summary: Jason’s last act of love is making sure you’re okay.
warning: Vamp!Reader, blood, blood sucking, horror (idk?), character death, hurt/no comfort, Injury, not proofread, angst; wc: 4.3k
A/N: I got this idea after watching Bones and All, especially the ending scene. I did change a few things tho!
We are all held captive in a cruel realm, inhaling a tainted air where every breath we take tastes like sin.
Life always finds a way to come back, and take away everything you have ever loved. This is the price you pay when you are cursed with immortality, where you physically feel the agony of time passing.
You’re a museum of everything you have ever loved, forced to watch your loved ones die, and turn into dust while you continue living. It should feel easier by now. You loved a lot of people, and buried even more people than you can count. Most of them died due to old age. Some of them died because they tried protecting you. Only a handful died because of you– because you didn’t understand what was wrong with you.
You remember the first time you tasted blood. It tasted intensely sweet, intoxicating, and somehow so comforting. It made you feel so many positive emotions all at once, and honestly the act felt more euphoric than the drinking itself. You felt a sense of relief wash over you… Until you heard someone scream behind you. Instinctively, you ran away. Far away. Somewhere no one could ever find you, or recognize you.
You spent a majority of your time travelling, living a few years at one place before you continued your journey. The only reason why you always left places was because you couldn’t stay in a city where you lost someone you loved.
Unfortunately, you still needed blood in order for you to function properly. Three months is the longest you can survive without drinking blood. After these three months, you progressively feel weak, and the possibility to lose control and act in your predatory instinct gets stronger. You felt bad doing this, but you found a way to steal blood donation bags from the hospital. Of course you felt bad doing it, but it was still better than sucking someone dry. And this only happens once every three months, so it should be fine.
So, when you moved to Gotham, you promised yourself to never get close to someone. That was your number one rule. Because you’re tired of always running away. You want to have one place you can genuinely call home without guilt.
And it was going great for a while. You started loving Gotham, even though the city was a curse for itself. Sometimes it felt like all the demons escaped hell, and were hiding in Gotham.
You started working in a small bookshop, just a few blocks away from your apartment. The only times you would leave your home was for your work, quick shopping trips, and hospital visits. The rest of your time you spent in your apartment, hiding from the world outside. You don’t want to risk, socialize, and get too comfortable around people. Which is probably why your boss thinks that you’re heartless. And maybe she is right. How can someone who needs to drink blood possibly be a good person?
But Jason Todd thinks otherwise. This stubborn man entered your life on a random wednesday, and decided to never leave again.
You remember your first encounter with him all too well. He was this handsome looking man, reading Jane Austen in the corner of the bookstore. At first you thought he was being performative. You thought this was his way of attracting women.
But god, you were so wrong. This man has an unhealthy amount of information about Austen. Sometimes it felt like Jane's soul was trapped inside of his body. The way he analyzes every work of hers, and the way he talks about her… There was just no way this was performative. He was being genuine.
You never meant to get close to him. All you ever wanted to do is recommend The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoevsky. Somehow that turned into an hour long conversation, and before you knew it, you found yourself stuck in a situation you never wanted to happen. It was against everything you have promised yourself.
Don’t get attached. Don’t fall in love.
Loving you is a sin, and it results in people being punished for it. They get punished with death, and you have to watch again.
And Jason knew something was wrong when you started to distance yourself from him. You started working when you knew he wouldn’t be in the store. He was predictable, you knew exactly when he would show up at the bookstore. But avoiding him was hurting you more than it hurt him. Because you wanted to talk to him, you wanted to see him again. You were able to feel how your soul was eating itself, you were yearning for a man you don’t even know properly.
Your hands were originally meant to take life. Yet all you want to do is hold Jason’s hands. The same lips that have been covered with blood way too many times shouldn’t wonder how Jason’s lips would feel like.
No, this would be cruel of you. Dragging an innocent life into your mess will result in his death. You cannot watch another life get taken away because of you.
But it feels like Jason, oh so stubborn Jason, had other plans. Because one particular night, you found yourself cornered by him. He demanded answers to why you started avoiding him all of a sudden.
Talking to him was your first mistake, looking into his beautiful and mesmerizing eyes was your second mistake. It holds so many emotions inside, too many for one person to handle. It hurts you so bad, knowing that he feels hurt. You would rather burn in the sun than watch his eyes hold this awfully painful glaze.
‘‘Why are you avoiding me? Did I do something wrong?’’ You remember him asking you, with distress in his voice.
But you can’t tell him. Can’t tell him the real reason why you’re avoiding him. How do you explain to a normal person that you are a Vampire, damned to survive for eternity? He would have thought that you lost your mind, that you’re crazy.
‘‘I was just being nice, don’t read much into it.’’ Was your response. You didn’t dare to look at his face when that sentence left your lips. You could physically feel how your heart broke.
