#i wish you good luck on your endeavors though. i will never watch that shitshow ever again | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

batarella · 4 years

Text

3 birds 1 stone - RED

Never has he smiled for so many days, happiness without condition, love so pure, a life that no longer was filled of days he’d have to survive, and was now a life he wanted remember, love, and live.

WORDS: 7791 WARNINGS: Sexual Content, Mentions of Trauma

MASTERLIST | 3 BIRDS 1 STONE MASTERLIST | BLUE | YELLOW

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“I loved her against reason, against promise, against peace, against hope, against happiness, against all discouragement that could be.”

- Great Expectations, Charles Dickens

You:

“Y/N?”

On peaceful days should there be chaos to be expected. With peace does not come promise. A flower with blooming red petals would eventually wilt, despite all else telling it not to. That same blooming flower would die the same from other natural, unnatural causes, like a wind too strong for it to hold onto its stem or a butterfly that came too late for its pollen.

But when peace was current, something you could see right before you knowing it wasn’t to last, it wasn’t much because of the artist you were why you’d resort to capturing that peace onto your canvas and make it last forever.

Two artists, that was. Someone joined you in your endeavor that day. Not so much of a student as he were a companion. An equal, perhaps.

Damian didn’t let his squinting eyes from where he placed the tiniest round brush on, the fabric that turned blue at his touch. You merely hummed at his call of your name and didn’t look to him as well.

“May I ask you a question?”

“Sure.”

Two easels set up at the manor’s back porch angled just right for most of the city skyline to be seen. It was far too small to be the focus, but everything else, the valleys that surrounded it, the actual forests going against the concrete ones, if you managed to get it right, you might want to keep this one for yourself.

Your thoughts complete left all that matter, however, when Damian asked you, “It’s a question about sex. More than one actually.”

“Oh.”

Not what you thought.

You might have had a lymph node in your neck, but still you nodded.

“Alright then. What do you want to know?”

He was painting the clouds. Didn’t even look the slightest bit uncomfortable. Good, you guessed.

“How old am I supposed to be before having it?”

Some wordless mutter rolled out your tongue at that. Eventually, the answer just came right out of you.

“Other than being of age, it really depends if you’re emotionally ready for it, Damian. If you know you’re not ready, nothing should push you to do it.”

“How do I know when I’m ready?”

That same calmness, the one that steadied your often shaking hands, allowed you to create the perfect cone for one of the hilltops at the horizon. You marveled over it for a while.

“When your doubts are encompassed with everything else,” you said. “When you know about what comes after.”

A dimming yellow sun, over at the far end. It was that sun, you told yourself, that was making those words fall of your lips. And not at all this series of resurfacing memories.

“When you meet the right person,” you told him.

You saw from your side eye how that remark made Damian stop with his brush. He set it onto its holder, placed his hands on his knees. “Other people don’t wait for that last one,” he said. “Do they?”

“It’s always different for a lot of people. Sometimes, they could only ever do it with people they love. Sometimes, it doesn’t even matter.”

“When I have sex with someo-“

You gave him a dirty look.

“When I’m a lot older,” he scoffed. “And I want to engage in the act of coitus.”

“Coitus?”

“How do I know they’re right? They’re the right person at that moment, then suddenly the next, they’re not.”

You reached over his easel to grab his brush, handing it back as you pointed at a raven that landed on one of the trees. It urged him to continue.

“You ask yourself then. If things won’t go the way you’d have wanted with that someone, would you regret ever doing it with them at all?”

“Obviously,” he snorted. “I wouldn’t want to waste my time.”

A bright smile, just as you settled the green of the wilting grass. Not so much was it green as it were this brownish orange, with it still cold enough for you to wear a sweater this uncomfortable when you’d have wanted your hands free.

“Is it really this…” he did some kind of motion with his hands. “…milestone in your life that’s supposed to be so important?”

“Wow, you’re really asking the right questions here, kid.”

That nickname made him snarl, back to his canvas. It took you a while, having to look to the sky for some kind of answer that wasn’t going to mess his head for the rest of his life.

��I used to think it wasn’t,” you said. “Sometimes, it’s only as important as you make it. It’s all up to what you believe.”

You turned your brush over just the right circle, which made of the red petals of a rose on one of the bushes that first greeted the day after months of a long winter.

Then there was this sinking. Something within.

“But your first time, at least. It should be with someone you love,” you said. “You’ll find that a lot of things will be easier for you.”

