Prompt: As your tags have definitely not inspired me, here comes a prompt: "huge blowout fight at O's place (+ whatever beyond PG-rating that happens afterwards)" :)
A/N: This one got a little, er, out of control. Aptly, I suppose. blowingwinds, you asked for it! ;) Enjoy!
It was freezing outside, the deadest part of winter now, but she could hardly feel the cold through her rage. It was powering her from within, burning her from within, and she knew if she didn't expel it soon, it would consume her and then explode outward. It almost had, earlier this afternoon, when she'd watched Mayfair be taken away and booked like a common criminal. Kurt had touched her arm to say they'd figure things out, they'd get through this, and she'd almost screamed aloud. She'd almost shrieked at him to just fucking arrest her, because it was her fault; it would always be her fault.
Four hours in the cold, empty apartment she was supposed to call home had only fueled that conviction. But it had also added something else.
It wasn't just her fault; it was his fault, Oscar's, too. And she wanted to make him pay for it.
Part of her wanted to kill him for it.
She had almost brought her gun with her, but in a second of rational thought, she'd left it behind. If she shot him, and her gun was for some reason examined at work, how would she explain a missing bullet? How would she explain a gunshot to his neighbors? He didn't live in the nicest part of town, sure, but a gunshot was a gunshot, and people would come running. Ambulances, police, would be called. And a face like hers, a body like hers: her presence at the scene would be remembered.
No, she'd do this quietly. She would contain him, contain her own stupid mess, and then she would go about trying to fix what she'd done to Mayfair. Knowingly or unknowingly, it did not matter—she had done it, and now she had to set it to rights. But first she had to set him to rights.
She waited a block away, huddling on the side of the street opposite his apartment, to make sure he wasn't at home. She lingered on different corners, popped in and out of different buildings, always moving, always keeping her eye on his apartment door. Only one of the windows in his apartment faced the street, and she could still see a light peeking through it. She waited until it went out. She didn't want to face him on his home turf with him ready; she wanted to wait until he was gone, and then be there to ambush him when he came back.
It took nearly an hour, but finally he left, and she had her chance. She waited, though, watching him from the far corner of the street until he disappeared from view around the next block. When he did, she made her move, sprinting across the street to his door. She managed to slip in the main door behind another tenant, and then hurried up the stairs. While she'd been waiting on the street for him to leave, she'd done the math: five floors up, window in the middle of the building facing north. When she got there, only one door matched: 32.
She had brought a small lock-pick set with her, and she went to work immediately, doing her best not to jump at every sound she heard on the stairs. Her fear told her that every footstep coming up behind her was him, but her rational mind—for once in control, at least partly—told her that he had left, and that he was not likely to come back soon. He didn't seem the type to forget things at home and then have to double back.
To be honest, she was surprised he even had a home. She'd be lying if she said she wasn't curious about what was behind this door. What sort of place did a person like him live in?
After a few minutes of work, the lock clicked, the door swung in, and she breathed a sigh of relief. She straightened up, tucking her tools in her back pocket, and was about to take a step inside when she heard a voice behind her.
"Would you like to explain to me why you're breaking into my home, Jane?"
She froze, her hand on the doorframe. It was his voice, but—no. No, no, no, no—
"More to the point, how in the hell do you know where I live?"
"I—" She swallowed hard. His apartment was dark in front of her. She could run in and slam the door shut, but he still had a key. She gripped the doorframe tighter. She saw no point in lying, so she told the truth, her back still to him: "I followed you here once."
"You followed me here?" She didn't know if she was imagining the threat hiding beneath his incredulity or not. It didn't matter. "When?"
"A few weeks ago."
She didn't specify when. She tried not to think about what they'd been doing beforehand; she tried not to think about what he'd gone out of his way to give her, to show her. He framed Mayfair, she reminded herself. But she could still hear the melody of that old jazz song in the back of her head.
"And you're here… Why, may I ask?"
"Why?" She turned to look at him, her face twisted in disbelief as the last few notes of that old song faded from her mind. How could he pretend not to know why? "Are you kidding me? You think I wouldn't figure it out, Oscar?"
