jason todd who comes back from the lazarus pit ‘all wrong’. a bit twisted…a bit more obsessive.
tw: stalking, 'coming back wrong' as a trope, obsessive/yandere jason todd, slight sadistic behavior, jealousy, toxicity, corruption kink, voyeurism, hints at somnophilia, nsfw (18+) content, dubcon content. read at your own risk.
MDNI. 18+ only or I will kick your shins in.
He keeps stalking you ‘accidentally’ while patrolling as Red Hood - in his previous life, he had been obsessed with you, his first friend and first love. He just wants to make sure that you’re doing okay.
You seem okay, for the most part. College and work occupy most of the time, and Jason seethes as you smile amongst the students that surround you and how your laugh sounds as pretty as windchimes when your friends distract you during a boring lecture. And how determined you are as you navigate the toils of being an intern at an esteemed company for extra credits and pay.
So this is it, huh? This is all he was to you, now that he's gone. Just a forgotten memory, while you move on with your life and do whatever the fuck you want.
Anger runs like hot lava in his veins as Jason feels jealous of how easy you have it. How he wishes you could feel what he feels, how you could've gone through what he had gone through because of Joker, because of Batman...
Maybe if you were just as damaged as him, he would not resist the selfish urge to take you all for himself...
But once you’re back in the safe confines of your shitty one-bedroom apartment, you grieve every loss you have encountered - starting with his. Crying yourself senselessly to sleep every night as you pray to god to ease your pain…praying for him to have mercy and let you have Jason back in your life.
He hadn’t anticipated that his death affected you all that much, except he was wrong. He felt guilt for underestimating how much he really meant to you - and a sense of relief over the prospect that he mattered enough for someone to mourn him.
He wishes he could hold you in his arms while you cry, leaving soft kisses on your forehead and playing with your soft hair as he murmurs soft affirmations that he’s here now. he’ll never leave you now.
But he now makes the streets of Gotham bleed red, and he has twice as many enemies now - all looking for Red Hood’s Achilles’ heel, the very thing that would make him kneel over and surrender.
Everything he has ever desired has been lost. And he’d be damned to lose you too.
So he contents himself with walking you to and fro from work, maybe occasionally accompanying you to the bar your friends hang out at - silently seething at the irrelevant men who try to make a pass at you. You bask in the glow of the yellow bar lights, shying away from any attempts at courting as you nurse your drink. Jason coos at the lovely sight, almost wishing he could praise you for being such a pretty girl, so good for him. Only for him.
With the buzz of alcohol keeping you warm against the cold night, you stumble your way back home and Jason follows you. You are quick to get out of the black mini dress that hugs your curves. Jason can feel his face flush; it feels wrong to spy on you in such inebriated state - when you have no idea who is looking in as you undress yourself and climb into your bed in nothing but the red pair of panties that make your ass look amazing.
But Jason had died, and so has his morals all those years ago. He has killed, maimed and lied to keep the streets of Gotham clean. He has very few qualms about stalking you or spying on you as long as it keeps you - poor, naive you safe from the cruelty of Gotham. The fact that you have decided to give him a show tonight is reward for his unending protection, he thinks.
Just this once, he will let himself have it.
You are quick to rub yourself through the soaked fabric and Jason groans at the wet spot that he can barely see through the moonlit window. Slowly, you slide your panties to the side and your fingers make quick work of your throbbing clit - and Jason is helpless enough to rub his half-hard dick through the fabric of his tactical pants, tempted to join you as he imagines how you'd touch him if he were there.
You are so hasty, and he mentally chastises you for rushing so fast. If he was in the room and not outside on your balcony, Jason would take his sweet time with you. He would kiss up your thighs and slowly part your legs to make space for him. He would gently kiss you between your legs as his fingers curl inside you to find that one spot that makes you cry and pull on his hair harshly - and he would keep at it until your back arches and you finally slump down on the bed - all putty and warmth under him.
And then he hears you moan his name out. Oh, you nasty girl...
You always knew how to drive him crazy.
As you rush through your quick release, and slump into your bed in slumber. Jason makes quick work of the latch and climbs into your room, careful not to make a noise. He looks at you with brimming eyes, as he softly pulls some wild strands away from your face. You look angelic, so peaceful as you sleep under the sublime light of the full moon tonight.