He seemed satisfied with that. Thankfully. He didn’t look so traumatized just yet.

Then he asked you one that no longer was so easy to think about.

“Was your first time with someone you loved?”

And you thought, with how everything suddenly weighed, not just your head or your hands but the whirring air, the leaves that danced along to it, the flowers still so young into their bloom, the misty clouds, the light, the brush on your hand and the paint on its tip.

What wasn’t so heavy, that is, was your voice.

Because if anything surprised you that day, more than the questions and the apparent peace, was how easily the answer came out of you.

Easy, because it was true.

And it was true, because when you lied, your clammy hands would be stuck to your back, shaking just as much as your eyes would be frantic and searching for something that wasn’t there.

But your voice was as light as your hands were calm and dry, your eyes fixated on the beautiful sight of the city and nothing else.

“Yes,” you said. And with it, came a smile that lasted for days.

Jason:

Two thousand dollars sounded a lot more inviting after a failed drug raid, not so much after the seeing all the evening gowns and diamonds and Bruce using his almighty charm with investors in sharp-needled stilettoes.

He did not, for his own sanity’s sake, want to sit through any of it, not even for a whole inheritance from the enterprise. Nope. Not even ten million dollars was worth putting on this god-awful suit poking through his neck like a knife, a jacket supposed to fit but had popped off one of the buttons, and of course, his hair. Swept back. Ruled over by mounds of gel and whatever it was the rest of his brothers had on. They all looked like elves in a Christmas workshop assembly line with the red tie over his chest.

Whatever trouble would happen, they’d call him. Now that they’ve blocked off his room, however, he came to not much resort.

The manor’s pool, to his luck, was unguarded. Unused for the last few months, but still clean.

Whatever silence was, and whatever silence could be, it was just that when he shut the door behind him, not bothering to latch on the lock, and turned on one of the lights, the purple and blue ones that shone from underneath the pool’s floor, like some magical lake that would speak to him in rhymes, maybe hand him a sword floating on a lily pad, but not even that was enough to impress him. As if anything impresses him still.

He stood by the poolside, hands in his suit pockets. Audibly he cursed that he forgot to bring a cigarette pack, but even that thought didn’t last long enough to bother him too much.

Jason stood there, right by the water, and watched the lights change like they told much of a story.

Something. Anything, to intrigue him.

Anything to make him feel again, to interest him, to cry out to him and actually hold his attention long enough for it to not be whisked away from his mind by his own hands because thinking or feeling was too much work.

But even those very lights, that didn’t seem so bright at all, were silent. The same silence for so many months.

He wanted noise. He wanted to hear again. But nothing, nothing was loud enough for him anymore. Someone could be screaming into his head and so much of it would disperse before it even reaches his ears at all, much less his brain. It wasn’t that he was being dumb, though that would be quite the reason.

But it was that nothing was bright enough anymore.

No one was attractive, or intriguing, or entertaining. Not by a mile.

Nothing. He cared about nothing.

Everything, all except her.

And it had to be just that, no room so bright, no smile so true, then when it was with her.

He hated the truth, perhaps just as much as he hated the rest of the world. The only thing he didn’t hate was someone he couldn’t even be with, much less love. But here he was.

Some noise from the door he came in from. He should have locked it. Now someone else was here.

More so did he wish that when he turned and saw who it was.

“Here?” Y/N’s shoes against the empty ground. That, he heard. Fuck him. “Really?”

“They closed off my room.”

She looked really pretty, lipstick on her already red lips, jumpsuit dragging along the tiles and her hair down her back. And she didn’t stop walking until she was right by his side, much to his dismay. Still, he didn’t move. Though god forbid he allow himself another look after the first one.

“You’re just gonna stand here and stare at the water?”

“Better than that shitshow outside.”

“Every party’s a shitshow for you.”

“Finally, one of you caught on.” He shifted his arms as if he had a drink he was holding, which he didn’t. He needed one badly.

“Then why accept the job?” she shrugged. “You could have just said no.”

He didn’t expect her to look at the water like it were at all interesting.

But suddenly, the lights from underneath didn’t seem so dull anymore.

Because even having to swim through the lavas of literal hell, I’d leave the comforts of isolation if it means you’d be anywhere within the room.

“Two thousand dollars,” he said.

“Ah.”

Everything did get easier to understand, once he stopped with the moping and the denial and actually allowed that stupid little voice he hated to speak up loud enough so he’d listen to it.

