captainpoppins (captainpoppins) wrote in valarlogs, @ 2019-11-26 00:06:00 |
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Entry tags: | jessica jones, yondu udonta |
Who: Yondu and Jessica Jones
When: November 13
Where: Jessica's apartment
What: Yondu's blindsided by a one night stand
Rating/Warning: PG-13 for references to sex
Status: Complete
It was easy enough to numb any feelings of guilt so long as you drank enough, and that was a practice that Jessica had grown very good at over the last decade plus. Which is why, whatever guilt she felt at bringing home the random man at the bar who’d made a clumsy pass at her was something she was able to easily suppress.
It was less easy to ignore when she woke up the next morning with him lying beside her, drooling on her pillow, with an arm draped across her stomach. It wasn’t as though she and Yondu had anything serious going on - they were both just in it for the convenience of having an easy booty call whenever they wanted - but there was still a quick stab in her stomach when she realized the man next to her wasn’t Yondu. She quickly threw on a bra and a pair of jeans and beelined for her kitchen cabinet, drank a few gulps of whiskey straight from the bottle, and then made herself back to the bedroom.
The man was a little confused, which Jessica couldn’t wholly blame him for, at his rough awakening, and even more confused when told him to put on his pants and didn’t even give him time to finish putting on his shirt before she was leading him to her door.
She swung open the door, hand on his back to help propel him out of it, and then started when she saw Yondu on the other side of the door. She’d completely forgotten (or had she? It would be just like her to do this on purpose in some way, shape, or form) that they had made plans to meet up in the afternoon, and for a moment she wondered why he was there so early. She glanced, involuntarily, at the clock on her living room wall, and realized that it was all ready after noon.
“I wasn’t expecting you already,” she said lamely, as the other guy seemed to realize that this was a situation he didn’t want to get caught up in and he attempted to maneuver around Yondu to make it down the hall.
It wasn't like he should have been surprised or hurt by this. He and Jessica hadn't even gone on a single date. They drank together. They slept together. They snarked about people together. That was pretty much the routine.
But he was hurt. And pissed off as hell. His features screwed into a scowl that was menacing in human form; had he been in his true alien form this one night stand currently trying to squeeze by him would have probably peed himself.
"The hell is this?" He demanded, glowering at the man who took one look over his shoulder before full on sprinting down the hall. Yondu noticed Jessica's state of half dress. He felt a little sick in his stomach - he could smell the guy on her. “So is that how it is, huh?”
This was probably for the best, Jessica tried to tell herself. After all, where was this really going anyway? Yeah, she had fun with Yondu, but neither one of them were the type to do the exclusive thing, and honestly, she was a little surprised that Yondu had stuck around for as long as he had anyway. Cutting the strings probably would be for the best; it definitely would be better off for him.
She couldn’t meet his eyes, deciding instead to look into her apartment. “What did you think it was?” Jessica asked, trying to keep the uncertainty out of her voice. She hadn’t quite succeeded, and she bit her lip. “We never said we couldn’t sleep with other people.”
Yondu opened his mouth and pointed a finger as if to argue the point - but nothing came out. She was right. He closed his hand and dropped it to his side, looking away from her in frustration. His jaw worked back and forth as he tried to find something to say; he was getting flashbacks of how Neena had dumped him after they’d slept together for the first time. That had ended in an epic shouting match and he hadn’t spoken to her for weeks after that. He still mostly steered clear of her except for the occasional Net conversation.
But he didn’t want to do that with Jessica. This somehow felt different. What was it that Peter called it in the dreams, that thing between two people? ‘The unspoken thing’, yeah. The kid has used it as a line, a line one of Yondu’s men had taught him. That was the electricity he felt with Jessica, that unspoken thing. And he didn’t want to lose that just because they hadn’t exactly decided whether to be exclusive or not.
He looked over at her, trying (and failing) to hide the wounded expression in his eyes. “Well...maybe that’s somethin’ we shoulda talked about. Cuz I sure as hell haven’t been with nobody else. And I coulda. ‘Specially workin’ at Lux.” He’d more than once caught one of Lucifer’s exotic dancers giving him the appreciative once over from across the room. Same with some of the rich clientele that sauntered through the doors to spend the evening in expensive debauchery - rich women with husbands that were always gone on some trip or another.
Jessica… well, she had expected Yondu to take off. She couldn’t decide if she was happy that he hadn’t or not. It would have made things a lot easier if he had just ended things right then and there and turned away. She looked over Yondu’s shoulder, down the hall. Her date from the night before had already disappeared into the elevator, but she wouldn’t be surprised if her neighbours had their ears to the door. They could be on the nosy side.