Something in his face changed at her words. There was a twitch, a shift, and then he was moving forward towards her. She thought to step away, she thought to run, but when he said quietly, "Come on," and ushered her inside, she went.
The apartment was larger than she'd expected. When he turned on the light, she expected to be greeted by the sight of tiny, temporary living quarters: an old mattress on the floor, take-out cartons stacked on the counter, boxes of half-used supplies, guns, reams of fake identities… She expected his place to be a place to sleep and plan and nothing more. She expected it to be devoid of life.
But it wasn't. It was actually kind of nice. The rooms themselves weren't much to look at, but he'd clearly done his best to make it a living space: everything was clean and tidy; his bed, which she could see a glimpse of in the other room, was perfectly made; and even though there were guns and classified papers in plain sight, they were clearly ordered and set in specific places. She remembered him mentioning once that they'd met in the military. She supposed that sort of regimented lifestyle didn't wear off easily.
He let her have a look around. He let her pretend to look for enemies, for traps, while she really examined the more private parts of his life. He did not protest when she wandered into his bedroom, nor did he say anything when she found the framed photo of them, from before, on the bedside table and lingered beside it a few moments too long.
"So," he said finally, when she came back into the main room, and stood beside the table that dominated the space. "You're here. You found out. What now?"
"What now?" Her eyebrows drew together in a baffled mix of disbelief and anger. "What now is that I'm done with you! I'm done with this mission, done with all these stupid rules—"
"No." He shook his head, walking around the table and into the kitchen. "No, you can't be done."
"Like hell I can't! I can do whatever I want!"
"Might I remind you that you don't work alone?" he asked, turning around. "I know I'm the only face you see, but trust me, this group is much bigger than you think, Jane. There are always eyes on you. You can't just quit; that isn't an option."
"I don't give a shit. You and—whatever this group is—you got Mayfair arrested. I want nothing to do with you."
"She deserved to be arrested! The things she's done, the people she's put away—killed! Do you know how many people she's killed, Jane?"
"I don't care!" Jane shouted back. "She didn't kill Carter, you did that! You murdered him and now—"
"He was going to murder you! I'm sorry, would you have rather I let him live, and allowed him play out whatever sick torture fantasy he had planned for you? Would that have been preferred?"
"No, but—"
"Then be thankful I killed him," Oscar snapped. He pointed a finger at her. "And just so you know, he's not the only mess I've cleaned up for you, by the way."
"If you always clean up messes by framing innocent people, I think I'm done with your help. I'm done with your stupid little tasks and your lies and your fake attempts at fostering trust between us—"
"None of the attempts I made at fostering trust between us were fake, Jane."
He said the words with such conviction that for a second, she actually stopped and stared.
"Nothing," he repeated firmly, his eyes holding hers, "nothing was fake between us."
She curled one hand into a fist, then the other. His voice was so measured, so certain—his expression so determined—that she suddenly wished there wasn't a table between them. She wished she had a weapon in her hands. She hated when he got like this, hated when he pretended like the things he chose to do for himself were somehow for the greater good.
"Are you goddamn kidding me?" she bit out.
"What?"
He actually had the gall to look confused, and she was so furious she shoved the table at him. It jerked forward, and he jumped back.
"You slept with me so I'd stop questioning the mission!" she shouted. "It was a strategy, nothing more!"
"Absolutely not." His eyes flashed with fury as he stepped forward into the table, and for a second, she drew back too. "That is not what happened; that was never—" He broke off, his face breaking open for a second, and she watched, not sure anymore what to say or how to feel at that pained look in his eyes. "That is not what happened, not at all," he whispered a moment later. "I didn't mean to…" He swallowed, and as he did so, she watched him, and remembered the picture he kept of them framed by his bed. Against all reason, it made her want to comfort him.
"Nothing that happened between us was supposed to be part of the mission," he explained quietly. "I was never supposed to…" He sighed, closing his eyes. When the next words came out, they were through gritted teeth, "Look, I had my job, and I did it. Yes, part of that job was to gain your trust in order to take down Mayfair. No, part of it was not to sleep with you. That was—well, it was discouraged, in fact. It was highly discouraged. But all the rest—keeping you blind, keeping you curious, keeping you in the dark so you wouldn't see the whole picture—that was all part of the plan. You wanted it to be like that, you said—"
"I didn't say anything!" Jane cut in, the fury back again, squashing down what little empathy had started to grow. "Stop talking about your actions, your mistakes, like they're something you can blame me for! I didn't plan any of this, I didn't tell you to do these things, I would never—"
"What? You would never what?"