Jason barely resists the urge to reward you for being so good for him - thinking about how you'd react if you woke up to him eating you out, or maybe you'd wake up to the stretch of his cock opening you up slowly as he thrusts into you and finally attains the release he has denied himself earlier. Maybe you'd wake up and fight him off, despite your smaller frame...or maybe you'd moan for him, sing like the pretty bird you are and egg him on to claim you all for himself. Forever.
And then his pager beeps.
He curses under his breath, making sure that the noise did not wake you up from your drunk stupor. He kisses you goodbye as he whispers to you, 'Until next time, princess'.
And if you were awake right now, you'd have believed him.
And then he silently leaves your apartment, swearing that he'd make good on his promise some other day.
summary: In his fixation with you, Edward forgets how he is perceived by others.
contains: reader works at a bookstore, obsessed Edward
warnings: BIG dub-con warning, stalking, masturbation, mental breakdown (when is he not breading down), If there are any i missed please tell me
word count: 5.3k
masterlist
a.n: long time no seeeee. i lost the reference picture for the bookmark that i was going to make the header and im unwell. this chapter is (finally) brought to you by Eraser – Nine Inch Nails
taglist: @powerhourpermile
Last week, Edward had picked up on one of your most endearing habits. The moment you had brought a book home, you could hardly contain yourself – you dove straight into its pages. He loved watching you read – not just the expressions you made, or how you’d try the dialogue in your own voice. No, what captivated him most of all was the bothersome realization that you had to put your book down. He would watch your head tilt back in frustration, then reach for just about anything to mark the page. Why, he’d ask himself, don’t you of all people have a bookmark? But truthfully, he loved the improvisation. It was more than entertaining watching you rip part of an envelope, or fishing for a receipt in your pocket. And when nothing was within reach, Edward would join your hunt. He’d scan the edges of his screen for anything – anything at all – that might serve as your savior. All within the narrow window of his stolen view.
That was why he was practically skipping to your bookstore today. Edward had bought you a gift. Something small, really, but the second he laid his eyes on the intricately patterned bookmark (bonus points for having it in a favorite color of yours), it was imperative that he present it to you.
His whole body vibrates with elation, weaving through the crowds of bowed heads. Some dare to look up, their pitiful jealousy souring their expressions because how dare he find some light in the dreariest of cities. Oh, how miserable it must be to not have someone like you in life.
He berates himself, quickly stopping his clammy hand from fidgeting with the plastic that protected the polished metal. In this moment, some part of him really believes that he would be the one to offer this gift to you directly. His shoulders sink, his steps faltering. He is foolish enough to believe he can face you.
Can he really look you in the eye and offer you this token without trembling? He stops just a few blocks from the building.
Does he – in good conscience – believe that he wouldn’t be sick with fear at the implications of giving you gifts? He thought of himself as a very stupid man in that moment.
The wind scrapes against his face as he stands motionless outside the bookstore. The thought of handing it to you – watching your fingers brush his as you took it, hearing your voice wrap around a thank you – was intoxicating enough to tip him over. But fantasy was safe. Real life was brutal. It would strip hope raw and bled it out under fluorescents and security cameras. So, instead, Edward does what he knows he does best. He observed. Adapted. Became invisible.
A very stupid man – yes – but one who will find a way.
He didn’t exactly need to give it to you directly. No, no – of course not. That was madness. He had no business being that close to you. He could barely even breathe in your presence.
He watches the doors, or rather, the faint outline of himself reflected in their glass. All he had to do was place the bookmark near the register. Not on it, but just beside the tray where people left receipts or coupons. The register would be momentarily unattended at opening. You’d arrive shortfly after. You would see it. You always place a novel there when you are reading between customers. Edward’s legs carry him forward before his mind catches up.
The air inside feels feverish against his skin and faintly smells cleaner than usual. He keeps his head down, letting his eyes adjust. There is a customer near the horror section and your coworker – the one who always lingered too close to you – has his back turned to Edward. Edward avoids eye contact. His heart nearly ripping through his ribs, sweat prickling behind his ears.
Now.
He moves slowly, casually, up to the register, and thumbs through the flyer rack beside it. He slips his hand in his pocket, letting the bookmark slide into his palm. He pictures your fingers on it – touching it. It would brush your lips as you absentmindedly held it while reading, and his stomach twists violently with pleasure and shame. It would touch you before he could, he realizes.
Just the faintest sound of plastic can be heard; it had made contact.
