Chapter Text
“Here’s one: I am greater than God, more evil than the Devil, rich people need me and poor people have me, eat me and you’ll die. What am I?”
Jonathan didn’t respond right away, not for lack of an answer but lack of interest. It had been days of this, having this little weasel of a man in his shadow wherever he went, babbling his riddles and codes and the meaningless trivia he concerned himself with. Jonathan’s patience for such things was limited, and he was a bit impressed at his own endurance of the man’s antics. Perhaps the excruciating boredom of the asylum was enough to soften his disdain for chatter. That being said, he was sick of answering riddles. Particularly those with obvious answers. He plucked a cigarette from behind his ear, tapping it on the back of his palm before fitting the filter into his mouth.
“Give up?” Edward asked when met with silence. “I could give you a hint, if you’re stuck.”
“I’m not stuck.”
“Then answer.” His face was soft, deceptively placid in combination with the quiet intensity in his tone.
Jonathan almost wanted to smirk at how easy it was to annoy the other man. Bothering someone so tightly wound was of far greater interest to Jonathan than any riddle Edward could come up with. “Light?” he asked instead of giving Edward what he wanted.
The smaller man’s eyes narrowed behind his thick glasses, but his hand moved to retrieve something from his pocket all the same. He produced a battery and a silver gum wrapper, touching the wrapper to both ends of the battery. Within moments a small flame sparked to life along the wrapper. He offered it to Jonathan, who lowered his head to light his cigarette with the contraption.
“Much obliged,” Jonathan said, taking in a mouthful of smoke. The sting in the back of his throat was comforting, and he found himself oddly reassured by the sight of smoke streaming from his lips.
“Now answer my riddle,” Edward demanded. “And let me have a sip.”
Jonathan sighed, passing the cigarette over to Edward. “Your manners are atrocious.”
“And yours aren’t?” He snatched the cigarette from between Jonathan’s fingers, cheeks pulling in as he took a hard drag. “Can’t even answer a damn riddle when asked.”
“You are entirely too fixated on riddles.”
“You are in no position to speak to me about fixations. I heard you got dropped here high out of your mind on a drug of your own creation.” Edward thrust the cigarette back towards Jonathan, exhaling smoke in his face.
“And I heard,” Jonathan began, expressing no noticeable reaction to the accusation or the gesture, “you were sobbing and screaming and carrying on every night for a week when they brought you in.” He reclaimed the cigarette. “I know which one I think is more pathetic.”
“Fuck you.”
“Yeah, I bet you’d love to.” The words escaped his mouth before he could fully process what he was saying. Jonathan tried to keep from cringing at himself, not wanting to betray the fact that he knew how the retort sounded. He had honestly been going for an insult in the spirit of amicable banter, but it came out much more flirtatious than he had intended.
Quickly replacing the cigarette in his mouth, he stole a furtive glance at Edward from the corner of his eye. Jonathan was surprised to see that his round face had turned a deep tomato red; he looked like he might bust a blood vessel. He had also gone conspicuously silent, staring straight ahead at the link fence marking the perimeter of the outdoor recreation area. His fingers worried the hem of his uniform shirt, pulling one of the frayed threads loose.
“It’s nothing,” Jonathan offered awkwardly, breaking the silence.
“Hm? What? What are you talking about?”
“The answer to your stupid riddle.”
Edward’s expression shifted from being embarrassed to annoyed again. “They’re not stupid.”
“Maybe not, but they’re bothersome. If I wanted to take a quiz I’d go back to school.”
This time he seemed a little offended. “My riddles are nothing like a quiz in school.”
“They’re comparable in the sense that I don’t like either of them.”
Edward rolled his eyes, slumping back against the wall behind them. “No one ever does,” he muttered. “You all think you’re too good to play the game.”
“I don’t think that,” Jonathan replied honestly. “But riddles aren’t the game I play.”
There was a moment of silence between them again, and Jonathan used it to finish off the rest of the cigarette before flicking the butt into the dirt.
After a while Edward stood up abruptly, brushing dust off the seat of his pants. “I’ve got to go,” he said in a tone Jonathan couldn’t quite read. Edward didn’t give him any time to respond before scurrying back inside and out of sight.
