[c.todd] is the worst name ever

[toppings]

[ It was a long night, but far from the longest she's experienced. The world will always be cruel and cold, there was no denying that. Yet... somehow, the immortal allowed herself to believe that these moments of "justice" still meant something. Jason Todd's done the impossible: garnered the loyalty of a witch and the willingness to intervene in a world that doesn't interest her.

She wants a shower, wants to lounge around and order something for dinner but she can't. Not yet. She took the long way on their exit plan for the evening, covering a few more blocks than Jason would have after the shit hit the fan. It wasn't as clean of a job as her confidant would have liked, but this was her third time wearing the oversized crimson helmet.

Jason beats her back to their hideout, even the rolling storm nipping at her heels doesn't light a fire under her. By the time she appears, his spare helmet drapes carelessly against her palms. The witch was left standing in the shadows, golden eyes full of annoyance. ]

Could you not wait a moment longer? Their attention was on me. Do it again and you'll grow uninteresting.

[ A idle threat, one with no bite to it. If there was anything that was clear, it was C.C. kept her attention on this man. Jason Todd didn't have anything to prove to the world, but she makes it easier to help him send messages. A thank you and glimpse of loyalty for what he's offered her in return. ]

Or simply ask me to stay here while you run around the city. It makes no difference to me.

[ A quick toss throws the red helmet his way, showing a playful side as much as her apathetic and dry wit. ]

Comments

[toppings]

No. It's what humanity's taught me.

[ Anyone can parse it in one lifetime. C.C. has had to relive many stupid moments, cruel moments – all that make her feel as she if she was truly curse. Yet, in warmth she feels no regret. A fear, even if it was pushed and swallowed down with every sweet breath she takes, does still bury itself in her heart. That's not what this is. This was living, this was making the kind of mistakes that wouldn't leave scars.

She's too close to him.

He's too close to her.

They both understand and play the game carelessly. For two people who experienced death, what's a little pain if this doesn't work out?

Her back remains firm to his front half and she just sinks further into him, thighs spreading and pinning his to the sdies of the tub. His own eagerness is what gets to her and allows him to prod and test where she needed him most. A cruel witch leaves it to him to figure it out – to follow the sucks of air and way her body twitches. ]

Don't say that again. [ To modify or ya feel me. What are you, 13? C.C.'s hand climbs to claw at his forearm and downward, rooting roughly into him to guide him where he falls short, dancing against the back of his knuckles eventually. ] Our terms are satisfactory. They fuel us each... – hah – each day, do they not?

[degenesis]

Considering how long you've been around, is there really a difference?

[ The cyclical repetitiveness of it all, what C.C. has experienced that Jason can only imagine, is staggering. To have died and been brought back to life, no matter how dismal the circumstances, seems like a blessing in comparison. Like the chance for closure he exacted against Bruce, against the Joker, was still more of a chance than C.C. ever had. Where's her closure? Where's her redemption? How can she find it in a path without end, in a path so far removed from where she began that she's clueless as to where she's headed?

It's maddening. It's pitiful. It's... sad.

And fathoming this, reckoning with it. Maybe it's all symptomatic of how close he's finally gotten to her.

Too close.

But Jason's never been one to hesitate. Never been one to turn back from making a choice, no matter how much the hurt and lonely child inside him might fret about it. Might fear the potential consequences. Amidst his little jests, his experimental attempts at intimacy, her own attempts to guide him where he wants his hands - his fingers - to go, there's a look of displeasure about him. Dissatisfaction. A furrowed brow as he gazes down at her from behind.

Like he knows that a wrong he can't even articulate must be made right.

His fingers don't stop. More than before, their tips canvas C.C.'s folds, palpating the circumference of her clit, pressure sometimes focalizing on her center. There's something tantalizing about it, like the promise of more waits to be fulfilled... but his arms, as they encircle her, tighten. And for a moment, he relinquishes his hands from between her legs, instead wrapping his arms around her stomach. Pressing her back, for that matter, closer to his chest.

