A/N: Well, I said I was going to wait a week to update, but you guys were all so good about reviewing that I'm just putting this up here as fast as I finished it. Seriously, I was like "Psh, reviews… Like that's going to happen." And then, shortly afterwards, I was like, "Omg, reviews. o.0" Also, many thanks goes to Natarie, my uber-spiffy-beta-ninja, who stayed up and got neck pains with me so I could get it posted.

Unnecessary amounts of silliness abound in this chapter, my apologies. It's mostly due to sugar and the things that people do when no one's watching, and the fact that one of the things I like best about Jinx and Kid Flash is their banter. Also- I bet Darth Vader dances to the Milkshake song when no one is looking. You know you do it too. ;)

Finally (I know people skim over the A/Ns anyway, but I'm going to blather on anyways dammit), obviously from the detail in this chapter, I am guilty of having watched Blue's Clues. Hee hee. If you haven't watched that show and helped Steve out, you have no soul. Seriously. I have no soul and I sing the mail song. You just have no choice.

And on the note of children's television, Arthur is good too. A-a-r-d-v-a-r-k!

Onward!

"Bath and Body Works, Sunflower-Daisy Meadow Fragrance? What the hell!" Jinx stared down at the bottle in her hand incredulously. Even with the sweet siren call of hot chocolate beckoning her from the kitchen, she was cold and had decided to wait until she had a decent shower first. Investigation of the bathroom revealed that it was acceptably clean, and investigation of the closet led to a bin shoved towards the back with… these. All the nice-smelling, girly things that she normally scoffed at (she'd only go with the lightest of fragrances or suffer the taunts and complaints of her teammates, not to mention that the majority of them annoyed her with their cutesy names and overbearing, sickly scent) were all conveniently gathered in Kid Flash's closet.

Is there something he isn't telling me? Jinx wondered with an amused snort. She paused and sniffed at the air- Nope, it didn't seem like he used them, the bathroom smelled… vaguely reminiscent of Kid Flash himself as was to be expected: dark but not harshly so, warm, masculine and actually kind of ni- Banishing such errant thoughts by sniffing and gagging at an overly pink bottle complete with bow labeled "Happy Fluffy Cotton Candy Dreams," Jinx felt herself tense up again. Stupid apartment. Stupid bathroom. Trying to catch me off my guard. I'm on to you!

Her voice echoed back at her and she jumped. Oops- guess she'd said that last thing out loud… Feeling rather silly but still sore at this obviously malevolent place of dwelling, she opted for a quick shower instead of the warm, luxurious bath her body was clamoring for. Steam coiled out of the bathroom as she stepped back into the living room, a hand clutched protectively around her towel. She cast a quick glance to make sure the curtains were pulled over the window- they were- before grabbing her messenger bag and retreating back into the bathroom.

At first, in her good mood she'd envisioned long baths and uber-comfy clothes to sleep in, but she hadn't really factored in the fact that this was most certainly not her apartment. She was staying at that idiot speedster's place, yeah, but there was no way she was just going to lounge around in whatever, being all un-threatening and such. That just… No, darn it. She wouldn't try to attack him but she refused to let him think she was just a harmless little dove. After all, she wasn't a hero. Not exactly. Not a villain either, though…

Well, the point was that she most certainly couldn't let her guard down. The treacherous bathroom had reminded her of that. Damn bathroom and its… its… nice (NOT nice, NOT nice) smelling… ness! At a loss of good accusations (To her defense, it was getting late…) her mind promptly lapsed into incoherent angry swears as she styled her hair up again and pulled on the darkest, angriest pajamas in her possession. And Jinx had quite a collection of dark, angry pajamas! The apartment would surely fall at her feet, not to mention that speedster idiot. With a malevolent chuckle at her obviously brilliant act of rebellion, Jinx scuttled off to raid Kid Flash's kitchen.

About seven and a half hours, three cups of cocoa, two bags of gummy bears and a Snickers bar later, and Jinx, despite her declaration of war against the apartment, was very much relaxed. She had discovered how to pull the couch out into a bed and was currently rather silly from lack of sleep. She wasn't going to fall asleep until she knew that Kid Flash was in his room or something, and not about to walk in on her while she slept. That would kind of ruin the whole dramatic "Ahh, girl stealing my apartment I am ruined, ruined!" scene she was aiming for (This hadn't been her original ideal reaction, but it was probably the sugar talking by this point anyways). The fact that she was watching early-morning children's television wasn't helping…

Guiltily, she looked back at the door and kept an ear open for approaching footsteps. Not even an overload of glucose would lessen the risks of being caught watching this stuff. But… There was nothing else on! She didn't want to move from her comfy position lying down on the couch to get the remote! And the little blue dog was so cute! Jinx slapped herself mentally for that last one, hoping to get rid of some of the post-candy sugar rush, before turning back to the TV.