“Maybe you’re right,” she laughed. “The water actually is a lot more interesting.”

Right then, he allowed himself a second, subtle look. At her face. The thin straps over her shoulders that laid so well against her skin. Her hair she’d purposely made unruly but still styled enough to be classy.

The next thing to notice were her hands. They weren’t shaking, though they weren’t unmoving either. Her thumbs were rubbing over the backs of her palms, much like fidgeting her fingers would as if she were nervous. But there shouldn’t be anything to be nervous about. Nothing he could see, at that.

But after a look at her hands, it was her eyes that told him the whole story of her trailing thoughts, thoughts that maybe she didn’t know about as well.

Three years since she’s last stepped into a pool, since she’s felt that much water around her, dance along every bit of her skin when she’d push through the waves and move about as if she were floating, or flying, suspended from the ground and not have a string to hold her up.

She wanted to. He could see that. But it was doubtful that she’d admit to that. She’d never admit to that, not when it would only cause so much disappointment when she’ll ultimately cower away.

But her wanting to swim made him want to swim.

Some first step. To have someone to help her. He could be that someone.

Not even thinking for himself anymore. Jason was off to the benches at the side, and had taken off his tie and slid it off his neck.

“What are you doing?” she asked, just as he took off his suit jacket.

“I’m going in.”

She looked at him like she would to a troll that had climbed out of the sewers, though it wasn’t much out of disgust as it would be of disbelief. At least, he hoped it was. That wasn’t even to matter. He’d taken off his dress shirt before he even realized what he was doing at all.

Not something he’d do so suddenly, but then again, some of the most stupid things he’s ever done the past year were all for her sake. This didn’t surprise him at the least, not even the fact that the more rational part of him was watching him move like some hamster in a wheel stupidly trying to run away.

“You’re gonna swim?”

He unbuckled his belt. “Mind turning around?”

Her eyes flashed wide open, and she did as told.

Jason took off his pants, his shoes, everything save for his boxers. This wasn’t so stupid. It shouldn’t be.

He stepped into the pool, one foot first, then he slid in. He wanted to feel the cold. He wanted it to go against his heat and make him feel something and actually overwhelm him. And it was just that, that very feeling he’d long craved, when he spread his arms and let the water seep into his flesh.

Then he found himself smiling, just as he looked up and caught Y/N watching him do all that, lips between her teeth and beaming back so wonderfully bright, every part of him ached for that sight to last so much longer.

He sat back, waved through the water, inviting her even when he wasn’t asking her, telling her that this is all okay, that she was ready.

A million voices were screaming at him that none of this added up to just about every thought he could muster, that it wasn’t in him to just jump into the water, half naked and alone with the woman he loved. So many asking him what the hell he was doing, that all this was going to scare her away.

But it was, in fact, in him to know what went on in her head, as she longingly looked at the pool like it were so much more than that. It was in him to know that there’s so many more steps in this staircase of healing, to being that very person she’d sought out to be, away from the incident, who she no longer was, and never has been.

Jason swam over to the side of the pool, at the side where she stood.

And with that, a smile so beautiful, she crouched over and set her legs to the side so she could sit on the ground. Her hand was too near from where he laid his arms, but he didn’t reach for it. He just watched as the droplets that fell from his skin onto the ground nipped at her fingers.

“Is it cold?”

His voice was low and husky. “Yeah…”

“Is it nice?”

Jason looked to the wall behind her and laughed. “The water’s great.”

She hummed.

Her hands. Something about them. He couldn’t look away. Like they were so much more than her soft fingers and her gentle touch. With his chin buried onto his folded arms, he kept looking.

Not from her hands that were reluctantly reaching for the water’s surface, shy, bashful even, like it would sting her if she inched too close. Y/N stretched out her fingers and touched it, enough to drench just the tip of it, then she twirled it about to create wonderful ripples that waved to his body.

Jason reached over to hold her wrist, stopped just in case she were to pull away, but she didn’t pull away.

Y/N’s eyes were on him, just as silent and curious, and he felt her relax.

He led her hand further into the water, deeper, colder. He felt the hair on her skin stand, bumps over her pores. She was breathless, over something so small. He pulled gently enough until the water reached up to her elbow.

Then the smile he earned out of her, the love he so wanted to earn as well, it was all he could see, with her toying with the water and swerving it about. Right then, he could hear everything. The droplets that danced, the splashes against their skin, her subtle laughter, her teeth over her lips. He heard it all, and it was beautiful, so much more than songs or tunes played by the most skilled hands over piano keys.

