## Preface

Written in Red
Posted originally on the Archive of Our Own at https://archiveofourown.org/works/31832248.

Rating:
  Mature
Archive Warning:
  Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Category:
  F/M
Fandoms:
  Heathers: The Musical - Murphy & O'Keefe, Heathers (1988)
Relationship:
  Jason "J. D." Dean/Veronica Sawyer
Characters:
  Jason "J. D." Dean, Veronica Sawyer
Additional Tags:
  Sex, a lot of blood, obviously, Angst, content warning: abortion, I swear I used to write nice fics, content warning: self harm
Language:
  English
Stats:
  Published: 2021-06-09 Words: 1,985 Chapters: 1/1

# Written in Red

by deeplyshallow

Summary

> Veronica and JD's relationship. Told in blood.

Notes

See the end of the work for notes

## Written in Red

The first time she bleeds because of him she's in her parents' back garden. The late spring air is chilly on her skin but, in the haze of lips and bare flesh, she feels like she's on fire. She knows it's a bad idea even now, knows that there is alcohol still running fast through her veins, knows that she's barely met him and all that she has seen is pure danger. But she wants him, with every inch of her body responding to his greedy touch. She lets him push her down to the ground and claim her.

He takes her virginity not so much selfishly as carelessly, like it doesn't matter. She's glad of it, glad to get rid of her awkward title in the soft moonlight with an attractive-as-fuck boy rather than be another notch on a bedpost in a sweaty college guy's dorm. So she closes her eyes, digs her nails into the flesh of his arms and works through the pain. He moves against her, smiling down and she feels her mind go dizzy from desire, desperate for more of this, of him.

When they finish she lies against him, the redness between her legs immaterial to the pounding of her heart or the way his hand gently trails over her breast. It's bliss, but she has no idea that it will be so temporary.

xxx

Heather's death is surprisingly bloodless. It's just horrific in all the other ways; her face turning red, the sickening choking cough, the utter helplessness as she cannot stop her friend crashing onto the floor. Even the drool trickling out of her lifeless mouth is blue against her smudged crimson lipstick.

It's only her arms, covered in shards of glass like a macabre pin cushion, where she can see deep red droplets leaking out. She notices his eyes flicker over them, thinks he's trying to take in this impossible situation just as she is. She sees her life flash before her eyes, not her past – like Heather might have during her last painful moments – but her future, all her hopes, dreams and aspirations replaced by prison bars because of one fleeting mistake.

Then he speaks, "What if this were like a suicide thing?"

It's a terrible idea, but she turns to him anyway. He has thrown her a lifeline to help her out of this bottomless pit, so she grasps it with both hands, looks away from the lifeless body with the bleeding arms and lets him tell her what to write. Lets him save them both.

The words come to him easily, smoothly and with every letter she feels slightly calmer, calm enough to crack a tentative joke, "Have you done this before?"

She tells himself he's just got other things on his mind as the awkward silence rattles on.

xxx

The sound of the third gunshot is still ringing in her ears, the force of the recoil stings her hands, she blinks rapidly, her breathing shallow, trying to take it all in. She squeezes her eyes shut once more, burying her hands in the foliage of the forest floor, trying to ignore the excited panting behind her, but when she opens them the corpses are still there. Two boys, who moments ago were living breathing human beings, are now slumped motionless on the ground.

And there's blood, so much blood pouring out of their bodies in waves, far more than could possibly be harmless. But she knows that already. She's known from the moment she saw the smirk on his face as he pulled the trigger.

She's just shot a man and standing beside her is a cold blooded killer.

He says to put the gun and the note next to Kurt and she does what she is told. What else can she do when he still has a smoking weapon in his hand?

There's a rustle in the distance and the sound of footsteps, he grips her wrist too tightly and pulls her, rough and demanding, through the forest. They need to escape, they need to not get caught, but the grin that plays around on his features makes her realise, with an unpleasant swoop in her stomach, that he is enjoying this game of cat and mouse.

The moment they dive into the car, his hands move over her body leaving red streaks in his wake, every time she sees them she feels a wave of nausea, a stark reminder of what she's done and can never take back. She lets him continue, lets him do whatever he wants to her, it's what she deserves. When he comes he bites her shoulder so hard that she can see blood on his teeth. She keeps her eyes glued to the ceiling of the car and focuses on not crying.

The blood on her body doesn't take long to wash off. The blood on her hands stays for months.

xxx

She doesn't know where to turn, there's no way to escape, not really. She can't call the cops, not if she wants to avoid her own cosy jail cell, she can't run, she's 17, and just avoiding him seems simply out of the question.

You're trapped, a nasty voice in her head tells her, and you deserve it for being a murderer. Why are you even complaining when you have ruined the lives of so many people?