Jason left that day without saying anything.
Six months have passed by since you last saw Jason. It didn’t shock you honestly. Why would he keep showing up? After all, you broke his hope of having something real. But then again, life just loves giving you hardship.
Because you were hiding in a dark alley, while drinking the stolen blood bag which you stole from the hospital. The cravings were really bad this particular month because you weren’t able to wait until you arrived at your apartment to drink. Your predatory instincts were stronger, so you hid in the darkness. You hate how blood is the cure for your pain. You hate how much you need it to survive. You hate how much relief and sedation you feel when the iron taste lingers on your tongue.
‘‘What the fuck?’’ You heard a modulated voice speak up on your left side which made your heart stop beating for a second. Fuck…
You turned your head towards the sound and saw Red Hood standing in front of you. Thanks to the moonlight, he clearly saw you hunching in the corner with the bag in your hand, and your mouth covered with bloodstains.
‘‘I can explain!’’ You say desperately.
At that moment, Jason didn’t know what to do exactly. The sweet girl from the bookstore, who also rejected him, is hiding in an alley while drinking… blood?
His eyes must be playing some kind of joke, right? There is just no way…
‘‘Please! You have to believe me! I didn’t hurt anyone. I swear!"
“Why are you drinking…” He doesn’t finish his sentence. Never in a million years would he have thought that you would turn out the way you just did.
“I- uh… How do I even say this without sounding crazy?” You mutter to yourself.
“Just say it, goddamit!” Red Hood yells, at which you flinch. God, why is he so mad?
“Fuck, alright. I am a Vampire. But I promise you that I never hurt anyone. I simply steal these… from the hospital.” You take a deep breath before you continue. “I know that there are people who need this, and this is morally wrong. But I really don’t want to hurt anyone. I only do this one every three months, I swear to you!”
Red Hood didn’t answer you after you just spilled out everything. His masked face is still focused on you, and you start doubting if this is the moment where he pulls out his gun, and shoots you in the head.
But to your surprise, this never happened. Quite the opposite.
He held out his gloved hand to you. You looked up at him, confusion written all over your face. Of course he noticed your confused glaze, and let out a single laugh. “Take my hand. I don’t have all the time.”
You hesitantly took his hand, and he pulled you up to your feet. There are a lot of questions running through your mind. The famous Red Hood, the crime lord, was supposed to be scary. So why was he being so gentle with you?
“Follow me.” Red Hood simply said.
At that time, you weren’t entirely sure why you followed him. He could have done anything to you, and you followed him without even questioning him. There was this feeling of… trust? You didn’t know how to explain it properly. It felt like you had a lot of conversations with him even though it was the first time you saw each other. Or so you thought.
He took you to one of his warehouses and gave you a towel. Because there were still bloodstains around your mouth. He started asking you questions, and you answered with full honesty. You told him the whole truth, absolutely everything until now. Including the fact that you’re isolating yourself from everyone. And he believed everything you said, without hesitation. Which was also very scary for him. But then again, there was no way you made all that up in just a few seconds. It felt weird immediately trusting you, when people had to actually earn it.
Jason hated how he felt when he listened to your story. He hated how he felt his heart break for you. But now he knows that you started avoiding him because you were scared of hurting him.
All he wants to do is give you a hug, because you honestly deserve one. With everything you’ve been through. Life has been nothing but cruel to you, and being cursed with immortality was just the cherry on top.
“I feel like my destiny is to be lonely. Loving me is a sin, and sinners get punished.” You told him that same day with tears in your eyes.
“Nobody should be alone. Not even you.”
“You don’t understand. I don’t want to watch another loved one die.” You mumbled, burying your face into your hands, and letting the tears fall down. Showing yourself vulnerable to someone you don’t even know was weird, but it felt good telling your whole story to someone. Maybe you will never see him again, which is actually what you’re hoping for.
Jason felt a little overwhelmed, and didn’t really know how to respond that would give you hope again. But he listened. To everything that has been bothering you for way too long. He couldn’t believe that the girl he had a crush on was a vampire. And after everything you told him, it all makes sense. The avoiding, the cold responses, etc. It all started to come together.
He offered you to come to this exact warehouse whenever you felt overwhelmed, and just needed someone to talk to. At first you refused, but after he told you that there will be no attachment, you did some thinking and decided to do it.
Over the course of time, you and Red Hood became… not really friends but also not strangers. He started opening up about small things too, but never in too much detail. That was until you caught him without his mask one day. When you found out that you have been talking to Jason the whole time. That day, all you could feel was anger. Angry because you explicitly told him all your worries, and you told him why you were avoiding him. Finding out that Red Hood was Jason was definitely a shock for you which you needed to process first.
“Please don’t run away!” He grabbed you by your arm, turning you to him. You could see the sadness in his face, and you hate how it was affecting you.