"I would never agree to these things! I would never—never play dirty like this! I wouldn't lie to people or coerce people or put innocent people in jail—"
"Yes, you would! You have!"
"No, I wouldn't! I am not like that; I'm not heartless like that!"
"Don't be a child; this isn't about being heartless! It's about valuing the future over the present. It's about sacrificing for the greater good. It's about wanting to make a difference—"
"I am making a difference!" Jane yelled. "And I'm doing it without putting innocent people in prison! I know you like to act like things are black and white here, that there's the mission and then everyone else can go to hell, but wake up, the real world isn't like that! You don't get to play God just because you have information the rest of the world doesn't—"
"And you don't get to come in here and scream at me because I am telling you to do the things that you asked me to say! Don't paint me like I'm the bad guy here—all I am doing is following your goddamn orders! I'm doing every little thing you fucking told me to do, and you're still fighting me every step of the way!"
"That's because they're not my orders!" she shouted back. "They're—They're hers!"
"Jesus Christ!" He shoved his hands against his forehead. "How many times do I have to say it? How many times do we have to go over this? You are her!"
"No!" she screamed, pushing herself against the table again, so hard it rocked and slammed back down onto the floor. "I am not! I am only me; I can be no one but me!"
"Yes, I agree, and the only person you are is her—"
"No," she screamed, slamming a fist on the table, "I am not! I am not her, not anymore! I have no ties to that person, no ties to you; I remember nothing from that life—"
His quiet laughter interrupted her.
"What?" she demanded, near-murderous fury sparking in her. When he shook his head and didn't answer, she raised her voice. "What are you laughing at?"
"Nothing, it's just that…" He lifted his head, met her eyes. He watched her for a moment, a smile teasing on the curves of his lips. "I think we both know there are things you remember from that life, Jane."
She stared at him. That look on his face, that cocky slip of a smile… Was he insane? Was he seriously talking about that right now? She had come here with half a mind to kill him, for God's sake—and now he was coming on to her?
"What the hell is wrong with you?" she breathed, feeling her hands go numb in their clenched fists.
He shrugged. "Lots of things," he answered. He stepped back from the table and started rounding the side of it, moving towards her. She watched him come around to her side, but she didn't tell him to stop. She didn't step away. She didn't breathe. She couldn't.
"Lots of things are wrong with me, sure," he repeated softly as he came to a standstill a few feet in front of her. "But not this, though."
She blinked, and then his hand was touching hers. It was traveling up the length of her forearm, and then moving to find its resting place on her waist. She could feel his fingertips just barely touching her skin, in the small space between the bottom of her tank top and the top of her jeans. His fingers were warm against her cold skin, and she resisted the urge to close her eyes. She had not come here for this.
But then again, she never did come to him intending for this to happen. And yet it somehow always happened.
When he tugged at her waist with one hand, pulling her forward, she did not resist. When he bent his head down to hers, and pressed his forehead against her temple, she did not shove him off. Instead, she bent towards him too, and breathed him in. She breathed, it felt like, only for him. For this.
It had been weeks since they'd last been together; weeks since they'd been this close, alone in a room with each other. She was having a hard time remembering exactly why she was here in the first place, if not for this.
"Tell me you don't want me still," he whispered. She could feel the heat of his breath brush through her hair, and it made her shiver. Instinctively, she clenched her hands into tighter fists so she wouldn't grab onto him as she had so many times in the past. She still had the tattered remnants of her pride left, and wisps of reason, and she dug her nails hard into the soft skin of her palms to hold onto both as well as herself.
"Tell me, Jane," he murmured. She could feel his lips against her forehead now. She could feel the scratch of his sparse stubble, but it felt far more delicate than usual, even though he hadn't shaved. The soft touch meant he was being extra careful with her. She closed her eyes. "If you don't want this, don't want me, then just go ahead and tell me, Jane. Tell me, and we'll stop this, and you'll go home, and we don't have to see each other again."