If he could just let himself watch her, for longer than he hoped, he’d fall deeper in love than the depths he’d already fallen into, and had tried, relentlessly, to escape from, but couldn’t. Denial didn’t help much, but neither did admittance. He was stuck. And if only things weren’t so hard, he wouldn’t dare complain. Not when that very woman he loved was this beautiful.

She drew her hand away, her other one soothing the damp skin and ruining her jumpsuit with the water, which she didn’t even care about.

He wasn’t even thinking anymore. His heart open and his mind shut off. From how she sat, her ankle was exposed, and it was close enough to the water to feel the splatters but not enough to get wet.

Still, without a word, Jason cupped his hand, drew a bit of water up to the surface.

Then he played those drops right onto her skin, close to her feet where her shoes were strapped around. She clenched her toes at the cold, but she seemed to have liked it. He did it again, the droplets falling from his fingers, until her skin was stiff from the air so cold with it drenched.

That’s when she sighed, went on to stare at the little waves he’d created.

“I want to go in.”

He backed away from the pool side, waved his arms about to show her further that it was safe, and wonderful. Then he nodded at her. “If you think you’re ready…”

He saw her throat hitch, but it wasn’t out of doubt.

“I’m ready.”

He didn’t even have to try so hard to show her that everything she was going through, right then, he knew every second of what it was like. His face was soft, his look on her was soft, every bit of him had to be soft for this to be easy on her.

Then things weren’t so soft anymore when she started pulling down her straps from her shoulders. He gulped.

“Could you uh,” she twirled her finger around, motioning that he turn the other way. He did.

It was, both to his fortune and of not, that the wall in front of him was a mirror, reflecting all that went on behind his back. Everything in him stopped, even the blood down his every vein, and with that he watched as she exposed her temple of a body, one he’d worshipped and cherished and made feel every ounce of a sensation there could be, and continue to dream about even with her no longer being there.

But she was here now.

You:

The hardest to take off weren’t the straps on your shoes.

But all you ever had to know, was that the one you were with, the one you were hopelessly in love with, was there to help you through all of this.

“Do you, uh,” Jason coughed. “Need some help with that?”

You knew he was watching. If you actually didn’t want him to watch, you would have gone to the other side of the pool and took off your clothes where there wasn’t a mirror in front.

“Yeah,” you said.

As his eyes laid on you, relaxed, calm, just as you remembered he once watched your body so bare, with just a strapless bra over your chest and seamless panties, what contrasted the very cold that stemmed from the water was the burn underneath your flesh, the burn in your chest, the burn on your face and every nerve ending there was. Every nerve ending.

Suddenly you were limbless when he swam over to you, right in front from where you sat at the poolside, and his fingers were on the skin of your thighs, both of them. The water from his skin, falling and absorbing into your own. A sensation in itself.

You unlatched your leg, and he pulled it off and set it to your side.

Now, you were bare.

Jason was looking up at your eyes, however, and not at anything else. Not at the parts so incomplete. Not on places so ugly. As if you were so beautiful. And from that look alone, you started to believe that you were.

One at a time.

With his hands held out, you let him take your right leg, the one covered in burns and healed stitches, but still with toes and skin at all, and carefully, laid it into the water.

It was cold. Colder than even ice. But god, was it so heavenly.

Now, the other.

Jason, from what you could tell, tried not to look nervous just as you were, but you both smiled, and that was all there is to it to make you step into that very threshold once so frightening.

Your left leg, ending just three inches below your knee, dipped into the water’s surface.

You were here.

You were free.

You could feel the cold, the water, the waves, and the rush up to your head.

“Take your time,” Jason breathed, and his voice was all the more wonderful with everything else you could feel.

Any more, and the tears might start to defy your efforts.

He was as gentle as you knew him to be, and with that, it urged you on. You wanted to be the freest version of yourself. You wanted to be in the water with him, and hold him.

“Jason-“

“I’m here.”

You slid off the poolside, and he was there to hold you up before you could even think to move. His warm hands were so different from how cold the water was, but as equally burning as the heat that spurred everywhere else. They held your waist, and you did not want them to move away at all.

“It’s okay,” he said, with his grip still strong. “I’ll let go only if you tell me to.”

So you didn’t tell him to.

