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Dick’s hands slid through Jason’s hair, deceptively soft, and it took everything in him not to sway into the touch. Jason knew all too well the pain those hands could inflict. He should move away, he really should. He would, any second now.
He didn't move.
Dick’s eyes followed his own fingers as they traced their way down Jason’s jaw, tilting his chin up, sliding down his throat with a feather-light touch.
Jason would have preferred a bruising grip.
“Did you miss me?” Dick said, still watching his hands on Jason’s throat.
“No,” Jason said, and Dick smiled. It was a beautiful thing, small and curling, absolutely god-awful. Jason wanted to hit it off of his face.
“I knew it.” He stroked his thumb over Jason’s pulse point. He could kill him right now. It would be easy. Jason would let him. Heaven help him, he’d let him. “I missed you too. You just make me so angry sometimes, you know? I thought it would fade if I stopped seeing you. We weren’t healthy. We aren’t healthy. Everyone told me to end it, so I did.”
Jason turned his face to the side, breaking his hold. “Why are you here, Dick?”
Dick stepped forward, hands brushing against his ribs to settle on his hips, sure and entitled. Jason let him.
“Because it never ended. All I did was think about you. Even when I wasn’t thinking about you, it was about you. I measured my life in days that were about you and days that weren’t. Which, incidentally, makes them all about you.” He chuckled, and Jason felt the warm air on his neck, the same place Dick traced with reverence, one movement away from claiming his life for himself. He closed his eyes and let out a breath, Dick’s hands rising and falling with the motion of it.
“It’s never over, Jay. You and I are never over.”
If Jason knew what was good for him, he’d pull away. He’d leave now and delete Dick’s number and burn the shirt he left in his apartment and never, ever step foot in Gotham again. If Jason knew what was good for him, he’d break the cycle.
Jason stepped forward, closing the distance between them, and twined his fingers behind Dick’s neck, leaning into his warmth.
“Thank god,” he said, and it felt like the weight of the world fell off his shoulders and broke around his feet. “I thought it was just me.”
Dick’s hands slipped under his shirt, tracing his vertebrae as Jason arched into the burning hot touch. It felt good to be touched again, to be desired.
To be needed.
It was like some sort of poison, something addictive, something deadly and heavenly, belladonna. Maybe it would kill them both in the end, but who fucking cared? They were always going to die young anyway.
“It’s not just you,” Dick murmured into his neck, and Jason gripped the back of his hair, pulling tight just to make him feel it.
“Never,” he hissed into his ear, “leave me again.”
All of Jason’s friends were going to be pissed at him, not to mention Tim. Everyone thought they were a bad idea, and everyone was right. Their love was drenched in gasoline, and they’d just relit the match. They’d gotten lucky last time, when they stepped out of each other’s orbit. It was quiet and peaceful— no screaming matches, no silent treatment, no makeup sex and breathless adrenaline rush and living on a knife’s edge.
All his life, Jason thought he wanted peace. Until he got it.
What they don’t tell you about peace is that it's another word for mind-numbingly boring. Dick was many things— prideful, explosive, jealous, suffocating— but he was never boring.
All Jason learned from living without Dick was that life without him is no life at all.
Jason had grown used to the dance, to their rhythm and patterns and horrible, horrible habits. God help him, but he loved it. It was like Dick was formed perfectly for him, a match made in the depths of hell, but made for him nonetheless.
He knew it was guaranteed to blow up in their faces. It was only a matter where, when, and collateral damage. He didn’t care.
Jason didn’t loosen his grip on Dick’s hair, even when he knew he was holding too tight, pulling too hard. Dick didn't ask him to let go, he only pressed a slow kiss to his throat, biting down on his pulse point, leaving a mark.
“You know I could never give you up,” Dick said like it was a given. Like it was that easy. Maybe it was.
The words were an aphrodisiac, soothing and stoking the flames in equal measures. Jason raked his fingers down Dick’s back, nails leaving throbbing red welts even through his shirt.
“If you ever do anything like that again,” Jason promised, “I’ll kill you.”
“If I ever do anything like that again,” Dick worked his way up his neck, kissing and licking and biting and generally making a mess of him. “I’ll kill myself.”
They were both so twisted up that he probably meant it too. Good, Jason thought with sickening satisfaction.
If he was a good person, he’d tell Dick not to do it. He’d reassure him that he’d never want Dick to do something like that, no matter what happened between them.
Jason wasn’t a good person.
He gripped Dick’s chin and snarled at him, biting and mean. “You know I’d just bring you back.”
Dick must have liked that, because he kissed Jason hard on the mouth, the way he always did he was feeling turned on and possessive and perfectly, deliciously wicked.
“God, I love you.” Dick groaned the words between kisses, and Jason let his head fall back, surrendering to the touch. Just like that, they were back in the game, back in the dance, back in the fire. Every touch was a poisonous exchange, purple belladonna bruises, and Jason wanted to be covered.
Dick made his way down Jason’s body, slow and reverent, and Jason let Dick have him, like he always knew he would, even when he swore him off for good, for real this time. His hands drifted down to Dick’s hair, gripping tight, finally back in the place they belonged. It felt good. This was the way it should be, even if they were cursed. Even if it killed them.
He let out a breathless laugh, and it was a beautiful thing, small and curling, absolutely god-awful.
“I knew it.”