#jaymay

[lowpolyanimals]

Carnotaurus by @hooy-jaymay

[icecoldslugs]

Smoke break featuring the reviled green reimu. (design inspired by @hooy-jaymay's reimu)

[loveable-sea-lemon]

Tag Game: for each letter in your URL/username, post the first song you think of for each letter

Tagged by @glamgoblin thank u!!!

Library Magic by The Head and the Heart

Orange Juice by Noah Kahan

Vulnerable by dhruv

Everybody by Ingrid Michaelson

Astronomy by Conan Gray

Boys Like You by dodie

LEMONS by Brye and Cavetown

End of the World by A Great Big World

Sea Green by Jaymay

(The) Exit by Conan Gray

AOK by Tai Verdes

Line Without a Hook by Ricky Montgomery

Every Kingdom by Ben Howard

MOONLIGHT by TWICE

Only You by Jimmy Charles Moody

NICE GUY by Yxngxr1 and Morgan Reece

tagging @somethingsarereal @thegirlyouknow @kinepakapat if u want to :3

[autumnal-glow]

The Perfect Fall Playlist

Music hums into your ears as you sit under the trees in a woody forest. It's barely dawn, and the fog is dense around you. Leaves fall around you, almost dancing to the music. The air is crisp with the whispers of Autumn. All year, you've waited for this one moment.

Anchor - Novo Amor

Bella's Lullaby - Carter Burwell, Dan Redfeld, Elizabeth Hedman

Breathe In - Low Roar

Chasing Pirates - Norah Jones

Cloud Speed - Sad Souls

Come Little Children - Erutan

Dancing Two Hundred Times - Sad Souls

Digging Shelters - Neil Halstead

Dreamcatcher - Sad Souls

Ekki múkk - Sigur Rós

Featherstone - The Paper Kites

Fidelity - Regina Spektor

Fleeting - Sad Souls

Flightless Bird, American Mouth - Iron & Wine

For Those Below - Mumford & Sons

Friends Make Garbage (Good Friends Take It Out) - Low Roar

Frightened, Happy - Sad Souls

Ghosts That We Knew - Mumford & Sons

Give Up - Low Roar

Halo - Lotte Kestner

In a Forest With Leaves in Your Hair - Sad Souls

Into The Unknown - Over the Garden Wall, The Blasting Company, Jack Jones

Intro (Leaving) - Spooky Black

I Will Follow You into the Dark - Death Cab for Cutie

Jack's Lament - Danny Elfman

Just a Habit - Low Roar

The Loneliest Girl - キャロル＆チューズデイ(Carole & Tuesday)

Lovers' Eyes - Mumford & Sons

Low Roar - Low Roar

Lucia - The Night of Light - Jonna Jinton

The Magic Place - Julianna Barwick

The Mummers' Dance - Loreena McKennitt

My Dove, My Lamb - Phosphorescent

The Night We Met - Lord Huron

Nobody Loves Me Like You - Low Roar

An Ocean and Peril - The Black Atlantic

Oh Klahoma - Jack Stauber

Over The Garden Wall - Over the Garden Wall, The Blasting Company, Jack Jones

Patience - Low Roar

Sigh No More - Mumford & Sons

Snow Dress - Sad Souls

Song for Zula - Phosphorescent

The Spirit Song - Jonna Jinton

Two Time - Jack Stauber's Micropop

Windows and Churches - Sad Souls

Words - Low

Worry - Sad Souls

Yawning Lion / 獅子大張嘴 - V.K

You Are The Only One I Love - Jaymay

Открытый космос - Мариэль

Bonus: Kouyou - Ice (This one is not on most streaming services; I listen to it on YouTube)

[lottie-true-crime]

Don't ask about it. I'm going through something.