Your hands, already they found their ways resting on top of his shoulders, holding onto him a lot firmer than you actually needed to. Your right leg touched the floor. Your left one waved about in the water. You looked down. They were there. They were alright. They didn’t sting, nor hurt, nor did you feel so exposed that you’d never want to step into any light again.

“You alright?”

“Yeah,” you frantically nodded, still looking down at the prettiest lights that shone beneath you and Jason’s feet.

You were laughing. “This is so great…”

“It is…”

With you so distracted marveling over the water, he thought you wouldn’t notice if his hands rubbed over your waist, circled them tighter, enough for his fingers to rest delicately on your spine. He was holding you so tenderly, yet you could feel how much he was holding back. And you just went on pretending not to notice.

“I want to go there.”

You pointed at the middle of the pool, where the lights were centered on, littered about to form this spiral that stretched out like a firework that burst into the sky.

“Alright,” said Jason. “Hold on, okay?”

You nodded, and again that wonderful sensory outburst that were supposed to overwhelm you, but didn’t, when Jason led you both to the center of the pool, the waves flowing against your flesh and skin. Oh, was it so beautiful. The water, touching your every bit, it was so much more than you remembered, and so much better than you’d have imagined.

As you reached that very center, and with you having to take in both the feel of this flight, the breath that had escaped you, the lights, ones you had to watch from afar, were now beneath and around you, like you stood right in the core of a star that exploded, a supernova, right at the flares and the burst of light and sound, just as it was on your flesh.

You were swimming on stars, on clouds, on a bed of petals so sweet. You were afloat in this wonderous space, the sun so close but not burning you with its light. There were tears. Wonderous tears. Ones you couldn’t hold back with your heart in full and your chest in this tug that pulled it in all directions. You splayed your arms out, and tilted your head back, enough for your hair to be dipped into the water. And you closed your eyes. Everything. Everything. This was everything.

You looked back up, and no one, not even the moon itself in the midst of a dark sky, had ever looked at you the way Jason did.

Oh god, how you loved him.

Then that music, one that was playing so sweetly the moment you stepped in, it blurred out when you circled your arms around his strong neck.

He kept with his promise and went on to keep holding you so close, closer, until your chest met his so solid, all the cold from the once freezing water was whisked away.

Fingers tangled onto his hair, breaths battling as they met in the space in between, a space that shouldn’t have been there at all. His own hands trailed down to your hips, further down until it made you jolt.

Then your legs were around him. You were flying, so high up in the sky not even the clouds would reach you.

He pushed back your hair.

You didn’t know at what point your lips had met, your warmth uniting into one, single flame, but everything was so much of the speed of a moving picture, that none of time, nothing of the sort that wasn’t him and him alone, ever even mattered anymore.

Jason:

What was it called, when something unfolded before you, and everything happened so fast even when you’d try to make it slow, flashed into this bright, white light, and suddenly you couldn’t move, nor say anything to protest?

That wasn’t even much to think about anymore.

Everything was paced, so slow, slow enough that he could feel every movement she made, every flick of her fingers, every sound that escaped her lips. It heightened to so much more than it actually was. Those months, where he no longer felt even just a splinter, now all those feelings collapsed into the now.

He was kissing the world, his world, and so much of her beauty manifested into this glorious flow. He was hungry, digging into her skin as if there were more to be undone. His lips were no different. Over her lips, her jaw, her neck, licking over her shoulder and back over to her lips where she tasted the sweetest.

She did not hold back either, and he didn’t want her to. She pulled on his hair enough to make it hurt and so perfect was that pain, the growl that came out of him so animalistic, even more so did he starve. Starve for her. He wanted to taste every bit of her.

And so he did, pushing her to the edge of the pool and turning her around so no longer could anything restrict his shaking touch, on every part of her that would spark a fire engulf larger than the one within his chest. He pushed himself inside her, over and over until it hurt.

He couldn’t hold back, couldn’t hide behind this mask of gentleness any longer. For that same gentleness and touches so soft, only could be when his efforts to conceal what his desires truly manifested into, and it comes with deep want, so much lust, fire that burns, skin being drawn in red by the hungriest nails and teeth that dug into flesh. His hips started to hurt, so did his hands. It was starting to hurt her, too, with there being marks on just about every sweet spot there was. But it was just those marks that pushed them both further into fulfillment.

