#since frying them straight away without drying made them super hard instead of light and crispy..

[deus-ex-mona]

merry crisis guys!!!!

[moonlights-inkwell]

Honey, You’re familiar

Summary: Studying in public brings around a stranger who looks a little bit too familiar to you. 

Jason Todd x reader 

Word Count: 2023

[part 1] [part 2] 

This took longer than i expected and isn’t as good as i would have liked it but ehhhh. 

Title from Hozier’s From Eden. 

As always, Gotham is a mess of wind and rain and darkness at six thirty, but for once you're able to find yourself watching the rainfall from the warm, dry, safety of the diner. It feels like god was throwing you some sort of bone after four years of questionable luck that had been started by Jason's death, and if you were more of a romantic you'd think it was due to it being Jason's birthday, but you've learned a long time ago that romanticism has no place in your life. The pattering of rain against glass makes you smile as you sit in the old corner booth of Pauli's, text book and notebook on the table in front of you beside the plate of slowly chilling fries- gently nibbling on them while you continue making notes for your next class. Pauli's is nowhere near as quiet as the library, but its more familiar to you and it comes with the perks of cheaper food on your off-day, and you'd much rather be in Pauli's if you're honest, especially in your booth by the window. It started raining after you had arrived, meaning that the old, stolen red jacket that rests on the pealing vinyl seat beside you is dry, and it has given you a reason to stay beyond the need to continue with your work. The gentle flickering of the florescent lights overhead and the sound of the old jukebox, hidden away in the corner by the counter while it plays songs from the eighties, coupled witht the sound of the other patrons talking around you help to keep you grounded even if it keeps distracting you from your literature essay: with your head bobbing along to Africa as you chew on a fry rather than continuing to write, wondering more about whether or not you'd rather hot chocolate or a milkshake than the subtle meanings behind the hidden subtlety to the 'romance' element of Wuthering Heights. Some of the more regulars had smiled at you or said hello to you on their way past; and it's appreciated, makes you feel like you're important to them, or at least worth remembering. You let yourself relax back against the pillowed seat of the booth, fingers digging through your jacket pockets for your wallet to pay for the milkshake. Your professor is gonna pitch a fit if it's late, but right at this present moment you can't seem to find it in yourself to give much of a shit. Since your attempted mugging a month ago you've tried to keep yourself as distracted as humanly possible to keep from thinking about it again, and working was doing an excellent job of distracting you, but it feels nice to finally be distracted from working again. Food, warmth, and being away from your apartment is nice; especially after waking up the other day to a window you knew you had locked being wide open. Maybe you're just paranoid, but being alone in your apartment right now sounds awful. Outside of the window Gotham is strangely beautiful, through the heavy rainfall flashes of red and blue neon from street-signs paint the wet streets with colour, letting their shine and brightness flare off of the rivulets of rain running down the window so that the once dark and dismal city is practically technicolour, and there's something unearthly about it in the darkness. You could almost tell yourself that the city that you live in isn't basically the crime capital of the world, well known for having a grown man dress up like a bat in order to fight criminals, and that idea of normality is nice for the moment being. You catch yourself contemplating what it must be like to live in some city that's safe and warm with no super powered villains running around only to remind yourself of how much you really do love the rain and darkness, and that it's safe and wonderful and what the hell would you do without the criminality to complain about while you work or talk to the other kids in you college classes. Nothing. That's what. Say what you want about how awful it is to live in Gotham (and you do, often) if the criminality of the city did anything it brought people together; nothing like spending every second day of February avoiding any form of public place with anything valuable for fear of Two-Face and grumbling about it, or communal complaints whenever snow appears on the fourth of July because Mister Freeze is on the loose again. It's strangely nice. On occasion, you wonder if that kind of connection is present in places with significantly less crimes, do people in Metropolis let out communal sighs and grumbles about their insurance together when Mr Mxyzptlk's on the loose the way you all do whenever reports of Poison Ivy breaking out of Gotham start to pour in? You tap your pen against your bottom lip before dropping it and the pretence of writing entirely, opting to just chew on a fry. After your milkshake comes to your table, you sit there re-reading what there is of your essay and cringing when you realise that all you've written is all of about three hundred words of a twenty thousand word essay. Damn it. Is it too much to hope for Scarecrow to break out of Arkham so that class will be cancelled? You'd rather risk Fear Toxin than your Professor's wrath. Fingers drum quickly against the paper covered surface of the table top. You're fucked, and you doubt you can use the age old 'I was mugged and they stole my lit essay' excuse on your hard-ass professor. Faking illness to buy yourself an