something small and pink, rolls out of the bottom. Forgotten, abandoned as the mother moves on, not even aware of what she lost.

And Jessica remembers the newest Bad Memory. The clinic.

It was the first time she went out on her own. Without him, without Trish hovering over her. Jessica waited until she had a long day at the studio, and then she went in. She’d called beforehand, whispered the situation into Trish’s phone in the corner of the bathroom. They understood, they said. They booked her as soon as possible. 

The clinic was cold. Freezing, even to her. It was hours of waiting, then hours of paperwork, then hours of repeating yes, I’m sure, but she didn’t mind. It felt nice, someone asking her what she wanted. They made her sit with a counselor then, too, and she’d lied then. Lied about already being in therapy (Trish’s orders), lied about having nothing to talk about. She just wanted this done. 

The fifteen minutes with the doctor was almost pointless. Except that he was the one to hand her the pills. One for now, which she swallowed instantly. One for the next day. They kept her in an observation room for a few hours, helped her through the start of it. Then they called her a cab, and she went home to Trish’s apartment, which no longer felt like hers. She laid in the shower, and she suffered, and she cried, and she bled, and she slowly accepted that this was happening.

Maybe it isn’t a bad memory, after all. Because by the time Trish found her, still laying on the shower floor though the water had grown cold long ago, she had something. She found something. A strength to keep up the lie, at least, to tell Trish it was just food poisoning. Strength enough to accept that this was her life, that this was a part of her now. Strength to get past it.

“Jessica?” the shrink’s voice draws her back to the present. Jessica’s eyes finally find hers. “Do you want to tell me a bad memory? Just one?” Silence in response. The shrink keeps going. “Doesn’t have to be about him. It can be about anything you want. Would you like to do that?”

She stares at the shrink for a long moment. “No,” she says, and then she closes her eyes. Talking about the bad shit won’t make it go away. She’s accepted that, too. 

[akajustjessicajones]

You ruined my life.

You didn’t have a life. 

[akajustjessicajones]

AKA Who’s Phone Is That? || Self

summary: the day after her encounter with fish, jessica tries to put some of the pieces together

trigger warnings: ptsd, kilgrave stuff, fish stuff, mind control stuff, hallucinations, self-loathing, etc

The day after. She didn’t know if she’s slept. She didn’t know for sure when Coulson left, when Daisy did. At some point, she’d ended up alone. Maybe she’d asked to be. Maybe she didn’t need to.

She blinked, realized she was standing in her kitchen. She wasn’t a second ago, a second ago she was back in the club, her wrist throbbing, Fish’s hand flying across her face. Jessica reached up, touched her cheek, but the swelling was already gone. Like it never happened, except in her head.  Where it kept happening, over and over again. Relax. Tell me how he did it. Mind your manners.

Who’s phone is that?

Jessica gasped, and stumbled back, until she hit the counter. She reached back to steady herself, closed her eyes. “Main Street. Birch Street,” she choked out. It didn’t help, nothing helped – at least with him, she was immune, he couldn’t get her again, but Fish –

Fish had her. Even with that pulsating energy gone, even though there was no bruise on her wrist, she was branded. Owned. Controlled.

She’d sold herself, body and soul. Traded it away, by choice. But not for nothing. “Higgins Drive. Cobalt Lane,” she finished. She was still shaking, but her mind felt more present again. She could think.

Who’s phone is that?

That command stuck in her mind. Not because of the agony of the memory, how it felt to have the answer pulled out of her, ripped from her throat – but because of the shame. She’d given the name. She had no choice, Fish had ordered it, but… It was her voice that spoke the words. Her voice that gave up Sofia like a lamb to the slaughter.

Her job to fix it. To make it goddamn right.

If she even could.

Who’s phone is that? It was the wrong question. Her mind was sluggish, foggy, she was clawing at the fungus, but it took time. Time she didn’t have. Who’s – no, no. Not who. Where? Where was Sofia’s phone? Where was Sofia?

She took a breath. Scrubbed her hands over her face, before snatching a bottle off the table, and walking into her office. Her eyes flicked to the wall, just behind her desk, where the message had been. The faint stain was still there, barely visible, like the most-distant echo in a cavern – but she saw it every time she blinked. She sat down, put her back to the memory, and took another swig.

Think. Where was the phone? She glanced at her top drawer – had a faint, blurry memory of putting it there last night. (Was it only last night? It felt like a lifetime ago – and like she was still living it.) But when she opened the drawer it wasn’t there.

‘Careless. You always were such a slob, Jessica.’

“Not now,” she murmured, not even looking up at the hallucination. She was used to him, at least. Jessica walked right through him, over to the mantle. But the phone wasn’t there either. ‘Where the hell is it?’ Kilgrave asked beside her. He leaned in closer, Jessica clenched her jaw. And her fists. ‘Don’t you know?’

She slammed her fist into the wall. It crumbled like tissue paper, but she felt the splinters drive into her skin. At least he was gone, quiet, for just a second. She just needed a second. Like at the wedding, when she’d walked off. Daisy had followed her then, had whispered to her gently, her fingertips soft, her kiss warm and sweet and –

‘You have quite the temper, sweetheart.’

Jessica closed her eyes. It didn’t matter. When she opened them, turned around slowly, there she was. Fish, sitting in her office chair, manicured nails running across her lips. ‘You need to relax,’ the hallucination crooned. ‘Rushing didn’t help much before, now did it? Stop, breathe, and think it through, Jessica.’

