#I am so fucking rusty lads this is straight dookie writing. be kind abeg 😭🙏🏽

[ferritins]

SHOW ME (LITTLE BIT OF SPINE) | J. TODD

SUMMARY: You keep putting your back to Jason. He keeps wondering why. Eventually, things boil over.

NOTES: if you’re looking back at my ghost fic, reading this, and going “…hm. Marley I am putting some things together about you” no you are not! [lying]

title from Fall Out Boy’s Dance Dance because I am a cringe elder GenZ and former scene kid 🙂‍↕️🤘🏽

WARNINGS: canon-typical violence, resolved romantic tension, UST.

Despite the hissing, seething rage sitting green and molten under Jason’s skin, you are completely unafraid of him.

It’s not that awareness of his capacity for violence escapes you, exactly; rather, it is the fact he reins it in so tightly and meters it out so meticulously that sets you at ease.

The Jason who rends flesh from bone and tears viscerae from by bodies with nothing but a K-Bar and the impetus to obliterate is the one who haunts the abuser, the exploiter, the predator.

The Jason who haunts your kitchen is the same boy you grew up with, who is in turn both stroppy and sensitive, cuts your expensive sharp cheddar at stupid angles and takes a spoon of jam in his black tea.

He has only ever been physical in protection of you, and never, ever to you.

You have been scared for him, but never of him; put simply, Jason is the safest pair of hands you know, the keenest pair of eyes to have watching your back.

Which is why you’re completely bemuses by Jason being so entirely thrown by your willingness to put your back to him, to make yourself vulnerable.

It first comes up one evening in late January, when you’re making saag paneer to chase off the creeping chill; Jason is at your side (back-seat cooking, as is his habit).

After five minutes of his nitpicking, you roll your eyes, holding a sauce-coated spoon out.

“Less bitching, more taste-testing.” You sing-song, tone deliberately cloying.

Jason scowls, but takes the spoon.

“Definitely more cumin, maybe a little more garam masala and like… half a tablespoon more tomato purée.” He says a moment later, around his mouthful of sauce.

“Ooh, precision! Steady on, Marco Pierre-White.” You tease, turning to your spice rack.

When you turn back, there’s a look of poleaxed disbelief on Jason’s face.

You raise an eyebrow, questioning; Jason mutters something under his breath, shakes his head.

The oddity of the moment is quite forgotten five minutes later, when Jason starts being unbearable about the way you’re stirring the curry.

And then, it keeps happening.

You notice it a month later in the supermarket, when you spin on your heel mid-conversation to take advantage of the half-price Guylian chocolates; again, when you sprint to the kitchen as Jason, ah, redecorates your living room carpet whilst you hunt through your cupboard for your first aid kit.

Once you start noticing it, you can’t stop noticing it. Jason, hyper-observant as he is, picks up on your observations, though he can’t seem to place what exactly it is you’re observing.

A strange sort of tension starts to brew between the two of you.

The simmer starts slow, only really beginning to bubble in the subtext of your relationship as winter slips into spring.

By the time spring slips into summer, every interaction is underwritten with it; you feel like you’re sat atop a powder keg, waiting for it to blow.

The inevitable argument comes on a sweltering July evening.

You’re working late, the window to your tenth floor apartment open to try and combat the humidity rising from tarmac streets and concrete high-rises as you peck disinterestedly at your laptop’s keyboard.

You don’t even notice Jason until you catch a glint of red chrome in your laptop screen.

Your heart leaps into your throat for a moment; your momentary fear allayed when you turn your chair just enough to see Jason stood behind you, hair mussed from his helmet.

“Hi, Jay!” You chirp. “Pozole is still on the stove, if you’re hungry. Help yourself.”

With that, you spin your chair back around and return to the task at hand, trying to get your quarterly report finished.

Jason remains standing at your shoulder. You can the space between your shoulders itch under his stare. After ten minutes, the trapped-rabbit feeling of being watched gets too distracting.

You spin your office chair around to face Jason fully.

“Is…something wrong?” You venture.

“You’re not scared of me.” Jason states, voice low and intent.

“…I’m scared that you might be dripping hepatitis onto my carpet, because this sounds a lot like the kind of thing you say when you’re busy losing the better part of your circulating blood volume.” You squint. “Do I need to get the first aid kit?”

“No.” Jason says.

“Okay…”

Your wheedling tone earns you nothing. Slowly, you spin your seat back to face your computer.

From behind you, Japan makes a frustrated noise. Rolling your eyes, you shoot him a look over your shoulder.

“Not a mind reader, Jay.”

“You keep putting your back to me.” Jason snaps. “You shouldn’t. It’s stupid.”

You turn your seat again, regarding him with a look of pure disbelief.

“You’re an adult man with access to all my streaming subscriptions. You can find entertainment—“

“It’s like you don’t have any survival skills whatsoever!” Jason snaps. “I’ve literally killed people!”

Thoroughly confused and very much fed up with Jason’s irascible distemper, you huff.

“Yes, Jason, you’re very scary.” You say with a patient tone that tips right into condescension, spinning back round to your computer. “I have a quarterly report due on Tuesday, so if we could hold off on the homicidal affirmations for a bit, that would be great.”

Your seat whirls with enough velocity that you feel a touch dizzy; Jason is stood close enough to you that your knees brush, the unexpected proximity making you start backward momentarily and bang your rolling chair back into your desk.

“Why aren’t you afraid? Why are you so insistent on trusting me when you know what I’m capable of?”

“Because you’re not dangerous to me, moron!” You shout. “Because we grew up together! Because I’ve seen you cry, and made you laugh! Because we fight about how you cut my stupid cheese! Because I love you, damn it!”

The words seem to ricochet around your living room, bouncing off walls and amplifying in gravity.

Jason looks punched out, caught somewhere between agony and euphoria.

“What?” His voice is a whisper, a low, desperate thing.

The wounded devotion in his eyes is too much to take; you bury your face in your hands, the repetition of “I love you.” half lost in your palms.

Large, warm hands wrap around your wrists, pull your hands away from your face with a gentleness like you’re made of fine bone china.

You catch a brief glimpse of Jason’s eyes, the faintest rim of seafoam iris around the black saucer of pupil, and then he’s kissing you.

The press of his lips against yours is an epiphany; the revelation of something divine.

“Love you.” You sigh in the space between close-lipped kisses.

The repetition of your confession flicks a switch in Jason; he half-snarls, one hand coming up to cradle the back of your head, keeping you pressed against his lips.

The next kiss trips out of sweetness and directly into hunger; Jason licks at the seam of your mouth until your lips open on a gasp. The kiss deepens; your senses are overwhelmed by the press of his tongue velvet-hot against yours, the way he catches your bottom lip between his incisors.

His free hand skates up your shirt, smoothing over your ribcage; his fingers dimple the soft give of your side over your fifth rib, skirting the edge of impropriety.

You but collapse against him in response, fingers curling creases into his shirt.

Time passes like treacle through a sieve; by the time that you and Jason part, your lips are spit-slick and bruised puffy, and your computer screen has long since powered off.

“Be mine.” He pants against your neck. “I can’t do casual, not with you. Honey, I need you to say you’ll be mine.”

“I’ve been yours for years, Jay.” You reply, shuddering at the press of his lips to the thin skin over your carotid. “I’ve always been yours.”

“Gonna ruin you for anyone else, sweetheart.” He vows into your skin. “No getting rid of me now.”