Title: Wanting

Rating: T

Characters: Roy/Jade

Summary: Usually it's her who uses people, her who takes advantage. Now the tables are turned and she can't do a thing about it.

Author's Note: I usually read fic's about Jade being the one who comes in random hours of the night and leaves before Roy wakes up, but I always imagined it the other way around.

This sensation that overcame her was, for lack of a better word, different. She's not too sure how it started, it kind of just began. She had always known about his past, his real past; so she knows how messed up his head is, then she has to remind herself that she's pretty messed up too. That's okay though, she tells herself, it means that they're not that different.

She learns that he finds out the truth the day before New Years. She feels bad for him for a moment, the thought of one day learning that everything you thought you knew about yourself was a lie. It had to be rough.

She suspects that's his reason for tracking her down to one of her hideouts (this one happened to be the one in Star City), climbing through the window and proceeding to attack her lips with his.

"You don't have a five date policy, do you?" he asked as he placed hot, open-mouth kisses down her throat. He could feel her shake her head in response. He smirked: "Good."

He picked her up and threw her onto her bed and continued to ravish her into the night until they were both completely satisfied. She asked him if he was going to stay the night, she got her answer the next morning when she woke up to a cold and empty bed.

She didn't like this. This thing that was starting to happen between them. But then she didn't hate it at all, it was more like her unhealthy addiction and she didn't even get to choice when she got her dosage.

It was always the same routine. He would show up, late at night usually, probably because he was out on patrol or whatever he's been up to nowadays, they would have their fun, and then he would leave. As simple as that.

You'd think that this would work in perfectly with a life of an assassin. Her life was always fast paced and she wasn't big on commitment either. Their actions were all about release, but she soon found that she didn't just want the release, she wanted the man too.

One night he came over later than usually, she wasn't expecting him at all, she had already fallen asleep. But she couldn't ignore him now that he was there, standing in front of her. And to make matters worse, he wasn't looking so hot; he had gashes and bruises all over his body; he looked sore and even more pissed off at the world than usual.

"What happened?" she asks in a small voice, as if not to scare him off. She ran the pad of her thumb across a particular cut along his cheek.

When he didn't answer her, she knew not to pyre. She led him to her bathroom and told him to sit on the edge of the tub. She grabbed her first-aid kit and began to clean his wounds. He didn't speak as she worked, just the occasional hiss as the alcohol was rubbed on his wounds.

"This one may need stitches." she said, tracing the deepest cut that was located on his chest. "What happened?" she asked again.

"The shadows happened." he growled. "They knew we were coming, like someone tipped them off."

"Don't act like I told them anything, because I don't know anything!" she sighed. "You don't tell me anything, Red, in the first place." She looked away from him, she couldn't look him in the eye. Not she actually could, he always wore his domino mask around her, an obvious sign he still didn't trust here.

"I didn't mean it like that." he said. "It's just that this search for the real-"

"Don't say that." she stopped him, looking back to him. "You're real, don't ever sell yourself short." Then she said, barely loud enough to hear. "You're real to me, isn't that what counts?"

Something changed in those few moments that followed. At first she didn't think he heard her. She stood up to leave, but he grabbed her hand, pulled her back down to him and kissed her square on the mouth.

He heard her.

They took it slow that night. It wasn't about raw passion or release. No, this time it was more like the world had stopped around them and it was just them, they had all the time in the world. He was worshipping her in a way that no one had ever done before, he was her first after all and he would always have that hold over her but she didn't care. All that mattered was now. They weren't enemies, they weren't both broken souls, they just were.

Sometime in the night she had managed to take control, flipping them over so she was straddling him. Her fingers caressed his jaw, his cheek, then her fingers came up and traced the edge of his mask. (He never took it off during his visits.)

Can I?

He nodded and she pulled it off. Staring back at her were the most beautiful pair of blue eyes she had ever seen. She smiles at him and presses her lips to his, they continue their activities late into the night, falling asleep in each other's arms. She thought that this crazy relationship- if it could even be called that- was becoming something more than just sex.

Or so she thought.

When she woke up the next morning to a cold bed again, she felt this pain her chest. As if she couldn't breathe. She was being overdramatic, she knew that, but that fact didn't make the pain go away.

She wanted him to stay, she wanted him to be her constant. Her life was hectic; most of the people in her life, she didn't know if they would last the week. She just wanted someone to always be there. She knew she had her sister and maybe even her mother if she could have the courage to go see her.

But she didn't want her mother or her sister. She just wanted him. She wanted to wake up to his smile and bright blue eyes. She wanted to be able to steal a kiss over breakfast. She didn't want to come home to an empty house anymore. She thought that that night had changed things, it sure had changed things for her. She just wanted him and wanted him to wanted her.

It was three weeks before she saw him again. She had been wandering around the Asian food section of the grocery store that was around the street from her apartment. She was going through the spice selection when she saw him out of the corner of her eye. He was watching her from behind one of the shelves. It took ever thing in her not to run over to him and bring him back to her apartment so she could have her way with him. But then... she would have been just as happy if he just walked over to her and asked her out for coffee. She just wanted to be with him, it didn't matter in what way. She just wanted him. God, she can't remember the last time she wanted something so badly.