______
On Thursday’s, instead of his usual therapy, Jonathan had a substance use disorder treatment group that he was forced to go to. The whole thing was pointless; frankly, it was even a step below your average narcotics anonymous group due to the fact that it was not anonymous and there was no free coffee. More than anything, the group just gave him more ideas of substances to mix with his toxin when he inevitably got out of here. And it was inevitable—the asylum had more turnover than a fast food restaurant, patients and staff included. It was only a matter of time before his opening arrived.
He was just rising from the uncomfortable folding chair when he saw Edward making a beeline towards him from across the room. He, too, was relegated to the substance abuse group, though Jonathan wasn’t quite sure what his substance of choice was. He supposed he could envision the smaller man hopped up on amphetamines, putting together some sort of complex puzzle in the dead of night. He heaved a sigh as Edward made his approach, preparing to be bombarded with questions and criticisms.
“I need to talk to you,” Edward said seriously, positioning himself in front of Jonathan. He seemed rather tense, fists balled at his sides. He looked like a kid trying to pick a fight on the playground.
Jonathan stared unflinchingly at the other man. “So talk.”
“Privately,” he added. “I assume you know where people can find a bit of privacy around here?”
Jonathan did know where to find a bit of privacy. He had located several spots that were at least infrequently traveled, if not secret. After all, the constant observation facilitated by the Arkham panopticon and all the orderlies floating around was maddening even for someone far less misanthropic than he. What he didn’t know was whether or not he actually wanted to speak privately with Edward.
“Am I allowed to inquire about the nature of this private talk?”
“No, you’re not.”
“Alright,” he replied flatly, resigned to whatever inanity was about to ensue. He jerked his head toward one end of the hall, indicating for Edward to follow. Jonathan started off at a casual pace and Edward fell into step beside him. Neither man spoke as they walked, and Jonathan felt a strange sense of anticipation hanging in the air.
At the end of the hall there was a door. Jonathan’s hand settled on the handle, pulling it open to reveal a supply closet. This one was not often visited, holding several cardboard boxes of party decorations and other holiday paraphernalia that rarely made an appearance at the Asylum. As the cells filled up and the staff quit or got killed, no one really had enough bandwidth to bother putting up paper hearts for Valentine’s Day.
The door swung closed behind Edward and the two men were alone in the dark together. Even as his eyes adjusted to the dim lighting, Jonathan could only make out the faint outlines of Edward’s silhouette, his features.
“So,” Jonathan said, voice low. “What did you want to talk to me ab—”
He was cut off by something soft and warm knocking clumsily into the corner of his mouth. Edward muttered a swear and his breath ghosted across Jonathan’s cheek. “Let me try again,” he mumbled, hands moving to hold Jonathan’s head still.
“What are you doing?”
“Just—I didn’t do it right, let me try again.”
Before Jonathan could protest the warm, soft thing was back, pressed firmly against his lips. It was now more recognizable as a kiss, awkward though it may be. Jonathan had not been expecting to get kissed. Did that make him naïve? Should he have known that this was what Edward meant when he said he wanted to talk?
“Are you going to say anything?”
Jonathan didn’t even notice that Edward had stopped kissing him. His eyes strained as he tried to make out the other man’s expression in the dark, but all he could see were the frames of his oversized glasses. “Why did you do that?”
“Adults kiss each other,” he said, sounding a bit miffed. “It’s normal.”
“That’s a terrible answer.”
“Why is it a terrible answer? I’m just saying, it’s normal that I kissed you. Normal people kiss each other.”
“If it’s so normal why are you acting weird?”
Jonathan felt Edward shove him hard in the chest. “You’re a bastard. I was just trying to—I thought you would like it. Clearly that was incorrect, so I will incorporate that information for our next encounter and—”
“Calm down,” Jonathan interrupted, vaguely amused by how worked up he was getting. Jonathan was almost never the object of someone’s affections and under any other circumstance being confronted with such a thing would make him feel horribly inadequate and incompetent. But Edward took himself so seriously it was genuinely comical at times, and something about that put Jonathan at ease. “I just wasn’t expecting you to do that and I… wanted to understand your motivations.”
“Now who’s being weird?” Edward grumbled. “Can’t you imagine the usual reasons someone might want to kiss another person?”
“I can, but that doesn’t tell me why you… It doesn’t tell me anything about you.”
He scoffed quietly and Jonathan could see his silhouette shrinking back toward the wall. “I can fill a room, or just one heart. Others may have me, but I cannot be shared. What am I?”
