illuxinated | [For Jason] Post-TR Day

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jason

[For Jason] Post-TR Day

Lux doesn't have a watch. She'd not been wearing one the day she turned up, fresh from a midnight swim, and she doesn't know what time it is aside from that it's late.

Really late. Late enough that Baze might start to worry if he wasn't so busy trying to hump that Kate chick so that he can go make a new family with her and her baby and her stupid hut with its stupid palm fronds.

Distantly, Lux understands that having these thoughts means two things: She's a cliche, and she's drunk.

Neither of those things seem to matter much, though, when held against the fact that it's so damned hot here, humidity creeping up under the thin fabric of her sundress and making her skin sticky. Tromping through the jungle, she pauses to lift the weight of her hair from the nape of her neck and then realizes as she stares into the inky darkness that she's got absolutely no idea where she is.

"Oh, just great," she spits out, dropping her hair to fling both arms out in an emphatic gesture that there is no one to see.

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"Why do you keep yelling at me?" Jason shouts back, immobile yet still managing to sulk impressively, eyes wide, mouth pulled down, and breathing harder than a simple leap could ever warrant.

Cheeks flushed, Lux opens her mouth to hurl something—Anything—back at him, then falters, emotion closing her throat. She visibly deflates, chin wobbling, and sucks in a shuddering breath.

"He's going to forget about me," she manages, voice thready, and wipes fiercely at the tears welling unbidden in her eyes. "He didn't want me in the first place and he isn't going to want me now."

If anything, Jason starts breathing harder, panic like he doesn't know how to deal with stuttering in his chest. Fuck, she's crying? It's not often that he envies Dick his people skills, but Jason does now, right down to his toes.

"You could, uh," he says, eyes dropping to her hands which are far less upsetting than her wide, red eyes. "You could live with me. If you needed to." Fathers move on all the time, Jason had two sets to prove it, but even so he has a hard time seeing that happening to Lux. Then again, she is out in the jungle all alone, drunk and stumbling. "It'll be okay."

It's such an odd thing to offer under the circumstances that it actually shocks Lux out of the crying jag she'd been preparing to embark upon. Wiping at her cheeks, she stares at Jason in wide-eyed disbelief. The idea of living with anyone other than Baze is ludicrous, of course, but the generosity makes her forget for the moment about her insecurities.

"Thank you," she says, voice damp. "I'm sorry I yelled at you."

"It's...okay," Jason repeats, less certainly this time, and searches his pockets even though he knows he doesn't have a damn thing to soak up her tears.

"Are you okay?" he asks, taking a furtive step forward. "Do you want to walk some more?"

"Yeah," she quietly agrees, peering up at Jason as he steps closer, then stepping in meet him, the toes of their shoes almost touching. "Why are you stalking me, really?" she asks, watching his eyes, her own more bright and alert than they've been since he first found her crashing through the trees.

"M'not." Jason shakes his head, and for a moment his eyes are as sad as her own, and then he looks away again. "I wasn't expecting to find anybody out here. I'm not sorry I did," he adds, already learning to avoid her confusing ire. "Nobody's usually out this late."

"I'm glad you're here," she admits, trying to follow his gaze. The last month has been so much more lonely than she expected, with Baze so often preoccupied and no friends. It almost makes her miss school, a little.

She shows so much on her face, and Jason looks down at her, something akin to fascination in his own expression. Some are meant for the domino, others the mask, and still others, apparently, to wear everything in the open. He wants to think she's stupid for it, but mostly he just thinks she's going to get hurt.

"Me too," he says, and tugs his mouth up in a smile. "What would you do if some animal decided to jump you? Can't shout them away."

This Lux gives careful consideration, her expression screwing up in confusion. "But you'd be there," she finally asserts, wondering how he missed that bit, seeing as he's the one leaping from trees and chasing off pigs. "You watch me leave my house."

"Starting to think you want me to," Jason grins down at her. He tugs her back under his arm, figuring a solid hold on her will keep her wandering off if he's not allowed to fly her home.

"Maybe I won't be there. Man's gotta sleep some time."

"I'm sweaty," Lux mentions, conveniently ignoring Jason's logical remarks. She plucks the fabric of her skirt between graceless fingers and flutters it away from her skin to try and get a breeze beneath it. "It's so hot here alllll. The. Time. You're hot." Despite this, she makes no move to remove his arm.

Jason laughs, picks up her hair on a whim and blows on the back of her neck. It raises goosebumps along her skin, and Jason stares, almost reaching up to touch before he wonders what the fuck he thinks he's doing.

"Yeah."

A small shiver winds its way up Lux's spine, and for a blissfully oblivious moment she enjoys the cool air across her damp skin and thinks nothing of it. Drunken mind catching up, she realizes that Jason has hold of her hair and that he'd been blowing across her neck, which while nice, wasn't the most normal thing for someone you're not dating to do. Lux turns her head to cast him a quizzical glance.

"Are we going to make out now? Because I'd kind of like to be prepared for that."

"What?" It's a fair question, Jason realizes, and shame washes through him, hotter than any humid jungle air could ever be. "Sorry, I just - " He lets go of her, catching only the edge of her sleeve to try guiding her along. "I just wanted to cool you down."

It's a pretty flimsy excuse and Lux isn't sure she buys it, but Jason looks so abashed about the whole thing and he's pulled his arm from around her so quickly that she lets it be.

"It's okay," she tries to reassure him, pausing to bend down and jerk one of her sandals from her feet so that she can dislodge the pebble caught between her toes. "I'm kind of drunk, I don't know if I'd be any good at it," she says, still bent over and shaking out her shoe. "It might make me better."

"How can you do it bad?" Jason asks, surprised enough to laugh. He's only ever kissed Talia, and while his feelings about it after have been...mixed, at the time it was undeniably good, and Jason flushes a little hotter.

"Oh trust me, you can," Lux emphatically declares as she slides her sandal back on, momentarily wobbling in place before popping back up again. "I kissed a guy once and it was really wet. It was like I just slid right off of there," she explains with a swoop of one hand. "That was because of him, not because of me," she hastens to add, leveling Jason with a serious gaze. "I'm an amazing kisser, no contest."

Jason's face is all horrified fascination, following the swoop of her hand and grinning wider the longer he spends picturing it. "The fuck was his problem?"

"I think he was nervous," Lux attempts to guess, pushing both hands through her hair. "And twelve. There was a lot of spit involved. An excess of spit."

"You kissed him when you were twelve?" Jason asks, laughing again. He hadn't had a thought in his head past not strangling himself with a bat line when he was twelve. "Isn't that kinda young?"

"I might have been eleven," Lux says, screwing up her face in thought. "It was a long time ago. My first kiss, I was nine. I remember that one. We foster kids start early, baby," she declares, and drunk though she may still be, it isn't untrue.

"Not this one," Jason replies, not wondering even once if that makes him odd. There'd hardly been time for childhood itself in his short life, let alone childhood kisses.

He catches her shoulder, leading her over another sprawling root. "How much did you drink tonight?"

Briefly, Lux actually attempts to take a mental tally. It becomes immediately obvious that it's a fruitless endeavor, however, so she settles for answering, "I don't know," which is the truth of it.

"They make these fruity drinks, I don't know what they put in them," she clarifies. "I stopped while I could still walk." That has to count for something, even if she'll still regret it come tomorrow.

"I think walk must mean something different to you," Jason replies, pushing a low hanging branch out of the way before she walks right into it. Jesus, this is seriously taking forever, and he doesn't even want to think of the fuss she'll make if she breaks her damn nose on accident. "If I pick you up are you gonna yell at me?"

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