Gently… gentl–
“Can I help you with something, man?” your coworker snaps, suspicious from the jump.
Edward jerks his hand back like something had burned it. He isn’t even sure if he still held the bookmark as he stumbles and swirls to face the magazine rack beside him.
“No, he mumbles. “Just browsing.”
The man says nothing. Edward feels eyes on him still. His face flushes a terrible, blotchy red.
He flips through a gardening magazine he doesn’t even register. Sweat gathers on his upper lip. A full-body shiver overtakes him; goosebumps rise in its wake.
You were here.
He doesn’t need to see you, He feels you. The air shifts charged and warm. Your scent wafts toward him, and his ears ring with the effort not to look. He wants so badly to drink you with these starving eyes of his.
His body betrays him anyway.
He angles himself just enough to catch a flash of your hair. But your voice, like a magnet, turns his head all the way just to glance over his shoulder. The sound of you greeting your coworker folds him in half inside. Edward watches as your mouth curves, and the part of him that has been burning in anxiety just seconds before throbs with something else entirely.
Your eyes flick to him – a second, maybe less. You give him that smile.
And of course, that prick had to notice it.
“Can I show you something in the back aisle?” he asks you, loud enough for Edward to just barely hear.
Something coils in his chest. He watches, helplessly, as you follow him.
Edward drifts too – just a good few seconds after – toward the adjacent aisle. Close enough to hear but hidden enough. He strains to listen.
“Hey,” your coworker’s voice drops. “I don’t want to freak you out, but… I never see that guy outside your shifts. Like… ever. I’m sure you’ve noticed, and I-I could say something—"
Edward’s throat tightens so hard he nearly chokes.
His vision swims, an angry red seeping into the corners. He was sure his mind was fracturing – here, now, in the middle of the store.
The idea of you looking at him with revulsion – of you agreeing – of you going to some flat-faced Gotham police officer with trembling hands and a photograph of his face. Your coworker’s skull against the pavement, again and again and again.
Your voice.
“That’s sweet of you, but I think you’re overthinking it.” Soft. Dismissive.
Edward’s stomach drops in disbelief.
You laugh a little, almost embarrassed. “He seems harmless.”
The coworker seems to hesitate. “Still. If he’s making you uncomfortable—”
“I’m not uncomfortable.” You sound almost firm now. Not annoyed, but… resolute. “You don’t need to worry about that.”
If anything else is being said, Edward can’t register it.
You defended him. You defended him.
He squeezes his eyes shut, but they water anyway. A flush of ecstasy and confusion shoots through him. You can… you can understand him. You know he’s not like everyone else – that he’s not a threat. That he’s harmless, that he was—
Yours.
But—
No.
No, no, no. This isn’t right. It doesn’t feel right.
Because if your coworker had noticed how he lingered around you, that meant others could too. Maybe he’d point it out next time. His gift.
Oh God, the gift.
You’d find it. Your coworker would be right there.
”Didn’t I tell you?” he’d sneer, gesturing toward the bookmark. “Creepy little freak.”
And you… you would turn.
You would turn toward Edward with those eyes – those divine, hallowed, heaven-crafted eyes warped with fear. Revulsion.
The moment would stretch into something surreal, time crawling sluggishly. You’d stare at him; your hand clutched around the polished edge of the bookmark he chose so carefully.
Your face would contort, slowly – the muscles tightening, your lips parting in the shape of a scream he hadn’t even heard yet. And yet, he could already feel it tearing through his skull. His gift, meant as an offering, would fall from your hands and hit the floor with a clink that would echo in his ears forever. Your face – your beautiful, untouchable face – twisted in horror.
You’ve worked through this before, he reminds himself. Stop and breathe. Stop. Breathe.
He couldn’t breathe.
He can’t breathe.
And in the present, Edward is already halfway down the block. His feet move on instinct, his coat whipping around his legs as he barrels through the crowd. He doesn’t care who stares, who he bumps into. His skin is crawling. The inside of his skull felt too hot. He was speedwalking like he could outrun the humiliation before it could catch up to him.
His legs burn, his vision blurring.
Edward doesn’t stop moving until the bookstore is miles behind him, and he is back in the dark stillness of his apartment. He is breathless and vibrating.
He slams the door and locks it three times.
His gift was supposed to make you smile. Instead, it might have destroyed him.
