Chapter Text
Finish him!
"No, no, no, goddamn it..." You frantically spam every button on the controller, but it's no use. Scorpion is already dragging Sub Zero across the screen like a ragdoll. You've seen that godforsaken kunai spear so many times now, you're starting to take this personally. Jason lumbers into your shared apartment just in time to watch the screen flash red.
Fatality! Scorpion wins.
He flops down onto the couch beside you with a long-suffering sigh. "You have no strategy. You deserve to lose." He rubs his palms over his face, doing nothing to conceal his half-lidded eyes, or the dark circles beneath them.
You toss the controller onto the sofa. "The hell happened to you?" you ask, still glaring at Scorpion standing triumphantly over Sub Zero's corpse.
His exhaustion barely softens the death stare. "You wouldn't get it."
"Probably not." The look on his face makes you reach for the remote, shutting the TV off.
He crosses his arms over his chest, sinking further into the couch, looking up at the popcorn ceiling. "Just... can't sleep. Keep thinking there's something in the room. Just my dumbass brain on a loop."
"Oh," you say, as if you don't hear him screaming at the top of his lungs on the regular from across the hall. You follow his gaze to the ceiling. There's a little gap in the stucco, leaving a perfect void above your heads, the black hole in the living room. You wonder how much asbestos you've inhaled over the past two years.
Jason says nothing. When you look down, you notice his hands clenched into fists, his nails digging into the flesh of his palms. Sometimes you see four red crescent moons in the palm of each hand, and neither of you say a word.
"Anything I can do?" you add.
Jason opens his mouth to say something, but quickly changes his mind and shakes his head.
"C'mon. Whatever it is, you know I'd-"
He cuts you off, visibly stiffening. "Don't coddle me."
"Just tell me what you want, asshole."
"I want to put your head through the wall."
You turn to face him, sitting cross-legged on the sofa. "Uh huh."
There's no real bite to his voice anymore. "They'd never find you."
"I'm sure."
Jason stares at you for a long moment before muttering indistinctly to the carpet. His knuckles are white now. He finally unclenches his fists to press the heels of his palms into his eyes. "Just chloroform me if you wanna help so bad."
"Hilarious," you say flatly. "C'mon, man. It's fine."
"Just..." he begins awkwardly, but your curious glance is all it takes for him to shut down again. "Nope. Forget it. This is pathetic."
You frown. Almost had him. "Yeah, but hold on. Spit it out. What do you want?"
Neither of you speak for a moment. Jason is wide-eyed, staring at the floor. Shoulders high, eyes narrowed. "Just- just sit there." He winces as he says the words, as if physically repulsed by the act, but the words rush out of him anyway. "I don't know. Keep waking up like someone's gonna shank me. I know it's dumb. I don't care."
"What do you mean, 'sit there'? You want me to watch you sleep or something?"
"Yes," he snaps, finally looking at you. "Jesus Christ. You asked if you could help, and I'm fucking telling you what to do. Is that too much for you now?"
Resisting the urge to roll your eyes, you raise your hands in a gesture you hope is placating. "Alright, alright. Let's go."
Jason's room is a disaster. Not just lived-in, not just disorganized. Something is wrong. Clothes sit in abandoned piles on every surface. Crumpled papers and crushed cans overflow from a trash bag, which is slumped on the floor in defeat. Gear and weapons are scattered throughout the room. His helmet and jacket lie on the ground, as if thrown off and discarded. The place reeks of stale sweat and unwashed laundry.
You freeze in the doorway. This is the guy nagging you about rinsing your dishes? The guy that owns a label maker and alphabetized the spice rack when he moved in? "Shit, Jay," you mutter. "You finally give up and start living like the rest of us?"
Jason sits on the edge of his bed, which is unmade now. It's all so eerie. His eyes dart up to you, and his shoulders are high, like he's expecting you to throw something. "This is so fucking stupid," he mutters, as if to himself.
Quietly, you join him. The frame creaks slightly under your combined weight, and he moves to put more distance between you.
"You can sleep here," he says. "Just don't touch me."
"Wasn't planning on it."