"We should stop this," she whispered. "I—I should go home."
She was impressed she even got the words out. She was actually proud. That is, until he spoke.
"Mm." He shook his head against hers. "No, no, no. That's not what I asked to hear, and you know it." He pressed his lips against her temple. Kissed her there once, twice. She did her best to stay standing, even as the scratch of his stubble sent a shiver through her knees and threatened her ability to keep her spine straight. "Come on, now. If you want me gone, you have to say the right words." His hands slipped fully beneath her tank top, cupping her waist skin to skin, and she couldn't help the way her body seized at the feel of his hands on her again. It surged towards him on instinct, on muscle memory. Already, her mind was skipping ahead to the finale. Her body was humming for it.
"If it's the truth, it should come easy, right?" He squeezed her hips, and she forced her eyes shut tighter. "Tell me you don't want me, Jane." His kissed her ear, and breathed in her scent so deep she shivered at the sound. "Go on, baby. Tell me."
He paused and gave her time to speak, he withdrew his lips from her skin and gave her space to focus, but nothing came out except one shaky breath after another.
"Why else did you come here, hm?" he murmured after a minute of motionless silence. "You know what happens when you and I are alone together. Why else would you come and confront me in my own home like this?"
"For justice," she said. It was the first thing that came to mind.
He pulled away. When she managed to open her eyes, he was smiling.
"Ah. For justice."
There was something so sweet about his voice, so grossly patronizing, that it made her want to throw up. It made her wish she'd brought her gun. It made her want to close her eyes and just give in to what he was dangling in front of her. It made her wish someone else could make all these choices for her, and suffer the consequences for her; it made her want to have a third self. A fourth. A fifth.
"Why are you like this?" she whispered.
"I thought it would be obvious."
When she frowned up at him in confusion, he reached up to tuck some of her hair behind her ear, and explained, "I'm like this because I know how all of this will end. I know what the final chapter looks like, at least sketched out, and trust me, I'm not the one that gets the happy ending. I don't get a life with you; I don't even get a future. This is what I get, this is all I get: dark moments with you, when you can't have him, or you're too angry to be alone, or when you want to pick a fight, but no one in your other life will take it. Because they don't understand you."
"You don't understand me."
"No," he agreed softly. "I don't."
One of his hands was still on her waist; when it moved, she could feel him again. His other hand still rested against her cheek. The warmth of him was dizzying, but she couldn't find it in her to tell him to step away so she could collect herself.
"But you know what, Jane? I do understand you when you're with me. I understand every part of you when we're together. And you understand every part of me, I know you do—if only for those few minutes. We know each other better than anyone else in the world then."
She shook her head, starting to turn away. "Oscar…"
A smile flickered up onto his face, genuine now. "Do you know how much I love that? How I live for that, you saying my name again?" He ducked his head and kissed the side of her throat. "Even when you're yelling it, it's the sweetest sound. My favorite sound."
She sighed at the touch of his lips, doing her best to keep her breathing, and her heart rate, under control. But it was impossible—the touch of him so close, the heat of him… She could not pretend it was not something she wanted. She had never been able to pretend he wasn't something she wanted, not from that first moment he'd kissed her.
"Please," she heard herself whisper, as if from a far ways away. "Please."
His hands were fully beneath her shirt now, rising from her hips to her ribs as they curled around her back. She could feel the rest of his body so close, just inches away, and without a thought, she moved into it, wanting what she knew he could give her. He held her tight between his hands, rubbing the ridges of her ribs with his thumbs, and she squeezed her eyes shut harder, willing him to just take charge already, to take things to the next stage, to break them both open so they could take what they each wanted and needed from each other without thought and without remorse.
"Please what? I need to hear you say it."
Her eyes opened. She pulled back to look at him, and she was genuinely surprised by what she saw. He wasn't smiling. He wasn't taunting her; he wasn't goading her. He wasn't asking her to debase herself in order to elevate himself. She could see it in his face: he was genuinely curious. I need to hear you say it. That demand was not to feed his ego, or to lower hers; it was to be sure. He wanted them both to be sure.
"If you want me, Jane, tell me."
He pushed her tank top up past her bra, and then pressed a kiss in the dip between her breasts.
