This may or may not be in character. I think I'm slipping further and further out of the Red-and-Cheshire spectrum. Is it unforgivable? Let me know at the end. Also, I've realized that I have absolutely no idea where this now-sizable drabble is going. Can anybody say "useless fluff"?
Back Home
Weeks passed. The last of the warm days were blown away by the autumn wind, and the city braced itself for the shift of seasons.
Jade prepared by bringing more and more of her belongings - in small, easily-overlooked doses - from the shithole she paid rent for to Roy Harper's small but nice apartment that she was beginning to refer to as home.
Not to him - of course not. Just when she was out shopping or getting a bite to eat, when she would be approached by relentless hordes of assorted men and boys, asking if she needed help with her bags or if she wanted to share a cab or maybe they could buy her a drink? When she was feeling polite, or when there were too may witnesses around, she would smile her most charming smile instead of deliver a distracting blow to the side of the head - nothing fatal, just a quick shock. "No, thanks, my boyfriend is waiting for me at home."
He wasn't - he was rarely at the apartment when she wasn't there, between his job doing whatever and his nightly street-prowling and his occaisonal trips to top-secret superhero hideouts to train or have a playdate. She used to deny that Roy was even her boyfriend; to herself, because, to be honest, she didn't have any friends, and nobody ever asked. But now, after having slept in his bed for she-forgot-how-many nights in a row, after sneaking in more than half her wardrobe and all of her personal-care items from her place - she was too proud to tell Roy how much she hated her apartment and to ask if she could move in - and after she lost all interest in other men, she couldn't keep the truth from herself anymore.
That last one became obvious when she had gone out for a run one day while Roy was at work - there was a nice park on the lake not too far from home - and she passed by a handful of perfectly delicious male specimens, walking the dog or out for a jog, that she knew from experience she could've had eating out of her hand with a few choice phrases and trailing fingers.
But she hadn't so much as felt a twinge of lust, let alone spared a suggestive glance.
Later, when she'd gotten back and was standing under the shower head and squeezing out shampoo from her own bottle, she realized what had happened. Or what hadn't.
It didn't bother her at all.
Neither did her new and largely-sedentary lifestyle. For once, everything was simple and easy and predictable. She and Roy shared breakfast in the mornings. He went off to work, and she did whatever she wanted; reading, watching TV, went shopping, exploring the city, or went for a run or to the gym. When he came home in the evenings they had dinner - sometimes he cooked, sometimes she did, and sometimes they went out. Then it was hero time, and Jade had the apartment to herself again. She enjoyed the freedom this life allowed; she had all the time in the world to do whatever she wanted, in a nice place that didn't have rats or a horrible draft or drunken neighbors. And when patrol time was up and the city was safe until the next night, Roy always came home to a waiting - and sometimes sleeping - Jade. Their days were punctuated with the same panting, clutching, desperate sex they'd shared as casual fuck buddies. She was glad that hadn't changed.
One night, after Roy had left for hero duty, Jade's phone buzzed from the box in the closet that held Cheshire's mask and kimono. It could only have been for one reason.
Cheshire was being summoned.
Grudgingly, she packed a duffel bag and hid it under the bed before crawling beneath the covers to wait for Roy. The Shadows could wait until after he fell asleep.
He came back early - just after two - and Jade acted as if nothing were different. He didn't suspect a thing; why should he? She'd told him once that she only worked one week out of the month, but it had been almost a whole month since that first weekend she'd stayed, and she hadn't been called before and he'd never asked.
It had been a full three days since they'd been together - between work and an uptick in that damned criminal activity, he'd barely been home - so it was hardly an understatement to say that when she heard keys jangling in the lock on the front door, Jade's eyes flew open and she sprang out of bed, threw off the horribly PG-rated pajamas she'd dozed off in and reached for the Victoria's Secret bag sitting on the dresser. Too early, too early...
Roy was already smiling when he entered the bedroom, but the happy grin was wiped clean off by the sight that met him when he came through the doorway.
"Well, this is new," he said with a swallow after a pause that was a moment too long.
Jade shrugged from her position on the bed. She was lying on her side in the very center, long silky hair - she'd taken the time to blow-dry it - tossed over one shoulder, leaving the view completely unimpeded.
He had yet to take off the supersuit. She could see his hard-on poking out through the red and black.
She couldn't help laughing out loud. Roy Harper - Red Arrow - the big, bad archer of Star City - couldn't last three seconds in a room with her and an empty pink Secret bag.
He didn't fall asleep until just before dawn. Not like that was entirely his fault, but she wasn't about to let him hit the snooze button on the first - and last, but he didn't know that yet - sex they'd be having for days.