“Shut up,” Jessica choked out. Just a hallucination, and still, she didn’t dare go near it. “I don’t need your help. I don’t need him. I can do this myself.”

‘You really never learn do you?’ Fish asked her, chuckling as Jessica walked back to her desk, giving the delusion a wide berth.

‘She’s a bit slow on the uptake,’ Kilgrave answered, sitting in the other chair. He shared a knowing smile with Fish. Jessica ignored them both, inhaling sharply. She pushed her laptop open, a little too roughly.

Fish tutted at her. ‘Don’t break that. We’ve talked about your temper.’

‘Your girlfriend won’t be happy,’ Kilgrave noted.

“She’s not my girlfriend,” Jessica hissed. Her Daisy was more than that, they didn’t need labels, they just were. She hoped they still were, that she could still be something after this. “And you’re not real.”

‘More real than any chance of you finding that phone,’ Kilgrave said.

‘Or your little friend,’ Fish finished with a smile. ‘Why don’t you be a dear and remind me of her name?’

Jessica’s fingers paused on the keys. “Sofia. Her name’s Sofia, and neither of you,” she seethed. “Are ever going to get near her.” They might’ve just been delusions, but it felt good to say. It shut them up for a moment, and she pulled up the tracking program. Same one she’d used before. She just caught a glimpse of the signal – in a strange neighborhood, nowhere that made sense – before it disappeared.

“Shit,” she snapped, leaning back in her seat. The phone was off, or broken, or something. She didn’t know where it was. All she knew was that it wasn’t here, like it should’ve been, and somehow – that gave her a bad feeling. She needed to track down that phone, needed to figure out what the hell was going on. She might’ve gotten a promise from Fish, but she wouldn’t believe Sofia was safe until she saw her with her own two eyes.

‘Now you’re in a pickle,’ Kilgrave said, frowning down at her screen over her shoulder.

“My Daisy made this laptop,” Jessica muttered, feeling more centered than she had in hours. “There’s gotta be something on here that can help.” She closed the tracking program, going through the list of all the others. Half of them she barely understood, but there had to be something.

Fish tsked over her other shoulder. ‘Do you ever actually know what you’re doing, sweetheart?’

‘You can’t do this alone,’ Kilgrave said, in a mocking sing-song voice. ‘Gonna have to call up your Dai—’

“No,” Jessica hissed. “I will claw my own brain out before I let you say her name. She’s my Daisy, not yours,” she choked out, breathing heavily. She closed the laptop, leaning back. Her delusions were assholes, but they had a point. She didn’t know what she was doing, and obviously she wasn’t thinking clearly. But she couldn’t face her Daisy right now. Or Coulson.

Not because seeing them would hurt. It’d probably make her feel better. But she couldn’t let herself off the hook, not before she knew for certain that Sofia was safe. The next time she saw her Daisy, she wanted to be able to tell her she’d done at least one thing right.

But she needed somebody who was good at tech. Somebody who might not ask too many questions. Jessica bit her lip for a moment, eyes sliding towards the kitchen. Fish and Kilgrave were in there, Kilgrave sitting on the counter, swinging his legs like a child. Fish was putting something in her toaster.

Toaster.

That was an idea. She opened the laptop again, pulled up her last phone back-up. Her contacts were saved, and she pulled her office phone towards her. She had a plan at least. She could make this right.

In the kitchen, Fish and Kilgrave were laughing. But Jessica ignored them and made the call. “Hey,” she said, when Vic picked up on the other side. “It’s Jessica. Jessica Jones. This is awkward, but I kind of need a favor.”

[akajustjessicajones]

4.) How vain is your character? Do they find themselves attractive?

Jessica Jones couldn’t give less of a shit about her appearance. It’s intentional. She spent eight months being dressed up like a doll, each outfit and hairstyle meticulously planned, jewelry chosen so carefully. He used to take her to have her hair styled, used to summon professionals to do her make-up for special occasions. One of the first things he said to her was  Jesus, you’re a vision... The hair and the skin... Like they weren’t even her hair and her skin, like they were just objects for his pleasure. So now, she goes out of her way to avoid being anyone’s vision, especially his.

She deliberately goes days between showers, lets her hair fall where it will, doesn’t wear make-up. Who the hell has time for that shit? That’s valuable drinking time right there. (Though if she gets particularly bored on a case, she sometimes puts on eyeliner. As a teenager, that was her favorite part of putting on make-up, even though her mother and Dorothy both told her she always used too much.) She wears the same clothes until they stick to her body with sweat. She’s a mess, and she knows it. She owns it. 

But she does know that she is, at least physically on the surface, attractive. Enough that it’s never been an issue picking up a one-night stand. (It’s everything beneath her skin that’s unattractive. Everything inside.) That was enough for her, before Daisy. 

Now, when she catches a glimpse of herself in the mirror, she can handle it a little longer. Because she doesn’t hear him snapping orders at a hair stylist, or whispering about how pretty she looks when she smiles. She hears:

No offense, but you’re not a ‘vision’. You’re scabs and scars and bruises that go away only when a new one shows up. You’re the smell of booze, ripped jeans, and a bad attitude to cover up how you’re feeling. You’re a mess, but you’re a mess in the way that Jackson Pollocks are considered masterpieces and in the way that you’re not eating ribs right if you don’t end up getting barbecue sauce all over your face. He only thinks of people as things for him to shape into being his perfect image. He never thought about the fact that you already were perfect in your imperfections. It’s all his fault.

And nothing has ever made her feel more beautiful. 

@daisy-quaking-johnson @kevinthompsons​