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sunnie-angel · 3 months ago

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Part 7: The Friend

part 6 | series masterlist | ao3 link

jason todd x fem!reader

summary: you confront jason for disappearing as soon as he’d gotten you into bed. it does end the way you’d hoped.

tags: angst, implied sexual content, drinking as coping mechanism, vomit

rated explicit (mdni) | wc: 1.9k

a/n: this was a dialogue heavy update, so of course i struggled with it. i rewrote and reworked this a few times and i think this is as close to happy as i’m going to get. i’d love to know what you all think about it!

The diner’s too hot, warm air blasting directly onto the back of your neck. It’s the first time you’ve felt warm all weekend since stepping into Rei and Lina’s apartment what feels like a century ago. Fingers twitchy, you straighten the cutlery on its paper napkin. The minute adjustments do nothing to quell the nerves wriggling in your belly. Since the moment you woke up to a lonely bed, writhing, thrashing somethings had taken up residence in the pit of your stomach and the hollow of your throat. Your red dress sits crumpled at the bottom of your hamper, out of sight but not even close to out of mind. It’s not– it’s not just the leaving that had hurt. Everything before – the flirting, the kindness, the goddamn food – that was what stung. Jason hadn’t just been a ‘first name only forgotten in the morning’ hookup, he’d been your friend. He’d been someone you had trusted despite all your reservations with the messy bleeding parts of yourself. And he had left you behind. Fucker.

Jason slides into the booth across from you, silent. He looks...tired. Broad shoulders drooping, hair wild from fingers running through it, and bags the size of quarters heavy under his eyes. He stares back at your own dishevelled appearance. He opens his mouth to speak, then closes it with a snap. You lean back onto the plastic coated cushion behind you and cross your arms. It’s hard to be angry when exhaustion is suffocating you both, but every moment that stretches out in the silence drips more venom into your veins.

“I’m sorry,” Jason croaks, breaching this strange detente between you. “I’m– I’m sorry about Friday. You’ve been a good friend an’ I took advantage of that, took advantage of you, when you were vulnerable,” he takes a deep breath and soldiers on. “You’d been drinkin' and then the fucking mugger happened and– and that wasn’t a side of me I wanted you to see. Ever. You weren’t in the right mind for– for any of that and I knew that and I still kissed you back. I was supposed to look out for you an’ be the responsible one but I just took advantage without thinkin’. It was shitty of me to do that. I was a shitty friend and you deserved better– ” He pauses for breath and you interrupt him, incredulous that this of all things is what he is fixating on.

“That’s what you think I’m pissed about? Jason, I kissed you first so stop with whatever– ” you gesture at him “–this is. Yeah, I had a few drinks but I was already sobering up by the time we got to that alley and I was definitely sober after having a gun waved in my face. So get off your pyre of self-martyrdom because if anyone was taking advantage of the situation it was me. Jason, I’m angry because you’re my friend. You’re my friend and you left like I was just a random fuck.” Defeated you slump back in your chair. “I thought I– I thought at our friendship meant more than that to you but I guess not.”

“Hello and welcome to Doris’s Diner, what can I get you started off with?” The waitress interrupts, cheerful voice a bucket of cold water. She looks back and forth between the two of you expectantly, pen tapping at her notepad. Her fixed smile starts to slip as she starts to notice the tense atmosphere.

“We’ll uh, just have water and we’ll let you know when we’re ready to order,” Jason intervenes. The two of you sit there in tense silence, unable to look each other in the eye but unable to look away, until the waitress returns with your drinks. Her smile is noticeably more forced. Perspiration beads on your glass, a fat droplet sliding down one side. Your fingers start twitching again and you grasp the paper wrapper of your straw. It shreds so easily under your nervousness.

“You are my friend, yeah?” He begins. “You’re maybe the best friend I’ve ever had. Us bein’ friends means everythin’. I was a coward, okay? ‘Cause I was afraid that you were gonna wake up and hate me and then I would have fucked up the only stable thing I’ve got goin’ for me.” Jason takes a breath and you glance back down at the pile of torn paper in front of you. Your heart feels about the same. “I think I fucked it up anyway.” Jason says wryly. “But if you’ll let me, I’ll do whatever it takes so we can be friends again.”

Friends. Friends. Friends. Every time he says the word another nail hammers home in the coffin of the faintly burning desire to one day mean something else. For all the little gestures and kind words to suddenly materialize into something more than platonic affection. You’re angry, now, but even that burning bile hadn’t been enough to kill that little bit of hope kept carefully safe in the recesses of your mind. When he had kissed you back, lips chapped and warm under your own, that hope had sparked, caught fire. Maybe the warmth in your chest hadn’t been one-sided after all. Friends. God, you wish he’d stopped saying that. You wish he’d told you that the real reason he ran away was because he was overcome by emotion, like the Byronic heroes you study finally feeling true emotion. You should have known better than to wish for anything you couldn’t make happen with your own two hands.