Jonathan hoped Edward couldn’t see him rolling his eyes in the dark. “Must you always speak in riddles?”
“You can act like you hate it all you want but I know that you like puzzles and questions and figuring things out as much as I do.”
His jaw tensed. Those things were true, and he never liked being presented with observations of his own behavior. “That doesn’t mean I like riddles specifically.”
“Do you know the answer or not?” Edward pressed.
“Of course I do,” Jonathan snapped. “You think you’re the only person in here who feels lonely? Open your eyes. Everyone here has done at least a week of solitary confinement at the beginning of their sentence—and those are just the lucky ones. The rest of us just get left to rot.” He could hear himself raising his voice and he struggled to control his temper. “You have no idea what it even means to be alone,” he muttered.
“You clearly don’t know anything about me,” Edward replied tersely. “And with that attitude you’re never going to.”
“Well then tell me what you think I should know,” Jonathan retorted.
“You should know that I’m lonely!” he blurted. “I am extremely, desperately lonely and I thought you seemed like you could be lonely too and that maybe we could make each other a little less… lonely.” He trailed off, clicking his teeth disapprovingly. “I hate repeating the same word in a sentence like that,” he mumbled, more to himself than to Jonathan.
Jonathan felt his stomach drop at the accusation that he might be lonely as well. Loneliness was not something he really had the luxury to feel; he chose his solitude more often than not, even reveled in it at times. How could he justify loneliness if he liked being alone? But then, he couldn’t deny that there was a small, very human part of him buried deep below the surface that had always craved the kinship he observed between other people.
“It was presumptuous of me,” Edward murmured. “Perhaps I got a bit overexcited by… We’re just so similar, don’t you think? It was exciting, to feel close to someone like that. A little intoxicating, in a way. But I’ve always known I have an addictive personality, and people really aren’t that much different than nicotine when it comes to—”
“Edward, stop talking,” Jonathan interrupted. He closed the small amount of distance between them, making no move to touch the other man. “Can you do that for me?”
Edward’s mouth hung open for a moment before he cleared his throat and nodded, mercifully silent.
“Excellent.” Jonathan felt dizzy, almost high off the wave of confidence washing over him. It wasn’t that he was necessarily insecure the rest of the time, but this was a confidence that rarely came naturally to him, a charisma he had thought he was unable to manifest. The power of it was exhilarating. “Maybe you’re right,” he conceded. “Maybe I’m lonely too.” He could hear the soft wheeze of Edward’s breath, the sound of a swallow. “What are you going to do about it?”
Edward’s arms were around his neck in an instant, fingers tangling in his hair as he pulled the taller man down to kiss him again. And this time Jonathan made more of an effort to kiss back, bracing one long arm against the closet wall. He felt the impact of Edward’s teeth against his own, their glasses bumping together. Edward parted his lips to suck the tip of Jonathan’s tongue into his mouth with a small moan. Jonathan wasn’t sure how he felt about the gesture itself but the sound that bubbled up in Edward’s throat was like music. He pressed the smaller man back against the wall, hands moving to grip his waist tightly.
“What do you like?” Jonathan murmured against Edward’s lips.
The other man looked up at him, breath slightly uneven. “Does it matter?”
“It makes things easier for me if I don’t have to guess your preferences.”
“It’s more impressive to me if you guess.”
“I’m not here to impress you,” Jonathan said. “Are you going to tell me what you want from me or are you going to be difficult?”
Edward’s gaze shifted to the floor and his arms went slack around Jonathan’s neck. “I’m not being difficult,” he mumbled. “I just… I don’t know. I was going to do whatever you wanted.”
“Well, you’re the one who orchestrated this whole thing,” Jonathan pointed out, his hands dropping to his sides. “I assume you had some expectation for how it would go.”
“Of course I did, but once I got to this part I sort of expected that you’d want to take the lead.”
“Alright,” he pressed, “and when you imagined me taking the lead, what was I doing?”
Jonathan couldn’t see if Edward’s face was red but he could feel heat radiating off his cheeks. “Whatever you were doing it didn’t require so much discussion.”
“Don’t tell me you think I talk too much.”
“You talk too much about things better left unsaid.” Edward’s hands slid down his shoulders to his chest, fidgeting with one of the buttons on his shirt. “I can’t tell you what I like,” he said after a moment.
“Why not?”