His name, Jason, the most beautiful thing to ever escape her lips, his hands holding her still, holding her neck and squeezing just enough to let her know that only he could ever give her that perfect mix of pain and gratification so immense, that only he could touch her and make it last, and for the whole of the night, his name was the only thing she could ever cry out.

You:

Oh.

Oh, was it all so wonderful.

The strain, the pull of every muscle, the purple marks on your neck, the bruises on your hips, the aches down your cunt, and every bit inside you, still with the many releases, bursts of avalanches and numbs that faltered into lingering buzzes, and eventually this humming that continued like some song you couldn’t remember. Wonderful. Magical. Even if you could think straight, which you couldn’t do much with what happened, you couldn’t describe it with enough justice.

You’ve never slept so well in so long, your head up far beyond the clouds, into space and the stars above, the gas giants that make you even lighter. With not even gravity to pull you down, you were soaring up above.

In some idealistic perfection, a world without the cruelties you knew all too well, it would be that you’d wake up, satisfied at that, to a bed that wasn’t empty, next to a man you loved whose body was filled with the deepest scars, and that would have been the end to the story and all else, the chaos most especially, would cease.

But as it were as cruel as it were kind enough to grant you that moment of bliss, you woke up, still with the sky so dark, and your arm outstretched for a naked body no longer there, but instead you found that very body already with his clothes on, moving as quiet as he possibly could outside the bed.

“Jason?” you sighed, then you sat up holding the thin sheet up to your chest.

Jason was startled. Wasn’t expecting to wake you. Or that, he was trying not to.

“Why are you up?” he asked. He was in a hurry.

And his face, from what you could read, it told you everything you needed to know.

“Are you leaving?”

Again? You wanted to say.

But even if you did, his response wouldn’t have changed. For the better, that is. Because he didn’t have much a response at all.

“Go back to bed.”

“What’s going on-“

“I’m sorry.”

He zipped up his pants, put on his jacket and just like that he was headed for the door.

His face was too grim and blank for him to leave with intention to come back. His hands were too fast reaching for the door. His voice, too low as if he were hiding something from eventually spilling. No. He was leaving. And he wouldn’t want to be found. Not after that look he just gave you before he opened the door.

You took all the sheets and reached for his shoulder. Already, you were shattered. Already, the weight had befallen, on your arms and your chest. He was so stiff that even to just turn, it was hard for him to do.

But you held his face, really held him so he wouldn’t dare pull away. The air had been sucked out of that very room and so much of your body would have broken apart, fallen to the ground and no one would be there to pick them up.

“You don’t have to leave,” you whispered, pushing your forehead against his so your breaths would meet again. “Please, be with me-“

“Y/N -“

“What did I do?” You met his eyes.

“Nothing. Please. We’ll talk about this later-“

“When?”

He sounded so solid, so unaccepting of anything to be hurled at him.

“I have to go-“

“You’re not coming back, are you?“

“I said we’ll talk about this.”

“Don’t walk away from me-“

He didn’t even let you finish.

He was strong, and he never used that against you. But that time, he did. He grabbed you by the wrists and pulled you off him. In less time than you would have hoped, he was gone.

The man you wanted. The one you loved. The one you chose.

Wouldn’t choose you.

Another of the hurt, that descent, when you’ve slipped into this hole so familiar yet the pain wasn’t something to get used to. Tears on the sheets, broken, so many of them spilling out of you and onto the floor, your skin, the bed.

You can’t shatter again. You can’t break any more.

This was the choice you made. No one told you it was all going to be easy. That all this would be handed over just as you called the moment you wanted it. No. Not with him.

Go after him.

Tell him everything.

Go after him.

You grabbed everything you got, put on your clothes and rushed out that door before you were even fully awake enough for your eyes to adjust to the light. Straight down the stairs, out into the garage where you knew Jason parked his bike. He wasn’t there. He already left.

So you took one of the keys that were hung on the wall, started up one of Bruce’s many cars and drove out of that manor.

You weren’t going to let go. You’d chase him if you had to.

You knew this would happen, the moment you realized you loved this asshole. You saw this coming. And you were prepared.

You were as fast as if you flew, if you were no heavier than a speck, a particle that would let even the flap of a butterfly’s wings change its course and move so fast, no one would have seen it.

You called him. As you drove and reached the city, you did not stop calling. Five. Six. Ten times. He didn’t answer.

Once you reached his apartment, seeing that his bike wasn’t where he’d parked it, you called again.

At the fifteenth call, he picked up.

