walkswithheroes | (no subject)

Entry tags:

jason

(no subject)

She hasn't been able to get him out of her head, not since that day at the diner.

There are a lot of things that Fred is good at; put a formula in front of her or a puzzle and she'll figure it out. Even the supposedly unsolveable ones— she's seen a lot of those— and given time, she'll take it all apart, put it back together, figure out how it works and solve it.

In Darrow, she's been given two unsolveable problems. One of those, the city itself, is one she's still convinced she'll work out given time. Five years, she spent in Pylea, working the problem, shouting incantations until her voice gave out, scribbling on cave walls just to get the numbers out of her head, and here with resources and actual books, she knows she can do it.

The other problem?

Well, that one isn't as easy.

What are you supposed to do when your head tells you one thing, but everything else in you says something different?

Because she knows that there's something about the police officer she met on her first day in Darrow that she can't exactly explain. Something weird and familiar and unfamiliar all at once. And now she's started remembering things that don't make sense. Snow and sand and sleds. Herself on a stage in front of faces she can't quite make out.

Fred's not exactly sure what to do about it all, which is why she looks up Jason's address and finds herself outside his apartment.

She's going crazy. She can't be going crazy.

She knocks.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Jason sprawls on his couch in nothing but a pair of boxer briefs, staring up at the ceiling as he wrestles with the same damn problem. He thinks maybe it'd be easier to piece it all together if there weren't so many supernatural possibilities.

There's a knock at the door, and he stumbles off the couch, sliding into a pair of jeans, just barely doing the button before he opens the door.

And there she is.

"Hey," he says, breathless.

"Hi," she says, and already feels silly for just showing up at his apartment without much of a reason for it. He was probably in the middle of something, and here she is just showing up out of the blue, keeping him from it.

She doesn't think though the fact that there's probably not much important he could have been doing without a shirt.

"Sorry, I kinda looked up your address. I hope that's okay," she frowns, unsure, "Can we maybe talk?"

Jason does everything important without a shirt.

"Yeah," he says, trying to hide the stupid grin. She's here, it's gotta mean something. And sure, she probably means actual talking, but she'll be inside his apartment. There's a strange surge of possessiveness in him that he doesn't exactly recognize.

"And don't worry it. My address. I would have given it to you in a second."

"Oh. Good," she says, a little relieved that at least he's not looking at her like she's nuts, even if she probably is. Maybe they're both buts, and she can't figure out if that's better or worse.

Fred walks past him and inside, standing awkwardly in the entranceway, and she folds one arm across her body.

"I can't get this whole thing out of my head," she blurts out, "I can't figure out how or why I know you, and I swear, it's got me going 'round in circles. You know how when they put a mouse in a maze and it just keeps going down all he wrong paths at first? It's kinda like that."

"I was thinkin' about, um, the possibility of a spell," Jason says, closing the door behind her. "My sister Sookie? There's always some fucked up thing out to get her, because she's special. Not retarded special, even though some people think that way."

He ambles into the living room, and sprawls on the sofa.

"There were witches, though. That were pretty pissed at us. I remember all of that, though, it's not like you were there." Jason looks up at her, and tries for a smile. "Hey, have a seat."

"Thanks," Fred replies, and tries for a smile herself. It comes easier than she anticipates.

She takes the offered seat, folding her hands in her lap for the moment.

"Exactly," she says, "And we have those too, witches, I mean, but I haven't exactly had a lot of contact with many. Demons, yeah, sure, but I don't think any of them are capable of something like this. Whatever it is."

"Demons?" echoes Jason, scrubbing a hand through his hair. "That's fucked up. I really hope we don't have those." He shoots her a tired look. Would it be out of line to just ask her to come over and sit with him for a while?

"So I'm gonna toss this out there. I almost remembered it all when I was kissing you at the diner."

Under any other circumstances, Jason's words might make her more than a bit wary. But that day at the diner was the same for her as it was for him. Maybe he's on to something.

"Are you proposing an experiment?" she asks, because that's what it sounds like. Then again, she could be jumping the proverbial gun.

It's at that moment that Jason really gets he's in over his head here. Between all that practicing being a better human being and whatever this connection is, he hesitates.

"I wanna know what's going on," he says, "and Lord knows how much I want to be touching you, but it'd feel like I was takin' advantage."

It's an unorthodox way to try and figure everything out, but Jason does have a point. There was something that day in the diner that Fred can't put her finger on, and trying to recreate it makes sense. Even if recreating it doesn't exactly involve actual scientific processes.

"I... I wouldn't think it was taking advantage," she says, "I mean, so long as I'm okay with it. Which I am. For the record."

The next realization hits him so hard he'd fall over if he wasn't already sitting down. "I don't think I want you to just be okay with it," he says slowly. "Like, there's obviously somethin' between us, and--"

He can't figure out how to say the damn thing.

"I guess I just thought if you're this important to me, it should be about more than deja vu."

"Look," Fred says, "There's this... this thing between us, and you say you almost remembered back at the diner that day. So what's the harm in recreating that in hopes that the same thing'll happen again? It can be like an experiment."

