Till It Bleeds Daylight (DC Comics, NC-17)

[browngirl]

#2 in my Too-Big Five Things seriesish thing.

Title: Till It Bleeds Daylight
Fandom: DC Comics
Rating: NC-17
Summary: As she offers the hilt to him, she watches its gleam reflect in his beautiful eyes.
Pairing: Talia Head / Jason Todd
Warnings/Features: het, other pairings contemplated.
Spoilers For/Based On: Batman Annual #25
Most Marvelous Beta Reader: blythely, who also provided scans and CBRs and tons of useful advice.
Dedicated to: monkeycrackmary, because she totally, totally combed his hair.
Disclaimer: These characters belong to DC Comics.




"Gotcha!" Jason's laugh swells in Talia's ears as she flies back through the air, louder than her impact with the bed. His strength has increased; she must catch the headboard to keep from tumbling off the other side, and she's nearly winded by his last flurry of blows.

His disposition has improved as well. When she tosses her hair from her eyes he grins at her with almost that same reckless bright enthusiasm of old. Almost, but sharper, a long-neglected blade now honed.

Talia sits up a little, choosing an angle that well displays her breasts, listening to his breathing stir the heavy night air. There are bruises like lovebites rising on her arms, and Jason's eyes are darkening. "You have learned much since last I saw you," she tells him, and watches his smile soften less than it once would have, the Saturnian furrow between his eyebrows diminish but not disappear.

"Thanks." He leans back hip-shot against the small desk. Lamplight gleams honey-colored off the sweat-sheened planes of his chest. "My latest master ran me pretty hard. I was kinda pissy about it at first, but... the old coot had a point."

"Is that why he still lives? You could not defeat him?" Talia tips her head a little, watching Jason's brows draw down and the forceful jerk that raises his chin in defiance.

"Have some faith," he growls, and something in her shudders and wants to melt. Her onetime pet is grown into his manhood indeed. "I could've taken him down, sure, but that would've been kind of assholish of me. The old guy even makes a point of not teaching thugs." Jason's smile is toothed and sharp. "It took a bit to convince him of my purity of heart."

With effort, she doesn't laugh. "Even so, eventually he or another will recall the fighting boy with the Gotham accent." Talia speaks caution, because it bears saying, but she lets her hair slip away from her neck. "Be careful what traces you leave behind."

"Don't worry, T, I cover my tracks." Jason sets his mouth in firm lines.

Even so, his eyes are bright and dark and vivid, and Talia cannot help her smile. "You are doing splendidly." By now she speaks mostly because he's watching her lips move, the casual line of his shoulders a flattering lie; when she holds up her hand his gaze follows it. Still he stays by his desk, one eyebrow lifting in a familiar request for assurance.

The question is familiar because she has seen it on another handsome face, arched into another jet-black brow above another blue eye. Those eyes were cool and pale before they flashed over to blue fire; these are wide and long-lashed and as lovely as any woman's, the only gentleness in Jason's newly hardened face. Talia holds her hand aloft, tilting it slightly in invitation, and waits in the circle of lamplight.

Then Jason's whole face softens, almost that of the boy's she knew so long ago, and he takes the room in a swift stride. "Talia?" he asks, his wide callused hand enfolding hers like something fragile as he sets a knee on the bed.

Smiling she strokes his cheek and kisses him, sinking down beneath him swiftly enough for eagerness, slowly enough to draw him with her. He begins gently, hesitantly, his fingers skimming lightly across her skin; she softens her mouth against his, lets his hands set the placement of her arm and the pliancy of her spine, and as she leans into him his hold firms. He likes to be hard, to be reckless, and she nips him for incitement.

He growls low, and his lips part to bare his teeth; he bites her lips and her cheek, taking joy in the feel of her, and hearing her own moan she permits herself a little while to simply revel in him. Neither of them pays any heed to their clothes beyond their removal, and he groans her name as he buries his face in her flesh, kissing the bruises he laid on her before, biting new ones to make her sigh beneath him. His hands encircle her arms, larger than they were on her last visit, stronger as he pulls her in tightly and she twists her fingers in his curls. This is the man she saw Jason could be with the life rekindled behind his eyes, the chance she conceived of during his long mindless year; hungry and alive, his lips trace the halo of her nipple, and she laughs her triumph into a moan.