After drowning in his own thoughts, Edward peels himself away from his door. He makes it to the far corner, where he paces back and forth so furiously it makes his floorboards cry out. He’s crying – in waves, in jagged bursts of sound that catch his throat and sputter out. His hands won’t stop trembling. At one point, he grips the edge of his kitchen counter and almost wretches over the sink. He claws at his hair, arms trembling. His glasses hang crooked on the bridge of his nose.
He wraps his arms tightly around himself and whimpers softly, head dropping with the weight of self-hatred. He doesn’t think to take his coat off or his shoes. He just walks in uneven circles, his palms slapping the sides of his head one after the other. He stops short as his foot clips the wheel of his desk chair.
It sists waits innocently for him in front of his monitor. He knows that it’s still open to the window, still showing the last frozen frame of your apartment from when he’d checked earlier that morning. All he has to do is bring it to life – to bring your space to life. He stares at it. He sways on his feet. He’s spent hours in that chair watching you. Breathing to your rhythm; reading when you read, living when you lived.
Edward grips the back of it, jaw trembling.
It sails backward as he throws it violently across the room. It hits a wall with a dull smack and topples onto its side. One of the wheels must have cracked, but he doesn’t even flinch. He only stares at the darkened screen instead.
His hands twitch, as if heading toward the mouse, but he retreats. The proximity burns him more than the cries from his throat. Like his own desire is made of acid.
“No,” he weakly says aloud, shaking his head.
He can’t watch. Not tonight – you weren’t even home yet. Not after your coworker opened your mind to his behavior. You would find the gift, and you’d know. You’d hate it.
Don’t look at the computer.
Don’t check the time.
Don’t even touch the box.
The box.
Edward’s entire frame jolts violently at the reminder. His box of mementos hidden behind a second cardboard box, next to his mattress, and beneath stacks of useless tax papers. He itched to touch it. He wanted so desperately to lay everything out and just look.
His hands continue to claw at his scalp. He drags his fingers down his face, leaving hot smears of moisture down his neck. He can’t tell if it’s tears or sweat or both.
His body can’t hold the tremor anymore. His shoulders collapsed inward as he stumbled toward the mattress like he was drunk. He can’t even make it.
He tries to sit on the floor, only to end up collapsing instead. His knees hit the wood hard first. He clutches the hem of his coat, mouth open and gasping. His forehead drags forward until it bumps against the floor. He’s on his side, knees pulled in, fists jammed against his lips. His sobs go muffled in his palms.
The crying didn’t even sound like him anymore. It came out ugly and desperate – a choked keening. It mixed with the shaking apologies under his breath, over and over, to no one. His voice is thick with snot, the whole front of his face wet.
I just wanted to give you something, just something nice, I’m sorry.
He rocked back and forth, pressing his forehead into the cold floor. His ribs cramped with the force of the crying, his back heaving. It had never been this bad. It had never hurt like this.
He’d panicked before – sweating through shirts, shaken all night at the thought of you catching him on the feed. But this… this was something worse. He was mourning you – someone still alive and breathing. He wasn’t sure what he was weeping for – the possibility of his dying fantasy, or the punishment.
He hated himself.
He hated that he couldn’t just stop this, and his lack of control. That even now, even as he curled into a pile of his own tears and mucus, he wanted – needed – to see you.
He needed you at home. He needed you to be here and telling him it was okay. That he wasn’t a monster, and not as disgusting or useless as even he believed himself to be.
So, he stays, knees folded up to his chest, snot dripping from his nose. He doesn’t move even as his face is raw, and his voice is down to a rasp. Time to him became meaningless. Outside, the sounds of Gotham leak in – sirens, the low bass from a passing car, someone screaming a name in the street. The sky outside has long since blackened. The city hums through the walls, and Edward lies in the center of it all like a dying thing.
But, from the floor – barely able to lift his head – Edward’s eyes drag toward the blank screen. He can feel it calling to him, he really can. Like a hook, dragging through his ribs.
His palms slap the floor as he drags himself on all fours. Every breath comes out as pants, his knees scraping the floor. He doesn’t spare a glance toward his chair – he doesn’t deserve the luxury. His fingers scratch against the floor like he was trying to pull himself through a war zone. He knocks his knee against something hard enough to bruise, but he doesn’t feel it.
He slaps a trembling hand against the keyboard until the light from his screen nearly blinds him. Sitting back on his legs, he types out the commands to your feed. His hair sticks to his forehead, and he quickly wipes away the drool escaping the corner of his mouth.