“So what, then? Where does that leave us?” you ask, hands balling into fists in your lap. “We just forget the whole thing? Put it all behind us and just go on like we never even slept together?” Jason doesn’t manage to suppress the flinch at the reminder but his pasted on grin doesn’t slip.

“If you’ll give me a second chance, I’ll make it up to you, make it like it never happened, yeah?”

No matter how badly Jason wants to pretend as though nothing has happened, neither of you are good enough actors to pretend that nothing has changed. There’s an awareness of each other that hadn’t existed previously. An awkward self-awareness of your own bodies in relation to each other. The gulf between you yawns cavernous, despite Jason’s smiling attempts to paper over it. This bell can’t be un-rung. But Jason’s trying. So maybe things between you aren’t working out into the fairytale ending you had wished for. Maybe the attraction between you really is one-sided, that Jason had just slept with you out of pity and then regretted that decision. You aren’t going to get what you want. The question is, what are you willing to settle for?

“Fine, whatever, we pretend the sex never happened,” you agree, taking a perverse kind of pleasure in twisting in the knife, “But your ‘night job’? You bet I’m still pissed about you practically stalking me and using that as an excuse,” you say.

A muscle in Jason’s jaw twitches. Good. Maybe, maybe if he grovels a little more you two can resettle the equilibrium of your friendship but that doesn’t mean your heart your ego still doesn’t feel the hurt.

“Is it– is it gonna be a problem for you?” he asks, voice suspiciously boyish. “It’s not– it’s not something I can stop being.”

“Okay, first of all, you’re focusing on the wrong thing again. I don’t give a shit that you’re the Red Hood as long as all that of that business stays far, far away. You don’t think I remember how bad the neighbourhood was when I was a kid? You think I don’t notice how much better it is now? Jesus Christ, at least give me some credit.” This has to be a side effect of too many hits to the head. How is he not getting this? “Two, the part that I’m actually freaking out over, is the part where you knew all the pass codes to my specific unit. You know, the part where you invaded my privacy?” your voice rises on the last word, other diners turning to stare at you. You shrink back down into your seat at the attention.

“I do give you credit,” Jason says slowly, eyes puppy wide. “You’re one of the cleverest people I know.”

“Oh yeah? Then what was all that bullshit about ‘ooh I’m the Red Hood an I know where everyone in the Alley lives’ huh?” you retort, throwing his words back in his face.

“I do!” he exclaims. You scoff and cross your arms over your chest. “Okay so I don’t. But you’re my friend!” he hurries to add. “And you walk home from the bus stop late at night sometimes so I, you know, swing by sometimes just to make sure you got home safe.”

You stare at him in shock. “You know that’s both incredibly sweet and creepy, right?”

“I’m uh, I’m aware that I’m not the most well-adjusted,” he says sheepishly.

You turn and wave down the waitress. “Hi, could we get the number eight breakfast combo for him, the blueberry brioche french toast for me, and a side order of the breakfast sausage and whole wheat toast for the table. Thanks.” You hand the menus back to her and smile sunnily at her shell shocked expression. She walks off and you turn back to Jason. “I’m not explaining personal privacy and boundaries to you on an empty stomach. And you’re paying.”

It’s frighteningly easy to fall back into the regular rhythm of your friendship. Jason nods in all the right places and tries to make you laugh, butters your toast for you before sliding it on to your plate. He asks questions, good questions, so he’s clearly listening. All of it feels just like the time Before. Before you knew what he tasted like, the solid heat of him over you. Before you knew the full heavy stretch of him and the way his brows furrow when he comes. It almost feels likes before, except for his eyes.

Jason won’t look you in the eyes as you talk, will barely even glance at your face. Oh he’s attentive enough, doesn’t miss a word or an expansive gesture. But you notice these things, just like you’ve always noticed the little things with Jason. You had noticed that Jason had turned to you the most, out of all of your mutual friends, paid attention to you most often, yet you hadn’t noticed just how much his gaze had weighed on you until it’s gone. You miss it, that comforting weight. It also makes something clear to you.

Your friendship will never be the same, but if you’re willing to accept that, accept that you’re not going to get what you want, you might have something close to your former intimacy. One day. So you smile and you laugh and accept the olive branch with gritted teeth. You promise all can be forgiven, forgotten, that this whole morning hasn’t cost you anything but your heart and dignity. Waving down the waitress again, you order a mimosa and add it to Jason’s tab. If he’s gonna break your heart at 11:00 in the morning, well, his wallet can take the hit. The bubbles carry you through the rest of brunch, through your goodbyes and see you laters. Jason walks away, hands in his pockets, shoulders noticeably lighter.