Talia pulls Jason up by his hair to kiss him again, tugging him over her till his broad body presses her to the bed. He is considerably roused now, as he should be, and if she wished this to be quick she could twist her legs round his thighs and urge him in. But they have all night, and Talia has her selfishnesses, and she does not want this to be quick. She pulls her mouth from his, down the column of his neck, sleeking her hands along his sides as he trembles. "Oh, fuck," he keens when she sinks her teeth into his pulse, and "yeah," when she tugs his knees forwards, bracing himself on one hand as she kisses her way beneath him.

With the other he catches up a handful of her hair, his fingertips skimming her scalp. Talia smiles against his shoulder and writhes down the bed as smoothly as she can, and his hand in her hair follows till he must release her. "Your mouth---" Jason is gasping above her, as she bites bruises into his skin. "God, Talia, your fucking gorgeous mouth---" His scars are gone, taken by the Pit; sometimes when telling her of a memory he's retrieved he points towards the matching scar, sees its absence, and frowns. "Bite me, mark me, yeah, fuck--" These will fade long before she is able to come to him again, but they are the least she can do.

"Talia, Talia, please---" Jason rarely asks, rarely begs. Talia looks up at him, his fist crumpling the sheets, his damp hair just draping his brow and his eyes wild. "Turn around?" He half-grins. "I can't just--- I have to do something for you."

The ache in her heart is nothing less sweet than pride. If he were older Talia could laugh her delight, but even if he had lived all the years of his growth he would be too young not to feel mocked. "Of course, Jason," she tells him, smiling, and does not say more as she shifts her head between the columns of his thighs. He responds better to fewer words, she has found.

Not least because he can then seek for more in his usual provoking way. "'Of course'?" he parrots, teasingly mimicking her tone. "Here I am, telling you I wanna go down on you, and all you can say is---!" The tip of her tongue, applied with force and direction to his slit, silences him on a gasp. Momentarily. "Oh, God." He pushes his cheek against her thigh, gasping. "Talia, Jesus, Talia!" Closing her lips around the head of him, she wraps her hands above his hips, his muscles shifting beneath her touch as she pushes against his thrust.

He stops, feeling her command. He pushes again, just once, and Talia thinks her smile; then he stills but for the tremors of his panting breaths, and nods against her thigh, so she strokes his sides and takes him in deeper. The warm living weight of him on her tongue, the scent of him and his groans as he presses his sharp-bridged nose against her thigh; she thinks on how all men are the same yet each so different from the other as she cups his eggs in her palm and slips her fingers behind them. "Fuck, he says fervently, the tremor propagating out to his hands on her thighs. "Fuck yes." She thinks of stopping to pull her head back and wet her fingers, but Jason is breathing heartfelt curses into her skin and something of his wildness is infectious. She wonders, as sometimes she does, if her onetime beloved found it so, and strokes her way into Jason's cleft to push a finger into him.

"Yes, fuck me, yes," Jason moans, bucking back so sharply she nearly loses him, and she remembers, as always she does, that fighting and living beside Jason the Detective caught his wildness and gloried in it. "Oh Jesus, yes." She squeezes his side to still him until he shudders to a stop; if he really wished to move she likely could not hold him, and the thought radiates heat through her. He is growing into as powerful a man as a parent could ever be proud of and a lover could ever desire, and she sucks harder and pushes harder and feels him in all his strength, barely leashed by her hold.

Still, he bears her hold, as he has since she restrained him in his mindlessness, since he obeyed when she warned him against returning to Gotham. And as ever, she rewards him. She moves for him, bobbing her head and stroking him from within, and he clutches her thighs and presses his hot open mouth to her skin as he moans loudly, unabashedly, taken by long shudders as he attains his release. She swallows, and breathes, and swallows, and licks him gently as she withdraws from him, laying her hands on the hard muscles of his thighs.

"Oh, fucking Christ, I..." Jason drags his lips up her thigh, sucking a little, and laughs dazedly. "I couldn't even catch up."

"It was your time," she says, stroking along the grain of his hair. "And my pleasure."