"Tell me you don't miss my hands, my mouth…"
He gently lifted her shirt up further, and as if hypnotized, she raised her arms to help him. It dropped to the floor, discarded, and she did not wish for it back. One of his hands returned to her back, holding her close, and the other slipped down between her legs. They spread automatically for him, then closed tight and kept him there.
He cupped her there between her legs, his fingers kneading slowly along the seam of her jeans, tracing the spread of her through her clothes. Without realizing what she was doing, she started whispering his name, rocking into him.
"Tell me you don't feel me after I'm gone," he whispered, his mouth at her neck once more, his breath so hot she felt like she couldn't breathe when they shared the same air. "Tell me you don't think of me at night when we're apart, and you're alone. Tell me these past few weeks haven't been torture for you, too. Tell me the dreams haven't come back again, more real than before, now that you know what it's really like when I'm inside you and we're—"
"Shut your mouth," she ordered, jerking away. She stumbled back a few steps until they were no longer touching, and stared him down. He stared back, frozen for a second in the face of her refusal. How did he know that, about the dreams? Was he guessing? Bluffing?
No, she could see it in his eyes. He knew, somehow. He was certain, just as certain as she was.
"So that's a yes, I take it?" he wondered quietly, stepping forward again.
She didn't draw back this time. And when he reached out and touched her side, she didn't shove him off. But when one of his hands went to the button on her jeans, her own hand shot out and clamped around his wrist, tight enough that he actually flinched. She did not let go.
He looked up at her, waiting. She could see the offer there: Say no and we'll be done. And she could see the hope, too. This is all I get, he'd said. She could see it in his eyes, he was mourning the loss of her already. Perhaps he always had been.
And now he was begging for one last time.
She loosened her grip on his wrist, but did not let go. She held him to her as he undid the button, pulled down the zipper, and then slid inside.
"Fuck," she breathed, her eyes falling closed as his fingers met the familiar split of her center. "Oh, Jesus."
"I think about you, too, you know." His free hand trailed up the rise of her ribs, and then down her spine, guiding her towards him even though they were already so close. "When I'm alone, I think about you." He bent forward, and when he put his mouth on her neck, she pushed herself into him. Her free hand came up to cup the back of his neck roughly, holding him to her. "It's always you."
Though she didn't want to argue, and she didn't want to stop this, she couldn't help but shake her head. She couldn't take these words of his anymore; she couldn't stomach the soft lies he fed her like honey.
"It isn't," she whispered, closing her eyes. She wanted so badly to believe him when he said these things, but she knew what he really meant. She knew who he dreamed about and fantasized about; she knew who he thought about when they were together and apart. She knew whose soul his was communing with when he was inside her. "It's her," she whispered, hating the way her voice shook when she said the words. "It's her you think of."
"She's you."
"No, she's—"
"You want to split yourself from her?" he snarled, his head snapping up suddenly, his hands leaving her. "Fine. I think about you, not her. I think about you: you with the short hair, and the body covered in tattoos; you, who does not remember how we met or how I proposed or the first time I said I loved you. You, who can't even picture spending a day with me, let alone a lifetime. It's always you, in my head, and I don't know how to justify it, I don't know how to justify myself, I can't—"
She stared at him as he broke off, and tried to turn away. She could see what saying these things was doing to him; she could see how it was ripping him apart from an earlier version of himself. She could see the guilt in his eyes, the torture there that he was unable to stop inflicting on himself despite knowing the consequences.
She reached for his hand as he drew away from her and held him still.
"You don't need to justify anything," she whispered. "It's not wrong." She didn't know why she was comforting him, why she was even bothering. She'd come here with the intent to bring him in to the FBI, and half the intent to kill him, but now…
He smiled a little at the uncertainty on her face. "Isn't it, though?" he whispered. "Sometimes, I…" He swallowed hard, and she watched him force his eyes shut hard. "Sometimes I dream that you come back to me, the you from before, and you see me and this new you together, and…" He shook his head, unable to say it without breaking.
"She's me," Jane whispered. She stared at him, not able to understand how he could be so certain of that when he had been talking to her, but so uncertain now that he was thinking for himself. "Oscar, she's me. She isn't going to come back to haunt you, she's right here. She's right—I'm right in front of you."