No matter how much she'd deny it if accused, no matter how valiantly she would fight, a tiny bit of her still acquiesced that this wasn't the first time she'd watched this show. There was a tiny tug on the small, minuscule sliver that still gave an equally small, minuscule "aw" at all that is cute- before the rest of her mind shot it down with much gusto and a few mental explosives. Come to think of it, that blasted sliver probably had something to do with the unicorns. And it was absolutely infatuated with this show… and those eyes. She just couldn't resist those deep, soulful eyes. They were staring at her, pleading with her- and she knew just what they wanted… How could she refuse? "Behind you, Steve… a clue!"

"Blue's Clues? To be honest, between this and the unicorns, I'm having a bit of a hard time taking you seriously."

There was no mistaking that confident, casual tone. No chance.

All the telepathic sailors of the world, if they existed and they weren't just the gummy bears lying to Jinx again, winced at the mental tirade that followed that particular comment. She turned slowly, as if delaying the inevitable could make the inevitable grow bored and find someone else to be inevitable with. Unfortunately for Kid Flash, this also gave Jinx the time she needed to get over her deer-in-the-headlights setting and default into really-pissed mode. This was EXACTLY the kind of thing she wanted to avoid. Not only was her plan to appear threatening enough to ward off any further contact than was necessary foiled, but, more importantly, Kid-freaking-Flash now knew that she had a soft spot for black haired TV stars with green shirts and Handy Dandy Notebooks.

By the time Jinx was actually looking at Kid Flash, her glare was so full of steaming hot death that he should have, by all rights, spontaneously combusted where he stood, if he didn't run away screaming. He was saved, however, by the fact that Steve was singing "Here's the mail it never fails it makes me wanna wag my tail..." in the background.

As it was, Kid Flash made a strangled squeaking sound and held up his hands, palms outwards, in the universal don't-hurt-me gesture of males who have just made a very stupid move. "Just kidding, just kidding, no need to get all ma-"

Thump.

"Owwww... What do you keep in here, the World Book Encyclopedia? As in, all of them?" Kid Flash looked up rather dazedly from his position on the floor, only slightly upset that he'd just been overbalanced by an oversized messenger bag. After all, Jinx did look rather stunning, especially when she was all lit up from within with righteous rage like that, so he'd been understandably distracted. He indulged in a small moment of disappointment that her hair was still up- he'd wanted to catch her completely unawares for once, when she wasn't pulling up every barrier she had at her disposal. Still, those black, flowy nightclothes with little skulls all over them were obviously the epitome of cute.

"What I keep in there is none of your business," she snapped. "Now, hand it over so I can beat you with it." Screw the not-attacking-him plan; she had a feeling that an unconscious speedster was the best kind of speedster. She leaned over the side of the bed and made a grab for it.

In less than a heartbeat, Kid Flash was up on his feet again and dangling the bag teasingly out of her reach. "Ah-ah, you threw it, I therefore get to look through it..."

Jinx was just opening her mouth to point out that that had made no sense, but she turned it into an indignant screech as he started opening it. "That's my bag, stay out of it!"

"Why, is there something of yours you don't want me knowing about?" he asked, smirking and raising an eyebrow.

All of it, she thought angrily and, with a sudden burst of inspiration, decided to change tactics.

"Idiot, I'm a girl."

Kid Flash had a very, very strong urge to look her up and down very deliberately before nodding to get the point across, but did not on the terms that he was a gentleman, and Romeo didn't send Juliet roses and then look up her dress while she was standing on the balcony. It just wasn't right. And it certainly wasn't the right way to go about getting her to relax around him, although it was a rather funny idea, Jinx obviously wasn't very open to jokes at this point.

Meanwhile, his inner immature teenaged boy shook his head in exasperation and declared him a hopeless case. Still, what did she think, that he didn't notice? Wow, Jinx, and all this time I thought you were an asexual, pan-dimensional space-monkey. Glad we cleared that up.

Of course this decision making, Romeo and Juliet comparisons, and all related thinking happened very fast. It was Kid Flash, after all. Fortunately, the many more loose trains of thought that zoomed about in a disorganized manner and crashed into each other have been omitted due to concerns regarding chapter length and general off-topic-ness. Unfortunately, explaining about these trains of thought has brought about even more off-topic blather, so for convenience let us all assume that any thinking Kid Flash does is dangerous, quick, and gets him to decisions in a very odd way.

"And...?" He replied, impatient. What did this have to do with him not finding that delightful sketchbook again? He'd only seen some of her drawings, after all.