"No, that's now." She can hear his smirk as he pushes her thighs apart, even before he presses his mouth to the inner skin, only afterwards shifting to a kiss. She laughs, and breathes, and feels. Jason's broad hands cup the insides of her thighs and his tongue as as direct and pushy as when he speaks, and she braces against her grip on his thighs and grants herself her own turn. He hums, tuneless and buzzing into her tenderest flesh between brushes of his silk-rough lips and long curving drags of that strong tongue, opening her more nimbly than fingers.

"Mmm, yes," she breathes, and must catch herself before it's not English she sighs in as he traces the folds and curves of her with long tenderly raspy licks, as he makes her writhe with that maddening hum and sucking kisses. He rolls her with his lips's push and his tongue-tip, unerringly recalling the pattern she enjoys, that marshals her heartbeat and the pulsations up her spine and the sparking behind her eyelids into alignment. She hears uncomprehended words in the midst of her cry, but it is not till after the wave of pleasure has crested and subsided that she feels Jason's shake and recalls what she said. "yes, Jay, yes."

Briefly Talia wonders if she brought him another memory, before her thoughts are dragged back from wandering by his last long firm licks, until she reaches to tug at his shoulder. "Come here." Speaking now, her voice is thick, but she knows Jason prefers it to sweeter artifice. "Come up here."

Jason snickers triumphantly and sucks a final kiss behind her knee. "Yes ma'am!" When he kisses her this time there's a strange familiarity in the force of his tongue and the slide of his fingers over her ear. Strange until she recalls the family likeness, as her fingers sink into his hair, and she has to wrench his head back to remind herself of who she lies with. That she can break the kiss is an indication, even before Jason's broad grin. "Hey."

"Jason." He is so beautiful, intelligence alight behind his long-lashed eyes. Worth and more her defiance of her father.

"That's my name." Smirking, he ducks his head to kiss her again, and then it's just the dance of their bodies, instinctive as a fight. He quenches his face in her hair as he pulls her hips to his and enters her; clasping him within her, she winds her legs around his back and presses her fingernails in till he hisses, till she spurs him on to knock the breath from her. "God, Talia, my fucking God..." Talia swallows her own small screams to better hear him, running her hands up the surging muscles of his back, wreathing her arms round his neck as he groans a stream of happy curses and shakes her with his thrusts. She hears him mutter one of her own imprecations, and smiles against the thick muscle of his shoulder.

"C'mon, with me, yeah..." Jason's hands tighten on her hips, every finger a separate smudge of heat, and he shifts over her, tighter to her, the shift in angle pressing shudders through her. He groans, his lips against the crown of her head, and her eyes roll closed as she gasps; pleasure draws her up, curling her fingertips and arching her neck with tautening electricity, till it snaps and she sinks back down into Jason's embrace. In such moments, flushed and elated, she almost dreams of not releasing him at the last. There is belonging in possession, she thinks, clinging to him, and arches a wave into her back the way she knows will make him cry out her name.

Jason growls instead, deep and low, and she knows she cannot keep him, but she will loose him on the Detective and his city. All through the pulsing heat of him she can feel his mouth moving at her temple, the words broken on his breath, before he sinks down whimpering her name into her hair. He is heavy on her for a long moment; then he rolls them over, gasping underneath her as she leans on his chest. "Damn, T. You blow my mind."

Talia kisses his chin. "I am flattered." Jason laughs, sated and happy; his fingers settle along the lower curves of her back as Talia rests her head on his shoulder again. Now would be when she would ask the falsely innocent question or make the sweet-voiced suggestion, if she were here as her father's agent. She is not. This is hers, and she relishes it, for at least a little while.

Some drifting time later, Jason's breathing shifts slightly. "T?"

"Yes, Jason?" When she looks up this time, he props his head up with one hand, and his forelock catches her eye. It's growing in pale, gilded by the lamplight. She reaches up to it, and he catches her wrist with a frown. "Stop petting me like a---" He stops on a gasp; Talia does not often suffer such treatment, but the shock of realization on his face is more important than chastisement. "Oh God," he says, choked and laughing mirthlessly. "I nearly said---" He releases her wrist. "Sorry about that." Talia inclines her head in acknowledgement. "I just... "

"Yes, Jason?" she prompts again.