He holds her tight. Lips linger, now, beside her cheek. But rather than kiss her, show some other kind of affection that could also evince arousal, he nuzzles the side of her head. Holds her close, as if meaning to keep her secure. To protect her the way no one else has. To cherish her, almost, when in eons past she might have been deemed cargo. Detritus. ]

I'm plenty fueled, lady.

But you're not just useful to me, alright? Believe it or not, you're not something I'll just throw away one day.

I don't know why I want you to hear this. You just seem like someone who hasn't... heard it enough.

[ He's been there. Maybe not to the same extent.

But he'd know. ]

[toppings]

[ To her, he was once the same as any other. A recipient of a contract that he didn't read the fine print on. The writings on the wall. The distaste for life. The lament of what was unfair, desperate to selfishly undo what was done to her. A foolish girl, through and through, no matter the façade of a witch. Jason acts in a way she would dub foolish too, so two fools in a bath tub with pizza growing room temp feet away was just – fitting, wasn't it? For all the walls she builds up, she sinks further back into him – her backside snug between his legs and pressing into any part she can, her thighs spreading to open his up further.

Diligent fingers were not put to waste. They bring pleasure instead of pain, a closeness to make her ache and want more. When he finds a spot that really hits her core, her hand lingers instead of guides. He's learned – but then again, he's definitely adapted to handling the mysterious woman who was more likely to kick him to the couch to steal his bed than initiate this.

But, they're doing this now. They're committing to something that words don't need to explain. ]

Jason.

[ Sharp, he consumes her. Exhaling with a quiver past her lips – that mass of green hair presses back further into him and her head tilts. The way he nuzzles her, close to a kiss but afraid to commit. She was too. ]

Not now. Talk about what I am to you another time. I can't take your fingers and your heart at the same time. [ Is she incapable? Is she calling a bluff she'll lose? The words she whispers to them were partnered with a series of whimpers, childish in their own pitchy way – a reveal that was almost unfitting for an old witch like her.

But, if anything... it's proof he proves he's enough too – to crack that mask. ] If you have any sense to you, you'll keep going until I deem otherwise.

[degenesis]

[ Maybe Jason's come to terms with own foolishness long before they met. What he thought was right always superseded what he thought was logical. That's why, when he was Robin, he pushed an abuser off a building. Why he pursued the Joker against all warnings. Why, eventually, he perished. But with all the "good" he's doing now, as the Red Hood, Jason senses that he's being rewarded for his disposition. That ultimately, the world bends in the same direction as his morality - a view less antiquated than Batman's, to be sure, in the pragmatic recognition of violence's necessity. More than the incapacitating blow that preserves life, but the killing strike.

To remind every evildoer of their precarity.

A sensation of vulnerability, of helplessness, that both Jason and C.C. know all too well. A deprivation that now unites them.

Physically, at least. Because for the first time, C.C. hesitates. Whatever apathy she hid behind is no longer as present-- nothing stands between her and Jason, who continues to hold her close. Who continues to keep her in his arms, unoffended by her resistance. By her enduring commitment to keeping walls up, protecting herself from being vulnerable. The idea here doesn't disappoint Jason. Her reaction is exactly why he holds her this way. That defense mechanism, were the roles reversed, isn't solely hers.

It would be his, too. ]

I haven't thought about this enough. The kind of shit that involves, well... this.

[ He cups one of her breasts for emphasis, as if incapable of broaching foreplay when he's already well in the thick of it. ]

But right now, it's all one and the same to me. What I do with my hands, and my heart.

[ Nothing he says prevents him from continuing, like she commands. The hand that just began fondling her stays there, as the other one sinks back between her legs. From this angle, there's still little he can achieve to go as deep as he wants to, but for now, enough of his fingers slip into her slit to suffice. Enough, that is, to cause a sensation that may instill in her a deeper yearning. His fingers curl against her walls for as much as he can reach, opposite hand still clutching her breast with a similar eagerness - palm giving unrelenting pressure with every press. ]

Doesn't mean I'm gonna stop, though. Like hell am I gonna stop.