"And," Jinx continued, as if it were obvious, "I obviously have to keep my... feminine products somewhere, don't I?"

Kid Flash dropped the bag next to Jinx's boots as if scalded. "Point taken!" he said quickly, backing up several feet from the bag.

Immediately Jinx dove for the bag and returned to the bed, plopping herself down with minor complaints from the bedsprings. She sat cross-legged and settled the bag in her lap, then rested an elbow on the bag and rested her head on her hand, fixing Kid Flash with an extremely unimpressed look. "You're too easy, you know that?"

He drew himself up in a mock-offended manner and frowned in a way that was somehow still a smile just pretending. "Are you calling me a slut?"

The corner of Jinx's mouth twitched upwards, and she quickly scolded it for mutiny. Unfortunately, Kid Flash was quite observant and had more than a few reasons to pay attention to Jinx, in particular her expressive face, and in particular again her mouth, for completely professional reasons, of course. So, he noticed, and she noticed that he noticed, and she made plans to have those smiling muscles executed while he chocked it up as another victory in his favor while dancing internally. He cut the dance short when it started incorporating hip-thrusting movements and scolded his inner immature teenaged boy.

"No, I'm calling you a, a... an idiotic, naive, gullible fool. You... fool." Wow, Jinx, that was brilliant. She snorted at her own lack of creative insults. But how was she supposed to accuse and insult at her best when she hadn't had a good night's sleep in... in... Well, she hadn't slept since that last drafty, uncomfortable warehouse. A good night's sleep without anxiety twisting her stomach, she didn't want to bother spending the time remembering. It always made her feel the tiniest bit pathetic.

"Wow, how much sleep have you gotten?"

How does he know!

"Um, well, for starters, you have lines under your eyes, you're not insulting me as creatively as usual, you haven't tried to hex me into oblivion once yet during this whole conversation, and... You're muttering under your breath."

Dammit.

"Yeah, like that."

Jinx was irked, not only at the fact that he was so perceptive, but also that he was so frigging innocent and concerned about it. "Hey, it's not my fault that it took your ass over seven hours to get back home. A bit slow for the fastest boy alive. Slowing down? Or, more likely, were you out for some sort of late-night booty call?"

This was so ridiculous that Kid Flash really couldn't help doubling over with laughter. Jinx, who'd already had enough of being mocked for several lifetimes, just tried to calm down by watching the ending theme of Blue's Clues. Her fingertips had started to tingle with little sparks, the beginnings of a hex, and she was sure her eyes were two steps from glowing. Honestly, she'd thought it was a logical explanation. She'd seen far too much from far too many people, and Kid Flash seemed the type to have a number of girls on call. Still, this was pretty much the only reaction he could have given that wouldn't at least partially confirm her suspicions, and she supposed the fact that she was temporarily living with someone with at least some morals was, to say the least, relieving.

Not to mention that she would totally kick his ass if he left her roses and then proceeded to do the same thing for twenty other girls.

"Whoooo. Okay, hold on." Catching his breath and occasionally bursting out into laughter again, Kid Flash sat down heavily on the bed next to Jinx and flopped onto his back, eyes closed. Jinx, unsettled, felt the muscles in her neck and back tense as she regarded him warily, clutching her messenger bag to her chest and narrowing one eye more than the other.

When he showed no signs of bothering her, she reached over and gave his side a solid poke. "You dead?"

He didn't answer, just opened one sky-blue eye and peered up at her through a few tufts of hair that just had to be rebellious and fall down into his eyes so he couldn't see and occasionally mowed down a mailbox. Then, he proceeded to throw Jinx completely off course. "Do you ever relax?"

She blinked, taken aback despite the fact that he pulled this on her all the time. "What are you talking about?"

He sighed and sat up. Jinx scooted an inch away from him uncomfortably. He noticed this with a bit of irritation. Well, at least she wasn't yelling at him yet, but there was no point pushing any issue at all at this point. "To answer your question, I got called out to watch a fire- generally Jump City can take care of itself, especially with the lull in crime lately, but they wanted me on the job to make sure no one got hurt. Then I got roped into the whole news-report thing, and then I got detained by crazy fans, and usually I'd get away from all this, but there were a few kids there, and they were pretty freaked out. I ended up watching them until their parents got through all the legal crap and finally just told the reporters to bugger off. Then I did some clean-up and a patrol of the city, but of course that didn't take long." He shrugged. "Still, the whole thing ended up taking a long time in the end."

Jinx nodded, ignoring that persistent little sliver of cute-loving idiocy clamoring at her. "And I guess the Titans have you watching Jump City while they're looking for the Brotherhood of Evil?"

"Yep!" he replied cheerfully, getting up to go make himself some food. "Got myself a communicator and all that jazz. Here, catch."