"When we met..." He shakes his head, unfocused gaze on his cohering memories. "I was a kid when we met. Hot shit, or at least I thought I was, but…"

Talia smiles, a sweep of her hand indicating the rumpled bed and the damp heap of them. "Would I go to bed with a child?"

Jason laughs, but the crease remains between his eyes. "No. No, I know, and lucky me. But I just..." He cups her face gently, and with all his mounting strength behind it. "I've been thinking about a lot these days. About Bruce, and about how you've never gotten in touch with him about me. It isn't for him, so... why are you helping me?"

Talia's smile grows with her pride. "For your sake is not sufficient?"

This smile is as hard as any weapon she could wish him, and his thumb still lightly presses her chin. "Pull the other one?"

Because we both love him, and he has gone on without either of us, Talia does not say. "Because he left you unavenged, and the world is the worse for it," she does say. Both are true. "As well as for your sake."

Jason's smile softens; she can make it do so, but each time it eases a little less. He strokes her cheekbone, and she leans forward to kiss him, but when she looks at him again Jason's mouth is set in a hard line. "He hasn't even bothered to figure out I'm alive. Got himself a replacement Robin and everything." The hard line twists to a frown, and Talia's heart beats in her as with wings. "Can I ask you a favor?"

She reaches up to his pale forelock again; he curls his lip but doesn't duck away, and cannot hold the frown when she twines her fingers in his hair. "You may always ask, Jason."

He smiles at that answer, lifting his eyebrows charmingly. "Well, with how good you are to me and all." His eyebrow-waggle makes her laugh a moment, and stroke his cheek. "But, yeah. I need info on this new kid. I'm gonna need to know where Bruce picked him up, what he's made of."

"And you shall have it." Talia sits up, drawing her fingertips down Jason's chest. "But for this moment, I have a gift for you."

"Wow, is it my birthday?" Jason grins, tucking both hands behind his head, and unabashedly watches as she climbs out of bed to retrieve her satchel. He says nothing when she draws out the sheath, but the deep breath is response enough; when she unsheathes the dagger its waves glint, and as she offers the hilt to him she watches its gleam reflect in his beautiful eyes.

Comments

[gloss]

Almost, but sharper, a long-neglected blade now honed.
Jason/knives OTP!

another handsome face, arched into another jet-black brow above another blue eye. Those eyes were cool and pale before they flashed over to blue fire; these are wide and long-lashed and as lovely as any woman's, the only gentleness in Jason's newly hardened face
GUH.

she laughs her triumph into a moan.
That? Says Talia in one perfect sound.

She wonders, as sometimes she does, if her onetime beloved found it so, and strokes her way into Jason's cleft to push a finger into him.
I am beginning to discern a theme in these fics. And I *like* it! :D

as powerful a man as a parent could ever be proud of and a lover could ever desire
So. Fucked. Up. *cheers*

his tongue os as direct and pushy as when he speaks
Yum. (Also, typo?)

Because we both love him, and he has gone on without either of us, Talia does not say.
I love this. I am aflail with the hotness and fierceness and the fact that they're both in love with Bruce.

[rubynye.livejournal.com]

Do you have the perfect icon for every situation, or what?

I am beginning to discern a theme in these fics. And I *like* it! :D

I think you're definetely discerning the common thread I have winding through this series of stories, and I'm really glad you like it.

(Also, thanks for catching the typo.)

[sharpest_rose.livejournal.com]

Wow.

This is amazing. Incredibly erotic, for one thing, and perfectly characterised. Painfully so, because you know every place in their hearts and lay them all bare. This is subtle and brilliant and wonderful, and the pairing deserves to become a fandom mainstay based on this story alone.

[rubynye.livejournal.com]

*hugs you gently* And I never would have written it, if not for you. So I wanted it to be worthy of my inspiration. :D

[kiltsandlollies.livejournal.com]

oh my god. there's too much to quote, but this is just gorgeous.

[kiltsandlollies.livejournal.com]

and much, much love for the Lovers in A Dangerous Time title. <333

[rubynye.livejournal.com]

Man, Ivy makes me want to lick her. And I feel like you should get a prize for catching the source of the title. *grin*

Thank you, very much, for both comments.