[paceywittergayboatman]

Fate? And Gay Platonic Siblinghood in Gossip Girl, Dawson's Creek and The Summer I Turned Pretty

Masterlist

Text Only

Once Upon Another Time by Sara Bareilles/Once Upon Another Time by Sara Bareilles/We'll Always Have Summer by Jenny Han/Flaws by Bastille/Peach Pit by Peach Pit/In a Week by Hozier/Portions for Foxes by Rilo Kiley/Gossip Girl 4.10/Sort Of by Ingrid Michealson/ Gossip Girl 4.10/Sort Of by Ingrid Michealson/Gossip Girl 4.10/Marlene on the Wall by Suzanne Vega/ Gossip Girl 1.9/

Aftertaste by Ben Lee/Dawson's Creek 2.18/The Summer I Turned Pretty by Jenny Han/Dawson's Creek 2.18/The Summer I Turned Pretty by Jenny Han/Dawson's Creek 2.18/Portions for Foxes by Rilo Kiley/My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante/ Dawson's Creek 2.16/Brooklyn 3am by Jaymay/Brooklyn 3am by Jaymay/ Dawson's Creek 2.13/Dawson's Creek 2.10/

Brooklyn 3am by Jaymay/The Summer I Turned Pretty 2.8/The Summer I Turned Pretty 2.8/Antigone/Gossip Girl 6.10/Spacetime Fairytale by Regina Spector/ Gossip Girl 1.1/Gossip Girl 1.1/ Flaws by Bastille/Portions for Foxes by Rilo Kiley/Spacetime Fairytale by Regina Spector/Spacetime Fairytale by Regina Spector/Dawson's Creek 6.21/

Dawson's Creek 6.21/Spacetime Fairytale by Regina Spector/Dawson's Creek 6.21/ Dawson's Creek 6.21/Gossip Girl 6.10/ Gossip Girl 6.10/ Gossip Girl 6.10/Gossip Girl 6.10/We'll Always Have Summer by Jenny Han/We'll Always Have Summer by Jenny Han/We'll Always Have Summer by Jenny Han/ Gossip Girl 6.10/Gossip Girl 6.10/Gossip Girl 6.10/We'll Always Have Summer by Jenny Han/We'll Always Have Summer by Jenny Han/We'll Always Have Summer by Jenny Han/Dawson's Creek 6.? Dawson's Creek 6.?/ Gossip Girl 6.10

[birdmitosis]

Ship fanmix for Voice of the Cold/Voice of the Paranoid from Slay the Princess. If you can tolerate pain, can you tolerate joy? (Art credit to @phospolipid-bilayer, right here!)

Acceptance - So Contagious Oh no, this couldn't be more unexpected And I can tell you I've been moving in so slow Don't let it throw you off too far Could this be out of line? (Could this be out of line?) To say you're the only one breaking me down like this

aeseaes - Mahogany String his neck, would you, would you? Steer this wreck, would you, would you? Tease me, torturous, bend to your death I give in easy, hold me now I'll be reckless, not yet

Andy Grammer - Fine By Me And it seems that every time we're eye to eye I can find another piece of you that I don't wanna lose I'm just saying it's fine by me if you never leave And we can live like this forever, it's fine by me

Angus & Julia Stone - Just a Boy Girl, you make me want to feel Things I've never felt before Girl, you make me want to feel Did I say I'm just a boy? You can hold me to that

Cash Cash - Surrender I was running on an empty heart Not a trace of gasoline Trying to dim every single spark That could hurt, that could burn all of me

Charlotte Martin - Four Walls Here is the part you reach for me Say that you have no need of this Say it again, again, again, again Head up straight, I know what I'm doing Head up straight, I know what I'm doing (I don't)

girl in red - i wanna be your girlfriend Oh Hannah, I will follow you home Although my lips are blue and I'm cold I don't wanna be your friend, I wanna kiss your lips I wanna kiss you until I lose my breath Oh Hannah, oh Hannah, oh Hannah, oh Hannah

Holly Conlan - OK I build up walls no one can climb And I tear them down, this process takes up all my time And now I'm confused on top of it all I was ready to lose and ready to fall But then something about the way you look at me It makes it feel okay, you make it feel okay

Jaymay - Sycamore Down I'm just a cloud, I'm not proud Of how I've been dealing with things No one's allowed into my world To see how I'm feeling If this isn't love What is love if this isn't love?