“Because I’m not sure,” he admitted. “I have all these ideas of all the things that I know other people like but I’m not sure what I like and I was hoping that you would be sure of what you wanted and I wouldn’t have to think about it. And I could just do what you told me to.” He freed the button from its hole in the process of his fidgeting, quickly putting it back in place. “I’m good at following instructions. Like with furniture, I’m excellent with furniture instructions. Even the ones without words. If you just tell me what to do I can do it and it’ll be good, I promise I would do a good job.”
“You don’t have to convince me.”
“Then why won’t you just do something?” he asked, voice climbing to a much more whiny octave. “I mean, God, I thought I’d be getting railed up against the wall right now but we’re just standing here talking.”
“You did say you wanted to talk to me,” Jonathan pointed out.
“Yes, well, clearly I was lying.” Edward sighed theatrically, throwing his hands up. “Just forget it. Forget the whole thing. I shouldn’t have let something as basic as sex get the better of me like this. It was foolish.”
“Of course it’s foolish. Sex makes most people behave foolishly. That doesn’t stop them from wanting it.” Jonathan took a deep breath, making sure not to meet Edward’s eyes as he said, “If you want to get fucked against the wall, that can be arranged.”
“I…” Edward took his glasses off, wiping the lenses on the front of his shirt. “Alright. Okay. Yes.”
“Say it.”
“I’d rather not.”
“You told me you were good at following instructions,” Jonathan said, dipping his head to speak into Edward’s ear. He pried the glasses out of Edward’s hands, setting them aside atop a stack of boxes. “I’m instructing you to say what you want.”
He could hear Edward’s breath hitching in his throat, could smell the sweat and oil in his hair. It took a fair amount of restraint to keep Jonathan from biting down hard on the side of Edward’s neck, sucking roughly on the pale flesh of his throat.
“Fuck,” Edward breathed. “Okay. I want you t-to… Christ, okay, I want you to fuck me. Against the wall. That’s what I want. That’s what I would like.”
“See? That wasn’t so hard, was it?” They were standing so close together Jonathan could practically feel Edward’s chest rising and falling with his breath. He felt a twinge of anxiety in his gut as he wondered if he’d be able to live up to the mood he was setting. It had been a long time since he had reason to even think about trying to seem enticing or sexy, and he was rarely successful if and when he did try. He was better with his words than his body, better with his mind than his hands. He hoped he wasn’t talking a bigger game than he would be able to deliver.
“It wasn’t exactly easy. Just....” His grip tightened around the front of Jonathan’s shirt. Then, tentatively, he said, “I don’t want to talk anymore.”
“No, neither do I,” Jonathan murmured. He caught Edward’s chin in his hand, long fingernails indenting his cheeks. The kiss he delivered to Edward’s lips was unceremonious, carried out with perhaps an excessive amount of force. But Edward responded in kind, using Jonathan’s shirt to pull him closer. Jonathan felt his glasses being pushed uncomfortably up his nose so he took them off, discarding them carelessly. Edward’s tongue was in his mouth, flicking against his teeth, his lower lip.
Jonathan’s touch moved to the smaller man’s hips, grasping at the waistband of his uniform. He could feel his cock straining slightly against his own uniform pants, aching for a bit of attention after so much neglect. One of his hands crept around to the small of Edward’s back before dipping beneath the fabric of his pants to grab his ass roughly. Edward made a small noise that was quickly swallowed up into Jonathan’s mouth, rolling his hips forward to grind himself against the other man. He grabbed onto Jonathan’s collar as if attempting to steady himself, lips moving insistently against his. Jonathan’s other hand followed the first into Edward’s pants, nails dragging along the soft curve of his ass.
This elicited a delicious little groan from Edward. “I want your cock,” he whined, rubbing up against Jonathan’s thigh.
Jonathan couldn’t help but wince a little bit at that kind of language. It felt cheap, like something out of a poorly produced porn video. But this didn’t seem to be the appropriate time to voice such a criticism so he kept his thoughts to himself. Instead, he pulled Edward’s pants down to expose just his hip bones, the top of a patch of auburn hair. When met with no resistance, Jonathan slid the striped garment down Edward’s legs. Once pushed past his knees the oversized uniform fell the rest of the way to his ankles.
