Fictober 2023

Prompts 1 & 15

Normally, when Jason came shimmying through the skylight of Roy's den, there wasn't a palpable cloud of anger swirling around him like a hurricane. Normally he greeted Roy with a flash of silver-green ear fins and a smile that made the Tigerfish melt a little, instead of a scrunched look that spoke of barely contained misery. What Jason did do the same, however, was bowl straight into Roy the instant his long tail was free, wrapping around him like an eel with a muffled sound.

"Jace? What happened?" He asked softly, thumbing at the nape of Jason's neck.

"I can't do this anymore." He mumbled into Roy's shoulder, claws flexing carefully at Roy's back, scraping but never puncturing. "I just- I can't!" He pulled back, bringing the two face-to-face, and Roy felt the full force of the pain in his eyes.

"Roy, I can't stay here anymore."

"It's Bruce again, isn't it?"

"When is it not?" Jason scoffed bitterly, going easy when Roy hooked his chin over the barracuda's head. "I thought things would be different. But he never changes. Not for me, anyways."

"My offer's still open, Jay, and Dinah-"

"No, you don't get it!" Jason snapped, cutting Roy off and breaking from his loose hold before remembering himself and shrinking guiltily. "I'm...I'm sorry, Red, I didn't mean to-"

"No, actually, I do get it." Roy interrupted lightly, though his eyes were hard and narrowed now. "But if you want to say I don't, fine. Explain it to me."

Jason swallowed hard, back fins fluttering as he hid his eyes from Roy's glare behind the black of his hair.

"Even if I stayed with you, it wouldn't be different than staying with him. If I came here, I'd still be around them too often to know any kind of peace."

"So you're leaving. Again." Roy wasn't asking, and Jason sighed as he nodded.

"Only difference is that this time, I have a say in the matter."

"Then I'm guessing you just came to say goodbye." Jason's face shifted at that, circling from confusion to panic to pain and back in the space of a tail swipe, and he reached for Roy again.

"Roy, no, I want you to come with." There was a pleading in his voice that yanked on Roy's heart, and his mouth thinned. "It's not too late to leave, so let's go. I-I can't do this without you."

"You know I can't just leave, not anymore." Roy fought to keep his voice level, teeth gritting as Jason pulled him in.

"I know you came back here for Lian, because of my stupid muck-ups, and I know you hate it here as much as I do." Roy opened his mouth, but found he couldn't deny a word the barracuda said, and leaned into Jason's touch instead.

"If these territories eat us alive from the inside, what's going to be left of us? Of Lian? It's not too late to leave, Red, so let's just...go."

"Go where?"

"Roy-" Jason pulled the other Mer close, until they drifted nose-to-nose in the still dim of Roy's cave. "-I'd go anywhere if it meant going with you."