extra day or two seems like the only feesable answer without being a straight up liar. Cracking your knuckles and then your back, you rest your head on the pile of paperwork, hands covering your eyes for a few seconds. You push yourself up after a few minutes of self pity, and try to scribble down any nonsense that might help to bulk it out. Your ears perk up at the sound of footsteps approaching your booth, but you only look up from your non-existent essay at the sound of a distinctly male, and vaguely familiar voice. "Can I sit here?" The man in front of you is tall, almost imposingly so, with black hair swept across his forehead which is broken through by a shock of white hair. You almost stare at the white locks before your eyes slide down to his eyes, almost shockingly green and framed by long eyelashes, and his freckled cheeks. His skin is tanned and it makes his dark hair and red hoodie stand out, and he smiles slightly at you. You almost whisper Jason's name before realising that it's impossible, and look away; taking in the diner behind him to see all of the full boothes before nodding slightly before looking back down at your sheets. Damn it. Handsome black haired men had become your type so long ago you assume you can relate it to Jason, something about trying to live what you and Jason could have had. It's pathetic and that's probably why you stopped even thinking about dating a long time ago, leaving you to dedicate yourself to your studies, especially when your putting yourself into crippling student debts. After you nod he sits on the other side of the booth while you try to focus on working again so that you aren't staring creepily at the handsome man across from you. To his credit, he doesn't attempt conversation with you and just sits there looking at his phone and sipping at whatever was in his mug, and you begin writing more than you probably have in the last three hours, spurred on by his presence and not wanting to make this awkward. It's strangely easy, with his silence and only the sound of a cheesy romantic ballad as background music, and it's... nice. The sound of the George Michael's voice is relaxing and you stop writing to tap your pencil against the table once more, searching for the right words to write but none seem to come so instead you reach for your book. Flitting through the copy of Wuthering Heights, you let your eyes scan across passages about wet and windy moors and tragic romance while searching out something that could help you but nothing stands out. He's more myself than I am. Whatever souls are made of, his and mine are the same. You find yourself rolling your eyes at the melodrama of it all. You like to think of yourself as a strong and independent person, and the idea of your life completely shutting down because of some abusive tool that the book romanticises makes you annoyed. You don't notice it but the man across the table from you smiles slightly at your annoyed face and then feverish scribbling of notes on the side of your copy of the text, lips turned up into something soft and sweet. The smile is soft and he lets himself take in all of your features as best he can, he takes another sip of his coffee and his face is neutral once more, as if afraid that you would look up and notice but you don't; too busy with your own indigence. He watches as you smooth your hair behind you ear and tilt your head, continuing in your annoyed writing. He pushes the sleeve of his red hoodie up beyond his wrist and lets out a gentle and resigned sigh. When you finally look up from your scribbling, the man is gone and you drop your pencil at his absence, raking a finger through your hair and cracking your back before looking out of the window once more. A wave of tiredness crashed over you and you let out a quiet moan, then finish the last of your milkshake and fries before looking out of the window. The raining has stopped and you decide that now is as good a time as any to finally head home; less than content with the work that you've done, but completely unwilling to write any more. As reluctant as you are to head home after the window experience, you can't stop your tiredness without caffinating yourself and you don't really want to do that. You collect up your papers and begin to shove them messily into your bag before stopping dead in your tracks at the sight of something that you never thought you'd see again: your grandmother's necklace, placed delicately in front of your glass as if you had put it there yourself. Your eyes widen and you only just manage to keep from staggering backwards, torn somewhere between horror and confusion at the sight of the silver chain glinting brightly against the dark table. The necklace is clean, with two slight chinks in the chain that look like they had come from being wound around a wrist an angle for too long, and it's tiny bird pendant in the centre, it's red jewel still perfect, shining and perfect set against the silver. Your fingers ghost around the chain, almost unwilling to accept it's anything more than some sort of dream until you actually touch the warm metal. Warm. Your eyes dart around the diner to try and look for the man who had been in front of you to try and demand how he had the necklace, but he isn't there. You start to worry about whether or not he had even been there. Once you've put the rest of your work into your bag, you pick up the chain and turn it over several time between your fingers. The warmth of the chain is almost enough to make you feel sick. After a few minutes of just holding onto the chain and staring down at it, you shove it into your bag along with your jacket before bolting off out of the diner.   How the fuck is your necklace here while Jason's dead?

@hyp-oh-critical