Keaton Henson - Limb And I will shed my skin Oh, to let you in So lay down your guns for me I'm only temporary

Maria Mena - Just Hold Me But if I wanted silence I would whisper And if I wanted loneliness I'd choose to go And if I liked rejection I'd audition And if I didn't love you, you would know And why can't you just hold me?

Motion City Soundtrack - L.G. FUAD Yeah, so I'm already dead On the inside, but I have learned to pretend It's the only way I have learned to express myself, through other people's descriptions of life I'm afraid I'm alone and entirely useless (In this department)

Of Monsters and Men - Love Love Love Yeah, maybe I'm a bad, bad, bad, bad person Well baby, I know Oh, cause you love, love, love When you know I can't love So I think it's best we both forget before we dwell on it...

Ricky Montgomery - This December Well, this December, I'll remember Want you to see it when I do It's this state in this state I'm living in It's just a little bit, it's just a little bit lonely in this home It's always colder on your own My darling I, I let the season change my mind

Sharon Van Etten - It's Not Like Take both my hands, tie them behind my back To keep me from holding, from holding, from holding But that's so unlike myself And it's not like I have anyone to hold, or do I want to? These eyes, this heart, these arms have held almost everything But not you, but not you, but I want to

Bonus: DECO*27 - The Vampire (Rachie English cover) Back and forth from good to bad in every heartbeat Let's turn that fear of yours into something sweet Acting like I just don't care and yet I'm feeling everything The distance tears me open, holding back all emotion But if I keep tempting fate then it'll crush me 'till I finally break

(All fanmixes are a perpetual WIP.)

[waltzedintherain]

omg ⭐ please ahh

omg im about to overthink this so much because i think youre so cool

so:

- crystal by fleetwood mac

- diamonds and rust by joan baez

- mother natures son by the beatles

- sea green see blue by jaymay

- ur so pretty by wasia project

:)) these are just vibes so fuck idk but <3333

ask me!

[13flowersandfoxes]

Top five songs to have a breakdown to

Oh god

This could be an angry rage breakdown or sad emotional one so I’ll do a mix

In no particular order

1. Teenagers by MCR

2. Miss Murder by AFI

3. Why am I like this by Orla Gartland

4. Sea Green, See Blue by Jaymay

5. There’s one song by Halsey in particular that has some lines that really get to me, it’s not one of her more popular ones and I’m forgetting the name

There’s probably a lot more I could list but these are ones that come to mind. Honorable mention to any song with Fuck you as a line

[tundrakatiebean]

Tagged by the beautiful, talented, and amazing @clown-femme

Nicknames: Katie is technically a nickname, also Tundra

Height: 5’8” (and the shortest one in my immediate family which is why I give off shorter vibes)

Last thing googled: it was either knives out to see where I could download it when I got home or Walter Koenig because I wanted to see if he was still married to the wife mentioned in the Star Trek book I was reading (which he was until she passed last year)

Song stuck in my head: I’ve got dueling songs atm Ruby Blue by Róisìn Murphy and Sugarhouse by Sugarhouse

Followers: it’s like 1,400 and change I think?

Amount of sleep: i average like 7.5 hours last night was like 8:10

Lucky number: 21

Dream job: organizing things like I do for my streamer friend but getting paid for it tbh. I keep a spreadsheet of all of his shinies, update his shiny dex, and have been fiddling with coding a website that is better than the one we’re currently using for it. So basically like a spreadsheet fairy for one patron.