Since they first met all those months ago and he had her in jail for a good hour and a half before her father came to rescue her, when they talked, there was something there. A spark as cheesy romance novelists would dub it. She felt the barriers she had put up start to break as soon as she pulled his quiver and pulled him closer to her.

She had then found herself taking more and more jobs that would cause her to cross paths with him, even if it also meant crossing paths with her baby sister and the baby heroes. Yeah, she could live with the brats if it meant seeing him again. She had an addiction even before he climbed into her apartment that early January night.

She continued to stare at the spices, praying that he would walk up to her. Out of the corner of her eye, she could still see him peaking around the corner at her, his bright blue eyes shining.

She took a deep breath, she could feel the butterflies in her stomach. The thing was, she never got nervous. She cursed at herself the fact that she let this boy- man- in and allowed him to tear down her walls. But the funny thing was, he didn't even know he was doing it, no, no because he never stayed long enough to find out.

Suddenly a hand was on her shoulder and she spun around, her brain thinking in attack mode; but what she found was the same blue eyes that she dreamed about every night and the red hair constantly on her mind every day.

"Hi." he breathed.

"Hey yourself." she managed, her heart was pounding loudly in her chest and she was afraid that he could hear it.

"Can- can I buy you a coffee, you know, when you're done here?" he asked.

"Yeah, yeah that'd be great." she smiled at him. Then she realized it was the first time she genuinely smiled at someone in a long time, not in the evil sly way that Cheshire did it. No right now, she wasn't Cheshire, she was just a girl falling for a boy who didn't seem to notice her, how cliché...

"Let me get that." he took the basket from her hands and then took one of hers and placed it in his one free hand. "Are you all set?"

"Yeah," she said. "Yeah I'm good."

"Good." he pulled her towards one of the registers. She paid for her groceries and he took the bags back in his hands. As they walked, he suggested that they just go back to her place for coffee; his reasoning was that the groceries had to be put away, but she knew that there had to be something more to it.

When they reached her apartment, she took the bags from him and proceeded to put the groceries away as he started to make the coffee.

"So, why are you here?" she asked as she placed the last of the food in the fridge, then moving to the counter and sitting on one of the stools.

"I wanted to talk to you, is that a crime?"

"Well, breaking and entering is and I'm pretty sure that stalking is too."

His head snapped up, "I wasn't stalking you."

"Oh, then what would you call watching someone in the grocery store from behind a shelf?"

He sighed, "Trying to work up the courage to come talk to you."

"Why?" she asked. "It seemed like you have courage to me... all those nights that you came by and ripped my clothes off. I'd say that takes some guts-"

He then reached across the table, took her face in his hands, and then he kissed her. He kissed her with all this pent up tension and passion and lust and love and all of these things that she had never let herself feel before. Well, before this redheaded super babe permanently walked into her life.

When the kiss finally broke, and he leaned in so that his forehead was touching hers, his warm breath washing over her cheeks.

"I don't want that anymore." he explained. "It's never what I wanted..."

She moved back so that she could look him in the eye. "Then what do you want, Red?"

"I wanted a relationship, I just wanted to have a place I could call home, my life has been crazy these past few months and I just wanted some stability and then I found it. I found it where I least expected to find it. I found it in you and now that's all I can think about. You're on my mind 24/7 and I can't seemed to shake it. I feel horrible about the way I treated you. How I just used you and threw you aside, that's not what anyone deserves, especially not you." he explained. "I just want you and I've been too chicken to admit it these last few months and-."

His words were swallowed up as she attacked him with her lips. She jumped onto the counter and scooted over so she could wrap her legs around his waist. His hands immediately went to her hips, his fingers digging into her flesh. His hands then went to cup her bottom, securing her as they made their way to her bedroom.

They spent the night wrapped up in their own little perfect world they had created. In the afterglow, he began to whisper all these things. Things that they could do together; how they could run away and never be seen again. How it could just be them, just the two of them. No good or evil, no clones or abusive fathers, but right now all they could do was dream.

It was funny how things worked. They were just two broken souls looking for someone to fix them. He was supposed to be good and she was supposed to be evil, she was supposed to have indestructible walls and he wasn't supposed to care. But the lines burred and things changed. They were no longer two broken pieces, just two pieces of a puzzle who fit together. Because that's all they ever wanted, really, to feel like the belonged somewhere in the crazy messed up world we live in. They weren't Roy Harper and Jade Nguyen anymore. They just were, safe and loved because that's all they ever wanted, really. All they ever wanted was to just be, and that's how they finally were, together.

Alright, so this is my first attempt at Roy/Jade. In my head, I always imagined that Jade helped Roy get through all the crap that he was going through with finding Speedy. And that he broke down her walls and stuff because they seem like that kind of couple. Tough on the outside but soft on the inside, you know what I mean?

Thanks for reading and please review! :D

~Rachel