He tossed the communicator and Jinx caught it, not fumbling despite her surprise. She eyed him dubiously through the doorway as he bustled around the kitchen like a total Mr. Mom. "You realize that I could just run and do all sorts of diabolical things with this, yes?"

He shook his head at her from the kitchen, while zipping about, creating what looked like a small seal made out of god-knows-what in between two slices of bread. "Naah, I know you wouldn't. You act tough, but really, I know you're just like a r-"

"Don't start using that metaphorical rose bull on me." She snorted and got up, grabbing her empty mug and going to wash it. Kid Flash promptly took it out of her grasp and washed it with his super-speed, while Jinx ignored this encroachment on her washing territory in favor of her tirade. "Roses are pretty and smell nice, but if you start comparing me to one, I will hurt you."

Kid Flash watched with a small hint of amusement, finishing his sandwich as she brandished the Titans communicator at him. "Really. Well, what do you prefer more for your metaphors then? Two creams, one sugar, hold the cliché?"

Jinx waved the device again in a grand gesture. "I don't know, a... a hedgehog."

"A hedgehog?"

"Sure. Hedgehogs, they get no credit for their, um, metaphorical potential."

"Prickly on the outside and soft on the inside. Aww, that's sweet. Does that mean you like beds of wood shavings, too?"

Jinx, in a move influenced by the last bit of glucose in her system, promptly stuck her tongue out at him, before putting down the communicator and walking back to the bed. "I wasn't referring to me, idiot, I was just talking generalities."

"Sooo... Does that mean I should start leaving you assorted small mammals instead of flowers?" Kid Flash turned off the kitchen light and followed her back into the living room area.

"Not if you want to keep all your vital organs," came the saccharine sweet reply. "As if you'd actually start giving out hedgehogs." A less saccharine and much less ladylike snort followed.

Kid Flash chuckled and opened the door to what Jinx had correctly identified as the bedroom. It was in the same style as the rest of the apartment, the walls a neutral cream shade and the drapes a deeper reddish mahogany, with patterned covers on the bed that reminded Jinx of hotels. She supposed it was sort of like a hotel... if the Titans were just bringing him in while they were gone, she supposed he really lived somewhere else and this was just a secondary home.

"Well, I'm going to sleep. 'Night." he said, closing the door. Jinx eyed the doorway, and Kid Flash stopped closing the door to raise an eyebrow at her. "I usually keep this door closed, hope you don't mind. It's not like I'm going to sleep in this suit... Unless you'd like me to leave it open- free show."

He pulled the door shut before the pillow, thrown by Jinx, could hit him in the face. His chuckles emanated from behind the door, and Jinx rolled her eyes while allowing herself a smile now that there was a door between them. With a contented sigh, she slid under the covers and reached over to turn off the lamp. Sleep, surprisingly, came easy that night, the only thing running through her dreams the quiet, echoing laughter of someone waiting just out of reach.

End A/N: Wow. How many people are left at this point? Fortunately, I posted that last chapter and found it short, so I tried to make this one longer. Unfortunately, I think I may have scared a few people with some of this nonsense. Sorry guys.

And now the moment you've all been waiting for, Ri-Ri's E/N. Read. Read, or I will grind your bones to make my bread.

E/N: I'm a bit jealous. Re-Ane started with shorter, easier to manage chapters, so it doesn't take her as long to get something out. Me, oh no, have to make fudging long chapters… It's a wonder Re-Ane edits for me, as it must be a serious pain for her to go through everything and worm out all my mistakes. And apparently, I don't need to threaten readers any more for reviews. (scans about) You're all doing fine on your own, I'm glad! (But if you don't review, my previous threats still stand, and I'll be willing to add more, ohhhh yess…)

Hmmm… What will happen? Will Jinx actually get some sleep and properly threaten Kid Flash for once? Will the famous hedgehogs find their way into the next chapter? Will my editor's notes ever actually be important? Probably not, but then, even I don't know! (dramatic hand movements)

I'd do separate reviewer responses here, but I'm pretty sure they're not allowed anymore. Emo tear. So I'll just send out a general thank you, you guys are awesome- also, regarding the story/Author's Notes separation. I generally don't think I'll need to use the line for scene changes because a) I can use something else and b) man I didn't even change times/p.o.v. in this chapter. And if I did, it was a paragraph-to-paragraph subtle (blaringly glaringly obvious) kind of thing. Finally, some of you reviewers have awesome stories- I'll be faving and reviewing possibly tomorrow, but right now I am tired. And kind of dead. DX

Next chapter will probably include hedgehogs and possible dismemberment. Jinx may also go job hunting if she doesn't die of a heartastroke.

Review if you want to, and help me go mad with power. ;)