Wearing: compression socks, Uggs, mulberry leggings, grey tank top, my favorite long skull shirt (that I fixed last summer so there are pics of it somewhere on here), a long striped cardigan, and a black N95 mask (travel outfit bay bee)

Movies/Books that summarize me: I don’t know that they summarize me but these are my vibes or things that are so entrenched in my history they can’t be separated- Josie and The Pussycats (2001), The Magician’s Assistant by Anne Patchett, Howl’s Moving Castle (both the film and book), My Neighbor Totoro, Coraline (both the film and book), Paranorman, The Immortal Series by Tamora Pierce, Secretary (2002), A Christmas Story

Fave song: Grey or Blue by Jaymay (I even made an art about it, check out my year of lyrics)

Fave instrument: I don’t play anything but I’m a slut for acoustic guitar and the string section of an orchestra

Aesthetic: dusty academia, yarn and thread pieces littering the floor under a sewing machine, the sound scissors make when you hit the right slide cutting wrapping paper, the paper towel you used to clean your watercolor brushes during a painting, a femme in a fitted or flared brightly colored skirt giving you the coldest stare you’ve ever received, the little bit of nail polish around your cuticles after you paint your own nails

Fave author: Joy Demorra aka @thebibliosphere

Fave animal noise: the little questioning brrpppt? that cats do

Random: I am so ready to get home and sleep in my own bed that I’m a little delirious

Tagging: @ghostsinthecellar @sad-n-subbyy @lucidlymelanated @mrdreadful @mind-altering-bugs and anyone else who would like to do this :) feel free to ignore if you’re tagged or add if you’re not!

[moviepanda]

Good question .. what would you do if you'd find out your husband's a serial killer..?

I would start by deleting my browser history when I searched for every murder the husband did.. And I would tell him that 'Beadie' is a bad fucking alias for a killer

Loved it though - and this woman is awesome

10/12/2024

[cessreads]

What are you top 5 most favourite songs of all time? send this to 5 of your favourite followers when you answer! if you get a second one say your top five favourite artists and if you get a third say your top 5 favourite albums!

Hi! Thank you for asking! I don’t know why these questions are so hard to answer but I’ll try! 😅

My list usually changes a lot depending really on how I feel during a particular time in my life. Right now these are mine in no particular order:

1. Gray or Blue by Jaymay

2. Our House by Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young

3. Ohh My Love by Stevie Nicks

4. When We Are Together by The 1975

5. Mirrorball by Taylor Swift

[petalpetal]

Music c:

@snowychicken

Walnuss by gurr (finally something thats not english or japanese) (Its German)

Over My Head by Jaymay

私のすべて by Pizzacato Five

Raise Your Fist by Aldious

The Biggest Rodent by Louie Zong (its the first song)

[little-engineer-who-cant]

Jason and Clarisse orbit each other around Silena. Because love is only a triangle if it’s closed on all sides.

Part 9 of Sirens Scream Names Forgotten by Tomorrow, Laid to Rest in Infinity

(also posted under cut)

“The city is for strangers, like the sky is for the stars and I think it’s very dangerous if we do not take what’s ours.”

- Gray or Blue (Jaymay)

She’s on his chest, sleeping peacefully and he has no motivation to move her. The warm sunlight streaming across their bodies, his hand in her hair, the soft sheets tangled around them, her weight grounding him to the here and now, the silence in his head. He could stay here for an age, caught in the restful grey area between sleep and consciousness, warm and content. Bundled in blankets, weighed down by soft breaths and gentle hands, tied up by dark hair and a heaviness in his bones that makes him want to sink into this mattress in a way that will leave a permanent impression. 

Something tickles in the back of his mind, a faint niggling reminder that he has things to do, places to be, people to talk to, but he forcibly shoves it away. Days like this were so very few and far between, it would take half of Gotham going up in flames to stir him from this bed. This bubble feels untouchable, a fallacy he knows exists only in his own mind, but it lingers. Sweet and as fragile as spun sugar, alluring to live in. For a moment, he indulges in the fantasy that this is a normal life, a normal day. No work, he and his love could just lounge in bed with no responsibilities other than each other. 

The creak of a footstep shatters that illusion, making him fling an arm over his eyes with a bitten back groan. No alarms sound in his head, telling him exactly who is coming down the hallway, who he is going to see.