The two of you sit there for a long time. His eyes dart to you now and then, as if checking you're not running off or grabbing one of his knives. Eventually, he climbs under the covers, grimacing as he puts weight on his back. He'd been shot on a mission a few months ago. Never got it checked out, either, despite your many attempts to drag his sorry ass to Urgent Care.
When you crawl in next to him, Jason immediately tenses up, his eyes wide and fixed to the ceiling. The instant his eyelids droop, they suddenly snap open. He's fighting off sleep.
"Wonder Woman, huh?" You ask, gesturing to the faded poster on the opposite wall. "Didn't know I was living with a twelve-year-old."
"You're dead," he murmurs, reaching over to shut off the bedside lamp. The room plunges into darkness. "Just sit there. Christ."
You lie with him in silence for what feels like hours. The dryer rumbles gently from the other room. Traffic hums softly outside. You stifle a yawn.
Jason shifts constantly, like he can't get comfortable. "You're still here," he snaps. "I feel like an idiot. This isn't helping. Fuck."
"Want me to leave?" you offer quietly.
He says nothing. At some point, though, his breaths even out. For a moment, you just sit there, watching his chest rise and fall as your eyes adjust to the dark. Streetlight slips through the makeshift blackout curtain - a blanket duct-taped to the wall. Keeping a respectful distance, you curl up on your side of the bed and sink into a quiet, dreamless sleep.
You wake sore, sweaty, and completely disoriented, covered in goosebumps. Half of your body is hanging off of the mattress. The blanket is nowhere in sight. You turn over to glare instinctively at the thing beside you. Jason is completely sprawled-out. His arms and legs are draped over yours, half of his head is on your pillow, and he's snoring right against your ear. You shift in discomfort, attempting to get him off of you, but he's a dead weight. "C'mon, get away from me..."
Jason is holding you with shocking force. His eyes roll under closed lids. He's out cold. "Enough, Roy," he tells you, his voice uncharacteristically soft. Great. He's dreaming.
"Jay, you big freak. Wake up." You poke him in the shoulder, but he hums quietly and pulls you closer. The guy runs a few degrees hot. Human furnace.
When he presses his face into your hair, you huff in frustration. A faint smell hangs off of him, probably whatever godforsaken 3-in-1 was on sale at the drugstore. You try to remember what text is scrawled across the big jug in the shower - KRAKENGAARD? Viking Warrior? Freedom? You hate that the smell is becoming an endearing familiarity to you. Too much time around this shithead.
"You owe me for this." Attempting to get comfortable now is futile. It's freezing cold in his room. Well, not that cold. Not 'let a mercenary use you as a body pillow' cold. But you'll allow it. Just for tonight. Sacrificing your dignity, you roll closer to him and tuck your face in the crook of his neck. His arms hang around you. You're confident that at least one of them has gone numb. He's so warm that you can't help but curl into him. It's still dark out.
You barely notice when you fall back asleep.
When sunlight begins to stream through the crack between the blanket and the wall it's duct-taped to, Jason jolts awake, immediately shoving you away. "Oh, fuck no."
Nearly rolling out of bed, you rub the sleep from your eyes. "Jay?"
His voice is still hoarse from sleep. "I said no touching." He scrambles to his feet, leaving you sitting up in bed. "Jesus, you're like- like a damn cat. Climbing over me. I told you not to touch me."
"I didn't," you argue, getting out of bed. The mattress is still warm from where he slept. "You were, like, spooning me. I couldn't get you off. You weigh a million pounds."
"I wasn't anywhere near you." Mortified, he adds, "You kicked me."
Oh, really now. "Right. And I also forced you to drool on my hair?"
He glares at you, throwing the bedroom door open. "Get out of my room."
You and Jason don't speak for nearly two days. He works nights, and you attend day classes. When you come in from a long day, he retreats into his bedroom without so much as a glance in your direction. It's all slamming doors and disappearing leftovers and loud music and constant firearm magazines on the kitchen counter. He leaves your texts on read, won't speak to you in person, and takes meals to his room. It's like living with an angsty ghost that eats your food and owns seven guns.
One night, when you're sure he's not on patrol, you stand defiantly at his bedroom door. It's stupid. He's stupid. You raise your hand and knock.