She stepped back into her apartment, making her way to the desk where she did most of her work, a silent invitation for Yondu to follow her inside.
Yondu slowly stepped inside Jessica's apartment, closing the door behind them. He realized for the first time he hadn't really taken in the details - or lack thereof - of the place. One kind of didn't need to when they were busy having sex, which was what they'd done everytime he'd been over. He had expected her to counter his claim of being found attractive by others with a dose of sarcasm, but the silence between them stretched on, all the while his gaze awkwardly kept wandering the apartment as Jessica hovered by her desk.
"Well?" He finally said, hands on hips.
“Well, I never said you couldn’t sleep with strippers, so don’t try blaming that on me,” Jessica said, pulling open her desk drawer so that she could pour herself a glass of the whiskey there. After a moment’s hesitation, she grabbed a second glass from the bookcase off to the side of her desk, and poured Yondu a drink too.
Yondu reluctantly took the whiskey glass and looked at the amber liquid before his eyes - currently blue with the hologram in place - flickered back up to her. "Was he any good?" And he downed the whiskey in a single swallow.
Jessica chewed her lower lip, and then refilled Yondu’s glass. Why was she always doing things like this? It really was better if people didn’t get involved with her. All she ever did was hurt them like she’d hurt Yondu.
She had been pretty drunk the night before, but she did remember that there hadn’t been anything especially mind-blowing about the guy. She couldn’t even remember his name now. “I’ve had better,” she said, shooting Yondu something that was almost a crooked smile.
A raised eyebrow, a hint of a smirk behind the glass before he drawled, “Hell yeah you have.” Him. Obviously. He sipped the whiskey slower this time, letting it burn a little before swallowing. He was still annoyed with Jess but didn’t really know how to articulate it.
So he just kept drinking. Which was getting a bit awkward because really he should have just hollered at her about all this then stormed off. But now he was here. Inside her apartment. Drinking her whiskey.
Jessica didn’t mean to smile, but the corner of her lip twitched nonetheless, and she mentally cursed herself. Really, Yondu really would be better off without her, and she should have been doing more to convince him to cut her loose and go about his own business. This wasn’t as bad as what she was doing with Luke in her dreams, but it was still shitty of her to let Yondu keep thinking she was worth it.
“No one would blame you if you decided to leave, you know,” Jessica said after a moment, though, to her chagrin, there was less conviction in her voice than she would have liked.
Yondu's brow furrowed a bit. He turned his head just a fraction and peered at her. "You pour me a whiskey and you're givin' me an out? Talk about mixed messages." He had to admit it was getting difficult to maintain a decent level of anger when she was looking pretty hot sporting just a bra and jeans. Which, considering how she'd ended up dressed as such, just circled back to the image of the loser he'd watched scurry past him moments earlier.
Yondu sighed, taking a few steps closer to her and setting the glass down on the desk.
"Darlin', I like you. I really do. An' I mean that besides the fact you're the hottest, most badass woman I know who's also amazin' at doin' the horizontal tango." He reached out carefully with a hand and threaded his fingers through her dark hair. "There's somethin' between us. I know you feel it too. Maybe we oughta see where this goes, hm? Without the late night losers on the side."
Jessica swallowed, looking up at Yondu, and worried her lip between her teeth. Her heart ached in her chest a little. She hadn’t felt like this about anyone, not since Sterling. And… she probably shouldn’t have been thinking about Sterling. She had gotten him killed. Just like her family. And maybe she wouldn’t kill Luke in her dreams, but she was going to hurt him. She ruined every thing she touched.
She knocked back the rest of her whiskey and pulled away out of his grasp. “Maybe we shouldn’t,” Jessica said, and then, her voice a little more steady, added “I think you should go.”
Yondu's affectionate expression vanished, replaced with a sullen one, a wounded look in his eyes. He knew Jessica was shutting him out, though for the life of him he couldn't figure out why. But it was a feeling he knew all too well; he'd both been the recipient and the individual doling it out on various occasions in real life and in the dreams.
"All right, then." He drawled quietly, withdrawing and heading for the door. He paused as he pulled it open, looking over at Jessica. "I'm gonna tell you somethin' I told Rocket in the Dreams: you can act like you're the biggest and meanest one of all, when you really are the one the most scared. An' pushin' people away is what you do cuz just a little bit a'love reminds you of how big that hole in your heart is." He looked away a moment before his gaze landed on Jessica again. "Don't make the mistakes I did, Jess. It ain't worth it, trust me. You need folks in your life that give a damn about you." And with that, he stepped out into the hallway, closing the door behind him.