He peeks out from under his forearm as Clarisse leans into the doorway, braced on the handle.

“What’s up?” he murmurs, doing his best not to disturb the peace.

“It can wait,” she assures, going to lean out of the room again.

“Clarisse.” She leans back in, brow pinched in confusion and he points to the empty space on the bed, right by the door.

“What…” but she’s drawn by the same strings Jason is, the same shape huddled under the blankets, still gone deep in the world of sleep. So she approaches, despite the protest lingering on her lips like syrup, eyes drawn to the spider web, to the honey that brings them both colliding together. She sits, delicate, trying not to break this gossamer thread of a truce that exists in a bedroom that feels removed from the world.

“Should I point out the obvious?” It’s not as mocking as he means it to be, not as flippant as he wants. It’s too quiet, too raw. Because he knows what he’s seen, the layers upon layers of history between these two friends turned-

“I’m not you,” Clarisse whispers, her hand resting delicately on the curve of Silena’s hip, eyes shadowed with hesitance and reverence alike.

“And I’m not you,” Jason replies just as quietly. Their eyes meet, the past and present looking a possible future in the eye. One or the other-

Her hand leaves Silena’s hip and grasps his wrist, pulling the arm from his face, over his head and onto the pillow.

“You’d better not be getting fatalistic on me, Todd,” Clarisse growls, bracing her weight on that wrist, pressing it into the pillow even as he snarls at her in reflexive response. Aggression for aggression, her restraint for him to fight. A challenge, given and answered as easy as breathing. It’s only Silena, somehow still sleeping on his chest that stops him from lunging head on into a fight he probably will not win and Clarisse knows it by the grin on her face. 

“Fuck off, La Rue.”

“Make me.” She presses further down, arching over the woman slumbering on between them, unaware of what’s surrounding her, restrained only by her presence. The pulsing violence, desperation of each having what the other wants, her, her past, her present, her secrets, her love, suspended together. 

It would be so easy for one or the other to snap, to reach out with deadly hands to eliminate the other. So easy for the breaths they’re sharing to become vicious words, bite wounds, bloody caricatures of smiles. Fanged mouths, belonging to fight dogs, tilting in anticipation of ripping out the other’s throat even as they each anticipate one another too well. Like recognizes like and they’re hungry to tear the other apart. Maybe, if she digs deep enough into his corpse’s chest cavity, she’ll find whatever it is she searches for in his eyes, whatever awful thing beats in his brain like a tumor, maybe she can extract it from him with a surgical violence that feels like salvation. Maybe she can succeed where others have failed because she’s not kind, has never had a reason to care about him.

“Do it,” he begs or orders or some derivative combination of the two. Tear it out, and put him back in the ground a whole man even if she has to do it piece by piece. 

“What do you want me to do?” Her grip tightens, their noses brush and he can taste the blood on his tongue already.

“Tell me the obvious.” He can see the red sparks that shoot through the brown of her eyes, the minute way her skin strains over veins that pulse with almost too much power for a single being to control and yet she confines it as effortlessly as she regulates her breath, the warmth painting his lips and making him whine.

“I’d rather show you.” Their breaths solidify into a proper kiss, the last space closing and their mouths meeting with more gently than he ever thought either of them capable of with anyone but the woman between them. Fangs blunted, claws retracted, blood firmly within their own veins and not pooling between their mouths. A piece of him expects the darkness knifed between his ribs to rise, a challenge to be made and answered, a struggle, a fight, but nothing stirs. His head stays silent, the warmth of the sun, of Silena, of Clarisse melting into his bones and keeping him supine, relaxed, here in this time and place, this bed, this life. 

“Mm?” They slowly part at Silena’s inquisitive little hum, her slight stretch and possible confusion at being squished. But there is no panic in him, no rush in Clarisse’s retreat. No fear in her eyes and Jason doesn’t feel caught. He feels free. “Come’ere,” Silena’s hand reaches blindly behind her and finds Clarisse’s arm at the oddest angle, tugging her rather ineffectively. “Lay down,” Silena nuzzles further into Jason, tugging Clarisse again.