“Jason, for the love of god-“

Your hands were shaking as it held the wheel, and nothing, not even the rain pattering onto the windshield would have calmed you. Everything happened just as fast as the rest of the night went on. And here you were, at the end, and you tripped just as you saw that very end of the dark tunnel.

“Y/N…” he said. And his voice a lot softer than it had been just then.

“Please, just talk to me.”

“We’ll talk. I promise you, we will-“

“I want to talk to you now-“

“You think you know what you want,” he said. “But you don’t. Give it time. You’ll change your mind.”

You slammed your fists against the wheel and the horn blew under the impact.

“You said you’d never make decisions for me-“

“If this is your decision, you need me to make it for you.”

So close. So close to driving away and leave him for the rest of forever.

But it wasn’t close enough.

You turned to the screen right by the car’s dashboard, pressed onto the button to turn on Bruce’s many trackers. There was a red dot.

‘No,’ you whispered. ‘No, you won’t.’

Jason:

“I’m sorry…” he pleaded. “I’m so sorry… but I promise you. Everything will get better.”

Up a rooftop, where he thought she’d never find him. It was hard to ignore the quake in his voice, his hands, how every word he spoke was like driving a knife down his throat, neck, and chest.

“No,” she screamed, and her cries hurt more than that very knife ever would. “It won’t. You’re a coward. What are you gonna do? Leave for another four months?”

“That’s not true.”

“Tell me it is!”

“Y/N.”

He let the skyline distract him, the buildings that soared up, higher than he could ever stand, then locked his eyes onto one of them so they wouldn’t defy him and break apart.

“Whatever it is you think is going on, it isn’t. I already told you how I felt. Why didn’t you just lis-“

Of course, she’d find him.

To be frank, even if it were one of the other safe houses he’s picked that wasn’t on any map of the city, she was bound to find him. He left her at Wayne Manor, for fuck’s sake.

The minute he heard her footsteps, coming in from entryway, he stopped talking, breathing even, and put his phone down. Trackers. Of course. Bruce had five of them on him at least.

He turned around.

“You actually fucking followed me-“

“Why?”

She wore the same thing from that night, the same suit he’d lustfully watched her take off, straps down those very shoulders, baring herself. Her hair, up in this beautiful mess, makeup no longer there and her face beautifully bare. Still a sight, she was, a sight he no longer wanted to get lost in.

“Why is this so hard for you-“

“Because it doesn’t make sense.”

“Why not?“

“Because, I-“

Every word out of him, a fire that couldn’t be put out. Flames uncontrollable, and his breath nothing but encouraging winds.

“Because you’re gonna wake up one day and realize I’m not any of my brothers… I was the one who never stood a chance,” he said. “No one would think you’d want me, out of the many other things you could have had. One day, you’re gonna realize that I’m not what you wanted-“

“I love you-“

God, it was everything he ever wanted to hear.

“You had Dick and Tim. They’ve loved you for so long… And you’re actually choosing the one guy who doesn’t?“

“You’re lying.”

“Am I?”

Another step forward from her. Another step back from him. He can’t stand too close or all this would be as close to the world’s slowest, most painful death.

“Nothing could have pointed you to me. Everything was telling you to-“

“For fuck’s sake, stop listening to everything else and just listen to me.”

A struggle at that.

But he’s never been so cold.

It wasn’t even from the wind from such a height, if there were any at all. But he was shivering, his teeth were gritting. Everything he said, he didn’t even mean. And all the more was it excruciating to hear himself say it all.

But he could listen. Even if it’d hurt. He’ll listen.

She was crying. To just reach over and hold her hand. He couldn’t even do that.

“Three years ago,” she whispered into the cold night air. “I was at the manor. Two weeks out of the hospital. I was just learning how to walk again but that day was hard on me. I couldn’t make a step. I was on my bed, and I was just staring at the ceiling because I couldn’t get out of it.”

It pained him all the more, when he knew nothing of what was to come to him, that all this was going to catch him before he’d even realize what it was.

“You never visit me at the manor but that day, you were there. I don’t even remember what for, but you stopped by and you caught me reading A Christmas Carol because it was the one book in my room that I actually liked. Because I couldn’t go down to the library and get more, and I didn’t want to ask from anyone.

“We ended up talking about Dickens. I didn’t know shit, but I remember you talking about him like he was your uncle and I just listened to you. I told you I liked reading his books. You said you’d bring me more when you’d come back. Three days later, you did. You got me Great Expectations.”