Edward shivered slightly, legs now bare to the cold asylum air. Jonathan could see the tip of his cock peeking out from within the mound of hair covering his vulva, stiff and swollen. He stepped out of the discarded pants, hooking one leg around Jonathan’s hip. Even in the dark Jonathan could tell he was shaking, fingers trembling as he pushed strands of thin, limp hair out of his eyes.
Freeing his own cock from his pants, Jonathan pressed himself gently against Edward’s lips, rubbing the sensitive head along the slick line leading to his entrance. Lifting Edward’s raised leg a little higher with a hand under his thigh, Jonathan eased himself slowly into the warm, tight confines of his pussy. Edward exhaled a shuddering breath as he adjusted to sink further down onto Jonathan’s cock, still holding tight to his shirt collar.
“Are you alright?” Jonathan asked.
“Didn’t I say no more talking?” Edward responded sharply.
He rolled his eyes but he supposed he shouldn’t expect any less from a man like Edward. “Excuse me for caring,” he muttered, the comment accompanied by a pointed thrust.
“Oh,” Edward breathed as Jonathan’s hips settled into a steady rhythm, cock pumping in and out as he moved. He still had one leg on the floor, balancing on the tips of his toes as he bobbed to meet Jonathan’s thrusts. “More,” he gasped. “Harder.”
Jonathan did as he was asked, his pleasure building along with the force of his movements. He tucked an arm underneath Edward’s thigh, hoisting his other leg off the ground to hold him suspended against the wall. He felt his cock sinking deeper into the other man, able to reach new angles due to the change in position.
“Oh, God,” Edward groaned, wrapping his arms tightly around Jonathan’s shoulders. “ThatfeelssogoodohGodpleasedon’tdropme,” he babbled, burying his face into the curve of Jonathan’s long neck.
“I’m not gonna drop you,” Jonathan reassured him. He was relatively sure that wouldn’t be an issue.
“I’ll never forgive you if you do,” Edward managed between ragged breaths. He moaned into Jonathan’s neck and the sound reverberated through his throat. He felt Edward’s muscles clenching around his cock, his legs tensing on either side of his waist. “Oh no, no, nonononono,” he mumbled frantically.
“What? What is it? Should I—”
“N-no, not you, I’m—fuck.” Edward let out a low groan, and Jonathan could feel his pussy pulsing around him. One of his heels moved to dig into Jonathan’s lower back, toes curling from the intensity of what Jonathan assumed was his orgasm. “I messed up,” he squeaked, breathing hard. “It was too fast. I didn’t mean to—” He was unable to finish the sentence, words devolving into small gasps and whines.
Jonathan couldn’t care less about how quickly Edward came. If anything, he was just relieved he wasn’t the one apologizing for it. His own pleasure had been steadily building and he wasn’t sure how much longer he would last.
“I’m sorry,” Edward said, still mumbling into Jonathans neck. “I didn’t mean to.”
“Don’t be sorry,” Jonathan said, the words coming out more gruffly than he had intended them too. “It’s fine. We’re just having fun.”
“It is fun,” he echoed almost thoughtfully. “I didn’t think it would be fun.”
Jonathan only half heard the comment as his release washed over him. He allowed himself a low grunt and a sigh as his pleasure peaked and then subsided, the motion of his hips slowing to a stop. “I’m going to have to put you down soon,” he warned, feeling his grip on Edward’s legs beginning to falter.
Disentangling himself from Jonathan’s grasp, Edward’s feet dropped back down to the floor. He started to pull his pants back on, stumbling a little bit as he struggled to get them over his shoes. Jonathan stifled a laugh at the display, repositioning his own uniform as he watched Edward.
With his pants back on, Edward turned to search for his glasses on top of the boxes. He caught Jonathan’s eye before he could think to look away, brows furrowing. “You’re not going to use this encounter to embarrass me, are you?” he asked warily, retrieving his thick glasses and putting them back on.
“There are easier ways to embarrass you.” Edward was clearly dissatisfied with the answer, so Jonathan added, “No, Edward, I’m not going to try to embarrass you. Like I said, it’s just a bit of fun. Pass the time. It’s not a big deal.”
“Right, of course.” He cleared his throat. “Do you think anyone noticed we’ve been gone?”
Jonathan shrugged. “Unlikely. There’s bigger fish to fry around here than two missing inmates.”
“I would think two missing inmates would be of great concern to the asylum staff.”
“Then you clearly have a lot to learn about the asylum staff.”