Jason’s Room — Jason Todd x Reader (+ Dick Grayson)
SUMMARY: “Yeah?”You hear music; it’s loud, deafening probably, but you don’t have to worry about waking up your partner.Dick is out patrolling, and the bed is now cold. You try and warm yourself up in the duvet. Still doesn’t help, but there’s a rush that slowly burning up your body.No one talks, but you’ve seen the caller ID; enough to make you worry after checking the time, see if it was an emergency. But Jason seems to be frozen.“Jay, I saw it was you. Everything alright?”
WORD COUNT: 2140.
TW: Angsty, toxic relationship implied. Some cheating can be read, but is not acted on. Jason Todd is not portrayed as a good person on this one.
A/N: I have no excuse for writing this, other than really wanting to, which I think it’s a good step, seeing as I’ve abandoned writing for my own pleasure completely. So yeah, just have this.
LYRICS COMPLETELY TAKEN FROM “Marvin’s Room”, by Drake.
Bitches in my old phone
I should call one and go home
I've been in this club too long
He’s really so fucking drunk. He shouldn’t be allowed to go out on nights like that, but he still does.
(Maybe clinging to the idea that someone will call him up and say “hey, don’t go, I know you’re bad, let’s talk?”.
He’s stupid, really stupid. Stupid enough to-)
No, he’s already drinking up another shot, from that lined up column of alcohol in front of him. Jason’s pretty sure he’s at a new club, but he can’t say for sure: nothing is familiar and yet everything echoes in him for a reason: faces, blurred-out expressions of joy and a world going too fast around him; music beating too hard in his chest, making his heart almost leap out of it; laughter that he’s not sure that’s coming out of him really, even as he feels his smile growing, a charismatic and cocky attitude coming out of him.
He could have anyone he wanted; Jason knows he doesn’t have the suave attitude of the family, and yet “the bad boy” always attracts a certain crowd of girls he feels like he could go in for that night.
Jason knows he could, but doesn’t. His hand moves up and down this gorgeous girl at her side, a bronzed goddess, but his eyes move to check up his phone: no new messages or calls.
It’s obsessive really. It must have been the third time he’s done that since his last shot, but… It’s infuriating to know he’s not needed.
(He is; there’s always that stupid booty call, the fucking vigilante stuff he feels less and less like going in for – it now means something different, something that wrecks him up inside – or the casual reaching out he’s not really interested in deepening.
Just not by that one person he hasn’t heard anything from in the last weeks.
And you said you’d call by now (“in a week or so”), and yet--)
The woman that I would try
Is happy with a good guy
But I've been drinkin' so much
That I'ma call her anyway, and say
“Yeah?”
You hear music; it’s loud, deafening probably, but you don’t have to worry about waking up your partner.
Dick is out patrolling, and the bed is now cold. You try and warm yourself up in the duvet. Still doesn’t help, but there’s a rush that slowly burning up your body.
No one talks, but you’ve seen the caller ID; enough to make you worry after checking the time, see if it was an emergency... But Jason seems to be frozen.
“Jay, I saw it was you. Everything alright?”
“Fuck, I-Fuck, no, I’m-Agh, I’ave to get out of ‘ere… Excuse YOU!” He drags out the vocals; tone is sleazy, lazy, and you would recognize that anyone, of course.
“Are you drunk? Jason?”
You feel incredibly naked, even with your thick pajamas out; you’ve lived this out too many times, and you can almost see him climb your bed.
It’s been a long time since he’s done that, but it’s something you will always remember: the creaking of the wood, springs of the bed, rustling of sheets as he tossed sheets here and there all night.
(The stupid “I love you’s”, the lazy and very drunken make-outs, while groping each other).
“Jason, are you okay or not?”
I know you still think about the times we had
I say fuck that nigga that you think you found
And since you picked up, I know he's not around, oh oh
I'm just sayin' you could do better
Cause even if those VERY BLURRY nights that you can’t almost remember were nice, there were also the others; those which kind of made you hold onto Dick tighter in bed, at dawn when he sneaked in, cold skin, occasionally bruised. He felt so precious and delicate under the first rays of sun, as his dreams started to die under his eyelids, barely any movement in his body save the soft breathing out of his mouth. Too precious, and too yours.
You loved him entirely and completely. He made you feel so happy you wanted to cry at times; there was nothing lacking, not the sex, not the affection.
But Jason doesn’t think the same.
What about the rush, what about the times you’ve had?
“Why you pick up?” I know he’s not there, he implies, but doesn’t say. She knows too. “It’s late. Thought you were now reformed; no phone after 2AM or something like that, right?”
“Some of us have jobs. Unfortunately, I don’t have a fortune to fall back on”.
“Ouch.”
It’s very easy to just talk. They laugh, and she gets up on bed; Jason can picture her, duvet up to her chin, propping up her pillow (the best he’s had), to talk better, while still charging the phone. He hears the rustling on her side, meaning she’s staring at the side he used to sleep in. She always loved to sleep tucked into his chest.
“You still haven’t answered.”
“Right back at ya’. Are you okay?”
A really difficult question for a drunken and very honest man at 3AM in the morning.
If he was a better man, he would wish her a goodnight and hang up; no more talking, no more suggesting, no more playing with fire. If he was a better man, he probably wouldn’t be drunk-texting girls to “cheer him up” after this call, and he would just go home, sleep it off, and go at it again another night.
But he really is not, and it’s too late to go back now. That’s at least what he tells himself, what he tries to entitle himself into: he feels too much, he’s had it bad the last couple of weeks without you. So, he is owed that.