She dressed silently, retrieved her bag from under the bed, scribbled a note on the counter, and was gone seconds before the pink-gold sunrise peeked through the curtains.
Be back in two weeks. Don't look for me.
She had to stop back in her Gotham apartment to go through her stash of weapons before boarding the plane. It would fly nonstop for more than a day, courtesy of the Shadows' unstoppable arsenal of pilots. The mission was a simple one. Infiltrate the Minister of Whatever's entourage, gain access to his hotel room - no unnecessary security-footage risks on this one - and leave the package. It might even be fun; she got to pull out a brand-new alias for this one. Seul Mi Ryou. A chance to utilize her Russian and Korean.
It turned out not to be interesting. Just a bunch of old Asians tottering around in ill-fitting suits, tripping over themselves to flatter each other and clearly tiptoeing around whatever it was they were all congregated for. She'd slipped into the target's inner circle - definitely noticed, and more than enthusiastically welcomed, going by how many dinner invitations she'd received - dropped the package, and stayed long enough to clear herself of any and all suspicion when whatever was inside scared Asian Minister Number Seven shitless. She'd been back on a plane with a few days to spare.
It was nice being ahead of schedule for a change.
She'd collected her sizable reward, packed another duffle of things from Gotham, and stopped at the bakery around the corner from home in Star City for an I'm-back cake - she refused to call it an I'm-sorry-for-leaving cake - and had the door to the apartment open before she froze.
Voices. And people.
Not just any people. Her carefully trained eye took in the scene before her and processed it before the others had time to recover.
Her sister, golden hair shorter than Jade remembered, lounging on the couch in the same spot Jade had watched TV in the night before she'd left, cup of wine - Roy didn't have any wineglasses - lifted to her lips. The boyfriend - Kid Quick, or whatever - next to her, holding a plate piled high with mashed potatoes, bacon, and steak. Roy was at the kitchen sink, up to his elbows in sudsy water because despite being this far into the twenty-first century, he still didn't have a dishwasher.
And if she was surprised to see the two visitors - Roy never had people over - then they looked like the world had come crashing down around their ears. Roy himself didn't look the king of cool at the moment, either; he was staring back and forth between her and the younger couple on the couch, face blank but she knew what he was thinking anyway. He could never hide anything from her.
She was the first to speak.
"Well hello, sis," she purred, closing the door behind her and crossing the room to dump her things on the counter. "It's been a while."
Artemis just blinked, eyes following her sister's path.
There was an audible swallowing sound.
"Uh, Roy?" the speedster choked out. "Why is Cheshire in your apartment?"
Artemis broke in before Roy could reply.
"What the fuck, Jade?" she screeched, and slammed her glass down on the old coffee table, standing and stalking over to her sister. She stood on the opposite side of the counter, hands splayed out angrily on the surface as she leaned over. "What the flying fuck?"
"What?" she asked casually, and the false note she usually reserved for these types of situations surfaced in her voice. "Not happy to see me?"
"Um," the boy from the couch interjected. "I'm missing something. Really important. Somebody explain, please?"
Roy sighed heavily, bracing his wet and soapy arms against the side of the sink. "Wally. Artemis." He reached for the dishtowel hanging off the oven handle, warily meeting his two friends' gazes. "Jade's been... living with me."
Realization clicked behind Wally's wide eyes. For a speedster, he was incredibly slow. "Cheshire - Artemis' sister - is your girlfriend?"
It was an interesting few hours after that. Twenty questions would have been a gross understatement. There was more hurt shouting from Artemis - why hadn't Jade said something to her, in all this time? Why hadn't Roy? - bewildered questions from Wally, and tired explanations from Roy. Jade had mostly stood there, throwing in a few words that only served to rile everyone up again, occaisonally smiling and laughing at her sister's utter disbelief. Apparently, she'd thought Jade had just been toying with the older archer all those years ago in Louisiana. She had been, but that didn't mean she could never act on her taunts.
When it came time for the kids to go, everyone had calmed down a bit; Artemis enough to shoot Jade and Roy a knowing grin. Wally had clapped a friendly hand to the darker woman's shoulder - a show of affection she had no recollection of inviting - and made a supposition out loud that caused both Artemis and Roy to flinch.
"So I guess you're sort of like my sister-in-law now, huh?"
Despite herself, Jade felt the corners of her mouth twitch upwards. The kid was an idiot, but a charming idiot. "Sort of." She waited until the door was almost closed behind them before calling "But if you hurt my baby sister, I'll kill you!" to their retreating backs. She thought she heard Artemis shout something back in turn, but the now-closed door muffled the words. Jade chuckled.