You turn to walk home, breakfast churning in your stomach, and promptly throw it up in the gutter. Swiping the back of your hand over your mouth, you straighten up and stagger onwards. Fuck your weakness for Jason Todd. And to think you had been so close to just laying out your feelings on a plate and serving it up to him until he’d opened his big mouth. Friends. You scoff. Friends.

part 8

#jason todd x reader #jason todd x you #jason todd x y/n #jason todd x fem!reader #red hood x reader #red hood x you #red hood x y/n #jason todd fanfiction #jason todd fic #ydcmb (uibyt) series #sunnie writes 🌻

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marisol-holme · 4 months ago

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The retired good girls guide for writing

I haven’t always been able to understand myself.

I never felt like I was able to clock pure basic needs. Couldn’t tell if I was hungry or thirsty. I finished my meals early, preferring to always feel full, in a silent critic of my mother and father’s controlling rule over my life. A few bites of fuck you always left on the plate. I liked to see how far I could push it. How little I could drink, sleep, or eat, and still function. A true desert island scenario would see me lasting years; I had inadvertently trained myself for it. Except my desert island was more devoid of emotional fulfilment and attention.

I had to get creative. I developed some interesting tendencies, sure. But mostly I just wanted to escape. Now my parents never went out, and my internal world was already tumultuous at best, so I did what anyone would do and read. I read voraciously. The ability to turn off my hunger had seeped into all areas of my life. A fugue state dissociation through most of my early years through to adolescence. But I was able to come alive when I was reading. When I read, it was like my first breath. Hungry. I could imagine these worlds and built them up easily, colourfully within my mind’s eye. I'd picture the strong female characters that I admired. I’d taste food, hear music. It was the only time I was ever able to really live, before I had to go downstairs and pretend to eat.

Unwittingly, my upbringing fostered just the correct environment for me to develop a writer’s hunger. Because a writer is always a reader before they grow mad to write. I grew mad fast. I had to. I had to create worlds for me to escape into, away from all the shouting and fighting. Alchemise what I’d read into something new and original. It helped that I was an avid daydreamer, although a psychiatrist might call me a maladaptive daydreamer, but it only ever occurred to me when I was bored. Parallel to this, I grew into shame, so what I wrote I would throw away. I sadly have none of my early works. They are long decomposed into sub-atomic and absorbable waste, probably seeped into a water system somewhere and live inside all of you. Yuck. Not even my best work.

Then I grew up and I had no dreams because I was not hungry. I hadn’t picked up a book in a long time. I dabbled with things that made me feel warm. Partying and shallow conversations. Grotty pubs and sticky clubs. Good friends made me feel a good kind of warm. But it took me a long time to find my way back to literature. Through a work stint as a Nursery Practitioner, I found my way back into writing. You see, at the nursery we had to send updates to parents all about what their children were getting up to. I enjoyed this task and wrote the children’s days like stories. Descriptive and alive. I’d got the bug and the bug had bit me. I didn’t last long once I had started writing again and I quickly found myself working at the Ideas Foundation.

Through my new employer, I was encouraged to trial as much as possible to find out what I enjoyed doing. I was also very privileged to have access to several creative professionals who genuinely wanted to help and mentor those younger than them. Mentors can see all your ducks and help you to get them in a row. My ducks were all over the place and needed very graceful guidance. You push my ducks too much and, well, they explode. Poof!

Speaking to seasoned professional copywriters, I was able to glean their persistent journey into the profession. The confusion I once had around my goals has seemed to have dissipated. The ability to feel hungry for life and understand myself has only grown. My spark is back.

The excitement and giddiness I feel when I think about myself as a writer is immense. The energy can fuel me for days. I look to the bottom left of my documents and the number of words that can pour out onto a page grows and grows with each project I set myself. The possibilities as a writer seem endless from this perspective.

I understand that there is a lot more to these dreams that simple want. I must be focused. Persistent. Take up the offers of guidance from those around me. Accepting critic and moving towards goals. But the potential is there. I understand myself a little better. I value my work a little more. Hopefully, one day in the not-so-distant future a book of mine might get thrown away and end up decomposing in the damp soil into tiny fragments that find their way into us. At least that work will be better and born of something other than the child’s will to survive and create. That would make me feel okay.

#female writers #creative writing #writerscommunity #writers on tumblr #writer community #personal blog #professional blog #The retired good girls guide for writing

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