[lame-pegasus.livejournal.com]

Not my fandom... but oh my, is this good.

[rubynye.livejournal.com]

*blush* Thank you very much, my friend. *beams at you*

[aquila0212.livejournal.com]

Have to say, sweetie, that I didn't even know who these characters are and I really enjoyed reading this -- great job!

[rubynye.livejournal.com]

Wow, thank you! A lot!

[brownbetty]

Man, I was kind of sceptical of this pairing, I can admit now, because you have completely persuaded me. Talia is immortal; taking her lovers from one family probably doesn't even register as mildly odd to her.

This feels so natural it's like canon; of course this is how she rewarded him for his effots, of course he was at least half Bruce to her.

I have to say Mary is right. You hit them in every tender place.

[rubynye.livejournal.com]

Man, I was kind of sceptical of this pairing, I can admit now, because you have completely persuaded me.


*does dance of win*

Once Mary convinced me of it... I kinda ran with it. (Well, first I read a lot of recent Talia canon and banged my head on the wall till a coherent characterization fell out.) Thank you, a *lot*, for telling me this worked, because I was... a little nervous.

[petronelle.livejournal.com]

They're so incredibly tangled together. Every shadow on their wall has Batears in my head, and indubitably in their imaginations, it's the same. So beautiful.

She owns him just a little, but she's making him quite the weapon. I love it.

[rubynye.livejournal.com]

OhMiGod ICON.

And yes, all the shadows have little pointy ears. Thank you for telling me that came through. :)

[http://users.livejournal.com/__marcelo/]

This is beautiful. This is what happened, and how, and why, and while there is of course the ghost of Bruce in there, it's about *them*, not about him, something that most writers (*cough*canon*cough*) fail to achieve. You made them rea and sharp and beautiful.

[rubynye.livejournal.com]

it's about *them*, not about him

*beams at you* Yes, yes. Thank you for the entire comment (and for being your generally excellent self) but especially for this bit, because... yeah. Characters have to have their own agency, or they don't breathe, you know?

[mildredmilton.livejournal.com]

My god. A Talia whom I don't hate with the fire of the sun! And a Jason that makes sense! It can be done. It just takes, I don't know, talent and care. How about that.

This is like balm to my soul. Hot, sexy balm.

[rubynye.livejournal.com]

*blushes as red as Mr. Strawberry Lollipop's head* Thank you, very much. It took a little doing to get a coherent Talia out of what canon gave me; thank you for telling me I did well by her, and Jason.

[blythely.livejournal.com]

YAYE YOU POSTED IT!

:D :D

All squee remains the same. xxxx

[rubynye.livejournal.com]

*tacklehugs you*

Thank you *so* much for helping me make this worth reading. That is, literally, what you did.

*squeezes the Blythe*

[katarik.livejournal.com]

JAAAAASON. TALIA.

*pant pant pant*

This is *perfect* and also hot and yes yes yes this is them and how it works.

Also, how much do I love that Talia gave Jason the keris dagger? THIS MUCH. And that he totally almost said pet. I may have squeaked aloud.

Sometimes canon gets things perfectly right, and then I wince when fandom writes fic for it. Sometimes canon gets things entirely *wrong*, and then fandom fixes it. Sometimes canon gets things perfectly right, and fandom manages to make it EVEN BETTER.

This story is a story of the last type.

[rubynye.livejournal.com]

Oh, goodness. My cheeks are burning. Thank you.

*hugs you, hiding my blush in your shoulder*

[scribbleomania.livejournal.com]

(I came here from monkeycrackmary) Oh, oh wow. You characterized them so well that I feel as though I know more about them. It was painful and beautiful and lovely. I can't even verbalize it. :D

[rubynye.livejournal.com]

This is a really wonderful comment, and a really nifty accomplishment to be told I managed. Thank you very much for telling me this.

[sister-wolf.livejournal.com]

Wow. This is beautiful, and perfectly in Talia-voice, and *whoah* hot like burning things. Plus, this is *totally* what Winick was implying but couldn't get away with saying in a mainstream title, and it *works*.

Love your Jason, and the way that the triangulation of desire works in two different directions.