"Are you? Because you look at me and you don't see me. You touch me, and even after all this time, you're still tentative. You still don't believe you know how to do it right, to be with me correctly. Do you have any idea what that feels like? How much it hurts, every time our eyes meet and you don't see as much of me as I see of you? How hard it is, to re-learn how to be with you after spending years together? Do you know how foreign this is for me too? How confusing and frustrating it is?"
"At least you have memories to look back on," she whispered, squeezing his hand. "I have nothing. I just have…"
"You have memories," he reminded her quietly. "I know they manifest as dreams, but they're memories, Jane. They're real; they happened. We truly do love—" He sucked in a breath. "We truly did love each other like that. It was all real, I swear to you. It wasn't perfect, but it was real."
"Was," she repeated, latching onto his correction. When he leaned his forehead against hers once more, she kept her eyes open, staring at him. "You're in love with a ghost. That's all I am to you now, the ghost of her. I'm the ghost of what you really want."
"Maybe," he allowed, nodding sadly against her. "Or maybe you're something different."
"Is something different enough? Is it even worth it?"
He opened his eyes. For what felt like a very long time, he simply stared at her, and she stared back.
"It has to be enough," he whispered finally. "It has to be worth it. You're… Christ, you're all I've got left, Jane. You're all that matters. Only you."
She swallowed, struggling for a response, for a way to tell him what he meant to her—but nothing came out. The only thing he wanted to hear, the only thing he could bear to hear, were the same words repeated back at him: You're all that matters. But she couldn't do it. She had lied for so long, knowingly and unknowingly, at his request and to his face, and yet she couldn't manage even one more. She couldn't tell him what he needed to hear, not even for a second, because at the end of the day, there was no question, and the truth could not be avoided: he lived only for her, and she did not live only for him.
He stared at her through the silence and she stared back as they both acknowledged this, acknowledged everything.
And then he stepped forward and kissed her anyway, and she kissed him back, shoving all the said and unsaid words aside as she pulled him close. After all their stops and starts and whispered words, she was surprised by the ferocity of his kiss, but she matched it moment for moment regardless, remembering again the fury that had brought her here. She remembered that she was supposed to be seeking justice for Mayfair, for herself, that she was supposed to be righting wrongs and leaving him behind.
But his mouth was on hers, like a force of nature, unstoppable, unavoidable, and she didn't want to think about anything else but him, here in front of her. She wanted him to rip through her like a hurricane and leave nothing behind; she wanted him to pull her being out by the roots and replant her somewhere else to grow anew. She wanted to disappear back into memory with him and never return.
She could feel his desires matching hers as he pulled first at her clothes and then at his own until they were both naked, or naked enough for what they needed to do. She could feel him fighting for her, for what they'd lost and for what was maybe still left as he held her close and buried his hands in her hair. They didn't make it to the bedroom—they didn't even try—but the table worked fine, and she preferred it, actually; she preferred the hard surface beneath her, preferred being reminded that what they did here together, and what their lives were meant for, was something so far from comfort or happiness. They had been built, trained—they were destined—for misery. Together or apart, it would eventually find them. And in some ways, it already had.
When he pushed inside her, she dug her nails into him, scraped her teeth against him, locked her ankles around his backside; she fought with him and she fought against him and she fought with and against herself. She both wanted this madness between them to go on forever, and she wanted it to end right this second. With every thrust of him inside her, every bruising kiss, every desperate pant of her name, she could feel him fighting, too: fighting for a wife and a future and a family, fighting for things she could not even begin to comprehend and other things she knew she'd never fully understand. She knew she could never give any of those things to him, not now and likely not ever, but this—this—she could give to him, to them both. At least for now.
So she gave with everything she had, and she took with everything she had, too. She took every bit of him he offered, and claimed more besides. He owed her that much, she thought, after all he'd done. And she probably owed him even more. One day, maybe, she would be able to repay him. But not any day soon.
A/N: To be honest, this kind of goes against everything I want for Jane and Oscar as characters/a couple, but sometimes that's what fanfic is for. :) If you have thoughts on the story, I would love to hear them! Thank you so much for reading, lovely people! :)