“Silena,” Clarisse murmurs, hand tightening on Jason’s wrist and making his breath catch. 

“If you’re gonna make out, do it in bed. ‘M sleepy,” Silena mumbles back, half muffled by Jason. Clarisse has no response for that, no witty come back or sarcastic insult. Slowly, she obeys, releasing Jason’s wrist in the process. Returns her hand to Silena’s waist, thumb stroking soft skin tenderly as she props herself up on one arm, eyes drinking in whatever picture they make in her shadow.

His hand leaves Silena’s hair and cups Clarisse’s jaw, stroking her cheekbone as delicately as she touches the woman between them, silently asking her to come back. A request she answers as they kiss again, gentle and kind with their rough hands, scarred faces and brutalized bodies. Her own hand leaves Silena’s waist to grip his bicep, both of them curled around Silena’s warm body, a shield and a reminder. Two soldiers made for fighting their fathers’ wars, made soft in the sunlight of a spy’s bed, all three of them twisted together in a heaven of their own making, holding a tiny slice of peace in one another’s palms.

“I love you,” Silena whispers as they break apart and Jason doesn’t know or particularly care who she meant it for. If she meant it for either of them at all. Because he loves Silena, of that there is no doubt. And in this syrup-slow sunrise as he looks into Clarisse’s eyes, he thinks he could love her in some way too.

—

“What is this to you?” she asks him as they watch a warehouse burn a few blocks away. The perfect trap, baited and tripped, another rival gone from the underworld that Jason controls with an ever more iron fist.

He wishes that gave him any hope of surviving this conversation.

“What?” Clarisse snorts, but doesn’t look at him.

“What are we doing, Todd. You and I.”

“Burning shit,” he plays dumb. Now she looks at him. 

“Don’t.” 

He sighs. Looks away. Fiddles with the helmet in his hands. It’s easier to leave the temptation to start a fight if he’s not looking at her. Because the temptation is still there, the desire to dig around in her guts until he pulls out whatever is in her that Silena loves and puts it into himself instead. 

(Do an autopsy and a vivisection leave the same scars?)

“I don’t know,” he admits. “But you’re here. You love her. And she’s been alone for a long time.”

“What does that make you then?”

“Someone who will only ever know a part of her.”

“That makes two of us.” He looks back at her, catches her wry smirk. “Between the two of us, she might be a whole person.” That makes him snort, leaning on the smokestack of this old ass warehouse they’ve posted up on.

“Why do you care what this is?” he asks, curious. “Because to me, if you’re going to stay, I’d rather know the writing on the wall and have a chance at making a bridge than fighting you at every turn.”

“You talk as if jealousy is easy to turn off like a switch.”

“Oh, so you want to gut me too?” It’s comforting that he’s not alone in the sentiment.

“I don’t know what she sees,” Clarisse hisses, looking at him with fire in her eye and venom on her tongue. “I don’t get why she keeps you. Why she cares enough to fight for you, in whatever way she thinks she can.”

“That makes two of us,” he parrots. She swipes at him and he dances far enough away that it’s a glancing swat across the face instead of a concussive force.

“I have had it with you,” she growls, closing the gap between them faster than he can blink. His helmet clangs to the floor as she shoves him back, the railing digging into his spine, their noses brushing as she bends him further, fangs out again, fighting dogs ready to lunge- “Do you have a death wish?”

“I’ve already died,” he shoots back flippantly, “tends to lose its impact after you’ve walked away once.”

“You fucking idiot-” the air between them is red hot, pulsing with blood and rage and violence in a way they chain for most people. The darkness they only release for the worst of the worst and for each other. It’s nice to have company in the depths of hell, of burning so completely with another person that there will be no telling the ashes apart.

