Do you have to open graves to find boys to fall in love with?

[scubatankfilledwithfarts]

The world of the waking comes to her in slow increments. Sound (the soft, raspy breaths of slumbering). Smell (gun oil, leather, whatever stupid turtle wax he used on the helmet, cinnamon, the remnants of her own perfume, cigarettes). Sensation (a weight that isn’t pinning-panic-escape, but anchoring, something that stays). Then Faye’s jade green eyes said let there be some sight, too: her blankets, like a cloud puffed around her, and a familiar, scarred arm flopped across her shoulders. The deep rumble of Jason's chest against her back, the long line of his body curled around her like he's shielding her from the world. Oh, and that thick thigh flung over her hip. It's comforting, more than constraining and restrictive. He's anchoring her to shore. Her belly flips at the realization, she squeezes her eyes to send it away.

The sunlight streaming from the window is that lazy afternoon kind, the evening clouds are beginning to thicken in preparation for the coming night, and the cooling relief of it all. It's late. They slept long. Not surprising, considering Red Hood stumbled in at about 5am, helmet cracked and skin sweat-warm and clammy when she peeled his armor from his body, when they fell to bed, when her lips hungrily claimed his, when nimble fingers mindlessly shed clothes just to get that much desperately closer to bare skin--

From where she can turn her head, at eyelevel with the clef of his chin dusted with faint freckles, his eyelashes are so long, fans of mocha following the delicate curve of his cheek, and if she were to blow a wish off them, a childish part of her thinks maybe it'd come true. Faye twists slightly, wiggles one arm from his snug grip to card that hand through that silly skunk stripe among his bangs. It's soft, much more than the 2-in-1 shampoo she's seen in his shower. So it must be one of hers. Every time she cards through it, it springs right back into shape.

Cute. His lips are slightly parted, a scar split across one plump, reddened lip she remembers sucking between her teeth just hours earlier.

"Where were you?" His groggy voice floats to the surface, stalling her ministrations for only a moment. Green-on-blue eyes remain shut, eyelids fluttering slightly-- dreaming, she wonders.

"Where else could I be, octopus?" She laughs, fingers skittering to run across his hairline reverently. "I should tell your guys to call you red octopus instead."

His nose wrinkles cutely for a grown ass man when he says, "Was lookin' for you." His brow furrows as well, troubled and lost. "Always lookin'."

Faye might have to destroy him, or maybe jump out a window, the way her heart squeezes and her face blossoms with heat, spreading down through her ribs in the cage of his arm. She twists her body in his arms, hides herself away from the world against the skin of his throat, wants to close her teeth around the slow throb of his pulse-- and she promptly sticks her free hand down the back of his pants, palm cupping his warm cheek.

Jason snuffle-snorts awake, as alert vigilantes are wont to do, squinting at her with bleary green eyes. Faye's hand stills, no, it lifts, expression guarded, but expectant.

(what does it say that he doesn't immediately come up from the depths swinging, that his lips don't curl into that familiar snarl the second his eyes open)

She doesn't know what to name this, doesn't want to name this because once you name something you're attached and you have to get a food bowl and toys (and his arm around her waist is a collar nicer than diamonds)--

Jason snuffles and hums. "Put your hands back on me," he demands, tangling their legs together.

The balloon of anxiety in her chest deflates slowly. This is a lot more predictable; there's their usual routine. A smirk curls at her mouth, her eyes lidded knowingly.

"And if I don't?"

Jason scoops both arms around her, eyes darkening with desire as he sticks both hands down the back of her panties, tugging her close in a positively dirty grind that has sparks exploding behind her eyes, zinging up her spine.

When she manages to open heavy lids again, Jason smirks down at her. "I just love disasters," he snarks, leaning in, in, in.

Challenge accepted, Faye throws her leg over his hip, hands back on him indeed.

"Self-love is healthy. About time you learn it."