He doesn’t know what he expects.
Maybe nothing. Maybe you hadn’t bothered to read tonight. Or maybe you were reading, just somewhere out of sight. He could view that as a mercy, or maybe it would kill him.
But when the feed boots up, every pixel seemed to move into place slowly. Pixelated black, then movement. Your movement.
Edward’s breath catches in his throat so fast it cuts off a noise that had started to crawl up from his chest. He jolts like he’s been shocked, his pupils flood with black, his lashes wet and clumped together. He crawls closer to the monitor, still on his knees.
You’ve changed into your sleep clothes – making you look soft and warm. Like you’ve been kissed by the golden light of your lamp. Then he sees it, tucked neatly seemingly a chapter away (which he assumes must be your reading goal for the night). It gleams in the yellow lighting – silver filigree, and the small silk ribbon trailing from its top.
Edward’s hand flies to his mouth and clamps over it as a sob yanks out of his chest. He doesn’t understand what he’s feeling, and he doesn’t think he ever could. He’s past knowing what his body is doing anymore. But the bookmark is there – and you’re using it. You’re using it.
His knees spread further on the on the hardwood as he gets as close to the monitor as he physically can. His eyes are wide and soaked, breathing so fast it could kill him. He pants against his own palm, and when his hand drops, it leaves behind a streak of spit and tears across his chin.
You shift a little to scratch your knee, and the book rustles. The bookmark slips out just slightly and you reach for it, your fingers pinching the top edge to tuck it back in.
He lets out a shuddering noise, his eyes flutter like it pains him to even see you. His fingers tremble as they press against the desk in an attempt to steady himself. His whole body has gone hot, not from shame, but from something so full of pressure and longing he feels like it might burst straight from his skin.
You touch it. You touched it. You held it. It touched you. You accepted it.
His chest swells with something far too big for one man to hold. He’s sobbing again, mouth hanging open like he’s never seen something so divine.
His hands move fast as his shaky fingers pull the zipper down to free himself. His cock is already half-hard and aching, but there’s nothing sweet or erotic in the way he handles it. It was purely compulsive – so clumsy. His eyes never leave the screen, and fresh tears slid down his cheeks.
He wraps his hand around himself with a broken noise in his throat. “Oh—God—”
The first stroke is so desperate it nearly hurts.
The monitor glows white-blue across his skin – illuminating every fragile, pitiful inch of him as he jerks himself with wet, frantic movements. His breath hitches so high it sounds like a whimper, and in all but name, it is. His pale belly trembles with every shaky breath.
He watches you intently, keening. You’re mouthing something to yourself, acting out like he’s seen you do a hundred times – and his hand starts to move faster. Each time your lips form new shapes he can’t hear, his hips buck. His body jerks in pitiful little thrusts against his own hand, a grotesque parody of connection.
“I’m sorry—” he chokes.
And he is – he is.
But your fingers brush the bookmark again, and his mouth trembles to let out a soft moan. His hand moves faster, frantic and ugly. He’d never done this – gotten himself off to your feed like you were some cam girl.
“I’m sorry—I’m so—sorry—” he sobs, the words hitching and falling from his mouth.
He catches his bottom lip in his teeth, like he’s scared someone might hear him. Not that it mattered, his mouth fell open again when he saw you playing with the ribbon.
“I’m sorry. I don’t mean—I just wanted to—I just wanted you to touch it—I just—"
He weeps harder every second, but your skin just looked so soft. His body shudders, thighs trembling beneath him. You have no idea how close you are to being worshipped at this moment.
He tips forward, his free hand catching on the edge of the desk to brace himself. His body curls tighter, his knees pressing onto the floor hard enough to hurt. He watches the monitor like it’s the face of God – and in that moment, you are. Your very presence absolves and damns him at once.
Forgive me, forgive me, forgive me. Have mercy.
The sound of skin against his palm fills the room – a slick, fast rhythm accompanied by sniffling and the occasional whimpering of your name. He can feel it building in his stomach already – shameful. Edward moans when you almost reach the bookmarked page, shaking so badly he nearly topples over. He strokes harder, every muscle in his body working against him.
He doesn’t dare whisper your name now – not when he’s turned the sacred into something so vile. His ears are ringing from shame, and his knees burn from the floor. His chin trembles violently for the apologies he can’t even bring himself to make.