“I told you everything, every single detail! I told you about.. you!”
“And I think that we could make it work. I know that you think loving you would only harm me. But after everything I’ve been through, there is nothing that could harm me.”
“No! I’m being serious. I died once, and came back wrong. This is my curse. You could never harm me in any way…”
“No, no buts. Listen, if you don’t like me, that’s fine. Just tell me and I will leave you alone. But if you do like me back, all I’m asking is to give this a chance. Let me prove to you that loving you is a blessing.”
You felt your heart race inside of your body. The thing is that you do like Jason, without a doubt. But there was still a part of you trying to protect him from you. One side of you wants to run away from him as far as possible. The other side of you is begging you to give this a chance. Would that be selfish if you let yourself receive love again? Would it be selfish if you loved someone?
“Please. Just one chance, that’s all I want” He whispered loud enough for you to hear.
That day, the selfish side of you won. You gave Jason the chance to prove to you that loving you is beautiful. Years started to pass by, and your relationship with Jason was only blooming. Maybe he was really right? Maybe loving you is really a blessing.
You were genuinely happy for the first time in your life, and Jason always made sure to let you know how much he loves you. He reminded you every day. His kisses were always so soft, his hands were gentle, and his love for you was endless. You were truly happy.
But would that hold forever?
This all leads you for today.
The apartment is quiet in the peculiar way only Gotham ever is, where silence is never truly silence but the distant echo of sirens, rainwater dripping from old fire escapes, and the city breathing through cracked windows.
You have grown to love this sound over the years because it means Jason is still out there somewhere, stubborn enough to throw himself between strangers as though his own life has never belonged to him. It is late enough that the novel resting open in your lap has remained on the same page for nearly an hour because your eyes have refused to settle on the words. They keep wandering toward the clock instead. They always do when Jason is late.
You tell yourself there are countless reasons for the delay. Patrol runs longer than expected. Dick drags him into another argument. Bruce insists on discussing strategy until sunrise. You repeat each possibility like a prayer, stacking them one on top of another until they almost resemble certainty.
Hope is a dangerous habit for someone who has lived as long as you have, but Jason has always made it seem almost reasonable. Somehow he has convinced you that tomorrow is allowed to exist, that there are futures worth planning for, that immortality does not always have to feel like an endless procession of funerals.
The sound of the front door interrupts your thoughts with a violence that makes your entire body go rigid. It does not open so much as collide with the wall behind it, followed by the unmistakable scrape of boots struggling to remain upright. Before your mind can understand what is happening, instinct has already carried you into the hallway, where the scent reaches you first. Blood. Thick enough to drown every other smell in the apartment. Copper blooms through the air until it settles on your tongue, hunger stirring somewhere beneath your ribs with a cruelty you have spent centuries learning to restrain. You were planning on taking a visit to the hospital next week to still your hunger.
Jason is standing only because he has forgotten how to fall. Rain darkens his hair until curls cling to his forehead, and every shallow breath seems to drag another line of pain across his face. His jacket hangs open in ribbons, exposing wounds that have soaked through every layer beneath it, while crimson slips steadily from his fingertips onto the hardwood floor. For one impossible heartbeat he simply looks at you, and despite everything, despite the blood, despite the exhaustion, despite the terrible understanding already blooming behind your ribs, he smiles with a tenderness so familiar that it almost convinces you none of this is real.
“There you are, princess.” He says quietly, his voice worn thin around the edges.
The words fracture something inside you. You reach him just as his knees finally surrender, catching his weight before he can strike the floor. He is heavier than he looks, all solid muscle, but what steals the breath from your lungs is the warmth radiating from him. You have spent centuries with skin too cold to belong among the living, and Jason has always joked that he could find you in complete darkness simply by searching for the coldest spot in the room.
Now his warmth spills through your hands together with his blood, and for the first time you hate the difference between your bodies. You hate that he burns while you endure. You hate that your heart has forgotten how to beat while his is desperately trying to beat enough for both of you.
“Don’t,” you whisper, though you are no longer certain whether you are speaking to him, to fate, or to yourself. Your hands press instinctively against the worst of the wounds, desperate to keep what remains of him where it belongs, but blood slips through your fingers with quiet indifference. It stains your sleeves, your palms, the floor beneath your knees, and every drop feels like another second stolen from a future the two of you had foolishly believed was still waiting. “You’re going to be alright. Bruce can fix this. We just need to call him. There is nothing wrong with you.”
Jason’s tired gaze never leaves your face. He lifts one trembling hand and curls his fingers around yours with a gentleness that almost undoes you. But he promised…
“Baby. Look at me,” he murmurs, waiting until your blurred vision finally meets his. “Don’t spend the time we have left pretending.”
“No. No! You promised. You told me that I’m not cursed.”
“I’m no Angel! Stop calling me that!”