The worst thing is the voice is right, she hasn't suffered, not like her victims, not like their families, she should be punished.

Her parents are downstairs so she sneaks into their bathroom, pocketing one of her father's razors. She sits on her bed and carefully presses it into the side of her calf. She gasps, eyes watering from the pain, and for one brief shining moment, that is all she can think about.

So she does it again and again, giddy with the brief sense of relief it gives, and is about to go for a fourth time, when she hears footsteps on the stairs. Her mother is coming. The moment of panic snaps her out of it and she drops the razor in shock, hastily kicking it under the bed and pulling down her pant leg so the cuts are covered, she prays nothing bleeds through.

He notices the wounds the next time he undresses her, she sees his eyes slide over them and he pauses for a fraction of a second. But then he places his hands on her inner thigh and moves upwards, far more interested in what is between.

xxx

He's gone.

She has to repeat it over and over in her mind before the words actually sink in. Relief will come, she guesses, but for now she's checked everyone is alive, stolen a scrunchie and made alternate prom plans, all she wants to do is go home and sleep.

She sneaks in though the ladder by the window to avoid the awkward questions, weirdly glad that he has at least left her this and races for the shower.

She gets the soap and scrubs herself raw, then watches emotionlessly as the water rolls over her body, black mixing with red, before it disappears down the plughole. After a while it's just red, she feels round the back of her head until she cries as her hand brushes an open wound. It's where he hit her, forced her against the wall and attacked her with his lips, all biting teeth and bruising grip. She really could do with stitches, but that would require more of an explanation than she is prepared to give, so instead she just does her best to bandage it up, and hopes her hair will cover the inevitable scarring.

In any case, it's the scars that can't be seen that she will feel the deepest.

xxx

There's no blood the next month. Which is the biggest relief until it isn't, because there's no blood at all, not even when she expects it. She tells herself not to worry, she's had the most stressful month of her entire fucking life – it's natural her cycle is a bit off.

There are more important things to worry about anyway, like building up a friendship with Martha, revitalising her relationship with Betty and making sure Heather McNamara makes sure she knows she's loved and cared for. Heather Duke has been slightly subdued but the general student body is going gradually back to its normal detestable self, and she wants to fight it, to prove to everyone, to him, that she didn't save them for nothing.

Then there's nothing the second month either; nothing except nausea and a strange tenderness in her breasts. She doesn't need a test to know, he's nothing but ashes spread over the school playing field but still he's not gone, still he's punishing her for even daring to think this was all over.

She knows when it happened, can picture so clearly the moment he smeared blood over her body and fucked her harder than ever before, with the enthusiasm of an animal who has just killed all the rival males. It was rough and savage and, more importantly, unprotected.

Somehow, in the midst of all this death he had cursed her with another life.

And she finds she doesn't know what to do, because it feels like even now he's forcing her to kill again. He'd have made her get rid of it, wouldn't he? He would have blamed her for something that was entirely down to his carelessness when she was too scared to say no. Or maybe he wouldn't have, maybe he'd have wanted her to keep this reminder of the worst fucking moment of her life, to know every single day that she cannot escape him. The decision flip-flops in her mind each day, as he haunts her just as much as he did when he was alive, she pictures him laughing at her impossible choice.

In the end she realises she needs to stop trying to work out what will piss a dead man off the most and instead focus on what she wants.

And she wants him gone from her life forever.

xxx

She goes to the clinic with Betty, infinitely glad she has her back, her friend who will support her through anything. She books it for a Friday on a weekend when her parents are out of town.

The woman tells her what will happen formally but kindly, and the procedure is over in a matter of minutes. An action that will change her life. It lasts longer than a bullet shooting out of a gun, but still seems so short for something so momentous. She climbs back in the car and she and Betty spend most of the drive back in silence. She tells Betty she's ok and she's mostly telling the truth.

The cramps are awful, much worse than she was told they would be, she lies in bed all weekend, making her way rapidly through the mountain of chocolate Betty bought her, certain he is trying to kill her still, to enact his final revenge.

But then the pain subsides and all that is left is the blood on her pads, which gradually declines from a small battlefield to a trickle.

When at last there is no more, she sits on the side of the bathtub for a long time, eyes closed, breathing steadily.

After she opens her eyes, the world looks normal, her bathroom the same garish pink and green it has always been. The blood that stained her hands since she shot Kurt has miraculously cleared and the wound on her head has scabbed under her hair.

The only sign that he had ever existed are the cuts, now healing, on her calf. She rubs them gently, flushes the toilet and promises herself that this is the last time he will make her bleed.

## Afterword

End Notes

> I'm pretty sure google thinks I've got an unwanted pregnancy after all the research I did for this.

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