It was miserable. It was like his body had purged it, right on his floor. Some of the warmth had hit his stomach and cooled in seconds. His body spasms as his hand keeps pumping long past the point of sensation, like he doesn’t know how to stop.
Edward feels just as hollow as he has been for the past few hours, if not worse. His hand drops limply from his lap. He looks down at himself, disgust curling in his gut. He stills with his seed cooling on his skin. He can’t breathe – not from exertion, but from how heavy the silence hangs over his desecration of you.
Edward doesn’t know how he can bring himself here after his atrocities the other night. The thought alone makes his gut twist. He shouldn’t be here, at his table with his view of you. He told himself that before he even got off the train, again when he climbs the steps to the street level, and a third time when he catches sight of the faded green awning across the street. It pained him, greatly, to be in your presence. If he could apologize without the embarrassment of explaining, he would. His face burns when he remembers the feel of his cock in his hand – how quickly he’d unraveled at just the sight of you using the gift he left behind. After what he’d done, and what he’d said – murmuring to himself like a deranged priest in a perverse confessional. After he came with his face lit by the glow of your lamp through his screen. He hadn’t even bothered to clean the mess off his floor until the morning sun had begun bleeding through his blinds, making the dried stickiness on his skin feel even more grotesque. He had wept again as he wiped it up.
But he had thought, If I can just see you again and not give in, then I’m not a monster.
Because he had restraint before, he had shown you and himself that – more or less.
So here he was, returning to his shrine. He had arrived with hand buried in his pockets, eyes downcast, like a coward’s pilgrimage.
That’s why he hadn’t heard you approaching.
“Hey, you,” you say.
Edward startles hard enough to drop his book, and he immediately hates himself for it. So weak. His mouth goes dry, his throat locks. He slowly raises his head, already feeling the heat crawl up his neck.
There you are standing beside him. Close enough that he can see the stitching on your name tag. Your eyes are as kind as usual. Pitying, maybe? Did you see him freeze? Did you know?
Your hands are empty, like you came here just to speak to him.
His breath goes shallow, his brain feels like it will melt at any second. You shouldn’t be here, and you shouldn’t be talking to him. This is a trap, it has to be. It’s a test, a punishment. You know. You have to know. Why else would you come up to him?
He wants to disappear; he wants to rewind time and never set foot here again. He wants to look at you forever.
“Hi?” He cringes as it comes out.
You just smile like you’re trying not to laugh, and that’s when he notices the bags under your eyes. We seem to be matching, he wants to say about how sleepless you both look, but he’s not sure it’ll make much sense.
“What’s gotten your attention today?” You tilt closer to inspect the book he was gripping tightly.
“Um, it’s not—I just picked it up—”
“‘Plants That Kill.’” Your eyes gleam with something as you peer up at him. He’d never been this close to you. “Hm. Who are you killing?”
You smelled like nothing he’d ever had the pleasure of smelling before. His head feels as though it would swell if he truly realized how close he was to you at this moment. He could see every detail, each one fueling his heart to stutter. Since when had you worn that flower pendant? The chain wrapped around your neck, the petals glinting faintly under the lights. Your brow twitches, and he realizes—
Edward begins to sputter out, his eyes widening. “Kill? No—no! I’m not—not killing anyone. No, I’m just—it—work research! I swear. It’s just for, just for work—”
Your laughter stops him immediately. You take a step back, needing to brace yourself on a book rack beside you.
“I’m sorry,” you exhale, laughter still lingering as you rest a hand over your heart. “The question was a joke, but I think I’m now complicit in something.”
“No! Never! I wouldn’t—” His snaps his jaw shut, letting you laugh and praying you didn’t catch on to what he was saying. “No, of course… I knew you were, uh, joking.”
He forces a chuckle for good measure.
“So, it’s for work?” you ask after your laughter dies down. “That sounds really interesting.”
“Yes. Work.”
“What do you do?”
“I’m a forensic accountant.”
You blink.
Oh.
Edward realizes his mistake a second too late, and he hopes all the color didn’t drain from his face. That wasn’t his job’s research – it was his research. The other work, the real work.
He spits out the first lie he can think of. “Money laundering flower shop. Research for it. Money laundering… it’s what I do—uh, what look into.”
He tries to laugh again, but it comes out thin and strangled.
