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argentum_lsTitle: Black as the Stars We Cannot Find
Word Count: 727
Rating: PG
Summary: Lydia calls Jackson on how he's been treating her.
Notes: Spoilers for season 2. Written for the Sharpen Your Claws Challenge on![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
travel_in_packs and angst_bingo prompt: betrayal. Title is mangled from the Shriekback song "Sticky Jazz."
Prompt: So here's my confession / This time, this time / Don't just want you to love me / I want to be your obsession
Lydia uses the key to let herself into Jackson’s house that night. She finds him in the entrance, staring into the darkened interior as if waiting for an invitation to proceed. His parents are out of town. They were gone for the weekend. They never knew how he had been carted off the lacrosse field in a body bag, nor how he had arisen from the dead. They never knew how close they came to losing him, and Lydia suspects that Jackson was prepared to stand in that hallway until they called out to him.
At her step, he turns, his body first, then his head. His arms start to spread, then stop, another invitation half-invoked. The clacking of her shoes against the tile floor echoes, and she takes four steps and slaps him across the face. His head drops, one hand coming up to rub at his cheek. “I deserved that,” he says. His brashness is gone, shut down for lack of audience. All that’s showing now is the vulnerability that he works so hard to deny, except when she’s around.
“You don’t get to treat me like that,” she responds. Her hands are clenched at her sides, tiny fists pressing against fabric that still carries the chill of night air. “No one gets to treat me like that, but most of all, you don’t. I thought I meant more to you.” It’s not really a question, only maybe it is. She’s looking for an affirmation of some kind. She has so many questions about what she saw, and so many pieces of things she almost remembers that only raise more questions. All she knows for sure is that Jackson needs her to be human, and she knew that all along.
His head drops lower and he wilts toward her. His clothes are bloodied and torn; a smudge of something black mars his perfect cheekbones. “You do,” he replies.
And all she can think of is how he pushed her away, how he chopped himself out of her life and then mocked her for the hole that was left open. The nasty things he had said haunt the edges of her thoughts and she wonders how many sweet whispers it will take to cover them up. For as terrible as he could be to other people, she’d never thought he could hurt her. Would hurt her. “You’re going to have to earn forgiveness,” she tells him.
He gnaws on his lip, his eyes flicking up to look at her through the brace of lashes. “I killed people.”
Her breath catches because it’s one more thing she didn’t know, one more piece of evidence for how much he needed her. Jackson’s flaws run deep, but the ability to murder….? She shakes her head; strands of loose hair tickle the sides of her face.
She reaches out to touch him, and he only flinches back a little. His skin is warm under her touch and faintly sticky from dried sweat. “That wasn’t you,” she asserts, and she doesn’t know how she’s so sure of that, except that she knows Jackson better than anyone. She always has, and maybe that’s why it hurt so much when he set off on his own. Look at what that had led to?
For weeks, they had been contributing to their own destructions, and now it was over. In tearing themselves apart, they had smashed back together. “You have a lot of penance to pay for the thing that committed those crimes,” she adds thoughtfully, “but the real Jackson, the one inside here—“ she taps his chest over his heart to emphasize her point—“isn’t guilty. Of that.”
Lydia frowns slightly because what happened is so much more complicated, and Jackson is certainly not blameless. She decides to let it pass; enough has already happened tonight.
Jackson leans forward as if to kiss her, and Lydia lets his lips graze her cheek. “You still owe me,” she replies to his questioning look, and she spins him around and pushes him toward the stairs, at the top of which he’ll find a shower and a bed and, with luck, some peaceful sleep that he desperately needs. Because, tomorrow, in the clear light of day, she and Jackson will begin to rebuild, and while her love saved him tonight, her price has gone up.
Word Count: 727
Rating: PG
Summary: Lydia calls Jackson on how he's been treating her.
Notes: Spoilers for season 2. Written for the Sharpen Your Claws Challenge on
travel_in_packs and angst_bingo prompt: betrayal. Title is mangled from the Shriekback song "Sticky Jazz."Prompt: So here's my confession / This time, this time / Don't just want you to love me / I want to be your obsession
Lydia uses the key to let herself into Jackson’s house that night. She finds him in the entrance, staring into the darkened interior as if waiting for an invitation to proceed. His parents are out of town. They were gone for the weekend. They never knew how he had been carted off the lacrosse field in a body bag, nor how he had arisen from the dead. They never knew how close they came to losing him, and Lydia suspects that Jackson was prepared to stand in that hallway until they called out to him.
At her step, he turns, his body first, then his head. His arms start to spread, then stop, another invitation half-invoked. The clacking of her shoes against the tile floor echoes, and she takes four steps and slaps him across the face. His head drops, one hand coming up to rub at his cheek. “I deserved that,” he says. His brashness is gone, shut down for lack of audience. All that’s showing now is the vulnerability that he works so hard to deny, except when she’s around.
“You don’t get to treat me like that,” she responds. Her hands are clenched at her sides, tiny fists pressing against fabric that still carries the chill of night air. “No one gets to treat me like that, but most of all, you don’t. I thought I meant more to you.” It’s not really a question, only maybe it is. She’s looking for an affirmation of some kind. She has so many questions about what she saw, and so many pieces of things she almost remembers that only raise more questions. All she knows for sure is that Jackson needs her to be human, and she knew that all along.
His head drops lower and he wilts toward her. His clothes are bloodied and torn; a smudge of something black mars his perfect cheekbones. “You do,” he replies.
And all she can think of is how he pushed her away, how he chopped himself out of her life and then mocked her for the hole that was left open. The nasty things he had said haunt the edges of her thoughts and she wonders how many sweet whispers it will take to cover them up. For as terrible as he could be to other people, she’d never thought he could hurt her. Would hurt her. “You’re going to have to earn forgiveness,” she tells him.
He gnaws on his lip, his eyes flicking up to look at her through the brace of lashes. “I killed people.”
Her breath catches because it’s one more thing she didn’t know, one more piece of evidence for how much he needed her. Jackson’s flaws run deep, but the ability to murder….? She shakes her head; strands of loose hair tickle the sides of her face.
She reaches out to touch him, and he only flinches back a little. His skin is warm under her touch and faintly sticky from dried sweat. “That wasn’t you,” she asserts, and she doesn’t know how she’s so sure of that, except that she knows Jackson better than anyone. She always has, and maybe that’s why it hurt so much when he set off on his own. Look at what that had led to?
For weeks, they had been contributing to their own destructions, and now it was over. In tearing themselves apart, they had smashed back together. “You have a lot of penance to pay for the thing that committed those crimes,” she adds thoughtfully, “but the real Jackson, the one inside here—“ she taps his chest over his heart to emphasize her point—“isn’t guilty. Of that.”
Lydia frowns slightly because what happened is so much more complicated, and Jackson is certainly not blameless. She decides to let it pass; enough has already happened tonight.
Jackson leans forward as if to kiss her, and Lydia lets his lips graze her cheek. “You still owe me,” she replies to his questioning look, and she spins him around and pushes him toward the stairs, at the top of which he’ll find a shower and a bed and, with luck, some peaceful sleep that he desperately needs. Because, tomorrow, in the clear light of day, she and Jackson will begin to rebuild, and while her love saved him tonight, her price has gone up.