“You are my angel though.”
The sentence hangs between you like winter settling over a graveyard. You want to argue. You want to scream at him for sounding so calm, for speaking with the same quiet certainty he uses when reminding you to eat or teasing you about stealing all the blankets. Instead, all that escapes you is a broken sound that barely resembles his name. He smiles again, smaller this time, and brushes the pad of his thumb across your bloodstained knuckles as though he is the one comforting you.
“I really thought we’d have longer,” he admits after a long silence. “Long enough to see you believe what I’ve been prove to you all these years.”
Your brow knots in confusion, tears spilling freely now. “Believe what?”
“That you aren’t a curse. Because I feel like I couldn’t really convince you sometimes.”
The words strike harder than any blade ever could. You close your eyes because looking at him suddenly hurts too much, yet closing them only brings memories rushing forward: Jason laughing in the kitchen while flour dusts the tip of his nose, Jason asleep on the couch with one arm thrown over your waist, Jason tracing the scars on your hands as though they are something precious instead of something monstrous. Every version of him has always looked at you with impossible faith, and you have never understood how.
“You’ve spent centuries measuring yourself by the people you’ve lost,” He says softly. “I wish, just once, you’d measure yourself by the people you loved instead.”
You shake your head before he can finish. “Don’t talk like that.”
“I don’t have much time.”
His honesty is unbearable. You press your forehead against his, trembling so violently that you can barely remain upright. Outside, thunder rolls somewhere over the city, and rain begins striking the windows with quiet persistence. It feels wrong that the world continues moving while yours narrows to this single room, this single heartbeat, this single man slipping away beneath your hands.
You would gladly trade every immortal year stretching endlessly before you for one more ordinary morning with him. One more cup of coffee, one more argument over whose turn it is to cook, one more sleepy smile across the room. Eternity has never felt as worthless as it does now.
Jason’s breathing grows shallower, each inhale quieter than the last, but his hand never leaves yours. “Promise me something,” he whispers.
You already know you cannot.
“Don’t let my blood go to waste.” He says and your mind goes blank.
There is no way he wants you to… drink his blood. You haven’t done this for so long, and you never intended to ever do it again.
“No. I can’t do that. Jason please.” You sob against him. You can feel the violent pain in your chest, as if your soul was trying to tear itself free. “I should’ve known. I was so stupid. I am cursed, I cursed you.”
You let out a choked sob, and sucking in air felt like swallowing broken glass.
“You were my blessing. You made my life better.” Jason replies, and you hate how he can still look at you with so much love. “I know you’re hungry. So feed on me baby, I know you can.”
“I don’t want to, please let me call the ambulance.” You sob, and you feel how your whole body is shaking against his. “I love you, please don’t leave me. Please”
The sweet scent of Jason’s blood gushing out hits your nose again. Every rational thought is threatening to vanish, and wants to be replaced by stilling your thirst.
“They won’t make it in time” He says and lays down straight in his back. His eyes were still focused on you, and it almost seems like he feels bad for making you see all this. But he knew he wouldn’t survive the injury. So he decided that he wants to feed you before his soul leaves this world for good. He wants to prove his love to you one single time.
He grabs you by the back of your head and with every strength remaining inside of him, he pushes your head down towards the injury on his neck. Your throat burns with the need to swallow him whole, but you can’t let this happen. You try to push your head back, and distance yourself from him so you couldn’t cause any harm. But he was stronger than you. He pushed your head near enough until your lips were touching the crimson liquid spilling out of him.
“Thank you for loving me. Thank you for allowing me to love you. You will always be my blessing” Jason whispers, and his eyes start feeling heavy now.
The sound of your pulse is deafening, and before you can’t hold yourself back any longer, you mutter, “I love you Jason. Bones and all.”
Your mouth connected with the injured skin on his neck, and you started sucking deeply from the pulse. His blood tastes sweeter than chocolate- rich, and so intoxicating. But you couldn’t stop sobbing while sucking him dry. You want to stop, you don’t want to do this. But your hunger is not allowing you to break free.
For Jason there was just a sharp pain which quickly followed by a heavy intoxicating numbness that spread through his veins. He feels how his body is getting empty and his screaming was filling the room. But he lets you continue. He won’t push you away or try to break free from you. Even if it means that he has to endure pain before he leaves the world. Because once he leaves this word, he could at least make sure you were fed.
“I’m so sorry.” You mumble against his skin but nevertheless you continue sucking.
Jason caressed the back of head before death took his hand, and led him to the afterlife. You could feel how his heart stopped beating against your lips. Once you were done, drinking every single drop, all you could do is hold his lifeless body close to yours. You rock back and forth while crying hysterically.
All you want to do is for Jason to wake up, and kiss your bloodstained face. But this will never happen again. Because the person you truly loved was gone. The person you would give your whole soul was gone. And you were alone again.
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