Her eyes are wide as she looks over at him, and for reasons she can't really explain, he heart's already beating a little faster. But that's pretty par for the course as far as all this goes.

"I just need to know what this is, Jason."

God, it sucks.

Jason knows he should be on his feet and working on getting her off of hers. Maybe the Jason a few years ago would have. But things are different now, and they're different with her.

"Yeah," he says, already knowing he can't just say no. "C'mere." He stands slowly, and walks over to where Fred is, kneels in front of her, catching her hands.

He kissed her last time. Right there in the diner when she hadn't expected it at all, but this time, Fred's not entirely content to wait. Not when there's a chance that at least one of them will have a better idea of what's going on when it's over.

Not that she exactly minds the method they have to take, but Fred can't stand the fact that she doesn't know why she doesn't mind.

Either way, she looks down at Jason for another, extended moment, her hands in his, before she leans in to kiss him.

Here goes nothing.

Jason meets her halfway; it's only polite.

But of course, once he kisses her, all of his notions about how this isn't the right way go right out of his head. He tugs on her hands until she's close enough that he can slide arms around her waist.

Yeah, there's no debating the rightness of this. He swears he can smell the ocean.

It's just like before at first, this memory that Fred can't quite get at. It's new and familiar all at once, and suddenly, it's just familiar.

If it were happening in a movie she was watching, Fred would already be throwing her popcorn at the screen. But as it is, she keeps kissing Jason as it starts coming back to her, piece by piece: the island, the collar, the council speech, even Victorian London. It's still a little fuzzy, but she's sure it's real, that it all happened, even if she can't really explain how just yet.

"Oh, Jesus," he groans, pulling her forward, leaning back, anything to get their bodies pressed together until there's no more damned space between them. It'll probably end up with both of them on the floor, but Jason's not really thinking anymore.

He kisses her again, this time tasting sunlight, a sweet wind that can't be from any city. It's feelings, sensations, images, sounds before any knowledge.

Fred moves forward and follows until she's on the floor, practically in his lap. She remembers them doing this once before. It was his place then, too, only she was the one who needed the convincing that time. The picture's not entirely clear yet, but she knows it was real, every bit of it, right down to her bones, she's sure.

"You used to write on the walls," Jason gasps suddenly, even though it kills him to take his mouth off of her. "That first time I came to you, really wantin' you, there was writing all over the place. And it was summer there all the time, except when it was winter, nothing in between. I got my tongue stuck on a metal pole."

He stares up at her, amazed, like she's got some kind of magic. Maybe, for once, it's good magic.

"On the walls of my room," she says with a nod, and it might almost be funny, if not for the circumstances she remembers now. Falling asleep in the hotel and waking up in that cave, Fred had thought at first that she'd been sent back. And again, after her council speech, that collar around her neck in front of all those people.

"I didn't want you to see them, I was worried you'd think I was crazy."

"Baby, I've seen five million different kinds of crazy, and you're not one of 'em." He lowers his mouth to her neck, and it's like he tastes her skin twice, now and then, all wrapped up right here. There's something important he's missing; it tugs at the back of his brain but he can't for the life of himself care.

It's hard to not just get wrapped up in him. It's gotta be because he knows her so well-- somewhere in there-- that Jason knows just what spots to hit. Fred's eyes lid shut for a moment before she remembers herself.

"Jason?" Fred says, "Jason, I think I need a minute, here."

Because she remembers knowing him and not knowing him, being on that island and not going at all, and as good as it feels to be here again-- she missed him so much-- she can't help but be bothered by the fact that someone or something's been messing around with her memories.

"Yeah, okay, I--"

He just rests his forehead in the sweet curve of her neck, trying to breathe. She smells so good, he thinks feverishly. Smells like she belongs to him.

Whoa now. You ain't some kinda were. You checked.

"Okay."

"It's just... I remember knowing you, and I remember not knowing you. All at the same time," Fred says, but she doesn't make a move away from him, doesn't get up just yet.

"I mean, I can't be the only one with the heebie jeebies here, right?"

Edited 2013-06-22 03:25 (UTC)

"Yeah, I got those, but I got a lotta other feelings too right now," he tells her. "And thoughts."

Jason lets out a short laugh.

"Only thing that makes it calm down is you." But slowly, painfully, he takes his hands away from her waist and the small of her back, makes to get up.

He makes a move to get up and Fred shifts so she's not practically sitting on him, moving to the floor instead.

"You're different," she comments, looking up at him, "Not bad-different, just... different from before."

Some of the things he'd been forcing out of his thinking come back right around then.

The year without Sookie.

Being strapped down so Crystal's pack could take turns with him.

Letting Hoyt go.

Jessica. Jessica.

He swallows roughly. "I, uh, I guess I got sent back home right after the island."

"Me too, I think," Fred says, only unsure because she's still trying to sort through everything she remembers now. She hadn't known about Professor Siedel when she was on the island. They hadn't taken over Wolfram and Hart yet. Suddenly, all of that seems further away than it did before.

"My home, not your home. Obviously. I've still never been to Louisiana."

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only