Because we both love him, and he has gone on without either of us

Yes-- that's it exactly.

[rubynye.livejournal.com]

That is *totally* Jason's smile in this. I'm really glad to have this icon in the comments. :D

And, thank you, a lot. I worked a bit on this story, and I'm really glad to hear that some of what I tried to say came through. *beams*

[chevauchee.livejournal.com]

I adore the Talia voice you invoked here. I love everything else about it, but most of all, I love the voice.

[rubynye.livejournal.com]

Icon of IRONY. *grin*

Thank you, a lot. It took a bit to get a coherent Talia out of what canon gave me, but in the end, it's really nifty to be told I managed to do so. :D

[vass]

I am very, very scared of both Jason and Talia.

[rubynye.livejournal.com]

Then I have done my job. :D

[danachan.livejournal.com]

That was beautiful. Like, it was kind of weird like that, and scary, but it was beautiful, and it's left me rather, oh, breathless.

*but I like it, so that's okay*

[rubynye.livejournal.com]

Beautiful and scary? That's what I was aiming at, for both the protagonists and the story. :)

*huggles you* Thank you, sweetie.

[dariclone.livejournal.com]

That was amazing. Jason/Talia just seems kind of like an ideal pairing to mean and you wrote it just right.

[rubynye.livejournal.com]

Just right? Woot! Thank you! :)

[red-eft.livejournal.com]

I've been wanting Jason/Talia ever since Mary suggested the possibility, and this is just so, so right. I just- I ache for *both* of them, and while it's really not difficult to make me feel for Jason, you've also managed to make me really feel for Talia as well.

(As an aside, I think you have a minor typo in the first paragraph: she much catch the headboard, though I didn't notice it until the second readthrough. Also, I really like the opening paragraph.)

I really love her descriptions of Jason- I can't really pick out one quote that epitomizes it, but I like seeing him through her eyes. I like the way you handled her vocabulary- a lot of times in the comics her dialog comes across as a little silly, but you've managed to get the essence of it without it seeming like parody. I also like the sharp contrast of Jason's much more casual dialog.

He is growing into as powerful a man as a parent could ever be proud of and a lover could ever desire.

Aha. Oh, Talia. Oh dear. No wonder Jason's attracted to her.

Now would be when she would ask the falsely innocent question or make the sweet-voiced suggestion, if she were here as her father's agent. She is not. This is hers, and she relishes it, for at least a little while.

This hit me rather unexpectedly, because I didn't really have any investment in Talia except in her relation to Jay before. But this makes me want to root for her for her own sake.

[rubynye.livejournal.com]

I've been wanting Jason/Talia ever since Mary suggested the possibility, and this is just so, so right.

*waves my wee fists over my head*

Thank you, *so* much. I worked kind of hard on Talia here, pulling together a coherent characterization out of what canon gave (or, mostly, didn't, but Blythe gave me scans of Talia chewing Bruce out for being depressive after the Earthquake that were just the thing) so I'm really glad it worked.

And that whole concept of being your parent's tool and then emerging into your own... well, I can write it with characters as disparate as Dick and Talia, which just makes everything more fun. :)

[nokomis305.livejournal.com]

Oh, oh, oh oh, this was amazing. Gorgeously, gloriously hot.

Jason and Talia, both completely themselves. and all the sticky Bruce-ness between them present. I loved that Talia saw the family connection between them. I also loved how Talia was in this for her own reasons, that she appreciated Jason for her own reasons, that he was in it for his own reasons.

I'm mostly reduced to making happy, incoherent sounds, because this was everything I could want from a Jason/Talia fic. Hot and sticky and colored but not overpowered by Bruce between them and just gorgeous. ♥

[rubynye.livejournal.com]

This was *so* not incoherent, and it was really, really heartening. Thank you for reading this story, and writing me so cogently about it.

[jbadgr.livejournal.com]

This piece is insanely sexy and beautiful. The incredible effing pairing aside, I just cannot coherently express my complete adoration for your story. It was just... delicious <3333

I wish I had read it sooner because I was completely oblivious to this pairing. Thank you so much for sharing it :D

[rubynye.livejournal.com]

Oh, what a compliment! I am blushing and delighted. Thank you, very much. :)