Great Expectations.

Why can’t he remember this?

“You left, and I read it that same night. That’s when I found a quote that you highlighted.”

Jason took a step back, away from her.

“I loved her against reason, against promise, against peace, against hope, against happiness, against all discouragement that could be.”

Everything. Everything that devastated, all suddenly came to place.

“The book was new. Store bought. The tag was still there. You bought it for me a day after you visited. Then you read it yourself and highlighted that quote.”

“How did you-“

“Remember that?”

She ignored the streaks down her skin, the droplets that fell down her neck.

“It was just a quote,” she shrugged. “It easily could have been nothing… but if I think of it differently now, it all makes so much sense.”

If he took another step back, he’d fall over the ledge.

He should have done that, now that she had walked close enough for him to get so lost into her face.

“If you loved me then,” you whispered. “Did you even know about it?”

This. This was worse than a fall.

He closed his eyes and everything fell through. The tears. The sobs. Everything. Because he did love her then. He’s always loved her since. But to admit it was close to writing his own death sentence.

This. This was death. And he’d happily jump back into that abyss.

“I didn’t want to believe it…”

You:

You reached for his face and for once, he welcomed it.

“If you tell me to leave right now,” you swallowed. “I’ll leave. I’ll never look for you again.”

Even if it hurts, even if I’ll have to live without you. If it’s what you want, I’ll let you go.

His hands found your wrists but it was to hold you, not to pry you away.

“Do you love me?”

It wasn’t in his words.

It was how he said yes that made you soar past the birds and the thin air from above.

It was when he finally took a step forward, to hold you in place, to keep you from falling apart and keep you so close, that acceptance of what truly went on, the love you’ve long known about and continued to believe in, even when he didn’t believe in it himself. It was there. It was what moved you. You could have fallen in from one of the many spaces above and still, you would end up in his arms.

“Of course, I do…“

Just as the sun rose, to greet you both into this morning anew. So new a life, waiting for you to come welcome it. And you welcomed it with the widest arms. He kissed you, so tender and real. Up where the city could see you, where you wanted to be seen, only to be with him.

Epilogue

Jason:

One box would have been enough for his clothes. He didn’t have much anyway. But as it turns out, leather jackets aren’t exactly as compact as he’d liked.

“Where do you want me to put these?!”

She was in the bathroom. He saw her peak her head out from the door to look at the jacket he was holding up.

“I set up a new closet for you!” she cried out, then she went back to brushing her teeth. “It’s beside mine!”

“Got it!”

He took the boxes of clothes, set it just outside the closet which he’ll definitely get into after he deals with everything else. Moving wasn’t something he liked doing, even when he’s moved around a single city so much before his lease would have allowed him to.

But, this new apartment, her apartment, covered in paint and canvases and rags all over the place that nipped at his neat freakiness he’d soon have to overcome, he might actually stick around.

“What about this!?”

He held up his box of books.

“I emptied a shelf for you, too! It’s next to my sketchbooks.”

“Sketchbooks, sketchbooks…”

Her sketchbooks were all over the fucking place.

He found that shelf, at least. Just enough for all his books. That is, if the paint cans above wouldn’t collapse.

“Do you clean up even just a little?”

“Shut up. It’s organized mess.”

“It’s always organized mess with you artists…”

“What?!”

“Nothing!”

She stepped out the bathroom, in nothing more than just a thin shirt and pajama shorts, then she watched him fumble with the last of his boxes.

“And, uh,” he coughed. “Can I put these somewhere?”

The look on her face, playfully annoyed as it was pleasantly unsurprised, she wanted to laugh that he’d resorted to storing his whole arsenal of weapons in a single cardboard box.

“That floorboard over there,” she pointed. “I loosened it up for you.”

“You’re a doll, pretty bird.” Jason put the box on the floor, ran up to her and grabbed her by her thighs, hoisting her whole thrashing body up his shoulder.

Her screams turned to laughter, then he spun her around, slammed her into her own bed like it was a wrestling ring and held her down with a headlock.

Everything he’s ever thought how this would have ended wasn’t so much of a fraction of how it went. Never has he smiled for so many days, happiness without condition, love so pure, a life that no longer was filled of days he’d have to survive, and was now a life he wanted remember, love, and live.

This was how it ended.

And he never wanted it to end.

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MASTERLIST | 3 BIRDS 1 STONE MASTERLIST | BLUE | YELLOW

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