She helped Roy clean up the rest of the glasses and plates in silence.
Finally, with all the dishes cleaned and dried, he turned towards her in the tiny space, and she was struck with the full force of his steely blue glare.
Oops.
"A note?" he ground out, and for a second Jade wondered how he had hidden this anger the whole time his little friends had been over. "A note? And then you're just gone?"
She rolled her eyes but stepped closer to him. There was something about the flashing of his unmasked eyes that was really, really hot. "I used to be gone every night, Red. Or has our little slice of domestic bliss made you forget?"
He brushed past her and stomped towards the bedroom. She felt a thrill flutter through her abdomen - she'd been waiting for this for twelve days - but he reemerged before she could follow.
He was holding his cell phone. "Give me your number," he demanded gruffly. "Right now."
"I don't have one."
He glared at her disbelievingly. "How can you not have one?"
Jade shrugged. "The Shadows gave me a phone, but it can't call or text. Receiving only."
Roy threw his phone onto the couch with a grunt of rage and pinched the bridge of his nose, squeezing his eyes shut. He took a few calming breaths before his shoulders relaxed and he was able to speak to the backs of his eyelids. "You went on a job."
It wasn't a question, but she answered anyway. "Yes."
Unleashed blue eyes pierced through her. "You killed someone?"
"No."
"Well, what was it? Did you steal some state-of-the-art tech? Deliver drugs? Break somebody out of prison?"
She rolled her eyes. "You're such a drama queen."
He closed the few feet of emptiness between them with two long strides. Big hands came up to grasp her by the shoulders. "I'm not screwing around, Jade. What did you do?"
She could've twisted her way out of his grip, could've broken his wrists, or executed a beautifully aimed knee-to-groin shot, or otherwise incapacitated the quietly ferocious hero who seemed seconds away from shaking answers out of her, but there was something in his expression that made Jade hold back. "Coercion," was all she said, though, because no matter who it was, she did not appreciate being manhandled in a non-fun way.
"Who? Into what?"
She fought back a sigh. She hated talking about her work. "Can't we just go back to pretending that I'm professionally unemployed so you can take my clothes off, already?"
To her deep surprise, this half-hearted appeal to Roy's libido worked. He bent and scooped her up into his tightly muscled arms, and before Jade could say anything else, he was dumping her unceremoniously onto his bed and crushing her lips with his. She responded more than readily, wrapping her black stocking-ed legs around his waist as he covered her with his body and pulling him deeper into her by the back of the neck.
After the first time, when they were naked and lying under the sheets - it was getting chillier as autumn persisted - Roy kissed her more gently, and instead of rolling on top of him and cutting to the chase like she normally would have, Jade smiled and curled up beside him, returning the soft pressure.
"So why was my sister here tonight?"
Roy shrugged, and in the low yellow light thrown by the lamp on the bedside table, the movement made the elongated Roy-shadow on the wall behind him wiggle. "Wally's an old friend, and I like Artemis."
Jade grinned. "Aw, my boyfriend gets along with my baby sister. How nice. But seriously, her boyfriend's name is Wally?"
He chuckled. "They used to be unbearable. But it's been four or five years now."
She nodded, and she thought back to the Artemis she had known a long time ago - always dreaming of Wonderland, a life that wasn't so harsh as theirs...
"They seem happy together." Every big-sister instinct Jade had ever supressed sighed in relief. "But why did they come here now?" She'd been around for a month, and there had never been mention of an upcoming visit, or even past visits, nothing to suggest that he was even still in contact with those old teammates he'd so firmly rejected those years ago.
He brushed a stray strand of raven-black hair back from her face as his eyes clowded over. "It was... empty here. While you were gone."
It was silly - ridiculous - but at those words, Jade's unshakable heart skipped a beat.
I missed you, too.
She didn't say it.
Later, after she had rolled onto him - they had twelve days to make up for - and they were lying still again, enjoying the sweet soreness in both their bodies, Roy happened to glance at the clock. He swore and leapt out of bed, dug through the closet, grabbing his Red Arrow effects and tugging them on haphazardly, stumbling over his own feet as he struggled to tug the tight pant legs on at the same time. Jade watched contentedly from the bed, stretching and breathing in the scent of the room she hadn't slept in for two weeks. The next day they would wake up next to each other, maybe even break her no-morning-fucks rule, cut into her I'm-home cake, and begin their easy lives again.
She'd really missed this place.
The end?