“I’ll be-”

“If you say fine-”

“-alive no matter what you do,” he gloats, his own teeth out and aching to dig into her skin, to rip and tear and burrow his way down into her until maybe, if he curls up in her lungs, he can breathe again. “What?” he taunts breathlessly, half laughing even as he wishes she would press farther, maybe just push-

(Be the monster we know we both are.)

“Not going to kill me?” he continues, laughing in her face like it fools either of them.

“I’ll making living hurt so fucking much you’ll wish your death stuck,” is what she promises instead. Pushes him further, bending him back like this is a dance and not a deadly compromise.

“That’s what this is then,” he wheezes, chest burning as his stomach trembles while trying to keep himself balanced. 

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” but she’s smiling and letting him stand again.

“How do you want the list?” he asks, following her retreat until they’re both away from the edges and toe to toe, eye to eye.

(Heart to heart.)

“Hm. It’ll be more fun to figure it out,” she promises and he laughs and the city burns behind them.

—

The bed is empty when he wakes up. The sun is high, casting two long shadows across the room in the shape of two familiar women. One is short and hunched, folded over, while the other stands tall and proud, both silhouettes washed out and hazy in the dim light that manages to scrape through both the dingy skies of Gotham and the gunky window.

Turning his head, he sees Silena leaned against the window, watching where Clarisse is bent over the railing in the fire escape beyond. 

“You can go back to sleep,” she tells him and he stretches out with a purposefully long and luxurious groan.

“And miss whatever riveting conversation is happening here?” he half-jokes. These two could say more in silences than he’s read in entire novels before, so only their gods know what he’s missed in the quiet.

“Not a conversation,” she corrects, shooting him a smile over her shoulder. There are faint circles under her eye. No sleep. “Just… waiting.”

“For what exactly?”

“For her to… Decide I guess.”

“Hm.” He rolls to his feet and stretches again, reaching towards the ceiling and popping his spine in several places. Clarisse doesn’t move as he joins Silena at the windowsill. Either she’s so deep in her thoughts that she's missed his movement, or she’s ignoring them. It doesn’t matter much either way because neither spectators step out on the fire escape. Silena leans into his side and he wraps an arm around her shoulders. The window is dirty, but he sees their reflections in it, their faces superimposed along Clarisse’s back.

“I don’t know what you want to hear,” she says to their mirrored selves. 

“What question do you think I’m asking?” He watches the muscle in Clarisse’s back shift under her shirt as she rolls something over in her hands.

“If I’m happy. With…” she sighs, perfectly shaped nails drumming a staccato rhythm on the sill for a moment. “Whatever arrangement you two have figured out.”

“Arrangement is a harsh word.”

“So give me a better one to use.”

“I prefer understanding.”

“What exactly is there to understand?”

“You.” She looks up at him, lips pursuing but it doesn’t quite stop him from seeing the way they are curling up at the edges.

“And here I’d thought I was at my least mysterious when around the two of you.”

“She knows who you were. I know who you are. Somewhere in there…” he rolls his tongue over his teeth.

“Is a roadmap to learning me?” she asks and he can’t decipher her tone.

“You’re the only one in both our worlds,” he defends. “Maybe, if we both understand you-”

“I don’t think that’s how that works,” but her fingers twist with his, cupping the spot where his hand is on her arm. “But I…” she swallows, their eyes meeting in the window over the curve of Clarisse’s spine. “Are you doing this because you want it? Or because you think I do?”

“Can it not be both?” he asks. 

“Then which is it more?” He takes a breath. 

“Does it matter?” Because he doesn’t know the answer.

“Give me the best you’ve got.”

“This life is going to kill us,” he reminds her and she smiles, sweet and sad and he lets the warmth in his heart melt over onto her tongue. Her eyes flutter shut and she takes a deep breath, shoulders sinking in pleasure as she swallows whatever his devotion tastes like. “Maybe we’ll get back up, maybe we won’t. But…” Her eyes open again and they both look to the dim sky barely visible around the clog of buildings around this shitty sanctuary they’ve made their own.