You smile anyway, mercifully, and his stomach knots at the way you tilt your head. It’s not condescending, and it’s not even confusion – just amusement. As if you were already used to his weirdness, and maybe a little fond of it.
“Well,” you say stepping back, “I guess I’ll steer clear of any flower shops with suspicious plants.”
He forces another laugh. “Yeah. Probably wise.”
You glance back toward the front desk, maybe to the pile of books you still need to work on. You let out a soft sigh. And then, you yawn. He sees the way you try to stifle it into the crook in your arm, how your eyes water just a little. Your shoulders curl inward, and his heart clenches. First the shadows under your eyes, now this?
“Rough night?” he asks, voice low and his brows knitting.
“Rough week, actually.” You give a soft laugh, rubbing a hand over your temple.
Something about the way you say it hits him directly in the chest; the honesty of it, the exhaustion. You’re always so patient with customers. You’re always smiling, always attentive. But you’re just a person, aren’t you? You get tired, you get overwhelmed. You come to work despite it all.
Just like me, he thinks, wildly.
“But,” you continue, waving a hand vaguely toward the scattered carts and stacks. “Still gotta keep going. Justice doesn’t take a day off, right?”
You laugh again, like you know it’s a silly thing to say. But to Edward – it sticks in his head like a knife in wood.
Justice doesn’t take a day off.
His breath catches in his throat. You hadn’t said it with any kind of seriousness. It was just meant to be tossed off, something people say when they’re running o caffeine and muscle memory. But it doesn’t feel like that to him.
To him, it feels pointed. It was something divine filtering through your mouth without you even realizing it. It was meant for him.
You begin to walk away, but you give one last comment over your shoulder.
“Anyway, let me know if you take down that flower shop. I’d like to read your expose – preferably before I accidently buy any deadly daisies.”
He can’t speak, only nod. A faint smile twitches on his lips, but it doesn’t reach his eyes.
His body feels like it’s locked itself here, your words echoing through him with a strange kind of weight.
Justice doesn’t take a day off.
He came here to prove something to himself – that he could see you and not give in, watch you and not want your hands on him. But here he is, already unraveling from the smallest kindness.
And worse than that – he’s wasting time.
There’s work to do. Real work. He has names, faces, and systems to dismantle. He has messages to craft. The city still festers with filth and rot, and he’s been holed up in his apartment, mourning his own depravity like a fucking child.
What good is guilt if it only paralyzes?
What good is remorse if it doesn’t become something useful?
His leg begins to bounce, adrenaline kicking up behind his knees. He pushes his glasses up the bridge of his nose.
You believe in justice; he had heard it in your voice. Even if you didn’t act like someone like him, even if you think you were just being funny. You believe. That means something, it has to.
He needs to feel it again.
Not you – not your lamp-glow, your sighs, or the silver glint of that bookmark. He needs the mission. He needs the cold thrill of a new target, a new puzzle, a new thread to pull until it all comes crashing.
He presses the book shut, rising stiffly to his feet.
Edward blinks rapidly, swallowing the last of his cold cup of coffee. The blinds stay drawn, his lamp the only light. The pages bloom across the table like fungal growth. Scribbled notes on ledger paper, blueprints with no real scale. Headlines clippings. Threads connecting threads with slashes of green ink. Something ugly has begun to take its shape.
He circles a name, then a number, then a date. “False charitable write-offs,” he circles that too.
A page crumples.
Another gets pinned to a wall.
Red pen. Green pen. Circle. Arrows. Numbers.
He scrawls it across – big, messy, centered:
JUSTICE DOESN’T TAKE A DAY OFF
He maps a route through the building. He redraws it. The again, shorter this time – cleaner. He starts diagraming light fixtures.
A sticky note with “left elevator = slower”
A second note with “Janitor ID?”
A third with a doodle – an abstract bloom – petals shaped like razors.
He stops and stares at it. His hand trembles, his breath hitching.
He draws it again, this time a little neater. Silver pendant – exactly like the one on your throat.
I despise "may your delulu come trululu" and all variations of it, because delusions usually aren't stuff like "I'm pretty" or "my crush likes me back." Delusions can be terrifying! Delusions can tell you that everyone wants to kill you, or that it's your fault the world is ending, or that you're being stalked or poisoned, or that you're dead, or that you're possessed and a whole lot of other shit that really shouldn't "become trululu"! And turning delusions into a haha teehee relatable daydream thing really isn't fair to psychotic people
