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“Y’know, I just had the strangest fucking idea man…”
At this point, Jason really can’t say his body feels like a body anymore, so he agrees to whatever Vaas’ sick mind had conjured up this time.
Vaas laughs, because he’s always fucking laughing, and he smiles at him, holding his face in some twisted mimicking of how a lover would. He is not Vaas’. Vaas is definitely not his. He’s concerned about how this bewilders him a lot more than the actual idea.
His eye socket. His eye socket.
Sounded like a plan.
If this hurt, he was going to break Vaas’ neck. Repeatedly.
***
Vaas gives him something. Injects it into him, specifically. Despite the violence of the action, Jason can’t bring himself to think of his action as “stabbing”. Vaas has stabbed him before. Many times. This was not a stabbing. Vaas is pressing kisses into his neck as he feels the numbness overtake his body.
His head is buzzing.
“This should hurt like a motherfucker, but you’re not gonna feel a thing. I don’t want you to disappear on me before the fun starts.”
Jason would have taken the moment to reflect on the fact that he really has no idea what actually happens when he “dies”, but Vaas is kissing him. Vaas is kissing him and Vaas is grabbing a knife.
He really hopes that thing is clean.
It doesn’t really matter, though.
He can see it approaching him, and the last thing he sees is a flash of red before the buzzing consumes him completely, and then he can’t see anything.
It’s only noise now.
***
When the noise stops, Jason feels a second of peace before a new noise overtakes him.
He can’t find the word. It sounds like blood. It really just sounds like blood.
There’s no pain, or at least he can’t recognise what’s pain in the moment. All he feels is pressure. Pressure so intense that it almost makes a sound of its own. A continuous throbbing, pressing against his eye so hard he feels like it’s going to fall out.
His eye.
His face is warm. His face is so fucking warm. It’s liquid. It feels like liquid. He knows it’s liquid.
It smells like blood.
It is blood. It is his blood.
He tries to see it with the eye he still has, but everything around him is blurry and he swears that he is seeing what he is hearing. He is not seeing blood, he is seeing the sound of blood. He is seeing that relentless buzzing. He is seeing the hitched breaths coming from above him.
Vaas.
“Vaas.”
He can feel his panic settling in. He can feel himself hyperventilate. He can feel his heart. It should not be that fast. His heart should not be that fast. How is he not dead? He has to be dying. He is dying. He is dying. He is dying.
He is screaming.
“ Vaas I- ”
He is pleading.
“ Vaas I can’t-I’m dying I can’t-Vaas please-Vaas Vaas Vaas- ”
He stops hearing the blood. He starts feeling hands on his face. Hands that are performing a fake comfort. Because everything is fake with him. Vaas is holding him as if he loves him.
Vaas does not love him.
He’s kneeled to Jason’s level now, and he’s saying things in that voice that he knows damn well gets Jason to do whatever he wants. It’s soft, as if he cares.
Vaas cannot care about him.
“Hey, hey. Jason, I want you to try and look at me, ok?”
Jason tilts his head up and he swears he can feel his own blood seep into his mouth.
“That’s good sweetheart, you’re doing so good. Now I want you to take a deep breath, can you do that for me?”
His head falls back down. He hacks out some odd imitations of a breath before he actually can.
Vaas tilts his head back up and looks at him as if he’s concerned for him.
Vaas cannot be concerned for him.
Vaas cannot love him.
“You’re going to be ok, alright Jason? I’ve got you. It’s gonna be fine. You’re gonna be fine.”
He wipes a tear away from Jason’s remaining eye. Jason leans into the touch as if he loves it.
He cannot love Vaas.
Vaas gives him a moment. He asks him if he can keep going. Jason nods profusely.
His body is not a body. He cannot die.
The buzzing and blurriness overtake him once again and he cannot tell when the pressure starts again. He can’t recognise when he starts hearing his blood again.
His entire being starts to collapse into that familiar nothingness just as he hears Vaas groan his name through clenched teeth.
Vaas cannot love him.
Vaas can only love that he cannot die.
***
He doesn’t phase out of the buzzing this time. This time, he wakes up. This time, he can actually feel.
Vaas is behind him, his chest is against Jason’s back, and his arm is wrapped around Jason’s waist. They are in Vaas’ bed. Vaas’ bed that has become Jason’s bed.
Jason takes a hand to reach for what he can last remember was nothing but a pool of blood.
He can feel his cheek. There is no blood. His blood is not there. He blinks, and he can actually see.
It’s back.
His eye is back as if nothing ever happened.
His eye is back like nothing happened, just like his nails, and his bones, and his teeth, and his hands, and-
Counting his lost parts is akin to counting sheep, and he drifts back into sleep.
***
“Is something on your mind, Jason?”
They’ve finished eating whatever accumulation of stuff Vaas considers to be breakfast, and Jason is staring at his hands. He blinks. He blinks again, and again, and again.
No matter how many times he does, his vision stays the same. There is no blur. There is no empty space. There is no blood. He cannot see his blood.
“Was that…normal? Was that supposed to be normal?”
Vaas turns his head, looks at him as if he’s listening. Vaas cannot listen to him.
“Yesterday. What happened yesterday, was that supposed to be normal?”
Vaas laughs, because he’s always fucking laughing, and he smiles at him.
“Oh, of course that was normal. Quite literally fucking your brains out was a completely normal situation, why would you ask me that?”
Jason does some sort of exhale in reaction. He cannot find the word for it.
“No. No, I mean, were we trying to be normal there? Why did you ask me? Why didn’t you let me feel it? Why did you stop when I told you to? ”
Vaas frowns, as if he’s concerned. He holds Jason’s face in his hands, like he always does when he’s pretending to be concerned. He’s pretending. Jason knows damn well that Vaas cannot feel for him.
Vaas is looking at him, and he cannot bring himself to look back. His eyelids are shut, and it appears that they plan to stay that way.
“Every time this happens, every single fucking time, you keep pretending you care. You keep pretending that you care, you keep pretending that I matter here, you keep pretending that you actually like me! What are you getting out of that? Why do you keep doing it? ”
Vaas breathes like he’s going to scream, but he just tells Jason to look at him. He hates how that’s the thing that finally gets his eyes to open.
“Because I do like you, Jason.”
He doesn’t know how, but Vaas is making himself look like he’s telling the truth. Jason forces himself to turn his head before he actually starts believing it.
“You can’t like me. You can’t like anything. You hate me. You hate me. You do not like me and you cannot like me.”
Jason’s breath begins to stutter, as if he’s feeling anything. He cannot feel.
“Jason, look at me.”
He can’t.
“Look at me, please.”
He can’t.
“Please.”
He can’t, but he does anyway.
“I like you, Jason. I like you because I hate you, but I like you.”
Jason knows that he’s lying. There’s no way he isn’t.
Despite this, when Vaas pulls his head down to kiss him, he accepts it like he’s telling the truth.
He hates how he pulls Vaas closer, as if this is normal.
He hates this. He hates him.
He hates him because he likes him.