Surrender [Wayleska]

Three

Summers in Gotham were hot, sticky. The cicadas buzzed incessantly, and Alfred had never provided a reasonable explanation for their existence every time a young, inquisitive Bruce had asked why, despite the fact that cicadas only awoke once every seventeen years, they had seemed to pervade every summer memory like the background score of a low-budget film.

It was an aspect of residing on the outskirts of the city that inner-city Gothamites never understood, never experienced.

Once, when Bruce was becoming acquainted with Jeremiah, he had pulled up to the bunker, parked his car, and climbed out to approach the door. He had stopped at the sound of the cicadas in the trees.

Jeremiah had met him outside, noticing his pause from the security camera pointed in his direction. Bruce had pulled his gaze away from the towering trees above them in order to look at Jeremiah, whose hair was slightly ruffled and his glasses askew, an indication that he had been hard at work.

"Do you ever wonder why we hear cicadas every year, even when they supposedly only surface once every seventeen years?" Bruce had asked, the childhood question returning with adult whimsy.

"There are multiple broods of cicada, actually," Jeremiah had replied. "It's true that some emerge once every seventeen years, but others emerge every thirteen, and some broods surface every year."

Bruce had hummed, turning his attention back to the steady noise radiating from the trees, but he hadn't been able to contain the smile that crept along his face.

The buzz of the cicadas faded into the steady rumble of the hotel air conditioner as Jeremiah laid Bruce down on the master bed. It was plush under his weight as Jeremiah's pale form crawled to him, his erection swinging gently between his legs. Despite the green hair, the undead look in his eyes, and the manner in which he pulled Bruce confidently into a deep, needy kiss, Bruce felt as though this was the closest he had been to the old Jeremiah.

The one who could answer his childish inquisitions without hesitation. The one who would rather pass out against his desk than give up on a solution. The one who should be the person to lay Bruce down like this, run his hands up his body and feel the heat radiating from his skin.

Bruce pushed himself up on his elbows in order to wrap on arm around Jeremiah's neck and pull him closer, pull him into the bed, into the softness and nothingness of being together, of endlessly merging by lips, tangling arms, pulling closer, closer, mindlessly feeling each other, allowing touch to guide them.

Jeremiah dragged his mouth from Bruce's lips to his jaw, pressing chaste kisses down the length of it until he met the tender skin of his slim neck. There his kisses became open-mouthed, pulling flesh between his teeth gently as Bruce whimpered, his cheeks burning from vulnerability.

He loved Selina, but vulnerability had always been a weakness in her eyes. Her pride, her exaggerated sense of confidence had alienated him from her. He would always play a role around her, fill a need, be a caricature of himself.

Jeremiah, manipulative, murderous, maniacal Jeremiah had nothing to hide, no secrets to keep, no part to play; he was simply himself, and the markings he left down Bruce's throat were evidence of his natural confidence, the addictive was in which he needed never convince but claim, never demand but instruct, never dictate, merely delegate. He was dangerous, but he held Bruce like he was fragile, porcelain, glass, butterfly wings and dandelion seeds, priceless, precious. His lips descended further to Bruce's nipples and he licked them gently, languidly with a flat tongue, his pale eyes watching patiently as Bruce fell apart at the sensation.

"Please, Jeremiah," reaching his other hand, the only one that held his balance, to card it through the short hair at the back of Jeremiah's head, gripping for dear life, pulling Jeremiah down with him as he collapsed under the sensation of tongue circling, circling, circling his areola, trailing across his delicate chest to the other nipple, repeating the action.