“Walking together,” she hums. “And you want to understand how I love her too.” Her head tilts up and she presses gentle kisses along his jaw. He nuzzles down into her hair. Her fingers detangle from his long enough to unlock the window but he’s got the strength to push it up with one hand without leaving her arms so he does. She muffles a giggle in his skin as her hand rests on his stomach instead.

“Are you two done gossiping about me?” Clarisse inquires, turning at the noise and he sees what she’s been holding all this time.

His half-mask dangles from her fingers, thumb running compulsively over the slits that cover his mouth.

“Are you done thinking about whatever drove you out here at dawn?” Silena shoots the question back instead. 

“I don’t think there’s a cut and clear answer to that.” Clarisse shifts her weight and leans against the rough brick wall next to their window, head back and eyes closed. Silena lifts a hand and hooks two fingers into the pocket of Jason’s sweatpants that Clarisse has claimed as her own.

“Then tell us what you’ve got right now,” Silena leans against Jason’s shoulder, head finding the nook where his neck and shoulder meet.

“I can’t stay,” she whispers, like the admission will shatter them all, staring out across the city instead of looking them in the eye. Jason’s mask spins aimlessly in her hands. “I… Gotham isn’t mine. Not like it’s either of yours.”

“Doesn’t mean you have to leave,” Silena mumbles, her nose tucking down next to Jason’s collarbone to hide her pout. 

“It does.” Jason runs a hand down Silena’s arm to soothe the tension. Clarisse is kind enough to ignore it, if she even noticed. “I have people out there I have to help. I have obligations and friends… I can’t stay.”

“Okay,” Silena accepts quietly, squeezing Jason in warning before he can open his mouth and make this sad resignation into a fight none of them will win. “Just remember to come back every now and again, will you?”

“What?”

“You can’t stay,” Jason agrees, squeezing Silena in return. An assurance. This isn’t a fight anymore. “But that doesn’t mean you have to leave forever.”

“That doesn’t mean you two have to wait for me,” Clarisse sighs.

“We won’t be,” Silena replies simply, leaning away from his neck and pushing her sleep-wild hair out of her face, before tucking herself more firmly under his arm. Surrendering to the inevitable. “But just because your path isn’t twisted with ours doesn’t mean it has to separate forever. We love you.”

“However it has to be,” Jason finishes. Silena’s hand clenches against his abdomen. He strokes his fingers through her wild mane in quiet comfort. Clarisse is going to leave. If they let her go, there’s a better chance of her coming back.

“I didn’t think I’d be having this conversation with you of all people,” Clarisse scoffs at him, but there’s no heat and she’s staring at the empty eyes of his carelessly tossed mask instead of glaring at him.

“I like to think I’ve gotten a little closer to living,” Jason muses. Silena turns back into his neck, he kisses her hair. “And I’m greedy. Death took everything once, what little I let myself have. The Pit tries its damnedest to make me get rid of the rest, but fuck that. I’m taking everything I want. Fuck the world and fuck what it says I should want. I’m already defying it by breathing. Why not keep it up?” Clarisse laughs then, the lines around her eyes deepening. Silena hums into his neck, her smile framing a tendon. 

He holds out a hand. Clarisse ignores it, but her arm bends at a painful angle to fit through the window frame, their hands tangling together in Silena’s hair. Silena rests her head in the cradle of their palms, calm and trusting. The rabbit baring her throat to the wolves that love her. Clarisse crouches down to their level, presses a kiss to the jugular they both will kill to protect.

They all know Clarisse is going to be gone when the sun rises tomorrow. Her spot in the bed will get cold, her place at the table an empty void, the space at his side a lonely reminder when he’s on patrol, but he’s not going to chain her and Silena certainly won’t. But they’ve made their offer, opened their door. All that’s left is to see if she walks back in. 

And as Clarisse squeezes Jason’s fingers, pressing the curves of their entwined knuckles against Silena’s skull, he knows she will.

[fijihoney]

moon is my alibi

[moonstruck87]

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gray or blue by jaymay!!! she writes such pretty songs i wish she was better known