[toppings]

[ Jason knows how she feels. To have had time play cruel games, to stop ceremoniously or rush them through their own life. Growing up far too fast before things were brutally ended. Second chances, third chances, fourth chances – it didn't matter. They were cut from a cloth of expendability but even the most relaxed must draw a line in the sand. C.C. claims to be a shield, offered up as a middleground between Jason's life and death... but she wouldn't do it unless she had reason.

And was this moment reason enough or just a humble reward?

She's thin despite the immense carbs she consumes, lanky with her arms seizing up to wrap against his forearm. C.C. starved herself of other things than food, denying herself connection to a world far too mortal for her. Far too alien.

The hitch in her throat becomes more apparent now that the masks were being pulled away. To breathe the hot steam that still lingers on the surface. ]

You shouldn't think about this.

[ They both know what it means. An attachment words fail both of them. At least that makes it easier. He's doing everything selflessly at the moment. Touching, groping, sinking with her in this well of uncertainty. When she gasps his name? It's to be expected. A scold and a sensation of consumes her. C.C.'s frame can't settle. The waters rock more violently, her knees clamping together and her backside pushing between the space his lap offers.

As much as she steels her demeanor on, she scrunches her nose all the same and clamps her eyes shut – the feelings overwhelming her.

Pleasure over pain.
Companionship over loneliness.

It was a new formula to the same equation she's played out – where her contracts change now, revised in something other than ink. Her juices against his fingers offer that change, a different slickness to the water around them. Each nerve-ending feels enflamed, tortured by lingering wants when she's denied herself these moments before. If she allows herself to submit, what does that mean? ]

Close.

[degenesis]

Could be closer.

[ No, that's no self-critique. It's a promise. Because despite the haze of arousal that clouds both of their minds, leading them ever closer to each other, Jason's intentions are clear. His will perseveres in keeping with the trajectory of their... collision. The bond they forged the moment they met, and a bond they now consummate - and cement - through intimacies once thought to be beyond them, beyond the violence and the turmoil that defines their transient lives. They became each other's grounding wire. With C.C. in his arms, the world suddenly makes a little more sense.

With this understanding, it's time to follow through. Time for Jason's fingers to commit ever more. Though seated behind her, he can't slip them inside her as far as he'd like. His fingers persist in canvassing what they can, each tip pressing against the walls within their reach. Perhaps there's something tantalizing about that, but something that also satisfies in being yet another promise. This needn't be the last time they be so... close. Sharing with each other what they've closed off to the world. ]

I'm not stopping, you know.

[ In their desperate search, his fingers curl with greater vigor. He can't quite pummel away at a great speed reaching from behind, but to savor the final stretch, his fingers press even deeper against her. There's something almost possessive about the way his free arm wraps around her waist, hugging her tight - and practically holding her in place - as he carries out his ministrations. His lips even return to her neck, quick to leave deep and claiming kisses on her soft skin. There's something almost brutish about them, almost violent, in their amateurishness. Despite the rough exterior, Jason clearly wears his heart on sleeve.

He just never got the chance to grow up, to find someone to share that heart with. But now, despite the screwed up set of circumstances that led them to each other, maybe this is the closest Jason will ever get. Maybe this warmth that he's found, this comforting touch, is the most fate will allow.

So of course Jason's going to hold her tight. Clutch her like he could lose her. Like he will lose her.

After losing himself once already, he can't doubt it.

So here he is deepening those touches, fingers unrelenting as they press away inside her, curling against her walls. However much C.C. may writhe in place, moaning and gasping Jason's name with the shock of his every touch, he is unceasing. He kisses her neck, her cheek, her ear, her shoulder-- all that he can reach, none to be spared from his affection. He wants her to feel warm, he wants her to feel held.

Held like he'd never been held. Held in a way that feels like it can last. ]