And that is his mistake, for no one is entitled to anything over anyone, no matter their own personal suffering.
“I guess.” Vague; but enough to let her get out, not dig in. Which is really a trap when he knows of your good nature, but he tells himself that it’s your choice (your fault!) for asking about it.
“That’s… Comforting, I guess. Friend calling at 3AM, probably lost and unaware of where he is right now, fucking drunk and in a completely safe neighborhood, I’m sure…”. There’s a sigh. He hates hearing you sigh; it’s always cause you’re so tired of him, he knows, he knows. And he hates himself for it, makes him feel so useless. “Just send me your location, I’ll guide you home.”
‘But aren’t you on Blüdhaven?’, he naïvely wants to ask, just to almost punch himself right after. She means the safe house or whatever place is near, that she might have still saved as her favorite or most usual locations at Gotham.
Tell me, have you heard that lately?
I'm just sayin' you could do better
And I'll start hatin' only if you make me
“So, why you pick up?”, he asks again, just enough sober. His stomach is in knots from the alcohol (and not waiting for your answer, just hearing your voice and talking to you). He’s on a taxi, and the yellow lights on him are making him sleepy. “I answered.”
It’s 4.38AM. Sending a cab there was easy enough once you had his location and Jason swore he wasn’t moving anymore. Bless technology, you think to yourself now a bit irritated for wanting to sleep and not being able to. Your lids are heavy, and the sheets too soft.
“Obviously cause’ I’m an idiot who forgot to silence their phone.” It’s a half-joke. If you had done just like Dick had suggested, you would not be having that conversation. You change sides in your bed, now looking outside, to the window; Jason’s sigh is audible. You almost feel a heavy and ghostly arm bracing you from behind. “If the info is correct, you should be arriving home soon. Wanna hang up?”
“I miss you.”
A beat.
Breath knocked out of your lungs and silence only interrupted by your dramatic mouth breathing. You literally forgot to breathe; that’s how being with Jason used to make you feel.
As exciting and exhilarating every night out or in with him was, it was not good for you. The nights that were good, but the bad ones, really made your feel like shit. And if someone loves you, they will never hurt you. You know, you so know, how bad he’s had it: but that’s not an excuse for his shitty behavior, his stupid harmful jokes or the way he made you feel.
“Jason, it’s been a long week, I know.”
“No, I know, I know-I’m not-I’m not trying to-“. A sigh. His sighs always broke you: too tired, too broken. Jason always had a way with words, but you managed to sometimes kill that off too. “I don’t want to start out anything. I just want to say sorry. I wanted to, but I know-fuck, I really KNOW-“
“Don’t scream, please.” Firm. Cold.
He’s losing you.
“No, I’m sorry. I’m an ass.” He laughs; it’s self-deprecating and you hate it, but you really don’t have the energy right now. “I…”. Nothing comes out. There’s a long silence. Inhale, exhale (“Jason, just breathe, please”): “I love you. Probably more than I would ever admit to do, and you mean so much to me, but I fucked up big time. And I know, I know-” He emphasizes, without elevating his tone. “-I know you’re so happy with him, fuck! It’s disgusting. It’s fucking bizarre to see you two together.” Poison that he spits, that’s eating him out; acid destroying everything inside, every little nerve of sanity still inside. “And yet, I can’t stop-I really think I don’t want to stop thinking on whatever we had, on the kiss we shared-“
“Jay, that was not-“
“No, I know. I know, but we shared it, and it brought me memories, and you closed off! Fuck, I had you to myself, we were-fuck.”
He curses out for a bit. You let him vent, sighing and putting your hand over your eyes, as if to stop everything from happening. No more 3AM calls.
Had it been pretty shitty of you to get with his “brother”? Maybe, but it wasn’t on purpose or with a malicious intent. It really had been pure coincidence that you had hit if off on one of the galas where Jason stood you up, with a considerable hangover and too sick to move anywhere. That, with the argument you had been having more and more often… Jason wasn’t sure you were even going to show up, but there they had met, and he regrets it every day.
(But sometimes…
Sometimes they look so perfect that he thinks they might just have been destined to happen, one way or another. If it was not in a gala, maybe a rescue, maybe a touch on the street, a crush, a rude Gothamite exchange of words as you clashed onto each other.
Whatever. It just happened and now you two were together.)
“Jason, I was never… “Only yours” to have.”
“On that we can agree. We never really settled, and I didn’t ever treat you nice.”
Not like she wanted; he knew. They were just… Casual friends who fucked every two weeks, who occasionally kissed and got jealous over the other receiving attention from the opposite sex (sometimes same sex). Despite what everyone else thinks, he is quickly to see others social intentions; her whispers on his skin, the brightness on her eyes whenever they would do it with such intimacy, the cuddling… No, he knew, of course he did, that she wanted more.
Jason just wasn’t ready for it. He might never be, but it’s not your fault; never was, never will. And he might just have lost forever the one thing he wanted.
But that’s the thing: everyone wants the chocolate scoop. But what they might need for a change is something they’ve never tried before.
“I don’t know what you’re babbling on about ice cream, Jay. I really…”. She’s tired, he knows. From him, from Dick and his waiting (she never really liked him going on rounds); from just having to bear with all the weight of the world on her naked and frail shoulders. “It’s not the time for this conversation. Can we… Talk another time?”
A beat.
Inhale, exhale.
“Yeah.”. Tired, so tired. Lids closing off,. “I’m here anyways, so I’ll hang up…”. Silence; insufferable silence. He closes his eyes for a second. “Have a goodnight.”
“You too, Jason.”
He’s not there, but he will be soon. He hopes for that, at least; everything will be easier.